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THE HARVARD CLASSICS
EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LLD
ENGLISH ESSAYS
FROM SIR PHILIP SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES
VOLUME 27
I Mil*
P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY
NEW YORK
Copyright, iqio
By P. F. Collier & Son
MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A.
Designed, Printed, and Bound at
Cfje Collier Ipvt&i, filela gorfe
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Defense of Poesy 7
by sir philip sidney
On Shakespeare . 59
by ben jonson
On Bacon 60
by ben jonson
Of Agriculture . . 65
by abraham cowley
The Vision of Mirza 77
by joseph addison
Westminster Abbey 82
by joseph addison
The Spectator Club ......... 0 „ .... 89
by sir richard steele
HC 1 Vol. 27—1
2 CONTENTS
PAGE
Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation 97
by jonathan swift
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding .... 106
BY JONATHAN SWIFT
A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet 112
by jonathan swift
On the Death of Esther Johnson [Stella] 131
by jonathan swift
The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters 143
by daniel defoe
The Education of Women 158
by daniel defoe
Life of Addison, 1672-1719 165
by samuel johnson
Of the Standard of Taste 215
by david hume
Fallacies of Anti-Reformers 237
by sydney smith
CONTENTS 3
PAGE
On Poesy or Art 269
by samuel taylor coleridge
Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen 281
by william hazlitt
Deaths of Little Children 299
by leigh hunt
On the Realities of Imagination 304
by leigh hunt
On the Tragedies of Shakspere 313
by charles lamb
Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow ........*. 335
by thomas de quincey
A Defence of Poetry 345
by percy bysshe shelley
Machiavelli 381
by thomas babington macaulay
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Sir Philip Sidney, for three centuries the type of the English
gentleman, was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, lord deputy of
Ireland under Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Mary Dudley, daughter
of the Duke of Northumberland. He was born at Penshurst,
Kent, November 30, 1554, and was named after his godfather,
Philip II of Spain, then consort of Queen Mary. He was sent
to Oxford at fourteen, where he was noted as a good student;
and on leaving the university he obtained the Queen's leave to
travel on the Continent. He went to Paris in the train of the
embassador to France, saw much of court society there, and was
in the city at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Pro-
ceeding to Germany he met, at Frankfort, the Protestant scholar
Hubert Languet, with whom, though Languet was thrice his
age, he formed an intimate and profitable friendship. He went
on to Vienna, Hungary, Italy, and back by the Low Countries,
returning to England at the age of twenty, an accomplished and
courtly gentleman, with some experience of practical diplomacy,
and a first-hand knowledge of the politics of the Continent.
Sidney's introduction to the court of Elizabeth took place in
1575, and within two years he was sent back to the Continent
on a number of diplomatic commissions, when he used every
opportunity for the furthering of the interests of Protestantism.
He seems everywhere to have made the most favorable impres-
sion by both his character and his abilities. During the years
between 1578 and 1585 he was chiefly at court and in Parliament,
and to this period belong most of his writings. In 1585 he left
England to assume the office of Governor of Flushing, and in
the next year he was mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen,
dying on October 17, 1586. All England went into mourning, and
the impression left by his brilliant and fascinating personality
has never passed away.
Sidney's literary work was all published after his death, some
of it against his express desire. The ''Arcadia," an elaborate
pastoral romance written in a highly ornate prose mingled with
verse, was composed for the entertainment of his sister, the
Countess of Pembroke. The collection of sonnets, "Astrophel
and Stella," was called forth by Sidney's relation to Penelope
5
6 INTRODUCTION
Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex. While they were both
little more than children, there had been some talk of a marriage
between them; but evidence of any warmth of feeling appears
chiefly after Penelope's unhappy marriage to Lord Rich. There
has been much controversy over the question of the sincerity
of these remarkable poems, and over the precise nature of
Sidney's sentiments toward the lady who inspired them, some
regarding them as undisguised outpourings of a genuine passion,
others as mere conventional literary exercises. The more recent
opinion is that they express a platonic devotion such as was
common in the courtly society of the day, and which was allowed
by contemporary opinion to be compatible with the marriage of
both parties.
In i$79 Stephen Gosson published a violent attack on the arts,
called "The School of Abuse," and dedicated it without per-
mission to Sidney. It was in answer to this that Sidney com-
posed his "Defense of Poesy," an eloquent apology for imagina-
tive literature, not unmingled with humor. The esthetic theories
it contains are largely borrowed from Italian sources, but it is
thoroughly infused with Sidney's own personality ; and it may
be regarded as the beginning of literary criticism in England.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY
By Sir Philip Sidney
WHEN the right virtuous Edward Wotton and I were
at the Emperor's1 court together, we gave our-
selves to learn horsemanship of John Pietro Pu-
gliano, one that with great commendation had the place of an
esquire in his stable ; and he, according to the f ertileness of
the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of
his practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the con-
templations therein which he thought most precious. But
with none I remember mine ears were at any time more
loaden, than when — either angered with slow payment, or
moved with our learner-like admiration — he exercised his
speech in the praise of his faculty. He said soldiers were
the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the noblest
of soldiers. He said they were the masters of war and
ornaments of peace, speedy goers and strong abiders,
triumphers both in camps and courts. Nay, to so unbe-
lieved a point he proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred
such wonder to a prince as to be a good horseman ; skill of
government was but a pedanteria2 in comparison. Then
would he add certain praises, by telling what a peerless
beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier without
flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and
such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician
before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me
to have wished myself a horse. But thus much at least
with his no few words he drave into me, that self-love is
better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous wherein
ourselves be parties.
Wherein if Pugliano's strong affection and weak argu-
1 Maximilian II. (1527-1576). a Piece of pedantry.
7
8 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
ments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example
of myself, who, I know not by what mischance, in these my
not old years and idlest times, having slipped into the title
of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you in the
defense of that my unelected vocation, which if I handle
with more good will than good reasons, bear with me, since
the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his
master. And yet I must say that, as I have just cause to
make a pitiful defense of poor poetry, which from almost
the highest estimation of learning is fallen to be the laugh-
ing-stock of children, so have I need to bring some more
available proofs, since the former is by no man barred of
his deserved credit, the silly3 latter hath had even the names
of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger
of civil war among the Muses.
And first, truly, to all them that, professing learning,
inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected that they go
very near to ungratefulness, to seek to deface that which,
in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath
been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose
milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of
tougher knowledges. And will they now play the hedgehog,
that, being received into the den, drave out his host? Or
rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents?
Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able
to show me one book before Musseus, Homer, and Hesiod,
all three nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be
brought that can say any writers were there before them,
if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus,
and some other are named, who, having been the first
of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowl-
edge to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called
their fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this
priority — although in itself antiquity be venerable — but went
before them as causes, to draw with their charming sweet-
ness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowl-
edge. So as Amphion was said to move stones with his
poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by
beasts, — indeed stony and beastly people. So among the
*Weak, poor.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 9
Romans were Livius Andronicus and Ennius; so in the
Italian language the first that made it aspire to be a
treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccace,
and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer,
after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent
foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother-
tongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts.
This did so notably show itself, that the philosophers of
Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but
under the masks of poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and
Parmenides sang their natural philosophy in verses; so
did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels; so
did Tyrtseus in war matters, and Solon in matters of policy;
or rather they, being poets, did exercise their delightful
vein in those points of highest knowledge which before them
lay hidden to the world. For that wise Solon was directly
a poet it is manifest, having written in verse the notable
fable of the Atlantic Island which was continued by Plato.
And truly even Plato whosoever well considereth, shall find
that in the body of his work though the inside and strength
were philosophy, the skin as it were and beauty depended
most of poetry. For all standeth upon dialogues ; wherein he
feigneth many honest burgesses of Athens to speak of
such matters that, if they had been set on the rack, they
would never have confessed them; besides his poetical
describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well-
ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, with
interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' Ring and others, which
who knoweth not to be flowers of poetry did never walk
into Apollo's garden.
And even historiographers, although their lips sound of
things done, and verity be written in their foreheads, have
been glad to borrow both fashion and perchance weight of
the poets. So Herodotus entituled his history by the name
of the nine Muses; and both he and all the rest that followed
him either stole or usurped of poetry their passionate de-
scribing of passions, the many particularities of battles
which no man could affirm, or, if that be denied me, long
orations put in the mouths of great kings and captains,
which it is certain they never pronounced.
10 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
So that truly neither philosopher nor historiographer
could at the first have entered into the gates of popular
judgments, if they had not taken a great passport of poetry,
which in all nations at this day, where learning flourisheth
not, is plain to be seen; in all which they have some feeling
of poetry. In Turkey, besides their lawgiving divines they
have no other writers but poets. In our neighbor country
Ireland, where truly learning goeth very bare, yet are their
poets held in a devout reverence. Even among the most
barbarous and simple Indians, where no writing is, yet have
they their poets, who make and sing songs (which they
call areytos), both of their ancestors' deeds and praises of
their gods, — a sufficient probability that, if ever learning
come among them, it must be by having their hard dull
wits softened and sharpened with the sweet delights of
poetry; for until they find a pleasure in the exercise of the
mind, great promises of much knowledge will little persuade
them that know not the fruits of knowledge. In Wales,
the true remnant of the ancient Britons, as there are good
authorities to show the long time they had poets which they
called bards, so through all the conquests of Romans, Saxons,
Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to ruin all
memory of learning from among them, yet do their poets
even to this day last ; so as it is not more notable in soon be-
ginning, than in long continuing.
But since the authors of most of our sciences were the
Romans, and before them the Greeks, let us a little stand
upon their authorities, but even* so far as to see what
names they have given unto this now scorned skill. Among
the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as much as a
diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words, vati-
cinium and vaticinari, is manifest; so heavenly a title did
that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowl-
edge. And so far were they carried into the admiration
thereof, that they thought in the chanceable hitting upon
any such verses great fore-tokens of their following fortunes
were placed ; whereupon grew the word of Sortcs Virgiliaiuz,
when by sudden opening Virgil's book they lighted upon
some verse of his making. Whereof the Histories of the
* Only.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 13
Emperors' Lives are full: as of Albinus, the governor of our
island, who in his childhood met with this verse,
Arma amens capio, nee sat ratiouis in armis,
and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain
and godless superstition, as also it was to think that spirits
were commanded by such verses — whereupon this word
charms, derived of carmina, cometh — so yet serveth it to
show the great reverence those wits were held in, and alto-
gether not5 without ground, since both the oracles of Delphos
and Sibylla's prophecies were wholly delivered in verses;
for that same exquisite observing of number and measure in
words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit8 proper to the
poet, did seem to have some divine force in it.
And may not I presume a little further to show the rea-
sonableness of this word vates, and say that the holy David's
Psalms are a divine poem ? If I do, I shall not do it without
the testimony of great learned men, both ancient and modern.
But even the name of Psalms will speak for me, which,
being interpreted, is nothing but Songs; then, that it is fully
written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although
the rules be not yet fully found; lastly and principally, his
handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what
else is the awaking his musical instruments, the often and
free changing of persons, his notable prosopopoeias, when
he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty,
his telling of the beasts' joy fulness and hills' leaping, but a
heavenly poesy, wherein almost he showeth himself a pas-
sionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty to
be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith? But
truly now having named him, I fear I seem to profane that
holy name, applying it to poetry, which is among us thrown
down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that with
quiet judgments will look a little deeper into it, shall And
the end and working of it such as, being rightly applied,
deserveth not to be scourged out of the church of God.
But now let us see how the Greeks named it and how they
deemed of it. The Greeks called him icotynjv, which name
6 Not altogether. • Invention.
12 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
hath, as the most excellent, gone through other languages.
It cometh of this word woieTv, which is " to make " ; wherein
I know not whether by luck or wisdom we Englishmen have
met with the Greeks in calling him a maker. Which name
how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather were
known by marking the scope of other sciences than by any
partial allegation. There is no art delivered unto mankind
that hath not the works of nature for his principal object,
without which they could not consist, and on which they so
depend as they become actors and players, as it were, of
what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer
look upon the stars, and, by that he seeth, set down what
order nature hath taken therein. So do the geometrician
and arithmetician in their divers sorts of quantities. So
doth the musician in times tell you which by nature agree,
which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his name,
and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues,
vices, and passions of man ; and " follow nature," saith he,
" therein, and thou shalt not err." The lawyer saith what
men have determined, the historian what men have done.
The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech, and
the rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will
soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules,
which still are compassed within the circle of a question,
according to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth
the nature of man's body, and the nature of things helpful
or hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the
second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted super-
natural, yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature.
Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection,
lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow, in
effect, into another nature, in making things either better
than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as
never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops,
chimeras, furies, and such like; so as he goeth hand in hand
with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her
gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers
poets have done ; neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees,
sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 13
too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the
poets only deliver a golden.
But let those things alone, and go to man — for whom as
the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost
cunning is employed — and know whether she have brought
forth so true a lover as Theagenes; so constant a friend as
Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando; so right a prince as
Xenophon's Cyrus ; so excellent a man every way as Virgil's
^Eneas? Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the
works of the one be essential, the other in imitation or fic-
tion; for any understanding knoweth the skill of each
artificer standeth in that idea, or fore-conceit of the work,
and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea
is manifest, by delivering them forth in such excellency as
he hath imagined them. Which delivering forth, also, is not
wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build
castles in the air ; but so far substantially it worketh, not
only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excel-
lency, as nature might have done, but to bestow a Cyrus upon
the world to make many Cyruses, if they will learn aright
why and how that maker made him. Neither let it be deemed
too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man's
wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honor
to the Heavenly Maker of that maker, who, having made
man to His own likeness, set him beyond and over all the
works of that second nature. Which in nothing he showeth
so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath
he bringeth things forth far surpassing her doings, with no
small argument to the incredulous of that first accursed
fall of Adam, — since our erected wit maketh us know what
perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from
reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be under-
stood, and by fewer granted ; thus much I hope will be given
me, that the Greeks with some probability of reason gave
him the name above all names of learning.
Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the
truth may be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though we
get not so unmatched a praise as the etymology of his names
will grant, yet his very description, which no man will deny,
shall not justly be barred from a principal commendation.
14 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle
termeth it in his word /it/i7)<n$, that is to say, a representing,
counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a
speaking picture, with this end, — to teach and delight.
Of this have been three general kinds. The chief, both in
antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate the
inconceivable excellencies of God. Such were David in his
Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes
and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their Hymns; and the
writer of Job; which, beside other, the learned Emanuel
Tremellius and Franciscus Junius do entitle the poetical part
of the Scripture. Against these none will speak that hath
the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. In this kind, though
in a full wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion, Homer
in his Hymns, and many other, both Greeks and Romans.
And this poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St.
James' counsel in singing psalms when they are merry; and
I know is used with the fruit of comfort by some, when, in
sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing sins, they find the
consolation of the never-leaving goodness.
The second kind is of them that deal with matters philo-
sophical, either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, and Cato; or
natural, as Lucretius and Virgil's Georgics ; or astronomical,
as Manilius and Pontanus ; or historical, as Lucan ; which
who mislike, the fault is in their judgment quite out of taste,
and not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge.
But because this second sort is wrapped within the fold
of the proposed subject, and takes not the free course of his
own invention, whether they properly be poets or no let
grammarians dispute, and go to the third, indeed right poets,
of whom chiefly this question ariseth. Betwixt whom and
these second is such a kind of difference as betwixt the
meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only such faces as
are set before them, and the more excellent, who having no
law but wit, bestow that in colors upon you which is fittest
for the eye to see, — as the constant though lamenting look
of Lucretia, when she punished in herself another's fault;
wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he never saw, but
painteth the outward beauty of such a virtue. For these
third be they which most properly do imitate to teach and
tfHE DEFENSE OF POESY 15
delight; and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath
been, or shall be ; but range, only reined with learned discre-
tion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should
be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort may
justly be termed vates, so these are waited on in the excel-
lentest languages and best understandings with the fore-
described name of poets. For these, indeed, do merely make
to imitate, and imitate both to delight and teach, and delight
to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without
delight they would fly as from a stranger ; and teach to make
them know that goodness whereunto they are moved: —
which being the noblest scope to which ever any learning
was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to bark at them.
These be subdivided into sundry more special denomina-
tions. The most notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic,
satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain others, some
of these being termed according to the matter they deal with,
some by the sort of verse they liked best to write in, — for
indeed the greatest part of poets have apparelled their poet-
ical inventions in that numberous kind of writing which
is called verse. Indeed but apparelled, verse being but an
ornament and no cause to poetry, since there have been many
most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm
many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.
For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently as to give us
effigiem justi imperii — the portraiture of a just empire under
the name of Cyrus (as Cicero saith of him) — made therein
an absolute heroical poem; so did Heliodorus in his sugared
invention of that picture of love in Theagenes and Char-
iclea; and yet both these wrote in prose. Which I speak
to show that it is not riming and versing that maketh a poet
— no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who,
though he pleaded in armor, should be an advocate and no
soldier — but it is that feigning notable images of virtues,
vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which
must be the right describing note to know a poet by. Al-
though indeed the senate of poets hath chosen verse as their
fittest raiment, meaning, as in matter they passed all in all,
so in manner to go beyond them; not speaking, table-talk
fashion, or like men in a dream, words as they chanceably
16 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
fall from the mouth, but peizing7 each syllable of each word by
just proportion, according to the dignity of the subject.
Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss, first to weigh this
latter sort of poetry by his works, and then by his parts ; and
if in neither of these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope
we shall obtain a more favorable sentence. This purifying
of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and
enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning,
under what name soever it come forth or to what immediate
end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw
us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made
worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of. This,
according to the inclination of man, bred many-formed
impressions. For some that thought this felicity principally
to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to be so high
or heavenly as acquaintance with the stars, gave themselves
to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be demi-
gods if they knew the causes of things, became natural and
supernatural philosophers. Some an admirable delight drew
to music, and some the certainty of demonstration to the
mathematics; but all, one and other, having this scope: —
to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the
dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence.
But when by the balance of experience it was found that the
astronomer, looking to the stars, might fall into a ditch, that
the inquiring philosopher might be blind in himself, and the
mathematician might draw forth a straight line with a
crooked heart; then lo ! did proof, the overruler of opinions,
make manifest, that all these are but serving sciences, which,
as they have each a private end in themselves, so yet are they
all directed to the highest end of the mistress-knowledge, by
the Greeks called dp/tTexTovtxTJ, which stands, as I think, in
the knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and politic consid-
eration, with the end of well-doing, and not of well-knowing
only: — even as the saddler's next end is to make a good sad-
dle, but his further end to serve a nobler faculty, which is
horsemanship; so the horseman's to soldiery; and the soldier
not only to have the skill, but to perform the practice of a
soldier. So that the ending end of all earthly learning being
7 Weighing.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 17
virtuous action, those skills that most serve to bring forth
that have a most just title to be princes over all the rest;
wherein, if we can show, the poet is worthy to have it before
any other competitors.
Among whom as principal challengers step forth the moral
philosophers; whom, me thinketh, I see coming toward me
with a sullen gravity, as though they could not abide vice by
daylight ; rudely clothed, for to witness outwardly their con-
tempt of outward things; with books in their hands against
glory, whereto they set their names; sophistically speaking
against subtility; and angry with any man in whom they see
the foul fault of anger. These men, casting largess as they
go of definitions, divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful
interrogative do soberly ask whether it be possible to find
any path so ready to lead a man to virtue, as that which
teacheth what virtue is, and teacheth it not only by delivering
forth his very being, his causes and effects, but also by mak^
ing known his enemy, vice, which must be destroyed, and
his cumbersome servant, passion, which must be mastered;
by showing the generalities that contain it, and the speciali-
ties that are derived from it; lastly, by plain setting down
how it extendeth itself out of the limits of a man's own little
world, to the government of families, and maintaining of
public societies?
The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist to say
so much, but that he, loaden with old mouse-eaten records,
authorizing himself for the most part upon other histories,
whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable founda-
tion of hearsay; having much ado to accord differing writers,
and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a
thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better
knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth ;
curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder
to young folks and a tyrant in table-talk; denieth, in a great
chafe,8 that any man for teaching of virtue and virtuous
actions is comparable to him. " I am testis temporum, lux
veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitce, mintia vetustatis?
The philosopher," saith he, "teacheth a disputative virtue,
8 Anger, irritation.
9 " The witness of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the
directress of life, the herald of antiquity." — Cicero, " De Orat.," 2. 9. 36.
18 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
but I do an active. His virtue is excellent in the dangerless
Academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth her honorable
face in the battles of Marathon, Pharsalia, Poitiers, and
Agincourt, He teacheth virtue by certain abstract considera-
tions, but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have
gone before you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the
fine-witted philosopher; but I give the experience of many
ages. Lastly, if he make the song-book, I put the learner's
hand to the lute; and if he be the guide, I am the light."
Then would he allege you innumerable examples, confirming
story by story, how much the wisest senators and princes
have been directed by the credit of history, as Brutus, Al-
phonsus of Aragon — and who not, if need be? At length
the long line of their disputation maketh10 a point in this, —
that the one giveth the precept, and the other the example.
Now whom shall we find, since the question standeth for
the highest form in the school of learning, to be moderator?
Truly, as me seemeth, the poet; and if not a moderator,
even the man that ought to carry the title from them both,
and much more from all other serving sciences. Therefore
compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral
philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other human
skill can match him. For as for the divine, with all rever-
ence it is ever to be excepted, not only for having his scope as
far beyond any of these as eternity exceedeth a moment, but
even for passing each of these in themselves. And for the
lawyer, though Jus be the daughter of Justice, and Justice
the chief of virtues, yet because he seeketh to make men good
rather formidine pccnce11 than virtutis amore12 or, to say
righter, doth not endeavour to make men good, but that their
evil hurt not others ; having no care, so fie be a good citizen,
how bad a man he be; therefore, as our wickedness maketh
him necessary, and necessity maketh him honorable, so is he
not in the deepest truth to stand in rank with these, who all
endeavor to take naughtiness away, and plant goodness even
in the secretest cabinet of our souls. And these four are all
that any way deal in that consideration of men's manners,
which being the supreme knowledge, they that best breed it
deserve the best commendation.
10 Comes to. n Fear of punishment. u Love of virtue.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 19
The philosopher therefore and the historian are they which
would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example ;
but both not having both, do both halt. For the philosopher,
setting down with thorny arguments the bare rule, is so hard
of utterance and so misty to be conceived, that one that hath
no other guide but him shall wade in him till he be old,
before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest. For his
knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general that
happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy
that can apply what he doth understand. On the other side, the
historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should
be but to what is, to the particular truth of things, and not to
the general reason of things, that his example draweth no
necessary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine.
Now doth the peerless poet perform both; for whatsoever
the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect pic-
ture of it in some one by whom he presupposeth it was done,
so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular
example. A perfect picture, I say; for he yieldeth to the
powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher
bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither
strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as
that other doth. For as, in outward things, to a man that
had never seen an elephant or a rhinoceros, who should tell
him most exquisitely all their shapes, color, bigness, and
particular marks; or of a gorgeous palace, an architector,
with declaring the full beauties, might well make the hearer
able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he had heard, yet
should never satisfy his inward conceit with being witness
to itself of a true lively13 knowledge ; but the same man, as
soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or that house
well in model, should straightways grow, without need of any
description, to a judicial comprehending of them; so no
doubt the philosopher, with his learned definitions, be it of
virtues or vices, matters of public policy or private govern-
ment, replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds
of wisdom, which notwithstanding lie dark before the im-
aginative and judging power, if they be not illuminated or
figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy.
13 Living.
20 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Tully taketh much pains, and many times not without poeti-
cal helps, to make us know the force love of our country
hath in us. Let us but hear old Anchises speaking in the
midst of Troy's flames, or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all
Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from barren and
beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics said, was a short mad-
ness. Let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing
and whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of
Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus,
and tell me if you have not a more familiar insight into
anger, than finding in the schoolmen his genus and differ-
ence. See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and
Diomedes, valor in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Eurya-
lus, even to an ignorant man carry not an apparent shining.
And, contrarily, the remorse of conscience, in GEdipus; the
soon-repenting pride of Agamemnon; the self-devouring
cruelty in his father Atreus; the violence of ambition in the
two Theban brothers; the sour sweetness of revenge in
Medea; and, to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and our
Chaucer's Pandar so expressed that we now use their names
to signify their trades; and finally, all virtues, vices, and pas-
sions so in their own natural states laid to the view, that we
seem not to hear of them, but clearly to see through them.
But even in the most excellent determination of goodness,
what philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince,
as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon? Or a virtuous man in
all fortunes, as ^Eneas in Virgil? Or a whole common-
wealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's Utopia? I say
the way, because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the
fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way of pat-
terning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he, per-
chance, hath not so absolutely performed it. For the ques-
tion is, whether the feigned image of poesy, or the regular
instruction of philosophy, hath the more force in teaching.
Wherein if the philosophers have more rightly showed
themselves philosophers than the poets have attained to the
high top of their profession, — as in truth,
Mediocribus esse poetis
Non Dii, non homines, non concessere columnae, — 14
14> " Neither gods nor men nor booksellers permit poets to be mediocre."—
Horace, " Ars Poet.," 372-3.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 21
it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few
men that art can be accomplished.
Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have
given the moral commonplaces of uncharitableness and
humbleness as the divine narration of Dives and Lazarus;
or of disobedience and mercy, as that heavenly discourse of
the lost child and the gracious father; but that his through-
searching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell,
and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly,
as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment. Truly,
for myself, me seems I see before mine eyes the lost child's
disdainful prodigality, turned to envy a swine's dinner;
which by the learned divines are thought not historical acts,
but instructing parables.
For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he
teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand
him ; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught.
But the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs; the
poet is indeed the right popular philosopher. Whereof
^Esop's tales give good proof; whose pretty allegories,
stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more
beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from
those dumb speakers.
But now it may be alleged that if this imagining of mat-
ters be so fit for the imagination, then must the historian
needs surpass, who bringeth you images of true matters,
such as indeed were done, and not such as fantastically15 or
falsely may be suggested to have been done. Truly, Aris-
totle himself, in his Discourse of Poesy, plainly determineth
this question, saying that poetry is <pO*o(7o<pd)Tepov and
GTzoudaLorepoV) that is to say, it is more philosophical
and more studiously serious than history. His reason is,
because poesy dealeth with xaddXou, that is to say with the
universal consideration, and the history with xaff Ixaarov,
the particular.
"Now," saith he, "the universal weighs what is fit to
be said or done, either in likelihood or necessity — which the
poesy considereth in his imposed names; and the particular
only marketh whether Alcibiades did, or suffered, this or
15 Imaginatively.
22 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
that:" thus far Aristotle. Which reason of his, as all his, is
most full of reason.
For, indeed, if the question were whether it were better
to have a particular act truly or falsely set down, there is
no doubt which is to be chosen, no more than whether you
had rather have Vespasian's picture right as he was, or,
at the painter's pleasure, nothing resembling. But if the
question be for your own use and learning, whether it be
better to have it set down as it should be or as it was,
then certainly is more doctrinable1* the feigned Cyrus in
Xenophon than the true Cyrus in Justin ; and the feigned
/Eneas in Virgil than the right /Eneas in Dares Phrygius;
as to a lady that desired to fashion her countenance to
the best grace, a painter should more benefit her to por-
trait a most sweet face, writing Canidia upon it, than to
paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth, was foul
and ill-favored.
If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tan-
talus, Atreus, and such like, nothing that is not to be
shunned; in Cyrus, ^Eneas, Ulysses, each thing to be fol-
lowed. Where the historian, bound to tell things as things
were, cannot be liberal — without he will be poetical — of a
perfect pattern ; but, as in Alexander, or Scipio himself, show
doings, some to be liked, some to be misliked; and then how
will you discern what to follow but by your own discretion,
which you had without reading Quintus Curtius? And
whereas a man may say, though in universal consideration of
doctrine the poet prevaileth, yet that the history, in his say-
ing such a thing was done, doth warrant a man more in that
he shall follow, — the answer is manifest: that if he stand
upon that was, as if he should argue, because it rained yes-
terday therefore it should rain to-day, then indeed it hath
some advantage to a gross conceit. But if he know an
example only informs a conjectured likelihood, and so go
by reason, the poet doth so far exceed him as he is to frame
his example to that which is most reasonable, be it in war-
like, politic, or private matters ; where the historian in his
bare was hath many times that which we call fortune to
overrule the best wisdom. Many times he must tell events
16 Instructive.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 23
whereof he can yield no cause; or if he do, it must be
poetically.
For, that a feigned example hath as much force to teach
as a true example — for as for to move, it is clear, since the
feigned may be tuned to the highest key of passion — let us
take one example wherein a poet and a historian do concur.
Herodotus and Justin do both testify that Zopyrus, king
Darius' faithful servant, seeing his master long resisted by
the rebellious Babylonians, feigned himself in extreme dis-
grace of his king; for verifying of which he caused his own
nose and ears to be cut off, and so flying to the Babylonians,
was received, and for his known valor so far credited, that
he did find means to deliver them over to Darius. Much-
like matter doth Livy record of Tarquinius and his son.
Xenophon excellently feigneth such another stratagem, per-
formed by Abradatas in Cyrus' behalf. Now would I fain
know, if occasion be presented unto you to serve your prince
by such an honest dissimulation, why do you not as well
learn it of Xenophon's fiction as of the other's verity? and,
truly, so much the better, as you shall save your nose by the
bargain; for Abradatas did not counterfeit so far.
So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet;
for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy,
or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may
the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beau-
tifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as
it pleaseth him ; having all, from Dante's Heaven to his Hell,
under the authority of his pen. Which if I be asked what
poets have done? so as I might well name some, yet say I,
and say again, I speak of the art, and not of the artificer.
Now, to that which is commonly attributed to the praise of
history, in respect of the notable learning is gotten by mark-
ing the success, as though therein a man should see virtue ex-
alted and vice punished, — truly that commendation is peculiar
to poetry and far off from history. For, indeed, poetry ever
setteth virtue so out in her best colors, making Fortune her
well-waiting handmaid, that one must needs be enamored of
her. Well may you see Ulysses in a storm, and in other
hard plights; but they are but exercises of patience and
magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the near fol-
24 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
lowing prosperity. And, of the contrary part, if evil men
come to the stage, they ever go out — as the tragedy writer
answered to one that misliked the show of such persons — so
manacled as they little animate folks to follow them. But
the historian, being captived to the truth of a foolish world,
is many times a terror from well-doing, and an encourage-
ment to unbridled wickedness. For see we not valiant
Miltiades rot in his fetters? The just Phocion and the
accomplished Socrates put to death like traitors? The cruel
Severus live prosperously? The excellent Severus miserably
murdered? Sylla and Marius dying in their beds? Pompey
and Cicero slain then, when they would have thought exile
a happiness? See we not virtuous Cato driven to kill him-
self, and rebel Caesar so advanced that his name yet, after
sixteen hundred years, lasteth in the highest honor? And
mark but even Caesar's own words of the forenamed Sylla —
who in that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest
tyranny — literas nescivit:™ as if want of learning caused
him to do well. He meant it not by poetry, which, not con-
tent with earthly plagues, deviseth new punishments in hell
for tyrants ; nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth occidendos
esse; 18 but, no doubt, by skill in history, for that indeed can
afford you Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I
know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well
enough in their abominable injustice or usurpation.
I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only
in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it
forward to that which deserveth to be called and accounted
good; which setting forward, and moving to well-doing,
indeed setteth the laurel crown upon the poet as victorious,
not only of the historian, but over the philosopher, how-
soever in teaching it may be questionable. For suppose it
be granted — that which I suppose with great reason may be
denied — that the philosopher, in respect of his methodical
proceeding, teach more perfectly than the poet, yet do I
think that no man is so much <pdo(pd6<ro<po<z 19 as to com-
pare the philosopher in moving with the poet. And that
moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it may by this
17 He was without learning. Sidney here seems to miss the point of a
joke of Caesar's reported by Suetonius. M That they are to be killed.
10 A friend to the philosopher.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 25
appear, that it is well nigh both the cause and the effect of
teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with
desire to be taught? And what so much good doth that
teaching bring forth — I speak still of moral doctrine — as
that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach? For, as
Aristotle saith, it is not yvatGLs"* but -KpaZts21- must be the
fruit; and how npa£t$ cannot be, without being moved to
practise, it is no hard matter to consider. The philosopher
showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particularities,
as well of the tediousness of the way, as of the pleasant
lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the
many by-turnings that may divert you from your way; but
this is to no man but to him that will read him, and read
him with attentive, studious painfulness; which constant
desire whosoever hath in him, hath already passed half the
hardness of the way, and therefore is beholding to the
philosopher but for the other half. Nay, truly, learned men
have learnedly thought, that where once reason hath so much
overmastered passion as that the mind hath a free desire
to do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself is as
good as a philosopher's book; since in nature we know it is
well to do well, and what is well and what is evil, although
not in the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us;
for out of natural conceit the philosophers drew it. But to
be moved to do that which we know, or to be moved with
desire to know, hoc opus, hie labor est.22
Now therein of all sciences — I speak still of human, and
according to the human conceit — is our poet the monarch.
For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a
prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it.
Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair
vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that
full of that taste you may long to pass further. He begin-
neth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the
margent23 with interpretations, and load the memory with
doubtfulness. But he cometh to you with words set in
delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared
for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, for-
20 Knowledge. «■ Practice.
22 " This is the work, this the labor."— Virgil, "^Eneid," VI., 129.
23 Margin.
26 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
sooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth chil-
dren from play, and old men from the chimney-corner, and,
pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind
from wickedness to virtue ; even as the child is often brought
to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other
as to have a pleasant taste, — which, if one should begin to tell
them the nature of the aloes or rhubarb they should receive,
would sooner take their physic at their ears than at their
mouth. So is it in men, most of which are childish in the
best things, till they be cradled in their graves, — glad they
will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, tineas ;
and, hearing them, must needs hear the right description of
wisdom, valor, and justice; which, if they had been barely,
that is to say philosophically, set out, they would swear they
be brought to school again.
That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conven-
iency to nature of all other; insomuch that, as Aristotle saith,
those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel
battles, unnatural monsters, are made in poetical imitation
delightful. Truly, I have known men, that even with reading
Amadis de Gaule, which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a
perfect poesy, have found their hearts moved to the exercise
of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who readeth
-^neas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not
it were his fortune to perform so excellent an act? Whom
do not those words of Turnus move, the tale of Turnus
having planted his image in the imagination?
Fugientera haec terra videbit ?
Usque adeone mori miserum est ?24
Where the philosophers, as they scorn to delight, so must
they be content little to move — saving wrangling whether
virtue be the chief or the only good, whether the contem-
plative or the active life do excel — which Plato and Boethius
well knew, and therefore made Mistress Philosophy very
often borrow the masking raiment of Poesy. For even
those hard-hearted evil men who think virtue a school-name,
and know no other good but indulgere genio,25 and therefore
24 " Shall this land see him fleeing? Is it so very wretched to die? "—
Virgil, " ^neid," XII., 645-6.
25 « To give way to one's inclination."
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 27
despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel
not the inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content
to be delighted, which is all the good-fellow poet seemeth to
promise; and so steal to see the form of goodness — which
seen, they cannot but love — ere themselves be aware, as if
they took a medicine of cherries.
Infinite proofs of the strange effects of this poetical inven-
tion might be alleged; only two shall serve, which are so
often remembered as I think all men know them. The one
of Menenius Agrippa, who, when the whole people of Rome
had resolutely divided themselves from the senate, with
apparent show of utter ruin, though he were, for that time,
an excellent orator, came not among them upon trust either
of figurative speeches or cunning insinuations, and much
less with far-fet maxims of philosophy, which, especially
if they were Platonic, they must have learned geometry
before they could well have conceived; but, forsooth, he
behaves himself like a homely and familiar poet. He telleth
them a tale, that there was a time when all the parts of the
body made a mutinous conspiracy against the belly, which
they thought devoured the fruits of each other's labor; they
concluded they would let so unprofitable a spender starve.
In the end, to be short — for the tale is notorious, and as
notorious that it was a tale — with punishing the belly they
plagued themselves. This, applied by him, wrought such
effect in the people, as I never read that ever words brought
forth but then so sudden and so good an alteration ; for upon
reasonable conditions a perfect reconcilement ensued.
The other is of Nathan the prophet, who, when the holy
David had so far forsaken God as to confirm adultery with
murder, when he was to do the tenderest office of a friend,
in laying his own shame before his eyes, — sent by God to
call again so chosen a servant, how doth he it but by telling
of a man whose beloved lamb was ungratefully taken from
his bosom? The application most divinely true, but the dis-
course itself feigned; which made David (I speak of the
second and instrumental cause) as in a glass to see his own
filthiness, as that heavenly Psalm of Mercy well testifieth.
By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may
be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight,
28 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth.
And so a conclusion not unfitly ensueth : that as virtue is the
most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make
his end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it,
and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent
work is the most excellent workman.
But I am content not only to decipher him by his works—
although works in commendation or dispraise must ever hold
a high authority — but more narrowly will examine his parts ;
so that, as in a man, though all together may carry a pres-
ence full of majesty and beauty, perchance in some one
defectious piece we may find a blemish.
Now in his parts, kinds, or species, as you list to term
them, it is to be noted that some poesies have coupled together
two or three kinds, — as tragical and comical, whereupon is
risen the tragi-comical ; some, in the like manner, have
mingled prose and verse, as Sannazzaro and Boethius ; some
have mingled matters heroical and pastoral ; but that cometh
all to one in this question, for, if severed they be good, the con-
junction cannot be hurtful. Therefore, perchance forgetting
some, and leaving some as needless to be remembered, it
shall not be amiss in a word to cite the special kinds, to see
what faults may be found in the right use of them.
Is it then the pastoral poem which is misliked? — for per-
chance where the hedge is lowest they will soonest leap
over. Is the poor pipe disdained, which sometimes out of
Melibceus, mouth can show the misery of people under hard
lords and ravening soldiers, and again, by Tityrus, what
blessedness is derived to them that lie lowest from the
goodness of them that sit highest? sometimes, under the
pretty tales of wolves and sheep, can include the whole con-
siderations of wrong-doing and patience; sometimes show
that contention for trifles can get but a trifling victory;
where perchance a man may see that even Alexander and
Darius, when they strave who should be cock of this world's
dunghill, the benefit they got was that the after-livers may say :
Hsec memini et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim;
Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.38
28 " Such things I remember, and that the conquered Thyrsis strove
in vain. From that time Corydon is with us the Corydon." — Virgil,
"Eclogues," VII., 69-70.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 29
Or is it the lamenting elegiac, which in a kind heart would
move rather pity than blame ; who bewaileth, with the great
philosopher Heraclitus, the weakness of mankind and the
wretchedness of the world; who surely is to be praised, either
for compassionate accompanying just causes of lamentation,
or for rightly painting out how weak be the passions of
wofulness?
Is it the bitter and wholesome iambic, who rubs the galled
mind, in making shame the trumpet of villainy with bold and
open crying out against naughtiness?
Or the satiric? who
Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico;27
who sportingly never leaveth till he make a man laugh at
folly, and at length ashamed to laugh at himself, which he
cannot avoid without avoiding the folly; who, while circum
'Qrcecordia ludit,28 giveth us to feel how many headaches a
passionate life bringeth us to, — how, when all is done,
Est Ulubris, animus si nos non deficit sequus.29
No, perchance it is the comic ; whom naughty play-makers
and stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the argument
of abuse I will answer after. Only thus much now is to be
said, that the comedy is an imitation of the common errors
of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and
scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any
beholder can be content to be such a one. Now, as in geom-
etry the oblique must be known as well as the right, and
in arithmetic the odd as well as the even; so in the actions
of our life who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a
great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the
comedy handle so, in our private and domestical matters, as
with hearing it we get, as it were, an experience what is
to be looked for of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus,
of a flattering Gnatho, of a vain-glorious Thraso; and not
only to know what effects are to be expected, but to know
who be such, by the signifying badge given them by the
comedian. And little reason hath any man to say that men
27 " The sly fellow touches every vice while he makes his friend laugh." —
Condensed from Persius, "Sat.," I., 116.
28 || He plays about his heartstrings." — Idem.
^ " Jf we do not lack the equable temper, it is in Ulubrae " [that we may
find happiness]. Ulubrae was noted for its desolation. — Adapted from
Horace, " Epict.." I., n, 30.
30 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
learn evil by seeing it so set out; since, as I said before,
there is no man living, but by the force truth hath in nature,
no sooner seeth these men play their parts, but wisheth them
in pistrinum™ although perchance the sack of his own faults
lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to dance
the same measure, — whereto yet nothing can more open his
eyes than to find his own actions contemptibly set forth.
So that the right use of comedy will, I think, by nobody
be blamed, and much less of the high and excellent tragedy,
that openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth forth the
ulcers that are covered with tissue; that maketh kings fear
to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their tyrannical humors;
that with stirring the effects of admiration and commisera-
tion teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and upon how
weak foundations gilden roofs are builded; that maketh us
know:
Qui sceptra ssevus duro imperio regit,
Timet timentes, metus in auctorem redit.'1
But how much it can move, Plutarch yieldeth a notable testi-
mony of the abominable tyrant Alexander Pheraeus; from
whose eyes a tragedy, well made and represented, drew
abundance of tears, who without all pity had murdered infi-
nite numbers, and some of his own blood ; so as he that was
not ashamed to make matters for tragedies, yet could not
resist the sweet violence of a tragedy. And if it wrought no
further good in him, it was that he, in despite of himself,
withdrew himself from hearkening to that which might
mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they
do mislike, for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a
representation of whatsoever is most worthy to be learned.
Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who with his tuned
lyre and well-accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of
virtue, to virtuous acts; who giveth moral precepts and
natural problems ; who sometimes raiseth up his voice to the
height of the heavens, in singing the lauds of the immortal
God? Certainly I must confess mine own barbarousness ; I
never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found
80 " In the mill," where slaves were sent for punishment.
31 " The savage king who wields the sceptre with cruel sway fears those
who fear him, the dread returns upon the author's head." — Seneca.
44 CEdipus," 705-6.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 31
not my heart moved more than with a trumpet ; and yet it is
sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than
rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and
cobwebs of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed
in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar? In Hungary I vhave
seen it the manner of all feasts, and other such meetings, to
have songs of their ancestors' valor, which that right soldier-
like nation think the chiefest kindlers of brave courage. The
incomparable Lacedaemonians did not only carry that kind
of music ever with them to tire field, bur even at home, as
such songs were made, so were they all content to be singers
of them; when the lusty men were to tell what they did,
the old men what they had done, and the young men what
they would do. And where a man may say that Pindar many
times praiseth highly victories of small moment, matters
rather of sport than virtue; as it may be answered, it was
the fault of the poet, and not of the poetry, so indeed the
chief fault was in the time and custom of the Greeks, who
set those toys at so high a price that Philip of Macedon
reckoned a horserace won at Olympus among his three
fearful felicities. But as the unimitable Pindar often did,
so is that kind most capable and most fit to awake the
thoughts from the sleep of idleness, to embrace honorable
enterprises.
There rests the heroical, whose very name, I think, should
daunt all backbiters. For by what conceit can a tongue be
directed to speak evil of that which draweth with it no less
champions than Achilles, Cyrus, vEneas, Turnus Tydeus,
Rinaldo? who doth not only teach and move to a truth, but
teacheth and moveth to the most high and excellent truth ;
who maketh magnanimity and justice shine through all misty
fearfulness and foggy desires; who, if the saying of Plato
and Tully be true, that who could see virtue would De won-
derfully ravished with the love of her beauty, this man
setteth her out to make her more lovely, in her holiday
apparel, to the eye of any that will deign not to disdain until
they understand. But if anything be already said in the
defense of sweet poetry, all concurreth to the maintaining
the heroical, which is not only a kind, but the best and most
accomplished kind of poetry. For, as the image of each
32 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
action stirreth and instructeth the mind, so the lofty image
of such worthies most inflameth the mind with desire to be
worthy, and informs with counsel how to be worthy. Only
let ^neas be worn in the tablet of your memory, how he
governeth himself in the ruin of his country; in the pre-
serving his old father, and carrying away his religious cere-
monies; in obeying the god's commandment to leave Dido,
though not only all passionate kindness, but even the human
consideration of virtuous gratefulness, would have craved
other of him ; how in storms, how in sports, how in war, how
in peace, how a fugitive, how victorious, how besieged, how
besieging, how to strangers, how to allies, how to enemies,
how to his own; lastly, how in his inward self, and how in
his outward government; and I think, in a mind most prej-
udiced with a prejudicating humor, he will be found in
excellency fruitful, — yea, even as Horace saith, melius Chry-
sippo et Crantore.32 But truly I imagine it falleth out with
these poet-whippers as with some good women who often are
sick, but in faith they cannot tell where. So the name of
poetry is odious to them, but neither his cause nor effects,
neither the sum that contains him nor the particularities
descending from him, give any fast handle to their carping
dispraise.
Since, then, poetry is of all human learnings the most
ancient and of most fatherly antiquity, as from whence other
learnings have taken their beginnings ; since it is so universal
that no learned nation doth despise it, nor barbarous nation
is without it ; since both Roman and Greek gave divine names
unto it, the one of " prophesying," the other of "making,"
and that indeed that name of " making " is fit for him, con-
sidering that whereas other arts retain themselves within
their subjects, and receive, as it were, their being from it,
the poet only bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a
conceit out of a matter, but maketh matter for a conceit;
since neither his description nor his end containeth any evil,
the thing described cannot be evil; since his effects be so
good as to teach goodness, and delight the learners of it;
since therein — namely in moral doctrine, the chief of all
83 " Better than Chrysippus and Crantor " — two distinguished philosophers.
— 'Horace, " Epict.," I. 2, 4.
HO Vol. 27—1
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 33
knowledges — he doth not only far pass the historian, but for
instructing is well nigh comparable to the philosopher, and
for moving leaveth him behind him; since the Holy Scrip-
ture, wherein there is no uncleanness, hath whole parts in
it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to
use the flowers of it; since all his kinds are not only in their
united forms, but in their several dissections fully com-
mendable ; I think, and think I think rightly, the laurel crown
appointed for triumphant captains doth worthily, of all other
learnings, honor the poet's triumph.
But because we have ears as well as tongues, and that the
lightest reasons that may be will seem to weigh greatly, if
nothing be put in the counter-balance, let us hear, and, as
well as we can, ponder, what objections be made against this
art, which may be worthy either of yielding or answering.
First, truly, I note not only in these fittro/jLouaoi, poet-
haters, but in all that kind of people who seek a praise by
dispraising others, that they do prodigally spend a great
many wandering words in quips and scoffs, carping and
taunting at each thing which, by stirring the spleen, may stay
the brain from a through-beholding the worthiness of the
subject. Those kind of objections, as they are full of a
very idle easiness — since there is nothing of so sacred a
majesty but that an itching tongue may rub itself upon it —
so deserve they no other answer, but, instead of laughing at
the jest, to laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can
praise the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness of being
in debt, and the jolly commodity of being sick of the plague.
So of the contrary side, if we will turn Ovid's verse,
Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali,
" that good lie hid in nearness of the evil," Agrippa will be
as merry in showing the vanity of science, as Erasmus was
in commending of folly; neither shall any man or matter
escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for Eras-
mus and Agrippa, they had another foundation than the
superficial part would promise. Marry, these other pleasant
fault-finders, who will correct the verb before they under-
stand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they
confirm their own, I would have them only remember that
HC Vol. 27—2
34 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
scoffing cometh not of wisdom; so as the best title in true
English they get with their merriments is to be called good
fools, — for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that
humorous kind of jesters.
But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning
humor is riming and versing. It is already said, and as I
think truly said, it is not riming and versing that maketh
poesy. One may be a poet without versing, and a versifier
without poetry. But yet presuppose it were inseparable — as
indeed it seemeth Scaliger judgeth — truly it were an insep-
arable commendation. For if oratio next to ratio, speech
next to reason, be the greatest gift bestowed upon mortality,
that cannot be praiseless which doth most polish that blessing
of speech; which considereth each word, not only as a man
may say by his forcible quality, but by his best-measured
quantity; carrying even in themselves a harmony, — without,
perchance, number, measure, order, proportion be in our
time grown odious.
But lay aside the just praise it hath by being the only fit
speech for music — music, I say, the most divine striker of
the senses — thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading
be foolish without remembering, memory being the only
treasurer of knowledge, those words which are fittest for
memory are likewise most convenient for knowledge. Now
that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the
memory, the reason is manifest; the words, besides their
delight, which hath a great affinity to memory, being so set,
as one cannot be lost but the whole work fails ; which, accus-
ing itself, calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most
strongly confirmeth it. Besides, one word so, as it were,
begetting another, as, be it in rime or measured verse, by
the former a man shall have a near guess to the follower.
Lastly, even they that have taught the art of memory have
showed nothing so apt for it as a certain room divided into
many places, well and thoroughly known ; now that hath the
verse in effect perfectly, every word having his natural seat,
which seat must needs make the word remembered. But
what needeth more in a thing so known to all men? Who is
it that ever was a scholar that doth not carry away some
verses of Virgil, Horace, or Cato, which in his youth he
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 35
learned, and even to his old age serve him for hourly les-
sons? as:
Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est.83
Dum sibi quisque placet, credula turba suraus."
But the fitness it hath for memory is notably proved by all
delivery of arts, wherein, for the most part, from grammar
to logic, mathematic, physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly
necessary to be borne away are compiled in verses. So that
verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being best for
memory, the only handle of knowledge, it must be in jest
that any man can speak against it.
Now then go we to the most important imputations laid
to the poor poets ; for aught I can yet learn they are these.
First, that there being many other more fruitful knowl-
edges, a man might better spend his time in them than in this.
Secondly, that it is the mother of lies.
Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with
many pestilent desires, with a siren's sweetness drawing the
mind to the serpent's tail of sinful fancies, — and herein
especially comedies give the largest field to ear,35 as Chaucer
saith; how, both in other nations and in ours, before poets
did soften us, we were full of courage, given to martial
exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled asleep
in shady idleness with poets' pastimes.
And, lastly and chiefly, they cry out with an open mouth,
as if they had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished
them out of his Commonwealth. Truly this is much, if there
be much truth in it.
First, to the first, that a man might better spend his time
is a reason indeed; but it doth, as they say, but petere prin-
cipium.™ For if it be, as I affirm, that no learning is so good
as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none
can both teach and move thereto so much as poesy, then is
the conclusion manifest that ink and paper cannot be to a
more profitable purpose employed. And certainly, though
a man should grant their first assumption, it should follow,
83 "Avoid an inquisitive man, for he is sure to be a prattler." — Horace,
" Epist.," I. 18. 69.
34 " While each is pleasing himself, we are a credulous crowd." — Ovid,
"Rem. Amoris," 686. «• Plough. 3« Beg the question.
36 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
methinks, very unwillingly, that good is not good because
better is better. But I still and utterly deny that there is
sprung out of earth a more fruitful knowledge.
To the second, therefore, that they should be the principal
liars, I answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of
all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar; and
though he would, as a poet can scarcely be a liar. The
astronomer, with his cousin the geometrician, can hardly
escape when they take upon them to measure the height of
the stars. How often, think you, do the physicians lie, when
they aver things good for sicknesses, which afterwards send
Charon a great number of souls drowned in a potion before
they come to his ferry ? And no less of the rest which take
upon them to affirm. Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth,
and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm
that to be true which is false; so as the other artists, and
especially the historian, affirming many things, can, in the
cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many
lies. But the poet, as I said before, never affirmeth. The
poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to
conjure you to believe for true what he writeth. He citeth
not authorities of other histories, but even for his entry
calleth the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good inven-
tion; in troth, not laboring to tell you what is or is not, but
what should or should not be. And therefore though he
recount things not true, yet because he telleth them not for
true he lieth not; without we will say that Nathan lied in
his speech, before alleged, to David; which, as a wicked
man durst scarce say, so think I none so simple would say
that iEsop lied in the tales of his beasts; for who thinketh
that ^Esop wrote it for actually true, were well worthy to
have his name chronicled among the beasts he writeth of.
What child is there that, coming to a play, and seeing Thebes
written in great letters upon an old door, doth believe that
it is Thebes? If then a man can arrive at that child's-age,
to know that the poet's persons and doings are but pictures
what should be, and not stories what have been, they will
never give the lie to things not affirmatively but allegorically
and figuratively written. And therefore, as in history look-
ing for truth, they may go away full-fraught with falsehood,
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 37
so in poesy looking but for fiction, they shall use the narra-
tion but as an imaginative ground-plot of a profitable inven-
tion. But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men
they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth,
and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the
lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile,
and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is
easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their
picture the more lively, and not to build any history.
Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see
we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our
chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial
champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece
of wood the reverend title of a bishop. The poet nameth
Cyrus and ^neas no other way than to show what men of
their fames, fortunes, and estates should do.
Their third is, how much it abuseth men's wit, training
it to wanton sinfulness and lustful love. For indeed that is
the principal, if not the only, abuse I can hear alleged. They
say the comedies rather teach than reprehend amorous con-
ceits. They say the lyric is larded with passionate sonnets,
the elegiac weeps the want of his mistress, and that even to
the heroical Cupid hath ambitiously climbed. Alas ! Love,
I would thou couldst as well defend thyself as thou canst
offend others ! I would those on whom thou dost attend
could either put thee away, or yield good reason why they
keep thee ! But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault,
although it be very hard, since only man, and no beast, hath
that gift to discern beauty; grant that lovely name of Love
to deserve all hateful reproaches, although even some of my
masters the philosophers spent a good deal of their lamp-oil
in setting forth the excellency of it ; grant, I say, whatsoever
they will have granted, — that not only love, but lust, but
vanity, but, if they list, scurrility, possesseth many leaves of
the poets* books; yet think I when this is granted, they will
find their sentence may with good manners put the last words
foremost, and not say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that
man's wit abuseth poetry. For I will not deny, but that
man's wit may make poesy, which should be dxaGnxyj^
which some learned have defined, figuring forth good things,
38 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
to be <pavra(TTtxyj f which doth contrariwise infect the fancy
with unworthy objects; as the painter that should give to
the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine pic-
ture fit for building or fortification, or containing in it
some notable example, as Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac,
Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Goliath, may
leave those, and please an ill-pleased eye with wanton shows
of better-hidden matters. But what ! shall the abuse of a
thing make the right use odious? Nay, truly, though I yield
that poesy may not only be abused, but that being abused, by
the reason of his sweet charming force, it can do more hurt
than any other army of words, yet shall it be so far from
concluding that the abuse should give reproach to the
abused, that contrariwise it is a good reason, that whatso-
ever, being abused, doth most harm, being rightly used — and
upon the right use each thing receiveth his title — doth most
good. Do we not see the skill of physic, the best rampire to
our often-assaulted bodies, being abused, teach poison, the
most violent destroyer? Doth not knowledge of law, whose
end is to even and right all things, being abused, grow the
crooked fosterer of horrible injuries ? Doth not, to go in the
highest, God's word abused breed heresy, and his name
abused become blasphemy? Truly a needle cannot do much
hurt, and as truly — with leave of ladies be it spoken — it can-
not do much good. With a sword thou mayst kill thy father,
and with a sword thou mayst defend thy prince and country.
So that, as in their calling poets the fathers of lies they say
nothing, so in this their argument of abuse they prove the
commendation.
They allege herewith, that before poets began to be in
price our nation hath set their hearts' delight upon action,
and not upon imagination ; rather doing things worthy to be
written, than writing things fit to be done. What that be-
fore-time was. I think scarcely Sphinx can tell; since no
memory is so ancient that hath the precedence of poetry.
And certain it is that, in our plainest homeliness, yet never
was the Albion nation without poetry. Marry, this argu-
ment, though it be levelled against poetry, yet is it indeed
a chain-shot against all learning, — or bookishness, as they
commonly term it. Of such mind were certain Goths, of
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 39
whom it is written that, having in the spoil of a famous
city taken a fair library, one hangman — belike fit to execute
the fruits of their wits — who had murdered a great number
of bodies, would have set fire in it. " No," said another very
gravely, " take heed what you do ; for while they are busy
about these toys, we shall with more leisure conquer their
countries." This, indeed, is the ordinary doctrine of igno-
rance, and many words sometimes I have heard spent in it;
but because this reason is generally against all learning, as
well as poetry, or rather all learning but poetry; because it
were too large a digression to handle, or at least too super-
fluous, since it is manifest that all government of action is
to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering
many knowledges, which is reading; I only, with Horace, to
him that is of that opinion
Jubeo stultum esse Hbenter;87
for as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this objection,
for poetry is the companion of the camps. I dare undertake,
Orlando Furioso or honest King Arthur will never displease
a soldier; but the quiddity of ens, and prima materia, will
hardly agree with a corselet. And therefore, as I said in
the begining, even Turks and Tartars are delighted with
poets. Homer, a Greek, flourished before Greece flourished;
and if to a slight conjecture a conjecture may be opposed,
truly it may seem, that as by him their learned men took
almost their first light of knowledge, so their active men
received their first motions of courage. Only Alexander's
example may serve, who by Plutarch is accounted of such
virtue, that Fortune was not his guide but his footstool;
whose acts speak for him, though Plutarch did not ; indeed the
phoenix of warlike princes. This Alexander left his school-
master, living Aristotle, behind him, but took dead Homer
with him. He put the philosopher Callisthenes to death for his
seeming philosophical, indeed mutinous, stubbornness; but
the chief thing he was ever heard to wish for was that Homer
had been alive. He well found he received more bravery of
mind by the pattern of Achilles, than by hearing the defini-
tion of fortitude. And therefore if Cato misliked Fulvius
87 " I gladly bid him be a fool."— Adapted from Horace, " Sat.," I., 1, 63,
40 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
for carrying Ennius with him to the field, it may be answered
that if Cato misliked it, the noble Fulvius liked it. or else he
had not done it. For it was not the excellent Cato Uticensis,
whose authority I would much more have reverenced ; but it
was the former, in truth a bitter punisher of faults, but else
a man that had never sacrificed to the Graces. He misliked
and cried out upon all Greek learning; and yet, being four-
score years old, began to learn it, belike fearing that Pluto
understood not Latin. Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no
person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the
soldiers' roll. And therefore though Cato misliked his un-
mustered person, he misliked not his work. And if he had,
Scipio Nasica, judged by common consent the best Roman,
loved him. Both the other Scipio brothers, who had by their
virtues no less surnames than of Asia and Afric, so loved
him that they caused his body to be buried in their sepulchre.
So as Cato's authority being but against his person, and that
answered with so far greater than himself, is herein of no
validity.
But now, indeed, my burthen is great, that Plato's name is
laid upon me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers I
have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with
great reason, since of all philosophers he is the most poetical ;
yet if he will defile the fountain out of which his flowing
streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what
reasons he did it.
First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato,
being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets. For, in-
deed, after the philosophers had picked out of the sweet mys-
teries of poetry the right discerning true points of knowl-
edge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a
school-art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine
delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like un-
grateful prentices were not content to set up shops for them-
selves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters;
which by the force of delight being barred them, the less
they could overthrow them the more they hated them. For,
indeed, they found for Homer seven cities strave who should
have him for their citizen ; where many cities banished phi-
losophers, as not fit members to live among them. For only
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 41
repeating certain of Euripides' verses, many Athenians had
their lives saved of the Syracusans, where the Athenians
themselves thought many philosophers unworthy to live. Cer-
tain poets as Simonides and Pindar, had so prevailed with
Heiro the First, that of a tyrant they made him a just king;
where Plato could do so little with Dionysius, that he himself
of a philosopher was made a slave. But who should do thus,
I confess, should requite the objections made against poets
with like cavillations against philosophers; as likewise one
should do that should bid one read Phaedrus or Symposium in
Plato, or the Discourse of Love in Plutarch, and see whether
any poet do authorize abominable filthiness, as they do.
Again, a man might ask out of what commonwealth Plato
doth banish them* In sooth, thence where he himself al-
loweth community of women. So as belike this banishment
grew not for effeminate wantonness, since little should po-
etical sonnets be hurtful when a man might have what
woman he listed. But I honor philosophical instructions, and
bless the wits which bred them, so as they be not abused,
which is likewise stretched to poetry. Saint Paul himself,
who yet, for the credit of poets, allegeth twice two poets,
and one of them by the name of a prophet, setteth a watch-
word upon philosophy, — indeed upon the abuse. So doth
Plato upon the abuse, not upon poetry. Plato found fault
that the poets of his time filled the world with wrong opin-
ions of the gods, making light tales of that unspotted es-
sence, and therefore would not have the youth depraved
with such opinions. Herein may much be said; let this suf-
fice: the poets did not induce such opinions, but did imitate
those opinions already induced. For all the Greek stories
can well testify that the very religion of that time stood
upon many and many-fashioned gods; not taught so by the
poets, but followed according to their nature of imitation.
Who list may read in Plutarch the discourses of Isis and
Osiris, of the Cause why Oracles ceased, of the Divine
Providence, and see whether the theology of that nation
stood not upon such dreams, — which the poets indeed super-
stitiously observed; and truly, since they had not the light
of Christ, did much better in it than the philosophers, who,
shaking off superstition, brought in atheism.
42 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Plato therefore, whose authority I had much rather justly
construe than unjustly resist, meant not in general of poets,
in those words of which Julius Scaliger saith, Qua authori-
tate barbari quidam atque hispidi, abuti velint ad poetas e
republica exigendosf' but only meant to drive out those
wrong opinions of the Deity, whereof now, without further
law, Christianity hath taken away all the hurtful belief, per-
chance, as he thought, nourished by the then esteemed poets.
And a man need go no further than to Plato himself to know
his meaning; who, in his dialogue called Ion, giveth high
and rightly divine commendation unto poetry. So as Plato,
banishing the abuse, not the thing, not banishing it, but giv-
ing due honor unto it, shall be our patron and not our ad-
versary. For, indeed, I had much rather, since truly I may
do it, show their mistaking of Plato, under whose lion's skin
they would make an ass-like braying against poesy, than go
about to overthrow his authority; whom, the wiser a man
is, the more just cause he shall find to have in admiration;
especially since he attributeth unto poesy more than myself
do, namely to be a very inspiring of a divine force, far above
man's wit, as in the forenamed dialogue is apparent.
Of the other side, who would show the honors have been
by the best sort of judgments granted them, a whole sea of
examples would present themselves : Alexanders, Caesars,
Scipios, all favorers of poets; Lselius, called the Roman
Socrates, himself a poet, so as part of Heautontimoroumenos
in Terence was supposed to be made by him. And even the
Greek Socrates, whom Apollo confirmed to be the only wise
man, is said to have spent part of his old time in putting
^Esop's Fables into verses; and therefore full evil should
it become his scholar, Plato, to put such words in his master's
mouth against poets. But what needs more? Aristotle
writes the Art of Poesy; and why, if it should not be
written ? Plutarch teacheth the use to be gathered of them ;
and how, if they should not be read? And who reads Plu-
tarch's either history or philosophy, shall find he trimmeth
both their garments with guards39 of poesy. But I list not
88 " Which authority [t. e., Plato's] some barbarous and rude persons
wish to abuse, in order to banish poets from the state." — Scaliger.
** Poetics," s. a. I.
88 Ornaments.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 43
to defend poesy with the help of his underling historiog-
raphy. Let it suffice that it is a fit soil for praise to dwell
upon; and what dispraise may set upon it, is either easily
overcome, or transformed into just commendation.
So that since the excellencies of it may be so easily and
so justly confirmed, and the low-creeping objections so soon
trodden down: it not being an art of lies, but of true doc-
trine; not of efleminateness, but of notable stirring of cour-
age; not of abusing man's wit, but of strengthening man's
wit; not banished, but honored by Plato; let us rather plant
more laurels for to engarland our poets' heads — which honor
of being laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains
were, is a sufficient authority to show the price they ought
to be held in — than suffer the ill-savored breath of such
wrong speakers once to blow upon the clear springs of poesy.
But since I have run so long a career in this matter, me-
thinks, before I give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a
little more lost time to inquire why England, the mother of
excellent minds, should be grown so hard a stepmother to
poets; who certainly in wit ought to pass all others, since
all only proceedeth from their wit, being indeed makers of
themselves, not takers of others. How can I but exclaim,
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine lasso ?*•
Sweet poesy ! that hath anciently had kings, emperors, sena-
tors, great captains, such as, besides a thousand others,
David, Adrian, Sophocles, Germanicus, not only to favor
poets, but to be poets; and of our nearer times can pre-
sent for her patrons a Robert, King of Sicily; the great
King Francis of France; King James of Scotland; such
cardinals as Bembus and Bibbiena; such famous preachers
and teachers as Beza and Melancthon; so learned phi-
losophers as Fracastorius and Scaliger; so great orators as
Pontanus and Muretus ; so piercing wits as George Bu-
chanan; so grave counsellors as — besides many, but before
all — that Hospital of France, than whom, I think, that realm
never brought forth a more accomplished judgment more
firmly builded upon virtue; I say these, with numbers of
others, not only to read others' poesies but to poetize for
40 " O Muse, recall to me the causes by which her divine will had been
insulted."— Virgil, "^Eneid," I. 12.
44 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
others' reading. That poesy, thus embraced in all other
places, should only find in our time a hard welcome in Eng-
land, I think the very earth lamenteth it, and therefore
decketh our soil with fewer laurels than it was accustomed.
For heretofore poets have in England also flourished; and,
which is to be noted, even in those times when the trumpet
of Mars did sound loudest. And now that an over-faint
quietness should seem to strew the house for poets, they are
almost in as good reputation as the mountebanks at Venice.
Truly even that, as of the one side it giveth great praise to
poesy, which, like Venus — but to better purpose — hath rather
be troubled in the net with Mars, than enjoy the homely
quiet of Vulcan; so serves it for a piece of a reason why
they are less grateful to idle England, which now can scarce
endure the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily followeth,
that base men with servile wits undertake it, who think it
enough if they can be rewarded of the printer. And so as
Epaminondas is said, with the honor of his virtue to have
made an office, by his exercising it, which before was con-
temptible, to become highly respected; so these men, no more
but setting their names to it, by their own disgracefulness
disgrace the most graceful poesy. For now, as if all the
Muses were got with child to bring forth bastard poets,
without any commission they do post over the banks of Heli-
con, till they make their readers more weary than post-
horses; while, in the meantime, they,
Queis meliore luto finxit prsecordia Titan,41
are better content to suppress the outflowings of their wit,
than by publishing them to be accounted knights of the same
order.
But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the dignity, am
admitted into the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the
very true cause of our wanting estimation is want of desert,
taking upon us to be poets in despite of Pallas.42 Now
wherein we want desert were a thank-worthy labor to ex-
press; but if I knew, I should have mended myself,. But as
I never desired the title, so have I fiegiected the means to
41 " Upon hearts the Titan has formed from better clay." — Adapted from
"Juvenal," XIV. 34-5.
48 Though lacking inspiration.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 45
come by it; only, overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded
an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy
itself should seek to know what they do and how they do;
and especially look themselves in an unflattering glass of
reason, if they be inclinable unto it. For poesy must not
be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather it
must lead; which was partly the cause that made the ancient
learned affirm it was a divine gift, and no human skill, since
all other knowledges lie ready for any that hath strength of
wit, a poet no industry can make if his own genius be not
carried into it. And therefore is it an old proverb: Orator
fit, poeta nascitur.*3. Yet confess I always that, as the fertilest
ground must be manured,*4 so must the highest-flying wit
have a Daedalus to guide him. That Daedalus, they say, both
in this and in other, hath three wings to bear itself up into
the air o£ due commendation : that is, art, imitation, and ex-
ercise. But these neither artificial rules nor imitative pat-
terns, we much cumber ourselves withal. Exercise indeed
we do, but that very fore-backwardly, for where we should
exercise to know, we exercise as having known; and so is
our brain delivered of much matter which never was begotten
by knowledge. For there being two principal parts, matter
to be expressed by words, and words to express the matter,
in neither we use art or imitation rightly. Our matter is
quodlibet indeed, though wrongly performing Ovid's verse,
Quicquid conabar dicere, versus erat;*5
never marshalling it into any assured rank, that almost the
readers cannot tell where to find themselves.
Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and
Cressida; of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel
more, either that he in that misty time could see so clearly,
or that we in this clear age walk so stumblingly after him.
Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverend
antiquity. I account the Mirror of Magistrates meetly fur-
nished of beautiful parts; and in the Earl of Surrey's lyrics
many things tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble
mind. The Shepherd's Calendar hath much poetry in his
*s " The orator is made, the poet is born." u Cultivated.
45 " Whatever I tried to say was poetry." — Changed from Ovid,
"Tristia,"IV. 10, 26.
46 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
eclogues, indeed worthy the reading, if I be not deceived.
That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I
dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in
Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it. Besides these,
I do not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly)
printed, that have poetical sinews in them. For proof
whereof, let but most of the verses be put in prose, and then
ask the meaning, and it will be found that one verse did but
beget another, without ordering at the first what should be
at the last ; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a
tinkling sound of rime, barely accompanied with reason.
Our tragedies and comedies not without cause cried out
against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor of
skilful poetry, excepting Gorboduc, — again I say of those
that I have seen. Which notwithstanding as it is full of
stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the
height of Seneca's style, and as full of notable morality,
which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtain the very
end of poesy; yet in truth it is very defectious in the circum-
stances, which grieveth me, because it might not remain as an
exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and
time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions.
For where the stage should always represent but one place,
and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by
Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day; there
is both many days and many places inartificially imagined.
But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the
rest? where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric
of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the
player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling
where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now ye
shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we
must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we hear
news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to
blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that
comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then
the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave.
While in the mean time two armies fly in, represented with
four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not
receive it for a pitched field?
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 47
Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinary
it is that two young princes fall in love; after many trav-
erses she is got with child, delivered of a fair boy, he is
lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get
another child, — and all this in two hours' space; which how
absurd it is in sense even sense may imagine, and art hath
taught, and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the
ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some
bring in an example of Eunuchus in Terence, that containeth
matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it
is, and so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to
the time it set forth. And though Plautus have in one place
done amiss, let us hit with him, and not miss with him. But
they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which
containeth both many places and many times? And do they
not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and
not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having
liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the
history to the most tragical conveniency? Again, many
things may be told which cannot be showed, — if they know
the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As for
example I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in
speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but
in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And
so was the manner the ancients took, by some Nuntius1* to
recount things done in former time or other place.
Lastly, if they will repre ent a history, they must not, as
Horace saith, begin ab ovo*7 but they must come to the
principal point of that one action which they will represent.
By example this will be best expressed. I have a story of
young Polydorus, delivered for safety's sake, with great
riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of
Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years,
hearing the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure
his own murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken
up by Hecuba; she, the same day, fmdeth a sleight to be
revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where now would one
of our tragedy writers begin, but with the delivery of the
child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend
40 Messenger. *7 From the egg.
48 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
I know not how many years, and travel numbers of places.
But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of the
body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus.
This needs no further to be enlarged; the dullest wit may
conceive it.
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be
neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings
and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust
in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in ma-
jestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as
neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right
sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I
know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing re-
counted with space of time, not represented in one moment;
and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-
comedies, as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark
them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily,
match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out that, having
indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy,
we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears,
or some extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit to lift up
a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of
a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should
be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.
But our comedians think there is no delight without
laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may
come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though
delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one
thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they
have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we
scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to our-
selves, or to the general nature ; laughter almost ever cometh
of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. De-
light hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter
hath only a scornful tickling. For example, we are ravished
with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being
moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures,
wherein certainly we cannot delight. We delight in good
chances, we laugh at mischances. We delight to hear the
happiness of our friends and country, at which he were
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 49
worthy to be laughed at that would laugh. We shall, con-
trarily, laugh sometimes to find a matter quite mistaken and
go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such
men, as for the respect of them one shall be heartily sorry he
cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delight-
ed with laughter. Yet deny I not but that they may go well
together. For as in Alexander's picture well set out we de-
light without laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh
without delight ; so in Hercules, painted, with his great beard
and furious countenance, in woman's attire, spinning at Om-
phale's commandment, it breedeth both delight and laughter;
for the representing of so strange a power in love, procureth
delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.
But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical
part be not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only,
but mixed with it that delightful teaching which is the end
of poesy. And the great fault, even in that point of laugh-
ter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is that they stir
laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than
ridiculous ; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than
scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched
beggar or a beggarly clown, or, against law of hospitality,
to jest at strangers because they speak not English so well
as we do? what do we learn? since it is certain:
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.48
But rather a busy loving courtier; a heartless threatening
Thraso; a self-wise-seeming schoolmaster; a wry trans-
formed traveller: these if we saw walk in stage-names,
which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter
and teaching delightfulness, — as in the other, the tragedies
of Buchanan do justly bring forth a divine admiration.
But I have lavished out too many words of this play-
matter. I do it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy,
so is there none so much used in England, and none can be
more pitifully abused; which, like an unmannerly daughter,
showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy's hon-
esty to be called in question.
men
48 " Unhappy poverty has nothing in it harder than this, that it makes
;n ridiculous." — Juvenal, " Satires," III. 152-3.J
50 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but that lyrical
kind of songs and sonnets, which, Lord if he gave us so
good minds, how well it might be employed, and with how
heavenly fruits both private and public, in singing the
praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of
that God who giveth us hands to write, and wits to con-
ceive ! — of which we might well want words, but never mat-
ter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we
should ever have new-budding occasions.
But truly, many of such writings as come under the ban-
ner of unresistible love, if I were a mistress would never
persuade me they were in love; so coldly they apply fiery
speeches, as men that had rather read lovers' writings,
and so caught up certain swelling phrases — which hang to-
gether like a man which once told me the wind was at
north-west and by south, because he would be sure to name
winds enough — than that in truth they feel those passions,
which easily, as I think, may be bewrayed by that same
forcibleness, or encrgia (as the Greeks call it) of the writer.
But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we miss
the right use of the material point of poesy.
Now for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may
term it) diction, it is even well worse, so is that honey-
flowing matron eloquence apparelled, or rather disguised,
in a courtesan-like painted affectation : one time with so f ar-
fet40 words, that many seem monsters — but must seem stran-
gers— to any poor Englishman; another time with coursing
of a letter,60 as if they were bound to follow the method of
a dictionary; another time with figures and flowers ex-
tremely winter-starved.
But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and
had not as large possession among prose-printers, and,
which is to be marvelled, among many scholars, and, which
is to be pitied, among some preachers. Truly I could wish —
if at least I might be so bold to wish in a thing beyond
the reach of my capacity — the diligent imitators of Tully
and Demosthenes (most worthy to be imitated) did not so
much keep Nizolian paper-books of their figures and phrases,
as by attentive translation, as it were devour them whole,
«• Far-fetched. •• Alliteration.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 51
and make them wholly theirs. For now they cast sugar and
spice upon every dish that is served to the table; like those
Indians, not content to wear ear-rings at the fit and natural
place of the ears, but they will thrust jewels through their
nose and lips, because they will be sure to be fine. Tully,
when he was to drive out Catiline as it were with a thunder-
bolt of eloquence, often used that figure of repetition, as
Vivit. Vivitf Immo vero etiam in senatum venitf1 etc.
Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have
his words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do
that artificially, which we see men in choler do naturally.
And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them
in sometime to a familiar epistle, when it were too much
choler to be choleric. How well store of similiter cadences™
doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke
Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness useth
them. Truly they have made me think of the sophister that
with too much subtility would prove two eggs three, and
though he might be counted a sophister, had none for his
labor. So these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence,
well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming fineness, but
persuade few, — which should be the end of their fineness.
Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think
all herbarists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are
rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon
any of our conceits, which certainly is as absurd a surfeit
to the ears as is possible. For the force of a similitude not
being to prove any thing to a contrary disputer, but only to
explain to a willing hearer; when that is done, the rest is
a most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory
from the purpose whereto they we're applied, than any whit
informing the judgment, already either satisfied or by simili-
tudes not to be satisfied.
For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus,
the great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence, the one (as
Cicero testifieth of them) pretended not to know art, the
other not to set by it, because53 with a plain sensibleness
they might win credit of popular ears, which credit is the
51 " He lives. Lives? Ay, he even comes to the Senate." — Cicero,
" Catiline." I. a. «* E. g., rhyme. « I« Qrder that.
52 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
nearest step to persuasion, which persuasion is the chief
mark of oratory, — I do not doubt, I say, but that they used
these knacks very sparingly; which who doth generally use
any man may see doth dance to his own music, and so be
noted by the audience more careful to speak curiously than
truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I
have found in divers small-learned courtiers a more sound
style than in some professors of learning; of which I can
guess no other cause, but that the courtier following that
which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein, though
he know it not, doth according to art, though not by art;
where the other, using art to show art and not to hide art —
as in these cases he should do— flieth from nature, and in-
deed abuseth art.
But what ! me thinks I deserve to be pounded for stray-
ing from poetry to oratory. But both have such an affinity
in the wordish consideration, that I think this digression
will make my meaning receive the fuller understanding: —
which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should
do, but only, finding myself sick among the rest, to show some
one or two spots of the common infection grown among the
most part of writers; that, acknowledging ourselves some-
what awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and
manner: whereto our languaee giveth us great occasion,
bemgv indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it.
I know some will say it is a mingled language. And why
not so much the better, taking the best of both the other?
Another will say it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath
that praise that it wanteth not grammar. For grammar it
might have, but it needs it not; being so easy in itself, and
so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders,
moods, and tenses, which, I think, was a piece of the Tower
of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to school to
learn his mother-tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and
properly the conceits of the mind, which is the end of speech,
that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world; and
is particularly happy in compositions of two or three words
together, near the Greek, far beyond the Latin, — which is
one of the greatest beauties can be in a language.
Now of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 53
other modern. The ancient marked the quantity of each
syllable, and according to that framed his verse ; the modern
observing only number, with some regard of the accent, the
chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words,
which we call rime. Whether of these be the more excellent
would bear many speeches ; the ancient no doubt more fit for
music, both words and tune observing quantity ; and more fit
lively to express divers passions, by the low or lofty sound of
the well-weighed syllable. The latter likewise with his rime
striketh a certain music to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth
delight, though by another way, it obtaineth the same pur-
pose; there being in either, sweetness, and wanting in
neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any other vulgar
language I know, is fit for both sorts. For, for the ancient,
the Italian is so full of vowels that it must ever be cumbered
with elisions; the Dutch so, of the other side, with con-
sonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a
verse. The French in his whole language hath not one word
that hath his accent in the last syllable saving two, called
antepenultima, and little more hath the Spanish; and there-
fore very gracelessly may they use dactyls. The English is
subject to none of these defects. Now for rime,64 though we
do not observe quantity, yet we observe the accent very pre-
cisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not
do so absolutely. That caesura, or breathing-place in the
midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the
French and we never almost fail of.
Lastly, even the very rime itself the Italian cannot put in
the last syllable, by the French named the masculine rime,
but still in the next to the last, which the French call the
female, or the next before that, which the Italians term
sdrucciola. The example of the former is buono : suono;
of the sdrucciola is femina : semina. The French, of the
other side, hath both the male, as bon : son, and the female,
as plaise: taise; but the sdrucciola he hath not. Where the
English hath all three, as due : true, father : rather, mo-
tion : potion; with much more which might be said, but
that already I find the triflingness of this discourse is much
too much enlarged.
64 Rhythm is meant.
54 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
So that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue-
breeding delightfulness, and vo?d of no gift that ought to be
in the noble name of learning; since the blames laid against
it are either false or feeble; since the cause why it is not
esteemed in England is the fault of poet-apes, not poets;
since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor poesy, and to be
honored by poesy; I conjure you all that have had the evil
luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name
of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of
poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though
they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the
reverend title of "a rimer"; but to believe, with Aristotle,
that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecians' divin-
ity; to believe, with Bembus, that they were first bringers-
'n of all civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no philoso-
pher's precepts can sooner make you an honest man than the
reading of Virgil; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator
of Cornutus, that it pleased the Heavenly Deity by Hesiod
and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowl-
edge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy natural and moral, and quid
non? to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries con-
tained in poetry which of purpose were written darkly, lest
by profane wits it should be abused ; to believe, with Landino,
that they are so beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they
write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to believe them-
selves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by
their verses.
Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the printers' shops.
Thu? doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface.
Thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise,
most all; you shall dwell upon superlatives. Thus doing,
though you be liber tino patre natus,™ you shall suddenly
grow Herculea proles,59
Si quid mea carmina possunt.CT
Thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrice
or Virgil's Anchises.
But if — fie of such a but ! — you be born so near the dull-
• " The son of a freedman." B8 " Herculean offspring."
<T. " If my verses can do aught."=-Virgil, "/Eneid, IX. 440.
THE DEFENSE OF POESY 55
making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-
like music of poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a mind
that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or
rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a
mome,68 as to be a Momus of poetry ; then, though I will not
wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a
poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be
rimed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus
much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets: —
that while you live you live irt love, and never get favor for
lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory
die from the earth for want of an epitaph.
■ Blockhead.
ON SHAKESPEARE
ON BACON
BY
EEN JONSON
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Ben Jonson, after Shakespeare the most eminent writer for
the Elizabethan stage, was bom in i$73, and died in 1635. He
was the founder of the so-called "Comedy of Humours," and
throughout the reign of James I was the dominating personality
in English letters. A large number of the younger writers were
proud to confess themselves his "sons." Besides dramas of a
variety of kinds, Jonson wrote much lyrical poetry, some of it
of the most exquisite quality. His chief prose work appears in
his posthumously published "Explorata, Timber or Discoveries,
made upon men and matter," a kind of commonplace book, in
which he seems to have entered quotations and translations from
his reading, as well as original observations of a miscellaneous
character on men and books. The volume has little or no
structure or arrangement, but is impressed everywhere with the
stamp of his vigorous personality. The following passages on
Bacon and Shakespeare are notable as a personal estimate of
these two giants by the man who, perhaps, approached them in
tlte field of intellect more closely than any other contemporary.
58
BEN JONSON
ON SHAKESPEARE
DE SHAKESPEARE NOSTRATCI]1
1 REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an
honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever
he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath
been, " Would he had blotted a thousand," which they
thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this
but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to
commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to
justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor
his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was,
indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an ex-
cellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein
he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary
he should be stopped. " SuMaminandus erat"2 as Augustus
said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power ; would the
rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those
things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the
person of Caesar, one speaking to him : " Caesar, thou dost
me wrong." He replied : " Caesar did never wrong but with
just cause;"3 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he
redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more
in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
1 " Of our countryman, Shakespeare."
fl " He should have been clogged."
8 The speech is not found in this form in our version of Shakespeare's
' Julius Caesar."
59
BEN JONSON ON BACON
DOMINUS VERULAMIUS1
ONE, though he be excellent and the chief, is not to
be imitated alone ; for never no imitator ever grew up
to his author; likeness is always on this side truth.
Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker,1 who was
full of gravity in his speaking; his language, where he could
spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious.2 No man ever
spake more neatly, more presly,3 more weightily, or suffered
less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member
of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers
could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He
commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and
pleased at his devotion.* No man had their affections more
in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was
lest he should make an end.
Scriptorum catalogus.5 — Cicero is said to be the only wit
that the people of Rome had equalled to their empire.
Ingenium par imperio. We have had many, and in their
several ages (to take in but the former seculum*) Sir
Thomas More, the elder Wyatt, Henry Earl of Surrey,
Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B[ishop] Gardiner, were for their
times admirable; and the more, because they began elo-
quence with us. Sir Nico[las] Bacon was singular, and
almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's times.
Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (in different matter)
grew great masters of wit and language, and in whom all
vigor of invention and strength of judgment met. The
Earl of Essex, noble and high; and Sir Walter Raleigh, not
1 Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. a Severe. 3 Concisely.
4 Choice, disposal. 5 Catalogue of writers. • Century.
60
ON BACON 61
to be contemned, either for judgment or style; Sir Henry
Savile, grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excel-
lent in both; Lo[rd] Egerton, the Chancellor, a grave and
great orator, and best when he was provoked ; but his learned
and able, though unfortunate, successor7 is he who hath filled
up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may
be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or
haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his
times, were all the wits born that could honor a language or
help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and
eloquence grows backward; so that he may be named and
stand as the mark and &x[ir)s of our language.
De augmentis scientiarum.9 — I have ever observed it to
have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest
affairs of the State, to take care of the commonwealth of
learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of State;
and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that
part of the republic which we call the advancement of let-
ters. Witness the care of Julius Caesar, who, in the heat of
the civil war, writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated
them to Tully. This made the late Lord S[aint] Alban10
entitle his work Novum Organum; which, though by the
most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of
nominals,11 it is not penetrated nor understood, it really
openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book
Qui longum noto scriptori porriget aevum.12
My conceit of his person was never increased toward
him by his place or honors. But I have and do reverence
him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in
that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest
men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many
ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give
him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither
could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing
no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make
it manifest.
7 Bacon. 8 Acme. 9 Concerning the advancement of the sciences.
10 Bacon. u Names of things.
12 " Which extends to the famous author a long future." — Horace, Ars»
Poet., 346.
OF AGRICULTURE
BY
ABRAHAM COWLEY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was educated at Westminster
School and later at Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he
was ejected with most of the Masters and Fellows for refusing
to sign the Solemn League and Covenant in 1644. In the same
year he crossed to France in the suite of Lord Jermyn, Queen
Henrietta Maria's chief officer, and remained with the royal
family in exile for twelve years. After the Restoration he
became a doctor of medicine, and was one of the first members
of the Royal Society. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Cowley's most popular work in his own day was the collection
of love poems called "The Mistress," and his so-called "Pin-
daric Odes" were also highly esteemed. With the decline of
the taste which produced the poetry of the "Metaphysical School"
to which he belonged, Cowley ceased to be read; nor is it likely
that the frigid ingenuity which marks his poetic style will ever
again come into favor. His "Essays," on the other hand, are
written with great simplicity and naturalness, and exhibit his
temperament in a most pleasing light. He is one of the earliest
masters of a clear and easy English prose style, and few writers
of the familiar essay surpass Cowley in grace and charm. His
essay "Of Agriculture" is a delightful example of his quality.
"We may talk what we please," he cries in his enthusiasm for
the oldest of the arts, "of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread
eagles, in fields d'or or d' argent; but, if heraldry were guided by
reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and
ancient arms"
64
OF AGRICULTURE
THE first wish of Virgil (as you will find anon by his
verses) was to be a good philosopher, the second,
a good husbandman: and God (whom he seem'd to
understand better than most of the most learned neathens)
dealt with him just as he did with Solomon; because he
prayed for wisdom in the first place, he added all things
else, which were subordinately to be desir'd. He made him
one of the best philosophers and the best husbandmen ; and,
to adorn and communicate both those faculties, the best poet.
He made him, besides all this, a rich man, and a man who
desired to be no richer —
"O fortunatus nimium, et bona qui sua novit I " l
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be
a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from
the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
But, since nature denies to most men the capacity or ap-
petite, and fortune allows but to a very few the oppor-
tunities or possibility of applying themselves wholly to
philosophy, the best mixture of humane2 affairs that we can
make, are the employments of a country life. It is, as
Columella calls it, " Res sine dubitatione proxima, et quasi
consanguinea sapiential," the nearest neighbour, or rather
next in kindred, to philosophy. Varro says, the principles
of it are the same which Ennius made to be the principles
of all nature, Earth, Water, Air, and the Sun. It does
certainly comprehend more parts of philosophy, than any
one profession, art, or science, in the world besides: and
therefore Cicero says, the pleasures of a husbandman, " mihi
ad sapientis vitam proxime videntur accedere," come very
1 " O fortunate exceedingly, who knew his own good fortune." — Adapted
from Virgil, "Georgics," II., 458.
2 Human.
HC 65 Vol. 27—3
66 ABRAHAM COWLEY
nigh to those of a philosopher. There is no other sort
of life that affords so many branches of praise to a panegy-
rist: the utility of it, to a man's self; the usefulness, or
rather necessity, of it to all the rest of mankind; the in-
nocence, the pleasure, the antiquity, the dignity.
The utility (I mean plainly the lucre of h) is not so
great, now in our nation, as arises from merchandise and
the trading of the city, from whence many of the best
estates and chief honours of the kingdom are derived: we
have no men now fetcht from the plow to be made lords,
as they were in Rome to be made consuls and dictators;
the reason of which I conceive to be from an evil custom,
now grown as strong among us as if it were a law, which
is, that no men put their children to be bred up apprentices
in agriculture, as in other trades, but such who are so
poor, that, when they come to be men, they have not where-
withal to set up in it, and so can only farm some small
parcel of ground, the rent of which devours all but the
bare subsistence of the tenant: whilst they who are proprie-
tors of the land are either too proud, or, for want of that
kind of education, too ignorant, to improve their estates,
though the means of doing it be as easie and certain in this,
as in any other track of commerce. If there were always
two or three thousand youths, for seven or eight years,
bound to this profession, that they might learn the whole
art of it, and afterwards be enabled to be masters in it,
by a moderate stock, I cannot doubt but that we should see
as many aldermen's estates made in the country, as now we
do out of all kind of merchandizing in the city. There are
as many ways to be rich, and, which is better, there is no
possibility to be poor, without such negligence as can neither
have excuse nor pity ; for a little ground will, without ques-
tion, feed a little family, and the superfluities of life (which
are now in some cases by custom made almost necessary)
must be supplyed out of the superabundance of art and in-
dustry, or contemned by as great a degree of philosophy.
As for the necessity of this art, it is evident enough,
since this can live without all others, and no one other
without this. This is like speech, without which the society
of men cannot be preserved; the others, like figures and
OF AGRICULTURE 67
tropes of speech, which serve only to adorn it. Many nations
have lived, and some do still, without any art but this: not
so elegantly, I confess, but still they live; and almost all
the other arts, which are here practised, are beholding to
this for most of their materials.
The innocence of this life is the next thing for which
I commend it; and if husbandmen preserve not that, they are
much to blame, for no men are so free from the temptations
of iniquity. They live by what they can get by industry
from the earth; and others, by what they can catch by
craft from men. They live upon an estate given them by
their mother; and others, upon an estate cheated from their
brethren. They live, like sheep and kine, by the allowances
of nature; and others, like wolves and foxes, by the acquisi-
tions of rapine. And, I hope, I may affirm (without any
offence to the great) that sheep and kine are very useful, and
that wolves and foxes are pernicious creatures. They are,
without dispute, of all men, the most quiet and least apt to
be inflamed to the disturbance of the commonwealth: their
manner of life inclines them, and interest binds them, to love
peace: in our late mad and miserable civil wars, all other
trades, even to the meanest, set forth whole troops, and
raised up some great commanders, who became famous and
mighty for the mischiefs they had done: but I do not re-
member the name of any one husbandman, who had so
considerable a share in the twenty years' ruine of his
country, as to deserve the curses of his countrymen.
And if great delights be joyn'd with so much innocence,
I think it is ill done of men not to take them here, where
they are so tame, and ready at hand, rather than hunt for
them in courts and cities, where they are so wild, and the
chase so troublesome and dangerous.
We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature;
we are there among the pitiful shifts of policy: we walk
here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty; we
grope there in the dark and confused labyrinths of humane3
malice : our senses are here feasted with the clear and genuine
taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and
for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries. Here,
8 Human.
68 ABRAHAM COWLEY
pleasure looks (methinks) like a beautiful, constant, and
modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted
harlot. Here, is harmless and cheap plenty; there, guilty
and expenceful luxury.
I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural
and best-natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the
husbandman; and that is, the satisfaction of looking round
about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improve-
ments of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering
of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others
ripening, and others budding : to see all his fields and gardens
covered with the beauteous creatures of his own industry;
and to see, like God, that all his works are good: —
Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Orcades; ipsi
Agricolae taciturn pertentant gaudia pectus.*
On his heart-string a secret joy does strike.
The antiquity of his art is certainly not to be contested
by any other. The three first men in the world, were
a gardener, a plowman, and a grazier; and if any man
object, that the second of these was a murtherer, I desire
he would consider, that as soon as he was so, he quitted
our profession, and turn'd builder. It is for this reason,
I suppose, that Ecclesiasticus forbids us to hate husbandry;
'because (says he) the Most High has created it/ We were
all born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies
by the same earth out of which they were made, and to which
they must return, and pay at last for their sustenance.
Behold the original and primitive nobility of all those
great persons, who are too proud now, not only to till the
ground, but almost to tread upon it. We may talk what
we please of lillies, and lions rampant, and spread-eagles,
in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if heraldry were guided by
reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble
and antient arms.
All these considerations make me fall into the wonder
and complaint of Columella, how it should come to pass
*" On this side and on that gather the Orkneys; joys pervade the silent
breast of the farmer." — A parody of Virgil's "^Eneid," I. 500, 503.
OF AGRICULTURE 69
that all arts or sciences (for the dispute, which is an art,
and which a science, does not belong to the curiosity of us
husbandmen) metaphysick, physick, morality, mathematicks,
logick, rhetorick &c. which are all, I grant, good and useful
faculties, (except only metaphysick which I do not know
whether it be anything or no;) but even vaulting, fencing,
dancing, attiring, cookery, carving, and such like vanities,
should all have publick schools and masters, and yet that we
should never see or hear of any man, who took upon him
the profession of teaching this so pleasant, so virtuous,
so profitable, so honourable, so necessary art.
A man would think, when he's in serious humour, that
it were but a vain, irrational, and ridiculous thing for a
great company of men and women to run up and down in a
room together, in a hundred several postures and figures,
to no purpose, and with no design; and therefore dancing
was invented first, and only practised antiently, in the cere-
monies of the heathen religion, which consisted all in mum-
mery and madness; the latter being the chief glory of the
worship, and accounted divine inspiration: this, I say, a
severe man would think; though I dare not determine so
far against so customary a part, now, of good-breeding. And
yet, who is there among our gentry, that does not entertain
a dancing-master for his children, as soon as they are able
to walk? But did ever any father provide a tutor for his
son, to instruct him betimes in the nature and improve-
ments of that land which he intended to leave him? That
is at least a superfluity, and this a defect, in our manner
of education; and therefore I could wish (but cannot in
these times much hope to see it) that one colledge in each
university were erected, and appropriated to this study, as
well as there are to medicine and the civil law : there would
be no need of making a body of scholars and fellows with
certain endowments, as in other colledges; it would suffice,
if, after the manner of halls in Oxford, there were only
four professors constituted (for it would be too much work
for only one master, or principal, as they call him there)
to teach these four parts of it: First, Aration, and all
things relating to it. Secondly, Pasturage. Thirdly, Gar-
dens, Orchards, Vineyards, and Woods. Fourthly, all parts
70 ABRAHAM COWLEY
of Rural Oeconomy, which would contain the govern-
ment of Bees, Swine, Poultry, Decoys, Ponds, &c. and all
that which Varro calls villaticas pastionesf together with the
sports of the field (which ought to be looked upon not only
as pleasures, but as parts of house-keeping), and the domes-
tical conservation and uses of all that is brought in by in-
dustry abroad. The business of these professors should not
be, as is commonly practised in other arts, only to read
pompous and superficial lectures, out of Virgil's Georgicks,
Pliny, Varro, or Columella; but to instruct their pupils in
the whole method and course of this study, which might
be run through perhaps, with diligence, in a year or two:
and the continual succession of scholars, upon a moderate
taxation6 for their diet, lodging and learning, would be a
sufficient constant revenue for maintenance of the house
and the professors, who should be men not chosen for the
ostentation of critical literature, but for solid and experi-
mental knowledge of the things they teach; such men, so in-
dustrious and publick-spirited, as I conceive Mr. Hartlib to
be, if the gentleman be yet alive: but it is needless to speak
further of my thoughts of this design, unless the present
disposition of the age allowed more probability of bringing
it into execution. What I have further to say of the country
life, shall be borrowed from the poets, who were always the
most faithful and affectionate friends to it. Poetry was
born among the shepherds.
Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine Musas
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.
The Muses still love their own native place;
'T has secret charms, which nothing can deface.
The truth is, no other place is proper for their work; one
might as well undertake to dance in a crowd, as to make
good verses in the midst of noise and tumult.
As well might corn, as verse, in cities grow;
In vain the thankless glebe we plow and sow;
Against th' unnatural soil in vain we strive ;
'Tis not a ground, in which these plants will thrive.
5 The keeping of farm animals, etc.
• Charge.
OF AGRICULTURE 71
It will bear nothing but the nettles and thorns of satyre,
which grow most naturally in the worst earth ; and therefore
almost all poets, except those who were not able to eat bread
without the bounty of great men, that is, without what they
could get by flattering of them, have not only withdrawn
themselves from the vices and vanities of the grand world,
pariter vitiisque jocisque
Altius humanis exeruere caput,7
into the innocent happiness of a retired life; but have com-
mended and adorned nothing so much by their ever-living
poems. Hesiod was the first or second poet in the world that
remains yet extant (if Homer, as some think, preceded him,
but I rather believe they were contemporaries) ; and he is
the first writer too of the art of husbandry : " and he has
contributed (says Columella) not a little to our profession;"
I suppose, he means not a little honour, for the matter of his
instructions is not very important: his great antiquity is
visible through the gravity and simplicity of his stile. The
most acute of all his sayings concerns our purpose very
much, and is couched in the reverend obscurity of an oracle.
IlXiov fjfitffu Travro?,8 The half is more than the whole. The
occasion of the speech is this: his brother Perses had, by-
corrupting some great men ( fiaadyas dwpoipdyoug, great bribe-
eaters he calls them), gotten from him the half of his estate.
It is no matter (says he) ; they have not done me so much
prejudice, as they imagine.
"NJjirioi, oi8' tcaaiv 8<xo3 ir\4ov rj/xiov iravrbs,
Ou5' 6<rov iv fmXaxv re koX a<r0o5cX^> fi4y 6veiapt
Kpfyavres yhp exoi/<rt deol (3lov avdp6ir<H<ri.
Unhappy they, to whom God ha'n't reveal'd,
By a strong light which must their sense controul,
That half a great estate's more than the whole.
Unhappy, from whom still conceal'd does lye,
Of roots and herbs, the wholesom luxury.
This I conceive to be honest Hesiod's meaning. From
Homer, we must not expect much concerning our affairs.
7 " They have raised their head above both human vices and vanities."?-*
Ovid, " Fasti," I. 300.
8 Hesiod, " Works and Days," 40.
72 ABRAHAM COWLEY
He was blind, and could neither work in the country nor
enjoy the pleasures of it; his helpless poverty was likeliest
to be sustained in the richest places; he was to delight the
Grecians with fine tales of the wars and adventures of their
ancestors; his subject removed him from all commerce with
us, and yet, methinks, he made a shift to shew his good-will
a little. For, though he could do us no honour in the person
of his hero Ulysses (much less of Achilles), because his
whole time was consumed in wars and voyages ; yet he makes
his father Laertes a gardener all that while, and seeking his
consolation for the absence of his son in the pleasure of
planting, and even dunging his own grounds. Ye see, he did
not contemn us peasants ; nay, so far was he from that inso-
lence, that he always stiles Eumaeus, who kept the hogs, with
wonderful respect, diov v(popft6v, the divine swine herd; he
could ha' done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And
Theocritus (a very antient poet, but he was one of our own
tribe, for he wrote nothing but pastorals) gave the same epi-
thete to an husbandman, — rjjieifieTo dlo? aypdxjTes. The divine
husbandman replyed to Hercules, who was but dTo? himself.
These were civil Greeks, and who understood the dignity of
our calling!
Among the Romans we have, in the first place, our
truly divine Virgil, who, though, by the favour of Maecenas
and Augustus, he might have been one of the chief men
of Rome, yet chose rather to employ much of his time in
the exercise, and much of his immortal wit in the praise
and instructions, of a rustique life; who, though he had
written, before, whole books of pastorals and georgics, could
not abstain, in his great and imperial poem, from describing
Evander, one of his best princes, as living just after the
homely manner of an ordinary countryman. He seats him
in a throne of maple, and lays him but upon a bear's skin ;
the kine and oxen are lowing in his court-yard; the birds
under the eves of his window call him up in the morning,
and when he goes abroad, only two dogs go along with him
for his guard: at last, when he brings ^Eneas into his royal
cottage, he makes him say this memorable complement,
greater than even yet was spoken at the Escurial, the
Louvre, or our Whitehall
OF AGRICULTURE 73
■ ■ Hsec (inquit) limina victor
Alcides subiit, haec ilium regia cepit:
Aude, hospes, contemnere opes : et te quoque dignum
Finge Deo, rebusque veni non asper egenis.
This humble roof, this rustick court, (said he)
Receiv'd Alcides, crown'd with victorie :
Scorn not, great guest, the steps where he has trod;
But contemn wealth, and imitate a God.
The next man, whom we are much obliged to, both for
his doctrine and example, is the next best poet in the world
to Virgil, his dear friend Horace; who, when Augustus had
desired Maecenas to perswade him to come and live domes-
tically and at the same table with him, and to be secretary of
state of the whole world under him, or rather jointly with
him, for he says, " ut nos in epistolis scribendis adjuvet,"9
could not be tempted to forsake his Sabin, or Tiburtin man-
nor, for so rich and so glorious a trouble. There was never,
I think, such an example as this in the world, that he should
have so much moderation and courage as to refuse an offer
of such greatness, and the emperor so much generosity and
good-nature as not to be at all offended with his refusal, but
to retain still the same kindness, and express it often to him
in most friendly and familiar letters, part of which are still
extant. If I should produce all the passages of this excellent
author upon the several subjects which I treat of in this
book, I must be obliged to translate half his works ; of which
I may say more truly than, in my opinion, he did of Homer.
Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Planius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.10
I shall content myself upon this particular theme with
three only, one out of his Odes, the other out of his Satires,
the third out of his Epistles; and shall forbear to collect the
suffrages of all other poets, which may be found scattered
up and down through all their writings, and especially in
Martial's. But I must not omit to make some excuse for the
9 " That he may assist us in writing letters."
10 «« Who says, more plainly and better than Chrysippus and Cr?.ntor,r
what is beautiful, what base, what useful, what the opposite of these."-—"
Horace, "Epist."1.2. 4. Chrysippus and Crantor were noted philosopher^
74
ABRAHAM COWLEY
bold-undertaking of my own unskilful pencil upon the beau-
ties of a face that has been drawn before by so many great
masters; especially, that I should dare to do it in Latine
verses, (though of another kind), and have the confidence to
translate them. I can only say that I love the matter, and
that ought to cover many faults; and that I run not to con-
tend with those before me, but follow to applaud them.
THE VISION OF MIRZA
AND
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
BY
JOSEPH ADDISON
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) divided his energies between lit-
erature and politics. He was educated at the Charterhouse and
at Oxford with a view to holy orders, but the Earl of Halifax saw
in him valuable political material, obtained for him a pension,
and sent him abroad to prepare for a diplomatic career. His
travels in France and Italy confirmed his classical tastes, and his
critical writings show abundant traces of French influence.
On his return to England he published his "Campaign," which
laid the foundation of his career. He entered Parliament, and
finally rose to be Secretary of State. In spite of the bitterness
of political feeling in his time, Addison kept the esteem of men
of all parties, and enjoyed a universal popularity such as has
been bestowed on few men of letters and fewer politicians.
Addison's fame to-day rests mainly on his writings in the
"Tatler" and the "Spectator." In the essays and articles pub-
lished in these two periodicals, he not only produced a succession
of pieces unsurpassed in their kind, but exerted an influence
as wholesome as it was powerful upon the manners and morals
of society in the London of Queen Anne. His style remains the
great classic example of that combination of ease and elegance
which is the characteristic merit of the prose of the period; and
the imaginative moralising which is exemplified in "The Vision
of Mirza" and "Westminster Abbey" reveals something of the
gentle persuasiveness with which he sought to lead his generation
to higher levels of living and thinking.
A more detailed account of the life and work of Addison
will be found in the "Life" by Dr. Johnson in the present volume.
76
THE VISION OF MIRZA'
Otnnem, qua nunc obducta tuenti
Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum
Caligat, nubem eripiam.2
—Virgil, "iEneid," ii. 604.
WHEN I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several
oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me.
Among others I met with one entitled " The
Visions of Mirza" which I have read over with great pleas-
ure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other
entertainment for them, and shall begin with the first vision,
which I have translated word for word, as follows: —
" On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the
custom of my forefathers I always keep holy, after having
washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I
ascended the high hills of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest
of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing
myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound
contemplation on the vanity of human life, and passing from
one thought to another, ' Surely/ said I, ' man is but a
shadow, and life a dream.' Whilst I was thus musing, I cast
my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from
me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with
a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon
him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The
sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety
of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious and altogether
different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in
mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed
souls of good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to
1 Published in "The Spectator," September 1, 171 1.
3 " Every cloud which now drawn before thee dulls thy mortal vision and
sends mists around thee, I shall snatch away."
77
78 JOSEPH ADDISON
wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify
them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart
melted away in secret raptures.
" I had often been told that the rock before me was the
haunt of a genius; and that several had been entertained
with music who had passed by it, but never heard that the
musician had before made himself visible. When he had
raised my thoughts by those transporting airs which he
played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked
upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the
waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where
he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a
superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by
the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet
and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of com-
passion and affability that familiarized him to my imagina-
tion, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions
with which I aproached him. He lifted me from the ground,
and taking me by the hand, ' Mirza/ said he, ' I have heard
thee in thy soliloquies ; follow me/
" He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and
placing me on the top of it, ' Cast thy eyes eastward/ said
he, ' and tell me what thou seest/ ' I see/ said I, ' a huge
valley and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it/
* The valley that thou seest/ said he, ' is the Vale of Misery,
and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide
of eternity/ ' What is the reason/ said I, * that the tide I
see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself
in a thick mist at the other?' 'What thou seest/ said he,
' is that portion of eternity which is called time, measured
out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world
to its consummation. Examine now/ said he, ' this sea that
is thus bounded by darkness at both ends, and tell me what
thou discoverest in it/ ' I see a bridge/ said I, ' standing in
the midst of the tide/ ' The bridge thou seest/ said he, ' is
human life; consider it attentively/ Upon a more leisurely
survey of it I found that it consisted of more than threescore
and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which,
added to those that were entire, made up the number to
about a hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius
THE VISION OF MIRZA 79
told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand
arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left
the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. ' But
tell me further,' said he, ' what thou discoverest on it/ * I
see multitudes of people passing over it/ said I, ' and a black
cloud hanging on each end of it/ As I looked more atten-
tively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through
the bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and
upon further examination, perceived there were innumera-
ble trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the
passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them
into the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden
pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so
that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud,
but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner towards
the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together towards
the end of the arches that were entire.
" There were indeed some persons, but their number was
very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the
broken arches, but fell through one after another, being
quite tired and spent with so long a walk.
" I passed some time in the contemplation of this won-
derful structure, and the great variety of objects which it
presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to
see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and
jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save
themselves. Some were looking up towards the heavens in
a thoughtful posture, and in the midst of a speculation stum-
bled and fell out of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the
pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced
before them, but often when they thought themselves
within the reach of them their footing failed and down they
sunk. In this confusion of objects, I observed some with
scimitars in their hands, and others with urinals, who ran
to and fro upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on
trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their way, and
which they might have escaped had they not been thus
forced upon them.
" The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this melancholy
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. * Take
80 JOSEPH ADDISON
thine eyes off the bridge/ said he, ' and tell me if thou seest
anything thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up,
1 What mean/ said I, ' those great flights of birds that are
perpetually hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it
from time to time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cor-
morants, and among many other feathered creatures several
little winged boys that perch in great numbers upon the mid-
dle arches/ ' These/ said the genius, ' are Envy, Avarice,
Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like cares and passions
that infest human life/
" I here fetched a deep sigh. ' Alas/ said I, ' man was
made in vain : how is he given away to misery and mortality,
tortured in life, and swallowed up in death ! ' The genius
being moved with compassion towards me, bid me quit so
uncomfortable a prospect. ' Look no more/ said he, ' on man
in the first stage of his existence, in his setting out for eter-
nity ; but cast thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide
bears the several generations of mortals that fall into it/ I
directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the
good genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or
dissipated part of the mist that was before too thick for eye
to penetrate) I saw the valley opening at the farther end,
and spreading forth into an immense ocean that had a huge
rock of adamant running through the midst of it, and divid-
ing it into two equal parts. The clouds still rested on one
half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it; but
the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innu-
merable islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers,
and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that ran
among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious habits
with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees,
lying down by the sides of fountains, or resting on beds of
flowers ; and could hear a confused harmony of singing
birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instruments.
Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a
scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle that I might fly
away to those happy seats ; but the genius told me there was
no passage to them except through the gates of death that I
saw opening every moment upon the bridge. ' The islands/
said he, 'that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with
THE VISION OF MIRZA 81
which the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as
thou canst see, are more in number than the sands on the
seashore; there are myriads of islands behind those which
thou here discoverest, reaching farther than thine eye, or
even thine imagination can extend itself. These are the
mansions of good men after death, who, according to the
degree and kinds of virtue in which they excelled, are dis-
tributed among these several islands, which abound with
pleasures of different kinds and degrees suitable to the
relishes and perfections of those who are settled in them;
every island is a paradise accommodated to its respective
inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirza, habitations worth
contending for? Does life appear miserable that gives thee
opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be
feared that will convey thee to so happy an existence?
Think not man was made in vain who has such an eternity
reserved for him/ I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on
these happy islands. At length, said I, ' Show me now, I be-
seech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds
which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of ada-
mant/ The genius making me no answer, I turned me about
to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he
had left me ; I then turned again to the vision which I had
been so long contemplating; but, instead of the rolling tide,
the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but
the long valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels
grazing upon the sides of it."
The end of the first vision of Mirza.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY"
Pallida mors xquo palsat pede pauperam tabernas
Regumque tures, O beati Sexti,
Vita summa brevis spent nos vetat inchoare longam:
Jam te premet nox, fabulceque manes,
Et domus exilis Plutonia. — Hor.3
WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk
by myself in Westminster Abbey, where the
gloominess of the place, and the use to which it
is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condi-
tion of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with
a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not
disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the
churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself
with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those
several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing
else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one
day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life
being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are
common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these
registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind
of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other
memorial of them, but that they were born and that they
died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in
the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given
them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and
are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.
T\o.vk6p tc M.45ovrd re QepcrEXoxfo tc. Hom.
Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. Virg.
1 Published in "The Spectator," March 30, 1711.
2 " Pale death knocks with impartial foot at the huts of the poor and at
the towers of kings, O happy Sextus. The shortness of the span of life
forbids us to cherish remote hope; already night overtakes thee, and the
fabled shades, and the wretched house of Pluto."
82
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 83
The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ
by "the path of an arrow," which is immediately closed
up and lost.
Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with
the digging of a grave ; and saw in every shovelful of it that
was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt
with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or
other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon
this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable mul-
titudes of people lay confused together under the pavement
of that ancient cathedral ; how men and women, friends and
enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were
crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the
same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with
old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the
same promiscuous heap of matter.
After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mor-
tality, as it were, in the lump; I examined it more particu-
larly by the accounts which I found on several of the
monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient
fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant
epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be
acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which
his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so
excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the
person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are
not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quar-
ter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and
monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the
present war had filled the church with many of these un-
inhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory
of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains
of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.
I could not but be very much delighted with several mod-
ern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of ex-
pression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to
the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt
to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation,
from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions,
they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning
84 JOSEPH ADDISON
and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly
Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence:
instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the
distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is
represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed
in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions
under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to
the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remark-
able actions he had performed in the service of his country,
it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which
it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch,
whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an
infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their
buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with
in those of our own country. The monuments of their ad-
mirals, which have been erected at the public expense, repre-
sent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral
crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-
weed, shells, and coral.
But to return to our subject. I have left the repository
of our English kings for the contemplation of another day,
when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amuse-
ment. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to
raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and
gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am
always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy;
and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and
solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and
delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with
those objects, which others consider with terror. When I
look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies
in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every in-
ordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of
parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion;
when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the
vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow:
when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I
consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that
divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect
with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, fac-
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 85
tions and debates of mankind. When I read the several
dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some
six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we
shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance
together.
THE SPECTATOR CLUB
BY
SIR RICHARD STEELE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), Addison's chief collaborator
in the "Tatler" and the "Spectator," was born in Dublin of
an English father and an Irish mother. He made Addison's
acquaintance at school, and they were at Oxford together. Steele
left the University to enter the army, and opened his literary
career, zvhile still a soldier, with "The Christian Hero." In 1702
he began to write for the stage, and was of notable influence in
redeeming the English drama from the indecency which had
marked much of it since the Restoration. Like Addison, he com-
bined politics with literature, and in 1715 was knighted as a
reward for his services to the Hanoverian party.
The chief glory of the "Spectator" is, of course, the club,
and it was in the essay which follows that Steele first sketched
the characters composing it. The Spectator himself was Addi-
son's creation, and Addison also elaborated Sir Roger, though
Steele originated him. Whatever may be the respective claims
of Addison and Steele to the credit for the success of the "Spec-
tator" it is to Steele that the honor belongs of having founded
its predecessor, the "Tatler," and so of originating the periodical
essay.
Steele was a warm-hearted, impulsive man, full of sentiment,
improvident, and somewhat weak of will. These qualities are
reflected in his writings, which are inferior to Addison's in grace
and finish, but are marked by greater spontaneity and invention.
Probably no piece of writing of equal length has added so many
portraits to the gallery of our literature as the first sketch of
the Spectator Club which is here printed.
88
THE SPECTATOR CLUB'
Ast alii sex
Et plures uno conclamant ore.
— Juvenal, " Satires," vii. 166.
Six more at least join their consenting voice.
THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcester-
shire, of an ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir
Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfather was in-
ventor of that famous country-dance which is called after
him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with
the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is
very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed
from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners
of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong.
However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does
nothing with sourness or obstinacy ; and his being unconfined
to modes and forms makes him but the readier and more
capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is
in town he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself
a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse
beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this dis-
appointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman,
had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George
Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and
kicked bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling
him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned
widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and
though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over
it, he grew careless of himself and never dressed afterwards.
He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut
that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his
1 Published in "The Spectator," March i, 1711.
90 SIR RICHARD STEELE
merry humors, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times
since he first wore it. It is said Sir Roger grew humble in
his desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch
that it is reported he has frequently offended with beggars
and gypsies ; but this is looked upon, by his friends, rather as
matter of raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty-sixth
year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in
town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is
such a mirthful cast in his behavior, that he is rather be-
loved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants
look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and
the young men are glad of his company. When he comes
into a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks
all the way upstairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger
is a justice of the quorum ; that he fills the chair at a quarter-
session with great abilities, and three months ago gained
universal applause, by explaining a passage in the Game Act.
The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is
another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a
man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has
chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of
an old humorsome father than in pursuit of his own inclina-
tions. He was placed there to study the laws of the land,
and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the
stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood
by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every
post questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and ten-
ures, in the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees
with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump.
He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be
inquiring into the debates among men which arise from
them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of
Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of
our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool ; but none,
except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit.
This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agree-
able. As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they
are most of them fit for conversation. His taste for books is
a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but
approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs,
THE SPECTATOR CLUB 91
manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a
very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present
world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is
his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New-
Inn, crosses through Russell-court, and takes a turn at Will's
till the play begins ; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig
powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for
the good of the audience when he is at the play, for the
actors have an ambition to please him.
The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport,
a merchant of great eminence in the city of London; a per-
son of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experi-
ence. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as
every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which
would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls
the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with com-
merce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and
barbarous way to extend dominion by arms ; for true power
is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue that,
if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain
from one nation; and if another, from another. I have
heard him prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisi-
tions than valor, and that sloth has ruined more nations than
the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst
which the greatest favorite is, " A penny saved is a penny
got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter com-
pany than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a
natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse
gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He
has made his fortune himself; and says that England may
be richer than other kingdoms by as plain methods as he
himself is richer than other men; though at the same time
I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the com-
pass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.
Next to Sir Andrew in the clubroom sits Captain Sentry,
a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but in-
vincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well,
but are very awkward at putting their talents within the
observation of such as should take notice of them. He was
some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gal-
92 SIR RICHARD STEELE
lantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but
having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir
Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise
suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as
well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament that, in a
profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view,
impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has
talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour ex-
pression, but frankly confess that he left the world because
he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular
behavior are in themselves obstacles to him that must press
through crowds, who endeavor at the same end with himself,
the favor of a commander. He will, however, in his way
of talk excuse generals for not disposing according to men's
dessert, or inquiring into it ; for, says he, that great man who
has a mind to help me has as many to break through to come
to me as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude
that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military
way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron
against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper
assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil
cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to
expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when
it is your duty. With this candor does the gentleman speak
of himself and others. The same frankness runs through
all his conversation. The military part of his life has fur-
nished him with many adventures, in the relation of which
he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never over-
bearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost
degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit
of obeying men highly above him.
But that our society may not appear a set of humorists,2
unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age,
we have amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentle-
man who, according to his years, should be in the decline of
his life ; but having ever been very careful of his person, and
always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very
little impression either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces
on his brain. His person is well turned, and of a good
8 Whimsical characters.
THE SPECTATOR CLUB 93
height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with
which men usually entertain women. He has all his life
dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men.
He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily.
He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you
from which of the French king's wenches our wives and
daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of
placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by such a
sort of a petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot mad«
that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word,
all his conversation and knowledge have been in the female
world. As other men of his age will take notice to you
what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion,
he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at
court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken
with him at the head of his troop in the park. In all these
important relations, he has ever about the same time received
a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated
beauty, mother of the present Lord Such-a-one. If you
speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the
House, he starts up, " He has good blood in his veins ; Tom
Mirable begot him ; the rogue cheated me in that affair ; that
young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any
woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of
his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more
sedate turn, and I find there is not one of the company, but
myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that
sort of a man who is usually called a well-bred fine gentle-
man. To conclude his character, where women are not con-
cerned, he is an honest worthy man.
I cannot tell whether I am to account Him, whom I am next
to speak of, as one of our company ; for he visits us but sel-
dom, but when he does, it adds to every man else a new en-
joyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic
man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most
exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very
weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such
cares and business as preferments in his function would
oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a
chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his
94
SIR RICHARD STEELE
mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as
being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom intro-
duces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in
years that he observes, when he is among us, an earnestness
to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always
treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in
this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his
wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities.
These are my ordinary companions.
HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON
CONVERSATION
A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS
AND GOOD BREEDING
A LETTER OF ADVICE TO A
YOUNG POET
ON THE DEATH OF
ESTHER JOHNSON
[STELLA]
BY
JONATHAN SWIFT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), one of the greatest of English
satirists, was born in Dublin and educated for the church at
Trinity College in the same city. At the age of twenty-two he
became secretary to Sir William Temple, to whom he was re-
lated, and whose works he edited. During his residence with
Temple he wrote his "Tale of a Tub" and the "Battle of the
Books"; and on Temple's death he returned to Ireland, where he
held several livings. During his secretaryship he had gained a
knowledge of English politics, and in 1710 he left the Whig
party and went over to the Tories, becoming their ablest pen at
a time when pamphleteering was an important means of influenc-
ing politics. He was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin,
by Queen Anne in 1713, and on the fall of the Tories he retired
to Ireland. He continued to write voluminously on political, lit-
erary, and ecclesiastical topics, his best known work, "Gulliver's
Travels," being a political allegory. Several years before his
death his brain became diseased, and he suffered terribly till
his mind was almost totally eclipsed.
A fuller account of Swift's life and an estimate of his char-
acter will be found in the essay by Thackeray in another volume
of the Harvard Classics.
In the first three of Szvift's writings here printed will be
found good examples of his treatment of social and literary
questions. The ironical humor running through these frequently
became, when he dealt with subjects on which he felt keenly,
incredibly savage and at times extremely coarse; but for the
power of his invective and the effectiveness of his sarcasm there
is hardly a parallel in the language. The fourth paper deals with
the death of Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of his Journal, whom
he had known from the days when he lived with Temple, and to
whom it has been supposed that he was married.
96
HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY
ON CONVERSATION
I HAVE observed few obvious subjects to have been so
seldom, or, at least, so slightly handled as this; and,
indeed, I know few so difficult to be treated as it ought,
nor yet upon which there seemeth so much to be said.
Most things, pursued by men for the happiness of public
or private life, our wit or folly have so refined, that they
seldom subsist but in idea; a true friend, a good marriage,
a perfect form of government, with some others, require so
many ingredients, so good in their several kinds, and so
much niceness in mixing them, that for some thousands of
years men have despaired of reducing their schemes to per-
fection. But, in conversation, it is, or might be otherwise;
for here we are only to avoid a multitude of errors, which,
although a matter of some difficulty, may be in every man's
power, for want of which it remaineth as mere an idea as the
other. Therefore it seemeth to me, that the truest way to
understand conversation, is to know the faults and errors to
which it is subject, and from thence every man to form
maxims to himself whereby it may be regulated, because it
requireth few talents to which most men are not born, or
at least may not acquire without any great genius or study.
For nature hath left every man a capacity of being agree-
able, though not of shining in company; and there are an
hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very
few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not
so much as tolerable.
I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject
by mere indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent
a pleasure, so fitted for every period and condition of life.
HC 97 Vol. 27—4
98 JONATHAN SWIFT
and so much in all men's power, should be so much neglected
and abused.
And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those
errors that are obvious, as well as others which are seldomer
observed, since there are few so obvious, or acknowledged,
into which most men, some time or other, are not apt to
run.
For instance : Nothing is more generally exploded than the
folly of talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have
seen five people together, where some one among them hath
not been predominant in that kind, to the great constraint
and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in mul-
titudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate
talker, who proceedeth with much thought and caution,
maketh his preface, brancheth out into several digressions,
findeth a hint that putteth him in mind of another story,
which he promiseth to tell you when this is done; cometh
back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind
some person's name, holding his head, complaineth of his
memory; the whole company all this while in suspense; at
length says, it is no matter, and so goes on. And, to crown
the business, it perhaps proveth at last a story the company
hath heard fifty times before; or, at best, some insipid
adventure of the relater.
Another general fault in conversation is, that of those who
affect to talk of themselves: Some, without any ceremony,
will run over the history of their lives ; will relate the annals
of their diseases, with the several symptoms and circum-
stances of them; will enumerate the hardships and injustice
they have suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in
law. Others are more dexterous, and with great art will lie
on the watch to hook in their own praise: They will call a
witness to remember they always foretold what would hap-
pen in such a case, but none would believe them ; they
advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the
consequences, just as they happened; but he would have his
own way. Others make a vanity of telling their faults ; they
are the strangest men in the world ; they cannot dissemble ;
they own it is a folly; they have lost abundance of advan-
tages by it; but, if you would give them the world, they can-
ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 99
not help it; there is something in their nature that abhors
insincerity and constraint; with many other insufferable
topics of the same altitude.
Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and
ready to think he is so to others; without once making this
easy and obvious reflection, that his affairs can have no
more weight with other men, than theirs have with him;
and how little that is, he is sensible enough.
Where company hath met, I often have observed two
persons discover, by some accident, that they were bred
together at the same school or university, after which the
rest are condemned to silence, and to listen while these two
are refreshing each other's memory with the arch tricks
and passages of themselves and their comrades.
I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some
time with a supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger
and contempt for those who are talking; at length of a
sudden demand audience, decide the matter in a short dog-
matical way; then withdraw within himself again, and
vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits circulate again
to the same point.
There are some faults in conversation, which none are so
subject to as the men of wit, nor ever so much as when they
are with each other. If they have opened their mouths,
without endeavouring to say a witty thing, they think it is
so many words lost : It is a torment to the hearers, as much
as to themselves, to see them upon the rack for invention,
and in perpetual constraint, with so little success. They
must do something extraordinary, in order to acquit them-
selves, and answer their character, else the standers-by may
be disappointed and be apt to think them only like the rest
of mortals. I have known two men of wit industriously
brought together, in order to entertain the company, where
they have made a very ridiculous figure, and provided all the
mirth at their own expense.
I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can
be allowed to dictate and preside: he neither expecteth to
be informed or entertained, but to display his own talents.
His business is to be good company, and not good con-
versation; and therefore, he chooseth to frequent those who
100 JONATHAN SWIFT
are content to listen, and profess themselves his admirers.
And, indeed, the worst conversation I ever remember to
have heard in my life, was that at Will's coffeehouse, where
the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble;
that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays, or at least
prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and
entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so
important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of
human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on
them; and they were usually attended with an humble
audience of young students from the inns of court, or the
universities, who, at due distance, listened to these oracles,
and returned home with great contempt for their law and
philosophy, their heads filled with trash, under the name of
politeness, criticism and belles lettres.
By these means the poets, for many years past, were all
overrun with pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not
properly used; because pedantry is the too frequent or
unseasonable obtruding our own knowledge in common dis-
course, and placing too great a value upon it; by which
definition, men of the court or the army may be as guilty of
pedantry as a philosopher or a divine; and, it is the same
vice in women, when they are over copious upon the subject
of their petticoats, or their fans, or their china. For which
reason, although it be a piece of prudence, as well as good
manners, to put men upon talking on subjects they are best
versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise man could hardly take ;
because, beside the imputation of pedantry, it is what he
would never improve by.
The great town is usually provided with some player,
mimic or buffoon, who hath a general reception at the good
tables; familiar and domestic with persons of the first
quality, and usually sent for at every meeting to divert the
company; against which I have no objection. . You go there
as to a farce or a puppetshow ; your business is only to laugh
in season, either out of inclination or civility, while this
merry companion is acting his part. It is a business he hath
undertaken, and we are to suppose he is paid for his day's
work. I only quarrel, when in select and private meetings,
where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an even-
ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 101
ing, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of
tricks, and make the whole company unfit for any other con-
versation, besides the indignity of confounding men's talents
at so shameful a rate.
Raillery is the finest part of conversation ; but, as it is our
usual custom to counterfeit and adulterate whatever is too
dear for us, so we have done with this, and turned it all
into what is generally called repartee, or being smart; just
as when an expensive fashion cometh up, those who are not
able to reach it, content themselves with some paltry imita-
tion. It now passeth for raillery to run a man down in dis-
course, to put him out of countenance, and make him ridicu-
lous, sometimes to expose the defects of his person or
understanding; on all which occasions he is obliged not to
be angry, to avoid the imputation of not being able to take
a jest. It is admirable to observe one who is dexterous at
this art, singling out a weak adversary, getting the laugh on
his side, and then carrying all before him. The French, from
whence we borrow the word, have a quite different idea of
the thing, and so had we in the politer age of our fathers.
Raillery was to say something that at first appeared a
reproach or reflection ; but, by some turn of wit unexpected
and surprising, ended always in a compliment, and to the.
advantage of the person it was addressed to. And surely
one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing
which any of the company can reasonably wish we had
rather left unsaid; nor can there anything be well more
contrary to the ends for which people meet together, than
to part unsatisfied with each other or themselves.
There are two faults in conversation, which appear very
different, yet arise from the same root, and are equally
blameable; I mean, an impatience to interrupt others, and
the uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves. The two chief
ends of conversation are to entertain and improve those we
are among, or to receive those benefits ourselves; which
whoever will consider, cannot easily run into either of those
two errors; because when any man speaketh in company,
it is to be supposed he doth it for his hearers' sake, and
not his own; so that common discretion will teach us not
to force their attention, if they are not willing to lend it;
102 JONATHAN SWIFT
nor on the other side, to interrupt him who is in possession,
because that is in the grossest manner to give the preference
to our own good sense.
There are some people, whose good manners will not suffer
them to interrupt you; but, what is almost as bad, will dis-
cover abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until
you have done, because they have started something in their
own thoughts which they long to be delivered of. Mean-
time, they are so far from regarding what passes, that their
imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in
reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus
they confine their invention, which might otherwise range
over a hundred things full as good, and that might be much
more naturally introduced.
There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by
practising among their intimates, have introduced into their
general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent
freedom or humour, which is a dangerous experiment in our
northern climate, where all the little decorum and politeness
we have are purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse
into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of
slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It
seemeth to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who,
by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court enter-
tainment, of which I have heard many particulars ; and, consid-
ering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable
and judicious: Although it was a piece of policy found out
to ridicule a point of honour in the other extreme, when the
smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel.
There are some men excellent at telling a story, and pro-
vided with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw
out upon occasion in all companies; and, considering how
low conversation runs now among us, it is not altogether a
contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoid-
able defects ; frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted ;
so that whoever valueth this gift in himself, hath need of a
good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company,
that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those
who are thus endowed, have seldom any other revenue, but
live upon the main stock.
ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 103
Great speakers in public, are seldom agreeable in private
conversation, whether their faculty be natural, or acquired
by practice, and often venturing. Natural elocution, although
it may seem a paradox, usually springeth from a barrenness
of invention and of words, by which men who have only one
stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases
to express them in, they swim upon the superfices, and offer
themselves on every occasion ; therefore, men of much learn-
ing, and who know the compass of a language, are generally
the worst talkers on a sudden, until much practice hath in-
ured and emboldened them, because they are confounded
with plenty of matter, variety of notions, and of words, which
they cannot readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled
by too great a choice; which is no disadvantage in private
conversation; where, on the other side, the talent of ha-
ranguing is, of all others, most insupportable.
Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation, than
the character of being wits, to support which, they never
fail of encouraging a number of followers and admirers, who
list themselves in their service, wherein they find their ac-
counts on both sides, by pleasing their mutual vanity. This
hath given the former such an air of superiority, and made
the latter so pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be
endured. I say nothing here of the itch of dispute and con-
tradiction, telling of lies, or of those who are troubled with
the disease called the wandering of the thoughts, that they
are never present in mind at what passeth in discourse; for
whoever labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit
for conversation as a madman in Bedlam.
I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversa-
tion, that have fallen under my notice or memory, except
some that are merely personal, and others too gross to need
exploding; such as lewd or profane talk; but I pretend only
to treat the errors of conversation in general, and not the
several subjects of discourse, which would be infinite. Thus
we see how human nature is most debased, by the abuse of
that faculty, which is held the great distinction between men
and brutes; and how little advantage we make of that which
might be the greatest, the most lasting, and the most inno-
cent, as well as useful pleasure of life. In default of which,
104 JONATHAN SWIFT
we are forced to take up with those poor amusements of
dress and visiting, or the more pernicious ones of play,
drink, and vicious amours, whereby the nobility and gentry
of both sexes are entirely corrupted both in body and mind,
and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship, gener-
osity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for
some time laughed out of doors.
This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious con-
sequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions, hath
been owing, among other causes, to the custom arisen, for
sometime past, of excluding women from any share in our
society, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the
pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness
in England (and it is of the same date in France) to have
been the peaceable part of King Charles the First's reign;
and from what we read of those times, as well as from the
accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in
that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating
conversation, were altogether different from ours. Several
ladies, whom, we find celebrated by the poets of that age,
had assemblies at their houses, where persons of the best
understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass the evenings
in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were occa-
sionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the
sublime platonic notions they had, or personated in love
and friendship, I conceive their refinements were grounded
upon reason, and that a little grain of the romance is no
ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human
nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything
that is sordid, vicious and low. If there were no other use
in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay
a restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and in-
decencies, into which the rudeness of our northern genius is
so apt to fall. And, therefore, it is observable in those
sprightly gentlemen about the town, who are so very dex-
terous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or the play-
house, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour,
they are silent and disconcerted, and out of their element.
There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit
themselves and entertain their company with relating of
ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 105
facts of no consequence, nor at all out of the road of such
common incidents as happen every day; and this I have
observed more frequently among the Scots than any other
nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest cir-
cumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse,
if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and
phrases, as well as accent and gesture, peculiar to that
country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in
company to talk much ; but to continue it long is certainly
one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be
naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, un-
less it be often renewed by one among them, who can start
new subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but
leaveth room for answers and replies.
A TREATISE ON
GOOD MANNERS AND
GOOD BREEDING
GOOD manners is the art of making those people easy
with whom we converse.
Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the
best bred in the company.
As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best
manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreason-
able things into common law, so likewise many teachers have
introduced absurd things into common good manners.
One principal point of this art is to suit our behaviour to
the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals,
and those below us.
For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or
drink is a breach of manners; but a farmer or a tradesman
must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade
them that they are welcome.
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great
sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects,
no man will behave himself ill for want of experience; or
of what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the
world.
I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will
not direct us what we are to say or do in company, if we
are not misled by pride or ill nature.
Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal founda-
tion of good manners ; but because the former is a gift which
very few among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the
civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some
rules for common behaviour, best suited to their general
106
A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS 107
customs, or fancies, as a kind of artificial good sense, to
supply the defects of reason. Without which the gentle-
manly part of dunces would be perpetually at cuffs, as they
seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in
squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked,
there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be
imputed to one of those three motives. Upon which account,
I should be exceedingly sorry to find the legislature make
any new laws against the practice of duelling; because the
methods are easy and many for a wise man to avoid a
quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I
can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers,
and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method
of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an
expedient.
As the common forms of good manners were intended for
regulating the conduct of those who have weak understand-
ings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose
use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into
a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which
have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them,
and insupportable to everybody else: insomuch that wise
men are often more uneasy at the over civility of these
refiners, than they could possibly be in the conversations of
peasants or mechanics.
The impertinencies of this ceremonial behaviour are no-
where better seen than at those tables where ladies preside,
who value themselves upon account of their good breeding;
where a man must reckon upon passing an hour without
doing any one thing he has a mind to; unless he will be so
hardy to break through all the settled decorum of the family.
She determines what he loves best, and how much he shall
eat; and if the master of the house happens to be of the
same disposition, he proceeds in the same tyrannical manner
to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time, you are
under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for
your entertainment. And although a good deal of this
humour is pretty well worn off among many people of the
best fashion, yet too much of it still remains, especially in
the country; where an honest gentleman assured me, that
108 JONATHAN SWIFT
having been kept four days, against his will, at a friend's
house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots, lock-
ing up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature,
he could not remember, from the moment he came into
the house to the moment he left it, any one thing, wherein
his inclination was not directly contradicted ; as if the whole
family had entered into a combination to torment him.
But, besides all this, it would be endless to recount the
many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have observed
among these unfortunate proselytes to ceremony. I have
seen a duchess fairly knocked down, by the precipitancy of
an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of
opening a door. I remember, upon a birthday at court, a
great lady was utterly desperate by a dish of sauce let fall
by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while
she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some point of
ceremony with the person who sat next her. Monsieur
Buys, the Dutch envoy, whose politics and manners were
much of a size, brought a son with him, about thirteen years
old, to a great table at court. The boy and his father, what-
ever they put on their plates, they first offered round in order,
to every person in the company; so that we could not get a
minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two
plates happened to encounter, and with so much violence,
that, being china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained
half the company with wet sweetmeats and cream.
There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and sciences ;
and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the over-
rating any kind of knowledge we pretend to. And if that
kind of knowledge be a trifle in itself, the pedantry is the
greater. For which reason I look upon fiddlers, dancing-
masters, heralds, masters of the ceremony, &c. to be greater
pedants than Lipsius, or the elder Scaliger. With these kind
of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully
stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least) in-
clusive, downward to the gentleman porter; who are, gener-
ally speaking, the most insignificant race of people that
this island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good
manners, which is the only trade they profess. For being
wholly illiterate, and conversing chiefly with each other, they
A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS 109
reduce the whole system of breeding within the forms and
circles of their several offices; and as they are below the
notice of ministers, they live and die in court under all
revolutions with great obsequiousness to those who are in
any degree of favour or credit, and with rudeness or inso-
lence to everybody else. Whence I have long concluded,
that good manners are not a plant of the court growth:
for if they were, those people who have understandings
directly of a level for such acquirements, and who have
served such long apprenticeships to nothing else, would cer-
tainly have picked them up. For as to the great officers,
who attend the prince's person or councils, or preside in
his family, they are a transient body, who have no better
a title to good manners than their neighbours, nor will
probably have recourse to gentlemen ushers for instruction.
So that I know little to be learnt at court upon this head,
except in the material circumstance of dress; wherein the
authority of the maids of honour must indeed be allowed
to be almost equal to that of a favourite actress.
I remember a passage my Lord Bolingbroke told me, that
going to receive Prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in
order to conduct him immediately to the Queen, the prince
said, he was much concerned that he could not see her
Majesty that night; for Monsieur Hoffman (who was then
by) had assured his Highness that he could not be admitted
into her presence with a tied-up periwig; that his equipage
was not arrived; and that he had endeavoured in vain to
borrow a long one among all his valets and pages. My
lord turned the matter into a jest, and brought the Prince
to her Majesty; for which he was highly censured by the
whole tribe of gentlemen ushers; among whom Monsieur
Hoffman, an old dull resident of the Emperor's, had picked
up this material point of ceremony; and which, I believe,
was the best lesson he had learned in five-and-twenty years'
residence.
I make a difference between good manners and good
breeding; although, in order to vary my expression, I am
sometimes forced to confound them. By the first, I only
understand the art of remembering and applying certain
settled forms of general behaviour. But good breeding is
110 JONATHAN SWIFT
of a much larger extent; for besides an uncommon degree
of literature sufficient to qualify a gentleman for reading
a play, or a political pamphlet, it takes in a great compass of
knowledge; no less than that of dancing, fighting, gaming,
making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse, and speak-
ing French; not to mention some other secondary, or sub-
altern accomplishments, which are more easily acquired.
So that the difference between good breeding and good
manners lies in this, that the former cannot be attained to
by the best understandings, without study and labour;
whereas a tolerable degree of reason will instruct us in
every part of good manners, without other assistance.
I can think of nothing more useful upon this subject, than
to point out some particulars, wherein the very essentials
of good manners are concerned, the neglect or perverting
of which doth very much disturb the good commerce of the
world, by introducing a traffic of mutual uneasiness in most
companies.
First, a necessary part of good manners, is a punctual
observance of time at our own dwellings, or those of others,
or at third places ; whether upon matter of civility, business,
or diversion; which rule, though it be a plain dictate of
common reason, yet the greatest minister I ever knew was
the greatest trespasser against it; by which all his business
doubled upon him, and placed him in a continual arrear.
Upon which I often used to rally him, as deficient in point
of good manners. I have known more than one ambassador,
and secretary of state with a very moderate portion of in-
tellectuals, execute their offices with good success and
applause, by the mere force of exactness and regularity. If
you duly observe time for the service of another, it doubles
the obligation; if upon your own account, it would be mani-
fest folly, as well as ingratitude, to neglect it. If both are
concerned, to make your equal or inferior attend on you,
to his own disadvantage, is pride and injustice.
Ignorance of forms cannot properly be styled ill man-
ners; because forms are subject to frequent changes; and
consequently, being not founded upon reason, are beneath a
wise man's regard. Besides, they vary in every country ; and
after a short period of time, very frequently in the same;
A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS 111
so that a man who travels, must needs be at first a stranger
to them in every court through which he passes ; and perhaps
at his return, as much a stranger in his own; and after all,
they are easier to be remembered or forgotten than faces
or names.
Indeed, among the many impertinencies that superficial
young men bring with them from abroad, this bigotry of
forms is one of the principal, and more prominent than the
rest; who look upon them not only as if they were matters
capable of admitting of choice, but even as points of impor-
tance; and are therefore zealous on all occasions to introduce
and propagate the new forms and fashions they have
brought back with them. So that, usually speaking, the
worst bred person in the company is a young traveller just
returned from abroad.
A LETTER OF ADVICE TO A
YOUNG POET
Sir,
AS I have always professed a friendship for you, and
l\ have therefore been more inquisitive into your conduct
-* — *-and studies than is usually agreeable to young men, so I
must own I am not a little pleased to find, by your last ac-
count, that you have entirely bent your thoughts to English
poetry, with design to make it your profession and business.
Two reasons incline me to encourage you in this study ; one,
the narrowness of your present circumstances ; the other, the
great use of poetry to mankind and society, and in every
employment of life. Upon these views, I cannot but com-
mend your wise resolution to withdraw so early from other
unprofitable and severe studies, and betake yourself to that,
which, if you have good luck, will advance your fortune, and
make you an ornament to your friends, and your country.
It may be your justification, and farther encouragement, to
consider, that history, ancient or modern, cannot furnish you
an instance of one person, eminent in any station, who was
not in some measure versed in poetry, or at least a well
wisher to the professors of it. Neither would I despair to
prove, if legally called thereto, that it is impossible to be a
good soldier, divine, or lawyer, or even so much as an eminent
bellman, or ballad-singer, without some taste of poetry, and
a competent skill in versification. But I say the less of this,
because the renowned Sir Philip Sidney has exhausted the
subject before me, in his " Defence of Poesie,"1 on which I
shall make no other remark but this, that he argues there as
if he really believed himself.
For my own part, having never made one verse since I was
1 See the first essay in this volume.
112
TO A YOUNG POET 113
at school, where I suffered too much for my blunders in
poetry, to have any love to it ever since, I am not able from
any experience of my own, to give you those instructions you
desire; neither will I declare (for I love to conceal my pas-
sions) how much I lament my neglect of poetry in those
periods of my life, which were properest for improvements in
that ornamental part of learning; besides, my age and in-
firmities might well excuse me to you, as being unqualified
to be your writing-master, with spectacles on, and a shaking
hand. However, that I may not be altogether wanting to
you in an affair of so much importance to your credit and
happiness, I shall here give you some scattered thoughts
upon the subject, such as I have gathered by reading and
observation.
There is a certain little instrument, the first of those in
use with scholars, and the meanest, considering the materials
of it, whether it be a joint of wheaten straw, (the old Ar-
cadian pipe) or just three inches of slender wire, or a
stripped feather, or a corking-pin. Furthermore, this same
diminutive tool, for the posture of it, usually reclines its head
on the thumb of the right hand, sustains the foremost finger
upon its breast, and is itself supported by the second. This
is commonly known by the name of a fescue; I shall here
therefore condescend to be this little elementary guide, and
point out some particulars which may be of use to you in
your hornbook of poetry.
In the first place, I am not yet convinced, that it is at all
necessary for a modern poet to believe in God, or have any
serious sense of religion; and in this article you must give
me leave to suspect your capacity; because religion being
what your mother taught you, you will hardly find it possible,
at least not easy, all at once to get over those early prejudices,
so far as to think it better to be a great wit than a good
Christian, though herein the general practice is against you ;
so that if, upon enquiry, you find in yourself any such soft-
nesses, owing to the nature of your education, my advice is,
that you forthwith lay down your pen, as having no further
business with it in the way of poetry; unless you will be
content to pass for an insipid, or will submit to be hooted
at by your fraternity, or can disguise your religion, as well-
114 JONATHAN SWIFT
bred men do their learning, in complaisance to company.
For poetry, as it has been managed for some years past,
by such as make a business of it, (and of such only I speak
here ; for I do not call him a poet that writes for his diver-
sion, any more than that gentleman a fiddler, who amuses
himself with a violin) I say our poetry of late has been
altogether disengaged from the narrow notions of virtue and
piety, because it has been found by experience of our pro-
fessors, that the smallest quantity of religion, like a single
drop of malt liquor in claret, will muddy and discompose the
brightest poetical genius.
Religion supposes heaven and hell, the word of God, and
sacraments, and twenty other circumstances, which, taken
seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour, and such
as a true poet cannot possibly give in to, with a saving to his
poetical licence; but yet it is necessary for him, that others
should believe those things seriously, that his wit may be exer-
cised on their wisdom, for so doing : For though a wit need not
have religion, religion is necessary to a wit, as an instrument
is to the hand that plays upon it : And for this the moderns
plead the example of their great idol Lucretius, who had not
been by half so eminent a poet (as he truly was), but that he
stood tiptoe on religion, Religio pedibus subjecta, and by that
rising ground had the advantage of all the poets of his
own or following times, who were not mounted on the same
pedestal.
Besides, it is further to be observed, that Petronius, an-
other of their favourites, speaking of the qualifications of a
good poet, insists chiefly on the liber spiritus; by which I
have been ignorant enough heretofore to suppose he meant, a
good invention, or great compass of thought, or a sprightly
imagination : But I have learned a better construction, from
the opinion and practice of the moderns ; and taking it liter-
ally for a free spirit, i.e. a spirit, or mind, free or disengaged
from all prejudices concerning God, religion, and another
world, it is to me a plain account why our present set of
poets are, and hold themselves obliged to be, free thinkers.
But although I cannot recommend religion upon the
practice of some of our most eminent English poets, yet I
can justly advise you, from their example, to be conversant
TO A YOUNG POET 115
in the Scriptures, and, if possible, to make yourself entirely
master of them: In which, however, I intend nothing less
than imposing upon you a task of piety. Far be it from me
to desire you to believe them, or lay any great stress upon
their authority, (in that you may do as you think fit) but to
read them as a piece of necessary furniture for a wit and
a poet; which is a very different view from that of a Chris-
tian. For I have made it my observation, that the greatest
wits have been the best textuaries. Our modern poets are,
all to a man, almost as well read in the Scriptures as some
of our divines, and often abound more with the phrase.
They have read them historically, critically, musically, comic-
ally, poetically, and every other way, except religiously, and
have found their account in doing so. For the Scriptures
are undoubtedly a fund of wit, and a subject for wit. You
may, according to the modern practice, be witty upon them or
out of them. And to speak the truth, but for them I know
not what our playwrights would do for images, allusions,
similitudes, examples, or even language itself. Shut up the
sacred books, and I would be bound our wit would run down
like an alarum, or fall as the stocks did, and ruin half the
poets in these kingdoms. And if that were the case, how
would most of that tribe, (all, I think, but the immortal Ad-
dison, who made a better use of his Bible, and a few more)
who dealt so freely in that fund, rejoice that they had drawn
out in time, and left the present generation of poets to be
the bubbles !
But here I must enter one caution, and desire you to take no-
tice, that in this advice of reading the Scriptures, I had not the
leastthoughtconcerningyourqualification that way for poetical
orders ; which I mention, because I find a notion of that kind ad-
vanced by one of our English poets, and is, I suppose, main-
tained by the rest. He says to Spenser, in a pretended vision,
With hands laid on, ordain me fit
For the great cure and ministry of wit.
Which passage is, in my opinion, a notable allusion to the
Scriptures; and, making (but reasonable) allowances for the
small circumstances of profaneness, bordering close upon
blasphemy, is inimitably fine; besides some useful discover-
116 JONATHAN SWIFT
ies made in it, as, that there are bishops in poetry, that these
bishops must ordain young poets, and with laying on hands ;
and that poetry is a cure of souls ; and, consequently speaking,
those who have such cures ought to be poets, and too often
are so. And indeed, as of old, poets and priests were one
and the same function, the alliance of those ministerial offices
is to this day happily maintained in the same persons; and
this I take to be the only justifiable reason for that appella-
tion which they so much affect, I mean the modest title of
divine poets. However, having never been present at the
ceremony of ordaining to the priesthood of poetry, I own I
have no notion of the thing, and shall say the less of it here.
The Scriptures then being generally both the fountain and
subject of modern wit, I could do no less than give them the
preference in your reading. After a thorough acquaintance
with them, I would advise you to turn your thoughts to
human literature, which yet I say more in compliance with
vulgar opinions, than according to my own sentiments.
For, indeed, nothing has surprised me more, than to see the
prejudices of mankind as to this matter of human learning,
who have generally thought it necessary to be a good scholar,
in order to be a good poet; than which nothing is falser in
fact, or more contrary to practice and experience. Neither
will I dispute the matter, if any man will undertake to shew
me one professed poet now in being, who is anything of what
may be justly called a scholar; or is the worse poet for that,
but perhaps the better, for being so little encumbered with
the pedantry of learning. Tis true, the contrary was the
opinion of our forefathers, which we of this age have devo-
tion enough to receive from them on their own terms, and
unexamined, but not sense enough to perceive 'twas a gross
mistake in them. So Horace had told us :
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons,
Rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae.2
Hor. de Art. Poet. 309.
But to see the different casts of men's heads, some not
inferior to that poet in understanding (if you will take their
own word for it), do see no consequence in this rule, and are
■Good sense, that fountain of the Muse's art,
Let the strong page of Socrates impart.
TO A YOUNG POET 117
not ashamed to declare themselves of a contrary opinion.
Do not many men write well in common account, who have
nothing of that principle? Many are too wise to be poets,
and others too much poets to be wise. Must a man, for-
sooth, be no less than a philosopher, to be a poet, when it is
plain, that some of the greatest idiots of the age, are our pret-
tiest performers that way? And for this, I appeal to the
judgment and observation of mankind. Sir Philip Sidney's
notable remark upon this nation, may not be improper to
mention here. He says, " In our neighbour country, Ireland,
where true learning goes very bare, yet are their poets
held in devout reverence;" which shews, that learning is no
way necessary either to the making a poet, or judging of him.
And further to see the fate of things, notwithstanding our
learning here is as bare as ever, yet are our poets not held,
as formerly, in devout reverence, but are perhaps the most
contemptible race of mortals now in this kingdom, which is
no less to be wondered at, than lamented.
Some of the old philosophers were poets (as according to
the forementioned author, Socrates and Plato were; which,
however, is what I did not know before) but that does not
say, that all poets are, or that any need be philosophers, other-
wise than as those are so called who are a little out at the
elbows. In which sense the great Shakespeare might have
been a philosopher ; but was no scholar, yet was an excellent
poet. Neither do I think a late most judicious critic so
much mistaken, as others do, in advancing this opinion, that
" Shakespeare had been a worse poet, had he been a better
scholar." And Sir William Davenant is another instance in
the same kind. Nor must it be forgotten, that Plato was an
avowed enemy to poets, which is perhaps the reason why
poets have been always at enmity with his profession; and
have rejected all learning and philosophy for the sake of that
one philosopher. As I take the matter, neither philosophy, nor
any part of learning, is more necessary to poetry, (which, if
you will believe the same author, is " the sum of all learn-
ing ") than to know the theory of light, and the several pro-
portions and diversifications of it in particular colours, is to
a good painter.
Whereas therefore, a certain author, called Petronius
118 JONATHAN SWIFT
Arbiter, going upon the same mistake, has confidently de-
clared, that one ingredient of a good poet, is, " mens ingenti
liter arum Uumine inundata;"* I do, on the contrary, declare,
that this his assertion (to speak of it in the softest terms) is
no better than an invidious and unhandsome reflection on
all the gentlemen-poets of these times; for, with his good
leave, much less than a flood, or inundation, will serve the
turn; and, to my certain knowledge, some of our greatest
wits in your poetical way, have not as much real learning as
would cover a sixpence in the bottom of a basin; nor do I
think the worse of them.
For, to speak my private opinion, I am for every man's
working upon his own materials, and producing only what
he can find within himself, which is commonly a better stock
than the owner knows it to be. I think flowers of wit ought
to spring, as those in a garden do, from their own root and
stem, without foreign assistance. I would have a man's wit
rather like a fountain, that feeds itself invisibly, than a
river, that is supplied by several streams from abroad.
Or if it be necessary, as the case is with some barren wits,
to take in the thoughts of others, in order to draw forth
their own, as dry pumps will not play till water is thrown
into them ; in that necessity, I would recommend some of the
approved standard authors of antiquity for your perusal, as a
poet and a wit ; because maggots being what you look for, as
monkeys do for vermin in their keepers' heads, you will find
they abound in good old authors, as in rich old cheese, not
in the new; and for that reason you must have the classics,
especially the most worm-eaten of them, often in your hands.
But with this caution, that you are not to use *hose an-
cients as unlucky lads do their old fathers, and make no
conscience of picking their pockets and pillaging them. Your
business is not to steal from them, but to improve upon them,
and make their sentiments your own; which is an effect of
great judgment ; and though difficult, yet very possible, with-
out the scurvy imputation of filching. For I humbly conceive,
though I light my candle at my neighbour's fire, thM: does
not alter the property, or make the wick, the wax or the
flame, or the whole candle, less my own.
* " A mind flooded with a vast river of learning."
TO A YOUNG POET 119
Possibly you may think it a very severe task, to arrive at a
competent knowledge of so many of the ancients, as excel
in their way; and indeed it would be really so, but for the
short and easy method lately found out of abstracts, abridg-
ments, summaries, &c. which are admirable expedients for
being very learned with little or no reading; and have the
same use with burning-glasses, to collect the diffused rays of
wit and learning in authors, and make them point with
warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination. And to
this is nearly related that other modern device of consulting
indexes, which is to read books hebraically,* and begin where
others usually end ; and this is a compendious way of coming
to an acquaintance with authors. For authors are to be used
like lobsters, you must look for the best meat in the tails, and
lay the bodies back again in the dish. Your cunningest
thieves (and what else are readers, who only read to borrow,
i. e. to steal) use to cut off the portmanteau from behind,
without staying to dive into the pockets of the owner. Lastly,
you are taught thus much in the very elements of philosophy,
for one of the first rules in logic is, Finis est primus in
intentione*
The learned world is therefore most highly indebted to a
late painful and judicious editor of the classics, who has
laboured in that new way with exceeding felicity. Every
author by his management, sweats under himself, being over-
loaded with his own index, and carries, like a north-country
pedlar, all his substance and furniture upon his back, and with
as great variety of trifles. To him let all young students
make their compliments for so much time and pains saved in
the pursuit of useful knowledge; for whoever shortens a
road, is a benefactor to the public, and to every particular
person who has occasion to travel that way.
But to proceed. I have lamented nothing more in my time,
than the disuse of some ingenious little plays, in fashion with
young folks, when I was a boy, and to which the great facility
of that age, above ours, in composing was certainly owing;
and if anything has brought a damp upon the versification of
these times, we have no further than this to go for the cause
of it. Now could these sports be happily revived, I am of
4 That is, backwards. B " In intention the end is first."
120 JONATHAN SWIFT
opinion your wisest course would be to apply your thoughts to
them, and never fail to make a party when you can, in those
profitable diversions. For example, " Crambo " is of extraor-
dinary use to good rhyming, and rhyming is what I have
ever accounted the very essential of a good poet : And in that
notion I am not singular ; for the aforesaid Sir Philip Sidney
has declared, " That the chief life of modern versifying, con-
sisteth in the like sounding of words, which we call rhyme,"
which is an authority, either without exception, or above any
reply. Wherefore, you are ever to try a good poem as you
would a sound pipkin, and if it rings well upon the knuckle,
be sure there is no flaw in it. Verse without rhyme, is a
body without a soul, (for the "chief life consisteth in the
rhyme") or a bell without a clapper; which, in strictness,
is no bell, as being neither of use nor delight. And the
same ever honoured knight, with so musical an ear, had
that veneration for the tunableness and chiming of verse,
that he speaks of a poet as one that has " the reverend
title of a rhymer." Our celebrated Milton has done these
nations great prejudice in this particular, having spoiled as
many reverend rhymers, by his example, as he has made
real poets.
For which reason, I am overjoyed to hear, that a very
ingenious youth of this town [Dublin], is now upon the use-
ful design (for which he is never enough to be commended)
of bestowing rhyme upon Milton's Paradise Lost, which will
make your poem, in that only defective, more heroic and
sonorous than it has hitherto been. I wish the gentleman
success in the performance; and, as it is a work in which a
young man could not be more happily employed, or appear in
with greater advantage to his character, so I am concerned
that it did not fall out to be your province.
With much the same view, I would recommend to you
the witty play of " Pictures and Mottoes," which will furnish
your imagination with great store of images and suitable
devices. We of these kingdoms have found our account in
"*his diversion, as little as we consider or acknowledge it.
For to this we owe our eminent felicity in posies of rings,
mottoes of snuff-boxes, the humours of sign-posts with their
elegant inscriptions, &c. in which kind of productions not
TO A YOUNG POET 121
any nation in the world, no, not the Dutch themselves, will
presume to rival us.
For much the same reason, it may be proper for you to
have some insight into the play called, " What is it like?" as
of great use in common practice, to quicken slow capacities,
and improve the quickest. But the chief end of it is, to sup-
ply the fancy with variety of similes for all subjects. It
will teach you to bring things to a likeness, which have not
the least imaginable conformity in nature, which is properly
creation, and the very business of a poet, as his name implies;
and let me tell you, a good poet can no more be without a
stock of similes by him, than a shoemaker without his lasts.
He should have them sized, and ranged, and hung up in order
in his shop, ready for all customers, and shaped to the feet
of all sorts of verse. And here I could more fully (and I
long to do it) insist upon the wonderful harmony and resem-
blance between a poet and a shoemaker, in many circum-
stances common to both; such as the binding of their temples,
the stuff they work upon, and the paring-knife they use, &c.
but that I would not digress, nor seem to trifle in so serious
a matter.
Now I say, if you apply yourself to these diminutive sports
(not to mention others of equal ingenuity, such as Draw-
gloves, Cross purposes, Questions and commands, and the
rest) it is not to be conceived what benefit (of nature) you
will find by them, and how they will open the body of your
invention. To these devote your spare hours, or rather spare
all your hours to them, and then you will act as becomes a
wise man, and make even diversion an improvement ; like the
inimitable management of the bee, which does the whole busi-
ness of life at once, and at the same time both feeds, and
works, and diverts itself.
Your own prudence will, I doubt not, direct you to take
a place every evening amongst the ingenious, in the corner
of a certain coffeehouse in this town, where you will receive
a turn equally right as to wit, religion, and politics : As like-
wise to be as frequent at the playhouse as you can afford,
without selling your books. For in our chaste theatre, even
Cato himself might sit to the falling of the curtain : Besides,
you will sometimes meet with tolerable conversation amongst
122 JONATHAN SWIFT
the players; they are such a kind of men, as may pass upon
the same sort of capacities, for wits off the stage, as they do
for fine gentlemen upon it. Besides that, I have known a
factor deal in as good ware, and sell as cheap as the merchant
himself that employs him.
Add to this the expediency of furnishing out your shelves
with a choice collection of modern miscellanies, in the
gayest edition; and of reading all sorts of plays, especially
the new, and above all, those of our own growth, printed by
subscription ; in which article of Irish manufacture, I readily
agree to the late proposal, and am altogether for " rejecting
and renouncing everything that comes from England : " To
what purpose should we go thither either for coals or poetry,
when we have a vein within ourselves equally good and more
convenient? Lastly,
A common-place book is what a provident poet cannot
subsist without, for this proverbial reason, that " great wits
have short memories ; " and whereas, on the other hand,
poets being liars by profession, ought to have good memories.
To reconcile these, a book of this sort is in the nature of a
supplemental memory; or a record of what occurs remark-
able in every day's reading or conversation. There you enter
not only your own original thoughts, (which, a hundred to
one, are few and insignificant) but such of other men as you
think fit to make your own by entering them there. For
take this for a rule, when an author is in your books, you
have the same demand upon him for his wit, as a merchant
has for your money, when you are in his.
By these few and easy prescriptions (with the help of a
good genius) 'tis possible you may in a short time arrive at
the accomplishments of a poet, and shine in that character.
As for your manner of composing, and choice of subjects, I
cannot take upon me to be your director; but I will venture
to give you some short hints, which you may enlarge upon
at your leisure. Let me entreat you then, by no means to
lay aside that notion peculiar to our modern refiners in poetry,
which is, that a poet must never write or discourse as the
ordinary part of mankind do, but in number and verse, as an
oracle; which I mention the rather, because upon this prin-
ciple, I have known heroics brought into the pulpit, and a
TO A YOUNG POET 123
whole sermon composed and delivered in blank verse, to the
vast credit of the preacher, no less than the real entertain-
ment and great edification of the audience.
The secret of which I take to be this. When the matter
of such discourses is but mere clay, or, as we usually call it,
sad stuff, the preacher, who can afford no better, wisely
moulds, and polishes, and dries, and washes this piece of
earthen-ware, and then bakes it with poetic fire, after which
it will ring like any pancrock, and is a good dish to set before
common guests, as every congregation is, that comes so often
for entertainment to one place.
There was a good old custom in use, which our ancestors
had, of invoking the Muses at the entrance of their poems;
I suppose, by way of craving a blessing. This the graceless
moderns have in a great measure laid aside, but are not to
be followed in that poetical impiety; for although to nice
ears, such invocations may sound harsh and disagreeable (as
tuning instruments is before a concert) they are equally
necessary. Again, you must not fail to dress your muse in a
forehead cloth of Greek or Latin ; I mean, you are always to
make use of a quaint motto in all your compositions; for
besides that this artifice bespeaks the reader's opinion of the
writer's learning, it is otherwise useful and commendable.
A bright passage in the front of a poem, is a good mark, like
a star in a horse's face, and the piece will certainly go off the
better for it. The os magna sonaturum, which, if I remember
right, Horace makes one qualification of a good poet, may
teach you not to gag your muse, or stint yourself in words
and epithets (which cost you nothing) contrary to the prac-
tice of some few out-of-the-way writers, who use a natural
and concise expression, and affect a style like unto a Shrews-
bury cake, short and sweet upon the palate; they will not
afford you a word more than is necessary to make them
intelligible, which is as poor and niggardly, as it would be
to set down no more meat than your company will be sure
to eat up. Words are but lackeys to sense, and will dance
attendance, without wages or compulsion; Verba non invita
sequentur.
Farthermore, when you set about composing, it may be
necessary, for your ease and better distillation of wit, to put
124 JONATHAN SWIFT
on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an
author, like a limbick, will yield the better for having a
rag about him. Besides that, I have observed a gardener
cut the outward rind of a tree, (which is the surtout of it,)
to make it bear well: And this is a natural account of the
usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all
men living, ought to be ill clad. I have always a secret
veneration for any one I observe to be a little out of repair
in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher;
because the richest minerals are ever found under the most
ragged and withered surface of earth.
As for your choice of subjects, I have only to give you
this caution : That as a handsome way of praising is certainly
the most difficult point in writing or speaking, I would by no
means advise any young man to make his first essay in pane-
gyric, besides the danger of it : for a particular encomium is
ever attended with more ill-will, than any general invective,
for which I need give no reasons; wherefore, my counsel is,
that you use the point of your pen, not the feather ; let your
first attempt be a coup d'eclaf in the way of libel, lampoon,
or satire. Knock down half a score reputations, and you
will infallibly raise your own ; and so it be with wit, no matter
with how little justice; for fiction is your trade.
Every great genius seems to ride upon mankind, like
Pyrrhus on his elephant; and the way to have the absolute
ascendant of your resty nag, and to keep your seat, is, at
your first mcunting, to afford him the whip and spurs plenti-
fully; after which, you may travel the rest of the day with
great alacrity. Once kick the world, and the world and you
will live together at a reasonable good understanding. You
cannot but know, that these of your profession have been
called genus irritabile vatutn;7 and you will find it necessary
to qualify yourself for that waspish society, by exerting your
talent of satire upon the first occasion, and to abandon good-
nature, only to prove yourself a true poet, which you will
allow to be a valuable consideration : In a word, a young
robber is usually entered by a murder: A young hound is
blooded when he comes first into the field: A young bully
begins with killing his man: And a young poet must shew
• " A brilliant stroke." f " The irritable race of poets."
TO A YOUNG POET 125
his wit, as the other his courage, by cutting and slashing, and
laying about him, and banging mankind. Lastly,
It will be your wisdom to look out betimes for a good ser-
vice for your muse, according to her skill and qualifications,
whether in the nature of a dairymaid, a cook, or char-woman.
I mean, to hire out your pen to a party, which will afford
you both pay and protection ; and when you have to do with
the press, (as you will long to be there) take care to bespeak
an importunate friend, to extort your productions with an
agreeable violence ; and which, according to the cue between
you, you must surrender digito male pertinaci.8 There is a
decency in this; for it no more becomes an author, in mod-
esty, to have a hand in publishing his own works, than a
woman in labour to lay herself.
I would be very loth to give the least umbrage of offence
by what I have here said, as I may do, if I should be thought
to insinuate that these circumstances of good writing have
been unknown to, or not observed by, the poets of this king-
dom. I will do my countrymen the justice to say, they have
written by the foregoing rules with great exactness, and so
far, as hardly to come behind those of their profession in
England, in perfection of low writing. The sublime, indeed,
is not so common with us; but ample amends is made for
that want, in great abundance of the admirable and amazing,
which appears in all our compositions. Our very good friend
(the knight aforesaid) speaking of the force of poetry, men-
tions "rhyming to death, which" (adds he) "is said to be
done in Ireland ; " and truly, to our honour be it spoken,
that power, in a great measure, continues with us to this day.
I would now offer some poor thoughts of mine for the
encouragement of poetry in this kingdom, if I could hope
they would be agreeable. I have had many an aching heart
for the ill plight of that noble profession here, and it has
been my late and early study how to bring it into better cir-
cumstances. And surely, considering what monstrous wits in
the poetic way, do almost daily start up and surprise us in
this town; what prodigious geniuses we have here (of which
I could give instances without number,) and withal of what
great benefit it might be to our trade to encourage that
• " With an exceedingly tenacious finger."
126 JONATHAN SWIFT
science here, (for it is plain our linen manufacture is ad-
vanced by the great waste of paper made by our present set
of poets, not to mention other necessary uses of the same to
shop-keepers, especially grocers, apothecaries, and pastry-
cooks; and I might add, but for our writers, the nation
would in a little time be utterly destitute of bumfodder, and
must of necessity import the same from England and Holland,
where they have it in great abundance, by the indefatigable
labour of their own wits) I say, these things considered, I
am humbly of opinion, it would be worth the care of our
governors to cherish gentlemen of the quill, and give them
all proper encouragements here. And since I am upon the
subject, I shall speak my mind very freely, and if I added,
saucily, it is no more than my birthright as a Briton.
Seriously then, I have many years lamented the want of
a Grub Street in this our large and polite city, unless the
whole may be called one. And this I have accounted an
unpardonable defect in our constitution, ever since I had
any opinions I could call my own. Every one knows Grub
Street is a market for small ware in wit, and as necessary,
considering the usual purgings of the human brain, as the
nose is upon a man's face. And for the same reason we have
here a court, a college, a play-house, and beautiful ladies,
and fine gentlemen, and good claret, and abundance of pens,
ink, and paper, (clear of taxes) and every other circum-
stance to provoke wit; and yet those whose province it is,
have not yet thought fit to appoint a place for evacuation of
it, which is a very hard case, as may be judged by com-
parisons.
And truly this defect has been attended with unspeakable
inconveniences; for not to mention the prejudice done to
the commonwealth of letters, I am of opinion we suffer in
our health by it. I believe our corrupted air, and frequent
thick fogs, are in a great measure owing to the common
exposal of our wit; and that with good management, our
poetical vapours might be carried off in a common drain,
and fall into one quarter of the town, without infecting the
whole, as the case is at present, to the great offence of our
nobility, and gentry, and others of nice noses. When writers
of all sizes, like freemen of the city, are at liberty to throw
TO A YOUNG POET 127
out their filth and excrementitious productions, in every street
as they please, what can the consequence be, but that the
town must be poisoned, and become such another jakes, as
by report of great travellers, Edinburgh is at night, a thing
well to be considered in these pestilential times.
I am not of the society for reformation of manners, but,
without that pragmatical title, I would be glad to see some
amendment in the matter before us. Wherefore I humbly
bespeak the favour of the Lord Mayor, the Court of Alder-
men and Common Council, together wifh the whole circle
of arts in this town, and do recommend this affair to their
most political consideration ; and I persuade myself they will
not be wanting in their best endeavours, when they can serve
two such good ends at once, as both to keep the town sweet,
and encourage poetry in it. Neither do I make any excep-
tions as to satirical poets and lampoon writers, in considera-
tion of their office. For though, indeed, their business is to
rake into kennels, and gather up the filth of streets and
families, (in which respect they may be, for aught I know,
as necessary to the town as scavengers, or chimney-sweeps)
yet I have observed they too have themselves, at the same
time, very foul clothes, and, like dirty persons, leave more
filth and nastiness than they sweep away.
In a word: What I would be at (for I love to be plain in
matters of importance to my country) is, that some private
street, or blind alley of this town, may be fitted up at the
charge of the public, as an apartment for the Muses, (like
those at Rome and Amsterdam, for their female relations)
and be wholly consigned to the uses of our wits, furnished
completely with all appurtenances, such as authors, super-
visors, presses, printers, hawkers, shops, and warehouses,
and abundance of garrets, and every other implement and
circumstance of wit; the benefit of which would obviously
be this, viz., That we should then have a safe repository for
our best productions, which at present are handed about in
single sheets or manuscripts, and may be altogether lost,
(which were a pity) or at best are subject, in that loose dress,
like handsome women, to great abuses.
Another point, that has cost me some melancholy reflec-
tions, is the present state of the playhouse; the encourage-
128 JONATHAN SWIFT
ment of which hath an immediate influence upon the poetry
of the kingdom; as a good market improves the tillage of
the neighbouring country, and enriches the ploughman:
Neither do we of this town seem enough to know or consider
the vast benefit of a playhouse to our city and nation : That
single house is the fountain of all our love, wit, dress, and
gallantry. It is the school of wisdom ; for there we learn to
know what's what; which, however, I cannot say is always
in that place sound knowledge. There our young folks drop
their childish mistakes, and come first to perceive their
mother's cheat of the parsley-bed; there too they get rid of
natural prejudices, especially those of religion and modesty,
which are great restraints to a free people. The same is a
remedy for the spleen, and blushing, and several distempers
occasioned by the stagnation of the blood. It is likewise a
school of common swearing; my young master, who at first
but minced an oath, is taught there to mouth it gracefully,
and to swear, as he reads French, ore rotundo.9 Profaneness
was before to him in the nature of his best suit, or holiday-
clothes; but upon frequenting the playhouse, swearing, curs-
ing, and lying, become like his every-day coat, waistcoat,
and breeches. Now I say, common swearing, a produce of
this country, as plentiful as our corn, thus cultivated by the
playhouse, might, with management, be of wonderful advan-
tage to the nation, as a projector of the swearer's bank
has proved at large. Lastly, the stage in great measure
supports the pulpit; for I know not what our divines could
have to say there against the corruptions of the age, but for
the playhouse, which is the seminary of them. From which
it is plain, the public is a gainer by the playhouse, and con-
sequently ought to countenance it; and were I worthy to
put in my word, or prescribe to my betters, I could say in
what manner. I have heard that a certain gentleman has
great designs to serve the public, in the way of their diver-
sions, with due encouragement; that is, if he can obtain
some concordatum-money, or yearly salary, and handsome
contributions. And well he deserves the favours of the
nation ; for, to do him justice, he has an uncommon skill in
pastimes, having altogether applied his studies that way, and
• " With round mouth," sonorously.
TO A YOUNG POET 129
travelled full many a league, by sea and land, for this his
profound knowledge. With that view alone he has visited
all the courts and cities in Europe, and has been at more
pains than I shall speak of, to take an exact draught of the
playhouse at the Hague, as a model for a new one here.
But what can a private man do by himself in so public an
undertaking? It is not to be doubted, but by his care and
industry vast improvements may be made, not only in our
playhouse, (which is his immediate province) but in our
gaming ordinaries, groom-porters, lotteries, bowling-greens,
ninepin-alleys, bear-gardens, cockpits, prizes, puppet and
raree shows, and whatever else concerns the elegant diver-
tisements of this town. He is truly an original genius, and I
felicitate this our capital city on his residence here, where I
wish him long to live and flourish, for the good of the com-
monwealth.
Once more: If any further applications shall be made on
t'other side, to obtain a charter for a bank here, I presume
to make a request, that poetry may be a sharer in that privi-
lege, being a fund as real, and to the full as well grounded as
our stocks; but I fear our neighbours, who envy our wit, as
much as they do our wealth or trade, will give no encourage-
ment to either. I believe also, it might be proper to erect a
corporation of poets in this city. I have been idle enough
in my time, to make a computation of wits here, and do find
we have three hundred performing poets and upwards, in and
about this town, reckoning six score to the hundred, and
allowing for demies, like pint bottles; including also the
several denominations of imitators, translators, and familiar-
letter-writers, &c. One of these last has lately entertained
the town with an original piece, and such a one as, I dare
say, the late British " Spectator/' in his decline, would have
called, " an excellent specimen of the true sublime ; " or, " a
noble poem;" or, "a fine copy of verses, on a subject per-
fectly new," (the author himself) and had given it a place
amongst his latest " Lucubrations."
But as I was saying, so many poets, I am confident, are
sufficient to furnish out a corporation in point of number.
Then for the several degrees of subordinate members requi-
site to such a body, there can be no want; for although we
HC Vol. 27—5
130 JONATHAN SWIFT
have not one masterly poet, yet we abound with wardens and
beadles, having a multitude of poetasters, poetitoes, parcel-
poets, poet-apes, and philo-poets, and many of inferior attain-
ments in wit, but strong inclinations to it, which are by odds
more than all the rest. Nor shall I ever be at ease, till this
project of mine (for which I am heartily thankful to myself)
shall be reduced to practice. I long to see the day, when
our poets will be a regular and distinct body, and wait upon
our Lord Mayor on public days, like other good citizens, in
gowns turned up with green instead of laurels; and when I
myself, who make this proposal, shall be free of their com-
pany.
To conclude: What if our government had a poet-laureat
here, as in England? What if our university had a professor
of poetry here, as in England? What if our Lord Mayor had
a city bard here, as in England? And, to refine upon Eng-
land, what if every corporation, parish, and ward in this
town, had a poet in fee, as they have not in England?
Lastly; What if every one so qualified were obliged to add
one more than usual to the number of his domestics, and
besides a fool and a chaplain, (which are often united in one
person) would retain a poet in his family? For, perhaps, a
rhymer is as necessary amongst servants of a house, as a
Dobbin with his bells, at the head of a team. But these
things I leave to the wisdom of my superiors.
While I have been directing your pen, I should not forget
to govern my own, which has already exceeded the bounds
of a letter. I must therefore take my leave abruptly, and
desire you, without farther ceremony, to believe that I
am, Sir,
Your most humble servant.
ON THE DEATH OF
ESTHER JOHNSON
[STELLA]
THIS day, being Sunday, January 28, 1727-8, about eight
o'clock at night, a servant brought me a note, with an
account of the death of the truest, most virtuous, and
valuable friend, that I, or perhaps any other person, ever was
blessed with. She expired about six in the evening of this
day; and as soon as I am left alone, which is about eleven
at night, I resolve, for my own satisfaction, to say something
of her life and character.
She was born at Richmond, in Surrey, on the thirteenth
day of March, in the year 1681. Her father was a younger
brother of a good family in Nottinghamshire, her mother of
a lower degree; and indeed she had little to boast of her
birth. I knew her from six years old, and had some share
in her education, by directing what books she should read,
and perpetually instructing her in the principles of honour
and virtue ; from which she never swerved in any one action
or moment of her life. She was sickly from her childhood
until about the age of fifteen; but then grew into perfect
health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful,
graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little
too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every
feature of her face in perfection. She lived generally in the
country, with a family, where she contracted an intimate
friendship with another lady of more advanced years. I was
then (to my mortification) settled in Ireland; and about a
year after, going to visit my friends in England, I found she
was a little uneasy upon the death of a person on whom she
had some dependance. Her fortune, at that time, was in all
131
132 JONATHAN SWIFT
not above fifteen hundred pounds, the interest of which was
but a scanty maintenance, in so dear a country, for on<
her spirit. Upon this consideration, and indeed very much
for my own satisfaction, who had few friends or acquaintance
in Ireland, I prevailed with her and her dear friend and
companion, the other lady, to draw what money they had
into Ireland, a great part of their fortune being in annuities
upon funds. Money was then ten per cent, in Ireland, besides
the advantage of turning it, and all necessaries of life at
half the price. They complied with my advice, and soon
after came over; but, I happening to continue some time
longer in England, they were much discouraged to live in
Dublin, where they were wholly strangers. She was at that
time about nineteen years old, and her person was soon
distinguished. But the adventure looked so like a frolic, the
censure held for some time, as if there were a secret history
in such a removal; which, however, soon blew off by her
excellent conduct. She came over with her friend on the
in the year 170- ; and they both lived together until
this day, when death removed her from us. For some years
past, she had been visited with continual ill health; and
several times, within these two years, her life was despaired
of. But, for this twelvemonth past, she never had a day's
health; and, properly speaking, she hath been dying six
months, but kept alive, almost against nature, by the generous
kindness of two physicians, and the care of her friends.
Thus far I writ the same night between eleven and twelve.
Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the
mind, or more improved them by reading and conversation.
Yet her memory was not of the best, and was impaired in
the latter years of her life. But I cannot call to mind that I
ever once heard her make a wrong judgment of persons,
books, or affairs. Her advice was always the best, and with
the greatest freedom, mixed with the greatest decency. She
had a gracefulness, somewhat more than human, in every
motion, word, and action. Never was so happy a conjunction
of civility, freedom, easiness, and sincerity. There seemed
to be a combination among all that knew her, to treat her
with a dignity much beyond her rank ; yet people of all sorts
were never more easy than in her company. Mr. Addison>
DEATH OF STELLA 133
when he was in Ireland, being introduced to her, immedi-
ately found her out; and, if he had not soon after left the
kingdom, assured me he would have used all endeavours
to cultivate her friendship. A rude or conceited coxcomb
passed his time very ill, upon the least breach of respect;
for in such a case she had no mercy, but was sure to expose
him to the contempt of the standers-by ; yet in such a manner
as he was ashamed to complain, and durst not resent. All
of us who had the happiness of her friendship, agreed unan-
imously, that, in an afternoon or evening's conversation, she
never failed, before we parted, of delivering the best thing
that was said in the company. Some of us have written
down several of her sayings, or what the French call bons
mots, wherein she excelled almost beyond belief. She never
mistook the understanding of others; nor ever said a severe
word, but where a much severer was deserved.
Her servants loved, and almost adored her at the same
time. She would, upon occasions, reat them with freedom;
yet her demeanour was so awful, that they durst not fail in
the least point of respect. She chid them seldom, but it was
with severity, which had an effect upon them for a long time
after.
January 29. My head aches, and I can write no more.
January 30. Tuesday.
This is the night of the funeral, which my sickness will
not suffer me to attend. It is now nine at night, and I am
removed into another apartment, that I may not see the light
in the church, which is just over against the window of my
bed chamber.
With all the softness of temper that became a lady, she
had the personal courage of a hero. She and her friend
having removed their lodgings to a new house, which stood
solitary, a parcel of rogues, armed, attempted the house,
where there was only one boy. She was then about four-
and-twenty; and having been warned to apprehend some
such attempt, she learned the management of a pistol; and
the other women and servants being half dead with fear, she
stole softly to her dining-room window, put on a black hood
to prevent being seen, primed the pistol fresh, gently lifted
up the sash, and taking her aim with the utmost presence
134 JONATHAN SWIFT
of mind, discharged the pistol, loaden with the bullets, into
the body of one villain, who stood the fairest mark. The
fellow, mortally wounded, was carried off by the rest, and
died the next morning; but his companions could not be
found. The Duke of Ormonde hath often drank her health
to me upon that account, and had always an high esteem of
her. She was indeed under some apprehensions of going in
a boat, after some danger she had narrowly escaped by water,
but she was reasoned thoroughly out of it. She was never
known to cry out, or discover any fear, in a coach or on
horseback; or any uneasiness by those sudden accidents with
which most of her sex, either by weakness or affectation, ap-
pear so much disordered.
She never had the least absence of mind in conversation,
nor given to interruption, or appeared eager to put in her
word, by waiting impatiently until another had done. She
spoke in a most agreeable voice, in the plainest words, never
hesitating, except out of modesty before new faces, where
she was somewhat reserved : nor, among her nearest friends,
ever spoke much at a time. She was but little versed in the
common topics of female chat ; scandal, censure, and detrac-
tion, never came out of her mouth ; yet, among a few friends,
in private conversation, she made little ceremony in dis-
covering her contempt of a coxcomb, and describing all his
follies to the life; but the follies of her own sex she was
rather inclined to extenuate or to pity.
When she was once convinced, by open facts, of any breach
of truth or honour in a person of high station, especially in
the Church, she could not conceal her indigmation, nor hear
them named without shewing her displeasure in her counte-
nance; particularly one or two of the latter sort, whom she
bad known and esteemed, but detested above all mankind,
when it was manifest that they had sacrificed those two
precious virtues to their ambition, and would much sooner
have forgiven them the common immoralities of the laity.
Her frequent fits of sickness, in most parts of her life,
jad prevented her from making that progress in reading
which she would otherwise have done. She was well versed
in the Greek and Roman story, and was not unskilled in
that of Vrance and England. She spoke French perfectly,
DEATH OF STELLA 135
but forgot much of it by neglect and sickness. She had read
carefully all the best books of travels, which serve to open
and enlarge the mind. She understood the Platonic and
Epicurean philosophy, and judged very well of the defects
of the latter. She made very judicious abstracts of the best
books she had read. She understood the nature of govern-
ment, and could point out all the errors of Hobbes, both in
that and religion. She had a good insight into physic, and
knew somewhat of anatomy; in both which she was
instructed in her younger days by an eminent physician, who
had her long under his care, and bore the highest esteem for
her person and understanding. She had a true taste of wit
and good sense, both in poetry and prose, and was a perfect
good critic of style; neither was i easy to find a more proper
or impartial judge, whose advice an author might better rely
on, if he intended to send a thing into the world, provided it
was on a subject that came within the compass of her knowl-
edge. Yet, perhaps, she was sometimes too severe, which is
a safe and pardonable error. She preserved her wit, judg-
ment, and vivacity, to the last, but often used to complain of
her memory.
Her fortune, with some accession, could not, as I have
heard say, amount to much more than two thousand pounds,
whereof a great part fell with her life, having been placed
upon annuities in England, and one in Ireland.
In a person so extraordinary, perhaps it may be pardon-
able to mention some particulars, although of little moment,
further than to set forth her character. Some presents of
gold pieces being often made to her while she was a girl, by
her mother and other friends, on promise to keep them, she
grew into such a spirit of thrift, that, in about three years,
they amounted to above two hundred pounds. She used to
shew them with boasting; but her mother, apprehending she
would be cheated of them, prevailed, in some months, and
with great importunities, to have them put out to interest:
when the girl lost the pleasure of seeing and counting her
gold, which she never failed of doing many times in a day,
and despaired of heaping up such another treasure, her
humour took the quite contrary turn ; she grew careless and
squandering of every new acquisition, and so continued till
136 JONATHAN SWIFT
about two-and-twenty ; when by advice of some friends, and
the fright of paying large bills of tradesmen, who enticed her
into their debt, she began to reflect upon her own folly, and
was never at rest until she had discharged all her shop-bills,
and refunded herself a considerable sum she had run out.
After which, by the addition of a few years, and a superior
understanding, she became, and continued all her life, a most
prudent economist ; yet still with a strong bent to the liberal
side, wherein she gratified herself by avoiding all expense
in clothes (which she never despised) beyond what was
merely decent. And, although her frequent returns of sick-
ness were very chargeable, except fees to physicians, of
which she met with several so generous that she could force
nothing on them, (and indeed she must otherwise have been
undone) yet she ever was without a considerable sum of
ready money. Insomuch that, upon her death, when her
nearest friends thought her very bare, her executors found
in her strong box about a hundred and fifty pounds in gold.
She lamented the narrowness of her fortune in nothing so
much, as that it did not enable her to entertain her friends so
often, and in so hospitable a manner, as she desired. Yet
they were always welcome; and, while she was in health to
direct, were treated with neatness and elegance, so that the
revenues of her and her companion passed for much more
considerable than they really were. They lived always in
lodgings, their domestics consisted of two maids and one
.man.
She kept an account of all the family expenses, from
her arrival in Ireland to some months before her death ; and
she would often repine, when looking back upon the annals
of her household bills, that every thing necessary for life was
double the price, while interest of money was sunk almost
to one half; so that the addition made to her fortune was
indeed grown absolutely necessary.
[I since writ as I found time.]
But her charity to the poor was a duty not to be diminished,
and therefore became a tax upon those tradesmen who
furnish the fopperies of other ladies. She bought clothes as
seldom as possible, and those as plain and cheap as consisted
with the situation she was in; and wore no lace for many
DEATH OF STELLA 137
years. Either her judgment or fortune was extraordinary,
in the choice of those on whom she bestowed her charity;
for it went further in doing good than double the sum from
any other hand. And I have heard her say, she always met
with gratitude from the poor; which must be owing to her
skill in distinguishing proper objects, as well as her gracious
manner in relieving them.
But she had another quality that much delighted her,
although it may be thought a kind of check upon her bounty ;
however, it was a pleasure she could not resist : I mean that
of making agreeable presents; wherein I never knew her
equal, although it be an affair of as delicate a nature as most
in the course of life. She used to define a present, That it
was a gift to a friend of something he wanted, or was fond
of, and which could not be easily gotten for money. I am
confident, during my acquaintance with her, she hath, in
these and some other kinds of liberality, disposed of to the
value of several hundred pounds. As to presents made to
herself, she received them with great unwillingness, but
especially from those to whom she had ever given any ; being
on all occasions the most disinterested mortal I ever knew or
heard of.
From her own disposition, at least as much as from the
frequent want of health, she seldom made any visits; but
her own lodgings, from before twenty years old, were fre-
quented by many persons of the graver sort, who all respected
her highly, upon her good sense, good manners, and con-
versation. Among these were the late Primate Lindsay,
Bishop Lloyd, Bishop Ashe, Bishop Brown, Bishop Stearne,
Bishop Pulleyn, with some others of later date; and indeed
the greatest number of her acquaintance was among the
clergy. Honour, truth, liberality, good nature, and modesty,
were the virtues she chiefly possessed, and most valued in
her acquaintance : and where she found them, would be ready
to allow for some defects; nor valued them less, although
they did not shine in learning or in wit : but would never give
the least allowance for any failures in the former, ^ven to
those who made the greatest figure in either of the two latter.
She had no use of any person's liberality, yet her detestation
of covetous people made her uneasv if such a one was in her
138 JONATHAN SWIFT
company; upon which occasion she would say many things
very entertaining and humorous.
She never interrupted any person who spoke ; she laughed
at no mistakes they made, but helped them out with modesty ;
and if a good thing were spoken, but neglected, she would
not let it fall, but set it in the best light to those who were
present. She listened to all that was said, and had never the
least distraction or absence of thought.
It was not safe, nor prudent, in her presence, to offend in
the least word against modesty; for she then gave full
employment to her wit, her contempt, and resentment, under
which even stupidity and brutality were forced to sink into
confusion ; and the guilty person, by her future avoiding him
like a bear or a satyr, was never in a way to transgress a
second time.
It happened one single coxcomb, of the pert kind, was in
her company, among several other ladies ; and in his flippant
way, began to deliver some double meanings ; the rest flapped
their fans, and used the other common expedients practised
in such cases, of appearing not to mind or comprehend what
was said. Her behaviour was very different, and perhaps
may be censured. She said thus to the man : " Sir, all these
ladies and I understand your meaning very well, having, in
spite of our care, too often met with those of your sex who
wanted manners and good sense. But, believe me, neither
virtuous nor even vicious women love such kind of conversa-
tion. However, I will leave you, and report your behaviour :
and whatever visit I make, I shall first enquire at the door
whether you are in the house, that I may be sure to avoid
you." I know not whether a majority of ladies would
approve of such a proceeding; but I believe the practice of
it would soon put an end to that corrupt conversation, the
worst effect of dullness, ignorance, impudence, and vulgarity,
and the highest affront to the modesty and understanding of
the female sex.
By returning very few visits, she had not much company
of her own sex, except those whom she most loved for their
easiness, or esteemed for their good sense: and those, not
insisting on ceremony, came often to her. But she rather
chose men for her companions, the usual topics of ladies'
DEATH OF STELLA 139
discourse being such as she had little knowledge of, and less
relish. Yet no man was upon the rack to entertain her, for
she easily descended to any thing that was innocent and
diverting. News, politics, censure, family management, or
town-talk, she always diverted to something else; but these
indeed seldom happened, for she chose her company better:
and therefore many, who mistook her and themselves, having
solicited her acquaintance, and finding themselves disap-
pointed, after a few visits dropped off; and she was never
known to enquire into the reason, or ask what was become
of them.
She was never positive in arguing ; and she usually treated
those who were so, in a manner which well enough gratified
that unhappy disposition ; yet in such a sort as made it very
contemptible, and at the same time did some hurt to the
owners. Whether this proceeded from her easiness in gen-
eral, or from her indifference to persons, or from her despair
of mending them, or from the same practice which she much
liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine ; but when she saw
any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was
more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The
excuse she commonly gave, when her friends asked the
reason, was, that it prevented noise, and saved time. Yet I
have known her very angry with some, whom she much
esteemed, for sometimes falling into that infirmity.
She loved Ireland much better than the generality of those
who owe both their birth and riches to it; and having brought
over all the fortune she had in money, left the reversion of
the best part of it, one thousand pounds, to Dr. Stephens's
Hospital. She detested the tyranny and injustice of Eng-
land, in their treatment of this kingdom. She had indeed
reason to love a country, where she had the esteem and
friendship of all who knew her, and the universal good report
of all who ever heard of her, without one exception, if I am
told the truth by those who keep general conversation.
Which character is the more extraordinary, in falling to a
person of so much knowledge, wit, and vivacity, qualities
that are used to create envy, and consequently censure; and
must be rather imputed to her great modesty, gentle
behaviour, and inoffensiveness, than to her superior virtues.
140 JONATHAN SWIFT
Although her knowledge, from books and company, was
much more extensive than usually falls to the share of her
sex ; yet she was so far from making a parade of it, that her
female visitants, on their first acquaintance, who expected
to discover it by what they call hard words and deep dis-
course, would be sometimes disappointed, and say, they
found she was like other women. But wise men, through
all her modesty, whatever they discoursed on, could easily
observe that she understood them very well, by the judgment
shewn in her observations as well as in her questions.
THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH
THE DISSENTERS:
' OR
PROPOSALS FOR THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE CHURCH
THE EDUCATION OF WOMLiN
BY
DANIEL DEFOE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Daniel Defoe (c. 1661-1731) was the son of a London butcher
called Foe, a name which Daniel bore for more than forty years.
He early gave up the idea of becoming a dissenting minister, and
went into business. One of his earlier writings was an "Essay
upon Projects," remarkable for the number of schemes suggested
in it which have since been carried into practise. He won the
approval of King William by his "True-born Englishman," a
rough verse satire repelling the attacks on William as a for-
eigner. His "Shortest-Way with Dissenters," on the other hand,
brought down on him the wrath of the Tories ; he was fined, im-
prisoned, and exposed in the pillory, with the result that he
became for the time a popular hero. While in prison he started
a newspaper, the "Review" (1704-1713), which may in certain
respects be regarded as a forerunner of the "Tatler" and "Spec-
tator." From this time for about fourteen years he was chiefly
engaged in political journalism, not always of the most reputable
kind; and in 1719 he published the first volume of "Robinson
Crusoe," his greatest triumph in a kind of realistic fiction in
which he had already made several short essays. This was fol-
lowed by a number of novels, dealing for the most part with the
lives of rogues and criminals, and including "Moll Flanders,"
"Colonel Jack," "Roxana" and "Captain Singleton." Notable
as a specially effective example of fiction disguised as truth was
his "Journal of the Plague Year."
In the latter part of his career Defoe became thoroughly
discredited as a politician, and was regarded as a mere hireling
journalist. He wrote with almost unparalleled fluency, and a
complete list of his hundreds of publications will never be made
out. The specimens of his work given here show him writing
vigorously and sincerely, and belong to a period when he had
not yet become a government tool.
142
THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH
THE DISSENTERS
SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE tells us a story in his col-
lection of Fables, of the Cock and the Horses. The
Cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the
horses; and there being no racks or other conveniences for
him, it seems, he was forced to roost upon the ground. The
horses jostling about for room, and putting the Cock in
danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, " Pray,
Gentlefolks ! let us stand still ! for fear we should tread upon
one another ! "
There are some people in the World, who, now they are
unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and
under strong and very just apprehensions of being further
treated as they deserve, begin, with Esop's Cock, to preach
up Peace and Union and the Christian duty of Moderation;
forgetting that, when they had the Power in their hands,
those Graces were strangers in their gates !
It is now, near fourteen years, [1688- 1702], that the glory
and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the
world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of
men, whom, GOD in His Providence, has suffered to insult
over her, and bring her down. These have been the days of
her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with an in-
vincible patience, the reproach of the wicked : and GOD has
at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the op-
pression of the stranger.
And now, they find their Day is over ! their power gone !
and the throne of this nation possessed by a Royal, English,
true, and ever constant member of, and friend to, the Church
of England! Now, they find that they are in danger of the
143
144 DANIEL DEFOE
Church of England's just resentments ! Now, they cry out,
" Peace ! " " Union ! " " Forbearance ! " and " Charity ! " : as
if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under
her wing! and nourished the viperous brood, till they hiss
and fly in the face of the Mother that cherished them !
No, Gentlemen ! the time of mercy is past ! your Day of
Grace is over ! you should have practised peace, and moder-
ation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves!
We have heard none of this lesson, for fourteen years
past ! We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of
Toleration! You have told us, you are the Church estab-
lished by Law, as well as others ! have set up your canting
Synagogues at our Church doors ! and the Church and her
members have been loaded with reproaches, with Oaths, As-
sociations, Abjurations, and what not! Where has been the
mercy, the forbearance, the charity you have shewn to tender
consciences of the Church of England that could not take
Oaths as fast as you made them? that having sworn alle-
giance to their lawful and rightful King, could not dispense
with that Oath, their King being still alive; and swear to
your new hodge podge of a Dutch Government ? These have
been turned out of their Livings, and they and their families
left to starve! their estates double taxed to carry on a war
they had no hand in, and you got nothing by !
What account can you give of the multitudes you have
forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new
sophistical Politics, who, like New Converts in France, sin
because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned
upon you ; you must not be persecuted ! it is not a Christian
spirit !
You have butchered one King! deposed another King!
and made a Mock King of a third ! and yet, you could have
the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth !
Anybody that did not know the temper of your Party, would
stand amazed at the impudence as well as the folly to
think of it !
Your management of your Dutch Monarch, who you re-
duced to a mere King of Cl[ub]s, is enough to give any
future Princes such an idea of your principles, as to warn
them sufficiently from coming into your clutches ; and, GOD
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 145
be thanked ! the Queen is out of your hands ! knows you !
and will have a care of you !
There is no doubt but the Supreme Authority of a nation
has in itself, a Power, and a right to that Power, to execute
the Laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The
execution of the known Laws of the land, and that with but
a gentle hand neither, was all that the Fanatical Party of
this land have ever called Persecution. This they have
magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots
in France were not to be compared with them. Now to
execute the known Laws of a nation upon those who trans-
gress them, after having first been voluntarily consenting
to the making of those Laws, can never be called Perse-
cution, but Justice. But Justice is always Violence to the
party offending! for every man is innocent in his own
eyes.
The first execution of the Laws against Dissenters in
England, was in the days of King James I. ; and what did it
amount to ? Truly, the worst they suffered was, at their own
request, to let them go to New England, and erect a new
colony; and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable
powers; keep them under protection, and defend them
against all invaders; and receive no taxes or revenue from
them !
This was the cruelty of the Church of England! Fatal
lenity ! It was the ruin of that excellent Prince, King
Charles I. Had King James sent all the Puritans in Eng-
land away to the West Indies; we had been a national un-
mixed Church ! the Church of England had been kept undi-
vided and entire !
To requite the lenity of the Father, they take up arms
against the Son, conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last
to death the Anointed of GOD, and destroy the very Being
and Nature of Government: setting up a sordid Impostor,
who had neither title to govern, nor understanding to man-
age, but supplied that want, with power, bloody and des-
perate counsels and craft, without conscience.
Had not King James I. withheld the full execution of the
Laws: had he given them strict justice, he had cleared the
nation of them ! And the consequences had been plain ; his
146 DANIEL DEFOE
son had never been murdered by them, nor the Monarchy
overwhelmed. It was too much mercy shewn them that was
the ruin of his posterity, and the ruin of the nation's peace.
One would think the Dissenters should not have the face to
believe, that we are to be wheedled and canted into Peace
and Toleration, when they know that they have once re-
quited us with a Civil War, and once with an intolerable and
unrighteous Persecution, for our former civility.
Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent
that they never had the upper hand of the Church, but they
treated her with all the severity, with all the reproach and
contempt as was possible ! What Peace and what Mercy
did they shew the loyal Gentry of the Church of England, in
the time of their triumphant Commonwealth? How did
they put all the Gentry of England to ransom, whether they
were actually in arms for the King or not ! making people
compound for their estates, and starve their families ! How
did they treat the Clergy of the Church of England ! se-
quester the Ministers ! devour the patrimony of the Church,
and divide the spoil, by sharing the Church lands among
their soldiers, and turning her Clergy out to starve ! Just
such measure as they have meted, should be measured to
them again !
Charity and Love is the known doctrine of the Church of
England, and it is plain She has put it in practice towards
the Dissenters, even beyond what they ought [deserved], till
She has been wanting to herself, and in effect unkind to her
own sons: particularly, in the too much lenity of King
James I., mentioned before. Had he so rooted the Puritans
from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early
to have done ; they had not had the power to vex the Church,
as since they have done.
In the days of King Charles II., how did the Church
reward their bloody doings, with lenity and mercy ! Except
the barbarous Regicides of the pretended Court of Justice,
not a soul suffered, for all the blood in an unnatural war!
King Charles came in all mercy and love, cherished them,
preferred them, employed them, withheld the rigour of
the Law; and oftentimes, even against the advice of his
Parliament, gave them Liberty of Conscience: and how
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 147
did they requite him? With the villanous contrivance to
depose and murder him and his successor, at the Rye
[House] Plot!
King James [II.], as if mercy was the inherent quality of
the Family, began his reign with unusual favour to them.
Nor could their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against
him, move him to do himself justice upon them. But that
mistaken Prince, thinking to win them by gentleness and
love, proclaimed a Universal Liberty to them ! and rather dis-
countenanced the Church of England than them ! How they
requited him, all the World knows !
The late reign [ William III.] is too fresh in the memory
of all the World to need a comment. How under pretence
of joining with the Church in redressing some grievances,
they pushed things to that extremity, in conjunction with
some mistaken Gentlemen, as to depose the late King: as if
the grievance of the Nation could not have been redressed
but by the absolute ruin of the Prince !
Here is an instance of their Temper, their Peace, and
Charity !
To what height they carried themselves during the reign
of a King of their own ! how they crope [creeped] into all
Places of Trust and Profit ! how they insinuated themselves
into the favour of the King, and were at first preferred to
the highest Places in the nation ! how they engrossed the
Ministry ! and, above all, how pitifully they managed ! is too
plain to need any remarks.
But particularly, their Mercy and Charity, the spirit of
Union, they tell us so much of, has been remarkable in Scot-
land. If any man would see the spirit of a Dissenter, let him
look into Scotland ! There, they made entire conquest of
the Church ! trampled down the sacred Orders and sup-
pressed the Episcopal Government, with an absolute, and, as
they supposed, irretrievable victory ! though it is possible,
they may find themselves mistaken !
Now it would be a very proper question to ask their im-
pudent advocate, the Observator, " Pray how much mercy
and favour did the members of the Episcopal Church find in
Scotland, from the Scotch Presbyterian Government ? " and
I shall undertake for the Church of England, that the Dis-
148 DANIEL DEFOE
senters shall still receive as much here, though they deserve
but little.
In a small treatise of The Sufferings of the Episcopal
Clergy in Scotland, it will appear what usage they met with !
How they not only lost their Livings ; but, in several places,
were plundered and abused in their persons ! the Ministers
that could not conform, were turned out, with numerous
families and no maintenance, and hardly charity enough left
to relieve them with a bit of bread. The cruelties of the
Party were innumerable, and are not to be attempted in this
short Piece.
And now, to prevent the distant cloud which they perceive
to hang over their heads from England, with a true Presby-
terian policy, they put it for a Union of Nations ! that Eng-
land might unite their Church with the Kirk of Scotland,
and their Assembly of Scotch canting Long-Cloaks in our
Convocation. What might have been, if our Fanatic Whig-
gish Statesmen continued, GOD only knows ! but we hope
we are out of fear of that now.
It is alleged by some of the faction, and they have begun
to bully us with it, that " if we won't unite with them, they
will not settle the Crown with us again; but when Her
Majesty dies, will choose a King for themselves ! "
If they won't we must make them! and it is not the first
time we have let them know that we are able ! The Crowns
of these Kingdoms have not so far disowned the Right of
Succession, but they may retrieve it again ; and if Scotland
thinks to come off from a Successive to an Elective State
of Government ; England has not promised, not to assist the
Right Heir, and put him into possession, without any regards
to their ridiculous Settlements.
THESE are the Gentlemen ! these, their ways of treating
the Church, both at home and abroad !
Now let us examine the Reasons they pretend to give, why
we should be favourable to them? why we should continue
and tolerate them among us?
First. They are very numerous, they say. They are a
great part of the nation, and we cannot suppress them!
To this, may be answered,
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 149
First. They are not so numerous as the Protestants in
France: and yet the French King effectually cleared the
nation of them, at once; and we don't find he misses them
at home !
But I am not of the opinion, they are so numerous as is
pretended. Their Party is more numerous than their Per-
sons; and those mistaken people of the Church who are
misled and deluded by their wheedling artifices to join with
them, make their Party the greater: but those will open
their eyes when the Government shall set heartily about the
Work, and come off from them, as some animals, which they
say, always desert a house when it is likely to fall.
Secondly. The more numerous, the more dangerous; and
therefore the more need to suppress them ! and GOD has
suffered us to bear them as goads in our sides, for not utterly
extinguishing them long ago.
Thirdly. If we are to allow them, only because we cannot
suppress them; then it ought to be tried, Whether we can
or not? And I am of opinion, it is easy to be done! and
could prescribe Ways and Means, if it were proper: but I
doubt not the Government will find effectual methods for
the rooting of the contagion from the face of this land.
Another argument they use, which is this. That this is a
time of war, and we have need to unite against the
common enemy.
We answer, This common enemy had been no enemy, if
they had not made him so ! He was quiet, in peace, and no
way disturbed and encroached upon us; and we know no
reason we had to quarrel with him.
But further. We make no question but we are able to deal
with this common enemy without their help: but why must
we unite with them, because of the enemy? Will they go
over to the enemy, if we do not prevent it, by a Union with
them ? We are very well contented [that] they should ! and
make no question, we shall be ready to deal with them and
the common enemy too; and better without them than with
them ! Besides, if we have a common enemy, there is the
more need to be secure against our private enemies! If
150 DANIEL DEFOE
there is one common enemy, we have the less need to have
an enemy in our bowels !
It was a great argument some people used against sup-
pressing the Old Money, that "it was a time of war, and
it was too great a risque [risk] for the nation to run ! If we
should not master it, we should be undone !" And yet the
sequel proved the hazard was not so great, but it might be
mastered, and the success [i.e., of the new coinage] was
answerable. The suppressing the Dissenters is not a harder
work ! nor a work of less necessity to the Public ! We can
never enjoy a settled uninterrupted union and tranquility in
this nation, till the spirit of Whiggism, Faction, and Schism
is melted down like the Old Money !
To talk of difficulty is to frighten ourselves with Chimeras
and notions of a powerful Party, which are indeed a Party
without power. Difficulties often appear greater at a dis-
tance than when they are searched into with judgment, and
distinguished from the vapours and shadows that attend
them.
We are not to be frightened with it ! This Age is wiser
than that, by all our own experience, and theirs too ! King
Charles I. had early suppressed this Party, if he had taken
more deliberate measures ! In short, it is not worth arguing,
to talk of their arms. Their Monmouths, and Shaftes-
burys, and Argyles are gone ! Their Dutch Sanctuary is at
an end ! Heaven has made way for their destruction ! and
if we do not close with the Divine occasion, we are to blame
ourselves ! and may hereafter remember, that we had, once,
an opportunity to serve the Church of England, by extir-
pating her implacable enemies ; and having let slip the
Minute that Heaven presented, may experimentally complain,
Post est Occasio CalvoI
Here are some popular Objections in the way.
As First, The Queen has promised them, to continue them
in their tolerated Liberty; and has told us She will be
a religious observer of her word.
What Her Majesty will do, we cannot help! but what, as
the Head of the Church, she ought to do, is another case.
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 151
Her Majesty has promised to protect and defend the Church
of England, and if she cannot effectually do that, without
the destruction of the Dissenters; she must, of course, dis-
pense with one promise to comply with another!
But to answer this cavil more effectually. Her Majesty
did never promise to maintain the Toleration to the destruc-
tion of the Church ; but it was upon supposition that it may
be compatible with the well-being and safety of the Church,
which she had declared she would take especial care of.
Now if these two Interests clash, it is plain Her Majesty's
intentions are to uphold, protect, defend, and establish the
Church ! and this, we conceive is impossible [that is, while
maintaining the Toleration].
Perhaps it may be said, That the Church is in no immediate
danger from the Dissenters; and therefore it is time
enough.
But this is a weak answer. For first. If the danger be
real, the distance of it is no argument against, but rather a
spur to quicken us to Prevention, lest it be too late hereafter.
And secondly. Here is the opportunity, and the only one
perhaps, that ever the Church had to secure herself, and
destroy her enemies.
The Representatives of the Nation have now an oppor-
tunity ! The Time is come, which all good men have wished
for ! that the Gentlemen of England may serve the Church
of England, now they are protected and encouraged by a
Church of England Queen !
What will you do for your Sister in the day that she shall
be spoken for?
If ever you will establish the best Christian Church in the
World?
If ever you will suppress the Spirit of Enthusiasm?
If ever you will free the nation from the viperous brood
that have so long sucked the blood of their Mother?
If ever you will leave your Posterity free from faction and
rebellion, this is the time This is the time to pull up this
heretical Weed of Sedition, that has so long disturbed the
Peace of the Church, and poisoned the good corn !
152 DANIEL DEFOE
But, says another hot and cold Objector, This is renewing
Fire and Faggot! reviving the Act, De heretico combu-
rendo ! This will be cruelty in its nature ! and barbarous
to all the World!
I answer, It is cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold
blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to
our neighbours, to destroy those creatures ! not for any
personal injury received, but for prevention; not for the evil
they have done, but the evil they may do ! Serpents, toads,
vipers, &c, are noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive
life : these poison the soul ! corrupt our posterity ! ensnare
our children ! destroy the vitals of our happiness, our future
felicity ! and contaminate the whole mass !
Shall any Law be given to such wild creatures! Some
beasts are for sport, and the huntsmen give them the advan-
tages of ground: but some are knocked on the head, by all
possible ways of violence and surprise !
I do not prescribe Fire and Faggot ! but as Scipio said of
Carthage, Delenda est Carthago ! They are to be rooted out
of this nation, if ever we will live in peace ! serve GOD ! or
enjoy our own! As for the manner, I leave it to those
hands, who have a Right to execute GOD'S Justice on the
Nation's and the Church's enemies.
But if we must be frighted from this Justice, under the[se]
specious pretences, and odious sense of cruelty; nothing will
be effected ! It will be more barbarous to our own children
and dear posterity, when they shall reproach their fathers,
as we ours, and tell us [ ! ], " You had an Opportunity to root
out this cursed race from the World, under the favour and
protection of a True Church of England Queen ! and out of
your foolish pity, you spared them : because, forsooth, you
would not be cruel ! And now our Church is suppressed and
persecuted, our Religion trampled under foot, our estates
plundered; our persons imprisoned, and dragged to gaols,
gibbets, and scaffolds ! Your sparing this Amalekite race is
our destruction ! Your mercy to them, proves cruelty to
your poor posterity ! "
How just will such reflections be, when our posterity shall
fall under the merciless clutches of this uncharitable Genera-
tion! when our Church shall be swallowed up in Schism,
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 153
Faction, Enthusiasm, and Confusion ! when our Government
shall be devolved upon Foreigners, and our Monarchy-
dwindled into a Republic !
It would be more rational for us, if we must spare this
Generation, to summon our own to a general massacre : and
as we have brought them into the World free, to send them
out so ; and not betray them to destruction by our supine
negligence, and then cry " It is mercy ! "
Moses was a merciful meek man; and yet with what fury-
did he run through the camp, and cut the throats of three
and thirty thousand of his dear Israelites that were fallen
into idolatry. What was the reason? It was mercy to the
rest, to make these examples ! to prevent the destruction of
the whole army.
How many millions of future souls, [shall] we save from
infection and delusion, if the present race of Poisoned Spirits
were purged from the face of the land!
It is vain to trifle in this matter ! The light foolish
handling of them by mulcts, fines, &c. ; 'tis their glory and
their advantage ! If the Gallows instead of the Counter, and
the galleys instead of the fines; were the reward of going
to a conventicle, to preach or hear, there would not be so
many sufferers ! The spirit of martyrdom is over ! They
that will go to church to be chosen Sheriffs and Mayors,
would go to forty churches, rather than be hanged !
If one severe Law were made, and punctually executed,
that Whoever was found at a Conventicle should be banished
the nation, and the Preacher be hanged; we should soon see
an end of the tale ! They would all come to church again,
and one Age [generation] would make us all One again !
To talk of Five Shillings a month for not coming to the
Sacrament, and One Shilling per week, for not coming to
Church: this is such a way of converting people as was
never known ! This is selling them a liberty to transgress,
for so much money !
It it be not a crime, why don't we give them full license?
and if it be, no price ought to compound for the committing
of it ! for that is selling a liberty to people to sin against
GOD and the Government !
154 DANIEL DEFOE
If it be a crime of the highest consequence, both against
the peace and welfare of the nation, the Glory of GOD, the
good of the Church, and the happiness of the soul: let us
rank it among capital offences ! and let it receive punish-
ment in proportion to it !
We hang men for trifles, and banish them for things not
worth naming; but that an offence against GOD and the
Church, against the welfare of the World, and the dignity of
Religion shall be bought off for Five Shillings: this is
such a shame to a Christian Government, that it is with
regret I transmit it to posterity.
If men sin against GOD, affront His ordinances, rebel
against His Church, and disobey the precepts of their supe-
riors ; let them suffer, as such capital crimes deserve ! so
will Religion flourish, and this divided nation be once again
united.
And yet the title of barbarous and cruel will soon be taken
off from this Law too. I am not supposing that all the
Dissenters in England should be hanged or banished. But
as in case of rebellions and insurrections, if a few of the
ringleaders suffer, the multitude are dismissed; so a few
obstinate people being made examples, there is no doubt
but the severity of the Law would find a stop in the compli-
ance of the multitude.
To make the reasonableness of this matter out of question,
and more unanswerably plain, let us examine for what it is,
that this nation is divided into Parties and factions? and let
us see how they can justify a Separation? or we of the
Church of England can justify our bearing the insults and
inconveniences of the Party.
One of their leading Pastors, and a man of as much learn-
ing as most among them, in his Answer to a Pamphlet
entituled An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity, ath
these words, p. 27 : " Do the Religion of the Church
and the Meeting Houses make two religions? Wherein
do they differ? The Substance of the same Religion is
common to them both, and the Modes and Accidents are
the things in which only they differ." P. 28: "Thirty-
nine Articles are given us for the Summary of our Relig-
ion: thirty-six contain the Substance of it, wherein we
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 155
agree; three are additional Appendices, about which we
have some differences."
Now, if as, by their own acknowledgment, the Church of
England is a true Church ; and the difference is only in a few
" Modes and Accidents " : why should we expect that they
will suffer the gallows and galleys, corporal punishment and
banishment, for these trifles ? There is no question, but they
will be wiser ! Even their own principles won't bear them
out in it!
They will certainly comply with the Laws, and with
Reason ! And though, at the first, severity may seem hard,
the next Age will feel nothing of it ! the contagion will be
rooted out. The disease being cured, there will be no need
of the operation ! But if they should venture to transgress,
and fall into the pit; all the World must condemn their
obstinacy, as being without ground from their own principles.
Thus the pretence of cruelty will be taken off, and the
Party actual suppressed; and the disquiets they have so often
brought upon the Nation, prevented.
Their numbers and their wealth make them haughty; and
that is so far from being an argument to persuade us to for-
bear them, that it is a warning to us, without any more
delay, to reconcile them to the Unity of the Church, or re-
move them from us.
At present, Heaven be praised ! they are not so formidable
as they have been, and it is our own fault if ever we suffer
them to be so ! Providence and the Church of England
seem to join in this particular, that now, the Destroyers of
the Nation's Peace may be overturned ! and to this end, the
present opportunity seems to put into our hands.
To this end, Her present Majesty seems reserved to enjoy
the Crown, that the Ecclesiastic as well as Civil Rights of
the Nation may be restored by her hand.
To this end, the face of affairs has received such a turn in
the process of a few months as never has been before. The
leading men of the Nation, the universal cry of the People,
the unanimous request of the Clergy agree in this, that the
Deliverance of our Church is at hand !
For this end, has Providence given such a Parliament!
156 DANIEL DEFOE
such a Convocation ! such a Gentry ! and such a Queen ! as
we never had before.
And what may be the consequences of a neglect of such
opportunities ? The Succession of the Crown has but a dark
prospect ! Another Dutch turn may make the hopes of it
ridiculous, and the practice impossible ! Be the House of
our future Princes ever so well inclined, they will be
Foreigners ! Many years will be spent in suiting the Genius
of Strangers to this Crown, and the Interests of the Nation !
and how many Ages it may be, before the English throne be
filled with so much zeal and candour, so much tenderness
and hearty affection to the Church, as we see it now covered
with, who can imagine?
It is high time, then, for the friends of the Church of
England to think of building up and establishing her in such
a manner, that she may be no more invaded by Foreigners,
nor divided by factions, schisms, and error.
If this could be done by gentle and easy methods, I should
be glad! but the wound is corroded, the vitals begin to
mortify, and nothing but amputation of members can com-
plete the cure ! All the ways of tenderness and compassion,
all persuasive arguments have been made use of in vain 1
The humour of the Dissenters has so increased among the
people, that they hold the Church in defiance ! and the
House of GOD is an abomination among them ! Nay, they
have brought up their posterity in such prepossessed aversion
to our Holy Religion, that the ignorant mob think we are
all idolaters and worshippers of Baal ! and account it a sin
to come within the walls of our churches ! The primitive
Christians were not more shy of a heathen temple, or of
meat offered to idols; nor the Jews, of swine's flesh, than
some of our Dissenters are of the church and the Divine
Service solemnized therein.
The Obstinacy must be rooted out, with the profession of
it ! While the Generation are left at liberty daily to affront
GOD Almighty, and dishonour His holy worship; we are
wanting in our duty to GOD, and to our Mother the Church
of England.
SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 157
How can we answer it to GOD ! to the Church ! and to
our posterity ; to leave them entangled with Fanaticism !
Error, and Obstinacy, in the bowels of the nation? to leave
them an enemy in their streets, that, in time, may involve
them in the same crimes, and endanger the utter extirpation
of the Religion of the Nation !
What is the difference betwixt this, and being subject to
the power of the Church of Rome? from whence we have
reformed. If one be an extreme to the one hand, and one on
another : it is equally destructive to the Truth to have errors
settled among us, let them be of what nature they will !
Both are enemies of our Church, and of our peace! and why
should it not be as criminal to admit an Enthusiast as a
Jesuit? why should the Papist with his Seven Sacraments
be worse than the Quaker with no Sacraments at all? Why
should Religious Houses be more intolerable than Meeting
Houses?
Alas, the Church of England ! What with Popery on one
hand, and Schismatics on the other, how has She been cruci-
fied between two thieves. Now, let us crucify the
thieves !
Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of
her enemies ! The doors of Mercy being always open to
the returning part of the deluded people, let the obstinate be
ruled with the rod of iron !
Let all true sons of so holy and oppressed a Mother, exas-
perated by her afflictions, harden their hearts against those
who have oppressed her !
And may GOD Almighty put it into the hearts of all the
friends of Truth, to lift up a Standard against Pride
and Antichrist ! that the Posterity of the Sons of
Error may be rooted out from the face of this land,
for ever!
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN
I HAVE often thought of it as one of the most barbarous
customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and
a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of
learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with
folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the
advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of
less than ourselves.
One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that
women are conversible at all; since they are only beholden
to natural parts, for all their knowledge. Their youth is
spent to teach them to stitch and sew or make baubles. They
are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their
names, or so ; and that is the height of a woman's education.
And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their un-
derstanding, what is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for,
that is taught no more? I need not give instances, or ex-
amine the character of a gentleman, with a good estate, or
a good family, and with tolerable parts; and examine what
figure he makes for want of education.
The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond ; and
must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And
'tis manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from
brutes; so education carries on the distinction, and makes
some less brutish than others. This is too evident to need
any demonstration. But why then should women be denied
the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding
had been useless additions to the sex, GOD Almighty would
never have given them capacities; for he made nothing
needless. Besides, I would ask such, What they can see in
ignorance, that they should think it a necessary ornament to
a woman ? or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool ?
158
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 159
or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being
taught? Does she plague us with her pride and imperti-
nence? Why did we not let her learn, that she might have
had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when
'tis only the error of this inhuman custom, that hindered
them from being made wiser ?
The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and
their senses quicker than those of the men; and what they
might be capable of being bred to, is plain from some in-
stances of female wit, which this age is not without. Which
upbraids us with Injustice, and looks as if we denied women
the advantages of education, for fear they should vie with
the men in their improvements. . . .
[They] should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable both
to their genius and quality. And in particular, Music and
Dancing; which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, be-
cause they are their darlings. But besides this, they should
be taught languages, as particularly French and Italian: and
I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues
than one. They should, as a particular study, be taught all
the graces of speech, and all the necessary air of conversa-
tion; which our common education is so defective in, that I
need not expose it. They should be brought to read books,
and especially history; and so to read as to make them un-
derstand the world, and be able to know and judge of things
when they hear of them.
To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny
no sort of learning; but the chief thing, in general, is to
cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be
capable of all sorts of conversation; that their parts and
judgements being improved, they may be as profitable in
their conversation as they are pleasant.
Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in
them, but as they are or are not distinguished by education.
Tempers, indeed, may in some degree influence them, but
the main distinguishing part is their Breeding.
The whole sex are generally quick and sharp. I believe,
I may be allowed to say, generally so: for you rarely see
them lumpish and heavy, when they are children; as boys
160 DANIEL DEFOE
will often be. If a woman be well bred, and taught the
proper management of her natural wit; she proves generally
very sensible and retentive.
And, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is
the finest and most delicate part of GOD's Creation, the
glory of Her Maker, and the great instance of His singular
regard to man, His darling creature: to whom He gave the
best gift either GOD could bestow or man receive. And 'tis
the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world, to
withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages
of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds.
A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the
additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is
a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem
of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her con-
versation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace,
love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the
sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his
portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be
thankful.
On the other hand, Suppose her to be the very same
woman, and rob her of the benefit of education, and it
follows —
If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft
and easy.
Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent
and talkative.
Her knowledge, for want of judgement and experience,
makes her fanciful and whimsical.
If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse;
and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud.
If she be passionate, want of manners makes her a
termagant and a scold, which is much at one with
Lunatic.
If she be proud, want of discretion (which still is
breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridic-
ulous.
And from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamor-
ous, noisy, nasty, the devil ! . . . ,
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 161
The great distinguishing difference, which is seen in the
world between men and women, is in their education; and
this is manifested by comparing it with the difference be-
tween one man or woman, and another.
And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold
assertion, That all the world are mistaken in their practice
about women. For I cannot think that GOD Almighty ever
made them so delicate, so glorious creatures; and furnished
them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to
mankind; with souls capable of the same accomplishments
with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses,
Cooks, and Slaves.
Not that I am for exalting the female government in the
least: but, in short, / would have men take women for
companions, and educate them to be fit for it. A woman of
sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the
prerogative of man, as a man of sense will scorn to oppress
the weakness of the woman. But if the women's souls were
refined and improved by teaching, that word would be lost.
To say, the weakness of the sex, as to judgement, would be
nonsense; for ignorance and folly would be no more to be
found among women than men.
I remember a passage, which I heard from a very fine
woman. She had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary
shape and face, and a great fortune : but had been cloistered
up all her time; and for fear of being stolen, had not had
the liberty of being taught the common necessary knowledge
of women's affairs. And when she came to converse in the
world, her natural wit made her so sensible of the want of
education, that she gave this short reflection on herself : M I
am ashamed to talk with my very maids," says she, " for I
don't know when they do right or wrong. I had more need
go to school, than be married."
I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to
the sex; nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice. Tis
a thing will be more easily granted than remedied. This
chapter is but an Essay at the thing: and I refer the
Practice to those Happy Days (if ever they shall be) when
men shall be wise enough to mend it.
HC _ Vol. 27— 6
LIFE OF ADDISON
BY
SAMUEL JOHNSON
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great literary dictator of
the latter part of the eighteenth century, was the son of a book-
seller at Lichfield. After leaving Oxford, he tried teaching, but
soon gave it up, and came to London in 1737, where he supported
hitnself by his pen. After years of hardship he finally rose to
the head of his profession, and a pension of £300 a year from
George III. made his later years free from anxiety.
Johnson attempted many forms of literature. In poetry his
chief works were "London," an imitation of Juvenal, and "The
Vanity of Human Wishes," a piece of dignified and impressive
moralising. Garrick produced his tragedy of "Irene" in 1749, but
without much success. The great Dictionary appeared in 1755, and
made an epoch in the history of English lexicography. From
17 $0 to 1752 he issued the "Rambler," which he wrote almost
entirely himself. This periodical is regarded as the most success-
ful of the imitations of the "Spectator," but the modern reader
finds it heavy. The "Idler," a similar publication, appeared from
1758 to 1760. In 1759, when Johnson's mother died, he wrote his
didactic romance of "Rasselas" in one week in order to defray
the expenses of her illness and funeral. This was the most popu-
lar of his writings in his own day, and has been translated into
many languages. In 1765 Johnson issued his edition of Shake-
speare in eight volumes, a task in many respects inadequately
performed, yet in the interpretation of obscure passages often
showing Johnson's robust common sense and power of clear and
vigorous expression.
It is generally agreed that none of Johnson's various works is
the equal of his conversation as reported in the greatest of
English biographies, BoswelVs "Life of Johnson." But the
"Lives of the Poets," written as prefaces to a collection of the
English poets, is his most permanently valuable production, and,
though limited by the standards of his time, is full of acute
criticism admirably expressed. The "Life of Addison" is one
of the most sympathetic of the "Lives," and gives an excellent
idea of Johnson's matter and manner.
164
LIFE OF ADDISON
1672—1719
JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May, 1672,
at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was
then rector, near Ambrosbury in Wiltshire, and appear-
ing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same
day. After the usual domestick education, which, from the
character of his father, may be reasonably supposed to have
given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to
the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosbury, and afterwards of
Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.
Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious
for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest
fame is injuriously diminished: I would therefore trace him
through the whole process of his education. In 1683, in the
beginning of his twelfth year, his father being made Dean of
Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new residence,
and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long,
under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school att Lichfield,
father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biog-
raphers have given no account, and I know it only from a
story of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew
Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr. Pigot his
uncle.
The practice of barring-out, was a savage license, practised
in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the
boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petu-
lant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of
regular recess, took possession of the school, of which they
barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the
windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions
the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may
165
166 SAMUEL JOHNSON
be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the
garrison. The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was
barred-out at Lichfield, and the whole operation, as he said,
was planned and conducted by Addison.
To judge better of the probability of this story, I have
enquired when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was
not one of those who enjoyed the founder's benefaction,
there is no account preserved of his admission. At the school
of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that
of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile studies
under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with
Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectu-
ally recorded.
Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be
given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom
nothing can be feared, and Addison never considered Steele
as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confesses, und r an habitual
subjection to the predominating genius of Addi <<n, *hom he
always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obsequi-
ousness.
Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always for-
bear to shew it, by playing a little upon his admirer ; but he
was in no danger of retort: his jests were endured without
resistance or resentment.
But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele,
whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion,
kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing
exigence, in an evil hour borrowed a hundred pounds of his
friend, probably without much purpose of repayment; but
Addison, who seems to have had other notions of an hundred
pounds, grew impatient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by
an execution. Steele felt with great sensibility the obduracy
of his creditor; but with emotions of sorrow rather than of
anger.
In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford,
where, in 1689, the accidental perusal of some Latin verses
gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards
provost of Queen's College; by whose recommendation he
was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, a term by
which that society denominates those which are elsewhere
LIFE OF ADDISON 167
called Scholars; young men, who partake of the founder's
benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellow-
ships.
Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, and
grew first eminent by his Latin compositions, which are
indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not confined
himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed
his style from the general language, such as a diligent perusal
of the productions of different ages happened to supply.
His Latin compositions seem to have had much of his
fondness; for he collected a second volume of the Musas
Anglicanse, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all
his Latin pieces are inserted, and where his Poem on the
Peace has the first place. He afterwards presented the col-
lection to Boileau, who from that time conceived, says Tickell,
an opinion of the English genius for poetry. Nothing is
better known of Boileau, than that he had an injudicious and
peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profes-
sion of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather
than approbation.
Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which per-
haps he would not have ventured to have written in his own
language. The Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes ; The Barom-
eter; and A Bowling-green. When the matter is low or
scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because
nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and by the
sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer con-
ceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the
reader, and often from himself.
In his twenty-second year he first shewed his power of
English poetry by some verses addressed to Dryden; and
soon afterwards published a translation of the greater part of
the Fourth Georgick upon Bees; after which, says Dryden,
my latter swarm is hardly worth the hiving.
About the same time he composed the arguments prefixed
to the several books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an
Essay on the Georgicks, juvenile, superficial, and uninstruc-
tive, without much either of the scholar's learning or the
critick's penetration.
His next paper of verses contained a character of the
168 SAMUEL JOHNSON
principal English poets, inscribed to Henry Sacheverell, who
was then, if not a poet, a writer of verses ; as is shewn by his
version of a small part of Virgil's Georgicks, published in the
Miscellanies, and a Latin encomium on Queen Mary, in the
Musse Anglicanae. These verses exhibit all the fondness of
friendship; but on one side or the other, friendship was
afterwards too weak for the malignity of faction.
In this poem is a very confident and discriminative char-
acter of Spenser, whose work he had then never read. So
little sometimes is criticism the effect of judgment. It is
necessary to inform the reader, that about this time he was
introduced by Congreve to Montague, then Chancellor of
the Exchequer : Addison was then learning the trade of
a courtier, and subjoined Montague as a poetical name to
those of Cowley and of Dryden.
By the influence of Mr. Montague, concurring, according
to Tickell, with his natural modesty, he was diverted from
his original design of entering into holy orders. Montague
alleged the corruption of men who engaged in civil employ-
ments without liberal education; and declared, that, though
he was represented as an enemy to the Church, he would
never do it an injury by withholding Addison from it.
Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King William,
with a rhyming introduction addressed to Lord Somers.
King William had no regard to elegance or literature; his
study was only war ; yet by a choice of ministers, whose dis-
position was very different from his own, he procured, with-
out intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison
was caressed both by Somers and Montague.
In 1697 appeared his Latin verses on the Peace of Rys-
wick which he dedicated to Montague, and which was after-
wards called by Smith the best Latin poem since the /Eneid.
Praise must not be too rigorously examined; but the per-
formance cannot be denied to be vigorous and elegant.
Having yet no public employment, he obtained (in 1699)
a pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be
enabled to travel. He staid a year at Blois, probably to
learn the French language; and then proceeded in his
journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the eyes of a
poet.
LIFE OF ADDISON 169
While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from being
idle; for he not only collected his observations on the
country, but found time to write his Dialogues on Medals,
and four Acts of Cato. Such at least is the relation of
Tickell. Perhaps he only collected his materials, and formed
his plan.
Whatever were his other employments in Italy, he there
wrote the Letter to Lord Halifax, which is justly considered
as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his poetical
productions. But in about two years he found it necessary
to hasten home ; being, as Swift informs us, distressed by in-
digence, and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling
Squire, because his pension was not remitted.
At his return he published his Travels, with a dedication
to Lord Somers. As his stay in foreign countries was short,
his observations are such as might be supplied by a hasty
view, and consist chiefly in comparisons of the present face
of the country with the descriptions left us by the Roman
poets, from whom he made preparatory collections, though
he might have spared the trouble had he known that such
collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.
The most amusing passage of his book, is his account of the
minute republick of San Marino; of many parts it is not a
very severe censure to say that they might have been
written at home. His elegance of language, and variegation
of prose and verse, however, gains upon the reader; and
the book, though a while neglected, became in time so much
the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted
it rose to five times its price.
When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness
of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to
which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of
power, and was therefore for a time at full leisure for the
cultivation of his mind, and a mind so cultivated gives
reason to believe that little time was lost.
But he remained not long neglected or useless. The
victory at Blenheim (1704) spread triumph and confidence
over the nation; and Lord Godolphin lamenting to Lord
Halifax, that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal
to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet.
170 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Halifax told him that there was no encouragement fot
genius; that worthless men were unprofitably enriched with
publick money, without any care to find or employ those
whose appearance might do honour to their country. To this
Godolphin replied, that such abuses should in time be
rectified; and that if a man could be found capable of the
task then proposed, he should not want an ample recompense.
Halifax then named Addison; but required that the Treas-
urer should apply to him in his own person. Godolphin
sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton;
and Addison having undertaken the work, communicated
it to the Treasurer, while it was yet advanced no further
than the simile of the Angel, and was immediately rewarded
by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of Commissioner
of Appeals.
In the following year he was at Hanover with Lord Hali-
fax; and the year after was made under-secretary of state,
first to Sir Charles Hedges, and in a few months more to
the Earl of Sunderland.
About this time the prevalent taste for Italian operas in-
clined him to try v/hat would be the effect of a musical
Drama in our own language. He therefore wrote the opera
of Rosamond, which, when exhibited on the stage, was
either hissed or neglected; but trusting that the readers
would do him more justice, he published it, with an inscrip-
tion to the Duchess of Marlborough; a woman without
skill, or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature. His
dedication was therefore an instance of servile absurdity,
to be exceeded only by Joshua Barnes's dedication of a
Greek Anacreon to the Duke.
His reputation had been somewhat advanced by The
Tender Husband, a comedy which Steele dedicated to him,
with a confession that he owed to him several of the most
successful scenes. To this play Addison supplied a prologue.
When the Marquis of Wharton was appointed Lord-
lieutenant of Ireland, Addison attended him as his secretary;
and was made keeper of the records in Birmingham's Tower,
with a salary of three hundred pounds a year. The office
was little more than nominal, and the salary was augmented
for his accommodation.
LIFE OF ADDISON 171
Interest and faction allow little to the operation of particu-
lar dispositions, or private opinions. Two men of personal
characters more opposite than those of Wharton and AdT
dison could not easily be brought together. Wharton was
impious, profligate, and shameless, without regard, or ap-
pearance of regard, to right and wrong: whatever is con-
trary to this, may be said of Addison; but as agents of a
party they were connected, and how they adjusted their
other sentiments we cannot know.
Addison must, however, not be too hastily condemned. It
is not necessary to refuse benefits from a bad man, when
the acceptance implies no approbation of his crime; nor has
the subordinate officer any obligation to examine the opinions
or conduct of those under whom he acts, except that he
may not be made the instrument of wickedness. It is
reasonable to suppose that Addison counteracted, as far
as he was able, the malignant and blasting influence of the
Lieutenant, and that at least by his intervention some good
was done, and some mischief prevented.
When he was in office, he made a law to himself, as
Swift has recorded, never to remit his regular fees in
civility to his friends : " For," said he, " I may have a
hundred friends; and, if my fee be two guineas, I shall, by
relinquishing my right lose two hundred guineas, and no
friend gain more than two; there is therefore no proportion
between the good imparted and the evil suffered."
He was in Ireland when Steele, without any communica-
tion of his design, began the publication of the Tatler; but
he was not long concealed : by inserting a remark on Virgil,
which Addison had given him, he discovered himself. It is
indeed not easy for any man to write upon literature, or
common life, so as not to make himself known to those
with whom he familiarly converses, and who are acquainted
with his track of study, his favourite topicks, his peculiar
notions, and his habitual phrases.
If Steele desired to write in secret, he was not lucky; a
single month detected him. His first Tatler was published
April 22 (1709), and Addison's contribution appeared May
26. Tickell observes, that the Tatler began and was con-
cluded without his concurrence. This is doubtless literally
172 SAMUEL JOHNSON
true; but the work did not suffer much by his unconscious-
ness of its commencement, or his absence at its cessation;
for he continued his assistance to December 23, and the paper
stopped on January 2. He did not distinguish his pieces
by any signature ; and I know not whether his name was
not kept secret, till the papers were collected into volumes.
To the Tatler, in about two months, succeeded the Specta-
tor; a series of essays of the same kind, but written with
less levity, upon a more regular plan, and published daily.
Such an undertaking shewed the writers not to distrust
their own copiousness of materials or facility of composition,
and their performance justified their confidence. They
found, however, in their progress, many auxiliaries. To
attempt a single paper was no terrifying labour: many pieces
were offered, and many were received.
Addison had enough of the zeal of party, but Steele had at
that time almost nothing else. The Spectator, in one of the
first papers, shewed the political tenets of its authors; but
a resolution was soon taken, of courting general approbation
by general topicks, and subjects on which faction had pro-
duced no diversity of sentiments ; such as literature,
morality, and familiar life. To this practice they adhered
with very few deviations. The ardour of Steele once broke
out in praise of Marlborough; and when Dr. Fleetwood pre-
fixed to some sermons a preface, overflowing with whiggish
opinions, that it might be read by the Queen it was reprinted
in the Spectator.
To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to
regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those
depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and
remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting
calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted by
Casa in his book of Manners, and Castiglione in his Court-
ier; two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and ele-
gance, and which, if they are now less read, are neglected
only because they have effected that reformation which their
authors intended, and their precepts now are no longer
wanted. Their usefulness to the age in which they were
written is sufficiently attested by the translations which
almost all the nations of Europe were in haste to obtain.
LIFE OF ADDISON 173
This species of instruction was continued, and perhaps
advanced, by the French; among whom La Bruyere's Man-
ners of the Age, though, as Boileau remarked, it is written
without connection, certainly deserves great praise, for live-
liness of description and justness of observation.
Before the Tatler and Spectator, if the writers for the
theatre are excepted, England had no masters of common
life. No writers had yet undertaken to reform either the
savageness of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to shew
when to speak, or to be silent; how to refuse, or how to
comply. We had many books to teach us our more im-
portant duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or poli-
ticks; but an Arbiter elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was
yet wanting, who should survey the track of daily conversa-
tion, and free it from thorns and prickles, which teaze the
passer, though they do not wound him.
For this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent
publication of short papers, which we read not as study but
amusement. If the subject be slight, the treatise likewise is
short. The busy may find time, and the idle may find
patience.
This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began
among us in the Civil War, when it was much the interest
of either party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people.
At that time appeared Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rusti-
cus, and Mercurius Civicus. It is said, that when any title
grew popular, it was stolen by the antagonist, who by this
stratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not have
received him had he not worn the appearance of a friend.
The tumult of those unhappy days left scarcely any man
leisure to treasure up occasional compositions; and so much
were they neglected, that a complete collection is no where
to be found.
These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Estrange's Observa-
tor, and that by Lesley's Rehearsal, and perhaps by others;
but hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this
commodious manner, but controversy relating to the Church
or State; of which they taught many to talk, whom they
could not teach to judge.
It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted
174 SAMUEL JOHNSON
soon after the Restoration, to divert the attention of the
people from public discontent. The Tatler and the Spectator
had the same tendency ; they were published at a time when
two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible
declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termina-
tion of its views, were agitating the nation ; to minds heated
with political contest, they supplied cooler and more inoffen-
sive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent
work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conver-
sation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to
unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can
never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first
books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of
knowledge.
The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Casa, the unset-
tled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness ;
and, like La Bruyere, exhibited the Characters and Manners
of the Age. The persons introduced in these papers were
not merely ideal; they were then known and conspicuous in
various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by Steele in his
last paper, and of the Spectator by Budgell in the Preface
to Theophrastus ; a book which Addison has recommended,
and which he was suspected to have revised, if he did not
write it. Of those portraits, which may be supposed to be
sometimes embellished, and sometimes aggravated, the
originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten.
But to say that they united the plans of two or three
eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their
due praise; they superadded literature and criticism, and
sometimes towered far above their predecessors ; and taught,
with great justness of argument and dignity of language,
the most important duties and sublime truths.
All these topicks were happily varied with elegant fictions
and refined allegories, and illuminated with different changes
of style and felicities of invention.
It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned
or exhibited in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was
Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very deli-
cate and discriminated idea, which he would not suffer to
be violated; and therefore when Steele had shewn him inno-
LIFE OF ADDISON 175
cently picking up a girl in the Temple and taking her to a
tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indig-
nation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of
forbearing Sir Roger for the time to come.
The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to
the grave, para mi solo nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el,
made Addison declare, with an undue vehemence of expres-
sion, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of opinion that
they were born for one another, and that any other hand
would do him wrong.
It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his
original delineation. He describes his Knight as having his
imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has
made very little use. The irregularities in Sir Roger's con-
duct seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from
the beaten track of life, by the perpetual pressure of some
overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negli-
gence which solitary grandeur naturally generates.
The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of
incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason,
without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit,
that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting
his own design.
To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a
Tory, or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed
interest, is opposed Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a
wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed interest, and a
Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions, it is probable more
consequences were at first intended, than could be produced
when the resolution was taken to exclude party from the
paper. Sir Andrew does but little, and that little seems not
to have pleased Addison, who, when he dismissed him from
the club, changed his opinions. Steele had made him, in the
true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he would not
build an hospital for idle people; but at last he buys land,
settles in the country, and builds not a manufactory, but an
hospital for twelve old husbandmen, for men with whom a
merchant has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly
considers with little kindness.
Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus com-
176 SAMUEL JOHNSON
modiously distributed, it is natural to suppose the approba-
tion general and the sale numerous. I once heard it ob-
served, that the sale may be calculated by the product of the
tax, related in the last number to produce more than twenty
pounds a week, and therefore stated at one and twenty
pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day : this, at a half-
penny a paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the
daily number.
This sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be credited, was
likely to grow less ; for he declares that the Spectator, whom
he ridicules for his endless mention of the fair sex, had
before his recess wearied his readers.
The next year (1713), in which Cato came upon the stage,
was the grand climacterick of Addison's reputation. Upon
the death of Cato, he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in
the time of his travels, and had for several years the four
first acts finished, which were shewn to such as were likely
to spread their admiration. They were seen by Pope, and
by Gibber; who relates that Steele, when he took back the
copy, told him, in the despicable cant of literary modesty,
that, whatever spirit his friend had shewn in the composi-
tion, he doubted whether he would have courage sufficient
to expose it to the censure of a British audience.
The time however was now come, when those who af-
fected to think liberty in danger, affected likewise to think
that a stage-play might preserve it: and Addison was im-
portuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of Britain, to
shew his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.
To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccount-
ably unwilling; and by a request, which perhaps he wished
to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes
supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement,
brought in a few days some scenes for his examination ; but
he had in the mean time gone to work himself, and produced
half an act, which he afterward completed, but with brevity
irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts; like a
task performed with reluctance, and hurried to its con-
clusion.
It may yet be doubted whether Cato was made publick by
any change of the author's purpose; for Dennis charged him
iJFE OF ADDISON 177
with raising prejudices in his own favour by false positions
of preparatory criticism, and with poisoning the town by
contradicting in the Spectator the established rule of poetical
justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall
before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the motives we must
guess.
Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all
avenues against all danger. When Pope brought him the
prologue, which is properly accommodated to the play, there
were these words, Britons, arise, be worth like this approved;
meaning nothing more than, Britons, erect and exalt your-
selves to the approbation of public virtue. Addison was
frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrec-
tion, and the line was liquidated to Britons, attend.
Now, heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the im-
portant day, when Addison was to stand the hazard of the
theatre. That there might, however, be left as little to hazard
as was possible, on the first night Steele, as himself relates,
undertook to pack an audience. This, says Pope, had been
tried for the first time in favour of the Distrest Mother ; and
was now, with more efficacy, practised for Cato.
The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that
time on fire with faction. The Whigs applauded every line
in which Liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories;
and the Tories echoed every clap, to shew that the satire was
unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known. He called
Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending
the cause of Liberty so well against a perpetual dictator.
The Whigs, says Pope, design a second present, when they
can accompany it with as good a sentence.
The play, supported thus by the emulation of factious
praise, was acted night after night for a longer time than,
I believe, the publick had allowed to any drama before; and
the author, as Mrs. Potter long afterwards related, wandered
through the whole exhibition behind the scenes with rest-
less and unappeasable solicitude.
When it was printed, notice was given that the Queen
would be pleased if it was dedicated to her; but as he had
designed that compliment elsewhere, he found himself
obliged, says Tickell, by his duty on the one hand, and his
178 SAMUEL JOHNSON
honour on the other, to send it into the world without any
dedication.
Human happiness has always its abatements ; the brightest
sun-shine of success is not without a cloud. No sooner was
Cato offered to the reader, than it was attacked by the acute
malignity of Dennis, with all the violence of angry criticism.
Dennis, though equally zealous, and probably by his temper
more furious than Addison, for what they called Liberty,
and though a flatterer of the Whig ministry, could not sit
quiet at a successful play; but was eager to tell friends and
enemies, that they had misplaced their admirations. The
world was too stubborn for instruction ; with the fate of the
censurer of Corneille's Cid, his animadversions shewed his
anger without effect, and Cato continued to be praised.
Pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of
Addison, by vilifying his old enemy, and could give resent-
ment its full play without appearing to revenge himself. He
therefore published A Narrative of the Madness of John
Dennis; a performance which left the objections to the play
in their full force, and therefore discovered more desire of
vexing the critick than of defending the poet.
Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw
the selfishness of Pope's friendship ; and, resolving that he
should have the consequences of his ofhciousness to himself,
informed Dennis by Steele, that he was sorry for the insult ;
and that whenever he should think fit to answer his remarks,
he would do it in a manner to which nothing could be
objected.
The greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of love,
which are said by Pope to have been added to the original
plan upon a subsequent review, in compliance with the pop-
ular practice of the stage. Such an authority it is hard to
reject; yet the love is so intimately mingled with the whole
action that it cannot easily be thought extrinsick and ad-
ventitious; for if it were taken away, what would be left?
or how were the four acts filled in the first draught?
At the publication the Wits seemed proud to pay their
attendance with encomiastick verses. The best are from
an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their
praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys.
LIFE OF ADDISON 179
Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party-
play by a Scholar of Oxford, and defended in a favourable
examination by Dr. Sewel. It was translated by Salvini
into Italian, and acted at Florence ; and by the Jesuits of St.
Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this
version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished
that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their ver-
sion of the soliloquy with that of Bland.
A tragedy was written on the same subject by Des Champs,
a French poet, which was translated, with a criticism on the
English play. But the translator and the critick are now
forgotten.
Dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore little read:
Addison knew the policy of literature too well to make his
enemy important, by drawing the attention of the publick
upon a criticism, which, though sometimes intemperate, was
often irrefragable.
While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called
The Guardian, was published by Steele. To this Addison
gave great assistance, whether occasionally or by previous
engagement is not known.
The character of Guardian was too narrow and too serious :
it might properly enough admit both the duties and the de-
cencies of life, but seemed not to include literary specula-
tions, and was in some degree violated by merriment and
burlesque. What had the Guardian of the Lizards to do
with clubs of tall or of little men, with nests of ants, or with
Strada's prolusions?
Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it
found many contributors, and that it was a continuation
of the Spectator, with the same elegance, and the same
variety, till some unlucky sparkle from a Tory paper set
Steele's politics on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction.
He was soon too hot for neutral topicks, and quitted the
Guardian to write the Englishman.
The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one
of the Letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by
a hand; whether it was, as Tickell pretends to think, that he
was unwilling to usurp the praise of others, or as Steele,
with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he could not
180 SAMUEL JOHNSON
without discontent impart to others any of his own. I have
heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of
renown, but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his
proportion of the profits.
Many of these papers were written with powers truly
comick, with nice discrimination of characters, and accurate
observation of natural or accidental deviations from pro-
priety; but it was not supposed that he had tried a comedy
on the stage, till Steele, after his death, declared him the
author of The Drummer ; this, however, Steele did not know
to be true by any direct testimony; for when Addison put
the play into his hands., he only told him, it was the work of
a Gentleman in the Company; and when it was received, as
is confessed, with cold approbation, he was probably less
willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his collection; but
the testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any other
claimant, has determined the publick to assign it to Addison,
and it is now printed with his other poetry. Steele carried
The Drummer to the playhouse, and afterwards to the press,
and sold the copy for fifty guineas.
To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied
by the play itself, of which the characters are such as
Addison would have delineated, and the tendency such as
Addison would have promoted. That it should have been
ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily see the
capricious distribution of theatrical praise.
He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of publick
affairs. He wrote, as different exigencies required (in 1707),
The Present State of the War, and the Necessity of an
Augmentation ; which, however judicious, being written on
temporary topicks, and exhibiting no peculiar powers, laid
hold on no attention, and has naturally sunk by its own
weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few papers
entitled The Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the
force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. Of this
paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift remarks,
with exultation, that it is now down among the dead men.
He might well rejoice at the death of that which he could
not have killed. Every reader of every party, since per-
sonal malice is past, and the papers which once inflamed the
LIFE OF ADDISON 181
nation are read only as effusions of wit, must wish for more
of the Whig Examiners; for on no occasion was the genius
of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the
superiority of his powers more evidently appear. His Trial
of Count Tariff, written to expose the Treaty of Commerce
with France, lived no longer than the question that pro-
duced it.
Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the
Spectator, at a time indeed by no means favourable to
literature, when the succession of a new family to the throne
filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and confusion; and
either the turbulence of the times, or the satiety of the
readers, put a stop to the publication, after an experiment
of eighty numbers, which were afterwards collected into an
eighth volume, perhaps more valuable than any one of those
that went before it. Addison produced more than a fourth
part, and the other contributors are by no means unworthy
of appearing as his associates. The time that had passed
during the suspension of the Spectator, though it had not
lessened his power of humour, seems to have increased his
disposition to seriousness: the proportion of his religious
to his comick papers is greater than in the former series.
The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published
only three times a week; and no discriminative marks were
added to the papers. To Addison, Tickell has ascribed
twenty-three.
The Spectator had many contributors; and Steele, whose
negligence kept him always in a hurry, when it was his turn
to furnish a paper, called loudly for the Letters, of which
Addison, whose materials were more, made little use ; having
recourse to sketches and hints, the product of his former
studies, which he now reviewed and completed : among these
are named by Tickell the Essays on Wit, those on the
Pleasures of the Imagination, and the Criticism on Milton.
When the House of Hanover took possession of the throne,
it was reasonable to expect that the zeal of Addison would
be suitably rewarded. Before the arrival of King George,
he was made secretary to the regency, and was required by
his office to send notice to Hanover that the Queen was
dead, and that the throne was vacant. To do this would
182 SAMUEL JOHNSON
not have been difficult to any man but Addison, who was so
overwhelmed with the greatness of the event, and so dis-
tracted by choice of expression, that the Lords, who could
not wait for the niceties of criticism, called Mr. Southwell,
a clerk in the house, and ordered him to dispatch the mes-
sage. Southwell readily told what was necessary, in the
common style of business, and valued himself upon having
done what was too hard for Addison.
He was better qualified for the Freeholder, a paper which
he published twice a week, from Dec. 23, 1715, to the middle
of the next year. This was undertaken in defence of the
established government, sometimes with argument, some-
times with mirth. In argument he had many equals ; but his
humour was singular and matchless. Bigotry itself must
be delighted with the Tory-Fox-hunter.
There are, however, some strokes less elegant, and less
decent ; such as the Pretender's Journal, in which one topick
of ridicule is his poverty. This mode of abuse had been
employed by Milton against King Charles II.
" — — — — — Jacobai.
Centum exulantis viscera Marsupii regis."
And Oldmixon delights to tell of some alderman of London,
that he had more money than the exiled princes; but that
which might be expected from Milton's savageness, or Old-
mixon's meanness, was not suitable to the delicacy of
Addison.
Steele thought the humour of the Freeholder too nice and
gentle for such noisy times; and is reported to have said
that the ministry made use of a lute, when they should have
called for a trumpet.
This year (1716) he married the Countess Dowager of
Warwick, whom he had solicited by a very long and anxious
courtship, perhaps with behaviour not very unlike that of
Sir Roger to his disdainful widow: and who, I am afraid,
diverted herself often by playing with his passion. He is
said to have first known her by becoming tutor to her son.
" He formed," said Tonson, " the design of getting that lady,
from the time when he was first recommended into the
family." In what part of his life he obtained the recom-
LIFE OF ADDISON 183
mendation, or how long, and in what manner he lived in the
family, I know not. His advances at first were certainly-
timorous, but grew bolder as his reputation and influence
increased; till at last the lady was persuaded to marry him,
on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is
espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce,
" Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave." The mar-
riage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no
addition to his happiness; it neither found them nor made
them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and
thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony
the tutor of her son. Rowe's ballad of the Despairing Shep-
herd is said to have been written, either before or after mar-
riage, upon this memorable pair; and it is certain that
Addison has left behind him no encouragement for ambi-
tious love.
The year after (1717) he rose to his highest elevation,
being made secretary of state. For this employment he
might be justly supposed qualified by long practice of busi-
ness, and by his regular ascent through other offices; but
expectation is often disappointed; it is universally con-
fessed that he was unequal to the duties of his place. In
the House of Commons he could not speak, and therefore
was useless to the defence of the Government. In the
office, says Pope, he could not issue an order without losing
his time in quest of fine expressions. What he gained in
rank, he lost in credit; and, finding by experience his own
inability, was forced to solicit his dismission, with a pension
of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated this
relinquishment, of which both friends and enemies knew the
true reason, with an account of declining health, and the
necessity of recess and quiet.
He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan lit-
erary occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy
on the death of Socrates; a story of which, as Tickell re-
marks, the basis is narrow, and to which I know not how
love could have been appended. There would, however, have
been no want either of virtue in the sentiments, or elegance
in the language.
He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Christian
184 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Religion, of which part was published after his death; and
he designed to have made a new poetical version of the
Psalms.
These pious compositions Pope imputed to a selfish motive,
upon the credit, as he owns, of Tonson; who having quar-
relled with Addison, and not loving him, said, that, when he
laid down the secretary's office, he intended to take orders,
and obtain a bishoprick; for, said he, / always thought him
a priest in his heart.
That Pope should have thought this conjecture of Tonson
worth remembrance is a proof, but indeed so far as I have
found, the only proof, that he retained some malignity from
their ancient rivalry. Tonson pretended but to guess it; no
other mortal ever suspected it; and Pope might have re-
flected, that a man who had been secretary of state, in the
ministry of Sunderland, knew a nearer way to a bishoprick
than by defending Religion, or translating the Psalms.
It is related that he had once a design to make an English
Dictionary, and that he considered Dr. Tillotson as the writer
of highest authority. There was formerly sent to me by Mr.
Locker, clerk of the Leathersellers' Company, who was emi-
nent for curiosity and literature, a collection of examples
selected from Tillotson's works, as Locker said, by Addison.
It came too late to be of use, so I inspected it but slightly,
and remember it indistinctly. I thought the passages too
short.
Addison, however, did not conclude his life in peaceful
studies ; but relapsed, when he was near his end, to a political
dispute.
It so happened that (1718-19) a controversy was agitated,
with great vehemence, between those friends of long continu-
ance, Addison and Steele. It may be asked, in the language
of Homer, what power or what cause could set them at vari-
ance. The subject of their dispute was of great importance.
The Earl of Sunderland proposed an act called the Peerage
Bill, by which the number of peers should be fixed, and the
King restrained from any new creation of nobility, unless
when an old family should be extinct. To this the Lords
would naturally agree; and the King, who was yet little ac-
quainted with his own prerogative, and, as is now well
LIFE OF ADDISON 185
known, almost indifferent to the possession of the Crown,
had been persuaded to consent. The only difficulty was found
among the Commons, who were not likely to approve the
perpetual exclusion of themselves and their posterity. The
bill therefore was eagerly opposed, and among others by Sir
Robert Walpole, whose speech was published.
The Lords might think their dignity diminished by im-
proper advancements, and particularly by the introduction
of twelve new peers at once, to produce a majority of Tories
in the last reign; an act of authority violent enough, yet
certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that
contempt of national right, with which some time after-
wards, by the instigation of Whiggism, the Commons, chosen
by the people for three years, chose themselves for seven.
But, whatever might be the disposition of the Lords, the
people had no wish to increase their power. The tendency
of the bill, as Steele observed in a letter to the Earl of Ox-
ford, was to introduce an Aristocracy; for a majority in
the House of Lords, so limited, would have been despotick
and irresistible.
To prevent this subversion of the ancient establishment,
Steele, whose pen readily seconded his political passions, en-
deavoured to alarm the nation by a pamphlet called The
Plebeian ; to this an answer was published by Addison, under
the title of The Old Whig, in which it is not discovered that
Steele was then known to be the advocate for the Commons.
Steele replied by a second Plebeian; and, whether by igno-
rance or by courtesy, confined himself to his question, with-
out any personal notice of his opponent. Nothing hitherto
was committed against the laws of friendship, or proprieties
of decency; but controvertists cannot long retain their kind-
ness for each other. The Old Whig answered the Plebeian,
and could not forbear some contempt of " little Dicky,
whose trade it was to write pamphlets." Dicky, however, did
not lose his settled veneration for his friend; but contented
himself with quoting some lines of Cato, which were at once
detection and reproof. The bill was laid aside during that
session, and Addison died before the next, in which its com-
mitment was rejected by two hundred and sixty-five to one
hundred and seventy-seven.
186 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Every reader surely must regret that these two illustrious
friends, after so many years past in confidence and endear-
ment, in unity of interest, conformity of opinion, and fellow-
ship of study, should finally part in acrimonious opposition.
Such a controversy was Bellum plusquam civile, as Lucan
expresses it. Why could not faction find other advocates?
But, among the uncertainties of the human state, we are
doomed to number the instability of friendship.
Of this dispute I have little knowledge but from the
Biographia Britannica. The Old Whig is not inserted in
Addison's works, nor is it mentioned by Tickell in his Life;
why it was omitted the biographers doubtless give the true
reason; the fact was too recent, and those who had been
heated in the contention were not yet cool.
The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing
persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may
be formed from permanent monuments and records ; but
Lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is
growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever.
What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when
it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features
of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the
minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it
is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly,
however they might delight in the description, should be
silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and un-
seasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a
daughter, a brother or a friend. As the process of these
narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I
begin to feel myself walking upon ashes under which the
fire is not extinguished, and coming to the time of which
it will be proper rather to say nothing that is false, than all
that is true.
The end of this useful life was now approaching. — Addi-
son had for some time been oppressed by shortness of breath,
which was now aggravated by a dropsy; and, finding his
danger pressing, he prepared to die conformably to his own
precepts and professions.
During this lingering decay, he sent, as Pope relates, a
message by the Earl of Warwick to Mr. Gay, desiring to see
LIFE OF ADDISON 187
him: Gay, who had not visited him for some time before,
obeyed the summons, and found himsetf received with great
kindness. The purpose for which the interview had been
solicited was then discovered; Addison told him that he had
injured him; but that, if he recovered, he would recompense
him. What the injury was he did not explain, nor did Gay
ever know ; but supposed that some preferment designed for
him, had, by Addison's intervention, been withheld.
Lord Warwick was a young man of very irregular life,
and perhaps of loose opinions. Addison, for whom he did
not want respect, had very diligently endeavoured to reclaim
him; but his arguments and expostulations had no effect.
One experiment, however, remained to be tried: when he
found his life near its end, he directed the young Lord to be
called; and when he desired, with great tenderness, to hear
his last injunctions, told him, / have sent for you that you
may see how a Christian can die. What effect this awful
scene had on the Earl I know not; he likewise died himself
in a short time.
In Tickell's excellent Elegy on his friend are these lines:
He taught us how to live ; and, oh ! too high
The price of knowledge, taught us how to die.
In which he alludes, as he told Dr. Young, to this moving
interview.
Having given directions to Mr. Tickell for the publication
of his works, and dedicated them on his death-bed to his
friend Mr. Craggs, he died June 17, 17 19, at Holland-house,
leaving no child but a daughter.
Of his virtue it is a sufficient testimony, that the resent-
ment of party has transmitted no charge of any crime. He
was not one of those who are praised only after death ; for
his merit was so generally acknowledged, that Swift, having
observed that his election passed without a contest, adds,
that if he had proposed himself for king, he would hardly
have been refused.
His zeal for his party did not extinguish his kindness
for the merit of his opponents: when he was secretary
in Ireland, he refused to intermit his acquaintance with
Swift.
188 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Of his habits, or external manners, nothing is so often
mentioned as that timorous or sullen taciturnity, which his
friends called modesty by too mild a name. Steele mentions
with great tenderness "that remarkable bashfulness, which
is a cloak that hides and muffles merit;" and tells us, that
"his abilities were covered only by modesty, which doubles
the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and esteem to
all that are concealed." Chesterfield affirms, that " Addison
was the most timorous and aukward man that he ever saw."
And Addison, speaking of his own deficience in conversa-
tion, used to say of himself, that, with respect to intellectual
wealth, " he could draw bills for a thousand pounds, though
he had not a guinea in his pocket."
That he wanted current coin for ready payment, and by
that want was often obstructed and distressed; that he was
oppressed by an improper and ungraceful timidity, every
testimony concurs to prove; but Chesterfield's representation
is doubtless hyperbolical. That man cannot be supposed very
unexpert in the arts of conversation and practice of life,
who, without fortune or alliance, by his usefulness and dex-
terity became secretary of state; and who died at forty-
seven, after having not only stood long in the highest rank
of wit and literature, but filled one of the most important
offices of state.
The time in which he lived had reason to lament his
obstinacy of silence ; " for he was," says Steele, " above all
men in that talent called humour, and enjoyed it in such
perfection, that I have often reflected, after a night spent
with him apart from all the world, that I had had the
pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of
Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature,
heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than
any other man ever possessed." This is the fondness of a
friend ; let us hear what is told us by a rival. " Addison's
conversation," says Pope, " had something in it more charm-
ing than I have found in any other man. But this was only
when familiar: before strangers or perhaps a single stran-
ger, he preserved his dignity by a stiff silence."
This modesty was by no means inconsistent with a very
high opinion of his own merit. He demanded to be the first
LIFE OF ADDISON 189
name in modern wit; and, with Steele to echo him, used to
depreciate Dryden, whom Pope and Congreve defended
against them. There is no reason to doubt that he suffered
too much pain from the prevalence of Pope's poetical repu-
tation; nor is it without strong reason suspected, that by-
some disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct it; Pope
was not the only man whom he insidiously injured, though
the only man of whom he could be afraid.
His own powers were such as might have satisfied him
with conscious excellence. Of very extensive learning he
has indeed given no proofs. He seems to have had small
acquaintance with the sciences, and to have read little ex-
cept Latin and French; but of the Latin poets his Dia-
logues on Medals shew that he had perused the works with
great diligence and skill. The abundance of his own mind
left him little need of adventitious sentiments; his wit always
could suggest what the occasion demanded. He had read
with critical eyes the important volume of human life, and
knew the heart of man from the depths of stratagem to the
surface of affectation.
What he knew he could easily communicate. " This,"
says Steele, " was particular in this writer, that when he
had taken his resolution, or made his plan for what he de-
signed to write, he would walk about a room, and dictate
it into language with as much freedom and ease as any one
could write it down, and attend to the coherence and gram-
mar of what he dictated."
Pope, who can be less suspected of favouring his memory,
declares that he wrote very fluently, but was slow and scru-
pulous in correcting; that many of his Spectators were writ-
ten very fast, and sent immediately to the press; and that it
seemed to be for his advantage not to have time for much
revisal.
" He would alter," says Pope, " any thing to please his
friends, before publication ; but would not retouch his pieces
afterwards: and I believe not one word in Cato, to which
I made an objection, was suffered to stand."
The last line of Cato is Pope's, having been originally
written
And, oh 1 'twas this that ended Cato's life.
190 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Pope might have made more objections to the six concluding
lines. In the first couplet the words from hence are im-
proper; and the second line is taken from Dryden's Virgil.
Of the next couplet, the first verse being included in the
second, is therefore useless; and in the third Discord is
made to produce Strife.
Of the course of Addison's familiar day, before his mar-
riage, Pope has given a detail. He had in the house with
him Budgell, and perhaps Philips. His chief companions
were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel
Brett. With one or other of these he always breakfasted.
He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern, and went
afterwards to Button's.
Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's
family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-
house on the south side of Russell-street, about two doors
from Covent-garden. Here it was that the wits of that time
used to assemble. It is said, that when Addison had suffered
any vexation from the countess, he withdrew the company
from Button's house.
From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where
he often sat late, and drank too much wine. In the bottle,
discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and
bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison
was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he
obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours. He
that feels oppression from the presence of those to whom he
knows himself superior, will desire to set loose his powers
of conversation ; and who, that ever asked succor from Bac-
chus, was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by
his auxiliary?
Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the
elegance of his colloquial accomplishments, which may easily
be supposed such as Pope represents them. The remark of
Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his
company, declared that he was a parson in a tye-wig, can
detract little from his character; he was always reserved to
strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a
character like that of Mandeville.
From any minute knowledge of his familiar manners, the
LIFE OF ADDISON 191
intervention of sixty years has now debarred us. Steele once
promised Congreve and the publick a complete description of
his character; but the promises of authors are like the vows
of lovers. Steele thought no more on his design, or thought
on it with anxiety that at last disgusted him, and left his
friend in the hands of Tickell.
One slight lineament of his character Swift has preserved.
It was his practice when he found any man invincibly wrong,
to flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet
deeper in absurdity. This artifice of mischief was admired
by Stella; and Swift seems to approve her admiration.
His works will supply some information. It appears from
his various pictures of the world, that, with all his bashful-
ness, he had conversed with many distinct classes of men,
had surveyed their ways with very diligent observation, and
marked with great acuteness the effects of different modes
of life. He was a man in whose presence nothing repre-
hensible was out of danger; quick in discerning whatever
was wrong or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it.
There are, says Steele, in his writings many oblique strokes
upon some of the wittiest men of the age. His delight was
more to excite merriment than detestation, and he detects
follies rather than crimes.
If any judgment be made, from his books, of his moral
character, nothing will be found but purity and excellence.
Knowledge of mankind indeed, less extensive than that of
Addison, will shew, that to write, and to live, are very dif-
ferent. Many who praise virtue, do not more than praise it.
Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's professions and
practice were at no great variance, since, amidst that storm
of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his
station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him
formidable, the character given him by his friends was never
contradicted by his enemies : of those with whom interest or
opinion united him, he had not only the esteem, but the
kindness; and of others whom the violence of opposition
drove against him, though he might lose the love, he re-
tained the reverence.
Jt is justly observed by Tickell, that he employed wit on
tfie side of virtue and religion. He not only made the proper
192 SAMUEL JOHNSON
use of wit himself, but taught it to others ; and from his
time it has been generally subservient to the cause of reason
and of truth. He has dissipated the prejudice that had long
connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with
laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity,
and taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is an eleva-
tion of literary character, above all Greek, above all Roman
fame. No greater felicity can genius attain than that of
having purified intellectual pleasure, separated mirth from
indecency, and wit from licentiousness; of having taught a
succession of writers to bring elegance and gaiety to the aid
of goodness; and, if I may use expressions yet more awful,
of having turned many to righteousness.
Addison, in his life, and for some time afterwards, was
considered by the greater part of readers as supremely ex-
celling both in poetry and criticism. Part of his reputation
may be probably ascribed to the advancement of his fortune :
when, as Swift observes, he became a statesman, and saw
poets waiting at his levee, it is no wonder that praise was
accumulated upon him. Much likewise may be more honour-
ably ascribed to his personal character: he who, if he had
claimed it, might have obtained the diadem, was not likely
to be denied the laurel.
But time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental
fame ; and Addison is to pass through futurity protected only
by his genius. Every name which kindness of interest once
raised too high, is in danger, lest the next age should, by the
vengeance of criticism, sink it in the same proportion. A
great writer has lately styled him an indifferent poet, and a
worse critick.
His poetry is first to be considered; of which it must be
confessed that it has not often those felicities of diction
which give lustre to sentiments, or that vigour of sentiment
that animates diction: there is little of ardour, vehemence,
or transport; there is very rarely the awfulness of grandeur,
and not very often the splendour of elegance. He thinks
justly; but he thinks faintly. This is his general character;
to which, doubtless, many single passages will furnish ex-
ceptions.
LIFE OF ADDISON 193
Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme excellence, he rarely
sinks into dulness, and is still more rarely entangled in ab-
surdity. He did not trust his powers enough to be negligent.
There is in most of his compositions a calmness and equa-
bility, deliberate and cautious, sometimes with little that
delights, but seldom with any thing that offends.
Of this kind seem to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers,
and to the King. His ode on St. Cecilia has been imitated
by Pope, and has something in it of Dryden's vigour. Of
his Account of the English Poets, he used to speak as a poor
thing ; but it is not worse than his usual strain. He has said,
not very judiciously, in his character of Waller:
Thy verse could shew ev'n Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
O ! had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne,
How had his triumph glitter'd in thy page ! — ■
What is this but to say that he who could compliment Crom-
well had been the proper poet for King William? Addison,
however, never printed the piece.
The Letter from Italy has been always praised, but has
never been praised beyond its merit. It is more correct, with
less appearance of labour, and more elegant, with less am-
bition of ornament, than any other of his poems. There is,
however, one broken metaphor, of which notice may properly
be taken:
Fir'd with that name —
I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler strain.
To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why must
she be bridled? because she longs to launch? an act which
was never hindered by a bridle: and whither will she launch?
into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a horse, in the
second a boat; and the care of the poet is to keep his horse
or his boat from singing.
The next composition is the far-famed Campaign, which
Dr. Warton has termed a Gazette in Rhyme, with harshness
not often used by the good-nature of his criticism. Before a
censure so severe is admitted, let us consider that War is a
frequent subject of Poetry, and then enquire who has de-
HC Vol. 27—7
194 SAMUEL JOHNSON
scribed it with more justness and force. Many of our own
writers tried their powers upon this year of victory, yet
Addison's is confessedly the best performance; his poem is
the work of a man not blinded by the dust of learning: his
images are not borrowed merely from books. The superior-
ity which he confers upon his hero is not personal prowess,
and mighty bone, but deliberate intrepidity, a calm command
of his passions, and the power of consulting his own mind
in the midst of danger. The rejection and contempt of fic-
tion is rational and manly.
It may be observed that the last line is imitated by Pope :
Marlb'rough's exploits appear divinely bright —
Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast,
And those that paint them truest, praise them most.
This Pope had in his thoughts ; but, not knowing how to use
what was not his own, he spoiled the thought when he had
borrowed it.
The well-sung woes shall soothe my ghost;
He best can paint them who shall feel them most.
Martial exploits may be painted; perhaps woes may be
painted; but they are surely not painted by being well-sung:
it is not easy to paint in song, or to sing in colours.
No passage in the Campaign has been more often men-
tioned than the simile of the Angel, which is said in the
Tatler to be one of the noblest thoughts that ever entered
into the heart of man, and is therefore worthy of attentive
consideration. Let it be first enquired whether it be a simile.
A poetical simile is the discovery of likeness between two
actions in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes ter-
minating by different operations in some resemblance of
effect. But the mention of another like consequence from a
like cause, or of a like performance by a like agency, is not
a simile, but an exemplification. It is not a simile to say that
the Thames waters fields, as the Po waters fields ; or that as
Hecla vomits flames in Iceland, so /Etna vomits flames in
Sicily. When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his vio-
lence and rapidity of verse, as a river swollen with rain rushes
from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in
LIFE OF ADDISON 195
quest of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect
honey; he, in either case, produces a simile; the mind is
impressed with the resemblance of things generally unlike,
as unlike as intellect and body. But if Pindar had been de-
scribed as writing with the copiousness and grandeur of
Homer, or Horace had told that he reviewed and finished
his own poetry with the same care as Isocrates polished his
orations, instead of similitude he would have exhibited al-
most identity; he would have given the same portraits with
different names. In the poem now examined, when the En-
glish are represented as gaining a fortified pass, by repetition
of attack and perseverance of resolution ; their obstinacy of
courage, and vigour of onset, is well illustrated by the sea
that breaks, with incessant battery, the dikes of Holland.
This is a simile: but when Addison, having celebrated the
beauty of Marlborough's person, tells us that Achilles thus
was formed with every grace, here is no simile, but a mere
exemplification. A simile may be compared to lines con-
verging at a point, and is more excellent as the lines ap-
proach from greater distance : an exemplification may be
considered as two parallel lines which run on together with-
out approximation, never far separated, and never joined.
Marlborough is so like the angel in the poem, that the
action of both is almost the same, and performed by both
in the same manner. Marlborough teaches the battle to
rage; the angel directs the storm: Marlborough is unmoved
in peaceful thought; the angel is calm and serene: Marl-
borough stands unmoved amidst the shock of hosts; the angel
rides calm in the whirlwind. The lines on Marlborough are
just and noble; but the simile gives almost the same images
a second time.
But perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was re-
mote from vulgar conceptions, and required great labour of
research, or dexterity of application. Of this, Dr. Madden,
a name which Ireland ought to honour, once gave me his
opinion. // / had set, said he, ten school-boys to write on
the battle of Blenheim, and eight had brought me the Angel,
I should not have been surprised.
The opera of Rosamond, though it is seldom mentioned, is
one of the first of Addison's compositions. The subject is
196 SAMUEL JOHNSON
well-chosen, the fiction is pleasing, and the praise of Marl-
borough, for which the scene gives an opportunity, is, what
perhaps every human excellence must be, the product of
good-luck improved by genius. The thoughts are sometimes
great, and sometimes tender; the versification is easy and
gay. There is doubtless some advantage in the shortness of
the lines, which there is little temptation to load with ex-
pletive epithets. The dialogue seems commonly better than
the songs. The two comick characters of Sir Trusty and
Grideline, though of no great value, are yet such as the poet
intended. Sir Trusty's account of the death of Rosamond is,
I think, too grossly absurd. The whole drama is airy and
elegant; engaging in its process, and pleasing in its con-
clusion. If Addison had cultivated the lighter parts of
poetry, he would probably have excelled.
The tragedy of Cato, which, contrary to the rule observed
in selecting the works of other poets, has by the weight of its
character forced its way into the late collection, is unques-
tionably the noblest production of Addison's genius. Of a
work so much read, it is difficult to say any thing new.
About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly
attains to think right; and of Cato it has been not unjustly
determined, that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a
drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant lan-
guage, than a representation of natural affections, or of any
state probable or possible in human life. Nothing here ex-
cites or asswages emotion; here is no magical power of
raising phantastick terror or wild anxiety. The events are
expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy
or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider
not what they are doing, or what they are suffering ; we wish
only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being above
our solicitude ; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom
we leave to their care with heedless confidence. To the rest,
neither gods nor men can have much attention; for there is
not one amongst them that strongly attracts either affection
or esteem. But they are made the vehicles of such senti-
ments and such expression, that there is scarcely a scene in
the play which the reader does not wish to impress upon
his memory.
LIFE OF ADDISON 197
When Cato was shewn to Pope, he advised the author to
print it, without any theatrical exhibition; supposing that it
would be read more favourably than heard. Addison de-
clared himself of the same opinion; but urged the impor-
tunity of his friends for its appearance on the stage. The
emulation of parties made it successful beyond expectation,
and its success has introduced or confirmed among us the
use of dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance, and
chill philosophy.
The universality of applause, however it might quell the
censure of common mortals, had no other effect than to
harden Dennis in fixed dislike ; but his dislike was not merely
capricious. He found and shewed many faults: he shewed
them indeed with anger, but he found them with acuteness,
such as ought to rescue his criticism from oblivion; though,
at last, it will have no other life than it derives from the
work which it endeavours to oppress.
Why he pays no regard to the opinion of the audience, he
gives his reason, by remarking, that
" A deference is to be paid to a general applause, when it
appears that that applause is natural and spontaneous; but
that little regard is to be had to it, when it is affected and
artificial. Of all the tragedies which in his memory have
had vast and violent runs, not one has been excellent, few
have been tolerable, most have been scandalous. When a
poet writes a tragedy, who knows he has judgement, and
who feels he has genius, that poet presumes upon his own
merit, and scorns to make a cabal. That people come coolly
to the representation of such a tragedy, without any violent
expectation, or delusive imagination, or invincible prepos-
session; that such an audience is liable to receive the im-
pressions which the poem shall naturally make in them, and
to judge by their own reason, and their own judgements,
and that reason and judgement are calm and serene, not
formed by nature to make proselytes, and to controul and
lord it over the imaginations of others. But that when an
author writes a tragedy, who knows he has neither genius
nor judgement, he has recourse to the making a party, and
he endeavours to make up in industry what is wanting in tal-
ent, and to supply by poetical craft the absence of poetical
198 SAMUEL JOHNSON
art; that such an author is humbly contented to raise men's
passions by a plot without doors, since he despairs of doing
it by that which he brings upon the stage. That party, and
passion, and prepossession, are clamorous and tumultuous
things, and so much the more clamorous and tumultuous by
how much the more erroneous: that they domineer and tyr-
annize over the imaginations of persons who want judge-
ment, and sometimes too of those who have it; and, like a
fierce and outrageous torrent, bear down all opposition be-
fore them."
He then condemns the neglect of poetical justice; which is
always one of his favourite principles.
" Tis certainly the duty of every tragick poet, by the exact
distribution of poetical justice, to imitate the Divine Dis-
pensation, and to inculcate a particular Providence. 'Tis true,
indeed, upon the stage of the world, the wicked sometimes
prosper, and the guiltless suffer. But that is permitted by
the Governor of the world, to shew, from the attribute of
his infinite justice, that there is a compensation in futurity,
to prove the immortality of the human soul, and the certainty
of future rewards and punishments. But the poetical per-
sons in tragedy exist no longer than the reading, or the
representation; the whole extent of their entity is circum-
scribed by those; and therefore, during that reading or rep-
resentation, according to their merits or demerits, they
must be punished or rewarded. If this is not done, there is
no impartial distribution of poetical justice, no instructive
lecture of a particular Providence, and no imitation of the
Divine Dispensation. And yet the author of this tragedy
does not only run counter to this, in the fate of his principal
character; but every where, throughout it, makes virtue suf-
fer, and vice triumph : for not only Cato is vanquished by
Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax pre-
vails over the honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba;
and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Portius over the
generous frankness and open-heartedness of Marcus."
Whatever pleasure there may be in seeing crimes punished
and virtue rewarded, yet, since wickedness often prospers in
real life, the poet is certainly at liberty to give it prosperity
on the stage. For if poetry has an imitation of reality, how
LIFE OF ADDISON" 199
are its laws broken by exhibiting the world in its true form ?
The stage may sometimes gratify our wishes; but, if it be
truly the mirror of life, it ought to shew us sometimes what
we are to expect.
Dennis objects to the characters that they are not natural,
or reasonable ; but as heroes and heroines are not beings that
are seen every day, it is hard to find upon what principles
their conduct shall be tried. It is, however, not useless to
consider what he says of the manner in which Cato receives
the account of his son's death.
" Nor is the grief of Cato, in the Fourth Act, one jot
more in nature than that of his son and Lucia in the third.
Cato receives the news of his son's death not only with dry
eyes, but with a sort of satisfaction ; and in the same page
sheds tears for the calamity of his country, and does the
same thing in the next page upon the bare apprehension of
the danger of his friends. Now, since the love of one's
country is the love of one's countrymen, as I have shewn
upon another occasion, I desire to ask these questions: Of
all our countrymen, which do we love most, those whom we
know, or those whom we know not? And of those whom
we know, which do we cherish most, our friends or our
enemies? And of our friends, which are the dearest to us?
tthose who are related to us, or those who are not? And of
sll our relations, for which have we most tenderness, for
tfiose who are near to us, or for those who are remote?
And of our near relations, which are the nearest, and con-
sequently the dearest to us, our offspring or others? Our
offspring, most certainly ; as nature, or in other words Provi-
dence, has wisely contrived for the preservation of mankind.
Now, does it not follow, from what has been said, that for
a man to receive the news of his son's death with dry eyes,
and to weep at the same time for the calamities of his
country, is a wretched affectation, and a miserable incon-
sistency? Is not that, in plain English, to receive with dry
eyes the news of the deaths of those for whose sake our
country is a name so dear to us, and at the same time to
shed tears for those for whose sakes our country is not a
name so dear to us ? "
But this formidable assailant is least resistible when he
200 SAMUEL JOHNSON
attacks the probability of the action, and the reasonableness
of the plan. Every critical reader must remark, that Addi-
son has, with a scrupulosity almost unexampled on the
English stage, confined himself in time to a single day, and
in place to rigorous unity. The scene never changes and
the whole action of the play passes in the great hall of
Cato's house at Utica. Much therefore is done in the hall,
for which any other place had been more fit; and this
impropriety affords Dennis many hints of merriment, and
opportunities of triumph. The passage is long; but as such
disquisitions are not common, and the objections are skil-
fully formed and vigorously urged, those who delight in
critical controversy will not think it tedious.
" Upon the departure of Portius, Sempronius makes but
one soliloquy, and immediately in comes Syphax, and then
the two politicians are at it immediately. They lay their
heads together, with their snuff-boxes in their hands, as
Mr. Bayes has it, and league it away. But, in the midst of
that wise scene, Syphax seems to give a seasonable caution
to Sempronius:
" Syph. But is it true, Sempronius, that your senate
Is call'd together ? Gods ! thou must be cautious,
Cato has piercing eyes.
" There is a great deal of caution shewn indeed, in meeting
in a governor's own hall to carry on their plot against him.
Whatever opinion they have of his eyes, I suppose they had
none of his ears, or they would never have talked at this
foolish rate so near.
" Gods ! thou must be cautious.
" Oh ! yes, very cautious : for if Cato should overhear you,
and turn you off for politicians, Caesar would never take
you; no, Caesar would never take you.
" When Cato, Act II. turns the senators out of the hall,
upon pretence of acquainting Juba with the result of their
debates, he appears to me to do a thing which is neither
reasonable nor civil. Juba might certainly have better been
made acquainted with the result of that debate in some
private apartment of the palace. But the poet was driven
LIFE OF ADDISON 201
upon this absurdity to make way for another; and that is,
to give Juba an opportunity to demand Marcia of her father.
But the quarrel and rage of Juba and Syphax in the same
Act, the invectives of Syphax against the Romans and Cato ;
the advice that he gives Juba, in her father's hall, to bear
away Marcia by force; and his brutal and clamorous rage
upon his refusal, and at a time when Cato was scarce out
of sight, and perhaps not out of hearing; at least, some of
his guards or domesticks must necessarily be supposed to be
within hearing ; is a thing that is so far from being probable,
that it is hardly possible.
" But treason is not the only thing that is carried on in
this hall: that, and love, and philosophy, take their turns
in it, without any manner of necessity or probability occa-
sioned by the action, as duly and as regularly, without inter-
rupting one another, as if there were a triple league between
them, and a mutual agreement that each should give place
to and make way for the other, in a due and orderly suc-
cession.
" We come now to the Third Act. Sempronius, in this
Act, comes into the governor's hall, with the leaders of
the mutiny: but as soon as Cato is gone, Sempronius, who
but just before had acted like an unparalleled knave, dis-
covers himself, like an egregious fool, to be an accomplice
in the conspiracy.
** Semp. Know, villains, when such paltry slaves presume
To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,
They're thrown neglected by : but if it fails,
They're sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.
Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
To sudden death. —
" 'Tis true, indeed, the second leader says, there are none
there but friends; but is that possible at such a juncture?
Can a parcel of rogues attempt to assassinate the governor
of a town of war, in his own house, in mid-day, and after
they are discovered and defeated, can there be none near
them but friends ? Is it not plain from these words of Sem-
pronius,
" Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
To sudden death —
202 SAMUEL JOHNSON
" and from the entrance of the guards upon the word of
command, that those guards were within ear-shot? Behold
Sempronius then palpably discovered. How comes it to
pass, then, that, instead of being hanged up with the rest,
he remains secure in the governor's hall, and there carries
on his conspiracy against the government, the third time in
the same day, with his old comrade Syphax? who enters at
the same time that the guards are carrying away the leaders,
big with the news of the defeat of Sempronius; though
where he had his intelligence so soon is difficult to imagine.
And now the reader may expect a very extraordinary scene :
there is not abundance of spirit indeed, nor a great deal of
passion, but there is wisdom more than enough to supply all
defects.
" Syph. Our first design, my friend, has prov'd abortive;
Still there remains an after-game to play :
My troops are mounted, their Numidian steeds
Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desart:
Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight,
We'll force the gate, where Marcus keeps his guard,
And hew down all that would oppose our passage ;
A day will bring us into Caesar's camp.
" Semp. Confusion ! I have fail'd of half my purpose;
Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind.
" Well ! but though he tells us the half-purpose that he has
failed of, he does not tell us the half that he has carried.
But what does he mean by
u Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind ?
" He is now in her own house ; and we have neither seen
her nor heard of her any where else since the play began.
But now let us hear Syphax:
" What hinders then, but that thou find her out,
And hurry her away by manly force?
" But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out ? They
talk as if she were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty
morning.
"Semp. But how to gain admission?
" Oh ! she is found out then, it seems.
LIFE OF ADDISON 203
" But how to gain admission ? for access
Is giv'n to none, but Juba and her brothers.
" But, raillery apart, why access to Juba ? For he was owned
and received as a lover neither by the father nor by the
daughter. Well ! but let that pass. Syphax puts Sempronius
out of pain immediately ; and, being a Numidian, abounding
in wiles, supplies him with a stratagem for admission, that,
I believe, is a non-pareille :
" Syph. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards ;
The doors will open, when Numidia's prince
Seems to appear before them.
" Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba in full day at
Cato's house, where they were both so very well known, by
having Juba's dress and his guards: as if one of the mar-
shals of France could pass for the Duke of Bavaria, at
noon-day, at Versailles, by having his dress and liveries.
But how does Syphax pretend to help Sempronius to young
Juba's dress? Does he serve him in a double capacity, as
general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's
guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared
with yet. Well ! though this is a mighty politick invention,
yet, methinks, they might have done without it: for, since
the advice that Syphax gave to Sempronius was,
11 To hurry her away by manly force,
" in my opinion, the shortest and likeliest way of coming
at the lady was by demolishing, instead of putting on an
impertinent disguise to circumvent two or three slaves. But
Sempronius, it seems, is of another opinion. He extols to
the skies the invention of old Syphax:
" Sempr. Heavens ! what a thought was there !
" Now I appeal to the reader, if I have not been as good
as my word. Did I not tell him, that I would lay before
him a very wise scene?
" But now let us lay before the reader that part of the
scenery of the Fourth Act, which may shew the absurdities
which the author has run into, through the indiscreet
204 SAMUEL JOHNSON
observance of the Unity of Place. I do not remember that
Aristotle has said any thing expressly concerning the Unity
of Place. 'Tis true, implicitly he has said enough in the
rules which he has laid down for the Chorus. For, by
making the Chorus an essential part of Tragedy, and by
bringing it on the stage immediately after the opening of the
scene, and retaining it there till the very catastrophe, he has
so determined and fixed the place of action, that it was
impossible for an author on the Grecian stage to break
through that unity. I am of opinion, that if a modern
tragic poet can preserve the unity of place, without destroy-
ing the probability of the incidents, 'tis always best for him
to do it; because, by the preservation of that unity, as we
have taken notice above, he adds grace, and cleanness, and
comeliness, to the representation. But since there are no
express rules about it, and we are under no compulsion to
keep it, since we have no Chorus as the Grecian poet had ;
if it cannot be preserved, without rendering the greater part
of the incidents unreasonable and absurd, and perhaps some-
times monstrous, 'tis certainly better to break it.
" Now comes bully Sempronius, comically accoutred and
equipped with his Numidian dress and his Numidian guards.
Let the reader attend to him with all his ears; for the words
of the wise are precious:
" Sempr. The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert.
" Now I would fain know why this deer is said to be
lodged, since we have not heard one word, since the play
began, of her being at all out of harbour: and if we con-
cider the discourse with which she and Lucia began the Act,
we have reason to believe that they had hardly been talking
of such matters in the street. However, to pleasure Sem-
pronius, let us suppose, for once, that the deer is lodged:
" The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert.
" If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had
he to track her, when he had so many Numidian dogs at his
heels, which, with one halloo, he might have set upon her
haunches? If he did not see her in the open field, how
LIFE OF ADDISON 205
could he possibly track her? If he had seen her in the
street, why did he not set upon her in the street, since
through the street she must be carried at last? Now here,
instead of having his thoughts upon his business, and upon
the present danger; instead of meditating and contriving
how he shall pass with his mistress through the southern
gate, where her brother Marcus is upon the guard, and
where she would certainly prove an impediment to him,
which is the Roman word for the baggage, instead of doing
this, Sempronius is entertaining himself with whimsies:
" Sempr. How will the young Numidian rave to see
His mistress lost ! If aught could glad my soul,
Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize,
'Twould be to torture that young gay Barbarian.
But hark! what noise? Death to my hopes, 'tis he,
'Tis Juba's self ! There is but one way left !
He must be murder'd, and a passage cut
Through those his guards.
" Pray, what are those his guards? I thought at present,
that Juba's guards had been Sempronius's tools, and had
been dangling after his heels.
" But now let us sum up all these absurdities together.
Sempronius goes at noonday, in Juba's clothes, and with
Juba's guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pass for Juba,
in a place where they were both so very well known: he
meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own
guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he
threatens them:
" Hah ! Dastards, do you tremble !
Or act like men, or by yon azure heav'n !
a But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself
attacks Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr.
Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified
by Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius, and takes
his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away
to Cato. Now I would fain know, if any part of Mr. Bayes's
tragedy is so full of absurdity as this?
" Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia
come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing
206 SAMUEL JOHNSON
the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the
governor himself? Where were his guards? Where were
his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the person
of a governor of a place of war, was enough to alarm the
whole garrison : and yet, for almost half an hour after Sem-
pronius was killed, we find none of those appear who were
the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of
swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who
were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and
Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an
hysterical gentlewoman :
" Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords ! my troubled heart
Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows,
It throbs with fear, and akes at every sound !
" And immediately her old whimsy returns upon her :
" O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake —
I die away with horror at the thought.
" She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it
must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what
is comical. Well ! upon this they spy the body of Sempro-
nius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him
for Juba; for, says she,
" The face is muffled up within the garment.
" Now how a man could fight, and fall with his face muffled
up in his garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive !
Besides, Juba, before he killed him, knew him to be Sem-
pronius. It was not by his garment that he knew this ; it
was by his face then : his face therefore was not muffled.
Upon seeing this man with the muffled face, Marcia falls
a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct,
begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters
listening, I suppose on tip-toe: for I cannot imagine how
any one can enter listening, in any other posture. I would
fain know how it came to pass, that during all this time he
had sent nobody, no not so much as a candle-snuffer, to
take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well ! but let us
regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind
LIFE OF ADDISON 207
him, he, at first, applies what Marcia says to Sempronius.
But finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the
happy man, he quits his eves-dropping, and greedily inter-
cepts the bliss, which was fondly designed for one who
could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a ques-
tion: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened
before throughout the play? Or, how comes he to be the
only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and
treason were so often talked in so publick a place as a hall?
I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities
only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia; which,
after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as any thing
is which is the effect or result of trick.
" But let us come to the scenery of the Fifth Act. Cato
appears first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture;
in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul,
a drawn sword on the table by him. Now let us consider
the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place,
forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose, that any one should
place himself in this posture, in the midst of one of our
halls in London ; that he should appear solus, in a sullen
posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand
Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated
lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider,
whether such a person as this would pass with them who
beheld him for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a
general, or for some whimsical person who fancied himself
all these; and whether the people, who belonged to the
family, would think that such a person had a design upon
their midrifs or his own?
" In short, that Cato should sit long enough, in the afore-
said posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over
Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a
lecture of two long hours ; that he should propose to him-
self to be private there upon that occasion ; that he should
be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he
should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself
the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought
back into that hall to expire, purely to shew his good-breed-
ing, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his
208 SAMUEL JOHNSON
bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, in-
credible, impossible."
Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden
expresses it, perhaps too much horse play in his raillery;
but if his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong. Yet
as we love better to be pleased than to be taught, Cato is
read, and the critick is neglected.
Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurd-
ity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of
Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils, and
minute objections.
Of Addison's smaller poems, no particular mention is
necessary; they have little that can employ or require a
critick. The parallel of the Princes and Gods, in his verses
to Kneller, is often happy, but is too well known to be
quoted.
His translations, so far as I have compared them, want
the exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors
cannot be doubted; but his versions will not teach others
to understand them, being too licentiously paraphrastical.
They are, however, for the most part, smooth and easy ; and,
what is the first excellence of a translator, such as may be
read with pleasure by those who do not know the originals.
His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind
too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous
to attain excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a
shining paragraph ; but in the whole he is warm rather than
fervid, and shews more dexterity than strength. He was,
however, one of our earliest examples of correctness.
The versification which he had learned from Dryden, he
debased rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant;
in his Georgick he admits broken lines. He uses both trip-
lets and alexandrines, but triplets more frequently in his
translations than his other works. The mere structure of
verses seems never to have engaged much of his care. But
his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and too smooth in
Cato.
Addison is now to be considered as a critick; a name
which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow
him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experi-
LIFE OF ADDISON 209
mental, rather than scientifick, and he is considered as
deciding by taste rather than by principles.
It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by
the labour of others, to add a little of their own, and over-
look their masters. Addison is now despised by some who
perhaps would never have seen his defects, but by the lights
which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would
think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his
instructions were such as the character of his readers made
proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in
common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not
professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and
in the female world, any acquaintance with books was dis-
tinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse
literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected conveyance,
into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore pre-
sented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and
austere, but accessible and familiar. When he shewed them
their defects, he shewed them likewise that they might be
easily supplied. His attempt succeeded; enquiry was awak-
ened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intel-
lectual elegance was excited, and from his time to our own,
life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified
and enlarged.
Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism
over his Prefaces with very little parsimony; but though
he sometimes condescended to be somewhat familiar, his
manner was in general too scholastick for those who had
yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to under-
stand their master. His observations were framed rather
for those that were learning to write, than for those that
read only to talk.
An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose
remarks being superficial, might be easily understood, and
being just, might prepare the mind for more attainments.
Had he presented Paradise Lost to the publick with all
the pomp of system and severity of science, the criticism
would perhaps have been admired, and the poem still have
been neglected; but by the blandishments of gentleness and
facility, he has made Milton an universal favourite, with
210 SAMUEL JOHNSON
whom readers of every class think it necessary to be
pleased.
He descended now and then to lower disquisitions; and
by a serious display of the beauties of Chevy Chase, exposed
himself to the ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like
pompous character on Tom Thumb, and to the contempt of
Dennis, who, considering the fundamental position of his
criticism, that Chevy Chase pleases, and ought to please,
because it is natural, observes, " that there is a way of
deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars
above nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk;
by affectation, which forsakes nature in quest of something
unsuitable; and by imbecility, which degrades nature by
faintness and diminution, by obscuring its appearances, and
weakening its effects." In Chevy Chase there is not much
of either bombast or affectation; but there is chill and life-
less imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a man-
ner that shall make less impression on the mind.
Before the profound observers of the present race repose
too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to
Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which
may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and
refined; let them peruse likewise his Essays on Wit, and
on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art
on the base of nature, and draws the principles of inven-
tion from dispositions inherent in the mind of man, with
skill and elegance, such as his contemners will not easily
attain.
As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed
to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour,
which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily
diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestick scenes
and daily occurrences. He never outsteps the modesty of
nature, nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of
truth. His figures neither divert by distortion, nor amaze
by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity, that
he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an
air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not
merely the product of imagination.
As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed.
LIFE OF ADDISON 211
His religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or superstitious :
he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly scep-
tical; his morality is neither dangerously lax, nor imprac-
ticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the
cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the
reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of
his being. Truth is shewn sometimes as the phantom of a
vision, sometimes appears half-veiled in an allegory; some-
times attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and sometimes
steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thou-
sand dresses, and in all is pleasing.
Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.
His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave sub-
jects not formal, on light occasions not groveling; pure
without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elabora-
tion ; always equable, and always easy, without glowing
words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from
his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious orna-
ments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is
always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.
It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all
harshness and severity of diction ; he is therefore some-
times verbose in his transitions and connections, and some-
times descends too much to the language of conversation;
yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have
lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted,
he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to
be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates.
His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected
brevity: his periods, though not diligently rounded, are
voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English
style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostenta-
tious, must gives his days and nights to the volumes of
Addison.
OF THE STANDARD OF TASTE
BY
DAVID HUME
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
David Hume (1711-1776) was bom in Edinburgh, and was
trained for the law. He early showed an eager interest in philos-
ophy, and devoted himself to study with such intensity as to
injure his health. He traveled in France more than once, and
was on intimate terms with such men as d'Alembert, Turgot, and
Rousseau, for the last of whom he found a pension and a tem-
porary refuge in England.
Hume is most celebrated for his philosophical writings, in
which he carried the empirical philosophy of Locke to the point
of complete skepticism. He wrote also a "History of England'*
in eight volumes, and a large number of treatises and essays on
politics, economics, ethics, and esthetics. The following essay,
"On the Standard of Taste," is a typical example of his clear
thinking and admirable style. "He may be regarded," says Leslie
Stephen, "as the acutest thinker in Great Britain of the eigh-
teenth century, and the most qualified interpreter of its intellec-
tual tendencies"
2U
OF THE STANDARD OF TASTE
THE great variety of Taste, as well as of opinion, which
prevails in the world, is too obvious not to have fallen
under every one's observation. Men of the most con-
fined knowledge are able to remark a difference of taste in
the narrow circle of their acquaintance, even where the
persons have been educated under the same government, and
have early imbibed the same prejudices. But those, who
can enlarge their view to contemplate distant nations and
remote ages, are still more surprised at the great inconsist-
ence and contrariety. We are apt to call barbarous what-
ever departs widely from our own taste and apprehension;
but soon find the epithet of reproach retorted on us. And
the highest arrogance and self-conceit is at last startled, on
observing an equal assurance on all sides, and scruples,
amidst such a contest of sentiment, to pronounce positively
in its own favour.
As this variety of taste is obvious to the most careless
inquirer; so will it be found, on examination, to be still
greater in reality than in appearance. The sentiments of
men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all
kinds, even while their general discourse is the same. There
are certain terms in every language, which import blame, and
others praise; and all men, who use the same tongue, must
agree in their application of them. Every voice is united
in applauding elegance, propriety, simplicity, spirit in writ-
ing ; and in blaming fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false
brilliancy: But when critics come to particulars, this seem-
ing unanimity vanishes ; and it is found, that they had affixed
a very different meaning to their expressions. In all matters
of opinion and science, the case is opposite: The difference
among men is there oftener found to lie in generals than in
215
216 DAVID HUME
particulars ; and to be less in reality than in appearance. An
explanation of the terms commonly ends the controversy;
and the disputants are surprised to find, that they had been
quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgment.
Those who found morality on sentiment, more than on
reason, are inclined to comprehend ethics under the former
observation, and to maintain, that, in all questions, which
regard conduct and manners, the difference among men is
really greater than at first sight it appears. It is indeed
obvious, that writers of all nations and all ages concur
in applauding justice, humanity, magnanimity, prudence,
veracity; and in blaming the opposite qualities. Even poets
and other authors, whose compositions are chiefly calculated
to please the imagination, are yet found, from Homer down
to Fenelon, to inculcate the same moral precepts, and to
bestow their applause and blame on the same virtues and
vices. This great unanimity is usually ascribed to the influ-
ence of plain reason; which, in all these cases, maintains
similar sentiments in all men, and prevents those controver-
sies, to which the abstract sciences are so much exposed.
So far as the unanimity is real, this account may be admitted
as satisfactory: But we must also allow, that some part of
the seeming harmony in morals may be accounted for from
the very nature of language. The word virtue, with its
equivalent in every tongue, implies praise ; as that of vice
does blame: And no man, without the most obvious and
grossest impropriety, could affix reproach to a term, which
in general acceptation is understood in a good sense; or
bestow applause, where the idiom requires disapprobation.
Homer's general precepts, where he delivers any such, will
never be controverted ; but it is obvious, that, when he draws
particular pictures of manners, and represents heroism in
Achilles and prudence in Ulysses, he intermixes a much
greater degree of ferocity in the former, and of cunning and
fraud in the latter, than Fenelon would admit of. The sage
Ulysses in the Greek poet seems to delight in lies and fictions,
and often employs them without any necessity or even advan-
tage : But his more scrupulous son, in the French epic writer,
exposes himself to the most imminent perils, rather than
depart from the most exact line of truth and veracity.
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 217
The admirers and followers of the Alcoran insist on the ex-
cellent moral precepts interspersed through that wild and absurd
performance. But it is to be supposed, that the Arabic words,
which correspond to the English, equity, justice, temperance,
meekness, charity, were such as, from the constant use of that
tongue, must always be taken in a good sense ; and it would
have argued the greatest ignorance, not of morals, but of lan-
guage, to have mentioned them with any epithets, besides
those of applause and approbation. But would we know,
whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just senti-
ment of morals ? Let us attend to his narration ; and we shall
soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treach-
ery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incom-
patible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems
there to be attended to ; and every action is blamed or praised,
so far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.
The merit of delivering true general precepts in ethics is
indeed very small. Whoever recommends any moral virtues,
really does no more than is implied in the terms themselves.
That people, who invented the word charity, and used it in
a good sense, inculcated more clearly and much more effica-
ciously, the precept, be charitable, than any pretended legis-
lator or prophet, who should insert such a maxim in his
writings. Of all expressions, those, which, together with
their other meaning, imply a degree either of blame or appro-
bation, are the least liable to be perverted or mistaken.
It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by
which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at
least, a decision afforded, confirming one*sentiment, and con-
demning another.
There is a species of philosophy, which cuts off all hopes
of success in such an attempt, and represents the impossibil-
ity of ever attaining any standard of taste. The difference,
it is said, is very wide between judgment and sentiment
All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference
to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever
a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the
understanding are not right; because they have a reference
to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact;
and are not always conformable to that standard. Among
218 DAVID HUME
a thousand different opinions which different men may en-
tertain of the same subject, there is one, and but one, that
is just and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and ascertain
it. On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments, excited
by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment repre-
sents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain
conformity or relation between the object and the organs or
faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really
exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty
is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the
mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a
different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity,
where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual
ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending
to regulate those of others. To seek the real beauty, or real
deformity, is as fruitless an inquiry, as to pretend to ascer-
tain the real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposi-
tion of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and
bitter: and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless
to dispute concerning tastes. It is very natural, and even
quite necessary, to extend this axiom to mental, as well as
bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often at
variance with philosophy, especially with the sceptical kind,
is found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing
the same decision.
But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to
have attained the sanction of common sense; there is cer-
tainly a species of common sense, which opposes it, at least
serves to modify arid restrain it. Whoever would assert an
equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and Milton,
or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less
an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to
be as high as Teneriffe, or a pond as extensive as the ocean.
Though there may be found persons, who give the preference
to the former authors ; no one pays attention to such a taste ;
and we pronounce, without scruple, the sentiment of these
pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle
of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and
while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem
near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 219
rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned
are compared together.
It is evident that none of the rules of composition are
fixed by reasonings a priori, or can be esteemed abstract con-
clusions of the understanding, from comparing those hab-
itudes and relations of ideas, which are eternal and immuta-
ble. Their foundation is the same with that of all the
practical sciences, experience; nor are there any thing but
general observations, concerning what has been universally
found to please in all countries and in all ages. Many of the
beauties of poetry, and even of eloquence, are founded on
falsehood and fiction, on hyperboles, metaphors, and an
abuse or perversion of terms from their natural meaning.
To check the sallies of the imagination, and to reduce every
expression to geometrical truth and exactness, would be the
most contrary to the laws of criticism ; because it would pro-
duce a work, which, by universal experience, has been found
the most insipid and disagreeable. But though poetry can
never submit to exact truth, it must be confined by rules of
art, discovered to the author either by genius or observation.
If some negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they
have not pleased by their transgressions of rule or order, but
in spite of these transgressions: They have possessed other
beauties, which were conformable to just criticism; and the
force of these beauties has been able to overpower censure,
and give the mind a satisfaction superior to the disgust aris-
ing from the blemishes. Ariosto pleases; but not by his
monstrous and improbable fictions, by his bizarre mixture
of the serious and comic styles, by the want of coherence in
his stories, or by the continual interruptions of his narration.
He charms by the force and clearness of his expression, by
the readiness and variety of his inventions, and by his
natural pictures of the passions, especially those of the gay
and amorous kind : And however his faults may diminish our
satisfaction, they are not able entirely to destroy it. Did our
pleasure really arise from those parts of his poem, which we
denominate faults, this would be no objection to criticism in
general: It would only be an objection to those particular
rules of criticism, which would establish such circumstances
to be faults, and would represent them as universally blame-
220 DAVID HUME
able. If they are found to please, they cannot be faults; let
the pleasure, which they produce, be ever so unexpected and
unaccountable.
But though all the general rules of art are founded only
on experience, and on the observation of the common senti-
ments of human nature, we must not imagine, that, on every
occasion, the feelings of men' will be conformable to these
rules. Those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tender
and delicate nature, and require the concurrence of many
favourable circumstances to make them play with facility
and exactness, according to their general and established
principles. The least exterior hindrance to such small
springs, or the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion,
and confounds the operation of the whole machine. When
we would make an experiment of this nature, and would try
the force of any beauty or deformity, we must choose with care
a proper time and place, and bring the fancy to a suitable
situation and disposition. A perfect serenity of mind, a rec-
ollection of thought, a due attention to the object; if any of
these circumstances be wanting, our experiment will be
fallacious, and we shall be unable to judge of the catholic
and universal beauty. The relation, which nature has placed
between the form and the sentiment, will at least be more
obscure; and it will require greater accuracy to trace and
discern it. We shall be able to ascertain its influence, not so
much from the operation of each particular beauty, as from
the durable admiration, which attends those works, that have
survived all the caprices of mode and fashion, all the mis-
takes of ignorance and envy.
The same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two
thousand years ago, is still admired at Paris and at London.
All the changes of climate, government, religion, and lan-
guage, have not been able to obscure his glory. Authority or
prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or
orator; but his reputation will never be durable or general.
When his compositions are examined by posterity or by for-
eigners, the enchantment is dissipated, and his faults appear
in their true colours. On the contrary, a real genius, the
longer his works endure, and the more wide they are spread,
the more sincere is the admiration which he meets with.
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 221
Envy and jealousy have too much place in a narrow circle;
and even familiar acquaintance with his person may dimin-
ish the applause due to his performances : But when these
obstructions are removed, the beauties, which are naturally
fitted to excite agreeable sentiments, immediately display
their energy; while the world endures, they maintain their
authority over the minds of men.
It appears then, that, amidst all the variety and caprice of
taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or
blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all opera-
tions of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities, from
the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated
to please, and others to displease; and if they fail of their
effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent
defect or imperfection in the organ. A man in a fever
would not insist on his palate as able to decide concerning
flavours; nor would one, affected with the jaundice, pretend
to give a verdict with regard to colours. In each creature,
there is a sound and a defective state ; and the former alone
can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and
sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an
entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men,
we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like
manner as the appearance of objects in day-light, to the
eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and real
colour, even while colour is allowed to be merely a phantasm
of the senses.
Many and frequent are the defects in the internal organs,
which prevent or weaken the influence of those general prin-
ciples, on which depends our sentiment of beauty or deform-
ity. Though some objects, by the structure of the mind, be
naturally calculated to give pleasure, it is not to be expected,
that in every individual the pleasure will be equally felt.
Particular incidents and situations occur, which either throw
a false light on the objects, or hinder the true from convey-
ing to the imagination the proper sentiment and perception.
One obvious cause, why many feel not the proper sentiment
of beauty, is the want of that delicacy of imagination, which
is requisite to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions.
This delicacy every one pretends to: Every one talks of it;
222 DAVID HUME
and would reduce every kind of taste or sentiment to its
standard. But as our intention in this essay is to mingle
some light of the understanding with the feelings of senti-
ment, it will be proper to give a more accurate definition of
delicacy than has hitherto been attempted. And not to draw
our philosophy from too profound a source, we shall have
recourse to a noted story in Don Quixote.
It is with good reason, says Sancho to the squire with the
great nose, that I pretend to have a judgment in wine: This
is a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen
were once called to give their opinion of a hogshead, which
was supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage.
One of them tastes it; considers it; and, after mature reflec-
tion, pronounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small
taste of leather, which he perceived in it. The other, after
using the same precautions, gives also his verdict in favour
of the wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which
he could easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much
they were both ridiculed for their judgment. But who
laughed in the end? On emptying the hogshead, there was
found at the bottom an old key with a leathern thong tied
to it.
The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste
will easily teach us to apply this story. Though it be certain,
that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are
not qualities in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment,
internal or external; it must be allowed, that there are cer-
tain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to produce
those particular feelings. Now as these qualities may be
found in a small degree, or may be mixed and confounded
with each other, it often happens that the taste is not affected
with such minute qualities, or is not able to distinguish all
the particular flavours, amidst the disorder in which they
are presented. Where the organs are so fine, as to allow
nothing to escape them ; and at the same time so exact, as to
perceive every ingredient in the composition: This we call
delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the
literal or metaphorical sense. Here then the general rules
of beauty are of use, being drawn from established models,
and from the observation of what pleases or displeases, when
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 223
presented singly and in a high degree: And if the same
qualities, in a continued composition, and in a smaller degree,
affect not the organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness,
we exclude the person from all pretensions to this delicacy.
To produce these general rules or avowed patterns of com-
position, is like finding the key with the leathern thong ; which
justified the verdict of Sancho's kinsmen, and confounded
those pretended judges who had condemned them. Though
the hogshead had never been emptied, the taste of the one
was still equally delicate, and that of the other equally dull
and languid: But it would have been more difficult to have
proved the superiority of the former, to the conviction of
every bye-stander. In like manner, though the beauties of
writing had never been methodized, or reduced to general
principles; though no excellent models had ever been ac-
knowledged; the different degrees of taste would still have
subsisted, and the judgment of one man been preferable to
that of another ; but it would not have been so easy to silence
the bad critic, who might always insist upon his particular
sentiment, and refuse to submit to his antagonist. But when
we show him an avowed principle of art ; when we illustrate
this principle by examples, whose operation, from his own
particular taste, he acknowledges to be conformable to the
principle; when we prove that the same principle may be
applied to the present case, where he did not perceive or feel
its influence : He must conclude, upon the whole, that the
fault lies in himself, and that he wants the delicacy, which
is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and every
blemish, in any composition or discourse.
It is acknowledged to be the perfection of every sense or
faculty, to perceive with exactness its most minute objects,
and allow nothing to escape its notice and observation. The
smaller the objects are, which become sensible to the eye, the
finer is that organ, and the more elaborate its make and com-
position. A good palate is not tried by strong flavours, but
by a mixture of small ingredients, where we are still sensible
of each part, notwithstanding its minuteness and its con-
fusion with the rest. In like manner, a quick and acute
perception of beauty and deformity must be the perfection
of our mental taste ; nor can a man be satisfied with himself
224 DAVID HUME
while he suspects that any excellence or blemish in a dis-
course has passed him unobserved. In this case, the perfec-
tion of the man, and the perfection of the sense or feeling,
are found to be united. A very delicate palate, on many
occasions, may be a great inconvenience both to a man him-
self and to his friends : But a delicate taste of wit or beauty
must always be a desirable quality, because it is the source of
all the finest and most innocent enjoyments of which human
nature is susceptible. In this decision the sentiments of all
mankind are agreed. Wherever you can ascertain a delicacy
of taste, it is sure to meet with approbation; and the best way
of ascertaining it is to appeal to those models and principles
which have been established by the uniform consent and
experience of nations and ages.
But though there be naturally a wide difference in point
of delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends
further to increase and improve this talent, than practice in a
particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of
a particular species of beauty. When objects of any kind
are first presented to the eye or imagination, the sentiment
which attends them is obscure and confused; and the mind
is, in a great measure, incapable of pronouncing concerning
their merits or defects. The taste cannot perceive the sev-
eral excellencies of the performance, much less distinguish
the particular character of each excellency, and ascertain
its quality and degree. If it pronounce the whole in general
to be beautiful or deformed, it is the utmost that can be
expected; and even this judgment, a person so unpractised
will be apt to deliver with great hesitation and reserve. But
allow him to acquire experience in those objects, his feeling
becomes more exact and nice: He not only perceives the
beauties and defects of each part, but marks the distinguish-
ing species of each quality, and assigns it suitable praise or
blame. A clear and distinct sentiment attends him through
the whole survey of the objects; and he discerns that very
degree and kind of approbation or displeasure which each
part is naturally fitted to produce. The mist dissipates which
seemed formerly to hang over the object: The organ acquires
greater perfection in its operations; and can pronounce,
without danger or mistake, concerning the merits of every
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 225
performance. In a word, the same address and dexterity,
which practice gives to the execution of any work, is also
acquired by the same means, in the judging of it.
So advantageous is practice to the discernment of beauty,
that, before we can give judgment on any work of impor-
tance, it will even be requisite that that very individual per-
formance be more than once perused by us, and be surveyed
in different lights with attention and deliberation. There is
a flutter or hurry of thought which attends the first perusal
of any piece, and which confounds the genuine sentiment of
beauty. The relation of the parts is not discerned: The true
characters of style are little distinguished. The several
perfections and defects seem wrapped up in a species of con-
fusion, and present themselves indistinctly to the imagina-
tion. Not to mention, that there is a species of beauty, which,
as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first ; but being found
incompatible with a just expression either of reason or pas-
sion, soon palls upon the taste, and is then rejected with
disdain, at least rated at a much lower value.
It is impossible to continue in the practice of contemplating
any order of beauty, without being frequently obliged to form
comparisons between the several species and degrees of
excellence, and estimating their proportion to each other. A
man, who had had no opportunity of comparing the different
kinds of beauty, is indeed totally unqualified to pronounce
an opinion with regard to any object presented to him. By
comparison alone we fix the epithets of praise or blame, and
learn how to assign the due degree of each. The coarsest
daubing contains a certain lustre of colours and exactness
of imitation, which are so far beauties, and would affect the
mind of a peasant or Indian with the highest admiration.
The most vulgar ballads are not entirely destitute of har-
mony or nature; and none but a person familiarised to
superior beauties would pronounce their numbers harsh, or
narration uninteresting. A great inferiority of beauty gives
pain to a person conversant in the highest excellence of the
kind, and is for that reason pronounced a deformity: As the
most finished object with which we are acquainted is natu-
rally supposed to have reached the pinnacle of perfection,
and to be entitled to the highest applause. One accustomed
HC Vol. 27—8
226 DAVID HUME
to see, and examine, and weigh the several performances,
admired in different ages and nations, can alone rate the
merits of a work exhibited to his view, and assign its proper
rank among the productions of genius.
But to enable a critic the more fully to execute this under-
taking, he must preserve his mind free from all prejudice,
and allow nothing to enter into his consideration but the very
object which is submitted to his examination. We may
observe, that every work of art, in order to produce its due
effect on the mind, must be surveyed in a certain point of
view, and cannot be fully relished by persons, whose situation,
real or imaginary, is not conformable to that which is re-
quired by the performance. An orator addresses himself to
a particular audience, and must have a regard to their par-
ticular genius, interests, opinions, passions, and prejudices;
otherwise he hopes in vain to govern their resolutions, and
inflame their affections. Should they even have entertained
some prepossessions against him, however unreasonable, he
must not overlook this disadvantage; but, before he enters
upon the subject, must endeavour to conciliate their affec-
tion, and acquire their good graces. A critic of a differ-
ent age or nation, who should peruse this discourse, must
have all these circumstances in his eye, and must place him-
self in the same situation as the audience, in order to form a
true judgment of the oration. In like manner, when any
work is addressed to the public, though I should have a
friendship or enmity with the author, I must depart from this
situation ; and considering myself as a man in general, forget,
if possible, my individual being, and my peculiar circum-
stances. A person influenced by prejudice, complies not with
this condition, but obstinately maintains his natural position,
without placing himself in that point of view which the per-
formance supposes. If the work be addressed to persons of
a different age or nation, he makes no allowance for their
peculiar views and prejudices; but, full of the manners of
his own age and country, rashly condemns what seemed
admirable in the eyes of those for whom alone the discourse
was calculated. If the work be executed for the public, he
never sufficiently enlarges his comprehension, or forgets his
interest as a friend or enemy, as a rival or commentator, B^
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 227
this means, his sentiments are perverted; nor have the same
beauties and blemishes the same influence upon him, as if he
had imposed a proper violence on his imagination, and had
forgotten himself for a moment. So far his taste evidently
departs from the true standard, and of consequence loses
all credit and authority.
It is well known, that in all questions submitted to the
understanding, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment,
and perverts all operations of the intellectual faculties: It is
no less contrary to good taste ; nor has it less influence to cor-
rupt our sentiment of beauty. It belongs to good sense to
check its influence in both cases ; and in this respect, as well
as in many others, reason, if not an essential part of taste,
is at least requisite to the operations of this latter faculty.
In all the nobler productions of genius, there is a mutual
relation and correspondence of parts ; nor can either the
beauties or blemishes be perceived by him, whose thought
is not capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, and
compare them with each other, in order to perceive the con-
sistence and uniformity of the whole. Every work of art has
also a certain end or purpose for which it is calculated; and
is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less
fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence is to per-
suade, of history to instruct, of poetry to please, by means
of the passions and the imagination. These ends we must
carry constantly in our view when we peruse any perform-
ance; and we must be able to judge how far the means em-
ployed are adapted to their respective purposes. Besides,
every kind of composition, even the most poetical, is nothing
but a chain of propositions and reasonings; not always in-
deed, the justest and most exact, but still plausible and spe-
cious, however disguised by the colouring of the imagination.
The persons introduced in tragedy and epic poetry, must
be represented as reasoning, and thinking, and concluding,
and acting, suitably to their character and circumstances;
and without judgment, as well as taste and invention, a poet
can never hope to succeed in so delicate an undertaking.
Not to mention, that the same excellence of faculties which
contributes to the improvement of reason, the same clearness
of conception, the same exactness of distinction, the same
228 DAVID HUME
vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the operations of
true taste, and are its infallible concomitants. It seldom or
never happens, that a man of sense, who has experience in
any art, cannot judge of its beauty; and it is no less rare to
meet with a man who has a just taste without a sound
understanding.
Thus, though the principles of taste be universal, and
nearly, if not entirely, the same in all men ; yet few are quali-
fied to give judgment on any work of art, or establish their
own sentiment as the standard of beauty. The organs of
internal sensation are seldom so perfect as to allow the gen-
eral principles their full play, and produce a feeling cor-
respondent to those principles. They either labour under
some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that
means, excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced errone-
ous. When the critic has no delicacy, he judges without any
distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more
palpable qualities of the object: The finer touches pass un-
noticed and disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice,
his verdict is attended with confusion and hesitation. Where
no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous beau-
ties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object
of his admiration. Where he lies under the influence of prej-
udice, all his natural sentiments are perverted. Where good
sense is wanting, he is not qualified to discern the beauties
of design and reasoning, which are the highest and most
excellent. Under some or other of these imperfections, the
generality of men labour; and hence a true judge in the finer
arts is observed, even during the most polished ages, to be
so rare a character : Strong sense, united to delicate senti-
ment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and
cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this
valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever
they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty.
But where are such critics to be found? By what marks
are they to be known? How distinguish them from pre-
tenders? These questions are embarrassing; and seem to
throw us back into the same uncertainty, from which, during
the course of this essay, we have endeavoured to extricate
ourselves.
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 229
But if we consider the matter aright, these are questions
of fact, not of sentiment. Whether any particular person be
endowed with good sense and a delicate imagination, free
from prejudice, may often be the subject of dispute, and be
liable to great discussion and inquiry: But that such a
character is valuable and estimable, will be agreed in by all
mankind. Where these doubts occur, men can do no more
than in other disputable questions which are submitted to the
understanding: They must produce the best arguments, that
their invention suggests to them; they must acknowledge a
true and decisive standard to exist somewhere, to wit, real
existence and matter of fact ; and they must haVe indulgence
to such as differ from them in their appeals to this standard.
It is sufficient for our present purpose, if we have proved,
that the taste of all individuals is not upon an equal footing,
and that some men in general, however difficult to be partic-
ularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by universal senti-
ment to have a preference above others.
But in reality, the difficulty of finding, even in particulars,
the standard of taste, is not so great as it is represented.
Though in speculation, we may readily avow a certain cri-
terion in science, and deny it in sentiment, the matter is found
in practice to be much more hard to ascertain in the former
case than in the latter. Theories of abstract philosophy,
systems of profound theology, have prevailed during one age:
In a successive period, these have been universally exploded :
Their absurdity has been detected : Other theories and sys-
tems have supplied their place, which again gave place to
their successors: And nothing has been experienced more
liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these
pretended decisions of science. The case is not the same
with the beauties of eloquence and poetry. Just expressions
of passion and nature are sure, after a little time, to gain
public applause, which they maintain for ever. Aristotle,
and Plato, and Epicurus, and Descartes, may successively
yield to each other: But Terence and Virgil maintain an
universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men. The
abstract philosophy of Cicero has lost its credit: The vehe-
mence of his oratory is still the object of our admiration.
Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be
230 DAVID HUME
distinguished in society by the soundness of their under-
standing, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest
of mankind. The ascendant, which they acquire, gives a prev-
alence to that lively approbation, with which they receive
any productions of genius, and renders it generally pre-
dominant. Many men, when left to themselves, have but a
faint and dubious perception of beauty, who yet are capable
of relishing any fine stroke which is pointed out to them.
Every convert to the admiration of the real poet or orator
is the cause of some new conversion. And though prejudices
may prevail for a time, they never unite in celebrating any
rival to the true genius, but yield at last to the force of
nature and just sentiment. Thus, though a civilized nation
may easily be mistaken in the choice of their admired philos-
opher, they never have been found long to err, in their
affection for a favourite epic or tragic author.
But notwithstanding all our endeavours to fix a standard
of taste, and reconcile the discordant apprehensions of men,
there still remain two sources of variation, which are not
sufficient indeed to confound all the boundaries of beauty and
deformity, but will often serve to produce a difference in the
degrees of our approbation or blame. The one is the different
humours of particular men; the other, the particular man-
ners and opinions of our age and country. The general
principles of taste are uniform in human nature: Where men
vary in their judgments, some defect or perversion in the
faculties may commonly be remarked ; proceeding either from
prejudice, from want of practice, or want of delicacy : and
there is just reason for approving one taste, and condemning
another. But where there is such a diversity in the internal
frame or external situation as is entirely blameless on both
sides, and leaves no room to give one the preference above the
other; in that case a certain degree of diversity in judgment is
unavoidable, and we seek in vain for a standard, by which we
can reconcile the contrary sentiments.
A young man, whose passions are warm, will be more
sensibly touched with amorous and tender images, than a man
more advanced in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philo-
sophical reflections, concerning the conduct of life and mod-
eration of the passions. At twenty, Ovid may be the favour-
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 231
ite author; Horace at forty; and perhaps Tacitus at fifty.
Vainly would we, in such cases, endeavour to enter into the
sentiments of others, and divest ourselves of those propen-
sities which are natural to us. We choose our favourite
author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour
and disposition. Mirth or passion, sentiment or reflection;
which ever of these most predominates in our temper, it
gives us a peculiar sympathy with the writer who resem-
bles us.
One person is more pleased with the sublime ; another with
the tender; a third with raillery. One has a strong sensi-
bility to blemishes, and is extremely studious of correctness:
Another has a more lively feeling of beauties, and pardons
twenty absurdities and defects for one elevated or pathetic
stroke. The ear of this man is entirely turned towards con-
ciseness and energy; that man is delighted with a copious,
rich, and harmonious expression. Simplicity is affected by
one; ornament by another. Comedy, tragedy, satire, odes,
have each its partizans, who prefer that particular species of
writing to all others. It is plainly an error in a critic, to
confine his approbation to one species or style of writing, and
condemn all the rest. But it is almost impossible not to feel
a predilection for that which suits our particular turn and
disposition. Such preferences are innocent and unavoidable,
and can never reasonably be the object of dispute, because
there is no standard by which they can be decided.
For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of
our reading, with pictures and characters that resemble
objects which are found in our own age or country, than
with those which describe a different set of customs. It is
not without some effort, that we reconcile ourselves to the
simplicity of ancient manners, and behold princesses carrying
water from the spring, and kings and heroes dressing their
own victuals. We may allow in general, that the representa-
tion of such manners is no fault in the author, nor deformity
in the piece; but we are not so sensibly touched with them.
For this reason, comedy is not easily transferred from one
age or nation to another. A Frenchman or Englishman is
not pleased with the Andria of Terence, or Clitia of Machia-
vel ; where the fine lady, upon whom all the play turns, never
232 DAVID HUME
once appears to the spectators, but is always kept behind the
scenes, suitably to the reserved humour of the ancient Greeks
and modern Italians. A man of learning and reflection can
make allowance for these peculiarities of manners; but a
common audience can never divest themselves so far of their
usual ideas and sentiments, as to relish pictures which nowise
resemble them.
But here there occurs a reflection, which may, perhaps, be
useful in examining the celebrated controversy concerning
ancient and modern learning; where we often find the one
side excusing any seeming absurdity in the ancients from the
manners of the age, and the other refusing to admit this
excuse, or at least admitting it only as an apology for the
author, not for the performance. In my opinion, the proper
boundaries in this subject have seldom been fixed between
the contending parties. Where any innocent peculiarities of
manners are represented, such as those above mentioned,
they ought certainly to be admitted; and a man, who is
shocked with them, gives an evident proof of false delicacy
and refinement. The poet's monument more durable than
brass, must fall to the ground like common brick or clay, were
men to make no allowance for the continual revolutions of
manners and customs, and would admit of nothing but what
was suitable to the prevailing fashion. Must we throw aside
the pictures of our ancestors,' because of their ruffs and
fardingales? But where the ideas of morality and decency
alter from one age to another, and where vicious manners are
described, without being marked with the proper characters of
blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure
the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot, nor is it
proper I should, enter into such sentiments; and however I
may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of his age, I
never can relish the composition. The want of humanity and
of decency, so conspicuous in the characters drawn by several
of the ancient poets, even sometimes by Homer and the Greek
tragedians, diminishes considerably the merit of their noble
performances, and gives modern authors an advantage over
them. We are not interested in the fortunes and sentiments
of such rough heroes: We are displeased to find the limits
of vice and virtue so much confounded; and whatever
THE STANDARD OF TASTE 233
indulgence we may give to the writer on account of his prej-
udices, we cannot prevail on ourselves to enter into his senti-
ments, or bear an affection to characters, which we plainly
discover to be blameable.
The case is not the same with moral principles as with
speculative opinions of any kind. These are in continual
flux and revolution. The son embraces a different system
from the father. Nay there scarcely is any man, who can
boast of great constancy and uniformity in this particular.
Whatever speculative errors may be found in the polite
writings of any age or country, they detract but little from
the value of those compositions. There needs but a certain
turn of thought or imagination to make us enter into all
the opinions, which then prevail, and relish the sentiments
or conclusions derived from them. But a very violent effort
is requisite to change our judgment of manners, and excite
sentiments of approbation or blame, love or hatred, different
from those to which the mind, from long custom, has
been familiarized. And where a man is confident of the
rectitude of that moral standard, by which he judges, he is
justly jealous of it, and will not pervert the sentiments of
his heart for a moment, in complaisance to any writer what-
soever.
Of all speculative errors, those which regard religion are
the most excusable in compositions of genius; nor is it ever
permitted to judge of the civility or wisdom of any people,
or even of single persons, by the grossness or refinement of
their theological principles. The same good sense, that
directs men in the ordinary occurrences of life, is not heark-
ened to in religious matters, which are supposed to be placed
altogether above the cognisance of human reason. On this
account, all the absurdities of the pagan system of theology
must be overlooked by every critic, who would pretend to
form a just notion of ancient poetry; and our posterity, in
their turn, must have the same indulgence to their fore-
fathers. No religious principles can ever be imputed as a
fault to any poet, while they remain merely principles, and
take not such strong possession of his heart, as to lay him
under the imputation of bigotry or superstition. Where that
happens, the^ confound the sentiments of morality, and alter
234 DAVID HUME
the natural boundaries of vice and virtue. They are there-
fore eternal blemishes, according to the principle above men-
tioned; nor are the prejudices and false opinions of the age
sufficient to justify them.
It is essential to the Roman Catholic religion to inspire a
violent hatred of every other worship, and to represent all
pagans, mahometans, and heretics, as the objects of Divine
wrath and vengeance. Such sentiments, though they are in
reality very blameable, are considered as virtues by the
zealots of that communion, and are represented in their
tragedies and epic poems as a kind of divine heroism. This
bigotry has disfigured two very fine tragedies of the French
theatre, Polieucte and Athalia ; where an intemperate zeal
for particular modes of worship is set off with all the pomp
imaginable, and forms the predominant character of the
heroes. " What is this," says the sublime Joad to Josabet,
finding her in discourse with Mathan the priest of Baal,
" Does the daughter of David speak to this traitor ? Are
you not afraid, lest the earth should open and pour forth
flames to devour you both? Or lest these holy walls should
fall and crush you together? What is his purpose? Why
comes that enemy of God hither to poison the air, which we
breathe, with his horrid presence?" Such sentiments are
received with great applause on the theatre of Paris; but at
London the spectators would be full as much pleased to hear
Achilles tell Agamemnon, that he was a dog in his forehead,
and a deer in his heart ; or Jupiter threaten Juno with a sound
drubbing, if she will not be quiet.
Religious principles are also a blemish in any polite com-
position, when they rise up to superstition, and intrude them-
selves into every sentiment, however remote from any con-
nection with religion. It is no excuse for the poet, that the
customs of his country had burthened life with so many
religious ceremonies and observances, that no part of it was
exempt from that yoke. It must for ever be ridiculous in
Petrarch to compare his mistress, Laura, to Jesus Christ.
Nor is it less ridiculous in that agreeable libertine, Boc-
cace, very seriously to give thanks to God Almighty and
the ladies, for their assistance in defending him against
his enemies.
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS
BY
SYDNEY SMITH
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Sydney Smith (177 1- 1845) was an English clergyman noted as
the wittiest man of his time. He was educated at Winchester
and Oxford, and in 1798 went to Edinburgh as tutor to the
son of an English gentleman. While there he proposed
the founding of the "Edinburgh Review," and with Jeffrey,
Brougham, and Francis Homer shared in its actual establish-
ment. He superintended the first three numbers, and continued
to write for it for twenty-five years. On leaving Edinburgh he
lectured in London, held livings in Yorkshire and Somersetshire,
was made prebendary of Bristol and Canon of St. Paul's.
The review of Bentham's "Book of Fallacies" exhibits at once
the method of the Edinburgh Reviewers, Smith's vigorous,
pointed, and witty style, and the general trend of his political
opinions. He was a stanch Whig, and in such issues as that of
Catholic Emancipation he fought for liberal opinions at the cost
of injury to his personal prospects. As a clergyman he was
kindly and philanthropic, a good preacher, and a hater of mysti-
cism. No political writing of his time was more telling than his
on the side of toleration and reform; and his wit, while spon-
taneous and exuberant, was employed in the service of good
sense and with careful consideration for the feelings of others.
If he lacks the terrific power of Swift, he lacks also his bitter-
ness and savagery; his honesty and sincerity were no less, and
his personality was as winning as it was amusing.
236
FALLACIES OF ANTI-
REFORMERS'
THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous
fallacies, which pass readily in the world for sense and
virtue, while in truth they tend only to fortify error
and encourage crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the
most conspicuous of these in the book before us.
Whether it be necessary there should be a middleman be-
tween the cultivator and the possessor, learned economists
have doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers can
doubt the necessity of a middleman between Mr. Bentham
and the public. Mr. Bentham is long; Mr. Bentham is oc-
casionally involved and obscure; Mr. Bentham invents new
and alarming expressions; Mr. Bentham loves division and
subdivision — and he loves method itself, more than its con-
sequences. Those only, therefore, who know his originality,
his knowledge, his vigor, and his boldness, will recur to the
works themselves. The great mass of readers will not pur-
chase improvement at so dear a rate; but will choose rather
to become acquainted with Mr. Bentham through the medium
of reviews — after that eminent philosopher has been washed,
trimmed, shaved, and forced into clean linen. One great use
of a review, indeed, is to make men wise in ten pages, who
have no appetite for a hundred pages; to condense nourish-
ment, to work with pulp and essence, and to guard the stom-
ach from idle burden and unmeaning bulk. For half a page,
sometimes for a whole page, Mr. Bentham writes with a
power which few can equal; and by selecting and omitting,
an admirable style may be formed from the text. Using this
XA review of "The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of
Jeremy Bentham. By a Friend. London, 1824."
237
238 SYDNEY SMITH
liberty, we shall endeavor to give an account of Mr. Ben-
tham's doctrines, for the most part in his own words. Wher-
ever an expression is particularly happy, let it be considered
to be Mr. Bentham's — the dulness we take to ourselves.
Our Wise Ancestors — The Wisdom of Our Ancestors — ■
The Wisdom of Ages — Venerable Antiquity — Wisdom of
Old Times. — This mischievous and absurd fallacy springs
from the grossest perversion of the meaning of words. Ex-
perience is certainly the mother of wisdom, and the old have,
of course, a greater experience than the young; but the ques-
tion is who are the old? and who are the young? Of indi-
viduals living at the same period, the oldest has, of course,
the greatest experience; but among generations of men the
reverse of this is true. Those who come first (our ancestors)
are the young people, and have the least experience. We
have added to their experience the experience of many cen-
turies; and, therefore, as far as experience goes, are wiser,
and more capable of forming an opinion than they were.
The real feeling should be, not can we be so presumptuous
as to put our opinions in opposition to those of our ances-
tors? but can such young, ignorant, inexperienced persons
as our ancestors necessarily were, be expected to have un-
derstood a subject as well as those who have seen so much
more, lived so much longer, and enjoyed the experience of
so many centuries? All this cant, then, about our ancestors
is merely an abuse of words, by transferring phrases true of
contemporary men to succeeding ages. Whereas (as we
have before observed) of living men the oldest has, cceteris
paribus,2 the most experience; of generations, the oldest
has, cceteris paribus, the least experience. Our ancestors,
up to the Conquest, were children in arms; chubby boys in
the time of Edward I; striplings under Elizabeth; men in
the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the white-
bearded, silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up,
and are prepared to profit by, all the experience which
human life can supply. We are not disputing with our an-
cestors the palm of talent, in which they may or may not be
our superiors, but the palm of experience in which it is
utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet,
2 " Other things being equal."
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 239
whenever the Chancellor comes forward to protect some
abuse, or to oppose some plan which has the increase of
human happiness for its object, his first appeal is always to
the wisdom of our ancestors; and he himself, and many
noble lords who vote with him, are, to this hour, persuaded
that all alterations and amendments on their devices are an
unblushing controversy between youthful temerity and ma-
ture experience ! — and so, in truth they are — only that much-
loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old, and the old
for the young — and is guilty of that very sin against experi-
ence which he attributes to the lovers of innovation.
We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our an-
cestors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mis-
taken in their institutions, because their means of informa-
tion were more limited than ours. But we do confidently
maintain that when we find it expedient to change anything
which our ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced
persons, and not they. The quantity of talent is always
varying in any great nation. To say that we are more or
less able than our ancestors is an assertion that requires to
be explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever
lived in England, probably possessed, if taken altogether,
more intellect than all the able men England can now boast
of. But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason,
the question is, What was the wisdom of that single age
which enacted the law, compared with the wisdom of the
age which proposes to alter it ? What are the eminent men
of one and the other period? If you say that our ancestors
were wiser than us, mention your date and year. If the
splendor of names is equal, are the circumstances the same?
If the circumstances are the same, we have a superiority of
experience, of which the difference between the two periods
is the measure. It is necessary to insist upon this ; for upon
sacks of wool, and on benches forensic, sit grave men, and
agricolous persons in the Commons, crying out : " Ancestors,
ancestors ! hodie non /3 Saxons, Danes, save us ! Fiddlef rig,
help us ! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us ! " Any cover for
nonsense — any veil for trash — any pretext for repelling the
innovations of conscience and of duty!
8 " Not to-day t "
240 SYDNEY SMITH
" So long as they keep to vague generalities — so long as
the two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the
lump — wise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob
of modern times in the other — the weakness of the fallacy
may escape detection. But let them assign for the period
of superior wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not
only will the groundlessness of the notion be apparent (class
being compared with class in that period and the present
one), but unless the antecedent period be comparatively
speaking a very modern one, so wide will be the disparity,
and to such an amount in favor of modern times, that, in
comparison of the lowest class of the people in modern
times (always supposing them proficient in the art of read-
ing, and their proficiency employed in the reading of news-
papers), the very highest and best-informed class of these
wise ancestors will turn out to be grossly ignorant.
" Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry VIII,
from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would
probably have been in possession of by far the larger propor-
tion of what little instruction the age afforded; in the House
of Lords, among the laity, it might even then be a question
whether, without exception, their lordships were all of them
able so much as to read. But even supposing them all in the
fullest possession of that useful art, political science being
the science in question, what instruction on the subject could
they meet with at that time of day?
" On no one branch of legislation was any book extant
from which, with regard to the circumstances of the then
present times, any useful instruction could be derived: dis-
tributive law, penal law, international law, political economy,
so far from existing as sciences, had scarcely obtained a
name: in all those departments under the head of quid
faciendum, a mere blank: the whole literature of the age
consisted of a meagre chronicle or two, containing short
memorandums of the usual occurrences of war and peace,
battles, sieges, executions, revels, deaths, births, processions,
ceremonies, and other external events; but with scarce a
speech or an incident that could enter into the composition
of any such work as a history of the human mind — with
scarce an attempt at investigation into causes, characters,
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 241
or the state of the people at large. Even when at last, little
by little, a scrap or two of political instruction came to be
obtainable, the proportion of error and mischievous doctrine
mixed up with it was so great, that whether a blank unfilled
might not have been less prejudicial than a blank thus filled,
may reasonably be matter of doubt.
"If we come down to the reign of James I, we shall find
that Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as
learned, not only among crowned but among uncrowned
heads, marking out for prohibition and punishment the prac-
tices of devils and witches, and without the slightest objec-
tion on the part of the great characters of that day in their
high situations, consigning men to death and torment for
the misfortune of not being so well acquainted as he was
with the composition of the Godhead.
" Under the name of exorcism the Catholic liturgy con-
tains a form of procedure for driving out devils; — even with
the help of this instrument, the operation cannot be per-
formed with the desired success, but by an operator qualified
by holy orders for the working of this as well as so many
other wonders. In our days and in our country the same
object is attained, and beyond comparison more effectually,
by so cheap an instrument as a common newspaper; before
this talisman, not only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches,
and all their kindred tribes, are driven out of the land, never
to return again ! The touch of holy water is not so intol-
erable to them as the bare smell of printers' ink/'*
Fallacy of Irrevocable Laws. — A law, says Mr. Ben-
tham (no matter to what effect) is proposed to a legislative
assembly, who are called upon to reject it, upon the single
ground that by those who in some former period exercised
the same power, a regulation was made, having for its object
to preclude forever, or to the end of an unexpired period, all
succeeding legislators from enacting a law to any such effect
as that now proposed.
Now it appears quite evident that, at every period of time,
every legislature must be endowed with all those powers
which the exigency of the times may require; and any at-
tempt to infringe on this power is inadmissible and absurd.
4 From Bentham, pp. 74-77.
242 SYDNEY SMITH
The sovereign power, at any one period, can only form a blind
guess at the measures which may be necessary for any future
period; but by this principle of immutable laws, the govern-
ment is transferred from those who are necessarily the best
judges of what they want, to others who can know little or
nothing about the matter. The thirteenth century decides
for the fourteenth. The fourteenth makes laws for the fif-
teenth. The fifteenth hermetically seals up the sixteenth,
which tyrannizes over the seventeenth, which again tells the
eighteenth how it is to act, under circumstances which can-
not be foreseen, and how it is to conduct itself in exigencies
which no human wit can anticipate.
" Men who have a century more experience to ground their
judgments on, surrender their intellect to men who had a
century less experience, and who, unless that deficiency con-
stitutes a claim, have no claim to preference. If the prior
generation were, in respect of intellectual qualification, ever
so much superior to the subsequent generation — if it under-
stood so much better than the subsequent generation itself
the interest of that subsequent generation — could it have been
in an equal degree anxious to promote that interest, and con-
sequently equally attentive to those facts with which, though in
order to form a judgment it ought to have been, it is im-
possible that it should have been, acquainted? In a word,
will its love for that subsequent generation be quite so great
as that same generation's love for itself?
" Not even here, after a moment's deliberate reflection,
will the assertion be in the affirmative. And yet it is their
prodigious anxiety for the welfare of their posterity that
produces the propensity of these sages to tie up the hands of
this same posterity forever more — to act as guardians to its
perpetual and incurable weakness, and take its conduct for-
ever out of its own hands.
" If it be right that the conduct of the nineteenth century
should be determined not by its own judgment but by that of
the eighteenth, it will be equally right that the conduct of the
twentieth century should be determined not by its own judg-
ment but by that of the nineteenth. And if the same princi-
ple were still pursued, what at length would be the conse-
quence?— that in process of time the practice of legislation
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 243
would be at an end. The conduct and fate of all men would
be determined by those who neither knew nor cared anything
about the matter; and the aggregate body of the living would
remain forever in subjection to an inexorable tyranny, exer-
cised as it were by the aggregate body of the Dead." B
The despotism, as Mr. Bentham well observes, of Nero or
Caligula would be more tolerable than an "irrevocable law."
The despot, through fear or favor, or in a lucid interval,
might relent; but how are the Parliament who made the
Scotch Union, for example, to be awakened from that dust
in which they repose — ;the jobber and the patriot, the speaker
and the doorkeeper, the silent voters and the men of rich
allusions, Cannings and cultivators, Barings and beggars —
making irrevocable laws for men who toss their remains
about with spades, and use the relics of these legislators to
give breadth to broccoli, and to aid the vernal eruption of
asparagus ?
If the law be good, it will support itself; if bad, it should
Hot be supported by "irrevocable theory," which is never re-
sorted to but as the veil of abuses. All living men must
possess the supreme power over their own happiness at every
particular period. To suppose that there is anything which
a whole nation cannot do, which they deem to be essen-
tial to their happiness, and that they cannot do it, because
another generation, long ago dead and gone, said it must not
be done, is mere nonsense. While you are captain of the ves-
sel, do what you please ; but the moment you quit the ship I
become as omnipotent as you. You may leave me as much
advice as you please, but you cannot leave me commands;
though, in fact, this is the only meaning which can be applied
to what are called irrevocable laws. It appeared to the legis-
lature for the time being to be of immense importance to
make such and such a law. Great good was gained, or great
evil avoided, by enacting it. Pause before you alter an in-
stitution which has been deemed to be of so much importance.
This is prudence and common-sense ; the rest is the exaggera-
tion of fools, or the artifice of knaves, who eat up fools.
What endless nonsense has been talked of our navigation
laws ! What wealth has been sacrificed to either before they
*Ibid., pp. 84-86.
244 SYDNEY SMITH
were repealed! How impossible it appeared to Noodledom
to repeal them ! They were considered of the irrevocable
class — a kind of law over which the dead only were omnipo-
tent, and the living had no power. Frost, it is true, cannot
be put off by act of Parliament, nor can spring be accelerated
by any majority of both houses. It is, however, quite a mis-
take to suppose that any alteration of any of the articles of
union is as much out of the jurisdiction of Parliament as
these meteorological changes. In every year, and every day
of that year, living men have a right to make their own laws
and manage their own affairs; to break through the tyranny
of the antespirants — the people who breathed before them —
and to do what they please for themselves. Such supreme
power cannot indeed be well exercised by the people at large ;
it must be exercised therefore by the delegates, or Parlia-
ment, whom the people choose; and such Parliament, disre-
garding the superstitious reverence for " irrevocable laws,"
can have no other criterion of wrong and right than that of
public utility.
When a law is considered as immutable, and the immutable
law happens at the same time to be too foolish and mis-
chievous to be endured, instead of being repealed, it is clan-
destinely evaded, or openly violated; and thus the authority
of all law is weakened.
Where a nation has been ancestorially bound by foolish
and improvident tieaties, ample notice must be given of their
termination. Where the State has made ill-advised grants,
or rash bargains with individuals, it is necessary to grant
proper compensation. The most difficult case, certainly, is
that of the union of nations, where a smaller number of the
weaker nation is admitted into the larger senate of the
greater nation, and will be overpowered if the question come
to a vote ; but the lesser nation must run this risk ; it is not
probable that any violation of articles will take place till they
are absolutely called for by extreme necessity. But let the
danger be what it may, no danger is so great, no supposition
so foolish, as to consider any human law as irrevocable. The
shifting attitude of human affairs would often render such
a condition an intolerable evil to all parties. The absurd
jealousy of our countrymen at the Union secured heritable
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 245
jurisdiction to the owners; nine and thirty years afterward
they were abolished, in the very teeth of the Act of Union,
and to the evident promotion of the public good.
Continuity of a Law by Oath. — The sovereign of Eng-
land at his coronation takes an oath to maintain the laws of
God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant
religion, as established by law, and to preserve to the bishops
and clergy of this realm the rights and privileges which by
law appertain to them, and to preserve inviolate the doctrine,
discipline, worship, and the government of the Church. It
has been suggested that by this oath the King stands pre-
cluded from granting those indulgences to the Irish Catholics
which are included in the bill for their emancipation. The
true meaning of these provisions is of course to be decided, if
doubtful, by the same legislative authority which enacted
them. But a different notion it seems is now afloat. The
King for the time being (we are putting an imaginary case)
thinks as an individual that he is not maintaining the doc-
trine, discipline, and rights of the Church of England, if he
grant any extension of civil rights to those who are not mem-
bers of that Church ; that he is violating his oath by so doing.
This oath, then, according to this reasoning, is the great
palladium of the Church. As long as it remains inviolate the
Church is safe. How, then, can any monarch who has
taken it ever consent to repeal it? How can he, consistently
with his oath for the preservation of the privileges of the
Church, contribute his part to throw down so strong a bul-
wark as he deems his oath to be ! The oath, then, cannot be
altered. It must remain under all circumstances of society
the same. The King who has taken it is bound to continue
it, and to refuse his sanction to any bill for its future altera-
tion, because it prevents him, and, he must needs think, will
prevent others, from granting dangerous immunities to the
enemies of the Church.
Here, then, is an irrevocable law — a piece of absurd
tyranny exercised by the rulers of Queen Anne's time upon
the government of 1825 — a certain art of potting and pre-
serving a kingdom in one shape, attitude, and flavor — and
in this way it is that an institution appears like old ladies'
sweetmeats and made wines — Apricot Jam 1822 — Currant
246 SYDNEY SMITH
Wine 1819 — Court of Chancery 1427 — Penal Laws against
Catholics 1676. The difference is, that the ancient woman
is a better judge of mouldy commodities than the illiberal
part of his majesty's ministers. The potting lady goes sniff-
ing about and admitting light and air to prevent the progress
of decay; while to him of the wool-sack all seems doubly
dear in proportion as it is antiquated, worthless, and un-
usable.
It ought not to be in the power of the sovereign to tie
tip his own hands, much less the hands of his successors.
If the sovereign were to oppose his own opinion to that
of the two other branches of the legislature, and himself
to decide what he considers to be for the benefit of the
Protestant Church, and what not a king who has spent his
whole life in the frivolous occupation of a court may by
perversion of understanding conceive measures most salutary
to the Church to be most pernicious, and, persevering obsti-
nately in his own error, may frustrate the wisdom of his
parliament, and perpetuate the most inconceivable folly ! If
Henry VIII had argued in this manner we should have had
no Reformation. If George III had always argued in this
manner the Catholic code would never have been relaxed.
And thus a King, however incapable of forming an opinion
upon serious subjects, has nothing to do but pronounce the
word " Conscience," and the whole power of the country is
at his feet.
Can there be greater absurdity than to say that a man is
acting contrary to his conscience who surrenders his opinion
upon any subject to those who must understand the subject
better than himself? I think my ward has a claim to the
estate ; but the best lawyers tell me he has none. I think my
son capable of undergoing the fatigues of a military life; but
the best physicians say he is much too weak. My Parliament
say this measure will do the Church no harm; but I think it
very pernicious to the Church. Am I acting contrary to my
conscience because I apply much higher intellectual powers
than my own to the investigation and protection of these
high interests?
" According to the form in which it is conceived, any such
engagement is in effect either a check or a license: — a
FALLACIES OF ANTI- REFORMERS 247
license under the appearance of a check, and for that very
reason but the more efficiently operative.
" Chains to the man in power ? Yes : — but only such as he
figures with on the stage; to the spectators as imposing, to
himself as light as possible. Modelled by the wearer to suit
his own purposes, they serve to rattle but not to restrain.
" Suppose a king of Great Britain and Ireland to have ex-
pressed his fixed determination, in the event of any proposed
law being tendered to him for his assent, to refuse such as-
sent, and this not on the persuasion that the law would not
be ' for the utility of the subjects/ but that by his coronation
oath he stands precluded from so doing, the course proper to
be taken by Parliament, the course pointed out by principle
and precedent, would be a vote of abdication — a vote de-
claring the king to have abdicated his royal authority, and
that, as in case of death or incurable mental derangement,
now is the time for the person next in succession to take his
place. In the celebrated case in which a vote to this effect
was actually passed, the declaration of abdication was, in law-
yers' language, a fiction — in plain truth, a falsehood, and that
falsehood a mockery ; not a particle of his power was it the
wish of James to abdicate, to part with, but to increase it to
a maximum was the manifest object of all his efforts. But
in the case here supposed, with respect to a part, and that a
principal part of the royal authority, the will and purpose to
abdicate is actually declared; and this being such a part,
without which the remainder cannot, ' to the utility of the
subjects/ be exercised, the remainder must of necessity be,
on their part and for their sake, added." *
Self-Trumpeter's Fallacy. — Mr. Bentham explains the
self-trumpeter's fallacy as follows:
" There are certain men in office who, in discharge of their
functions, arrogate to themselves a degree of probity, which
is to exclude all imputations and all inquiry. Their asser-
tions are to be deemed equivalent to proof, their virtues are
guaranties for the faithful discharge of their duties, and the
most implicit confidence is to be reposed in them on all oc-
casions. If you expose any abuse, propose any reform, call
for securities, inquiry, or measures to promote publicity, they
9 Ibid., pp. no, xn.
248 SYDNEY SMITH
set up a cry of surprise, amounting almost to indignation, as
if their integrity were questioned or their honor wounded.
With all this, they dexterously mix up intimations that the
most exalted patriotism, honor, and perhaps religion, are the
only sources of all 'their actions."7
Of course every man will try what he can effect by these
means; but (as Mr. Bentham observes) if there be any one
maxim in politics more certain than another, it is that no
possible degree of virtue in the governor can render it expe-
dient for the governed to dispense with good laws and good
institutions. Madame De Stael (to her disgrace) said to the
Emperor of Russia : " Sire, your character is a constitution
for your country, and your conscience its guaranty." His
reply was: "Quand cela serait, je ne serais jamais qu'un
accident heureux;"8 and this we think one of the truest and
most brilliant replies ever made by monarch.
Laudatory Personalities. — "The object of laudatory
personalities is to effect the rejection of a measure on account
of the alleged good character of those who oppose it, and
the argument advanced is : ' The measure is rendered un-
necessary by the virtues of those who are in power — their
opposition is a sufficient authority for the rejection of the
measure. The measure proposed implies a distrust of the
members of his Majesty's Government; but so great is their
integrity, so complete their disinterestedness, so uniformly
do they prefer the public advantage to their own, that such
a measure is altogether unnecessary. Their disapproval is
sufficient to warrant an opposition; precautions can only be
requisite where danger is apprehended; here the high char-
acter of the individuals in question is a sufficient guaranty
against any ground of alarm.' "9
The panegyric goes on increasing with the dignity of the
lauded person. All are honorable and delightful men. The
person who opens the door of the office is a person of ap-
proved fidelity; the junior clerk is a model of assiduity; all
the clerks are models — seven years' models, eight years'
models, nine years' models, and upward. The first clerk is
a paragon, and ministers the very perfection of probity and
* Ibid., p. 120. s " If that were so, I should be only a happy accident,**
9 Ibid., pp. 123, 124.
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 249
intelligence; and as for the highest magistrate of the State,
no adulation is equal to describe the extent of his various
merits ! It is too condescending, perhaps, to refute such folly
as this. But we would just observe that, if the propriety of
the measure in question be established by direct arguments,
these must be at least as conclusive against the character of
those who oppose it as their character can be against the
measure.
The effect of such an argument is to give men of good or
reputed good character the power of putting a negative on
any question not agreeable to their inclinations.
" In every public trust the legislator should for the purpose
of prevention, suppose the trustee disposed to break the trust
in every imaginable way in which it would be possible for
him to reap from the breach of it any personal advantage.
This is the principle on which public institutions ought to be
formed, and when it is applied to all men indiscriminately, it
is injurious to none. The practical inference is to oppose to
such possible (and what will always be probable) breaches
of trust every bar that can be opposed consistently with the
power requisite for the efficient and due discharge of the
trust. Indeed, these arguments, drawn from the supposed
virtues of men in power, are opposed to the first principles
on which all laws proceed.
" Such allegations of individual virtue are never supported
by specific proof, are scarce ever susceptible of specific dis-
proof, and specific disproof, if offered, could not be admitted
in either House of Parliament. If attempted elsewhere, the
punishment would fall not on the unworthy trustee, but on
him by whom the unworthiness has been proved."10
Fallacies of Pretended Danger — Imputations of Bad
Design; of Bad Character; of Bad Motives; of Inconsist-
ency; of Suspicious Connections. — The object of this class
of fallacies is to draw aside attention from the measure
to the man, and this in such a manner that, for some real or
supposed defect in the author of the measure, a correspond-
ing defect shall be imputed to the measure itself. Thus, " the
author of the measure entertains a bad design; therefore
the measure is bad. His character is bad, therefore the
wjbid.t pp. 125, 136.
250 SYDNEY SMITH
measure is bad; his motive is bad, I will vote against the
measure. On former occasions this same person who pro-
posed the measure was its enemy, therefore the measure is
bad. He is on a footing of intimacy with this or that
dangerous man, or has been seen in his company, or is sus-
pected of entertaining some of his opinions, therefore the
measure is bad. He bears a name that at a former period
was borne by a set of men now no more, by whom bad
principles were entertained, therefore the measure is bad ! "
Now, if the measure be really inexpedient, why not at
once show it to be so? If the measure be good, is it bad
because a bad man is its author? If bad, is it good because
a good man has produced it? What are these arguments
but to say to the assembly who are to be the judges of any
measure, that their imbecility is too great to allow them to
judge of the measure by its own merits, and that they
must have recourse to distant and feebler probabilities for
that purpose?
u In proportion to the degree of efficiency with which a
man suffers these instruments of deception to operate upon
his mind, he enables bad men to exercise over him a sort of
power, the thought of which ought to cover him with shame.
Allow this argument the effect of a conclusive one, you put
it into the power of any mam to draw you at pleasure from
the support of every measure which in your own eyes is
good, to force you to give your support to any and every
measure which in your own eyes is bad. Is it good? — the
bad man embraces it, and by the supposition, you reject
it. Is it bad ? — he vituperates it, and that suffices for driv-
ing you into its embrace. You split upon the rocks because
he has avoided them; you miss the harbor because he has
steered into it 1 Give yourself up to any such blind antipathy,
you are no less in the power of your adversaries than if.
by a correspondently irrational sympathy and obsequious-
ness, you put yourself into the power of your friends."11
" Besides, nothing but laborious application and a clear
and comprehensive intellect can enable a man on any given
subject to employ successfully relevant arguments drawn
from the subject itself. To employ personalities, neither:
nIbid., pp. 132. 133-
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 251
labor nor intellect is required. In this sort of contest the
most idle and the most ignorant are quite on a par with,
if not superior to, the most industrious and the most highly-
gifted individuals. Nothing can be more convenient for-
those who would speak without the trouble of thinking. The
same ideas are brought forward over and over again, and all
that is required is to vary the turn of expression. Close and
relevant arguments have very little hold on the passions,
and serve rather to quell than to inflame them; while in
personalities there is always something stimulant, whether
on the part of him who praises or him who blames. Praise
forms a kind of connection between the party praising and
the party praised, and vituperation gives an air of courage
and independence to the party who blames.
" Ignorance and indolence, friendship and enmity, concur-
ring and conflicting interest, servility and independence, all
conspire to give personalities the ascendency they so un-
happily maintain. The more we lie under the influence of
our own passions, the more we rely on others being affected
in a similar degree. A man who can repel these injuries
with dignity may often convert them into triumph : ' Strike
me, but hear/ says he, and the fury of his antagonist re-
dounds to his own discomfiture."12
No Innovation ! — To say that all things new are bad
is to say that all old things were bad in their commence-
ment: for of all the old things ever seen or heard of there
is not one that was not once new. Whatever is now es-
tablishment was once innovation. The first inventor of pews
and parish clerks was no doubt considered as a Jacobin
in his day. Judges, juries, criers of the court, are all the
inventions of ardent spirits, who filled the world with alarm,
and were considered as the great precursors of ruin and
dissolution. No inoculation, no turnpikes, no reading, no
writing, no popery! The fool sayeth in his heart and
crieth with his mouth, " I will have nothing new ! "
Fallacy of Distrust! — "What's at the Bottom?" — This
fallacy begins with a virtual admission of the propriety of
the measure considered in itself, and thus demonstrates its
own futility, and cuts up from under itself the ground which
**Ibid,t pp. 141, 142.
252 SYDNEY SMITH
it endeavours to make. A measure is to be rejected for some-
thing that, by bare possibility, may be found amiss in some
other measure ! This is vicarious reprobation ; upon this
principle Herod instituted his massacre. It is the argu-
ment of a driveller to other drivellers, who says: "We
are not able to decide upon the evil when it arises; our only
safe way is to act upon the general apprehension of evil."
Official Malefactor's Screen — "Attack Us, You Attack
Government." — If this notion is acceded to, everyone who
derives at present any advantage from misrule has it in fee-
simple, and all abuses, present and future, are without
remedy. So long as there is anything amiss in conducting
the business of government, so long as it can be made
better, there can be no other mode of bringing it nearer
to perfection than the indication of such imperfections as
at the time being exist.
" But so far is it from being true that a man's aversion
or contempt for the hands by which the powers of govern-
ment, or even for the system under which they are exer-
cised, is a proof of his aversion or contempt toward govern-
ment itself, that, even in proportion to the strength of that
aversion or contempt, it is a proof of the opposite affection.
What, in consequence of such contempt or aversion, he
wishes for is not that there be no hands at all to exercise
these powers, but that the hands may be better regulated; —
not that those powers should not be exercised at all, but
that they should be better exercised; — not that in the exer-
cise of them no rules at all should be pursued, but that the
rules by which they are exercised should be a better set
of rules.
" All government is a trust, every branch of govern-
ment is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged so to be;
it is only by the magnitude of the scale that public differ
from private trusts. I complain of the conduct of a person
in the character of guardian, as domestic guardian, having
the care of a minor or insane person. In so doing do I
say that guardianship is a bad institution ? Does it enter into
the head of anyone to suspect me of so doing? I complain
of an individual in the character of a commercial agent
or assignee of the effects of an insolvent. In so doing do
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 253
I say that commercial agency is a bad thing? that the
practice of vesting in the hands of trustees or assignees the
effects of an insolvent for the purpose of their being divided
among his creditors is a bad practice? Does any such con-
ceit ever enter into the head of man as that of suspecting
me of so doing.,m
There are no complaints against government in Turkey-
no motions in Parliament, no " Morning Chronicles," and no
" Edinburgh Reviews " : yet of all countries in the world it is
that in which revolts and revolutions are the most frequent.
It is so far from true that no good government can exist
consistently with such disclosure, that no good government
can exist without it. It is quite obvious to all who are
capable of reflection that by no other means than by lower-
ing the governors in the estimation of the people can there
be hope or chance of beneficial change. To infer from this
wise endeavor to lessen the existing rulers in the estimation
of the people, a wish of dissolving the government, is either
artifice or error. The physician who intentionally weakens
the patient by bleeding him has no intention he should
perish.
The greater the quantity of respect a man receives, inde-
pendently of good conduct, the less good is his behavior likely
to be. It is the interest, therefore, of the public in the case
of each to see that the respect paid to him should, as com-
pletely as possible, depend upon the goodness of his behavior
in the execution of his trust. But it is, on the contrary,
the interest of the trustee that the respect, the money, or
any other advantage he receives in virtue of his office, should
be as great, as secure, and as independent of conduct as
possible. Soldiers expect to be shot at ; public men must ex-
pect to be attacked, and sometimes unjustly. It keeps up the
habit of considering their conduct as exposed to scrutiny;
on the part of the people at large it keeps alive the expec-
tation of witnessing such attacks, and the habit of looking
out for them. The friends and supporters of government
have always greater facility in keeping and raising it up
than its adversaries have for lowering it.
Accusation-scarer's Device — "Infamy Must Attach Some"
18 Ibid., pp. 162, 163.
254 SYDNEY SMITH
where." — This fallacy consists in representing the character
of a calumniator as necessarily and justly attaching upon
him who, having made a charge of misconduct against any
person possessed of political power or influence, fails of
producing evidence sufficient for their conviction.
" If taken as a general proposition, applying to all public
accusations, nothing can be more mischievous as well as
fallacious. Supposing the charge unfounded, the delivery
of it may have been accompanied with mala fides (conscious-
ness of its injustice), with temerity only, or it may have
been perfectly blameless. It is in the first case alone that
infamy can with propriety attach upon him who brings
it forward. A charge really groundless may have been
honestly believed to be well founded, i. e., believed with a
sort of provisional credence, sufficient for the purpose of
engaging a man to do his part toward the bringing about
an investigation, but without sufficient reasons. But a
charge may be perfectly groundless without attaching the
smallest particle of blame upon him who brings it forward.
Suppose him to have heard from one or more, presenting
themselves to him in the character of percipient witnesses,
a story which, either in toto, or perhaps pnly in circum-
stances, though in circumstances of the most material im-
portance, should prove false and mendacious, how is the
person who hears this and acts accordingly to blame? What
sagacity can enable a man previously to legal investigation,
a man who has no power that can enable him to insure
correctness or completeness on the part of this extrajudicial
testimony, to guard against deception in such a case?"1*
Fallacy of False Consolation — " What is the Matter
with You? — What Would You Have? — Look at the People
There, and There; Think how much Better Off You Are
than They Are — Your Prosperity and Liberty are Objects of
Their Envy; Your Institutions, Models of Their Imitation."
— It is not the desire to look to the bright side that is
blamed, but when a particular suffering, produced by an
assigned cause, has been pointed out, the object of many
apologists is to turn the eyes of inquirers and judges
into any other quarter in preference. If a man's tenants
"Ibid., pp. 185, 186.
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 255
were to come with a general encomium on the prosperity of
the country instead of a specified sum, would it be accepted?
In a court of justice in an action for damages did ever
any such device occur as that of pleading assets in the hands
of a third person? There is in fact no country so poor and
so wretched in every element of prosperity, in which matter
for this argument might not be found. Were the prosperity
of the country tenfold as great as at present, the absurdity
of the argument would not in the least degree be lessened.
Why should the smallest evil be endured which can be
cured because others suffer patiently under greater evils?
Should the smallest improvement attainable be neglected
because others remain contented in a state of still greater
inferiority ?
" Seriously and pointedly in the character of a bar to
any measure of relief, no, nor to the most trivial improve-
ment, can it ever be employed. Suppose a bill brought in
for converting an impassable road anywhere into a passable
one, would any man stand up to oppose it who could find
nothing better to urge against it than the multitude and
goodness of the roads we have already? No: when in the
character of a serious bar to the measure in hand, be that
measure what it may, an argument so palpably inapplicable
is employed, it can only be for the purpose of creating a di-
version;— of turning aside the minds of men from the sub-
ject really in hand to a picture which, by its beauty, it is
hoped, may engross the attention of the assembly, and make
them forget for the moment for what purpose they came
there/'15
The Quietest, or No Complaint. — " A new law of meas-
ure being proposed in the character of a remedy for some
incontestable abuse or evil, an objection is frequently started
to the following effect : — * The measure is unnecessary. No-
body complains of disorder in that shape, in which it is
the aim of your measure to propose a remedy to it. But
even when no cause of complaint has been found to exist,
especially under governments which admit of complaints,
men have in general not been slow to complain; much less
where any just cause of complaint has existed/ The argu-
15 Ibid., pp. 196, 197.
256 SYDNEY SMITH
ment amounts to this: — Nobody complains, therefore no-
body suffers. It amounts to a veto on all measures of pre-
caution or prevention, and goes to establish a maxim in
legislation directly opposed to the most ordinary prudence of
common life; it enjoins us to build no parapets to a bridge
till the number of accidents has raised a universal clamor."10
Procrastinator's Argument — " Wait a Little; This is
Not the Time." — This is the common argument of men who,
being in reality hostile to a measure, are ashamed or afraid
of appearing to be so. To-day is the plea — eternal exclusion
commonly the object. It is the same sort of quirk as a plea
of abatement in law — which is never employed but on the
side of a dishonest defendant, whose hope it is to obtain an
ultimate triumph, by overwhelming his adversary with de-
spair, impoverishment, and lassitude. Which is the properest
day to do good? which is the properest day to remove a
nuisance? We answer, the very first day a man can be
found to propose the removal of it; and whoever opposes
the removal of it on that day will (if he dare) oppose it
on every other. There is in the minds of many feeble friends
to virtue and improvement, an imaginary period for the re-
moval of evils, which it would certainly be worth while to
wait for, if there was the smallest chance of its ever arriv-
ing— a period of unexampled peace and prosperity, when a
patriotic king and an enlightened mob united their ardent
efforts for the amelioration of human affairs; when the
oppressor is as delighted to give up the oppression, as the
oppressed is to be liberated from it; when the difficulty and
the unpopularity would be to continue the evil, not to abolish
it ! These are the periods when fair-weather philosophers
are willing to venture out and hazard a little for the general
good. But the history of human nature is so contrary to all
this, that almost all improvements are made after the bit-
terest resistance, and in the midst of tumults and civil
violence — the worst period at which they can be made, com-
pared to which any period is eligible, and should be seized
hold of by the friends of salutary reform.
Snail's Pace Argument — " One Thing at a Time! — Not
Too Fast! — Slow and Sure! — Importance of the business—
16 Ibid., pp. 190, 191.
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 257
extreme difficulty of the business — danger of innovation —
need of caution and circumspection — impossibility of fore-
seeing all consequences — danger of precipitation — every-
thing should be gradual — one thing at a time — this is not
the time — great occupation at present — wait for more leisure
— people well satisfied — no petitions presented — no com-
plaints heard — no sueh mischief has yet taken place — stay
till it has taken place ! Such is the prattle which the mag-
pie in office, who, understanding nothing, yet understands
that he must have something to say on every subject, shouts
out among his auditors as a succedaneum to thought."17
Vague Generalities. — Vague generalities comprehend
a numerous class of fallacies resorted to by those who, in
preference to the determinate expressions which they might
use, adopt others more vague and indeterminate.
Take, for instance, the terms government, laws, morals, re-
ligion. Everybody will admit that there are in the world
bad governments, bad laws, bad morals, and bad religions.
The bare circumstance, therefore, of being engaged in ex-
posing the defects of government, law, morals, and religion
does not of itself afford the slightest presumption that a
writer is engaged in anything blamable. If his attack be
only directed against that which is bad in each, his efforts
may be productive of good to any extent. This essential dis-
tinction, however, the defender of abuses uniformly takes
care to keep out of sight; and boldly imputes to his an-
tagonists an intention to subvert all government, law, mor-
als, and religion. Propose anything with a view to the
improvement of the existing practice, in relation to law,
government, and religion, he will treat you with an oration
upon the necessity and utility of law, government, and
religion. Among the several cloudy appellatives which
have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment,
there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion
than the word order. As often as any measure is brought
forward which has for its object to lessen the sacrifice made
by the many to the few, social order is the phrase com-
monly opposed to its progress.
" By a defalcation made from any part of the mass of
17 Ibid., pp. 203, 204.
HC Vol. 27—9
258 SYDNEY SMITH
fictitious delay, vexation, and expense, out of which, and in
proportion to which, lawyers' profit is made to flow — by any
defalcation made from the mass of needless and worse than
useless emolument to office, with or without service or pre-
tence of service — by any addition endeavored to be made to
the quantity, or improvement in the quality of service ren-
dered, or time bestowed in service rendered in return for
such emolument — by every endeavor that has for its object
the persuading the people to place their fate at the disposal
of any other agents than those in whose hands breach of trust
is certain, due fulfilment of it morally and physically impos-
sible— social order is said to be endangered, and threatened
to be destroyed."18
In the same way " Establishment " is a word in use to pro-
tect the bad parts of establishments, by charging those who
wish to remove or alter them, with a wish to subvert all
good establishments.
Mischievous fallacies also circulate from the convertible
use of what Mr. B. is pleased to call dyslogistic and eulo-
gistic terms. Thus, a vast concern is expressed for the
" liberty of the press," and the utmost abhorrence of its
" licentiousness " : but then, by the licentiousness of the
press is meant every disclosure by which any abuse is
brought to light and exposed to shame — by the " liberty of the
press " is meant only publications from which no such in-
convenience is to be apprehended; and the fallacy consists
in employing the sham approbation of liberty as a mask for
the real opposition to all free discussion. To write a pam-
phlet so ill that nobody will read it; to animadvert in terms
so weak and insipid upon great evils, that no disgust is
excited at the vice, and no apprehension in the evil-doer, is a
fair use of the liberty of the press, and is not only pardoned
by the friends of government, but draws from them the
most fervent eulogium. The licentiousness of the press con-
sists in doing the thing boldly and well, in striking terror
into the guilty, and in rousing the attention of the public
to the defence of their highest interests. This is the licen-
tiousness of the press held in the greatest horror by timid
and corrupt men, and punished by semi-animous, semi-ca-
w Ibid., p. 234.
FALLACIES OF ANTI -REFORMERS 259
daverous judges, with a captivity of many years. In the
same manner the dyslogistic and eulogistic fallacies are
used in the case of reform.
" Between all abuses whatsoever there exists that con-
nection— between all persons who see, each of them, any
one abuse in which an advantage results to himself, there
exists, in point of interest, that close and sufficiently under-
stood connection, of which intimation has been given already.
To no one abuse can correction be administered without
endangering the existence of every other.
*' If, then, with this inward determination not to suffer, so
far as depends upon himself, the adoption of any reform
which he is able to prevent, it should seem to him necessary
or advisable to put on for a cover the profession or appear-
ance of a desire to contribute to such reform — in pursuance
of the device or fallacy here in question, he will represent
that which goes by the name of reform as distinguishable
into two species; one of them a fit subject for approbation,
the other for disapprobation. That which he thus professes
to have marked for approbation, he will accordingly for the
expression of such approbation, characterize by some ad-
junct of the eulogistic cast, such as moderate, for example,
or tempeiate, or practical, or practicable.
" To the other of these nominally distinct species, he will,
at the same time, attach some adjunct of the dyslogistic
cast, such as violent, intemperate, extravagant, outrageous,
theoretical, speculative, and so forth.
" Thus, then, in profession and to appearance, there are
in his conception of the matter two distinct and opposite
species of reform, to one of which his approbation, to the
other his disapprobation, is attached. But the species to
which his approbation is attached is an empty species — a
species in which no individual is, or is intended to be,
contained.
" The species to which his disapprobation is attached is,
on the contrary, a crowded species, a receptacle in which
the whole contents of the genus — of the genus * Reform '
—are intended to be included."19
Anti-rational Fallacies. — When reason is in opposition
** Ibid., pp. 277, 27Z,
260 SYDNEY SMITH
to a man's interests his study will naturally be to render the
faculty itself, and whatever issues from it, an object of
hatred and contempt. The sarcasm and other figures of
speech employed on the occasion are directed not merely
against reason but against thought, as if there were some-
thing in the faculty of thought that rendered the exercise of
it incompatible with useful and successful practice. Some-
times a plan, which would not suit the official person's in-
terest, is without more ado pronounced a speculative one;
and, by this observation, all need of rational and deliberate
discussion is considered to be superseded. The first effort
of the corruptionist is to fix the epithet speculative upon any
scheme which he thinks may cherish the spirit of reform.
The expression is hailed with the greatest delight by bad
and feeble men, and repeated with the most unwearied
energy ; and to the word " speculative," by way of rein-
forcement, are added: theoretical, visionary, chimerical, ro-
mantic, Utopian.
" Sometimes a distinction is taken, and thereupon a conces-
sion made. The plan is good in theory, but it would be bad
in practice, i. e'., its being good in theory does not hinder its
being bad in practice.
" Sometimes, as if in consequence of a further progress
made in the art of irrationality, the plan is pronounced to
be " too good to be practicable " ; and its being so good as
it is, is thus represented as the very cause of its being bad
in practice.
" In short, such is the perfection at which this art is at
length arrived, that the very circumstance of a plan's being
susceptible of the appellation of a plan, has been gravely
stated as a circumstance sufficient to warrant its being re-
jected— rejected, if not with hatred, at any rate with a sort
of accompaniment which, to the million, is commonly felt
still more galling — with contempt."20
There is a propensity to push theory too far; but what is
the just inference? not that theoretical propositions (f. e.,
all propositions of any considerable comprehension or ex-
tent) should, from such their extent, be considered to be
false in toto, but only that, in the particular case, should
20 Ibid., p. 296.
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 261
inquiry be made whether, supposing the proposition to be
in the character of a rule generally true, an exception ought
to be taken out of it. It might almost be imagined that
there was something wicked or unwise in the exercise of
thought; for everybody feels a necessity for disclaiming it.
" I am not given to speculation, I am no friend to theories."
Can a man disclaim theory, can he disclaim speculation,
without disclaiming thought?
The description of persons by whom this fallacy is chiefly
employed are those who, regarding a plan as adverse to their
interests, and not finding it on the ground of general utility
exposed to any preponderant objection, have recourse to this
objection in the character of an instrument of contempt,
in the view of preventing those from looking into it who
might have been otherwise disposed. It is by the fear of
seeing it practised that they are drawn to speak of it as
impracticable. "Upon the face of it (exclaims some feeble
or pensioned gentleman) it carries that air of plausibility,
that, if you were not upon your guard, might engage you
to bestow more or less attention upon it; but were you to
take the trouble, you would find that (as it is with all these
plans which promise so much) practicability would at last
be wanting to it. To save yourself from this trouble, the
wisest course you can take is to put the plan aside, and to
think no more about the matter." This is always accom-
panied with a peculiar grin of triumph.
The whole of these fallacies may be gathered together in
a little oration, which we will denominate the " Noodle's
Oration " :— •
" What would our ancestors say to this, Sir ? How does
this measure tally with their institutions? How does it
agree with their experience? Are we to put the wisdom of
yesterday in competition with the wisdom of centuries?
[Hear! hear!] Is beardless youth to show no respect for
the decisions of mature age? [Loud cries of hear! hear!]
If this measure be right, would it have escaped the wisdom
of those Saxon progenitors to whom we are indebted for so
many of our best political institutions? Would the Dane
have passed it over? Would the Norman have rejected it?
Would such a notable discovery have been reserved for
262 SYDNEY SMITH
these modern and degenerate times? Besides, Sir, if the
measure itself is good, I ask the honorable gentleman if
this is the time for carrying it into execution — whether,
in fact, a more unfortunate period could have been selected
than that which he has chosen? If this were an ordinary-
measure I should not oppose it with so much vehemence;
but, Sir, it calls in question the wisdom of an irrevocable
law — of a law passed at the memorable period of the
Revolution. What right have we, Sir, to break down this
firm column on which the great men of that age stamped a
character of eternity? Are not all authorities against this
measure — Pitt, Fox, Cicero, and the Attorney- and Solici-
tor-General? The proposition is new, Sir; it is the first time
it was ever heard in this House. I am not prepared, Sir —
this House is not prepared — to receive it. The measure im-
plies a distrust of his Majesty's Government; their dis-
approval is sufficient to warrant opposition. Precaution only
is requisite where danger is apprehended. Here the high
character of the individuals in question is a sufficient guar-
antee against any ground of alarm. Give not, then, your
sanction to this measure; for, whatever be its character, if
you do give your sanction to it, the same man by whom
this is proposed will propose to you others to which k will be
impossible to give your consent. I care very little, Sir, for
the ostensible measure; but what is there behind? What are
the honorable gentleman's future schemes? If we pass
this bill, what fresh concessions may he not require? What
further degradation is he planning for his country? Talk
of evil and inconvenience, Sir ! look to other countries —
study other aggregations and societies of men, and then see
whether the laws of this country demand a remedy or de-
serve a panegyric. Was the honorable gentleman (let me
ask him) always of this way of thinking? Do I not remem-
ber when he was the advocate, in this House, of very op-
posite opinions? I not only quarrel with his present senti-
ments, Sir, but I declare very frankly I do not like the
party with which he acts. If his own motives were as
pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contamination from
those with whom he is politically associated. This measure
may be a boon to the Constitution, but I will accept no favor
FALLACIES OP ANTI-REFORMERS 263
to the Constitution from such hands. [Loud cries of hear!
hear!] I profess myself, Sir, an honest and upright member
of the British Parliament, and I am not afraid to profess
myself an enemy to all change and all innovation. I am
satisfied with things as they are; and it will be my pride
and pleasure to hand down this country to my children as I
received it from those who preceded me. The honorable
gentleman pretends to justify the severity with which he
has attacked the noble lord who presides in the Court of
Chancery. But I say such attacks are pregnant with mis-
chief to government itself. Oppose ministers, you oppose
government; disgrace ministers, you disgrace government;
bring ministers into contempt, you bring government into
contempt; and anarchy and civil war are the consequences.
Besides, sir, the measure is unnecessary. Nobody com-
plains of disorder in that shape in which it is the aim of
your measure to propose a remedy to it. The business is
one of the greatest importance; there is need of the greatest
caution and circumspection. Do not let us be precipitate,
Sir; it is impossible to foresee all consequences. Every-
thing should be gradual; the example of a neighboring
nation should fill us with alarm ! The honorable gentleman
has taxed me with illiberality, Sir; I deny the charge. I
hate innovation, but I love improvement. I am an enemy
to the corruption of government, but I defend its influence.
I dread reform, but I dread it only when it is intemperate.
I consider the liberty of the press as the great palladium
of the Constitution; but, at the same time, I hold the licen-
tiousness of the press in the greatest abhorrence. Nobody is
more conscious than I am of the splendid abilities of the
honorable mover, but I tell him at once his scheme is too
good to be practicable. It savors of Utopia. It looks well
in theory, but it won't do in practice. It will not do, I
repeat, Sir, in practice ; and so the advocates of the measure
will find, if, unfortunately, it should find its way through
Parliament. [Cheers.] The source of that corruption to
which the honorable member alludes is in the minds of the
people; so rank and extensive is that corruption, that no
political reform can have any effect in removing it. In-
stead of reforming others — instead of reforming the State,
264 SYDNEY SMITH
the Constitution, and everything that is most excellent, let
each man reform himself ! let him look at home, he will
find there enough to do without looking abroad and aiming
at what is out of his power. [Loud cheers.] And now, Sir,
as it is frequently the custom rh this House to end with a
quotation, and as the gentleman who preceded me in the
debate has anticipated me in my favorite quotation of the
' Strong pull and the long pull/ I shall end with the memor-
able words of the assembled barons: ' Nolumus leges Anglic?
mutarl" 21
"Upon the whole, the following are the characters which
appertain in common to all the several arguments here
distinguished by the name of fallacies: —
" I. Whatsoever be the measure in hand, they are, with
relation to it, irrelevant.
"2. They are all of them such, that the application of
these irrelevant arguments affords a presumption either
of the weakness or total absence of relevant arguments on
the side of which they are employed.
" 3. To any good purpose they are all of them unnecessary.
" 4. They are all of them not only capable of being ap-
plied, but actually in the habit of being applied, and with
advantage, to bad purposes, viz. : to the obstruction and
defeat of all such measures as have for their object the
removal of the abuses or other imperfections still discernible
in the frame and practice of the government.
" 5. By means of the irrelevancy, they all of them con-
sume and misapply time, thereby obstructing the course and
retarding the progress of all necessary and useful business.
"6. By that irritative quality which, in virtue of their
irrelevancy, with the improbity or weakness of which it is
indicative, they possess, all of them, in a degree more or
less considerable, but in a more particular degree such of
them as consist in personalities, are productive of ill-humor,
which in some instances has been productive of bloodshed,
and is continually productive, as above, of waste of time
and hindrance of business.
" 7. On the part of those who, whether in spoken or
written discourses, give utterance to them, they are indic-
31 " We do not wish the laws of England to be changed."
FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 265
ative either of improbity or intellectual weakness, or of a
contempt for the understanding of those on whose minds
they are destined to operate.
"8. On the part of those on whom they operate, they are
indicative of intellectual weakness; and on the part of those
in and by whom they are pretended to operate, they are
indicative of improbity, viz., in the shape of insincerity.
" The practical conclusion is, that in proportion as the ac-
ceptance, and thence the utterance, of them can be prevented,
the understanding of the public will be strengthened, the
morals of the public will be purified, and the practice of
government improved." 22
22 From Bentham, pp. 359, 360.
ON POESY OR ART
BY
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was the tenth child of
a Devonshire clergyman, and the most distinguished member of
one of the most intellectual stocks in modern England. His life
was devoted to literary and philosophical pursuits, but an inherent
weakness of will and lack of practical sense made him depend
upon friends and benefactors for a large part of the support of
himself and his family. In poetry he achieved his greatest dis-
tinction, and the best of his work stands at the head of its
class. But he was constantly planning great schemes which he
usually abandoned before they were carried out, and in spite
of the extraordinary nature of his endowments he never ful-
filled his promise.
In prose his chief work was in philosophy and esthetics. He
was one of the first to introduce into England the philosophy
of Kant, and in literary criticism he stands in the front rank.
Probably no interpreter of Shakespeare has said so many memo-
rable and penetrating things in illumination of the characters of
the great dramas; and in the present essay he shows his power
of dealing with profound philosophic insight with the funda-
mental principles of art.
268
ON POESY OR ART1
MAN communicates by articulation of sounds, and
paramountly by the memory in the ear; nature by
the impression of bounds and surfaces on the eye,
and through the eye it gives significance and appropriation,
and thus the conditions of memory, or the capability of be-
ing remembered, to sounds, smells, etc. Now Art, used col-
lectively for painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, is
the mediatress between, and reconciler of nature and man.
It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing
the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is
the object of his contemplation ; color, form, motion, and
sound, are the elements which it combines, and it stamps
them into unity in the mould of a moral idea.
The primary art is writing; — primary, if we regard the
purpose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it,
those steps of progression of which the instances are still
visible in the lower degrees of civilization. First, there is
mere gesticulation; then rosaries or wampum; then picture-
language; then hieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic letters.
These all consist of a translation of man into nature, of a
substitution of the visible for the audible.
The so-called music of savage tribes as little deserves the
name of art for the understanding as the ear warrants it for
music. Its lowest state is a mere expression of passion by
sounds which the passion itself necessitates; — the highest
amounts to no more than a voluntary reproduction of these
sounds in the absence of the occasioning causes, so as to give
the pleasure of contrast — for example, by the various out-
cries of battle in the song of security and triumph. Poetry
also is purely human ; for all its materials are from the mind,
1 Delivered as a lecture in 1818.
269
270 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
and all its products are for the mind. But it is the apo-
theosis of the former state, in which by excitement of the
associative power passion itself imitates order, and the order
resulting produces a pleasurable passion, and thus it elevates
the mind by making its feelings the object of its reflection.
So likewise, while it recalls the sights and sounds that had
accompanied the occasions of the original passions, poetry
impregnates them with an interest not their own by means
of the passions, and yet tempers the passion by the calming
power which all distinct images exert on the human soul. In
this way poetry is the preparation for art, inasmuch as it
avails itself of the forms of nature to recall, to express, and
to modify the thoughts and feelings of the mind.
Still, however, poetry can only act through the inter-
vention of articulate speech, which is so peculiarly human
that in all languages it constitutes the ordinary phrase by
which man and nature are contradistinguished. It is the
original force of the word " brute," and even " mute " and
" dumb " do not convey the absence of sound, but the absence
of articulated sounds.
As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed by an
outward image exclusively of articulate speech, so soon does
art commence. But please to observe that I have laid par-
ticular stress on the words " human mind " — meaning to ex-
clude thereby all results common to man and all other sentient
creatures, and consequently confining myself to the effect
produced by the congruity of the animal impression with the
reflective powers of the mind ; so that not the thing presented,
but that which is re-presented by the thing, shall be the
source of the pleasure. In this sense nature itself is to a
religious observer the art of God ; and for the same cause art
itself might be defined as of a middle quality between a
thought and a thing, or as I said before, the union and recon-
ciliation of that which is nature with that which is exclusively
human. It is the figured language of thought, and is dis-
tinguished from nature by the unity of all the parts in one
thought or idea. Hence nature itself would give us the im-
pression of a work of art, if we could see the thought which
is present at once in the whole and in every part ; and a work
of art will be just in proportion as it adequately conveys the
ON POESY OR ART 271
thought, and rich in proportion to the variety of parts which
it holds in unity.
If, therefore, the term "mute" be taken as opposed not
to sound but to articulate speech, the old definition of paint-
ing will in fact be the true and best definition of the fine arts
in general, that is, muta poesis, mute poesy, and so of course
poesy. And, as all languages perfect themselves by a gradual
process of desynonymizing words originally equivalent, I
have cherished the wish to use the word " poesy " as the
generic or common term, and to distinguish that species of
poesy which is not muta poesis by its usual name " poetry " ;
while of all the other species which collectively form the fine
arts, there would remain this as the common definition — that
they all, like poetry, are to express intellectual purposes,
thoughts, conceptions, and sentiments which have their origin
in the human mind — not, however, as poetry does, by means
of articulate speech, but as nature or the divine art does, by
form, color, magnitude, proportion, or by sound, that is,
silently or musically.
Well ! it may be said — but who has ever thought otherwise ?
We all know that art is the imitatress of nature. And, doubt-
less, the truths which I hope to convey would be barren tru-
isms, if atl men meant the same by the words " imitate " and
a nature." But it would be flattering mankind at large, to
presume that such is the fact. First, to imitate. The impres-
sion on the wax is not an imitation, but a copy, of the seal;
the seal itself is an imitation. But, further, in order to form
a philosophic conception, we must seek for the kind, as the
heat in ice, invisible light, etc., whilst, for practical purposes,
we must have reference to the degree. It is sufficient that
philosophically we understand that in all imitation two ele-
ments must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be per-
ceived as coexisting. These two constituent elements are
likeness and unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in
all genuine creations of art there must be a union of these
disparates. The artist may take his point of view where he
pleases, provided that the desired effect be perceptibly pro-
duced— that there be likeness in the difference, difference in
the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there be
likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result
272 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more
loathsome the effect. Why are such simulations of nature,
as wax-work figures of men and women, so disagreeable?
Because not finding the motion and the life which we ex-
pected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance
of detail, which before induced us to be interested, making
the distance from truth more palpable. You set out with a
supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with the
deception; while, in respect to a work of genuine imitation,
you begin with an acknowledged total difference, and then
every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an approxi-
mation to truth. The fundamental principle of all this is un-
doubtedly the horror of falsehood and the love of truth in-
herent in the human breast. The Greek tragic dance rested
on these principles, and I can deeply sympathize in imagina-
tion with the Greeks in this favorite part of their theatrical
exhibitions, when I call to mind the pleasure I felt in behold-
ing the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii most exquisitely
danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa.
Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature ! yes, but
what in nature — all and everything? No, the beautiful in
nature. And what then is the beautiful? What is beauty?
It is, in the abstract, the unity of the manifold, the coal-
escence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is the union of the
shapely (formosum) with the vital. In the dead organic it
depends on regularity of form, the first and lowest species of
which is the triangle with all its modifications, as in crystals,
architecture, etc. ; in the living organic it is not mere regular-
ity of form, which would produce a sense of formality;
neither is it subservient to anything beside itself. It may be
present in a disagreeable object, in which the proportion of
the parts constitutes a whole ; ft does not arise from associa-
tion, as the agreeable does, but sometimes lies in the rupture
of association ; it is not different to different individuals and
nations, as has been said, nor is it connected with the ideas
of the good, or the fit, or the useful. The sense of beauty is
intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure with-
out, and aloof from, and even contrarily to, interest.
If the artist copies the mere nature, the natura naturata,
what idle rivalry ! If he proceeds only from a given form,
ON POESY OR ART 273
which is supposed to answer to the notion of beauty, what
an emptiness, what an unreality there always is in his pro-
ductions, as in Cipriani's pictures ! Believe me, you must
master the essence, the natura naturans, which presupposes a
bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of man.
The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man
by the co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the
thought and the product are one, or are given at once; but
there is no reflex act, and hence there is no moral responsi-
bility. In man there is reflection, freedom, and choice; he
is, therefore, the head of the visible creation. In the objects
of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible ele-
ments, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to con-
sciousness, and therefore to the full development of the in-
telligential act; and man's mind is the very focus of all the
rays of intellect which are scattered throughout the images
of nature. Now, so to place these images, totalized and fitted
to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit from, and to
superinduce upon, the forms themselves the moral reflections
to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the
internal external, to make nature thought, and thought nature
— this is the mystery of genius in the fine arts. Dare I add
that the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a
striving to become mind — that it is mind in its essence?
In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the ex-
ternal with the internal ; the conscious is so impressed on the
unconscious as to appear in it; as compare mere letters in-
scribed on a tomb with figures themselves constituting the
tomb. He who combines the two is the man of genius ; and
for that reason he must partake of both. Hence there is in
genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius
in the man of genius. And this is the true exposition of the
rule that the artist must first eloign himself from nature in
order to return to her with full effect. Why this ? Because
if he were to begin by mere painful copying, he would pro-
duce masks only, not forms breathing life. He must out of
his own mind create forms according to the severe laws of
the intellect, in order to generate in himself that co-ordina-
tion of freedom and law, that involution of obedience in the
prescript, and of the prescript in the impulse to obey, which
274 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
assimilates him to nature, and enables him to understand her.
He merely absents himself for a season from hef.? that his
own spirit, which has the same ground with nature, may
learn her unspoken language in its main radicals, before he
approaches to her endless compositions of them. Yes, not
to acquire cold notions — lifeless technical rules — but living
and life-producing ideas, which shall contain their own evi-
dence, the certainty that they are essentially one with the
germinal causes in nature — his consciousness being the focus
and mirror of both — for this does the artist for a time
abandon the external real In order to return to it with a
complete sympathy with its internal and actual. For of all
we see, hear, feel, and touch the substance is and must be in
ourselves ; and therefore there is no alternative in reason be-
tween the dreary (and thank heaven! almost impossible) be-
lief that everything around us is but a phantom, or that the
life which is in us is in them likewise; and that to know is
to resemble, when we speak of objects out of ourselves, even
as within ourselves to learn is, according to Plato, only to
recollect; — the only effective answer to which, that I have
been fortunate to meet with, is that which Pope has conse-
crated for future use in the line —
" And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin ! "
The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that
which is active through form and figure, and discourses to
us by symbols — the Natur-geist, or spirit of nature, as we
unconsciously imitate those whom we love; for so only can
he hope to produce any work truly natural in the object and
truly human in the effect. The idea which puts the form to-
gether cannot itself be the form. It is above form, and is its
essence, the universal in the individual, or the individuality
itself — the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power.
Each thing that lives has its moment of self-exposition,
and so has each period of each thing, if we remove the dis-
turbing forces of accident. To do this is the business of ideal
art, whether in images of childhood, youth, or age, in man
or in woman. Hence a good portrait is the abstract of the
personal ; it is not the likeness for actual comparison, but for
recollection. This explains why the likeness of a very good
ON POESY OR ART 275
portrait is not always recognized; because some persons
never abstract, and among these are especially to be num-
bered the near relations and friends of the subject, in con-
sequence of the constant pressure and check exercised on
their minds by the actual presence of the original. And each
thing that only appears to live has also its possible position
of relation to life, as nature herself testifies, who, where she
cannot be, prophesies her being in the crystallized metal, or
the inhaling plant.
The charm, the indispensable requisite, of sculpture is unity
of effect. But painting rests in a material remoter from na-
ture, and its compass is therefore greater. Light and shade
give external, as well internal, being even with all its acci-
dents, while sculpture is confined to the latter. And here I
may observe that the subjects chosen for works of art,
whether in sculpture or painting, should be such as really are
capable of being expressed and conveyed within the limits of
those arts. Moreover, they ought to be such as will affect the
spectator by their truth, their beauty, or their sublimity, and
therefore they may be addressed to the judgment, the senses,
or the reason. The peculiarity of the impression which they
may make may be derived either from color and form, or
from proportion and fitness, or from the excitement of the
moral feelings; or all these may be combined. Such works
as do combine these sources of effect must have the prefer-
ence in dignity.
Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and may
produce an injurious effect on modern sculpture : — first, gen-
erally, because such an imitation cannot fail to have a ten-
dency to keep the attention fixed on externals rather than on
the thought within; — secondly, because, accordingly, it leads
the artist to rest satisfied with that which is always imperfect,
namely, bodily form, and circumscribes his views of mental
expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only; — thirdly,
because it induces an effort to combine together two incon-
gruous things, that is to say, modern feelings in antique
forms ; — fourthly, because it speaks in a language, as it were,
learned and dead; the tones of which, being unfamiliar, leave
the common spectator cold and unimpressed ; — and lastly, be-
cause it necessarily causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions,
276 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
and images of profounder interest and more exalted dignity,
as motherly, sisterly, and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the
divine become human — the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ.
The artist's principle in the statue of a great man should be
the illustration of departed merit; and I cannot but think that
a skilful adoption of modern habiliments would, in many in-
stances, give a variety and force of effect which a bigoted
adherence to Greek or Roman costume precludes. It is, I be-
lieve, from artists finding Greek models unfit for several im-
portant modern purposes that we see so many allegorical
figures on monuments and elsewhere. Painting was, as it
were, a new art, and being unshackled by old models it chose
its own subjects, and took an eagle's flight. And a new field
seems opened for modern sculpture in the symbolical expres-
sion of the ends of life, as in Guy's monument, Chantrey's
children in Worcester Cathedral, etc.
Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference
from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves
all the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting in-
clusively. It shows the greatness of man, and should at the
same time teach him humility.
Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, and has
the fewest analoga in nature. Its first delightfulness is
simple accordance with the ear; but it is an associated thing,
and recalls the deep emotions of the past with an intellectual
sense of proportion. Every human feeling is greater and
larger than the exciting cause — a proof, I think, that man is
designed for a higher state of existence; and this is deeply
implied in music in which there is always something more
and beyond the immediate expression.
With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts,
I may remark that the pleasure arising from novelty must
of course be allowed its due place and weight. This pleasure
consists in the identity of two opposite elements — that is to
say, sameness and variety. If in the midst of the variety
there be not some fixed object for the attention, the unceas-
ing succession of the variety will prevent the mind from ob-
serving the difference of the individual objects; and the only
thing remaining will be the succession, which will then pror
duce precisely the same effect as sameness. This we ex-
ON POESY OR ART 277
perience when we let the trees or hedges pass before the
fixed eye during a rapid movement in a carriage, or, on the
other hand, when we suffer a file of soldiers or ranks of men
in procession to go on before us without resting the eye on
anyone in particular. In order to derive pleasure from the
occupation of the mind, the principle of unity must always
be present, so that in the midst of the multeity the centrip-
etal force be never suspended, nor the sense be fatigued by
the predominance of the centrifugal force. This unity in
multeity I have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty.
It is equally the source of pleasure in variety, and in fact a
higher term including both. What is the seclusive or dis-
tinguishing term between them?
Remember that there is a difference between form as pro-
ceeding, and shape as superinduced; — the latter is either the
death or the imprisonment of the thing; — the former is its
self-witnessing and self-effected sphere of agency. Art would
or should be the abridgment of nature. Now the fulness of
nature is without character, as water is purest when without
taste, smell, or color; but this is the highest, the apex only —
it is not the whole. The object of art is to give the whole
ad hominem; hence each step of nature hath its ideal, and
hence the possibility of a climax up to the perfect form of a
harmonized chaos.
To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; as virtue
consists not simply in the absence of vices, but in the over-
coming of them. So it is in beauty. The sight of what is
subordinated and conquered heightens the strength and the
pleasure ; and this should be exhibited by the artist either in-
clusively in his figure, or else out of it, and beside it to act
by way of supplement and contrast. And with a view to this,
remark the seeming identity of body and mind in infants, and
thence the loveliness of the former ; the commencing separa-
tion in boyhood, and the struggle of equilibrium in youth:
thence onward the body is first simply indifferent; then de-
manding the translucency of the mind not to be worse than
indifferent ; and finally all that presents the body as bodv, be-
coming almost of an excremental nature.2
2 The discussion, like so much of Coleridge's work, seems to have been
left incomplete.
OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH
TO HAVE SEEN
BY
WILLIAM HAZLITT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was the son of a Unitarian
minister. He went to Paris in his youth with the aim of becom-
ing a painter, but gradually convinced himself that he could not
excel in this art. He then turned to journalism and literature,
and came into close association with Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Lamb, Hunt, and others of the Romantic School. He was, how-
ever, of a sensitive and difficult temperament, and sooner or later
quarreled with most of his friends. Though a worshiper of
Napoleon, whose life he wrote, he was a strong liberal in politics,
and supposed himself persecuted for his opinions.
Of all Hazliti's voluminous writings, those which retain most
value to-day are his literary criticisms and his essays on general
topics. His clear and vivacious style rose at times to a rare
beauty; and when the temper of his work was not marred by his
touchiness and egotism he wrote with great charm and a delicate
fancy.
The following essay shows in a high degree the tact and grace
of Hazlitt's best writing, and his power of creating a distinctive
atmosphere. It would be difficult to find a paper of this length
which conveys so much of the special quality of the literary
circle which added so much to the glory of English letters in the
first quarter of the nineteenth century.
280
OF PERSONS ONE WOULD
WISH TO HAVE SEEN1
" Come like shadows — so depart."
IAMB it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well
. as the defence of Guy Fawkes, which I urged him
■ to execute. As, however, he would undertake neither,
I suppose I must do both, a task for which he would have
been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the felicity
of his pen —
" Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." 2
Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a common-
place piece of business of it; but I should be loth the idea
was entirely lost, and, besides, I may avail myself of some
hints of his in the progress of it. I am sometimes, I sus-
pect, a better reporter of the ideas of other people than
expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into para-
dox or mysticism ; the others I am not bound to follow
farther than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable.
On the question being started, Ayrton3 said, " I suppose
the two first persons you would choose to see would be the
two greatest names in English literature, Sir Isaac Newton
and Mr. Locke?" In this Ayrton, as usual, reckoned with-
out his host. Everyone burst out a-laughing at the ex-
pression on Lamb's face, in which impatience was restrained
by courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out
hastily ; " but they were not persons — not persons." " Not
1 Originally published in the " New Monthly Magazine," January, 1826.
The conversation described is supposed to take place at one of Charles
Lamb's " Wednesdays," at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, London. _ ,
2 Pope, "Moral Essays," II., 51. 3 William Ayrton, a musician.
281
282 WILLIAM HAZLITT
persons," said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish at the same
time, afraid his triumph might be premature. " That is,"
rejoined Lamb, "not characters, you know. By Mr. Locke
and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the * Essay on the Human
Understanding/ and the ' Principia/ which we have to this
day. Beyond their contents there is nothing personally
interesting in the men. But what we want to see anyone
bodily for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in
the individuals, more than we can learn from their writings,
and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton
were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could
paint Shakespeare ? " " Ay," retorted Ayrton, " there it is ;
then I suppose you would prefer seeing him and Milton in-
stead ? " " No," said Lamb, " neither. I have seen so much
of Shakespeare on the stage and on book-stalls, in frontis-
pieces and on mantelpieces, that I am quite tired of the ever-
lasting repetition: and as to Milton's face, the impressions
that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too
starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing
some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his counte-
nance and the precisian's band and gown." " I shall guess
no more," said Ayrton. " Who is it, then, you would like
to see ' in his habit as he lived/ if you had your choice of
the whole range of English literature?" Lamb then named
Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the
greatest pleasure to encounter on the floor of his apartment
in their nightgowns and slippers and to exchange friendly
greeting with them. At this Ayrton laughed outright, and
conceived Lamb was jesting with him ; but as no one followed
his example, he thought there might be something in it, and
waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense.
Lamb then (as well as I can remember a conversation that
passed twenty years ago — how time slips!) went on as fol-
lows : " The reason why I pitch upon these two authors is,
that their writings are riddles, and they themselves the most
mysterious of personages. They resemble the soothsayers
of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I
should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but
themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr.
OF PERSONS 283
Johnson: I have no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about
him; he and Boswell together have pretty well let me into
the secret of what passed through his mind. He and other
writers like him are sufficiently explicit; my friends, whose
repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it in my power),
are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
" 'And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold.'4
" When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose compo-
sition, the * Urn-burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep
abyss, at the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treas-
ure; or it is like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering
speculation, and I would invoke the spirit of the author to
lead me through it. Besides, who would not be curious to
see the lineaments of a man who, having himself been twice
married, wished that mankind were propagated like trees !6
As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own
' Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus/ a
truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apoc-
alyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition
to untie ; and for the unravelling a passage or two, I would
stand the brunt of an encounter with so portentous a com-
mentator I " "I am afraid, in that case," said Ayrton, " that
if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be
lost ;" and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension,
that while Lamb continued to admire these old crabbed
authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne
was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very
interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and
whose meaning was often quite as " uncomeatable," without
a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his
contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while
someone was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and
beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, Ayrton
got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming " What have we
here ? " read the following :
" ' Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere
* Milton, " II Penseroso," 109. B " Religio Medici," II., is.
284 WILLIAM HAZLITT
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.' "•
There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the volume,
turned to the beautiful " Lines to His Mistress," dissuading
her from accompanying him abroad, and read them with
suffused features and a faltering tongue:
" ' By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine perswasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me,
I calmely beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all paines which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oathes which I
And thou have sworne to seale joynt constancy
Here I unsweare, and overswear them thus —
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, O fair love ! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistris still, not my faign'd Page ;
I'll goe, and, by thy kinde leave, leave behinde
Thee ! onely worthy to nurse it in my minde.
Thirst to come backe; O, if thou die before,
My soule, from other lands to thee shall soare.
Thy (else almighty) beautie cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshnesse : thou hast reade
How roughly hee in peeces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fair ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd : Feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one in th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy ; nor change
Thy bodie's habite, not minde; be not strange
To thyeselfe onely. All will spie in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly-cloath'd apes are call'd apes, and as soon
Eclips'd as bright, we call the moone the moon.
Men of France, changeable camelions,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and the Tightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee . . . O stay here ! for thee
England is onely a worthy gallerie,
To walke in expectation ; till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
e " Epithalamion on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine."
OF PERSONS . 285
When I am gone, dreame me some happinesse,
Nor let thy lookes our long-hid love confesse,
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor blesse, nor curse
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight's startings, crying out, Oh, oh,
Nurse, oh my love is slaine, I saw him goe
O'er the white Alpes alone ! I saw him, I,
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.
Augure me better chance, except dread Jove
Thinke it enough for me to have had thy love.' "
Someone then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from
the window the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take
his exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was
pleased to find that there was a general sensation in his
favor in all but Ayrton, who said something about the rug-
gedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness
of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss,
pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and
asked, "If he did not think it would be worth while to scan
the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight
and early dawn of English literature; to see the head round
which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams of
inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that
' lisped in numbers, for the numbers came ' — as by a miracle,
or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he
had been the first to tune his native tongue (however imper-
fectly to modern ears) ; but he was himself a noble, manly
character, standing before his age and striving to advance
it; a pleasant humorist withal, who has not only handed
down to us the living manners of his time, but had, no
doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and would make
as hearty a companion as mine host of the Tabard. His
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I
would rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author
of the ' Decameron/ and have heard them exchange their
best stories together — the ' Squire's Tale ' against the story
of the ' Falcon/ the ' Wife of Bath's Prologue ' against the
1 Adventures of Friar Albert.' How fine to see the high
mysterious brow which learning then wore, relieved by the
gay, familiar tone of men of the world, and by the courtesies
of genius ! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which passed
286 WILLIAM HAZLITT
through the minds of these great revivers of learning, these
Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have stamped
an expression on their features as different from the mod-
erns as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I
continued, " is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino,
one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in
order to penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian
poets I should care much to see. There is a fine portrait of
Ariosto b nc less a hand than Titian's; light, Moorish,
spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's large
colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the
kind that has the effect of conversing with ' the mighty
dead ' ; and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic."
Lamb put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well as
Chaucer; and I answered, without hesitation, "No; for that
his beauties were ideal, visionary, not palpable or personal,
and therefore connected with less curiosity about the man.
His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo round
the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual
might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up
to the mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of
a winged angel could vie with the airy shapes he has de-
scribed. He was (to our apprehensions) rather a ' creature
of the element, that lived in the rainbow and played in the
plighted clouds/ than an ordinary mortal. Or if he did ap-
pear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one of his
own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like
a dream or sound —
" ' That was Arion crown'd :
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain.* " f
Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and
Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last
was set aside as spurious, and the first made over to the
New World.
" I should like," said Mrs. Reynolds, " to have seen Pope
talk with Patty Blount ; and I have seen Goldsmith." Every-
one turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing
they could get a sight at Goldsmith.
» " The Faerie Queene," IV., xi. 23.
OF PERSONS 287
" Where," asked a harsh, croaking voice, " was Dr. John-
son in the years 1745-46? He did not write anything that
we know of, nor is there any account of him in Boswell
during those two years. Was he in Scotland with the Pre-
tender ? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the
Highlands in company with Boswell, many years after,
1 with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or
associated in his mind with interests that he durst not ex-
plain. If so, it would be an additional reason for my liking
him ; and I would give something to have seen him seated in
the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, and penning
the Proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of the
legitimate government."
" I thought," said Ayrton, turning short round upon Lamb,
"that you of the Lake School did not like Pope?" "Not
like Pope! My dear sir, you must be under a mistake — I
can read him over and over forever ! " " Why, certainly,
the ' Essay on Man " must be allowed to be a masterpiece."
" It may be so, but I seldom look into it." " Oh ! then it's
his satires you admire?" "No, not his satires, but his
friendly epistles and his compliments." " Compliments ! I
did not know he ever made any." " The finest," said Lamb,
" that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of them is
worth an estate for life — nay, is an immortality. There is
that superb one to Lord Cornbury :
"' Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' ■
Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise?
And then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield
(however little deserved), when, speaking of the House of
Lords, he adds:
" ' Conspicuous 9cene ! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde I ' *
8* Imitations of Horace, Epistles," I., vi. 6o«a.
• Ibid., 50-3.
288 WILLIAM HAZLITT
And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses
Lord Bolingbroke:
«« ♦ why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
O all-accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine ?'*•
Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek
and his eyes glistening, " to his list of early friends :
" ' But why then publish ? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays:
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved !
Happier their author, if by these beloved !
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.' " u
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the
book, he said, " Do you think I would not wish to have been
friends with such a man as this ? "
" What say you to Dryden ? " " He rather made a show
of himself, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of
fame, a coffee-shop, so as in some measure to vulgarize one's
idea of him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau
ideal of what a poet's life should be; and his fame while
living seemed to be an emanation from that which was to
circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and
one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in
him) that he was almost the only poet and man of genius
who met with his reward on this side of the tomb, who
realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the world, the
most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who found
that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime
which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him
after his death. Read Gay's verses to him on his supposed
return from Greece, after his translation of Homer was
finished, and say if you would not gladly join the bright pro-
cession that welcomed him home, or see it once more land
*> " Epil. to Satires," II., 138-9. u " ProL to Satires," 135-146.
OF PERSONS 289
at Whitehall stairs." " Still," said Mrs. Reynolds, " I would
rather have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by
in a coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montague ! "
Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at
the other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to
ask if " Junius " would not be a fit person to invoke from the
dead. " Yes," said Lamb, " provided he would agree to lay
aside his mask."
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding
was mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded
the proposition. " Richardson ? " " By all means, but only
to look at him through the glass door of his back shop, hard
at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary con-
trast that ever was presented between an author and his
works) ; not to let him come behind his counter, lest he
should want you to turn customer, or to go upstairs with
him, lest he should offer to read the first manuscript of ' Sir
Charles Grandison,' which was originally written in eight-
and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out the letters of his
female correspondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was
low.''
There was but one statesman in the whole of English
history that anyone expressed the least desire to see — Oliver
Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face and wily
policy; and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal
author of the "Pilgrim's Progress." It seemed that if he
came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each
person would nod under his golden cloud, " nigh-sphered in
heaven," a canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was re-
ceived with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by
Barron Field. He presently superseded both Hogarth and
Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on condi-
tion that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the play
and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What
a " sight for sore eyes " that would be ! Who would not
part with a year's income at least, almost with a year of his
natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could not act
alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop
he must bring with him — the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin,
HC Vol. 27—10
290 WILLIAM HAZLITT
and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard,
of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favorite
when he was young. This would indeed be a revival of the
dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable,
as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our over-
strained admiration of past excellence, that though we have
the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings
of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what
people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal
testimony to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our
time, we have our misgivings, as if he was probably, after
all, little better than a Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to
play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced cocked-hat. For
one, I should like to have seen and heard with my own eyes
and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if anyone was ever
moved by the true histrionic csstus, it was Garrick. When
he followed the Ghost in " Hamlet," he did not drop the
sword, as most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the
point raised the whole way round, so fully was he possessed
with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his part for
a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord 's,
they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what
was become of him, till they were drawn to the window by
the convulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young
negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstasy of
delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the court-
yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seeming
flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two
persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they
seemed as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance
with their old favorite.
We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this
fanciful speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared
it was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and
farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old
dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakespeare.
Lamb said he had anticipated this objection when he had
named the author of " Mustapha " and " Alaham " ; and, out
of caprice, insisted upon keeping him to represent the set,
in preference to the wild, hare-brained enthusiast, Kit Mar-
OF PERSONS 291
lowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, Webster, with his melan-
choly yew-trees and death's-heads; to Decker, who was but
a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Hey wood; and even
to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by com-
plimenting the wrong author on their joint productions.
Lord Brooke, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or, in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone." Someone
hinted at the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather
startled Lamb, but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense
with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his
title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally.
Some were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakespeare,
who was not present to defend himself. u If he grows dis-
agreeable," it was whispered aloud, "there is Godwin can
match him." At length, his romantic visit to Drummond of
Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his
favor.
Lamb inquired if there was anyone that was hanged that I
would choose to mention ? And I answered, Eugene Aram.1*
The name of the " Admirable Crichton " was suddenly started
as a splendid example of waste talents, so different from the
generality of his countrymen. This choice was mightily ap-
proved by a North-Briton present, who declared himself de-
scended from that prodigy of learning and accomplishment,
and said he had family plate in his possession as vouchers
for the fact, with the initials A. C. — "Admirable Crichton"!
Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as heartily at this as I should
think he has done for many years.
The last-named Mitre-courtier13 then wished to know
whether there were any metaphysicians to whom one might
be tempted to apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were
only six in modern times deserving the name — Hobbes, Berke-
ley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan
Edwards, a Massachusetts man.1* As to the French, who
talked fluently of having created this science, there was not
a tittle in any of their writings that was not to be found
*f See "Newgate Calendar" for 1758.— H.
1S Lamb at this time occupied chambers in Mitre Court, Fleet Street. — H.
14 Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know where he should come
in. It is not easy to make room for him and his reputation together. This
great and celebrated man in some of his works recommends it to pour a
bottle of claret into the ground of a morning, and to stand over it, inhaling
292 WILLIAM HAZLITT
literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Home Tooke, who
might have a claim to come in under the head of grammar,
was still living.] None of these names seemed to excite much
interest, and I did not plead for the reappearance of those
who might be thought best fitted by the abstracted nature of
their studies for the present spiritual and disembodied state,
and who, even while on this living stage, were nearly di-
vested of common flesh and blood. As Ayrton, with an un-
easy, fidgety face, was about to put some question about Mr.
Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by Martin
Burney, who observed, " If J was here, he would un-
doubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted
socialists, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this
might be fair enough in him who had read, or fancied he
had read, the original works, but I did not see how we could
have any right to call up these authors to give an account of
themselves in person till we had looked into their writings.
By this time it should seem that some rumor of our whim-
sical deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the ir-
ritabile genus in their shadowy abodes, for we received mes-
sages from several candidates that we had just been thinking
of. Gray declined our invitation, though he had not yet been
asked; Gay offered to come, and bring in his hand the
Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly; Steele and Addison
left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Cover-
ley; Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word,
and quitted the room as abruptly; Otway and Chatterton
were seen lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but
could not muster enough between them to pay Charon his
fare; Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back
again; and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn,
an old companion of his, who had conducted him to the other
world, to say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out
of his retirement as a show, only to be made an exciseman
of, and that he would rather remain where he was. He
desired, however, to shake hands by his representative — the
the perfumes. So he sometimes enriched the dry and barren soil of specu-
lation with the fine aromatic spirit of his genius. His essays and his
" Advancement of Learning " are works of vast depth and scope of ob-
servation. The last, though it contains no positive discoveries, is a noble
chart of the human intellect, and a guide to all future inquirers. — H.
OF PERSONS 293
hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook pro-
digiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of emi-
nent painters. While we were debating whether we should
demand speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose
features were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once
they glided from their frames, and seated themselves at
some little distance from us. There was Leonardo, with his
majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archi-
medes before him ; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned
round to the Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia
Borgia, with calm, golden locks ; Michael Angelo had placed
the model of St. Peter's on the table before him ; Correggio
had an angel at his side; Titian was seated with his mistress
between himself and Giorgione; Guido was accompanied by
his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him ; Claude held
a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther
(led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his
own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains,
and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand
so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and
as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the same
surface to the view. Not being bona-fide representations of
living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs
and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air,
there was a loud noise at the outer door, and we found it
was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandajo, who had been raised
from the dead by their earnest desire to see their illustrious
successors —
" Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal record live for aye!"
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after
them, and mournfully withdrew. " Egad ! " said Lamb,
" these are the very fellows I should like to have had some
talk with, to know how they could see to paint when all was
dark around them."
" But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J ,
" to the ' Legend of Good Women ' ? " " Name, name, Mr.
J " cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exulta-
294 WILLIAM HAZLITT
tion, " name as many as you please, without reserve or fear
of molestation ! " J was perplexed between so many
amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice
expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe ; and Lamb impatiently
declared for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson
was no sooner mentioned, than she carried the day from the
Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this subject of
filling up the posthumous lists of good women, as there was
already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all re-
spects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their
lives ! " I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos,"
said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us
in mind that we had neglected to pay honor due to our
friends on the other side of the Channel: Voltaire, the
patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father of sentiment;
Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit) ;
Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round
him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his
comedy of the " Tartuffe " at the house of Ninon; Racine,
La Fontaine, Rochefoucauld, St. Evremont, etc.
" There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, " I
would rather see than all these — Don Quixote ! "
" Come, come ! " said Hunt ; " I thought we should have
no heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb ? Are
you for eking out your shadowy list with such names as
Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan ? "
"Excuse me," said Lamb; "on the subject of characters in
active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a
crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve." " No,
no ! come out with your worthies ! " " What do you think
of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot?" Hunt turned an eye
upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smoth-
ered glee. " Your most exquisite reason ! " was echoed on
all sides; and Ayrton thought that Lamb had now fairly en-
tangled himself. " Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of
the wistful countenance, " that Guy Fawkes, that poor, flut-
tering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used
gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale
and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels
of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to trans-
OF PERSONS 295
port him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I
say any more, there is that fellow Godwin will make some-
thing of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different.
I would fain see the face of him who, having dipped his
hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could after-
wards betray him. I have no conception of such a thing;
nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very
fine one) that gave me the least idea of it." " You have said
enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice."
" Oh ! ever right, Menenius — ever right ! "
" There is only one other person I can ever think of after
this," continued Lamb ;15 but without mentioning a name that
once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was
to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him;
but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall
down and try to kiss the hem of his garment ! "
As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn
the conversation had taken, we rose up to go. The morning
broke with that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue,
and Ghirlandajo must have seen to paint their earliest works ;
and we parted to meet again and renew similar topics at
night, the next night, and the night after that, till that night
overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same event, in
truth, broke up our little congress that broke up the great
one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have
never been resumed.
15 In the original form of the essay, this speech is given to Hunt.
DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN
ON THE REALITIES OF
IMAGINATION
BY
LEIGH HUNT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was the son of a
clergyman from the West Indies. Like Lamb and Coleridge, he
was educated at Christ's Hospital in London, and began writing
poetry while still a boy. He attracted attention early by his
theatrical criticisms; and in 1808 he joined his brother in found-
ing a weekly newspaper, the "Examiner." During the thirteen
years for which he contributed to this paper he exerted a whole-
some influence in journalism, raising the tone of the press, show-
ing great independence and tolerance, and fighting vigorously
for liberal principles. He earned the distinction of two years'
imprisonment for telling plain truths about the Prince Regent;
and his prosecution by the Government made him many distin-
guished friends. Some years later he went to Italy to join
Shelley and Byron in the establishment of a new magazine;
and it was on returning from Leghorn, where he had gone to
meet Hunt, that Shelley was drowned. The new magazine was
soon abandoned, Hunt returned to England, engaged in various
periodical and other literary enterprises from which he seldom
earned enough to meet his expenses, and struggled on cheerfully
and courageously to the age of seventy-five.
Hunt's poetry is pretty, fanciful, and musical, but, with the
exception of one or two pieces, is now little read. Much of his
prose work is merely high-toned journalism, the interest of
which has passed with its occasion. But among his familiar
essays, from which the two papers here printed are taken, there
are many little masterpieces, suffused with his cheerful optimistic
spirit, and expressed always gracefully and sometimes exquisitely.
"No man," says James Russell Lowell, "has ever understood the
delicacies and luxuries of language better than he; and his
thoughts often have all the rounded grace and shifting luster
of a dove's neck. . . . He was as pure-minded a man as
ever lived, and a critic whose subtlety of discrimination and
whose soundness of judgment, supported as it was on a broad
basis of truly liberal scholarship, have hardly yet won fitting
appreciation"
298
DEATHS OF
LITTLE CHILDREN
A GRECIAN philosopher being asked why he wept for
the death of his son, since the sorrow was in vain,
replied, " I weep on that account." And his answer
became his wisdom. It is only for sophists to contend that
we, whose eyes contain the fountains of tears, need never
give way to them. It would be unwise not to do so on some
occasions. Sorrow unlocks them in her balmy moods. The
first bursts may be bitter and overwhelming; but the soil
on which they pour would be worse without them. They
refresh the fever of the soul — the dry misery which parches
the countenance into furrows, and renders us liable to our
most terrible " flesh-quakes."
There are sorrows, it is true, so great, that to give them
some of the ordinary vents is to run a hazard of being over-
thrown. These we must rather strengthen ourselves to
resist, or bow quietly and drily down, in order to let them
pass over us, as the traveller does the wind of the desert.
But where we feel that tears would relieve us, it is false
philosophy to deny ourselves at least that first refreshment;
and it is always false consolation to tell people that because
they cannot help a thing, they are not to mind it. The
true way is, to let them grapple with the unavoidable sor-
row, and try to win it into gentleness by a reasonable yield-
ing. There are griefs so gentle in their very nature that it
would be worse than false heroism to refuse them a tear.
Of this kind are the deaths of infants. Particular circum-
stances may render it more or less advisable to indulge in
grief for the loss of a little child; but, in general, parents
299
300 LEIGH HUNT
should be no more advised to repress their first tears on
such an occasion, than to repress their smiles towards a
child surviving, or to indulge in any other sympathy. It is
an appeal to the same gentle tenderness; and such appeals
are never made in vain. The end of them is an acquittal
from the harsher bonds of affliction — from the tying down
of the spirit to one melancholy idea.
It is the nature of tears of this kind, however strongly
they may gush forth, to run into quiet waters at last. We
cannot easily, for the whole course of our lives, think with
pain of any good and kind person whom we have lost. It
is the divine nature of their qualities to conquer pain and
death itself; to turn the memory of them into pleasure; to
survive with a placid aspect in our imaginations. We are
writing at this moment just opposite a spot which contains
the grave of one inexpressibly dear to us. We see from our
window the trees about it, and the church spire. The green
fields lie around. The clouds are travelling overhead, al-
ternately taking away the sunshine and restoring it. The
vernal winds, piping of the flowery summer-time, are never-
theless calling to mind the far-distant and dangerous ocean,
which the heart that lies in that grave had many reasons
to think of. And yet the sight of this spot does not give us
pain. So far from it, it is the existence of that grave which
doubles every charm of the spot; which links the pleasures
of our childhood and manhood together ; which puts a hush-
ing tenderness in the winds, and a patient joy upon the land-
scape ; which seems to unite heaven and earth, mortality and
immortality, the grass of the tomb and the grass of the green
field; and gives a more maternal aspect to the whole kind-
ness of nature. It does not hinder gaiety itself. Happiness
was what its tenant, through all her troubles, would have
diffused. To diffuse happiness, and to enjoy it, is not only
carrying on her wishes, but realising her hopes ; and gaiety,
freed from its only pollutions, malignity and want of sym-
pathy, is but a child playing about the knees of its mother.
The remembered innocence and endearments of a child
stand us instead of virtues that have died older. Children
have not exercised the voluntary offices of friendship; they
have not chosen to be kind and good to us; nor stood by
DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN 301
us, from conscious will, in the hour of adversity. But they
have shared their pleasures and pains with us as well as
they could; the interchange of good offices between us has,
of necessity, been less mingled with the troubles of the
world; the sorrow arising from their death is the only one
which we can associate with their memories. These are
happy thoughts that cannot die. Our loss may always render
them pensive; but they will not always be painful. It is a
part of the benignity of Nature that pain does not survive
like pleasure, at any time, much less where the cause of it
is an innocent one. The smile will remain reflected by mem-
ory, as the moon reflects the light upon us when the sun has
gone into heaven.
When writers like ourselves quarrel with earthly pain (we
mean writers of the same intentions, without implying, of
course, anything about abilities or otherwise), they are mis-
understood if they are supposed to quarrel with pains of
every sort. This would be idle and effeminate. They do
not pretend, indeed, that humanity might not wish, if it
could, to be entirely free from pain; for it endeavours, at
all times, to turn pain into pleasure: or at least to set off
the one with the other, to make the former a zest and the
latter a refreshment. The most unaffected dignity of suffer-
ing does this, and, if wise, acknowledges it. The greatest
benevolence towards others, the most unselfish relish of their
pleasures, even at its own expense, does but look to increas-
ing the general stock of happiness, though content, if it
could, to have its identity swallowed up in that splendid con-
templation. We are far from meaning that this is to be
called selfishness. We are far, indeed, from thinking so,
or of so confounding words. But neither is it to be called
pain when most unselfish, if disinterestedness be truly un-
derstood. The pain that is in it softens into pleasure, as the
darker hue of the rainbow melts into the brighter. Yet
even if a harsher line is to be drawn between the pain and
pleasure of the most unselfish mind (and ill-health, for in-
stance, may draw it), we should not quarrel with it if it
contributed to the general mass of comfort, and were of a
nature which general kindliness could not avoid. Made as
we are, there are certain pains without which it would be
302 LEIGH HUNT
difficult to conceive certain great and overbalancing pleas-
ures. We may conceive it possible for beings to be made
entirely happy; but in our composition something of pain
seems to be a necessary ingredient, in order that the ma-
terials may turn to as fine account as possible, though our
clay, in the course of ages and experience, may be refined
more and more. We may get rid of the worst earth, though
not of earth itself.
Now the liability to the loss of children — or rather what
renders us sensible of it, the occasional loss itself — seems to
be one of these necessary bitters thrown into the cup of
humanity. We do not mean that every one must lose one
of his children in order to enjoy the rest; or that every
individual loss afflicts us in the same proportion. We allude
to the deaths of infants in general. These might be as few
as we could render them. But if none at all ever took place,
we should regard every little child as a man or woman se-
cured; and it will easily be conceived what a world of en-
dearing cares and hopes this security would endanger. The
very idea of infancy would lose its continuity with us. Girls
and boys would be future men and women, not present chil-
dren. They would have attained their full growth in our
imaginations, and might as well have been men and women
at once. On the other hand, those who have lost an infant,
are never, as it were, without an infant child. They are
the only persons who, in one sense, retain it always, and
they furnish their neighbours with the same idea. The other
children grow up to manhood and womanhood, and suffer all
the changes of mortality. This one alone is rendered an
immortal child. Death has arrested it with his kindly
harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth
and innocence.
Of such as these are the pleasantest shapes that visit our
fancy and our hopes. They are the ever-smiling emblems
of joy; the prettiest pages that wait upon imagination.
Lastly, " Of these are the kingdom of heaven." Wherever
there is a province of that benevolent and all-accessible em-
pire, whether on earth or elsewhere, such are the gentle
spirits that must inhabit it. To such simplicity, or the re-
semblance of it, must they come. Such must be the ready
DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN 303
confidence of their hearts and creativeness of their fancy.
And so ignorant must they be of the "knowledge of good
and evil," losing their discernment of that self-created
trouble, by enjoying the garden before them, and not being
ashamed of what is kindly and innocent.
ON THE REALITIES OF
IMAGINATION
THERE is not a more unthinking way of talking than
to say such and such pains and pleasures are only
imaginary, and therefore to be got rid of or under-
valued accordingly. There is nothing imaginary in the com-
mon acceptation of the word. The logic of Moses in the
Vicar of Wakefield is good argument here : — " Whatever is,
is." Whatever touches us, whatever moves us, does touch
and does move us. We recognise the reality of it, as we do
that of a hand in the dark. We might as well say that a
sight which makes us laugh, or a blow which brings tears
into our eyes, is imaginary, as that anything else is imag-
inary which makes us laugh or weep. We can only judge
of things by their effects. Our perception constantly
deceives us, in things with which we suppose ourselves per-
fectly conversant; but our reception of their effect is a
different matter. Whether we are materialists or imma-
terialists, whether things be about us or within us, whether
we think the sun is a substance, or only the image of a divine
thought, an idea, a thing imaginary, we are equally agreed
as to the notion of its warmth. But on the other hand, as
this warmth is felt differently by different temperaments, so
what we call imaginary things affect different minds. What
we have to do is not to deny their effect, because we do
not feel in the same proportion, or whether we even feel it
at all ; but to see whether our neighbours may not be moved.
If they are, there is, to all intents and purposes, a moving
cause. But we do not see it? No; — neither perhaps do
they. They only feel it; they are only sentient, — a word
which implies the sight given to the imagination by the
304
REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 305
feelings. But what do you mean, we may ask in return, "by
seeing? Some rays of light come in contact with the eye;
they bring a sensation to it ; in a word, they touch it * and
the impression left by this touch we call sight. How far
does this differ in effect from the impression left by any
other touch, however mysterious? An ox knocked down by
a butcher, and a man knocked down by a fit of apoplexy,
equally feel themselves compelled to drop. The tickling of
a straw and of a comedy equally move the muscles about
the mouth. The look of a beloved eye will so thrill the
frame, that old philosophers have had recourse to a doctrine
of beams and radiant particles flying from one sight to
another. In fine, what is contact itself, and why does it
affect us? There is no one cause more mysterious than
another, if we look into it.
Nor does the question concern us like moral causes. We
may be content to know the earth by its fruits; but how to
increase and improve them is a more attractive study. If,
instead of saying that the causes which moved in us this or
that pain or pleasure were imaginary, people were to say that
the causes themselves were removable, they would be nearer
the truth. When a stone trips us up, we do not fall to dis-
puting its existence : we put it out of the way. In like man-
ner, when we suffer from what is called an imaginary pain,
our business is not to canvass the reality of it. Whether
there is any cause or not in that or any other perception, or
whether everything consist not in what is called effect, it is
sufficient for us that the effect is real. Our sole business is
to remove those second causes, which always accompany the
original idea. As in deliriums, for instance, it would be idle
to go about persuading the patient that he did not behold the
figures he says he does. He might reasonably ask us, if he
could, how we know anything about the matter; or how we
can be sure that in the infinite wonders of the universe cer-
tain realities may not become apparent to certain eyes,
whether diseased or not. Our business would be to put him
into that state of health in which human beings are not
diverted from their offices and comforts by a liability to
such imaginations. The best reply to his question would be,
that such a morbidity is clearly no more a fit state fftfi a
306 LEIGH HUNT
human being than a disarranged or incomplete state of
works is for a watch ; and that seeing the general tendency
of nature to this completeness or state of comfort, we
naturally conclude that the imaginations in question, whether
substantial or not, are at least not of the same lasting or
prevailing description.
We do not profess metaphysics. We are indeed so little
conversant with the masters of that art, that we are never
sure whether we are using even its proper terms. All that
we may know on the subject comes to us from some reflec-
tion and some experience ; and this all may be so little as to
make a metaphysician smile; which, if he be a true one, he
will do good-naturedly. The pretender will take occasion,
from our very confession, to say that we know nothing.
Our faculty, such as it is, is rather instinctive than reason-
ing; rather physical than metaphysical; rather sentient
because it loves much, than because it knows much; rather
calculated by a certain retention of boyhood, and by its
wanderings in the green places of thought, to light upon a
piece of the old golden world, than to tire ourselves, and
conclude it unattainable, by too wide and scientific a search.
We pretend to see farther than none but the worldly and
the malignant. And yet those who see farther may not see
so well. We do not blind our eyes with looking upon the
sun in the heavens. We believe it to be there, but we find
its light upon earth also ; and we would lead humanity, if we
could, out of misery and coldness into the shine of it. Pain
might still be there; must be so, as long as we are mortal;
" For oft we still must weep, since we are human : "
but it should be pain for the sake of others, which is noble;
not unnecessary pain inflicted by or upon them, which it is
absurd not to remove. The very pains of mankind struggle
towards pleasures; and such pains as are proper for them
have this inevitable accompaniment of true humanity,—
that they cannot but realise a certain gentleness of enjoy-
ment. Thus the true bearer of pain would come round to
us; and he would not grudge us a share of his burden,
though in taking from his trouble it might diminish his
|>ride. Pride is but a bad pleasure at the expense of others.
REALITIES OF IMAGINATION" 307
The great object of humanity is to enrich everybody. If it
is a task destined not to succeed, it is a good one from its
very nature; and fulfils at least a glad destiny of its own.
To look upon it austerely is in reality the reverse of aus-
terity. It is only such an impatience of the want of pleasure
as leads us to grudge it in others ; and this impatience itself,
if the sufferer knew how to use it, is but another impulse,
in the general yearning, towards an equal wealth of enjoy-
ment.
But we shall be getting into other discussions. — The
ground- work of all happiness is health. Take care of this
ground; and the doleful imaginations that come to warn us
against its abuse will avoid it. Take care of this ground,
and let as many glad imaginations throng to it as possible.
Read the magical works of the poets, and they will come.
If you doubt their existence, ask yourself whether you feel
pleasure at the iciea of them; whether you are moved into
delicious smiles, or tears as delicious. If you are, the result
is the same to you, whether they exist or not. It is not
mere words to say that he who goes through a rich man's
park, and sees things in it which never bless the mental
eyesight of the possessor, is richer than he. He is richer.
More results of pleasure come home to him. The ground is
actually more fertile to him: the place haunted with finer
shapes. He has more servants to come at his call, and
administer to him with full hands. Knowledge, sympathy,
imagination, are all divining-rods, with which he discovers
treasure. Let a painter go through the grounds, and he
will see not only the general colours of green and brown,
but their combinations and contrasts, and the modes in
which they might again be combined and contrasted. He
will also put figures in the landscape if there are none there,
flocks and herds, or a solitary spectator, or Venus lying
with her white body among the violets and primroses. Let
a musician go through, and he will hear "differences dis-
creet" in the notes of the birds and the lapsing of the
water- fall. He will fancy a serenade of wind instruments in
the open air at a lady's window, with a voice rising through
it; or the horn of the hunter; or the musical cry of the
hounds,
308 LEIGH HUNT
" Matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each ; "
or a solitary voice in a bower, singing for an expected
lover; or the chapel organ, waking up like the fountain of
the winds. Let a poet go through the grounds and he will
heighten and increase all these sounds and images. He will
bring the colours from heaven, and put an unearthly mean-
ing into the voice. He will have stories of the sylvan
inhabitants; will shift the population through infinite
varieties; will put a sentiment upon every sight and sound;
will be human, romantic, supernatural; will make all nature
send tribute into that spot.
We may say of the love of nature what Shakespeare says
of another love, that it
" Adds a precious seeing to the eye.*
And we may say also, upon the like principle, that it adds a
precious hearing to the ear. This and imagination, which
ever follows upon it, are the two purifiers of our sense,
which rescue us from the deafening babble of common cares,
and enable us to hear all the affectionate voices of earth and
heaven. The starry orbs, lapsing ajpout in their smooth and
sparkling dance, sing to us. The brooks talk to us of soli-
tude. The birds are the animal spirits of nature, carolling
in the air, like a careless lass.
" The gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes ; and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils." — Paradise Lost, book iv.
The poets are called creators, because with their magical
words they bring forth to our eyesight the abundant images
and beauties of creation. They put them there, if the
reader pleases; and so are literally creators. But whether
put there or discovered, whether created or invented (for
invention means nothing but finding out), there they are.
If they touch us, they exist to as much purpose as anything
else which touches us. If a passage in King Lear brings the
tears into our eyes, it is real as the touch of a sorrowful
hand. If the flow of a song of Anacreon's intoxicates us, it
REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 309
is as true to a pulse within us as the wine he drank. We
hear not their sounds with ears, nor see their sights with
eyes ; but we hear and see both so truly, that we are moved
with pleasure ; and the advantage, nay even the test, of seeing
and hearing, at any time, is not in the seeing and hearing,
but in the ideas we realise, and the pleasure we derive.
Intellectual objects, therefore, inasmuch as they come home
to us, are as true a part of the stock of nature as visible
ones; and they are infinitely more abundant. Between the
tree of a country clown and the tree of a Milton or Spen-
ser, what a difference in point of productiveness ! Between
the plodding of a sexton through a church-yard and the
walk of a Gray, what a difference ! What a difference
between the Bermudas of a ship-builder and the Bermoothes
of Shakespeare ! the isle
" Full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not ; "
the isle of elves and fairies, that chased the tide to and fro
on the sea-shore ; of coral-bones and the knell of sea-nymphs ;
of spirits dancing on the sands, and singing amidst the hushes
of the wind ; of Caliban, whose brute nature enchantment had
made poetical; of Ariel, who lay in cowslip bells, and rode
upon the bat ; of Miranda, who wept when she saw Ferdinand
Work so hard, and begged him, to let her help; telling him,
" I am your wife, if you will marry me ;
If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no."
Such are the discoveries which the poets make for us ; worlds
to which that of Columbus was but a handful of brute matter.
America began to be richer for us the other day, when Hum-
boldt came back and told us of its luxuriant and gigantic
vegetation ; of the myriads of shooting lights, which revel at
evening in the southern sky; and of that grand constellation,
at which Dante seems to have made so remarkable a guess
(Purgatorio, cant, i., v. 22). The natural warmth of the
Mexican and Peruvian genius, set free from despotism, will
soon do all the rest for it; awaken the sleeping riches of its
eyesight, and call forth the glad music of its affections.
310 REALITIES OF IMAGINATION
Imagination enriches everything. A great library contains
not only books, but
* The assembled souls of all that men held wise."
DA VENA NT.
The moon is Homer's and Shakespeare's moon, as well as
the one we look at. The sun comes out of his chamber in
the east, with a sparkling eye, "rejoicing like a bridegroom."
The commonest thing becomes like Aaron's rod, that budded.
Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to wait upon a lock
of hair, and justly gave it the honours of a constellation; for
he has hung it, sparkling for ever in the eyes of posterity.
A common meadow is a sorry thing to a ditcher or a cox-
comb; but By the help of its dues from imagination and the
love of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air soothes us,
we feel as we did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its
verdures, its sheep, its hedge-row elms, — all these, and all
else which sight, and sound, and associations can give it, are
made to furnish a treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even brick
and mortar are vivified, as of old, at the harp of Orpheus.
A metropolis becomes no longer a mere collection of houses
or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its history, and
its literature; its towers, and rivers; its art, and jewellery,
and foreign wealth; its multitude of human beings all intent
upon excitement, wise or yet to learn; the huge and sullen
dignity of its canopy of smoke by day; the wide gleam
upwards of its lighted lustre at night-time; and the noise of
its many chariots, heard at the same hour, when the wind sets
gently towards some quiet suburb.
ON THE TRAGEDIES OF
SHAKSPERE
BY
CHARLES LAMB
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was born in the Temple, London,
where his father was a clerk to one of the benchers. He was a
schoolmate of Coleridge's at Christ's Hospital, and shortly after
leaving school he entered the India House, on the staff of which
he worked for thirty-three years. He never married, but lived
with his sister Mary as her guardian on account of her inherited
tendency to insanity. His friends included (besides Coleridge)
Wordsivorth, Hunt, Hazlitt, Southey, and many others, and his
letters as well as the works he published reveal one of the most
attractive personalities in literature.
Lamb wrote a handful of poems marked by delicate sentiment,
and made some rather unsuccessful attempts at drama. But his
name rests on his essays, — the familiar essays on a great variety
of subjects, whimsical, humorous, graceful, quaint; the critical
essays, sensitive, illuminating, in the best sense appreciative. He
did much for the revival of interest in the Elizabethan drama;
and the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," is the most
distinguished single piece of critical writing that came from his
pen. The main thesis of the paper — "that the plays of Shake-
speare are less calculated for performance on a stage than
those of almost any dramatist whatever" — is, of course, para-
doxical; but Lamb's method was not logical or philosophical as
his friend Coleridge's aimed at being. His criticism is a frank
expression of his personal feelings; it is in the proper sense
"impressionistic " criticism; and it gets its value from the quality
and flavor of the author's taste and personality. It is thus pure
literature — the expression of the man himself — rather than scien-
tific analysis; and in this branch of writing there is nothing in
English more delightful.
312
ON THE TRAGEDIES OF
SHAKSPERE
Considered With Reference to Their Fitness for
Stage Representation
TAKING a turn the other day in the Abbey, I was
struck with the affected attitude of a figure, which I do
not remember to have seen before, and which upon
examination proved to be a whole-length of the celebrated
Mr. Garrick. Though I would not go so far with some
good Catholics abroad as to shut players altogether out of
consecrated ground, yet I own I was not a little scandalised
at the introduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a
place set apart to remind us of the saddest realities. Going
nearer, I found inscribed under this harlequin figure the
following lines: —
To paint fair Nature, by divine command,
Her magic pencil in his glowing hand,
A Shakspere rose : then, to expand his fame
Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick came.
Though sunk in death the forms the Poet drew,
The Actor's genius made them breathe anew;
Though, like the bard himself, in night they lay,
Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day:
And till Eternity with power sublime
Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time,
Shakspere and Garrick like twin-stars shall shine,
And earth irradiate with a beam divine.
It would be an insult to my readers' understandings to
attempt anything like a criticism on this farrago of false
thoughts and nonsense. But the reflection it led me into was
a kind of wonder, how, from the days of the actor here
313
314 CHARLES LAMB
celebrated to our own, it should have been the fashion to
compliment every performer in his turn, that has had the
luck to please the town in any of the great characters of
Shakspere, with a notion of possessing a mind congenial
to the poet's; how people should come thus unaccountably
to confound the power of originating poetical images and
conceptions with the faculty of being able to read or recite
the same when put into words;1 or what connection that
absolute mastery over the heart and soul of man, which a
great dramatic poet possesses, has with those low tricks
upon the eye and ear, which a player by observing a few
general effects, which some common passion, as grief, anger,
etc., usually has upon the gestures and exterior, can easily
compass. To know the internal workings and movements
of a great mind, of an Othello or a Hamlet, for instance,
the when and the why and the how far they should be
moved; to what pitch a passion is becoming; to give the
reins and to pull in the curb exactly at the moment when
the drawing in or the slacking is most graceful; seems to
demand a reach of intellect of a vastly different extent from
that which is employed upon the bare imitation of the signs
of these passions in the countenance or gesture, which signs
are usually observed to be most lively and emphatic in the
weaker sort of minds, and which signs can after all but
indicate some passion, as I said before, anger, or grief, gen-
erally; but of the motives and grounds of the passion,
wherein it differs from the same passion in low and vulgar
natures, of these the actor can give no more idea by his
face or gesture than the eye (without a metaphor) can
speak, or the muscles utter intelligible sounds. But such is
the instantaneous nature of the impressions which we take
in at the eye and ear at a playhouse, compared with the
slow apprehension oftentimes of the understanding in read-
ing, that we are apt not only to sink the play-writer in the
consideration which we pay to the actor, but even to identify
*It is observable that we fall into this confusion only in dramatic reci-
tations. ^ We never dream that the gentleman who reads Lucretius in
public with great applause, is therefore a great poet and philosopher; nor
do t we find that Tom Davies, the bookseller, who is recorded to have
recited the " Paradise Lost " better than any man in England in his day
(though I cannot help thinking there must be some mistake in this tradition)
was therefore, by his intimate friends, set upon a level with Milton.
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 315
in our minds in a perverse manner, the actor with the char-
acter which he represents. It is difficult for a frequent
play-goer to disembarrass the idea of Hamlet from the per-
son and voice of Mr. K. We speak of Lady Macbeth, while
we are in reality thinking of Mrs. S. Nor is this confusion
incidental alone to unlettered persons, who, not possessing
the advantage of reading, are necessarily dependent upon
the stage-player for all the pleasure which they can receive
from the drama, and to whom the very idea of what an
author is cannot be made comprehensible without some
pain and perplexity of mind: the error is one from which
persons otherwise not meanly lettered find it almost impos-
sible to extricate themselves.
Never let me be so ungrateful as to forget the very high
degree of satisfaction which I received some years back
from seeing for the first time a tragedy of Shakspere per-
formed, in which these two great performers sustained the
principal parts. It seemed to embody and realise concep-
tions which had hitherto assumed no distinct shape. But
dearly do we pay all our life afterwards for this juvenile
pleasure, this sense of distinctness. When the novelty is
past, we find to our cost that, instead of realising an idea,
we have only materialised and brought down a fine vision
to the standard of flesh and blood. We have let go a dream,
in quest of an unattainable substance.
How cruelly this operates upon the mind, to have its free
conceptions thus cramped and pressed down to the measure
of a strait-lacing actuality, may be judged from that delight-
ful sensation of freshness, with which we turn to those plays
of Shakspere which have escaped being performed, and to
those passages in the acting plays of the same writer which
have happily been left out of the performance. How far the
very custom of hearing anything spouted, withers and blows
upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches from
Henry the Fifth, etc., which are current in the mouths of
school-boys from their being to be found in Enfield Speak-
ers, and such kind of books. I confess myself utterly unable
to appreciate that celebrated soliloquy in Hamlet, begin-
ning " To be, or not to be," or to tell whether it be good,
bad, or indifferent, it has been so handled and pawed about
316 CHARLES LAMB
by declamatory boys and men, and torn so inhumanly from
its living place and principle of continuity in the play, till it
is become to me a perfect dead member.
It may seem a paradox, but I cannot help being of opinion
that the plays of Shakspere are less calculated for per-
formance on a stage than those of almost any other dram-
atist whatever. Their distinguished excellence is a reason
that they should be so. There is so much in them, which
comes not under the province of acting, with which eye, and
tone, and gesture, have nothing to do.
The glory of the scenic art is to personate passion, and
the turns of passion; and the more coarse and palpable the
passion is, the more hold upon the eyes and ears of the
spectators the performer obviously possesses. For this
reason, scolding scenes, scenes where two persons talk them-
selves into a fit of fury, and then in a surprising manner talk
themselves out of it again, have always been the most popu-
lar upon our stage. And the reason is plain, because the
spectators are here most palpably appealed to, they are the
proper judges in this war of words, they are the legitimate
ring that should be formed round such " intellectual prize-
fighters." Talking is the direct object of the imitation here.
But in the best dramas, and in Shakspere above all, how
obvious it is, that the form of speaking, whether it be in
soliloquy or dialogue, is only a medium, and often a highly
artificial one, for putting the reader or spectator into pos-
session of that knowledge of the inner structure and work-
ings of mind in a character, which he could otherwise never
have arrived at in that form of composition by any gift
short of intuition. We do here as we do with novels written
in the epistolary form. How many improprieties, perfect
solecisms in letter-writing, do we put up with in " Clarissa "
and other books, for the sake of the delight which that
form upon the whole gives us.
But the practice of stage representation reduces every-
thing to a controversy of elocution. Every character, from
the boisterous blasphemings of Bajazet to the shrinking
timidity of womanhood, must play the orator. The love-
dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, those silver-sweet sounds
of lovers' tongues by night; the more intimate and sacred
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 317
sweetness of nuptial colloquy between an Othello or a
Posthumus with their married wives, all those delicacies
which are so delightful in the reading, as when we read
of those youthful dalliances in Paradise —
As beseem'd
Fair couple link'd in happy nuptial league,
Alone :
by the inherent fault of stage representation, how are
these things sullied and turned from their very nature by
being exposed to a large assembly; when such speeches as
Imogen addresses to her lord, come drawling out of the
mouth of a hired actress, whose courtship, though nominally
addressed to the personated Posthumus, is manifestly aimed
at the spectators, who are to judge of her endearments
and her returns of love.
The character of Hamlet is perhaps that by which, since
the days of Betterton, a succession of popular performers
have had the greatest ambition to distinguish themselves.
The length of the part may be one of their reasons. But
for the character itself, we find it in a play, and therefore
we judge it a fit subject of dramatic representation. The
play itself abounds in maxims and reflections beyond any
other, and therefore we consider it as a proper vehicle for
conveying moral instruction. But Hamlet himself — what
does he suffer meanwhile by being dragged forth as a public
schoolmaster, to give lectures to the crowd! Why, nine
parts in ten of what Hamlet does, are transactions between
himself and his moral sense, they are the effusions of his
solitary musings, which he retires to holes and corners and
the most sequestered parts of the palace to pour forth; or
rather, they are the silent meditations with which his bosom
is bursting, reduced to words for the sake of the reader, who
must else remain ignorant of what is passing there. These
profound sorrows, these light-and-noise-abhorring rumina-
tions, which the tongue scarce dares utter to deaf walls and
chambers, how can they be represented by a gesticulating
actor, who comes and mouths them out before an audience,
making four hundred people his confidants at once? I say
not that it is the fault of the actor so to do; he must pro-
318 CHARLES LAMB
nounce them ore rotundo, he must accompany them with his
eye, he must insinuate them into his auditory by some trick
of eye, tone, or gesture, or he fails. He must be thinking all
the while of his appearance, because he knows that all the
while the spectators are judging of it. And this is the way
to represent the shy, negligent, retiring Hamlet.
It is true that there is no other mode of conveying a vast
quantity of thought and feeling to a great portion of the
audience, who otherwise would never learn it for themselves
by reading, and the intellectual acquisition gained this way
may, for aught I know, be inestimable; but I am not arguing
that Hamlet should not be acted, but how much Hamlet is
made another thing by being acted. I have heard much of the
wonders which Garrick performed in this part ; but as I never
saw him, I must have leave to doubt whether the representa-
tion of such a character came within the province of his art.
Those who tell me of him, speak of his eye, of the magic
of his eye, and of his commanding voice : physical properties,
vastly desirable in an actor, and without which he can never
insinuate meaning into an auditory, — but what have they to
do with Hamlet? what have they to do with intellect? In
fact, the things aimed at in theatrical representation, are to
arrest the spectator's eye upon the form and the gesture,
and so to gain a more favourable hearing to what is spoken :
it is not what the character is, but how he looks; not what
he says, but how he speaks it. I see no reason to think that
if the play of Hamlet were written over again by some such
writer as Banks or Lillo, retaining the process of the story,
but totally omitting all the poetry of it, all the divine features
of Shakspere, his stupendous intellect; and only taking care
to give us enough of passionate dialogue, which Banks or
Lillo were never at a loss to furnish; I see not how the
effect could be much different upon an audience, nor how
the actor has it in his power to represent Shakspere to us
differently from his representation of Banks or Lillo. Ham-
let would still be a youthful accomplished prince, and must
be gracefully personated; he might be puzzled in his mind,
wavering in his conduct, seemingly cruel to Ophelia, he
might see a ghost, and start at it, and address it kindly when
he found it to be his father ; all this in the poorest and most
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 319
homely language of the servilest creeper after nature that
ever consulted the palate of an audience; without troubling
Shakspere for the matter; and I see not but there would
be room for all the power which an actor has, to display
itself. All the passions and changes of passion might re-
main; for those are much less difficult to write or act than
is thought; it is a trick easy to be attained, it is but rising
or falling a note or two in the voice, a whisper with a sig-
nificant foreboding look to announce its approach, and so
contagious the counterfeit appearance of any emotion is,
that let the words be what they will, the look and tone shall
carry it off and make it pass for deep skill in the passions.
It is common for people to talk of Shakspere's plays
being so natural, that everybody can understand him. They
are natural indeed, they are grounded deep in nature, so
deep that the depth of them lies out of the reach of most
of us. You shall hear the same persons say that George
Barnwell is very natural, and Othello is very natural, that
they are both very deep; and to them they are the same
kind of thing. At the one they sit and shed tears, because
a good sort of young man is tempted by a naughty woman
to commit a trifling peccadillo, the murder of an uncle or so,a
that is all, and so comes to an untimely end, which is so
moving; and at the other, because a blackamoor in a fit of
jealousy kills his innocent white wife: and the odds are that
ninety-nine out of a hundred would willingly behold the
same catastrophe happen to both the heroes, and have
thought the rope more due to Othello than to Barnwell. For
of the texture of Othello's mind, the inward construction mar-
vellously laid open with all its strengths and weaknesses, its
heroic confidences and its human misgivings, its agonies of
2 If this note could hope to meet the eye of any of the Managers, I
would entreat and beg of them, in the name of both the galleries, that this
insult upon the morality of the common people of London should cease to
be eternally repeated in the holiday weeks. Why are the 'Prentices of this
famous and well-governed city, instead of an amusement, to be treated
over and over again with a nauseous sermon of George Barnwell? Why
at the end of their vistas are we to place the gallows? Were I an uncle,
I should not much like a nephew of mine to have such an example placed
before his eyes. It is really making uncle-murder too trivial to exhibit
it as done upon such slight motives; — it is attributing too much to such
characters as Millwood; it is putting things into the heads of good young
men, which they would never otherwise have dreamed of. Uncles that
think anything of their lives, should fairly petition the Chamberlain
against it.
320 CHARLES LAMB
hate springing from the depths of love, they see no more
than the spectators at a cheaper rate, who pay their pennies
apiece to look through the man's telescope in Leicester
Fields, see into the inward plot and topography of the moon.
Some dim thing or other they see, they see an actor person-
ating a passion, of grief, or anger, for instance, and they
recognise it as a copy of the usual external effects of such
passions ; or at least as being true to that symbol of the emo-
tion which passes current a1 the theatre for it, for it is often
no more than that: but of the grounds of the passion, its
correspondence to a great or heroic nature, which is the
only worthy object of tragedy, — that common auditors know
anything of this, or can have any such notions dinned into
them by the mere strength of an actor's lungs, — that appre-
hensions foreign to them should be thus infused into them
by storm, I can neither believe, nor understand how it can
be possible.
We talk of Shakspere's admirable observation of life,
when we should feel that not from a petty inquisition into
those cheap and every-day characters which surrounded
him, as they surround us, but from his own mind, which was,
to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson's, the very " sphere of
humanity," he fetched those images of virtue and of knowl-
edge, of which every one of us recognising a part, think we
comprehend in our natures the whole; and oftentimes mis-
take the powers which he positively creates in us for nothing
more than indigenous faculties of our own minds, which
only waited the application of corresponding virtues in him
to return a full and clear echo of the same.
To return to Hamlet. — Among the distinguishing features
of that wonderful character, one of the most interesting
(yet painful) is that soreness of mind which makes him
treat the intrusions of Polonius with harshness, and that
asperity which he puts on in his interviews with Ophelia.
These tokens of an unhinged mind (if they be not mixed in
the latter case with a profound artifice of love, to alienate
Ophelia by affected discourtesies, so to prepare her mind
for the breaking off of that loving intercourse, which can
no longer find a place amidst business so serious as that
which he has to do) are parts of his character, which to
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 321
reconcile with our admiration of Hamlet, the most patient
consideration of his situation is no more than necessary;
they are what we forgive afterwards, and explain by the
whole of his character, but at the time they are harsh and
unpleasant. Yet such is the actor's necessity of giving
strong blows to the audience, that I have never seen a player
in this character, who did not exaggerate and strain to the
utmost these ambiguous features, — these temporary deformi-
ties in the character. They make him express a vulgar
scorn at Polonius which utterly degrades his gentility, and
which no explanation can render palatable; they make him
show contempt, and curl up the nose at Ophelia's father, —
contempt in its very grossest and most hateful form; but
they get applause by it : it is natural, people say ; that is, the
words are scornful, and the actor expresses scorn, and that
they can judge of: but why so much scorn, and of that sort,
they never think of asking.
So to Ophelia. — All the Hamlets that I have ever seen,
rant and rave at her as if she had committed some great
crime, and the audience are highly pleased, because the
words of the part are satirical, and they are enforced by
the strongest expression of satirical indignation of which
the face and voice are capable. But then, whether Hamlet
is likely to have put on such brutal appearances to a lady
whom he loved so dearly, is never thought on. The truth
is, that in all such deep affections as had subsisted between
Hamlet and Ophelia, there is a stock of supererogatory
love (if I may venture to use the expression), which in any
great grief of heart, especially where that which preys upon
the mind cannot be communicated, confers a kind of in-
dulgence upon the grieved party to express itself, even to
its heart's dearest object, in the language of a temporary
alienation; but it is not alienation, it is a distraction purely,
and so it always makes itself to be felt by that object: it is
not anger, but grief assuming the appearance of anger, —
love awkwardly counterfeiting hate, as sweet countenances
when they try to frown: but such sternness and fierce dis-
gust as Hamlet is made to show, is no counterfeit, but the
real face of absolute aversion, — of irreconcilable alienation.
It may be said he puts on the madman; but then he should
HO Vol. 27—11
322 CHARLES LAMB
only so far put on this counterfeit lunacy as his own real
distraction will give him leave; that is, incompletely, imper-
fectly; not in that confirmed, practised way, like a master
of his art, or as Dame Quickly would say, " like one of those
harlotry players."
I mean no disrespect to any actor, but the sort of pleasure
which Shakspere's plays give in the acting seems to me
not at all to differ from that which the audience receive
from those of other writers; and, they being in themselves
essentially so different from all others, I must conclude that
there is something in the nature of acting which levels all
distinctions. And in fact, who does not speak indifferently of
the Gamester and of Macbeth as fine stage performances,
and praise the Mrs. Beverley in the same way as the Lady
Macbeth of Mrs. S.? Belvidera, and Calista, and Isabella,
and Euphrasia, are they less liked than Imogen, or than
Juliet, or than Desdemona? Are they not spoken of and
remembered in the same way? Is not the female performer
as great (as they call it) in one as in the other? Did not
Garrick shine, and was he not ambitious of shining in every
drawling tragedy that his wretched day produced, — the
productions of the Hills and the Murphys and the Browns, —
and shall he have that honour to dwell in our minds for
ever as an inseparable concomitant with Shakspere? A
kindred mind! O who can read that affecting sonnet of
Shakspere which alludes to his profession as a player: —
Oh for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds —
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand
Or that other confession; —
Alas ! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear —
Who can read these instances of jealous self-watchfulness
in our sweet Shakspere, and dream of any congeniality
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 323
between him and one that, by every tradition of him, appears
to have been as mere a player as ever existed; to have had
his mind tainted with the lowest player's vices, — envy and
jealousy, and miserable cravings after applause; one who in
the exercise of his profession was jealous even of the
women-performers that stood in his way; a manager full of
managerial tricks and stratagems and finesse: that any
resemblance should be dreamed of between him and Shaks-
pere, — Shakspere who, in the plenitude and consciousness
of his own powers, could with that noble modesty, which
we can neither imitate nor appreciate, express himself thus
of his own sense of his own defects : —
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd :
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope.
I am almost disposed to deny to Garrick the merits of
being an admirer of Shakspere. A true lover of his excel-
lences he certainly was not; for would any true lover of
them have admitted into his matchless scenes such ribald
trash as Tate and Cibber, and the rest of them, that
With their darkness durst affront his light,
have foisted into the acting plays of Shakspere? I believe
it impossible that he could have had a proper reverence for
Shakspere, and have condescended to go through that inter-
polated scene in Richard the Third, in which Richard tries
to break his wife's heart by telling her he loves another
woman, and says, " if she survives this she is immortal."
Yet I doubt not he delivered this vulgar stuff with as much
anxiety of emphasis as any of the genuine parts: and for
acting, it is as well calculated as any. But we have seen the
part of Richard lately produce great fame to an actor by his
manner of playing it, and it lets us into the secret of acting,
and of popular judgments of Shakspere derived from act-
ing. Not one of the spectators who have witnessed Mr. C/s
exertions in that part, but has come away with a proper
conviction that Richard is a very wicked man, and kills little
children in their beds, with something like the pleasure
which the giants and ogres in children's books are repre-
324 CHARLES LAMB
sented to have taken in that practice; moreover, that he is
very close and shrewd, and devilish cunning, for you could
see that by his eye.
But is in fact this the impression we have in reading the
Richard of Shakspere? Do we feel anything like disgust,
as we do at that butcher-like representation of him that
passes for him on the stage? A horror at his crimes blends
with the effect which we feel, but how is it qualified, how is
it carried off, by the rich intellect which he displays, his
resources, his wit, his buoyant spirits, his vast knowledge
and insight into characters, the poetry of his part — not an
atom of all which is made perceivable in Mr. C.'s way of act-
ing it. Nothing but his crimes, his actions, is visible; they
are prominent and staring; the murderer stands out, but
where is the lofty genius, the man of vast capacity, — the
profound, the witty, accomplished Richard?
The truth is, the characters of Shakspere are so much
the objects of meditation rather than of interest or curiosity
as to their actions, that while we are reading any of his
great criminal characters, — Macbeth, Richard, even Iago, —
we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as
of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity
which prompts them to overleap those moral fences. Barn-
well is a wretched murderer; there is a certain fitness be-
tween his neck and the rope ; he is the legitimate heir to the
gallows; nobody who thinks at all can think of any allevia-
ting circumstances in his case to make him a fit object of
mercy. Or to take an instance from the higher tragedy,
what else but a mere assassin is Glenalvon ! Do we think of
anything but of the crime which he commits, and the rack
which he deserves? That is all which we really think about
him. Whereas in corresponding characters in Shakspere
so little do the actions comparatively affect us, that while
the impulses, the inner mind in all its perverted greatness,
solely seems real and is exclusively attended to, the crime is
comparatively nothing. But when we see these things repre-
sented, the acts which they do are comparatively everything,
their impulses nothing. The state of sublime emotion into
which we are elevated by those images of night and horror
which Macbeth is made to utter, that solemn prelude with
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 325
which he entertains the time till the bell shall strike which
is to call him to murder Duncan, — when we no longer read
it in a book, when we have given up that vantage-ground of
abstraction which reading possesses over seeing, and come
to see a man in his bodily shape before our eyes actually
preparing to commit a murder, if the acting be true and
impressive, as I have witnessed it in Mr. K.'s performance of
that part, the painful anxiety about the act, the natural
longing to prevent it while it yet seems unperpetrated, the
too close pressing semblance of reality, give a pain and an
uneasiness which totally destroy all the delight which the
words in the book convey, where the deed doing never
presses upon us with the painful sense of presence: it rather
seems to belong to history, — to something past and inevita-
ble, if it has anything to do with time at all. The sublime
images, the poetry alone, is that which is present to our
minds in the reading.
So to see Lear acted, — to see an old man tottering about
the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his
daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is
painful and disgusting. We want to take him into shelter
and relieve him. That is all the feeling which the acting
of Lear ever produced in me. But tne Lear of Shakspere
cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by which they
mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate
to represent the horrors of the real elements, than any actor
can be to represent Lear: they might more easily propose to
personate the Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of
Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The greatness of Lear
is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual: the explo-
sions of his passion are terrible as a volcano: they are
storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea his
mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid
bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant
to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the
stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness,
the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see not Lear,
but we are Lear, — we are in his mind, we are sustained by a
grandeur which baffles the malice of daughters and storms;
in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregu-
326 CHARLES LAMB
lar power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary
purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows
where it listeth, at will upon the corruptions and abuses of
mankind. What have looks, or tones, to do with that sublime
identification of his age with that of the heavens themselves,
when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injus-
tice of his children, he reminds them that "they themselves
are old?" What gestures shall we appropriate to this?
What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But
the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show:
it is too hard and stony; it must have love-scenes, and a
happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter,
she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the
nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers,
the showmen of scene, to draw the mighty beast about more
easily. A happy ending! — as if the living martyrdom that
Lear had gone through, — the flaying of his feelings alive, did
not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only
decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after,
if he could sustain this world's burden after, why all this
pudder and preparation, — why torment us with all this un-
necessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure of getting
his gilt-robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over
again his misused station, — as if at his years, and with his
experience, anything was left but to die.
Lear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage.
But how many dramatic personages are there in Shakspere,
which though more tractable and feasible (if I may so
speak) than Lear, yet from some circumstance, some adjunct
to their character, are improper to be shown to our bodily
eye. Othello, for instance. Nothing can be more soothing,
more flattering to the nobler parts of our natures, than to
read of a young Venetian lady of highest extraction, through
the force of love and from a sense of merit in him whom she
loved, laying aside every consideration of kindred, and coun-
try, and colour, and wedding with a coal-black Moor — (for
such he is represented, in the imperfect state of knowledge
respecting foreign countries in those days, compared with
our own, or in compliance with popular notions, though the
Moors are now well enough known to be by many shades
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 327
less unworthy of white woman's fancy) — it is the perfect
triumph of virtue over accidents, of the imagination over
the senses. She sees Othello's colour in his mind. But upon
the stage, when the imagination is no longer the ruling
faculty, but we are left to our poor unassisted senses, I
appeal to every one that has seen Othello played, whether
he did not, on the contrary, sink Othello's mind in his
colour; whether he did not find something extremely revolt-
ing in the courtship and wedded caresses of Othello and
Desdemona ; and whether the actual sight of the thing did not
overweigh all that beautiful compromise which we make in
reading; — and the reason it should do so is obvious, because
there is just so much reality presented to our senses as to
give a perception of disagreement, with not enough of belief
in the internal motives, — all that which is unseen, — to over-
power and reconcile the first and obvious prejudices.3 What
we see upon a stage is body and bodily action; what we are
conscious of in reading is almost exclusively the mind, and
its movements: and this, I think, may sufficiently account
for the very different sort of delight with which the same
play so often affects us in the reading and the seeing.
It requires little reflection to perceive, that if those char-
acters in Shakspere which are within the precincts of
nature, have yet something in them which appeals too ex-
clusively to the imagination, to admit of their being made
objects to the senses without suffering a change and a
diminution, — that still stronger the objection must lie against
representing another line of characters, which Shakspere
has introduced to give a wildness and a supernatural eleva-
tion to his scenes, as if to remove them still further from
that assimilation to common life in which their excellence
is vulgarly supposed to consist. When we read the incanta-
tions of those terrible beings the Witches in Macbeth,
3 The error of supposing that because Othello's colour does not offend
us in the reading, it should also not offend us in the seeing, is just such
a fallacy as supposing that an Adam and Eve in a picture shall affect us
ljust as they do in the poem. But in the poem we for a while have
Paradisaical senses given us, which vanish when we see a man and his
wife without clothes in the picture. The painters themselves feel this, as
is apparent by the awkward shifts they have recourse to, to make them
look not quite naked; by a sort of prophetic anachronism antedating the
invention of fig-leaves. So in the reading of the play, we see with Desde*
mona's eyes; in the seeing of it, we are forced to look with our own.
328 CHARLES LAMB
though some of the ingredients of their hellish composition
savour of the grotesque, yet is the effect upon us other
than the most serious and appalling that can be imagined?
Do we not feel spell-bound as Macbeth was? Can any
mirth accompany a sense of their presence? We might as
well laugh under a consciousness of the principle of Evil
himself being truly and really present with us. But attempt to
bring these beings on to a stage, and you turn them instantly
into so many old women, that men and children are to laugh
at. Contrary to the old saying, that " seeing is believing,"
the sight actually destroys the faith: and the mirth in which
we indulge at their expense, when we see these creatures
upon a stage, seems to be a sort of indemnification which
we make to ourselves for the terror which they put us in
when reading made them an object of belief, — when we
surrendered up our reason to the poet, as children to their
nurses and their elders; and we laugh at our fears, as chil-
dren who thought they saw something in the dark, triumph
when the bringing in of the candle discovers the vanity of
their fears. For this exposure of supernatural agents upon
a stage is truly bringing in a candle to expose their own
delusiveness. It is the solitary taper and the book that gen-
erates a faith in these terrors: a ghost by chandelier light,
and in good company, deceives no spectators, — a ghost that
can be measured by the eye, and his human dimensions made
out at leisure. The sight of a well-lighted house and a well-
dressed audience, shall arm the most nervous child against
any apprehensions: as Tom Brown says of the impenetrable
skin of Achilles with his impenetrable armour over it,
" Bully Dawson would have fought the devil with such
advantages."
Much has been said, and deservedly, in reprobation of the
vile mixture which Dryden has thrown into the Tempest:
doubtless without some such vicious alloy, the impure ears
of that age would never have sate out to hear so much inno-
cence of love as is contained in the sweet courtship of Fer-
dinand and Miranda. But is the Tempest of Shakspere
at all a subject for stage representation? It is one thing to
read of an enchanter, and to believe the wondrous tale while
we are reading it; but to have a conjuror brought before us
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 329
in his conjuring-gown, with his spirits about him, which
none but himself and some hundred of favoured spectators
before the curtain are supposed to see, involves such a quan-
tity of the hateful incredible, that all our reverence for the
author cannot hinder us from perceiving such gross attempts
upon the senses to be in the highest degree childish and
inefficient. Spirits and fairies cannot be represented, they
cannot even be painted, — they can only be believed. But the
elaborate and anxious provision of scenery, which the luxury
of the age demands, in these cases works a quite contrary
effect to what is intended. That which in comedy, or plays
of familiar life, adds so much to the life of the imitation, in
plays which appeal to the higher faculties, positively destroys
the illusion which it is introduced to aid. A parlour or a
drawing-room, — a library opening into a garden, — a garden
with an alcove in it, — a street, or the piazza of Covent
Garden does well enough in a scene; we are content to give
as much credit to it as it demands; or rather, we think little
about it, — it is little more than reading at the top of a page,
" Scene, a Garden ;" we do not imagine ourselves there, but
we readily admit the imitation of familiar objects. But to
think by the help of painted trees and caverns, which we
know to be painted, to transport our minds to Prospero, and
his island and his lonely cell ;4 or by the aid of a fiddle dex-
terously thrown in, in an interval of speaking, to make us
believe that we hear those supernatural noises of which the
isle was full: — the Orrery Lecturer at the Haymarket might
as well hope, by his musical glasses cleverly stationed out of
sight behind his apparatus, to make us believe that we- do
indeed hear the crystal spheres ring out that chime, which
if it were to inwrap our fancy long, Milton thinks,
Time would run back and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled vanity
Would sicken soon and die,
And leprous Sin would melt from earthly mould;
Yea Hell itself would pass away,
And leave its dolorous mansions to the peering day.
* It will be said these things are done _ in pictures. ^ But pictures and
scenes are very different things. Painting is a word of itself, but in scene-
painting there is the attempt to deceive; and there is the discordancy, never
to be got over, between painted scenes and real people.
330 CHARLES LAMB
The Garden of Eden, with our first parents in it, is not
more impossible to be shown on a stage than the Enchanted
Isle, with its no less interesting and innocent first settlers.
The subject of Scenery is closely connected with that of
the Dresses, which are so anxiously attended to on our stage.
I remember the last time I saw Macbeth played, the dis-
crepancy I felt at the changes of garment which he varied, — ■
the shiftings and re-shiftings, like a Romish priest at mass.
The luxury of stage improvements, and the importunity of
the public eye, require this. The coronation robe of the Scot-
tish monarch was fairly a counterpart to that which our King
wears when he goes to the Parliament-house, — just so full
and cumbersome, and set out with ermine and pearls. And
if things must be represented, I see not what to find fault
with in this. But in reading, what robe are we conscious
of? Some dim images of royalty — a crown and sceptre — may
float before our eyes, but who shall describe the fashion of
it? Do we see in our mind's eye what Webb or any other
robe-maker could pattern? This is the inevitable conse-
quence of imitating everything, to make all things natural.
Whereas the reading of a tragedy is a fine abstraction. It
presents to the fancy just so much of external appearances as
to make us feel that we are among flesh and blood, while by
far the greater and better part of our imagination is em-
ployed upon the thoughts and internal machinery of the
character. But in acting, scenery, dress, the most contempt-
ible things, call upon us to judge of their naturalness.
Perhaps it would be no bad similitude, to liken the pleasure
which we take in seeing one of these fine plays acted, com-
pared with that quiet delight which we find in the reading
of it, to the different feelings with which a reviewer, and
a man that is not a reviewer, reads a fine poem. The ac-
cursed critical habit, — the being called upon to judge and
pronounce, must make it quite a different thing to the for-
mer. In seeing these plays acted, we are affected just as
judges. When Hamlet compares the two pictures of Ger-
trude's first and second husband, who wants to see the
pictures? But in the acting, a miniature must be lugged out;
which we know not to be the picture, but only to show how
finely a miniature may be represented. This shewing of
TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 331
everything, levels all things : it makes tricks, bows, and curt-
seys, of importance. Mrs. S. never got more fame by any-
thing than by the manner in which she dismisses the guests
in the banquet-scene in Macbeth: it is as much remembered
as any of her thrilling tones or impressive looks. But does
such a trifle as this enter into the imaginations of the reader
of that wild and wonderful scene? Does not the mind dis-
miss the feasters as rapidly as it can? Does it care about
the gracefulness of the doing it? But by acting, and judg-
ing of acting, all these non-essentials are raised into an im-
portance, injurious to the main interest of the play.
I have confined my observations to the tragic parts of
Shakspere. It would be no very difficult task to extend the
inquiry to his comedies ; and to show why Falstaff, Shallow,
Sir Hugh Evans, and the rest are equally incompatible with
stage representation. The length to which this Essay has
run, will make it, I am afraid, sufficiently distasteful to the
Amateurs of the Theatre, without going any deeper into
the subject at present.
LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF
SORROW
BY
THOMAS DE &UINCEY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was born at Manchester,
England, the son of a merchant of literary tastes. He was a pre-
cocious student, but, revolting from the tyranny of his school-
master, he ran away, and wandered in Wales and in London, at
times almost destitute. On his reconciliation with his family he
was sent to Oxford, and during this period began taking opium.
The rest of his life was spent mainly in the Lake Country, near
Wordsworth and Coleridge, later in London, and finally in
Edinburgh and the neighborhood. He succeeded in checking
but not abandoning his addiction to the drug, the craving for
which was caused by a chronic disease which nothing else would
alleviate.
Most of De Quincey's writings were published in periodicals,
and cover a great range of subjects. He was a man of immense
reading, with an intellect of extraordinary subtlety, but with a
curious lack of practical ability. Though generous to reckless-
ness in money matters, and an affectionate friend and father,
his predominating intellectuality led him even in his writings
to analyze the characters of his friends with a detachment that
sometimes led to estrangement.
His most famous work, "The Confessions of an English
Opium Eater" (1821) was based on his own experiences, and it
has long held its place as a classic. Here, and still more in his
literary and philosophical writings, he shows a remarkable clear-
ness and precision of style, his love of exact thinking at times
leading him to hair-splitting in his more abstruse discussions.
In what he called the "department of impassioned prose," of
which the following piece is one of the most magnificent
examples, he has a field in which he is unsurpassed. To the
power of thought and expression found throughout his work is
here added a gorgeousness of imagination that lifts his finest
passages into the region of the sublime
334
LEVANA AND OUR LADIES
OF SORROW
OFTENTIMES at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams.
I knew her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana?
Reader, that do not pretend to have much leisure for
very much scholarship, you will not be angry with me for
telling you. Levana was the Roman goddess that performed
for the new-born infant the earliest office of ennobling
kindness, — typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which
belongs to man everywhere, and of that benignity in powers
invisible which even in pagan worlds sometimes descends
to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just as the
infant tasted for the first time the atmosphere of our
troubled planet, it was laid on the ground. But immediately,
lest so grand a creature should grovel there for more than
one instant, either the paternal hand, as proxy for the god-
dess Levana, or some near kinsman, as proxy for the father,
raised it upright, bade it look erect as the king of all this
world, and presented its forehead to the stars, saying, per-
haps, in his heart, " Behold what is greater than your-
selves ! " This symbolic act represented the function of
Levana. And that mysterious lady, who never revealed her
face (except to me in dreams), but always acted by dele-
gation, had her name from the Latin verb (as still it is the
Italian verb) levare, to raise aloft.
This is the explanation of Levana, and hence it has arisen
that some people have understood by Levana the tutelary
power that controls the education of the nursery. She,
that would not suffer at his birth even a prefigurative or.
mimic degradation for her awful ward, far less could be
supposed to suffer the real degradation attaching to the
non-development of his powers. She therefore watches over
335
336 DE QUINCEY
human education. Now the word educo, with the penulti-
mate short, was derived (by a process often exemplified in
the crystallisation of languages) from the word educo, with
the penultimate long. Whatever educes, or develops, edu-
cates. By the education of Levana, therefore, is meant, —
not the poor machinery that moves by spelling-books and
grammars, but by that mighty system of central forces hid-
den in the deep bosom of human life, which by passion, by
strife, by temptation, by the energies of resistance, works
for ever upon children, — resting not night or day, any more
than the mighty wheel of day and night themselves, whose
moments, like restless spokes, are glimmering for ever as
they revolve.
If, then, these are the ministries by which Levana works,
how profoundly must she reverence the agencies of grief.
But you, reader ! think, — that children are not liable to such
grief as mine. There are two senses in the word generally,
— the sense of Euclid, where it means universally (or in the
whole extent of the genus), and in a foolish sense of this
word, where it means usually. Now, I am far from saying
that children universally are capable of grief like mine.
But there are more than you ever heard of who die of grief
in this island of ours. I will tell you a common case. The
rules of Eton require that a boy on the foundation should
be there twelve years: he is superannuated at eighteen, con-
sequently he must come at six. Children torn away from
mothers and sisters at that age not unfrequently die. I
speak of what I know. The complaint is not entered by the
registrar as grief; but that it is. Grief of that sort, and at
that age, has killed more than have ever been counted
amongst its martyrs.
Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the
powers that shake a man's heart: therefore it is that she
dotes on grief. " These ladies," said I softly to myself,^ on
seeing the ministers with whom Levana was conversing,
" these are the Sorrows ; and they are three in number, as
the Graces are three, who dress man's life with beauty ; the
Parcce are three, who weave the dark arras of man's life in
their mysterious loom, always with colours sad in part,
sometimes angry with tragic crimson and black; the Furies
LEVANA 337
are three, who visit with retribution called from the other
side of the grave offences that walk upon this; and once
even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet,
or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned
creations. These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I
know."
The last words I say now; but in Oxford I said, " One of
whom I know, and the others too surely I shall know." For
already, in my fervent youth, I saw (dimly relieved upon
the dark background of my dreams) the imperfect linea-
ments of the awful sisters. These sisters — by what name
shall we call them? If I say simply, "The Sorrows," there
will be a chance of mistaking the term; it might be under-
stood of individual sorrow, — separate cases of sorrow, —
whereas I want a term expressing the mighty abstractions
that incarnate themselves in all individual sufferings of
man's heart; and I wish to have these abstractions presented
as impersonations, that is, as clothed with human attributes
of life, and with functions pointing to flesh. Let us call
them, therefore, Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know them
thoroughly, and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three
sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their
paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end.
Them I saw often conversing with Levana, and sometimes
about myself. Do they talk, then ? O, no ! mighty phan-
toms like these disdain the infirmities of language. They
may utter voices through the organs of man when they dwell
in human hearts, but amongst themselves there is no voice
nor sound; eternal silence reigns in their kingdoms. They
spoke not, as they talked with Levana ; they whispered not ;
they sang not; though oftentimes methought they might
have sung, for I upon earth had heard their mysteries often-
times deciphered by harp and timbrel, by dulcimer and
organ. Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their
pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by words that go
astray, but by signs in heaven, by changes on earth, by
pulses in secret rivers, heraldries painted on darkness, and
hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They
wheeled in mazes; / spelled the steps. They telegraphed
from afar; / read the signals. They conspired together^
338 DE QUINCEY
and on the mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots.
Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words.
What is it the sisters are? What is it that they do? Let
me describe their form, and their presence: if form it were
that still fluctuated in its outline, or presence it were that
for ever advanced to the front, or for ever receded amongst
shades.
The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum,
Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and
moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama,
where a voice was heard of lamentation, — Rachel weeping
for her children, and refusing to be comforted. She it was
that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod's sword
swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were
stiffened for ever, which, heard at times as they tottered
along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household
hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.
Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns;
oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the
heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I
knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon
the winds, when she heard the sobbing of litanies or the
thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering
of summer clouds. This sister, the eldest, it is that carries
keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cot-
tage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last
summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so
often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter,
eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the
temptations of play and village mirth to travel all day long
on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God
send her a great reward. In the spring-time of the year,
and whilst yet her own Spring was budding, he recalled her
to himself. But her blind father mourns for ever over her;
still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is
locked within his own ; and still he wakens to a darkness
that is now within a second and a deeper darkness. This
Mater Lachrymarum has also been sitting all this winter
of 1844-5 within the bed-chamber of the Czar, bringing
before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to
LEVANA 339
God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not
less profound. By the power of the keys it is that Our
Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers
of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from
Ganges to Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because
she is the first-born of her house, and has the widest empire,
let us honour with the title of " Madonna ! "
The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum — Our Lady
of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad
upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if
they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no
man could read their story; they would be found filled with
perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium.
But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a
dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the
dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs
inaudibly at intervals. Her sister, Madonna, is oftentimes
stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven,
and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs
never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspira-
tions. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness
that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in
her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twi-
light. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places
that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when
the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor
of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to the oar in
the Mediterranean galleys; and of the English criminal in
Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance
in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting
his eyes for ever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems
the altar overthrown of some past and bloody sacrifice, on
which altar no oblations can now be availing, whether
towards pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation
that he might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks
up to the tropical sun with timid reproach, as he points with
one hand to the earth, our general mother, but for him
a stepmother, — as he points with the other hand to the
Bible, our general teacher, but against him sealed and se-
questered ; — every woman sitting in darkness, without love to
340 DE QUINCEY
shelter her head, or hope to illumine her solitude, because
the heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature germs of
holy affections which God implanted in her womanly bosom,
having been stifled by social necessities, now burn sullenly
to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst the ancients; every
nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked kins-
man, whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon;
all that are betrayed and all that are rejected outcasts by
traditionary law, and children of hereditary disgrace, — all
these walk with Our Lady of Sighs. She also carries a key ;
but she needs it little. For her kingdom is chiefly amongst
the tents of Shem, and the houseless vagrant of every clime.
Yet in the very highest walks of man she finds chapels of
her own ; and even in glorious England there are some that,
to the world, carry their heads as proudly as the reindeer,
who yet secretly have received her mark upon their foreheads.
But the third sister, who is also the youngest ! Hush,
whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large,
or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all
power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises
almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her
eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance; but, being
what they are, they cannot be hidden ; through the treble veil
of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing
misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of
day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be
read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She
is also the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of sui-
cides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the
nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in
whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central con-
vulsions; in whom the heart trembles, and the brain rocks
under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest
from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or
slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps
timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with
incalculable motions, bounding, and with tiger's leaps. She
carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she
storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all.
And her name is Mater Tenebrarum — Our Lady of Darkness.
LEVANA 341
These were the Semnai Theai, or Sublime Goddesses,
these were the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by
antiquity in shuddering propitiation), of my Oxford dreams.
Madonna spoke. She spoke by her mysterious hand. Touch-
ing my head, she said to Our Lady of Sighs; and what she
spoke, translated out of the signs which (except in dreams)
no man reads, was this: —
u Lo ! here is he, whom in childhood I dedicated to my
altars. This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led
astray, him I beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his
young heart to mine. Through me did he become idolatrous ;
and through me it was, by languishing desires, that he wor-
shipped the worm, and prayed to the wormy grave. Holy
was the grave to him; lovely was its darkness; saintly its
corruption. Him, this young idolater, I have seasoned for
thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs ! Do thou take him now to
thy heart, and season him for our dreadful sister. And
thou," — turning to the Mater Tenebrarum, she said, —
"wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do thou take him
from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head. Suf-
fer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his
darkness. Banish the frailties of hope, wither the relenting
of love, scorch the fountain of tears, curse him as only thou
canst curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace,
so shall he see the things that ought not to be seen, sights
that are abominable, and secrets that are unutterable. So
shall he read elder truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful
truths. So shall he rise again before he dies, and so shall
our commission be accomplished which from God we had, —
to plague his heart until we had unfolded the capacities of
his spirit."
A DEFENCE OF POETRY
BY
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
A short sketch of the life of Percy Bysshe Shelley will be
found prefixed to his drama of the "Cenci" in the volume of
modern English Drama in the Harvard Classics.
The "Defence of Poetry" is by far the most important of
Shelley's prose writings, and is of great value in supplementing
and correcting the picture of his mind which is given by his lyrical
poetry; for we can perceive from this brilliant piece of philo-
sophical discussion that Shelley had intellect as well as imagi-
nation.
The immediate occasion of the essay was the publication of
Thomas Love Peacock's "Four Ages of Poetry," to which
Shelley's work was originally a reply. In this, as in other
notable respects, the treatise is parallel with Sidney's. In its
present form Shelley has eliminated much of the controversial
matter; and it stands as one of the most eloquent and inspiring
assertions of the "ideal nature and essential value of poetry"
»
344
A DEFENCE OF POETRY
ACCORDING to one mode of regarding those two
l\ classes of mental action, which are called reason and
-^--^-imagination, the former may be considered as mind
contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another,
however produced, and the latter, as mind acting upon those
thoughts so as to color them with its own light, and com-
posing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each
containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.
The one is the to noietv, or the principle of synthesis, and
has for its objects those forms which are common to uni-
versal nature and existence itself; the other is the to Xoyi^eiv,
or principle of analysis, and its action regards the rela-
tions of things simply as relations; considering thoughts,
not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representa-
tions which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the
enumeration of qualities already known ; imagination is the
perception of the value of those qualities, both separately
and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and imagi-
nation the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination
as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as
the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be " the ex-
pression of the imagination " : and poetry is connate with the
origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of
external and internal impressions are driven, like the alter-
nations of an ever-changing wind over an ^olian lyre, which
move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there
is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all
sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and
produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal ad-
justment of the sounds or motions thus excited to the impres-
sions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accom-
345
346 SHELLEY
modate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them,
in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician
can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child
at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and mo-
tions ; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear
exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable
impressions which awakened it ; it will be the reflected image
of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after
the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in
its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong
also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects
which delight a child these expressions are what poetry is
to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages
what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced
in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and
language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imi-
tation, become the image of the combined effect of those
objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society,
with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the
object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional
class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expres-
sions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become
at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the
picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony.
The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its
elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from
the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is
contained within the present, as the plant within the seed ; and
equality, diversity, unity, contrast, mutual dependence, be-
come the principles alone capable of affording the motives
according to which the will of a social being is determined to
action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in
sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reason-
ing, and love in the intercourse of kind. Hence men, even
in the infancy of society, observe a certain order in their
words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the
impressions represented by them, all expression being subject
to the laws of that from which it proceeds. But let us dis-
miss those more general considerations which might involve
an inquiry into the principles of society itself, and restrict our
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 347
view to the manner in which the imagination is expressed
upon its forms.
In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate
natural objects, observing in these actions, as in all others, a
certain rhythm or order. And, although all men observe a
similar, they observe not the same order, in the motions of
the dance, in the melody of the song, in the combinations of
language, in the series of their imitations of natural objects.
For there is a certain order or rhythm belonging to each of
these classes of mimetic representation, from which the
hearer and the spectator receive an intenser and purer
pleasure than from any other : the sense of an approximation
to this order has been called taste by modern writers. Every
man in the infancy of art observes an order which approxi-
mates more or less closely to that from which this highest
delight results: but the diversity is not sufficiently marked,
as that its gradations should be sensible, except in those in-
stances where the predominance of this faculty of approxi-
mation to the beautiful (for so we may be permitted to name
the relation between this highest pleasure and its cause) is
very great. Those in whom it exists in excess are poets, in
the most universal sense of the word; and the pleasure re-
sulting from the manner in which they express the influence
of society or nature upon their own minds, communicates it-
self to others, and gathers a sort of reduplication from that
community. Their language is vitally metaphorical; that is,
it marks the before unapprehended relations of things and
perpetuates their apprehension, until the words which rep-
resent them, become, through time, signs for portions or
classes of thoughts instead of pictures of integral thoughts;
and then if no new poets should arise to create afresh the
associations which have been thus disorganized, language will
be dead to all the nobler purposes of human intercourse.
These similitudes or relations are finely said by Lord Bacon
to be " the same footsteps of nature impressed upon the
various subjects of the world "* — and he considers the faculty
which perceives them as the storehouse of axioms common
to all knowledge. In the infancy of society every author is
necessarily a poet, because language itself is poetry; and to
1 " De Augment. Scient.," cap. i, lib. iii.
348 SHELLEY
be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a
word, the good which exists in the relation, subsisting, first
between existence and perception, and secondly between per-
ception and expression. Every original language near to its
source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem : the copiousness
of lexicography and the distinctions of grammar are the
works of a later age, and are merely the catalogue and the
form of the creations of poetry.
But poets, or those who imagine and express this inde-
structible order, are not only the authors of language and of
music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and paint-
ing: they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of
civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the
teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the
beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agen-
cies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence all
original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory,
and, like Janus, have a double face of false and true. Poets,
according to the circumstances of the age and nation in
which they appeared, were called, in the earlier epochs of the
world, legislators, or prophets: a poet essentially comprises
and unites both these characters. For he not only beholds in-
tensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according
to which present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds
the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of
the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert
poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that
they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the
spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which
would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than
prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the
eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his
conceptions, time and place and number are not. The
grammatical forms which express the moods of time, and
the difference of persons, and the distinction of place,
are convertible with respect to the highest poetry with-
out injuring it as poetry; and the choruses of ^Eschylus,
and the book of Job, and Dante's " Paradise " would afford,
more than any other writings, examples of this fact, if
the limits of this essay did not forbid citation. The crea-
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 349
tions of sculpture, painting, and music are illustrations still
more decisive.
Language, color, form, and religious and civil habits of
action, are all the instruments and materials of poetry; they
may be called poetry by that figure of speech which con-
siders the effect as a synonym of the cause. But poetry in a
more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of lan-
guage, and especially metrical language, which are created by
that imperial faculty, whose throne is curtained within the
invisible nature of man. And this springs from the nature
itself of language, which is a more direct representation of
the actions and passions of our internal being, and is sus-
ceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than
color, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to
the control of that faculty of which it is the creation. For
language is arbitrarily produced by the imagination, and has
relation to thoughts alone; but all other materials, instru-
ments, and conditions of art have relations among each other,
which limit and interpose between conception and expres-
sion. The former is as a mirror which reflects, the latter as
a cloud which enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums
of communication. Hence the fame of sculptors, painters^
and musicians, although the intrinsic powers of the great
masters of these arts may yield in no degree to that of those
who have employed language as the hieroglyphic of their
thoughts, has never equalled that of poets in the restricted
sense of the term ; as two performers of equal skill will pro-
duce unequal effects from a guitar and a harp. The fame of
legislators and founders of religions, so long as their institu-
tions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets in the re-
stricted sense; but it can scarcely be a question, whether, if
we deduct the celebrity which their flattery of the gross
opinions of the vulgar usually conciliates, together with that
which belonged to them in their higher character of poets,
any excess y ill remain.
We have thus circumscribed the word poetry within the
limits of that art which is the most familiar and the most
perfect expression of the faculty itself. It is necessary, how-
ever, to make the circle still narrower, and to determine the
distinction between measured and unmeasured language; for
350 SHELLEY
the popular division into prose and verse is inadmissible in
accurate philosophy.
Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between
each other and towards that which they represent, and a per-
ception of the order of those relations has always been found
connected with a perception of the order of the relations of
thoughts. Hence the language of poets has ever affected a
certain uniform and harmonious recurrence of sound, with-
out which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less in-
dispensable to the communication of its influence, than the
words themselves, without reference to that peculiar order.
Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a
violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal prin-
ciple of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one
language into another the creations of a poet. The plant
must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower —
and this is the burden of the curse of Babel.
An observation of the regular mode of the recurrence of
harmony in the language of poetical minds, together with its
relation to music, produced metre, or a certain system of
traditional forms of harmony and language. Yet it is by no
means essential that a poet should accommodate his language
to this traditional form, so that the harmony, which is its
spirit, be observed. The practice is indeed convenient and
popular, and to be preferred, especially in such composition
as includes much action : but every great poet must inevitably
innovate upon the example of his predecessors in the exact
structure of his peculiar versification. The distinction be-
tween poets and prose writers is a vulgar error. The dis-
tinction between philosophers and poets has been anticipated.
Plato was essentially a poet — the truth and splendor of his
imagery, and the melody of his language, are the most in-
tense that it is possible to conceive. He rejected the measure
of the epic, dramatic, and lyrical forms, because he sought
to kindle a harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action,
and he forebore to invent any regular plan of rhythm which
would include, under determinate forms, the varied pauses
of his style. Cicero sought to imitate the cadence of his
periods, but with little success. Lord Bacon was a poet.a
a See the " Filum Labyrinthi," and the " Essay on Death " particularly. — S.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 351
His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satis-
fies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of
his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which
distends, and then bursts the circumference of the reader's
mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the uni-
versal element with which it has perpetual sympathy. All
the authors of revolutions in opinion are not only necessarily
poets as they are inventors, nor even as their words unveil
the permanent analogy of things by images which participate
in the life of truth; but as their periods are harmonious and
rhythmical, and contain in themselves the elements of verse;
being the echo of the eternal music. Nor are those supreme
poets, who have employed traditional forms of rhythm on
account of the form and action of their subjects, less capable
of perceiving and teaching the truth of things, than those
who have omitted that form. Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton
(to confine ourselves to modern writers) are philosophers of
the very loftiest power.
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal
truth. There is this difference between a story and a poem,
that a story is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no
other connection than time, place, circumstance, cause and
effect; the other is the creation of actions according to the
unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the
mind of the Creator, which is itself the image of all other
minds. The one is partial, and applies only to a definite
period of time, and a certain combination of events which
can never again recur; the other is universal, and contains
within itself the germ of a relation to whatever motives or
actions have place in the possible varieties of human nature.
Time, which destroys the beauty and the use of the story of
particular facts, stripped of the poetry which should invest
them, augments that of poetry, and forever develops new and
wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it contains.
Hence epitomes have been called the moths of just history;
they eat out the poetry of it. A story of particular facts is
as a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be
beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that
which is distorted.
The parts of a composition may be poetical, without the
352 SHELLEY
composition as a whole being a poem. A single sentence may
be considered as a whole, though it may be found in the midst
of a series of unassimilated portions; a single word even
may be a spark of inextinguishable thought. And thus all the
great historians, Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy, were poets ; and
although the plan of these writers, especially that of Livy,
restrained them from developing this faculty in its highest
degree, they made copious and ample amends for their sub-
jection, by filling all the interstices of their subjects with
living images.
Having determined what is poetry, and who are poets, let
us proceed to estimate its effects upon society.
Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure : all spirits on
which it falls open themselves to receive the wisdom which
is mingled with its delight. In the infancy of the world,
neither poets themselves nor their auditors are fully aware
of the excellence of poetry: for it acts in a divine and un-
apprehended manner, beyond and above consciousness ; and it
is reserved for future generations to contemplate and measure
the mighty cause and effect in all the strength and splendor
of their union. Even in modern times, no living poet ever
arrived at the fulness of his fame; the jury which sits in
judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must
be composed of his peers: it must be impanelled by Time
from the selectest of the wise of many generations. A poet
is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its
own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men
entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel
that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or
why. The poems of Homer and his contemporaries were the
delight of infant Greece; they were the elements of that
social system which is the column upon which all succeeding
civilization has reposed. Homer embodied the ideal perfec-
tion of his age in human character; nor can we doubt that
those who read his verses were awakened to an ambition
of becoming like to Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses : the truth
and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and persevering devo-
tion to an object, were unveiled to the depths in these im-
mortal creations: the sentiments of the auditors must have
been refined and enlarged by a sympathy with such great and
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 353
lovely impersonations, until from admiring they imitated, and
from imitation they identified themselves with the objects
of their admiration. Nor let it be objected that these charac-
ters are remote from moral perfection, and that they can by no
means be considered as edifying patterns for general imita-
tion. Every epoch, under names more or less specious, has
deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the naked idol of the
worship of a semi-barbarous age; and Self-deceit is the
veiled image of unknown evil, before which luxury and
satiety lie prostrate. But a poet considers the vices of his
contemporaries as the temporary dress in which his creations
must be arrayed, and which cover without concealing the
eternal proportions of their beauty. An epic or dramatic
personage is understood to wear them around his soul, as he
may the ancient armor or the modern uniform around his
body; whilst it is easy to conceive a dress more graceful
than either. The beauty of the internal nature cannot be so
far concealed by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of
its form shall communicate itself to the very disguise, and
indicate the shape it hides from the manner in which it is
worn. A majestic form and graceful motions will express
themselves through the most barbarous and tasteless cos-
tume. Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit
the beauty of their conceptions in its naked truth and
splendor; and it is doubtful whether the alloy of costume,
habit, etc., be not necessary to temper this planetary music
for mortal ears.
The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry
rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry
acts to produce the moral improvement of man. Ethical
science arranges the elements which poetry has created, and
propounds schemes and proposes examples of civil and
domestic life : nor is it for want of admirable doctrines that
men hate, and despise, and censure, and deceive, and sub-
jugate one another. But poetry acts in another and diviner
manner. It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by render-
ing it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combina-
tions of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty
of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were
not familiar ; it reproduces all that it represents, and the im-
HC Vol. 27—12
354 SHELLEY
personations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward
in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as
memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends
itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists.
The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our
nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful
which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A
man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and com-
prehensively; he must put himself in the place of another
and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species
must become his own. The great instrument of moral good
is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by
acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference
of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever
new delight, which have the power of attracting and assim-
ilating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which
form new intervals and interstices whose void forever craves
fresh food. Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the
organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as
exercise strengthens a limb. A poet therefore would do ill
to embody his own conceptions of right and wrong, which
are usually those of his place and time, in his poetical crea-
tions, which participate in neither. By this assumption of the
inferior office of interpreting the effect, in which perhaps
after all he might acquit himself but imperfectly, he would
resign a glory in a participation in the cause. There was
little danger that Homer, or any of the eternal poets, should
have so far misunderstood themselves as to have abdicated
this throne of their widest dominion. Those in whom the
poetical faculty, though great, is less intense, as Euripides,
Lucan, Tasso, Spenser, have frequently affected a moral aim,
and the effect of their poetry is diminished in exact propor-
tion to the degree in which they compel us to advert to this
purpose.
Homer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain in-
terval by the dramatic and lyrical poets of Athens, who
flourished contemporaneously with all that is most perfect
in the kindred expressions of the poetical faculty; architec-
ture, painting, music, the dance, sculpture, philosophy, and,
we may add, the forms of civil life. For although the scheme
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 355
of Athenian society was deformed by many imperfections
which the poetry existing in chivalry and Christianity has
erased from the habits and institutions of modern Europe;
yet never at any other period has so much energy, beauty,
and virtue been developed; never was blind strength and
stubborn form so disciplined and rendered subject to the will
of man, or that will less repugnant to the dictates of the
beautiful and the true, as during the century which preceded
the death of Socrates. Of no other epoch in the history of our
species have we records and fragments stamped so visibly
with the image of the divinity in man. But it is poetry alone,
in form, in action, or in language, which has rendered this
epoch memorable above all others, and the store-house of
examples to everlasting time. For written poetry existed at
that epoch simultaneously with the other arts, and it is an
idle inquiry to demand which gave and which received the
light, which all, as from a common focus, have scattered
over the darkest periods of succeeding time. We know no
more of cause and effect than a constant conjunction of
events : poetry is ever found to coexist with whatever other
arts contribute to the happiness and perfection of man. 1
appeal to what has already been established to distinguish
between the cause and the effect.
It was at the period here adverted to that the drama had
its birth ; and however a succeeding writer may have equalled
or surpassed those few great specimens of the Athenian
drama which have been preserved to us, it is indisputable
that the art itself never was understood or practised ac-
cording to the true philosophy of it, as at Athens. For the
Athenians employed language, action, music, painting, the
dance, and religious institutions, to produce a common effect
in the representation of the highest idealism of passion and
of power; each division in the art was made perfect in its
kind of artists of the most consummate skill, and was disci-
plined into a beautiful proportion and unity one towards the
other. On the modern stage a few only of the elements
capable of expressing the image of the poet's conception are
employed at once. We have tragedy without music and
dancing; and music and dancing without the highest imper-
sonations of which they are the fit accompaniment, and both
356 SHELLEY
without religion and solemnity. Religious institution has
indeed been usually banished from the stage. Our system
of divesting the actor's face of a mask, on which the many
expressions appropriated to his dramatic character might be
moulded into one permanent and unchanging expression, is
favorable only to a partial and inharmonious effect; it is fit
for nothing but a monologue, where all the attention may be
directed to some great master of ideal mimicry. The modern
practice of blending comedy with tragedy, though liable to
great abuse in point of practice, is undoubtedly an extension
of the dramatic circle ; but the comedy should be as in " King
Lear," universal, ideal, and sublime. It is perhaps the inter-
vention of this principle which determines the balance in
favor of " King Lear " against the " OEdipus Tyrannus " or
the "Agamemnon," or, if you will, the trilogies with which
they are connected; unless the intense power of the choral
poetry, especially that of the latter, should be considered as
restoring the equilibrium. " King Lear," if it can sustain
this comparison, may be judged to be the most perfect speci-
men of the dramatic art existing in the world; in spite of
the narrow conditions to which the poet was subjected by
the ignorance of the philosophy of the drama which has pre-
vailed in modern Europe. Calderon, in his religious autos,
has attempted to fulfil some of the high conditions of dra-
matic representation neglected by Shakespeare; such as the
establishing a relation between the drama and religion, and
the accommodating them to music and dancing ; but he omits
the observation of conditions still more important, and more
is lost than gained by the substitution of the rigidly defined
and ever-repeated idealisms of a distorted superstition for
the living impersonations of the truth of human passion.
But I digress. The connection of scenic exhibitions with
the improvement or corruption of the manners of men has
been universally recognized; in other words, the presence or
absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form has
been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct
or habit. The corruption which has been imputed to the
drama as an effect, begins, when the poetry employed in its
constitution ends: I appeal to the history of manners
whether the periods of the growth of the one and the decline
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 357
of the other have not corresponded with an exactness equal
to any example of moral cause and effect.
The drama at Athens, or wheresoever else it may have ap-
proached to its perfection, ever coexisted with the moral and
intellectual greatness of the age. The tragedies of the
Athenian poets are as mirrors in which the spectator beholds
himself, under a thin disguise of circumstance, stripped of all
but that ideal perfection and energy which everyone feels to
be the internal type of all that he loves, admires, and would
become. The imagination is enlarged by a sympathy with
pains and passions so mighty, that they distend in their con-
ception the capacity of that by which they are conceived ; the
good affections are strengthened by pity, indignation, terror,
and sorrow; and an exalted calm is prolonged from the
satiety of this high exercise of them into the tumult of
familiar life: even crime is disarmed of half its horror and
all its contagion by being represented as the fatal conse-
quence of the unfathomable agencies of nature ; error is thus
divested of its wilfulness; men can no longer cherish it as
the creation of their choice. In a drama of the highest
order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches
rather self-knowledge and self-respect. Neither the eye
nor the mind can see itself, unless reflected upon that which
it resembles. The drama, so long as it continues to express
poetry, is as a prismatic and many-sided mirror, which col-
lects the brightest rays of human nature and divides and
reproduces them from the simplicity of these elementary
forms, and touches them with majesty and beauty, and mul-
tiplies all that it reflects, and endows it with the power of
propagating its like wherever it may fall.
But in periods of the decay of social life, the drama sym-
pathizes with that decay. Tragedy becomes a cold imitation
of the form of the great masterpieces of antiquity, divested
of all harmonious accompaniment of the kindred arts; and
often the very form misunderstood, or a weak attempt to
teach certain doctrines, which the writer considers as moral
truths ; and which are usually no more than specious flatter-
ies of some gross vice or weakness, with which the author,
in common with his auditors, are infected. Hence what has
been called the classical and domestic drama. Addison's
358 SHELLEY
" Cato " is a specimen of the one ; and would it were not
superfluous to cite examples of the other ! To such pur-
poses poetry cannot be made subservient. Poetry is a sword
of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard
that would contain it. And thus we observe that all dra-
matic writings of this nature are unimaginative in a singular
degree; they affect sentiment and passion, which, divested
of imagination, are other names for caprice and appetite.
The period in our own history of the grossest degradation
of the drama is the reign of Charles II, when all forms in
which poetry had been accustomed to be expressed became
hymns to the triumph of kingly power over liberty and
virtue. Milton stood alone illuminating an age unworthy of
him. At such periods the calculating principle pervades all
the forms of dramatic exhibition, and poetry ceases to be
expressed upon them. Comedy loses its ideal universality :
wit succeeds to humor ; we laugh from self-complacency and
triumph, instead of pleasure; malignity, sarcasm, and con-
tempt succeed to sympathetic merriment; we hardly laugh,
but we smile. Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against
the divine beauty in life, becomes, from the very veil which
it assumes, more active if less disgusting: it is a monster
for which the corruption of society forever brings forth
new food, which it devours in secret.
The drama being that form under which a greater num-
ber of modes of expression of poetry are susceptible of
being combined than any other, the connection of poetry
and social good is more observable in the drama than in
whatever other form. And it is indisputable that the highest
perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the
highest dramatic excellence; and that the corruption or the
extinction of the drama in a nation where it has once
flourished is a mark of a corruption of manners, and an ex-
tinction of the energies which sustain the soul of social life.
But, as Machiavelli says of political institutions, that life
may be preserved and renewed, if men should arise capable
of bringing back the drama to its principles. And this is
true with respect to poetry in its most extended sense: all
language, institution, and form require not only to be pro-
duced but to be sustained: the office and character of a poet
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 359
participate in the divine nature as regards providence, no
less than as regards creation.
Civil war, the spoils of Asia, and the fatal predominance
first of the Macedonian, and then of the Roman arms, were
so many symbols of the extinction or suspension of the crea-
tive faculty in Greece. The bucolic writers, who found pat-
ronage under the lettered tyrants of Sicily and Egypt, were
the latest representatives of its most glorious reign. Their
poetry is intensely melodious ; like the odor of the tuberose,
it overcomes and sickens the spirit with excess of sweetness ;
whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a meadow-
gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the flowers
of the field, and adds a quickening and harmonizing spirit of
its own which endows the sense with a power of sustaining
its extreme delight. The bucolic and erotic delicacy in
written poetry is correlative with that softness in statuary,
music, and the kindred arts, and even in manners and in-
stitutions, which distinguished the epoch to which I now
refer. Nor is it the poetical faculty itself, or any misap-
plication of it, to which this want of harmony is to be im-
puted. An equal sensibility to the influence of the senses
and the affections is to be found in the writings of Homer
and Sophocles: the former, especially, has clothed sensual
and pathetic images with irresistible attractions. Their
superiority over these succeeding writers consists in the
presence of those thoughts which belong to the inner facul-
ties of our nature, not in the absence of those which are
connected with the external; their incomparable perfection
consists in a harmony of the union of all. It is not what
the erotic poets have, but what they have not, in which their
imperfection consists. It is not inasmuch as they were
poets, but inasmuch as they were not poets, that they can
be considered with any plausibility as connected with the
corruption of their age. Had that corruption availed so as
to extinguish in them the sensibility to pleasure, passion,
and natural scenery, which is imputed to them as an im-
perfection, the last triumph of evil would have been
achieved. For the end of social corruption is to destroy all
sensibility to pleasure; and, therefore, it is corruption, It
begins at the imagination and the intellect as at the core, and
360 SHELLEY
distributes itself thence as a paralyzing venom, through the
affections into the very appetites, until all become a torpid
mass in which hardly sense survives. At the approach of
such a period, poetry ever addresses itself to those faculties
which are the last to be destroyed, and its voice is heard,
like the footsteps of Astrasa, departing from the world.
Poetry ever communicates all the pleasure which men are
capable of receiving: it is ever still the light of life; the
source of whatever of beautiful or generous or true can
have place in an evil time. It will readily be confessed that
those among the luxurious citizens of Syracuse and Alex-
andria, who were delighted with the poems of Theocritus,
were less cold, cruel, and sensual than the remnant of their
tribe. But corruption must utterly have destroyed the fabric
of human society before poetry can ever cease. The sacred
links of that chain have never been entirely disjoined, which
descending through the minds of many men is attached to
those great minds, whence as from a magnet the invisible
effluence is sent forth, which at once connects, animates, and
sustains the life of all. It is the faculty which contains
within itself the seeds at once of its own and of social
renovation. And let us not circumscribe the effects of the
bucolic and erotic poetry within the limits of the sensibility
of those to whom it was addressed. They may have per-
ceived the beauty of those immortal compositions, simply as
fragments and isolated portions : those who are more finely
organized, or born in a happier age, may recognize them as
episodes to that great poem, which all poets, like the co-
operating thoughts of one great mind, have built up since
the beginning of the world.
The same revolutions within a narrower sphere had place
in ancient Rome ; but the actions and forms of its social life
never seem to have been perfectly saturated with the poetical
element. The Romans appear to have considered the Greeks
as the selectest treasuries of the selectest forms of manners
and of nature, and to have abstained from creating in meas-
ured language, sculpture, music, or architecture, anything
which might bear a particular relation to their own condi-
tion, whilst it should bear a general one to the universal
constitution of the world. But we judge from partial evi-
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 361
dence, and we judge perhaps partially. Ennius, Varro,
Pacuvius, and Accius, all great poets, have been lost. Lucre-
tius is in the highest, and Vergil in a very high sense, a
creator. The chosen delicacy of expressions of the latter
are as a mist of light which conceal from us the intense and
exceeding truth of his conceptions of nature. Livy is in-
stinct with poetry. Yet Horace, Catullus, Ovid, and gen-
erally the other great writers of the Vergilian age, saw man
and nature in the mirror of Greece. The institutions also,
and the religion of Rome, were less poetical than those of
Greece, as the shadow is less vivid than the substance.
Hence poetry in Rome seemed to follow, rather than ac-
company, the perfection of political and domestic society.
The true poetry of Rome lived in its institutions; for what-
ever of beautiful, true, and majestic, they contained, could
have sprung only from the faculty which creates the order in
which they consist. The life of Camillus, the death of
Regulus; the expectation of the senators, in their godlike
state, of the victorious Gauls; the refusal of the republic
to make peace with Hannibal, after the battle of Cannae,
were not the consequences of a refined calculation of the
probable personal advantage to result from such a rhythm
and order in the shows of life, to those who were at once
the poets and the actors of these immortal dramas. The
imagination beholding the beauty of this order, created
it out of itself according to its own idea; the consequence
was empire, and the reward ever-living fame. These things
are not the less poetry, quia carent vate sacro? They are
the episodes of that cyclic poem written by Time upon the
memories of men. The Past, like an inspired rhapsodist,
fills the theatre of everlasting generations with their
harmony.
At length the ancient system of religion and manners had
fulfilled the circle of its revolutions. And the world would
have fallen into utter anarchy and darkness, but that there
were found poets among the authors of the Christian and
chivalric systems of manners and religion, who created forms
of opinion and action never before conceived ; which, copied
into the imaginations of men, became as generals to the
* " Because they lack the sacred bard."
362 SHELLEY
bewildered armies of their thoughts. It is foreign to the
present purpose to touch upon the evil produced by these
systems : except that we protest, on the ground of the prin-
ciples already established, that no portion of it can be at-
tributed to the poetry they contain.
It is probable that the poetry of Moses, Job, David, Solo-
mon, and Isaiah had produced a great effect upon the mind
of Jesus and his disciples. The scattered fragments pre-
served to us by the biographers of this extraordinary person
are all instinct with the most vivid poetry. But his doctrines
seem to have been quickly distorted. At a certain period
after the prevalence of a system of opinions founded upon
those promulgated by him, the three forms into which Plato
had distributed the faculties of mind underwent a sort of
apotheosis, and became the object of the worship of the
civilized world. Here it is to be confessed that " Light
seems to thicken," and
"The crow makes wing to the rocky wood,
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
And night's black agents to their preys do rouse."
But mark how beautiful an order has sprung from the dust
and blood of this fierce chaos ! how the world, as from a
resurrection, balancing itself on the golden wings of Knowl-
edge and of Hope, has reassumed its yet unwearied flight
into the heaven of time. Listen to the music, unheard by
outward ears, which is as a ceaseless and invisible wind,
nourishing its everlasting course with strength and swiftness.
The poetry in the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the
mythology and institutions of the Celtic conquerors of the
Roman Empire, outlived the darkness and the convulsions
connected with their growth and victory, and blended them-
selves in a new fabric of manners and opinion. It is an
error to impute the ignorance of the dark ages to the Chris-
tian doctrines or the predominance of the Celtic nations.
Whatever of evil their agencies may have contained sprang
from the extinction of the poetical principle, connected with
the progress of despotism and superstition. Men, from
causes too intricate to be here discussed, had become in-
sensible and selfish: their own will had become feeble, and
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 363
yet they were its slaves, and thence the slaves of the will of
others : lust, fear, avarice, cruelty, and fraud, characterized
a race amongst whom no one was to be found capable of
creating in form, language, or institution. The moral anom-
alies of such a state of society are not justly to be charged
upon any class of events immediately connected with them,
and those events are most entitled to our approbation which
could dissolve it most expeditiously. It is unfortunate for
those who cannot distinguish words from thoughts, that
many of these anomalies have been incorporated into our
popular religion.
It was not until the eleventh century that the effects of
the poetry of the Christian and chivalric systems began to
manifest themselves. The principle of equality had been
discovered and applied by Plato in his " Republic " as the
theoretical rule of the mode in which the materials of pleas-
ure and of power produced by the common skill and labor
of human beings ought to be distributed among them. The
limitations of this rule were asserted by him to be determined
only by the sensibility of each, or the utility to result to all.
Plato, following the doctrines of Timaeus and Pythagoras,
taught also a moral and intellectual system of doctrine,
comprehending at once the past, the present, and the future
condition of man. Jesus Christ divulged the sacred and
eternal truths contained in these views to mankind, and
Christianity, in its abstract purity, became the exoteric ex-
pression of the esoteric doctrines of the poetry and wisdom
of antiquity. The incorporation of the Celtic nations with
the exhausted population of the south impressed upon it the
figure of the poetry existing in their mythology and institu-
tions. The result was a sum of the action and reaction
of all the causes included in it; for it may be assumed as
a maxim that no nation or religion can supersede any other
without incorporating into itself a portion of that which it
supersedes. The abolition of personal and domestic slavery,
and the emancipation of women from a great part of the
degrading restraints of antiquity, were among the con-
sequences of these events.
The abolition of personal slavery is the basis of the high-
est political hope that it can enter into the mind of man to.
364 SHELLEY
conceive. The freedom of women produced the poetry of
sexual love. Love became a religion, the idols of whose wor-
ship were ever present. It was as if the statues of Apollo
and the Muses had been endowed with life and motion^ and
had walked forth among their worshippers; so that earth
became peopled with the inhabitants of a diviner world. The
familiar appearance and proceedings of life became wonder-
ful and heavenly, and a paradise was created as out of the
wrecks of Eden. And as this creation itself is poetry, so its
creators were poets; and language was the instrument of
their art: "Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse."4. The Pro-
venqal trouveurs, or inventors, preceded Petrarch, whose
verses are as spells, which unseal the inmost enchanted foun-
tains of the delight which is in the grief of love. It is im-
possible to feel them without becoming a portion of that
beauty which we contemplate : it were superfluous to explain
how the gentleness and the elevation of mind connected with
these sacred emotions can render men more amiable, more
generous and wise, and lift them out of the dull vapors of
the little world of self. Dante understood the secret things
of love even more than Petrarch. His " Vita Nuova " is an
inexhaustible fountain of purity of sentiment and language:
it is the idealized history of that period, and those intervals
of his life which were dedicated to love. His apotheosis of
Beatrice in Paradise, and the gradations of his own love and
her loveliness, by which as by steps he feigns himself to
have ascended to the throne of the Supreme Cause, is the
most glorious imagination of modern poetry. The acutest
critics have justly reversed the judgment of the vulgar, and
the order of the great acts of the " Divine Drama," in the
measure of the admiration which they accord to the Hell,
Purgatory, and Paradise. The latter is a perpetual hymn of
everlasting love. Love, which found a worthy poet in Plato
alone of all the ancients, has been celebrated by a chorus of
the greatest writers of the renovated world; and the music
has penetrated the caverns of society, and its echoes still
drown the dissonance of arms and superstition. At suc-
cessive intervals, Ariosto, Tasso, Shakespeare, Spenser, Cal-
a " The book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto " [i. e., a pander],
from the episode of Paolo and Francesca in Dante's " Inferno," v. 137.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 365
deron, Rousseau, and the great writers of our own age, have
celebrated the dominion of love, planting as it were trophies
in the human mind of that sublimest victory over sensuality
and force. The true relation borne to each other by the
sexes into which humankind is distributed has become less
misunderstood; and if the error which confounded diversity
with inequality of the powers of the two sexes has been par-
tially recognised in the opinions and institutions of modern
Europe, we owe this great benefit to the worship of which
chivalry was the law, and poets the prophets.
The poetry of Dante may be considered as the bridge
thrown over the stream of time, which unites the modern and
ancient world. The distorted notions of invisible thingr
which Dante and his rival Milton have idealized, are merel}
the mask and the mantle in which these great poets walk
through eternity enveloped and disguised. It is a difficult
question to determine how far they were conscious of the
distinction which must have subsisted in their minds between
their own creeds and that of the people. Dante at least ap-
pears to wish to mark the full extent of it by placing
Rhipaeus, whom Vergil calls justissimns unusf in Paradise,
and observing a most heretical caprice in his distribution of
rewards and punishments. And Milton's poem contains
within itself a philosophical refutation of that system, of
which, by a strange and natural antithesis, it has been a
chief popular support. Nothing can exceed the energy and
magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in
" Paradise Lost." It is a mistake to suppose that he could
ever have been intended for the popular personification of
evil. Implacable hate, patient cunning, and a sleepless re-
finement of device to inflict the extremest anguish on an
enemy, these things are evil ; and, although venial in a slave,
are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed by
much that ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked
by all that dishonors his conquest in the victor. Milton's
Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one
who perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to
be excellent in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who
in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most
6 " The one most just man.'*
366 SHELLEY
horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken no^
tion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity,
but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve
new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed
(if this shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged
no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil.
And this bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is the most
decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton's genius. He
mingled as it were the elements of human nature as colors
upon a single pallet, and arranged them in the composition
of his great picture according to the laws of epic truth ; that
is, according to the laws of that principle by which a series
of actions of the external universe and of intelligent and
ethical beings is calculated to excite the sympathy of suc-
ceeding generations of mankind. The " Divina Commedia "
and " Paradise Lost " have conferred upon modern myth-
ology a systematic form; and when change and time shall
have added one more superstition to the mass of those which
have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators will
be learnedly employed in elucidating the religion of ances-
tral Europe, only not utterly forgotten because it will have
been stamped with the eternity of genius.
Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet: that
is, the second poet, the series of whose creations bore a de-
fined and intelligible relation to the knowledge and sentiment
and religion of the age in which he lived, and of the ages
which followed it, developing itself in correspondence with
their development. For Lucretius had limed the wings of
his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world; and Vergil,
with a modesty that ill became his genius, had affected the
fame of an imitator, even whilst he created anew all that he
copied; and none among the flock of mock-birds, though
their notes were sweet, Apollonius Rhodius, Quintus Cala-
ber, Nonnus, Lucan, Statius, or Claudian, have sought even
to fulfil a single condition of epic truth. Milton was the
third epic poet. For if the title of epic in its highest sense
be refused to the " Mneid," still less can it be conceded to
the " Orlando Furioso," the " Gerusalemme Liberata," the
" Lusiad," or the " Faerie Queene."
Dante and Milton were both deeply penetrated with the
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 367
ancient religion of the civilized world; and its spirit exists
in their poetry probably in the same proportion as its forms
survived in the unreformed worship of modern Europe. The
one preceded and the other followed the Reformation at
almost equal intervals. Dante was the first religious re-
former, and Luther surpassed him rather in the rudeness
and acrimony than in the boldness of his censures of papal
usurpation. Dante was the first awakener of entranced
Europe; he created a language, in itself music and persua-
sion, out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarians. He was
the congregator of those great spirits who presided over the
resurrection of learning; the Lucifer of that starry flock
which in the thirteenth century shone forth from republican
Italy, as from a heaven, into the darkness of the benighted
world. His very words are instinct with spirit; each is as a
spark, a burning atom of inextinguishable thought ; and many
yet lie covered in the ashes of their birth, and pregnant with
the lightning which has yet found no conductor. All high
poetry is infinite ; it is as the first acorn, which contained all
oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the
inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great
poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the waters of
wisdom and delight; and after one person and one age has
exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar rela-
tions enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds,
and new relations are ever developed, the source of an un-
foreseen and an unconceived delight.
The age immediately succeeding to that of Dante, Petrarch,
and Boccaccio was characterized by a revival of painting,
sculpture, and architecture. Chaucer caught the sacred in-
spiration, and the superstructure of English literature is
based upon the materials of Italian invention.
But let us not be betrayed from a defence into a critical
history of poetry and its influence on society. Be it enough
to have pointed out the effects of poets, in the large and
true sense of the word, upon their own and all succeeding
times.
But poets have been challenged to resign the civic crown
to reasoners and mechanists, on another plea. It is admitted
that the exercise of the imagination is most delightful, but
368 SHELLEY
it is alleged that that of reason is more useful. Let us
examine as the grounds of this distinction what is here meant
by utility. Pleasure or good, in a general sense, is that which
the consciousness of a sensitive and intelligent being seeks,
and in which, when found, it acquiesces. There are two
kinds of pleasure, one durable, universal, and permanent;
the other transitory and particular. Utility may either ex-
press the means of producing the former or the latter. In
the former sense, whatever strengthens and purifies the
affections, enlarges the imagination, and adds spirit to sense,
is useful. But a narrower meaning may be assigned to the
word utility, confining it to express that which banishes
the importunity of the wants of our animal nature, the
surrounding men with security of life, the dispersing the
grosser delusions of superstition, and the conciliating
such a degree of mutual forbearance among men as may
consist with the motives of personal advantage.
Undoubtedly the promoters of utility, in this limited
sense, have their appointed office in society. They follow
the footsteps of poets, and copy the sketches of their crea-
tions into the book of common life. They make space, and
give time. Their exertions are of the highest value, so long
as they confine their administration of the concerns of the
inferior powers of our nature within the limits due to the
superior ones. But whilst the sceptic destroys gross super-
stitions, let him spare to deface, as some of the French writers
have defaced, the eternal truths charactered upon the im-
aginations of men. Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the
political economist combines labor, let them beware that
their speculations, for want of correspondence with those
first principles which belong to the imagination, do not tend,
as they have in modern England, to exasperate at once the
extremes of luxury and want. They have exemplified the
saying, " To him that hath, more shall be given ; and from
him that hath not, the little that he hath shall be taken
away." The rich have become richer, and the poor have be-
come poorer; and the vessel of the State is driven between
the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism. Such
are the effects which must ever flow from an unmitigated
exercise of the calculating faculty.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 369
It is difficult to define pleasure in its highest sense; the
definition involving a number of apparent paradoxes. For,
from an inexplicable defect of harmony in the constitution
of human nature, the pain of the inferior is frequently
connected with the pleasures of the superior portions of
our being. Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself, are
often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the
highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on
this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of
the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also
of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest
melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the
pleasure of pleasure itself. And hence the saying, " It is
better to go to the house of mourning than to the house
of mirth." Not that this highest species of pleasure is
necessarily linked with pain. The delight of love and friend-
ship, the ecstasy of the admiration of nature, the joy of the
perception and still more of the creation of poetry, is often
wholly unalloyed.
The production and assurance of pleasure in this highest
sense is true utility. Those who produce and preserve this
pleasure are poets or poetical philosophers.
The exertions of Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rous-
seau,6 and their disciples, in favor of oppressed and deluded
humanity, are entitled to the gratitude of mankind. Yet
it is easy to calculate the degree of moral and intellectual
improvement which the world would have exhibited, had
they never lived. A little more nonsense would have been
talked for a century or two; and perhaps a few more men,
women, and children burnt as heretics. We might not at
this moment have been congratulating each other on the
abolition of the Inquisition in Spain. But it exceeds all
imagination to conceive what would have been the moral
condition of the world if neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio,
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon, Lord Bacon, nor Milton,
had ever existed; if Raphael and Michael Angelo had never
been born; if the Hebrew poetry had never been translated;
if a revival of the study of Greek literature had never taken
• Although Rousseau has been thus classed, he was essentially a poet.
The others, even Voltaire, were mere reasoners. — S.
370 SHELLEY
place; if no monuments of ancient sculpture had been
handed down to us; and if the poetry of the religion of the
ancient world had been extinguished together with its belief.
The human mind could never, except by the intervention
of these excitements, have been awakened to the invention
of the grosser sciences, and that application of analytical
reasoning to the aberrations of society, which it is now at-
tempted to exalt over the direct expression of the inventive
and creative faculty itself.
We have more moral, political, and historical wisdom than
we know how to reduce into practice; we have more
scientific and economical knowledge than can be accom-
modated to the just distribution of the produce which it
multiplies. The poetry in these systems of thought is con-
cealed by the accumulation of facts and calculating pro-
cesses. There is no want of knowledge respecting what is
wisest and best in morals, government, and political economy,
or at least, what is wiser and better than what men now
practise and endure. But we let "1 dare not wait upon /
would, like the poor cat in the adage." We want the creative
faculty to imagine that which we know ; we want the gener-
ous impulse to act that which we imagine ; we want the
poetry of life; our calculations have outrun conception; we
have eaten more than we can digest. The cultivation of
those sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire
of man over the external world, has, for want of the
poetical faculty, proportionally circumscribed those of the
internal world; and man, having enslaved the elements, re-
mains himself a slave. To what but a cultivation of the
mechanical arts in a degree dlsproportioned to the presence
of the creative faculty, which is the basis of all knowledge,
is to be attributed the abuse of all invention for abridging
and combining labor, to the exasperation of the inequality
of mankind? From what other cause has it arisen that the
discoveries which should have lightened, have added a
weight to the curse imposed on Adam? Poetry, and the
principle of Self, of which money is the visible incarnation,
are the God and Mammon of the world.
The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one
it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleas-
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 371
ure ; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to repro-
duce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and
order which may be called the beautiful and the good. The
cultivation of poetry is never more to be desired than at
periods when, from an excess of the selfish and calculating
principle, the accumulation of the materials of external life
exceed the quantity of the power of assimilating them to the
internal laws of human nature. The body has then be-
come too unwieldy for that which animates it.
Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre
and circumference of knowledge; it is that which compre-
hends all science, and that to which all science must be
referred. It is at the same time the root and blossom of all
other systems of thought; it is that from which all spring,
and that which adorns all; and that which, if blighted,
denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds from the
barren world the nourishment and the succession of the
scions of the tree of life. It is the perfect and consummate
surface and bloori of all things; it is as the odor and the
color of the rose to the texture of the elements which com-
pose it, as the form and splendor of unfaded beauty to the
secrets of anatomy and corruption. What were virtue,
love, patriotism, friendship — what were the scenery of this
beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our con-
solations on this side of the grave — and what were our
aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light
and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged
faculty of calculation dare not ever soar? Poetry is not
like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the deter-
mination of the will. A man cannot say, " I will compose
poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the
mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible
influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory
brightness; this power arises from within, like the color
of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and
the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either
of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be
durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible
to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition
begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most
372 SHELLEY
glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the
world is probably a feeble shadow of the original concep-
tions of the poet. I appeal to the greatest poets of the
present day, whether it is not an error to assert that the
finest passages of poetry are produced by labor and study.
The toil and the delay recommended by critics can be justly
interpreted to mean no more than a careful observation of
the inspired moments, and an artificial connection of the
spaces between their suggestions by the intertexture of con-
ventional expressions; a necessity only imposed by the
limitedness of the poetical faculty itself : for Milton con-
ceived the " Paradise Lost " as a whole before he executed
it in portions. We have his own authority also for the Muse
having " dictated " to him the " unpremeditated song." And
let this be an answer to those who would allege the fifty-six
various readings of the first line of the " Orlando Furioso."
Compositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic is to
painting. This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty
are still more observable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a
great statue or picture grows under the power of the artist
as a child in a mother's womb; and the very mind which
directs the hands in formation is incapable of accounting to
itself for the origin, the gradations, or the media of the
process.
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of
the happiest and best minds. We are aware of evanescent
visitations of thought and feeling sometimes associated with
place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone,
and always arising unforeseen and departing unbidden, but
elevating and delightful beyond all expression: so that even
in the desire and the regret they leave, there cannot but be
pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its object.
It is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature
through our own ; but its footsteps are like those of a wind
over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces
remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it. These
and corresponding conditions of being are experienced prin-
cipally by those of the most delicate sensibility and the most
enlarged imagination; and the state of mind produced by
them is at war with every base desire. The enthusiasm of
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 873
virtue, love, patriotism, and friendship is essentially linked
with such emotions ; and whilst they last, self appears as what
it is, an atom to a universe. Poets are not only subject to
these experiences as spirits of the most refined organization,
but they can color all that they combine with the evanescent
hues of this ethereal world; a word, a trait in the representa-
tion of a scene or a passion will touch the enchanted chord,
and reanimate, in those who have ever experienced these
emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past.
Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beauti-
ful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which
haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in lan-
guage or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing
sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters
abide — abide, because there is no portal of expression from
the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe
of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the
divinity in man.
Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty
of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that
which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror,
grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union
under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes
all that it touches, and every form moving within the radi-
ance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an
incarnation of the spirit which it breathes : its secret alchemy
turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from
death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the
world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is
the spirit of its forms.
All things exist as they are perceived: at least in relation
to the percipient. " The mind is its own place, and of itself
can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." But poetry de-
feats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident
of surrounding impressions. And whether it spreads its own
figured curtain, or withdraws life's dark veil from before the
scene of things, it equally creates for us a being within our
being. It makes us the inhabitants of a world to which the
familiar world is a chaos. It reproduces the common uni-
verse of which we are portions and percipients, and it purges
374 SHELLEY
from our inward sight the film of familiarity- which obscures
from us the wonder of our being. It compels us to feel
that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we
know. It creates anew the universe, after it has been
annihilated in our minds by the recurrence of impressions
blunted by reiteration. It justifies the bold and true
words of Tasso — " Non merita nome di creatore, se non
Iddio ed il Poeta." 7
A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom,
pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the
happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men.
As to his glory, let time be challenged to declare whether the
fame of any other institutor of human life be comparable to
that of a poet. That he is the wisest, the happiest, and the
best, inasmuch as he is a poet, is equally incontrovertible : the
greatest poets have been men of the most spotless virtue, of
the most consummate prudence, and, if we would look into
the interior of their lives, the most fortunate of men: and
the exceptions, as they regard those who possessed the poetic
faculty in a high yet inferior degree, will be found on con-
sideration to confine rather than destroy the rule. Let us for
a moment stoop to the arbitration of popular breath, and
usurping and uniting in our own persons the incompatible
characters of accuser, witness, judge, and executioner, let us
decide without trial, testimony, or form, that certain motives
of those who are "there sitting where we dare not soar," are
reprehensible. Let us assume that Homer was a drunkard,
that Vergil was a flatterer, that Horace was a coward, that
Tasso was a madman, that Lord Bacon was a peculator, that
Raphael was a libertine, that Spenser was a poet laureate.
It is inconsistent with this division of our subject to cite living
poets, but posterity has done ample justice to the great names
now referred to. Their errors have been weighed and found
to have been dust in the balance ; if their sins " were as
scarlet, they are now white as snow " ; they have been washed
in the blood of the mediator and redeemer, Time. Observe in
what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real or fictitious
crime have been confused in the contemporary calumnies
against poetry and poets; consider how little is as it appears
7 M No one merits the name of creator except God and the Poet."
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 375
appears as it is ; look to your own motives, and judge
not, lest ye be judged.
Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from logic,
that it is not subject to the control of the active powers of
the mind, and that its birth and recurrence have no necessary
connection with the consciousness or will. It is presumptuous
to determine that these are the necessary conditions of all
mental causation, when mental effects are experienced un-
susceptible of being referred to them. The frequent recur-
rence of the poetical power, it is obvious to suppose, may
produce in the mind a habit of order and harmony correlative
with its own nature and with its effects upon other minds.
But in the intervals of inspiration, and they may be frequent
without being durable, a poet becomes a man, and is aban-
doned to the sudden reflux of the influences under which
others habitually live. But as he is more delicately organized
than other men, and sensible to pain and pleasure, both
his own and that of others, in a degree unknown to them,
he will avoid the one and pursue the other with an ardor
proportioned to this difference. And he renders himself
obnoxious to calumny, when he neglects to observe the
circumstances under which these objects of universal pur-
suit and flight have disguised themselves in one another's
garments.
But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and thus
cruelty, envy, revenge, avarice, and the passions purely evil
have never formed any portion of the popular imputations on
the lives of poets.
I have thought it most favorable to the cause of truth to
set down these remarks according to the order in which they
were suggested to my mind, by a consideration of the subject
itself, instead of observing the formality of a polemical reply ;
but if the view which they contain be just, they will be found
to involve a refutation of the arguers against poetry, so far
at least as regards the first division of the subject. I can
readily conjecture what should have moved the gall of some
learned and intelligent writers who quarrel with certain
versifiers ; I confess myself, like them, unwilling to be stunned
by the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavius and
Maevius undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable per-
376 SHELLEY
sons. But it belongs to a philosophical critic to distinguish
rather than confound.
The first part of these remarks has related to poetry in its
elements and principles; and it has been shown, as well as
the narrow limits assigned them would permit, that what is
called poetry, in a restricted sense, has a common source with
all other forms of order and of beauty, according to which
the materials of human life are susceptible of being arranged,
and which is poetry in an universal sense.
The second part will have for its object an application of
these principles to the present state of the cultivation of
poetry, and a defence of the attempt to idealize the modern
forms of manners and opinions, and compel them into a sub-
ordination to the imaginative and creative faculty. For the
literature of England, an energetic development of which
has ever preceded or accompanied a great and free develop-
ment of the national will, has arisen as it were from a new
birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would under-
value contemporary merit, our own will be a memorable age
in intellectual achievements, and we live among such philos-
ophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who
have appeared since the last national struggle for civil and
religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and
follower of the awakening of a great people to work a bene-
ficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such
periods there is an accumulation of the power of communi-
cating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions
respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power
resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their
nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of
good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they
deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power
which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is im-
possible to read the compositions of the most celebrated
writers of the present day without being startled with the
electric life which burns within their words. They measure
the circumference and sound the depths of human nature
with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are
themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its mani-
festations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age.
A DEFENCE OF POETRY 377
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration;
the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts
upon the present ; the words which express what they under-
stand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not
what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but
moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the
world.
MACHIAVELLI
BY
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) was the son of
Zachary Macaulay, a Scotsman whose experience in the West
Indies had made him an ardent Abolitionist. Thomas was an
infant prodigy, and the extraordinary memory which is borne
witness to in his writings was developed at an early age. He was
educated at Cambridge, studied law, and began to write for the
"Edinburgh Review" at twenty-five, his well-known style being
already formed. H* entered the House of Commons in 1830,
and at once made a reputation as an orator. In 1834 he went
to India as a member of the Supreme Council, and during his
three and a half years there he proved himself a capable and
beneficent administrator. On his return, he again entered Parlia-
ment, held cabinet office, and retired from political life in 1856.
Until about 1844 Macaulay's writings appeared chiefly in the
"Edinburgh Review," the great organ of the Whig Party, to
which he belonged. These articles as now collected are perhaps
the most widely known critical and historical essays in the lan-
guage. The brilliant antithetical style, the wealth of illustration,
the pomp and picturesqueness with which the events of the narra-
tive are brought before the eyes of the reader, combine to make
them in the highest degree entertaining and informing. His
"History of England," which occupied his later years, was the
most popular book of its kind ever published in England, and
owed its success to much the same qualities. The "Lays of
Ancient Rome" and his other verses gained and still hold a large
public, mainly by virtue of their vigor of movement and strong
declamatory quality.
The essay on Machiavelli belongs to Macaulay's earlier period,
and illustrates his mastery of material that might seem to lie
outside of his usual field. But here in the Italy of the Renais-
sance, as in the England or the India which he knew at first
hand, we have the same characteristic simplification and arrange-
ment of motives and conditions that make his clear exposition
possible, the same dash and vividness in bringing home to the
reader his conception of a great character and a great epoch.
380
MACHIAVELLI'
THOSE who have attended to this practice of our liter-
ary tribunal are well aware, that, by means of certain
legal fictions similar to those of Westminster Hall, we
are frequently enabled to take cognizance of cases lying be-
yond the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We need hardly
say, therefore, that, in the present instance, M. Perier is
merely a Richard Roe, who will not be mentioned in any
subsequent stage of the proceedings, and whose name is used
for the sole purpose of bringing Machiavelli into court.
We doubt whether any name in literary history be so gen-
erally odious as that of the man whose character and writ-
ings we now propose to consider. The terms in which he is
commonly described would seem to impart that he was the
Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and
revenge, the original inventor of perjury, and that, before
the publication of his fatal " Prince," there had never been a
hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or a
convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that
Maurice of Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from
that execrable volume. Another remarks, that, since it was
translated into Turkish, the sultans have been more addicted
than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers.
Lord Lyttelton charges the poor Florentine with the mani-
fold treasons of the house of Guise, and with the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the
Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily attributed to his doctrines,
and seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted for
that of Guy Fawkes, in those processions by which the in-
genuous youth of England annually commemorate the pres-
ervation of the Three Estates. The Church of Rome has
1 Originally published as a review of a translation of the complete works
of Machiavelli by J. V. Peries.
381
382 MACAULAY
pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have our own
countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his
merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for
a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the
Devil.
It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well ac-
quainted with the history and literature of Italy, to read
without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which
has brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli.
Such a display of wickedness, naked yet not ashamed, such
cool, judicious, scientific atrocity, seemed rather to belong to
a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which
the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most
trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some
palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed with-
out the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the funda-
mental axioms of all political science.
It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the
author of such a book as the most depraved and shameless
of human beings. Wise men, however, have always been
inclined to look with great suspicion on the angels and
demons of the multitude; and, in the present instance, sev-
eral circumstances have led even superficial observers to
question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious
that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republican. In
the same year in which he composed his manual of " King-
craft," he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of
public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of
freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of
tyranny. Several eminent writers have, therefore, endeav-
ored to detect in this unfortunate performance some con-
cealed meaning, more consistent with the character and
conduct of the author than that which appears at the first
glance.
One hypothesis is, that Machiavelli intended to practise on
the young Lorenzo de' Medici a fraud similar to that which
Sunderland is said to have employed against our James II,
and that he urged his pupil to violent and perfidious meas-
ures, as the surest means of accelerating the moment of de-
liverance and revenge. Another supposition, which Lord
MACHIAVELLI 383
Bacon seems to countenance, is that the treatise was merely
a piece of grave irony, intended to warn nations against the
arts of ambitious men. It would be easy to show that neither
of these solutions is consistent with many passages in " The
Prince " itself. But the most decisive refutation is that
which is furnished by the other works of Machiavelli. In
all the writings which he gave to the public, and in all those
which the research of editors has, in the course of three
centuries, discovered; in his comedies, designed for the en-
tertainment of the multitude ; in his " Comments on Livy,"
intended for the perusal of the most enthusiastic patriots of
Florence; in his history, inscribed to one of the most
amiable and estimable of the popes ; in his public despatches ;
in his private memoranda — the same obliquity of moral
principle for which " The Prince " is so severely censured
is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it would be
possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions,
a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treach-
ery had ever struck him as discreditable.
After this, it may seem ridiculous to say that we are ac-
quainted with few writings which exhibit so much elevation
of sentiment, so pure and warm a zeal for the public good,
or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens, as those
of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. And even from " The Prince "
itself we could select many passages in support of this re-
mark. To a reader of our age and country, this inconsist-
ency is, at first, perfectly bewildering. The whole man seems
to be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongruous
qualities, selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence,
craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic heroism.
One sentence is such as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely
write in cipher for the direction of his most confidential spy:
the next seems to be extracted from a theme composed by an
ardent school-boy on the death of Leonidas. An act of dex-
terous perfidy and an act of patriotic self-devotion call forth
the same kind and the same degree of respectful admiration.
The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be
morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters alto-
gether dissimilar are united in him. They are not merely
joined, but interwoven. They are the warp and the woof of
384 MACAULAY
his mind; and their combination, like that of the variegated
threads in shot silk, gives to the whole texture a glancing
and ever-changing appearance. The explanation might have
been easy if he had been a very weak or a very affected man.
But he was evidently neither the one nor the other. His
works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding
was strong, his taste pure, and his sense of the ridiculous
exquisitely keen.
This is strange, and yet the strangest is behind. There is
no reason whatever to think that those amongst whom he
lived saw anything shocking or incongruous in his writings.
Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation in which both
his works and his person were held by the most respectable
among his contemporaries. Clement VII patronized the pub-
lication of those very books which the Council of Trent, in
the following generation, pronounced unfit for the perusal
of Christians. Some members of the democratical party cen-
sured the secretary for dedicating " The Prince " to a patron
who bore the unpopular name of Medici. But, to those im-
moral doctrines which have since called forth such severe
reprehensions no exception appears to have been taken. The
cry against them was first raised beyond the Alps, and seems
to have been heard with amazement in Italy. The earliest
assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman of our
own, Cardinal Pole. The author of the " Anti-Machiavelli "
was a French Protestant.
It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling among the
Italians of those times that we must seek for the real ex-
planation of what seems most mysterious in the life and
writings of this remarkable man. As this is a subject which
suggests many interesting considerations, both political and
metaphysical, we shall make no apology for discussing it at
some length.
During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed
the downfall of the Roman Empire, Italy had preserved, in
a far greater degree than any other part of western Europe,
the traces of ancient civilization. The night which descended
upon her was the night of an Arctic summer. The dawn
began to reappear before the last reflection of the preceding
sunset had faded from the horizon. It was in the time of
MACHIAVELLI 385
the French Merovingians and of the Saxon Heptarchy that
ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their worst. Yet
even then the Neapolitan provinces, recognizing the author-
ity of the Eastern Empire, preserved something of Eastern
knowledge and refinement. Rome, protected by the sacred
character of her pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative se-
curity and repose. Even in those regions where the san-
guinary Lombards had fixed their monarchy, there was
incomparably more of wealth, of information, of physical
comfort, and of social order, than could be found in Gaul,
Britain, or Germany.
That which most distinguished Italy from the neighboring
countries was the importance which the population of the
towns, at a very early period, began to acquire. Some cities
had been founded in wild and remote situations, by fugitives
who had escaped from the rage of the barbarians. Such
were Venice and Genoa, which preserved their freedom by
their obscurity, till they became able to preserve it by their
power. Other cities seem to have retained, under all the
changing dynasties of invaders, under Odoacer and Theod-
oric, Narses and Alboin, the municipal institutions which
had been conferred on them by the liberal policy of the Great
Republic. In provinces which the central government was
too feeble either to protect or to oppress, these institutions
gradually acquired stability and vigor. The citizens, de-
fended by their walls, and governed by their own magistrates
and their own by-laws, enjoyed a considerable share of re-
publican independence. Thus a strong democratic spirit was
called into action. The Carlovingian sovereigns were too
imbecile to subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encour-
aged it. It might perhaps have been suppressed by a close
coalition between the Church and the empire. It was fos-
tered and invigorated by their disputes. In the twelfth cen-
tury it attained its full vigor, and, after a long and doubtful
conflict, triumphed over the abilities and courage of the
Swabian princes.
The assistance of the ecclesiastical power had greatly con-
tributed to the success of the Guelfs. That success would,
however, have been a doubtful good, if its only effect had been
to substitute a moral for a political servitude, and to exalt
HG Vol. 27—13
386 MACAULAY
the popes at the expense of the Caesars. Happily the public
mind of Italy had long contained the seeds of free opinions,
which were now rapidly developed by the genial influence of
free institutions. The people of that country had observed
the whole machinery of the Church, its saints and its mir-
acles, its lofty pretensions, and its splendid ceremonial, its
worthless blessings and its harmless curses, too long and too
closely to be duped. They stood behind the scenes on which
others were gazing with childish awe and interest. They
witnessed the arrangement of the pulleys, and the manufac-
ture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces, and heard
the natural voices, of the actors. Distant nations looked on
the Pope as the vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of
the All- Wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the dis-
putes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought
to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies
of his youth, and with all the dishonest arts by which he
had attained power. They knew how often he had em-
ployed the keys of the Church to release himself from the
most sacred engagements, and its wealth to pamper his mis-
tresses and nephews. The doctrines and rites of the estab-
lished religion they treated with decent reverence. But,
though they still called themselves Catholics, they had
ceased to be papists. Those spiritual arms which carried
terror into the palaces and camps of the proudest sov-
ereigns excited only contempt in the immediate neighborhood
of the Vatican. Alexander, when he commanded our Henry
II to submit to the lash before the tomb of a rebellious sub-
ject, was himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending that
he entertained designs against their liberties, had driven him
from their city ; and, though he solemnly promised to confine
himself for the future to his spiritual functions, they still
refused to readmit him.
In every other part of Europe, a large and powerful priv-
ileged class trampled on the people, and defied the govern-
ment. But, in the most flourishing parts of Italy, the feudal
nobles were reduced to comparative insignificance. In
some districts they took shelter under the protection of the
powerful commonwealths which they were unable to oppose,
and gradually sank into the mass of burghers. In other
MACHIAVELLI 387
places, they possessed great influence ; but it was an influence
widely different from that which was exercised by the aris-
tocracy of any trans-Alpine kingdom. They were not petty
princes, but eminent citizens. Instead of strengthening their
fastnesses among the mountains, they embellished their pal-
aces in the market-place. The state of society in the Nea-
politan dominions, and in some parts of the ecclesiastical
State, more nearly resembled that which existed in the great
monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy
and Tuscany, through all their revolutions, preserved a dif-
ferent character. A people, when assembled in a town, is
far more formidable to its rulers than when dispersed over
a wide extent of country. The most arbitrary of the Caesars
found it necessary to feed and divert the inhabitants of their
unwieldy capital at the expense of the provinces. The citi-
zens of Madrid have more than once besieged their sovereign
in his own palace, and extorted from him the most hu-
miliating concessions. The sultans have often been com-
pelled to propitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople
with the head of an unpopular vizier. From the same cause,
there was a certain tinge of democracy in the monarchies
and aristocracies of northern Italy.
Thus liberty, partially indeed and transiently, revisited
Italy; and with liberty came commerce and empire, science
and taste, all the comforts and all the ornaments of life.
The Crusades, from which the inhabitants of other countries
gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought to the rising
commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large
increase of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. The moral
and the geographical position of those commonwealths en-
abled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and
by the civilization of the East. Italian ships covered every
sea. Italian factories rose on every shore. The tables of
Italian money-changers were set in every city. Manufac-
tures flourished. Banks were established. The operations
of the commercial machine were facilitated by many useful
and beautiful inventions. We doubt whether any country
of Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time reached
so high a point of wealth and civilization as some parts of
Italy had attained 400 years ago. Historians rarely descend
388 MACAULAY
to those details from which alone the real estate of a com-
munity can be collected. Hence posterity is too often de-
ceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians,
who mistake the splendor of a court for the happiness of a
people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an example
and precise account of the state of Florence in the early part
of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the republic
amounted to 300,000 florins, a sum which, allowing for the
depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent
to £600,000 sterling — a larger sum than England and Ireland,
two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth. The manu-
facture of wool alone employed 200 factories and 30,000
workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average,
for 1,200,000 florins — a sum fully equal, in exchangeable
value, to £2,500,000 of our money. Four hundred thousand
florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the
commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all
Europe. The transactions of these establishments were
sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the con-
temporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two
houses advanced to Edward III of England upwards of 300,-
000 marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver
than fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value
of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The
city, and its environs contained 170,000 inhabitants. In the
various schools about 10,000 children were taught to read,
1,200 studied arithmetic, 600 received a learned education.
The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was
proportioned to that of the public prosperity. Under the
despotic successors of Augustus all the fields of the intellect
had been turned into arid wastes, still marked out by formal
boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but
yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge of barbarism
came. It swept away all the landmarks. It obliterated all
the signs of former tillage. But, it fertilized while it dev-
astated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden
of God, rejoicing on every side, laughing, clapping its hands,
pouring forth, in spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant
or fragrant or nourishing. A new language, characterized
by simple sweetness and simple energy, had attained perfec-
MACHIAVELLI 389
tion. No tongue ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid
tints to poetry; nor was it long before a poet appeared who
knew how to employ them. Early in the fourteenth century
came forth " The Divine Comedy/' beyond comparison the
greatest work of imagination which had appeared since the
poems of Homer. The following generation produced in-
deed no second Dante, but it was eminently distinguished by
general intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers
had never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch in-
troduced a more profound, libera^ and elegant scholarship,
had communicated to his countrymen that enthusiasm for
the literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome, which
divided his own heart with a frigid mistress and a more-
frigid muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more
sublime and graceful models of Greece.
From this time, the admiration of learning and genius be-
came almost an idolatry among the people of Italy. Kings
and republics, cardinals and doges, vied with each other in
honoring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies from rival
States solicited the honor of his instructions. His corona-
tion agitated the Court of Naples and the people of Rome
as much as the most important political transaction could
have done. To collect books and antiques, to found pro-
fessorships, to patronize men of learning, became almost
universal fashions among the great. The spirit of literary
research allied itself to that of commercial enterprise.
Every place to which the merchant princes of Florence ex-
tended their gigantic traffic, from the bazars of the Tigris
to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals
and manuscripts. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were
munificently encouraged. Indeed, it would be difficult to
name an Italian of eminence, during the period of which we
speak, who, whatever may have been his general character,
did not at least affect a love of letters and of the arts.
Knowledge and public prosperity continued to advance to-
gether. Both attained their meridian in the age of Lorenzo
the Magnificent. We cannot refrain from quoting the splen-
did passage in which the Tuscan Thucydides describes the
state of Italy at that period. " Ridotta tutta in somma pace
e tranquillity coltivata non meno ne' luogti piu montusoi e
390 MACAULAY
piu sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta
ad altro imperio che dey suoi medesimi, non solo era abbon-
dantissima d' abitatori e di ricchezze; ma illustrata somma-
mente dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo splendore di
molte nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e maesta della
religione, fioriva d' uomini prestantissimi nelV amministra-
zione delle cose pubbliche, e d' ingegni molto nobili in tutte
le scienze, ed in qualnnque arte preclara ed industriosa."2
When we peruse this just and splendid description, we can
scarcely persuade ourselves that we are reading of times in
which the annals of England and France present us only
with a frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and igno-
rance. From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and the
sufferings of a degraded peasantry, it is delightful to turn to
the opulent and enlightened States of Italy, to the vast and
magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the
museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of
comfort or luxury, the factories swarming with artisans, the
Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very
summits, the Po wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the
granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of Bengal
and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With pe-
culiar pleasure every cultivated mind must repose on the
fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang
with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the mid-
night lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young eye
of Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred in-
spiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some
sparkling song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian vir-
gins. Alas for the beautiful city ! Alas for the wit and
the learning, the genius and the love !
" Le donne, e i cavalieri, gli affanni e gli agi,
Che ne'nvogliava amove e cortesia
L& dove i cuor son fatti si malvagi."*
2 " Enjoying the utmost peace and tranquillity, cultivated as well in the
most mountainous and barren places as in the plains and most fertile
regions, and not subject to any other dominion than that of its own people,
it not only overflowed with inhabitants and with riches, but was highly
adorned by the magnificence of many princes, by the splendor of many
renowned and beautiful cities, by the abode and majesty of religion, and
abounded in men who excelled in the administration of public affairs and
in minds most eminent in all the sciences and in every noble and useful
art." — Guicciardini, " History of Italy," Book I., trans. Montague.
» " The ladies and the knights, the toils and sports to which love and
MACHIAVELLI 391
A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apoc-
alypse were to be poured forth and shaken out over those
pleasant countries — a time of slaughter, famine, beggary, in-
famy, slavery, despair.
In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, untimely
decrepitude was the penalty of precocious maturity. Their
early greatness, and their early decline, are principally to be
attributed to the same cause — the preponderance which the
towns acquired in the political system.
In a community of hunters or of shepherds every man
easily and necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary avoca-
tions are perfectly compatible with all the duties of military
service. However remote may be the expedition on which
he is bound, he finds it easy to transport with him the stock
from which he derives his subsistence. The whole people
in an army, the whole year a march. Such was the state of
society which facilitated the gigantic conquests of Attila and
Tamerlane.
But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth
is in a very different situation. The husbandman is bound to
the soil on which he labors. A long campaign would be
ruinous to him. Still his pursuits are such as to give his
frame both the active and the passive strength necessary to a
soldier. Nor do they, at least in the infancy of agricultural
science, demand his uninterrupted attention. At particular
times of the year he is almost wholly unemployed, and can,
without injury to himself, afford the time necessary for a
short expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were supplied
during its earlier wars. The season during which the fields
did not require the presence of the cultivators sufficed for a
short inroad and a battle. These operations, too frequently
interrupted to produce decisive results, yet served to keep up
among the people a degree of discipline and courage which
rendered them not only secure but formidable. The archers
and billmen of the Middle Ages, who, with provisions for
forty days at their back, left the fields for the camp, were
troops of the same description.
But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish,
courtesy stirred our desire there where all hearts have grown so evil."— •>
Dante, " Purgatorio," Canto 14, 11. 109-111.
392 MACAULAY
a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of the
desk and the loom render the exertions and hardships of war
insupportable. The business of traders and artisans requires
their constant presence and attention. In such a community
there is little superfluous time; but there is generally much
superfluous money. Some members of the society are, there-
fore, hired to relieve the rest from a task inconsistent with
their habits and engagements.
The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects,
the best commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred
years before the Christian era the citizens of the republics
round the ^Egean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that
ever existed. As wealth and refinement advanced, the sys-
tem underwent a gradual alteration. The Ionian States were
the first in which commerce -and the arts were cultivated,
and the first in which the ancient discipline decayed. Within
eighty years after the battle of Plataea, mercenary troops
were everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time
of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to persuade or
compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service. The
laws of Lycurgus prohibited trade and manufactures. The
Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force long
after their neighbors had begun to hire soldiers. But their
military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In
the second century before Christ, Greece contained only one
nation of warriors, the savage highlanders of yEtolia, who
were some generations behind their countrymen in civiliza-
tion and intelligence.
All the causes which produced these effects among the
Greeks acted still more strongly on the modern Italians.
Instead of a power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they
had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific.
Where there are numerous slaves, every freeman is induced
by the strongest motives to familiarize himself with the use
of arms. The commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of
Greece, swarm with thousands of these household enemies.
Lastly, the mode in which military operations were con-
ducted during the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly
unfavorable to the formation of an efficient militia. Men
covered with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous
MACHIAVELLI 393
lances, and mounted on horses of the largest breed, were
considered as composing the strength of an army. The
infantry was regarded as comparatively worthless, and was
neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained
their ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That
foot-soldiers could withstand the charge of heavy cavalry
was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the close of the
fifteenth century, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland dis-
solved the spell, and astounded the most experienced generals
by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest of
pikes.
The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the mod-
ern bayonet, might be acquired with comparative ease. But
nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the
man at arms to support his ponderous panoply, and manage
his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most impor-
tant branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond
the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a
trade. It was the duty and the amusement of a large class
of country gentlemen. It was the service by which they
held their lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence
of mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But in the
northern States of Italy, as we have already remarked, the
growing power of the cities, where it had not exterminated
this order of men, had completely changed their habits.
Here, therefore, the practice of employing mercenaries
became universal, at a time when it was almost unknown in
other countries.
When war becomes the trade of a separate class the least
dangerous course left to a government is to form that class
into a standing army. It is scarcely possible that men can
pass their lives in the service of one State, without feeling
some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their vic-
tories. Its defeats are their defeats. The contract loses
something of its mercantile character. The services of
the soldier are considered as the effects of patriotic zeal,
his pay as the tribute of national gratitude. To betray
the power which employs him, to be even remiss in its
service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and degrading
of crimes.
394 MACAULAY
When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to
use hired troops, their wisest course would have been to form
separate military establishments. Unhappily this was not
done. The mercenary warriors of the Peninsula, instead
of being attached to the service of different powers, were
regarded as the common property of all. The connection
between the State and its defenders was reduced to the most
simple and naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse,
his weapons, his strength, and his experience, into the
market. Whether the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan,
the Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the bargain, was
to him a matter of perfect indifference. He was for the
highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for
which he had contracted was finished, there was neither law
nor punctilio to prevent him from instantly turning his arms
against his late masters. The soldier was altogether dis-
joined from the citizen and from the subject.
The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct
of men who neither loved those whom they defended, nor
hated those whom they opposed, who were often bound by
stronger ties to the army against which they fought than to
the State which they served, who lost by the termination of
the conflict, and gained by its prolongation, war completely
changed its character. Every man came into the field of
battle impressed with the knowledge, that, in a few days, he
might be taking the pay of the power against which he was
then employed, and fighting by the side of his enemies against
his associates. The strongest interests and the strongest
feelings concurred to mitigate the hostility of those who
had lately been brethren in arms, and who might soon be
brethren in arms once more. Their common profession was
a bond of union not to be forgotten, even when they were
engaged in the service of contending parties. Hence it was
that operations, languid and indecisive beyond any recorded
in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expedi-
tions and blockades, bloodless capitulations and equally
bloodless combats, make up the military history of Italy
during the course of nearly two centuries. Mighty armies
fight from sunrise to sunset. A great victory is won. Thou-
sands of prisoners are taken, and hardly a life is lost. A
MACHIAVELLI 395
pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous than
an ordinary civil tumult.
Courage was now no longer necessary, even to the military
character. Men grew old in camps, and acquired the highest
renown by their warlike achievements, without being once
required to face serious danger. The political consequences
are too well known. The richest and most enlightened part
of the world was left undefended to the assaults of every
barbarous invader, to the brutality of Switzerland, the inso-
lence of France, and the fierce rapacity of Aragon. The
moral effects which followed from this state of things were
still more remarkable.
Amongst the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valor
was absolutely indispensable. Without it none could be
eminent, few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore,
naturally considered as the foulest reproach. Among the
polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law,
and passionately attached to literature, everything was done
by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific
than the peace of their neighbors, required rather civil than
military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point
of honor in other countries, ingenuity became the point of
honor in Italy.
From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly
analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality.
Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which pecu-
liarly belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural
defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been
most disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of
haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence,
and even with respect. The Italians regarded with corre-
sponding lenity those crimes which require self-command,
address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound
knowledge of human nature.
Such a prince as our Henry V would have been the idol of
the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish ambition of
his manhood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners
massacred on the field of battle, the expiring lease of priest-
craft renewed for another century, the dreadful legacy of a
causeless and hopeless war bequeathed to a people who had
396 MACAULAY
no interest in its event — everything is forgotten but the vic-
tory of Agincourt. Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was the
model of Italian heroes. He made his employers and his
rivals alike his tools. He first overpowered his open enemies
by the help of faithless allies: he then armed himself against
his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his
incomparable dexterity, he raised himself from the pre-
carious and dependent situation of a military adventurer to
the first throne of Italy. To such a man much was forgiven
— hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith.
Such are the opposite errors which men commit, when their
morality is not a science, but a taste, when they abandon
eternal principles for accidental associations.
We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken
from history. We will select another from fiction. Othello
murders his wife; he gives orders for the murder of his
lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. Yet he never
loses the esteem and affection of Northern readers. His
intrepid and ardent spirit redeems everything. The unsus-
pecting confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the
agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame,
the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes,
and the haughty fearlessness with which he avows them,
give an extraordinary interest to his character. Iago, on the
contrary, is the object of universal loathing. Many are
inclined to suspect that Shakespeare has been seduced into
an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster
who has no archetype in human nature. Now, we suspect
that an Italian audience in the fifteenth century would have
felt very differently. Othello would have inspired nothing
but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he
trusts the friendly professions of a man whose promotion he
had obstructed, the credulity with which he takes unsup-
ported assertions, and trivial circumstances, for unanswer-
able proofs, the violence with which he silences the
exculpation till the exculpation can only aggravate his
misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of his
spectators. The conduct of Iago they would assuredly have
condemned, but they would have condemned it as we con-
demn that of his victim. Something of interest and respect
MACHIAVELLI 397
would have mingled with their disapprobation. The readi-
ness of the traitor's wit, the clearness of his judgment, the
skill with which he penetrates the dispositions of others, and
conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain por-
tion of their esteem.
So wide was the difference between the Italians and their
neighbors. A similar difference existed between the Greeks
of the second century before Christ, and their masters, the
Romans. The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to
their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feel-
ings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel.
With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the
science, and the literature of the Western world. In poetry,
in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they
had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their percep-
tions acute, their invention ready ; they were tolerant, affable,
humane; but of courage and sincerity they were almost
utterly destitute. Every rude centurion consoled himself for
his intellectual inferiority, by remarking that knowledge and
taste seemed only to make men atheists, cowards and slaves.
The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, and
furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasms of
Juvenal.
The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of
the time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles,
joined in one. Like the former, he was timid and pliable,
artful and mean. But, like the latter, he had a country. Its
independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his char-
acter were degraded by some base crimes, it was, on the
other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an honorable
ambition.
A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice.
The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the
general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole
character. The former is a local malady, the latter a consti-
tutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost,
he, too, often flings the remains of his virtue after it in
despair. The Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived
by taking blackmail from his neighbors, committed the same
crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the
398 MACAULAY
huzzas of 200,000 people. But there can be no doubt that he
was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for
which Mrs. Brownrigg was hanged, sinks into nothing when
compared with the conduct of the Roman who treated the
public to one hundred pairs of gladiators. Yet we should
greatly wrong such a Roman if we supposed that his disposi-
tion was as cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own
country, a woman forfeits her place in society by what, in a
man, is too commonly considered as an honorable distinction,
and at worst as a venial error. The consequence is noto-
rious. The moral principle of a woman is frequently more
impaired by a single lapse from virtue than that of a man by
twenty years of intrigues. Classical antiquity would furnish
us with instances stronger, if possible, than those to which
we have referred.
We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits
of dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man of our
age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it
by no means follows that a similar judgment would be just
in the case of an Italian in the Middle Ages. On the con-
trary, we frequently find those faults which we are accus-
tomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether
depraved, in company with great and good qualities, with
generosity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness. From
such a state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue
of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as
striking as any of those with which Fourli furnished him.
These are not, we well know, the lessons which historians are
generally most careful to teach, or readers most willing to
learn. But they are not therefore useless. How Philip disposed
his troops at Chaeronea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps,
whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier shot Charles XII,
and the thousand other questions of the same description,
are in themselves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse us,
but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads history
aright, who, observing how powerfully circumstances influ-
ence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass
into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish
what is accidental and transitory in human nature, from
what is essential and immutable.
MACHIAVELLI 399
In this respect, no history suggests more important reflec-
tions than that of the Tuscan and Lombard commonwealths.
The character of the Italian statesman seems, at first sight,
a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the
portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic
and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below. We
see a man whose thoughts and words have no connection
with each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he
wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is
inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat
of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but from
deep and cool meditation. His passions, like well-trained
troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their most headstrong
fury never forget the discipline to which they have been
accustomed. His whole soul is occupied with vast and com-
plicated schemes of ambition, yet his aspect and language
exhibit nothing but philosophical moderation. Hatred and
revenge eat into his heart; yet every look is a cordial smile,
every gesture a familiar caress. He never excites the suspi-
cion of his adversaries by petty provocations. His purpose
is disclosed, only when it is accomplished. His face is
unruffled, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid asleep,
till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken ; and then
he strikes for the first and last time. Military courage, the
boast of the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating
Frenchman, of the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he
neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger, not because
he is insensible to shame, but because, in the society in which
he lives, timidity has ceased to be shameful. To do an injury
openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly,
and far less profitable. With him the most honorable means
are those which are the surest, the speediest, and the darkest.
He cannot comprehend how a man should scruple to deceive
those whom he does not scruple to destroy. He would think
it madness to declare open hostilities against rivals whom
he might stab in a friendly embrace, or poison in a conse-
crated wafer.
Yet this man, black with the vices which we consider as
most loathsome, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin, was by
no means destitute even of those virtues which we generally
400 MACAULAY
consider as indicating superior elevation of character. In
civil courage, in perseverance, in presence of mind, those
barbarous warriors, who were foremost in the battle or the
breach, were far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he
avoided with a caution almost pusillanimous never confused
his perceptions, never paralyzed his inventive faculties, never
wrung out one secret from his smooth tongue and his
inscrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, and a still
more dangerous accomplice, he could be a just and beneficent
ruler. With so much unfairness in his policy, there was an
extraordinary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indifferent
to truth in the transactions of life, he was honestly devoted
to truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty
was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political
object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane.
The susceptibility of his nerves and the activity of his
imagination inclined him to sympathize with the feelings of
others, and to delight in the charities and courtesies of
social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might
seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he
had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility, both for the natural
and the moral sublime, for every graceful and every lofty
conception. Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation might
have rendered him incapable of great general views, but that
the expanding effect of his philosophical studies counter-
acted the narrowing tendency. He had the keenest enjoy-
ment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The fine arts profited
alike by the severity of his judgment, and by the liberality
of his patronage. The portraits of some of the remarkable
Italians of those times are perfectly in harmony with this
description. Ample and majestic foreheads; brows strong
and dark, but not frowning; eyes of which the calm, full
gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems to discern every-
thing ; cheeks pale with thought and sedentary habits ; lips
formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with more
than masculine decision — mark out men at once enterprising
and timid, men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of
others, and in concealing their own, men who must have been
formidable enemies and unsafe allies, but men, at the same
time, whose tempers were mild and equable, and who pos-
MACHIAVELLI 401
sessed an amplitude and subtlety of intellect which would
have rendered them eminent either in active or in contem-
plative life, and fitted them either to govern or to instruct
mankind.
Every age and every nation has certain characteristic
vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any
person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but
faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion
of their morals, with the fashion of their hats and their
coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their
patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.
Nor is this all. Posterity, that high court of appeal which
is never tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment,
acts on such occasions like a Roman dictator after a general
mutiny. Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all
punished, it selects some of them at hazard, to bear the whole
penalty of an offence in which they are not more deeply im-
plicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a
convenient mode of military execution, we know not; but
we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a prin-
ciple into the philosophy of history.
In the present instance, the lot has fallen on Machiavelli, a
man whose public conduct was upright and honorable, whose
views of morality, where they differed from those of the
persons around him, seemed to have differed for the better,
and whose only fault was, that, having adopted some of the
maxims then generally received, he arranged them more
luminously, and expressed them more forcibly, than any
other writer.
Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal
character of Machiavelli, we come to the consideration of his
works. As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high place;*
but the comedies deserve more attention.
The " Mandragola," in particular, is superior to the best
of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best of Moliere. It is
the work of a man who, if he had devoted himself to the
drama, would probably have attained the highest eminence,
and produced a permanent and salutary effect on the national
4 In the original essay Macaulay had here some critical remarks on the
poetry of Machiavelli, but he omitted them on republication.
402 MACAULAY
taste. This we infer, not so much from the degree as from
the kind of its excellence. There are compositions which
indicate still greater talent, and which are perused with still
greater delight, from which we should have drawn very
different conclusions. Books quite worthless are quite harm-
less. The sure sign of the general decline of an art is the
frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced
beauty. In general, tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and
comedy by wit.
The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human
character. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, origi-
nating in local and temporary associations, like those canons
which regulate the number of acts in a play, or of syllables
in a line. To this fundamental law every other regulation is
subordinate. The situations which most signally develop
character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the pas-
sions is the best style.
This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet
from any grace of composition. There is no style in which
some man may not, under some circumstances, express him-
self. There is, therefore, no style which the drama rejects,
none which it does not occasionally require. It is in the
discernment of place, of time, and of person, that the inferior
artists fail. The fantastic rhapsody of Mercutio, the elabo-
rate declamation of Antony, are, where Shakespeare has
placed them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have
made Mercutio challenge Tybalt in hyperboles as fanciful
as those in which he describes the chariot of Mab. Corneille
would have represented Antony as scolding and coaxing
Cleopatra with all the measured rhetoric of a funeral
oration.
No writers have injured the comedy of England so deeply
as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit
and polished taste. Unhappily, they made all their charac-
ters in their own likeness. Their works bear the same rela-
tion to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a
painting. There are no delicate touches, no hues impercepti-
bly fading into each other: the whole is lighted up with a
universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in the
common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruits
MACHIAVELLI 403
of the intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle,
not of a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from
its very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every
boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes,
Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel
of Rambouillet. To prove the whole system of this school
erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dis-
solved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the false
Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which
have been drawn by the writers of whom we speak with the
Bastard in " King John," or the Nurse in " Romeo and
Juliet." It was not surely from want of wit that Shakespeare
adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice
throw Mirabel and Millamant5 into the shade. All the good
sayings of the facetious hours of Absolute and Surface
might have been clipped from the single character of Falstaff
without being missed. It would have been easy for that fer-
tile mind to have given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit
as Prince Hal, and to have made Dogberry and Verges
retort on each other in sparkling epigrams. But he knew
that such indiscriminate prodigality was, to use his own
admirable language, " from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it
were, the mirror up to nature."
This digression will enable our readers to understand what
we mean when we say, that, in the " Mandragola," Machia-
velli has proved that he completely understood the nature of
the dramatic art, and possessed talents which would have
enabled him to excel in it. By the correct and vigorous
delineation of human nature, it produces interest without a
pleasing or skilful plot, and laughter without the least ambi-
tion of wit. The lover, not a very delicate or generous lover,
and his adviser the parasite, are drawn with spirit. The
hypocritical confessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if
we mistake not, the original of Father Dominic,6 the best
comic character of Dryden. But old Nicias is the glory of
the piece. We cannot call to mind anything that resembles
him. The follies which Moliere ridicules are those of
8 In Congreve's "Way of the World."
6 In Dry den's " Spanish Friar."
404 MACAULAY
affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and pedants, not
absolute simpletons, are his game. Shakespeare has indeed
a vast assortment of fools; but the precise species of which
we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there.
Shallow is a fool. But his animal spirits supply, to a certain
degree, the place of cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir
John what soda-water is to champagne. It has the effer-
vescence, though not the body or the flavor. Slender and
Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy
consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter, produces
meekness and docility, and in the former, awkwardness,
obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric
a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Ther-
sites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is occupied
by no strong feeling; it takes every character, and retains
none; its aspect is diversified, not by passions, but by faint
and transitory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock
fear, a mock love, a mock pride, which chase each other like
shadows over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear.
He is just idiot enough to be an object, not of pity or horror,
but of ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Calan-
drino, whose mishaps, as recounted by Boccaccio, have made
all Europe merry for more than four centuries. He perhaps
resembles still more closely Simon de Villa, to whom Bruno
and Buffalmacco promised the love of the Countess Civilian.
Nicias is, like Simon, of a learned profession; and the dig-
nity with which he wears the doctoral fur renders his
absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan is the
very language for such a being. Its peculiar simplicity gives
even to the most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant
wit an infantine air, generally delightful, but to a foreign
reader sometimes a little ludicrous. Heroes and statesmen
seem to lisp when they use it. It becomes Nicias incom-
parably, and renders all his silliness infinitely more silly.
We may add, that the verses with which the " Mandra-
gola " is interspersed appear to us to be the most spirited and
correct of all that Machiavelli has written in metre. He
seems to have entertained the same opinion, for he has intro-
duced some of them in other places. The contemporaries of
the author were not blind to the merits of this striking piece.
MACHIAVELLI 405
It was acted at Florence with the greatest success. Leo X
was among its admirers, and by his order it was represented
at Rome.7
The " Clizia " is an imitation of the " Casina " of Plautus,
which is itself an imitation of the lost xXypoujiivot of Diphi-
lus.8 Plautus was, unquestionably, one of the best Latin
writers ; but the " Casina " is by no means one of his best
plays, nor is it one which offers great facilities to an imita-
tor. The story is as alien from modern habits of life as the
manner in which it is developed from the modern fashion of
composition. The lover remains in the country and the
heroine in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their
fate to be decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and
two knavish servants. Machiavelli has executed his task
with judgment and taste. He has accommodated the plot to
a different state of society, and has very dexterously con-
nected it with the history of his own times. The relation
of the trick put on the doting old lover is exquisitely humor-
ous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the
Latin comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which
Falstaff gives of his ducking.
Two other comedies, without titles, the one in prose, the
other in verse, appear among the works of Machiavelli. The
former is very short, lively enough, but of no great value.
The latter we can scarcely believe to be genuine. Neither
its merits nor its defects remind us of the reputed author.
It was first printed in 1796, from a manuscript discovered in
the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we
have been rightly informed, is established solely by the com-
parison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the
circumstance, that the same manuscript contained a descrip-
tion of the plague of 1527, which has also, in consequence,
been added to the works of Machiavelli. Of this last com-
position, the strongest external evidence would scarcely
induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing was ever written
7 Nothing can be more evident than that Paulus Jovius designates the
" Mandragola " under the name of the " Nicias." We should not have
noticed what is so perfectly obvious, were it not that this natural and
palpable misnomer has led the sagacious and industrious Bayle into a
gross error. — M.
8# A writer of the Greek " New Comedy," which followed that of
Aristophanes.
406 MACAULAY
more detestable in matter and manner. The narrations, the
reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst
of their respective kinds, at once trite and affected, thread-
bare tinsel from the Rag Fairs9 and Monmouth-streets9 of
literature. A foolish schoolboy might write such a piece,
and, after he had written it, think it much finer than the
incomparable introduction of " The Decameron." But that
a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are characterized
by manliness of thought and language, should, at near sixty
years of age, descend to such puerility, is utterly incon-
ceivable.
The little novel of " Belphegor " is pleasantly conceived,
and pleasantly told. But the extravagance of the satire in
some measure injures its effect. Machiavelli was unhappily
married; and his wish to avenge his own cause, and that of
his brethren in misfortune, carried him beyond even the
license of fiction. Jonson seems to have combined some
hints taken from this tale, with others from Boccaccio, in
the plot of " The Devil is an Ass/' a play which, though not
the most highly finished of his compositions, is perhaps that
which exhibits the strongest proofs of genius.
The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first pub-
lished in 1767, is unquestionably genuine, and highly valu-
able. The unhappy circumstances in which his country was
placed during the greater part of his public life gave extra-
ordinary encouragement to diplomatic talents. From the
moment that Charles VIII descended from the Alps the
whole character of Italian politics was changed. The gov-
ernments of the Peninsula ceased to form an independent
system. Drawn from their old orbit by the attraction of the
larger bodies which now approach them, they became mere
satellites of France and Spain. All their disputes, internal
and external, were decided by foreign influence. The con-
tests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly
in the Senate-house or in the market-place, but in the ante-
chambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circumstances,
the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on
the ability of their foreign agents, than on the conduct of
those who were intrusted with the domestic administration.
9 Old-clothes markets in London.
MACHIAVELLI 407
The ambassador had to discharge functions far more deli-
cate than transmitting orders of knighthood, introducing
tourists, or presenting his brethren with the homage of his
high consideration. He was an advocate to whose manage-
ment the dearest interests of his clients were intrusted, a spy
clothed with an inviolable character. Instead of consulting,
by a reserved manner and ambiguous style, the dignity of
those whom he represented, he was to plunge into all the
intrigues of the court at which he resided, to discover and
flatter every weakness of the prince, and of the favorite who
governed the prince, and of the lackey who governed the
favorite. He was to compliment the mistress, and bribe the
confessor, to panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or weep, to
accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every suspi-
cion, to treasure every hint, to be everything, to observe
everything, to endure everything. High as the art of politi-
cal intrigue had been carried in Italy, these were times which
required it all.
On these arduous errands Machiavelli was frequently
employed. He was sent to treat with the King of the
Romans and with the Duke of Valentinois. He was twice
ambassador at the Court of Rome, and thrice at that of
France. In these missions, and in several others of inferior
importance, he acquitted himself with great dexterity. His
despatches form one of the most amusing and instructive
collections extant. The narratives are clear and agreeably
written, the remarks on men and things clever and judicious.
The conversations are reported in a spirited and character-
istic manner. We find ourselves introduced into the pres-
ence of the men who, during twenty eventful years, swayed
the destinies of Europe. Their wit and their folly, their
fretfulness and their merriment, are exposed to us. We are
admitted to overhear their chat, and to watch their familiar
gestures. It is interesting and curious to recognize, in cir-
cumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble
violence and shallow cunning of Louis XII ; the bustling
insignificance of Maximilian, cursed with an impotent pruri-
ency for renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, always
in a hurry, yet always too late; the fierce and haughty
energy which gave dignity to the eccentricities of Julius ; the
408 MACAULAY
soft and graceful manners which masked the insatiable ambi-
tion and the implacable hatred of Caesar Borgia.
We have mentioned Caesar Borgia. It is impossible not to
pause for a moment on the name of a man in whom the
political morality of Italy was so strongly personified, par-
tially blended with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish
character. On two important occasions Machiavelli was
admitted to his society — once, at the moment when Caesar's
splendid villainy achieved its most signal triumph, when he
caught in one snare, and crushed at one blow, all his most
formidable rivals; and again when, exhausted by disease,
and overwhelmed by misfortunes which no human prudence
could have averted, he was the prisoner of the deadliest
enemy of his house. These interviews between the greatest
speculative and the greatest practical statesmen of the age
are fully described in the " Correspondence," and form, per-
haps, the most interesting part of it. From some passages in
" The Prince," and perhaps also from some indistinct tradi-
tions, several writers have supposed a connection between
those remarkable men much closer than ever existed. The
envoy has even been accused of prompting the crimes of the
artful and merciless tyrant. But, from the official docu-
ments, it is clear that their intercourse, though ostensibly
amicable, was in reality hostile. It cannot be doubted, how-
ever, that the imagination of Machiavelli was strongly
impressed, and his speculations on government colored, by
the observations which he made on the singular character
and equally singular fortunes of a man who, under such
disadvantages, had achieved such exploits; who, when sen-
suality, varied through innumerable forms, could no longer
stimulate his sated mind, found a more powerful and durable
excitement in the intense thirst of empire and revenge ; who
emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple the
first prince and general of the age ; who, trained in an unwar-
like profession, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of
an unwarlike people; who, after acquiring sovereignty by
destroying his enemies, acquired popularity by destroying
his tools; who had begun to employ for the most salutary
ends the power which he had attained by the most atrocious
means ; who tolerated within the sphere of his iron despotism
MACHIAVELLI 409
no plunderer or oppressor but himself; and who fell at last
amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a people of whom
his genius had been the wonder, and might have been the
salvation. Some of those crimes of Borgia which to us
appear the most odious, would not, from causes which we
have already considered, have struck an Italian of the
fifteenth century with equal horror. Patriotic feeling also
might induce Machiavelli to look with some indulgence and
regret on the memory of the only leader who could have
defended the independence of Italy against the confederate
spoilers of Cambray.
On this subject, Machiavelli felt most strongly. Indeed,
the expulsion of the foreign tyrants, and the restoration of
that golden age which had preceded the irruption of Charles
VIII, were projects which, at that time, fascinated all the
master-spirits of Italy. The magnificent vision delighted the
great but ill-regulated mind of Julius. It divided with manu-
scripts and saucers, painters and falcons, the attention of the
frivolous Leo. It prompted the generous treason of Moron e.
It imparted a transient energy to the feeble mind and body
of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment an honest
ambition in the false heart of Pescara. Ferocity and inso-
lence were not among the vices of the national character.
To the discriminating cruelties of politicians, committed for
great ends on select victims, the moral code of the Italians
was too indulgent. But, though they might have recourse to
barbarity as an expedient, they did not require it as a stimu-
lant. They turned with loathing from the atrocity of the
strangers who seemed to love blood for its own sake; who,
not content with subjugating, were impatient to destroy;
who found a fiendish pleasure in razing magnificent cities,
cutting the throats of enemies who cried for quarter, or
suffocating an unarmed population by thousands in the
caverns to which it had fled for safety. Such were the
cruelties which daily excited the terror and disgust of a
people among whom, till lately, the worst that a soldier had
to fear in a pitched battle was the loss of his horse and the
expense of his ransom. The swinish intemperance of Switz-
erland ; the wolfish avarice of Spain ; the gross licentiousness
of the French, indulged in violation of hospitality, of
410 MACAULAY
decency, of love itself; the wanton inhumanity which war
common to all the invaders — had made them objects o^
deadly hatred to the inhabitants of the Peninsula. The
wealth which had been accumulated during centuries of pros-
perity and repose was rapidly melting away. The intellectual
superiority of the oppressed people only rendered them more
keenly sensible of their political degradation. Literature
and taste, indeed, still disguised with a flush of hectic loveli-
ness and brilliancy the ravages of an incurable decay. The
iron had not yet entered into the soul. The time was not yet
come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be
hoodwinked, when the harp of the poet was to be hung on
the willows of Arno, and the right hand of the painter to
forget its cunning. Yet a discerning eye might even then
have seen that genius and learning would not long survive
the state of things from which they had sprung, and that the
great men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy
period had been formed under the influence of happier days,
and would leave no successors behind them. The times
which shine with the greatest splendor in literary history
are not always those to which the human mind is most
indebted. Of this we may be convinced, by comparing the
generation which follows them with that which had preceded
them. The first-fruits which are reaped under a bad system
often spring from seed sown under a good one. Thus it was,
in some measure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was with
the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus and Vida.
Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his coun-
try, and clearly discerned the cause and the remedy. It was
the military system of the Italian people which had extin-
guished their valor and discipline, and left their wealth an
easy prey to every foreign plunderer. The secretary pro-
jected a scheme, alike honorable to his heart and to his
intellect, for abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and for
organizing a national militia.
The exertions which he made to effect this great object
ought alone to rescue his name from obloquy. Though his
situation and his habits were pacific, he studied with intense
assiduity the theory of war. He made himself master of all
its details. The Florentine government entered into his
MACHIAVELLI 4H
views. A council of war was appointed. Levies were
decreed. The indefatigable minister flew from place to
place in order to superintend the execution of his design.
The times were, in some respects, favorable to the experi-
ment. The system of military tactics had undergone a great
revolution. The cavalry was no longer considered as form-
ing the strength of an army. The hours which a citizen
could spare from his ordinary employments, though by no
means sufficient to familiarize him with the exercise of a
man-at-arms, might render him a useful foot-soldier. The
dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, massacre, and conflagra-
tion, might have conquered that repugnance to military pur-
suits which both the industry and the idleness of great
towns commonly generate. For a time the scheme promised
well. The new troops acquitted themselves respectably in
the field. Machiavelli looked with parental rapture on the
success of his plan, and began to hope that the arms of Italy
might once more be formidable to the barbarians of the
Tagus and the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came on
before the barriers which should have withstood it were
prepared. For a time, indeed, Florence might be consid-
ered as peculiarly fortunate. Famine and sword and pesti-
lence had devastated the fertile plains and stately cities of
the Po. All the curses denounced of old against Tyre
seemed to have fallen on Venice. Her merchants already
stood afar off, lamenting for their great city. The time
seemed near when the sea-weed should overgrow her silent
Rialto, and the fisherman wash his nets in her deserted arse-
nal. Naples had been four times conquered and reconquered
by tyrants equally indifferent to its welfare, and equally
greedy for its spoils. Florence, as yet, had only to endure
degradation and extortion, to submit to the mandates of for-
eign powers, to buy over and over again, at an enormous
price, what was already justly her own, to return thanks
for being wronged, and to ask pardon for being in the
right. She was at length deprived of the blessings, even
of this infamous and servile repose. Her military and
political institutions were swept away together. The Medici
returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long
exile. The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned; and his
412 MACAULAY
public services were requited with poverty, imprisonment,
and torture.
The fallen statesman still clung to his project with un-
abated ardor. With the view of vindicating it from some
popular objections, and of refuting some prevailing errors on
the subject of military science, he wrote his " Seven Books
on the Art of War." This excellent work is in the form of
a dialogue. The opinions of the writer are put into the
mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the
ecclesiastical State, and an officer of distinguished merit in
the service of the King of Spain. Colonna visits Florence on
his way from Lombardy to his own domains. He is invited
to meet some friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellai, an
amiable and accomplished young man, whose early death
Machiavelli feelingly deplores. After partaking of an ele-
gant entertainment, they retire from the heat into the most
shady recesses of the garden. Fabrizio is struck by the sight
of some uncommon plants. Cosimo says, that, though rare
in modern days, they are frequently mentioned by the classi-
cal authors, and that his grandfather, like many other
Italians, amused himself with practising the ancient methods
of gardening. Fabrizio expresses his regret that those who,
in later times, affected the manners of the old Romans,
should select for imitation the most trifling pursuits. This
leads to a conversation on the decline of military discipline,
and on the best means of restoring it. The institution of the
Florentine militia is ably defended, and several improve-
ments are suggested in the details.
The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded
as the best soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion consisted
of pikemen, and bore a close resemblance to the Greek
phalanx. The Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were
armed with the sword and the shield. The victories of Flam-
inius and ^Emilius over the Macedonian kings seem to prove
the superiority of the weapons used by the legions. The
same experiment had been recently tried with the same
result at the battle of Ravenna, one of those tremendous days
into which human folly and wickedness compress the whole
devastation of a famine or a plague. In that memorable
conflict, the infantry of Aragon, the old companions of Gon-
MACHIAVELLI 413
salvo, deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage through
the thickest of the imperial pikes, and effected an unbroken
retreat, in the face of the gendarmerie of De Foix, and the
renowned artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machiavelli,
proposes to combine the two systems, to arm the foremost
lines with the pike for the purpose of repulsing cavalry, and
those in the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better
adapted for every other purpose. Throughout the work, the
author expresses the highest admiration of the military
science of the ancient Romans, and the greatest contempt for
the maxims which had been in vogue amongst the Italian
commanders of the preceding generation. He prefers infan-
try to cavalry, and fortified camps to fortified towns. He is
inclined to substitute rapid movements and decisive engage-
ments for the languid and dilatory operations of his country-
men. He attaches very little importance to the invention of
gunpowder. Indeed, he seems to think that it ought scarcely
to produce any change in the mode of arming or of dispos-
ing troops. The general testimony of historians, it must be
allowed, seems to prove that the ill-constructed and ill-served
artillery of those times, though useful in a siege, was of little
value on the field of battle.
On the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give
an opinion, but we are certain that his book is most able and
interesting. As a commentary on the history of his times,
it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and the perspicuity
of the style, and the eloquence and animation of particular
passages, must give pleasure, even to readers who take no
interest in the subject.
" The Prince " and the " Discourses on Livy " were written
after the fall of the republican government. The former
was dedicated to the young Lorenzo de' Medici. This cir-
cumstance seems to have disgusted the contemporaries of
the writer far more than the doctrines which have rendered
the name of the work odious in latter times. It was consid-
ered as an indication of political apostasy. The fact, how-
ever, seems to have been, that Machiavelli, despairing of
the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support any govern-
ment which might preserve her independence. The inter-
val which separated a democracy and a despotism Soderini
414 MACAULAY
and Lorenzo, seemed to vanish when compared with the
difference between the former and the present state of Italy,
between the security, the opulence, and the repose which she
had enjoyed under its native rulers, and the misery in which
she had been plunged since the fatal year in which the first
foreign tyrant had descended from the Alps. The noble and
pathetic exhortation with which " The Prince " concludes
shows how strongly the writer felt upon this subject.
" The Prince " traces the progress of an ambitious man, the
" Discourses " the progress of an ambitious people. The
same principles on which, in the former work, the elevation
of an individual is explained, are applied, in the latter, to the
longer duration and more complex interest of a society. To
a modern statesman the form of the " Discourses " may ap-
pear to be puerile. In truth, Livy is not a historian on whom
implicit reliance can be placed, even in cases where he must
have possessed considerable means of information. And the
first Decade, to which Machiavelli has confined himself, is
scarcely entitled to more credit than our Chronicle of British
Kings who reigned before the Roman invasion. But the
commentator is indebted to Livy for little more than a few
texts which he might as easily have extracted from the Vul-
gate or " The Decameron." The whole train of thought is
original.
On the peculiar immorality which has rendered " The
Prince " unpopular, and which is almost equally discernible
in the " Discourses " we have already given our opinion at
length. We have attempted to show that it belonged rather
to the age than to the man, that it was a partial taint, and
by no means implied general depravity. We cannot, how-
ever, deny that it is a great blemish, and that it considerably
diminishes the pleasure which, in other respects, those works
must afford to every intelligent mind.
It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more healthful and
vigorous constitution of the understanding than that which
these works indicate. The qualities of the active and the
contemplative statesman appear to have been blended in the
mind of the writer into a rare and exquisite harmony. His
skill in the details of business had not been acquired at the
expense o£ his general powers. It had not rendered his mind
MACHIAVELLI 415
less comprehensive ; but it had served to correct his specula-
tions, and to impart to them that vivid and practical char-
acter which so widely distinguishes them from the vague
theories of most political philosophers.
Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is
so useless as a general maxim. If it be very moral and very
true, it may serve for a copy to a charity boy. If, like those
of Rochefoucauld, it be sparkling and whimsical, it may make
an excellent motto for an essay. But few indeed of the
many wise apophthegms which have been uttered, from the
time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of " Poor Rich-
ard," have prevented a single foolish action. We give the
highest and the most peculiar praise to the precepts of
Machiavelli when we say that they may frequently be of
real use in regulating conduct, not so much because they are
more just or more profound than those which might be
culled from other authors, as because they can be more
readily applied to the problems of real life.
There are errors in these works. But they are errors
which a writer, situated like Machiavelli, could scarcely
avoid. They arise, for the most part, from a single defect
which appears to us to pervade his whole system. In his
political scheme, the means had been more deeply considered
than the ends. The great principle, that societies and laws
exist only for the purpose of increasing the sum of private
happiness, is not recognized with sufficient clearness. The
good of the body, distinct from the good of the members,
and sometimes hardly compatible with the good of the mem-
bers, seems to be the object which he proposes to himself. Of
all political fallacies, this has perhaps had the widest and the
most mischievous operation. The state of society in the little
commonwealths of Greece, the close connection and mutual
dependence of the citizens, and the severity of the laws of
war, tended to encourage an opinion which, under such cir-
cumstances, could hardly be called erroneous. The interests
of every individual were inseparably bound up with those of
the State. An invasion destroyed his corn-fields and vine-
yards, drove him from his home, and compelled him to en-
counter all the hardships of a military life. A treaty of
peace restored him to security and comfort. A victory
416 MACAULAY
doubled the number of his slaves. A defeat perhaps made
him a slave himself. When Pericles, in the Peloponnesian
war, told the Athenians, that, if their country triumphed,
their private losses would speedily be repaired, but that, if
their arms failed of success, every individual amongst them
would probably be ruined, he spoke no more than the truth.
He spoke to men whom the tribute of vanquished cities sup-
plied with food and clothing, with the luxury of the bath
and the amusements of the theatre, on whom the greatness
of their country conferred rank, and before whom the mem-
bers of less prosperous communities trembled; to men who,
in case of a change in the public fortunes, would, at least,
be deprived of every comfort and every distinction which
they enjoyed. To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their
city, to be dragged in chains to a slave-market, to see one
child torn from them to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and
another to guard the harems of Persepolis, these were the
'frequent and probable consequences of national calamities.
Hence, among the Greeks, patriotism became a governing
principle, or rather an ungovernable passion. Their legis-
lators and their philosophers took it for granted, that, in
providing for the strength and greatness of the State, they
sufficiently provided for the happiness of the people. The
writers of the Roman Empire lived under despots, into
whose dominion a hundred nations were melted down, and
whose gardens would have covered the little commonwealths
of Phlius and Plataea. Yet they continued to employ the
same language, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing
everything to a country to which they owed nothing.
Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposi-
tion of the Greeks operated powerfully on the less vigorous
and daring character of the Italians. The Italians, like the
Greeks, were members of small communities. Every man
was deeply interested in the welfare of the society to which
he belonged, a partaker in its wealth and its poverty, in its
glory and its shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was
peculiarly the case. Public events had produced an immense
sum of misery to private citizens. The Northern invaders
had brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire
to their roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural
MACHIAVELLI 417
that a man who lived in times like these should overrate the
importance of those measures by which a nation is rendered
•formidable to its neighbors, and undervalue those which
make it prosperous within itself.
Nothing is more remarkable in the political treatises of
Machiavelli than the fairness of mind which they indicate.
It appears where the author is in the wrong, almost as
strongly as where he is in the right. He never advances a
false opinion because it is new or splendid, because he can
clothe it in a happy phrase, or defend it by an ingenious
sophism. His errors are at once explained by a reference
to the circumstances in which he was placed. They evi-
dently were not sought out: they lay in his way, and could
scarcely be avoided. Such mistakes must necessarily be
committed by early speculators in every science.
The political works of Machiavelli derive a peculiar inter-
est from the mournful earnestness which he manifests when-
ever he touches on topics connected with the calamities of
his native land. It is difficult to conceive any situation more
painful that that of a great man, condemned to watch the
lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during
the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede
its dissolution,and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear
one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and
corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machia-
velli called. In the energetic language of the prophet, he
was " mad for the sight of his eyes which he saw " — dis-
union in the Council, effeminacy in the camp, liberty extin-
guished, commerce decaying, national honor sullied, an
enlightened and flourishing people given over to the ferocity
of ignorant savages. Though his opinions had not escaped
the contagion of that political immorality which was com-
mon among his countrymen, his natural disposition seems to
have been rather stern and impetuous than pliant and artful.
When the misery and degradation of Florence, and the foul
outrage which he had himself sustained, recur to his mind,
the smooth craft of his profession and his nation is ex-
changed for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He
speaks like one sick of the calamitous times and abject peo-
ple among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the strength
HC Vol. 27—14
418 MACAULAY
and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus and the
sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the
bloody pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be
transported back to the days when 800,000 Italian warriors
sprung to arms at the rumor of a Gallic invasion. He
breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty Senators
who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public
duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the
gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to
the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient temple
deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his
character acquires an interest from the very circumstances
which debase it. The original proportions are rendered more
striking by the contrast which they present to the mean
and incongruous additions.
The influence of the sentiments which we have described
was not apparent in his writings alone. His enthusiasm,
barred from the career which it would have selected for it-
self, seems to have found a vent in desperate levity. He
enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging the opinions of a
society which he despised. He became careless of the de-
cencies which were expected from a man so highly distin-
guished in the literary and political world. The sarcastic
bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more
inclined to accuse his licentiousness than their own degen-
eracy, and who were unable to conceive the strength of those
emotions which are concealed by the jests of the wretched,
and by the follies of the wise.
The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be con-
sidered. The life of Castruccio Castracani will occupy us
for a very short time, and would scarcely have demanded
our notice had it not attracted a much greater share of pub-
lic attention than it deserves. Few books, indeed, could be
more interesting than a careful and judicious account, from
such a pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most emi-
nent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisistratus and Gelon,
acquired a power felt rather than seen, and resting, not on
law or on prescription, but on the public favor and on their
great personal qualities. Such a work would exhibit to us
the real nature of that species of sovereignty, so singular
MACHIAVELLI 419
and so often misunderstood, which the Greeks denominated
tyranny, and which, modified in some degree by the feudal
system, reappeared in the commonwealths of Lombardy and
Tuscany. But this little composition of Machiavelli is in no
sense a history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is a
trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more
authentic than the novel of " Belphegor," and is very much
duller.
The last great work of this illustrious man was the history
of his native city. It was written by command of the Pope,
who, as chief of the house of Medici, was at that time sov-
ereign of Florence. The characters of Cosimo, of Piero,
and of Lorenzo, are, however, treated with a freedom and
impartiality equally honorable to the writer and to the
patron. The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the
bread which is more bitter than every other food, the stairs
which are more painful than every other ascent, had not
broken the spirit of Machiavelli. The most corrupting post
in a corrupting profession had not depraved the generous
heart of Clement.
The history does not appear to be the fruit of much in-
dustry or research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it
is elegant, lively, and picturesque, beyond any other in the
Italian language. The reader, we believe, carries away from
it a more vivid and a more faithful impression of the
national character and manners than from more correct ac-
counts. The truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient
than to modern literature. It is in the style, not of Davila
and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus. The classical
histories may almost be called romances founded in fact.
The relation is, no doubt, in all its principal points, strictly
true. But the numerous little incidents which heighten the
interest, the words, the gestures, the looks, are evidently
furnished by the imagination of the author. The fashion of
later times is different. A more exact narrative is given by
the writer.
It may be doubted whether more exact notions are con-
veyed to the reader. The best portraits are perhaps those
in which there is a slight mixture of caricature, and we are
not certain that the best histories are not those in which
420 MACAULAY
a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is ju-
diciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy, but much
is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected, but the
great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind
forever.
The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de*
Medici. Machiavelli had, it seems, intended to continue his
narrative to a later period. But his death prevented
the execution of his design, and the melancholy task of re-
cording the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on
Guicciardini.
Machiavelli lived long enough to see the commencement
of the last struggle for Florentine liberty. Soon after his
death monarchy was finally established, not such a monarchy
as that of which Cosimo had laid the foundations deep in the
institutions and feelings of his countrymen, and which Lor-
enzo had embellished with the trophies of every science and
every art, but a loathsome tyranny, proud and mean, cruel
and feeble, bigoted and lascivious. The character of Machia-
velli was hateful to the new masters of Italy, and those parts
of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own
daily practice afforded a pretext for blackening his mem-
ory. His works were misrepresented by the learned, mis-
construed by the ignorant, censured by the Church, abused
with all the rancor of simulated virtue by the tools of a
base government and the priests of a baser superstition.
The name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the
dark places of policy, and to whose patriotic wisdom an op-
pressed people had owed their last chance of emancipation
and revenge, passed into a proverb of infamy. For more
than two hundred years his bones lay undistinguished. At
length an English nobleman paid the last honors to the
greatest statesman of Florence. In the Church of Santa
Croce a monument was erected to his memory, which is con-
templated with reverence by all who can distinguish the
virtues of a great mind through the corruptions of a de-
generate age, and which will be approached with still deeper
homage when the object to which his public life was devoted
shall be attained, when the foreign yoke shall be broken,
when a second Procida shall avenge the wrongs of Naples,
MACHIAVELLI 421
when a happier Rienzi shall restore the good estate of Rome,
when the streets of Florence and Bologna shall again re-
sound with their ancient war-cry, " Pvpolo; popolo; muoiano
itiranni!"10
10 "The people! the people! Death to the tyrants 1" — Machiavelli's "His-
tory of Florence," Book ILL
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