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THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

CRITICAL JOURNAL:

FOR

AUGUST , . . . DECEMBEK, 1831.

TO BE CONTINUED QUARTERLY.

JUDEX DAMNATUR CUM NOCENS ABSOLVITUR.

PUBLIUS SYRUS.

VOL. LIV.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,

POR LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, LONDON J

AND ADAM BLACK, EDINBURGH.

1831.

(jLi

•h

.1^4

CONTENTS OF No. CVII.

Page.
Art. I. The Life of SamuelJohnson, LL.D. Including a Jour-
nal of a Tour to the Hebrides, by James Boswell,
Esq. A New Edition, with numerous Additions and
Notes. By John Wilson Croker, LL.D. F.R.S., 1

n. Remarks on the supposed Dionysius Longinus ; with
an Attempt to restore the Treatise on Sublimity to
its Original State, . . . . . , 39

IIL Attempts in Verse, by John Jones, an old Servant ;
with some Account of the Writer, written by himself ;
and an Introductory Essay on the Lives and Works
of Uneducated Poets. By Robert Southey, Esq.,
Poet Laureate, ...... 69

IV. An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the
Sources of Taxation. By the Rev. Richard Jones,
A.M., ........ 84

V. The Drama brought to the Test of Scripture, and found

wanting, . . . . . . 100

VI. The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. By

Thomas Moore, . . ^ . . . 114

VII. Natural Theology ; or, Essays on the Existence of
Deity and of Providence, on the Immateriality of the
Soul, and a Future State. By the Rev. Alexander
Crombie, LL.D., F.R.S., .... 147

VIII. The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, M.A.R.A.
The former Written, and the latter Edited by John
Knowles, F.R.S., * . 159

ii CONTENTS.

Page.
Art. IX. Traite de Droit Penal. Par M. P. Rossi, Professeur

de Droit Romain a I'Academie de Geneve, . 183

X. 1. The State of Protestantism in Germany, being the
Substance of Four Discourses preached before the
University of Cambridge. By the Rev. Hugh James
Rose, B.D.

2. An Historical Enquiry into the probable Causes of
the Rationalist Character, lately predominant in the
Theology of Germany. By E. B. Pusey, M.A., Re-
gius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford.

3. An Historical Enquiry, &c. Part the Second ; con-
taining an Explanation of the Views misconceived by
Mr Rose, and further Illustrations. By E. B. Pusey.

4. Six Sermons on the Study of the Holy Scriptures,
preached before the University of Cambridge in the
years 1827 and 1828 ; to which are annexed two
Dissertations ; the first on the Reasonableness of the
Orthodox Views of Christianity, as opposed to the
Rationalism of Germany; the second on Prophecy,
with an original Exposition of the Book of Revela-
tion, showing that the whole of that remarkable Pro-
phecy has long ago been fulfilled. By the Rev. S.
Lee, B.D., D.D., Professor of Arabic in the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, ...... 238

XI. Wi)at will the Lords do ? .... 256

CONTENTS OF No. CVIII.

Page.
Art. I. 1. The Game Laws, including the New Game Bill,
with Notes and Practical Directions. By P. B. Leigh,
Esq. Barrister-at~Law.
2. Abridgement of the new Game Laws, with Obser-
vations and Suggestions for their Improvement ; being
an Appendix to the Sixth Edition of Instructions to
Young Sportsmen. By Lieut.-Col. P. Hawker, 277

II. The Life of Archbishop Cranmer. By the Rev. Henry
John Todd, M.A. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majes-
ty, Prebendary of York, and Rector of Settrington,
County of York, 312

III. 1. Statements, Calculations, and Explanations, submit-

ted to the Board of Trade, relative to the State of the
British West Indian Colonies. Printed by order of
the House of Commons. 7ih <5f February, 1831.
2. Papers laid before the Finance Committee. Printed
by order of the Committee. 1828, , . 330

IV. 1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man. By

Thomas Hope.
2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere iiber Plii-
losophie der Sprache und des Wortes. Geschrieben
iind vorgetragen zu Dresden im December 1828, und
in den ersten Tagen des Januars 1829. (Philosophi-
cal Lectures, especially on the Philosophy of Lan-
guage and the Gift of Speech. Written and delivered
at Dresden in December 1828, and the early days of
January 1829.) By Friedrich von Schlegel, . 351

V. Tour in England, Ireland, and France, in the years
1828 and 1829 ; with Remarks on the Manners and
Customs of the Inhabitants, and Anecdotes of dis-
tinguished Public Characters. In a series of Letters.
By a German Prince, 384

il CONTENTS.

Page.
Art. VI. 1. Speech of Viscount Palmerston on the Affairs of
Portugal.

2. Speech of Hyde Villiers, Esq., M.P., on the Com-
mercial Relations of England and Portugal.

3. Expose des Droits de sa Majeste tres Fiddle Dona
Maria II., et de la question Portugaise ; avec des
pieces justificatives, et documens.

4. Papers relative to Portugal, and to the British and
French demands upon the Government of that Coun-
try, . . 407

VII. The Pilgrim's Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan.

By Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D. Poet-Laureate, 450

VIII. The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Law-
rence, Kt., LL.D., F.R.S. President of the Royal
Academy. By D. E. Williams, Esq. . . 461

IX. The Legality of the present Academical System of
the University of Oxford, asserted against the new
Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review. By a Member
of Convocation, 478

X. Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party, and

his Times. By Lord Nugent, . . . 505

Quarterly List of New Publications, . . . 551

Index, , • « . • . • . 563

THE

EDINBUUGH REVIEW.

SEPTEMBEE, 1831.

JV^- CYII.

Art I. — The Life of Samuel Johnso7i, LL.D. Including a Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides^ hy James Boswell, Esq. A New Edi-
tion, with numerous Additions and Notes, By John Wilson
Croker, LL.D. F.R.S. Five volumes 8vo. London : 1831.

rff^His work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we
-"- may have been prepared to find in it, we fully expected
that it would be a valuable addition to English literature ; that
it would contain many curious facts, and many judicious re-
marks ; that the style of the notes would be neat, clear, and
precise ; and that the typographical execution would be, as in
new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost fault-
less. We are sorry to be obliged to say, that the merits of Mr
Croker's performance are on a par with tliose of a certain leg of
mutton on which Dr Johnson dined, while travelling from
London to Oxford, and which he, with characteristic energy,
pronounced to be ' as bad as bad could be ; ill fed, ill killed, ill
* kept, and ill dressed.'* That part of the volumes before us, for
which the editor is responsible, is ill compiled, ill arranged, ill
expressed, and ill printed.

Nothing in the work has astonished us so much as the igno-
rance or carelessness of Mr Croker, with respect to facts and
dates. Many of his blunders are such as we should be surprised
to hear any well-educated gentleman commit, even in conver-
sation. The notes absolutely swarm with mistatements, into
which the editor never would have fallen, if he had taken the

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIT.

2 Crokev's Edition of BosweU's Life of Johnson. Sept.

slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or if he
had even been well acquainted with the very book on which he
undertook to comment. We will give a few instances.

Mr Croker tells us, in a note, that Derrick, who was master
of the ceremonies at Bath, died very poor, in 1760.* We read
on ; and, a few pages later, we find Dr Johnson and Boswell
talking of this same Derrick as still living and reigning — as
having retrieved his character — as possessing so much power
over his subjects at Bath, that his opposition might be fatal to
Sheridan's lectures on oratory.f And all this is in 1763. The
fact is, that Derrick died in 1769.

In one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, the author of
that pompous and foolish account of Young, which appears
among the Lives of the Poets, died in 18054 Another note in
the same volume states, that this same Sir Herbert Croft died
at Paris, after residing abroad for fifteen years, on the 27th of
April, 1816. §

Mr Croker informs us, that Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
the author of the Life of Beattie, died in 1816. || A Sir William
Forbes undoubtedly died in that year — but not the Sir William
Forbes in question, whose death took place in 1806. It is
notorious, indeed, that the biographer of Beattie lived just long
enough to complete the history of his friend. Eight or nine
years before the date which Mr Croker has assigned for Sir
William's death, Sir Walter Scott lamented that event, in the
introduction, we think, to the fourth canto of Marmion, Every
school-girl knows the lines ; —

< Scarce had lamented Forbes paid
The tribute to his Minstrel's shade ;
The tale of friendship scai'ce was told,
Ere the narrator's heart was cold —
Far may we search before we find
A heart so manly and so kind !'

In one place, we are told, that Allan Ramsay, the painter,
was born in 1709, and died in 1784 ;^ — in another, that he died
in 1784, in the seventy-first year of his age.** If the latter
statement be correct, he must have been born in or about 1713.

In one place, Mr Croker says, that at the commencement of
the intimacy between Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale, in 1765,
the lady was twenty-five years old.ff In other places he says,

* I. 394. + I. 404. t IV. 321.

§ IV. 428. II II. 262. f IV. 105.

** V. 281. ft L 510.

1831. Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life of Johnson. 3

that Mrs Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's
seventieth.* Johnson was born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs
Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's seventieth,
she could have been only twenty-one years old in 1765. This
is not all. Mr Croker, in another place, assigns the year 1777
as the date of the complimentary lines w^hich Johnson made on
Mrs Thrale's thirty-fifth birthday.f If this date be correct,
Mrs Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could have been
only twenty- three when her acquaintance with Johnson com-
menced. Two of Mr Croker's three statements must be false.
We will not decide between them ; we will only say, that the
reasons which he gives for thinking that Mrs Thrale was exactly
thirty-five years old when Johnson was seventy, appear to us
utterly frivolous.

Again, Mr Croker informs his readers that ' Lord Mansfield

* survived Johnson full ten years.'t. Lord Mansfield survived
Dr Johnson just eight years and a quarter,

Johnson found in the library of a French lady, whom he vi-
sited during his short visit to Paris, some works which he re-
garded with great disdain. ' I looked,' says he, ' into the books

* in the lady's closet, and, in contempt, showed them to Mr

* Thrale. Prince Titi — Bibliotheque des Fees — and other

* books.' II * The History of Prince Tiiii' observes Mr Croker,

* was said to be the autobiography of Frederick Prince of Wales,

* but was probably written by Ralph his secretary.' A more
absurd note never was penned. The history of Prince Titi, to
which Mr Croker refers, whether written by Prince Frederick,
or by Ralph, was certainly never published. If Mr Croker had
taken the trouble to read with attention the very passage in
Park's Royal and Noble Authors, which he cites as his autho-
rity, he would have seen that the manuscript was given up to
the government. Even if this memoir had been printed, it was
not very likely to find its way into a French lady's bookcase.
And would any man in his senses speak contemptuously of a
French lady, for having in her possession an English work, so
curious and interesting as a Life of Prince Frederick, whether
written by himself, or by a confidential secretary, must have
been? The history at which Johnson laughed, was a very pro-
per companion to the Bibliotheque des Fees — a fairy tale about
good Prince Titi, and naughty Prince Violent. Mr Croker may
find it in the Magasin des Enfans, the first French book which
the little girls of England read to their governesses.

* IV. 271, 322. t HI. 463. % II. 151. || III. 271.

4 Croker's Edition of BosiceWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

Mr Croker states, tbat Mr Henry Bate, who afterwards as-
sumed the name of Dudley, was proprietor of the Morning
Herald, and fought a duel with George Robinson Stoney, in con-
sequence of some attacks on Lady Strathmore, which appeared
in that paper.* Now Mr Bate was connected, not with the
Morning Herald, but with the Morning Post, and the dispute
took place before the Morning Herald was in existence. The
duel was fought in January 1777. The Chronicle of the An-
nual Register for that year contains an account of the transac-
tion, and distinctly states that Mr Bate was editor of the Morn-
ing Post. The Morning Herald, as any person may see by
looking at any number of it, was not established till some years
after this affair. For this blunder there is, we must acknow-
ledge, some excuse: for it certainly seems almost incredible to
a person living in our time, that any human being should ever
have stooped to fight with a writer in the Morning Post.

' James de Duglas,' says Mr Croker, ' was requested by
' King Robert Bruce, in his last hours, to repair with his heart

* to Jerusalem, and humbly to deposit it at the sepulchre of our

* Lord, which he did in 1329.' f Now, it is well known that he
did no such thing, and for a very sufficient reason — because he
was killed by the way. Nor was it in 1329 that he set out.
Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the expedition of Douglas took
place in the following year, — ' quand le printems vint et la sai~
' son,'' says Froissart — in June 1330, says Lord Hailes, whom
Mr Croker cites as the authority for his statement.

Mr Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose was
beheaded at Edinburgh in 1650. J There is not a forward boy
at any school in England who does not know that the marquis
was hanged. The account of the execution is one of the finest
passages in Lord Clarendon's History. We cati scarcely suppose
that Mr Croker has never read that passage; and yet we can
scarcely suppose that any person who has ever perused so noble
and pathetic a story, can have utterly forgotten all its most stri-
king circumstances.

' Lord Townshend,' says Mr Croker, * was not secretary of
« state till 1720.' § Can Mr Croker possibly be ignorant that
Lord Townshend was made secretary of state at the accession
of George I. in 1714, — that he continued to be secretary of state
till he was displaced by the intrigues of Sunderland and Stan-
hope at the close of 1716, — and that he returned to the oflice of
secretary of state, not in 1720, but in 172 1 ? Mr Croker, indeed,

V. 196, I IV. 29. X II. 526. i^ III. 52.

1831. Croker'« Edition of BosweWs Life of Johnson. 5

is generally unroitunate in liis statements respecting the Tovvn-
sliend family. He tells us that Charles Townshend, the chan-
cellor of the exchequer, was ' nephew of the prime minister,

* and son of a peer who was secretary of state, and leader of

* the House of Lords.'* Charles Townshend was not nephew,
but grandnephew, of the Duke of Newcastle — not son, but
grandson, of the Lord Townshend who was secretary of state,
and leader of the House of Lords.

* General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga,' says Mr Cro-
ker, ' in March 1778.' f General Burgoyne surrendered on tho
17th of October, 1777.

* Nothing,' says Mr Croker, ' can be more unfounded than

* the assertion that Byng fell a martyr to political party. — By a

* strange coincidence of circumstances, it happened that there
' was a total change of administration between his condemna-
' tion and his death : so that one party presided at his trial, and

* another at his execution : there can be no stronger proof that
' he was not a political martyr.'ii: Now, what will our readers
think of this writer, when we assure them that this statement,
so confidently made, respecting events so notorious, is abso-
lutely untrue? One and the same administration was in office
when the court-martial on Byng commenced its sittings, through
the whole trial, at the condemnation, and at the execution. In.
the month of November 1756, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord
Hardwicke resigned; the Duke of Devonshire became first lord
of the treasury, and Mr Pitt, secretary of state. This admi-
nistration lasted till the month of April 1757. Byng's court-
martial began to sit on the 28th of December, 1756. He was
shot on the 14.th of March, 1757. There is something at once
diverting and provoking in the cool and authoritative manner
in which Mr Croker makes these random assertions. We do
not suspect him of intentionally falsifying history. But of this
high literary misdemeanour, we do without hesitation accuse
him, — that he has no adequate sense of the obligation which a
writer, who professes to relate facts, owes to the public. We ac-
cuse him of a negligence and an ignorance analogous to that
crassa negligentia, and that crassa ignorantia, on which the law
animadverts in magistrates and surgeons, even when malice and
corruption are not imputed. We accuse him of having under-
taken a work which, if not performed with strict accuracy, must
be very much worse than useless, and of having performed it
as if the difference between an accurate and an inaccurate state-

* HL 368. f IV. 222. % L 298.

6 Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life of Johnson. Sept.

ment was not worth the trouble of looking into the most com-
mon book of reference.

But we must proceed. These volumes contain mistakes
more gross, if possible, than any that we have yet mentioned.
Boswell has recorded some observations made by Johnson on
the changes which took place in Gibbon's religious opinions.
' It is said,' cried the doctor, laughing, ' that he has been a

* Mahometan.' ' This sarcasm,' says the editor, * probably al-

* ludes to the tenderness with which Gibbon's malevolence to

* Christianity induced him to treat Mahometanism in his his-

* tory.'* Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1776 ; and that part
of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
which relates to Mahometanism, was not published till 1788,
twelve years after the date of this conversation, and nearly four
years after the death of Johnson.

' It was in the year 1761,' says Mr Croker, ' that Goldsmith

* published his Vicar of Wakefield. This leads the editor to

* observe a more serious inaccuracy of Mrs Piozzi, than Mr
' Boswell notices, when he says Johnson left her table to go

* and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. Now Doctor
' Johnson was not acquainted with the Thrales till 1765, four

* years after the book had been published.'f Mr Croker, in re-
prehending the fancied inaccuracy of Mrs Thrale, has himself
shown a degree of inaccuracy, or, to speak more properly, a de-
gree of ignorance, hardly credible. The Traveller was not pub-
lished till 1765; and it is a fact as notorious as any in literary
history, that the Vicar of Wakefield, though written before the
Traveller, was published after it. It is a fact which Mr Croker
may find in any common life of Goldsmith ; in that written by
Mr Chalmers, for example. It is a fact which, as Boswell tells
us, was distinctly stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir
Joshua Reynolds.^ It is therefore quite possible and probable,
that the celebrated scene of the landlady, the sheriff's- officer,
and the bottle of Madeira, may have taken place in 1765. Now
Mrs Thrale expressly says that it Avas near the beginning of
her acquaintance with Johnson, in 1765, or, at all events, not
later than 1766, that he left her table to succour his friend. Her
accuracy is therefore completely vindicated.

The very page which contains this monstrous blunder, con-
tains another blunder, if possible, more monstrous still. Sir
Joseph Ma whey, a foolish member of Parliament, at whose
speeches and whose pig-styes the wits of Brookes's were, fifty

* III. 336. t V. 409. t; IV. 180.

1831. Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life of Johnson. 7

years ago, in the habit of laughing most unmercifully, stated, on
the authority of Garrick, that Johnson, while sitting in a coffee-
house at Oxford, about the time of his doctor's degree, used
some contemptuous expressions respecting Home's play and
Macpherson's Ossian. ' Many men,' he said, * many women,

* and many children, might have written Douglas.' Mr Croker
conceives that he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories over
poor Sir Joseph, in a most characteristic manner. * I have

* quoted this anecdote solely with the view of showing to how

* little credit hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. Here is
' a story published by Sir Joseph Mawbey, a member of the

* House of Commons, and a person every way worthy of cre-
' dit, who says he had it from Garrick. Now mark : — Johnson's

* visit to Oxford, about the time of his doctor's degree, was in

* 1754, the first time he had been there since he left the uni-

* versity. But Douglas was not acted till 1756, and Ossian not

* published till 1760. All, therefore, that is new in Sir Joseph

* Mawbey's story is false.' * Assuredly we need not go far to
find ample proof that a member of the House of Commons may
commit a very gross error. Now mark, say we, in the language
of Mr Croker. The fact is, that Johnson took his Master's de-
gree in 1754,-|- and his Doctor's degree in 17754 In the spring
of 1776,§ he paid a visit to Oxford, and at this visit a conversa-
tion respecting the works of Home and Macpherson might have
taken place, and, in all probability, did take place. The only
real objection to the story Mr Croker has missed. Boswell
states, apparently on the best authority, that as early at least
as the year 1763, Johnson, in conversation with Blair, used the
same expressions respecting Ossian, which Sir Joseph represents
him as having used respecting Douglas. || Sir Joseph, or Gar-
rick, confounded, we suspect, the two stories. But their error
is venial, compared with that of Mr Croker.

We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy.
It is clear, that a writer who, even when warmed by the text
on which he is commenting, falls into such mistakes as these,
is entitled to no confidence whatever. Mr Croker has commit-
ted an error of four years with respect to the publication of
Goldsmith's novel — an error of twelve years with respect to the
publication of Gibbon's history — an error of twenty-one years
with respect to one of the most remarkable events of Johnson's
life. Two of these three errors he has committed, while osten-

* V. 409. \ I. 262. t in. 205.

§ III. 326. !| I. 405.

8 Cioker's Edition of BosiveWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

iiitiously displaying liis own iiccuracy, and correcting wliat he
represents as the loose assertions of others. How can his readers
take on trust his statements concerning the births, marriages,
divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose names are
scarcely known to this generation ? It is not likely that a per-
son who is ignorant of what almost every body knows, can
know that of which almost every body is ignorant. We did not
open this book with any wish to find blemishes in it. We have
made no curious researches. The \rork itself, and a very com-
mon knowledge of literary and political history, have enabled
us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed out, and many
other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say it
with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr Cro-
ker, unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any
writer who may follow him, in relating a single anecdote, or in
assigning a date to a single event.

Mr Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness
in his criticisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr John-
son said, very reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the
satires of Juvenal are too gross for imitation. Mr Croker, — who,
by the way, is angry Avith Johnson for defending Prior's tales
against the charge of indecency, — resents this aspersion on Juve-
nal, and indeed refuses to believe that the doctor can have said
any thing so absurd. ' He probably said — some passages of
' them — for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the

* same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is

* altogether gross and licentious.' * Surely Mr Croker can never
hav^e read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal.

Indeed, the decisions of this editor on points of classical learn-
ing, though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are gene-
rally such, that if a schoolboy under our care were to utter them,
our soul assuredly should not spare for his crying- It is no
disgrace to a gentleman, who has been engaged during nearly
thirty years in political life, that he has forgotten his Greek and
Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous, if, when no longer
able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in judgment
on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one
blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr
Croker was saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who
quoted a passage exactly in point from Horace. We heartily
wish that Sir Robert, whose classical attainments are well
known, had been more frequently consulted. Unhappily he

* I. 167.

183L CruUei's Edition o/Boswell's Life of Johnson, 9

vk'as not always at his friciul's elbow, and we liavc Iherclbre a
rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has preserved
a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed ' Ad Lauram parituram.'
Mr Croker censures tlic poet for applying the word puella to a
lady in Laura's situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lu-
ciua. ' Lucina,' he says, ' was never famed for her beauty.' *
If Sir Robert Peel liad seen this note, he probably would have
again refuted Mr Croker's criticisms by an appeal to Horace.
In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the names of Diana,
and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most orthodox
doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer, in his Odyssey,
to Claudian, in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace
describes Diana as the goddess v/ho assists the ' laborantes utero
' puellas.' But we arc ashamed to detain our readers with this
fourth- form learning.

Boswell found, in his tour to the Hebrides, an inscription
written by a Scotch minister. It runs thus : ' Joannes Macleod,

* &c., gentis sua; Philarchus, &c., Florte Macdonald matrimo-

* niali vinculo conjugatus turrem banc Beganodunensem pro-

* a^vorum habitaculura longe vetustissimum, diu penitus labefac-

* tatam, anno a^ra? vulgaris mdclxxxvi. instauravit.' — ' The

* minister,' says Mr Croker, ' seems to have been no contemp-

* tible Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very happy term to express
' the paternal and kindly authority of the head of a clan ?' f The
composition of this eminent Latinist, short as it is, contains
several words that are just as much Coptic as Latin, to say
nothing of the incorrect structure of the sentence. The word
Philarchus, even if it were a happy term expressing a paternal
and kindly authority, would prove nothing for the minister's
Latin, whatever it might prove for his Greek. But it is clear
that the word Philarchus means, not a man who rules by love,
but a man who loves rule. The Attic writers of the best age
use the word (pl-Ka^x^<; in the sense which we assign to it. Would
Mr Croker translate (pihiaotpoi;, a man who acquires wisdom by
means of love ; or (pixoaep^v^, a man who makes money by means
of love ? In fact, it requires no Bentley or Casaubon to per-
ceive, that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus
— the chief of a tribe.

Mr Croker has favoured us with some Greek of his own,
' At the altar,' says Dr Johnson, < I recommended my 9 (p.'

* These letters,' says the editor, ' (which Dr Strahan seems not

I- 133. f H. 438.

10 Crokev^s Edition of BosweU's Life of Johnson. Sept.

* to have understood,) probably mean 6vy}roi piXoi, departed friends.^*
Johnson was not a first-rate Greek scholar ; but he knew more
Greek than most boys when they leave school ; and no school-
boy could venture to use the word ^vmoi in the sense which Mr
Croker ascribes to it without imminent danger of a flogging.

Mr Croker has also given us a specimen of his skill in trans-
lating Latin. Johnson wrote a note in which he consulted his
friend, Dr Lawrence, on the propriety of losing some blood.
The note contains these words: — ' Si per te licet, imperatur

* nuncio Holderum ad me deducere.' Johnson should rather
have written ' imperatum est.' Bat the meaning of the words
is perfectly clear. ' If you say yes, the messenger has orders to

* bring Holder to me.' Mr Croker translates the words as
follows : * If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring
Holder to me.'f If Mr Croker is resolved to write on points of
classical learning, we would advise him to begin by giving an
hour every morning to our old friend Corderius.

Indeed we cannot open any volume of this work in any place,
and turn it over for two minutes in any direction, without light-
ing on a blunder. Johnson, in his Life of Tickell, stated that
the poem entitled ' The Royal Progress,' which appears in the
last volume of the Spectator, was written on the accession of
George I. The word ' arrival' was afterwards substituted for

* accession.' * The reader will observe,' says Mr Croker, ' that

* the Whig term accession^ which might imply legality, was

* altered into a statement of the simple fact of King George's
' arrival.' X Now Johnson, though a bigoted Tory, was not
quite such a fool as Mr Croker here represents him to be. In
the Life of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, which stands next to
the Life of Tickell, mention is made of the accession of Anne,
and of the accession of George I. The word arrival was used
in the Life of Tickell, for the simplest of all reasons. It was
used because the subject of the ' Royal Progress' was the arri-
val of the king, and not his accession, which took place nearly
two months before his arrival.

The editor's want of perspicacity is indeed very amusing. He
is perpetually telling us that he cannot understand something
in the text which is as plain as language can make it. ' Mat-

* taire,' said Dr Johnson, * wrote Latin verses from time to
' time, and published a set in his old age, which he called

* Setiilia, in which he shows so little learning or taste in writing,

* IV.S5L t V.17. t IV. 425.

1831. Croker's Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson, 1 1

* as to make Carteret a dactyl.'* Hereupon we have this note :
' The editor does not understand this objection, nor the foUow-
' ing observation.' The following observation which Mr Croker
cannot understand is simply this : * In matters of genealogy,'
says Johnson, ' it is necessary to give the bare names as they

* are. But in poetry and in prose of any elegance in the wri-
' ting, they require to have inflection given to them.' If Mr
Croker had told Johnson that this was unintelligible, the doctor
would probably have replied, as he replied on another occasion,

* I have found you a reason, sir ; I am not bound to find you

* an understanding.' Every body who knows any thing of La-
tinity knows that, in genealogical tables, Joannes Baro de Car-
teret, or Vice-comes de Carteret, may be tolerated, but that in
compositions which pretend to elegance, Carteretus, or some
other form which admits of inflection, ought to be used.

All our readers have doubtless seen the two distichs of Sir
William Jones, respecting the division of the time of a lawyer.
One of the distichs is translated from some old Latin lines, the
other is original. The former runs thus :

' Six hours to sleep, to law's grave study six,
Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.'

' Rather,' says Sir William Jones,

' Six hours to law, to soothing slumbers seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.'

The second couplet puzzles Mr Croker strangely. * Sir

* William,' says he, * has shortened his day to twenty-three hours,

* and the general advice of " all to heaven," destroys the pecu-
' liar appropriation of a certain period to religious exercises.'f
Now, we did not think that it was in human dulness to miss the
meaning of the lines so completely. Sir William distributes
twenty-three hours among various employments. One hour is
thus left for devotion. The reader expects that the verse will
end with—' and one to heaven.' The whole point of the lines
consists in the unexpected substitution of ' all ' for * one.' The
conceit is wretched enough ; but it is perfectly intelligible, and
never, we will venture to say, perplexed man, woman, or child
before.

Poor Tom Davies, after failing in business, tried to live by
his pen. Johnson called him ' an author generated by the cor-
' ruption of a bookseller.' This is a very obvious, and even a
commonplace allusion to the famous dogma of the old physiolo-
gists. Dryden made a similar allusion' to that dogma before

* IV. 335. t V. 233.

12 Cioker's Edition of BosweWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

Johnson was born. Mr Croker, however, is unable to under-
stand it. ' The expression,' he says, * seems not quite clear.'
And he proceeds to talk about the generation of insects — about
bursting into gaudier life — and Heaven knows what.*

There is a still stranger instance of the editor's talent for
finding out difficulty in what is perfectly plain. ' No man,' said
Johnson, 'can now be made a bishop for his learning and piety.'
' From this too just observation,' says Boswell, 'there are some
' eminent exceptions.' Mr Croker is puzzled by Boswell's very
natural and simple language. ' That a general observation should
be pronounced too just, by the very person who admits that it is
not universally just, is not a little odd.'f

A very large proportion of the two thousand five hundred
notes which the editor boasts of having added to those of Bos-
well and Malone, consists of the flattest and poorest i-eflections
— reflections such as the least intelligent reader is quite com-
petent to make for himself, and such as no intelligent reader
would think it worth while to utter aloud. They remind us of
nothing so much as of those profound and interesting annota-
tions which arc penciled by sempstresses and apothecaries' boys
on the dog-eared margins of novels borrowed from circulating
libraries — ' How beautiful !' — ' cursed prosy' — ' I don't like Sir
' Reginald Malcolm at all.' — ' I think Pelham is a sad dandy.'
Mr Croker is perpetually stopping us in our progress through
the most delightful narrative in the language, to observe, that
really Doctor Johnson was very rude — that he talked more for
victory than for truth — that his taste for port wine with capil-
lairc in it was very odd — that Boswell was impertinent — that it
was foolish in Mrs Thrale to marry the music-master ; and other

* merderies' of the same kind, to borrow the energetic word of
Rabelais.

We cannot speak more favourably of the manner in which
the notes are written, than of the matter of which they consist.
We find in every page words used in wrong senses, and con-
structions which violate the plainest rules of grammar. Wo
have the low vulgarism of ' mutual friend,' for ' common friend.'
We have ' fallacy,' used as synonymous with ' falsehood,' or
' mistatement.' We have many such inextricable labyrinths of
pronouns as that which follows : ' Lord Erskine was fond of

* this anecdote ; he told it to the editor the first time that he had
' the honour of being in his company.' Lastly, we have a plen-
tiful supply of sentences resembling those which we subjoin.

* IV. 323. t III. 228.

1831. Ci'okei^s Edition of Bosivell's Life of Johnson. IS

' Markland, ivho, with Jortin and Thiilby, Johnson calls three
' contemporaries of great eminence.'* ' Warburton himself did
* not feel, as Mr Bos well was disposed to think he did, kindly or
« gratefully of Johnson.'f * It was /mn that Horace Walpole
' called a man who never made a bad figure but as an author.'^
We must add that the printer has done his best to fill both the
text and notes with all sorts of blunders ; and he and the editor
have between them made the book so bad, that we do not well
see how it could have been worse.

When we turn from the commentary of Mr Croker to the
work of our old friend Boswell, we find it not only worse print-
ed than In any other edition with which we are acquainted, but
mangled in the most wanton manner. Much that Boswell in-
serted in his narrative is, without the shadow of a reason, de-
graded to the appendix. The editor has also taken upon himself
to alter or omit passages which he considers as indecorous. This
prudery is quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral
in Boswell's book — nothing which tends to inflame the passions.
He sometimes uses plain words. But if this be a taint which
requires expurgation, it would be desirable to begin by expur-
gating the morning and evening lessons. Mr Croker has per-
formed the delicate office which he has undertaken in the most
capricious manner. A strong, old-fashioned, English Avord,
familiar to all who read their Bibles, is exchanged for a softer
synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand unaltered in
others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an
indelicate subject — an allusion so faint that, till Mr Croker's
note pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which
we are quite sure that the meaning would never be discovered
by any of those for whose sake books are expurgated, — is alto-
gether omitted. In another place, a coarse and stupid jest of
Doctor Taylor, on the same subject, expressed in the broadest
language — almost the only passage, as far as we remember, in
all Boswell's book, which we should have been inclined to leave
out — is suffered to remain.

We complain, however, much more of the additions than of
the omissions. We have half of Mrs Thrale's book, scraps of Mr
Tycrs, scraps of Mr Murphy, scraps of Mr Cradock, long pro-
sings of Sir John Hawkins, and connecting observations by Mr
Croker himself, inserted into the midst of Boswell's text. To
this practice we most decidedly object. An editor might as
well publish Tliucydides with extracts from Diodorus inter-

im. 377. t IV. 415, tU,4Sh

H Croker's Edition ofBoswelPs Life of Johnson. Sept,

spersed, or incorporate the Lives of Suetonius with the History
and Annals of Tacitus. Mr Croker tells us, indeed, that he has
done only what Boswell wished to do, and was prevented from
doing by the law of copyright. We doubt this greatly. Boswell
has studiously abstained from availing himself of the information
contained in the works of his rivals, on many occasions, on which
he might have done so without subjecting himself to the charge
of piracy. Mr Croker has himself, on one occasion, remarked
very justly, that Boswell was very reluctant to owe any obliga-
tion to Hawkins. But be this as it may, if Boswell had quoted
from Sir John and from Mrs Thrale, he would have been
guided by his own taste and judgment in selecting his quota-
tions. On what he quoted, he would have commented with per-
fect freedom ; and the borrowed passages, so selected, and ac-
companied by such comments, would have become original.
They would have dove-tailed into the work :— no hitch, no crease,
would have been discernible. The whole would appear one and
indivisible,

* Ut per Iseve severos
Effundat junctnra ungues.'

This is not the case with Mr Croker's insertions. They are
not chosen as Boswell would have chosen them. They are not
introduced as Boswell would have introduced them. They differ
from the quotations scattered through the original Life of John-
son, as a withered bough stuck in the ground differs from a tree
skilfully transplanted, with all its life about it.

Not only do these anecdotes disfigure Boswell's book ; they
are themselves disfigured by being inserted in his book. The
charm of Mrs Thrale's little volume is utterly destroyed. The
feminine quickness of observation — the feminine softness of
heart— the colloquial incorrectness and vivacity of style — the
little amusing airs of a half-learned lady— the delightful garru-
lity—the « dear Doctor Johnson' — the ' it was so comical'—
all disappear in Mr Croker's quotations. The lady ceases to
speak in the first person ; and her anecdotes, in the process of
transfusion, become as flat as champagne in decanters, or Hero-
dotus in Beloe's version. Sir John Hawkins, it is true, loses
nothing ; and for the best of reasons. Sir John had nothing to
lose.

The course which Mr Croker ought to have taken is quite
clear. He should have reprinted Boswell's narrative precisely
as Boswell wrote it ; and in the notes or the appendix he should
have placed any anecdotes which he might have thought it advi-
sable to quote from other writers. This would have been a

1831. Croker's Edition ofBosweWs Life of Johnson, 15

much more convenient course for the reader, who has now con-
stantly to keep his eye on the margin in order to see whether
he is perusing Boswell, Mrs Thrale, Murphy, Hawkins, Tyers,
Cradock, or Mr Croker. We greatly doubt whether even the
Tour to the Hebrides ought to have been inserted in the midst
of the Life. There is one marked distinction between the two
works. Most of the Tour was seen by Johnson in manuscript.
It does not appear that he ever saw any part of the Life.

We love, we own, to read the great productions of the human
mind as they were written. We have this feeling even about
scientific treatises ; though we know that the sciences are always
in a state of progression, and that the alterations made by a
modern editor in an old book on any branch of natural or poli-
tical philosophy are likely to be improvements. Many errors
have been detected by writers of this generation in the specula-
tions of Adam Smith. A short cut has been made to much
knowledge, at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived through arduous
and circuitous paths. Yet we still look with peculiar veneration
on the Wealth of Nations and on the Principia, and should regret
to see either of those great works garbled even by the ablest
hands. But in works which owe much of their interest to the
character and situation of the writers, the case is infinitely
stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure harmonies,
— rifacimenfos, — abridgements, — expurgated editions ? Who
ever reads a stage-copy of a play when he can procure the ori-
ginal ? Who ever cut open Mrs Siddons's Milton ? Who ever
got through ten pages of Mr Gilpin's translation of John Bun-
yan's Pilgrim into modern English ? Who would lose, in the
confusion of a diatesseron, the peculiar charm which belongs to
the narrative of the disciple whom Jesus loved ? The feeling of
a reader who has become intimate with any great original work,
is that which Adam expressed towards his bride : —

' Should God create another Eve, and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart.'

No substitute, however exquisitely formed, will fill the void left
by the original. The second beauty may be equal or superior
to the first ; but still it is not she.

The reasons which Mr Croker has given for incorporating
passages from Sir John Hawkins and Mrs Thrale with the nar-
rative of Boswell, would vindicate the adulteration of half the
classical works in the language. If Pepys's Diary and Mrs
Hutchinson's Memoirs had been published a hundred years ago,
no human being can doubt that Mr Hume would have made
great use of those books in his History of England, But would

16 Ci'oker^s Edition of BosweU's Life of Johnson. Sept.

It, on that account, be judicious In a writer of our times to pub-
lish an edition of Hume's History of England, in which large
additions from Pepys and Mrs Hutchinson should be incorpor.i-
ted with the original text ? Surely not. Hume's history, be its
faults what they may, is now one great entire work, — the pro-
duction of one vigorous mind, working on such materials as
were within its reach. Additions made by another hand may
supply a particular deficiency, but would grievously injure the
general effect. With Boswell's book the case is stronger. There is
scarcely, in the whole compass of literature, a book which bears
Interpolation so ill. We know no production of the human mind
which has so much of what may be called the race, so much of
the peculiar flavour of the soil from which It sprang. The work
could never have been written if the writer had not been pre-
cisely what he was. His character is displayed in every page,
and this display of character gives a delightful interest to many
passages which have no other interest.

The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great — a very great work.
Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, — Shak-
speare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, — Demos-
thenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell
is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has distanced
all his competitors so decidedly, that it is not worth while to
place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.

We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human
Intellect so strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the
greatest men that ever lived have written biography. Boswell
was one of the smallest men that ever lived ; and he has beaten
them all. He was. If we are to giv^c any credit to his own
account, or to the united testimony of all who knew him, a man
of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described him as
a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality, by not
having been alive when the Dunciad was written. Beauclerk
used his name as a proverbial expression for a bore. He was
the laughing-stock of the whole of that brilliant society which
has owed to him the greater part of its fame. He was always
laying himself at the feet of some eminent man, and begging to
be spit upon and trampled upon. He was always earning some
ridiculous nickname, and then ' binding it as a crown unto
' him,' — not merely in metaphor, but literally. He exhibited him-
self, at the Shakspeare Jubilee, to all the crowd which filled
Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard around his hat, bearing the
Inscription of Corsica Boswell. \\\ his Tour, he proclaimed to
all the world, that at Edinburgh he was known l)y tlie appella-
tion of Paoll Boswell, Servile and impertinent, — shallow and

1831. Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1 7

pedantic, — a bigot and a sot, — bloated witb family pride, and
eternally blustering about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet
stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common butt in
the taverns of London, — so curious to know every body who
was talked about, that, Tory and High Churchman as he was,
he manoeuvred, we have been told, for an introduction to Tom
Paine, — so vain of the most childish distinciions, that, when he
had been to court, he drove to the office where his book was
being printed without changing his clothes, and summoned all
the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword ; — such
was this man ; — and such he was content and proud to be.
Every thing which another man would have hidden, — every
thing, the publication of which would have made another man
hang himself, was matter of gay and clamorous exultation to his
weak and diseased mind. What silly things he said, — what
bitter retorts he provoked, — how at one place he was troubled
with evil presentiments which came to nothing, — how at another
place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayerbook,
and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, — how he went
to see men hanged, and came away maudlin, — how he added five
hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies, because she
was not frightened at Johnson's ugly face, — how he was fright-
ened out of his wits at sea, — and how the sailors quieted him
as they would have quieted a child, — how tipsy he was at Lady
Cork's one evening, and how much his merriment annoyed the
ladies, — how impertinent he was to the Duchess of Argyle, and
with what stately contempt she put down his impertinence, —
how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his impudent obtru-
siveness, — how his father and the very wife of his bosom laugh-
ed and fretted at his fooleries ; — all these things he proclaimed
to all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride and osten-
tatious rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all the illusions
of his vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all his castles in
the air, he displayed with a cool self-complacency, a perfect un-
consciousness that he was making a fool of himself, to which it
is impossible to find a parallel in the whole history of mankind.
He has used many people ill, but assuredly he has used nobody
so ill as himself.

That such a man should have written one of the best books in
the world, is strange enough. But this is not all. Many per-
sons who have conducted themselves foolishly in active life, and
whose conversation has indicated no superior powers of mind,
have written valuable works. Goldsmith was very justly de-
scribed by one of his contemporaries as an inspired idiot, and by
another as a being

< Who wrote like an angel, and talked hke poor Poll.'

VOL. LIV, NO CVII. ' B

18 Cvokex'^ Edition of BosivelVs Life of Johnson. Sept.

La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders
would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But
these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses.
Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not
been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer.
Without all the qualities which made him the jest and the torment
of those among whom he lived, — without the officiousness, the
inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the toad-eating, the insensibility
to all reproof, he never could have produced so excellent a book.
He was a slave, proud of his servitude, — a Paul Pry, convinced
that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, — an unsafe
companion, who never scrupled to repay the most liberal hospi-
tality by the basest violation of confidence, — a man without
delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when
he was hurting the feelings of others, or when he was exposing
himself to derision ; and because he was all this, he has, in an
important department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such
writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson.

Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as
writers, he had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a
single remark of his own on literature, politics, religion, or so-
ciety, which is not either commonplace or absurd. His disserta-
tions on hereditary gentility, on the slave-trade, and on the
entailing of landed estates, may serve as examples. To say that
these passages are sophistical, would be to pay them an extrava-
gant compliment. They have no pretence to argument, or even
to meaning. He has reported innumerable observations made
by himself in the course of conversation. Of those observations
we do not remember one which is above the intellectual capacity
of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his own letters, and
in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. Logic, elo-
quence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally considered
as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He
had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These
qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarce-
ly of themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous ; but, as
he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him
immortal.

Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, are
most utterly worthless, are delightful when we read them as
illustrations of the character of the writer. Bad in themselves,
they are good dramatically, like the nonsense of Justice Shallow,
the clipped English of Dr Caius, or the misplaced consonants of
Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is the most candid. Other
men who have pretended to lay open their own hearts — Rousseau,
for example, and Lord Byron, — have evidently written with^a

1831. Ci'oker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. 19

constant view to effect, and are to be then most distrusted when
they seem to be most sincere. There is scarcely any man who
would not rather accuse himself of great crimes, and of dark and
tempestuous passions, than proclaim all his little vanities, and
all his wild fancies. It would be easier to find a person who
would avow actions like those of Csesar Borgia or Danton, than
one who would publish a daydream like those of Alnaschar and
Malvolio. Those weaknesses which most men keep covered up
in the most secret places of the mind, not to be disclosed to the
eye of friendship or of love, were precisely the weaknesses which
Boswell paraded before all the world. He was perfectly frank,
because the weakness of his understanding and the tumult of
his spirits prevented him from knowing when he made himself
ridiculous. His book resembles nothing so much as the conver-
sation of the inmates of the Palace of Truth.

His fame is great ; and it will, we have no doubt, be lasting;
but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed marvellously re-
sembles infamy. We remember no other case in which the
world has made so great a distinction between a book and its
author. In general, the book and the author are considered as
one. To admire the book is to admire the author. The case of
Boswell is an exception — we think the only exception to this
rule. His work is universally allowed to be interesting, instruc-
tive, eminently original : yet it has brought him nothing but
contempt. All the world reads it : all the world delights in it :
yet we do not remember ever to have read or ever to have heard
any expression of respect and admiration for the man to whom
we owe so much instruction and amusement. While edition
after edition of his book was coming forth, his son, as Mr Croker
tells us, was ashamed of it, and hated to hear it mentioned. This
feeling was natural and reasonable. Sir Alexander saw, that in
proportion to the celebrity of the work, was the degradation of
the author. The very editors of this unfortunate gentleman's
books have forgotten their allegiance; and, like those Puritan
casuists who took arms by the authority of the king against his
person, have attacked the writer while doing homage to the
writings. Mr Croker, for example, has published two thousand
five hundred notes on the life of Johnson ; and yet scarcely ever
mentions the biographer whose performance he has taken such
pains to illustrate, without some expression of contempt.

An ill-natured man Boswell certainly was not. Yet the
malignity of the most malignant satirist could scarcely cut deep-
er than his thoughtless loquacity. Having himself no sensibility
to derision and contempt, he took it for granted that all others
were equally callous. He was not ashamed to exhibit himself

20 Croker^s Edition of BosweWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

to the whole world as a common spy, a common tattler, a hum-
ble companion without the excuse of poverty, — to tell a hundred
stories of his own 'pertness and folly, and of the insults which
his pertness and folly brought upon him. It was natural that
he should show little discretion in cases in which the feelings or
the honour of others might be concerned. No man, surely, ever
published such stories respecting persons whom he professed to
love and revere. He would infallibly have made his hero as
contemptible as he has made himself, had not his hero really
possessed some moral and intellectual qualities of a very high
order. The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary
man is, that his character, instead of being degraded, has, on the
whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all his vices
and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than they ever
were exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick.

Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness of his fame and in
the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than
any other man in history. Every thing about him — his coat, his
wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St Vitus's dance^ his roll-
ing walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly
marked his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for
fish-sauce and veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for
tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious
practice of treasuring up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slum-
bers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his
gruntings, his puflings, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence,
his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tem^
pestuous rage, his queer inmates — old Mr Levett and blind Mrs
Williams, the cat Hodge, and the Negro Frank, — all are as fami-
liar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from
childhood. But we have no minute information respecting those
years of Johnson's life, during which his character and his man-
ners became immutably fixed. We know him not as he was
known to the men of his own generation, but as he was known
to men whose father he might have been. That celebrated club
of which he was the most distinguished member contained few
persons who could remember a time when his fame was not
fully established, and his habits completely formed. He had
made himself a name in literature while Reynolds and the
Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years older than
Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton, about thirty years
older than Gibbon, Beauclerk, and Langton, and about forty
years older than Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, and Windham.
Boswell and Mrs Thrale, the two writers from whom we derive
most of our knowledge respecting him, never saw him till long

1831. Croker's Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 2 1

after he was fifty years old, till most of his great works had
become classical, and till the pension bestowed on him by Lord
Bute had placed him above poverty. Of those eminent men
who were his most intimate associates towards the close of his
life, the only one, as far as we remember, who knew him during
the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the capital, was
David Garrick; and it does not appear that, during those years,
David Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman.

Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the
condition of a man of letters was most miserable and degraded.
It was a dark night between two sunny days. The age of Mae-
cenases had passed away. The age of general curiosity and
intelligence had not arrived. The number of readers is at pre-
sent so great, that a popular author may subsist in comfort and
opulence on the profits of his works. In the reigns of William
III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve
and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentle-
men by the mere sale of their writings. But the deficiency of
the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seven-
teenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more
than made up by artificial encouragement, — by a vast system of
bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at
which the rewards of literary merit were so splendid, — at which
men who could write well found such easy admittance into the
most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the
state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the king-
dom was divided patronised literature with emulous munifi-
cence. Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority,
was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him
independent for life. Smith, though his Hippolytus and Phoedra
failed, would have been consoled with L.300 a-year but for his
own folly. Rowe was not only poet-laureate, but land-surveyor
of the customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the
Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the Lord
Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissions of the
Peace. Ambrose Philips was judge of the Prerogative Court in
Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals, and of the Board
of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior
were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance.
Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silk-mercer, became
a secretary of legation at fiveand-twenty. It was to a poem
on the Death of Charles IL, and to the City and Country
Mouse that Montague owed his introduction into public life,
his earldom, his garter, and his auditorship of the Exchequer.
Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the queen, would

22 Croker's Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson. Sept.

have been a bishop. Oxford, with his white staff in his hand,
passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell,
when that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a
commissioner of stamps and a member of Parliament. Arthur
Mainwaring was a commissioner of the customs, and auditor
of the imprest. Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of
Ireland. Addison was secretary of state.

This liberal patronage was brought into fashion, as it seems,
by the magnificent Dorset, who alone of all the noble versifiers
in the court of Charles the Second, possessed talents for com-
position which would have made him eminent without the aid
of a coronet. Montague owed his elevation to the favour of
Dorset, and imitated through the whole course of his life the
liberality to which he was himself so greatly indebted. The
Tory leaders — Harley and Bolingbroke in particular — vied with
the chiefs of the Whig party in zeal for the encouragement of
letters. But soon after the accession of the throne of Hanover
a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who
cared little for poetry or eloquence. The importance of the
House of Commons was constantly on the increase. The go-
vernment was under the necessity of bartering for Parliamentary
support much of that patronage which had been employed in
fostering literary merit ; and Walpole was by no means incli-
ned to divert any part of the fund of corruption to purposes
which he considered as idle. He had eminent talents for go-
vernment and for debate. But he had paid little attention to
books, and felt little respect for authors. One of the coarse
jokes of his friend. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, was far
more pleasing to him than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's
Pamela. He had observed that some of the distinguished wri-
ters whom the favour of Halifax had turned into statesmen,
had been mere encumbrances to their party, dawdlers in ofiice,
and mutes in Parliament. During the whole course of his ad-
ministration, therefore, he scarcely patronised a single man of
genius. The best writers of the age gave all their support to
the opposition, and contributed to excite that discontent which,
after plunging the nation into a foolish and unjust war, over-
threw the minister to make room for men less able and equally
unscrupulous. The opposition could reward its eulogists with
little more than promises and caresses. St James's would give
nothing — Leicester house had nothing to give.

Thus at the time when Johnson commenced his literary career,
a writer had little to hope from the patronage of powerful indi-
viduals. The patronage of the public did not yet furnish the
means of comfortable subsistence. The prices paid by book-

1831. Croker^s Editioti of Bos well's Life of Johnson. 23

sellers to authors were so low, that a man of considerable talents
and unremitting industry could do little more than provide for
the day which was passing over him. The lean kine had eaten
up the fat kine. The thin and withered ears had devoured
the good ears. The season of rich harvests was over, and the
period of famine had begun. All that is squalid and miserable
might now be summed up in the one word — Poet. That word
denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with
compters and spunging-houses, and perfectly qualified to decide
on the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's
Bench prison, and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. Even
the poorest pitied him ; and they well might pity him. For if
their condition was equally abject, their aspirings were not
equally high, nor their sense of insult equally acute. To lodge
in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar amongst
footmen out of place, — to translate ten hours a-day for the wages
of a ditcher, — to be hunted by bailiffs from one haunt of beg-
gary and pestilence to another, from Grub street to St George's
fields, and from St George's fields to the alleys behind St
Martin's church, — to sleep on a bulk in June, and amidst the
ashe >, of a glass-house in December, — to die in an hospital, and
to be buried in a parish vault, was the fate of more than one
writer, who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have
been admitted to the sittings of the Kit-cat or the Scriblerus
Club, would have sat in the Parliament, and would have been
intrusted with embassies to the High Allies; who, if he had
lived, in our time, would have received from the booksellers
several hundred pounds a-year.

As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of
life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character, assu-
redly, has always had its share of faults — vanity, jealousy, mor-
bid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded all the
faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is
precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of
severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar
were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the
wretched lottery of book- making were scarcely less ruinous
than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a man-
ner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of
starvation and despair, a full third night, or a well- received
dedication, filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet
with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries, with the
images of which his mind had been haunted while sleeping
amidst the cinders, and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in
Shoe lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another

24 Crokav^ & Bdition of BosweWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse,
and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laccd
hals and waistcoats, sometimes lying in bed because their coats
had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen
was in pawn ; sometimes drinking CLampagne and Tokay with
Betty Careless ; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-
honse in Porridge island, to snuflf up the scent of what they
could not afford to taste ; they knew luxury — they knew beg-
gary— but they never knew comfort. These men were irre-
claimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life with the
same aversion which an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels
for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of
civilized communities. They were as untameable, as much
wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass. They could
no more be broken in to the offices of social man, than the
unicorn could be trained to serve and abide by the crib. It was
well if they did not, like beasts of a still fiercer race, tear the
hands which ministered to their necessities. To assist them
was impossible ; and the most benevolent of mankind at length
became weary of giving relief, which was dissipated with the
wildest profusion as soon as it had been received. If a sura
was bestowed on the wretched adventurer, such as, properly
husbanded, might have supplied him for six months, it was
instantly spent in strange freaks of sensuality, and before forty-
eight hours had elapsed, the poet was again pestering all his ac-
quaintance for twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a subter-
raneous cook-sliop. If his friends gave him an asylum in their
houses, those houses were forthwith turned into bagnios and
taverns. All order Avas destroyed — all business was suspended.
The most good-natured host began to repent 6f his eagerness to
serve a man of genius in distress, when he heard his guest
roaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the morning.

A few eminent writers were more fortunate. Pope had been
raised above poverty by the active patronage which, in his
youth, both the great political parties had extended to his
Homer. Young had received the only pension ever bestowed,
to the best of our recollection, by Sir Robert Walpole, as the
reward of mere literary merit. One or two of the many poets
who attached themselves to the opposition, Thomson in parti-
cular, and Mallet, obtained, after much severe suffering, the
means of subsistence from their political friends. Richardson,
like a man of sense, kept his shop, and his shop kept him, which
his novels, admirable as they are, would scarcely have done.
But nothing could be more deplorable than the state even of
the ablest men, who at that time depended for subsistence on

1831. Crokev's Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 25

their writings. Johnson, Collins, Fielding, and Thomson, were
certainly four of the most distinguished persons that England
produced during the eighteenth century. It is well known that
they were all four arrested for debt.

Into calamities and difficulties such as these Johnson plunged
in his twenty-eighth year. From that time, till he was three
or four-and-fifty, we have little information respecting him —
little, we mean, compared with the full and accurate informa-
tion which we possess respecting his proceedings and habits
towards the close of his life. He emerged at length from cock-
lofts and sixpenny ordinaries into the society of the polished
and the opulent. His fame was established. A pension suffi-
cient for his wants had been conferred on him; and he came
forth, to astonish a generation with which he had almost as
little in common as with Frenchmen or Spaniards.

In his early years he had occasionally seen the great ; but he
had seen them as a beggar. He now came among them as a
companion. The demand for amusement and instruction had,
during the course of twenty years, been gradually increasing.
The price of literary labour had risen ; and those rising men
of letters, with whom Johnson was henceforth to associate, were
for the most part persons widely different from those who had
walked about with him all night in the streets, for want of a
lodging. Burke, Robertson, the Wartons, Gray, Mason, Gib-
bon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir William Jones, Goldsmith, and
Churchill, were the most distinguished writers of what may be
called the second generation of the Johnsonian age. Of these
men, Churchill was the only one in whom we can trace the
stronger lineaments of that character, which, when Johnson first
came up to London, was common among authors. Of the rest,
scarcely any had felt the pressure of severe poverty. All had
been early admitted into the most respectable society on an
equal footing. They were men of quite a diffijrent species from
the dependents of Curll and Osborne.

Johnson came among them the solitary specimen of a ])a8t
age, — the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub Street hacks;
the last of that generation of authors whose abject misery and
whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaustible matter to
the satyrical genius of Pope. From nature, he had received an
uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper.
The manner in which the earlier years of his manhood had been
passed, had given to his demeanour, and even to his moral charac-
ter, some peculiarities, appalling to the civilized beings who were
the companions of his old age. The perverse irregularity of his
hours, — the slovenliness of his person, — his fits of strenuous

26 Ci'oker's Edition of BoswelPs Life of Johnson. Sept.

exertion, interrupted by long intervals of sluggishness, — hia
strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, — his active
benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the occa-
sional ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the
opinion of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years
of his life, a complete original. An original he was, undoubt-
edly, in some respects. But if we possessed full information
concerning those who shared his early hardships, we should pro-
bably find, that what we call his singularities of manner, were,
for the most part, failings which he had in common with the
class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park as he
had been used to eat behind the screen at St John's Gate, when
he was ashamed to show his ragged clothes. He ate as it was
natural that a man should eat who, during a great part of his
life, had passed the morning in doubt whether he should have
food for the afternoon. The habits of his early life had accus-
tomed him to bear privation with fortitude, but not to taste
pleasure with moderation. He could fast ; but, when he did not
fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins
swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down his
cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it,
he drank it greedily, and in large tumblers. These were, in fact,
mitigated symptoms of that same moral disease which raged
with such deadly malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse.
The roughness and violence which he showed in society were to
be expected from a man whose temper, not naturally gentle,
had been long tried by the bitterest calamities- — by the want of
meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of creditors, by
the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by the
insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all
food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by
that deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all
these things the ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had strug-
gled manfully up to eminence and command. It was natural,
that, in the exercise of his power, he should be ' eo iramitior,
* quia toleraverat,' — that though his heart was undoubtedly gene-
rous and humane, his demeanour in society should be harsh and
despotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only
sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a
harsh word inflicts upon a delicate mind, he had no pity ; for
it was a kind of suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He
would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from
the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a
crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum ;
nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his

1831. Cv6kev*6 Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 21

benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him
ridiculous ; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the
pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of
sharp misery, that he was not affected by paltry vexations ; and
he seemed to think that everybody ought to be as much harden-
ed to those vexations as himself. He was angry with Boswell
for complaining of a headach — with Mrs Thrale for grumbling
about the dust on the road, or the smell of the kitchen. These
were, in his phrase, ' foppish lamentations,' which people ought
to be ashamed to utter in a world so full of misery. Goldsmith
crying because the Good-natured Man had failed, inspired him
with no pity. Though his own health was not good, he detest-
ed and despised valetudinarians. Even great pecuniary losses,
unless they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him
very little. People whose hearts had been softened by prosperity
might cry, he said, for such events ; but all that could be ex-
pected of a plain man was not to laugh.

A person who troubled himself so little about the smaller
grievances of human life, was not likely to be very attentive to
the feelings of others in the ordinary intercourse of society. He
could not understand how a sarcasm or a reprimand could make
any man really unhappy. ' My dear doctor,' said he to Gold-
smith, ' what harm does it do to a man to call him Holofernes ?*
* Pooh, ma'am,' he exclaimed to Mrs Carter, ' who is the worse
' for being talked of uncharitably ?' Politeness has been well
defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite,
not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things
appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known
what it was to live for fourpence half-penny a-day.

The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of
great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the
best parts of his mind, we should place him almost as high as he
was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; — if by the worst parts
of his mind, we should place him even below Boswell himself.
Where he was not under the influence of some strange scruple,
or some domineering passion, which prevented him from boldly
and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute rea-
soner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too
fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by
fallacies in argument, or by exaggerated statements of fact. But
if, while he was beating down sophisms, and exposing false testi-
mony, some childish prejudices, such as would excite laughter in
a well-managed nursery, came across him, he vt^as smitten as if
by enchantment. His mind dwindled away under the spell from
gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. Those who had lately

98 Cvokei-^ 6 Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. Sept.

been admiring its amplitude and its force, were now as much
astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness, as the fisher-
man, in the Arabian tale, when he saw the genie, whose stature
had overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed
equal to a contest with armies, contract himself to the dimen-
sions of his small prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the
charm of Solomon.

Johnson was in the habit of sifting with extreme severity the
evidence for all stories which were merely odd. But when they
were not only odd but miraculous, his severity relaxed. He
began to be credulous precisely at the point where the most
credulous people begin to be sceptical. It is curious to observe,
both in his writings and in his conversation, the contrast between
the disdainful manner in which he rejects unauthenticated anec-
dotes, even when they are consistent with the general laws of
nature, and the respectful manner in which he mentions the
wildest stories relating to the invisible world. A man who told
him of a water-spout or a meteoric stone, generally had the lie
direct given him for his pains. A man who told him of a pre-
diction or a dream wonderfully accomplished, was sure of a
courteous hearing. ' Johnson,' observed Hogarth, ' like King

* David, says in his haste that all men are liars.' ' His iucre-

* dulity,' says Mrs Thrale, ' amounted almost to disease.' She
tells us how he browbeat a gentleman, who gave him an account
of a hurricane in the West Indies, and a poor quaker, who re-
lated some strange circumstance about the red-hot balls fired at
the siege of Gibraltar. ' It is not so. It cannot be true. Don't

* tell that story again. You cannot think how poor a figure you
' make in telling it.' He once said, half jestingly we suppose,
that for six months he refused to credit the fact of the earthquake
at Lisbon, and that he still believed the extent of the calamity
to be greatly exaggerated. Yet he related with a grave face how
old Mr Cave of St John's Gate saw a ghost, and how this ghost
was something of a shadowy being. He went himself on a ghost-
hunt to Cock-lane, and was angry with John Wesley for not
following up another scent of the same kind with proper spirit
and perseverance. He rejects the Celtic genealogies and poems
without the least hesitation; yet he declares himself willing to
believe the stories of the second sight. If he had examined the
claims of the Highland seers with half the severity with which he
sifted the evidence for the genuineness of Fingal, he would, wc
suspect, have come away from Scotland with a mind fully made
up. In his Lives of the Poets, we find that he is unwilling to
give credit to the accounts of Lord Roscommon's early profi-
ciency in his studies ; but he tells with great solemnity an

1831. Croker's Edition ofBosweWs Life of Johnson. 29

absurd romance about some intelligence preternaturally impressed
on the mind of that nobleman. He avows himself to be in great
doubt about the truth of the story, and ends by warning his
readers not wholly to slight such impressions.

Many of his sentiments on religious subjects are worthy of a
liberal and enlarged mind. He could discern clearly enough the
folly and meanness of all bigotry except his own. When he
spoke of the scruples of the Puritans, he spoke like a person who
had really obtained an insight into the divine philosophy of the
New Testament, and who considered Christianity as a noble
scheme of government, tending to promote the happiness and to
elevate the moral nature of man. The horror which the secta-
ries felt for cards, Christmas ale, plum-porridge, mince-pies,
and dancing bears, excited his contempt. To the arguments
urged by some very worthy people against showy dress, he
replied, with admirable sense and spirit, ' Let iis not be found,

* when our Master calls us, stripping the lace off our waist-
' coats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues.
' Alas ! sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat

* will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.*
Yet he was himself under the tyranny of scruples as unreason-
able as those of Hudibras or Ralpho ; and carried his zeal for
ceremonies and for ecclesiastical dignities to lengths altogether
inconsistent with reason, or with Christian charity. He has
gravely noted down in his diary, that he once committed the sin
of drinking coffee on Good Friday. In Scotland, he thought it
his duty to pass several months without joining in public wor-
ship, solely because the ministers of the kirk had not been
ordained by bishops. His mode of estimating the piety of his
neighbours was somewhat singular. ' Campbell,' said he, * is a
' good man, — a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the

* inside of a church for many years ; but he never passes a church

* without pulling off his hat, — this shows he has good principles.'
Spain and Sicily must surely contain many pious robbers and
well-principled assassins. Johnson could easily see that a Round-
head, who named all his children after Solomon's singers, and
talked in the House of Commons about seeking the Lord, might
be an unprincipled villain, whose religious mummeries only
aggravated his guilt. But a man who took off his hat when he
passed a church episcopally consecrated, must be a good man, a
pious man, a man of good principles. Johnson could easily see
that those persons who looked on a dance or a laced waistcoat
as sinful, deemed most ignobly of the attributes of God, and of
the ends of revelation. But with what a storm of invective he
would have overwhelmed any man who had blamed him for

30 Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life of Johnson, Sept.

celebrating the close of Lent with sugarless tea and butterless
buns.

Nobody spoke more contemptuously of the cant of patriotismj
Nobody saw more clearly the error of those who represented
liberty, not as a means, but as an end ; and who proposed to
themselves, as the object of their pursuit, the prosperity of the
state as distinct from the prosperity of the individuals who com-
pose the state. His calm and settled opinion seems to have been,
that forms of government have little or no influence on the hap-
.piness of society. This opinion, erroneous as it is, ought at least
to have preserved him from all intemperance on political ques-
tions. It did not, however, preserve him from the lowest,
fiercest, and most absurd extravagances of party-spirit, — from
rants which, in every thing but the diction, resembled those of
Squire Western. He was, as a politician, half ice and half fire;
— on the side of his intellect a mere Pococurante, — far too apa-
thetic about public affairs, — far too sceptical as to the good or
evil tendency of any form of polity. His passions, on the con-
trary, were violent even to slaying, against all who leaned to
Whiggish principles. The well-known lines which he inserted
in Goldsmith's Traveller, express what seems to have been his
deliberate judgment: —

' How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which kings or laws can cause or cure.'
He had previously put expressions very similar into the mouth
of Rasselas. It is amusing to contrast these passages with the
torrents of raving abuse which he poured forth against the Long
Parliament and the American Congress. In one of the conver-
sations reported by Boswell, this strange inconsistency displays
itself in the most ludicrous manner.

' Sir Adam Ferguson,' says Boswell, ' suggested that luxury

* corrupts a people, and destroys the spirit of liberty.' — Johnson.

* Sir, that is all visionary. I would not give half a guinea to

* live under one form of government rather than another. It is

* of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Sir, the dan-

* ger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. What

* Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as he pleases ?' —
Sir Adam. * But, sir, in the British constitution it is surely

* of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as to pre-

* serve a balance against the crown.' — Johnson. ' Sir, I perceive

* you are a vile Whig. Why all this childish jealousy of the

* power of the crown ? The crown has not power enough.'

One of the old philosophers. Lord Bacon tells us, used to say
that life and death were just the same to him. * Why, then,'
said an objector, * do you not kill yourself.' The philosopher

1831. Croker's Edition of BosweU's Life of Johnson. 31

answered, ' Because it is just the same.' If the difference be-
tween two forms of government be not worth half a guinea, it
is not easy to see how Whiggism can be viler than Toryism,
or how the crown can have too little power. If private men
suffer nothing from political abuses, zeal for liberty is doubtless
ridiculous. But zeal for monarchy must be equally so. No
person would have been more quick-sighted than Johnson to
such a contradiction as this, in the logic of an antagonist.

The judgments which Johnson passed on books were, in his
own time, regarded with superstitious veneration ; and, in our
time, are generally treated with indiscriminate contempt. They
are the judgments of a strong but enslaved understanding. The
mind of the critic was hedged round by an uninterrupted fence
of prejudices and superstitions. Within his narrow limits, he
displayed a vigour and an activity which ought to have enabled
him to clear the barrier that confined him.

How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so
ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great
mysteries of human nature. The same inconsistency may be
observed in the schoolmen of the middle ages. Those writers
show so much acuteness and force of mind in arguing on their
wretched data, that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss to
comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw in
the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing, escapes
their vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness
of the foundation. It is the same with some eminent lawyers.
Their legal arguments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with
the happiest analogies, and the most refined distinctions. The
principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the
statute-book and the reports being once assumed as the founda-
tions of jurisprudence, these men must be allowed to be perfect
masters of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates on
which their whole system rests, — if they are called upon to vin-
dicate the fundamental maxims of that system which they have
passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the lan-
guage of savages, or of children. Those who have listened to a
man of this class in his own court, and who have witnessed the
skill with which he analyses and digests a vast mass of evidence,
or reconciles a crowd of precedents which at first sight seem
contradictory, scarcely know him again when, a few hours later,
they hear him speaking on the other side of Westminster Hall
in his capacity of legislator. They can scarcely believe, that the
paltry quirks which are faintly heard through a storm of cough-
ing, and which cannot impose on the plainest country gentleman,
can proceed from the same sharp and vigorous intellect which

S2 Crokei'*B Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. Sept.

had excited their admiration under the same roof, and on the
same day.

Johnson decided literary questions like a lawyer, not like a
legislator. He never examined foundations where a point was
already ruled. His whole code of criticism rested on pure
assumption, for which he sometimes gave a precedent or an au-
thority, but rarely troubled himself to give a reason drawn from
the nature of things. He took it for granted, that the kind of
poetry which flourished in his own time, which he had been ac-
customed to hear praised from his childhood, and which he had
himself written with success, was the best kind of poetry. In
his biographical work, he has repeatedly laid it down as an un-
deniable proposition, that during the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and the earlier part of the eighteenth, English poetry
had been in a constant progress of improvement. Waller, Den-
ham, Dryden, and Pope, had been, according to him, the great
reformers. He judged of all works of the imagination by the
standard established among his own contemporaries. Though he
allowed Homer to have been a greater man than Virgil, he seems
to have thought the ^Eneid a greater poem than the Iliad. Indeed
he well might have thought so ; for he preferred Pope's Iliad
to Homer's. He pronounced that, after Hoole's translation of
Tasso, Fairfax's would hardly be reprinted. He could see no
merit in our fine old English ballads, and always spoke with the
most provoking contempt of Percy's fondness for them. Of all f
the great original works which appeared during his time, Richard-
son's novels alone excited his admiration. He could see little or
no merit in Tom Jones, in Gulliver's Travels, or in Tristram
Shandy. To Thomson's Castle of Indolence, he vouchsafed only
a line of cold commendation — of commendation much colder than
what he has bestowed on the Creation of that portentous bore,
Sir Richard Blackmore. Gray was, in his dialect, a barren ras-
cal. Churchill was a blockhead. The contempt which he felt
for the trash of Macpherson was indeed just; but it was, we
suspect, just by chance. He despised the Fingal, for the very
reason which led many men of genius to admire it. He despised
it, not because it was essentially common-place, but because it
had a superficial air of originality.

He was undoubtedly an excellent judge of compositions fa-
shioned on his own principles. But when a deeper philosophy
was required, — when he undertook to pronounce judgment on
the works of those great minds which ' yield homage only to
* eternal laws,' — his failure was ignominious. He criticised Pope's
Epitaphs excellently. But his observations on Shakspeare's plays,
and Milton's poems, seem to us as wretched as if they had been

1831. Croker's Edition of BosivelVs Life of Johnson. 33

written by Rymer himself, whom we take to have been the worst
critic that ever lived.

Some of Johnson's whims on literary subjects can be compa-
red only to that strange nervous feeling which made him uneasy
if he had not touched every post between the Mitre tavern and
his own lodgings. His preference of Latin epitaphs to English
epitaphs is an instance. An English epitaph, he said, would
disgrace Smollet. He declared that he would not pollute the
walls of Westminster Abbey with an English epitaph on Gold-
smith. What reason there can be for celebrating a British writer
in Latin, which there was not for covering the Roman arches of
triumph with Greek inscriptions, or for commemorating the deeds
of the heroes of Thermopylae in Egyptian hieroglyphics, we are
utterly unable to imagine.

On men and manners — at least on the men and manners of a
particular place and a particular age — Johnson had certainly
looked with a most observant and discriminating eye. His
remarks on the education of children, on marriage, on the eco-
nomy of families, on the rules of society, are always striking, and
generally sound. In his writings, indeed, the knowledge of life
which he possessed in an eminent degree is very imperfectly
exhibited. Like those unfortunate chiefs of the middle ages,
who were suffocated by their own chain-mail and cloth of gold,
his maxims perish under that load of words, which was design-
ed for their ornament and their defence. But it is clear, from
the remains of his conversation, that he had more of that homely
wisdom which nothing but experience and observation can give,
than any writer since the time of Swift. If he had been content
to write as he talked, he might have left books on the practical
art of living superior to the Directions to Servants.

Yet even his remarks on society, like his remarks on litera-
ture, indicate a mind at least as remarkable for narrowness as
for strength. He was no master of the great science of human
nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but the species
Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conversant with all
the forms of life, and all the shades of moral and intellectual
character, which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames,
and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. But his phi-
losophy stopped at the first turnpike-gate. Of the rural life of
England he knew nothing ; and he took it for granted that every-
body who lived in the country was either stupid or miserable.
* Country gentleman,' said he, ' must be unhappy ; for they have
' not enough to keep their lives in motion.' As if all those
peculiar habits and associations, which made Fleet street and
Charing cross the finest views in the world to himself, had been

VOL. LIV, NO, evil. C

34 Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life ofJohns(yn. Sept.

essential parts of human nature. Of remote countries and past
times he talked with wild and ignorant presumption. * The

* Athenians of the age of Demosthenes,' he said to Mrs Thrale,

* were a people of brutes, a barbarous people.' In conversation
with Sir Adam Ferguson, he used similar language. ' The
' boasted Athenians,' he said, ' were barbarijins. The mass of

* every people must be barbarous where there is no printing.*
The fact was this : He saw that a Londoner who could not
read was a very stupid and brutal fellow : he saw that great
refinement of taste and activity of intellect were rarely found in
a Londoner who had not read much; and because it was by
means of books that people acquired almost all their knowledge
in the society with which he was acquainted, he concluded, in
defiance of the strongest and clearest evidence, that the human
mind can be cultivated by means of books alone. An Athenian
citizen might possess very few volumes ; and even the largest
library to which he had access might be much less valuable than
Johnson's bookcase in Bolt court. But the Athenian might
pass every morning in conversation with Socrates, and might
hear Pericles speak four or five times every month. He saw the
plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes — he walked amidst the
friezes of Pliidias and the paintings of Zeuxis — he knew by heart
the choruses of ^schylus — he heard the rhapsodist at the corner
of the street reciting the Shield of Achilles, or the Death of
Argus — he was a legislator, conversant with high questions of
alliance, revenue, and war — he was a soldier, trained under a
liberal and generous discipline — he was a judge, compelled every
day to weigh the effect of opposite arguments. These things
were in themselves an education — an education eminently fitted,
not, indeed, to form exact or profound thinkers, but to give
quickness to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to
the expression, and politeness to the manners. But this John-
son never considered. An Athenian who did not improve his
mind by reading was, in his opinion, much such a person as
a Cockney who made his mark — much such a person as black
Frank before he went to school, and far inferior to a parish-
clerk or a printer's devil.

His friends have allowed that he carried to a ridiculous ex-
treme his unjust contempt for foreigners. He pronounced the
French to be a very silly people — much behind us — stupid, igno-
rant creatures. And this judgment he formed after having been
at Paris about a month, during which he would not talk French,
for fear of giving the natives an advantage over him in conver-
sation. He pronounced them, also, to be an indelicate people,
because a French footman touched the sugar with his fingers.

1831. Croker's Edition ofBosweWs Life of Johnson. 35

That ingenious and amusing traveller, M. Simond, has defend-
ed his countrymen very successfully against Johnson's accusa-
tion, and has pointed out some English practices, which, to an
impartial spectator, would seem at least as inconsistent with
physical cleanliness and social decorum as those which Johnson
so bitterly reprehended. To the sage, as Boswell loves to call him,
it never occurred to doubt that there must be something eter-
nally and immutably good in the usages to which he had been
accustomed. In fact, Johnson's remarks on society beyond the
hills of mortality, are generally of much the same kind with those
of honest Tom Dawson, the English footman in Dr Moore's
Zeluco. ' Suppose the King of France has no sons, but only a

* daughter, then, when the king dies, this here daughter, accord-
' ing to that there law, cannot be made queen, but the next

* near relative, provided he is a man, is made king, and not the

* last king's daughter, which, to be sure, is very unjust. The

* French footguards are dressed in blue, and all the marching

* regiments in white, which has a very foolish appearance for

* soldiers ; and as for blue regimentals, it is only fit for the blue

* horse or the artillery.'

Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a state of
society completely new to him ; and a salutary suspicion of his
own deficiencies seems on that occasion to have ci'ossed his
mind for the first time. He confessed, in the last paragraph of
his Journey, that his thoughts on national manners were the
thoughts of one who had seen but little, — of one who had pass-
ed his time almost wholly in cities. This feeling, however, soon
passed away. It is remarkable, that to the last he entertained
a fixed contempt for all those modes of life and those studies
which lead to emancipate the mind from the prejudices of a par-
ticular age, or a particular nation. Of foreign travel and of
history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of
ignorance. * What does a man learn by travelling ? Is Beau-

* clerk the better for travelling ? What did Lord Charlemont

* learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the

* pyramids of Egypt ?' History was, in his opinion, to use the fine
expression of Lord Plunkett, an old almanack : historians could,
as he conceived, claim no higher dignity than that of almanack-
makers ; and his favourite historians were those who, like Lord
Hailes, aspired to no higher dignity. He always spoke with
contempt of Robertson. Hume he would not even read. He
affronted one of his friends for talking to him about Catiline's
conspiracy, and declared that he never desired to hear of the
Punic war again as long as he lived.

Assuredly one fact, which does not directly affect our own

36 Croker's Edition ofBosiveWs Life of Johnson. Sept.

interests, considered In itself, is no better worth knowing than
another fact. The fact that there is a snake in a pyramid, or
the fact that Hannibal crossed the Alps by the Great St Ber-
nard, are in themselves as unprofitable to us as the fact that
there is a green blind in a particular house in Threadneedle
street, or the fact that a Mr Smith comes into the city every
morning on the top of one of the Blackwall stages. But it is
certain that those who will not crack the shell of history, will
never get at the kernel. Johnson, with hasty arrogance, pro-
nounced the kernel worthless, because he saw no value in the
shell. The real use of travelling to distant countries, and of
studying the annals of past times, is to preserve men from the
contraction of mind which those can hardly escape whose whole
communion is with one generation and one neighbourhood, who
arrive at conclusions by means of an induction not sufliciently
copious, and who therefore constantly confound exceptions with
rules, and accidents with essential properties. In short, the real
use of travelling, and of studying history, is to keep men from
being what Tom Dawson was in fiction, and Samuel Johnson in
reality.

Johnson, as Mr Burke most justly observed, appears far
greater in Boswell's books than in his own. His conversation
appears to have been quite equal to his writings in matter, and
far superior to them in manner. When he talked, he clothed
his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As
soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his
style became systematically vicious. All his books are written
in a learned language, — in a language which nobody hears from
his mother or his nurse, — in a language in which nobody ever
quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love, — in a language in
which nobody ever thinks. It is clear, that Johnson himself
did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions
which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and pic-
turesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences
out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides
to Mrs Thrale, are the original of that work of which the Jour-
ney to the Hebrides is the translation ; and it is amusing to
compare the two versions. ' When we were taken up stairs,'
says he in one of his letters, * a dirty fellow bounced out of the

* bed on which one of us was to lie.' This incident is recorded
in the Journey as follows : — * Out of one of the beds on which

* we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black

* as a Cyclops from the forge.' Sometimes Johnson translated
aloud. * The Rehearsal,' he said, very unjustly, ' has not wit

* enough to keep it sweet ;' then, after a pause, * it has not vital-

* ity enough to preserve it from putrefaction,*

1831. CrokQv^fi Edition of BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 37

Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable,
when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for
example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of Mil-
ton or of Burke. But a mannerism which does not sit easy on
the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which
can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive.
And such is the mannerism of Johnson.

The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our
readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost
superfluous to point them out. It is well known that he made
less use than any other eminent writer of those strong plain
words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French, of which the roots lie
in the inmost depths of our language ; and that he felt a vicious
partiality for terms which, long after our own speech had been
fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and Latin, and which,
therefore, even when lawfully naturalized, must be considered
as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English.
His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless
epithets, till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite, — his
antithetical forms of expression, constantly employed even where
there is no opposition in the ideas expressed, — his big words
wasted on little things, — his harsh inversions, so widely differ-
ent from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety,
spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers,
— all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers, and
parodied by his assailants, till the public has become sick of the
subject.

Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very justly, < If you

* were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would
' make the little fishes talk like whales.' No man surely ever had
so little talent for personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote
in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter, or an empty
town fop, of a crazy virtuoso, or a flippant coquette, he wrote
in the same pompous and unbending style. His speech, like
Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him under
every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac
the poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia de-
scribes her reception at the country-house of her relations, in
such terms as these : — * I was surprised, after the civilities of

* my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquil-
< lity which a rural life always promises, and, if well conduct-

* ed, might always afford, a confused wildness of care, and a

* tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was

* clouded, and every motion agitated.' The gentle Tranquilla
informs us, that she * had not passed the earlier part of life

38 Croker's Edition ofBoswelVs Life of Johnson, Sept.

< without the flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph ;

< but had danced the round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of

* envy and the gratulations of applause, — had been attended

* from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the sprightly, and the

< vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the obsequiousness

< of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of love.*
Surely Sir John Falstaif himself did not wear his petticoats
with a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest
Sir Hugh Evans, ' I like not when a 'oman has a great peard :

* I spy a great peard under her muffler.'

We had something more to say. But our article is already
too long ; and we must close it. We would fain part in good
humour from the hero, from the biographer, and even from the
editor, who, ill as he has performed his task, has at least this
claim to our gratitude, that he has induced us to read Bos well's
book again. As we close it, the club-room is before us, and the
table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for
Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever
on the canvass of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke,
and the tall thin form of Langton ; the courtly sneer of Beau-
clerk, and the beaming smile of Garrick ; Gibbon tapping his
snuff"box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the
foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as
the figures of those among whom we have been bi'ought up, —
the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars
of disease ; the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the
grey wig with the scorched foretop ; the dirty hands, the nails
bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth
moving with convulsive twitches ; we see the hea\y form roll-
ing; we hear it puffing; and then comes the ' Why, sir !' and
the ' What then, sir ?' and the * No, sir !' and the * You don't

* see your way through the question, sir !'

What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable
man ! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours
as a companion, — to receive from his contemporaries that full
homage which men of genius have in general received only from
posterity, — to be more intimately known to posterity than other
men are known to their contemporaries ! That kind of fame
which is commonly the most transient, is, in his case, the most
durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably
expected to be immortal, is every day fading ; while those pe-
culiarities of manner, and that careless table-talk, the memory
of which, he probably thought, would die with him, are likely
to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in
any quarter of the globe.

1831. Greek Philosophy of TaMe,

Art. II — 'Remarks on the supposed Dionysms Longinus ; with
an Attempt to restore the Treatise on Sublimity to its Original
State. 8vo. London: 1827.

THE bold flights, the brilliant style, and the ample range, of
modern criticism, have thrown into the shade the less daz-
zling and diffuse productions of the classical schools. And more
especially the Greek philosophers of Taste, have not received
their share of that attention so liberally lavished on the orators
and poets ; of whose excellence, if they did not supply the inspira-
tion, they at least most usefully examine and exhibit the secret
and the source. This complaint is not the vague ejaculation of
pedantry, but rests upon positive evidence of the neglect with
which the treasures of Grecian criticism have been treated even
by those who affect to appeal to its authority. Men talk and write
of Longinus, or the Stagyrite, upon the strength of some indis-
tinct apprehension that the latter was a kind of critical Draco,
and that the former was * himself the great sublime he drew.'
Yet nothing can be more tender to genius than the spirit of the
Aristotelian precepts, and Longinus is far more favourably dis-
tinguished by the vigour of his understanding, and the clearness
of his views, than by the loftiness and grandeur of a style,
which sometimes offends against propriety of thought, and often
against purity of diction. To take a single direct proof of the
ignorance alluded to: Every one has heard of the senseless
clamour raised by certain modern critics about the dramatic
unities of place and time. Aristotle to the rescue ! was the
battle-cry of the combatants upon the strict, and what assumed
to be the classical, side of the controversy: Aristotle was boldly
asserted, and carelessly believed, to have confined dramatic
action to one place, and to the portion of time which the events
represented would occupy in their real occurrence; and yet
Aristotle, while he enforces the observance of the important
unity of plot, says not one word as to place, and but once
notices the subject of time, in a passage utterly hostile to those
who argue for its inviolable unity.

Notwithstanding, however, this too common neglect, or igno-
rance, the principles developed, and the rules prescribed by the
great masters of Grecian criticism, have had a mighty influence
upon modern systems of taste. Transmitted as traditional
knowledge, or blended to a large extent with the general mass
of enlightened opinions, these principles have swayed many
beyond the number of those who have studied the original pre-

40 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

cepts ; and, sometimes unperceived, sometimes unconfessed by
the disciple, their spirit has spoken through the lips of the most
popular critics of modern times. If there have been, in every
age, some heresies in taste, yet there always has been one ancient,
true, and indestructible religion. The more shameful, then, is
any contempt of those foundations on which the creed of ortho-
doxy rests. We would make an effort to do away with the
reproach — to disclose or decorate the springs of that little
marked, but pure and salutary stream, that has flowed through
the expanse of a later philosophy, and that still, by its noiseless
operation, diffuses freshness and fertility over every tract which
it pervades.

The Grecian philosophy of taste has naturally been presented
under certain varieties of aspect, according to the style, the
temper, and the intellectual powers of the writers in whose
works it is comprised. But these variations of appearance are
nothing to the identity of character, which an acute perception
of natural principles, a common method of induction, and a
careful practice of analysis, have conspired to impress upon it.
Let us speak of it in general terms, before proceeding to a more
minute description of the chief masters, which we intend to
close with some remarks upon the claims and merits of Lon-
ginus, the latest of the band.

We have already hinted, that the best modern critics do not
greatly differ in matter from their classic predecessors ; but they
differ very widely in manner. There is an aim and method
about the critical speculations of the ancients, that forms at
once a striking characteristic and a conspicuous merit. They
are really teachers of the mind ; more clear and copious in the^
didactic portion of their labours, than diffuse in reasoning or
ambitious in theory. The modern critic, without more funda-
mental principles, makes a greater parade of metaphysics ; his
speculations have too often no object beyond themselves, and
are then useful only because they tend to augment, by exercising,
the powers of thought. The ancient thinks more of his readers,
the modern of himself; the ancient wishes to make you shine,
the modern to shine ; the ancient is simple, the modern is
sublime. There are exceptions to both sides of this delineation ;
there are specimens of ancient criticism — reviews by Dionyslus,
diatribes by Plutarch, contrasts by Longlnus — that breathe the
air and manner of a modern critique, and there are productions
of modern pens, conceived in the happiest vein of classical anti-
quity. But its general correctness is indisputable. Give us
Burke or Schlegel to amuse, but Aristotle or Longlnus to
instruct us. The writings of Schlegel may supply an illustra-

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste, 41

tion of our meaning. The * course of dramatic literature' is an
exquisite performance — not indeed entitled, maugre its author's
assumptions, to the praise of much originality ; for the germ of
his most elaborate and showy theories is to be found in the
Greek critics, but full of learning and vigour, and the ethereal
spirit of poesy. But, as Beatrice says of Don Pedro, it is ' too
* costly for week-days.' There is a fine and subtle essence
about it, that would escape in use. He instructs us how to
admire, but not how to imitate, and, without any peculiar bent
towards the dramatic art, such is the analogy between the dif-
ferent kinds of composition, that we desire to gather from the
criticism of one branch those practical precepts, of which the
substance may be transferred to another. Schlegel tells us, that
the spirit of the Greek sculpture reigns in the Greek tragedy,
and that we must learn to understand Sophocles by studying
the Belvidere Apollo. The most eloquent of female writers, in
giving utterance to a similar sentiment,* was probably only
repeating the dictates of an oracle, at which she is known to
have worshipped. Whether enounced by Schlegel or De Stael,
there is no less truth than beauty in this notion, but it is one
of those beautiful remarks that have little didactic utility. We
fear that no one would think of improving his style as a speaker
or a writer by daily visits to a gallery of statues. There is
nothing so poetical as this conception in the whole poetics of
Aristotle ; but, in revenge, there are a hundred serviceable hints
and rules, which you may apply to your own practice, not in
poetry alone, but in any branch of composition.

From this preference of the useful to the subtle, rather than
from a passion for refining, arises another common trait of the
Greek philosophers of taste. We allude to that minuteness of-
remark, which their didactic tone and temper have produced. No
subject is trivial in their estimation, out of which a precept or a
warning may be possibly extracted. They are mere Vespasians
in this respect ; and ' lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet' is their
universal sentiment. What most moderns would pass over as
too notorious or too humble for notice, is carefully inculcated
by them, to leave the learner no excuse, and the subject no ob-
scurity. They tell you every thing, because to the delicate per-
ceptions of taste, every thing is of importance. And be it remem-
bered, that from an accurate observance of such petty precepts
must spring a great portion of the energy and beauty of a per-
fect style. We may sneer at the classical rules for coUocfltion,

* Corinne, liyre viii. cap. 2.

42 Greeh. Philosophy of Taste, Sept.

and smile or yawn over an elaborate scansion of Demostlienes
or Plato; but how much of the ease, and strength, and freedom
of expression, that distinguish the ancient philosophers and ora-
tors, arose out of a long and vigilant attention to such minutioe
of the art of composition ! It sounds strange to tell that Plato's
tablets were covered over with different arrangements of the sim-
ple sentence, ' I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glau-
' con, the son of Ariston ;' and that Cicero, already in his sixtieth
year, amid the tumults of civil war, the agitations of personal
danger, and the distractions of domestic anxiety, was able to cor-
respond, with the most earnest solicitude, about a preposition and
an accusative case ! But of labours, exact and strenuous as these,
the meed is immortality, — immortality, which results not more
from a solidity of structure, that defies the shock of time, than
from a keen and exquisite polish of surface, that repels the canker
of decay.

We must not imagine, however, that little topics engross the
whole attention of the Greek critics. To be profound and to be
minute, are mental qualities often separated, and yet by no means
incompatible : in the class of writers now under consideration,
they are happily united. We know of none who more success-
fully explore the depths of our moral and intellectual constitu-
tion, or more clearly unmask the elements of true philosophy.
But herein also there is a peculiarity about them, signal and stri-
king in itself, and growing out of the noble root of a quiet con-
sciousness of strength, and a calm pre-eminence of understand-
ing. Profound truths are disclosed by them without the appear-
ance of effort, and established without the pomp and noise of a
wordy demonstration. There is no trumpet to herald their ap-
proach, no psean to celebrate their triumph. Playing with trea-
sures of great cost, as freely as others do with trifles, they
seem unconscious of their lustre, and anxious only to extend their
circulation. This may be genuine modesty that hates parade,
or consummate skill that seeks to prevail by unmarked ap-
proaches; but its effect, at least, is neither obscure nor insignifi-
cant. Knowledge void of ostentation, and wisdom that takes us
by surprise, are sure of commanding the attention, since they
begin by engaging the heart.

Of the seemingly precocious excellence of Grecian criticism,
and of its vast influence in establishing the canons of legitimate
taste, it is not difficult to assign the cause. It is not merely that
the ancient philosophers were well versed in the science of mind,
or that they had before their eyes the most brilliant examples of
successful composition ; but in tracing out this cause, we must at
last arrive at the important principle, that taste and genius are

1831. Greek Pliilosophy of Taste, 43

essentially but one faculty, differing in their outward manifesta-
tions alone, and that, consequently, their actual maturity must
be simultaneous, though their modes and times of exhibition are
not identical. Genius is taste in its creative transport ; taste is
genius in its elective energy. ' In vain,' says Schlegel, * has

* an attempt been made to establish between taste and genius an

* absolute separation ; genius, as well as taste, is an involuntary

* impulse, that constrains to choose the beautiful, and perhaps dif-

* fers from it in nothing but an higher degree of activity.' Let
it be added, that the most fatal of all perversions is the pseudo-
doctrine that taste is something even opposite to genius, the
cold idol of a mistaken devotion, whose touches chill, and whose
embraces paralyse. Taste never interfered with one burst of
genuine power or emotion; but the assumed privilege of eccen-
tricity is not the true charter of genius. What are called the
irregular sallies of genius, are nothing better than proofs of its
deficiency, — the tottering aberrations of a mind that has not
strength to hold its onward course. When Pope indited those
mischievous lines,

<■ Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend,'

aiming at point he lighted upon paradox. True critics recognise
no glorious offences. If a passage be really glorious, it cannot
be faulty. For, to be really glorious, it must have attained the
proper end of composition, and in that case it would be pure
absurdity to stigmatize it as a fault.

There is, of course, but one of the three capital branches into
which the art of criticism is distributed, that can claim to be iden-
tified with the philosophy of taste. Under each of these divisions
we can muster Grecian names. In a very early period of Greek
literature, but still more at the epoch of the Ptolemies, and du-
ring the post- Alexandrian Age, we find historical or explanatory
critics, devoting their labours to the elucidation of great authors.
Even corrective criticism, the paragon of arts in Mr Payne
Knight's estimation,* although necessarily more distinguished
and important in modern times, was not altogether neglected by
the ancients, as sundry verbal emendations on the texts of Homer
and of Aristotle prove ; but the great Grecian masters belong
to that province of criticism which unites the history of the arts,
teaching what they have done, with their theory, teaching what

* See his Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet.

4j4i Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

they ought to do — which at once lights up their history, and
makes their theory productive, — which expounds the laws of good
composition, not solely, as Mr Harris aflSrms, ' as far as they can
* be collected from the most approved performances,' but by an
appeal to first principles also, to the inward promptings of the
mind, independent of, and antecedent to, all models ;* and which,
despite the feigned contempt of some discontented writers,! as-
serts its place amongst the noblest and most useful efforts of
intellectual power, at once the test and the reward of genius, the
nurse of emulation, and the guardian of fame.

The earliest faint glimmerings of philosophic criticism among
the Greeks, may be detected in a quarter where it has not been
much the fashion to look for them. We allude to the second
race of Rhapsodists — that singular body of men, the circulating
library of ancient Greece — no longer, like their minstrel prede-
cessors, pouring forth to the heroic harp self-taught:]: improvi-
satorial strains, but yet uniting with the task of recitation some

* Mr Harris, in his definition of philosophical criticism, speaks the
truth, but not the whole truth ; he makes the grounds of the art too
narrow, and its operation too confined. First principles, or principles
deducible from nature and reason, without the guidance of examples,
form a main support of the philosophic critic. It is true that, for obvi-
ous reasons, the authors of every country have come before the critics ;
but, when critics did appear, how could they have exercised tlieir iiinc-
tions upon the works of preceding genius, if destitute of some primary
principles, Avitli which to compare them ? Without these, they could
not have known how to censure, and, Avhat is of more importance, Avith-
out these, they could not have known how to praise. Admire they
might, but they could have assigned no causes for their admiration.
Criticism would have been any tiling rather than a rational judgment
or enquiry ; it could have advanced no pretensions to be styled the phi-
losophy of taste. Besides, if it be granted that taste is only genius in a
state of minor activity, it will follow that, since genius is certainly not
a copyist, deriving all its brilliancy from the reflection of previous splen-
dour, just as little can taste be a slave, deducing all its rules of judgment
from foregoing examples.

f See Mr Payne Knight, tit svpra.

X ACiTc^idxicTOi §' ilfit' — Od. X,, 347, where Phemius, whom Plato calls
the Rhapsodist of Ithaca, is pleading with Ulysses for his life. Cynse-
thus the Chian, to whom some ascribed the Hymn to Apollo, and who
flourished about the 69th Olympiad (B. C. 504), was perhaps the ' last
' minstrel' of the early race of Rhapsodists, who were at first only
bards, and who afterwards united the composition of poetry — as their
successors did the criticism of it — with recitation.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 45

attempt to direct the judgment of their hearers, and to disci-
pline the taste of others while they displayed their own.
Though concerning the calling and practice of these persons
our sources of information are far from abundant, it seems cer-
tain that they had some further behest than merely to retain
in memory, or repeat to unwearied audiences, the large bodies
of verse, which they more frequently swelled by their interpo-
lations, than curtailed by their omissions ; and that knowledge
and intellect, as well as lungs, were essential to the satisfactory
discharge of their amiable functions. Plato's dialogue — for we
cannot so far defer to the purblindness of Mr Schleirmacher as
to call it only the Platonic dialogue — Plato's own beautiful
and characteristic dialogue, the /ow, while it exposes with inimi-
table irony the pretensions of the Rhapsodists, and makes the
coruscations of that Socratic wit, which was so hostile to every
epideixis save those of its proper brilliancy, to play around the
scathed and shrinking heads of its victims, reveals at the same
time enough of the plain truth to show that they had some title
to the denomination of critics. Even a cursory glance at the
terms in which Socrates speaks of them, will evince that they
professed explanatory criticism ; and a closer examination will
demonstrate, that in addition to this — to the interpretation of
the poet's thoughts* — they at least endeavoured to try the merit
of poetry by the standards of fitness and of beauty. ' The Rhap-
' sodist must know,' says Ion, * what ai*e the appropriate and

* discriminating subjects and style of man and of woman, of
' the slave and of the free, of the commanded and of the com-

* mander ;' and Socrates compares the business of the Rhapsodist
with that of the connoisseur, who judges^of good or bad execution
in the arts of painting and sculpture. Whether the criticisms
of this itinerant school were sagacious or not, matters little ;f
it may be readily admitted that they would not often be severe.
The ten thousand living mouths, which, according to an ex-
pression of the Syracusan Hiero, were fed upon dead Homer,
could scarcely, in politic gratitude, repay him with austerity of
judgment. * Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,' is the stric-
ture of fastidiousness at an era of consummate refinement: but

* Toy ya.f ^u.i\/uoov l^f^Yivix ^i7 tov Trotnrov ths diocvoict? yiyvis-Sxt ro7? uko'vovti,

f The language of Xenophon, as well as of Plato, concerning these

fathers of our craft, is sufficiently disparaging, hut the grain of salt

must frequently be taken with the words of the Athenian doctors,

though not for the sake of increasing their tartness.

46 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept,

the ' nil admirari* of the same writer, who ventured on that
somewhat audacious assertion, would have been but an impru-
dent motto for Ion and his brethren. Praise was their voca-
tion, and eulogist of Homer* was a title they were proud to bear.
And, after all, criticism is much dishonoured when considered
as the art of censure. Ivy is the plant deemed sacred to cri-
tics, but its wreaths are not best merited by those who, like
itself, delight to flourish on the ruins they have made.

We could not assign the dawn of philosophic criticism to the
age of the second Rhapsodists, were it as certain as Wolf,f from
an ambiguous passage in Aristotle's Metaphysics, concludes it to
be, that a prior race of intellectual labourers endeavoured to illus-
trate the art of poetry by a reference to the principles of taste.
But we are persuaded that the ancient Sophists (in the good
sense of that term which prevails in Herodotus) — to whom he
alludes — had no more to do with the philosophy of taste, than
with the exposition of words. Their criticism was wholly exe-
getical of the subject-matter of poetry ; their great aim was to
expound Homer in conformity with their own speculative tenets ;
and strange and tortuous were the meanings extracted by them
from the words of the old bard, with an ingenuity that would
have puzzled his comprehension at least as much as that of any
of their hearers. We recognise the first of these perversely
dexterous professors in the person of Theagenes of Rhegium,
about the time of the death of Pisitratus (Ol. 63. 2. B. C. 527.)
The famous Anaxagoras, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, and others
of less note, were of this college of interpreters. Their master-
key was allegory, a passe-partout to all difiiculties, and obvious-
ly the most triumphant mode of commentary, since by it any
thing can be made to signify any thing. The later Sophists —
and, as applied to them, the word has no longer a respectable
meaning — of the age of Pericles, such as Prodicus, Protagoras,
and the Elean Hippias, were likewise, for the most part, expla-
natory critics, — busying themselves with the ethical tendency of
poetical works, or trying the merits of the poet's descriptions
by technical tests, without much notion of the true principles
of the divine art. And though among the problems and solutions
with which these gregarious gentlemen, as Isocrates^ calls them,
were wont to amuse themselves in the lounge of the Lyceum,

* 'Ofcii^ov ^img gT Ixuin-nn, says Socrates ; "O^ijgey iTrettvuf responds Jon.
f See his Prolegomena to Homer, § xxxvii.
^ In the Panatbeuaic oration.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste, ATi

and of which some specimens have been preserved by Aristotle,
there are a few that seem to belong to the philosophy of taste ;
yet neither does their date give them precedence of the Rhap-
sodists, whom, in fact, they to a certain extent imitated ; nor is
their importance sufl5cient to detain us longer from the contem-
plation of that illustrious writer, who draws us to him with a
more potent magic as we approach nearer the circle of his
influence, and who has thrown around the theory of the fine
arts the light and glory of a mind, beautiful even in its errors,
that never shone on any theme without leaving it emblazoned
in the radiant characters of genius.

Plato, whose inimitable style would suffice to place him in
the great Quaternion* of Grecian luminaries, but whose soaring
and expansive intellect would have been ' cabin'd and confined'
without that exuberant richness of expression that bespeaks the
prodigality of Heaven to a favoured mind ; whose works, unfit
perhaps for the earlier periods of classic study, are the highest
guerdon of toils that have mastered the complicated niceties
of the idiom, in which alone their charm can be appreciated ;
whose spirit is to be * unsphered,' not in the midst of social
bustle, nor even in closet-seclusion, but in the unfettered hour
of liberty, as well as loneliness — in the heart of some silvan
scene, such as his own pencil has portrayed, or amid the
speaking silence of the mountain-side ; — Plato, whose dreamy
depths of solemn meditation, and visions of ethereal beauty, and
bright glimpses of the unknown world, are for moments when
we rise above life's tumults, and, rapt in pleasing melancholy,

' Can look in beav'n witli more than mortal eyes,
Bid the free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home — '

Plato, who from the witchery of his graphic and glowing lan-
guage, and the splendour of his lofty conceptions, has been so
often hailed the poet of philosophy, could not be ignorant of the
philosophy of poetry. That he did indeed unveil the secrets of
imaginative power, and that he established on a firm basis the

* With the most eloquent of philosophers we should rank Hero-
dotus (as unrivalled in the true province of history), and the living
thunders of Demosthenes. The claims of Homer need no demonstra-
tion. What a language — and what a literature — in which Pindar,
i^schylue, Thucydides, and Aristophanes, belong to the second rank I

46 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

elements of philosophic criticism, is well known to those versed
in his productions ; but is not the general opinion among per-
sons, who have but a superficial acquaintance with their ten-
dency and substance.

With reference to this subject, a strong line of distinction
must be drawn between Plato the metaphysician, and Plato the
political projector. As long as Utopia was out of his thoughts,
as long as he looked upon poetry, or the other fine arts, in the
abstract, without regard to any influence exercised by them
upon human character and conduct, so long was this gifted man
a sagacious and eloquent expounder of the true principles of
taste. The Platonic scholar, who proceeds to review the criti-
cal writings of Aristotle, will discover the clearest evidence of
this proposition in the many lights and pregnant hints which
the Stagyrite has borrowed from his master. We shall mention
a few of their remarkable coincidencies, and indicate the por-
tions of their works which ought to be compared. Plato traces
the origin of poetry to the natural love of melody and rhythm,*
and to the imitative instinct,f though in applying the latter
principle to the divisions of the art, he has taken a less limited,
and consequently a more just and consistent view, than Aristo-
tle. Plato recognises, as the great sphere and scope of the fine
arts, that beau idealX to which Aristotle likewise so distinctly
alludes, however boldly certain modern critics seem to claim it
as their own discovery. In the fifth book of the Republic, Plato
— acknowledging that it savours of paradox — has yet made the
striking assertion that action comes less near to vital truth than
description, on which Aristotle builds his memorable doctrine,
that poetry is something more philosophical and excellent than his^
tory § — a doctrine very naturally impugned by Gibbon, but sup-
ported by Bacon, by Fielding, and — may we add — by William
Hazlitt ? If Aristotle, in conformity to common sense, considers
pleasure as the end of poetry, [| Plato too, in his milder moods,
pronounces pleasure f — the pleasure of the virtuous** — to be the
effect aimed at by the fine arts, and the true test of their suc-
cess. Plato, probably following out a hint given by Democri-

* PL Leg. B. ii. Aristot. Poet. c. 4.

f PI. Leg. B. ii. Rep. B. iii. x. Aristot. Poet. c. 1, 4, et passim.

i PI. Rep. B. V. vi. Aristot. Poet. c. 2, &c.

§ Aristot. Poet. c. 10.

II Aristot. Poet. c. ult. See Mr Twining's 277th note.

^ Pi. Hippias Major. ** PI. Leg. B. ii.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 49

tus, has dwelt in lively terms upon the ' fine frenzy' of poetic
inspiration, and on the necessity that nature and enthusiasm
should combine in the production of a genuine hard,* — a truth
acknowledged, though in more tame and logical expression, by
the Stagyrite. That terror and pity are the mainsprings of
tragedy, is distinctly affirmed in the Phsedrus of Plato, and every
scholar is acquainted with the famous definition in which Aris-
totlef recognises the function of those golden keys that unlock
the gate

< of thrilling fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears :'

the characteristic difference, however, being, that Plato objects
to tragic poetry, as pampering and inflaming the passions,:]: where-
as Aristotle lauds it, as tending to mitigate and refine them.§
We will add only, that though Aristotle judiciously declares the
essence of the poetic art to depend upon, nay, even to coincide
with, the imitative principle, and the metrical dress to be only a
subordinate adjunct, still he does allow, though with some hesi-
tation and an appearance of inconsistency, that this adjunct is
necessary, and not purely accidental, thereby acceding to the
doctrine laid down by Plato in the Go?'gias ; that, in extolling
the mimetic spirit of Homer, and developing the germs of the
Grecian drama in his poems, he does not go further than the
founder of the Academy, who plainly names Homer the prince
of Tragedy — as much the prince of Tragedy as Epicharmus was
of Comedy; II — and that even Aristotle's fervid admiration of
THE Poet might have been learned, not indeed from the ethics,
but from the taste of Plato, who speaks so often of the author
of the Iliad as divine — as the chief of bards f — who cannot dis-
semble the regret with which he banishes him from his imagi-
nary commonwealth, and who has made Socrates enumerate his
name** among those of other dwellers in the invisible world, for

* PL Phcedr. Ion. Apolog. Crito.— Aris. Poet. c. 17. (Ed. Her-
man.) In some of Plato's assertions on this head, there is a dash of
his favourite style of banter, yet his real opinion is manifest.

t Arist. Poet. c. 6. % P^- ^^^P- ^' ^'

§ A<' \XZ6V XUI CpojSoV TTlpcllVOVFCt tIiV TWV TOIOVTOJV TTCcSn^OiTUil KCiici^TiV tllC

ingenious perversions of this plain passage by the commentators (e.ff.
by the Abbe Batteux, Professor Moore, &c.) tnusthaxe been avoided,
had they perceived that Aristotle is here combating his master.

II PI. Theeetetus. % PI. Ion. ** PI Apologia.

VOL, LIV. NO. CVII. D

50 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

whose society a man might gladly quit the scenes of present ex-
istence— might loathe to live, or at least not fear to die. In short,
it would not be difficult to collect from the Dialogues of Plato,
a volume of Poetics, which would supply as much for the illus-
tration of Aristotle's treatise, as it would detract from its charac-
ter for originality. A work of this kind was actually compiled
by Paulus Benius, and published at Venice a.d. 1622. The
same scholar put together a Platonic Rhetoric ; but of neither
of these publications have we ever been able to obtain a view.

With such agreement, however, in some of their principles
and preferences, the harmony between Plato and his disciple as
critics terminates. Their contrariety of opinion becomes appa-
rent, wherever the philosophy of taste touches upon the philo-
sophy of morals. Into these parts of his system Plato has in-
fused all the bitterness derived from his own disappointment as
a poetical aspirant. Here he summons the sternness of the legis-
lator to indurate the nerves of the critic — he gives to his views
a tinge of rigour, at variance with the bent of his secret inclina-
tions— and forgetting the force of some of his own admissions,
and the great truth that there is usefulness in pleasure, he seeks
to banish all pleasure from usefulness. It is in such places, and in
this spirit, that he finds out that others besides Aristophanes and
his comic brethren are worthy of all contempt and castigation *
— that the keen blade of his trenchant irony is bared against the
votaries of every musef — that even conversation about poetry is
stigmatized as silly and vulgar ij: — that poets are proclaimed to be
fit only to titillate the ears of a mob-audience || — and that the epic
mythology, and descriptions of gods, heroes, wounds, and death,
are denounced as absurd, and dangerous to the youthful mind.§
Now it is that a bad imitation of bad subjects becomes, accord-
ing to Plato, the true definition of poetry ; noiv he objects to the
art its want of truth, somewhat in the vein of Rousseau's con-
demnation of fables, which even the pious Cowper ridicules, or
of the well-known mathematical complaint against the Paradise.
Lost — that it proves nothing. We presume that none but a tho-
rough-paced Utilitarian, and one who is prepared to impeach

* For Plato's very natural abuse of the comic poets, see particularly
the Phiedrus and the Apologia.

t PI. Lysis. Ion. ^ PI. Protag.

Ij PL Gorgias, Theaitetus. Rep.

§ PI, Rep. Sec especially the 2d and 3d books.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 51

the parables of Scripture as well as the fictions of poetry, will
approve of this article of censure ; but it is curious to observe,
in the mode by which Plato strives to make it good, an instance
of error in ethical doctrine derived from and depending upon
the absurdity of a speculative tenet. It is because all things, of
which our senses take cognizance, are supposed by him to be
mere copies of certain archetypal forms, that he considers imi-
tative poetry — as the copier of these copies — the third- hand
mimic — the shadow of a shade — to be utterly false and value-
less.* Few will be moved by this metaphysical reasoning, and
as few will pay attention to the inconsistent puritanism, that
would admit a community of women in the same republic, from
which it banishes the picture of the conjugal loves of Hector
and Andromache.

It must be pleaded, however, for the standard of morality,
which Plato has set up against the standard of taste, that the
vast influence of the fine arts, and especially of poetry, upon
the manners and sentiments of the people, which was percep-
tible at Athens, obliged him — holding ethical improvement to
be the highest destination of man, and developing the ideal of a
human commonwealth to correspond with this destination — not
to pass by the problem, in how far poets and poetry might be
useful in his Utopia. His fault lay in solving this problem
upon too narrow grounds, and too shallow and superficial ob-
servations. Pity that he did not penetrate more deeply into the
laws, according to which the powers and activity of genius —
the practice of the fine arts in all their branches — and the en-
joyment of their beautiful productions — harmonize with the
dictates of morality, and contribute to the amelioration of our
species ! Yet his ethical perversions, if often wild and mystic
as an enchanter's spells, had at least the merit of evoking a
spirit to destroy them.

In- soundness as well as amenity of judgment, — in the prac-
tical good sense of his moral philosophy — and, consequently, in
the fair application of ethical tests to the productions of genius
— Aristotle is favourably contrasted with his master. And it
must be acknowledged that, though a sort of filial tenderness
has precluded the use of petulant language, he is by no means
slow to, mark his opposition on all fitting occasions. Yet with
regard to the sources and essence of the fine arts — those topics
of abstract contemplation, which had nothing to do with an

PI. Rep. B. X.

52 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

Utopian police — the precious and prolific hints of Plato, as we
have already endeavoured to show, were not lost upon the
* intellect,' * whose brightness he had early discovered, and ge-
nerously held up for applause. Aristotle, whose mind, equally
capacious and aspiring, not only embraced the whole regions of
knowledge, as far as they were then opened up, but likewise
strove to extend their boundaries in every direction, found the
theory of the beautiful a field well adapted for the display of
both its treasures and its powers. To the principles gathered
from the lessons of Plato, or discovered by his own sagacity, he
added a careful and extensive study of the best productions ex-
tant in his day — especially those of the Epic and Dramatic
muses — and blended the rules of art, thus learned from artists,
with the dictates of intuitive taste, so nicely and ingeniously,
that it is often difiicult to distinguish, in his criticisms, between
the results of induction and the promptings of original thought.
Would that we had more of them upon which to make the ex-
periment ! Among the many regrets occasioned by the ravages
of the arch- destroyer, we know none more keen than that which
arises from the extinction of the greater portion of Aristotle's
critical writings. Of too many Time has spared nothing but
the titles. Even from these, however, we can conjecture the
nature of our loss. Though assured from what we still possess
that these perished treatises must have been strewed all over
with gems of thought, dug out of a deep vein of comprehensive
wisdom, yet we perceive, if not an exclusive attention, at least
a decided preference, assigned to dramatic poetry. Nor is it
difiicult, considering the circumstances of Athenian life at that
period, and the stage at which the art of criticism had then ar-
rived, to account for this peculiarity. The splendid genius and
incessant exertions of their dramatic poets, combined with other
causes, had inflamed the people of Athens with a passion for the
drama, which the noblest minds contended, with all their power,
at once to stimulate and satisfy. The nearer the dramatic art
drew towards perfection, the higher rose the demands which
were made on its resources. There grew up, by little and little,
among the Athenian public, a sort of practical criticism, that
pronounced upon the poetic faults and excellencies of the prize-
competitors, and that was extended to all the aids and ornaments
of their poetry, — to the music, the painting, and those other de-

* The < intellect' or ' mind' of his school was the title by which
Phato was wont to distingiusU Aristotle.

•1831. Greek Philosophij of Taste. 53

corations, vvhicli gave increased distinctness and vivacity to the
business of the scene. It may well be credited that the artists
subjected to this criticism would not, at first, be always quite
aware of the rules which determined their fate. In truth, the
earliest judgments of this description were probably formed ac-
cording to the mere impression made by a dramatic work on the
sensibility of the audience, who would take small pains to ana-
lyze such an impression, or to reason with themselves upon the
grounds of it. But as the whole business of the Greek Drama
was — as it always will be among a lively and imaginative people
— an affair of national importance, the philosophers now inter-
posed. That widely-diffused, but often capricious sensibility,
which animated the great mass of Athenian spectators in the
theatre, they at last began to mould into the shape of axioms
and precepts ; and Aristotle mounted the chair of dramatic
criticism, from which, if we regard the essence of things rather
than their fluctuating forms, he has in fact never been deposed.
Holding human nature — never better understood by any human
intellect — steadfastly in view, and bringing those Platonic, and
other principles, to Avhich we have already alluded, into their
full operation, he framed a code, whose fragments alone — and
we have nothing more remaining — compose the capital articles
of taste, and the elements not only of dramatic, but of universal
criticism. Whatsoever views the different parties of the critical
profession may have followed in their examinations of the
Aristotelian theory, by whatsoever prejudices they may have
been impelled, and however far the results of their labours may
have been certain or ingenious, still have Aristotle's maxims ever
furnished a clew, by which men have conducted their researches
into the essence, objects, and instruments of the fine arts ; they
have been the rubric of wider philosophic disquisitions ; and are
thus so inextricably intertwined with the history of taste, that
the study of them, at the fountainhead, is indispensable for
any one, who seeks to cultivate, in theory or practice, the
tempting domain of the beautiful.

In the great work on Rhetoric— great, we mean, in the highest
acceptation of the term — in that golden work, wherein every
true orator will find his own image, and which ought, therefore,
to be devoutly studied by all who aim at the renown of oratory,
— and especially in the third book, of which style is the more
immediate subject, there is much that belongs to the philosophy
of taste ; but the chief repository of Aristotle's critical doctrines
is the fragment on the art of poetry, well known under the name
of his Poetics. A fragment that most acute and admirable trea-
tise certainly is — but a fragment resembling some immaculate

54 Greek Philosophy of Taste, Sept,

Torso of antique statuary, as full of traces of the primeval beauty
of the whole, as of the lamentable marks of mutilation and de-
facement. Neither its imperfect form — sufficiently accounted
for by Strabo's curious narrative of the adventures that befell
Aristotle's writings — nor the confused arrangement of some of
its chapters, which it would require the stroke of a fairy wand
to restore to a perfectly satisfactory order — nor the laconic bre-
vity, and enigmatic darkness of much of its expression — a dark-
ness resulting partly from the peculiar mode in which the wri-
ter's thoughts are connected, partly from an uncommon usage
of words, but mainly from the characteristic compression of su-
perabundant mind and knowledge into narrow limits — should
deter from the frequent perusal of a work, which forms a com-
plete Manual of Taste. That it is replete with difficulties, and
that the style is more than commonly elliptical — though we can-
not fall in with the vulgar notion, supported with some strangely
feeble arguments by Hermann, that we have in the Poetics mere-
ly the prospectus of a larger work, or a series of heads for lec-
turing— we seek not to deny. But, concerning the latter objec-
tion, without going the length of the enthusiastic Heinsius, who
characterises Aristotle as etiam in dicendo divinus, we acknow-
ledge that the conciseness of the Aristotelian style has never
diminished the pleasure with which we read even the most bro-
ken passages. He is an arid writer — a cramp writer — often a
rugged writer — and yet he is an amusing and interesting writer.
In gazing at his pupil Alexander, who would have regarded the
chariot of the conqueror ? and in pondering the deep sense of
Aristotle, who cares about its vehicle ? We give up the gauds of
rhetoric for the jewel of philosophy, the shape of eloquence for
its substance, the body for the soul. Nor has the cold severity
of Aristotle's style had any eifect upon his taste. He writes
methodically, reasons almost mathematically, hui feels poetically.
You see that he could not have been a poet himself — we say
this despite his Pcean^ and the Peplus which many have ascribed
to him — but that he well knew the stuff that poets are made of.
There are no bursts of emotion, no fits of laudatory transport,
no ecstasies, but you discern that a heart of sensibility may lie
beneath a wintry exterior, that there are thoughts too profound
for words, and that the most ardent lover need not be the loud-
est. His principles are poetry in the abstract ; and granting the
full charter of poetry, his code allows her to impose upon the
imagination, as far as the imagination, like a prodigal, will con-
sent, for its own pleasure, to be imposed upon. By poetry —
nay, to a certain extent, by all the fine arts — it is our interest
to be cheated, and it is their duty to cheat us. * The critic,*

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste, 55

says Mr Twining-, in the spirit of a remark which was made by
Gorgias long- before, — * the critic who suffers his philosophy to

* reason away his pleasure, is not much wiser than a child, who

* cuts open his drum, to see what is within it, that causes the

* noise.'

There are two other passages, in English classics, each con-
ceived in the true vein of the author's mind, with which we
shall dismiss these loose observations on the greatest of the an-
cient critics. * Aristotle,' remarks Fielding, in his Amelia,

* is not so great a blockhead as some take him to be who have

* never read him.' — * For my part,' writes Mr Gray, in a letter
to Dr Wharton, * I read Aristotle, — his Poetics, Politics, and
' Morals ; though I do not well know which is which. In the

* first place, he is the hardest author by far I ever meddled with.
' Then he has a dry conciseness, that makes one imagine one is

* perusing a table of contents rather than a book ; it tastes for all

* the world like chopped hay, or rather like chopped logic ; for he

* has a violent affection to that art, being in some sort his own

* invention : so that he often loses himself in little trifling distinc-

* tions and verbal niceties ; and, what is worse, leaves you to ex-

* tricate him as well as you can. Thirdly, he has suffered vastly

* from the transcribhlers, as all authors of great brevity necessarily

* must. Fourthly and lastly, he has abundance of fine uncommon

* things, which make him well worth the pains he gives one. —

* You see what you are to expect from him.'

The successor of Aristotle, in the ranks of criticism as well as
in the school of Peripatetic philosophy, was his favourite pupil
Theophrastus. This brilliant writer, whose very name, accord-
ing to the popular tradition, denotes the vigour of his eloquence,
was not content ' to trace,' in a work by which he is well known,

* each herb and flower that sips the morning dew ;' he delighted
also to cull the flowers of literature, and to judge their fra-
grance when steeped in the dews of Castalie. We regret that
his contributions to the philosophy of taste — such as the treatises
on Comedy, on Diction, and others of like argument — have pe-
rished ; not so much, however, on account of the matter, which
was probably but a faithful reflection of the Aristotelian light,
as for the sake of the enei'getic and captivating style, in which
he must have set forth the dictates of his master. Compare
them on ground which admits of a fair comparison — the minute
portraitures of passion, for example, where Aristotle, in the
second book of his Rhetor ic^ is closely pursuing the method of
induction, with the pictures of human nature contained in the
famous Characters of his disciple. Full and faithful as the
finishing of Aristotle is, who does not feel its inferiority to the

56 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept,

dramatic plctiircsqueness, the warm colouring, the speaking life,
of the portraits drawn by Theophrastus ? What a feast should
we have had in his critique on Aristophanes !

We fear that certain chronological objections must debar us
from including a celebrated scholar of Theophrastus in the list
of Greek critics whose works are extant. Had the case been
otherwise, the name of Demetrius Phalereus — the ultimus Atti^
corum of Tully and Quintilian — would give an interest, scarcely
due to its intrinsic claims, to the dissertation upon style which
has often been treated as his production. But even the internal
evidence makes it pretty plain that to the pen of some gramma-
rian, who did not join to that character the more lofty attributes
of the statesman and the orator, must the 7rBp\ Ip/Ayivslag be ascri-
bed. Its writer deserves to be hailed the Pedagogue of criti-
cism. Not that noble thoughts, and traces of extreme refine-
ment are altogether banished from his treatise; but minuteness,
technicality, and a dictatorial tone, are pushed to an extravagant
degree. Though these qualities are common to the whole Gre-
cian school, they are here made too elaborately prominent.
There is a total want of keeping in the distribution of the parts ;
an equal heat, and emphasis, and almost agony of earnestness
exerted, whether the writer has to recommend the analysis of
mind, or the adjustment of a comma — the proper exhibition of
a passion, or the pronounceable length of a period. We recom-
mend the book to martinets ; but it can take no high precedence
among works of philosophy.

At a wide interval of time, Grecian criticism next becomes
important in the hands of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a writer
not, perhaps, much studied, and whose merits have, in con-
sequence thereof, been very differently estimated. He has not
been without zealous partisans, from the patriarch Photius,
whose enormous commonplace-book shames the reading of these
degenerate days, down to that recent Dean of Ch. Ch., whose
viva vox appears to have had so powerful an influence over the
minds of his contemporaries, but whose aversion to employ the
press compels us to exclaim with the poet,

And, on the other hand, detraction has been busy : — disho-
nesty as a historian, theft and quackery in criticism, flatness and
feebleness of style, have been accusations heaped upon his head
by some who write according to knowledge, and by many who
do not. In the character of critic, under which alone we have
to contemplate him, our own judgment is, that the more favour-
able opinion is also the more just, — speaking as we do, from a

1831. Greek PMlosophj of Taste. 57

general survey, and not merely from the work on Synthesis^
which one of his most petulant assailants, according to his own
confession,* has made the sole ground of immoderate abuse.
To us the style of Dionysius appears, not languid, but easy and
agreeable ; his philosophy, if not so searching as that of Aris-
totle, is at least modest and correct; his ear is scrupulously fine,
and his mode of argument often striking and ingenious. Though
his admiration of Grecian genius is perfectly exclusive, it is no
wonder that a Greek, resident at Rome in the Augustan age,
had his natural predilections fanned by jealousy into exclusive-
ness. As much may be said for the kind of clannish ardour that
animates his comparative critique upon Thucydides and the his-
torian of Halicarnassus ; but, while concurring in the preference
given to his townsman, we must mark the weakness, and even
inconsistency,-]- of some of his objections to Thucydides. How-
ever fair and able may be his strictures on the style of that
writer — whose very difficulty is no bad proof of imperfection —
we cannot but perceive more than his usual heat, and less than
his wonted sagacity, wherever Dionysius comes upon the ques-
tion of his general merits. But for specimens of honest, amu-
sing, and instructive criticism, we refer, not only to many pas-
sages in the dissertation upon Synthesis, but likewise to the
Art of Rhetoric, which does such ample, yet not exaggerated
justice to the genius of Homer ; and above all, to the treatise
upon the Attic Orators, which, though partly mutilated, still
presents the most faithful exposition of the merits of Lysias,
Isaeus, and Isocrates, and contains in its latter half a discussion,
memorable for the untranslateahle aptness of its principal term,

* < I speak positively as to the treatise nsg< 2vv^s«<y5 ; as to Iiis other
works, I confess I rely on that which

turns no student pale,

But holds the eel of science by the tail.'
, Remarks on the supposed Longinus, ^r., p. 30.

Compare with this avowal what the same author says at p. 41.

f Compare, for example, his observations, in the letter to Cneius
Pompeius, on the choice of a historical subject, with the language of
his letter to Quintns Tubero. The ci'iticism, in the same letter to
Tubero, on the speeches in Thucydides, especially on the Melian
dialogue, and the oration of Hermocrates, is a signal failure. Nor, in
examining the historian's statement of the causes of the Peloponnes-
sian war, and in blaming the preponderance given to certain events
over others, has Dionysius shown much discernment. How greatly
has he misapprehended the importance of the affair at Pylus I

6s Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept,

upon that wonderful attribute, which Greek alone can express
in a single word, the AuvoTng of Demosthenes.

More than a century after Dionysius, comes Plutarch the
Boeotian, whom, but for his biographies, we should be tempted
to call the Boeotian Plutarch. Biography was his province;
anecdote his forte ; and notwithstanding his faults of style, and
a goodly portion of both confusion and credulity in his narra-
tions, no man was ever better qualified to compose minute and
interesting records of those lives, in which every thing is in-
teresting, however minute. But Plutarch had neither the acute-
ness, nor the impartiality, essential to a critic. Every thing he
heard or read went down into the daybook, which he is reported
to have kept; and then this Boswell of antiquity, without a ray
of internal light, or an original thought of any value, had just
instinct enough to select the doctrines most suited to his own
inclinations. Even in his best critical production, the De Au-
diendis Poetis, all that is good is second-hand ; but seldom has
the daybook played its part so well. Possessed with the more
erroneous and extravagant views of the Platonic philosophy,
and setting up, in his own fancy, for another Plato, he forgot
the fate of Salmoneus. He is handling a weapon far above
his might, that swings round and mutilates himself. The
philosophy, which he took on trust, filled him with preju-
dice; and the prejudice, which he mistook for taste, made him
an imitative snarler rather than a critic. His criticism of every
kind is only prepossession. As a bigoted Boeotian, incensed
at some passages, in which Herodotus is forced to say hard
things of his countrymen, he wrote an essay to prove the ma-
lignity of that historian, which proves nothing but his own ; —
as a would-be Platonist, who thought it a fine thing to wor-
ship Socrates, he echoed the common cant against the author
of the Clouds^ and made Aristophanes the subject of a beautiful
display of justice and discernment. A better criterion between
the critical merits of Dionysius and Plutarch cannot be found
than in the manner in which each has written on the ancient
comedy. While Dionysius examines it with caution, and ex-
tracts with cool sagacity the character of its peculiarities,
Plutarch breathes defiance in the outset, shuts his eyes, levels
his brazen front, and rushes like a mad bull against a wall — to
be stunned by the concussion, and overset in the rebound.

From the petulance that slandered the father of history, and
the rashness that shattered Plutarch on the rude strength of the
old Comedy, we pass to close the line of the chief Grecian critics
with Longinus. But the few remarks we mean to oifer on the
merits of this author must be preceded by some discussion of

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 59

doubts recently started, as to the authenticity of the treatise con-
cerning the Sublime.

British scholars have not been so prone as their foreign brethren
to literary scepticism — a term under which we cannot compre-
hend such magnificent efforts in the cause of truth as Bentley's
demolition of Phalaris's Letters, and of certain other spurious
performances. But abroad, the spirit of doubting for doubt's
sake, one phasis of the spirit of out-Heroding, has been the source
of many theories more curious than creditable. From France,
in the first instance, and with more authority from the adopting
wits of Germany, came — not that question as to the separate
authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, which is of ancient date
and considerable difiiculty — but that wild hypothesis which
makes the indivisible Iliad itself a child of many fathers, and
which has not yet been scourged away from our shores with
sufficient vigour and disdain. It was the German — Wolf, who
led on Beck, Schiitz, and some more of that school, in their
attacks upon speeches of Cicero, dialogues of Plato, and other
victims of Pyrrhonism. And now again appears the foreign
Amati, whose name rejoices in the Latinized rotundity of Hiero-
nymus Amatius, to wrest the treatise ll£^\ "T-^oug from Dionysius
Longinus, and to transfer it to Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
Benjamin Weiske, too, the latest editor of the treatise, is art and
part in the robbery, though too judicious to concur in the trans-
fer. Nor are we without Hieronymians of our own. Dr Parr
assented with an awful nod ; but as it was given in the Bur-
leigh style, it may be answered with a shake of equal gravity.
And, lastly, the anonymous writer of the ' Remarks' before
us, offers battle under the same ensign. We shall accept the
challenge of these heroes — that is of Amati, Weiske, and
Anonymous — considering first the foundation-arguments of
Amati, and next the slight additions made by his two follow-
ers; and shall reason the matter, not only rather closely, but
also in a spirit as rare, perhaps, in literary as in legal contro-
versy— that of a sincere reliance on the justice of our cause.

Amati draws his chief argument from names. The inscrip-
tion of the Vatican manuscript is AmuatH v Aoyyivov, and on this
' resplendent gem' — fov fulgidissima gemma is what he calls it
— he fastens with avidity. ' There,' cries he, * is the opinion

* of the copy- writer; not — this is the work of Dionysius ^ otherwise

* called LonginuSf but this is the work of Dionysius, or of Longinus,

* — implying the transcriber's doubt as to the true authorship.

* The classical expression for the former meaning would be Amualou

* Tou x«i Aoyyivou.' We should like to know how this critical signor

60 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

translates the words v-\'OVi r\ iSaSowj in the beginning of the second
section of the treatise itself, if not by an ' otho'wise called,' deno-
ting two terms for the same thing. But even were the simple
conjunction bad Greek, who ever heard that copy-writers
were confined to classical expression? Gentlemen of that class
have not commonly been purists. Besides, the Parisian MS., the
oldest of all, has Aiowa-iou Aoyyivou in the beginning, and from
the same hand,* Aiomaia y) Aoyyivou subjoined to the index — a
pretty good proof that the transcribers at least held these phrases
to be of identical import.

But still further of the name. * The neglect of the conjunc-

* tion v,' says Amati, ' has procreated that horrible monster of

* an appellation — Dionysius Longiniis. Who, that knows any

* thing about ancient names, will endure a Greek with a double

* proper or personal name ? If the Greeks of later times indulged

* in more names than one, they took them, after the Roman
' fashion, from their families, countries, or personal qualities.

* Dionysius is not a family-name, but a proper or personal name.
' Longinus is also a proper name, not an, agnomen, or a cognomen.

* As the son of Cassius, he could not have been called any

* thing but Cassius Longinus. Suidas enrolls him under the
' letter A ; not A, as he otherwise should have done, among se-
' veral Dionysii, whom he enumerates. Eunapius, Photius,

* Zosimus, as many as mention the sophist of Palmyra, call him

* Longinus only : no one calls him JDionysiics Longinus. Since,
' then, Longinus was never Dionysius, who is the Dionysius to

* whom the writer of the inscription Aiomalou ri Aoyyivou, though

* with some hesitation, assigns the work in question ?'

Now for our categorical replies. L That Dionysius Longinus is
a double proper name, denied. Dionysius, the Greek name, is the
one proper or personal name: Cassius Longinus, are Roman names
oi gens and/amilia. The full name of our author is Dionysius Cas-
sius Longinus .f that is, he received in infancy the Greek name of
Dionysius, and afterwards added to it the Roman appellations,
according to a common custom among the Greeks of that period ;
either because he was under the patronage of the house of
Cassius Longinus, which appears from Plutarch, Suetonius,

* There is yet a third inscription on this codex, with Aioyv(7-iov »
Aoyyt'vov, but apparently added by a recent hand. — Weiske's note on
the discrepance between the two oklcr inscriptions is too silly for
"notice.

f See tlie Dissertation by Ruhnkcn, under the name of Schardam,
De Vita et Scriptis Longini.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 61

Tacitus, and Juvenal, to have been one of considerable eminence,
or because from it his ancestors had formerly obtained the
citizenship. 2. What does Amati know about the father of
Longinus ? No relations of his, except Phronto, his uncle, and
Phrontonis, his mother, are expressly mentioned. But, granting
that his father bore the family names of Cassius Longinus, would
he not have a proper or personal name prefixed to them ? And
would not that respectable, though unnoticed personage's son,
be in like manner distinguished ? In Suetonius, B. iv. 24,
Amati will find mention of Lucius Cassius Longinus, whose
designation he may compare at his leisure with that of Diony-
sius Cassius Lo7iginus. 3. Is it so uncommon for Suidas, and
similar compilers, to notice a person under his family name, with-
out regard to his personal appellation ? Why, the Lucius Cassius
Longinus, above alluded to, becomes simple Cassius Longinus a
few pages further on in Suetonius, who found that Caligula could
understand him under the still barer indication of ut a Cassia
cavereL Our own usage is of that nature. We say Shakspeare,
Otway, Dryden, Rowe : and though we all remember William
Shakspeare, and glorious John, who recollects or quotes the Chris-
tian names of Rowe or Otway ? 4. It is very true, that Longinus
is called Dionysius only in the title of the Treatise on Sublimity,
and that he is elsewhere named Cassius Longinus^ or inversely,
Longimis Cassius ;* or, as is most frequently the case, simply
Longinus ; but this fact allows of easy explanation. Rome, the
capital of the world, was in his day the fountain of honour ; a
Greek would naturally be proud of his Roman name, and be
apt to drop his Hellenic designation ; which would thus be some-
times altogether lost, and sometimes, as in the instance befoi'e
us, be preserved only by that sort of vague tradition, or in those
perishable records, from which the penman of the Parisian MS.
must have learned the name of Dionysius.

Hieronymus next argues, that ' the very style and mode of

* expression in the work on Sublimity, — so grand, masculine,

* and chastened — so remote from the nerveless and sophistic style

* of the age of Aurelian — vindicates the claim of the Augustan

* era.' We answer, that if there be a style distinctly stamped
with the character of the silver age, if there be a style which,
with great liveliness and energy, merits less than another the
epithet * chastened,' it is precisely the style of this treatise.
That is, we suppose, one reason why Weiske considers it unfit
for the perusal of Tyros ; and therefore, likewise, it is that we

* By Suidas.

62 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept*

\vonder at its substitution for Sophocles in the course for Fellow-
Commoners at the University of Dublin. Its superiority to other
writings of the third century, proves merely that the author was
the greatest genius of that period, a position, with regard to
LoDginus, which is confirmed by every thing we hear of him.

The long interval of time between Longinus and that Cfecilius,
who flourished at Rome under Augustus, and to whose work
on the Sublime there is an allusion in the opening of this disser-
tation, supplies Amati with another argument. He affirms that
such an allusion would be made only by a contemporary of
Csecilius, and that the word avaa-fcoTrov/idvoig, used with reference
to the writer and his friend Terentianus, must denote their
inspection at a hooksellefs stall of Csecilius's treatise on its first
publication. So, then, an author never refers to any work, on
the same subject with his own, that is more than 200 years old !
and Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, and Lucian, knew
nothing of the meaning of Greek words ! We can tell Hierony-
mus, that one of the unquestioned writings of this very Lon-
ginus, as we learn from Suidas, was upon another topic previ-
ously handled by that very Csecilius, on whose footsteps, there-
fore, he seems to have been fond of treading ; and that avaano-
7rovf/.Bvoii, according to the great masters of language above enu-
merated, must signify a close inspection — a through-and-through
examination — and not the rapid and perfunctory perusal of a
new book exposed upon a stall.

There is some strength, however, in Amati's remark, that an
allusion, towards the end of the treatise, to the ' peace of the
' world,' is more applicable to the age of Augustus than to that
of Aurelian. Weiske repeats this observation, and the anony-
mous echoer of both dilates on it with vehemence. But, sup-
pose the passage to have been written before the Oriental wars
of Aurelian commenced, — in that case Longinus, neglecting the
Gothic tumults, might be at liberty to speak of a general peace.
There was at least — and that is the main point to urge — at that
period no war which called great spirits into action — no grand
struggle against the encroachments of despotism— no struggle
such as nursed the genius of Demosthenes. While on this pas-
sage, too, which occurs among the famous sentences on the
decline of eloquence, we may observe that these sentences could
scarcely be written at Rome in the Augustan age, when the
voice of Cicero — of an orator so extolled by the author of them
— had not long ceased to thunder in the forum ; and when, the
decent appearances of freedom being still maintained, and even
its spirit sometimes flashing forth, it would have been somewhat
too strong to speak of a habitual and hopeless servitude.

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste* 63

Amati continues : * that among many authors cited in the trea-

* tise Us ft "T^l/oyj, not one is found postei-ior to the Augustan age ;

* that Suidas, under the article Longinus Cassius, makes no men-
' tionof this treatise; and, as the weightiest, in his own estimation,

< of all his arguments, that two dissertations upon Synthesis,
' noticed in the treatise as productions of the same pen, are no-

< where else ascribed to Longinus, whereas one such dissertation

* exists among the critical writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus.'
We answer to the first position, that, were it true, the fact might
well be accounted for by that passionate love of ancient science
and genius, which procured for Longinus, according to Ruhn-
ken's right reading of Porphyry, the epithet f iAa^^aroj — but, that
it is a false position, inasmuch as Ammonius is alluded to — un-
questionably, since the allusion is made in connexion with the
name of Plato, — that Ammonius Saccas, who, in the year of
Christ 232, opened a school of Platonic philosophy at Alexan-
dria, and who had the honour to number Longinus, as well as
Plotinus and Origen, among his disciples. Even were we to
admit that a former Ammonius — the Delphian teacher of Plu-
tarch— is meant, his date likewise is a century and a half too
late for either Dionysius of Halicarnassus, or Dionysius of Per-
gamus, to whom Amati and Weiske severally attribute the work
on the Sublime. We insist earnestly on this fact in favour of the
claim of Longinus, and it will perhaps be enough to satisfy all
who do not acquiesce in the inimitable coolness of Weiske's
annotation—' another Ammonius must be sought for' — though he
hints not how or where we are to find him. To the second
position we reply, that Suidas, not the most accurate of all man-
kind, after enumerating several works of Longinus, now lost,
ends with na) a?.Xix ttoxxu, which may of course include the trea-
tise YIb^V^T^ovi;, And we meet the third position by remark-
ing, that under the same comprehensive phrase of Suidas, may
lurk Longinus's two treatises on Synthesis, which need not be
resolved into one* by the critic of Halicarnassus. It is indeed
sufficient to destroy Amati's claim to penetration, that he should
endeavour, by any argument, to make out a title to the work
upon Sublimity for the latter author. Both Weiske and the
anonymous ally desert him here. Weiske perceives, as well he
might, that in force and spirit, in the whole art of composition, in
the use of technical terms, and in various expressions of judg-

* The ' Remarks' affirm that Dionysius promises another. Had the
author looked at Dionysius wit lihis eyes open, he would have seen
that the promise refers to a treatise on the Sekctioti of words, not on

jS^nthesis,

64} Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept,

ment, the writer on Sublimity widely differs from the Halicar-
nassian Dionysius : and the anonymous maker of ' Remarks,'
enthusiastically exclaiming,

' That strain I heard was of a higher mood !'

observes not unjustly, that ' it is but necessary to read Diony-
* sius's criticism on one of Sappho's odes, and that of this
' author's on another, to be convinced that there was no similar-
' ity in their minds.' To be sure, though the subjects of those
two criticisms are alike, their object is very different ; but were
the arguments deducible from them, and from the date of Ammo-
nias, insufficient, we could show upon other grounds — as, for
instance, by the manner in which Thucydides is spoken of —
that Dionysius of Halicarnassus could not have composed the
work upon the Sublime.

Here ends Hieronymus Amatius. The supplementary argu-
ments of Weiske are not impressive. He says that none of the
ancients impute this work to Longinus, nay, that it is not heard
of at all until the sixteenth century : Anonymous, in the same
tone, desiderates the testimonia veterum, and contrasts the silence
of antiquity with the loud applause of modern times. Now, be-
sides that we may urge the paucity of ancient works, after the
third century, in which such a treatise was likely to be noticed,
we beg to meet this difficulty in the teeth with another : if the
treatise were really composed in the Augustan age, how comes
it to be nowhere distinctly mentioned by Quintilian and other
careful writers, who intervened between that age and the era of
Longinus ? The ' private circulation,' asserted by the anony-
mous essayist, appears to us an untenable hypothesis. We can-
not believe, in spite of its epistolary commencement, that this
work was intended for a mere confidential communication, so as
in that way to escape the notice of kindred spirits. Weiske
further reasons from the passage, already alluded to, on the de-
cline of eloquence, that no one could have spoken with such
force, and such evidence of grief, concerning the loss of liberty,
who did not live close upon its first extinction. But turn to
Gibbon's account of that memorable passage, in which, accord-
ing to him, Longinus, ' instead of proposing his sentiments
' with a manly boldness, insinuates them with the most guarded
' caution, puts them into the mouth of a friend, and makes a
' show of refuting them himself.' What becomes, then, of the
surprising ' force' alleged by Weiske ? It was true, and the
author knew it to be true, that the harvest of great intellectual
productions failed — that eloquence, philosophy, and song, decayed
beneath the widening empire of the Cresars, because the mo-

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 65

lives were gone which free states offer for the cultivation of high
mental powers — because the minds of men were curtailed and
cheated of their fair proportion — because, genius was drooping
over the urn of liberty. Yet, with little of Weiske's force, or
of the anonymous essayist's ' stern republicanism,' the writer of
this treatise impugns the validity of reasoning suggested by him-
self. We have always thought that, though Longinus wrote the
work on the Sublime most probably at Athens,* he must have
retouched the passage alluded to while a resident at the court of
Palmyra. We can imagine the royal secretary softening some
sentiments to please the eye of a mistress; but we cannot ima-
gine the Athenian teacher even obliquely depreciating freedom
within the very precincts of her ancient reign.

Weiske will not believe that the author of this book could
condescend to write, as Longinus undoubtedly did, about the me-
trical doctrines of Hephaestion, and such like trivialities. In-
deed ! Did this objector never hear of works upon grammatical
minutiae by Cicero and Caesar? — for we suppose him to have
been ignorant of Mr Fox's strictures on the N paragogicum.
The inaptitude of great minds for little matters is a doctrine
which Weiske and the author of the ' Remarks' will hardly es-
tablish, even though the latter brings Seneca and Bacon to sup-
port him. We care little for authority on a question long ago
decided by experience. ' But the unimpeachable fragments of

* Longinus,' continues Weiske, ' preserved by Eusebius and

* Porphyry, while they exhibit proofs of learning and acuteness,
' by no means display that oratorical energy, and vehement admi-

* ration of great writers, by which the author of the treatise liefi
' "T^ovg was entirely transported.' The obvious answer is, that
the subjects of these fragments are not such as to admit of ora-
torical energy or enthusiastic expressions of delight.

To the arguments of Amati and of Weiske, their anonymous
follower adds little that is strictly original. ' In the 7th section
of the treatise,' he says, * we are told that it is noble to despise

* riches, honours, popularity, dominations, and whatever else has

* much outward show : a sentiment much better suited to a stern

* and disappointed republican than to Zenobia's secretary.' We
have already touched upon another passage of imputed republi-
canism, and the argument had better be let alone, while there

* A passage in the fragment of his letter to Porphyry warns his cor-
respondent ' not to expect from him any thing new, nor any excerpt
' from his former writings/ on account of the difficulty of finding an
amanueusls at Palmyra.

VOL. LIV. NO. evil. E

66 Greek Philosophy of Taste. Sept.

is nothing better to found it on than a homage in disguise to
liberty, and a scrap of ethical commonplace. But again, ' it is

* to be observed, that according to Joannes Siceliota, Longinus
' was so occupied by teaching as to have no time for composi-

* tion.' This argument from one who seems not to object to the

* long catalogue of his works furnished by Ruhnken,' with

* most of the notices taken from Suidas !' If Longinus found
time for the composition of other works, what was to hinder his
finding time for one particular treatise? The authority of
Joannes Siceliota is allowed to be of small value, but, rate it as
highly as you please, it would be somewhat hard to show the
necessity for its literal interpretation.

The ' Remarks' assume, that the inscription of the Parisian
MS. is the sum total of the external evidence in favour of Lon-
ginus. What shall we say, then, to the general character of
Longinus by contemporary, or nearly contemporary authors ?
Was ' THE CRITIC,' or ' the critic of critics' of Porphyry — ' the

* living library and walking university' of Eunapius — the sub-
ject of the proverb xara, Aoyyivov k^Iveiv, which was of no less
import than * to judge correctly' — was such a man not likely to
compose a treatise that evinces an ample store of literary know-
ledge, and an intimate acquaintance with the principles of criti-
cism ? Did not the ' Remarks' deny the genuineness of the 20th
section, we should also request their author to compare the
minute critique therein contained upon a passage of Demos-
thenes's oration against Midias, with the fact, known from Sui-
das, that Longinus wrote a critical diatribe upon that famous
oration : — and the argument, however weak with him, will
have weight with other people. Above all, we would press the
external evidence to be derived from the recognised fragments
of Longinus, which appear to us in a light very different from
that under which they were viewed by Weiske. Of these frag-
ments, eight in number, at least five are demonstrably authen-
tic. The fifth is allowed by Weiske himself to be worthy of the
author of the Tlsfi "T-^ougy and throughout them all we have
observed a remarkable agreement in expression with that trea-
tise ; — the same use of late words — the same uncommon mixture
of liveliness and modesty — the same occasional imitation of the
Demosthenean style and diction. Let us finish with a piece of
internal evidence that makes strongly for Longinus, and is con-
clusive against the Augustan age. We mean that there are
forms of expression in the work on the Sublime, which a discri-
minating scholar will at once perceive to have the mark of the
third century upon them. Prior to that period, some of its
words and phrases could not have been employed ; at least if

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste, 67

they wei'e employed by a writer of the Augustan era, it must
have been in a strange anticipating spirit, which consigned
them, after a single exhibition, to the slumber of many genera-
tions. But if this argument fixes the treatise to the third cen-
tury— who but Longinus — as characterised by those of the same
period — could have been its author ? We rejoice in believing him
the man. Although Amati protests that he was 'nearly killed
' with joy' at thinking he had discovered for this work a different
paternity, we shall still delight in deeming it the offspring of
Aurelian's victim and Zenobia's friend.

For the very life and adventures of Longinus illustrate the
spirit of the treatise. The extensive travels, and many different
teachers of his youth — recorded in the proemium of his book
de Finibus, preserved by Porphyry — will account for an origi-
nality of method in some particulars, and an independence of
sentiment in criticism, which designates as the author, one
who must have imbibed, from the hesitations of the learned,
and the disputes of the wise, the salutary principle of Horace,

NuUius addictus jurare in verba magistri.

A conspicuous blemish, already adverted to, might well arise
from the courtly habits of Longinus in his later years, — the
results of that unfortunate, but too natural ambition, which
tempted him to forego a station of literary eminence for one of
political distinction. And, while something both in the tone
and minuteness of the precepts, with which this work abounds,
breathes the air of the School, there is withal an elevation of
feeling, thought, and language, a force of reasoning, and a
splendour of imagery, that almost compel us to place the School
at Athens. It is only here and there that pedantry, the beset-
ting sin of professional instructors, has produced some faults of
undeniable affectation. With these, however, the writer of the

* Remarks' takes prompt measures. Not for nothing does he
labour to prove that the treatise was as anonymous* as his own
essay, and was intended by the ' Great Unknown,' who com-
posed it, for a mere ' confidential communication.' Hence, it
seems, it must follow that ' whatever is ex rhetorum officinis, or

* even smells of their shop, would scarcely find place in such a

* communication.' He trusts, therefore, that * some future

* editor will be of opinion that the long disquisition upon figures

* In this notion, after all, he only follows the transcriber of the
Codex Laurentianus, whose inscription is 'Aimv/nov. The disbelievers
are welcome to all the support which this manuscript can yield them.

68 Greek Philbsophy of Taste. Sept.

* mav, like the Sibyl's books, be greatly diminished in bulk

* without any diminution of its value ; and above all, that he will

* expunge the remarks on the preternatural union of the two
' prepositions.'* Smash go, upon this principle, the 19th, 20th,
21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, 27tl), 2Sth, 39th, and 40th sections, with
sundry parts of other chapters, while a violent transposition is
enforced upon the arrangement of many that are left. In short,
every thing must be sacrificed that appears hostile to the ' pri-

* vate-circulation' hypothesis, or that is above the comprehen-
sion, or displeasing to the taste of its author. Damno quod non
intelligo is one of his most frequent pleas ; but he is mistaken in
supposing that manuscript authority will be rejected on such
grounds. We have no more affection than he has for the criti-
cism on th,e ' two prepositions,' but we have a right to consider
this, and (|'ther instances of puerile refinement, as favourable to
the authoi'ship of Longinus — the subtleties of the rhetorical
professor reappearing in the treatise addressed to a friend.
Moreover, the cashiered chapters upon figures, though trifling
enough if taken by themselves, deserve a better character when
viewed .is parts of a practical system, whose object it is to im-
part a full knowledge of all methods by which an elevation of
style is attainable.

To this remark we shall attach a final observation on the
treatise, in the authenticity and genuineness of which we have
at so much length asserted our faith. Elevation of style — the
Greek "T^^oj hoyov and the Latin altitudo styli — is the true topic of
the work. We have fallen into the ordinary parlance about ' su-
' blimily' and ' the sublime ;' but we must beg these words to be
understood, with reference to Longinus, in their real etymolo-
gical force. Any thing that raises composition above the usual
level, or infuses into it uncommon strength, beauty, or vivacity,
comes fairly within the scope of Jiis design. His "T-^og must not
be measured by modern notions of sublimity. From a miscon-
ception f of this matter has proceeded Dr Blair's censure of
Longinus. Dr Blair had no title to condemn Longinus for the
treatment of his subject, upon any other conception of the sub-
ject than that entertained by Longinus himself. ' Remarkable

* Alhiding to the criticism in section x upon Homer's words IttIk

ittvetroto (pifcyTeii.

f And from worse than a misconception — from a neglect of the orl-
gmal, and a fond rehance on the versions by Philhps and Boileau —
comes his strange allusion to Sappho's ode, in the tenth section of
Longinus, as a specimen of the ' merely elegant.'

1831. Greek Philosophy of Taste. 69

* and distinguisliing excellence of composition,'* which Blair
esteems an improp&i' sense of the ' sublime,' agrees exactly with
the five sources of TiJ-oj enumerated by Longinus, and with his
descriptions of it — for he avoids definition — scattered over the
work. Of these descriptions some are more strong than others ia
expression, but we do not see that they will not all apply to fine
composition ; not that species of fine composition against which
Johnson warns juvenile authors, but the forcible and animated
style, which it is the aim and triumph of all great writers and
speakers to attain. And herein, indeed, lies the extreme utility
of the treatise, that it embraces not merely a single branch of
good composition, concerning the principles and extent of which
metaphysicians are by no means agreed ; but a general survey
of the best modes of producing by style a great effect and dura-
ble impression — a subject in which all persons of intellectual
ability and ambition are interested. The admirers and emula-
tors of classic excellence, however they may slight some of the
names and works that have been noticed in this article, have
no excuse for neglecting the critical lucubrations of Aristotle,
or of him whom, in defiance of foreign and domestic scepticism,
we shall continue to call Longinus.

Art. III. — Attempts in Verse, by John Jones, an old Servant ;
ivith some Account of the Writer, written by himself; and an
Introductory Essay on the Lives and Works of Uneducated Poets.
By Robert Southey, Esq., Poet Laureate. 8vo. London:
1831.

N editing the poems of Mr John Jones, which are, with modest
propriety, entitled his ' Attempts in Verse,' Mr Southey
has probably been actuated by the same amiable feelings which
induced him, many years ago, to throw the shelter of his eminent
name over works of far higher excellence, and to introduce to
the world the previously neglected poems of Henry Kirke White.

* Our old translators seem to have taken a right view of the matter,
and one quite opposed to Dr Blair's. The title of the most ancient ver-
sion is, ' The Height of Eloquence, written by Dionysius Longinus ;
' rendered into English from the original, by John Hall, Esq. London :
' 1652.' Next we have ' Longinus' Treatise of the Loftiness or Ele-

* gancy of Speech ; translated into English by J. P. G. S. London : 1 680.'
It is not till 1698 that we come to ' Longinus' Essay upon Sublime,

* translated into English' (translator unknown).

70 Southey's Uneducated Poets. Sept.

In that instance, the public promptly ratified the opinion of the
editor ; and considered the production of the poems, and the
accompanying memoir, to be creditable alike to the judgment
and to the feelings of Mr Southey. It is to be feared that
only a part of this praise can be awarded to this second act of
his editorial patronage. We give him credit for having been
solely impelled by the desire to do a good-natured action ; and
think, moreover, that he deserves praise for not having been
withheld from such a purpose by the dread of ridicule and
unfair censure. It could be no advantage to Mr Southey to
appear as the Maecenas of so humble a poetaster as Mr John
Jones ; and there have probably been many men of his literary
celebrity who would have feared to incur a compromise of their
dignity by such a step. But after giving due praise to the
motives of Mr Southey, we must take the liberty of demurring
when we come to consider the advisableness of the publication
before us, and some of the opinions which it is found to maintain.
To the poems of John Jones we shall very briefly advert ; for
they owe our notice of them rather to their editor than any
importance of their own. Their author is a servant in a
Yorkshire family, who, hearing that Mr Southey is in the
vicinity of his master's residence, writes to him, requesting that
he may be allowed to send his poems for Mr Southey's perusal,
to which that gentleman good-naturedly consents. The poems
are sent, accompanied by a very creditable letter, in which the
writer, after speaking with becoming modesty of his performance,
asks if it would be ' too contemptible to solicit a subscription,'
for, since, if it were not so considered, he would naturally be
' glad to improve his humble circumstances by such means.'

< This letter,' says Mr Southey, ' did not diminish the favourable
opinion which I had formed of the writer from his first communication.
Upon perusing the poems, I wished they had been either better or worse.
Had I consulted my own convenience, or been fearful of exposing myself
to misrepresentation and censure, I should have told my humble appli-
cant that although his verses contained abundant proof of a talent for
poetry, which, if it had been cultivated, might have produced good
fruit, they would not be deemed worthy of publication in these times.
But on the other hand, there were in them such indications of a kind
and happy disposition, so much observation of natural objects, such a
relish of the innocent pleasures offered by nature to the eye, and ear,
and heart, Avhich are not closed against them, and so pleasing an ex-
ample of the moral benefit derived from those pleasures, when they
are received by a thankful and thoughtful mind, that I persuaded my-
self there were many persons who would partake, in perusing tliem,
the same kind of gratification which I had felt. There were many, I
thought, who would be pleased at seeing how much intellectual enjoy-

1831. Southey's Uneducated Poets, 71

ment had been attained in humble life, and in very unfavourable cir-
cumstances ; and that this exercise of the mind, instead of rendering
the individual discontented with his station, had conduced greatly to
his happiness, and if it had not made him a good man, had contributed
to keep him so. This pleasure should in itself, methought, be suffi-
cient to content those subsci'ibers who might kindly patronise a little
volume of his verses. Moreover, I considered that as the Age of
Reason had commenced, and we were advancing with quick step in
the March of Intellect, Mr Jones would in all likelihood be the last
versifier of his class ; something might properly be said of his prede-
cessors, the poets in low life, who with more or less good fortune had
obtained notice in their day ; and here would be matter for an intro-
ductory essay, not uninteresting in itself, and contributing something
towards our literary history. And if I could thus render some little
service to a man of more than ordinary worth (for such upon the best
testimony Mr Jones appeared to be), it would be something not to be
repented of, even though I should fail in the hope (which failure,
however, I did not apprehend) of aff^ording some gratification to
" gentle readers :" for readers there still are, who, having escaped the
epidemic disease of criticism, are willing to be pleased, and grateful
to those from whose writings they derive amusement or instruction.'

Prefixed to the poems of Jolin Jones is a short memoir by
himself, in the form of a letter to Mr Southey, in which he
describes, simply and naturally, his progress in life, the situations
in which he had been placed, and the difficulties which he had
experienced in acquiring knowledge, and in composing bis
poetical effusions. He says —

< I entered into the family which I am now serving, in January,
1804, and have continued in it, first with the father, and then with the
son, only during an interval of eighteen months, up to the present
hour ; and during which period most of my trifles have been composed,
and some of my former attempts brought (perhaps) a little nearer
perfection ; but I have seldom sat down to study any thing, for in
many instances when I have done so, a ring at the bell, or a knock at
the door, or something or other, would disturb me, and not wishing
to be seen, I frequently used to either crumple my paper up in my
pocket, or take the trouble to lock it up, and before I could arrange
it again, I was often, sir, again disturbed ; from this, sir, I got into
the habit of trusting entirely to my memory, and most of my little
pieces have been completed and borne in mind for weeks before I
have committed them to paper : from this I am led to believe that
there are but few situations in life in which attempts of the kind may
not be made under less discouraging circumstances.'

The circumstances were indeed discouraging, and it would be
illiberal to visit with severity of criticism poems which have been
so produced. Mr Southey says of them, that ' though containing

72 Southey's Uneducated Poets. Sept.

' abundant proofs of a talent for poetry, which, if it had been

* cultivated, might have produced good fruit, they would not be

* deemed worthy of publication in these times.' This is measured
praise ; and leads us to conclude that the Laureate has not
discovered in Mr Jones any indications of genius of a high
order. That a man of defective education, and living in a
menial capacity, should write any thing that can be dignified
with the name of poetry, is a strong presumption of the existence
of poetical talent. But there are many degrees of this talent, from
the mere aptitude for rhyming, to the loftiest rank of imaginative
power; and Mr Jones assuredly has not exhibited any even
uncultivated germs of that ' mens divinior,' which alone can lead
to the attainment of the highest poetical excellence. Education
might have rendered him a pleasing poet; but wft are not
warranted in imagining that, under any circumstances, he
would have been a great one. His poems bear the stamp of-
mcdiocrity.. We see no signs of a vigorous fancy struggling
through defects of expression and of taste, sparkling amidst the
dross with which it is encumbered. His verses seem written
for the most part with veiy respectable correctness and care.
They have perhaps more polish than might have been expected ;
but they w^nt originality and force. Among them are some
which it would be easy to ridicule; but we abstain from the
ungenerous task. Defects of taste should be lightly visited in
one to whom it is highly creditable to have exhibited so much.
As aspecimen, the following may suffice : it is the commencement
of a poem entitled ' Reflections on Visiting a Spring at different

* Seasons of the Year,'

' 'Twas early in summer, and mild was the ray

Which beam'd from the sun on the waning of day ;

And the air was serene, and the leaves on the trees

Were hardly emotion'd, so soft \vas the breeze ;

The birds were iti song- in the wood on the hill,

And softly a murmur arose^from the rill

Which ran through the mead, Aviiere its channel was seen,

By herbage more rude, and more tufted and green ;

The teams, clinking home, had the fallow resign'd,

And Avhistling the ploughmen their cares to the wind,

When, pensive and slow, up the hamlet I bent,

And meeting the stream on its margin I went ;

I stray'd to the spot whence it sprang from the earth,

Most pure in its nature and silent its birth ;

It ran from a mound with green moss o'erspread,

Its birth-place was shaded by shrubs at its liead ;

'Twas onward impell'd by its kindred more strong,

And driven from home it went murmuring along.

1831. Southey's Uneducated Poets. '7.?

In indolent ease on the bank I reclined,

And gazed on the stream, till awoke in my mind

A thought of tlie joys in its windings 'twould yield,

To the birds of" the air and the beasts of the field,

To the web-footed tribe on its surface that ride,

And the bright-speckled trout in its bosom that glide,

To the poor thirsty beggar who drinks in his palms,

And softens the crusts he obtains for his alms ;

To the thrifty old dame, who, with low-bowing head,

Shall search it for cresses, to barter for bread ;

To the youth, who, in groups, on its borders shall play,

And launch their frail barks to be wreck'd in a day ;

To the low in their need, and the higli in their pride,

Who tenant the domes which are rear'd by its side,

And I mentally said, as in^beauty it ran,

" Flow on, thou bright stream, thou'rt a blessing to man."*

But it is not so much to the poems of John Jones, as to the
remarks of Mr Southey, and his Introductory Essay on the
Lives and Works of our Uneducated Poets, that it is our
intention to advert.

This introductory essay is ushered ia with the singular
observation, that ' As the age of Reason had commenced, and
' we were advancing with quick step in the March of Intellect,

* Mr Jones would in all likelihood be the last versifier of his class ;

* and something might properly be said of his predecessors, the

* poets in low life, who, witli more or less good fortune, bad

* obtained notice in their day.' By ' the March of Intellect' in
the above sentence, is meant, we presume, not merely the
progress of scientific improvement, but the more general diffusion
of knowledge among the poorer classes. To find this diffusion
of knowledge spoken of in distasteful terms by Mr Southey, can
surprise no one who is acquainted with the writings of that
gentleman. Yet even to these it must seem extraordinary to
discover such reproachful expressions in a work, the tendency
of which is to encourage, among the working classes, a pursuit
which demands a very high degree of mental cultivation. The
prediction above quoted, that such a diffusion of knowledge is
likely to prevent the future appearance of versifiers in humble
life, is one which we should hardly have thought necessary to
notice seriously, if it had come from a pen of less influence than
Mr Southey's. His proposition, translated into plain unfigurative
language, is, that the more the poor are educated, the less are
they likely to write poetry. In the first place, we disbelieve the
predicted result; and secondly, we say, that if true, it is not a
subject for regret, as it is evidently considered by Mr Southey.
It seems almost a waste of words to confute so untenable a theory

(?4 Southey*8 Uneducated Poets, Sept.

as that education is unfavourable to the developement of poetical
talent. The rare occurrence of uneducated poets, and the wonder
excited by their appearance, — the indispensableness of something
more than the mere rudiments of education to afford to the
incipient poet a competent store of the materials with which
he works, — the fact, that our most distinguished poets have almost
uniformly been men of studious habits, and of various and
extensive reading — of which we have an example in the Laureate
himself — these are circumstances on which it is needless to
enlarge — which, when heard, must be acknowledged, and when
acknowledged, must convince ; and we gladly close this part of
an argument, in which the humblest disputant could gain no
honour by confuting even the editor of the work before us.
Indeed, it can scarcely be imagined that Mr Southey could
seriously maintain such an opinion; and that he must mean
rather, that the poor who receive the advantages of education
will, at the same time, learn to apply their acquirements to more
useful purposes than writing verses. But there is this difficulty
in such a supposition, that a reproach would thereby be cast
upon the practice of versifying, which Mr Southey is very far
from intending ; and it is evident, from the tone of his book, that
he does not contemplate with the pleasure which it ought to afford
to a benevolent mind like his, the prospect of the poorer classes
being inclined to apply the fruits of their extended education to
works of practical utility. We must therefore conclude, that he
does not believe that the condition of the poor will be improved
by such an education as will induce them to apply their acquired
knowledge to purposes which are commonly called useful ; but
that it is better either to keep them ignorant, or to give them
just so much information as will encourage a developement of the
imaginative or poetical part of their nature, without awakening
them, more than can be helped, to any exercise of their reasoning
powers. If this is not what is intended, then the praise
bestowed upon uneducated poets, the encouraging complacency
with which their efforts are regarded, and the sarcastic allusions
to the Age of Reason and the March of Intellect, which is to
arrest the progress of such commendable efforts, are utterly
without a meaning.

But a writer who feels so strongly as Mr Southey, can never,
even when he is least logical, be accused of writing without a
meaning. Mr Southey, both in this, and in other writings in
which his ideas are more distinctly expressed, teaches us that
poetry softens and humanizes the heart of man, while it is the
tendency of science to harden and corrupt it. It would be use-
less to plead that Mr Southey may never have expressed this

1831. Soutliey*8 Uneducated Poets, (J'S

sentiment in these precise words, while he has written much
from which no other inference can be di*awn.

According to this theory, the poor man who has a turn for
versifying is likely to be more moral than one who discovers a
bent for calculation or mechanics; a cultivation of the former
talent will tend to constitute a pious man and a good subject, —
the latter, if encouraged, may too probably lead to republicanism
and irreligion. A labourer may write lines on a linnet, and be
praised for this amiable exercise of his humble talent ; but if he
reads any of the cheap works on science with which the press
now teems, — if he presumes to learn the scientific name of his
favourite bird, — to consider its relation to other birds, — to know
that it belongs to the genus Fringilla, and to ascertain the
marks by which he might distinguish the name of any wandering
stranger of the same tribe that happened to fall within his
notice, — if he does this, then he becomes a naturalist, a scientific
enquirer — and, as such, must fall under the ban of Mr Southey.
Let him apostrophize a flower in rhyme, but let him not learn
its botanical name, or more of its properties than can be extracted
from the Galenical lore of the oldest woman in the parish : He
finds a fossil bone — let him pen a sonnet about it if he pleases ;
but let him beware of consulting a geologist, lest he become a
hardy sceptic ; — doubt if there ever was a deluge, and question
the Mosaic account of the creation. Utterly do we reprobate and
disavow the doctrine, that it is otherwise than beneficial for
minds of every degree to be rendered intimate with the mysteries
of nature, — that the study of nature can be injurious to the
morality and religious faith of any man whose morality and faith
would have been safe without it, — that the faith of the rustic who
believes that the sun moves round the earth, and that the stars
are small lamps, is more devout and pure than that of the same
man would be when informed of the real sublimity of the scene
around him. It is a doctrine of which any illustration is equiva-
lent to a reductio ad dbsurdum. It is very natural that the Poet
Laureate should think well of poetry. Some persons may smile
at such an illustration of a propensity which they may have
thought peculiar to humbler callings — namely, that of attributing
to a production or pursuit many more excellent qualities and
advantages than can be discovered in it by the rest of the world ;
and they may have expected that a very cultivated mind would
have soared above a prejudice of this description. Mr Southey
recommends poetry as eminently favourable to morality, and
considers that every amiable man ' will be both the better and the
* happier for writing verses.' Mr Southey is a celebrated poet,
and is, we believe, at the same time a very pious and amiable

10 Southey's Uneducated Poets, Sept.

man. It is therefore not unnatural that a talent for poetry
should be associated in his luvnd with piety and morality ; but if
he thinks that they ai*e necessarily connected, and that poetry is
naturally conducive to those other more important qualities, he
must attend rather to his own feelings than to the examples
which experience would furnish. It would be an invidious, but
easy task, to form a long list of men richly endowed with'tho
gift of poetry, in whom pure morality and religious faith had
been too notoriously deficient. It is unnecessary to mention
names, for many — and enough — must occur to every reader ;
but we must remind Mr Southey that the brightest name among
the ' uneducated poets' of this empire is that of one whose
imagination and passions were unfortunately often too strong
for the control of his judgment, and to whom the inborn gift of
poetry, which he so exuberantly possessed, far from leading him
into the paths of morality and peace, seem rather to have been
false lights that lured him from them. It is the pi'ovince of
poetry to appeal to the passions rather than to the judgment ;
and the passions are the most erring part of human nature. Mr
Southey does not seem to reckon among possible contingencies
the immoral direction of poetical talent. It is true, the verse-
making rustic may celebrate the simple virtues which poets
associate with rural life, and draw moral lessons from the con-
templation of nature, but he may equally dedicate his muse to
the unhallowed task of lending a baneful interest to violence
and crime. A reverence for antiquity, for social distinctions,
and for the established order of things, are not necessary con-
comitants of an aptitude for verse. Liberty, the watchword
under which rebellion always marches, has a spirit-stirring
sound, especially to young and ardent minds, in which imagina-
tion prevails over judgment ; and the lyre of the poet will echo
as readily to its call as to images of pastoral peace. Mr Southey
must remember that even he once celebrated Wat Tyler.
Anarchy has its laureate as well as monarchy, and the strains of
the former are commonly most popular. A reference to his no-
tice of the uneducated poets whom he has selected for celebra-
tion, will show that their versifying powers were not always
exercised in a commendable manner. Taylor's contests in
ribaldry with Fennor, another rhymer of humble life, were not
creditable to either ; and Bryant seems to have hung his satii-ical
talent m terrorem over his associates, and to have allowed him-
self to be employed by one of them to lampoon the daughter of
a respectable tradesman. We should be glad if it could have
been proved that poetry is peculiarly conducive to morality ; but
we fear it cannot be shown that either the possession of the poeti-

183L Southey's Uneducated Poets. TT

cal faculty, or the perusal of works of that description, is calcu-
lated to ensure this desirable effect. To recommend poetry to the
poorer classes, because there are in existence sundry moral poems
which they would probably find among the least attractive, has
little more sense in it, than to say that religious admonition is the
peculiar attribute of prose, because sermons are written in that
form. Ifc matters not even though it could be shown that the
essentials of poetry are akin to all that is most moral ; for when
we talk of poetry to the uneducated classes, they will think not
of the essence, but only of the form. If the pursuit of poetry
cannot be shown to be necessarily productive of moral benefit
to persons in humble life, still less, we fear, can it be proved
that it is calculated to ameliorate their worldly condition. We
know no instance of any poor uneducated person whose pros-
perity and happiness has been essentially promoted by the de-
velopement of this talent. Six persons of this class are com-
memorated in the volume before us. Taylor the Water- Poet,
Stephen Duck, James Woodhouse, John Bennet, Ann Yearsley,
and John Frederick Bryant — of whom two died mad ; and all
appear to have undergone severe trials, and to have been very
little raised, by the possession of this talent, above the lowly
sphere in which they were born. It is also observable, that all
of them seem to have owed even the precarious prosperity which
they occasionally enjoyed to fortunate accidents, and the chari-
table notice of their superiors in wealth. Bryant owed his ad-
vancement to a song of his own making, which he sang in an
inn-kitchen — Ann Yearsley to the casual notice of Mrs Hannah
More, with whom she afterwards quarrelled — Woodhouse to
the patronage of Shenstone — Bennet to that of Warton — Duck
was patronised by various persons, and at last by Queen Caro-
line, who settled a pension upon him — Taylor was a supple,
ready-witted humorist, well skilled in the art of living at other
men's cost. Such was his proficiency in this art, that he under-
took to travel on foot from London to Edinburgh, ' not carrying
' any money to or fro; neither begging, borrowing, or asking
' meat, drink, or lodging.' This journey, he says, was under-
taken ' to make trial of his friends ;' and we are informed by
Mr Southey that it was not an arduous one, ' for he was at that

* time a well-known person ; and he carried in his tongue a gift

* which, wherever he might be entertained, would be accepted

* as current payment for his entertainment.' To this important
and praiseworthy excursion, of which Taylor published an ac-
count in quaint prose, and quainter doggrel, entitled, ' The

* Pennyless Pilgrimage, or the Moneyless Perambulations of

78 Southey's Uneducated Poets. Sept,

* John Taylor, alias the King's Majesty's Water-Poet,' Mr
Southey devotes twenty-three pages of a small volume.

Our readers will naturally desire to see some specimens of a
work which has attracted so much of the Laureate's attention.
Of the following verses, we will merely say, that their excel-
lence is quite of a piece with the importance of the information
they convey. They describe Taylor's reception at Manchester.

* <' Their loves they on the tenter-hooks did rack,

Roast, boil'd, baked, too-too-much, white, claret, sack ;

Nothing they thought too heavy, or too hot,

Cann followed cann, and pot succeeded pot.

Thus what they could do, all they thought too little,

Striving in love the traveller to whittle.

We went into the house of one John Pinners,

(A man that lives amongst a crew of sinnez's,)

And there eight several sorts of ale we had.

All able to make one stark drunk, or mad.

But I with courage bravely flinched not,

And gave the town leave to discharge the shot.

We had at one time set upon the table,

Good ale of Hyssop ('twas no Esop-fable) ;

Then had we ale of Sage, and ale of Malt,

And ale of Wormwood that could make one halt ;

With ale of Rosemary, and of Bettony,

And two ales more, or else I needs must lie.

But to conclude this drinking aley tale.

We had a sort of ale called Scurvy ale.

Thus all these men at their own charge and cost

Did strive whose love should be expressed most ;

And farther to declare their boundless loves,

They saw I wanted, and they gave me, gloves."
' Taylor makes another excursion " from London to Christ Church,
in Hampshire, and so up the Avon to Salisbury," and this was " for
toyle, travail, and danger," the worst and most difficult passage he had
yet made. These desperate adventures did not answer the purjiose
for which they were undertaken, and he complains of this in what he
calls {Taylorice) the Scourge of Baseness, a Kicksey Winsey, or a
Lerry-Come-Twang.

" I made my journey for no other ends

But to get money and to try my friends. —

They took a book worth twelve pence, and were bound

To give a crown, an angel, or a pound, '

A noble, piece, or half-piece, — what they list :

They past tlieir words, or freely set their fist.

Thus got I sixteen hundred hands and fifty,

Wl)ich sum I did suppose was somewhat thrifty ;

And now my youths with shifts and tricks and cavils.

Above seven hundred, play the sharking javils." '

1831. Southey's Uneducated Poets, "79

' The manner,' says Mr Southey, * in which he [Taylor] pub-

* Hshed his books, which were separately of little bulk, was to

* print them at his own cost, make presents of them, and then
' hope for " sweet remuneration" from the persons whom he had
' thus delighted to honour.' The following passage is quoted
from a dedication to Charles I., in which Taylor says, 'My gra-
' cious sovereign, your majesty's poor undeserved servant, ha-
' ving formerly oftentimes presented to your highness many
' such pamphlets, the best fruits of my lean and steril invention,
' always your princely affability and bounty did express and

* manifest your royal and generous disposition ; and your gra-

* cious father, of ever-blessed and famous memory, did not
' only like and encourage, but also more than reward the barren

* gleanings of my poetical inventions.'

There is nothing extraordinary in this, when we consider
that even much later, men of acknowledged talent were not
ashamed to write fulsome dedications ; but it is a circumstance
degrading to literature, and that part of its history whiciv we
would most gladly forget — and it is pitiable in this instance, to
see a man of no slight cleverness begging in such abject terms.
The fact is, that all the uneducated poets whom Mr Southey has
noticed were, in a more or less degree, literary mendicaiits. They
obtained from private charity that assistance which the public
would not grant. Their productions were not of sufficient value
to obtain remuneration on the score of intrinsic merit, and their
rewards were wrung either from the pity of their benefactors,
or fiom their wondering curiosity at the occurrence of so rare a
monster as an uneducated poet. None of them really enjoyed
the blessings of independence — the proud and happy feeling that
their own exertions were sufficient for their support. Mr Southey
seems to contemplate this state of dependence with peculiar com- \
placency. We are not very sure that he does not consider the \
spirit of the present age too independent, and that it might be \
improved by a gentle encouragement of that spirit of humble 1
servility, which once prompted poor authors to ply rich patrons
with begging dedications, and to look up with trembling hope /
for the casual bounty of those who possessed in abundance the /
good things of this life. The best and happiest times, it would
seem, were those in which the poor begged for sustenance at the
doors of a convent. Those which we call erroneously ' the dark

* ages,' were, it seems, the best times for the advancement of
humble talent. Then a clever boy like Stephen Duck ' would
' have been noticed by the monks of the nearest monastery —

* would then have made his way to Oxford, or perhaps to Paris,

* as a begging scholar — have risen to be a bishop or mitred

80 Southey's Uneducated Poets, Sept.

* abbot — bave done honour to his station, and have left behind
' him good works and a good name.' Those were golden days !
But then came a period which we benighted Protestants still
call that of the Reformation, and Duck, who lived long after it,
fell on harder times — but still not utterly cruel — for there were
yet patrons in the land, and Duck found a royal one ; and ' the

* patronage which he obtained,' says Mr Southey, ' is far more

* honourable to the spirit of his age, than the ternper which may

* censure or ridicule it can be to ours.' Whatever it may please
Mr Southey to consider the temper of our age, we, albeit reck-
oned among the infected, are not disposed to censure or ridicule
the benevolent feelings which may prompt any one to become
the patron of humble merit ; but we do censure that maudlin
spirit of shortsighted humanity, that fritters its beneficence in
temporary and misplaced relief, and would thoughtlessly aggra-
vate misfortune for the sake of indulging sensibility in its sub-
sequent removal. It is the best charity to prevent the necessity
of charitable assistance. Doubtless there is in the charitable
alleviation of distress much that is gratifying to the heart of the
benefactor, and much the contemplation of which is delightful
to an amiable mind. But shall we therefore encourage mendi-
cancy, that the world may teem with moving pictures of pictu-
resque poverty and theatrical generosity to interest the sensibi-
lities of the man of feeling ? True rational humanity would not
willingly see any one dependent upon the capricious bounty of
another. Unable to reverse that general law, which prescribes
labour as the lot of man, it endeavours to direct the labour of the
poor into a channel where they may claim a recompense from
the exigencies of others, and not from their compassion. It
would endow them with a right to receive assistance, instead of
teacliing them to supplicate for alms. Mr Southey would
doubtless be unwilling to encourage idleness and mendicancy;
but there is in reality little difference between encouraging men
not to labour at all, but to depend for their support on the
charity of others, and encouraging them to pursue a species of
labour for which there is no real demand, and from which the
only returns which they obtain are in reality alms, considerately
cloaked under the fictitious name of a reward. We do not deny,
that the public, though in general the best patron, sometimes
awards a too tardy and insufficient recompense to the literary
benefactors of mankind ; and in such instances we deem it right
that the powerful and discerning few should be enabled to direct
the stream of national bounty to the encouragement and reward
of labours which the acquirements and comprehension of the
generality of mankind do not enable them to appreciate. But

1831. Soutbey's Uneducated Poets. 6l

widely different from this truly praiseworthy patronage, is the
disposition to encourage works which are neither beautiful nor
useful, and whose only claim (if claim it can be called) is the
temporary interest they may offer to the curious, and the com-
passionate consideration that they are wonderfully good, for
writings that were produced under such disadvantages.

Experience does not authorize us to regard it as probable,
that the world will be favoured with any poetry of very exalted
merit from persons in humble life and of defective education.
There have appeared among uneducated persons, many instances
of extraordinary capacity for various sciences and pursuits. The
science of numbers, of mechanics, of language, of music, paint-
ing, sculpture, architecture, have all had followers in humble
life, who have discovered a strong native genius for each of these
separate branches of art and learning, and have risen to eminence
in their peculiar line. But poetry is not equally rich in examples
of successful votaries from the ranks of the poor. Not one of
the six writers recorded by Mr Southey, can be regarded as a
successful example; for nothing but the scarcity of such instances
could have preserved them, like other valueless rai'ities, from
the oblivion into which, notwithstanding even the embalming
power of Mr Southey's pen, they are fated at no very distant
period to fall. It would appear, either that habits of manual
labour are unfavourable to poetry, or that a talent for it is less
inborn than acquired, or that it is much affected by external
circumstances, or that a considerable degree of education is
essential to its full developement. To which of these causes we
may attribute the dearth of distinguished poets from the humbler
walks of life, it is not at present necessary to enquire. The fact
of such a paucity is sufficient for our purpose ; and it is an ad-
ditional argument against encouraging the poor and defectively
educated to lend their minds to a pursuit in which the presump-
tion of success is so considerably against them. Unless they
happen to possess such powerful native talent, as it is needless to
encourage and impossible to suppress, they are not likely to pro-
duce such writings as will obtain them advancement and success
— real, unforced, unpatronised success; — the success which arises
from the delight and admiration of thousands, and not from the
casual benevolence of individual patronage.

It might have been supposed, that of all things in the world
which are not immoral, one of the least deserving encourage-
ment was indifferent poetry. Mr Southey nevertheless protests
indignantly against this opinion. 'When,' says he, 'it is laid
* down as a maxim of philosophical criticism, that poetry ought
' never to be encouraged unless it is excellent in its kind — that it

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII. F

83t Southey's Uneducated Poets. Sept.

* is an art in which inferior execution is not to be tolerated — a
< luxury, and must therefore be rejected unless it is of the very

* best ; such reasoning may be addressed with success to cock-

* ered and sickly intellects, but it will never impose upon a

* healthy understanding, a generous spirit, or a good heart.' Mr
Southey, with that poetical tendency to metaphor which some-
times possesses him when he appears to reason, seems to have
written the above passage under the influence of rather a forced
analogy between the digestive powers of the human frame, and
the operations of the mind. If in the above remarks we substi-
tute ' food' for ' poetry,' ' appetite' for ' intellect,' and ' the

* stomach' for 'the understanding,' much of what Mr Southey has
predicated will undoubtedly be true ; since it is certain that a
perfectly healthy person can eat with impunity many kinds of
food that cannot be taken by one who is sickly. It is a sign of
bodily health to be able to digest coarse food which cannot be
eaten by the invalid; and in like manner, according to Mr
Southey, it is the sign of a * healthy understanding' to be able
to tolerate bad verses, which would be rejected by a ' sickly

* intellect.* Mr Southey may very probably have accustomed
himself to talk of poetry as 'food for the mind,' till he has learned
to confound the immaterial with the substantial ; but we must
remind him of one great failure in the parallel on which he
appears to lean. It will not, we suppose, be denied, that the
mind, and especially that faculty which enables us to judge of
the excellence of poetry, requires cultivation, without which it
cannot exercise its functions effectively ; but we have never yet
heard of any such cultivation of the digestive powers. If man
were born as decidedly a criticising and poetry-reading, as he is
an eating and drinking animal, and were likely to possess these
faculties in most perfection in an unsophisticated state of nature,
we should then allow that there would be much force in the
observations of Mr Southey. But the reverse of this is noto-
riously the case. Our power of estimating poetry is in a great
degree acquired. The boy with an innate taste for poetry, who
first finds a copy of bellman's verses, is pleased with the jinglo,
and thinks the wretched doggrel excellent. He soon finds better
verses, and becomes ashamed of the objects of his earliest admi-
ration. In course of time a volume of Pope or Milton falls in
his way, and he becomes sensible of what is really excellent in
poetry, and learns to distinguish it from that which, although not
positively bad, is commonplace and of subordinate merit. Is
this boy's mind, we ask, in a less healthy state at this advanced
period of his critical discernment, than when he thought the
bellman's verses excellent? or has his ' intellect' been rendered

1831. Southey's Uneducated Poets. 83

* sickly' by the dainty fare with which his mental tastes have
latterly been pampered ?

But the encouragement of inferior poetry is, according to Mr
Soiithey, a sign not only of a ' healthy understanding' but of 'a
' generous spirit,' and ' a good heart.' If Mr Southey means
that indulgence towards the failings of others, and a disposition
to look leniently upon their imperfect productions, are the
results of generosity and goodness of heart, we thoroughly agree
with him ; but it is not merely indulgence for which he con-
tends, it is encouragement. Now, though it is impossible to prove
a negative, and it is very possible that the encourager of bad
verses may be at the same time very generous and good hearted,
yet there is no necessary connexion between that practice
and those moral qualities; any more than it is necessarily a
sign of generosity and a good heart to deal only with inferior
tradesmen, and buy nothing but the worst commodities. A person
who should be thus amiably content to buy bad things when he
might have better, would, we fear, be considered a fool for his
pains, even by those whom he permitted to supply him ; and we
cannot think that the encourager of bad poetry would remain
long exempted from a similar censure. It is useless, we might
almost say mischievous, to maintain that any thing ought to
be * encouraged' that is not excellent in its kind. Let those
who have not arrived at excellence be encouraged to proceed,
and to exert themselves, in order that they may attain it.
This is good and praiseworthy encouragement ; but let it be
remembered, that this good purpose cannot be effected but by
mingling with the exhortation to future exertions, an unqualified
censure of present imperfections. This, the only sound and
rational encouragement, is directly opposed to that lenient tole-
rance of 'inferior execution,' which appears to receive the com-
mendation of Mr Southey. Men are encouraged to do really
well, not by making them satisfied with their present mediocrity,
but by exhibiting it to them in the true light, and stimulating
them to higher excellence. Whatever may be speciously said
about the virtues of charity and contentment, we may be assured
that he is no benefactor of the human race who would teach us
to be satisfied with inferior excellence in any thing, while higher
excellence is attainable.

Among the statements which we are told can be addressed with
success only 'to cockered and sickly intellects,' is this, that
poetry is ' a luxury, and must therefore be rejected unless it is
' of the very best.' It is needless to discuss this question at
much length. It may be natural for the lover of poetry to con-
tend that it is something much better and more important than

84 Jones on the Tlicory of Rent. Sept.

a luxury, but it is nevertheless treated as such by the world at
large, and we fear that nothing that can be said will induce the
public to regard poetry in any other light. All the most important
business of life is transacted in prose — all the most important
lessons of religion and morality are inculcated in prose — we
reason in prose — we argue in prose — we harangue in prose. There
were times when laws were chanted, and Orpheus and Am-
phion were, it is believed, poetical legislators, as were almost all
legislators among barbarous people, whose reason must be ad-
dressed through the medium of their imagination. But these
times are past recall ; and we fear, whatever it may be contended
poetry ought to be, Mr Southey must be contented with the
place which it actually occupies. That place is both honourable
and popular; and it will not conduce to its success to claim for
it more than is its due.

In conclusion, we must say, that much as we have differed
from Mr Southey, we have been glad to see that he is inclined
to look with favour upon the mental labours of the poorer classes.
We trust that his agreeable pen will be hereafter exercised in
their behalf; but with this material difference, that instead of
luring them into the flowery region of poetry, he will rather
teach them to cultivate pursuits which are more in harmony
with their daily habits, and to prefer the useful to the orna-
mental.

Art. IV. — An Essay on the Distribution of Wealthy and on the
Sources of Taxation. By the Rev. Richard Jones, A.M.
8vo. London : 1831.

npHis is a book written by a gentleman of respectable attain-
-^ ments. His object, as announced in the preface, is to
correct what he considers the false and erroneous doctrines and
conclusions that have either been embodied in, or engrafted up-
on the theories of Mr Ricardo and Mr Malthus, particularly
the former. But a portion only of this design has been com-
pleted. The first part of the work is all that has hitherto ap-
peared ; but as that treats of a distinct subject, the origin and
progress of Rent, we have presumed to offer a few remarks up-
on it, without waiting for the publication of the remainder of
the work.

We sincerely applaud the pains Mr Jones has taken in his
extensive enquiries with respect to the nature of the rents exist-
ing in different countries and states of society. Such enquiries
have been too much neglected in England ; and we consider it

1831. Jones on the Theory of Rent. 85

as a favourable symptom that they are at length beginning to
attract the attention of scholars and divines. We cannot, how-
ever, say, that Mr Jones has been very successful in his re-
searches; we are not indeed aware that he has stated any thing
that was not already well known to every one who has the
slightest acquaintance with such subjects. His review is ex-
tensive, but superficial. He never, in fact, goes below the sur-
face. He follows closely in the track of others, without ever
insinuating that any one has gone before him. And the conclu-
sions at which he arrives, though sometimes accurate, are, for
the most part, quite foreign to the main object of his work.

The theory of rent expounded by Mr Ricardo, and which Mr
Jones exerts himself to overthrow, must be well known to such
of our readers as pay any attention to topics of this sort. At
all events it will be sufficient here to observe, that Mr Ricardo's
book is one of principle only, and that it is not to be judged of
by a merely practical standard. He does not pretend to give
an exposition of the laws by which the rise and progress of
rent, in the ordinary and vulgar sense of the word, is regulated.
He justly considers that, in the vast majority of cases, the rent
paid by the occupier of a farm to its owner consists partly of a
return for the use of the buildings erected upon it, and of the
capital that has been laid out upon its improvement. This
portion may, and, we believe, does in many cases very much
exceed that part of the rent which is paid for the use of the
soil ; supposing the latter were destitute of buildings, and that
it had not been drained, fenced, or anywise improved. It is
cleai", however, that though these two portions of rent be often
so blended together as to make it impossible to separate them,
they are, in their nature, radically distinct. The former is a
return to, or profit upon capital produced by the labour and in-
dustry of man; while the latter arises from wholly distinct sources;
being derived from that which cost neither labour nor industry
of any sort. It is of the last portion only that Mr Ricardo treats
in his chapter on rent. He was as well aware as Mr Jones, or
any one else, that the rent, the origin and progress of which he
had undertaken to investigate, was not that which is commonly
called rent. But he thought that the progress of sound science
was not likely to be much accelerated by confounding differ-
ent elements in the same investigation ; and that having ascer-
tained the laws which determine the rent paid for the use of
* the natural and inherent powers of the soil,' he would leave
it to others to trace and exhibit the influence of improA'ements,
&e. We think he did right in thus limiting and defining his
subject ; but whether he did right or wrong, he is not to be

86 Jones on the Theory of Bent. Sept.

found fault with because his conclusions do not in all cases
coincide with the results observed by those who consider rent
under a totally different point of view.

Mr Ricardo, and those by whom be was preceded, further
limited their researches to the case of rents paid by occupiers
farming for a profit under a system of free competition ; that is, to
rents as they actually exist in England, Holland, the United
States, and a few other countries. If there be any expressions
in Mr Ricardo's work susceptible of being tortured or twisted
into a different sense, it is one which is totally alien to the
scope and spirit of the book, and which we are well convinced
its author would have been the first to repudiate. Mr Ricardo
did not profess to examine the circumstances which practically
determine the actual amount of rent in any country. This
was no part of his plan. What he really endeavoured to do
was, to show how rent, in the restricted sense already men-
tioned, grew up in a country where the land belonged to nu-
merous proprietors, and was farmed by individuals who, if they
did not obtain the customary rate of profit on their capital,
would resort to some other business.

It may be said, perhaps, that this is a very confined view of
the subject; and that the conditions which limit Mr Ricardo's
investigations exist only in a few countries. But an objection
of this sort is good for nothing ; we may regret, but we are not
entitled to object to Mr Ricardo, that he has not done more
than he actually did. He undertook a certain task ; and the
only question is, did he perform it well ?

In so far, therefore, as respects the grand object of his work,
— the demolition of the theory of rent espoused by Mr Ricardo,
two-thirds of Mr Jones' lucubrations are entirely irrelevant.
His disquisitions about Labour rents, Metayer rents, and so
forth, have as little to do with Mr Ricardo's doctrine as they
have to do with the theory of the tides. Who would object to
an individual writing upon the circumstances which regulate
rent in England, that he had taken no notice of the state of the
cultivators in Greece and Abyssinia ?

We concede, however, that had Mr Jones' disquisitions been
in themselves either very interesting or very instructive, the
circumstance of their being foreign to his main object would
have been of very inferior importance. An account of the con-
ditions under which laud has been occupied in different ages
and countries, would, were it well executed, be a work of great
value and importance. There is not indeed any such work in
the English language. But, judging from the specimen of Mr
Jones' talents now before us, which we feel no disposition to

1831. J ohqq on the Theory of Rent 87

underrate, we do not think that he is the very person to sup-
ply the deficiency.

From the beginning to the end of his book, Mr Jones has
confounded elements that are as distinct as weight and colour.
All who had previously written on the principles which govern
rent, from Dr Anderson downwards, had, however much they
might differ in other respects, always taken for granted that its
amount was determined, under a system of free competition, on
the principle of mutual interest and compromised advantage.
Not so Mr Jones. He calls taxes on the land imposed by the
sovereign, and the sums wrung by taskmasters from the reluc-
tant labour of slaves, rent ; and then sagaciously remarks, that
the existence and progress of such rents ' is in no degree de-

* pendent upon the existence of different qualities of soil, or

* different returns to the stock and labour employed upon each.'
Nothing can be more correct than this conclusion ; and if Mr
Jones will but call squares circles, and circles squares, he will
be as successful in proving that Euclid knew nothing of mathe-
matics as he has been in proving Mr Ricardo's ignorance of
rent.

That taxes on land, or on the produce of the land, have some
analogy to rent, no one can dispute. But to suppose, as Mr
Jones seems to do, that they are identical, is to suppose what
is contradictory and absurd. From the remotest era down to
the present moment, the land of almost every Eastern country
has been regarded as the exclusive property of the sovereign,
who was thus enabled to fix the terras on which it should be
occupied. Speaking generally, it has been held by its imme-
diate cultivators in small portions with a perpetual and trans-
ferable title ; but the holders have uniformly been obliged to pay
to the agents of government a certain portion of the produce :
this portion, too, might be increased or diminished at the pleasure
of the sovereign or his servants ; and has, in almost every case,
been so large as to leave the cultivators little more than a bare
subsistence. The far greater part of the revenue of our Indian
dominions continues to be derived from this source. In Bengal,
and generally throughout India, the gross produce of the land
was divided in nearly equal shares between the cultivators, or
ryots, and the government. * To avoid circumlocution and ob-
' scurity,' says Mr Colebrooke, ' we speak of the ryot as a tenant

* payingrent, and of his superior as a landlord or landholder. But

* strictly speaking, his payment is a contribution to the state, levied

* by officers standing between the ryot and the government.'
(Husbandry of Bengal, p. 53.) The British authorities have
continued this contribution, or land-tax, nearly on the old basis j

88 Jones on the Theory of Rent. Sept,

the portion of the produce of the land claimed by government
being as large now as formerly. It seems to be unnecessary to
seek elsewhere for a satisfactory explanation of the causes of
that poverty in which the cultivators of land in India have
always been involved. The exorbitancy of the government de-
mand has effectually prevented the accumulation of capital in
the hands of the peasantry. They are generally obliged to bor-
row money to buy their seed and carry on their operations, at a
high interest, on a kind of mortgage on the ensuing crop ; and
even if they possessed capital, the oppressiveness of the tax would
hinder them from employing it upon the land. Mr Colebrooke
mentions that the quantity of land occupied by each ryot or cul-
tivator in Bengal is commonly about six acres, and rarely
amounts to twenty-four ; and it is obvious that a demand for
half the produce raised from such patches can leave their occu-
piers nothing more than the barest subsistence for themselves
and their families. Indeed, Mr Colebrooke states distinctly, that
the condition of Indian ryots, subject to this tax, is generally
inferior to that of a hired labourer receiving the wretched pit-
tance of two annas, or about three-pence a- day, as wages.

Mr Jones has treated at considerable length of the occupancy
of land by metayers, or tenants, paying a certain proportion,
usually a half, of the produce to the landlord as rent. But this
part of his work is eminently superficial, and discovers a very
imperfect acquaintance with the subject. Greece and Rome, the
countries in which we have the earliest accounts of occupancy
by metayers, were originally divided into small properties,
directly cultivated by the proprietors themselves, sometimes
with and sometimes without the assistance of slaves. When
estates grew larger, they appear either to have been managed by
stewards appointed by the proprietors, and responsible to them,
like plantations in the West Indies; or to have been let to coloni
pariiarii, who, from their business being that of polishers or
dressers of land, were occasionally called politores or polintores.
Mr Jones seems to imagine that cultivation by metayers was
not introduced into Italy till after the era of Columella, who
flourished under the Emperor Claudius. In point of fact, how-
ever, metayers were well known in Italy two hundred years
previously. M. Porcius Cato, the earliest of the Roman
writers on agriculture whose works have come down to us,
has not only alluded to tenancy by metayers, but has stated
distinctly that the share of tlie produce retained by the tenant
varied with the goodness of the soil. ' In the good land of Ca-

* sinum and Venafrura, the politor receives the eighth basket;

* in the second kind of land he receives the seventh ; in the

1831. Jones on the Tkeory of Rent. 89

* third kind he receives the sixth.' — [De Re Rustica, § 136.)
The smallness of the sum received by the politor, or metayer,
may appear surprising. But it is to be recollected that the
landlord furnished the stock and seed ; and Mr Dickson sup-
poses that, besides his share of the produce, the politor had
a supply of garden stuffs, and various other perquisites. [Hus-
bandry of the Ancients, p. 55.)

It is abundantly certain, however, though Mr Jones seems
unconscious of the fact, that, besides metayer tenants, there
were, both in Greece and Italy, tenants occupying lands under
leases for a definite period, — employing their own capital in their
cultivation, and paying a money rent, precisely as is done in
England at this day. In so far as respects Greece, the exist-
ence of such tenants is established beyond all question by the
discovery of copies of the actual leases under which some of
them held their farms. These are contained in inscriptions of
unquestionable authenticity, printed by Boeckh in his great
work on Inscriptions, (vol. i. p. 132,) published at the expense
of the King of Prussia. It might have been expected that Mr
Jones would have been no stranger to documents bearing so
directly on the subject of his researches, and which are among
the most curious remains of antiquity. If he was at all aware
of their existence, his readers certainly have not profited by his
knowledge. One of the inscriptions in question is dated 345
years before the Christian era. It is a lease iov forty years of a
piece of land, at a rent of 152 drachmas a-year. The tenants,
though practical men, were too sagacious to confound rent with
taxes ; and it is expressly stipulated, that, if a tax be laid upon
the land, it shall be paid by the lessors. There are also various
regulations with respect to the management of the farm, all of
them evincing a very advanced state of civilisation, and disco-
vering the strongest desire to protect the just rights of the parties
to the contract, and to hinder the land from being overcropped
or exhausted.

With respect to the letting of land in Italy for terms of years,
and at a fixed money rent, the evidence is less decisive ; but
still it seems, though overlooked by Mr Jones, to be sufficiently
conclusive. It is known to every tyro, that the public lands
were usually let for five years ; and the fair presumption is,
that private estates would mostly be let for the same term.
Columella, indeed, expressly states, that the frequent letting of
a farm is injurious, [ita certe meafert opinio, rem malani essefre-
quentem locationetn fundi ;) and he advises the landlord to be
more cai'eful about enforcing the conditions as to cultivation,
than rigorous in the exaction of rent. (Lib. i. § 7.)

^0 Jones on the Theory of Rent, Sept.

It is clear, therefore, that rent, as it exists in England,
existed in ancient Greece and Italy. And it will exist in every
populous country, where the lands belong to individuals, and
where the cultivators are not enslaved. It is certain, too, as
well from the previously quoted passage of Cato, as from the
nature of the thing, that rents varied according to variations in
the quality of the land, or, which is the same thing, that they
were determined on the principle laid down by Mr Ricardo.

It is unnecessary to follow Mr Jones in his account of the
metayer system in France and Italy. The vices of that mode
of occupancy have been repeatedly pointed out, and are, indeed,
quite obvious. Those who expect to find any novel or recent
information with respect to it in the work before us, will as-
suredly be disappointed. Mr Jones' principal authorities are
Arthur Young and Turgot ; and those who wish to learn the
condition of France previously to the Revolution of 1789, can
resort to no better guides. The state of things at present, is,
however, very different. The influence which the Revolution
has had on agriculture, and on the condition of the occupiers of
land, has been very great ; and Mr Jones would have done an
acceptable service had he stated the nature and extent of the
changes that have, in these respects, resulted from it. But this
is an investigation on which he has barely touched. Perhaps,
as the subject is one of considerable interest, and as there are
ample materials for its discussion, we may, at some future
period, enter on its consideration. In the meantime, however,
we may recommend an article on the agriculture of France, in
the third number of the Revue Trimestrielle, to the notice of our
readers, as containing a very instructive account of the actual
condition of the French metayers. Being, no doubt, anxious
to obtain the best and latest information as to the subject on
which he was treating, Mr Jones should not have entirely over-
looked so valuable a paper.

It would be to no purpose to enter into any further examina-
tion of that part of Mr Jones's work in which he reviews the
different modes of occupying land. The cultivators in Poland
and Hungary, (and till very recently, also in Prussia,) are in a
state of predial slavery ; so that the services, or rents which they
pay, have as little in common with rents determined on a prin-
ciple of free competition, as the allowances to slaves in the
West Indies have with the wages of labourers in England. Mr
Jones is quite as meagre in this as in the other departments of
his review; and such of our readers as are acquainted with
Burnett's View of Poland, Bright's Travels in Hungary, and

1831, Jones on the Theory of Bent. 91

Mr Jacob's Reports, will glean but little additional information
from his volume.

Having completed his account of occupancy by metayers,
serfs, ryots, cottiers, &c., Mr Jones comes, in the last place, to
examine what he c^\& farmers' rents, that is, rents determined on
the principle of competition, or as they exist in England. It
is here, properly, that his controversy with Mr Ricardo com-
mences ; and, to understand the discussion, it may be as well,
perhaps, to state what the theory is that Mr Jones labours to
overthrow. Luckily this may be done in a few words. It is
an admitted fact, that the soil of every extensive country is of
very different degrees of fertility ; varying, by many gradations,
from the finest loams and meadows, to the most barren heaths
and rocks — from the rich lowlands of Essex and the Carse of
Gowrie, to the Highlands of Wales and Scotland. Now, the
theory advocated by Mr Ricardo is, that so long as none but the
finest soils are cultivated, no rent (understanding the term in
the sense already explained) is paid ; that rent only begins to
be paid for the superior land, when, owing to the increase of
population, recourse must be made to soils of an inferior degree
of fertility, in order to obtain adequate supplies of food ; that it
continues to increase according as soils of a decreasing degree
of fertility are taken into cultivation, and diminishes according
as they are thrown out of cultivation. The produce raised on
the worst land under tillage, or hy the agency of the capital last
applied to the soil, being all the while sold at its natural cost,
without being in any degree affected by rent.

Mr Jones, who, not unreasonably, we think, might have
been supposed well acquainted with the history of a theory
about which he was inditing a considerable volume, ascribes
its invention to Sir Edward West and Mr Malthus. But it
is now well known that the discovery of the real nature of
rent, and of the important fact that it is not a cause, but a
consequence of price, was not made by either of the distinguish-
ed individuals alluded to, but by the late Dr James Anderson,
author of Recreations in Agriculture, the Bee, and several other
publications. In a pamphlet published by this gentleman on
the corn laws, so far back as 1777, he has given the following
exposition of this doctrine, which we believe our readers will
agree with us in thinking, is not more remarkable for its depth
and originality, than for its admirable precision and clearness :

* I foresee here a popular objection. It will be said, that the price
to the farmer is so high, only on account of the high rents, and ava-
ricious extortions of proprietors. " Lower" (say they) " your rents,

92 Jones on the Theory of Rent, Sept.

and the farmer will be able to afford his grain cheaper to the con-
sumer." But if the avarice alone of the proprietors was the cause of
the dearth of corn, whence comes it, I may ask, that the price of
grain is always higher on the west than on the east coast of Scotland ?
Are the proprietors in the Lothians more tender-hearted and less ava-
ricious than those of Clydesdale ? The truth is, nothing can be more
groundless than these clamours against men of landed property.
Tliere is no doubt but that they, as well as every other class of men,
Avill be willing to augment their revenue as much as they can, and,
therefore, will always accept of as high a rent for their land as is
offered to them. Would merchants or manufacturers do otherwise ?
Would either the one or the other of these refuse, for the goods he
offers to sale in a fair open way, as high a price as the purchaser is
inclined to give ? If they would not, it is surely with a bad grace
that they blame gentlemen for accepting such a rent for their land as
farmers, who are supposed always to understand the value of it, shall
choose to offer them.

< It is not, however, the rent of the land that determines the price
of its produce, but it is the price of that produce which determines the
rent of the land ; although the price of that produce is often highest
in those countries where the rent of land is lowest. This seems to be
a paradox that deserves to be explained.

* In every country there is a demand for as much grain as is suffi-
cient to maintain all its inhabitants ; and as that grain cannot be
brought from other countries but at a considerable expense, on some
occasions at a most exorbitant charge, it usually happens, that the in-
habitants find it most for their interest to be fed by the produce of
their own soil. But the price at which that produce can be afforded
by the farmer varies considerably in different circumstances.

* In every country there is a variety of soils, differing considerably
from one another in point of fertility. These we shall at present sup-
pose arranged into different classes, which we shall denote by the let-
ters A, B, C, D, E, F, &c. the class A comprehending the soils of the
greatest fertility, and the other letters expressing different classes of
soils gradually decreasing in fertility as you recede from the first.
Now, as the expense of cultivating the least fertile soil is as great, or
greater than that of the most fertile field, it necessarily follows, that
if an equal quantity of corn, the produce of each field, can be sold at
the same price, the profit on cultivating the most fertile soil must be
much greater than that of cultivating the others ; and as this continues
to decrease as the sterility increases, it must at length happen, that
the expense of cultivating some of the inferior classes will equal the
value of the whole produce.

' This being premised, let us suppose that the class F includes all
those fields whose produce in oatmeal, if sold at fourteen shillings per
boll, M'ould be just sufficient to pay the expense of cultivating them,
without affording any rent at all ; that the class E comprehends
those fields whose produce, if sold at thirteen shillings per boll, would
pay the charges, without affording any rent ; and that, in like manner,

1831. ^ ones, on the Theory of RenU 93

the classes D, C, B, and A, consist of fields, whose produce, if sold
respectively at twelve, eleven, ten, and nine shillings per boll, would
exactly pay the charge of culture, without any rent.

' Let us now suppose that all the inhabitants of the country where
such fields are placed, could be sustained by the produce of the first
four classes, viz. A, B, C, and D. It is plain, that if the average selling
price of oatmeal in that country was twelve shillings per boll, those
who possess the fields D could just afford to cultivate them, without
paying any rent at all ; so that if there were no other produce of the
fields that could be raised at a smaller expense than corn, the farmer
could afford no rent whatever to the px'oprietor of them, and if so, no
rents could be afforded for the fields E and F ; nor could the utmost
avarice of the proprietor in this case extort a rent for them. In these
circumstances, howevei*, it is obvious that the farmer who possessed
the fields in the class C could pay the expense of cultivating them,
and also afford to the proprietor a rent equal to one shilling for every
boll of their produce, and in like manner the possessors of the fields
B and A could afford a rent equal to two and three shillings per boll
of their produce respectively. Nor Avould the propi-ietors of these
fields find any difficulty in obtaining these rents ; because farmers,
finding they could live equally well upon such soils, though paying
these rents, as they could do upon the fields D without any rent at
all, would be equally willing to take the one as the other.

' But let us again suppose, that the whole produce of the fields A,
B, C, and D was not sufficient to maintain the whole of the inhabit-
ants. If the average selling price should continue at twelve shillings
per boll, as none of the fields E or F could admit of being cultivated,
the inhabitants would be under the necessity of bringing grain from
some other country, to supply their wants. But if it should be found,
that grain could not be brought from that other country, at an average,
under thirteen shillings per boll, the price in the home-market would
rise to that rate ; so that the fields E could then be brought into cul-
ture, and those of the class D could afford a rent to the proprietor
equal to what was formerly yielded by C, and so on of others ; the
rents of every class rising in the same proportion. If these fields were
sufficient to maintain the whole of the inhabitants, the price Avould
remain permanently at thirteen shillings ; but if there was still a defi-
ciency, and if that could not be made up for less than fourteen shil-
lings per boll, the price Avould rise in the market to that rate ; in which
case the field F might also be brought into culture, and the rents of
all the others would rise in proportion. And so on to the same effect.'

Dr Anderson enforced the same doctrine on several subsequent
occasions. But his original, ingenious, and profound disquisi-
tions appear tohave attracted no notice from his contemporaries.
So completely, indeed, were they forgotten, that Mr Malthus
and Sir Edward West were generally believed to have been the
first expounders of the true Theory of Rent. Of the originality
of their investigations we entertain no doubt. Still, however,

94 Jones on the Theory of Bent, Sept.

they only re-discovered principles that had been discovered
and fully established forty years before. Whatever of superior
merit belongs to the first inventor, is vs^holly due to Dr Ander-
son, who has also been pre-eminently happy in his exposition of
the doctrine.

Mr Jones has not attempted directly to controvert this theory ;
and unless his readers are otherwise acquainted Avith it, his
work will not give them any very precise ideas of its nature, or
of the questions really at issue. He contents himself with at-
tempting to impugn a principle involved in the theory ; think-
ing that if he succeed in showing that it is unsound, the theory
of which it is a part will fall of course. The principle referred
to is, that, speaking generally, diminished returns are obtained in
the progress of society for equal quantities of capital or labour ex-
pended 071 the soil. But notwithstanding all that Mr Jones has
stated, this principle appears to us to be alike obvious and un-
deniable. We presume Mr Jones admits that different qualities
of land are under cultivation in England. It was proved, by the
agriculturists examined before the Committee of the House of
Commons on the Corn Laws in 1821, that while the best lands
in cultivation in England yield from 36 to 40 bushels an acre,
the worst only yield from 8 to 9 bushels ; and it is a Avell-known
fact that good land is always cultivated at a less expense than
bad land. But it is as clear as the sun at noon day, that unless
the productive powers of the quantities of capital successively
applied to the superior soils had diminished, the inferior ones
would never have been brought into tillage ; for, if any amount
of capital might have been laid out upon land yielding 36 or 40
bushels an acre without a diminished return, who would have
been so insane as to think of laying it out on land that would only
yield 8 or 9 bushels ?

Mr Jones says that * strong facts' would be required to prove
the existence of the law of decreasing fertility ; and are not
these strong facts ? Those who deny this law must be prepared
to maintain that a very large proportion of the agriculturists
of England are so insane, as to lay out capital for a return
of 8 or 9 bushels, when they may, if they please, get 36 or
40. If, instead of quoting Columella, Mr Jones had look-
ed into the statements of the most expert farmers before the
Parliamentary Committees, he would have found evidence to sa-
tisfy him, though he were as sceptical as Bayle himself, of the
existence of the pi'inciple in question.

But its existence must, on other grounds, be manifest to
every one who reflects on the subject. If at an average
equal returns could be obtained from every equal quantity of

1831. Jones on the Theory of Rent. 95

capital expended on the soil, the whole world might be fed out
of the Isle of Wight, or out of Grosvenor Square : For, suppo-
sing that L.lOO laid out on the latter yields a certain return, it
is clear, supposing every other L.lOO laid out upon it yields the
same return, that its produce may be increased without limit.
We submit that this reductio ad absurdum is decisive of the
whole question. What is true of Grosvenor Square or the Isle
of Wight, is true of England, France, and, in short, of the
world. Were it not for this law of decreasing fertility, why
does not population go on increasing as fast in England, the
Netherlands, and Lombardy, as in Kentucky or Alabama? If
the productive powers of agricultural industry did not diminish
in the progress of society, the produce of the garden grounds
on the Thames, or the wheat-fields of East Lothian, might be as
easily quintupled as that of the lands on the Swan River or the
Missouri.

It is most true that this principle does not operate continu-
ously. It is checked and counteracted by the improvements and
inventions that take place every now and then, as society advan-
ces. But at the long run, the increasing sterility of the soils,
to which recourse must be had, is sure to overcome them. The
reason is, that improvements, by augmenting the productive
powers of industry, lower prices, and give a corresponding sti-
mulus to population, which never fails speedily to expand, so as
to force the cultivation of new, and still inferior land. It is
not contended, as Mr Jones seems to suppose is the case, that
every additional quantity of corn obtained from land already
cultivated, must ' necessarily he obtained by a larger comparative

* outlay ;' but it is contended that this is generally true, and
that it is invariably true in periods of lengthened duration. It
would seem, indeed, from Mr Jones' work, as if every one who
has written on rent, except himself, had always represented this
law as of continuous operation ; or, in other words, that they had
totally overlooked the modifications it undergoes from improve-
ments; but they were not quite so blind as Mr Jones would
have us believe ; and the following extract from a work he has
sometimes referred to, and which was published six years since,
will show how applicable his criticisms really are : —

' I have thus endeavoured to exhibit the ultimate effect which
' the necessity of resorting to poorer lands for supplies of food
' for an increasing population, must always have on profits and
' wages. But though this cause of the reduction of profits be of

* " such magnitude and power as finally to overwhelm every
' other," (Malthus, Pol. Economy^ p. 317,) its operations may
' be, and indeed frequently are, counteracted or facilitated by ex-

* trinsic causes. It is obvious, for example, that every new

96 Jones on the Theory of Rent, Sept.

dlscoveiy or improvement in agriculture, which enables a
greater quantity of produce to be obtained for the same ex-
pense, must have the same effect on profits as if the supply of
superior soils were increased, and may, for a considerable
period, increase the rate of profit.

' Had the inventive genius of man been limited in its
powers, and had the various machines and implements used in
agriculture, and the skill of the husbandman, at once attained
to their utmost perfection, the rise in the price of raw produce,
and the fall of profits consequent to the increase of population,
would have been much more obvious. When, in such a state
of things, it became necessary to resort to poorer soils to raise
an additional quantity of food, a corresponding increase of
labour would have been required ; for, on this supposition, no
improvement could take place in the powers of the labourer
himself. Having already reached the perfection of his art, a
greater degree of animal exertion could alone overcome fresh
obstacles. More labour would, therefore, have been necessary
to the production of a greater quantity of food ; and it would
have been necessary in the proportion in which its quantity was
to be increased ; so that it is plain, had the arts continued in
this stationary state, that the price of raw produce would have
varied directly with every variation in the qualities of the soils
successively brought under tillage.

' But the circumstances regulating the value of raw produce
in an improving society, are extremely different. Even there it
has, as already shown, a constant tendency to rise ; for the
rise of profits consequent to every improvement, by occasion-
ing a greater demand for labour, gives a fresh stimulus to popu-
lation ; and thus, by increasing the demand for food, again in-
evitably forces the cultivation of poorer soils, and raises prices.
But it is evident that these effects of this great law of nature,
from whose all-pervading influence the utmost efforts of human
ingenuity can never enable man to escape, are rendered less
palpable and obvious in consequence of improvements. After
inferior soils are cultivated, more labourers are, no doubt,
required to raise the same quantities of food ; but as the powers
of the labourers are improved in the progress of society, a
smaller number is required in proportion to the whole work
to be done than if no such improvement had taken place. It
is in this way that the natural tendency to an increase in the
price of raw produce is counteracted in the progress of society.
The productive energies of the earth gradually diminish, and
we are compelled to resort to soils of a constantly decreasing
degree of fertility ; but the productive energies of the labour em-
ployed to extract produce from these soilsy are as constantly aiig'

1831. Jones ow the Theory of Rent. m

* mented by the discoveries and inventions that are always being

* 7nade. Two directly opposite and continually acting principles

* are thus set in motion. From the operation of fixed and per-
' manent causes, the increasing sterility of the soil must, in the

* long run, overmatch the increasing power of machinery, and

* the improvements of agriculture. Occasionally, however, im-

* provements in the latter more than compensate for the deterior^

* ation in the quality of the former^ and a fall of prices, and rise

* of profits takes place, until the constant pressure of population

* again forces the cultivation of inferior lands.' — (M'Culloch's
Principles of Political Economy, 1st ed., p. 381 ; 2d ed., p. 487.)

It was not, therefore, reserved for Mr Jones to indicate the
influence of improvements on the law of decreasing fertility.
But a very large portion of his book is occupied with tedious
statements of principles already fully elucidated by others ; and
which he puts forth with all the air of an original discoverer.

Though we highly prize the talents of Mr Ricardo, and have
endeavoured, on all occasions, to do justice to his merits, we
are not insensible to his defects ; and to suppose, as some appear
to do, that his work has fixed and ascertained every principle of
the science, and that economists have nothing left but to com-
ment upon and explain it, is altogether absurd. In treating of
rent, Mr Ricardo doubtless made discoveries ; and has exhibited
some beautiful specimens of profound and luminous investigation.
Still, however, it is not to be denied that this part of his work is
infected with grave errors. He supposed that the effect of
improvements, which are so beneficial to every other class, was
to reduce rent, and that, consequently, the interest of the land-
lord was opposed to that of the rest of the community, Mr
Ricardo fell into this error from his not adverting to the fact,
that, practically, improvements can never be so rapidly introduced
as to lower prices ; and that though they had such an effect in the
first instance, the increase of population that would immedi-
ately follow the fall, would again force recourse to new land, and
give the landlords the entire benefit of the improvement, which
may be regarded as an addition to the quantity of good land.
Had Mr Jones been the first to point out this mistake of Mr
Ricardo, and to rectify it, he would have done some little ser-
vice to the science. But to this praise he has not the shadow
of a claim. He has barely restated, without acknowledgment,
and with an abundant alloy of erroneous notions, what had
been published twelve months previously to the appearance
of his work, in the second edition of Mr M'Culloch's Political
Economy. In this work, there is a chapter on the ' Improve-
< ment and Letting of Land' (pp. 452-473), in which the influ-

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII, G

98 Jones on the Theory of Rent. Sept.

ence of the former in increasing rent is treated of at consider-
able length, and distinctly pointed out ; at the same time that
the identity of the landlord's interest with that of the public, is
strongly enforced in that and other parts of the work. It would,
therefore, have been quite as well, had Mr Jones, before re-
presenting those whom he is pleased to call the followers of Mr
Ricardo, as having supported such doctrines, taken the trouble
to enquire what they really do support. It is too much to set
up a cry of eureka about that which is already in all the shops
in town.

The remarks Mr Jones has made on profits, are not more
original or valuable than those he has made on rent. He labours
hard to show that profits have no natural tendency to fall in the
progress of society. But the moment the law of the decreasing
fertility of the soil is established, the law of decreasing profits
follows as a matter of course. The one is immediately depend-
ent upon the other ; and as there neither is, nor can be, any
doubt whatever of the existence of the former, neither can there
be any as to the existence of the latter. Experience, indeed,
independent of all theoretical inferences, is conclusive as to this
point ; for, though occasionally checked by improvements, it is
observed, that in the long run, profits are uniformly reduced
according as population becomes denser, and as recourse is had
to inferior soils. It may be quite true, as stated by Mr Jones,
that countries far advanced in civilisation, and where profits
are low, are, notwithstanding, able to employ more additional
labourers, and may be adding more to their capital, than those
less advanced, and where profits are higher. But what has this
to do with the question of decreasing profits ? It does not turn
upon the absolute amount, or mass of profits realized in a coun-
try, but upon the rate or proportion which they bear to the
capital by which they are produced. Those who maintain that
profits have a tendency to decline in the progress of society,
were as well aware as Mr Jones of the obvious truth, that a
small profit upon a large amount of capital may form a greater
absolute sum than a large profit upon a small capital. But it
is clear as demonstration, that countries where profits are high,
have, ccBteris paribus, the greatest power of accumulation, and
consequently, of adding to wealth and population. The capital
of Holland is certainly greater than that of the state of New
York ; but will any one pretend to deny that the latter is de-
cidedly the more prosperous of the two ? And for what is she
indebted for her pre-eminence, but to her higher rate of profit ?

Mr Jones is fond of representing his conclusions as favourable
to human happiness, and as holding out consolatory views of the
order of the universe. But this is for the most part a very

1831. Jones on the Theory of Rent. 99

unsatisfactory mode of reasoning. In the present instance, too,
it may be easily shown, that the principles he endeavours to
establish would lead to the most pernicious results. Were it
really true that the fertility of the soil, or the efficiency of agri-
cultural labour, does not decrease as society advances, it would
unavoidably follow, that population would continue to increase
in the same ratio at which it increases in newly settled coun-
tries, till the space required to carry on the operations of indus-
try had become deficient, when the impassable limit would be
attained beyond which no advances could be made, and a most
violent change must be effected in the habits of the people. Now,
with great submission, it is not, we think, very obvious that
mankind would gain much by such an arrangement. It seems
to us that their happiness is far better provided for under the
existing order of things. The decreasing fertility of the soil is
not an absolute, but a relative check only. It may be, at all
times, partially overcome by new inventions and discoveries;
and the constant pressure of population on the limits of subsist-
ence stimulates the inventive faculty, brings every power of the
mind, as well as of the body, into action, and provides for the
indefinite advancement of society in arts and industry. This
view of the matter has been strongly enforced by the Bishop of
Chester, in his excellent work on the Records of the Creation.
Those who are familiar with it will not, we suspect, be inclined
to question, either the law of the decreasing fertility of the soil,
or the law of population, as explained by Mr Malthus, on the
ground of their being unfavourable to human happiness, or
inconsistent with the goodness of the Deity.

On the whole, we cannot say that we have derived much in-
struction from Mr Jones' work. His effbrts to overthrow the
theory of rent have been signally abortive : he has not weak-
ened the authority of a single principle or doctrine involved in
it. Those who would overthrow it must go to work difl^erently,
and with very different weapons ; for, besides showing that,
whatever may be the quantity of capital laid out upon the land,
the last portion will be as productive as the first, they must
also show that there is no difference in the qualities of land, and
that a farmer will give as much for an acre of Snowden as for
an acre of the alluvial land of Essex. The fact that Mr Jones*
book should have attracted any attention, shows how very little
the principles of the science are understood. We are not aware
that he has added anything whatever to what was already known.
All that he has stated, that is accurate, had been previously
stated by others, and might easily have been condensed into a
pamphlet of fifty pages,

100 Puhlic Amusements.—' Sept.

Art. V. — The Drama brought to the Test of Scripture, and found
wanting, 8vo. Edinburgh : 1830.

nnnis little volume, as its title may lead the reader to expect,
-*- is the production of one of that class of persons distinguish-
ed by the appellation of * evangelicaV Christians. Their zeal in
denouncing the amusements of society as replete with danger
and sin, is abundantly notorious. The present work is dedicated
to this pious purpose.

We are induced to notice it, for the sake of exposing, as far
as we are able, the erroneousness and misapplication of their
zeal. In doing so, we are not actuated by any disrespect for
their religious tenets, nor by the slightest feeling of personal
acrimony towards themselves. We believe them to be, for the
most part, pious and well-meaning persons. But we also believe
that they really « know not what manner of spirit they are of,'
while they raise an outcry against such practices of the world,
as in their pre-eminent piety they are pleased to condemn.
They have long assumed the right (under what authority we
have yet to discover) of reprobating the customary recreations
of life, and of branding those who participate in them as ene-
mies to God and of true religion. The work before us exhi-
bits a fair specimen of their arrogance and false reasoning, and
it may be profitable to all parties to show them in their proper
light.

One of the most striking characteristics of the evangelical
sect, is their perverse application of Scripture to the practices
reprobated by them. There is nothing new, to be sure, in this.
It has been the custom of sectaries in every age. But we ques-
tion whether it was ever more notably exhibited than by those
who put themselves forward at the present day, to arraign the
amusements of the world. Our author, however, shall speak for
himself.

His notice of the drama is prefaced by an attempt to decry
« worldly amusements' in general. The very sound of the term

* worldly,' conveys to the ears of this devout person the notion
of something contrary to the precepts and spirit of the Gospel.

* By the Book of Life,' he says, < we shall try what is commonly

* called worldly amusement.' His trial is founded on the fol-
lowing passages of Scripture : —

« I have given tliem thy word ; and the world hath hated them, be-
cause they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.'— John,
xvu. 14.

1831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class. 101

' They are of the world : therefore speak they of the world, and
the world heareth them.' — 1st John, iv. 5.

' Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God ?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of
God.' — James, iv. 4.

' Be not conformed to this world : but be ye transformed by the
i-enewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God.' — Rom, xii. 2.

* Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you.'
—2d Cor. vi. 17.

' From these passages,' says he, ' we are authorized to conclude
that there is a mass of individuals who live for themselves, and as
their enjoyments all centre in this period of their existence, they are
emphatically called by our blessed Lord, the world, or as belonging to
tlte world. It is equally clear that there is another class who aim at
better things, who use the things of this life without abusing them,
and who, though passing through their earthly trials, are pronounced
by the same divine authority, to be not of the world. It is plain, there-
fore, that the term loorldly is, in such cases, opposed to spiritual, and
denotes any mode of thinking or acting at variance with the precepts
and spirit of the Gospel.' — P. 31, 32.

This is our author's commentary on the foregoing texts, and
this is his mode of establishing the sinfulness of worldly amuse-
ments. We beg the attention of our readers to the reasoning he
employs. A certain class of men are represented in Scripture
as ' being of the world,' on account of their insensibility to
religious influences, and their exclusive devotion to the enjoy-
ments of the present life. Another class, who are actuated by
the faith and principles of the gospel, are described as ' being
' not of the world.' The term ' worldly,' it thus appears, is
opposed to ' spiritual,' as denoting what is contrary to the pre-
cepts and spirit of the gospel. Therefore, worldly amusements
are contrary to the precepts and spirit of the gospel !

The evangelical class, it appears to us, has been hitherto very
liberally indulged in casting the reproach of worldly-mindedness
on the rest of mankind, and claiming the praise of spiritual-
mindedness for themselves. There has been a reluctance to
enter into grave discussion with men who usually betray so much
weakness and pretension. For our own parts, however, we are
inclined to think a little discussion may be useful. We have had
enough of raillery and recrimination, neither of which is suited
to the nature of the subject. It is time to try whether another
mode of treating it may not afford the means of deciding the
question at issue between the parties. The question, as it arises
from our author's views, we take to be this : Does the mere
participation in the customary amusements of the world, neces-

loa Public Amusements.— ' Sept,

sarily place us among that class of men denounced In Scripture
as being of the world ? It is by assuming the affirmative that
the evangelical party has been enabled to maintain its exclusive
pretensions to sanctity. They have made the abhorrence of, and
separation from amusements, a test of religious character. By
such means they have contrived to draw a line of demarcation
between two classes of society, the * serious' or ' spiritual,' and
the ' careless' or ' worldly,' without any reference whatever to the
great moral evidences of the effect of religion on the mind. The
natural effect of this distinction, on the one class, is to inflame
many with very mistaken, and all with very supercilious notions
of their own religious state, and the most uncharitable senti-
ments towards the rest of mankind ; on the other, to incline
numbers to treat all high religious pretensions as matter of
pleasantry or contempt. It is on these grounds we venture to
think that we may usefully employ ourselves by a sober and
rational discussion of the question. We shall endeavour to show,
that the amusements of the world are not more sinful in their
nature and tendency than many other pursuits ; and that, as
abstinence from them does not necessarily imply the spirituality
of man's condition, so neither is his worldly-mindedness to be
inferred from participation in them.

There cannot possibly be a safer or simpler test for trying
the religious integrity of any man, as far as the objects of our
present existence are concerned, than that implied in the maxim
of ' using the world without abusing it.' By such a trial
every man must stand or fall. But it manifestly involves the
necessity of an examination into the life and conduct of each
individual, before we can presume (if indeed we then dare to
presume) how far he has conformed to, or violated, the precepts
of Scripture. Our author, however, despises all such necessity.
He deals with us in a much shorter and more wholesale way.
He assumes for his own party exclusive credit for using the
things of life without abusing them; thereby confounding all
who participate in the amusements of the world in the guilt of
abusing it. It will be necessary for our purpose, then, to exa-
mine how far the claims advanced by this party are really just
or not, and we trust we shall be able to conduct the enquiry in
the spirit of candour and truth.

There are only two methods, we apprehend, of satisfying us
that any man or class of men * use the things of life without
* abusing them :' — either by showing that the things they do use
are so thoroughly innocent and innocuous in themselves as to be
incapable of abuse ; — or, if this cannot be done, by showing that
they use all things with such religious strictness and modera-

1831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class. 103

tion, as to be free (as sinful mortals may be) from sin. We pro-
ceed to try the evangelical party by the first-mentioned proof.

Of all the indications of a worldly spirit, none is so distinctly
and emphatically denounced in Scripture as a love of riches. Of
all the ' things of life,' against which the Gospel warns man-
kind, on account of its dangerous and demoralizing influence,
none is so conspicuous as wealth. This influence is described
in every variety of expression that language can supply. It is
depicted by every striking representation that inspired wisdom
could suggest. We are not left to deduce it from the general
spirit of Scripture, nor to demonstrate it from the tenor of
any particular text. It is the theme of constant, undisguised,
and intelligible reprobation. It is exposed in a multitude of
maxims, and illustrated by a series of parables, that defy the
meanest apprehension to misinterpret, or the most crafty to
pervert. We ask, then, whom do these passages deter from
the pursuit or enjoyment of wealth ? — Do they serve to alarm
that class of Christians who remonstrate with such morbid
piety against popular amusements ; or to check, under a sense of
spiritual danger, their desire to increase their worldly means ?
Do the serious deny themselves the use of riches on account
of their tendency to corrupt the human heart? We appre-
hend not. As far as we are enabled to discover, they testify
no reluctance whatever to follow the footsteps of the ' worldly'
in the road to wealth. We look in vain for any distinguish-
ing mark in this respect between the two classes of society
— that which is * of the worldy and that which is ' not of the

* ivorld.^ All appear to be actuated by the common impulse
— to push their fortunes in life. All exhibit the same ardent,
active, enterprising zeal in their respective pursuits. * The

* mammon of unrighteousness' seems to inspire none of the
serious either with terror or aversion. Where the ordinary
channels for procuring wealth are closed against them, they
show no disinclination to obtain it in other ways. It comes
equally acceptable to them in the shape of a legacy, or of a
dower with a companion for life. The love of money, which < is

* the root of all evil,' (mark the terrific epithet !) is treated by
them with an unaccountable degree of lenity and indulgence,
considering their repugnance to worldly amusements. Not a
word escapes from them on the pernicious effects of wealth. Not
a tract issues from their repositories to caution us against its
pursuit. Not a homily is heard from their pulpits on the solemn
obligation to war against it. What lesson the ' unerring guide

* which,' according to our author, ' teaches us to distinguish

* the characteristic attributes of the things that be, and the

104 Public Amusements.-^ Sept,

< things that be not of the world, in the widest acceptation of
* the term,' has imparted to them in this particular matter, they
best know themselves. But taking Scripture for our authority,
we feel bound to declare that few things of the world possess a
more detrimental influence over man than wealth.

It is not against the mere possession of wealth that its warn-
ings are directed. It is against its capacity to multiply our
attractions to the world, and to wean our affections from ' the
' things that are above ;' — its tendency to enhance our fondness
for the vain, and trifling, and costly ornaments of life ; to minis-
ter to our taste for pomp and distinction ; to nurture our love of
ease and indolence ; and to encourage pride, and arrogance, and
selfishness. But with all these consequences plainly portrayed
in Scripture, and often verified by the experience of life, our
spiritual pretenders exhibit not the slightest fear to encounter
the hazard of them. Any one, accustomed merely to their lan-
guage, might naturally imagine them to be actuated solely by
benevolence in the augmentation of their wealth. He might
imagine that, in consistency with their pious renunciation of
worldly amusements, they repudiate all things whatever of a
worldly nature having a tendency to moral evil, — every thing
anti-spiritual in its nature or effects ; that men who inveigh
with such devout vehemence against the vanities of life, would
display their contempt for these vanities, whatever form they
assume ; that they whose hearts and minds are avowedly devoted
to another world, would testify their utter disregard for the
merest toys and baubles of this. Truth compels us to correct
the inaccuracy of such imaginings. We see many of the serious
rolling in handsome chariots, maintaining numerous servants,
giving costly entertainments. We see their carriages embla-
zoned with the same heraldic ornaments, their attendants clothed
in the same gaudy liveries, their tables covered with the same
luxurious viands, that are in ordinary use with the men ' of the
* world.' These trappings of pride, and vanity, and vainglory,
seem to find just as much favour in their eyes, as with other
people.

We have thus tracked the serious class in their quest after
> J dies, till we find them quietly and fearlessly reposing amidst
the many luxuries which wealth enables them to procure. The
natural effect of these on ordinary minds is to stimulate them
with ambition, to excite a desire for fame, and power, and con-
sequence among men, and thus to multiply the dangerous influ-
ences of wealth upon the heart. Such effects are by no means
confined to the ' worldly' class. Rank and importance are dis-
carded by none of the serious, as unfitting appendages of a spi-

J 831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class. 105

ritual life. Nay, they are sometimes sought after with an avidity
that, to vulgar apprehension, seems strangely at variance with
the lofty religious pretensions of such men. He who shuns the
theatre as a sink of corruption, may be found in the atmosphere
of an electioneering contest, canvassing for votes, courting the
favour of the dissolute and profane, and engaging in all the
complicated scenes of intrigue and deception, by which the poli-
tics of the world are conducted. Do we allege that the princi-
ples of such men are corrupted by this course? No. But this
is not the question. It is simply whether the objects of their
pursuit are of a cast calculated to corrupt them ? This is the
purport of our present enquiry, and it will not answer to tell us
that they may come forth pure from the trial. We are showing
from unquestionable facts, that a class of persons eminent for
their reprobation of certain worldly enjoyments, on account of
their sinful tendency, do actually disregard such tendencies in
numerous instances ; that they overlook the obvious applications
even of their own interpretation of Scripture, when it suits their
purpose to do so ; that while they call on others to separate from
the world, their only intelligible meaning is, that they should
unite with them ; and that, although with a rigorous adherence
to the letter of the gospel, they proclaim * the friendship of the

* world to be enmity with God,' they practically court the very
objects to which that friendship alone can conduct them.

The conclusion we arrive at, then, from these facts, is plain
and irresistible. Considering the nature and tendency of the
things sought after, and enjoyed, by these evangelical Christians,
they are not one whit more scrupulous than other persons in

* using the world so as not to abuse it.' They live in the com-
mon haunts of men, — gratify their common desires, — engage in
their common pursuits, — partake of their common indulgences.
They toil along with the ' worldly' through paths beset with
temptation in various shapes. They run with all imaginable
alacrity and cheerfulness in the race after fame, and honours,
and emoluments, where the faith and principles of men are most
severely tried. They acquiesce in all the devices of luxury to
pamper the children of prosperity, and manifest the same indif-
ference with others to the cost of human happiness and innocence
at which these may be supplied. It remains for them, consequent-
ly, to show their actual freedom from sin in the use of what they
enjoy. So that, after all, they stand precisely in the same pre-
dicament with ordinary men. Enjoyment, under various forms,
they neither dread nor decline ; and amusements, it is clear, are
only so many modes or means of multiplying the sources, or
augmenting the sum, of enjoyment. That they are guiltless in

106 Public Amusements. — Sept,

all things they allow themselves, may be true. But if this is to
be assumed in their favour, it must, on every principle of rea-
son and justice, be also conceded to those who mingle in amuse-
ments, unless where the contrary is notorious. To what, then,
do the pretensions of these eminently pious persons, founded on
their abstinence from such amusements, amount ? Literally, to
nothing. They are manifestly illusions of their own imagina-
tion, or impositions on the credulity of others. The presump-
tion in favour of the piety and purity of any class, (distinguish-
ed by withdrawing from, or participating in, amusements,) is
balanced as nearly as possible. And if the religious test we
have been considering is to be fairly applied, there is not, even
on their own showing, a shadow of ground to suppose that the
serious are better prepared to undergo its scrutiny than their
neighbours.

Now, unless we are much mistaken, we have placed our au-
thor in a dilemma, from which he will find it no easy matter to
escape. In the first place, if the criminality of worldly amuse-
ments is to be deduced from the texts quoted by him, let him
show the grounds on which other things of the world are ex-
empted from their condemnation. Let him show how these
texts are not equally applicable to lands, and houses, and titles,
and money, and luxuries of all kinds, as well as to the drama,
and dancing, and other recreations of civilized life. He must
either do this, or he must withdraw his charge against amuse-
ments as being contrary to the spirit of these texts. In the next
place, he must either show that the things above enumerated
possess no power to corrupt the mind, or he must cease to
inveigh against amusements, as if they alone were responsible
for doing so.

Whatever choice he makes, however, we defy him either to
prove from Scripture the abstract criminality of worldly amuse-
ments, or to demonstrate from experience their inevitable effect
in corrupting those who partake of them. The Gospel forbids
the use of no enjoyment, unless it actually involves, or is ac-
companied by, the indulgence of sinful passion, or has a neces-
sary, self-working tendency to that end. It forbids the use of
no enjoyment in which we may, through divine assistance,
avoid all violation of duty to God and our neighbour. To prove
the antiscriptural character of worldly amusements, therefore,
he must show them to be of such a nature as to exclude the
possibility of this avoidance; otherwise his reasoning is wholly
inconclusive, and his interference presumptuous. That amuse-
ments tend to excite criminal passion, and tempt to criminal
indulgences, is no more a ground of charge against them than

1831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class^ lOt

against almost every other source of human enjoyment. To
show that they do so, is to show nothing-, unless it be also
shown that their sinful influence is irresistible. But this is too
hopeless a task even for the evangelical party to undertake.

It is true our author produces specific articles of impeachment
against the drama ; — and his statements, doubtless, if substan-
tiated, would prove it to be irreconcilable with religious propri-
ety. But any thing more futile and preposterous than his alle-
gations we can scarcely conceive. That the stage may, to a
certain extent, be subservient to evil — that abuses may have
crept into it, which it would be desirable to correct — that it may
not always be conducted in such a manner as we can approve,
may be very true. Such is the lot of every thing human. But
what are we to think of the zeal of those who have tried to in-
flame the prejudices of the public against it, by gravely char-
ging it with being essentially blasphemous and profane ? Let us
hear this pious writer : — ' Do actors on the stage pronounce and
' invoke the Lord's name on a solemn or religious occasion,
* or with a solemn or religious intention ? If actors do not so
« invoke the name of the Most High, they must invoke it pro-
« fanely and blasphemously.'— P. 117. If this be true, we shall
at once concede the sinfulness of the drama, and unite with our
author in condemning all who seek amusement from it. But
we utterly deny his conclusion, and are prepared to show that it
can only have had its origin in what is commonly, but express-
ively, denominated cant.

By the consent of all ages, a license has been given for the
introduction of sacred subjects and expressions in the elegant
and imitative arts. Except in the case of the drama, we believe
the use of these has wholly escaped reprehension. In poetry
and painting, it seems to be universally tolerated. How does it
happen, then, that when the words of the poet come to be spo-
ken on the stage, the cry of blasphemy should be raised against
them? Is it the sound, and not the sense — the shadow, and
not the substance, that off'ends the piety of the serious ? Let
us take an analogous case in the art of painting. A picture is
placed before us, representing an afflicted matron in the attitude
of prayer : does this occasion or imply any disrespect for reli-
gion in the mind either of the designer or the beholder ? Un-
questionably not. Yet, from a similar exhibition on the stage,
we are told to withdraw, as from a blasphemous representation.
In the one case, it is true, we do not hear the name of the Al-
mighty invoked. But the eff'ect of the painting, if it has any
efi^ect at all, is to excite an imaginary persuasion that we do hear
it. It is for tbis the artist concentrates all the powers of his

108 Puhlic Amusements.— Sept.

genius on the work. Now, we conceive the mind must be su-
pereminently casuistical that can draw any intelligible distinc-
tion between the feelings awakened through these different
mediums. The character and circumstances of the painting are
just as fictitious as those of the play. The occasion and inten-
tion are no more solemn nor religious in the one case than the
other. Amusement is the object of both. And the instru-
ments of communicating it, the artist and the actor, may be
equally strangers to any serious impression, while endeavouring
to produce such impressions on others. The case, as far as
solemnity of feeling is concerned, indeed, must clearly be in
favour of the latter, from the natural identification of himself
with the part he performs. Whence, then, all the unmeaning
outcry against religious appeals and invocations on the stage ?
We shall be as prompt as any to condemn them when introdu-
ced for a profane purpose, or through mere levity ; but if the
use of them on the stage be prohibited, why is the prohibition
not to be extended to all the imitative arts ?

While on this part of the subject, we may notice another
charge against dramatic amusements, obviously springing from
the same origin, and equally liable to refutation from the ordi-
nary practices of the evangelical body themselves. The ten-
dency of the stage to demoralize its professors, is urged as an
imperative motive for its discouragement. The case is thus
stated by our author : — ' How do I justify myself for using my
' individual influence to retain a number of fellow- creatures in a

* profession which I know to be unfavourable to a life of holiness,
' and, consequently, tending to eternal perdition, and all for a

* temporary, selfish gratification?' — P. 128. Now, if the prin-
ciple here implied be a just or sacred one, it is manifestly bind-
ing on those who hold it as such, in all cases and circumstances
whatever, where it is applicable. That the evangelical class
do not so hold it, we are warranted to conclude from their
total neglect of it, except in the instance of the actor. They
employ many without any reference to it, according to the ordi-
nary usages of the world. We can discover no gratification,
however ' selfish or temporary,' which they deny themselves,
from the motive here assigned for the discouragement of the
drama. If there be any earthly profession or occupation impe-
riously calling for the exercise of their principle, it is that of
the dealer in human flesh. The luxury he provides us with, is
the fruit of an iniquitous trafiic ; it is purchased by the employ-
ment of thousands in a pursuit utterly foreign from a life of
holiness, and especially denounced by the evangelical party as
contrary to the spirit and precepts of the gospel. Does one in

1831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class. 109

a hundred of them deny himself the luxury ? We verily believe
not. They gratify their palates with this product of an atrocious
and demoralizing trade, and then turn round to warn their
worldly brethren against the deadly sin of encouraging the pro-
fession of a player !

That religious scruples concerning popular amusements often
spring from pure and conscientious motives, we freely admit*
But that they are founded on true reason or religion, we posi-
tively deny. The extent to which they have spread, can only
be accounted for, we humbly conceive, by an extraordinary
habit, as we must call it, greatly prevalent at the present day.
This habit appears to us to have obtained an alarming influence,
and to have given a new character to religion. We deem it,
then, of essential importance to explain its nature and effects.
By so doing, we shall be able to throw some light on the causes
of the clamour against worldly amusements.

The habit above alluded to, is of two kinds. That of consider-
ing religion as something distinct from morals ; — and that of cir-
cumscribing morals within certain narrow bounds. The extent
to which the former practice is carried, both as derived from the
supposed doctrines of the gospel, and as applied to the charac-
ters of men, is, in our apprehension, one of the most lamentable
circumstances in the religious history of the times. No sober
mind can fail to perceive the mischief of dissevering things that
ought never to be separated. No sober mind can overlook the
evils arising from the pretensions of those who claim credit for
Christianity, without exhibiting its fruits in their dispositions
and lives. It is not our present purpose to expose this spurious
theology. We allude to the fact of its existence, as leading to
certain consequences, and we appeal to the experience of our
readers in proof of the fact. Every one must be aware of the
characteristics of a serious or evangelical person, distinguished
as such from the rest of society. These are — first, a separation
from what are called worldly amusements, and a professed ab-
horrence of them, as contrary to the spirit of the Book of Life.
Secondly, an exhibition of ardent zeal for Bible and Missionary
Societies, schools for the instruction of the poor, &c. Thirdly,
a feverish anxiety to commune with others on religious topics,
and to mingle with them frequently for the purpose of Scriptural
exposition and prayer. Fourthly, an attendance on one or other
of the divines pre-eminently designated as * gospel preachers.'
Such are the chief characteristics of the evangelical class.
That they may all be coexistent with true piety, we do not deny.
But it is plain, they cannot be considered as genuine evidences
of such piety, because they may be all assumed. They ar^

110 Public Amusements. — Sept.

external acts; they are not habits of mind directly springing
out of and implying piety. They are not fruits by which we
are taught at once to determine the nature of the tree. We can
easily imagine a man divested of all the virtues pre-eminently
called Christian, yet exhibiting all the before-mentioned cha-
racteristics of the * serious' in the highest degree. Yet, incre-
dible as it may sound to many, these characteristics are the
strongest proofs required by the Evangelical party of the in-
fluence of Christianity on the mind. We do not say they may
not be often found united with the virtues just alluded to; but
we do say, that any person producing such proofs becomes,
ipso facto, a member of the spiritual class. And, what may
appear still more incredible, nothing can henceforward deprive
him of his evangelical claims. He may be turbulent,— he may
be factious, — he may be uncharitable. His heart may be filled
with the gall of bitterness towards all who differ from him.
He may be inflamed with worldly ambition, and may thirst
for popular renown. He may be subtle and supple. He may
be sly and selfish. He may hold truth in contempt when false-
hood suits his purpose. But nothing of all this can shake his
pretensions to be numbered among the spiritual class. The
* characteristics' are visible, and known unto all men, and are
enough to cover his moral defects, (with certain exceptions,)
though his heart may be a prey to worldly motives, and a
stranger to the feelings which true religion inspires.

The exceptions here in view, arise out of the other habit we
have alluded to — that of limiting morals within narrow bounds.
We must again appeal to the experience of our readers for a
fact ascertained even by the ordinary language of life. No
one ever dreams of describing any man as a ' moral man,' ex-
cept him who is free from certain impurities of practice ; who
preserves a decent character for propriety of domestic conduct ;
and is not given to wine. The use of the term is familiarized
to our minds in no other sense than this. A man may raise
himself in life by the basest arts. He may sacrifice every prin-
ciple for the sake of preferment. He may be proud and arro-
gant,— vain and intolerant, — greedy of praise and covetous of
gain. He may be a fawner on the great, and a tyrant towards
the poor ; — profuse in the indulgence of himself, and regardless
of the necessities of others. He may be all this, and much more
than this, yet still he is not an immoral man. This epithet is
strictly confined to those whose habits are (according to the
arbitrary sense of another term) usually denominated loose.

Now the effect of this restriction in the application of terms
full of important meaning, we hold to be mischievous in the ex-

1831. Pretensions of the Evangelical Class* 111

treme. The power of words in directing the attention of man^
kind to, and in diverting it from things, is infinitely greater than
we generally imagine. When the use of them becomes familiar
to the ear in a specific sense, the mind involuntarily obeys the
habit, and imperceptibly loses the idea of any but their customary
application. If this be the natural effect in ordinary cases, how
much more likely is it to take place where men's interests and
passions incline them to yield to and favour the delusion ? The
consequence is, that the delusion spreads and establishes itself
among all orders of the community, and exercises a correspond-
ing sway over practice. The moral sense itself ceases to inter-
pose beyond the bounds prescribed for it in the nomenclature of
society; and things are daily done by the ' religious' and the

* moral,' utterly ' at variance with the precepts and spirit of the

* gospel.' Hence we see the pretensions to spirituality asserted
and maintained often altogether on the credit of a fervent zeal,
and an abstinence from the proscribed indulgences ! Hence we
see the charge of worldly-mindedness preferred and persisted in
against all who refuse to abjure worldly amusements ! Hence
we see a storm of pious intolerance and vituperation venting
all its violence on professions which minister to amusement !
Hence we see men manifestly actuated by proud or malignant
passion, duping multitudes into a persuasion of their exalted
piety ! Hence we see others pushing themselves into elevated
stations, through corrupt and unprincipled means, without
meeting the obstacles, or incurring the obloquy, they would
justly and infallibly encounter, if their habits were loose.

These facts are too clear and palpable to be disputed. The
injury arising to true religion, — the impositions practised by
men upon themselves, — the false colouring given to actions and
characters by society, — the pernicious notions imbibed on sub-
jects of the last importance to individuals and the public, — the
encouragement aiForded to the indulgence of the basest passions
of our nature, in consequence of the habits we have noticed,
must be extensive. To attempt to trace these effects, forms no
part of our plan. But we hope we shall not be thought unpro-
fitably employed in directing the attention of our readers to the
subject. We ascribe to the above-named habits, the power ob-
tained by certain persons in exciting religious prejudices against
popular amusements ; and thus withdrawing observation altoge-
ther from evils of a far deeper kind. The vices supposed to be
encouraged by such amusements, are chiefly of the description
known by the term loose. They are those for which the pious
reserve the strongest epithets of indignation.

Let us not be misunderstood. We by no means deny the vitia-*

112 Public Jmusemenfs.—' Sept,

ting tendency of amusements, nor their sinfulness when indulged
in to excess. We see the most substantial reasons to warn the
youthful mind against their seductive influences, and to fortify
it by such sound and rational views as may teach it to withstand
them. But power, rank, riches, and the desire and struggle for
them, number daily victims in their toils. We do not perceive,
notwithstanding, that the most sensitive of the serious class be-
take themselves to ' sackcloth and ashes ' for safety. Sin lays
its snares for us, we may be assured, with full as much art and
certainty, in the business as in the recreations of the world ; in
the schemes we may form in the closet, as in the enticements
of the drama and the dance. We may shun the amusements
of the world, even to an ascetic degree, without adding one atom
to our strength amidst its serious occupations. We might, per-
haps, be still nearer the truth, if we said — that the extent of
credit assumed for resisting temptation under the form of plea-
su7'e, has a natural tendency to screen its sinful aspects from us
in other cases.

We have no great hopes of impressing the evangelical class
with the truth of what we have written on this subject. Religi-
ous prejudices are rarely overcome by reason or common sense.
Errors are often maintained, not so much from an indifference
to truth, as from an habitual blindness to it. The most mis-
taken notions, when embraced with reverence, cling to the mind
with a tenacity proportioned to its sincerity. Numbers have
been persuaded to shun all popular amusements as a sacred
duty. So long as they do so from such a motive, they mani-
festly act in conformity with Christian principle, and we should
be among the last to recommend a departure from it. But we
are anxious to guard them from the delusion 6f imagining them-
selves to be thus secured against the temptations of the world.
The very persons who shun the ball-room lest their vanity
should be excited, often testify to the observers how feebly it has
resisted temptation amidst other scenes. The enemy pursues
them even to their religious haunts, and gains a readier con-
quest, where his power is not dreaded, nor his approach descried.
While such delusions last, we can scarcely expect to awaken
our ' evangelical' readers to juster reflections. But we do hope
to inspire some of them with more candid feelings in their esti-
mation of themselves, and more charitable sentiments in their
judgments of their neighbours. The assertion of their claims to
superior piety and heavenly-mindedness is exceedingly off'ensive
even to those who are most disposed to acknowledge the sincerity
of their motives. That there may be much piety where there
is much pretension, we should bQ extremely unwilling to deny.

1831. Pretensions of the EvoMgelical Class. 113

But undoubtedly piety derives no additional strength nor lustre
from its constant obtrusion on the notice of the world. Its pro-
per sphere of influence is the heart. If it be deeply rooted there,
so as thoroughly to impregnate the spiritual soil, it will assu-
redly act on the temper and affections, and diffuse its fruits
over the whole conduct and conversation of man. What reli-
ance can be placed on the validity or stability of motives that
manifestly fail to produce corresponding effects ? What value
can be rationally ascribed to the most rapturous ecstasies of
religious feeling, if they have not a proportionate power over
the will and conduct ? We may, for aught we know, be touching
on some disputed points of doctrine, which we have neither time
nor learning to discuss. But, according to our plain conceptions,
the highest notions of faith and piety must resolve themselves
into motives, actuating man to certain habits of disposition and
life. If, then, the motives be professedly such as seem to soar
above all the interests of this transitory existence, while its con-
cerns actually engross the attention in no very measured degree
— what is the inevitable conclusion ? Either that the motives are
too high and sublime for our imperfect nature, or that they are
mere assumptions on the part of those who lay claim to them.
We have no disposition whatever to be unjust or uncharitable
to the evangelical class, and we willingly adopt, in their behalf,
the former alternative. But we appeal to them, whether it is
not irrational (if indeed it be nothing worse) to claim credit for
motives, with which they do not, and cannot, act in conformity ?
— Whether their pretensions to a surpassing sanctity and spirit-
uality of mind are at all reconcilable with the customary habits
of attention to the cares and interests of existence ? — Whether,
in common consistency with such pretensions, they are not
bound to relinquish the other engagements of the world as
well as its amusements ?

It would be difficult, we think, even for the most charitable
mind to convince itself, that some of the ruling spirits among
this party are actuated by any very evangelical views of truth
or duty. Many are enabled to gain, within its sphere, botli
distinction and influence, to which their stations, talents, and
manners, would elsewhere by no means entitle them. To such,
it is evidently of importance to foster every delusion calculated
to give strength and stability to a class from whom they obtain
80 much consequence for themselves. In the meantime, thou-
sands are tempted, by the easy terms of forsaking popular amuse-
ments, to flock to a standard with the holy characters of spirit-
TJALiTY inscribed on it. But is all indeed so pure and heavenly-
minded beneath it? Is there no swelling sense of pride and

VOL. LIV, NO. CVII. H

114 Public Amusements. Sept.

vainglory engendered in the breast by these self-constituted
claims to vital religion and righteousness ? Is there no sin of
arrogance or presumption involved in this indignant and con-
spicuous separation from the rest of mankind ? Is there no
selfishness nor uncharitableness indulged among this little band,
dwelling together in the lofty tents of godliness, while they sur-
vey the countless multitudes below as objects of divine con-
demnation ? — For the present we shall take leave of this subject.
We shall resume it when we think we can do so with any ad-
vantage to the cause of truth and religion.

Art, VI. — The Life and Death of Lord Edivard Fitzgerald. By
Thomas Moore. 2 vols. 8 vo. London: 1831,

fTHHE unfortunate nobleman, whose life and death are recorded
-*- in these volumes, made an early and ineffaceable impres-
sion upon the mind of Mr Moore. With Lord Edward, he
says —

* I could have no opportunity of forming any acquaintance, but re-
member (as if it had been but yesterday) having once seen him, in the
year 1797, in Grafton Street, — when, on being told who he was, as
he passed, I ran anxiously after him, desirous of another look at one
whose name had, from my school-days, been associated in my mind
with all that was noble, patriotic, and chivalrous. Though I saw him
but this once, his peculiar dress, the elastic lightness of his step, his
fresh, healthful complexion, and the soft expression given to his eyes,
by their long dark eyelashes, are as present and familiar to my me-
mory as if I had intimately known him. Little did I then think that,
at an interval of four-and- thirty years from thence — an interval equal
to the whole span of his life at that period — I should not only find
myself the historian of his mournful fate, but (what to many will ap-
pear matter rather of shame than of boast) with feelings so little al-
tered, either as to himself or his cause.' — Vol. i. page 306.

This intimation does not surprise us. Far from being calcu-
lated to alter his feelings, either as to Lord Edward Fitzgerald,
or the enterprise in which he perished, the literary life of his
eminent biographer must have given permanence to the senti-
ments with which his boyhood was imbued. The fame of Tho-
mas Moore is interwoven with the misfortunes of his country.
However multiform his accomplishments, and various the paths
by which he has risen to his elevated reputation, that portion
of his celebrity is not the least precious and enduring, which is
derived from ' The Melodies,' where music, adapted beyond all
other to the expression of national woe, was wedded to verse of
an incomparable sweetness, The beautiful airs, which are sup-

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 116

posed to have been produced by grief, and possess so admirable
an aptitude for the language of lamentation, were turned by
Mr Moore to a noble account. He made them the vehicles of
those delightful effusions, in which the most graceful diction,
versijfication the most harmonious, and the most brilliant fancy,
were employed to charm the ear, and to touch the heart with
the calamities of Ireland. A new sort of advocacy was insti-
tuted in her cause, and in the midst of gilded drawingrooms,
and the throng of illuminated saloons, there arose a song of sor-
row, which breathed an influence as pure and as enchanting as
the voice that ravished the senses of Comus with its simple and
pathetic melody. It is not wonderful, that after having accom-
plished so much by these means, for his own fame, (and it is no
exaggeration to add, for the benefit of his country), Mr Moore
should revert to incidents which contributed to give a bias so
poetically fortunate to his genius ; and that he should, in the
selection of his subjects, and in their treatment, be swayed by
an enthusiasm, which, however questionable in the ethics of a
severer loyalty, ought to be referred to the predilections of the
poet, rather than to the passions of the partisan. It is to this
cause, and not to any improper design, that we attribute the
choice which Mr Moore has made in this instance of his sub-
ject. At the same time, it must be confessed, that he has exposed
himself to the imputation of having, at a period of more than
ordinary excitement, directed the eyes of his countrymen to a
dismal and pernicious retrospect. Why, it may be observed,
recall what it will not only be useless but dangerous to remem-
ber ? Wherefore raise the drop-scene of that stage, on which
memory is so likely to play the part assigned to her by one well
acquainted with her powers, and to prove herself ' the actor of
* our passions o'er again?' The martyr to a cause, which was not
consecrated by success, is as yet uncanonized by time. The
dungeon must have mouldered, before it can be deemed holy.
Although it might have been legitimate to have looked for ima-
gery through its loopholes, it was scarcely warrantable to have
thrown it open, and to exhibit the drops of that noble blood
which is scarcely dry upon its floor. To these objections we
cannot give any kind of assent. Thirty-three years make rebel-
lion a part of history. We think, besides, that no mischievous
consequences are to be apprehended in Ireland from the form in
which this narrative appears. It is only in the refuse of litera-
ture that infection can be communicated. The work of Mr
Moore is not likely to propagate the political epidemic among
those humbler classes of society, to whose hands it is most im-
probable that his book should ever reach. But there is an-

110 Moore's IJfe of Lord Echmrd Fitzgerald. Sept.

other description of readers, to whom it may minister a salu-
tary admonition. He tells us, that he will willingly bear what-
ever odium may redound temporarily to himself, should any
warning or alarm, which it may convey, have even the remo-
test share in inducing the people of this country to consult,
while there is yet time, their own peace and safety, by applying
prompt and healing measures to the remaining grievances of
Ireland. This, we are persuaded, was among the main motives
of Mr Moore, not to attend to the recommendations of those
who told him that he ought not to enter upon ground, which it
is impossible to tread without stirring the particles of fire that lie
beneath it. Instead of coinciding with his advisers, he knew
that he was not furnishing reminiscences to the vindictive me-
mory of a susceptible people, or suggesting to men who have a
large debt of injury to discharge, the usurious repayment of
their wrongs ; but that he was holding out to those whom it most
deeply concerns, an example in the fatal policy pursued with
regard to Ireland, which might deter them from the adoption
of measures fitted to the production of similar results. He was
conscious that he was endeavouring to draw its legitimate and
redeeming uses from national adversity, by setting off, with the
brilliancy of his talents, the ' precious jewel in its head.' He
felt that he was not kindling a false fire, but was setting up a
steady beacon, to throw light on the stormy passions which still
break and fret on that dark and dangerous point where the state
wellnigh went to pieces, and towards which, by the rapid cur-
rent of events, it may again be insensibly carried.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the fifth son of the first Duke of
Leinster, who married, in 1747, Emilia Mary, the daughter of
Charles, Duke of Richmond. He was born on the 15th of Oc-
tober, 1763. In the year 1773, his father died; and his mother
subsequently married a Scotch gentleman, Mr Ogilvie. For his
mother, Lord Edward Fitzgerald entertained the strongest at-
tachment and deepest respect; and although there may perhaps be,
in the domestic correspondence, published a good deal in detail
by Mr Moore, some minuteness of circumstance without much
diversity of phrase, it is morally beautiful to behold a uniform
and undeviating affection for the noble lady who gave birth to
a son so unfortunate, pervading almost all that he wrote or did ;
and, from the opening of his boyhood to his last hour of pain
and death, amidst all the vicissitudes of joy and of anguish
through which he passed, in his morning of brightest hope, and
in the dark noon by which it was succeeded — in every change ■
of time, and place, and feeling, to find that his ' dearest mo-
' ther' was still present to his heart, and occupied his existence
with the purest and fondest filial love.

1 83 1 . Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 1 1 T

We do not recollect to have ever read of any stronger example
of affectionate duty to a parent, than that of which this book
furnishes an evidence so touching, and which, Mr Moore will
not deem it indelicate in us to mention, that he, more than almost
any other writer, was qualified to appreciate. To those who have
any acquaintance Avith the author of these volumes, it will not
be surprising that the letters which contain such proofs of do-
mestic virtue should be given in frequent citation ; and that so
fond a return should be made to the most conspicuous of many
instances of amiableness in the character of Lord Edward Fitz-
gerald, which shed a gleam so bright upon his dark and dismal
fortunes. The proverbial concomitant to familiarity is verified,
by almost every initiation into the lives of the great ; but the
more intimately we become acquainted with the ill-fated subject
of these mournful memoirs, the more admiration we acquire for
the lofty goodness, which was the chief characteristic of his
exalted and tender nature. It requires more than ordinary
insensibility to contemplate without emotion the close of that
man's life in desolation and in agony, who, in addressing his
mother in the midst of happiness of the most brilliant sort, sup-
plies to the imagination of the kind and tender this vivid por-
traiture of them both. ' I long,' says Lord Edward, in one of
his letters to the Duchess of Leinster, (and how perfect is the
picture which he has painted, in colours furnished by a heart
so good !) — ' I long for a little walk with you leaning on me—

* or to have a long talk with you, sitting in some pretty spot,
' of a fine day, with your long cane in your hand, working at
' some little weed at your feet, and looking down, talking all
' the time.' The mother was destined to outlive the sou. It was
some such survivorship that suggested itself to the poet, who
had himself been the witness to a civil war :

' Impositique rogis pueri ante ora parentum.'

Lord Edward was destined from his boyhood for the army.
He became lieutenant in the 19th regiment, with which he
sailed to America in 178L There he distinguished himself
by feats of personal intrepidity. Sir John Doyle, who had op-
portunities of observing his character and conduct, says of
him, ' Of my lamented and ill-fated friend's excellent quali-

* ties I should never tire in speaking ; I never knew so loveable

* a person, and every man in the army, from the general to the
' drummer, would cheer the expression. His frank and open
' manner, his universal benevolence, his gaiete de coeur, his
' valour almost chivalrous, and, above all, his unassuming tone,

* made him the idol of all who served with him.' We pass oA'^er

118 Moore's Life of Lord Edioard Fitzgerald. Sept.

Lord Edward's military conduct in the American war : it is suf-
ficient to say, that he exhibited great valour. He was wounded
in the thigh, and left insensible on the field. In this situation
he was found by a poor negro, who carried him on his back to
his hut, and there nursed him most tenderly, till he was well
enough to bear removing to Charlestown. This circumstance
contributed one to many of the ingredients of romance of
which the life of Lord Edward was compounded. The negro
recurs in almost all the pictures of joy and of sorrow, and
is perpetually brought before us in the subsequent narrative.
He took him, in gratitude for the honest creature's kindness,
into his service. ' The faithful Tony' is the name by which the
devoted African was always designated by his gentle master,
who hardly ever omits in his letters to make affectionate mention
of him, whenever the least opportunity of introducing him occurs.
To the end of his life the negro continued devotedly attached to
him ; and one of the most pathetic incidents in a book which is
full of sorrow, is the lament of the * faithful Tony' that he could
not go to see his dear master in the place of his concealment
when a price was set upon his head, ' lest his black face should
* betray him.'

The war having terminated, and Lord Edward's health ha-
ving been restored, he returned to Ireland, and in the summer
of 1783 was brought into Parliament by the Duke of Leinster
for the borough of Athy. He had no talents as a senator ; and
not only does not appear to have taken any part in the debates
of the Irish House of Commons, but seems, until a much later
period, not to have given his thoughts to the political condition
of his country. He was then, in truth, little else than a soldier ;
and it was only when the clash of arms was heard through
Europe, and revolutionary France sounded the trumpet that
pealed through millions of hearts, that his political enthusiasm
was ai'oused. From 1786, nothing of any peculiar interest
occurs in his Memoirs. He fell in love with Lady Catherine
Mead, second daughter of the Earl of Fitzwilliam ; and became

subsequently enamoured with a lady whose initial (G ) only

is given. Mr Moore avails himself of this infidelity, to discuss the
distinctions between first and second love, with a nicety, which
shows how strongly he is still addicted to the metaphysics of
the heart. We confess ourselves to be a little surprised, after
Mr Moore had bestowed so much eloquent and elaborate discus-
sion on this new sentiment in the mind of Lord Edward, to find,
upon the marriage of the young lady to another, a declaration
from her lover, that he bore the intelligence better than he had
expected that be should have been able to do. We own that the

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 119

letters relative to G do not involve us in any very profound

sympathy for the affection which they express ; but in the same
correspondence we find references to his mother, and effusions
of filial attachment, which belong to a far loftier love. With,
says Mr Moore, a depth of tenderness, which few hearts have
ever felt so strongly, he thus addresses his beloved mother: —

* The going to bed without wishing you a good- night; the

* coming down in a morning, and not seeing you ; the saunter-

* ing about in the fine sunshine, looking at your flowers and

* shrubs without you to lean upon one, was all very bad indeed.

* In settling my journey there that evening, I determined to see

* you in my way, supposing you were even a thousand miles out
' of it.'

In 1787 Lord Edward went to Spain, and from Gibraltar thus
addresses the Duchess of Leinster : —

' My dearest Mother, — I am delighted with this place ; never was
any thing better worth seeing, either taking it in a military light, or
merely as a matter of cm-iosity. I cannot describe it at all as it me-
rits. Conceive an immense high rugged rock, separated by a small
neck of land from a vast track of mountainous or rather hilly coun-
try, whose large, broad, sloping eminences, with a good deal of ver-
dure, make a strong contrast with the sharp, steej) rock of the place.
Yet when you come on the rock, you find part of it capable of very
high cultivation ; it will in time be a little paradise. Even at pre-
sent, in the midst of some of the wildest, rockiest parts, you find
charming gardens, surrounded with high hedges of geraniums, filled
with orange, balm, sweet oleander, myrtle, cedar, Spanish broom,
roses, honeysuckles, in short, all the charming plants of both our own
country and others. Conceive all this, collected in different spots of
the highest barren rock perhaps you ever beheld, and all in luxuriant
vegetation ; on one side seeing, with a fine basin between you, the
green hills of Andalusia, with two or three rivers emptying them-
selves into the bay ; on another side, the steep, rugged, and high land
of Barbary, and the whole strait coming under your eye at once, and
then a boundless view of the Mediterranean; all the sea enlivened
with shipping, and the land with the sight of your own soldiers, and
the sound of drums and fifes, and all other military music : — to crown
all, the finest climate possible. Really, walking over the higher parts
of the rock, either in the morning or evening, (in the mid-day all is
quiet, on account of the heat,) gives one feelings not to be described,
making one proud to think that here you are, a set of islanders from
a remote corner of the world, surrounded by enemies thousands of
times your numbers, yet, after all the struggles, both of them and the
French, to beat you out of it, keeping it in spite of .ill their efforts.
AH this makes you appear to yourself great and proud, — and yet,
again, when you contemplate the still greater greatness of the scene,
the immense depth of the sea under you, the view of an extensive

120 Moovci^^ Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

tract of laud, whose numerous inhabitants are scarcely known, — -the
feeling of pride is then gone, and the littleness of your own works,
in comparison with those of nature, makes you feel yourself as nothing.
But I will not say any more, for every thing must fall far short of
what is here seen and felt.'

The conclusion of this letter, in which he describes the impres-
sions made on him by the contemplation of external nature, pre-
sents a fine specimen of the moral picturesque. When standing
on that lofty and celebrated mountain that towers over the straits,
on which it is impossible to look without a sublime emotion,
with the Mediterranean on one hand, and the mighty ocean
stretching itself out in its infinity on the other — with Africa
before him — listening as he was to the voices of the sea below,
whose surges fell on the ear, in harmony with the feelings
which the mind must have received through the other senses,
—thus encompassed with all that history, geography, the power
of man, and the grandeur of nature on the sea and in the moun-
tains could assemble, he still thought of home ; and instead of
allowing his fancy to pursue the white sails of a vessel gliding
towards the Avorld beyond the deep, he says — ' When I see a

* ship sailing, I think, how glad I should be if I were aboard

* and on my passage to you.' Mr Moore justly observes, ' that

* the great charm of all his letters lies neither in the descriptions
' nor reflections, much livelier and profounder than which might
' be readily found ; but in that ever wakeful love of home, and

* of all connected with it, which accompanies him wherever he

* goes, Avhich mixes even to a disturbing degree with all his

* pursuits and pleasures, and would, if his wishes could have

* been seconded by the fabled cap of Fortunatus, have been for

* ever transporting him back into the family circle.'

From Spain Lord Edward returned to Ireland. Mr Moore
informs us, that his attachment to Miss (the lady in aste-
risks) continued, and that, in 1788, her father having objected
to their marriage, notwithstanding the interposition of the Duke
of Richmond, (Lord Edward's uncle,) he resolved to try how far
absence and occupation would bring relief; and as his regiment
was in Nova Scotia, he determined on joining it. He sailed
accordingly for Halifax, and proceeded to St John's, in New
Brunswick, where his regiment was quartered. From the latter
place he writes to his mother, in July 1788, what strikes us to be
a fresh and unconsciously beautiful description of the scene of
sublime sequestration into which he had passed. We quite agree
with Mr Moore, that the letter, of which we shall give a consi-
derable extract, affords one of the instances where ' a writer may

* be said to be a poet without knowing it.'

1831. Moora's Ll/e of Loi'd Edward Filz(/erald. 121

' i\ly dearest Mother, — Here 1 am, after a very long and fatiguing'
journey. I had no idea of what it was : it was more like a campaign
than any thing else, except in one material point, that of having no dan-
ger. 1 should have enjoyed it most completely but for the musquitos,
but they took off a great deal of my pleasure : the millions of them are
dreadful. If it had not been for this inconvenience, my journey would
Jiave been delightful. The country is almost all in a state of nature,
as well as its inhabitants. There are four sorts of these : the Indians,
the French, the old English settlers, and now the refugees from the
other parts of America : the last seem the most civilized.

' The old settlers are almost as wild as Indians, but lead a very
comfortable life : they are all farmers, and live entirely within them-
selves. They supply all their own wants by their contrivances, so
that they seldom buy any thing. They ought to be the happiest people
in the world, but they do not seem to know it. They imagine them-
selves poor because they have no money, without considering they do
not want it : every thing is done by barter, and you will often find a
farmer well supplied with every thing, and yet not having a shilling
in money. Any man that will work is sure, in a few years, to have
a comfortable farm : the first eighteen mouths is the only hard time,
and that in most places is avoided, particularly near the rivers, for in
every one of them a man will catch in a day enough to feed him for
the year. In the Avinter, with very little trouble, he supplies himself
with meat by killing moose-deer; and in summer with pigeons, of
which the woods are full. These he must subsist on till he has cleared
ground enough to raise a little grain, which a hard-working man will
do in the course of a few months. By selling his moose skins, making
sugar out of the maple-tree, and by a feAV days' work for other people,
for which he gets great wages, he soon acquires enough to purchase
a cow. This, then, sets him up, and he is sure, in a few years, to have
a comfortable supply of every necessary of life. I came through a
Avhole tract of country peopled by Irish, who came out not worth a
shilling, and have all now farms, Avorth (according to the value of
money in this country) from L.IOOO to L.3000.

' The equality of every body, and of their manner of life, I like very
much. There are no gentlemen ; every body is on a footing, provided
he Avorks and Avants nothing ; every man is exactly Avhat he can make
himself, or /u/s made himself by industry. The more children a man
has the better : his Avife being brought to bed is as joyful neAvs as his
cow calving ; the father has no uneasiness about providing for them,
as this is done by the profit of their Avork. By the time they are fit
to settle, he can always afford them two oxen, a coav, a gun, and an
axe, and in a few years, if they Avork, they will thrive.

' I came by a settlement along one of the rivers, which Avas all the
Avork of one pair ; the old man Avas seventy-tAvo, the old lady seventy ;
they had been there thirty years ; they came there Avith one coaa', three
children, and one servant ; there Avas not a living being Avithiu sixty
miles of them. The first year they lived mostly on milk and marsh
leaves ; the second year they contrived to purchase a bull, by the pro-

122 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

duce of their moose skins and fish : from this time they got on very
well ; and there are now five sons and a daughter all settled in different
farms along the river for the space of twenty miles, and all living
comfortably and at ease. The old pair live alone in the little log cabin
they first settled in, two miles from any of their children ; their little
spot of ground is cultivated by these children, and they are supplied
with so much butter, grain, meat, &c., from each child, according to
the share he got of the land ; so that the old folks have nothing to do
but to mind their house, which is a kind of inn they keep, more for
the sake of the company of the few travellers there are than for gain.

' I was obliged to stay a day with the old people on account of the
tides, which did not answer for going up the river till next morning ;
it was, I think, as odd and as pleasant a day (in its way) as ever I
passed. I wish I could describe it to you, but I cannot, you must
only help it out with your own imagination. Conceive, dearest mother,
arriving about twelve o'clock in a hot day at a little cabin upon the
side of a rapid river, the banks all covered with woods, not a house in
sight, — and there finding a little old, clean, tidy woman spinning, with
an old man of the same appearance weeding salad. We had come for
ten miles up the river without seeing any thing but woods. The old
pair, on our arrival, got as active as if only five-and-twenty, the gentle-
man getting wood and water, the lady frying bacon and eggs, and both
talking a great deal, telling their story, as I mentioned before, how
they had been there thirty years, and how their children were settled,
and when either's back was turned, remarking how old the other had
grown ; at the same time all kindness, cheerfulness, and love to each
other.

' The contrast of all this, which had passed during the day, with the
quietness of the evening, when the spirits of the old people had a little
subsided, and began to wear off with the day, and with the fatigue of
their little work, — sitting quietly at their door, on the same spot they
had lived in thirty years together, the contented thoughtfulness of
their countenances, which was increased by their age and the solitary
life they had led, the wild quietness of the place, not a living creature
or habitation to be seen, and me, Tony, and our guide sitting with
them, all on one log. The difference of the scene I had left, — the
immense way I had to get from this little corner of the world, to see
any thing I loved, — the difference of the life I should lead from that
of this old pair, perhaps at their age discontented, disappointed, and
miserable, wishing for power, &c. &c., — my dearest mother, if it was
not for you, I believe I never should go home, at least I thought so at
that moment.'

We thus get an insight, through one of its finest avenues, io
that romantic character, which the rest of the correspondence
continues gradually to disclose, until we obtain as full and ample
a view of his mind, as he had himself of the noble prospects which
were then around him. ' It is,' he says, ' very pleasant to go

* in this way (in a canoe) exploring, and ascending far up some

* river or creek, and finding sometimes the finest lands and

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 123

* most beautiful spots in nature, which are not at all known,

* and quite wild. I believe I shall never again be prevailed on

* to live in a house. I cannot describe all the feelings one has

* in these excursions, when one wakes — perhaps in the middle of
' the night — in a fine open forest, the moon shining through

* the trees — the burning of the fire — in short, every thing strikes

* you.' Though we have already quoted these letters at some
length, we cannot avoid adding Lord Edward's description of a
moose-chase, not only because it illustrates the turn of mind
which the woods had given him, and shows the shadow which
the forest had left on his imagination, but exhibits that tender-
ness of nature which taught him to sympathize with the suffer-
ings of animals, which, from their sensibility to pain, have
acquired a title to human pity, which the good have never
failed to allow.

< I really do think there is no luxury equal to that of lying before a
good fire on a good spruce bed, after a good supper, and a hard
moose-chase, in a fine clear frosty moonlight starry night. But to
enter into the spirit of this, you must understand what a moose-chase
is. The man himself runs the moose down by pursuing the track. Your
success in killing depends on the number of people you have to pur-
sue and relieve one another in going first — which is the fatiguing part
of snow-shoeing — and on the depth and hardness of the snow ; for,
when the snow is hard, and has a crust, the moose cannot get on, as
it cuts his legs, and then he stops to make battle ; but when the snow
is soft, though it be above his belly, he will go on, three, four, or five
days, for then the man cannot get on so fast, as the snow is heavy,
and he only gets his game by perseverance ; an Indian never gives
him up.

< We had a fine chase after one, and ran him down in a day and a
half, though the snow was very soft ; but it was so deep, the animal
was up to his belly every step. We started him about twelve o'clock
one day — left our baggage, took three days' bread, two days' pork,
our axe and fireworks, and pursued. He beat us at first all to no-
thing ; towards evening we had a sight of him, but he beat us again ;
we encamped that night, eat our bit of pork, and gave chase again, as
soon as we could see the track in the morning. In about an hour we
roused the fellow again, and off he set, fresh to all appearance as ever ;
but in about two hours after, Ave perceived his steps grow shorter,
and some time after, we got sight. He still, however, beat us ; but
at last we evidently perceived he began to tire ; we saw he began to
turn oftener ; we got accordingly courage, and pursued faster, and at
last, for three quarters of an hour, in fine open wood, pursued him all
the way in sight, and came within shot ; — he stopped, but in vain,
poor animal.

* I cannot help being sorry now for the poor creature — and was
then. At first it was charming, but as soon as we had him in our
power, it was melancholy ; however, it was soon over, and it was

124 ^Ioovq'^ Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

no pain to hiin. If it was not for this last part, it would be a delight-
ful amusement.'

This passion for what Mr Moore calls ' savage happiness,' while
Lord Edward remained in North America, seems to have conti-
nually increased. In a letter of the 1st of June, 1789, he says, —
' 1 often think of you all in these wild woods. They are better
* than rooms. Ireland and England will he too little for me
' when I go home.' It Avas not, it is clear, a factitious sensibi-
lity that prompted these expressions; they were intended for no
other than the maternal eye ; and he had as little idea of their
publication, as that the flowers which he sent to her from the
solitudes in which he was now living, should be displayed at a
florist exhibition. As evidence that he had become unaffectedly
infatuated in his love of savage nature, Mr Moore has inserted
a very singular certificate, given him by the Chief of the Six
Nations, upon his being admitted as a chief of the Bear Tribcj
into whose fraternity he was received, with all the pomp that
belongs to the inaugurations of the desert.

Mr Moore has made some very ingenious observations upon
this strange and almost fantastical predilection for rude nature,
in one who had been nursed upon the lap of luxury, and whose
family, personal advantages, manners, and accomplishments,
rendered him an object of admiration in the brilliant circles to
whose familiarity he was born. Rousseau's splendid paradox is
referred to, and the authority of Jefferson, in favour of Indian
communities, is also cited. The president, it appears, looked
from the new civilisation of his country into the wilderness on
its verge, and, as the better domicile of happiness, gave the pre-
ference to the last. We own that we should not be disposed to
attach any importance to the backwoodsman tastes of Lord Ed-
ward Fitzgerald, if we did not attribute the principles which
afterwards struck so deep a root in his nature, to the influences
produced by the feelings which lie had acquired in these re-
gions. His academy of legislation was in the forest. It was
from the woods that the seeds which afterwards sprung up
so fast, fell into his mind ; and he may be said to have engaged
in a great political achievement in the same spirit, and perhaps
with something of the same motive, with which he would have
launched his canoe on some unknown river, which he would have
liked the better for its rapids, and the exciting hazards through
which it should bear him in his adventurous way. It is very re-
markable, that he has not referred in any one of his letters to
the young republic of the United States, and that the senate and
the congress should never once have engaged his meditations.
He did not think of the president in his robes, but of the Indian
chief in his painted skin. The new commonwealth had too

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edioard Fitzgerald. 125

much of the soberness of old English usage about it — it appealed
too little to emotion, and brought freedom into too close an
identity with law. The idea of becoming a citizen of the United
States never occurred to him, while he gladly accepted, and
carefully preserved his diploma of noble savageness, from the
chief who realized Dryden's magnificent triplet —
* I am as free as nature first made man.
Ere the vile la\vs of servitude began,
And wild in woods the noble savage ran.'
The transition from the woods, to the wilderness of opinions in
which freedom so long missed her way in France, was not unna-
tural, and we are not surprised to find in the wanderer of Nova
Scotia the philosopher of the Palais Royal. ' The principle of

* equality,' says Mr Moore, * retained its footing in his mind
' after the reveries through which it had first found its way

* thither had vanished ; and though it was some time before

* politics — beyond the range, at least, of mere party tactics —

* began to claim his attention, all he had meditated and felt

* among the solitudes of Nova Scotia could not fail to render

* his mind a more ready recipient for such doctrines as he

* found prevalent on his return to Europe: — doctrines which, in

* their pure and genuine form, contained all the spirit, without

* the extravagance, of his own solitary dreams, and, while they
' would leave Man in full possession of those blessings of civi-

* lisation he had acquired, but sought to restore to him some of
' those natural rights of equality and freedom which he had
' lost.'— Vol. I. page 103,

There are two incidents which reflect great credit on Lord
Edward Fitzgerald during his residence in America. The first
relates exclusively to himself. It has been surmised that he
threw himself from his high station in the aristocracy of his
country into a revolutionary project, from disappointment in his
professional pursuits. The letters written from Nova Scotia,
establish beyond a doubt that his mind was not only far above
every low resentment, but that he indignantly repudiated all pro-
motion at the expense of what he felt to be his honour. The
Duke of Leinster having left the opposition. Lord Edward de-
termined not to accept of any advantage that could be derived
from his kinsman's adherence to the government. He writes
thus : ' Pray tell Ogilvic that I seriously beg that he will not
' even mention, or do any thing about my lieutenant-colonelcy.
' I am determined to have nothing till I am out of Parliament ;

* at least, I am contented with my rank and ray situation. I

* have no ambition for rank, and liowever I might be flattered
' by getting on, it would never pay me for a blush for ray

126 Moovt^B Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

* actions. The feeling of shame is what I never could bear.'
The other circumstance to which we allude, refers to a soldier
in the .54th regiment, of which Lord Edward was major, and
which was quartered in Nova Scotia. That soldier was William
Cobbett, who was alternately employed in studying the English
grammar, which he learned on guard, and in touching his
cap to every ensign as he passed. Such a man would natu-
rally form towards those whom accident had placed above him,
a strong disrelish. It requires little exercise of the fancy to see
this remarkable man, clothed in the garb of a common sentinel,
pacing with the rudiments of literary instruction furtively con-
tained in one hand, — his musket poised in the other, and, in his
monotonous walk, occasionally casting a grim eye on every
authoritative stripling to whom he was compelled to pay what
his own consciousness of superiority must have rendered a re-
luctant homage; yet even to him Lord Edward extended the
soft and subduing influences which he possessed over all those
who came near him. Cobbett said of him, ' Lord Edward was
' a most humane and excellent man, and the only really honest

* officer I ever knew in the army.' The most important fact,
in connexion with him, remains to be told. It was through
Lord Edward that Cobbett procured his discharge from the
army. Of his high-mindedness, and of his sagacity in the de-
tection of genius, it is no small proof, that he should have eifected
the liberation of such a man from the humilities and restraints
to which fortune had exposed him.

Before leaving America, Lord Edward visited the Falls of
Niagara. * The immense height and noise of the Falls, the

* spray that rises to the clouds, form altogether,' he says, * a
' scene that is worth the trouble of coming from Europe to

* see. Then the greenness and tranquillity of every thing about
' — the quiet of the immense forests around, compared with the
' violence of all that is close to the Falls !' We read in this
simple and just description an illustration of his destiny. If the
extracts which we have given from his correspondence while he
was ' in the quiet of the immense forests around him,' should
appear at all long — if we have dwelt with Mr Moore on the
feelings which he acquired and cherished in those boundless so-
litudes,— it was because we found it delightful to linger in ' the

* greenness and tranquillity' of this portion of his life ; and felt
reluctant to turn our eyes towards the rugged steep, and the
dreadful falls, to which a current that then seemed so smooth
was insensibly bearing him on, that he might be precipitated
into that abyss in which it had been decreed that he should so
soon be lost for ever.

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 12T

We pass with rapidity over the events in Lord Edward's bio-
graphy immediately subsequent to his return to Europe. In
London the Duke of Richmond introduced him to Mr Pitt, with
a view to his taking the command of an expedition against Cadiz.
Mr Pitt agreed, being impressed with a high opinion of his mi-
litary talents. Lord Edward, however, changed his mind, on
finding himself returned to the Irish House of Commons — quar-
relled with his uncle (the Duke) — lived with Fox and Sheridan
— went to Ireland, whose parliament presented no field for his
peculiar abilities — grew weary of it, and set off for Paris.

The bright vision of liberty that appeared to France, and the
glory with which she seemed to descend on the gilded clouds of
a melodramatic philosophy, which was got up in her political
theatre, with new scenery, dresses, and decorations, dazzled the
eyes of the young and chivalrous spectator, who stood amazed
and enchanted at all that he beheld. The civic feasts, the ban-
quets of martial citizenship, the blaze of illuminations, proces-
sions, triumphs, consecrations, clarions, drums, the shout of vic-
tory, the embraces of philanthropy, the ordinances of equaliza-
tion, the national fellowship, the abrogation of artificial distinc-
tions, the restoration of nature, and the regeneration of man-
kind— these were suflicient to produce an effect to which a mind
far less romantic and imaginative than that of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald would hardly have opposed resistance. He found
on a sudden his dreams of perfectibility receiving what he con-
ceived to be a palpable existence ; and took for reality what a
better experience and a closer approach would have taught him
to be a phantom still more unsubstantial than that which had
arisen to his fancy in the wilds of North America. At once,
and with an ardour as vehement as it was instantaneous, he
immersed himself in the deepest revolutionary sympathies, and
became strongly imbued with principles in which his mind was
profoundly steeped. It is due to him, however, to say, that
however calculated the incidents of the Revolution were to create
excitement in the imagination of a soldier, he was, beyond all
doubt, chiefly influenced in his admiration by the amiable ethics
of which French liberty affected to have opened a school. It
was the goodness of his nature that deceived him ; nor is it easy
to conjecture a stronger example of benevolent credulity, than
the following passage in one of his letters, written in 1792.

* In the coffee-houses and playhouses,' he says, * every man
' calls the other comrade, frere, and with a stranger immediately

* begins, — Oh nous sommes tous freres, tous horames — nos vic-

* toires sont pour vous, pour tout le monde.' It was with such
cant of fraternization, uttered by men with blood upon their

128 Moove's Life of Lo7'd Edivard Fitzgerald . Sept.

hands, and suavity ou their lips, that this generous fanatic in
the new philosophy, to whose seminaries he had been admitted,
was fatally deluded ; and in an inauspicious hour, he proposed,
at a public dinner, a revolutionary toast — flung off" his Patrician
robe, and of his nobility made a solemn resignation. This step
was immediately noticed by the English government, and he
was dismissed from the service.

We are inclined to think, that these imprudences were not un-
connected with another cause, of peculiar power upon a man of
his susceptible and impassioned character. He was prone to
love : formed to awake it, he readily participated in the emotions
which his manners, personal beauty, and accomplishments, could
hardly fail to excite. * At one of the theatres of Paris,' we are
told by Mr Moore, ' he saw through a logs gullee a face with

* which he was exceedingly struck, as well from its own peculiar
' beauty, as from the strong likeness the features bore to those

* of a lady, then some months dead, for whom he was known to

* have entertained a very affectionate regard. On enquiring who

* the young person was, that had thus riveted his attention, he

* found that it was no other than the Pamela, of whose beauty

* he had heard so much — the adopted, or (as now may be said
' without scruple) actual daughter of Madame de Genlis, by the
' Duke of Orleans.' He paid his addresses, was accepted, and
married her ; and, enamoured of his beautiful wife, and of that
cause to which he was now in some sort espoused, he returned to
that country to whose wrongs he was doomed to be the mis-
guided martyr ; and which he may be said to have loved, ' not

* wisely, but too well.'

Of the circumstances which led to the peculiar fortunes of Ire-
land in 1792, Mr Moore has given a very animated and compre-
hensive sketch. In 1776, Ireland had learned a dangerous lesson.
America had proclaimed her independence, and the first link was
struck from the chain of the Irish Catholic. Two years after,
the combined fleets of France and Spain swept the seas. The
volunteers came forth, and eighty thousand men rose in an in-
Rtant, by a kind of miracle, to soldiership. Irish commerce,
and Irish legislation, were declared to be free. The next
step to the liberation of the House of Commons from the con-
trol of England, was a determination that it should be reformed
by the people, if it did not reform itself. A rival senate was
formed by the volunteers, and the Convention overshadowed the
State. It was not, however, sustained by the great body of the
nation, (the still disfranchised Roman Catholics, whose grievances
were deemedof a secondary account,) and faihire was the result; in
so much that when Mr Flood, dressed in the ^'olllnteer uniform,

1831. Moore's Lfie of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 129

and surrounded by other members in regimentals, made a motion
for reform, on a plan previously agreed on in the Convention, he
was defeated in the House of Commons, by a majority of 159 to 77.
The reformers saw that they could only succeed by their incor-
poration with the people. The Presbyterians, who had formed
the flower of the civic army in 1782, became foremost in tender-
ing a cordial reconciliation to the Catholics. The latter brought
deep discontent and numerical force — the former intelligence and
republican spirit, as their respective contributions. Their alli-
ance, however, was still a little doubtful, when the French Re-
volution burst forth, and the distinctions of sect were borne away
by the emotions which issued from that event in so awful an
eruption. In 1791, the Society of United Irishmen, (called by
themselves * the Plot of Patriots,') professing as their leading
object ' the greatest happiness of the greatest number,' was
formed; and all sects and denominations were invited to join in
the one great common cause of political, religious, and national
enfranchisement. The government delayed Roman Catholic
emancipation, and the mass of the people entered into a ge-
neral league against English power. Wolfe Tone, the founder
of the United Irishmen, became the secretary to the Catholic
Committee. The latter body invested itself, by a system of
delegation, with a Parliamentary character. In the north
their deputies were hailed by the dissenters. It was in this
state of ominous excitement, says Mr Moore, to which a long
train of causes, foreign and domestic, all tending towards the
same inevitable crisis, had concurred in winding up the public
mind in Ireland, that Lord Edward Fitzgerald arrived ; and he
had hardly taken his seat in Parliament, when, unable to contain
himself, he started up in the midst of a debate relating to the
military associations recently formed, and exclaimed, * that the

* Lord Lieutenant and the majority of the House were the worst

* enemies the King had.'

He had not, however, at this period entered into that conspi-
racy of which he afterwards became the leader ; and Mr Moore,
having presented to his readers this melancholy view of the state
of Ireland, avails himself of the interval which elapsed between
his adoption of his republican opinions, and the period in which
they were embodied in an actual league against the state, in
order to relieve his narrative by turning occasionally away from
the wide prospects of political dreariness to those sweet by-paths
of domestic felicity, in which he delights to follow the subject
of this melancholy tale. It refreshes the reader to find, in the
waste of national misfortune, such clear springs of pure emotion,
bordered with * the soft green of the soul,' as are supplied by

VOL. LIV. NO. cvir. I

130 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

Lord Edward's private life. The following extract is from one
of his letters, written at his country place, called Frescati : —

' Dearest Mother, — Wife and I are come to settle here. We came
last night, got up to a delightful spring day, and are now enjoying the
little book-room, with the windows open, hearing the birds sing, and
the place looking beautiful. The plants in the passage are just water-
ed ; and, with the passage door open, the room smells like a green-
house. Pamela has dressed four beautiful flower-pots, and is now
working at her frame, while I write to my dearest mother ; and upon
the two little stands there are six pots of fine auriculas, and I am sit-
ting in the bay window, with all those pleasant feelings which the fine
weather, the pretty place, the singing birds, the pretty wife, and Fres-
cati give me, — with your last dear letter to my wife before me :— so
you may judge how I love you at this moment.'

Again :

' Dearest Mother, — I write to you in the middle of settling and
arranging my little family here. But the day is fine, — the spot looks
pretty, quiet, and comfortable ; — I feel pleasant, contented, and happy ;
and all these feelings and sights never come across me without bring-
ing dearest, dearest mother to my heart's recollection. I am sure you
understand these feelings, dear mother. How you would like this little
spot I it is the smallest thing imaginable, and to numbers would have
no beauty ; but there is a comfort and moderation in it that delights
me. I don't know how I can describe it to you, but I will try.

* After going up a little lane, and in at a close gate, you come on a
little white house, with a small gravel court before it. You see but
three small windows, the court surrounded by large old elms ; one side
of the house covered with shrubs, on the other side a tolerable large
ash ; upon the stairs going up to the house, two wicker cages, in which
there are at this moment two thrushes, singing a gorge deployee. In
coming into the house, you find a small passage-hall, vei*y clean, the
floor tiled ; upon your left, a small room ; on the right, the staircase.
In front, you come into the parlour — a good room, with a bow- window
looking into the garden, which is a small green plot, surrounded by
good trees, and in it three of the finest thorns I ever saw, and all the
trees so placed that you may shade yourself from the sun all hours of
the day ; the bow- window, covered with honeysuckle, and up to the
window some roses.

' Going up stairs you find another bow-room, the honeysuckle almost
up to it, and a little room the same size as that below ; this, with a
kitchen or servants' hall below, is the whole house. There is, on the
left, in the court-yard, another building which makes a kitchen ; it is
covered by trees, so as to look pretty ; at the back of it there is a yard,
&c. which looks into a lane. On the side of the house opposite the
grass plot, there is ground enough for a flower-garden, communicating
with the front garden by a little walk.

' The whole place is situated on a kind of rampart of a circular form,
surrounded by a wall ; which wall towards the village and lane is high.

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 131

but covered with trees and shrubs — the trees old and large, giving a
great deal of shade. Towards the country the wall is not higher than
your knee, and this covered with bushes ; from these open parts you
have a view of a pretty cultivated country, till your eye is stopped by
the Curragh. From our place there is a back way to these fields, so as
to go out and walk, without having to do with the town.

< This, dearest mother, is the spot as well as I can give it you, but it
don't describe well ; one must see it and feel it ; it is all the little peeps
and ideas that go with it that make the beauty of it to me. My dear
wife dotes on it, and becomes it. She is busy in her little American
jacket, planting sweet peas and mignonette. Her table and work-box,
with the little one's caps, are on the table. I wish my dearest mother
was here, and the scene to me would be complete.'

The preparation which is indicated in * the little one's caps,'
became soon after applicable, and an opportunity is afforded us
of seeing Lord Edward in a new relation — he bad become a
father. A son was now given him by the marriage which he
had formed in virtuous passion, and which was rendered so
happy by connubial love. Let it not be said that his dignity as
a public man suffers from the language of melting tenderness
which is adopted in the following letter. Our admiration of the
husband of Andromache is heightened in the domestic episode in
which he folds his arms round his child.

' Dublin, October 20, 1794.

' The dear wife and baby go on as well as possible. I think I need
not tell you how happy I am ; it is a dear little thing, and very pretty
now, though at first it was quite the contrary. I did not write to you
the first night, as Emily had done so. I wrote to Madame Sillery that
night, and to-day, and shall write her an account every day till Pam
is able to write herself. I wish J could show the baby to you all.
Dear mother, how you would love it ! Nothing is so delightful as to
see it in its dear mother's arms, with her sweet, pale, delicate face, and
the pretty looks she gives it.'

Afterwards, he says —

* My little place is much improved by a few things I have done, and
by all \ny planting ; — by the by, I doubt if 1 told you of my flower-gar-
'den, — I got a great deal from Frescati. I have been at Kildare since,
Pam's lying-in, and it looked delightful, though all the leaves were oif
'the trees, — but so comfortable and snug. I think I shall pass a delight-
ful winter there. I have got two fine large clumps of turf, which look
both comfortable and pretty. I have paled in my little flower-garden
before my hall door with a lath paling, like the cottage, and stuck it
full of roses, sweetbriar, honeysuckles, and Spanish broom. I have
got all my beds ready for my flowers ; so you may guess how I long to
be down to plant them. The little fellow will be a great addition to
the party. I think when I am down there with Pam and child, of a
blustery evening, with a good turf fire, and a pleasant book, — coming in,
after seeing my poultry put up, my garden settled — flower-beds and

132 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

plants covered for fear of frost, the place looking comfortable, and
taken care of, I shall be as happy as possible ; and sure I am I shall
regret nothing but not being nearer my dearest mother, and her not
being of our party. It is, indeed, a drawback, and a great one, our not
being more together. Dear Malvern ! how pleasant we were there :
you can't think how this time of year puts me in mind of it. Love
always your affectionate son, E. F.'

Mr Moore beautifully observes — ' In reading these simple and
< — to an almost feminine degree — fond letters, it is impossible

* not to feel how strange and touching is the contrast between

* those pictures of a happy home, which they so unaffectedly

* exhibit, and that dark and troubled sea of conspiracy and revolt

* into which the amiable writer of them so soon afterwards

* plunged ; nor can we easily bring ourselves to believe, that the

* joyous tenant of this little lodge, the happy husband and father,

* dividing the day between his child and his flowers, could be

* the same man who, but a year or two after, placed himself at

* the head of rebel myriads, negotiated on the frontiers of France

* for an alliance against England, and but seldom laid down his
' head on his pillow at night, without a prospect of being sura-

* moned thence to the scaffold or the field.'

It was in the beginning of the year 1796 that Lord Edward
first entered the Society of United Irishmen. He and others,
such as Emmet, MacNeven, and Arthur O'Connor, appear to
have been urged to this step by the measures of rash coercion
taken by the government, which put all hope of Parliamentary
reform at an end. In the memorial delivered to the Irish govern-
ment, by the leaders of the rebellion, it is stated, that if, in the
coui'se of the effort for reform, it had not become evident that
success was hopeless, they would have broken off all intercourse
with France. The recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, through the
influence of the Beresfords, was one among their numerous
incentives to the adoption of a plan of national organization
commensurate with the enterprise in which they had embarked;
which was no other than a separation from England, and the
establishment of a republic. The conspirators divided them-
selves into societies, each of which consisted of no more than
twelve persons, with a secretary. The secretaries of five socie-
ties formed a committee, called the lower bai'onial; the next
step was to constitute the Upper Baronial committee, to which
ten lower baronials sent a member ; then came the District or
County Committee, composed of members of whom each upper
baronial sent one. A provincial committee was established in
each of the four provinces, composed of two or three members
from the county committee ; and lastly came ' the Executive,'

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 133

consisting of five persons, chosen in such a manner from the
provincial committees as to leave the latter in entire ignorance
as to the individuals selected. This machinery was easily trans-
ferred from civil to military purposes. The secretary of each
subordinate society of twelve was transformed into a sergeant
or corporal ; the delegate of five societies to a lower baronial
became the captain of sixty men ; and the delegate of ten lower
baronials to a county committee became a colonel, with a bat-
talion of six hundred men. Foreign aid was, however, deemed
indispensable.

Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had been banished to America, pro-
ceeded from thence to France. This remarkable man arrived
in Paris, ignorant of the French language, with only a few du-
cats in his purse, with no other credentials than a resolution of
thanks from the Catholic committee, without a friend or even
an acquaintance. He stood as lonely in Paris as in the deserts
of the new world, from which he had come ; yet, by the force of
character and of dauntless perseverance, he made his way into
the councils of the republican government, — was heard, and pre-
sented a project so feasible for the invasion of his country, as to
induce the Directory to open a negotiation with ' the Irish Ex-
ecutive.' Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor were deputed
by their countrymen to go to France, to arrange the expedition.
They proceeded to Hamburgh, and from thence to Basle. Ar-
thur O'Connor alone, however, saw General Hoche, to whom
the entire arrangements were left; as the French government
objected to receive Lord Edward, lest his mission should be
supposed to have reference to the Orleans family. Lord Ed-
ward therefore returned to Ireland. Hoche having seen O'Con-
nor, hastened to Paris, and communicated with Wolfe Tone, who
exclusively originated this vast design ; and on the 15th of De-
cember 1796, there sailed from Brest, for the Irish shore, seven-
teen sail of the line, thirteen frigates, and an equal number of
transports, having on board 15,000 men. The result is well known.
This armada was dispersed by a storm. Hoche was blown back
to France, and the British empire owed its salvation to the blast.
Mr Moore observes, that at this eventful period an opportunity was
offered to the government to retrace their steps, and to appease
the national passions by a just and timely concession ; but instead
of acting upon this salutary policy, they persevered in the system
which had been previously adopted. In the train of the insur-
rection act, and of the indemnity bills, followed the suspension
of the habeas corpus. Disaffection increased. Mr Grattan and
the opposition withdrew in disgust from the House of Com-
mons. The United Irishmen again opened negotiations with the

134 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

French republic. Another armament was prepared in the Texel
for the invasion of Ireland. The winds which had dispersed
the former fleet, closed the ocean upon this. The opportunity
passed when the mutiny in the English navy had left their

* home upon the deep"" without defence, and the Dutch govern-
ment having induced their fleet to sail, the glorious victory oif
Camperdown secured the safety of England. * Meanwhile,' says
Mr Moore, ' aff'airs in Ireland were hurrying to their crisis, and

* events and news crowded fast in fearful succession.' Martial
law was proclaimed.

< Hinc exaudiri gemitus et sseva sonave

Verb era'

The measures adopted by government, or rather by the faction
before which the government stood in awe, were of such a cha-
racter, that the northern leaders of the United Irishmen saw that
the time for a general rising was come, and if allowed to pass
would not return. They dispatched deputies to Dublin to ' tbe

* Executive.' Lord Edward gave to the proposal his strenuous
support. The Dublin conspirators, however, after a long dis-
cussion, rejected the suggestion as premature. Wolfe Tone, in
his Memoirs, denounces this resolution of * the Executive,' and
says that the people were urgent to begin, — that eight hundred of
the garrison had ofl'ered, on a signal, to give up the barracks of
Dublin, and that the militia had been gained over to a man. The
leaders, however, thought it would be rash to make any military
attempt without foreign succour ; the organization therefore
went on without striking any decisive blow, and in February
1798, a return was made to Lord Edward, as head of the military
committee, by which it appears that the force regimented and
armed amounted to three hundred thousand men. Promises of
aid were renewed by France, and Talleyrand conveyed an assu-
rance, that an expedition, which was then in forwardness, should
speedily sail. The preparations in Ireland proceeded with in-
creased activity. A revolutionary staff was formed, and an
adjutant-general appointed in each county, to transmit returns
of the strength and state of the respective forces. Every day
added to the numbers of the conspirators, of whose general de-
signs the government were indeed aware, but were without any
clue to their individuality, or the details of their project. The
whole fabric of the state had been undermined, and the moment
was almost arrived to fire the train. A signal was but requisite
to make almost a whole nation appear in arms, when a man,
whose name is memorable in the annals of serviceable perfidy,
made a disclosure of the plot. Mr Moore's observations on this
event are exceedingly striking.

1831. Mooi^Q^^ Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 135

* In tliis formidable train were affairs now proceeding, nor would it
be possible, perhaps, to find, in the whole compass of history, — taking
into account the stake, the Odds, the peril, and the daring, — another
instance of a conspiracy assuming such an attitude. But a blow was
about to fall upon them for which they were little prepared. Hazard-
ous as had been the agency of the Chiefs at every step, and numerous
as were the persons necessarily acquainted with their proceedings, yet
so Avell contrived for secrecy was the medium through which they
acted, and by such fidelity had they been hitherto fenced round, that
the government could not reach them. How little sparing those in
authority would have been of rewards, their prodigality to their pre-
sent informer proved. But few or none had yet been tempted to be-
tray ; and, in addition to the characteristic fidelity of the Irish in such
confederacies, the same hatred of the law which had made them traitors
to the State kept them true to each other.

' It is, indeed, not the least singular feature of this singular piece of
history, that with a government, sti-ongly intrenched both in power
and will, resolved to crush its opponents, and not scrupulous as to the
means, there should now have elapsed two whole years of all but open
rebellion, under their very eyes, without their being able, either by
force or money, to obtain sufficient information to place a single one of
the many chiefs of the confederacy in their power. Even now, so far
from their vigilance being instrumental in the discovery, it was but to
tlie mere accidental circumstance of a worthless member of the con-
spiracy being pressed for a sum of money to discharge some debts, that
the government was indebted for the treachery that, at once, laid the
whole plot at their feet, — delivered up to them at one seizure, almost
all its leaders, and thus disorganizing, by rendering it headless, the
entire body of the Union, was the means, it is not too much to say, of
saving the country to Great Britain. The name of this informer — a
name in one country, at least, never to be forgotten, — was Thomas
Reynolds.'

In consequence of the disclosure made by this person, a war-
rant from the Secretary of State's office was placed in the hands
of Major Swan, a magistrate for the county of Dublin ; and on
the 12th of March, having obtained admission to the house of
Mr Bond by his knowledge of the password, he arrested some of
the conspirators. Lord Edward, who was included in the war-
rant which had been issued, was absent from the meeting where
the officers expected to find him. MacNeven, Emmet, and
Sampson were also away, but were afterwards arrested; Lord
Edward alone having contrived to elude pursuit. A separate
warrant was then issued against him. Mr Moore observes, ' It
' is difficult, however fruitless such a feeling must be, not to

* mingle a little regret with the reflection, that had he happened
' on this day to have been one of the persons arrested at Bond's,

* not only his own life, from the turn affiiirs afterwards took,

* might have been spared, but much of the unavailing bloodshed

JS6 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

' that was soon^to follow, might have been prevented.' On the
issuing of the separate warrant, the police lost no time in endea-
vouring to put it into execution, and were actually in Leinster
House making their search, when Lord Edward, having hasten-
ed home, received notice from his * faithful Tony,' (the poor
negro,) who was on the look-out for him, of what was going on
in time to escape. He was determined, notwithstanding the
discovery, to persevere in his enterprise, and to call out the
hundred thousands at his command on the first opportunity.
Concealment, therefore, became most important to him, and to
the conspirators, who felt that the issue of their undertaking
depended on the safety of their leader. He found a shelter in
the house of a widow, who, * perilous as was such hospitality,'
gave him a cordial and generous reception. Under her roof
he remained for a month. From the house of this lady Lord
Edward removed, in order to avoid discovery, to the house of a
Mr Murphy, a feather-merchant in Thomas Street. Meanwhile
the government resorted to expedients of the most unqualified
rigour. A proclamation was published, declaring the country
to be in a state of rebellion ; and an oi'der appeared, signed by
Sir Ralph Abercrombie, authorizing the troops to act without
the authority of a civil magistrate. The passions of a licentious
soldiery were thus uncaged, and it is almost unnecessary to state,
that, the restraint of discipline being removed, atrocity in its
worst and most vicious forms rushed instantaneously out. This
was the moment when, if France had effected a descent upon
L'eland, her destiny would indeed have trembled in the balance.
It was in reference to her condition, and to his own vast prepa-
rations, that Napoleon exclaimed, on the rock of St Helena,
(when to the imperial eagle had succeeded thfe lonely sea-mew,)

* Si au lieu de I'expedition de I'Egypte, j'eusse fait celle de I'lr-
' lande !'

The hopes of foreign assistance were passing away, but the
United Irishmen had great resources in their numbers and
organization, and Lord Edward was of the utmost moment to
them. He might have fled. Lord Clare (in him a solitary trait
of magnanimity !) was anxious that he should effect his escape.

* Let this young man,' he said, ' begone. The ports shall be open

* to him.' But Lord Edward felt that the fortunes of Ireland
and his own were set upon the same cast. He therefore resolved
to stay, and encounter every chance, until the moment of simul-
taneous insurrection should arrive. From Mr Murphy's, after
a fortnight, he removed to Mr Cormick's, another feather- mer-
chant in Thomas Street, and between this and the residence of a
Mr Moore, a few doors distant, contrived to pass his time safe

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 131

from detection till about the first week in May. There he led a
life of incaution, which seems to have been one of the chief defects
in his character. He dined every day in a circle of noisy and rash
associates, who had free access to him. This conduct was of a
piece with the indiscretion displayed by him in his journey as a
delegate from the Irish Union to France. Happening, we are told,
to meet a lady who had been the ci-devant mistress of a colleague
of Mr Pitt's, he, with a spontaneous openness of communication,
intimated to her all that was going forward. At Cormick's and
Moore's he was surrounded by a body of convivial confedei-ates,
who probably limited their love for their country to their liba-
tions. This infatuated carelessness is the more surprising, when
we consider that his name was now the only stay of the conspi-
racy. In the first week of May it was decided by the United
Irishmen that a general rising should take place before the end of
the month ; Lord Edward was to raise the standard of revolt in
Leinster ; and it was arranged that the forces of the three coun-
ties, Dublin, Wicklow, and Kildare, should move in an advance
on the capital, under his command. Thus his life became every
day more precious. The government issued a proclamation on
the 11th of May, offering L.IOOO for his apprehension. The
conspirators saw that any farther delay would be destructive of
their hopes, and fixed the night of the 28d May for a general
rising through the whole kingdom. Lord Edward was to have
been at its head ; but for him there was reserved another destiny.
We shall here give Mr Moore's graphic account of the events
which immediately preceded the catastrophe to which we are fast
approaching :-; —

< On the 17th, Ascension Thursday, Murphy had been led to expect
his noble guest would be with him ; but, owing most probably to the
circumstance I am about to mention, his lordship did not then make
his appearance. On the very morning of that day, the active town-
major, Sirr, had received information that a party of persons, suppo-
sed to be Lord Edward Fitzgei-ald's body-guard, would be on their
way from Thomas street to Usher's island at a certain hour that
night. Accordingly, taking with him a sufficient number of assist-
ants for his purpose, and accompanied also by Messrs Ryan and
Emei'son, Major Sirr proceeded, at the proper time, to the quarter
pointed out, and there being two different Avays (either Watling-
street, or Dirty-lane) by which the expected party might come, divi-
ded his force so as to intercept them by either road.

' A similar plan having happened to be adopted by Lord Edward's
escort, there took place, in each of these two streets, a conflict between
the parties ; and Major Sirr, who had almost alone to bear the brunt
in his quarter, was near losing his life. In defending himself witli a
sword which he had snatched from one of his assailants, he lost his

138 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald* Sept.

footing- and fell ; and had not those with whom he was engaged been
much more occupied with their noble charge than with him, he could
hardly have escaped. But, their chief object being Lord Edward's
safety, after snapping a pistol or two at Sirr, they hurried away. On
rejoining his friends, in the other street, the town-major found that
they had succeeded in capturing one of their opponents, and this pri-
soner, who represented himself as a manufacturer of muslin from
Scotland, and whose skilfully assumed ignorance of Irish affairs indu-
ced them, a day or two after, to discharge as innocent, proved to have
been no other than the famous M'Cabe, Lord Edward's confidential
agent, and one of the most active organizers in the whole confederacy.

' On the following night he was brought from Moore's to the house
of Mr Murphy, — Mrs Moore herself being his conductress. He had
been sufifering lately from cold and sore throat, and, as his host
thought, looked much altered in liis appearance since he had last seen
him. An old maid-servant was the only person in the house besides
themselves.

' Next morning, as Mr Murphy was standing within his gateway,
there came a woman from Moore's with a bundle, which, without say-
ing a word, she put into his hands, and which, taking for granted that
it was for Lord Edward, he carried up to his lordship. It was found
to contain a coat, jacket, and trowsers of dark green edged with red,
together with a handsome military cap, of a conical form. At the
sight of this uniform, which, for the first time, led him to suspect that
a rising must be at hand, the fears of the already nervous host Avere
redoubled ; and, on being desired by Lord Edward to put it some-
where out of sight, he carried the bundle to a loft over one of his
warehouses, and there hid it under some goat-skins, whose oiFensive-
ness, he thought, would be a security against search.

* About the middle of the day, an occurrence took place, whicli,
from its appearing to have some connexion with the pursuit after
himself, excited a good deal of apprehension in his lordship's mind.
A sergeant-major, with a party of soldiers, had been seen to pass up
the street, and were, at the moment when Murphy ran to apprize liis
guest of it, halting before Moore's door. This suspicious circum-
stance, indicating, as it seemed, some knowledge of his haunts, start-
led Lord Edward, and he expressed instantly a wish to be put in some
place of secrecy ; on which Murphy took him out on the top of the
house, and laying him down in one of the valleys formed between the
roofs of his warehouses, left him there for some hours. During the
excitement produced in the neighboui'hood by the appearance of the
soldiers, Lord Edward's officious friend, Neilson, was, in his usual
flighty and inconsidei'ate manner, walking up and down the street,
saying occasionally, as he passed, to Murphy, who was standing in his
gateway, — " Is he safe ?" — " Look sharp."

' While this anxious scene was passing in one quarter, treachery, —
and it is still unknown from what source, — was at work inanothei'. It
must have been late in the day that information of his lordship's hiding-
place reached the government, as Major Sirr did not receive his in-
structions on the subject till but a few minutes before he pi'oceeded

183 1 . Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 139

to execute them. Major Swan and Mr Ryan (the latter of whom vo-
lunteered his services) happened to be in his house at the moment ;
and he had but time to take a few soldiers, in plain clothes, along with
him, — purposing to send, on his arrival in Thomas street, for the
pickets of infantry and cavalry in that neighbourhood.

' To return to poor Lord Edward ; — as soon as the alarm produced
by the soldiers had subsided, he ventured to leave his retreat, and
resume his place in the back drawingroom, where, Mr Murphy
having invited Neilson to join them, they soon after sat down to
dinner. The cloth had not been many minutes removed, when Neil-
son, as if suddenly recollecting something, hurried out of the room
and left the house ; shortly after which, Mr Murphy, seeing that his
guest was not inclined to drink any wine, went down stairs. In a
few minutes after, however, returning, he found that his lordship had
in the interim gone up to his bedroom, and on following him thither
saw him lying without his coat upon the bed. There had now
elapsed from the time of Neilson's departure not more than ten
minutes, and it is asserted that he had in going out left the hall
door open.

' Mr Murphy had but just begun to ask his guest whether he would
like some tea, when, hearing a trampling on the stairs, he turned
round and saw Major Swan enter the room. Scarcely had this officer
time to mention the object of his visit when Lord Edward jumped
up, as Murphy describes him, " like a tiger" from the bed, on seeing
which Swan fired a small pocket-pistol at him, but without effect ;
and then turning round short upon Murphy, from whom he seemed
to apprehend an attack, thrust the pistol violently in his face, saying
to a soldier who just then entered — " Take that fellow away." Almost
at the same instant Lord Edward struck at Swan with a dagger,
which it now appeared he had had in the bed with him ; and imme-
diately after, Ryan, armed only with a sword-cane, entered the room.

' In the meantime. Major Sirr, who had stopped below to place
the pickets round the house, hearing the report of Swan's pistol,
hurried up to the landing, and from thence saw within the room Lord
Edward struggling between Swan and Ryan, the latter down on the
floor weltering in his blood, and both clinging to their powerful adver-
sary, who was now dragging them towards the door. Threatened as
he was with a fate similar to that of his companions, Sirr had no
alternative but to fire, and aiming his pistol deliberately, he lodged the
contents in Lord Edward's right arm, near the shoulder. The wound
for a moment staggered him ; but as he again rallied, and was pushing
towards the door, Major Sirr called up the soldiers ; and so desperate
were their captive's struggles that they found it necessary to lay their
firelocks across him before he could be disarmed or bound so as to
prevent further mischief.*

Lord Edward was conveyed in an open sedan chair to the
Castle, where the papers found upon him were produced and
verified. He bade a gentleman « break tenderly to his wife'
what had happened ; — thence he was removed to Newgate. All
access to him was, until a short peritd before his death, denied

140 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

to his brother and his nearest relatives. * Are you aware, my

* lord,' said his brother, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, to Lord Cam-
den, ' of the comfort, of the happiness of seeing well-known faces

* round the bed of illness, and the cruelty of the reverse ? or

* have you hitherto been so much a stranger to the infirmities of

* this mortal life as never to have known what it was to feel joy

* in pain, or cheerfulness in sorrow, from the pressure of a

* friend's hand, or the kind look of relations ?' He suffered con-
siderablje torture from the wound which he had received ; and
his hearing that Ryan, whom he had stabbed, had died, caused
— to use Lord Henry's expression — ' a dreadful turn in his
mind.' Clinch, one of his fellow conspirators, was executed
before the prison ; — he asked what the noise was, and on the
4th of June, 1798, expired. The incidents of his death-bed
are told with a simple pathos by Lady Louisa Conolly in a
letter to Mr Ogilvie, dated 4th June, 1798.

•' My dear Mr Ogilvie, — At two o'clock this morning our beloved
Edward was at peace ; and, as the tender and watchful mercy of God
is ever over the afflicted, we have reason to suppose this dissolution
took place at'the moment that it was fittest it should do so. On Friday
night a very great lowness came on, that made those about him consider
him much in danger. On Saturday he seemed to have recovered the
attack, but on that night was again attacked with spasms that subsided
again yesterday morning. But in the course of the day Mrs Pakenham
(from whom I had my constant accounts) thought it best to send an
express for me. I came to town, and got leave to go with my poor
dear Henry to see him.

' Thanks to the great God ! our visit was timed to the moment that
the wretched situation allowed of. His mind had been agitated for
two days, and the feeling was enough gone not to be overcome by the
sight of his brother and me. We had the consolation of seeing and
feeling that it was a pleasure to him. I first approached his bed ; he
looked at me, knew me, kissed me, and said (what will never depart
from my ears), " It is heaven to me to see you I" and shortly after,
turning to the other side of his bed, he said " I can't see you." I went
round, and he soon after kissed my hand and smiled at me, which I
shall never forget, though I saw death in his dear face at the time. I
then told him tiiat Henry was come. He said nothing that marked sur-
prise at his being in Ireland, but expressed joy at hearing it, and said,
" Where is he, dear fellow ?"

' Henry then took my place, and the two dear brothers frequently
embraced' each other, to the melting a heart of stone ; and yet God
enabled both Henry and myself to remain quite composed. As every
one left the room, we told him we only were M'ith him. He said,
« That is very pleasant." However, he remained silent, and I then
brouglit in the subject of Lady Edward, and told him that I had not
left her until I saw her on board ; and Henry told him of having met
her on the road well. He said, " And the children too ? — She is a

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward 'Fitzgerald. 141

charming' woman :" and then became silent again. That expression
about Lady Edward proved to me, that his senses were much lulled,
and that he did not feel his situation to be what it was : but, thank
God I they Avere enough alive to receive pleasure from seeing his
brother and me. Dear Henry, in particular, he looked at continually
with an expression of pleasure.

* When we left him, we told him, that as he appeared inclined to
sleep, we Avould wish him a good night, and return in the morning. He
said, " Do, do ;" but did not express any uneasiness at our leaving- him.
We accordingly tore ourselves away, and very shortly after Mr Garnet
(the surgeon that attended him for the two days, upon the departure
of Mr Stone, the officer that had been constantly with him) sent me
Avord that the last convulsions soon came on, and ended at two o'clock,
so that Ave were within two hours and a half before the sad close to a
life Ave pi'ized so dearly. He sometimes said, " I knew it must come
to this, and Ave must all go ;" and then rambled a little about militia,
and numbers ; but upon my saying to him, " It agitates you to talk
upon those subjects," he said, " Well, I AA^on't."

' I hear that he frequently composed his dear mind with prayer, —
was vastly devout, and, as late as yesterday evening, got Mr Garnet,
the surgeon, to read in the Bible the death of Christ, the subject picked
out by himself, and seemed much composed by it. In short, my dear
Mr Ogilvie, we have every reason to think that his mind Avas made up
to his situation, and can look to his present happy state with thanks
for his release. Such a heart and such a mind may meet his God !
The friends that he was entangled Avith pushed his destruction forvA'ard,
screening themselves behind his valuable character. God bless you I
The ship is just sailing, and Henry puts this into the jjost at Holy-
head. Ever yours, L. C

Mr Moore has gathered a quantity of panegyric on Lord Ed-
ward from various sources ; but the best praise of him, in his
personal capacity, is to be found in the letters in which such fine
proof-impressions of his character are contained. The emotions
expressed by his kindred on his death, and which are preserA^ed
in a correspondence published by Mr Moore, quite confirm the
view of his disposition, Avhich is presented by his own letters.
Every word written by his relatiA^es gushes with anguish for his
loss. They are indeed

' Epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writers' cheeks.'
All concur in representing the features of his private charac-
ter as of the most perfect symmetry, and wrought by Nature
out of her brightest and most polished materials. His biographer
has drawn his character with that skill and delicacy of which
he is known to be so eminent a master. ' Of his mind and
' heart,' says Mr Moore, ' simplicity was the predominant fea-

* ture, pervading all his tastes, habits of thinking, affections,

* and pursuits ; and it was in this simplicity, and the singleness

142 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Sept.

* of purpose resulting from it, that the main strength of his

* manly character lay. Talents far more brilliant would, for

* want of the same clearness and concentration, have afforded

* a far less efficient light. It is Lord Bacon, I believe, who re-

* marks, that the minds of some men resemble those ill-arranged

* mansions, in which there are numerous small chambers, but no

* one spacious room. With Lord Edward the very reverse was

* the case — his mind being to the whole extent of its range thrown

* open, without either partitions or turnings, and a direct sin^le-

* ness as well of power as of aim being the actuating principle
' of his understanding and his will.' After observing, that

* another quality of his mind, both in action and in the counsels

* connected with it, which gave Lord Edward the advantage over
' men far beyond him in intellectual resources, was that disin-

* terested and devoted courage, which, rendering self a mere

* cipher in his calculations, took from peril all power to influence
' his resolves, and left him free to pursue the right and the just,

* unembarrassed by a single regard to the consequences ;' — Mr
Moore remarks, that the self-will which was mixed up in his
disposition, and which had a tendency to settle into obstinacy, was
counteracted by the natural gentleness of his disposition ; but
that while his sweetness and generosity of temper corrected this
defect, the great efficacy of this quality in giving decision to the
character was manifested by the perseverance with which,
through all the disappointments and reverses of his cause, he
continued not only to stand by it firmly himself, but what — de-
spondingly as he must often have felt — was far more trying, to
set an example of confidence in its ultimate success for the en-
couragement of others.

' We have seen,' says Mr Moore, ' how unshrinking was the pa-
tience, how unabated the cheerfulness, Avith which he was able to per-
severe under the continued frustration of all his plans and wishes. The
disappointment, time after time, of his hopes of foreign succour, might,
from the jealousy with which he I'egarded such aid, have been easily
surmounted by him, had he but found a readiness, on the part of his
colleagues, to second him in an appeal to native strength. But, while
the elements baffled all his projects from without, irresolution and
timid counsels robbed him of his chosen moment of action within ; till,
at last, — confii'matory of all his own warnings as to the danger of
delay, — came that treachery by which the whole conspiracy was vir-
tually broken up, their designs all laid open, and himself left, a fugitive
and a wanderer, to trust to the precarious fidelity of persons trembling
for their own safety, and tempted by the successful perfidy of others,
— with hardly one of those colleagues remaining by his side on whose
sagacity he coidd rely for help through his difliculties.

' Still, as we have seen, he persevered, not only firmly but cheerfully,
conceiving his responsibility to the cause to be but increased by the

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 143

defection or loss of its other defenders. After the appearance of the
proclamation against him, some of his friends, seeing the imminent
peril of his position, had provided some trusty boatmen (like those
through whose means Hamilton Rowan had escaped) who undertook to
convey him safely to the coast of France. But Lord Edward would not
hear of it ; — his part was already taken. Submitting with heroic good-
humour to a series of stratagems, disguises and escapes, far more for-
midable to a frank spirit like his than the most decided danger, he
reserved himself calmly for the great struggle to which his life was
pledged, and which he had now to encounter, weakened, but not dis-
mayed,— " animatus melius" (as Cicero says of another brave cham-
pion of a desperate cause) " quam paratus."

' While such were the stronger, and, as they may be called, public
features of his character, of the attaching nature of his social qualities
there exist so many memorials and proofs, both in the records of his
life and, still more convincingly, in those bursts of sympathy and sor-
row which his last melancholy moments called forth, that to expatiate
any further on the topic would be superfluous.

* Among those traits of character which adorned him as a member
of social life, there is one which, on every account, is far too important
not to be brought prominently forward in any professed picture of
him, and this was the strong and pure sense which he entertained of
religion. So much is it the custom of those who would bring discredit
upon freedom of thought in politics, to represent it as connected in-
variably with lax opinions upon religion, that it is of no small import-
ance to be able to refer to two such instances as Lord Edward Fitz-
gerald and the younger Emmet, in both of whom the freest range of
what are called revolutionary principles was combined with a warm
and steady belief in the doctrines of Christianity.

' Thus far the task of rendering justice to the fine qualities of this
noble person has been safe and easy, — the voice of political enemies,
no less than of friends, concurring cordially in the tribute. In coming
to consider, however, some of the uses to which these high qualities
were applied by him, and more particularly the great object to which,
in the latter years of his life, he devoted all their energies, a far diifer-
ent tone of temper and opinion is to be counted on ; nor are we, even
yet, perhaps, at a sufficient distance from the vortex of that struggle
to have either the courage or the impartiality requisite towards judging
fairly of the actors in it.'

Mr Moore discusses, with singular ability, the right which
belongs to suffering to offer resistance to oppression ; and endea-
vours to define the boundaries at which endurance not only
ceases to be a duty, but degenerates into degradation. We do
not think it necessary to follow him in this somewhat intricate
investigation of the prerogatives which appertain to the people.
These knotty disputations receive in practice their prompt solu-
tion from the sword, which furnishes a ready process of demon-
stration to those who, having once engaged in such an enter-
prise as that recorded by Mr Moore, seldom give much reflection

144 "^oove^B Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

to the problems in morality, by which their proceedings are vin-
dicated or condemned. The work before us ought to be perused
with a view very different from that which a mere theorist in
rebellion might be disposed to take. It contains facts far more
admonitory and instructive, than the very ingenious reasonings
and eloquent expatiations which are interwoven, with great skill,
in the texture of the narrative ; and instead of supplying mere
ruminations to an essayist on the abstractions of obedience,
suggests a series of solemn anticipations, and gives rise to many
an awful thought on the present condition and future destinies
of Ireland.

We shut these volumes, and ask ourselves what have we seen ?
— Almost an entire nation involved in a conspiracy against its
government, and with men of high station, daring intrepidity,
great abilities, and unalterable resolution, at its head. A plot was
framed and cai'ried on without detection, until it had embraced
countless thousands in its compass. A secrecy unexampled in
the annals of silence was preserved; and a purpose, familiar
to the thoughts of millions, did not, for a considerable period,
reach the knowledge, and scarcely awoke the suspicions of those
to whose vigilance the public safety had been committed. The
whole machinery of insurrection was ready ; and had a few days
more elapsed, armies would have started up in every province,
the peasantry would have risen to a man, the capital would
have been seized, and the entire government, with all the insti-
tutions that sustain it, would in all likelihood have been over-
thrown. It was then that chance, operating upon baseness, com-
municated information, which rendered — what might otherwise
have been a revolution — a rash and hopeless insurrection. A
blow was struck at the heart of the gigantic confederacy, which
laid it prostrate, and the remaining struggles were no more than
its expiring convulsions. The chiefs of the enterprise, — all the
men of talent and of influence — had been swept away ; and the
subsequent display of wild and unavailing courage which was
made by a tumultuous peasantry, answered no other end, than to
suggest how much they might have effected if under the control
of genius, and aided by a foreign power. Many think, that,
if these half-armed rebels, who were sometimes on the point
of victory, (for example, at New- Ross,) had won a single battle,
the consequences might not have been limited to a larger effusion
of blood, — that a portion of the gentry would then have manifest-
ed feelings, which they had the prudence to conceal, and that a
very different result might have ensued. We think it, however,
clear, that the lips of Reynolds had sealed the fortunes of Ireland.
But it was scarcely more than casualty that opened them, — nor
was this the only instance in which a large obligation was due

1831. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 145

by England, to causes which are to be regarded as fortuitous.
Had we stood upon the beach, when the mighty armament which
Wolfe Tone had persuaded the Republican government to equip
for Ireland, sailed from the port of Brest, and seen it dropping
from the horizon, in which not a single English sail appeared,
what would have been our calculations of probability ; and how
highly should we now appreciate that propitious tempest, which,
in her hour of dreadful need, became the auxiliary of England ?
We cannot look back to these events without awe. It makes us
dizzy to contemplate the gulf on whose verge we stood, and into
which it was mere accident that saved us from irretrievable pre-
cipitation. But if that retrospect be so fearful, let us bear in
mind that our onward progress (and it becomes us to look for-
ward) may lie through passes not less dangerous and slippery,
and where chances equally fortunate may not supply us with a
hold.

Turning from the past to the present state of Ireland, we
cannot disguise from ourselves, that there are still to be found
in that country materials on which the spirit of adventure may
find an opportunity to work. The settlement of the Catholic
question has, indeed, removed the chief ground of just complaint
from the national mind; but in the fierce struggle which Ireland
made for liberty, what a deep and black deposit of inveterate
antipathy and of pernicious passion was made in the national
character, and how much time must elapse, and how judicious
ought to be the measures devised for its removal ! If the
people of Ireland were organized in 1798 for the forcible extor-
tion of their demands, it should be recollected, that since then
another and a still more extensive and compact organization
has been, for upwards of thirty years, in progress, in that coun-
try of confederacies ; and that while the former carried in itself
the materials of its ready dissolution, (for the league was one of
oaths,) the latter, which is the result of habits, and has grown
up out of events, and not out of sworn compacts, has a far
deeper and more lasting foundation. True it is, that the Roman
Catholic legislature (the strange and unexampled association) is
no longer in bodily existence, but its spirit is not extinct, and
its effects have not passed away. The precedent remains ;
and the people remember, what a government may be apt to
forget, that they are in a great measure indebted for success to
themselves. They feel that their rights were wrenched from
the hand that so long withheld them ; and they recollect the
engine by which they forced domination to let them go. There
is now, indeed, no regular society to minister the weekly ex-
citement to the craving of the national mind ; but there is a
press as active and as ably wielded as it was before ; there are

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII. K.

146 Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sept.

everywhere occasional meetings, where the functions of agita-
tion are faithfully discharged; there is a great intellectual cor-
poration, the Catholic priesthood, left unconnected and uncon-
ciliated ; there is in every parish a man of great influence, who
has no motive to exercise it for the maintenance of the esta-
blished order of things ; there is a strong, but, we are convin-
ced, an unfounded suspicion, in the minds of the great majority
of the nation, that an undue preference is to be exercised in fa-
vour of one sect, and that the ancient ascendency is to be still
maintained in its monopoly.

We have mentioned some of tlie evils incidental to the condi-
tion of Ireland, and which, it should be remembered, are the
result of a long misgovernment ; — and it may be naturally asked,
what remedies we propose for their removal. We have no spe-
cific. The disease which has got, by an injudicious treatment,
into the constitution, can only yield to moral alteratives of a
gradual and perhaps a slow operation. Occasional tentative
measures of local and isolated improvement, will effect little, if
any thing, for the general national amelioration ; and nothing
largely and permanently useful will be accomplished, except by
a comprehensive system, to be applied, without irregularity or
deviation, not only for the management of affairs, but the miti-
gation of passions.

Wide as that plan which embraces the welfare of millions
must of necessity be, its outlines may be sketched in a short
sentence. Adapt the institutions of Ireland to the character, the
habits, the feelings, and, we will even add, the prejudices, of the
Irish people. Are those institutions at this moment in that state
of fortunate conformity ? We might go through a variety of
details, but there is a little word, (an epitome in itself!,) which
will save much expatiation. It is a word of small compass, but
of ample meaning, — it drops in a single syllable from the tongue,
but suggests a long train of thought to the mind. That caba-
listic word, the Church, is one which must ere long be frequently
heard in the House of Commons ; and we may here set it down,
as connected beyond every other, with those anomalies, whose
continuance is incompatible with the happiness of Ireland. We
would not touch the sacred foundations of the Establishment,
but we would reduce its golden pinnacles, else they may fall in.
To other topics, we do not think it necessary at present to ad-
vert. Ireland stands in need of no ordinary remedies ; but it is
better to submit to the incommodities, and even risks, by which
they may be attended, than, by perseverance in a system which
must be admitted to be unnatural, expose ourselves to the greater
perils, of which the shadows may be found in * the Life and
* Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,*

1831. Crombie's Natural Theology, 147

Art. VII. — Natural Theology ; or. Essays on the Existence of
Deity and of Providence, on the Immateriality of the Souly and
a Future State. By the Rev. Alexander Crombie, LL.D.,
F.R.S. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1829.

TJaley's well-known and admirable work, though perfectly
-*- satisfactory and conclusive as far as it goes, is yet defective in
this, that it does not attempt to disprove the atheistical doctrines
of those whom the author opposed. His edifice, however stately
and solid, is somewhat obscured by the rubbish which has
been permitted to exist around it. To give complete satisfac-
tion to a student of any system, it is not only essential that the
doctrines advocated should be ably supported, but that every
opposing doctrine should be shown to be untrue. The great
merit of the work before us, consists in its containing an
acute and satisfactory examination of the doctrines alluded to,
combined with many forcible illustrations of the line of argu-
ment adopted by Paley ; and in its presenting a comprehensive
view of the whole province of Natural Theology.

In every philosophical discussion, it is of importance to ascer-
tain the nature of the evidence of which the question is susceptible,
Raymond Lully invented a machine, consisting of various con-
centric and movable circles, by means of which every question
in physical and metaphysical science might, as he fancied, be
satisfactorily solved. Nothing more was necessary than a little
manual labour. We laugh at a conception so irrational and so
ridiculous. Absurd, however, as is the notion of solving philo-
sophical problems by mechanical inventions, it is scarcely less
absurd to apply to any subject of disquisition a species of evi-
dence of which it is incapable. We might as reasonably apply
the laws of sound to explain the phenomena of sight ; or, as
Brown, in his refutation of Shaftesbury, says, take a candle
to a sundial to see how the night passes. Dr Crombie, there-
fore, after unfolding the causes of atheism, and examining the
absurd hypotheses which have been offered to explain the con-
struction of the universe without the intervention of intelli-
gence, has prefaced his argument with a view of the various
kinds of evidence, and the subjects to which they are severally
applicable ; in order that the enquiry may be thus placed on
its only proper and solid basis.

The question of Deity being a question of fact, and all meta-
physical reasoning, in his sense of the terra, being confined to
the immutable relations of our abstract ideas, he contends, as
a necessary consequence, that metaphysical evidence is wholly

148 Crombie's Natural Theology. Sept.

foreign to the subject. His views upon this point will be
understood by attending to his observations on the reasonings
of Dr Clarke.

The proposition of the atheist is, that there is no first cause,
but that the universe is an infinite succession of causes and
effects. Clarke endeavoured to prove, by metaphysical argu-
ments, that an infinite succession of causes and effects is impossi-
ble and absurd. He reasoned thus : ' If we consider the endless
' progression as one series of dependent beings, it is plain, 1st,

* that it has no cause of its existence ah extra, because the series

* contains within itself every thing that ever was ; and, 2dly,

* that it has no cause of existence within itself, because not one

* individual of this series is self-existent or necessary. And

* where no part is necessary, the whole cannot be necessary.

* Therefore, it is without any cause of its existence.'

' That this series has no cause of its existence ah extra, is evi-
dent, because nothing exterior to it exists. Is it equally clear,
tliat because no one term of the series is self-existent, the series
cannot exist ? Is self- existence in any of the terms necessary to
the being of such series ? If so, by what argument is this demon-
strated r' Though there is no self-existent term, is not every
term necessarily existent as necessarily resulting from the term
preceding ? * And let us travel backward through myriads of
terms, we shall be still as remote from a limit, or a beginning,
as when we set out. An opponent may admit, that there is no
self-existence in respect to form, in any of the terms; nay, he
vyill deny that there can be any ; but he denies, at the same
time, that the series is impossible, because this self-existence is
excluded ; and he may call on the theist to disprove its possibility
by any argument which does not proceed on a. petito princrpii.

It vt'ill not escape the observation of the attentive reader, that
Dr Clarke speaks of tlie series, as a whole, and on this concep-
tion, chiefly, his argument hinges. But is this allowable ? Does
not the term whole imply limits ? And can that have any bound-
ary, which is acknowledged to be infinite ? Will the adversary
admit, that an infinite series, of which all the terms are of equal
magnitude, can be considered, as a whole? A mathematical
series, decreasing ad infinitum, may be regarded as a whole, —
being equal to a definite quantity ; each descending term of the
series approaching nearer to pure nihility than the preceding

* The atheist maintains the eternity of matter. The argument,
therefore, refers to a series of changes and forms.

1831. Cromble's Natival Theology, 149

term ; but in a series of equal magnitude, this comprehension
under one whole is inadmissible. Eternity cannot be compassed.
There is another view of this argument. Self-existence
may be considered in two lights : 1st, in respect to matter ; and,
2dly, in respect to form. The atheist, as has been already
remarked, admits that there is no self-existence in respect to
form. He allows that no animal, no vegetable, no plant, no
system, could have come into existence per se, but that they
derive their formal being from pre-existing causes ; and he con-
tends that this succession of forms, has extended backwards
through the immeasurable ages of eternity. But he maintains
that the elements of matter are self- existent; and that the self-
existence of matter is a sufficient foundation for an infinite suc-
cession of formal existents. If it be contended, that every one
of the terms is dependent, and therefore the whole dependent ;
it is answered as before, first, that an infinite series of equal
magnitudes cannot be comprehended under a whole ; and next,
that what may be predicated of every individual term of such a
series, may not be predicable of the series itself. Man, as an
individual, is mortal ; but there is no absurdity, it may be
maintained, in supposing that the race is immortal. Each
generation, itself preceded by numberless other generations,
produces, before it becomes extinct, another generation ; and
thus the species may be continued through eternity. Every
term of the series is an effect, and therefore dependent on a
pi'eceding cause, and yet the scries may not be caused. As
from a present cause may arise an infinitude of effects ad
post, so there may have been an infinity of causes ah ante, prece-
ding the present effect. Each term must be an effect ; and each
term had for its cause an antecedent term. ' Accordingly,'
says Dr Clarke, ' to the supposition of an infinite succession
' of dependent beings, there is nothing in the universe necessary,
' or self-existing. And if so, it was originally equally impossi-

* ble that from eternity there should nothing have existed,

* Then what determined the existence, rather than the non-

* existence, of the universe ? Nothing — which is absurd.'

Now, it may be asked, with what propriety does Dr Clarke
suppose any origin or beginning, when by the hypothesis of
the adversary, there was no beginning? The latter will not
permit him to presume an origin ; and he will ask, what he
means when he speaks of a thing, as ' originally possible from
' eternity.' Does not this notion involve a palpable contradic-
tion? How is an origin reconcilable with eternity — that, which
can have neither beginning nor end? If, in order to escape
from this absurdity, it should be said, that the term origin

150 Crombie's Natural Theohgtj, Sept.

is intended to refer to a period prior to the world's existence j
the adversary will reply, that to assume that there was a time
when the world, either in its chaotic, or digested form, did
Hot exist, is to beg the question. The atheist denies that there
ever was such a time ; and maintains, that matter being self-
existent, nothing was necessary to determine its existence.

The argument is instituted to prove, that a series of causes
and effects, infinite ah ante, is impossible ; and sets out with as-
suming, that the series had a beginning, or that there was a
time, when it did not exist. This is surely a palpable instance
of reasoning in a circle.

* An infinite chain,' says Paley, * can no more support itself,

* than a finite chain.' * An opponent,' says Dr Crombie, ' would

* assent to this proposition, but might he not deny, that the

* cases are analogous ? A chain cannot support itself, because
' it is acted upon by a poWer exterior to itself; it obeys the law

* of gravitation. But there is no external power, by which the

* supposed infinite chain of causes and effects can be moved

* or disturbed. The very notion, that it requires support,
« implies the absurdity of an effect without a cause. The

* analogy is clearly false, and the argument inconclusive.'

Dismissing, then, all such arguments, which, as Cudworth
observes, beget more of doubtful disputation and scepticism,
than of clear conviction and satisfaction ; the question may be
rested on the moral and physical phenomena of nature :— the
eternity of the world is irreconcilable with facts. We have,
in the motions of the heavenly bodies, sufficient evidence, that
our system is not framed for an eternal duration. Whether we
assume that the planetary motions are ascvibable to the impulse
of particles filling all space, or to an ethereal fluid, or to any
other material medium, it is undeniable that these motions
must suffer a gradual retardation; and the destruction of the
system inevitably follows. It is acknowledged by La Place,
that light alone, if there were no other fluid, must, by reason
of its continual resistance, together with the gradual but inces-
sant diminution of the solar mass, whence this fluid is perpe-
tually issuing, in time destroy the planetary arrangements.
And, in utter inconsistency with his own sceptical hypothesis,
he states, that a reform, which implies a reformer, will, at some
period or other, be necessary in our system. Now, if it thus
appears that our system must come to a termination, it neces-
sarily follows that it had a beginning. For, as a system which
has been from eternity, must, in its essence and construction, be
everlasting, so, a system which must come to an end, must have
had a commencement. If there be causes now in operation

1831. Crombie's Natural Theology. 151

which must ultimately derange our globe, with all its vegetable
and animal beings, it is evident that these must have had an
origin ; and as no cause, purely mechanical or chemical (the
only causes which could operate before the production of organ-
ized forms), could produce an organized being, their origin can-
not be referred to the agency of an unintelligent principle.

The author, in the prosecution of his argument, lays down
two propositions. * Whenever we find order and regularity

* obtaining, either uniformly, or in a vast majority of instances,

* where the possibilities of disorder are infinitely numerous,

* we are justified in inferring from this fact, an intelligent

* cause.' ' It may be asked,' says Dr Crombie, ' What is the
' ground of this belief? Why do we infer intelligence from order

* and regularity? Is the conclusion founded in reason, or is it the

* result of experience — the inference is immediateand irresistible;

* the perception is as clear, and the conviction as strong, as that

* a less number cannot be equal to a greater ; certainly, in many

* cases, as strong, as an immeasurable preponderance of evidence

* can produce. It is intuitively obvious, that, out of any given

* number of equally possible results, the chance of one taking

* place in exclusion of the rest, must be as one to the number of

* others. Our belief, therefore, that a given one will not take

* place by accident, must be more or less strong, as the others are

* more or less numerous; and, where an indefinite number on

* one side is opposed to unity on the other, to believe that unity

* will, not only in one instance, but in an indefinite number of

* similar instances, be accidentally the result, is much the same

* as to believe that unity is equal to infinity.' The ground which
Mr Hume assigns for our belief in such cases, and the hypothesis
of Spinoza, advocated by Sir William Drumraond, that order
and disorder have no real existence, are here examined with
candour and acuteness. Dr Crombie's second proposition is
thus stated: — 'Wherever we find numerous occurrences of

* means, various and complicated, towards the production of

* effects, we are justified in inferring an intelligent cause. These

* furnish conclusive evidence of design ; and design necessarily

* implies the existence of intelligence.' * Whether this inference

* of skill and design from such occurrences of means to ends,

* all necessary and all contributing to the effect, be a deduction

* from experience, as some have supposed, or be the result of

* reasoning, as others have maintained, or is to be considered

* as a first principle, originating in what has been termed intel-

* ligence, or common sense, it is in theory, as well as in the

* conduct of common life, universally admitted. The sceptic

* himself does not venture to controvert it.'

152 Crombie's Natural Theology, Sept.

The evidences of a powerful and intelligent cause, exhibited
in the works of physical nature, are so numerous and so impres-
sive, that the difficulty is, not where to discover them, but where
to make the most interesting and striking selection. They may
be drawn from the planetary system, from the construction of
our globe, from the structure and instincts of animals, from the
mutual adaptation of these to the circumstances in which they
are placed, and from the complicated modes in which they are
furnished with air, water, and the appropriate aliments, and
the means provided for the continuation and separation of the
several species.

Among the most striking proofs of concurrences of means
to ends, may be specified the atmospheric fluid, so essential to
the existence of every organized being. In order to fit it for
the purpose of vegetable and animal life, it must possess the
following qualities: — 1st, It must have gravity. 2d, Elasticity.
3d, The elasticity must be perfect. 4th, The elasticity must
be unalterable. 5th, The fluid must be invisible. 6th, It
must be compressible. 7th, Incondensible by any cold into
a liquid state. 8th, The two gases, oxygen and nitrogen, of
which it is composed, must constantly bear the same ratio to
each other. 9th, There must be a continual supply ; in other
words, what is vitiated by respiration, and other causes, must
be purified and restored, 10 th, It must be universally present.
Here, then, are ten indispensable requisites. That all these
should concur by chance, by a blind necessity, or any unintelli-
gent cause whatever, is morally impossible.

The structure of the human frame, considered merely as a
piece of mechanism — its complicated organization — the delicate
constitution of its internal frame — its external protection, by a
close integument against the noxious influence of the atmosphere
on the naked muscle — its power of producing its like — its abi-
lity to renovate itself, every particle being removed, and replaced
several hundred times in the course of an ordinary life — the pro-
vision of certain automatic powers, constantly in action for our
preservation, whether asleep or awake, and the existence of vo-
luntary powers which act only when required — its capacity of
repairing its own injuries, and its self-motive power, present
such adaptations of means to ends, that it seems impossible for
a rational mind to draw any other than one conclusion, too ob-
vious to require to be stated.

Our natural instincts, and our intellectual constitution, com-
prehending our perceptive, rational and active powers, whether
viewed in detail, or as constituting a whole, by which Man is sus-
tained, and by which he arrives at Science and Philosophy,

1831. Crorabie's Natural Theology. 153

afford evidence, if not so obvious and striking as tbat which his
organization presents, yet, certainly, not less conclusive, of a de-
signing cause. This branch of the argument is supported in a
manner at once clear and forcible.

1. In the infant, three senses of the five are only requisite at first,
and these three are from the first developed; — the senses of sight
and hearing, by which an adult animal discerns distant objects
and avoids distant enemies, would be useless to a child which
could not remove itself from approaching injuries. Surely, it
can only be the result of design, that the senses which are im-
mediately necessary at birth are then bestowed, while the others,
which would at that time be of no utility, are delayed. Is it
the characteristic of chance to consult utility, or of unintelli'-
gence to discriminate between things requisite and things super-
fluous ?

2. Through the medium of the senses we are made suscepti-
ble of all impressions of pleasure and pain ; but this is not suffi-
cient for our safety ; for unless we had the power of avoiding
evil, and pursuing good, our senses would make us only the
passive and helpless subjects of surrounding contingencies. To
prevent this, we are endowed with the faculty of perception, by
which we distinguish the causes of our sensations, and thus learn
what to shun and what to seek.

3. But to perceive sensations and their causes would avail us
little, if the impressions produced vanished immediately with
the objects causing them. All our pleasures would be momen-
tary, all our pains unavoidable. At each instant, we should be
surprised by some accident, or overwhelmed by some evil which
we could not avoid. We need a power which shall store up the
past for the benefit of the future ; and with the necessity, we
find the remedy, in the faculty of memory. Without this won-
derful aid, life would not only be unsafe but a torment. All
the endearing sympathies of kindred, of love and friendship,
would be momentary. The parent would be a stranger to his
child — the husband to the wife — the ' old familiar faces,' — the
household hearts, once our own, would be to us as those visions
of the fantasy which are seen and forgotten in an hour, and
man would look in vain for comfort in this gloom of solitude.
Our existence is confined to the present moment — memory
connects it with the past. The operations of memory are
so common, that the miraculousness of the power is lost in its
familiarity : where does the idea of a past sensation or percep-
tion remain which, for years, has vanished from the mind ?
Surely the capacity of travelling back through the years we
have left behind us, and to bring them in combination with the

154 Crombie's Natural Theology* Sept.

moments now present, is a power so wonderful, that to suppose
it to be the production of senseless matter, seems a moral absur-
dity.

4. In order to make the faculty of memory as perfect as pos-
sible, it is aided in its functions by two other powers ; — Curio-
sity, by which we are stimulated to acquire knowledge ; and
Attention, by which memoi-y is strengthened. Here, then, we
have a combination of means to ends totally inexplicable on the
hypothesis of the atheist.

5. The remembrance of the past is of value, chiefly as afford-
ing some insight into the future. Something more than memory
is wanting to render that faculty really useful to man. Memory
may record the past faithfully, and we may feel fully assured,
that, in the same actual circumstances, the same effect has uni-
formly been produced ; but how do we know, that the same
regularity will continue to obtain ? — that an object which has
hitherto imparted pleasure, will still be accompanied with a si-
milar sensation, and not by pain. Experience can only apply
to the past ; and reason, in our early years, cannot come to
our aid, if i-eason could solve the question. Our mental con-
stitution would be imperfect were we not guarded against the
uncertainty of the future from a mere knowledge of the past.
By a salutary provision in his very nature, man instinctively
associates one and the same cause with one and the same
effect, and irresistibly is forced to believe that in all times
the same antecedents will be followed by similar consequents.
Thus, there is a principle within him which gives value to his
experience by rendering it conducive to his safety and his
happiness. That this principle is an instinctive one, inde-
pendent of experience, and forming a part of our nature, is
evident from the fact, that the infant, nay, the animal, act upon
it ; both believing that the same object will produce the same
sensations. It requires no inductive process in the child to shun
those objects which once caused pain, and seek others which
once afforded delight. If all difficulties and changes were to be
met by a syllogism, and avoided by reason alone, the proverbial
uncertainty and shortness of human life would be a mockery ;
mankind would be lost before they arrived at the age of reason
but for the existence of this principle.

6. So numberless are the impressions made upon our senses,
that the mind would be overwhelmed with their infinite variety,
unless it were provided with some means of collecting and clas-
sifying them. Here, as elsewhere, there is the same attention
to supply the want by the faculty of generalization ; individual
impressions are classed according to their similarity or dissirai-

1831. Cioxahx^'s Natural Theology, 155

larity ; and the largest quantum of that experience, so necessary
to our very existence, is thus attained by a mental compendium.
It is only associated with this power, that the capacity of speech
is of such vast utility to man ; and it is by the combination of
the bodily organs with the intellectual faculty that man ascends
from individual facts to the sublimest conclusions of science and
philosophy.

7. With these powers is man guarded against external enemies,
but what shall preserve him from himself? how scrutinize his
own heart, investigate the secret springs of his actions, examine
his governing motives, learn his predominant propensities, dis-
cover where he is vulnerable, and where he is strong — in a word,
how shall he acquire the most important of all knowledge, that
of himself ? If our senses are so many defences to guard us from
the ten thousand dangers without us, there is within us a mar-
vellous faculty — reflection — by which the mind takes cognizance
of its own states, and is as indispensable to our innocence, our
virtue, and our happiness, as the sensation of pain is to our safety.
To crown all, the power of reason, or the discursive faculty,
is bestowed on us for the acquisition of knowledge of superlative
importance to the happiness of the individual, and the progres-
sive improvement of the race. Whatever truths or facts percep-
tion communicates, consciousness discloses, testimony establishes,
memory records, or common sense teaches, form the subject of
our individual judgments ; and from these judgments the discur-
sive faculty deduces general truths, and enlarges the sphere of
human knowledge.

8. If we direct our attention to the active powers of the mind,
they present us with the same evidence of design and intelli-
gence as those faculties already mentioned. The very existence
of powers which impel us to action, when superadded to others
which procure knowledge, is an argument for their being deri-
ved from an intelligent cause. Knowledge, unaccompanied with
action, or its application to useful purposes, would be of no
value. To desire good is a law of our nature ; and to know
wherein that good consists, and how to attain it, we have the
rational faculty to direct our judgments. Passion and appetite
are eager for gratification ; reason controls their impetuosity, and
tempers their ardour ; directing them to those objects, and re-
straining them within those bounds, which are necessary to real
and permanent enjoyment. The adjustment of a regulating to
a moving power, in the construction of a machine, does not more
clearly demonstrate intelligence and design, than the aptitude
of reason to govern the movements of passion and appetite, which
would blindly urge us to detrimental pursuits and excessive in-

156 Crombie's Natural Theology, Sept.

diligence. The soul of man is the subject of hopes and fears, of
pains and pleasures, desires and aversions : these arc not only na-
tural to him but essential, coming in aid of his intellectual facul-
ties, sweetening life when duly regulated, criminal only when ex-
cessive. Memory records past pleasures. This is not sufficient ;
we possess therefore the desire to re-enjoy them, for what would
be the use of a perception of pleasure if there were no desire to
seek it? The object capable to impart it would exist in vain.
We might have been so framed that the perception of pleasure
should have been unaccompanied by any desire to seek it; nay,
had a blind necessity been the cause of existence, so far from
there being any pleasurable emotions, each object might have
impressed our organization with agony ; — the light might have
burned the eyes, sound have made the ear ache, each sense
might have been an inlet to pain, and each feeling of the soul
burdensome to life. Why is it not so ? How happens it that
the atheist's blind necessity should have acted so that by our
very nature we avoid pain and pursue pleasure ? There is, says
Dr Crombie, a wonderful lack in the chance of the atheist, and
a surprising method in his omnipotent necessity.

Our desires are as numerous as the objects which yield us
pleasure are multiplied ; and each is so manifestly adapted to the
well-being of man in his individual and social character, that it
is impossible to avoid shutting our eyes to this wise and bene-
volent adjustment of means to ends exhibited in us. The desire
of life is necessary to the continuance of our being — the desire
of knowledge to our advancement in art and science. The love
of fame, of superiority, of wealth, are in themselves neither
virtuous nor vicious ; under due regulation they promote indivi-
dual enjoyment, and the common good. Even hatred and resent-
ment are natural, and necessary to man in some stages of bar-
barism. The solitary savage is protected by these passions from
the tyranny of his kind. Hatred to vice is an auxiliary to virtue ;
indignation is natural, and is virtuous when turned against hypo-
crisy, villainy, and tyranny. To enquire why such affections
are given us, is vain ; it is sufficient to show that they tend to good
when not abused. They exhibit no anomaly, and our mental
constitution is in perfect accordance with the plan of physical
nature ; both are sustained by a succession or combination of
contrarieties, and physical commotions and moral perturbations
alike tend to settle into an equilibrium.

If we examine the benevolent affections of our nature, they
strongly proclaim their origin from a good and intelligent
source. Man, as a solitary being, would never attain either
knowledge or virtue. It is by associating with his fellows that

1831. Crombie's Natural Theology. 137

lie arrives at wisdom, and power, and moral perfection. But
without the social and sympathetic affections, society could not
exist. To fit him for communion with his fellow men, he posses-
ses these affections; and, as a motive to cultivate them, their exer-
cise is accompanied with one of the most gratifying pleasures of
which our nature it susceptible. Without this motive the in-
stinct might be less active ; without the affections society could
not exist ; without society knowledge and virtue would be unat-
tainable ; and without these acquirements man would be a
wretched and pitiable creature. This chain of dependent and
connected circumstances furnishes evidence of design. A review
of the active principles of our nature leads us to the same im-
portant conclusion; We are gifted with no instinct, endowed
with no passion, born with no appetite, which is not necessary
to our individual preservation, our moral improvement, or our
social enjoyment. And while, like conflicting principles in the
physical world, they necessarily jar one with another, and pro-
duce commotion, — feeling being opposed to feeling, passion to
passion, and reason striving to direct and control their energies,
yet by an established law, which can be ascribed to nothing but
wisdom and design, and to which all the discordant elements of
natui'e are subjected, these perturbations, evidently exceptions
to the general rule, are made to issue in that equilibrium, in
which consists the tranquillity and harmony of the system.

The next^division of the subject is that embracing the enquiry
as to the existence of a presiding power. This is a siibject in
which the consistent theologian can find little or no difficulty.
The notion entertained by some of the ancient sages, that the con-
cerns of man are too insignificant for the notice of the eternal and
exalted Sovereign of the universe, he dismisses as irrational.
Whatever it was not beneath the dignity of the Divine Being
to create, it cannot derogate from his dignity to preserve. The
notion, too, of a Providence embracing only the more import-
ant concerns of the system, he rejects as inconsistent with the
attributes of benevolence and omnipresence. The omniscience
of the Deity implies a universal superintendence ; and whether
the system be governed by laws established at its formation,
or by the continued agency of the Creator, we must conclude,
unless we assent to a contradiction, that no evil can take place
unseen by an Omniscient eye. To attribute an imperfect provi-
dence to an all-perfect being, would be an absurdity. The oc-
casional anomalies and seeming frustrations of the Divine coun-
sels which led Cudworth to adopt the doctrine of a plastic
nature, can be regarded by the rational and consistent theist in
no other light than as varieties ordained by the same wisdom

158 Crombie's Natural Theology. Sept.

by which the usual course of nature is sustained. The excep-
tions, as well as the conformities to the general law, are equal-
ly the appointments of the Supreme Being. Such is the outline
of Dr Crombie's view of the doctrine of Providence.

The question respecting the nature of man as a being purely
material, or as constructed of two distinct substances — one ma-
terial, and the other not material — is next discussed at great
length, and closed with the following passage, which presents a
clear and striking summary of the author's conclusions : — ' Man
in every stage and condition of his being, is occupied with sen-
sible objects. These at all times engage his chief attention. In
his earliest and rudest state of existence, he thinks of nothing
but providing for the necessities of corporeal nature. Of his
mental constitution he is profoundly ignorant. Seeing nothing
around him but matter, and its changing forms, he has no con-
ception of the possibility of any other than material substance.
If surrounding phenomena should impress him with the belief
that there are beings superior to himself, he imagines them to
be corporeal. He entertains no apprehension of any existent,
which is not visible or tangible. He is a materialist. As his
experience, however, extends, he becomes more and more
acquainted with the qualities and properties of physical ob-
jects. Ages elapse before he proceeds beyond the limits pre-
scribed by external sense. But, as he advances in knowledge,
his curiosity is proportionably excited ; and, acquiring in the ad-
vancement of society, more leisure for reflection, he begins to
look inward to his own mind, and mark with attention what
passes there. When he becomes acquainted with its various fa-
culties, and what they are capable of accomplishing, observing
also the subserviency of the body to the government of the will,
he perceives that his mental powers are so unlike to the qualities
and properties of gross matter, that they must belong, he con-
cludes, to something of a more refined character than brute
material substance. Unable, however, to divest himself of the
notion that nothing can exist which may not be seen or touch-
ed, he forms a conception of some attenuated matter, some
aerial being, by whatever name it may be called, whether
soul, or breath, or spirit, which lives and thinks within him.
It is still, however, material ; and he perceives, on reflection,
that the difficulty, though apparently diminished, is not re-
moved. He is thence led to proceed one step farther, and to
conclude, that the simple indivisible being, which he believes
himself to be, can have no resemblance to matter, which is
composed of parts.
* Immaterialism, then, it would seem, is not the doctrine oi

1831, Cronabie's Natural Theology, 159

* a rude and uncultivated mind. It is the result of examina-

* tion and reflection. It can obtain only when philosophy has

* shed her light over the constitution of man as an intelligent
' being ; and wherever it does obtain, it is an infallible evidence

* of considerable progress in metaphysical science.

' The hypothesis of materialism is what man, guided by sense

* only, naturally adopts — a hypothesis, which his continual

* communication with material objects, has a natural tendency

* to suggest and to recommend.

* It is its inadequacy, however, to explain the phenomena of
' Mind, that reduces the philosopher to the necessity of main-
' taining that they cannot belong to a material substance. He
' feels the difficulties which attend the adoption of this alter-

* native ; but they are the difficulties arising from the limitation

* of his perceptions to sensible objects. He presumes not to
' say what the soul is ; but he is persuaded that it is not mate-

* rial. He denies it to be a property or an eff"ect, and affirms it

* to be a substance and a cause, imperceptible indeed by cor-

* poreal organs, but known, through internal sense and reflec-

* tion, by its powers and properties, as matter is known through

* external sense, by its sensible qualities. Of neither substance,
' in abstract, can we form any conception.' — Vol. II. p. 451.

The last chapter is devoted to the Doctrine of a Future State ;
but we cannot afford room for any abstract of it. We beg, in
conclusion, to recommend the work, as presenting a useful
course of instruction on the all important subject to which it is
devoted.

Art. VIII. — The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, M.A.R.A.
The former Written, and the latter Edited by John Knowles,
F.R.S. 3 vols. 8 vo. London: 1831.

WE feel indebted to Mr Knowles for this publication. Fuseli's
life was certainly not an eventful one, nor has the biogra-
pher done much towards supplying the place of that source, of
interest by tracing very minutely the progress of his mind, the
gradual formation of his views, and those triumphs over the diffi-
culties of his art, which are to the painter what the struggles of
active life are to other men. Indeed, it does not appear that
many materials exist which could have been available for such
a task. His literary correspondence was not extensive ; nor does
he seem to have indulged much in the description of his own feel-
ings and impressions, which, considering his natural frankness
ftnd exuberant self-esteem, rather surprises us. But though the

160 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

account of his life will not add much to our acquaintance with
his inner man, still it contributes something-, and that plainly and
perspicuously enough, towards our picture of his outward pre-
sence and habits ; and we are glad to think, that one who, for
nearly half a century, has exercised an influence over British
art, both by precept and example, will not sink into the grave
without a more enduring record than the passing echo of news-
paper criticism.

Henry Fuseli or Fuessli (for such was his family name,
though, in deference to English ears, he altered it when became
to England) was born at Zurich in 1741, and was destined by
his father for the church. He manifested very early a predilec-
tion for drawing and also for entomology, but his passion for
drawing his father did every thing in his power to repress, con-
ceiving that his chance of success in the church depended on his
exclusive attention being devoted to his theological and classical
studies. But « there is no armour against fate :' — the studies
which young Fuseli did not venture to pursue openly, he indulged
in secretly, purchasing with his small allowance of pocket-money,
candles, pencils, and paper, in order to make di-awings when his
parents believed him to be in bed, which he afterwards disposed
of to his companions. Nay, sometimes he had the boldness while
his father was reading to him in the evenings the sermons of
Gotz or Saurin, to employ his pencil at the other end of the table,
concealing his drawing with his hand. The more effectually to
disguise his employment, he learned to use his left hand for the
purpose, and the practice rendered him ambidextrous during his
life. Even at this early age his sketches, many of which are still
preserved, indicate the bent of his mind. They are chiefly on
classical and mythological subjects of an extraordinary charac-
ter, or occasionally scenes of broad humour and caricature. The
models to which he principally looked, the sketches of Christo-
pher Maurin, Ringli, Ammann, and other masters of Zurich,
although displaying freedom of hand, were not likely to give
him very exalted notions of form, and accordingly a general
clumsiness pervades the figures in his earlier sketches, which,
however, in other respects display an inventive fancy, and much
skill in telling the story which it is his object to represent.

His theological studies, which, though not altogether conge-
nial to his views, he continued to pursue, introduced him in-
to the society of Lavater, and many other men afterwards emi-
nent in German literature. Having acquired a considerable know-
ledge of English, French, and Italian, he read much and on all
subjects. From the novels of Richardson and the passionate
reveries of Rousseau, he passed to the infinite variety of Shak-;

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 161

speare, and the gloomy and majestic visions of Dante. In reading
the Scriptures, which he did diligently, the classics, or the mo-
dern historians, his attention was always most attracted by inci-
dents or expressions out of the ordinary course, and these, while
they took root in his imagination, were soon embodied by his
pencil. For the abstract sciences, however, he had always an
utter distaste : ' Were the angel Gabriel,' he would say, ' sent

* to teach me mathematics, he would fail in his mission.'

In due time Fuseli entered into holy orders. Pulpit oratory
was not at that time in a very palmy state in Zurich : the field
of theological instruction being pretty equally apportioned be-
tween scholastic and dogmatic discussions, the mystic language
of Moravianism, and the vulgar effusions of those who courted
popularity by a melange of religion, anecdote, and grimace. The
efforts of Klopstock, Bodmer, Zimmerman, and others, to intro-
duce a better style of preaching, had produced but little effect.
Accordingly, Fuseli's opening discourse, which was modelled
on the sermons of Saurin, but with something of the more in-
flated language of Klopstock, though it pleased his literary
friends, who predicted his future success, seemed to have been
coldly enough received by the Zurich public.

An incident which shortly afterwards occurred, in which
Fuseli displayed more of the zeal of a youthful reformer, than
the prudence and caution which was expected from the profes-
sion he had chosen, prevented those anticipations from being
fulfilled, if, indeed, they were ever likely to be so. Indignant
at the conduct of the high land-bailiff", Grebel, to whom many
acts of tyranny and oppression were ascribed, on what Fuseli
considered to be good authority, he, after addressing him with-
out effect on the subject in an anonymous letter, wrote a pam-
phlet, in conjunction with his friend, Lavater, entitled, the ' Un-

* just Magisti'ate, or the Complaint of a Patriot;' in which they
exposed, in glowing terms, the acts of oppression of which he
had been guilty. The Council of Zurich, struck with its man-
liness of tone, and with the facts which it detailed, intimated,
that if the author would avow himself, the matter should receive
immediate attention. On this Fuseli and Lavater immediately
stepped forward, acknowledged the pamphlet, and courted en-
quiry. The result of the investigation was to establish the
charges to the full extent ; and the guilty magistrate only escaped
punishment by absconding from Zurich. But, though by this
spirited act, Fuseli and the physiognomist were for a time
abundantly popular, the powerful family of the accused evinced
great irritation against them ; and their friends, thinking it
prudent, even in this/ree city, to allow the matter to blow over,

VOL. LIV, NO. CVII, 1,

162 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

rather than bid defiance to their hostility, suggested that they
should for a time retire from Zurich.

Accompanied by Professor Sulzer, a name well known in
the literature of Germany, they successively visited Augsburg,
Leipzic, and Berlin. The colossal figure of St Michael (the
work of a Bavarian sculptor, Reichel) over the gateway of the
arsenal at Augsburg, produced a remarkable effect on the mind
of Fuseli, and became for a time his standard of taste, super-
seding the clumsy forms which he had been accustomed to de-
lineate, after the Swiss masters. The change appears evi-
dently in the designs, which, while at Berlin, he made for his
friend Bodmer's poem of ' Noah,' many of which display a consi-
derable improvement in style, though still greatly deficient in
correctness of drawing. The English ambassador at the Court
of Berlin, Sir Andrew Mitchell, struck with the abilities of Fuseli,
who had been introduced to him, proposed that he should
accompany him to England ; offering him his interest and assist-
ance in a project which had for some time engaged the atten-
tion of Sulzer, and other literary men of Germany, namely, the
establishment of a regular channel of literary communication
between that country and England. Fuseli embraced his offer,
and arrived in England in 1763.

His avocations were at first entirely literary. He was exten-
sively engaged in translation ; and, by great industry in labour-
ing for the booksellers, contrived to maintain himself respectably,
without the necessity of availing himself of the pecuniary assist-
ance which his friends were ready to offer. His leisure hours
only were devoted to drawing and etching. The even tenor
of these pursuits was only for a short time interrupted by his
Undertaking the situation of travelling tutor to the son of Lord
Waldegrave, who was about to visit the Continent. This con-
nexion, however, did not subsist long. Some demonstrations of
obstinacy and disobedience on the part of the pupil, provoked
the tutor to visit the delinquency with a blow; and perceiving,
of course, that after this his instructions were not likely to be
of much service to the young nobleman, he immediately resigned
the situation, and returned to England. He used afterwards to
observe to his friends, * The noble family of Waldegrave took
* me for a bear-leader, but they found me the bear.'

On his return to England, the formation of the Royal Aca-
demy, and the general impression as to the patronage and
encouragement likely to be bestowed on art, awakened more
vehemently than ever his wish to become a painter. An inter-
view which he soon afterwards had with Sir Joshua Reynolds,
decided his wavering views. Having shown him a portfolio of

1831, ^ Life and Writings of Fuseli. 163

drawings, and some small etchings from the Bible, with one on
a large scale from Plutarch, ' Dion seeing a female spectre
' sweep his hall,' Sir Joshua, struck with the style, grandeur,
and original conception of his works, asked him how long he
had been from Italy, and on learning from him that he had
never been there, expressed his surprise and admiration at his
progress. He concluded by remarking, that ' were he at Fu-
' seli's age, and endowed with the ability of producing such
' works, if any one were to offer him a thousand pounds a-year,
* on condition of being any thing but a painter, he would not
' hesitate to reject the offer.'

Thus flattered and encouraged, Fuseli applied himself ear-
nestly to drawing, and, by Sir Joshua's recommendation, after-
wards tried oil colours. His first picture, * Joseph interpreting
' the dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker,' drew from Reynolds
the observation, that he might, if he pleased, be a colourist as
well as a draughtsman. After some assiduous preparation in.
England, Fuseli resolved to visit Rome, which he did in 1770.
Dr Armstrong, then in indifferent health, had at first intended
to be his companion ; but however well he may have been ac-
quainted with the art of preserving health, that of preserving
temper was equally unknown to himself and Fuseli ; their sea
voyage to Geneva was a scene of altercation, and they finally
quarrelled about the pronunciation of an English word, and
parted ; Fuseli pertinaciously maintaining that a Swiss had as
good a right to judge of the correct pronunciation of English as
a Scotchman.

At Rome his course of study somewhat differed from the one
usually pursued. He copied comparatively little, though he
studied carefully the paintings of Raphael, and other great mas-
ters of Italian art, and still more carefully the works of Michael
Angelo, and the remains of antiquity. Yet he did not dream
away his time, like Barry, in mere speculation on their princi-
ples ; his hand as well as his head were constantly occupied ;
his practical power increased with the refinement of his taste,
and the settlement of his principles; so that, before he left Rome,
the boldness and grandeur of his drawings struck the Italian
artists with astonishment.

A nervous fever interrupted his studies, and led him to re-
visit his native country before his return to England. When
he arrived, he found West in possession of perhaps the highest
reputation as an historical painter. At no time of his life did
Fuseli admire West; for though he admitted his mechanical
skill in composition, the cold laboured character of his pic-
tures, his deficiency in invention, and timidity in drawing,

164 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

revolted him ; noi' could he ever bring himself to think or speak
of him as a great artist. Fuseli's first pictures after his return, —
* Ezzelin,' ' Satan starting from the touch of Ith Uriel's lance/
and 'Jason appearing before Pclias, to whom the sight of a man
' with a single sandal had been predicted fatal,' at once raised
him, in the opinion of the best judges, to the highest rank in the
art. They were shortly afterwards followed by the celebrated
picture of the Nightmare, one of his most popular and most
characteristic eflForts, which, when exhibited in 1782, at once
aroused public attention. We need not describe a subject, so
generally known from the prints, (by the sale of which alone
Fuseli admitted he had made upwards of L.500,) and by the
verses of Darwin. These paintings were rapidly followed by
two pictures from Macbeth, the Weird Sisters, and Lady Mac-
beth walking in her sleep, both most favourable specimens of
his manner; impressive and dignified, but without that taint of
exaggeration which deforms too many of his paintings. The
Shakspeare Gallery, for which he executed eight large pictures,
on subjects the most dissimilar, raised his character for versa-
tility of powers. The public could not but admire the rich
variety of fancy which could pass with such facility and success
from grave to gay, from broad farce to sublimity and terror;
now bringing before us the spells of Prospero, the airy grace of
Ariel, the grotesque hideousness of Caliban ; and now the still
more evanescent beauties of the Midsummer Night's Dream,
transparent, and almost impalpable as that moonlight ray whicli
enlightens so many of its scenes ; — anon transporting as to the
blasted heath with Macbeth, or to the platform of Elsineur
with Hamlet and the buried majesty of Denmark ; — to the
court of Lear, where Cordelia receives her sentence of exile
from her father's lips, or to the wild revelries of Eastcheap with
Henry and Falstaff.

Nor was his attention during this period of exertion confined to
his own art. He contributed many valuable suggestions and criti-
cal remarks on Cowper's Iliad — many reviews of works on his-
torical or poetical subjects to the Analytical Review — corrected
and superintended the publication of his friend Lavater's phy-
siognomical work — translated his Aphorisms on Man — cultivated
the acquaintance of men of letters and science : — married, and
kept up a strange Platonic flirtation with Mary Wool stou croft,
whose attentions, by the way, became at last so obtrusive, that
she had the boldness to visit Mrs Fuseli, and to announce her
wish to become an inmate in her family ; and the fact that she
could not liv-^e without the satisfaction of seeing and conversing
daily with her husband. This candid but alarming confession,

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 165

it may easily be imagined, immediately led to a total suspen-
sion of all intercourse between the parties.

In 1790, he became a member of the Academy, and project-
ed the magnificent scheme of a Gallery of Pictures from Mil-
ton, resembling the Shakspeare Gallery, but with this differ-
ence, that all the paintings were to be executed by himself.
Plis expectations of success from this enterprise were high ;
much higher, in fact, than those of his friends, or than was
justified by the issue. While this gigantic undertaking was
proceeding, he painted the well-known picture of Catiline's
Conspiracy for Mr Seward, and four pictures for Woodmason's
Illustrations of Shakspeare ; two from the Midsummer Night's
Dream, and two from Macbeth ; of which the latter, Macbeth
with the Witches at the Caldron, appears to have been his
favourite. In speaking of it to Mr Knowles, who became the
purchaser of it, he observed, ' Here you have one of my best

* poetical conceptions. When Macbeth meets with the witches on

* the heath, it is terrible, because he did not expect the super-

* natural visitation ; but when he goes to the cave to ascertain

* his fate, it is no longer a subject of terror ; hence, I have

* endeavoured to supply what is deficient in the poetry. To say

* nothing of the general arrangement of my picture, which, in

* composition, is altogether triangular, (and the triangle is a

* mystical figure,) I have endeavoured to show a colossal head

* rising out of the abyss, and that head Macbeth's likeness.
' What, I would ask, would be a greater object of terror to you

* if, some night, on going home, you were to find yourself sit-

* ting at your own table, either writing, reading, or otherwise

* employed ? Would not this make a powerful impression on

* your mind ?* With the sources of terror, indeed, and particu-
larly of the supernatural, Fuseli was well acquainted, and his
observations on such objects, are invariably appropriate, and
often profound.

Alone and unassisted, (save by the pecuniary advances of
six of his friends,* who were to receive repayment in pictures ; or
from the proceeds of the exhibition,) he completed the Milton
Gallery in 1799. It consisted, at first, of forty pictures, to
which six others were afterwards added, many of tliem of the
largest size, and embracing equally, like those of the Shakspeare
Gallery, scenes of human and supernatural interest, of beauty,
tenderness, and grandeur. As a whole, it will always remain
the proudest monument of Fuseli's genius ; for though indivi-

* Messrs Coutts, Lock, Roscoe, G. Thorns, Seward, and Johnson.

166 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

dual compositions were liable to the charge of exaggeration and
distortion, and the female forms of his pictures were pretty gene-
rally assailed as voluptuous, rather than dignified and graceful,
yet the union of epic majesty in the general design, with dra-
matic spirit in the details, the power of drawing and variety
of composition which it displayed, left, on the whole, a more
powerful, certainly a far more unmixed impression, of ability
on the mind, than the strange blending of excellence, medio-
crity, and positive wretchedness, which had been exliibited by
the Shakespeare gallery. What artist in Great Britain, at the
time, save Fuseli, would have attempted, and with success,
such subjects as Death and Sin bridging Chaos, the Vision of
the Lazar-house, or the fine conception of Melancholy, in the
very title of which, as given in the descriptive catalogue, there
is Poetry : ' Melancholy, with the attendant genii of Grief and

* Terror at her feet, and behind her the shadow of Ugolino and

* his Dead Son. The whole dimly illuminated by a moonbeam.'
Yet these conceptions, instinct as they were with genius, could
not render the exhibition popular. Shakspeare is the poet of
all ranks ; the theatre has familiarized us with the creatures of
his fancy ; we see them again on canvass, as old acquaintances,
and delight to compare the ideas of the artist with our own ;
but Milton is the poet of the scholar, and the man of refine-
ment, to many almost unknown, familiar only to very few. He
appeals too little to ordinary sympathies, and confines himself too
exclusively to the elevated and the terrible to be the favourite
of the crowd. If Fuseli had been fortunate enough to anticipate
Boy dell and Macklin in the idea of a series of representations
from Shakspeare, the result of the exhibition might have been
very different. As it was, ' laudatur et alget' might have been
written over the door of his gallery in Pall- Mall. He was praised
on all hands, specially patronised by the Royal Academy, but
the proceeds of the exhibition did not defray its expenses.

Over the remainder of his life we must hurry rapidly. In
1801, he delivered his first three lectures at the Academy, with
very general approbation; his energy and originality being
well calculated to attract attention, though their effect was
not a little impeded by the defects of his broad German pro-
nunciation. In 1802, he took advantage of the peace of Amiens
to visit Paris, and to examine the treasures of art which Bona-
parte had carried off from the countries which he had over-
run. Fuseli, who had viewed many of these in their original
situations, was struck with the inferiority of their effect, when
seen by the staring cross lights of the Louvre, and particularly
after the process of cleaning, to which they had been subjected
by the rude hands of picture-restorers. He made many obser-

1831, Life and Writings of Fuseli. 16T

vations on the collection, during his stay, of which he after-
wards availed hinaself in his lectures. The recommencement of
hostilities soon obliged him to return to England. In 1803,
(being now 64 years of age,) he was elected Keeper of the
Royal Academy, on which occasion, his old acquaintances,
Northcote and Opie, both voted against him. ' But being con-
' science-stricken,' says Mr Knowles, ' not on account of his

* abilities, but from having received favours at his hands, they

* considered it right to call upon him the day after the elec-

* tion, to explain their motives.' After having heard them, (and
in their explanation they in some degree blamed each other,) he
answered in his usual sai'castic manner : ' I am sorry you have
' taken this trouble, because I shall lose my character in this

* neighbourhood. When you entered my house, the one must
' have been taken for a little Jew creditor, the other for a bum-

* bailiff, — so, good morning.'

To the British Institution, which was opened in 1806, he con-
tributed some pictures, though his displeasure at the conduct of
the members who had hesitated to exhibit his great picture of
the Lazar-house, determined him never again to exhibit there.
His Ugolino, as superior to Sir Joshua's in point of drawing and
truth of nature, as the latter excels it in colour and manual dex-
terity, was finished in 1806, and naturally excited more praise
and censure than almost any of his works. The death of Opie,
in 1807, and the resignation of Mr Tresham, who had succeeded
him in 181 0, having left a vacancy in the professorship of painting,
Fuseli was unanimously elected to the office, while he was allow-
ed to retain that of Keeper of the Academy ; a law of the insti-
tution, which prohibits the union of offices in one individual being
expressly waved in his favour. From this period, till his death,
he continued his active and devoted attention to his art ; con-
stantly exhibiting at the Royal Academy, and displaying all the
vigour and power of his very earliest days. The last picture
exhibited by him in 1825, (Comus,) executed in the winter
before his death, at the advanced age of 85, might be taken for
one of the best performances in the vigour of life. From the
year 1821, his health, formerly good, had begun to suffer;
friends who had long accompanied him on the journey of life,
were rapidly disappearing from his side ; and these successive
strokes occasionally saddened and preyed upon his mind. As
they dropped off one by one, he would exclaim, ' It is my turn

* next,' and would advise his acquaintances to cultivate the
friendship of men younger than themselves, that they might not
be left without friends in their old age. He writes to the Countess

16S Life and Writings of FuselL Sept.

of Guildford, long a kind and sympathizing friend,) in 1821,)
alluding to his journey back from Brighton,

< " Taciti, soli, e senza corapagnia," —

* We jogged on, though at a swifter pace than Dante and his

* guides, sympathizing (one at least) with autumn's deciduous

* beauty, and whispering to every leaf the eye caught falling,

* Soon shall I follow thee ! Indeed, were it not for those I should

* leave behind, I would not care, if now ^

That moment, however, did not arrive till 1825, during the
early part of which he had lectured as usual, though with some
abatement of his wonted energy, and had prepared some paint-
ings for the ensuing exhibition. In the beginning of April, he had
gone to visit the Countess of Guildford at Putney Hill. While
walking on the lawn with the Ladies North in the evening, and
looking at the stars, which shone with great brightness, he said,
(probably from some feeling of approaching illness), ' I shall

* soon be among them.' Next day he complained of indisposition,
which increased so rapidly, that he found it impossible to remove
to town, and in six days afterwards he expired ; his last moments
being soothed by every comfort which the most attentive and
unremitting kindness from the family of his noble hostess, or
the most anxious sympathy on the part of his other friends, could
impart.

Fuseli had the advantage of making his appearance at a time
when English art, though not at its very lowest level, had but
partially emerged from the degradation into which it had sunk,
when the stimulus which had been imparted to it by Rubens and
Vandyke had lost its power. Portrait painting, which, after
becoming more and more feeble and affected in the hands
successively of Lely, Kneller, and Richardson, and reaching
apparently its lowest deep in those of Hudson, had again been
raised to comparative splendour by the line taste and perse-
vering study of Reynolds. Landscape, now the glory of the
British school, had sprung up from absolute insignificance into
a sudden yet not premature maturity in the classical. Claude-
like compositions of Wilson, — the v-igorous natural transcripts
of Gainsborough, redolent of the woods and glades of Suf-
folk, which had been his academy, — and the powerful moon-
lights and sunrises of Wright of Derby. But historical paint-
ing, notwithstanding a few respectable specimens from Sir Jo-
shua's pencil, apparently executed rather with a view to show
that he was not ignorant of that higher branch of the art,
than from any genuine preference or enthusiasm for its gran-
deur and beauty, remained an almost untrodden field. Much,

1831. Life and Writings of Fusdi, 16£I

undoubtedly, might have been expected from the genius and
vigorous execution of Mortimer, had they been regulated by
taste, or directed into any better channel than that of a sketchy
and superficial dexterity,, and a boldness of drawing, in a certain
class of subjects, which, when he attempted to transfer it to any
other, might have been more justly characterised as impudence.
But seduced at first by the wild and dashing ease of Salvator's
robber groups, his success in imitating his manner induced him
to rest satisfied with this most imperfect and limited model ;
while his inability to resort to nature as a standard of truth on
such subjects, speedily and inevitably led to the most confirmed
mannerism. Salvator, living for months among the wilds of the
Abruzzi, the very haunts where robbers * most do congregate,'
had no difficulty in correcting his sketches from the life ; while,
in the more orderly and civilized region of Middlesex, where the
intercourse between the artist and the highwayman had not
been placed on so familiar a footing, the English painter, obliged
to patch up his assassins from imagination and the contents of
his painting room, often produces groups which look like mere
copies of starveling models, dressed up in fragments of armour,
or overhung with the tattered rags and lumber of his pictorial
wardrobe. And, at all events, for the quieter, deeper, less po-
pular, but more essential qualities of historical painting, Morti-
mer had but little feeling, nor has he left behind him any com-
positions of that class which indicate more than mere ease of
outline, and a certain savage grace in the general composition.

A perfect contrast in all respects to Mortimer, was the me-
thodical, correct, well-informed, and clever, but spiritless. West.
With a respectable knowledge of all the branches of his art — a
good draughtsman, ^a tolerable colourist — with much skill in the
mechanique of composition — as persevering and business-like as
the other was wavering and disorderly, we should yet be inclined
to rank him, as a man of genius, below his predecessor. A
deadly coldness seems to be the characteristic of his compositions ;
as Dogberry says of the deportment of the Watch, they are all
very tolerable, and not to be endured. Breadth of space is vainly
resorted to, to give grandeur; numbers are multiplied to give
an appearance (for it is nothing more) of variety ; for still one
air, almost one physiognomy, pervades all his personages, hu-
man and divine, as if (as a caustic, but, in this instance, judi-
cious critic observed) a few favourite domestics had been the
saints and demons of his necessities.

What Reynolds, Mortimer, and West wanted, was exactly what
Fuseli possessed ; a mind in all things aspiring only after the
highest excellence, rich, inventive, original, stored with the

170 Life and Writings of FuseH. Sept.

loftiest conceptions, though bordering on the overstrained and
gigantic. ' I do not wish to build a cottage,' he had written
when young in the album of a friend, ' but to erect a pyramid ;'
and his life was a constant struggle to realize the aspirations of
his youth. Considering painting as the material organ by which
the mind was to be raised, elevated, and shaken, not as the hum-
bler instrument of delighting and fascinating the eye, grandeur
was the foundation on which he reared his style, and to which
all other requisites were regarded as subordinate. The province
of the supernatural — heaven and hell, angels, demons, the gor-
geous scenes of ancient mythology, the grotesque revels of fairy
land, the darker orgies of witchcraft andsorcery — every thing,
in short, which, by its influence over our secret sympathy with
the invisible and spiritual, was calculated powerfully to impress
the mind with terror or pity, were the favourite subjects of his
pencil. Hence he expatiated with delight among the gloomy crea-
tions of Dante, the sublime visions of Milton, the magic phantas-
magoria of Shakspeare, in every thing which passes the bounds
of the visible diurnal sphere. Ugolino starving and apparently
frozen into stone among his dying sons in the Tower of Hunger ;
Paolo and Francesco of Rimini tossed by the infernal blasts of
the second circle ; Satan rising from the sea of flame, or spread-
ing his sail-broad vans for flight ; Death and Sin bridging chaos ;
the vision of the Lazar-house ; the Deluge ; the meeting with
the Weird Sisters on the Blasted Heath ; Richard starting from
the apparitions of his victims; the sweeping Spectre which
shook the mind of Dion after the assassination of Heraclides ;
the ghastly Chase in the Pine Forest of Pisa, immortalized by
Boccaccio, Dryden, and Byron; the Nightmare; — those scenes,
in short, from which cautious mediocrity retires in terror, were
precisely those to which he was attracted, as by a spell.

In the treatment of such subjects, he adhered firmly to the
practice of pitching every thing on an ideal scale, somewhat
more vast and expanded than that of reality. The principle,
that a certain degree of exaggeration was a requisite element
in the loftier branches of historical composition, he appeared
to have imbibed from the moment he first contemplated the
St Michael of the Arsenal at Augsburg ; it had been con-
firmed by his assiduous study of Michael Angelo's Patriarchs,
Prophets, and Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel; of the colossal
groups in the Last Judgment; and of the celebrated marble
statues on Monte Cavallo, which, when at Rome, he used often
to contemplate in the evening, relieved against a murky sky, or
illuminated by lightning. Questionable as the principle may be,

183L Life and Writings of FuselL 171

as one of general application, its truth, in reference to those
scenes in which he chiefly dealt, must be admitted by all who
have examined his pictures. In depicting beings of an ideal
world, and scenes of supernatural terror, exaggeration loses
its repulsive eff'ect ; the gigantic forms which move or stalk
across his hazy and lurid skies, seem the fit inhabitants of the
scene, and look only as if their forms were dilated by the magic
atmosphere with which they are surrounded.

His great command of hand, and facility of drawing, which
enabled him, even in the minutest details, to do justice to
his conceptions,* make the story of his pictures always clear
and intelligible when it can be told on canvass ; nor does mere
facility of hand seduce him to supply deficiencies in invention,
by crowding figures without meaning into his pictures, like
Bassan, Paolo Veronese, and Pietro da Cortona, merely to aff'ord
scope for ornamental painting, the display of masses, or of bril-
liant combinations of colour. To tell the story distinctly and
forcibly is with him the primary, almost the sole requisite; and
his strong judgment enabled him in general to perceive, with
almost intuitive accuracy, what was the precise and most signi-
ficant moment of action to choose, and when all circumstances
would best combine to raise to its height the particular emotion
which it was his object to create. This tact equally pervaded
his own practice, and his judgments on that of others. Speak-
ing, for instance, of Northcote's well-known picture of Hubert
and Arthur, in which the young prince is represented kneeling
at Hubert's feet, while the latter stands with his hand pressed
on his brow, evidently irresolute, and on the point of yielding
to compassion, he observed, ' Northcote has chosen the wrong

* moment, for whoever looks at that hesitating Hubert, must see

* that the boy is safe, the danger past, and the interest gone.

* He should have chosen the moment when Hubert stamps with
' his foot, and cries " Come forth — do as I bid you ;" and two

* ruffians should have appeared rushing in with red-hot irons.
' Then the scene would have been such as it ought to be —

* terrible.'

* Fuseli had a great contempt for the practice of disguising the
extremities of figures — a practice too common among artists more
familiar with colouring than with drawing. Speaking of a historical
picture of which some one at table was expressing his admiration, he
observed, that he wondered how any one could talk of a man as a
painter, who had crammed fifteen figures, besides a horse, into his
canvass, and had given only three legs among them.

1*73 Life and Writinys of FuselL Sept.

It must be admitted, however, that in many of his pictures
there is a distortion and wildness in the attitudes, which is less
defensible than his mere exaggeration of form. Size may give
grandeur ; but violence of action, in scenes such as those with
which his pencil was chiefly conversant, uniformly destroys
that impression ; — calmness, simplicity, severity of gesture, are
their natural accompaniments. Legs and arms, which not only
go sprawling off into infinitude, but are twisted into monstrous
convolutions, or jerked out in the most abrupt and singular
angles, and trunks bent into attitudes which rather resemble
the caricatures of Spranger and Golzius, than the * terribil via'
of Buonarroti, become doubly repulsive amidst the solemnity of
the scenes in which they occur. A spirit in a bustle, an angel
in an attitude, a demon who manifests the smallest anxiety about
his person, are incongruities which the mind cannot pardon ;
and instances of such errors, it cannot be denied, may be produced
from his illustrations both of Milton and Shakspeare. It would
be most unjust, however, to set this down as an invariable cha-
racteristic of Fuseli's compositions ; his best pictures are free of
it ; and that he could occasionally produce the most impressive
poetical effects by the simplest means, his picture of the Ghost
scene in Hamlet abundan tly proves. Itis as superior to Retsch's
outline on the same subject, as Retsch's illustrations generally
are to the average run of the pictures in Boydell's gallery. The
figure of the Ghost — colossal, shadowy, yet instinct, as it were,
Avith an inward and phosphoric gleam ; the beard, * sable-sil-
' vered,' which streams on the night air, like that of Michael
Angelo's Moses ; his stalk — strange, uncouth, ghostlike, bor-
dering on extravagance, but not impinging on it — is finely con-
trasted with the violent, but natural, actioti of Hamlet, as he
struggles to follow the armed form which waves him on towards
the walls. The dark sky above, here and there broken up
* by a faint shadow of uncertain light' from the severing clouds,
which mingles with the supernatural and misty halo that ema-
nates from the figure of the king ; the neighbouring sea, which
is seen breaking and boiling behind the platform — all concur to
give a most overpowering effect to this picture. Scarcely less
striking is the scene on the blasted heath, where the withered
hags, all with arms extended in one straight line, and with the
same grinning ferocity, are pointing with their skinny and un-
raoving fingers at Macbeth ; or the scene before the cell of
Prospero, where Caliban, a conception of extraordinary power,
with his arm convulsively extended, and his eyes gleaming
with mingled hatred and terror, is writhing in anticipation
of the rheums and aches with which Prospero is threaten-

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 1 73

ing him. It is the perfect simplicity, as well as originality
of these compositions, which gives them so powerful a hold
on the mind; it is the want of this quality, which in some even
of the best of the Milton gallery impairs their general effect.
Connected with this occasional distortion of attitude, is the un-
due prominence of anatomical display in his forms, which, like
those of the Tuscan artist, are too indiscriminately swelled out
into cord-like ridges, or deepened into furrows; while, from the
slight attention which he paid to drawing from the living model,
his anatomy, when he has occasion to place his figures in atti-
tudes with which he had not familiarized himself, either in the
antique statues, or in the works of his Italian prototype, is not
always strictly correct.

Though he carried the terrible to its utmost limits, the purity
of his taste prevents his deviating into the field of the horrible
and disgusting — an error from which even Raphael and Poussin,
and still more, many of the other Italian masters, are far from
exempt. The atrocities which deform Raphael's-picture of the
martyrdom of St Feliciatas, and the loathsomeness of the Mor-
betto, in which, instead of the moral effects of the plague, he
has merely rendered palpable, as it were, the effluvia of putre-
faction— the similar mistake of Poussin, in his plague of the
Philistines — the martyrdoms and scenes of torture in which Do-
menichino and others too often indulge — he views with disgust.
Even in his Lazar-house, where he necessarily treads on the
very verge of the revolting, among

< Numbers of all diseased ; all maladies,
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atropliy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,' —

he evades with such dexterity the dangerous or disgusting fea-
tures of the scene, by exhibiting, not the loathsomeness of the
hospital, but the loftier aspects of pain, madness, and mental
agony, while obscurity rests on those distant recesses in which
the more revolting forms of disease may be supposed to be con-
cealed, that we confess we participate the surprise of the artist
himself, when the British Institution at first hesitated to admit
it into their exhibition, on the ground of the hideous nature of
the scene which it portrayed.

It was not indeed likely that such an objection could be applied
with justice to the works of one, who, in his own rough way, lays
it down as one of his aphorisms — ' When Spenser dragged into

* light the entrails of the serpent slain by the Red Cross Knight,

* he dreamt a butcher's dream, and not a poet's; and Fletcher, or

174) Life and Writings ofFiiseli. Sept.

* his partner, when rummaging the surgeon's box of cataplasms
' and trusses to assuage hunger,* solicited only the grunt of an

* applauding sty.' The acuteness of his views — the soundness of
his taste — and, at the same time, the clearness of his descrip-
tions on the subject of expression — its true field, its legitimate
means and limits, are well displayed in a passage of his lectures,
where he compares the different modes in which the subject of
Samson and Delilah has been treated by three artists, the most
dissimilar in taste and manner — Julio Romano, Vandyke, and
Rembrandt.

' The gradations of expression within, close to, and beyond its
limits, cannot perhaps be elucidated with greater perspicuity than by
comparison ; and the different moments which Julio Romano, Van-
dyke, and Rembrandt, have selected to represent the subject of Sam-
son betrayed by Delilah, offers one of the fairest specimens furnished
by art. Considering it as a drama, we may say that Julio forms the
plot, Vandyke unravels it, and Rembrandt shows the extreme of the
catastrophe.

' In the composition of Julio, Samson, satiated with pleasure, plun-
ged into sleep, and stretched on the ground, rests his head and presses
with his arm the thigh of Delilah on one side, Avliilst on the other a
nimble minion busily, but with timorous caution, fingers and clips his
locks ; such is his fear, that, to be firm, he rests one knee on a foot-
stool, tremblingly watching the sleeper, and ready to escape at his
least motion. Delilah, seated between both, fixed by the weight of
Samson, warily turns her head toward a troop of warriors in the back-
ground ; with the left arm stretched out she beckons their leader, with
the finger of the right hand she presses her Up to enjoin silence and
noiseless approach. The Herculean make, and lion port of Samson,
his perturbed, though ponderous sleep, the quivering agility of the
curled favourite employed, the harlot graces and meretricious ele-
gance contrasted by equal firmness and sense of danger in Delilah, the
attitude and look of the grim veteran who heads the ambush, whilst
they give us the clue to all that followed, keep us in anxious suspense,
we palpitate in breathless expectation : this is the plot.

' The terrors which Julio made us forebode, Vandyke summons to
our eyes. The mysterious lock is cut ; the dreaded victim is roused
from the lap of the harlot-priestess. Starting unconscious of his de-
parted power, he attempts to spring forward, and with one effort of
his mighty breast and expanded arms, to dash his foes to the ground,
and fling the alarmed traitress from him — in vain; shorn of his
strength, he is borne down by the weight of the mailed chief that
throws himself upon him, and overpowered by a throng of infuriate
satellites. But though overpowered, less aghast than indignant, his
eye flashes reproach on the perfidious female, whose wheedling

Sea Voyage, Act III. Scene 1.

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 175

caresses drew the fatal secret from his breast ; the plot is unfolded, and
what succeeds, too horrible for the sense, is left to fancy to brood
upon, or drop it.

' This moment of horror the gigantic but barbarous genius of
Rembrandt chose, and, without a metaphor, executed a subject, which
humanity, judgment, and taste taught his rivals only to treat; he dis-
plays a scene which no eye but that of Domitian or Nero could wish
or bear to see. Samson, stretched on the ground, is held by one Phi-
listine under him, whilst another chains his right arm, and a third,
clenching his beard with one, di'ives a dagger into his eye with the
other hand. The pain that blasts him, darts expression from the con-
tortions of the mouth and his gnashing teeth, to the crampy convul-
sions of the leg dashed high into tlie air. Some fiend-like features
glare through the gloomy light which discovers Delilah, her work
now done, sliding off, the shears in her left, the locks of Samson in
her right hand. If her figure, elegant, attractive, such as Rembrandt
never conceived before or after, deserve our wonder rather than our
praise, no words can do justice to the expression that animates her
face, and shows her less shrinking from the horrid scene than exulting
in being its cause. Such is the work whose magic of colour, tone,
and chiaroscuro irresistibly entrap the eye, whilst we detest the bru-
tal choice of the moment.'

With all bis bias towards the elevated and the terrible, Fu-
seli had a strong conception of the ludicrous, and frequently
excelled nearly as much in the playful as the solemn ; it was
only the field of ordinary life from which he felt himself exclu-
ded, or from which he voluntarily withdrew. In caricature, he
excelled from his earliest years ; while the grotesque humour of
his fairy scenes, — a humour not arising, like the grotesque dia-
blerie of Teniers, from mere monstrosity, but from the real
exhibition of character — the endless variety of the pranks and
gambols of Peaseblossom, Cobweb, and the other small infantry
of the Midsummer-Night's Dream — the intensely comic expres-
sion which he has infused into some of their countenances — the
appropriate air and employment which he has assigned to each,
evince his mastery over the gayer, as well as the more gloomy,
regions of the imagination. His Puck, however, we think an
extravagance; the lubber-fiend has nothing of the sly humour
of Robin Goodfellow about him ; while, in his picture of Falstalf
and Doll Tearsheet, the humour is lost in the vulgarity of the
scene.

As a colourist, in the strict sense of the word, his claims to
distinction are but slight. More conversant from the first with
form and composition, and confirmed in his preference by the
too exclusive study of Michael Angelo at Rome, though he felt
the magic of the Venetian school of colouring, be did not attempt

176 Life and Writings ofFuseli. Sept.

to master the principles on which it was based, or to make
them his own, as he had done the vigorous drawing and daring
inventions of Buonarroti. He was contented in his own prac-
tice if he could attain a subdued tone more analogous to fresco
than to oil painting ; such as, without attracting admiration, or
even attention, should harmonize with that solemn breadth of
light and shadow, on which he chiefly relied for the effect of his
compositions. In this department he was undoubtedly a great
master; though he neither attempts to emulate the alternations
of dazzling light, and almost infernal gloom of Rembrandt, nor
the subtile and melting gradations of Correggio, his unity of
tone, the vague and mystic chiaroscuro in which he wraps his
pictures, entitle him to a very high rank in British art. Hence
we know no artist whose pictures, to use the technical word,
engrave better than F'useli's. Could he have added a little more
of clearness to his tones, the effect of his pictures would have
closely resembled the sober and veiled splendour, the air of de-
votional and monastic meditation, which seems breathed over,
rather than meclianically imparted to, the better pictures of Lu-
dovico Caracci in the cloisters of San Michele, in Bosco, tbe
labours at the hermitage, the homage of Totila, the nocturnal
conflagration of Monte Cassino, or the exquisite St John preach-
ing in the chapel of the Certosa, whose lights seem 'embrowned
' by a golden veil, and by the shadowy gleam of Vallombrosa.'
Even in the department of colouring, strictly so called, he is
occasionally successful. The back of the female figure (Sin)
in the bridging of Chaos, the Child in the Lapland Witches,
and the figure of Sin in the picture of Sin pursued by Death,
are instanced by Mr Knowles as proofs. But these are acci-
dental effects, rather than the result of any system or prin-
ciple. All men who paint much must occasionally stumble on
a happy combination of colour ; but Fuseli must have felt, that,
however anxious he might be to repeat the same effect, he
could have no assurance that he would be able to do so. He
was, in truth, utterly regardless of the mechanique of oil-painting,
not only as regarded the selection of particular colours, but
their use, a consequence probably of his not having attempted
oil till he was twenty-five years of age. To set a palette, as
artists usually do, was an operation he never thought of; his
tints were dashed down over it ' in most admired disorder ;'
some lie used in a dry powdered state, rubbing them up merely
with his pencil, either with oil, which he used largely, or with
the addition of a little turpentine or gold size, regardless of the
quantity of either, or their general smoothness, when laid on,
and depending rather on accident for the effect they might pro-

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 177

duce, than on any nice distinction of tints in the admixture or
application of his materials.

We have said, that, however little the fact mi^ht be obvious
from the examination of his own compositions, Fuseli had the
liveliest feeling of the beauty and importance of colour : And
fortunate it was for him that this was the case; for, otherwise,
the result of his primitive, and altogether chaotic manner of
working, where all the mechanical aids to harmony were utterly
neglected, must have been the most intolerable and offensive
crudity. But the correctness of his eye, and of his feeling of
colour, though it could not direct him to the mechanical means
by which the finest and purest tints and effects might be pro-
duced, generally enabled him, with sufficient accuracy, to detect
any harsh or discordant effects which resulted from his empi-
rical process; and, by the introduction of balancing or correc-
tive tints, or the deepening of his shadows, to neutralize most of
what was revolting to the eye. Yet the necessary imperfections
of a manner so uncertain and accidental, the vexation which
he must frequently have experienced when some of his best
conceptions were marred or shorn of their beams by his im-
perfect command of the mechanical resources of his art, seem to
have deeply convinced him of the value of this department, and
of the necessity of impressing strongly its importance on the
students of the Academy. It is, indeed, somewhat singular to
see Reynolds himself, the greatest colourist of his time, incul-
cating an almost exclusive attention to design, and deprecating
his own peculiar excellence ; and Fuseli, on the other hand, whose
strength lay chiefly in drawing and composition, scarcely less
anxious to elevate the department in which he felt his deficiency.
He courted colour, to use his own expression, ' as a lover courts
* a disdainful mistress ;' but he did not, in consequence of her
coldness, turn round and revile the object of his attentions. On
the contrary, all his observations on the subject are written
almost with a feeling of enthusiasm. Titian is thus character-
ised : —

' Tiziano laboured first to make fac-similes of the stuffs he copied,
before he changed them into drapery, and gave them local value and a
place. He learnt first to distinguish tint from tint, and give the ske-
leton of colour, before he emboldened himself to take the greatest
quantity of colour in an object for the whole ; to paint flesh which
abounded in demi-tints, entirely in demi-tints, and to deprive of all,
that Avhich had but a few. It was in the school of Deception he learnt
the difference of diaphanous and opaque, of firm and juicy colour;
that tliis refracts, and that absorbs the light, and hence their place;
those that cut and come forward first, and those which more or less
partake of the surrounding medium in various degrees of distance. It

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII. M

178 Life and Writings ofFuseli. Sept.

was here he learnt the contrast of the tints, of Avhat is called warm
and cold, and by their balance, diffusion, echo, to poise a whole. His
eye, as musical, if I may be allowed the metaphor, as his ear, abstracted
here, that colour acts, affects, delights, like sound; that stern and
deep-toned tints rouse, determine, invigorate the eye, as warlike
sound, or a deep bass, the ear ; and that bland, rosy, grey, and ver-
nal tints soothe, charm, and melt like a sweet melody.

< Such were the principles whose gradual evolution produced that
coloured imitation which, far beyond the fascination of Giorgione,
irresistibly entranced every eye that approached the magic of Tiziano
Vecelli. To no colourist before or after him, did Nature unveil her-
self with that dignified familiarity in which she appeared to Tiziano.
His organ, universal and equally fit for all her exhibitions, rendered
her simplest to her most compound appearances, with equal purity
and truth. He penetrated the essence and tiie general principle of
the substances before him, and on these established his theory of
colour. He invented that breadth of local tint which no imitation
has attained, and first expressed the negative nature of shade ; his are
the charms of glazing, and the mystery of reflexes, by which he de-
tached, rounded, corrected, or enriched his objects. His harmony is
less indebted to the force of light and shade, or the artifices of con-
trast, than to a due balance of colour equally i-emote from monotony
and spots. His tone springs out of his subject, solemn, grave, gay, mina-
cious, or soothing ; his eye tinged Nature with gold without impairing
her freshness ; she dictated his scenery. Landscape, whether it be
considered as the transcript of a spot, or the rich combination of con-
genial objects, or as the scene of a phenomenon, as subject and as
background, dates its origin from him. He is the father of portrait-
painting, of resemblance with form, character with dignity, and cos-
tume with subordination.'

The principles of Titian are next contrasted with those of
his favourite Michael Angelo, and of Raphael, in the following
passage, which we think admirable for its discrimination and
truth : —

* The tones fit for poetic painting are like its styles of design, ge-
neric or characteristic. The former is called negative, or composed
of little more than chiaroscuro ; the second admits, thcmgh not ambi-
tiously, a greater variety and subdivision of tint. The first is the tone
of M. Agnolo, the second that of Raftaello. The sovereign instrument
of both is undoubtedly the simple, broad, pure, fresh, and limpid
vehicle of Fresco. Fresco, which does not admit of that refined va-
riety of tints that are the privilege of oil painting, and from the ra-
pidity with which the earths, its chief materials, are absorbed, requires
nearly immediate termination, is, for those very reasons, the imme-
diate minister, and the aptest vehicle of a great design. Its element
is purity and breadth of tint. In no other style of painting could the
generic forms of M. Agnolo have been divided, like night and day,
into that breadth of light and shade M'hich stamps their character.
The silver purity of Correggio, is the offspring of Fresco; his oil
paintings are faint and tainted emanations of the freshness and " lim-

1831. Life and Writings of Fuseli. 179

pidezza" in his Frescoes. Oil, which rounds and conglutinates, spreads
less than the sheety medium of Fresco, and, if stretched into breadth
beyond its natural tone, as the spirits which are used to extenuate its
glue escape, returns upon itself, and, oftener forms surfaces of dough,
or wood, or crust, than fleshy fibre. Oil impeded the breadth even of
the elemental colours of Tiziano, in the Salute. The minute process
inseparable from oil, is the reason why M. Agnolo declared oil paint-
ing to be a woman's method, or of idle men. The master of the
colour we see in the Sistina, could have no other ; for though colour be
the least considerable of that constellation of powers that blaze in its
compartments, it is not the last, or least accomplishment of the work.
The flesh of the academic figures on the frames of the ceiling, is a
flesh even now superior to all the flesh of Annibale Carracci, in the
Farnese, generally pale, though not cold, and never bricky, though
sometimes sanguine. The Jeremiah among the Prophets, glows with
the glow of Tiziano, but in a breadth unknown to Giorgione, and to
him. The Eve under the Tree has the bland pearly harmony of Cor-
reggio ; and some of the bodies in air on the lower part of the Last
Judgment, less impaired by time or accident than the rest, for juice and
warmth may still defy all competition. His colour sometimes even
borders on characteristic variety, as in the composition of the Brazen
Serpent. That a man who mastered his materials with such power,
did reject the certain impediments and the precarious and inferior
beauties of oil, which Sebastian del Piombo proposed for the execution
of the Last Judgment, and who punished him for the proposal with
his disdain for life, cannot be wondered at. If I have mentioned par-
ticular beauties of colour, it was more for others, than to express
what strikes me most. The parts, in the process of every man's
work, are always marked with more or less felicity ; and, great as the
beauties of those which I distinguished are, they would not be beau-
ties in my eye, if obtained by a principle discordant from the rest.

' The object of my admiration in M. Agnolo's colour, is the tone,
that comprehensive union of tint and hue spread over the whole,
which seems less the eifect of successive labour than a sudden and in-
stantaneous exhalation, one principle of light, local colour, demi-tint,
and shade. Even the colours of the draperies, though perhaps too
distinct, and oftener gayer than the gi'avity of their wearers or the
subject allowed, are absorbed by the general tone, and appear so only
on repeated inspection or separation from the rest.

' Raffaello did not come to his great work with the finished
system, the absolute power over the materials, and the conscious au-
thority of M. Agnolo. Though the august plan which his mind had
conceived, admitted of lyric and allegoric ornament, it was, upon the
Avhole, a drama, and characteristic : he could not therefore apply to its
mass the generic colour of the Sistina. Hence we see him struggling
at the onset between the elements of that tone which the delineation
of subdivided character and passions demanded, and the long imbibed
habits and shackles of his master. But one great picture decided
the struggle. This is evident from the difference of the upper
and lower part of the Dispute on the Sacrament. Tlie upper is the

180 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

summit of Pietro Perugino's style, dignified and enlarged ; the lower
is his own. Every feature, limb, motion, the draperies, the lights and
shades of the lower part, are toned and varied by character. The
florid bloom of youth tinged with the glow of eagerness and impa-
tience to be admitted ; the sterner and more vigorous tint of long
initiated and authoritative manhood ; the inflamed suff'usion of disputa-
tive zeal ; the sickly hue of cloistered meditation ; the brown and
sun-tinged hermit, and the pale decrepit elder, contrast each other ; but
contrasted as they are, their whole action and colour remain subordi-
nate to the general hue diftused by the serene solemnity of the sur-
rounding medium, which is itself tinctured by the eifulgence from
above. A sufficient balance of light and shade maintains the whole,
though more attention be paid to individual discrimination than
masses. In the economy of the detail we find the lights no longer
so white, the local colour no longer so crude, the passages to the
demi-tints not so much spotted with red, nor the derai-tints them-
selves of so green a cast as in the four Symbolic Pictures on golden
grounds of the ceiling,

' It appears to me upon the whole, that for a general characteristic
tone, Raifaello has never exceeded the purity of this picture. If in
the School of Athens he has excelled it in individual tints, in tints that
rival less than challenge the glow and juice of Titian, they are scat-
tered more in fragments than in masses, and at the expense or with
neglect of general unison, if we except the central and connecting
figure of Epictetus. The predominance of tender flesh, and white or
tinted drapery on the foreground, whilst the more distant groups are
embrowned by masculine tints and draperies of deeper hue, prove,
that if Raffaello could command individual colour, he had not pene-
trated its general principle.

* The Parnassus in the same room has a ruling tone, but not tlie
tone of a poetic fancy. Aerial freshness was his aim, and he is only
frigid. Its principal actors are ideals of divine nature, and ought to
move in a celestial medium, and Raifaello had no more an adequate
colour than adequate forms for either. But whatever is characteristic,
from the sublimity of Homer to the submissive aftable courtesy of
Horace, and the directing finger of Pindar, is inimitable and in tune.

' The ultimate powers of Raifaello, and, as far as I can judge, of
Fresco, appear to me collected in the astonishing picture of the Helio-
dorus. This is not the place to dwell on the loftiness of conception,
the mighty style of design, the refined and appropriate choice of cha-
racter, the terror, fears, hopes, palpitation of expression, and the far
more than Corregiesque graces of female forms ; the Colour only, con-
sidered as a whole or in subordination, is our object. Though by the
choice of the composition the background, which is the sanctuary of
the temple, embrowned with gold, difl^uses a warmer gleam than the
scenery of the foreground, its open area, yet by the dexterous ma-
nagement of opposing to its glazed cast amass of vigorous and cruder
flesh tints, a fiercer ebullition of impassioned hues, — the flash of steel
and iron armour, and draperies of indigo, deep black, and glowing
crimsou, the foreground maintains its place, and all is harmony.

1831. Life and Writings of Ftiseli. 181

* Manifold as the subdivisions of character are, angelic, devout,
authoritative, violent, brutal, vigorous, helpless, delicate ; and various
as the tints of the passions that sway them appear, elevated, warmed,
inflamed, depressed, appalled, aghast, they are all united by the gene-
ral tone that diffuses itself from the interior repose of the sanctuary,
smoothens the whirlwind that fluctuates on the foreground, and gives
an air of temperance to the whole.'

We have little to say as to Fusell's claims as a man of litera-
ture and a scholar, on which, we are inclined to think, Mr
Knowles has said more than enough. He was well acquainted
with Latin and Greek, as his elaborate criticisms on Cowper's
Iliad prove; but, tormented with the wish to dazzle and over-
power, he often tasked his learning in conversation beyond its
real depth, — and while he awed the timid into silence, incurred
the scorn of the better informed. Home Tooke, it is said, delight-
ed extremely to mistify him in such discussions. Exuberant and.
ingenious on most subjects, but in few profound or correct,
he was constantly endeavouring to shine by argument, or where
that failed, by assertion, sarcasm, and rudeness. The specimens
of his conversational powers, and his talent for repartee, which
are quoted by Mr Knowles, only satisfy us that neither the artist
nor the biographer seem to have any clear perception of the
boundaries which separate impudence from wit, or audacious
dogmatism from dialectic power. When Fuseli had the insolence
to tell Northcote, whose powers as a painter of animals are well
known, in allusion to his picture of Balaam and his ass, that he
was an angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel, the wit was
of that kind, which may be attained by any one who can reconcile
his mind to the easy sacrifice of good taste, good feeling, and the
decencies of society.

But in his criticisms on works of art, where he had studied
and thought profoundly; — where, instead of the paltry aim of
astonishing the company by the boldness of his paradoxes, or
the personality of his sarcasm, he proposed to himself the wor-
thier aim of refining the taste, and directing the energies of his
hearers, — he goes to work in another and better spirit. His
lectures, it is true, are far from complete ; nor, in the circum-
stances under which they were produced, was that to be expected.
They are less methodical than those of Reynolds — less full and
practical, perhaps, than those of the arrogant and conceited Barry,
who, with an utter incapacity of execution, has, in his lectures,
frequently displayed no ordinary degree of theoretical acuteness
and discriminating criticism; but they are eminently calcu-
lated to arrest attention ; there is nothing in them hackneyed,
feeble, or commonplace ; full, even to overflowing, with his sub-
ject, he pours out his ideas with too little regard to sequence or
arrangement, but so energetically, so graphically, and often with

182 Life and Writings of Fuseli. Sept.

such strongand common-sense views of the subject, that we know
none more likely to awaken the faculties of the youthful student,
and to lead him, which is the most important lesson to be
acquired from any lectures, to think, to meditate, and to decide
for himself. The style, undoubtedly, as may have been seen
from some of our quotations, is not always English ; for Fuseli
stood in this peculiar predicament, that though he wrote German,
French, English, and Italian, with nearly equal facility, he could
scarcely claim any of them as his own language;* but even in
its singular combinations, and daring expressions, the language
employed by Fuseli has a certain picturesque, rugged, and
original character, which fully compensates for its want of pli-
ancy or idiomatic freedom. His clearness and decision, too, is
not the mere clearness arising from superficial acquaintance
with the subject, which seizes on some individual specimen,
and, shutting its eyes to all anomalies, thereon establishes a
theory; but that of one who, having examined his subject on
all sides, and accurately ascertained what are the exceptions
and limitations to which his views may be subjected, states
the final result with the certainty and confidence which arises
from a deliberate conviction. Considering the decided nature
of his character, and the peculiarities in some respects of his
practice, it is wonderful, on the whole, how little disposition to
paradox or affected originality they exhibit. With the exception
of Michael Angelo, he scarcely avows a decided predilection for
any artist, but for all a catholic spirit of admiration in every
thing which deserves it. In short, we may say of him, that, as
a man, with some great errors in manner, though few in heart ;
some most brilliant and original qualities as an artist, with one
or two striking and almost irremediable defects ; with force,
energy, and graphic ability as a writer, though sometimes de-
formed by affectation and turgidity, — Fuseli was in all re-
spects estimable, as an artist, even eminent. Without echoing
the unmeaning complaints against the indifference of the public
to historical painting, we are satisfied that the example of such
a man, devoting himself through a long life to the highest branch
of the art, affords a useful and an honourable example and
model, at a time when professional ability is too often con-
tented to follow, instead of leading the public taste, and to prefer
the immediate results which arise from the exercise of mechani-
cal talent, to the consciousness of having cultivated to the ut-
most, and employed to their best ability and judgment, the
genius which nature has given them.

* The German spoken at his birth-place, Zurich, is a patois.

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 183

Art. VK..— Traite de Droit Penal. Par M. P. Rossi, Professeur
de Droit Roraain a TAcademie de Geneve. 3 Tom. 8vo. Paris :
1829.

T ORD Kames, in his Historical Law Tracts, observes that
-*^ criminal law is universally of much later growth than civil.
Blackstone, in one of the few censorial passages admitted into
his Commentaries, allows that, up to the period at which he
wrote, it continued in every country of Europe to be more rude
and imperfect. The humanity of the fifty years which have
since elapsed, has not materially changed these proportions. A
reference to the glance which, in the volumes now before us,
the learned Professor of Geneva throws over the criminal legis-
lation of the principal states of Europe, will afford too conclu-
sive evidence of this painful and discreditable fact. In some
instances, the government is evidently and violently keeping
back the penal code in arrear of the spirit and intelligence of the
people. In others, the people seem no wiser than their rulers.
His acquaintance with the comparative state of public opinion on
this point in different nations, enabled M. Rossi to prophesy, that
the next considerable step in the improvement of criminal law
which was to be made in Europe, would be made by France.
This prediction has been quickly verified ; for among the earli-
est and most wholesome results of the ' three days,' we hail the
fact, that the present popular administration of that country has
already once more thrown this important subject into the cruci-
ble of reform.

It will scarcely be thought uncharitable to attribute to Napo-
leon the errors of a penal code drawn up under his immediate
auspices, in contradiction to the feelings of those whose con-
duct it was to rule. He brought from the cabinet and the
field of battle too bad an opinion of human nature to give him-
self much trouble about, or to be really qualified for, this task.
It is one towards the due performance of which a sympathy
with, is at least as necessary as a knowledge of, mankind. In
America, as far as we are aware, one vigorous and independent
effort only has been made. We mean the Code of Louisiana.
The reluctance with which the higher and legislating class
undertakes any enquiry into, or innovation upon, this point,
cannot be more strongly exemplified than in the little attention
which, amid the variety and extent of her manufacture of law,
America has paid to this gaoler-department of the science. Such
tardiness may be in a good measure accounted for by a traditional
presumption in favour of the English system, as it was originally

] 84 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

transplanted across the Atlantic ; and by the authority of such
a precedent as that of Jeiferson and his colleagues, who seem
to have acted on the assumption, that a little simplification and
consolidation was all which that system could possibly require.
A freer spirit of criticism than professional lawyers are usually
inclined to exercise on these venerable materials, and a compa-
rison of our books of practice with the more general principles
of a philosophical jurisprudence, as cultivated on the continent
of Europe, would show that a sort of amended Index, for the
greater convenience of practitioners, was not the only alteration
which might be successfully introduced.

If the French did not accomplish all that they could and ought
to have accomplished in the former reformation of their criminal
law, the substitution of the will and intelligence of one man for
the will and intelligence of the nation, appears to have been
mainly responsible for this error. The corresponding deficien-
cies of America can scarcely be referred to any cause but to a
want of sufficient national zeal, and of sufficiently extensive
information. The contemporary ignorance and indiiference
manifested by the great body of the English people, (in which
they have been encouraged by the Cleon of our periodical lite-
rature, under the popular sophism that he feels no sympathy for
felons,) entitles them to no higher complaint against their
government, than that it has taken good care not to disturb this
darkness. The criminal law has been in the meantime left with
the qualities rather of a snare for our feet, than of a guide and
lantern. M. Rossi only repeats the opinion, prevalent among all
foreigners who have observed upon our national character, when
he states that we are more fitted for practice and affairs, than
for philosophical investigations. The lawyers of England, like
those of Rome, whose system was developed in the same manner
as our own, (by a slow national creation,) are said to show less
talent for the invention of general theories, than in the applica-
tion of their peculiar principles. If we get a book upon the
theory of Jurisprudence, (we have but Mr Bentham's,) not one
person in a hundred can be induced to read it. Unprofessional
people have long abandoned, in all its parts, the intractable
matter of the legal rule of civil conduct in despair. There is as
little temptation for professional students. To be supposed to
have any taste or knovvledjje of this sort, would be about as bad a
reputation as a lawyer could desire, whose object was, (that with
which alone such a system as the English can be ever really
studied,) the making of money by his profession. The censure
passed upon our books of law by M. Rossi as being meagre, and
amounting to little more than books of practice, as also the

1831. Hossi 071 Criminal Law, 185

general reproach tbat our penal code is not marching abreast
with our present civilisation, ai'e better founded than the par-
ticular objection that ancient individual privileges are still
actually in force. The main defect of our law, both civil and cri-
minal, is, its extreme technicality and irregularity. Whilst it
is the boast of conveyancers that the law of real property is as
artificial as a Sanscrit grammar, the existence of such a text-
book as Coke upon Littleton, for instance, in the nineteenth
century, is a national disgrace. The people can know nothing
of the law but by the result. Now that their attention is begin-
ning to be drawn to it, how little satisfactory in this view of
it is the penal code, the petitions which have lately appeared
against it are convincing proofs. The first House of Commons
summoned under the Reform Bill, will show what proportion
of our previous inertness is to be put down to the present
constitution of the British Parliament, under M. Rossi's de-
scription of ' a compact and invariable mass, through which
* a new idea takes a century in working.' At all events, there
is progress enough making to move Sir Robert Peel from the
silly pedestal which flattery and imbecility subscribed to raise
for him, and vv^hich he was weak enough to mount as the great
law reformer of his age. The truth is, he had got just as much
in advance of Lord Eldon on the necessity of a reform in the
law, as it appears he is at present in advance of the Duke of
Wellington on the necessity of a reform in Parliament. In both
cases, it is alike clear that we have seen the last of Bassetlaiving ;
that is, of voting against great towns and great principles, but
having no objection to keeping up the appearance of candour
by letting in the small ones. The little* which has been done

* M. Rossi observes that the whip resounds throughout Sir Ro-
bert Peel's acts as in a sugar plantation, ' On la retrouve si souvent
' qu'en lisant ces statuts on croit presque approcher d'une plantation
* de Sucre : on entend claquer les fouets.' He considers flagellation
as a punishment essentially immoral ; and that exemplariness is almost
the only merit which it possesses. Tlie difficulty of secondary punish-
ments is much increased by observing- that there is not a form of
punishment which is not liable to some objections, whilst the force
of real objections has been so exaggerated, that, had every writer on
the subject leave to strike out of this list a punishment apiece, society
would run the risk of not having a single punishment left at its com-
mand. The 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 30, s. 2, contains a clause, concerning
the demerit of which there can be less diiference of opinion. There
is scarcely a possible species of building which that statute does not
make it a capital felony to set 6re to, provided the act be done witli

186 Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept.

under his oiRcial superintendence, has, however, the merit of
having been done well. The direction, method, and execution,
are all good. This little consists of the consolidation of some
of the principal chapters of our criminal statutory law, carefully
collated and judiciously compressed by Mr Gregson. A much
more delicate and important labour is behind, in the revisal of
our common law, and its hundred anomalies. But, instead of a
real survey of the whole system, an examination of its several
principles, an analysis, comparison, and arrangement of its seve-
ral parts, this partial redaction has, up to 1831, answered the
idea of perfect criminal legislation on the part of English states-
men, and almost of the English public.

intent to injure or defraud any person. But a bigoted and most ano-
malous exception withdraws the protection from dissenting chapels,
wherever they may happen to be not ' duly registered or recorded.'
The policy, as well as morality, of the rule by which a party, wherever
the subject-matter of a wrong is tainted with illegality, loses his civil
remedy even against a mere wrong-doer, has been and is seriously
questioned. But that in such a case society also should lose its remedy
for one of the most alarming of all possible outrages on the public safe-
ty, is a gratuitous and most mischievous refinement. The injustice of
this is aggravated by comparing the original offence with that which it
thus covers with impunity. The law has a right to make its own con-
ditions, and in case they are not complied with, to enforce a penalty on
the omission, besides depriving the party of the civil privileges, to which,
by a compliance with the conditions, he would have become entitled.
The omission may be punished ; but it is the law which ought to keep
the punishment in its own hands, and not transfer it to an incendiary.
A government has no right to disorganize society, by offering the en-
couragement of impunity to a Sacheverell and his mob, or to any ma-
lignant ruffian in the parish, Avho may be wicked enough to act on tlie
permission or excitement of so scandalous an exception. A thief who
was to clear Carlisle's shop-window, could not, when indicted for the
larceny, plead the tendency of the writings. A purist who should set
fire to a brothel, could not save his neck by proving, through its de-
graded and captive priestesses, the worship to which the premises
were dedicated. But a scoundrel who applies the torch of fanaticism
or of malice to a chapel, whose minister has accidentally (there can be
no other assignable cause in our times) omitted to register it, is enti-
tled to plead this new sort of * benefit of clergy' in his behalf. The
omission to register a schismatical conventicle, is an offence of that
atrocity, that Sir Robert Peel cannot wait for the ordinary course of
justice. The terms on which its warfare against murderers and high-
waymen is carried on, the commercia belli of criminal law, within
which even nominal outlaws are included, must be superseded. Every
one may take out for himself, upon the spot, immediate and personal

1831i Rossi on Criminal Law. 187

M. Rossi is no friend to wholesale codification. At the
same time, he considers the criminal law to be a division in
which codification, proceeding piecemeal by successive statutes,
might, where it was required, be easily and advantageously pur-
sued. However, the only instances in which it is surmised that
this will ever actually take place, are those where either there
happens to be no criminal law at all, or where it is thoroughly
and irremediably bad. England is placed by him under the latter
of these predicaments, in honourable companionship with Pied-
mont and part of Switzerland. Therefore, with whatever truth
the co-operation of a popular assembly and of a jury may be
stated to be indispensable conditions to a sound state of this branch
of the law in any country, according to this supposition, these two
institutions may exist without producing so desirable a result.
The successful division on the Forgery Bill, where Sir Robert
Peel displayed so much peevish zeal for the continuance of a capi-
tal felony on the statute-book, after it had become clear that pub-
lic opinion, whether wisely or unwisely, had, at all events, made
it impossible to enforce it, was the first hint given by the House
of Commons, that an enlarged view of its duties on this subject,
might comprise something more than simple registration of the
edicts of the Home Office. But Parliament must look farther
than the people have yet had the means of looking. It cannot
stop with feeling here and there a scruple at the extreme seve-
rity of the specific punishment for this or that offence, or with
an exclamation of disgust at the folly and inequality of a system
which, on a clerical error in an indictment, from time to time
turns loose a murderer on society.

An attempt to collect materials for forming a comprehensive
estimate of the different points contained in the public duty of
a legislature on this solemn and intricate question, will be a

vengeance for so irreparable and unpardonable a Avrong. A disgrace-
ful and demoralizing alliance with Swing himself, is a less evil than
that of an unregistered and unrecorded meeting-house amenable only
to the law. Before a chapel, under c. 29, s. 10, can acquire the mar-
ginal protection of ' sacrilege,' so that it will be a capital felony to
break, and enter, and steal thereout any chattel, must it be one simi-
larly consecrated by registration ? Protestant zeal is here again extra-
vagant. Roman Catholic legislation confined the notion of sacrilege
to ' vessels consecrated to religious uses.' See the point in Matthceus
de Criminibus, as to whether it be sacrilege to steal the parish bell. It
is but a word, to be sure, in this case ; but why give delusion, and
mystification, and bigotry, the benefit even of a word ?

188 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

matter at first of some embarrassment and surprise. The ex-
periments carried on over extensive periods and regions are
within our reach ; and an application of something like the com-
parative anatomy of legislation, may be expected to arise in a
science of which the subjects are property, liberty, and life.
Such numerous and important variances will be found to exist
in the different laws of different countries, as must demand a
patient consideration, in order to warrant a choice between
them. What is the ordinary course and everyday practice of
one place, is looked upon as the height of injustice in another.
Acts which the law of one country undertakes to repress with
exemplary severity, are allowed to be committed by its next
door neighbour with complete impunity. A still more extrava-
gant, and apparently wanton inconsistency, obtains in the nature
and degree of punishments inflicted for offences otherwise re-
cognised as the same. Again, in some states no discretion
whatever is left with the judge ; in others, he is scarcely sub-
jected to the least control. In above half Europe, criminal pro-
ceedings are conducted by writings, in secret, and without a full
and free defence. On consulting the text writers and criminal-
ists of different nations, their pages swarm with similar contra-
dictions. If statesmen differ among each other concerning
what they make the law of life and liberty, jurisconsults are
in noways more agreed on what it ought to be. In all this,
there is something surely very unreasonable, or worse.

The real want of the present times, a growing sense and con-
viction of this want, and such strange confusion in the senates
and the lecture-rooms of civilized empires on a point of deep and
common interest, seem to show that there is yet room for such
a book on criminal law as would be a blessing to mankind. That
its author would appear perhaps little better than a visionary
mystic in the eyes of an Old Bailey lawyer, is no presumption
against the possibility (some day or other) of this Avater descend-
ing in Europe, and even among ourselves. The presumption,
indeed, must be veering round from day to day more in this direc-
tion, when we think of what the administration of criminal
justice ought to be, both in fact and in opinion, and see what
it is in both. In proportion as neither our judges nor our juries
are responsible for this result, would it seem probable that the
time is come for asking whether the blame lies not in the thing
itself. Criminal justice, as carried on among us at that her most
celebrated temple, has contrived to work so disastrous an im-
pression on the public mind, by the combined influence of its
creed, ceremonies, sacrifices and assistants, that a name which
ought to describe a priesthood, dedicated to the joint guardian-

1831. Rossi on Criminal Laiu. 189

ship of innocence, misfortune, and public order, has become the
lowest by-word of scandal and reproach. Something more, how-
ever, is required to constitute the book which we are in quest
of, than that it should be a matter of astonishment at the Old
Bailey ; otherwise, we certainly could want nothing beyond the
present volumes. Unfortunately, it is not only by the purity
and elevation of the spirit with which they glow, or by the
great variety of useful, and still greater variety of ingenious
remarks with which they abound, that these volumes are cal-
culated to astonish. They are written on a scheme which
would most undoubtedly, as we have heard boasted, work a
thorough revolution in the science ; at the same time, we see no
reason, from so much of the scheme as is developed in the por-
tion of it now published, that it would effect any change at all,
much less any change for the better, in the art. The theory will
not more startle Mr Bentham in his closet, than any attempt to
carry it into practice would convert, as it appears to us, legis-
lative assemblies and courts of justice into so many labyrinths
of interminable confusion. And all for no ultimate public be-
nefit. Since, when we had toiled to, and elaborated out as pure
a result as the process seems capable of giving, the best thing
which we can possibly hope is, that the result should agree (as
we believe it would) with that obtained from the theory which
it is its object to explode.

Two metaphysical assumptions furnish, in the shape of axioms,
the basis of the system now evulgated by M. Rossi. It is as-
sumed, first, that there is a moral order pre-existing to all
things, immutable and eternal. Next, that as a part of, and for
the maintenance of, this moral order, absolute justice has fixed
in exact proportion the retribution of evil for evil. It is further
declared to be a fact, (the proof of which by appropriate evidence,
is, we perceive, deferred,) that the revelations of conscience are
our sole but ample guarantee for the discovery in all cases of this
exact proportion. The practical corollary from these assertions
is delivered with all the eloquence and zeal attendant on the con-
viction, that in it is announced a new gospel of jurisprudence
to mankind. Whatever may be the demands of public peace and
safety, unless every party individually concerned in the creation,
interpretation, and execution of the law, has satisfied himself that
this proportion is observed, woe be to him ! He is only playing
at the game of ' who is the most cunning and the most strong.'
M. Rossi justly enumerates among the obstacles which have been
hitherto opposed, ' a la conquete de cet ideal dans la justice hu-
* maiue,' a generally imperfect civilisation, partial political sys-
tems, and the real difiiculties of the science. At a period when

190 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept,

a prospect is opening upon us, that the opposition from the two
first causes may be possibly reduced within manageable limits,
men of genius are called upon to be doubly cautious not to aggra-
vate the inherent difficulties of the science. It is urged that we
must apply to questions of criminal law, some constant and uni-
versal principle, purer and loftier than the nature and necessities
of society. A principle cannot be called constant and universal,
which is to be applied by individuals, and which must vary with
the character and condition of the individual. Now, conscience
is no compass — the same in all hands — but that fabled girdle,
whose operation principally depended on the qualities of the
wearer. Before the indispensableness of any such principle is
insisted on, it should be clear that such a principle exists ; before
any thing is selected as complying with these conditions, proof
of the fact ought to be forthcoming ; otherwise, the cause of
truth is not advanced by the eloquence of personal conviction,
which pours indeed a brilliant hue over every subject that it
touches. This sort of Claude-colouring is lovely in a landscape
for a looker-on ; but the beautiful haze has all the consequences
of a fog for the traveller who has a journey before him, and is
seeking for the road.

The more striking the natural and acquired endowments of
our author, the deeper becomes the disappointment which every
page leaves upon the mind. We feel that we are on board a
gallant vessel, admirably appointed, but beating about from reef
to shallow ; and all through the Quixotic confidence of the pilot
in a hypothetical chart of his own constructing. Regrets in
such a case are useless. There is no country to which we
should have more gratefully acknowledged the obligation of a
new light in jurisprudence, than the country of Filangieri and
Beccaria. It is the obligation which Europe owes* it in almost

* The mines of thought which have been worked in Italian litera-
ture, even for the purposes of this science, (for the study of which one
slioiild think the density of the actual political atmosphere of Italy
offered little opportunity and encouragement,) may be judged of by
two facts. M. Rossi has come forward with what we in tliis country
should consider a new theory — that of criminal jurisprudence being-
founded upon conscience ; not indeed as its end, but as its measure,
strictly definable and defined. Foi'ti, in his review of this work, in
the Artologia ItaUayia, refers the student to Inslituzioni di Diritto
Criminale del Carmignani. The first book contains M. Rossi's princi-
ple, except the chapter on objective and subjective evil. There have
been six Pisan and one Roman editions of it. All the jurisconsult world
is well acquainted with Mr Bentham's labours, as comprehending the

1831. Rossi OH Criminal Law. 191

every art and science. Nor is there any hand from which we
should have more prized the gift, than that of M. Rossi— dis-
tinguished as he is among brothers in exile — the humblest of
whom we never think of but with honour. Would to God that
we may yet live to see, in the termination of that exile, some
assurance that they are destined to be the last of far too long a
list of martyrs in the cause of Italy and of freedom !

During our perusal of this work we have often asked ourselves
the question, whether the period would ever come, when the
sciences which have human nature, or at least as much of it as
relates to human conduct, for their subject, should cease to con-
sist of systems built upon arbitrary assumptions only ? An
hypothesis, for instance, like the present, can have no better title
to be received than fifty others. As yet we see no glimpse of
such a period. It is true that philosophy, both natural and mo-
ral, lay in one and the same confusion, and had lain so, as far
as there now exist any traces of the intermediate labours of the
human understanding, from the creation till the birth of Bacon
and Galileo. But before we can indulge a hope that the sciences
relating to human conduct are likely to make up even a small
portion of the way which they are now behind, we must be able

most systematic and rigid application of the doctrine of utility to these
subjects. The latter half of his treatise, Theorie des Peines et des Recom-
penses, was certainly, and indeed is still, a novelty in an English law
library. It is curious that lie should have been anticipated nearly half
a century by a Neapolitan advocate. As we have never seen Dra-
gonetti's essay, we cannot vouch for the degree of resemblance between
the two works. That Mr Bentham knew nothing of it, will be readily
presumed by all, who, however they may agree with his nciive propo-
sition, (that it was more important that other people should know
what he thinks, than that he should know what other people think,)
have, like ourselves, lamented the extravagance to which his igno-
rance and disdain of the writings and understandings of the greatest
of his predecessors has been pushed. The following paragraph is from
the preface to Gioja's work, Del Merito et delle Ricompense. ' L'argo-
mento fu presentato per la prima volta all' attenzione del publico da
un Italiano, nel 1765, Giacinto Dragonetti mando alia luce uno scritto
intitolato, I)elle virtii e dei premj. Quest' opusculo di poche pagine h
piuttosto un desiderio che un Trattato.' Diderot published an inter-
mediate essay, sur le Merite et la Vertu. ' Nel 1811, Bentham alia
teoria delle pene uni quella delle recompense. Sequendo ed ampliando
le idee dello scrittore Italiano, senza citarlo, lo scrittore Inglese esa-
mino la trentesima parte dell' argomento e o'innesto varj errori che
verranno confutati nella 2^ parte di questo scritto.'

192 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

to form some idea of the instrument or process by which this
most blessed end is expected to be brought about. The reader
of those admirable Discourses, with which two great Masters
of their respective sciences have so recently done service and
honour to our times, must rise from them with sentiments of
equal gratitude to both writers. But he will rise with very
different feelings concerning the nature of our actual know-
ledge, and still more diffei*ent expectations concerning the ex-
tent and richness of the land of promise shadowed out in the
distance in each department.

The philosophy of mind generally, and that of morals, strict-
ly so called, are concerned with, and depend on, two distinct
classes of internal facts. It is not impossible, and perhaps not
improbable, that observation and experiment may, when deal-
ing with the first, enable us to mount to some comprehensive
law or principle of human nature. A careful collection and
analysis of this class of phenomena, will help us to the laws on
which depends man's actual conduct — what he actually does.
The facts are clearly not identical with those to which we must
have recourse, when our object is the discovery of his perfect
conduct — what he ought to do. In the first case, there is no
dispute about the means which we must use, and the way in
which we must proceed. The single question (and that is one
of degree only) is, whether the effects are not too complicated
and mixed up together for our present instruments, to make
between them a separation sufficiently precise and certain, so
that we can be justified in assuming, in any particular instance,
the correctness of our induction of particulars, and the conse-
quent truth of our expression of their supposed common cha-
racter and cause. In the second case, the metaphysicians of
morals, and consequently of philosophical jurisprudence, are yet
debating on what are the proper means and method. Their very
enquiry is grounded on the supposition that there are, or may
be, two sets of facts — some which ought to be done ; some which
ought not to be done. But the difficulty is in discovering what
facts (since the whole facts are out of the question) are to be
selected from the chaos of human actions, for the purpose of
forming out of them our principle and rule. It is evident, that
instead of moral philosophers, in the first instance, having de-
rived their principles from their facts, the greater part of the prin-
ciples of every system has hitherto been previously assumed in
the very choice of the respective facts, internal and external, on
which different schools of philosophy have proceeded to establish
their respective theories of morals.

We have no doubt but there will arise within a few months

1831. RosBi 071 Criminal Law. 193

appropriate occasion (if it be worth while) for enlarging on
these considerations. It is a subject over whose surface some
new theory or other, or at least some old one, with a little varia-
tion in its outline or colouring, is for ever floating. Man, in
the meantime, appears to be proof against systems. A sort of
common sense, corresponding to the instinct of self-preservation,
seems to tell him that they are meant for talk only, and not for
action. So he treats them accordingly. In case any one chance
to meet awhile with what passes for success, it is soon more than
counteracted by a theory formed apparently on the very princi-
ple of reaction. The contemporaneous mischief from erroneous
reasonings in morals, is limited within narrow bounds. For,
there is a vis medicatrix contained in, and circulating through
nature, which heals rapidly the wounds it may seem here and
there occasionally to receive in the skirmishes of Sophists, from
those scythes with which certain minds are fitted up, like mere
intellectual machines, to mow their way clear and smooth over
every argument. The similarity of the results, which (under
the latitude of construction necessary to give plausibility to any
of these exclusive systems) it is contrived by a little manage-
ment to deduce from almost all of them, whilst it enables prac-
tical people to safely dispense with their perusal, imposes an
additional difficulty in the way of the ambitious students of the
science. It prevents them from verifying any one of such several
hypotheses, by applying to them the crucial experiment. There
are some systems, however, and those favourite ones too, which
are free from at least this objection. Extremes from time to
time arise, where the facts which are excluded, and the results
which are admitted, furnish a startling exception to the moderate
limits within which these differences ordinarily exist. Such,
certainly, is the case, when we meet with a philosopher, one of
whose historical facts is, the circumstance that the ancients paid
little regard to the distinction between voluntary and involun-
tary actions ; and that such a distinction is an invention of mo-
dern divinity. Metaphysical facts also appear to be dealt as
freely with, when what is called a treatise upon human nature,
professedly compiled from observation in a course analogous to
that pursued in physics, is brought to a conclusion, with, on the
one hand, the omission of the element of conscience altogether,
and, on the other, with the averment that the tendency of a moral
proposition can have nothing whatever to do with its truth. The
most exceptionable part of the systems ordinarily composed in the
opposite direction, is not in the omissions which are made of autho-
ritative facts, or in the consequences finally deduced. It consists

VOL. LIV. NO, CVII. N

194i Rossi ow Criminal Law. Sept.

in the arbitrary assumptions with which they start. Thus rules
have been made for us without end. As we read human nature
in our bosoms, look out into life, and think over all that we
know of the history of our fellow-creatures, past and present,
we see a great deal irreconcilable with the rules which philo-
sophical ingenuity has provided with such picturesque and bene-
volent diversity, for every taste. Neither conscience, nor moral
sentiment, nor the relation of things, nor abstract reasoning,
nor any faculty, supposition, or device of the kind, have been in
any way proved to be a rule in fact ; neither has it been yet
shown how any of them is capable of being made so. Concur-
rent with, and auxiliary to the result of human conduct, they
may one or more be important, nay, sometimes indispensable
elements, in the process by which we work out our way to our
duty in a given instance. But they cannot dispense with or super-
sede the necessity of taking that result into consideration, and of
looking for our rule in that hateful word, Utility. Much less,
if reason is not to be hustled and hooted down by her colleagues
in the council-room, can they be allowed to contradict whatever
practical result is consecrated as beneficial to mankind. The
terrors of superstition upset all principles. Out of that inexpli-
cable circle, there is no fear, when we come to act, of a mere
metaphysical dogma, unproved and unprovable, forcing any per-
son in his senses upon behaviour which he sees to be inconsist-
ent with the public good.

It is very unlikely that the dissensions of metaphysicians, on
the problematical parts of this most interesting question, shall
be set to rest. The Chillingworths of morals will still keep
digging about the roots of the tree of knowledge. Where one
thinks that he has found the tap-root, another will see nothing
more than fibres. But much of the confusion which pervades
books and conversation might be avoided, and more than a
mouthful (if not a bellyful) of its sound and wholesome fruit
may be secured, for most purposes of practice, if not of disputa-
tion, provided every body would keep separate, in moral consi-
derations, the motive of the agent and the tendency of the act.
The ultimate sanction, the immediate and intermediate motive,
and the guiding rule, are distinct in their nature, but will in
every complete character be practically blended. Taken alone,
Butler's triumphant exposition of the supremacy of Conscience
over the whole system of our personal nature, in the last resort,
may often have too peremptory and individualizing an effect.
The great commandment. Do unto others, &c., so beautifully
illustrated in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, by making us to bo

1831. "Rossi on Criminal Law. 195

constantly changing places with an impartial spectator, at once
brings into play the whole sympathies of our frame. But, in
proportion as a man is a reasonable creature, and as he attends to
the experience of his nature and position as they are exemplified
in life, he will be convinced that no motive, — neither conscience,
nor sympathy, nor self-love, can be relied on as certain guides.
However sure he may be of his motives, there can be no assu-
rance for the act, that is, for the direction in, and objects upon
which, they may impel him, except by passing it in review be-
fore his understanding, and applying the practical consequences
to the circumstances of every case. This process is necessary, in
order to finally correct the best possible motives into accordance
with the rule of tendency — the happiness of mankind. Taylor,
Sanderson, and Placete, reconsidering the divisions and subdi-
visions of their rules for (rather than of) conscience, — the volu-
minous Roman Catholic compilers of books of casuistry, (the
law reports of morals,) would alike smile at the summary confi-
dence with which our author substitutes one short phrase,
* the revelations of conscience,' for all their labours.

Many able men have tried their hand on visionary specula-
tions concerning the form and essence of virtue — a right and a
wrong in the nature of things — an absolute justice independent
of circumstances and facts, {elle est parcequ'elle est, says M.
Rossi, by way of information to us) — an abstract standard, the
same in all times and places. So numerous have been the
adventurers who started with brilliant promises for the shore of
this mysterious ocean, whilst not one of them has brought us
back any thing better than sea- weeds and cockle-shells as insig-
nia of his triumph, that he must be credulous indeed who can
expect any real addition to our knowledge from similar attempts.
We lament more than we admire the enthusiasm under which,
in this branch of metaphysical faith, a succession of missionaries
is always found ready to volunteer on so hopeless an enterprise.
As the reasonings of many religious writers proceed in some
most important subjects on the supposition that God will not
permit a sincere believer to be deceived; so some moralists
(M. Rossi for example) seem to think that little more can be
wanted to secure a successful issue to this experiment, than to
interrogate the consciences of men. It is not necessary to sub-
ject this agreeable delusion to the destructive test of history.
The mere metaphysical biography of conscience itself is far too
obscure for any positive conviction of this description. The
most careful observers of its origin and growth are divided in
opinion, as a matter of ontology, whether it is natural or acqui-

196 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

red. To the axiom, that nothing was in the understanding
which had not been previously in the senses, Leibnitz put the
limit — except the understanding itself. We are disposed in
this case also to believe that nothing is in the conscience which
is not derived aliunde except the mere faculty itself. It teaches
little, but there is nothing apparently of good or of evil which
it cannot learn. The exclamation of Mirabeau to his oppo-
nents, ' Conscience! — chacunfait sa conscience,^ to this extent,
seems to us unfortunately the truth. Accordingly, in answer
to those who have called the observations of Sir James Mack-
intosh on this magisterial faculty, — a receipt how to make a
conscience, — we can wish them nothing better than that they in
their turn should make a proper use of the instructions which
that receipt implies. Conscience is more valuable as a solemn
bell to warn us, that we pause and deliberate, than as an assu-
rance of the truth of any particular emotions or suggestions
which may arise under its appeal. It cannot be blindly con-
sulted as au Urim and Thummim. For it acts more by superin-
tendence than in revelations, — rather as a general than as a spe-
cial providence in our behalf.

In point of fact, there are a great variety of rules and direct-
ing principles which may be of excellent service up to a certain
point. With small oscillations and irregularities, most of them
may be so explained, as ultimately to coincide with and corro-
borate the standard of utility itself. However, dodge and recalci-
trate as they may, and whatever circles the)' shall make, it is here
that they must meet : like the hunted hare, they die at home
at last. There can be no end, and therefore there ought to be
no beginning, of argument with any idiosyncrasist, who may
have the misfortune to entertain so wild an idea of God or of
conscience, as to believe that he is called upon by either one or
other to act in plain and avowed opposition to this standard.
In case it be admitted that the conduct which these different
principles (when in a state of perfection) would require, must
meet in one common line, and that the actual divergences in
human conduct from this one line must decrease among men
who arc I'eally acting upon principle at all, in proportion as
their respective principles approximate to a perfect state, a
natural question presents itself, and is entitled to a positive and
practical answei*. At this stage, the proper question is, (with-
out prejudging or arbitrating between the superiority of the dif-
ferent motives and their sanctions,) where, — with reference to our
faculties, to the material and moral circumstances wliich arc the
subject of our resolutions, and also to the comparative clearncsa

1831, Rossi on Criminal Law. 197

of the evidence obtainable under each principle, — a rule may be
found or constructed and applied, the most likely to bring us
the nearest and the soonest to this common line ? It is almost
impossible to imagine that any body should conceive that the
method of trying to find out true utility by a sort of abstract
consultation with God or conscience, is simpler and more certain
than that of endeavouring to discover the will of God and the
dictates of a rightly instructed conscience, by keeping one's eye
fixed on utility, in a literal sense of the word, as the end, and
looking anxiously on every side for the appropriate means of its
attainment. There is something incomprehensible to us (except
from the incautious and narrow language of some of its advo-
cates) in the apprehension with which many excellent persons
shrink from accepting the tendency of the act as the rule of life ;
that tendency being supported by the double guarantee of general
rules and general consequences. The bad tendency of an argu-
ment or of an action (whatever Hume may say to the contrary),
is conclusive in morals against the truth of any premises or as-
sumption from which it is justly deduceable. Indeed it corres-
ponds to the reductio ad absurdum in mathematics.

There can be no doubt but that the advocates of hypotheses
and conclusions in admitted variance with the happiness of
mankind, (and the question does not arise till the variance is
admitted,) are in a state not to be reasoned with, but (as soon
as they come to carry their tenets into practice on points of suf-
ficient importance to merit the serious attention of society) to
be shut up. Whether, with the Anabaptists, they preach the
dominion of grace under the will of God ; or the persecution of
themselves or others under the inspiration of conscience, after
the fashion of the religious orders, and sundry Protestant fana-
tics ; or fraud and falsehood, on the authority of logical deduc-
tions from admitted truths, in company with the Peres Jesuitesy
whose reasoning powers outwitted their reason ; or liberty, equa-
lity, and a division of property, on the principle of abstract
rights, amid the shouts of most of the republican philosophers
of ancient or modern times — the public is bound in every in-
stance of the sort, one and all, to protect itself as against the
invasion of a declared public enemy. Whether these conspira-
tors be religionists, metaphysicians, or patriots, — and whether,
on breaking out into action, they are shut up as lunatics or as
criminals, will not much signify. Provided only that they are
kept safe under lock and key, the result will be equally satis-
factory to society, and about equally unsatisfactory to the gentle-
men themselves. Doctrines of this kind are little better than

l98 Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept,

gilded snakes. If society goes to sleep in their presence, it will
find them on the morrow twisted round its neck — if it receives
them into its bosom, it is at its peril — they will be sure to sting.
Nations, as well as individuals, are more disposed during their
infancy to yield to their impressions, than to reflect upon them.
There is more of poetry than of metaphysics in the nursery.
Youthful imagination blinds the subject of them on his entrance
into life, as effectually as though he were brought on board a
ship asleep. When he first wakes, or is old enough to look off
from his playthings seriously upon himself and his companions,
and seeks to catch the origin of those principles of conduct, in
and by which, all are borne along together, he finds that the cur-
rent has set in too strong, and that he is already too far down
the stream to be able to retrack it to its source. A general solu-
tion of Pascal's problem, and the distinguishing of habit from
second nature, and nature from first habit, are propositions,
which, before we can understand the meaning of them, we have
already lost the means of proving. Where, however, reason and
history seem to show that a certain portion of our moral senti-
ment and mode of viewing things is local, and apparently stands
on habit and tradition only, the question, as to so much of our
moral constitution, ' how it came to assume its present form?'
would appear to appi-oach nearer to the possibility of an answer.
Now, independent nations repi'esent individuals in the supposed
state of nature ; and the law of (that is between) nations, is what
morals would be among individuals meeting together, but not
yet living under the roof and positive sanctions of a community.
The actual condition in which this relation is left, — the subject-
matter which its nominal law partially comprises, — and the
parties who are within or without its circle, are considerations
which bring us back to the infancy of morals, in respect of jus-
tice at least, and other relative virtues. In this analogous case
we are thus placed almost at the fountain head of a parallel
stream to that in private life ; on whose banks, we have observed,
that we could only look as we were hurrying down its rapids. In
point of fact, there can be no denying, that, in the morality of
nations, those rules which we soon hope to hear called the con-
science of mankind, have been formed, and are forming under
the principle of a social feeling, and well understood common
interest, on the part of all within their jurisdiction. The whole
progress of the principle and of the rule, as in evidence before
Europe, — the differences which exist in theory between extreme
opinions of mitigation and of rigour, (as those of Vattel and of
Bynkershookj) — the exceptions yet permitted in the general

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law, 199

practice of civilized nations to the rule of morality established
among individuals in the corresponding- cases, (whether the ex-
ceptions are universally recognised or partially disputed,) — all
alike contradict the converse hypothesis, which should suppose
that it is from the light of conscience, and by the responses of
the God within us, that the morality of public or international
law has been revealed. There are no acts so horrible that they
may not be committed with impunity, as far as the conscience
of nations is concerned, in cases where this sense of a common
feeling and interest has not yet naturally arisen, or from which, by
arbitrary distinctions, it has been artificially excluded. It would
appear that it can exist in perfection, or circulate freely, only
among creatures of the same species ; and, indeed, among such
of those only as stand in some probable relation to each other.
Nothing demoralizes mankind so much as war ; because nothing
throws them so far asunder. Nothing has spread civilisation so
wide, or brought morality so home, as commerce. It has united,
and therefore moralized mankind, more than all the writings of
all the philosophers who ever lived. A free trade in tea with
China may be expected to do more, far more, in this respect, for
the celestial empire, than Confucius has accomplished. If rights
are nothing but rational securities for human happiness, paltry
indeed has been the protection which they have derived from
the shield of conscience, in all cases Avhere this bond of social
feeling and reciprocal interest is wanting, — on account of a
darker skin, for example, — where it is thrown aside by any
other insolent claim of superiority, or is broken by any unfor-
tunate accident whatever. What has the shield of conscience
(though they who fight from behind it, describe it as a sort of
Vulcania arma brought to them from heaven) done in such a
case for half mankind, which, under the constitution of sla-
very, has in every quarter of the world been shut out for ages
from the title, and from the meanest immunities, of humani-
ty? Read the account which Grotius has given of the motives
under which he composed his immortal work — the most import-
ant contribution, perhaps, ever made by a single individual, to-
wards the virtue and the happiness of his fellow- creatures, under,
apparently, the most hopeless of all experiments. It has been
a life-boat in the sea, — a safety-lamp in the mine of human pas-
sions. On the principle of the bond of society still subsisting,
he has brought something of law, — some feeling of right even,
into the field of battle ; yet still a horrible latitude remains, in
which conscience revels during war, even between neighbouring
nations equally advanced in civilisation, and whose experience
of each other in war has only increased their mutual respect.

200 Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept.

How much more coolly, however, do nations enter on it, and
with what far greater recklessness do those engaged in it
conduct it, when the distance and alienation between the
parties is made more complete by any imaginary supposition ;
as, for instance, inferiority of descent ! More enlightened ages
shudder at the aggravations which are recorded for our shame,
and our instruction, in such campaigns as were unblushingly
maintained against the native Indians of Mexico and Peru.
It is civilisation which, under the general considerations of an
enlarged philanthropy, by extending our sphere, and drawing
the connexion closer, enables that which passes by the name
of conscience to be at least in some degree available, or at
least representable as a guide. Whenever an exception to this
social feeling, and community of interest, is suffered to linger or
to intrude, — there, and to that extent, a proportionate deduction
must be made from the security which conscience is calculated
to afford.

Now, if we suppose, (as is usually conceded,) that the same
course, respecting which we have direct evidence in the case of
independent nations, has taken place in the corresponding deve-
lopement and tuition of the moral sense of individuals, (as far
as regards their relation to others,) we shall perceive the man-
ner in which our moral principle has acquired a great part of its
knowledge ; we can account for its different condition during
successive periods of its formation, and may in some degree
judge of the credit to which it is entitled as a revelation from
God. If, on the one hand, no motive of action, however lovely and
of good repute, can be entitled to the name of moral, which has
not, in some stage or other of its gradual formation, passed
through the chamber where conscience holds her court ; so, on
the other, no trust whatever, beyond that of the good inten-
tion of the parties, can be placed in the vsimple certificate given
by conscience. This certificate in no instance answers, or can
answer, for more than the honesty, that is, than for the con-
scientiousness, of the persons and acts in question. Beyond this
we shall see that its visa does not reach, if we will but read the
document ; beyond this, therefore, the effect of so limited an in-
dorsement cannot be carried. The rest, thus far, is all in blank.
It is a blank which must be filled up elsewhere ; and further
security for the solvency of the parties, — for their capacity, — for
the reasonableness and feasibleness of the end, as well as for the
suitableness of the means, must be given by a more intellectual,
comprehensive, and far-sighted power.

The question, as we propose it, is, not whether any part of
our mixed constitution is to be annihilated j but, in case of ^

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 201

difference where every part can yet be bound by the decision of
the whole, what part ought to have the casting vote in the
character of a guide. Human nature, in its ordinary healthy
state, is a system constituted of many parts. We admit that
none of the parts of such a system left to themselves can do even
their proper and peculiar work. When it is taken to pieces,
and its mechanism and combination are destroyed, each separate
piece will be as useless as the disorganized fragments of a watch.
We hear a great deal of heart- wisdom. A beautiful thing it is.
Without it, man is a stone, or a Mephistopheles. With nothing
else, he is a fool ; and will rush forwards to his end — the grati-
fication of his feelings — without ever thinking it necessary to
enquire, whether the means which he proposes to employ (for
instance, Irish poor laws) might not defeat his end, and make
the last state of the object of his most just commiseration worse
than the first. Isolate conscience in the same manner ; you will
have got a poor trembling nun, or a ferocious Dominic : for
mere conscience is an electric cloud, against which baffled reason
can set up no conductor to guide and divert its storm. A philo-
sopher, with neither enjoyment nor capacity for any existence
out of the circle of mere abstractions, — before the glass of whose
understanding the human race were to pass in vision as only a
thing to be reasoned about, and to whom the happiness of a nation
was nothing more than the subject of an experiment in metaphy-
sics,— would be as incapable of morals as the telescope in his
hands, or the star which he was observing. But, on the suppo-
sition that our constitution remained any thing like a whole, and
that its component parts exist in a state, and with powers ap-
proaching to their due and ordinary proportion, it appears to us
that * the touch of nature ' which is to ' make the whole world
* kin,' and the principle of conduct to which the heart and the
conscience will, when the result comes calmly to be examined,
send in their adhesion, are to be found in that panopticon whence
we can command in one common view and interest the family of
mankind. It is not conscience apparently which has led, or by
itself can lead us, in the still excepted cases to this magnificent
position. Alone, it will furnish us with no rule, for the correc-
tion of those partialities by which, after men may have ceased to
care less for the head of another man than for a single hair upon
their own, they, nevertheless, feel little scruple in sacrificing the
interests of others to those of their family, their clan, their rank,
their nation — in short, to whichever of our concentric circles
they have as yet learned to consider the outside limit of their
little self-constructed world. It is not for want of conscience,
but for want of au e:ctended sphere of vision^^frora the incapacity

202 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

of looking beyond particulars to generals, that savages, children,
and women, when meaning to decide right, would, in any of those
questions in which nine- tenths of the disputed and difficult cases
in morality arise, (the competition between particular and gene-
ral consequences,) be certain of deciding wrong. We have hardly
ever seen a lawsuit of any nicety of this sort, as on a will, for
instance, tried in a county town, which every lady in court would
not have disposed of, on the principle of the long coat and short
coat case, reported in the Cyropeedia. Of female authors even,
Madame de Stael is among the few who is always above the reach
of this objection.

There have been ages in which Chrisiians had no conscience
but for Christians. Now, even, there are sectarians whose no-
tions of justice and charity are confined to their own communion.
Absolute power, when it raises a man above the sense of a con-
nexion with, and dependence on his fellow-creatures, hardens
the heart, and exhibits to the world a succession of monsters such
as Rome indeed saw, but of which, in the comparative approxi-
mation of all ranks in modern times, we can at present form no
idea. It is, however, still, and always must be, the curse and
misery of privileged orders, that, in a degree, their members ne-
cessarily suffer under the reproach of that great wielder of the
scourge of an enlightened conscience, ferme est communis sensiis
in illo Censu. Hence come the laws of honour to constitute the
morality of honourable men in a state of society divided into
castes. Virtue and wisdom may have an inspired prophet or
two always upon earth. But, for the body of mankind, a cer-
tain approach to a recognised equality seems requisite as a gua-
rantee for virtues, which are to be as extensive as mankind, in-
stead of virtues limited to, and estimated by, their effect upon a
particular class or order. The barons of Magna Charta stipula-
ted only for the liber homo, and thought as little about the rights
of a villain, as a Jamaica planter about codifying for negroes. It
is only since the revolution that a Paris audience could shed tears
at a tragedy of which kings were not the heroes ; on the princi-
ple of the countryman who accounted for his not crying at a
sermon, by the fact of his belonging to another parish. There is
little check from ordinary consciences, wherever the want of a
social feeling, and a common interest between the parties, fails to
bring home to the bosoms of the principal in the transaction its
general consequences to society. England continues to be in this
sense much more aristocratical, than many European nations
far behind it in general spirit and refinement. Only our line
of aristocracy, and consequently of demarcation, falls far lower
than the House of Peers ; and thus, from want of being embo-

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. g03

died in one uniform set of facts, or denounceable in one short
denomination, it attracts less invidious attention. But the
actual separation produces its natural effects. As strong in-
stances as any in modern civilisation, of the perilous length to
which exceptions from this cause may run, when once admit-
ted into practice, exist in some anomalous proceedings long
made compatible with the political morality of the gentlemen of
England. Purchasers of game in London, they have had no remorse,
in what goes by the name of their justice-room in the country,
to send to jail their unknown accomplice — the wretched poacher
whom perhaps their own money may have bribed — certainly their
own participation had seduced — into the commission of the of-
fence. A member of Parliament, sitting there by no title but
that of corruption, does not feel the least scruple in joining in
the recommendation of a committee, that the uttermost penny-
worth of penalty under the bribery acts, should be enforced
against some insignificant freeman, not a hundredth part as
guilty as himself. The proceedings on committees for private
bills, we will not enlarge on. Our observations might be a breach
of the privileges of that honourable House. But we have heard
a lawyer, as much employed in this line of practice as any man of
his time, and afterwards upon the Bench, describe these com-
mittees as tribunals, where gentlemen of the same rank of life,
met to compliment each other at the expense of the property of
strangers. His picture was that of dens of injustice, where
men — who in cases not under the protection of one of these ar-
tificial exceptions, would shrink from the suspicion of wrong-
are parties to transactions for which juries would have been at-
tainted, their houses ploughed into the ground, and salt sown on
the foundations, in ancient times.

The questionable part of human conduct, and the embarrass-
ment which, in very different ways, both philosophy and the
plainest village sense and feeling frequently experience, in coming
to a decision in their own case, or that of others, arise from the
mixture and imperfection of our individual nature, and that of
the surrounding atmosphere, and circumstances through which
our journey lies. Our motives and our rules must be equally
displaced and imaginary in a nature otherwise composed and
situated. It is evident that a being perfectly good, or perfectly
bad, cannot be the subject of moral effort. There can, in such
a case, be no struggle; — no call to sacrifice inferior or strictly
personal to higher and more extended considerations. Even as
man approaches to perfection, or, in more fitting language, as he
becomes less imperfect, he has less of this mortifying but enno-
bling drudgery to undergo. In beings made up of either ex-

204! Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept,

treme, there can be no conscience, and all the distinctions be-
twixt misfortune, error, and guilt — that is, betwixt pain, regret,
and remorse — will disappear. Perfect wisdom, or invincible
stupidity, can never have to deliberate or balance on the ten-
dency of its actions. General rules, and a comparison of parti-
cular with general consequences, cannot be needed in one case,
nor applied in the other. So, in respect of means for the attain-
ment of its ends, omnipotence is driven to no compromises ;
whilst the most absolute mortal authority is bound down in every
scheme of human legislation by its defect of power. Man can-
not elude the necessity of looking at the means which alone he
can command for the accomplishment of his purpose. In every
stage of his enquiry and proceedings, he must consider the
instruments he has to use, the intervening obstacles through
which he will have to cut in order to reach his object, and the
nature of the very subject itself on which he has to operate. Out
of these considerations he must frame his balance sheet, and
calculate the tax, which is an unavoidable condition of human
justice, where it is least of an experiment, and in its most perfect
form. Under the circumstances, both of our nature and our
situation, obedience to the command, * Know thyself,' which
was supposed by the heathens to have descended from heaven, is
no such easy matter. But it is in proportion as we can attain
that knowledge, and ascertain, by short and decisive inferences,
from the premises contained in it, what is the end of human life,
and what are the means best calculated to promote that end, that
a reasonable man can feel himself to be any thing but a straw
floating backwards and forwards upon an eddy. A still higher
proportion of evidence and of conviction may justly be expected,
before we are prepared to take a further and more positive step,
by prescribing rules of conduct for our fellow-creatures, and
subjecting them to penalties for their disobedience.

Now, about one thing nobody disputes ; that is, that man is
born for society. We see no prospect at present of any agree-
ment among philosophers concerning the principle of morals.
Is it necessary that criminal law should be mixed up with these
differences, and partake of the consequent uncertainty ? What-
ever else in our being and destiny is in shadow, the necessity of
a state of society for man, is as clear as noonday sun can make
it. A publicist or lawyer, therefore, is requesting us to aban-
don the known and proved for that which is unknown and un-
proved, when he requires that we should turn aside from this
admitted end, in pursuit of an \{^oi'Kov^ which has too often hereto-
fore succeeded in drawing away from the real field of battle the
doughtiest metaphysical polemics. An acknowledged an4 visible

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 205

end is here before us. Can it be intercepted or put back but by
something else, at least as visible and as acknowledged ? Until
a bird in the hand ceases to be worth two in the bush, we must
not forego our hold ; nor consent to sacrifice to imaginary ends,
such as abstract justice and abstract rights, (about which we can
have no more precise idea than concerning an abstract Lord
Mayor, or an abstract ell measure,) the appropriate means for
the most successful attainment of so necessary an object. This
point of view gives us at once clear and definite objects, as far
as it extends. It embraces nearly all that part of the field of
morals which relates to our conduct to others, as it allowedly em-
braces every inch of the field of human laws. Tucker has shown
the advantage, nay, necessity of intermediate ends. Of these,
society, in the lowest view of it, must at least be one. Appro-
priate means, therefore, for the effectual maintenance of its insti-
tution, will be an approximation to any ulterior, and more conjec-
tural, though possibly higher end, comprised in our nature and
existence. These means must be concurrent with, indispensable
to, and, as far as we can perceive, actually identical with any
end of that description, which can bear stating beyond the walls
of a monastery, or except from off the pillar of a stylite.

In our opinion, legislation has nothing to do with man, his
nature, and his destiny, except as a member of society. Its
duty in this respect is also the measure of its right. Would
that philosophy could be so humbled as to reduce its view of
human law, and of that part of morals which borders on, and
at times intermixes with it, within these limits ! Under a con-
sideration of the subject, thus restricted as to its ends, (and one
should have thought, therefore, as to its means,) it would not
seem visionary to hope that reasonable men might agree on
some important points. For instance, on the circumstances
which distinguish law and morals in parallel cases ; on the mat-
ters which alone should be included within the sacred circle of
natural law all the world over, and be thus privileged against
the supposed wants and changes of occasional legislation ; as also
on the single point of view in which human legislators ought to
concern themselves with the conduct of their citizens. The
only end, or ends, (whatever they may be,) which are recog-
nised as justifying society in its interference with human con-
duct, must of course be the standard by which, in every case,
the propriety and the degree of that interference is to be measu-
red. Punishment is the means which the law has established, in
the shape of legal penalty, for the purpose of repressing, under
the character of legal offences, such acts as require this interpo-
sition in behalf of that portion of the elements of human happi-

206 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

ness which have been constituted legal rights. These different
divisions of the law are all parts of the same case. They so
dovetail into, and depend upon, each other, that it is difficult to
conceive that any one should propose to separate them under
different principles. Capital punishment involves some special
considerations. But if the right of society to inflict punishment
generally, is to be carried before any other tribunal than that of
society legislating on the exclusive consideration of the public
good, similar doubts may be raised against the sufficiency of that
test, in the selection of the materials and circumstances out of
which the legislature has to create offences, and also rights. It
is not surprising that the ignorance of uncivilized ages prevented
them from clearly ascertaining, that the principle of public in-
terest was the just and sole foundation of criminal as well as of
every other part of human law. The adaptation of means to
ends is a matter of greater nicety. Everybody, therefore, will
easily understand how a less degree of ignorance has often, in
times of greater civilisation, been sufficient to prevent a commu-
nity from ascertaining what regulations would be, under parti-
cular circumstances, the best method of carrying the principle
into effect. Another case is also as little to be wondered at ;
namely, that, in point of fact, as many bad laws have proceeded
from the passions of mankind as from their want of knowledge.
Rulers, whether one or many, monarchs or republics, (for re-
publics are as hot and fallible as any king — ^look, for instance,
at their wars,) inflamed by passions of a hundred kinds, have
refused to consult the compass, and have left their vessel at the
mercy of the current and the gale. We cannot so readily ac-
count for the fact, that to so late an hour as the publication of
M. Rossi's treatise, directly contrary principles continue to be
insisted upon as truths of indispensable importance, by theorists
whose professed vocation it is to find the makers of law with
the philosophy of their science.

We have alluded to the subordinate and independent contest
carrying on upon the continent concerning the right of the
punishment of death. This question has not been taken up
there by the Society of Friends only. The Due de Broglie and
M. Lucas have distinguished themselves in this solemn argu-
ment. M. Guizot has not gone farther than dispute the policy
of it in political offences. But the great battle is fought on the
field of criminal law on precise issues. These arc, what is the
end, and, consequently, what the measure of its jurisdiction,
both in acts to be made offences, and in the means to be em-
ployed for their suppression.

division of opinion has established four schools of criminal

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 207

law. Nothing can be more different than the object of these
rival sects, nor than the spirit with which they wield the same
instrument, — that of evil in the shape of punishment, to which
the paucity of our means obliges all alike to have recourse. The
first is, that of religion. Its spirit and letter are laid down
infallible and immutable for ever, by the authority of a divinely
inspired lawgiver. Of course, in such a case, there is nothing
to consider but the command. The rest profess to be of human
growth only ; but the sanction of the two first is spoken of as
being something so natural and innate, that it would be made
in this manner to partake of the character almost of divine. Of
these, the first system proceeds on the assertion, that retribu-
tion to the party injured is the true end of a penal code. This
retribution consists in the infliction upon the offender of
an amount of evil at least equivalent to that which the in-
jured party has sustained from him. The rule by which the
terms of this equation are to be ascertained, is the resentment of
the party, according to the nature of the wrong committed ; as
assessed by the equitable adjudication of the community, in the
character of an impartial spectator. The second system sees in
the expiation of guilt the true end of a penal code. This expiation
is to be obtained by the infliction upon the criminal of an amount
of evil at least equivalent to his ill intention, when the ill inten-
tion has been sufficiently proved by facts. The rule by which
the terms of this equation are to be ascertained is to be found
in conscience, applied to the consideration of the degree of im-
putability, — ^^that is, of the immorality of the agent as manifested
in the act. The third principle, and it is the one for some time
past almost universally proclaimed by the practice of the civi-
lized world, assumes that the public good, as identified with the
prevention of crime, is the only justifiable end of the criminal
law. This end it is sought to compass by machinery calculated
to reform, deter, or, at the worst, disable the wrong-doer. Its
general object is, that of raising, by the punishment of criminals,
an appropriate counteracting motive, sufficient to overbalance
and hold in check the specific motive which has been the induce-
ment to the crime. The rule by which we must for this pur-
pose, in every instance, try the propriety of the penal means
proposed for our adoption, can have a direct reference to no other
test than that of their tendency to secure this difficult but most
desirable result. Our success in solving this equation in any
case, must depend on our knowledge of human nature generally,
and of the circumstances of the particular society, individual,
and transaction in question. After all, in a system arranged and
applied with the most consummate wisdom, crimes will continue

208 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

to be committed, and with more or less impunity. There are
some cases which the penal machinery of society cannot reach ;
others to which it cannot apply with sufficient precision ; others
where its application is possible indeed, but is withheld by en-
larged considerations of the public good, founded upon a due
estimate of humanity and reason. The observation need scarce-
ly be interposed, that if punishment is a medicine, society is
restricted to the least possible amount by which the disorder
can be removed. Not only does the right terminate there, but
the excess must reproduce disease. Still less can society in any
case proceed at all when the scale has turned, and more evil is
produced by the punishment than the evil which the punishment
was intended to suppress. The relation of means to their end,
being that of cause and effect, allows in strictness of no other
rule than the one mentioned. But whatever there is of latent
truth in the special theories of conscience and resentment, (and
doubtless there is a great deal, or they could never have been
countenanced by such eminent men,) will be taken due notice
of, and fully appreciated and brought into account in any to-
lerably judicious interpretation of this system. Human nature
will be very imperfectly comprehended if such important ele-
ments as these are not included as part of the case in the first
instance. The connexion between the means and the end to be
attained, will be snapped asunder, instead of being wisely and
closely linked, if, in going over the calculation, ample allowance
is not made, on all occasions, for every modification which these
elements may receive from the temper and opinions of contem-
porary society. It would not be more imprudent to take con-
science and resentment as principles and guides qualified to con-
stitute a rule, than it would be monstrous and revolting to ne-
glect them as collateral conditions, — conditions which can only be
roughly and popularly estimated, but which are still inseparable
from any rule which can be reasonably conceived. In the charac-
ter of conditions to our rule, they are implied in its terms. In that
light they must always continue to be essential as long as laws
will not execute themselves, but have to depend for their exe-
cution on human beings — connected with the prisoner by the
compassionate sympathies of our common nature — with the
prosecutor, by our indignation at the injury which he has per-
sonally suffered — and with society, by the deep sense of a com-
mon interest, identified in the fact, that in our moral and poli-
tical union we form that very society for whose maintenance
the law exists.

Not a word further need be said, in England at least, in be-
half of the principle of utility. It has friends enough. We

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 209

only wish that some of its friends would occasionally fight its
battle with weapons of a finer temper, and on a more extended
ground. As few words almost will serve, too, in respect of reli-
gious systems. At one time, their authority was exclusive, both
in morals and in jurisprudence. Points of casuistry vrere ruled,
little more than a hundred years ago, on the force of precedents
from the Old Testament, in acknowledged contradiction to
every conclusion from conscience and from reason. This sub-
ject is too serious for any one to be amused by its confusion ;
otherwise there might be found amusement enough out of Pla-
cete's account of the embarrassment into which, in so important
a question as the obligation of an oath, made purely upon de-
ception, Sanderson himself was thrown by the case of Joshua
and the Gibeonites. Sir Edward Coke quotes the law of God
as well as the statute of Edward VI., in the correction of his
former servile error respecting two witnesses in treason. lAhe-
ravi animam meam. Grotius is for ever, and Blackstone from
time to time, sending Christendom back into its house of bond-
age under the jurisprudence of the Jews, There is some diffi-
culty in picking our path through the ambiguities of this appeal.
Notwithstanding the conclusion drawn by Milton from the con-
duct of the Patriarchs, polygamy, we are told by others, was
impliedly forbidden by the fact of Adam and Eve being created
a single pair. Yet instead of accepting the same test of the
lawfulness of the matrimonial connexion, exhibited in the prac-
tice of the next generation, (when their immediate children
must have of necessity intermarried,) we are remitted to the
Levitical degrees. Notwithstanding Milton's triumphant refu-
tation of the Scriptural argument, and in spite of the practice
of every other Protestant communion, our law of divorce is yet
held in religious shackles, from which Roman Catholic France
had the spirit to break free.

When the municipal law is once understood by a people to
be actually revealed, and incorporated with their general reli-
gious creed in their sacred books, (as in the Koran and the
Vedas,) there is nothing left for them but to become a stationary
community — a pool of stagnant water — or to escape under one of
two alternatives. Either the sword of a conqueror must eman-
cipate them, by the exercise of an authority which is so liable
to abuse that a beneficial result can scarcely justify it in any
particular instance ; or they must wait till after a long struggle
between institutions and opinions, sanctified by reverential feel-
ings on one side, and the irrepressible efforts of an advancing
civilisation on the other, they force their way to civil rights
through the destruction and anarchy of their religious belief.
VOL. LIV. NO, cvii. o

210 Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept,

We cannot imagine, that even in Germany there can have heen
of late years any serious grounds for the alarm with which Voss
announced to Europe the existence of a mysterious party, whose
literary leaders were resolved on the re- establishment of a Theo-
cracy in Europe. Benjamin Constant had studied the politics of
ecclesiastical corporations too zealously, not to be sure to take
fright in time. Even the resuscitation of the canon law, and
the reinvestment of spiritual courts with temporal jurisdiction,
much more the subjection of the general rule of civil conduct
to the dogmas of a supposed spiritual power, is a task which
must baffle the most visionary antiquarian across the Rhine,
with an army of the faith under Bonald, De Maitre, and Le Men-
nais, in reserve. A Gregory or a Knox .would find, that the
earth had escaped from the domination of their churches at the
present day, and might perhaps complain that, in the reaction,
Coeli plusjustd parte is carried away from them besides. In our
age, Deorum injurice diis curce. We have learned to distinguish
crimes from vices, and, still more emphatically, from sins.

The systems in which Resentment and Conscience are repre-
sented, the first as the foundation, the second as the limit of cri-
minal law, have, at least among the laity, more numerous and
more able retainers. They both appeal to human nature on evi-
dence equally plausible, and, to a certain extent, with about
equal truth. Some way is thus made for them at first, by their
apparent accordance with our most universal and sponta-
neous impressions. The effect of this letter of introduction is,
however, soon destroyed. The more we reflect upon them,
instead of a more satisfied acquiescence, we find our conviction
proportionally disappear. There is the less temptation to do
violence in this case to our understandings, when, notwith-
standing the promises of their advocates, we cannot for the life
of us perceive (were their hypotheses to be adopted in any at
all practicable shape) but that, after much additional scepticism
and debate, the final practical results would be pretty much the
same. The criminal laws of every civilized country, as far as
we are acquainted with them, have let in too great a variety of
clashing principles into their character and detail, to afford such
a comparison between any two systems of actual legislation, as
will afterwards justify a decisive inference either way, by con-
trasting their results. The respective results, as set down on
paper by the theorists themselves, are not likely to give us much
more light : Since our objection to the principle, for instance,
of resentment and expiation, is more to the argument, and evi-
dence, and useless complication connected with them, than to any
direct inferences, probably affecting their respective theoretical

1831. HoBBi on Criminal Law, gll

results. There is scarce a point, which beforehand it might have
been thought would furnish a more immediate test of the differ-
ent legal consequences which would proceed from the systems
of Conscience and of Utility respectively, than the extent to
which they should admit the plea of drunkenness in extenuation
of an offence committed under its influence. In no case have
lawgivers more widely differed. By the law of Greece, the fact
of drunkenness was an aggravation. By that of Rome, (as it is
generally understood,) it was a circumstance in mitigation. The
law of England, and we believe of modern Europe, generally
punishes the offence just the same as though the party had been
sober. Now, in a case where lawgivers have thus embroiled
the fray, the theorists might have been expected to darken
this confusion. Instead, however, of the doctors disagreeing,
Mr Bentham and M. Rossi, the champions of the two contend-
ing principles, are found to meet. Each, on his own specific
grounds, reprobates the rule by which, in order to combine the
elements necessary to constitute the crime imputed, (that is, an
intention and an act,) the intention is transferred from the act
to which it properly belongs, namely, intoxication, and put
down to the account of the other act, (say a homicide,) commit-
ted in that state, and where no intention could, by the supposi-
tion, possibly exist. The social offence and the moral guilt
thus appear to coincide, and may be fixed at Paley's estimate —
how far the individual was aware, when he was getting drunk,
that he should, when drunk, commit the act in question. M.
Rossi has postponed the publication of his analysis of the pro-
portions of the mal-moral and mal-materiel comprised in each
different offence. We cannot, therefore, at present foresee in
what respect this analysis may branch off from the evil of the
first and second order, direct and indirect, illustrated by Mr
Bentham. No such discrepancy is observable in his classifi-
cation of punishment, nor in his remarks on the necessity of
promulgation. Nothing can be more judicious than the only
chapters strictly relating to judicial practice in these volumes.
These are, the different circumstances and gradations in which a
supposed incapacity of crime exists — the different stages of
design, preparatory acts, and attempts — the different modes and
degrees of principal or accessorial participation. However, they
contain nothing in result, as far as we remember, (whatever in-
cidental taunt they may be enlivened with,) but what the stoutest
advocate of the principle of prevention — of that and nothing else
— might honestly and thankfully subscribe to.

The doctrine, that the resentment of injuries is the great
principle of the criminal law, found, as late as the year 1807, a

212 Rossi on Criminal Laiv. Sept.-

strenuous advocate in the person of Lord Woodhouselee. In a
disquisition appended to the Life of Lord Kames, he has laboured
to recover for it, in the bosom of civilized life, as complete
supremacy as it ever enjoyed among barbarians. The accomplish-
ment of retributive justice is declared to be the primary object
o icriminal law, in the avenging by proper punishment such
crimes as have actually been committed. * The prevention of

* future crimes is a secondary end, which in most cases will be

* best attained by a due attention to the primary.' The pro-
gress of society requires indeed the transfer from the private
party to the public, of the call for revenge, and of the natural
right of exacting it. This surrender became necessary, it is ad-
mitted, on many reasons, not only of expediency, but also (what
seems a rather suspicious circumstance in such a theory) of jus-
tice. Still this transfer has been not the less a serious evil, if it
has proved, as is stated, to have been the cause of most of the
erroneous notions which have shaken the corner-stone of crimi-
nal jurisprudence. The displacing of the primary principle on
this subject, to make way for the secondary, is censured (quite
contrary to the fact) as a purely modern innovation. ' The

* first deviation thus made from the path of truth, every step

* leads us farther into error. The natural indignation conse-

* quent on the commission of crimes, instead of being, as it

* ought to be, the measure of the punishment, is, according to
' certain writers, to be studiously excluded from the mind of the

* legislator, who is to look solely to the object of restraining simi-

* lar crimes in future. Punishment, say they, is itself an evil ;

* and to add punishment to crime, is only adding one evil to
' another ; for if crimes could be repressed without the punish-

* ment of any criminal, so much evil would be prevented as his

* punishment implies. Consequently, punishment, in the mind
' of a wise legislator and judge, ought to have no reference to

* the degree of moral turpitude in the criminal. Will it be

* believed, that such opinions have for their supporters Montes-
' quieu, Beccaria, Voltaire, and Priestley ?' We readily agree
that there is an offensiveness, and consequently an incorrectness,
in such language as Priestley's, that ' punishment has no refer-

* ence to the degree of moral turpitude in a criminal.' It is true,
indeed, that it is not founded on it as its end ; but it is not the less
true, that, in order to reach its legitimate end, it must, upon its
own grounds, constantly refer to it. The reason why an inten-
tion is as necessary to constitute a crime upon the principle of pre-
vention, as on that of resentment or of conscience, will be shown
afterwards. Lord Woodhouselee, however, opens to these wri-
ters a much 1)roader mark for criticism and retort, in the picture

1831. 'Roa^i on Criminal Law. 213

he draws of his own system. It is charged upon theirs, sm one
of its worst consequences, that it fosters a species of metaphysical
sentiment, when it discountenances that just indignation which
arises in every well-ordered mind upon the commission of an
atrocious crime. In a hardened and incorrigible offender, Lord
Woodhouselee sees the ohject of a ' feeling of resentment at

* once so deep and so universal, that it can be satisfied with no

* measure of vengeance short of his absolute extirpation.' The
war-cry deduced by way of corollary from these premises, ap-
pears to us much more like the shout of a Mohawk chief, than
the summing up of a British judge. ' Let the sword of Justice

* be unsheathed, and injured Nature have her full revenge.'

The confidence with which this theory is delivered, must
have been heightened by the support which Lord Woodhouse-
lee imagined that he found for it in the authority of Lord
Kames and of Dr Adam Smith. Indeed, the point would appear
to have been first suggested to him by Lord Karnes's Essay on
the History of Criminal Law ; and to have been afterwards esta-
blished in his mind by the application (we think ill-advised ap-
plication) of sympathy in this instance, not merely as a fact, but
as a principle, to Jurisprudence, in the Moral Sentiments. The
support derived from the historical fact is apparent only ; and
the fallacy is one which is not chargeable on Lord Kames.
That which is attempted to be obtained from the metaphysical
argument, has the sanction of Dr Smith's concurrence to a
greater extent than the short and general passage quoted by
Lord Woodhouselee would have itself necessarily implied.
Whether the support is real or fallacious only, will depend on
a comparison between the view taken of resentment in the Mo-
ral Sentiments, and that taken by Dr Butler in his two ser-
mons on this passion, and on the forgiveness of injuries.

Lord Woodhouselee observes, with unsuspecting and blind
devotedness to his master, that Lord Kames, ' although he has

* with great ingenuity developed the true principle on which cri-

* minal law is founded, and has traced it with precision through
' all its consequences, was not aware of the errors into which suc-

* ceeding writers were to fall, in their speculations on this sub-

* ject ; otherwise, we cannot doubt that he would have bent his

* attention, in this essay, to counteract and refute opinions which
' tend to involve this great branch of jurisprudence in inextri-

* cable confusion, and to abolish the only true criterion for pro-
' portioning punishment to crimes. He survived, it is true, the
' publication of several of those writings to which I allude ; but
' his attention was not attracted to them, being engaged by

* topics of a different nature. This seems to impose a duty on

214 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

' his biographer, who, however unequal in other respects, can

* boast at least of one requisite for the task, — the zeal of a dis-

* ciple to defend the doctrines of his master.' Unfortunately,
zeal is not sufl&cient. Nor is Lord Kames the last master whose
truths are made extravagancies, and models turned into carica-
tures, in the hands of over sanguine and over credulous dis-
ciples. The history of mankind, neither in this nor on any
other subject, will permit us to assume, that a principle must be
the true one, because, historically, it was long the sole one. No-
thing is gained by going back for correct rules of conduct to the
cradle of mankind. We are not only different from, but, like
Sarpedon, * we boast to be much better than our fathers.' Thus
the motives which led to the origin of civil government, and the
principle upon which it was arranged in its earliest form, whether
patriarchal or military, may vary from the motives and the prin-
ciple on which half the governments on the earth were afterwards
actually established. They may vary still more from those on
which alone, if reason were properly consulted, government
ought to rest. So of human conduct generally — and especially
of as much of it as goes to the laying down rules of conduct for
others in the shape of laws.

Dr Smith infers, from the existence of the passion of resent-
ment as a metaphysical fact in our constitution, not only that it
must, under the guarantee of popular sympathy, be capable of
being modified into, but that it may be safely accepted, as a rule.

* The natural gratification of this passion tends of its own accord
' to produce all the political ends of punishment, — the correction

* of the criminal, and the example to the public' In this respect,
the negative virtue of justice is distinguished by him from the
beneficent virtues. Its violation is stated (we need not stop to
examine how far correctly stated,) to be alone * the proper object

* of resentment and of punishment, which is the natural conse-

* quence of resentment.' Apparently, also, it is understood by him
to be alone the proper object of conscience and remorse. Reta-
liation is spoken of as * the great law which seems dictated to us

* by nature.' It might be submitted that humanity, when well
instructed, and a sense that punishment is required for the pro-
tection of the innocent and the happiness of our fellow- citizens,
not to say of our species, would be a properer motive. Instead
of this, ' there can be no proper motive,' (it is said,) * for hurt-
' ing our neighbour, — there can be no incitement to do evil to

* another, which mankind will go along with, except just indig-

* nation for evil which that other has done to us.* There seems
a particular inconsistency in this restriction, when, within a few
pages, Dr Smith is obliged, on his own showing, to admit,

1831. Rossi on. Ciiminal Law, 215

that tlie necessity frequently arises of reflecting, that mercy to
the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. The existence of another
and a nobler sentiment is thus immediately introduced, as
co-operating in the same demand. A nature, the most inca-
pable of participating in the indignation above required of us, is
thus enabled to put down the weak compassion which it might
feel for an individual, by the more generous and enlarged com-
passion which comprehends mankind. So soon does a hasty
humanity, in a case of this kind, counteract resentment, and
make it necessary to call in reason and utility as the arbiter be-
twixt two mere conflicting feelings, which have no directing
principle about them beyond their own gratification. Thank
God, nature, in her wildest state, puts a hundred limits and ex-
ceptions upon * her great law.' Take the hospitality of an Arab
chief, who has eat salt with the murderer of his son. The law
may not be repealed absolutely ; but a refusal to execute it is
practically the same. If Dr Smith had confined his criticism
on the account commonly given of our approbation of the punish-
ment of injustice, to the demonstration that it was * not a regard

* to the preservation of society which originally interests us in

* the punishment of crimes committed against individuals,' there
would have been nothing to object ; further than that we might
have asked, — who ever supposed this to be the case ? Reason
comes latest into the field. A real man is more than a full-grown
child. However, his assumption and line of argument not only go
much further, but are altogether different. The idea, that the
principle upon which human punishment ought to be enforced
in this life, can be verified by any analogy to the hope (the word
surely is a strong one) which nature teaches us to indulge, that
injustice will be punished even in a life to come, confounds two
cases, between which no possible analogy can exist. Too much
credit also is given to the rationality of resentment, by the insi-
nuation, that it is only when the want of natural and proper
sentiments in licentious sophists makes us * cast about' for other
arguments to meet their case, — or when the operation of resent-
ment is embarrassed by a ' weak and partial humanity,' or on
some similar emergency, that, in a well constituted nature, the*
reflection of the public use of punishment is wanted in confir-
mation of our natural sense of its propriety. Necessitarians,
for instance, who concur in approving of the fact of punishment,
are certainly not aware of any such sense of its propriety. It
is one of the perplexities, in judging between moral systems, that
they so run into each other, and admit of so many turns, and
loopholes, and explanations, that from first to last, an oppor-
tunity of applying the crucial experiment may be watched iov

216 ^o^si on Criminal Law. Sept.

ill vain. But the correctness of the account which Dr Smith
would substitute for the ordinary account of human punishment,
affords this opportunity. Let a reader compare the two accounts
together, and examine whetlier they agree in including all the
cases, — and if not, let him adopt, according to the test of the
crucial experiment, that which is most reconcilable with all.
In the generality of bosoms, and on most occasions, both prin-
ciples, it is admitted, will meet — the test can only be where
they differ. Dr Smith mentions himself an instance — that of a
sentinel who is condemned to death for sleeping on his watch.
Less fanatically consistent in behalf of resentment than Lord
Woodhouselee, who denies that any circumstance, even the fre-
quency of the crime, can justify additional severity in the punish-
ment of an individual case, or than M. Rossi would be on a simi-
lar dilemma in behalf of conscience, he consents that the sentinel
must be offered up to the safety of numbers. He must have
allowed, therefore, that the rule and measure of human punish-
ment is not, and cannot be, taken from a passion of this descrip-
tion, but depends on a perfectly distinct principle. Lord Wood-
houselee, consequently, seems left at last to defend, on the
weight of his own authority and argument, the position, that

* the measure of the punishment of crimes ought, in every case,
' to depend on the moral turpitude of the criminal ; of which

* nature has furnished an infallible criterion in the indignation

* which arises in the impartial mind upon the commission of a

* crime, and which always keeps its just proportion to the mag-
' nitude of the offence.' This reference to the moral turpitude
or evil of the offender, as constituting the essence of his prin-
ciple, instead of to the evil arising from the offence, shows that
Lord Woodhouselee had ill comprehended the historical sketch
presented by Lord Kames. Dr Smith combines the two, appa-
rently, under no uniformity of definite proportions. There are
passages which countenance the piacular judgments of antiquity,
and would go far to confound the principle of resentment with
that of expiation.

The following extracts from Butler strike the proper balance
in this perplexed account. They are philosophically directed, not
to the purpose of substituting such a passion for a guide ; — their
object, in answer to a directly opposite objection, is that of show-
ing, that even its unruliness is not made a part of our consti-
tution, without an aim, if in other respects we do but our duty
by ourselves. In our partnership, it is a working member which
is not to be wholly trusted, nor wholly got rid of and denounced.
' Since, therefore, it is necessary for the very subsistence of the
< world, that injury, injustice, and cruelty, should be punished;

1 83 L Rossi on Criminal Law. 211

and since compassion, which is so natural to mankind, would
render that execution of justice exceedingly difficult and un-
easy; indignation against vice and wickedness is, and may be
allowed to be, a balance to that weakness of pity, and also to
any thing else which would prevent the necessary method of
severity. The cool consideration of reason, that the security
and peace of society requires examples of justice should be
made, might indeed be sufficient to procure laws to be enacted,
and sentence passed. But is it that cool reflection in the in-
jured person, which, for the most part, brings the offended to
justice? Or is it not resentment and indignation against the
injury and the author of it?' Having thus shown the use of
this passion, Butler proceeds to exhibit the danger of its excess.
On the other hand, put the case, that the law of retaliation
was universally received, and allowed, as an innocent rule of
life, by all ; and the observance of it thought by many (and
then it would soon come to be thought by all) a point of honour.
Under the consequences which would inevitably follow, if we
consider mankind, according to that fine allusion of St Paul, as
one body, and every one members one of another, that resentment
is, with respect to society, a painful remedy. Thus, then, it must
be allowed, the very notion or idea of this passion, as a remedy
or preventive of evil, and as in itself a painful means, plainly
shows that it ought never to be made use of, but only in order
to produce some greater good.' ' What justifies public execu-
tions is, not that the guilt or demerit of the criminal dispenses
with the obligation of good- will, neither would this justify any
severity ; but, that his life is inconsistent with the quiet and
happiness of the world ; that is, a general and more enlarged
obligation necessarily destroys a particular and more confined
one of the same kind, inconsistent with it. Guilt or injury,
then, does not dispense with, or supersede the duty of, love and
good-will.'

In the gradation by which Butler discriminates sudden anger
from deliberate anger or resentment, he distinguishes the latter
by its being inseparably connected with the sense of wrong and
injustice, intention or design. This distinction was not ne-
cessary for Lord Karnes's purpose ; it had not been sufficiently
attended to by Dr Smith in his details, although noticed by
him in a general manner. When Butler denies to the latter,
even under the dignity of this distinction, any thing of the qua-
lity of a sanction, or the illumination of a guide, he guards suf-
ficiently against the possibility of this principle of our nature
being confounded with that of conscience, or some equivalent
power. This confusion is expressly created by Lord Woodhouse-

218 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

lee, when resentment is vested with the character of a criterion.
The same effect is obtained covertly by Dr Smith, under the
retinue and compliment of imposing epithets, to which plain,
undisguised, unadorned resentment, can have no pretence. Sa-
tisfied with having explained the use of this passion to a certain
extent, and in certain cases, Butler gives it no higher authority ;
whereas, in his second and third sermons, with some degree of
hesitation, certainly, and subject to cautions, (the difficulty of
applying which appears to us to be a serious objection to the
fact so simply stated,) he considers that * man has a rule of
* right within,' and that his * inward frame,' or conscience, may
be consulted as a * guide in morals.' However, we conceive,
although this should be true over a considerable part of morals,
or at least should be so probable that we could consent to en-
force the slight and reparable sanctions of the moral code upon
the plausible supposition of its truth, it will by no means follow
that we may not obtain, and therefore are not under the obliga-
tion of obtaining, a more precise and visible rule, for so much
of morals as is brought within the severer penalties of positive
jurisprudence. We never can believe, for instance, that Butler
would have allowed his conscience to guide him to the equation
of evil for evil, as the moral ground and limit of criminal law.
Not even according to the modified system of M. Rossi, as being its
measure, much less according to the broader hypothesis of others,
as its end. Indeed the passages which we have just quoted from
this great expositor of conscience, are a decisive proof that he
did not consider its authority to be directly applicable to the
administration of penal justice. It is singular, in the meantime,
that M. Rossi should not mention the doctrine of resentment
among the principles upon which the edifice of penal legislation
has been occasionally raised. It was almost the only principle
regarded by savage communities. It pervades, as taken out in
kind, or with its equivalent compositions, the leges barharorum.
The skeleton waving on the gibbet was long intended, not to be so
much a warning to other criminals, as a consolation to the rela-
tions of the deceased. Traces of this spirit linger in our law-books
more even than in our manners. The law of Scotland still nomi-
nally affords the injured parties their recompense or assythement^
independent of the vindicta publica ; and the relations of the
deceased were only within these few years deprived in England
of their claim, under an appeal of murder. As late as the reign
of Henry IV., they were entitled, under this proceeding, to drag
the murderer to the place of execution with their own hands.
However the Koran may deserve the compliments lavished upon
its style, the substance of the criminal law contained in it is

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 219

worthy only of a tribe of Arabs. The most important part of
that law rests upon kisas, or retaliation only, mixed up with a
general notion of expiation. Over the most civilized countries
where the Mahomedan empire is established, this simple and
vindictive standard regulates the protection of life and person.
We should guess that this spirit is more vigorous on the banks
of the Mississippi, than by the lake of Geneva. For in a pre-
amble to the code of Louisiana, in which Mr Livingston proposes
to sanction by a solemn legislative declaration the principle on
which its several provisions were founded, this was the only
erroneous principle which it was felt necessary to explicitly nega-
tive and denounce. ' Vengeance is unknown to the laws. The
* only object of punishment is to prevent the commission of
' offences.'

The language of the Traite de Legislation is often provoking,
or more than provoking, to persons who have formed their princi-
ples in accordance with that distinction between our moral na-
ture, our passions, and appetites, which harmonizes with what
Hume calls the ' caprice of language' on this subject. There seems
to be evidence in the volumes of M. Rossi, that we owe them to
the provocation of these paradoxical contempts of the human
heart. The author's intimate acquaintance with the intelligence
and virtues of M. Dumont, would only make him probably more
fearful of their consequences in less honest and less able hands.
We heartily wish the reaction had not carried him antagonisti-
cally so far in the opposite direction. The horseman who,
having drunk his stirrup-cup to the Virgin, found that he had
vaulted on the other side instead of having alighted into the
saddle, observed, that ' the Virgin had been too kind.' M. Rossi
may make, we think, the same complaint. Half his journey
would, as in John Gilpin's case, have been better than the
whole.

Systems which find in conscience the foundation of human
justice, or at least the limit of its punishment, on the ground of
abstract right, acquire great plausibility and popular favour
from the necessary course and language outwardly adopted by
the criminal law, and also from the deference which, on its own
specific grounds, it necessarily pays to popular feeling and opi-
nion. The way may be cleared by a few observations on the
distinct objects of civil and criminal law respectively ; and on
the different means by which alone each of these objects is to
be attained. The most important consideration, however, arises
out of the fact, that the intention with which the party has com-
mitted the wrong, can have no connexion with the object of
a civil action, which is redress ; whilst it is indispensable to a

220 Rossi on Criminal Laic, Sept.

criminal prosecution, as furnishing the only element upon which
it can act, in order to obtain its peculiar and public object, which
is prevention. It is apparently the necessity of this mains ani-
7nus, or its intention, in public offences, which has led to the
confusion, or at least confirmed it, which exists so much more
visibly between morals and penal law, than between morals and
civil law. Now, this distinction does not depend on any com-
parison between the moral consequences in the two cases ; but
exists in the very nature of a civil and a criminal proceeding,
with reference to the supposed quality of the respective injury,
and consequently that of the appropriate remedy for each. In
a case of the first description, the direct injury sustained by
the individual who is the personal object of it, consists in the
loss or pain to which he has been subject. The specific remedy
is restitution, compensation, or both. In this case, both the
evil suffered, and the cure for it, although they may be circum-
stantially affected more or less by such intention, are neverthe-
less in substance independent of the intention of the causer of
the evil. Whatever he might intend, the party is so much the
loser at his hands, and is entitled, as between one individual
and another, to look to him equally for redress. Suppose that
it is sought to represent this act, or any other, as a crime,
and to treat it accordingly — we have now to open an entii-ely
different account in the quality of the injury, and necessarily
of the remedy to be prescribed. The injury to the public is
almost entirely indirect. There may be a few cases where, on
the supposition that, although all possible consequences from
the act are contained within the very act itself, yet the injury
to the public arising from the single act, is such as to entitle
even the public to amends. The public, in a case of this sort,
stands precisely in the situation of an individual injured; and
the proceeding for recovering effectual and direct redress for
the past nuisance or obstruction, should be governed by the
same consideration. The English doctrine of the civil injury
and its remedy merging in the criminal, is verbal sophistry.
They are in fact, and ought to be kept in law, distinct indeed,
but compatible and concurrent. Such are injuries called mis-
demeanours ; which differ rationally from felonies, in no other
necessary legal quality than by the fact, that from their less
alarming nature, the means of obtaining the private end and
remedy of personal satisfaction, will generally comprise the pub-
lic end and remedy of social prevention also. But the immense
proportion of the evil contained in an ordinary crime, and for
which society retains in its own power, and administers on its
own responsibility, the proper remedy, is the indirect evil. This

1831. TioBsi on Criminal Law. 221

consists in the alarm which society feels, lest order should con-
tinue to be disturbed by a repetition of the act. This alarm
originates in the supposition that the offender, and people like
him, have a disposition and intention, more or less developed,
by which they may be induced to repeat it. It is against this
supposed disposition and intention that punishment is directed.
Disprove the intention — satisfy society that the doer of the act in
question did it unintentionally, the alarm, and the right on the
part of society, the cause and the effect, are at an end. Society,
that is, can have no apprehension, in such a case, that he will be
likely to repeat it; or that others, being aware that he was excu-
sed on the ground of absence of intention only, will be induced
to repeat the act on account of an impunity, the ground of which
they must know will not apply to them. The distinction, there-
fore, of the language, principle, and course of proceeding, in the
two cases of civil and criminal law, has no reference to morals.
It depends on the fact, that, for the object which criminal law
has in view, intention is wanted as a motive. Otherwise, since
disposition and intention are the only source from which we can
raise counteracting motives, there would be nothing upon which
punishment, as the means of prevention, could act, and therefore
there could be no case made out to justify its infliction.

The legal criminal intention necessary in criminal law, is not
identical in strictness with the evil intention imputable in mo-
rals. It is enough, that there exists an intention to do the act.
It is not necessary that the party should know that the act is
morally wrong. It makes no difference even if the party believe
that the act is morally virtuous. In case the conclusion of law
be true, which presumes that its prohibitions are known to every
one whose intellect is not defective, wherever there exists a
degree of understanding, capable of acquiring the knowledge
that an act is forbidden by law, there exists that against which
punishment can be brought to bear as a means of prevention.
It is only necessary to convince the party that a specified amount
of evil will be the consequence of the act. He may think it his
duty, nevertheless, to perform the act. But if society think the
act mischievous, and has declared so by a penal prohibition of
it, it is the duty of society to seek to restrain and overpower this
mistaken sense of duty by the motive raised from punishment;
The law, from considerations of general consequences, will not
admit proof (indeed proof of such an internal fact is almost
impossible) that the party was not aware of the municipal pro-
hibition. Otherwise, in case that fact could be proved, in the
absence of all intention to violate the law, which was unknown,
there exists by the supposition no motive for punishment to coun-

222 Rossi on Criminal Laiv. Sept.

teract. Consequently the ground on which alone human punish-
ment can proceed, as far as the individual is concerned, has failed.
The party was ready to obey the law if he had known it : what
could he more ? and what can he do more if you punish him
till Doomsday ? In a case of this sort, punishment can only act
on others, as a warning to use due diligence in learning the law,
ignorance of which is so tragically shown to be no excuse. A
case like that of Martin the incendiary will illustrate the dis-
tinctions. There could be no pretence for his acquittal, suppo-
sing the jury were of opinion that he believed that it was
morally or religiously right to burn York Minster, but knew,
at the same time, that it was legally wrong. If they meant by
their verdict to express that his understanding was too disturbed
to be capable of knowing that it was legally wrong, the acquit-
tal was correct. On the other hand, in case they thought his
understanding, although fanatically perverted, nevertheless was
capable of attaining this knowledge, but that in point of fact he
had not attained it, the rule of public policy is understood in
this case to intervene, and to require a verdict alike inconsistent
with the mode by which alone punishment can effect its proper
object, and with our moral feelings.

We willingly acknowledge that we are here upon ground
which should be trod most tenderly. The rule still, in its seve-
rest form, furnishes no excuse for the flagrant prevarication with
which English judges have so often turned questions of fact into
questions of law. Wherever, and to the extent that this con-
sideration of public policy does not interpose, it is clear that the
law ought to direct, and joyfully would a jury co-operate with
the law in the acquittal of a party, against whom the case sup-
plies no evidence that the motive of penal restraint is called for
in order to keep him in obedience to the law. Nobody proposes
the hanging another by way of communicating a point on arson
to the public (if that were all) ; or of enforcing on it the advan-
tages of a general study of the criminal law. The law is a
peremptory schoolmaster. But whether for learning its abstract
lessons, or for preserving the evidence of a fact, the milder habits
of our times are against the old practice of just whipping a lad
at the boundary stone, in order that by infixing the spot in his
memory by this simple process, he might be a more trusty wit-
ness of the same.

No doubt, where the rules of morals and of policy appear to
clash, it requires not only a deliberate conviction of this policy
in reality and in truth, but much time and consideration, to
bring the mind round into harmony, or rather acquiescence with
the Taw. It is well it is so. This fact is our security, that

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law, 223

wherever mitigating circumstances exist, which the law either
could not foresee, or could not discreetly proclaim as a justifi-
cation or an excuse, full credit will be allowed for them in the
execution or remission of the sentence. The only question is,
where the consideration of these circumstances should be lodged ?
— whether in the executive or in the j udicial (and then in which
part of the judicial) department?

There is nothing gained by contending for a single case one
way or the other, when the sacred principle upon which the
objection rests must be driven to admit exceptions which are
destructive, at least to ordinary understandings, of its paramount
inviolability. Thus M. Rossi holds that a specific amount of
moral evil intention is the element which punishment has to
seek out, and which, like the action of an acid and an alkali, it
has to neutralize in every crime. * Ajouter quelquechose a cette

* peine ? Ne fut ce qu'une obole, cette portion du chatiment ne

* serait qu'un fait sans moralite ; le condamne ne serait plus

* qu'un moyen entre les mains de la force, un pur instrument.'
Yet M. Rossi denies to perversion of the will, {fonctions affec-
tives,) and to monomanie the protection given to lunacy. Such
a distinction can scarcely be maintained by the unauthenticated
assertion, that a party under these circumstances retains a latent
power of discrimination between right and wrong. An ignorance
of the law, it is likewise admitted, can be no excuse. Yet, sup-
posing in point of fact that the court is really satisfied of such
ignorance, all proof of an evil intention to violate the law surely
is removed. The substituted offence, — that of a want of due
diligence to acquire a knowledge of the law, in the case in ques-
tion, is one of an entirely different character and malignity. So,
a party engaged in an unlawful act, is charged with the conse-
quences of the act — not only those which he foresaw, (but, as
M. Rossi admits,) also those which he ought to have foreseen.
Here again the omission of the requisite degree of foresight, (if
we are to separate the moral and social evil in an offence,) is
perfectly distinct from a direct intention to commit it. A con-
fusion of these distinctions formerly condemned heretics to the
stake, and still perplexes many men in their estimate of the
degree of moral criminality attributable to the holding of this
or that mischievous opinion.

M. Rossi states as broadly as the most rigid Utilitarian can
desire, that social order is the end of society ; and, accordingly,
that society can make neither offences nor punishments, but
with reference to that end. It is an incalculable advantage that
conscience, as afterwards introduced into this system, can act
negatively only, not positively ; — not to create and enforce

224 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

human law, but to restrain and modify its severity by the check
of its peculiar operation. After what we have said, it is evident
that we do not object in one sense to conscience and ill-intention
being conditions in the administration of justice. Our objection
is only to the principle on which they are introduced, and to the
supposed criterion and jurisdiction with which conscience is
invested, for the express purpose of rehearing, and perhaps
reversing, on a purely abstract speculation of some strict per-
sonal expiatory proportion, every penal sentence which a crimi-
nal may incur as a member of society.

Within the limited sphere of criminal law we cannot admit
the existence of that separation between mahnor aland mal social,
on which the main part of M. Rossi's system is founded. It
seems to us to be employing infinite art to split a hair, which it
will take just the same trouble to reunite ; whilst it is only when
reunited that it can be of any service, or, indeed, can in most
cases be made visible to ordinary eyesight. As to immutable
justice, whether there be such a thing is beyond our reach. It
is an abstract standard in the hands of the invisible God. For
us justice can have no reference but to man; — to human conduct.
And that cannot be separated from circumstances and facts. It
becomes under the attempt a nonentity. Whether in its appli-
cation to man, the internal and external condition of its charac-
teristics be evil for evil, is also what we cannot see. It may be
so in another world, under God's dispensation. Natural justice
evidently is not so administered in this, where the wicked often
flourish like a green bay-tree. The wisest and the best men
have felt their want of title, as well as their incompetency, to
administer this delicate jurisdiction. The right, or possibility,
or use in exercising it, are all distinct questions. The right to
act on it, in this sense, must be made out by much stronger
arguments than has yet been ever done. Next, the possibility
of it must be shown, for nemo tenetur ad impossibilia. We must
have some sort of security against mistakes, when we undertake
to proceed on abstract and not social grounds. At best, too, it
is but little that man can do to introduce and maintain this pro-
portion. Our ignorance of the circumstances on which such a
proportion must depend, is alone a sufficient answer to any
declaration that we must apply it. Any argument which should
disprove our right to punish, except within the limits of this
proportion, would only tie up the hands of law, by disproving
our right to punish altogether, unless it could give us the satis-
factory means of ascertaining its imaginary terms. Now, who
can tell all that goes to constitute the evil — in this sense, moral
evil — contained in every, or in any human action ? On the other

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 225

hand, who can tell the precise amount of evil which, hy the infi-
nite varieties of human character, constitution, and situation,
any given punishment may inflict ? Yet we are now on our
right and title. The scales of Shylock are put into our hands —
a hair on the wrong side fixes us with the weight of blood. It
is in vain that conscience — (contrary to all fact) — is assumed
to he a sufficient guide for so minute a purpose. Public opinion,
or the opinion of the majority, is wrong often even with refer-
ence to much more palpable propositions. The risk of error,
in the fixation by it of moral proportions of this description,
as a preliminary to human law, would make wild work. In
case the construction of their moral thermometer is refei'red. to
the wisest man, who is to bell this cat ? We should like to see
the men, and afterwards to compare their notes on this subject,
one with another, were each English county to elect (by ballot,
if they liked it,) its supposed ablest metaphysician. A crisis
compels a nation to submit its political existence to a Washing-
ton or a Napoleon. Bat in ordinary times the public seems
disposed to judge of the wisdom of its lawgivers in a coarser
way ; and lets all other passions interfere, nay, often rule su-
preme, besides a passion for justice and for wisdom.

If we take a case, apparently the plainest, that of murder,
diversities rise up, which will push aside the application of any
abstract scale. It is in vain to allege that its moral and material,
evil are constant, and that it is only its social evil which changes.
M. Rossi admits that assassination would be a greater crime in
England than in Corsica. We cannot comprehend on what
metaphysical evidence or distinction it can be made out that the
crime, in this case, would not be greater morally as well as
socially. So of infanticide, (which is made so light of in the
Traite de Legislation altogether, and) which, notwithstanding
our severest eff'orts, is now reviving in Cutch, we cannot feel
that the moral evil is the same in a Rajpoot chieftain as it would
be in an English peer. So, when it is allowed that adultery is
a variable case, under the variations of mal relatif, according to
the different opinions pi-evalent in difi'erent societies, it seems
impossible that this variation should not tell again upon the mal
moral. This distinction, upon which so much of the detail of M.
Rossi's argument revolves, professes to keep open two distinct
accounts of man, as it were — of man alone, or in a state of
nature, and of man in society. We have never seen an attempt,
by moralist or publicist, at reasoning out a system of ethics or
ethical jurisprudence, from the hypothesis of a state of nature
upwards, which has succeeded better than Condillac succeeded,
with his statue or hypothetical man in metaphysics. There is
VOL. LIV. NO. cvii. P

226 Rossi (M Criminal Law. Sept.

no logical method of giving back to the first the sociable dis-
position, which makes society a matter of necessity ; nor to the
last, the obligation of conscience. The break is too entire. To
reason about man out of society, is to write the natural his-
tory of a fish out of water. M. Rossi changes the word right
into duty in his definition, and seems to imagine that he gets
a great deal by it. We do not see how. But his observations
on the moral order of society, — that society, and the justice
imposed by it, are a duty ; that the not improving it, as far as
lies in our power, is a breach of the moral law ; that punishment
is one link of a chain of means, whose final end is moral order
— appear to us no less eloquent than true. Our difficulty is
in conceiving where the diff'erence can rest, or what, at the best,
can be the possible use of it, beyond a needless opposition of
epithets between this system and one of utility and order, found-
ed upon the interest of society ; having general rules, as feet to
stand on, and general consequences, as our best substitute in
cases not reducible to general rules. Our view of utility does not
represent human nature as a blank sheet of paper, with a line
drawn down the middle, debiting and crediting pains and plea-
sures on the two sides of it, without distinguishing what may be
the different nature and quality of these pains and pleasures. We
admit the moral element as a constituent part of man's nature.
Like any other sense or faculty, some people are without it, and
must supply the want as they best can. Many, whose reason is
stronger than their passions, get on in this way apparently very
well. But its just rights and character have, as is usually the
case, suffered most from overstatements and unreasonable pre-
tensions on its behalf. Many gainsayers would come in and go
along with us to a certain point, if we were content to find in
conscience a peculiar source of personal security, dignity, and
satisfaction. The average difference, in this respect, between a
conscientious and an unconscientious person, may show the
value and use of conscience, when thus limited and circumscri-
bed. The further question is perfectly distinct, and depends, as
a matter of evidence, on observation, and on a comparison of
facts of another order ; namely, whether taking counsel of uti-
lity or of conscience is the best means of getting at a rule of civil
conduct, more especially in respect of the arduous rules con-
nected with criminal jurisprudence.

In the remarks we are about to make upon a doctrine which
seems to us to be most pernicious, we cannot charge it as an
exclusive consequence on M. Rossi's principle. He need not
be surprised that there should exist such a delightful harmony
between mal materiel and mat moral. It is just what we should

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 227

expect. But we are surprised, and think that he ought to
share in our astonishment, at finding that the advocates of uti-
lity are fighting with him under the same banner, in support of
the motto, that legal perjury may be moral truth. It was with
the most unfeigned sorrow and apprehension for the mischie-
vousness of such tenets, that we have lately read the following
passage, applied to capital punishments, in the leading article of
so able a paper as the Examiner. We are as anxious as any
body can be, that our system of capital punishments should be
carefully revised ; but dread that the propriety of this measure
should be enforced by arguments which, compounded of Jesuitry
and enthusiasm, must go to shake the foundations of society.

* As for giving verdicts against the evidence, whatever may be
' the enormity, a share must be borne by the judges, who, as
' Mr Bentham observes, were in the habit of directing juries to

* find the value of stolen property below the real and notorious
' value, in oi-der to evade the capital punishment; Jind who, for
' quirks and quibbles of law, have, in more than one instance,

* directed juries to find verdicts of not guilty, after the prisoner

* has solemnly confessed his guilt.' — ' For forms, with whatever
' sanctity they are clothed, honest men will not sacrifice the object
' for which such forms were directed. The object of the juror's

* office is justice, and if the law endeavours to make him an

* instrument of legal murder, the paramount social principle

* releases him from his oath.' M. Rossi holds similar language.
The particular application of the following paragraph refers to the
case where the judge or jury (if there is one) are convinced that
the reason and the will of the prisoner were not concurring in
the physical act which he has committed. In this point of view,
the main value of a jury seems in his opinion to be placed. For
the jury is called the conscience of society, and it is on this rebel-
lion of juries against the law, that he apparently relies for its
progressive and compulsory improvement. ' Le juge qui, dans
' un tel cas, condamnerait I'accuse, trahirait sa conscience et se
' rendrait moralement coupable d'un crime. Nulle loi n'est ob-
' ligatoire dans ce cas. Le legislateur, en passant sous silence
' une cause de justification, a commis un oubli au detriment de

* I'innocence, ou il a voulu commander une iniquite. Dans le
' premier cas, on doit reparer son oubli ; dans le second, on ne

* doit pas obeir.'— (Vol. iii. p. 291.)

Offences committed during intoxication fall immediately with-
in this privilege ; but of course the benefit of it must extend as
far as the revelations of conscience on the part of a juror may
carry him. There can be no intermediate point with substance
enough about it to give footing to a single one of those thou-

228 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

sand angels, who, it is said, can dance together on the point of
a needle. Where a precise punishment neither more nor less
is imposed hy law, the same authority which releases a judge
or juror from obedience, in order that he may reduce the moral
equation to the proper standard, authorizes the same parties,
one and all, in every prosecution, to question whether an act,
which has been made an offence by the legislature, is or is not
morally a crime. So every civil action may raise the point,
whether any given legal right is or is not a right, by nature or
in morals. It was matter of long and painful controversy to
the casuistical doctors and civilians of former days, whether a
judge was not bound by the evidence produced in court con-
cerning the fact, although he might know of his own knowledge
that the fact was otherwise. Monstrous as that doctrine is, it
is not as an abdication of his duty over the fact, so extensively
dangerous as this usurpation of authority over the laiv. The
general consequence — the ultimate end — of such a system, is
worthy of the means. A pupil of M. Rossi's, or of the Exa-
miner'sj upon a jury, will subject such of his colleagues as
happen to have a scruple about their oaths, to rather unrea-
sonable terms. Strange battles and compromises pass in a jury-
box at present. But they must be flea-bites to the wounds
which these new instruments of judiciary logic would inflict on
the consciences of men and the interests of society. It would
be in vain that the eleven half-starved jurors of the old school
should represent that they were bound by their oath, and by
their duty to society, to find according to the evidence. In vain
would they submit that the two points, — sc. whether the fact
were done, and with what intention it was done, — was as much
of the case as they were commissioned to enter upon and decide.
Vainly would they object to take advantage of the general form
in which their verdict was returnable, in order to falsify their
answer on the only points upon which their country had asked
their opinion, and over which alone it intended to intrust them
with its power. In respect of every thing beyond those points,
they have no more right to condemn or to acquit than a stranger
in the street. Notwithstanding all this, A has resolved never
to bring in felo-de-se on suicide. B will never bring in guilty
on a duel. C cannot agree to convict under the game laws. D
objects to capital punishments in forgery ; E to the number of
shillings at which larceny rates the worth of the life of man. F
has compassion for the concealment of the birth of a bastard child;
G for the administering medicine to procure abortion. H belongs
to a club who have agreed that they never will set aside a modus,
or consent to turn out, what the clergy -hater, or rather the tithe-

1831. Hossi on Criminal Law. 229

hater, calls tbe black slug, to riot over an acre of English land.
K feels that the right of an heir-at-law, or of children, to suc-
ceed to the family estate, is a natural right, and his sense of jus-
tice will not let him support a will by which they are disin-
herited. L, on the other hand, believes that the will of the
testator or founder imposes a sacred obligation ; his conscience,
accordingly, will not allow him, on the ground of some techni-
cal objection, to be a party to setting aside an instrument in
which that intention is conveyed. These diversities contain but
a minute fraction of the discord and enormities which must
attend the successful delivery of the doctrine, that the letter of
the law, and the formality of an oath, are (in the language of
predecessors, who are allies in principles, and wore only a dif-
ferent uniform) ' carnal ordinances' — dust in the scales of pure
and essential justice. An open usurpation of this nature, of
the greatest of all rights reserved by society to its legislature, is
a much more dangerous ' accroachment' on national authority,
on the part of every petty juryman who commits it, than our
ancestors had ever occasion to contend against under that class
of arbitrary treasons.

We say not a word, and have not one to say, in behalf of
legislators who wantonly place the law in a condition where a
divergence between the legal and moral sanction may possibly
arise. But there is less excuse for moralists who multiply the
risks of this melancholy alternative, by carrying the principle
of moral duty out of a circle so plain and definite as this, into
vague and arbitrary regions. It is the bounden duty of a legis-
lature to avoid raising a dilemma of this sort, where it is possi-
ble to do so, consistent with the public service. But the choice
between the least of two evils, in several cases where persons of
equal honesty and ability may differ in opinion which evil is the
least, occurs in morals as well as in municipal law. It must
take place as often as it is necessary to select between conflict-
ing duties. If a man has been unfortunate enough to take an
evidently unlawful oath, it is void, ipso facto^ on the discovery
of the unlawfulness. This is the least of two evils. In a great
crisis, 'where the peace of a disunited kingdom is at stake, a
reasonable king, when called upon by his two Houses of Par-
liament, will put a liberal and enlightened construction on his
coronation oath. When a nation, for whom and to whom a par-
ticular promise has been made, requests its sovereign, by means
of its legislature, that he will attend to their wishes and interest
in the mode by which the promise shall be performed, such an
interpretation of a promise can scarcely be represented as the
least of two evils. Soldiers ordered to fire on their fellow-citi-

230 Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept.

zens, in support of an attack made by tbeir sovereign on the
charter, to the maintenance of which he himself had sworn,
may well consider that an exception in behalf of an unforeseen
indignity of this sort was implied in the engagement of military
obedience, or that a contract, when violated on one side, ceases to
be binding on the other. At all events, this again is the least of
two evils. But can there be any such exception or comparison,
in a case where, in considering the obligation of a judicial oath,
the alternative is, whether a single juror shall make or shall
administer the law ?

Mr Bentham criticised long ago, with just severity, the un-
guarded passage in Blackstone's Commentaries, where, in a case
of a supposed variance between the word of God and the law of
man, the professor informed his students, in so many words, that
the law was null, and that they were bound to disobey it. This
contingency, from its nature, must be comparatively a rare one.
But the present insurrectionary movement is directed against
justice in its very camp and sanctuary. In the thousand differ-
ences of opinion, which rise up on'points of this sort, it may occur
almost every hour. The division between legislative and judi-
cial duties, and the faithful observance of this division, have
been long regarded as truths of the last importance, and there-
fore of the most indispensable obligation. The very definition
and notion of law are otherwise ground to powder. Even the
creation of judge-made law, under the latitude of construction
which is almost an inevitable part of la jurisprudence des tr'ibU'
nauXf has been, in this sense, severely commented upon by Mr
Bentham. He has reproached the judges with the extension of
this necessity as for a great irregularity, — a violation of the
strict line of duty, by which they were confined to a simple in-
terpretation of the law. Every system deserving the name of
a constitution has a proper division of its powers. The legisla-
ture makes, the courts interpret, and the executive executes
the law. There can be no excuse for their interference, one
with the other, in their respective duties. Each receives from
society its express and limited department as a specific charge.
Oath or no oath, it is an abuse of power, — a direct breach of the
trust confided to them by their country, to trespass a single inch
beyond the very task committed to them. If we think a moment
of the sacredness of plain, above-board, unequivocating truth,
from its very necessity to the most ordinary movement of the
daily machinery of a community, the contempt of truth is a
serious evil. In the shape of an oath, something must be added
for the religious reverence, as well as for the magnitude of the
stake which society intrusts, in judicial proceedings, under the

1831. "SLos^x on Criminal Law. 231

confidence of this sanction. These considerations cannot dimi-
nish, but must increase, the obligation of obedience to the cri-
minal as well as civil law, bound, notwithstanding the sophis-
try of Sanchez, upon every enlightened conscience. As long as
the legislature, representing the community, keeps the law in
a certain state — that state must be understood still to represent
the public opinion and the public will. When any individual
puts his own private opinion (whether it turn out to be a truth
or a crotchet) in opposition to the opinion of his country, as
constitutionally expressed, it is no slight vanity in him to be
over-positive that he is right. Parties who doubt the compe-
tence of the legislature on this subject, should have the manli-
ness to bring forward their scruples at an earlier stage; and, as
Sir M. Hale is said to have done during the Commonwealth,
decline to sit in the criminal court at all. But to take a par-
ticular office, created for the discharge of a particular duty,
to swear to perform that duty, and then proceed instantly to
violate it, by remaking and unmaking the law at the party's
pleasure, is a proceeding which argument will find some diffi-
culty in defending ; and over which a conscience must be toler-
ably well drugged and dormant before it can go satisfactorily
to sleep. The only title on the part of a man appointed to be
a judge, or of twelve men selected to serve upon a jury, on
a single trial, is the same as that on which, from century to
century, the whole judicial authority of the kingdom rests. The
legislature, representing the people, must draw the line between
legislative and judicial duties. Among judicial duties, it must
separate that which is vested in the judge from that which is
appropriated to the jury. Whether the power of the jury might
be advantageously extended beyond the power of merely finding
the fact and the intention, is a question very fairly open to dis-
cussion. In case, at any future period, the jury should have
the right given them by the legislature of turning law into mo-
rals, we are satisfied that the experiment will never answer.
It was tried, and given up, in a court of civil equity. For the
Court of Chancery began as a court of conscience ; and was
abandoned even for the present Chancery, as the least grie-
vance of the two. The Star Chamber, or any other court of cri-
minal equity, would be even a worse speculation. We should
soon have speeches like those of Cicero's, in which the merits
of the case, as guilt or innocence, would be the last thing thought
of, but which would be solely directed to touch and to inflame.
Appeals to the passions would become the popular oratory of
courts of law ; until we ended by having as little idea of justice
as they had in ancient Rome. We trust there is no chance that
any English legislative assembly should start on this wildgoose

232 , Rossi on Criminal Law. Sept,

errand, and ever outrun the public interest such lengths as these.
Let that question, when some such legislator as Mr Sadler raises
it, be tried on its own merits. In the meantime, and until the
law has thrown open to a jury the door of an unlimited discre-
tion, nothing ought to be more deprecated than the license of
leaving jurors to scramble for whatever they like to seize, under
the sounding names of conscience and of justice — a license
which would disorganize society whercA'^er it was practised, and
must demoralize the individual who indulges in it.

M. Rossi is prepared for a cold reception of his book in this
country. In his classification of the philosophers of morals and
jurisprudence into spii'itualists and sensualists^ he states that
the latter have crept only very partially into Germany in a com-
paratively abstract form ; that they divide France, but reign
sole and supreme in England. However incorrect and incom-
plete their labours may hitherto have proved, yet the admission
that every attempt at the reform of the criminal law, during the
last fifty years, in Europe, has come out of the Utilitarian camp,
is no inconsiderable honour. We are certainly not among the
bigoted and out-and-out admirers of the extreme moral and
political opinions of this school. They often seem to us to spoil
a very good cause by their way of arguing it. But as far as they
are right every man should rejoice to follow them ; and where
they have done good service by their ability, courage, and perse-
verance, as in behalf of rational jurisprudence, they are entitled
to the gratitude of mankind. Our portion we pay with greater
thankfulness than it will probably he received. Had the Traite
de Legislation never appeared, we cannot but fear that the mal
social would have made but a sorry figure alongside the mal
moral va. the present volumes. The consequence of confusion
and of error in criminal law, may be so fatal, that the obligation
cannot be too forcibly and repeatedly urged upon society, of go-
ing no farther in our reasonings upon it than we can clearly see
our way. There may be in the background more refined and
comprehensive principles ; but as long as they are comparatively
conjectural, they cannot answer so practical a purpose as that in
hand. Any rational view of divinity and morality will, it is true,
give to these sciences the same object as jurisprudence has in
view. But a moment's reflection upon the different ways in which
the sciences proceed to work when they really come to practise,
comprises more than the difference of Pyrrho in his study, and
Pyrrho opposite a waggon in the street.

The misery which a man may inflict upon himself and others,
by diseasing and misleading the great sentiments of religion
and of morals, by means of erroneous principles, is undoubtedly
a consideration of deep interest and compassion. But society,

1831. 'Rossi on Criminal Law. 233

minding its own business, and keeping within the bounds of its
just authority, has here nothing to command. It must be con-
tent (and to this extent it is bound to act) with an equal and
steady protection, maintenance, and encouragement of the
teachers of the people on these vital questions. But, finally, it
must leave the specific truths in both these sciences to be crown-
ed in the triumph of free discussion ; and to be enforced under
the simple sanction derived in each subject from its own peculiar
sources. Thus guarded in deportment towards these great divi-
sions of human opinion and conduct, society cannot be charged
with doing any direct mischief; whilst it provides the best (and
without we can consent in each case to beg the whole question
in dispute, the only) possible means of whatever happiness is to
result from the discovery of truth. In law, positive law, the
whole scene is changed. Society has not the choice of standing
by as a patron or a looker on. It must act and speak as master.
Instead of exhortation and instruction, we have orders. Does
the citizen fall into error or disobedience ? In place of self-re-
proach, and the frowns of bystanders, — instead of the personal
belief, or the mere representation of others, that he has incurred
the divine displeasure, a man is met by chains and the gal-
lows. A difference so important in the means pursued, makes
it imperative on society to walk warily in this gloomy region.
The teachers of religion and of morals may be left to wander
over ransacked nature in search of their conjectural and debated
principle ; they may rise up into the clouds, penetrate into
heaven itself, or descend into the depths of the human heart, and
lose themselves in its long and dark recesses, ere they come out
again into open day. They are searching after truth — truth, in
one sense, of another and of a higher kind. The lawgiver
assumes, by the very fact of his solemn undertaking, that he
has found out the truth, within that limited sphere, and for the
special purpose, in respect of which he presumes to act. There
must be no room for doubt about the proper end, or the proper
means, when it is plain that the peace of a community, on one
hand, may depend on our decision, and, on the other, that the
purchase-money may be the life and liberty of our fellow-beings.
The responsibility otherwise would be too terrible.

The part which we take upon ourselves to act in this deep
tragedy, is too serious for hypotheses, subtleties, and fictions. It
will be sheer folly or hypocrisy to turn off with Blackstone to the
Mosaic revelation, for a justificatoiy rule of our proceedings in
one instance, if we do not mean to go through with the code in
Deuteronomy for the rest. Nothing is more childish than tacit
contracts applied to so practical a reality. Beccaria supposes
that a criminal is born with the rights of a state of nature over

S34> Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept.

his own person, and that he transfers them by some secret deed
of surrender to the community in which he resides. According
to the deduction made by Lord Woodhouselee and others, from
the progressive phases through which criminal law has historically
passed, they conclude that the right of punishment, as lodged in
society, strictly represents, nothing either more or less than the
right of vengeance, which each individual would have exercised
in his own behalf. This he is said, on becoming a member of
society, to have handed over to the officer of the public. Others
distinguish between natural and acquired rights. These con-
tend that the latter are the only legitimate subject on which
punishment can be brought to bear, since what society has given,
that alone is society entitled to take away ; and so on.

The argument in the Traite de Legislation, proceeds on a cal-
culation, (the well supported gravity of which looks like the re-
fined irony of Swift,) that a man ought not to commit a murder,
simply because, on the whole, he will get more pain than plea-
sure by such behaviour. The converse seems to follow ; and
the right of society to punish a murderer, will depend on our
being satisfied that more pleasure would have to be deducted
out of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by suffer-
ing the particular act to be committed with impunity, (not mere-
ly than society loses from his trial and execution, but also) than
the criminal can derive from the murder, on the supposition
that he is left at large. Society can make its scale (and does)
on a general average taken from human nature. But it neither
does, nor can, nor ought to seek to settle a proportion of this sort
in the case of every individual. The balance is as incapable of
calculation as that proposed by M. Rossi, and infinitely more
outrageous. The chance of making out a personal title to im-
punity as against society, rises with the degree of malignant and
demoniac gratification connected with the commission of a crime.
The theory which deifies revenge, and places it on the judg-
ment-seat, assumes that an innate moral criterion decides on
the right and measure of punishment on the part of society.
The criterion, according to this system, exists in the degree of
resentment which an injury excites, and in its unappeasable-
ness except by an * adequate revenge.' The theory of pure ex-
piation, holds language more consistent with what we pay our-
selves the otherwise very undeserved compliment of calling by
the name of humanity. It asserts not only that it is distinct in
its nature, but that the means exist of keeping it distinct in
practice from impure vengeance. Society may stop within the
limits of expiation, if the wants of public order can be satisfied
with a punishment short of the full terms of the expiatory equa-
tion. At the same time, the moral satisfaction of the public

1831. Rossi on Criminal Law. 235

conscience must not be disregarded. But society can in no
case, it is said, pass beyond this equation. Its right of punish-
ment is restricted to la peine morale, or moyen expiatoire. The
mode to be pursued is to fix the standard between some given
crime and its proper amount of expiatory punishment. Thus
the truth of the equation in retaliation, as the punishment for
murder, is called unfait de conscience. This proportion, there-
fore, being established in one case, the further difficulty simply
consists in the application of this scale, when we pass downwards
to inferior offences; and in making allowances for extenuating cir-
cumstances. Here is a ladder which we are called upon to climb,
whose top is in the clouds, and more than half whose rounds
are broken. Nothing of reformation of the criminal, nothing of
redress for the party injured, nothing of prevention of future
offences for society, is contained in this principe dirigeant of the
limits of criminal jurisprudence. They come in only, by the by,
under the social principle, we presume. Evil for evil — penance
in whatever shape — maceration in a hair shirt— all would be as
good as repentance itself; provided there was but the necessary
proportion of suffering maintained, as far as this one principle is
concerned.

Can reasonings like these satisfy any man who brings a sober
and unbiassed understanding to the enquiry ? The protest which
we put in preliminary to our criticism on these several systems,
assumes that it is not necessary to travel so far for an intelligible
principle which is, at least to our minds, conclusive as to the
right. It has the further advantage, that in no case whatever can
one doubt of the possibility and the use of its application. So-
ciety is necessary to man — to man moral, intellectual, and phy-
sical. Certain acts are incompatible with the existence of society
in any tolerable condition. Those acts can only be checked by
punishment. This is assuredly sufficient for a foundation, as
well as for a limit of the right. There can be no question con-
cerning the awful responsibility under which society exercises
this discretion ; of the magnitude of the trust ; and of the mul-
tiplicity of considerations which a due and patient discharge of
it involves. Yet Lord Woodhouselee denies that this statement
establishes a foundation for criminal law at all. M. Rossi ad-
mits that it states correctly the foundation, but he turns aside
immediately, and seeks elsewhere its limit and its measure.

It is easy to see which of these rules of conduct is simple in ap-
plication for the party using it, and most useful to society. The
fact is, (and is acknowledged by the only way in which their
systems can be so developed, as to be ever made to work,) that
before conscience or resentment can be trusted with a decision,
it must be conscience acting, not individually, but in legislative

236 Rossi on Criminal Law, Sept.

assemblies ; — it must be resentment, not as personally felt, but as
shared by the impartial spectator. That is, it must be conscience
and natural feeling corrected by the public for the public good.
Imagination and passion, without taste and judgment, might be
considered the sole qualifications for good writing, as reasonably
as conscience and resentment supposed to furnish the necessary
requisites for good conduct — to be all the securities which can
be wanted either in making laws or in obeying them. The motive
and the rule of human life must be kept distinct. Whatever
power these principles may claim as motives, they never can be
appealed to as a rule, except as far as they take the understand-
ing to be their assessor, on whatever subjects man allows him-
self to remain a reasonable creature. In the same manner as
the eye and judgment co-operate in producing the phenomena
of vision, (there are intermediate rules which act as glasses in
assistance of the naked sight,) so do conscience and the under-
standing co-operate in our insight into, and direction of, human
conduct ; and the last has no test but that of utility to appeal to.
It is the same, indeed stronger, with resentment. Smith calls
in the impartial spectator. Why is that necessary ? How is
he made a better judge than one's self in a cause, with whose
results and bearings we must be more intimately acquainted
than a stranger ? Simply, in order to get rid of the exaggeration
of self-love, and reduce the feeling within reasonable bounds.
The arbitration of reason, in such a case, acts, by bringing about
an approximation in a particular instance, with those effects
which the happiness of society requires. As much reference to
the elements of conscience and resentment is thus preserved,
as it can be desirable should be ultimately allowed.

It is not pretended that the principle of Utility, or any other,
can provide us with a complete security — such as shall prevent
all errors in its administration, and all crime by its result. There
is no such elixir in the materia medica, out of whose limited re-
sources a remedy is to be sought for the diseases of society. A
panacea of this kind is too inconsistent with the ignorance and
infirmity of human nature for the boldest charlatan to advertise
it. But the principle of utility is simple : it is intelligible to,
and, as far as it goes, is comparatively manageable by all capaci-
ties, under the guidance of those general rules which represent
the condensed experience of ages ; it is specifically adapted to
the complaint ; lastly, it contains in itself no unknown element
which may, in careless hands, or in certain constitutions, produce
more evil than it is intended to remove. Unlike resentment, it
raises no cry for victims ; but sensible of the delicate ground over
which it moves, and of all the unseen circumstances which may
morally extenuate an offence, (when externally the most inju-

1831. Hossi on Criminal Law. 237

rious,) it is touched with a human compassion even for the cri-
minals, whose condemnation is imperatively required by the
severe necessity of public order. Unlike expiation, it shrinks
from the infliction of evil on the score of evil. It knows that
crimes carry with them their own punishments as necessarily as
the form its shadow ; and that the criminal has really done a
much deeper injury to himself in his own nature, than it was
within his possible power to do to society. Accordingly it must
feel, that the terms of this supposed equation, (as far as it can
presume to guess on so mysterious a subject,) are already amply
and fearfully settled the other way. But though human justice
decline to be personified by the Eumenides of Mythology, with
snakes coiled around its brow, or by a confessor in his cell, who
settles cases of conscience as a debt, and clears off moral guilt by
the short balance of so much evil done by the per contra of so
much evil to be suffered, it has a nobler and easier duty to per-
form in the preservation of the public peace.

Justice, identified with the happiness of the millions whom
it governs, listens to no individual feeling — pursues no partial
interest. It would abdicate its whole charge and dignity, were
it to fall back from its public duty upon these comparatively pri-
vate considerations. It cannot stoop to seek the gratification
of malignant passion — nor waste its time and strength in hunt-
ing after a mystical proportion for the mere purpose of add-
ing pain to pain. Its rational office is that of calmly watching
over and advancing the happiness of mankind. It remembers
that society is a great insurance company ; the duty of which is
to provide, as far as possible, individual redress for every mem-
ber ; and in such injuries as by their nature are likely to be re-
peated, to prevent them for the future. Accordingly, its punish-
ments are directed, not with the view of doing evil to the party
who has committed the injury, but of doing good to the party or
community which has sustained it. Restitution, reparation, re-
formation, and example, are the real debts which it is its object
to teach the criminal that he owes society. Aware, painfully
aware, how little the best society has steadily attempted even,
and how much less it has effected, towards the reduction of
human offences to the lowest average which our nature and con-
dition are likely to admit, by a preference of virtue to revenue,
by measures of gentle but salutary precaution, by an interposi-
tion against the fluctuations and pressure of extreme want, by
the light of education, by a humanizing and superintending in-
tercourse between the different classes of society, which would
bespeak a common interest in the recognition of a common nature
— aware of all this, and of a great deal more, justice may well
feel the deep responsibility of mercy, to which she is also conse-

238 Rossi <m Criminal Law, Sept.

crated by her office. Whilst, therefore, the only direct commu-
nication which, on the part of society, she has to make to that
unfortunate class, out of which criminals for the most part are
recruited, is one of rebuke and menace, solemnly will she take
heed that the wellbeing of the great body of the people is the
only consideration which she puts into her equal scales ; and that
the words of her mouth are — what alone in such a case become
the representative of society — the words of humanity and reason.

Art. X. — 1. The State of Protestantism in Germany, hei7ig the
Substance of Four Discourses preached before the University of
Cambridge. By the Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. Second
edition, enlarged. 8vo. London, 1829.

2. An Historical Enquiry into the probable Causes of the Ra-
tionalist Character, lately predominant in the Theology of Ger-
many. By E. B, PusEY, M.A. Regius Professor of Hebrew
in the University of Oxford. 8vo. 1828.

3. An Historical Enquiry, &;c. Part the Second; containing
an Explanation of the Views misconceived by Mr Rose, and

further Illustrations. By E. B. Pusey. 1830.

4. Six Sermons on the Study of the Holy Scriptures, preached
before the University of Cambridge in the years 1827 and 1828 ;
to which are annexed Two Dissertations ; the first on the Reason-
ableness of the Orthodox Views of Christianity, as opposed to
the Rationalism of Germany ; the second on P?vphecy, with an
original Exposition of the Book of Revelation, shotving that the
whole of that remarkable Prophecy has long ago been fulfilled.
By the Rev. S. Lee, B.D. D.D. Professor of Arabic in the
University of Cambridge. 8vo. 1830.

IT is, we think, high time for the well-paid champions of Or-
thodoxy in this country, to awake from the dignified slum-
bers in which it is their delight to indulge, and to take some
notice of those incursions into their sacred territory, which the
theologians of Germany have been so long permitted, without
any repulse, to make. We are assured by Shakspeare, that

< dainty bits

Make rich the ribs, but bankerout the wits ;'
nor could we ask a much more pregnant proof of this fact, than
the striking contrast which exists between the poor, active, stu-
dious, and inquisitive theologians of Germany, and the sleek,
somnolent, and satisfied divines of the Church of England. The
priests of Egypt, we are told, abstained from drinking the water
of the Nile, because they found it too fattening ; — the Pactolus

1831. State of Protestantism in Germany. 239

of the Church also fattens, but it is not abstained from ; and the
consequence is, that our portly sentinels slumber on their posts,
while the lean theologues of Halle and Gottingen carry away
all the glory of the field.

Among the lower ranks, indeed, of the English clergy, that
sharpener of the wits, poverty, is not wanting. But so strict
is the watch kept over their orthodoxy by their superiors, and
so promptly does the episcopal eye, awake only to innovation, —
mark out for reproof and punishment every movement of free
enquiry by which the general compromise of belief throughout
the church may be disturbed, that the few among those lower
expectants of patronage, who have either learning or leisure for
theological disquisitions, think it most prudent not to enter into
them ; and accordingly, on all the great questions agitated by
the German Rationalists, a * sacred silence,' like that which
Basil and others of the Fathers tell us was maintained, respecting
her dogmas, by the Primitive Church, reigns with almost equal
profoundness throughout that hallowed domain which reposes
within the fence of the Thirty-nine Articles.

It is the opinion, indeed, of the Rev. Mr Rose, whose work
on Rationalism is now before us, that to the want of a regular
Episcopacy, like that of the English Church, as well as to the
absence of those curbs upon the restiveness of private judgment,
which a compulsory subscription of certain Articles of Faith
imposes, the very erratic course into which German Theology
has extravagated, is, in a great measure, to be attributed. In
this respect, he says, ' there is a marked difference between our
' Church and these Prostestant Churches.' We are inclined to
doubt, however, whether that implicit acquiescence in a com-
mon symbol of faith which diffuses so halcyon a calm over the
surface of our Church Establishment, has not been brought
about by appeals to far more worldly feelings than Mr Rose
would willingly admit to exist in his reverend brotherhood ; and
we find ourselves strengthened not a little in this view of the
matter, by having observed that, in proportion as the Church
has become more rich and powerful, less of the ' old leaven of
' innovations' has mixed perceptibly with the mass ; so that, by
a result which sounds more miraculous than it really is, our
establishment has gone on improving in Unity^ in proportion as
it has more and more abounded in Pluralities.

With respect to the efficacy of Confessions of Faith in produ-
cing uniformity of belief, it may safely be asserted, that no for-
mula of this nature has ever been constructed, out of which easy
and pliant consciences could not find some plausible loophole
of escape. Among the Germans themselves subscription has,
we believe, been always required, to what they call the Sym-

240 State of Protestantism in Germany. Sept.

bolic Books in the Lutheran Church, and to the Heidelburg
Catechism in the Keformed Churches. In the former of these
two professions of faith, an opening was indeed left, of which
the free-thinking divines of Germany have most abundantly
availed themselves, and to which Mr Rose imputes the blame
of having been one of the main inlets through which the flood
of heresy, that has, if we may so say, unchristianized their
Church, found admission. Their Symbolic Books, hes ays, were
subscribed ' only in as far as they agree with Scripture — a quali-

* fication, which obviously bestows on the ministry the most
' perfect liberty of believing and teaching whatever their own

* fancy may suggest.' In attributing, however, to this elastic

* quatenus' in the creed of the Lutherans, so much of that perilous
matter which has been introduced into their Church, the reve-
rend gentleman must, we think, have forgotten the Sixth Ar-
ticle of those he himself has subsci'ibed ; sanctioning virtually,
as it appears to us, the same latitude of interpretation and dis-
sent : ' Holy Scripture,' says this article, ' contains all things

* necessaiy to salvation ; so that whatever is not read therein,

* nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man

* to be believed as an article of faith, or to be thought requisite
' or necessary to salvation.'

It was, indeed, under the shelter of this commodious clause,
that the Jortins, Claytons, Blackburnes, &c. of other times,
when the Church of England was perhaps less afraid of the con-
sequences of dissent, and certainly less furnished with the means
of purchasing conformity, were left unmolested in their bishop-
rics, prebends, and rectories, to indulge in their own heterodox
notions, and enjoy at once the comforts of preferment and luxuries
of dissent.* Times are, however, in this respect much altered.
We should like to see the actually existing Rector of St Dun-
stan in the East, who would so far risk his chance of a stall as
to venture upon Jortin's rash avowal, that ' there are Proposi-

* tions contained in our Liturgy and Articles, which no man of

* common sense among us believes.' Even that enigmatic pro-
duction, (the work, it is said, of one Vigilius, a contentious
bishop of Tapsus,) which passed under the name of the Athana-

* It is tlioiight that .lortin had somewhat more than a leaning' to-
wards Arianism. (See a Letter addressed to Gilbert Wakefield, in-
serted in his Memoirs, I. 376.) That he was, at all events, not orthodox
on this subject, may be seen from a passage in his Tracts, where he
goes so far as to declai'e, that they who uphold the orthodox doctrine
respecting the Trinity, must be prepared to assert, ' that Jesus Christ
' is his own Father and liis own Sou.' — ' The consequence will be so,'
lie adds, * whether they < like it, or whether they like it not,'

183], State of Protestantism in Germany, 24 1

sian Creed, is to be included, if we may believe a late learned
archbishop, in the same inviolable circle of reverential silence,
by which all established and subscribed symbols are to be sur-
rounded. The same tranquillizing effects which the power of
patronage has so long produced in our political system, the hope
of preferment has even more successfully accomplished in the
ecclesiastical branch of our Constitution ; and, as a hot and head-
long loyalty has long been the sole title to any favours from the
State, so a blind and unenquiring orthodoxy is the one ' narrow
' way' that leadeth to all good things in the Church. Woe unto
the young divine who, like the accomplished author of the
* History of the Jews,' dares to reason, however unpretendingly
and sensibly, upon matters of religious concernment ! — on him
will the Theological Reviews, monthly and quarterly, pour the
vials of their wrath, and on him the golden gates of preferment
will, as sure as he lives, be shut.

Very different from all this, and, it must be owned, border-
ing on the opposite extreme, is the state of such matters in
Germany. The immediate effect of the Reformation upon the
clergy of that country was to render them at once poor* and
polemical, — to despoil them of their princely abbeys and bishop-
rics, and give them the choice of about fifty new creeds instead.
The history of the Reformers themselves, — of the course of into-
lerance into which these assertors of the right of private judg-
ment at once plunged, — the various standards of infallibility set
up by them, substituting (as has been often remarkedf ) a plu-

* Neither has time nor long possession improved their condition in
this respect. ' The richest member of the Church of Hanover,' says
a modern traveller, ' the Abbot of Loccum, who was formerly a Prince
' of the Empire, is said not to enjoy, including all his little privileges,

< (such as the inhabitants of Loccum being- obliged to maintain his

* horses and wash his linen,) more than 6000 thalers, or L.IOOO per

< year.' The same intelligent traveller gives the following account of
the celebrated university of Gottingen : ' The whole expense of this

* university (and, compared with other German universities, it is mag-

< nificently endowed) for books, salaries of professors, buildings, and
' all other expenses, is somewhat more than L.11,000 per year — a sum

* about equal, probably, to the incomes of four Heads of Houses at one
' of our universities.' Accordingly, as he adds, ' Gottingen has no

* good things to bribe its younger members to a continued adherence

< to taught opinions. There is no warm and well-lined stall of ortho-

* doxy. They believe according as they discover truth, and not ac-

* cording to the prebends and fellowships which reward a particular

* faith; r f

f Luther himself, indeed, seems to have been the first utteicr of
this sarcasm. On stepping into the carriage with Pomeranus, wlio
VOL. nv. NO, cvii. g

242 State of Protestantism in Germany. Sept.

rality of Popes for the one whom they had renounced, — all this
is but too freshly present to the memories of those who study
the strange history of Human Faith. Nor can we conceive a
much more curious chapter of that history, as illustrating the
tendency there is in the human mind to oscillate from one
extreme to another, than would be furnished by a full enquiry
into the process by which the Church of Germany has been
brought to its present state ; by which a people who once car-
ried their notions of inspiration so far as not only to maintain
that every syllable of the Hebrew Bible, even to its vowel points,
was inspired ; but also to insist upon having it believed that
their own Symbolic Books were every one of them dictated by
the Holy Spirit ; has been at length brought to entertain a sys-
tem of theology, which discards inspiration from the Scriptures
altogether — makes Reason the sole test and arbiter of Faith, and,
by divesting Christianity of all claims to the supernatural and
miraculous, robs her of the strong ground on which she has
hitherto rested her lever.

The task of tracing the causes which led to this singular revo-
lution, has, on a limited scale, been undertaken by Mr Pusey,
in two of the volumes before us i and until he, or some other
writer equally strong in German lore, but somewhat more gift-
ed, it might be wished, with ease and lucidness of style, shall
do full justice to the subject, we content ourselves thankfully
with the sketch which he has so ably and with so truly a Chris-
tian spirit given us.

The fierce divisions of the German Reformers among them-
selves, and the polemical spirit which was thereby engendered,
converting the zeal which ought to have actuated them, in de-
fence of their common cause, into bitter and unmitigated viru-
lence against each other, were, it cannot be doubted, (though Mr
Pusey passes lightly over this true fountainhead of the mischief,)
the original source of those abuses and corruptions of theology,
which the warfare of neighbouring creeds is always sure to gene-
rate ; and which, in this instance, by making Christianity sub-
servient to the passions and purposes of party, had the eifect of
gradually lowering her divine character, and placing her on
ground where she was within easy reach of her enemies. Among
the causes to which this result is to be attributed, one of the
most fatal, confessedly, was the erroneous view which the early
Reformers took of the doctrine of inspiration,* and the forced

was about to introduce liim to the Pope's nuncio, he said, laughingly,

* Here sit the Pope of Germany and Cardinal Ponieranus.' ^f |

* That tlie warning, however, has been thrown away, is proved by

^uch declarations as the following ;— * After all; the ^iWe is the in-

1831. State of Protestantism in Germany, 243

modes of interpreting the Scriptures to wLicli it drove them.
Having laid it down that every word and syllable of the text was
dictated by the Holy Spirit, it became incumbent upon them, of
course, to endeavour to reconcile with this unwise hypothesis all
those inaccuracies in minor points of detail which might be
remarked in the Sacred Volume ; and which, under a more qua-
lified theory of inspiration, might have been safely left without
any such effort at defence. In thus claiming, however, for the
least important parts of the text the same authority as for the
most essential and vital, they rashly grounded both on the same
evidence, and exposed their character for authenticity to one
common risk.

During the desolating period of the Thirty Years' War, the

* Protestant party-spirit,' (as Mr Pusey styles it,) which had from
the very first been sufficiently strong, increased in virulence,
and while it prolonged the duration of that struggle, aggravated
all its miseries. The only branches of theology then cultivated
were those that ministered to the factious spirit of the day, till,
at last, the page of Scripture was referred to but as a sort of
armoury, from whence the weapons of the respective combatants
were to be furnished. Hence arose a vain and verbal school of
divinity — or, as one of their own better divines characterised
it, ' an armed theology, pointed with mere thorns of logic,' —
to the utter neglect, both of Christian practice, and of the en-
lightened knowledge which should be the handmaid of Christian
truth. Ignorant of history, of sound Biblical criticism, of all
those branches, in short, of learning from which a prepared
champion of the Faith draws his resources of defence, the Divines
of Germany were, on the first approaches of scepticism, taken
by surprise ; — those Scriptural proofs, founded chiefly upon
scholastic subtleties, which they had found so potent against each
other, fell powerless before the common foe, and they were at
last compelled to submit to a compromise with the infidel even
more ruinous than defeat.

As a counteraction to this cold, fleshly, and formal theo-
logy, a sect had arisen to which the appellation of Pietists was
given, whose original object it was to re-awaken, throughout the
Christian world, some of those moral and devotional feelings
which the subtleties of the schools had nearly extinguished, and
to call back Religion from the regions of the head to her own
humble and natural home in the heart. But the system of these

< spired word of God, and we do well to lean to the advocates of plen-

< ary inspiration ; for there is no end to latitude and incertitude, tliere

< is no knowing where to stop if you once admit that a single particlQ

* is uninspired.'— Grant's English Church,

g44( State of Protestantism in Germany, Sept.

religionists, however amiable their professed doctrines, con-
tained within itself, from the first, the seeds of abuse. Their
devotional fervour soon abated into hypocrisy ; their pretensions
to internal illumination and divine impulses afforded a pretext to
the fanatic for every license of heresy ; and in the disgrace thus
brought upon the professors of Pietism, the interests of genuine
piety itself suffered. Among the practices which this sect held
to be illicit, were laughing, card-playing, and dancing ; and the
remarks made by Mr Pusey upon this part of their creed, may
be read, perhaps, with advantage by some of our modern
Pietists.

' The degree of value, however, attached to the abstinence from
amusements, whose character is derived solely from their inflnence
upon each individual, (the so-called «^<a<po^«,) became a source both of
self-deception, and of breaches of Christian charity; a deflection invaria-
bly occurring as soon as the abstinence is regarded as being in itself
a Christian duty. A legal yoke is then substituted for Christian free-
dom ; and things, in the first instance acknowledged by the party itself
to be of subordinate importance, become the tests of Christian progress.
It tluis became common to exclude from the communion persons
known to have danced, or to have played at cards.* The great object,
lastly, of the early school, the promotion of practical living Christian-
ity around them, became a mere external duty, and being consequently
pursued mechanically, alienated, too often, instead of winning to the
Gospel.'— P. 105.

It will be perceived from what we have here stated, that it
was by no means from any want of religious zeal, but from the
wrong channels through which that zeal was directed, and the
infinite varieties and whims of opinion into which the right of
private judgment wantoned, that the public mind in Germany
came, at last, to lose all standard of orthodoxy, and to be at the
mercy of every * wind of doctrine' by which poor human reason
Was ever yet * carried about.' So entirely, indeed, had they
exchanged the substance of Christianity for the shadow, that the
Bible itself, the professed oracle of all, was in reality but rarely
consulted by any. The orthodox teachers had substituted their
own scholastic theology for that of the Scriptures; and 'many very

* diligent students of theology,' says Spener, * who readily fol-

* lowed the guidance of their preceptors, and so were well versed

* in other portions of theology, and held diligently lectures on

* It is an amusing instance of the excesses that arise on both sides,
from the mutual reaction of two religious sects, that, on one occasion,
when an edict excluding card-players from their communion >vas
issued by the Pietists, a formula of prayer for Success at Cards, was
immediately published by one of the orthodox preachers.

1831. State of Protestantism in Germany. 245

* Thetica, Antithetica, Polemica, and the like, had never in their

* life gone through a single book of the Bible.' Of the utter
neglect, indeed, into which the study of the Bible had fallen,
among this earliest Protestant people, towards the beginning
of the eighteenth century, some idea may be formed from the
fact, that, at the great fair of Leipsic, at that period, in not one
of the booksellers' shops was either Bible or Testament to be
found.

It is not wonderful that, in a country where religion was left
thus wild and unfenced — intersected by so many various cross-
ways of doctrine, and without any fixed frontier of faith, the
inroads of sceptics should, on their first appearance, be suc-
cessful, and at once * win their easy way.' To the introduction
and study of the works of the English freethinkers, Toland,
Tindal, Collins, &c., Mr Pusey attributes the first strong impres-
sion that was made upon the already fragile outworks of Ger-
man faith ; and he might have added, that the title alone of To-
land's famous book, * Christianity not mysterious ; a Treatise

* showing that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason,

* or above it, and that no Christian doctrine can be properly called

* a Mystery' — contains within it the germ of all that system of
Rationalism which the Germans afterwards adopted. The flatter-
ing reception, indeed, which this bold innovator met with at the
Courts of Hanover and Berlin, after having been chased out of
society, for his opinions, in his own country, affords a stronger
proof, perhaps, than any that Mr Pusey has produced, of the state
of ripeness for the reception of an ti- christian doctrines, to which
all classes of German society had at that period been quicken-
ed. This avowed author of a book which had, in England,
undergone the singular criticism of being presented, as a public
nuisance, by the Grand Jury of Middlesex, found himself, in
Hanover, so honoured by the Electress Dowager and her family,
as even to be presented by these illustrious persons with gold
medals and pictures of themselves, on his departure ; — and at
Berlin, where the Queen noticed him with peculiar favour, he
was allowed to hold a conference, in her Majesty's presence, with
the learned Beausobre, the acknowledged object of which, on
Toland's part, was to call in question the authenticity of the
books of the New Testament.

To the still more direct encouragement, backed also by his
own personal example, which the great Frederick held out to
all apostles of infidelity, a more than due share of weight has been
allotted among the causes that have concurred to bring the Pro-
testantism of the land of Luther so low ; the truth being, that
isuch royal instances of irreverence and scepticism as were ex-

246 State of Protestantism in Germant/i Sept.

hibited by Frederick and his philosophical grandmother,* are
to be classed rather among the results than the causes of this
singular revolution, which had been in full progress long before
either of them existed, and the real seeds of which are to be
sought as far back as the Reformation itself. In the extreme
opinions and doctrines to which that great outbreak of the
human mind gave vent, and the strong reaction which, after a
long course of intolerance, they provoked, lies the whole solution
of the phenomena which the Church of Germany has exhibited,
— the explanation of every phasis through which the ' incon-
* stant moon ' of her faith has passed. To this reaction alone
was it owing that the busy spirit of strife and dogmatism among
her sects, was succeeded by the dangerous calm of indifference
and scepticism, — that the neglect and contempt of human learn-
ing, which had prevailed under the influence of Spener and his
followers, was displaced by the over-fastidious Biblical criticism,
and daring inquisitiveness, of the learned school of Michaelis ;
while (most fatal change of all) from the heights of that lofty
theory of inspiration, which had led her divines to see the dic-
tates of the Spirit in every syllable of the Old and New Testa-
ment, they descended at last to the opposite and deadly extreme,
of rejecting inspiration from the Scriptures altogether. This
last mortal blow to the authority of the sacred volume was the
result, it is evident, of a sort of compromise between Religion
and Philosophy; in which the former, pressed by the reasonings
of her adversary, and already half in his interests, consented to
give up whatever there was of supernatural in the grounds on
which she stood, for the sake of securing to herself his aid in
the conservation of what remained ; while, on the other hand,
the philosopher, thus imprudently propitiated by the sacrifice of
all that had shocked him in the popular faith, saw no longer
any objection to assuming the name of Christian ; but, on the
contrary, rejoiced in having thus ready formed to his hand a
grand scheme of moral instruction, by which, purified as it now
appeared, to him of all superfluous alloy, the true happiness of
mankind, both here and hereafter, might be advantaged.

Such, as far as we have been able briefly to trace it, combi-
ning our own views with those of the writers before us, is the
history of the rise, progress, and ultimate results of the system

* This princess declined the offer of religious counsel in her last
hours, saying < Laissez moi mourir sans disputer.' It is also told of
her, that on seeing one of her Dames d'honneur weeping by her bed-
side, she said, ' Ne me plaignez pas, car je vais a present satisfaire
' ma curiositc sur les principes des choses que Leibnitz u'a jamais pu
' m'expliquer.'

1831. State of Protestantism in Germany. 247

called Rationalism in Germany. It is right to add that, in the
opinion of Mr Pusey, and others conversant with the subject,
this school of Theology has within these few years experienced
a check, and is at present on the decline. How far this opinion
may be correct, we know not ; but, in a work published very
lately at Altona, entitled ' Fortselzung der Reformation,' we
perceive that the author, who is one of the Superintendents of
the Lutheran Church in Hanover, still claims for the Rational-
ists, if not superiority of numbers, a decided preponderance in
intellectual force and literary acquirement.

Of the general objects and character of the school, some idea
may be formed from the sketch we have given ; but the differ-
ent degrees and varieties of their heterodoxy, can only be learn-
ed by a perusal of their works. The fundamental principles of
Rationalism we take to be these : — That human reason, or the
reasoning faculty, is the sole arbiter as to what is to be received
as truth, and what is to be rejected as error, by the human
mind ; that facts recognised by sense or consciousness form the
materials on which the reasoning faculty is to be exercised ; that
human belief is then, and then only, reasonable, when the de-
gree of assent given to any proposition is in exact proportion to
the degree of evidence presented to the mind of the enquirer.

The Rationalist goes on to affirm that one of the most import-
ant among the facts to which experience bears its testimony, is
this, — that the phenomena of nature are so linked to each other,
that the whole, as presented before the human spectator, con-
stitutes a series invariably uniform. Every phenomenon is
found, if it can be examined, to be connected with something
antecedent ; every change indicates a previous change, and the
precedent and the consequent are always seen to bear the same
uniform and reciprocal relation. Hence the Rationalist con-
cludes that the government of this world is conducted in every
instance, not by an immediate^ but by an intermediate agency ;
or at least by an agency of which the manifestations always ap-
pear to be intermediate^ and to be regulated by the same unvary-
ing laws.

In subscribing to this conclusion, the Rationalist considers
that he is not acting an optional part ; but merely listening with
attention to what he deems the primary and indisputable reve-
lation of nature and of God ; to doubt which, he contends, would
be an outrage against his own being, and an act of infidelity
towards its author. When the history of a long extended series
of miracles is placed before the Rationalist, he replies, that
narratives of a similar kind are to be found among every people
whose understandings are uninformed and uncultivated; — -nay,
that the existence and the belief of such narratives are the inse-

248 State of Protestantism in Germany* Sept»

parable result of that state of mind in wliicli the knowledge of
the operations of nature is as yet limited and superficial ; while,
on the contrary, to one who is largely conversant with the
facts and laws of the natural world, no fact adequately attested
has ever yet been brought, in which these laws have been
departed from ; and further, that even if what might appear to
be an instance of this kind could be adduced, of which the
evidence might seem to be irrefragable, still, all analogy, and the
history of past errors on this subject, would enforce the conclu-
sion, that this apparent deviation was only apparent ; and that
the solution must be sought in our yet inadequate acquaintance
with all the parts of the process, and our inability to detect the
intermediate links of the chain by which such phenomenon is
united to the regular laws of the universe.

If, then, continues the Rationalist, I am required to receive
as true a history of a series of miraculous interventions, sus-
pending the accustomed laws of nature, and this on the attes-
tation of men of uncultivated minds, I am required also, at the
same time, to admit that there has been a strange subversion of
the order of nature ; that an incomprehensible change has taken
place in the human mind, and a still more incomprehensible
change in the divine government. I must believe that, whilst
man was in knowledge and reason a child, he had attained to
an accuracy of attention, a comprehensiveness of research, an
extent of knowledge, which is now found to belong to the human
mind only after it has been developed by a long series of educa-
tion, and has appropriated to itself all that the observation of
ages has accumulated. I must believe that man was competent
to judge of variations before experience had taught him to expect
uniformity; to become an acute observer, and a trustworthy
witness of exceptions, before he had learned the rule. On the
other hand, I must believe that God has changed his mode of
governing the world ; that his administration was not then, as
now, intermediate, but immediate — that it was a succession of
divine interventions ; that it was a suspension of the natural,
and a substitution of the supernatural. In a word, I must
believe, that while the human mind was in a state of childhood,
it had attained to more than the maturity of manhood, and
that the government of God was then parallel to what are now
the dreams of intellectual childhood.

It is easy to perceive that principles such as these, consistently
pursued, would conduct to the total rejection of whatever is
supernatural in the Judaical and Christian revelations ; nor does
the Rationalist evade this rejection ; on the contrary, he attempts
to defend it ; and a very large proportion of the works already
published by the advocates of the system, consist pf observations,

183K State of Protestantism in Germany. 249

philological, philosophical, historical, and critical, on the books
of the Old and New Testament, evidently intended to diminish
the reader's confidence in the inspiration of the sacred writers,
in the miraculous events they relate, in their divine authority,
and infallible truth.

Of the dangerous consequences of such an irruption into the
pages of Holy Writ by a body of men learned and acute, sin-
cerely honest, as of many of them it must be accorded, in this
their bold chase after truth, but still unprepossessed with any of
that feeling, as to the sacredness of their subject, which might
ensure from them at least delicacy, if not reverence, in handling
it, there requires but little reflection to bring before us the whole
startling extent. In pursuance of their plan of rejecting all that
is supernatural in the Christian history, they apply themselves,
of course with peculiar diligence, to explaining away the miracles
of the New Testament; and how familiarly and even coarsely some
of them grapple with this task, may be seen from a specimen of
the manner in which Paulus, one of their most celebrated theolo-
gians, has executed it. On the miracle of the tribute-money and
fish, he says — * What sort of a miracle is it which is commonly

* found here ? I will not say a miracle of about twelve or twenty

* groschen, (2s. 6d.) for the greatness of the value does not make

* the greatness of the miracle. But it may be observed, that as,

* first, Jesus received, in general, support from many persons,

* (Judas kept the stock, John xii. 6.) in the same way as the

* Rabbis frequently lived from such donations ; as, secondly, so

* many pious women provided for the wants of Jesus ; as, finally,

* the claim did not occur at any remote place, but at Capernaum,

* where Christ had friends, a miracle for about a dollar would

* certainly have been superfluous.' The miracle of Christ walk-
ing upon the water, the same theologian gets rid of by resolving
it into a mistranslation of the words bttI ryjg OaT^uaavg, which he
asserts ought to be rendered, not ' on the sea,' but ' by, or near,

* the sea.'

Among the modes of interpretation adopted by the Rationalists
for the purpose of shaping to their own hypothesis the events
and doctrines recorded in the Gospel, one of the most favourite,
as being one of the most convenient, is the theory of Accommoda-
tion,— a theory which, in supposing Christ and his apostles to
have adapted themselves, in much of what they said and did,
to the religious and national prejudices of the persons whom,
they addressed, throws a commodious sort of ambiguity round
their actions and sayings, under the cover of which any difficulty
that stands in the way of any commentator may with ease be
explained away. Against this hypothesis, as made use of by
Semler and others, Mr Rose enters his protest with consi^erablq

250 State of Protestantism in Germany^ Sept,

indignation ; but we may be allowed to say, in passing, that by
none of the German theologians,— not even by Professor Van
Hemert, who seems to have escaped Mr Rose's multifarious re-
search,— has this theory of Accommodation been ever carried
to a much more astounding length than by the Right Reverend
author of the * Divine Legation,' in his view of the numerous
compliances with popular prejudice and superstition to which
the Almighty, as he thinks, condescended, when (to use the
bishop's own extraordinary words,) ' it pleased the God of Hea-

* ven to take upon himself the office of Chief Magistrate of the

* Jewish Republic'

But, whatever irreverence some of these rationalizing critics
may have been guilty of, and however that most headlong of cour-
sers. Hypothesis, may have carried them (as it does all who mount
it) away, there seems to be but one opinion as to the unwearied
industry, deep learning, and, we will add, conscientious purpose,
of the greater number of these recluse and laborious scholars ;
nor does it appear to us to be denied, in any quarter, that, among
the questions which they have raised relative to the divine cha-
racter of Scripture, — some frivolous, some startling, some merely
ingenious, — there have been also some which not only claim the
earnest consideration of our own learned divines, but are well
worthy the attention of all reflecting Christians.

Among this latter class of their lucubrations, must be ranked
the question respecting the origin of the three first Gospels — a
question in which no less important a point is involved, than
whether these three Evangelical narratives are really the com-
position of the writers whose names they bear ; or whether they
are not merely transcriptions or translations of some documents,
relative to the life of Christ, which had previously existed. The
remarkable instances that occur in them of close verbal agree-
ment, not only in places relating to the discourses and Parables
of Christ, but in passages containing no more than a mere narra-
tive of facts, affbrd such strong proofs of the existence of an
original document, — a Tr^artvocyyETO^m, either in Greek or Aramaic,
— from which two, at least, out of the three Evangelists must have
copied their details, that it is now, we believe, not even attempted
to be denied that there must have existed some such source ; and
the main point of discussion, at present, is, whether it was from a
Gospel composed by one of these Evangelists that the two others
copied theirs ; or whether, as the German critics suppose, all the
three were alike indebted for their materials to some common
documents, which they found already in circulation, and from
which they compiled their narratives.

This discovery, for so it may be called, of the Biblical critics of
Germany, was first made known iu this country, some years since,

1 83 1 . State of Protestantism in Germany, 351

by a translation from the pen of the Bishop of Peterborough, of
the elaborate work of Michaelis, in which the question was put
forth. That a discussion affecting, in its results, even the claims
of the Gospels in question to inspiration, and supported, on the
heterodox side, by such an array of erudition and criticism, should
not have drawn forth from our beneficed theologians some coun-
teracting effort, can only be accounted for by that spell of ' rich
* repose' which, as we have said, hangs over all; and renders
them, as long as they can prevail upon Heterodoxy to keep the
peace witlmi their circle, indifferent as to what gambols she may
indulge in out of it. It was, indeed, not without good reason
that Boileau placed the dwelling of the Goddess of Sloth in the
rich Abbaye of Citeaux, where the light of Reforme had never
penetrated. The question of the three Gospels was again re-
turned upon the hands of the hard-working and hard-named
scholars of Germany — the Schleiermachers, Bretschneiders,
&c. — and with the exception, if we recollect right, of Arch-
deacon Townson's Discourses on the Gospels, and a stray, con-
temptuous notice or two from the young candidates for livings
that conduct some of the Theological Reviews, not a single re-
sponse on the subject has breathed from any of those oracles to
which we lay-readers of divinity are taught to look for instruction.
Nor has this arisen from any want of a taste for authorship
among the members of the Episcopal bench, one of whom has
been even engaged, — very innocently, we acknowledge, — in dis-
turbing with his single voice that unanimity so dear to the
Church, by upholding the 1 John, v. 7., which every body else
rejects; and doubting the authenticity of Milton's 'Christian

* Doctrine,' which every body else believes. Another right
reverend author, to whose enlightened candour, erudition, and
literary tastes, we shall always be among the first to pay willing
homage, has amused his classic leisure by composing two very
interesting works on the writings of Tertullian and Justin Mar-
tyr ; from the former of which our profane memories have car-
ried away the following short and playful anecdote, related, as
the bishop tells us, in Tertullian's Treatise, ' De Virginibus Ve-

* landis :' — A female, who had somewhat too liberally displayed
her person, was thus addressed by an angel in a dream, (cervices,
quasi applauderet, verberans) ' Elegantes,' inquit, ' cervices et
' merito nudse !' — This is all very well, and very harmless ; but,
in the mean time, while our bishops are thus culling flowers
from the Fathers, such momentous questions as we have above
alluded to, involving vitally, it cannot be denied, the nearest in-
terests of Christianity, — as troubling with doubt the very spring-
head from which that ' Fount of Life' flows,— remain unsifted
and almost untouched ; while such humble enquirers after truth

252 State of Protestantism in Germany* Sept.

as ourselves, are left wholly at the mercy of these indefatigable
Germans, (who will write, and whom we cannot help reading,)
without any aid from our own established teachers of the truth,
to enable us to detect their sophistries, or sound the shallows of
their learning.

The policy of silence, however inglorious, was no doubt suffi-
ciently safe, as long as the ignorance of the German language,
prevailing throughout this country, rendered the heresies of the
Wegscheiders and Fritzhes a * sealed fountain' to most readers.
But this state of things no longer exists. The study of German
is becoming universal ; translations multiply upon us daily ;
and we may soon expect to see our literary market glutted with
Rationalism. Nor is it only on the shelves of Theology we shall
have to encounter its visitations ; for it can take all shapes, —
< mille habet ornatiis.' It has, before now, lurked in a Fable of
Lessing, won its way in the form of a Religious Essay by Schil-
ler,* and glimmered doubtfully through the bright mist of the
' Allemagne ' of Madame de Stael ; — while a late rationalizing
geologist among ourselves, has contrived to insinuate its poi-
son into a history of the primitive strata.

Among the very few works this subject has as yet called
forth, are those which have been selected for the groundwork of
this article, and whose contents we shall now proceed briefly
to notice. We have already stated, that the chief object of
Mr Rose's publication is to prove, that to the want of an
Episcopal Church Establishment, — like that of which he is
himself an aspiring minister, — the decline, and all but fall, of
German Protestantism, is to be attributed. From this view
of the matter, Mr Pusey ventures to differ. He thinks it pos-
sible that a Christian Church may exist without the constitu-
tion, liturgy, or articles of the Church of England, and does us
the honour, among other examples, to cite the Church of Scot-
land. He is of opinion, that the superintendents in the Lutheran
church are not very dissimilar from the bishops in the Church of
England ; and he believes, on sufficient grounds, that subscrip-
tion to the Symbolic Books is universally required ; — the quali-
fication to which Mr Rose so much objects, being, he thinks, of
comparatively recent introduction, and very partially adopted.
He therefore, with a far more comprehensive view of his subject
than could be expected from an eye long accustomed, like Mr
Rose's, to rest upon the bench of bishops as its horizon, deduces
the gradual deterioration of the Protestant spirit in Germany to
causes, some of them even anterior to the formation of Protestant

* < The Finding of Moses ;'— a little Essay, full of eloquence and
Jiationalistti.

1831. State of Protestantism in Germany, 253

communities into a Church, and most of them, we should our-
selves add, too deep and strong for any form of church discipline
whatever to have controlled. This use of his reasoning powers
by the Oxford Professor, could not do otherwise than give mor-
tal offence to Mr Rose, — both because he is himself (in more
senses than one) an Anti-Rationalist, and because he foresaw
danger therefrom to his own much-loved theory. Accordingly,
without loss of time or anger, he sends forth a reply to Mr Pusey,
which, for ill temper and unfairness, — for the prodigal use of what
Warburton calls * hard words and soft arguments,' — has few
parallels that we know of in the range even of theological con-
troversy. For lack of seemlier modes of warfare, he has even
resorted to that cry of ' heresy !* in which the defeated cham-
pions of State doctrines have always a sure resource ; and, in the
face not only of declarations, but of sound proofs of Christian
orthodoxy, on the part of Mr Pusey, more than intimates that
the historian of Rationalism is himself a Rationalist. To this
attack Mr Pusey has replied, in a second volume on the state of
German Protestantism, and in which, with a style much im-
proved, and stores of learning still unexhausted, he developes
still further his own views of this important subject; and answers
the cavils and insinuations of his angry assailant with a degree
of dignity, firmness, and impertuibable urbanity, which cannot
fail to inspire his readers with the sincerest admiration.

Of the thick octavo volume of Professor Lee, the only portions
that come within the scope of our present notice are his ' Dis-
* sertation on the Views and Principles of the Modern Ration-
' alists of Germany,' and his criticisms on two distinguished
ornaments of that school — Bertholdt and Gesenius. That Pro-
fessor Lee is a very learned person, we are not inclined to doubt ;
but he would make but a sorry figure, we suspect, in the hands
of the theologians of Halle. For his Chaldaic we have, of course,
infinite respect ; but must confess, that were we to judge him
by his English, it would be with some difficulty we should keep
out of our heads that unlucky French couplet —

' Peutetre, en Latin, c'est un grand personnage,
Mais, en Fran^ais, c'est un,' &c. &c.

In this gentleman's criticisms on the Christologia Judceorum
of Bertholdt, it gives us no very promising notion of his fami-
liarity with the works of the author whom he pretends to criti-
cise, to find him avowing his inability to cite Bertholdt's inter-
pretation of the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah ;
and this for the very simple and intelligible reason, that he did
not know where to find it. Out of this difficulty we think it
but charitable to help the learned Professor, by referring him as

254 State of Protestantism in Germany^, BmI/!~ . 'Slept.

well to a distinct essay of Berthoklt on the subject, as to the third
part of this writer's Treatise, De Ortu Theologies HehrtBorum,
at the end of which Mr Lee will find the interpretation he seeks.

We have, however, a much graver charge than this of igno-
rance to bring against the Professor, — if, indeed, ignorance be
not equally his excuse in both cases, — which is, that, in his
strictures upon the Commentary of Dr Gesenius on Isaiah, he
has, in one instance, totally misrepresented the opinions of that
learned commentator ; and this injustice is the less excusable, as,
in the novelty and boldness of the German's theories, there may
be found abundance of heterodox points to attack, without thus
falsely charging him with any others.

In his observations on the 52d and 53d chapters of Isaiah,
Gesenius contends, in opposition to the general opinion of
Christians of all ages, and of many among the Jews themselves,
that these passages cannot be interpreted as a direct prophecy
of the Messiah ; and having proved, as he thinks, by a series of
elaborate arguments, that the commonly received interpretation
is to be rejected, he next enters into an enquiry as to the inter-
pretation that ought to be substituted in its place. The conclu-
sion he comes to at last is, that, in those passages where the Pro-
phet speaks of the Servant of the Lord, he had in view not any one
particular person, past, present, or future, but the body or aggre-
gate of the prophets of the Lord collectively considered ; — in
other words, the Prophetic Order, which he thus personifies,
describing their wrongs and their hopes as the wrongs and hopes
of an individual, lamenting the long series of suffering, insult,
and persecution they had endured, and looking forward with
confidence to their future vindication and triumph.

With the arguments by which Dr Gesenius endeavours to
sustain this hypothesis, we have no concern at present, — except
to say that they appear to us, on the whole, strained and unsa-
tisfactory. Such, however, is his deliberate view of the prophecy,
and he has declared it as explicitly as words can speak. In the
face of all this, Professor Lee, — having taken pains, as he with
much simplicity tells us, to ' ascertain' exactly the opinion of
Gesenius, — comes forward and attributes to him an interpret.a-
tion of the passage totally different from that which he has thus
plainly and distinctly enounced. ' The Servant of the Lord here

* mentioned,' says Mr Lee, * is, according to Gesenius^ s comment,

* the Prophet Isaiah.' Now, not only is it the fact that this
interpretation is not that of Gesenius, but it will be seen that
Gesenius himself has taken great pains to prove that the passage
cannot be applied to Isaiah ; and for proof of this, we refer to
liis work; where various interpretations of the passage, and it«s

1831. State of Protestantism VI Germamj, 255

applications to Uzziab, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah,
are successively examined and rejected, (Part Second, p. 171.)
We should be inclined to consider this misrepresentation as
merely a blunder of ignorance, had not Mr Lee turned it to such
triumphant account in taunting and exulting over his brother
Doctor.* He pursues, indeed, his fancied triumph through
several pages, talking of ' the marvellous inconsistency of Isaiah

* suiFering death by martyrdom, and yet enjoying long life as a

* reward ;' and exclaiming exultingly, ' I should like to know

* how this Servant of God could know that he was to become a
' martyr for the sins of the Jews.' This triumph of the Profes-
sor,— resembling, as it does, that of another valorous personage
of whom we are told, ' He made the giants first, and then he

* killed them,' — would be merely ridiculous, were there not
strong reasons for suspecting that there is full as much of unfair-
ness as of ignorance at the bottom of it.

We have already ventured to criticise the learned Chaldaist's
English ; we will now say a word about his German. In a
passage immediately following that which we have above refer-
red to, Gesenius says, * Die Rede des Propheten wechselt mit

* der Rede des Jehova so ab dass. Lii. 13 — 15 Jehova zu reden

* fortfahrt, wie in dem Vorgehenden : Liii. 1 Der Prophet redet,

* und zwar communicativ in Namen seines Standes.' The mean-
ing of this, according to our humble apprehension, is as follows ;
— ' Jehovah and the Prophet speak here alternately. Thus, at

* the end of the fifty-second chapter, it is Jehovah who continues

* to speak, as in the foregoing verses ; but, in the beginning of

* the fifty-third chapter, it is the Prophet who speaks, — commu-

* nicatively indeed, (or in the manner of one who is holding com-

* munication with others,) and in the name of his order.' We
shall now give Mr Lee's translation of the passage : — ' The

* speaking of the Prophet is here so changed for that of Jehovah,

* that, Chapter lii. 15, Jehovah continues to speak as in the
' preceding context : in liii. 1, the Prophet communicates in

* the name proper for his own station.'

Having given these few specimens of Mr Lee's capacity for
the task he has undertaken, we shall now dismiss him, with a
sentence which he himself has applied to poet8,f but which
strikes us as not altogether inapplicable to some prosers : — ' It

* is greatly to be regretted that learned geniuses do not make

* themselves better informed on these subjects.'

* Mr Lee, among his many titles, counts that of D.D. of the Uni-
versity of Halle, an honour for which, as he himself boasts, he was
indebted to this very Dr Gesenius Avhom he thus disfigures.

f Note Qn Milman's History of the Jews, p. HG*

256 House of Lords — Beform, Sept.

Art. XL — What will the Lords do ? Second Edition, 8vo :
London, 1831.

SINCE we last addressed our readers upon the momentous
question which still occupies the undivided thoughts of the
whole people of these kingdoms, the Great Measure has been
thoroughly discussed in Parliament, and has passed, after three
months of constant debate, through the Lower House. This
delay — this lingering of the Bill in the Commons — has excited
considerable discontent both within doors and without. * Why,'
it has been said, ' do not the King's Ministers take a higher
' tone ? They have a great majority to back them ; they have

* their Master's entire confidence ; they have the whole coun-

* try with them — then, let them feel their power, and show it.

* Let them, from the commanding position they occupy, dictate

* terms to their adversaries ; and not irritate the country by

* eternal debatings that can end in nothing but long delay.' Such
was the language at one time very generally prevailing among
the friends of the government and of the measure ; and we are
neither inclined to wonder at nor to blame it. But we think it
very far from well founded, and are convinced that they who
used it are now satisfied they were wrong; and that the Minis-
ters were altogether in the right when they resolved upon the
dignified, and candid course which they chose, and steadily
followed, unmoved alike by the clamours of their enemies and
the impatience of their friends. As all that relates to this Great
Measure, and its history, possesses a permanent interest, we shall
stop for a little while to illustrate our position.

They are certainly thoughtless persons who conceive that it
would have been either practicable or desirable to pass the Bill
as it was framed and introduced, rapidly, by the mere force of
numbers within doors, and acclamation without. It would have
been impossible ; for the ministerial majority, though pledged to
support the whole Bill, were only bound to the whole of its fun-
damental principles, and free as to the details ; they were men of
reason and sense, inclined to think for themselves, not blindly to
follow a leader ; and the constituents who delegated them could
only mean that they should be generally bound in favour of the
principle and groundwork of the Measure, and not on all its me-
chanism. Any Minister who should have been so impatient, and
so ill advised as to dictate the very Bill of the former Session in
all its particulars, in the new Parliament, would speedily have
found himself deceived; and might have alienated from the go-
vernment, and the cause of Reform, many of their most valued

1831. Home of Lords—Reform.. 257

supporters. But the measure itself was sure to gain by the long
and full discussion. Let it for a moment be remembered that
the Bill was no ordinary one. If the giving two new members
to Yorkshire, and taking two from East Retford, took, the one half
a session to succeed, the other as long time, and to fail, what
shall we say of their thoughtlessness who would have a Bill hur-
ried through in a fortnight, which disfranchised boroughs by the
dozen, and added members to old counties, and gave them to
new towns by the score ? The Bill is a Code of Reform ; each
line is a new law. It was essentially necessary to have each
word thoroughly sifted, and all the details behoved to receive a
vigorous and searching scrutiny, if the representatives chose to
do their bounden duty, and give the Great Measure a fair
chance of being practically useful. No man, no twelve men even,
can be found capable of framing a law so various in its provi-
sions, so extensive in its scope, without the risk of many errors, —
the certainty of many important oversights. The same kind of
men, — men actuated with a common feeling, holding like princi-
ples, and viewing matters in the same light, are certain to omit
many considerations which are essential to the right framing of
their own measure, and the effectual accomplishment of their
common purpose. It is by free and enlarged discussion, — by
bringing many different minds, habits of thinking, feelings, tastes,
passions, — all to bear upon the details of the plan, that light of a
useful clearness and intensity can be let in, so as to show all the
flaws and defects of a scheme. This thorough sifting has the
Bill now undergone. Nothing, in all likelihood, that any rational
person can even think respecting it, has passed unspoken in the
course of the last three months. Assuredly, nothing of any
value remains still to be said. Many general views of the argu-
ment on both sides may doubtless be yet taken; felicitous illus-
trations of the necessity and advantages of Reform may strike
other minds ; the dangers of the experiment may be painted by
a finer genius and with more of a master's hand. But to sug-
gest much that shall be useful at once and new, on the adapta-
tion or mal- conformation of the provisions, seems hardly within
the power of any assembly. The Bill cannot now be said to have
been hurried through the Commons, and to come unsifted, crude,
and unformed, to the Lords' House of Parliament. This is a
great advantage towards its success in that high and important
quarter ; and it is a great security for the good working of the
measure, if it shall finally become a law.

And here we must stop to express the admiration which we
feel, in common with all the country, for the distinguished indi-
vidual who has represented the King's government during this

YOL. Liv. NO. cvii. i^

258 House of Lords— Reform, Sept,

long and momentous struggle in the House of Commons. Lord
Althorpe Lad long been endeared to his fellow-countrymen by the
sterling virtues which sustain his honest, manly character ; and
had, by his statesmanlike talents, made for himself a reputation
higher than any which the more brilliant accomplishments of the
mere orator or debater can attain. He stood, moreover, in the posi-
tion so rarely occupied by politicians, of not merely not seeking
office, but of unaffectedly disliking it. The difficulty has always
been to overcome his repugnance towards any place of power or
profit ; and all men, knowing well the plain and frank sincerity
with which he had uniformly expressed his feelings of reluctance,
were aware of the sacrifice which he made to a sense of duty,
when he suffered his scruples to be overcome, and took upon him-
self the most thankless, and the most disagreeable office under the
crown. Those high and rare titles to public confidence were now
augmented by the extraordinary temper, firmness, and sagacity,
with which he fought the fight of the government and the Re-
form. His conduct from first to last displays a singular union
of those qualities. He was ably supported, it is true, by his dis-
tinguished colleagues, especially by Lord John Russell, the im-
mediate manager of the Bill. But the chief praise will always
be bestowed upon Lord Althorpe; and future times will look
back with love and admiration upon the man who could carry
through such a measure, amidst all the heats of jarring princi-
ples, and the turbulent conflict of opposing interests, without
ever once abandoning a post which he ought in honour or pru-
dence to have maintained, or making a stand for any point
which he ought to have surrendered ; — who, without the least
attempt to court his adversaries, or a single sacrifice to please
injudicious friends, retires from the contest, without losing one
of the latter, and without leaving in the field one man who does
not lament to rank himself among the former class.

A striking instance of the effect produced by such conduct,
has been presented by the independent portion of the House of
Commons. About 350 members, unconnected with the govern-
ment, have presented an adddress to him and Lord John Rus-
sell, expressive of their admiration of the conduct which we
have been feebly attempting to delineate, and inviting them and
their colleagues to a banquet in the city of London. So extra-
ordinary a testimony was never before borne to any Ministers ;
and, proceeding from affection as well as admiration and re-
spect, it may very well console its favoured objects for the slan-
ders which have disgraced some parts of the Press — the Sunday
papers especially — which enjoy, at present, a monopoly of scan-
dal, and espouse the ultra doctrines both of reform and anti-
reform. The country, which begins now to enjoy the prospect

1 83 1 . House of Lords— Reform, 259

of having a Parliament that really represents their opinions and
feelings, no longer looks with anxiety to the quarter we have
referred to, as speaking its sense, and no longer permits itself
to be urged by any efforts thence proceeding to injure public
men in the public estimation. The testimony so nobly earned,
has been given to the vigour and skill, as much as the admi-
rable temper, of the statesmen who are its subjects. All men
allow that Lord Althorpe, in the unparalleled difficulties of his
situation, displayed, on all occasions, a sagacity and quickness
almost intuitive, in deciding when to persist and when to yield.
Nor is there a man among those who, at one time, were wont to
assail him with abuse, which he heeded not, or weary him with
complaints, which vexed him not, that does not now admit the
extraordinary talent and judgment by which his temper was sus-
tained, and his vigour made effectual.

The Bill has passed the Commons by a very large majo-
rity ; and there remains the question, put in the front of the
tract before us, — * What tvill the Lords do T This is a question
which every man in the three kingdoms is now asking his neigh-
bour. On the answer he receives depend his hopes and his
fears for his own lot, and the lot of his children ; but on the
answer which the Lords will give, depends the sum of our affairs,
the continuance of our most valued institutions — the whole
safety of our state.

Let us only for an instant reflect on the first fortunes of this
great measure, that we may be the better able to spell its coming
fate.

The second reading of the Bill was carried in the last Parlia-
ment by the most narrow majority — by one vote. It was after-
wards plain that the minority had gained strength, and a defeat,
upon a subsequent division, proved the House of Commons not
to be favourable to the measure. With prompt decision the
Ministers appealed to the country; all the empire answered
their call; everywhere the people returned reformers to the
new Parliament; open counties as well as boroughs all but
close, joined in speeding the common cause ; freemen, whose dis-
franchisement was pronounced by the bill, vied with freeholders
whose importance was enhanced by it ; — nay, places about to be
struck out, in whole or in part, from the representative system,
were as anxious for the healing measure, as the cities which
were about to receive, for the first time, the most precious rights
of our free constitution. Nor was the general election marked by
any one circumstance more striking, or more creditable for the
people, than the abstinence of even the humbler classes from all
selfish conduct, or unseemly distrust of their more favoured

260 House of Lords — Beform. Sept,

brethren. Various attempts were made by the an ti- reformers to
obtain the alliance of those numerous bodies who received no
elective rights from the Bill — in vain. \ ain were the efforts of
all candidates to act upon Sir R. Peel's hint, and obtain the aid
of the multitude, by telling them they got nothing from the
measure. Vain were the efforts of those who practised the doc-
trines preached by another member hostile to the government
and the Bill, and, by a strange jumble of parties, co-operating
with the honourable Baronet. All was in vain. The people
indignantly rejected such offers of friendly aid, coming from
quarters so suspicious.

They said — at all events, the Bill promised them members open-
ly and freely elected ; answerable to a general constituency ; and
pledged in public to honest conduct, whoever might choose
them ; and they cared little whether themselves had a voice or
no. Our fellow-townsmen distinguished themselves on this
memorable occasion. Seven or eight thousand — probably ten
or twelve, may have votes, and more than thrice as many will
be excluded. What, then, said our citizens and their workmen ?
At least the old three-and-thirty will no longer choose the mem-
ber for Edinburgh, and job the place. At least we shall be
redeemed from the shame of a vast population standing by, while
three-and-thirty delegate to a tool of their own the manage-
ment of all their most important affairs. At least, and at length,
said they, we shall have honest and free representatives chosen
by thousands, and to those thousands responsible for the duties
delegated to them ; and, whether we ourselves may or may
not happen to concur in the election, our interests are safe in
their hands, and the hands of the electors. We cite our city as
an honourable example of this wise and magnanimous conduct ;
but wheresoever the stratagem was tried, it met with the same
fate ; and even the rabble asked those who, all of a sudden, had
become so careful of their claims to political power — Since when
all this friendly anxiety had begun ? The poor people were quite
astonished to find, all of a sudden, what affectionate friends they
had in high quarters ; but it must be admitted, they met this
friendly zeal with a moderate share of confidence, — the affec-
tion was very far from being reciprocal.

The results of the dissolution were soon perceived on the meet-
ing of the new Parliament. The Bill, nearly in the same form,
was again brought in, and the second reading passed by a ma-
jority of near 140. This was decisive of the whole question as
regarded both the sense of the people, and the progress of the
Bill through the Commons; decisive, if mere numbers be taken
into consideration ; but that is very far from being the whole

1 83 1 . House of Lords — Reform. 261

real amount of the majority. It comprehended almost the
whole popular representation of the counties. Of eighty-two
English counties, it comprised seventy-six ; and it left the mino-
rity wholly composed of the members for close boroughs, nomi-
nees of peers, and purchasers of seats from corporations. Thus
the whole House of Commons, as far as it is a real representa-
tion of the people, are devoted friends of the Bill. The country,
with a rare unanimity, are its friends ; and adversaries it has
none, except those who are interested in resisting it, and those
who, from ignorance of the true dangers of the country, arc
alarmed at the remedy, and shut their eyes to the mischief; or
those who, from a desire to change the Ministry, would throw
out a measure in which they suppose its existence is bound up.

But it is not only that the vast majority, both in the country
and in the House of Commons, is for the Bill. The anxiety,
the fervour — the unprecedented ardour with which the people
regard a measure in which their whole hearts are embarked,
renders the rejection, or even delay of its passing, a matter of
the most serious consideration.

The enemies of the Bill, however, have been flattering them-
selves that all this expression of public opinion proceeded only
from a sudden and transient impulse. The people, it has been
said, have been intoxicated by the agitation ; they are now calmer
and more sober ; the storm of reform has passed over our heads,
and no one will much grieve if the Bill be flung out in the
Lords. Other things occupy the people ; and the Great Mea-
sure, which a few months ago engrossed every man's thoughts
all the day, is already forgotten.

Never since the world began, we will venture to assert, was
there a more gross deception, or a more grievous delusion : it is
in some persons afraud — in others, a lamentable and inexcusable
blunder. The people had not taken up reform hastily, and they
will not lightly abandon it. For above forty years — near fifty,
indeed— it has been slowly, but with an accelerated pace, gain-
ing ground, till it has spread over the empire, and become the
great wish of every one who thinks of state affairs. A sudden
change in such a feeling was wholly impossible. The fact, in-
deed, of less being said, fewer meetings being held, fewer peti-
tions presented, while the Bill was slowly making its way
through the Commons, is undeniable ; but then it proves abso-
lutely nothing. The people were quiet, because they plainly
saw that their favourite measure was safe — only because of
this. They were a little impatient of the delays caused by so
vexatious an opposition as it experienced ; but the commanding
majority in its favour silenced all fears, and the only question

House of Lords — Reform. Sept.

was one of time. Had any thing like the vestige of a doubt ap-
peared as to its passing, we venture to say all England and
Scotland would have been thrown into immediate alarm and
activity. So, now, the impression continues, that the passing the
bill into a law, is a question only of time ; but no thinking man
can, without a great effort of distrust, bring himself to believe
that the Lords will set themselves against all their fellow-citi-
zens. Latterly it has been doubted whether or not this confi-
dence in the wisdom and patriotism of the Upper House is alto-
gether well founded. The interested feelings of some, the fac-
tious disposition of others, the honest alarms of a third class,
though utterly groundless, and rather directed to the wrong
point, had begun to operate, it was supposed, among the Peers,
and the obstruction of the Bill to be expected.

Instantly the people awoke as from a trance, and we have no
doubt that before these pages can see the light, they will have
given a loud and universal answer to the silly persons who
were pleased to think the reform feeling gone for ever. If any
feeling less wide-spread and less vehement be found than that
which ruled the general election, the difference can only be in
the reluctance of men to believe the possibility of so fatal an
error as the rejection of the Bill by the Peers. Should, unhap-
pily, that consummation be in store for us, no man can foresee
when the mischiefs will end, and no man can contemplate them
without dismay.

What tvill the Lords do 9 This is the question asked by all
the people. Suppose their Lordships shall be aware that all the
country is as anxious and determined for the measure as before,
and that it is sent up by a great majority from the Commons,
even as now constituted, but by an almost unanimous vote, if we
regard those members who speak the sense of any part of the
people at large, — will they venture upon so perilous an experi-
ment as to reject it?

We desire it to be understood in the outset, that we with-
draw ourselves altogether from those reasoners, and those topics
of argument, and of invective, which have represented the Up-
per House of Parliament as not entitled to exercise any free
judgment upon this question. By the constitution of England,
the Peers must concur in this, as in all other Bills, before it
becomes a law. By the plain rules of common sense, the Peers
must be allowed to exercise their free and unfettered judgment
in accepting or rejecting any proposed change of the law. If
not, the proceeding that affects to consult them is an insult,
and their existence a mockery. But we, assuming them to have
the power of free discussion, of accepting and rejecting the

1831. House of Lords — Refornu 263

Bill, appeal to their reason, and, in the existing state of things,
Ave expect that reason to pronounce in favour of the Bill.

We take the principle to be this : If the Lords see the people
to be in a state of temporary delusion, plainly acting against
their own better judgments and true interests, they are bound
to resist the perverting impulse, even though the representatives
of the people in Parliament shall have partaken of the frenzy,
and sanctioned the measure to which it has given birth. But then
even here one qualification must be added. The delirium must
be gross ; the people must be plainly in the wrong ; and the in-
terposition of the Lords must be to save them from the violence
of their own hands, as you would a patient in the paroxysm of
a fever affecting his brain. For, after all, the Lords' House, as
a branch of the government, exists, and is intrusted with a por-
tion of the supreme legislative power, only with one view — the
benefit of the people ; and it is quite manifest, that if the people,
all in one voice, and with sufficient deliberation, desire any
change of government, they have a right to choose the course,
though at their own cost and risk. Indeed, nothing which the
whole community desires, with its eyes open, can be correctly
said to be against its interests.

Suppose it were possible for the Lords to set up their own
separate opinions and wishes against those of all the commu-
nity,— then, as the Lords are irremovable, we should have a
complete and pure aristocracy, or rather an oligarchy, for the
much boasted government of this much boasting country. We
say an oligarchy, for a handful of peers, a few borough patrons,
ex-ministers, and bishops, may be all that stand between the
people and the object of their universal and ardent desires.
Suppose all the country, and all the Commons, and the Execu-
tive Government and its Ministers, all anxious to terminate some
long and costly war, but the Lords by a narrow majority are
bent upon continuing it,— must the Crown refrain from making
peace, because whoever ventures to advise it is sure to be cen-
sured by an address from the hereditary counsellors of the
Crown ? But why should we go out of the case before us ? The
supposition is extravagant, which would enable the Lords to set
themselves against all the rest of the community, and prevent an
amendment of the law, which all, save only themselves, demand.

It must never be forgotten that the Lords stand in a peculiar
position. If they differ with the Commons, an appeal to the
people is resorted to, as in 1784. But suppose a new House
of Commons is returned as much in conflict with the Lords as
before — shall the whole government of the country be thereby
paralyzed, and the constitution become an instrument, not of

264- House of Lords—Reform. Sept.

good, but of evil ? Yet the Peers caunot be dissolved — what then
shall be done if they do not yield to their country's voice?

The increase of the numbers of the Peers, is no doubt the
remedy which the constitution has provided for this state of
things. Immovable and hereditary in their exalted station, if
they forget its duties in the exercise of its powers, they may be
controlled by the augmentation which the Crown has the un-
questioned right to make of their numbers. This part of the
prerogative has been exercised, and successfully, and without
any recorded disapproval. Attempts have been made to restrain
its use, and these have al ways failed. Nay, when the extraordi-
nary crisis of the Regency produced all kinds of anomalies in the
constitution, and exhibited the spectacle of an Act of Parlia-
ment passed without the royal assent, and then the Regent
created by that phantom of a law giving his assent to another
by which it was validated, the power of creating Peers was only
restricted for twelve months. But Mr Pitt, whose precedent
was then followed, expressly declared, that no such limitation
could be thought of at a time when there was the least risk of
a factious combination of the Peers to control the other estates
of the realm, supported by the voice of the community; — an
ample admission that the prerogative is vested in the Crown for
the very purpose to which we are at present alluding. In truth,
this check is absolutely necessary to pi'event the government
from degenerating into a pure aristocracy. A peerage irremo-
vable and hereditary, having co-ordinate jurisdiction with the
other estates, must needs become master of the state if not so
controlled.

But though the right is undeniable, and though, in an extreme
case, it must be exercised, and exercised without the least hesi-
tation, and quite as a thing of course, there is as little doubt that
an extreme case alone can justify the resort to so severe a
remedy; and, as we heartily wish that no such necessity may ever
arise, so do we most chiefly desire that it may not come in con-
nexion with the measure which is to amend and perpetuate our
popular constitution. For nothing is more plain than that
the application of so violent a medicine, must leave behind it
serious evils in the system. The Peers will be weakened in
their authority incalculably, and at a time when the Commons
are exceedingly strengthened; so that the just balance of the
government will be shaken, if not destroyed. The country has
a deep interest in avoiding this extremity, and of all the country
the Peers have the deepest.

The question then is, will they disregard this consideration,
and drive the other orders of the state to this as a necessary

1831. House of Lor ds^^ Reform. 265

expedient to avoid worse mischiefs? This is really the question ;
and we desire to know — not from a few silly individuals whom
nature has endued with the faculty of speech, and whom the
ignorance of their own palpable defects sets always upon making
a display of their incapacity to think — but of the reflecting por-
tion of the community, above all of the Peers, what means they
can devise for avoiding such a fate, other than yielding to the
united prayers of all their countrymen, and passing the Bill ?
This, we are well assured, is the only answer we can expect
from those who reason and look before them; unless they labour
under some delusion, and either suppose the love of the Measure
less universal and less ardent than it is, or fancy that the autho-
rity of the Upper House, backed by the strong hand of power,
can keep down the whole people of three kingdoms. But we
will even appeal to another far less reputable class, and we
believe, at the present moment, an inconsiderable one — those
party men who, for the purpose of effecting a change of Ministry,
would throw out the Bill. We allude to those who have lost
their places, and failed to get their pensions, and, naturally
enough, want such a change as shall restore the one and bestow
the other. To them let a few words of admonition be offered ; for
even they would hardly desire to see all the mischiefs befall our
country which all thinking men foresee in the rejection, if their
own interest could not be in any way served by the convulsion.
Now, we are quite certain, that they would be injured, nay,
irretrievably ruined, by it. At present they stand in a very fair
position. Their talents, past services, and experience in office,
(an endoAvment much wanted by some of their successors,)
place them in a position to render their future employment fit
and desirable. All they have done of violent and factious against
the Bill, will, after a little interval, especially when the people
have carried their favourite measure, be forgotten : it was not
to be expected that such a change in the constitution should be
effected without vehement resistance in some quarters. A re-
formed Parliament would be far less under the domination of
party spirit, far less a prey to the regular divisions of marshalled
factions than the old legislature ; composed, in great part, of men
who only represented their patrons' interests, and their own
money.

The return, therefore, of the class we speak of — that is, the
better part of them — to a share of power, may be reckoned by
no means improbable. It will be one of the benefits of a change
which tends directly to put down oligarchical, and exclusive,
and personal influences, and to give the state the benefit of all the

M6 House of Lords^Re/brm. Sept.

capacity and experience which lie within its reach. But, sup-
pose the Measure flung out — let us see what chance these men
have of succeeding in their present hardly avowed object, of
changing the Ministry for their own benefit ?

Either the loss of the Bill in the Lords will lead to an imme-
diate prorogation of Parliament for a short time, and a new
attempt, pretty sure to succeed, in favour of the Bill ; or it will
produce the resignation of the present Ministers. In the former
case, no man can doubt that the Ministers are far more sure
of power than ever ; and that the day of their adversaries' either
supplanting them in office, or sharing it with them, will be
indefinitely postponed. But, possibly, through want of consi-
deration, they are reckoning on the latter event. We do not
deem this very likely to happen. We can hardly fancy any per-
sonal feelings of disappointment provoking men of sense and
integrity so far to forget their public duty, both to the Prince
they serve and his People, as to throw up in disgust a situation
which they fill with the entire approbation of the Crown, the
Commons, and the Country. We do not deem the voice of a
majority of the Peers, not wholly unbiassed by self-interest, of
weight enough to make any rational man pursue so absurd and
unaccountable a course. But be it so, for argument's sake, and
that the Ministers resign. It requires little knowledge of the
present state of parties in Parliament, suppose the country stands
entirely neutral, to foresee that no other Ministry can be found
which can last over a few months. Suppose a set of men are
found thoughtless and reckless enough of consequences to the
country and themselves, to try so hazardous an experiment.
They have a numerical majority of the Lords for them, and
that is literally all their strength ; for even in the Lords,
indeed far more there than elsewhere, all the powers of debate
are, without any exception whatever, (the Duke of Welling-
ton, strange to tell, being their best speaker,) arranged against
them. Why, the new government could not carry on the pub-
lic business for a single month, even in the House of Lords.
In the Commons they would have to face an immense majority
in mere numbers; but the new Opposition would, in fact,
have all the best portion of the House — comprising all the
county members, and all who repi'esent the great towns —
it may be said, all who represent any constituents at all. A
dissolution may, no doubt, be tried — we may say it must be
tried ; for a vote of confidence in the Ministry we are supposing
to have resigned, will assuredly have followed — possibly preceded
— that act of theirs. A dissolution will then come — the third in a

1831. House of Lords^Reform. set

year ; not a very pleasing measure to the aristocracy, or to the
enemies of Parliamentary Reform. But, will a general election
mend the matter ? Will the frightful convulsions of this scene
— a scene difl&cult to contemplate with a firm mind, when we
reflect on the exasperation towards the Peers and the new go-
vernment by which it will be chequered, — will those convul-
sions so far alter the constitution of the present House of Com-
mons, as to make a difference of fifty votes? We verily believe
we have greatly over-rated the number in calling it so much.
The new Ministry will have a large majority against them, and
this is an utterly incurable defect in their title to administer the
affairs of the state. The consequence will be, then, that after
holding power during a few months — perhaps weeks — risking
the public peace, making some promotions, granting some pen-
sions— they will be driven out under a torrent of universal and
violent indignation ; and all their pensions will be at once re-
scinded, as the first act of a reformed Parliament ; for the Re-
form Bill will then pass quickly enough ; but it will pass in
circumstances far, very far from being advantageous for its own
working, or safe for the constitution of the country. Before
attending to this view, we may observe, that the party men,
whose speculations we have been examining, will plainly have
lost all hold of the country and of Parliament. Their chance of
ever again being suffered to touch the public offices, or to inter-
meddle in any manner of way with place — to inhale a single
mouthful of the atmosphere they delight to breathe, will have
become as nothing ; for their profligate and factious conduct
will have left an impression against them far too deep ever to
be effaced. Some two or three men will have got their jobs
done — as a step in the peerage — a translation to a see — a ribbon
— a regiment. These can hardly be taken away ; but the bulk
of the party will rue for ever, in the bleak and cheerless regions
of lasting darkness — in ever-during exclusion from office — the
fatal blunder of driving out a popular government by means of
the Peers alone, or rather a bare majority of the Peers, against
the wishes of the King, Commons, and People.

Let it then be considered what must be the result of such a
measure as the present Ministry being driven from the helm,
or rather quitting it in disgust, — there being in truth no one to
drive them. We verily think that such a sensation would be pro-
duced all over the country as no time has ever witnessed. The
dismissal of Neckar in France would be a jest to it : his return
in spite of the court on the ' people's shoulders,' pregnant as it
was with fatal consequences to the monarchy, as somewhat of

268 House of Lords— Reform. Sept.

a parallel passage, may serve by way of warning. The degree
of favour personally enjoyed by the present Ministers is wholly
beside the question ; they may or may not be popular indivi-
dually ; they may or may not be popular collectively as a minis-
try. With that we have nothing to do. They are judged by
comparison with their adversaries ; they are revered as the
Ministers of reform ; they are identified with the plan which the
people have ' marked for their own :' and if this be their ac-
ceptation now, while in power, and exposed to all the inevitable
objections that must needs lie against every actual Ministry,
from unavoidable inadvertencies, errors inseparably connected
with all human management, above all, disappointment of
friends, — how infinitely would such favourable ifeelings be in-
creased by their quitting office, and quitting it on account of the
people's favourite plan, to which they should have sacrificed
their own power ? If they have made mistakes, these will all
be forgotten ; if they have incurred any odium, that will all be
changed into love. The very men of their own adherents that
have cavilled at them, will be thefirst and warmest of their devoted
supporters ; and but one spirit will lay waste the land with rage
at their removal, and the fierce determination to restore them to
supreme power. What will become of their carping antago-
nists ? Confounded, astonished, dismayed, they and their few
thoughtless flatterers — the little men of office, will be fain to
hide themselves from the wrath of three kingdoms, and to leave
the Ministers of the people to resume the King's service, and carry
through at once the Reform.

But they will return to that service, they will carry that Re-
form, under other and less fortunate auspices. At present they
govern constitutionally, with a due subordination to the esta-
blished authorities of the realm, and possessing no more power
than ministers ought to wield. At their restoration, — always,
with Princes, the worst of revolutions, always, with Parties, the
worst of changes, — they will stand, whether they like it or not,
upon the ground of the highest popular excitement, which will
have forced them back to power. They will be no longer mas-
ters of the course they are to take ; they will be driven onwards
frombehind — pressed from all quarters, except in face; thus every
shadow of resistance being annihilated, they will have a space
free from even the right and natural obstacles to such advance ;
and over that space, travel they must, will they or not, and at
the pace which may please other men, not at their own. ' The
* Bill,' which now satisfies and pleases all the people, will no
longer content them. Other provisions and larger concessions

1831. House of Lords—Reform. 269

must be added, to signalize tlie triumph which the most short-
sighted and the most self-interested of human kind will have
compelled the people to win ; and the enemies of the measure
will cast many a wistful look back upon its principle and its
details, and curse the day that saw them regret so safe, so mo-
derate, and so constitutional a plan.

Let not the Lords shut their eyes to these things. Let them
rather tax their powers of reasoning to discover any other alter-
native,— to fix any point short of this at which the contempla-
ted change can stop. Who can for an instant doubt that the
certainty of the Measure being lost, would rouse the people
altogether ? and still more, who can doubt that the loss of
the Bill for the present, coupled with the retreat of the Minis-
ters, would at once open the eyes of the community to the ut-
ter ruin of their whole hopes, as long as the anti-reformers held
power ? Every thing else of the picture above drawn fol-
lows quite of course. For let no man be so stone-blind to all
the signs of these times, and all experience of the past, as to
flatter himself with the hope of measures of Reform being ac-
cepted from the anti-reformers. We verily believe that the fac-
tious and place-hunting part of the Opposition, who have been
resisting the Bill upon the highest ground of anti-reform
principles, would not be a week in office before they abandon-
ed every one of their positions, and brought in a Reform Bill
of their own. Nay, they would probably, after their first
attempts had failed, adopt their adversaries' measure, and bring
in this very Bill. At least they did this, and more than this,
by the Catholic Question. But that same Reform would never
satisfy the people ; and if it for the moment did, swift destruc-
tion would follow, dealt out by the first reformed Parliament
upon the heads of its base and unprincipled authors. Such
' persons cannot expect to be endured long, by any community
of honest men, whose principles upon the most important sub-
jects hang so loose about them, that they can, within four-and-
twenty hours, shift their ground, and take to the tenets they have
all their lives opposed, as the most absurd and the most perni-
cious ; — thus dealing with opinions, not as sacred matters of con-
scientious conviction, but as common instruments of a craft,
stock in trade, tools to work withal, for their individual profit
and advancement. It will not do, thus to insult the common
feelings of mankind. The people generally look to the end, and
are regardless of the hands that minister to their advantage or
gratification. But some appearance of decorum must be main-
tained; and assuredly they would be revolted by so abominable a
spectacle as the present Opposition ejecting the honest Ministers

gTO House of Lords — Reform. Sept.

who have redeemed the pledges of a consistent life by propound-
ing the Bill, and then adopting that very Bill as the means of
maintaining a power thus obtained. It would be too outrageous
an experiment, and too hazardous, upon the patient endurance
and virtuous feelings of the world. There is a point beyond
which the community may not safely be insulted.

Our fixed opinion is, that the leaders of the anti-reform party
in both Houses are wholly incapable of such vile projects as we
have been contemplating ; but our remarks are addressed to a
considerable portion of their followers — men whose support is
little credit to any party ; such men, we mean, as those who, on
the Catholic question, only required half an hour to turn right
about, and vent their feelings in acclamations for the proposal
of a measure which they had flocked to the chambers of Par-
liament for the purpose of hailing with curses and abjuration.

This leads us to cast our regards back on the conduct pur-
sued by the House of Lords upon that memorable occasion.
Not suddenly, but within a ' reasonable time,' that distin-
guished assembly greatly altered the view it had ever before
taken of the Catholic question. July 1828 saw them by a vast
majority ' throw out the Bill,' as destructive to the Church
establishment, and subversive of all sound religion in the em-
pire ; saw them resolved not to be * intimidated by menaces'
-—determined to be ' above listening to clamour' — fixed in the
purpose of * never yielding to factious associations.' Eight
months passed away : the interval was fi^lled up with increased agi-
tation— more audacious threatenings — clamours a thousand times
more loud than before. Indeed, the marvellous affair of the Clare
election, which returned the chief of the Catholics to Parliament,
took place during the summer ; and next spring found all the Ca-
tholics more firmly fixed than ever in their attitude of defiance-
Yet was this the moment when the Lords wisely, prudently, ju-
dicially, patriotically saved the Empire from confusion, by aban-
doning their previous errors ; and adopting ' the Bill' — ' the
whole Bill', with an overwhelming majority of their Lordships'
number. After conduct so worthy of admiration, shall we not
do well if we expect them to follow the same course now ; — to
do their duty to the country; yield their own prejudices ; and
despise the fools and the knaves who would inveigh against
them for not sacrificing the peace of the Empire, and the stabi-
lity of its institutions, to a senseless hankering after a hollow
nominal consistency ?

The position of the Lords may be summed up in a few words.
There is no man of common understanding who now doubts the
Bill must pass. Even its most violent opponents have openly

1831. House of Lords— 'Reform. 271

admitted long ago, that Schedules A and B are their inevitable
fate, and that the reign of the rotten boroughs is at an end.
Then, can human folly go farther than to postpone the period
for a few months, and prolong the agitation into which the bare
announcement of this delay would fling the community ? Or,
can any thing be more certain than that, when the people shall
regain the mastery, it will no longer be the Bill, and nothing but
the Bill, that will suffice ? Half a year hence, it may be any
thing but the Bill.

Our reasoning, we grant, would fail, if we supposed the hand-
ful of Peers, and other borough patrons, were able to cope with
all the rest of the community. But this is so utterly out of the
question, that we have no wish to disprove its possibility ; nor
have we any adversary to meet upon such ground.

For the reasons above stated, our anxiety is extreme, that the
Lords may pass the Bill, and protect themselves and the Con-
stitution from the necessity, dangerous to both, of defending the
rest of the state from the combination of Peers, by adding to their
number ; or from the other far more frightful alternative of set-
ting up the hereditary branch of Parliament as an object of at-
tack to all the rest of the country. But if there be any part of
that House more than all the rest interested in the event we anti-
cipate, it is the representatives of the Church established by law.
If the Bill is lost, and if it does not most clearly appear to have
met its fate without the aid of the Bishops, that Church may con-
tinue to be established by law, — in the hearts of the people it will
no longer find either stability or even tolerance. Public opinion
may be right, or it may be wrong ; but that it is at this time far
less favourable to the Anglican Church than it ever was since
the grand rebellion, which swept away both the Mitre and the
Crown, is a fact not to be denied. The course pursued by certain
of the prelates, is a proof they deem their house in some jeopardy.
They are busying themselves with Church Reform ; two or three
bills are already in Parliament introduced by their hands ; and
an enquiry into the amount of Ecclesiastical Revenues and Emo-
luments is carrying on under their auspices, with the avowed in-
tention of pursuing means for their restriction and equalisation.
Is this a season when any thing short of insanity could lead
these Right Reverend Fathers to commit themselves in a
struggle with the whole body of the people ? Public indigna-
tion might be turned in the bitter disappointment of their hopes
against the Lords' House generally ; but the conduct of the
Prelates alone can prevent a very disproportionate share of the
tempest, and in the very first instance, from being poured upon
the compartment of the mansion where the Fathers of the Church

272 House of Lords^Reform. Sept.

dwell. From their wise regard for the best interests of that
Church, we expect such conduct as will effectually throw the
blame, should blame be incurred by the Peers at large, away
from the Bishops' bench.

The Lords in general will find themselves, beyond all powers
of description, a more important branch of the legislature, and
more beloved as well as respected in their individual capacities,
after they shall have yielded to the universal desire of their
country. We think not a word is wanted to demonstrate that
proposition. But we entreat them, if they doubt it, to look at
one or two plain facts. When, before, were the members of the
King's family, with hardly any exception, not only able to show
themselves to the people on all public occasions, without the
least fear of insult, but received everywhere with an honest and
hearty enthusiasm, such as no other nation showed, or ever can
show ? Every occasion of the King appearing, is like the coming
forth of George the Third in 1T88, after his first illness. Assu-
redly since that period, so nearly coinciding with the French Re-
volution, such royal popularity has been unknown, except to
such branches of the illustrious family as chanced to be under
a cloud at Court. Now, see how tranquil, nay cheerful and
good-humoured, all classes of the people are in every part of the
country ! That such feelings may be as permanent as they are
widely spread, and that the aristocracy may do nothing to for-
feit the place they now hold in the hearts of their fellow-sub-
jects, is our most earnest prayer.

The preceding pages have not been filled with any remarks
upon the Pamphlet now before us. But it well deserves the
attention of the noble persons to whom it is principally addressed.
We have not often read an abler production ; — at once most sen-
sibly and clearly reasoned, and written with spirit and point.
The author is said to be a military gentleman of the name of
Rich : we hope this will not be the only effort of his pen. As
a specimen of his work we subjoin a passage or two.

' One more view of the question, and I have done. We liave,
hitherto, regarded the effect a rejection of tlie Bill Avould have iqjon
the Ministers, on Parliament, and through Parliament on the people,
upon what may be termed the legitimate and constitutional result of
a rejection by the Lords. Let us now take a liasty glimpse of what
might be its direct and immediate effect upon the people, upon what
may he termed its unconstitutional and revolutionary effect. Let us
see.

' The Bill is sent up to the Lords— it is rejected ; for important

183U House of Lords^Reform. 2^3

modifications, or long" adjournments of debate, will be considered by
the people as tantamount to rejection.

* It is rejected ! I envy not the nightmare dreams, or the stolid
sleep of each Noble Lord of that fatal Majority that shall throw out
the Bill.

' It is rejected ! The evil report will rapidly spread its dark wings
from one end of the Isle to the other. It will cross over to Ireland.
The black banner will carry the heavy tidings from Glasgow, to the
uttermost Highlands.

' It is rejected ! Will the people of England sit patiently down ?
Will they hang up their harps on the willows of despair, till it is their
Lords' good pleasure that the people's representatives should be the
representatives of the people ? I think not. Then, what will they
do ? Will they carry their favourite Bill, their Bill of Rights, by force
of arms ? No — the days of brute force are gone to sleep with the nights
of ignorance ; there are measures more consonant to the present times.
Association, unanimity of design, resistance within legal bounds, —
these the people will employ, and, as with one voice, they will say,
" The present House of Lords will not pass our Bill ; but our Bill
must be passed — our Commons desire it — our King sanctions it ; and
we are pledged to it. Another House of Lords — another third estate
must be found, who will pass our Bill." Thus, and more dangerousl)'-,
may they reason. Noble lords may start — may frown — may impre-
cate— may threaten ; but the energies of this mighty empire are not
to be put down by a sneer, or a vote ; they may suddenly spring up,
as in a night, and scatter their opponents, as mists from before the
face of the morning. The people may ask, can there be men with in-
tellects so dull, so inobservant, and so inexperienced, who, though
born, and bred, and living in the light of this century, can yet see only
with the twilight perception of the dark ages ? Men, whose notions of
revolutions are formed from the traditions of days, when the art of
reading and writing was a distinction, a printing-press a curiosity, and
a journey from York to London an epoch in life? Are there men,
who, with the recent experience of the last twelve months, can read
of Birmingham, and of Glasgow, and of a thousand and one other
Unions — who can hear of the avidity with which the public papers are
sought for in every corner of the kingdom, and who can witness the
feverish excitement of the public mind, and yet, forsooth, loll upon
their hereditary seats, and fancy a frown from a weak majority of the
weakest portion of the State, can frighten the great mass of their fel-
low-subjects from the pursuit of their legitimate desires ? If there be
such men, an excited people may add, they are no longer fit to be our
legislators ; the House of Lords must be adapted to the present stage
of civilisation. We will no longer

' But, no — I will not further pursue this revolutionary picture ; it
is an ungrateful subject, such as one would not M'illingly contemplate,
much less exhibit to the public gaze. But it imperatively behooves
those Noble Lords who think of rejecting the Bill, to fill up this out-
line, and paint it with its brightest and most fearful colours — to finish
it carefully — to look into its details — and then to place it opposite
their own little vignette of a modified Reform ; — the terrible Last

VOL. LIV. NO. cvii. s

274 House of Lords ^Beform. ^ept.

Judgment of Michael Angelo, against the last lithographic print of
the day. These are the two extremes; the chances for the possible
attainment of the one, are not greater than for the ruinous sequence
of the other.'

After stating that the final and permanent loss of the Bill
must be the resignation of the Ministry — he asks, who will take
Earl Grey's place ? He then proceeds with great spirit as fol-
lows : —

< Who will he the British Polignac ? He must be a bold man ; for
with a small declared majority in the weakest fraction of the State,
whose construction is essentially defensive, he must be prepared for a
contest with the offensive vigour and growing energies of the Com-
mons, fresh from their elections ; he must be prepared to find them
backed by the angry enthusiasm of the people, supported by the mighty
echoes of the press, and sanctioned by the approval of the most popu-
lar Monarch that has ever been seated on the British Throne.

* He must be a disloyal man ; for he must contemplate approaching
that royal ear with suggestions for a cowardly falsehood, in the shape
of an Anti-Reform message to Parliament.

' He must be a blind and prejudiced man ; for he must fancy, that
by dissolving the present House of Commons, he shall be able to obtain
one of a less reforming disposition ; as if the desire of a people, just
baffled at the moment of gratification, should be more quiescent under
such disappointment, than when checked, as it was in the spring, at
its outset.

* He must be a rash man, and a bad man ; for he must be willing to
commit the coronets of the Peers, and the peace of the nation, to tlie
dangerous reaction of a second and third dissolution.

' Where then shall be found this bold, bad, blind, rash, prejudiced,
disloyal person ? Nowhere, I trust ; and, least of all, in the House
of Lords.

* And yet, if the Bill be thrown out, and Lord Grey resign, some
one must take his place ; and the first act of this Great Unhioivn must
be a dissolution ; for he, and his colleagues, could not possibly carry
on the government for an hour with the present House of Commons.
This is apparent to every one ; and yet the chances of gaining an Anti-
Reform majority in a new House, are infinitely small. I should say
impossible ; for that man must think lightly of his countz'ymen, who
can imagine, that partial resistance from the Lords should frighten the
electors of Great Britain from their consistency, should make them eat
their own words, should make them desert their representatives, for
having fulfilled those very pledges, which they themselves, not six
months ago, drew from them on their hustings. The thing is impos-
sible ; but as the Tories have already shown themselves blind to public
opinion, I will suppose it possible for them to make the attempt, and
to succeed in making the constituency of this country traitors to them-
selves, and to their chosen advocates. In short, for argument's sake,
I will suppose, for a moment, that they have gained a majority in their
new House — what would be the result ? — The defeat of the Reform
Bill, such as it now is, but not of Reform itself; for they themselves

1831. House of Lords-^Reform. 275

have confessed the necessity of conceding some measure of modified
Reform, which shall satisfy the returning good sense of the people
of England, when the present delusion will vanish, and an effectual bar
be placed to all present and future innovations. All this is very smooth;
but I contend, that by granting a Reform, less extensive than that
Avhich the people have been now led to expect, that the seeds of dis-
content will be sown, and a wide field opened to demagogues and
agitators, rendered daring by the countenance they will receive from
some few of the many Reformers now in the House, who, most assu-
redly, will find their way into the next, purified though it be. Thus,
then, their dear-bought modified Reform will become the stepping-
stone for a series of other and more sweeping Reforms ; and we shall
have a bit-by-bit Reform with a vengeance. This I assert — this they
deny — we are at issue : they may be right, and I may be wrong ; but
they cannot deny that there are grounds for questioning the final
dispositions of this child of their old age, a modified Reform Bill.
Thus, then, their greatest benefit — that for which they would risk the
long odds of another dissolution, comes clogged with fears, and doubts,
and suspicions ; while, on the other hand, the consequences of a disso-
lution that should not correspond to their expectation, are clear enough.
The spirit of the people would have been inflamed to intensity by a
second contest, and a second victory ; and then, perhaps, when the
error of their calculation was become imminent, and evident even to
themselves, they would come forward and talk of adopting the first,
the original Bill. The Bill, the whole Bill, would be their cry. I
have no doubt it would. And why ? — Because, forsooth, the people
would, in the meantime, thanks to an irritating opposition, have risen
largely in their demands. So should we have another, and another
contest ; and thus it is that these coy politicians act in times of excite-
ment, as blisters on the public mind, and with notions the most adverse
to revolution, they are, in practice, its most active exciters. Their
coyness leads straight to the Penitentiary.'

Number C VIIL will be published in December,

Printed hy Ballantyne and Company.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

DECEMBER, 1831.

JV-. CYIII,

Art. I. — 1. The Game Laivs^ including the neio Game Bill, with
Notes and Practical Directions. By P. B. Leigh, Esq. Barris-
ter-at-Law. London : l8ol.

2. Abridgement of the neio Game Laws, with Observations and
Suggestions for their Improvement ; being cm Appendix to the
Sixth Edition of Instructions to Young Sportsmen. By Lieut.-
Col. P. Hawker. London: 183L

nnHE long debated Game Bill is at length the Law. The
-^ absurdity of our former system ; the waste of time and
breath before moralists and lawyers could obtain a hearing
against it, even from the public ; the reluctance with which Par-
liament, long after the public had been made thoroughly sen-
sible of its mischievousness, consented to look for a remedy in
the only direction where a remedy was to be found, are now
matters of history. We are most desirous that the country
should obtain, with the least possible deduction, the whole be-
nefit which the lesson and the measure are both calculated to
bestow.

It is indispensable to successful legislation that the principle
which is applicable to the subject in hand should be correctly
ascertained at setting out ; that it should be clearly announced,
in case doubts or misconceptions have previously prevailed ; and
that it should be faithfully pursued throughout by simple and
appropriate details. As often as the true principle shall appear
to have been the original principle of the law in former times,
the readoption of it on any subsequent occasion is a restitution,
and not an innovation. This consideration, judiciously enforced,
' VOL. nv, NO. cvm. T

278 The New Game Laws. Dec.

may tend to remove objections from the minds of many, whose
co-operation it is, on all accounts, most desirable to obtain.
Great obscurity and contrariety of opinions often linger over a
subject, in the sort of twilight which the defective or temporary
systems of former periods usually leave behind them when they
disappear. It is doing something towards clearing the way for
truth, to prove that the policy of these systems was, in the first
instance, erroneous, or has subsequently become impracticable
and obsolete, On the supposition that any particular species or
amount of evil can be traced to the prevalence of false prin-
ciples, the practical connexion between these causes and their
effects should be established by date and argument ; and it
should be shown in what manner the proposed amendments are
in their nature adapted to counteract the specific evils.

A contemporaneous commentary of this kind may not be
always wanted for the cause of truth ; but it must always serve
as a valuable auxiliary towards securing conciliation and suc-
cess. When a lawgiver and expounder has in this manner dis-
charged his own peculiar office, he is entitled to suggest that
his measures may possibly require a little time before the pub-
lic can fairly judge of their policy and result. Prejudices and
passions, in a question which has been long and thoroughly
diseased, cannot be got rid of in a day. It will be as much as
(and, for a season, more indeed than) the law can do, to heal the
gangrene of former wounds. In the case of game and game laws,
considerable difficulty is peculiar to and inherent in the subject.
A certain portion of crime necessarily belongs to it. Whatever
this may be, men will bear it the better when they can clearly
perceive that it is not a malady brought upon themselves by
mismanagement, but is the natural penalty of our condition — a
degree of suffering which we have done nothing to create, but
every thing to cure. Submission, in the one case, would be ser-
vile brutishness ; in the other, it is the duty of a reasonable
being.

The true principle of a legal title in game is that of qualified
property, ratione soli. The interest thus created cannot be
higher than a local and temporary one ; nor ought it to be less.
In the fact, that a property in game is derived entirely from the
property in the soil on which the game is found, we have at
once a natural test, both of its limit and extent. This principle
is obscurely expressed in most systems of jurisprudence. Instead
of being properly distinguished from them, it is usually mixed
up with the other subordinate and excepted titles. Neverthe-
less, on investigation, it will be found to be the leading title
upon the subject in the common law, both of England and of Scot-

1831. The New Game Laws. 279

land. Whatever objects of policy or fashion, at former times or
in other countries, may have interfered with a uniform acknow-
ledgment that the qualified property in game depends upon,
and is evidenced by its connexion with the soil, no object of the
sort exists, or can exist, among ourselves at present. The titles
by claim of privilege on one side, or by that of occupancy on
the other, are equally unsuited to the actual circumstances of
the country and to the state of modern society. In a reform
of the English Game Laws, the chief point to look to was a plain
recognition of the rational title, ratione soli. This recognition
would carry with it necessarily the abandonment of those extra-
vagant statutes, by which the right of killing game was reserved
as a privilege to proprietors of land of a certain value, and by
which every species of sale of game, under any circumstances,
and by any person, was made absolutely unlawful. The com-
plete repeal of these absurd caprices is accordingly a prominent
part of the recent statute. Without the removal of this unsound
rubbish, it would have been impossible to obtain a firm founda-
tion for any amendment of the law.

The statute is, to a certain extent, a compromise. On exami-
ning its several clauses, some little inconsistency may be expect-
ed to appear ; and is, in truth, apparent in two or three of them.*

* The inconsistencies are not so important as some protesters
represent. The necessity of licenses has been objected to, it appears
to us very superfluously. The object in requiring them is entirely
an object of police. The particular interest, by which the precaution-
ary control over public-houses becomes gradually perverted into a
monopoly for brewers, does not apply in the present instance. The
proper analogy is Avitli paAvnbrokers. The mischief anticipated in
both these cases being the same — too ready facilities for the reception
of stolen goods. On the contrary, we doubt whether experience has
not already gone far to show, that, with this view, the amount of the
license ought to be raised, or some further restrictive regulation intro-
duced. The clause which gives the owners of land, whereon a sports-
man is trespassing, the power of taking from him whatever game
recently killed is in his possession, is another, which has been censured,
not only as dangerous and impracticable, but as unjust. The prudence
of acting upon the letter of the law, must depend upon the special
circumstances of every case. Unjust it certainly is not. A smuggler
seized in the act of smuggling goods of a particular description, is not
entitled to complain of the presumption which he raises against what-
ever similar goods may be found at the time upon his person. It was
time to put an end to the title of occupancy, too absurdly invented for
the sake of poachers, who raised a covey in one man's field, and slaugh-
tered it in his neighbour's. We cannot say the same of the facilities

280 The New Game Laws. Dec.

Nothing, however, but what is mere matter of incidental criti-
cism, with reference to the accomplishment of the great object
of the statute. In case it is destined to fail, we are satisfied
that no part of the discredit of the failure will be fairly attribu-
table to any thing wrong, either in its principle or detail. But
unfortunately this measure is one which, least of all, can exe-

provided for manorial trespassers. In the trespass clause, the lords of
raanoi'S have hitched in for themselves and their keepers a distinction,
by way of privilege, altogether inexcusable. They made no pretence
to any thing of the sort even under the late system of usurpation :
much more is it in utter variance w^ith that equality in the right of
property, and of protection to property, which it is the peculiar object
of the present measure to establish. By section thirty-five, the lord and
his keeper are expressly excepted within their manor from the penalty/
which the act imposes upon every other trespasser in pursuit of game.
The freeholder is left in this case to the old and nugatory remedy of
an action only. Nothing can be more unjust. They are perhaps the
only trespassers who can never by any possibility be trespassing in
ignorance. Somehow or other the English Parliament does not usually
appear to advantage in its legislation between landlord and tenant.
We are not therefore surprised to see that it grasps at too much,
and grasps too coarsely in the present instance. Landlord and tenant
should have been allowed to settle their respective interests in game,
as well as in other things, after their own way. In case the landlord
kept the right of sporting in his own hands, they might agree to fix
the penalties for encroachment on the landlord's right, by a scale of
liquidated damages, ascending up to a forfeiture of the lease. The
statutory fines, which are suspended over a tenant by section twelve, are
far too unreasonable for a general provision. In whatever instance a
landlord were insane enough to gratify a pique by enforcing them, he
would sign the death-warrant of every head of game upon the farm,
and at once throw the farmer back into the arms of the poacher. The
extravagance of the fine becomes a flagrant injustice in the case of
those tenants who, by the legal effect of their leases, had already a
vested interest in the game upon their farms. This was the fact,
wherever the landlord had omitted to reserve the exclusive right of
sporting to himself. It happens that the English rule in this respect
was more liberal to the tenant than that of either France or Scotland.
By an arret of 1812, the court of Paris held that ' le haild'imdomaine
did not carry with it the right of sporting, unless it were expressly
granted by the proprietor. So, by Scottish decisions of 1804 and 1808,
it is a privilege, for the exercise of which a tenant must have the
landlord's direct permission, and from the exercise of which over his
farm he cannot exclude his landlord. The English law, on the con-
trary, gave the tenant the benefit of the presumption, wliere the lease
was silent. It is true, that, under the late state of statutory restraints,
the right thus bestowed upon the tenant, would be, in most cases, a

1 83 1 . The New Game Laws. 281

cute itself. It is dependent for its success on the aid of many
of those who have received it with a bitterness and distrust
which may seem to prognosticate its fate. Unless the great
game proprietors can be prevailed on to make some apparent
sacrifice (for the sacrifice would be apparent only), and can
be induced to relinquish so much of their exclusive prejudices
and amusements as may be necessary, in order to bring to
market a sufficient supply of unpoached game on reasonable
terms, their shortsightedness and selfishness will be mainly
answerable for the disappointment of our hopes. It will be no
satisfaction to us, we most honestly assure them, to think that
the worst consequences of this failure they or their descendants
will have principally to bear.

Two causes have combined to keep the principle, that pro-
perty in game arises ratione solif too much in the background in

nominal one only. The sentence of deprivation passed upon an un-
qualified tenant, under the statute of Charles II., operated in favour
of the landlord, as efficiently as an express prohibitory clause inserted
in the lease. In the case of a qualified tenant even, as long as amuse-
ment only, and not profit, was to be had in game, the landlord, on one
hand, might not apprehend any abuse of the power of sporting ;
whilst, on the other hand, the qualified tenant, and much more the
unqualified one, could not feel that the landlords were obtaining a
pecuniary advantage at their expense. The efi"ect of the bill, as it
was pi-epared by Ministers, would have, in some cases, undoubtedly
worked a great change in the future relative position of the parties
under these circumstances. But the only question is, whether there
is any thing in the nature of the present measure sufficiently pecu-
liar to take it out of the ordinary rule ? The ordinary rule is, (as, in
the case of pecuniary contracts, to whatever degree they may be
afi'ected by an alteration in the currency,) parties take their chance
according to the new character which the public law may impress on
their private engagements. The pi-esent measui-e furnishes, as far as
we can see, no ground of reasonable distinction. At all events, their
former right ought to have been preserved to all tenants who were
already qualified according to the old law, or who might become so
during the currency of their lease. It is instructive to observe (not-
withstanding all their declamation in behalf of vested rights, political,
municipal, or ecclesiastical) the conduct of the House of Lords. The
bill, as sent up by the Commons, left landlord and tenant in respective
possession of their legal rights. That assembly of noble landlords
introduced and insisted on a confiscation of private interests, derived
from and guaranteed by their own leases, (very different interests, be
it observed, from political franchises held in trust only for the state,)
as the purchase-money of their consent to the suppression of an ac-
knowledged public evil.

282 The New Game Laws. Dec.

books of law. In the first place, it has not been so exclusively
at all periods the only principle which reason could countenance,
as it is at present. Next, other principles, in point of fact, have
been made supreme, by the positive legislation of some states,
and have been admitted to a greater or less participation perhaps
in all. In most feudal kingdoms, the sovereign, partly in the
character of chief and ultimate proprietor, partly in that of
trustee for the public, was honoured with a prerogative autho-
rity over the chase. This branch of royalty introduced the
doctrine of privilege and franchise. On the other hand, the
rule of the Institutes is occupancy ; — as of things which, at the
first general appropriation, were left, and still remained, in com-
mon. Occupanti conceditur : nee interest quod ad f eras hestias et
volucres attinet utrum in suo fundo, aliquis capiat an in alieno.
The consecration of this barbarous title in the imperial code,
gives one but a sorry idea of the agriculture of the Lower
Empire. But no wonder that the comparative barbarians of the
middle ages, finding it there, conveyed it reverentially into their
own piecemeal jurisprudence ; without enquiring very curiously,
how far it was founded in reason, or whether it harmonized
with the corresponding portion of their indigenous policy.

Most European systems continue to be embarrassed by
apparent contradictions between these ill defined and clashing
titles. The German jurists have wisely limited the absolute
occupancy of the Institutes iti fundo alieno, by the condition
modo non prohiheamur ingressu fundi a doinino. (Heineccius
Ele7n. Jur. Civ., and also Pand.) Now this can scarcely be called
right of occupancy ; since it assumes a precedent, although
latent power of property ratione soli, incompatible with the strict
notion of res nullius. This limitation leaves the public nothing
beyond the benefit of a prima facie presumption, by which, in
intendment of law, the owner of the soil, as long as he is silent,
is understood not to insist upon his right.

The attempt to transmit the traditional language, and to
transfer, in some degree, the principle of occupancy from the
civil law into a code, which, upon similar, and even in the self-
same subjects, recognises the principle and the consequences of
property, has plunged this part of the French law in a state of
inextricable confusion. Toullier complains (and the remedy
for the evil is only to be found in the adoption of a consistency
in their rule) of the uncertainty which pervades the French
regulations concerning goods without an owner. By the notes
subjoined to the Code de la chassc et de la peche, it appears that
the right of sporting, being now nothing but a right of property,
may be so far separated from the entire ownership as to be

1831. The New Game Laws. 283

leased out, and become a servitude reelle. The dread of falling
back into divided rights, as embarrassing as their old feudal
claims, has induced them to take the precaution of providing
that this severance shall be temporary only. With this view,
the right of sporting is so far identified with, and made inherent
in the land, that it cannot be permanently alienated ^o another,
without alienating the soil also. Nevertheless, the fruits of this
right, the game itself, are refused the name and protection of
property in the plainest of all cases. From the silence of the
penal law concerning game, the poacher is allowed to acquire,
by occupation, the ownership of it to all intents and purposes.

In case the picture as drawn by Mr Justice Blackstone,
and copied by most succeeding writers, had been a true repre-
sentation of it, the English law would be in a still worse condi-
tion. According to his account, it originally collected preroga-
tive, occupancy, and the right ratione soli into one heteroge-
neous and undistinguished mass of title. This was the sort of
heap, upon and over which its modern disqualification statutes
have been supposed to sit umpire, and, like chaos, to complete
and embroil the fray. The English public, it must be admitted,
has on this subject considerable excuse for the diversity of
opinions, which branch off, according to the supposed interest
of the parties, into so many heretical articles of faith. It ought
to have been uniformly told that the common law recognised a
general property in game ratione soli ; and that any other title
could arise as a peculiarity only, either by way of privileged
franchise in certain places and persons, or by way of occupancy,
on some contingency, where the right ratione soli might happen
technically to fail. Instead of this, these peculiarities and excep-
tions have been frequently stated to be simultaneous portions of
a common rule. Mr Leigh, we perceive, makes no attempt to
reconcile the inconsistency of his general expressions, by these
or similar distinctions. His first page informs the reader that
the title to game, by the common law, is occupancy; the
twelfth, that it is solely derived from franchise ; the third and
fifteenth, that in private grounds it is an incident to the soil.
This indiscriminate confusion, transferred from our earlier law
books to essays prepared for the current shooting season, might
have answered the purpose of mystification, so often imputed to
the profession of the law. But the country gentlemen bad little
to gain by mere absurdity. A new and stronger ingredient,
that of injustice, was wanting in their behalf. With this view,
legislators from time to time brought into play further and
yet more startling anomalies of their own. The notion that
game was not property, became a favourite pretext in support

284 The New Game Laws. Dec.

of statutes, by which the man who otherwise must have been
admitted to be the owner of it, had been forbid either to kill or
sell it. These anomalies contradicted every principle and feeling
which made property in other subjects sacred. Their effect
could not but be most disastrous. They have been mysterious
enough to perplex the understandings, and, at the same time,
so palpably extravagant as to revolt the consciences, of the
middling and lower orders.

Amidst all this contrariety of nominal authority, the reason
of the thing directs us to property ratione soli, as to the natural
and proper title. All that is really important in the line of
argument, by which the necessity of private property in land
is supposed to be established, applies p?'o tanto to an article like
game. The things which the common interest of mankind
requires to be left in common, are such things only as appear
to be in their nature inexhaustible; — such things as live at no
man's cost ; in which, after every man has taken what he wants,
enough and as good remains for those who come behind. Whilst
one nation prohibits another from sharing in the fisheries on its
coast, an individual proprietor may well insist, that the occupa-
tion-jurist should distinguish the case of a stubble-field from that
of salt water, and a covey of partridges from a shoal of herrings.
From the moment it is acknowledged that private property
ought to be recognised in game, it will, by a similar train of
reasoning, follow, that the property in it ought to be concurrent
and identified with the property in the soil. To vest it in a
third person, is to establish the partnership of the drone and
the bee, and to quarter an idle partner on the labour of an in-
dustrious one. Such an exception tends to undo, or disappoint,
the institution of private property in land to the whole extent
of the exception.

Fortunately common sense was on this point also common
law. We can only spare a sentence to the crotchet, which some
writers have invented, and upon which some visionary squires
still plume themselves, under the dream of privilege. When
this dream is put to flight, it will leave our heads clear for the
separate consideration of the only remaining observations of a
strictly technical nature, on which an English reader can want
the opinion of his lawyer. That is, what has been really the
paramount title concerning game, under the common law of
England ; and how it has happened that there ever came to be
a diiference of opinion upon the point.

The only prerogative over game as a matter of personal
enjoyment ever exercised by a King of England, arose under
the Forest Law. However obsolete, and limited within narrow

1831. The Neiv Game Laws. 285

bounds, it still exists. The only privilege, of which game is
the object, which a sovereign could ever convey to a subject,
was that comprised in the franchises of Chase Park and Warren.
It was not a privilege to kill, but to preserve. A Lord of the
Manor, as such, had anciently and originally nothing more
to do with game than the humblest possessioner within the
lordship. Any claim of this sort has been the encroachment
of comparatively modern times. The notion of a superior title
on the part of the lord of the manor, came in under the sup-
position (true probably at the time) that he was also the prin-
cipal landowner. He was, therefore, supposed to be the per-
son principally interested in preventing the destruction of game
by common poachers. In this point of view, his gamekeeper
answered to the French garde champ^tre. To this extent, under
these circumstances, it might have been worth the while 'of all
parties, if the question had been left to reason for its adjust-
ment, to agree to the statutable arrangement. He, who was
alone to pay, might bargain for a monopoly in the appointment
of the police-officer of the plantation and the stubble.

As regards the dormant prerogative of the Forest Laws, it
would be as well if their cumbrous learning were repealed at
once. Short of that, two hints deserve the attention of a
retrenching and equitable government in the management of
the woods and forests. First, we do not see why the public
should pay somewhere about L.50 for every buck which comes
as a present into the public offices. Next, a similar arrange-
ment to that by which Lord Rivers turned into money the
mischievous rights to which he was entitled as owner of Cran-
bourne Chase, ought to be immediately entered into by the
Crown, in the case of its forest privileges of the same descrip-
tion. The privileges in question do not bring in a shilling of
advantage or pleasure to any one ; but they breed ill-will, and
are injurious to the progress of cultivation, as far as they extend.
They are, in their nature, so prejudicial and irritating to the
individual who is exposed to them, that he would be too happy
to buy them up at a sum, the interest of which would consi-
derably exceed his yearly loss. Cranbourne Cbase, from its
vast extent, was a public nuisance to more than one western
county. At a late meeting at Waltham, some farmers com-
plained bitterly of the damage — to the amount, in some in-
stances, of L,50 a-year — which they suffered individually from
the deer.

The exception which was thus inserted in the body of the
old common law, whether it was one of forest prerogative or of
baronial franchise, amounted to nothing more than an excep-

286 The New Game Laws. Dec.

tion. It existed In certain isolated places only. The common
law reigned undisputed and unqualified every where besides;
that is, over almost the whole country. Our next position is,
that this old common law was nothing else than the simple prin-
ciple to which we are now brought back by the new measure.

The title of qualified property on the part of the owner of the
soil — that is, the recognition of a property contemporary and co-
extensive with the bona fide continuance of game upon the land,
— (to commence and cease as it comes and goes) — is the prin-
ciple, to which, after a long and painful struggle, we are at
length reverting. This principle, so far from being an augment-
ation or alteration of the ancient rights included under the
humblest view of proprietorship, is simply a restoration of them.
That this was the case in Saxon times, appears in Turner, and
was allowed by Blackstone. ' Every one might hunt in his
* own woods and fields, but was not to interfere with the hunt-
< ing.grounds of the King.' (Wilk. Leg. Sax, 130, 146.) We
never met with any colour of authority in law, beyond an incon-
sistent phrase or two, and we know of no instance whatever in
point of fact, to raise a presumption that this prior general right
was invaded at or after the Norman Conquest. In the entire
absence of all denial of this right, there has been little room
for the learning of our text-books, or the determination of our
Courts. The preamble of the 1 1 Henry VII., however, under
such circumstances, has all the weight of a declaratory law :
and is conclusive as to the opinion and the authority of a
Tudor Parliament upon the point.

The accident of a prerogative illustration in the great case of
monopolies in the time of Elizabeth, gives us the further sanc-
tion of a Court of Justice. This celebrated judgment affirmed
unanimously, in that not unaristocratical age, the right at com-
mon law of every proprietor to take the game on his own soil.
' For hawking, hunting, &c., every one may, in his own land,
' use them at his pleasure, without any restraint to be made
' unless by Parliament, as appears by the statutes of 11 th
' Henry VII. c. IT ; 23d Elizabeth, c. 10 ; 3d James I. c. 13.'
As if, however, to show that nothing was too absurd for legal
argument, in the 9th William III. (1697), the crotchet found an
advocate in Serjeant Gould; when it was solemnly adjudged
after verdict (Lord Raymond, 250) that the close or soil gives a
possessory property. Lord Holt said that to rebut the title
arising from the soil, the party must have admitted himself to
be out of possession, even were the question to arise on demurrer.
Evidence that a general previously existing right had been
retained upon alienating the land, or evidence that, in the

1831. The New Game Laws. SSTf

immediate occasion, a right was previously acquired by having
driven in the game from the adjoining land, were alone con-
sidered to be competent (the latter most improperly so) to dis-
place i\ie prima facie presumption accompanying the soil. It is
singular that Blackstone should have incidentally quoted this
case, and that it should not have opened his eyes to the fallacy
of his imaginary prerogative. The principle of ratione soli)
when correctly expressed, and limited according to its distinc-
tions, is conclusive wherever it can be applied. It is the rule ;
not one of many. The rest are nothing but exceptions. The
principle of ratione impofentice, which narrowly distinguishes
eggs and callow young from grown-up birds, was intelligible,
although not reasonable, in the Roman law ; since that law
gave a sportsman the game which he started and killed upon
the land of another man. In the English law, which secures
to the owner of the soil whatever game is found upon it, the
distinction supposes a difference where none exists. Like casual
poor, they properly belong to the parish where they chance to be.
The property in such animals as are strictly confined, or as
are so far reclaimed as to have the animum revei'tendi, is subject
to no limitation of place. In cases of this description, the advan-
tage and the disadvantage ought to be reciprocal. Where the
custom of returning enables their owner to identify them, it
authorizes him to recover them, although they may have strayed
from home. On the other hand, the higher degree of title, by
which their persons are protected whilst out of bounds, should
make him, under all circumstances, liable for their conduct.
The reverse applies to the case of animals not domesticated.
The landholder out of whose fields game may trespass on the
adjoining land, can only, in justice, be relieved from being
responsible for the injury, on condition that from the moment
his hares have passed the boundary, his interest in them is
considered to have expired. This was the old English rule. It
furnishes in practice an equitable adjustment sufficiently pre-
cise. It is absurd to suppose that there is any metaphysical or
practical difficulty in creating or carrying into effect, with all
the minuteness necessary either for private enjoyment or for
public peace, the principle of a qualified possessory interest in
game. There is not any peculiar subtlety in the interest which
is thus fostered in their behalf. The exclusive right granted by
free fishery over a public river, cannot confer a more direct and
available power of appropriation than what, without any grant,
belongs to the proprietors of a private stream or a private field.
Yet Blackstone (vol. ii. p. 39) admits, that by the exclusive right
in a free fishery, ' a man has a property in the fish before they

288 The Neio Game Laics. Dec.

* are caught.' If (ib. 395) air and water can be tlie objects of a
qualified property, although they are so vague and fugitive that

* the property in them ceases the instant they are out of posses-
sion,' much more may the principle and practice extend also to
game, the instant of possession in regard to them being identi-
cal with that of their commorancy on the soil. Notwithstanding
the every thing but universality with which this title must apply
in a country where it is adopted, from the moment that land
becomes private property, the degree of ambiguity which has
gathered over the subject, in consequence of lawyers having
classed this leading principle along with the other subordinate
ones, may be judged of by the following circumstance: The
Americans, as they have no franchises of chase, and no game
laws by which one animal has heraldic precedence given to it
over another, would naturally proceed to settle the property in
every species o^ ferce naturce on one and the same principle —
that of the original English common law. Strange to say, we
do not perceive that the right ratione soli is once mentioned in
the excellent commentaries upon American law by Chancellor
Kent, when he is discussing the origin of qualified property.
The word game indeed nowhere occurs ; but actions for killing
and taking a fox, for a swarm of bees, and on the right in fish,
are referred to ; in respect of which, the same principles apply.
In the case of water, it is laid down justly, that the exclusive
right of fishing in an unnavigable river belongs to the owner,
each on his own side ; whilst on land, it seems that the actual
occupier of bees found on the ground of another, acquires them
by the fact of occupation. It is nevertheless true, that the
English rule to the contrary is as old as the forest charter.
There is even a case in the Year Book of Edward III., denying
that the title of occupancy can supersede the title ratione soli.

Under these circumstances, the difiiculty is to find the place
on which, in the realm of England, the title by occupancy can
accrue, and to account for the prominence given to it in English
law books. Every yard of land within the four seas is private
property, and the right to the game thereon attaches ratione soli.
The want of all previous ownership, therefore, (and this was
the supposition on which the right of occupancy was admitted
to arise ia the captors of wild animals by the Roman law,) can
never occur in England but by some rare exception. Black-
stone, with extreme inaccuracy, classes under the head of occu-
pancy in the English law, the natural right to animals ferce
natura:, ' by the original grant of the Creator.' He might have
affirmed the same of land with equal truth. In pursuance of
the same truism, this right is declared still to continue in every
ndividual, unless where restrained by the civil laws of the

1831. The New Game Laios. 289

country. The general right in any of the King's subjects to
take and appropriate animals not otherwise excepted ' upon
* their own territories^'' is afterwards mentioned as an instance
of it. So little had he learned to distinguish in a point on
which, nevertheless, he meant to be novel and elaborate, be-
tween the title by occupancy, and the title accruing by custom
from annexation to the soil. The real cases of occupancy under
the English law are very rare. By way of premium to the
finder, an exception is permitted, in the instance of goods
casually lost and found upon the surface of the ground. In two
or three other instances the crown is made a sort of special
occupant, or a trustee for the public, under the name of prero-
gative. The chief perplexity, however, in this branch, seems
to have arisen from breaking in on the simple application of the
general rule by scholastic distinctions. For example, it would
not have mattered whether a property in the game was given
to the owner of the soil on which it was raised, or on which it
was killed, where they did not happen to be the same person.
But the trespasser ought never to have been rewarded by the
spoil under the conceit of occupancy, for no more substantial
reason than that he had committed two trespasses instead of one.
The new law deprives the double trespasser of this absurd
advantage. It affirms the title ratione soli, when it gives game
recently killed to the person who has the right of killing it on
the land where the trespasser is found with it in his possession.
There are loose passages scattered up and down the books, which
at first sight suggest the notion, that the title by occupancy was
at some former period recognised in our law to a greater extent.
This error would derive further countenance from indulgent
usages. The practice of tolerated trespass in the case of glean-
ing as well as fox-hunting, had, by long connivance, so far
assumed the colour of a legal right, as to yield to nothing but
the positive condemnation of a court of justice in our own days.
Bracton's discordant attempt to dovetail the license of sporting
in alieno fundo, as allowed by the civil law, upon our intractable
and opposing maxim, is probably the origin of some vague inci-
dental language to the same effect in the Doctor and Student, in
Man wood, and in the obiter dictum of a judge or two. There is
only one method by which these careless expressions can be
reconciled with the plain concurrent law ; — that is, by reducing
their application to some anomalous occasion ; as, for instance,
one in which property ratione soli not being able to exist, room
is made for the secondary title by occupancy to step in.

The English law had not transplanted the inconsistency of
the Roman. It does not tempt the sportsman, by telling him.

290 The New Gmne Laws. Dec.

that tlie property in animals, whilst in their natural state, will,
wherever found, belong to him as the occupier of them ; and
then seek to pacify the occupier of the land by the assurance that
he has a cross action for the trespass, in case the stranger shall
set foot upon his ground. The possibility of an equivalent mis-
conception could never have arisen in our vernacular jurispru-
dence, but for the prudery of the courts. For a long time it was
occasionally deemed below their capricious dignity, to try ac-
tions for things only of pleasure, which were scandalized under
the name of things of " base property." The Traite de Legislation
has properly stigmatized the ridicule which some French jour-
nals had sought to throw upon an action for a canary bird. We
have, as usual, good Black Letter authority both ways. The
judges, as far back as the reign of James the First, supported
an action for sixty musk cats, sixty monkeys, and parrots at
discretion — " for they be merchandise, and valuable." No pre-
text can be assigned why property, when it is of a nature to be
once recognised as the legitimate subject of an action, should not
from that moment become the subject of an indictment. There
are objects in the criminal law of greater importance than the
dread of breaking in upon the narrow definition of larceny, by
including in it deer ; although, as really, they may go to the
heir and not to the executor. The punishment ought, of course,
to be in proportion to the injury and to the alarm. The effect
of this superficial clemency has been actual cruelty to the body
of the people, whom it has only tended to mystify and deceive.
By doubtful and variable language, by contemptuous epithets,
by refusing the aid of the criminal law in its ordinary course,
our technical latitudinarianism has tended to mislead the many
who are the slaves of words, on a subject naturally too pregnant
with popular temptations. They became indignant when a
claim, denied the consistent character of property, rose up in
the more odious form of qualifications ; and when, instead of
the King's impartial judges, local, and in a great measure,
secret tribunals were created. The law was invidious ; the
tribunals were invidious. In such a j urisdiction, however purely
it might be administered, it was impossible to avoid the suspicion
of personal feelings, and consequently of personal injustice. Our
actual return to the old doctrine of property ratione soli, will
be the most effectual discourager of the notion of any right of
occupancy. The natural claim, asserted by the poacher, appears
of late to have received its principal countenance from the fact,
that the legislature foolishly put forward an artificial privilege-
pretension, equally absurd in itself, and equally unwarranted by
our former law.

1831. 2'he New Game Laws. 291

If an enactment, by which every landowner is authorized to
take the game upon his own land, be only a restoration of the
common law, still more clearly is this the case in regard to the
right of disposing of game by way of sale. Many of the present
generation of squires can scarcely be expected to be cordially
reconciled to the spectacle of long-tailed pheasants hanging over
from the poulterer's windows into the street. The mystery and
superstition of our contrary practice, (however recent the inno-
vation,) has become too cherished and too established an article
of faith. We can make more allowances for the lamentations
which we have heard sighed over the destruction of one more of
the courtesies of life. But whilst venison, and fruit, and books,
make very pretty presents, there is no reason why game should
be erased out of the list. The first legislative attempt to restrain
the sale of game was made in the reign of Henry VIII. It was
evidently meant as an experiment ; since it was passed for one
Parliament only. It was felt to be an unsuccessful experiment ;
for it was not renewed. A general prohibition of sale was after-
wards imposed by a statute of James I. In time-serving confor-
mity to this instance of his master's kingcraft, Bacon discovered
that game was meant for the King's pleasure, — for exercise, sport,
and courtesy,~not for gluttony and sale victual. This pro-
hibition, however, was from the first incapable of being execu-
ted ; and was soon too obsolete, to be thought worth the compli-
ment of repealing. It remained in the great lumber-room of
the statute-book. When statutes of only partial prohibition
were afterwards enacted in the reigns of William III. and Anne,
the sale of game continued to be the common usage of society.
The merchant and fundholder of Pope's acquaintance had the
pleasure of purchasing, as they wanted them, the luxuries which
it was the pride and occupation of the great proprietors, as
wholesale producers, to supply :

' All Worldly's hens, nay, partridge sold to town,
His venison too, a guinea makes your own.'

In another passage, the poet represents it as one of the traits
of a miser and his wife to ' sell their presented partridges and
' fruits.' No distinction seems to have been thought of betwixt
game, or the ordinary produce of the poultry-yard and of the gar-
den ; nor any incompatibility to have been found in their being
sold at the shops, and sent as presents. The first statute under
which our late system appears to have really come into action,
dates only from 1755. It was passed in consequence of a judicial
decision to the contrary that very year. The judges had declared

292 The New Game Laws, Dec,

that higlers alone were the subjects of the former acts ; for
' that a resident poulterer could never be within the intention
of the legislature.' Under the policy of the bribery acts, we have
not yet got to the equality of exacting the oath from the man who
buys the vote, as well as from him who sells it. The Game Laws
took the same distinction. A penalty on the buyer of game has
no further connexion vdth the * wisdom of our ancestors,' than
what can be derived from the character of the senator by whom
it was introduced. It is no older than the year 1818.

The above statement ought to remove the imputation of sin-
gularity, and of a levelling, not to say, revolutionary, charac-
ter, which is charged on the new law by some of its avowed,
and by more of its concealed opponents. It so happens, that
we were not merely at liberty to enter on whatever arrangement
the actual interests of the country might require, unshackled
by such apprehensions ; we might be said to be positively invi-
ted by a consideration of our original law to return to its true
•principles. As concerns the taking of game, it is clear that no
personal right was at any period admitted, wherever such claim
came in contact or competition with that of private property in
the soil. None, therefore, can be now by possibility displaced.
Further, the preambles of the principal statutes, by which inno-
vating restraints, whether in respect of qualification or of sale,
were from time to time niched into the statute-book, will show
the objects with which they were severally introduced. These
objects were invariably of a public nature. In retracing our
steps, the more narrowly these restraints are examined, the less
pretence does there appear to be for dealing with any part of the
question except on public grounds. Some of the objects were,
from the immediate occasion, temporary only ; others, by the
inventions of modern times, as well as by a change in our policy,
and in our national habits, have become obsolete. In respect of
those views of policy, which were of a more general and perma-
nent character, the means pursued have notoriously failed. The
end is not accomplished. The evil, which was to be remedied,
has gone on rapidly increasing. Nor is that all. No reasonable
man in England, after enquiring into the subject, can doubt but
that its worst and most aggravated symptoms are to be put down
to the direct account of our obstinate perseverance in the false
remedies so long legislatively applied.

Whatever arguments have been suggested in behalf of the
institution of private property, exist j^ro tanto in the case of game,
when considered as belonging to the soil. It will be seen, that
other titles are, at best, temporary ; they are also, for the most
part, arbitrary and fictitious.

1831. The Neiv Game Laios. 293

Among the reasons assigned for Game Laws, one which must
even originally have been grossly exaggerated, and which has
long been utterly defunct, is that which pronounces the chase
to be a school of necessary education, as well as a scene of ne-
cessary refreshment for certain classes. The hunting which
Xenophon and Cicero praise as the best discipline for forming
great generals, from its being war in miniature, must have been
something very unlike pheasant-shooting. The wolves and boars
of French forests may have helped to countenance, if they could
not justify, similar tirades in the Ordonnances of Francis I. In
this point of view also, some colour might be given to their rotu~
rier exclusions, as long as French policy professed to confine
military spirit and distinctions to the tioblesse. Neither of these
pretexts ever got a place in the law or practice of England.

The disarming a slave- population, and the prohibition of
martial exercises among them, may have been a measure of pre-
caution, whilst the Norman lords were encamped among their
Saxon serfs, like the Turk in Greece. But from the time of
Henry II., commissions of array required every citizen to
have armour according to his condition. Contrary to the
actual law of France respecting the poi't d'armes, the right to the
possession of arms is expressly recognised under the Bill of
Rights. As for sports, if Wyndham found it difficult to say what
ought to constitute, we may admit the difficulty of saying what
actually does constitute, an unlawful game. But clearly it is
not in distinctions between different classes of the community,
nor in the supposed suppression of manly strength and spirit in
tlie people, that we shall find the appropriate principle of the
English law.

These distinctions never really travelled beyond compliment-
ary expressions, by which soothers of consciences, and writers
of panegyrical dedications for the rich and idle, undertook to
satisfy the great that the vices of the lower orders became, in their
case, exercises of taste, or even of virtue. Our Grand Falconer,
or a Judge in the Fabliaux, could scarcely exceed Sir E. Coke's
eloquence, ' in respect of the noble and generous nature and
' courage of falcons, serving ob solatium vita of princes, and of
' noble and generous persons, to make them fitter for great em-
* ployments.' Modern students would not profit much by
Pliny's advice, that a man of letters ought to take his tablets
out a-hunting, since he is as likely to meet the Muses there as
Diana. The canon law, on account of the precedent of Esau,
and upon the authority of St Jerome, who had never read of a
saint that was a sportsman, interdicted clergymen from this
amusement. However, the indulgence of our municipal law cre-
ated one of its fictions in their behalf. Blackstone informs

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. ' V

294 The New Game Laws. ' Dec.

us, that ' spiritual persons were allowed, by the common law, to

* hunt for their recreation, in order to render them fitter for the

* performance of their duty.' If we remember rightly, it was
the monks of St Denis who got leave to hunt, in order to obtain
skins for the binding of their books. A reason, apparently, will
not be long wanting for the pastimes of soldier or of priest. As
new orders have arisen in the state, and new duties, the soldier
and the priest must consent to let as many of us, as are otherwise
entitled to it, share in this relaxation from our labours.

Some of the earlier regulations were evidently passed in con-
templation of immediate insurrection. The taking away from arti«
ficers and labourers any pretext, * under colour of which they

* make their assemblies, conferences, and conspii'acies, for to rise

* and disobey their allegiance,' is the preamble of the oldest
nominal disqualification act, A.D. 1391. The recollection of Wat
Tyler's demand of a general liberty of hunting, in the Jacquerie
of A.D. 1381 ; and the contemporary dangers of any single
year throughout the reign of Richard II., may account for such
an enactment. The statute of 1st Henry VII., against unlawful
hunting, was probably designed for the political protection of his
new government, quite as much as for the purposes of the chase.
But, for centuries, there has been no object of the sort sufficient
to justify the having kept these, or similar provisions, unrepealed.

Gunpowder made its way slowly in England, both in its ap-
plication to the art of war and to field-sports. The word gun,
like that of coal, deceives cai-eless readers into anachronisms.
Its original signification was that of any engine. The use of great
guns appears to have been taught us sooner by the French. But
the first regiment of musketeers, regularly armed and trained,
which had been ever seen in England, is said to have returned
home in the time of Elizabeth, under the command of Colonel
Thomas, by whom it had been formed in the Low Countries. By
one of his vivid anachronisms, Shakspeare transfers from his
own time to that of Hotspur and Justice Shallow, the dread of
saltpetre among euphuist courtiers, and the practice of the
musket exercise by recruits. At a much later period, however,
it was the bow, and not the gun, which, when he was weary of
the Muses, amused the country solitude of Wyatt — the poet, to
whom Milton, at least, (if not English poetry in general,) owes
more than even to Surry,

' This inaketh me at home to hunt and hawk,

And in foul weather at my book to sit,

In frost and snow — then with my bow to stalk.'

From Henry VlII. to James I. inclusive, the encouragement
of the long-bow and the hawk, and the discouragement of Crosse"

] 83 1 . The Neio Game Laws. 295

bow, liand-gun and hall-sliot, were tbe objects to wbich were
directed, by its original framers, the chief portion of this part
of our legislation. There is method in the madness by which it
has been since misunderstood and misapplied, by successors who
cared only for the collateral consequences of the prohibitions.
Whatever might be the wisdom of the debates which, during
that period, prevailed concerning the comparative merits of the
long-bow and the hawk on one side, or of the musket and fowl-
ingpiece on the other, it is worse than ridiculous to have left
in force, until the nineteenth century, penalties on whosoever
should shoot a hare or a partridge. The principal object in field-
sports probably consisted from the first in the animation of the
pursuit and the vanity of the distinction ; but the produce of
the chase was necessarily always a subject of some importance.
This must have been especially the case, before the introduction
of turnip husbandry, when for seven months out of the twelve,
game was the only species of fresh meat. It would be in vain,
under those circumstances, for the French, or any other law,
to declare * que la chasse n'est pas infructu.' Yet Louis XIV.,
in his ordinance of 1669, gave leave even to his nobles, only
* chasser noblement,' and forbade the use of shooting flying,
and of pointers. These, in distinction from a * chasse d'honneur,'
were regarded as a 'chasse purement cuisiniere.' Among our-
selves, a century and a half earlier, ' the profit and avayl' for
housekeeping is recited in the rational statute of 1 1th Henry VII.,
among the lawful objects, with respect to the sole enjoyment of
his game, in which the possessioner of land had a right to ex-
pect to be protected by the law. We were then on the eve of a
great movement in society, which was about infallibly to create
a customer and a competitor. In case there had been purchasers
of the waters of the Choaspes, the King of Persia could not
have kept that royal beverage to himself. In our times, dead
bodies are become a necessary of life. The prohibition of a legal
supply has generated a new and atrocious crime. They whose
trade it is mischievously to pander to the honest prejudices of
the people on this subject, have much to answer for. It is thus
Tom Paine's body-snatcher has been doing the work of crimp
to Burke and Bishop. The principle is the same, by which, in
all instances of this kind, is determined the diiferent character
between a legal and an illegal supply of an article which society
will have.

The first appearance of commerce in England brought natu-
rally with it purchasers of game. Henry VIII. looked no farther
than securing the supply of his own table. As other trades
flourished, the trade in game began. It is worth the while of

296 The Neiu Game Laivs. Dec.

all lawmakei's, wlio think tlieir work is done when they have
passed a prohibitory act of Parliament, to watch, in this instance,
the progress of the battle between the force of circumstances
and the law. The course of action and reaction is very stri-
king. The preamble of the 1st James I., c. 29, complains
that game is more excessively and outrageously spoiled than
in former ages ; especially by the vulgar making a trade and
a living of the same, who are not of a sufficiency to pay damages ;
whereby few suits. Seven years later, base persons of bad and
mean condition are said to carry game by night to cities and
market-towns to be sold. The 22d Charles II., c. 25, recites
the damage arising to the realm, and to individuals, from
divers disorderly persons laying aside their lawful trades, &c.
It appears by these recitals, that up to this period, the grie-
vance was confined to the civil inconvenience of poaching.
The 22d Charles IL, may be fairly considered as practically
the first real disqualification statute. It is here also that we
open upon a new era and character in the offence. The next
preamble, (that of the 4th and 5th William and Mary,) as if to
mark the point whence the demoralizing reaction against an
unjust system had taken its spring, carries us a step farther
into guilt. It brings us into contact with ' idle persons who

* afterwards betake themselves to robberies and other like of-

* fences.' As yet, however, poaching is described as the nursery
only, where offenders are schooled for greater enormities. The
absurdity and indignity of the law, as it was persevered in
and darkened throughout the next hundred years, could not
fail to produce bitterer fruits. By the year 1800, poaching
had become itself directly identified with the greatest of all
crimes. The preamble of 40th George III,, introduces us to
poachers ' guilty of great violence, by shooting, maiminsr^ and

* beating.' Sixteen years more pass, — and these practices (it is
quietly recited in the 56th Geo. III.,) 'are found by experience

* to lead to the commission o^ felonies and murders' Such, up
to this date, is the terrible race maintained between the new
wants of society and the mongrel feudalism of modern squires.
The accelerated speed of a vindictive system, radically unrea-
sonable and unjust, was distanced out of sight by the growth,
and still more by the darker shades and more atrocious charac-
ter, of the offences nurtured under it. The parliamentary
inference from this comparison unfortunately long continued
to be, a cry for additional restraints, and for sharper punish-
ments. The law became impossible to execute. It was
almost impunity to the poacher. Sir S. Romilly and Lord
Wharnclifle reduced a little the severity of the Night Act.

1831. The New Game Laws. 297

But it was not until the year 1831 that the English legis-
lature was prepared to permit a general revision ot" the Game
Laws. The failure of the former system was too palpable,
and too clearly traceable, to leave a doubt concerning the
method to be pursued. The Night Act, it is true, has been
reserved by the Lords for further consideration. It is a great
deal, however, to have removed the provocations arising from
the unjust exclusion of small proprietors; the temptation ari-
sing from a market which the poacher only could supply; the
scandal and depravation arising from the example of a whole
community, from the highest to the lowest, banded against the
law.

Deeply as every good citizen must deplore the means by
which these disqualification acts were trodden under foot,
there is a lesson contained in so signal a discomfiture, which,
it is to be hoped, injustice never will forget. The project,
on the part of lords of manors, was to get for them and theirs
the game which properly belonged to tbe persons whom they
disqualified. The result has been, that they lost tenfold the
amount out of that game, which, according to all reason,
was and ought to have been looked upon as their own.
They desired to give to game the dignity of a privilege; they
took from it the sanctity of property. They grudged the
neighbouring fanner a day's coursing; they gave the ope-
rative and the labourer a larger share in their preserves, than
they could keep for themselves. They sought to put down
the snare and the net of the lurking village-poacher ; they
called up into open fight the bludgeon and the carabine, till
their keepers were defeated and slaughtered in pitched battles ;
they themselves bearded in their plantations, and their winter's
shooting spoiled before their face. Finally, they hoped to stop
the sale of a single feather; — they glutted every market.

The first object with a reasonable government must be the
removal of such fearful evils. They consist of many heads,
both immediate and prospective. There is the injury to the
rights of the proprietor of the soil. There is the disturbance of
the public peace from the outrageous character vehich the of-
fence has recently assumed. There is a mine worked below the
very foundations of society in the scorn and demoralization
which must ensue, when the body of the people is habituated to
the example of successful combination in opposition to the law.
The quantity of misery incurred in direct suffering, on the part
of convicted poachers and that of their families, is in itself a
serious consideration. It becomes more serious when we perceive
that the suffering is only so much pain endured. All the bad, and

298 The Neio Game Laws, Dec,

none of the good effects of punisliment belong to it. From the
increased quantity of game with which the market has been
supplied, it is evident that the convictions (so far from suppress-
ing the offence) have gone on for some years, representing a
less and less per centage on the real amount of crime. The
extent to which public confidence and opinion have been
affected by the spectacle which our law has long presented on
this subject, is an abyss which nobodj'' can fathom. In one of
its most practical departments, the law of England has been
kept longer than any one living can remember, in a shape too
irrational to bear an argument in its defence. It has, conse-
quently, been notoriously violated alike by all ranks. We
have had younger sons shooting without a qualification ;
gentlemen shooting without certificates ; noblemen exchanging
game with their fishmonger for fish ; Peers of Parliament, and
members of Committees upon the Game Laws, ordering plenty
of partridges for dinner at Ascot races, before the lawful season.
Yet all along, the violation of the law has been only attempted
to be punished in the persons of the poor. A universal im-
pression of unfairness could not but gather strength. The
people began to murmur against the parliamentary makers of
such a law. Its administrators, their immediate superiors and
neighbours, suffered from the suspicious unpopularity of an
almost personal jurisdiction. Game became a question on
which, justly or unjustly, an idea got abroad, that the twelve
Judges and the Quarter Sessions are very different tribunals.
A pernicious sympathy arose on behalf of the worst of all ex-
amples ; — the example of an exception, on the part of witnesses
and juries, to the respect due from them to the law and to their
oath. In the fluctuations to which our raanufactui'ing popu-
lation is exposed, and in the depression to which the peasantry,
especially that of the south of England, (mainly through the
mismanagement of the poor laws,) has been so unfortunately
reduced, it would have been madness to have left outstanding
throughout the present winter such a monstrous, and at the
same time so gratuitous, an element of discontent.

Such being the evils of the offence, the degree to which, in
its present inflamed state, it is under the control of legis-
lation, must depend on the causes which lead to its commission.
From the Nimrod passion of our nature, the amusement of the
sport has to answer for a good deal. Something too must be
allowed for the spirit of adventure. There are grown up per-
sons, like truant schoolboys, who feel a pleasure in being hunted
as well as hunting. Indignation from a sense of the supposed
injustice of the law, especially whilst it was encouraged by the

183 If The New Game Laws, 299

prospect of iinpunity on account of popular connivance, may,
in many instances, have turned the imagination of an incipient
offender in this direction. But all other causes are slight
when compared with the profit to be obtained by the disposal
of the spoil.

Now, on comparing the disadvantages which have been ex-
perienced under the former system, with any possible inconve-
nience which may continue or may arise under the new one,
it is some security, that the mischiefs experienced of late do
not appear to admit of aggravation. The novelty of an open
sale will make a greater show ; and, for the first season, per-
haps, a little more excitement. But poaching, in whatever
point of view we look at it, whether of private wrong, general
alarm, the sufferings of the offenders, or ultimate danger from
public demoralization and discontent, had reached its maxi-
mum. No change of the law can strengthen any of the causes
of the offence. The pleasure depends on personal disposition.
The blind feeling of resentment or of enterprise may be less-
ened, but cannot be increased. The poacher's trade has been
hitherto a monopoly. They undersold each other in it by a com-
petition which must have been ruinous, except that they could
afford to sell for little what had cost them nothing but the risk
of liberty and life. On the supposition that the poachers
should retain their monopoly, things could be no worse —
they would be the same only as before. But even on this
supposition, the injury to the proprietors of game has been
greater under the irregularity of an unlawful supply, than what
it would be, in all probability, under an open and lawful sale.
The supply and demand, during the system of concealment,
could not be calculated and accommodated to each other. Thus,
it is on evidence, by the testimony of the most respectable Lon-
don poulterers, that the late supply did not simply and adequately
cover the consumption of the metropolis. Over and above, and
after the most liberal consumption, there was a surplus for
waste far beyond what is known in other articles. If the market
is so far enlarged as to carry off what was formerly lost by waste,
it is as great an increase in the demand as is likely permanently
to take place. The new customers, who formerly made it a
point of conscience not to buy game, constitute, we fear, no
serious proportion on the whole.

If legislation cannot make the matter worse, the question is,
which way must it turn with the view of making it better ?
The specific amendments of the law ought, as far as is possible,
to be brought to bear against the very causes of the crime.
Whatever depends on individual temperament, or is inherent in

300 The New Game Lmvs. ■ Dec.

the nature of the case, (and there is no denying that too much
of this sort of temptation will remain,) lies beyond our reach.
Some people gratify a passion at all risks. But all the mo-
tives which have been thrown into the scale from a senti-
ment of injustice, and almost of village martyrdom, may be
withdrawn. The trade of the poacher may be taken from him.
If he cannot be positively undersold, he may be run down to
such low profits as to make it not worth even his while to con-
tinue in the profession ; and by that discouragement of suspect-
ed dealers which common decency demands of us, the market
may in time be substantially closed against him ; for the
poacher will not stand in the same position as the smuggler.
No revenue is to be raised for government by a tax on par-
tridges, so as to make it the interest of a respectable poulterer,
now that he can get otherwise supplied, to put himself in the
power of an informer. Directed to these objects, the present
measure has the merit at least of great simplicity. It consists
wholly of the repeal of two classes of statutory prohibitions ;
— those by which the proprietor of game was disqualified both
from sporting and from sale. Whilst it cannot possibly (for
no alteration could) increase the evils, the remedy is applied
to the specific causes contained in those statutory prohibitions.
Evils which the law had certainly aggravated, if not created, it
is to be hoped that the law in great measure also may remove.

We are encom-aged to think that this hope may be realized,
from looking at the contrast which is exhibited by the other-
wise analogous cases of wildfowl and fish, and by observing the
positive interests which are peaceably maintained in decoys and
fisheries. All the natural causes which lead to fraud and vio-
lence exist in the shape of teal and widgeon, of trout and sal-
mon, quite as strongly as in their colleagues, who have been
raised by an unfortunate distinction to the privilege of game.
To take the instance of fish only. A salmon trout comes and
goes as quick as a partridge ; it is not more easily identified ; it
has not made even as much of an advance to the vulgar origin
of notions of property, by being fed, or tamed, or counted by its
claimant. Whatever difference exists between the two cases,
is prima facie to the disadvantage of the fish. In case nobody
not worth L.lOO a-year in land could fish even in his own
stream ; — still more, in case some aristocratical member of
the finny tribe were selected which nobody might sell, — our
brooks, as well as our plantations, would ere this have been
stained with human blood. The sea (by the title of the King's
waste) and navigable rivers, by reason of an ownership in the soil
over which they flow, belong to the Crown, as representing the

1831. The Netv Game Laws. 301

public. This water prerogative is more extensive than there was
room for in the case of land. The more valuable fisheries in
public waters are royal piscaries, corresponding to royal
forests. When they were granted out, they became a sort of
aquatic chase in the hands of subjects. Public waters, on
which no royal fishery was erected, were left open to all man-
kind. Every one had the right of passing over them without being
liable to trespass, and might appropriate to himself whatever he
could catch therein. No property in fish ratiotie soli could arise,
where the soil covered with water was by prescription abandon-
ed to the public. But there is not a foot of dry land which
answers to this condition ; for the soil even in the King's liigh-
way is vested in the proprietors of either side respectively.
In this point a highway resembles the case of rivers not
navigable, and private streams ; in which, accordingly, the
exclusive right of fishing ad Jilum aquce, belongs to the re-
spective owners of the adjoining banks ratione soli. On
comparing the fisher's and the hunter's vocabulary, the pis-
catory art appears to have been neglected, as too tranquil an
amusement, and its spoil as too insipid, or too ecclesiastical a
food. The Norman barons disdained to trouble themselves
with the scientific nomenclature either of catching or cook-
ing fish. The law was left both in its letter and its practice
to its Saxon simplicity ; and, as far as fishing or fish are
concerned, was undisturbed by any attempt at fmnchise beyond
that which we have mentioned. Notwithstanding a nominal
but unexercised prerogative, occupancy existed in the sea and
in the open rivers. Otherwise and elsewhere, the right of
private property was alone recognised. It is one of those
exclusive rights, which (as formerly in the case of all hunting,
and still in that of fox-hunting) has not in general been un-
graciously enforced. The prohibitions of 3d and 4th William
III , even against angling, have been comparatively a dead
letter. Such, too, we hope their re-enactment by Sir Robert
Peel may yet usually remain. It is but rarely that the dis-
ciple of Walton has to complain, ' that there are some cove-

* tous rigid persons, whose souls hold no sympathy with those

* of the innocent anglers, having either got to be lords of

* royalty, or owners of land adjoining to rivers ; and these do

* by some apted clownish nature and education, for the pur-

* pose, insult and domineer over the innocent angler, beating

* him, breaking his rod, or at least taking it from him, and

* sometimes imprisoning his person, as he was a lelon ; where-

* as a true-bred gentleman scorns tliosc spider-like attempts,

* and will rather refresh a civil stransrer at his table, tlian

$02 The Neio Game Laivs, Dec.

* warn Inm from coming on his ground on so innocent an
' occasion.'

On a review of our statement, the New Game Law appears to
be, in point of fact, only a recurrence to the precedent of the
common law. Of the motives which originally led to a depar-
ture from our ancient principles, some are seen to be obsolete —
the rest and more important ones to have been wofully defeated
by the result. The evils which have progressively grown up to
their present malignant height, under the very statutes passed for
their suppression, are such, that there is nothing to be risked by
any experiment whatever. At the same time, a consideration
of the causes which have inflamed these evils, and a reference
to the comparatively harmless state of the subjects, whose
circumstances resemble that of game in every respect, except
that they have not been cursed by the unnatural protection of
similar legislation, may justify some confidence in the healing
nature of the present measure. But were all these grounds of
reliance wanting, and were no trust to be placed in common
sense and justice, it would be not the less true, that a change
has taken place which leaves us no alternative. We must
legislate for our own times. The condition of the country,
its cultivation and enclosures, the introduction of a new
species of property and of purchasers, the growth of a power-
ful middle class, a complete alteration in the mode of pre-
serving as well as of sporting, are things all in their several
natures irreconcilable with the spirit and execution of the for-
mer law.

The period which was chosen to enforce our late system
was singularly ill timed. It might have suited earlier ages,
when it was nevertheless unknown ; whilst it could not pos-
sibly exist, unless very partially and reluctantly, and by com-
promise, in that in which it was introduced. Two or three
centuries ago, the practice undoubtedly would be the same all
over England, as it was in great part of such a county as Lin-
colnshire for instance, and in Scotland also, within the recollec-
tion of the last generation ; such as in great measure it is in
Ireland now, and as Stiernhook describes it to be in the North
of Europe. Any body might have shot his way over the whole
country, nor have feared an action of trespass, or any interrup-
tion except in the immediate neighbourhood of a house or some
protected spot. The language of the statute of 170*7, and the
laxity of prior usage, encouraged a sportsman, as late as the year
1790, to contend in a court of law in Scotland, that his qualifica-
tion entitled him to hunt on the property of another. ^ Thus
Stiernhook says of Sweden— .*Sed hse leges, quamvis ssepius tot

The Neiv Game Laws, 303'

* regum edictis munitee, raro tamen observantur, ubi libertatia

* quisque pristinae memor, et tenax suo se jure uti putat.' Not-
withstanding the present enclosed aspect of English cultivation,
(and it was one of its early characteristics,) yet park and warren
were evidently for some time its principal actual enclosures.
Afterwards, as late as the reign of Henry VIII. and his imme-
diate successors, when the great cry was raised against enclo-
sures, their first effect would not bear hard upon trespassers,
since the immediate object of those enclosures was to turn tillage
land into pasture land, and replace the ploughboy by the shep-
herd and his dog. The centuries which it took pheasants to
travel from the south to the north of England, so that they
crossed the Trent in the memory of man, are a proof of the
obstacles which the forlorn and naked state of the intermediate
country interposed. From the following proclamation by
Henry VHI. (and it was renewed in the reigns of Edward VI.
and Mary,) the open character of the suburbs even of the metro-
polis, much more of our provincial towns, may be naturally
inferred. In 1536 he issued a proclamation, reciting his great
desire ' to preserve the partridges, pheasants, and herons, from

* his palace at Westminster, to St Gyles's in the Fields, from

* thence to Islington, Hamstead, Highgate, and Hornsey Park ;

* and that, if any person, of any rank or quality, presumed to

* kill any of these birds, they were to be imprisoned, as also

* suffer such other punishment as to his highness should seem

* meet.' Under the circumstances of that period, the ordinary
state of cultivation could not be such as to make the amount of
produce destroyed by game an object, or the intrusion by a
trespassing sportsman any nuisance. The quantity of game
would hardly tempt a poacher to the pursuit. It Avas pigeons,
and not hares, whose maintenance Hartlib grudges, when he
calculates the number of bushels of corn which they consumed
in England. But what is worth all the other distinctions put
together, and which lies indeed at the bottom of the whole ques-
tion, is the fact, that in those days there would comparatively
be no purchaser to bribe the poacher to take up the trade.

Did the insolence of feudality induce men to make absurd
and incongruous laws concerning the chase, even in such a
period ? As far as the greater part of the country and of the
population were concerned, they must remain altogether ineffi-
cient. Whatever might be enacted in behalf of privilege, the
right of occupancy would bear it down, and continue to be the
ordinary practice in that stage of society. We are no friends to
privilege. At all times it is on such a subject an absurd and
inapplicable title. But it is not less true, that the title of

304 The New Game Laws. Dec.

occupancy must in course of time always become as unreason-
able ; and that it would, in the actual state of things in Eng-
land, be even more mischievous and unjust. When game begins
to live mainly on the produce of human labour, and when a
regular demand for it attracts it to the shops, it is hencefor-
ward nothing but a wild sort of poultry fed in a random way.
In the eye of reason, it has then all the characters of property.
It ought under these circumstances to acquire at once the sanc-
tion of property in the eye also of the law. This is the only
way in which sound opinions on the subject can be formed;
and the same respect be gradually conciliated towards this as
towards other kinds of property among the body of the people.

A Scythian or Arab tribe would shrink from the threat of
being confined to a stationary property in land; yet the institu-
tion of landed property is a necessary preliminary to civilisation.
Wild horses and wild cattle are left to the first catcher in South
America at present. Yet as South American society advances,
this barbarous right must be gradually superseded. The same
progress takes place with what happens to be called game, (for
this is different in different countries,) and other creatures yerte
naturm. The law of a country, scarcely half appropriated, and
much less than half cultivated, cannot on such subjects be the
same as the law of a wealthy, agricultural, manufacturing, com-
mercial, professional, and f undhoiding community, residing upon
a thickly peopled, hermetically enclosed, and highly cultivated
soil. The notion, on one hand, that the gentry of the most hu-
mane and polished society on earth must be provided with
hattues ; on the other, that the body of the people have a claim
to be indulged in the wild and hunter passion of unrestricted
chase, are prejudices equally at variance with the history and
the nature of mankind. An imaginary right on the part of the
senators and the mob of Rome to an amphitheatre and to gla-
diators, as being amusements pre-eminently national and Ro-
man, was not more so.

There is a vulgar saying about the public object with which
ambassadors are sent abroad. Lord Strangford was informed,
not long ago, that this privilege of diplomacy is construed strict-
ly, and is limited to their intercourse with foreign courts. But
it is the nature of immoral exceptions to encroach. Thus the re-
serve and dissimulation which official life may frequently make
a duty even at home, and within the walls of Parliament, some-
times proceed to lengths which it is difficult to reconcile with the
confidence which it is so desirable we should feel that we may
place in the declarations of public men. In 1829, Sir Robert Peel
told us, that, as early as 1825, he tendered his resignation to Lord

1831. The Neiv Game Laws. 305

Liverpool, from a conviction that the time was come when Catho-
lic Emancipation ought to be conceded. Nevertheless, in 1827,
he was found heading, in the House of Commons, a bitter oppo-
sition against Mr Canning, and protesting all the while that his
refusal to serve under him was entirely grounded on the fact, that
Mr Canning was known to be favourable to concessions. The un-
limited denouncement of Parliamentary Reform with which the
Duke of Wellington maybe said to have broken up his administra-
tion, was explained, a few weeks afterwards, to be the opinion of
the Duke of Wellington, not as a Peer of Parliament, but only
of the Duke of Wellington as Minister of the Crown. In the
debates upon the Game Bill, the Duke undertook to give the
public the benefit of his honourable experience of foreign coun-
tries, by asserting that the authority of revolutionaiy France was
the only European precedent for the course which we were pursu-
ing. A singularity of the sort would not have been fatal, were it
true. But, in point of fact, there exists no such uniformity of
opposite legislation as is here assumed. If it were intended to
apply the observation to the sale of game, we are not aware
that this is any where prohibited. Even in times when the
privilege of the chase was most strictly royal and seignorial in
France, game was sold just like other fowl. It used to be taken
generally in nets, as being more saleable when so taken. It may
be admitted that the Crown in most feudal monarchies subjected
the right of sporting, when exercised by a simple proprietor even
on his own soil, to the necessity of a license, or some other qualifi-
cation. This was the case certainly in France and Holland. It
was introduced by the Norman conquerors into Sicily and the
South of Italy. Nevertheless, in the Considerazioni sopra la
storia dl Sicilia, Gregorio gives the diploma whereby King
Roger granted the citizens the liberty of hunting and fishing on
their farms ; and the Norman Barons were made to swear to the
Emperor Lothario that they would give similar rights to the
citizens of Beneventum. The inhabitants of the towns in those
days, it is clear, were not meant to be excluded on the continent,
more than the citizens of London. The privilege of free chase
occurs in most of the earlier charters of the city of London, and
the liberty of hunting over Middlesex is said to have been fre-
quently confirmed to them. This ought to be understood, pro-
bably, of immunities similar to that which all the free tenants
of the county of Middlesex acquired under the charter by which
the warren of Staines was unwarrened. The interest which
the citizens had in this question, has conferred upon this docu-
ment the dignity of being entitled the fifth charter of Henry III.
to the city of London. The change of fashions has since turned

306 The Neiv Game Laws. Dec.

the city officer called the " Common Hunt," into a master of
the ceremonies to the Lady Mayoress.

However magnificent and universal may have been the lan-
guage of silvan prerogative on the continent, it was a right
which even absolute monarchs could not practically enforce.
Fabian mentions in his Chronicle, that ' Louis XL, imme-
' diately on being crowned, by consent of his council, made a
' law, that no man, of what degree that he were, should use
' hunting or hawking without speciall license, and specially for

* chasing or hunting of wolvys, nor to keep with him any houndyp,

* or other instruments whereby the game might be destroyed.'
It would have been as well if he had gone on to mention that
this innovation, however, was a principal cause of the conspi-
racy raised against him by the princes of the kingdom. There
is nothing encouraging in the example of ancient France on this
point, even when we give it credit for the modifications which
from time to time its government introduced. By an ordi-
nance as far back as 1355, King John put a stop to the in-
crease of warrens, that is of preserves, as injurious to agricul-
ture. In 1396 Charles VI. professed to restrain the right of
sporting to the nobles : yet he had the discretion to insert amid
the mandates of barbarous feudalism, exceptions much wiser
than the spirit of our qualification acts long afterwards allowed.
' De laquelle prohibition etoient exceptes les bourgeois vivans
' de leurs possessions et rentes.' Notwithstanding these miti-
gations, the eagerness with which the National Assembly, in
1791, united in the proscription of the former offensive system,
is a convincing proof that the amount of hostile feeling which
it had provoked, was much beyond the appaient importance of
the privilege itself. Poaching has not been done away with
certainly by the change of the law in France. But all parties
arc perfectly satisfied with the actual regulations; the effect of
which, in spite of considerable inconsistency, both in the lan-
guage and in the remedy, is to make the interest in the game
au incident to the ownership of the soil. Even in case the
Duke of Wellington had not hunted long enough in Spain to
have learned its provisions concerning the chase, he might,
as a grandee of that kingdom, have been expected to know,
that in that country, which was never suspected of revolu-
tionary propensities, this part of its law is more popular than
our own will become even under the present bill. * Wild

* beasts, &c., are the property of him who takes them ; and they
' can be taken not only on one's own property, but on that of
' another unless the owner forbid the entry thereon.' — Institutes
of Spai?i, 99. This is the same limitation, which, according to

1831. The New Game Laws, 30t

Heineccius, the good sense of Germany has also put upon the
rude maxim of the civil law. Not a word here of qualification ;
nor of the confusion which has long pervaded the English law,
owing to Bracton's unexplained exceptions of nisi consuetudo
aut privilegium se haheat in contrarium. But the Duke need
have travelled no further than to Scotland for the actual exist-
ence of the old common law principle, the restoration of which
seemed such a novelty to his Grace. ' The right of hunting,

* fowling, and fishing within one's own ground, naturally arises

* from the property in the lands.' (Ev&Vme^^ Institute.) He will
find there no nonsense about franchise or lords of manors; whilst
the only subsisting qualification, (that of 1621,) is compara-
tively nugatory and forgotten. The truth is, that the usage
on this subject varies according to the state of cultivation and
of society, whatever may be the law. If the law is to repre-
sent the wants of mankind, and to be obeyed, it must attend to
these circumstances. To perceive the folly of supposing that
one practice and one rule must be equally applicable to all
countries, we need only look at contemporary periods, as con-
tained in the history, past or present, of our own three king-
doms. The connexion between property in the soil, and pro-
perty in the game which is upon it, is so reasonable a rule that
it ought to be adopted by the law, long before a liberal pro-
prietor will be likely in an ordinary case to stand strictly
upon his right. The respective conditions of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland, have strong marks of the several progres-
sive stages, through which, in reference probably to the creation,
but certainly to the enforcement of this right, impi'oving coun-
tries must almost necessarily pass. Game is one of the few
matters of quarrel and misgovernment which has never been an
Irish grievance. The Scotch cases of 1809 show to how late a
day important points were left unraised in Scotland ; and con-
sequently within how recent a period the rule of the Scotch
law came to be investigated and applied.

Legislation, when it does its best, can only offer a people the
effectual means of promoting their happiness. Whether they
will avail themselves of the means, must, after all, depend upon
themselves. This is particularly the case with measures like
the present, and like that of Parliamentary Reform. The
state of the former laws on both subjects was long left so scanda-
lously defective, that the temptations to infringement and to vice
were more than the average degree of human virtue could be ex-
pected to resist. However intelligible, and, to a certain extent,
however excusable may be this result, the consequences to pub-
lic morality have not been the less mischievous. A serious
inroad has been made on that respectful feeling towards the

308 The Neio Game Laws, Dec*

law, whicl), as it Is the soundest symptom, so is it one of the
most ennobling characteristics that a nation can possess. The
effect of inveterate prejudices and habits are not capable of
being repealed at a word. Yet every chiss of the community
ought to be made aware that the amended state of the law will
leave them without excuse for a continuance in their former
practices. It is only in proportion as they shall be prepared
accordingly to put their conduct in harmony with the law, when
it is thus amended, that the country can, in either case, reap the
benefit of an improved system, however good.

Parliamentary Reform promises to arm us as effectually
against the jobber and the corruptionist, as the reform in our
game laws arms us against the out-of-doors poacher. In case it
ultimately fails in its great object, that of supplying their place
with public-spirited men, we shall only have ourselves to blame.
So, in the present instance, the machinery put into our hands,
properly managed, will enable us to drive the poacher out of the
field. But honest men must combine in order to give the experi-
ment its due chance of success. The object is of sufficient im-
portance to demand, on the part of every member of society, the
most faithful observance of the part which his station assigns
to him in the necessary arrangements. If the poor are to re-
spect the law, the rich must set them the example, and every
violation of it must be enforced, against all alike. If a senti-
ment of honour cannot be created in every gentleman on this
subject, it should be considered by his neighbours as a question
not of private compliment or interest, but as one of public
prosperity and peace. The penalties are to go to the county
rate. The certificates in every county ought to be learned off
by heart by the collectors of taxes, aiul the penalty by way of
surcharge should be most rigidly watched for and exacted by
them. This principle of considering that collectors of taxes
and excise officers are informers retained on the part of the
public, should be carried into execution throughout, wherever
u penalty is leviable under the act. We have heard very lately
at Leeds, of poulterers, against whom their honester brethren
did not venture to inform ; yet their partridges were all net-
ted, and their pheasants shot by an air-gun. There should be
no distinction whether it is the case of sportsman, poulterer, or
consumer — of the individual who kills, who sells, or who buys
the game. By degrees a proper public feeling may be created.
When tliat is the case, it will do away with the demand for extra-
ordinary vigilance and official superintendence. After the melan-
choly importance which the subject has acquired, nobody cun
be ignorant of the evils which he wantonly and cruelly encour-

1831. The New Game Laws. S09

ages by participating in, or inducing a violation of tlie law.
Now that game can be brought to market legally and honestly,
no mercy should be shown to offenders in any stage of the
offence. The public ought to agree to denounce, expose, and
punish, such reckless indifference or selfishness, wherever it may
exist. Not to do so, is to be an accessary to the mischief, and
almost to the immorality. A vigorous prosecution of crimes
apparently much more serious, is not half so important at
this moment.

There are other subordinate and auxiliary arrangements be-
sides, and beyond the possible provision of the law. Whilst
they are indispensable to the complete success of the present
plan, we are necessarily entirely dependent on the good nature
and enlightened self-interest of the principal landed proprietors
for their adoption. As a question of policy, it is most desirable
that the landlord should let the tenant into a kind of partner-
ship in the game, in order to identify the interest of landlord
and tenant on this, as on every other subject connected with the
management of a farm. We are aware it must take a little time
to accustom squires to the sight of a gun in the hands of a far-
mer, and still longer to keep their nerves quiet when they hear
it popping in an adjoining stubble. But, by the end of the sea-
son, Mr Littleton and Sir Robert Wilmot will be no losers when
they and their narrower-minded neighbours compare even their
respective heads of game. But surely good neighbourhood and
kind feeling ought to count for something. This concession
will turn the farmer (the great sufferer by, and consequently
principal destroyer of, supernumerary game at present) into the
best of all preservers. The village poacher will find him a
more active garde champetre than any keeper. But the secret
and formidable combinations which by their numbers resist,
and by their common purse make light of the terrors of the
law, can be only put down by taking the market out of their
hands, and by transferring it to that of the landed proprietors,
to whom it properly belongs. For this purpose, the very ally
we want volunteers his services. The poulterer is the natui'al
middle man between the game producer and the consumer.
The experience of the last thirty years has proved beyond all
controversy that game is a species of goods which, in the actual
state of society, will find its way into the market. Squires
may lament the fact ; but so it is. Hitherto the law has com-
pelled the poulterer to be the receiver of stolen goods. This is
now no longer made necessary by law. We hope the raisers
of game will not make it necessary in fact. To obviate this
disgraceful necessity, (and it is a scandal, of which the poulterers

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. X

JiJ'O The "New Game Laws, JDecJ.

have bitterly complained,) country gentlemen must contrive to
supply the market to a sufficient extent on reasonable terms.*
In this case it will be so clearly the interest of the poulterer not
to run the risk of detection for so trifling an advantage as
may attend the purchasing from a poacher, that we think
(with, of course, some few exceptions) his interest will be a
security for his honesty. The London poulterers have seemed
to us entitled to the greatest credit for their conduct on this
question. Their evidence before the committees was direct
and manly. Their late meeting and adv^ertisement is a straight-
forward and necessary call on the preservers of game, and on
the public, for assistance in executing the law. We hope that
every county in England will follow the example set by Lord
Jermyn and the gentlemen round Bury ; by Mr B. Thom-
son, near York ; by Lord Yarborough, &c. It never must be
forgotten that the farmer and the poulterer are indispensable
coadjutors in this measure. We have no doubt they will do
their duty if a just confidence is placed in them. Without their
help, the whole is vanity and vexation of spirit.

In the meantime, we have one request to make of the specta-

* We have the authority of the first poulterer in Leadenhall mar-
ket for the opinion, that poaching can he put down in no other way.
Poachers will otherwise keep possession ot the market, and the lionest
poulterer will retire from a line of business in which he is not properly
supported by either the producer or the consumer. Tlie demand
in both years is said to be about the same: but the average prices of
game were,

Hare.

Br. Pheas.

Br.

Part.

Last year,

3s. 6d.

7s. Od.

4s.

Od.

This year,

4s. 6d.

8s.

4s.

6d.

The deficiency of the supply, in consequence of his ceasing to deal
with poachers' agents, whilst gentlemen hold back, has raised the price
to tlie fair trader. In the meantime, there liave sprung up depots for
poached game, in various parts of the town, (esi)ecially at the Avcst
end,) and dealers wJio were unknoAvn to trade in it before. In this
way poached game is now selling at one-third less than game fairly
obtained. This disproportion must be reduced. The consequence
is, that Mr Stevens is at present losing a guinea a-day by the opera-
tion of tlie new bill ; and unless some alteration takes place, intend?,
at the expiration of his present license, to cease to deal in it. If
gentlemen bad rather one by one be plundered by the poacher, than
agree on principle systematically to outbid him, and drive him from
the market, they must take the consequences of their choice.

1831. The New Game Laws. 311

tor part of the public, — especially of those who have most loud-
ly lamented the aberrations of the law, and most vehemently
insisted on its correction. Our request is, that they will not
injure the ultimate success of the experiment by expecting too
much at once, and by disheartening themselves and others by
precipitate despair. It is not likely that poaching should im-
mediately disappear. The legislator has no fairy wand at his
command. The character and habits of a people are beyond
his direct control as much as the quality of the soil. All that
he can do is to aid and develope the resources of a country,
whether physical or moral, — to restrain, by such discourage-
ments as are within his reach, evil habits, — and to endeavour, by
alteratives, gradually to superinduce feelings and principles of a
higher order. The law can no more prevent stealing pheasants
than stealing sheep. It is enough, if it is so framed as not to
confound the just principles of right and wrong upon this sub-
ject any more than upon any other. Some pains must be taken
to talk sense to the people upon it, and impress on their minds
the true distinctions; — an example of obedience to this part of
the law must be set by the other classes of the community ;
and time must be allowed for old habits and errors to die away.
When this is done, there is no reason to apprehend but that a
calm application of proportionate penalties by unsuspected tri-
bunals will accomplish whatever the peace of society requires,
and as much as on such a subject can be reasonably expected of
acts of Parliament. At all events, whatever happens, it will
then not be the law, but the selfish squire and as selfish con-
sumer,— the privateering poacher and his dishonest agent, who
will be to blame ; nor, in our opinion, in very difffirent pro-
portions. Under the former system, the salesman could pur-
chase, early in the season, both in town and country, any
number of partridges at a shilling a-piece, and make his profit.
Should this, under the amended system, still continue to be
the case, it is plain, unless some eflicient, but as yet unsuggested,
improvement in the machinery of the regulations can be devised,
that there is no help for it. We shall see clearly, however,
where the evil lies. Many schoolboys are brought up in the
faith that occupancy is the true doctrine in an orchard or a duck-
pond. If grown-up men will act on the same principle in so
serious a question as the present, and proceed as though the
subject of so much deliberation were, after all, only what is
called fair game, instead of a substantial interest, ratione soli,
we know of no means by which an unconscientious and unrea-
sonable public can be made to execute an honest and reasonable
law.

"31I& Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. Dec.

Art. II. — The Life of Archbishop Cranmer. By the Rev.
Henry John Todd, M.A. Cbaplain in Ordinary to his
Majesty, Prebendary of York, and Rector of Settrington,
County of York. 2 vols. 8vo : London, 1831.

rilHE present century, which has now passed its first eventful
-*- quarter, and of which the remaining three are probably
destined to exhibit deep and essential changes in the general
aspect of human affairs, has produced various biographies of
English prelates, written with various degrees of talent and
learning, but all bearing one conspicuous mark of resemblance,
in the zeal and pertinacity with which they recommend to the
admiration or acquiescence of mankind all that has been done,
and taught, and established by, the Church. The Church of
Rome is infallible, and the Church of England never errs ;
which, if not in the abstract, at least in the concrete, amounts
to nearly the same thing. According to the sentiments of some
of those writers to whom we now allude, Laud was an excellent
prelate. As admiration is apt to engender imitation, it might
perhaps be proposed as a reasonable question, whether those
who admire the character and conduct of Archbishop Laud
might not, according to their opportunities, feel a secret incli-
nation to imitate the vigour and decision with which he strove
to check the deviations of unauthorized opinion. Without
attempting to crop the ears or slit the noses of those who ad-
vanced any ' plea against prelacy,' they might devise other modes
of persecution, less abhorrent to the spirit of the age in which
they themselves seem to have been misplaced. The wide cur-
rent of improvement, which bears so many along with the general
stream, must always throw others aside, and leave them en-
tangled among the rank weeds. If Dr Lingard were to under-
take the lives of Bonner and Gardiner, there can be little or no
doubt that he would cast a friendly shade over their woist
actions, and represent them to the world as a couple of excellent
prelates.

Of this disposition to praise, or at least to defend, whatever
has touched the garment of his own church, Mr Todd has fur-
nished us with many examples. But tlie subsequent passage,
which relates to the first Service-Book of Edward the Sixth, may
in some measure enable the reader to discern the spirit of his
book : — < By others of their opinion, the service, as might be

* expected, was much censured; by multitudes, however, on the

* other hand, it was received with approbation, joy, and thank-

* fulness. But an especial cavil against the act for the unifor-

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmef, 318

* mity of divine service, which now gave the book to the public,

* was raised, on account of the assertion in it, that the book was
' framed by the aid of the Holy Ghost. The expression wasmain-
' tained as just. It was to be understood not as if the compilers
' had been inspired by extraordinary assistance, for then there

* had been no room for any correction of what was now done ;

* but in the sense of every good motion and consultation being
' directed, or assisted, by the secret influences of divine grace,
' which, even in their imperfect actions, often help the A^rtu-
' ous. While Romanists, down to the present day, appear to
' censure this expression, they are silent as to the confident de-
' claration of one whom they often exalt to undue respect,

* Bishop Stephen Gardiner, who, writing to the vice-chancellor
' of Cambridge a few days before the publication of the Neces-
' sary Erudition, said, " that the King's Majesty, by the inspira-

* tion of the Holy Ghost, hath componed all matters of religion." *
— Vol. II. p. 65. Instead of condemning the gross indecency of
this pretence to divine inspiration, he has mustered a very in-
competent defence ; and apparently distrusting the efficacy of
his own arguments, he finally endeavours to justify one absurd-
ity by another.

Thomas Crannier, the first Protestant archbishop of Canter-
bury, was a man of great merits and of great defects ; and, in
order to display his genuine character, it will be necessary to
exhibit a general outline of his history. Descended of an ancient
family, he was born on the second of July 1489, at Aslacton,
in the county of Nottingham, being the second son of Thomas
Cranmer and of his wife Agnes Hatfield. He received what
was then considered as a suitable education for a gentleman ;
nor did he neglect the recreations of hunting and hawking, and
the use of the bow. After his father's death, and when he him-
self was only fourteen years of age, he was sent to Jesus Col-
ledge, Cambridge, and about the year 1510 he was elected to a
fellowship. Erasmus, one of the great restorers of solid and ele-
gant learning, had already contributed his powerful aid in res-
cuing this university from scholastic jargon and monkish bar-
barism. The rectitude of Cranmer's understanding enabled him
to give a beneficial tendency to his academical studies : not satis-
fied with the antiquated course, he likewise devoted a portion of
his time to the acquisition of the Greek and Hebrew languages ;
and if he never became celebrated for the purity or elegance of
Latinity, it must be recollected that his chief attention was de-
voted to higher objects. Before he had reached the twenty-third
year of his age, he vacated his fellowship by marriage. His wife,
who in reality appears to have been the daughter of a gentle-

"sill Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer, Dec.

man, some Catholic writers of his own time have industriously
represented as a woman of low condition ; and were we even to
admit the accuracy of their representations, it is not easy to per-
ceive that he would thus be curtailed of any portion of his moral
dig^nity. He was now employed as a reader or lecturer in Mag-
dalen, or, as it was then called, Buckingham College ; and, says
John Fox, ' for that he would with more diligence apply that

* his office of reading, placed his said wife in an inn called the

* Dolphin, the wife of the house being of affinity to her. By

* reason whereof, and of his open resort unto his wife at that

* inn, he was much maiked of some Popish merchants ; where-

* upon rose the slanderous noise and report against him after he

* was preferred to the archbishopric of Canterbury, raised up by

* the malicious disdain of certain malignant adversaries to Christ

* and his truth, bruiting abroad everywhere, that he was but a

* hostler, and therefore without all good learning.' His wife
died about twelve months after their marriage ; and it is an ob-
vious proof of the estimation in which he was held, that he was
immediately restored to the fellowship which he had vacated. He
pursued his studies with renewed ardour ; and adhering to the
plan of reading with a pen in his hand, he now prepared a stock
of materials which he found of no small value in his future con-
troversies ; or, to adopt the sufficiently quaint phraseology of his
biographer, ' the abundant references he was thus accustomed to

* make, readily served him, inthedaysof controversy, for excellent

* defence, or easily led him on to absolute conquest.'

In the year 1524 he declined the offer of a fellowship in the
college which Wolsey had founded at Oxford. About the same
period he took the degree of D.D., and was appointed to the
lectureship in that faculty by his own college. In 1526 he was
nominated one of the public examiners in divinity ; and in this
situation he appears to have been instrumental in scattering the
seeds of reformation. ' His examinations of those who wished

* to proceed in divinity were therefore not in the sentences of

* the schoolmen, as was the custom of former days, but in the

* sacred pages. To none who were not well acquainted with

* these, would he allow the degree required ; and by many, in
' after- days, he was ingenuously thanked for his conscientious

* determination, which bade them "aspire unto better know-

* ledge" than the sophistry they had hitherto studied.' He had
been intrusted with the education of the two sons of a gentleman
named Cressy, who resided in the parish of Waltham- Abbey,
and county of Essex, and whose wife was related to Cranmer.
Being driven from Cambridge by an epidemic distemper, the
preceptor and his pupils retired to Cressy's house ; nor does it

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. 315

clearly appear that he afterwards resided in the university.
The king had made an excursion to the neighbourhood ; and
two of his attendants, Dr Gardiner, afterwards bishop of Win-
chester, and Dr Fox, afterwards bishop of Hereford, having
met Cranmer at Waltham, began to discuss with him the
momentous question of the king's divorce from Catherine of
Aragon. This princess had been married to Arthur, the elder
brother of Henry, but, according to her own solemn averment,
their nuptials had never been consummated. For the second
marriage, a papal dispensation had been obtained in due form ;
nor does the king appear to have been accessible to any com-
punctious visitings, till he found this marriage an impediment
to his union with Anne Boleyn. He then exerted all his
influence with the pope to procure a sentence, declaring the
nullity of a marriage contracted with his brother's widow ; but
although his holiness might otherwise have been disposed to lend
a willing ear to such a suitor, he was restrained by the con-
sideration that Catherine was the aunt of the Emperor Charles
the Fifth. Many intrigues had been employed, and much delay
had intervened, when this casual discussion took place at Walt-
ham, and when Dr Cranmer suggested the expediency of ' try-

* ing the question out of the word of God, and thereupon to

* proceed to a final sentence.' He strongly urged the propriety
of continuing the appeal to canonists and divines, for the facul-
ties of various universities had already been solicited to deliver
a formal opinion ;* but it is clear that the peculiar merit of his
advice must be resolved into a hint, more or less direct, respect-
ing the necessity of deciding the question without the authority
of the pope. This controversy, originating, not in the king's
scruples of conscience, but in feelings of a very different nature,
contributed in no small degree to the elevation of Cranmer, and
to the downfall of the church. When Fox, who was then the
royal almoner, communicated this plan of effecting a divorce,
Henry ' swore by the Mother of God, that man hath the right

* The consultation of the foreign universities was followed by a
curious publication, which bears the subsequent title : " Gravissimae
atque exactissirase illustrissimarum totius Italiae et Gallise Academi-
arum Censurae, efficacissimis etiam quorundam doctissimorum Uiro-
rum Argumentationibus explicates, de Ueritate illius Propositionis,
videlicet, quod ducere Relictam Fratris mortui sine libris ita sit de
lure diuino et naturali prohibitum, ut nuUus Pontifex super hujus-
modi Matrimoniis contractis siue contrahendis dispensare possit."—
Lond. 1530, 4to.

316 ToM*s Life of Archbishop Cranmer. pec.

* sow by the ear.' His attendance at court was immediately-
required ; and at tbeir first interview, the king enjoined him to
lay aside all other avocations, and to bend his faculties to the
furtherance of this important device. In the meantime, he
commended him to the hospitality of the Earl of Wiltshire,
father to Anne Boleyn. It is evident thatDr Lingard has very
erroneously described him as ' a dependant on the family of the
' king's mistress ;' for this appears to have been the true origin
of his connexion with the family, and his real dependence was
first on the hopes, and afterwards on the gratitude, of the king
himself. Henry appointed him archdeacon of Taunton, and one
of his chaplains ; he likewise bestowed upon him some parochial
benefice, of which the name is not ascertained.

Unwilling to hazard an open rupture with the visible head of
the church, the king again had recourse to negotiation, and
Cranmer was conjoined in a mission to the court of Rome, where
he saw ' many things contrary to God's honour.' During the
following year, 1531, he was commissioned as sole ambassador
to the emperor. He resided for several months in Germany ;
and there, about the beginning of the year 1532, he married tlie
niece of Osiander, an eminent pastor of Niirnberg. At the
period of his first marriage he was a layman ; but as he was
now in priest's orders, he plainly disregarded the authority of
the church. His residence in this country is supposed, and with
great probability, to have had the effect of bringing him much
nearer to the sentiments of the Protestants : here he must have
enjoyed many opportunities of becoming acquainted with their
views and feelings ; nor could his soundness of understanding
and honesty of purpose be unprofitably exercised, in a situation
so well calculated to second the impulse which his mind had
already received. From the gross error of the real presence he
only extricated himself by slow degrees. The human under-
standing had for many centuries been so stultified by this por-
tentous doctrine, that it seemed incapable of regaining a sound
and healthful state ; and, in this article of belief, the progress
of Luther and his followers was only from one absurdity to
another ; by rejecting transuhstantiation, and adopting consub-
stantiatio7i, they introduced a change of scholastic and unscrip-
tural terms, leaving their ideas involved in the ancient maze of
Popish errors.

Archbishop Warham, the patron of Erasmus, died in the
month of August 1532, and Dr Cranmer was immediately
tecalled from Germany to fill the vacant see of Canterbury.
This sudden and high preferment he is said to have accepted
with no small reluctance ; and one of the difficulties which

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer* SIT

presented themselves, is supposed to have been connected with
the peculiarity of his situation as a married priest.* During
the preceding reign, as Mr Todd states, it had been decided by
the courts of law that the marriage of a priest was voidable, but
not void ; and consequently that his issue, born in wedlock,
was entitled to inherit. But such a marriage was not recon-
cilable with the principles of the canon law, and much was to
be apprehended from the capricious ferocity of the king. His
wife was never publicly acknowledged; and, after the promul-
gation of the six articles in 1539, he found it expedient to send
her to her native country. When he was afterwards charged
with having thus entered into the state of matrimony, he
admitted the fact, but at the same time affirmed ' that it was
' better for him to have his own, than do like other priests,
' holding and keeping other men's wives.' Before he took the
oath of episcopal obedience to the pope, he adopted the
expedient of making a formal protest, that he only took it in
such a sense as was consistent with the laws of God, with the
rights of the king and his realm, and with the liberty of
declaring his own sentiments in matters of religion, even when
they might be in opposition to the authority of the pope him-
self. How far this protest was privately interposed or publicly
divulged, has been much and eagerly disputed between Pro-
testants and Catholics, but it appears to be a question of very
little importance. While we are ready to admit that Mr Todd
has refuted various allegations of the Popish historians, we still
retain a strong conviction that the character of Cranmer is not

* When Cranmer had fallen from his high estate, an elaborate book
against the man-iage of priests was published by Dr Martin, a lawyer
Avho was employed against him in tlie inquisitorial proceedings at
Oxford. " A Traictise, declarying and plainly prouying that the
pretensed Marriage of Priestes and professed Persones is no Mar-
riage, but altogether vnlawful, and in all ages, and all countreies of
Christendorne, bothe forbidden and also punyshed. Herewith is
comprised, in the later chapitres, a full Confutation of Doctour Poy-
nette's boke, entitled a Defense for the Marriage of Priestes. By
Thomas Martin, Doctom* of the Ciuile Lawes." Lond. 1554, Ito.
This book is said, probably without due foundation, to have 6een
chiefly Avritten by Bishop Gardiner and Dr Smith. Of the reputed
author, Bishop Ponet averred that he was a person who ' could put
' off all shame, and put on all impudence.' But Martin, whatever
else he might be, appears to have been a man of ability ; and some of
the arguments with which he pressed the unfortunate archbishop,
were very acute and cogent.

318 Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. Dec.

materially benefited by Lis zealous defence. To entitle the
archbishop elect to receive the bulls from the pope, it was
necessary for him to take a prescribed oath : the authority
which imposed this oath manifestly left no room for private
interpretation ; nor can we regard such an expedient in any
other light than that of a mere subterfuge. ' It was,' says Mr
Todd, ' the pleasure of his sovereign, but his own aversion, we

* have seen, that these forms should yet be followed. But

* instead of engaging himself to the oath, he declared to the
' king, that without the liberty of opposing it he would decline
' the honour that was proffered. Of this conduct he never after-

* wards repented.' Vol. I. p. 68. — But is not this a most lame
and impotent conclusion ? When swearing is not a mere act
of profanity, it is in its very essence the act of a man engaging
himself by his oath ; and if Cranmer thus reserved to himself
the liberty of opposing an oath, which he yet consented to
take, he was openly swearing to perform what he secretly con-
sidered as unlawful. What his biographer subjoins is not more
satisfactory. ' Thus much for the notoriety of the protest. It

* has been wished that he had taken the papal oath, as his
' predecessor Warham had taken it, without reserve or explana-
' tion, and then proceeded quietly in opposition to the pontiff, as
' that prelate is believed to have done by submitting, not long

* before, to the regal supremacy, and thus advancing a decisive

* step towards a reformation. The clamour against Cranmer, as

* to disingenuousness, might then, it has been thought, have been

* comparatively little, or none. But Ci'anmer was sincere, and

* Warham the reverse.' Casuists may suggest divers expedients
and salvos, but an honest man has only one method of taking
an oath.

That Cranmer's elevation is chiefly to be referred to the apti-
tude which he had discovered for promoting the dissolution of
the royal marriage, is a fact which cannot well be doubted. Soon
after his consecration he addressed to the king a letter, in which
he zealously urged the necessity of bringing this important ques-
tion to a determination ; and as the pious monarch had already
been declared the head of the church of England, he had no
hesitation in returning an answer, which, says the biographer,

* was in perfect accordance with the primate's suggestion ; in
' which he forgot not to maintain the supremacy he had lately re-

* covered.'' Of the origin and progress of the anomalous, and,
we will venture to add, very absurd maxim, that the king is the
head of the church, this may be considered as rather a curious
account ; for in what sense could Henry the Eighth be said to
recover a right or prerogative which had never been possessed

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer, S19

by him or any of his predecessors ?* The Queen of England
was cited to appear before the archbishop at Dunstable, within
a few miles of Ampthill, the place of her residence ; and on the
8th of May 1533, he opened his new court, assisted by the
bishop of Lincoln as his assessor. Catherine having failed to
make her appearance before this irregular tribunal, was, after
the expiration of fifteen days, declared contumacious ; and the
marriage was adjudged to be null and void from the beginning,
as having been contracted in defiance of the divine prohibition.
In the month of January, Henry had privately married Anne
Boleyn, after having cohabited with her for several years ; but
it seems to have been asserted without foundation that Cranmer
was present at their scandalous nuptials. It is well known that
she did not long retain the king's affections. Ardent love, in
so ferocious a breast, was easily converted into deadly hatred ;
and Anne, when supplanted by a new favourite, was accused of
A^arious acts of infidelity, of which it is not certain that she was
guilty.f The archbishop was again required to exercise his di-
vorcing faculty. ' The trial and condemnation of the queen,'
says Mr Todd, ' almost immediately followed. Not content with

* this result, the king resolved on further vengeance ; and after

* two days more, the afflicted archbishop was obliged judicially

* to declare her marriage invalid, and her offspring illegitimate.'
Vol. I. p. 157. But how was the archbishop obliged to perform
an act which is tacitly admitted to have been wrong ? The
reader must bear in mind that this sentence could have no re-
ference to the queen's alleged adultery ; for, according to the
canon law, marriage, which is one of the seven sacraments, can-
not be dissolved by any course of judicial procedure; and we
may here remark, in passing, that although the modern law of
England does not professedly adhere to this notion of a sacra-
ment, it is not completely disentangled from the ancient super-
stition : the ecclesiastical courts may declare a marriage to have
been invalid from the beginning, but they cannot dissolve the

* Dr Martin, when counsel against the archbisliop, reduced him to
the necessity of admitting- that, according' to his principles, Nero was
the head of the Christian chiu'ch at Rome, and the Turk at Con-
stantinople. ' Then,' rejoined the civilian, ' he that beheaded the
' heads of the church, and crucified the apostles, was head of Christ's
' church ; and he that was never member of the church, is head of the
< church, by your new-found understanding of Gods word.' Vol. ii.
p. 441.

f See Dr Lingard's Hist, of England, vol. iv. p. 239, and Mr
Turner's Hist, of the Reigu of Henry the Eighth, vol. ii. p. 458.

320 ToMs Life of Archbishop Cranmer, Dec.

sacred bond of matrimony. We order these things better in
Scotland, where marriage is considered as a civil contract, al-
though it is generally accompanied with a religious sanction.
Cranmer was now obliged to declare invalid from the beginning
a marriage, which he had formerly pronounced good and valid;
and there is too much justice in the remark of Dr Lingard,
* Never perhaps was there a more solemn mockery of the forms
' of justice, than in the pretended trial of this extraordinary
' cause.' Nor is this the last case of divorce to be mentioned.
After the death of Jane Seymour, the king married Anne of
Cleves ; and as he did not find her person agreeable to his taste,
he again had recourse to the agency of the dutiful archbishop.
' The sentence of invalidity was then confirmed by the seal of
' Cranmer. I wish I could have said that the primate had not
' concurred in this unworthy measure.' Vol. I. p. 289. The
next consort of this atrocious tyrant, whom Cranmer has de-
scribed as ' a most godly prince, of famous memory,' was Ca-
tharine Howard, who was beheaded without being divorced.*

In all these transactions the archbishop of Canterbury ap-
pears to little advantage ; nor is it easy to believe that he did
not act against the clearest conviction of his own conscience.
All or most that can be urged in palliation of his conduct is,
that he had fallen in evil days, and that to resist the commands
of such a master was certain death. In other respects, he was
too much tainted with the errors of the time ; but, if he was not
exempted from the spirit of persecution, he was subject to an
error which, however hideous it may appear to us, extended to
nearly all his contemporaries. The execution of Servetus for his
theological opinions, was formally approved by Melanchthon,f
who is universally regarded as one of the mildest of the early
reformers. Soon after his elevation to the primacy, Cranmer

* Her crime was incontinency before her marriage. A modern
civilian has laboriously discussed the question, ' Utrum quis mulicrem

* pro Virgiiie ductam possit repudiare, si postea comperiat, earn jam
' antea ab alio fuisse devirgiiiatam ?' (J. F. W. Pagenstecheri Juris-
prudentia Polemica, p. 39. Hardervici, 1730, 4to.) He maintains
the affirmative, for tliis among other reasons : ' quoniam error circa

* virginitatem continet errorem circa substantiam, cum personte, turn
' matrimonii.' Among other edifying questions Avhich this professor
propounded to the law-students of the university of Harderwick, Avas
the following: ' Utrum meretrix proniissam pro coitu mercedem
' possit exigere ?' Tbis question he learnedly decides in tlie negative.

f Calvini Epistolarum et Responsorum editio secunda, p. 306.
Lausanne, 1376, 8vo.

1831. ToM's Life of Archbishop Craniner. 321

^cted as one of the inquisitors who condemned John Frith, for
denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. ' His said opinion

* is of such nature,' he states in a private letter, ' that he thought

* it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that

* there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host

* and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this point most after

* the opinion of Oecolampadius. And surely I myself sent for

* him iij. or iiij. times to persuade him to leave that his imagi-

* nation ; but for all that we could do therein, he would not ap-

* ply to any counsel, notwithstanding now he is at a final end

* with all examinations ; for my Lord of London hath given sen-

* tence, and delivered him to the secular powers, where he look-
' eth every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned

* with him one Andrew, a tailor of London, for the said self-

* same opinion. And thus fare you well. From my manor of

* Croydon.' Vol. I. p. 86. Is not this a cool contemplation of
such an inhuman act as the burning of his fellow-creatures ? It
was Andrew Hewet who, honouring Frith and adhering to his
doctrines, was thus condemned to the same cruel death ; and,
after the lapse of a few years, Cranmer, following the dictates
of common sense, adopted the very opinion for which his bre-
thren had been doomed ' to go unto the fire.' These holy butch-
eries were followed by many others. The persecutions which
commenced in the reign of the unrelenting father, were not dis-
continued in that of the milder son ; but the case of Joan Bocher,
commonly called Joan of Kent, deserves a more particular notice.
The charge against her was to this effect : * That you believe
' that the Word was made flesh in the Virgin's belly ; but that

* Christ took flesh of the Virgin you believe not, because the

* flesh of the Virgin being the outward man, was sinfully gotten

* and born in sin ; but the Word, by the consent of the inward

* man of the Virgin, was made flesh.'* For persisting in her
refusal to recant this unhappy jargon, the poor creature was
committed to the flames. When Cranmer excommunicated her
as a heretic, and, in the true inquisitorial style, ordered her to
be delivered to the secular arm, she exclaimed, * It was not long

* ago that you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and yet

* came yourself soon after to believe and profess the same doc-

* trine for which you burned her.' The young king was ex-
tremely reluctant to imbrue his hands in the blood of such a
victim, and a year elapsed before she was ordered for execution.

* Strype's Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Can-
terbury, p. 181. Lond. 1694, fol.

322 Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. jDec,

It is plainly stated by the martyrologist that his scruples were
at length overcome, or his resolution shaken, by the urgency of
the archbishop. About the same period, George van Paris, a
Dutch surgeon residing in London, was burnt for denying the
divinity of Christ ; nor does it appear that, in any of the various
cases which have been recorded, the archbishop felt, or professed
to feel, the slightest doubt or misgiving as to the perfect pro-
priety of committing such atrocious murders, under the sanction
of law and religion.

Another unequivocal proof of his having deeply imbibed the
spirit of persecution, is to be found in the book entitled Refor-
matio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. The plan of this book had ori-
ginated in the reign of Henry; and in that of his son, Cranmer
was placed at the head of eight commissioners, who were en-
joined to prepare it for the inspection of a much larger commit-
tee, and afterwards for that of the privy council. It is sup-
posed to have been translated into Latin by Sir John Cheke,
the king's preceptor, and by Dr Haddon, master of Trinity
Hall at Cambridge, both of whom were eminent for their classi-
cal learning, but the latter was a greater master of Latinity. Mr
Todd informs his readers that « it was distributed into fifty-one

< titles, to bring it near to the number of those in Justinian's
' celebrated digest of the Roman civil law ; besides an appendix,
* De Regulis Juris, in imitation of the same addition to printed

< copies of the Pandects.' Vol. H. p. 328. When an English
writer ventures to speak of the Pandects, he not unusually
finds himself upon slippery ground. This great digest of the
civil law is divided, not into fifty titles, but into fifty books,
and those fifty books contain many hundred titles ; that De
diversis Regulis Juris antiqui being, not an appendix or ad-
dition, but the last title of the fiftieth book. It is not to be
regretted that this code of ecclesiastical law never obtained any
public sanction. Much of the responsibility evidently belongs
to Cranmer; and his biographer assures us that an abler canonist
was not easily to be found within the realm. The title respect-
ing the mode of proceeding in cases of heresy, contains a chapter
De contumacihus Hcereticis, which must not be dismissed with-
out a brief commentary.

«' Qui vero necadmonitionem, nee doctrinam ulla ratione admittnnt,
sed in hspresi prorsus induraverunt, primum ha^retici pronuncientur,
a judice deinde legitimo feriantur extomminiicationis snpplicio. Quae
stntentia cum lata fuerit, si infra spatinm sexdecini dierum ab hferesi
Tecesserint, priniimi exhibeant publite manifesta pcenitentise indicia;
deinde solemniter jurent in ilia se nunqnam hseresi rursus versatrn'os ;
tertio contraria doctrina publice satisfaciant, ac his omnibus impletis

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. 323

absolvantur ; sed illis seria prius et vehemens adhibeatur exliortatio,
ut post illud tempus, cum a praesenti errore, turn etiam ab omnibus
aliis haez-esibus se longissime disjungant: cum vero sic penitus insede-
rit error, et tarn alte radices egerit, ut nee sententia quidera excom-
municationis ad veritatem reus inflecti possit, turn, consumptis omnibus
aliis remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magislratus ablegetur punieU'
dus."*

The conclusion of this chapter has been the subject of much
controversy, but it seems to admit of an easy exposition ; and
we must first of all ascend to the impure source from which the
doctrine is obviously derived. What is the language of the
canonists when they deliver to the secular arm those unfortu-
nate beings whom they describe as heretics ? Lancelottus ex-
presses himself in the following terms : ' Ssecularis relinquentur
' arbitrio potestatis, animadversione debita puniendi.'f Canisius
thus delivers the same doctrine : * Relinquantur judici ssecu-
' lari debita animadversione puniendi.':t And Gravina, a more
recent writer, conveys the same meaning in these words : ' Sae-
' cularis judicis punitioni traduntur.'§ To these three examples
of such phraseology it would not be difficult to add ninety-seven
more ; and the direful import of such expressions in the mouth
of a canonist, can only be doubtful to those who are unacquaint-
ed with the history of the Inquisition. || In point of form, the

* Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, p. 23. edit. Lend. 1640,
4to. — In one clause of this chapter, the syntax is evidently defective ;
and instead of ' contraria doctrina publice satisfaciant,' we must read
* contrarise doctrinse,' or ' in contraria doctrina publice satisfaciant.'

■f Lancelotti Institutiones Juris Canonici, lib. iv. tit. iv. § 3.

j Canisii Summa Juris Canonici, lib. iii. tit. xv. § 3. Opera quae
de Jure Canonico reliquit, p. 997. Lovanii, 1649, 4to.

§ Gravinse Institutiones Canonicse, p. 218. August. Taurin. 1742,
8vo.

II We cannot omit this opportunity of directing the reader's atten-
tion to two very elaborate and valuable works of Dr M'Crie. *' His-
tory of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy
in the sixteenth Century: including a Sketch of the History of
the Reformation in the Grisons." Edinb. 1827, 8vo. " History of
the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain in the
sixteenth century." Edinb. 1829, 8vo. Here the learned and
truly respectable author's acuteness of intellect, perseverance of re-
search, and rectitude of purpose, are not less conspicuously displayed
than in those earlier publications which have reflected so much liglit
on the ecclesiastical and literary history of his native country.

* On the most impartial inquiry,' says Dr Campbell, ' I do not ima-
' gine it will be found that any species of idolatry ever tended so di-
*jectly to extirpate humanity, gratitude, natwal affection, equity,

'324 Todd's Life of ArcJibishop Cranmer. Dec.

hands of churchmen must not be stained with blood ; but the
sentence of the ecclesiastical judge, when it awards a cruel and
ignominious death, or any inferior degree of corporal punish-
ment, must be inflicted under the sanction of the civil power.
Mr Hallam has remarked, that ' infamy and civil disability seem

* to be the only punishments intended to be kept up, except in

* case of the denial of the Christian religion ; for if a heretic
' were, as a matter of course, to be burned, it seems needless to

* provide, as in this chapter, that he should be incapable of being

* a witness, or of making a will.* But the Spanish inquisition did
not punish with fire and fagot every offence against the Catho~
lie faith ; and when, in a subsequent chapter, Cranmer and his
associates contemplate the possibility of a heretic avoiding ex-
treme punishment, they do not necessarily disown the fellow-
ship of their brother inquisitors. This bloody text seems to ad-
mit of another mode of illustration equally legitimate. The prac-
tice of the archbishop was in perfect conformity with the prin-
ciples which we have here explained : in the reign of Henry he
was accessory to the death of several individuals who denied the
Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and in the reign of Ed-
ward he was accessory to the death of others who denied
articles of the creed to which he then adhered. What meaning
he himself attached to the expression of delivering a heretic to
the civil magistrate, we have already ascertained in the case of
Frith ; in reference to whom he states, ' my Lord of London

* hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular powers,

* where he looketh every day to go unto the fire.''

Such errors as these are too glaring to be easily concealed ;
but it is equally certain that his character was adorned by many
private virtues, and that the great body of his countrymen can-
not fail to regard him in the light of a public benefactor. Under
his influence, books of religious instruction were circulated among
the people,* and, what was of inestimable benefit, the Bible was

* mutual confidence, good faith, and every amiable and generous

* principle from the human breast, as that gross perversion of the
< Christian religion which is establislied in Spain. It might easily be

* shown that the human sacrifices offered by heathens had not half the

* tendency to corrupt the heart, and consequently deserve not to be
' viewed with half the horror, as those celebrated among the Spani-

* ards, with so much pomp and barbarous festivity, at an auto-da-fe.'
(^Dissertatio7i on Miracles, p. 170.)

* Of the book which passes under the name of Cranmer's Cate-
chism, an edition, begun by Bishop Lloyd, was lately published by
Dr Burton. " A short Instruction into Christian Religion ; being a

18S1. Todd's Life of ArchbisJiop Cranmer, 325

opened to every man capable of reading his mother tongue. It
was in a great measure owing to his exertions that the reforma-
tion of the Church of England was nearly advanced to that point
where it still rests. That this reformation should then have been
left so incomplete, is less surprising than that it should scarcely
have been resumed for 250 years. The most essential trap-
pings of a proud popish prelacy were left uncurtailed, nor was
the church sufficiently purified from popish devices and obser-
vances. The papists enumerate seven sacraments, namely,
baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, .
holy order, and matrimony. Of these the Church of England
has nominally retained two ; but some others still linger under
the shade of ancient superstition. Marriage, instead of being
considered as a civil contract, retains a great portion of its for-
mer veneration as one of the seven ; and confirmation, a popish
and unscriptural rite, is still in fresh observance, although no
longer described as a sacrament. Cranmer has expressed an
opinion that ' a bishop may make a priest by the Scripture, and

* so may princes and governors also, and that by the authority

* of God committed to them, and the people also by their elec-

* tion : for, as we read that bishops have done it, so Christian

* emperors and princes usually have done it ; and the people,
' before Christian princes were, commonly did elect their bishops

* and priests.' Vol. I. p. 305. Mr Todd, as in duty bound, has
taken some pains to show that he must afterwards have aban-
doned this opinion, and proceeds to utter some of the tradition-
ary jargon about the apostolical institution of episcopacy. If in
any book written by the apostles, or during the apostolical age,
he can point out a passage which, either directly or by implica-
tion, sanctions the government of the church by archbishops and
bishops, deans and chapters, archdeacons and chancellors, we
shall then be ready to admit that the two archbishops and the
twenty-four bishops driving with their stately equipages to
Westminster, and, by virtue of their temporal baronies, taking
their seats in the House of Lords, are the legitimate successors
and representatives of those men, lowly in their outward form,
but full of the Holy Ghost, who received the divine commission
to go and teach all nations. According to this superannuated

Catechism set forth by Archbishop Cranmer in m.d.xlviii. : to-
gether with the same in Latin, translated from the German by
Justus Jonas in :m.d.xxxix." Oxford, 1829, 8vo. Mr Todd had
previously published, in modernized orthography, the Archbishop's
" Defence of the true and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament of the
Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ." London, 1825, 8vo.
vol. LIV. no. CVJII, Y

326 Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. Dec.

bigotry, a church without bishops is no church. If all presbyters
had been denominated bishops, would this substitution of one
name for another have removed the impediment ? The doctrine
of the Apostolicals is, that there has been a perpetual succession
of bishops from the time of the apostles to that of their repre-
sentatives in Spain, England, Ireland, and other favoured coun-
tries ; and that the influence of the Holy Ghost has thus been
transmitted from one array of bishops to another, through all the
vicissitudes of eighteen centuries. The foul and polluted chan-
nel through which this divine influence must so long have con-
tinued to flow, seems to occasion as little difficulty to the Eng-
lish as to the Spanish Apostolicals. This is but one degree better
than transubstantiation ; and to a man of sound understanding,
unsubdued by early prejudice, it is just as easy to believe that
the bishop of Rome is the lawful successor of St Peter. So ab-
surd a doctrine must lead to a thousand vagaries ; but we shall
at present content ourselves with mentioning one of the specu-
lations of Henry Dodwell, a writer of much learning, and of
little judgment. The human soul, according to his conception,
is a principle naturally mortal, but is immortalized by the plea-
sure of God to punishment or to reward, by its union with the
divine baptismal spirit ; and ' none have the power of giving this

* divine immortalizing spirit, since the apostles, but only the

* Bishops.'* Some men of talents, one of whom was Dr Clarke,
condescended to expose this delirious learning. It is not by ar-
rogating to themselves the divine favour, and excluding other
churches from all participation of it, that the champions of the
English hierarchy will best consult the credit and advantage of
their own establishment ; in which the idle splendour of one class
of ecclesiastics is placed in so indecent a contrast with the labo-
rious poverty of another. As the taste for describing their
church as apostolical seems to have been recently revived, we
will venture to suggest that, in the present state of public sen-
timent, the practice can be attended with no possible benefit.
In Spain, the direful tribunal of the Inquisition was regularly
described as apostolical^ and we hear of such a public function-
ary as the Inquisidor Apostolico de Aragon ; but in Spain there
were no dissenters from the established church, and no news-
papers or reviews that deserved the name.

* Dodwell's Epistolary Discourse, proving, from the Scriptures
and the first Fathers, that the Soul is a Principle naturally Mortal :
sec. edit. Lond. 1706, 8vo. He afterwards published a work enti-
tled " The natural Mortality pf humane Souls clearly demonstrated."
Lond. 1708, 8vo.

1831. Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. 327

Of the manliness of his sentiments, Cranmer exhibited an-
other proof in regulating the grammar-school of Canterbury. It
was proposed that this seminary should only be open to the
sons of gentlemen ; but, interposed the archbishop, * I think it

* not just so to order the matter; for poor men's children are

* many times endued with more singular gifts of nature, which

* are also the gifts of God, as eloquence, memory, apt pronun-

* ciation, sobriety, and such like, and also commonly more apt

* to apply their study, than is the gentleman's son delicately

* educated.' Vol. I. p. 313.

Of the lenity with which he exercised his power, at a period
when lenity was little known and seldom expected, the follow-
ing anecdote affords an amusing illustration, and at the same
time exhibits a curious picture of clerical learning. About the
same period, some of the Scottish ecclesiastics were sunk in such
deplorable ignorance, that they believed Luther to be the author
of a dangerous book called the New Testament.*

' A priest, in the north of England, hearing the commendations of
the archbishop that now reached the remotest parts of the kingdom,
observed to others who were delighted with them, " Why make ye
so much of him ? He was but a hostler, and hath as much learning as
the goslings of the green that go yonder." To Cromwell these words
were reported by those who resented them. The priest, in conse-
quence, was summoned before the council in London, but not at the
suit, nor, at the time, with the knowledge of the archbishop. He had to
ponder upon his folly some weeks in the prison of the Fleet ; and then
he besought Cranmer to release him from his confinement, and the
charges occasioned by it, not without acknowledging his sorrow for
the unjust language he had used. Cranmer therefore sent for him,
and the dialogue commenced. " Did you ever see me before this
day ?" said the archbishop. " No," the priest replied. " Why, then,
did you mean to deface me among your neighbours, by calling me a
hostler, and reporting that I have no more learning than a gosling ?"
The priest answered, " that he was overseen with di'ink." — " Well
then," continued Cranmer, " oppose me now to know what learning
I have : begin in grammar, if you will, or else in philosophy, or other
sciences, or divinity." " Pardon me," said the bewildered ecclesiastic,
*' I have no manner of learning in the Latin tongue, but merely in
English." " Then allow me," replied Cranmer, " if you will not oppose

* ' Taodunum inde profecti, ipsi se preedicabant ad pcenas de Novi
Testamenti lectoribus ire sumendas. Nam, ilia tempestate, id inter
gravissima crimina numerabatur ; tantaque erat csecitas, ut sacerdotura
plerique, novitatis nomine oiFensi, contenderent, eum librum nuper a
Martino Luthero fuisse scriptum, ac Vetus Testamentum reposcerent.
(Buchanan, Merum Scotia, HisU Jib, xy. p. S9L edit. Ruddiman.)

^28 Todd's Life of Archbishop Cranmer. Dec.

me, to oppose you. You read the Bible ?" — " Yes, daily." — " Then
who was David's father?" — <' I cannot surely tell your Grace." — " Then
if you cannot tell me that, yet tell me who was Solomon's father ?" —
" I am nothing at all seen in these genealogies," the priest finally
replied. Cranmer now reminded him of the crew to which he belong-
ed, '< who knew nothing, and would know nothing, but sit on an ale
bench, and slander all honest and learned men." He dismissed him
to his cure, bidding him learn to be an honest, or at least a reasonable
man ; and not to suppose his sovereign so absurd as to have sent a
hostler on an embassy to an emperor and to the bishop of Rome.'— •
Vol. i. p. 201.

After the accession of Queen Mary, many of the Protestants
were subjected to the extreme tortures which they had felt too
little compunction in applying to others. Cranmer, Ridley, and
Latimer, were first committed to the Tower, and were after-
wards removed to Oxford, where they were confined in the
common prison called Bocardo, and were at length condemned
as obstinate heretics. A long interval elapsed before their exe-
cution. Ridley, who had been Bishop of London, and Latimer
of Worcester, suffered with that noble resolution which became
martyrs of the truth ; but the mind of Cranmer recoiled under
so great a trial of human fortitude ; the vain and delusive hope
of life impelling him to deny his faith, and to sign no fewer
than six recantations. The tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel : his offences were not to be pardoned by such a sovereign
under the influence of such counsellors; and on the 21st of
May 1556, this learned, venerable, and aged man was com-
mitted to the flames. Rejecting his unfortunate recantations, he
died in the pious profession of the Protestant faith, and suffered
the cruel torture of the fire with an undaunted resolution, which
his recent conduct had not encouraged his friends to expect. It
is not for us, who are placed beyond the reach of such fiery
trials, to condemn the weakness for which he made this atone-
ment.

Cranmer was a person of a vigorous understanding, impro-
ved by extensive learning. His travels and studies, we are
informed, had rendered him as familiar with the French,
Italian, and German, as with the Latin, Greek, and He-
brew languages. In theology and the canon law he appears
to have been deeply skilled ; and, possessing an acute intellect
and a clear head, he was capable of applying his various stores
of knowledge to the most useful and practical purposes. His
works, of which this biographer has given an account nei-
ther ample nor satisfactory, afford a very favourable specimen
of the English style of that period ; and we are glad to be inform-
ed that a complete edition is speedily to issue from the univer-

1831. ^oM'^ Life of Ardihishop Cranmer. 329

sity press of Oxford. With his intellectual endowments he
united many of the amiable virtues of private life : his natural
disposition was mild and conciliating, and he was distinguished
by the engaging aifability of his manners. He was however
capable of being roused to fierce indignation ; for we learn from
unquestionable authority, that, on a certain occasion, he offered
single combat to the Duke of Northumberland. He was a zea-
lous encourager of learning, and eminently practised the virtues
of charity and hospitality. But his character, as we have al-
ready seen, was not without glaring defects. His compliances
with the unhallowed wishes of the king, are partly to be ascri-
bed to his want of that invincible firmness which could alone
have sustained him under the frowns of so unrelenting a tyrant;
and much influence must doubtless be ascribed to the prevailing
notion of the time, that the will of a sovereign prince is not to
be resisted by any of his subjects. Compliance in almost every
possible case seems to have been regarded as an act of duty ; nor
is it easy, on any other hypothesis, to account for the long and
abject submission of the English nobility and gentry to the
tyranny and caprice of the house of Tudor. Although this
consideration does not increase our respect for the archbishop's
character, it is nevertheless obvious that the pliancy of his dis-
position, by enabling him to retain the favour of the king, en-
abled him to become a more powerful instrument in promoting
the cause of learning and religion. For his deep participation
in the bloody persecutions of two successive reigns, we must
likewise endeavour to find some apology in the current maxims
of the age to which he belonged. His own nature was far from
being ungentle ; but his intellect was bewildered by the doctrines,
and his heart hardened by the practices, of the church in which,
he had been educated.

Such was the very distinguished individual whose life and
character Mr Todd has laudably undertaken to delineate. To-
wards the close of the seventeenth century, the same subject
exercised the industrious and faithful pen of Strype, to whom
the ecclesiastical history of England has so many obligations.
The life of Archbishop Cranmer has been written in a great
variety of forms ; and not many years ago Mr Gilpin endeavour-
ed to comprise it in a popular abridgement. Much was still left
for the present biographer to accomplish : although we do not
participate in all his sentiments, and are not satisfied with the
structure of all his sentences, we feel much kindness for the
man, and are grateful to him for the opportunity which he has
thus afforded us of reverting to an interesting period of history.
He has for many years been an assiduous and meritorious labourer

330 Colonial PoUcy-^TVest Lidian Distress. Dec.

in the province of English literature ; and we are happy to per-
ceive that his claims have not been entirely overlooked by the
dispensers of ecclesiastical preferment.

Art. III. — Statements, Calculations, and Explanations, submitted
to the Board of Trade, relative to the State of the British West
India Colonies. Printed by order of the House of Commons.
7th of February, 1831.

Papers laid before the Finance Committee. Printed by order of
the Committee. 1828.

WE have long been of opinion that the whole scheme of our
Colonial policy required to be carefully revised, and, in
many respects, materially modified; Hitherto, however, cir-
cumstances of more immediate interest have attracted so much
of the public attention, that the subject of the Colonies, though
of primary importance, has been, in a great measure, neglected.
But the difficulties, or rather, we should say, the bankruptcy
and ruin, which threaten to overwhelm every one in any degree
connected with our sugar Colonies, make it impossible much
longer to defer the consideration of such measures as may
appear best calculated to arrest the undesirable consummation
that is so rapidly approaching. A committee of the House of
Commons was appointed to investigate the causes of the
existing distress, previously to the late prorogation, and will,
no doubt, erelong resume its labours. But it does not appear
that those who have attended to the subject can have much
difficulty in tracing the sources of the present depression — how
much soever they may differ as to the measures that ought to
be proposed for its relief. Even with respect to the latter, there
is not really so much room for differences of opinion as is gene-
rally supposed. And as the subject is of vital importance, and
must occupy the early attention of the legislature, we think we
shall not be doing an unacceptable service in embracing this op-
portunity to offer some remarks upon it.

It is not necessary that we should introduce our remarks by
any observations with respect either to the value of Colonial
possessions in general, or those of the West Indies in particular.
Our opinions upon both points are well known ; and we believe
that the number of those by whom they are approved is every
day becoming greater. But whether we originally did right or
wrong in colonizing and monopolizing the trade of those islands,
is no longer the question. The sugar Colonies exist at this

1831. Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. 331

moment as integral portions of the British empire; 150 millions
of capital, belonging to Englishmen, is supposed to be vested in
them ; the owners of this capital — that is, the planters, mer-
chants and mortgagees, shipowners, &c., connected with the
Colonies, resident in this country — form a very numerous and
important class ; and though neither their interests, nor those
of any class, are to be promoted by the adoption of measures
inconsistent with the public prosperity, they may fairly expect,
and should receive, whatever relief may be afforded to them,
without touching on this fundamental principle.

The immediate cause of the distresses of the West India
planters is, the low price of all articles of Colonial produce,
coffee only excepted, which has risen considerably within the
last six months. During the last ten or twelve years, the prices
of the great staple, sugar, have been constantly declining , parti-
cularly within the last two or three years ; and they are now
admitted on all hands to be so low as to be totally inadequate to
afford the planters any thing like profit, or even to indemnify
those in unfavourable circumstances for the expenses of culti-
vation.

Such being the undoubted cause of the distresses of the
planters and merchants, it is necessary, first of all, to inquire
whether there be any prospect of a diminution of the supply of
sugar, or of the consumption being so much increased, as to
occasion any material rise of price. We have no hesitation
in saying, that we look upon all expectations of any consi-
derable relief in either of the ways now stated, as altogether
illusory. It is true, that the fall in the price of sugar has, not-
withstanding the heavy duties with which it is every where
loaded, led to an extraordinary increase of its consumption, both
here, on the continent, and in America. In Great Britain, the
consumption has increased from about 100,000 tons in 1800, to
about 180,000 tons at this moment; and had the duty not been
so exceedingly oppressive, we have no doubt the consumption
would now have amounted to at least 250,000 tons. The
following table shows the whole imports of sugar into Great
Britain, the deliveries for export and home consumption, and the
stocks on hand, in the three years ending with 1830.

332

Colonial Folicij-^JVesi Indian Distress.

Dec.

Imports

Stocks

into Great Britain.

in Great Britain, 31st Dec.

1828.

1829.

1830.

1828.

1829.

1830.

Tons.

British Plantation,

198,400

195,230

185,660

42,2-^0

53,110

43,390

Mauritius, . . .

18,570

14,580

23,740

1,400

1,350

2,320

Bengal, ....

6,635

8,700

10,180

2,150

3,000

5,850

Siam, Manilla, &c.

1,17/0

1,600

5,000

1,525

600

2,500

Havannah, . . .

1,900

5,300

6,060

100

2,050

3,120

Brazil, ....

4,940

4,680

5,480

2,200

785

1,000

Molasses equal to

Bastard, . . .
Total Tons,

13,010

9,950

5,620

4,040

4,430

2,020

244,630

240,040

242,340

53,635

65,325

60,200

Exports.

Home Consumption.

Deliveries of Raw Sugar from

Deliveries of Raw Sugai* from

the Ports for Exportation.

the Ports.

1828.

1829.

1830.

1828.

1829.

1830.

Tons.

British Plantation,

2.530 810

1,485

191,005

182,350

190,840

Mauritius, . . .

5,900

2,620

2,930

12,100

12,020

20,240

Bengal, ....

2,100

2,810

1,855

4,870

6,060

8,625

Siam, Manilla, &c.

1,200

2,000

2,835

— —

150

Havannah, . . .

3,050

3,000

4,450

—

300

Brazil, ....

3,770

5,000

2,995

150

1,150

Molasses equal to

Bastard, . . .
Total Tons,

—

10,360

9,350

8,030

18,550

16,300

16,550

218,410

210,090

229,270

Deduct Export of Refined Sugar, reduced

into Raw, 38,830 40,420 47,650

Do.ofBastard Sugar, 1,700 1,000 2,350

40,530

41,420

50,000

Actual Consumption, including Bastards

made from Molasses, Tons, 177,880

168,670179,270

It is not possible to give any accurate statement of the pro
gress of consumption on the Continent; but the following ac-
count of the importations during the last four years, has been
drawn up by the first mercantile authority, and may be regarded
as sufficiently correct for all practical purposes :

1827. 1828. 1829. 1830.
France, . . . Tons, 76,000 93,500 102,500 100,000
Germany and Baltic, . . 46,000 57,000 70,000 80,000
Netherlands and Holland, . 35,500 35,000 44,000 33,000
Mediterranean, . , . 25,600 19,000 23,500 28,000

Tons,

183,100 204,500 240,000 241,000

1831. Colonkd Policy— West Indian Distress. 33i

In the United States, the consumption is increasing much
faster than in any European country.

But, while the demand for sugar has been thus rapidly ex-
tending, the supply has been augmented in a still greater ratio,
so that prices have been progressively falling. And though there
may be temporary rallies, we look upon it as utterly vision-
ary to expect that prices should ever regain their old level ; and
are not inclined to believe that they have as yet touched their
lowest point. This result is partly to be ascribed to the break-
ing up of the old Colonial system, and to the consequent exten-
sion of cultivation in Cuba, Porto-Rico, Brazil, Java, &c. ;
and partly to its extension in Louisiana, Demerara, the Mauri-
tius, &c. The exports from Cuba only have increased since
1800, from about 100,000,000 lbs. to about 200,000,000 lbs. ;
and the increase in the exports from Brazil has been equally
great. In Louisiana, where little or no sugar was produced
twenty years ago, the crop is now estimated at about 50,000
tons, or 112,000,000 lbs. The exports from the Mauritius have
increased from 4,630 tons in 18.25, to 23,740 tons in 1830:
There is also an increased importation from Bengal, Siam,
the Philippines, &c. And yet, notwithstanding this extraordi-
nary increase, it may be truly said, looking at the vast extent
and boundless fertility of Cuba, Brazil, Java, and the other
countries that are now becoming the great marts for sugar, that
its cultivation may be indefinitely extended ; and that, though
there were a demand for ten times the present quantity, it might
be furnished without any material advance of price.

In whatever degree this state of things may prejudice the
West Indians, no candid man can hesitate to admit, that it must
prove in the highest degree advantageous to the British public,
and the world in general. Sugar is become an important ne-
cessary of life ; and few things could have happened calculated
more materially to advance the interests and comforts of all
classes, than the fall in the price of this and other Colonial
articles.

It is to no purpose, therefore, for the West Indians, or their
advocates in Parliament, to attempt to procure relief from
temporary expedients. The present low prices do not originate
in circumstances of an accidental or contingent character ; so
that, supposing distillation from grain were prohibited, or that
the exploded quackery of bounties on exportation wei'e again
revived, no real benefit would accrue to the planters, at the
same time that much injury would be inflicted upon the rest of
the community. Those who would lead the West Indians to
expect relief from such means, are not their friends, but their

Colonial Policy— West Indian Distress. Dec,

worst enemies. They are amusing them with expectations that
cannot possibly be realized; and are withdrawing their attention
from those really practicable modes of procuring relief, that
would not be more beneficial to them than to the public.

The notion that the condition of the West Indians is unsus-
ceptible of improvement, otherwise than by a considerable rise
of prices, though very prevalent, is most certainly without
foundation. A planter will be quite as much benefited, if he
succeed in saving 5s. or 10s. a cwt. upon the cost of producing
his sugar and bringing it to market, as if a corresponding rise
were to take place in its price. And so long as he attempts to
benefit himself in this way, he is labouring to promote the public
advantage, and is entitled to claim, and ought to receive, every
assistance in the power of government to bestow. But the
moment he sets about contriving means artificially to elevate
prices, he is labouring to promote his own ends at the expense
of others ; and, instead of meeting with public sympathy or
support, ought to encounter universal opposition. Both these
courses were open to the West Indians, who have, for the most
part, unfortunately selected the latter. They have wasted their
energies in futile attempts unnaturally to raise prices, and to
bolster up their own interests, regardless of the injury they
might occasion to their neighbours. As might have been ex-
pected, their efforts have not been more successful than those of
the worthy Dame Partington. Foreign competition has con-
tinued to press them closer every day ; and, since they are wholly
without the means of sheltering themselves from its eifects,
would they not do well to set about trying to prepare for with-
standing its keen but invigorating breeze?

This is the course that common sense would point out; and if
the West Indians will but adopt it, they will not be long in per-
ceiving the advantage of the change. There is really nothing
in their situation to lead to the belief that their distresses are
incurable. The natural advantages of Demerara and Berbice
are not exceeded by those of any other colony ; and even our
older colonies have nothing to fear, were they placed under
nearly similar circumstances, from the competition of Cuba and
Brazil. But the truth is, that the Colonies have been made the
victims of an erroneous system of policy. Their depressed
condition is not a consequence of the flourishing condition of
others, but of their being excluded from the cheapest markets
for their food and lumber, and of the exorbitant duties laid on
their products when brought to England.

Jamaica, and our other West India Colonies, may be viewed

1 83 1 , Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. 33^

as immense sugar, rum, and coffee manufactories, which, though
situated at a distance from England, belong to Englishmen, and
are carried on by English capital. But to promote the pros-
perity of any manufacture, without injuring that of others, there
are no means at once so obvious and effectual, as to give those
engaged in it every facility for supplying themselves with the
materials necessary for its prosecution at the lowest price, and
to keep the duties on its produce as low as possible. This is the
sound and obvious principle that ought to have been kept steadily
in view in legislating for the Colonies ; but, we regret to say, it
has been totally lost sight of. The planters in all the West
India islands have found it most profitable to employ them-
selves in the production of articles fitted for the European
market ; and to import flour, beef, and other articles of provi-
sion, as well as stores and lumber, from America. Previously
to the American war, our sugar colonies were entirely supplied
with these indispensable articles from the United States, where
they are much cheaper, and more abundant, than in Canada,
and from which the voyage, and, consequently, the freight, to
Jamaica, Barbadoes, Grenada, &c., is much less. A traffic of
this sort was in the highest degree advantageous to all parties,
but particularly to the islands. After pointing out its influence
in promoting the prosperity of the latter, Mr Bryan Edwards
observes, — ' From this account of the exports from the British
' West Indies to America, it appears that the latter, besides

* affording an inexhaustible source of supply, was also a sure

* market for the disposal of the planter's surplus productions,

* such, I mean, for which there was no sufficient vent in Europe,

* especially rum ; the whole importation of that article into

* Great Britain and Ireland having been little more than half

* the quantity consumed in America. On whatever side, there-

* fore, this trade is considered, it will be found that Great Bri-

* tain ultimately received the chief benefits resulting from it;

* for the sugar planters, by being cheaply and regularly supplied

* with horses, provisions, and lumber, were enabled to adopt the

* system of management not only most advantageous to thera-

* selves, but also to the mother country. Much of that land

* which otherwise must have been applied to the cultivation of

* provisions for the maintenance of their negroes, and the raising

* of cattle, was appropriated to the cultivation of sugar. By

* these means the quantity of sugar and rum, (the most profit-

* able of their staples,) was increased to a surprising degree, and
' the British revenues, navigation, and general commerce, were

* proportionally augmented, aggrandized, and extended.' — {Hist,
of West Indies^ Vol. II. p. 489. Ed. 1819.)

S36 Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. Dec.

But no sooner had the United States achieved their inde-
pendence than an end was put to this mutually beneficial inter-
course. In order partly to force a market for Canada flour and
lumber, and partly to afford employment for a few thousand
additional tons of shipping, the produce of the United States
was excluded from the West India islands, except on the
condition, to which it was well known the Americans would
not agree, that the imports were made exclusively in British
ships. Petitions, complaints, and remonstrances against the
measure, were presented from every island of the West Indies,
but without effect. It is hardly, perhaps, necessary to add, that
the reasonings in support of the measure were the most sophis-
tical and delusive that can be imagined. Those, indeed,
by whom it was defended, would have had quite as much of
reason and justice on their side, had they advocated the expedi-
ency of laying a heavy burden on Kent for the sake of Sussex.
It has been doubted by some whether the measure has really been
productive of any material advantage to Canada and the shipping
interest; and it admits of demonstration that it has not benefited
them in any thing approaching to the degree that it has injured
tlie West Indians. But though the former had gained all that
the latter have lost, it would be no apology for a measure so
glaringly subversive of every principle of sound policy, as well
as of impartial justice. Sugar has become one of the necessa-
ries of life ; and as it enters largely into the consumption of
almost every individual, it is of the greatest importance that
every facility should be given to its production ; but the exclu-
sion of the produce of the United States from the West Indies
was not intended to reduce, but to increase the cost of produ-
cing sugar — to advance the interests of the Canada merchants
and shipowners, by sacrificing those of the planters and of the
whole British public.

It is due to Mr Pitt to state, that he was not only sensible of
the injustice of this measure, and aware of the pernicious ope-
ration it would have on our West India Colonies, but that he
actually introduced a bill for replacing the trade between the
islands and the United States on the footing on which it stood
pi-eviously to the war ; but the exaggerated representations of
the ability of the Canadas to furnish supplies of provisions and
lumber, the influence of the shipowners, who denounced the
proposal for admitting a free intercourse between America and
the islands, as subversive of all those principles by which Great
Britain had risen to distinction as a naval power, coupled with
the animosity towards the Americans generated by the events
of the war, gave a preponderating influence to the Anti-colonial

1831. Colonial Policy — Went Indian Distress, 337

party. The West Indians were accused of having abetted the
rebellion of the Americans; their complaints and remonstrances
were ascribed to factious motives ; and their apprehensions of a
deficient supply and an increased price of provisions, were held
up to ridicule and contempt. And so completely was Parliament
and the public deceived and misled by the misrepresentations
of those whose interest and object it was to delude them, that
Mr Pitt was forced to withdraw his bill, and to introduce in its
(Stead that system of regulation and constraint which has conti-
nued down to the present moment, and has unquestionably been
the source of the greater part of the distress in which the
colonies have long been involved.

The ravages occasioned by hurricanes in the West Indies are
familiar to all our readers ; but there are some circumstances
connected with the history of these dreadful scourges that are
not quite so well known as they ought to be. The destruction
which they cause, seldom fails to produce a scarcity, and some-
times even a famine. While the intercourse with America was
free, the moment it was learned in the States that any island
had been visited by a hurricane, fast-sailing vessels, laden with
provisions, were immediately dispatched from all the nearest
ports, in the expectation of meeting with a profitable and ready
market for their cargoes ; so that the extreme pressui'e of dis-
tress was most commonly prevented. Such, however, was not
the case after the suppression of the direct intercourse with the
United States. All supplies had then to come from Canada
and Nova Scotia, by a voyage three or four times as long as from
Carolina or Virginia; and when a hurricane happened to occur
about the period of the shutting of the St Lawrence, an interval
of about six months had to elapse before a ship could be dis-
patched to the relief of the sufferers. We are unwilling to be-
lieve that the possibility of such a calamitous contingency oc-
curring ever entered into the consideration of the framers of
the restraining system. But it was very soon realized to a
frightful extent. From 1780 to 1787, Jamaica was visited by
a series of the most dreadful hurricanes; the distress and mor-
tality thence arising were so very great, that the House of As-
sembly state that 15,000 negroes perished of diseases originating
in the scarcity and bad quality of food. And, incredible as it
may seem, the fact is not to be denied, that this mortality was
materially aggravated by a refusal on the part of the lieutenant-
governor of the island, though entreated by the Assembly, to
admit provisions direct from the United States. ' Such,' says
Mr Bryan Edwards, ' without including the loss of negroes in
' the other islands, and the consequent diminution in their

338 Colonial Policy — JVest Indian Distress, Dec.

* cultivation and returns, was the price at wbich Great Britain

* thought proper to retain her exclusive right of supplying her

* sugar islands with food and necessaries. Common charity

* must compel us to believe, (as I verily do believe,) that this

* dreadful proscription of so many thousand innocent people, the

* poor unoffending negroes, was neither intended nor foreseen

* by those who recommended the measures that produced it.' —
(Yoh II. p. 515.)

But though the violence of party spirit in 1783, the ignorance
of sound principle, and the craft of those who prevailed on the
Parliament and the public to pander to their selfishness, may
account for the first introduction of the measure, how are we
to explain the fact of its having been persevered in, and permit-
ted to reproduce the same horrors for about half a century ? It
is a remark of Hobbes, that if men had conceived their inte-
rests would be promoted by it, they would not have hesitated
to deny the equality of things that are each equal to the same
thing. And yet, one would think that those who can defend a
course of policy productive of the results now stated, would not
only require to have a pretty extensive interest in the Canada
lumber trade, but a pretty thorough contempt for the under-
standing and humanity of their readers. But instead of feeling
abashed, the abettors of such systems assume the garb of philan-
thropists, and stigmatize the advocates of their repeal as * hard-

* hearted economists !'

It is material, too, to observe, that these appalling sacrifices
have been forced upon the West Indies, — not that the trade be-
tween them and the United States might be totally suppress-
ed, but that it might be turned into an indirect, in preference
to a direct channel. It became evident to every one, almost as
soon as the restraining act had been passed, that Canada and
Nova Scotia could not supply the islands ; and they therefore
obtained leave to import provisions from the United States, that
were afterwards shipped for the West Indies. The whole scheme
was thus, in fact, neither more nor less than a clumsy device for
forcing the employment of ships, and putting money into the
pockets of the shipowners. Were every coal vessel from New-
castle obliged to touch at Gibraltar before coming to London,
the cost and absurdity would be of the same description, but
less in degree !

Mr Bryan Edwards, and those who opposed tlie introduction
of this system, did not suppose that it could acquire any per-
manent footing. They said, * the question will come forward

* again and again, and haunt administration in a thousand hi-

* deous shapes, until a more liberal policy shall take place ; for

1831. Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress, 339

* no folly can possibly exceed the notion, that any measures pur-

* sued by Great Britain will prevent the American states from

* having, some time or other, a commercial intercourse with our

* West Indian territories on their own terms. With a chain

* of coast of twenty degrees of latitude, possessing the finest

* harbours for the purpose in the world, all lying so near the

* sugar colonies and the track to Europe, with a country abound-

* ing in every thing the islands have occasion for, and which they

* can obtain no where else ; all these circumstances necessarily

* and natui'ally lead to a commercial intercourse between our

* islands and the United States. It is true, we may ruin our

* sugar colonies, and ourselves also, in the attempt to pre-

* vent it; but it is an experiment which God and nature have

* marked out as impossible to succeed. The present restraining

* system is forbidding men to help each other ; men who by

* their necessities, their climate, and their productions, are

* standing in perpetual need of mutual assistance, and able to

* supply it.' — (Hist, of West Indies, pref. to 2d ed.)

We incline to think that, but for the occurrence of the negro
insurrection in St Domingo, and the devastation which it occa-
sioned, the restrictions on the trade of the colonies would have
been long since abolished. But these events, by shutting up the
principal source whence supplies of sugar had previously been
dexived, led to so extraordinary a rise of prices, that the planters
of Jamaica, and the other islands, were enabled to overlook the
effects of the restraining system, and realized for a while enor-
mous profits. And after the rapid extension of the sugar culti-
vation had once more equalized the supply with the demand,
and prices had sunk in 1806 to their old level, the planters, in-
stead of attempting to relieve themselves from their burdens,
endeavoured to throw them on others, by forcing up prices ; an
object in which they partly succeeded for a while, in conse-
quence of the substitution of sugar for corn in the distilleries.
But this resource having ceased with the war, the complaints
of the planters were renewed with greater bitterness and better
reason than ever. Still, however, nothing was done to afford
them any real relief. There was, indeed, some miserable jug-
gling about custom-house regulations, and other quackery of the
sort; but no attempt was made to enable the colonists to come
into fair competition with the Brazilians and Cubans, by relie-
ving them from that monopoly system which had so long pa-
ralyzed their energies. On the contrary, it was maintained
with as much resohitlon as if the existence of the empire had
depended upon its being preserved inviolate. In October, 1817,
a tremendous hurricane swept over several of the islands. At

340 Colonial Policy — JVest Indian Distress. Dec.

Sfc Lucia the governor and most of the military perished in
its destructive violence ; and in Dominica the mischief was no-
wise inferior. But even this dreadful visitation, and the recol-
lection of what had occurred in Jamaica in 1787, were not
powerful enough to induce the authorities to consent to the ad-
mission of provisions from America. The Assembly of Domi-
nica having petitioned the governor to that effect, met with a
refusal ; but not discouraged by this repulse, they again address-
ed him, renewing their entreaties, and stating that it was the
only means by which the horrors of famine could be averted.
But though personally inclined to accede to their request, the
governor was inexorable ; vindicating his refusal on the ground
that his orders to the contrary were imperative, and that the
necessity was not so extreme as to warrant him in violating in-
structions of so peremptory a character ! We do not pretend to
be very well read in the history of Spanish colonization, or Al-
gerine policy, but we are bold to say, that no more disgraceful
incident is to be found either in the one or the other.

Four years after this occurrence, Ministers appear to have
begun, for the first time, to doubt the policy of this system : and
Mr Robinson (now Lord Goderich) brought in a bill, by which
it was in some degree relaxed. In 1825, Mr Huskisson resu-
med the subject ; and if we might judge from the speech which
he made in introducing his act (6 Geo. IV. cap. 114) for the
regulation of the Colonial trade, we should conclude, that it had,
in this respect at least, effectually redressed the grievances of
the planters. Nothing can be more sound and liberal than many
of the principles laid down by Mr Huskisson on the occasion
referred to. ' I come,' said he, ' clearly to the conclusion, that

* so far as the colonies themselves are concerned, their prospe-

* rity has been cramped and impeded by the system of exclusion

* and monopoly ; and I feel myself warranted in my next in-

* ference, that whatever tends to increase the prosperity of the

* colonies, cannot fail, in the long run, to advance in an equal

* degree, the general interests of the parent state.' Found-
ing upon this unassailable principle, Mr Huskisson said :—

* With the exception of some articles, which it will be ne-

* cessary to prohibit, such as firearms and ammunition of war

* generally, and sugar and rum, &c., in the sugar colonies, I

* propose to admit a free intercourse betioeen all our colonies and
« other countries^ either in British ships, or in the ships of

* those countries ; allowing the latter to import all articles, the

* growth, produce, or manufacture of the country to which the
' ship belongs, and to export from such colonies all articles

1831. Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. 341

' whatever of their growth, produce, or mauuljicture, either to
' the country from which such ship came, or to any other
* part of the world, the United Kingdom, and all its depend-
' encies, excepted.' Adam Smith could not have desired more.
There was, indeed, an ominous intimation about the imposition
of duties ; but then it was said, that their produce was to be
carried to the account of the colonies, and applied for their lene-
Jit ; so that there seemed to be no real room for jealousy on this
head.

We acquit Mr Huskisson of all intention to deceive. We
feel assured that had he imagined he could have carried a bill
through Parliament, founded on the principles he had so ably
expounded, he would have framed it in accordance with them.
But the ignorant prejudices of some, and the selfishness of others,
obliged him to sacrifice his own better judgment. There is not,
perhaps, another instance in the history of Parliament, in which
the measure brought in was so little in accordance with the
speech by which it was prefaced. Prohibition, it is true, was
for the most part (though not entirely) abolished in name, but
it was kept up in fact ; and the real effect of the act was to con-
tinue under different regulations every abuse which Mr Huskis-
son had denounced ; — to give, in so far as that was possible, a
monopoly of the supply of the sugar colonies with wheat and
lumber to Canada ; to exclude foreign beef, pork, and herrings,
that the planters might be obliged to buy those of Great Britain
and Ireland, and to continue the shipowners' monopoly. That
such was the fact, will be shown by what follows.

Table of Duties imposed by 6 Geo. IV. c. 114, on certain articles of
Provision, and of Wood and Lumber, not being the Growth, Pro-
duction, or Manufacture of the United Kingdom, nor of any British
Possession, imported or brought into the British Possessions on the
Continent of South America, or in the West Indies, the Bahama
and Bermuda Islands included.

Provisions, viz.
Wheat, the bushel, . . • . . . L.O 1 0

Wheat flour, the barrel, 0 5 0

Bread or biscuit, the cwt. .... 016

Flour or meal, not of wheat, the barrel, . . 0 2 6

Peas, beans, rye, calavances, oats, barley, Indian corn,

the bushel, 0 0 7

Rice, the 1,000 lbs. net weiglit, . . . q 2 6

Live stock 10 per cent.

Lumber, viz.
Shingles, not being more than 12 inches in lengtli, the

1,000, 0 7 0

Shingles, being more than 12 inches in length, tlie 1,000, 0 14 0

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. Z

342 Coloyiial Policy-— West Indian Distress. Dec.

Staves and Headings, viz.
Red oak, tlie i,000, .... L.O 14 0

White oak', the 1,000, 0 12 6

Wood hoops, the 1,000 .... 053

White, yellow, and pitch pine lumber, the 1,000 feet

of one inch thick, . . . • . 110

Other wood and lumber, the 1,000 feet of one inch thick, 18 0
Fish, beef, pork, prohibited.

' Now it appears from the official accounts, that these enormous
duties, the revenue derived from which, according to Mr Hus-
kisson, was to be applied to the benefit of the colonies, produced
in 1829 (the latest period to which the accounts are made up)
L. 75, 340. Had the planters received the whole of this petty
sum, it would have been a wretched compensation for the injury
done them by the continuance of the monopoly through the
agency of the duties. But instead of receiving the whole sum,
the accounts laid before Parliament show that the expenses of its
collection amounted to no less than 90 per cent of the produce,
or to L.68,028 ; leaving the contemptible pittance of L.7,312 of
net revenue. Most certainly no tax ever accorded less with
the sound maxim of taking out of the pockets of the people as
little as possible over and above what comes into the public
treasury.

The influence of the duties in adding to the price of all the
principal articles required for the supply of the sugar colonies,
may be seen in the following statement : —

Herrings (Danish) at the Island of St Thomas, the barrel, L.l

Ditto (British) in the colonies, the barrel,

Mess beef, in Hamburgh, the barrel.

Ditto in the United Kingdom, ditto,

Pork, in Hamburgh, the barrel,

Ditto, in the United Kingdom, ditto,

Red oak staves, in the United States, per 1,000,

Ditto, at Quebec, per ditto, ....

White oak staves, in the United States, per ditto,

Ditto, at Quebec, per ditto, ....

Flour in the United States, the barrel,

Ditto at Quebec, ditto, .....

Shingles, in the United States, per 1,000,

Ditto, in Canada, per ditto, ....

The Americans, resenting the imposition of such duties, which
they, not without good reason, conceived were levelled at their
trade with the West Indies, refused to consent to the conditions
SiS to reciprocity, on which alone the ports in the islands were
to be opened to tliem. But neither this circumstance, nor the

el, L.l 0

1 11

3 0

4 0

2 6

3 5

4 0

7 8

6 10

. 10 6

1 1

1 5

0 14

0 18

1831. Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress, 343

magnitude of the duties, could materially benefit Canada. The
islands continued to be principally dependent on supplies from
the United States ; but instead of getting them direct from the
States, the ships of the latter carried them to St Thomas's, or
some of the other neutral islands, where they were put on board
British ships, and conveyed to Jamaica, &c., loaded with heavy
duties, the expense of a double voyage, and of transhipment !
Nothing, as Sir Henry Parnell has truly stated, [Financial Re-
form, 3d ed. p. 239,) more conclusively proves the absurdity
of those who either praise or blame Mr Huskisson for having
established a free system of Colonial intercourse. The act of
the 6th Geo. IV. cap. 114, would not appear to much advantage,
were it contrasted with the worst parts of the old Spanish sys-
tem ; and may be regarded as the epitome of all that is objec-
tionable in principle, and destructive in practice, when compa-
red with the system under which Cuba and Porto Rico are now
placed.

The planters and West India merchants estimate the amount
of the pecuniary injury they sustain by the operation of the
monopoly, in forcing up the price of the articles they are
obliged to import, and in increasing the cost of freight, &c., at
L. 1,400,000 a- year ; from which there has, of course, to be de-
ducted the revenue accruing to the colonies, of L.TjSlS, leaving a
balance against them of L. 1,392,688. (Pari. Paper, No. 120, p. 72.
Sess. 1831.) Perhaps there may be some exaggeration in this
estimate ; though we have been assured by the first mercantile
authority in London, that the sacrifice imposed on the West Indies
by the existing system, is not less, but greater, than is here
represented. But taking it at only a million, can any one, ac-
quainted with the present prices of West Indian produce, wonder
at the distress in which the planters and merchants are invol-
ved ? The only rational ground of surprise is, that it is not
much greater.

The fact, therefore, is, that we have but one alternative —
either the monopoly system must be utterly abolished, or the
sugar colonies must be abandoned. There is no middle course.
We hold it to be a good deal worse than absurd to look for relief
from any scheme for forcing up prices. ' It is absolutely neces-
' sary that these enactments should be repealed, as the only true

* and direct mode of giving relief to the planters, and as the first

* step for such a reform of the whole Colonial system as may,

* in the end, diminish the burdens of the British public, with
' respect to the great expense now incurred in the civil govern-

* ment and expense of the colonics.' (Parnell on Finaticial Tie-
form, 3d ed. p. 239.)

34-4 Colonial Policy— 'West Indian Distress. Dec.

The present Ministers, we are glad to say, have acknowledged
the justice of this statement, hy the modifications introduced by
the recent act, 1 Will. IV. cap. 24. This act repeals the duties
on importation from foreign countries into Canada, Nova Scotia,
&c. ; and on articles brought from them to the West Indies.
But in order to prevent the bill from being thrown out by the
same faction which threw out the Timber bill, the duties on pro-
visions, lumber, &c., when imported into the West Indies from
foreign countries, (which, in this case, means principally the
United States,) are still kept up. So far as respects the Ame-
rican colonies, this act is a most material improvement ; but
as respects the West Indies, which alone were in a distressed
condition, it is comparatively nugatory. If the produce of the
United States come direct to the islands, it is loaded with the
former high duties ; and if it be carried, in the first place, to
Canada, and then to the islands, it is burdened with double or
treble freights, and a host of other charges. It is clear, there-
fore, that this measure must be extended. ' If the planters of

* our colonies are ever to carry on a successful competition with

* foreigners in supplying foreign countries with sugar, it is ahso-

* lutely necessary that the existing restrictions on their importation

* of food , luinher, Sfc, should be done away.' (Parnell, loc. cit.)

The shipowners say that the present measure has been emi-
nently successful, — that instead of the provisions and lumber
of the United States, destined for the West Indies, being sent
down the Hudson to New York, they are sent down the St Law-
rence to Montreal and Quebec, and then shipped in British
bottoms. This is the same cuckoo ditty that has been dinned
in our ears from 1784 downwards. If the reader will but
take the trouble to look into a map of North America and the
West Indies, he will see that the voyage from Quebec to New
York, or to the parallel of latitude in which New York is situa-
ted, is not much less than the voyage from New York to Jamaica.
To whatever extent, therefore, the shipowners may be benefited
by the existing law, they are benefited at the expense of the
West Indians. And, what are all arguments to show the ad-
vantage of setting one set of fellow-subjects to prey upon some
other set, than wretched sopliisms, that might, with a little dex-
terity, be made use of to palliate robbery and plunder ?

But although Quebec were at the same distance from the
West Indies as New York, it would bo immaterial. The public
are not ignorant of the fact, that the St Lawrence is unnaviga-
ble for about six months every year. To get supplies from it,
then, is impossible ; so that whenever a hurricane, or other cala-
mity, comes upon the West Indies, during the period when the

1831. Colonial Policy ---West Indian Distress. 345

St Lawrence is shut, either the horrors of 1787 and 1817 must
be repeated, or the planters be subjected to the high duties.

But it will not do to argue this question as if there were no
other port in the United States to trade with the West Indies
than New York. There is such a place as New Orleans ; and,
by consulting the map, it will be found that the distance from
New Orleans to Jamaica, is very little greater than the distance
from Montreal or Quebec to the parallel of Halifax. New Or-
leans, and not New York, is the natural market for the supply
of the West Indies with all articles of provision and lumber i
which are brought down by the Misissippi in the greatest pro-
fusion, and at a fourth part of the expense for which they can
be sent from Lake Ontario or Lake Erie to Quebec. Take the
case of Havannah — now one of the most important commer-
cial cities in the world. Her merchants and planters supply
themselves with those articles, wherever they are to be met with,
that are best and cheapest ; and we have yet to learn that even
a single bushel of Canada wheat, or a single stick of Canada
timber, has found its way to Cuba. Even with New York the
dealings of the Cuba merchants are comparatively limited. New
Orleans is the nearest and best market to which they can resort;
and their imports from the latter are immense. It is principally,
indeed, to be ascribed to this circumstance, that the value of the
native American produce exported from New Orleans, is believed
to exceed that exported from New York. During the year end-
ed 30th Sept., the last for which we have the official accounts,
the value of the American articles exported from the former
was 10,898,183 dollars, and from the latter, 12,036,561.

To lament the distress of the West Indians, and at the same
time to continue to subject their intercourse with America and
other foreign countries to the existing trammels, is mere hypo-
critical aifectation, that can deceive no one. If their ruin is to
be completed, that a few thousand pounds may be put into the
pockets of the shipowners, the present system is as good as can
be devised. But if it be intended to place them in a condition
to withstand the competition of the planters of Brazil and Cuba,
every vestige of it must be destroyed. The policy that should
be adopted is obvious and simple. It consists merely in opening
the ports of the West Indies, without distinctions of any sort,
to all sorts of produce, (except sugar, rum, and coffee,) and to
all sorts of ships, on payment of the same moderate ad valorem
duties. By confining the trade between Great Britain and the
colonies to British ships, a material advantage will be secured
to our shipowners. By attempting to grasp at more, they will
ultimately get less. When the sugar colonies are destroyed, as

316 Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. Dec.

they Mnll be by persisting in the present system, what will be
the value of the direct trade between them and England ?

The people of England should look to their interests in this
affair; they are of greater magnitude than most persons are
aware of. An enormous expense is incurred on account of the
colonies ; and until the present oppressive restrictions on their
trade be abolished, no abatement need be looked for on this
head. The evidence of Lord Palmerston before the Finance
Committee, as to this point, is explicit and decisive. ' Attempts,'
said his Lordship, ' have been made in all the West India islands
' to induce them to contribute to the expenses of the establish-

* ments ; and they have always represented that their means of

* doing so were crippled by the commercial arrangements of the

* mother country ; they have said, If you ivill let us trade as zve
' like, and collect our oion custom duties, and so on, lae will do it.'
(^Evidence, p. 146.) ' The means, therefore,' as Sir Henry Par-
nell has truly stated, ' of effecting a very great retrenchment in

* our present expenditure, is entirely in the hands of the legisla-

* ture, at no greater trouble than that of now doing what it was
' the declared intention of the law of 1825 to do, namely, to
' establish, thoroughly and sincerely, a free colonial trade.' {Fi-
nancial Reform, 3d ed. p. 243.)

After repealing the restrictions on their trade, the next best
thing that could be done for the relief of the West Indians,
would be to reduce the duties on sugar, and several other ar-
ticles of Colonial produce. This reduction, too, is required not
merely by a regard to their interests, but to those of the com-
munity. Sugar occupies a very prominent place among the
necessaries of life; and its cost forms an important item in the
expenses of most families. And yet while the duties on the con-
sumption of most of the great articles have been reduced from
30 to 50 per cent, and some wholly repealed, the sugar duties
were kept at the war level till last year, and since then, only
reduced from 2Ts. to 24s. a cwt. Even this ineffectual reduc-
tion has occasioned an increase in the consumption of the half
year ending 5th July, 1831, as compared with the half year
ending 5th July, 1830, of no less than 303,000 cwts., or
33,936,000 lbs. Had Mr Grant's motion, in 1829, for redu-
cing the duties on sugar to 20s. a cwt., been acceded to, the
increase would have been much greater; though we believe,
that in proposing 20s. Mr Grant gave way to the fears of those
who were apprehensive of a diminution of revenue, and that he
would liaA'e preferred a reduction of the duty to 16s. or 18s.
By fixing the duty at 16.^., a very great boon would be confer-

1831. Colonial Policy—West Indian Distress. 347

red on the people of England, while it admits of demonstration
that the revenue would not lose a single shilling. Mr Huskis-
son made the following statement, which we know to be as
applicable at this moment, in the debate on Mr Grant's motion :
— ' In consequence of the present enormous duty on sugar, the

* poor working man with a large family, to whom pence were a
' serious consideration, was denied the use of that commodity ;

* and he believed that he did not go too far when he stated, that

* TWo-THiKDs of the poovev consumers of coffee drank that beve-
' rage without sugar. If, then, the price of sugar were reduced,
' it would become an article of his consumption, like many

* other articles, woollens, for instance, which he now used, from
' their cheap price, and wliich he formerly was unable to pur-
' chase. This was the principle which regulated the amount
' and extent of consumption of any article, not placed by its

* natural cost beyond the reach of the working-classes, the

* large majority of the people.' The same views were sup-
ported by Mr Poulett Thompson, both in the debate on Mr
Grant's motion, and in his very able speech on the 30th March,
1830. — ' No one, surely,' said the right honourable gentle-
man, ' will be found to deny, that if, without any sacrifice of
' revenue, we can assist that very suffering interest, the great
' body of West India proprietors, it is our duty to do so. But
' when, in addition to that, we can benefit so essentially the
' great body of the people of this country, who, more or less, all

* consume sugars, I really cannot express my astonishment that
' some reduction of the duty should not already have taken
' place.'

A farther reduction ought also to be made of the duties on
coffee. Our readers are well acquainted with the effects that
have followed from the reduction of the exorbitant duties on cof-
fee in 1807 and 1825 — reductions which have increased the
consumption from 1,100,000 lbs. a-year, to above 22,000,000
lbs., and the revenue from L.160,000, to L.600,000. Still,
however, the duty is 56s. a-cwt. ; being equal to 100 per cent
upon the price oigood coffee, and to full 150 per cent upon the
price of the inferior sorts. We have not the slightest doubt,
that, were the duty reduced to 28s. a-cwt., or 3d. a lb., we
should have a repetition of the same magical effects that have
resulted from the former reductions. When principle and ex-
perience concur in showing that duties may be diminished not
only without injury, but with vast advantage to the revenue,
and when the distress of the planters will be lessened, and the
comforts of the public materially increased by such reductions,
why should we hesitate about making them ?

348 Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. Dec.

It is tlie opinion of Sir Henry Parnell — an opinion in wliicli
we wholly concur — that, besides reducing the duties on sugar
and coffee, those on all other articles brought from the West
Indies, with the exception of ruin and molasses, ought to be
entirely repealed. The loss to the revenue would be inconsi-
derable— the advantage to the colonies great. Cocoa is one of
the most valuable productions of the West Indies and Central
America; and M. Humboldt calculates, that in 1806 and 1807,
about 46,000,000 lbs., or 23,000,000 lbs. a-year, were made
use of on the continent. At one time plantations of cocoa
abounded in Jamaica, but they have entirely disappeared from
that island, having withered, as Mr Bryan Edwards states,
under ' tlie heavij hand of ministerial exaction ;' and, unac-
countable as it may seem, this pressure has not been materially
abated since. At this moment, Trinidad and Grenada cocoa
are worth, in bond, fi-om 24s. to 65s. a-cwt., while the duty is
no less than 56s. ; being nearly 100 per cent upon the finer
qualities, and no less than 230 per cent upon the inferior. The
duty of L.7 a-cwt. on foreign cocoa, is, of course, completely
prohibitory. If these duties were intended to discourage the
production and consumption of cocoa, they have had the desired
effect ; but if they were intended to produce revenue, their fail-
ure has been signal and complete. The cocoa imported for home
consumption does not, at an average, amount to 400,000 lbs. a-
year, and the revenue is under L. 10,000 !

The same is the case with pimento, and a variety of what we
now call small articles, but which would speedily become very
important articles were the duties repealed, and freedom given
to their production and sale.

Supposing, however, that those measures now suggested for
lessening the pressure on the West Indians, and adding to the
comfort of all classes at home, were adopted, still they would
not be enough. Parliament must apply itself to fix some cer-
tain and definite rules with respect to the treatment of the
slaves. To prepare those who have been brutalized by ages of
slavery, for performing the part of free citizens, must, under
any circumstances, be an exceedingly difficult task, and espe-
cially so in the West Indies, where the slaves form so great a
majority of the population ; but, while any thing like precipita-
tion in a matter of such extreme delicacy, cannot be too strongly
deprecated, there should not, on the other hand, be the least
delay in adopting some consistent and uniform system to en-
sure the gradual extinction of slavery, with advantage to both
slaves and masters. The obstacles in the way of such a con-

i83l. Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. 349

summation are, uo doubt, very formidable ; but they must be
grappled with, and may be overcome. It would be gross injus-
tice to identify the larger and more respectable portion of the
West Indians, with that loathsome trash that is poured forth
weekly and monthly by those who call themselves the advocates
of the West Indian interest, but who are its bitterest enemies.
Can they be so besotted as to suppose that their abusive ribald-
ry will prevail on the people of England to waver in their fixed
determination to purify every spot of their dominion from the
abomination of slavery ? It is not in the nature of things that
the present constitution of society should be maintained in the
West Indies. The question of emancipation is now merely one
of time; and those among the planters who have a just sense
of their own real interests, will join cordially in devising mea-
sures for making that transition which must take place, as little
dangerous as possible.

The constant agitation of the question of emancipation, here
and in the colonies, is in the highest degree detrimental to the
planters, who are, in fact, deprived of that security so essential
to the success of all undertakings. Surely, then, it is for their
interest that the question should be decided ; and decided it can
only be in one of two ways — either by the immediate, or the gra-
dual emancipation of the slaves. It would be easy to show —
and is indeed generally admitted — that the first plan would be
destructive not only of the interests of the planters, but also of
those of the slaves. Let then some plan of gradual emancipation
be devised ; and the animosities that now exist will be allayed ;
an end will be put to those intemperate discussions that are pro-
ductive of so much mischief; and confidence and security will
again revive. The better way, we believe, would be to oblige
the planters to emancipate a certain portion, as two per cent of
their slaves each year, making the arrangements such, that the
planters should find it for their interest to make emancipation a
reward for good conduct. Some of those most deeply interested
in the question, agree with us in thinking, that by means of
some measure of this sort, the transition from bondage to free-
dom may be effected without any violent convulsion ; and that
all classes, masters as well as slaves, would be benefited by its
adoption.

It is said by some that the distress of the West Indians can-
not be so serious as is represented ; for that if it were, it would
occasion such a falling off in the imports, as would speedily, by
lessening the supply of sugar below the demand, raise its price.
In point of fact, however, a diminution has recently taken
place in the production of sugar ; the import from the West

350 Colonial Policy — West Indian Distress. Dec.

Indies being, in 1828, 198,400 tons; in 1829, 195,230; and in
1830, 185,660. It should also be recollected, that it is no easy
matter for a planter to turn his capital and industry into new
channels. The registry acts oppose a serious obstacle to this.
They hinder the transfer of slaves from one island to another,
or to the continent; so that, though a planter might be able to
employ his slaves profitably in Demerara or Berbice, while in
Tortola, and some of the islands, he is hardly able to employ them
at all, h3 is not permitted to carry them to the place where their
labour is in demand. There is no such regulation in the United
States ; and it is difficult to discover any good grounds for its
rigid enforcement. Should it, however, be relaxed, care should
be taken to enact such provisions as may be deemed proper
for promoting the interests of the slaves ; and, supposing these
provisions not so onerous upon the master as to defeat the pur-
pose of the relaxation, or to hinder transferences entirely, they
might be made a means of accelerating the period of emancipa-
tion ; while, as it would be optional to the masters either to
transfer their slaves or not, they could not object to the grant
of the liberty to transfer being accompanied by any reasonable
conditions.

The planters are naturally extremely anxious that the im-
portation of fresh negroes into Cuba, Brazil, and the foreign
states, should, if possible, be put an end to. Their anxiety in
this respect is not greater, certainly, than that of the govern-
ment ; but we are not entitled to dictate to other countries, and
if we are to succeed, we must proceed by negotiation. It is,
however, to be hoped, that more accurate and enlarged views
of their own interest will, at no distant period, induce all foreign
nations to abolish this infamous traffic in fact ap well as in name,
by mutually conceding the right of search, and treating those
engaged in it a« pirates. Nothing short of this will be found
effectual ; and we trust that a measure of this sort may be uni-
versally agreed to.

On the whole, therefore, it is abundantly certain, that the
distresses of the West Indians may be effectually relieved ; and
that this relief may be accomplished, not only without imposing
any fresh burdens on the people of England — which we should
be the first to oppose — but with a material diminution of those
now existing. Let the West Indians be treated justly and im-
partially; let them enjoy what cannot be withheld from them
without injustice and oppression — the power to supply them-
selves with whatever they require, in the cheapest markets;
let the exorbitant duties that now attach to articles of West
India produce brought to England, be adequately reduced ; and

1831. OAonial Policy — West Indian Distress. 351

let fixed and judicious rules be established for guiding the pro-
gress of emancipation to a safe termination. Let these things
be done, and we ventui'e to say, that the distresses of the West
Indians will speedily cease to be heard of; and while the people
of England will gain by the reduction of the duties, they will
also gain by the reduced expenditure that w^ill henceforth be
required for the protection and government of the islands. At
all events, nothing whatever can be lost, while much will most
probably be gained, by adopting the measures now suggested —
measures which have been sanctioned by all our greatest states-
men, and which are founded on the obvious principles of im-
partial justice. If opposition is to be made to these measures,
it must proceed, either directly or indirectly, from a small mi-
nority of the shipowners, and the Canada merchants; and these
gentlemen would do well to recollect, that forbearance has its
limits. They have achieved a pretty considerable triumph in
compelling us, for their sakes, to innoculate our ships and
houses with dry-rot, and to pay L. 1,500,000 a- year of enhan-
ced price, for a comparatively worthless article. But though
John Bull be good-natured enough to tolerate this inroad on his
own pockets, we hardly think that his love of j ustice will allow
the same freedom to be used with the pockets of the West In-
dians.

Art. IV. — 1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man. By
Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1831.

2. Philosophische Vorlesungeni inshesondere icber Philosophie der
Sprache und des Wortes. Geschrieben mid vorgetragen zu Dres-
den im December 1828, und in deri ersten Tagen des Januars
1829. (Philosophical Lectures, especially on the Philosophy
of Language and the Gift of Speech. Written and delivered
at Dresden in December 1828, and the early days of Janu-
ary 1829.) By Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. Vienna :
1830.

npHE healthy know not of their health, but only the sick : this
■*■ is the Physician's Aphorism ; and applicable in a far wider
sense than he gives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral,
intellectual, political, poetical, than in merely corporeal thera-
peutics ; that wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the
sort which can be named vital are at work, herein lies tlie test
of their working right or working wrong.

352 Characteristics. Dec.

In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first
condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its
function unconsciously, unheeded ; let but any organ announce
its separate existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure,
not for pain, then already has one of those unfortunate ' false

* centres of sensibility' established itself, already is derangement
there. The perfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collec-
tive bodily activities seem one ; and be manifested, moreover,
not in themselves, but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr
Kitchener boast that his system is in high order. Dietetic Phi-
losophy may indeed take credit ; but the true Peptician was that
Countryman who answered that, ' for his part, he had no sys-
' tem.' In fact, unity, agreement, is always silent, or soft-
voiced ; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So long
as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth
their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody
and unison ; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in
celestial music and diapason, — which also, like that other music
of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, with-
out interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to
escape the ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of
health well denoted by a term expressing unity ; when we feel
ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are whole.

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with
that felicity of * having no system :' nevertheless, most of us,-
looking back on young years, may remember seasons of a light,
aerial translucency and elasticity, and perfect freedom ; the body
had not yet become the prison-house of the soul, but was its
vehicle and implement, like a creature of the thought, and al-
together pliant to its bidding. We knew not that we had limbs,
we only lifted, hui'led, and leapt ; through eye and ear, and all
avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings from without,
and from within issued clear victorious force ; we stood as in
the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in harmony with it
all ; unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, ' too happy hecause we did not

* know our blessedness/ In those days, health and sickness
were foreign traditions that did not concern us ; our whole be-
ing was as yet One, the whole man like an incorporated Will.
Such, were Rest or ever- successful Labour the human lot, might
our life continue to be : a pure, perpetual, unregarded music ; a
beam of perfect white light, rendering all things visible, but itself
unseen, even because it was of that perfect whiteness, and no irre-
gular obstruction had yet broken it into colours. The beginning
of Inquiry is Disease : all Science, if we consider well, as it must

1831, Characteristics. 353

have originated in the feeling of something being wrong, so it
is and continues to be but Division, Dismemberment, and partial
healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old written, the Tree of
Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of good
and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had been no
Anatomy and no Metaphysics.

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, ' Life itself is a disease;
' a working incited by suffering;' action from passion ! The me-
mory of that first state of Freedom and paradisiac Unconscious-
ness has faded away into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here
too conscious of many things : with Knowledge, the symptom of
Derangement, we must even do our best to restore a little Order.
Life is, in few instances, and at rare intervals, the diapason of a
heavenly melody ; oftenest the fierce jar of disruptions and con-
vulsions, which, do what we will, there is no disregarding. Ne-
vertheless such is still the wish of Nature on our behalf; in all
vital action, her manifest purpose and effort is, that we should
be unconscious of it, and, like the peptic Countryman, never
know that we ' have a system.' For indeed vital action every
where is emphatically a means, not an end ; Life is not given us
for the mere sake of Living, but always with an ulterior external
Aim : neither is it on the process, on the means, but rather on
the result, that Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to intrust
us with insight and volition. Boundless as is the domain of |
man, it is but a small fractional proportion of it that he rules
with Consciousness and by Forethought : what he can contrive,
nay, what he can altogether know and comprehend, is essentially
the mechanical, small ; the great is ever, in one sense or other,
the vital, it is essentially the mysterious, and only the surface of
it can be understood. But Nature, it might seem, strives, like
a kind mother, to hide from us even this, that she is a mystery :
she will have us rest on her beautiful and awful bosom as if it
were our secure home; on the bottomless boundless Deep, where-
on all human things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will
have us walk and build, as if the film which supported us there
(which any scratch of a bare bodkin Avill rend asunder, any
sputter of a pistol-shot instantaneously burn up) were no film,
but a solid rock- foundation. For ever in the neighbourhood of an
inevitable Death, man can forget that he is born to die ; of his
Life, which, strictly meditated, contains in it an Immensity and
an Eternity, he can conceive lightly, as of a simple implement
wherewith to do day-labour and earn wages. So cunningly
does Nature, the mother of all highest Art, which only apes her
from afar, * body forth the Finite from the Infinite ;' and guide

354 Characteristics. Dec.

man safe on his wondrous path, not more by endowing him
with vision, than, at the right place, with blindness ! Under all
her works, chiefly under her noblest work, Life, lies a basis of
Darkness, which she benignantly conceals ; in Life, too, the roots ^
and inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to the
regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence,
and only the fair stem with its leaves and fl^owers, shone on by
the fair sun, disclose itself, and joyfully grow.

However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly
asking Why and How, in things where our answer must needs
prove, in great part, an echo of the question, let us be content
to remark farther, in the merely historical way, how that Apho-
rism of the bodily Physician holds good in quite other depart-
ments. Of the Soul, with her activities, we shall find it no less
true than of the Body : nay, cry the Spiritualists, is not that
very division of the unity, Man, into a dualism of Soul and
Body, itself the symptom of disease ; as, perhaps, your frightful
theory of Materialism, of his being but a Body, and therefore,
at least, once more a unity, may be the paroxysm which was
critical, and the beginning of cure ! But omitting this, we
observe, with confidence enough, that the truly strong mind,
view it as Intellect, as Morality, or under any other aspect, is
nowise the mind acquainted with its strength ; that here as
before the sign of health is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as
in our outward world, what is mechanical lies open to us ; not
what is dynamical and has vitality. Of our Thinking, we might
say, it is but the mere upper surface that we shape into articu-
late Thoughts; — underneath the region of argument and con-
scious discourse, lies the region of meditation ; here, in its quiet
mysterious depths, dwells what vital force is in us ; here, if
aught is to be created, and not merely manufactured and com-
municated, must the work go on. Manufacture is intelligible,
but trivial ; Creation is great, and cannot be understood. Thus,
if the Debater and Demonstrator, whom we may rank as the
lowest of true thinkers, knows what he has done, and how he
did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the highest, knows not; must
speak of Inspiration, and in one or the other dialect, call his work
the gift of a divinity.

But, on the whole, ' genius is ever a secret to itself;' of this
old truth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The Shakspeare
takes no airs for writing Hamlet and the Tempest, understands
not that it is any thing surprising : Milton, again, is more con-
scious of his faculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On
the other hand, what cackling and strutting must we not often

1831. Characteristics. 355

hear and see, vvLen, in some sliape of academical prolusion,
maiden speech, review article, this or the other well-fledged
goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite measurable value,
were it the pink of its whole kind ; and wonders why all mor-
tals do not wonder !

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at
Walter Shandy : how, though unread in Aristotle, he could
nevertheless argue ; and not knowing the name of any dialectic
tool, handled them all to perfection. Is it the skilfullest Anato-
mist that cuts the best figure at Sadler's Wells ? or does the
Boxer hit better for knowing that he has a flexor longus ai\d a
flexor hrevis ? But, indeed, as in the higher case of the Poet,
so here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer, the true force is an
unconscious one. The healthy Understanding, we should say, is
not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive ; for the end
of Understanding is not to prove, and find reasons, but to know
and believe. Of Logic, and its limits, and uses and abuses, there
were much to be said and examined ; one fact, however, which
chiefly concerns us here, has long been familiar : that the man of
logic and the man of insight; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or
even Knower, are quite separable, — indeed, for most part, quite
separate characters. In practical matters, for example, has it not
become almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot prosper ?
This is he whom business people call Systematic and Theo-
rizer and Word-monger ; his vital intellectual force lies dormant
or extinct, his whole force is mechanical, conscious : of such a
one it is foreseen that, when once confronted with the infinite
complexities of the real world, his little compact theorem of the
world will be found wanting; that unless he can throw it over- ♦
board, and become a new creature, he will necessarily founder, i
Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the most ineifectual of all cha-
racters, generally speaking, is your dialectic man-at-arms ; were
he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and perfect
master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him ! Consider
the old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards Truth : the
faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often great
natural vigour; only no progress : nothing but antic feats of one
limb poised against the other; there they balanced, somer-
setted, and made postures ; at best gyrated swiftly, with some
pleasure, like Spinning Dervishes, and ended where they began.
So is it, so will it always be, with all System-makers and build-
ers of logical card-castles ; of which class a certain remnant must,
in every age, as they do in our own, survive and build. Logic is
good, but it is not the best. The Irrefragable Doctor, with his

356 Characteristics. Dec.

chains of induction, his corollaries, dilemmas, and other cunning
logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast you a beautiful horo-
scope, and speak reasonable things ; nevertheless your stolen
jewel, which you wanted him to find you, is not forthcoming.
Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is, of a
Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split
asunder, and its secret laid bare ; while the Irrefragable, with
all his logical roots, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it
on all hands too hard for him.

Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as
indeed every where in that superiority of what is called the
Natural over the Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The
Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how ;
the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and
carried all with him : the one is in a state of healthy uncon-
sciousness, as if he ' had no system ;' the other, in virtue of
regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels at best that ' his system
' is in high order.' So stands it, in short, with all forms of
Intellect, whether as directed to the finding of Truth, or to the
fit imparting thereof; to Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of
Insight, which is the basis of both these ; always the character-
istic of right performance is a certain spontaniety, an uncon-
sciousness ; ' the healthy know not of their health, but only the
' sick.' So that the old precept of the critic, as crabbed as it
looked to his ambitious disciple, might contain in it a most
fundamental truth, applicable to us all, and in much else than
Literature : ' Whenever you have written any sentence that
' looks particularly excellent, be sure to blot it out.' In like
manner, under milder phraseology, and with a meaning pur-
posely much wider, a living Thinker has taught us : ' Of the
' Wrong we are always conscious, of the Right never.'

But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the In-
tellectual power of man, much more is it with regard to Conduct,
and the power, manifested chiefly therein, which we name
Moral. ' Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
' doeth :' whisper not to thy own heart. How worthy is this
action ; for then it is already becoming worthless. The good
man is he who works continually in well-doing ; to whom well-
doing is as his natural existence, awakening no astonishment,
requiring no commentary; but there, like a thing of course,
and as if it could not but be so. Self-contemplation, on the
other hand, is infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it
not the sign of cure : an unhealthy Virtue is one that consumes
itself to leanness in repenting and anxiety ; or, still worse, that

1831. Characteristics. 357

inflates itself into dropsical boastfulness and vain glory : either
way, it is a self-seeking ; an unprofitable looking behind us to
measure the way we have made : whereas the sole concern is
to walk continually forward, and make more way. If in any
sphere of Man's Life, then in the moral sphere, as the inmost
and most vital of all, it is good that there be wholeness ; that
there be unconsciousness, which is the evidence of this. Let
the free reasonable Will, which dwells in us, as in our Holy
of Holies, be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as is its
right and its effort : the perfect obedience will be the silent one.
Such perhaps were the sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is
usual, but the half of a truth : ' To say that we have a cleai'
' conscience is to utter a solecism ; had we never sinned, wo

* should have had no conscience.' Were defeat unknown,
neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.

This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; yetevefi'
the goal towards which our actual state of being strives ; which
it is the more perfect the nearer it can approach. Nor, in our
actual world, where Labour must often prove ineffectual, and
thus in all senses Light alternate with Darkness, and the natui-e
of an ideal Morality be much modified, is the case, thus far,
materially different. It is a fact which escapes no one, that,
generally speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth has but
a little stock to cultivate acquaintance with. Above all, the
public acknowledgment of such acquaintance, indicating that
it has reached quite an intimate footing, bodes ill. Already,
to the popular judgment, he who talks much about Virtue in
the abstract, begins to be suspicious ; it is shrewdly guessed that
where there is great preaching, there will be little almsgiving.
Or again, on a wider scale, we can remark that ages of Heroism
are not ages of Moral Philosophy ; Virtue, when it can be philo-
sophized of, has become aware of itself, is sickly, and beginning
to decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of Chi-
valrous Valour shrinks together, and perks itself up into shrivel-
ed Points of Honour ; humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind
dwindle into punctilious Politeness, * avoiding meats ;' ' pay-
' ing tithe of mint and anise, neglecting the weightier matters

* of the law.' Goodness, which was a rule to itself, must appeal
to Precept, and seek strength from Sanctions ; the Freewill no
longer reigns unquestioned and by divine right, but like a mere
earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards and Punishments:
or rather, let us say, the Freewill, so far as may be, has abdi-
cated and withdrawn into the dark, and a spectral nightmare of
a Necessity usurps its throne ; for now that mysterious Self-im-

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. 2 A

35$ Characteristics. Dec.

pulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired and In all senses par-
taking of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in a finite
dialect, and answering, as it needs must, by silence, — is conceived
as non-extant, and only the outward Mechanism of it remains
acknowledged : of Volition, except as the synonym of Desire, we
hear nothing ; of ' Motives,' without any Mover, more than
enough.

So, too, when the generous Aff'ectlons have become wellnigh
paralytic, we have the reign of Sentimentality. The greatness,
the profitableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental nature of
high feeling, and the luxury of doing good ; charity, love, self-
forgetfulness, devotedness, and all manner of godlike magna-
nimity, are every where insisted on, and pressingly inculcated in
speech and writing, in prose and verse; Socinian Preachers
proclaim ' Benevolence' to all the four winds, and have Truth
engraved on their watch-seals : unhappily with little or no
effect. Were the Limbs in right walking order, why so much
demonstrating of Motion ? The barrenest of all mortals is the
Sentimentalist. Granting even that he were sincere, and did
not wilfully deceive us, or without first deceiving himself, what
good is in him ? Does he not lie there as a perpetual lesson of
despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarian impotence ? His is
emphatically a Virtue that has become, through every fibre,
conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were made of
glass, and durst not touch or be touched : in the shape of work,
it can do nothing ; at the utmost, by incessant nursing and
candling, keep itself alive. As the last stage of all, when Vir-
tue, properly so called, has ceased to be practised, and become
extinct, and a mere remembrance, we have the era of Sophists,
descanting of its existence, proving it, denying it, mechanically
* accounting' for it ; — as dissectors and demonstrators cannot
operate till once the body be dead.

Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which in-
deed is but a lower phasis thereof, ' ever a secret to itself.' The
healthy moral nature loves Goodness, and without wonder
wholly lives in it : the unhealthy makes love to it, and would
fain get to live in it ; or, finding such courtship fruitless, turns
round, and not without contempt abandons it. These curious
relations of the Voluntary and Conscious to the Involuntary and
Unconscious, and the small proportion which, in all departments
of our life, the former bears to the latter, — might lead us into
deep questions of Psychology and Physiology : such, hoAvever,
belong not to our present object. Enough, if the fact itself be-
come apparent, that Nature so meant it with us ; that in this

1831. Characteristics. S59

wise we are made. We may now say, that view man's indivi-
dual Existence under what aspect we will, under the highest
Spiritual, as under the merely Animal aspect, every where the
grand vital energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen uncon-
scious one ; or, in the words of our old Aphorism, * the healthy
* know not of their health, but only the sick.'

To understand man, however, we must look beyond the indi-
vidual man and his actions or interests, and view him in combi-
nation with his fellows. It is in Society that man first feels what
he is ; first becomes what he can be. In Society an altogether
new set of spiritual activities are evolved in him, and the old
immeasurably quickened and strengthened. Society is the ge-
nial element wherein his nature first lives and grows ; the soli-
tary man were but a small portion of himself, and must continue
for ever folded in, stunted, and only half alive. * Already,*
says a deep Thinker, with more meaning than will disclose itself
at once, ' my opinion, my conviction, gains ivfinitely in strength
and sureness, the moment a second mind has adopted it.' Such,
even in its simplest form, is association ; so wondrous the
communion of soul with soul as directed to the mere act of
Knowing ! In other higher acts, the wonder is still more mani-
fest ; as in that portion of our being which we name the Moral :
for properly, indeed, all communion is of a moral sort, whereof
such intellectual communion (in the act of knowing) is itself
an example. But with regard to Morals strictly so called, it
is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins ; here
at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every side,
as in living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man to
himself, to what is Highest in himself, make but the First
Table of the Law : to the First Table is now superadded a
Second, with the Duties of Man to his Neighbour ; whereby
also the significance of the First now assumes its true im-
portance. Man has joined himself with man ; soul acts and
reacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union esta-
blishes itself; Life, in all its elements, has become intensated,
consecrated. The lightning- spark of Thought, generated, or say
rather heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens its express
likeness in another mind, in a thousand other minds, and all
blaze up together in combined fire ; reverberated from mind to
mind, fed also with fresh fuel in each, it acquires incalculable
new Light as Thought, incalculable new Heat as converted into
Action. By and by, a common store of Thought can accumu-
late, and be transmitted as an everlasting possession : Litera-
ture, whether as preserved in the memory of Bards, in Runes

360 Characteristics. Dec.

and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of written or
printed paper, comes into existence, and begins to play its won-
drous part. Polities are formed ; the weak submitting to the
strong ; with a willing loyalty, giving obedience that he may
receive guidance : or say rather, in honour of our nature, the
ignorant submitting to the wise ; for so it is in all even the
rudest communities, man never yields himself wholly to brute
Force, but always to moral Greatness ; thus the universal title
of respect, from the Oriental Scheik, from the Sachem of the
red Indians, down to our English Sir, implies only that he
whom we mean to honour is our senior. Last, as the crown
and all-supporting keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The
devout Meditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his
soul, like a transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown
lands, acquires certainty, continuance, when it is shared in
by his brother men. * Where two or three are gathered to-
* gether' in the name of the Highest, then first does the Highest,
as it is written, * appear among them to bless them ;' then first
does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way from Earth
to Heaven ; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's-ladder, the
heavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings and unspeak-
able gifts for men. Such is Society, the vital articulation of
many individuals into a new collective individual : greatly the
most important of man's attainments on this earth ; that in
which, and by virtue of which, all his other attainments and
attempts find their arena, and have their value. Considered
well. Society is the standing wonder of our existence ; a true
region of the Supernatural ; as it were, a second all-embracing
Life, wherein our first individual Life becomes doubly and trebly
alive, and whatever of Infinitude was in us bodies itself forth,
and becomes visible and active.

To figure Society as endowed with Life is scarcely a metaphor;
but rather the statement of a fact by such imperfect methods as
language affords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, Na-
ture's highest work with man, wherein man's volition plays an
indispensable yet so subordinate a part, and the small Mechanical
grows so mysteriously and indissolubly out of the infinite Dy-
namical, like Body out of Spirit, — is truly enough vital, what
we can call vital, and bears the distinguishing character of life.
In the same style also, we can say that Society has its periods of
sickness and vigour, of youth, manhood, decrepitude, dissolution,
and new-birth : in one or other of which stages we may, in all
times, and all places where men inhabit, discern it ; and do our-
selves, in this time and place, whether as co-operating or as

1831. Characteristics.

361

contending-, as healthy members or as diseased ones, to our ioy
and sorrow, form part of it. The question, What is the actual
condition of Society ? has in these days unhappily become im-
portant enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that question ;
but for the majority of thinking men a true answer to it, such
is the state of matters, appears almost as the one thing needful.
Meanwhile as the true answer, that is to say, the complete and
fundamental answer and settlement, often as it has been de-
manded, is nowhere forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is
impossible, any honest approximation towards such is not with-
out value. The feeblest light, or even so much as a more pre-
cise recognition of the darkness, which is the first step to attain-
ment of light, will be welcome.

This once understood, let it not seem idle if we remark that
here too our old Aphorism holds ; that again in the Body Poli-
tic, as in the animal body, the sign of right performance is Un-
consciousness. Such indeed is virtually the meaning of that
phrase ' artificial state of Society,' as contrasted with the na-
tural state, and indicating something so inferior to it. For, in
all vital things, men distinguish an Artificial and a Natural ;
founding on some dim perception or sentiment of the very
truth we here insist on : the Artificial is the conscious, me-
chanical; the Natural is the unconscious, dynamical. Thus
as we have an artificial Poetry, and prize only the natural ;
so likewise we have an artificial Morality, an artificial Wis-
dom, an artificial Society. The artificial Society is precisely
one that knows its own structure, its own internal functions ;
not in watching, not in knowing which, but in working out-
wardly to the fulfilment of its aim, does the wellbeing of a So-
ciety consist. Every Society, every Polity, has a spiritual prin-
ciple; is the embodyment, tentative, and more or less complete,
of an Idea : all its tendencies of endeavour, specialities of cus-
tom, its laws, politics, and whole procedure (as the glance of
some Montesquieu across innumerable superficial entanglements
can partly decipher) are prescribed by an Idea, and flow natu-
rally from it, as movements from the living source of motion.
Tills Idea, be it of devotion to a Man or class of Men, to a Creed,
to an Institution, or even, as in more ancient times, to a piece
of Land, is ever a true Loyalty ; has in it something of a religi-
ous, paramount, quite infinite character; it is properly the Soul
of the State, its Life ; mysterious as other forms of Life, and
like these working secretly, and in a depth beyond that of con-
sciousness.

Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages of a Roman Republic
that Treatises of the Commonwealth are written : whil« the Decii

363 Characteristics, Dec*

are rushing with devoted hodies on the enemies of Rome, whatneed
of preaching Patriotism ? The virtue of Patriotism has already-
sunk from its pristine, all-transcendent condition, before it has re-
ceived a name. So long as the Commonwealth continues rightly-
athletic, it cares not to dabble in anatomy. Why teach Obe-
dience to the sovereign ; why so much as admire it, or separately
recognise it, while a divine idea of Obedience perennially inspires
all men ? Loyalty, like Patriotism, of which it is a form, was
not praised till it had begun to decline ; the Preux Chevaliers
first became rightly admirable, when ' dying for their king,' had
ceased to be a habit with chevaliers. For if the mystic significance
of the State, let this be what it may, dwells vitally in every heart,
encircles every life as with a second higher life, how should it
stand self- questioning? It must rush outward, and express
itself by works. Besides, if perfect, it is there as by necessity,
and does not excite inquiry : it is also by nature, infinite, has no
limits ; therefore can be circumscribed by no conditions and
definitions ; cannot be reasoned of; except jnusicallij, or in the
language of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of.

In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at heart.
Not, indeed, without suff'ering enough ; not without perplexities,
difiiculty on every side : for such is the appointment of man ; his
highest and sole blessedness is, that he toil, and know what to
toil at : not in ease, but in united victorious labour, which is at
once evil and the victory over evil, does his Freedom lie. Nay,
often, looking no deeper than such superficial perplexities of the
early Time, historians have taught us that it was all one mass of
contradiction and disease ; and in the antique Republic, or feudal
Monarchy, have seen only the confused chaotic quarry, not the ro-
bust labourer, or the stately edifice he was building of it. If Society,
in such ages, had its difficulty, it had also its strength ; if sorrow-
ful masses of rubbish so encumbered it, the tough sinews to hurl
them aside, with indomitable heart, were not wanting. Society
went along without complaint ; did not stop to scrutinize itself,
to say. How well I perform, or, Alas, how ill ! Men did not yet
feel themselves to be ' the envy of surrounding nations;' and
were enviable on that very account. Society was what we can
call whole, in both senses of the word. The individual man was
in himself a whole, or complete union ; and could combine with
his fellows as the living member of a greater whole. For all men,
thr'ough their life, were animated by one great Idea; thus all
efforts pointed one way, every where there was wholeness. Opi-
nion and Action had not yet become disunited ; but the former
could still produce the latter, or attempt to produce it, as the

1831. Characteristics. 363

stamp does Its impression while the wax Is not hardened.
Thought, and the Voice of thought, were also a unison ; thus,
instead of Speculation we had Poetry ; Literature, in its rude
utterance, was as yet a heroic Song, perhaps, too, a devotional
Anthem. Religion was every where ; Philosophy lay hid under
it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as in the life-centre of all,
lay the true health and oneness. Only at a later era must Reli-
gion split itself into Philosophies ; and thereby the vital union
of Thought being lost, disunion and mutual collision in all pro-
vinces of Speech and of Action more and more prevail. For if
the Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired thinker
may be named, is the sign of vigour and wellbeing ; so likewise
is the llogician, or uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, pro-
bably of decrepitude and decay. Thus, not to mention other
instances, one of them much nearer hand, — so soon as Prophecy
among the Hebrews had ceased, then did the reign of Argu-
mentation begin ; and the ancient Theocracy, in its Sadducee-
isms and Phariseeisms, and vain jangling of sects and doctors,
give token that the soul of it had fled, and that the body itself,
by natural dissolution, ' with the old forces still at work, but
' working in reverse order,' was on the road to final disappear-
ance.

We might pursue this question Into Innumerable other rami-
fications ; and every where, under new shapes, find the same
truth, which we here so imperfectly enunciate, disclosed : that
throughout the whole world of man, in all manifestations and
performances of his nature, outward and inward, personal and
social, the Perfect, the Great is a mystery to itself, knows not
itself; whatsoever does know itself is already little, and more or
less imperfect. Or otherwise, we may say, Unconsciousness be-
longs to pure unmixed Life ; Consciousness to a diseased mixture
and conflict of Life and Death : Unconsciousness is the sign of
Creation ; Consciousness at best, that of Manufacture. So deep, in
this existence of ours, is the significance of Mystery. Well might
the Ancients make Silence a god; for it is the element of all god-
hood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness ; at once the source
and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends. In the same
sense too, have Poets sung ' Hymns to the Night ;' as if Night
were nobler than Day ; as if Day were but a small motley-
coloured veil spread transiently over the infinite bosom of Night,
and did but deform and hide from us its purely transparent,
eternal deeps. So likewise have they spoken and sung as if
Silence were the grand epitome and complete sum-total of all

364 Characteristics. Dec.

Harmony ; and Death, what mortals call Death, properly the
beginning of Life. Under such figures, since except in figures
there is no speaking of the Invisible, have men endeavoured to
express a great Truth ; — a Truth, in our times, as nearly as is
perhaps possible, forgotten by the most ; which nevertheless
continues for ever true, for ever all-important, and will one day,
under new figures, be again brought home to the bosoms of all.

But, indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest mind has still
some intimation of the greatness there is in Mystery. If Silence
was made a god of by the Ancients, he still continues a govern-
ment clerk among us Moderns. To all Quacks, moreover, of
what sort soever, the effect of Mystery is well known : here and
there some Cagliostro, even in latter days, turns it to notable
account : the Blockhead also, who is ambitious, and has no talent,
finds sometimes in ' the talent of silence,' a kind of succeda-
neum. Or again, looking on the opposite side of the matter, do
we not see, in the common understanding of mankind, a certain
distrust, a certain contempt of what is altogether self-conscious
and mechanical ? As nothing that is wholly seen through has
other than a trivial character ; so any thing professing to be
great, and yet wholly to see through itself, is already known to
be false, and a failure. The evil repute your ' theoretical men'
stand in, the acknowledged inefficiency of ' Paper Constitutions',
and all that class of objects, are instances of this. Experience
often repeated, and perhaps a certain instinct of something far
deeper that lies under such experiences, has taught men so much.
They know, beforehand, that the loud is generally the insignifi-
cant, the empty. Whatsoever can proclaim itself from the house-
tops may be fit for the hawker, and for those multitudes that
must needs buy of him ; but for any deeper use, might as well
continue unproclaimed. Observe, too, how the converse of the
proposition holds ; how the insignificant, the empty, is usually
the loud ; and, after the manner of a drum, is loud even because
of its emptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner Calefactor can
be bruited abroad over the whole world in the course of the first
winter ; those of the Printing Press are not so well seen into
for the first three centuries : the passing of the Select Vestries [
Bill raises more noise and hopeful expectancy among mankind, |
than did the promulgation of the Christian Religion. Again, and '
again, we say, the great, the creative and enduring, is ever a
secret to itself; only the small, the barren and transient, is
otherwise.

If we now, with a practical medical view, examine, by this
same test of Unconsciousness, the Condition of our own Era, and

1831. Characteristics, 365

of man's Life therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is nowise of a
flattering sort. The state of Society, in our days, is of all possible
states the least an unconscious one : this is specially the Era
when all manner of Inquiries into what was once the unfelt, in-
voluntary sphere of man's existence, find their place, and as it
were occupy the whole domain of thought. What, for example,
is all this that we hear, for the last generation or two, about the
Improvement of the Age, the Spirit of the Age, Destruction of
Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and the March of Intellect,
but an unhealthy state of self- sentience, self-survey; the precur-
sor and prognostic of still worse health ? That Intellect do
march, if possible at double-quick time, is very desirable ; never-
theless why should she turn round at every stride, and cry : See
you what a stride I have taken ! Such a marching of Intellect
is distinctly of the spavined kind ; what the Jockeys call ' all
' action and no go.' Or at best, if we examine well, it is the
marching of that gouty Patient, whom his Doctors had clapt on
a metal floor artificially heated to the searing point, so that he
was obliged to march, and marched with a vengeance — no-
whither. Intellect did not awaken for the first time yesterday ;
but has been under way from Noah's Flood downwards : greatly/
her best progress, moreover, was in the old times, when she
said nothing about it. In those same ' dark ages,' Intellect (me-'
taphorically as well as literally) could invent glass, which now
she has enough ado to grind into spectacles. Intellect built not
only Churches, but a Church, the Church, based on this firm
Earth, yet reaching up, and leading up, as high as Heaven ; and
now it is all she can do to keep its doors bolted, that there be no
tearing of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. She built
a Senate-house likewise, glorious in its kind ; and now it costs
her a wellnigh mortal effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get
the roof made rain-tight.

But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most other things, we
are now passing from that first or boastful stage of Self-sentience
into the second or painful one : out of these often asseverated
declarations that ' our system is in high order,' we come now,
by natural sequence, to the melancholy conviction that it is
altogether the reverse. Thus, for instance, in the matter of
Government, the period of the ' Invaluable Constitution' must
be followed by a Reform Bill ; to laudatory De Lolmes succeed
objurgatory Benthams. At any rate, what Treatises on the
Social Contract, on the Elective Franchise, the Rights of Man,
the Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions, Constitutions,
have we not, for long years, groaned under ! Or again, with a

366 Characteristics, . Dec.

■wider survey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts on Man,
Inquiries concerning Man ; not to mention Evidences of the
Christian Faith, Theories of Poetry, Considerations on the Ori-
gin of Evil, which during the last century haA'e accumulated on
us to a frightful extent. Never since the beginning of Time,
was there, that we hear or read of, so intensely self-conscious a
Society. Our whole relations to the Universe and to our fellow
man have become an Inquiry, a Doubt : nothing will go on of
its own accord, and do its function quietly ; but all things must
be probed into, the whole working of man's world be anatomi-
cally studied. Alas, anatomically studied, that it may be medi-
cally aided ! Till at length, indeed, we have come to such a
pass, that except in this same Medicine, with its artifices and
appliances, iew can so much as imagine any strength or hope to
remain for us. The whole Life of Society must now be carried
on by drugs : doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum, of
Co-operative Societies, Universal Suffrage, Cottage-and-Cow sys-
tems, Repression of Population, Vote by Ballot. To such height
has the dyspepsia of Society reached ; as indeed the constant
grinding internal pain, or from time to time the mad spasmodic
throes, of all Society do otherwise too mournfully indicate.

Far be it from us to attribute, as some unwise persons do, the
disease itself to this unhappy sensation that there is a disease !
The Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of France ; but
the ti'oubles of France produced the Encyclopedists, and much
else. The Self-consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it is
also the attempt towards cure. We record the fact, without special
censure ; not wondering that Society should feel itself, and in all
ways complain of aches and twinges, for it has suffered enough.
Napoleon was but a Jobs-comforter, when he told his wounded
Staff-officer, twice unhorsed by cannon balls, and with half his
limbs blown to pieces : Vous vous ecoutez trop !

On the outward, or as it were Physical diseases of Society, it
were beside our purpose to insist here. These are diseases which
he who runs may read ; and sorrow over, with or without hope.
Wealth has accumulated itself into masses ; and Poverty, also in <
accumulation enough, lies impassably separated from it; op- ^
posed, uncommunicating, like forces in positive and negative |
poles. The gods of this lower world sit aloft on glittering}
thrones, less happy than Epicurus' gods, but as indolent, as im-
potent; while the boundless living chaos of Ignorance and Hun- |
ger welters terrific, in its dark fury, under their feet. How much '
among us might be likened to a whited sepulchre ; outwardly
all Pomp and Strength ; but inwardly full of horror and despair
and dead men's bones ! Iron highways, with their wains fire-

183]. Characteristics, S 6'^

winged, are uniting all ends of the firm Land ; quays and moles,
with their innumerable stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our
pliant bearer of burdens ; Labour's thousand arms, of sinew and.
of metal, all-conquering, every where, from the tops of the
mountain down to the depths of the mine and the caverns of the
sea, ply unweariedly for the service of man : Yet man remains
unserved. He has subdued this Planet, his habitation and in-
heritance, yet reaps no profit from the victory. Sad to look upon,
in the highest stage of civilisation, nine-tenths of mankind must
struggle in the lowest battle of savage or even animal man, the
battle against Famine. Countries are rich, prosperous in all
manner of increase, beyond example : but the Men of those coun-
tries are poor, needier than ever of all sustenance outward and
inward ; of Belief, of Knowledge, of Money, of Food. The rule
Sic vos non vobis, never altogether to be got rid of in men's In-
dustry, now presses with such incubus weight, that Industry must
shake it off, or utterly be strangled under it ; and, alas, can as
yet but gasp and rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one in the
final deliration. Thus Change, or the inevitable approach of
Change, is manifest every where. In one Country we have seen
lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelope all things ; Government
succeed Government, like the fantasms of a dying brain: in
another Country, we can even now see, in maddest alternation,
the Peasant governed by such guidance as this : To labour
earnestly one month in raising wheat, and the next month labour
earnestly in burning it. So that Society, were it not by nature
immortal, and its death ever a new-birth, might appear, as it
does in the eyes of some, to be sick to dissolution, and even now
writhing in its last agony. Sick enough we must admit it to be,
with disease enough, a whole nosology of diseases ; wherein he
perhaps is happiest that is not called to prescribe as physician ;
— wherein, however, one small piece of policy, that of summon-
ing the Wisest in the Commonwealth, by the sole method yet
known or thought of, to come together and with their whole
soul consult for it, might, but for late tedious experiences, have
seemed unquestionable enough.

But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the Spiritual
condition of Society, and see what aspects and prospects offer
themselves there. For, after all, it is there properly that the
secret and origin of the whole is to be sought : the Physical de-
rangements of Society are but the image and impress of its Spi-
ritual ; while the heart continues sound, all other sickness is
superficial, and temporary. False Action is the fruit of false
Speculation ; let the spirit of Society be free and strong, that is
to say, let true Principles inspire the members of Society, then

368 Characteristics. Dec.

neither can disorders accumulate in its Practice ; each disorder
will be promptly, faithfully inquired into, and remedied as it
arises. But alas, with us the Spiritual condition of Society is
no less sickly than the Physical. Examine man's internal world,
in any of its social relations and performances, here too all
seems diseased self-consciousness, collision, and mutually-de-
structive struggle. Nothing acts from within outwards in un-
divided healthy force ; every thing lies impotent, lamed, its force
turned inwards, and painfully ' listens to itself.'

To begin with our highest Spiritual function, with Religion,
we might ask, whither has Religion now fled? Of Churches
and their establishments we here say nothing; nor of the unhappy
domains of Unbelief, and how innumerable men, blinded in their
minds, must ' live without God in the world :' but, taking the
fairest side of the matter, we ask. What is the nature of that
same Religion, which still lingers in the hearts of the iew who
are called, and call themselves, specially the Religious? Is it a
healthy Religion, vital, unconscious of itself; that shines forth
spontaneously in doing of the Work, or even in preaching of the
Word ? Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr Conduct, and
inspired and soul-inspiring Eloquence, whereby Religion itself
were brought home to our living bosoms, to live and reign there,
we have ' Discourses on the Evidences,' endeavouring, with
smallest result, to make it pi'obable that such a thing as Reli-
gion exists. The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not preach
a Gospel, but keep describing how it should and might be preach-
ed; to awaken the sacred fire of Faith, as by a sacred, contagion,
is not their endeavour ; but, at most, to describe how Faith shows
and acts, and scientifically distinguish true Faith from false. Re-
ligion, like all else, is conscious of itself, listens to itself; it be-
comes less and less creative, vital ; more and more mechanical.
Considered as a whole, the Christian Religion, of late ages, has
been continually dissipating itself into Metaphysics ; and threat-
ens now to disappear, as some rivers do, in deserts of barren sand.

Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-spread maladies, why
speak ? Literature is but a branch of Religion, and always par-
ticipates in its character : However, in our time, it is the only
branch that still shows any greenness ; and, as some think, must
one day become the main stem. Now, apart from the subter-
ranean and tartarean regions of Literature ; — leaving out of view
the frightful, scandalous statistics of Puffing, the mystery of
Slander, Falsehood, Hatred, and other convulsion- work of rabid
Imbecility, and all that has rendered Literature on that side a
perfect ' Babylon the mother of Abominations,' in very deed,
making the world * drunk ' with the wine of her iniquity ; —

1831. Characteristics. 369

forgetting all this, let us look only to the regions of the upper
air ; to such Literature as can be said to have some attempt
towards truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not poetical,
to hold of the poetical. Among other characteristics, is not this
manifest enough : that it knows itself? Spontaneous devoted-
ness to the object, being wholly possessed by the object, what we
can call Inspiration, has wellnigh ceased to appear in Literature.
Which melodious Singer forgets that he is singing melodiously?
We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of
greatness. Hence infinite Affectations, Distractions ; in every
case inevitable Error. Consider, for one example, this peculi-
arity of modern Literature, the sin that has been named View-
hunting. In our elder writers, there are no paintings of scenery
for its own sake ; no euphuistic gallantries with Nature, but a
constant heart-love for her, a constant dwelling in communion
with her. View-hunting, with so much else that is of kin to it,
first came decisively into action through the Sorroivs of JVerter ;
which wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many senses be
regarded as the progenitor of all that has since become popular
in Literature ; whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and tenden-
cy, it still offers the most instructive image; for nowhere, except
in its own country, above all in the mind of its illustrioiis Author,
has it yet fallen wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till that late
epoch, did any worshipper of Nature become entirely aware that
he was worshipping, much to his own credit, and think of say-
ing to himself : Come let us make a description ! Intolerable
enough : when every puny whipster draws out his pencil, and
insists on painting you a scene ; so that the instant you discern
such a thing as ' wavy outline,' ' mirror of the lake,' * stern
' headland,' or the like, in any Book, you must timorously hasten
on ; and scarcely the Author of Waverley himself can tempt you
not to skip.

Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state of Literature dis- -
closed in this one fact, which lies so near us here, the prevalence
of Reviewing ! Sterne's wish for a reader * that would give up
' the reins of his imagination into his author's hands, and be
* pleased he knew not why, and cared not wherefore,' might lead
him a long journey now. Indeed, for our best class of readers,
the chief pleasure, a very stinted one, is this same knowing of
the Why ; which many a Kames and Bossu has been, ineffectu-
ally enough, endeavouring to teach us : till at last these also have
laid down their trade ; and now your Reviewer is a mere taster;
who tastes, and says, by the evidence of such palate, such tongue,
as he has got — It is good ; it is bad. Was it thus that the French
carried out certain inferior creatures on their Algerine Expedition,

676 Characteristics. Dec.

to taste the wells for them, and try whether they were poisoned ?
Far be it from us to disparage our own craft, whereby we have
our living ! Only we must note these things : that Reviewing
spreads with strange vigour ; that such a man as Byron reckons
the Reviewer and the Poet equal ; that, at the last Leipsic Fair,
there was advertised a Review of Reviews. By and by it will be
found that ' all Literature has become one boundless self-de-

* vouring Review ; and as in London routs, we have to do no-

* thing, but only to see others do nothing.' — Thus does Litera-
ture also, like a sick thing, superabundantly * listen to itself.'

No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest, if we cast a glance
on our Philosophy, on the character of our speculative Thinking.
Nay already, as above hinted, the mere existence and necessity
of a Philosophy is an evil. Man is sent hither not to question,
but to work : ' the end of man,' it was long ago written, ' is an

* Action, not a Thought.' In the perfect state, all Thought were
but the Picture and inspiring Symbol of Action ; Philosophy,
except as Poetry and Religion, had no being. And yet how, in
this imperfect state, can it be avoided, can it be dispensed with ?
Man stands as in the centre of Nature; his fraction of Time
encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth of Space encircled by Infi-
nitude : how shall he forbear asking himself. What am I ; and
Whence ; and Whither ? How too, except in slight partial hints,
in kind asseverations and assurances such as a mother quiets her
fretfully inquisitive child with, shall he get answer to such in-
quiries ?

The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is a perennial one.
In all ages, those questions of Death and Immortality, Origin
of Evil, Freedom and Necessity, must, under new forms, anew
make their appearance; ever, from time to time, must the at-
tempt to shape for ourselves some Theorem of the Universe be
repeated. And ever unsuccessfully : for what Theorem of the
Infinite can the Finite render complete ? We, the whole species
of Mankind, and our whole existence and history, are but a float-
ing speck in the illimitable ocean of the All; yet in that ocean;
indissoluble portion thereof; partaking of its infinite tenden-
cies; borne this way and that by its deep-swelling tides, and
grand ocean currents ; — of which what faintest chance is there
that we should ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the goings
and comings ? A region of Doubt, therefore, hovers for ever in
the background ; in Action alone can we have certainty. Nay
properly Doubt is the indispensable, inexhaustible material
whereon Action works, which Action has to fashion into Cer-
tainty and Reality ; only on a canvass of Darkness, such is man's

1831. Characteristics. 371

way of being, could the many- coloured picture of our Life paint
itself and shine.

Thus if our oldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the Book
of Genesis, our latest is that of Mr Thomas Hope, published on-
ly within the current year. It is a chronic malady that of Me-
taphysics, as we said, and perpetually recurs on us. At the ut-
most, there is a better and a worse in it ; a stage of convales-
cence, and a stage of relapse with new sickness: these for
ever succeed each other, as is the nature of all Life-movement
here below. The first, or convalescent stage, we might also
name that of Dogmatical or Constructive Metaphysics ; when
the mind constructively endeavours to scheme out, and assert
for itself an actual Theorem of the Universe, and therewith for
a time rests satisfied. The second or sick stage might be called
that of Sceptical or Inquisitory Metaphysics ; when the mind
having widened its sphere of vision, the existing Theorem of the
Universe no longer answers the phenomena, no longer yields con-
tentment ; but must be torn in pieces, and certainty anew sought
for in the endless realms of Denial. All Theologies and sacred
Cosmogonies belong, in some measure, to the first class: in all
Pyrrhonism from Pyrrho down to Hume and the innumerable
disciples of Hume, we have instances enough of the second. In
the former, so far as it affords satisfaction, a temporary ano-
dyne to Doubt, an arena for wholesome Action, there may be
much good; indeed, in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than
of Metaphysics, might be called Inspiration rather than Specu-
lation. The latter is Metaphysics proper ; a pure, unmixed,
though from time to time a necessary evil.

For truly, if we look into it, there is no more fruitless en-
deavour than this same, which the Metaphysician proper toils
in : to educe Conviction out of Negation. How, by mere-
ly testing and rejecting what is not, shall we ever attain know-
ledge of what is ? Metaphysical Speculation, as it begins in No
or Nothingness, so it must needs end in Nothingness ; circulates
and must circulate in endless vortices ; creating, swallowing —
itself. Our being is made up of Light and Darkness, the Light
resting on the Darkness, and balancing it; every where there is
Dualism, Equipoise; a perpetual Contradiction dwells in us:
* where shall I place myself to escape from my own shadow ?'
Consider it well, Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise
above the mind ; to environ, and shut in, or as we say, compre-
hend the mind. Hopeless struggle, for the wisest, as for the
foolishest ! What strength of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable
the stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his arms, and, by
lifting, lift up himself^ The Irish Saint swam the Channel * car-

372 Characteristics. Dec.

* rying his head in his teeth :' but the feat has never been imi-
tated.

That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the proper, or scepti-
cal Inquisitory sense ; that there was a necessity for its being
such an age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. From
many causes, the arena of free Activity has long been narrow-
ing, that of sceptical Inquiry becoming more and more univer-
sal, more and more perplexing. The Thought conducts not to
the Deed ; but in boundless chaos, self- devouring, engenders
monstrosities, fantasms, fire-breathing chimeras. Profitable Spe-
culation were this : What is to be done ; and How is it to be done ?
But with us not so much as the What can be got sight of. For
some generations, all Philosophy has been a painful, captious,
hostile question towards every thing in the Heaven above, in the
Earth beneath : Why art thou there ? Till at length it has come
to pass that the worth and authenticity of all things seems du-
bitable or deniable : our best effort must be unproductively spent
not in working, but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and
so much as whether we are to work at all. Doubt, which, as
was said, ever hangs in the background of our world, has now
become our middle-ground and foreground ; whereon, for the
time, no fair Life- picture can be painted, but only the dark air-
canvass itself flow round us, bewildering and benighting.

Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here ; not to
ask questions, but to do work : in this time, as in all times, it
must be the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Action lie dor-
mant, and only that of sceptical Inquiry exert itself. Accord-
ingly, whoever looks abroad upon the world, compai'ing the Past
with the Present, may find that the practical condition of man,
in these days, is one of the saddest ; burdened with miseries
which are in a considerable degree peculiar. In no time was
man's life what he calls a happy one ; in no time can it be so.
A perpetual dream there has been of Paradises, and some luxu-
rious Lubberland, where the brooks should run wine, and the
trees bend with ready-baked viands ; but it was a dream mere-
ly, an impossible dream. Suffering, Contradiction, Error, have
their quite perennial, and even indispensable, abode in this Earth.
Is not Labour the inheritance of man ? And what Labour for
the present is joyous, and not grievous ? Labour, Effort, is the
very interruption of that Ease, which man foolishly enough fan-
cies to be his Happiness : and yet without Labour there were
no Ease, no Rest, so much as conceivable. Thus Evil, what we
call Evil, must ever exist while man exists : Evil, in the widest
sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered material
out of which man's Freewill has to create an edifice of order,

1 S3 1 . Characteristics.

373

and Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour; and only in free
Effort can any blessedness be imagined for us.

But if man has, in all ages, had enough to encounter, there
has, in most civilized ages, been an inward force vouchsafed him,
whereby the pressure of things outward might be withstood.
Obstruction abounded ; but Faith also was not wanting. It is
by Faith that man removes mountains : while he had Faith, his
limbs might be wearied with toiling, his back galled with bear-
ing; but the heart within him was peaceable and resolved. In
the thickest gloom there burnt a lamp to guide him. If he strug-
gled and suffered, he felt that it even should be so ; knew for
what he was suffering and struggling. Faith gave him an in-
ward Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith to front a
world of Difhculty. The true wretchedness lies here : that the
Difficulty remain and the Strength be lost ; that Pain cannot
relieve itself in free Effort; that we have the Labour, and want
the Willingness. Faith strengthens us, enlightens us, for all
endeavours and endurances ; with Faith we can do all, and dare
all, and life itself has a thousand times been joyfully given away.
But the sum of man's misery is even this, that he feel himself
crushed under the Juggernaut wheels, and know that Jugger-
naut is no divinity, but a dead mechanical idol.

Now this is specially the misery which has fallen on man in
our Era. Belief, Faith has wellnigh vanished from the world.
The youth on awakening in this wondrous Universe, no longer
finds a competent theory of its wonders. Time was, when if he
asked himself: What is man; what are the duties of man? the an-
swer stood ready written for him. But now the ancient ' ground-
' plan of the All' belies itself when brought into contact with
reality; Mother Church has, to the most, become a superannu-
ated Stepmother, whose lessons go disregarded ; or are spurned
at, and scornfully gainsayed. For young Valour and thirst of
Action no ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, prescribes what is
heroic : the old ideal of Manhood has grown obsolete, and the
new is still invisible to us, and we grope after it in darkness,
one clutching this phantom, another that; Werterism, Byron-
ism, even Brummelism, each has its day. For Contemplation
and love of Wisdom no Cloister now opens its religious shades;
the Thinker must, in all senses, wander homeless, too often aim-
less, looking up to a Heaven which is dead for him, round to an
Earth which is deaf. Action, in those old days, was easy, was
voluntary, for the divine worth of human things lay acknow-
ledged ; Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged itself as the
handmaid of Action ; what could not so range itself died out
by its natural death, by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed obedi--

VOL. HV. KO. CVIII. 2 B

374 Characteristics. Dec*

ence, and made rule noble ; tliere was still something to be
loyal to : the Godlike stood embodied under many a symbol in
men's interests and business ; the Finite shadowed forth the In-
finite; Eternity looked through Time. The Life of man was
encompassed and overcanopied by a glory of Heaven, even as
his dwelling-place by the azure vault.

How changed in these new days ! Truly may it be said, the
Divinity has withdrawn from the Earth ; or veils himself in that
wide- wasting Whii'lwind of a departing Era, wherein the fewest
can discern his goings. Not Godhood, but an iron, ignoble cir-
cle of Necessity embraces all things ; binds the youth of these
times into a sluggish thrall, or else exasperates him into a rebel.
Heroic Action is paralysed ; for what worth now remains un-
questionable with him ? At the fervid period when his whole
nature cries aloud for Action, there is nothing sacred under
whose banner he can act ; the course and kind and conditions
of free Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt storms in on
him through every avenue ; inquiries of the deepest, painfullest
sort must be engaged with ; and the invincible enei'gy of young
years waste itself in sceptical, suicidal cavillings ; in passionate
* questionings of Destiny,' whereto no answer will be returned.

For men, in whom the old perennial principal of Hunger (be
it Hunger of the poor Day-drudge who stills it with eighteen-
pence a- day, or of the ambitious Place-hunter who can nowise
still it with so little) suffices to fill up existence, the case is
bad; but not the worst. These men have an aim, such as it is;
and can steer towards it, with chagrin enough truly ; yet, as
their hands are kept full, without desperation. Unhappier are-
they to whom a higher instinct has been given ; who struggle
to be persons, not machines ; to whom the Universe is not a ware-
house, or at best fancy-bazaar, but a mystic temple and hall of
doom. For such men there lie properly two courses open. The
lower, yet still an estimable class, take up with worn-out Symbols
of the Godlike ; keep trimming and trucking between these and
Hypocrisy, purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous'
intermediate class end in Denial ; and form a theory that there
is no theory ; that nothing is certain in the world, except this
fact of Pleasure being pleasant; so they try to realize what tri-
fling modicum of Pleasure they can come at, and to live contented
therewith, winking hard. Of these we speak not here ; but only
of the second nobler class, who also have dared to say No, and'
cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No they dwell as in a
Golgotha, where life enters not, where peace is not appointed
them. Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men ; the harder
the nobler they are. lu dim forecastings, wrestles within them

1831. Characteristics. 375

the ' Diviue Idea of the World,' yet will nowhere visibly
reveal itself. They have to realise a Worship for themselves,
or live unworshipping. The Godlike has vanished from the
world ; and they, by the strong cry of their soul's agony, like
true wonder-workers, must again evoke its presence. Thia
miracle is their appointed task ; which they must accomplish,
or die wretchedly : this miracle has been accomplished by such ;
but not in our land ; our land yet knows not of it. Beholdr-
a Byron, in melodious tones, ' cursing his day :' he mistakes
earth-born passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Freewill •
without heavenly loadstar, rushes madly into the dance of
meteoric lights that hover on the mad Mahlstrom; and goes
down among its eddies. Hear a Shelley filliDg the earth with
inarticulate wail ; like the infinite, inarticulate grief and weep-
ing of forsaken infants. A noble Friedrich Schlegel, stupi-
fied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silenced battle-field, flies
back to Catholicism ; as a child might to its slain mother's bo-
som, and cling there. In lower regions, how many a poor
Hazlitt must wander on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest
on burning deserts ; passionately dig wells, and draw up only
the dry quicksand ; believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only
wrestle among endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with
spectre-hosts ; and die and make no sign !

To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial has
long since ceased : the problem is not now to deny, but to ascertain
and perform. Once in destroying the False, there was a certain
inspiration ; but now the genius of Destruction has done its
work, there is now nothing more to destroy. The doom of the
Old has longbeen pronounced, and irrevocable ; the Old has passed
away : but, alas, the New appears not in its stead ; the Time is
still in pangs of travail with the New. Man has walked by the
light of conflagrations, and amid the sound of falling cities ; and
now there is darkness, and long watching till it be morning.
The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim : ' As yet strug-
* gles the twelfth hour of the Night : birds of darkness are on
' the wing, spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living dream.
' — Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to dawn !'*

Such being the condition, temporal and spiritual, of the world
at our Epoch, can we wonder that the world ' listens to itself,'
and struggles and writhes, everywhere externally and internally,
like a thing in pain ? Nay, is not even this unhealthy action of
the world's Organization, if the symptom of universal disease,
yet also the symptom and sole means of restoration and cure ?

* Jean Paul's Hesperus. Vorreds.

376 Characteristics. l)ec.

The effort of Nature, exerting her medicative force to cast out
foreign impediments, and once more become One, become whole ?
In Practice, still more in Opinion, which is the precursor and
prototype of Practice, there must needs be collision, convulsion ;
much has to be ground away. Thought must needs be Doubt
and Inquiry, before it can again be Affirmation and Sacred
Precept. Innumerable * Philosophies of Man,' contending in
boundless hubbub, must annihilate each other, before an inspi-
red Poesy and Faith for Man can fashion itself together.

From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylonish confusion of
tongues, we have here selected two Voices ; less as objects of
praise or condemnation, than as signs how far the confusion
has reached, what prospect there is of its abating. Friedrich
Schlegel's Lectures^ delivered at Dresden, and Mr Hope's Essay,
published in London, are the latest utterances of European Spe-
culation : far asunder in external place, they stand at a still
wider distance in inward purport ; are, indeed, so opposite and
yet so cognate that they may, in many senses, represent the two
Extremes of our whole modern system of Thought ; and be said
to include between them all the Metaphysical Philosophies, so
often alluded to here, which, of late times, from France, Ger-
many, England, have agitated and almost overwhelmed us.
Both in regard to matter and to form, the relation of these two
Works is significant enough.

Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let us remark, not
without emotion, one quite extraneous point of agreement ; the
fact that the Writers of both have departed from this world ;
they have now finished their search, and had all doubts resolved :
while we listen to the voice, the tongue that uttered it has gone
silent for ever. But the fundamental, all-pervading similarity
lies in this circumstance, well worthy of being noted, that both
these Philosophies are of the Dogmatic, or Constructive sort :
each in its way is a kind of Genesis; an endeavour to bring the
Phenomena of man's Universe once more under some theoretic
Scheme : in both there is a decided principle of unity ; they
strive after a result which shall be positive ; their aim is not to
question, but to establish. This, especially if we consider with
what comprehensive concentrated force it is here exhibited, forms
a new feature in such works.

Under all other aspects, there is the most irreconcilable
opposition ; a staring contrariety, such as might provoke con-
trasts were there far fewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's
Work is the apotheosis of Spiritualism ; Hope's again is the apo-
theosis of Materialism : in the one, all Matter is evaporated into
a Phenomenon, and terrestrial Life itself, with its whole doings

1831. Characteristics. 077

and showings, held out as a Disturbance (Zerriitfung) produced by
the Zeitgeist (Spirit of Time); in the other, Matter is distilled and
sublimated into some semblance of Divinity : the one regards
Space and Time as mere forms of man's mind, and without ex-
ternal existence or reality ; the other supposes Space and Time
to be 'incessantly created,' and rayed in upon us like a sort of
' gravitation.' Such is their difference in respect of purport ;
no less striking is it in respect of manner, talent, success, and
all outward characteristics. Thus, if in Schlegel we have to ad-
mire the power of Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might
almost be said, at the want of an articulate Language. To Schle-
gel his Philosophic Speech is obedient, dexterous, exact, like a
promptly- ministering genius; his names are so clear, so precise
and vivid, that they almost (sometimes altogether) become things
for him : with Hope there is no Philosophical Speech ; but a
painful, confused, stammering, and struggling after such ; or the
tongue, as in dotish forgetful ness, maunders low, longwinded,
and speaks not the word intended, but another ; so that here the
scarcely intelligible, in these endless convolutions, becomes the
wholly unreadable ; and often we could ask, as that mad pupil
did of his tutor in Philosophy, ' But whether is Virtue a fluid,
« then, or a gas?' If the fact, that Schlegel, in the city of Dres-
den, could find audience for such high discourse, may excite our
envy ; this other fact, that a person of strong powers, skilled in
English Thought and master of its Dialect, could write the On-
gin and Prospects of Man, may painfully remind us of the re-
proach, ' that England has now no language for Meditation ; that

* England, the most Calculative, is the least Meditative, of all

* civilized countries.'

It is not our purpose to offer any criticism of Schlegel's Book ;
in such limits as were possible here, we should despair of com-
municating even the faintest image of its significance. To the
mass of readers, indeed, both among the Germans themselves,
and still more elsewhere, it nowise addresses itself, and may lie
for ever sealed. We point it out as a remarkable document of
the Time and of the Man ; can recommend it, moreover, to all
earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their best regard ; a work
full of deep meditation, wherein the infinite mystery of Life, if
not represented, is decisively recognised. Of Schlegel, himself
and his character, and spiritual history, we can profess no
thorough or final understanding ; yet enough to make us view
him with admiration and pity, nowise with harsh contemptuous
censure ; and must say, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry
of his being ' a renegade,' and so forth, is but like other such
outcries, a judgment where there was neither jury, nor evidence,
nor judge. The candid reader, in this Book itself, to say nothing

3T8 Characteristics. Dec.

of all the rest, will find traces of a high, far- seeing, earnest spi-
rit, to whom ' Austrian Pensions,' and the Kaiser's crown, and
Austria altogether, were but a light matter to the finding and
vitally appropriating of Truth. Let us respect the sacred mys-
tery of a Person ; rush not irreverently into man's Holy of
Holies ! Were the lost little one, as we said already, found ' suck-
ing its dead mother, on the field of carnage,' could it be other
than a spectacle for tears ? A solemn mournful feeling comes
over us when we see this last Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the
unwearied seeker, end abruptly in the middle ; and, as if he had
7iot yet found, as if emblematically of much, end with an

* Aber — ,' with a 'But — !' This was the last word that came
from the Pen of Friedrich Schlegel : about eleven at night he
wrote it down, and there paused sick ; at one in the morning,
Time for him had merged itself in Eternity ; he was, as we say,
no more.

Still less can we attempt any criticism of Mr Hope's new
Book of Genesis. Indeed, under any circumstances, criticism
of it were now impossible. Such an utterance could only be re-
sponded to in peals of laughter ; and laughter sounds hollow and
hideous through the vaults of the dead. Of this monstrous Ano-
maly, where all sciences are heaped and huddled together, and
the principles of all are, with a childlike innocence, plied hither
and thither, or wholly abolished in case of need ; where the First
Cause is figured as a huge Circle, with nothing to do but radiate

* gravitation' towards its centre ; and so construct a Universe,
wherein all, from the lowest cucumber with its coolness, up to
the highest seraph with his love, were but * gravitation,' direct
or reflex, ' in more or less central globes,' — what can we say,
except, with sorrow and shame, that it could have originated
nowhere save in England ? It is a general agglomerate of all
facts, notions, whims, and observations, as they lie in the brain
of an English gentleman ; as an English gentleman, of unusual
thinking power, is led to fashion them, in his schools and in his
world : all these thrown into the crucible, and if not fused,
yet soldered or conglutinated with boundless patience ; and now
tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amorphous, unspeakable, a
world's wonder. Most melancholy must we name the whole
business ; full of long-continued thought, earnestness, loftiness of
mind ; not without glances into the Deepest, a constant fearless
endeavour after truth ; and with all this nothing accomplished,
but the perhaps absurdest Book written in our century by a think-
ing man. A shameful Abortion ; which, however, need not now
be smothered or mangled, for it is already dead ; only, in our love
and sorrowing reverence for the writer of Anastasins, and the
heroic seeker of Light, though not bringer thereof, let it be
buried and forgotten.

1831. Characteristics. SI'S

For ourselves, the loud discord which jars in these two Works,
in innumerable works of the like import, and generally in all the
Thought and Action of this period, does not any longer utterly
confuse us. Unhappy who, in such a time, felt not, at all con-
junctures, ineradicably in his heart the knowledge that a God
made this Universe, and a Demon not ! And shall Evil always
prosper, then ? Out of all Evil comes Good ; and no Good that
is possible but shall one day be real. Deep and sad as is our feel-
ing that we stand yet in the bodeful Night; equally deep, inde-
structible is our assurance that the Morning also will not fail.
Nay, already, as we look round, streaks of a dayspring are in the
east : it is dawning ; when the time shall be fulfilled, it will be
day. The progress of man towards higher and nobler Develope-
ments of whatever is highest and noblest in him, lies not only
prophesied to Faith, but now written to the eye of Observation,
so that he who runs may read.

One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in
actual circumstances, was this same ; the clear ascertainment
that we are in progress. About the grand Course of Providence,
and his final Purposes with us, we can know nothing, or almost
nothing : man begins in darkness, ends in darkness ; mystery is
every where around us and in us, under our feet, among our
hands. Nevertheless so much has become evident to everyone,
that this wondrous Mankind is advancing somewhither ; that at
least all human things are, have been, and for ever will be, in
Movement and Change; — as, indeed, for beings thatexistinTime,
by virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might have been long
since understood. In some provinces, it is true, as in Experi-
mental Science, this discovery is an old one ; but in most others
it belongs wholly to these latter days. How often, in former
ages, by eternal Creeds, eternal Forms of Government, and the
like, has it been attempted, fiercely enough, and with destruc-
tive violence, to chain the Future under the Past ; and say to the
Providence, whose ways with man are mysterious, and through
the great Deep : Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther ! A
wholly insane attempt ; and for man himself, could it prosper, the
frightfullest of all enchantments, a very Life-in- Death. Man's
task here below, the destiny of every individual man, is to be in
turns Apprentice and Workman ; or say rather. Scholar, Teacher,
Discoverer : by nature he has a strength for learning, for imita-
ing ; but also a strength for acting, for knowing on his own ac-
count. Are we not in a World seen to be Infinite ; the relations
lying closest together modified by those latest-discovered, and
lying farthest asunder ? Could you ever spell-bind man into a
Scholar merely, so that he had nothing to discover, to correct ;
could you ever establish a Theory of the Universe that were en-

380 Characteristics. Dec.

tire, unimprovable, and which needed only to be got by heart ;
man then were spiritually defunct, the species We now name
Man had ceased to exist. But the gods, kinder to us than
we are to ourselves, have forbidden such suicidal acts. As
Phlogiston is displaced by Oxygen, and the Epicycles of Ptolemy
by the Ellipses of Kepler ; so does Paganism give place to Catho-
licism, Tyranny to Monarchy, and Feudalism to Represent-
ative Government, — where also the process does not stop. Per-
fection of Practice, like completeness of Opinion, is always ap-
proaching, never arrived ; Truth, in the words of Schiller, im-
mer wird, nie ist; never is, always is a-heing.

Sad, truly, were our condition did we know but this, that
Change is universal and inevitable. Launched into a dark shore-
less sea of Pyrrhonism, what would remain for us but to sail
aimless, hopeless ; or make madly merry, while the devouring
Death had not yet engulfed us ? As, indeed, we have seen many,
and still see many do. Nevertheless so stands it not. The vene-
rator of the Past (and to what pure heart is the Past, in that
* moonlight of memory,' other than sad and holy ?) sorrows not
over its departure, as one utterly bereaved. The true Past departs
not, nothing that was worthy in the Past departs ; no Truth or
Goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die ; but is all still
here, and, recognised or not, lives and works through endless
changes. If all things, to speak in the German dialect, are dis-
cerned by us, and exist for us, in an element of Time, and there-
fore of Mortality and Mutability ; yet Time itself reposes on
Eternity : the truly Great and Transcendental has its basis and
substance in Eternity; stands revealed to us as Eternity in a
vesture of Time. Thus in all Poetry, Worship, Art, Society,
as one form passes into another, nothing is lost : it is but the
superficial, as it were the body only, that grows obsolete and dies ;
under the mortal body lies a soul that is immortal ; that anew
incarnates itself in fairer revelation ; and the Present is the living
sum-total of the whole Past.

In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing super-
natural : on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot,
and life in this world. To-day is not yesterday : we ourselves
change ; how can our Works and Thoughts, if they are always
to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is
painful ; yet ever needful : and if Memory have its force and
worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we look well to it, what is all
Derangement, and necessity of great Change, in itself such an
evil, but the product simply of increased resources which the old
methods can no longer administer ; of new wealth which the old
coffers will no longer contain ? What is it, for example, that in
Ptir own day bursts asunder the bonds of ancient Political Systems,

183'1. Characteristics. 381

and perplexes all Europe with the fear of Change, but even this :
the increase of social resources, which the old social methods
will no longer sufficiently administer ? The new omnipotence of
the Steam-engine is hewing asunder quite other mountains than
the physical. Have not our economical distresses, those barnyard
Conflagrations themselves, the frightfuUest mndness of our mad
epoch, their rise also in what is a real increase : increase of Men ;
of human Force; properly, in such a Planet as ours, the most
precious of all increases ? It is true again, the ancient methods
of administration will no longer suffice. Must the indomitable
millions, full of old Saxon energy and lire, lie cooped up in this
Western Nook, choking one another, as in a Blackhole of Cal-
cutta, while a whole fertile untenanted Earth, desolate for want
of the ploughshare, cries : Come and till roe, come and reap me ?
If the ancient Capt.ains can no longer yield guidance, new must
be sought after : for the difficulty lies not in nature, but in arti-
fice : the European Calcutta- Blackhole has no walls but air ones,
and paper ones. — So too, Scepticism itself, with its innume-
rable mischiefs, what is it but the sour fruit of a most blessed
increase, that of Knowledge ; a fruit, too, that will not always
continue sour ?

In fact, much as we have said and mourned about the unpi'o-
ductive prevalence of Metaphysics, it was not without some in-
sight into the use that lies in them. Metaphysical Speculation,
if a necessary evil, is the forerunner of much good. The fever
of Scepticism must needs burn itself out, and burn out thereby
the Impurities that caused it ; then again will there be clearness,
health. The principle of Life, which now struggles painfully, in
the outer, thin, and barren domain of the Conscious or Mecha-
nical, may then withdraw into its inner Sanctuaries, its abysses
of mystery and miracle ; withdraw deeper than ever into that
domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite and inexhaustible ;
and creatively work thei'e. From that mystic region, and from
that alone, all wonders, all Poesies, and Religions, and Social
Systems have proceeded : the like wonders, and greater and
higher, lie slumbering there ; and, brooded on by the spirit of the
waters, will cA^olve themselves, and rise like exhalations from
the Deep.

Of our modern Metaphysics, accordingly, may not this alrea-
dy be said, that if they have produced no Affirmation, they have
destroyed much Negation ? It is a disease expelling a disease :
the fire of Doubt, as above hinted, consuming away the Doubt-
ful ; that so the Certain come to light, and again lie visible on
the surface. English or French Metaphysics, in reference to this
last stage of the speculative process, are not what we allude to
here ; but only the Metaphysics of the Germans. In France or
England, since the days of Diderot and Hume, though all

382 Characteristics* Dec.

iliought has been of a sceptico-metaphysical texture, so far
as there were any Thought, — we have seen no Metaphysics;
but only more or less ineffectual questionings whether such
could be. In the Pyrrhonism of Hume and the Material-
ism of Diderot, Logic had, as it were, overshot itself, over-
set itself. Now, though the athlete, to use our old figure,
cannot, by much lifting, lift up his own body, he may shift it
out of a laming posture, and get to stand in a free one. Such a
service have German Metaphysics done for man's mind. The
second sickness of Speculation has abolished both itself and the
first. Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the fruitlessness,
the tumult and transiency of German as of all Metaphysics ;
and with reason : yet in that wide-spreading, deep-whirl-
ing vortex of Kantism, so soon metamorphosed into Fichteism,
Schellingism, and then as Hegelism, and Cousinlism, perhaps
finally evaporated, is not this issue visible enough, that Pyrrhon-
ism and Materialism, themselves necessary phenomena in Euro-
pean culture, have disappeared ; and a Faith in Religion has
again become possible and inevitable for the scientific mind;
and the word jPree-thinker no longer means the Denier or
Caviller, but the Believer, or the Ready to believe ? Nay, in
the higher Literature of Germany, there already lies, for him
that can read it, the beginning of a new revelation of the God-
like ; as yet \jnrecognised by the mass of the world; but waiting
there for recognition, and sure to find it when the fit hour comes.
This age also is not wholly without its Prophets.

Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarianism, or Radicalism,
or the Mechanical Philosophy, or by whatever name it is called,
has still its long task to do ; nevertheless we can now see through
it and beyond it : in the better heads, even among us English, it
has become obsolete ; as in other countries, it has been, in such
heads, for some forty or even fifty years. What sound mind
among the French, for example, now fancies that men can be
governed by ' Constitutions ;' by the never so cunning mecha-
nizing of Self-interests, and all conceivable adjustments of check-
ing and balancing ; in a word, by the best possible solution of
this quite insoluble and impossible problem, Given a world of
Knaves, to produce an Honesty from their united action ? Were
not experiments enough of this kind tried before all Europe, and
found wanting, when, in that doomsday of France, the infinite
gulf of human Passion shivered asunder the thin rinds of
Habit ; and burst forth all-devouring, as in seas of Nether Fire ?
Which cunningly-devised * Constitution,' constitutional, repub-
lican, democratic, sans-cullotic, could bind that raging chasm
together ? Were they not all burnt up, like Paper as they were,
in its molten eddies ; and still the fire-sea raged fiercer than be-
fore ? It is not by Mechanism, but by Religion ; not by Self-
interest, but by Loyalty, that men are governed or governable.

1831. Characteristics, 383

Remarkable it is, truly, bow every wbere tbe eternal fact
begins again to be recognised, that there is a Godlike in human
affairs; that God not only made us and beholds us, hut is in us
and around us ; that the Age of Miracles, as it ever was, now is.
Such recognition we discern on all hands, and in all countries :
in each country after its own fashion. In France, among the
younger nohler minds, strangely enough ; where, in their loud
contention with the Actual and Conscious, the Ideal or Uncon-
scious is, for the time, without exponent ; where Religion means
not the parent of Polity, as of all that is highest, but Polity it-
self; and this and the other earnest man has not been wanting,
who could whisper audibly : ' Go to, I will make a Religion.'
In England still more strangely; as in all things, worthy
England will have its way : by the shrieking of hysterical
women, casting out of devils, and other ' gifts of the Holy
Ghost.' Well might Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth hour of the
Night, * the living dream ;' well might he say, ' the dead walk.'
Meanwhile let us rejoice rather that so much has been seen into,
were it through never so diffracting media, and never so madly
distorted; that in all dialects, though but half- articulately, this
high Gospel begins to be preached : * Man is still Man.' The
genius of Mechanism, as was once before predicted, will not
always sit like a choking incubus on our soul ; but at length
when by a new magic Word the old spell is broken, become our
slave, and as familiar-spirit do all our bidding. ' We are near

* awakening when we dream that we dream.'

He that has an eye and a heart can even now say : Why
should I falter ? Light has come into the world ; to such as
love Light, so as Light must be loved, with a boundless all-doing,
all-enduring love. For the rest, let that vain struggle to read
the mystery of the Infinite cease to harass us. It is a mystery
which, through all ages, we shall only read here a line of, there
another line of. Do we not already know that the name of the
Infinite is Good, is God ? Here on Earth we are as Soldiers,"
fighting in a foreign land; that understand not the plan of
the campaign, and have no need to understand it ; seeing well
what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it like Soldiers, with
submission, with courage, with a heroic joy. ' Whatsoever

* thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.' Behind
us, behind each one of us, lie Six Thousand Years of human
effort, human conquest : before us is the boundless Time, with
its as yet uncreated and unconquered Continents and Eldorados,
which we, even we, have to conquer, to create ; and from the
bosom of Eternity shine for us celestial guiding stars.

* My inheritance how wide and fair I

Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.'

$84< Tour in England^ Ireland, and France. Dec,

Art. V. — Tour in England^ Ireland, and France, in the years\82S
and 1 829 : with Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the
Inhabitants, and Atiecdotes of distinguished Public Characttrs.
In a series of Letters. By a German Prince. IVo vols. 8vo.
London: 1831.

^T^RAVELS undertaken for the purposes of science or of art, re-
-^ quire a specific sort of knowledge. Travels of discovery or
adventure gratify either an intelligent curiosity or a spirit of
romantic excitement, by the narrative of strange incidents, en-
terprise, and endurance. But neither does the Public nor the Tra-
veller's Club insist on these hard conditions. The reader of the
most ordinary tour readily metamorphoses himself into a com-
plaisant companion for the journey. We at once become travel-
lers. Our minds and spirits are stirred up by the delusion of a
cheap and easy locomotion. Nor does it so much matter whi-
ther, as might be at first expected. We all like occasionally to
get from home, even if it be only into the next street, among
people of whom we know too much already, and with whom one
should be very loth to live.

A considerable part of the pleasure of a landscape or of an ' in-
* terior,' arises from its taking us for the moment out of ourselves,
and transporting the imagination to other scenes. Descriptive
writers have a similar advantage. The representation of places
and persons, whether we are well acquainted with, or strangers
to them, is sure to be attractive. In the one case, it is pleasant to
renew our own impressions, or compare them with those of others.
In the other, Ave welcome any opportunity of extending our
knowledge of nature and of mankind ; where, if it be at second-
hand, it is however at the charge of a third person. As long as
people who live in the world, or out of it, are found looking for
their newspaper, with equal, although different interest, a tour
in England may be the subject of very natural attention, — no less
in England, than abroad. Natives seldom publish their travels.
Indeed there are great advantages on the side of a foreigner, which
almost counterbalance the imperfection of his information. The
reviving air of youth again breathes over us, from the new points
of view, and in the freshness of emotion, under which he regards
objects which have been long as indifferent to us as the clothes
we wear. It is not novelty only ; curiosity co-operates with rea-
son. Great communities and private persons are often equally
inquisitive to know what their neighbours say of them. If a
philosophical alien could acquire sufficient local knowledge con-
cerning any given country, he might present a livelier and more

1831. By a German Prince. 385

piquant contrast between its provincial manners and the gene-
ral reason of mankind, than enlivens the Persian Letters, those
of Espriella, or of Gulliver himself. Occasions also may pos-
sibly arise, of reaping a still higher and more moral use out of
observations coming from such a quarter. One of the great be-
nefits of foreign travel to individuals, consists in its tendency to
remove the film of vulgar and local prejudices from their eyes.
A whole nation, unfortunately, cannot migrate. But the visit of
an enlightened and impartial stranger may, in this respect, be
quite as effectual ; provided the nation will give a patient hear-
ing to his criticisms on its institutions and its manners.

The work before us has met with great success on the conti-
nent. It has been honoured by a very favourable notice in the
Berliner Jahrhuch^ from the universal Gothe. The good fortune
which attends its introduction to the English public, is still more
remarkable ; it is indeed almost unique for a German book. It
has been so perfectly translated, that from the beginning to the
end there is not a turn of expression, by which an Englishman
can be made aware that he is not reading a spirited original.

A iew words will explain the class to which these travels be-
long. Whatever else the German Prince affects, he makes no
pretension to any tincture of science in himself, or of scientific
object in his tour. It never appears to occur to him that he is
making any discoveries, beyond what the guide-book and a post-
boy, or at most a mountain boy, could have shown him; and his
adventures, even with the sex, are not much out of the common
way. His sphere of vision extends only to two points, scenery
and society. With regard to the first of these, the spirit in which
he observes and describes the works, both of nature and of art,
occasionally seems to indicate a more educated taste than belongs
to our every- day wanderers after occupation and the picturesque.
The book of nature lies tolerably open, in spite of park palings.
It is very different with mankind, especially with that class by
which the character of every people ought to be determined. We
see feeble signs of any intercourse with this class, except what
was to be snatched up on the top of a coach, by the counter of
a shop, or in the coffee-room of an inn. The exceptions appear
to have been enough only for the purposes of gossip and carica-
ture, but by no means enough for a real insight into principles
of action, or modes of life. Of course, for this purpose, London
drawing- rooms ( with which we do not doubt his intimacy ) are worse
than nothing. There are some good general observations upon
life scattered about ; but little particularly refined or new. The
chief novelty consists in the extreme personality of many of the
pictures. People seem to think on these occasions that they get

p8& Tour in England, Irelatid, and France. Dec.

at the truth of life by being admitted behind the scenes. The
truth is, in the meantime, that there is no error to which, under
these circumstances, we are more liable, than that of drawing
too extensive inferences from a few instances. We are thus led
to compromise whole bodies of men, by the conduct of indivi-
duals, who, after all, represent only themselves. The pruriency
of scandal, as well as a desire to get together the moral statistics
of a nation, combine to make works of this kind popular. The
eagerness with which we might probably have perused similar
communications, of which Germany was the subject, of course
answers to the pleasure which Germany may have received from
these relations ; a great part of which, however, has no other me-
rit than being an act of individual treachery against the hospi-
talities of private life. As far, however, as there is either gene-
ral or particular truth in these exposures, it will be our own
fault if we have the discredit of them only. We ought to have
sense enough to get the ' sweet uses' out of what Madame de
Sevigne would call ces vilaines confidences, by extracting the pro-
fitable instruction which, so considered, some of them may per-
haps afford.

Notliing, if we look at our mob of tourists, can be so easy as
to write h passable book of travels; yet few things, by the same
test, should be more difficult than to write a good one. It is to
the credit of our author that he has scrupulously excluded from
his journal the collateral learning of the road-books. Much also
of what appears to us trivial, may (considering the extreme ig-
norance in which the continent always has been, and still con-
tinues wrapped concerning England) be suitable enough in a
work iuteuded for foreign readers. Justice compels us, at the
expense of too many of our garrulous countrymen, to make
a further and more serious admission. The desire of avoiding
commonplace occurrences, may have contributed to his over-
communicativeness upon scenes and conversations of a purely
personal and private nature. This is a sin, however, against
which English travellers unluckily are, of all others, the least
entitled to exclaim. If the Roman Catholic clergy of Cashel
should not he thankful for the publication of their symposie,
and their confessions after dinner, the Abbe Recupero, it
must be remembered, was brought into more serious trouble
by Brydone's Sicilian Tour. In the event of Lady Morgan
feeling somewhat scandalized at her friend for having taken
the liberty of throwing a ridiculous colour over their in-
terviews, it is a point, on which, after her publication of De-
non's letter addressed to her, as mon drole du corpSj he might
reasonably conclude that she was not extremely sensitive. At all
events, our sympathy on, her account is much abated, when we

1831. By a German Prince. 887

remember how often, as her countrymen, we shrank In Italy
from the reproach of the persecutions to which the unpardon-
able indiscretion of her travels had exposed the friends of Italian
freedom. It is only retribution arte perire sua. This is a case,
however, in which the misconduct of third persons can grant no
privilege of general reprisals. M. Simond, and the Baron de
Stael, who have written by far the best foreign commentaries
upon England, had much greater facilities for domestic tale-
bearing ; but such facilities are a trust which they were too ho-
nourable to abuse. In the present ubiquity of the European press,
a foreigner is not a whit more excusable than a fellow-citizen
for repaying hospitality by printing notes of what may have fall-
en from a host at dinner. Yet who, on being entertained by a
family as one of its members, in his own country, durst ever
publish to the world, histories of the foolish freedom with which
its daughters received him, of the barbarian ignorance with which
the sons bored him, and the religious politics of the females of
the house ? We should like to be present at the next reception
of this gentleman^ (we refer him to his own definition of the
word,) in Galway or Kerry. A ^ew more exfimples of the kind
would close every door against an uncertificated foreigner, (even
though he were a titular Prince,) and turn the line of abstract
suspicion — of which he was made aware — into one of direct
quarantine prohibition. Publications, after the fashion of Peter's
Letters, whether in English, French, or German, are equally
reprehensible. Their mischief does not depend on their truth or
falsehood. In either case, they are alike destructive of the con-
fidence and sanctity of familiar life. There is an implied pro-
mise to the contrary in the understanding which pervades the
intercourse of all honourable men. No visitor made welcome on
the faith of this presumption, can afterwards reveal a syllable of
what he has so heard or seen, beyond what he has reason to be-
lieve that the parties would sanction, were they present to be
consulted. In every other instance, notwithstanding the vulgar
eavesdropping and babbling license of the Jackals, who haunt
tea-tables and club- windows, and pander for Sunday newspa-
pers. Pope's malediction applies to all of them — the well-dressed
spies,

' Who tellwhate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if they lie not, must at least betray.'

These volumes are the fruits of a visit to England two years ago,
by an actually existent German nobleman ; the Prince Plickler
Muskau. The mask of his incognito was evidently never intend-
ed to be held over more than a fraction of his face — for a little

388 Tour in England, Ireland, and France. Dee.

novel-like effect. From his station, and an ill concealed vanity
therein, which is mixed up with highly liberal opinions, both in
politics and religion, the neglect, which we have been observing
upon, of the rights of good breeding and of humanity, has the
more surprised us. His translator, in the good taste and good
feeling which has guided her pen, has done all that was in her
power towards the removal of this blemish. Every omission
has been made, which was conceived to be consistent with the
duty and with the terms of a translation.

Our author's quality as a Prince, is of less consequence to a
reader than his qualities as a man. Every account of indivi-
duals or of countries must depend for its contents quite as much
on the disposition and discrimination of the observer as upon
the things observed. This is particularly the case, when the
narration is so mixed up with personal feelings as to become al-
most a piece of autobiography for the time to which it relates.
On the authority of a chance traveller, with whom he passed a
morning at the inn at Mitchelstown, the Prince unrolls the
scandalous chronicle of a noble family for two generations, and
then exclaims, ' here is a picture of the manners of the great
and noble of the eighteenth century.' The point is not whether
the particular story is true or false ; but whether its reporter
has taken the proper pains to ascertain its truth. Does he think
the German Prince, who travelled in England in 1828, so im-
peccable that no scandal got whispered abroad concerning him ?
On equally good authority, it would have been easy to mention
various stories to his discredit. But we prefer taking him on
his own showing ; although he has mystified himself into a sort
of sphynx, whose riddle it is difficult satisfactorily to solve.

Whilst some people go through life travelling in their own
dust, others carry along with them a certain atmosphere which
changes the colour of every ray before it reaches them. The
form adopted in the present instance is very favourable to the
exhalation of this sort of sentimental vapour. It is a Journal,
addressed as Letters to a real or imaginary Julia. A love-letter
of two volumes opens a charming field for egotism to strut
and sun itself in, and hawk about the complacent changes of
self-flattery and self-reproach in a way which would be other-
wise unbearable in a grown-up man of some forty years of age.
The result, unfortunately, is any thing but self-respect, simpli-
city, and truth. It would be great injustice to take this exhibi-
tion as a specimen of the German character. We agree that it
is not * aclit deutsch ;' nothing like it. We do not, however,
at all admit, when, on returning to France, he calls it his ' half-

1831. By a German Prince. 389

* native soil ;' that the practical shrewdness of those great mas-
ters of social life is responsible for the hues, now pink, and now
sombre as a bat's wing, with which the milk-and-water part of
these lucubrations is variously stained.

What is one to make of a writer, who marks the stages through
which the nature of man has to pass by Gothe's three works —
Werther, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust ? We have got beyond
the Werther age, it seems. The Faust period we have not
reached : it is the one which man is never to outgrow. After so
bewildering a finale for the human race in general, no great
light probably would have been thrown on his own case, if, in
his resolution to be the hero of his book, he had, instead of a
hundred bits of characters, condescended to fix on the one which
he would perform. His nominal incognito appears to have been
taken up for the mere masquerade amusement of assuming it at
one moment, and laying it aside the next. But his travelling
domino does not sit more loosely upon him than his prevailing
humour. He parades an ultra-Byronism. The restlessness,
misanthropism, and morbid mind of ' a cai'e-worn and melan-
' choly' Childe Harold, forms a fantastic groundwork, into
which he would fain shade the mysticism of Manfred, and the
lighter graces of a volatile Don Juan. The ambition of imagi-
ning himself more original, and blown about by the storm of more
violent contradictions in feeling and in fortune, than other peo-
ple, produces the very monotony which is so dreaded. For
what is more monotonous than the mere shifting of scenes and
phrases — all about nothing ? There is no reason, as far as we
can see, why the dregs of a London season should lie particu-
larly heavy on his stomach ; nor any grounds for his paradoxi-
cal superiority to the pursuits in whicli he is engaged, or the
people with whom he is living, whether fox- hunters or dandies.
His perpetual abuse of the cake, which he still goes on eating, at
last resembles the caprices of a spoiled and wayward child. It
sounds ludicrous in the mouth of a middle-aged man who tells
you that he has gone up in a balloon, danced a season at Al-
mack's, and served a campaign against the French. A tone of
falseness is thus spread over the whole, till it is impossible not
to explain a good deal of his moral mysteries (although they
puzzle him as much as Hamlet) by a summary solution. It is the
same which alone disposes of the marvel by which in one page he
is seeking for the plaintive interest of a confirmed valetudinarian,
whilst in the next bis rides are performances, and almost events.

'A man of my character Uniformity of the goodeven soon tires

' me Nothing falls out as I wish it Danger and difficulty

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII, 2 C

390 Tour in England, Ireland, and France, Dec.

* are my kindred elements You know that my determina-

' tions are often of a very sudden nature : my pistol-shots as you

* used to call them. I have just discharged one I waded, with

* a great feeling of satisfaction, through the streams, throwing

* myself into the pleasurable state of mind of a duck. Nothing

* of that kind is, as you know, impossible to my mobile fancy.
< Worldly wisdom is as decidedly denied to my nature, as to

* the swan the power of running races with the sledges on the

* frozen lake. However, his time, too, comes, when he cleaves

* his free and beautiful element. Then he is himself again.'
Whether he is right in imagining himself to be really too swan-
like, truth-telling, and ethereal for this wicked world, admits of
much more doubt than his representation of his childishness and
his Christmas- day delight in trifles. The last we can readily
believe.

This outline is true or false : either the man, as he is, or the
beau- ideal of what he is desirous of being thought. It would be
difficult to combine real moral and intellectual force with such a
character. Yet in this manner alone could it be strengthened,
and its discordant elements amalgamated into an efficient whole.
There are no facts to justify this supposition. The consequence
is a nondescript and patchwork assemblage of vagaries. The
journal of no member of the haughty English aristocracy, could
contain more frequent and ill-timed allusions to his rank. He
makes a boast of the omnipotence of his title to open to him
every door. With this he forced his way to the ladies of Llan-
gollen. The child of nature cannot resist informing two Capel
Cerig eagles, as they sweep over him, of his title, and address-
ing them as the armorial birds and faithful guardians of his
house ! It is his happiness to escape from the jargon of Baby-
lon, and from the embarrassments of wealth, to the freedom of
the hills. But he takes good care that the reader shall never
lose sight for long together of his carriage, his people, the Saxon
servant who leaves him because he cannot get soup at dinner,
his Englishman whom he dismisses on quitting Ireland, and

* the faithful Irishman' whom he takes home with him, — we take
for granted as a show. It is surprising that the residence of so
remarkable a personage among us did not produce a greater sen-
sation. His familiarity with Almack's, and with dandies, is far
too popular a topic with him, to be consistent with his scornful
protests against the imbecility of fashionable exclusives. Their
company, to be sure, would not be much in the way, apparently,
of his inspired soliloquies. Since, notwithstanding the presence of
a dandy and a coarsish Irishman in the boat with him at Kil-
larney, the bugle and the moonlight enabled him to interrogate

1831. By a German Prince. SOl

the romantic half of his unintelligible nature in heroics: 'Whence

* comes it/ thought I, * that a heart so loving is not social ? That
' men are generally of so little worth to you?' His indignant
philosophy looks down contemptuously on the blase man of the
Avorld. Yet he is proud of adopting all his foibles. No cox-
comb can more affect a perverse and trifling view of life ; can
take a greater license of intruding into whatever company he
may fancy to amuse himself with, whether it is Brummell's or
O'Connell's ; or indemnify his disappointed sensibilities by at-
tributing a more degrading importance to the sensual science of
the gourmand. No inconsiderable part of the attractions of the
Waverley Novels is derived, he says, from their masterly pictures
of eating. ' I am really not in joke when I assure you, that
' when I have lost my appetite, I often read an hour or two in
' the works of the Great Unknown, and find it completely re-

* stored.' If this recipe for an appetite should not be a privilege,
personal to the inventor of it, circulating libraries may safely
calculate on a glorious addition to the reading public. It is a
new view of the influence of literature.

In Italy, every thing with a susceptible mind turns readily
into poetry and to the arts. The transition, it is true, from a
ball at Torlonia's to ^ Santa Maria degli Angeli,' would be rather
rapid ; and the universality of the nightly proposition startled
lis. But great allowances are to be made for an Italian sky,
and for that dominion over the mid air which is assigned to
Germans. ' In Italy, I scarcely ever went to rest without visit-

* ing one of the churches, and giving myself up to the wondrous

* effect produced in the stillness of night by the red fantastic

* light thrown on the vaulted roof by the few scattered lamps,'
&c. Drowning is one of the fashionable modes of suicide at Paris.
A guardian of the Morne informed our traveller, (so great is
the influence of physical temperature even in the wrench of na-
ture which tears away life itself,) that there were two-thirds fewer
deaths by drowning during the winter than during the summer
months. His own passion for the strong emotions of sudden con-
trasts was not, however, so easily turned aside. At Bath, of all
places in the world, and on the 22d of December, Prince Piicklcr
Muskau, rushed oat of ' Melpomene's desecrated temple,' (that is,
out of the Bath playhouse,) and knocked up the clerk of the Ab-
bey Church, (who must remember the night well, ) for a moonlight
musing in it. ' As soon as he had let me in, I dismissed him ;

* and, wandering like a solitary ghost among the pillars and

* tombs, I called up the more solemn tragedy of life amid the
< awful stillness of night and death !' Gall assuredly would accept

393 Tour in England, Ireland, and France. Dec.

this promenade as ample comment on tbe organ of veneration
discovered at Paris in the Prince's skulL It is to be hoped, that
he had the New Bath Guide in his pocket. The Bath misses
would be scarcely more astonished at finding him in the Abbey
at such a time, than at the result of part of his Irish re-
searches. The magnanimity of many Irish families of great an-
tiquity, he observes, is marked by this distinctive trait. They
have not degraded their blood by misalliances, after the example
of the fortune-hunting nobility of France and England. The
enthusiasm oblige of his ascent of Snowdon ; the invigorating
recollection of their pet lamb at home when he saw the moun-
tain sheep; the ceremony of drinking a bottle of Champagne
to his mistress on the mountain-top, in the midst of a fearful
storm, — are not made less absurd to English ears by his manner
of recounting them. The libation, the rencontre with his own
ivrailh as he went up, the almost personal collision with a large
bird of prey as he came down, the instantaneous unveiling of a
pretty lamb before him at the moment of the sacrifice, the gild-
ed and quickly redarkened earth, in which he recognised the
emblem of his destiny, — form a group of as romantic imagery as
traveller need desire. The coincidence is not more extraordinary
than the fact, that an ascent up Snowdon, in weather so tem-
pestuous as to be dangerous, was the happy day which restored
to him 'the elastic enjoyment of walkingand running, unknown
' for years !'

This is scarcely the style of an accurate observer and reporter,
or of the man of sense, whose opinion is entitled to much value.
In matters of general information, his assertions are so far in
advance of his knowledge, that it is no wonder that duodecimo
encyclopedias appeared to him to be among ' the great conve-
' nionces ' of our times. He acquaints his fair correspondent that
the English liturgy consists of ' an endless repetition of anti-

* quated and contradictoi'y prayers. These form a perfect course

* of English history. Henry VIH.'s ecclesiastical revolution,
' Eliztibeth's policy, and Cromwell's puritanical exaggei'atlons,

* meet and shake hands.' Indeed ! So much for English his-
tory. In another passage, his statement of the present state of
English property is equally valuable and precise. ' In England

* almost the whole soil belongs either to the government, the
' church, or the powerful aristocracy; and, therefoie, can be
' seldom purchased in fee.' His knowledge of Scottish annals
is apparently limited to the French song of Marie Stuart. At
least we have no other clue to the ecstasies into which, when
he is expatiating on a ' splendid portrait ' of her at the Irish
Castle Howard, our connoisseur wanders, about her * truly

ISSh By a German Prince. 393

' French face,' and about the ' barroque ' style of her dress,
which instantly convinced him that ' she was not less skilled in

* the arts of the toilet than her countrywomen of the present

His incidental criticisms on the arts evince considerable spirit
and intelligence. The bias in favour of melodrames, and the
Romantic School in general, is not more than is perhaps proper
in a German. Yet even here, some of the judgments which he
delivers are excusable on no other supposition than that he had
not been at the pains of collecting and collating the facts on
which alone any thing fit to be called a judgment can be formed.
After having mentioned that modern French pictures produced
on him the effect of caricatures, he exclaims — ' how still more de-

* plorable is the fate of painting in England I' and expresses his
fears ' that the most precious secrets of the art are already irre-

* coverably lost.' Surely our nationality need not be apprehen-
sive of the comparison, in case a competent judge had to decide
upon the question — Who among French portrait- painters is
superior to Lawrence? or, What are the French landscapes, to
which those of Turner and Callcott are so inferior ? The
fortune of statuary is contrasted with that of painting; and
Thorwaldsen, Ranch, Danneker, and Canova, are selected as
rivalling the antique. Did he never think it worth his while to
enquire after the works of Flaxman and of Chantrey ? The
natural effect of some clever remarks on a bust of Alexander in
the Louvre, is refined into vagueness by aiming at too much.
The time is inconceivably short, in which, by a succession of
vivid changes, the human countenance can tell its master's story.
It is, on the contrary, a single look to which the painter and
the statuary are confined. From among every variety in its
character and expression, it is true that the artist may take his
choice ; but when he chooses, it is once for all. The compara-
tive flexibility, and the light and shade of colours, cannot escape
from this necessity; much less the uniformity of marble. The arts
have nothing to gain from compliments which suppose them to ac-
complish more than the nature of the case allows of. The same
pretension of seeing deeper into a millstone than other men, turns
our author's opinions on music into a conceit. The Italians,
it seems, cannot sing their song in a strange land; their fire and
humour die in crossing the Alps. In Italy, the opera is nature
and necessity ; in France, England, and Germany, it is a way
of killing time. His note on Malibran Garcia is a masterpiece
of exquisite analogy. ' She has married an American ; and her
' style of singing appeared to me quite American, — that is, free,
' daring, and republican.' In architecture, he rushes in the

394 Tour in England^ Ireland, and IPrance, Dec.

same manner to precipitate, if not ignorant, conclusions. The im-
pression produced by Gothic architecture, naturally suggests the
inference that this style arose in an imaginative and meditative
age. This character probably belongs more truly to the Germans
of the present day than to any contemporary people. We should,
therefore, make no objection to call this species of architecture,
so considered, ' true German ; the offspring of their peculiar
' spirit, and fashion of mind.' But the fact, whether it began in
Germany, or grew up at once in different parts of Europe, under
the influence of a common feeling, is a very different question.
It is found so widely spread in Italy and France, as well as in
Germany and England, with local modifications only, that it is
most piobably in truth corrupted Roman. Our traveller, in
architecture, as in other subjects, will not wait for straw to make
his bricks. Notwithstanding his criticisms on this art, and his
sentimental promenades in churches, we grievously suspect that
his controversial learning does not extend to the elementary dis-
tinction between the rounded and the pointed arch. What can
he possibly mean by asserting as a general proposition, that the

* old Saxon style arose in the time of the emperors of the Saxon
' line ?' Supposing that to be the case in Germany, what would
this have to do with the introduction of the style into England ?
In order to show * that we falsely ascribe its introduction into

* England to the Anglo-Saxons,' he ought to be able to state
what was the style of architecture among the Anglo-Saxons, and
in what respect it differed from that of which some remains are
still existing, contemporary with the Norman Conquest. The
origin of the style, the date of its introduction into England, and
the date of any existing remains among us, are distinct questions.
Mr Rickman will scarcely correct the next edition of his ' Attempt
' to discriminate the styles of architecture in England,' by assu-
ming that the Saxon emperors are the point from which, in tra-
cing the date of our ' numerous Saxon remains,' an antiquarian
must begin. Canterbury is certainly very handsome and pic-
turesque ; but when it is called ' the most beautiful ' cathedral
in England, the absence of the screen, (considering the beauty
of many of the screens themselves,) and the richness of the mo-
numents, (in which Winchester surpasses it,) are hardly suffi-
cient reasons. Did he ever see Durham ? the tower of Glouces-
ter ? the facade at Peterborough ? the interior of Lincoln, or of
York?

An acquaintance with national character and manners does
not come instinctively. On the supposition that our traveller
possessed the necessary qualifications, is there reason to believe
that he obtained the necessary * knowledge ?' Consistent in his

1831. Bij a German Prince, .395

ambition for Inconsistency, he has transposed the natural order
of his Journal, and has given us in the present volumes the con-
clusion of his tour. There is no sign in them that he saw much
of English society, beyond a London * at home.' The fatigue
of this he rather underrates, by putting it at a fourth of the heat
and exhaustion of a fox-chase. But, unless knowledge is taken
in by contact, any amount of fashionable friction thus endured,
brings along with it no more insight into English character than
a squeeze into the pit at Covent Garden. With one or two ex-
ceptions, (unfortunate enough for the parties,) his intercourse
with the real gentry and middling classes consists of accidental
meetings, when he changes his carriage for the public coaches,
or during meals, in the silent juxtaposition of a coffee-room. Of
this latter unsociable scene he gives, by the way, a very droll
description. His observations on the education of English
women, (a subject far from being one of the mysteries of a
nation,) may be referred to as a tolerable sample of his compe-
tence to administer national judgments to the right hand and to
the left. ' The English, like true Turks, keep the intellects of
' their wives and daughters in as narrow bounds as possible,
' with a view of securing their absolute and exclusive property
' in them as much as possible ; and, in general, their success is
' perfect.^ We recommend his translator's note upon this passage
to the attention of his Julia. The ignorance and the audacity of
it, (from a German, too, of all people,) are inconceivable. It is
elsewhere declared, that the character of our girls is cramped by
their not * coming out ' earlier into the world ; and that the
genius of our married women is exhausted in the embellishment
of their gardens. His acquaintance with the English language,
no less than with the people, was, we suspect, too imperfect to
enable him to understand correctly good part of what he reports
so boldly. The ladies will be disposed, perhaps, to bear more
patiently his reproach upon the narrowness of their intellects,
when they find him enforcing the untranslatableness of the
words ' gentle ' and ' good temper,' by informing his friend
that gentleness belongs in perfection to the male, and good
temper to the female character. After this, one is not surprised
to find him selecting Pope's Cockney couplet about ' pleased
' Vaga,' as an instance of untranslatable grace. But the self-
complacency and candour with which he undertakes, by the
help of such a smattering of the language, and of a sweeping
national imputation, to marshal anew the precedence of Eng-
lish poets, become the more ludicrously absurd. This profound
linguist has discovered that the only reason why the English
people will not place Byron next to Shakspeare, and before

396 Tour in England, Ireland, and France. ec,

Milton, is, ' Ijecause lie ridiculed tlieir pedantry; because he

* could not adapt himself to the manners and usages of their

* little nook, nor share in their cold superstition ; because their

* insipidity was sickening to him, and because he denounced

* their arrogance and hypocrisy.'

A rant of this kind does not promise much for the exercise of
the powers of discrimination, (be they great or small,) which its
author may possess. Unfortunately, the successful decompo-
sition and delineation of those elements, of which national charac-
ter is the singular result, require not only a correct and com-
plete vision, but a steady and faithful hand. From the society
in which he principally moved, he brought away, (and naturally
enough,) the notion that fashion is omnipotent throughout Eng-
land. This notion is one which, up to a certain point, it is im-
possible to overcharge. But there is not probability enough,
even for satire, in a representation which implies that every rank
of life, and every possible subject, has its Code and its Brum-
mell — and that, as far as circumstances admit, they are the same.
The originality and diversity of individual humour, for which
the English nation was at one time so distinguished, have been
reduced of late, we believe, within much narrower bounds.
This consequence necessarily results from our being brought so
close together; from the rapid circulation of habits and opinions,
through a highly condensed and organized system ; and from the
extr.ivagant tendency which prevails in the outermost of our
concentric circles, to adopt, in appearance at least, the conven-
tional spirit and technical arrangements of the great primum
mobile within. But we are not quite the flock of sheep which
we often seem to be, — and are, indeed, more when we are
abroad than whilst at home. It is a great mistake to suppose,
that this imitative uniformity descends from the surface to the
heart ; that every thing is made to consist with us in reputation
or appearances ; and that there is a peculiar appropriateness in
the fact, that character means in English, not what a man is,
but what is said of him. The growing tendency to sameness
and artificialness, no reasonable Englishman will deny : there is
the less object in exaggerating the principle, or in imagining in-
applicable instances of it. What credit does a writer expect to
obtain, by declaring that the tyranny of English female educa-
tion leaves not a chance for naturalness, except on the part of
some young lady whom he can nickname the Wild Irish Girl ?
In religion, is the piety of an Englishman as much a matter of
party and custom, as the rule that fish is not to be eat with a
knife, or that a man may read during breakfast, but not during
dinner ? lu politics, is it ' a settled point, that there is no truth

1831. By a German Frince. SOT

* in a speech from the throne ;' and that an Englishman sees
only with the eyes of his party? Can nothing else account for
the fact, that he found no tourists on the Wye in December,
but that it ' probably never entered into the methodical head of
an Englishman to make a tour in winter ?' Does it necessarily
follow, because we crowd in admiration after inferior beauties
to other countries, that we overlook the beauties of our own ?
The childishness of such generalizations disqualifies the author
of them for the office of accuser or of judge.

In his boundless suspicion of the dishonesty of the English,
the Prince charged the innkeeper and waiter at Monmouth
with having stolen his purse. He afterwards found it on his
own person. The discovery of the unwarrantableness of the
suspicion, in this instance, might have been expected to have
operated somewhat in mitigation of his general conclusions. It
must have done so with any generous nature. But let us see.
He had before lost his pocketbook in Wicklow. It had been
found, and brought to him at his inn. The national remark
which this incident suggested to him, was as follows : — ' In

* England I should hardly have had the good fortune to see my

* pocketbook again. Even if a " gentleman" had found it, he
' would probably have let it lie in peace — or kept it.' This
sneer is not meant as a stroke of humour. For not only is it
preserved as the peg for his character of a ' gentleman,' but
he almost closes his tour with the following summary view of
modern civilized society — differing, apparently, only in courage
from the robbery and piracy of modern Greece : — ' Cheating in
' every kind of sport, is as completely in the common order of
' things in England, amongst the highest classes, as well as the
' lowest, as false play was in the time of the Count de Gram-

* mont. It is no uncommon thing to hear " Gentlemen" boast

* of it almost openly ; and I never found that those who are re-
' garded as " the most knowing ones," had suffered in their re-
' putation in consequence; — "au contraire,"they pass for cleverer

* than their neighbours ; and you are only now and then warned,
' with a smile, to take care what you are about with them.
' Some of the highest members of the aristocracy are quite no-

* torious for their achievements of this description. I heard,
' from good authority, that the father of a nobleman of sporting
' celebrity, to whom some one was expressing his solicitude lest
' his son should be cheated by " Blacklegs," answered, " I am

* much more afraid for the Blacklegs than for my son." To
' every country its customs.' A writer, who gives such a story
the title of a custom of the country, is guilty of an outrageous

898 Tour in England^ Ireland, and France. Dec,

calumny : that there should be a colour for any part of it, is,
we admit, a national disgrace.

Among the less atrocious defects of our social or an ti- social
system, the following meannesses are most frequently and most
seriously brought forward. An adoration of mere rank — on the
part, however, only of the middling classes. ' The common
' people in England care little about rank — about foreign
' rank nothing. It is only the middle classes that are servile :
' they are delighted to talk to a foreign nobleman, because they
' cannot get at their own haughty aristocracy. The English
' nobleman, even the least of the Lords, in the bottom of his
' lieart, thinks himself a greater man than the King of France.'
The necessity of money, (and much money,) even for the clergy
and for the nobility, as much as for simple merit, to ensure con-
sideration, struck him as another unfavourable national charac-
teristic: not less, the shabbiness with which (for instance in
the Duke of Beaufort's castle, at Chepstow, and in most of our
churches) the owners and officers make rents or perquisites out
of the sixpences of a visitor ; and the still greater ' illiberality of

* the present race, who shut their parks and gardens more closely

* than Germans do their sitting-rooms.' One cannot wonder
that a disappointed foreigner, on returning to his inn, should
transfer to his note-book his spleen at this exclusiveness ; espe-
cially on experiencing the universality of its adoption on the
continental festival of a Sunday. His rebuff at Lord Powers-
court's and Lord Meath's has not made him retract his compli-
ment to Irish manners : ' In this, also, Ireland resembles the
' continent, where every proprietor, from the King to the humble
' country gentleman, enhances his own enjoyment, by sharing
' it with the public' The contrast in favour of the business
part of our population is more strongly expressed. An improve-
ment was not long ago introduced into the copper foundery at
the Paris mines. This, one should have thought, would have
been a matter more jealously watched than the prospect from a
park, or the monopoly of the pleasure of looking at a picture.

* The Russians, w)io, in matters of trade and manufacture, suf-
' fer nothing to pass neglected, soon sent a traveller hither to
' make himself master of the process. It was not in the slightest
' degree concealed from him — indeed it is but justice to say, that
' the masters of all commercial and manufacturing establish-

* ments in England are in general very liberal.'

The private anecdotes, or rather sketches, in which the Prince
occasionally indulges, (were they otherwise worth extracting,)
would require authenticating by some other means, before we

183L By a German Prince, 399

could honestly adopt them in our pages. Few professed story-
tellers can resist the temptation of completing from their imagi-
nation the picturesqueness of a scene, or the poignancy of a sa-
tire. According to his own account of his latitudinarianism,
we have no security for his veracity, in case an adequate motive
for deviation from it comes across him. Lord Pembroke pos-
sibly may allow that ' the inhumanity of English manners'
excuses the stratagem, by which, under the mask of a Russian
relative of the family, he made his way into Wilton. The mas-
ter of the ceremonies at Cheltenham, is placed in a more awk-
ward point of view. In our opinion, he is fully entitled to the
presumption, that the admitted falsehood, at the conclusion of
the anecdote of which he is made the hero, is not confined to
the conclusion. At the same time there is such a fund of igno-
rance, softness, and rashness, about the Prince, that we recur
to the explanation of falsehood only in the last resort. It
is apparently all in good faith, when he confuses legend with
history, as in the journey of the coronation-stone ; relates Lord
Plunkett's jest at dinner as a deliberate opinion ; and takes a
hoax by a Dublin gownsman, for the serious exhibition of Os-
sian's harp, and Archimedes's burning-glass, in the University
Museum. The man who observed ' a slight shudder' in a stu-
dent, whilst pointing out to him ' a Spanish organ built for the

* Grand Armada,' is a likely person also to have seen, at the
gymnastic academy, a youth, the arch of whose breast had in-
creased seven inches, and his muscles to three times their volume
in three months. If Colonel White really turned out the ' wild

* bull' which his guest so innocently swallows, the Colonel must
be amused at the success of his story, and can do nothing less
than affect, in return, to believe the manoeuvre by which the
Prince blindfolded his restive horse, and forced him backwards
down a steep. For ourselves, we believe in the fact of an Irish
peasant dancing in the streets of Dublin^ like a Mahomedan
dervise, till he fell down amid the cheers of the populace,
exhausted by the dance, and not from whisky, just as much as
that the Prince met there, in 1828, a dandy newly come over
(unknown to Joseph Hume) to pocket L.2000 a-year, with
nothing more to do for it, than reside proforma^ and abuse ' the

* horrid place.' That Gal way (which has more than one print-
ing-press, and publishes either two or three newspapers) should
be without a bookseller's shop, is as probable as that a descrip-
tion of Limerick, its Gothic churches, and its several antique
bridges, (such as might have been written from the rude views
of the Pacata Hibernia,) represents the new town, with its

400 Tour in England, Ireland^ and France. Bee.

streets, shops, and warehouses, inferior to Liverpool alone.
O'ConncU will have more difficulty in recognising his mansion
at Derrinane, and its tower clock, than himself, from the picture
drawn of each. The gossip about Lord Hawarden, which, he
says, he picked up in the neighbourhood, and the publication of
which is the amiable return made to Lord Hawarden's civility,
is all untrue. Lord Powerscourt, on whom he fires off a tirade,
as a certain Saint and a possible Absentee, was in 1828 about
twelve years old. Some of these things are slight in themselves ;
but they are straws which may turn the scale when we are
weighing the judgment or credit of the narrator in more serious
irapiobabilities. In the case of Ireland, the Prince seems to be
scarcely aware of any distinction, in either its government or
condition, between the past and present. As at present inform-
ed, we do not believe one word of the atrocity set down to the
account of Mr Baker the magistrate, and related as the provo-
cation to his murder. We cannot credit that Roman Catholic
neighbours, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, with whom the
Prince describes himself to have been living, repeated to him as
•A fact, circumstances which the best informed Irishmen have
never heard of, even as a rumour. Neither is it likely, although
it is implied, that his view of the Protestant Church in Ireland
is obtained from the same authority. The simple truth unfor-
tunately in this case is all that wanted stating : the most literal
representation would be more effectual than overcharging its
anomalies, or than a fourfold exaggeration of its revenues.

On points of any nicety in statistics or politics, we could not
venture to trust our traveller. But his prejudices, such as they
are, are certainly not those of Anglomanianism. Besides, on
the following, one of the first and most important points, the
eye alone sees its way so far that the judgment cannot go
egregiously wrong. We are glad in the opportunity of quoting
his evidence — and the more the people of England are aware of
the fact, the better — in favour of the superior degree of comfort,
which our population has almost universally attained, than is un-
fortunately the case in other countries. ' A larger mass of vai'ied
* and manifold enjoyments may certainly be found in England,
' than it is possible to procure with us. Not in vain have wise insti-
' tutions long prevailed here. What especially soothes and glad-
' dens the philanthropist, is the spectacle of the superior comfort
' and more elevated condition in the scale of existence, univer-
' sally prevailing. What with us are called luxuries are here
' looked upon as necessaries, and are diffused over all classes.'

The following extract exactly coincides with the result of a

1831. By a German Prince. 401

comparison lately made by M. Comte, with reference to the
electoral lists of the two countries, between the number of
persons in France possessed of an income of 1200 francs, and
in England, of one of L.lOO a-year : ' Nothing can be more ri-
' diculous than the declamation of German writers concerning
' the poverty which reigns in England, where, according to them,
' there are only a iew enormously rich, and crowds of extremely
' indigent. It is precisely the extraordinary number of people
' of competent fortune, and the ease with which the poorest can
' earn, not only what is strictly necessary, but even some lux-

* uries, if he chooses to work vigorously, Vv'hich make England
' independent and happy. One must not, indeed, repeat after
' the opposition newspapers.'

After expatiating on the enjoyments of the middling classes,
(whom, in another place, he truly calls the privileged classes of
the present day,) especially in England, he adds — ' When we
' reflect on this, we must confess that England, though not a
' perfect country, is a most fortunate one. We ought not, there-
' fore, to be much offended at Englishmen, of feeling strongly
' the contrast between their own country and most others ; they
' can never, whatever be their courtesy and kindness, get over
' the distance which separates them from foreigners. Their feel-
' ing of self-respect, which is perfectly just, is so powerful, that
' they involuntarily look upon us as an inferior race ; just as we,
' for example, in spite of all our German heartiness, should find
' it difficult to fraternize with a Sandwich Islander. In some
' centuries we shall perhaps change places ; but at present,
' unhappily, we are a long way from that.' So much for
Germany. Now for France. He jumped back upon his

* half-native soil, almost with the feeling of a man escaped

* from a long imprisonment.' Nevertheless, the climate, the
cheapness, the table, and sociability of his ' beloved France,'
did not hinder him from acknowledging that the first contrast
was little to its advantage. A confiscation of great masses of
property throughout a nation among smaller proprietors, and
the continual further subdivision of that property, by the abo-
lition of the privilege of primogeniture, and by a restraint on
the exercise of testamentary partiality, are not infallible rules
for determining the scale of national prosperity. ' The whole

* country, and even its metropolis, certainly appear somewhat
' dead, miserable, and dirty, after the rolling torrent of business,
' the splendour and the neatness of England. When you look
' at the grotesque machine in which you are seated, you think
' you are transported a thousand miles in a dream. The bad
' roads, the miserable and dirty towns, awaken the same feeling.'

40^ Tour in England, Irelandf and France. Dec.

London appeared to the Prince to be the foyer of European
aristocracy ; whose pension-lists and sinecures ought to be the
envy of the nobility of surrounding nations. Here, again, truth
would answer a reformer's purpose much better than all the
exaggeration in the world. We should say the same both of
the Church Establishment, and of the sort of religious feeling
and character most ostensibly professed in England. The room
for rational improvement is so great, that any person, really
master of the case, would know, that much must be lost, whilst
nothing was to be gained, by running off into extravagant mis-
representations or conclusions. This applies to his observations
on family prayer in a serious household, as well as his sneers
upon the unedifying ' mummery' of the English liturgy — on
the ' disgustingly hypocritical' weepings of four young divines
at their ordination at Tuam — and on the directly inverse propor-
tion between episcopal residence and revenues. The merit of a
Bishop is not fairly measured by the number of sermons which
he delivers in his cathedral ; any more than is the haunting of
watering-places, or the spending * of fifteen thousand a-year,

* with as much good taste as it has pleased God to bestow upon

* him,* a precise description of the life of Bishop Burgess. It
is some comfort to find that religion, separated from great
wealth and from state-alliance, put on, in his experience of it,
not only a more moral and practical, but a more charitable and
amiable form. The following reproachful ejaculation, if it has
the misfortune to be true, is at least much to the honour of the
individual, who is reported to have made it — the Roman Catholic
Dean of Cashel. * Believe me, (said he,) this country is de-

* voted to misfortune. We have scarcely such a thing as a
' Christian among us : Catholics and Protestants have one com-

* mon religion, — that of hatred.' We hardly know what to
make of his report of the jovial dinners and * the national songs,

* with no pretension to sanctity,' and of the philosophical libe-
rality of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, and sixteen
of his clergymen. Nor should we think Father L'Estrange,
whom he calls the real founder of the Catholic Association, or
the Agitator himself, will thank their admiring visitor for his
compliments to the philosophy of their Catholicism. O'Connell's
public profession of faith to the Association, is afterwards
explained by him to be one of those * pious tirades which, on
' the orator's rostrum, as on the tub, — on the throne, as in

* the puppet-show booth, are necessary claptraps.'

The Prince has some descriptive talent. It is the more
remarkable that he should land at Dublin without observing
the beauty of the Bay, When this extraordinary oversight is

1831. By a German Prince. 403

contrasted with his diffuseness upon other occasions, it is per-
haps only characteristic. In the like manner, he takes no no-
tice of the library of Trinity College, but devotes three elabo-
rate pages to a peristrephic panorama of Navarino. His re-
marks on the art of landscape gardening, are among the most
favoui'able specimens of his taste in scenery. The narrative of
two night journeys in Ireland — those to Glengariff and Derri-
nane — must have considerable merit ; for, in bits, they reminded
us of Scott himself. But the real cleverness of our author lies
in another line. He catches very happily the coarse outlines of
personal or national physiognomy, and his dramatis personcp are
grouped with considerable scenical effect — the best when they
are most inclining to the burlesque. His pictures of the Bath
market — of the English mail-coach joining in a fox-chase — of
the French Conducteur on the journey from Paris to London —
and of the Paris showman exhibiting the death of Prince Ponia-
towski, are all very good in their way. The knack of hitting
off most successfully features which are strongly marked, makes
Lis Irish descriptions the most amusing to us. The fairy legend
of O'Donoghue was of a higher key : accordingly, he has sadly
marred it. On the other hand, although Miss Edgeworth, and
the Irish novelists who have followed her, have left only the
gleanings for a stranger, we looked on with great interest at the
fairs at Donnybrook and Kenmare, the horse-races at Galway,
and the carousals in Tipperary. The following scene, as he
passed in the mail-cart between Tuam and Galway, is very cha-
racteristic.

' We saw a number of labourers sitting by the road-side on heaps
of stone, which they were breaking. My companion said, " Those
are conquerors ; their whole business is to break in pieces and destroy,
and they rise on the ruins they make." Meanwhile, our driver blew
his horn to announce the post, for which, as with us, every thing must
make way; the tone, however, came forth with such difficulty, and
sounded so piteously, that we all laughed. A pretty boy, of about
twelve, looking like a personification of happiness and joy, though
half-naked, was sitting on a heap of stones, hammering. He shouted
with mischievous glee, and called out to the angry driver, " Oh, ho,
friend, your trumpet has caught cold ; it is as hoarse as my old grand-
mother: cure it directly with a glass of potheen, or it will die of a
consumption before you reach Galway 1" A loud laugh from all the
labourers followed as chorus. " There," said my companion, " there
you see our people, — starvation and laughter, — that is their lot.
Would you believe that, from the number of labourers, and the scar-
city of labour, not one of these men earn enough to buy sufficient food ;
and yet every one of them will spare something to his priest, and if
you go into his cabin, will give you half of his last potatoe, and a joke
into the bargain." '

404 Tour in England, Ireland, and France. Dec.

Without much help from his own bragging and self-import-
ance, Irish ingenuity would easily manufacture the Prince of
Moskv^'a and a natural son of Napoleon out of Prince Piickler
Muskuu. It is, nevertheless, a singular instance of the excite-
ment of the autumn of 1828, and of the electrical and almost
ubiquitous rapidity, with which at that period intelligence of the
sliglitest movement was conveyed, that out of this blunder, com-
bined with the success of a strolling invitation which he gave
himself to O'Connell's country-house, rumours darkened, and
the ordinary preparations for conspiracy and revolt assumed the
imaginary shape of negotiations between O'Connell and the
King of France. The reader must turn back and perform for
himself the journey over the preceding pages, to fully under-
stand the pleasure with which the Prince dismounted at Derri-
nane. A low and vulgar white house has been metamorphosed,
by his enthusiasm, into a tower-clocked castle of romance. The
following portrait is the result of his observations upon its
master.

' The next day I had fuller opportunity of observing O'Connell.
On the whole, he exceeded my expectations. He is about fifty years
old, and in excellent preservation, though his youth was rather wild
and riotous. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intel-
ligent good-nature, united with determination and prudence, which
marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more
of persuasiveness than of genuine large and lofty eloquence ; and one
frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words.
Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments
with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without
pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at Jiis wit. It is very certain
that he looks much more like a general of Napoleon's than a Dublin
advocate. His desire for celebrity seemed to me boundless ; and if
he should succeed in obtaining emancipation, of which I have no
doubt, his career, so far from being closed, ivill, I think, then only pro-
perly begin. He has received from nature an invaluable gift for a
party leader, a magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong
constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, and his acquire-
ments, out of his profession, not inconsiderable. His manners are
winning and popular ; although somewhat of the actor is perceivable
in them, they do not conceal his very high opinion of himself; and
are occasionally tinged by what an Englishman would call "vulgarity."
Derrinane Abbey, (to which O'Connell's house is only an appendix,)
stands on an adjoining island. It is to be repaired by the family,
probably xvhen some of their hopes are fulfilled'

The malicious mischief of the allusion which closes their part-
ing scene, appears a little out of keeping with the Prince's gene-
ral compliments and prognostics. Does the Liberator accept
the omen ?

1831. By a German Prince. 405

< O'Connell pointed out an island, on wliicli he told me that he had
ordered an ox to be landed that he might fatten on the rich and un-
disturbed herbage. After some days the animal took such decided
possession of the island, that he was furious if any body attempted to
land on it, and attacked and drove away even the tishermen who
used to dry their nets on the shore. He was often seen, like Jupiter
under his transformation, Avith uplifted tail and glaring eyes, bound-
ing furiously along to reconnoitre the bounds of his domain, and to
see if any intruder dared to approach. The emancipated ox at last
became so troublesome and dangerous, that they were obliged to
shoot him. This appeared to me a good satire on the love of
liberty, which, as soon as it has gahied the power it seeks, degenerates
into violence and tyranny; and the association of ideas brought many
comical images involuntarily before my mind.'

We acknowledge the charm of the Irish character even in its
failings. It is a charm which the vices of the higher classes,
and the crimes of the lower, cannot destroy. We excuse a
stranger also for confounding together the past grievances and
the actual miseries of Ireland. In this respect, the Prince's
sympathies are right, even when his facts are most unfounded,
and his reasoning most absurd. The present state of that di-
vided country — the destitution and passions of its multitudinous
pauper population — the indifference, selfishness, and intractable-
ness of too many of their superiors — the still more unprincipled
exercise of a more than rival power on the part of the popular
apostles of perpetual agitation — constitute as difficult a problem
as was ever submitted to the discretion of a government. Were
either of the extreme parties, as represented by Lord Farnham
and O'Connell, to become ascendant, they would rush from,
opposite points to opposite objects — but would arrive at the
same result — the ruin of their country. A wise and honest go-
vernment can side with neither, and must therefore be unpopular
with both. As long as Irish rents are payable to an Aristocracy
chiefly resident in England, and Irish tithe is levied to maintain
a Protestant church, the Prince sees no hope for a better state
of things. The cry for a local legislature, and for the havoc
which poor-laws in such a community must make of the property
of the rich, of the industry of the poor, and of the resources of
a nation, completes the chorus. When such projects — all of
difficult — some of impossible — application, are a few of the only
remedies for accumulated disorders, it seems to be one of the
strangest visions of our Prince, that on becoming a capitalist,
he is bent on settling as a landed propi'ietor, and leading a
patriarchal life in Ireland. The execution of this project would,
we fear, tend grievously to disturb the frame of mind which
the following reflections so gracefully express. There is about

VOL LIV. NO. CVIII. 2 D

406 Tour in England^ Ireland, and France, Dec.

them a soundness, a charitableness, and cheerfulness, which,
if the feeling is genuine — and we see no reason to conclude
it to be otherwise — will assuredly some day or other rectify
most of his defects of understanding; replace his thoughtless ill-
nature by a more uniform and kindly consideration of others ; and
give a concentration and dignity to those scattered and feeble
elements, which seem floating up and down his character at pre-
sent irresolutely enough. There is much in them of the great
redeeming qualities, of the straight-forwardness, the real fresh-
ness and heartiness, by which the noble portion of German
literature is so generously contrasted with the French.

* What has often and bitterly vexed me, is to hear people lament
the wretchedness of this life, and call the world a vale of sorrows.
This is not only the most crying ingratitude (humanly speaking),
but the true sin against the Holy Ghost. Is not enjoyment and well-
being manifestly throughout the world the positive natural state of
animated beings ? Is not suffering, evil, organic imperfection or dis-
tortion, the negative shadow of this general brightness ? Is not crea-
tion a continual festival to the healthy eye, the contemplation of
which, and of its splendour and beauty, fills the heart with adoration
and delight? And were it only the daily sight of the eidiindling sun,
and the glittering stars, the green of the trees, and the gay and deli-
cate beauty of flowers, the joyous song of birds, and the luxuriant
abundance and rich animal enjoyment of all living things, — it would
give us good cause to rejoice in life. But how much still more won-
drous wealth is unfolded in the treasures of our own minds ? What
mines ai-e laid open by love, art, science, the observation and history
of our own race, and, in the deepest deep of on? souls, the pious re-
verential sentiment of God and his universal work ? Truly we were
less ungrateful were we less happy ; and but too often we stand in
need of suffering to make us conscious of this. A cheerful grateful
disposition is a sort of sixth sense, by which we perceive and recog-
nise happiness. He who is fully persuaded of its existence, may, like
other unthinking children, break out into occasional complaints, but
will sooner return to reason ; for the deep and intense feeling of the
happiness of living, lies like a rose-coloured ground in his inmost
heart, and shines softly through the darkest figures which fate can
draw upon it.'

The praise of Gothe,and the uncommon excellence of the trans-
lation, have induced us to take more notice of this work than
it would otherwise have deserved. The author appears in it
injudicious, precipitate, and theatrical — of fickle character, and
sickly sentiment — but with some taste in the arts, and with
considerable talent for sketching off dramatic, at least biiffa,
scenes. The most objectionable part of the book, after all, is
its personality. Yet this, we fear, is the very part to which it

1831. By a German Prince. 407

h,is been most indebted for its success. So much the worse for
the miserable spirit of the public — of the class, at least, which
forms the great body of indolent consumers, to whom our ephe-
meral literature is daily bread. The translator of the present
volumes has been long desirous of devoting her singular accom-
plishments to the honourable object of naturalizing in our kin-
dred idiom some of the classical and elevating works with which
the literature of Germany abounds. But, alas for our vitiated
taste, or rather appetite ! Booksellers, like the managers of
theatres, are obliged to consult their customers. Shakspeare,
accordingly, makes way for Martin and his beasts. The mas-
terpieces of Schiller and Gothe continue untranslated, whilst
the Tour of Prince Plickler Muskau has been bought up in a
month.

Art. VI. — 1. Speech of Viscount Palmer ston on the Affairs of
Portugal: May ], 1829.

2. Speech of Hyde Villiers^ Esq., M. P., on the Commercial Rela-
tions of England and Portugal: 15th June, 1830.

3. Expose des Droits de sa Majeste tres Fidele Dona Maria Il.y
et de la question Portugaise ; avec des pieces justificatives^ et
documens. Paris : 1830.

4. Papers relative to Portugal, and to the British and French de-
mands upon the Government of that Country. Printed by order
of the House of Commons : 1831.

At the close of the war in 1814, Portugal was left rich in
^^ military glory, but poor in all those blessings which con-
stitute the happiness and prosperity of a nation. Her king, and
many of her nobles, were absentees, forming a court in one of
those many dependencies which, in the days of her splendour,
she had scarcely considered as the most important of her posses-
sions. Her agriculture had been nearly destroyed by the deso-
lating presence of contending armies, that had torn up her groves
of oranges, her vineyards, and her olive grounds — that had tram-
pled down her corn-fields, and by too frequently depriving the
husbandman of the ripening fruits of his labour, had driven him
in despair to join the ranks of war, while his tenantless farm
and barren fields were left to await the return of peace. The
opening of the ports of South America, though a measure just
in itself, dried up the last remaining peculiar source that fed the
slender commerce of Lisbon. The few manufactories that had
existed before the war, were destroyed or deserted. Education
was less attended to, and the control of the laws even less effi-

408 Recent Hhiorij, Present State, and Pec.

cient than before tlie struggle, while the restraints of social and
domestic intercourse were paralysed or disregarded. Mean-
while, too, many of the frank, hospitable, loyal peasantry of
the country had, by the exercise or the sufferings of war,
become hardened, sanguinary, profligate, and unsettled in their
habits and dispositions. Such are the cankerous and fearful
scars that war, glorious war, leaves on the faces of those coun-
tries on which it inflicts its visitations. Happy in our insular
position, our acquaintance with this badge of the world's curse
consists only in a superficial notion of daring achievements, bril-
liant illuminations, a few tears, and a memorable load of debt.

In Portugal, the melancholy knowledge was far deeper and
more intimate ; but while there was much of misery, still there
was something of good. If evil passions had been let loose,
counteracting ennobling sentiments had been implanted. There
was the national self- applause of a flagitious invasion nobly re-
pelled ; there were sown the hardy seeds of valour, endurance,
self-possession, and discipline ; there was the individual proud
consciousness of having deserved well of one's country ; and, if
it seem not like prejudice and arrogance for Englishmen to say
it, we may add, there were the benefits of many years close
connexion and co-operation with English armies and English
officers, — with English probity, judgment^ honour, and indepen-
dence.

The kings of the continent, when at length they warred suc-
cessfully against Bonaparte, banded together in the name of
freedom ; their conquering cry was national independence, cou-
pled with the promise of free constitutions in the place of des-
potism. With these wings they flew onwards from Dresden to
the capital of their enemy. He was deposed, and, after a second
struggle, sent to perish on a rock in the Atlantic. Qualified
charters of liberty were bestowed on France and the Nether-
lands ; a few, still more restricted, were dealt out with a nig-
gard hand to one or two of the German states ; while others, as
that of Poland, were proclaimed only to be infringed ere the
ink which wrote them was dry; and many were withheld alto-
gether. These evasions, infractions, and denials of royal pledges,
caused troubles in every part of the continent. There was deep-
seated, though little active discontent in Germany. The more
lively temperaments of the south broke forth into rebellion, and
successively proclaimed the free constitutions of Naples, Turin,
Spain, and Portugal.

In 1820, Portugal followed the example of Spain. She was ripe
for revolt. The minds of the more intelligent portion of the nation
had, at the close of the war, looked forward, if not to a change, at

1831. External llelations of PortugaL 409

least to a less corrupt administration of the institutions of their
country ; while those whose fortunes and estates had suffered by
the war, regarded peace as the harbinger of reviving prosperity.
Both parties were miserably disappointed. Meanwhile those
whose fortunes had been made, and whose eai'ly life had been
spent amidst the changes and peculations of war, anticipa-
ted from a revolution a rich harvest for their evil propensi-
ties. There was no restraining power save the clergy. The
Regency was despised, and justly. The absent court and nobles
were known only by the rents and dues which they drained
from their parent country, to feed the ill-considered splendour
of Rio. The peasantry were poor and oppressed ; the idlers of
the large towns were vicious, and without employment ; the
judges were corrupt; and men's minds universally unsettled.
And thus, without morals, without a court, with a despised mi-
nistry and an absentee nobility, Portugal was found listening to
the approaching surges of revolution, restrained only by her
bigoted church : For the discipline and affections of that glori-
ous army which had repelled the invader were lost; and that
which would have been the rallying point, around which the
scattered elements of order might have been formed, became
the very axis of anarchy. No one can deny the benefits which
Marshal Beresford conferred on the Portuguese army, by the
high state of discipline to which he brought that gallant body of
men, who, when they were first placed under his command,
were little better than a brave and ill-armed mob. But his love
of discipline carried him too far. In peace the Portuguese regi-
ments never quit their peculiar districts ; they become in fact
little more than constantly embodied local militia. Lord Beres-
ford sought to change this national system ; and by rigidly en-
forcing a new code of discipline, unfitted to the habits, and a
successive change of quarters, ruinous to the finances of the ill
and unpunctually paid men and officers, rendered himself parti-
cularly unpopular. His fellow-countrymen zealously seconded
his orders. But this zeal separated them from their Portuguese
comrades, their companions in many a hard-fought field and
nightly bivouac.

The attempt utterly failed; for Lord Beresford succeeded
only in making his army factious, and throwing down the
one sole remaining pillar, the only well organized and efficient
branch of Portuguese authority; and, by rendering himself
and his countrymen extremely unpopular, he deprived Portugal
of the benefit she might have received during the coming events
from their probity and experience. We have been reluctantly
compelled to mark this fatal error of Lord Beresford's, because

410 Recent History^ Present States and Dec,

tliis Penelopean disorganization of his army, — that hack-bone
of a demoralized state, affords the only satisfactory clue to the
labyrinth of revolutions under which Portugal has since groaned.
Affairs could not long go on thus. The neighbouring despot-
isms were fast falling. Lord Beresford saw the danger when too
late. He sailed for Rio, to obtain that reform which had been
too long delayed ; it was now approaching as ' an armed man.'
The train was laid, a spark ignited it. On the 23d August,
1820, a colonel and a few officers raised the constitutional cry
at Oporto, which was instantly seconded by the whole city, and
a junta forthwith appointed. The Regency at Lisbon made some
faint show of resistance ; and, aware of the unpopularity which
Lord Beresford had brought upon himself and the English
officers, removed them from the service. But this was of no
avail ; the dispositions of the army were as much changed as its
discipline ; and on the 18th September, within three short weeks
of the first breaking out of the insurrection at Oporto, a subal-
tern marched his detachment into the principal square of Lisbon,
and quietly proclaimed the constitution. The cry was taken up
with enthusiasm. The new form of government was carried by
acclamation ; and in a few hours the Regency had ceased to
exist. No real resistance was attempted, nor was there a life
lost.

The Cortes assembled, and, having promulgated an impracti-
cable constitution, pursued a course of folly and misgovernment
that quickly alienated all parties. The revolution meanwhile
crossed the Atlantic. The overthrow of his authority in Europe,
conveyed no instruction to the ears of John VI. The Count
Palmella in vain exhorted him to meet the coming demands for
reform with concession and tempei*. The wretched old man
resolved to be Jirm ; and accordingly a second revolution swept
him across the seas from Rio, a dependent upon the uninstruct-
ed insolence of the Cortes. On his arrival at Lisbon, he affect-
ed or felt a new found zeal for liberality, and gave way to all
the absurd excesses of the Cortes, who treated him with a want
of respect as impolitic as it was ungenerous.

The insults offered to their King roused the indignation of
the proverbially loyal Portuguese. Their Queen had scornfully
rejected the constitution of the Cortes, who, after heaping ob-
loquy on her fame, had voted her mad, and confined her accord-
ingly. This was one of the many indignities which the poor old
King bore probably with the greatest patience ; for his virago
Queen, a worthy sister of Ferdinand the Beloved, fomented dis-
cord and misery in his family, and had just accused him to this
brother of that madness, under the imputation of which she now

1831. External Relations of Portugal, 411

suffered. Affairs trailed on thus till 1823, when the overthrow
of the constitutional party in Spain by the French, afforded an
example which was soon followed by the Portuguese under Dom
Miguel and the Queen. The Cortes fell as they rose, without
a struggle.

Two parties contributed to their overthrow — the King's and
the Queen's — the royalists and the ultra-royalists ; the one
headed by the Count Palmella, the noted Pamplona, Count of
Subserra, and the unfortunate Marquis of Louie ; the other was
directed by the Queen, her son Dom Miguel, (of whom we shall
now not lose sight,) and by the Marquisses of Chaves and
Abrantes. These last formed the Apostolic or Spanish faction,
while the other received some support from England. The
Pamplona party gained the ascendency ; some order was esta-
blished, and the light of liberty was not lost sight of; for two
distinct decrees in favour of a representative government were
deliberately issued by the king, some time after his triumph
over the Cortes. The power of the ministry became each day
more strong ; and had not some unknown influence prevented
Lord Beresford from joining them, although earnestly solicited
to do so, both by the old King and by the British Ambassador,
it is probable much future misery might even yet have been
avoided.

Pamplona acquired the magic power of a strong mind over
the weak intellect of the King, while his connexion with the
powerful family of the Marquis of Louie, gave him weight in the
country. The Queen and her ultra-tory party were alarmed ;
and therefore, with a ruthless ambition, resolved on a desperate
attempt to carry the ascendency. Her son Dora Miguel, to say
the least of him, was worthy of his mother.

The King, attended by his court, and the Marquis of Louie as
chamberlain, went to hunt at Salva-terra. Dom Miguel, his
friend the Marquis of Abrantes, and their two assistants, Leo-
nardo Cordeiro, and Jose Verissimo,* accompanied them. On
the second morning after their arrival, the Marquis of Louie
was found lying dead on a heap of rubbish, in the full court-
dress in which he had attended at the King's supper on the pre-
ceding night. Dom Miguel and his friends asserted that he had
fallen from a window, and so killed himself; but, on examination,
it was discovered that some sharp instrument had been intro-

* Both now two most active and insolent agents of police at Lisbon,
who were publicly dismissed in May last, at the demand of this
country, for their outrage on British subjects.

412 llecent History, Present State, and Dec.

duced into his mouth, by which he had been covertly stabbed to
the brain. Secret examinations were taken, and nothing positive
then transpired ; but on the publication of the general amnesty
which followed the exile of Dom Miguel, his associates Veris-
simo, Cordeiro, and the Marquis of Abrantes, were specially ex-
cepted from pardon. The plot, however, failed for the time;
for the King returned to Lisbon in dismay, and his affectionate
subjects rallied round him ; but the army, which had never re-
covered from the disaffection produced by Lord Beresford's dis-
ciplinarian experiments, now supported Dom Miguel, who, after
some preliminary intrigues, openly put himself at its head, and
declared ' death to those thunderbolts of Masonic impiety, who

* would burst forth and consume the House of Braganza, and

* reduce to ashes the most beautiful country in the world.'* In
accordance with these humane and grandiloquent sentiments, he
decreed the absolute power of the King, ' whose sublime virtues'
his proclamation declared ' to exceed the imagination ;' but whom
he nevertheless placed under restraint, while his mutinous sol-
diery took possession of the palace. Orders also were issued
by this dutiful son for the arrest of all the attendants, ministers,
and domestics, of his beloved fathei", together with that of no
less than 18,000 other persons.

Fortunately, the foreign ambassadors followed the advice of
Sir Edward Thornton, and steadily opposed this rebellious as-
sumption of power; but the army adhered not the less firmly to
Dom Miguel, while the Queen, aided by the intrigues of Spain,
openly supported him.

The timid old King, afraid to recur to strong measures of
defence, fled for refuge to the British flag ; and, having escaped
from his palace to the Windsor Castle, then anchored in the
Tagus, he succeeded in entrapping his rebellious son on board
also. Dom Miguel, on being ushered into the royal presence,
found the King surrounded by many of his officers, and all the
foreign ministers. The suffering father addressed his unnatural
son in words of strong and touching reproach; — he alluded to the
pardon which had already been granted to him for the affair
of the Marquis of Louie ; and concluded his address by com-
manding him to remain on board the Windsor Castle until fur-
ther orders. Those further orders pronounced his banishment,
and he was forthwith sent to Vienna ; while the Queen was at
the same time publicly removed from court. The King and his
ministers resumed their wonted functions, and all those persons

* Letter of Dom Miguel to his father.

1831. External Relations of Portuqal. 413

wlio had been arrested by tlie command of Dom Miguel were
released.

There was now a hope for the tranquillity of Portugal ; but
the British Ambassador, by whose able assistance that country
had been enabled to weather these rough and dangerous storms,
was superseded, when he might have been most useful in
supporting the well disposed, and setting the seal of exclusion
on the irreclaimable ultra party of the Queen and her hopeful
son. Sir Edward Thornton was succeeded by a minister well
known in Europe as the attendant genius at the extinction
of liberty in Naples and Spain ; one, in short, well acquainted
Avith the mysteries of the Holy Alliance. The ministry of
Pamplona and Palmella soon fell before the wand of this
deeply initiated British ambassador. At a subsequent period,
during the same ambassador's residence, a like fate attended the
liberal ministers Barrados and Lacerda. Not another word was
heard in favour of the representative charter, whose defeat became
the openly avowed object of the ministers of the Holy Alliance
assembled at Lisbon, while its support, we presume, was the
object of the British minister. But we regret to say, that his
secret efforts were as remarkably unsuccessful here, as they
had been both at Naples and Madrid. The discomfited ultras
took courage, and, as birds of ill omen, once more hovered
along the Spanish frontier.

In the midst of these difficulties, the old King died. A more
unhappy course through life than that of this royal personage
can scarcely be pointed out. The weak son of a mad mother,
the despised husband of a wicked wife, the hapless father of a
rebellious son, the powerless tenant of an absolute sceptre, a
fugitive from his long- descended dominions in Europe, and an
outcast from his adopted throne in America, he lived a life of
bodily suffering, mental imbecility, and domestic misery ; and
died, leaving his friends, his family, and his country, the prey
of civil strife and foreign interference.

The death of John brought new elements of strife into the
complicated tissue of Portuguese politics. Sir Charles Stuart
had ably completed the separation of the two rival courts of Rio
and Lisbon. The Brazils had been erected into an empire
under the rule of Dom Pedro, to whom was also preserved the
succession to the kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves, &c.
Meanwhile the old King was soothed with the titular dignity of
Emperor of Brazil. Within a few months after this vain assump-
tion, death removed all crowns and cares from his brow. His
eldest son, the Emperor Dom Pedro, by every right of birth,
treaty, and reason, succeeded to the dominions of his father.

4.14 Recent Histonj, Present State, and Dec.

He did so succeed, and was so recognised by his subjects of both
and all his realms, by all the members of his family, and by the
courts of Europe and America. Thus far is undoubted. But
the separation between the two states of Portugal and Brazil
was of that force, that they could not continue under the same
head. Dom Pedro had to make his choice in due time between
Europe and Amei'ica. He gave the preference to the new land
that had adopted him ; and, with a straight-forward and loyal
consistency, proceeded to abdicate his European dominions, the
old Braganza inheritance, to his eldest daughter, Dona Maria,
the heiress and representative of that royal house, next in suc-
cession to her brother Dom Sebastian, for whom was reserved
the American empire of his father. This abdication was cou-
pled with two conditions, meant to heal the yet open wounds of
Portugal, viz. the adoption of a constitutional charter, and the
marriage of the young Queen with his penitent brother Dom
Miguel. What feelings of affection or policy dictated this last
proviso, it is vain to enquire. We only know that this act of
brotherly kindness, or compromising policy, has been the chief
cause of the miseries under which Portugal has groaned for
these last six years. Still, a brother may be pardoned for not
believing in an utter depravity, the extent and depth of which
seems to have deceived even the experiencedChancellor of Aus-
tria.

The accession of Dora Pedro was greeted in Portugal more
warmly than his constitutional charter, which, however, met
with the joyful acceptance of a vast majority of the enlightened
portion of the nation. Its wise and temperate provisions cer-
tainly disappointed the wild reveries of the fanatics of freedom;
while its liberal principles offended the absolute dogmas of the
Queen's party. The hostility of these two extremes is its praise.
It was sworn to by all the authorities, and by none more fully
than by the present ruler of the kingdom, who was then a free
agent at Vienna. But now appeared the fruits of that error of
our ambassador, (to call it by its gentlest name,) which aided
the re-establishment of the Queen's party after their outrageous
conduct in 1824. They possessed much local influence in the
country, and received unremitting support from Spain and the
Holy Alliance, many of whose representatives at Lisbon had
refused to be present at the ceremony of swearing to the consti-
tutional charter of Dom Pedro. This faction resorted to every
possible intrigue to defeat its establishment ; they declared that
it was the same as that of the Cortes ; and to substantiate their
calumny, they did not hesitate to falsify many of its clauses, —
thus paying an indirect compliment to its merits. This forgery

X831# External Uelations of Portugal. 413

was sedulously distributed as the king's decree — the old anti-
Cortes cry was thus revived — people doubted, drew back, and
deserted.

The Marquisses of Chaves and Abrantes, those worthy accom-
plices of Dom Miguel, well understood the sincerity of their ex-
iled chief's professions of loyalty; and they accordingly raised the
standard of revolt, the one in the north and the other in the
south. They even established a regency at Tavira in the name
of King Miguel. Cordoba was despatched from Paris, by the
French government, to further the attempt ; but the rebels were
speedily driven for refuge within the Spanish frontiers ; while
Spain, proud of the foreign and domestic chains she wore, gave
them her unabashed support. And in the same degenerate spirit,
after, in October, promising our ambassador at Madrid to abstain
from all intrigues, and to withdraw these Portuguese rebels, who
were then assembled in arms along her frontiers, far into the
interior, she, before the end of November, again poured two
fresh columns of attack into the north and south of Portugal.
This roused the patience of the English Lion, — fortunately in
the keeping of Mr Canning. An English army was embarked
once more for the defence of Portugal. But happily the
Portugese themselves, in spite of all the intrigues and machi-
nations that had been put in practice to disgust them with
their new charter, had sufficient discernment to appreciate its
merits, and sufficient courage to defend its existence. Before
the arrival of the British troops, they had for the fourth time
beaten back the traiterous ultra faction into Spain. Still the
affairs of Portugal were in a most precarious state. The old
Queen, and the apostolic lovers of things as they are — Dom
Miguel, the army, and the mob — and the revolutionary ultra
freemasons — formed three parties, whose only bond of union was
hatred to the rational charter of Dom Pedro. The sober part
of the community, assisted by their regent, had to contend
against these enemies of order. England lent her assistance to
the one side ; the Holy Alliance to the other.

The landing of a British force at Lisbon struck terror into
the councils of the ultras and their patron saint of Spain. It
inspired the friends of freedom with hope and confidence. But
confidence doubted, and faction took heart, when it seemed that
the British troops had landed only to parade about the streets
of Lisbon. Another irruption from Spain was the consequence.
General Stubbs actually resigned his English commission, in
order to be allowed to beat back this attack. But at length our
troops did advance upon Coimbra, when the country was
immediately cleared, and the rebels, for the sixth time, retired

416 Becent History, Present StatCy and Dec.

•witliin their lurking-places in Spain. Thus once more was
tranquillity restored to this unhappy country. The ratification
of Dom Pedro's final abdication, and the completion of the con-
ditions he attached to it, were in the course of fulfilment; while
the rights of Dona Maria were fully acknowledged ; and the
charter, — a rational charter, deliberately granted by a legitimate
monarch, and legally accepted by his subjects, was in full ope-
ration. And now old men hoped, and young men believed, that
by patience, justice, and firmness, Portugal might attain, through
the unremitting assistance of her fast and ancient ally, the
blessings of peace and happiness, together with their best gua-
rantee, rational liberty. Such aspirations were to be again
blasted. Mr Canning died — the ministry in England became
unsettled. Dom Miguel returned to Lisbon, and the Holy
Alliance triumphed.

Dom Miguel landed at Lisbon on 22d February, 1828, full
of protestations of loyalty; but in less than two months he had
usurped all power, and had been declared King, Absolute King.
This royal road to a crown is worth tracing. We have already
noticed the defeat of the Cortes — the murder of the Marquis of
Louie — the seizure of his King and father — and the order for
the arrest of 18,000 Portuguese, in a few days, by this worthy
youth, when at the age of scarcely one-and-twenty. Great expec-
tations were raised from so precocious an exhibition of legitimate
principles. We have seen the youth banished from Lisbon in
May 1824, and sent to complete his education at Vienna. In
1825, we hear little of him — he was probably immersed in stu-
dies befitting the full developement of his talents. These were
soon called into play by the death of his father ; for we find him,
in April 1826,* writing a most dutiful and affectionate letter to
his sister, the Regent Dona Maria Isabella, expressing his
single-hearted desires for the tranquillity of Portugal ; his con-
fidence in the approved loyalty of the Portuguese to their law-
ful sovereigns, and particularly to that lawful heir and succes-
sor, his dear brother the Emperor of Brazil ; and with all this,
his fears lest some false and mischievous person should presume
to make use of his name, forsooth, in order to screen their own
wicked designs to create troubles in the country. To guard
against which evil, he begs her to make public this letter, the
sentiments of which are the spontaneous dictates of his heart.
This loyal epistle is dated from Vienna, only twenty-six days
after the decease of his father at Lisbon, and therefore must

* Expose — Pieces Justificatives et Documens, page 14.

1831. External Relations of Portvgal. 417

have been written almost immediately upon the receipt of the
intelligence. This is followed by another of the 14th of June,
1826,* thanking his sister, the Regent, for having published the
above manifestation of his sentiments, and appending thereto
an edifying homily upon the dangers of ambition, and repeating
his submission to whatever measures his lawful sovereign and
dear brother may think fit to adopt.

Also, in May of the same year,f we have another dutiful and
affectionate letter to this dear brother Dom Pedro. On the 4th
of October,:}: he takes a solemn and public oath to observe and
maintain the constitutional charter conferred on Portugal by
his august brother and King Dom Pedro. And on the 29th of
October,§ he contracts a solemn affiance with Dona Maria the
Second, Queen of Portugal, in the presence of the Austrian
court. II The Chamber of Peers at Lisbon vote him a congratu-
latory address on this loyal betrothment, to which he forthwith
returns^ a gracious reply ; stating his determination to fulfil the
paternal views of his august brother and King.

Thus far goes this first scene of Dom Miguel's loyalty, which
seems to have so won the heart and charmed the understanding
of the British Ambassador at Vienna, that he consented to
Prince Metternich's proposal of changing, ivithout any autho-
rity whatever, the title of Lord Lieutenant in Portugal, which
Dom Pedro had conferred on his brother, into that of Regent.
But now, when all these formalities had been duly executed, and
when this loyal and prudent Prince was expected to set forth,
to assume his delegated authority at Lisbon, it was discovered
that he felt a reluctance to return. Was it that power had no
charms for him ? Or was it that he knew that his correspondents
and accomplices, the Marquisses of Abrantes and Chaves, were
at that moment in open rebellion, and had organized the junta
at Tavira, which proclaimed him the Absolute King of Portugal ?
And was it in concert with this rebellion that he was instructed
by the Holy Alliance to gain time for the intrigues which France,
Spain, Russia, and Prussia, were then actively carrying on to
transfer the crown of Portugal to his head at the stipulated
price of the object of their hatred — the constitutional charter ?

But this direct attempt was abandoned; probably in con-
sequence of the liberal character of the English Cabinet formed
after the death of Mr Canning. For we learn that this re-

* Expose — Pieces Justificatives et Documens, page 15.

t Ibid. 16, :}; Ibid. 26. § Ibid. 27.

11 Ibid. 29, f Ibid 30.

418 Recent History^ Present State, and Dec.

pug-nance of Dom Miguel's was overcome in a secret conference
with Prince Metternich ; who, unfortunately, happened to be so
ill that no one could be present except Monsieur de Bombelles,
who had been Dom Miguel's Chamberlain since his arrival at
Vienna; and who, now a second Mentor, was destined to attend
this Telemachiis as Ambassador to Lisbon, where we shall find
him supporting Dom Miguel in his refusal to issue, on his arrival,
that proclamation, declaratory of his loyalty and obedience,
which had formed part of his engagements at Vienna, and to
which this Monsieur de Bombelles had been a party. All other
conferences had failed; even the Emperor had spoken to this
young prince in vain. Nothing, it seemed, would induce him
to return forthwith to Portugal, and to pass through England.
And yet this indomitable resolution melted in the warm atmo-
sphere of Monsieur de Metternich's secret cabinet. For we learn
that, after some conversation, Dom Miguel's manner changed, bis
heart opened, he spoke freely, his objections ceased; and then
the Austrian Chancellor, this experienced teacher of liberal
opinions, tells us that Dom Miguel* " commen9a ensuite spon-

* taaement a me parler avec chaleur de la ligne de conduite qu'il

* se proposait de suivre a son arrivee a Lisbonne, et je fus surpris,

* je I'avoue, de la rectitude des principes et de la sagesse des vues
' qu'il me developpa avec un ordre et une clarte remarquables.

* La maniere dont I'infant s'est explique vis a vis de moi dans

* cette circonstance, ne me permet pas de douter qu'il est dans

* les meilleurs dispositions, et qu'il est non seulement fermement

* resolu a maintenir la Charte, mais qu'il en sent meme I'im-

* portance et la necessite." The liberal world loses by its igno-
rance of the arcana of this happy conference ; how many other
Dom Miguels might it not convert ?f The protocol following
this conference shows us Prince Metternich most anxious to
accelerate the dejitiitive abdication of Dom Pedro ; and in it we find
the official acceptation of the Regency by Dom Miguel, and his
first letter to George the Fourth, expressive of bis determination
to govern according to his brother's charter ;:j: and also a letter to
his sister, containing like sentiments, which he again begs her to
make public. These letters, together with another to the King
of Spain, § requesting that he will, in his high wisdom, take
measures to restrain the Marquis of Chaves, and the rebellious

* Dopeche de S. A. M. le Prince Metternich, a S. A. M. le Prince
Esterhazy. Vienna, 18tli Oct. 1827.

f Expose — Pieces Justificatives et Documens, page 45, ^ Ibid. 51.
§ Depeche, Prince Metternich au Prince Esterhazy.

1831. External Relations of Portugal 419

Portuguese under his command, were the last acts of Dom Miguel
at Vienna.

He came straight to England ; and here having pledged his
honour to our late King to maintain the free institutions of
Portugal, he proceeded to gather some of that fruit of this coun-
try for which all parties, however much they may differ in the
sincerity of their professions in favour of liberty, entertain an
unfeigned regard. He raised two hundred thousand pounds ;
and adroitly persuaded Lord Dudley to hasten the final resig-
nation of Dom Pedro, and to rescind the oi'ders already issued
for the return of our troops from Lisbon. These requests were
unfortunately granted ; but we cannot blame an English noble-
man and gentleman for having been deceived by this arch
hypocrite. All was complete ; and this reformed and reforming
prince now set forth, armed with the wisdom of Austria, and the
money, ships and troops of England, to take possession of his
lieutenancy, and to shelter, nourish, and defend the young
liberties of Portugal. Who could doubt success ? — not even
Prince Metternich ; and yet, within a very iew days after the
auspicious landing of Dom Miguel, our ambassador. Sir F. Lamb,
did so doubt the loyal intentions of ' this well disposed prince,
* who was so resolved to maintain the Constitutional Charter,'
that he withheld from him the money that had been raised for
him in England. Thus was one error rectified by the manly
decision of our high-minded Minister ; but a far more serious
injury to the Portuguese liberties was left unredressed.

The British troops that Mr Canning sent to defend the free-
dom of Portugal from the irruptions from Spain, under the
Marquis of Chaves, were suffered, by Lord Dudley, to remain
for the protection of Dom Miguel, while he and this very Marquis
of Chaves, now recalled with his companions from Spain, were
openly engaged in effecting the usurpation of the crown. The
rebels of Tavira and of the North, against whom our troops had
lately marched, were now parading Lisbon by their side, and
insulting those loyal Portuguese who had weakly believed Eng-
land to be the fast friend of their charter and their Queen. Day
by day the barriers of liberty were broken down, and despatch by
despatch did our ambassador send off, warning his government
of the imputed countenance the presence of himself and of the
British troops afforded to the machinations and assertions of the
traitors. He was unheeded till too late.

The ready despot saw that there was no time to lose ; he
therefore hastened to confirm his power, while our troops, those
hapless auxiliaries of the Holy Alliance, were at hand. ' Under
< the cover of their protecting shelter he dismissed his constitu-

420 Recent History^ Present State, and Dec.

< tional ministers, removed his constitutional officers, changed

< his constitutional magistrates, and prepared the dissolution of

* his constitutional chambers ; and thus, all those means of re-

* sistance were paralyzed, which, had our troops been out of the

* way, the existing institutions of Portugal would have opposed

* to bis projects.'* We also happen to know that a large body
of loyal and brave Portuguese were prepared to rise in arms
against the usurpation of Dom Miguel ; but before proceeding
to extremities, they wisely ascertained the nature of the instruc-
tions of the commanding officer of the British troops. To their
dismay, they learnt that the personal protection of the usurper
formed a principal part of these. We need not add, that they, in
consequence, resigned the enterprise in despair. From the second
day of his landing, the press, the pulpit, and Dom Miguel himself
in his proclamations, employed the most violent language against
the supporters of the charter ; while the mob insulted and attacked
those who did not join in the treasonable cry of Long live King
Miguel. There could be no doubt of the designs of Prince Metter-
nich's regent. Our ambassador, Sir Frederick Lamb, repeatedly
and stronglyrepresentedthemtoLordDudley; who, unfortunately
confiding in the graces of his pen, poured forth to the ministers
of Dom Miguel a most classic and inestimable exercise of diplo-
matic remonstrance, which is to be studied in six closely printed
quarto pages of the Expose of the Rights of Dona Maria the
Second, which we have prefixed to this article. Two short un-
epigrammatic lines, commanding the recall of our troops and of
our ambassador, might have been more availing ; for this ela-
borate despatch was not completed till the 22d of April ; and,
before it reached the charmed ears of Dom Miguel, Sir F. Lamb
informs us, on the 26tliof the same month,f that this loyal lieu-
tenant had graciously received addresses from several packed
assemblies, calling upon him to assume the crown. Terror had
long been the order of the day ; and bold and self-devoted were
those Portuguese who dared refuse their signature to these

faithful addresses, — as Dom Miguel described them in a gracious
reply, in which he first used the royal style.

The constitutional Chambers had been illegally dissolved,
and the ancient Cortes of the country convoked by a royal
circular, which ordered the different electoral presidents % ' to
* refuse the votes, and consider as perjured all persons who

* Lord Palmerston's speech, p. 15.

f Expose — Pieces Justificatives et Documens, page 83.

\. Circular of Dom Miguel's minister, May 17, 1828.

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 421

* should tender their suffrages for those who, by their political

* opinions, might be considered enemies of the true principles
' of legitimacy, and admirers of new institutions ;' while, on
the other hand, the presidents were commanded ' to permit the
' election of those only who had in view the service of God and

* of the throne.'* The so elected Cortes were quickly assembled;
and, as might be expected, resolved, that God and the throne
would be best served by the usurpation of Dom Miguel. The
regent could not possibly resist so strong an appeal to his duty;
and accordingly accepted that crown he had sworn to maintain
for another.

Thus was accomplished a course of peihaps the most bare-
faced royal perjury and hypocrisy on record. The foreign mi-
nisters forthwith renounced all intercourse with the disgraced
Court of Lisbon ; and to the honour of Europe, this * cruel, base,
' cowardly, false, and treacherous prince' (we quote from the
reported speech of the last noble Ex-secretary for Foreign Af-
fairs) remains under the ban of the civilized world.

It would be time thrown away to examine the vain .irguments
alleged in support of Dom Miguel's claim to the throne. They
are utterly groundless, and are clearly shown to be so by the
able exposition of the rights of Dona Maria, to which we strong-
ly recommend those who have any doubts on the subject, to refer.

A crown thus attained would probably be worn with like mo-
deration. We have seen a mock election carried by the desti-
tution of the loyal, the intimidation of the weak, and by the
votes of a despotic faction backed by a ferocious mob. The
same measures have been resorted to ibr the maintenance of this
ill-acquired authority. All officers, from the highest to thelowest,
whatever may be their appointments, whether civil, military,
judicial, or financial, held and hold their situations upon the one
sole tenure of long live King Miguel the absolute. The mob, the
army, and the law, became his ready instruments. Denouncement,
proscription, imprisonment, confiscation, exile, transportation,
and death, have been the fitly employed supporters of his throne.
Those who dared not rise against the tyrant when protected by
British bayonets, found their power, influence, and liberties,
sacrificed before they were withdrawn. But at length our troops,
having by their unfortunate presence enabled Dom Miguel to
consolidate his power, did retire at a time when their continued
presence might have been some check upon the organized plan of
plunder, intimidation, and tyranny, that was about to be exer-

* Circular of Dom Miguel, May 6, 1828.
VOL. nv. NO. cviii. 2 E

42.2 Recent Histori/, Present State, and Dec.

cised on the faithful adherents to their lawful sovereign. To
carry these intimidating projects into effect, a royal volunteer
corps of police, spies, and satellites, was organized throughout
the whole country. This corps amounts to some 30,000 men,
and is composed of the very lowest orders. They serve only
in their own districts, and for the special protection of Dom
Miguel and religion. They are armed and clothed by govern-
ment, but fed at their own expense. They receive no pay, but
are left to earn the wages of iniquity — the price of blood and
tears.

Mr Matthews, the British consul, in his Report of December
1828, says, ' that were he to describe the system of extortion
' practised by these police agents throughout all Portugal, by

* ransoming the most opulent classes of their districts, he should

* hardly be credited ;' and he adds, * that the instances of inex-

* plicable persecution, the daily arrests in Lisbon, and the para-
' lysis of all trade, afford a subject of wonder how such a degree

* of oppression can be borne.'* In fact, these royalist volunteers
hold in their hands the real power of the country ; any one, how-
ever respectable or unimpeachable, whom any two of these little
unpaid choose to denounce, is at their mercy ; for if he soothe
them not by bribes he is committed forthwith to the common
jail, on their making oath that they suspect him of constitutional
or free-mason tendencies. In this prison the unfortunate victim,
if he be poor, may starve ; for there is no allowance made to the
prisoners for food or raiment ; their only indulgence is the pri-
vilege of being daily paraded about the streets by a party of
soldiers, when an opportunity for begging is afforded ; and — woe
be to him who relieves them ! If they be unsuccessful, they are
brought back to starve, or to share, if there be any, the surplus
of the food spared for them by the hospitals of the town, or
wrung from the compassion of their more wealthy fellow pri-
soners. All are herded together in a filthy court ; thieves —
murderers — prostitutes — and constitutionalists — and these last
are too often insulted by the former, as a means of winning
favour with the authorities. Money and interest will sometimes
purchase the enjoyment of what is called a separate apartment,
which consists of one large room, in which all these favoured
persons are not the less mixed together. As an instance, two
respectable ladies, (whose names we suppress, for obvious
reasons,) the wife and sister of a Portuguese gentleman, now
in this country, are, at this moment, upon the mere denuu-

* Parliamentary Papers^^ A, page 50, Mr Matthews' Correspondence.

1831. External Relations of Portiigat. 433

ciation, without a shadow of proof, of two royalist volunteers,
confined in one of these, so called, separate apartments, in
company with two common prostitutes and others, who make
it a part of their diversion to insult and outrage them. They
have endured these indignities for months. Another respect-
ahle merchant, the owner of several ships, at St Ubes, was
imprisoned for five months, because two of his servants chose
to swear that they saw him every night at twelve o'clock
scourge and trample on an image of our Saviour. He was
at length released by the active intercession of his friends ;
but hearing of a second denunciation preparing for him, he
wisely fled to Ireland, glad to escape with the confiscation of
his property. These are two instances taken at hazard amongst
thousands. Now, these confiscations feed the cofl^ers of Dom
Miguel, and increase his natural appetite for denunciation.
There are at this moment about 50,000 Portuguese wandering
over Europe — some exiles, some fugitives, all miserable — and all
exposed to the loss of their property ; upon which Dom Miguel
fastens, by appointing as special administrators any favourites,
who, while tbcy replenish his coffers from the property of their
countrymen, do not neglect to fill their own. While many are
thus herded in the common jails, or its select apartments, some
are indeed separated in solitary damp dungeons, far under ground,
where death often releases them from their troubles : others
again are removed to distant fortresses, while the place of their
confinement and even their very existence remains concealed
from their friends and relations. Thus are imprisoned, and thus
are treated, for assumed political offences, at this moment, in the
light of the civilisation of the nineteenth century, some 7 or 8000
unfortunate Portuguese ; while there are nearly half that num-
ber of fugitives wandering about their native country, unable or
unwilling to quit it. They are either concealed by their friends
at the greatest risk, or lie hidden in caves or forests, or steal
about sheltered by disguise ; all rising in the morning with the
miserable fear lest the day should close on them in a dungeon.
To these miserable men we may add some 20,000, who are
denounced as suspected persons, and who are in consequence
exposed to daily obloquy and insult; while upon the slightest
offence to any of the royalist volunteers or other Miguelites,
they are exposed to the yawning doors of the loathsome jail.
Then there are some 3000 sufferers who have been transported
to the pestilential climates of Africa; the greater part of whom,
if not already dead, are now, whatever may have been their
previous situation in life, working as felons, or as colonial
eervants and soldiers. Wc have thus a sad total of about 8p or

42-4 Recent History^ Present State, and Dec.

90,000 victims ; and, if to this long roll of misery we add the
tears and ruin of those whom these thousands might have
made happy, good, and prosperous, we shall have some cause to
doubt the virtues of this Dom Miguel, whom Lord Londonderry's
correspondent* speaks of as more sinned against than sinning, —
one full of ' gentleness and kindness ;' — a plain man, forsooth,
addicted to sports of the field and farming, and not sufficiently
alive to a sense of his own preservation ! That dormant sense
of self-preservation, or rather vicious defence of stolen power, has,
nevertheless, consigned some hundred victims to the scaffold, and
harrowed the feelings of treble that number of friends and rela-
tives, whom with a feline mercy it has sent barefooted and wrap-
ped in the same fatal San Benito to the verge of the scaffold, to
witness the agonies of their companions. These executions occupy
the whole day. The sad procession sets off from the common
prisons at about eight o'clock in the morning, and each prisoner
is led out barefooted, and attended by two monks, who conti-
nually exhort him to confess the justice of his sentence. The
distance from the prisons to the place of execution is consider-
able ; and as the prisoners are compelled to stop before each
Oratory that they pass on their melancholy way, it is generally
mid-day before the work of death begins. One by one they are
strangled, shot, or hanged. An hour intervenes between the
execution of each individual. During this time the shivering
successor stands watching in speechless torture the mutilation
of his hapless predecessor. As time wears away, the frightful
mass of dead bodies and severed heads accumulates ; meanwhile
the pardoned parents and companions are obliged to look on ;
and if they turn away their eyes, or hold down their heads, they
are struck under the chin by the officers' swords, and compelled,
at the peril of their own execution, to gaze upon the last agonies
of their condemned associates and relatives. Mr Matthevvsf in
describing some of these executions to Lord Dunglass, in March
]82y, says, ' the following five individuals were luing yesterday,
' and their heads are still sticking upon spikes, in one of the
' most public squares of the town, to the terror of the inhabi-
' tants — Brigadier- General Moreira, Lieutenant Ferreira Braga,
' Lieutenant Vellez Barreiros alias Perestrello, Cadet Scarni-

* chie, and midshipman Chaby. The son of Brigadier Moreira
' was made to be present at the execution, and to see his father's

* head stuck on the spike, also to walk three times round it.

* Brigadier- General Sir John Campbell to Lord Londonderry
Parliamentary Papers, A, page 14.
t Parliamentary Papers, A, page 7L

1831. External Belations of Portugal. 425

* His mother has since expired with grief; and the father of one
' of the sufferers, who was a youth of bare sixteen years of
' age, has since destroyed himself.' Many of these pardoned
men return to their thinned pi'isons with their senses stunned ;
and, with those scenes of death yet swimming before their eyes,
awake from their stupor to find themselves chained and crowd-
ed in the hold of a ship, conveying them as transported felons
to the pestilential shores of Africa. These are the pardoning
mercies, — ' the gentleness and kindness' of this mocker of the
world's affections; and these the means by which he has kept
down or divided the energies of his opponents. Many of the
nobles, from servility, or from a desire of preserving their lives
and estates, have yielded to his sway. The judges are intimi-
dated, corrupted, or removed ; the more honest lawyers dare not
perform their duties ; but the harpies of the law, the corrupt
scriveners, and low attorneys, are fattening upon the miseries of
the land, — upon the denunciations and imprisonments of their
countrymen, and the sequestration or confiscation of their pro-
perties. In such a state the middle orders have only to endure,
and patiently to await for the hour of retribution. Let us hope
it may not be long delayed.

Such has been the internal state of Portugal under the usurper.
Let us now examine its external relations, and, more particu-
larly, with this country. Before Dom Miguel had consummated
the usurpation of his brother's throne, that brother had loyally
completed, at the instance of the British Government, an act of
abdication in favour of his daughter. This daughter, now
Queen Dona Maria IL, was on her way to Europe ; fortu-
nately she did not fall within the grasp of her remorseless uncle.
She came to England, and was received with royal honours.
Meanwhile, after our troops were withdrawn from Lisbon, the
loyal Portuguese did make an effort to shake off the usurper's
heavy yoke. Oporto fell into their hands and formed their ral-
lying point. They had an army on foot, but a withering change
had taken place in the councils of England; the more liberal
members of her cabinet had been compelled to resign, and Dom
Miguel, well aware of the Holy Alliance tendencies of the new
Ministry, proclaimed the blockade of Oporto. His naval force
was utterly inadequate to enforce it; and he was an usurper of
only four weeks' standing, whose flagitious conduct had com-
pelled all the foreign ministers to quit his court. Moreover, he
was contending against the legitimate authorities of his country,
assembled at Oporto, and acting in the name of their recog-
nised queen. These considerations were sufficient to induce the

426 Becent History, Present State, and Dec*

British naval officer, commanding' the station, to reject his
paper blockade. But Lord Aberdeen's notions of what was due
to Dom Miguel were widely different ; and he hastened to recog-
nise this blockade by the destroyer of the charter. The consti-
tutionalists were as much surprised as dismayed ; and their un-
fortunate expedition failed, much more from the effects of this
neutrality of Lord Aberdeen's, and from disunion among them-
selves, than from any effort of the Miguelites. A considerable
portion (some 3000) of their force escaped from the vengeance
of Dom Miguel, and sought protection at Plymouth. And now
the Duke of Wellington's administration permitted the residence
of an accepted, though not accredited, ambassador from Dom
Miguel, while they despatched as special envoy to the Brazils, a
noble peer, the accuracy of whose former despatches from Lisbon
was then a subject of litigation in our courts of law, and whose
defence by their attorney- general, was of such a nature as to
call for a reprimand from the independent judge who presided on
the bench. The object of this mission was to ' yield up to him,
' who had attempted to embrue his hands in a sister's blood, that

* infant Queen, whose life was the sole barrier between him and

* the throne he coveted ;' for the successive rights of Dona Ma-
ria's younger sisters were totally* forgotten, while she herself (a
second charter) was to be consigned to the approved loyalty and
affectionate arms of her faithful uncle and future husband ! It
could not be expected that the preservation of the constitutional
charter should be mentioned during the conciliatory conferences
of this high-minded barter of royal rights and persons, but the
benefits of an education at Vienna were so apparent in the con-
duct of Dom Miguel, that the same advantages were sought for
Dona Maria. Happily this mission utterly failed.

Meanwhile, Terceira and some of the Western isles acknow-
ledged the authority of Dona Maria ; on which occasion,
strange though it sound, the British Government allowed Dom
Miguel to fit out an armament for their attack ; while at the
same time, in the name of neutrality, it forcibly prevented the
Queen's subjects from going to defend them.

The Duke of Wellington commanded those Portuguese who,
having escaped from Oporto, fled for refuge to Plymouth, either
to distribute themselves in cantonments, like prisoners of war,
or to quit the country. The Count Palmella, in consequence,
announced their intention to return to Rio; but on learning,
three days later, that Terceira had declared for Dona Maria, he

* Lord Palmerston's Speech, page 6.

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 427

fortliwlth altered their destination ; and after apprizing the Bri-
tish Cabinet of this change, he despatched some 300 of his com-
rades to repair, as in duty bound, to the dominions of their law-
ful sovereign. Our Government made difficulties; but these
unfortunate men were, nevertheless, embarked, and proceeded
on their voyage. They went weak and unarmed ; they were
fugitives from their country ; they were sufferers for the cause
which England had professed to espouse, — and yet, in this state
of helplessness, it is with shame we confess that the arm of Eng-
land was raised against them. British men-of-war pursued, over-
took, and, within sight of their now sole remaining country,
fired on these defenceless men, and drove them back across the
Atlantic to the shores of France, who, less inhospitable than
England, received and protected them.

Such a systematic protection encouraged Dom Miguel, who,
trusting to his friends in the English Cabinet, and, beguiled by
success, believed that he might commit outrages upon English
commerce and English subjects with the same impunity that had
hitherto attended his experiments on his Portuguese victims.
Accordingly, Sir John Milly Doyle, who had defended Portugal
in her hour of need at the point of his sword, was suddenly, and
without offence, thrown into prison ; and we find our Consul-
General, Mr Matthews, complaining to Viscount Santarera, on
the 7th July, 1828, ' that Sir J. M. Doyle, after twenty days'

* confinement in a secret dungeon, is still detained in prison ; as
' are also other British subjects, without any charge being brought
' against them ; the privileges established by our treaties having

* been overlooked.'* On the 30th August, six weeks later, we
find Mr Matthews still unsuccessful in his applications fov- the

* release of Sir John Doyle and those other British subjects ;*
for he informs Lord Dunglass, Lord Aberdeen's under secretary,
' that there is a rooted hatred in the party that now governs
' Portugal against every thing Protestant and British, and that
' no judge dare act in opposition to the desires of the govern-
' ment.'f Therefore it is not surprising that Sir John Doyle,
after a grievous imprisonment of three months, was conducted
as a prisoner on board a British packet, and compelled, under
a heavy bond, to engage never to re-enter Portugal. :j: Mr Young,
too, an officer in the British waggon train, after a still longer im-
prisonment, and as many disregarded remonstrances in his fa-
vour on the part of Mr Matthews, met with the like treatment

Parliamentary Papers, A, page 2. f Ibid, page 9.

Ibid, page 2.

428 Recent History, Present State, and Decv

on the same false accusations ; for no crime could, even by Por-
tuguese witnesses, be attached to him. With the same con-
tempt Mr Hargraves Cobham and Mr Rospigliosi* were, at dif-
ferent times, insulted by lawless mobs and thi'own into prison,
from whence they did not escape without great difficulty ; and
the latter not without a confinement of more than four months.
So was Sir Augustus West publicly insulted, wounded, knocked
off his horse,-f- and beaten till his ribs were broken, by a field
ofiicer and party of the police, who were all maintained in
authority, utterly unreproved, — in spite of any remonstrances,
either by Mr Matthews or by Lord Aberdeen, who, inflexibly
neutral while British subjects were thus falsely and peremptorily
detained in the dungeons of Portugal, would not allow such
conduct of the usurper's to delay the recognition of his fictitious
blockade of Oporto.

This neutrality led Dom Miguel and his agents to persevere
in their outrages; and accordingly, in September, 1828, we
learn from Mr Matthews, ' that Mr Marcos Ascoli, a British

* subject, established in Lisbon, having taken out his passports

* in due order, was proceeding to Gibraltar on private family

* business, in a Portuguese vessel, when at Belem, he was taken
' from the vessel and imprisoned.':}: It was in vain that Mr
Matthews repeatedly demanded his release ; in vain did Lord
Aberdeen (on the 1st October) convey to Viscount Santarem
the resolution, ' that his Majesty's Government w^ould not per-

* mit British subjects to be injured with impunity, and that,

* if both satisfaction and compensation were not speedily afi^ord-

* ed, orders would be given to exact by force that satisfaction

* which the Portuguese government refused to repeated remon-
' strances.'ll The unfortunate Marcos Ascoli did not the less
remain immured in a dungeon. In a letter (October 18th)
which he at length found means of sending to Mr Matthews,
he writes, — ' Having no crimes to fear, and never having med-

* died with the political affairs of Portugal, I imagined my per-
' son, my property, and the inviolability of my letters, guaran-
' teed by our treaties. For that reason, I determined to take my
' passage for Gibraltar, on boai'd a Portuguese ship; but, un-

* fortunately, I have been the dupe of this. Now I am in prison,

* and having been thirty-four days in secret confinement, it luas

* imjiossible for me to address you, to inform you of the details of
' what has occurred since the moment of my arrest. On Sunday,

* Parliamentary Papers, page 3. f Ibid, page 7.

X Ibid, page 14. |j Ibid, page 20.

1831. External Uelations of Portugal. 429

* the 14th September, the police came on board, and took me, with

* my baggage, to the house of the minister at Belem. He desired
' me to give up all my correspondence to him. I did so ; and it

* contained several letters of recommendation that I had received

* for English merchants at Gibraltar, and I am very sure that
' nothing was said in them relating to politics. Having been

* undressed, I was searched even to my boots, and the same was

* done with my boxes and my chests ; in short, my clothes and

* mattresses were unstitched, and every thing overhauled. After

* that thorough search, a small parcel was found, shut and sealed,
' the contents of which I knew not. On opening it, I perceived
' a small collection of masonic ornaments, which I had received

* from M. Angelo Marty, master of short-hand, to take to Gih-

* raltar ; and he, as I have learned, was the very person who
' denounced me to the Intendant of Police. The minister, ha-
' ving seen the ornaments, made it a pretext for committing me

* to prison. I gave him to understand that it was an arbitrary

* act, and that the power of force, not any crimes, kept me in

* prison.'* At length, on the 20th October, this wretched man
was released from his underground dungeon, and sent — where?
— to the common jail. Meanwhile Mr Matthews makes many
more ineffectual representations ; and, after a second month's
patience. Lord Aberdeen discharges another remonstrance. He
declares * that he cannot comprehend the motives which can in-
' duce the Portuguese government to persevere in their neglect
' of our repeated and urgent remonstrances against their infrac-
' tion of treaties, as well as their violation of the dictates of

* common justice and humanity ; but, be their motives what they
' may, the British government can no longer submit to such in-
' dignities,' &c. &c. ' I will not,' he says, ' particulai'ize the

* various instances of oppression which have formed the subject
' of my previous despatches ; but the case of Marcos Ascoli has
' been attended ivith the most flagrant ivjustice. I do not enter

* into a consideration of the charge itself, although it would ap-
' pear to have been made under circumstances of gross disho-

* nesty and corruption. I instruct you, therefore, to demand his
' immediate liberation, as well 2,% full compensation for the wrongs
' which he has endured. You will require, also, that the In-
' tendant of Police be made publicly responsible for this wilful

* oppression of a subject of his Majesty's.'f These strong demands
were followed up by an alternative too tempting for Dom Mi-
guel's flesh and blood to resist. Lord Aberdeen farther instructs
Mr Matthews, ' that should these representations remain for

Parliamentary Papers, page 20. f Ibid. A, page 34.

430 'Recent History, Present State, and Dec.

* thirty days not complied with, you will then' — do what ? Quit
Lisbon ? No. — Order the British ships to make reprisals ? No.
— Declare war ? No. — What then ? ' Report to me //' We
need not add, that poor Marcos Ascoli remained in prison for
these thirty days, during which time we find Mr Matthews con-
tinuing his course of disregarded representations in favour of
him and other British subjects. And now, at the end of another
month. Lord Aberdeen issues a last arrow from his quiver of use-
less remonstrances. He declares, * that as his Majesty's Govern-

* ment have selected a particular case respecting which you were
' instructed to make a specific demand, it is absolutely necessary

* that this demand should be complied with. The cruel and ille-
' gal imprisonment of Marcos Ascoli renders his immediate libe-
' ration indispensable, even if he should be found guilty of the
' trifling offence which is laid to his charge ; and the conduct of

* the Intendant of Police must be publicly censured.'* To the
sober thirty days' consideration which were afforded to the Por-
tuguese government by the former monthly despatch, and which
had already been exceeded, were now added three more, ' at the

* expiration of which time Mr Matthews was required to report

* (again to report ! !) to Lord Aberdeen the answer to these de-

* mands, which the British government were determined to en-

* force.' This determination, so resolutely expressed in October,
in November, and in December, was nevertheless unheeded ; for
Mr Matthews, on the 13th December, tells Lord Dunglass that
this prisoner, ' whose immediate liberation was indispensable,' \ was
put on a pretended trial ; that the advocate who rashly under-
took his defence was in consequence sent to jail ; that the Bri-
tish judge conservator, from whom some show of justice might
have been expected, was, when the trial was nearly concluded,
compelled to withdraw, when a substitute was appointed to act
for him, — that substitute being one of the judges of the very state
commission instituted to obey the mandates of the government.
And, in lieu of liberation, ' Mr Ascoli was by this judge con-
' demned to costs, whereby his establishment is ruined, and mi-

* sery entailed upon his wife, five children, and her relations,

* because, on his leaving this for Gibraltar, with due passports,

* some masonic insignia were found in his luggage, placed there
' by a Spaniard, a spy of this police, hired at thirty-four milrees

* per month, and having taken out a certificate as such, that it

* might serve as a recommendation to him in Spain, whither he

* has repaired ; and who has, by the evidence and trial, boasted

Parliamentary Papers, A, page 48. f Ibid, page 49.

1831. External Relations of PortugaL 43 i

* of being revenged on Marcos Ascoli, by getting him into
' trouble, in return for his refusal to lend him more money.
' Upon these futile grounds the government of this country

* thought it expedient to follow up the system of persecution
' against an industrious British subject, and has, in the face of
' the dignified remonstrances of his Majesty's government, or-

* dained a tissue of duplicity, upon which a colouring of judicial

* proceedings would appear to be purposely thrown, that the de-

* mand for his immediate libei'ation maybe evaded with seeming
' right, and refused ; and that, by bringing him in guilty, all

* grounds for censure on the conduct of the Intendaut of Police

* may be done away with.' Thus did the Portuguese govern-
ment answer Lord Aberdeen's three months' remonstrances.
But, harsh and ruinous as this sentence might be, it was not yet
to be carried into effect — it was another insolent evasion ; for,
on the 1st January, Mr Matthews informs Lord Aberdeen, ' that

* Marcos Ascoli remains in jail at this hour, without any inti-

* mation whatsoever having been made to him since that of his
' sentence.'* But on the i7th of the same month, this most
rightful judgment, with additional penalties, was at length en-
forced ; for Mr Matthews informs Lord Dunglass, ' that Marcos

* Ascoli's banishment is confirmed, and that he is condemned to

* additional costs. Thus,' he continues, ' have vanished all the

* hopes I ventured to express ; and the principle laid down by

* this government, from the beginning of this case, has not been

* diverged from, notwithstanding the urgent remonstrances and

* considerate proceedings of his Majesty's Government, and the

* evident absence of crime. M. Ascoli states to me, in a recent

* letter, that his confinement of four months in prison having

* completely paralysed his mercantile business, he has exhausted,

* in the maintenance of a large family, and in the unavoidable

* expenses of the law, all the ready money he had by him, and

* that nothing remains to him now but goods or merchandise,

* which he must part with at a great loss, to support his family.

* He is therefore quite a ruined man, and is about to apply to

* the benevolence of the British residents here to raise a moderate

* sum to enable him to pay the costs, and leave this country for

* England by an early opportunity.'f

And so closed the case of the unfortunate Marcos Ascoli, who
at length escapes with fine and banishment, after more than
four months' imprisonment, thirty-four days of which were pass-
ed in a noisome solitary dungeon, and the remainder in a com-

* Parliamentary Papers, A, page 55. f Ibid, page 58.

43^ Uecent History^ Present States and Dec."

mon jail. Now, what is the redress with which a British mi-
nister is satisfied? What is the indemnification for ' the ^a-
' grant injustice which in November led that minister, in no
measured terms, to call for the immediate and unconditional
liberation of its victim, and for the public censure of those who
had inflicted it ? What is it ? Why — that he should submit to
the iniquitous sentence pronounced on him ; that be should pay
his costs and his extra costs, and go his way into exile, to the
ruin of his mercantile interests ; having first duly sent in a bill
to his jailers of some sixteen shillings per diem, for the plea-
sure they had enjoyed in shutting him up in a dungeon, and
laughing at the British Government. This seems incredible;
and yet Mr Matthews, on the ith February 1829, tells Viscount
Santarem, ' that the British Government are not prepared to

* dispute the justice of the sentence which has been passed on
' Marcos Ascoli : all that they have ever contended for was,
' that he should have a fair trial before a legal tribunal^ accord-
' ing to the forms secured to British subjects by treaty, and this

* appears by my despatch to have been granted 1 1 V* Mr Mat-
thews (we pity him) was compelled to write thus, in flat contra-
diction to his despatch of the 23d December, descriptive of this

fair trial before a legal tribunal^ which he then called ' a colour-

* ing of judicial proceedings.' Thus the same British Govern-
ment which in November insisted that a reprimand should be
conveyed to the intendant of police, who arrested Ascoli in a
manner so public as unequivocally to manifest the disavowal
of the Miguelite government, was reduced to the humiliation
of testifying its satisfaction with an order of which Mr Mat-
thews, at the time of its publication, spoke so slightingly as
to say, ' I presume it is meant as the reprimand to the in-
' tendant of police demanded by his Majesty's Government.* f
And so also that which in November was a flagrant injustice,
became in February, by a perseverance in wrong, an exercise of
right; and that which in one month was by the British consul
shown to be a tyrannous, and iniquitous perversion of justice, is
called in the next, by the same British officers and British Go-
vernment, a fair trial. Marcos Ascoli must rejoice in the name
of British subject, after having been thus honourably rescued
from oppression; which, besides other injuries, reduced him to
the bitter necessity of applying to the eleemosynary aid of his
fellow-merchants at Lisbon. He must remember also, to his
eternal gratitude, the British Government not only not defending

* Parliamentary Papers, A, page 64. f Ibid, page 55.

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 433

his innocence, but deliberately confirming the unjust sentence of
his oppressors, while it nobly weighed the miseries of thirty-
four days confinement in the dark dungeon of Belem against so
many dollars. The remaining equally iniquitous imprisonment
of three months in a common jail goes for nothing ; that is to be
counted as one of the common accidents of a British subject's
life. But Lord Aberdeen is resolved, he tells us, ' to maintain
' the lights of his fellow-subjects;' and therefore considers thirty-
four days in a damp dungeon to be worth some L.27 sterling;
and with an order for this equivalent, the unfortunate man is,
witli his helpless family, turned out of Lisbon, exiled, ruined,
— and protected !

This is the case of an individual, unknown indeed, but not the
less entitled to the protection of his government. We have dwelt
on it as illustrative of the policy pursued by the late ministers
towards Dom Miguel. Ever beginning with loud remonstran-
ces and pretensions, they gradually lower their tone as they
meet with difficulties ; and end by expressing an affected satis-
faction with evasive apologies and insultingly inadequate indem-
nification. We call attention to this unhappy proceeding the
more strongly, because the sequel will show its proper punish-
ment in the increasing outrages it tempted the Portuguese au-
thorities to commit. Ascoli's is no solitary case of oppression;
he is one amongst a disgracefully long list. We might as easily
have selected from the official correspondence, the cases of the
iniquitous confiscation of the property of a most respectable
merchant, Mr Hatt Noble, at Oporto, and the six months' false
imprisonment of his son, a youth under age. We might have
dwelt on the two months' imprisonment of Mr O'Biien ; the
outrageous seizure of Mr Macrohon ; the eight months' con-
finement of the British consul of Tavira; or the fifteen months'
secret confinement of Joseph Fragoas, an overseer of the fortifi-
cations of Gibraltar ; or the cruel seizure of Mrs Story; — these
last three victims having been so effectually immured in their
dungeons, that they could not, the one for a year, and the others
for six months, find any means of conveying a report of their
seizure to the British consul.

While this course was pursued by Dom Miguel and his mini-
sters, insults, blows, and wounds were liberally bestowed on
British subjects at Lisbon, and throughout Portugal, by his
rabble of royalist volunteers and policemen. Mr Kenna and Mr
Munroe were seriously wounded, and the vice-consul of St
Ubes, and many other English subjects there, were literally
blockaded in their houses by these ruffians. But now, no
longer sadsfied with violence to individuals; Dom Miguel pro-

434 Recent History^ Present StatCy and JDec.

ceeded to attack the general interests of England, and boldly
broke through the essential clauses of our much vaunted Com-
mercial Treaty. He doubled the duties upon all English manu-
factures imported in foreign bottoms ; and, at the same time,
granted partial licenses in favour of those Portuguese merchants
whom he conceived to be favourable to his usurpation.

These personal, national, and commercial insults, were still
patiently borne by Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wellington,
who contented themselves with retaliating upon the supporters
of Dona Maria the injuries they received from Dom Miguel,
whom, with the overweening fondness of a mother for a petted
truant boy, they lured on by impunity to the commission of even
greater offences. His insults, and his false imprisonment of our
subjects, had won for him the friendly recognition of his paper
blockade of Oporto ; — the greater and more pertinacious out-
rages upon our subjects, and the infraction of our commercial
treaty, had been requited by the tarnishing before Terceira of
the honour of our flag. What might not be expected from more
bold aggressions ? Even the recognition of his usurpation. Con-
fident, then, in hope, and emboldened by impunity, this petty
despot proceeded in his career of humbling the unrecognising
pride of * his ancient and faithful ally.' In the midst of these
outrages, Mr Matthews was superseded by Mr Mackenzie. Be-
fore we proceed further with this ungrateful subject, we must
express our thanks to that gentleman for the readiness and spirit
with which he endeavoured to defend his countrymen from the
attacks of the Portuguese government ; and we congratulate
him upon his escape from a position where his endeavours were
so ill supported by his superiors in England.

Mr Mackenzie's first instructions from Lord Aberdeen de-
clare, ' that the honour of his Majesty's crown would be compro-

* mised by the want of that full and efiicient protection which his
' Majesty's subjects are entitled to expect in foreign states, and
' which they (his Majesty's government) are determined to af-
' ford to the utmost extent which may be authorized by the law of

* nations, or by the special provisions of any treaty.'* We regret
to be obliged to adcl, that a further examination of the official
papers relating to Portugal, from which we have already so libe-
rally extracted, will not support these lofty pretensions. For, four
months later, we find Mr Mackenzie reporting to Lord Dunglass

* that he has in vain renewed his entreaties to bring the unfor-

* tunate cases of Fragoas and Mrs Story to trial.'f And also, in

* Pari. Papers, A, page 1, Mr Mackenzie's Correspondence*
f Ibid, page 2,

1831. External Relations of Portugal, 435

the same month, * protesting most formally in the name of his
' government, against such a violation of promises as have been

* made to him, and such a protracted, if not intentional refusal,

* of the privileges secured by treaty.'* The secret confinement
of Fragoas had been discovered by Mr Matthews about a month
before his supercession ; and the sixteen months' consulship of
his successor, Mr Mackenzie, left the * unlucky mo,n,' as he plea-
santly calls him, where it found him — in a prison. These, with
many other instances too tedious to cite, might be adduced as
illustrative of the protection afforded to the persons of British
subjects by Lord Aberdeen's interference.

Dom Miguel's notion of the value of this protection, led him to
proceed from these imprisonments of our subjects, and confisca-
tions of their property, to the seizure of our merchant vessels
and their cargoes ; and thence onwards to the carrying off our
commissioned packets.

On the 16th May, the British schooner ' Ninus,' laden with
salt for Newfoundland, and furnished with all proper papers and
clearances, was captured and sent into the Western Isles by a
Portuguese brig- of- war, on the frivolous pretence of her tend-
ency to break the blockade of Terceira. The Portuguese Admi-
ralty-courts declared her to be no lawful prize ; but she was
not the less sent to Lisbon, where her cargo was ruined, and
her captain and her crew turned adrift. This capture was fol-
lowed, as Mr Mackenzie informs Viscount Santarem, by the
seizure, on the same absurd pretences, ' of five other British
' ships, whose crews, registers, and papers, were in perfect

* order, proving their lawful pursuits and distant destination
' from Terceira, but which were not the less arrested, ill-

* treated, and partly plundered. 'f Then came the seizure of
the St Helena packet, under the command of Lieutenant War-
ren, R. N. ' They were met,' (says Mr Consul-General Har-
ding Read, in his official report of 31st July, 1830, to John
Backhouse, Esq.) ' by the Portuguese frigate Diana, who fired

* at them, and brought them to, treating them with every in-
' dignity, calling them pirates, taking from the officers their

* swords and pistols, and putting them all under arrest, on sus-

* picion that they were bound to Terceira, which Lieutenant

* Warren solemnly declares he had not the smallest intention of

* going to : the sick seamen were sent on board the frigate from

* under the care of Mr Neill, late surgeon of the Primrose, and

* are still detained there under a scanty allowance of provisions.':}:

* Pari. Papers, page 3. Mr Mackenzie's Correspondence,
f Ibid, page 25, -^ Ibid, page 10,

436 Recent History^ Present State^ and Dec.

The officers and crews of these vessels fancied, on their arrival
at Lisbon, that the name of England and the protection of their
consul would release them at once ; but they were quickly un-
deceived ; they had to submit to the glaringly false evasions of
the Portuguese government;* and to see, as Mr Mackenzie in-
forms Count Santarem, ' their vessels dismantled, their cargoes
' (worth half a million) injured, their anchors and cables lost,
' their sails cut in pieces and sold, their cordage damaged, them-

* selves cast ashore, and their papers taken from them.'f These
outrages produced, as usual, divers spirited remonstrances from
Lord Aberdeen, who demanded the immediate restitution of the
ships, a full indemnification for the losses incurred, ' and the

* public dismissal of the commanding-officer of the Diana frigate,

* as a just punishment for his cruel and unmanly treatment of

* the individuals on board the St Helena packet, and the auda-

* city with which he has thought proper to regard officers and

* invalided seamen in his Majesty's service as pirates.' This was
on the 3d August ; and yet, in November, when his Lordship
relieved the country from his services, we shall find, that even
not all these pirated ships were restored ; that no indemnifica-
tion had been made; and that the captain of the Diana walked
about the streets of Lisbon in his uniform, as careless of Lord
Aberdeen's remonstrances as Dom Miguel himself.

And now the reward of this pertinacious oppressor was glit-
tering before his eyes. We had in vain sought, by patient
submission, to mitigate the wrath of ' this destroyer of consti-
' tutional freedom, this breaker of solemn oaths, this faithless
' usurper, this enslaver of his country, this trampler upon public
' law, this violator of private rights, this attempter of the life

* of helpless and defenceless woman.':): For two dishonouring
years our ministers had lent themselves to many covert and
one flagrant act of hostility, which chance or authority enabled
them to practise against those loyal Portuguese who continued
true to their Queen and their charter, and yet was the usurper
unsoothed : for two long years they had submitted to insults and
outrages on the property, the persons, and the commerce of
British subjects, and yet was the oppressor unsatiated. He had
an ulterior object in view; and his cumulative course of insults
and oppressions, confiscations and imprisonments, infractions of
treaties, and seizure of ships, narrowly escaped success. He
had worn out the resistance of England's late Ministers. They

* Parliamentary Papers, A, page 32 and 36. f Ibid, page 9,
\ Page 5, Lord Palmerston's Printed Speech on 1st May, 1829.

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 437

were beaten. This defenceless country had been so roughly
handled by Dom Miguel for not recognising his authority, that,
to save ourselves from the future effects of his wrath, we had
nothing left but to submit — and to call him lawful King and
Lord. This act our late Ministers were about to perform for
us; and, with insults unredressed, our subjects imprisoned,
our plundered merchants unindemnified, and, with the Ninus
and her crew rotting at Lisbon, they seized on the happy con-
ciliatory moment to negotiate the recognition of the offending
usurper. Nor was a crowning characteristic instance of our
high-minded diplomacy wanting on the occasion; for, after ha-
ving commenced, as usual, by insisting upon an amnesty for
those loyal Portuguese Avhose fortunes and lives had been com-
promised by our wavering policy, we were about to accept, for
the sake of the parliamentary effect of a promise, a promise
from Dom Miguel to grant one, upon the most fitting occasion.
This was to have been the faithful price of our recognition.
But, happily, the good genius of England interfered ; for ere this
foul recognition was consummated, the Wellington Adminis-
tration had run its course.

A different line of conduct was now about to be adopted towards
Dom Miguel, whose recognition fell, it is to be hoped, into far
abeyance. Mr Hoppner, the new consul, was instructed by Lord
Palraerston, ' to inculcate upon all British subjects in Portu-

* gal, the necessity of abstaining from all interference in its

* political dissensions, while at the same time he was directed,

* in any instance in which the rights of British subjects might
' be violated, forthwith to make a prompt and energetic demand

* of redress, giving the Portuguese government to understand
' that his Majesty's government would not permit such acts to
' be committed with impunity; and if redress should be denied
' or delayed, to transmit, without loss of time, a statement of

* the facts for the consideration of his Majesty's Government."*
Dom Miguel doubted either the sincerity or the stability of the
new administration ; or, with the reckless blindness of a well
educated tyrant, cared not for consequences. Decrees were,
indeed, issued for the protection of British rights and interests ;
but the dismissal of the captain of the Diana was evaded ; and
every delay thrown in the way of the restoration of the Ninus,
and of the pecuniary indemnification to the British merchants
for the injury sustained by their vessels and cargoes. A ha-
rassing persecution of English rights and privileges had risen

* Parliamentary Papers, A. Mr Hoppner s Correspondence.
VOL. LIV. NQ. CVIII. 2 F

438 Recent History, Present State, and Dec.

to full vigour during the consulship of Mr Mackenzie ; but
this was now, if possible, increased. We have already, we fear,
wearied our readers with details of the insults and oppressions
endured by the English in Portugal ; we will therefore now say
no more, than that the merchants became so alarmed, that in
March they assembled and addressed a memorial to Mr Hopp-
ner,* begging him to forward to England the expression of their
apprehensions for the safety of themselves and their property.

Lord Palmerston did not swerve from his promise of protec-
tion ; and, finding his remonstrances thus disregarded, he, on the
15th April,! demanded the unqualified and public dismissal of
the captain of the Diana, full compensation to the owners of
the illegally detained vessels, the abolition of the double duties
exacted upon our merchandise contrary to treaty, and repara-
tion for the different insults offered to British subjects, together
with the punishment of the offenders, and the public declaration
of the cause of such punishment. These demands were em-
bodied in seven distinct articles, to which a categorical answer,
afiirmative or negative, was required within ten days ; and M.
de Santarem was further informed, that if unmodified satisfac-
tion was not afforded within the given time, the naval com-
mander of his Majesty's ships off the Tagus, had received orders
to make reprisals. M. de Santarem, as usual, endeavoured to
evade ; but the British consul, now strengthened by the consistent
support of his superiors, would I'elax in no one point, and ac-
cordingly M. de Santarem, after much chicanery, gave full
satisfaction on all. J Thus was concluded in a few months
this satisfactory appeal ; and thus were honourably redressed
wrongs, which a two years' stimulative alternation of remon-
strance and concession had increased to a state bordering on
war. The British merchants of Lisbon and Oporto united to
express their gratitude to Mr Hoppner and to Lord Palmerston, §
for the efficacious protection thus afforded to their persons,
rights, and properties. And the reflection of having been the able
instrument of performing these meritorious services for his coun-
trymen, will probably console Mr Hoppner for the animadver-
sions of Lord Londonderry, and the aspersions of that Lisbon
correspondent, who, writing from London, 1| places in the same
book the atrocities of Dom Miguel, and the confinement, after a
most patient trial, of some three or four of the Polignac minis-
try in Havre. Were bad ministers oftener made to feel that
which they too often inflict, humanity might suffer less.

Parliamentary Papers, A, page 32. f Ibid, page 42.

Ibid, page 6L § Ibid. pp. 68 and 71. || Ibid, page 14.

]831. External Relations of Portugal, 439

The French were also compelled to exact the same satisfac-
tion that England had so properly obtained. The arrival of
the French squadron off the Tagizs, caused much excitement at
Lisbon, which, together with the indignation of the Miguelites
at the unexpected firmness of the English cabinet, provoked the
commission of some fresh outrages, against which Mr Hoppncr
most vigorously remonstrated. These fresh attacks attest the
wretched state of police in Portugal, and the mob-supremacy
under which Dora Miguel reigns. We will not quote from Mr
Hoppner, lest he may, however unjustly, be considered as
strongly biassed in his opinions ; but Mr Matthews shall describe
those individuals who, in an important seaport, (St Ubes,) with-
in a few miles of the seat of government, are allowed to spread
terror among the superior classes of the industrious inhabitants ;
and into whose hands the local authorities have abandoned
the government of the town, under the strongest appearances of
superior sanction. * They are, sir,' he says, ' a Thonas de

* Aquiro, the workman of a shoemaker ; Felicio, a barber ; Pedro

* Jozi da Silva, a shoemaker, and some more of the same class ;
' lately in penury and want, but now well protected and pro-

* vided. These are supposed to be instigated by Vasco Manoel

* da Oliveira Banha, lieutenant-colonel of the Royalist Volun-

* teers ;* by Jon Jozi da Farea, a scrivener, and Joaquim Pedro

* Gomez da Oliveira, a clerk in the post-office ; and the whole of

* these appear sanctioned by the Juiz de Fora, the immediate

* officer of the government.' These are the true ministers of the
government; and, while they are permitted to exercise their law-
less authority, it is not surprising that England and France
should be compelled, at a considerable expense, to interfere for
the protection of their injured subjects.

The proceedings of the French were similar to ours ; except
that they were ultimately obliged to resort to force, in conse-
quence, probably, of the unadvised encouragement held forth to
the Portuguese by certain parties in this country. The out-
rages which called for their interference, were, from the limit-
ed intercourse that subsists between the two nations, fewer
in number, though more atrocious and insulting in quality.
The repeated floggings of Mr Bonhomme on a most improbable
charge, and the repetition of the infliction of this punishment by
the special directions of Dom Miguel, on being told that a French
brig-of-war was in the offing with despatches, claiming his liber-
ation, coupled with the declaration, that ' they should have him

* Parliamentary Papers, A 2, page 68.

440 Recent History, Present State^ and Dec.

' if they liked, but with his back well flayed,' * was not likely to
conciliate a sensitive and offended nation. Still less so was the
treatment of Mr Sauvinet, a French gentleman, who, upon the
most frivolous pretence, was, ' at seventy- six years of age, thrust
' into a dungeon, where his food was carried to him in a bowl

* by a galley slave, and thrust before him on the ground, as if he
' were a dog : he was allowed neither knife nor fork to eat it,
' and although, on account of his feeble health, he found it ex-

* ceeding painful to stoop to the ground to reach it, his request

* to be allowed a table was rejected.' f And at length, when the
French force approached, Mr Matthews adds, ' he was, notwith-

* standing his advanced age, brutally beat, and exposed to other

* acts of wanton cruelty.'

Deeds such as these are scarcely fitted for the meridian of Al-
giers ; and yet humane and honourable persons here have been so
far blinded by party zeal as to blame our government for permitting
the French to put an end to them. First their consul and then
their admiral remonstrated ; but, with its usual spii'it, the Portu-
guese government insulted, bullied, evaded, and then had the ef-
frontery to demand the protection of England; when not six weeks
were elapsed since it had compelled that same England to adopt
the same measures which France was now wisely employing !
Our government answered the call for protection, by repeatedly
and earnestly advising concession and a change of conduct.
But Dom Miguel belongs to the school that neither knows how
or when to concede with honour. He therefore waited for in-
evitable compulsion. It came; and, in consequence o(h\sJinn-
ness, he lost many of his men-of-war, which fell lawful prizes
to the French admiral, who was by this obstinacy compelled to
force his passage up to Lisbon. Full satisfaction was then pro-
mised, and again evaded ; when the French, rationally placing
less reliance on Portuguese faith, insisted on more severe terms
than they at first required. Then having secured these, their
fleet quitted the Tagus; and Dom Miguel returned to wreak that
vengeance on his own subjects, which the French and English
governments would no longer permit him with impunity to ex-
tend to theirs. Probably he was buoyed up in this mad opposi-
tion to the French demands, by the state of politics in this coun-
try at the time : he looked to the English elections with the
same eye of deceived expectancy as his anti-reform Tory friends
here. Like them, he trusted in their return to power, and
happily was deceived. But they have shown themselves not

* Pari. Papers, B, p. 6. f Ibid. p. 12.

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 441

insensible to this grateful and flattering remembrance ; and
Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord London-
derry, have not shrunk from appearing before the public as his
advocates.

It is painful and tiresome to recur to the cruelties and oppres-
sions of this usurper. We have already shown that his power
depends on the evil passions of an organized band of 30,000 self-
constituted defenders, calling themselves royalist volunteers.
With these is associated an ominous confederacy of low attor-
neys, dishonest agents, and hungry policemen, whose machina-
tions are supported by the brute force and hardened hearts of
thousands of unpaid soldiers, discharged clerks, and starving
labourers and manufacturers ; all subject to the unholy influence
of an ignorant and sanguinary priesthood, blinded by self-inte-
rest and bigotry. This is a fearful powei-, such as no arm can
wield, and which, beyond doubt, has more real authority than
the usurper himself. Many of its crimes and atrocities are com-
mitted without even his connivance. He is but its nominal
leader; arbitrary and despotic, indeed, to do evil, but in many
respects powerless to do good. He is in a false position, from
whence there is no retreating, unless he descend from his crime-
polluted seat, and hide his degraded head in obscurity and peni-
tence. Were we inclined to give the rein to our imagination,
we would picture Dom Miguel, some thirty years hence, a pale
and attenuated monk in some lone Chartreux convent upon a
mountain brow, — worn with fasts and vigils, and in the still hour
of night, when all slept save the memory of his past evil deeds
and present penitence, pouring out, in the full strain of Catholic
devotion, thanksgivings for the mercy that hurled him from a
throne. But such anticipations are little likely to be realized.
He is bound to the evil party, and they to him. They will stand
or fall together; — they and he keep the rest of Portugal at bay.
The wealthy, the timid, the old, the industrious, the interested, the
time-serving, bow before them and tremble ; and well may they.
For they need only remember some of their many friends and
relations amongst the 80 or 90,000 victims, who, in divers modes
of misery, are bending beneath his and his associates' tyranny.
Indeed, the present state of Portugal exhibits a terrible picture
of a mob rule, exercised in the name of a king, and sanctioned
by the bloodthirsty preaching of a fanatic priesthood. What
are we to think of a government, where the people are publicly
called on by papers issued from the Royal press, ' to combat

* the freemasons,' (and in this is included every supposed op-
ponent,) * as the enemies of God ; to exterminate them, as

* the wolves were exterminated in England, by a general hunt ;

442 Recent History, Present State, and Dec.

* to practise a general shooting of them, and see their balls

* bringing them down, as the Jews in the desert saw clouds

* and clouds of quails falling to satisfy their hunger; to pray

* to God to kill all those who tolerate freemasons ;' * and then,
after reciting the slaughter of the Egyptians and the Assy-
rians by the Archangel Michael, blasphemously to say, ♦ This

* Archangel is not dead — he yet lives — and may God preserve

* him to put an end to all freemasons !'f After reading such
addresses, and after finding them justified by the minister, M.
de Santarem, can we wonder at the barbarous and revolting
acts daily committed ' by a force which is above the control of
any magistrate;' and can any one be so prejudiced, or so deaf
to reason, as to believe in the attachment of a people who are
kept in subjection by such a force, and by such means? Mean-
while, internal trade and industry are fast failing ; and the exter-
nal commerce of the country has decreased fourfold within the
faw years of this usurper's career.

How long such a state of things is to endure, what is to be
the remedy, and how applied, is difficult to say. The abomi-
nable policy that permitted this usurpation, that assisted its
consolidation, and paralysed the efforts of its opponents — that
gave it all it dared to give, its moral support, and would
have added, as a cheap recompense for its outrages, both in-
ternal and external, the hitherto honoured right hand of Eng-
land, in token of recognition, has led Europe into a dilemma
from whence the extrication is neither easy nor safe. The
liberal courts of France and England might, indeed, in one short
month, and probably without the loss of a single life, quietly
dispossess the usurper, and place the young Queen Dona Maria
upon that throne which all the powers of Europe have recogni-
sed as hers. They might thus easily expiate the wrongs they
have done to Portugal ; give her a stable government, and
replant that constitutional charter which her lawful and acknow-
ledged king bestowed on her ; and to the maintenance of which
all her constituted authorities deliberately swore, and for the
restoration of which many thousands are now openly contending
in arms, or sighing in secret. These courts might thus raise up
an useful ally in the cause of constitutional freedom, and bid
peace, industry, and happiness, succeed to misery, anarchy, and
tyranny. These are tempting prospects; but yet, non-interven-
tion is the keystone of the independence of states, and the best
barrier against that worst of pestilences — war. It is true, that

* Pari. Papers, A, p. 3. | Ibid. p. 4.

1831. External Relations ofPortii^al. 443

this golden principle has almost invariably been transgressed,
when the interests of a despotism have been at stake. There
may indeed be cases, both on the side of despotism and on the
side of anarchy, which might justify its infringement. The
state of Portugal at the time of the profligate and tyrannous
usurpation of Dom Miguel, combined with the recent interven-
tion in Spain by the French, and in Italy by the Austrians, was
a case in point. Our practical assistance had been called for;
our troops were already landed for the defence of Portugal and
its state ; and we were in honour, if not in the letter of the law,
parties to the Regency of Dom Miguel and the succession of
Dona Maria. What would the brilliant statesman who sent
those gallant troops to Portugal have said, had he lived to see
his proffered shield of freedom converted into the dark cloak
behind which it was to be stabbed ? Would he, whose glorious
apology is the emancipation of this country from the trammels
of the Holy Alliance, have suffered this ' Portuguese Archangel'
so contemptuously to trample on all those ties, laws, and trea-
ties, which severally bind individuals, governments, and nations?
Would he have allowed himself to be played upon and laughed
at by that Holy Alliance ? No : then, shall we ? The question
is trying, but the cases are different. Then, there were special
and sufficient grounds for interference. Now, alas, time has
confirmed the usurpation ; and France and England could only
interfere on the dangerous and crusading grounds of redress-
ing ancient wrongs and patronising general liberty, at the
expense of first principles.

Thus, then, as far as foreign powers are concerned, unfortu-
nate Portugal can receive no active relief. The evil has been
inflicted and confirmed ; and she must rouse herself for the strug-
gle, and be sufficient of herself to help herself. She will have,
as she deserves, the pity, the good wishes, and the aid, in as far
as the law will permit, of all generous minds. Nothing more,
nothing less, should be given. But, on the other hand, no coun-
tenance whatever, beyond the mere commercial relationship of
consuls, should be afforded to the usurper, by any one state
that has any pretensions to a respect for honour and morality.
Dom Miguel should remain an isolated memento of the world's
abhorrence of tyranny, perjury, and murder. If the Portuguese
suffer an organized and remorseless faction to impose this petty
tyrant upon their necks, they may be pitied or contemned; but
their dread of the royalist volunteers, and their associated priests
and vagabonds, need not extend to us. We would be the last
to advocate any squeamish hesitation in recognising a king de
facto. But Dom Miguel is not a king de facto of the entire Bra-

444 Recerit History^ Present State, and Dec.

jranza dominions. Insurrections frequently take place even in
iPortugal ; and the Western Isles belong de facto to the dejure
Queen of Portugal. His power never has been, and we trust
never will be, consolidated. He has acquired an undue com-
mand by the commission of almost every crime; but there has
ever been an appointed hour for oppression to have an end.
And so will it be in Portugal — aiFair? cannot continue much
longer in their present state. The day of retribution and of
reckoning is at hand. It may come sooner, it may come later,
but come it must ; and, in as far as Portugal is concerned, the
heavier for the delay. Injustice stalks through the land — an
unpaid soldiery feed upon the vitals of industry. Commerce,
trade, manufactures, and agriculture, are decaying in a fright-
fully progressive ratio. The rate of interest is ruinous, for both
public and private credit are at the lowest ebb ; and the ruinous
and temporary expedients of forced loans and confiscations can-
not last for ever. Thus, happily, oppression sows the seeds of
its own destruction, whenever the sufferers have the fortitude to
endure for a while ; and then, when this dark day dawns, — when
the hour of revolt arrives, the brave and good will stand forth ;
the timid and self-interested take heart ; and those evil compa-
nions who have been battening on the miseries of their coun-
try, and who are now basking in the sunshine of the oppressor's
smile, will desert him in his utmost need, and leave him naked
to his enemies. Such an hour is now probably impending
over his head; for Dona Maria still maintains her position
in the Western Isles : around her are rallied the better spirits
of her country. She possesses a considerable and well disci-
plined force, and, above all, a good cause, and there is a just
Providence watching over her. Her father, Dom Pedro, is
actively employed in strengthening her means and resources ;
and although the internal laws of England and France, and the
international law of Europe, render this task difficult, still
ships have been bought and fitted out for warlike operations,
under able officers, and are now conveying hardy troops and
gallant crews to the Western Isles. From thence a powerful
descent may be made upon Portugal by the Queen in person,
and then will the question of Portuguese freedom be tried.
It would be idle to anticipate the issue — our wishes might mis-
guide our judgment; but we cannot believe in that indiffer-
ence to liberty, and blind hugging of tyranny, which we hear
so harshly imputed to the Portuguese. The chilling indiffer-
ence which was shown by our cabinet to the Constitutional
cause, and the active hatred publicly avowed by every influ-
ential court in Europe, whose hostility was nevertheless ex-

1831. External Relations of Portugal. 41.5

cecded by the weM^rc/ zea/ of England, have thwarted many ef-
forts of the Constitutionalists. But affairs are now changed in
England. The Portuguese and the rest of Europe may at length
believe in the sincerity of those conventional phrases in favour of
liberty, which all Englishmen are bound to employ ; but which
the general policy of our government has, by some unaccount-
able fatality, for many a long year, found itself under the sin-
gular necessity of contradicting by its acts. We have seen the
Portuguese, under the constitutional regency of Dona Maria,
repel the irruptions from Spain before the arrival of British
aid ; and we therefore the more confidently expect to hear the
same gallant persons practically contradict those sneers on Por-
tuguese valour, and love of independence, which come with
an ill grace from those who are generally considered to have
been not a little instrumental in crushing it. At all events, be
the result what it may, though our estimation of his subjects
may vary, our opinion of Dom Miguel will remain unchanged •
and the policy to be pursued towards him should be unalterable
as his crimes. It will be time enough, when all struggles shall
have ceased, should he, by any inscrutable provision of Pro-
vidence, still come forth successfully from the trial, to consi-
der what measures may be adopted to;tvards him. But for the
present, and for many a day after, ' all is hushed in grim re-
' pose ;' it would be treason to the cause of honour and liberty,
as well as of morality and justice, to talk of I'ecognising ' the
' usurper, who has held up his perjured and bloody hands so
' contemptuously in the face of the civilized world.'

Spain, fresh from the slaughter of her additional victims, will
naturally feel a lively interest in these proceedings ; but we
have as little fear of her open aggression, as we have doubt of
the tendency and activity of her intrigues. Indeed, the active
interference of Spain would cause the deliverance of Portugal,
for it would be a glad signal for the aid of England and of
France.

The interest of England evidently leans to the restoration of
Dona Maria, as the only honourable means of re- opening that
friendly and mutually beneficial intercourse that has subsisted
between the two countries for centuries. It is a mere sophism
(not to mention the baseness of the motive, supposing it true)
that urges the value of this intercourse as a reason for recog-
nising the usurper. Interests and institutions are so widely
changed in Europe, that the liberal Portugal, which might be
now a most serviceable ally to this country, would, under Dom
Miguel, and with his institutions, be a heavy clog upon our po-
licy. His usurpation is the bar that separates the long descend-

446 Recent History, Present State, and Dec,

ed friendship of the two countries. There is a wide distinction
to be made between Portugal and her tyrant. Had our past
intercourse been less free with the one, were our desires for its
intimate renewal less sincere, we might not recoil with such
repugnance from the thoughts of the permanence of the autho-
rity of the other. But by as much as England is unwilling to
contemplate a mere formal distant intercourse with her ancient
ally, by so much does she loath the idea of recognising her disho-
noured usurper. Her hostility to Dom Miguel is the test of
her regard for Portugal.

But in truth the commercial value of Portugal to this country
lives upon tradition. When India was not ours — when a iew
hardy and enterprising colonists formed the acorn from whence
the wide-spreading oak of the United States has grown ; when
Canada was French, and poor and thinly inhabited ; and our
West Indian trade comparatively trifling — then Portugal was
flourishing; and in addition to her possessions in India and
Africa and ' the Isles,' afibrded the only channel through which
British commerce could find its way to the, Brazils, and other
rich portions of South America. In those days the commerce
of Portugal was indeed most important to this country ; but
now, and particularly at the present moment, it is but as the sandy
bed of some broad river, whose springs have been dried up, and
whose scanty waters creep unseen into the vast ocean of British
wealth. That country, which in 1700 engaged one-seventh of
the commerce of England, now participates in less than one-
hundredth part. But these at best are mercenary arguments ;
and Portugal possesses higher claims to the attention of this
country than her mere commercial ability. She has the sa-
cred tie of ancient friendship, and long conferred mutual
benefits. From her position, too, she is the weight by which
we may adjust the balance of French and Spanish politics;
and her value as an ally, should England unfortunately be
again engaged in a naval war, will be understood by a single
glance at a map of the world. But, we repeat, the force of
these considerations depends on the government which shall
exist in Portugal ; — upon that which now exists no reliance
whatever can, or could ever be placed, until England found her-
self once more leagued with the Tory faction of Europe. We
pray that such a day may be far distant. We have no wish to
see this highly artificial, because highly civilized country, let
loose the four winds of discord on the continent, and preach
with a suicidal enthusiasm, license and anarchy, under the mask
of liberty. We heartily deprecate any such attempts ; and there-
fore, however earnestly we may look for the liberation of Por-

1831. External Meiations of Portugal, 147

tugal, we Lave no desire to witness, much less to counsel,
any such system of Piopagandism, on the part of this coun-
try. All we call for is fair play and good wishes ; and we
indulge the pleasing hope, that ere another year revolve, right
will have conquered fraud, and the honoured crown of the House
of Braganza be restored to the lawful brow : then may unhappy
and now decaying Portugal find an abiding refuge from her
many years of revolution and misery. She may re-enter the
pale of European intercourse, and, with a constitution adapted
to her wants and her intelligence, find peace and reviving pros-
perity. And then, also, those who accuse us of deserting the
ancient allies of this country, may, with shame or with joy,
according as party spirit or patriotism predominates in their
minds, confess that his Majesty's present Ministers have been
the best friends both of Portugal and of England.

We have now gone through the long history of the anarchy
which has prevailed in Portugal for these last ten years. This
was necessary for a right comprehension of the subject ; and for
an exposition of that mistaken policy, which, with some few
deviations, has been every where pursued by this country. Proud
and boastful of the enjoyment of a rational liberty, superior to
that of the rest of Europe, England has, nevertheless, with a
perverse and contradictory spirit, chosen to ally herself with the
despotic, instead of the liberal spirit of the age : (we use neither
of the words with an evil interpretation.) She has acted as if,
with an accusing conscience, she believed there was something
dangerous in liberty, something safe in tyranny, — that the one
had, after great exertions, only a claim for toleration, while the
other had a constant right to be defended, — and that she must
assist (if she ever did assist) liberty by stealth, and in the dark,
as though she were committing an offence that required expla-
nation in the eyes of Europe. And in truth so it did, so long
as we chose to ally ourselves with those who were its declared
enemies. The British Ministers who patronised this policy, had
two contending feelings to reconcile, — the love of freedom, inhe-
rent in the breast of this country, — its hatred, as natural to the
understandings of their imperial allies ; they were therefore
compelled to follow the crab-like diagonal policy, of which we
have exposed a fair sample in the case of Portugal. The same
oblique line may be traced in their other foreign relations. It
is as impossible that it should have been otherwise, so long
as they pursued this contradictory policy, as it is in mechanics
that a diagonal motion should not be the result of two diverse
forces.

4iiS Recent History, Present State, and Dec.

But a change has now taken place; and this country is no
longer ashamed to declare, that while she respects all thrones,
she prefers the right hand of freedom to the right or left hand, —
call it which you will, — of despotism. With the one she may have,
with the other she never can have, a lasting unity of interests.
England and France are at the head of the one ; the shattered
fragments of the Holy Alliance form the bond of the other party
in Europe. There are many persons in this country, who, from
prejudice, or from party feelings, or from want of reflection,
entertain those dishonouring opinions concerning liberty which
influenced the whole course of our late policy; and we are
therefore not surprised at the evil eye with which they regard
the growth and the striking of the roots of freedom in France.
We can pardon them this ; but we cannot so lightly pass over
the sanguinary and unchristian spirit which seeks to place these
two neighbours, and now companions, — these mighty leaders of
the civilisation of the European world, in everlasting array
against each other. Divide and rule, is an old adage; and
we are prepared to expect the wily perseverance with which
our late Holy Alliance associates will seek to embroil the two
countries. Their hatred of liberty is natural, for it saps the
very foundations of their absolute power. They abominate it
in England, but the evil here is irremediable; and they have
hitherto borne with it on the tacit convention — upon, in as
far as we are concerned, the cowardly understanding — that
we shall abstain from all encouragement of its growth abroad ;
that we shall leave it to be reaped and garnered by the tender
husbandry of their sanatory cordons and armies. Such Laybach
provisions were for a while sufficient. But the Polignac mini-
stry too eagerly commenced their harvest at home ; and the rich
corn they would have cut down escaped from their hands, and
has produced seed an hundred-fold. The Metternich school are
in consequence alarmed, and with reason. They were about to
renew against France the days of Pilnitz, and to make a vigo-
rous effort to crush the hydra in its infancy, when gallant, un-
happy, devoted Poland, — that dismembered country which owes
nothing to Europe but execrations, arose, as of old, in the hour
of danger, and with her own ruin stayed the northern torrent.
We owe much of our present peace to her. She gave time to
France to rally her convulsed forces, and taught the enemies of
liberty to reconsider their position. Now they dare not, howr
ever much they may desire, to undertake a general movement
against their offending neighbour; — the internal state of their own
dominions will not permit so dangerous an experiment. England,
too, has deserted them. They cast many a longing lingering look

1S3I. External Relations of Portugal. 44,9

back to the days of her high Toryism ; and their grey-headed
elders evoke in vain the days when, with loans without number,
she rushed into coalitions without thought. Those spendthrift
days are past, — the Holy Alliance knows it, to its grief; but
its members are not the less active in their exertions against the
consolidation of liberty in France. Once firmly rooted there,
they foresee a certain spreading of its branches; and there-
fore we shall see them, with the tenacity of persons contend-
ing for all they hold dear, put in practice every possible in-
trigue by which they may excite troubles in France ; whether
it be by the support of Carlists, or Bonapartists, or Republi-
cans. Nor will they rest satisfied with such attempts alone.
We shall find them stirring up difficult and invidious questions
in Belgium, in Holland, in Greece, in Portugal, — or wherever
else they fancy some happy moot point may bring England and
France in collision. That such a policy may be expected from
many courts of Europe, and must be most carefully and tempe-
rately guarded against, it would be difficult to deny. But it is
with shame and sorrow unfeigned, we add, that this wariness
must be exercised not only against foreign courts, but against
certain domestic politicians, who have hitherto allowed few op-
portunities of playing into the hands of the Holy Alliance to
escape them.

Bat let his Majesty's present Ministers steadily pursue their
straight-forward line of policy; — let them, in honesty and good
faith, give the right hand of fellowship to that great nation, whose
valour, whose intelligence, whose civilisation, whose freedom, and
whose proximity, render her the most fit ally of this great coun-
try. Let them, in the conduct of public affairs, avoid that which
all generous minds abhor in private life, the making friends and
companions of the unworthy. In this manly spirit, let them cul-
tivate the friendship and familiar alliance of France ; let them
rejoice over the restoration of liberty in Portugal ; and while
they place themselves in line with those countries whose insti-
tutions most accord with their own, let them at the same time
honourably maintain their relations with all states, and discoun-
tenance every attempt at a proselyting spirit of liberalization.
And then, when the friends of the Holy Alliance taunt them with
truckling to France, they will tell them that England is too
proud to be afraid to make any country, however powerful, her
friend.

450 Soutliey's Edition of the Pilgrim^ s Progress. Dec.

Art. VII. — The Pilgrim^ s Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan.
By Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D. Poet-Laureate. Illus-
trated with Engravings, 8vo. London: 1830.

^His is an eminently beautiful and splendid edition of a book
which well deserves^ all that the printer and the engraver
can do for it. The Life of Bunyan is, of course, not a perform-
ance which can add much to the literary reputation of such a
writer as Mr Southey. But it is written in excellent English,
and, for the most part, in an excellent spirit. Mr Southey pro-
pounds, we need not say, many opinions from which we alto-
gether dissent; and his attempts to excuse the odious persecu-
tion to which Bunyan was subjected, have sometimes moved our
indignation. But we will avoid this topic. We are at present
much more inclined to joiii in paying homage to the genius of a
great man, than to engage in a controversy concerning church-
government and toleration.

We must not pass without notice the engravings with which
this beautiful volume is decorated. Some of Mr Heath's wood-
cuts are admirably designed and executed. Mr Martin's illus-
trations do not please us quite so well. His Valley of the Shadow
of Death is not that Valley of the Shadow of Death which
Bunyan imagined. At all events, it is not that dark and hor-
rible glen which has from childhood been in our mind's eye.
The valley is a cavern : the quagmire is a lake : the straight path
runs zigzag : and Christian appears like a speck in the darkness
of the immense vault. We miss, too, those hideous forms which
make so striking a part of the description of Bunyan, and which
Salvator Rosa would have loved to draw. It is with unfeigned
diffidence that we pronounce judgment on any question relating
to the art of painting. But it appears to us that Mr Martin
has not of late been fortunate in his choice of subjects. He
should never have attempted to illustrate the Paradise Lost.
There can be no two manners more directly opposed to each
other, than the manner of his painting and the manner of Mil-
ton's poetry. Those things which are mere accessories in the
descriptions, become the principal objects in the pictures ; and
those figures which are most prominent in the descriptions can
be detected in the pictures only by a very close scrutiny. Mr
Martin has succeeded perfectly in representing the pillars and
candelabras of Pandemonium. But he has forgotten that Mil-
ton's Pandemonium is merely the background to Satan, In

1831. South ey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, 451

the picture, the Archangel is scarcely visible amidst the endless
colonnades of his infernal palace. Milton's Paradise, again, is
merely the background to his Adam and Eve. But in Mr Mar-
tin's picture the landscape is every thing. Adam, Eve, and
Raphael, attract much less notice than the lake and the moun-
tains, the gigantic flowers, and the giraffes which feed upon them.
We have read, we forget where, that James the Second sat to
Verelst, the great flower painter. When the performance was
finished, his Majesty appeared in the midst of sunflowers and
tulips, which completely drew away all attention from the cen-
tral figure. Ail who looked at the portrait took it for a flower-
piece. Mr Martin, we think, introduces his immeasurable spaces,
his innumerable multitudes, his gorgeous prodigies of architec-
ture and landscape, almost as unseasonably as Verelst intro-
duced his flower-pots and nosegays. If Mr Martin were to paint
Lear in the storm, the blazing sky, the sheets of rain, the swol-
len torrents, and the tossing forest, would draw away all atten-
tion from the agonies of the insulted king and father. If he
were to paint the death of Lear, the old man, asking the by-
standers to undo his button, would be thrown into the shade by
a vast blaze of pavilions, standards, armour, and heralds' coats.
He would illustrate the Orlando Furioso well, — the Orlando In-
namorato still better, — the Arabian Nights best of all. Fairy
palaces and gardens, porticoes of agate, and groves flowering with
emeralds and rubies, — inhabited by people for whom nobody
cares, — these are his proper domain. He would succeed admi-
rably in the enchanted ground of Alcina, or the mansion of Alad-
din. But he should avoid Milton and Bunyan.

The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Pi'ogress is,
that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong hu-
man interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The alle-
gory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears.
There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of
still higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is,
perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress. But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of
Mirza, or the Vision of Theodore, the genealogy of Wit, or the
contest between Rest and Labour, is exactly similar to the plea-
sure which we derive from one of Cowley's Odes, or from a
Canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to
the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part what-
ever. Nay, even Spencer himself, though assuredly one of
the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the at-
tempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he la-
vished the riches of his mind ou the House of Pride, and th«

45;S Soutliey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress. Dec.

House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of
tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We be-
come sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for
the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read
the first Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first Book,
and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem.
Very ^e,yT and very weary are those who are in at the death of
the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have
been destroyed in Ireland, bad been preserved, we doubt whe-
ther any heart less stout than that of a commentator would
have held out to the end.

It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful
book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics,
is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor
Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as
he said, to read books through, made an exception in favour of
the Pilgrim's Progress. That work, he said, was one of the
two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no
common merit that the illiterate sectary extracted praise like
this from the most pedantic of critics, and the most bigoted of
Tories. In the wildest parts of Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress
is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery the Pilgrim's
Progress is a greater favourite than Jack the Giant-Killer.
Every reader knows the straight and narrow path as well as he
knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a
hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, — that
things which are not should be as though they were, — that the
imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollec-
tions of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought.
There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn-stile,
with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket gate,
and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of
Destruction, — the long line of road, as straight as a rule can
make it, — the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows, — the
prisoner in the iron cage, — the palace, at the doors of which
armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked
persons clothed all in gold, — the cross and the sepulchre, — the
steep hill and the pleasant arbour, — the stately Yront of the
House Beautiful by the wayside, — the low green valley of
Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks, — all are
as well known to us as the sights of our own street. Then we
come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across
the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian,
and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how
bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance,

1831. Southey's Edition of the Pilgrhifs Progress. 453

the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the preci-
pices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather
overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rush-
ing- of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness.
The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth
of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome
smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence
he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled
bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side.
At the end of the long dark valley, he passes the dens in which
the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of those whom
they had slain.

Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till
at length the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller ;
and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of
Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops
and the puppet-shows. There are Italian Row, and French
Row, and Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their crowds of
buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the
earth.

Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and
through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant
river which is bordered on both sides by fruit-trees. On the
left side, branches off the path leading to that horrible castle, the
court-yard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgrims ; and
right onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the Delectable
Mountains.

From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the
fogs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there
a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arboui'. And be-
yond is the land of Beulah, where the flowers, the grapes, and
the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines night
and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and
streets of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river
over which there is no bridge.

All the stages of the journey, — all the forms which cross or
overtake the pilgrims, — giants and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones,
and shining ones, — the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble,
with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with
the money, — the black man in the bright vesture, — Mr Worldly-
Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood, — Mr Talkative, and Mrs
Timorous, — all are actually existing beings to us. We follow
the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest
not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Sibe-
ria to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London,

VOL nv. NO, cviii. S G

454 Soutliey's Edition of the Pilgrim^ s Progress. Dec.

Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the ahstract
the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated
authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othel-
lo, but jealousy ; not an lago, but perfidy ; not a Brutus, but pa-
triotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imagi-
native, that personifications, when he dealt with them, became
men. A dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more
dramatic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in
most plays. In this respect, the genius of Bunyan bore a great
resemblance to that of a man who had very little else in common
with him, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The strong imagination of-
Shelley made him an idolater in his own despite. Out of the
most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, metaphysical system,
he made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and
life-like forms. He turned atheism itself into a mythology, rich
with visions as glorious as the gods that live in the marble of
Phidias, or the virgin saints that smile on us from the canvass
of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, the Principle of Good, the
Principle of Evil, when he treated of them, ceased to be ab-
stractions. They took shape and colour. They were no longer
mere words ; but ' intelligible forms ;' ' fair humanities ;' objects
of love, of adoration, or of fear. As there can be no stronger
sign of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty than that tendency
which was so common among the writers of the French school
to turn images into abstractions, — Venus, for example, into
Love, Minerva into Wisdom, Mars into War, and Bacchus into
Festivity, — so there can be no stronger sign of a mind truly
poetical than a disposition to reverse this abstracting process, and
to make individuals out of generalities. Some of the metaphysi-
cal and ethical theories of Shelley were certainly most absurd
and pernicious. But we doubt whether any modern poet has pos-
sessed in an equal degree the highest qualities of the great ancient
masters. The words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold
and affected when applied to other modern writers, have a per-
fect propriety when applied to him. He was not an author, but
a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art, but an inspi-
ration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not im-
probably have given to the world some great work of the very
highest rank in design and execution. But, alas !

Tov "Muaccig (pl'Kov av^fa^ rov 6u lSiu/x(paia-iV aTrsx^yi*

But we must return to Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress un-
doubtedly is not a perfect allegory. The types are often incon-
sistent with each other ; and sometimes the allegorical disguise
is altogether thrown off. The river, for example, is emblematic

1831. Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress* 455

of death ; and we are told that every human being must pass
through the river. But Faithful does not pass through it. He
is martyred, not in shadow, but in reality, at Vanity Fair.
Hopeful talks to Christian about Esau's birthright, and about
his own convictions of sin, as Bunyan might have talked with
one of his own congregation. The damsels at the House Beautiful
catechise Christiana's boys, as any good ladies might catechise
any boys at a Sunday School. But we do not believe, that any
man, whatever might be his genius, and whatever his good luck,
could long continue a figurative history without falling into many
inconsistencies. We are sure that inconsistencies, scarcely less
gross than the worst into which Bunyan has fallen, may be found
in the shortest and most elaborate allegories of the Spectator and
the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and the History of John Bull
swarm with similar errors, — if the name of error can be properly
applied to that which is unavoidable. It is not easy to make a
simile go on all-fours. But we believe that no human ingenuity
could produce such a centipede as a long allegory, in which the
correspondence between the outward sign and the thing signified,
should be exactly preserved. Certainly no writer, ancient or
modern, has yet achieved the adventure. The best thing, on the
whole, that an allegorist can do, is to present to his readers a
succession of analogies, each of which may separately be striking
and happy, without looking very nicely to see whether they har-
monize with each other. This Bunyan has done ; and, though
a minute scrutiny may detect inconsistencies in every page of
his Tale, the general effect which the tale produces on all per-
sons, learned and unlearned, proves that he has done well. The
passages which it is most difficult to defend, are those in which
he altogether drops the allegory, and puts into the mouth of his
pilgrims religious ejaculations and disquisitions, better suited to
his own pulpit at Bedford or Reading, than to the Enchanted
Ground or the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these passages,
though we will not undertake to defend them against the objec-
tions of critics, we feel that we could ill spare. We feel that the
story owes much of its charm to these occasional glimpses of so-
lemn and affecting subjects, which will not be hidden, which
force themselves through the veil, and appear before us in their
native aspect. The effect is not unlike that which is said to have
been produced on the ancient stage, when the eyes of the actor
were seen flaming through his mask, and giving life and expres-
sion to what would else have been an inanimate and uninterest-
ing disguise.

It is very amusing and very instructive to compare the Pil-
grim's Progress with the Grace Abounding. The latter work is

456 Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim'' s Progress. Dec.

indeed one of the most remarkable pieces of autobiography in the
world. It is a full and open confession of the fancies which pass-
ed through the mind of an illiterate man, whose affections were
warm, whose nerves were irritable, whose imagination was un-
governable, and who was under the influence of the strongest re-
ligious excitement. In whatever age Bunyan had lived, the his-
tory of his feelings would, in all pi-obability, have been very cu-
rious. But the time in which his lot was cast, was the time of a
great stirring of the human mind. A tremendous burst of pub-
lic feeling, produced by the tyranny of the hierarchy, menaced
the old ecclesiastical institutions with destruction. To the
gloomy regularity of one intolerant Church had succeeded the
license of innumerable sects, drunk with the sweet and heady
must of their new liberty. Fanaticism, engendered by persecu-
tion, and destined to engender fresh persecution in turn, spread
rapidly through society. Even the strongest and most command-
ing minds were not proof against this strange taint. Any time
might have produced George Fox and James Naylor. But to
one time alone belong the frantic delusions of such a statesman
as Vane, and the hysterical tears of such a soldier as Cromwell.
The history of Bunyan is the history of a most excitable mind
in an age of excitement. By most of his biographers he has been
treated with gross injustice. They have understood in a popu-
lar sense all those strong terms of self-condemnation which he
employed in a theological sense. They have, therefore, repre-
sented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by means almost
miraculous, — or, to use their favourite metaphor, ' as a brand
' plucked from the burning.' Mr Ivimey calls him the depraved
Bunyan, and the wicked tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr Ivimey
ought to have been too familiar with the bitter accusations which
the most pious people are in the habit of bringing against them-
selves, to understand literally all the strong expressions which
are to be found in the Grace Abounding. It is quite clear, as
Mr Southey most justly remarks, that Bunyan never was a vi-
cious man. He married very early ; and he solemnly declares
that he was strictly faithful to his wife. He does not appear to
have been a drunkard. He owns, indeed, that, when a boy, ho
never spoke without an oath. But a single admonition cured
him of this bad habit for life; and the cure must have been
wrought early; for at eighteen he was in the army of the Par-
liament ; and if he had carried the vice of profaneness into that
service, he would doubtless have received something more than
an admonition from Sergeant Bind-their-kings-in-chains, or
Captain Hew-Agag-iu-pieces-before- the- Lord. Bell-ringing, and
playing at hockey on Sundays, seem to have been the worst vices

1831. Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim* s Progress. 457

of this depraved tinker. They would have passed for virtues with
Archbishop Laud. It is quite clear that, from a very early age,
Bunyan was a man of a strict life, and of a tender conscience.
' He had been,' says Mr Southey, * a blackguard.' Even this we
think too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we admit, so fine
a gentleman as Lord Digby ; but he was a blackguard no other-
wise than as every tinker that ever lived has been a blackguard.
Indeed Mr Southey acknowledges this : ' Such he might have
' been expected to be by his birth, breeding, and vocation.

* Scarcely indeed, by possibility, could he have been otherwise.'
A man, whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below
those of his class, deserves to be called a blackguard. But it is
surely unfair to apply so strong a word of reproach to one who
is only what the great mass of every community must inevita-
bly be.

Those horrible internal conflicts which Bunyan has described
with so much power of language prove, not that he was a worse
man than his neighbours, but that his mind was constantly oc-
cupied by religious considerations — that his fervour exceeded his
knowledge — and that his imagination exercised despotic power
over his body and mind. He heard voices from heaven : he saw
strange visions of distant hills, pleasant and sunny as his own
Delectable Mountains : from those seats he was shut out, and
placed in a dark and horrible wilderness, where he wandered
through ice and snow, striving to make his way into the
happy region of light. At one time he was seized with an incli-
nation to work miracles. At another time he thought himself
actually possessed by the devil. He could distinguish the blas-
phemous whispers. He felt his infernal enemy pulling at his
clothes behind him. He spurned with his feet, and struck with
his hands at the destroyer. Sometimes he was tempted to sell
his part in the salvation of mankind. Sometimes a violent im-
pulse urged him to start up from his food, to fall on his knees,
and to break forth into prayer. At length he fancied that he had
committed the unpardonable sin. His agony convulsed his ro--
bust frame. He was, he says, as if his breastbone would split ;
and this he took for a sign that he was destined to burst asun-
der like Judas. The agitation of his nerves made all his move-
ments tremulous ; and this trembling, he supposed, was a visi-
ble mark of his reprobation, like that whicli had been set on
Cain. At one time, indeed, an encouraging voice seemed to rush
in at the window, like the noise of wind, but very pleasant, and
commanded, as he says, a great calm in his soul. At another
time, a word of comfort * was spoke loud unto him ; — it showed

* a great word ; — it seemed to be writ in great letters.' But

458 Soutliey'g Edition of the Pilgrim^ s Progress. Dec»

tliese intervals of ease were sliort. His state, during two years
and a half, was generally the most horrible that the human mind
can imagine. * I walked,' says he, with his own peculiar elo-
quence, ' to a neighbouring town ; and sat down upon a settle

* in the street, and fell into a very deep pause about the most

* fearful state my sin had brought me to ; and, after long musing,

* I lifted up my head ; but meth ought I saw as if the sun that

* shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light ; and as if

* the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did band

* themselves against me. Methought that they all combined to-

* gether to banish me out of the world ! I was abhorred of them,

* and unfit to dwell among them, because I had sinned against

* the Saviour. Oh, how happy now was every creature over I !

* for they stood fast, and kept their station. But I was gone and

* lost.' Scarcely any madhouse could produce an instance of de-
lusion so strong, or of misery so acute.

It was through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, overhung
by darkness, peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy
and lamentation, and passing amidst quagmires, snares, and
pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, that Bunyan journeyed
to that bright and fruitful land of Beulah, in which he so-
journed during the latter days of his pilgrimage. The only trace
which his cruel sufferings and temptations seem to have left be-
hind them, was an affectionate compassion for those who were
still in the state in which he had once been. Religion has
scarcely ever worn a form so calm and soothing as in his alle-
gory. The feeling which predominates through the whole book
is a feeling of tenderness for weak, timid, and harassed minds.
The character of Mr Fearing, of Mr Feeble-Mind, of Mr De-
spondency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid; the account of
poor Littlefaith, who was robbed by the three thieves of his
spending money ; the description of Christian's terror in the
dungeons of Giant Despair, and in his passage through the river,
all clearly show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his
own mind had become clear and cheerful, for persons afflicted
with religious melancholy.

Mr Southey, who has no love for the Calvinists, admits that,
if Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bun-
yan's works, it would never have become a term of reproach.
In fact, those works of Bunyan with which we are acquainted,
are by no means more Calvinistic than the homilies of the
Church of England. The moderation of his opinions on the
subject of predestination, gave offence to some zealous persons.
We have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of which is named
Hephzibah, written by some raving supralapsarian preacher,

1831. Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim\<} Progress, 45^

who was dissatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's
Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect rightly, the In-
terpreter is called the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful is
Castle Strength. Mr Southey tells us, that the Catholics had
also their Pilgrim's Progress, without a Giant Pope, in which
the Interpreter is the Director, and the House Beautiful Grace's
Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the power of Bunyan's
genius, that two religious parties, both of which regarded his
opinions as heterodox, should have had recourse to him for as-
sistance.

There are, we think, some characters and scenes in the Pil-
grim's Progress, which can be fully comprehended and enjoyed
only by persons familiar with the history of the times through
which Bunyan lived. The character of Mr Greatheart, the
guide, is an example. His fighting is, of course, allegorical ;
but the allegory is not strictly preserved. He delivers a sermon
on imputed righteousness to his companions ; and, soon after, he
gives battle to Giant Grim, who had taken upon him to back
the lions. He expounds the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to the
household and guests of Gaius ; and then sallies out to attack
Slaygood, who was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his den.
These are inconsistencies ; but they are inconsistencies which
add, we think, to the interest of the narrative. We have not
the least doubt that Bunyan had in view some stout old Great-
heart of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed with his men before
he drilled them ; who knew the spiritual state of every dragoon
in his troop ; and who, with the praises of God in his mouth, and
a two-edged sword in his hand, had turned to flight, on many
fields of battle, the swearing drunken bravoes of Rupert and
Lunsford.

Every age produces such men as By-ends. But the middle
of the seventeenth century was eminently prolific of such men.
Mr Southey thinks that the satire was aimed at some particular
individual ; and this seems by no means improbable. At all
events, Bunyan must have known many of those hypocrites
who followed religion only when religion walked in silver slip-
pers, when the sun shone, and when the people applauded. In-
deed, he might have easily found all the kindred of By-ends
among the public men of his time. He might have found among
the peers, my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, and my
Lord Fair-speech ; — in the House of Commons, Mr Smooth-man,
Mr Anything, and Mr Facing-both-ways ; nor would ' the par-
son of the parish, Mr Two-tongues,' have been wanting. The
town of Bedford probably contained more than one politician,
who, after contriving to raise an estate by seeking the Lord du-

460 Soutliey's Edition of the Pilgrim^ s Progress. Dec,

ring the reign of the saints, contrived to keep what he had got
by persecuting the saints during the reign of the strumpets —
and more than one priest who, during repeated changes in the
discipline and doctrines of the church, had remained constant
to nothing but his benefice.

One of the most remarkable passages in the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress, is that in which the proceedings against Faithful are de-
scribed. It is impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to sa-
tirize the mode in which state trials were conducted under
Charles the Second. The license given to the witnesses for the
prosecution, the shameless partiality and ferocious insolence of
the judge, the precipitancy and the blind rancour of the jury,
remind us of those odious mummeries which, from the Restora-
tion to the Revolution, were merely forms preliminary to hang-
ing, drawing, and quartering; Lord Hategood performs the
office of counsel for the prisoners as well as Scroggs himself
could have performed it.

" Judge. Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard
what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee ?

" Faithful. May I speak a few words in my own defence ?

" Judge. Sirrah, sirrah ! thou deservest to five no longer, but to
be slain immediately upon the place ; yet, that all men may see our
gentleness to thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say."

No person who knows the state trials can be at a loss for pa-
rallel cases. Indeed, Avrite what Banyan would, the baseness
and cruelty of the lawyers of those times ' sinned up to it still,'
and even went beyond it. The imaginary trial of Faithful be-
fore a jury composed of personified vices, was just and merciful,
when compared with the real trial of Lady Alice Lisle before
that tribunal where all the vices sat in the person of Jeffries.

The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invalu-
able as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide
command over the English language. The vocabulary is the
vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression,
if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would
puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages
which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables.
Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For
magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle
disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the
divine, this homely dialect — the dialect of plain working men —
was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on
which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted
English language — no book which shows so well how rich that

1831. Sonthey^s Edition of the Pilgrhrii's Progress. 461

language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been
improved by all that it has borrowed.

Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name
John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. To our
refined forefathers, we suppose. Lord Roscommon's Essay on
Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay
on Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely superior to the
allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times; and
we are not afraid to say, that, though there were many clever
men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century,
there were only two great creative minds. One of those minds
produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress.

Art. VIII. — The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Law-
rence, Kt., LL.D., F.R.S., President of the Royal Academy.
By D. E. Williams, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 183].

TJl^E cannot recollect ever having witnessed a more striking
^ ^ or interesting exhibition, than the collection of the
principal works of the late President, in the British Insti-
tution, in 1830. It was at once the noblest and the most ap-
propriate monument that could have been reared to his fame ;
for he had himself furnished the imperishable materials of which
it was composed ; and the genius of the painter might almost be
supposed to linger with complacency about the spot thus illus-
trated by the varied and brilliant triumphs of his pencil. It had
all the interest of an historical collection, and such, indeed, it
was. ' This is true history,' said Fuseli, speaking of that most
impressive portrait, by Titian, of Paul III. and his nephews,
in which the characters of the trio seem written on the can-
vass as legibly as in words. We feel the same sensation, gene-
rally, in contemplating the popes and cardinals of Raphael,
or the doges, senators, and feudal nobles of Titian, Giorgione,
and Tintoretto. Their stern, commanding, astute, or savage
countenances, furrowed by passion, by mental or bodily toil,
or wrinkled by habitual duplicity and cunning ; their features,
often so beautiful, but on which the evil spirit within has so vi-
sibly stamped its traces ; their forms so majestic, and yet so na-
tural ; each ' in his habit as he lived,' and surrounded with the
pomp and circumstance of his station — transport us back into
the troubled times of Italian history — to Rome, with her con-
claves and inquisitorial intrigues, — to Venice, with her sensual
dissipation^ and mysterious and cold-hearted policy, — and to the
dark and blood-stained annals of the Medici and Visconti, with

463 «S'?> Thomas LoAvrence, Dec,

a more vivid feeling of reality than could be effected by histori-
cal painting, in the ordinary sense of the term.

Such also was the impression produced by the above collec-
tion. In it, the history of the nineteenth century was portrayed
in the only way in which it can as yet admit of being transferred
to canvass. When the dust of a few centuries has descended on
the fashions and habiliments of the present age, and coats and
pantaloons have been admitted into the legitimate wardrobe of
romance — when Waterloo is seen almost in the same misty
distance as Cressy and Agincourt — then, perhaps, the eventful
scenes of this remarkable time, may, with some chance of suc-
cess, be made the subjects of historical painting.

To catch not the mere outward mask of the countenance, but
to stamp on it the reflexion of the mind within — to make the
soul speak audibly, as it were, through the combination of
lines and colours — demands a tact and delicacy of observation,
and a power of expression scarcely less than is required for
historical composition itself. Portrait, in fact, when executed
on right principles, runs into history, as history, to obtain variety,
disdains not to avail herself of the assistance of portrait. No
one, we are persuaded, can be a great portrait-painter without
that imagination and that grasp of mind which could have led to
excellence in the department of history. Wherein, in fact, does
a group of portraits, such as Titian's picture of Aretine, and his
master-at-arms, or Paul and his nephews ; or Lawrence's beau-
tiful groups of the Baring family, the children of Mr Calraady,
and others, differ from those which are usually styled historical
pictures, save in greater calmness of action, and the expression
of habitual feelings, rather than of more temporary and passion-
ate impressions ? Is there less of a romantic and elevated beauty
in his exquisite picture of young Lambton — in the gentle and
visionary expression of which, seems to be written that sentence
of an early fate — ' Whom the gods love, die young,' — than in the
St Cecilia of Domenichino, or the Madonnas of Guido ? The
calm philosophy, and stoic evenness of soul which characterises
his Cato, the impetuous spirit of his Coriolanus, and the melan-
choly and princely beauty of his Hamlet in the churchyard ; —
are these less imaginative or effective, because the outward form
and features of John Kemble have furnished the model which
his imagination has thus elevated and sublimed ?

If the loftiest efforts of the art lie within the province of a
great portrait- painter, and may be attained by him almost with-
out diverging from his own particular path, the position in
which be is otherwise placed would seem to be one of the most
enviable. We speak at present of one, like Lawrence, whose

1831. Sir Thomas Lmvrence, 46S

pre-eminent talent, in his own department, has raised him above
competition, and, if it could not disarm the envy of others, has at
least extruded from his own mind those feelings of rivalry and
jealousy, which too often disturb the artist who sees, and at the
same time cannot bear, a brother near the throne. In the first
place, such a one alone, in the present condition of British art,
can aspire to opulence ; for vanity and good feeling — the love
of contemplating our own features, or the wish to be remem-
bered after death by those whom we have loved when alive — alike
combine to smooth the way for him. Then, the most distin-
guished of all classes, the great, the beautiful, the brave, the
wise, are his companions ; he refines his taste and enlarges his
knowledge by their society ; and descends to posterity side by
side with those whose images he has perpetuated. If to these
advantages be added, health of body, and that equability of
temper and ever- springing kindness of heart, which are the
health of the mind, what element seems wanting to make up the
complement of human happiness ? Whose life should have gli-
ded on with a more lucid and tranquil current than that of Sir
Thomas Lawrence ? And so as a whole it did ; — its brilliancy
was indisputable, its real happiness, we believe, was great, and
would have been much greater but for some imprudences; — for
* Lawrence, of careless father careless son,' was habitually inat-
tentive to those ' minor morals' on which so much of the com-
fort of life depends.

We can only aiford to glance at a few scattered scenes in the
life of this great artist ; — his rise, his meridian of fame, and his
death, — not to follow out year by year the successive triumphs of
his pencil. Nothing in fact can be less interesting, except to an
artist, than to pursue the details of the life of a portrait-painter,
after his popularity has once been established and his style form-
ed. To this, in some degree, and also, in a great measure, to the
absurdly periphrastic vein in which his biography is written, we
must attribute the impression of tediousness which the volumes
before us, with the exception of some beautiful letters by Sir Tho-
mas, have left upon our minds. If the extent of the letters and
of the text had only stood in an inverse ratio to each other, the
interest of the work would have been very materially increased.

No English artist of eminence, with the exception of Mor-
land, so decidedly evinced an almost infant genius for drawing
as Lawrence. Morland's drawings, at the age of six, it is said, were
fit to compete with those of the younger students of the Aca-
demy. When little more than five years old, young Lawrence
had acquired the power of taking the most striking likenesses in
pencil. At that early age he executed two drawings of Lord and

464 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

Lady Kenyon, who had spent a night in his father's Inn, with
great accuracy and delicacy of effect, though, as might be ex-
pected, with some feebleness and indecision of contour. Some
drawings of eyes, executed by him at a still earlier period, exci-
ted the admiration of Mr Prince Hoare ; — a circumstance worthy
of particular notice, because, throughout the whole course of his
professional career, the painting of the eye was perhaps the point in
which Lawrence most excelled his contemporaries. Fuseli, indeed,
used to swear he painted eyes better than Titian. His talent for
reading and recitation was not less surprising. At four years old
he used to read the story of Joseph and his brethren with the
most wonderful propriety of gesture and emphasis. So remark-
able indeed was this turn, that at one time the theatre appeared
likely to be his future destination. Garrick, who frequently
stopped at his father's Inn in passing through Devizes, used
generally to adjourn with the young orator to a small summer-
house in the garden, and listen with much pleasure to his
recitations. At seven, the child had attracted so much attention
by his personal beauty and his various accomplishments, that his
picture was engraved by Sherwin. His appearance and preco-
city of talent at the age of nine, are described with some liveli-
ness by Bernard, the actor, in his amusing Retrospections of the
Stage.

' There "was something about little Lawrence, liowever, which excited
the surprise of the most casual observer. He was a perfect man in
miniature. His confidence and self-possession smacked of oue-and-
twenty. Lawrence frequently brought his boy to the Green-room,
and we would set him on a table and make him recite Hamlet's direc-
tions to the players. On one of these occasions, Henderson was pre-
sent, and expressed much gratification. The little fellow, in return for
our civilities and flatteries, was desirous to take our likenesses, the
first time we came to Devizes, and Edwin and myself afforded him an
opportunity soon after, on one of our non-play-day's excursions. After
dinner, Lawrence proposed giving us a reading as usual, but Tom
reminded him of our promise. The young artist collected bis materials
very quickly, and essayed my visage the first. In about ten minutes,
he produced a faithful delineation in crayon, which for many years I
kept as a curiosity. He next attempted Edwin's, who, startled at the
boy's ability, resolved (in his usual way) to perplex him.

' No man had a more flexible countenance than Edwin. It was not
only well featured, but well muscled, if I may be allowed the expres-
sion, which enabled him to throw over its surface, as on a moral prism,
all the colours of expression, minutely blending or powerfully contrast-
ing. He accordingly commenced his sitting, by settling his face into
a sober and rather serious aspect, and when the young artist had taken
its outline and come to the eyes, he began gradually, but imperceptibly,
to extend and change it, raising his brows, compressing his lips, and

1831. Sii' Thomas Lawrence. 465

widening his mouth, till his face wore the expression of brightness and
gaiety. Tom no sooner perceived the change, than he started in
supreme wonder, attributing it to a defect in his own vision. The first
outline was accordingly abandoned, and a second commenced. Tom
was now mox'e particular, and watched him narrowly, but Edwin,
feature by feature, and muscle by muscle, so completely ran, what
might have been called the gamut of his countenance, (as the various
components of its harmony,) that the boy drew and rubbed out, till his
hand fell by his side, and he stood silently looking in Edwin's face, to
discover, if possible, its true expression. Edwin could not long main-
tain his composure at his scrutiny, and revealed the hoax with a burst
of merriment and mimic thunder.

' Little Tom could not take up Shakspeare or Milton and read at
random. He had been instructed in particular speeches, and to those
he referred. There was one in Milton (Satan's address to the sun) he
had long wished to learn, but his father, from an apprehension that his
mind was yet unequal to this grasp, had passed it over. Tom had
listened, nevertheless, whenever the former had read it to a friend, and
surprised his father not slightly with the news that he could imitate
him. A family in Devizes, who Avere well known to Lawrence, giving
a party one evening, requested the favour of his son's company for his
readings ; Lawrence consented, but on condition that Tom was not
requested to select other than his own passages. He then cautioned
his boy against attempting any thing in which he was not perfect, and
particularly the Address of Satan. In the evening, Tom walked to
the house, with Milton and Shakspeare under his arm, and was shown
in to the company with the utmost attention.

' When the complimenting was over, he was asked what recitation
he preferred in Milton. He replied, ' Satan's Address to the Sun ;' but
that his father would not permit him to give it. For that reason, they
were particularly eager to hear it, as they wished to discover whether
Tom was a mere parrot, or a prodigy. His dutiful scruples, however,
were not to be overcome, till they had promised to obtain his father's
forgiveness. He then turned to the forbidden page, and a written slip
of paper dropped from it; a gentleman picked it up, and read it aloud,
" Tom, mind you don't touch Satan."

' My reader must conceive the effect which the wording of this cau-
tion produced on the hearers. Tom, however, did have dealings with
Satan, and handled him, as I was informed, with great discretion.'

The genius of the young painter seemed at first likely to take
the direction of historical painting. At the age often he essayed
his pencil on three scriptural subjects ; one of which, ' Peter de-
nying Christ,' is spoken of in terras of the highest praise by
Daines Barrington, in his Miscellanies. But his father soon
found that his talents might be turned to more account in por-
trait-painting ; and at the age of twelve we find the young art-
ist the favourite of fashion in Bath ; — copying with remarkable
success some pictures from the old masters, and multiplying the

466 Sir Thomas Lawrence* Dec,

human face divine in crayon portraits, at a guinea and a half
each. Already, too, his graceful and prepossessing deport-
ment had procured him admission into the best society of the
place. And this early introduction into life gave the requi-
site ease and self-possession to manners which Nature herself
had polished and refined. It was not till his seventeenth year
that he appears to have made any attempt at oil-painting ; but
this coup d'essai was sufficiently ambitious ; being a whole-
length of Christ bearing the Cross, on a canvass eight feet in size.
What became of this gigantic production is not known. Already
the feeling of his own powers, and an anxiety to display them on
a wider field, — the ' What shall I do to be for ever known,' of
Cowley, — begins to be obvious in the few fragments of his boy-
ish correspondence which have been preserved. * I shall now
' say,' (he observes in a letter to his mother, dated Sept. 1786,)

* what does not proceed from vanity, nor is it an impulse of the

* moment, but what from my judgment I can warrant. Though

* Mr P. Hoare's studies have been greater than any paintings I

* have seen from his pencil, mine is better. To any but my own

* family, I certainly should not say this, but excepting Sir Jo-

* shua for the painting of a head, I would risk my reputation

* with any painter in London.'

The experiment, however, of removing from the certain patron-
age and popularity of Bath, to the vast but doubtful field of
London, must have been attended with some beatings of the
heart; and the nature of his first interview with Sir Joshua,
the only one he had excepted from the list of those with whom
he was ready to enter the lists, though on the whole satisfactory,
must have been trying. He took with him an oil portrait of
himself as a specimen of his powers. He found the attention of
Sir Joshua bestowed upon another juvenile aspirant, who had
evidently come on the same errand, and who was shortly after-
wards dismissed with the negative encouragement — *Well, well
— go on — go on.' He then turned to the portrait of Lawrence :

* He was evidently much struck with it, and discerned those
' marks of genius which foretold the future fame of the juve-

* nile artist. He bestowed upon the painting a very long scru-

* tiny, in a manner which young Lawrence thought an alarming
' contrast to the more hasty glance with which he had dismissed

* the other. At last, turning to the boy with an air of seriousness, he

* addressed him, " Stop, young man, I must have some talk with

* you. Well, I suppose now you think this is very fine, and this

* colouring very natural, hey? hey?" He then placed the painting

* before the astonished and trembling youth, and began to analyze

* it, and to point out its numerous imperfections. Presently he

1831. Sir Thomas Lawrence. 467

* took it out with him from the gallery to his own painting-room,

* and young Lawrence knew not how to interpret this ; but Sir

* Joshua, soon returning, addressed him kindly, and concluded by

* saying, " It is clear you have been looking at the old masters,

< but my advice to you is to study Nature — apply your talents

* to Nature." He then dismissed him with marked kindness,

* assuring him that he should be welcome whenever he chose to

< call.'

We cannot pretend to trace his gradual progress to fame in
London; nor to criticise any one of the numerous, we might
almost say numberless, paintings, by which he again restored
to the English School of Portrait- Painting that reputation
which had been upon the wane since the death of Sir Joshua.
Some general observations, however, upon his principles and the
character of his genius, may be permitted to us.

The course of no artist in Great Britain offers any parallel to
that of Lawrence in the rapidity with which he rose to fame ;
nor, at the same time, is it easy to conceive any education less
likely to have fostered his talents. Defective instruction, inces-
sant employment, without regular study, principles adopted by
chance, the absurd counsels of a vain and thoughtless father, all
conspired to repress the free developement of his genius ; and, to
us, the most inconceivable part of his character, and one on which,
we are sorry to say, the present biography throws no light, is
the course of self- education, by which these difficulties were sur-
mounted, and the gradual adoption of those principles which
form the characteristics of his style.

Though subsequent practice gave additional command of hand,
and greater freedom and richness of effect, it is not difficult to
trace in all Lawrence's pictures, as in those of every great mas-
ter, the operation of certain leading views early adopted and steadi-
ly pursued. Tone, to use the technical expression, — in other
words, the perfect combination of colour with light and shadow, — ■
was the great object of idolatry, when Lawrence made his ap-
pearance in London as an artist. It had been carried to perfec-
tion by Reynolds, who, by the magical depth and harmony of his
colouring, had at once concealed his own defects in drawing, —
which, except in a very limited class of subjects, were great, —
and, by his practice, though not his precepts, rendered it a se-
condary consideration in the eyes of his followers and the pub-
lic. Precision of drawing was, indeed, unnecessary, when half
the outlines were lost in the rich depth of the shadows, and
only, perhaps, the face, or some prominent limb, exhibited under
a strong and clear effect of light. In this dexterity of conceal-
ment, no artist ever surpassed Reynolds. His style, however,
beautiful and seductive as it was, was an Italian, not an English

468 Sir Thomas Lawrence^ Dec.

style I and the propriety of his whole principle of colouring, as
applied to English nature, is more than doubtful. But such
as it was, it had formed the general subject of imitation ;
each artist no doubt blending with it some peculiarities of his
own ; but all of them struggling after this captivating brilliancy
of tone. Chance and reflection concurred to lead Lawrence into
a different path. Not having, like Reynolds, had the fortune to
visit Italy at an early age, and working after no particular school
except that of nature, his style was formed without much refer-
ence to the colouring of the older masters, or the rich influ-
ences of an Italian clime. His subjects were English nature,
exhibited, not under the mellow glow of a southern sun, but in
the clear and generally cold light of our northern sky ; and
hence, instead of brilliant and golden tints, or shadows ab-
sorbing and blending all outlines together, he was taught from
the first, and involuntarily, to rest more upon drawing, and dis-
tinct making out of his heads and figures, than upon the artifices
of colour. What his situation had at first riiade a rule of practice,
experience and reflection probably confirmed. A few early ex-
periments of his own powers, in the manner of Sir Joshua and
the Italian masters, probably satisfied him, that in this depart-
ment the former was likely to remain without a rival ; nay,
that in that portion of the palace of art destined for the re-
ception of the votaries of * Tone,' every niche was already
occupied by Sir Joshua's followers. But as the creator of a
school of portrait-painting, more strictly English, by recurring
to a more clear and pearly tone in the imitation of nature, and,
as a consequence, also to a more distinct and careful outline,
Lawrence perceived that the path to fame and originality was
yet open to him; and this path, with his accustomed discernment
and decision, he resolved to pursue. As compared with the style of
Reynolds, that which he adopted is like mid-day beside the sun-
sets of evening : Reynolds is deep, sometimes indistinct, as if the
light in his painting-room had reached him through the medium
of a painted window ; Lawrence gives to his portraits a clear,
out-of-door look, bright and silvery as the Aurora of Guido; but
sometimes degenerating into a chalkiness that seems the reflec-
tion of those grey skies and white cliffs with which his eye had
been early familiar.

In the intellectual expression of his portraits, Sir Thomas com-
pletely realized that ideal which Burke drew of portrait-painting,
in one of his admirable letters to the presumptuous Barry, who
had thought it safest to sneer at a branch of the art in which
he had been tried, and found wanting. ' That portrait-painting,'
says Burke, * which you affect so much to despise, is the best

1831. Sir Thoiuas Lawrence. 469

' school that an artist can study in, provided he study it, as every
' man of genius will do, with a philosophic eye, not with a view
' merely to copy the face before him, but to learn the character of

* it, with a view to employ in more important works what is good

* of it, and to reject what is not.' In his male portraits, in gene-
ral, Lawrence has been peculiarly fortunate in extracting this
essence of the mind, and fixing on one passing aspect of the coun-
tenance something of the permanent character of the man.
This tact and delicacy of observation is the result of refined
judgment, and of an enlarged sympathy and sensibility for all the
varied displays of intellect or energy of character. His women,
however, much as they have been praised, we must consider as
inferior to those of Reynolds. No portrait of a female by Law-
rence will bear a comparison with Reynolds's picture of Mrs Sid-
dons, as the Tragic Muse ; and, generally speaking, they want that
simplicity, that maiden or matron modesty, which, in Reynolds's
female portraits, strike the eye with so unobtrusive but fasci-
nating a spell. We should be sorry to think that the fault lay in
the originals; but it appears to us that, in the majority of Sir
Thomas's, though the expression is not immodest, it is of a
more questionable kind than that of Sir Joshua's; — there is
more of coquetry mingled with their beauty ; more of matter
and less of mind.

To pass from the general expression of his figures to their de-
tails, we would say, that the head and hands were the portions
of the figure in which Sir Thomas excelled ; and these he inva-
riably designed with peculiar delicacy and truth. In the rest of
the figure, probably from his long practice in painting heads
and half lengths, he was for some time less perfect, but even
this defect his unceasing industry enabled him to surmount.
Only in his designs from the naked figure, an occasional want
of drawing still remains perceptible. Fortunately for Sir Tho-
mas he was not often called to exercise his talents in this de-
partment. Drapery is in painting what charity is in morals —
it covers a multitude of sins ; and Sir Thomas's knowledge of
the anatomy of the human frame, though it might not have en-
abled him safely to venture on the delineation of naked, was
sufficiently correct to enable him to give the requisite propriety
and truth to the attitudes of draped figures. Howard, indeed,
a competent judge, does not hesitate to give him the preference
as a draughtsman to Vandyke and Velasquez ; while, in the re-
presentations of infant nature, he maintains his superiority to
Titian.

It is a singular circumstance, but one highly creditable to Sir
Thomas, that as his fame advanced, and his command of all the

VOL. Liv. NO, cviii. 2 n

470 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

resources of his art became more perfect, he only grew the more
careful and elaborate in his execution. The boy-painter of Bath,
earning a livelihood for himself and his pai'ents by incessant
drudgery at a guinea and a half a- head, could not afford to be
very critical in maturing his conceptions, or imparting them to
the canvass. Sufficient unto the day? at that time, was the evil
thereof. But the President of the Royal Academy, receiving
six or seven hundred guineas for a whole-length painting, with
the consciousness that he was at the head of his art in his own
country, nay, that the influence of his talents might create a new
era in portrait-painting in other countries, — as he could afford
the labour requisite to perfection, so he never hesitated to bestow
it. He trusted nothing to his facility of execution, nothing to the
increased mastery of the resources of his profession, which long
practice had bestowed — nothing to that popularity on which a
leas conscientious artist might have been tempted to draw so
liberally; but continued to his death to exercise the same anxious
study and deliberation on his compositions — the same careful
minuteness in his finishing ; so much so, that the increased pains
he latterly took, arising from his improved perceptions and high
sense of duty to himself and to his art, subjected him, towards the
close of his life, to occasional charges of slowness, — him who had
painted the admirable picture of Hamlet in the churchyard in
the short space of a week. ' If it be a proof,' he writes, when
in the very zenith of his fame, ' of a just claim to the charac-

* ter of a great painter, that he is master of his ai't, that proof

* is denied to me ; for I am perpetually mastered by it ; and am

* as much the slave of the picture I am painting as if it had

* living personal existence, and chained me to it. How often in

* the progress of a picture have I said, *' Well, I'll do no more ;"

* and after laying down my palette and pencils, and washing my

* hands, whilst wiping them dry, I have seen the " little more"

* that has made me instantly take them up again.'

* I have a peculiar pleasure and pride in the pictures I send

* to remote countries, which are unacquainted with the higher

* works and principles of art. They might with security be

* deceived and slighted by me. The judgment, the difficulty,

* (if I may say it,) the science of the picture will be lost upon

* them ; but after they have, perhaps, for years liked and admi-

* red it as a resemblance, and been satisfied that it is a fair spe-

* cimen of my talent, some artist or true connoisseur may come

* among them, and then they will learn that in every part it is
' one of my most finished productions ; that even for the mo-

* narch of my own country I could not have laboured with more

* skill and vigilance, than I have done for strangers whom I shall

1831. Sir Thomas Lawrence. 471

* never see, and from whom neither praise might be expected nor

* censure feared.'

This principle of conscientious study and care extended to all
the minutiae and accessories of the picture, as well as to the main
subject. So careless was Reynolds in such matters, that a story
is told of his being asked upon one occasion to paint a portrait
with the hat upon the head ; — he did so ; but, at the same time,
sent home the portrait with another hat stuck, according to the
mode of the day, beneath the arm. In Sir Thomas's pictures, on
the contrary, more particularly his later pieces, (for in some
of his earlier ones he was rather too apt to indulge in patchy
and murky-looking backgrounds,) the still life and distances are
painted with the most careful minuteness of detail; — at the
same time dexterously harmonized with the general effect by
the transparency of his shadows and glazing colours. The little
gleams of landscape behind, often of an architectural nature —
an escritoire, a cabinet, a chair, a furred robe, a dog, or whatever
else may be the accessories of the picture — are all painted as
if the effect of the picture had been to depend upon them.

But let us turn from disquisition to narrative, and accom-
pany the artist on his brilliant expedition to Aix la Chapelle.
From 1787, when he came to London, down to 1818, his career
had been one bright course of honour and success. Admitt€d,
by the patronage of Geo. III., an associate of the Academy in
1790, he was soon left almost without a rival in his art. Gains-
borough had died just about the time he came to London ; Sir
Joshua, in 1789; Romney, in 1802; Opie, (who, though ele-
vated into extensive practice by the caprice of the public, could
never, with his heavy hand and coarse colouring, long have
maintained the struggle against the grace and freedom of Sir
Thomas's manner,) in 1807. Hoppner alone remained, a powerful
rival to the last; but he also disappeared from the scene in 1810.
Though Sir Thomas's prices rose to L.600 for a full length, and
L.700 for an extra full length, his time was incessantly occupied,
and his labour as constant and unceasing as if he had been a work-
ing mechanic. For his beautiful picture of the Countess Gower
and child, he received L.loOO guineas. He had exhibited some
specimens of historical composition, — such as Satan calling his le-
gions,— a work of great power and grandeur, though not without
a taint of exaggeration both in drawing and colouring ; Homer
reciting his poems to the Greeks ; and one or two others ; besides
the masterly historical portraits of Kemble, in the characters
of Cato, Rolla, and Hamlet. The patronage which he had re-
ceived from George III. was continued and increased by George
IV. When, in 1818, the Congress took place at Aix la Cha-

472 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

pelle, he was selected by his late Majesty as the person best qua-
lified to execute the portraits of the assembled Sovereigns ; an
idea which had been previously entertained during their visit to
England, but which the shortness of their stay had at that time
prevented from being carried into execution. Previous to his
setting out, he received the honour of knighthood.

At Aix he was accommodated with the use of the Hotel de
Ville as a painting-room ; and here his portraits of the Emperor
of Russia, the King of Prussia, and one drawing of the Emperor
of Austria, were executed. An alteration in the attitude be-
came necessary, in his portrait of the first of these Sovereigns.
I had to act,' said Lawrence, ' decidedly against his judgment
and wishes, and to make a total alteration in the picture,
changing entirely the action of the legs, and consequently of
the trunk. You will readily imagine that, circumstanced as I
am, I work with the utmost vigilance of eye; I never ex-
erted this with more certain effect than in drawing in that
very action. The process was new to the Emperor, and the
accuracy with which it was done surprised and pleased him.
All seeing in it an unusual action of his majesty, gave it their
unanimous approbation, and I, only on the day after, saw its de-
fect, and at all hazards determined to amend it.
' He stands always resting on one leg, (you know what I mean,
the other loose on the ground like the figures of the antique,)
.ind he stands either with his hat in his hand, or with his hands
closely knit before him. The first figure was thus. You per-
ceive that he here seems to be shrinking and retiring from the
object of his contemplation, determining at the same time to
preserve and hold fast one certain good from the enemy, what-
ever be the issue of the battle. These were my objections, and
the vexatious thing was, that before an audience of his friends
I was to commence the alteration by giving himyb?«' legs ; and
though gradually obliterating the two first, still their agreeable
lines were remaining in most complicated confusion. What
I expected took place ; during almost the whole of it, the at-
tendant generals complained, and the Emperor, though confi-
ding in my opinion, was still dissatisfied. However, I accom-
plished the alteration, and the vessel righted.' (Vol. H. p. 115.)
* — Tell all the ill-bred men of your acquaintance this anec-
dote of the Emperor of Russia. In the midst of the concert,
while the first violin was playing, I saw his eye glancing to-
wards ladies at some short distance from him. When the
close of a passage permitted it, he advanced with the greatest
precaution, but perfect ease, and not the smallest sound of trejid,
to take a tea-cup from a lady, the wife of one of the aides-de-

1831. Sir Thomas Lawrence. 473

' camp of Lord Wellington, (who had the good sense not to resist
' it,) returning to place it on the table.'

The Emperor of Austria's countenance he describes as * ra-
' ther long and thin, and when grave, grave to melancholy ; but
' when he speaks, benevolence itself lights it up with the most
* agreeable expression, making it the perfect image of a good
' mind.'

After completing the portraits of these sovereigns, each of
whom sat to him seven times, with the exception of the King
of Prussia, whose portrait was finished in six sittings, and those
of Hardenberg, Metternich, Nesselrode, and the Duke de Riche-
lieu, he set off to Vienna, to paint a second portrait of Francis,
and that of Prince Schwartzenburg. In Vienna he mingled with
the first circles, and seems to have formed an intimate acquaint-
ance with Prince Metternich and his family, whom he afterwards
met in Italy ; whither he was next directed to repair, in order to
paint the portrait of the Pope. The following extract from a let-
ter descriptive of a visit to Tivoli, represents Metternich in a
somewhat new character — that of a sentimentalist, and an ami-
able, kind-hearted father and friend.

' I have sustained very positive loss in the departure of my Vienna
friends. I dined with Prince Mettei'nich, whenever an engagement at
the tables of the Cardinals, the Duchess and Duke of Devonshire, or
Duke of Torlonia, would permit. With him, his daughter, and their
suite, on eight diiferent evenings, I visited the beautiful villas and places
of interest round Rome. He was always on my arm when we arrived
at them, and often took uie in his chariot, with his daughter, (who con-
stantly travels with him,) the only person here admitted to that honour
— her husband, Comte Esterhazy, and Prince Kaunitz, the ambassador,
following in other cai'riages. The last evening of their stay, I went with
him in his barouche, in company with his daughter and Prince Kaunitz,
to take a last look at St Peter's, and afterwards to view the sun setting
on Rome from the Monte Mario. His daugliter, though never in Eng-
land, speaks English remarkably well, and is to him, in intellect and
nature, and in their mutual affection, what Portia was to Cicero.*
I do not compare a modern statesman to that father of Roman elo-
quence, (sanctified by all honours of history and time,) except in height
of political importance, and in the certain existence of this sweet, do-
mestic feeling. That you may know part of the link that binds me to
him, besides his kindness, and the circumstances of fortune, see him with
me at Tivoli, before the lower, tremendous cascade, which is out of
view of the town, though, if you look up, you just catch the Sibyl's
temple. We were standing alone and silent before it, just so far dis-
tant as not to be stunned by the noise — " And here," he said, '< it flows

* ' It is unnecessary to point out the error of this classical allusion.'

474 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

on — always majestic, always great; not caring whether it has andience
or not ; with no feelings of rivalry for power ! Here is no envy, no
exertion for an effect. Content with its own grandeur, no vanity, no
amour propre are here." If you were to tell this to our diplomacy or
politicians, of the dexterous, ambitious, politic Metternich — of him who
dared that audience of a day with Bonaparte, at Dresden, and is re-
proached by Lord Grey with having so entirely deceived him — of
Prince Metternich in society — the gay, the quizzing Metternich — they
■would never believe, or would sagely ridicule the tale ; but it is this
Metternich that I love, who, when dressed for the ambassador's party,
his equipage and attendants waiting, at half-past ten at night, on my
sole call, at my suggestion could change his dress, take me to his
daughter's room, where she was at her little supper, at her husband's
bedside, who was ill with slight fever, persuade his " Marie" to put on
her bonnet and cloak, and come with us to see the Colosseum, by the
moonlight, that was then shining in purest lustre, where we staid till,
on our stopping at the French ambassador's, he found it was twelve
o'clock. He had then to make a slight change of dress, but I had none
with me, and declined entering, and was therefore getting out of the
carriage to return in my own, which had followed me with Edward.
Prince Metternich, however, would not permit it, but desired me to
remain with liis daughter, and conduct her home, which I then did.
One sliort anecdote of her, and I conclude this too longl^ttQi'. On my
one day expressing surprise at her preferring the Netherlands to any
country she had seen, she said, " it is so cultivated — the peasantry are
so happy. I know it has not rocks and waterfalls, but God made the
country for man ; and where he is not happy, ah ! it is in vain that
you tell me of rocks and waterfalls." This was said in a steady, even
tone of voice, without raising her eyes from her work, as an inward
and unheard sentiment.' (Vol. II. pp. 204, 5.)

Sir Thomas's portraits of the Pope, and of Cardinal Gonsalvi,
were not less admired than those of the other great personages
whose portraits were executed at Aix and Vienna. While paint-
ing the Pope, Sir Thomas expressed a sort of half wish that he
had put upon his finger the ring he wore when elected ; when the
old man immediately sprung from the chair in which he was
sitting, and rejecting the oifer of assistance from two or three
prelates who were in the room, hurried off and brought it. ' I

* may almost class this,' says Lawrence, < with the Emperor of
' Russia, stooping to put the pegs into my easel, and then with

* me lifting the picture on it. This latter circumstance quite
' equals Charles the Fifth taking up the pencil for Titian ; and

* the only trifling thing wanting to the parallel is, that I should

* be a Titian.'

Passing over many interesting reflections made by him on Rome
and its neighbourhood, we must accompany him back to Eng-
land. On the very day of Sir Thomas's return, he was elected

1831. Sir Thomas Lawrence. 476

President of the Royal Academy, in room of Mr West, who had
died during his absence. We are not inclined to rate very highly
the occasional addresses or lectures which he delivered in the
character of President ; they indicate rather plain and practi-
cal good sense, than any originality of view or expression ; in
this respect contrasting poorly with those either of Reynolds,
Opie, Barry, or Fuseli. Fuseli was in fact at that time in the
possession of the professorial chair ; and Sir Thomas probably
thought that mere annual addresses were not the proper vehicle
for conveying any systematic views of the art.

Though we have said we have no intention of describing the
individual productions of his pencil, the circumstances attend-
ing the execution of his beautiful picture of the children of Mr
Calmady are so interesting, that we are sure we shall confer a
favour on our readers by the following extract. — Mr Lewis, the
engraver, had suggested to Mrs Calmady that the children would
form a beautiful group, and that he was certain that if Sir Tho-
mas saw them, he would be glad to paint them on any terms.

' In July 1823, Sir Thomas saw the children. The terms, upon his
card on his mantel-piece, descended from six hundred guineas to one
hundred and fifty, which was the price of the smallest head size. Having
two in one frame, increased the price by two-thirds, and thus the regu-
lar charge for the portraits would have been two hundred and fifty
guineas.

' Sir Thomas, captivated by the loveliness of the children, and sym-
pathizing with the feelings of the mother, asked only two hundred
guineas. — " I suppose," says Mrs Calmady, " I must still have looked
despairingly, for he immediately added, without my saying a word,
' Well, we must say one hundred and fifty pounds, for merely the
two little heads in a circle, and some sky — and finish it at once.' "

' Sir Thomas commenced his task the next morning at half-past
nine; and never did artist proceed with more increasing zeal and
pleasure.

' Upon the mother's expressing her delight at the chalk drawing, as
soon as the two heads were sketched in, he replied, " that he would
devote that day to doing a little more to it, and would beg her ac-
ceptance of it, as he would begin another."

' The public, in one sense, must be glad at this liberality ; for a
more free, masterly, and exquisitely beautiful sketch, was scarcely ever
made. It may be doubted, however, whether, upon the whole, this
circumstance is to be rejoiced in, for the sketch gave promise of even
a more beautiful piece than that which he afterwards completed.
Both of the faces were full, and that of the child now in profile was
even more beautiful than the side face ; and both were rich and lovely,
and more soft and delicate in the sketch than in the finished picture.

' During the progress of the painting, Sir Thomas continually kept
saying, that " it would be the best piece of the kind he had ever paint-

476 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

ed ;" and not only would lie detain the children many hours, with
their father or mother, keeping them in good humour by reading
stories to them, or otherwise amusing them, but on several occasions
he detained them to dinner, that he might get another sitting that
day. Mrs Calmady on one occasion, on her return to his house, after
driving home for an hour to attend to her infant, found Sir Thomas,
with the child on his knee, feeding it with mashed potatoes and mut-
ton chops, whilst he was coaxing and caressing the other, who was
fed hy the servant. As frequently as he kept the children for the
day, he would always feed tliem himself, and play with them with the
simplicity of genuine fondness and delight ; and when food and sport
had recruited them, they were again placed in the chair, and the busi-
ness of the portrait proceeded.

' At one sitting, h« was interrupted by the arrival of a packet from
the King of Denmark, which he opened and read to Mr and Mrs
Calmady. It contained his election, in French, to the rank of Ho-
norary Member of the Royal Academy of Denmark, and the King's
letter was signed, "votre aifectione. Christian Frederick." Reading
the flattering compliments paid to him by the King, Sir Thomas
smiled and said, " The fact is, they have heard I am painting this
picture."

• The children caught his amiable humour, and played with him as
with la bonne nourice ; and at one long sitting, the little cherub, with
her fat rosy cheeks, relieved her own ennui, and supplied him with a
fund of laughter, by her nursery tales of " Dame Wiggins," and
" Field Mice, and Raspberry Cream."

* Sir Joshua's delight at the gambols of children was equally in
accordance with his amiable manners and kind heart ; and to this we
owe his exquisite paintings of infiints and children, some of which
may survive his best historical or fancy pictures.

' At one sitting, after Sir Thomas Lawrence had had the shoe of
little Emily Calmady often taken off, and had attempted to catch her
l^layful attitudes and expressions, he could not help exclaiming,
" How disheartening it is, when we have nature before us, to see how
far — with our best efforts and all our study — how very far short we
fall of her !" '—(II. pp. 336-40.)

When the painting was finished, Sir Thomas said, ' This is

* my best picture. I have no hesitation in saying so — my best
' picture of the kind quite — one of the few I should wish hereafter

* to be known by.'

Thus, admired and esteemed by bis friends, and at the head
of art in his own country, increasing, if that were possible, in
popularity, apparently in possession of good health, and flatter-
ing hintiself, as he told a friend about this time, that from the
regularity of his living he might attain old age, the news of his
death, in January 1830, produced a most unexpected and deep
sensation in the public mind. His favourite sister had been ill
for some time; and he had been anxiously endeavouring to

1831. Sir Thomas Later ence. 477

make arrangements to leave town to visit her. ' I am grieved
' to the soul,' he writes, December 17, 1829, ' that urgent
' circumstances keep me at this time from the comfort of seeing
' you ; but in the next month I will certainly break away from

* all engagements to be with you.' About a week afterwards
he writes, ' I have sacredly pledged myself to be with you,

* and to that all circumstances shall bend.' He wrote again
— and for the last time — January 6th, 1830, ' I meant, my

* dearest Ann, to be with you by dinner time to-morrow ; I
' have made exertions to do so, but it may not, cannot be ! —
' you must be content to see me to a late simple dinner on
' Friday.' But the * late simple dinner' on Friday, among those
he loved so deeply, with whom he longed so eagerly to be, he
was not destined to enjoy. Pressing business detained him in
town that day ; on Saturday he was seized with a violent attack
in the stomach, with great pain and difficulty of breathing, and
on the following Thursday he was no more.

To the few observations we have made on Sir Thomas's pro-
fessional character, ]et us add a word or two on his nature as a
man. Kindness, modesty, charity, regard for the feelings of
others, seem to have been born with him. No man bore his
faculties more meekly, or stood less upon his unrivalled reputa-
tion. Of his brother artists he invariably spoke with the truest
feeling of their respective excellencies, and the liveliest desire
to do justice to them. To rising merit he was a constant
and unassuming patron ; and, conscious as he must have been
of his own anxiety to promote the welfare of his brother artists,
he might well feel grieved to discover how vain had been all
his eiforts to escape the attacks of envy. Of his quiet and ex-
tensive charities the present work enumerates many instances.
The chief defects in his character AA^ere a want of order and
method in money matters, which involved him in frequent em-
barrassments, and exposed him, though unjustly, to the accusa-
tion of having injured himself by gaming. This he indignantly
denies, in a letter addressed to one of his old and constant
friends. Miss Lee : ' I have neither been extravagant nor pro-
' fligate in the use of money; neither gaming, horses, curricle,

* expensive entertainments, nor secret sources of ruin, from vul-
' gar licentiousness, have swept it from me. I am in every
' thing, hut the effects of utter carelessness about money, the same

* being I was at Bath. The same delight in pure and simple
' pleasures, the same disdain of low enjoyments, the same relish

* for whatever is grand, however above me, the same admiration
' of what is beautiful in character, the same enthusiasm for
' what is exquisite in the productions, or generous in the passions

478 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Dec.

' of the mind. I have met with duplicity, which I never
' practised, (for this is far removed from inconstancy of pur-
« pose,) and it has not changed my confidence in human nature,
' or my firm belief, that the good of it infinitely overbalances the
' bad. In moments of irritation, I may have held other lan-
« guage ; but it has been the errata of the heart, and this is
' the perfect book, which I could offer, were my being now to
' end.'

Considering the exceedingly defective nature of his education,
(for he was removed from school when only eight years old,) the
accomplishments and attainments of Sir Thomas, in general
literature, were remarkable. With English literature, and par-
ticularly poetry, he was perfectly acquainted. His recitation is
described as exquisitely beautiful ; and though the critical ob-
servations, which are occasionally interspersed through his cor-
respondence, do not possess any high character of originality,
their truth and delicacy will be generally admitted. In conver-
sation, he was graceful, full of matter,™ blending with all he
said or did the gentlest and easiest gaiety. With at least as
much justice might it be said of him, as of Reynolds, that he
was formed to improve us in every way ;

' His pencil our faces, his manners our heart ;'

and we trust that the principle of generous emulation — that
feeling of rivalry without envy, which it was his anxious study
to irjfuse into the practice of British art, and without which
Academies are injurious rather than useful to the progress of
painting — will long survive the amiable and accomplished artist,
by whom, more than by any of his predecessors, it was advocated
and practically exemplified.

Akt. IX. — The Legality of the present Academical System of the
University of Oxford, asserted against the new Calumnies of the
Edinburgh Review. By a Member of Convocation. 8vo.
Oxford: 1831.

N a recent Number we took occasion to signalize one of the
most remarkable abuses upon record. We allude to our
article on the English Universities. Even in this country,
hitherto the paradise of jobs, the lawless usurpation of which
these venerable establishments have been the victims, from the
magnitude of the evil, and the whole character of the circum-
stances under which it was consummated, stands pre-eminent
and alone. With more immediate reference to Oxford, it is

1831. English Universities-^ Oxford. 479

distinguished, at once, for the extent to which the most import-
ant interests of the puhlic have been sacrificed to private advan-
tage,— for the unhallowed disregard, in its accomplishment, of
every moral and religious bond, — for the sacred character of the
agents through whom the unholy treason was perpetrated, — for
the systematic perjury it has naturalized in this great seminary
for religious education, — for the apathy with which the injustice
has been tolerated by the State, — the impiety by the Church,*
— nay, even for the unacquaintance, so universally manifested,
with so flagrant a corruption. The history of the University of
Oxford demonstrates by a memorable example — that bodies of
men will unscrupulously carry through, what individuals would
blush even to attempt ; and that the clerical profession, the
obligation of a trust, the sanctity of oaths, afford no security for
the integrity of functionaries, able with impunity to violate their
public duty, and with a private interest in its violation.

In being the first to denounce the illegality of the state of this
great national school, and, in particular, to expose the heads of
the Collegial interest as those by whom, and for whose ends,
this calamitous revolution was effected, we were profoundly
conscious of the gravity of the charge, and of the responsibility
we incurred in making it. Nothing, indeed, could have enga-
ged us in the cause, but the firmest conviction of the punctual
accuracy of our statement, — with the strong, but disinterested,
wish to co-operate in restoring this noble University to its natu-
ral pre-eminence, by relieving it from the vampire oppression
under which it has pined so long in almost lifeless exhaustion.

But though without anxiety about attack, we should certainly
have been surprised had there been no attempt at refutation.
It is the remark of Hobbes, that * if this proposition — the two
* angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles — had been
' opposed to the advantage of those in authority, it would long
' ago have been controverted or suppressed.' The opinions of
men in general are only the lackeys of their interest ; and with
so many so deeply interested in its support, the present profit-

* The Archbishop of Cantei'bury possesses, Jure metropolitico, to
say nothing of the inferior diocesans, the right of ordinary visitation
of the two Universities, in all matters of heresy, schism, and, in gene-
ral, of religious concernment. English Bishops have been always anti-
reformers ; and in the present instance they may have closed their
eyes on its perjury, by finding that the illegal system, in bestowing
on the College Fellows the monopoly of education, bestowed it exclu-
sively on the Church. Before this usurpation the clergy only had their
share of the University.

480 English Universities — Oxford. Dec.

able system of corruption could not, in Oxford, find any scarcity
of, at least, willing champions. At the same time it is always
better, in speaking to the many, to say something, should it
signify nothing, than to be found to say nothing at all. Add to
this, that the partisans of the actual system had of late years
shown themselves so prompt in repelling the most trivial obj urga-
tions, that silence when the authors of that system were accused
of the weightiest offences, and the system itself articulately dis-
played as one glaring scheme of usurpation and absurdity, would
have been tantamount to an overt confession of the allegation
itself. If our incidental repetition of the old bye- word of ' Ox-
' onian Latin' * brought down on us more than one indignant
refutation of the ' calumny ;' our formal charge of Illegality,
Treason, and Perjury could not remain unanswered, unless those
who yesterday were so sensitive to the literary glory of Oxford,
were to-day wholly careless not only of that, but even of its
moral and religious respectability ; — ' Diligentius studentes
' loqui quam vivere.'

But how was an answer to be made ? This was either easy
or impossible. If our statements were false, they could be at
once triumphantly refuted, by contrasting them with a few short
extracts from the statutes ; and the favourable opinion of a
respectable lawyer would have carried as general a persuasion
of the legality of the actual system, as the want of it is sure to
carry of its illegality. In these circumstances, satisfied that no
lawyer could be found to pledge his reputation in support of the
legality of so unambiguous a violation of every statute, and that,
without such a professional opinion, every attempt, even at a
plausible reply, would be necessarily futile ; we hardly hoped
that the advocates of the present order of things would be so ill-
advised as to attempt a defence, which could only terminate in
corroborating the charge. We attributed to them a more wily

* .Julius Caesar Scaliger De Subtilitate, Exerc. xvi. 2 — ' Loquar
ergo meo more harbare, et ab Oxonio ;' and honest Anthony admits
tliat Oxoniensis loquendi mos was thus proverbially used. — Speaking
of Scaliger and Oxford, we may notice that, from a passage in the
same work, (Exerc. xcix.) it clearly appears that this transcendant
genius may be claimed by Oxford as among her sons. ' Lutetijje aut
Oxonii modica indnti togula hyemes non solum ferre, sed etiam frau-
gere didicimus,' The importance of this curious discovery, unsuspect-
ed by Scioppius, and contradictory of what Joseph Scaliger and all
others have asserted and believed of the early life of his father, will
be appreciated by those interested in the mystei'ious biography of this
(prince or impostor) illustrious philosopher and critic.

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 481

tactic. The sequel of our discussion (in which we proposed to
consider in detail the comparative merits of the statutory and
illegal systems, and to suggest some means of again elevating the
University to what it ought to be) might be expected to afford
a wider field for controversy ; and we anticipated that the ob-
jection of illegality, now allowed to pass, would be ultimately
slurred over, a reply to our whole argument being pretended
tinder covert of answering a part.

We were agreeably mistaken. The bulky pamphlet at the
head of this article has recently appeared ; and we have to ten-
der our best acknowledgments to its author, for the aid he has so
effectually afforded against the cause he ostensibly supports. This
Assertion (the word is happily appropriate !) of the legality of the
academical system of Oxford manifests two things : How unan-
swerable are our statements when the opponent, wlio comes for-
ward professing to refute the ' new and unheard-of calumny,'
never once ventures to look them in the face ; and, How in-
tensely felt by the Collegial interest must be the necessity of a
reply — a reply at all hazards — when a Member of the Venerable
House of Convocation could Kstoop to such an attempt at delu-
sion, as the present semblance of an answer exhibits.

It may sound like paradox to say, that this pamphlet is no
answer to our paper, and yet that we are bound to accord it a
reply. But so it is. Considered merely in reference to the
points maintained by us, we have no interest in disproving its
statements : for it is, in truth, no more a rejoinder to our rea-
soning, than to the Principia of Newton. Nay, less. For, in
fact, our whole proof of the illegality of the present order of
things in Oxford, and of the treachery of the College Heads,
would be invalidated, were the single proposition, which our
pretended antagonist so ostentatiously vindicates against us, not
accurately true. We admit, that if we held what he refutes as
ours, our positions would be not only false, but foolish ; nay,
that if we had not established the very converse, as the begin-
ning, middle, and end of our whole argument, this argument
would not only be unworthy of an el.aborate answer, but of any
serious consideration at all. It is a vulgar artifice to misrepre-
sent an adversary, to gain the appearance of refuting him ; but
never was this contemptible manoeuvre so impudently and syste-
matically practised. In so far as it has any reference to our
reasoning, the whole pamphlet is, from first to last, just a deli-
berate reversal of all our statements. Its sophistry (the word
is too respectable) is not an ignoratio but a mtitatio, elenchi ; of
which the lofty aim is to impose on the simplicity of those
readers who may rely on the veracity of * A Member of Con-

482 English Universities -^Oxford. Dec.

< vocation,' and are unacquainted with the paper, the arguments
of which he professes to state and to refute. Under so creditable
a name, never was there a more discreditable performance ; for
we are unable even to compliment the author's intentions at the
expense of his talent. The plain scope of the publication is to
defend perjury by imposture ; and its contents are one tissue of
disingenuous concealments, false assertions, forged quotations,
and infuriate railing. In its way, certainly, it is unique ; and
we can safely recommend it to the curious as a bibliographical
singularity, being perhaps the only example of a work, in which,
from the first page to the last, it is impossible to find a sentence,
not either irrelevant or untrue.

But though a reply on our part would thus be — not a Refuta-
tion but an Exposure ; a reply, for that very reason, we consi-
der imperative. It forms a principal feature of the Assertor's
scheme of delusion to accuse us of deceit, (and deceit, amount-
ing to knavery, must certainly adhere to one party or the other ;)
yet, though he has failed in convicting us even of the most un-
important error, many readers, we are aware, might be found
to accord credence to averments so positively made, to set down
to honest indignation the virulence of his abuse, and to mistake
his effrontery for good faith. Were it also matter of reasoning
in which the fallacy was attempted, we might leave its detection
to the sagacity of the reader ; but it is in matter of fact, of which
we may presume him ignorant. Aggressors, too, in the attack,
the present is not a controversy in which we can silently allow
our accuracy, far less our intentions, to be impugned by any.
To establish, likewise, the illegality and self-admitted incompe-
tence of the present academical system, is to establish the preli-
minary of all improvement — the necessity of change. While
happy, therefore, to avail ourselves of the occasion to add to
our former demonstration of this all-important point ; we are not,
of course, averse from manifesting how impotent, at once, and
desperate, are the efforts which have been made to invalidate its
conclusions. These considerations have moved us to bestow on
the subject of this pamphlet an attention we should not assuredly
have accorded to its merits. And as our reply is nothing but a
manifestation of the contrast between the statements actually
made by us, and those refuted, as ours, by our opponent ; we
are thus compelled to recapitulate the principal momenta of our
argument, of which we must not presume that our readers re-
tain an adequate recollection. Necessity must, therefore, be our
excuse for again returning on a discussion, not less irksome to
ourselves than others ; but we are reconciled to it by the consi-
deration, that though we have no errors to correct, we have thus

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 483

the opportunity of supplying, on this important subject, some not
unimportant omissions.

Our former paper was intended to prove three great proposi-
tions : — I. That the present academical system of Oxford is il-
legal. II. That it was surreptitiously intruded into the Univer-
sity by the heads of the collegial interest, for private ends.
HI. That it is virtually acknowledged to be wholly inadequate
to accomplish the purposes of a university, even by those through
whose influence, and for whose advantage, it is maintained.

I. In illustration of the first proposition, we showed that the
University of Oxford is a public instrument, privileged by the
nation for the accomplishment of certain public purposes ; and
that, for the more secure and appropriate performance of its
functions, a power of self- legislation is delegated to the great
body of its graduates, composing the House of Convocation.
The resolutions of this assembly alone, or with concurrence of
the Crown, form the academical statutes, and the statutes ex-
clusively determine the legal constitution of the University. The
whole academical statutes now in force, (with one or two pass-
ed, we believe, since 1826,) are collected and published in the
Corpus Statutonmi with its Appendix, and in its Addenda ; the
subsequent statute, of course, explaining, modifying, or rescind-
ing the preceding.

Looking, therefore, to the statutes, and the ivhole statutes,* we
showed, that there were two academical systems to be distin-^

* As not sanctioned hy Convocation, the illegality of the present
system is flagrant. But had it been so sanctioned, it would still be
fundamentally illegal ; as that body would have thus transcended its
powers, by frustrating the ends, for the sake of which alone it was
clothed with legislative authority at aU. The public privileges ac-
corded (by King or Pai-liament, it matters not) to the education and
degrees of a University, are not granted for the private behoof of the
individuals in whom the University is realized. They are granted
solely for the public good, to the instruction of certain bodies organi-
zed under public authority, and to their certificate of proficiency,
imder conditions by that authority prescribed. If these bodies have
obtained, to any extent, the right of self-legislation, it is only as de-
legates of the state ; and this right could only be constitutionally ex-
ercised by them in subservience to the public good, for the interest
of which alone the University was constituted and privileged, and this
power of legislation itself delegated to its members. If an academical
legislature abolish academical education, and academical trials of pro-
ficiency in the different faculties, it commits suicide, and as such, the
act is, ipso facto, illegal. In the case of Oxford, Convocation is not
thus felo de se.

484 English Universities-^Oxford, Dec.

guished in Oxford — a legal and an illegal; and that no two
systems could be more universally and diametrically opposed.

In ihe formed', the end, for the sake of which the University
is privileged by the nation, and that consequently imperatively
prescribed by the statutes, is to afford public education in the
faculties of Theology, Law, Medicine, and Arts, (to say nothing
of the science of Music,) and to certify — by the grant of a de-
gree— that this education had in each of these faculties been
effectually received. In the latter, degrees are still ostensibly
accorded in all the faculties, but they are now empty, or rather
delusive, distinctions ; for the only education at present requi-
site for all degrees, is the private tuition afforded by the colleges
in the elementary department of the lowest faculty alone. Of
ten degrees still granted in Oxford, nine are in law and reason
utterly worthless.

In the former, it is, of course, involved as a condition, that the
candidate for a degree shall have spent a sufficient time in the
university in prosecution of his public studies in that faculty in
which he proposes to graduate. In the latter, when the statutory
education in the higher faculties, and the higher department of
the lowest, was no longer afforded, this relative condition was
converted into empty standing.

The former, as its principal mean, employs in every faculty a
co-operative body of select Professors, publicly teaching in con-
formity to statutory regulation. The latter (in which the
wretched remnant of professorial instruction is a mere hors
d'cenvre) abandons the petty fragment of private education, it
precariously affords, as a perquisite, to the incapacity of an in-
dividual, Fellow by chance, and Tutor by usurpation.

To conceive the full extent of the absurdity thus occasioned, it
must be remembered, that no universities are so highly privileged
by any country as the English; and that no country is now so com-
pletely defrauded of the benefits, for the sake of which academical
privileges were ever granted, as England. England is the only
christian country, where the Parson, if he reach the university at
all, receives only the same minimum of Theological tuition as the
Squire; — the only civilized country, Avhere the degree, which
confers on the Jurist a strict monopoly of practice, is conferred
without either instruction or examination ; — the only country in
the world, where the Physician is turned loose upon society,
with extraordinary and odious privileges, but without profes-
sional education, or even the slightest guarantee for his skill.*

* We doubt extremely, whether the Fellows of the London College

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 485

II. In proof of the second proposition we showed, — how, in sub-
ordination to the university, the collegial interest arose ; — how
it became possessed of the means of superseding the organ of
which it was the accident ; — and what advantage it obtained in
accomplishing this usurpation.

We traced how Colleges, in general, as establishments for
habitation, aliment, and subsidiary instruction, sprang up in con-
nexion with almost all the older universities throughout Europe.
The continental colleges were either so constituted, as to form,
at last, an advantageous alliance with the university, under the
control of which the whole system of collegial instruction always
remained ; or they declined and fell, so soon as they proved no
longer useful in their subsidiary capacity. The English Col-
leges, on the other hand, were founded less for education than
aliment ; were not subjected to the regulation of the university,
with which they were never able, and latterly unwilling, to co-
operate effectually ; and their fellowships were bestowed without
the obligation of instructing, and for causes which had seldom a
relation to literary desert. We showed how the colleges of Ox-
ford, few in numbers, and limited in accommodation, for many
centuries admitted only those who enjoyed the benefit of their
foundations ; while the great majority of the academical youth
inhabited the Halls, (houses privileged and visited by the uni-
versity,) under the superintendence of principals elected by them-
selves.

The crisis of the Reformation occasioned a temporary decline
of the university, and a consequent suspension of the halls ; the
colleges, multiplied in numbers, were enabled to extend their
circuit ; though not the intention of the act, the restoration of
the halls was frustrated by an arbitrary stretch of power; the
colleges succeeded in collecting nearly the whole scholars of the
university within their walls; and the fellows, in usurping from
the other graduates the new, and then insignificant, office of
tutor. At the same time, through the personal ambition of
two all-powerful statesmen, the Chancellors Leicester and Laud,
(with the view of subjecting the university to a body easily
governed by themselves,) the Heads of Houses were elevated to
a new and unconstitutional pre-eminence. By the former, in
spite of every legitimate opposition, these creatures of accident
and private favour were raised to the rank of a public academical

of Physicians could make good their privileges, if opposed on the
ground that, by the statutes of the universities themselves, not one of
them has legal right to a degree. A word to the wise.
VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. 2 I

486 English Universities — Oxford, Dec

body ; and, along with the Doctors of the three higher faculties,
and the two Proctors, constituted into an assembly, to which
the initiative was conceded of all measures to be proposed in
Convocation. By the latter, this initiative, with other impor-
tant powers, was, by the exclusion of the Doctors, limited to
the Heads and Proctors, a body which, from its weekly diets,
has obtained the name of the Hebdomadal Meeting ; and to ob-
viate resistance to this arbitrary subjection of the university to
this upstart and anomalous authority, the measure was forced
upon the House of Convocation by royal statute. The College
Heads were now the masters of the university. They were
sworn, indeed, to guarantee the observance of the laws, and to
provide for their progressive melioration. But, if content to
violate their obligations, with their acquiescence every statute
might be abrogated by neglect, and without their consent no
reform or improvement could be attempted.

Such a body was incapable of fulfilling — was even incapable
of not violating — its public trust. Raised, in general, by accident
to their situation, the Heads, as a body, had neither the lofty
motives, nor the comprehensive views, which could enable them
adequately to discharge their arduous duty to the university.
They were irresponsible for their inability or bad faith, — for what
they did or for what they did not perform ; while public opinion
was long too feeble to control so numerous a body, and too unen-
lightened to take cognizance of their unobtrusive usurpations.
At the same time, their interests were placed in strong and direct
hostility to their obligations. Personally they were interested in
allowing no body in the university to transcend the level of their
own mediocrity; and a body of able and efficient Professors would
have at once mortified their self-importance, and occasioned
their inevitable degradation from the unnatural eminence to
which accident had raised them. Conceive the Oxford Heads
predominating over a senate of Professors like those of Goettingen
or Berlin ! Add to this, that the efficiency of the public in-
structors would have again occasioned a concourse of students
far beyond the means of accommodation afforded by the Colleges ;
and either the Halls must be revived, and the authority of the
Heads divided, or the principle of domestic superintendence be
relaxed, on which their whole influence depended. As represent-
atives of the collegial interest^ they were also naturally hostile to
the whole system of public instruction. If the standard of pro-
fessorial competence were high in the faculty of arts, the stand-
ard of tutorial competence could never be reduced to the aver-
age capacity of the fellows ; whose monopoly even of subsidiary
education would thus be frustrated in the colleges. And if the

J:83^i. English Universities — Oxford. 48T

professorial system remained effective in the higher faculties,
it would he impossible to supersede it in the lower department
of the lowest, in which alone the tutorial discipline could sup-
ply its place ; and the attempt of the colleges to raise their
education from a subsidiary to a principal in the university,
would thus be baffled. Again, if the University remained ef-
fective, and residence in all the faculties enforced, the colleges
would be filled by a crowd of graduates, not only emancipated
from tutorial discipline, but rivals even of the fellows in the
office of tutor; while, at the same time, the restoration of the
Halls could, in these circumstances, hardly be evaded. All these
inconveniences and dangers would however be obviated, and
profitably obviated, if standing on the college books were allowed
to count for statutory residence in the university. By this ex-
pedient, not only could the professorships in all the faculties be
converted into sinecures — the Colleges filled exclusively by
students paying tutors' fees to the fellows — and the academical
population reduced to the accommodation furnished by the ex-
isting houses ; but (what we failed formerly to notice) a revenue
of indefinite amount might be realized to the Colleges, by taxing
standing on their books with the dues exigible from actual resi-
dence.*

Through the agency of its Heads, the collegial interest accom-
plished its usurpation. Public education in the four faculties
was reduced to private instruction in the lower department of
the lowest; and this, again, brought down to the individual in-
capacity of every fellow-tutor. The following we state in sup-
plement of our more general exposition.

In the first place, this was effected by converting the profes-
sorial system of instruction, through which, as its necessary
mean, the University legally accomplishes the ends prescribed
to it by law, into an unimportant accident in the academical
constitution.

* The last Oxford Calendar is before us. The number of under
graduates is not given, and we have not patience to count them ; but
we shall be considerably above the mark in estimating them at 1548,
i. e. the number given by the matriculations for the year multiplied by
4. The whole members on the books amoimt to 5258. Deducting
the former from the latter, there remain of members not restricted to
residence, 3710. Averaging the Battel dues paid by each at thirty
shillings, there results an annual income from this source alone of
L.5565, (and it is much more,) to be distributed among the houses, for
the improvement of headships, fellowships, the purchase of livings, &c.

488 English Universities — Oxford. Dec.

To this end, tlie professorial system was mutilated. Public
instruction was more particularly obnoxious to tbe collegial in-
terest in the Faculty of Arts ; and four chairs, established by the
university in that Faculty, were, without the consent of the
university asked or obtained, abolished by the Hebdomadal
Meeting. The salaries of the Professorships of Grammar, Rhe-
toric, Logic, and Metaphysic, thus illegally suppressed, were
paid by the Proctors out of certain statutory exactions ; and
we shall state our reasons for suspecting that their acquies-
cence in this and other similar acts, was purchased by their
colleagues, the Heads of Houses, allowing these functionaries
to appropriate the salaries to themselves. The Proctors hung
more loosely on the collegial interest than the other members
of the Hebdomadal Meeting ;* and as their advantage was less
immediately involved in the suppression of the professorial sys-
tem, it required, we may suppose, some positive inducement to
secure their thorough-going subservience to the ci'ooked policy
of the Heads. We know also, that the emolument of their
office, allowed bylaw, is just three pounds six shillings sterling
money; while we also know, that its emolument, though not
revealed in the calendar, is, in reality, sufficient to call up a
wealthy incumbent from the country to the performance of its
irksome duties. We have also the analogy of another chair
which was certainly sequestrated for their profit. The history
of this job is edifying. The professorship of Moral Philosophy
was, in 1621, endowed by Dr Thomas White, under strict con-
ditions for securing the efficiency of the chair, which were rati-
fied by Convocation, and declared by law to be inviolable. And,
* that individuals every way competent (viros undequaque pares)

* Befoi-ethe Caroline statute of 1628, the Proctors were elected by,
and out of, the AA'hole body of full graduates in all the faculties of the
university. The office was an object of the highest ambition ; men
only of some mark and talent had any chance of obtaining it ; and its
duties were paid, not by money, but distinction. By this statute all was
changed ; and another mean of accomplishing its usurpation bestowed
on the collegial interest- The election was given, in a certain rota-
tion, to one of the Colleges, (the Halls being excluded ;) and in the
elective college, elegibility was confined to the masters, and the masters
between four and ten years' standing. The office was now filled only
by persons more or less attached to the collegial interest, and these
appointed in a great measure by accident ; while, as it afforded no ho-
nour, its laboiu's must be remunerated by emolument. And let the
Proctors be adequately paid, only let this be done in an open and
legal manner.

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 489

* to this readership may always be appointed,' he intrusted (fond
man !) the election to these members of the Hebdomadal Meet-
ing, the Vice-Chancellor, the Dean of Christ- Church, the Pre-
sidents of Magdalen and St John's, and the Proctors. What
happened ? The chair was converted into a sinecure ; and one
or other of the Proctors, by the very act of self-appointment,
approved, undequaque par, to inculcate Morality by example,
installed professor on every quinquennial vacancy.* What
arrangement was made about the salary (L.lOO), we know not. —
Five out of eleven odious chairs were thus disposed of; and
the co-operation of the Proctors secured.

To the same end, the remnant of the professorial system, not
abolished, was paralysed. In our former paper, we showed how
this system, as constituted by the Laudian statutes, though
easily capable of high improvement, was extremely defective ;
partly from the incompetency or ill intention of the elective
bodies; partly from the temporary nature of several of the
chairs ; but, above all, from the non-identity which subsisted
between the interest of the Professor and his duty. The Heads,
though sworn to the scholastic improvement of the university,
not only proposed no remedy for these defects ; they positively
withheld the correctives they were bound to apply ; and even
did all that in them lay to enhance the evil. Through collegial
influence, persons wholly incompetent were nominated Profes-
sors ; and every provision, by which the University anxiously at-
tempted to insure the diligence of the public teacher, was, by the
academical executive, sedulously frustrated. The Professors, now
also almost exclusively members of the collegial interest, were
allowed to convert their chairs into sinecures ; or to lecture, if
they ultroneously taught, what, when, where, how, how long, to

* This continued from 1673 till 1829. The patriotic exertions of
the present Lord Chancellor, in the"exposure of similar abuses in other
public seminaries, had alarmed the Heads, and probably disposed them
to listen to the suggestions of the more liberal members of their body.
The job, too flagrant to escape notice or admit of justification, was
discontinued. The Rev. Mr Mills, Fellow of Magdalen, was nomina-
ted Professor ; and he has honourably signahzed the reform, by conti-
nuing to deliver a course of lectures, which, we understand, have been
(for Oxford) numerously attended. His introductory lecture. On the
Theory of Moral Obligation, -which, is published, shows with what abi-
lity he could discharge its important duties, were the chair restored
to that place in the academical system it has a right to hold.

490 English Universities — Oxford. Dec

whom, and under what conditions, they chose. The consumma-
tion devoutly wished was soon realized. The shreds of the pro-
fessorial system are now little more than curious vestiges of an-
tiquity; and the one essential mean of education in the legal
system of Oxford, as in the practice of all other universities,
is of no more necessity, in the actual system, than if it were not,
and had never heen.

As to the lectures of the graduates at large, these were soon
so entirely quashed, that the right of lecturing itself — nay, the
very meaning of the terms Regent and Non-Regent, were at last
wholly forgotten in the English Universities.*

This grand object of their policy, the Hebdomadal Meeting
was constrained to cany through, without even the pretext of

* So long ago as the commencement of the last century, Sergeant
Miller, the antagonist of Bentley, and who is praised by Dr Monk
for his profound knowledge of academical affairs, once and again,
in his Account of the University of Cambridge, (pp. 21 — 80,) assiu-es us,
that the terms ' regent' and ' non-regent' were then not understood ;
and the same ignorance at the present day is admitted by the recent
historian of that University, Mr Dyer. {Privileges, &c. ii. p. cxxiii.)
Before our late article appeared, we do not believe there was a mem-
ber of the two English Universities who could have explained the
principle of this distinction, on which, however, the constitution of
these academical corporations fundamentally rests, or who was aware
that every full graduate possesses, in virtue of his degree, the right of
lecturing on any subject of his faculty in the public schools of the Uni-
versity. On this right, it may be proper to add a few words in addi-
tion to what we formerly stated. It is certain, that, before the Laudian
Corpus, graduation both conferred the right, and imposed the obligation,
of public teaching ; the one for ever, the other dui-ing a certain time.
In regard to the foi*mer, nothing was altered by this code. The form
of a Bachelor's degree is, in fact, to this moment, that of a license to
lecture on certain books within his faculty ; and that of a Master's and
Doctor's, a license to commence (incipere) all those solemn acts of
teaching, disputation, &c., which belong to a perfect graduate, (T. ix.)
In regard to the latter, the obligation of public teaching was declared
not repealed, (T. iv. § 1 ;) and if the obligation could still be enforced,
a niajore, the right could still be exercised. It is only periuitted to
Congregation to dispense with the 'necessary regency,' if they, on tlie
one hand, for a reasonable cause, think fit, and if the inceptor, on the
other, choose to avail himself of this indulgence. (T. ix. S. iv. § 2.
21.) In point of fact, this right of lecturing continued to be exercised
by the graduates for a considerable time after the ratification of the
Corpus btatutorum.

1831, English Universities — Oxford. 49 1

law. There is neither statute nor dispensation to allege for the
conduct of the Heads, or the conduct of the Professors.

In the second place, the obligation of attendance on the public
lectures was no longer enforced. This violation of the statutes
was correlative of the last ; but in the present instance, it would
appear, that the illegality has been committed under the sem-
blance of a legal act.

In our former article, as then uncertain touching the point
of actual practice, we could only in general demonstrate, that
no universal dispensation of attendance on the public lectures
is conceded by statute, and that none such, therefore, could
legally be passed either by Congregation or Convocation. We
have since ascertained, that a dispensation is pretended for
this non-observance as obtained from Congregation, under the
dispensing power conceded to that house, ' Pro minus dili-
* genti publicorwn Lectorum auditione,^ (Corp. Stat, p. 86.) ;
at least, such a dispensation is passed for all candidates^ while
no other relative to the observance in question is conceded. It
will here be proper to prove more particularly, that the dis-
pensation, in the present instance, actually accorded, and the
dispensation necessarily required, have no mutual proportion.
The dispensation required, in order to cover the violation, is one,
— 1. for an absolute non-attendance; 2. without the excuse
of an unavoidable impediment ; and, 3. to all candidates indif-
ferently. The dispensation which Congregation can concede —
the dispensation therefore actually conceded, is, 1. not granted
for non-attendance absolutely, but only for the negation of its
highest quality — a not altogether diligent attendance ; 2. not
granted without just reason shown; and, 3. consequently not
granted to all, but only to certain individuals. It must be re-
membered, that every candidate for graduation was uncondi-
tionally bound by statute to have * diligently heard' (diligenter
audivisse) * the public lectures' relative to his degree ; the fulfil-
ment of this condition in the same terms is sworn to in the oath
he makes to the senior Proctor ; and forms part of his supplica-
tion for a grace to the House of Congregation. But as no one
could strictly aver that he had 'diligently heard' these lectures
who was absent from their delivery, however seldom, (and the
framers of the statutes were as rigid in their notions of perjury
as the administrators have subsequently been lax,) while at the
same time it would have been unjust to deprive a candidate of
his degree for every slight and unavoidable non-performance of
this condition ; it was therefore thought equitable and expedient
to qualify the oath to the extent of allowing, ' occasionally,' to
' certain persons,' for the reason of a ^ just hinder ance,' a dis-
pensation * for tiae non-fulfilment of every particular, in the mode

493i English JJniversities — Oxford. Dec.

* and fo?'m required by statute,' and in special ' for the not com'

* pletely regular (minus diligenti) attendance on the public read-

* ers' : — * Cum justa quandoque impedimenta interveniant, quo

* minus ea omnia, quae ad Gradus et alia exercitia Univei'sitatis

* requiruntur, modo et forma per Statuta requisitis, rite peragan-

* tur; consuevitCongregatioRegentiuminhujusmodicausiscum
' personis aliquihus in materia dispensabili aliquoties gratiose dis-
« pensare.' (Corp. Stat. T. ix. S. 4, § 1, Add. p. 135.)— After
this preamble, and governed by it, there follows the list of ' Dis-
pensable Matters,' permitted to Congregation, of which the one
in question, and already quoted, is the fourth.

It is a general rule that all statutes and oaths are to be in-
terpreted ' ad animum imponentis ;' and the Oxford legislators
expressly declare, that the academical statutes and oaths are
violated if interpreted or taken in a sense dilFerent from that
in which they were intended by them. (Epinomis.) Now, that
it was intended by Convocation to convey to Congregation, by
this clause, a general power of absolving all candidates from
the performance of the one paramount condition of their de-
gree, no one in his senses will honestly maintain. The sup-
position involves every imaginable absurdity. It is contrary to
the plain meaning of the clause, considered either in itself or in
reference to the obligation which it modifies ; and contrary to
its meaning, as shown by the practice of the University, at the
period of its ratification, and long subsequent. It would stul-
tify the whole purport of the academical laws, — make the Uni-
versity commit suicide, (for the University exists only through its
public education,) — and suicide without a motive. It would sup-
pose a statute ratified only to be repealed ; and a dispensation
intended to be co-extensive with a law. It would make the le-
gislative House of Convocation to concede to the inferior House
of Congregation, a power of dispensing with a performance in-
finitely more important than the most important of those in
which it expressly prohibits this indulgence to itself; and all
this, too, by a clause of six words shuffled in among a score of
other dispensations too insignificant fur mention.

The non-attendance of candidates on the public courses, as
permitted by the Heads, is thus illegal; and perjury is the price
that must be paid by all for a degree.

In the third place, the residence in the University required
by statute to qualify for all degrees above Bachelor of Arts was
not enforced. This violation is also a corollary of the two for-
mer ; and here likewise, but without success, it is attempted to
evade the illegality.

The House of Convocation, i. e. the graduates, regent and

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 493

non-regent, of the University, though fully possessing the
powers of legislation, found it necessary to limit their own ca-
pacity of suspending, in particular cases, the ordinary applica-
tion of their statutes. If such a dispensing power were not
strictly limited, the consequences are manifest. The project of
an academical law, as a matter of general interest, obtains a
grave deliberation, with a full attendance both of the advocates
and opponents of the measure; and it is passed under the con-
sciousness that it goes forth to the world to be canvassed at the
bar of public opinion, if not to be reviewed by a higher positive
tribunal. The risk is therefore comparatively small, that a sta-
tute will be ratified, glaringly contrary either to the aggregate
interests of those who constitute the University, or to the pub-
lic ends which the University, as an instrument privileged for
the sake of the community, necessarily proposes to accomplish.
All is different with a dispensation. Here the matter, as pri-
vate and particular, attracts, in all likelihood, only those in fa-
vour of its concession ; is treated lightly, as exciting no atten-
tion ; or passed, as never to be known, or, if known, only to be
forgot. The experience also of past abuses, had taught the aca-
demical legislators to limit strictly the license of dispensation
permitted to themselves : — ' Quia ex nimia dispensandi Ucentia
' grave incommodwn Universitati antehac obortum est {nee aliter
^ fieri potuit :) statuit et decrevit Universitas, ne, in posterum,
' dispensationes ullatenus proponantur in casibus sequentibus.'
(Corp. Stat. T. x. S. 2, § 5.) A list of matters is then given
(described in our last paper) with which Convocation cannot
dispense ; the most important of which are, however, in actual
practice violated without a dispensation. It is sufficient here to
notice, that the matters declared indispensable, (those particu-
lars, namely, in which this indulgence had formerly been abu-
sed,) to say nothing of the others declared dispensable, are the
merest trifles compared with that under discussion. Under the
heads, both of Dispensable and of Indispensable Matter, a gene-
ral power is indeed cautiously left to the Chancellor, of allowing
the Hebdomadal Meeting to propose a dispensation ; but this
only ' from some necessary and very urgent cause (ex neces-
* saria et perurgente aliqua causa),' and this, too, under the
former head, only ' in cases which are not repugnant to
' academical discipline, (qui disciplinse Academicse non re-
' pugnant).' The legislature did not foi'esee that the very pre-
cautions thus anxiously adopted, to prevent the abuse of dis-
pensation in time to come, without altogether surrendering
its conveniencies, were soon to be employed as the especial means
of carrying this abuse to an extent, compared with which all
former abuses were as nothing. They did not foresee that the

49# English Umversities — Oxford, Dec.

Chancellor was soon to become a passive instrument in the
hands of the Hebdomadal Meeting ; that these appointed guar-
dians of the law were soon themselves to become its betrayers ;
that the collegial bodies were soon to cherish interests at variance
with those of the University ; that nearly the whole resident
graduates were soon to be exclusively of that interest, and soon,
therefore, to constitute, almost alone, the ordinary meetings of
the two Houses ; and that in these ordinary meetings, under the
illegal covert of dispensations, were all the fundamental statutes
of the University to be soon absolutely annulled, in pursuance
of the private policy of the Colleges.

Under the extraordinary dispensing power thus cautiously
left to the Chancellor, Heads, and Convocation, a legal remission
of the residence required by a statue is attempted ; but in vain.

From his situation, the Chancellor is only the organ of the
collegial heads. His acts are therefore to be considered as theirs.
Chancellor's Letters are applied for and furnished, ready made,
by the University Registrar, to all proceeding to degrees above
Bachelor of Arts, permitting the Hebdomadal Meeting to pro-
pose in Convocation a dispensation in their favour for the resi-
dence required by statute. The dispensation is proposed, and,
as a matter of routine, conceded by the members of the col-
legial interest met in an ordinary Convocation. But is this
legal ? Is this what was intended by the legislature ? Mani-
festly not. The contingency in the eye of law, for which it per-
mits a dispensation, and the case for which, under this permis-
sion, a dispensation is actually obtained, are not only different,
but contrary. We shall not stop to argue that the dispensa-
tioned obtained is illegal, because * repugnant to academical dis-

* ;ipline;' for it is manifestly, as far as it goes, the very nega-
tion of academical discipline altogether. We shall take it upon
the lowest ground. A dispensation of its very nature is rela-
tive to particular cases ; and in allowing it to Convocation, the
law contemplated a particular emergency arising from * some

* necessary and very urgent cause,'' not to be anticipated by
statute, and for which, therefore, it provides a sudden and ex-
traordinary remedy. But who will pretend that a perpetual
remission of attendance to all could be comprehended under this
category ? Such a dispensation is universal, and therefore tant-
amount to a negation of the law. It thus violates the very no-
tion of a dipensation. Then, it does not come under the condi-
tions by which all dispensations, thus competent to Convocation,
are governed. It is neither * necessary^ nor * very urgent.' Not,
certainly, at the commencement of the practice ; for how, on any
day, week, month, or year, could there have arisen a necessity^
an urgency, for abolishing the term of residence quietly tole-

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 495

rated during five centuries, so imperative and sudden, that the
matter could not be delayed (if a short delay were unavoidable)
until brought into Convocation, and approved or rejected as a
general measure ? But if the ' cause' of dispensation were, in this
case, so * necessary' and so ' very urgent,' at first, that it could not
brook the delay even of a week or month, how has this necessity
and urgency been protracted for above a century ? The present is
not one of those particular and unimportant cases, with which,
it might be said, that the statutes should not be incumbered,
and which are therefore left to be quietly dealt with by dispen-
sation. The case in question is of universal application, and of
paramount importance ; one, of all others, which it was the ap-
pointed duty of the Heads to have submitted without delay to
the academical legislature, as the project of a law to be by Con-
vocation rejected or approved. (Tit. xiii.)

The dispensation of residence is thus palpably illegal.

HI. In evidence of the third proposition, we showed, as
already proved, — that the present academical system is illegal,
being one universal violation of another system, exclusively
established by the statutes of the University ; — that this illegal
system is for the private behoof of the Colleges ; — that this sys-
tem, profitable to the Colleges, was intruded into the University
by their Heads, who for this end violated, or permitted to be
violated, the whole fundamental statutes they were appointed
to protect ; — that this conflict between a legal system suspend-
ed in fact, and an actual system non-existent in law, has been
maintained solely by the Heads, who, while possessing the ini-
tiative-of all statutes, have, however, hitherto declined submit-
ting the actual system to Convocation, in order to obtain for it
a legal authorization : — But all members of the University make
oath to the faithful observance of the. academical statutes; and
the Heads, specially sworn to see that these are by all faithfully
observed, are by statute branded as pre-eminently guilty of

* broken trust and perjury,' if even * by their negligence, any

* [unrepealed] statute whatever is allowed to fall into disuse :'
— Consequently, the Heads have, for themselves, voluntarily in-
curred the crime of * broken trust and perjury,' in a degree
infinitely higher than was ever anticipated as possible by the
legislature ; and, for others, have, for their interested purposes,
necessitated the violation of their oaths by all members of the
University.*

* ' He is guilty of perjury, who promiseth upon oath, what he is
not morally and reasonably certain he shall be able to perform.' —
TiLLOTSON, Works, vol. i. p. 148. Sermon on the Laivfulness and Ob*
ligation of OatJis.

496 English Universities — Oxford. Dec.

Now, taking it for granted that, without a motive, no body of
magistrates would live, and make others live, in a systematic
disregard of law — that no body of moral censors would exhibit
the spectacle of their own betrayal of a great public trust — and
that no body of religious guardians would hazard their own
salvation, and the salvation of those confided to their care :* — on
this ground we showed, that while every motive was manifest-
ly against, no motive could possibly be assigned for, the con-
duct of the Heads, in so long exclusively maintaining their in-
trusive system, and never asking for it a legal sanction ; except
their consciousness, that it was too bad to hope for the solemn
approval of a House of Convocation, albeit composed of members of
the collegial interest, and too profitable not to be continued at
every sacrifice.

Rather indeed, we may now add, than hazard the continuance
of this profitable system, by allowing its merits to be canvassed
even by a body interested in its support, the Heads have vio-
lated not only their moral and religious obligations to the
University and country, but, in a particular manner, their duty
to the Church of England. By law, Oxford is not merely an
establishment for the benefit of the English nation ; it is an
establishment for the benefit of those only in community with
the English Church. But the Heads well knew that the man
will subscribe thirty-nine articles which he cannot believe, who
swears to do and to have done a hundred articles which he can-
not, or does not, perform ?f In this respect, private usurpation
was for once more (perversely) liberal than public law. Under
the illegal system, Oxford has ceased to be the seminary of a
particular sect; its governors impartially excluding all religion-
ists or none. Nor is this all. The inevitable tendency of the
academical ordeal was to sear the conscience of the subject to
every pious scruple ; X and the example of * the accursed thing '

* ' lUe qui liominem provocat ad jurationem, et scit eum falsum
juraturum esse, vicit homicidam : quia homicida corpus occisurus est,
ille animam, inimo duas animas ; et ejus animam quem jurare provo-
cavit, et suam.' — (Augustinus in Decollat. S. Joannis Baptistae et
hah. 22. quaest. 5. Ille qui.)

f Nay, the oath for observance of the Statutes is, by the acade-
mical legislature, held a matter of far more serious obligation than the
subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles. For by Statute (T. II. § 3.)
the entrant is not allowed to take the oath until he reach the age of six-
teen ; whereas the subscription is lightly required even of boys matricu-
lating at the tender age of twelve,

X ' Dico vobis non jurare omnino ; ne scilicet juran do ad facilitatem

1831. English Universities — Orford. 49*7

thus committed and enforced by the * Priests in the high places,'
extended its pernicious influence, from the Universities, through-
out the land. England became the country in Europe proverbial
for a disregard of oaths ; and the English Church, in particular,
was abandoned as a peculiar prey to the cupidity of men allured
by its endowments, and educated to a contempt of all religious
tests.

* They swore so many lies before,

That now, without remorse,
Tliey take all oaths that can be made,

As only tilings of course.'*

No one will doubt the profound anxiety of the Heads to avert
these lamentable consequences, and to withdraw themselves from
a responsibility so appalling. We may therefore estimate at once
the intensity of their attachment to the illegal system, as a pri-
vate source of emolument and powei', and the strength of their
conviction of its utter worthlessness, as a public instrument for
accomplishing the purposes of an University. Not only will
the system, when examined, be found absurd; it is already ad-
mitted to be so : and all attempt at an apology by any indivi-
dual, by any subordinate, member of the collegial interest, would
be necessarily vain, while we can oppose to it the * deep damna-
' tion' reluctantly pronounced on their own act and deed by so
many generations of the College Heads themselves.

It thus appears, that the downfall of the University has been
the result, and the necessary result, of subjecting it to an influ-
ence jealous of its utility, and, though incompetent to its func-
tions, ambitious to usurp its place. The College Heads have
been, and will always be, the bane of the University, so long
as they are suff'ered to retain the power of paralysing its effi-

jurandi veniatur, de facilitate ad consuetudinem, de consuetudine ad
perjurium decidatur.' — (Augustinus De Metidacio.) ' In Novo Tes-
tamento dictum est, Ne omnino juremus: quod niihi quidem prop-
terea dictum esse videtur, non quia jurare peccatum est, sed quia
pejerare immane peccatum est, a quo longe nos esse voluit, qui omnino
ne juremus commovit.' — (Idem in Epist, ad Publicolam, et hab. 22.
qu. I. in novo.^

* Another annoying consequence of the illegal state of the English
Universities may be mentioned. The Heads either durst not, under
present circumstances, attempt, or would be inevitably baffled in at-
tempting, to resist the communication to other seminaries of those
academical privileges which they themselves have so disgracefully
abused. The truth of this observation will probably soon be mani-
fested by the event.

498 English Universities — Oxford. Dec.

ciency : at least, if a radical reconstruction of the whole collegial
system do not identify the interests of the public and the pri-
vate corporations, and infuse into the f common governors of
both a higher spirit and a more general intelligence. We regret
that our charges against the Heads have been so heavy ; and
would repeat, that our strictures have been applied to them not
as individuals, but exclusively in their corporate capacity. We
are even disposed altogether to exempt the recent members of this
body from a reproach more serious than that of ignorance as to
the nature and extent of their duty to the University ; * while we
freely acknowledge that they have inadequately felt the want, and
partially commenced the work, of reformation, which we trust
they may long live to see completed. We should be sorry in-
deed not to believe, that, among the present heads, there are
individuals fully aware that Oxford is not what it ought to be,
and prepared cordially to co-operate in restoring the University
to its utility and rights. But it is not in the power of individuals
to persuade a body of men in opposition to their interests : and
even if the whole actual members of the Hebdomadal Meeting
were satisfied of the dishonest character of the policy hitherto
pursued, and personally anxious to reverse it ; we can easily con-
ceive that they might find it invidious to take upon themselves
to condemn so deeply so many generations of their predecessors,
and a matter of delicacy to surrender, on behalf of the collegial
interest, but in opposition to its wishes, the valuable monopoly
it has so long been permitted without molestation to enjoy. In
this conflict of delicacy, interest, and duty, the Heads themselves
ought to desire, — ought to invoke, the interposition of a higher
authority. A Royal or Parliamentary Visitation is the easy and
appropriate mode of solving the difficulty — a difficulty which,
in fact, only arose from the intermission, for above the last cen-
tury and a half, of that corrective, which, since the subjection
of the University to the Colleges, remained the only remedy for
abuses, and abuses determined by that subjection itself. Pre-
vious to that event, though the Crown occasionally interposed
to the same salutary end, still the University possessed within
itself the ordinary means of reform; Convocation frequently
appointing delegates to enquire into abuses, and to take counsel
for the welfare and melioration of the establishment. But by

* Any degree of such ignorance in the present Heads we can ima-
gine possible, after that shown by the most intelligent individuals in
Oxford, of the relation subsisting between the public and the private
corporations. As we noticed in our last paper, the parasitic Fungus
is there mistaken for the Oak ; the Colleges are viewed as constituting
the University,

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 499

bestowing on a private body, like the Heads, the exclusive guar-
dianship of the statutes, and the initiative of every legal mea-
sure, Convocation was deprived of all power of active interfe-
rence, and condemned to be the passive spectator of all that the
want of wisdom, all that the self-seeking of the academical exe-
cutive might do, or leave undone.

Through the influence, and for the personal aggrandizement
of an ambitious statesman, the Crown delivered over the reluc-
tant University, bound hand and foot, into the custody of a pri-
vate and irresponsible body, actuated by peculiar and counter
interests ; and, to consummate the absurdity, it never afterwards
interfered, as heretofore, to alleviate the disastrous consequences
of this its own imprudent act. And if the Heads had met, or even
expected to meet, the occasional check of a disinterested and
wiser body, they would probably never even have attempted the
coUegial monopoly of education they have established, in the
extinction of all the faculties of the University. This neglect
was unfair, even to the Heads themselves, who were thus exposed
to a temptation, which, as a body, it was not in their nature to
resist. * Ovem lupo commisisti.' But it is not the wolf, who
acts only after kind, it is they who confide the flock to his charge,
that are bound to answer for the sheep. To the administrators
of the State, rather than to the administrators of the Universi-
ty, is thus primarily to be attributed the corruptions of Oxford.
To them, likewise, must we look for their removal. The Crown
is, in fact, bound, in justice to the nation, to restore the Uni-
versity against the consequences of its own imprudence and
neglect. And as it ought, so it is alone able. To expect, in
opposition to all principle and all experience, that a body, like
the Heads, either could conceive the plan of an adequate improve-
ment, or would will its execution, is the very climax of folly. —
It is from the State only, and the Crown in particular, that we
can reasonably hope for an academical reformation worthy of
the name.

< Et spes et ratio studiorum in Csesare tantum.'

But with a patriot King, a reforming Ministry, and a re-
formed Parliament, we are confident that our expectations will
not be vain. A general scholastic reform will be, in fact, one
of the greatest blessings of the political renovation, and, per-
haps, the surest test of its value. And on this great subject, could
we presume personally to address his Majesty, as supreme Visi-
tor of the Universities, we should humbly repeat to William the
Fourth, in the present, the counsel which Locke, in the last
great crisis of the constitution, solemnly tendered to William
the Third: — ' Sire, you have made a most glorious and happy

500 JEnc/Ush Universities — Oxford. Dec.

* Revolution; but the good effects of it will soon be lost, if no

* care is taken to regulate the Universities.'* On the other
hand, were we to address the Senators of England, as the
reformers of all abuses both in church and state ; though it needs,
certainly, no wizard to expose the folly of waiting for our
reformation of the English Universities from the very parties
interested in their corruption ; it would be impossible to do so
in weightier or more appropriate words, than those in which the
wise Cornelius Agrippa exhorts the Senators of Cologne, to take
the work of reforming the University of that city exclusively
into their own hands : — ' Dicetis forte, quis nostrum ista faciet,

si ipsi scholarum Rectores et Prsesides id non faciunt ? Certe
si illis permittis reformationis hujus negotiura, in eodem sem-
per luto hserebitis ; cum unusquisque illorum talem gestiatfor-
mare Academiam^ in qua ipse maxima in pretio sit Jiiturus, ut
hactenus asinus inter asinos, porcus inter porcos. Vestra est
Universitas, vestri in ilia prsecipue erudiuntur filii, vestrum
negotium agitur. Vestram ergo est omnia recte ordinare,
prudenter statuere, sapienter disponere, sancte reformare, ut
vestrae civitatis honor et utilitas suadent ; nisi forte vultis
filiis vestris ignavos, potius, quam eruditos, prseesse Magis-
tros, atque in civitatem vestram corapetat, quod olim in Ephe-
sios ; — Nemo apud nos fit frugi, si quis extiterit, in alio loco
et apud alios fit ille. Quod si filios vestros, quos Reipub-
licae vestrse profuturos genuistis, bonarum literavum gratia ad
externas urbes et Universitates peregre mittitis erudiendos,
cur in vestra urbe illos his studiis fraudatis ? Cur artes et
literas non recipitis peregrinas, qui filios vestros illarum gra-
tia emittitis ad peregrinos ? Quod si nunc prisci illi urbis

vestrse Senatores sepulchris suis exirent, quid putatis illos dic-
turos, quod tarn celebrem olim Universitatem vestram, magnis
sumptibus, laboribus et precibus ab ipsis huic urbi coraparatam,
vos taliter cum obtenebrari patimini, turn funditus extingui
sustineatis ? Nemo certe negare potest, urbem vestram civesque
vestros omnibus Germaniae civitatibus rerum atque morum
magnificentia anteponendam, si unus ille bonarum literarum
splendor vobis non deesset. PoUetis enim omnibus fortunee

* This anecdote is told by Sergeant Miller, in his Account of the
University of Cambridge, {x>. 188,) published in 1717. It is unknown,
so far as we recollect, to all the biographers of Locke. And William,
we may notice, probably thought, like Dr Parr, that the ' English
' Universities stood in need of a thorough reformation,' only, ' that as
seminaries of the church, it was the wisest thing for Parliament to let
them alone, and not raise a nest of hornets about their ears,'

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 501

* bonis et divitiis, nulllus, ad vitse et magnificentiae usum egetis;

* sed hsec omnia apud vos raortua sunt, et velut in paiiete picta:
' quoniam quibus heec vivificari et animari debeant, animacare-

* tis, hoc est, bonis literis non polletis, in quibus solis honor, dig-
' nitas, et iotimortalis in longsevam posteritatem gloria contine-
' tur.'— (Epist. L. vii. 26. Opera, II. p. 1042.)

The preceding statement will enable us to make brief work with
our opponent. His whole argument turns on two cardinal propo-
sitions : the one of which, as maintained by us, he refutes ; the
other, as admitted by us, he assumes. Unfortunately, however,
we maintain, as the very foundation of our case, the converse of
the proposition he refutes as ours ; and our case itself is the for-
mal refutation of the very proposition he assumes as conceded.

The proposition refuted is, That the legitimate constitution of
the University of Oxford was finally and exclusively determined
by the Laudian Code, and that all change in that constitution,
by subsequent statute, is illegal.

The proposition assumed is, That the present academical sys-
tem, though different from that established by the Laudian Code,
is, however, ratified by subsequent statute.

(This refutation and assumption, taken together, imply the
conclusion, That the present system is legal.)

The former proposition, as we said, is not ours ; we not only
never conceiving that so extravagant an absurdity could be
maintained, but expressly asserting or notoriously assuming the
reverse in almost every page, nay establishing it even as the prin-
cipal basis of our argument. If this proposition were true, our
whole demonstration of the interested policy of the Heads would
have been impossible. How could we have shown that the
changes introduced by them were only for the advantage of
themselves and of the collegial interest in general, unless we had
been able to show that there existed in the University a capacity
of legal change, and that the voluntary preference of illegal change
by the Heads, argued that their novelties were such as, they
themselves were satisfied, did not deserve the countenance of
Convocation, that is, of the body legislating for the utility and
honour of the University? If all change had been illegal,
and, at the same time, change (as must be granted) unavoid-
able and expedient; the conduct of the Heads would have found
an ample cloak in the folly — in the impossibility of the law.
Yet the Venerable and Veracious Member coolly 'asserts' that
this, as the position which we maintain, is the position which he
writes his pamphlet to refute ! With an effrontery, indeed,
ludicrous from its extravagance, he even exults over our 'luck-
' less admission,' — " that Convocation possesses the right of re-

VOL, UV. NO. cviii. 2 K.

502 English Universities — Oxford, Dec.

" scinding old, and of ratifying new, laws," (p. 25) ; and (on
the hypothesis, always, that we, like himself, had an intention of
deceiving) actually charges it as ' one of our greatest blunders'
— a blunder betraying a total want of ' common sense,' — ' to

* have referred to the Appendix and Addenda to the Statute-

* book,' (p. 86,) i. e. to the work we reviewed, to the documents
on which our argument was immediately and principally found-
ed ! *

In regard to the latter proposition, it is quite true, that if the
former academical system has been repealed, and the present
ratified by Convocation, the actual order of things in Oxford is
legal, and the Heads stand guiltless in the sight of God and
man. But, as this is just the matter in question, and as instead
of the affirmative being granted by us, the whole nisus of our
reasoning was to demonstrate the negative ; we must hold, that
since the assertorhas adduced nothing to invalidateour statements
on this point, he has left the controversy exactly as he found it.
To take a single instance ; — has he shown, or attempted to show,
that by any subsequent act of Convocation those fundamental
statutes which constitute and regulate the professorial system,

* It may amuse our readers to hear how our ingenuous disputant lays
out his pamphlet, alias, his refutation of ' the Medish immutability of

* the Laudian digest.' This immutability he refutes by ' arguing

' From the general principles of jurisprudence, as they relate to the

* mutability of human laws. (Sect. II.) — From the particular prin-
' ciples of municipal incorporation, as they relate to the making of

< by-laws. (Sect. III.) — From the express words of the Corpus Sta-

* tutorum. (Sect IV.) — From immemorial usage, that is, the constant
' practice of the University from 1234 to 1831. (Sect. V.)— From

* the principle of adaptation upon which the statutes of 1636 were
' compiled and digested. (Sect. VI.) — From Archbishop Laud's own

* declarations in respect of those statutes. (Sect. VII.) — From his

* instructions to Dr Frewin, in 1638, to submit to Convocation some

* amendments of the statute-book, after it had been finally ratified and

* confirmed. (Sect VIII.) — From the alterations made in the statute-

< book after the death of the Archbishop, but during the lives of those
' who were his confidential friends, and had been his coadjutors in
' the work of reforming it. (Sect. IX.) — From the alterations made

* in the statute-book from time to time, since the death of the Arch-

* bishop's coadjutors to the present day. (Sect. X.) — From the opi-

* nion of counsel upon the legality of making and altering statutes, as
' delivered to the Vice-Chancellor, June 2, 1759. (Sect. XI.)' — p.
16. This elaborate parade of argument (the pamphlet extends to a
hundred and fifty mortal pages) is literally answered in two words —
■Quis duhitavit ?

1831. English Universities — Oxford. 503

as the one essential organ of all academical education, have been
repealed ? — nay, that the statutes of the present century do not
on this point recognise and enforce those of those preceding ? —
(Add. p. 129 — 133, pp. 187, 188, et passim.) If not, how on
his own doctrine of the academic oath, {in which we fully coin-
cide,) does he exempt the guardians of its statutes, to say nothing
of the other members of the University, from perjury? 'It'
(the academic oath) ' is, and will always be, taken and kept with

* a safe conscience, as long as the taker shall faithfully observe

* the academic code, in all its fundamental ordinances, and accord-
' ing to their true meaning and intent. And with respect to other

* matters, it is safely taken, if taken according to the tvill of

* those ivho made the law, and who have the power to make or

* unmake, to dispense with or repeal, any, or any parts of any,

* laws educational of the University, and to sanction the admi-

* nistration of the oath with larger or more limited relations,
' [i. e. ?J according to what Convocation may deem best and fittest
^ for the ends it has to accomplish.'' — P. 132. In the case adduced,
the unobserved professorial system is a ' fundamental ordinance,'
is exclusively ' according to the will of those who made, make,

* and unmake the law,' exclusively ' according to what Con-

* vocation deems the best and fittest.' * Consequently, &c.

In the propositions we have now considered, the assertor's
whole pamphlet is confuted. We shall however notice (what we
cannot condescend to disprove) some of the subaltern statements
which, with equal audacity, he holds out as maintained by us,
and some of which he even goes so far as to support by fabrica-
ted quotations. Of these, one class contains assertions, not sim-
ply false, but precisely the reverse of the statements really made
by us. Such, for instance — That we extolled the academic system
of the Laudian code as perfect, (pp. 95, 96, 144, &c.) ; — That we
admitted the actual system to be not inexpedient or insufficient,
(p. 95) ; and, That this system was introduced in useful ac-

* See Sanderson De Juramenti Obligatione, Prael. III. § 18. — too
long to extract. The Assertor avers, but without quoting any authority,
that Sanderson wrote the Epinomis of the Corpus Statutorum. If
true, which we do not believe, the fact would be curious. It is unno-
ticed by Wood, in his Historia, Annals, or Athence — is unknown to
Walton, or to any indeed of Sanderson's biographers. It is also other-
wise improbable. Sanderson left the University in 1619, when he
surrendered his fellowship, and only returned in 1642, when made
Regius Professor of Divinity. The Statutes were compiled in the
interval ; and why should the Epinomis be written by any other
than the delegates ? We see the motive for the fiction ;— it is too silly
to he worth mentioning.

504 English Uni'dersities — Oxford. Dec.

commodation to the changing ch'cumstances of the age, (p. 95.)
Another ckiss includes those assertions that are simply false.
For example— That we expressed a general approbation of the
methods of the ancient University, and of the scholastic exer-
cises and studies, beyond an incidental recognition of the utility
of disputation, and that too in the circumstances of the middle
ages ; and we may state that the quotation repeatedly alleged in
support of this assertion is a coinage of his own, (pp. 6, 1 1, 83,
96, 97, 138, 139) ; — That we reviled Oxford for merely devia-
ting from her ancient institutions, (pp. 5, 11, 12, 95, &c.) ; —
Tliat we said a single word in delineation of the Chamberdeckyn
at all, far less (what is pronounced *one of the cleverest sleights

* of hand ever practised in the whole history of literary legerde-

* main') ' transformed him into an amiable and interesting young

* gentleman, poor indeed in pocket, but abundantly rich in intel-
' lectual energies, and in every principle that adorns and digni-
' iies human nature !' (p. 1 13.) Regarding as we do the assertor
only as a curious psychological monstrosity, we do not affect to
feel towards him the indignation, with which, coming from any
other quarter, we should repel the false and unsupported charges
of ' depraving, corrupting, and mutilating our cited passages,*
(p. 24) ; — of ' making fraudulent use of the names and authori-

* ties of Dr Newton and Dr Wallace, of Lipsius, Crevier, and Du

* Boullay,' (p. 142) ; and to obtain the weight of his authority, of
fathering on Lord Bacon an apophthegm of our own, though only
alleging, without reference, one of the most familiar sentences of
his most popular work. To complete our cursory dissection of
this moral Lusus Naturae, we shall only add that he quotes us
just thirteen times ; that of these quotations one is authentic ; six
are more or less altered ; one is garbled, half a sentence being
adduced to support what the whole would have overthrown, (p.
20) ; and^ve are fabrications to countenance opinions which the
fabricator finds it convenient to impute to us, (pp. 9, 10, 11,
110, 141.)

We might add much more, but enough has now been said.
We have proved that our positions stand unconfuted — uncon-
troverted — untouched ; that to seem even to answer, our opponent
lias been constrained to reverse the very argument he attacked ;
and that the perfidious spirit in which he has conducted the
controversy, significantly manifests his own consciousness of
the futility of his cause.

1831. hord 'Nugent' s Memorials of Hampden, .505

Art. X. — Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Partij, and his
Times. By Lord Nugent. 2 volumes. 8vo. London: 1831.

WE have read this book with great pleasure, though not
exactly with that kind of pleasure which we had expected.
We had hoped that Lord Nugent would have been able to col-
lect, from family papers and local ti'aditions, much new and
interesting information respecting the life and character of the
renowned leader of the Long Parliament, — the first of those
great English commoners whose plain addition of Mister has, to
our ears, a more majestic sound than the proudest of the feudal
titles. In this hope we have been disappointed ; but assuredly
not from any want of zeal or diligence on the part of the noble
biographer. Even at Hampden, there are, it seems, no import-
ant papers relative to the most illustrious proprietor of that
ancient domain. The most valuable memorials of him which
still exist, belong to the family of his friend. Sir John Eliot.
Lord Eliot has furnished the portrait which is engraved for this
work, together with some very interesting letters. The por-
trait is undoubtedly an original, and probably the only original
now in existence. The intellectual forehead, the mild penetra-
tion of the eye, and the inflexible resolution expressed by the
lines of the mouth, sufficiently guarantee the likeness. We
shall probably make some extracts from the letters. They
contain almost all the new information that Lord Nugent has
been able to procure respecting the private pursuits of the great
man whose memory he worships with an enthusiastic, but not
an extravagant, veneration.

The public life of Hampden is surrounded by no obscurity.
His history, more particularly from the beginning of the year
1640 to his death, is the history of England. These Memoirs
must be considered as Memoirs of the history of England ; and,
as such, they well deserve to be attentively perused. They
contain some curious facts, which, to us at least, arc new, —
much spirited narrative, many judicious remarks, and much
eloquent declamation.

We are not sure that even the want of information respecting
the private character of Hampden is not in itself a circumstance
as strikingly characteristic as any which the most minute
chronicler — O'Meara, Las Cases, Mrs Thrale, or Boswell him-
self— ever recorded concerning their heroes. The celebrated
Puritan leader is an almost solitary instance of a great man'who
neither sought nor shunned greatness, — who found glory only
because glory lay in the plain path of duty. During more than

506 Lord Nugenfs Memorials of Hampden, Dec.

forty years, he was known to his country neighbours as a gentle-
man of cultivated mind, of high principles, of polished address,
happy in his family, and active in the discharge of local duties ;
— to political men, as an honest, industrious, and sensible
member of Parliament, not eager to display his talents, stanch
to his party, and attentive to the interests of his constituents.
A great and terrible crisis came. A direct attack was made, by
an arbitrary government, on a sacred right of Englishmen, — on
a right which was the chief security for all their other rights.
The nation looked round for a defender. Calmly and unosten-
tatiously the plain Buckinghamshire Esquire placed himself at
the head of his countrymen, and right before the face, and
across the path, of tyranny. The times grew darker and more
troubled. Public service, perilous, arduous, delicate, was
required ; and to every service, the intellect and the courage of
this wonderful man were found fully equal. He became a
debater of the first order, a most dexterous manager of the
House of Commons, a negotiator, a soldier. He governed a
fierce and turbulent assembly, abounding in able men, as easily
as he had governed his family. He showed himself as competent
to direct a campaign as to conduct the business of the petty
sessions. We can scarcely express the admiration which we
feel for a mind so great, and, at the same time, so healthful and
so well proportioned, — so willingly contracting itself to the
hunablest duties — so easily expanding itself to the highest, — so
contented in repose — so powerful in action. Almost every
part of this virtuous and blameless life, which is not hidden from
us in modest privacy, is a precious and splendid portion of our
national history. Had the private conduct of Hampden afforded
the slightest pretence for censure, he would have been assailed
by the same blind malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest
proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an assassin. Had
there been even any weak part in the character of Hampden,
had his manners been in any respect open to ridicule, we may
be sure that no mercy would have been shown to him by the
writers of Charles's faction. Those writers have carefully
preserved every little circumstance which could tend to make
their opponents odious or contemptible. They have told us
that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose
pulled by HoUis, that the Earl of Northumberland cudgelled
Henry Martin, that St John's manners were sullen, that Vane
had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a red nose. They have
made themselves merry with the canting phrases of injudicious
zealots. But neither the artful Clarendon, nor the scurrilous
Denham, ^could venture to throw the slightest imputation on

1831. hord 'i^agenf 8 Memorials of Hampden. 507

the morals or the manners of Hampden. What was the opinion
entertained respecting him by the best men of his time, we
learn from Baxter. That eminent person — eminent not only
for his piety and his fervid devotional eloquence, but for his
moderation, his knowledge of political affairs, and his skill in
judging of characters — declared in the Saint's Rest, that one of
the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in Heaven was the
society of Hampden. In the editions printed after the Resto-
ration, the name of Hampden was omitted. ' But I must tell

* the reader,' says Baxter, * that I did blot it out, not as changing

* my opinion of the person. . . . Mr John Hampden was one

* that friends and enemies acknowledged to be most eminent for

* prudence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most uni-

* versal praise of any gentleman that I remember of that age. I

* remember a moderate, prudent, aged gentleman, far from him,

* but acquainted with him, whom I have heard saying, that if he

* might choose what person he would be then in the world, he
' would be John Hampden.' We cannot but regret that we
have not fuller memorials of a man, who, after passing through
the most severe temptations by which human virtue can be tried,
— after acting a most conspicuous part in a revolution and a civil
war, could yet deserve such praise as this from such authority.
Yet the want of memorials is surely the best proof, that hatred
itself could find no blemish on his memory.

The story of his early life is soon told. He was the head of
a family which had been settled in Buckinghamshire before the
Conquest. Part of the estate which he inherited had been be-
stowed by Edward the Confessor on Baldwyn de Hampden,
whose name seems to indicate that he was one of the Norman
favourites of the last Saxon king. During the contest between
the houses of York and Lancaster, the Hampdens adhered to
the party of the Red Rose, and were, consequently, persecuted by
Edward the Fourth, and favoured by Henry the Seventh. Under
the Tudors, the family was great and flourishing. Griffith
Hampden, high sheriff of Buckinghamshire, entertained Eliza-
beth with great magnificence at his seat. His son, William
Hampden, sate in the Parliament which that queen summoned
in the year 1593. William married Elizabeth Cromwell, aunt
of the celebrated man who afterwards governed the British
islands with more than regal power; and from this marriage
sprang John Hampden.

He was born in 1594. In 1597 his father died, and left him
heir to a very large estate. After passing some years at the
grammar school of Thame, young Hampden was sent, at fifteen,
to Magdalene College, in the University of Oxford. At nine-

508 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

teen, he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, where he
made himself master of the principles of the English law. In
1619, he married Elizabeth Symeon, a lady to whom he appears
to have been fondly attached. In the following year, he was re-
turned to parliament by a borough which has in our time obtained
a miserable celebrity, the borough of Grampound.

Of his private life during his early years, little is known be-
yond what Ciai-endon has told us. ' In his entrance into the
' world,' says that great historian, ' he indulged himself in all

* the license in sports, and exercises, and company, which were
' used by men of the most jolly conversation.' A remarkable
change, however, passed in his character. ' On a sudden,' says
Clarendon, ' from a life of great pleasure and license, he retired

* to extraordinary sobriety and strictness — to a more reserved
' and melancholy society.' It is probable that this change took
place when Hampden was about twenty-five years old. At that
age he was united to a woman whom he loved and esteemed.
At that age he entered into political life. A mind so happily
constituted as his would naturally, under such circumstances,
relinquish the pleasures of dissipation for domestic enjoyments
and public duties.

His enemies have allowed that he was a man in whom virtue
showed itself in its mildest and least austere form. With the
morals of a Puritan, he had the manners of an accomplished
courtier. Even after the change in his habits, ' he preserved,'
says Clarendon, ' his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, and,
' above all, a flowing courtesy to all men.' These qualities dis-
tinguished him from most of the members of his sect and his
party ; and, in the great crisis in which he afterwards took a
principal part, were of scarcely less service to the country than
his keen sagacity and his dauntless courage.

On the 30th of January, 1621, Hampden took his seat in the
House of Commons. His mother was exceedingly desirous that
her son should obtain a peerage. His family, his possessions,
and his personal accomplishments, were such as would, in any
age, have justified him in pretending to that honour. But, in
the reign of James the First, there was one short cut to the
House of Lords. It was but to ask, to pay, and to have. The
sale of titles was carried on as openly as the sale of boroughs in
our times. Hampden turned away with contempt from the de-
grading honours with which his family desired to see him invest-
ed, and attached himself to the party which was in opposition to
the court.

It was about this time, as Lord Nugent has justly remarked,
that parliamentary opposition began to take a regular form.

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 50d

From a very early age, the English had enjoyed a far larger
share of liberty than had fallen to the lot of any neighbouring
people. How it chanced that a country conquered and enslaved
by invaders, — a country of which the soil had been portioned
out among foreign adventurers, and of which the laws were
written in a foreign tongue, — a country given over to that worst
tyranny, the tyranny of caste over caste, — should have become
the seat of civil liberty, the object of the admiration and envy of
surrounding states, is one of the most obscure problems in the
philosophy of history. But the fact is certain. Within a cen-
tury and a half after the Norman Conquest, the Great Charter
was conceded. Within two centuries after the Conquest^ the
first House of Commons met. Froissart tells us, what indeed
his whole naiTative sufficiently proves, that of all the nations of
the 14th century, the English were the least disposed to endure
oppression. ' C'est le plus perilleux peuple qui soit au monde,
' et plus outrageux et orgueilleux.' The good Canon probably
did not perceive, that all the prosperity and internal peace which
this dangerous people enjoyed, were the fruits of the spirit which
he designates as proud and outrageous. He has, however, borne
ample testimony to the effect, though he was not sagacious
enough to trace it to its cause. ' En le royaume d'Angleterre,'
says he, ' toutes gens, laboureurs et marchands, ont appris de

* vivre en pays, et a mener leurs marchandises paisiblement, et

* les laboureurs labourer.' In the 15th century, though Eng-
land was convulsed by the struggle between the two branches
of the royal family, the physical and moral condition of the
people continued to improve. Villanage almost wholly disap-
peared. The calamities of war were little felt, except by those
who bore arms. The oppressions of the government were little
felt, except by the aristocracy. The institutions of the country,
when compared with the institutions of the neighbouring king-
doms, seem to have been not undeserving of the praises of For-
tescue. The government of Edward the Fourth, though we call
it cruel and arbitrary, was humane aud liberal, when compared
with that of Louis the Eleventh, or that of Charles the Bold.
Comines, who had lived amidst the wealthy cities of Flanders,
and who had visited Florence and Venice, had never seen a
people so well governed as the English. ' Or selon mon advis,'
says he, ' entre toutes les seigneuries du monde, dont j'ay con-
' noissance, ou la chose publique est mieux traitee, et ou regne
' moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou il n'y a nuls edifices
' abbatus n'y demolis pour guerre, c'est Angleterre ; et tombe le

* sort et le raalheur sur ceux qui font la guerre.'

About the close of the 15th, and the commencement of the

510 Lord Nugent*s Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

16tb century, a great portion of the influence which the aristo-
cracy had possessed passed to the crown. No Ei;glish King has
ever enjoyed such absolute power as Henry the Eighth. But
while the royal prerogatives were acquiring strength at the ex-
pense of the nobility, two great revolutions took place, destined
to be the parents of many revolutions, — the discovery of Print-
ing, and the reformation of the Church.

The immediate effect of the Reformation in England was by
no means favourable to political liberty. The authority which
had been exercised by the Popes, was transferred almost entire
to the King. Two formidable powers which had often served
to check each other, were united in a single despot. If the sys-
tem on which the founders of the Church of England acted could
have been permanent, the Reformation would have been, in a po-
litical sense, the greatest curse that ever fell on our country.
But that system carried within it the seeds of its own death. It
was possible to transfer the name of Head of the Church from
Clement to Henry ; but it was impossible to transfer to the new
establishment the veneration which the old establishment had
inspired. Mankind had not broken one yoke in pieces only in
order to put on another. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome
had been for ages considered as a fundamental principle of Chris-
tianity. It had for it every thing that could make a prejudice
deep and strong, — venerable antiquity, high authority, general
consent. It had been taught in the first lessons of the nurse. It
was taken for granted in all the exhortations of the priest. To
remove it was to break innumerable associations, and to give a
great and perilous shock to the mind. Yet this prejudice, strong
as it was, could not stand in the great day of the deliverance of
the human reason. And it was not to be expected that the pub-
lic mind, just after freeing itself, by an unexampled effort, from
a bondage which it had endured for ages, would patiently sub-
mit to a tyranny which could plead no ancient title. Rome had
at least prescription on its side. But Protestant intolerance, —
despotism in an upstart sect, — infallibility claimed by guides who
acknowledged that they had passed the greater part of their lives
in error, — restraints imposed on the liberty of private judgment
by rulers who could vindicate their own proceedings only by as-
serting the liberty of private judgment, — these things could not
long be borne. Those who had pulled down the crucifix could
not long continue to persecute for the surplice. It required no
great sagacity to perceive the inconsistency and dishonesty of men
who, dissenting from almost all Christendom, would suffer none
todissent from themselves ; who demanded freedom of conscience,
yet refused to grant it, — who execrated* persecution, yet persecu-
ted,— who urged reason against the authority of one opponent,

1831. Lord "Nugent' B Memorials of Hampden. 511

and authority against the reasons of another. Bonner at least
acted in accordance with his own principles. Cranmer could vin-
dicate himself from the charge of being a heretic, only by argu-
ments which made him out to be a murderer.

Thus the system on which the English Princes acted with re-
spect to ecclesiastical affairs for some time after the Reformation,
was a system too obviously unreasonable to be lasting. The pub-
lic mind moved while the government moved ; but would not stop
where the government stopped. The same impulse which had
carried millions away from the Church of Rome, continued to
carry them forward in the same direction. As Catholics had be-
come Protestants, Protestants became Puritans ; and the Tudors
and Stuarts were as unable to avert the latter change, as the
Popes had been to avert the former. The dissenting party in-
creased, and became strong under every kind of discouragement
and oppression. They were a sect. The government persecuted
them, and they became an opposition. The old constitution of
England furnished to them the means of resisting the sovereign
without breaking the laws. They were the majority of the House
of Commons. They had the power of giving or withholding
supplies; and, by a judicious exercise of this power, they might
hope to take from the Church its usurped authority over the con-
sciences of men ; and from the Crown some part of the vast pre-
rogative which it had recently acquired at the expense of the no-
bles and of the Pope.

The faint beginnings of this memorable contest may be dis-
cerned early in the reign of Elizabeth. The conduct of her last
Parliament made it clear that one of those great revolutions
which policy may guide but cannot stop, was in progress. It was
on the question of monopolies that the House of Commons gain-
ed its first great victory over the Throne. The conduct of the
extraordinary woman who then governed England, is an admi-
rable study for politicians who live in unquiet times. It shows
how thoroughly she understood the people whom she ruled,
and the crisis in which she was called to act. What she held, she
held firmly. What she gave, she gave graciously. She saw that
it was necessary to make a concession to the nation ; and she
made it, not grudgingly, not tardily, not as a matter of bargain
and sale, not, in a word, as Charles the First would have made
it, but promptly and cordially. Before a bill could be framed or
an address presented, she applied a remedy to the evil of which
the nation complained. She expressed in the warmest terms her
gratitude to her faithful Commons for detecting abuses which
interested persons had concealed from her. If her successors had
inherited her wisdom with her crown, Charles the First might

512 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec»

have died of old age, and James the Second would never have
seen St Germains.

She died ; and the kingdom passed to one who was, in his own
opinion, the greatest master of king-craft that ever lived — who
was, in truth, one of those kings whom God seems to send for
the express purpose of hastening revolutions. Of all the ene-
mies of liberty whom Britain has produced, he was at once the
most harmless and the most provoking. His office resembled
that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goads the torpid
savage to fury, by shaking a red rag in the air, and now and
then throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too small to
injure. The policy of wise tyrants has always been to cover
their violent acts with popular forms. James was always ob-
truding his despotic theories on his subjects without the slight-
est necessity. His foolish talk exasperated them infinitely more
than forced loans or benevolences would have done. Yet, in
practice, no king ever held his prerogatives less tenaciously.
He neither gave way gracefully to the advancing spirit of liberty,
nor took vigorous measures to stop it, but retreated before it with
ludicrous haste, blustering and insulting as he retreated. The
English people had been governed for nearly a hundred and
fifty years by Princes who, whatever might be their frailties or
their vices, had all possessed great force of character, and who,
whether beloved or hated, had always been feared. Now, at
length, for the first time since the day when the sceptre of Henry
the Fourth dropped from the hand of his lethargic grandson,
England had a king whom she despised.

The follies and vices of the man increased the contempt which
was produced by the feeble policy of the sovereign. The inde-
corous gallantries of the Court, — the habits of gross intoxication
in which even the ladies indulged, — were alone sufficient to dis-
gust a people whose manners were beginning to be strongly
tinctured with austerity. But these were trifles. Crimes of
the most frightful kind had been discovered ; others were sus-
pected. The strange story of the Gowries was not forgotten.
The ignominious fondness of the king for his minions, — the per-
juries, the sorceries, the poisonings, which his chief favourites
had planned within the walls of his palace, — the pardon which,
in direct violation of his duty, and of his word, he had granted to
the mysterious threats of a murderer, made him an object of
loathing to many of his subjects. What opinion grave and
moral persons residing at a distance from the Court entertained
respecting him, we learn from Mrs Hutchinson's Memoirs. Eng-
land was no place, — the seventeenth century no time, — for
Sporus and Locusta.

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 513

This was not all. The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to
meet in the wretched Solomon of Whitehall ; pedantry, buffoon-
ery, garrulity, low curiosity, the most contemptible personal
cowardice. Nature and education had done their best to pro-
duce a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be.
His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his ner-
vous tremblings, his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent,
were imperfections which might have been found in the best and
greatest man. Their eflfect, however, was to make James and
his office objects of contempt ; and to dissolve those associations
which had been created by the noble bearing of preceding mo-
narchs, and which were in themselves no inconsiderable fence
to royalty.

The sovereign whom James most resembled was, we think,
Claudius Caesar. Both had the same feeble and vacillating
temper, the same childishness, the same coarseness, the same
poltroonery. Both were men of learning ; both wrote and spoke
— not, indeed, well — but still in a manner in which it seems
almost incredible that men so foolish should have written or
spoken. The follies and indecencies of James are well described
iu the words which Suetonius uses respecting Claudius : — 'Multa
' talia, etiam privatisdeformia, necdumprincipi, neque infacundo,

* neque indocto, immo etiam pertinaciter liberalibus studiis de-
' dito.' The description given by Suetonius of the manner in which
the Roman prince transacted business, exactly suits the Briton.
' In cognoscendo ac decernendo mira varietate animi f uit, modo
< circumspectus et sagax, modo inconsultus ac prseceps, nonnun-

* quam frivolus amentique similis.' Claudius was ruled success-
ively by two bad women ; James successively by two bad men.
Even the description of the person of Claudius, which we find
in the ancient memoirs, might, in many points, serve for that of
James. ' Ceterum et ingredientem destituebant poplites minus

* firmi, et remisse quid vel serio agentem multa dehonestabant,
' risus indecens, via turpior, spuraante rictu, — prseterea lingua?

* titubantia.'

The Parliament which James had called soon after his ac-
cession had been refractory. His second Parliament, called in
the spring of 1614, had been more refractory still. It had been
dissolved after a session of two months ; and during six years the
king had governed without having recourse to the legislature.
During those six years, melancholy and disgraceful events, at
home and abroad, had followed one another in rapid succession ;
— the divorce of Lady Essex, the murder of Overbury, the ele-
vation of Villiers, the pardon of Somerset, the disgrace of Coke,
the execution of Raleigh, the battle of Prague, the invasion of

514 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

the Palatinate by Spinola, the ignominious flight of the son-in-
law of the English king, the depression of the Protestant interest
all over the Continent. All the extraordinary modes by which
James could venture to raise money had been tried. His neces-
sities were greater than ever ; and he was compelled to summon
the Parliament in which Hampden made his first appearance as
a public man.

This Parliament lasted about twelve months. During that
time it visited with deserved punishment several of those who,
during the preceding six years, had enriched themselves by pe-
culation and monopoly. Michell, one of those grasping paten-
tees, who had purchased of the favourite the power of robbing
the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mompesson, the
original, it is said, of Massinger's ' Overreach,' was outlawed
and deprived of his ill-gotten wealth. Even Sir Edward Vil-
liers, the brother of Buckingham, found it convenient to leave
England. A greater name is to be added to the ignominious
list. By this Parliament was brought to justice that illustrious
philosopher, whose memory genius has half redeemed from the
infamy due to servility, to ingratitude, and to corruption.

After redressing internal grievances, the Commons proceeded
to take into consideration the state of Europe. The King flew
into a rage with them for meddling with such matters, and, with
characteristic judgment, drew them into a controversy about
the origin of their House and of its privileges. When he found
that he could not convince them, he dissolved them in a passion,
and sent some of the leaders of the Opposition to ruminate on
his logic in prison.

During the time which elapsed between this dissolution and the
meeting of the next Parliament, took place the celebrated nego-
tiation respecting the Infanta. The would-be despot was unmer-
cifully bi'ow-beaten. The would-be Solomon was ridiculously
overreached. ' Steenie,' in spite of the begging and sobbing of
his dear ' dad and gossip,' carried off ' baby Charles' in triumph
to Madrid. The sweet lads, as James called them, came back
safe, but without their errand. The great master of king-craft,
in looking for a Spanish match, found a Spanish war. In Fe-
bruary 1624 a Parliament met, during the whole sitting of
which James was a mere puppet in the hands of his ' baby,' and
of his ' poor slave and dog.' The Commons were disposed to
support the king in the vigorous policy which his son and his
favourite urged him to adopt. But they were not disposed to
plafie any confidence in their feeble sovereign and his dissolute
courtiers, or to relax in their effbrts to remove public grievances.
They therefore lodged the money which they voted for the war

1831. hord lUngent's Memorials of Hampden. 51$.

in the hands of Parliamentary Commissioners. They impeached
the treasurer, Lord Middlesex, for corruption, and they passed
a bill by which patents of monopoly were declared illegal.

Hampden did not, during the reign of James, take any promi-
nent part in public affairs. It is certain, however, that he paid
great attention to the details of Parliamentary business, and to
the local interests of his own county. It was in a great measure
owing to his exertions, that Wendover and some other boroughs,
on which the popular party could depend, recovered the elective
franchise, in spite of the opposition of the Court.

The health of the king had for some time been declining. On the
27th of March, 1625, he expired. Under his weak rule, the spirit
of liberty had grown strong, and had become equal to a great
contest. The contest was brought on by the policy of his suc-
cessor. Charles bore no resemblance to his father. He was not
a driveller, or a pedant, or a buffoon, or a coward. It would be
absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man
of exquisite taste in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in pri-
vate life. His talents for business were respectable ; his demean-
our was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, narrow-
minded, ignorant of the temper of his people, unobservant of the
signs of his times. The whole principle of his government was
resistance to public opinion ; nor did he make any real conces-
sion to that opinion till it mattered not whether he resisted or
conceded, — till the nation, which had long ceased to love him
or to trust him, had at last ceased to fear him.

His first Parliament met in June 1625. Hampden sat in it
as burgess for Wendover. The king wished for money. The
Commons wished for the redress of grievances. The war, how-
ever, could not be carried on without funds. The plan of the
Opposition was, it should seem, to dole out supplies by small
sums in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. They gave the
king two subsidies only, and proceeded to complain that his ships
had been employed against the Huguenots in France, and to
petition in behalf of the Puritans who were persecuted in Eng-
land. The king dissolved them, and raised money by Letters
under his Privy Seal. The supply fell far short of what he
needed ; and, in the spring of 1626, he called together another
Parliament. In this Parliament, Hampden again sat for Wend-
over.

The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to
defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grie-
vances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which
followed, far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place.
The CoiuiuouB impeached Buckingham. The king threw the

516f Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

managers ofthe impeachment into prison. The Commons denied
the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage without their
consent. The king dissolved them. They put forth a remon-
strance. The king circulated a declaration vindicating his mea-
sures, and committed some of the most distinguished members
of the Opposition to close custody. Money was raised by a forced
loan, which was apportioned among the people according to the
rate at which they had been respectively assessed to the last
subsidy. On this occasion it was, that Hampden made his first
stand for the fundamental principle ofthe English constitution.
He positively refused to lend a farthing. He was required to give
his reasons. He answered, * that he could be content to lend

* as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse

* in Magna Charta which should be I'ead twice a-year against

* those who infringe it.' For this noble answer, the Privy Coun-
cil committed him close prisoner to the Gate House. After
some time, he was again brought up ; but he persisted in his
refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire.

The government went on, oppressing at home, and blunder-
ing in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken
against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led
an expedition against Rhe, and failed ignominiously. In the
meantime, soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes, of which
ordinary justice should have taken cognizance, were punished
by martial law. Nearly eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for
refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The lower people,
who showed any signs of insubordination, were pressed into the
fleet, or compelled to serve in the army. Money, however, came
in slowly; and the king was compelled to summon another
Parliament. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at
liberty the persons who had been imprisoned for refusing to
comply with his unlawful demands. Hampden regained his
freedom ; and was immediately re-elected burgess for Wend-
over.

Early In 1628 the Parliament met. During its first session,
the Commons prevailed on the king, after many delays and much
equivocation, to give, in return for five subsidies, his full and
solemn assent to that celebrated instrument — the second great
charter of the liberties of England — known by the name of the
Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the king bound him-
self to raise no taxes without the consent of Parliament, to im-
prison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers
on the people, and to leave the cognizance of offences to the or-
dinary tribunals.

In the summer, this memorable Parliament was prorogued.

1831. Lord 'Nugent' s Memorials of Hampde?i. 517

It met again in January, 1629. Buckingham was no more.
That weak, violent, and dissolute adventurer, who, with no
talents or acquirements but those of a mere courtier, had, in a
great crisis of foreign and domestic politics, ventured on the
part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parlia-
ment, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his
death, the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted.
The king had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of
Right, to raise tonnage and poundage, without the consent of
Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people ;
and it was clear to the Commons, that the five subsidies which
they had given, as the price of the national liberties, had been
given in vain.

They met accordingly in no complying humour. They took
into their most serious consideration the measures of the govern-
ment concerning tonnage and poundage. They summoned the
officers of the custom-house to their bar. They inierrogated the
bai'ons of the exchequer. They committed one of the sheriffs of
London. Sir John Eliot, a distinguished member of the Oppo-
sition, and an intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resolu-
tion condemning the unconstitutional imposition. The speaker
said, that the king had commanded him to put no such question
to the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of
feeling ever seen within the walls of Parliament. Hayman re-
monstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language which
had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which
contained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine
and HoUis held the speaker down in his seat by main force, and
read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked
— the key was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for ad-
mittance in vain. After passing several strong resolutions, the
House adjourned. On the day appointed for its meeting, it was
dissolved by the king, and several of its most eminent members,
among whom were Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed
to prison.

Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates
of the House, he had been a member of many very important
committees, and had read and written much concerning the law
of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary Cases,
which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his
notes.

He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life.
During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the
Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most
beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. The house,

VOL. LIV. NO. CVIII. 2 L

518 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, Dec.

which has, since his time, heen greatly altered, and which is
now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was then an old
English mansion, built in the days of the Plantagenets and the
Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a nar-
row valley. The extensive woods which surround it were
pierced by long avenues. One of those avenues the grandfather
of the great statesman cut for the approach of Elizabeth ; and
the opening, which is still visible for many miles, retains the
name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hampden
passed several years, performing with great activity all the
duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing
himself with books and with field-sports.

He was not in his retirement unmindful of his persecuted
friends. In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with
Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Towei*. Lord Nugent
has published several of the letters. We may perhaps be fanci-
ful— but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable
illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which
Clarendon has drawn.

Part of the correspondence relates to the two sons of Sir
John Eliot. These young men were wild and unsteady ; and
their father, who was now separated from them, was naturally
anxious about their conduct. He at length resolved to send one
of them to France, and the other to serve a campaign in the
Low Countries. The letter which we subjoin, shows that
Hampden, though rigorous towards himself, was not unchari-
table towards others, and that his puritanism was perfectly
compatible with the sentiments and the tastes of an accomplish-
ed gentleman. It also illustrates admirably what has been said
of him by Clarendon : — ' He was of that rare aflfability and tem-

* per in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of

* judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him,
' but a desire of information and instruction. Yet he had so

* subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, in-

* sinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into
' those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them.'

The letter runs thus : — ' I am so perfectly acquainted with

* your clear insight into the dispositions of men, and ability to

* fit them with courses suitable, that, had you bestowed sons of

* mine as you have done your own, my judgment durst hardly
' have called it into question, especially when, in laying the

* design, you have prevented the objections to be made
< against it. For if Mr Richard Eliot will, in the intermissions
« of action, add study to practice, and adorn that lively spirit

* with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations

1831. hoi'd l^iuganVs Memorials of Hampden. 519

of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character — all
summer in the field, all winter in his study — in whose fall
fame makes this kingdom a great loser ; and, having taken
this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I
doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same power will
crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way
you take with my other friend shows you to be none of the
Bishop of Exeter's converts;* of whose mind neither am I
superstitiously. But had my opinion been asked, I should,
as vulgar conceits use to do, have showed my power ra-
ther to raise objections than to answer them. A temper f be-
tween France and Oxford, might have taken away his scru-
ples, with more advantage to his years

For although he be one of those that, if his age were looked
for in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no
ward if you should die to-morrow, yet it is a great hazard,
raethinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more,
amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be
superstitious in impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in
ill manners. But God, who only knoweth the periods of life
and opportunities to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his
own service betime, and stirred up your providence to hus-
band him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to
find Him in France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph
in Egypt, under whose wing alone is perfect safety.'
Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his imprisonment,
in writing a treatise on government, which he transmitted to
his friend. Hampden's criticisms are strikingly characteristic.
They are written with all that ' flowing courtesy' which is
ascribed to him by Clarendon. The objections are insinuated
with so much delicacy, that they could scarcely gall the most
irritable author. We see, too, how highly Hampden valued in
the writings of others that conciseness which was one of the
most striking peculiarities of his own eloquence. Sir John
Eliot's style was, it seems, too diffuse, and it is impossible not to
admire the skill with which this is suggested. * The piece,' says

* Lord Nugent, we think, has misunderstood this passage. Hamp-
den seems to allude to Bishop Hall's sixth satire, in which the cus-
tom of sending young men abroad is censured, and an academic life
recommended. We have a general recollection that there is some-
thing to the same effect in Hall's prose works ; but we have not time
to search them.

t * A middle course — a compromise.'

520 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, Dec.

Hampden, ' is as complete an image of the pattern as can be

* drawn by lines, — a lively character of a large mind, — the sub-

* ject, method, and expression, excellent and homogenial, and to

* say truth, sweetheart, somewhat exceeding my commendations.

* My words cannot render them to the life. Yet — to show my

* ingenuity rather than Mat — would not a less model have given
' a full representation of that subject, — not by diminution but
' by contraction of parts ? I desire to learn. I dare not say. —
' The variations upon each particular seem many — all, I con-
' fess, excellent. The fountain was full, the channel narrow ;
' that may be the cause ; or that the author resembled Virgil,

* who made more verses by many than he intended to write. To
' extract a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily have
' bid him make fewer ; but if he had bade me tell which he should

* have spared, I had been posed.'

This is evidently the writing, not only of a man of good
sense and good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the
studies of Hampden little is known. But as it was at one
time in contemplation to give him the charge of the education
of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that his acquire-
ments were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his
favourite writers. The moderation of Davila's opinions, and
the perspicuity and manliness of his style, could not but recom-
mend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable that
the parallel between France and England, the Huguenots and
the Puritans, had struck the mind of Hampden, and that he
already felt within himself powers not unequal to the lofty part
of Coligni. While he was engaged in these pursuits, a heavy
domestic calamity fell on him. His wife, who had born him
nine children, died in the summer of 1634. She lies in the
parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house. The
tender and energetic language of her epitaph still attests the
bitterness of her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he
found in a hope full of immortality.

In the meantime, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and
darker. The health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful im-
prisonment of several years. The brave sufferer refused to pur-
chase liberty, though liberty would to him have been life, by
recognising the authority which had confined him. In conse-
quence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of
restraint was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He lan-
guished and expired a martyr to that good cause, for which his
friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant, but not
a more honourable death.

All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or

1831. Lovd 'N ugcht' a Memotkdtt of HampdeH. 521

shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in cousideni-
tion of" monies duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at
nought. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of
monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were
made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown
during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty
worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the
country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their
ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were
branded with redhot iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor
could not tire out the fortitude of the victims. The mutilated
defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the Star
Chamber — came back with undiminished resolution to the place
of their glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of
their ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The hardy
sect grew up and flourished, in spite of every thing that seemed
likely to stunt it — struck its roots deep into a barren soil, and
spread its branches wide to an inclement sky. The multitude
thronged round Prynne in the pillory with more respect than
they paid to Mainwaring in the pulpit, and treasured up the
rags which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a veneration
such as rochets and surplices had ceased to inspire.

For the misgovernment of this disastrous period, Charles
himself is principally responsible. After the death of Bucking-
ham, he seems to have been his own prime minister. He had,
however, two counsellors who seconded him, or went beyond
him, in intolerance and lawless violence ; the one a superstitious
driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be ; the
other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faith-
less, corrupt, and cruel.

Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the indivi-
duals to whom they belonged, than those of Laud and Strafford,
as they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that
age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering
eyes, of the prelate, suit admirably with his disposition. They
mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic — differing
from the fierce and gloomy enthusiast who founded the Inquisi-
tion, as we might imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch
to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read his
judgments — when we read the report which he drew up, setting
forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and imploring
the royal aid against others, — we feel a movement of indignation.
We turn to his Diary, and we are at once as cool as contempt
can make us. There we read how his picture fell down, and
how fearful he was lest the fall should be an omen ; how he

522 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

dreamed that the Duke of Buckingham came to bed to him —
that King James walked past him — that he saw Thomas Flax-
age in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his
shoulders wrapped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the
sleep of this great ornament of the church seems to have been
much disturbed. On the fifth of January, he saw a merry old
man with a wrinkled countenance, named Grove, lying on the
ground. On the fourteenth of the same memorable month, he
saw the Bishop of Lincoln jump on a horse and ride away. A
day or two after this, he dreamed that he gave the king drink
in a silver cup, and that the king refused it, and called for glass.
Then he dreamed that he had turned Papist — of all his dreams
the only one, we suspect, which came through the gate of horn.
But of these visions, our favourite is that which, as he has re-
corded, he enjoyed on the night of Friday the 9th of February,
1627. * I dreamed,' says he, * that I had the scurvy ; and that

* forthwith all my teeth became loose. There was one in especial

* in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger
' till I had called for help.' Here was a man to have the super-
intendence of the opinions of a great nation !

But Wentworth — who ever names him without thinking of
those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expression into
more than the majesty of an antique Jupiter — of that brow, that
eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a chronicle, are written
the events of many stormy and disastrous years — high enterprise
accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power unsparingly ex-
ercised, suffering unshrinkingly borne — of that fixed look, so
full of severity, of mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of daunt-
less resolution, which seems at once to forebode and defy a ter-
rible fate, as it lowers on us from the living canvass of Vandyke ?
Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity as he over-
awed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when
arraigned before the tribunal of history, which he excited at the
bar of the House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes
feel towards his memory a certain relenting, similar to that
relenting which his defence, as Sir John Denham tells us, pro-
duced in Westminster Hall.

This great, brave, bad man entered the House of Commons at
the same time with Hampden, and took the same side with
Hampden. Both were among the richest and most powerful
commoners in the kingdom. Both were equally distinguished
by force of character, and by personal courage. Hampden had
more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth. But no orator of
that time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expres-
sion. In 1626, both these eminent men were committed to pri-

183], Lord N ugeu t's Memorials of Hampden. 523

sou by the King ; Wentworth, who was among the leaders of the
opposition, on account of his parliamentary conduct ; Hampden,
who had not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, for refu-
sing to pay taxes illegally imposed.

Here their paths separated. After the death of Buckingham,
the king attempted to seduce some of the chiefs of the opposi-
tion from their party ; and Wentworth was among those who
yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his associates, and
hated them ever after with the deadly hatred of a renegade.
High titles and great employments were heaped upon him. He
became Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, President
of the Council of the North ; and he employed all his power for
the purpose of crushing those liberties of which he had been the
most distinguished champion. His counsels respecting public
affairs were fierce and arbitrary. His correspondence with
Laud abundantly proves that government without parliaments,
government by the sword, was his favourite scheme. He was
unwilling even that the course of justice between man and man
should be unrestrained by the royal prerogative. He grudged
to the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas even that mea-
sure of liberty, which the most absolute of the Bourbons have
allowed to the Parliaments of France.

In Ireland, where he stood in the place of the King, his prac-
tice was in strict accordance with his theory. He set up the
authority of the executive government over that of the courts of
law. He permitted no person to leave the island without his
license. He established vast monopolies for his own private
benefit. He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied them by
military force. Some of his acts are described even by the par-
tial Clarendon as powerful acts — acts which marked a nature
excessively imperious— acts which caused dislike and terror in
sober and dispassionate persons — high acts of oppression. Upon
a most frivolous charge, he obtained a capital sentence from a
court-martial against a man of high rank who had given him
offence. He debauched the daughter-in-law of the Lord Chan-
cellor of Ireland, and then commanded that nobleman to settle
his estate according to the wishes of the lady. The Chancellor
refused. The Lord-Lieutenant turned him out of office, and
threw him into prison. When the violent acts of the Long Par-
liament are blamed, let it not be forgotten from what a tyranny
they rescued the nation.

Among the humbler tools of Charles, were Chief- JusticeFinch,
and Noy, the Attorney-General. Noy had, like Wentworth,
supported the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had, like

524 hold 1^ iigGuVB Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

Wentvvortb, abandoned that cause for the sake of office. He
devised, in conjunction with Finch, a scheme of exaction which
made the alienation of the people from the throne complete. A
writ was issued by the King-, commanding the city of London
to equip and man ships of war for his service. Similar writs
were sent to the towns along the coast. These measures, though
they were direct violations of the Petition of Right, had at least
some show of precedent in their favour. But, after a time, the
government took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded,
and sent writs of ship-money to the inland counties. This was
a stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured,
even at a time when all laws might with propriety have been made
to bend to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland
counties had not been required to furnish ships, or money in the
]'oom of ships, even when the Armada was approaching our
shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince, who, by assenting
to the Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levying
ship-money even in the outports, should be the first to levy it
on parts of the kingdom where it had been unknown, under the
most absolute of his predecessors.

Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not
only for the support of the navy, but ' for a spring and maga-
zine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply
of all occasions.' The nation Avell understood this ; and from
one end of England to the other, the public mind was strongly
excited.

Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of four hundred and
fifty tons, or a sum of four thousand five hundred pounds. The
share of the tax which fell to Hampden was very small; so small,
indeed, that the sheriff was blamed for setting so wealthy a man
at so low a rate. But though the sum demanded was a trifle,
the principle of the demand was despotism. Hampden, after
consulting the most eminent constitutional lawyers of the time,
refused to pay the few shillings at which he was assessed ; and
determined to incur all the certain expense, and the probable
danger, of bringing to a solemn hearing this great controversy
between the people and the Crown. 'Till this time,' says Cla-
rendon, 'he was rather of reputation in his own country than
' of public discourse or fame in the kingdom ; but then he grew
* the argument of all tongues, every man enquiring who and
' what he was that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty
' and prosperity of the kingdom.'

Towards the close of the year 1 636, this great cause came on
in the Exchequer Chamber before all the judges of England.

1831. hord Nugent' a Memorials (f Hampden. 525

The leading counsel against the writ was the celebrated Oliver
St John ; a man whose temper was melancholy, whose manners
were reserved, and who was as yet little known in Westminster
Hall ; but whose great talents had not escaped the penetrating
eye of Hampden. The Attorney- General and Solicitor-General
appeared for the Crown.

The arguments of the counsel occupied many days ; .ind the
Exchequer Chamber took a considerable time for deliberation.
The opinion of the bench was divided. So clearly was the law
in favour of Hampden, that though the judges held their situa-
tions only during the royal pleasure, the majority against him
was the least possible. Four of the twelve pronounced decidedly
in his favour; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining
seven gave their voices in favour of the writ.

The only effect of this decision was to make the public indig-
nation stronger and deeper. ' The judgment,' says Clarendon,

* proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman con-
' demned than to the King's service.' The courage which Hamp-
den had shown on this occasion, as the same historian tells us,

* raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the
' kingdom.' Even courtiers and crown-lawyers spoke respect-
fully of him. ' His carriage,' says Clarendon, ' throughout that

* agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who
' watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his per-
' son, to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled to

* give him a just testimony.' But his demeanour, though it
impressed Lord Falkland with the deepest respect, — though it
drew forth the praises of Solicitor- General Herbert, — only kin-
dled into a fiercer flame the ever-burning hatred of Strafford.
That minister, in his letters to Laud, murmured against the
lenity with which Hampden was treated. ' In good faith,' he
wrote, ' were such men rightly served, they should be whipped
' into their right wits.' Again he says, ' I still wish Mr
' Hampden, and others to his likeness, were well whipped into

* their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it smart not,
' I am the more sorry.'

The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence
and moderation had hitherto disappointed those who would
gladly have had a pretence for sending him to the prison of
Eliot. But he knew that the eye of a tyrant was on him. In
the year 1637, misgovernment had reached its height. Eight
years had passed without a Parliament. The decision of the
Exchequer-Chamber had placed at the disposal of the Crown
the whole property of the English people. About the time at
which that decision was pronounced, Prynne, Bastwick, and

526 hoi'd "^ugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

Burton, were mutilated by the sentence of the Star Chamber,
and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the per-
son of every man who had opposed the Court, were at its mercy.

Hampden determined to leave England. Beyond the Atlantic
Ocean, a few of the persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wil-
derness of Connecticut, a settlement which has since become a
prosperous commonwealth ; and which, in spite of the lapse of
time, and of the change of government, still retains something of
the character given to it by its first founders. Lord Saye and
Lord Brooke were the original projectors of this scheme of emi-
gration. Hampden had been early consulted respecting it. He
was now, it appears, desirous to withdraw himself beyond the
reach of oppressors, who, as he probably suspected, and as we
know, were bent on punishing his manful resistance to their
tyranny. He was accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Crom-
well, over whom he possessed great influence, and in whom he
alone had discovered, under an exterior appearance of coarseness
and extravagance, those great and commanding talents which
were afterwards the admiration and the dread of Europe.

The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the
Thames, bound for North America. They were actually on
board, when an order of Council appeared, by which the ship
was prohibited from sailing. Seven other ships, filled with
emigrants, were stopped at the same time.

Hampden and Cromwell remained ; and with them remained
the Evil Genius of the House of Stuart. The tide of public
affairs was even now on the turn. The King had resolved to
change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland, and to intro-
duce into the public worship of that kingdom ceremonies which
the great body of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd
attempt produced, first discontents, then riots, and at length
open rebellion. A provisional government was established at
Edinburgh, and its authority was obeyed throughout the king-
dom. This government raised an army, appointed a general,
and called a General Assembly of the Kirk. The famous instru-
ment, called the Covenant, was put forth at this time, and was
eagerly subscribed by the people.

The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely
neglected by the king and his advisers. But towards the close
of the year 1638 the danger became pressing. An army was
raised ; and early in the following spring Charles marched north-
ward, at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce
the Covenanters to submission.

But Charles acted, at this conjuncture, as he acted at every
important conjuncture throughout his life. After oppressing,

1831. Lord Nugeiit's Memorials of Hampden. 527

threateuiijg, and blustering, he hesitated aud failed. He was
bold in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. He
would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the liturgy
was read in St Giles's church. He put off his fear till he had
reached the Scottish border with his troops. Then, after a feeble
campaign, he concluded a treaty with the insurgents, and with-
drew his army. But the terms of the pacification were not
observed. Each party charged the other with foul play. The
Scots refused to disarm. The King found great difficulty in
re-assembling his forces. His late expedition had drained his
treasury. The revenues of the next year had been anticipated.
At another time, he might have attempted to make up the defi-
ciency by illegal expedients ; but such a course would clearly
have been dangerous when part of the island was in rebellion.
It was necessary to call a Parliament. After eleven years of
suffering, the voice of the nation was to be heard once more.

In April 1640 the Parliament met ; and the King had another
chance of conciliating his people. The new House of Commons
was, beyond all comparison, the least refractory House of Com-
mons that had been known for many years. Indeed, we have
never been able to understand how, after so long a period of
misgovernment, the representatives of the nation should have
shewn so moderate and so loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks
with admiration of their dutiful temper. ' The House generally,'
says he, ' was exceedingly disposed to please the King, and to

* do him service.' — ' It could never be hoped,' he observes else-
where, * that more sober or dispassionate men would ever meet

* together in that place, or fewer who brought ill purposes with
< them.'

In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for
Buckinghamshire ; and thenceforward, till the day of his death,
gave himself up, with scarcely any intermission, to public af-
fairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, near the house
occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest
intimacy. He was now decidedly the most popular man in
England. The Opposition looked to him as their leader. The
servants of the king treated him with marked respect. Charles
requested the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, and
pledged his word, that if they would gratify him in this request,
he would afterwards give them time to represent their grievances
to him. The grievances under which the nation suffered were
so serious, and the royal word had been so shamefully violated,
that the Commons could hardly be expected to comply with
this request. During the first week of the session, the minutes
of the proceedings against Hampden were laid on the table by

528 Lord NagenVa Memorials (>/' Hampden. Dec.

Oliver St Joliii, and the committee reported that the case was
matter of grievance. The king sent a message to the Commons,
offering, if they would vote him twelve subsidies, to give up
the prerogative of ship-money. Many years before, he had
received five subsidies in consideration of his assent to the
Petition of Right. By assenting to that petition, he had given
up the right of levying ship-money, if he ever possessed it. How
he had observed the promises made to his third Parliament, all
England knew ; and it was not strange that the Commons
should be somewhat unwilling to buy from him, over and over
again, their own ancient and undoubted inheritance.

His message, however, was not unfavourably received. The
Commons were ready to give a large supply; but they were not
disposed to give it in exchange for a prerogative of which they
altogether deuied the existence. If they acceded to the proposal
of the King, they recognised the legality of the writs of ship-
money.

Hampden, who was a greater master of parliamentary tactics
than any man of his time, saw that this was the prevailing feel-
ing, and availed himself of it with great dexterity. He moved,
that the question should be put, ' Whether the House would
' consent to the proposition made by the king, as contained in
* the message.' Hyde interfered, and proposed that the question
should be divided; — that the sense of the House shoiild be taken
merely on the point, ' Supply, or no supply ?' and that the man-
ner and the amount should be left foi; subsequent consideration.

The majority of the House Avas for granting a supply ; but
against granting it in the manner proposed by the king. If the
House had divided on Hampden's question, the court would
have sustained a defeat; if on Hyde's, the court would have
gained an apparent victory. Some members called for Hyde's
motion — others for Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar, the
secretary of state, Sir Harry Vane, rose, and stated, that the
supply would not be accepted unless it were voted according to
the tenor of the message. Vane was supported by Herbert, the
solicitor-general. Hyde's motion was therefore no further press-
ed, and the debate on the general question was adjourned till
the next day.

On the next day the king came down to the House of Lords,
and dissolved the Parliament with an angry speech. His con-
duct on this occasion has never been defended by any of his
apologists. Clarendon condemns it severely. ' No man,' says
he, ' could imagine what offence the Commons had given.' The
offence which they had given is plain. They had, indeed,

1831. liOrd^ugenVs Memorials of Hampden, 529

behaved most temperately and most repectfully. But tliey had
shown a disposition to redress wrongs, and to vindicate the
laws; and this was enough to make them hateful to a king
whom no law could bind, and whose whole government was
one system of wrong.

The nation received the intelligence of the dissolution with
sorrow and indignation. The only persons to whom this event
gave pleasure, were those few discerning men who thought that
the maladies of the state were beyond the reach of gentle reme-
dies. Oliver St John's joy was too great for concealment. It
lighted up his dark and melancholy features, and made him, for
the first time, indiscreetly communicative. He told Hyde, that
things must be worse before they could be better; and that the
dissolved Parliament would never have done all that was neces-
sary. St John, we think, was in the right. No good could then
have been done by any Parliament which did not adopt as its
great principle, that no confidence could safely be placed in
the king, and that, while he enjoyed more than the shadow of
power, the nation would never enjoy more than the shadow of
liberty.

As soon as Charles had dismissed the Parliament, he threw
several members of the House of Commons into prison. Ship-
money was exacted more rigorously than ever ; and the Mayor
and Sheriffs of London were prosecuted before the Star- Cham-
ber for slackness in levying it. Wentworth, it is said, observed,
with characteristic insolence and cruelty, that things would
never go right till the aldermen were hanged. Large sums were
raised by force on those counties in which the troops were quar-
tered. All the wretched shifts of a beggared exchequer were
tried. Forced loans were raised. Great quantities of goods
were bought on long credit, and sold for ready money. A
scheme for debasing the currency was under consideration. At
length, in August, the king again marched northward.

The Scots advanced into England to meet him. It is by no
means improbable that this bold step was taken by the advice of
Hampden, and of those with whom he acted ; and this has been
made matter of grave accusation against the English Opposition.
To call in the aid of foreigners in a domestic quarrel, it is said,
is the worst of treasons ; and that the Puritan leaders, by taking
this course, showed that they were regardless of the honour and
independence of the nation, and anxious only for the success of
their own faction. We are utterly unable to see any distinction
between the case of the Scotch invasion in 1640, and the case of
the Dutch invasion in 1688, — or rather, we see distinctions which
are to the advantage of Hampden and his friends. We believe

530 hord'NngenVs Meinorials of Hampden, Dec,

Charles to have been, beyond all comparison, a worse and more
dangerous king than his son. The Dutch were strangers to us,
— the Scots a kindred people, speaking the same language,
subjects of the eame crown, not aliens in the eye of the law.
If, indeed, it had been possible that a Dutch army or a Scotch
army could have enslaved England, those who persuaded Lesley
to cross the Tweed, and those who signed the invitation to the
Prince of Orange, would have been traitors to their country.
But such a result was out of the question. All that either a
Scotch or a Dutch invasion could do, was to give the public feel-
ing of England an opportunity to show itself. Both expeditions
would have ended in complete and ludicrous discomfiture, had
Charles and James been supported by their soldiers and their
people. In neither case, therefore, was the independence of
England endangered ; in neither case was her honour compro-
mised : in both cases her liberties were preserved.

The second campaign of Charles against the Scots was short
and ignominious. His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy,
ran away as English soldiers have never run either before or
since. It can scarcely be doubted that their flight was the eifect,
not of cowardice, but of disaffection. The four northern coun-
ties of England were occupied by the Scotch army. The King
retired to York.

The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and
lost his last stake. It is impossible to retrace the mortifications
and humiliations which this bad man now had to endure, with-
out a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His army was mutinous, —
his treasury was empty, — his people clamoured for a Parliament,
— addresses and petitions against the government were present-
ed. Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by
martial law ; but the king could not trust the soldiers. A great
council of Peers was called at York, but the king could not trust
even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he hesitated, he tried
every shift, rather than again face the representatives of his in-
jured people. At length no shift was left. He made a truce
with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament.

The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolu-
tion, remained in London for the purpose of organizing a scheme
of opposition to the court. They now exerted themselves to the
utmost. Hampden, in particular, rode from county to county,
exhorting the electors to give their votes to men worthy of their
confidence. The great majority of the returns was on the side
of the Opposition. Hampden was himself chosen member both
for Wendover and for Buckinghamshire. He made his election
to serve for the county.

1831. hovd 'NugGuVs Memorials of Hampde7i* 531

On the 3d of November, 1640, — a day to be long remember-
ed— met that great Parliament, destined to every extreme of
fortune, — to empire and to servitude, — to glory and to contempt;
— at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, — at another time
the servant of its servants, and the tool of its tools. From the
first day of its meeting the attendance was great ; and the aspect
of the members was that of men not disposed to do the work
negligently. The dissolution of the late Parliament had con-
vinced most of them that half measures would no longer suffice.
Clarendon tells us, that * the same men who, six months before,

* were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish

* that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another

* dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now

* be of another temper than they were the last Parliament.' The
debt of vengeance was swollen by all the usury which had been
accumulating during many years ; and payment was made to
the full.

This memorable crisis called forth parliamentary abilities such
as England had never before seen. Among the most distinguish-
ed members of the House of Commons were, Falkland, Hyde,
Digby, Young, Harry Vane, Oliver St John, Denzil Hollis,
Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men exercised a paramount influ-
ence over the legislature and the country — Pym and Hampden ;
and, by the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first
place belonged to Hampden.

On occasions which required set speeches, Pym generally took
the lead. Hampden very seldom rose till late in a debate. His
speaking was of that kind which has, in every age, been held in
the highest estimation by English Parliaments — ready, weighty,
perspicuous, condensed. His perception of the feeling of the
House was exquisite, — his temper unalterably placid, — his man-
ner eminently courteous and gentlemanlike. ' Even with those,'
says Clarendon, ' who were able to preserve themselves from

* his infusions, and who discerned those opinions to be fixed in

* him with which they could not comply, he always left the

< character of an ingenious and conscientious person.' His talents
for business were as remarkable as his talents for debate. ' He

< was,' says Clarendon, ' of an industry and vigilance not to be

* tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to

* be imposed upon by the most subtle and sharp.' Yet it was
rather to his moral than to his intellectual qualities that he was
indebted for the vast influence which he possessed. * When

* this parliament began,' — we again quote Clarendon, — * the

* eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their patrice pateVf and

* the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and

5S2 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

* rocks which threatened it. And I am persuaded his power and

* interest at that time were greater to do good or hurt than any
' man's in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had

* in any time ; for his reputation of iionesty was universal, and

* his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or

* private ends could bias them. . . . He was indeed a very
' wise man and of great parts, and possessed with the most abso-
' lute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to

* govern the people, of any man I ever knew.'

It is sufficient to recapitulate shortly the acts of the Long
Parliament during its first session. Strafford and Laud were
impeached and imprisoned. Strafford was afterwards attainted
by bill, and executed. Lord Keeper Finch fled to Holland, Se-
cretary Windebank to France. All those whom the King had,
during the last twelve years, employed for the oppression of his
people, — from the servile judges who had pronounced in favour
of the crown against Hampden, down to the sheriffs who had
distrained for ship-money, and the custom-house officers who
had levied tonnage and poundage, — were summoned to answer
for their conduct. The Star Chamber, the High Commission
Court, the Council of York, were abolished. Those unfortunate
victims of Laud, who, after undergoing ignominious exposure
and cruel manglings, had been sent to languish in distant prisons,
were set at liberty, and conducted through London in trium-
phant procession. The king was compelled to give to the judges
patents for life, or during good behaviour. He was deprived of
those oppressive powers which were the last relics of the old
feudal tenures. The Forest Courts and the Stannary Courts were
reformed. It was provided that the Parliament then sitting
should not be prorogued or dissolved without its own consent ;
and that a Parliament should be held at least once every three
years.

Many of these measures Lord Clarendon allows to have been
most salutary ; and few persons will, in our times, deny that,
in the laws passed during this session, the good greatly prepon-
derated over the evil. The abolition of those three hateful courts,
— the Northern Council, the Star Chamber, and the High Com-
mission, would alone entitle the Long Parliament to the lasting
gratitude of Englishmen.

The proceedings against Strafford undoubtedly seem hard to
people living in our days ; and would probably have seemed
merciful and moderate to people living in the sixteenth century.
It is curious to compare the trial of Charles's minister with the
trial, if it can be so called, of Lord Sudley, in the blessed reign
of Edward the Sixth, None of the great reformers of our church

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 533

doubted for a moment of the propriety of passing an act of Par-
liament for cutting off Lord Sudley's head without a legal con-
viction. The pious Cranmer voted for that act ; the pious Lati-
mer preached for it ; the pious Edward returned thanks for it ;
and all the pious Lords of the council together exhorted their
victim to what they were pleased facetiously to call ' the quiet
* and patient suffering of justice.'

But it is not necessary to defend the proceedings against
Strafford by any such comparison. They are justified, in our
opinion, by that which alone justifies capital punishment, or any
punishment, — by that which alone justifies war — by the public
danger. That there is a certain amount of public danger, which
will justify a legislature in sentencing a man to deatli by an ex
post facto law, few people, we suppose, will deny. Few people,
for example, will deny that the French Convention was perfectly
justified in declaring Robespierre, St Just, and Couthon, hors la
loi, without a trial. This proceeding differed from the proceed-
ing against Strafford, only in being much more rapid and violent.
Strafford was fully heard. Robespierre was not suffered to
defend himself. Was there, then, in the case of Strafford, a
danger sufficient to justify an act of attainder ? We believe that
there was. We believe that the contest in which the Parliament
was engaged against the king, was a contest for the security of
our property, — for the liberty of our persons, — for every thing
which makes us to differ from the subjects of Don Miguel. We
believe that the cause of the Commons was such as justified them
in resisting the king, in raising an army, in sending thousands
of brave men to kill and to be killed. An act of attainder is
surely not more a departure from the ordinary course of law
than a civil war. An act of attainder produces much less suffer-
ing than a civil war ; and we are, therefore, unable to discover
on what principle it can be maintained, that a cause which jus-
tifies a civil war, will not justify an act of attainder.

Many specious arguments have been urged against the ex post
facto law by which Strafford was condemned to death. But all
these arguments proceed on the supposition that the crisis was
an ordinary crisis. The attainder was, in truth, a revolutionary
measure. It was part of a system of resistance which oppression
had rendered necessary. It is as unjust to judge of the conduct
pursued by the Long Parliament towards Strafford on ordinary
principles, as it would have been to indict Fairfax for murder,
because he cut down a cornet at Naseby. From the day on
which the Houses met, there was a war waged by them against
the king, — a war for all that they held dear, — a war carried on
, at first by means of Parliamentary forms, — at last by physical

VOL. UV, NO. CVIII. 2 M

534 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec,

force ; and, as in the second stage of that war, so in the first,
they were entitled to do many things which, in quiet times,
would have bee« culpable.

We must not omit to mention, that those men who were after-
wards the most distinguished ornaments of the king's party,
supported the bill of attainder. It is almost certain that Hyde
voted for it. It is quite certain that Falkland both voted and
spoke for it. The opinion of Hampden, as far as it can be col-
lected from a very obscure note of one of his speeches, seems to
have been, that the proceeding by bill was unnecessary, and
that it would be a better course to obtain judgment on the
impeachment.

During this year the Court opened a negotiation with the
leaders of the Opposition. The Earl of Bedford was invited to
form an administration on popular principles. St John was
made solicitor-general. Hollis was to have been secretary of
state, and Pym chancellor of the exchequer. The post of tutor
to the Prince of Wales was designed for Hampden. The death
of the Earl of Bedford prevented this arrangement from being
carried into effect ; and it may be doubted whether, even if that
nobleman's life had been prolonged, Charles would ever have
consented to surround himself with counsellors whom he could
not but hate and fear.

Lord Clarendon admits that the conduct of Hampden during
this year was mild and temperate, — that he seemed disposed
rather to soothe than to excite the public mind ; and that, when
violent and unreasonable motions were made by his followers,
he generally left the House before the division, lest he should
seem to give countenance to their extravagance. His temper
was moderate. He sincerely loved peace. He felt also great
fear lest too precipitate a movement should produce a reaction.
The events which took place early in the next session clearly
showed that this fear was not unfounded.

During the autumn the Parliament adjourned for a few weeks.
Before the recess, Hampden was dispatched to Scotland by the
House of Commons, nominally as a commissioner, to obtain
security for a debt which the Scots had contracted during the
late invasion ; but in truth that he might keep watch over the
king, who had now repaired to Edinburgh, for the purpose of
finally adjusting the points of difference which remained between
him and his northern subjects. It was the business of Hampden
to dissuade the Covenanters from making their peace with the
Court at the expense of the popular party in England.

While the king was in Scotland, the Irish rebellion broke out.
The suddenness and violence of this terrible explosion excited a

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 635

strange suspicion in the public mind. The queen was a pro-
fessed Papist. The king and the archbishop of Cantei'bury had
not indeed been reconciled to the See of Rome ; but they had,
while acting towards the Puritan party with the utmost rigour,
and speaking of that party with the utmost contempt, shown
great tenderness and respect towards the Catholic religion and its
professors. In spite of the wishes of successive Parliaments,
the Protestant separatists had been cruelly persecuted. And at
the same time, in spite of the wishes of those very Parliaments,
the laws — the unjust and wicked laws — which were in force
against the Papists, had not been carried into execution. The
Protestant nonconformists had not yet learned toleration in the
school of suffering. They reprobated the partial lenity which
the government showed towards idolaters; and, with some show
of reason, ascribed to bad motives conduct which, in such a king
as Charles, and such a prelate as Laud, could not possibly be
ascribed to humanity or to liberality of sentiment. The violent
Arminianism of the archbishop — his childish attachment to
ceremonies, his superstitious veneration for altars, vestments,
and painted windows, his bigoted zeal for the constitution and
the privileges of his order, his known opinions respecting the
celibacy of the clergy — had excited great disgust throughout that
large party which was every day becoming more and more hos-
tile to Rome, and more and more inclined to the doctrines and
the discipline of Geneva. It vt^as believed by many, that the
Irish rebellion had been secretly encouraged by the Court; and,
when the Parliament met again in November, after a short
recess, the Puritans were more intractable than ever.

But that which Hampden had feared had come to pass. A
reaction had taken place. A large body of moderate and well-
meaning men, who had heartily concurred in the strong measures
adopted during the preceding year, were inclined to pause. Their
opinion was, that, during many years, the country had been
grievously misgoverned, and that a great reform had been neces-
sary ; — but, that a great reform had been made, — that the grie-
vances of the nation had been fully redressed, — that sufficient
vengeance had been exacted for the past, and sufficient security
provided for the future, — that itwould, therefore, be bothungrate-
ful and unwise to make any further attacks on the royal prero-
gative. In support of this opinion many plausible arguments
have been used. But to all these arguments there is one short
answer — the king could not be trusted.

At the head of those who may be called the Constitutional
Royalists, were Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper. All these emi-
Bent men had, during the former year, been in very decided

536 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dee.

opposition to the Court. In some of those very proceedings
with which their admirers reproach Hampden, they had taken
at least as great a part as Hampden. They had all been con-
cerned in the impeachment of Strafford. They had all, there is
reason to believe, voted for the Bill of Attainder. Certainly
none of them voted against it. They had all agreed to the act
which made the consent of the Parliament necessary to its own
dissolution or prorogation. Hyde had been among the most
active of those who attacked the Council of York. Falkland had
voted for the exclusion of the bishops from the Upper House.
They were now inclined to halt in the path of reform; perhaps
to retrace a few of their steps.

A direct collision soon took place between the two parties,
into which the House of Commons, lately at almost perfect
unity with itself, was now divided. The opponents of the Go-
vernment moved that celebrated address to the king, which is
known by the name of the Grand Remonstrance. In this ad-
dress all the oppressive acts of the preceding fifteen years were
set forth with great energy of language ; and, in conclusion, the
king was entreated to employ no ministers in whom the Parlia-
ment could not confide.

The debate on the Remonstrance was long and stormy. It
commenced at nine in the morning of the 21st of November,
and lasted till after midnight. The division showed that a great
change had taken place in the temper of the House. Though
many members had retired from exhaustion, three hundred voted,
and the remonstrance was carried by a majority of only nine.
A violent debate followed on the question whether the minority
should be allowed to pi'otest against this decision. The excite-
ment was so great that several members were on the point of
proceeding to personal violence. ' We had sheathed our swords

* in each other's bowels,' says an eye-witness, ' had not the saga-

* city and great calmness of Mr Hampden, by a short speech,

* prevented it.' The House did not rise till two in the morning.

The situation of the Puritan leaders was now difficult, and
full of peril. The small majority which they still had might
soon become a minority. Out of doors, their supporters in the
higher and middle classes were beginning to fall off. There
was a growing opinion that the king had been hardly used. The
English are always inclined to side with a weak party which is
in the wrong, rather than with a strong party which is in the
right. Even the idlers in the street will not suffer a man to be
struck when he is down. And as it is with a boxing-match, so
it is with a political contest. Thus it was that a violent reaction
took place in favour of Charles the Second, against the Whigs,

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 537

in 1681. Thus it was that an equally violent reaction took
place in favour of George the Third against the coalition in
1784. A similar reaction was beginning to take place during
the second year of the Long Parliament. Some members of the
Opposition ' had resumed,' says Clarendon, ' their old resolu-

* tion of leaving the kingdom.' Oliver Cromwell openly de-
clared that he and many others would have emigrated if they
had been left in a minority on the question of the Remonstrance.

Charles had now a last chance of regaining the affection of
his people. If he could have resolved to give his confidence to
tbe leaders of the moderate party in the House of Commons,
and to regulate his proceedings by their advice, be might have
been, not, indeed, as he had been, a despot, but the powerful
and respected king of a free people. The nation might have en-
joyed liberty and repose under a government, with Falkland at
its head, checked by a constitutional Opposition, under the con-
duct of Hampden. It was not necessary that, in order to ac-
complish this happy end, the king should sacrifice any part of
his lawful prerogative, or submit to any conditions inconsistent
with his dignity. It was necessary only that he should abstain
from treachery, from violence, from gross breaches of the law.
This was all that the nation was then disposed to require of
him. And even this was too much.

For a short time, he seemed inclined to take a wise and tem-
perate course. He resolved to make Falkland secretary of state,
and Culpeper chancellor of the exchequer. He declared his in-
tention of conferring in a short time some important office on
Hyde. He assured these three persons tliat he would do nothing
relating to the House of Commons without their joint advice ;
and that he would communicate all his designs to them in the
most unreserved manner. This resolution, had he adhered to
it, would have averted many years of blood and mourning. But

* in very few days,' says Clarendon, ' he did fatally swerve from
' it.'

On the 3d of January, 1642, without giving tbe slightest hint
of his intention to those advisers whom he had solemnly promi-
sed to consult, he sent down the attorney- general to impeach
Lord Kembolton, Hampden, Pym, Hollis, and two other mem-
bers of the House of Commons, at the bar of the Lords, on a
charge of High Treason. It is difficult to find in the whole
history of England, such an instance of tyranny, perfidy, and
folly. The most precious and ancient rights of the subject were
violated by this act. The only way in which Hampden and Pym
could legally be tried for treason at the suit of the king, was by
a petty jury on a bill found by a grand jury. The attorneyrr

638 I^ord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, Dec.

general had no right to impeach them. The House of Lords
had no right to try them.

The Commons refused to surrender their members. The Peers
showed no inclination to usurp the unconstitutional jurisdiction
which the king attempted to force on them. A contest began,
in which violence and weakness were on the one side, law and
resolution on the other. Charles sent an officer to seal up the
lodgings and trunks of the accused members. The Commons
sent their sergeant to break the seals. The tyrant resolved to
follow up one outrage by another. In making the charge, he had
struck at the institution of juries. In executing the arrest, he
struck at the privileges of Parliament. He resolved to go to the
House in person, with an armed force, and there to seize the
leaders of the Opposition, while engaged in the discharge of their
Parliamentary duties.

What was his purpose ? Is it possible to believe that he had
no definite purpose, — that he took the most important step of
his whole reign without having for one moment considered what
might be its effects ? Is it possible to believe, that he went
merely for the purpose of making himself a laughing-stock, —
that he intended, if he had found the accused members, and if
they had refused, as it was their right and duty to refuse, the
submission which he illegally demanded, to leave the House
without bringing them away ? If we reject both these supposi-
tions, we must believe — and we certainly do believe — that he
went fully determined to carry his unlawful design into effect
by violence ; and, if necessary, to shed the blood of the chiefs of
the Opposition on the very floor of the Parliament House.

Lady Carlisle conveyed intelligence of the design to Pym.
The five members had time to withdraw before the arrival of
Charles. They left the House as he was entering New Palace
Yard. He was accompanied by about two hundred halberdiers
of his guard, and by many gentlemen of the Court armed with
swords. He walked up Westminster Hall. At the southern
door of that vast building, his attendants divided to the right and
left, and formed a lane to the door of the House of Commons.
He knocked — entered — darted a look towards the place which
Pym usually occupied ; and, seeing it empty, walked up to the
table. The speaker fell on his knee. The members rose and
uncovered their heads in profound silence, and the king took his
seat in the chair. He looked round the house. But the five
members were nowhere to be seen. He interrogated the speaker.
The speaker answered, that he was merely the organ of the
House, and had neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, but
according to their direction. The baffled tyrant muttered a few

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, 539

feeble sentences about his respect for the laws of the realm, and
the privileges of Parliament, and retired. As he passed along
the benches, several resolute voices called out audibly — ' Privi-

* lege !' He returned to Whitehall with his company of bravoes,
who, while he was in the House, had been impatiently waiting
in the lobby for the word, cocking their pistols, and crying —

* Fall on.' That night he put forth a proclamation, directing
that the posts should be stopped, and that no person should, at
his peril, venture to harbour the accused members.

Hampden and his friends had taken refuge in Coleman Street.
The city of London was indeed the fastness of public liberty;
and was, in those times, a place of at least as much importance
as Paris during the French Revolution. The city, properly so
called, now consists in a great measure of immense warehouses
and counting-houses, which are frequented by traders and their
clerks during the day, and left in almost total solitude during
the night. It was then closely inhabited by three hundred thou-
sand persons, to whom it was not merely a place of business, but
a place of constant residence. This great body had as complete
a civil and military organization as if it had been an independent
republic. Each citizen had his company; and the companies,
which now seem to exist only for the delectation of epicures and
of antiquarians, were then formidable brotherhoods; the members
of which were almost as closely bound together as the members
of a Highland clan. How strong these artificial ties were, the
numerous and valuable legacies anciently bequeathed by citizens
to their corporations abundantly prove. The municipal offices
were filled by the most opulent and respectable merchants of the
kingdom. The pomp of the magistracy of the capital was second
only to that which surrounded the person of the sovereign. The
Londoners loved their city with that patriotic love which is found
only in small communities, like those of ancient Greece, or like
those which arose in Italy during the middle ages. The num-
bers, the intelligence, the wealth of the citizens, the democratic
form of their local government, and their vicinity to the Court
and to the Parliament, made them one of the most formidable
bodies in the kingdom. Even as soldiers, they were not to be
despised. In an age in which war is a profession, thei'e is some-
thing ludicrous in the idea of battalions composed of apprentices
and shopkeepers, and officered by aldermen. But, in the early
part of the 17th century, there was no standing army in the
island; and the militia of the metropolis was not inferior in
training to the militia of other places. A city which could
furnish many thousands of armed men, abounding in natural
courage, and not absolutely untinctured with military discipline,

540 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, Dec,

was a formidable auxiliary in times of internal dissension. On
several occasions during the civil war, the train-bands of Lon-
don distinguished themselves highly ; and at the battle of New-
bury, in particular, they repelled the onset of fiery Rupert, and
saved the army of the Parliament from destruction.

The people of this great city had long been thoroughly de-
voted to the national cause. Great numbers of them had signed
a protestation, in which they declared their resolution to defend
the privileges of Parliament. Their enthusiasm had of late
begun to cool. The impeachment of the five members, and the
insult offered to the House of Commons, inflamed it to fury.
Their houses, their purses, their pikes, were at the command of
the Commons. London was in arms all night. The next day
the shops were closed ; the streets were filled with immense
crowds. The multitude pressed round the king's coach, and
insulted him with opprobrious cries. The House of Commons,
in the meantime, appointed a committee to sit in the city, for
the purpose of enquiring into the circumstances of the late out-
rage. The members of the committee were welcomed by a de-
putation of the common council. Merchant Tailors' Hall,
Goldsmiths' Hall, and Grocers' Hall, were fitted up for their
sittings. A guard of respectable citizens, duly relieved twice
a- day, was posted at their doors. The sheriffs were charged to
watch over the safety of the accused members, and to escort
them to and from the committee with every mark of honour.

A violent and sudden revulsion of feeling, both in the House
and out of it, was the effect of the late proceedings of the king.
The Opposition regained in a few hours all the ascendency
which it had lost. The constitutional royalists were filled with
shame and sorrow. They felt that they had been cruelly de-
ceived by Charles. They saw that they were, unjustly, but
not unreasonably, suspected by the nation. Clarendon distinctly
says, that they perfectly detested the counsels by which the
king had been guided, and were so much displeased and dejected
at the unfair manner in which he had treated them, that they
were inclined to retire from his service. During the debates on
this subject, they preserved a melancholy silence. To this
day, the advocates of Charles take care to say as little as they
can about his visit to the House of Commons ; and, when they
cannot avoid mention of it, attribute to infatuation an act,
which, on any other supposition, they must admit to have been
a frightful crime.

The Commons, in a few days, openly defied the king, and
ordered the accused members to attend in their places at West-

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, 541

minster, and to resume their Parliamentary duties. The citizens
resolved to bring back the champions of liberty in triumph
before the windows of Whitehall. Vast preparations were made
both by land and water for this great festival.

The king had remained in his palace — humbled, dismayed,
and bewildered — ' feeling,' says Clarendon, ' the trouble and

* agony which usually attend generous and magnanimous

* minds upon their having committed errors ;' — feeling, we
should say, the despicable repentance which attends the bungling
villain, who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that he
has only committed a folly. The populace hooted and shouted
all day before the gates of the royal residence. The wretched
man could not bear to see the triumph of those whom he had
destined to the gallows and the quartering-block. On the
day preceding that which was fixed for their return, he fled,
with a few attendants, from that palace, which he was ne\er to
see again till he was led through it to the scaffold.

On the 11th of January, the Thames was covered with boats,
and its shores with a gazing multitude. Armed vessels, deco-
rated with streamers, were ranged in two lines from London
Bridge to Westminster Hall. The members returned by water
in a ship manned by sailors who had volunteered their services.
The train-bands of the city, under the command of the sheriffs,
marched along the Strand, attended by a vast crowd of specta-
tors, to guard the avenues to the House of Commons ; and
thus, with shouts and loud discharges of ordnance, the accused
patriots were brought back by the people whom they had served,
and for whom they had suffered. The restored members, as
soon as they had entered the House, expressed, in the warmest
terms, their gratitude to the citizens of London. The sheriffs
were warmly thanked by the speakers in the name of the Com-
mons ; and orders were given that a guard, selected from the
train-bands of the city, should attend daily to watch over the
safety of the Parliament.

The excitement had not been confined to London. When
intelligence of the danger to which Hampden was exposed
reached Buckinghamshire, it excited the alarm and indignation
of the people. Four thousand freeholders of that county, each
of them wearing in his hat a copy of the protestation in favour
of the privileges of Parliament, rode up to London to defend the
person of their beloved representative. They came in a body
to assure Parliament of their full resolution to defend its privi-
leges. Their petition was couched in the strongest terms. * In

* respect,' said they, * of that latter attempt upon the honourable

642 Xord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec

* House of Commons, we are now come to offer our service to

* that end, and resolved, in their just defence, to live and die.'

A great struggle was clearly at hand. Hampden had returned
to Westminster much changed. His influence had hitherto
been exerted rather to restrain than to moderate the zeal of his
party. But the treachery, the contempt of law, the thirst for
blood, which the king had now shown, left no hope of a peace-
able adjustment. It was clear that Charles must be either a
puppet or a tyrant, — that no obligation of love or of honour could
bind him, — and that the only way to make him harmless, was
to make him powerless.

The attack which the king had made on the five members
was not merely irregular in manner. Even if the charges had
been preferred legally, if the Grand Jury of Middlesex had found
a true bill, if the accused persons had been arrested under a pro-
per warrant, and at a proper time and place, there would still
have been in the proceeding enough of perfidy and injustice to
vindicate the strongest measures which the Opposition could take.
To impeach Pym and Hampden was to impeach the House of
Commons. It was notoriously on account of what they had
done as members of that House that they were selected as objects
of vengeance ; and in what they had done as members of that
House, the majority had concurred. Most of the charges brought
against them were common between them and the Parliament.
They were accused, indeed, and it may be with reason, of en-
couraging the Scotch army to invade England. In doing this,
they had committed what was, in strictness of law, a high
offence; — the same offence which Devonshire and Shrewsbury
committed in 1688. . But the king had promised pardon and
oblivion to those who had been the principals in the Scotch
insurrection. Did it then consist with his honour to punish
the accessaries ? He had bestowed marks of his favour on the
leading Covenanters. He had given the great seal of Scotland
to Lord Louden, the chief of the rebels, a marquisate to the
Earl of Argyle, an earldom to Lesley, who had brought the Pres-
byterian army across the Tweed. On what principle was Hamp?
den to be attainted for advising what Lesley was ennobled for
doing? In a court of law, of course, no Englishman could plead
an amnesty granted to the Scots. But, though not an illegal,
it was surely an inconsistent and a most unkingly course, after
pardoning the heads of the rebellion in one kingdom, to hang,
draw, and quarter their accomplices in another.

The proceedings of the king against the five members, or
rather against that Parliament which had concurred in almost

1831. Lord "Nageni^s Memorials of Hampdenj 54$

all the acts of the five members, was the cause of the civil war.
It was plain that either Charles or the House of Commons must
be stripped of all real power in the state. The best course which
the Commons could have taken would perhaps have been to
depose the king ; as their ancestors had deposed Edward the
Second and Richard the Second, and as their children afterwards
deposed James. Had they done this, — had they placed on the
throne a prince whose character and whose situation would have
been a pledge for his good conduct, they might safely have left
to that prince all the constitutional prerogatives of the Crown ;
the command of the armies of the state ; the power of making
peers; the power of appointing ministers; a veto on bills passed
by the two Houses. Such a prince, reigning by their choice,
would have been under the necessity of acting in conformity
with their wishes. But the public mind was not ripe for such
a measure. There was no Duke of Lancaster — no Prince of
Orange — no great and eminent person, near in blood to the
throne, yet attached to the cause of the people. Charles was
then to remain king ; and it was therefore necessary that he
should be king only in name. A William the Third, or a George
the First, whose title to the crown was identical with the title
of the people to their liberty, might safely be trusted with exten-
sive powers. But new freedom could not exist in safety under
the old tyrant. Since he was not to be deprived of the name
of king, the only course which was left was to make him a mere
trustee, nominally seised of prerogatives, of which others had
the use, — a Grand Lama — a Roi Faineant — a phantom resem-
bling those Dagoberts and Childeberts who wore the badges of
royalty, while Ebroin and Charles Martel held the real sove-
reignty of the state.

The conditions which the Parliament propounded were hard;
but, we are sure, not harder than those which even the Tories,
in the Convention of 1689, would have imposed on James, if it
had been resolved that James should continue to be king. The
chief condition was, that the command of the militia and the
conduct of the war in Ireland should be left to the Parliament.
On this point was that great issue joined, whereof the two par-
ties put themselves on God and on the Sword.

We think, not only that the Commons were justified in de-
manding for themselves the power to dispose of the military
force, but that it would have been absolute insanity in them to
leave that force at the disposal of the king. From the very
beginning of his reign, it had evidently been his object to go-
vern by an army. His third Parliament had complained, in the
Petition of Right, of his fondness for martial law, and of the

544 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

vexatious manner in which he billeted his soldiers on the people.
The wish nearest the heart of Strafford was, as his letters prove,
that the revenue might be brought into such a state as would
enable the king to support a standing military establishment. In
1640, Charles had supported an army in the northern counties
by lawless exactions. In 1641, he had engaged in an intrigue,
the object of which was to bring that army to London, for the
purpose of overawing the Parliament. His late conduct had
proved that, if he were suffered to retain even a small body-
guard of his own creatures near his person, the Commons would
be in danger of outrage, perhaps of massacre. The Houses were
still deliberating under the protection of the militia of London.
Could the command of the whole armed force of the realm have
been, under these circumstances, safely confided to the king ?
Would it not have been frenzy in the Parliament to raise and
pay an army of fifteen or twenty thousand men for the Irish war,
and to give to Charles the absolute control of this army, and the
power of selecting, promoting, and dismissing officers at his
pleasure? Was it not possible that this army might beconae,
what it is the nature of armies to become, what so many armies
formed under much more favourable circumstances have be-
come, what the army of the English commonwealth became,
what the army of the French republic became— an instrument
of despotism ? Was it not possible that the soldiers might forget
that they were also citizens, and might be ready to serve their
general against their country ? Was it not certain that, on the
very first day on which Charles could venture to revoke his
concessions, and to punish his opponents, he would establish an
arbitrary government, and exact a bloody revenge ?

Our own times furnish a parallel case. Suppose that a revo-
lution should take place in Spain — that the Constitution of
Cadiz should be re-established — that the Cortes should meet
again — that the Spanish Prynnes and Burtons, who are now
wandering in rags round Leicester Square, should be restored
to their country — Ferdinand the Seventh would, in that case, of
course repeat all the oaths and promises which he made in 1820,
and broke in 1823. But would it not be madness in the Cortes,
even if they were to leave him the name of king, to leave him
more than the name ? Would not all Europe scoff at them, if
they were to permit him to assemble a large army for an expe-
dition to America, to model that army at his pleasure, to put it
under the command of officers chosen by himself? Should wc
not say, that every member of the Constitutional party, who
Tuight concur in such a measure, would most richly deserve the

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, 545

fate which he would probably meet — the fate of Riego and of
the Empecinado? We are not disposed to pay compliments to
Ferdinand ; nor do we conceive that we pay him any compli-
ment, when we say, that, of all sovereigns in history, he seems
to us most to resemble King Charles the First. Like Charles,
he is pious after a certain fashion ; like Charles, he has made
large concessions to his people after a certain fashion. It is
well for him that he has had to deal with men who bore very
little resemblance to the English Puritans.

The Commons would have the power of the sword ; the king
would not part with it ; and nothing remained but to try the
chances of war. Charles still had a strong party in the coun-
try. His august office — his dignified manners — his solemn pro-
testations, that he would for the time to come respect the liber-
ties of his subjects — pity for fallen greatness — fear of violent
innovation, secured to him many adherents. He had the Church,
the Universities, a majority of the nobles and of the old landed
gentry. The austerity of the Puritan manners drove most of
the gay and dissolute youth of that age to the royal standard.
Many good, brave, and moderate men, who disliked his former
conduct, and who entertained doubts touching his present since-
rity, espoused his cause unwillingly, and with many painful
misgivings ; because, though they dreaded his tyi'anny much,
they dreaded democratic violence more.

On the other side was the great body of the middle orders of
England — the merchants, the shopkeepers, the yeomanry, headed
by a very large and formidable minority of the peerage and of
the landed gentry. The Earl of Essex, a man of respectable
abilities, and of some military experience, was appointed to the
command of the parliamentary army.

Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his person in the
cause. He subscribed two thousand pounds to the public ser-
vice. He took a colonel's commission in the army, and went
into Buckinghamshire to raise a regiment of infantry. His
neighbours eagerly enlisted under his command. His men were
known by their green uniform, and by their standard, which
bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament, ' God with
* us,' and on the other the device of Hampden, ' Vestigia nulla
' retrorsum.' This motto well described the line of conduct which
he pursued. No member of his party had been so temperate,
while there remained a hope that legal and peaceable measures
might save the country. No member of his party showed so much
energy and vigour when it became necessary to appeal to arms.
He made himself thoroughly master of his military duty, and

546 Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. Dec.

* performed it,' to use the words of Clarendon, ' upon all ocea-

* sions most punctually.' The regiment which he had raised
and trained was considered as one of the best in the service of
the Parliament. He exposed his person in every action, with
an intrepidity which made him conspicuous even among thou-
sands of brave men. ' He was,' says Clarendon, ' of a personal
' courage equal to his best parts ; so that he was an enemy not

* to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend, and
' as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could

* deserve to be.' Though his military career was short, and his
military situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed
the talents of a great general, as well as those of a great states-
man.

We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord
Nugent's account of the military operations is very animated
and striking. Our abstract would be dull, and probably unin-
telligible. There was, in fact, for some time, no great and
connected system of operations on either side. The war of the
two parties was like the war of Arimanes and Oromasdes,
neither of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any
exclusive domain — who are equally omnipresent — who equally
pervade all space — who carry on their eternal strife within
every particle of matter. There was a petty war in almost
every county. A town furnished troops to the Parliament,
while the manor-house of the neighbouring peer was garrisoned
for the king. The combatants were rarely disposed to march
far from their own homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and
Cromwell to terminate this desultory warfare, by moving one
overwhelming force successively against all the scattered frag-
ments of the royal party.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that the officers who had
studied tactics in what were considered as the best schools, —
under Vere in the Netherlands, and under Gustavus Adolphus
in Germany, — displayed far less skill than those commanders
who had been bred to peaceful employments, and who never
saw even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. An unlearned
person might hence be inclined to suspect that the military art
is no very profound mystery; that its principles are the princi-
ples of plain good sense ; and that a quick eye, a cool head, and
a stout heart, will do more to make a general than all the dia-
grams of Jomini. This, however, is certain, that Hampden
showed himself a far better officer than Essex, and Cromwell
than Leslie.

The military errors of Essex were probably in some degree

1831. Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 547

produced by political timidity. He was honestly, but not
warmly, attached to the cause of the Parliament ; and next to a
great defeat, he dreaded a great victory. Hampden, on the
other hand, was for vigorous and decisive measures. When he
drew the sword, as Clarendon has well said, he threw away the
scabbard. He had shown that he knew better than any public
man of his time how to value and how to practise moderation.
But he knew that the essence of war is violence, and that mode-
ration in war is imbecility. On several occasions, particularly
during the operations in the neighbourhood of Brentford, he
remonstrated earnestly with Essex. Wherever he commanded
separately, the boldness and rapidity of his movements presented
a striking contrast to the sluggishness of his superior.

In the Parliament he possessed boundless influence. His
employments towards the close of 1642 have been described by
Denham in some lines, which, though intended to be sarcastic,
convey in truth the highest eulogy. Hampden is described in
this satire as perpetually passing and repassing between the
military station at Windsor and the House of Commons at West-
minster— overawing the general, and giving law to that Parlia-
ment which knew no other law. It was at this time that he
organized that celebrated association of counties, to which his
party was principally indebted for its victory over the king.

In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbour-
hood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parlia-
ment, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry.
Essex had extended his lines so far, that almost every point was
vulnerable. The young prince, who, though not a great general,
was an active and enterprising partisan, frequently surprised
posts, burned villages, swept away cattle, and was again at
Oxford, before a force sufficient to encounter him could be
assembled.

The languid proceedings of Essex were loudly condemned by
the troops. All the ardent and daring spirits in the parliament-
ary party were eager to have Hampden at their head. Had his
life been prolonged, there is every reason to believe that the
supreme command would have been entrusted to him. But it
was decreed that, at this conjuncture, England should lose the
only man who united perfect disinterestedness to eminent
talents — the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory
for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained.

In the evening of the 17th of June, Rupert darted out of Ox-
ford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the
morning of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few

548 Lord Nugent's Meynorials of Hampden. Dec.

parliamentary soldiers who were quartered at Postcombe. He
then flew to Chinnor, burned the village, killed or took all the
troops who were posted there, and prepared to hurry back with
his booty and his prisoners to Oxford.

Hampden had, on the preceding day, strongly represented to
Essex the danger to which this part of the line was exposed. As
soon as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursion, he sent
off a horseman with a message to the General. The cavaliers, he
said, could return only by Chiselhampton Bridge. A force ought
to be instantly dispatched in that direction, for the purpose of
intercepting them. In the meantime, he resolved to set out
with all the cavalry that he could muster, for the purpose
of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take mea-
sures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse
and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their com-
mander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service.
But ' he was,' says Lord Clarendon, ' second to none but the
* General himself in the observance and application of all men.'
On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce
skirmish ensued. In the first charge, Hampden was struck in
the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged in
his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way.
Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross
the bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford.

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on
his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion
which had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and from which
in his youth he had carried home his bride, Elizabeth, was in
sight. There still remains an affecting tradition, that he looked
for a moment towards that beloved house, and made an effort to
go thither to die. But the enemy lay in that direction. He turn-
ed his horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost fainting
with agony. The surgeons dressed his wounds. But there was
no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating.
But he endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His
first care was for his country. He wiote from his bed several
letters to London concerning public affairs, and sent a last press-
ing message to the head-quarters, recommending that the dis-
persed forces should be concentrated. When his last public du-
ties were performed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was
attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with whom
he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the
Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr Spurton, whom Baxter de-
scribes as a famous and excellent divine.

1831. hord '^agent's Memoria/s of Hcwipden. 549

A short time before his death, the sacrament was administer-
ed to him. He declared that, though he disliked the government
of the Church of England, he yet agreed with that Church as to
all essential matters of doctrine. His intellect remained uncloud-
ed. When all was nearly over, he lay murmuring faint prayers
for himself, and for the cause in which he died. ' Lord Jesus,'
he exclaimed, in the moment of the last agony, ' receive my soul

— ' O Lord, save my country — O Lord, be merciful to .' In

that broken ejaculation passed away his noble and fearless spirit.

He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His sol-
diers, bareheaded, with reversed arms, and muffled drums, and
colours, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they marched,
that lofty and melancholy psalm, in which tlie fragility of human
life is contrasted with the immutability of Him, in whose sight
a thousand years arc but as yesterday when it is passed, and as
a watch in the night.

The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consterna-
tion in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army
had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that
the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and
dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from
the next Weekly Intelligencer. ' The loss of Colonel Hampden
' goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his

* king and country, and makes some conceive little content to
' be at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this de-

* ceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more

* and more be had in honour and esteem ; — a man so religious,
' and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, and integrity,

* that he hath left few his like behind him.'

He had indeed left none his like behind him. There still re-
mained, indeed, in his party, many acute intellects, many eloquent
tongues, many brave and honest hearts. There still remained a
rugged and clownish soldier, — half-fanatic, half-buffoon, — whose
talents, discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal
to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince. But in
Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the qualities
which, at such a crisis, were necessary to save the state, — the
valour and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence
of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern
integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sidney. Others
might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the
popular party in the crisis of danger ; he alone had both the
power and the inclination to restrain its excesses in the hour of
triumph. Others could conquer ; he alone could reconcile. A

VOL. LIV. NO, CVIII. N

550 hold ^uge;nVs Me7norials of Hampdeji. Dec.

heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who turned the
tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his watch-
ed the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar.
But it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles,
had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious
of ascendency and burning for revenge, — it was when the vices
and ignorance which the old tyranny had generated, threatened
the new freedom with destruction, that England missed that
sobriety, that self-command, that perfect soundness of judgment,
that perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revo-
lutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washing-
ton alone.

No. CIX. will he published in April.

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1831. List of New PubHcations. 55*7

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1831. ListofNeiv Puhlicatiovs. 559

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560 Lint of Neic Publications. Dec

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1831. List of Neic Publications. 561

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INDEX.

Aberdeen, Lord, liis improper conduct towards Portngal, 426 ; his absurd
delay in the cas3 of Marcos Ascoli— his instruction to Mr Matthews,
428.

Althorp, Lord, his political character, 258.

Anderson, extract from his letter on the corn laws, 91.

Aristotle, compared with Plato, 48 ; his work on Rhetoric, 53 ; his cha-
racter as given by Mr Gray, 55.

Ascoli, Marcos, statement of his case, 430.

Beresford, his mode of discipline in the Portuguese army, 409 ; sails for

Rio, 410; declines to join the royalists, 411.
Bocher, Joan, commonly called Joan of Kent— charges against her, 321 ;

she is burnt, ib.
Bosivell, James, the first of biographers, and smallest of men, 16 ; his

character, his talents, and his book, 16, 17, 18, and 19.
Bunya7i, John, Pilgrim's Progress, and his Life by Southey— notice of

the work, 450 ; his history, 456 ; horrible internal conflicts, 457.
Butler, remarks on the Penal Code, 216,

Catholic Question, conduct pursued by the House of Lords on that
occasion, 270.

Charles I., outline of his character, 515 ; and government, 516 ; perse-
cution of the Puritans, 521 ; unreasonable assessment for ship-money,
524 ; expedition against the Scotch covenanters, 527 ; bis violent dis-
solution of parliament, 528 ; his second campaign against the Scots,
530 ; his violent attempt to arrest five members of the Commons while
engaged in their parliamentary duties, 538 ; the civil war, 544.

Colonial Policy, sugar colonies in a miserable state, 330 ; cause of the
distress, 331 ; table of imports, 332 ; demand for sugar increased — the
supply augmented in a still greater ratio, 333 ; means of procuring re-
lief, 334 ; exclusion of the produce of the United States prejudicial to
the Colonies, 336 ; ravages occasioned by hurricanes, 337 ; cause of
the continuance of these restrictions, 339 ; duties on articles imported,
341 ; how eluded, 342 ; amount of the pecuniary loss sustained by the
merchants in consequence of, ib. ; only true and direct mode of giving
relief, 343 ; recent act, its modifications, and its effects, 344 j duties on
sugar, 8sc. to be reduced, 346 ; measures for relief of slaves necessary
348.

564 INDEX.

Cobbett, his connexion with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and his character
of that nobleman, 1 26.

Cranmer, Life of Archbishop, by the Rev. H, J. Todd, outline of liis
history, 313 ; he discusses with Fox the question of the king's divorce,
315 ; his residence in Germany, his marriage and promotion to the
vacant see of Canterbury, 316; he cites the queen to appear before
him, 319; his share in the persecutions of Henry VIII., 321 ; Refor-
matio Legum Ecclesiasticariim, unequivocal proof of his having deeply
imbibed the spirit of persecution, extracts from the work, 322 ; his
eiTors, 323 ; his character adorned with many private virtues — the
Bible and books of religious instruction circulated under his influence,
324 ; anecdote, 327 ; he is committed to the Towei", is tried, signs six
recantations, is executed, 328 ; his character, 328, 329.

Croker, notice of his edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1 ; exposure of
the inaccuracies contained in it, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 ; his knowledge of
the classics called in question, 8 and 9 ; his want of perspicacity, 10
and 11 ; his notes and alterations, 12 and 13 ; his omissions absurd —
his additions still more so, 13, 14, 15, and 16.

Drama, the, brought to the test of scripture and found wanting, review
of, 100 ; defence of the drama, 107.

Edwards, Mr B. opposes the exclusion of the produce of the United
States from the West India Colonies, 338.

England, Ireland, and France, Tour in, by a German Prince, notice of,
384 ; his opinion of the English liturgy, 392 ; his incidental criticisms
on the arts, 393 ; observations on the education of English women, 395 ;
suspicion of the dishonesty of the English, 397 ; their meanness, 398 ;
suspicious character of his private anecdotes, 399 ; anecdote character-
istic of the Irish, 403 ; O'Connell, 404 ; opinion on the state of Ireland,
405 ; Charles I., his character and government, 515, 544.

Evangelical Class, pretensions of the, 100; their perverse application of
scripture, ib. ; indulge in casting the reproach of worldly-mindedness
on the rest of mankind, and claim the praise of spiritual-mindedness
to themselves, 101 ; " using the world without abusing it," a test for
trying the religious integrity of man, 102 ; the Evangelical Class
arraigned, 103.

Eliot, Sir John, his imprisonment, 517 ; his death, 520.

Fitzgerald, notice of Moore's Life of, 114; parentage of Lord Edward,
116 ; his character 117 ; his maternal affection shown in his letters, 1 19 ;
observations upon his predilection for rude nature, 124 ; his marriage,
128 ; he enters the society of United Irishmen, 132 ; his arrest, 139 ;
reflections, 144 ; present state of Ireland, 145.

Frith, John, condemned and burnt for denying the doctrines of transub-
stantiation, 321.

INDEX. 565

Fuseli, the Life and Writings of Henry, by John Knowles, review of
the work, 159 ; his early life, 160 ; he is obliged to leave Zurich,
and arrives in England, 162 ; he visits Rome, 163 ; his literary pur-
suits, 164 ; his death, 168 ; contrasted with other painters of his day,
and his character as an artist, 169; his criticisms on works of art, 181.

Game Laws, the new, 277 ; legal title in game, 278 ; the statute to a
certain extent a compromise, 279 ; its inconsistencies, ib. ; hints to
government in the management of the woods and forests, 285 ; acts
for the preservation of game, 291 ; sale of game first commenced, 295 ;
infringement of the game laws by peers, 298 ; comparison between the
old and new system, 299 ; the period to enforce our late system ill-
chosen, 302 ; duties of the tax-collectors, &c., 308 ; propriety of allow-
ing farmers a share in the game, 309 ; landed proprietors must under-
sell poachers to extirpate them, ib.

German Prince, review of his Tour in England, Ireland, and France,
384—407. Character of the work, 385.

Harris, his definition of philosophical criticism corrected, 44.

Hope, Mr Thos., notice of his Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man,
351 ; compared with Schlegel's Lectures, 376.

Huskisson, Mr, his act for the regulation of the colonial trade referred to,
340 ; advocates free intercourse between our colonies and other coun-
tries, ib.

Hampden, Memorial of his Party and Times, by Lord Nugent, 506;
Richard Baxter's opinion of his character, 507 ; specimens of his cor-
respondence, 318 — 320; resists the assessment for ship-money, 524;
his ability as a parliamentary speaker, 531 ; the attempt of Charles to
arrest him, 538 ; his death, 548,

Johnson, Dr Samuel, 28 ; arrival in London, 21 ; degraded state of lite-
rary men at that period, ib. ; reasons therefor, 22 ; a poet described,
23 ; character of Johnson, 25, 26, and 27 ; his credulity, 28 ; his sen-
timents on religious subjects, 29 ; opinion on forms of government, 30 ;
opinion on literary questions, how formed, 32 ; on men and manners,
33 ; his hatred of foreigners, 34 ; his contempt of history and foreign
travel, 35 ; faults of his style, 37.

Jones on the Theory of Rent, 84 ; opposed to Ricardo — review extensive
but superficial — his fallacies exposed, 87 ; his plagiarisms detected, 97.

James VI., impolicy and weakness of his government, 512 ; contrast be-
tween this monarch and Claudius Caesar, 513, 514.

Latvrence, Sir Thomas, his Life and Correspondence, by D. E. Williams,
Esq., notice of the work, 461 ; early display of genius, 463; Bernard's
account of, 464 ; resides in Bath, 465 ; removes to London — interview
with Sir Joshua Reynolds, 466 ; compared with Reynolds, 468 ; dis-
VOL. LIV. NO. cviii. o

566 INDEX.

quisition on hia style, 469 ; patronised by George III., 471 ; executes
portraits of the allied sovereigns at Aix — anecdotes, 472 ; visits Rome,
473 ; elected President of the Royal Academy, 475 ; his death and
character, 477.

Laud, his contemptible character, 521 ; his superstition, 522.

Law, Rossi on Criminal, errors in the French code attributable to Na-
poleon, 183 ; American and English code, 184 ; the latter irremediably
bad, 187 ; basis of M. Rossi's system, 189 ; the philosophy of mind
generally, and that of morals, strictly so called, 192; law has nothing
to do with man except as a member of society, 205 ; four schools of
criminal law, 208 ; social order is the end of society, 223 ; separation
between mal moral and mal social not allowable, 224 ; classification
of the philosophers of morals and jurisprudence into spiritualists and
sensualists, 232.

Lee, notice of his dissertation on the Views and Principles of the Modern
Rationalists in Germany, 253 ; his observations on the 52d and 53d
chapters of Isaiah, 254 ; his knowledge of German, 255.

Literature, patronised with emulous munificence, 21.

Louie, Marquis of, leader of the Portuguese Royalists, murdered, 411.

Man, Essay on the Origin and Prospects of, notice of the work, 351 ; cor-
poreal therapeutics, 352; mental therapeutics, 354; logic, its limits
and abuses, 355 ; difference between oratory and rhetoric, 356 ; man,
to be understood, must be viewed in combination with his fellows, 359 ;
state of society at the present day, 365 ; spiritual condition of society,
367 ; religion and literature, 360 ; metaphysics, dogmatical and scepti-
cal, 371.

Martin, his style of painting, 450.

Metternich, his character, by Sir T. Lawrence, 473.

Moose, manner of hunting it described, 123»

N.
Nugent, Lord, his Memorials of Hampden reviewed, 506.

Oxford, University of, the legality of the present academical system-
notice of the work, 478 ; its complete failure, 481 ; present system of
education illegal, 483 ; surreptitiously intruded into the University,
485 ; professorial system mutilated, 488 ; attendance on lectures not
enforced, 491 ; powers of the House of Convocation, 492 ; systenn
wholly inadequate to accomplish the purposes of the University, 495;
misconduct of the Heads, 496.

Palmerston, Lord, his spirited conduct in relation to Portugal, 434.

Peel, Sir R., his conduct in the Catholic Question, 304.

Pilgrim's Progress, with a Life of J. Bunyan, by R. Southey, notice of
the work, 450; excellency of its allegory, 451 ; abstract of, 452 ; com-
pared with the Grace Abounding, 456 ; character of the work, 459.

INDEX. 667

Plato, his imraltable style, 47; philosophic criticism established on a
firm basis by him, 48 ; comparison between Plato and Aristotle, 48,
49, 50, 51, 52, 53.

Protestantism, state of in Germany, 238 ; the Divines of the English
Church warned, ib ; Rationalism, its causes, 239 ; effect of the Re-
formation on the German clergy, 241 ; Protestant party spirit during
the Thirty Years' War, 243 ; Pietists, 244 ; Protestantism in the reign
of Frederick the Great, 245.

Portugal, Recent History, Present State, and External Relations of —
state of the country at the close of the war in 1814, 407; state of
the army, 409 ; revolution in, and the causes of it, 410 ; policy of the
Cortes, 410; their fall, 411; the army joins Miguel, 412; opposed by
the foreign powers — the King takes refuge on board an English vessel
— Miguel banished, 412 ; death of the King — his character, 413; ac-
cession of Don Pedro, 414; standard of revolt raised — British force
lands at Lisbon, 415 ; Miguel lands at Lisbon — road to the crown, 416 ;
visits England — conduct of Lord Dudley, 419 ; the press and the pulpit
favour Miguel, 420 ; Cortes assembled — their resolution, 42 1 ; royal-
ist volunteers — of whom composed — their power, 422 ; anecdotes of
oppression— state of the country, 423; executions and their effects,
424 ; its external relations, 425 ; conduct of the British Government
— support Miguel, 426 ; treatment of British subjects by the Portu-
guese government, 427 ; case of Marcos Ascoli, 428 ; Miguel attacks
the general interests of England, 434 ; seizes the St Helena packet,
435 ; determined course taken by Lord Palmerston, 438; proceedings
of the French, 439 ; our government alarmed, 440 ; can Portugal re-
ceive relief from foreign powers ? 442 ; certain consequences of Miguel's
tyranny, 443.

Q.
Qtiarterly List of New Publications, 551.

Rationalism, its rise in Germany, and its causes, 239 ; Rationalists en-
couraged by Frederick the Great, 245 ; fundamental principles of, 247 ;
question respecting the origin of the three first Gospels, 250.

Reform — What will the Lords do ? notice of, 256 ; reflections on the first
fortunes of the measure, 259 ; second reading carried by one vote, dis-
solution of Parliament, and the effects of that step, 259 ; new Parlia-
ment— bill passed, 260 ; increase of the number of Peers, 264 ; conse-
quences of the loss of the bill in the Lords, 266 ; should the present
Ministry resign ? 267.

Ricardo, remarks on his Theory of Rent, 85.

Rich, extracts from his pamphlet. What will the Lords do ? 272.

Rhapsodists, the fathers of philosophic criticism, 44 ; some account of this
body, 45.

S.
Schlegel, notice of his Lectures, 351 ; compared with Hope's Essay on

Man, 376.
SotUhey, notice of his Introductory Easay on the Lives and Works of

Uneducated Poets, 69 ; diffusion of knowledge distastefully spoken of.

568 INDEX.

71 ; his assertion that the more general diffusion of education among
the poor is calculated to prevent the appearance of versifiers in humble
life, denied, 73 ; denied that poetry tends more to morality than me-
chanics, 75.

Shelley, P. JB.y his character as an author, 454.

Slavery, plan of gradual emancipation necessary, 348.

Smith, Dr A., his opinion of justice, 214.

Strafford, the justice of his execution maintained, 532.

Taste, Greek Philosophy of, 39 ; difference between ancient and modern
critics, 40 ; minuteness of remark peculiar to the ancients, 41 ; remark-
able for their attention to collocation, 42 ; perspicuity and force of their
writings, ib. ; philosophic criticism sprung from the Rhapsodists, 44 ;
some account of that sect, 45 ; progress of philosophic criticism under
Plato, 47 ; Aristotle, 48 ; Theophrastus, 55 ; Demetrius Phalerius, 56 ;
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ib. ; Plutarch the Boeotian, 58 ; whether the
treatise on Sublimity is the production of Dionysius Longinus, or Dio-
nysius of Halicarnassus, 59.

Taylor the Water-Poet, his journey, 77 ; specimens of his poetry, 78.

Theology, Natural, by the Rev. Alexander Crombie, notice of the work,
147 ; argument founded on a first cause, 148 ; self-existence in respect
to matter, and in respect to form, 149 ; evidences of a powerful and
intelligent cause, exhibited in the works of physical nature, 152 ; en-
quiry as to the existence of a presiding power, 157 ; the nature of man
as a being purely material, or constructed of two different substances,
158.

Todd, Rev. J. H., notice of his Life of Archbishop Cranmer — his dispo-
sition to praise, 312.

University, Oxford, illegality of the present system of education, 483 ;
surreptitiously intruded, 485 ; professorial system mutilated, 488 ; at-
tendance on lectures not enforced, 491 ; powers of the House of Con-
vocation, 492 ; system wholly inadequate, 495 ; misconduct of the
Heads, 496.

Woodhouselee advocates the doctrine that the resentment of injuries is
the great principle of the criminal law, 211, 213.

Wentworth, sketch of his character, 322 ; his violent and arbitrary con-
duct, 323.

Editiburgh : Printed by Ballantyne and Co.

' ,' mi.' r ■m.MMmxa.i-KWi^

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