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LITEEAEY    STUDIES 


VOL.  II. 


PRINTED   BY 

SPOTTISWOODE  AND   CO.,   KBW-OTHEBT  SQUARE 
LONDON 


LITERARY    STUDIES 


BY    THE    LATE 

WALTBE    BAGEHOT 

M.A.   AND   FELLOW   OP   UNIVERSITY   COLLEGE,   LONDON 


WITH  A   PREFATORY  MEMOIR 
EDITED    BY 

BICHAKD    HOLT    BUTTON 

IN    TWO    VOLUMES 
VOL.  II. 

FOURTH    EDITION 


LONDON 
LONGMANS,    GKEEN,    AND    CO. 

AND  NEW  YORK  :  15  EAST  16th  STREET 
1891 

All    rights     reserved 


>5— -vP; 


<O-r-^! 


18  1956 


jC-X  *** 

'  X  rf 


CONTENTS 

OP 

THE     SECOND     VOLUME. 


ESSAY  PAGE 

I.  EDWARD  GIBBON  (1856)         .......  I 

II.    BISHOP  BUTLER  (1854) 54 

III.  STERNE  AND  THACKERAY  (1864) 106 

IV.  THE  WAVERLET  NOVELS  (1858) 146   ^ 

V.    CHARLES  DICKENS  (1858) 184   - 

VI.  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  (1856) 221 

VII.  BERANGER  (1857) 261 

VIII.  MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS  (1862)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  299 

IX.  HENRY  CRABB  ROBINSON  (1869)   .        .        .        .        .        .323 

X,    WORDSWORTH,    T^ja-vso-i^    ^yp    BROWNING  ;     OR,    PURE, 

ORNATE,  AND  GROTESQUE  ART  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY  (1864)    338 


APPENDIX. 

I.    THE  IGNORANCE  OF  MAN  (1862) 391 

II.    ON  THE  EMOTION  OF  CONVICTION  (1871)  .....  412 

III.  THE  METAPHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  TOLERATION  (1874)         .        .  422 

IV.  THE  PUBLIC  WORSHIP  REGULATION  BILL  (1874)    .        .    .  438 


LITEEAKY    STUDIES. 


EDWARD   GIBBON,1 

(1856.) 

A  WIT  said  of  (ribbon's  autobiography,,  that  he  did  not  know 
the  difference  between  himself  and  the  Eoman  Empire.  He 
has  narrated  his  'progressions  from  London  to  Buriton,  and 
from  Buriton  to  London,'  in  the  same  monotonous  majestic 
periods  that  record  the  fall  of  states  and  empires.  The  con- 
sequence is,  that  a  fascinating  book  gives  but  a  vague  idea  of 
its  subject.  It  may  not  be  without  its  use  to  attempt  a  de- 
scription of  him  in  plainer  though  less  splendid  English. 

The  diligence  of  their  descendant  accumulated  many  par- 
ticulars of  the  remote  annals  of  the  Gibbon  family ;  but  its  real 
founder  was  the  grandfather  of  the  historian,  who  lived  in  the 
times  of  the  *  South  Sea.'  He  was  a  capital  man  of  business 
according  to  the  custom  of  that  age — a  dealer  in  many  kinds 
of  merchandise — like  perhaps  the  'complete  tradesman'  of 
Defoe,  who  was  to  understand  the  price  and  quality  of  all 
articles  made  within  the  kingdom.  The  preference,  however, 
of  Edward  Gibbon  the  grandfather  was  for  the  article  'shares ;' 
his  genius,  like  that  of  Mr*  Hudson,  had  a  natural  tendency 
towards  a  commerce  in  the  metaphysical  and  non-existent ;  and 
he  was  fortunate  in  the  age  on  which  his  lot  was  thrown.  It 

1  TJic  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  tJie  Roman  Empire.  By  Edward 
Gibbon,  Esq.  With  Notes  by  Dean  Milman  and  M.  Guizot.  Edited,  with 
additional  Notes,  by  William  Smith,  LL.D.  In  Eight  Volumes.  London, 
1855.  Murray. 

VOL.    II.  B 


Edward  Gibbon. 


afforded  many  opportunities  of  gratifying  that  taste.  Much 
has  been  written  on  panics  and  manias — much  more  than  with 
the  most  outstretched  intellect  we  are  able  to  follow  or  con- 
ceive ;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that  at  particular  times  a  great 
many  stupid  people  have  a  great  deal  of  stupid  money.  Saving 
people  have  often  only  the  faculty  of  saving ;  they  accumulate 
ably,  and  contemplate  their  accumulations  with  approbation ; 
but  what  to  do  with  them  they  do  not  know.  Aristotle,  who 
was  not  in  trade,  imagined  that  money  is  barren ;  and  barren 
it  is  to  quiet  ladies,  rural  clergymen,  and  country  misers. 
Several  economists  have  plans  for  preventing  improvident  spe- 
culation;  one  would  abolish  Peel's  act,  and  substitute  one- 
pound  notes ;  another  would  retain  Peel's  act,  and  make  the 
calling  for  one-pound  notes  a  capital  crime :  but  our  scheme 
is,  not  to  allow  any  man  to  have  a  hundred  pounds  who  cannot 
prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  that  he  knows 
what  to  do  with  a  hundred  pounds.  The  want  of  this  easy 
precaution  allows  the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
rectors,  authors,  grandmothers,  who  have  no  knowledge  of 
business,  and  no  idea  except  that  their  money  now  produces 
nothing,  and  ought  and  must  be  forced  immediately  to  produce 
something.  6 1  wish,'  said  one  of  this  class,  '  for  the  largest 
immediate  income,  and  I  am  therefore  naturally  disposed  to 
purchase  an  advowson?  At  intervals,  from  causes  which  are 
not  to  the  present  purpose,  the  money  of  these  people — the 
blind  capital  (as  we  call  it)  of  the  country — is  particularly 
large  and  craving ;  it  seeks  for  some  one  to  devour  it,  and  there 
is  'plethora' — it  finds  some  one,  and  there  is  'speculation' — it 
is  devoured,  and  there  is  « panic.'  The  age  of  Mr.  Gibbon  was 
one  of  these.  The  interest  of  money  was  very  low,  perhaps 
under  three  per  cent.  The  usual  consequence  followed ;  able 
men  started  wonderful  undertakings ;  the  ablest  of  all,  a 
company  '  for  carrying  on  an  undertaking  of  great  importance, 
but  no  one  to  know  what  it  was.'  Mr.  Gribbon  was  not  idle. 
According  to  the  narrative  of  his  grandson,  he  already  filled  a 


Edward  Gibbon. 


considerable  position,  was  worth  sixty  thousand  pounds,  ard 
had  great  influence  both  in  Parliament  and  in  the  City.  He 
applied  himself  to  the  greatest  bubble  of  all — one  so  great,  that 
it  is  spoken  of  in  many  books  as  the  cause  and  parent  of  all 
contemporary  bubbles — the  South-Sea  Company — the  design  of 
which  was  to  reduce  the  interest  on  the  national  debt,  which, 
oddly  enough,  it  did  reduce,  and  to  trade  exclusively  to  the 
South  Sea  or  Spanish  America,  where  of  course  it  hardly  did 
trade.  Mr.  Gibbon  became  a  director,  sold  and  bought,  traded 
and  prospered  ;  and  was  considered,  perhaps  with  truth,  to  have 
obtained  much  money.  The  bubble  was  essentially  a  fashion- 
able one.  Public  intelligence  and  the  quickness  of  communi- 
cation did  not  then  as  now  at  once  spread  pecuniary  information 
and  misinformation  to  secluded  districts ;  but  fine  ladies,  men 
of  fashion — the  London  world — ever  anxious  to  make  as  much 
of  its  money  as  it  can,  and  then  wholly  unwise  (it  is  not  now 
very  wise)  in  discovering  how  the  most  was  to  be  made  of  it — • 
'  went  in'  and  speculated  largely.  As  usual,  all  was  favourable 
so  long  as  the  shares  were  rising ;  the  price  was  at  one  time 
very  high,  and  the  agitation  very  general ;  it  was,  in  a  word, 
the  railway  mania  in  the  South  Sea.  After  a  time,  the  shares 
*  hesitated,'  declined,  and  fell;  and  there  was  an  outcry  against 
everybody  concerned  in  the  matter,  very  like  the  outcry  against 
the  01  TTspl  Hudson  in  our  own  time.  The  results,  however,  were 
very  different.  Whatever  may  be  said,  and,  judging  from  the 
late  experience,  a  good  deal  is  likely  to  be  said,  as  to  the  advan- 
tages of  civilisation  and  education,  it  seems  certain  that  they 
tend  to  diminish  a  simple-minded  energy.  The  Parliament  of 
1720  did  not,  like  the  Parliament  of  1847,  allow  itself  to  be 
bored  and  incommoded  by  legal  minutiae,  nor  did  it  forego  the 
use  of  plain  words.  A  committee  reported  the  discovery  of  '  a 
train  of  the  deepest  villainy  and  fraud  hell  ever  contrived  to 
ruin  a  nation ;'  the  directors  of  the  company  were  arrested,  and 
Mr.  (ribbon  among  the  rest ;  he  was  compelled  to  give  in  a  list 
of  his  effects :  the  general  wish  was  that  a  retrospective  act 

B    2 


Edward  Gibbon. 


should  be  immediately  passed,  which  would  impose  on  him 
penalties  something  like,  or  even  more  severe  than  those  now 
enforced  on  Paul  and  Strahan.  In  the  end,  however,  Mr. 
(ribbon  escaped  with  a  parliamentary  conversation  upon  his 
affairs.  His  estate  amounted  to  140,000£. ;  and  as  this  was  a 
great  sum,  there  was  an  obvious  suspicion  that  he  was  a  great 
criminal.  The  scene  must  have  been  very  curious.  '  Allow- 
ances of  twenty  pounds  or  one  shilling  were  facetiously  voted. 
A  vague  report  that  a  director  had  formerly  been  concerned  in 
another  project  by  which  some  unknown  persons  had  lost  their 
money,  was  admitted  as  a  proof  of  his  actual  guilt.  One  man 
was  ruined  because  he  had  dropped  a  foolish  speech  that  his 
horses  should  feed  upon  gold;  another  because  he  was  grown 
so  proud,  that  one  day,  at  the  Treasury,  he  had  refused  a  civil 
answer  to  persons  far  above  him.'  The  vanity  of  his  descendant 
is  evidently  a  little  tried  by  the  peculiar  severity  with  which 
his  grandfather  was  treated.  Out  of  his  140,000£.  it  was  only 
proposed  that  he  should  retain  15,000£. ;  and  on  an  amendment 
even  this  was  reduced  to  10,000£.  Yet  there  is  some  ground 
for  believing  that  the  acute  energy  and  practised  pecuniary 
power  which  had  been  successful  in  obtaining  so  large  a  fortune, 
were  likewise  applied  with  science  to  the  inferior  task  of  re- 
taining some  of  it.  The  historian  indeed  says,  '  On  these  ruins,' 
the  10,000£.  aforesaid,  'with  skill  and  credit  of  which  parlia- 
ment had  not  been  able  to  deprive  him,  my  grandfather  erected 
the  edifice  of  a  new  fortune:  the  labours  of  sixteen  years  were 
amply  rewarded ;  and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  second 
structure  was  not  much  inferior  to  the  first.'  But  this  only 
shows  how  far  a  family  feeling  may  bias  a  sceptical  judgment. 
The  credit  of  a  man  in  Mr.  Gibbon's  position  could  not  be  very 
lucrative;  and  his  skill  must  have  been  enormous  to  have 
obtained  so  much  at  the  end  of  his  life,  in  such  circumstances, 
in  so  few  years.  Had  he  been  an  early  Christian,  the  narrative 
of  his  descendant  would  have  contained  an  insidious  hint,  '  that 
pecuniary  property  may  be  so  secreted  as  to  defy  the  awkward 


Edward  Gibbon. 


approaches  of  political  investigation.'  That  he  died  rich  is  certain, 
for  two  generations  lived  solely  on  the  property  he  bequeathed. 

The  son  of  this  great  speculator,  the  historian's  father,  was 
a  man  to  spend  a  fortune  quietly.  He  is  not  related  to  have 
indulged  in  any  particular  expense,  and  nothing  is  more  difficult 
to  follow  than  the  pecuniary  fortunes  of  deceased  families ;  but 
one  thing  is  certain,  that  the  property  which  descended  to  the 
historian — making  every  allowance  for  all  minor  and  subsidiary 
modes  of  diminution,  such  as  daughters,  settlements,  legacies, 
and  so  forth — was  enormously  less  than  140,000/. ;  and  there- 
fore if  those  figures  are  correct,  the  second  generation  must 
have  made  itself  very  happy  out  of  the  savings  of  the  past 
generation,  and  without  caring  for  the  poverty  of  the  next. 
Nothing  that  is  related  of  the  historian's  father  indicates  a 
strong  judgment  or  an  acute  discrimination;  and  there  are 
some  scarcely  dubious  signs  of  a  rather  weak  character. 

Edward  Gibbon,  the  great,  was  born  on  the  27th  of  April 
1737.  Of  his  mother  we  hear  scarcely  anything ;  and  what  we 
do  hear  is  not  remarkably  favourable.  It  seems  that  she  was  a 
faint,  inoffensive  woman,  of  ordinary  capacity,  who  left  a  very 
slight  trace  of  her  influence  on  the  character  of  her  son,  did 
little  and  died  early.  The  real  mother,  as  he  is  careful  to 
explain,  of  his  understanding  and  education  was  her  sister,  and 
his  aunt,  Mrs.  Catherine  Porten,  according  to  the  speech  of 
that  age,  a  maiden  lady  of  much  vigour  and  capacity,  and  for 
whom  her  pupil  really  seems  to  have  felt  as  much  affection  as 
was  consistent  with  a  rather  easy  and  cool  nature.  There  is  a 
panegyric  on  her  in  the  Memoirs ;  and  in  a  long  letter  upon  the 
occasion  of  her  death,  he  deposes  :  '  To  her  care  I  am  indebted 
in  earliest  infancy  for  the  preservation  of  my  life  and  health. 
...  To  her  instructions  I  owe  the  first  rudiments  of  know- 
ledge, the  first  exercise  of  reason,  and  a  taste  for  books,  which 
is  still  the  pleasure  and  glory  of  my  life ;  and  though  she  taught 
me  neither  language  nor  science,  she  was  certainly  the  most 
useful  preceptress  I  ever  had.  As  I  grew  up,  an  intercourse  of 


Edward  Gibbon. 


thirty  years  endeared  her  to  me  as  the  faithful  friend  and  the 
agreeable  companion.  You  have  observed  with  what  freedom 
and  confidence  we  lived,'  &c.  &c.  To  a  less  sentimental  mind, 
which  takes  a  more  tranquil  view  of  aunts  and  relatives,  it  is 
satisfactory  to  find  that  somehow  he  could  not  write  to  her.  '  I 
wish,'  he  continues,  '  I  had  as  much  to  applaud  and  as  little  to 
reproach  in  my  conduct  to  Mrs.  Porten  since  I  left  England ; 
and  when  I  reflect  that  my  letter  would  have  soothed  and  com- 
forted her  decline,  I  feel' — what  an  ardent  nephew  would  natu- 
rally feel  at  so  unprecedented  an  event.  Leaving  his  maturer 
years  out  of  the  question — a  possible  rhapsody  of  affectionate 
eloquence — she  seems  to  have  been  of  the  greatest  use  to  him 
in  infancy.  His  health  was  very  imperfect.  We  hear  much  of 
rheumatism,  and  lameness,  and  weakness ;  and  he  was  unable 
to  join  in  work  and  play  with  ordinary  boys.  He  was  moved 
from  one  school  to  another,  never  staying  anywhere  very  long, 
and  owing  what  knowledge  he  obtained  rather  to  a  strong  re- 
tentive understanding  than  to  any  external  stimulants  or  in- 
struction. At  one  place  he  gained  an  acquaintance  with  the 
Latin  elements  at  the  price  of  6  many  tears  and  some  blood.' 
At  last  he  was  consigned  to  the  instruction  of  an  elegant  clergy- 
man, the  Eev.  Philip  Francis,  who  had  obtained  notoriety  by  a 
metrical  translation  of  Horace,  the  laxity  of  which  is  even  yet 
complained  of  by  construing  school-boys,  and  who,  with  a  some- 
what Horatian  taste,  went  to  London  as  often  as  he  could,  and 
translated  invisa  negotia  a.s  '  boys  to  beat.' 

In  school-work,  therefore,  Gibbon  had  uncommon  difficul- 
ties and  unusual  deficiencies  ;  but  these  were  much  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  a  habit  which  often  accompanies  a  sickly 
childhood,  and  is  the  commencement  of  a  studious  life,  the 
habit  of  desultory  reading.,  The  instructiveness  of  this  is  some- 
times not  comprehended.  S.  T.  Coleridge  used  to  say  that  he 
felt  a  great  superiority  over  those  who  had  not  read— and 
fondly  read— fairly  tales  in  their  childhood;  he  thought  they 
panted  a  sense  which  he  possessed,  the  perception,  or  appercep- 


Edward  Gibbon. 


tion — we  do  not  know  which  he  used  to  say  it  was — of  the  unity 
and  wholeness  of  the  universe.  As  to  fairy  tales,  this  is  a  hard 
saying ;  but  as  to  desultory  reading  it  is  certainly  true.  Some 
people  have  known  a  time  in  life  when  there  was  no  book  they 
could  not  read.  The  fact  of  its  being  a  book  went  immensely 
in  its  faTour.  In  early  life  there  is  an  opinion  that  the  obvious 
thing  to  do  with  a  horse  is  to  ride  it ;  with  a  cake,  to  eat  it ;  with 
sixpence,  to  spend  it.  A  few  boys  carry  this  further,  and  think 
the  natural  thing  to  do  with  a  book  is  to  read  it.  There  is  an 
argument  from  design  in  the  subject :  if  the  book  was  not 
meant  for  that  purpose,  for  what  purpose  was  it  meant  ?  Of 
course,  of  any  understanding  of  the  works  so  perused  there  is 
no  question  or  idea.  There  is  a  legend  of  Bentham,  in  his 
earliest  childhood,  climbing  to  the  height  of  a  huge  stool  and 
sitting  there  evening  after  evening  with  two  candles  engaged 
in  the  perusal  of  Rapin's  history.  It  might  as  well  have  been 
any  other  book.  The  doctrine  of  utility  had  not  then  dawned 
on  its  immortal  teacher ;  cui  bono  was  an  idea  unknown  to  him. 
He  would  have  been  ready  to  read  about  Egypt,  about  Spain, 
about  coals  in  Borneo,  the  teak-wood  in  India,  the  current  in 
the  river  Mississipi,  on  natural  history  or  human  history,  on 
theology  or  morals,  on  the  state  of  the  dark  ages  or  the  state 
of  the  light  ages, — on  Augustulus  or  Lord  Chatham,  —  on  the 
first  century  or  the  seventeenth, — on  the  moon,  the  millennium, 
or  the  whole  duty  of  man.  Just  then,  reading  is  an  end  in 
itself.  At  that  time  of  life  you  no  more  think  of  a  future  con- 
sequence, of  the  remote,  the  very  remote  possibility  of  deriving 
knowledge  from  the  perusal  of  a  book,  than  you  expect  so  great 
a  result  from  spinning  a  peg-top.  You  spin  the  top,  and  you 
read  the  book  ;  and  these  scenes  of  life  are  exhausted.  In  such 
studies,  of  all  prose  perhaps  the  best  is  history.  One  page  is  so 
like  another  ;  battle  No.  1  is  so  much  on  a  par  with  battle 
No.  2.  Truth  may  be,  as  they  say,  stranger  than  fiction, 
abstractedly ;  but  in  actual  books,  novels  are  certainly  odder 
and  more  astounding  than  correct  history.  It  will  be  said. 


8  Edward  Gibbon. 


what  is  the  use  of  this  ?  Why  not  leave  the  reading  of  great 
books  till  a  great  age  ?  Why  plague  and  perplex  childhood 
with  complex  facts  remote  from  its  experience  and  inapprehen- 
sible by  its  imagination  ?  The  reply  is,  that  though  in  all 
great  and  combined  facts  there  is  much  which  childhood  can- 
not thoroughly  imagine,  there  is  also  in  very  many  a  great  deal 
which  can  only  be  truly  apprehended  for  the  first  time  at  that 
age.  Catch  an  American  of  thirty  ;— — tell  him  about  the  battle 
of  Marathon ;  what  will  he  be  able  to  comprehend  of  all  that 
you  mean  by  it :  of  all  that  halo,  which  early  impression  and 
years  of  remembrance  have  cast  around  it  ?  He  may  add  up 
the  killed  and  wounded,  estimate  the  missing,  and  take  the 
dimensions  of  Greece  and  Athens  ;  but  he  will  not  seem  to 
care  much.  He  may  say,  '  Wei),  sir,  perhaps  it  was  a  smart 
thing  in  that  small  territory ;  but  it  is  a  long  time  ago,  and 
in  my  country  James  K.  Burnup ' — did  that  which  he  will  at 
length  explain  to  you.  Or  try  an  experiment  on  yourself. 
Eead  the  account  of  a  Circassian  victory,  equal  in  numbers,  in 
daring,  in  romance,  to  the  old  battle.  Will  you  be  able  to 
feel  about  it  at  all  in  the  same  way  ?  It  is  impossible.  You 
cannot  form  a  new  set  of  associations ;  your  mind  is  involved 
in  pressing  facts,  your  memory  choked  by  a  thousand  details  ; 
the  liveliness  of  fancy  is  gone  with  the  childhood  by  which  it 
was  enlivened.  Schamyl  will  never  seem  as  great  as  Leonidas, 
or  Miltiades ;  Cnokemof,  or  whoever  the  Russian  is,  cannot  be 
so  imposing  as  Xerxes;  the  unpronounceable  place  cannot  strike 
on  your  heart  like  Marathon  or  Platsea.  Moreover,  there  is  the 
further  advantage  which  Coleridge  shadowed  forth  in  the  re- 
mark we  cited.  Youth  has  a  principle  of  consolidation.  We 
begin  with  the  whole.  Small  sciences  are  the  labours  of  our 
manhood;  but  the  round  universe  is  the  plaything  of  the  boy. 
His  fresh  mind  shoots  out  vaguely  and  crudely  into  the  infinite 
and  eternal.  Nothing  is  hid  from  the  depth  of  it  5  there  are 
no  boundaries  to  its  vague  and  wandering  vision.  Early  science, 
jt  has  been  said,  begins  in  utter  nonsense ;  it  would  be  truer  to 


Edward  Gibbon. 


say  that  it  starts  with  boyish  fancies.  How  absurd  seem  the 
notions  of  the  first  Greeks  \  Who  could  believe  now  that  air 
or  water  was  the  principle,  the  pervading  substance,  the  eternal 
material  of  all  things  ?  Such  affairs  will  never  explain  a  thick 
rock.  And  what  a  white  original  for  a  green  and  sky-blue 
world !  Yet  people  disputed  in  those  ages  not  whether  it  was 
either  of  those  substances,  but  which  of  them  it  was.  And 
doubtless  there  was  a  great  deal,  at  least  in  quantity,  to  be 
said  on  both  sides.  Boys  are  improved ;  but  some  in  our  own 
day  have  asked,  '  Mamma,  I  say,  what  did  God  make  the  world 
of?'  and  several,  who  did  not  venture  on  speech,  have  had  an 
idea  of  some  one  gray  primitive  thing,  felt  a  difficulty  as  to 
how  the  red  came,  and  wondered  that  marble  could  ever  have 
been  the  same  as  moonshine.  This  is  in  truth  the  picture  of 
life.  We  begin  with  the  infinite  and  eternal,  which  we  shall  never 
apprehend ;  and  these  form  a  framework,  a  schedule,  a  set  of 
co-ordinates  to  which  we  refer  all  which  we  learn  later*  At  first, 
like  the  old  Greek,  *  we  look  up  to  the  whole  sky,  and  are  lost 
in  the  one  and  the  all;'  in  the  end  we  classify  and  enumerate, 
learn  each  star,  calculate  distances,  draw  cramped  diagrams  on 
the  unbounded  sky,  write  a  paper  on  a  Cygni  and  a  treatise  on 
s  Draconis,  map  special  facts  upon  the  indefinite  void,  and 
engrave  precise  details  on  the  infinite  and  everlasting.  So 
in  history ;  somehow  the  whole  comes  in  boyhood ;  the 
details  later  and  in  manhood.  The  wonderful  series  going 
far  back  to  the  times  of  old  patriarchs  with  their  flocks  and 
herds,  the  keen-eyed  Greek,  the  stately  Eoman,  the  watch- 
ing Jew,  the  uncouth  Goth,  the  horrid  Hun,  the  settled  picture 
of  the  unchanging  East,  the  restless  shifting  of  the  rapid  West, 
the  rise  of  the  cold  and  classical  civilisation,  its  fall,  the  rough 
impetuous  middle  ages,  the  vague  warm  picture  of  ourselves 
and  home, — when  did  we  learn  these  ?  Not  yesterday  nor  to- 
day ;  but  long  ago,  in  the  first  dawn  of  reason,  in  the  original 
flow  of  fancy.  What  we  learn  afterwards  are  but  the  accurate 
littlenesses  of  the  great  topic,  the  dates  and  tedious  facts.  Those 


io  Edward  Gibbon. 


who  begin  late  learn  only  these ;  but  the  happy  first  feel  the 
mystic  associations  and  the  progress  of  the  whole. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  of  all  this  than  Gibbon.  Few 
have  begun  early  with  a  more  desultory  reading,  and  fewer  still 
have  described  it  so  skilfully.  '  From  the  ancient  I  leaped  to 
the  modern  world;  many  crude  lumps  of  Speed,  Rapin,  Mezeray, 
Davila,  Machiavel,  Father  Paul,  Bower,  &c.,  I  devoured  like  so 
many  novels ;  and  I  swallowed  with  the  same  voracious  appetite 
the  descriptions  of  India  and  China,  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  My 
first  introduction  to  the  historic  scenes  which  have  since  en- 
gaged so  many  years  of  my  life  must  be  ascribed  to  an  accident. 
In  the  summer  of  1751  I  accompanied  my  father  on  a  visit  to 
Mr.  Hoare's,  in  Wiltshire ;  but  I  was  less  delighted  with  the 
beauties  of  Stourhead  than  with  discovering  in  the  library  a 
common  book,  the  Continuation  of  Echard's  Roman  History, 
which  is  indeed  executed  with  more  skill  and  taste  than  the 
previous  work.  To  me  the  reigns  of  the  successors  of  Constan- 
tine  were  absolutely  new;  and  I  was  immersed  in  the  passage 
of  the  Groths  over  the  Danube  when  the  summons  of  the  dinner- 
bell  reluctantly  dragged  me  from  my  intellectual  feast.  This 
transient  glance  served  rather  to  irritate  than  to  appease  my 
curiosity;  and  as  soon  as  I  returned  to  Bath  I  procured  the 
second  and  third  volumes  of  Howel's  History  of  the  World, 
which  exhibit  the  Byzantine  period  on  a  larger  scale.  Mahomet 
and  his  Saracens  soon  fixed  my  attention ;  and  some  instinct  of 
criticism  directed  me  to  the  genuine  sources.  Simon  Ockley, 
an  original  in  every  sense,  first  opened  my  eyes ;  and  I  was  led 
from  one  book  to  another  till  I  had  ranged  round  the  circle  of 
Oriental  history.  Before  I  was  sixteen  I  had  exhausted  all  that 
could  be  learned  in  English  of  the  Arabs  and  Persians,  the 
Tartars  and  Turks  ;  and  the  same  ardour  urged  me  to  guess  at 
the  French  of  d'Herbelot,  and  to  construe  the  barbarous  Latin 
of  Pocock's  Abulfaragius*  To  this  day  the  schoolboy  student 
of  the  Decline  and  Fall  feels  the  traces  of  that  schoolboy  read- 
ing. Once,  he  is  conscious,  the  author  like  him  felt,  and  solely 


Edward  Gibbon.  1 1 


felt,  the  magnificent  progress  of  the  great  story  and  the  scenic 
aspect  of  marvellous  events. 

A  more  sudden  effect  was  at  hand.  However  exalted  may 
seem  the  praises  which  we  have  given  to  loose  and  unplanned 
reading,  we  are  not  saying  that  it  is  the  sole  ingredient  of  a 
good  education.  Besides  this  sort  of  education,  which  some 
boys  will  voluntarily  and  naturally  give  themselves,  there  needs, 
of  course,  another  and  more  rigorous  kind,  which  must  be  im- 
pressed upon  them  from  without.  The  terrible  difficulty  of 
early  life — the  use  of  pastors  and  masters — really  is,  that  they 
compel  boys  to  a  distinct  mastery  of  that  which  they  do  not 
wish  to  learn.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said  for  a  preceptor  who 
is  not  dry.  Mr.  Carlyle  describes  with  bitter  satire  the  fate  of 
one  of  his  heroes  who  was  obliged  to  acquire  whole  systems  of 
information  in  which  he,  the  hero,  saw  no  use,  and  which  he 
kept  as  far  as  might  be  in  a  vacant  corner  of  his  mind.  And 
this  is  the  very  point — dry  language,  tedious  mathematics,  a 
thumbed  grammar,  a  detested  slate,  form  gradually  an  interior 
separate  intellect,  exact  in  its  information,  rigid  in  its  require- 
ments, disciplined  in  its  exercises.  The  two  grow  together,  the 
early  natural  fancy  touching  the  far  extremities  of  the  universe, 
lightly  pi \ying  with  the  scheme  of  all  things;  the  precise, 
compacted  memory  slowly  accumulating  special  facts,  exact 
habits,  clear  and  painful  conceptions.  At  last,  as  it  were  in  a 
moment,  the  cloud  breaks  up,  the  division  sweeps  away;  we 
find  that  in  fact  these  exercises  which  puzzled  us,  these  lan- 
guages which  we  hated,  these  details  which  we  despised,  are 
the  instruments  of  true  thought,  are  the  very  keys  and  open- 
ings, the  exclusive  access  to  the  knowledge  which  we  loved. 

In  this  second  education  the  childhood  of  Gibbon  had  been 
very  defective.  He  had  never  been  placed  under  any  rigid 
training.  In  his  first  boyhood  he  disputed  with  his  aunt,  '  that 
were  I  master  of  Greek  and  Latin,  I  must  interpret  to  myself 
in  English  the  thoughts  of  the  original,  and  that  such  extem- 
porary versions  must  be  inferior  to  the  elaborate  translation  of 


12  Edward  Gibbon. 


professed  scholars :  a  silly  sophism,'  as  he  remarks,  '  which 
could  not  easily  be  confuted  by  a  person  ignorant  of  any  other 
language  than  her  own/  Ill-health,  a  not  very  wise  father,  an 
ill  chosen  succession  of  schools  and  pedagogues,  prevented  his 
acquiring  exact  knowledge  in  the  regular  subjects  of  study. 
His  own  description  is  the  best — '  erudition  that  might  have 
puzzled  a  doctor,  and  ignorance  of  which  a  schoolboy  should 
have  been  ashamed/  The  amiable  Mr.  Francis,  who  was  to 
have  repaired  the  deficiency,  went  to  London,  and  forgot  him. 
With  an  impulse  of  discontent  his  father  took  a  resolution,  and 
sent  him  to  Oxford  at  sixteen. 

It  is  probable  that  a  worse  place  could  not  have  been  found. 
The  University  of  Oxford  was  at  the  nadir  of  her  history  and 
efficiency.  The  public  professorial  training  of  the  middle  ages 
had  died  away,  and  the  intramural  collegiate  system  of  the 
present  time  had  not  begun.  The  University  had  ceased  to  be 
a  teaching  body,  and  had  not  yet  become  an  examining  body. 
'The  professors,'  says  Adam  Smith,  who  had  studied  there, 
*  have  given  up  almost  the  pretence  of  lecturing.'  *  The  exami- 
nation,' said  a  great  judge  some  years  later,  6  was  a  farce  in  my 
time.  I  was  asked  who  founded  University  College ;  and  I  said, 
though  the  fact  is  now  doubted,  that  King  Alfred  founded  it ; 
and  that  was  the  examination/  The  colleges,  deprived  of  the 
superintendence  and.  watchfulness  of  their  natural  sovereign, 
fell,  as  Gibbon  remarks,  into  '  port  and  prejudice/  The  Fellows 
were  a  close  corporation ;  they  were  chosen  from  every  conceiv- 
able motive — because  they  were  respectable  men,  because  they 
were  good  fellows,  because  they  were  brothers  of  other  Fellows, 
because  their  fathers  had  patronage  in  the  Church.  Men  so 
appointed  could  not  be  expected  to  be  very  diligent  in  the  in- 
struction of  youth ;  many  colleges  did  not  even  profess  it ;  that 
of  All  Souls  has  continued  down  to  our  own  time  to  deny  that 
it  has  anything  to  do  with  it.  Undoubtedly  a  person  who  came 
thither  accurately  and  rigidly  drilled  in  technical  scholarship 
found  many  means  and  a  few  motives  to  pursue  it.  Some 


Edward  Gibbon.  13 


tutorial  system  probably  existed  at  most  colleges.  Learning 
was  not  wholly  useless  in  the  Church.  The  English  gentleman 
has  ever  loved  a  nice  and  classical  scholarship.  But  these 
advantages  were  open  only  to  persons  who  had  received  a  very 
strict  training,  and  who  were  voluntarily  disposed  to  discipline 
themselves  still  more.  To  the  mass  of  mankind  the  University 
was  a  'graduating  machine;'  the  colleges,  monopolist  resi- 
dence?,— hotels  without  bells. 

Taking  the  place  as  it  stood,  the  lot  of  Gibbon  may  be 
thought  rather  fortunate.  He  was  placed  at  Magdalen,  whose 
fascinating  walks,  so  beautiful  in  the  later  autumn,  still  recall 
the  name  of  Addison,  the  example  of  the  merits,  as  Gibbon  is 
of  the  deficiencies,  of  Oxford.  His  first  tutor  was,  in  his  own 
opinion,  '  one  of  the  best  of  the  tribe.'  '  Dr.  Waldegrave  was 
a  learned  and  pious  man,  of  a  mild  disposition,  strict  morals, 
and  abstemious  life,  who  seldom  mingled  in  the  politics  or  the 
jollity  of  the  college.  But  his  knowledge  of  the  world  was 
confined  to  the  University  ;  his  learning  was  of  the  last,  rather 
than  of  the  present  age ;  his  temper  was  indolent ;  his  faculties, 
which  were  not  of  the  first  rate,  had  been  relaxed  by  the 
climate ;  and  he  was  satisfied,  like  his  fellows,  with  the  slight 
and  superficial  discharge  of  an  important  trust.  As  soon  as 
my  tutor  had  sounded  the  insufficiency  of  his  disciple  in  school- 
learning,  he  proposed  that  we  should  read  every  morning,  from 
ten  to  eleven,  the  comedies  of  Terence.  The  sum  of  my  im- 
provement in  the  University  of  Oxford  is  confined  to  three  or 
four  Latin  plays;  and  even  the  study  of  an  elegant  classic, 
which  might  have  been  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of  ancient 
and  modern  theatres,  was  reduced  to  a  dry  and  literal  interpre- 
tation of  the  author's  text.  During  the  first  weeks  I  constantly 
attended  these  lessons  in  my  tutor's  room  ;  but  as  they  appeared 
equally  devoid  of  profit  and  pleasure,  I  was  once  tempted  to  try 
the  experiment  of  a  formal  apology.  The  apology  was  accepted 
with  a  smile.  I  repeated  the  offence  with  less  ceremony ;  the 
excuse  was  admitted  with  the  same  indulgence :  the  slightest 


14  Edward  Gibbon. 

motive  of  laziness  or  indisposition,  the  most  trifling  avocation 
at  home  or  abroad,  was  allowed  as  a  worthy  impediment ;  nor 
did  my  tutor  appear  conscious  of  my  absence  or  neglect.  Had 
the  hour  of  lecture  been  constantly  filled,  a  single  hour  was  a 
small  portion  of  my  academic  leisure.  No  plan  of  study  was 
recommended  for  my  use ;  no  exercises  were  prescribed  for  his 
inspection  ;  and,  at  the  most  precious  season  of  youth,  whole 
days  and  weeks  were  suffered  to  elapse  without  labour  or  amuse- 
ment, without  advice  or  account.'  The  name  of  his  second 
tutor  is  concealed  in  asterisks,  and  the  sensitive  conscience  of 
Dean  Milman  will  not  allow  him  to  insert  a  name  '  which 
Gibbon  thought  proper  to  suppress.'  The  account,  however,  of 
the  anonymous  person  is  sufficiently  graphic.  '  Dr.  *  *  *  *  well 
remembered  that  he  had  a  salary  to  receive,  and  only  forgot 
that  he  had  a  duty  to  perform.  Instead  of  guiding  the  studies 
and  watching  over  the  behaviour  of  his  disciple,  I  was  never 
summoned  to  attend  even  the  ceremony  of  a  lecture ;  and  ex- 
cepting one  voluntary  visit  to  his  rooms,  during  the  eight 
months  of  his  titular  office  the  tutor  and  pupil  lived  in  the 
same  college  as  strangers  to  each  other.'  It  added  to  the  evils 
of  this  neglect,  that  Gibbon  was  much  younger  than  most  of 
the  students ;  and  that  his  temper,  which  was  through  life  re- 
served, was  then  very  shy.  His  appearance,  too,  was  odd ;  '  a 
thin  little  figure,  with  a  large  head,  disputing  and  arguing  with 
the  greatest  ability.'  Of  course  he  was  a  joke  among  under- 
graduates ;  he  consulted  his  tutor  as  to  studying  Arabic,  and 
was  seen  buying  La  Bibliotkeque  Orientate  d'Herbelot,  and  im- 
mediately a  legend  was  diffused  that  he  had  turned  Mahomedan. 
The  random  cast  was  not  so  far  from  the  mark :  cut  off  by 
peculiarities  from  the  society  of  young  people ;  deprived  of 
regular  tuition  and  systematic  employment;  tumbling  about 
among  crude  masses  of  heterogeneous  knowledge ;  alone  with 
the  heated  brain  of  youth,— he  did  what  an  experienced  man 
would  expect— he  framed  a  theory  of  all  things.  No  doubt  it 
seemed  to  him  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  Was  he 


Edward  Gibbon.  15 


to  be  the  butfc  of  ungenial  wine-parties,  or  spend  his  lonely 
hours  on  shreds  of  languages  ?  Was  he  not  to  know  the  truth  ? 
There  were  the  old  problems,  the  everlasting  difficulties,  the 
mcsnia  mundi^  the  Hercules'  pillars  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion— '  fate,  free-will,  fore-knowledge  absolute.'  Surely  these 
should  come  first ;  when  we  had  learned  the  great  landmarks, 
understood  the  guiding-stars,  we  might  amuse  ourselves  with 
small  points,  and  make  a  plaything  of  curious  information. 
What  particular  theory  the  mind  frames  when  in  this  state  is  a 
good  deal  matter  of  special  accident.  The  data  for  considering 
these  difficulties  are  not  within  its  reach.  Whether  man  be  or 
be  not  born  to  solve  the  '  mystery  of  the  knowable,'  he  certainly 
is  not  born  to  solve  it  at  seventeen,  with  the  first  hot  rush  of 
the  untrained  mind.  The  selection  of  Gibbon  was  remarkable : 
he  became  a  Roman  Catholic. 

It  seems  now  so  natural  that  an  Oxford  man  should  take 
this  step,  that  one  can  hardly  understand  the  astonishment  it 
created.  Lord  Sheffield  tells  us  that  the  Privy  Council  inter- 
fered; and  with  good  administrative  judgment  examined  a 
London  bookseller — some  Mr.  Lewis — who  had  no  concern  in 
it.  In  the  manor-house  of  Euriton  it  would  have  probably 
created  less  sensation  if  '  dear  Edward'  had  announced  his  in- 
tention of  becoming  a  monkey.  The  English  have  ever  be- 
lieved that  the  Papist  is  a  kind  of  creature ;  and  every  sound 
mind  would  prefer  a  beloved  child  to  produce  a  tail,  a  hide  of 
hair,  and  a  taste  for  nuts,  in  comparison  with  transubstantia- 
tion,  wax-candles,  and  a  belief  in  the  glories  of  Mary. 

What  exact  motives  impelled  Gibbon  to  this  step  cannot 
now  be  certainly  known ;  the  autobiography  casts  a  mist  over 
them ;  but  from  what  appears,  his  conversion  partly  much  re- 
sembled, and  partly  altogether  differed  from,  the  Oxford  con- 
versions of  our  own  time.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  notes  of  a 
church,  or  the  sin  of  the  Reformation ;  and  Gibbon  had  not  an 
opportunity  of  even  rejecting  Mr.  SewelPs  theory  that  it  is  'a 
holy  obligation  to  acquiesce  in  the  opinions  of  your  grand- 


r  6  Edward  Gibbon. 


mother.'  His  memoirs  have  a  halo  of  great  names — Bossuet, 
the  History  of  Protestant  Variations,  &c.  &c.—  and  he  speaks 
with  becoming  dignity  of  falling  by  a  noble  hand.  He  mentioned 
also  to  Lord  Sheffield,  as  having  had  a  preponderating  influence 
over  him,  the  works  of  Father  Parsons,  who  lived  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time.  But  in  all  probability  these  were  secondary 
persuasions,  justifications  after  the  event.  No  young  man,  or 
scarcely  any  young  man  of  seventeen,  was  ever  converted  by  a 
systematic  treatise,  especially  if  written  in  another  age,  wearing 
an  obsolete  look,  speaking  a  language  which  scarcely  seems  that 
of  this  world.  There  is  an  unconscious  reasoning :  '  The  world 
has  had  this  book  before  it  so  long,  and  has  withstood  it.  There 
must  be  something  wrong ;  it  seems  all  right  on  the  surface, 
but  a  flaw  there  must  be.'  The  mass  of  the  volumes,  too,  is 
unfavourable.  '  All  the  treatises  in  the  world,'  says  the  young 
convert  in  Loss  and  Gain,  '  are  not  equal  to  giving  one  a  view 
in  a  moment.'  What  the  youthful  mind  requires  is  this  short 
decisive  argument,  this  view  in  a  moment,  this  flash  as  it  were 
of  the  understanding,  which  settles  all,  and  diffuses  a  conclusive 
light  at  once  and  for  ever  over  the  whole.  It  is  so  much  the 
pleasanter  if  the  young  mind  can  strike  this  view  out  for  itself, 
from  materials  which  are  forced  upon  it  from  the  controversies 
of  the  day ;  if  it  can  find  a  certain  solution  of  pending  questions, 
and  show  itself  wiser  even  than  the  wisest  of  its  own,  the  very 
last  age.  So  far  as  appears,  this  was  the  fortune  of  Gibbon. 
'  It  was  not  long,'  he  says,  6  since  Dr.  Middleton's  Free  Inquiry 
had  sounded  an  alarm  in  the  theological  world  ;  much  ink  and 
much  gall  had  been  spent  in  defence  of  the  primitive  miracles ; 
and  the  two  dullest  of  their  champions  were  crowned  with 
academic  honours  by  the  University  of  Oxford.  The  name  of 
Middleton  was  unpopular ;  and  his  proscription  very  naturally 
led  me  to  peruse  his  writings  and  those  of  his  antagonists.'  It 
is  not  difficult  to  discover  in  this  work  easy  and  striking  argu- 
ments which  might  lead  an  untaught  mind  to  the  communion 
of  Rome.  As  to  the  peculiar  belief  of  its  author,  there  has 


Edward  Gibbon.  17 


been  much  controversy,  with 'which  we  have  not  here  the  least 
concern ;  but  the  natural  conclusion  to  which  it  would  lead  a 
simple  intellect  is,  that  all  miracles  are  equally  certain  or 
equally  uncertain.  6  It  being  agreed,  then,'  says  the  acute  con- 
troversialist, '  that  in  the  original  promise  of  these  miraculous 
gifts  there  is  no  intimation  of  any  particular  period  to  which 
their  continuance  was  limited,  the  next  question  is,  by  what 
sort  of  evidence  the  precise  time  of  their  duration  is  to  be  deter- 
mined ?  But  to  this  point  one  of  the  writers  just  referred  to 
excuses  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  from  giving  any  answer ;  and 
thinks  it  sufficient  to  declare  in  general  that  the  earliest  fathers 
unanimously  affirm  them  to  have  continued  down  to  their 
times.  Yet  he  has  not  told  us,  as  he  ought  to  have  done,  to 
what  age  he  limits  the  character  of  the  earliest  fathers ;  whether 
to  the  second  or  to  the  third  century,  or,  with  the  generality  of 
our  writers,  means  also  to  include  the  fourth.  But  to  whatever 
age  he  may  restrain  it,  the  difficulty  at  last  will  be  to  assign  a 
reason  why  we  must  needs  stop  there.  In  the  meanwhile,  by 
his  appealing  thus  to  the  earliest  fathers  only  as  unanimous  on 
this  article,  a  common  reader  would  be  apt  to  infer  that  the 
later  fathers  are  more  cold  or  diffident,  or  divided  upon  it  ; 
whereas  the  reverse  of  this  is  true,  and  the  more  we  descend 
from  those  earliest  fathers  the  more  strong  and  explicit  we  find 
their  successors  in  attesting  the  perpetual  succession  and  daily 
exertion  of  the  same  miraculous  powers  in  their  several  ages ; 
so  that  if  the  cause  must  be  determined  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  fathers,  we  shall  find  as  much  reason  to  believe  that 
those  powers  were  continued  even  to  the  latest  ages  as  to  any 
other,  how  early  and  primitive  soever,  after  the  days  of  the 
apostles.  But  the  same  writer  gives  us  two  reasons  why  he 
does  not  choose  to  say  anything  upon  the  subject  of  their  dura- 
tion ;  1st,  because  there  is  not  light  enough  in  history  to  settle 
it ;  2ndly,  because  the  thing  itself  is  of  no  concern  to  us.  As 
to  his  first  reason,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  further  light 
a  professed  advocate  of  the  primitive  ages  and  fathers  can  pos- 
VOL.  n.  c 


1 8  Edward  Gibbon. 


sibly  require  in  this  case.  For  as  far  as  the  Church  historians 
can  illustrate  or  throw  light  upon  anything,  there  is  not  a  single 
point  in  all  history  so  constantly,  explicitly,  and  unanimously 
affirmed  by  them  all,  as  the  continual  succession  of  these  powers 
through  all  ages,  from  the  earliest,  father  who  first  mentions 
them  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  Which  same  suc- 
cession is  still  further  deduced  by  persons  of  the  most  eminent 
character  for  their  probity,  learning,  and  dignity  in  the  Romish 
Church,  to  this  very  day.  So  that  the  only  doubt  which  can 
remain  with  us  is,  whether  the  Church  historians  are  to  be 
trusted  or  not ;  for  if  any  credit  be  due  to  them  in  the  present 
case,  it  must  reach  either  to  all  or  to  none ;  because  the  reason 
of  believing  them  in  any  one  age  will  be  found  to  be  of  equal 
force  in  all,  as  far  as  it  depends  on  the  characters  of  the  persons 
attesting,  or  the  nature  of  the  things  attested.'  In  terms  this 
and  the  whole  of  Middleton's  argument  is  so  shaped  as  to  avoid 
including  in  its  scope  the  miracles  of  Scripture,  which  are  men- 
tioned throughout  with  eulogiums  and  acquiescence,  and  so  as 
to  make  you  doubt  whether  the  author  believed  them  or  not. 
This  is  exactly  one  of  the  pretences  which  the  young  strong 
mind  delights  to  tear  down.  It  would  argue,  '  This  writer  evi- 
dently means  that  the  apostolic  miracles  have  just  as  much 
evidence  and  no  more  than  the  popish  or  the  patristic;  and 
how  strong' — for  Middleton  is  a  master  of  telling  statement  — 
'he  shows  that  evidence  to  be !  I  won't  give  up  the  apostolic 
miracles,  I  cannot ;  yet  I  must  believe  what  has  as  much  of 
historical  testimony  in  its  favour.  It  is  no  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdum  that  we  must  go  over  to  the  Church  of  Rome;  it  is 
the  most  diffused  of  Christian  creeds,  the  oldest  of  Christian 
churches.'  And  so  the  logic  of  the  sceptic  becomes,  as  often 
since,  the  most  efficient  instrument  of  the  all-believing  and  all- 
determining  Church. 

The  consternation  of  Gibbon's  relatives  serins  to  have  been 
enormous.  They  cast  about  what  to  do.  From  the  experience 
of  Oxford,  they  perhaps  thought  that  it  would  be  useless  to 


Edward  Gibbon.  19 


have  recourse  to  the  Anglican  clergy ;  this  resource  had  failed. 
So  they  took  him  to  Mr.  Mallet,  a  Deist,  to  see  if  he  could  do 
anything ;  but  he  did  nothing.  Their  next  step  was  nearly  as 
extraordinary.  They  placed  him  at  Lausanne,  in  the  house  of 
M.  Pavilliard,  a  French  Protestant  minister.  After  the  easy 
income,  complete  independence,  and  unlimited  credit  of  an 
English  undergraduate,  he  was  thrown  into  a  foreign  country, 
deprived,  as  he  says,  by  ignorance  of  the  language,  both  of 
'  speech  and  hearing,' — in  the  position  of  a  schoolboy,  with  a 
small  allowance  of  pocket-money,  and  without  the  Epicurean 
comforts  on  which  he  already  set  some  value.  He  laments  the 
4  indispensable  comfort  of  a  servant,'  and  the  *  sordid  and  un- 
cleanly table  of  Madame  Pavilliard.'  In  our  own  day  the 
watchful  sagacity  of  Cardinal  Wiseman  would  hardly  allow  a 
promising  convert  of  expectations  and  talents  to  remain  unso- 
luced  in  so  pitiful  a  situation ;  we  should  hear  soothing  offers 
of  flight  or  succour,  some  insinuation  of  a  popish  domestic  and 
interesting  repasts.  But  a  hundred  years  ago  the  attention  of 
the  Holy  See  was  very  little  directed  to  our  English  youth,  and 
Gibbon  was  left  to  endure  his  position. 

It  is  curious  that  he  made  himself  comfortable.     Though 

O 

destitute  of  external  comforts  which  he  did  not  despise,  he 
found  what  was  the  greatest  luxury  to  his  disposition,  steady 
study  and  regular  tuition.  His  tutor  was,  of  course,  to  convert 
him  if  he  could ;  but  as  they  had  no  language  in  common, 
there  was  the  preliminary  occupation  of  teaching  French. 
During  five  years  both  tutor  and  pupil  steadily  exerted  them- 
selves to  repair  the  defects  of  a  neglected  and  ill-grounded 
education.  We  hear  of  the  perusal  of  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace, 
and  Tacitus.  Cicero  was  translated  into  French,  and  trans- 
lated back  again  into  Latin.  In  both  languages  the  pupil's 
progress  was  sound  and  good.  From  letters  of  his  which  still 
exist,  it  is  clear  that  he  then  acquired  the  exact  and  steady 
knowledge  of  Latin  of  which  he  afterwards  made  so  much  use. 
His  circumstances  compelled  him  to  master  French.  If  his 

c  2 


2O  Edward  Gibbon. 


own  letters  are  to  be  trusted,  he  would  be  an  example  of  his 
own  doctrine,  that  no  one  is  thoroughly  master  of  more  than 
one  language  at  a  time ;  they  read  like  the  letters  of  a  French- 
man trying  and  failing  to  write  English.  But  perhaps  there 
was  a  desire  to  magnify  his  continental  progress,  and  towards 
the  end  of  the  time  some  wish  to  make  his  friends  fear  he  was 
forgetting  his  own  language. 

Meantime  the  work  of  conversion  was  not  forgotten.  In 
some  letters  which  are  extant,  M.  Pavilliard  celebrates  the 
triumph  of  his  logic.  c  J'ai  renversej  says  the  pastor,  '  Vin- 
faillibilite  de  VEglise ;  fai  prouve  que  jamais  Saint  Pierre 
n'a  ete  chef  des  apotres ;  que  quand  il  Vaurait  ete,  le  pape 
n'est  point  son  successeur ;  quCil  est  douteux  que  Saint  Piei^re 
ait  jamais  6te  a  Rome ;  mais  suppose  qu'il  y  ait  ete,  il  rta 
pas  ete  eveque  de  cette  mile ;  que  la  transubstantiation  est  une 
invention  humaine,  et  peu  ancienne  dans  VEgliseJ  &c.,  and 
so  on  through  the  usual  list  of  Protestant  arguments.  He 
magnifies  a  little  Gibbon's  strength  of  conviction,  as  it  makes 
the  success  of  his  own  logic  seem  more  splendid ;  but  states 
two  curious  things :  first,  that  Gibbon  at  least  pretended  to 
believe  in  the  Pretender,  and  what  is  more  amazing  still — all 
but  incredible — that  he  fasted.  Such  was  the  youth  of  the 
Epicurean  historian  ! 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  skill  of  the  Swiss  pastor 
was  not  the  really  operating  cause  of  the  event.  Perhaps  ex- 
perience shows  that  the  converts  which  Eome  has  made,  with 
the  threat  of  unbelief  and  the  weapons  of  the  sceptic,  have 
rarely  been  permanent  or  advantageous  to  her.  It  is  at  best 
but  a  dangerous  logic  to  drive  men  to  the  edge  and  precipice  of 
scepticism,  in  the  hope  that  they  will  recoil  in  horror  to  the 
very  interior  of  credulity.  Possibly  men  may  show  their  courage 
-  they  may  vanquish  the  argumentum  ad  terrorem — they  may 
not  find  scepticism  so  terrible.  This  last  was  (ribbon's  case. 
A  more  insidious  adversary  than  the  Swiss  theology  was  at  hand 
to  sap  his  Roman  Catholic  belief.  Pavilliard  had  a  fair  French 


Edward  Gibbon.  21 


library — not  ill  stored  in  the  recent  publications  of  that  age  — 
of  which  he  allowed  his  pupil  the  continual  use.  It  was  as  im- 
possible to  open  any  of  them  and  not  come  in  contact  with 
infidelity,  as  to  come  to  England  and  not  to  see  a  green  field. 
Scepticism  is  not  so  much  a  part  of  the  French  literature  of 
that  day  as  its  animating  spirit — its  essence,  its  vitality.  You 
can  no  more  cut  it  out  and  separate  it,  than  you  can  extract 
from  Wordsworth  his  conception  of  nature,  or  from  Swift  his 
common  sense.  And  it  is  of  the  subtlest  kind.  It  has  little 
in  common  with  the  rough  disputation  of  the  English  deist, 
or  the  perplexing  learning  of  the  German  theologian,  but 
works  with  a  tool  more  insinuating  than  either.  It  is,  in  truth, 
but  the  spirit  of  the  world,  which  does  not  argue,  but  assumes ; 
which  does  not  so  much  elaborate  as  hints;  which  does  not 
examine,  but  suggests.  With  the  traditions  of  the  Church  it 
contrasts  traditions  of  its  own ;  its  technicalities  are  bon  sens, 
Uusage  du  mondei  lefanatisme,  Venthousiasme;  to  high  hopes, 
noble  sacrifices,  awful  lives,  it  opposes  quiet  ease,  skilful  com- 
fort, placid  sense,  polished  indifference.  Old  as  transubstantia- 
tion  may  be,  it  is  not  older  than  Horace  and  Lucian.  Lord 
Byron,  in  the  well-known  lines,  has  coupled  the  names  of  the 
two  literary  exiles  on  the  Leman  Lake.  The  page  of  Voltaire 
could  not  but  remind  Gibbon  that  the  scepticism  from  which 
he  had  revolted  was  compatible  with  literary  eminence  and 
European  fame — gave  a  piquancy  to  ordinary  writing — was  the 
very  expression  of  caustic  caution  and  gentlemanly  calm. 

The  grave  and  erudite  habits  of  Gibbon  soon  developed 
themselves.  Independently  of  these  abstruse  theological  dispu- 
tations, he  spent  many  hours  daily — rising  early  and  reading 
carefully  —on  classical  and  secular  learning.  He  was  not,  how- 
ever, wholly  thus  engrossed.  There  was  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Lausanne  a  certain  Mademoiselle  Curchod,  to  whom  he 
devoted  some  of  his  time.  She  seems  to  have  been  a  morbidly 
rational  lady ;  at  least  she  had  a  grave  taste.  Gibbon  could  not 
have  been  a  very  enlivening  lover ;  he  was  decidedly  plain,  and 


22  Edward  Gibbon. 


his  predominating  taste  was  for  solid  learning.  But  this  was 
not  all ;  she  formed  an  attachment  to  M.  Necker,  afterwards  the 
most  slow  of  premiers,  whose  financial  treatises  can  hardly  have 
been  agreeable  even  to  a  Genevese  beauty.  This  was,  however, 
at  a  later  time.  So  far  as  appears,  Gibbon  was  her  first  love. 
How  extreme  her  feelings  were  one  does  not  know.  Those  of 
Gibbon  can  scarcely  be  supposed  to  have  done  him  any  harm. 
However,  there  was  an  intimacy,  a  flirtation,  an  engagement— 
when,  as  usual,  it  appeared  that  neither  had  any  money.  That 
the  young  lady  should  procure  any  seems  to  have  been  out  of 
the  question ;  and  Gibbon,  supposing  that  he  might,  wrote  to 
his  father.  The  reply  was  unfavourable.  Gibbon's  mother  was 
dead ;  Mr.  Gibbon  senior  was  married  again ;  and  even  in  other 
circumstances  would  have  been  scarcely  ready  to  encourage  a 
romantic  engagement  to  a  lady  with  nothing.  She  spoke  no 
English,  too,  and  marriage  with  a  person  speaking  only  French 
is  still  regarded  as  a  most  unnatural  event;  forbidden,  not 
indeed  by  the  literal  law  of  the  Church,  but  by  those  higher 
instinctive  principles  of  our  nature,  to  which  the  bluntest  own 
obedience.  No  father  could  be  expected  to  violate  at  once 
pecuniary  duties  and  patriotic  principles.  Mr.  Gibbon  senior 
forbade  the  match.  The  young  lady  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  quite  ready  to  relinquish  all  hope ;  but  she  had  shown  a 
grave  taste,  and  fixed  her  affections  on  a  sound  and  cold  mind. 
*  I  sighed,'  narrates  the  historian,  '  as  a  lover ;  but  I  obeyed  as 
a  son.'  « I  have  seen,'  says  M.  Suard,  « the  letter  in  which 
Gibbon  communicated  to  Mademoiselle  Curchod  the  opposition 
of  his  father  to  their  marriage.  The  first  pages  are  tender  and 
melancholy,  as  might  be  expected  from  an  unhappy  lover ;  the 
latter  become  by  degrees  calm  and  reasonable ;  and  the  letter 
concludes  with  these  words :  C'est  pourquoi,  mademoiselle,  fai 
Vhonneur  d'etre  votre  ires-humble  et  tres-obeissant  serviteur, 
Edward  Gibbon.'  Her  father  died  soon  afterwards,  and  '  she 
retired  to  Geneva,  where,  by  teaching  young  ladies,  she  earned 
a  hard  subsistence  for  herself  and  her  mother ;  but  the  tranquil 


Edward  Gibbon.  23 


disposition  of  her  admirer  preserved  him  from  any  romantic 
display  of  sympathy  and  fidelity.  He  continued  to  study  various 
readings  in  Cicero,  as  well  as  the  passage  of  Hannibal  over  tho 
Alps ;  and  with  those  affectionate  resources  set  sentiment  at  de- 
fiance. Yet  thirty  years  later  the  lady,  then  the  wife  of  the 
most  conspicuous  man  in  Europe,  was  able  to  suggest  useful 
reflections  to  an  aged  bachelor,  slightly  dreaming  of  a  superan- 
nuated marriage :  '  Gardez-vous,  monsieur,  de  former  un  de 
ces  liens  tardifs :  le  manage  qui  rend  heureux  dans  Vdge 
rnur,  c'est  celui  qui  fut  contracte  dans  la  jeunesse.  Alors 
seulement  la  reunion  est  parfaite,  les  gouts  se  communiquent, 
les  sentimens  se  repandent,  les  idees  deviennent  communes,  les 
facultes  intellectuelles  se  modelent  mutuellement.  Toute  la  vie 
est  double,  et  toute  la  vie  est  une  prolongation  de  la  jeunesse ; 
car  les  impressions  de  Vdme  commandent  aux  yeux,  et  la 
beaute  qui  n'est  plus  conserve  encore  son  empire ;  mais  pour 
vous,  monsieur,  dans  toute  la  vigueur  de  la  pensee,  lorsque 
toute  ^existence  est  decidee,  Von  ne  pourroit  sans  un  miracle 
trouver  unefemme  digne  de  vous ;  et  une  association  d'un  genre 
imparfait  rappelle  toujours  la  statue  d' Horace,  qui  joint  a  une 
belle  tete  le  corps  d'un  stupide  poisson.  Vous  etes  marie  avec 
la  gloire.'  She  was  then  a  cultivated  French  lady,  giving  an 
account  of  the  reception  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  at  Paris,  and 
expressing  rather  peculiar  ideas  on  the  style  of  Tacitus.  The 
world  had  come  round  to  her  side,  and  she  explains  to  her  old 
lover  rather  well  her  happiness  with  M.  Necker. 

After  living  nearly  five  years  at  Lausanne,  Gribbon  returned 
to  England.  Continental  residence  has  made  a  great  alteration 
in  many  Englishmen ;  but  few  have  undergone  so  complete  a 
metamorphosis  as  Edward  Gribbon.  He  left  his  own  country  a 
hot-brained  and  ill  taught  youth,  willing  to  sacrifice  friends  and 
expectations  for  a  superstitious  and  half-known  creed;  he  re- 
turned a  cold  and  accomplished  man.  master  of  many  accurate 
ideas,  little  likely  to  hazard  any  coin  for  any  faith  :  already,  it 
is  probable,  inclined  in  secret  to  a  cautious  scepticism ;  placing 


24  Edward  Gibbon. 


thereby,  as  it  were,  upon  a  system  the  frigid  prudence  and 
unventuring  incredulity  congenial  to  his  character.  His  change 
of  character  changed  his  position  among  his  relatives.  His 
father,  he  says,  met  him  as  a  friend ;  and  they  continued  thence- 
forth on  a  footing  of  '  easy  intimacy.'  Especially  after  the  little 
affair  of  Mademoiselle  Curchod,  and  the  '  very  sensible  view  he 
took  in  that  instance  of  the  matrimonial  relation,'  there  can  be 
but  little  question  that  Gribbon  was  justly  regarded  as  a  most 
safe  young  man,  singularly  prone  to  large  books,  and  a  little  too 
fond  of  French  phrases  and  French  ideas ;  but  yet  with  a  great 
feeling  of  common  sense,  and  a  wise  preference  of  permanent 
-money  to  transitory  sentiment.  His  father  allowed  him  a 
moderate,  and  but  a  moderate  income,  which  he  husbanded  with 
great  care,  and  only  voluntarily  expended  in  the  purchase  and 
acquisition  of  serious  volumes.  He  lived  an  externally  idle  but 
really  studious  life,  varied  by  tours  in  France  and  Italy ;  the 
toils  of  which,  though  not  in  description  very  formidable,  a 
trifle  tried  a  sedentary  habit  and  somewhat  corpulent  body. 
The  only  English  avocation  which  he  engaged  in  was,  oddly 
enough,  war.  It  does  not  appear  the  most  likely  in  this  pacific 
country,  nor  does  he  seem  exactly  the  man  for  la  grande  guerre; 
but  so  it  was ;  and  the  fact  is  an  example  of  a  really  Anglican 
invention.  The  English  have  discovered  pacific  war.  We  may 
not  be  able  to  kill  people  as  well  as  the  French,  or  fit  out  and 
feed  distant  armaments  as  neatly  as  they  do ;  but  we  are  un- 
rivalled at  a  quiet  armament  here  at  home  which  never  kills 
anybody,  and  never  wants  to  be  sent  anywhere.  A  '  constitu- 
tional militia '  is  a  beautiful  example  of  the  mild  efficacy  of 
civilisation,  which  can  convert  even  the  <  great  manslaying  pro- 
fession '  (as  Carlyle  calls  it)  into  a  quiet  and  dining  association. 
Into  this  force  Gibbon  was  admitted ;  and  immediately,  con- 
trary to  his  anticipations,  and  very  much  against  his  will,  was 
called  out  for  permanent  duty.  The  hero  of  the  corps  was  a 
certain  dining  Sir  Thomas,  who  used  at  the  end  of  each  new 
bottle  to  announce  with  increasing  joy  how  much  soberer  he  had 


Edward  Gibbon.'  25 


become.  What  his  fellow-officers  thought  of  Gibbon's  French 
predilections  and  large  volumes  it  is  not  difficult  to  conjecture ; 
and  he  complains  bitterly  of  the  interruption  to  his  studies. 
However,  his  easy  composed  nature  soon  made  itself  at  home ; 
his  polished  tact  partially  concealed  from  the  '  mess '  his  recon- 
dite pursuits,  and  he  contrived  to  make  the  Hampshire  arma- 
ment of  classical  utility.  6 1  read,'  he  says,  '  the  Analysis  of 
Caesar's  Campaign  in  Africa.  Every  motion  of  that  great  general 
is  laid  open  with  a  critical  sagacity.  A  complete  military  his- 
tory of  his  campaigns  would  do  almost  as  much  honour  to 
M.  Guichardt  as  to  Caesar.  This  finished  the  Memoires,  which 
gave  me  a  much  clearer  notion  of  ancient  tactics  than  I  ever 
had  before.  Indeed,  my  own  military  knowledge  was  of  some 
service  to  me,  as  I  am  well  acquainted  with  the  modern  dis- 
cipline and  exercise  of  a  battalion.  So  that  though  much  inferior 
to  M.  Folard  and  M.  Gruichardt,  who  had  seen  service,  I  am  a 
much  better  judge  than  Salmasius,  Casaubon,  or  Lipsius ;  mere 
scholars,  who  perhaps  had  never  seen  a  battalion  under  arms.' 

The  real  occupation  of  Gibbon,  as  this  quotation  might 
suggest,  was  his  reading;  and  this  was  of  a  peculiar  sort. 
There  are  many  kinds  of  readers,  and  each  has  a  sort  of  perusal 
suitable  to  his  kind.  There  is  the  voracious  reader,  like  Dr. 
Johnson,  who  extracts  with  grasping  appetite  the  large  features, 
the  mere  essence  of  a  trembling  publication,  and  rejects  the 
rest  with  contempt  and  disregard.  There  is  the  subtle  reader, 
who  pursues  with  fine  attention  the  most  imperceptible  and 
delicate  ramifications  of  an  interesting  topic,  marks  slight 
traits,  notes  changing  manners,  has  a  keen  eye  for  the  character 
of  his  author,  is  minutely  attentive  to  every  prejudice  and 
awake  to  every  passion,  watches  syllables  and  waits  on  words, 
is  alive  to  the  light  air  of  nice  associations  which  float  about 
every  subject — the  motes  in  the  bright  sunbeam — the  delicate 
gradations  of  the  passing  shadows.  There  is  the  stupid  reader, 
who  -prefers  dull  books — is  generally  to  be  known  by  his  dis- 
regard of  small  books  and  English  books,  but  likes  masses  in 


26  Edward  Gibbon. 


modern  Latin,  Grcevius  de  torpore  mirabili ;  Horrificus 
gravitate  sapientice.  But  Gibbon  was  not  of  any  of  these 
classes.  He  was  what  common  people  would  call  a  matter-of- 
fact,  and  philosophers  now-a-days  a  positive  reader.  No  disciple 
of  M.  Comte  could  attend  more  strictly  to  precise  and  provable 
phenomena.  His  favourite  points  are  those  which  can  be 
weighed  and  measured.  Like  the  dull  reader,  he  had  perhaps 
a  preference  for  huge  books  in  unknown  tongues ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  wished  those  books  to  contain  real  and  accurate 
information.*  He  liked  the  firm  earth  of  positive  knowledge. 
His  fancy  was  not  flexible  enough  for  exquisite  refinement,  his 
imagination  too  slow  for  light  and  wandering  literature ;  but 
he  felt  no  love  of  dullness  in  itself,  and  had  a  prompt  acumen 
for  serious  eloquence.  This  was  his  kind  of  reflection.  '  The 
author  of  the  Adventurer,  No.  127  (Mr.  Joseph  Warton,  con- 
cealed under  the  signature  of  Z),  concludes  his  ingenious  parallel 
of  the  ancients  and  moderns  by  the  following  remark :  "  That 
age  will  never  again  return,  when  a  Pericles,  after  walking  with 
Plato  in  a  portico  built  by  Phidias  and  painted  by  Apelles, 
might  repair  to  hear  a  pleading  of  Demosthenes  or  a  tragedy 
of  Sophocles."  It  will  never  return,  because  it  never  existed. 
Pericles  (who  died  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  Lxxxixth  Olympiad, 
ant.  Ch.  429,  Dio.  Sic.  1.  xii.  46)  was  confessedly  the  patron  of 
Phidias,  and  the  contemporary  of  Sophocles ;  but  he  could  enjoy 
no  very  great  pleasure  in  the  conversation  of  Plato,  who  was 
born  in  the  same  year  that  he  himself  died  (Diogenes  Laertius 
in  Platone  v.  Stanley's  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  15-1).  The 
error  is  still  more  extraordinary  with  regard  to  Apelles  and 
Demosthenes,  since  both  the  painter  and  the  orator  survived 
Alexander  the  Great,  whose  death  is  above  a  century  posterior 
to  that  of  Pericles  (in  323).  And  indeed,  though  Athens  was 
the  seat  of  every  liberal  art  from  the  days  of  Themistocles  to 
those  of  Demetrius  Phalereus,  yet  no  particular  era  will  afford 
Mr.  Warton  the  complete  synchronism  he  seems  to  wish  for ; 
as  tragedy  was  deprived  of  her  famous  triumvirate  before  the 


Edward  Gibbon.  27 


arts  of  philosophy  and  eloquence  had  attained  the  perfection 
which  they  soon  after  received  from  the  hands  of  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, and  Demosthenes.' 

And  wonderful  is  it  for  what  Mr.  Hallam  calls  *  the  languid 
students  of  our  present  age'  to  turn  over  the  journal  of  his  daily 
studies.  It  is  true,  it  seems  to  have  been  revised  by  himself; 
and  so  great  a  narrator  would  group  effectively  facts  with  which 
he  was  so  familiar ;  but  allowing  any  discount  (if  we  may  use 
so  mean  a  word)  for  the  skilful  art  of  the  impressive  historian, 
there  will  yet  remain  in  the  Extraits  de  mon  Journal  a  won- 
derful monument  of  learned  industry.  You  may  open  them 
anywhere.  '  Dissertation  on  the  Medal  of  Smyrna,  by  M.  de 
Boze  :  replete  with  erudition  and  taste ;  containing  carious  re- 
searches on  the  pre-eminence  of  the  cities  of  Asia. — Researches 
on  the  Polypus,  by  Mr.  Trembley.  A  new  world  :  throwing 
light  on  physics,  but  darkening  metaphysics. — Vegetius's  Insti- 
tutions. This  writer  on  tactics  has  good  general  notions ;  but 
his  particular  account  of  the  Eoman  discipline  is  deformed  by 
confusion  and  anachronisms.'  Or,  '  I  this  day  began  a  very  con- 
siderable task,  which  was,  to  read  Cluverius'  Italia  Antiqua  in 
two  volumes  folio,  Ley  den  1624,  Elzevirs;'  and  it  appears  he 
did  read  it  as  well  as  begin  it,  which  is  the  point  where  most 
enterprising  men  would  have  failed.  From  the  time  of  his 
residence  at  Lausanne  his  Latin  scholarship  had  been  sound 
and  good,  and  his  studies  were  directed  to  the  illustration  of 
the  best  Roman  authors ;  but  it  is  curious  to  find  on  August  16, 
1761,  after  his  return  to  England,  and  when  he  was  twenty- 
four  years  old,  the  following  extract :  '  I  have  at  last  finished 
the  Iliad.  As  I  undertook  it  to  improve  myself  in  the  Greek 
language,  which  I  had  totally  neglected  for  some  years  past, 
and  to  which  I  never  applied  myself  with  a  proper  attention,  I 
must  give  a  reason  why  I  began  with  Homer,  and  that  contrary 
to  Le  Clerc's  advice.  I  had  two :  1st,  As  Homer  is  the  most 
ancient  Greek  author  (excepting  perhaps  Hesiod)  who  is  now 
extant ;  and  as  he  was  not  only  the  poet,  but  the  lawgiver,  the 


28  Edward  Gibbon. 


theologian,  the  historian,  and  the  philosopher  of  the  ancients, 
every  succeeding  writer  is  full  of  quotations  from,  or  allusions 
to  his  writings,  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand  with- 
out a  previous  knowledge  of  them.  In  this  situation,  was  it  not 
natural  to  follow  the  ancients  themselves,  who  always  began 
their  studies  by  the  perusal  of  Homer  ?  2ndly.  No  writer  ever 
treated  such  a  variety  of  subjects.  As  every  part  of  civil,  mili- 
tary, or  economical  life  is  introduced  into  his  poems,  and  as  the 
simplicity  of  his  age  allowed  him  to  call  everything  by  its 
proper  name,  almost  the  whole  compass  of  the  Greek  tongue 
is  comprised  in  Homer.  I  have  so  far  met  with  the  success  I 
hoped  for,  that  I  have  acquired  a  great  facility  in  reading  the 
language,  and  treasured  up  a  very  great  stock  of  words.  What 
I  have  rather  neglected  is,  the  grammatical  construction  of 
them,  and  especially  the  many  various  inflexions  of  the  verbs. 
In  order  to  acquire  that  dry  but  necessary  branch  of  knowledge, 
I  propose  bestowing  some  time  every  morning  on  the  perusal  of 
the  Greek  Grammar  of  Port  Royal,  as  one  of  the  best  extant. 
I  believe  that  I  read  nearly  one-half  of  Homer  like  a  mere 
school-boy,  not  enough  master  of  the  words  to  elevate  myself 
to  the  poetry.  The  remainder  I  read  with  a  good  deal  of  care 
and  criticism,  and  made  many  observations  on  them.  Some  I 
have  inserted  here;  for  the  rest  I  shall  find  a  proper  place. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  think  that  Homer's  few  faults  (for  some  he 
certainly  has)  are  lost  in  the  variety  of  his  beauties.  I  expected 
to  have  finished  him  long  before.  The  delay  was  owing  partly 
to  the  circumstances  of  my  way  of  life  and  avocations,  and 
partly  to  my  own  fault ;  for  while  every  one  looks  on  me  as  a 
prodigy  of  application,  I  know  myself  how  strong  a  propensity 
I  have  to  indolence.'  Posterity  will  confirm  the  contemporary 
theory  that  he  was  a  c  prodigy'  of  steady  study.  Those  who 
know  what  the  Greek  language  is,  how  much  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall  depends  on  Greek  authorities,  how  few  errors  the  keen 
criticism  of  divines  and  scholars  has  been  able  to  detect  in  his 
employment  of  them,  will  best  appreciate  the  patient  every-day 


Edward  Gibbon.   '  29 


labour  which  could  alone  repair  the  early  neglect  of  so  difficult 
an  attainment. 

It  is  odd  how  little  Gibbon  wrote,  at  least  for  the  public,  in 
early  life.  More  than  twenty-two  years  elapsed  from  his  first 
return  from  Lausanne  to  the  appearance  of  the  first  volume  of 
his  great  work,  and  in  that  long  interval  his  only  important 
publication,  if  it  can  indeed  be  so  called,  was  a  French  essay, 
Sur  V  Etude  de  la  Litterature,  which  contains  some  sensible 
remarks,  and  shows  much  regular  reading;  but  which  is  on  the 
whole  a  '  conceivable  treatise,'  and  would  be  wholly  forgotten 
if  it  had  been  written  by  any  one  else.  It  was  little  read  in 
England,  and  must  have  been  a  serious  difficulty  to  his  friends 
in  the  militia ;  but  the  Parisians  read  it,  or  said  they  had  read 
it,  which  is  more  in  their  way,  and  the  fame  of  being  a  French 
author  was  a  great  aid  to  him  in  foreign  society.  It  flattered, 
indeed,  the  French  literati  more  than  any  one  can  now  fancy. 
The  French  had  then  the  idea  that  it  was  uncivilised  to  speak 
any  other  language,  and  the  notion  of  writing  any  other  seemed 
quite  a  betise.  By  a  miserable  misfortune  you  might  not  know 
French,  but  at  least  you  could  conceal  it  assiduously ;  white 
paper  any  how  might  go  unsoiled ;  posterity  at  least  should  not 
hear  of  such  ignorance.  The  Parisian  was  to  be  the  universal 
tongue.  And  it  did  not  seem  absurd,  especially  to  those  only 
slightly  acquainted  with  foreign  countries,  that  this  might  in 
part  be  so.  Political  eminence  had  given  their  language  a 
diplomatic  supremacy.  No  German  literature  existed  as  yet ; 
Italy  had  ceased  to  produce  important  books.  There  was  only 
England  left  to  dispute  the  literary  omnipotence ;  and  such  an 
attempt  as  Gibbon's  was  a  peculiarly  acceptable  flattery,  for  it 
implied  that  her  most  cultivated  men  were  beginning  to  abandon 
their  own  tongue,  and  to  write  like  other  nations  in  the  cosmo- 
politan lingua  franca.  A  few  far-seeing  observers,  however, 
already  contemplated  the  train  of  events  which  at  the  present 
day  give  such  a  preponderating  influence  to  our  own  writers, 
and  make  it  an  arduous  matter  even  to  explain  the  conceivable- 


30  Edward  Gibbon. 


ness  of  the  French  ambition.  Of  all  men  living  then  or  since, 
David  Hume  was  the  most  likely  from  prejudice  and  habit  to 
take  an  unfavourable  view  of  English  literary  influence ;  he  had 
more  literary  fame  than  he  deserved  in  France,  and  less  in 
England ;  he  had  much  of  the  French  neatness,  he  had  but 
little  of  the  English  nature;  yet  his  cold  and  discriminating 
intellect  at  once  emancipated  him  from  the  sophistries  which 
imposed  on  those  less  watchful.  He  wrote  to  Gibbon,  '  I  have 
only  one  objection,  derived  from  the  language  in  which  it  is 
written.  Why  do  you  compose  in  French,  and  carry  faggots 
into  the  -wood,  as  Horace  says  with  regard  to  Romans  who 
wrote  in  Greek  ?  I  grant  that  you  have  a  like  motive  to  those 
Romans,  and  adopt  a  language  much  more  generally  diffused 
than  your  native  tongue  ;  but  have  you  not  remarked  the  fate 
of  those  two  ancient  languages  in  the  following  ages  ?  The 
Latin,  though  then  less  celebrated  and  confined  to  more  narrow 
limits,  has  in  some  measure  outlived  the  Greek,  and  is  now 
more  generally  understood  by  men  of  letters.  Let  the  French, 
therefore,  triumph  in  the  present  diffusion  of  their  tongue. 
Our  solid  and  increasing  establishments  in  America,  where  we 
need  less  dread  the  inundation  of  barbarians,  promise  a  superior 
stability  and  duration  to  the  English  language.'  The  cool 
sceptic  was  correct.  The  great  breeding  people  have  gone  out 
and  multiplied ;  colonies  in  every  clime  attest  our  success ; 
French  is  the  patois  of  Europe;  English  is  the  language  of 
the  world. 

Gibbon  took  the  advice  of  his  sagacious  friend,  and  prepared 
himself  for  the  composition  of  his  great  work  in  English .  His 
studies  were  destined,  however,  to  undergo  an  interruption. 
'  Yesterday  morning,'  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  <  about  half  an  hour 
after  seven,  as  I  was  destroying  an  army  of  barbarians,  I  heard 
a  double  rap  at  the  door,  and  my  friend  Mr.  Eliot  was  soon  in- 
troduced. After  some  idle  conversation,  he  told  me  that  if  I 
was  desirous  of  being  in  parliament,  he  had  an  independent  seat 
very  much  at  my  service.'  The  borough  was  Liskeard;  and  the 


Edward  Gibbon.  31 


epithet  independent  is,  of  course,  ironical,  Mr.  Eliot  being  him- 
self the  constituency  of  that  place.  The  offer  was  accepted,  and 
one  of  the  most  learned  of  members  of  parliament  took  his  seat. 
The  political  life  of  Gibbon  is  briefly  described.  He  was  a 
supporter  of  Lord  North.  That  well-known  statesman  was,  in 
the  most  exact  sense,  a  representative  man, —  although  repre- 
sentative of  the  class  of  persons  most  out  of  favour  with  the 
transcendental  thinkers  who  invented  this  name.  Germans 
deny  it,  but  in  every  country  common  opinions  are  very  common. 
Everywhere,  there  exists  the  comfortable  mass ;  quiet,  sagacious, 
short-sighted,—  such  as  the  Jews  whom  Eabshakeh  tempted  by 
their  vine  and  their  fig-tree  ;  such  as  the  English  with  their  snug 
dining-room  and  after  dinner  nap,  domestic  happiness  and  Bullo 
coal ;  sensible,  solid  men,  without  stretching  irritable  reason, 
but  with  a  placid,  supine  instinct ;  without  originality  and  with- 
out folly  ;  judicious  in  their  dealings,  respected  in  the  world ; 
wanting  little,  sacrificing  nothing;  good-tempered  people  in 
a  word,  c  caring  for  nothing  until  they  are  themselves  hurt.' 
Lord  North  was  one  of  this  class.  You  could  hardly  make  him 
angry.  '  No  doubt,'  he  said,  tapping  his  fat  sides,  '  I  am  that 
odious  thing,  a  minister ;  and  I  believe  other  people  wish  they 
were  so  too.'  Profound  people  look  deeply  for  the  maxims  of 
his  policy ;  and  it  being  on  the  surface,  of  course  they  fail  to 
find  it.  He  did  not  what  the  mind,  but  what  the  body  of  the 
community  wanted  to  have  done ;  he  appealed  to  the  real  people, 
the  large  English  commonplace  herd.  His  abilities  were  great ; 
and  with  them  he  did  what  people  with  no  abilities  wished  to  do, 
and  could  not  do.  Lord  Brougham  has  published  the  King's 
Letters  to  him,  showing  that  which  partial  extracts  had  made 
known  before,  that  Lord  North  was  quite  opposed  to  the  war  he 
was  carrying  on ;  was  convinced  it  could  not  succeed  ;  hardly, 
in  fact,  wished  it  might.  Why  did  he  carry  it  on?  Vox 
populi,  the  voice  of  well-dressed  men  commanded  it  to  be 
done ;  and  he  cheerfully  sacrificed  American  people,  who  were 
nothing  to  him,  to  English,  who  were  something,  and  a  king, 


32  Edward  Gibbon. 


who  was  much.  Gibbon  was  the  very  man  to  support  such  a 
ruler.  His  historical  writings  have  given  him  a  posthumous 
eminence ;  but  in  his  own  time  he  was  doubtless  thought  a 
sensible  safe  man,  of  ordinary  thoughts  and  intelligible  actions. 
To  do  him  justice,  he  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  hero.  '  You 
know,'  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Deyverdun,  'queje  suis  entre  au 
parlement  sans  patriotisme,  sans  ambition,  et  que  toutes  mes 
vues  se  bornoient  a  la  place  commode  et  honnete  d'un  lord  of 
trade.'  '  Wise  in  his  generation '  was  written  on  his  brow.  He 
quietly  and  gently  supported  the  policy  of  his  time. 

Even,  however,  amid  the  fatigue  of  parliamentary  attend- 
ance,— the  fatigue,  in  fact,  of  attending  a  nocturnal  and 
oratorical  club,  where  you  met  the  best  people,  who  could  not 
speak,  as  well  as  a  few  of  the  worst,  who  would, — Gibbon's 
history  made  much  progress.  The  first  volume,  a  quarto,  one- 
sixth  of  the  whole,  was  published  in  the  spring  of  1776,  and  at 
once  raised  his  fame  to  a  high  point.  Ladies  actually  read  it — 
read  about  Boetica  and  Tarraconensis,  the  Roman  legions  and 
the  tribunitian  powers.  Grave  scholars  wrote  dreary  commen- 
dations. '  The  first  impression,'  he  writes,  c  was  exhausted  in  a 
few  days ;  a  second  and  a  third  edition  were  scarcely  adequate 
to  the  demand ;  and  my  bookseller's  property  was  twice  invaded 
by  the  pirates  of  Dublin.  My  book  was  on  every  table ' — tables 
must  have  been  rather  few  in  that  age — '  and  almost  on  every 
toilette ;  the  historian  was  crowned  by  the  taste  or  fashion  of 
the  day ;  nor  was  the  general  voice  disturbed  by  the  barking  of 
any  profound  critic.'  The  noise  penetrated  deep  into  the  un- 
learned classes.  Mr.  Sheridan,  who  never  read  anything  '  on 
principle,'  said  that  the  crimes  of  Warren  Hastings  surpassed 
anything  to  be  found  in  the  c  correct  sentences  of  Tacitus  or  the 
luminous  page  of  Gibbon.'  Some  one  seems  to  have  been 
struck  with  the  jet  of  learning,  and  questioned  the  great  wit. 
6 1  said,'  he  replied,  '  voluminous.' 

History,  it  is  said,  is  of  no  use ;  at  least  a  great  critic,  who 
is  understood  to  have  in  the  press  a  very  elaborate  work  in  that 


Edward  Gibbon.  33 


kind,  not  long  since  seemed  to  allege  that  writings  of  this  sort 
did  not  establish  a  theory  of  the  universe,  and  were  therefore  of 
no  avail.  But  whatever  may  be  the  use  of  this  sort  of  compo- 
sition in  itself  and  abstractedly,  it  is  certainly  of  great  use 
relatively  and  to  literary  men.  Consider  the  position  of  a  man 
of  that  species.  He  sits  beside  a  library-fire,  with  nice  white 
paper,  a  good  pen,  a  capital  style,  every  means  of  saying  every- 
thing, but  nothing  to  say;  of  course  he  is  an  able  man;  of 
course  he  has  an  active  intellect,  beside  wonderful  culture ;  but 
still  one  cannot  always  have  original  ideas.  Every  day  cannot 
be  an  era ;  a  train  of  new  speculation  very  often  will  rot  be 
found ;  and  how  dull  it  is  to  make  it  your  business  to  write,  to 
stay  by  yourself  in  a  room  to  write,  and  then  to  have  nothing  to 
say !  It  is  dreary  work  mending  seven  pens,  and  waiting  for  a 
theory  to  '  turn  up.'  What  a  gain  if  something  would  happen ! 
then  one  could  describe  it.  Something  has  happened,  and  that 
something  is  history.  On  this  account,  since  a  sedate  Greek 
discovered  this  plan  for  a  grave  immortality,  a  series  of  accom- 
plished men  have  seldom  been  found  wanting  to  derive  a 
literary  capital  from  their  active  and  barbarous  kindred.  Per- 
haps when  a  Visigoth  broke  a  head,  he  thought  that  that  was 
all.  Not  so ;  he  was  making  history ;  Gibbon  has  written  it 
down. 

The  manner  of  writing  history  is  as  characteristic  of  the 
narrator  as  the  actions  are  of  the  persons  who  are  related  to 
have  performed  them ;  often  much  more  so.  It  may  be  gener- 
ally denned  as  a  view  of  one  age  taken  by  another ;  a  picture  of 
a  series  of  men  and  women  painted  by  one  of  another  series. 
Of  course,  this  definition  seems  to  exclude  contemporary  history; 
but  if  we  look  into  the  matter  carefully,  is  there  such  a  thing  ? 
What  are  all  the  best  and  most  noted  works  that  claim  the  title 
— memoirs,  scraps,  materials — composed  by  men  of  like  passions 
with  the  people  they  speak  of,  involved  it  may  be  in  the  same 
events  describing  them  with  the  partiality  and  narrowness  of 
eager  actors ;  or  even  worse,  by  men  far  apart  in  a  monkish 

VOL.    II.  D 


34  Edward  Gibbon. 


solitude,  familiar  with  the  lettuces  of  the  convent-garden,  but 
hearing  only  faint  dim  murmurs  of  the  great  transactions  which 
they  slowly  jot  down  in  the  barren  chronicle  ;  these  are  not  to  be 
named  in  the  same  short  breath,  or  included  in  the  same  narrow 
word,  with  the  equable,  poised,  philosophic  narrative  of  the  re- 
trospective historian.  In  the  great  histories  there  are  two  topics 
of  interest — the  man  as  a  type  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives,— 
the  events  and  manners  of  the  age  he  is  describing ;  very  often 
almost  all  the  interest  is  the  contrast  of  the  two. 

You  should  do  everything,  said  Lord  Chesterfield,  in  minuet 
time.  It  was  in  that  time  that  Gibbon  wrote  his  history,  and 
such  was  the  manner  of  the  age.  You  fancy  him  in  a  suit  of 
flowered  velvet,  with  a  bag  and  sword,  wisely  smiling,  com- 
posedly rounding  his  periods.  You  seem  to  see  the  grave  bows, 
the  formal  politeness,  the  finished  deference.  You  perceive  the 
minuetic  action  accompanying  the  words  :  '  Give,'  it  would  say, 
'Augustus  a  chair:  Zenobia,  the  humblest  of  your  slaves: 
Odoacer,  permit  me  to  correct  the  defect  in  your  attire.'  As 
the  slap-dash  sentences  of  a  rushing  critic  express  the  ha^ty  impa- 
tience of  modern  manners  ;  so  the  deliberate  emphasis,  the  slow 
acumen,  the  steady  argument,  the  impressive  narration  bring 
before  us  what  is  now  a  tradition,  the  picture  of  the  correct 
eighteenth-century  gentleman,  who  never  failed  in  a  measured 
politeness,  partly  because  it  was  due  in  propriety  towards  others, 
and  partly  because  from  his  own  dignity  it  was  due  most  obvi- 
ously to  himself. 

And  not  only  is  this  true  of  style,  but  it  may  be  extended  to 
other  things  also.  There  is  no  one  of  the  many  literary  works 
produced  in  the  eighteenth  century  more  thoroughly  character- 
istic of  it  than  Gibbon's  history.  The  special  characteristic  of 
that  age  is  its  clinging  to  the  definite  and  palpable  ;  it  had  a 
taste  beyond  everything  for  what  is  called  solid  information. 
In  literature  the  period  may  be  defined  as  that  in  which 
authors  had  ceased  to  write  for  students,  and  had  not  begun  to 
write  for  women.  In  the  present  day,  no  one  can  take  up  any 


Edward  Gibbon.  35 


book  intended  for  general  circulation,  without  clearly  seeing 
that  the  writer  supposes  most  of  his  readers  will  be  ladies  or 
young  men ;  and  that  in  proportion  to  his  judgment,  he  is  at- 
tending to  their  taste.  Two  or  three  hundred  years  ago  books 
were  written  for  professed  and  systematic  students, — the  class 
the  fellows  of  colleges  were  designed  to  be, — who  used  to  go  on 
studying  them  all  their  lives.  Between  these  there  was  a  time 
in  which  the  more  marked  class  of  literary  consumers  were 
strong-headed,  practical  men.  Education  had  not  become  so 
general,  or  so  feminine,  as  to  make  the  present  style— what  is 
called  the  'brilliant  style' — at  all  necessary;  but  there  was 
enough  culture  to  make  the  demand  of  common  diffused  persons 
more  effectual  than  that  of  special  and  secluded  scholars.  A 
book-buying  public  had  arisen  of  sensible  men,  who  would  not 
endure  the  awful  folio  style  in  which  the  schoolmen  wrote. 
From  peculiar  causes,  too,  the  business  of  that  age  was  perhaps 
more  free  from  the  hurry  and  distraction  which  disable  so  many 
of  our  practical  men  now  from  reading.  You  accordingly  see  in 
the  books  of  the  last  century  what  is  called  a  masculine  tone ;  a 
firm,  strong,  perspicuous  narration  of  matter  of  fact,  a  plain 
argument,  a  contempt  for  everything  which  distinct  definite 
people  cannot  entirely  and  thoroughly  comprehend.  There  is 
no  more  solid  book  in  the  world  than  Gibbon's  history.  Only 
consider  the  chronology.  It  begins  before  the  year  ONE  and 
goes  down  to  the  year  1453,  and  is  a  schedule  or  series  of  sche- 
dules of  important  events  during  that  time.  Scarcely  any  fact 
deeply  affecting  European  civilisation  is  wholly  passed  over,  and 
the  great  majority  of  facts  are  elaborately  recounted.  Laws, 
dynasties,  churches,  barbarians,  appear  and  disappear.  Every- 
thing changes;  the  old  world — the  classical  civilisation  of  form 
and  definition — passes  away,  a  new  world  of  free  spirit  and 
inward  growth  emerges ;  between  the  two  lies  a  mixed  weltering 
interval  of  trouble  and  confusion,  when  everybody  hates  every- 
body, and  the  historical  student  leads  a  Life  of  skirmishes,  is 
oppressed  with  broils  and  feuds.  All  through  this  long  period 


36  Edward  Gibbon. 


Gibbon's  history  goes  with  steady  consistent  pace ;  like  a  Roman 
legion  through  a  troubled  country — hceret  pede  pes ;  up  hill 
and  down  hill,  through  marsh  and  thicket,  through  Goth  or 
Parthian — the  firm  denned  array  passes  forward— a  type  of 
order,  and  an  emblem  of  civilisation.  Whatever  may  be  the 
defects  of  Gibbon's  history,  none  can  deny  him  a  proud  pre- 
cision and  a  style  in  marching  order. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  its  taste 
for  dignified  pageantry.  What  an  existence  was  that  of  Ver- 
sailles !  How  gravely  admirable  to  see  the  grand  monarque 
shaved,  and  dressed,  and  powdered ;  to  look  on  and  watch  a 
great  man  carefully  amusing  himself  with  dreary  trifles.  Or  do 
we  not  even  now  possess  an  invention  of  that  age — the  great 
eighteenth-century  footman,  still  in  the  costume  of  his  era,  with 
dignity  and  powder,  vast  calves  and  noble  mien  ?  What  a  world 
it  must  have  been  when  all  men  looked  like  that !  Go  and 
gaze  with  rapture  at  the  footboard  of  a  carriage,  and  say,  Who 
would  not  obey  a  premier  with  such  an  air  ?  Grave,  tranquil, 
decorous  pageantry  is  a  part,  as  it  were,  of  the .  essence  of  the 
last  age.  There  is  nothing  more  characteristic  of  Gibbon.  A 
kind  of  pomp  pervades  him.  He  is  never  out  of  livery.  He 
ever  selects  for  narration  those  themes  which  look  most  like  a 
levee  :  grave  chamberlains  seem  to  stand  throughout ;  life  is  a 
vast  ceremony,  the  historian  at  once  the  dignitary  and  the 
scribe. 

The  very  language  of  Gibbon  shows  these  qualities.  Its 
majestic  march  has  been  the  admiration — its  rather  pompous 
cadence  the  sport  of  all  perusers.  It  has  the  greatest  merit  of 
an  historical  style :  it  is  always  going  on ;  you  feel  no  doubt  of 
its  continuing  in  motion.  Many  narrators  of  the  reflective 
class,  Sir  Archibald  Alison  for  example,  fail  in  this :  your  con- 
stant feeling  is,  c  Ah  !  he  has  pulled  up  ;  he  is  going  to  be  pro- 
found ;  he  never  will  go  on  again.'  Gibbon's  reflections  connect 
the  events ;  they  are  not  sermons  between  them.  But,  notwith- 
standing, the  manner  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  is  the  last  which 


Edward  Gibbon.  37 


should  be  recommended  for  strict  imitation.  It  is  not  a  style 
in  which  you  can  tell  the  truth.  A  monotonous  writer  is  suited 
only  to  monotonous  matter.  Truth  is  of  various  kinds — grave, 
solemn,  dignified,  petty,  low,  ordinary ;  and  an  historian  who  has 
to  tell  the  truth  must  be  able  to  tell  what  is  vulgar  as  well  as 
what  is  great,  what  is  little  as  well  as  what  is  amazing.  Gibbon 
is  at  fault  here.  He  cannot  mention  Asia  Minor.  The  petty 
order  of  sublunary  matters;  the  common  gross  existence  of 
ordinary  people  ;  the  necessary  littlenesses  of  necessary  life,  are 
little  suited  to  his  sublime  narrative.  Men  on  the  Times  feel 
this  acutely ;  it  is  most  difficult  at  first  to  say  many  things  in 
the  huge  imperial  manner.  And  after  all  you  cannot  tell  every- 
thing. '  How,  sir,'  asked  a  reviewer  of  Sydney  Smith's  life,  c  do 

you  say  a  "  good  fellow  "  in  print  ?'  '  Mr. ,'  replied  the 

editor,  '  you  should  not  say  it  at  all.'  Gibbon  was  aware  of  this 
rule ;  he  omits  what  does  not  suit  him ;  and  the  consequence  i,«, 
that  though  he  has  selected  the  most  various  of  historical  topics, 
he  scarcely  gives  you  an  idea  of  variety.  The  ages  change,  but 
the  varnish  of  the  narration  is  the  same. 

It  is  not  unconnected  with  this  fault  that  Gibbon  gives  us 
but  an  indifferent  description  of  individual  character.  People 
seem  a  good  deal  alike.  The  cautious  scepticism  of  his  cold 
intellect,  which  disinclined  him  to  every  extreme,  depreciates 
great  virtues  and  extenuates  great  vices ;  and  we  are  left  with 
a  tame  neutral  character,  capable  of  nothing  extraordinary, — 
hateful,  as  the  saying  is,  '  both  to  God  and  to  the  enemies  of 
God.' 

A  great  point  in  favour  of  Gibbon  is  the  existence  of  his 
history.  Some  great  historians  seem  likely  to  fail  here.  A 
good  judge  was  asked  which  he  preferred,  Macaulay's  History 
of  England  or  Lord  Mahon's.  '  Why,'  he  replied,  '  you  observe 
Lord  Mahon  has  written  his  history ;  and  by  what  I  see  Ma- 
caulay's will  be  written  not  only  for,  but  among  posterity.' 
Practical  people  have  little  idea  of  the  practical  ability  required 
to  write  a  large  book,  and  especially  a  large  history.  Long 


38  Edward  Gibbon. 


before  you  get  to  the  pen,  there  is  an  immensity  of  pure 
business;  heaps  of  material  are  strewn  everywhere;  but  they 
lie  in  disorder,  unread,  uncatalogued,  unknown.  It  seems  a 
dreary  waste  of  life  to  be  analysing,  indexing,  extracting  works 
and  passages,  in  which  one  per  cent,  of  the  contents  are  inter- 
esting, and  not  half  of  that  percentage  will  after  all  appear  in 
the  flowing  narrative.  As  an  accountant  takes  up  a  bankrupt's 
books  filled  with  confused  statements  of  ephemeral  events,  the 
disorderly  record  of  unprofitable  speculations,  and  charges  this 
to  that  head,  and  that  to  this, — estimates  earnings,  specifies 
expenses,  demonstrates  failures;  so  the  great  narrator,  going 
over  the  scattered  annalists  of  extinct  ages,  groups  and  divides, 
notes  and  combines,  until  from  a  crude  mass  of  darkened  frag- 
ments there  emerges  a  clear  narrative,  a  concise  account  of  the 
result  and  upshot  of  the  whole.  In  this  art  Gibbon  was  a 
master.  The  laborious  research  of  German  scholarship,  the 
keen  eye  of  theological  zeal,  a  steady  criticism  of  eighty  years, 
have  found  few  faults  of  detail.  The  account  has  been  worked 
right,  the  proper  authorities  consulted,  an  accurate  judgment 
formed,  the  most  telling  incidents  selected.  Perhaps  experience 
shows  that  there  is  something  English  in  this  talent.  The 
Germans  are  more  elaborate  in  single  monographs;  but  they 
seem  to  want  the  business-ability  to  work  out  a  complicated 
narrative,  to  combine  a  long  whole.  The  French  are  neat 
enough,  and  their  style  is  very  quick ;  but  then  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  their  facts ;  the  account  on  its  face  seems  too  plain,  and 
no  true  Parisian  ever  was  an  antiquary.  The  great  classical 
histories  published  in  this  country  in  our  own  time  show  that 
the  talent  is  by  no  means  extinct ;  and  they  likewise  show,  what 
is  also  evident,  that  this  kind  of  composition  is  easier  with 
respect  to  ancient  than  with  respect  to  modern  times.  The 
barbarians  burned  the  books;  and  though  all  the  historians 
abuse  them  for  it,  it  is  quite  evident  that  in  their  hearts  they 
are  greatly  rejoiced.  If  the  books  had  existed,  they  would 
have  had  to  read  them.  Macaulay  has  to  peruse  every  book 


Edward  Gibbon.  39 


printed  with  long  fs ;  and  it  is  no  use  after  all ;  somebody  will 
find  some  stupid  MS.,  an  old  account-book  of  an  '  ingenious 
gentleman,'  and  with  five  entries  therein  destroy  a  whole  hypo- 
thesis. But  Gibbon  was  exempt  from  this ;  he  could  count  the 
books  the  efficient  Goths  bequeathed ;  and  when  he  had  mas- 
tered them  he  might  pause.  Still,  it  was  no  light  matter,  as 
any  one  who  looks  at  the  books — awful  folios  in  the  grave 
Bodleian — will  most  certainly  credit  and  believe.  And  he  did 
it  all  himself;  he  never  showed  his  book  to  any  friend,  or  asked 
any  one  to  help  him  in  the  accumulating  work,  not  even  in  the 
correction  of  the  press.  '  Not  a  sheet,'  he  says,  '  has  been  seen 
by  any  human  eyes,  excepting  those  of  the  author  and  printer  ; 
the  faults  and  the  merits  are  exclusively  my  own.'  And  he 
wrote  most  of  it  with  one  pen,  which  must  certainly  have  grown 
erudite  towards  the  end. 

The  nature  of  his  authorities  clearly  shows  what  the  nature 
of  Gibbon's  work  is.  History  may  be  roughly  divided  into  uni- 
versal and  particular;  the  first  being  the  narrative  of  events 
affecting  the  whole  human  race,  at  least  the  main  historical 
nations,  the  narrative  of  whose  fortunes  is  the  story  of  civilisa- 
tion ;  and  the  latter  being  the  relation  of  events  relating  to  one 
or  a  few  particular  nations  only.  Universal  history,  it  is  evi- 
dent, comprises  great  areas  of  space  and  long  periods  of  time ; 
you  cannot  have  a  series  of  events  visibly  operating  on  all  great 
nations  without  time  for  their  gradual  operation,  and  without 
tracking  them  in  succession  through  the  various  regions  of  their 
power.  There  is  no  instantaneous  transmission  in  historical 
causation;  a  long  interval  is  required  for  universal  effects.  It 
follows,  that  universal  history  necessarily  partakes  of  the  cha- 
racter of  a  summary.  You  cannot  recount  the  cumbrous  annals 
of  long  epochs  without  condensation,  selection ,  and  omission ; 
the  narrative,  when  shortened  within  the  needful  limits,  becomes 
concise  and  general.  What  it  gains  in  time,  according  to  the 
mechanical  phrase,  it  loses  in  power.  The  particular  history, 
confined  within  narrow  limits,  can  show  us  the  whole  contents 


4O  Edward  Gibbon. 

of  these  limits,  explain  its  features  of  human  interest,  recount 
in  graphic  detail  ail  its  interesting  transactions,  touch  the 
human  heart  with  the  power  of  passion,  instruct  the  mind  with 
patient  instances  of  accurate  wisdom.  The  universal  is  confined 
to  a  dry  enumeration  of  superficial  transactions ;  no  action  can 
have  all  its  details;  the  canvas  is  so  crowded  that  no  figure 
has  room  to  display  itself  effectively.  From  the  nature  of  ths 
subject,  Gibbon's  history  is  of  the  latter  class;  the  sweep  of  the 
narrative  is  so  wide ;  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Eoman  Empire 
being  in  some  sense  the  most  universal  event  which  has  ever 
happened, — being,  that  is,  the  historical  incident  which  has 
most  affected  all  civilised  men,  and  the  very  existence  and  form 
of  civilisation  itself, — it  is  evident  that  we  must  look  rather  for 
a  comprehensive  generality  than  a  telling  minuteness  of  delinea- 
tion. The  history  of  a  thousand  years  does  not  admit  the  pic- 
torial detail  which  a  Scott  or  a  Macaulay  can  accumulate  on 
the  history  of  a  hundred.  Gibbon  has  done  his  best  to  avoid 
the  dryness  natural  to  such  an  attempt.  He  inserts  as  much 
detail  as  his  limits  will  permit ;  selects  for  more  full  description 
striking  people  and  striking  transactions ;  brings  together  at  a 
single  view  all  that  relates  to  single  topics ;  above  all,  by  a 
regular  advance  of  narration,  never  ceases  to  imply  the  regular 
progress  of  events  and  the  steady  course  of  time.  None  can 
deny  the  magnitude  of  such  an  effort.  After  all,  however,  these 
are  merits  of  what  is  technically  termed  composition,  and  are 
analogous  to  those  excellences  in  painting  or  sculpture  that 
are  more  respected  by  artists  than  appreciated  by  the  public  at 
large.  The  fame  of  Gibbon  is  highest  among  writers ;  those 
especially  who  have  studied  for  years  particular  periods  included 
in  his  theme  (and  how  many  those  are ;  for  in  the  East  and 
West  he  has  set  his  mark  on  all  that  is  great  for  ten  centuries !) 
acutely  feel  and  admiringly  observe  how  difficult  it  would  be 
to  say  so  much,  and  leave  so  little  untouched ;  to  compress  so 
many  telling  points;  to  present  in  so  few  words  so  apt  and 
embracing  a  narrative  of  the  whole.  But  the  mere  unsophisti- 


Edward  Gibbon.  41 


cated  reader  scarcely  appreciates  this ;  he  is  rather  awed  than 
delighted ;  or  rather,  perhaps,  he  appreciates  it  for  a  little  while, 
then  is  tired  by  the  roll  and  glare ;  then,  on  any  chance — the 
creaking  of  an  organ,  or  the  stirring  of  a  mouse, — in  time  of 
temptation  he  falls  away.  It  has  been  said,  the  way  to  answer 
all  objections  to  Milton  is  to  take  down  the  book  and  read  him ; 
the  way  to  reverence  Gibbon  is  not  to  read  him  at  all,  but  look 
at  him,  from  outside,  in  the  bookcase,  and  tLin\  how  much 
there  is  within ;  what  a  course  of  events,  what  a  muster-roll  of 
names,  what  a  steady  solemn  sound  !  You  will  not  like  to 
take  the  book  down ;  but  you  will  think  how  much  you  could 
be  delighted  if  you  would. 

It  may  be  well,  though  it  can  be  only  in  the  most  cursory 
manner,  to  examine  the  respective  treatment  of  the  various  ele- 
ments in  this  vast  whole.  The  history  of  the  Decline  and  Fall 
may  be  roughly  and  imperfectly  divided  into  the  picture  of  the 
Roman  Empire— the  narrative  of  barbarian  incursions — the 
story  of  Constantinople :  and  some  few  words  may  be  hastily 
said  on  each. 

The  picture — for  so,  from  its  apparent  stability  when  con- 
trasted with  the  fluctuating  character  of  the  later  period,  we 
may  call  it — which  Gibbon  has  drawn  of  the  united  empire  has 
immense  merit.  The  organisation  of  the  imperial  system  is 
admirably  dwelt  on ;  the  manner  in  which  the  old  republican 
institutions  were  apparently  retained,  but  really  altered,  is  com- 
pendiously explained ;  the  mode  in  which  the  imperial  will  was 
transmitted  to  and  carried  out  in  remote  provinces  is  distinctly 
displayed.  But  though  the  mechanism  is  admirably  delineated, 
the  dynamical  principle,  the  original  impulse,  is  not  made  clear. 
You  never  feel  you  are  reading  about  the  Eomans.  Yet  no  one 
denies  their  character  to  be  most  marked.  Poets  and  orators 
have  striven  for  the  expression  of  it. 

Macaulay  has  been  similarly  criticised  ;  it  has  been  said, 
that  notwithstanding  his  great  dramatic  power,  and  won- 
derful felicity  in  .the  selection  of  events  on  which  to  exert  it, 


42  Edward  Gibbon. 


he  yet  never  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  reading  about  English- 
men. The  coarse  clay  of  our  English  nature  cannot  be  repre- 
sented in  so  fine  a  style.  In  the  same  way,  and  to  a  much 
greater  extent  (for  this  is  perhaps  an  unthankful  criticism,  if 
we  compare  Macaulay's  description  of  any  body  with  that  of 
any  other  historian),  Gibbon  is  chargeable  with  neither  express- 
ing nor  feeling  the  essence  of  the  people  concerning  whom  he 
is  writing.  There  was,  in  truth,  in  the  Eoman  people  a  warlike 
fanaticism,  a  puritanical  essence,  an  interior,  latent,  restrained, 
enthusiastic  religion,  which  was  utterly  alien  to  the  cold, scepti- 
cism of  the  narrator.  Of  course  he  was  conscious  of  it.  He 
indistinctly  felt  that  at  least  there  was  something  he  did  not 
like ;  but  he  could  not  realise  or  sympathise  with  it  without  a 
change  of  heart  and  nature.  The  old  Pagan  has  a  sympathy 
with  the  religion  of  enthusiasm  far  above  the  reach  of  the 
modern  Epicurean. 

It  may  indeed  be  said,  on  behalf  of  Gibbon,  that  the  old 
Eoman  character  was  in  its  decay,  and  that  only  such  slight 
traces  of  it  were  remaining  in  the  age  of  Augustus  and  the 
Antonines  that  it  is  no  particular  defect  in  him  to  leave  it 
unnoticed.  Yet,  though  the  intensity  of  its  nobler  peculiarities 
was  on  the  wane,  many  a  vestige  would  perhaps  have  been 
apparent  to  so  learned  an  eye,  if  his  temperament  and  disposi- 
tion had  been  prone  to  seize  upon  and  search  for  them.  Nor 
is  there  any  adequate  appreciation  of  the  compensating  element, 
of  the  force  which  really  held  society  together,  of  the  fresh  air 
of  the  Illyrian  hills,  of  that  army  which,  evermore  recruited 
from  northern  and  rugged  populations,  doubtless  brought  into 
the  very  centre  of  a  degraded  society  the  healthy  simplicity  of 
a  vital,  if  barbarous  religion. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  such  a  mind  should  have  looked  with 
displeasure  on  primitive  Christianity.  The  whole  of  his  treat- 
ment of  that  topic  has  been  discussed  by  many  pens,  and  three 
generations  of  ecclesiastical  scholars  have  illustrated  it  with 
their  emendations.  Yet,  if  we  turn  over  this,  the  latest  and 


Edward  Gibbon.  43 


most  elaborate  edition,  containing  all  the  important  criticisms 
of  Milman  and  of  Guizot,  we  shall  be  surprised  to  find  how  few 
instances  of  definite  exact  error  such  a  scrutiny  has  been  able 
to  find  out.  As  Paley,  with  his  strong  sagacity,  at  once  re- 
marked, the  subtle  error  rather  lies  hid  in  the  sinuous  folds 
than  is  directly  apparent  on  the  surface  of  the  polished  style. 
Who,  said  the  shrewd  archdeacon,  can  refute  a  sneer  ?  And  yet 
even  this  is  scarcely  the  exact  truth.  The  objection  of  Gibbon 
is,  in  fact,  an  objection  rather  to  religion  than  to  Christianity ; 
as  has  been  said,  he  did  not  appreciate,  and  could  not  describe, 
the  most  inward  form  of  pagan  piety;  he  objected  to  Chris- 
tianity because  it  was  the  intensest  of  religions.  We  do  not 
mean  by  this  to  charge  Gibbon  with  any  denial,  any  overt 
distinct  disbelief  in  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  Being. 
This  would  be  very  unjust;  his  cold  composed  rnind  had  nothing 
in  common  with  the  Jacobinical  outbreak  of  the  next  genera- 
tion. He  was  no  doubt  a  theist  after  the  fashion  of  natural 
theology;  nor  was  he  devoid  of  more  than  scientific  feeling. 
All  constituted  authorities  struck  him  with  emotion,  all  ancient 
ones  with  awe.  If  the  Roman  Empire  had  descended  to  his 
time,  how  much  he  would  have  reverenced  it !  He  had  doubt- 
less a  great  respect  for  the  '  First  Cause ;'  it  had  many  titles  to 
approbation ;  '  it  was  not  conspicuous,'  he  would  have  said,  '  but 
it  was  potent.'  A  sensitive  decorum  revolted  from  the  jar  of 
atheistic  disputation.  We  have  already  described  him  more 
than  enough.  A  sensible  middle-aged  man  in  political  life ;  a 
bachelor,  not  himself  gay,  but  living  with  gay  men ;  equable 
and  secular ;  cautious  in  his  habits,  tolerant  in  his  creed,  as 
Porson  said,  'never  failing  in  natural  feeling,  except  when 
women  were  to  be  ravished  and  Christians  to  be  martyred.'  His 
writings  are  in  character.  The  essence  of  the  far-famed  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  chapters  is,  in  truth,  but  a  description  of  un- 
worldly events  in  the  tone  of  this  world,  of  awful  facts  in 
unmoved  voice,  of  truths  of  the  heart  in  the  language  of  the 
eyes.  The  wary  sceptic  has  not  even  committed  himself  to 


44  Edward  Gibbon. 


definite  doubts.  These  celebrated  chapters  were  in  the  first 
manuscript  much  longer,  and  were  gradually  reduced  to  their 
present  size  by  excision  and  compression.  Who  can  doubt  that 
in  their  first  form  they  were  a  clear,  or  comparatively  clear,  ex- 
pression of  exact  opinions  on  the  Christian  history,  and  that  it 
was  by  a  subsequent  and  elaborate  process  that  they  were  re- 
duced to  their  present  and  insidious  obscurity  ?  The  toil  has 
been  effectual.  '  Divest,'  says  Dean  Milman  of  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  fifteenth  chapter,  '  this  whole  passage  of  the  latent 
sarcasm  betrayed  by  the  whole  of  the  subsequent  dissertation, 
and  it  might  commence  a  Christian  history,  written  in  the  most 
Christian  spirit  of  candour.' 

It  is  not  for  us  here  to  go  into  any  disquisition  as  to  the 
comparative  influence  of  the  five  earthly  causes,  to  whose 
secondary  operation  the  specious  historian  ascribes  the  progress 
of  Christianity.  Weariness  and  disinclination  forbid.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  the  polity  of  the  Church,  and  the  zeal 
of  the  converts,  and  other  such  things,  did  most  materially 
conduce  to  the  progress  of  the  Grospel.  But  few  will  now  attri- 
bute to  these  much  of  the  effect.  The  real  cause  is  the  heaving 
of  the  mind  after  the  truth.  Troubled  with  the  perplexities  of 
time,  weary  with  the  vexation  of  ages,  the  spiritual  faculty  of 
man  turns  to  the  truth  as  the  child  turns  to  its  mother.  The 
thirst  of  the  soul  was  to  be  satisfied,  the  deep  torture  of  the 
spirit  to  have  rest.  There  was  an  appeal  to  those 

'  High  instincts,  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised.' 

The  mind  of  man  has  an  appetite  for  the  truth. 

'  Hence,  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  he, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 

Which  brought  us  hither, — 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore.' 


Edward  Gibbon.  45 


All  this  was  not  exactly  in  Gibbon's  way,  and  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  able  to  conceive  that  it  was  in  any  one  else's.  Why 
his  chapters  had  given  offence  he  could  hardly  make  out.  It 
actually  seems  that  he  hardly  thought  that  other  people  believed 
more  than  he  did.  '  We  may  be  well  assured,'  says  he,  of  a 
sceptic  of  antiquity,  'that  a  writer  conversant  with  the  world 
would  never  have  ventured  to  expose  the  gods  of  his  country  to 
public  ridicule,  had  they  not  been  already  the  objects  of  secret 
contempt  among  the  polished  and  enlightened  orders  of  society.' 
'Had  I,'  he  sajs  of  himself,  'believed  that  the  majority  of 
English  readers  were  so  fondly  attached  even  to  the  name  and 
shadow  of  Christianity,  had  I  foreseen  that  the  pious,  the  timid, 
and  the  prudent  would  feel,  or  would  affect  to  feel,  with  such 
exquisite  sensibility, — I  might  perhaps  have  softened  the  two 
invidious  chapters,  which  would  create  many  enemies  and  con- 
ciliate few  friends.'  The  state  of  belief  at  that  time  is  a  very 
large  subject ;  but  it  is  probable  that  in  the  cultivated  cosmo- 
politan classes  the  continental  scepticism  was  very  rife ;  that 
among  the  hard-headed  classes  the  rough  spirit  of  English 
Deism  had  made  progress.  Though  the  mass  of  the  people 
doubtless  believed  much  as  they  now  believe,  yet  the  entire  upper 
class  was  lazy  and  corrupt,  and  there  is  truth  in  the  picture  of 
the  modern  divine :  '  The  thermometer  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land sunk  to  its  lowest  point  in  the  first  thirty  years  of  the 
reign  of  Greorge  III.  ...  In  their  preaching,  nineteen  clergy- 
men out  of  twenty  carefully  abstained  from  dwelling  upon 
Christian  doctrines.  Such  topics  exposed  the  preacher  to  the 
charge  of  fanaticism.  Even  the  calm  and  sober  Crabbe,  who 
certainly  never  erred  from  excess  of  zeal,  was  stigmatised  in 
those  days  as  a  methodist,  because  he  introduced  into  his 
sermons  the  notion  of  future  reward  and  punishment.  An 
orthodox  clergyman  (they  said)  should  be  content  to  show  his 
people  the  worldly  advantage  of  good  conduct,  and  to  leave 
heaven  and  hell  to  the  ranters.  Nor  can  we  wonder  that  such 
should  have  been  the  notions  of  country  parsons,  when,  even  by 


46  Edward  Gibbon. 

those  who  passed  for  the  supreme  arbiters  of  orthodoxy  and  taste, 
the  vapid  rhetoric  of  Blair  was  thought  the  highest  standard  of 
Christian  exhortation.'  It  is  among  the  excuses  for  Gribbon 
that  he  lived  in  such  a  world. 

There  are  slight  palliations  also  in  the  notions  then  prevalent 
of  the  primitive  Church.  There  was  the  Anglican  theory,  that 
it  was  a  via  media,  the  most  correct  of  periods,  that  its  belief  is 
to  be  the  standard,  its  institutions  the  model,  its  practice  the 
test  of  subsequent  ages.  There  was  the  notion,  not  formally 
drawn  out,  but  diffused  through  and  implied  in  a  hundred  books 
of  evidence, — a  notion  in  opposition  to  every  probability,  and 
utterly  at  variance  with  the  New  Testament, — that  the  first 
converts  were  sober,  hard-headed,  cultivated  inquirers, — Wat- 
sons, Paleys,  Pries tleys,  on  a  small  scale ;  weighing  evidence, 
analysing  facts,  suggesting  doubts,  dwelling  on  distinctions,  cold 
in  their  dispositions,  moderate  in  their  morals, — cautious  in 
their  creed.  We  now  know  that  these  were  not  they  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy.  It  is  ascertained  that  the  times  of 
the  first  Church  were  times  of  excitement ;  that  great  ideas 
falling  on  a  mingled  world  were  distorted  by  an  untrained 
intellect,  even  in  the  moment  in  which  they  were  received  by  a 
yearning  heart ;  that  strange  confused  beliefs,  Millennarianism, 
Gnosticism,  Ebionitism,  were  accepted,  not  merely  by  outlying 
obscure  heretics,  but  in  a  measure,  half-and-half,  one  notion 
more  by  one  man,  another  more  by  his  neighbour,  confusedly 
and  mixedly  by  the  mass  of  Christians ;  that  the  appeal  was  not 
to  the  questioning,  thinking  understanding,  but  to  unheeding, 
all-venturing  emotion ;  to  that  lower  class  '  from  whom  faiths 
ascend,'  and  not  to  the  cultivated  and  exquisite  class  by  whom 
they  are  criticised ;  that  fervid  men  never  embraced  a  more  ex- 
clusive creed.  You  can  say  nothing  favourable  of  the  first 
Christians,  except  that  they  were  Christians.  We  find  no 
6  form  nor  comeliness'  in  them  ;  no  intellectual  accomplishments, 
no  caution  in  action,  no  discretion  in  understanding.  There  is 
no  admirable  quality  except  that,  with  whatever  distortion,  or 


Edward  Gibbon,  47 


confusion,  or  singularity,  they  at  once  accepted  the  great  clear 
outline  of  belief  in  which,  to  this  day  we  live,  move,  and  have 
our  being.  The  offence  of  Gibbon  is  his  disinclination  to  this 
simple  essence ;  his  excuse,  the  historical  errors  then  prevalent 
as  to  the  primitive  Christians,  the  real  defects  so  natural  in 
their  position,  the  false  merits  ascribed  to  them  by  writers 
who  from  one  reason  or  another  desired  to  treat  them  as  c  an 
authority.' 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  of  the  first,  and  in 
some  sense  the  most  important  part  of  Gibbon's  work, .  that 
though  he  has  given  an  elaborate  outline  of  the  framework  of 
society,  and  described  its  detail  with  pomp  and  accuracy,  yet 
that  he  has  not  comprehended  or  delineated  its  nobler  essence, 
Pagan  or  Christian.  Nor  perhaps  was  it  to  be  expected  that  he 
should,  for  he  inadequately  comprehended  the  dangers  of  the 
time ;  he  thought  it  the  happiest  period  the  world  has  ever 
known  ;  he  would  not  have  comprehended  the  remark,  '  To  see 
the  old  world  in  its  worst  estate  we  turn  to  the  age  of  the 
satirist  and  of  Tacitus,  when  all  the  different  streams  of  evil 
coming  from  east,  west,  north,  south,  the  vices  of  barbarism  and 
the  vices  of  civilisation,  remnants  of  ancient  cults  and  the  latest 
refinements  of  luxury  and  impurity,  met  and  mingled  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber.  What  could  have  been  the  state  of  society 
when  Tiberius,  Caligula,  Nero,  Domitian,  Heliogabalus,  were 
the  rulers  of  the  world  ?  To  a  good  man  we  should  imagine 
that  death  itself  would  be  more  tolerable  than  the  sight  of  such 
things  coming  upon  the  earth.'  So  deep  an  ethical  sensibility 
was  not  to  be  expected  in  the  first  century ;  nor  is  it  strange 
when,  after  seventeen  hundred  years,  we  do  not  find  it  in  their 
historian. 

Space  has  failed  us,  and  we  must  be  unmeaningly  brief. 
The  second  head  of  Gibbon's  history — the  narrative  of  the  bar- 
barian invasions — has  been  recently  criticised,  on  the  ground 
that  he  scarcely  enough  explains  the  gradual  but  unceasing  and 
inevitable  mannei  in  which  the  outer  barbarians  were  affected 


48  Edward  Gibbon. 


by  and  assimilated  to  the  civilisation  of  Eome.  Mr.  Congreve 
has  well  observed,  that  the  impression  which  Gibbon's  narrative 
is  insensibly  calculated  to  convey  is,  that  there  was  little  or  no 
change  in  the  state  of  the  Germanic  tribes  between  the  time  of 
Tacitus  and  the  final  invasion  of  the  empire — a  conclusion  which 
is  obviously  incredible.  To  the  general  reader  there  will  perhaps 
seem  some  indistinctness  in  this  part  of  the  work,  nor  is  a  free, 
confused  barbarism  a  congenial  subject  for  an  imposing  and 
orderly  pencil.  He  succeeds  better  in  the  delineation  of  the 
riding  monarchies,  if  we  may  so  term  them, — of  the  equestrian 
courts  of  Attila  or  Timour,  in  which  the  great  scale,  the  con- 
centrated power,  the  very  enormity  of  the  barbarism,  give,  so  to 
speak,  a  shape  to  unshapeliness  ;  impart,  that  is,  a  horrid  dignity 
to  horse-flesh  and  mare's  milk,  an  imposing  oneness  to  the  vast 
materials  of  a  crude  barbarity.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  one 
would  search  Gibbon  for  an  explanation  of  the  reasons  or 
feelings  by  which  the  northern  tribes  were  induced  to  accept 
Christianity. 

It  is  on  the  story  of  Constantinople  that  the  popularity  of 
Gibbon  rests.  The  vast  extent  of  the  topic ;  the  many  splendid 
episodes  it  contains ;  its  epic  unity  from  the  moment  of  the  far- 
seeing  selection  of  the  city  by  Constantine  to  its  last  fall ;  its 
position  as  a  link  between  Europe  and  Asia;  its  continuous 
history ;  the  knowledge  that  through  all  that  time  it  was,  as 
now,  a  diadem  by  the  water-side,  a  lure  to  be  snatched  by  the 
wistful  barbarian,  a  marvel  to  the  West,  a  prize  for  the  North 
and  for  the  East ; — these,  and  such  as  these  ideas,  are  congenial 
topics  to  a  style  of  pomp  and  grandeur.  The  East  seems  to 
require  to  be  treated  with  a  magnificence  unsuitable  to  a  colder 
soil.  The  nature  of  the  events,  too,  is  suitable  to  Gibbon's 
cursory,  imposing  manner.  It  is  the  history  of  a  form  of  civili- 
sation, but  without  the  power  thereof;  a  show  of  splendour  and 
vigour,  but  without  bold  life  or  interior  reality.  What  an  op- 
portunity for  an  historian  who  loved  the  imposing  pageantry 
and  disliked  the  purer  essence  of  existence !  There  were  here 


Edward  Gibbon.  49 


neither  bluff  barbarians  nor  simple  saints ;  there  was  nothing 
admitting  of  particular  accumulated  detail ;  we  do  not  wish  to 
know  the  interior  of  the  stage  ;  the  imposing  movements  are  all 
which  should  be  seized.  Some  of  the  features,  too,  are  curious 
in  relation  to  those  of  the  historian's  life :  the  clear  accounts 
of  the  theological  controversies,  followed  out  with  an  apprecia- 
tive minuteness  so  rare  in  a  sceptic,  are  not  disconnected  with 
his  early  conversion  to  the  scholastic  Church  ;  the  brilliancy 
of  the  narrative  reminds  us  of  his  enthusiasm  for  Arabic  and 
the  East ;  the  minute  description  of  a  licentious  epoch  evinces 
the  habit  of  a  mind  which,  not  being  bold  enough  for  the 
practice  of  license,  took  a  pleasure  in  following  its  theory.  There 
is  no  subject  which  combines  so  much  of  unity  with  so  much  of 
variety. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  where  Gibbon's  rank  as  an  historian 
must  finally  stand.  He  cannot  be  numbered  among  the  great 
painters  of  human  nature,  for  he  has  no  sympathy  witli  the 
heart  and  passions  of  our  race ;  he  has  no  place  among  the  feli- 
citous describers  of  detailed  life,  for  his  subject  was  too  vast  for 
minute  painting,  and  his  style  too  uniform  for  a  shifting  scene. 
But  he  is  entitled  to  a  high — perhaps  to  a  first  place — among 
the  orderly  narrators  of  great  events ;  the  composed  expositors 
of  universal  history  ;  the  tranquil  artists  who  have  endeavoured 
to  diffuse  a  cold  polish  over  the  warm  passions  and  desultory 
fortunes  of  mankind. 

The  life  of  Gibbon  after  the  publication  of  his  great  work 
was  not  very  complicated.  During  its  composition  he  had 
withdrawn  from  Parliament  and  London  to  the  studious  retire- 
ment of  Lausanne.  Much  eloquence  has  been  expended  on  this 
voluntary  exile,  and  it  has  been  ascribed  to  the  best  and  most 
profound  motives.  It  is  indeed  certain  that  he  liked  a  lettered 
solitude,  preferred  easy  continental  society,  was  not  quite  insen- 
sible to  the  charm  of  scenery,  had  a  pleasure  in  returning  to  the 
haunts  of  his  youth.  Prosaic  and  pure  history,  however,  must 
explain  that  he  went  abroad  to  save.  Lord  North  had  gone 

VOL.    II.  E 


50  Edward  Gibbon. 


out  of  power.  Mr.  Burke,  the  Cobden  of  that  era,  had  pro- 
cured the  abolition  of  the  Lords  of  Trade ;  the  private  income 
of  Gibbon  was  not  equal  to  his  notion  of  a  bachelor  London 
life.  The  same  sum  was,  however,  a  fortune  at  Lausanne.  Most 
things,  he  acknowledged,  were  as  dear  ;  but  then  he  had  not  to 
buy  so  many  things.  Eight  hundred  a  year  placed  him  high 
in  the  social  scale  of  the  place.  The  inhabitants  were  gratified 
that  a  man  of  European  reputation  had  selected  their  out-of- 
the-way  town  for  the  shrine  of  his  fame ;  he  lived  pleasantly  and 
easily  among  easy,  pleasant  people ;  a  gentle  hum  of  local  admi- 
ration gradually  arose,  which  yet  lingers  on  the  lips  of  erudite 
laquais  de  place.  He  still  retains  a  fame  unaccorded  to  any 
other  historian ;  they  speak  of  the  '  hotel  Gibbon  : '  there  never 
was  even  an  estaminet  Tacitus,  or  a  cafe  Thucydides. 

This  agreeable  scene,  like  many  other  agreeable  scenes,  was 
broken  by  a  great  thunderclap.  The  French  revolution  has 
disgusted  many  people ;  but  perhaps  it  has  never  disgusted 
any  one  more  than  Gibbon.  He  had  swept  and  garnished 
everything  about  him.  Externally  he  had  made  a  neat  little 
hermitage  in  a  gentle,  social  place;  internally  he  had  polished 
up  a  still  theory  of  life,  sufficient  for  the  guidance  of  a  cold  and 
polished  man.  Everything  seemed  to  be  tranquil  with  him; 
the  rigid  must  admit  his  decorum ;  the  lax  would  not  accuse 
him  of  rigour;  he  was  of  the  world,  and  an  elegant  society 
naturally  loved  its  own.  On  a  sudden  the  hermitage  was  dis- 
turbed. No  place  was  too  calm  for  that  excitement ;  scarcely 
any  too  distant  for  that  uproar.  The  French  war  was  a  war  of 
opinion,  entering  households,  disturbing  villages,  dividing  quiet 
friends.  The  Swiss  took  some  of  the  infection.  There  was  a  not 
unnatural  discord  between  the  people  of  the  Pays  de  Vaud  and 
their  masters  the  people  of  Berne.  The  letters  of  Gibbon  are 
filled  with  invectives  on  the  '  Gallic  barbarians '  and  panegyrics 
on  Mr.  Burke ;  military  details,  too,  begin  to  abound — the 
peace  of  his  retirement  was  at  an  end.  It  was  an  additional 
aggravation  that  the  Parisians  should  do  such  things.  It  would 


Edward  Gibbon.  51 


not  have  seemed  unnatural  that  northern  barbarians — English, 
or  other  uncivilised  nations — should  break  forth  in  rough  riot 
or  cruel  license ;  but  that  the  people  of  the  most  civilised  of  all 
capitals,  speaking  the  sole  dialect  of  polished  life,  enlightened 
with  all  the  enlightenment  then  known,  should  be  guilty  of 
excesses  unparalleled,  unwitnessed,  unheard  of,  was  a  vexing 
trial  to  one  who  had  admired  them  for  many  years.  The 
internal  creed  and  belief  of  Gibbon  was  as  much  attacked  by  all 
this  as  were  his  external  circumstances.  He  had  spent  his  time, 
his  life,  his  energy,  in  putting  a  polished  gloss  on  human 
tumult,  a  sneering  gloss  on  human  piety ;  on  a  sudden  human 
passion  broke  forth — the  cold  and  polished  world  seemed  to  meet 
its  end ;  the  thin  superficies  of  civilisation  was  torn  asunder ; 
the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  seemed  opened ;  impiety  to 
meet  its  end ;  the  foundations  of  the  earth  were  out  of  course. 
We  now,  after  long  familiarity  and  in  much  ignorance,  can 
hardly  read  the  history  of  those  years  without  horror  :  what  an 
effect  must  they  have  produced  on  those  whose  minds  were 
fresh,  and  who  knew  the  people  killed !  *  Never,'  Gibbon  wrote 
to  an  English  nobleman,  '  did  a  revolution  affect  to  such  a 
degree  the  private  existence  of  such  numbers*  of  the  first  people 
of  a  great  country.  Your  examples  of  misery  I  could  easily 
match  with  similar  examples  in  this  country  and  neighbourhood, 
and  our  sympathy  is  the  deeper,  as  we  do  not  possess,  like  you, 
the  means  of  alleviating  in  some  measure  the  misfortunes  of  the 
fugitives.'  It  violently  affected  his  views  of  English  politics. 
He  before  had  a  tendency,  in  consideration  of  his  cosmopolitan 
cultivation,  to  treat  them  as  local  littlenesses,  parish  squabbles ; 
but  now  his  interest  was  keen  and  eager.  *  But,'  he  says,  '  in 
this  rage  against  slavery,  in  the  numerous  petitions  against  the 
slave-trade,  was  there  no  leaven  of  new  democratical  principles  ? 
no  wild  ideas  of  the  rights  and  natural  equality  of  man  ?  It 
is  these  I  fear.  Some  articles  in  newspapers,  some  pamphlets  of 
the  year,  the  Jockey  Club,  have  fallen  into  my  hands.  I  do 
not  infer  much  from  such  publications ;  yet  I  have  never  known 

E  2 


52  Edward  Gibbon. 

_^__^^^_______^_— 

them  of  so  black  and  malignant  a  cast.  I  shuddered  at  Grey's 
motion;  disliked  the  half-support  of  Fox,  admired  the  firm- 
ness of  Pitt's  declaration,  and  excused  the  usual  intemperance 

of  Burke.     Surely  such  men  as  -   — ,  -   — , ,  have  talents 

for  mischief.  I  see  a  club  of  reform  which  contains  some  re- 
spectable names.  Inform  me  of  the  professions,  the  principles, 
the  plans,  the  resources  of  these  reformers.  Will  they  heat  the 
minds  of  the  people  ?  Does  the  French  democracy  gain  no 
ground  ?  Will  the  bulk  of  your  party  stand  firm  to  their  own 
interest  and  that  of  their  country  ?  Will  you  not  take  some 
active  measures  to  declare  your  sound  opinions,  and  separate 
yourselves  from  your  rotten  members  ?  If  you  allow  them  to 
perplex  Government,  if  you  trifle  with  this  solemn  business,  if 
you  do  not  resist  the  spirit  of  innovation  in  the  first  attempt,  if 
you  admit  the  smallest  and  most  specious  change  in  our  parlia- 
mentary system,  you  are  lost.  You  will  be  driven  from  one 
step  to  another ;  from  principles  just  in  theory  to  consequences 
most  pernicious  in  practice ;  and  your  first  concession  will  be 
productive  of  every  subsequent  mischief,  for  which  you  will  be 
answerable  to  your  country  and  to  posterity.  Do  not  suffer 
yourselves  to  be  lulled  into  a  false  security ;  remember  the  proud 
fabric  of  the  French  monarchy.  Not  four  years  ago  it  stood 
founded,  as  it  might  seem,  on  the  rock  of  time,  force,  and 
opinion ;  supported  by  the  triple  aristocracy  of  the  Church,  the 
nobility,  and  the  parliaments.  They  are  crumbled  into  dust; 
they  are  vanished  from  the  earth.  If  this  tremendous  warning 
has  no  effect  on  the  men  of  property  in  England ;  if  it  does  not 
open  every  eye,  and  raise  every  arm, — you  will  deserve  your 
fate.  If  I  am  too  precipitate,  enlighten  ;  if  I  am  too  despond- 
ing, encourage  me.  My  pen  has  run  into  this  argument ;  for, 
as  much  a  foreigner  as  you  think  me,  on  this  momentous  subject 
I  feel  myself  an  Englishman.' 

The  truth  clearly  is,  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  he  was  the  sort  of  person  a  populace  kill.  People  wonder 
a  great  deal  why  very  many  of  the  victims  of  the  French  revo- 


Edward  Gibbon.  53 

lution  were  particularly  selected ;  the  Marquis  de  Custine, 
especially,  cannot  divine  why  they  executed  his  father.  The 
historians  cannot  show  that  they  committed  any  particular 
crimes ;  the  marquises  and  marchionesses  seem  very  inoffensive. 
The  fact  evidently  is,  that  they  were  killed  for  being  polite. 
The  world  felt  itself  unworthy  of  them.  There  were  so  many 
bows,  such  regular  smiles,  such  calm  superior  condescension, — 
could  a  mob  be  asked  to  endure  it  ?  Have  we  not  all  known  a 
precise,  formal,  patronising  old  gentleman — bland,  imposing, 
something  like  Gibbon  ?  Have  we  not  suffered  from  his  digni- 
fied attentions  ?  If  we  had  been  on  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  can  we  doubt  what  would  have  been  the  fate  of  that 
man?  Just  so  wrath  and  envy  destroyed  in  France  an  upper- 
class  world. 

After  his  return  to  England,  Gibbon  did  not  do  much  or 
live  long.  He  completed  his  Memoirs,  the  most  imposing  of 
domestic  narratives,  the  model  of  dignified  detail.  As  we  said 
before,  if  the  Roman  empire  had  written  about  itself,  this  was 
how  it  would  have  done  so.  He  planned  some  other  works,  but 
executed  none  ;  judiciously  observing  that  building  castles  in 
the  air  was  more  agreeable  than  building  them  on  the  ground. 
His  career  was,  however,  drawing  to  an  end.  Earthly  dignity 
had  its  limits,  even  the  dignity  of  an  historian.  He  had  long 
been  stout;  and  now  symptoms  of  dropsy  began  to  appear. 
After  a  short  interval,  he  died  on  the  16th  of  January  1794. 
We  have  sketched  his  character,  and  have  no  more  to  say. 
After  all,  what  is  our  criticism  worth  ?  It  only  fulfils  his  aspira- 
tion, 'that  a  hundred  years  hence  I  may  still  continue  to  be 
abused.' 


54  Bishop  Butler. 


BISHOP  BUTLERS 

(1854.) 

ABOUT  the  close  of  the  last  century,  some  one  discovered  the 
wife  of  a  country  rector  in  the  act  of  destroying,  for  culinary 
purposes,  the  last  remnants  of  a  box  of  sermons,  which  seemed 
to  have  been  written  by  Joseph  Butler.  The  lady  was  reproved, 
but  the  exculpatory  rejoinder  was,  'Why,  the  box  was  full  once, 
and  I  thought  they  were  my  husband's.'  Nevertheless,  when 
we  first  saw  the  above  announcement  of  unpublished  remains, 
we  hoped  her  exemplary  diligence  had  not  been  wholly  success- 
ful, and  that  some  important  writings  of  Butler  had  been  dis- 
covered. In  this  we  have  been  disappointed.  The  remains  in 
question  are  slight  and  rather  trivial ;  the  longest  is  an  addi- 
tional letter  addressed  to  Dr.  Clarke  ;  and  in  all  the  rest  there 
is  scarcely  anything  very  characteristic,  except  the  remark, 
'  What  a  wonderful  incongruity  it  is  for  a  man  to  see  the  doubt- 
fulness in  which  things  are  involved,  and  yet  be  impatient  out 
of  action,  or  vehement  in  it.  Say  a  man  is  a  sceptic,  and  add 
what  was  said  of  Brutus,  quicquid  vult  valde  vult,  and  you 
say  there  is  the  greatest  contrariety  between  his  understanding 
and  temper  that  can  be  expressed  in  words:' — an  observation 
which  might  be  borne  in  mind  by  some  English  writers  who 
panegyrise  Julius  Caesar,  and  the  many  P'rench  ones  who  pane- 
gyrise Napoleon. 

The  life  of  Butler  is  one  of  those  in  which  the  events  are 


1  Some  Remains  {hitherto  unpublished")  of  Joseph  Butler,  LL.D.,  some  time 
Lord  Bislwp  of  Durham. 

Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Vol.  VI.  Part  II.  Article,  Joseph  Sutler.  By 
Henry  Rogers,  Author  of  the  <  Eclipse  of  Faith.'  Eighth  edition. 


Bishop  Bittler. 


few,  the  transitions  simple,  and  the  final  result  strange.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  dissenting  shopkeeper  in  Berkshire,  was  always 
of  a  meditative  disposition  and  reading  habit — grew  to  man- 
hood— was  destined  to  the  Dissenting  ministry — began  to 
question  the  principles  of  Dissent — entered  at  Oriel  College — 
made  valuable  acquaintances  there — rose  in  the  Church  by 
means  of  them — obtained,  first  the  chaplaincy  of  the  Eolls,  then 
a  decent  living — then  the  rectory  of  Stanhope,  the  'golden1 
rectory,  one  of  the  best  in  the  English  Church — was  recom- 
mended by  his  old  friends  to  Queen  Caroline — talked  philo- 
sophy to  her — pleased  her  (this  being  her  favourite  topic) — was 
made  Bishop  of  Bristol,  and  thence  translated  to  the  richest  of 
Anglican  dignities — the  prince-bishopric  of  Durham,  and  there 
died. 

These  are  the  single  steps,  and  there  is  none  of  them  which 
is  remote  from  our  ordinary  observation.  We  should  not  be 
surprised  to  see  any  of  them  every  day.  But  when  we  look  on 
the  life  as  a  whole,  when  we  see  its  nature,  when  we  observe 
the  son  of  a  dissenting  tradesman,  a  person  of  simple  and  pious 
disposition,  of  retiring  habits,  and  scrupulous  and  investigating 
mind — in  a  word,  the  least  worldly  of  ecclesiastics — attain  to 
the  most  secular  of  ecclesiastical  dignities,  be  a  prince  as  well 
as  a  bishop,  become  the  great  magnate  of  the  North  of  England, 
and  dispense  revenues  to  be  envied  by  many  a  foreign  potentate, 
we  perceive  the  singularity  of  such  a  man  with  such  beginnings 
attaining  such  a  fortune.  No  man  would  guess  from  Butler's 
writings  that  he  ever  had  the  disposal  of  five  pounds :  it  is  odd 
to  think  what  he  did  with  the  mining  property  and  landed 
property,  the  royalties  and  rectories,  coal  dues  and  curacies, 
that  he  must  have  heard  of  from  morning  till  evening. 

It  is  certainly  most  strange  that  such  a  man  should  ever 
have  been  made  a  bishop.  In  general  we  observe  that  those 
become  most  eminent  in  the  sheepfold,  who  partake  most  emi- 
nently of  the  qualities  of  the  wolf.  Nor  is  this  surprising.  The 
Church  is  (as  the  Article  defines  it)  a  congregation  of  men, 


56  Bishop  Butler. 


faithful  indeed,  but  faithful  in  various  degrees.  In  every  cor- 
poration or  combination  of  men,  no  matter  for  what  purpose 
collected,  there  are  certain  secular  qualities  which  attain  emi- 
nence as  surely  as  oil  rises  above  water.  Attorneys  are  for  the 
world,  and  the  world  is  for  attorneys.  Activity,  vigour,  sharp- 
sightedness,  tact,  boldness,  watchfulness,  and  such  qualities  as 
these,  raise  a  man  in  the  Church  as  certainly  as  in  the  State ; 
so  long  as  there  is  wealth  and  preferment  in  the  one,  they  will 
be  attained  a  good  deal  as  wealth  and  office  are  in  the  other. 
The  prowling  faculties  will  have  their  way.  Those  who  hunger 
and  thirst  after  riches  will  have  riches,  and  those  who  hunger 
not,  will  not.  Still  to  this  there  are  exceptions,  and  Butler's 
case  is  one  of  them.  We  might  really  fancy  the  world  had 
determined  to  give  for  once  an  encouraging  instance  of  its 
sensibility  to  rectitude,  of  the  real  and  great  influence  of  real 
and  great  virtue. 

The  period  at  which  Butler's  elevation  occurred  certainly 
does  not  diminish  the  oddness  of  the  phenomenon.  We  are 
not  indeed  of  those,  mostly  disciples  of  Carlyle  or  Newman, 
who  speak  with  unternpered  contempt  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Rather,  if  we  might  trust  our  own  feelings,  we  view  it  with 
appreciating  regard.  It  was  the  age  of  substantial  comfort. 
The  grave  and  placid  historian  (we  speak  of  Mr.  Hallam),  going 
learnedly  over  the  generations  of  men,  is  disposed  to  think  that 
there  never  was  so  much  happiness  before  or  since.  Employ- 
ment was  plentiful ;  industry  remunerative.  The  advantages 
of  material  civilisation  were  enjoyed,  and  its  penalties  scarcely 
foreseen.  The  troubles  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  died 
out ;  those  of  the  nineteenth  had  not  begun.  Cares  were  few ; 
the  stir  and  conflict  in  which  we  live  had  barely  commenced. 
It  was  not  an  age  to  trouble  itself  with  prospective  tasks ;  it 
had  no  feverish  excitement,  nor  over-intellectual  introspection ; 
it  lived  on  the  fat  of  the  land ;  qiueta  non  movere,  was  its 
motto.  Like  most  comfortable  people,  those  of  that  time  pos- 
sessed a  sleepy,  supine  sagacity ,  they  had  no  fine  imaginings, 


Bishop  B hitler.  57 


no  exquisite  fancies ;  but  a  coarse  sense  of  what  was  common,  a 
'  large  roundabout  common  sense'  (these  are  Locke's  words), 
which  was  their  guide  in  what  concerned  them.  Some  may  not 
think  this  romantic  enough  to  be  attractive,  and  yet  it  has  a 
beauty  of  its  own.  They  did  not  '  look  before  or  after.'  nor 
'  pine  for  what  was  not ; '  they  enjoyed  what  was ;  a  solid  home- 
liness was  their  mark.  Exactly  as  we  like  to  see  a  large  lazy 
animal  lying  in  the  placid  shade,  without  anxiety  for  the  future 
and  chewing  the  cud  of  the  past,  we  like  to  look  back  at  the 
age  of  our  great-grandfathers,  so  solid  in  its  habits  and  placid 
in  the  lapse  of  years.  Nevertheless — and  this  is  what  is  to  our 
purpose —  we  must  own  at  once  that  the  very  merits  of  that  age 
are  of  the  earth,  earthy ;  there  was  no  talk  then  of  '  obstinate 
questionings,'  or  '  incommunicable  dream  ;'  heroism,  enthusiasm, 
the  sense  of  the  supernatural,  deep  feeling,  seem  in  a  manner 
foreign  to  the  very  idea  of  it.  This  is  the  point  of  view  in 
which  the  Tractarian  movement  was  described  as  '  tending 
towards  the  realisation  of  something  better  and  nobler  than 
satisfied  the  last  century.'  For  the  clergy,  the  time  was  indeed 
evil.  The  popular  view  of  the  profession  seems  accurately 
expressed  in  a  well-known  book  of  memoirs.  '  But  if  this  was 
your  opinion,  how  came  you  not  to  let  your  friend  Sherlock,' 
the  well-known  bishop,  '  into  the  secret  ?  Why  did  you  not  tell 
him  that  half  the  pack,  and  those  you  most  depended  on,  were 
drawn  off,  and  the  game  escaped  and  safe,  instead  of  leaving 
his  lordship  there  to  bark  and  yelp  by  himself,  and  make  the 
silly  figure  he  has  done?'  'Oh,'  said  Lord  Carteret,  'he  talks 
like  a  parson,  and  consequently  is  so  used  to  talk  to  people  who 
do  not  mind  him,  that  I  left  him  to  find  it  out  at  his  leisure, 
and  shall  have  him  again  for  all  this,  whenever  I  want  him.' 

The  fact  of  Butler's  success  is  to  be  accounted  for,  as  we 
have  said,  by  his  personal  excellence.  Mr.  Talbot  liked  him, 
Bishop  Talbot  liked  him,  the  Queen  liked  him,  the  King  liked 
him.  He  says  himself  in  these  Remains,  '  Grood  men  surely  are 
not  treated  in  this  world  as  they  deserve,  yet  'tis  seldom,  very 


58  Bishop  Butler. 


seldom,  their  goodness  makes  them  disliked,  even  in  cases 
where  it  may  seem  to  be  so  ;  but  'tis  some  behaviour  or  other 
which,  however  excusable,  perhaps  infinitely  overbalanced  by 
their  virtues,  yet  is  offensive,  possibly  wrong,  however  such,  it 
may  be,  as  would  pass  off  very  well  in  a  man  of  the  world.' 
And  he  must  have  been  alive  to  the  fact  in  practice.  He  had 
every  excuse  for  making  virtue  detestable.  He  was  educated 
a  Baptist,  and  brought  up  at  a  dissenting  academy.  He  was 
born  in  the  vulgarest  years  of  English  Puritanism,  when  it  had 
fallen  from  its  first  estate,  when  it  had  least  influence  with  the 
higher  classes,  when  the  revival  which  dates  from  John  Wesley 
had  not  begun,  and  the  very  memory  of  gentlemen  such  as 
Hutchinson  or  Hampden  had  passed  away.  A  certain  instinc- 
tive refinement,  a  'niceness'  and  gentleness  of  nature,  preserved 
him  not  only  from  the  coarser  consequences  of  his  position,  but 
even  from  that  angularity  of  mind  which  is  not  often  escaped 
by  those  early  trained  to  object  to  what  is  established. 

Of  his  character  the  principal  point  may  be  described  in 
the  words  which  Arnold  so  often  uses  to  denote  the  end  and 
aim  of  his  education,  *  moral  thought  fulness.'  A  certain  con- 
siderateness  is,  as  it  were,  diffused  over  all  his  sentences.  To 
most  men  conscience  is  an  occasional,  almost  an  external  voice ; 
to  Butler  it  was  a  daily  companion,  a  close  anxiety.  In  a  recent 
novel  this  disposition  is  skilfully  delineated  and  delicately  con- 
trasted with  its  opposite.  We  may  quote  the  passage,  though 
it  is  encumbered  with  some  detail.  'But  what  was  a  real 
trouble  to  Charles,'  this  is  the  person  whose  character  is  in 
question,  '  it  got  clearer  and  clearer  to  his  apprehension,  that 
his  intimacy  with  Sheffield  was  not  quite  what  it  had  been. 
They  had  indeed  passed  the  vacation  together,  and  saw  of  each 
other  more  than  ever;  but  their  sympathies  with  each  other 
were  not  as  strong,  they  had  not  the  same  likings  and  dis- 
likings ;  in  short,  they  had  not  such  congenial  minds,  as  wnen 
they  were  freshmen.  There  was  not  so  much  heart  in  their 
conversations,  and  they  more  easily  endured  to  miss  each  other's 


Bishop  Butler.  59 

company.  They  were  both  reading  for  honours,  reading  hard ; 
but  Sheffield's  whole  heart  was  in  his  work,  and  religion  was 
but  a  secondary  matter  with  him.  He  had  no  doubts,  diffi- 
culties, anxieties,  sorrows,  which  much  affected  him.  It  was 
not  the  certainty  of  faith  which  made  a  sunshine  in  his  soul, 
and  dried  up  the  mists  of  human  weakness ;  rather  he  had  no 
perceptible  need  within  him  of  that  vision  of  the  unseen,  which 
is  the  Christian's  life.  He  was  unblemished  in  his  character, 
exemplary  in  his  conduct,  but  he  was  content  with  what  the 
perishable  world  gave  him.  Charles's  characteristic,  perhaps 
more  than  anything  else,  was  an  habitual  sense  of  the  Divine 
Presence — a  sense  which,  of  course,  did  not  insure  uninterrupted 
conformity  of  thought  and  deed  to  itself,  but  still  there  it  was : 
the  pillar  of  the  cloud  before  him  and  guiding  him.  He  felt 
himself  to  be  God's  creature,  and  responsible  to  Him ;  God's 
possession,  not  his  own.'  Again  the  same  character  is  brought 
home  to  us,  in  a  part  of  Walton's  delineation  of  Hooker,  which, 
indeed,  except  perhaps  for  the  great  quickness  attributed  to  his 
intellect,  might  as  a  whole  stand  well  enough  for  a  description 
of  Butler :  '  His  complexion  (if  we  may  guess  by  him  at  the 
age  of  forty)  was  sanguine,  with  a  mixture  of  choler ;  and  yet 
his  motion  was  slow  even  in  his  youth,  and  so  was  his  speech, 
never  expressing  an  earnestness  in  either  of  them,  but  an  humble 
gravity  suited  to  the  aged.  And  it  is  observed  (so  far  as  in- 
quiry is  able  to  look  back  at  this  distance  of  time)  that  at  his 
being  a  schoolboy  he  was  an  early  questionist,  quietly  inquisi- 
tive why  this  was  granted  and  that  denied ;  this  being  mixed 
with  a  remarkable  modesty  and  a  sweet  serene  quietness  of 
nature  ....  It  is  observable  that  he  was  never  known  to  be 
....  extreme  in  any  of  his  desires ;  never  heard  to  repine  or 
dispute  with  Providence,  but,  by  a  quiet  gentle  submission  and 
resignation  of  his  will  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Creator,  bore  the 
burden  of  the  day  with  patience;  ....  and  by  this,  and  a 
grave  behaviour,  which  is  a  divine  charm,  he  begot  an  early 
reverence  for  his  person  even  from  those  that,  at  other  times 


60  Bishop  Butler. 


and  in  other  companies,  took  a  liberty  to  cast  off  that  strictness 
of  behaviour  and  discourse  that  is  required  in  a  collegiate  life.' 
Something  of  this  is  a  result  of  disposition ;  yet  on  the  whole 
it  seems  mainly  the  effect  of  the  'moral  though tfulness '  which 
has  been  mentioned. 

The  very  name  of  this  quality  reminds  us  of  a  difficulty. 
We  cannot  but  doubt,  with  the  experience  of  this  age,  how  far 
this  can  be  made,  or  ought  to  be  made,  the  abiding  sentiment 
of  all  men  ;  how  far  such  teaching  as  that  of  Arnold's  tends  to 
introduce  a  too  stiff  and  anxious  habit  of  mind  ;  how  far  the 
perpetual  presence  of  a  purpose  will  interfere  with  the  simple 
happiness  of  life,  and  how  far  also  it  can  be  forced  on  the  '  lilies 
of  the  field;'  how  far  the  care  of  anxious  minds  and  active 
thoughts  is  to  be  obtruded  on  the  young,  on  the  cheerful,  on 
the  natural.  Other  questions,  too,  might  be  asked,  if  the  in- 
culcation of  this  temper  and  habit  as  a  daily,  universal  obliga- 
tion, a  perpetual  and  general  necessity  for  all  characters,  would 
not,  or  might  not,  impair  the  sanguine  energy  and  masculine 
activity  which  are  necessary  for  social  action  ;  whether  it  does 
not,  in  matter  of  fact,  even  now,  '  burn  and  brand'  into  ex- 
citable fancies  a  few  stern  truths  more  deeply  than  a  feeble 
reason  will  bear  or  the  equilibrium  of  the  world  demands  ?  But 
whatever  be  the  issue  of  such  questions,  on  which  there  is 
perhaps  now  no  decided  or  established  opinion,  there  can  be 
no  question  of  the  charm  of  such  a  character  in  those  to  whom 
it  is  natural.  We  may  admire  what  we  cannot  share  ;  reve- 
rence what  we  do  not  imitate.  As  those  who  cannot  compre- 
hend a  strain  of  soothing  music,  look  with  interest  on  those  who 
can  ;  as  those  who  cannot  feel  the  gentle  glow  of  a  quiet  land- 
scape, yet  stand  aside  and  seem  inferior  to  those  who  do  ;  so  in 
character  the  buoyant  and  the  bold,  the  harsh  and  the  practical, 
may,  at  least  for  the  moment,  moralise  and  look  upwards,  reve- 
rence and  do  homage,  when  they  come  to  a  close  experience  of 
what  is  gentler  and  simpler,  more  anxious  and  more  thoughtful, 
kinder  and  more  religious,  than  themselves.  At  any  rate,  so 


Bishop  Butler.  61 


thought  the  contemporaries  of  Butler.  They  did,  as  a  French- 
man would  say,  'their  possible'  for  a  good  man ;  at  least  they 
made  him  a  bishop. 

We  gather,  however,  that  their  kindness  was  scarcely  suc- 
cessful. Butler  was  very  prosperous ;  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  he  was  at  all  happy.  In  the  midst  of  the  princely  esta- 
blishment of  his  rich  episcopate,  so  anxious  a  nature  found 
time  to  be  rather  melancholy.  The  responsibilities  of  so 
cumbrous  a  position  were  but  little  pleasant  to  an  apprehensive 
disposition ;  wealth  and  honour  were  finery  and  foolishness  to 
a  quiet  and  shrinking  man.  A  small  room  in  a  tranquil  college, 
daily  walks  and  thoughtful  talk,  a  little  income  and  a  few 
friends — these,  and  these  only,  suit  a  still  and  meditative  mind. 
Such,  however,  were  denied  him.  He  is  said  to  have  taken 
much  pleasure  in  discussion  and  interchange  of  mind ;  but  his 
life  was  passed  in  courts  and  country  parsonages — the  one  too 
noisy,  the  last  too  still,  to  think  or  reason.  Nor  were  there 
many  people,  whom  we  know  of,  that  were  congenial  to  him  in 
that  age.  Scarcely  any  name  of  a  friend  of  his  has  come  down 
to  us ;  one,  indeed,  there  is — that  of  Bishop  Seeker,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the 
Catechism,  a  serious  work  still  used  for  the  purposes  of  tuition, 
with  which,  indeed,  the  name  of  the  writer  is  now  with  some 
so  associated  by  early  habit  that  it  is  difficult  to  fancy  even 
Butler  on  equal  social  terms  with  him ;  the  notion  of  talking 
to  him  seems  like  being  asked  to  converse  familiarly  with  the 
Catechism  itself. 

A  not  unremarkable  circumstance,  however,  shows  that 
Seeker,  though  he  was  educated  at  the  same  academy,  could 
not  have  been  on  any  terms  of  extreme  intimacy  with  Butler. 
Some  time  after  Butler's  death,  there  was  a  rumour  that  lie 
had  died  a  Papist.  There  is  no  doubt,  in  fact,  that  Butler's 
opinions,  being  formed  on  principles  of  evidence  and  reasoning 
too  strict  to  be  extremely  popular,  were  not  likely  to  be  agree- 
able to  those  about  him,  and  when  an  Englishman  sees  any- 


62  Bishop  Butler. 


thing  in  religion  which  he  does  not  like,  he  always,  prima 
facie,  imputes  it  to  the  Pope.  Besides  this  general  and  strong 
argument,  there  were  two  particular  ones — first,  that  he  had 
erected  a  cross  in  the  episcopal  chapel  at  Bristol ;  secondly, 
that  he  was  of  a  melancholy  and  somewhat  of  an  ascetic  turn ; 
reasons  which,  though  doubtless  of  force  in  their  day  and  gene- 
ration, are  not  likely  to  be  of  avail  with  us,  who  know  so  much 
more  about  crosses  and  fasting  than  they  did  then.  We  might 
have  expected  that  Seeker,  as  Butler's  old  friend  and  school- 
fellow, would  have  been  able  from  his  personal  knowledge  to 
throw  a  good  deal  of  light  upon  the  question.  He  was  only, 
however,  able  to  advance  'presumptive  arguments  that  Bishop 
Butler  did  not  die  a  Papist,'  which  were  no  doubt  valuable ; 
but  yet  give  no  great  idea  of  the  intimacy  between  the  writer 
and  the  person  about  whom  he  was  writing.  Such  arguments 
may  easily  be  found,  and  have  always  convinced  every  one  that 
there  was  no  truth  in  this  rumour.  The  only  reason  for  which 
we  wish  that  Seeker  had  been  able  to  say  he  had  heard  Butler 
talk  on  the  subject,  and  that  he  was  no  Papist,  is,  that  we 
should  then  have  known  to  whom  Butler  talked.  There  is  no- 
thing in  Butler's  writings  at  all  showing  any  leaning  to  the 
peculiar  tenets  of  Roman  Catholicism,  and  there  is  much  which 
shows  a  strong  opinion  against  them  ;  and  it  was  far  too  extreme 
a  doctrine  to  be  at  all  agreeable  to  his  very  English,  moderate, 
and  shrinking  mind. 

Calumny,  however,  is  commonly  instructive.  It  must  be 
granted,  that  though  there  is  no  trace  or  tendency  in  the 
writings  of  Butler  to  the  peculiar  superstitions  advocated  by  the 
Pope,  there  is  a  strong  and  prevailing  tinge  of  what  may  be 
called  the  principle  of  superstition,  that  is,  the  religion  of  fear. 
Some  may  doubt,  especially  at  the  present  day,  whether  there 
be  any  true  religion  of  that  kind  at  all ;  yet  it  seems,  as  Butler 
would  have  said,  but  a  proper  feeling  '  in  such  creatures  as  we 
are,  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one.' 

We  may  reflect  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  religion,  which 


Bishop  Butler. 


may  for  some  purposes  be  called,  the  one  the  natural,  and  the 
other  the  supernatural.  The  former  seems  to  take  its  rise  from 
mere  contemplation  of  external  beauty.  We  look  on  the  world, 
and  we  see  that  it  is  good.  The  Greek  of  former  time,  reclin- 
ing softly  in  his  own  bright  land,  « looked  up  to  the  whole  sky 
and  declared  that  the  One  was  God.'  From  the  blue  air  and 
the  fair  cloud,  the  green  earth  and  the  white  sea,  a  presence 
streams  upon  us.  It  modulates — 

'  With  murmurs  of  the  air, 
And  motions  of  the  forests  and  the  sea, 
And  voice  of  living  beings  and  woven  hymns 
Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man.' 

But  the  true  home  of  the  idea  is  in  the  starlight  sky ;  we 
instinctively  mingle  it  with  an  admiration  of  infinite  space,  a 
cold  purity  is  around  us,  and  the  clear  and  steel-like  words  of 
the  poet  justly  reflect  the  doctrine  of  the  clear  and  steel-like 
heaven  : — 

The  magic  car  moved  on. 

Earth's  distant  orb  appeared 

The  smallest  light  that  twinkles  in  the  heaven ; 

Whilst  round  the  chariot's  way 

Innumerable  systems  rolled, 

And  countless  spheres  diffused 

An  ever- varying  glory. 

It  was  a  sight  of  wonder  :  some 
Were  horned  like  the  crescent  moon ; 
Some  shed  a  mild  and  silver  beam 
Like  Hespsrus  across  the  western  sea ; 
Some  dashed  athwart  with  trains  of  flame, 
Like  worlds  to  death  and  ruin  driven ; 
Some  shone  like  suns,  and,  as  the  chariot  passed, 
Eclipsed  all  other  light. 

Spirit  of  nature  !  here  ! 
In  this  interminable  wilderness 
Of  worlds,  at  whose  immensity 
Even  soaring  fancy  staggers, 
Here  is  thy  fitting  temple. 


64  Bishop  Butler. 


Yet  not  the  lightest  leaf 
That  quivers  to  the  passing  breeze 
Is  less  instinct  with  thee : 
Yet  not ' 

And  so  on ;  and  so  it  will  be  as  long  as  there  are  poets  to 
look  upon  the  sky,  or  a  sky  to  be  looked  at  by  them.    The  truth 
is,  that  there  is  a  certain  expressiveness  (if  we  may  so  speak)  in 
nature  which  persons  of  imagination  naturally  feel  more  acutely 
than  others,  and  which  cannot  easily  be  in  its  full  degree  brought 
home  to  others,  except  in  quotations  of  their  writings,  from 
which  '  smiling  of  the  world,'  as  it  has  been  called,  more  than 
from  any  other  outward  appearance,  we  infer  the  existence  of 
an  immaterial  and  animating  spirit.     This  expressiveness  per- 
haps produces  its  effect  on  the  mind,  by  a  principle  analogous 
to,  perhaps  in  a  severe  analysis  identical  with,  the  interpretative 
faculty  by  which  we  acquire  a  cognizance  of  the  existence  of 
other  human  minds.     There  appear  to  be  certain  natural  signs 
and  tokens  from  which  we  (like  other  animals)  instinctively 
infer,  or  rather — for  there  is  no  conscious  reasoning — in  which 
we   silently  see  life  and  thought  and  mind.     In  this  way  we 
interpret  the  detail  of  natural  expression — the  smile,  the  glance 
of  the  eye,  the  common  interjections,  the  universal  tokens  of 
our  simplest  emotions ;  those  signs  and  marks  and  expressions 
which  we  make  in  our  earliest  infancy  without  teaching  and  by 
instinct,  we  appear  also,  by  instinct  and  without  learning,  to 
read  off,  interpret,  and  comprehend,  when  used  to  us  by  others. 
The  comprehension  of  this  language  is  perhaps  as  much  an 
instinct  as  the  using  of  it.     There  is  no  occasion,  however,  for 
acute  metaphysics ;  whatever  was  the   origin  of  this  faculty, 
such  a  power  of  interpreting  material  phenomena,  such  a  faculty 
of  seeing  life,  undoubtedly  there  is  ; — however  we  come  by  the 
power,  we  can  distinguish  living  from  dead  creatures.     At  any 
rate,  if,  like  other  living  creatures,  we  take  a  natural  cognizance 
of  the  simple  expressions  of  life  and  mind,  and  without  tuition 
comprehend  the  language  and  meaning  of  natural  signs,  in  like 


Bishop  Biitler.  65 


manner,  though  less  clearly  and  forcibly,  because  our  attention 
is  so  much  less  forcibly  directed  to  them,  do  we  interpret  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  beauty  and  the  sublimity  of  outward  nature. 
*  In  the  mountains  '  do  we  '  feel  our  faith.'  We  seem  to  know 
there  is  something  behind.  There  is  a  perception  of  something — 

'  Far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man — • 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things.' 

The  Grreek  mythology  is  one  entire  and  unmixed  embodi- 
ment of  this  religion  of  nature,  as  we  may  term  it,  this  poetic 
interpretation  of  the  spirit  that  speaks  to  us  in  the  signs  and 
symbols  within  us.  Nor  can  any  sensitive  or  imaginative 
mind  scrutinise  itself  without  being  distinctly  conscious  of  its 
teaching. 

Now  of  the  poetic  religion  there  is  nothing  in  Butler.  No 
one  could  tell  from  his  writings  that  the  universe  was  beautiful. 
If  the  world  were  a  Durham  mine  or  an  exact  square,  if  no  part 
of  it  were  more  expressive  than  a  gravel-pit  or  a  chalk-quarry, 
the  teaching  of  Butler  would  be  as  true  as  it  is  now.  A  young 
poet,  not  a  very  wise  one,  once  said,  '  he  did  not  like  the  Bible, 
there  was  nothing  about  flowers  in  it.'  He  might  have  said  so 
of  Butler  with  great  truth  ;  a  most  ugly  and  stupid  world  one 
would  fancy  his  books  were  written  in.  But  in  return  and  by 
way  of  compensation  for  this,  there  is  a  religion  of  another 
sort,  a  religion  the  source  of  which  is  within  the  mind,  as  the 
other's  was  found  to  be  in  the  world  without ;  the  religion  to 
which  we  just  now  alluded  as  the  religion  (by  an  odd  yet 
expressive  way  of  speaking)  of  superstition.  The  source  of 
this,  as  most  persons  are  practically  aware,  is  in  the  conscience. 
The  moral  principle  (whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary  by 
complacent  thinkers)  is  really  and  to  most  men  a  principle  of 

"VOL.    II.  F 


66  Bishop  Biitler. 


fear.  The  delights  of  a  good  conscience  may  be  reserved  for 
better  things,  but  few  men  who  know  themselves  will  say  that 
they  have  often  felt  them  by  vivid  and  actual  experience.  A 
sensation  of  shame,  of  reproach,  of  remorse,  of  sin  (to  use  the 
word  we  instinctively  shrink  from  because  it  expresses  the 
meaning),  is  what  the  moral  principle  really  and  practically 
thrusts  on  most  men.  Conscience  is  the  condemnation  of 
ourselves.  We  expect  a  penalty.  As  the  Greek  proverb 
teaches,  '  where  there  is  shame  there  is  fear ; '  where  there  is 
the  deep  and  intimate  anxiety  of  guilt — the  feeling  which  has 
driven  murderers,  and  other  than  murderers,  forth  to  wastes, 
and  rocks,  and  stones,  and  tempests — we  see,  as  it  were,  in  a 
single  complex  and  indivisible  sensation,  the  pain  and  sense  of 
guilt,  and  the  painful  anticipation  of  its  punishment.  How  to 
be  free  from  this,  is  the  question.  How  to  get  loose  from  this  — 
how  to  be  rid  of  the  secret  tie  which  binds  the  strong  man  and 
cramps  his  pride,  and  makes  him  angry  at  the  beauty  of  the 
universe — which  will  not  let  him  go  forth  like  a  great  animal, 
like  the  king  of  the  forest,  in  the  glory  of  his  might,  but 
restrains  him  with  an  inner  fear  and  a  secret  foreboding,  that 
if  he  do  but  exalt  himself  he  shall  be  abased ;  if  he  do  but 
set  forth  his  own  dignity,  he  will  offend  ONE  who  will  deprive 
him  of  it.  This,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  is  the  source 
of  the  bloody  rites  of  heathendom.  You  are  going  to  battle, 
you  are  going  out  in  the  bright  sun  with  dancing  plumes  and 
glittering  spear ;  your  shield  shines,  and  your  feathers  wave, 
and  your  limbs  are  glad  with  the  consciousness  of  strength,  and 
your  mind  is  warm  with  glory  and  renown, — with  coming 
glory  and  unobtained  renown, — for  who  are  you,  to  hope  for 
these— who  are  you,  to  go  forth  proudly  against  the  pride  of 
the  sun,  with  your  secret  sin  and  your  haunting  shame,  and 
your  real  fear  ?  First  lie  down,  and  abase  yourself — strike  your 
back  with  hard  stripes — cut  deep  with  a  sharp  knife  as  if  you 
would  eradicate  the  consciousness — cry  aloud — put  ashes  on 
your  head — bruise  yourself  with  stones,  then  perhaps  God  may 


Bishop  Butler.  67 


pardon  you  ;  or,  better  still — so  runs  the  incoherent  feeling — give 
Him  something — your  ox,  your  ass,  whole  hecatombs,  if  you  are 
rich  enough ;  anything,  it  is  but  a  chance — you  do  not  know 
what  will  please  Him — at  any  rate,  what  you  love  best  your- 
self— that  is,  most  likely,  your  first-born  son  ;  then,  after  such 
gifts  and  such  humiliation,  He  may  be  appeased,  He  may  let 
you  off — He  may  without  anger  let  you  go  forth  Achilles-like 
in  the  glory  of  your  shield — He  may  not  send  you  home  as  He 
would  else,  the  victim  of  rout  and  treachery,  with  broken  arms 
and  foul  limbs,  in  weariness  and  humiliation. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  this  kind  of  fanaticism  that  we  impute 
to  a  prelate  of  the  English  Church  :  human  sacrifices  are  not 
respectable,  and  Achilles  was  not  rector  of  Stanhope.  But 
though  the  costume  and  circumstances  of  life  change,  the 
human  heart  does  not ;  its  feelings  remain.  The  same  anxiety, 
the  same  consciousness  of  personal  sin,  which  led  in  barbarous 
times  to  what  has  been  described,  show  themselves  in  civilised 
life  as  well.  In  this  quieter  period,  their  great  manifestation 
is  scrupulosity,  a  care  about  the  ritual  of  life,  an  attention  to 
meats  and  drinks,  and  cups  and  washings.  Being  so  unworthy 
as  we  are,  feeling  what  we  feel,  abased  as  we  are  abased,  who 
shall  say  that  these  are  beneath  us  ?  In  ardent  imaginative 
youth  they  may  seem  so,  but  let  a  few  years  come,  let  them 
dull  the  will  or  contract  the  heart,  or  stain  the  mind — then 
the  consequent  feeling  will  be,  as  all  experience  shows,  not 
that  a  ritual  is  too  mean,  too  low,  too  degrading  for  human 
nature,  but  that  it  is  a  mercy  we  have  to  do  no  more — that  we 
have  only  to  wash  in  Jordan — that  we  have  not  even  to  go  out 
into  the  unknown  distance  to  seek  for  Abana  and  Pharpar, 
rivers  of  Damascus.  We  have  no  right  to  judge,  we  cannot 
decide,  we  must  do  what  is  laid  down  for  us, — we  fail  daily 
even  in  this, — we  must  never  cease  for  a  moment  in  our  scru- 
pulous anxiety  to  omit  by  no  tittle  and  to  exceed  by  no  iota. 
An  accomplished  divine  of  the  present  day  has  written  a  disser- 
tation to  show  that  this  sort  of  piety  is  that  expressed  by  the 

r  2 


68  Bishop  Butler. 


Greek  word  sfadfista,  '  piety  contemplated  on  the  side  on  which 
it  is  a  fear  of  God,'  and  which  he  derives  from  ev\ajj,/3dvea0at9 
'the  image  underlying  the  word  being  that  of  the  careful 
taking  hold,  the  cautious  handling  of  some  precious  yet  delicate 
vessel,  which  with  ruder  or  less  anxious  handling  might  be 
broken,'  and  he  subsequently  adds, '  The  only  three  places  in  the 
New  Testament  in  which  sv\a/3r)$  occurs  are  these  : — Luke  ii.  25, 
Acts  ii.  5,  viii.  2.  We  have  uniformly  rendered  it  "  devout," 
nor  could  this  translation  be  bettered.  It  will  be  observed 
that  on  all  these  occasions  it  is  used  to  express  Jewish,  and,  as 
one  might  say,  Old  Testament  piety.  On  the  first  it  is  applied 
to  Simeon  (8t/caios  KOL  guXajS^?) ;  on  the  second  to  those 
Jews  who  came  from  distant  parts  to  keep  the  commanded 
feasts  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  on  the  third  there  can  scarcely  be  a 
doubt  that  the  av^pss  sv\ajBsls  who  carry  Stephen  to  his 
burial  are  not,  as  might  at  first  sight  appear,  Christian 
brethren,  but  devout  Jews,  who  showed  by  this  courageous  act 
of  theirs,  as  by  their  great  lamentation  over  the  slaughtered 
saints,  that  they  abhorred  this  deed  of  blood,  that  they  separated 
themselves  in  spirit  from  it,  and  thus,  if  it  might  be,  from  all 
the  judgments  which  it  would  bring  down  on  the  city  of  those 
murderers.  Whether  it  was  also  further  given  them  to  believe 
on  the  Crucified  who  had  such  witnesses  as  Stephen,  we  are  not 
told ;  we  may  well  presume  that  it  was.  ...  If  we  keep  in 
mind  that  in  that  mingled  fear  and  love  which  together  con- 
stitute the  piety  of  man  toward  God,  the  Old  Testament  placed 
its  emphasis  on  the  fear,  the  New  places  it  on  the  love  (though 
there  was  love  in  the  fear  of  God's  saints  then,  as  there  must 
be  fear  in  their  love  now),  it  will  at  once  be  evident  how  fitly 
suXajSrjs  was  chosen  to  set  forth  their  piety  under  the  old 
covenant,  who,  like  Zacharias  and  Elizabeth,  were  righteous 
before  God,  walking  in  all  the  commandments  and  ordinances 
of  the  Lord  blameless,  and  leaving  nothing  willingly  undone 
which  pertained  to  the  circle  of  their  prescribed  duties.  For 
this  sense  of  accurately  and  scrupulously  performing  that  which 


Bishop  Butler.  69 


is  prescribed  with  the  consciousness  of  the  danger  of  slipping 
into  a  negligent  performance  of  God's  service,  and  of  the  need 
therefore  of  anxiously  watching  against  the  adding  to  or 
diminishing  from,  or  in  any  other  way  altering,  that  which  is 
commanded,  lies  ever  in  the  words  su\aj3rjs,  euXa/itaa,  when 
used  in  their  religious  signification.  Plutarch,  in  more  than 
one  instructive  passage,  exalts  the  evXdfisia  of  the  old  Komans 
in  divine  matters,  as  contrasted  with  the  comparative  careless- 
ness of  the  Greeks.  Thus,  in  his  "  Coriolanus,"  after  other 
instances  in  proof,  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  Of  late  times  also  they 
did  renew  and  begin  a  sacrifice  thirty  times  one  after  another, 
because  they  thought  still  there  fell  out  one  fault  or  another  in 
the  same  ;  so  holy  and  devout  were  they  to  the  gods  "  (rotavrrj 
jjisv  svkdftzia  Trpbs  TO  Oclov  'Pay-tato)^).  Elsewhere  he  portrays 
^Emilius  Paulus  as  eminent  for  his  evKdpzia.  The  passage  is 
long,  and  I  will  only  quote  a  portion  of  it,  availing  myself 
again  of  old  Sir  Thomas  North's  translation,  which,  though 
somewhat  loose,  is  in  essentials  correct : — "  When  he  did  any- 
thing belonging  to  his  office  of  priesthood,  he  did  it  with  great 
experience,  j  udgment,  and  diligence ;  leaving  all  other  thoughts, 
and  without  omitting  any  ancient  ceremony  or  adding  any 
new ;  contending  oftentimes  with  his  companions  in  things 
which  seemed  light  and  of  small  moment ;  declaring  to  them 
that,  though  we  do  presume  the  gods  are  easy  to  be  pacified 
and  that  they  readily  pardon  all  faults  and  scapes  committed 
by  negligence,  yet  if  it  were  no  more  but  for  respect  of  the 
Commonwealth's  sake,  they  should  not  slightly  or  carelessly 
dissemble  or  pass  over  faults  committed  in  those  matters."  ' l 

This  is  the  view  suggested  by  what  Butler  has  happily 
called  the  '  presages  of  conscience '  by  the  '  natural  fear  and 
apprehension  '  of  punishment,  6  which  restrains  from  crimes  and 
is  a  declaration  of  nature  against  them.'  The  great  difficulty 
of  religious  philosophy  is,  to  explain  how  we  know  that  these 

1  Trench,  On  the  Synonyms  of  the  New  Testament  (p.  191). 


70  Bishop  Butler. 


two  Beings  are  the  same — from  what  course  and  principle  of 
reasoning  it  is  that  we  acquire  our  knowledge  that  the  curiosus 
Deus,  the  watchful  Deity,  who  is  ever  in  our  secret  hearts,  who 
seeks  us  out  in  the  fairest  scenes,  who  is  apt  to  terrify  our 
hearts,  whose  very  eyes  seem  to  shine  through  nature,  is  the 
same  Being  that  animates  the  universe  with  its  beauty  and  its 
light,  smoothes  the  heaviness  from  our  brow  and  the  weight 
from  our  hearts,  pervades  the  floating  cloud  and  buoyant 

air, — 

'  And  from  the  breezes,  whether  low  or  loud, 
And  from  the  rain  of  every  passing  cloud, 
And  from  the  singing  of  the  summer  birds, 
And  from  all  sounds,  all  silence,' 

— gives  hints  of  joy  and  hope.  This  seems  the  natural  dualism 
— the  singular  contrast  of  the  God  of  imagination  and  the  God 
of  conscience,  the  God  of  beauty  and  the  God  of  fear.  How  do 
we  know  that  the  Being  who  refreshes  is  the  same  as  He  who 
imposes  the  toil,  that  the  God  of  anxiety  is  the  same  as  the 
God  of  help,  that  the  intensely  personal  Deity  of  the  inward 
heart  is  the  same  as  the  almost  neutral  spirit  of  external  nature, 
which  seems  a  thing  more  than  a  person,  a  light  and  impalpable 
vapour  just  beautifying  the  universe,  and  no  more? 

If  we  are  to  offer  a  suggestion,  as  we  have  stated  a  difficulty, 
we  should  hold  that  the  only  way  of  obviating  or  explaining 
the  contrast,  which  is  so  perplexing  to  susceptible  minds,  is  by 
recurring  to  the  same  primary  assumption  which  is  required  to 
satisfy  our  belief  in  God's  infinity,  omnipotence,  or  veracity.  We 
cannot  prove  in  any  way  that  God  is  infinite  any  more  than 
that  space  is  infinite ;  nor  that  God  is  omnipotent,  since  we  do 
not  know  what  powers  there  are  in  nature — that  He  is  perfectly 
true,  for  we  have  had  no  experience  or  communication  with 
Him,  in  which  His  veracity  could  be  tested.  We  assume  these 
propositions,  and  treat  them,  moreover,  not  as  hypothetical 
assumptions  or  provisional  theories  to  be  discarded  if  new  facts 
should  be  discovered,  and  to  be  rejected  if  more  elaborate 


Bishop  Butler.  71 


research  should  require  it,  but  as  positive  and  clear  certainties, 
on  which  we  must  ever  act,  and  to  which  we  must  reduce  and 
square  all  new  information  that  may  be  brought  home  to  us. 
In  these  respects  we  assume  that  Grod  is  perfect,  and  it  is  only 
necessary  for  the  solution  of  our  difficulty  to  assume  that  He  is 
perfect  in  all.  We  have  in  both  cases  the  same  amount  and 
description  of  evidence,  the  same  inward  consciousness,  the  same 
speaking  and  urging  voice,  requiring  us  to  believe.  In  every 
step  of  religious  argument  we  require  the  assumption,  the  be- 
lief, the  faith  if  the  word  is  better,  in  an  absolutely  perfect 
Being — in  and  by  whom  we  are,  who  is  omnipotent  as  well 
as  most  holy,  who  moves  on  the  face  of  the  whole  world  and 
ruleth  all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power.  If  we  grant  this, 
the  difficulty  of  the  opposition  between  what  we  have  called 
the  natural  and  the  supernatural  religion  is  removed  ;  and 
without  granting  it,  that  difficulty  is  perhaps  insuperable.  It 
follows  from  the  very  idea  and  definition  of  an  infinitely-per- 
fect Being,  that  He  is  within  u?,  as  well  as  without  us — ruling 
the  clouds  of  the  air,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  as  well  as  the 
fears  and  thoughts  of  man — smiling  through  the  smile  of 
nature,  as  well  as  warning  with  the  pain  of  conscience,  '  Sine 
qualitate  bonum  ;  sine  quantitate  magnum ;  sine  indigentia 
creatorem ;  sine  situ  praesidentem ;  sine  habitu  omnia  conti- 
nentem ;  sine  loco  ubique  totum ;  sine  tempore  sempiternum ; 
sine  ulla  sui  mutatione  mutabilia  facientem,  nihilque  pati- 
entem.'  If  we  assume  this,  life  is  simple;  without  this  all 
is  dark. 

The  religion  of  the  imagination  is,  in  its  consequences  upon 
the  character,  free  and  poetical.  No  one  need  trouble  himself 
to  set  about  its  defence.  Its  agreeability  sufficiently  defends 
it  and  its  congeniality  to  a  refined  and  literary  age.  The  re- 
ligion of  the  conscience  will  seem  to  many  of  the  present  day 
selfish  and  morbid.  And  doubtless  it  may  become  so  if  it  be 
allowed  to  eat  into  the  fibre  of  the  character,  and  to  supersede 
the  manline^s—fesLwhich  it  should  be  supported.  The  whole 


72  Bishop  Butler. 


of  religion,  of  course,  is  not  of  this  sort,  and  it  is  one  which 
only  very  imperfect  beings  can  have  a  share  in.  But  so  long 
as  men  are  very  imperfect,  the  sense  of  great  imperfection 
should  cleave  to  them,  and  while  the  consciousness  of  sin  is 
on  the  mind,  the  consequent  apprehension  of  deserved  punish- 
ment seems  in  its  proper  degree  to  be  a  reasonable  service. 
However,  any  more  of  this  discussion  is  scarcely  to  our  pur- 
pose. No  attentive  reader  of  Butler's  writings  will  hesitate 
to  say  that  he,  at  all  events,  was  an  example  of  the  '  anxious 
and  scrupulous  worshipper,  who  makes  a  conscience  of  changing 
anything,  of  omitting  anything,  being  in  all  things  fearful  to 
offend,' *  and  most  likely  it  was  from  this  habit  and  charac- 
teristic of  his  mind,  that  he  obtained  the  unenviable  reputation 
of  living  and  dying  a  Papist. 

Of  Butler's  personal  habits  nothing  in  the  way  of  detail 
has  descended  to  us.  He  was  never  married,  and  there  is  no 
evidence  of  his  ever  having  spoken  to  any  lady  save  Queen 
Caroline.  We  hear,  however,  for  certain  that  he  was  commonly 
present  at  her  Majesty's  philosophical  parties,  at  which  all  ques- 
tions, religious  and  moral,  speculative  and  practical,  were  dis- 
cussed with  a  freedom  that  would  astonish  the  present  generation. 
Less  intellectual  unbelief  existed  probably  at  that  time  than 
there  is  now,  but  there  was  an  infinitely  freer  expression  of  what 
did  exist.  The  French  Revolution  frightened  the  English 
people.  The  awful  calamities  and  horrors  of  that  period  were 
thought  to  be,  as  in  part  they  were,  the  results  and  consequences 
of  the  irreligious  opinions  which  just  before  prevailed.  Scepti- 
cism became  what  in  the  days  of  Lord  Hervey  it  was  not,  an 
ungentlemanly  state  of  mind.  At  no  meeting  of  the  higher 
classes,  certainly  at  none  where  ladies  are  present,  is  there  a 
tenth  part  of  the  plain  questioning  and  bond  fide  discussion  of 
primary  Christian  topics,  that  there  was  at  the  select  suppers  of 
Queen  Caroline.  The  effect  of  these  may  be  seen  in  many 

1  Trench,  ubi  supra. 


Bishop  Butler.  73 


passages,  and  even  in  the  whole  tendency,  of  Butler's  writings. 
No  great  Christian  writer,  perhaps,  is  so  exclusively  occupied 
with  elementary  topics  and  philosophical  reasonings.  His  mind 
is  ever  directed  towards  the  first  principles  of  belief,  and  doubt- 
less this  was  because,  more  than  any  other,  he  lived  with  men 
who  plainly  and  clearly  denied  them.  His  frequent  allusion  to 
the  difficulties  of  such  discussions  are  likewise  suggestive  of  a 
familiar  personal  experience.  The  whole  list  of  directions  which 
he  gives  the  clergy  of  Durham  on  religious  argument  shows  a 
daily  familiarity  with  sceptical  men.  '  It  is  come,'  he  says,  '  I 
know  not  how,  to  be  taken  for  granted  by  many  persons  that 
Christianity  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject  of  inquiry,  but  that  it 
is  now  at  length  discovered  to  be  false.  And  accordingly  they 
treat  it  as  if  this  were  an  agreed  point  among  all  people  of 
discernment,  and  nothing  remained  but  to  set  it  up  as  a  prin- 
cipal subject  of  ridicule,  as  it  were  by  way  of  reprisals  for  its 
having  so  long  interrupted  the  pleasures  of  the  world.'  No  one 
would  so  describe  the  tone  of  talk  now,  nor  would  there  be  an 
equal  reason  for  remembering  Butler's  general  caution  against 
rashly  entering  the  lists  with  the  questioners.  Among  gentlemen 
a  clergyman  has  scarcely  the  chance.  '  1'hen,  again,  the  general 
evidence  of  religion  is  complex  and  various.  It  consists  of  a 
long  series  of  things :  one  preparatory  to  and  confirming  another 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  till  the  present  time,  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  impossible  it  must  be  in  a  cursory  conversation  to 
unite  all  this  into  one  argument,  and  represent  it  as  it  ought ; 
and,  could  it  be  done,  how  utterly  indisposed  would  people  be  to 
attend  to  it.  I  say,  in  cursory  conversation ;  whereas  uncon- 
nected objections  are  thrown  out  in  few  words,  and  are  easily 
apprehended  without  more  attention  than  is  usual  in  common 
talk,  so  that,  notwithstanding  we  have  the  best  cause  in  the 
world,  and  though  a  man  were  very  capable  of  defending  it,  yet 
I  know  not  why  he  should  be  forward  to  undertake  it  upon  so 
great  a  disadvantage  and  to  so  little  good  effect,  as  it  must  be 
amid  the  gaiety  and  carelessness  of  common  conversation.'  It  is 


74  Bishop  Butler. 


not  likely  from  these  remarks  that  Butler  had  much  pleasure  at 
the  Queen's  talking  parties. 

What  his  pleasures  were,  indeed,  does  not  very  distinctly 
appear.  In  reading  we  doubt  if  he  took  any  keen  interest. 
A  voracious  reader  is  apt,  when  he  comes  to  write,  to  exhibit 
his  reading  in  casual  references  and  careless  innuendoes,  which 
run  out  insensibly  from  the  fulness  of  his  literary  memory. 
But  of  this  in  Butler  there  is  nothing.  His  writings  contain 
little  save  a  bare  and  often  not  a  very  plain  statement  of  the 
necessary  argument ;  you  cannot  perhaps  find  a  purely  literary 
allusion  in  his  writings ;  none,  at  all  events,  which  shows  he 
had  any  favourite  books,  whose  topics  were  ever  present  to  his 
mind,  and  whose  well-known  words  might  be  a  constant  re- 
source in  moments  of  weariness  and  melancholy.  There  is, 
too,  a  philippic  in  the  well-known  '  Preface '  against  vague  and 
thoughtless  reading,  which  seems  as  if  he  felt  the  evil  con- 
consequences  more  than  the  agreeableness  of  that  sin.  Some 
men  find  a  compensation  in  the  excitement  of  writing,  for  all 
other  evils  and  exclusions ;  but  it  is  probable  that,  if  Butler 
hated  anything,  he  hated  his  pen.  Composition  is  pleasant 
work  for  men  of  ready  words,  fine  ears,  and  thick-coming 
illustrations.  Wit  and  eloquence  please  the  writer  as  much  as 
the  reader.  There  is  even  some  pleasantness  in  feeling  that 
you  have  given  a  precise  statement  of  a  strong  argument. 
But  Butler,  so  far  from  having  the  pleasures  of  eloquence,  had 
not  even  the  comfort  of  perspicuity.  He  never  could  feel  that 
he  had  made  an  argument  tell  by  his  way  of  wording  it  ;  it 
tells  in  his  writings,  if  it  tells  at  all,  by  its  own  native  and  in- 
herent force.  In  some  places  the  mode  of  statement  is  even 
stupid  ;  it  seems  selected  to  occasion  a  difficulty.  You  often 
see  that  writers, — Gibbon,  for  instance, — believe  that  their 
words  are  good  to  eat,  as  well  as  to  read  ;  they  had  plainly  a 
pleasure  in  rolling  them  about  in  the  mouth  like  sugar-plums, 
and  gradually  smoothing  off  any  knots  or  excrescences;  but 
there  is  nothing  of  this  in  Butler. 


Bishop  Butler.  75 


The  circumstance  of  so  great  a  thinker  being  such  a  poor 
writer  is  not  only  curious  in  itself,  but  indicates  the  class  of 
thinkers  to  which  Butler  belongs.  Philosophers  may  be 
divided  into  seers  on  the  one  hand,  and  into  gropers  on  the 
other.  Plato,  to  use  a  contrast  which  is  often  used  for  other 
purposes,  is  the  type  of  the  first.  On  all  subjects  he  seems  to 
have  before  him  a  landscape  of  thought,  with  clear  outline, 
and  pure  air,  keen  rocks  and  shining  leaves,  an  Attic  sky  and 
crystal-flowing  river,  each  detail  of  which  was  as  present,  as 
distinjct,  as  familiar  to  his  mind  as  the  view  from  the  Acropolis, 
or  the  road  to  Decelea.  As  were  his  conceptions  so  is  his 
style.  What  Protagoras  said  and  Socrates  replied,  what 
Thrasymachus  and  Polemo,  what  Gorgias  and  Callicles,  all 
comes  out  in  distinct  sequence  and  accurate  expression  ;  each 
feature  is  engraved  on  the  paper  ;  an  exact  beauty  is  in  every 
line.  What  a  contrast  is  the  style  of  Aristotle !  He  sees 
nothing — he  is  like  a  man  groping  in  the  dark  about  a  room 
which  he  knows.  He  hesitates  and  suggests  ;  proposes  first  one 
formula  and  then  another ;  rejects  both,  gives  a  multitude  of 
reasons,  and  ends  at  last  with  an  expression  which  he  admits 
to  be  incorrect  and  an  apologetic  '  let  it  make  no  difference.' 
There  are  whole  passages  in  his  writings — the  discussion  about 
Solon  and  happiness  in  the  *  Ethics,'  is  an  instance — in  which 
he  appears  like  a  schoolboy  who  knows  the  answer  to  a  sum, 
but  cannot  get  the  figures  to  come  to  it. 

This  awkward  and  hesitating  manner  is  likewise  that  of 
Butler.  He  seems  to  have  an  obscure  feeling,  an  undefined 
perception,  of  what  the  truth  is ;  but  his  manipulation  of 
words  and  images  is  not  apt  enough  to  bring  it  out.  Like  the 
iniser  in  the  story,  he  has  a  shilling  about  him  somewhere,  if 
people  will  only  give  him  time  and  solitude  to  make  research 
for  it.  As  a  person  hunting  for  a  word  or  name  he  has  for- 
gotten, he  knows  what  it  is,  only  he  cannot  say  it.  The  fault 
is  one  characteristic  of  a  strong  and  sound  mind  wanting  in 
imagination.  The  visual  faculty  is  deficient.  The  soundness 


76  Bishop  Butler. 


of  such  men's  understanding  ensures  a  correct  report  of  what 
comes  before  them,  and  its  strength  is  shown  in  vigorous  ob- 
servations upon  it;  but  they  are  unable  to  bring  those  remarks 
out,  the  delineative  power  is  wanting,  they  have  no  picture  of 
the  particulars  in  their  minds;  no  instance  or  illustration 
occurs  to  them.  Popular,  in  the  large  sense  of  the  term,  such 
writers  can  never  be.  Influential  they  may  often  become. 
The  learned  have  time  for  difficulties ;  the  critical  mind  is 
pleased  with  crooked  constructions  ;  the  detective  intellect  likes 
the  research  for  lurking  and  half-hidden  truth.  In  this  way 
portions  of  Aristotle  have  been  noted  these  thousand  years,  as 
Chinese  puzzles  ;  and  without  detracting  for  a  moment  from 
Butler's  real  merit,  it  may  be  allowed  that  some  of  his  influence, 
especially  that  which  he  enjoys  in  the  English  universities,  is 
partially  due  to  that  obscurity  of  style,  which  renders  his 
writings  such  apt  exercises  for  the  critical  intellect,  which 
makes  the  truth  when  found  seem  more  valuable  from  the 
difficulty  of  finding  it,  and  gives  scope  for  an  able  lecturer  to 
elucidate,  annotate,  and  expound. 

The  fame  of  Butler  rests  mainly  on  two  remarkable  courses 
of  reasoning,  one  of  which  is  contained  in  the  well-known 
Sermons,  the  second  in  the  *  Analogy.'  Both  seem  to  be  in  a 
great  measure  suggested  by  the  circumstances  and  topics  of  the 
time.  There  was  a  certain  naturalness  in  Butler's  mind,  which 
took  him  straight  to  the  questions  on  which  men  differed  around 
him.  Generally,  it  is  safer  to  prove  what  no  one  denies,  and 
easier  to  explain  difficulties  which  no  one  has  ever  felt.  A  quiet 
reputation  is  best  obtained  in  the  literary  qucestiunculce  of 
important  subjects.  But  a  simple  and  straightforward  man 
studies  great  topics  because  he  feels  a  want  of  the  knowledge 
which  they  contain;  and  if  he  has  ascertained  an  apparent 
solution  of  any  difficulty,  he  is  anxious  to  impart  it  to  others. 
He  goes  straight  to  the  real  doubts  and  fundamental  discre- 
pancies; to  those  on  which  it  is  easy  to  excite  odium,  and 
difficult  to  give  satisfaction ;  he  leaves  to  others  the  amusing 


Bishop  Butler.  77 


skirmishing  and  superficial  literature  accessory  to  such  studies. 
Thus  there  is  nothing  light  in  Butler ;  all  is  grave,  serious,  and 
essential ;  nothing  else  would  be  characteristic  of  him. 

The  Sermons  of  Butler  are  primarily  intended  as  an  answer 
to  that  recurring  topic  of  ethical  discussion,  the  Utilitarian 
Philosophy.  He  is  occasionally  spoken  of  by  enthusiastic  dis- 
ciples as  having  uprooted  this  for  ever.  But  this  is  hardly  so. 
The  selfish  system  still  lives  and  flourishes.  Nor  must  any 
writer  on  the  fundamental  differences  of  human  opinion  propose 
to  himself  such  an  aim.  The  source  of  the  great  heresies  of 
belief  lies  in  their  congeniality  to  certain  types  of  character 
frequent  in  the  world,  and  liable  to  be  reproduced  by  inevitable 
and  recurring  circumstances.  We  do  not  mean  that  the  varia- 
tions of  creeds  are  the  native  and  essential  variances  of  the 
minds  which  believe  them,  for  this  would  render  truth  a  matter 
of  personal  character,  and  make  general  discussion  impossible. 
We  believe  that  all  minds  are  originally  so  constituted  as  to  be 
able  to  acquire  right  opinions  on  all  subjects  of  the  first  im- 
portance to  them ;  but,  nevertheless,  that  the  native  bent  of 
their  character  instinctively  inclines  them  to  particular  views ; 
that  one  man  is  naturally  prone  to  one  error,  and  another  to  its 
opposite ;  that  this  is  increased  by  circumstances,  and  becomes 
for  practical  purposes  invincible,  unless  it  be  met  on  the  part 
of  every  man  by  early  and  vigorous  resistance.  The  Epicurean 
philosophy  is  an  example  of  these  recurring  and  primary  errors, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  congenial  to  clear,  vigorous,  and  hasty  minds, 
which  have  no  great  depth  of  feeling,  and  no  searching  intro- 
spection of  thought,  which  prefer  a  ready  solution  to  an  accu- 
rate, an  easy  to  an  elaborate,  a  simple  to  a  profound.  Draw  a 
slight  worldliness — and  the  events  of  life  will  draw  it — over 
such  a  mind,  and  you  have  the  best  Epicurean.  There  is  a  use, 
however,  in  discussing  topics  like  these.  Nothing  would  be 
more  perverse  than  to  abstain  from  proving  certain  truths, 
because  some  men  were  naturally  prone  to  the  opposite  errors ; 
rather^  on  the  contrary,  should  we  din  them  into  the  ears,  and 


78  Bislwp  Butler. 


thrust  them  upon  the  attention,  of  mankind ;  go  out  into  the 
highways  and  hedges,  and  leave  as  few  as  possible  for  invincible 
ignorance  to  mislead  or  to  excuse.  It  is  much  in  every  gene- 
ration to  state  the  ancient  truth  in  the  manner  which  that 
generation  requires ;  to  state  the  old  answer  to  the  old  diffi- 
culty ;  to  transmit,  if  not  discover  ;  convince,  if  not  invent ;  to 
translate  into  the  language  of  the  living,  the  truths  first  dis- 
covered by  the  dead.  This  defence,  though  suggested  by  the 
subject,  is  not,  however,  required  by  Butler.  He  may  claim 
the  higher  praise  of  having  explained  his  subject  in  a  manner 
essentially  more  satisfactory  than  his  predecessors. 

We  are  not  concerned  to  follow  Butler  into  the  entire  range 
of  this  ancient  and  well-discussed  topic.  We  are  only  called 
on  to  make,  and  we  shall  only  make,  two  or  three  remarks  on 
the  position  which  he  occupies  with  respect  to  it.  His  grand 
merit  is  the  simple  but  important  one  of  having  given  a  less 
complex  and  more  graphic  description  of  the  facts  of  human 
consciousness  than  any  one  had  done  before.  Before  his  time 
the  Utilitarians  had  the  advantage  of  appearing  to  be  the  only 
people  who  talked  about  real  life  and  human  transactions.  The 
doctrines  avowed  by  their  opponents  were  cloudy,  lofty,  and 
impalpable.  Platonic  philosophy  in  its  simple  form  is  utterly 
inexplicable  to  the  English  mind.  A  plain  man  will  not  soon 
succeed  in  making  anything  of  an  archetypal  idea.  If  an 
ordinary  sensible  Englishman  takes  up  even  such  a  book  as 
Cudworth's  *  Immutable  Morality,'  it  is  nearly  inevitable  that 
he  should  put  it  down  as  mystical  fancy.  True  as  a  consider- 
able portion  of  the  conclusions  of  that  treatise  are  or  may 
be,  nevertheless  the  truth  is  commonly  so  put  as  to  puzzle  an 
Englishman,  and  the  error  so  as  particularly  to  offend  him. 
We  may  open  at  random.  '  Wherefore,'  says  Cudworth,  '  the 
result  of  all  that  we  have  hitherto  said  is  this,  that  the  intelli- 
gible natures  and  essences  of  things  are  neither  arbitrary  nor 
fantastical,  that  is,  neither  alterable  by  any  will  or  opinion ; 
and  therefore  everything  is  necessarily  and  immutably  to  science 


Bishop  Biitlcr.  79 


and  knowledge  what  it  is,  whether  absolutely,  or  relatively  to 
all  minds  and  intellects  in  the  world.  So  that  if  moral  good 
and  evil,  just  and  unjust,  signify  any  reality,  either  absolute  or 
relative,  in  the  things  so  denominated,  as  they  must  ha.ve  some 
certain  natures,  which  are  the  actions  or  souls  of  men,  they  are 
neither  alterable  by  will  or  opinion.  Upon  which  ground  that 
wise  philosopher,  Plato,  in  his  "  Minos,"  determined  that  NO/ACS-, 
a  law,  is  not  Boy/jia  TroXswy,  any  arbitrary  decree  of  a  city  or 
supreme  governors ;  because  there  maybe  unjust  decrees,  which, 
therefore,  are  no  laws,  but  the  invention  of  that  which  is,  or 
what  is  absolutely  or  immutably  just  in  its  own  nature ;  though 
it  be  very  true  also  that  the  arbitrary  constitutions  of  those  that 
have  the  lawful  authority  of  commanding  when  they  are  not 
materially  unjust,  are  laws  also  in  a  secondary  sense,  by  virtue 
of  that  natural  and  immutable  justice  or  law  that  requires  poli- 
tical order  to  be  observed.  But  I  have  not  taken  all  this  pains 
only  to  confute  scepticism  or  fantasticism,  or  merely  to  defend 
or  corroborate  our  argument  for  the  immutable  nature  of  the 
just  and  unjust ;  but  also  for  some  other  weighty  purposes  that 
are  very  much  conducing  to  the  business  we  have  in  hand.  And 
first  of  all,  that  the  soul  is  not  a  mere  tabula  rasa,  a  naked  and 
passive  thing,  which  has  no  innate  furniture  or  activity  of  its 
own,  nor  anything  at  all  in  it  but  what  was  impressed  on  it 
from  without ;  for,  if  it  were  so,  then  there  could  not  possibly 
be  any  such  thing  as  moral  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust,  for- 
asmuch as  these  differences  do  not  arise  merely  from  outward 
objects  or  from  the  impresses  which  they  make  upon  us  by  sense, 
there  being  no  such  thing  in  them,  in  which  sense  it  is  truly 
affirmed  by  the  author  of  the  «  Leviathan"  (p.  24),  "  That  there 
is  no  common  rule  of  good  and  evil  to  be  taken  from  the  nature 
of  the  objects  themselves,"  that  is,  either  considered  absolutely 
in  themselves,  or  relatively  to  external  sense  only,  but  according 
to  some  other  interior  analogy  which  things  have  to  a  certain 
inward  determination  in  the  soul  itself  from  whence  the  founda- 
tion of  all  this  difference  must  needs  arise,  as  I  shall  show 


So  Bishop  Butler. 


afterwards ;  not  that  the  anticipations  of  morality  spring  merely 
from  intellectual  forms  and  notional  ideas  of  the  mind,  or  from 
certain  rules  or  propositions  printed  on  the  "  soul  as  on  a  book," 
but  from  some  other  more  inward  and  vital  principle  in  intel- 
lectual beings,  as  such,  whereby  they  have  a  natural  determi- 
nation in  them  to  do  certain  things,  and  to  avoid  others,  which 
could  not  be,  if  they  were  mere  naked,  passive  things.' 

It  is  instructive  to  compare  Butler's  way  of  stating  a  doc- 
trine substantially  similar : — 

'  Mankind  has  various  instincts  and  principles  of  action,  as  brute 
creatures  have ;  some  leading  most  directly  and  immediately  to  the 
good  of  the  community,  and  some  most  directly  to  private  good. 

'  Man  has  several  which  brutes  have  not ;  particularly  reflection 
or  conscience,  an  approbation  of  some  principles  or  actions,  and  disap- 
probation of  others. 

'  Brutes  obey  their  instincts  or  principles  of  action,  according  to 
certain  rules ;  suppose  the  constitution  of  their  body,  and  the  objects 
around  them. 

*  The  generality  of  mankind  also  obey  their  instincts  and  principles, 
all  of  them ;  those  propensions  we  call  good,  as  well  as  the  bad,  ac- 
cording to  the  same  rules,  namely,  the  constitution  of  their  body,  and 
the  external  circumstances  which  they  are  in. 

*  Brutes,  in  acting  according  to  the  rules  before  mentioned,  their 
bodily  constitution  and  circumstances,   act  suitably  to  their  whole 
nature. 

'  Mankind  also,  in  acting  thus,  would  act  suitably  to  their  whole 
nature,  if  no  more  were  to  be  said  of  man's  nature  than  what  has  been 
now  said ;  if  that,  as  it  is  a  true,  were  also  a  complete,  adequate  account 
of  our  nature. 

*  But  that  is  not  a  complete  account  of  man's  nature.     Somewhat 
further  must  be  brought  in  to  give  us  an  adequate  notion  of  it,  namely, 
that  one  of  those  principles  of  action,  conscience,  or  reflection,  com- 
pared with  the  rest,  as  they  all  stand  together  in  the  nature  of  man, 
plainly  bears  upon  it  marks  of  authority  over  all  the  rest,  and  claims 
the  absolute  direction  of  them  all,  to  allow  or  forbid  their  gratification ; 
a  disapprobation  of  reflection  being  in  itself  a  principle  manifestly 
superior  to  a  mere  propension.     And  the  conclusion  is,  that  to  allow 
no  more  to  this  superior  principle  or  part  of  our  nature,  than  to  other 
parts ;  to  let  it  govern  and  guide  only  occasionally  in  common  with 


Bishop  Butler.  81 


the  rest,  as  its  turn  happens  to  conie,  from  the  temper  and  circum- 
stances one  happens  to  be  in, — this  is  not  to  act  conformably  to  the 
constitution  of  man.  Neither  can  any  human  creature  be  said  to  act 
conformably  to  his  constitution  of  nature,  unless  he  allows  to  that 
superior  principle  the  absolute  authority  which  is  due  to  it.  And  this 
conclusion  is  abundantly  confirmed  from  hence,  that  one  may  deter- 
mine what  course  of  action  the  economy  of  man's  nature  requires, 
without  so  much  as  knowing  in  what  degrees  of  strength  the  several 
principles  prevail,  or  which  of  them  have  actually  the  greatest 
influence. 

'  The  practical  reason  of  insisting  so  much  upon  this  natural 
authority  of  the  principle  of  reflection  or  conscience  is,  that  it  seems 
in  a  great  measure  overlooked  by  many,  who  are  by  no  means  the 
worst  sort  of  men.  It  is  thought  sufficient  to  abstain  from  gross 
wickedness,  and  to  be  humane  and  kind  to  such  as  happen  to  come 
in  their  way.  Whereas,  in  reality,  the  very  constitution  of  our  nature 
requires  that  we  bring  our  whole  conduct  before  this  superior  faculty ; 
wait  its  determination  ;  enforce  upon  ourselves  its  authority;  and  make 
it  the  business  of  our  lives,  as  it  is  absolutely  the  whole  business  o 
a  moral  agent,  to  conform  ourselves  to  it.  This  is  the  true  meaning 
of  that  ancient  precept,  Reverence  thyself* 

We  do  not  mean  that  Cudworth's  style  is  not  as  good,  or 
•  better,  than  the  style  of  Butler ;  but  that  the  language  and 
illustrations  of  the  latter  belong  to  the  same  world  as  that  we 
live  in,  have  a  relation  to  practice,  and  recall  sentiments  we 
remember  to  have  felt  and  sensations  which  are  familiar  to  us, 
while  those  of  Cud  worth,  on  the  contrary,  seem  difficult,  and 
are  strange  in  the  ears  of  the  common  people. 

We  do  not  need  to  go  more  deeply  into  the  discussion  of 
Butler's  doctrine,  for  it  is  familiar  to  our  readers.  If  there 
is  any  incorrectness  in  the  delineation  which  he  has  given  of 
conscience,  it  is  in  the  passages  in  which  he  speaks,  or  seems 
to  speak,  of  it  more  as  an  animating  or  suggesting,  than  as 
a  criticising  or  regulative  faculty.  The  error  of  this  repre- 
sentation has  been  repeatedly  pointed  out  and  illustrated  in 
these  pages.1  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  Butler's  attention 

1  The  Prospective  Review. 

YOL.  IT.  a 


Bishop  Butler. 


had  scarcely  been  directed  with  sufficient  precision  to  this  por- 
tion of  the  subject.  It  follows  easily,  from  his  favourite 
principles,  that  when  two  impulses-  say  benevolence  and  self- 
love — contend  for  mastery  in  the  mind,  and  conscience  pro- 
nounces that  one  is  a  higher  and  better  motive  of  action 
than  the  other,  the  office  of  conscience  is  judicial,  and  not 
impulsive.  Conscience  gives  its  opinion,  and  the  will  obeys  or 
disobeys  at  its  pleasure ;  the  impelling  spring  of  action  is  the 
selected  impulse  on  which  the  will  finally  decides  to  act.  At  the 
same  time,  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  cases  when,  for 
practical  purposes,  conscience  is  an  impelling  and  goading 
faculty.  We  mean  when  it  is  opposed  by  indolence.  There  is 
a  heavy  lassitude  of  the  will,  which  is  certainly  spurred,  some- 
times effectually,  and  sometimes  in  vain,  by  our  conscience. 
Possibly  the  correct  language  may  be,  that  in  such  cases  the 
desire  of  ease  is  opposed  by  the  desire  of  doing  our  duty ;  and 
that  in  this  case  also  the  office  of  conscience  is  simply  to  say, 
that  the  latter  is  higher  than  the  former.  To  us  it  seems, 
however,  if  we  may  trust  our  consciousness  on  points  of  such 
exact  nicety,  that  it  is  more  graphically  true  to  speak  of  the 
sluggishness  of  the  will  being  goaded  and  stimulated  by  the 
activity  of  conscience.  There  is  a  native  inertness  in  the  volun- 
tary faculty  which  will  not  come  forth  unless  great  occasion  is 
shown  it.  At  any  rate,  something  like  this  was  perhaps  the 
meaning  of  Butler,  and  he,  no  doubt,  would  have  included  in 
the  term  conscience  the  desire  to  do  our  duty  as  such,  and 
because  it  is  such. 

Butler  has  been  claimed  by  Mr.  Austin,  in  his  '  Province  of 
Jurisprudence'  (and  sometimes  since  by  other  writers),  as  a 
supporter  of  the  compound  Utilitarian  scheme,  as  it  has  been 
called,  which  regards  the  promotion  of  general  happiness  as  the 
single  inherent  characteristic  of  virtuous  actions,  and  considers 
the  conscience  as  a  special  instinct  for  directing  men  in  deter- 
mining what  actions  are  for  the  general  interest  and  what  are 
not.  This  theory  is,  of  course,  distinct  from  the  commou 


Bishop  Butler.  83 


Epicurean  scheme,  which  either  denies,  like  Bentham,  the  fact 
of  a  conscience  in  limine,  or,  like  Mill,  professes  to  explain  it 
away  as  an  effect  of  illusion  and  association.  The  '  Composite 
theory,'  on  the  other  hand,  distinctly  admits  the  existence  and 
obligatory  authority  of  conscience,  but  regards  it  as  a  ready, 
expeditious,  and,  so  to  say,  telegraphic  mode  of  arriving  at 
results  which  could  otherwise  be  reached  only  by  toilsome  and 
dubious  discussions  of  general  utility.  In  our  judgment,  how- 
ever, the  writings  of  Butler  hardly  warrant  an  authoritative 
ascription  to  him  of  this  philosophy.  He  doubtless  held  that 
the  promotion  of  general  happiness,  taking  all  time  and  all  the 
world  into  a  complete  account,  is  one  characteristic  and  ascer- 
tainable  property  of  virtue  ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that 
he  thought  it  was  the  only  one.  On  the  contrary,  we  think  we 
could  show,  with  some  plausibility,  from  several  passages,  that, 
in  his  judgment,  virtuous  actions  had  besides  several  essential 
and  appropriate  qualities.  He  was,  at  all  events,  the  last  man 
to  deny  that  they  might  have  ;  and  his  whole  reasoning  on  the 
subject  of  moral  probation  seems  to  imply  that,  inasmuch  as 
such  a  state  is,  according  to  every  appearance,  not  at  all  the 
readiest  or  surest  means  of  promoting  satisfaction  and  enjoy- 
ment, it  cannot  have  been  selected  for  the  cultivation  of  either 
satisfaction  or  enjoyment.  It  is  one  thing  to  hold  that,  the 
nature  of  man  being  what  it  is,  a  virtuous  life  is  the  happiest 
as  well  as  best ;  and  another,  that  such  a  life  is  the  best  because 
it  is  the  happiest,  and  that  the  nature  of  man  was  created  in  the 
manner  it  is  in  order  to  produce  such  happiness.  The  first  is, 
of  course,  the  doctrine  of  Butler ;  the  second  there  does  not  seem 
any  certain  ground  for  imputing  to  him. 

The  religious  side  of  morals  is  rather  indicated  and  implied, 
than  elaborated  or  worked  out  by  Butler.  Yet,  as  we  formerly 
said,  a  constant  reference  to  the  '  presages  of  conscience '  per- 
vades his  writings.  Although  he  has  nowhere  drawn  out  the 
course  of  reasoning  fully,  or  step  by  step,  it  is  certain  that  he 
relied  on  the  moral  evidence  for  a  moral  Providence;  not, 

G  2 


Bishop  Butler. 


indeed,  with  foolhardy  assurance,  but  with  the  cautious  con- 
fidence which  was  habitual  to  him.  The  ideas  which  are  im- 
plied in  the  term  justice — the  connection  between  virtue  and 
reward — sin  and  punishment — a  sacred  law  and  holy  Ruler,  were 
plainly  the  trains  of  reflection  most  commonly  present  to  his 
mind. 

Persons  who  give  credence  to  an  intuitive  conscience  are 
so  often  taunted  with  the  variations  and  mutability  of  human 
nature,  that  it  is  worth  noticing  how  complete  is  the  coinci- 
dence, in  essential  points  of  feeling,  between  minds  so  different 
as  Butler,  Kant,  and  Plato.  We  can  scarcely  imagine  among 
thoughtful  men  a  greater  diversity  of  times  and  characters. 
The  great  Athenian  in  his  flowing  robes  daily  conversing  in 
captious  Athens — the  quiet  rector  wandering  in  Durham,  coal- 
fields— the  smoking  professor  in  ungainly  Kb'nigsberg,  would,  if 
the  contrast  were  not  too  great  for  art,  form  a  trio  worthy  uf  a 
picture.  The  whole  series  of  truths  and  reasonings  which  we 
have  called  the  supernatural  religion,  or  that  of  conscience,  is, 
however,  as  familiar  to  one  as  to  the  other,  and  is  the  most 
important,  if  not  the  most  conspicuous,  feature  in  the  doctrinal 
teaching  of  all  three.  The  very  great  differences  of  nomen- 
clature and  statement,  the  entire  contrast  in  the  style  of  ex- 
pression, do  but  heighten  the  wonder  of  the  essential  and  interior 
correspondence.  The  doctrine  has  certainly  shown  its  capability 
of  co- existing  with  several  forms  of  civilisation;  and  at  least 
the  simplest  explanation  of  its  diffusion  is  by  supposing  that  it 
has  a  real  warrant  in  the  nature  and  consciousness  of  man. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Sermons ;  the  argument  of  the 
'Analogy 'is  of  a  different  and  more  complicated  kind;  and, 
from  its  refinement,  requires  to  be  stated  with  care  and  pre- 
caution. As  the  Sermons  are  in  a  great  measure  a  reply  to  the 
caricaturists  of  Locke,  the  'Analogy'  is,  in  reality,  designed 
as  a  confutation  of  Shaftesbury  and  Bolingbroke.  It  was  the 
object  of  those  writers,  as  of  others  since,  to  disprove  the  autho- 
rity of  the  Christian  and  Jewish  revelation,  by  showing  that 


Bishop  Butler.  85 


they  enjoined  on  man  conduct  forbidden  by  the  law  of  nature, 
and  likewise  imputed  to  the  Deity  actions  of  an  evil  tendency 
and  degrading  character.  These  writers  are  commonly,  and 
perhaps  best,  met  by  a  clear  denial  of  the  fact ;  by  showing  in 
detail,  that  Christianity  is  really  open  to  no  such  objections, 
contains  no  such  precepts,  and  imputes  no  such  actions  :  the 
reply  of  Butler  is  much  more  refined  and  peculiar. 

The  argument  has  been  thus  expounded,  and  its  supposed 
bearing  explained  by  Professor  Eogers  in  the  notice  of  Butler, — 
the  title  of  which  we  have  ventured  to  affix  to  this  Article : — 

*  Further ;  we  cannot  but  think  that  the  collusiveness  of  Butler's 
work  as  against  its  true  object,  "  The  Deist,"  has  often  been  under- 
rated by  many  even  of  its  genuine  admirers.  Thus,  Dr.  Chalmers,  for 
instance,  who  gives  such  glowing  proofs  of  his  admiration  of  the  work, 
and  expatiates  in  a  congenial  spirit  on  its  merits,  affirms  that  "  those 
overrate  the  power  of  analogy  who  look  to  it  for  any  very  distinct  or 
positive  contribution  to  the  Christian  argument.  To  repel  objections, 
in  fact,  is  the  great  service  which  analogy  has  rendered  to  the  cause  of 
Revelation,  and  it  is  the  only  service  which  we  seek  for  at  its  hands." 
This,  abstractedly,  is  true ;  but,  in  fact,  considering  the  position  of 
the  bulk  of  the  objectors,  that  they  have  been  invincibly  persuaded 
of  the  truth  of  theism,  and  that  their  objections  to  Christianity  have 
been  exclusively  or  chiefly  of  the  kind  dealt  with  in  the  "  Analogy," 
the  work  is  much  more  than  an  argumentum  ad  hominem — it  is  not 
simply  of  negative  value.  To  such  objectors  it  logically  establishes 
the  truth  of  Christianity,  or  it  forces  them  to  recede  from  theism, 
which  the  bulk  will  not  do.  If  a  man  says,  "  I  am  invincibly  per- 
suaded of  the  truth  of  proposition  A,  but  I  cannot  receive  proposition 
B,  because  objections  a,  /3,  y  are  opposed  to  it;  if  these  were  removed, 
my  objections  would  cease ; "  then,  if  you  can  show  that  a,  (3,  y  equally 
apply  to  the  proposition  A,  his  reception  of  which,  he  says,  is  based 
on  invincible  evidence,  you  do  really  compel  such  a  man  to  believe 
that  not  only  B  may  be  true,  but  that  it  is  true,  unless  he  be  willing 
(which  few  in  the  parallel  case  are)  to  abandon  proposition  A  as  well 
as  B.  This  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  the  majority  of  Deists 
have  ever  been,  if  we  may  judge  from  their  writings.  It  is  usually 
the  a  priori  assumption,  that  certain  facts  in  the  history  of  the  Bible, 
or  some  portions  of  its  doctrne,  are  unworthy  of  the  Deity,  and  in- 
compatible with  his  character  or  administration,  that  has  chiefly  ex- 


86  Bishop  Butler. 


cited  the  incredulity  of  the  Deist ;  far  more  than  any  dissatisfaction 
with  the  positive  evidence  which  substantiates  the  Divine  origin  of 
Christianity.  Neutralise  these  objections  by  showing  that  they  are 
equally  applicable  to  what  he  declares  he  cannot  relinquish — the 
doctrines  of  theism ;  and  you  show  him,  if  he  has  a  particle  of  logical 
sagacity,  not  only  that  Christianity  may  be  true,  but  that  it  is  so ; 
and  his  only  escape  is  by  relapsing  into  atheism,  or  resting  his  opposi- 
tion on  other  objections  of  a  very  feeble  character  in  compaiison,  and 
which,  probably,  few  would  ever  have  been  contented  with  alone ;  for, 
apart  from  those  objections  which  Butler  repels,  the  historical  evidence 
for  Christianity — the  evidence  on  behalf  of  the  integrity  of  its  records 
and  the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  its  founders — showing  that  they 
could  not  have  constructed  such  a  system  if  they  would,  and  would 
not,  supposing  them  impostors,  if  they  could — is  stronger  than  that 
for  any  fact  in  history. 

'  In  consequence  of  this  position  of  the  argument,  Butler's  book,  to 
large,  classes  of  objectors,  though  practically  an  argumentum  ad  homi- 
nem,  not  only  proves  Christianity  may  be  true,  but  in  all  logical 
fairness  proves  it  is  so.  This  he  himself,  with  his  usual  judgment, 
points  out.  He  says  :  "  And  objections  which  are  equally  applicable 
to  both  natural  and  revealed  religion  are,  properly  speaking,  answered 
by  its  being  shown  that  they  are  so,  provided  the  former  be  admitted 
to  be  true." ' 

No  one  can  deny  the  ingenuity  of  this  line  of  reasoning,  but 
we  can  only  account  for  the  great  assent  which  it  has  received, 
by  supposing  that  the  goodness  of  the  cause  for  which  it  is 
commonly  brought  forward  has  not  unnaturally  led  to  an  undue 
approbation  of  the  argument  itself.  From  the  amount  of  autho- 
rity in  its  favour  we  feel  some  diffidence,  but  otherwise  we 
should  have  said,  without  hesitation,  that  it  was  open  to  several 
objections. 

In  the  first  place,  so  far  from  its  being  probable  that  Reve- 
lation would  have  contained  the  same  difficulties  as  Nature,  we 
should  have  expected  that  it  would  explain  those  difficulties. 
The  very  term  Super  natural  Revelation  implies  that  previously 
and  by  nature  man  is,  to  a  great  extent,  in  ignorance  ;  that 
particularly  he  is  unaware  of  some  fact,  or  series  of  facts,  which 
God  deems  it  fit  that  he  should  know.  The  instinctive  pre- 


lliskop  Butler.  87 


sumption  certainly  is,  that  those  facts  would  be  most  important 
to  us.  No  doubt  it  is  possible  that,  for  incomprehensible 
reasons,  a  special  revelation  should  be  made  of  facts  purely  in- 
different, of  the  date  when  London  was  founded,  or  the  precise 
circumstances  of  the  invasion  by  William  the  Conqueror.  But 
this  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable.  What  seems  likely 
(and  the  whole  argument  is  essentially  one  of  likelihood), 
according  to  our  mind,  is  that  the  Eevelation  which  God  would 
vouchsafe  to  us  would  fce  one  affecting  our  daily  life  and  welfare, 
would  communicate  truths  either  on  the  one  hand  conducing  to 
our  temporal  happiness  in  the  present  world,  or  removing  the 
many  doubts  and  difficulties  which  surround  the  general  plan 
of  Providence,  the  entire  universe,  and  our  particular  destiny. 
These  are  the  two  classes  of  truths  on  which  we  seem  to  require 
help,  and  it  is  in  the  first  instance  more  probable  that  assistance 
would  be  given  us  on  those  points  on  which  it  is  most  required. 
The  argument  of  Butler,  of  course,  relates  to  our  religious 
difficulties.  And,  it  seems  impossible  to  deny  that  this  is  the 
exact  class  of  difficulty  which  it  is  most  likely  a  revelation,  if 
given,  would  explain.  No  one  who  reasons  on  this  subject  is 
likely  to  doubt  that  the  natural  faculties  of  man  are  more 
clearly  adequate  to  our  daily  and  temporal  happiness,  than  to 
the  explanation  of  the  perplexities  which  have  confounded  men 
since  the  beginning  of  speculation — of  which  the  mere  state- 
ment is  so  vast — which  relate  to  the  scheme  of  the  universe  and 
the  plan  of  God.  This  is  the  one  principle  on  which  the  most 
extreme  sceptics,  and  the  most  thorough  advocates  of  revela- 
tion, meet  and  agree.  The  sceptic  says,  '  Man  is  not  born  to 
resolve  the  mystery  of  the  universe  ;  but  he  must  nevertheless 
attempt  it,  that  he  may  keep  within  the  limits  of  the  knowable  : ' 
which  really  means  that  he  is  to  fold  his  hands  and  be  quiet ; 
to  abstain  from  all  religious  inquiry ;  to  confine  himself  to  this 
life,  and  be  industrious  and  practical  within  its  limits.  The 
advocate  of  revelation  is  for  ever  denying  the  competency  of 
man's  faculties  to  explain,  or  puzzle  out,  what  in  the  large  sense 


88  Bishop  Butler. 


most  concerns  him.  There  are  difficulties  celestial,  and  diffi- 
culties terrestrial;  but  it  is  certainly  more  likely  that  God 
would  interfere  miraculously  to  explain  the  first  than  to  re- 
move the  second. 

Let  us  look  at  the  argument  more  at  length.  The  supposi- 
tion and  idea  of  a  'miraculous  revelation'  rest  on  the  ignorance 
of  man.  The  scene  of  nature  is  stretched  out  before  him  ;  it 
has  rich  imagery,  and  varied  colours,  and  infinite  extent ;  its 
powers  move  with  a  vast  sweep ;  its  results  are  executed  with 
exact  precision  ;  it  gladdens  the  eyes,  and  enriches  the  imagina- 
tion ;  it  tells  us  something  of  God — something  important,  yet 
not  enough.  For  example,  difficulties  abound  ;  poverty  and  sin, 
pain  and  sorrow,  fear  and  anger,  press  on  us  with  a  heavy  weight. 
On  every  side  our  knowledge  is  confined,  and  our  means  of  en- 
larging it  small.  Of  this  the  outer  world  takes  no  heed  ;  nature 
is  '  unfeeling ; '  her  laws  roll  on ;  '  beautiful  and  dumb,'  she 
passes  forward  and  vouchsafes  no  sign.  Indeed,  she  seems  to 
hide,  as  one  might  fancy,  the  dark  mysteries  of  life  which 
seem  to  lie  beneath  ;  our  feeble  eyes  strain  to  look  forward,  but 
her  6  painted  veil '  hangs  over  all,  like  an  October  mist  upon 
the  morning  hills.  Here,  as  it  seems,  revelation  intervenes ; 
God  will  break  the  spell  that  is  upon  us  ;  will  meet  our  need  ; 
will  break,  as  it  were,  through  the  veil  of  nature ;  He  will  show 
us  of  Himself.  It  is  not  likely,  surely,  that  He  will  break  the 
everlasting  silence  to  no  end ;  that,  having  begun  to  speak,  He 
will  tell  us  nothing ;  that  He  will  leave  the  difficulties  of  life 
where  He  found  them  ;  that  He  will  repeat  them  in  His  speech  ; 
that  He  will  revive  them  in  His  word.  It  seems  rather,  as  if 
His  faintest  disclosure,  His  least  word,  would  shed  abundant  light 
on  all  doubts,  would  take  the  weight  from  our  minds,  would  re- 
move the  gnawing  anguish  from  our  hearts.  Surely,  surely,  if 
He  speaks  He  will  make  an  end  of  speaking,  He  will  show  us 
some  good,  He  will  destroy  '  the  veil  that  is  spread  over  all  na- 
tions,' and  the  c  covering  over  all  people  ; '  He  will  not  '  darken 
counsel  by  words  without  knowledge.' 


Bishop  Butler.  89 


To  this  line  of  argument  we  know  of  but  one  objection  ;  it 
may  be  said,  that,  from  the  immensity  of  the  universe  in  which 
man  is,  reasons  may  exist  for  communicating  to  him  facts  of 
which  he  cannot  appreciate  the  importance,  but  a  belief  in 
which  may  nevertheless  be  most  important  to  his  ultimate 
welfare.  Of  this  kind,  according  to  some  divine?,  is  the  doc- 
trine of  the  'Atonement.'  As  they  think,  it  is  impossible  to 
explain  the  mode  in  which  the  death  of  Christ  conduces  to  the 
forgiveness  of  sin,  or  why  a  belief  in  it  should  be  made,  as  they 
think  it  is,  a  necessary  preliminary  to  such  forgiveness.  They 
consider  that  this  is  a  revealed  matter  of  fact ;  part  of  a  system 
of  things  which  is  not  known  now,  which  would  very  likely  be 
above  our  understanding  if  it  were  explained,  which,  at  all 
events,  is  not  explained.  We  reply,  that  the  revelation  of  an 
inexplicable  fact  is  possible,  and  that,  if  adequate  evidence 
could  be  adduced  in  its  favour,  we  might  be  bound  to  acquiesce 
in  it ;  but  that,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  revelation  is  extremely 
improbable  :  so  far  as  we  can  see,  there  was  no  occasion  for  it ; 
it  helps  in  nothing,  explains  to  us  nothing  ;  it  enlarges  our  know- 
ledge only  thus  far,  that  for  some  unknown  reason  we  are  bound 
to  believe  something  from  which  certain  effects  follow  in  a  man- 
ner which  we  cannot  understand.  Such  a  revelation  is,  as  has 
been  said,  possible  ;  but  it  is  much  more  likely,  a  priori,  that 
a  revelation,  if  given,  would  be  a  revelation  of  facts  suited  to 
our  comprehension,  and  throwing  a  light  on  the  world  in  which 
we  are. 

The  same  remark  is  applicable  to  a  revelation  commanding 
rites  and  ceremonies  which  do  not  come  home  to  the  conscience 
as  duties,  and  of  which  the  reasons  are  not  explained  to  us  by 
the  revelation  itself.  The  Pharisaic  code  of  '  cups  and  wash- 
ings '  is  an  obvious  instance.  It  is  obviously  most  improbable 
that  we  should  be  ordered  to  do  these  things.  The  fact  may  be 
so ;  but  the  evidence  of  it  should  be  overwhelming,  and  should 
be  examined  with  almost  suspicious  and  sceptical  care.  A  reve- 
lation of  a  rule  of  life  which  approves  itself  to  the  heart,  which 


90  Bishop  Butler. 


awakens  conscience,  which  seems  to  come  from  God,  is  the 
greatest  conceivable  aid  to  man,  the  greatest  explanation  of  our 
most  practical  perplexities  ;  a  revelation  of  rites  and  ordinances 
is  a  revelation  of  new  difficulties,  telling  us  nothing  of  God, 
imposing  an  additional  taskwork  on  ourselves: 

We  are  to  remember,  that  the  '  Analogy '  is,  as  the  Germans 
would  speak,  a  '  Kritik '  of  every  possible  revelation.  The  first 
principle  of  it  rests  on  the  inquiry, 6  What  would  it  be  likely 
that  a  revelation,  if  vouchsafed,  would  contain?'  The  whole 
argument  is  one  of  preconception,  presumption,  and  probability. 
It  claims  to  establish  a  principle,  which  may  be  used  in  defence 
of  any  revelation,  the  Mahomedan  as  well  as  the  Christian ;  ac- 
cording to  it,  as  soon  as  you  can  show  that  a  difficulty  exists  in 
nature,  you  may  immediately  expect  to  find  it  in  revelation. 
If  carried  out  to  its  extreme  logical  development,  it  would  come 
to  this,  that  if  a  catalogue  were  constructed  of  all  the  inexplic- 
able arrangements  and  difficulties  of  nature,  you  might  confi- 
dently anticipate  that  these  very  same  difficulties  in  the  same 
degree  and  in  the  same  points  would  be  found  in  revelation. 
Both  being  from  the  same  Author,  it  is  presumed  that  each 
would  ^resemble  the  other.  The  principle,  even  to  this  length, 
is  enunciated  by  Mr.  Rogers ;  the  difficulties  of  nature  are  the 
a,  /3,  7  of  the  extract :  and  he  asserts,  that  if  you  can  show  that 
all  of  them  exist  in  one  system,  you  have  every  reason  to  expect 
all  of  them  in  the  other.  Yet,  surely,  what  can  be  more  mon- 
strous than  that  a  supernatural  communication  from  God  should 
simply  enumerate  all  the  difficulties  of  His  natural  government 
and  not  enlighten  us  as  to  any  of  them — should  revive  our  per- 
plexities without  removing  them — should  not  satisfy  one  doubt 
or  one  anxiety,  but  repeat  and  proclaim  every  fact  which  can 
give  a  basis  to  them  both  ? 

The  case  does  not  rest  here.  There  is  a  second  ground  of 
objection  to  the  argument  of  the  ;  Analogy '  on  which  we  are 
inclined  to  lay  nearly  equal  stress.  As  has  been  said,  it  is  most 
likely  that  a  revelation  from  God  would  explain  at  least  a  part 


Bishop  Butler.  91 


of  the  religious  difficulties  of  man  ;  and,  in  matter  of  fact,  all 
systems  purporting  to  be  revelations  have  in  their  respective 
degrees  professed  to  do  so.  They  all  deal  with  what  may  be 
called  the  system  of  the  universe — its  moral  plan  and  scheme  ; 
the  destiny  of  man  therein — the  motives  from  which  God  crea- 
ted it — and  the  manner  in  which  He  directs  it.  Throughout 
the  whole  range  of  doctrines,  from  Mormonism  up  to  Chris- 
tianity, no  one  has  ever  gained  any  acceptance,  has  ever,  perhaps, 
been  sincerely  put  forward,  which  did  not  deal  with  this  whole 
range  of  facts — which  did  not  tell  man,  according  to  his  view, 
whence  he  is,  and  whither  he  goes.  Eevelations,  as  such,  are 
communications  concerning  eternity.  Now,  it  seems  to  us,  that 
so  far  from  its  being  likely,  a  priori,  that  a  revelation  of  this 
sort  would  contain  the  same  perplexing  difficulties  which  cause  so 
much  evil  in  this  world,  in  the  same  degree  in  which  they  exist 
here,  it  would  be  scarcely  possible  by  any  evidence,  a  posteriori, 
to  establish  the  communication  of  such  a  system  from  the  Di- 
vine Being.  It  seems  clear  on  the  surface  of  the  subject  that, 
the  extent  of  the  unknown  world  being  so  enormous  in  com- 
parison with  that  which  is  known,  this  scene  being  so  petty, 
and  the  plan  of  Providence  so  vast — earth  being  little,  and 
space  infinite — Time  short,  and  Eternity  long — a  difficulty, 
which  is  of  no  moment  in  so  contracted  a  sphere  as  this,  be- 
comes of  infinite  moment  when  extended  to  the  sphere  of  the 
Almighty.  From  the  smallness  of  the  region  which  we  see — - 
the  short  time  which  we  live — from  the  few  things  which  we 
know — it  may  well  be  that  there  are  points  which  perplex  the 
feebleness  of  our  understanding  and  puzzle  the  best  feelings  of 
our  hearts.  We  see,  as  some  one  expresses  it,  the  universe  '  not 
in  plan  but  in  section  ; '  and  we  cannot  expect  to  understand 
very  much  of  it.  But  when  our  knowledge  increases — when, 
by  a  revelation,  that  plan  is  unfolded  to  us — when  God  vouch- 
safes to  communicate  to  us  the  system  on  which  He  acts,  then 
it  is  rational  to  expect  those  difficulties  would  diminish — would 
gradually  disappear  as  the  light  dawned  upon  us — would  vanish 


92  Bishop  Butler. 


finally  when  the  dayspring  arose  on  our  hearts.  If  a  difficulty  of 
pature  be  repeated  in  revelation,  it  would  seem  to  show  that  it 
was  not,  as  we  had  before  supposed,  a  consequence  of  our  short' 
sighted  views  and  contracted  knowledge,  but  a  real  inherent 
element  in  the  scheme  of  the  universe ;  not  a  petty  shade  on  a 
petty  globe,  but  a  pervading  inherent  stain,  extending  over  all 
things,  destroying  the  beauty  of  the  universe,  impairing  the 
perfectness  of  all  creation.  Take,  as  an  instance,  the  extreme 
doctrine  of  Antinomian  Calvinism — suppose  that  the  eternal 
condition  of  man  depended  in  no  degree  on  his  acts,  or  works, 
or  upon  himself  in  any  form,  but  on  an  arbitrary  act  of  selec- 
tion by  God,  which  chose  some,  independently  of  any  antece- 
dent fitness  on  their  part,  for  eternal  happiness,  and  consigns  all 
others — irrespective  of  their  guilt  or  innocence — to  eternal  ruin. 
Nothing,  of  course,  can  be  more  shocking  than  such  a  doctrine 
when  stated  in  simple  language  ;  and  if  it  really  were  contained 
in  any  document  that  professes  to  be  a  revelation,  we  should  be 
plainly  justified  in  passing  it  by  as  a  document  which  no  evi- 
dence would  prove  to  have  been  inspired  by  God.  Yet  the 
doctrine  certainly  does  not  want  partial  analogies  in  this  world. 
The  condition  of  men  here  does  seem  to  be  in  a  consider- 
able measure  the  result  not  of  what  they  do,  or  of  what  their 
characters  are,  but  of  the  mere  circumstances  in  which  they  are 
placed,  over  which  they  have  no  control,  choice,  or  power.  One 
man  is  born  in  a  ditch,  another  in  a  palace ;  one  with  a  gloomy 
and  painful,  another  with  a  cheerful  and  happy  mind ;  one  to 
honour,  another  to  dishonour.  We  invent  words — fortune,  luck, 
chance — to  express  in  a  subtle  way  the  notion  that  some  seem 
the  favourites  of  circumstance,  others  the  scapegoats.  So  far 
as  it  goes,  this  is  a  distinct  '  election '  on  the  part  of  God  of 
some  to  misery,  of  others  to  felicity,  irrespective  of  their  per- 
sonal qualities.  Accordingly,  it  may  be  argued,  why  should  we 
not  expect  to  find  the  same  in  the  world  of  revelation,  which  is 
from  the  hand  of  the  same  Creator  ?  But  this  will  scarcely  im- 
pose on  any  one.  A  certain  indignation  arises  within  us — con- 


Bishop  Butler.  93 


science  uplifts  her  voice,  and  we  reply,  '  It  may  well  be  that  for 
a  short  time  God  may  afflict  His  people  without  their  own  fault, 
but  that  He  should  do  so  for  ever — that  He  should  make  no 
end  of  injustice — that  He  favours  one  without  a  reason,  and 
condemns  another  without  a  fault — this,  come  what  may,  we 
will  not  believe — we  would  sooner  cast  ourselves  at  large  on  the 
waste  of  uncertainty ; —  pass  on  with  your  teaching,  and  ask 
God,  if  so  be  that  He  will  pardon  you  for  attributing  sucli 
things  to  Him.'  We  need  not  further  enlarge  on  this. 

Again,  and  in  the  practical  conduct  of  the  argument  this  is 
a  very  material  consideration.  All  revelations  impute  inten- 
tions to  God.  Acts  are  done,  observances  enjoined,  a  provi- 
dential plan  pursued,  for  reasons  which  are  explained.  The 
cause  of  this  is  evident  from  our  previous  reasoning.  As  we 
have  seen,  all  revelations  profess  to  vindicate  the  ways  of  God 
to  man  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  do  so  effectually  without  de- 
claring to  us  at  least  some  of  His  motives  and  designs.  It  is 
most  impoitant  to  observe,  that  no  analogy  from  nature  can 
justify  us  in  judging  of  these  except  by  the  standard  of  right 
or  wrong  which  God  has  implanted  within  us.  From  external 
observation  we  learn  almost  nothing  of  God's  intentions.  The 
scheme  is  too  large;  the  universe  too  unbounded.  One  phe- 
nomenon follows  another ;  but,  except  in  a  few  cases,  and  then 
very  dubiously,  we  cannot  tell  which  was  created  for  which — 
which  was  the  design  — which  the  means — which  the  determin- 
ing object — and  which  the  subservient  purpose.  Even  in  the 
few  cases  in  which  we  do  impute  such  intentions,  we  do  so  be- 
cause they  seem  to  be  in  harmony  with  God's  moral  character ; 
they  are  not  strictly  proved,  they  are  mere  conjectures  ;  and  we 
should  reject  at  once  any  that  might  seem  ethically  unworthy. 
But  the  case  is  different  with  a  revelation  which,  from  its  own 
nature,  unfolds  ends  and  instruments  in  their  due  measure  and 
their  actual  subordination,  which  developes  an  orderly  system, 
and  communicates  hidden  motives  and  unforeseen  designs.  A  re- 
cent writer,  for  example,  thus  defends  certain  apparent  cruelties 


94  Bishop  Butler. 


of  the  Old  Testament  by  stating  those  of  nature:  'God,'  he 
says,  '  sends  His  pestilence,  and  produces  horrors  on  which  ima- 
gination dare  not  dwell ;  horrors  not  only  physical,  but  indi- 
rectly moral ;  often  transforming  man  into  something  like  the 
fiend  so  many  say  he  can  never  become.  He  sends  His  famine, 
and  thousands  perish— men  and  women,  and  '  the  child  that 
knows  not  its  right  hand  from  its  left ' — in  prolonged  and  fright- 
ful agonies.  He  opens  the  mouths  of  volcanoes  and  lakes ;  boils 
and  fries  the  population  of  a  whole  city  in  torrents  of  burning 
lava,  &c.  &c.' ] — with  much  else  to  the  same  purpose.  But  this 
must  not  be  adduced  in  extenuation  of  anything  of  which  the 
reasons  are  narrated  ;  on  the  contrary,  these  last  must  be  judged 
of  by  the  moral  faculties  which  are  among  God's  highest  gifts. 
To  the  infliction  of  pain,  with  an  express  view  to  what  con- 
science tells  us  to  be  an  unworthy  object,  outward  nature  does 
and  can  afford  no  parallel.  She  has  no  avowals ;  it  is  but  from 
conjecture  that  we  conceive  her  motives  ;  her  laws  pass  forward  ; 
the  crush  of  her  forces  is  upon  us ;  like  a  child  in  a  railway, 
we  know  not  anything.  The  incomprehensible  has  no  analogy 
to  the  explained  ;  the  mysterious  none  to  that  on  which  the 
oracle  has  intelligibly  spoken. 

Lastly,  for  a  similar  reason  it  is  impossible  that  there  should 
be  any  analogy  in  nature  for  a  precept  from  God  opposed  to 
the  law  of  conscience.  External  nature  gives  no  precept ;  our 
knowledge  of  our  duty  comes  from  within ;  the  physical  world 
is  subordinate  to  our  inward  teaching;  it  is  silent  on  points 
of  morality.  On  the  other  hand,  a  revelation,  supposing  satis- 
factory means  of  attesting  it  were  found,  might  possibly  contain 
such  a  precept.  It  is  very  painful  to  put  such  suppositions 
before  the  mind  ;  but  the  pain  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the 

1  Professor  Eogers's  Defence  of  the  '  Eclipse  of  Faith,'  p.  43.  It  is  to  be 
observed,  we  are  not  at  all  speaking  of  the  facts  of  the  Old  Testament ;  we 
are  but  limiting  the  considerations  on  which  the  above  writer  has  rested  its 
defence.  These  refined  reasonings  but  weaken  the  case  they  are  brought  to 
support.  '  I  did  not  know,'  said  George  the  Third,  « that  the  Bible  needed 
an  apology.' 


Bishop  Butler.  95 

subject.  The  topic  of  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  of  man 
cannot,  by  any  artifice  of  rhetoric,  be  rendered  pleasing.  In 
such  a  case,  supposing  there  to  be  no  difficulty  of  evidence  in 
the  case,  our  duty  might  be  to  obey  God  even  against  conscience, 
from  that  assurance  of  His  essential  perfection  which  is  the  most 
certain  attestation  of  conscience.  But  the  existence  of  such  a 
difficulty  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable ;  it  is  one  which 
ought  only  to  be  admitted  on  the  completest  proof  and  after  the 
most  rigid  straining  of  evidence :  it  is,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  without  a  parallel  in  the  common  and  unrevealed  world. 

To  all  these  considerable  objections,  we  believe  the  argument 
of  the  '  Analogy '  is  properly  subject.  We  think  in  general 
that,  according  to  every  reasonable  presumption,  a  revelation 
would  not  repeat  the  same  difficulties  as  are  to  be  found  in 
nature,  but  would  remove  and  explain  some  of  them  ;  that  diffi- 
culties, which  are  of  small  importance  in  the  natural  world,  on 
account  of  the  smallness  of  its  sphere  and  the  brevity  of  its 
duration,  become  of  insuperable  magnitude  when  extended  to 
infinity  and  eternity,  when  alleged  to  be  co-extensive  with  the 
universe,  and  to  be  inherent  in  its  scheme  and  structure  ;  and 
that, — what  is  of  less  universal  scope,  but  still  of  essential  im- 
portance,— nature  offers  no  analogy  to  the  ascription  by  any 
professed  revelation  of  an  unworthy  intention  to  (rod,  or  the 
inculcation  through  it  of  an  immoral  precept  on  man. 

It  is  impossible,  then,  by  any  such  argument  as  this,  to  re- 
move from  moral  criticism  the  entire  contents  of  any  revelation. 
According  to  the  more  natural  view,  the  unimpeachable  morality 
of  those  contents  is  a  most  essential  part  of  the  evidence  on 
which  our  belief  must  rest ;  and  this  seems  to  remain  so,  not- 
withstanding these  refinements.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not 
contend  that  the  reasoning  of  the  '  Analogy '  is  wholly  worthless. 
It  Butler's  J  argument  had  only  been  adduced  to  this  extent ;  if 

1  We  doubt,  however,  if  Bxitler  would  at  all  have  accepted  Mr.  Rogers's 
statement  of  his  view,  though  it  is  perhaps  the  most  common  interpretation 
of  him.  Probably,  he  really  meant  no  more  than  what  we  contend  for,  though 
hib  language  is  not  always  so  limited  in  terms. 


96  Bishop  Butler. 


it  had  only  been  argued  that,  though  a  revelation  might  be  ex- 
pected to  explain  some  difficulties,  it  could  not  be  expected  to 
explain  all ;  that  a  certain  number  would,  from  our  ignorance 
and  unworthiness,  still  remain ;  and  these  residuary  difficulties 
would  be  of  the  same  order,  class,  and  kind,  to  which  we  were 
accustomed ;  that  the  style  of  Providence,  if  one  may  so  say, 
would  be  the  same  in  the  newly-communicated  phenomena  as 
we  had  observed  it  to  be  in  those  we  were  familiar  with  before, 
—there  could  be  little  question  of  the  soundness  of  the  prin- 
ciple. No  one  would  expect  that  there  would  be  new  difficulties 
introduced  by  a  revelation  ;  what  difficulties  were  found  in  it  we 
should  expect  to  be  identical  with  those  observed  before  in 
nature ;  or,  at  least,  to  be  similar  to  them,  and  likely  to  be 
explained  in  the  same  way  by  a  more  adequate  knowledge  of 
God's  purposes.  We  should  particularly  expect  the  difficulties 
of  revelation  to  be  like  those  of  nature,  limited  in  time  and 
range,  not  extending  to  the  entire  scheme  of  Providence,  not 
diffused  through  infinity  and  eternity,  not  imputing  evil  inten- 
tions to  God,  not  inculcating  immoral  precepts  on  man.  We 
can  hardly  be  said  to  expect  to  find  difficulties  in  revelation 
at  all ;  the  utmost  that  seems  probable,  d  priori,  is,  that  it 
should  leave  unnoticed  some  of  those  of  nature.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  no  violent,  no  overwhelming  improbability  in  the  fact 
of  some  perplexing  points  being  contained  in  a  communication 
from  God ;  we  are  so  weak,  that  it  may  be  we  cannot  entirely 
understand  the  smallest  intimation  from  the  Infinite  Being. 
And  if  difficulties  are  found  there,  they  are,  of  course,  less  per- 
plexing, when  resembling  those  which  we  knew  before,  than  if 
they  be  wholly  distinct  and  new  in  kind.  But  this  principle  is, 
on  the  face  of  it,  very  different  from  the  admission  of  an  ante- 
cedent probability,  that  all  the  difficulties  discoverable  in  nature 
would  be  daguerreotyped  in  a  revelation. 

The  difference  is  seen  very  clearly  by  looking  at  the  argu- 
ment which  Butler's  reasoning  is  intended  to  confute.  Suppose 
a  professed  revelation  to  be  laid  before  a  person  who  was  before 


Bishop  Butler.  97 


unacquainted  with  it,  and  that  he  finds  in  it  several  perplexing 
points.  According  to  Butler's  principle,  or  what  is  supposed 
by  Mr.  Rogers  to  be  Butler's  principle,  it  is  enough  to  reply : 
You  have  those  same  difficulties  in  nature  before ;  you  cannot 
consistently  object  to  them  now;  they  have  not  prevented  your 
ascribing  nature  to  a  Divine  Author ;  they  should  not  prevent 
you  from  ascribing  to  Him  this  revelation.  Nature  is  so  full  of 
difficulties,  that  almost  every  doctrine  that  has  ever  been  attri- 
buted to  revelation  may  be  provided  with  a  parallel  more  or 
less  apt.  Consequently,  it  would  be  almost  needless  to  criticise 
the  contents  of  any  alleged  revelation,  when  we  may  be  met  so 
easily  by  such  a  reply.  No  careful  reasoner  would  attempt  that 
criticism.  According  to  the  doctrine  which  we  have  reiterated, 
we  should  deem  it  a  difficulty  that  these  perplexing  points 
should  be  found  in  a  revelation ;  but  that  difficulty  would  not 
amount  to  much,  would  not  counterbalance  strong  evidence,  if 
it  could  be  shown  that  the  system  claiming  to  be  revealed, 
although  leaving  these  points  unexplained,  threw  ample  light 
on  others ;  that  what  gave  cause  for  perplexity  was  quite  sub- 
ordinate to  what  removed  perplexity ;  that  no  immoral  actions 
were  enjoined  on  man  ;  no  unworthy  motives  imputed  to  God ; 
no  vice  attributed  to  the  whole  scheme  and  plan  of  the  Creator. 
There  would  therefore  remain  the  largest  scope  for  internal 
criticism  on  all  systems  claiming  to  be  messages  from  God ;  on 
the  very  face  they  must  seem  worthy  of  Him  :  in  their  very 
essence  they  must  seem  good. 

This  is  plainly  the  obvious  view.  The  natural  opinion  cer- 
tainly is  that  the  moral  and  religious  faculties  would  be  those 
on  which  we  should  primarily  depend,  in  judging  of  an  alleged 
communication  from  heaven ;  in  deciding  whether  it  have  a 
valid  claim  to  that  character  or  no.  These  faculties  are  those 
which,  antecedently  to  revelation,  determine  our  belief  in  all 
other  moral  and  religious  questions,  and  it  is  therefore  natural 
to  look  to  them  as  the  best  judges  of  the  authenticity  of  an 
alleged  revelation.  Many  divines,  however,  struggle  to  deny 

VOL.    II.  H 


98  Bishop  Butler. 


this.     Thus,  in  the  memoir  of  Butler  we  are  now  reviewing,  Mr. 
Rogers  observes, — 

'  The  immortal  "  Analogy  "  has  probably  done  more  to  silence  the 
objections  of  infidelity  than  any  other  ever  written  from  the  earliest 
"  apologies"  downwards.  It  not  only  most  critically  met  the  spirit  of 
unbelief  in  the  author's  own  day,  but  is  equally  adapted  to  meet 
that  which  chiefly  prevails  in  all  time.  In  every  age,  some  of  the 
principal,  perhaps  the  principal,  objections  to  the  Christian  Revela- 
tion have  been  those  which  men's  preconceptions  of  the  Divine  cha- 
racter and  administration — of  what  God  must  be,  and  of  what  God 
must  do — have  suggested  against  certain  facts  in  the  sacred  history,  or 
certain  doctrines  it  reveals.  To  show  the  objector,  then  (supposing 
him  to  be  a  theist,  as  nine-tenths  of  all  such  objectors  have  been),  that 
the  very  same  or  similar  difficulties  are  found  in  the  structure  of  the 
universe  and  the  divine  administration  of  it,  is  to  wrest  every  such 
weapon  completely  from  his  hands,  if  he  be  a  fair  reasoner  and  remain 
a  theist  at  all.  He  is  bound,  by  strict  logical  obligation,  either  to 
show  that  the  parallel  difficulties  do  not  exist,  or  to  show  how  he  can 
solve  them,  while  he  cannot  solve  those  of  the  Bible.  In  default  of 
doing  either  of  these  things,  he  ought  either  to  renounce  all  such 
objections  to  Christianity,  or  abandon  theism  altogether.  It  is  true, 
therefore,  that  though  Butler  leaves  the  alternative  of  atheism  open, 
he  hardly  leaves  any  other  alternative  to  nine-tenths  of  the  theists 
who  have  objected  to  Christianity.' 

And  there  is  a  perpetual  reiteration  in  the  '  Eclipse  of  Faith' 
of  the  same  reasoning.  In  fact,  so  far  as  the  latter  work  has  a 
distinct  principle,  this  argument  may  be  said  to  be  that  prin- 
ciple. The  answer  is,  that  the  proof  of  all  'revelation'  itsel 
rests  on  a  'preconception'  respecting  the  Divine  character,  and 
that,  if  we  assume  the  truth  of  that  one  '  preconception,'  we 
must  not  reject  any  others  which  may  be  found  to  have  the 
same  evidence.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  assumption  of  God's 
veracity ;  which  can  only  be  proved  by  arguments  that,  if  ad- 
mitted, would  likewise  justify  our  attributing  to  Him  all  other 
perfect  virtues.  It  is  evident  that  a  doubt  as  to  this  attribute 
is  not  only  impious  in  itself,  but  quite  destructive  of  all  con- 
fidence in  any  communication  which  may  be  received  from  Him. 


Bishop  Butler.  99 


And  yet,  on  what  evidence  does  its  acceptance  rest  ?  It  cannot 
be  said  to  be  demonstrated  by  what  scientific  men  call  '  natural 
theology.'  Competent  and  careful  persons  examine  the  material 
world,  the  structure  of  animals  and  plants,  the  courses  of  the 
planets,  the  muscles  of  man,  and  they  find  there  a  great  pre- 
ponderance of  benevolence.  They  show,  with  great  labour  and 
great  merit,  that  the  Being  who  arranged  this  universe  is,  on 
the  whole,  a  benevolent  Being ;  but  does  it  follow  that  He  will 
teli  the  truth  ?  '  In  crossing  a  heath,'  says  Paley,  '  suppose  I 
pitched  my  foot  against  a  stone,  and  were  asked  how  the  stone 
came  to  be  there,  I  might  possibly  answer  that,  for  anything 
I  knew  to  the  contrary,  it  had  lain  there  for  ever  ;  nor  would 
it,  perhaps,  be  very  easy  to  show  the  absurdity  of  this  answer : 
but,  suppose  I  had  found  a  watch  on  the  ground,  and  it  should 
be  inquired  how  the  watch  came  to  be  in  that  place,  I  should 
hardly  think  of  the  answer  I  had  before  given,  that,  for  any- 
thing I  knew,  it  had  been  always  there.'  And  he  shows,  with 
his  usual  power,  that  this  watch  was,  in  all  likelihood,  made 
by  a  watchmaker.  There  is  nothing  cleverer,  perhaps,  in  argu- 
mentative writing,  than  the  way  in  which  that  argument  is 
stated  and  pointed.  But  what  evidence  is  there  that  the  watch- 
maker was  veracious  ?  The  amplest  examination  of  the  most 
refined  designs,  the  minutest  scrutiny  of  the  most  complex  con- 
trivances, do  not  go  one  hair's  breadth  to  establish  any  such 
conclusion.  Nor  can  it  be  shown  that  the  virtue  of  veracity  is 
identical  with,  or  consequent  on,  the  virtue  of  simple  benevo- 
lence. We  know  well  in  common  life  that  there  are  such  things 
as  pleasing  falsehoods,  and  that  such  things  exist  as  disagreeable 
truths.  A  person  (what  we  ordinarily  call  a  good-natured 
person)  whose  only  motive  is  simple  benevolence,  will  con- 
stantly assert  the  first  and  deny  the  second.  In  its  application 
to  religion  this  tendency  cannot  be  illustrated  without  sup- 
positions which  it  is  painful  even  to  make ;  but  yet  they  must 
be  made  for  a  moment,  or  the  necessary  argument  must  be  left 
incomplete.  Suppose,  what  is  doubtless  true,  that  the  belief  in 

H   2 


ioo  Bishop  Butler. 


a  <  future  state,'  even  if  false,  contributes  to  the  temporal  happi- 
ness of  man  in  this  world ;  that  it  does  more  to  enlarge  his 
hope?,  stimulate  his  imagination,  and  alleviate  his  sorrows,  than 
any  one  other  consideration ;  that  it  contributes  to  the  order  of 
society  and  the  progress  of  civilisation ;  that  it  is,  as  some  one 
says,  '  the  last  restraint  of  the  powerful,  and  the  last  hope  of 
the  wretched.'  Indisputably,  a  Being  whose  only  motive  was 
benevolence,  who  admitted  no  higher  consideration,  who  looked 
steadily  and  solely  to  our  mere  happiness,  would  endeavour  to 
instil  that  belief  although  it  were  quite  untrue,  would  not  think 
that  that  had  anything  to  do  with  the  question,  would  not 
hesitate  to  make  a  false  revelation  to  confirm  men  in  a  belief 
so  pleasant,  so  advantageous,  so  consolatory.  Perhaps  this  sup- 
position drives  the  argument  home.  We  see  that  it  is  necessary 
for  us  to  admit  a  '  preconception'  as  to  the  character  of  (rod 
before  we  can  even  begin  to  prove  the  truth  of  a  revelation ; 
that  we  must  reason  of  '  what  God  must  be  and  God  must  do,' 
before  we  show  that  there  is  even  a  presumption  in  favour  of 
any  facts,  or  any  doctrines,  which  are  revealed  in  the  '  sacred 
history.' 

We  have  hinted,  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  essay,  that  this 
doctrine  of  God's  veracity  seems  to  us  to  rest  on  the  general  as- 
sumption of  the  existence  of  a  '  perfect '  Being,  who  rules  and 
controls  all  things.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  Divine  attribute  of 
which  it  is  most  difficult  to  find  a  trace  in  nature.  Of  His 
omnipotence,  justice,  benevolence,  we  cannot,  indeed,  find  abso- 
lute proof ;  for  we  believe  that  those  attributes  are  infinite,  and 
we  can  only  prove  them  strictly  with  respect  to  the  finite  and 
very  circumscribed  world  which  we  see  and  know.  Yet,  at  the 
same  time,  we  discern  indications  and  strong  probabilities,  that 
the  Ruler  of  the  world  possesses  these  attributes  ;  we  can  hardly 
be  said  to  be  able  to  do  this  with  His  veracity.  The  speechless- 
ness  of  nature,  if  we  may  again  so  speak,  deprives  us  of  any 
such  evidence.  All  Theism  is  of  the  nature  of  faith.  We  can 
never  prove  from  experience  any  being  to  be  infinite,  for  our  ex- 


Bishop  Butler.  101 

peri  en  ce  itself  is  essentially  small  and  finite.  We  can  often, 
however,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  attributes  of  Grod  above  enu- 
merated, and  of  others  which  might  be  added,  establish  by 
observation  that  the  qualities  in  question  exist  in  a  certain  de- 
gree, and  we  have  only  to  rely  on  the  principle  of  faith  for  our 
belief  that  these  qualities  exist  in  a  perfect  and  supreme  degree. 
In  the  case  of  the  Divine  veracity,  it  should  seem  that  we  be- 
lieve it  to  exist  in  a  perfect  and  infinite  degree,  without,  from 
the  peculiarity  of  our  circumstances,  being  able  to  fortify  it 
by  any  test  or  trial  from  experience. 

Present  controversies  show  that  there  should  be  a  distinct 
understanding  as  to  this  matter.  Such  writers  as  the  author  of 
the  (  Eclipse  of  Faith '  perpetually  strive  to  justify  what  they 
think  the  difficulties  of  revelation,  by  insinuating — we  might 
say  inculcating — a  scepticism  as  to  the  religious  faculties  and 
conscience  of  man.  These  faculties  are  at  one  time  said  to  be 
'  depraved ; '  once  they  were  trustworthy,  but  man  is  fallen  from 
that  high  estate ;  he  can  only  now  believe  what  is  announced  to. 
him  externally.  But  how  can  we  then  rely  on  those  '  depraved ' 
faculties  for  our  belief  in  the  truthfulness  of  the  Being  who  an- 
nounces these  things  ?  At  another  time  all  the  horrid  super- 
stitions, all  the  immoral  rites,  all  the  wretched  aberrations  of 
savage  and  licentious  nations,  are  enumerated,  displayed,  incul- 
cated, in  order  to  convince  us  that  these  faculties  give  no  certain 
information.  We  will  not  quote  the  passages.  We  do  not  like 
to  read  hard  attacks  even  on  the  worst  side  of  human  nature ; 
we  cannot,  like  some,  gloat  upon  such  details.  The  argument 
is  plain  without  any  painful  accuracy.  How  can  you  believe  in 
the  '  intuition  '  of  the  Divine  justice,  wtien  the  Hindoo  says  this? 
How  in  that  of  his  Holiness,  when  the  Papuan  accepts  that  im- 
purity? But  this  is  no  defence  for  any  revelation.  The  writers 
who  exult  in  such  errors  because  they  think  they  can  use  them 
in  their  logic,  are  really  cutting  away  the  substratum  of  evi- 
dentiary argument  from  under  them.  The  veracity  of  God  has 
not  been  accepted  by  all  nations  any  more  than  His  justice.  la 


IO2  Bishop  Butler. 


many  times  and  countries  He  has  been  thought  to  inspire  false- 
hoods, to  put  a  '  lying  spirit '  in  the  mouths  of  men,  to  deceive 
them  to  their  destruction.  Agamemnon's  dream  is  but  the  type 
of  a  whole  class  of  legends  imputing  untrue  revelations  to  the 
gods.  If  we  liked  such  work,  we  might  prove,  perhaps,  that 
there  is  no  man  on  the  earth  whose  ancestors  have  not  believed 
the  like.  And  what  then  ?  Why,  we  can  only  answer  that, 
debased,  depraved,  imperfect  as  they  may  be,  these  faculties  are 
our  all.  It  is  on  them  that  we  depend  for  life,  and  breath,  and 
all  things.  We  must  believe  our  heart  and  conscience,  or  we 
shall  believe  nothing.  We  must  believe  that  God  cannot  lie, 
or  we  must  renounce  all  that  our  highest  and  innermost  nature 
most  cleaves  to ;  but  if  we  go  so  far,  we  must  go  further — we 
cannot  believe  in  God's  veracity  and  deny  the  intuition  of  His 
justice — we  know  that  He  is  pure  on  the  same  ground  that  we 
know  that  He  is  true.  If  an  alleged  revelation  contradict  this 
justice  or  this  purity,  we  must  at  once  deny  that  it  can  have 
proceeded  from  Him. 

Even  admitting,  as  we  think  it  must  be  admitted,  that 
Butler  did  not  firmly  hold  the  principle  which  Mr.  Kogers  and 
others  ascribe  to  him,  some  may  find  a  difficulty  in  so  great  a 
thinker  having  even  a  tendency  towards  that  tenet.  On  ex- 
amination, however,  the  very  error  seems  characteristic  of  him. 

A  mind  such  as  Butler's  was  in  a  previous  page  described  to 
be,  is  very  apt  to  be  prone  to  over  refinement.  A  thinker  of 
what  was  there  called  the  picturesque  order  has  a  vision,  a  pic- 
ture of  the  natural  view  of  the  subject.  Those  certainties  and 
conclusions,  those  doubts  and  difficulties,  which  occur  on  the 
surface,  strike  him  at  once ;  he  sees  with  his  mind's  eye  some 
conspicuous  instance  in  which  all  such  certainties  are  realised, 
and  by  which  all  such  doubts  are  suggested.  Some  great  typical 
fact  remains  delineated  before  his  mind,  and  is  a  perpetual  an- 
swer to  all  hypotheses  which  strive  to  be  over-subtle.  But  an 
unimaginative  thinker  has  no  such  assistance ;  he  has  no  pic- 
tures or  instances  in  his  mind  ;  he  works  by  a  process  like  an 


Bishop  Butler.  103 


accountant,  and  like  an  accountant  he  is  dependent  on  the  cor- 
rectness with  which  he  works.  He  begins  with  a  principle  and 
reasons  from  it ;  and  if  any  error  have  crept  into  the  deduction 
or  into  the  principle,  he  has  not  any  means  of  detecting  it. 
His  mind  does  not  yield,  as  with  more  fertile  fancies,  a  stock  of 
instances  on  which  to  verify  his  elaborate  conclusions.  Accord- 
ingly he  is  apt  to  say  he  has  explained  a  difficulty,  when  in 
reality  he  has  but  refined  it  away. 

Again,  there  is  likewise  a  deeper  sense  in  which  the  argu- 
ment of  the  '  Analogy '  is,  even  in  its  least  valuable  portions, 
characteristic  of  Butler.  On  topics  so  peculiar,  the  rninds  most 
likely  to  hold  right  opinions  are  exactly  those  most  likely  to 
advance  wrong  arguments  in  support  of  them.  The  opinions 
themselves  are  suggested  and  supported  by  deep  and  strong 
feelings,  which  it  is  painful  to  analyse,  and  not  easy  to  describe. 
The  real  and  decisive  arguments  for  those  opinions  are  little 
save  a  rational  analysis  and  acute  delineation  of  those  feelings. 
It  will  necessarily  follow  that  the  mind  most  prone  to  delineate 
and  analyse  that  part  of  itself  will  be  most  likely  to  succeed  in 
the  argumentative  exposition  of  these  topics ;  and  this  is  not 
likely  to  be  the  mind  which  feels  those  emotions  with  the 
greatest  intensity.  The  very  keenness  of  these  feelings  makes 
them  painful  to  touch  ;  their  depth,  difficult  to  find :  constancy, 
too,  is  liable  to  disguise  them.  The  mind  which  always  feels 
them  will,  so  to  speak,  be  less  conscious  of  them  than  one  which 
is  only  visited  by  them  at  long  and  rare  intervals.  Those  who 
know  a  place  or  a  person  best  are  not  those  most  likely  to  de- 
scribe it  best ;  their  knowledge  is  so  familiar  that  they  cannot 
bring  it  out  in  words.  A  deep,  steady  under-current  of  strong 
feeling  is  precisely  what  affects  men's  highest  opinions  most, 
and  exactly  what  prevents  men  from  being  able  adequately  to 
describe  them.  In  the  absence  of  the  delineative  faculty, 
without  the  power  to  state  their  true  reasons,  minds  of  this  deep 
and  steadfast  class  are  apt  to  put  up  with  reasons  which  lie  on 
the  surface.  They  are  caught  by  an  appearance  of  fairness 


104  Bishop  Butler. 


affect  a  dry  and  intellectual  tone,  endeavour  to  establish  their 
conclusions  without  the  premises  which  are  necessary, — without 
mention  of  the  grounds  on  which,  in  their  own  minds,  they 
really  rest.  The  very  heartfelt  confidence  of  Butler  in  Christi- 
anity was  perhaps  the  cause  of  his  seeming  in  part  to  support  it 
with  considerations  which  appear  to  be  erroneous. 

It  seems  odd  to  say,  and  yet  it  is  true,  that  the  power  of  the 
*  Analogy,'  is  in  its  rhetoric.  The  ancient  writers  on  that  art 
made  a  distinction  between  the  modes  of  persuasion  which  lay 
in  the  illustrative  and  argumentative  efficacy  of  what  was  said, 
and  a  yet  more  subtle  kind  which  seemed  to  reside  in  the 
manner  and  disposition  of  the  speaker  himself.  In  the  first  class, 
as  has  been  before  remarked,  no  writer  of  equal  eminence  is  so 
defective  as  Butler ;  his  thoughts,  if  you  take  each  one  singly, 
seem  to  lose  a  good  deal  from  the  feeble  and  hesitating  manner 
in  which  they  are  stated.  And  yet,  if  you  read  any  considerable 
portion  of  his  writings,  you  become  sensible  of  a  strong  disin- 
clination to  disagree  with  him.  A  strong  anxiety  first  to  find 
the  truth,  and  next  to  impart  it — an  evident  wish  not  to  push 
arguments  too  far — a  clear  desire  not  to  convince  men  except 
by  reasonable  arguments  of  true  opinions,  characterises  every 
feeble  word  and  halting  sentence.  Nothing  is  laid  down  to 
dazzle  or  arouse.  It  is  assumed  that  the  reader  wants  to  know 
what  is  true,  as  much  as  the  writer  does  to  tell  it.  Very  pos- 
sibly this  may  not  be  the  highest  species  of  religious  author. 
The  vehement  temperament,  the  bold  assertion,  the  ecstatic 
energy  of  men  like  St.  Augustine  or  St.  Paul,  burn,  so  to  speak, 
into  the  minds  and  memories  of  men,  and  remain  there  at  once 
and  for  ever.  Such  men  excel  in  the  broad  statement  of  great 
truths  which  flash  at  once  with  vivid  evidence  on  the  minds 
which  receive  them.  The  very  words  seem  to  glow  with  life  ; 
and  even  the  sceptical  reader  is  half  awakened  by  them  to  a 
kindred  and  similar  warmth.  Such  are  the  men  who  move  the 
creeds  of  mankind,  and  stamp  a  likeness  of  themselves  on  ages 
that  succeed  them.  But  there  is  likewise  room  for  a  quieter 


Bishop  Butler.  105 


class,  who  partially  state  arguments,  elaborate  theories,  appre- 
ciate difficulties,  solve  doubts ;  who  do  not  expect  to  gain  a 
hearing  from  the  many — who  do  not  cry  in  the  streets  or  lift 
their  voice  from  the  hill  of  Mars — who  address  quiet  and  lonely 
thinkers  like  themselves,  and  are  well  satisfied  if  a  single  sen- 
tence in  all  their  writings  remove  one  doubt  from  the  mind  of 
any  man.  Of  these  was  Butler,  llequiescat  in  pace,  for  it 
was  peace  that  he  loved. 


io6  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 


STERNE  AND   THACKERAY* 

(1864.) 

MR.  PERCY  FITZGERALD  has  expressed  his  surprise  that  no  one 
before  him  has  narrated  the  life  of  Sterne  in  two  volumes.  We 
are  much  more  surprised  that  he  has  done  so.  The  life  of 
Sterne  was  of  the  very  simplest  sort.  He  was  a  Yorkshire  cler- 
gyman, and  lived  for  the  most  part  a  sentimental,  questionable, 
jovial  life  in  the  country.  He  was  a  queer  parson,  according  to 
our  notions ;  but  in  those  days  there  were  many  queer  parsons. 
Late  in  life  he  wrote  a  book  or  two,  which  gave  him  access  to 
London  society ;  and  then  he  led  a  still  more  questionable  and 
unclerical  life  at  the  edge  of  the  great  world.  After  that  he 
died  in  something  like  distress,  and  leaving  his  family  in  some- 
thing like  misery.  A  simpler  life,  as  far  as  facts  go,  never 
was  known ;  and  simple  as  it  is,  the  story  has  been  well  told 
by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  has  been  well  commented  on  by  Mr. 
Thackeray.  It  should  have  occurred  to  Mr.  Fitzgerald  that  a 
subject  may  only  have  been  briefly  treated  because  it  is  a  limited 
and  simple  subject,  which  suggests  but  few  remarks,  and  does 
not  require  an  elaborate  and  copious  description. 

There  are  but  few  materials,  too,  for  a  long  life  of  Sterne. 
Mr.  Fitzgerald  has  stuffed  his  volumes  with  needless  facts  about 
Sterne's  distant  relations,  his  great  uncles  and  ninth  cousins,  in 
which  no  one  now  can  take  the  least  interest.  Sterne's  daughter, 
who  was  left  ill-off,  did  indeed  publish  two  little  volumes  of  odd 
letters,  which  no  clergyman's  daughter  would  certainly  have 

1  The  Life  of  Laurence  Sterne.  By  Percy  Fitzgerald,  M.A.,  M.R.I.A.  In 
two  volumes.  Chapman  and  Hall.  N 

Thackeray  the  Humourist  and  the  Man  of  Letters.  By  Theodore  Taylor, 
Esq.  London  :  John  Camden  Hotten. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  107 

published  now.  But  even  these  are  too  small  in  size  and  thin 
in  matter  to  be  spun  into  a  copious  narrative.  We  should  in 
this  [the  National]  Eeview  have  hardly  given  even  a  brief 
sketch  of  Sterne's  life,  if  we  did  not  think  that  his  artistic 
character  presented  one  fundamental  resemblance  and  many 
superficial  contrasts  to  that  of  a  great  man  whom  we  have 
lately  lost.  We  wish  to  point  these  out ;  and  a  few  interspersed 
remarks  on  the  life  of  Sterne  will  enable  us  to  enliven  the 
tedium  of  criticism  with  a  little  interest  from  human  life. 

Sterne's  father  was  a  shiftless,  roving  Irish  officer  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century.  He  served  in  Marlborough's 
wars,  and  was  cast  adrift,  like  many  greater  people,  by  the 
caprice  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  sudden  peace  of  Utrecht.  Of 
him  only  one  anecdote  remains.  He  was,  his  son  tells  us,  c  a 
little  smart  man,  somewhat  rapid  and  hasty' in  his  temper; 
and  during  some  fighting  at  Gibraltar  he  got  into  a  squabble 
with  another  young  officer,  a  Captain  Phillips.  The  subject,  it 
seems,  was  a  goose ;  but  that  is  not  now  material.  It  ended 
in  a  duel,  which  was  fought  with  swords  in  a  room.  Captain 
Phillips  pinned  Ensign  Sterne  to  a  plaster-wall  behind ;  upon 
which  he  quietly  asked,  or  is  said  to  have  asked,  '  Do  wipe  the 
plaster  off  your  sword  before  you  pull  it  out  of  me ; '  which,  if 
true,  showed  at  least  presence  of  mind.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  in  his 
famine  of  matter,  discusses  who  this  Captain  Phillips  was ;  but 
into  this  we  shall  not  follow  him. 

A  smart,  humorous,  shiftless  father  of  this  sort  is  not  perhaps 
a  bad  father  for  a  novelist.  Sterne  was  dragged  here  and  there, 
through  scenes  of  life  where  no  correct  and  thriving  parent 
would  ever  have  taken  him.  Years  afterwards,  with  all  their 
harshness  softened  and  half  their  pains  dissembled,  Sterne 
dashed  them  upon  pages  which  will  live  for  ever.  Of  money 
and  respectability  Sterne  inherited  from  his  father  'little  or 
none ;  but  he  inherited  two  main  elements  of  his  intellectual 
capital — a  great  store  of  odd  scenes,  and  the  sensitive  Irish 
nature  which  appreciates  odd  scenes. 


io8  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

Sterne  was  born  in  the  year  1713,  the  year  of  the  peace  of 
Utrecht,  which  cast  his  father  adrift  upon  the  world.  Of  his 
mother  we  know  nothing.  Years  after,  it  was  said  that  he  be- 
haved ill  to  her  ;  at  least  neglected  and  left  her  in  misery  when 
he  had  the  means  of  placing  her  in  comfort.  His  enemies  neatly 
said  that  he  preferred  '  whining  over  a  dead  ass  to  relieving  a 
living  mother.'  But  these  accusations  have  never  been  proved. 
Sterne  was  not  remarkable  for  active  benevolence,  and  certainly 
may  have  neglected  an  old  and  uninteresting  woman,  even 
though  that  woman  was  his  mother ;  he  was  a  bad  hand  at  dull 
duties,  and  did  not  like  elderly  females ;  but  we  must  not 
condemn  him  on  simple  probabilities,  or  upon  a  neat  epigram 
and  loose  tradition.  '  The  regiment,'  says  Sterne,  '  in  which 
my  father  served  being  broke,  he  left  Ireland  as  soon  as  I  was 
able  to  be  carried,  and  came  to  the  family  seat  at  Elvington, 
near  York,  where  his  mother  lived.'  After  this  he  was  carried 
about  for  some  years,  as  his  father  led  the  rambling  life  of  a 
poor  ensign,  who  was  one  of  very  many  engaged  during  a  very 
great  war,  and  discarded  at  a  hasty  peace.  Then,  perhaps 
luckily,  his  father  died,  and  '  my  cousin  Sterne  of  Elvington,'  as 
he  calls  him,  took  charge  of  him,  and  sent  him  to  school  and 
college.  At  neither  of  these  was  he  very  eminent.  He  told 
one  story  late  in  life  which  may  be  true,  but  seems  very  unlike 
the  usual  school -life.  'My  schoolmaster,'  he  says,  'had  the 
ceiling  of  the  schoolroom  new  whitewashed  :  the  ladder  remained 
there.  I  one  unlucky  day  mounted  it,  and  wrote  witli  a  brush 
in  large  capitals  LAU.  STERNE,  for  which  the  usher  severely 
punished  me.  My  master  was  much  hurt  at  this,  and  said 
before  me  that  never  should  that  name  be  effaced,  for  I  was  a 
boy  of  genius,  and  he  was  sure  I  should  come  to  perferment.' 
But  '  genius '  is  rarely  popular  in  places  of  education ;  and  it  is, 
to  say  the  least,  remarkable  that  so  sentimental  a  man  as  Sterne 
should  have  chanced  upon  so  sentimental  an  instructor.  It  is 
wise  to  be  suspicious  of  aged  reminiscents ;  they  are  like  persons 
entrusted  with  '  untold  gold  ;'  there  is  no  check  on  what  they 
tell  us. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  109 


Sterne  went  to  Cambridge,  and  though  he  did  not  acquire 
elaborate  learning,  he  thoroughly  learned  a  gentlemanly  stock 
of  elementary  knowledge.  There  is  even  something  scholarlike 
about  his  style.  It  bears  the  indefinable  traces  which  an  exact 
study  of  words  will  always  leave  upon  the  use  of  words.  He 
was  accused  of  stealing  learning,  and  it  is  likely  enough  that  a 
great  many  needless  quotations  which  were  stuck  into  Tristram 
Shandy  were  abstracted  from  secondhand  storehouses  where 
such  things  are  to  be  found.  But  what  he  stole  was  worth  very 
little,  and  his  theft  may  now  at  least  be  pardoned,  for  it  injures 
the  popularity  of  his  works.  Our  present  novel- readers  do  not 
at  all  care  for  an  elaborate  caricature  of  the  scholastic  learning ; 
it  is  so  obsolete  that  we  do  not  care  to  have  it  mimicked.  Much 
of  Tristram  Shandy  is  a  sort  of  antediluvian  fun,  in  which 
uncouth  Saurian  jokes  play  idly  in  an  unintelligible  world. 

When  he  left  college,  Sterne  had  a  piece  of  good  fortune 
which  in  fact  ruined  him.  He  had  an  uncle  with  much  influence 
in  the  Church,  and  he  was  thereby  induced  to  enter  the  Church. 
There  could  not  have  been  a  greater  error.  He  had  no  special 
vice ;  he  was  notorious  for  no  wild  dissipation  or  unpardonable 
folly;  he  had  done  nothing  which  even  in  this  more  discreet  age 
would  be  considered  imprudent.  He  had  even  a  refinement 
which  must  have  saved  him  from  gross  vice,  and  a  nicety  of  na- 
ture which  must  have  saved  him  from  coarse  associations.  But 
for  all  that  he  was  as  little  fit  for  a  Christian  priest  as  if  he  had 
been  a  drunkard  and  a  profligate.  Perhaps  he  was  less  fit. 

There  are  certain  persons  whom  taste  guides,  much  as 
morality  and  conscience  guide  ordinary  persons.  They  are 
''gentlemen.'  They  revolt  from  what  is  coarse;  are  sickened 
by  that  which  is  gross ;  hate  what  is  ugly.  They  have  no 
temptation  to  what  we  may  call  ordinary  vices;  they  have  no 
inclination  for  such  raw  food;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  re- 
pelled by  it,  and  loathe  it.  The  law  in  their  members  does  not 
war  against  the  law  of  their  mind  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  taste  of 
their  bodily  nature  is  mainly  in  harmony  with  what  conscience 


no  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

would  prescribe  or  religion  direct.  They  may  not  have  heard 
the  saying  that  the  '  beautiful  is  higher  than  the  good,  for  it 
includes  the  good.'  But  when  they  do  hear  it,  it  comes  upon 
them  as  a  revelation  of  their  instinctive  creed,  of  the  guidance 
under  which  they  have  been  living  all  their  lives.  They  are 
pure  because  it  is  ugly  to  be  impure ;  innocent  because  it  is  out 
of  taste  to  be  otherwise;  they  live  within  the  hedge-rows  of 
polished  society ;  they  do  not  wish  to  go  beyond  them  into  the 
great  deep  of  human  life ;  they  have  a  horror  of  that  '  impious 
ocean,'  yet  not  of  the  impiety,  but  of  the  miscellaneous  noise, 
the  disordered  confusion  of  the  whole.  These  are  the  men  whom 
it  is  hardest  to  make  Christian, — for  the  simplest  reason ;  pa- 
ganism is  sufficient  for  them.  Their  pride  of  the  eye  is  a  good 
pride ;  their  love  of  the  flesh  is  a  delicate  and  directing  love. 
They  keep  '  within  the  pathways  '  because  they  dislike  the  gross, 
the  uncultured,  and  the  untrodden.  Thus  they  reject  the  primi- 
tive precept  which  comes  before  Christianity.  Repent !  repent  I 
says  a  voice  in  the  wilderness ;  but  the  delicate  pagan  feels 
superior  to  the  voice  in  the  wilderness.  Why  should  he  attend 
to  this  uncouth  person  ?  He  has  nice  clothes  and  well-chosen 
food,  the  treasures  of  exact  knowledge,  the  delicate  results  of  the 
highest  civilisation.  Is  he  to  be  directed  by  a  person  of  savage 
habits,  with  a  distorted  countenance,  who  lives  on  wild  honey, 
who  does  not  wear  decent  clothes  ?  To  the  pure  worshipper  of 
beauty,  to  the  naturally  refined  pagan,  conscience  and  the  religion 
of  conscience  are  not  merely  intruders,  but  barbarous  intruders. 
At  least  so  it  is  in  youth,  when  life  is  simple  and  temptations  if 
strong  are  distinct.  Years  afterwards,  probably,  the  purest 
pagan  will  be  taught  by  a  constant  accession  of  indistinct  temp- 
tations, and  by  a  gradual  declension  of  his  nature,  that  taste  at 
the  best,  and  sentiment  of  the  very  purest,  are  insufficient  guides 
in  the  perplexing  labyrinth  of  the  world. 

Sterne  was  a  pagan.  He  went  into  the  Church ;  but  Mr. 
Thackeray,  no  bad  judge,  said  most  justly  that  his  sermons 
'  have  not  a  single  Christian  sentiment.'  They  are  well  ex- 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  1 1 1 

pressed,  vigorous,  moral  essays ;  but  they  are  no  more.  Much 
more  was  not  expected  by  many  congregations  in  the  last  age. 
The  secular  feeling  of  the  English  people,  though  always  strong, 
— though  strong  in  Chaucer's  time,  and  though  strong  now, — 
was  never  so  all-powerful  as  in  the  last  century.  It  was  in 
those  days  that  the  poet  Crabbe  was  remonstrated  with  for 
introducing  heaven  and  hell  into  his  sermons;  such  extrava- 
gances, he  was  told,  were  very  well  for  the  Methodists,  but  a 
clergyman  should  confine  himself  to  sober  matters  of  this 
world,  and  show  the  prudence  and  the  reasonableness  of  virtue 
during  this  life.  There  is  not  much  of  heaven  and  hell  in 
Sterne's  sermons,  and  what  there  is  seems  a  rhetorical  emphasis 
which  is  not  essential  to  the  argument,  and  which  might  perhaps 
as  well  be  left  out.  Auguste  Comte  might  have  admitted  most 
of  these  sermons ;  they  are  healthy  statements  of  earthly  truths, 
but  they  would  be  just  as  true  if  there  was  no  religion  at  all. 
Religion  helps  the  argument,  because  foolish  people  might  be 
perplexed  with  this  world,  and  they  yield  readily  to  another ; 
religion  enables  you — such  is  the  real  doctrine  of  these  divines> 
when  you  examine  it — to  coax  and  persuade  those  whom  you 
cannot  rationally  convince ;  but  it  does  not  alter  the  matter  in 
hand — it  does  not  affect  that  of  which  you  wish  to  persuade  men, 
for  you  are  but  inculcating  a  course  of  conduct  in  this  life* 
Sterne's  sermons  would  be  just  as  true  if  the  secularists  should 
succeed  in  their  argument,  and  the  c  valuable  illusion '  of  a  deity 
were  omitted  from  the  belief  of  mankind. 

However,  in  fact,  Sterne  took  orders,  and  by  the  aid  of  his 
uncle,  who  was  a  Church  politician,  and  who  knew  the  powers 
that  were,  he  obtained  several  small  livings.  Being  a  pluralist 
was  a  trifle  in  those  easy  times  ;  nobody  then  thought  that  the 
parishioners  of  a  parson  had  a  right  to  his  daily  presence ;  if 
some  provision  were  made  for  the  performance  of  a  Sunday 
service,  he  had  done  his  duty,  and  he  could  spend  the  surplus 
income  where  he  liked.  He  might  perhaps  be  bound  to  reside, 
if  health  permitted,  on  one  of  his  livings,  but  the  law  allowed 


1 1 2  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 


/lira  to  have  many,  and  he  could  not  be  compelled  to  reside  on 
them  all.  Sterne  preached  well- written  sermons  qn  Sundays, 
and  led  an  easy  pagan  life  on  other  days,  and  no  one  blamed 
him. 

He  fell  in  love  too,  and  after  he  was  dead,  his  daughter 
found  two  or  three  of  his  love-letters  to  her  mother,  which  she 
rashly  published.  They  have  been  the  unfeeling  sport  of  per- 
sons not  in  love  up  to  the  present  time.  Years  ago  Mr.  Thackeray 
used  to  make  audiences  laugh  till  they  cried  by  reading  one 
or  two  of  them,  and  contrasting  them  with  certain  other  letters 
also  about  his  wife,  but  written  many  years  later.  This  is  the 
sort  of  thing : — 

6  Yes !  I  will  steal  from  the  world,  and  not  a  babbling  tongue 
shall  tell  where  I  am — Echo  shall  not  so  much  as  whisper  my 
hiding-place — suffer  thy  imagination  to  paint  it  as  a  little  sun- 
gilt  cottage,  on  the  side  of  a  romantic  hill — dost  thou  think  I 
will  leave  love  and  friendship  behind  me?  No!  they  shall  be 
my  companions  in  solitude,  for  they  will  sit  down  and  rise  up 
with  me  in  the  amiable  form  of  my  L. — We  will  be  as  merry 
and  as  innocent  as  our  first  parents  in  Paradise,  before  the  arch 
fiend  entered  that  undescribable  scene. 

*  The  kindest  affections  will  have  room  to  shoot  and  expand 
in  our  retirement,  and  produce  such  fruit  as  madness,  and  envy, 
and  ambition  have  always  killed  in  the  bud. — Let  the  human 
tempest  and  hurricane  rage  at  a  distance,  the  desolation  is 
beyond  the  horizon  of  peace.  My  L.  has  seen  a  polyanthus  blow 
in  December — some  friendly  wall  has  sheltered  it  from  the  biting 
wind.  No  planetary  influence  shall  reach  us,  but  that  which 
presides  and  cherishes  the  sweetest  flowers. — God  preserve  us  ! 
how  delightful  this  prospect  in  idea !  We  will  build,  and  we 
will  plant,  in  our  own  way — simplicity  shall  not  be  tortured  by 
art — we  will  learn  of  nature  how  to  live — she  shall  be  our 
alchymist,  to  mingle  all  the  good  of  life  into  one  salubrious 
draught. — The  gloomy  family  of  care  and  distrust  shall  be 
banished  from  our  dwelling,  guarded  by  thy  kind  and  tutelar 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  113 

deity — we  will  sing  our  choral  songs  of  gratitude,  and  rejoice  to 
the  end  of  our  pilgrimage. 

'  Adieu,  my  L.  Eeturn  to  one  who  languishes  for  thy 
society.  L.  STERNE.' 

The  beautiful  language  with  which  young  ladies  were  wooed 
a  century  ago  is  a  characteristic  of  that  extinct  age ;  at  least, 
we  fear  that  no  such  beautiful  English  will  be  discovered  when 
our  secret  repositories  are  ransacked.  The  age  of  ridicule  has 
come  in,  and  the  age  of  good  words  has  gone  out. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  however,  that  Sterne  was  really 
in  love  with  Mrs.  Sterne.  People  have  doubted  it  because  of 
these  beautiful  words ;  but,  in  fact,  Sterne  was  just  the  sort  of 
man  to  be  subject  to  this  kind  of  feeling.  He  took — and  to  this 
he  owes  his  fame — the  sensitive  view  of  life.  He  regarded  it 
not  from  the  point  of  view  of  intellect,  or  conscience,  or  religion, 
but  in  the  plain  way  in  which  natural  feeling  impresses,  and  will 
always  impress,  a  natural  person.  He  is  a  great  author ; 
certainly  not  because  of  great  thoughts,  for  there  is  scarcely  a 
sentence  in  his  writings  which  can  be  called  a  thought ;  nor  from 
sublime  conceptions  which  enlarge  the  limits  of  our  imagination, 
for  he  never  leaves  the  sensuous, — but  because  of  his  wonderful 
sympathy  with,  and  wonderful  power  of  representing,  simple 
human  nature.  The  best  passages  in  Sterne  are  those  which 
every  one  knows,  like  this : 

'  Thou  hast  left  this  matter  short,  said  my  uncle  Tohy  to  the 

corporal,  as  he  was  putting  him  to  bed, and  I  will  tell  thee  in 

what,  Trim. In  the  first  place,  when  thou  rnadest  an  offer  of  my 

services  to  Le  Fever, — as  sickness  and  travelling  are  both  expensive, 
and  thou  knowest  he  was  but  a  poor  lieutenant,  with  a  son  to  subsist 
as  well  as  himself,  out  of  his  pay, — that  thou  didst  not  make  an  offer 
to  him  of  my  purse ;  because,  had  he  stood  in  need,  thou  knowest, 

Trim,  he  had  been  as  welcome    to    it  as  myself. Your  honour 

knows,  said  the  corporal,  I  had  no  orders ; True,  quoth,  my  uncle 

Toby, — thou  didst  very  right,  Trim,  as  a  soldier,  but  certainly  very 
wrong  as  a  man. 

VOL.    II.  I 


1 1 4  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

'In  the  second  place,  for  which,  indeed,  thou  hast  the  same  ex- 
cuse, continued  my  uncle  Toby, when  thou  offeredst  him  whatever 

was  in  my  house, — thou  shouldst  have  offered  him  my  house  too  : 

A  sick  brother  officer  should  have  the  best  quarters,  Trim,  and 

if  we  had  him  with  us, — we  could  tend  and  look  to  him  : Thou 

art  an  excellent  nurse  thyself,  Trim, — and  what  with  thy  care  of  him, 
and  the  old  woman's,  and  his  boy's,  and  mine  together,  we  might 
recruit  him  again  at  once,  and  set  him  upon  his  legs. — 

*  — —In  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  added  my  uncle  Toby,  smiling, 

— he  might  march. He  will  never  march,  an'  please  your  honour, 

in  this  world,  said  the  corporal  : He  will  march,  said  my  uncle 

Toby,  rising  up  from  the  side  of  the  bed,  with  one  shoe  off : An' 

please  your  honour,  said  the  corporal,  he  will  never  march,  but  to  his 

grave  : He  shall  march,  cried  my  uncle  Toby,  marching  the  foot 

which  had  a  shoe  on,  though  without  advancing  an  inch, — he  shall 

march  to  his  regiment. He  cannot  stand  it,  said  the  corporal : 

He  shall  be  supported,  said  my  uncle  Toby  : He'll  drop  at 

last,  said  the  corporal,  and  what  will  become  of  his  boy  ? He  shall 

not  drop,  said  my  uncle  Toby,  firmly. A-well-o'day, — do  what  we 

can  for  him,  said  Trim,  maintaining  his  point, — the  poor  soul  will 
die  : He  shall  not  die,  by  G — !  cried  my  uncle  Toby. 

'  — The  ACCUSING  SPIRIT,  which  flew  up  to  heaven's  chancery  with 
the  oath,  blush'd  as  he  gave  it  in ; — and  the  RECORDING  ANGEL,  as  he 
wrote  it  down,  dropp'd  a  tear  upon  the  word,  and  blotted  it  out  for  ever. 

1  — My  uncle  Toby  went  to  his  bureau, — put  his  purse  into  his 
breeches  pocket,  and  having  ordered  the  corporal  to  go  early  in  the 
morning  for  a  physician, — he  went  to  bed,  and  fell  asleep. 

*  The  sun  looked  bright  the  morning  after,  to  every  eye  in  the 
village  but  Le  Fever's  and  his  afflicted  son's;    the  hand  of    death 

pressed  heavy  upon  his  eye-lids, and  hardly  could  the  wheel  at 

the  cistern  turn  round  its  circle, — when  my  uncle  Toby,  who  had 
rose  up  an  hour  before  his  wonted  time,  entered  the  lieutenant's  room, 
and  without  preface  or  apology,  sat  himself  down  upon  the  chair  by 
the  bed-side,  and  independently  of  all  modes  and  customs,  opened 
the  curtain  in  the  manner  an  old  friend  and  brother  officer  would 
have  done  it,  and  asked  him  how  he  did, — how  he  had  rested  in  the 
night, — what  was  his  complaint, — where  was  his  pain, — and  what  he 

could  do  to  help  him  : and  without  giving  him  time  to  answer 

any  one  of  the  inquiries,  went  on  and  told  him  of  the  little  plan 
which  he  had  been  concerting  with  the  corporal  the  night  before  for 
him. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  1 1 5 

' You  shall  go  home  directly,  Le  Fever,  said  my  uncle  Toby, 

to  my  house, — and  we'll  send  for  a  doctor  to  see  what's  the  matter, — 
and  we'll  have  an  apothecary, — and  the  corporal  shall  be  your  nurse ; 
and  I'll  be  your  servant,  Le  Fever. 

*  There  was  a  frankness  in  my  uncle  Toby, — not  the  effect  of 
familiarity, — but  the  cause  of  it, — which  let  you  at  once  into  his  soul, 
and  showed  you  the  goodness  of  his  nature ;  to  this  there  was  some- 
thing in  his  looks,  and  voice,  and  manner,  super-added,  which  eter- 
nally beckoned  to  the  unfortunate  to  come  and  take  shelter  under  him  ; 
so  that  before  my  uncle  Toby  had  half  finished  the  kind  offers  he  was 
making  to  the  father,  had  the  son  insensibly  pressed  up  close  to  his 
knees,  and  had  taken  hold  of  the  breast  of  his  coat,  and  was  pulling 

it  towards  him. The  blood  and  spirit  of  Le  Fever,  which  were 

waxing  cold  and  slow  within  him,  and  were  retreating  to  their  last 
citadel,  the  heart, — rallied  back, — the  film  forsook  his  eyes  for  a 
moment, — he  looked  up  wishfully  in  my  uncle  Toby's  face, — then  cast 

a  look  upon  his  boy, and  that  ligament,  fine  as  it  was, — was  never 

broken. 

'Nature  instantly  ebb'd  again, — the  film  returned  to  its  place, 

the  pulse  fluttered stopp'd went  on throbb'd 

stopp'd  again moved stopp'd shall  I  go  on  1 No.' 

In  one  of  the  '  Eoundabout  Papers '  Mr.  Thackeray  intro- 
duces a  literary  man  complaining  of  his  *  sensibility.'  '  Ah,' 
lie  replies,  '  my  good  friend,  your  sensibility  is  your  livelihood : 
if  you  did  not  feel  the  events  and  occurrences  of  life  more 
acutely  than  others,  you  could  not  describe  them  better ;  and  it 
is  the  excellence  of  your  description  by  which  you  live.'  This 
is  precisely  true  of  Sterne.  He  is  a  great  author  because  he 
felt  acutely.  He  is  the  most  pathetic  of  writers  because  he  had 
— when  writing,  at  least — the  most  pity.  He  was,  too,  we  be- 
lieve, pretty  sharply  in  love  with  Mrs.  Sterne,  because  he  was 
sensitive  to  that  sort  of  feeling  likewise. 

The  difficulty  of  this  sort  of  character  is  the  difficulty  of 
keeping  it.  It  does  not  last.  There  is  a  certain  bloom  of  sen- 
sibility and  feeling  about  it  which,  in  the  course  of  nature,  is 
apt  to  fade  soon,  and  which,  when  it  has  faded,  there  is  nothing 


1 1 6  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

to  replace.  A  character  with  the  binding  elements — with  a  firm 
will,  a  masculine  understanding,  and  a  persistent  conscience — 
may  retain,  and  perhaps  improve,  the  early  and  original  fresh- 
ness. But  a  loose-set,  though  pure  character,  the  moment  it  is 
thrown  into  temptation  sacrifices  its  purity,  loses  its  gloss,  and 
gets,  so  to  speak,  out  of  form  entirely. 

We  do  not  know  with  great  accuracy  what  Sterne's  tempta- 
tions were  ;  but  there  was  one,  which  we  can  trace  with  some 
degree  of  precision,  which  has  left  ineffaceable  traces  on  his 
works, — which  probably  left  some  traces  upon  his  character  and 
conduct.  There  was  in  that  part  of  Yorkshire  a  certain  John 
Hall  Stevenson,  a  country  gentleman  of  some  fortune,  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  castle,  which  he  called  Crazy  Castle.  Thence  he  wrote 
tales,  which  he  named  '  Crazy  Tales,'  but  which  certainly  are 
not  entitled  to  any  such  innocent  name.  The  license  of  that  age 
was  unquestionably  wonderful.  A  man  of  good  property  could 
write  any  evil.  There  was  no  legal  check,  or  ecclesiastical  check, 
and  hardly  any  check  of  public  opinion.  These  '  Crazy  Tales' 
have  license  without  humour,  and  vice  without  amusement. 
They  are  the  writing  of  a  man  with  some  wit,  but  only  enough 
wit  for  light  conversation,  which  becomes  overworked  and  dull 
when  it  is  reduced  to  regular  composition  and  made  to  write 
long  tales.  The  author,  feeling  his  wit  jaded  perpetually,  be- 
comes immoral,  in  the  vain  hope  that  he  will  cease  to  be  dull. 
He  has  attained  his  reward  ;  he  will  be  remembered  for  nauseous 
tiresomeness  by  all  who  have  read  him. 

But  though  the  c  Crazy  Tales '  are  now  tedious,  Crazy  Castle 
was  a  pleasant  place,  at  least  to  men  like  Sterne.  He  was  an 
idle  young  parson,  with  much  sensibility,  much  love  of  life  and 
variety,  and  not  a  bit  of  grave  goodness.  The  dull  duties  of  a 
country  parson,  as  we  now  understand  them,  would  never  have 
been  to  his  taste  ;  and  the  sinecure  idleness  then  permitted  to 
parsons  left  him  open  to  every  temptation.  The  frail  texture 
of  merely  natural  purity,  the  soft  fibre  of  the  instinctive  pagan, 
;yield  to  the  first  casualty.  Exactly  what  sort  of  life  they  led  at 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  117 

Crazy  Castle  we  do  not  know  ;  but  vaguely  we  do  know,  and  we 
may  be  sure  Mrs.  Sterne  was  against  it. 

One  part  of  Crazy  Castle  has  had  effects  which  will  last  as 
long  as  English  literature.  It  had  a  library  richly  stored  in  old 
folio  learning,  and  also  in  the  amatory  reading  of  other  days. 
Every  page  of  Tristram  Shandy  bears  traces  of  both  elements. 
Sterne,  when  he  wrote  it,  had  filled  his  head  and  his  mind,  not 
with  the  literature  of  his  own  age,  but  with  the  literature  of 
past  ages.  He  was  thinking  of  Eabelais  rather  than  of  Fielding ; 
of  forgotten  romances  rather  than  of  Eichardson.  He  wrote, 
indeed,  of  his  own  times  and  of  men  he  had  seen,  because  his 
sensitive  vivid  nature  would  only  endure  to  write  of  present 
things.  But  the  mode  in  which  he  wrote  was  largely  coloured 
by  literary  habits  and  literary  fashions  that  had  long  passed 
away.  The  oddity  of  the  book  was  a  kind  of  advertisement  to 
its  genius,  and  that  oddity  consisted  in  the  use  of  old  manners 
upon  new  things.  No  analysis  or  account  of  Trutram  Shandy 
could  be  given  which  would  suit  the  present  generation ;  being, 
indeed,  a  book  without  plan  or  order,  it  is  in  every  generation 
unfit  for  analysis.  This  age  would  not  endure  a  statement  of  the 
most  telling  points,  as  the  writer  thought  them,  and  no  age 
would  like  an  elaborate  plan  of  a  book  in  which  there  is  no 
plan,  in  which  the  detached  remarks  and  separate  scenes  were 
really  meant  to  be  the  whole.  The  notion  that  f  a  plot  was  to 
hang  plums  upon '  was  Sterne's  notion  exactly. 

The  real  excellence  of  Sterne  is  single  and  simple ;  the 
defects  are  numberless  and  complicated.  He  excels,  perhaps, 
all  other  writers  in  mere  simple  description  of  common  sensitive 
human  action.  He  places  before  you  in  their  simplest  form 
the  elemental  facts  of  human  life;  he  does  not  view  them 
through  the  intellect,  he  scarcely  views  them  through  the  ima- 
gination ;  he  does  but  reflect  the  unimpaired  impression  that 
the  facts  of  life,  which  do  not  change  from  age  to  age,  make 
on  the  deep  basis  of  human  feeling,  which  changes  as  little 
though  years  go  on.  The  example  we  quoted  just  now  is  as 


n8  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

good  as  any  other,  though  not  better  than  any  other.  Our 
readers  should  go  back  to  it  again,  or  our  praise  may  seem 
overcharged.  It  is  the  portrait-painting  of  the  heart.  It  is  as 
pure  a  reflection  of  mere  natural  feeling  as  literature  has  ever 
given,  or  will  ever  give.  The  delineation  is  nearly  perfect. 
Sterne's  feeling  in  his  higher  moments  so  much  overpowered  his 
intellect,  and  so  directed  his  imagination,  that  no  intrusive 
thought  blemishes,  no  distorting  fancy  mars,  the  perfection  of 
the  representation.  The  disenchanting  facts  which  deface,  the 
low  circumstances  which  debase  the  simpler  feelings  oftener 
than  any  other  feelings,  his  art  excludes.  The  feeling  which 
would  probably  be  coarse  in  the  reality  is  refined  in  the  picture. 
The  unconscious  tact  of  the  nice  artist  heightens  and  chastens 
reality,  but  yet  it  is  reality  still.  His  mind  was  like  a  pure 
lake  of  delicate  water :  it  reflects  the  ordinary  landscape,  the 
rugged  hills,  the  loose  pebbles,  the  knotted  and  the  distorted 
firs  perfectly  and  as  they  are,  yet  with  a  charm  and  fascination 
that  they  have  not  in  themselves.  This  is  the  highest  attain- 
ment of  art,  to  be  at  the  same  time  nature  and  something  more 
than  nature. 

But  here  the  great  excellence  of  Sterne  ends  as  well  as  be- 
gins. In  Tristram  Shandy  especially  there  are  several  defects 
which,  while  we  are  reading  it,  tease  and  disgust  so  much  that 
we  are  scarcely  willing  even  to  admire  as  we  ought  to  admire 
the  refined  pictures  of  human  emotion.  The  first  of  these,  and 
perhaps  the  worst,  is  the  fantastic  disorder  of  the  form.  It  is 
an  imperative  law  of  the  writing-art,  that  a  book  should  go 
straight  on.  A  great  writer  should  be  able  to  tell  a  great 
meaning  as  coherently  as  a  small  writer  tells  a  small  meaning. 
The  magnitude  of  the  thought  to  be  conveyed,  the  delicacy  of 
the  emotion  to  be  painted,  render  the  introductory  touches  of 
consummate  art  not  of  less  importance,  but  of  more  importance. 
A  great  writer  should  train  the  mind  of  the  reader  for  his  great- 
est things ;  that  is,  by  first  strokes  and  fitting  preliminaries  he 
should  form  and  prepare  his  mind  for  the  due  appreciation  and 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  119 

the  perfect  enjoyment  of  high  creations.  He  should  not  blunder 
upon  a  beauty,  nor,  after  a  great  imaginative  creation,  should 
he  at  once  fall  back  to  bare  prose.  The  high-wrought  feeling 
which  a  poet  excites  should  not  be  turned  out  at  once  and 
without  warning  into  the  discomposing  world.  It  is  one  of  the 
greatest  merits  of  the  greatest  living  writer  of  fiction, — of  the 
authoress  of  Adam  Bede,- — that  she  never  brings  you  to  anything 
without  preparing  you  for  it ;  she  has  no  loose  lumps  of  beauty ; 
she  puts  in  nothing  at  random ;  after  her  greatest  scenes,  too,  a 
natural  sequence  of  subordinate  realities  again  tones  down  the 
mind  to  this  sublunary  world.  Her  logical  style — the  most 
logical,  probably,  which  a  woman  ever  wrote — aids  in  this 
matter  her  natural  sense  of  due  proportion.  There  is  not  a 
space  of  incoherency — not  a  gap.  It  is  not  natural  to  begin 
with  the  point  of  a  story,  and  she  does  not  begin  with  it. 
XVhen  some  great  marvel  has  been  told,  we  all  wish  to  know 
\vhat  came  of  it,  and  she  tells  us.  Her  natural  way,  as  it  seems 
to  those  who  do  not  know  its  rarity,  of  telling  what  happened 
produces  the  consummate  effect  of  gradual  enchantment  and  as 
gradual  disenchantment.  But  Sterne's  style  is  imnatural.  He 
never  begins  at  the  beginning  and  goes  straight  through  to  the 
end.  He  shies- in  a  beauty  suddenly ;  and  just  when  you  are 
affected  he  turns  round  and  grins  at  it.  'Ah,'  he  says,  'is  it 
not  fine?'  And  then  he  makes  jokes  which  at  that  place  and 
that  time  are  out  of  place,  or  passes  away  into  scholastic  or  other 
irrelevant  matter,  which  simply  disgusts  and  disheartens  those 
whom  he  has  just  delighted.  People  excuse  all  this  irregularity 
of  form  by  saying  that  it  was  imitated  from  Eabelais.  But  this 
is  nonsense.  Eabelais,  perhaps,  could  not  in  his  day  venture  to 
tell  his  meaning  straight  out ;  at  any  rate,  he  did  not  tell  it. 
Sterne  should  not  have  chosen  a  model  so  monstrous.  Incohe- 
rency is  not  less  a  defect  because  an  imperfect  foreign  writer 
once  made  use  of  it.  '  You  may  have,  sir,  a  reason,'  said  Dr. 
Johnson,  '  for  saying  that  two  and  two  make  five,  but  they  will 
still  make  four.'  Just  so,  a  writer  may  have  a  reason  for  select- 


12O  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

ing  the  defect  of  incoherency,  but  it  is  a  defect  still.  Sterne's 
best  things  read  best  out  of  his  books, — in  Enfield's  Speaker 
and  other  places, — and  you  can  say  no  worse  of  any  one  as  a 
continuous  artist. 

Another  most  palpable  defect — especially  palpable  nowadays 
— in  Tristram  Shandy  is  its  indecency.  It  is  quite  true  that 
the  customary  conventions  of  writing  are  much  altered  during 
the  last  century,  and  much  which  would  formerly  have  been 
deemed  blameless  would  now  be  censured  and  disliked.  The 
audience  has  changed  ;  and  decency  is  of  course  in  part  depend- 
ent on  who  is  within  hearing.  A  divorce  case  may  be  talked 
over  across  a  club-table  with  a  plainness  of  speech  and  deve- 
lopment of  expression  which  would  be  indecent  in  a  mixed 
party,  and  scandalous  before  young  ladies.  Now,  a  large  part 
of  old  novels  may  very  fairly  be  called  club-books ;  they  speak 
out  plainly  and  simply  the  notorious  facts  of  the  world,  as  men 
speak  of  them  to  men.  Much  excellent  and  proper  masculine 
conversation  is  wholly  unfit  for  repetition  to  young  girls ;  and 
just  in  the  same  way,  books  written — as  was  almost  all  old 
literature, — for  men  only,  or  nearly  only,  seem  coarse  enough 
when  contrasted  with  novels  written  by  young  ladies  upon  the 
subjects  and  in  the  tone  of  the  drawing-room.  The  change  is 
inevitable ;  as  soon  as  works  of  fiction  are  addressed  to  boys  and 
girls,  they  must  be  fit  for  boys  and  girls ;  they  must  deal  with  a 
life  which  is  real  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  which  is  yet  most  limited ; 
which  deals  with  the  most  passionate  part  of  life,  and  yet  omits 
the  errors  of  the  passions ;  which  aims  at  describing  men  in 
their  relations  to  women,  and  yet  omits  an  all  but  universal 
influence  which  more  or  less  distorts  and  modifies  all  these 
relations. 

As  we  have  said,  the  change  cannot  be  helped.  A  young 
ladies'  literature  must  be  a  limited  and  truncated  literature. 
The  indiscriminate  study  of  human  life  is  not  desirable  for  them, 
either  in  fiction  or  in  reality.  But  the  habitual  formation  of  a 
scheme  of  thought  and  a  code  of  morality  upon  incomplete  ma- 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  121 

terials  is  a  very  serious  evil.  The  readers  for  whose  sake  the 
omissions  are  made  cannot  fancy  what  is  left  out  Many  a  girl 
of  the  present  day  reads  novels,  and  nothing  but  novels ;  she 
forms  her  mind  by  them,  as  far  as  she  forms  it  by  reading  at  all ; 
even  if  she  reads  a  few  dull  books,  she  soon  forgets  all  about 
them,  and  remembers  the  novels  only ;  she  is  more  influenced 
by  them  than  by  sermons.  They  form  her  idea  of  the  world, 
they  define  her  taste,  and  modify  her  morality ;  not  so  much 
in  explicit  thought  and  direct  act,  as  unconsciously  and  in  her 
floating  fancy.  How  is  it  possible  to  convince  such  a  girl, 
especially  if  she  is  clever,  that  on  most  points  she  is  all  wrong  ? 
She  has  been  reading  most  excellent  descriptions  of  mere  society; 
she  comprehends  those  descriptions  perfectly,  for  her  own  expe- 
rience elucidates  and  confirms  them.  She  has  a  vivid  picture 
of  a  patch  of  life.  Even  if  she  admits  in  words  that  there  is 
something  beyond,  something  of  which  she  has  no  idea,  she  will 
not  admit  it  really  and  in  practice.  What  she  has  mastered 
and  realised  will  incurably  and  inevitably  overpower  the  un- 
known something  of  which  she  knows  nothing,  can  imagine 
nothing,  and  can  make  nothing.  '  I  am  not  sure,'  said  an  old 
lady,  '  but  I  think  it's  the  novels  that  make  my  girls  so  heady.' 
It  is  the  novels.  A  very  intelligent  acquaintance  with  limited 
life  makes  them  think  that  the  world  is  far  simpler  than  it  is, 
that  men  are  easy  to  understand,  f  that  mamma  is  so  foolish.' 

The  novels  of  the  last  age  have  certainly  not  this  fault. 
They  do  not  err  on  the  side  of  reticence.  A  girl  may  learn 
from  them  more  than  it  is  desirable  for  her  to  know.  But,  as 
we  have  explained,  they  were  meant  for  men  and  not  for  girls ; 
and  if  Tristram  Shandy  had  simply  given  a  plain  exposition  of 
necessary  facts — necessary,  that  is,  to  the  development  of  the 
writer's  view  of  the  world,  and  to  the  telling  of  the  story  in 
hand, — we  should  not  have  complained;  we  should  have  re- 
garded it  as  the  natural  product  of  a  now  extinct  society.  But 
there  are  most  unmistakable  traces  of  '  Crazy  Castle '  in  Tristram. 
Shandy.  There  is  indecency  for  indecency's  sake.  It  is  made 


122  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

a  sort  of  recurring  and  even  permeating  joke  to  mention  things 
which  are  not  generally  mentioned.  Sterne  himself  made  a 
sort  of  defence,  or  rather  denial,  of  this.  He  once  asked  a  lady 
if  she  had  read  Tristram.  '  I  have  not,  Mr.  Sterne,'  was  the 
answer ;  c  and,  to  be  plain  with  you,  I  am  informed  it  is  not 
proper  for  female  perusal.'  '  My  dear  good  lady,'  said  Sterne, 
6  do  not  be  gulled  by  such  stories ;  the  book  is  like  your  young 
heir  there'  (pointing  to  a  child  of  three  years,  old  who  was 
rolling  on  the  carpet  in  white  tunics) :  '  he  shows  at  times  a 
good  deal  that  is  usually  concealed,  but  it  is  all  in  perfect 
innocence.'  But  a  perusal  of  Tristram  would  not  make  good 
the  plea.  The  unusual  publicity  of  what  is  ordinarily  imper- 
ceptible is  not  the  thoughtless  accident  of  amusing  play ;  it  is 
deliberately  sought  after  as  a  nice  joke ;  it  is  treated  as  a  good 
in  itself. 

The  indecency  of  Tristram  Shandy — at  least  of  the  early 
part,  which  was  written  before  Sterne  had  been  to  France — is 
especially  an  offence  against  taste,  because  of  its  ugliness. 
Moral  indecency  is  always  disgusting.  There  certainly  is  a  sort 
of  writing  which  cannot  be  called  decent,  and  which  describes  a 
society  to  the  core  immoral,  which  nevertheless  is  no  offence 
against  art ;  it  violates  a  higher  code  than  that  of  taste,  but  it 
does  not  violate  the  code  of  taste.  The  Memoires  de  Grammont 
— hundreds  of  French  memoirs  about  France — are  of  this  kind, 
more  or  less.  They  describe  the  refined,  witty,  elegant  immo- 
rality of  an  idle  aristocracy.  They  describe  a  life  '  unsuitable 
to  such  a  being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one,'  in 
which  there  are  no  high  aims,  no  severe  duties,  where  some 
precepts  of  morals  seem  not  so  much  to  be  sometimes  broken 
as  to  be  generally  suspended  and  forgotten ;  such  a  life,  in  short, 
as  God  has  never  suffered  men  to  lead  on  this  earth  long,  which 
He  has  always  crushed  out  by  calamity  and  revolution.  This 
life,  though  an  offence  in  morals,  was  not  an  offence  in  taste. 
It  was  an  elegant,  a  pretty  thing  while  it  lasted.  Especially  in 
enhancing  description,  where  the  alloy  of  life  may  be  omitted, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  123 

where  nothing  vulgar  need  be  noticed,  where  everything  elegant 
may  be  neatly  painted, — such  a  world  is  elegant  enough. 
Morals  and  policy  must  decide  how  far  such  delineations  are  per- 
missible or  expedient ;  but  the  art  of  beauty, — art-criticism — 
has  no  objection  to  them.  They  are  pretty  paintings  of  pretty 
objects,  and  that'  is  all  it  has  to  say.  They  may  very  easily  do 
harm  ;  if  generally  read  among  the  young  of  the  middle  class, 
they  would  be  sure  to  do  harm :  they  would  teach  not  a  few 
to  aim  at  a  sort  of  refinement  denied  them  by  circumstances, 
and  to  neglect  the  duties  allotted  them ;  it  would  make  shopmen 
'  bad  imitations  of  polished  ungodliness,'  and  also  bad  shopmen. 
But  still,  though  it  would  in  such  places  be  noxious  literature, 
in  itself  it  would  be  pretty  literature.  The  critic  must  praise 
it,  though  the  moralist  must  condemn  it,  and  perhaps  the  poli- 
tician forbid  it. 

But  Tristram  Shandy's  indecency  is  the  very  opposite  to 
this  refined  sort.  It  consists  in  allusions  to  certain  inseparable 
accompaniments  of  actual  life  which  are  not  beautiful,  which  can 
never  be  made  interesting,  which  would,  if  they  were  decent,  be 
dull  and  uninteresting.  There  is,  it  appears,  a  certain  excitement 
in  putting  such  matters  into  a  book :  there  is  a  minor  exhilaration 
even  in  petty  crime.  At  first  such  things  look  so  odd  in  print 
that  you  go  on  reading  them  to  see  what  they  look  like ;  but 
you  soon  give  up.  What  is  disenchanting  or  even  disgusting  in 
reality  does  not  become  enchanting  or  endurable  in  delineation. 
You  are  more  angry  at  it  in  literature  than  in  life;  there  is 
much  which  is  barbarous  and  animal  in  reality  that  we  could 
wish  away ;  we  endure  it  because  we  cannot  help  it,  because  we 
did  not  make  it  and  cannot  alter  it,  because  it  is  an  inseparable 
part  of  this  inexplicable  world.  But  why  we  should  put  this 
coarse  alloy,  this  dross  of  life,  into  the  optional  world  of  litera- 
ture, which  we  can  make  as  we  please,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
The  needless  introduction  of  accessory  ugliness  is  always  a  sin 
in  art,  and  is  not  at  all  less  so  when  such  ugliness  is  disgust- 
ing and  improper.  Tristram  Shandy  is  incurably  tainted 


1 24  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

with  a  pervading  vice ;  it  dwells  at  length  on,  it  seeks  after,  it 
returns  to,  it  gloats  over,  the  most  unattractive  part  of  the 
world. 

There  is  another  defect  in  Tristram  Shandy  which  would  of 
itself  remove  it  from  the  list  of  first-rate  books,  even  if  those 
which  we  have  mentioned  did  not  do  so.  It  contains  eccentric 
characters  only.  Some  part  of  this  defect  may  be  perhaps  ex- 
plained by  one  peculiarity  of  its  origin.  Sterne  was  so  sensitive 
to  the  picturesque  parts  of  life,  that  he  wished  to  paint  the 
picturesque  parts  of  the  people  he  hated.  Country-towns  in 
those  days  abounded  in  odd  characters.  They  were  out  of  the 
way  of  the  great  opinion  of  the  world,  and  shaped  themselves  to 
little  opinions  of  their  own.  They  regarded  the  customs  which 
the  place  had  inherited  as  the  customs  which  were  proper  for 
it,  and  which  it  would  be  foolish,  if  not  wicked,  to  try  to  change. 
This  gave  English  country  life  a  motley  picturesqueness  then, 
which  it  wants  now,  when  London  ideas  shoot  out  every  morn- 
ing, and  carry  on  the  wings  of  the  railway  a  uniform  creed  to 
each  cranny  of  the  kingdom,  north  and  south,  east  and  west. 
These  little  public  opinions  of  little  places  wanted,  too,  the 
crushing  power  of  the  great  public  opinion  of  our  own  day  ;  at 
the  worst,  a  man  could  escape  from  them  into  some  different 
place  which  had  customs  and  doctrines  that  suited  him  better. 
We  now  may  fly  into  another  '  city,'  but  it  is  all  the  same 
Eoman  empire ;  the  same  uniform  justice,  the  one  code  of  heavy 
laws  presses  us  down  and  makes  us — the  sensible  part  of  us  at 
least — as  like  other  people  as  we  can  make  ourselves.  The 
public  opinion  of  county  towns  yielded  soon  to  individual  ex- 
ceptions ;  it  had  not  the  confidence  in  itself  which  the  opinion 
of  each  place  now  receives  from  the  accordant  and  simultaneous 
echo  of  a  hundred  places.  If  a  man  chose  to  be  queer,  he  was 
bullied  for  a  year  or  two,  then  it  was  settled  that  he  was  '  queer ; ' 
that  was  the  fact  about  him,  and  must  be  accepted.  In  a 
year  or  so  he  became  an  '  institution  '  of  the  place,  and  the 
local  pride  would  have  been  grieved  if  he  had  amended  the 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  125 

oddity  which  suggested  their  legends  and  added  a  flavour  to 
their  life.  Of  course,  if  a  man  was  rich  and  influential,  he 
might  soon  disregard  the  mere  opinion  of  the  petty  locality. 
Every  place  has  wonderful  traditions  of  old  rich  men  who  did 
exactly  as  they  pleased,  because  they  could  set  at  naught  the 
opinions  of  the  neighbours,  by  whom  they  were  feared ;  and  who 
did  not,  as  now,  dread  the  unanimous  conscience  which  does 
not  fear  even  a  squire  of  2000£.  a  year,  or  a  banker  of  8000^., 
because  it  is  backed  by  the  wealth  of  London  and  the  mag- 
nitude  of  all  the  country.  There  is  little  oddity  in  county 
towns  now ;  they  are  detached  scraps  of  great  places ;  but  in 
Sterne's  time  there  was  much,  and  he  used  it  unsparingly. 

Much  of  the  delineation  is  of  the  highest  merit.  Sterne 
knew  how  to  describe  eccentricity,  for  he  showed  its  relation  to 
our  common  human  nature :  he  showed  how  we  were  related 
to  it,  how  in  some  sort  and  in  some  circumstances  we  might 
ourselves  become  it.  He  reduced  the  abnormal  formation  to  the 
normal  rules.  Except  upon  this  condition,  eccentricity  is  no  fit 
subject  for  literary  art.  Every  one  must  have  known  characters 
which,  if  they  were  put  down  in  books,  barely  and  as  he 
sees  them,  would  seem  monstrous  and  disproportioned, — which 
would  disgust  all  readers, — which  every  critic  would  term  unna- 
tural. While  characters  are  monstrous,  they  should  be  kept 
out  of  books ;  they  are  ugly  unintelligibilities,  foreign  to  the 
realm  of  true  art.  But  as  soon  as  they  can  be  explained  to  us, 
as  soon  as  they  are  shown  in  their  union  with,  in  their  outgrowth 
from  common  human  nature,  they  are  the  best  subjects  for  great 
art — for  they  are  new  subjects.  They  teach  us,  not  the  old 
lesson  which  our  fathers  knew,  but  a  new  lesson  which  will  please 
us  and  make  us  better  than  they.  Hamlet  is  an  eccentric  cha- 
racter, one  of  the  most  eccentric  in  literature  ;  but  because,  by 
the  art  of  the  poet,  we  are  made  to  understand  that  he  is  a 
possible,  a  vividly  possible  man,  he  enlarges  our  conceptions  of 
human  nature ;  he  takes  us  out  of  the  bounds  of  commonplace. 
He  '  instructs  us  by  means  of  delight.'  Sterne  does  this  too. 


126  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

Mr.  Shandy,  Uncle  Toby,  Corporal  Trim,  Mrs.  Shandy, — for  in 
strictness  she  too  is  eccentric  from  her  abnormal  commonplace- 
ness, — are  beings  of  which  the  possibility  is  brought  home  to  us, 
which  we  feel  we  could  under  circumstances  and  by  influences 
become ;  which,  though  contorted  and  twisted,  are  yet  spun  out 
of  the  same  elementary  nature,  the  same  thread  as  we  are. 
Considering  how  odd  these  characters  are,  the  success  of  Sterne 
is  marvellous,  and  his  art  in  this  respect  consummate.  But  yet 
on  a  point  most  nearly  allied  it  is  very  faulty.  Though  each 
individual  character  is  shaded  off  into  human  nature,  the  whole 
is  not  shaded  off  into  the  world.  This  society  of  originals  and 
oddities  is  left  to  stand  by  itself,  as  if  it  were  a  natural  and 
ordinary  society, — a  society  easily  conceivable  and  needing  no 
explanation.  Such  is  not  the  manner  of  the  great  masters ;  in 
their  best  works  a  constant  atmosphere  of  half  commonplace 
personages  surrounds  and  shades  off,  illustrates  and  explains 
every  central  group  of  singular  persons. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  judgment  of  criticism  on 
Tristram  Shandy  is  concise  and  easy.  It  is  immortal  because 
of  certain  scenes  suggested  by  Sterne's  curious  experience,  de- 
tected by  his  singular  sensibility,  and  heightened  by  his  delinea- 
tive  and  discriminative  imagination.  It  is  defective  because  its 
style  is  fantastic,  its  method  illogical  and  provoking ;  because 
its  indecency  is  of  the  worst  sort,  as  far  as  in  such  matters  an 
artistic  judgment  can  speak  of  worst  and  best ;  because  its  world 
of  characters  forms  an  incongruous  group  of  singular  persons 
utterly  dissimilar  to,  and  irreconcilable  with  the  world  in  which 
we  live.  It  is  a  great  work  of  art,  but  of  barbarous  art.  Its 
mirth  is  boisterous.  It  is  provincial.  It  is  redolent  of  an 
inferior  society;  of  those  who  think  crude  animal  spirits  in 
themselves  delightful ;  who  do  not  know  that,  without  wit  to 
point  them,  or  humour  to  convey  them,  they  are  disagreeable 
to  others;  who  like  disturbing  transitions,  blank  pages,  and 
tricks  of  style ;  who  do  not  know  that  a  simple  and  logical  form 
of  expression  is  the  most  effective,  if  not  the  easiest — the  least 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  127 

laborious  to  readers,  if  not  always  the  most  easily  attained  by 
writers. 

The  oddity  of  Tristram  Shandy  was,  however,  a  great  aid 
to  its  immediate  popularity.  If  an  author  were  to  stand  on  his 
head  now  and  then  in  Cheapside,  his  eccentricity  would  bring 
him  into  contact  with  the  police,  but  it  would  advertise  his 
writings ;  they  would  sell  better :  people  would  like  to  see  what 
was  said  by  a  great  author  who  was  so  odd  as  to  stand  so. 
Sterne  put  his  eccentricity  into  his  writings,  and  therefore  came 
into  collision  with  the  critics ;  but  he  attained  the  same  end. 
His  book  sold  capitally.  As  with  all  popular  authors,  he  went 
to  London ;  he  was  feted.  *  The  'man  Sterne,'  growled  Dr. 
Johnson,  '  has  dinner  engagements  for  three  months.'  The 
upper  world — ever  desirous  of  novelty,  ever  tired  of  itself,  ever 
anxious  to  be  amused — was  in  hopes  of  a  new  wit.  It  naturally 
hoped  that  the  author  of  Tristram  Shandy  would  talk  well, 
and  it  sent  for  him  to  talk. 

He  did  talk  well,  it  appears,  though  not  always  very  cor- 
rectly, and  never  very  clerically.  His  appearance  was  curious, 
but  yet  refined.  Eager  eyes,  a  wild  look,  a  long  lean  frame, 
and  what  he  called  a  cadaverous  bale  of  goods  for  a  body,  made 
up  an  odd  exterior,  which  attracted  notice,  and  did  not  repel 
liking.  He  looked  like  a  scarecrow  with  bright  eye?.  With  a 
random  manner,  but  not  without  a  nice  calculation,  he  dis- 
charged witticisms  at  London  parties.  His  keen  nerves  told 
him  which  were  fit  witticisms ;  they  took,  and  he  was  applauded. 

He  published  some  sermons  too.  That  tolerant  age  liked, 
it  is  instructive  as  well  as  amusing  to  think,  sermons  by  the 
author  of  Tristram  Shandy.  People  wonder  at  the  rise  of 
Methodism ;  but  ought  they  to  wonder  ?  If  a  clergyman  pub- 
lishes his  sermons  because  he  has  written  an  indecent  novel— a 
novel  which  is  purely  pagan — which  is  outside  the  ideas  of 
Christianity,  whose  author  can  scarcely  have  been  inside  of  them 
• — if  a  man  so  made  and  so  circumstanced  is  as  such  to  publish 
Christian  sermons,  surely  Christianity  is  a  joke  and  a  dream. 


128  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

Wesley  was  right  in  this  at  least;  if  Christianity  be  true,  the 
upper-class  life  of  the  last  century  was  based  on  rotten  false- 
hood. A  world  which  is  really  secular,  which  professes  to  be 
Christian,  is  the  worst  of  worlds. 

The  only  point  in  which  Sterne  resembles  a  clergyman  of 
our  own  time  is,  that  he  lost  his  voice.  That  peculiar  affection 
of  the  chest  and  throat,  which  is  hardly  known  among  barristers, 
but  which  inflicts  such  suffering  upon  parsons,  attacked  him 
also.  Sterne  too,  as  might  be  expected,  went  abroad  for  it. 
He  '  spluttered  French,'  he  tells  us,  with  success  in  Paris ;  the 
accuracy  of  the  grammar  some  phrases  in  his  letters  would  lead 
us  to  doubt ;  but  few,  very  few  Yorkshire  parsons  could  then 
talk  French  at  all,  and  there  was  doubtless  a  fine  tact  and  sen- 
sibility in  what  he  said.  A  literary  phenomenon  wishing  to 
enjoy  society,  and  able  to  amuse  society,  has  ever  been  welcome 
in  the  Parisian  world.  After  Paris,  Sterne  went  to  the  south 
of  France,  and  on  to  Italy,  lounging  easily  in  pretty  places,  and 
living  comfortably,  as  far  as  one  can  see,  upon  the  profits  of 
Tristram  Shandy.  Literary  success  has  seldom  changed  more 
suddenly  and  completely  the  course  of  a  man's  life.  For  years 
Sterne  resided  in  a  country  parsonage,  and  the  sources  of  his 
highest  excitement  were  a  country  town  full  of  provincial 
oddities,  and  a  '  Crazy  Castle'  full  of  the  license  and  the  whims 
of  a  country  squire.  On  a  sudden  London,  Paris,  and  Italy 
were  opened  to  him.  From  a  few  familiar  things  he  was  sud- 
denly transferred  to  many  unfamiliar  things.  He  was  equal  to 
them,  though  the  change  came  so  suddenly  in  middle  life — 
though  the  change  from  a  secluded  English  district  to  the  great 
and  interesting  scenes  was  far  greater,  far  fuller  of  unexpected 
sights  and  unforeseen  phenomena,  than  it  can  be  now — when 
travelling  is  common — when  the  newspaper  is  'abroad' — when 
every  one  has  in  his  head  some  feeble  image  of  Europe  and  the 
world.  Sterne  showed  the  delicate  docility  which  belongs  to  a 
sensitive  and  experiencing  nature.  He  understood  and  enjoyed 
very  much  of  this  new  and  strange  life,  if  not  the  whole. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  129 

The  proof  of  this  remains  written  in  the  Sentimental 
Journey.  There  is  no  better  painting  of  first  and  easy  impres- 
sions than  that  book.  After  all  which  has  been  written  on  the 
ancien  regime,  an  Englishman  at  least  will  feel  a  fresh  in- 
struction on  reading  these  simple  observations.  They  are  in- 
structive because  of  their  simplicity.  The  old  world  at  heart 
was  not  like  that ;  there  were  depths  and  realities,  latent  forces 
and  concealed  results,  which  were  hidden  from  Sterne's  eye, 
which  it  would  have  been  quite  out  of  his  way  to  think  of  or 
observe.  But  the  old  world  seemed  like  that.  This  was  the 
spectacle  of  it  as  it  was  seen  by  an  observing  stranger ;  and  we 
take  it  up,  not  to  know  what  was  the  truth,  but  to  know  what 
we  should  have  thought  to  be  the  truth  if  we  had  lived  in  those 
times.  People  say  Eothen  is  not  like  the  real  East ;  very  likely 
it  is  not,  but  it  is  like  what  an  imaginative  young  Englishman 
would  think  the  East.  Just  so,  the  SentimentcdJourney  is  not 
the  true  France  of  the  old  monarchy,  but  it  is  exactly  what  an 
observant  quick-eyed  Englishman  might  fancy  that  France  to 
be.  This  has  given  it  popularity;  this  still  makes  it  a  valuable 
relic  of  the  past.  It  is  not  true  to  the  outward  nature  of  real 
life,  but  it  is  true  to  the  reflected  image  of  that  life  in  an  ima- 
ginative and  sensitive  man. 

Here  is  the  actual  description  vof  the  old  chivalry  of  France  ; 
the  '  cheap  defence  of  nations,'  as  Mr.  Burke  called  it  a  little 
while  afterwards : 

1  When  states  and  empires  have  their  periods  of  declension,  and 
feel  in  their  turns  what  distress  and  poverty  is — I  stop  not  to  tell  the 

causes  which  gradually  brought  the  house  d'E in  Brittany  into 

decay.  The  Marquis  d'E—  -  had  fought  up  against  his  condition 
with  great  firmness  ;  wishing  to  preserve,  and  still  show  to  the  world, 
some  little  fragments  of  what  his  ancestors  had  been — their  indiscre- 
tions had  put  it  out  of  his  power.  There  was  enough  left  for  the 
little  exigencies  of  obscurity.  But  he  had  two  boys  who  look'd  up  to 
him  for  light — he  thought  they  deserved  it.  He  had  tried  his  sword 
— it  could  not  open  the  way— the  mounting  was  too  expensive— and 
VOL.  II.  K 


130  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

simple  economy  was  not  a  match  for  it — there  was  no  resource  but 
commerce. 

'  In  any  other  province  in  France,  save  Brittany,  this  was  smiting 
the  root  for  ever  of  the  little  tree  his  pride  and  affection  wish'd  to  see 
reblossom.  But  in  Brittany,  there  being  a  provision  for  this,  he 
avail'd  himself  of  it ;  and  taking  an  occasion  when  the  states  were 
assembled  at  Rennes,  the  Marquis,  attended  with  his  two  boys,  entered 
the  court ;  and  having  pleaded  the  right  of  an  ancient  law  of  the 
duchy,  which,  though  seldom  claim'd,  he  said,  was  no  less  in  force,  he 
took  his  sword  from  his  side — Here,  said  he,  take  it  ;  and  be  trusty 
guardians  of  it,  till  better  times  put  me  in  condition  to  reclaim  it. 

'  The  president  accepted  the  Marquis's  sword — he  stayed  a  few 
minutes  to  see  it  deposited  in  the  archives  of  his  house — and 
departed. 

'  The  Marquis  and  his  whole  family  embarked  the  next  day  for 
Martinico,  and  in  about  nineteen  or  twenty  years  of  successful  appli- 
cation to  business,  with  some  unlook'd-for  bequests  from  distant 
branches  of  his  house,  returned  home  to  reclaim  his  nobility  and  to 
support  it. 

'  It  was  an  incident  of  good  fortune  which  will  never  happen  to 
any  traveller  but  a  sentimental  one,  that  I  should  be  at  Rennes  at 
the  very  time  of  this  solemn  requisition  :  I  call  it  solemn — it  was  so 
to  me. 

1  The  Marquis  enter'd  the  court  with  his  whole  family  :  he  sup- 
ported his  lady — his  eldest  son  supported  his  sister,  and  his  youngest 
was  at  the  other  extreme  of  the  line  next  his  mother — he  put  his 
handkerchief  to  his  face  twice — 

' — There  was  a  dead  silence.  When  the  Marquis  had  approach'd 
within  six  paces  of  the  tribunal,  he  gave  the  Marchioness  to  his 
youngest  son,  and  advancing  three  steps  before  his  family — he  re- 
claim'd  his  sword.  His  sword  was  given  him  ;  and  the  moment  he 
got  it  into  his  hand  he  drew  it  almost  out  of  the  scabbard — 'twas  the 
shining  face  of  a  friend  he  had  once  given  up — he  look'd  attentively 
along  it,  beginning  at  the  hilt,  as  if  to  see  whether  it  was  the  same — 
when  observing  a  little  rust  which  it  had  contracted  near  the  point 
he  brought  it  near  his  eye,  and  bending  his  head  down  over  it — I 
think  I  saw  a  tear  fall  upon  the  place  :  I  could  not  be  deceived  by 
what  followed. 

I  shall  find,"  said  he,  "  some  other  way  to  get  it  off." 
When  the  Marquis  had  said  this,  he  return'd  his  sword  into  its 


(    U 


Sterne  and  Thackeray. 


scabbard,  made  a  bow  to  the  guardians  of  it — and  with  his  wife  and 
daughter,  and  his  two  sons  following  him,  walk'd  out. 
*  O  how  I  envied  him  his  feelings  ! ' 

It  shows  a  touching  innocence  of  the  imagination  to  believe 
—for  probably  Sterne  did  believe — or  to  expect  his  readers  to 
believe,  in  a  noblesse  at  once  so  honourable  and  so  theatrical. 

In  two  points  the  Sentimental  Journey,  viewed  with  the 
critic's  eye,  and  as  a  mere  work  of  art,  is  a  great  improvement 
upon  Tristram  Shandy.  The  style  is  simpler  and  better ;  it 
is  far  more  connected ;  it  does  not  jump  about,  or  leave  a  topic 
because  it  is  interesting;  it  does  not  worry  the  reader  with 
fantastic  transitions,  with  childish  contrivances  and  rhetorical 
intricacies.  Highly  elaborate  the  style  certainly  is,  and  in  a 
certain  sense  artificial ;  it  is  full  of  nice  touches,  which  must 
have  come  only  upon  reflection — a  careful  polish  and  judicious 
enhancement,  in  which  the  critic  sees  many  a  trace  of  time 
and  toil.  But  a  style  delicately  adjusted  and  exquisitely  po- 
lished belongs  to  such  a  subject.  Sterne  undertook  to  write, 
not  of  the  coarse  business  of  life — very  strong  common  sort 
of  words  are  best  for  that — not  even  of  interesting  outward 
realities,  which  may  be  best  described  in  a  nice  and  simple 
style ;  but  of  the  passing  moods  of  human  nature,  of  the  im- 
pressions which  a  sensitive  nature  receives  from  the  world 
without ;  and  it  is  only  the  nicest  art  and  the  most  dexterous 
care  which  can  fit  an  obtuse  language  to  such  fine  employment. 
How  language  was  fiist  invented  and  made  we  may  not  know ; 
but  beyond  doubt  it  was  shaped  and  fashioned  into  its  present 
state  by  common  ordinary  men  and  women  using  it  for  common 
and  ordinary  purposes.  They  wanted  a  carving-knife,  not  a 
razor  or  lancet.  And  those  great  artists  who  have  to  use  lan- 
guage for  more  exquisite  purposes,  who  employ  it  to  describe 
changing  sentiments  and  momentary  fancies  and  the  fluctuated 
and  indefinite  inner  world,  must  use  curious  nicety,  and  hidden 
but  effectual  artifice,  else  they  cannot  duly  punctuate  their 

K    2 


132  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

thoughts,  and  slice  the  fine  edges  of  their  reflections.  A  hair's- 
breadth  is  as  important  to  them  as  a  yard's-breadth  to  a  common 
workman.  Sterne's  style  has  been  criticised  as  artificial ;  but 
it  is  justly  and  rightly  artificial,  because  language  used  in 
its  natural  and  common  mode  was  not  framed  to  delineate, 
cannot  delineate,  the  delicate  subjects  with  which  he  occupies 
himself. 

That  contact  with  the  world,  and  with  the  French  world 
especially,  should  teach  Sterne  to  abandon  the  arbitrary  and 
fantastic  structure  of  Tristram  Shandy  is  most  natural.  French 
prose  maybe  unreasonable  in  its  meaning,  but  is  ever  rational  in 
its  structure;  it  is  logic  itself.  It  will  not  endure  that  the 
reader's  mind  should  be  jarred  by  rough  transitions,  or  distracted 
by  irrelevant  oddities.  Antics  in  style  are  prohibited  by  its 
severe  code,  just  as  eccentricities  in  manner  are  kept  down  by 
the  critical  tone  of  a  fastidious  society.  In  a  barbarous  country 
oddity  may  be  attractive;  in  the  great  world  it  never  is,  except 
for  a  moment ;  it  is  on  trial  to  see  whether  it  is  really  oddity, 
to  see  if  it  does  not  contain  elements  which  may  be  useful  to, 
which  may  be  naturalised  in  society  at  large.  But  inherent 
eccentricity,  oddity  pur  et  simple,  is  immiscible  in  the  great 
ocean  of  universal  thought ;  it  is  apart  from  it,  even  when  it 
floats  in  and  is  contained  in  it ;  very,  very  soon  it  is  cast  out 
from  the  busy  waters,  and  left  alone  upon  the  beach.  Sterne 
had  the  sense  to  be  taught  by  the  sharp  touch  of  the  world ;  he 
threw  aside  the  '  player's  garb '  which  he  had  been  tempted  to 
assume.  He  discarded  too,  as  was  equally  natural,  the  ugly  in- 
decency of  Tristram  Shandy.  We  will  not  undertake  to  defend 
the  morality  of  certain  scenes  in  the  Sentimental  Journey ; 
there  are  several  which  might  easily  do  much  harm  ;  but  there 
is  nothing  displeasing  to  the  natural  man  in  them.  They  are 
nice  enough ;  to  those  whose  aesthetic  nature  has  not  been  laid 
waste  by  their  moral  nature,  they  are  attractive.  They  have  a 
dangerous  prettiness,  which  may  easily  incite  to  practical  evil ; 
but  in  itself,  and  separated  from  its  censurable  consequences, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  133 

such  prettiness  is  an  artistic  perfection.  It  was  natural  that  the 
aristocratic  world  should  easily  teach  Sterne  that  separation 
between  the  laws  of  beauty  and  the  laws  of  morality  which  has 
been  familiar  to  it  during  many  ages — which  makes  so  much  of 
its  essence. 

Mrs.  Sterne  did  not  prosper  all  this  time.  She  went  abroad 
and  stayed  at  Montpellier  with  her  husband  ;  but  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  a  mere  « wife,'  taken  out  of  Yorkshire,  should  be 
unfit  for  the  great  world.  The  domestic  appendices  of  men 
who  rise  much  hardly  ever  suit  the  high  places  at  which  they 
arrive.  Mrs.  Sterne  was  no  exception.  She  seems  to  have 
been  sensible,  but  it  was  domestic  sense.  It  was  of  the  small 
world,  small :  it  was  fit  to  regulate  the  Yorkshire  parsonage,  it 
was  suitable  to  a  small  menage  even  at  Montpellier.  But  there 
was  a  deficiency  in  general  mind.  She  did  not,  we  apprehend, 
comprehend  or  appreciate  the  new  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
a  new  and  great  experience  had  awakened  in  her  husband's 
mind.  His  mind  moved,  but  hers  could  not ;  she  was  anchored, 
but  he  was  at  sea. 

To  fastidious  writers  who  will  only  use  very  dignified  words, 
there  is  much  difficulty  in  describing  Sterne's  life  in  his  cele- 
brity. But  to  humbler  persons,  who  can  only  describe  the 
things  of  society  in  the  words  of  society,  the  case  is  simple. 
Sterne  was  '  an  old  flirt.'  These  are  short  and  expressive  words, 
and  they  tell  the  whole  truth.  There  is  no  good  reason  to  sus- 
pect his  morals,  but  he  dawdled  about  pretty  women.  He 
talked  at  fifty  with  the  admiring  tone  of  twenty  ;  pretended  to 
'  freshness  '  of  feeling  ;  though  he  had  become  mature,  did  not 
put  away  immature  things.  That  he  had  any  real  influence 
over  women  is  very  unlikely  ;  he  was  a  celebrity,  and  they  liked 
to  exhibit  him ;  he  was  amusing,  and  they  liked  him  to  amuse 
them.  But  they  doubtless  felt  that  he  too  was  himself  a  joke. 
Women  much  respect  real  virtue  ;  they  much  admire  strong 
and  successful  immorality;  but  they  neither  admire  nor  respect 
the  timid  age  which  affects  the  forms  of  vice  without  its  sub- 


134  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

stance ;  which  preserves  the  exterior  of  youth,  though  the 
reality  is  departed  ;  which  is  insidious  but  not  dangerous,  senti- 
mental but  not  passionate.  Of  this  sort  was  Sterne,  and  he  had 
his  reward.  Women  of  the  world  are  willing  to  accept  any 
admiration,  but  this  sort  they  accept  with  suppressed  and  latent 
sarcasm.  They  ridiculed  his  imbecility  while  they  accepted 
his  attentions  and  enjoyed  his  society. 

Many  men  have  lived  this  life  with  but  minor  penalties,  and 
justly  ;  for  though  perhaps  a  feeble  and  contemptible,  it  is  not 
a  bad  or  immoral  life.  But  Sterne  has  suffered  a  very  severe 
though  a  delayed  and  posthumous  penalty.  He  was  foolish 
enough  to  write  letters  to  some  of  his  friends,  and  after  his 
death,  to  get  money,  his  family  published  them.  This  is  the 
sort  of  thing : 

'  Eliza  will  receive  my  books  with  this.  The  sermons  came  all  hot 
from  the  heart :  I  wish  that  I  could  give  them  any  title  to  be  oifered 
to  yours. — The  others  came  from  the  head — I  am  more  indifferent 
about  their  reception. 

'  I  know  not  how  it  comes  about,  but  I  am  half  in  love  with  you 
• — I  ought  to  be  wholly  so  ;  for  I  never  valued  (or  saw  more  good 
qualities  to  value)  or  thought  more  of  one  of  your  sex  than  of  you  ; 
so  adieu.  '  Yours  faithfully, 

'if  not  affectionately, 

'  L.  STERNE.' 

'I  cannot  rest,  Eliza,  though  I  shall  call  on  you  at  half -past 
twelve,  till  I  know  how  you  do. — May  thy  dear  face  smile,  as  thou 
risest,  like  the  sun  of  this  morning.  I  was  much  grieved  to  hear  of 
your  alarming  indisposition  yesterday  ;  and  disappointed  too,  at  not 
being  let  in.  Remember,  my  dear,  that  a  friend  has  the  same  right 
as  a  physician.  The  etiquettes  of  this  town  (you'll  say)  say  other- 
wise.— No  matter  !  Delicacy  and  propriety  do  not  always  consist  in 
observing  their  frigid  doctrines. 

'  I  am  going  out  to  breakfast,  but  shall  be  at  my  lodgings  by 
eleven,  when  I  hope  to  read  a  single  line  under  thy  own  hand,  that 
thou  art  better,  and  wilt  be  glad  to  see  thy  Bramin.' 

This  Eliza  was  a  Mrs.  Draper,  the  wife  of  a  judge  in  India, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  135 

'  much  respected  in  that  part  of  the  world.'     We  know  little 
of  Eliza,  except  that  there  is  a  stone  in  Bristol  cathedral — 

SACRED 

TO    THE   MEMORY 
OF 

MRS.   ELIZABETH   DRAPER, 

IN   WHOM 
GENIUS   AND   BENEVOLENCE 

WERE   UNITED. 
SHE   DIED  AUGUST   3,   1778,   AGED  35. 

Let  us  hope  she  possessed,  in  addition  to  genius  and  benevo- 
lence, the  good  sense  to  laugh  at  Sterne's  letters. 

In  truth,  much  of  the  gloss  and  delicacy  of  Sterne's  pagan 
instinct  had  faded  away  by  this  time.  He  still  retained  his  fine 
sensibility,  his  exquisite  power  of  entering  into  and  of  delineat- 
ing plain  human  nature.  But  the  world  had  produced  its 
inevitable  effect  on  that  soft  and  voluptuous  disposition.  It  is 
not,  as  we  have  said,  that  he  was  guilty  of  grave  offences  or 
misdeeds ;  he  made  what  he  would  have  called  a  *  splutter  of 
vice,'  but  he  would  seem  to  have  committed  very  little.  Yet, 
as  with  most  minds  which  have  exempted  themselves  from  rigid 
principle,  there  was  a  diffused  texture  of  general  laxity.  The 
fibre  had  become  imperfect ;  the  moral  constitution  was  im- 
paired ;  the  high  colour  of  rottenness  had  come  at  last  out,  and 
replaced  the  delicate  bloom  and  softness  of  the  early  fruit. 
There  is  no  need  to  write  commonplace  sermons  on  an  ancient 
text.  The  beauty  and  charm  of  natural  paganism  will  not  en- 
dure the  stress  and  destruction  of  this  rough  and  complicated 
world.  An  instinctive  purity  will  preserve  men  for  a  brief  time, 
but  hardly  through  a  long  and  varied  life  of  threescore  and  ten 
years. 

Sterne,  however,  did  not  live  so  long.  In  1768  he  came  to 
London  for  the  last  time,  and  enjoyed  himself  much.  He  dined 
with  literary  friends  and  supped  with  fast  friends.  He  liked 
both.  But  the  end  was  at  hand.  His  chest  had  long  been 


136  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

delicate  ;  he  got  a  bad  cold  which  became  a  pleurisy,  and  died 
in  a  London  lodging — a  footman  sent  by  f  some  gentlemen  who 
were  dining,'  and  a  hired  nurse,  being  the  only  persons  present. 
His  family  were  away ;  and  he  had  devoted  himself  to  intellec- 
tual and  luxurious  enjoyments,  which  are  at  least  as  sure  to 
make  a  lonely  deathbed  as  a  refined  and  cultivated  life.  '  Self- 
scanned,  self-centred,  self-secure,'  a  man  may  perhaps  live,  but 
even  so  by  himself  he  will  be  sure  to  die.  For  self-absorbed 
men  the  world  at  large  cares  little ;  as  soon  as  they  cease  to 
amuse,  or  to  be  useful,  it  flings  them  aside,  and  they  die  alone. 
Even  Sterne's  grave,  they  say,  was  so  obscure  and  neglected  that 
the  corpse-stealers  ventured  to  open  it,  and  his  body  was  dis- 
sected without  being  recognised.  The  life  of  literary  men  is 
often  a  kind  of  sermon  in  itself ;  for  the  pursuit  of  fame,  when 
it  is  contrasted  with  the  grave  realities  of  life,  seems  more 
absurd  and  trifling  than  most  pursuits,  and  to  leave  less  behind 
it.  Mere  amusers  are  never  respected.  It  would  be  harsh  to 
call  Sterne  a  mere  amuser,  he  is  much  more ;  but  so  the  con- 
temporary world  regarded  him.  They  laughed  at  his  jests, 
disregarded  his  death-bed,  and  neglected  his  grave. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  there  in  such  a  career,  or  such 
a  character  as  this,  to  remind  us  of  the  great  writer  whom  we 
have  just  lost?  In  externals  there  seems  little  resemblance,  or 
rather  there  seems  to  be  great  contrast.  On  the  one  side  a 
respected  manhood,  a  long  industry,  an  honoured  memory  ;  on 
the  other  hand  a  life  lax,  if  not  dissolute,  little  labour,  and  a 
dishonoured  grave.  Mr.  Thackeray,  too,  has  written  a  most 
severe  criticism  on  Sterne's  character.  Can  we,  then,  venture 
to  compare  the  two  ?  We  do  so  venture ;  and  we  allege,  and 
that  in  spite  of  many  superficial  differences,  that  there  was  one 
fundamental  and  ineradicable  resemblance  between  the  two. 

Thackeray,  like  Sterne,  looked  at  everything — at  nature, 
at  life,  at  art — from  a  sensitive  aspect.  His  mind  was,  to  some 
considerable  extent,  like  a  woman's  mind.  It  could  comprehend 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  137 

abstractions  when  they  were  unrolled  and  explained  before  it, 
but  it  never  naturally  created  them  ;  never  of  itself,  and  without 
external  obligation,  devoted  itself  to  them.     The  visible  scene 
of  life — the  streets,  the  servants,  the  clubs,  the  gossip,  the  West 
End — fastened  on  his  brain.    These  were  to  him  reality.    They 
burnt  in  upon  his  brain  ;  they  pained  his  nerves  ;  their  influence 
reached  him  through  many  avenues,  which  ordinary  men  do  not 
feel  much,  or  to  which  they  are  altogether  impervious.     He  had 
distinct  and  rather  painful  sensations  where  most  men  have  but 
confused  and  blurred  ones.     Most  men  have  felt  the  instructive 
headache,  during  which  they  are  more  acutely  conscious  than 
usual  of  all  which  goes  on  around  them, — during  which  every- 
•  thing  seems  to  pain  them,  and  in  which  they  understand  it, 
because  it  pains  them,  and  they  cannot  get  their  imagination 
away  from  it.     Thackeray  had  a  nerve-ache  of  this  sort  always. 
He  acutely  felt  every  possible  passing  fact — every  trivial  inter- 
lude in  society.     Hazlitt  used  to  say  of  himself,  and  used  to  say 
truly,  that  he  could  not  enjoy  the  society  in  a  drawing-room  for 
thinking  of  the  opinion  which  the  footman  formed  of  his  odd 
appearance  as  he  went  upstairs.    Thackeray  had  too  healthy  and 
stable  a  nature  to  be  thrown  so  wholly  off  his  balance ;  but  the 
footman's  view  of  life  was  never  out  of  his  head.     The  obvious 
facts  which  suggest  it  to  the  footman  poured  it  in  upon  him  ; 
he  could  not  exempt  himself  from  them.     As  most  men  say  that 
the  earth  may  go  round  the  sun,  but  in  fact,  when  we  look  at 
the  sun,  we  cannot  help  believing  it  goes  round  the  earth, — 
just  so  this  most  impressible,  susceptible  genius  could  not  help 
half  accepting,  half  believing  the  common  ordinary  sensitive 
view  of  life,  although  he  perfectly  knew  in  his  inner  mind  and 
deeper  nature  that  this  apparent  and  superficial  view  of  life  was 
misleading,  inadequate,  and  deceptive.     He  could  not  help  see- 
ing everything,  and  what  he  saw  mads  so  near  and  keen  an 
impression  upon  him,  that  he  could  not  again  exclude  it  from 
his  understanding ;  it  stayed  there,  and  disturbed  his  thoughts. 
If,  he  often  says,  *  people  could  write  about  that  of  which 


138  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

they  are  really  thinking,  how  interesting  books  would  be ! ' 
More  than  most  writers  of  fiction,  he  felt  the  difficulty  of  ab- 
stracting his  thoughts  and  imagination  from  near  facts  which 
woul  i  make  themselves  felt.  The  sick  wife  in  the  next  room, 
the  unpaid  baker's  bill,  the  lodging-house  keeper  who  doubts 
your  solvency  ;  these,  and  such  as  these, — the  usual  accompani- 
ments of  an  early  literary  life, — ;jre  constantly  alluded  to  in  his 
writings.  Perhaps  he  could  never  take  a  grand  enough  view  of 
literature,  or  accept  the  truth  of  <  high  art,'  because  of  his 
natural  tendency  to  this  stern  and  humble  realism.  He  knew 
that  he  was  writing  a  tale  which  would  appear  in  a  green  maga- 
zine (with  others)  on  the  1st  of  March,  and  would  be  paid  for 
perhaps  on  the  1 1  th,  by  which  time,  probably,  '  Mr.  Smith  '• 
woidd  have  to  '  make  up  a  sum,'  and  would  again  present  his 
'  little  account.'  There  are  many  minds  besides  his  who  feel  an 
interest  in  these  realities,  though  they  yawn  over  '  high  art '  and 
elaborate  judgments. 

A  painfulness  certainly  clings  like  an  atmosphere  round 
Mr.  Thackeray's  writings,  in  consequence  of  his  inseparable 
and  ever-present  re  >lism.  We  hardly  know  where  it  is,  yet  we 
are  all  conscious  of  it  less  or  more.  A  free  and  bold  writer,  like 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  throws  himself  far  away  into  fictitious  worlds, 
and  soars  there  without  effort,  without  pain,  and  with  unceas- 
ing enjoyment.  You  see  as  it  were  between  the  lines  of  Mr. 
Thackeray's  writings,  that  his  thoughts  were  never  long  away 
from  the  close  proximate  scene.  His  writings  might  be  better 
if  it  had  been  otherwise ;  but  they  would  have  been  less  pecu- 
liar, less  individual ;  they  would  have  wanted  their  character, 
their  flavour,,  if  he  had  been  able  while  writing  them  to  forget 
for  many  moments  the  ever-attending,  the  ever-painful  sense  of 
himself. 

Hence  have  arisen  most  of  the  censures  upon  him,  both  as 
he  seemed  to  be  in  society  and  as  he  was  in  his  writings.  He 
was  certainly  uneasy  in  the  common  and  general  world,  and 
it  was  natural  that  he  should  be  so.  The  world  poured  in  upon 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  139 

him,  and  inflicted  upon  his  delicate  sensibility  a  number  of 
petty  pains  and  impressions  which  others  do  not  feel  at  all,  or 
which  they  feel  but  very  indistinctly.  As  he  sat  he  seemed  to 
read  off  the  passing  thoughts — the  base,  common,  ordinary  im- 
pressions— of  every  one  else.  Could  such  a  man  be  at  ease  ? 
Could  even  a  quick  intellect  be  asked  to  set  in  order  with  such 
velocity  so  many  data?  Could  any  temper,  however  excellent, 
be  asked  to  bear  the  contemporaneous  influx  of  innumerable 
minute  annoyances  ?  Men  of  ordinary  nerves  who  feel  a  little 
of  the  pains  of  society,  who  perceive  what  really  passes,  who  are 
not  absorbed  in  the  petty  pleasures  of  sociability,  could  well 
observe  how  keen  was  Thackeray's  sensation  of  common  events, 
could  easily  understand  how  difficult  it  must  have  been  for  him 
to  keep  mind  and  temper  undisturbed  by  a  miscellaneous  tide 
at  once  so  incessant  and  so  forcible. 

He  could  not  emancipate  himself  from  such  impressions 
even  in  a  case  where  most  men  hardly  feel  them.  Many  people 
have — it  is  not  difficult  to  have — some  vague  sensitive  percep- 
tion of  what  is  passing  in  the  minds  of  the  guests,  of  the  ideas 
of  such  as  sit  at  meat ;  but  who  remembers  that  there  are  also 
nervous  apprehensions,  also  a  latent  mental  life  among  those 
who  '  stand  and  wait ' — among  the  floating  figures  which  pass 
and  carve  ?  But  there  was  no  impression  to  which  Mr.  Thack- 
eray was  more  constantly  alive,  or  which  he  was  more  apt  in  his 
writings  to  express.  He  observes  : 

*  Between  me  and  those  fellow-creatures  of  mine  who  are  sitting 
in  the  room  below,  how  strange  and  wonderful  is  the  partition  !  We 
meet  at  every  hour  of  the  daylight,  and  are  indebted  to  each  other  for 
a  hundred  offices  of  duty  and  comfort  of  life  ;  and  we  live  together 
for  years,  and  don't  know  each  other.  John's  voice  to  me  is  quite 
different  from  John's  voice  when  it  addresses  his  mates  below.  If  I 
met  Hannah  in  the  street  with  a  bonnet  on,  I  doubt  whether  I  should 
know  her.  And  all  these  good  people,  with  whom  I  may  live  for 
years  and  years,  have  cares,  interests,  dear  friendsand  relatives,  mayhap 
schemes,  passions,  longing  hopes,  tragedies  of  their  own,  from  which 
a  carpet  and  a  few  planks  and  beams  utterly  separate  me.  When  we 


140  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

were  at  the  sea- side,  and  poor  Ellen  used  to  look  so  pale,  and  run 
after  the  postman's  bell,  and  seize  a  letter  in  a  great  scrawling  hand, 
and  read  it,  and  cry  in  a  corner,  how  should  we  know  that  the  poor 
little  thing's  heart  was  breaking  ?  She  fetched  the  water,  and  she 
smoothed  the  ribbons,  and  she  laid  out  the  dresses,  and  brought  the 
early  cup  of  tea  in  the  morning,  just  as  if  she  had  had  no  cares  to  keep 
her  awake.  Henry  (who  lived  out  of  the  house)  was  the  servant  of  a 
friend  of  mine  who  lived  in  chambers.  There  was  a  dinner  one  day, 
and  Henry  waited  all  through  the  dinner.  The  champagne  was  pro- 
perly iced,  the  dinner  was  excellently  served  ;  every  guest  was  at- 
tended to ;  the  dinner  disappeared  ;  the  dessert  was  set ;  the  claret  was 
in  perfect  order,  carefully  decanted,  and  more  ready.  And  then 
Henry  said,  "  If  you  please,  sir,  may  I  go  home  ?  "  He  had  received 
word  that  his  house  was  on  fire  ;  and,  having  seen  through  his  dinner, 
he  wished  to  go  and  look  after  his  children  and  little  sticks  of  furni- 
ture. Why,  such  a  man's  livery  is  a  uniform  of  honour.  The  crest 
on  his  button  is  a  badge  of  bravery.' 

Nothing  in  itself  could  be  more  admirable  than  this  in- 
stinctive sympathy  with  humble  persons  ;  not  many  things  are 
rarer  than  this  nervous  apprehension  of  what  humble  persons 
think.  Nevertheless  it  cannot,  we  think,  be  effectually  denied 
that  it  coloured  Mr.  Thackeray's  writings  and  the  more  superfi- 
cial part  of  his  character — that  part  which  was  most  obvious 
in  common  and  current  society — with  very  considerable  defects. 
The  pervading  idea  of  the  *  Snob  Papers  '  is  too  frequent,  too 
recurring,  too  often  insisted  on,  even  in  his  highest  writings ; 
there  was  a  slight  shade  of  similar  feeling  even  in  his  occasional 
society,  and  though  it  was  certainly  unworthy  of  him,  it  was 
exceedingly  natural  that  it  should  be  so,  with  such  a  mind  as 
his  and  in  a  society  such  as  ours. 

There  are  three  methods  in  which  a  society  may  be  con- 
stituted. There  is  the  equal  system,  which,  with  more  or  less 
of  variation,  prevails  in  France  and  in  the  United  States.  The 
social  presumption  in  these  countries  always  is  that  every  one  is 
on  a  level  with  every  one  else.  In  America,  the  porter  at  the 
station,  the  shopman  at  the  counter,  the  boots  at  the  hotel, 
when  neither  a  Negro  nor  an  Irishman,  is  your  equal.  In 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  141 

France  egalite  is  a  political  first  principle.  The  whole  of  Louis 
Napoleon's  regime  depends  upon  it :  remove  that  feeling,  and 
the  whole  fabric  of  the  Empire  will  pass  away.  We  once  heard  a 
great  French  statesman  illustrate  this.  He  was  giving  a  dinner 
to  the  clergy  of  his  neighbourhood,  and  was  observing  that  he 
had  now  no  longer  the  power  to  help  or  hurt  them,  when  an 
eager  cure  said,  with  simple-minded  joy, '  Oui,  monsieur,  main- 
tenant  personne  ne  peut  rien,  ni  le  comte,  ni  le  proletaire.' 
The  democratic  priest  so  rejoiced  at  the  universal  levelling  which 
had  passed  over  his  nation,  that  he  could  not  help  boasting  of 
it  when  silence  would  have  been  much  better  manners.  We  are 
not  now  able — we  have  no  room  and  no  inclination — to  discuss 
the  advantages  of  democratic  society ;  but  we  think  in  England 
we  may  venture  to  assume  that  it  is  neither  the  best  nor  the 
highest  form  which  a  society  can  adopt,  and  that  it  is  certainly 
fatal  to  that  development  of  individual  originality  and  greatness 
by  which  the  past  progress  of  the  human  race  has  been  achieved, 
and  from  which  alone,  it  would  seem,  all  future  progress  is  to 
be  anticipated.  If  it  be  said  that  people  are  all  alike,  that 
the  world  is  a  plain  with  no  natural  valleys  and  no  natural  hills, 
the  picturesqueness  of  existence  is  destroyed,  and,  what,  is 
worse,  the  instinctive  emulation  by  which  the  dweller  in  the 
valley  is  stimulated  to  climb  the  hill  is  annihilated  and  becomes 
impossible. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  opposite  system,  which  pre- 
vails in  the  East, — the  system  of  irremovable  inequalities,  of 
hedged-in  castes,  which  no  one  can  enter  but  by  birth,  and  from 
which  no  born  member  can  issue  forth.  This  system  likewise, 
in  this  age  and  country,  needs  no  attack,  for  it  has  no  defenders. 
Every  one  is  ready  to  admit  that  it  cramps  originality,  by  de- 
fining our  work  irrespective  of  our  qualities  and  before  we  were 
born:  that  it  retards  progress,  by  restraining  the  wholesome 
competition  between  class  and  class,  and  the  wholesome  migra- 
tion from  class  to  class,  which  are  the  best  and  strongest  instru- 
ments of  social  improvement. 


142  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

And  if  both  these  systems  be  condemned  as  undesirable  and 
prejudicial,  there  is  no  third  system  except  that  which  we  have 
— the  system  of  removable  inequalities,  where  many  people  are 
inferior  to  and  worse  off  than  others,  but  in  which  each  may  in 
theory  hope  to  be  on  a  level  with  the  highest  below  the  throne, 
and  in  which  each  may  reasonably,  and  without  sanguine  im- 
practicability, hope  to  gain  one  step  in  social  elevation,  to  be 
at  last  on  a  level  with  those  who  at  first  were  just  above  them. 
But,  from  the  mere  description  of  such  a  society,  it  is  evident 
that,  taking  man  as  he  is,  with  the  faults  which  we  know  he  lias, 
and  the  tendencies  which  he  invariably  fU>plays,  some  poison  of 
4  snobbishness '  is  inevitable.  Let  us  define  it  as  the  habit  of 
'  pretending  to  be  higher  in  the  social  scale  than  you  really  are.' 
Everybody  will  admit  that  such  pretension  is  a  fault  and  a  vice, 
yet  every  observant  man  of  the  world  would  also  admit  that, 
considering  what  other  misdemeanours  men  commit,  this  offence 
is  not  inconceivably  heinous ;  and  that,  if  people  never  did  any 
thing  worse,  they  might  be  let  off  with  a  far  less  punitive 
judgment  than  in  the  actual  state  of  human  conduct  would  be 
just  or  conceivable.  How  are  we  to  hope  men  will  pass  their 
li\*es  in  putting  their  best  foot  foremost,  and  yet  will  never  boast 
that  their  better  foot  is  farther  advanced  and  more  perfect  than 
in  fact  it  is  ?  Is  boasting  to  be  made  a  capital  crime  ?  Given 
social  ambition  as  a  propensity  of  human  nature  ;  given  a  state 
of  society  like  ours,  in  which  there  are  prizes  which  every  man 
may  seek,  degradations  which  every  one  may  erase,  inequalities 
which  every  one  may  remove, — it  is  idle  to  suppose  that  there 
will  not  be  all  sorts  of  striving  to  cease  to  be  last  and  to  begin 
to  be  first,  and  it  is  equally  idle  to  imagine  that  all  such 
strivings  will  be  of  the  highest  kind.  This  effort  will  be,  like 
all  the  efforts  of  our  mixed  and  imperfect  human  nature,  partly 
good  and  partly  bad,  with  much  that  is  excellent  and  beneficial 
in  it,  and  much  also  which  is  debasing  and  pernicious.  The 
bad  striving  after  unpossessed  distinction  is  snobbishness,  which 
from  the  mere  definition  cannot  be  defended,  but  which  may  b« 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  143 

excused  as  a  natural  frailty  in  an  emulous  man  who  is  not  dis- 
tinguished, who  hopes  to  be  distinguished,  and  who  perceives 
that  a  valuable  means  of  gaining  distinction  is  a  judicious, 
though  false  pretension  that  it  has  already  been  obtained. 

Mr.  Thackeray,  as  we  think,  committed  two  errors  in  this 
matter.  He  lacerates  <  snobs'  in  his  books  as  if  they  had  com- 
mitted an  unpardonable  outrage  and  inexpiable  crime.  That 
man,  he  says,  is  anxious  '  to  know  lords  ;  and  he  pretends  to 
know  more  of  lords  than  he  really  does  know.  What  a  villain ! 
what  a  disgrace  to  our  common  nature  ;  what  an  irreparable 
reproach  to  human  reason  I '  Not  at  all ;  it  is  a  fault  which 
satirists  should  laugh  at,  and  which  moralists  condemn  and  dis- 
approve, but  which  yet  does  not  destroy  the  whole  vital  excel- 
lence of  him  who  possesses  it, — which  may  leave  him  a  good 
citizen,  a  pleasant  husband,  a  warm  friend;  'a  fellow,'  as  the 
undergraduate  said,  ;  up  in  his  morals.' 

In  transient  society  it  is  possible,  we  think,  that  Mr.  Thack- 
eray thought  too  much  of  social  inequalities.  They  belonged 
'to  that  common,  plain,  perceptible  world  which  filled  his  mind, 
and  which  left  him  at  times,  and  at  casual  moments,  no  room 
for  a  purely  intellectual  and  just  estimate  of  men  as  they  really 
are  in  themselves,  and  apart  from  social  perfection  or  defect. 
He  could  gauge  a  man's  reality  as  well  as  any  observe]-,  and  far 
better  than  most :  his  attainments  were  great,  his  perception  of 
men  instinctive,  his  knowledge  of  casual  matters  enormous ;  but 
he  had  a  greater  difficulty  than  other  men  in  relying  only  upon 
his  own  judgment.  'What  the  footman — what  Mr.  Yellow- 
plush  Jeames  would  think  and  say,'  could  not  but  occur  to  his 
mind,  and  would  modify,  not  his  settled  judgment,  but  his 
transient  and  casual  opinion  of  the  poet  or  philosopher.  By  the 
constitution  of  his  mind  he  thought  much  of  social  distinctions; 
and  yet  he  was  in  his  writings  too  severe  on  those  who,  in 
cruder  and  baser  ways,  showed  that  they  also  were  thinking 
much. 

Those  who  peneive  that  this  irritable  sensibility  was  the 


144  Sterne  and  Thackeray. 

basis  of  Thackeray's  artistic  character,  that  it  gave  him  his  ma- 
terials, his  implanted  knowledge  of  things  and  men,  and  gave 
him  also  that  keen  and  precise  style  which  hit  in  description 
the  nice  edges  of  all  objects, — those  who  trace  these  great  qua- 
lities back  to  their  real  source  in  a  somewhat  painful  organisa- 
tion, must  have  been  vexed  or  amused,  according  to  their 
temperament,  at  the  common  criticism  which  associates  him 
•with  Fielding.  Fielding's  essence  was  the  very  reverse ;  it  was 
a  bold  spirit  of  bounding  happiness.  No  just  observer  could 
talk  to  Mr.  Thackeray,  or  look  at  him,  without  seeing  that  he 
had  deeply  felt  many  sorrows — perhaps  that  he  was  a  man 
likely  to  feel  sorrows — that  he  was  of  an  anxious  temperament. 
Fielding  was  a  reckless  enjoyer.  He  saw  the  world — wealth 
and  glory,  the  best  dinner  and  the  worst  dinner,  the  gilded 
salon  and  the  low  sponging-house — and  he  saw  that  they  were 
good.  Down  every  line  of  his  characteristic  writings  there  runs 
this  elemental  energy  of  keen  delight.  There  is  no  trace  of 
such  a  thing  in  Thackeray.  A  musing  fancifulness  is  far  m  re 
characteristic  of  him  than  a  joyful  energy. 

Sterne  had  all  this  sensibility  also,  but — and  this  is  the 
cardinal  discrepancy — it  did  not  make  him  irritable.  He  was 
not  hurried  away,  like  Fielding,  by  buoyant  delight ;  he  stayed 
and  mused  on  painful  scenes.  But  they  did  not  make  him 
angry.  He  was  not  irritated  at  the  '  foolish  fat  scullion.'  He 
did  not  vex  himself  because  of  the  vulgar.  He  did  not  amass 
petty  details  to  prove  that  tenth-rate  people  were  ever  striving 
to  be  ninth -rate  people.  He  had  no  tendency  to  rub  the  bloom 
off  life.  He  accepted  pretty-looking  things,  even  the  French 
aristocracy,  and  he  owes  his  immortality  to  his  making  them 
prettier  than  they  are.  Thackeray  was  pained  by  things,  and 
exaggerated  their  imperfections;  Sterne  brooded  over  things 
with  joy  or  sorrow,  and  he  idealised  their  sentiment — their  pa- 
thetic or  joyful  characteristics.  This  is  why  the  old  lady  said, 
*  Mr.  Thackeray  was  an  uncomfortable  writer,' — and  an  uncom- 
fortable writer  he  is. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  145 

Nor  had  Sterne  a  trace  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  peculiar  and  cha- 
racteristic scepticism.  He  accepted  simply  the  pains  and  plea- 
sures, the  sorrows  and  the  joys  of  the  world  ;  he  was  not  per- 
plexed by  them,  nor  did  he  seek  to  explain  them,  or  account  for 
them.  There  is  a  tinge — a  mitigated,  but  perceptible  tinge — 
of  Swift's  philosophy  in  Thackeray.  e  Why  is  all  this  ?  Surely 
this  is  very  strange  ?  Am  I  right  in  sympathising  with  such 
stupid  feelings,  such  petty  sensations  ?  Why  are  these  things  ? 
Am  I  not  a  fool  to  care  about  or  think  of  them  ?  The  world  is 
dark,  and  the  great  curtain  hides  from  us  all.'  This  is  not  a 
steady  or  an  habitual  feeling,  but  it  is  never  quite  absent  for 
many  pages.  It  was  inevitable,  perhaps,  that  in  a  sceptical 
and  inquisitive  age  like  this,  some  vestiges  of  puzzle  and  per- 
plexity should  pass  into  the  writings  of  our  great  sentimentalist. 
He  would  not  have  fairly  represented  the  moods  of  his  time  if 
he  omitted  that  pervading  one. 

We  had  a  little  more  to  say  of  these  great  men,  but  our 
limits  are  exhausted,  and  we  must  pause.  Of  Thackeray  it  is 
too  early  to  speak  at  length.  A  certain  distance  is  needful  for 
a  just  criticism.  The  present  generation  have  learned  too  much 
from  him  to  be  able  to  judge  him  rightly.  We  do  not  know 
the  merit  of  those  great  pictures  which  have  sunk  into  our 
mindsy  and  which  have  coloured  our  thoughts,  which  are  become 
habitual  memories.  In  the  books  we  know  best,  as  in  the  people 
we  know  best,  small  points,  sometimes  minor  merits,  sometimes 
small  faults,  have  an  undue  prominence.  When  the  young 
critics  of  this  year  have  gray  hairs,  their  children  will  tell  them 
what  is  the  judgment  of  posterity  upon  Mr.  Thackeray. 


VOL.    II. 


146 


THE    WAVERLEY  NOVELS.1 

(1858.) 

IT  is  not  commonly  on  the  generation  which  was  contemporary 
with  the  production  of  great  works  of  art  that  they  exercise 
their  most  magical  influence.  Nor  is  it  on  the  distant  people 
whom  we  call  posterity.  Contemporaries  bring  to  new  books 
formed  mind?  and  stiffened  creeds  ;  posterity,  if  it  regard  them 
at  all,  looks  at  them  as  old  subjects,  worn-out  topics,  and  hears 
a  disputation  on  their  merits  with  languid  impartiality,  like 
aged  judges  in  a  court  of  appeal.  Even  standard  authors  exer- 
cise but  slender  influence  on  the  susceptible  minds  of  a  rising 
generation  ;  they  are  become  *  papa's  books ; '  the  walls  of  the 
library  are  adorned  with  their  regular  volumes ;  but  no  hand 
touches  them.  Their  fame  is  itself  half  an  obstacle  to  their 
popularity ;  a  delicate  fancy  shrinks  from  employing  so  great  a 
celebrity  as  the  companion  of  an  idle  hour.  The  generation 
which  is  really  most  influenced  by  a  work  of  genius  is  commonly 
that  which  is  still  young  when  the  first  controversy  respecting 
its  merits  arises  ;  with  the  eagerness  of  youth  they  read  and 
re-read;  their  vanity  is  not  unwilling  to  adjudicate:  in  the 

1  ZAbrary  Edition.  Illustrated  by  upwards  of  Two  Hundred  Engravings 
on  Steel,  after  Drawings  by  Turner,  Landseer,  Wilkie,  Stanfield,  Eoberts,  &c. 
including  Portraits  of  the  Historical  Personages  described  in  the  Novels. 
25  vols.  demy  8vo. 

Abbotsford  Edition.     With  One  Hundred  and  Twenty  Engravings  on  Steel, 
and  nearly  Two  Thousand  on  Wood.     12  vols.  super-royal  8vo. 
Author's  favourite  Edition.     48  vols.  post  8vo. 

Cabinet  Edition.     25  vols.  foolscap  8vo. 

Railway  Edition.  Now  publishing,  and  to  be  completed  in  25  portable 
volumes,  large  type. 

Peoples  Edition.     5  large  volumes  royal  8vo. 


The    Waver  ley  Novels.  147 

process  their  imagination  is  formed  ;  the  creations  of  the  author 
range  themselves  in  the  memory ;  they  become  part  of  the 
substance  of  the  very  mind.  The  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  gone  through  this  exact  process. 
Their  immediate  popularity  was  unbounded.  No  one — a  few 
most  captious  critics  apart — ever  questioned  their  peculiar  power. 
Still  they  are  subject  to  a  transition,  which  is  in  principle  the 
same.  At  the  time  of  their  publication  mature  contemporaries 
read  them  with  delight.  Superficial  the  reading  of  grown  men 
in  some  sort  must  be ;  it  is  only  once  in  a  lifetime  that  we  can 
know  the  passionate  reading  of  youth ;  men  soon  lose  its  eager 
learning  power.  But  from  peculiarities  in  their  structure,  which 
we  shall  try  to  indicate,  the  novels  of  Scott  suffered  less  than 
almost  any  book  of  equal  excellence  from  this  inevitable  super- 
ficiality of  perusal.  Their  plain,  and,  so  to  say,  cheerful  merits 
suit  the  occupied  man  of  genial  middle  life.  Their  apprecia- 
tion was  to  an  unusual  degree  coincident  with  their  popularity. 
The  next  generation,  hearing  the  praises  of  their  fathers  in  their 
earliest  reading  time,  seized  with  avidity  on  the  volumes ;  and 
there  is  much  in  very  many  of  them  which  is  admirably  fitted 
for  the  delight  of  boyhood.  A  third  generation  has  now  risen 
into  at  least  the  commencement  of  literary  life,  which  is  quite 
removed  from  the  unbounded  enthusiasm  with  which  the  Scotch 
novels  were  originally  received,  and  does  not  always  share  the  still 
more  eager  partiality  of  those  who,  in  the  opening  of  their  minds, 
first  received  the  tradition  of  their  excellence.  New  books  have 
arisen  to  compete  with  these  ;  new  interests  distract  us  from 
them.  The  time,  therefore,  is  not  perhaps  unfavourable  for  a 
slight  criticism  of  these  celebrated  fictions ;  and  their  con- 
tinual republication,  without  any  criticism  for  many  years, 
seems  almost  to  demand  it. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  fiction  which,  though  in  common 
literature  they  may  run  very  much  into  one  another,  are  yet  in 
reality  distinguishable  and  separate.  One  of  these,  which  we 
may  call  the  ubiquitous,  aims  at  describing  the  whole  of  human 

L    2 


148  The    Waver  ley  Novels. 

life  in  all  its  spheres,  in  all  its  aspects,  with  all  its  varied  inte- 
rests, aims,  and  objects.  It  searches  through  the  whole  life  of 
man  ;  his  practical  pursuits,  his  speculative  attempts,  his  ro- 
mantic youth,  and  his  domestic  age.  It  gives  an  entire  picture 
of  all  these  ;  or  if  there  be  any  lineaments  which  it  forbears  to 
depict,  they  are  only  such  as  the  inevitable  repression  of  a  regu- 
lated society  excludes  from  the  admitted  province  of  literary 
art.  Of  this  kind  are  the  novels  of  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage, 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  Smollett  or  Fielding.  In  our  own 
time,  Mr.  Dickens  is  an  author  whom  nature  intended  to  write 
to  a  certain  extent  with  this  aim.  He  should  have  given  us 
not  disjointed  novels,  with  a  vague  attempt  at  a  romantic  plot, 
but  sketches  of  diversified  scenes,  and  the  obvious  life  of  varied 
mankind.  The  literary  fates,  however,  if  such  beings  there  are, 
allotted  otherwise.  By  a  very  terrible  example  of  the  way  in 
which  in  this  world  great  interests  are  postponed  to  little  ones, 
the  genius  of  authors  is  habitually  sacrificed  to  the  tastes  of 
readers.  In  this  age,  the  great  readers  of  fiction  are  young 
people.  The  '  addiction '  of  these  is  to  romance ;  and  accord- 
ingly a  kind  of  novel  has  become  so  familiar  to  us  as  almost 
to  engross  the  name,  which  deals  solely  with  the  passion  of  love ; 
and  if  it  uses  other  parts  of  human  life  for  the  occasions  of  its 
art,  it  does  so  only  cursorily  and  occasionally,  and  with  a  view 
of  throwing  into  a  stronger  or  more  delicate  light  those  senti- 
mental parts  of  earthly  affairs  which  are  the  special  objects  of 
delineation.  All  prolonged  delineation  of  other  parts  of  human 
life  is  considered  fc  dry,'  stupid,  and  distracts  the  mind  of  the 
youthful  generation  from  the  '  fantasies '  which  peculiarly  charm 
it.  Mr.  Olmstead  has  a  story  of  some  deputation  of  the  Indians, 
at  which  the  American  orator  harangued  the  barbarian  audience 
about  the  'great  spirit,'  and  '  the  land  of  their  fathers,'  in  the 
style  of  Mr.  Cooper's  novels  ;  during  a  moment's  pause  in  the 
great  stream,  an  old  Indian  asked  the  deputation,  4  Why  does 
your  chief  speak  thus  to  us  ?  We  did  not  wish  great  instruction 
or  fine  words  ;  we  desire  brandy  and  tobacco.'  No  critic  in  a 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  149 

time  of  competition  will  speak  uncourteously  of  any  reader  of 
either  sex ;  but  it  is  indisputable  that  the  old  kind  of  novel, 
full  of  '  great  instruction '  and  varied  pictures,  does  not  afford 
to  some  young  gentlemen  and  some  young  ladies  either  the 
peculiar  stimulus  or  the  peculiar  solace  which  they  desire. 

The  Waverley  Novels  were  published  at  a  time  when  the 
causes  that  thus  limit  the  sphere  of  fiction  were  coming  into 
operation,  but  when  they  had  not  yet  become  so  omnipotent  as 
they  are  now.  Accordingly,  these  novels  everywhere  bear  marks 
of  a  state  of  transition.  They  are  not  devoted  with  anything  like 
the  present  exclusiveness  to  the  sentimental  part  of  human  life. 
They  describe  great  events,  singular  characters,  strange  accidents, 
strange  states  of  society ;  they  dwell  with  a  peculiar  interest — and 
as  if  for  their  own  sake — on  antiquarian  details  relating  to  a  past 
society.  Singular  customs,  social  practices,  even  political  in- 
stitutions which  existed  once  in  Scotland,  and  even  elsewhere, 
during  the  middle  ages,  are  explained  with  a  careful  minuteness. 
At  the  tame  time  the  sentimental  element  assumes  a  great  deal 
of  prominence.  The  book  is  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  theory,  a 
narrative  of  the  feelings  and  fortunes  of  the  hero  and  heroine. 
An  attempt  more  or  less  successful  has  been  made  to  insert  an 
interesting  love-story  in  each  novel.  Sir  Walter  was  quite 
aware  that  the  best  delineation  of  the  oddest  characters,  or  the' 
most  quaint  societies,  or  the  strangest  incidents,  would  not  in 
general  satisfy  his  readers.  He  has  invariably  attempted  an 
account  of  youthful,  sometimes  of  decidedly  juvenile,  feelings 
and  actions.  The  difference  between  Sir  Walter's  novels  and 
the  specially  romantic  fictions  of  the  present  day  is,  that  in  the 
former  the  love-story  is  always,  or  nearly  always,  connected  with 
some  great  event,  or  the  fortunes  of  some  great  historical  cha- 
racter, or  the  peculiar  movements  and  incidents  of  some  strange 
state  of  society ;  and  that  the  author  did  not  suppose  or  expect 
that  his  readers  would  be  so  absorbed  in  the  sentimental  aspect 
of  human  life  as  to  be  unable  or  unwilling  to  be  interested  in, 
or  to  attend  to,  any  other.  There  is  always  a  locus  in  quo,  if 


150  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

the  expression  may  be  pardoned,  in  the  Waverley  Novels.  The 
hero  and  heroine  walk  among  the  trees  of  the  forest  according 
to  rule,  but  we  are  expected  to  take  an  interest  in  the  forest  as 
well  as  in  them. 

No  novel,  therefore,  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  can  be  considered 
to  come  exactly  within  the  class  which  we  have  called  the  ubi- 
quitous. None  of  them  in  any  material  degree  attempts  to 
deal  with  human  affairs  in  all  their  spheres — to  delineate  as  a 
whole  the  life  of  man.  The  canvas  has  a  large  background,  in 
some  cases  too  large  either  for  artistic  effect  or  the  common 
reader's  interest ;  but  there  are  always  real  boundaries — Sir 
Walter  had  no  thesis  to  maintain.  Scarcely  any  writer  will  set 
himself  to  delineate  the  whole  of  human  life,  unless  he  has  a 
doctrine  concerning  human  life  to  put  forth  and  inculcate.  The 
effort  is  doctrinaire.  Scott's  imagination  was  strictly  conserva- 
tive. He  could  understand  (with  a  few  exceptions)  any  con- 
siderable movement  of  human  life  and  action,  and  could  always 
describe  with  easy  freshness  everything  which  he  did  under- 
stand ;  but  he  was  not  obliged  by  stress  of  fanaticism  to  main- 
tain a  dogma  concerning  them,  or  to  show  their  peculiar  relation 
to  the  general  sphere  of  life.  He  described  vigorously  and  boldly 
the  peculiar  scene  and  society  which  in  every  novel  he  had 
selected  as  the  theatre  of  romantic  action.  Partly  from  their 
fidelity  to  nature,  and  partly  from  a  consistency  in  the  artist's 
mode  of  representation,  these  pictures  group  themselves  from 
the  several  novels  in  the  imagination,  and  an  habitual  reader 
comes  to  think  of  and  understand  what  is  meant  by  '  Scott's 
world ; '  but  the  writer  had  no  such  distinct  object  before  him. 
No  one  novel  was  designed  to  be  a  delineation  of  the  world  as 
Scott  viewed  it.  We  have  vivid  and  fragmentary  histories  ;  it 
is  for  the  slow  critic  of  after-times  to  piece  together  their 
teaching. 

From  this  intermediate  position  of  the  Waverley  Novels,  or 
at  any  rate  in  exact  accordance  with  its  requirements,  is  the 
special  characteristic  for  which  they  are  most  remarkable.  We 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  151 

may  call  this  in  a  brief  phrase  their  romantic  sense-,  and 
perhaps  we  cannot  better  illustrate  it  than  by  a  quotation  from 
the  novel  to  which  the  series  owes  its  most  usual  name.  It 
occurs  in  the  description  of  the  Court  ball  which  Charles  Edward 
is  described  as  giving  at  Holy  rood  House  the  night  before  his 
march  southward  on  his  strange  adventure.  The  striking  in- 
terest of  the  scene  before  him,  and  the  peculiar  position  of  his 
own  sentimental  career,  are  described  as  influencing  the  mind 
of  the  he~o. 

4  Under  the  influence  of  these  mixed  sensations,  and  cheered  at 
times  by  a  smile  of  intelligence  and  approbation  from  the  Prince  as 
he  passed  the  group,  Waverley  exerted  his  powers  of  fancy,  anima- 
tion, and  eloquence,  and  attracted  the  general  admiration  of  the 
company.  The  conversation  gradually  assumed  the  line  best  qualified 
for  the  display  of  his  talents  and  acquisitions.  The  gaiety  of  the 
evening  was  exalted  in  character,  rather  than  checked,  by  the  ap- 
proaching dangers  of  the  morrow.  All  nerves  were  strung  for  the 
future,  and  prepared  to  enjoy  the  present.  This  mood  is  highly 
favourable  for  the  exercise  of  the  powers  of  imagination,  for  poetry, 
and  for  that  eloquence  which  is  allied  to  poetry/ 

Neither  'eloquence  '  nor  'poetry  '  are  the  exact  words  with 
which  it  would  be  appropriate  to  describe  the  fresh  style  of 
the  Waverley  Novels ;  but  the  imagination  of  their  author 
was  stimulated  by  a  fancied  mixture  of  sentiment  and  fact, 
very  much  as  he  describes  Waverley's  to  have  been  by  a  real 
experience  of  the  two  at  once.  The  second  volume  of  Waverley 
is  one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  of  this  peculiarity. 
The  character  of  Charles  Edward,  his  adventurous  undertaking, 
his  ancestral  rights,  the  mixed  selfishness  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  Highland  chiefs,  the  fidelity  of  their  hereditary  followers, 
their  striking  and  strange  array,  the  contrast  with  the  Baron 
of  Bradwardine  and  the  Lowland  gentry ;  the  collision  of  the 
motley  and  half-appointed  host  with  the  formed  and  finished 
English  society,  its  passage  by  the  Cumberland  mountains 
and  the  blue  lake  of  Ullswater — are  unceasingly  and  with- 


152  The   Waverley  Novels. 

out  effort  present  to  the  mind  of  the  writer,  and  incite  with 
their  historical  interest  the  susceptibility  of  his  imagination. 
But  at  the  same  time  the  mental  struggle,  or  rather  transition, 
in  the  mind  of  Waverley — for  his  mind  was  of  the  faint  order 
which  scarcely  struggles — is  never  for  an  instant  lost  sight  of. 
In  the  very  midst  of  the  inroad  and  the  conflict,  the  acquiescent 
placidity  with  which  the  hero  exchanges  the  service  of  the  im- 
perious for  the  appreciation  of  the  '  nice  '  heroine,  is  kept  before 
us,  and  the  imagination  of  Scott  wandered  without  effort  from 
the  great  scene  of  martial  affairs  to  the  natural  but  rather 
unheroic  sentiments  of  a  young  gentleman  not  very  difficult  to 
please.  There  is  no  trace  of  effort  in  the  transition,  as  is  so 
common  in  the  inferior  works  of  later  copyists.  Many  historical 
novelists,  especially  those  who  with  care  and  pains  have  '  read 
up '  their  detail,  are  often  evidently  in  a  strait  how  to  pass  from 
their  history  to  their  sentiment.  The  fancy  of  Sir  Walter  could 
not  help  connecting  the  two.  If  he  had  given  us  the  English 
side  of  the  race  to  Derby,  he  would  have  described  the  Bank  of 
England  paying  in  sixpences,  and  also  the  loves  of  the  cashier. 

It  is  not  unremarkable  in  connection  with  this,  the  special 
characteristic  of  the  'Scotch  novels/  that  their  author  began 
his  literary  life  by  collecting  the  old  ballads  of  his  native 
country.  Ballad  poetry  is,  in  comparison  at  least  with  many 
other  kinds  of  poetry,  a  sensible  thing.  It  describes  not  only 
romantic  events,  but  historical  ones,  incidents  in  which  there  is 
a  form  and  body  and  consistence — events  which  have  a  result. 
Such  a  poem  as  ( Chevy  Chace,'  we  need  not  explain,  has  its 
prosaic  side.  The  latest  historian  of  Greece  has  nowhere  been 
more  successful  than  in  his  attempt  to  derive  from  Homer,  the 
greatest  of  ballad  poets,  a  thorough  and  consistent  account  of 
the  political  working  of  the  Homeric  state  of  society.  The 
early  natural  imagination  of  men  seizes  firmly  on  all  which  in- 
terests the  minds  and  hearts  of  natural  men.  We  find  in  its 
delineations  the  council  as  well  as  the  marriage  ;  the  harsh 
conflict  as  well  as  the  deep  love-affair.  Scott's  own  poetry  is 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  153 

essentially  a  modernised  edition  of  the  traditional  poems  which 
his  early  youth  was  occupied  in  collecting.  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake  is  a  sort  of  boudoir  ballad,  yet  it  contains  its  element  of 
common  sense  and  broad  delineation.  The  exact  position  of 
Lowlander  and  Highlander  would  not  be  more  aptly  described 
in  a  set  treatise  than  in  the  well-known  lines : 

'  Saxon,  from  yonder  mountain  high 
I  marked  thee  send  delighted  eye 
Far  to  the  south  and  east,  where  lay, 
Extended  in  succession  gay, 
Deep  waving  fields  and  pastures  green, 
With  gentle  slopes  and  groves  between  : 
These  fertile  plains,  that  softened  vale. 
Were  once  the  birthright  of  the  Gael. 
The  stranger  came  with  iron  hand, 
And  from  our  fathers  reft  the  land. 
Where  dwell  we  now  !    See,  rudely  sweL 
Crag  over  crag,  and  fell  o'er  fell. 
Ask  we  this  savage  hill  we  tread, 
For  fattened  steer  or  household  bread  ; 
Ask  we  for  flocks  these  shingles  dry, — 
And  well  the  mountain  might  reply  : 
To  you,  as  to  your  sires  of  yore, 
Belong  the  target  and  claymore  ; 
I  give  you  shelter  in  my  breast, 
Your  own  good  blades  must  win  the  rest. 
Pent  in  this  fortress  of  the  North, 
Think'st  thou  we  will  not  sally  forth 
To  spoil  the  spoiler  as  we  may, 
And  from  the  robber  rend  the  prey  ? 
Ay,  by  my  soul  !     While  on  yon  plain 
The  Saxon  rears  one  shock  of  grain  ; 
While  of  ten  thousand  herds  there  strays 
But  one  along  yon  river's  maze  ; 
The  Gael,  of  plain  and  river  heir, 
Shall  with  strong  hand  redeem  his  share. 

We  need  not  search  the  same  poem  for  specimens  of  the  romantic 
element,  for  the  whole  poem  is  full  of  them.  The  incident  in 


154  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

which  Ellen  discovers  who  Fitz-James  really  is,  is  perhaps  ex- 
cessively romantic.  At  any  rate  the  lines,— 

'  To  him  each  lady's  look  was  lent ; 
On  him  each  courtier's  eye  was  bent ; 
Midst  furs  and  silks  and  jewels  sheen, 
He  stood  in  simple  Lincoln  green, 
The  centre  of  the  glittering  ring, 
And  Snowdoun's  knight  is  Scotland's  king/ — 

may  be  cited  as  very  sufficient  example  of  the  sort  of  sentimental 
incident  which  is  separable  from  extreme  feeling.  When  Scott, 
according  to  his  own  half-jesting  but  half-serious  expression, 
was  '  beaten  out  of  poetry '  by  Byron,  he  began  to  express  in 
more  pliable  prose  the  same  combination  which  his  verse  had 
been  used  to  convey.  As  might  have  been  expected,  the  sense 
became  in  the  novels  more  free,  vigorous,  and  flowing,  because 
it  is  less  cramped  by  the  vehicle  in  which  it  is  conveyed.  The 
range  of  character  which  can  be  adequately  delineated  in  nar- 
rative verse  is  much  narrower  than  that  which  can  be  described 
in  the  combination  of  narrative  with  dramatic  prose;  and 
perhaps  even  the  sentiment  of  the  novels  is  manlier  and  freer  ; 
a  delicate  unreality  hovers  over  the  Lady  of  the  Lake. 

The  sensible  element,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  of  the 
Waverley  Novels  appears  in  various  forms.  One  of  the  most 
striking  is  in  the  delineation  of  great  political  events  and  in- 
fluential political  institutions.  We  are  not  by  any  means  about 
to  contend  that  Scott  is  to  be  taken  as  an  infallible  or  an  im- 
partial authority  for  the  parts  of  history  which  he  delineates. 
On  the  contrary,  we  believe  all  the  world  now  agrees  that  there 
are  many  deductions  to  be  made  from,  many  exceptions  to  be 
taken  to,  the  accuracy  of  his  delineations.  Still,  whatever 
period  or  incident  we  take,  we  shall  always  find  in  the  error  a 
great,  in  one  or  two  cases  perhaps  an  extreme,  mixture  of  the 
mental  element  which  we  term  common  sense.  The  strongest 
imsensible  feeling  in  Scott  was  perhaps  his  Jacobitism,  which 
crept  out  even  in  small  incidents  and  recurring  prejudice 


The   Waverley  Novels.  155 

throughout  the  whole  of  his  active  career,  and  was,  so  to  say, 
the  emotional  aspect  of  his  habitual  Toryism.  Yet  no  one  can 
have  given  a  more  sensible  delineation,  we  might  say  a  more 
statesmanlike  analysis,  of  the  various  causes  which  led  to  the 
momentary  success,  and  to  the  speedy  ruin,  of  the  enterprise 
of  Charles  Edward.  Mr.  Lockhart  says,  that  notwithstanding 
Scott's  imaginative  readiness  to  exalt  Scotland  at  the  expense 
of  England,  no  man  would  have  been  more  willing  to  join  in 
emphatic  opposition  to  an  anti-English  party,  if  any  such  had 
presented  itself  with  a  practical  object.  Similarly  his  Jaco- 
bitism,  though  not  without  moments  of  real  influence,  passed 
away  when  his  mind  was  directed  to  broad  masses  of  fact,  and 
general  conclusions  of  political  reasoning.  A  similar  observa- 
tion may  be  made  as  to  Scott's  Toryism  ;  although  it  is  certain 
that  there  was  an  enthusiastic,  and,  in  the  malicious  sense, 
poetical  element  in  Scott's  Toryism,  yet  quite  as  indisputably  it 
partook  largely  of  two  other  elements,  which  are  in  common 
repute  prosaic.  He  shared  abundantly  in  the  love  of  adminis- 
tration and  organisation,  common  to  all  men  of  great  active 
powers.  He  liked  to  contemplate  method  at  work  and  order  in 
action.  Everybody  hates  to  hear  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
asked  '  how  the  king's  government  was  to  be  carried  on.'  No 
amount  of  warning  wisdom  will  bear  so  fearful  a  repetition. 
Still  he  did  say  it,  and  Scott  had  a  sympathising  foresight  of 
the  oracle  before  it  was  spoken.  One  element  of  his  conserva- 
tism is  his  sympathy  with  the  administrative  arrangement, 
which  is  confused  by  the  objections  of  a  Whiggish  opposition 
and  is  liable  to  be  altogether  destroyed  by  uprisings  of  the 
populace.  His  biographer,  while  pointing  out  the  strong 
contrast  between  Scott  and  the  argumentative  and  parlia- 
mentary statesmen  of  his  age,  avows  his  opinion  that  in  other 
times,  and  with  sufficient  opportunities,  Scott's  ability  in 
managing  men  would  have  enabled  him  to  '  play  the  part  of 
Cecil  or  of  Gondomar.'  We  may  see  how  much  a  suppressed 
enthusiasm  for  such  abilities  breaks  out,  not  only  in  the  de- 


156  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

scription  of  hereditary  monarchs,  where  the  sentiment  might 
be  ascribed  to  a  different  origin,  but  also  in  the  delineation  of 
upstart  rulers,  who  could  have  no  hereditary  sanctity  in  the  eyes 
of  any  Tory.  Roland  Graeme,  in  the  Abbot,  is  well  described 
as  losing  in  the  presence  of  the  Regent  Murray  the  natural 
impertinence  of  his  disposition.  '  He  might  have  braved  with 
indifference  the  presence  of  an  earl  merely  distinguished  by  his 
belt  and  coionet ;  but  he  felt  overawed  in  that  of  the  soldier 
and  statesman,  the  wi elder  of  a  nation's  power,  and  the  leader 
of  her  armies.'  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the  author  shares 
the  feeling  of  his  hero  by  the  evident  pleasure  with  which  he 
dwells  on  the  Regent's  demeanour :  '  He  then  turned  slowly 
round  toward  Roland  Grrseme,  and  the  marks  of  gaiety,  real  or 
assumed,  disappeared  from  his  countenance  as  completely  as  the 
passing  bubbles  leave  the  dark  mirror  of  a  still  profound  lake 
into  which  the  traveller  has  cast  a  stone ;  in  the  course  of  a 
minute  his  noble  features  had  assumed  their  natural  expression 
of  melancholy  gravity,'  &c.  In  real  life,  Scott  used  to  say,  that 
he  never  remembered  feeling  abashed  in  any  one's  presence 
except  the  Duke  of  Wellington's.  Like  that  of  the  hero  of  his 
novel,  his  imagination  was  very  susceptible  to  the  influence  of 
great  achievements  and  prolonged  success  in  wide-spreading 
affairs. 

The  view  which  Scott  seems  to  have  taken  of  democracy 
indicates  exactly  the  same  sort  of  application  of  a  plain  sense  to 
the  visible  parts  of  the  subject.  His  imagination  was  singularly 
penetrated  with  the  strange  varieties  and  motley  composition  of 
human  life.  The  extraordinary  multitude  and  striking  contrast 
of  the  characters  in  his  novels  show  this  at  once.  And  even 
more  strikingly  is  the  same  habit  of  mind  indicated  '  by  a  ten- 
dency never  to  omit  an  opportunity  of  describing  those  varied 
crowds  and  assemblages,'  which  concentrate  for  a  moment  into  a 
unity  the  scattered  and  unlike  varieties  of  mankind.  Thus,  but 
a  page  or  two  before  the  passage  which  we  alluded  to  in  the 
Abbot,  we  find  the  following : 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  157 

*  It  was  indeed  no  common  sight  to  Roland,  the  vestibule  of  a 
palace,  traversed  by  its  various  groups, — some  radiant  with  gaiety — 
some  pensive,  and  apparently  weighed  down  by  affairs  concerning  the 
State,  or  concerning  themselves.  Here  the  hoary  statesman,  with  his 
cautious  yet  commanding  look,  his  furred  cloak  and  sable  pantoufles ; 
there  the  soldier  in  buff  and  steel,  his  long  sword  jarring  against  the 
pavement,  and  his  whiskered  upper  lip  and  frowning  brow  looking 
an  habitual  defiance  of  danger,  which  perhaps  was  not  always  made 
good  ;  there  again  passed  my  lord's  serving-man,  high  of  heart  and 
bloody  of  hand,  humble  to  his  master  and  his  master's  equals,  insolent 
to  all  others.  To  these  might  be  added  the  poor  suitor,  with  his 
anxious  look  and  depressed  mien — the  officer,  full  of  his  brief  au- 
thority, elbowing  his  betters,  and  possibly  his  benefactors,  out  of  the 
road— the  proud  priest,  who  sought  a  better  benefice—  the  proud 
baron,  who  sought  a  grant  of  church  lands — the  robber  chief,  who 
came  to  solicit  a  pardon  for  the  injuries  he  had  inflicted  on  his  neigh- 
bours— the  plundered  franklin,  who  came  to  seek  vengeance  for  that 
which  he  had  himself  received.  Besides,  there  was  the  mustering  and 
disposition  of  guards  and  soldiers — the  despatching  of  messengers, 
and  the  receiving  them — the  trampling  and  neighing  of  horses  with- 
out the  gate — the  flashing  of  arms,  and  rustling  of  plumes,  and  jing- 
ling of  spurs  within  it.  In  short,  it  was  that  gay  and  splendid 
confusion,  in  which  the  eye  of  youth  sees  all  that  is  brave  and  brilliant, 
and  that, of  experience  much  that  is  doubtful,  deceitful,  false,  and 
hollow — hopes  that  will  never  be  gratified — promises  which  will  never 
be  fulfilled — pride  in  the  disguise  of  humility — and  insolence  in  that 
of  frank  and  generous  bounty.' 

As  in  the  imagination  of  Shakespeare,  so  in  that  of  Scott, 
the  principal  form  and  object  were  the  structure— that  is  a 
hard  word— the  undulation  and  diversified  composition  of 
human  society;  the  picture  of  this  stood  in  the  centre,  and 
everything  else  was  accessory  and  secondary  to  it.  The  old 
'rows  of  books,'  in  which  Scott  so  peculiarly  delighted,  were 
made  to  contribute  their  element  to  this  varied  imagination  of 
humanity.  From  old  family  histories,  odd  memoirs,  old  law- 
trials,  his  fancy  elicited  new  traits  to  add  to  the  motley  assem- 
blage. His  objection  to  democracy— an  objection  of  which  we 
can  only  appreciate  the  emphatic  force,  when  we  remember  that 


158  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

his  youth  was  contemporary  with  the  first  French  Eevolution, 
and  the  controversy  as  to  the  uniform  and  stereotyped  rights  of 
man — was,  that  it  would  sweep  away  this  entire  picture,  level 
prince  and  peasant  in  a  common  egalite, — substitute  a  scientific 
rigidity  for  the  irregular  and  picturesque  growth  of  centuries, 
— replace  an  abounding  and  genial  life  by  a  symmetrical  but 
lifeless  mechanism.  All  the  descriptions  of  society  in  the  novels, 
— whether  of  feudal  society,  of  modern  Scotch  society,  or  of 
English  society, — are  largely  coloured  by  this  feeling.  It  peeps 
out  everywhere,  and  liberal  critics  have  endeavoured  to  show 
that  it  was  a  narrow  Toryism  ;  but  in  reality,  it  is  a  subtle  com- 
pound of  the  natural  instinct  of  the  artist  with  the  plain  sagacity 
of  the  man  of  the  world. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  show  how  clearly  the  same  sagacity 
appears  in  his  delineation  of  the  various  great  events  and  move- 
ments in  society  which  are  described  in  the  Scotch  novels. 
There  is  scarcely  one  of  them  which  does  not  bear  it  on  its 
surface.  Objections  may,  as  we  shall  show,  be  urged  to  the 
delineation  which  Scott  has  given  of  the  Puritan  resistance  and 
rebellions,  yet  scarcely  any  one  will  say  there  is  not  a  worldly 
sense  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  objection  is,  that  it  is 
too  worldly,  and  far  too  exclusively  sensible. 

The  same  thoroughly  well-grounded  sagacity  and  comprehen- 
sive appreciation  of  human  life  is  shown  in  the  treatment  of 
what  we  may  call  anomalous  characters.  In  general,  monstro- 
sity is  no  topic  for  art.  Every  one  has  known  in  real  life 
characters  which  if,  apart  from  much  experience,  he  had  found 
described  in  books,  he  would  have  thought  unnatural  and 
impossible.  Scott,  however,  abounds  in  such  characters.  Meg 
Merrilies,  Edie  Ochiltree,  Radcliffe,  are  more  or  less  of  that 
description.  That  of  Meg  Merrilies  especially  is  as  distorted 
and  eccentric  as  anything  can  be.  Her  appearance  is  described 
as  making  Mannering  '  start ;'  and  well  it  might. 

*  She  was  full  six  feet  high,  wore  a  man's  greatcoat  over  the  rest 
of  her  dress,  had  in  her  hand  a  goodly  sloethorn  cudgel,  and  in  all 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  159 

points  of  equipment  except  her  petticoats  seemed  rather  masculine 
than  feminine.  Her  dark  elf-locks  shot  out  like  the  snakes  of  the 
gorgon  between  an  old-fashioned  bonnet  called  a  bongrace,  heighten- 
ing the  singular  effect  of  her  strong  and  weather-beaten  features,  which 
they  partly  shadowed,  while  her  eye  had  a  wild  roll  that  indicated 
something  of  insanity.' 

Her  career  in  the  tale  corresponds  with  the  strangeness  of 
her  exterior.  '  Harlot,  thief,  witch,  and  gipsy,'  as  she  de- 
scribes herself,  the  hero  is  preserved  by  her  virtues ;  half- 
crazed  as  she  is  described  to  be,  he  owes  his  safety  on  more 
than  one  occasion  to  her  skill  in  stratagem,  and  ability  in 
managing  those  with  whom  she  is  connected,  and  who  are 
most  likely  to  be  familiar  with  her  weakness  and  to  detect 
her  craft.  Yet  on  hardly  any  occasion  is  the  natural  reader 
conscious  of  this  strangeness.  Something  is  of  course  attri- 
butable to  the  skill  of  the  artist ;  for  no  other  power  of  mind 
could  produce  the  effect,  unless  it  were  aided  by  the  uncon- 
scious tact  of  detailed  expression.  But  the  fundamental  ex- 
planation of  this  remarkable  success  is  the  distinctness  with 
which  Scott  saw  how  such  a  character  as  Meg  Merrilies  arose 
and  was  produced  out  of  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  gipsy 
life  in  the  localities  in  which  he  has  placed  his  scene.  He 
has  exhibited  this  to  his  readers  not  by  lengthy  or  elaborate 
description,  but  by  chosen  incidents,  short  comments,  and 
touches  of  which  he  scarcely  foresaw  the  effect.  This  is  the 
only  way  in  which  the  fundamental  objection  to  making  eccen- 
tricity the  subject  of  artistic  treatment  can  be  obviated.  Mon- 
strosity ceases  to  be  such  when  we  discern  the  laws  of  nature 
which  evolve  it :  when  a  real  science  explains  its  phenomena, 
we  find  that  it  is  in  strict  accordance  with  what  we  call  the 
natural  type,  but  that  some  rare  adjunct  or  uncommon  casualty 
has  interfered  and  distorted  a  nature  which  is  really  the  same, 
into  a  phenomenon  which  is  altogether  different.  Just  so  with 
eccentricity  in  human  character ;  it  becomes  a  topic  of  literary 
art  only  when  its  identity  with  the  ordinary  principles  of  human 


160  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

nature  is  exhibited  in  the  midst  of,  and  as  it  were  by  means  of, 
the  superficial  unlikeness.  Such  a  skill,  however,  requires  an 
easy  careless  familiarity  with  usual  human  life  and  common 
human  conduct.  A  writer  must  have  a  sympathy  with  health 
before  he  can  show  us  how,  and  where,  and  to  what  extent,  that 
which  is  unhealthy  deviates  from  it ;  and  it  is  this  consistent 
acquaintance  with  regular  life  which  makes  the  irregular  cha- 
racters of  Scott  so  happy  a  contrast  to  the  uneasy  distortions  of 
less  sagacious  novelists. 

A  good  deal  of  the  same  criticism  may  be  applied  to  the  de- 
lineation which  Scott  has  given  us  of  the  poor.  In  truth, 
poverty  is  an  anomaly  to  rich  people.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
make  out  why  people  who  want  dinner  do  not  ring  the  bell. 
One  half  of  the  world,  according  to  the  saying,  do  not  know  how 
the  other  half  live.  Accordingly,  nothing  is  so  rare  in  fiction 
as  a  good  delineation  of  the  poor.  Though  perpetually  with  us 
in  reality,  we  rarely  meet  them  in  our  reading.  The  require- 
ments of  the  case  present  an  unusual  difficulty  to  artistic  deli- 
neation. A  good  deal  of  the  character  of  the  poor  is  an  unfit 
topic  for  continuous  art,  and  yet  we  wish  to  have  in  our  books  a 
lifelike  exhibition  of  the  whole  of  that  character.  Mean  manners 
and  mean  vices  are  unfit  for  prolonged  delineation  ;  the  every- 
day pressure  of  narrow  necessities  is  too  petty  a  pain  and  too 
anxious  a  reality  to  be  dwelt  upon.  We  can  bear  the  mere 
description  of  the  Parish  Register — 

'  But  this  poor  farce  has  neither  truth  nor  art 
To  please  the  fancy  or  to  touch  the  heart. 
Dark  but  not  awful,  dismal  but  yet  mean, 
With  anxious  bustle  moves  the  cumbrous  scene ; 
Presents  no  objects  tender  or  profound, 
But  spreads  its  cold  unmeaning  gloom  around  ;  '- 

but  who  could  bear  to  have  a  long  narrative  of  fortunes  '  dismal 
but  yet  mean,'  with  characters  '  dark  but  not  awful,'  and  no 
objects  '  tender  or  profound '  ?  Mr.  Dickens  has  in  various  parts 
of  his  writings  been  led  by  a  sort  of  pre-Raphaelite  cultus  of 


The   Waverley  Novels.  161 

reality  into  an  error  of  this  species.  His  poor  people  have  taken 
to  their  poverty  very  thoroughly  ;  they  are  poor  talkers  and  poor 
livers,  and  in  all  ways  poor  people  to  read  about.  A  whole 
array  of  writers  have  fallen  into  an  opposite  mistake.  Wishing 
to  preserve  their  delineations  clear  from  the  defects  of  meanness 
and  vulgarity,  they  have  attributed  to  the  poor  a  fancied  happi- 
ness and  Arcadian  simplicity.  The  conventional  shepherd  of 
ancient  times  was  scarcely  displeasing :  that  which  is  by  every- 
thing except  express  avowal  removed  from  the  sphere  of  reality 
does  not  annoy  us  by  its  deviations  from  reality  ;  but  the  ficti- 
tious poor  of  sentimental  novelists  are  brought  almost  into 
contact  with  real  life,  half  claim  to  be  copies  of  what  actually 
exists  at  our  very  doors,  are  introduced  in  close  proximity  to 
characters  moving  in  a  higher  rank,  over  whom  no  such  ideal 
charm  is  diffused,  and  who  are  painted  with  as  much  truth  as 
the  writer's  ability  enables  him  to  give.  Accordingly,  the  con- 
trast is  evident  and  displeasing :  the  harsh  outlines  of  poverty 
will  not  bear  the  artificial  rose-tint ;  they  are  seen  through  it, 
like  high  cheek-bones  through  the  delicate  colours  of  artificial 
youth  ;  we  turn  away  with  some  disgust  from  the  false  elegance 
and  undeceiving  art ;  we  prefer  the  rough  poor  of  nature  to  the 
petted  poor  of  the  refining  describer.  Scott  has  most  felicitously 
avoided  both  these  errors.  His  poor  people  are  never  coarse  and 
never  vulgar;  their  lineaments  have  the  rude  traits  which  a  life 
of  conflict  will  inevitably  leave  on  the  minds  and  manners  of 
those  who  are  to  lead  it ;  their  notions  have  the  narrowness 
which  is  inseparable  from  a  contracted  experience  ;  their  know- 
ledge is  not  more  extended  than  their  restricted  means  of  attain- 
ing it  would  render  possible*  Almost  alone  among  novelists 
Scott  has  given  a  thorough,  minute,  lifelike  description  of  poor 
persons,  which  is  at  the  same  time  genial  and  pleasing.  The 
reason  seems  to  be,  that  the  firm  sagacity  of  his  genius  compre- 
hended the  industrial  aspect  of  poor  people's  life  thoroughly  and 
comprehensively,  his  experience  brought  it  before  him  easily 
and  naturally,  and  his  artist's  mind  and  genial  disposition 
VOL.  n.  M 


1 62  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

enabled  him  to  dwell  on  those  features  which  would  be  most 
pleasing  to  the  world  in  general.  In  fact,  his  own  mind  of  itself 
and  by  its  own  nature  dwelt  on  those  very  peculiarities.  He 
could  not  remove  his  firm  and  instructed  genius  into  the  domain 
of  Arcadian  unreality,  but  he  was  equally  unable  to  dwell  prin- 
cipally, peculiarly,  or  consecutively,  on  those  petty,  vulgar,  mean 
details  in  which  such  a  writer  as  Crabbe  lives  and  breathes. 
Hazlibt  said  that  Crabbe  described  a  poor  man's  cottage  like  a 
man  who  came  to  distrain  for  rent ;  he  catalogued  every  trivial 
piece  of  furniture,  defects  and  cracks  and  all.  Scott  describes 
it  as  a  cheerful  but  most  sensible  landlord  would  describe  a 
cottage  on  his  property  :  he  has  a  pleasure  in  it.  No  detail,  or 
few  details,  in  the  life  of  the  inmates  escape  his  experienced  and 
interested  eye ;  but  he  dwells  on  those  which  do  not  displease 
him.  He  sympathises  with  their  rough  industry  and  plain  joys 
and  sorrows.  He  does  not  fatigue  himself  or  excite  their  won- 
dering smile  by  theoretical  plans  of  impossible  relief.  He  makes 
the  best  of  the  life  which  is  given,  and  by  a  sanguine  sympathy 
makes  it  still  better.  A  hard  life  many  characters  in  Scott  seem 
to  lead ;  but  he  appreciates,  and  makes  his  reader  appreciate, 
the  full  value  of  natural  feelings,  plain  thoughts,  and  applied 
sagacity. 

His  ideas  of  political  economy  are  equally  characteristic  of 
his  strong  sense  and  genial  mind.  He  was  always  sneering  at 
Adam  Smith,  and  telling  many  legends  of  that  philosopher's 
absence  of  mind  and  inaptitude  for  the  ordinary  conduct  of  life. 
A  contact  with  the  Edinburgh  logicians  had,  doubtless,  not  aug- 
mented his  faith  in  the  formal  deductions  of  abstract  economy ; 
nevertheless,  with  the  facts  before  him,  he  could  give  a  very 
plain  and  satisfactory  exposition  of  the  genial  consequences  of 
old  abuses,  the  distinct  necessity  for  stern  reform,  and  the  deli- 
cate humanity  requisite  for  introducing  that  reform  temperately 
and  with  feeling : 

'Even  so  the  Laird  of  Ellangowan  ruthlessly  commenced  his 
magisterial  reform,  at  the  expense  of  various  established  and  super- 


The    Waver  ley  Novels.  163 

animated  pickers  and  stealers,  who  had  been  his  neighbours  for  half  a 
century.  He  wrought  his  miracles  like  a  second  Duke  Humphrey  ; 
and  by  the  influence  of  the  beadle's  rod,  caused  the  lame  to  walk,  the 
blind  to  see,  and  the  palsied  to  labour.  He  detected  poachers,  black- 
fishers,  orchard- breakers,  and  pigeon-shooters  ;  had  the  applause 
of  the  bench  for  his  reward,  and  the  public  credit  of  an  active 
magistrate. 

1  All  this  good  had  its  rateable  proportion  of  evil.  Even  an  admitted 
nuisance,  of  ancient  standing,  should  not  be  abated  without  some  cau- 
tion. The  zeal  of  our  worthy  friend  now  involved  in  great  distress 
sundry  personages  whose  idle  and  mendicant  habits  his  own  Idckesse 
had  contributed  to  foster,  until  these  habits  had  become  irreclaimable, 
or  whose  real  incapacity  for  exertion  rendered  them  fit  objects,  in  their 
own  phrase,  for  the  charity  of  all  well-disposed  Christians.  The  "  long- 
remembered  beggar,"  who  for  twenty  years  had  made  his  regular 
rounds  within  the  neighbourhood,  received  rather  as  an  humble  friend 
than  as  an  object  of  charity,  was  sent  to  the  neighbouring  workhouse. 
The  decrepit  dame,  who  travelled  round  the  parish  upon  a  hand-barrow, 
circulating  from  house  to  house  like  a  bad  shilling,  which  every  one  is 
in  haste  to  pass  to  his  neighbour ;  she  who  used  to  call  for  her  bearers 
as  loud,  or  louder,  than  a  traveller  demands  post-horses,  even  she 
shared  the  same  disastrous  fate.  The  "  daft  Jock,"  who,  half  knave, 
half  idiot,  had  been  the  sport  of  each  succeeding  race  of  village  chil- 
dren for  a  good  part  of  a  century,  was  remitted  to  the  county  bridewell, 
where,  secluded  from  free  air  and  sunshine,  the  only  advantages  he 
was  capable  of  enjoying,  he  pined  and  died  in  the  course  of  six  months. 
The  old  sailor,  who  had  so  long  rejoiced  the  smoky  rafters  of  every 
kitchen  in  the  country,  by  singing  Captain  Ward  and  Bold  Admiral 
Benbow,  was  banished  from  the  county  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  he  was  supposed  to  speak  with  a  strong  Irish  accent.  Even  the 
annual  rounds  of  the  pedlar  were  abolished  by  the  Justice,  in  his  hasty 
zeal  for  the  administration  of  rural  police. 

'  These  things  did  not  pass  without  notice  and  censure.  We  are 
not  made  of  wood  or  stone,  and  the  things  which  connect  themselves 
with  our  hearts  and  habits  cannot,  like  bark  or  lichen,  be  rent  away 
without  our  missing  them.  The  farmer's  dame  lacked  her  usual  share 
of  intelligence,  perhaps  also  the  self-applause  which  she  had  felt  while 
distributing  the  awmous  (alms),  in  shape  of  a  gowpen  (handful)  of 
oatmeal,  to  the  mendicant  who  brought  the  news.  The  cottage  felt  in- 
convenience from  interruption  of  the  petty  trade  carried  on  by  the 
itinerant  dealers.  The  children  lacked  their  supply  of  sugar-plums 


164  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

and  toys  ;  the  young  women  wanted  pins,  ribbons,  combs,  and  ballads  ; 
and  the  old  could  no  longer  barter  their  eggs  for  salt,  snuff,  and  tobacco. 
All  these  circumstances  brought  the  busy  Laird  of  Ellangowan  into 
discredit,  which  was  the  more  general  on  account  of  his  former  popu- 
larity. Even  his  lineage  was  brought  up  in  judgment  against  him. 
They  thought  "  naething  of  what  the  like  of  Greenside,  or  Burnville, 
or  Viewforth,  might  do,  that  were  strangers  in  the  country  ;  but  Ellan- 
gowan !  that  had  been  a  name  amang  them  since  the  mirk  Monanday, 
and  lang  before — him  to  be  grinding  the  puir  at  that  rate !  —They  ca'd 
his  grandfather  the  Wicked  Laird ;  but,  though  he  was  whiles  fractious 
aneuch,  when  he  got  into  roving  company,  and  had  ta'en  the  drap 
drink,  he  would  have  scorned  to  gang  on  at  this  gate.  Na,  na,  the 
muckle  chumlay  in  the  Auld  Place  reeked  like  a  killogie  in  his  time, 
and  there  were  as  mony  puir  folk  riving  at  the  banes  in  the  court  and 
about  the  door,  as  there  were  gentles  in  the  ha'.  And  the  leddy,  on 
ilka  Christmas  night  as  it  came  round,  gae  twelve  siller  pennies  to 
ilka  puir  body  about,  in  honour  of  the  twelve  apostles  like.  They  were 
fond  to  ca'  it  papistrie  ;  but  I  think  our  great  folk  might  take  a  lesson 
frae  the  papists  whiles.  They  gie  another  sort  o'  help  to  puir  folk 
than  just  dinging  down  a  saxpence  in  the  brod  on  the  Sabbath,  and 
kilting,  and  scourging,  and  drumming  them  a'  the  sax  days  o'  the 
week  besides." ' 

Many  other  indications  of  the  same  healthy  and  natural 
sense,  which  gives  so  much  of  their  characteristic  charm  to  the 
Scotch  novels,  might  be  pointed  out,  if  it  were  necessary  to 
weary  our  readers  by  dwelling  longer  on  a  point  we  have  already 
laboured  so  much.  One  more,  however,  demands  notice  because 
of  its  importance,  and  perhaps  also  because,  from  its  somewhat 
less  obvious  character,  it  might  otherwise  escape  without  notice. 
There  has  been  frequent  controversy  as  to  the  penal  code,  if  we 
may  so  call  it,  of  fiction ;  that  is,  as  to  the  apportionment  of 
reward  and  punishment  respectively  to  the  good  and  evil  person- 
ages therein  delineated ;  and  the  practice  of  authors  has  been  as 
various  as  the  legislation  of  critics.  One  school  abandons  all 
thought  on  the  matter,  and  declares  that  in  the  real  life  we  see 
around  us,  good  people  often  fail,  and  wicked  people  continually 
prosper ;  and  would  deduce  the  precept,  that  it  is  unwise  in  an 
art  which  should  hold  the  '  mirror  up  to  nature,'  not  to  copy 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  165 

the  uncertain  and  irregular  distribution  of  its  sanctions.  Another 
school,  with  an  exactness  which  savours  at  times  of  pedantry, 
apportions  the  success  and  the  failure,  the  pain  and  the  pleasure 
of  fictitious  life  to  the  moral  qualities  of  those  who  are  living 
in  it — does  not  think  at  all,  or  but  little,  of  any  other 
quality  in  those  characters,  and  does  not  at  all  care  whether 
the  penalty  and  reward  are  evolved  in  natural  sequence 
from  the  circumstances  and  characters  of  the  tale,  or  are 
owing  to  some  monstrous  accident  far  removed  from  all  relation 
of  cause  or  consequence  to  those  facts  and  people.  Both  these 
classes  of  writers  produce  works  which  jar  on  the  natural  sense 
of  common  readers,  and  are  at  issue  with  the  analytic  criticism 
of  the  best  critics.  One  school  leaves  an  impression  of  an  un- 
cared-for world,  in  which  there  is  no  right  and  no  wrong ;  the 
other,  of  a  sort  of  Governesses'  Institution  of  a  world,  where  all 
praise  and  all  blame,  all  good  and  all  pain,  are  made  to  turn  on 
special  graces  and  petty  offences,  pesteringly  spoken  of  and 
teasingly  watched  for.  The  manner  of  Scott  is  thoroughly 
different ;  you  can  scarcely  lay  down  any  novel  of  his  without 
a  strong  feeling  that  the  world  in  which  the  fiction  has  been 
laid,  and  in  which  your  imagination  has  been  moving,  is  one 
subject  to  laws  of  retribution  which,  though  not  apparent  on  a 
superficial  glance,  are  yet  in  steady  and  consistent  operation, 
and  will  be  quite  sure  to  work  their  due  effect,  if  time  is  only 
given  to  them.  Sagacious  men  know  that  this  is  in  its  bett 
aspect  the  condition  of  life.  Certain  of  the  ungodly  may,  not- 
withstanding the  Psalmist,  flourish  even  through  life  like  a 
green  bay-tree ;  for  providence,  in  external  appearance  (far 
differently  from  the  real  truth  of  things,  as  we  may  one  day  see 
it),  works  by  a  scheme  of  averages.  Most  people  who  ought  to 
succeed,  do  succeed;  most  people  who  do  fail,  ought  to  fail. 
But  there  is  no  exact  adjustment  of  '  mark '  to  merit ;  the  com- 
petitive examination  system  appears  to  have  an  origin  more 
recent  than  the  creation  of  the  world  ; — '  on  the  whole,'  '  speak- 
ing generally,'  'looking  at  life  as  a  whole,' are  the  words  in 


1 66  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

which  we  must  describe  the  providential  adjustment  of  'visible 
good  and  evil  to  visible  goodness  and  badness.  And  when  we 
look  more  closely,  we  see  that  these  general  results  are  the  con- 
sequences of  certain  principles  which  work  half  unseen,  and 
which  are  effectual  in  the  main,  though  thwarted  here  and  there. 
It  is  this  comprehensive  though  inexact  distribution  of  good 
and  evil,  which  is  suited  to  the  novelist,  and  it  is  exactly  this 
which  Scott  instinctively  adopted.  Taking  a  firm  and  genial 
view  of  the  common  facts  of  life, — seeing  it  as  an  experienced 
observer  and  tried  man  of  action, — he  could  not  help  giving  the 
representation  of  it  which  is  insensibly  borne  in  on  the  minds 
of  such  persons.  He  delineates  it  as  a  world  moving  according 
to  laws  which  are  always  producing  their  effect,  never  have 
produced  it ;  sometimes  fall  short  a  little ;  are  always  nearly 
successful,  (rood  sense  produces  its  effect,  as  well  as  good  in- 
tention ;  ability  is  valuable  as  well  as  virtue.  It  is  this  pecu- 
liarity which  gives  to  his  works,  more  than  anything  else,  the 
life-likeness  which  distinguishes  them;  the  average  of  the  copy 
is  struck  on  the  same  scale  as  that  of  reality ;  an  unexplained, 
uncommen ted-on  adjustment  works  in  the  one,  just  as  a 
hidden,  imperceptible  principle  of  apportionment  operates  in 
the  other. 

The  romantic  susceptibility  of  Scott's  imagination  is  as 
obvious  in  his  novels  as  his  matter-of-fact  sagacity.  We  can 
find  much  of  it  in  the  place  in  which  we  should  naturally  look 
first  for  it, — his  treatment  of  his  heroines.  We  are  no  indis- 
criminate admirers  of  these  young  ladies,  and  shall  shortly  try 
to  show  how  much  they  are  inferior  as  imaginative  creations 
to  similar  creations  of  the  very  highest  artists.  But  the  mode 
in  which  the  writer  speaks  of  them  everywhere  indicates  an 
imagination  continually  under  the  illusion  which  we  term 
romance.  A  gentle  tone  of  manly  admiration  pervades  the 
whole  delineation  of  their  words  and  actions.  If  we  look  care- 
fully at  the  narratives  of  some  remarkable  female  novelists — 
it  would  be  invidious  to  give  the  instances  by  name — we  shall 


The    Waver  ley  Novels.  167 

be  struck  at  once  with  the  absence  of  this ;  they  do  not  half 
like  their  heroines.  It  would  be  satirical  to  say  that  they  were 
jealous  of  them  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  they  analyse  the  mode  in 
which  their  charms  produce  their  effects,  and  the  minutiae  of 
their  operation,  much  in  the  same  way  in  which  a  slightly 
jealous  lady  examines  the  claims  of  the  heroines  of  society. 
The  same  writers  have  invented  the  atrocious  species  of  plain 
heroines.  Possibly  none  of  the  frauds  which  are  now  so  much 
the  topic  of  common  remark  are  so  irritating,  as  that  to  which 
the  purchaser  of  a  novel  is  a  victim  on  finding  that  he  has  only 
to  peruse  a  narrative  of  the  conduct  and  sentiments  of  an  ugly 
lady.  '  Two-and-sixpence  to  know  the  heart  which  has  high 
cheek-bones ! '  Was  there  ever  such  an  imposition  ?  Scott 
would  have  recoiled  from  such  a  conception.  Even  Jeanie  Deans, 
though  no  heroine,  like  Flora  Macivor,  is  described  as  '  comely,' 
and  capable  of  looking  almost  pretty  when  required,  and  she 
has  a  compensating  set-off  in  her  sister,  who  is  beautiful  as  well 
as  unwise.  Speaking  generally,  as  is  the  necessity  of  criticism, 
Scott  makes  his  heroines,  at  least  by  profession,  attractive,  and 
dwells  on  their  attractiveness,  though  not  with  the  wild  ecstasy 
of  insane  youth,  yet  with  the  tempered  and  mellow  admiration 
common  to  genial  men  of  this  world.  Perhaps  at  times  we  are 
rather  displeased  at  his  explicitness,  and  disposed  to  hang  back 
and  carp  at  the  admirable  qualities  displayed  to  us.  But  this 
is  only  a  stronger  evidence  of  the  peculiarity  which  we  speak 
of, — of  the  unconscious  sentiments  inseparable  from  Scott's 
imagination. 

The  same  romantic  tinge  undeniably  shows  itself  in  Scott's 
pictures  of  the  past.  Many  exceptions  have  been  taken  to  the 
detail  of  mediaeval  life  as  it  is  described  to  us  in  Ivanhoe ;  but 
one  merit  will  always  remain  to  it,  and  will  be  enough  to  secure 
to  it  immense  popularity.  It  describes  the  middle  ages  as  we 
should  have  wished  them  to  have  been.  We  do  not  mean  that 
the  delineation  satisfies  those  accomplished  admirers  of  the  old 
Church  system  who  fancy  that  they  have  found  among  the  pre- 


1 68  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

lates  and  barons  of  the  fourteenth  century  a  close  approximation 
to  the  theocracy  which  they  would  recommend  for  our  adoption. 
On  the  contrary,  the  theological  merits  of  the  middle  ages  are 
not  prominent  in  Scott's  delineation.  '  Dogma '  was  not  in  his 
way :  a  cheerful  man  of  the  world  is  not  anxious  for  a  precise 
definition  of  peculiar  doctrines.  The  charm  of  Ivanhoe  is  ad- 
dressed to  a  simpler  sort  of  imagination,  to  that  kind  of  boyish 
fancy  which  idolises  mediaeval  society  as  the  'fighting  time.' 
Every  boy  has  heard  of  tournaments,  and  has  a  firm  persuasion 
that  in  an  age  of  tournaments  life  was  thoroughly  well  under- 
stood. A  martial  society,  where  men  fought  hand  to  hand  on 
good  horses  with  large  lances,  in  peace  for  pleasure,  and  in  war 
for  business,  seems  the  very  ideal  of  perfection  to  a  bold  and 
simply  fanciful  boy.  Ivanhoe  spreads  before  him  the  full  land- 
scape of  such  a  realm,  with  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  a  black 
horse,  and  the  passage  of  arms  at  Ashby.  Of  course  he  admires 
it,  and  thinks  there  was  never  such  a  writer,  and  will  never 
more  be  such  a  world.  And  a  mature  critic  will  share  his  ad- 
miration, at  least  to  the  extent  of  admitting  that  nowhere  else 
have  the  elements  of  a  martial  romance  been  so  gorgeously 
accumulated  without  becoming  oppressive;  their  fanciful 
charm  been  so  powerfully  delineated,  and  yet  so  constantly 
relieved  by  touches  of  vigorous  sagacity.  One  single  fact  shows 
how  great  the  romantic  illusion  is.  The  pressure  of  painful 
necessity  is  scarcely  so  great  in  this  novel,  as  in  novels  of  the 
same  writer  in  which  the  scene  is  laid  in  modern  times.  Much 
may  be  said  in  favour  of  the  mediaeval  system  as  contradistin- 
guished from  existing  society ;  much  has  been  said.  But  no  one 
can  maintain  that  general  comfort  was  as  much  diffused  as  it  is 
now.  A  certain  ease  pervades  the  structure  of  later  society. 
Our  houses  may  not  last  so  long,  are  not  so  picturesque,  will 
leave  no  such  ruins  behind  them ;  but  they  are  warmed  with  hot 
water,  have  no  draughts,  and  contain  sofas  instead  of  rushes.  A 
slight  daily  unconscious  luxury  is  hardly  ever  wanting  to  the 
dwellers  in  civilisation ;  like  the  gentle  air  of  a  genial  climate, 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  169 

it  is  a  perpetual  minute  enjoyment.  The  absence  of  this  marks 
a  rude  barbaric  time.  We  may  avail  ourselves  of  rough  pleasures, 
stirring  amusements,  exciting  actions,  strange  rumours;  but  life 
is  hard  and  harsh.  The  cold  air  of  the  keen  North  may  brace 
and  invigorate,  but  it  cannot  soothe  us.  All  sensible  -people 
know  that  the  middle  ages  must  have  been  very  uncomfortable ; 
there  was  a  difficulty  about  'good  food; ' — almost  insuperable 
obstacles  to  the  cultivation  of  nice  detail  and  small  enjoyment. 
No  one  knew  the  abstract  facts  on  which  this  conclusion  rests 
better  than  Scott ;  but  his  delineation  gives  no  general  idea  of 
the  result.  A  thoughtless  reader  rises  with  the  impression  that 
the  middle  ages  had  the  same  elements  of  happiness  which  we 
have  at  present,  and  that  they  had  fighting  besides.  We  do  not 
assert  that  this  tenet  is  explicitly  taught;  on  the  contrary,  many 
facts  are  explained,  and  many  customs  elucidated  from  which  a 
discriminating  and  deducing  reader  would  infer  the  meanness  of 
poverty  and  the  harshness  of  barbarism.  But  these  less  impos- 
ing traits  escape  the  rapid,  and  still  more  the  boyish  reader. 
His  general  impression  is  one  of  romance  ;  and  though,  when 
roused,  Scott  was  quite  able  to  take  a  distinct  view  of  the  op- 
posing facts,  he  liked  his  own  mind  to  rest  for  the  most  part  in 
the  same  pleasing  illusion. 

The  same  sort  of  historical  romance  is  shown  likewise  in 
Scott's  picture  of  remarkable  historical  characters.  His  Richard  I. 
is  the  traditional  Richard,  with  traits  heightened  and  ennobled 
in  perfect  conformity  to  the  spirit  of  tradition.  Some  illustra- 
tion of  the  same  quality  might  be  drawn  from  his  delineations  of 
the  Puritan  rebellions  and  the  Cavalier  enthusiasm.  We  might 
show  that  he  ever  dwells  on  the  traits  and  incidents  most  at- 
tractive to  a  genial  and  spirited  imagination.  But  the  most 
remarkable  instance  of  the  power  which  romantic  illusion  exer- 
cised over  him,  is  his  delineation  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  He 
refused  at  one  time  of  his  life  to  write  a  biography  of  that 
princess  '  because  his  opinion  was  contrary  to  his  feeling.'  He 
evidently  consi  lered  her  guilt  to  be  clearly  established,  and 


170  The   Waverley  Novels. 

thought,  with  a  distinguished  lawyer,  that  he  should  '  direct  a 
jury  to  find  her  guilty;'  but  his  fancy,  like  that  of  most  of  his 
countrymen,  took  a  peculiar  and  special  interest  in  the  beautiful 
lady  who,  at  any  rate,  had  suffered  so  much  and  so  fatally  at  the 
hands  of  a  queen  of  England.  He  could  not  bring  himself  to 
dwell  with  nice  accuracy  on  the  evidence  which  substantiates  her 
criminality,  or  on  the  still  clearer  indications  of  that  unsound 
and  over-crafty  judgment,  which  was  the  fatal  inheritance  of  the 
Stuart  family,  and  which,  in  spite  of  advantages  that  scarcely 
any  other  family  in  the  world  has  enjoyed,  has  made  their  name 
an  historical  by- word  for  misfortune.  The  picture  in  the  Abbot, 
one  of  the  best  historical  pictures  which  Scott  has  given  us,  is 
principally  the  picture  of  the  Queen  as  the  fond  tradition  of 
his  countrymen  exhibited  her.  Her  entire  innocence,  it  is  true, 
is  never  alleged  :  but  the  enthusiasm  of  her  followers  is  dwelt  on 
with  approving  sympathy  ;  their  confidence  is  set  forth  at  large ; 
her  influence  over  them  is  skilfully  delineated ;  the  fascination 
of  charms  chastened  by  misfortune  is  delicately  indicated.  We 
see  a  complete  picture  of  the  beautiful  queen,  of  the  suffering 
and  sorrowful,  but  yet  not  insensible  woman.  Scott  could  not, 
however,  as  a  close  study  will  show  us,  quite  conceal  the  un- 
favourable nature  of  his  fundamental  opinion.  In  one  remark- 
able passage  the  struggle  of  the  judgment  is  even  conspicuous, 
and  in  others  the  sagacity  of  the  practised  lawyer, — the  '  thread 
of  the  attorney,5  as  he  used  to  call  it,  in  his  nature, — qualifies 
and  modifies  the  sentiment  hereditary  in  his  countrymen,  and 
congenial  to  himself. 

This  romantic  imagination  is  a  habit  or  power  (as  we  may 
choose  to  call  it)  of  mind,  which  is  almost  essential  to  the  highest 
success  in  the  historical  novel.  The  aim,  at  any  rate  the  effect, 
of  this  class  of  works  seems  to  be  to  deepen  and  confirm  the 
received  view  of  historical  personages.  A  great  and  acute 
writer  may,  from  an  accurate  study  of  original  documents,  dis- 
cover that  those  impressions  are  erroneous,  and  by  a  process  of 
elaborate  argument  substitute  others  which  he  deems  more 


The    Waver  ley  Novels.  171 

accurate.  But  this  can  only  be  effected  by  writing  a  regular 
history.  The  essence  of  the  achievement  is  the  proof.  If  Mr. 
Froude  had  put  forward  his  view  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  cha- 
racter in  a  professed  novel,  he  would  have  been  laughed  at. 
It  is  only  by  a  rigid  adherence  to  attested  facts  and  authentic 
documents,  that  a  view  so  original  could  obtain  even  a  hearing. 
We  start  back  with  a  little  anger  from  a  representation  which 
is  avowedly  imaginative,  and  which  contradicts  our  impressions. 
We  do  not  like  to  have  our  opinions  disturbed  by  reasoning ; 
but  it  is  impertinent  to  attempt  to  disturb  them  by  fancies.  A 
writer  of  the  historical  novel  is  bound  by  the  popular  conception 
of  his  subject ;  and  commonly  it  will  be  found  that  this  popu- 
lar impression  is  to  some  extent  a  romantic  one.  An  element 
of  exaggeration  clings  to  the  popular  judgment :  great  vices 
are  made  greater,  great  virtues  greater  also ;  interesting  in- 
cidents are  made  more  interesting,  softer  legends  more  soft. 
The  novelist  who  disregards  this  tendency  will  do  so  at  the 
peril  of  his  popularity.  His  business  is  to  make  attraction  more 
attractive,  and  not  to  impair  the  pleasant  pictures  of  ready- 
made  romance  by  an  attempt  at  grim  reality. 

We  may  therefore  sum  up  the  indications  of  this  character- 
istic excellence  of  Scott's  novels  by  saying,  that  more  than  any 
novelist  he  has  given  us  fresh  pictures  of  practical  human 
society,  with  its  cares  and  troubles,  its  excitements  and  its 
pleasures  ;  that  he  has  delineated  more  distinctly  than  any  one 
else  the  framework  in  which  this  society  inheres,  and  by  the 
boundaries  of  which  it  is  shaped  and  limited  ;  that  he  has  made 
more  clear  the  way  in  which  strange  and  eccentric  characters 
grow  out  of  that  ordinary  and  usual  system  of  life  ;  that  he  has 
extended  his  view  over  several  periods  of  society,  and  given  an 
animated  description  of  the  external  appearance  of  each,  and  a 
firm  representation  of  its  social  institutions  ;  that  he  has  shown 
very  graphically  what  we  may  call  the  worldly  laws  of  moral 
government ;  and  that  over  all  these  he  has  spread  the  glow  of 
sentiment  natural  to  a  manly  mind,  and  an  atmosphere  of  gene- 


172  The    Waver  ley  Novels. 

rosity  congenial  to  a  cheerful  one.  It  is  from  the  collective 
effect  of  these  causes,  and  from  the  union  of  sense  and  sentiment 
which  is  the  principle  of  them  all,  that  Scott  derives  the  peculiar 
healthiness  which  distinguishes  him.  There  are  no  such  books 
as  his  for  the  sick-room,  or  for  freshening  the  painful  intervals 
of  a  morbid  mind.  Mere  sense  is  dull,  mere  sentiment  unsub- 
stantial ;  a  sensation  of  genial  healthiness  is  only  given  by  what 
combines  the  solidity  of  the  one  and  the  brightening  charm  of 
the  other. 

Some  guide  to  Scott's  defects,  or  to  the  limitations  of  his 
genius,  if  we  would  employ  a  less  ungenial  and  perhaps  more 
correct  expression,  is  to  be  discovered,  as  usual,  from  the  con- 
sideration of  his  characteristic  excellence.  As  it  is  his  merit  to 
give  bold  and  animated  pictures  of  this  world,  it  is  his  defect  to 
give  but  insufficient  representations  of  qualities  which  this  world 
does  not  exceedingly  prize, — of  such  as  do  not  thrust  themselves 
very  forward  in  it, — of  such  as  are  in  some  sense  above  it.  We 
may  illustrate  this  in  several  ways. 

One  of  the  parts  of  human  nature  which  are  systematically 
omitted  in  Scott,  is  the  searching  and  abstract  intellect.  This 
did  not  lie  in  his  way.  No  man  had  a  stronger  sagacity,  better 
adapted  for  the  guidance  of  common  men,  and  the  conduct  of 
common  transactions.  Few  could  hope  to  form  a  more  correct 
opinion  on  things  and  subjects  which  were  brought  before  him 
in  actual  life  ;  no  man  had  a  more  useful  intellect.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  as  will  be  generally  observed  to  be  the  case,  no  one 
was  less  inclined  to  that  probing  and  seeking  and  anxious  in- 
quiry into  things  in  general  which  is  the  necessity  of  some 
minds,  and  a  sort  of  intellectual  famine  in  their  nature.  He 
had  no  call  to  investigate  the  theory  of  the  universe,  and  he 
would  not  have  been  able  to  comprehend  those  who  did.  Such 
a  mind  as  Shelley's  would  have  been  entirely  removed  from  his 
comprehension.  He  had  no  call  to  mix  '  awful  talk  and  asking 
looks '  with  his  love  of  the  visible  scene.  He  could  not  have 
addressed  the  universe  : 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  173 

*  T  have  watched 

Thy  shadow,  and  the  darkness  of  thy  steps  ; 
And  my  heart  ever  gazes  on  the  depth 
Of  thy  deep  mysteries.     I  have  made  my  bed 
In  charnels  and  on  coffins,  where  black  death 
Keeps  record  of  the  trophies  won  from  thee, 
Hoping  to  still  these  obstinate  questionings 
Of  thee  and  thine,  by  forcing  some  lone  ghost, 
Thy  messenger,  to  render  up  the  tale 
Of  what  we  are.' 

Such  thoughts  would  have  been  to  him  *  thinking  without  an 
object,'  '  abstracted  speculations,'  ( cobwebs  of  the  unintelligible 
brain.'  Above  all  minds,  his  had  the  Baconian  propensity  to 
work  upon  *  stuff.'  At  first  sight,  it  would  not  seem  that  this 
was  a  defect  likely  to  be  very  hurtful  to  the  works  of  a  novelist. 
The  labours  of  the  searching  and  introspective  intellect,  however 
needful,  absorbing,  and  in  some  degree  delicious,  to  the  seeker 
himself,  are  not  in  general  very  delightful  to  those  who  are  not 
seeking.  Genial  men  in  middle  life  are  commonly  intolerant  of 
that  philosophising  which  their  prototype,  in  old  times,  classed 
side  by  side  with  the  lisping  of  youth,  The  theological  novel, 
which  was  a  few  years  ago  so  popular,  and  which  is  likely  to 
have  a  recurring  influence  in  times  when  men's  belief  is  un- 
settled, and  persons  who  cannot  or  will  not  read  large  treatises 
have  thoughts  in  their  minds  and  inquiries  in  their  hearts, 
suggests  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  it  the  absence  else- 
where of  what  is  necessarily  one  of  its  most  distinctive  and 
prominent  subjects.  The  desire  to  attain  a  belief,  which  has 
become  one  of  the  most  familiar  sentiments  of  heroes  and 
heroines,  would  have  seemed  utterly  incongruous  to  the  plain 
sagacity  of  Scott,  and  also  to  his  old-fashioned  art.  Creeds  are 
data  in  his  novels ;  people  have  different  creeds,  but  each  keeps 
his  own.  Some  persons  will  think  that  this  is  not  altogether 
amiss  ;  nor  do  we  particularly  wish  to  take  up  the  defence  of  the 
dogmatic  novel.  Nevertheless,  it  will  strike  those  who  are 
accustomed  to  the  youthful  generation  of  a  cultivated  time,  that 


174  The    Waver  ley  Novels. 

the  passion  of  intellectual  inquiry  is  one  of  the  strongest  im- 
pulses in  many  of  them,  and  one  of  those  which  give  the  pre- 
dominant colouring  to  the  conversation  and  exterior  mind  of 
many  more.  And  a  novelist  will  not  exercise  the  most  potent 
influence  over  those  subject  to  that  passion,  if  he  entirely  omit 
the  delineation  of  it.  Scott's  works  have  only  one  merit  in  this 
relation  :  they  are  an  excellent  rest  to  those  who  have  felt  this 
passion,  and  have  had  something  too  much  of  it. 

The  same  indisposition  to  the  abstract  exercises  of  the 
intellect  shows  itself  in  the  reflective  portions  of  Scott's  novels, 
and  perhaps  contributes  to  their  popularity  with  that  immense 
majority  of  the  world  who  strongly  share  in  that  same  indispo- 
sition :  it  prevents,  however,  their  having  the  most  powerful 
intellectual  influence  on  those  who  have  at  any  time  of  their 
lives  voluntarily  submitted  themselves  to  this  acute  and  refining 
discipline.  The  reflections  of  a  practised  thinker  have  a  pecu- 
liar charm,  like  the  last  touches  of  the  accomplished  artist. 
The  cunning  exactitude  of  the  professional  hand  leaves  a  trace 
in  the  very  language.  A  nice  discrimination  of  thought  makes 
men  solicitous  of  the  most  apt  expressions  to  diffuse  their 
thoughts.  Both  words  and  meaning  gain  a  metallic  brilliancy, 
like  the  glittering  precision  of  the  pure  Attic  air.  Scott's  is  a 
healthy  and  genial  world  of  reflection,  but  it  wants  the  charm 
of  delicate  exactitude. 

The  same  limitation  of  Scott's  genius  shows  itself  in  a  very 
different  portion  of  art — in  his  delineation  of  his  heroines.  The 
same  blunt  sagacity  of  imagination,  which  fitted  him  to  excel 
in  the  rough  description  of  obvious  life,  rather  unfitted  him 
for  delineating  the  less  substantial  essence  of  the  female  cha- 
racter. The  nice  minutiae  of  society,  by  means  of  which  female 
novelists  have  been  so  successful  in  delineating  their  own  sex, 
were  rather  too  small  for  his  robust  and  powerful  mind.  Per- 
haps, too,  a  certain  unworldliness  of  imagination  is  necessary  to 
enable  men  to  comprehend  or  delineate  that  essence:  unworld- 
liness of  life  is  no  doubt  not  requisite ;  rather,  perhaps,  worldli- 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  175 

ness  is  necessary  to  the  acquisition  of  a  sufficient  experience. 
But  an  absorption  in  the  practical  world  does  not  seem  favour- 
able to  a  comprehension  of  anything  which  does  not  precisely 
belong  to  it.     Its  interests  are  too  engrossing ;  its  excitements 
too  keen ;  it  modifies  the  fancy,  and  in  the  change  unfits  it  for 
everything   else.      Something,   too,   in    Scott's   character   and 
history  made  it  more  difficult  for  him  to  give  a  representation 
of  women  than  of  men.     Goethe  used  to  say,  that  his  idea  of 
woman  was  not  drawn  from  his  experience,  but  that  it  came  to 
him  before  experience,  and  that  he  explained  his  experience  by 
a  reference  to  it.     And  though  this  is  a  German,  and  not  very 
happy,  form  of  expression,  yet  it  appears  to  indicate  a  very 
important  distinction.      Some  efforts   of  the  imagination  are 
made  so  early  in  life,  just  as  it  were  at  the  dawn  of  the  con- 
scious faculties,  that  we  are  never  able  to  fancy  ourselves  as 
destitute  of  them.     They  are  part  of  the  mental  constitution 
with  which,  so  to    speak,  we  awoke  to    existence.     These  are 
always  far  more  firm,  vivid,  and  definite,  than  any  other  images 
of  our  fancy ;  and  we  apply  them,  half  unconsciously,  to  any 
facts  and  sentiments  and  actions  which  may  occur  to  us  later  in 
life,  whether  arising  from  within  or  thrust  upon  us  from  the 
outward  world.     Goethe  doubtless  meant  that  the  idea  of  the 
female  character  was  to  him  one  of  these  first  elements  of  ima- 
gination ;   not  a  thing  puzzled  out,  or  which  he  remembered 
having  conceived,  but  a  part  of  the  primitive  conceptions  which, 
being  coeval  with  his  memory,  seemed  inseparable  from  his  con- 
sciousness.    The  descriptions  of  women  likely  to  be  given  by  this 
sort  of  imagination  will  probably  be  the  best  descriptions.     A 
mind  which  would  arrive  at  this  idea  of  the  female  character  by 
this  process,  and  so  early,  would  be  one  obviously  of  more  than 
usual  susceptibility.     The  early  imagination  does  not  commonly 
take  this  direction  ;  it  thinks  most  of  horses  and  lances,  tourna- 
ments and  knights  ;  only  a  mind  with  an  unusual  and  instinctive 
tendency  to  this  kind  of  thought,  would  be  borne  thitber  so 
early  or  so  effectually.     And  even  independently  of  this  probable 


176  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

peculiarity  of  the  individual,  the  primitive  imagination  in  ge- 
neral is  likely  to  be  the  most  accurate  which  men  can  form  ;  not, 
of  course,  of  the  external  manifestations  and  detailed  manners, 
but  of  the  inner  sentiment  and  characteristic  feeling  of  women. 
The  early  imagination  conceives  what  it  does  conceive  very 
justly ;  fresh  from  the  facts,  stirred  by  the  new  aspect  of  things, 
undimmed  by  the  daily  passage  of  constantly  forgotten  images, 
not  misled  by  the  irregular  analogies  of  a  dislocated  life, — the 
early  mind  sees  what  it  does  see  with  a  spirit  and  an  intentness 
never  given  to  it  again.  A  mind  like  Goethe's,  of  very  strong 
imagination,  aroused  at  the  earliest  age, — not  of  course  by 
passions,  but  by  an  unusual  strength  in  that  undefined  longing 
which  is  the  prelude  to  our  passions, — will  form  the  best  idea 
of  the  inmost  female  nature  which  masculine  nature  can  form. 
The  difference  is  evident  between  the  characters  of  women 
formed  by  Goethe's  imagination  or  Shakespeare's,  and  those 
formed  by  such  an  imagination  as  that  of  Scott.  The  latter 
seem  so  external.  We  have  traits,  features,  manners  ;  we  know 
the  heroine,  as  she  appeared  in  the  street ;  in  some  degree  we 
know  how  she  talked,  but  we  never  know  how  she  felt — 
least  of  all  what  she  was :  we  always  feel  there  is  a  world 
behind,  unanalysed,  unrepresented,  which  we  cannot  attain 
to.  Such  a  character  as  Margaret  in  Faust  is  known  to  us 
to  the  very  soul ;  so  is  Imogen ;  so  is  Ophelia.  Edith  Bel- 
lenden,  Flora  Macivor,  Miss  Wardour,  are  young  ladies  who,  we 
are  told,  were  good-looking,  and  well-dressed  (according  to  the 
old  fashion),  and  sensible-;  but  we  feel  we  know  but  very  little 
of  them,  and  they  do  not  haunt  our  imaginations.  The  failure 
of  Scott  in  this  line  of  art  is  more  conspicuous,  because  he  had 
not  in  any  remarkable  degree  the  later  experience  of  female 
detail,  with  which  some  minds  have  endeavoured  to  supply  the 
want  of  the  early  essential  imagination,  and  which  Goethe  pos- 
sessed in  addition  to  it.  It  was  rather  late,  according  to  his 
biographer,  before  Scott  set  up  for  a  '  squire  of  dames ; '  he  was 
a  '  lame  young  man,  very  enthusiastic  about  ballad  poetry  ; '  he 


The    Waver  ley  Novels. 


was  deeply  in  love  with  a  young  lady,  supposed  to  be  imagina- 
tively represented  by  Flora  Macivor,  but  he  was  unsuccessful. 
It  would  be  over-ingenious  to  argue,  from  his  failing  in  a  single 
love-affair,  that  he  had  no  peculiar  interest  in  young  ladies  in 
general  ;  but  the  whole  description  of  his  youth  shows  that 
young  ladies  exercised  over  him  a  rather  more  divided  influence 
than  is  usual.  Other  pursuits  intervened,  much  more  than  is 
common  with  persons  of  the  imaginative  temperament,  and  he 
never  led  the  life  of  flirtation  from  which  Groethe  believed  that 
he  derived  so  much  instruction.  Scott's  heroines,  therefore,  are, 
not  unnaturally,  faulty,  since  from  a  want  of  the  very  peculiar 
instinctive  imagination  he  could  not  give  us  the  essence  of 
women,  and  from  the  habits  of  his  life  he  could  not  delineate  to 
us  their  detailed  life  with  the  appreciative  accuracy  of  habitual 
experience.  Jeanie  Deans  is  probably  the  best  of  his  heroines, 
and  she  is  so  because  she  is  the  least  of  a  heroine.  The  plain 
matter  of-fact  element  in  the  peasant-girl's  life  and  circum- 
stances suited  a  robust  imagination.  There  is  little  in  the  part 
of  her  character  that  is  very  finely  described  which  is  charac- 
teristically feminine.  She  is  not  a  masculine,  but  she  is  an 
epicene  heroine.  Her  love-affair  with  Butler,  a  single  remark- 
able scene  excepted,  is  rather  commonplace  than  otherwise. 

A  similar  criticism  might  be  applied  to  Scott's  heroer. 
Everyone  feels  how  commonplace  they  are  —  Waverley  excepted> 
whose  very  vacillation  gives  him  a  sort  of  character.  They  have 
little  personality.  They  are  all  of  the  same  type  ;  —  excellent 
young  men  —  rather  strong  —  able  to  ride  and  climb  and  jump. 
They  are  always  said  to  be  sensible,  and  bear  out  the  character 
by  being  not  unwilling  sometimes  to  talk  platitudes.  But  we 
know  nothing  of  their  inner  life.  They  are  said  to  be  in  love  ; 
but  we  have  no  special  account  of  their  individual  sentiments. 
People  show  their  character  in  their  love  more  than  in  anything 
else.  These  young  gentlemen  all  love  in  the  same  way  —  in  the 
vague  commonplace  way  of  this  world.  We  have  no  sketch  or 
dramatic  expression  of  the  life  within.  Their  souls  are  quite 

TOL.    II.  N 


178  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

unknown  to  us.  If  there  is  an  exception,  it  is  Edgar  Kavens- 
wood.  But  if  we  look  closely,  we  may  observe  that  the  notion 
which  we  obtain  of  his  character,  unusually  broad  as  it  is,  is  not 
a  notion  of  him  in  his  capacity  of  hero,  but  in  his  capacity  of 
distressed  peer.  His  proud  poverty  gives  a  distinctness  which 
otherwise  his  lineaments  would  not  have.  We  think  little  of 
his  love ;  we  think  much  of  his  narrow  circumstances  and  com- 
pressed haughtiness. 

The  same  exterior  delineation  of  character  shows  itself  in  his 
treatment  of  men's  religious  nature.  A  novelist  is  scarcely,  in 
the  notion  of  ordinary  readers,  bound  to  deal  with  this  at  all ; 
if  he  does,  it  will  be  one  of  his  great  difficulties  to  indicate  it 
graphically,  yet  without  dwelling  on  it.  Men  who  purchase  a 
novel  do  not  wish  a  stone  or  a  sermon.  All  lengthened  reflec- 
tions must  be  omitted  ;  the  whole  armoury  of  pulpit  eloquence. 
But  no  delineation  of  human  nature  can  be  considered  complete 
which  omits  to  deal  with  man  in  relation  to  the  questions  which 
occupy  him  as  man,  with  his  convictions  as  to  the  theory  of  the 
universe  and  his  own  destiny ;  the  human  heart  throbs  on  few 
subjects  with  a  passion  so  intense,  so  peculiar,  and  so  typical. 
From  an  artistic  view,  it  is  a  blunder  to  omit  an  element  which 
is  so  characteristic  of  human  life,  which  contributes  so  much 
to  its  animation,  and  which  is  so  picturesque.  A  reader  of  a 
more  simple  mind,  little  apt  to  indulge  in  such  criticism,  feels 
6  a  want  of  depth,'  as  he  would  speak,  in  delineations  from  which 
so  large  an  element  of  his  own  most  passionate  and  deepest 
nature  is  omitted.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  there  is  an 
omission  of  the  religious  nature  in  Scott.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  there  is  no  adequate  delineation  of  it.  If  we  refer  to  the 
facts  of  his  life,  and  the  view  of  his  character  which  we  collect 
from  them,  we  shall  find  that  his  religion  was  of  a  qualified 
and  double  sort.  He  was  a  genial  man  of  the  world,  and  had 
the  easy  faith  in  the  kindly  Dieu  des  bons  gens  which  is  natural 
to  such  a  person;  and  he  had  also  a  half-poetic  principle  of 
superstition  in  his  nature,  inclining  him  to  believe  in  ghosts, 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  179 

legends,  fairies,  and  elves,  which  did  not  affect  his  daily  life,  or 
possibly  his  superficial  belief,  but  was  nevertheless  very  constantly 
present  to  his  fan  cy,  and  which  affected,  as  is  the  constitution 
of  human  nature,  through  that  frequency,  the  undefined,  half- 
expressed,  inexpressible  feelings  which  are  at  the  root  of  that 
belief.  Superstition  was  a  kind  of  Jacobitism  in  his  religion  . 
as  a  sort  of  absurd  reliance  on  the  hereditary  principle  modified 
insensibly  his  leanings  in  the  practical  world,  so  a  belief  in  the 
existence  of  unevidenced,  and  often  absurd,  supernatural  beings 
qualified  his  commonest  speculations  on  the  higher  world.  Both 
these  elements  may  be  thought  to  enter  into  the  highest  reli- 
gion ;  there  is  a  principle  of  cheerfulness  which  will  justify  in 
its  measure  a  genial  enjoyment,  and  also  a  principle  of  fear 
which  those  who  think  only  of  that  enjoyment  will  deem  super- 
stition, and  which  will  really  become  superstition  in  the  over- 
anxious and  credulous  acceptor  of  it.  But  in  a  true  religion 
these  two  elements  will  be  combined.  The  character  of  God 
images  itself  very  imperfectly  in  any  human  soul ;  but  in  th  e 
highest  it  images  itself  as  a  whole ;  it  leaves  an  abiding  impres- 
sion which  will  justify  anxiety  and  allow  of  happiness.  The 
highest  aim  of  the  religious  novelist  would  be  to  show  how  this 
operates  in  human  character  ;  to  exhibit  in  their  curious  modifi- 
cation our  religious  love,  and  also  our  religious  fear.  In  the 
novels  of  Scott  the  two  elements  appear  in  a  state  of  separation, 
as  they  did  in  his  own  mind.  We  have  the  superstition  of  the 
peasantry  in  the  Antiquary,  in  Guy  Mannering,  everywhere 
almost ;  we  have  likewise  a  pervading  tone  of  genial  easy  reflec- 
tion characteristic  of  the  man  of  the  world  who  produced,  and 
agreeable  to  the  people  of  the  world  who  read,  these  works.  But 
we  have  no  picture  of  the  two  in  combination.  We  are  scarcely 
led  to  think  on  the  subject  at  all,  so  much  do  other  subjects 
distract  our  interest ;  but  if  we  do  think,  we  are  puzzled  at  the 
contrast.  We  do  not  know  which  is  true,  the  uneasy  belief  of 
superstition,  or  the  easy  satisfaction  of  the  world  ;  we  waver  be- 
tween the  two,  and  have  no  suggestion  even  hinted  to  us  of  the 

N  2 


180  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

possibility  of  a  reconciliation.     The  character  of  the  Puritans 
certainly  did  not  in  general  embody  such  a  reconciliation,  but 
it  might  have  been  made  by  a  sympathising  artist  the  vehicle 
for  a  delineation  of  a  struggle  after  it.     The  two  elements  of 
love  and  fear  ranked  side  by  side  in  their  minds  with  an  inten- 
sity which  is  rare  even  in  minds  that  feel  only  one  of  thenv 
The  delineation  of  Scott  is  amusing,  but  superficial.    He  caught 
the  ludicrous  traits  which  tempt  the  mirthful  imagination,  but 
no  other  side  of  the  character  pleased  him.     The  man  of  the 
world  was  displeased  with  their  obstinate  interfering  zeal ;  their 
intensity  of  faith  was  an  opposition  force  in  the  old  Scotch 
polity,  of  which  he  liked  to  fancy  the  harmonious  working. 
They  were  superstitious  enough  ;  but  nobody  likes  other  people's 
superstitions.    Scott's  were  of  a  wholly  different  kind.     He  made 
no  difficulty  as  to  the  observance  of  Christmas-day,  and  would 
have  eaten  potatoes  without  the  faintest  scruple,  although  their 
-name  does  not  occur  in  Scripture.     Doubtless  also  his  residence 
in  the  land  of  Puritanism  did  not  incline  him  to  give  anything 
except  a  satirical  representation  of  that  belief.     You  must  not 
expect  from  a  Dissenter  a  faithful  appreciation  of  the  creed  from 
which  he  dissents.     You  cannot  be  impartial  on  the  religion  of 
the  place  in  which  you  live  ;  you  may  believe  it,  or  you  may 
dislike  it ;  it  crosses  your  path  in  too  many  forms  for  you  to  be 
able  to  look  at  it  with  equanimity.     Scott  had  rather  a  rigid 
form  of  Puritanism  forced  upon  him  in  his  infancy ;  it  is  asking 
too  much  to  expect  him  to  be  partial  to  it.     The  aspect  of 
religion  which  Scott  delineates  best  is  that  which  appears  in 
griefs,  especially  in  the  grief  of  strong  characters.     His  strong 
natural  nature  felt  the  power  of  death.     He  has  given  us  many 
pictures  of  rude  and  simple  men  subdued,  if  only  for  a  moment, 
into  devotion  by  its  presence. 

On  the  whole,  and  speaking  roughly,  these  defects  in  the 
delineation  which  Scott  has  given  us  of  human  life  are  but  two, 
He  omits  to  give  us  a  delineation  of  the  soul.  We  have  mind, 
manners,  animation,  but  it  is  the  stir  of  this  world.  We  miss 


The   Waver  ley  Novels.  181 

the  consecrating  power ;  and  we  miss  it  not  only  in  its  own 
peculiar  sphere,  which,  from  the  difficulty  of  introducing  the 
deepest  elements  into  a  novel,  would  have  been  scarcely  matter 
for  a  harsh  criticism,  but  in  the  place  in  which  a  novelist  might 
most  be  expected  to  delineate  it.  There  are  perhaps  such  things 
as  the  love  affairs  of  immortal  beings,  but  no  one  would  learn 
it  from  Scott.  His  heroes  and  heroines  are  well  dressed  for  this 
world,  but  not  for  another ;  there  is  nothing  even  in  their  love 
which  is  suitable  for  immortality.  As  has  been  noticed,  Scott  also 
omits  any  delineation  of  the  abstract  side  of  unworldly  intellect. 
This  too  might  not  have  been  so  severe  a  reproach,  considering 
its  undramatic,  unanimated  nature,  if  it  had  stood  alone  ;  but 
taken  in  connection  with  the  omission  which  we  have  just  spoken 
of,  it  is  most  important.  As  the  union  of  sense  and  romance 
makes  the  world  of  Scott  so  characteristically  agreeable, — a 
fascinating  picture  of  this  world  in  the  light  in  which  we  like 
best  to  dwell  on  it ;  so  the  deficiency  in  the  attenuated,  striving 
intellect,  as  well  as  in  the  supernatural  sou],  gives  to  the 
6  world  '  of  Scott  the  cumbrousness  and  temporality — in  short, 
the  materialism — which  is  characteristic  of  the  world. 

We  have  dwelt  so  much  on  what  we  think  are  the  character- 
istic features  of  Scott's  imaginative  representations,  that  we  have 
left  ourselves  no  room  to  criticise  the  two  most  natural  points  of 
criticism  in  a  novelist — plot  and  style.  This  is  not,  however,  so 
important  in  Scott's  case  as  it  would  commonly  be.  He  used  to 
say,  '  It  was  of  no  use  having  a  plot ;  you  could  not  keep  to  it.' 
He  modified  and  changed  his  thread  of  story  from  day  to  day, — 
sometimes  even  from  bookselling  reasons,  and  on  the  suggestion 
of  others.  An  elaborate  work  of  narrative  art  could  not  be  pro- 
duced in  this  way,  every  one  will  concede ;  the  highest  imagi- 
nation, able  to  look  far  over  the  work,  is  necessary  for  that  task. 
But  the  plots  produced,  so  to  say,  by  the  pen  of  the  writer  as  he 
passes  over  the  events  are  likely  to  have  a  freshness  and  a  suit- 
ableness to  those  events,  which  is  not  possessed  by  the  inferior 
writers  who  make  up  a  mechanical  plot  before  they  commence. 


1 82  The   Waver  ley  Novels. 

The  procedure  of  the  highest  genius  doubtless  is  scarcely  a  pro- 
cedure: the  view  of  the  whole  story  comes  at  once  upon  its 
imagination  like  the  delicate  end  and  the  distinct  beginning  of 
some  long  vista.  But  all  minds  do  not  possess  the  highest  mode 
of  conception ;  and  among  lower  modes,  it  is  doubtless  better 
to  possess  the  vigorous  fancy  which  creates  each  separate  scene 
in  succession  as  it  goes,  than  the  pedantic  intellect  which  designs 
everything  long  before  it  is  wanted.  There  is  a  play  in  uncon- 
scious creation  which  no  voluntary  elaboration  and  preconceived 
fitting  of  distinct  ideas  can  ever  hope  to  produce.  If  the  whole 
cannot  be  created  by  one  bounding  effort,  it  is  better  that  each 
part  should  be  created  separately  and  in  detail. 

The  style  of  Scott  would  deserve  the  highest  praise  if  M. 
Thiers  could  establish  his  theory  of  narrative  language.  He 
maintains  that  an  historian's  language  approaches  perfection  in 
proportion  as  it  aptly  communicates  what  is  meant  to  be  nar- 
rated without  drawing  any  attention  to  itself.  Scott's  style 
fulfils  this  condition.  Nobody  rises  from  his  works  without  a 
most  vivid  idea  of  what  is  related,  and  no  one  is  able  to  quote  a 
single  phrase  in  which  it  has  been  narrated.  We  are  inclined, 
however,  to  differ  from  the  great  French  historian,  and  to 
oppose  to  him  a  theory  derived  from  a  very  different  writer. 
Coleridge  used  to  maintain  that  all  good  poetry  was  untrans- 
latable into  words  of  the  same  language  without  injury  to  the 
sense :  the  meaning  was,  in  his  view,  to  be  so  inseparably 
intertwined  even  with  the  shades  of  the  language,  that  the 
change  of  a  single  expression  would  make  a  difference  in  the 
accompanying  feeling,  if  not  in  the  bare  signification :  con- 
sequently, all  good  poetry  must  be  remembered  exactly, — to 
change  a  word  is  to  modify  the  essence.  Rigidly  this  theory 
can  only  be  applied  to  a  few  kinds  of  poetry,  or  special  passages 
in  which  the  imagination  is  exerting  itself  to  the  utmost,  and 
collecting  from  the  whole  range  of  associated  language  the 
very  expressions  which  it  requires.  The  highest  excitation  of 
feeling  is  necessary  to  this  peculiar  felicity  of  choice.  In 


The    Waver  ley  Novels.  183 

calmer  moments  the  mind  has  either  a  less  choice,  or  less 
acuteness  of  selective  power.  Accordingly,  in  prose  it  would 
be  absurd  to  expect  any  such  nicety.  Still,  on  great  occasions 
in  imaginative  fiction,  there  should  be  passages  in  which  the 
words  seem  to  cleave  to  the  matter.  The  excitement  is  as 
great  as  in  poetry.  The  words  should  become  part  of  the 
sense.  They  should  attract  our  attention,  as  this  is  necessary 
to  impress  them  on  the  memory;  but  they  should  not  in  so 
doing  distract  attention  from  the  meaning  conveyed.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  their  inseparability  from  their  meaning  which 
gives  them  their  charm  and  their  power.  In  truth,  Scott's 
language,  like  his  sense,  was  such  as  became  a  bold,  sagacious 
man  of  the  world.  He  used  the  first  sufficient  words  which 
came  uppermost,  and  seems  hardly  to  have  been  sensible,  even 
in  the  works  of  others,  of  that  exquisite  accuracy  and  inex- 
plicable appropriateness  of  which  we  have  been  speaking. 

To  analyse  in  detail  the  faults  and  merits  of  even  a  few  of 
the  greatest  of  the  Waverley  Novels  would  be  impossible  in 
the  space  at  our  command  on  the  present  occasion.  We  have 
only  attempted  a  general  account  of  a  few  main  characteristics. 
Every  critic  must,  however,  regret  to  have  to  leave  topics  so 
tempting  to  remark  upon  as  many  of  Scott's  stories,  and  a  yet 
greater  number  of  his  characters. 


1 84 


CHARLES  DICKENS.1 

(1858.) 

IT  must  give  Mr.  Dickens  much  pleasure  to  look  at  the  collected 
series  of  his  writings.  He  has  told  us  of  the  beginnings  of 
Pickwick. 

c  I  was,'  he  relates  in  what  is  now  the  preface  to  that  work,  (  a 
young  man  of  three-and-twenty,  when  the  present  publishers,  at- 
tracted by  some  pieces  I  was  at  that  time  writing  in  the  Morning 
Chronicle  newspaper  (of  which  one  series  had  lately  been  collected 
and  published  in  two  volumes,  illustrated  by  my  esteemed  friend  Mr. 
George  Cruikshank),  waited  upon  me  to  propose  a  something  that 
should  be  published  in.  shilling  numbers — then  only  known  to  me,  or 
I  believe  to  anybody  else,  by  a  dim  recollection  of  certain  intermin- 
able novels  in  that  form,  which  used,  some  five-and-twenty  years  ago, 
to  be  carried  about  the  country  by  pedlars,  and  over  some  of  which  I 
remember  to  have  shed  innumerable  tears,  before  I  served  my 
apprenticeship  to  Life.  When  I  opened  my  door  in  Furnival's  Inn 
to  the  managing  partner  who  represented  the  firm,  I  recognised  in 
him  the  person  from  whose  hands  I  had  bought,  two  or  three  years 
previously,  and  whom  I  had  never  seen  before  or  since,  my  first  copy 
of  the  magazine  in  which  my  first  effusion — dropped  stealthily  one 
evening  at  twilight,  with  fear  and  trembling,  into  a  dark  letter-box, 
in  a  dark  office,  up  a  dark  court  in  Fleet  Street — appeared  in  all  the 
glory  of  print ;  on  which  occasion,  by  the  bye, — how  well  I  recollect 
it  ! — I  walked  down  to  Westminster  Hall,  and  turned  into  it  for 
half-an-hour,  because  my  eyes  were  so  dimmed  with  joy  and  pride, 
that  they  could  not  bear  the  street,  and  were  not  fit  to  be  seen  there. 
I  told  my  visitor  of  the  coincidence,  which  we  both  hailed  as  a  good 
omen  ;  and  so  fell  to  business.' 

1  Cheap  Edition  of  the   Works  of  Mr.   Charles  Dickens.      The  Pickwick 
Papers,  Nicholas  Mckleby,  $c.     London,  1857-8.     Chapman  and  Hall. 


Charles  Dickens.  185 


After  such  a  beginning,  there  must  be  great  enjoyment  in 
looking  at  the  long  series  of  closely  printed  green  volumes,  in 
remembering  their  marvellous  popularity,  in  knowing  that  they 
are  a  familiar  literature  wherever  the  English  language  is 
spoken,— that  they  are  read  with  admiring  apppreciation  by 
persons  of  the  highest  culture  at  the  centre  of  civilisation,— 
that  they  amuse,  and  are  fit  to  amuse,  the  roughest  settler  in 
Vancouver's  Island. 

The  penetrating  power  of  this  remarkable  genius  among  all 
classes  at  home  is  not  inferior  to  its  diffusive  energy  abroad.  The 
phrase  '  household  book '  has,  when  applied  to  the  works  of  Mr. 
Dickens,  a  peculiar  propriety.  There  is  no  contemporary  English 
writer,  whose  works  are  read  so  generally  through  the  whole 
house,  who  can  give  pleasure  to  the  servants  as  well  as  to  the 
mistress,  to  the  children  as  well  a.s  to  the  master.  Mr.  Thackeray 
without  doubt  exercises  a  more  potent  and  plastic  fascination 
within  his  sphere,  but  that  sphere  is  limited.  It  is  re- 
stricted to  that  part  of  the  middle  class  which  gazes  inquisi- 
tively at  the  '  Vanity  Fair '  world.  The  delicate  touches  of  our 
great  satirist  have,  for  such  readers,  not  only  the  charm  of  wit, 
but  likewise  the  interest  of  valuable  information  ;  he  teLs  them 
of  the  topics  which  they  want  to  know.  But  below  this  class 
there  is  another  and  far  larger,  which  is  incapable  of  com- 
prehending the  idling  world,  or  of  appreciating  the  accuracy  of 
delineations  drawn  from  it, — which  would  not  know  the  differ- 
ence between  a  picture  of  Grosvenor  Square  by  Mr.  Thackeray 
and  the  picture  of  it  in  a  Minerva-Press  novel, — which 
only  cares  for  or  knows  of  its  own  multifarious,  industrial, 
fig-selling  world, — and  over  these  also  Mr.  Dickens  has 
power. 

It  cannot  be  amiss  to  take  this  opportunity  of  investigating, 
even  slightly,  the  causes  of  so  great  a  popularity.  And  if,  in 
the  course  of  our  article,  we  may  seem  to  be  ready  with  over- 
refining  criticism,  or  to  be  unduly  captious  with  theoretical 
objections,  we  hope  not  to  forget  that  so  great  and  so  diffused 


1 86  Charles  Dickens. 


an  influence  is  a  datum  for  literary  investigation, — that  books 
which  have  been  thus  tried  upon  mankind  and  have  thus  suc- 
ceeded, must  be  books  of  immense  genius, — and  that  it  is  our 
duty  as  critics  to  explain,  as  far  as  we  can,  the  nature  and  the 
limits  of  that  genius,  but  never  for  one  moment  to  deny  or 
question  its  existence. 

Men  of  genius  may  be  divided  into  regular  and  irregular. 
Certain  minds,  the  moment  we  think  of  them,  suggest  to  us  the 
ideas  of  symmetry  and  proportion.  Plato's  name,  for  example, 
calls  up  at  once  the  impression  of  something  ordered,  measured, 
and  settled :  it  is  the  exact  contrary  of  everything  eccentric, 
immature,  or  undeveloped.  The  opinions  of  such  a  mind  are 
often  erroneous,  and  some  of  them  may,  from  change  of  time,  of 
intellectual  data,  or  from  chance,  seem  not  to  be  quite  worthy 
of  it ;  but  the  mode  in  which  those  opinions  are  expressed,  and 
(as  far  as  we  can  make  it  out)  the  mode  in  which  they  are 
framed,  affect  us,  as  we  have  said,  with  a  sensation  of  symme- 
tricalness.  It  is  not  very  easy  to  define  exactly  to  what  peculiar 
internal  characteristic  this  external  effect  is  due  :  the  feeling  is 
distinct,  but  the  cause  is  obscure ;  it  lies  hid  in  the  peculiar 
constitution  of  great  minds,  and  we  should  not  wonder  that  it  is 
not  very  easy  either  to  conceive  or  to  describe.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  effect  seems  to  be  produced  by  a  peculiar  propor- 
tionateness,  in  each  instance,  of  the  mind  to  the  tasks  which  it 
undertakes,  amid  which  we  see  it,  and  by  which  we  measure  it. 
Thus  we  feel  that  the  powers  and  tendencies  of  Plato's  mind 
and  nature  were  more  fit  than  those  of  any  other  philosopher  for 
the  due  consideration  and  exposition  of  the  highest  problems  of 
philosophy,  of  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which  concern  man  as 
man.  His  genius  was  adapted  to  its  element ;  any  change 
would  mar  the  delicacy  of  the  thought,  or  the  polished  accuracy 
of  the  expression.  The  weapon  was  fitted  to  its  aim.  Every 
instance  of  proportionateness  does  not,  however,  lead  us  to  attri- 
bute this  peculiar  symmetry  to  the  whole  mind  we  are  observ- 
ing. The  powers  must  not  only  be  suited  to  the  task  undertaken, 


Charles  Dickens.  187 


but  the  task  itself  must  also  be  suited  to  a  human  being,  and 
employ  all  the  marvellous  faculties  with  which  he  is  endowed. 
The  neat  perfection  of  such  a  mind  as  Talleyrand's  is  the 
antithesis  to  the  symmetry  of  genius ;  the  niceties  neither  of 
diplomacy  nor  of  conversation  give  scope  to  the  entire  powers 
of  a  great  nature.  We  may  lay  down  as  the  condition  of  a 
regular  or  symmetrical  genius,  that  it  should  have  the  exact 
combination  of  powers  suited  to  graceful  and  easy  success  in  an 
exercise  of  mind  great  enough  to  task  the  whole  intellectual 
nature. 

On  the  other  hand,  men  of  irregular  or  unsymmetrical  genius 
are  eminent  either  for  some  one  or  some  few  peculiarities  of 
mind,  have  possibly  special  defects  on  other  sides  of  their  intel- 
lectual nature,  at  any  rate  want  what  the  scientific  men  of  the 
present  day  would  call  the  definite  proportion  of  faculties  and 
qualities  suited  to  the  exact  work  they  have  in  hand.  The  foun- 
dation of  many  criticisms  of  Shakespeare  is,  that  he  is  deficient 
in  this  peculiar  proportion.  His  overteeming  imagination  gives 
at  times,  and  not  unfrequently,  a  great  feeling  of  irregularity  : 
there  seems  to  be  confusion.  We  have  the  tall  trees  of  the  forest, 
the  majestic  creations  of  the  highest  genius  ;  but  we  have,  be- 
sides, a  bushy  second  growth,  an  obtrusion  of  secondary  images 
and  fancies,  which  prevent  our  taking  an  exact  measure  of  such 
grandeur.  We  have  not  the  sensation  of  intense  simplicity, 
which  must  probably  accompany  the  highest  conceivable  great- 
ness. Such  is  also  the  basis  of  Mr.  Hallam's  criticism  on 
Shakespeare's  language,  which  Mr.  Arnold  has  lately  revived. 
(  His  expression  is  often  faulty,'  because  his  illustrative  imagi- 
nation, somewhat  predominating  over  his  other  faculties, 
diffuses  about  the  main  expression  a  supplement  of  minor 
metaphors  which  sometimes  distract  the  comprehension,  and 
almost  always  deprive  his  style  of  the  charm  that  arises  from 
undeviating  directness.  Doubtless  this  is  an  instance  of  the 
very  highest  kind  of  irregular  genius,  in  which  all  the  powers 
exist  in  the  mind  in  a  very  high,  and  almost  all  of  them  in  the 


1 88  Charges  Dickens. 


very  highest  measure,  but  in  which  from  a  slight  excess  in  a 
single  one,  the  charm  of  proportion  is  lessened.  The  most 
ordinary  cases  of  irregular  genius  are  those  in  which  single 
faculties  are  abnormally  developed,  and  call  off  the  attention 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  mind  by  their  prominence  and 
activity.  Literature,  as  the  <  fragment  of  fragments,'  is  so 
full  of  the  fragments  of  such  minds  that  is  is  needless  to  specify 
instances. 

Possibly  it  may  be  laid  down  that  one  of  two  elements  is 
essential  to  a  symmetrical  mind.  It  is  evident  that  such  a 
mind  must  either  apply  itself  to  that  which  is  theoretical  or 
that  which  is  practical,  to  the  world  of  abstraction  or  to  the 
world  of  objects  and  realities.  In  the  former  case  the  deductive 
understanding,  which  masters  first  principles,  and  makes  de- 
ductions from  them,  the  thin  ether  of  the  intellect, — the  ( mind 
itself  by  itself,' — must  evidently  assume  a  great  prominence. 
To  attempt  to  comprehend  principles  without  it,  is  to  try  to 
swim  without  arms,  or  to  fly  without  wings.  Accordingly,  in 
the  mind  of  Plato,  and  in  others  like  him,  the  abstract  and 
deducing  understanding  fills  a  great  place ;  the  imagination 
seems  a  kind  of  eye  to  descry  its  data ;  the  artistic  instinct  an 
arranging  impulse,  which  sets  in  order  its  inferences  and  con- 
clusions. On  the  other  hand,  if  a  symmetrical  mind  busy  itself 
with  the  active  side  of  human  life,  with  the  world  of  concrete 
men  and  real  things,  its  principal  quality  will  be  a  practical 
sagacity,  which  forms  with  ease  a  distinct  view  and  just  appre- 
ciation of  all  the  mingled  objects  that  the  world  presents, — 
which  allots  to  each  its  own  place,  and  its  intrinsic  and  appro- 
priate rank.  Possibly  no  mind  gives  such  an  idea  of  this  sort 
of  symmetry  as  Chaucer's.  Every  thing  in  it  seems  in  its 
place.  A  healthy  sagacious  man  of  the  world  has  gone  through 
the  world  ;  he  loves  it,  and  knows  it ;  he  dwells  on  it  with  a 
fond  appreciation ;  every  object  of  the  old  life  of  '  merry 
England '  seems^to  fall  into  its  precise  niche  in  his  ordered  and 
symmetrical  comprehension.  The  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury 


Charles  Dickens.  189 


Tales  is  in  itself  a  series  of  memorial  tablets  to  mediaeval 
society ;  each  class  has  its  tomb,  and  each  its  apt  inscription. 
A  man  without  such  an  apprehensive  and  broad  sagacity  must 
fail  in  every  extensive  delineation  of  various  life ;  he  might 
attempt  to  describe  what  he  did  not  penetrate,  or  if  by  a  rare 
discretion  he  avoided  that  mistake,  his  works  would  want  the 
binding  element ;  he  would  be  deficient  in  that  distinct  sense 
of  relation  and  combination  which  is  necessary  for  the  depiction 
of  the  whole  of  life,  which  gives  to  it  unity  at  first,  and  imparts 
to  it  a  mass  in  the  memory  ever  afterwards.  And  eminence  in 
one  or  other  of  these  marking  faculties, — either  in  the  deductive 
abstract  intellect,  or  the  practical  seeing  sagacity, — seems  es- 
sential to  the  mental  constitution  of  a  symmetrical  genius,  at 
least  in  man.  There  are,  after  all,  but  two  principal  all-im- 
portant spheres  in  human  life — thought  and  action ;  and  we 
can  hardly  conceive  of  a  masculine  mind  symmetrically  de- 
veloped, which  did  not  evince  its  symmetry  by  an  evident  per- 
fection in  one  or  other  of  those  pursuits,  which  did  not  leave  the 
trace  of  its  distinct  reflection  upon  the  one,  or  of  its  large  in- 
sight upon  the  other  of  them.  Possibly  it  may  be  thought  that 
in  the  sphere  of  pure  art  there  may  be  room  for  a  symmetrical 
development  different  from  these ;  but  it  will  perhaps  be  found, 
on  examination  of  such  cases,  either  that  under  peculiar  and 
appropriate  disguises  one  of  these  great  qualities  is  present,  or 
that  the  apparent  symmetry  is  the  narrow  perfection  of  a 
limited  nature,  which  may  be  most  excellent  in  itself,  as  in 
the  stricter  form  of  sacred  art,  but  which,  as  we  explained, 
is  quite  opposed  to  that  broad  perfection  of  the  thinking 
being,  to  which  we  have  applied  the  name  of  the  symmetry  of 
genius. 

If  this  classification  of  men  of  genius  be  admitted,  there  can 
be  no  hesitation  in  assigning  to  Mr.  Dickens  his  place  in  it. 
His  genius  is  essentially  irregular  and  unsymmetrical.  Hardly 
any  English  writer  perhaps  is  much  more  so.  His  style  is  an 
example  of  it.  It  is  descriptive,  racy,  and  flowing  ;  it  is  instinct 


190  Charles  Dickens. 


with  new  imagery  and  singular  illustration  ;  but  it  does  not 
indicate  that  due  proportion  of  the  faculties  to  one  another 
which  is  a  beauty  in  itself,  and  which  cannot  help  diffusing 
beauty  over  every  happy  word  and  moulded  clause.  We  may 
choose  an  illustration  at  random.  The  following  graphic  descrip- 
tion will  do : 

1  If  Lord  George  Gordon  had  appeared  in  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Willet, 
overnight,  a  nobleman  of  somewhat  quaint  and  odd  exterior,  the  im- 
pression was  confirmed  this  morning,  and  increased  a  hundredfold. 
Sitting  bolt  upright  upon  his  bony  steed,  with  his  long,  straight  hair 
dangling  about  his  face  and  fluttering  in  the  wind  ;  his  limbs  all  an- 
gular and  rigid,  his  elbows  stuck  out  on  either  side  ungracefully,  and 
his  whole  frame  jogged  and  shaken  at  every  motion  of  his  horse's  feet ; 
a  more  grotesque  or  more  ungainly  figure  can  hardly  be  conceived. 
In  lieu  of  whip,  he  carried  in  his  hand  a  great  gold-headed  cane,  as 
large  as  any  footman  carries  in  these  days  ;  and  his  various  modes  of 
holding  this  unwieldy  weapon — now  upright  before  his  face  like  the 
sabre  of  a  horse-soldier,  now  over  his  shoulder  like  a  musket,  now  be- 
tween his  finger  and  thumb,  but  always  in  some  uncouth  and  awkward 
fashion— contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  the  absurdity  of  his  ap- 
pearance. Stiff,  lank,  and  solemn,  dressed  in  an  unusual  manner,  and 
ostentatiously  exhibiting — whether  by  design  or  accident — all  his  pe- 
culiarities of  carriage,  gesture,  and  conduct,  all  the  qualities,  natural 
and  artificial,  in  which  he  differed  from  other  men,  he  might  have 
moved  the  sternest  looker-on  to  laughter,  and  fully  provoked  the 
smiles  and  whispered  jests  which  greeted  his  departure  from  the 
Maypole  Inn. 

'  Quite  unconscious,  however,  of  the  effect  he  produced,  he  trotted 
on  beside  his  secretary,  talking  to  himself  nearly  all  the  way,  until 
they  came  within  a  mile  or  two  of  London,  when  now  and  then  some 
passenger  went  by  who  knew  him  by  sight,  and  pointed  him  out  to 
some  one  else,  and  perhaps  stood  looking  after  him,  or  cried  in  jest  or 
earnest  as  it  might  be,  "Hurrah,  Geordie  !  No  Popery  !  "  At  which 
he  would  gravely  pull  off  his  hat,  and  bow.  When  they  reached  the 
town  and  rode  along  the  streets,  these  notices  became  more  frequent ; 
some  laughed,  some  hissed,  some  turned  their  heads  and  smiled,  some 
wondered  who  he  was,  some  ran  along  the  pavement  by  his  side  and 
cheered.  When  this  happened  in  a  crush  of  carts  and  chairs  and 
coaches,  he  would  make  a  dead  stop,  and  pulling  off  his  hat,  cry, 


Charles  Dickens.  191 


"Gentlemen,  No  Popery  ! "  to  which  the  gentlemen  would  respond  with 
lusty  voices,  and  with  three  times  three  ;  and  then,  on  he  would  go 
again  with  a  score  or  so  of  the  raggedest,  following  at  his  horse's 
heels,  and  shouting  till  their  throats  were  parched. 

1  The  old  ladies  too — there  were  a  great  many  old  ladies  in  the 
streets,  and  these  all  knew  him.  Some  of  them — not  those  of  the  high- 
est rank,  but  such  as  sold  fruit  from  baskets  and  carried  burdens — 
clapped  their  shrivelled  hands,  and  raised  a  weazen,  piping,  shrill 
"  Hurrah,  my  lord."  Others  waved  their  hands  or  handkerchiefs,  or 
shook  their  fans  or  parasols,  or  threw  up  windows,  and  called  in  haste 
to  those  within,  to  come  and  see.  All  these  marks  of  popular  esteem 
he  received  with  profound  gravity  and  respect ;  bowing  very  low,  and 
so  frequently  that  his  hat  was  more  off  his  head  than  on  \  and  looking 
up  at  the  houses  as  he  passed  along,  with  the  air  of  one  who  was 
making  a  public  entry,  and  yet  was  not  puffed- up  or  proud.' 

No  one  would  think  of  citing  such  a  passage  as  this,  as 
exemplifying  the  proportioned  beauty  of  finished  writing ;  it  is 
not  the  writing  of  an  evenly  developed  or  of  a  highly  cultured 
mind  ;  it  abounds  in  jolts  and  odd  turns ;  it  is  full  of  singular 
twists  and  needless  complexities :  but,  on  the  other  hand,  no 
one  can  deny  its  great  and  peculiar  merit.  It  is  an  odd  style, 
and  it  is  very  odd  how  much  you  read  it.  It  is  the  overflow  of 
a  copious  mind,  though  not  the  chastened  expression  of  an  har- 
monious one. 

The  same  quality  characterises  the  matter  of  his  works.  His 
range  is  very  varied.  He  has  attempted  to  describe  every  kind 
of  scene  in  English  life,  from  quite  the  lowest  to  almost  the 
highest.  He  has  not  endeavoured  to  secure  success  by  confining 
himself  to  a  single  path,  nor  wearied  the  public  with  repetitions 
of  the  subjects  by  the  delineation  of  which  he  originally  ob- 
tained fame.  In  his  earlier  works  he  never  writes  long  without 
saying  something  well ;  something  which  no  other  man  would 
have  said;  but  even  in  them  it  is  the  characteristic  of  his 
power  that  it  is  apt  to  fail  him  at  once ;  from  masterly  strength 
we  pass  without  interval  to  almost  infantine  weakness, — some- 
thing like  disgust  succeeds  in  a  moment  to  an  extreme  admira- 


1 92  Charles  Dickens. 


tion.  Such  is  the  natural  fate  of  an  unequal  mind  employing 
itself  on  a  vast  and  variegated  subject.  In  writing  on  the 
'Waverley  Novels,'  we  ventured  to  make  a  division  of  novels 
into  the  ubiquitous, — it  would  have  been  perhaps  better  to  say 
the  miscellaneous, — and  the  sentimental :  the  first,  as  its  name 
implies,  busying  itself  with  the  whole  of  human  life,  the  second 
restricting  itself  within  a  peculiar  and  limited  theme.  Mr. 
Dickens's  novels  are  all  of  the  former  class.  They  aim  to  delineate 
nearly  all  that  part  of  our  national  life  which  can  be  delineated, 
— at  least,  within  the  limits  which  social  morality  prescribes  to 
social  art ;  but  you  cannot  read  his  delineation  of  any  part  with- 
out being  struck  with  its  singular  incompleteness.  An  artist 
once  said  of  the  best  work  of  another  artist,  '  Yes,  it  is  a  pretty 
patch.'  If  we  might  venture  on  the  phrase,  we  should  say  that 
Mr.  Dickens's  pictures  are  graphic  scraps ;  his  best  books  are 
compilations  of  them. 

The  truth  is,  that  Mr.  Dickens  wholly  wants  the  two  elements 
which  we  have  spoken  of,  as  one  or  other  requisite  for  a  symme- 
trical genius.  He  is  utterly  deficient  in  the  faculty  of  reasoning. 
'  Mamma,  what  shall  I  think  about  ? '  said  the  small  girl.  '  My 
dear,  don't  think,'  was  the  old-fashioned  reply.  We  do  not 
allege  that  in  the  strict  theory  of  education  this  was  a  correct 
reply ;  modern  writers  think  otherwise  ;  but  we  wish  some  one 
would  say  it  to  Mr.  Dickens.  He  is  often  troubled  with  the 
idea  that  he  must  reflect,  and  his  reflections  are  perhaps  the 
worst  reading  in  the  world.  There  is  a  sentimental  confusion 
about  them ;  we  never  find  the  consecutive  precision  of  mature 
theory,  or  the  cold  distinctness  of  clear  thought.  Vivid  facts 
stand  out  in  his  imagination ;  and  a  fresh  illustrative  style 
brings  them  home  to  the  imagination  of  his  readers ;  but  his 
continuous  philosophy  utterly  fails  in  the  attempt  to  harmonise 
them, — to  educe  a  theory  or  elaborate  a  precept  from  them. 
Of  his  social  thinking  we  shall  have  a  few  words  to  say  in  de- 
tail ;  his  didactic  humour  is  very  unfortunate :  no  writer  is  less 
fitted  for  an  excursion  to  the  imperative  mood.  At  present,  we 


Charles  Dickens.  193 


only  say,  what  is  so  obvious  as  scarcely  to  need  saying,  that  his 
abstract  understanding  is  so  far  inferior  to  his  picturesque  ima- 
gination as  to  give  even  to  his  best  works  the  sense  of  jar  and 
incompleteness,  and  to  deprive  them  altogether  of  the  crystalline 
finish  which  is  characteristic  of  the  clear  and  cultured  under- 
standing. 

Nor  has  Mr.  Dickens  the  easy  and  various  sagacity  which, 
as  has  been  said,  gives  a  unity  to  all  which  it  touches.  He 
has,  indeed,  a  quality  which  is  near  allied  to  it  in  appearance. 
His  shrewdness  in  some  things,  especially  in  traits  and  small 
things,  is  wonderful.  His  works  are  full  of  acute  remarks  on 
petty  doings,  and  well  exemplify  the  telling  power  of  minute 
circumstantiality.  But  the  minor  species  of  perceptive  sharpness 
is  so  different  from  diffused  sagacity,  that  the  two  scarcely  ever 
are  to  be  found  in  the  same  mind.  There  is  nothing  less  like 
the  great  lawyer,  acquainted  with  broad  principles  and  applying 
them  with  distinct  deduction,  than  the  attorney's  clerk  who 
catches  at  small  points  like  a  dog  biting  at  flies.  '  Over-sharp- 
ness '  in  the  student  is  the  most  unpromising  symptom  of  the 
logical  jurist.  You  must  not  ask  a  horse  in  blinkers  for  a  large 
view  of  a  landscape.  In  the  same  way,  a  detective  ingenuity  in 
microscopic  detail  is  of  all  mental  qualities  most  unlike  the 
broad  sagacity  by  which  the  great  painters  of  human  affairs 
have  unintentionally  stamped  the  mark  of  unity  on  their  pro- 
ductions. They  show  by  their  treatment  of  each  case  that  they 
understand  the  whole  of  life ;  the  special  delineator  of  fragments 
and  points  shows  that  he  understands  them  only.  In  one  re- 
spect the  defect  is  more  striking  in  Mr.  Dickens  than  in  any 
other  novelist  of  the  present  day.  The  most  remarkable  de- 
ficiency in  modern  fiction  is  its  omission  of  the  business  of  life, 
of  all  those  countless  occupations,  pursuits,  and  callings  in  which 
most  men  live  and  move,  and  by  which  they  have  their  being. 
In  most  novels  money  grows.  You  have  no  idea  of  the  toil, 
the  patience,  and  the  wearing  anxiety  by  which  men  of  action 
provide  for  the  day,  and  lay  up  for  the  future,  and  support  those 

VOL.  II.  O 


T  94  Charles  Dickens. 


that  are  given  into  their  care.  Mr.  Dickens  is  not  chargeable 
with  this  omission.  He  perpetually  deals  with  the  pecuniary 
part  of  life.  Almost  all  his  characters  have  determined  occupa- 
tions, of  which  he  is  apt  to  talk  even  at  too  much  length. 
When  he  rises  from  the  toiling  to  the  luxurious  classes,  his 
genius  in  most  cases  deserts  him.  The  delicate  refinement  and 
discriminating  taste  of  the  idling  orders  are  not  in  his  way ;  he 
knows  the  dry  arches  of  London  Bridge  better  than  Belgravia. 
He  excels  in  inventories  of  poor  furniture,  and  is  learned  in 
pawnbrokers'  tickets.  But,  although  his  creative  power  lives 
and  works  among  the  middle  class  and  industrial  section  of 
English  society,  he  has  never  painted  the  highest  part  of  their 
daily  intellectual  life.  He  made,  indeed,  an  attempt  to  paint 
specimens  of  the  apt  and  able  man  of  business  in  Nicholas 
Nickleby ;  but  the  Messrs.  Cheeryble  are  among  the  stupidest 
of  his  characters.  He  forgot  that  breadth  of  platitude  is  rather 
different  from  breadth  of  sagacity.  His  delineations  of  middle- 
class  life  have  in  consequence  a  harshness  and  meanness  which 
do  not  belong  to  that  life  in  reality.  He  omits  the  relieving 
element.  He  describes  the  figs  which  are  sold,  but  not  the  talent 
which  sells  figs  well.  And  it  is  the  same  want  of  diffused  sagacity 
in  his  own  nature  which  has  made  his  pictures  of  life  so  odd  and 
disjointed,  and  which  has  deprived  them  of  symmetry  and  unity. 
The  bizarrerie  of  Mr.  Dickens's  genius  is  rendered  more 
remarkable  by  the  inordinate  measure  of  his  special  excellences. 
The  first  of  these  is  his  power  of  observation  in  detail.  We 
have  heard, — we  do  not  know  whether  correctly  or  incorrectly, — 
that  he  can  go  down  a  crowded  street,  and  tell  you  all  that  is  in 
it,  what  each  shop  was,  what  the  grocer's  name  was,  how  many 
scraps  of  orange-peel  there  were  on  the  pavement.  His  works 
give  you  exactly  the  same  idea.  The  amount  of  detail  which 
there  is  in  them  is  something  amazing, — to  an  ordinary  writer 
something  incredible.  There  are  single  pages  containing  telling 
minutice,  which  other  people  would  have  thought  enough  for  a 
volume.  Nor  is  his  sensibility  to  external  objects,  though  om- 


Charles  Dickens.  195 


nivorous,  insensible  to  the  artistic  effect  of  each.  There  are 
scarcely  anywhere  such  pictures  of  London  as  he  draws.  No 
writer  has  equally  comprehended  the  artistic  material  which  is 
given  by  its  extent,  its  aggregation  of  different  elements,  its 
mouldiness,  its  brilliancy. 

Nor  does  his  genius — though,  from  some  idiosyncrasy  of 
mind  or  accident  of  external  situation,  it  is  more  especially 
directed  to  City  life — at  all  stop  at  the  Citywall.  He  is  espe- 
cially at  home  in  the  picturesque  and  obvious  parts  of  country 
life,  particularly  in  the  comfortable  and  (so  to  say)  mouldering 
portion  of  it.  The  following  is  an  instance;  if  not  the  best 
that  could  be  cited,  still  one  of  the  best : — 

*  They  arranged  to  proceed  upon  their  journey  next  evening,  as  a 
stage-wagon,  which  travelled  for  some  distance  on  the  same  road  as 
they  must  take,  would  stop  at  the  inn  to  change  horses,  and  the  driver 
for  a  small  gratuity  would  give  Nell  a  place  inside.  A  bargain  was 
soon  struck  when  the  wagon  came  ;  and  in  due  time  it  rolled  away  ; 
with  the  child  comfortably  bestowed  among  the  softer  packages,  her 
grandfather  and  the  schoolmaster  walking  on  beside  the  driver,  and 
the  landlady  and  all  the  good  folks  of  the  inn  screaming  out  their 
good  wishes  and  farewells. 

1  What  a  soothing,  luxurious,  drowsy  way  of  travelling,  to  lie 
inside  that  slowly-moving  mountain,  listening  to  the  tinkling  of  the 
horses'  bells,  the  occasional  smacking  of  the  carter's  whip,  the  smooth 
rolling  of  the  great  broad  wheels,  the  rattle  of  the  harness,  the  cheery 
goodnights  of  passing  travellers  jogging  past  on  little  short-stepped 
horses — all  made  pleasantly  indistinct  by  the  thick  awning,  which 
seemed  made  for  lazy  listening  under,  till  one  fell  asleep  !  The  very 
going  to  sleep,  still  with  an  indistinct  idea,  as  the  head  jogged  to  and 
fro  upon  the  pillow,  of  moving  onward  with  no  trouble  or  fatigue,  and 
hearing  all  these  sounds  like  dreamy  music,  lulling  to  the  senses — and 
the  slow  waking  up,  and  finding  one's  self  staring  out  through  the 
breezy  curtain  half -opened  in  the  front,  far  up  into  the  cold  bright  sky 
with  its  countless  stars,  and  downward  at  the  driver's  lantern  dancing 
on  like  its  namesake  Jack  of  the  swamps  and  marshes,  and  sideways 
at  the  dark  grim  trees,  and  forward  at  the  long  bare  road  rising  up, 
up,  up,  until  it  stopped  abruptly  at  a  sharp  high  ridge  as  if  there  were 
no  more  road,  and  all  beyond  was  sky — and  the  stopping  at  the  inn  to 

o  2 


196  Charles  Dickens. 


bait,  and  being  helped  out,  and  going  into  a  room  with  fire  and  candles 
and  winking  very  much,  and  being  agreeably  reminded  that  the  night 
was  cold,  and  anxious  for  very  comfort's  sake  to  think  it  colder  than 
it  was  !  What  a  delicious  journey  was  that  journey  in  the  wagon  ! 

*  Then  the  going  on  again—  so  fresh  at  first,  and  shortly  afterwards 
so  sleepy.  The  waking  from  a  sound  nap  as  the  mail  came  dashing 
past  like  a  highway  comet,  with  gleaming  lamps  and  rattling  hoofs, 
and  visions  of  a  guard  behind,  standing  up  to  keep  his  feet  warm,  and 
of  a.  gentleman  in  a  fur  cap  opening  his  eyes  and  looking  wild  and 
stupefied — the  stopping  at  the  turnpike,  where  the  man  was  gone  to 
bed,  and  knocking  at  the  door  until  he  answered  with  a  smothered^ 
shout  from  under  the  bed-clothes  in  the  little  room  above,  where  the 
faint  light  was  burning,  and  presently  came  down,  night-capped  and 
shivering,  to  throw  the  gate  wide  open,  and  wish  all  wagons  off  the 
road  except  by  day.  The  cold  sharp  interval  between  night  and 
morning — the  distant  streak  of  light  widening  and  spreading,  and 
turning  from  grey  to  white,  and  from  white  to  yellow,  and  from 
yellow  to  burning  red — the  presence  of  day,  with  all  its  cheerfulness 
and  life — men  and  horses  at  the  plough — birds  in  the  trees  and 
hedges,  and  boys  in  solitary  fields  frightening  them  away  with  rattles. 
The  coming  to  a  town — people  busy  in  the  market ;  light  carts  and 
chaises  round  the  tavern  yard  ;  tradesmen  standing  at  their  doors  ; 
men  running  horses  up  and  down  the  streets  for  sale  ;  pigs  plunging 
and  grunting  in  the  dirty  distance,  getting  off  with  long  strings  at 
their  legs,  running  into  clean  chemists'  shops  and  being  dislodged  with 
brooms  by  'prentices ;  the  night-coach  changing  horses — the  passengers 
cheerless,  cold,  ugly,  and  discontented,  with  three  months'  growth  of 
hair  in  one  night — the  coachmen  fresh  as  from  a  bandbox,  and  ex- 
quisitely beautiful  by  contrast  : — so  much  bustle,  so  many  things  in 
motion,  such  a  variety  of  incidents — when  was  there  a  journey  with 
so  many  delights  as  that  journey  in  the  wagon  ! ' 

Or,  as  a  relief  from  a  very  painful  series  of  accompanying 
characters,  it  is  pleasant  to  read  and  remember  the  description 
of  the  fine  morning  on  which  Mr.  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  does  not 
reflect.  Mr.  Dickens  has,  however,  no  feeling  analogous  to  the 
nature-worship  of  some  other  recent  writers.  There  is  nothing 
Wordsworthian  in  his  bent  ;  the  interpreting  inspiration  (as 
that  school  speak)  is  not  his.  Nor  has  he  the  erudition  in 
difficult  names  which  has  filled  some  pages  in  late  novelists 


Charles  Dickens.  197 


with  mineralogy  and  botany.  His  descriptions  of  nature  are 
fresh  and  superficial ;  they  are  not  sermonic  or  scientific. 

Nevertheless,  it  may  be  said  that  Mr.  Dickens's  genius  is 
especially  suited  to  the  delineation  of  City  life.  London  is  like 
a  newspaper.  Everything  is  there,  and  everything  is  discon- 
nected. There  is  every  kind  of  person  in  some  houses;  but 
there  is  no  more  connection  between  the  houses  than  between 
the  neighbours  in  the  lists  of  '  births,  marriages,  and  deaths/ 
As  we  change  from  the  broad  leader  to  the  squalid  police-report, 
we  pass  a  corner  and  we  are  in  a  changed  world.  This  is 
advantageous  to  Mr.  Dickens's  genius.  His  memory  is  full  of 
instances  of  old  buildings  and  curious  people,  and  he  does  not 
care  to  piece  them  together.  On  the  contrary,  each  scene,  to  his 
mind,  is  a  separate  scene, — each  street  a  separate  street.  He 
has,  too,  the  peculiar  alertness  of  observation  that  is  observable 
in  those  who  live  by  it.  He  describes  London  like  a  special 
correspondent  for  posterity. 

A  second  most  wonderful  special  faculty  which  Mr.  Dickens 
possesses  is  what  we  may  call  his  vivification  of  character,  or 
rather  of  characteristics.  His  marvellous  power  of  observation 
has  been  exercised  upon  men  and  women  even  more  than  upon 
town  or  country ;  and  the  store  of  human  detail,  so  to  speak,  in 
his  books  is  endless  and  enormous.  The  boots  at  the  inn,  the 
pickpockets  in  the  street,  the  undertaker,  the  Mrs.  Gamp,  are  all 
of  them  at  his  disposal ;  he  knows  each  trait  and  incident,  and 
he  invests  them  with  a  kind  of  perfection  in  detail  which  in 
reality  they  do  not  possess.  He  has  a  very  peculiar  power  of 
taking  hold  of  some  particular  traits,  and  making  a  character 
out  of  them.  He  is  especially  apt  to  incarnate  particular  pro- 
fessions in  this  way.  Many  of  his  people  never  speak  without 
some  allusion  to  their  occupation.  You  cannot  separate  them 
from  it.  Nor  does  the  writer  ever  separate  them.  What  would 
Mr.  Mould  be  if  not  an  undertaker  ?  or  Mrs.  Gamp  if  not  a 
nurse?  or  Charley  Bates  if  not  a  pickpocket?  Not  only  is 
human  nature  in  them  subdued  to  what  it  works  in,  but  there 


198  Charles  Dickens. 


seems  to  be  no  nature  to  subdue ;  the  whole  character  is  the 
idealisation  of  a  trade,  and  is  not  in  fancy  or  thought  distin- 
guishable from  it.  Accordingly,  of  necessity,  such  delineations 
become  caricatures.  We  do  not  in  general  contrast  them  with 
reality ;  but  as  soon  as  we  do,  we  are  struck  with  the  monstrous 
exaggerations  which  they  present.  You  could  no  more  fancy 
Sam  Weller,  or  Mark  Tapley,  or  the  Artful  Dodger  really  exist- 
ing, walking  about  among  common  ordinary  men  and  women, 
than  you  can  fancy  a  talking  duck  or  a  writing  bear.  They  are 
utterly  beyond  the  pale  of  ordinary  social  intercourse.  We  sus- 
pect, indeed,  that  Mr.  Dickens  does  not  conceive  his  characters 
to  himself  as  mixing  in  the  society  he  mixes  in.  He  sees  people 
in  the  street,  doing  certain  things,  talking  in  a  certain  way,  and 
his  fancy  petrifies  them  in  the  act.  He  goes  on  fancying  hun- 
dreds of  reduplications  of  that  act  and  that  speech  ;  he  frames  an 
existence  in  which  there  is  nothing  else  but  that  aspect  which 
attracted  his  attention.  Sam  Weller  is  an  example.  He  is  a 
man-servant,  who  makes  a  peculiar  kind  of  jokes,  and  is  won- 
derfully felicitous  in  certain  similes.  You  see  him  at  his  first 
introduction : — 

' "  My  friend,"  said  the  thin  gentleman. 

'  "You're  one  o'  the  adwice  gratis  order,"  thought  Sam,  "  or  you 
wouldn't  be  so  werry  fond  o'  me  all  at  once."  But  he  only  said — 
"  Well,  sir  1 " 

'  "  My  friend,"  said  the  thin  gentlemen,  with  a  conciliatory  hem — 
"  Have  you  got  many  people  stopping  here,  now  ?  Pretty  busy  ?  Eh  ? " 

'  Sam  stole  a  look  at  the  inquirer.  He  was  a  little  high-dried  man, 
with  a  dark  squeezed -up  face,  and  small  restless  black  eyes,  that  kept 
winking  and  twinkling  on  each  side  of  his  little  inquisitive  nose,  as  if 
they  were  playing  a  perpetual  game  of  peep-bo  with  that  feature.  He 
was  dressed  all  in  black,  with  boots  as  shiny  as  his  eyes,  a  low  white 
neckcloth,  and  a  clean  shirt  with  a  frill  to  it.  A  gold  watch-chain, 
and  seals,  depended  from  his  fob.  He  carried  his  black  kid  gloves  in 
his  hands,  not  on  them  ;  and  as  he  spoke,  thrust  his  wrists  beneath  his 
coat-tails,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  propounding 
some  regular  posers. 

'  "  Pretty  busy,  eh  ?"  said  the  little  man. 


Charles  Dickens.  199 


'  "  Oh,  werry  well,  sir,"  replied  Sam,  "we  shan't  be  bankrupts,  and 
we  shan't  make  our  f ort'ns.  We  eats  our  biled  mutton  without  capers, 
and  don't  care  for  horse-radish  wen  ve  can  get  beef  ? " 

'  "  Ah,"  said  the  little  man,  "you're  a  wag,  ain't  you  ? " 

' "  My  eldest  brother  was  troubled  with  that  complaint,"  said  Sam, 
"  it  may  be  catching — I  used  to  sleep  with  him." 

'  "  This  is  a  curious  old  house  of  yours,"  said  the  little  man,  looking 
round  him. 

'  "  If  you'd  sent  word  you  was  a  coining,  we'd  ha'  had  it  repaired," 
replied  the  imperturbable  Sam. 

*  The  little  man  seemed  rather  baffled  by  these  several  repulses,  and 
a  short  consultation  took  place  between  him  and  the  two  plump  gen- 
tlemen. At  its  conclusion,  the  little  man  took  a  pinch  of  snuff  from 
an  oblong  silver  box,  and  was  apparently  on  the  point  of  renewing  the 
conversation,  when  one  of  the  plump  gentlemen,  who,  in  addition  to  a 
benevolent  countenance,  possessed  a  pair  of  spectacles  and  a  pair  of 
black  gaiters,  interfered — 

4  "  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,"  said  the  benevolent  gentleman,  "that 
my  friend  here"  (pointing  to  the  other  plump  gentleman)  "will  give 
you  half  a  guinea,  if  you'll  answer  one  or  two — " 

'  "Now,  my  dear  sir — my  dear  sir,"  said  the  little  man,  "pray  allow 
me  —my  dear  sir,  the  very  first  principle  to  be  observed  in  these  cases 
is  this  :  if  you  place  a  matter  in  the  hands  of  a  professional  man,  you 
must  in  no  way  interfere  in  the  progress  of  the  business  ;  you  must 
repose  implicit  confidence  in  him.  Really,  Mr.  (he  turned  to  the  other 
plump  gentleman,  and  said) — I  forget  your  friend's  name." 

'  "  Pickwick,"  said  Mr.  Wardle,  for  it  was  no  other  than  that  jolly 
personage. 

'  "  Ah,  Pickwick — really  Mr.  Pickwick,  my  dear  sir,  excuse  me — I 
shall  be  happy  to  receive  any  private  suggestions  of  yours,  as  amicus 
curice,  but  you  must  see  the  impropriety  of  your  interfering  with  my 
conduct  in  this  case,  with  such  an  ad  captandum  argument  as  the 
offer  of  half  a  guinea.  Really,  my  dear  sir,  really,"  and  the  little  man 
took  an  argumentative  pinch  of  snuff,  and  looked  very  profound. 

'  "  My  only  wish,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick,  "was  to  bring  this  very 
unpleasant  matter  to  as  speedy  a  close  as  possible." 

'  "  Quite  right — quite  right,"  said  the  little  man. 

'  "  With  which  view,"  continued  Mr.  Pickwick,  "  I  made  use  of 
the  argument  which  my  experience  of  men  has  taught  me  is  the  most 
likely  to  succeed  in  any  case." 

'  "  Ay,  ay,"  said  the  little  man,  "  very  good,  very  good  indeed ;  but 


2OO  Charles  Dickens. 


you  should  have  suggested  it  to  me.  My  dear  sir,  I'm  quite  certain 
you  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  extent  of  confidence  which  must  be 
placed  in  professional  men.  If  any  authority  can  be  necessary  on 
such  a  point,  my  dear  sir,  let  me  refer  you  to  the  well-known  case  in 
Barnwell  and — " 

'  "Never  mind  George  Barnwell,"  interrupted  Sam,  who  had  re- 
mained a  wondering  listener  during  this  short  colloquy  ;  "  everybody 
knows  vat  sort  of  a  case  his  was,  tho'  it's  always  been  my  opinion, 
mind  you,  that  the  young  'ooman  deserved  scragging  a  precious  sight 
more  than  he  did.  Hows'ever,  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  You 
want  me  to  except  of  half  a  guinea.  Werry  well,  I'm  agreeable  :  I 
can't  say  no  fairer  than  that,  can  I,  sir  ?  (Mr.  Pickwick  smiled.) 
Then  the  next  question  is,  what  the  devil  do  you  want  with  me,  as 
the  man  said  wen  he  see  the  ghost  ? " 

4  "  We  want  to  know—"  said  Mr.  Wardle. 

'  "  Now,  my  dear  sir — my  dear  sir,"  interposed  the  busy  little  man. 

c  Mr.  Wardle  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  was  silent. 

'  "We  want  to  know,"  said  the  little  man,  solemnly  ;  "  and  we  ask 
the  question  of  you,  in  order  that  we  may  not  awaken  apprehensions 
inside — we  want  to  know  who  you've  got  in  this  house  at  present." 

* "  Who  there  is  in  the  house  ! "  said  Sam,  in  whose  mind  the  inmates 
were  always  represented  by  that  particular  article  of  their  costume, 
which  came  under  his  immediate  superintendence.  "  There's  a  wooden 
leg  in  number  six  ;  there's  a  pair  of  Hessians  in  thirteen  ;  there's  two 
pair  of  halves  in  the  commercial ;  there's  these  here  painted  tops  in 
the  snuggery  inside  the  bar ;  and  five  more  tops  in  the  coffee-room." 

'  "  Nothing  more  ?  "  said  the  little  man. 

4  "  Stop  a  bit,"  replied  Sam,  suddenly  recollecting  himself.  "  Yes ; 
there's  a  pair  of  Wellingtons  a  good  deal  worn,  and  a  pair  o'  lady's 
shoes,  in  number  five." 

' "  What  sort  of  shoes  ?  "  hastily  inquired  Wardle,  who,  together 
with  Mr.  Pickwick,  had  been  lost  in  bewilderment  at  the  singular 
catalogue  of  visitors. 

'  "  Country  make,"  replied  Sam. 

c "  Any  maker's  name  ? " 

'  "  Brown." 

<  "  Where  of  ?  " 

<  "  Muggleton." 

{ ' '  Itis  them, "  exclaimed  Wardle.  "  By  Heavens,  we've  found  them. ' 
*  "  Hush  !  "  said  Sam.     "  The  Wellingtons  has  gone  to  Doctors 
Commons." 


Charles  Dickens.  201 


"  No,"  said  the  little  man. 
'"Yes,  for  a  license." 


<  «  We're  in  time,"  exclaimed  Wardle.  "  Show  us  the  room  ;  not  a 
moment  is  to  be  lost." 

'  "  Pray,  my  dear  sir — pray,"  said  the  little  man  ;  "  caution, 
caution."  He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  red  silk  purse,  and  looked 
very  hard  at  Sam  as  he  drew  out  a  sovereign. 

'  Sam  grinned  expressively. 

'  "  Show  us  into  the  room  at  once,  without  announcing  us,"  said  the 
little  man,  "  and  it's  yours." ' 

One  can  fancy  Mr.  Dickens  hearing  a  dialogue  of  this  sort, 
— not  nearly  so  good,  but  something  like  it, — and  immediately 
setting  to  work  to  make  it  better  and  put  it  in  a  book ;  then 
changing  a  little  the  situation,  putting  the  boots  one  step  up  in 
the  scale  of  service,  engaging  him  as  footman  to  a  stout  gentle- 
man (but  without  for  a  moment  losing  sight  of  the  peculiar 
kind  of  professional  conversation  and  humour  which  his  first 
dialogue  presents),  and  astonishing  all  his  readers  by  the 
marvellous  fertility  and  magical  humour  with  \vhich  he  main- 
tains that  style.  Sam  Weller's  father  is  even  a  stronger  and 
simpler  instance.  He  is  simply  nothing  but  an  old  coachman 
of  the  stout  and  extinct  sort :  you  cannot  separate  him  from 
the  idea  of  that  occupation.  But  how  amusing  he  is  !  We 
dare  not  quote  a  single  word  of  his  talk ;  because  we  should  go 
on  quoting  so  long,  and  every  one  knows  it  so  well.  Some 
persons  may  think  that  this  is  not  a  very  high  species  of 
delineative  art.  The  idea  of  personifying  traits  and  trades  may 
seem  to  them  poor  and  meagre.  Anybody,  they  may  fancy, 
can  do  that.  But  how  would  they  do  it  ?  Whose  fancy  would 
not  break  down  in  a  page — in  five  lines  ?  Who  could  carry  on 
the  vivification  with  zest  and  energy  and  humour  for  volume 
after  volume  ?  Endless  fertility  in  laughter-causing  detail  is 
Mr.  Dickens's  most  astonishing  peculiarity.  It  requires  a  con- 
tinuous and  careful  reading  of  his  works  to  be  aware  of  his 
enormous  wealth.  Writers  have  attained  the  greatest  reputa- 
tion for  wit  and  humour,  whose  whole  works  do  not  contain 


2O2  Chanes  Dickens. 


so  much  of  either  as  are  to  be  found  in  a  very  few  pages 
of  his. 

Mr.  Dickens's  humour  is  indeed  very  much  a  result  of  the 
two  peculiarities  of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  His  power 
of  detailed  observation  and  his  power  of  idealising  individual 
traits  of  character — sometimes  of  one  or  other  of  them,  some- 
times of  both  of  them  together.  His  similes  on  matters  of 
external  observation  are  so  admirable  that  everybody  appre- 
ciates them,  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  quote  specimens  of  them ; 
nor  is  it  the  sort  of  excellence  which  best  bears  to  be  paraded 
for  the  purposes  of  critical  example.  Its  off-hand  air  and 
natural  connection  with  the  adjacent  circumstances  are  inherent 
parts  of  its  peculiar  merit.  Every  reader  of  Mr.  Dickens's  works 
knows  well  what  we  mean.  And  who  is  not  a  reader  of  them  ? 

But  his  peculiar  humour  is  even  more  indebted  to  his  habit 
of  vivifying  external  traits,  than  to  his  power  of  external 
observation.  He,  as  we  have  explained,  expands  traits  into 
people ;  and  it  is  a  source  of  true  humour  to  place  these,  when 
so  expanded,  in  circumstances  in  which  only  people — that  is 
complete  human  beings — can  appropriately  act.  The  humour 
of  Mr.  Pickwick's  character  is  entirely  of  this  kind.  He  is  a 
kind  of  incarnation  of  simple-mindedness  and  what  we  may 
call  obvious-mindedness.  The  conclusion  which  each  occur- 
rence or  position  in  life  most  immediately  presents  to  the  un- 
sophisticated mind  is  that  which  Mr.  Pickwick  is  sure  to  accept. 
The  proper  accompaniments  are  given  to  him.  He  is  a  stout 
gentleman  in  easy  circumstances,  who  is  irritated  into  originality 
by  no  impulse  from  within,  and  by  no  stimulus  from  without. 
He  is  stated  to  have  c  retired  from  business.'  But  no  one  can 
fancy  what  he  was  in  business.  Such  guileless  simplicity  of 
heart  and  easy  impressibility  of  disposition  would  soon  have  in- 
duced a  painful  failure  amid  the  harsh  struggles  and  the  tempt- 
ing speculations  of  pecuniary  life.  As  he  is  represented  in  the 
narrative,  however,  nobody  dreams  of  such  antecedents.  Mr. 
Pickwick  moves  easily  over  all  the  surface  of  English  life  from 


Charles  Dickens.  203 


G-oswell   Street   to   Dingley  Dell,  from   Dingley  Dell  to  the 
Ipswich  elections,  from  drinking  milk-punch  in  a  wheelbarrow 
to  sleeping  in  the  approximate  pound,  and  no  one  ever  thinks 
of  applying  to  him  the  ordinary  maxims  which  we  should  apply 
to  any  common  person  in  life,  or  to  any  common  personage  in 
a  fiction.     Nobody  thinks  it  is  wrong  in  Mr.  Pickwick  to  drink 
too  much  milk-punch  in  a  wheelbarrow,  to  introduce  worthless 
people  of  whom  he  knows  nothing  to  the  families  of  people  for 
whom  he  really  cares;  nobody  holds  him  responsible  for  the 
consequences;  nobody  thinks   there  is  anything  wrong  in   his 
taking  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  and  Mr.  Benjamin  Allen  to  visit  Mr. 
Winkle,  senior,  and  thereby  almost  irretrievably  offending  him 
with  his  son's  marriage.     We  do  not  reject  moral  remarks  such 
as  these,  but  they  never  occur  to  us.     Indeed,  the  indistinct 
consciousness  that  such  observations  are  possible,  and  that  they 
are  hovering  about  our   minds,  enhances  the  humour   of  the 
narrative.     We  are  in  a  conventional  world,  where  the  mere 
maxims  of  common  life  do  not  apply,  and  yet  which  has  all  the 
amusing  detail,  and  picturesque  elements,  and  singular  eccen- 
tricities of  common  life.     Mr.  Pickwick  is  a  personified  ideal ; 
a  kind  of  amateur  in  life,  whose  course  we  watch  through  all 
the  circumstances  of  ordinary  existence,  and  at  whose  follies  we 
are  amused  just  as  really  skilled  people  are  at  the  mistakes  of 
an  amateur  in  their  art.     His  being  in  the  pound  is  not  wrong  ; 
his  being  the  victim  of  Messrs.  Dodson  is  not  foolish.     (  Always 
shout  with  the  mob,'  said  Mr.  Pickwick.     '  But  suppose  there 
are  two  mobs,'   said   Mr.  Snodgrass.     '  Then   shout  with  the 
loudest,'  said  Mr.  Pickwick.     This  is  not  in  him  weakness  or 
time-serving,  or  want  of  principle,  as  in  most  even  of  fictitious 
people  it  would  be.     It  is  his  way.     Mr.  Pickwick  was  ex- 
pected to  say  something,  so  he  said  '  Ah  ! '  in  a  grave  voice. 
This  is  not  pompous  as  we  might  fancy,  or  clever  as  it  might  be, 
if  intentionally  devised ;  it  is  simply  his  way.     Mr.  Pickwick 
gets  late  at  night  over  the  wall  behind  the  back-door  of  a 
young-ladies'  school,  is  found  in  that  sequestered  place  by  the 


Charles  Dickens. 


schoolmistress  and  the  boarders  and  the  cook,  and  there  is  a 
dialogue  between  them.  There  is  nothing  out  of  possibility  in 
this  ;  it  is  his  way.  The  humour  essentially  consists  in  treating 
as  a  moral  agent  a  being  who  really  is  not  a  moral  agent.  We 
treat  a  vivified  accident  as  a  man,  and  we  are  surprised  at  the 
absurd  results.  We  are  reading  about  an  acting  thing,  and  we 
wonder  at  its  scrapes,  and  laugh  at  them  as  if  they  were  those 
of  the  man.  There  is  something  of  this  humour  in  every  sort 
of  farce.  Everybody  knows  these  are  not  real  beings  acting  in 
real  life,  though  they  talk  as  if  they  were,  and  want  us  to 
believe  that  they  are.  Here,  as  in  Mr.  Dickens's  books,  we 
have  exaggerations  pretending  to  comport  themselves  as  ordi- 
nary beings,  caricatures  acting  as  if  they  were  characters. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  essential  to  remember,  that  however 
great  may  be  and  is  the  charm  of  such  exaggerated  personifica- 
tions, the  best  specimens  of  them  are  immensely  less  excellent, 
belong  to  an  altogether  lower  range  of  intellectual  achieve- 
ments, than  the  real  depiction  of  actual  living  men.  It  is 
amusing  to  read  of  beings  out  of  the  laws  of  morality,  but  it  is 
more  profoundly  interesting,  as  well  as  more  instructive,  to 
read  of  those  whose  life  in  its  moral  conditions  resembles  our 
own.  We  see  this  most  distinctly  when  both  representations  are 
given  by  the  genius  of  one  and  the  same  writer.  Falstaff  is  a 
sort  of  sack-holding  paunch,  an  exaggerated  over-development 
which  no  one  thinks  of  holding  down  to  the  commonplace  rules 
of  the  ten  commandments  and  the  statute-law.  We  do  not 
think  of  them  in  connection  with  him.  They  belong  to  a 
world  apart.  Accordingly,  we  are  vexed  when  the  king  discards 
him  and  reproves  him.  Such  a  fate  was  a  necessary  adherence 
on  Shakespeare's  part  to  the  historical  tradition ;  he  never 
probably  thought  of  departing  from  it,  nor  would  his  audience 
have  perhaps  endured  his  doing  so.  But  to  those  who  look  at 
the  historical  plays  as  pure  works  of  imaginative  art,  it  seems 
certainly  an  artistic  misconception  to  have  developed  so  mar- 
vellous an  immoral  impersonation,  and  then  to  have  subjected 


Charles  Dickens.  205 


it  to  an  ethical  and  punitive  judgment.  Still,  notwithstanding 
this  error,  which  was  very  likely  inevitable,  Falstaff  is  probably 
the  most  remarkable  specimen  of  caricature-representation  to 
be  found  in  literature.  And  its  very  excellence  of  execution 
only  shows  how  inferior  is  the  kind  of  art  which  creates  only 
such  representations.  Who  could  compare  the  genius,  marvel- 
lous as  must  be  its  fertility,  which  was  needful  to  create  a  Fal- 
staff  with  that  shown  in  the  higher  productions  of  the  same 
mind  in  Hamlet,  Ophelia,  and  Lear  ?  We  feel  instantaneously 
the  difference  between  the  aggregating  accident  which  rakes  up 
from  the  externalities  of  life  other  accidents  analogous  to  itself, 
and  the  central  ideal  of  a  real  character  which  cannot  show 
itself  wholly  in  any  accidents,  but  which  exemplifies  itself 
partially  in  many,  which  unfolds  itself  gradually  in  wide 
spheres  of  action,  and  yet,  as  with  those  we  know  best  in  life, 
leaves  something  hardly  to  be  understood,  and  after  years  of 
familiarity  is  a  problem  and  a  difficulty  to  the  last.  In  the 
same  way,  the  embodied  characteristics  and  grotesque  exaggera- 
tions of  Mr.  Dickens,  notwithstanding  all  their  humour  and  all 
their  marvellous  abundance,  can  never  be  for  a  moment  com- 
pared with  the  great  works  of  the  real  painters  of  essential 
human  nature. 

There  is  one  class  of  Mr.  Dickens's  pictures  which  may  seem 
to  form  an  exception  to  this  criticism.  It  is  the  delineation  of 
the  outlaw,  we  might  say  the  anti-law,  world  in  Oliver  Twist. 
In  one  or  two  instances  Mr.  Dickens  has  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
hit  on  characteristics  which,  by  his  system  of  idealisation  and 
continual  repetition,  might  really  be  brought  to  look  like  a 
character.  A  man's  trade  or  profession  in  regular  life  can  only 
exhaust  a  very  small  portion  of  his  nature ;  no  approach  is  made 
to  the  essence  of  humanity  by  the  exaggeration  of  the  traits 
which  typify  a  beadle  or  an  undertaker.  With  the  outlaw  world 
it  is  somewhat  different.  The  bare  fact  of  a  man  belonging  to 
that  world  is  so  important  to  his  nature,  that  if  it  is  artistically 
developed  with  coherent  accessories,  some  approximation  to  a 


2o6  Charles  Dickens. 


distinctly  natural  character  will  be  almost  inevitably  made.  In 
the  characters  of  Bill  Sykes  and  Nancy  this  is  so.  The  former 
is  the  skulking  ruffian  who  may  be  seen  any  day  at  the  police- 
courts,  and  whom  anyone  may  fancy  he  sees  by  walking  through 
St.  Giles's.  You  cannot  attempt  to  figure  to  your  imagination 
the  existence  of  such  a  person  without  being  thrown  into  the 
region  of  the  passions,  the  will,  and  the  conscience ;  the  mere 
fact  of  his  maintaining,  as  a  condition  of  life  and  by  settled 
profession,  a  struggle  with  regular  society  necessarily  brings 
these  deep  parts  of  his  nature  into  prominence;  great  crime 
usually  proceeds  from  abnormal  impulses  or  strange  effort.  Ac- 
cordingly, Mr.  Sykes  is  the  character  most  approaching  to  a 
coherent  man  who  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  Dickens's  works.  We 
do  not  say  that  even  here  there  is  not  some  undue  heightening 
admixture  of  caricature, — but  this  defect  is  scarcely  thought  of 
amid  the  general  coherence  of  the  picture,  the  painful  subject, 
and  the  wonderful  command  of  strange  accessories.  Miss  Nancy 
is  a  still  more  delicate  artistic  effort.  She  is  an  idealisation  of 
the  girl  who  may  also  be  seen  at  the  police-courts  and  St. 
Giles's  ;  as  bad,  according  to  occupation  and  common  character, 
as  a  woman  can  be,  yet  retaining  a  tinge  of  womanhood,  and  a 
certain  compassion  for  interesting  suffering,  which  under  favour- 
ing circumstances  might  be  the  germ  of  a  regenerating  influence. 
We  need  not  stay  to  prove  how  much  the  imaginative  develop- 
ment of  such  a  personage  must  concern  itself  with  our  deeper 
humanity ;  how  strongly,  if  excellent,  it  must  be  contrasted  with 
everything  conventional  or  casual  or  superficial.  Mr.  Dickens'g 
delineation  is  in  the  highest  degree  excellent.  It  possesses  not 
only  the  more  obvious  merits  belonging  to  the  subject,  but  also 
that  of  a  singular  delicacy  of  expression  and  idea.  Nobody 
fancies  for  a  moment  that  they  are  reading  about  anything 
beyond  the  pale  of  ordinary  propriety.  We  read  the  account  of 
the  life  which  Miss  Nancy  leads  with  Bill  Sykes  without  such 
an  idea  occurring  to  us  :  yet,  when  we  reflect  upon  it,  few  things 
in  literary  painting  are  more  wonderful  than  the  depiction  of  a 


Charle*  Dickens.  207 


professional  life  of  sin  and  sorrow,  so  as  not  even  to  startle  those 
to  whom  the  deeper  forms  of  either  are  but  names  and  shadows. 
Other  writers  would  have  given  as  vivid  a  picture :  Defoe  would 
have  poured  out  even  a  more  copious  measure  of  telling  cir- 
cumstantiality, but  he  would  have  narrated  his  story  with  an 
inhuman  distinctness,  which  if  not  impure  is  impure ;  French 
writers,  whom  we  need  not  name,  would  have  enhanced  the 
interest  of  their  narrative  by  trading  on  the  excitement  of 
stimulating  scenes.  It  would  be  injustice  to  Mr.  Dickens  to  say 
that  he  has  surmounted  these  temptations  ;  the  unconscious 
evidence  of  innumerable  details  proves  that,  from  a  certain 
delicacy  of  imagination  and  purity  of  spirit,  he  has  not  even 
experienced  them.  Criticism  is  the  more  bound  to  dwell  at 
length  on  the  merits  of  these  delineations,  because  no  artistic 
merit  can  make  Oliver  Twist  a  pleasing  work.  The  squalid 
detail  of  crime  and  misery  oppresses  us  too  much.  If  it  is  to 
be  read  at  all,  it  should  be  read  in  the  first  hardness  of  the 
youthful  imagination,  which  no  touch  can  move  too  deeply, 
and  which  is  never  stirred  with  tremulous  suffering  at  the  '  still 
sad  music  of  humanity.'  The  coldest  critic  in  later  life  may 
never  hope  to  have  again  the  apathy  of  his  boyhood. 

It  perhaps  follows  from  what  has  been  said  of  the  characteris- 
tics of  Mr.  Dickens's  genius,  that  it  would  be  little  skilled  in 
planning  plots  for  his  novels.  He  certainly  is  not  so  skilled. 
He  says  in  his  preface  to  the  Pickwick  Papers  l  that  they  were 
designed  for  the  introduction  of  diverting  characters  and  inci- 
dents ;  that  no  ingenuity  of  plot  was  attempted,  or  even  at  that 
time  considered  feasible  by  the  author  in  connection  with  the 
desultory  plan  of  publication  adopted ; '  and  he  adds  an  expres- 
sion of  regret  that  <  these  chapters  had  not  been  strung  together 
on  a  thread  of  more  general  interest.5  It  is  extremely  fortunate 
that  no  such  attempt  was  made.  In  the  cases  in  which  Mr. 
Dickens  has  attempted  to  make  a  long  connected  story,  or  to 
develop  into  scenes  or  incidents  a  plan  in  any  degree  elaborate, 
the  result  has  been  a  complete  failure.  A  certain  consistency 


208  Charles  Dickens. 


of  genius  seetns  necessary  for  the  construction  of  a  consecutive 
plot.  An  irregular  mind  naturally  shows  itself  in  incoherency 
of  incident  and  aberration  of  character.  The  method  in  which 
Mr.  Dickens's  mind  works,  if  we  are  correct  in  our  criticism 
upon  it,  tends  naturally  to  these  blemishes.  Caricatures  are 
necessarily  isolated ;  they  are  produced  by  the  exaggeration  of 
certain  conspicuous  traits  and  features  ;  each  being  is  enlarged 
on  its  greatest  side ;  and  we  laugh  at  the  grotesque  grouping 
and  the  startling  contrast.  But  that  connection  between  human 
beings  on  which  a  plot  depends  is  rather  severed  than  elucidated 
by  the  enhancement  of  their  diversities.  Interesting  stories  are 
founded  on  the  intimate  relations  of  men  and  women.  These 
intimate  relations  are  based  not  on  their  superficial  traits,  or 
common  occupations,  or  most  visible  externalities,  but  on  the 
inner  life  of  heart  and  feeling.  You  simply  divert  attention 
from  that  secret  life  by  enhancing  the  perceptible  diversities  of 
common  human  nature,  and  the  strange  anomalies  into  which  it 
may  be  distorted.  The  original  germ  of  Pickwick  was  a  6  Club 
of  Oddities.'  The  idea  was  professedly  abandoned  ;  but  traces 
of  it  are  to  be  found  in  all  Mr.  Dickens's  books.  It  illustrates 
the  professed  grotesqueness  of  the  characters  as  well  as  their 
slender  connection. 

The  defect  of  plot  is  heightened  by  Mr.  Dickens's  great,  we 
might  say  complete,  inability  to  make  a  love-story.  A  pair  of 
lovers  is  by  custom  a  necessity  of  narrative  fiction,  and  writers 
who  possess  a  great  general  range  of  mundane  knowledge,  and 
but  little  knowledge  of  the  special  sentimental  subject,  are  often 
in  amusing  difficulties.  The  watchful  reader  observes  the  tran- 
sition from  the  hearty  description  of  well-known  scenes,  of  pro- 
saic streets,  or  journeys  by  wood  and  river,  to  the  pale  colours 
of  ill-attempted  poetry,  to  such  sights  as  the  novelist  evidently 
wishes  that  he  need  not  try  to  see.  But  few  writers  exhibit  the 
difficulty  in  so  aggravated  a  form  as  Mr.  Dickens.  Most  men 
by  taking  thought  can  make  a  lay  figure  to  look  not  so  very 
unlike  a  young  gentleman,  and  can  compose  a  telling  schedule 


Charles  Dickens.  209 


of  ladylike  charms.  Mr.  Dickens  has  no  power  of  doing  either. 
The  heroic  character — we  do  not  mean  the  form  of  character 
so  called  in  life  and  action,  but  that  which  is  hereditary  in  the 
heroes  of  novels — is  not  suited  to  his  style  of  art.  Hazlitt  wrote 
an  essay  to  inquire  6  Why  the  heroes  of  romances  are  insipid ; ' 
and  without  going  that  length  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  cha- 
racter of  the  agreeable  young  gentleman  who  loves  and  is  loved 
should  not  be  of  the  most  marked  sort.  Flirtation  ought  not 
to  be  an  exaggerated  pursuit.  Young  ladies  and  their  admirers 
should  not  express  themselves  in  the  heightened  and  imaginative 
phraseology  suited  to  Charley  Bates  and  the  Dodger.  Humour 
is  of  no  use,  for  no  one  makes  love  in  jokes  :  a  tinge  of  insidious 
satire  may  perhaps  be  permitted  as  a  rare  and  occasional  relief, 
but  it  will  not  be  thought '  a  pretty  book,'  if  so  malicious  an 
element  be  at  all  habitually  perceptible.  The  broad  farce  in 
which  Mr.  Dickens  indulges  is  thoroughly  out  of  place.  If 
you  caricature  a  pair  of  lovers  ever  so  little,  by  the  necessity  of 
their  calling  you  make  them  ridiculous.  One  of  Sheridan's  best 
comedies  is  remarkable  for  having  no  scene  in  which  the  hero 
and  heroine  are  on  the  stage  together ;  and  Mr.  Moore  suggests 
that  the  shrewd  wit  distrusted  his  skill  in  the  light  dropping 
love-talk  which  would  have  been  necessary.  Mr.  Dickens  would 
have  done  well  to  imitate  so  astute  a  policy ;  but  he  has  none  of 
the  managing  shrewdness  which  those  who  look  at  Sheridan's 
career  attentively  will  probably  think  not  the  least  remarkable 
feature  in  his  singular  character.  Mr.  Dickens,  on  the  con- 
trary, pours  out  painful  sentiments  as  if  he  wished  the  abundance 
should  make  up  for  the  inferior  quality.  The  excruciating 
writing  which  is  expended  on  Miss  Kuth  Pinch  passes  belief. 
Mr.  Dickens  is  not  only  unable  to  make  lovers  talk,  but  to 
describe  heroines  in  mere  narrative.  As  has  been  said,  most 
men  can  make  a  jumble  of  blue  eyes  and  fair  hair  and  pearly 
teeth,  that  does  very  well  for  a  young  lady,  at  least  for  a  good 
while  ;  but  Mr.  Dickens  will  not,  probably  cannot,  attain  even 
to  this  humble  measure  of  descriptive  art.  He  vitiates  the 

VOL.  IF.  P 


2io  Charles  Dickens. 


repose   by  broad   humour,  or   disenchants  the  delicacy  by  an 
unctuous  admiration. 

This  deficiency  is  probably  nearly  connected  with  one  of 
Mr.  Dickens's  most  remarkable  excellences.     No  one  can  read 
Mr.  Thackeray's  writings  without  feeling  that  he  is  perpetually 
treading  as  close  as  he  dare  to  the  border-line  that  separates  the 
world  which  may  be  described  in   books  from  the  world  which 
it  is  prohibited  so  to  describe.     No  one  knows  better  than  this 
accomplished  artist  where  that  line  is,  and  how  curious  are  its 
windings  and  turns.     The  charge  against  him  is  that  he  knows 
it  but  too  well ;  that  with  an  anxious  care  and  a  wistful  eye  he 
is  ever  approximating  to  its  edge,  and  hinting  with  subtle  art 
how  thoroughly  he  is  familiar  with,  and  how  interesting  he  could 
make,  the  interdicted  region  on  the  other  side.     He  never  vio- 
lates a  single  conventional  rule ;  but  at  the  same  time  the  shadow 
of  the  immorality  that  is  not  seen  is  scarcely  ever  wanting  to 
his  delineation  of  the  society  that  is  seen.     Every  one  may  per- 
ceive what  is  passing  in  his  fancy.     Mr.  Dickens  is  chargeable 
with  no  such  defect :  he  does  not  seem  to  feel  the  temptation. 
By  what  we  may  fairly  call  an  instinctive  purity  of  genius,  he 
not  only  observes  the  conventional  rules,  but  makes  excursions 
into  topics  which  no  other  novelist  could  safely  handle,  and,  by  a 
felicitous  instinct,  deprives  them  of  all  impropriety.     No  other 
writer  could  have  managed  the  humour  of  Mrs.  Gamp  without 
becoming  unendurable.     At  the  same  time  it  is  difficult  not  to 
believe  that  this  singular  insensibility  to  the  temptations  to  which 
many  of  the  greatest  novelists  have  succumbed  is  in  some  mea- 
sure connected  with  his  utter  inaptitude  for  delineating  the  por- 
tion of  life  to  which  their  art  is  specially  inclined.   He  delineates 
neither  the  love-affairs  which  ought  to  be,  nor  those  which  ought 
not  to  be. 

Mr.  Dickens's  indisposition  to  '  make  capital '  out  of  the 
most  commonly  tempting  part  of  human  sentiment  is  the  more 
remarkable  because  he  certainly  does  not  show  the  same  indis- 
position in  other  cases.  He  has  naturally  great  powers  of  pathos ; 


Charles  Dickens.  2 1 1 


his  imagination  is  familiar  with  the  common  sort  of  human 
suffering;  and  his  marvellous  conversancy  with  the  detail  of 
existence  enables  him  to  describe  sick-beds  and  death-beds  with 
an  excellence  very  rarely  seen  in  literature.  A  nature  far  more 
sympathetic  than  that  of  most  authors  has  familiarised  him  with 
such  subjects.  In  general,  a  certain  apathy  is  characteristic  of 
book-writers,  and  dulls  the  efficacy  of  their  pathos.  Mr.  Dickens 
is  quite  exempt  from  this  defect ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  is  ex- 
ceedingly prone  to  a  very  ostentatious  exhibition  of  the  opposite 
excellence.  He  dwells  on  dismal  scenes  with  a  kind  of  fawning 
fondness ;  and  he  seems  unwilling  to  leave  them,  long  after  his 
readers  have  had  more  than  enough  of  them.  He  describes  Mr. 
Dennis  the  hangman  as  having  a  professional  fondness  for  his 
occupation  :  he  has  the  same  sort  of  fondness  apparently  for  the 
profession  of  death-painter.  The  painful  details  he  accumu- 
lates are  a  very  serious  drawback  from  the  agreeableness  of  his 
writings.  Dismal  '  light  literature '  is  the  dismallest  of  reading. 
The  reality  of  the  police  reports  is  sufficiently  bad,  but  a  ficti- 
tious police  report  would  be  the  most  disagreeable  of  conceivable 
compositions.  Some  portions  of  Mr.  Dickens's  books  are  liable 
to  a  good  many  of  the  same  objections.  They  are  squalid  from 
noisome  trivialities,  and  horrid  with  terrifying  crime.  In  his 
earlier  books  this  is  commonly  relieved  at  frequent  intervals 
by  a  graphic  and  original  mirth.  As  we  will  not  say  age,  but 
maturity,  has  passed  over  his  powers,  this  counteractive  element 
has  been  lessened ;  the  humour  is  not  so  happy  as  it  was,  but 
the  wonderful  fertility  in  painful  minutice  still  remains. 

Mr.  Dickens's  political  opinions  have  subjected  him  to  a 
good  deal  of  criticism,  and  to  some  ridicule.  He  has  shown,  on 
many  occasions,  the  desire — which  we  see  so  frequent  among 
able  and  influential  men — to  start  as  a  political  reformer.  Mr. 
Spurgeon  said,  with  an  application  to  himself,  '  If  you've  got 
the  ear  of  the  public,  of  course  you  must  begin  to  tell  it  its 
faults.'  Mr.  Dickens  has  been  quite  disposed  to  make  this  use 
of  his  popular  influence.  Even  in  Pickwick  there  are  many 

v  2 


212  Charles  Dickens. 


traces  of  this  tendency ;  and  the  way  in  which  it  shows  itself 
in  that  book  and  in  others  is  very  characteristic  of  the  time  at 
which  they  appeared.  The  most  instructive  political  charac- 
teristic of  the  years  from  1825  to  1845  is  the  growth  and 
influence  of  the  scheme  of  opinion  which  we  call  Kadicalism. 
There  are  several  species  of  creeds  which  are  comprehended 
under  this  generic  name,  but  they  all  evince  a  marked  reaction 
against  the  worship  of  the  English  constitution  and  the  affection 
for  the  English  status  quo,  which  were  then  the  established 
creed  and  sentiment.  All  Radicals  are  anti-Eld onites.  This  is 
equally  true  of  the  Benthamite  or  philosophical  radicalism  of 
the  early  period,  and  the  Manchester,  or  'definite-grievance 
radicalism,'  among  the  last  vestiges  of  which  we  are  now  living. 
Mr.  Dickens  represents  a  species  different  from  either.  His  is 
what  we  may  call  the  '  sentimental  radicalism ;'  and  if  we  recur 
to  the  history  of  the  time,  we  shall  find  that  there  would  not 
originally  have  been  any  opprobrium  attaching  to  such  a  name. 
The  whole  course  of  the  legislation,  and  still  more  of  the  admi- 
nistration, of  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
was  marked  by  a  harsh  unfeelingness  which  is  of  all  faults  the 
most  contrary  to  any  with  which  we  are  chargeable  now.  The 
world  of  the  'Six  Acts,'  of  the  frequent  executions,  of  the 
Draconic  criminal  law,  is  so  far  removed  from  us  that  we  cannot 
comprehend  its  having  ever  existed.  It  is  more  easy  to  under- 
stand the  recoil  which  has  followed.  All  the  social  speculation, 
and  much  of  the  social  action  of  the  few  years  succeeding  the 
Reform  Bill,  bear  the  most  marked  traces  of  the  reaction.  The 
spirit  which  animates  Mr.  Dickens's  political  reasonings  and 
observations  expresses  it  exactly.  The  vice  of  the  then  existing 
social  authorities,  and  of  the  then  existing  public,  had  been  the 
forgetfulness  of  the  pain  which  their  own  acts  evidently  pro- 
duced,— an  unrealising  habit  which  adhered  to  official  rules 
and  established  maxims,  and  which  would  not  be  shocked  by 
the  evident  consequences,  by  proximate  human  suffering.  The 
sure  result  of  this  habit  was  the  excitement  of  the  habit  pre- 


Charles  Dickens.  213 


cisely  opposed  to  it.  Mr.  Carlyle,  in  his  Chartism,  we  think, 
observes  of  the  poor-law  reform  :  *  It  was  then,  above  all  things, 
necessary  that  outdoor  relief  should  cease.  But  how  ?  What 
means  did  great  Nature  take  for  accomplishing  that  most  de- 
sirable end?  She  created  a  race  of  men  who  believed  the 
cessation  of  outdoor  relief  to  be  the  one  thing  needful.'  In 
the  same  way,  and  by  the  same  propensity  to  exaggerated  op- 
position which  is  inherent  in  human  nature,  the  unfeeling 
obtuseness  of  the  early  part  of  this  century  was  to  be  corrected 
by  an  extreme,  perhaps  an  excessive,  sensibility  to  human  suf- 
fering in  the  years  which  have  followed.  There  was  most 
adequate  reason  for  the  sentiment  in  its  origin,  and  it  had  a 
great  task  to  perform  in  ameliorating  harsh  customs  and  repeal- 
ing dreadful  penalties  ;  bu't  it  has  continued  to  repine  at  such 
evils  long  after  they  ceased  to  exist,  and  when  the  only  facts 
that  at  all  resemble  them  are  the  necessary  painfulness  of  due 
punishment  and  the  necessary  rigidity  of  established  law.  Mr. 
Dickens  is  an  example  both  of  the  proper  use  and  of  the  abuse 
of  the  sentiment.  His  earlier  works  have  many  excellent  de- 
scriptions of  the  abuses  which  had  descended  to  the  present 
generation  from  others  whose  sympathy  with  pain  was  less 
tender.  Nothing  can  be  better  than  the  description  of  the  poor 
debtors'  gaol  in  Pickwick,  or  of  the  old  parochial  authorities 
in  Oliver  Twist.  No  doubt  these  descriptions  are  caricatures, 
all  his  delineations  are  so ;  but  the  beneficial  use  of  such  art 
can  hardly  be  better  exemplified.  Human  nature  endures  the 
aggravation  of  vices  and  foibles  in  written  description  better 
than  that  of  excellences.  We  cannot  bear  to  hear  even  the 
hero  of  a  book  for  ever  called  'just ;'  we  detest  the  recurring 
praise  even  of  beauty,  much  more  of  virtue.  The  moment  you 
begin  to  exaggerate  a  character  of  true  excellence,  you  spoil  it  ; 
the  traits  are  too  delicate  not  to  be  injured  by  heightening,  or 
marred  by  over-emphasis.  But  a  beadle  is  made  for  caricature. 
The  slight  measure  of  pomposity  that  humanises  his  unfeeling- 
ness  introduces  the  requisite  comic  element ;  even  the  turnkeys 


214  Charles  Dickens. 


of  a  debtors'  prison  may  by  skilful  hands  be  similarly  used.  The 
contrast  between  the  destitute  condition  of  Job  Trotter  and  Mr. 
Jingle  and  their  former  swindling  triumph  is  made  comic  by 
a  rarer  touch  of  unconscious  art.  Mr.  Pickwick's  warm  heart 
takes  so  eager  an  interest  in  the  misery  of  his  old  enemies,  that 
our  colder  nature  is  tempted  to  smile.  We  endure  the  over- 
intensity,  at  any  rate  the  unnecessary  aggravation,  of  the  sur- 
rounding misery ;  and  we  endure  it  willingly,  because  it  brings 
out  better  than  anything  else  could  have  done  the  half-comic 
intensity  of  a  sympathetic  nature. 

It  is  painful  to  pass  from  these  happy  instances  of  well-used 
power  to  the  glaring  abuses  of  the  same  faculty  in  Mr.  Dickens's 
later  books.  He  began  by  describing  really  removable  evils  in 
a  style  which  would  induce  all  persons,  however  insensible,  to 
remove  them  if  they  could ;  he  has  ended  by  describing  the 
natural  evils  and  inevitable  pains  of  the  present  state  of  being, 
in  such  a  manner  as  must  tend  to  excite  discontent  and  repin- 
ing. The  result  is  aggravated,  because  Mr.  Dickens  never  ceases 
to  hint  that  these  evils  are  removable,  though  he  does  not  say 
by  what  means.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  show  the  evils  of 
anything.  Mr.  Dickens  has  not  unfrequently  spoken,  and  what 
is  worse,  he  has  taught  a  great  number  of  parrot-like  imitate!*; 
to  speak,  in  what  really  is,  if  they  knew  it,  a  tone  of  objection 
to  the  necessary  constitution  of  human  society.  If  you  will 
only  write  a  description  of  it,  any  form  of  government  will  seem 
ridiculous.  What  is  more  absurd  than  a  despotism,  even  at  its 
best  ?  A  king  of  ability  or  an  able  minister  sits  in  an  orderly 
room  filled  with  memorials,  and  returns,  and  documents,  and 
memoranda.  These  are  his  world ;  among  these  he  of  necessity 
lives  and  moves.  Yet  how  little  of  the  real  life  of  the  nation 
he  governs  can  be  represented  in  an  official  form  !  How  much 
of  real  suffering  is  there  that  statistics  can  never  tell !  how  much 
of  obvious  good  is  there  that  no  memorandum  to  a  minister  will 
ever  mention !  how  much  deception  is  there  in  what  such  docu- 
ments contain  !  how  monstrous  must  be  the  ignorance  of  the 


Charles  Dickens.  215 


closet  statesman,  after  all  his  life  of  labour,  of  mu*h  that  a 
ploughman  could  tell  him  of !  A  free  government  is  almost 
worse,  as  it  must  read  in  a  written  delineation.  Instead  of  the 
real  attention  of  a  laborious  and  anxious  statesman,  we  have 
now  the  shifting  caprices  of  a  popular  assembly — elected  for  one 
object,  deciding  on  another  ;  changing  with  the  turn  of  debate  ; 
shifting  in  its  very  composition  ;  one  set  of  men  coming  down 
to  vote  to-day,  to-morrow  another  and  often  unlike  set,  most  of 
them  eager  for  the  dinner-hour,  actuated  by  unseen  influences, 
by  a  respect  for  their  constituents,  by  the  dread  of  an  attorney 
in  a  far-off  borough.  What  people  are  these  to  control  a 
nation's  destinies,  and  wield  the  power  of  an  empire,  and  re- 
gulate the  happiness  of  millions  !  Either  way  we  are  at  fault. 
Free  government  seems  an  absurdity,  and  despotism  is  so  too. 
Again,  every  form  of  law  has  a  distinct  expression,  a  rigid  pro- 
cedure, customary  rules  and  forms.  It  is  administered  by  human 
beings  liable  to  mistake,  confusion,  and  forgetfulness,  and  in 
the  long  run,  and  on  the  average,  is  sure  to  be  tainted  with 
vice  and  fraud.  Nothing  can  be  easier  than  to  make  a  case,  as 
we  may  say,  against  any  particular  system,  by  pointing  out  with 
emphatic  caricature  its  inevitable  miscarriages,  and  by  pointing 
out  nothing  else.  Those  who  so  address  us  may  assume  a  tone 
of  philanthropy,  and  for  ever  exult  that  they  are  not  so  unfeel- 
ing as  other  men  are ;  but  the  real  tendency  of  their  exhortations 
is  to  make  men  dissatisfied  with  their  inevitable  condition,  and, 
what  is  worse,  to  make  them  fancy  that  its  irremediable  evils 
can  be  remedied,  and  indulge  in  a  succession  of  vague  strivings 
and  restless  changes.  Such,  however, — though  in  a  style  of 
expression  somewhat  different, — is  very  much  the  tone  with 
which  Mr.  Dickens  and  his  followers  have  in  later  years  made 
us  familiar.  To  the  second-hand  repeaters  of  a  cry  so  feeble,  we 
can  have  nothing  to  say  ;  if  silly  people  cry  because  they  think 
the  world  is  silly,  let  them  cry ;  but  the  founder  of  the  school 
cannot,  we  are  persuaded,  peruse  without  mirth  the  lachrymose 
eloquence  which  his  disciples  have  perpetrated.  The  soft 


2i6  Charles  Dickens. 


moisture  t)f  irrelevant  sentiment  cannot  have  entirely  entered 
into  his  soul.  A  truthful  genius  must  have  forbidden  it.  Let 
us  hope  that  his  pernicious  example  may  incite  some  one  of 
equal  genius  to  preach  with  equal  efficiency  a  sterner  and  a 
wiser  gospel ;  but  there  is  no  need  just  now  for  us  to  preach  it 
without  genius. 

There  has  been  much  controversy  about  Mr.  Dickens's  taste. 
A  great  many  cultivated  people  will  scarcely  concede  that  he 
has  any  taste  at  all ;  a  still  larger  number  of  fervent  admirers 
point,  on  the  other  hand,  to  a  hundred  felicitous  descriptions 
and  delineations  which  abound  in  apt  expressions  and  skilful 
turns  and  happy  images, — in  which  it  would  be  impossible  to 
alter  a  single  word  without  altering  for  the  worse  ;  and  natu- 
rally inquire  whether  such  excellences  in  what  is  written  do  not 
indicate  good  taste  in  the  writer.  The  truth  is,  that  Mr.  Dickens 
has  what  we  may  call  creative  taste ;  that  is  to  say,  the  habit 
or  faculty,  whichever  we  may  choose  to  call  it,  which  at  the 
critical  instant  of  artistic  production  offers  to  the  mind  the 
right  word,  and  the  right  word  only.  If  he  is  engaged  on  a 
good  subject  for  caricature,  there  will  be  no  defect  of  taste  to 
preclude  the  caricature  from  being  excellent.  But  it  is  only  in 
moments  of  imaginative  production  that  he  has  any  taste  at  all. 
His  works  nowhere  indicate  that  he  possesses  in  any  degree  the 
passive  taste  which  decides  what  is  good  in  the  writings  of  other 
people,  and  what  is  not,  and  which  performs  the  same  critical 
duty  upon  a  writer's  own  efforts  when  the  confusing  mists  of 
productive  imagination  have  passed  away.  Nor  has  Mr.  Dickens 
the  gentlemanly  instinct  which  in  many  minds  supplies  the  place 
of  purely  critical  discernment,  and  which,  by  constant  associa- 
tion with  those  who  know  what  is  best,  acquires  a  second-hand 
perception  of  that  which  is  best.  He  has  no  tendency  to  con- 
ventionalism for  good  or  for  evil ;  his  merits  are  far  removed 
from  the  ordinary  path  of  writers,  and  it  was  not  probably  so 
much  effort  to  him  as  to  other  men  to  step  so  far  out  of  that 
path  :  he  scarcely  knew  how  far  it  was.  For  the  same  reason, 


Charles  Dickens.  217 


he  cannot  tell  how  faulty  his  writing  will  often  be  thought,  for 
he  cannot  tell  what  people  will  think. 

A  few  pedantic  critics  have  regretted  that  Mr.  Dickens  had 
not  received  what  they  call  a  regular  education.  And  if  we 
understand  their  meaning,  we  believe  they  mean  to  regret  that 
he  had  not  received  a  course  of  discipline  which  would  probably 
have  impaired  his  powers.  A  regular  education  should  mean 
that  ordinary  system  of  regulation  and  instruction  which  ex- 
perience has  shown  to  fit  men  best  for  the  ordinary  pursuits  of 
life.  It  applies  the  requisite  discipline  to  each  faculty  in  the 
exact  proportion  in  which  that  faculty  is  wanted  in  the  pur- 
suits of  life ;  it  develops  understanding,  and  memory,  and  ima- 
gination, each  in  accordance  with  the  scale  prescribed.  To  men 
of  ordinary  faculties  this  is  nearly  essential ;  it  is  the  only 
mode  in  which  they  can  be  fitted  for  the  inevitable  competition 
of  existence.  To  men  of  regular  and  symmetrical  genius  also, 
such  a  training  will  often  be  beneficial.  The  world  knows  pretty 
well  what  are  the  great  tasks  of  the  human  mind,  and  has  learnt 
in  the  course  of  ages  with  some  accuracy  what  is  the  kind  of 
culture  likely  to  promote  their  exact  performance.  A  man  of 
abilities  extraordinary  in  degree  but  harmonious  in  proportion 
will  be  the  better  for  having  submitted  to  the  kind  of  discipline 
which  has  been  ascertained  to  fit  a  man  for  the  work  to  which 
powers  in  that  proportion  are  best  fitted ;  he  will  do  what  he 
has  to  do  better  and  more  gracefully ;  culture  will  add  a  touch 
to  the  finish  of  nature.  But  the  case  is  very  different  with  men 
of  irregular  and  anomalous  genius,  whose  excellences  consist  in 
the  aggravation  of  some  special  faculty,  or  at  the  most  of  one  or 
two.  The  discipline  which  will  fit  such  a  man  for  the  produc- 
tion of  great  literary  works  is  that  which  will  most  develop  the 
peculiar  powers  in  which  he  excels  ;  the  rest  of  the  mind  will  be 
far  less  important ;  it  will  not  be  likely  that  the  culture  which 
is  adapted  to  promote  this  special  development  will  also  be  tha^ 
which  is  most  fitted  for  expanding  the  powers  of  common  men 
in  common  directions.  The  precise  problem  is  to  develop  the 


218  Charles  Dickens. 


powers  of  a  strange  man  in  a  strange  direction.  In  the  case  of 
Mr.  Dickens,  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  have  shut  up  his 
observant  youth  within  the  walls  of  a  college.  They  would 
have  taught  him  nothing  about  Mrs.  G-amp  there ;  Sam  Weller 
took  no  degree.  The  kind  of  early  life  fitted  to  develop  the 
power  of  apprehensive  observation  is  a  brooding  life  in  stirring 
scenes ;  the  idler  in  the  streets  of  life  knows  the  streets ;  the 
bystander  knows  the  picturesque  effect  of  life  better  than  the 
player ;  and  the  meditative  idler  amid  the  hum  of  existence  is 
much  more  likely  to  know  its  sound  and  to  take  in  and  com- 
prehend its  depths  and  meanings  than  the  scholastic  student 
intent  on  books,  which,  if  they  represent  any  world,  represent 
one  which  has  long  passed  away, — which  commonly  try  rather 
to  develop  the  reasoning  understanding  than  the  seeing  obser- 
vation,— which  are  written  in  languages  that  have  long  been 
dead.  You  will  not  train  by  such  discipline  a  caricaturist  of 
obvious  manners. 

Perhaps,  too,  a  regular  instruction  and  daily  experience  of 
the  searching  ridicule  of  critical  associates  would  have  detracted 
from  the  pluck  which  Mr.  Dickens  shows  in  all  his  writings.  It 
requires  a  great  deal  of  courage  to  be  a  humorous  writer ;  you 
are  always  afraid  that  people  will  laugh  at  you  instead  of  with 
you  :  undoubtedly  there  is  a  certain  eccentricity  about  it.  You 
take  up  the  esteemed  writers,  Thucydides  and  the  Saturday 
Review ;  after  all,  they  do  not  make  you  laugh.  It  is  not  the 
function  of  really  artistic  productions  to  contribute  to  the 
mirth  of  human  beings.  All  sensible  men  are  afraid  of  it,  and 
it  is  only  with  an  extreme  effort  that  a  printed  joke  attains 
to  the  perusal  of  the  public :  the  chances  are  many  to  one 
that  the  anxious  producer  loses  heart  in  the  correction  of  the 
press,  and  that  the  world  never  laughs  at  all.  Mr.  Dickens  is 
quite  exempt  from  this  weakness.  He  has  what  a  Frenchman 
might  call  the  courage  of  his  faculty.  The  real  daring  which  is 
shown  in  the  Pickwick  Papers,  in  the  whole  character  of  Mr. 
Weller  senior,  as  well  as  in  that  of  his  son,  is  immense,  far  sur- 


Charles  Dickens.  219 


passing  any  which  has  been  shown  by  any  other  contemporary 
writer.  The  brooding  irregular  mind  is  in  its  first  stage  prone 
to  this  sort  of  courage.  It  perhaps  knows  that  its  ideas  are  '  out 
of  the  way  ; '  but  with  the  infantine  simplicity  of  youth,  it  sup- 
poses that  originality  is  an  advantage.  Persons  more  familiar 
with  the  ridicule  of  their  equals  in  station  (and  this  is  to  most 
men  the  great  instructress  of  the  college  time)  well  know  that 
of  all  qualities  this  one  most  requires  to  be  clipped  and  pared 
and  measured.  Posterity,  we  doubt  not,  will  be  entirely  perfect 
in  every  conceivable  element  of  judgment;  but  the  existing 
generation  like  what  they  have  heard  before — it  is  much  easier. 
It  required  great  courage  in  Mr.  Dickens  to  write  what  his 
genius  has  compelled  them  to  appreciate. 

We  have  throughout  spoken  of  Mr.  Dickens  as  he  was,  rather 
than  as  he  is  ;  or,  to  use  a  less  discourteous  phrase,  and  we  hope 
a  truer,  of  his  early  works  rather  than  of  those  which  are  more 
recent.  We  could  not  do  otherwise  consistently  with  the  true 
code  of  criticism.  A  man  of  great  genius,  who  has  written  great 
and  enduring  works,  must  be  judged  mainly  by  them ;  and  not 
by  the  inferior  productions  which,  from  the  necessities  of  per- 
sonal position,  a  fatal  facility  of  composition,  or  other  cause,  he 
may  pour  forth  at  moments  less  favourable  to  his  powers.  Those 
who  are  called  on  to  review  these  inferior  productions  them- 
selves, must  speak  of  them  in  the  terms  they  may  deserve ;  but 
those  who  have  the  more  pleasant  task  of  estimating  as  a  whole 
the  genius  of  the  writer,  may  confine  their  attention  almost 
wholly  to  those  happier  efforts  which  illustrate  that  genius.  We 
should  not  like  to  have  to  speak  in  detail  of  Mr.  Dickens's  later 
works,  and  we  have  not  done  so.  There  are,  indeed,  peculiar 
reasons  why  a  genius  constituted  as  his  is  (at  least  if  we  are 
correct  in  the  view  which  we  have  taken  of  it)  would  not  endure 
without  injury  during  a  long  life  the  applause  of  the  many,  the 
temptations  of  composition,  and  the  general  excitement  of  exist- 
ence. Even  in  his  earlier  works  it  was  impossible  not  to  fancy 
that  there  was  a  weakness  of  fibre  unfavourable  to  the  longevity 


22O  Charles  Dickens. 


of  excellence.  This  was  the  effect  of  his  deficiency  in  those 
masculine  faculties  of  which  we  have  said  so  much, — the  rea- 
soning understanding  and  firm  far-seeing  sagacity.  It  is  these 
two  component  elements  which  stiffen  the  mind,  and  give  a 
consistency  to  the  creed  and  a  coherence  to  its  effects, — which 
enable  it  to  protect  itself  from  the  rush  of  circumstances.  If 
to  a  deficiency  in  these  we  add  an  extreme  sensibility  to  cir- 
cumstances,— a  mobility,  as  Lord  Byron  used  to  call  it,  of  emo- 
tion, which  is  easily  impressed,  and  still  more  easily  carried 
away  by  impression, — we  have  the  idea  of  a  character  peculiarly 
unfitted  to  bear  the  flux  of  time  and  chance.  A  man  of  very 
great  determination  could  hardly  bear  up  against  them  with 
such  slight  aids  from  within  and  with  such  peculiar  sensibility 
to  temptation.  A  man  of  merely  ordinary  determination  would 
succumb  to  it ;  and  Mr.  Dickens  has  succumbed.  His  position 
was  certainly  unfavourable.  He  has  told  us  that  the  works  of 
his  later  years,  inferior  as  all  good  critics  have  deemed  them, 
have  yet  been  more  read  than  those  of  his  earlier  and  healthier 
years.  The  most  characteristic  part  of  his  audience,  the  lower 
middle-class,  were  ready  to  receive  with  delight  the  least  favour- 
able productions  of  his  genius.  Human  nature  cannot  endure 
this ;  it  is  too  much  to  have  to  endure  a  coincident  temptation 
both  from  within  and  from  without.  Mr.  Dickens  was  too  much 
inclined  by  natural  disposition  to  lachrymose  eloquence  and 
exaggerated  caricature.  Such  was  the  kind  of  writing  which 
he  wrote  most  easily.  He  found  likewise  that  such  was  the 
kind  of  writing  that  was  read  most  readily ;  and  of  course  he 
wrote  that  kind.  Who  would  have  done  otherwise  ?  No  critic 
is  entitled  to  speak  very  harshly  of  such  degeneracy,  if  he  is 
not  sure  that  he  could  have  coped  with  difficulties  so  peculiar. 
If  that  rule  is  to  be  observed,  who  is  there  that  will  not  be 
silent  ?  No  other  Englishman  has  attained  such  a  hold  on  the 
vast  populace ;  it  is  little,  therefore,  to  say  that  no  other  has 
surmounted  its  attendant  temptations. 


221 


THOMAS  BABINQTON  MACAULAY.1 
(1856.) 

THIS  is  a  marvellous  book.  Everybody  has  read  it,  and 
every  one  has  read  it  with  pleasure.  It  has  little  advantage 
of  subject.  When  the  volumes  came  out,  an  honest  man  said, 
4 1  suppose  something  happened  between  the  years  1689  and 
1697 ;  but  what  happened  I  do  not  know.'  Every  one  knows 
now.  No  period  with  so  little  obvious  interest  will  henceforth 
be  so  familiarly  known.  Only  a  most  felicitous  and  rather 
curious  genius  could  and  would  shed  such  a  light  on  such  an 
age.  If  in  the  following  pages  we  seem  to  cavil  and  find  fault, 
let  it  be  remembered,  that  the  business  of  a  critic  is  criticism ; 
that  it  is  not  his  business  to  be  thankful ;  that  he  must  attempt 
an  estimate  rather  than  a  eulogy. 

Macaulay  seems  to  have  in  a  high  degree  the  tempera- 
ment most  likely  to  be  that  of  a  historian.  This  may  be  sum- 
marily defined  as  the  temperament  which  inclines  men  to 
take  an  interest  in  actions  as  contrasted  with  objects,  and  in 
past  actions  in  preference  to  present  actions.  We  should  expand 
our  meaning.  Some  people  are  unfortunately  born  scientific. 
They  take  much  interest  in  the  objects  of  nature.  They  feel 
a  curiosity  about  shells,  snails,  horses,  butterflies.  They  are 
delighted  at  an  ichthyosaurus,  and  excited  at  a  polyp;  they 
are  learned  in  minerals,  vegetables,  animals ;  they  have  skill  in 
fishes,  and  attain  renown  in  pebbles :  in  the  highest  cases  they 
know  the  great  causes  of  grand  phenomena,  can  indicate  the 
courses  of  the  stars  or  the  current  of  the  waves ;  but  in  every 

1  The  History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  the  Second.    By 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.     Longmans. 


222  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

case  their  minds  are  directed  not  to  the  actions  of  man,  but  to 
the  scenery  amidst  which  he  lives  ;  not  to  the  inhabitants  of  this 
world,  but  to  the  world  itself;  not  to  what  most  resembles 
themselves,  but  to  that  which  is  most  unlike.  What  compels 
men  to  take  an  interest  in  what  they  do  take  an  interest  in,  is 
commonly  a  difficult  question — for  the  most  part,  indeed,  it  is 
an  insoluble  one ;  but  in  this  case  it  would  seem  to  have  a 
negative  cause — to  result  from  the  absence  of  an  intense  and 
vivid  nature.  The  inclination  of  mind  which  abstracts  the 
attention  from  that  in  which  it  can  feel  sympathy  to  that  in 
which  it  cannot,  seems  to  arise  from  a  want  of  sympathy.  A 
tendency  to  devote  the  mind  to  trees  and  stones  as  much  as,  or 
in  preference  to,  men  and  women,  appears  to  imply  that  the 
intellectual  qualities,  the  abstract  reason,  and  the  inductive 
scrutiny  which  can  be  applied  equally  to  trees  and  to  men,  to 
stones  and  to  women,  predominate  over  the  more  special  qualities 
solely  applicable  to  our  own  race, — the  keen  love,  the  eager 
admiration,  the  lasting  hatred,  the  lust  of  rule  which  fastens 
men's  interests  on  people  and  to  people.  As  a  confirmation  of 
this,  we  see  that,  even  in  the  greatest  cases,  scientific  men 
have  been  calm  men.  Their  actions  are  unexceptionable; 
scarcely  a  spot  stains  their  excellence :  if  a  doubt  is  to  be 
thrown  on  their  character,  it  would  be  rather  that  they  were 
insensible  to  the  temptations  than  that  they  were  involved  in 
the  offences  of  ordinary  men.  An  aloofness  and  abstractedness 
cleave  to  their  greatness.  There  is  a  coldness  in  their  fame. 
We  think  of  Euclid  as  of  fine  ice ;  we  admire  Newton  as  we 
admire  the  Peak  of  Teneriffe.  Even  the  intensest  labours,  the 
most  remote  triumphs  of  the  abstract  intellect,  seem  to  carry  us 
into  a  region  different  from  our  own — to  be  in  a  terra  incognita 
of  pure  reasoning,  to  cast  a  chill  on  human  glory. 

We  know  that  the  taste  of  most  persons  is  quite  opposite. 
The  tendency  of  man  is  to  take  an  interest  in  man,  and  almost 
in  man  only.  The  world  has  a  vested  interest  in  itself.  Ana- 
lyse the  minds  of  the  crowd  of  men,  and  what  will  you  find  ? 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  223 

Something  of  the  outer  earth,  no  doubt, — odd  geography,  odd 
astronomy,  doubts  whether  Scutari  is  in  the  Crimea,  investiga- 
tions whether  the  moon  is  less  or  greater  than  Jupiter;  some 
idea  of  herbs,  more  of  horses ;  ideas,  too,  more  or  less  vague,  of 
the  remote  and  supernatural, — notions  which  the  tongue  cannot 
speak,  which  it   would  seem  the  world  would  hardly  bear   if 
thoroughly  spoken.     Yet,  setting  aside   these   which   fill   the 
remote  corners  and  lesser  outworks  of  the  brain,  the  whole  stress 
and  vigour  of  the  ordinary  faculties  is  expended  on  their  pos- 
sessor and  his  associates,  on  the  man  and  on  his  fellows.      In 
almost  all  men,  indeed,  this  is  not  simply  an  intellectual  con- 
templation ;   we  not  only  look  on,  but  act.      The  impulse  to 
busy  ourselves  with  the  affairs  of  men  goes  further  than  the 
simple  attempt  to  know  and  comprehend  them :  it  warms  us 
with  a  further  life;   it  incites  us  to  stir  and  influence  those 
affairs ;  its  animated  energy  will  not  rest  till  it  has  hurried  us 
into  toil  and  conflict.     At  this  stage  the  mind  of  the  historian, 
as  we  abstractedly  fancy  it,  naturally  breaks  off:  it  has  more 
interest  in  human  affairs  than  the  naturalist;  it  instinctively 
selects   the   actions    of  man   for   occupation    and  scrutiny,  in 
preference  to  the  habits  of  fishes  or  the  structure  of  stones  ;  but 
it  has  not   so  much  vivid  interest  in  them  as  the  warm  and 
active  man.     To  know  is  sufficient  for  it ;   it  can  bear  not  to 
take  a  part.     A  want  of  impulse  seems  born  with  the  disposition. 
To  be  constantly  occupied  about  the  actions  of  others ;  to  have 
constantly  presented  to  your  contemplation  and  attention  events 
and  occurrences  memorable  only  as  evincing  certain  qualities  of 
mind  and  will,  which  very  qualities  in  a  measure  you  feel  within 
yourself,  and  yet  to  be  without  an  impulse  to  exhibit  them  in  the 
real  world,  '  which  is  the  world  of  all  of  us ; '  to  contemplate, 
yet  never  act ;  '  to  have  the  House  before  you,'  and  yet  to  be 
content  with  the  reporters'  gallery, — shows  a  chill  impassive- 
ness  of  temperament,  a  sluggish  insensibility  to  ardent  impulse, 
a  heavy  immobility  under  ordinary  emotion.     The  image  of  the 
stout  Gibbon  placidly  contemplating  the  animated  conflicts,  the 


224  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

stirring  pleadings  of  Fox  and  Burke,  watching  a  revolution  and 
heavily  taking  no  part  in  it,  gives  an  idea  of  the  historian  as  he 
is  likely  to  be.  f  Why,'  it  is  often  asked,  '  is  history  dull  ?  It 
is  a  narrative  of  life,  and  life  is  of  all  things  the  most  interest- 
ing.' The  answer  is,  that  it  is  written  by  men  too  dull  to  take 
the  common  interest  in  life,  in  whom  languor  predominates  over 
zeal,  and  sluggishness  over  passion. 

Macaulay  is  not  dull,  and  it  may  seem  hard  to  attempt  to 
bring  him  within  the  scope  of  a  theory  which  is  so  successful  in 
explaining  dulness.  Yet,  in  a  modified  and  peculiar  form,  we 
can  perhaps  find  in  his  remarkable  character  unusually  distinct 
traces  of  the  insensibility  which  we  ascribe  to  the  historian. 
The  means  of  scrutiny  are  ample.  Macaulay  has  not  spent 
his  life  in  a  corner ;  if  posterity  should  refuse — of  course  they 
will  not  refuse-  -to  read  a  line  of  his  writings,  they  would  yet 
be  sought  out  by  studious  inquirers,  as  those  of  a  man  of  high 
political  position,  great  notoriety,  and  greater  oratorical  power. 
We  are  not  therefore  obliged,  as  in  so  many  cases  even  among 
contemporaries,  to  search  for  the  author's  character  in  his  books 
alone  ;  we  are  able  from  other  sources  to  find  out  his  character, 
and  then  apply  it  to  explain  the  peculiarities  of  his  works. 
Macaulay  has  exhibited  many  high  attainments,  many  dazzling 
talents,  much  singular  and  well-trained  power ;  but  the  quality 
which  would  most  strike  the  observers  of  the  interior  man 
is  what  may  be  called  his  mexperiencing  nature.  Men  of 
genius  are  in  general  distinguished  by  their  extreme  suscepti- 
bility to  external  experience.  Finer  and  softer  than  other  men, 
every  exertion  of  their  will,  every  incident  of  their  lives, 
influences  them  more  deeply  than  it  would  others.  Their 
essence  is  at  once  finer  and  more  impressible;  it  receives  a 
distincter  mark,  and  receives  it  more  easily  than  the  souls  of 
the  herd.  From  a  peculiar  sensibility,  the  man  of  genius  bears 
the  stamp  of  life  commonly  more  clearly  than  his  fellows ;  even 
casual  associations  make  a  deep  impression  on  him :  examine 
his  mind,  and  you  may  discern  his  fortunes.  Macaulay  has 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  225 

nothing  of  this.  You  could  not  tell  what  he  has  been.  His 
mind  shows  no  trace  of  change.  What  he  is,  he  was  ;  and  what 
he  was,  he  is.  He  early  attained  a  high  development,  but  he 
has  not  increased  it  since ;  years  have  come,  but  they  have 
whispered  little  ;  as  was  said  of  the  second  Pitt,  '  He  never 
grew,  he  was  cast.'  The  volume  of  c  speeches  '  which  he  has 
published  places  the  proof  of  this  in  every  man's  hand.  His  first 
speeches  are  as  good  as  his  last ;  his  last  scarcely  richer  than 
his  first.  He  came  into  public  life  at  an  exciting  season ;  he 
shared  of  course  in  that  excitement,  and  the  same  excitement 
still  quivers  in  his  mind.  He  delivered  marvellous  rhetorical 
exercises  on  the  Eeform  Bill  when  it  passed ;  he  speaks  of  it 
with  rhetorical  interest  even  now.  He  is  still  the  man  of '32. 
From  that  era  he  looks  on  the  past.  He  sees  <  Old  Sarum '  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  Gatton  in  the  civil  wars.  You 
may  fancy  an  undertone.  The  Norman  barons  commenced  the 
series  of  reforms  which  6  we  consummated  ; '  Hampden  was 
'  preparing  for  the  occasion  in  which  I  had  a  part ; '  William 
6  for  the  debate  in  which  I  took  occasion  to  observe.'  With  a 
view  to  that  era  everything  begins  ;  up  to  that  moment  every- 
thing ascends.  That  was  the  '  fifth  act '  of  the  human  race ; 
the  remainder  of  history  is  only  an  afterpiece.  All  this  was  very 
natural  at  the  moment ;  nothing  could  be  more  probable  than 
that  a  young  man  of  the  greatest  talents,  entering  at  once  into 
important  life  at  a  conspicuous  opportunity,  should  exaggerate 
its  importance ;  he  would  fancy  it  was  the  '  crowning  achieve- 
ment,' the  greatest  '  in  the  tide  of  time.'  But  the  singularity 
is,  that  he  should  retain  the  idea  now  ;  that  years  have  brought 
no  influence,  experience  no  change.  The  events  of  twenty  years 
have  been  full  of  rich  instruction  on  the  events  of  twenty  years 
ago  :  but  they  have  not  instructed  him.  His  creed  is  a  fixture. 
It  is  the  same  on  his  peculiar  topic — on  India.  Before  he 
went  there  he  made  a  speech  on  the  subject ;  Lord  Canterbury, 
who  must  have  heard  a  million  speeches,  said  it  was  the  best  he 
had  ever  heard.  It  is  difficult  to  fancy  that  so  much  vivid 

VOL.    II.  Q 


226  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

knowledge  could  be  gained  from  books — from  horrible  Indian 
treatises  ;  that  such  imaginative  mastery  should  be  possible 
without  actual  experience.  Not  forgetting,  or  excepting,  the 
orations  of  Burke,  it  was  perhaps  as  remarkable  a  speech  as  was 
ever  made  on  India  by  an  Englishman  who  had  not  been  in  India. 
Now  he  has  been  there  he  speaks  no  better — rather  worse  ;  he 
spoke  excellently  without  experience,  he  speaks  no  better  with 
it, — if  anything,  it  rather  puts  him  out.  His  speech  on  the 
Indian  charter  a  year  or  two  ago  was  not  finer  than  that  on  the 
charter  of  1833.  Before  he  went  to  India  he  recommended 
that  writers  should  be  examined  in  the  classics ;  after  being  in 
India  he  recommended  that  they  should  be  examined  in  the 
same  way.  He  did  not  say  he  had  seen  the  place  in  the  mean- 
time ;  he  did  not  think  that  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  You 
could  never  tell  from  any  difference  in  his  style  what  he  had  seen, 
or  what  he  had  not  seen.  He  is  so  insensible  to  passing  objects, 
that  they  leave  no  distinctive  mark,  no  intimate  peculiar  trace. 
Such  a  man  would  naturally  think  literature  more  instructive 
than  life.  Hazlitt  said  of  Mackintosh,  '  He  might  like  to  read 
an  account  of  India  ;  but  India  itself,  with  its  burning,  shining 
face,  was  a  mere  blank,  an  endless  waste  to  him.  Persons  of 
this  class  have  no  more  to  say  to  a  plain  matter  of  fact  staring 
them  in  the  face  than  they  have  to  say  to  a  hippopotamus.9  This 
was  a  keen  criticism  on  Sir  James,  savouring  of  the  splenetic  mind 
from  which  it  came.  As  a  complete  estimate,  it  would  be  a 
most  unjust  one  of  Macaulay;  but  we  know  that  there  is  a 
whole  class  of  minds  which  prefers  the  literary  delineation  of 
objects  to  the  actual  eyesight  of  them.  To  some  life  is  difficult. 
An  insensible  nature,  like  a  rough  hide,  resists  the  breath  of 
passing  things ;  an  unobserving  retina  in  vain  depicts  whatever 
a  quicker  eye  does  not  explain.  But  any  one  can  understand  a 
book ;  the  work  is  done,  the  facts  observed,  the  formulae 
suggested,  the  subjects  classified.  Of  course  it  needs  labour, 
and  a  following  fancy,  to  peruse  the  long  lucubrations  and 
descriptions  of  others  ;  but  a  fine  detective  sensibility  is  un- 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  227 


necessary ;  type  is  plain,  an  earnest  attention  will  follow  it  and 
know  it.  To  this  class  Macaulay  belongs :  and  he  has  charac- 
teristically maintained  that  dead  authors  are  more  fascinating 
than  living  people. 

1  Those  friendships,'  he  tells  us,  c  are  exposed  to  no  danger  from 
the  occurrences  by  which  other  attachments  are  weakened  or  dissolved. 
Time  glides  by  ;  fortune  is  inconstant ;  tempers  are  soured  ;  bonds 
which  seemed  indissoluble  are  daily  sundered  by  interest,  by  emu- 
lation, or  by  caprice.  But  no  such  cause  can  affect  the  silent  con- 
verse which  we  hold  with  the  highest  of  human  intellects.  That 
placid  intercourse  is  disturbed  by  no  jealousies  or  resentments.  These 
are  the  old  friends  who  are  never  seen  with  new  faces  ;  who  are  the 
same  in  wealth  and  in  poverty,  in  glory  and  in  obscurity.  With  the 
dead  there  is  no  rivalry.  In  the  dead  there  is  no  change.  Plato  is 
never  sullen.  Cervantes  is  never  petulant.  Demosthenes  never 
comes  unseasonably.  Dante  never  stays  too  long.  No  difference  of 
political  opinion  can  alienate  Cicero.  No  heresy  can  excite  the  horror 
of  Bossuet.' 

But  Bossuet  is  dead;  and  Cicero  was  a  Roman;  and  Plato 
wrote  in  Greek.  Years  and  manners  separate  us  from  the  great. 
After  dinner,  Demosthenes  may  come  unseasonably  ;  Dante  might 
stay  too  long.  We  are  alienated  from  the  politician,  and  have  a 
horror  of  the  theologian.  Dreadful  idea,  having  Demosthenes 
for  an  intimate  friend !  He  had  pebbles  in  his  mouth ;  he  was 
always  urging  action  ;  he  spoke  such  good  Greek ;  we  cannot  dwell 
on  it, — it  is  too  much.  Only  a  mind  impassive  to  our  daily  life, 
unalive  to  bores  and  evils,  to  joys  and  sorrows,  incapable  of  the 
deepest  sympathies,  a  prey  to  print,  could  imagine  it.  The 
mass  of  men  have  stronger  ties  and  warmer  hopes.  The 
exclusive  devotion  to  books  tires.  We  require  to  love  and  hate, 
to  act  and  live. 

It  is  not  unnatural  that  a  person  of  this  temperament 
should  preserve  a  certain  aloofness  even  in  the  busiest  life. 
Macaulay  has  ever  done  so.  He  has  been  in  the  thick  of  poli- 
tical warfare,  in  the  van  of  party  conflict.  Whatever  a  keen 
excitability  would  select  for  food  and  opportunity,  has  been  his  ; 

Q    2 


228  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


but  he  has  not  been  excited.  He  has  never  thrown  himself 
upon  action,  he  has  never  followed  trivial  details  with  an  anxious 
passion.  He  has  ever  been  a  man  for  a  great  occasion.  He 
was  by  nature  a  deus  ex  machina.  Somebody  has  had  to  fetch 
him.  His  heart  was  in  Queen  Anne's  time.  When  he  came, 
he  spoke  as  Lord  Halifax  might  have  spoken.  Of  course,  it 
may  be  contended  that  this  is  the  eximia  ars ;  that  this  soli- 
tary removed  excellence  is  particularly  and  essentially  sublime. 
But,  simply  and  really,  greater  men  have  been  more  deeply 
'  immersed  in  matter.'  The  highest  eloquence  quivers  with 
excitement ;  there  is  life-blood  in  the  deepest  action ;  a  man 
like  Stratford  seems  flung  upon  the  world.  An  orator  should 
never  talk  like  an  observatory ;  no  coldness  should  strike  upon 
the  hearer. 

It  is  characteristic  also  that  Macaulay  should  be  continually 
thinking  of  posterity.  In  general,  that  expected  authority  is  most 
ungrateful ;  those  who  think  of  it  most,  it  thinks  of  least.  The 
way  to  secure  its  favour  is,  to  give  vivid  essential  pictures  of 
the  life  before  you ;  to  leave  a  fresh  glowing  delineation  of  the 
scene  to  which  you  were  born,  of  the  society  to  which  you  have 
peculiar  access.  This  is  gained,  not  by  thinking  of  your  pos- 
terity, but  by  living  in  society  ;  not  by  poring  on  what  is  to  be, 
but  by  enjoying  what  is.  That  spirit  of  thorough  enjoyment 
which  pervades  the  great  delineators  of  human  life  and  human 
manners,  was  not  caused  by  '  being  made  after  supper,  out  of  a 
cheese-paring;'  it  drew  its  sustenance  from  a  relishing,  en- 
joying, sensitive  life,  and  the  flavour  of  the  description  is  the 
reality  of  that  enjoyment.  Of  course,  this  is  not  so  in  science. 
You  may  leave  a  name  by  an  abstract  discovery,  without  having 
led  a  vigorous  existence ;  yet  what  a  name  is  this !  Taylor's 
theorem  will  go  down  to  posterity, — possibly  its  discoverer  was 
for  ever  dreaming  and  expecting  it  would ;  but  what  does  pos- 
terity know  of  the  deceased  Taylor  ?  Nominis  umbra  is  rather 
a  compliment ;  for  it  is  not  substantial  enough  to  have  a  shadow. 
But  in  other  walks, — say  in  political  oratory,  which  is  the  part 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  229 


of  Macaulay's  composition  in  which  his  value  for  posterity's 
opinion  is  most  apparent, — the  way  to  interest  posterity  is  to 
think  but  little  of  it.  What  gives  to  the  speeches  of  Demos- 
thenes the  interest  they  have?  The  intense,  vivid,  glowing 
interest  of  the  speaker  in  all  that  he  is  speaking  about.  Philip 
is  not  a  person  whom  '  posterity  will  censure,'  but  the  man 
*  whom  I  hate : '  the  matter  in  hand  not  one  whose  interest 
depends  on  the  memory  of  men,  but  in  which  an  eager  intense 
nature  would  have  been  absorbed  if  there  had  been  no  posterity 
at  all,  on  which  he  wished  to  deliver  his  own  soul.  A  casual 
character,  so  to  speak,  is  natural  to  the  most  intense  words ; 
externally,  even,  they  will  interest  the  *  after  world'  more  for 
having  interested  the  present  world ;  they  must  have  a  life  of 
some  place  and  some  time  before  they  can  have  one  of  all  space 
and  all  time.  Macaulay's  oratory  is  the  very  opposite  of 
this.  School-boyish  it  is  not,  for  it  is  the  oratory  of  a  very 
sensible  man ;  but  the  theme  of  a  schoolboy  is  not  more  devoid 
of  the  salt  of  circumstance.  The  speeches  on  the  Reform  Bill 
have  been  headed,  'Now,  a  man  came  up  from  college  and 
spoke  thus ; '  and,  like  a  college  man,  he  spoke  rather  to  the 
abstract  world  than  to  the  present.  He  knew  no  more  of  the 
people  who  actually  did  live  in  London  than  of  people  who 
would  live  in  London,  and  there  was  therefore  no  reason  for 
speaking  to  one  more  than  to  the  other.  After  years  of  politics, 
he  speaks  so  still.  He  looks  on  a  question  (he  says)  as  posterity 
will  look  on  it ;  he  appeals  from  this  to  future  generations ;  he 
regards  existing  men  as  painful  prerequisites  of  great-grand- 
children. This  seems  to  proceed,  as  has  been  said,  from  a 
distant  and  unimpressible  nature.  But  it  is  impossible  to  deny 
that  it  has  one  great  advantage :  it  has  made  him  take  pains. 
A  man  who  speaks  to  people  a  thousand  years  off  will  naturally 
speak  carefully :  he  tries  to  be  heard  over  the  clang  of  ages, 
over  the  rumours  of  myriads.  Writing  for  posterity  is  like 
writing  on  foreign  post  paper :  you  cannot  say  to  a  man  at 
Calcutta  what  you  would  say  to  a  man  at  Hackney ;  you  think 


230  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

4  the  yellow  man  is  a  very  long  way  off ;  this  is  fine  paper,  it 
will  go  by  a  ship ; '  so  you  try  to  say  something  worthy  of  the 
ship,  something  noble,  which  will  keep  and  travel.  Writers 
like  Macaulay,  who  think  of  future  people,  have  a  respect  for 
future  people.  Each  syllable  is  solemn,  each  word  distinct. 
No  author  trained  to  periodical  writing  has  so  little  of  its 
slovenliness  and  its  imperfection. 

This  singularly  constant  contemplation  of  posterity  has 
coloured  his  estimate  of  social  characters.  He  has  no  toleration 
for  those  great  men  in  whom  a  lively  sensibility  to  momentary 
honours  has  prevailed  over  a  consistent  reference  to  the  posthu- 
mous tribunal.  He  is  justly  severe  on  Lord  Bacon : 

'  In  his  library  all  his  rare  powers  were  tinder  the  guidance  of  an 
honest  ambition,  of  an  enlarged  philanthropy,  of  a  sincere  love  of 
truth.  There  no  temptation  drew  him  away  from  the  right  course. 
Thomas  Aquinas  could  pay  no  fees,  Duns  Scotus  could  confer  no 
peerages.  The  "  Master  of  the  Sentences  "  had  no  rich  reversions  in 
his  gift.  Far  different  was  the  situation  of  the  great  philosopher 
when  he  came  forth  from  his  study  and  his  laboratory  to  mingle  with 
the  crowd  which  filled  the  galleries  of  Whitehall.  In  all  that  crowd 
there  was  no  man  equally  qualified  to  render  great  and  lasting  services 
to  mankind.  But  in  all  that  crowd  there  was  not  a  heart  more  set 
on  things  which  no  man  ought  to  suffer  to  be  necessary  to  his  happi- 
ness,— on  things  which  can  often  be  obtained  only  by  the  sacrifice  of 
integrity  and  honour.  To  be  the  leader  of  the  human  race  in  the 
career  of  improvement,  to  found  on  the  ruins  of  ancient  intellectual 
dynasties  a  more  prosperous  and  more  enduring  empire,  to  be  revered 
to  the  latest  generations  as  the  most  illustrious  among  the  benefactors 
of  mankind, — all  this  was  within  his  reach.  But  all  this  availed 
him  nothing,  while  some  quibbling  special  pleader  was  promoted 
before  him  to  the  Bench, — while  some  heavy  country  gentleman  took 
precedence  of  him  by  virtue  of  a  purchased  coronet, — while  some 
pander,  happy  in  a  fair  wife,  could  obtain  a  more  cordial  salute  from 
Buckingham, — while  some  buffoon,  versed  in  all  the  latest  scandal  of 
the  Court,  could  draw  a  louder  laugh  from  James.' 

Yet  a  less  experience,  or  a  less  opportunity  of  experience, 
would  have  warned  a  mind  more  observant  that  the  bare  desire 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  231 

for  long  posthumous  renown  is  but  a  feeble  principle  in  common 
human  nature.  Bacon  had  as  much  of  it  as  most  men.  The  keen 
excitability  to  this  world's  temptations  must  be  opposed  by  more 
exciting  impulses,  by  more  retarding  discouragements,  by  con- 
science, by  religion,  by  fear.  If  you  would  vanquish  earth,  you 
must '  invent  heaven.'  It  is  the  fiction  of  a  cold  abstractedness 
that  the  possible  respect  of  unseen  people  can  commonly  be  more 
desired  than  the  certain  homage  of  existing  people. 

In  a  more  conspicuous  manner  the  chill  nature  of  the  most 
brilliant  among  English  historians  is  shown  in  his  defective 
dealing  with  the  passionate  eras  of  our  history.  He  has  never 
been  attracted,  or  not  proportionally  attracted,  by  the  singular 
mixture  of  heroism  and  slavishness,  of  high  passion  and  base 
passion,  which  mark  the  Tudor  period.  The  defect  is  apparent 
in  his  treatment  of  a  period  on  which  he  has  written  powerfully 
—the  time  of  the  civil  wars.  He  has  never  in  the  highest 
manner  appreciated  either  of  the  two  great  characters — the 
Puritan  and  the  Cavalier — which  are  the  form  and  life  of  those 
years.  What  historian,  indeed,  has  ever  estimated  the  Cavalier 
character  ?  There  is  Clarendon — the  grave,  rhetorical,  decorous 
lawyer — piling  words,  congealing  arguments, — very  stately,  a 
little  grim.  There  is  Hume — the  Scotch  metaphysician — who 
has  made  out  the  best  case  for  such  people  as  never  were,  for  a 
Charles  who  never  died,  for  a  Strafford  who  would  never  have 
been  attainted, — a  saving,  calculating  North-countryman, — fat, 
impassive, — who  lived  on  eightpence  a  day.  What  have  these 
people  to  do  with  an  enjoying  English  gentleman  ?  It  is  easy 
for  a  doctrinaire,  to  bear  a  post-mortem  examination, — it  is 
much  the  same  whether  he  be  alive  or  dead  ;  but  not  so  with 
those  who  live  during  their  life,  whose  essence  is  existence, 
whose  being  is  in  animation.  There  seem  to  be  some  characters 
who  are  not  made  for  history,  as  there  are  some  who  are  not 
made  for  old  age.  A  Cavalier  is  always  young.  The  buoyant 
life  arises  before  us  rich  in  hope,  strong  in  vigour,  irregular  in 
action ;  men  young  and  ardent,  framed  in  the  '  prodigality  of 


232  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

nature;'  open  to  every  enjoyment,  alive  to  every  passion; 
eager,  impulsive ;  brave  without  discipline ;  noble  without 
principle ;  prizing  luxury,  despising  danger,  capable  of  high 
sentiment,  but  in  each  of  whom  the 

'  Addiction  was  to  courses  vain  ; 
His  companies  unlettered,  rude  and  shallow, 
His  hours  filled  up  with  riots,  banquets,  sports, 
And  never  noted  in  him  any  study, 
Any  retirement,  any  sequestration 
From  open  haunts  and  popularity.' 

We  see  these  men  setting  forth  or  assembling  to  defend 
their  King  and  Church ;  and  we  see  it  without  surprise  ;  a  rich 
daring  loves  danger  ;  a  deep  excitability  likes  excitement.  If 
we  look  around  us,  we  may  see  what  is  analogous.  Some  say 
that  the  battle  of  the  Alma  was  won  by  the  'uneducated 
gentry ; '  the  '  uneducated  gentry '  would  be  Cavaliers  now. 
The  political  sentiment  is  part  of  the  character.  The  essence 
of  Toryism  is  enjoyment.  Talk  of  the  ways  of  spreading  a 
wholesome  Conservatism  throughout  this  country  :  give  painful 
lectures,  distribute  weary  tracts  (and  perhaps  this  is  as  well — 
you  may  be  able  to  give  an  argumentative  answer  to  a  few 
objections,  you  may  diffuse  a  distinct  notion  of  the  dignified 
dulness  of  politics) ;  but  as  far  as  communicating  and  esta- 
blishing your  creed  are  concerned — try  a  little  pleasure.  The 
way  to  keep  up  old  customs  is,  to  enjoy  old  customs ;  the  way 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  present  state  of  things  is,  to  enjoy  that 
state  of  things.  Over  the  '  Cavalier '  mind  this  world  passes 
with  a  thrill  of  delight ;  there  is  an  exultation  in  a  daily  event, 
zest  in  the  '  regular  thing,'  joy  at  an  old  feast.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  is  an  example  of  this.  Every  habit  and  practice  of  old 
Scotland  was  inseparably  in  his  mind  associated  with  genial 
enjoyment.  To  propose  to  touch  one  of  her  institutions,  to 
abolish  one  of  those  practices,  was  to  touch  a  personal  pleasure 
— a  point  on  which  his  mind  reposed,  a  thing  of  memory  and 
hope.  So  long  as  this  world  is  this  world,  will  a  buoyant  life 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  233 

be  the  proper  source  of  an  animated  Conservatism.  The 
*  Church-and-King '  enthusiasm  has  even  a  deeper  connection 
•with  the  Cavaliers.  Carlyle  has  said,  in  his  vivid  way,  '  Two 
or  three  young  gentlemen  have  said,  "Go  to,  I  will  make  a 
religion." '  This  is  the  exact  opposite  of  what  the  irregular, 
enjoying  man  can  think  or  conceive.  What !  is  he,  with  his 
untrained  mind  and  his  changeful  heart  and  his  ruleless 
practice,  to  create  a  creed  ?  Is  the  gushing  life  to  be  asked  to 
construct  a  cistern  ?  Is  the  varying  heart  to  be  its  own  master, 
the  evil  practice  its  own  guide  ?  Sooner  will  a  ship  invent  its 
own  rudder,  devise  its  own  pilot,  than  the  eager  being  will  find 
out  the  doctrine  which  is  to  restrain  him.  The  very  intellect 
is  a  type  of  the  confusion  of  the  soul.  It  has  little  arguments 
on  a  thousand  subjects,  hearsay  sayings,  original  flashes,  small 
and  bright,  struck  from  the  heedless  mind  by  the  strong  impact 
of  the  world.  And  it  has  nothing  else.  It  has  no  systematic 
knowledge  ;  it  has  a  hatred  of  regular  attention.  What  can  an 
understanding  of  this  sort  do  with  refined  questioning  or  subtle 
investigation  ?  It  is  obliged  in  a  sense  by  its  very  nature  to 
take  what  comes;  it  is  overshadowed  in  a  manner  by  the 
religion  to  which  it  is  born  ;  its  conscience  tells  it  that  it  owes 
obedience  to  something  ;  it  craves  to  worship  something ;  that 
something,  in  both  cases,  it  takes  from  the  past.  '  Thou  hast 
not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  thee,'  might  his  faith  say  to 
a  believer  of  this  kind.  A  certain  bigotry  is  altogether  natural 
to  him.  His  creed  seems  to  him  a  primitive  fact,  as  certain 
and  evident  as  the  stars.  The  political  faith  (for  it  is  a  faith) 
of  these  persons  is  of  a  kind  analogous.  The  virtue  of  loyalty 
assumes  in  them  a  passionate  aspect,  and  overflows,  as  it  were, 
all  the  intellect  which  belongs  to  the  topic.  This  virtue,  this 
need  of  our  nature,  arises,  as  political  philosophers  tell  us,  from 
the  conscious  necessity  which  man  is  under  of  obeying  an 
external  moral  rule.  We  feel  that  we  are  by  nature  and  by 
the  constitution  of  all  things  under  an  obligation  to  conform  to 
a  certain  standard,  and  we  seek  to  find  or  to  establish  in  the 


234  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

sphere  without,  an  authority  which  shall  enforce  it,  shall  aid  us 
in  compelling  others  and  also  in  mastering  ourselves.  When  a 
man  impressed  with  this  principle  comes  in  contact  with  the 
institution  of  civil  government  as  it  now  exists  and  as  it  has 
always  existed,  he  finds  what  he  wants — he  discovers  an  autho- 
rity ;  and  he  feels  bound  to  submit  to  it.  We  do  not,  of  course, 
mean  that  all  this  takes  place  distinctly  and  consciously  in  the 
mind  of  the  person ;  on  the  contrary,  the  class  of  minds  most 
subject  to  its  influence  are  precisely  those  which  have  in  general 
the  least  defined  and  accurate  consciousness  of  their  own 
operations,  or  of  what  befalls  them.  In  matter  of  fact,  they 
find  themselves  under  the  control  of  laws  and  of  a  polity  from 
the  earliest  moment  that  they  can  remember,  and  they  obey  it 
from  habit  and  custom  years  before  they  know  why.  Only  in 
later  life,  when  distinct  thought  is  from  an  outward  occurrence 
forced  upon  them,  do  they  feel  the  necessity  of  some  such 
power ;  and  in  proportion  to  their  passionate  and  impulsive 
disposition  they  feel  it  the  more.  The  law  has  in  a  less  degree 
on  them  the  same  effect  which  military  discipline  has  in  a 
greater.  It  braces  them  to  defined  duties,  and  subjects  them 
to  a  known  authority.  Quieter  minds  find  this  authority  in  an 
internal  conscience  ;  but  in  riotous  natures  its  still  small  voice 
is  lost  if  it  be  not  echoed  in  loud  harsh  tones  from  the  firm  and 
outer  world : 

*  Their  breath  is  agitation,  and  their  life 
A  storm  whereon  they  ride.' 

From  without  they  crave  a  bridle  and  a  curb.  The  doctrine 
of  non-resistance  is  no  accident  of  the  Cavalier  character, 
though  it  seems  at  first  sight  singular  in  an  eager,  tumultuous 
disposition.  So  inconsistent  is  human  nature,  that  it  proceeds 
from  the  very  extremity  of  that  tumult.  They  know  that  they 
cannot  allow  themselves  to  question  the  authority  which  is 
upon  them  ;  they  feel  its  necessity  too  acutely,  their  intellect  is 
untrained  in  subtle  disquisitions,  their  conscience  fluctuating, 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  235 

their  passions  rising.  They  are  sure  that  if  they  once  depart 
from  that  authority,  their  whole  soul  will  be  in  anarchy.  As  a 
riotous  state  tends  to  fall  under  a  martial  tyranny,  a  passionate 
mind  tends  to  subject  itself  to  an  extrinsic  law — to  enslave 
itself  to  an  outward  discipline.  *  That  is  what  the  king  says, 
boy,  and  that  was  ever  enough  for  Sir  Henry  Lee.'  An  here- 
ditary monarch  is,  indeed,  the  very  embodiment  of  this  prin- 
ciple. The  authority  is  so  defined,  so  clearly  vested,  so  evidently 
intelligible ;  it  descends  so  distinctly  from  the  past,  it  is  imposed 
so  conspicuously  from  without.  Anything  free  refers  to  the 
people;  anything  elected  seems  self-chosen.  'The  divinity 
that  doth  hedge  a  king '  consists  in  his  evidently  representing  an 
unmade,  unchosen,  hereditary  duty. 

The  greatness  of  this  character  is  not  in  Macaulay's  way, 
and  its  faults  are.  Its  license  affronts  him ;  its  riot  alienates 
him.  He  is  for  ever  contrasting  the  dissoluteness  of  Prince 
Rupert's  horse  with  the  restraint  of  Cromwell's  pikemen.  A  deep 
enjoying  nature  finds  no  sympathy.  The  brilliant  style  passes 
forward :  we  dwell  on  its  brilliancy,  but  it  is  cold.  Macaulay 
lias  no  tears  for  that  warm  life,  no  tenderness  for  that  extinct 
joy.  The  ignorance  of  the  Cavalier,  too,  moves  his  wrath  : 
'They  were  ignorant  of  what  every  schoolgirl  knows.'  Their 
loyalty  to  their  sovereign  is  the  devotion  of  the  Egyptians  to 
the  god  Apis,  who  selected  'a  calf  to  adore.'  Their  non- 
resistance  offends  the  philosopher :  their  license  is  commented 
on  with  the  tone  of  a  precisian.  Their  indecorum  does  not  suit 
the  dignity  of  the  narrator.  Their  rich  free  nature  is  unap- 
preciated ;  the  tingling  intensity  of  their  joy  is  unnoticed.  In 
a  word,  there  is  something  of  the  schoolboy  about  the  Cavalier 
— there  is  somewhat  of  a  schoolmaster  about  the  historian. 

It  might  be  thought,  at  first  sight,  that  the  insensibility 
and  coldness  which  are  unfavourable  to  the  appreciation  of  the 
Cavalier  would  be  particularly  favourable  to  that  of  the  Puritan. 
Some  may  say  that  a  natural  aloofness  from  things  earthly 
would  dispose  a  man  to  the  doctrines  of  a  sect  which  enjoins 


236  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

above  all  other  commandments  abstinence  and  aloofness  from 
those  things.  In  Macaulay's  case  it  certainly  has  had  no  such 
consequence.  He  was  bred  up  in  the  circle  which  more 
than  any  other  has  resembled  that  of  the  greatest  and  best 
Puritans — in  the  circle  which  has  presented  the  evangelical 
doctrine  in  its  most  influential  and  celebrated,  and  not  its  least 
genial  form.  Yet  he  has  revolted  against  it.  The  bray  of 
'Exeter  Hall 'is  a  phrase  which  has  become  celebrated:  it  is 
an  odd  one  for  his  father's  son.  The  whole  course  of  his 
personal  fortunes,  the  entire  scape  of  his  historical  narrative, 
show  an  utter  want  of  sympathy  with  the  Puritan  disposition. 
It  would  be  idle  to  quote  passages ;  it  will  be  enough  to 
recollect  the  contrast  between  the  estimate — say,  of  Cromwell— 
by  Carlyle  and  that  by  Macaulay,  to  be  aware  of  the  enormous 
discrepancy.  The  one's  manner  evinces  an  instinctive  sym- 
pathy, the  other's  an  instinctive  aversion. 

We  believe  that  this  is  but  a  consequence  of  the  same 
impassibility  of  nature  which  we  have  said  so  much  of.  M. 
de  Montalembert,  in  a  striking  eloge  on  a  French  historian— 
a  man  of  the  Southey  type  — after  speaking  of  his  life  in  Paris 
during  youth  (a  youth  cast  in  the  early  and  exciting  years  of 
the  first  Revolution,  and  of  the  prelude  to  it),  and  graphically 
portraying  a  man  subject  to  scepticism,  but  not  given  to  vice ; 
staid  in  habits,  but  unbelieving  in  opinion  ;  without  faith  and 
without  irregularity, — winds  up  the  whole  by  the  sentence,  that 
'  he  was  hardened  at  once  against  good  and  evil.'  In  his 
view,  the  insensibility  which  was  a  guard  against  exterior 
temptation  was  also  a  hindrance  to  inward  belief:  and  there  is 
a  philosophy  in  this.  The  nature  of  man  is  not  two  things, 
but  one  thing.  We  have  not  one  set  of  affections,  hopes,  sensi- 
bilities, to  be  affected  by  the  present  world,  and  another  and  a 
different  to  be  affected  by  the  invisible  world:  we  are  moved 
by  grandeur,  or  we  are  not ;  we  are  stirred  by  sublimity,  or  we 
are  not ;  we  hunger  after  righteousness,  or  we  do  not ;  we  hate 
vice,  or  we  do  not ;  we  are  passionate,  or  not  passionate ;  loving, 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  237 

or  not  loving;  cold,  or  not  cold;  our  heart  is  dull,  or  it  is 
wakeful ;  our  soul  is  alive,  or  it  is  dead.  Deep  under  the  surface  of 
the  intellect  lies  the  stratum  of  the  passions,  of  the  intense,  pecu- 
liar, simple  impulses  which  constitute  the  heart  of  man ;  there 
is  the  eager  essence,  the  primitive  desiring  being.  What  stirs 
this  latent  being  we  know.  In  general  it  is  stirred  by  everything. 
Sluggish  natures  are  stirred  little,  wild  natures  are  stirred  much ; 
but  all  are  stirred  somewhat.  It  is  not  important  whether 
the  object  be  in  the  visible  or  invisible  world :  whoso  loves 
what  he  has  seen,  will  love  what  he  has  not  seen ;  whoso  hates 
what  he  has  seen,  will  hate  what  he  has  not  seen.  Creation  is, 
as  it  were,  but  the  garment  of  the  Creator :  whoever  is  blind 
to  the  beauty  on  its  surface,  will  be  insensible  to  the  beauty 
beneath ;  whoso  is  dead  to  the  sublimity  before  his  senses,  will 
be  dull  to  that  which  he  imagines ;  whoso  is  untouched  by  the 
visible  man,  will  be  unmoved  by  the  invisible  Grod.  These  are 
no  new  ideas ;  and  the  conspicuous  evidence  of  history  confirms 
them.  Everywhere  the  deep  religious  organisation  has  been 
deeply  sensitive  to  this  world.  If  we  compare  what  are  called 
sacred  and  profane  literatures,  the  depth  of  human  affection  is 
deepest  in  the  sacred.  A  warmth  as  of  life  is  on  the  Hebrew, 
a  chill  as  of  marble  is  on  the  Greek.  In  Jewish  history  the 
most  tenderly  religious  character  is  the  most  sensitive  to  earth. 
Along  every  lyric  of  the  Psalmist  thrills  a  deep  spirit  of  human 
enjoyment ;  he  was  alive  as  a  child  to  the  simple  aspects  of  the 
world ;  the  very  errors  of  his  mingled  career  are  but  those  to 
which  the  open,  enjoy  ing  character  is  most  prone;  its  principle, 
so  to  speak,  was  a  tremulous  passion  for  that  which  he  had 
seen,  as  well  as  that  which  he  had  not  seen.  There  is  no 
paradox,  therefore,  in  saying  that  the  same  character  which 
least  appreciates  the  impulsive  and  ardent  Cavalier  is  also  the 
most  likely  not  to  appreciate  the  warm  zeal  of  an  overpowering 
devotion. 

Some  years  ago  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  show  at 
length  that  the  Puritans  had  such  a  devotion.     The  notion  had 


238  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

been  that  they  were  fanatics,  who  simulated  zeal,  and  hypocrites, 
who  misquoted  the  Old  Testament.  A  new  era  has  arrived ;  one 
of  the  great  discoveries  which  the  competition  of  authors  has 
introduced  into  historical  researches  has  attained  a  singular 
popularity.  Times  are  changed.  We  are  rather  now,  in  general, 
in  danger  of  holding  too  high  an  estimate  of  the  puritanical 
character  than  a  too  low  or  contemptuous  one.  Among  the 
disciples  of  Carlyle  it  is  considered  that  having  been  a  Puritan 
is  the  next  best  thing  to  having  been  in  Germany.  But  though 
we  cannot  sympathise  with  everything  that  the  expounders  of 
the  new  theory  allege,  and  though  we  should  not  select  for 
praise  the  exact  peculiarities  most  agreeable  to  the  slightly 
grim  '  gospel  of  earnestness,'  we  acknowledge  the  great  service 
which  they  have  rendered  to  English  history.  No  one  will  now 
ever  overlook,  that  in  the  greater,  in  the  original  Puritans — in 
Cromwell,  for  example — the  whole  basis  of  the  character  was  a 
passionate,  deep,  rich,  religious  organisation. 

This  is  not  in  Macaulay's  way.  It  is  not  that  he  is 
sceptical ;  far  from  it.  '  Divines  of  all  persuasions,'  he  tells  us, 
'  are  agreed  that  there  is  a  religion  ; '  and  he  acquiesces  in  their 
teaching.  But  he  has  no  passionate  self-questionings,  no  indo- 
mitable fears,  no  asking  perplexities.  He  is  probably  pleased 
at  the  exemption.  He  has  praised  Bacon  for  a  similar  want 
of  interest.  '  Nor  did  he  ever  meddle  with  those  enigmas 
which  have  puzzled  hundreds  of  generations,  and  will  puzzle 
hundreds  more.  He  said  nothing  about  the  grounds  of  moral 
obligation,  or  the  freedom  of  the  human  will.  He  had  no 
inclination  to  employ  himself  in  labours  resembling  those  of  the 
damned  in  the  Grecian  Tartarus — to  spin  for  ever  on  the  same 
wheel  round  the  same  pivot.  He  lived  in  an  age  in  which 
disputes  on  the  most  subtle  points  of  divinity  excited  an  intense 
interest  throughout  Europe ;  and  nowhere  more  than  in 
England.  He  was  placed  in  the  very  thick  of  the  conflict.  He 
was  in  power  at  the  time  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  must  for 
months  have  been  daily  deafened  with  talk  about  election, 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  239 

reprobation,  and  final  perseverance.  Yet  we  do  not  remember 
a  line  in  his  works  from  which  it  can  be  inferred  that  he  was 
either  a  Calvinist  or  an  Arminian.  While  the  world  was 
resounding  with  the  noise  of  a  disputatious  philosophy  and  a 
disputatious  theology,  the  Baconian  school,  like  Allworthy  seated 
between  Square  and  Thwackum,  preserved  a  calm  neutrality, — 
half-scornful,  half-benevolent, — and,  content  with  adding  to  the 
sum  of  practical  good,  left  the  war  of  words  to  those  who  liked 
it.'  This  may  be  the  writing  of  good  sense,  but  it  is  not  the 
expression  of  an  anxious  or  passionate  religious  nature. 

Such  is  the  explanation  of  Macaulay's  not  prizing  so  highly  as 
he  should  prize  the  essential  excellences  of  the  Puritan  character. 
He  is  defective  in  the  one  point  in  which  they  were  very  great ; 
he  is  eminent  in  the  very  point  in  which  they  were  most 
defective.  A  spirit  of  easy  cheerfulness  pervades  his  writings, 
a  pleasant  geniality  overflows  his  history :  the  rigid  asceticism, 
the  pain  for  pain's  sake,  of  the  Puritan  is  altogether  alien  to 
him.  Retribution  he  would  deny  ;  sin  is  hardly  a  part  of  his 
creed.  His  religion  is  one  of  thanksgiving.  His  notion  of 
philosophy — it  would  be  a  better  notion  of  his  own  writing — 
is  illustrans  commoda  vitce. 

The  English  Revolution  is  the  very  topic  for  a  person  of  this 
character.  It  is  eminently  an  unimpassioned  movement.  It 
requires  no  appreciation  of  the  Cavalier  or  of  the  zealot ;  no 
sympathy  with  the  romance  of  this  world  ;  no  inclination  to 
pass  beyond,  and  absorb  the  mind's  energies  in  another.  It  had 
neither  the  rough  enthusiasm  of  barbarism  nor  the  delicate 
grace  of  high  civilisation ;  the  men  who  conducted  it  had  neither 
the  deep  spirit  of  Cromwell's  Puritans  nor  the  chivalric  loyalty 
of  the  enjoying  English  gentleman.  They  were  hard-headed 
sensible  men,  who  knew  that  politics  were  a  kind  of  business, 
that  the  essence  of  business  is  compromise,  of  practicality 
concession.  They  drove  no  theory  to  excess  ;  for  they  had  no 
theory.  Their  passions  did  not  hurry  them  away;  for  their 
temperament  was  still,  their  reason  calculating  and  calm. 


240  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

Locke  is  the  type  of  the  best  character  of  his  era.  There  is 
nothing  in  him  which  a  historian  such  as  we  have  described 
could  fail  to  comprehend,  or  could  not  sympathise  with  when 
he  did  comprehend.  He  was  the  very  reverse  of  a  Cavalier  ;  he 
came  of  a  Puritan  stock  ;  he  retained  through  life  a  kind  of 
chilled  Puritanism ;  he  had  nothing  of  its  excessive,  overpower- 
ing, interior  zeal,  but  he  retained  the  formal  decorum  which  it 
had  given  to  the  manners,  the  solid  earnestness  of  its  intellect, 
the  heavy  respectability  of  its  character.  In  all  the  nations 
across  which  Puritanism  has  passed  you  may  notice  something 
of  its  indifference  to  this  world's  lighter  enjoyments  ;  no  one  of 
them  has  been  quite  able  to  retain  its  singular  interest  in  what 
is  beyond  the  veil  of  time  and  sense.  The  generation  to  which 
we  owe  our  Kevolution  was  in  the  first  stage  of  the  descent. 
Locke  thought  a  zealot  a  dangerous  person,  and  a  poet  little 
better  than  a  rascal.  It  has  been  said,  with  perhaps  an  allusion 
to  Macaulay,  that  our  historians  have  held  that '  all  the  people 
who  lived  before  1688  were  either  knaves  or  fools.'  This  is,  of 
course,  an  exaggeration ;  but  those  who  have  considered  what 
sort  of  person  a  historian  is  likely  to  be,  will  not  be  surprised  at 
his  preference  for  the  people  of  that  era.  They  had  the  equable 
sense  which  he  appreciates ;  they  had  not  the  deep  animated 
passions  to  which  his  nature  is  insensible. 

Yet,  though  Macaulay  shares  in  the  common  tempera- 
ment of  historians,  and  in  the  sympathy  with,  and  appreciation 
of,  the  characters  most  congenial  to  that  temperament,  he  is 
singularly  contrasted  with  them  in  one  respect — he  has  a  vivid 
fancy,  they  have  a  dull  one.  History  is  generally  written  on 
the  principle  that  human  life  is  a  transaction  ;  that  people  come 
to  it  with  defined  intentions  and  a  calm  self-possessed  air,  as 
stockjobbers  would  buy  '  omnium,'  as  timber-merchants  buy 
6  best  middling ; '  people  are  alike,  and  things  are  alike  ;  every- 
thing is  a  little  dull,  every  one  a  little  slow ;  manners  are  nob 
depicted,  traits  are  not  noticed ;  the  narrative  is  confined  to 
those  great  transactions  which  can  be  understood  without  any 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  241 

imaginative  delineation  of  their  accompaniments.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  things — those  which  you  need  only  to  understand^ 
and  those  which  you  need  also  to  imagine.  That  a  man  bought 
nine  hundredweight  of  hops  is  an  intelligible  idea — you  do  not 
want  the  hops  delineated  or  the  man  described ;  that  he  went 
into  society  suggests  an  inquiry — you  want  to  know  what  the 
society  was  like,  and  how  far  he  was  fitted  to  be  there.  The 
great  business  transactions  of  the  political  world  are  of  the 
intelligible  description.  Macaulay  has  himself  said  : 

'  A  history,  in  which  every  particular  incident  may  be  true,  may 
on  the  whole  be  false.  The  circumstances  which  have  most  influence 
on  the  happiness  of  mankind,  the  changes  of  manners  and  morals,  the 
transition  of  communities  from  poverty  to  wealth,  from  knowledge 
to  ignorance,  from  ferocity  to  humanity, — these  are,  for  the  most 
part,  noiseless  revolutions.  Their  progress  is  rarely  indicated  by  what 
historians  are  pleased  to  call  important  events.  They  are  not  achieved 
by  armies,  or  enacted  by  senates.  They  are  sanctioned  by  no  treaties, 
and  recorded  in  no  archives.  They  are  carried  on  in  every  school,  in 
every  church,  behind  ten  thousand  counters,  at  ten  thousand  firesides. 
The  upper  current  of  society  presents  no  certain  criterion  by  which 
we  can  judge  of  the  direction  in  which  the  under  current  flows.  We 
read  of  defeats  and  victories ;  but  we  know  that  nations  may  be 
miserable  amidst  victories,  and  prosperous  amidst  defeats.  We  read 
of  the  fall  of  wise  ministers,  and  of  the  rise  of  profligate  favourites  ; 
but  we  must  remember  how  small  a  proportion  the  good  or  evil 
effected  by  a  single  statesman  can  bear  to  the  good  or  evil  of  a  great 
social  system.' 

But  of  this  sluggishness  of  imagination  he  has  certainly  no  trace 
himself.  He  is  willing  to  be  <  behind  ten  thousand  counters,' 
to  be  a  guest  *  at  ten  thousand  firesides.'  He  is  willing  to  see 
'  ordinary  men  as  they  appear  in  their  ordinary  business  and  in 
their  ordinary  pleasures.'  He  has  no  objection  to  '  mingle  in 
the  crowds  of  the  Exchange  and  the  coffee-house.'  He  would 
'obtain  admittance  to  the  convivial  table  and  the  domestic 
hearth.'  So  far  as  his  dignity  will  permit,  *  he  will  bear  with 
vulgar  expressions.'  And  a  singular  efficacy  of  fancy  gives  him 

VOL.    II.  R 


242  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

the  power  to  do  so.  Some  portion  of  the  essence  of  human 
nature  is  concealed  from  him  ;  but  all  its  accessories  are  at  his 
command.  He  delineates  any  trait ;  he  can  paint,  and  justly 
paint,  any  manners  he  chooses. 

*  A  perfect  historian/  he  tells  us,  '  is  he  in  whose  work  the  cha- 
racter and  spirit  of  an  age  is  exhibited  in  miniature.  He  relates  no 
fact,  he  attributes  no  expression  to  his  characters,  which  is  not 
authenticated  by  sufficient  testimony  ;  but,  by  judicious  selection, 
rejection,  and  arrangement,  he  gives  to  truth  those  attractions  which 
have  been  usurped  by  fiction.  In  his  narrative  a  due  subordination 
is  observed — some  transactions  are  prominent,  others  retire ;  but  the 
scale  on  which  he  represents  them  is  increased  or  diminished,  not 
according  to  the  dignity  of  the  persons  concerned  in  them,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  in  which  they  elucidate  the  condition  of  society  and 
the  nature  of  man.  He  shows  us  the  court,  the  camp,  and  the  senate  ; 
but  he  shows  us  also  the  nation.  He  considers  no  anecdote,  no  pecu- 
liarity of  manner,  no  familiar  saying,  as  too  insignificant  for  his 
notice,  which  is  not  too  insignificant  to  illustrate  the  operation  of 
laws,  of  religion,  and  of  education,  and  to  mark  the  progress  of  the 
human  mind.  Men  will  not  merely  be  described,  but  will  be  made 
intimately  known  to  us.  The  changes  of  manners  will  be  indicated, 
not  merely  by  a  few  general  phrases,  or  a  few  extracts  from  statistical 
documents,  but  by  appropriate  images  presented  in  every  line.  If  a 
man,  such  as  we  are  supposing,  should  write  the  history  of  England, 
he  would  assuredly  not  omit  the  battles,  the  sieges,  the  negotiations, 
the  seditions,  the  ministerial  changes ;  but  with  these  he  would  inter- 
sperse the  details  which  are  the  charm  of  historical  romances.  At  Lin- 
coln Cathedral  there  is  a  beautiful  painted  window,  which  was  made  by 
an  apprentice  out  of  the  pieces  of  glass  which  had  been  rejected  by 
his  master.  It  is  so  far  superior  to  every  other  in  the  church,  that, 
according  to  the  tradition,  the  vanquished  artist  killed  himself  from 
mortification.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the  same  manner,  has  used  those 
fragments  of  truth  which  historians  have  scornfully  thrown  behind 
them  in  a  manner  which  may  well  excite  their  envy.  He  has  con- 
structed out  of  their  gleanings  works  which,  even  considered  as 
histories,  are  scarcely  less  valuable  than  theirs.  But  a  truly  great 
historian  would  reclaim  those  materials  which  the  novelist  has  appro- 
priated. The  history  of  the  Government,  and  the  history  of  the 
people,  would  be  exhibited  in  that  mode  in  which  alone  they  can  be 
exhibited  justly,  in  inseparable  conjunction  and  intermixture.  We 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  243 

should  not  then  have  to  look  for  the  wars  and  votes  of  the  Puritans 
in  Clarendon,  and  for  their  phraseology  in  Old  Mortality ;  for  one 
half  of  King  James  in  Hume,  and  for  the  other  half  in  the  Fortunes 

of  Nigel: 

So  far  as  the  graphic  description  of  exterior  life  goes,  he  has 
completely  realised  his  idea. 

This  union  of  a  flowing  fancy  with  an  insensible  organisation 
is  very  rare.  In  general,  a  delicate  fancy  is  joined  with  a  poetic 
organisation.  Exactly  why,  it  would  be  difficult  to  explain.  It 
is  for  metaphysicians  in  large  volumes  to  explain  the  genesis  of 
the  human  faculties  ;  but,  as  a  fact,  it  seems  to  be  clear  that, 
for  the  most  part,  imaginative  men  are  the  most  sensitive  to 
the  poetic  side  of  human  life  and  natural  scenery.  They  are 
drawn  by  a  strong  instinct  to  what  is  sublime,  grand,  and 
beautiful.  They  do  not  care  for  the  coarse  business  of  life. 
They  dislike  to  be  cursed  with  its  ordinary  cares.  Their  nature 
is  vivid ;  it  is  interested  by  all  which  naturally  interests ;  it 
dwells  on  the  great,  the  graceful,  and  the  grand.  On  this 
account  it  naturally  runs  away  from  history.  The  very  name  of 
it  is  too  oppressive.  Are  not  all  such  works  written  in  the 
Index  Expurgaiorius  of  the  genial  satirist  as  works  which  it 
was  impossible  to  read  ?  The  coarse  and  cumbrous  matter 
revolts  the  soul  of  the  fine  and  fanciful  voluptuary.  Take  it  as 
you  will,  human  life  is  like  the  earth  on  which  man  dwells. 
There  are  exquisite  beauties,  grand  imposing  objects,  scattered 
here  and  there  ;  but  the  spaces  between  these  are  wide ;  the 
mass  of  common  clay  is  huge ;  the  dead  level  of  vacant  life,  of 
commonplace  geography,  is  immense.  The  poetic  nature  cannot 
bear  the  preponderance  ;  it  seeks  relief  in  selected  scenes,  in 
special  topics,  in  favourite  beauties.  History,  which  is  the 
record  of  human  existence,  is  a  faithful  representative  of  it,  at 
least  in  this  :  the  poetic  mind  cannot  bear  the  weight  of  its 
narrations  and  the  commonplaceness  of  its  events. 

This  peculiarity  of  character  gives  to  Macaulay 's  writing 
one  of  its  most  curious  characteristics.  He  throws  over  matters 


244  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

which  are  in  their  nature  dry  and  dull, — transactions — budgets 
— bills, — the  charm  of  fancy  which  a  poetical  mind  employs 
to  enhance  and  set  forth  the  charm  of  what  is  beautiful. 
An  attractive  style  is  generally  devoted  to  what  is  in  itself 
specially  attractive;  here  it  is  devoted  to  subjects  which  are 
often  unattractive,  are  sometimes  even  repelling,  at  the  best 
are  commonly  neutral,  not  inviting  attention,  if  they  do  not 
excite  dislike.  In  these  new  volumes  there  is  a  currency  reform, 
pages  on  Scotch  Presbyterianism,  a  heap  of  Parliamentary 
debates.  Who  could  be  expected  to  make  anything  interesting 
of  such  topics?  It  is  not  cheerful  to  read  in  the  morning 
papers  the  debates  of  yesterday,  though  they  happened  last 
night ;  one  cannot  like  a  Calvinistic  divine  when  we  see  him  in 
the  pulpit ;  it  is  awful  to  read  on  the  currency,  even  when  it 
concerns  the  bank-notes  which  we  use.  How,  then,  can  we 
care  for  a  narrative  when  the  divine  is  dead,  the  shillings  ex- 
tinct, the  whole  topic  of  the  debate  forgotten  and  passed  away  ? 
Yet  such  is  the  power  of  style,  so  great  is  the  charm  of  very 
skilful  words,  of  narration  which  is  always  passing  forward,  of 
illustration  which  always  hits  the  mark,  that  such  subjects  as 
these  not  only  become  interesting,  but  very  interesting.  The 
proof  is  evident.  No  book  is  so  sought  after.  The  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  said,  '  all  members  of  Parliament  had  read  it.' 
What  other  books  could  ever  be  fancied  to  have  been  read  by 
them?  A  county  member — a  real  county  member — hardly 
reads  two  volumes  per  existence.  Years  ago  Macaulay  said 
a  History  of  England  might  become  more  in  demand  at  the 
circulating  libraries  than  the  last  novel.  He  has  actually  made 
his  words  true.  It  is  no  longer  a  phrase  of  rhetoric,  it  is  a 
simple  fact. 

The  explanation  of  this  remarkable  notoriety  is,  the  con- 
trast of  the  topic  and  the  treatment.      Those  who  read  for  the 
sake  of  entertainment  are  attracted  by  the  one  ;    those    who 
read  for  the   sake    of  instruction  are  attracted  by  the  other 
Macaulay  has  something  that  suits  the  readers  of  Mr.  Hallam ; 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  245 

he  has  something  which  will  please  the  readers  of  Mr. 
Thackeray.  The  first  wonder  to  find  themselves  reading  such 
a  style ;  the  last  are  astonished  at  reading  on  such  topics — at 
finding  themselves  studying  by  casualty.  This  marks  the 
author.  Only  a  buoyant  fancy  and  an  impassive  temperament 
could  produce  a  book  so  combining  weight  with  levity. 

Something  similar  may  be  remarked  of  the  writings  of  a 
still  greater  man — of  Edmund  Burke.  The  contrast  between 
the  manner  of  his  characteristic  writings  and  their  matter  is  very 
remarkable.  He  too  threw  over  the  detail  of  business  and  of 
politics  those  graces  and  attractions  of  manner  which  seem  in 
some  sort  inconsistent  with  them ;  which  are  adapted  for  topics 
more  intrinsically  sublime  and  beautiful.  It  was  for  this  reason 
that  Hazlitt  asserted  that  '  no  woman  ever  cared  for  Burke's 
writings.'  The  matter,  he  said,  was  '  hard  and  dry,'  and  no 
superficial  glitter  or  eloquence  could  make  it  agreeable  to 
those  who  liked  what  is,  in  its  very  nature,  fine  and  delicate. 
The  charm  of  exquisite  narration  has,  in  a  great  degree,  in 
Macaulay's  case,  supplied  the  deficiency  ;  but  it  may  be  per- 
haps remarked,  that  some  trace  of  the  same  phenomenon  has 
again  occurred,  from  similar  causes,  and  that  his  popularity, 
though  great  among  both  sexes,  is  in  some  sense  more  mascu- 
line than  feminine.  The  absence  of  this  charm  of  narration, 
to  which  accomplished  women  are,  it  would  seem,  peculiarly 
sensitive,  is  very  characteristic  of  Burke.  His  mind  was  the 
reverse  of  historical.  Although  he  had  rather  a  coarse,  incondite 
temperament,  not  finely  susceptible  to  the  best  influences,  to 
the  most  exquisite  beauties  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  he 
yet  lived  in  that  world  thoroughly  and  completely.  He  did  not 
take  an  interest,  as  a  poet  does,  in  the  sublime  because  it  is 
sublime,  in  the  beautiful  because  it  is  beautiful ;  but  he  had 
the  passions  of  more  ordinary  men  in  a  degree,  and  of  an 
intensity,  which  ordinary  men  may  be  most  thankful  that  they 
have  not.  In  no  one  has  the  intense  faculty  of  intellectual 
hatred — the  hatred  which  the  absolute  dogmatist  has  for  those 


246  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay, 

in  whom  he  incarnates  and  personifies  the  opposing  dogma — 
been  fiercer  or  stronger ;  in  no  one  has  the  intense  ambition  to 
rule  and  govern, — in  scarcely  any  one  has  the  daily  ambition 
of  the  daily  politician  been  fiercer  and  stronger :  he,  if  any 
man,  cast  himself  upon  his  time.  After  one  of  his  speeches, 
peruse  one  of  Macaulay's :  you  seem  transported  to  another 
sphere.  The  fierce  living  interest  of  the  one  contrasts  with  the 
cold  rhetorical  interest  of  the  other ;  you  are  in  a  different 
part  of  the  animal  kingdom ;  you  have  left  the  viviparous 
intellect;  you  have  left  products  warm  and  struggling  with 
hasty  life ;  you  have  reached  the  oviparous,  and  products  smooth 
and  polished,  cold  and  stately. 

In  addition  to  this  impassive  nature,  inclining  him  to 
write  on  past  transactions — to  this  fancy,  enabling  him  to 
adorn  and  describe  them — Macaulay  has  a  marvellous  memory 
to  recall  them  ;  and  what  we  may  call  the  Scotch  intel- 
lect, enabling  him  to  conceive  them.  The  memory  is  his 
most  obvious  power.  An  enormous  reading  seems  always 
present  to  him.  No  effort  seems  wanted — no  mental  excogita- 
tion. According  to  his  own  description  of  a  like  faculty,  '  it 
would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  you  had  asked  for  anything 
that  was  not  to  be  found  in  that  immense  storehouse.  The 
article  you  required  was  not  only  there,  it  was  ready.  It  was 
in  its  own  compartment.  In  a  moment  it  was  brought  down, 
unpacked,  and  explained.'  He  has  a  literary  illustration  for 
everything ;  and  his  fancy  enables  him  to  make  a  skilful  use  ot 
his  wealth.  He  always  selects  the  exact  likeness  of  the  idea 
which  he  wishes  to  explain.  And  though  it  be  less  obvious,  yet 
his  writing  would  have  been  deficient  in  one  of  its  most  essen- 
tial characteristics  if  it  had  not  been  for  what  we  have  called  his 
Scotch  intellect,  which  is  a  curious  matter  to  explain.  It  may 
be  thought  that  Adam  Smith  had  little  in  common  with  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  Sir  Walter  was  always  making  fun  of  him  ; 
telling  odd  tales  of  his  abstraction  and  singularity  ;  not 
obscurely  hinting,  that  a  man  who  could  hardly  put  on  his  own 


Thomas  Babington  Macaiilay.  247 

coat,  and  certainly  could  not  buy  his  own  dinner,  was  scarcely 
fit  to  decide  on  the  proper  course  of  industry  and  the  mercantile 
dealings  of  nations.     Yet,  when  Sir  Walter's  own  works  come 
to  be  closely  examined,  they  will  be  found  to  contain  a  good 
deal  of  political  economy  of  a  certain  sort, — and  not  a  very  bad 
sort.     Any  one  who  will  study  his  description  of  the  Highland 
clans  in  Waverley ;   his  observations  on  the  industrial  side  (if 
so  it  is  to  be  called)  of  the  Border-life;  his  plans  for  dealing  with 
the  poor  of  his  own  time, — will  be  struck  not  only  with  a  plain 
sagacity,   which    we    could   equal   in   England,  but   with   the 
digested   accuracy   and   theoretical    completeness    which   they 
show.      You   might   cut   paragraphs,    even   from   his   lighter 
writings,  which  would   be   thought   acute   in  the    Wealth   of 
Nations.     There  appears  to  be  in  the  genius  of  the    Scotch 
people — fostered,  no  doubt,  by  the  abstract  metaphysical  educa- 
tion of  their  Universities,   but  also,  by  way  of  natural  taste, 
supporting   that   education,    and    rendering    it    possible   and 
popular — a  power  of  reducing  human  actions  to  formulae  or 
principles.     An  instance  is  now  in  a  high  place.     People  who 
are  not  lawyers, — rural  people,  who  have  sense  of  their  own, 
but  have  no  access  to  the  general  repute  and  opinion  which 
expresses  the  collective  sense  of  the  great  world, — never  can  be 
brought  to  believe  that  Lord  Campbell  is  a  great  man.     They 
read   his    speeches    in    the   House    of    Lords — his    occasional 
flights  of  eloquence  on  the  bench — his  attempts  at  pathos — his 
stupendous  gaucheries — and   they   cannot   be    persuaded  that 
a  person  guilty  of  such  things  can  have  really  first-rate  talent. 
If  you  ask  them  how  he  came  to  be  Chief  Justice  of  England, 
they    mutter    something   angry,    and    say    ;  Well,    Scotchmen 
do  get  on  somehow.'     This  is  really  the  true  explanation.     In 
spite   of   a   hundred   defects,  Lord   Campbell   has  the  Scotch 
faculties  in  perfection.     He  reduces  legal  matters  to  a  sound 
broad   principle   better  than   any  man  who   is   now   a  judge. 
He  has  a  steady,  comprehensive,  abstract,  distinct  consistency, 
which  elaborates  a  formula  and  adheres  to  a  formula  j    and  it 


248  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

is  this  which  has  raised  him  from  a  plain — a  very  plain — 
Scotch  lawyer  to  be  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England.  Macaulay 
has  this  too.  Among  his  more  brilliant  qualities,  it  has 
escaped  the  attention  of  critics;  the  more  so,  because  his 
powers  of  exposition  and  expression  make  it  impossible  to 
conceive  for  a  moment  that  the  amusing  matter  we  are  reading 
is  really  Scotch  economy. 

' During  the  interval/  he  tells  us,  '  between  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution,  the  riches  of  the  nation  had  been  rapidly  increasing. 
Thousands  of  busy  men  found  every  Christmas  that,  after  the  expenses 
of  the  year's  housekeeping  had  been  defrayed  out  of  the  year's  income, 
a  surplus  remained  ;  and  how  that  surplus  was  to  be  employed  was 
a  question  of  some  difficulty.  In  our  time,  to  invest  such  a  surplus, 
at  something  more  than  three  per  cent.,  on  the  best  security  that  has 
ever  been  known  in  the  world,  is  the  work  of  a  few  minutes.  But  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  a  retired  merchant, 
who  had  saved  some  thousands,  and  who  wished  to  place  them  safely 
and  profitably,  was  often  greatly  embarrassed.  Three  generations 
earlier,  a  man  who  had  accumulated  wealth  in  a  profession  generally 
purchased  real  property,  or  lent  his  savings  on  mortgage.  But  the 
number  of  acres  in  the  kingdom  had  remained  the  same  ;  and  the 
value  of  those  acres,  though  it  had  greatly  increased,  had  by  no 
means  increased  so  fast  as  the  quantity  of  capital  which  was  seeking 
for  employment.  Many,  too,  wished  to  put  their  money  where  they 
could  find  it  at  an  hour's  notice,  and  looked  about  for  some  species  of 
property  which  could  be  more  readily  transferred  than  a  house  or  a 
field.  A  capitalist  might  lend  on  bottomry  or  on  personal  security  ; 
but,  if  he  did  so,  he  ran  a  great  risk  of  losing  interest  and  principal. 
There  were  a  few  joint-stock  companies,  among  which  the  East  India 
Company  held  the  foremost  place  ;  but  the  demand  for  the  stock  of 
such  companies  was  far  greater  than  the  supply.  Indeed,  the  cry 
for  a  new  East  India  Company  was  chiefly  raised  by  persons  who  had 
found  difficulty  in  placing  their  savings  at  interest  on  good  security. 
So  great  was  that  difficulty,  that  the  practice  of  hoarding  was  com- 
mon. We  are  told  that  the  father  of  Pope  the  poet,  who  retired 
from  business  in  the  City  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  carried 
to  a  retreat  in  the  country  a  strong  box  containing  nearly  twenty  thou- 
sand pounds,  and  took  out  from  time  to  time  what  was  required  for 
household  expenses  ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  this  was  not  a 


Thomas  Babington  Macau  lay.  249 

solitary  case.  At  present  the  quantity  of  coin  which  is  hoarded  by 
private  persons  is  so  small,  that  it  would,  if  brought  forth,  make  no 
perceptible  addition  to  the  circulation.  But  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  all  the  greatest  writers  on  currency 
were  of  opinion  that  a  very  considerable  mass  of  gold  and  silver  was 
hidden  in  secret  drawers  and  behind  wainscots. 

4  The  natural  effect  of  this  state  of  things  was,  that  a  crowd  of 
projectors,  ingenious  and  absurd,  honest  and  knavish,  employed  them- 
selves in  devising  new  schemes  for  the  employment  of  redundant 
capital.  It  was  about  the  year  1 688  that  the  word  stockjobber  was 
first  heard  in  London.  In  the  short  space  of  four  years  a  crowd  of 
companies,  every  one  of  which  confidently  held  out  to  subscribers  the 
hope  of  immense  gains,  sprang  into  existence  :  the  Insurance  Com- 
pany, the  Paper  Company,  the  Lutestring  Company,  the  Pearl- 
Fishery  Company,  the  Glass-Bottle  Company,  the  Alum  Company, 
the  Blythe  Coal  Company,  the  Swordblade  Company.  There  was  a 
Tapestry  Company,  which  would  soon  furnish  pretty  hangings  for  all 
the  parlours  of  the  middle  class  and  for  all  the  bedchambers  of  the 
higher.  There  was  a  Copper  Company,  which  proposed  to  explore 
the  mines  of  England,  and  held  out  a  hope  that  they  would  prove  not 
less  valuable  than  those  of  Potosi.  There  was  a  Diving  Company, 
which  undertook  to  bring  up  precious  effects  from  shipwrecked  ves- 
sels, and  which  announced  that  it  had  laid  in  a  stock  of  wonderful 
machines,  resembling  complete  suits  of  armour.  In  front  of  the 
helmet  was  a  huge  glass  eye,  like  that  of  a  Cyclop  ;  and  out  of  the 
crest  went  a  pipe,  through  which  the  air  was  to  be  admitted.  The 
whole  process  was  exhibited  on  the  Thames.  Fine  gentlemen  and 
fine  ladies  were  invited  to  the  show,  were  hospitably  regaled,  and 
were  delighted  by  seeing  the  divers  in  their  panoply  descend  into  the 
river,  and  return  laden  with  old  iron  and  ship's  tackle.  There  was  a 
Greenland  Fishing  Company,  which  could  not  fail  to  drive  the  Dutch 
whalers  and  herring-busses  out  of  the  Northern  Ocean.  There  was 
a  Tanning  Company,  which  promised  to  furnish  leather  superior  to 
the  best  that  was  brought  from  Turkey  or  Russia.  There  was  a 
society  which  undertook  the  office  of  giving  gentlemen  a  liberal  edu- 
cation on  low  terms,  and  which  assumed  the  sounding  name  of  the 
Royal  Academies  Company.  In  a  pompous  advertisement  it  was 
announced  that  the  directors  of  the  Royal  Academies  Company  had 
engaged  the  best  masters  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  and  were 
about  to  issue  twenty  thousand  tickets  at  twenty  shillings  each. 
There  was  to  be  a  lottery  :  two  thousand  prizes  were  to  be  drawn  ; 


250  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


and  the  fortunate  holders  of  the  prizes  were  to  be  taught,  at  the 
charge  of  the  Company,  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  French,  Spanish, 
conic  sections,  trigonometry,  heraldry,  japanning,  fortification,  book- 
keeping, and  the  art  of  playing  the  theorbo.  Some  of  these  compa- 
nies took  large  mansions,  and  printed  their  advertisements  in  gilded 
letters.  Others,  less  ostentatious,  were  content  with  ink,  and  met  at 
coffee-houses  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Royal  Exchange.  Jona- 
than's and  Garraway's  were  in  a  constant  ferment  with  brokers, 
buyers,  sellers,  meetings  of  directors,  meetings  of  proprietors.  Time- 
bargains  soon  came  into  fashion.  Extensive  combinations  were 
formed,  and  monstrous  fables  were  circulated,  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  or  depressing  the  price  of  shares.  Our  country  witnessed 
for  the  first  time  those  phenomena  with  which  a  long  experience  has 
made  us  familiar.  A  mania,  of  which  the  symptoms  were  essentially 
the  same  with  those  of  the  mania  of  1720,  of  the  mania  of  1825,  of 
the  mania  of  1845,  seized  the  public  mind.  An  impatience  to  be 
rich,  a  contempt  for  those  slow  but  sure  gains  which  are  the  proper 
reward  of  industry,  patience,  and  thrift,  spread  through  society.  The 
spirit  of  the  cogging  dicers  of  Whitefriars  took  possession  of  the 
grave  senators  of  the  City,  wardens  of  trades,  deputies,  aldermen.  It 
was  much  easier  and  much  more  lucrative  to  put  forth  a  lying  pro- 
spectus announcing  a  new  stock,  to  persuade  ignorant  people  that  the 
dividends  could  not  fall  short  of  twenty  per  cent.,  and  to  part  with 
five  thousand  pounds  of  this  imaginary  wealth  for  ten  thousand  solid 
guineas,  than  to  load  a  ship  with  a  well- chosen  cargo  for  Virginia  or 
the  Levant.  Every  day  some  new  bubble  was  puffed  into  existence, 
rose  buoyant,  shone  bright,  burst,  and  was  forgotten.' 

You  will  not  find  the  cause  of  panics  so  accurately  ex- 
plained in  the  dryest  of  political  economists — in  the  Scotch 
M'Culloch. 

These  peculiarities  of  character  and  mind  may  be  very 
conspicuously  traced  through  the  History  of  England,  and 
in  the  Essays.  Their  first  and  most  striking  quality  is  the 
intellectual  entertainment  which  they  afford.  This,  as  prac- 
tical readers  know,  is  a  kind  of  sensation  which  is  not  very 
common,  and  which  is  very  productive  of  great  and  healthy 
enjoyment.  It  is  quite  distinct  from  the  amusement  which 
is  derived  from  common  light  works.  The  latter  is  very 


Thomas  Babington  Macaztlay.  251 

great;  but  it  is  passive.  The  mind  of  the  reader  is  not 
awakened  to  any  independent  action  :  you  see  the  farce,  but 
you  see  it  without  effort ;  not  simply  without  painful  effort, 
but  without  any  perceptible  mental  activity  whatever. 
Again,  entertainment  of  intellect  is  contrasted  with  the 
high  enjoyment  of  consciously  following  pure  and  difficult 
reasoning;  such  a  sensation  is  a  sort  of  sublimated  pain. 
The  highest  and  most  intense  action  of  the  intellectual 
powers  is  like  the  most  intense  action  of  the  bodily  on  a 
high  mountain.  We  climb  and  climb :  we  have  a  thrill  of 
pleasure,  but  we  have  also  a  sense  of  effort  and  anguish. 
Nor  is  the  sensation  to  be  confounded  with  that  which  we 
experience  from  the  best  and  purest  works  of  art.  The 
pleasure  of  high  tragedy  is  also  painful :  the  whole  soul  is 
stretched ;  the  spirit  pants ;  the  passions  scarcely  breathe : 
it  is  a  rapt  and  eager  moment,  too  intense  for  continuance 
—so  overpowering,  that  we  scarcely  know  whether  it  be 
joy  or  pain.  The  sensation  of  intellectual  entertainment  is 
altogether  distinguished  from  these  by  not  being  accom- 
panied by  any  pain,  and  yet  being  consequent  on,  or  being 
contemporaneous  with,  a  high  and  constant  exercise  of  mind. 
While  we  read  works  which  so  delight  us,  we  are  conscious 
that  we  are  delighted,  and  are  conscious  that  we  are  not  idle. 
The  opposite  pleasures  of  indolence  and  exertion  seem  for  a 
moment  combined.  A  sort  of  elasticity  pervades  us  ;  thoughts 
come  easily  and  quickly ;  we  seem  capable  of  many  ideas ;  we 
follow  cleverness  till  we  fancy  that  we  are  clever.  This  feeling 
is  only  given  by  writers  who  stimulate  the  mind  just  to  the 
degree  which  is  pleasant,  and  who  do  not  stimulate  it  more ; 
who  exact  a  moderate  exercise  of  mind,  and  who  seduce  us  to 
it  insensibly.  This  can  only  be,  of  course,  by  a  charm  of 
style ;  by  the  inexplicable  je  ne  sais  quoi  which  attracts  our 
attention;  by  constantly  raising  and  constantly  satisfying  our 
curiosity.  And  there  seems  to  be  a  further  condition.  A 
writer  who  wishes  to  produce  this  constant  effect  must  not 


252  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

appeal  to  any  single,  separate  faculty  of  mind,  but  to  the  whole 
mind  at  once.  The  fancy  tires,  if  you  appeal  only  to  the 
fancy ;  the  understanding  is  aware  of  its  dulness,  if  you  appeal 
only  to  the  understanding;  the  curiosity  is  soon  satiated  unless 
you  pique  it  with  variety.  This  is  the  very  opportunity  for 
Macaulay.  He  has  fancy,  sense,  abundance  ;  he  appeals  to  both 
fancy  and  understanding.  There  is  no  sense  of  effort.  His 
books  read  like  an  elastic  dream.  There  is  a  continual  sense  of 
instruction  ;  for  who  had  an  idea  of  the  transactions  before  ? 
The  emotions,  too,  which  he  appeals  to  are  the  easy  admiration, 
the  cool  disapprobation,  the  gentle  worldly  curiosity,  which 
quietly  excite  us,  never  fatigue  us, — which  we  could  bear  for 
ever.  To  read  Macaulay  for  a  day,  would  be  to  pass  a  day  of 
easy  thought,  of  pleasant  placid  emotion. 

Nor  is  this  a  small  matter.  In  a  state  of  high  civilisation 
it  is  no  simple  matter  to  give  multitudes  a  large  and  healthy 
enjoyment.  The  old  bodily  enjoyments  are  dying  out;  there 
is  no  room  for  them  any  more ;  the  complex  apparatus  of 
civilisation  cumbers  the  ground.  We  are  thrown  back  upon 
the  mind,  and  the  mind  is  a  barren  thing.  It  can  spin  little 
from  itself:  few  that  describe  what  they  see  are  in  the  way 
to  discern  much.  Exaggerated  emotions,  violent  incidents, 
monstrous  characters,  crowd  our  canvas ;  they  are  the  resource 
of  a  weakness  which  would  obtain  the  fame  of  strength. 
Reading  is  about  to  become  a  series  of  collisions  against 
aggravated  breakers,  of  beatings  with  imaginary  surf.  In  such 
times  a  book  of  sensible  attraction  is  a  public  benefit;  it 
diffuses  a  sensation  of  vigour  through  the  multitude.  Perhaps 
there  is  a  danger  that-  the  extreme  popularity  of  the  manner 
may  make  many  persons  fancy  they  understand  the  matter 
more  perfectly  than  they  do :  some  readers  may  become 
conceited;  several  boys  believe  that  they  too  are  Macaulays. 
Yet,  duly  allowing  for  this  defect,  it  is  a  great  good  that  so 
many  people  should  learn  so  much  on  such  topics  so  agreeably  ; 
that  they  should  feel  that  they  can  understand  them ;  that 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  253 

their  minds  should  be  stimulated  by  a  consciousness  of  health 
and  power. 

The  same  peculiarities  influence  the  style  of  the  narrative. 
The  art  of  narration  is  the  art  of  writing  in  hooks-and-eyes. 
The  principle  consists  in  making  the  appropriate  thought 
follow  the  appropriate  thought,  the  proper  fact  the  proper  fact ; 
in  first  preparing  the  mind  for  what  is  to  come,  and  then 
letting  it  come.  This  can  only  be  achieved  by  keeping 
continually  and  insensibly  before  the  mind  of  the  reader  some 
one  object,  character,  or  image,  whose  variations  are  the  events 
of  the  story,  whose  unity  is  the  unity  of  it.  Scott,  for  example, 
keeps  before  you  the  mind  of  some  one  person, — that  of 
Morton  in  Old  Mortality ',  of  Eebecca  in  IvanhoeJ  of  Lovel  in 
The  Antiquary, — whose  fortunes  and  mental  changes  are  the 
central  incidents,  whose  personality  is  the  string  of  unity.  It  is 
the  defect  of  the  great  Scotch  novels  that  their  central  figure 
is  frequently  not  their  most  interesting  topic, — that  their 
interest  is  often  rather  in  the  accessories  than  in  the  essential 
principle — rather  in  that  which  surrounds  the  centre  of  nar- 
ration than  in  the  centre  itself.  Scott  tries  to  meet  this 
obj  ection  by  varying  the  mind  which  he  selects  for  his  unit ; 
in  one  of  his  chapters  it  is  one  character,  in  the  next  a 
different ;  he  shifts  the  scene  from  the  hero  to  the  heroine, 
from  the  c  Protector  of  the  settlement '  of  the  story  to  the  evil 
being  who  mars  it  perpetually  :  but  when  narrowly  examined, 
the  principle  of  his  narration  will  be  found  nearly  always  the 
same, — the  changes  in  the  position — external  or  mental — of 
some  one  human  being.  The  most  curiously  opposite  sort  of 
narration  is  that  of  Hume.  He  seems  to  carry  a  view,  as  the 
moderns  call  it,  through  everything.  He  forms  to  himself  a 
metaphysical — that  perhaps  is  a  harsh  word — an  intellectual 
conception  of  the  time  and  character  before  him ;  and  the 
gradual  working  out  or  development  of  that  view  is  the 
principle  of  his  narration.  He  tells  the  story  of  the  conception. 
You  rise  from  his  pages  without  much  remembrance  of  or 


254  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


regard  for  the  mere  people,  but  with  a  clear  notion  of  an 
elaborated  view,  skilfully  abstracted  and  perpetually  impressed 
upon  you.  A  critic  of  detail  should  scarcely  require  a  better 
task  than  to  show  how  insensibly  and  artfully  the  subtle 
historian  infuses  his  doctrine  among  the  facts,  indicates 
somehow — you  can  scarcely  say  how — their  relation  to  it ; 
strings  them,  as  it  were,  upon  it,  concealing  it  in  seeming 
beneath  them,  while  in  fact  it  altogether  determines  their 
form,  their  grouping,  and  their  consistency.  The  style  of 
Macaulay  is  very  different  from  either  of  these.  It  is  a 
diorama  of  political  pictures.  You  seem  to  begin  with  a 
brilliant  picture, — its  colours  are  distinct,  its  lines  are  firm ; 
on  a  sudden  it  changes,  at  first  gradually,  you  can  scarcely  tell 
how  or  in  what,  but  truly  and  unmistakably, — a  slightly 
different  picture  is  before  you;  then  the  second  vision  seems 
to  change, — it  too  is  another  and  yet  the  same ;  then  the  third 
shines  forth  and  fades  ;  and  so  without  end.  The  unity  of  this 
delineation  is  the  identity — the  apparent  identity — of  the 
picture  ;  in  no  two  moments  does  it  seem  quite  different,  in 
no  two  is  it  identically  the  same.  It  grows  and  alters  as  our 
bodies  would  appear  to  alter  and  grow,  if  you  could  fancy  any 
one  watching  them,  and  being  conscious  of  their  daily  little 
changes.  The  events  are  picturesque  variations ;  the  unity  is 
a  unity  of  political  painting,  of  represented  external  form. 
It  is  evident  how  suitable  this  is  to  a  writer  whose  under- 
standing is  solid,  whose  sense  is  political,  whose  fancy  is  fine 
and  delineative. 

To  this  merit  of  Macaulay  is  to  be  added  another.  No  one 
describes  so  well  what  we  may  call  the  spectacle  of  a  character. 
The  art  of  delineating  character  by  protracted  description  is 
one  which  grows  in  spite  of  the  critics.  In  vain  is  it  alleged 
that  the  character  should  be  shown  dramatically  ;  that  it  should 
be  illustrated  by  events;  that  it  should  be  exhibited  in  its 
actions.  The  truth  is,  that  these  homilies  are  excellent,  but 
incomplete ;  true,  but  out  of  season.  There  is  a  utility  in 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  255 

verbal  portrait,  as  Lord  Stanhope  says  there  is  ID  painted. 
Groethe  used  to  observe,  that  in  society — in  a  tete-a-tete,  rather 
— you  often  thought  of  your  companion  as  if  he  was  his 
portrait:  you  were  silent;  you  did  not  care  what  he  said; 
but  you  considered  him  as  a  picture,  as  a  whole,  especially  as 
regards  yourself  and  your  relations  towards  him.  You  require 
something  of  the  same  kind  in  literature ;  some  description  of 
a  man  is  clearly  necessary  as  an  introduction  to  the  story  of  his 
life  and  actions.  But  more  than  this  is  wanted ;  you  require 
to  have  the  object  placed  before  you  as  a  whole,  to  have  the 
characteristic  traits  mentioned,  the  delicate  qualities  drawn 
out,  the  firm  features  gently  depicted.  As  the  practice  which 
Groethe  hints  at  is,  of  all  others,  the  most  favourable  to  a  just 
and  calm  judgment  of  character,  so  the  literary  substitute  is 
essential  as  a  steadying  element,  as  a  summary,  to  bring 
together  and  give  a  unity  to  our  views.  We  must  see  the 
man's  face.  Without  it,  we  seem  to  have  heard  a  great  deal 
about  the  person,  but  not  to  have  known  him  ;  to  be  aware  that 
he  had  done  a  good  deal,  but  to  have  no  settled,  ineradicable 
notion  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  This  is  the  reason  why 
critics  like  Macaulay,  who  sneer  at  the  practice  when  estimating 
the  works  of  others,  yet  make  use  of  it  at  great  length,  and,  in 
his  case,  with  great  skill,  when  they  come  to  be  historians 
themselves.  The  kind  of  characters  whom  Macaulay  can 
describe  is  limited — at  least  we  think  so — by  the  bounds  which 
we  indicated  just  now.  There  are  some  men  whom  he  is  too 
impassive  to  comprehend ;  but  he  can  always  tell  us  of  such  as 
he  does  comprehend,  what  they  looked  like,  and  what  they 
were. 

A  great  deal  of  this  vividness  Macaulay  of  course  owes  to 
his  style.  Of  its  effectiveness  there  can  be  no  doubt;  its 
agreeableness  no  one  who  has  just  been  reading  it  is  likely  to 
deny.  Yet  it  has  a  defect.  It  is  not,  as  Bishop  Butler  would 
have  expressed  it,  such  a  style  as  '  is  suitable  to  such  a  being 
as  man,  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one.'  It  is  too 


256  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 

omniscient.  Everything  is  too  plain.  All  is  clear;  nothing 
is  doubtful.  Instead  of  probability  being,  as  the  great  thinker 
expressed  it,  'the  very  guide  of  life,5  it  has  become  a  rare 
exception — an  uncommon  phenomenon.  You  rarely  come  across 
anything  which  is  not  decided ;  and  when  you  do  come  across 
it,  you  seem  to  wonder  that  the  positiveness,  which  has  ac- 
complished so  much,  should  have  been  unwilling  to  decide 
everything.  This  is  hardly  the  style  for  history.  The  data  of 
historical  narratives,  especially  of  modern  histories,  are  a  heap  of 
confusion-  No  one  can  tell  where  they  lie,  or  where  they  do  not 
lie ;  what  is  in  them,  or  what  is  not  in  them.  Literature  is  called 
the  '  fragment  of  fragments  ; '  little  has  been  written,  and  but 
little  of  that  little  has  been  preserved.  So  history  is  a  vestige  of 
vestiges  ;  few  facts  leave  any  trace  of  themselves,  any  witness 
of  their  occurrence  ;  of  fewer  still  is  that  witness  preserved ;  a 
slight  track  is  all  anything  leaves,  and  the  confusion  of  life, 
the  tumult  of  change,  sweeps  even  that  away  in  a  moment.  It 
is  not  possible  that  these  data  can  be  very  fertile  in  certainties. 
Few  people  would  make  anything  of  them :  a  memoir  here,  a 
MS.  there — two  letters  in  a  magazine — an  assertion  by  a  person 
whose  veracity  is  denied, — these  are  the  sort  of  evidence  out  of 
which  a  flowing  narrative  is  to  be  educed;  and  of  course  it 
ought  not  to  be  too  flowing.  '  If  you  please,  sir,  tell  me  what 
you  do  not  know,'  was  the  inquiry  of  a  humble  pupil  addressed 
to  a  great  man  of  science.  It  would  have  been  a  relief  to  the 
readers  of  Macaulay  if  he  had  shown  a  little  the  outside  of 
uncertainties,  which  there  must  be — the  gradations  of  doubt, 
which  there  ought  to  be — the  singular  accumulation  of  diffi- 
culties, which  must  beset  the  extraction  of  a  very  easy  narrative 
from  very  confused  materials. 

This  defect  in  style  is,  indeed,  indicative  of  a  defect  in 
understanding.  Macaulay's  mind  is  eminently  gifted,  but 
there  is  a  want  of  graduation  in  it.  He  has  a  fine  eye  for 
probabilities,  a  clear  perception  of  evidence,  a  shrewd  guess 
at  missing  links  of  fact ;  but  each  probability  seems  to  him  a 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  257 

certainty,  each  piece  of  evidence  conclusive,  each  analogy  exact. 
The  heavy  Scotch  intellect  is  a  little  prone  to  this  :  one  figures 
it  as  a  heap  of  formulae,  and  if  fact  6  is  reducible  to  formula  B, 
that  is  all  which  it  regards ;  the  mathematical  mill  grinds  with 
equal  energy  at  flour  perfect  and  imperfect — at  matter  which 
is  quite  certain  and  at  matter  which  is  only  a  little  probable. 
But  the  great  cause  of  this  error  is,  an  abstinence  from  practical 
action.  Life  is  a  school  of  probability.  In  the  writings  of  every 
man  of  patient  practicality,  in  the  midst  of  whatever  other  de- 
fectsj  you  will  find  a  careful  appreciation  of  the  degrees  of  likeli- 
hood ;  a  steady  balancing  of  them  one  against  another ;  a  disin- 
clination to  make  things  too  clear,  to  overlook  the  debit  side  of 
the  account  in  mere  contemplation  of  the  enormousness  of  the 
credit.  The  reason  is  obvious  :  action  is  a  business  of  risk  ; 
the  real  question  is  the  magnitude  of  that  risk.  Failure  is 
ever  impending  ;  success  is  ever  uncertain ;  there  is  always,  in 
the  very  best  of  affairs,  a  slight  probability  of  the  former,  a 
contingent  possibility  of  the  non-occurrence  of  the  latter.  For 
practical  men,  the  problem  ever  is  to  test  the  amount  of  these 
inevitable  probabilities ;  to  make  sure  that  no  one  increases 
too  far ;  that  by  a  well-varied  choice  the  number  of  risks  may 
in  itself  be  a  protection — be  an  insurance  to  you,  as  it  were, 
against  the  capricious  result  of  any  one.  A  man  like  Macaulay, 
who  stands  aloof  from  life,  is  not  so  instructed  ;  he  sits  secure : 
nothing  happens  in  his  study :  he  does  not  care  to  test  proba- 
bilities ;  he  loses  the  detective  sensation. 

Macaulay's  so-called  inaccuracy  is  likewise  a  phase  of  this 
defect.  Considering  the  enormous  advantages  which  a  pic- 
turesque style  gives  to  ill-disposed  critics  ;  the  number  of  points 
of  investigation  which  it  suggests  ;  the  number  of  assertions  it 
makes,  sentence  by  sentence  ;  the  number  of  ill-disposed  critics 
that  there  are  in  the  world  ;  remembering  Macaulay's  position, 
—set  on  a  hill  to  be  spied  at  by  them, — he  can  scarcely  be 
thought  an  inaccurate  historian.  Considering  all  things,  they 
have  found  few  certain  blunders,  hardly  any  direct  mistakes. 

VOL.  n.  s 


258  Tkomas  Babington  Macau  lay. 

Every  sentence  of  his  style  requires  minute  knowledge  ;  the 
vivid  picture  has  a  hundred  details ;  each  of  those  details  must 
have  an  evidence,  an  authority,  a  proof.  An  historian  like 
Hume  passes  easily  over  a  period  ;  his  chart  is  large  ;  if  he  gets 
the  conspicuous  headlands,  the  large  harbours,  duly  marked, 
he  does  not  care.  Macaulay  puts  in  the  depth  of  each  wave, 
every  remarkable  rock,  every  tree  on  the  shore.  Nothing  gives 
a  critic  so  great  an  advantage.  It  is  difficult  to  do  this  for  a 
volume ;  simple  for  a  page.  It  is  easy  to  select  a  particular 
event,  and  learn  all  which  any  one  can  know  about  it ;  examine 
Macaulay's  descriptions,  say  he  is  wrong,  that  X  is  not  buried 
where  he  asserts,  that  a  little  boy  was  one  year  older  than  he 
states.  But  how  would  the  critic  manage,  if  he  had  to  work 
out  all  this  for  a  million  facts,  for  a  whole  period  ?  Few  men, 
we  suspect,  would  be  able  to  make  so  few  errors  of  simple  and 
provable  fact.  On  the  other  hand,  few  men  would  arouse  a 
sleepy  critic  by  such  startling  assertion.  If  Macaulay  finds  a 
new  theory,  he  states  it  as  a  fact.  Very  likely  it  really  is  the 
most  probable  theory  ;  at  any  rate,  we  know  of  no  case  in  which 
his  theory  is  not  one  among  the  most  plausible.  If  it  had  only 
been  so  stated,  it  would  have  been  well  received.  His  view 
of  Marlborough's  character,  for  instance,  is  a  specious  one ; 
it  has  a  good  deal  of  evidence,  a  large  amount  of  real  pro- 
bability, but  it  has  scarcely  more.  Marlborough  may  have 
been  as  bad  as  is  said,  but  we  can  hardly  be  sure  of  it  at  this 
time. 

Macaulay's  '  party-spirit '  is  another  consequence  of  his 
positiveness.  When  he  inclines  to  a  side,  he  inclines  to  it 
tqo  much.  His  opinions  are  a  shade  too  strong  ;  his  predilec- 
tions some  degrees  at  least  too  warm.  William  is  too  perfect, 
James  too  imperfect.  The  Whigs  are  a  trifle  like  angels  ;  the 
Tories  like,  let  us  say,  '  our  inferiors.'  Yet  this  is  evidently  an 
honest  party-spirit.  It  does  not  lurk  in  the  corners  of  sen- 
tences, it  is  not  insinuated  without  being  alleged ;  it  does  not, 
like  the  unfairness  of  Hume,  secrete  itself  so  subtly  in  the 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  259 

turns  of  the  words,  that  when  you  look  to  prove  it,  it  is  gone. 
On  the  contrary,  it  rushes  into  broad  day.  William  is"  loaded 
with  panegyric ;  James  is  always  spoken  evil  of.  Hume's  is 
the  artful  pleading  of  a  hired  advocate ;  Macaulay's  the  bold 
eulogy  of  a  sincere  friend.  As  far  as  effect  goes,  this  is  an 
error.  The  very  earnestness  of  the  affection  leads  to  a  re- 
action ;  we  are  tired  of  having  William  called  the  '  just ; '  we 
cannot  believe  so  many  pages  ;  c  all  that '  can  scarcely  be  correct. 
As  we  said,  if  the  historian's  preference  for  persons  and  parties 
had  been  duly  tempered  and  mitigated,  if  the  probably  good 
were  only  said  to  be  probably  good,  if  the  rather  bad  were 
only  alleged  to  be  rather  bad,  the  reader  would  have  been 
convinced,  and  the  historian  would  have  escaped  the  savage 
censure  of  envious  critics. 

The  one  thing  which  detracts  from  the  pleasure  of  reading 
these  volumes,  is  the  doubt  whether  they  should  have  been 
written.  Should  not  these  great  powers  be  reserved  for  great 
periods  ?  Is  this  abounding,  picturesque  style  suited  for 
continuous  history  ?  Are  small  men  to  be  so  largely  described  ? 
Should  not  admirable  delineation  be  kept  for  admirable 
people  ?  We  think  so.  You  do  not  want  Raphael  to  paint 
sign-posts,  or  Palladio  to  build  dirt-pies.  Much  of  history  is 
necessarily  of  little  value, — the  superficies  of  -circumstance, 
the  scum  of  events.  It  is  very  well  to  have  it  described,  indeed 
you  must  have  it  described  ;  the  chain  must  be  kept  complete  ; 
the  narrative  of  a  country's  fortunes  will  not  allow  of  breaks 
or  gaps.  Yet  all  things  need  not  be  done  equally  well.  The 
life  of  a  great  painter  is  short.  Even  the  industry  of  Macaulay 
will  not  complete  this  history.  It  is  a  pity  to  spend  such 
powers  on  such  events.  It  would  have  been  better  to  have 
some  new  volumes  of  essays  solely  on  great  men  and  great 
things.  The  diffuseness  of  the  style  would  have  been  then 
in  place ;  we  could  have  borne  to  hear  the  smallest  minutice 
of  magnificent  epochs.  If  an  inferior  hand  had  executed 
the  connecting-links,  our  notions  would  have  acquired  an 

s  2 


260  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


insensible  perspective;  the  works  of  the  great  artist,  the 
best  themes,  would  have  stood  out  from  the  canvas.  They 
are  now  confused  by  the  equal  brilliancy  of  the  adjacent 
inferiorities. 

Much  more  might  be  said  on  this  narrative.  As  it  will 
be  read  for  very  many  years,  it  will  employ  the  critics  for  very 
many  years.  It  would  be  unkind  to  make  all  the  best  observa- 
tions. Something,  as  Mr.  Disraeli  said  in  a  budget-speech, 
something  should  be  left  for  '  future  statements  of  this  nature.' 
There  will  be  an  opportunity.  Whatever  those  who  come  after 
may  say  against  this  book,  it  will  be,  and  remain,  the  s  Pictorial 
History  of  England.' 


B Granger.  261 


BERANGER.1 

(1857.) 

THE  invention  of  books  has  at  least  one  great  advantage.  It 
has  half-abolished  one  of  the  worst  consequences  of  the  diversity 
of  languages.  Literature  enables  nations  to  understand  one 
another.  Oral  intercourse  hardly  does  this.  In  English  a  dis- 
tinguished foreigner  says  not  what  he  thinks,  but  what  he  can. 
There  is  a  certain  intimate  essence  of  national  meaning  which 
is  as  untranslatable  as  good  poetry.  Dry  thoughts  are  cosmo- 
politan ;  but  the  delicate  associations  of  language  which  express 
character,  the  traits  of  speech  which  mark  the  man,  differ  in 
every  tongue,  so  that  there  are  not  even  cumbrous  circumlo- 
cutions that  are  equivalent  in  another.  National  character  is 
a  deep  thing — a  shy  thing ;  you  cannot  exhibit  much  of  it  to 
people  who  have  a  difficulty  in  understanding  your  language  ; 
you  are  in  strange  society,  and  you  feel  you  will  not  be  under- 
stood. '  Let  an  English  gentleman,'  writes  Mr.  Thackeray, 
'  who  has  dwelt  two,  four,  or  ten  years  in  Paris,  say  at  the  end 
of  any  given  period  how  much  he  knows  of  French  society,  how 
many  French  houses  he  has  entered,  and  how  many  French 
friends  he  has  made.  Intimacy  there  is  none  ;  we  see  but  the 
outsides  of  the  people.  Year  by  year  we  live  in  France,  and 
grow  grey  and  see  no  more.  We  play  Scarte  with  Monsieur  de 
Trefle  every  night ;  but  what  do  we  know  of  the  heart  of  the 
man__0f  the  inward  ways,  thoughts,  and  customs  of  Trefle  ? 

1  (Euvres  completes  de  C.- J.  de  Beranger.  Nouvelle  edition  revue  par  VAuteur, 
contenantles  Dix  Chansons  nouvelles,  le  facsimile  d'une  Lettre  de  Beranger  ; 
ittustree  de  cinquante-deux  cjravurcs  sur  acier,  d'apres  Charlet,  D'Aubigny, 
Johannot  Grenier,  De  Lemud,  Pauquet,  Penguilly,  Raffet,  Sandoz,  executecs 
par  les  artistes  Us  plus  distingues,  et  ffun  lean  portrait  d'apres  nature  ?}ar 
Sandoz.  2  vols.  8vo.  1855. 


262  B Granger. 


We  have  danced  with  Countess  Flicflac  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays 
ever  since  the  peace ;  and  how  far  are  we  advanced  in  her  ac- 
quaintance since  we  first  twirled  her  round  a  room  ?  We  know 
her  velvet  gown  and  her  diamonds ;  we  know  her  smiles  and 
her  simpers  and  her  rouge ;  but  the  real,  rougeless,  intime 
Flicflac  we  know  not.' l  Even  if  our  words  did  not  stutter,  as 
they  do  stutter  on  our  tongue,  she  would  not  tell  us  what  she  is. 
Literature  has  half  mended  this.  Books  are  exportable ;  the 
essence  of  national  character  lies  flat  on  a  printed  page.  Men  of 
genius  with  the  impulses  of  solitude  produce  works  of  art,  whose 
words  can  be  read  and  re-read  and  partially  taken  in  by  foreigners 
to  whom  they  could  never  be  uttered,  the  very  thought  of  whose 
unsympathising  faces  would  freeze  them  on  the  surface  of  the 
mind.  Alexander  Smith  has  accused  poetical  reviewers  of  begin- 
ning as  far  as  possible  from  their  subject.  It  may  seem  to  some, 
though  it  is  not  so  really,  that  we  are  exemplifying  this  saying 
in  commencing  as  we  have  commenced  an  article  on  Beranger. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  poetry — which  one  may  call  poems 
of  this  world,  and  poems  not  of  this  world.  We  see  a  certain 
society  on  the  earth  held  together  by  certain  relations,  perform- 
ing certain  acts,  exhibiting  certain  phenomena,  calling  forth 
certain  emotions.  The  millions  of  human  beings  who  compose 
it  have  their  various  thoughts,  feelings,  and  desires.  They  hate, 
act,  and  live.  The  social  bond  presses  them  closely  together  ; 
and  from  their  proximity  new  sentiments  arise  which  are  half 
superficial  and  do  not  touch  the  inmost  soul,  but  which  never- 
theless are  unspeakably  important  in  the  actual  constitution  of 
human  nature,  and  work  out  their  effects  for  good  and  for  evil 
on  the  characters  of  those  who  are  subjected  to  their  influence. 
These  sentiments  of  the  world,  as  one  may  speak,  differ  from 
the  more  primitive  impulses  and  emotions  of  our  inner  nature 
as  the  superficial  phenomena  of  the  material  universe  from  what 
we  fancy  is  its  real  essence.  Passing  hues,  transient  changes 

1  We  have  been  obliged  to  abridge  the  above  extract,  and  in  so  doing  have 
ft  out  the  humour  of  it. 


B Granger.  263 


have  their  course  before  our  eyes ;  a  multiplex  diorama  is  for 
ever  displayed  ;  underneath  it  all  we  fancy — such  is  the  inevi- 
table constitution  of  our  thinking  faculty — a  primitive  immov- 
able essence,  which  is  modified  into  all  the  ever-changing 
phenomena  we  see,  which  is  the  grey  granite  whereon  they  lie, 
the  primary  substance  whose  debris  they  all  are.  Just  so  from 
the  original  and  primitive  emotions  of  man,  society — the 
evolving  capacity  of  combined  action — brings  out  desires  which 
seem  new,  in  a  sense  are  new,  which  have  no  existence  out  of 
the  society  itself,  are  coloured  by  its  customs  at  the  moment, 
change  with  the  fashions  of  the  age.  Such  a  principle  is  what 
we  may  call  social  gaiety :  the  love  of  combined  amusement 
which  all  men  feel  and  variously  express,  and  which  is  to  the 
higher  faculties  of  the  soul  what  a  gay  running  stream  is  to  the 
everlasting  mountain — a  light,  altering  element  which  beautifies 
while  it  modifies.  Poetry  does  not  shrink  from  expressing  such 
feelings ;  on  the  contrary,  their  renovating  cheerfulness  blends 
appropriately  with  her  inspiriting  delight.  Each  age  and  each 
form  of  the  stimulating  imagination  has  a  fashion  of  its  own. 
Sir  Walter  sings  in  his  modernised  chivalry : 

'  Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay, 
On  the  mountain  dawns  the  day  ; 
All  the  jolly  chase  is  here, 
With  hawk  and  horse  and  hunting-spear. 
Hounds  are  in  their  couples  yelling, 
Hawks  are  whistling,  horns  are  knelling, 
Merrily,  merrily,  mingle  they  : 
Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay. 

'  Louder,  louder  chant  the  lay, 
Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay  ; 
Tell  them  youth  and  mirth  and  glee 
Run  a  course  as  well  as  we. 
Time,  stern  huntsman,  who  can  balk  1 
Stanch  as  hound  and  fleet  as  hawk  ; 
Think  of  this,  and  rise  with  day, 
Gentle  lords  and  ladies  gay.' 


264  B Granger. 


The  poet  of  the  people,  <  vilain  et  tree  vilain,'  sings  with  the 
pauper  Bohemian : 

'  Voir,  c'est  avoir.     Allons  courir  ! 

Vie  errante 

Est  chose  enivrante. 
Yoir,  c'est  avoir.     Allons  courir  ! 
Car  tout  voir,  c'est  tout  conquerir. 

'  Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 
De  lois  vaines, 
De  lourdes  chaines  ; 
Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 
Ni  berceau,  ni  toit,  ni  cercueil. 
Mais  croyez-en  notre  gaite*, 
Noble  ou  pretre, 
Valet  ou  maitre  ; 
Mais,  croyez-en  notre  gatte', 
Le  bonheur,  c'est  la  liberte". 

{  Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gaits', 

Noble  ou  pretre, 

Valet  ou  maitre  ; 

Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gaitd, 

Le  bonheur,  c'est  la  liberteV 

The  forms  of  these  poems  of  social  amusement  are,  in  truth, 
as  various  as  the  social  amusement  itself.  The  variety  of  the 
world,  singularly  various  as  it  everywhere  is,  is  nowhere  so 
various  as  in  that.  Men  have  more  ways  of  amusing  themselves 
than  of  doing  anything  else  they  do.  But  the  essence — the 
characteristic — of  these  poems  everywhere  is,  that  they  express 
more  or  less  well  the  lighter  desires  of  human  nature; — those 
that  have  least  of  unspeakable  depth,  partake  most  of  what  is 
perishable  and  earthly,  and  least  of  the  immortal  soul.  The 
objects  of  these  desires  are  social  accidents  ;  excellent,  perhaps, 
essential,  possibly — so  is  human  nature  made — in  one  form  and 
variety  or  another,  to  the  well-being  of  the  soul,  yet  in  themselves 
transitory,  fleeting,  and  in  other  moods  contemptible.  The  old 


B  Granger.  265 


saying  was,  that  to  endure  solitude  a  man  must  either  be  a 
beast  or  a  god.  It  is  in  the  lighter  play  of  social  action,  in  that 
which  is  neither  animal  nor  divine,  which  in  its  half-way  cha- 
racter is  so  natural  to  man,  that  these  poems  of  society,  which 
we  have  called  poems  of  amusement,  have  their  place. 

This  species  does  not,  however,  exhaust  the  whole  class. 
Society  gives  rise  to  another  sort  of  poems,  differing  from  this 
one  as  contemplation  differs  from  desire.  Society  may  be 
thought  of  as  an  object.  The  varied  scene  of  men, — their  hopes, 
fears,  anxieties,  maxims,  actions, — presents  a  sight  more  interest- 
ing to  man  than  any  other  which  has  ever  existed,  or  which  can 
exist ;  and  it  may  be  viewed  in  all  moods  of  mind,  and  with  the 
change  of  inward  emotion  as  the  external  object  seems  to 
change :  not  that  it  really  does  so,  but  that  some  sentiments 
are  more  favourable  to  clear-sightedness  than  others  are ;  and 
some  bring  before  us  one  aspect  of  the  subject,  and  fix  our 
attention  upon  it,  others  a  different  one,  and  bind  our  minds 
to  that  likewise.  Among  the  most  remarkable  of  these  varied 
views  is  the  world's  view  of  itself.  The  world,  such  as  it  is, 
has  made  up  its  mind  what  it  is.  Childishly  deceivable  by 
charlatans  on  every  other  subject, — imposed  on  by  pedantry, 
by  new  and  unfounded  science,  by  ancient  and  unfounded  re- 
putation, a  prey  to  pomposity,  overrun  with  recondite  fools, 
ignorant  of  all  else, — society  knows  itself.  The  world  knows 
a  man  of  the  world.  A  certain  tradition  pervades  it ;  a  dis- 
ciplina  of  the  market-place  teaches  what  the  collective  society 
of  men  has  ever  been,  and  what,  so  long  as  the  nature  of  man 
is  the  same,  it  cannot  and  will  not  cease  to  be.  Literature, 
the  written  expression  of  human  nature  in  every  variety,  takes 
up  this  variety  likewise.  Ancient  literature  exhibits  it  from 
obvious  causes  in  a  more  simple  manner  than  modern  literature 
can.  Those  who  are  brought  up  in  times  like  the  present 
necessarily  hear  a  different  set  of  opinions,  fall  in  with  other 
words,  are  under  the  shadow  of  a  higher  creed.  In  consequence, 
they  cannot  have  the  simple  naivete  of  the  old  world ;  they 


266  B  Granger. 


cannot  speak  with  easy  equanimity  of  the  fugitiveness  of  life, 
the  necessity  of  death,  of  goodness  as  a  mean,  of  sin  as  an 
extreme.  The  theory  of  the  universe  has  ceased  to  be  an  open 
question.  Still  the  spirit  of  Horace  is  alive,  and  as  potent  as 
that  of  any  man.  His  tone  is  that  of  prime  ministers ;  his  easy 
philosophy  is  that  of  courts  and  parliaments  ;  you  may  hear  his 
words  where  no  other  foreign  words  are  ever  heard.  He  is  but 
the  extreme  and  perfect  type  of  a  whole  class  of  writers,  some 
of  whom  exist  in  every  literary  age,  and  who  give  an  expression 
to  what  we  may  call  the  poetry  of  equanimity,  that  is,  the 
world's  view  of  itself ;  its  self-satisfaction,  its  conviction  that 
you  must  bear  what  comes,  not  hope  for  much,  think  some  evil, 
never  be  excited,  admire  little,  and  then  you  will  be  at  peace. 
This  creed  does  not  sound  attractive  in  description.  Nothing, 
it  has  been  said,  is  so  easy  as  to  be  '  religious  on  paper : '  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  rather  difficult  to  be  worldly  in  speculation  ; 
the  mind  of  man,  when  its  daily  maxims  are  put  before  it, 
revolts  from  anything  so  stupid,  so  mean,  so  poor.  It  requires 
a  consummate  art  to  reconcile  men  in  print  to  that  moderate  and 
insidious  philosophy  which  creeps  into  all  hearts,  colours  all 
speech,  influences  all  action.  We  may  not  stiffen  common  sense 
into  a  creed ;  our  very  ambition  forbids  :— 

'  It  hears  a  voice  within  us  tell 
Calm's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well  : 
'Tis  all  perhaps  which  man  acquires  ; 
But  'tis  not  what  our  youth  desires.' 

Still  a  great  artist  may  succeed  in  making  '  cairn  '  interesting. 
Equanimity  has  its  place  in  literature ;  the  poetry  of  equipoise 
is  possible.  Poems  of  society  have,  thus,  two  divisions :  that 
which  we  mentioned  first,  the  expression  of  the  feelings  which 
are  called  out  by  the  accidents  of  society  ;  next,  the  harmonised 
expression  of  that  philosophy  of  indifference  with  which  the 
world  regards  the  fortunes  of  individuals  and  its  own. 

We  have  said  that  no  modern  nation  can  produce  literature 


B Granger.  267 


embodying  this  kind  of  cool  reflection  and  delineation  as  it  was 
once  produced.     By  way  of  compensation,  however,  it  may  be, 
it  no  doubt  is,  easier  now  to  produce  the  lyrical  kind  of  poems  of 
society — the  light  expression  of  its  light  emotions — than  it  was 
in  ancient  times.     Society  itself  is  better.     There  is  something 
hard  in  Paganism,  which  is  always  felt  even  in  the  softest  traits 
of  the  most  delicate  society  in  antiquity.     The  social  influence 
of  women  in  modern  times  gives  an  interest,  a  little  pervading 
excitement,  to  social  events.     Civilisation,  besides,  has  made 
comfort  possible ;    it  has,  at  least  in  part,  created  a  scene  in 
which  society  can  be  conducted.     Its  petty  conveniences  may  or 
may  not  be  great  benefits  according  to  a  recondite  philosophy  ; 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  actual  men  and  women  in 
actual  conversation  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  their 
feet  should  not  be  cold ;  that  their  eyes  and  mouths  should  not 
be  troubled  with  smoke ;  that  sofas  should  be  good,  and  attractive 
chairs  many.     Modern  times  have  the  advantage  of  the  ancient 
in  the  scenery  of  flirtation.     The  little  boy  complained  that  you 
could  not  find  '  drawing-room '  in  the  dictionary.    Perhaps  even 
because  our  reflections  are  deeper,  our  inner  life  less  purely 
pagan,  our  apparent  life  is  softer  and  easier.     Some  have  said, 
that  one  reason  why  physical  science  made  so  little  progress  in 
ancient  times  was,  that  people  were  in   doubt  about  more  in- 
teresting things  ;  men  must  have,  it  has  been  alleged,  a  settled 
creed  as  to  human  life  and  human  hopes,  before  they  will  attend 
to  shells  and  snails  and  pressure.     And  whether  this  be  so  or 
11  ot,  perhaps  a  pleasant  society  is   only  possible  to  persons  at 
ease  as  to  what  is  beyond   society.     Those  only  can  lie  on  the 
grass  who  fear  no  volcano  underneath,  and  can  bear  to  look  at 
the  blue  vault  above. 

Among  modern  nations  it  is  not  difficult  to  say  where  we 
should  look  for  success  in  the  art  of  social  poetry.  '  Wherever,' 
said  Mr.  Lewes  the  other  day,  '  the  French  go,  they  take  what 
they  call  their  civilisation — that  is,  a  cafe  and  a  theatre.'  And 
though  this  be  a  trifle  severe,  yet  in  its  essence  its  meaning  is 


268  B Granger. 


correct.  The  French  have  in  some  manner  or  other  put  their 
mark  on  all  the  externals  of  European  life.  The  essence  of 
every  country  remains  little  affected  by  their  teaching ;  but  in 
all  the  superficial  embellishments  of  society  they  have  enjoined 
the  fashion  ;  and  the  very  language  in  which  those  embellish- 
ments are  spoken  of,  shows  at  once  whence  they  were  derived. 
Something  of  this  is  doubtless  due  to  the  accidents  of  a  central 
position,  and  an  early  and  prolonged  political  influence ;  but  more 
to  a  certain  neatness  of  nature,  a  certain  finish  of  the  senses, 
which  enables  them  more  easily  than  others  to  touch  lightly 
the  light  things  of  society,  to  see  the  comme-il-faut.  '  I  like,' 
said  a  good  judge.  '  to  hear  a  Frenchman  talk ;  he  strikes  a 
light.'  On  a  hundred  topics  he  gives  the  bright  sharp  edge, 
where  others  have  only  a  blunt  approximation. 

Nor  is  this  anticipation  disappointed.  Keviewers  do  not 
advance  such  theories  unless  they  correspond  with  known  results. 
For  many  years  the  French  have  not  been  more  celebrated  for 
memoirs  which  professedly  describe  a  real  society  than  they 
have  been  for  the  light  social  song  which  embodies  its  senti- 
ments and  pours  forth  its  spirit.  The  principle  on  which  such 
writings  are  composed  is  the  taking  some  incident — not  volun- 
tarily (for  the  incident  doubtless  of  itself  takes  a  hold  on  the 
poet's  mind) — and  out  of  that  incident  developing  all  which 
there  is  in  it.  A  grave  form  is  of  course  inconsistent  with  such 
art.  The  spirit  of  such  things  is  half-mirthful ;  a  very  profound 
meaning  is  rarely  to  be  expected  ;  but  little  incidents  are  not 
destitute  of  meaning,  and  a  delicate  touch  will  delineate  it  in 
words.  A  profound  excitement  likewise  such  poems  cannot 
produce ;  they  do  not  address  the  passions  or  the  intuitions,  the 
heart  or  the  soul,  but  a  gentle  pleasure,  half  sympathy,  half 
amusement,  is  that  at  which  they  aim.  They  do  not  please  us 
equally  in  all  moods  of  mind :  sometimes  they  seem  nothing 
and  nonsense,  like  society  itself.  We  must  not  be  too  active  or 
too  inactive,  to  like  them  ;  the  tension  of  mind  must  not  be  too 
great ;  in  our  highest  moods  the  littlenesses  of  life  are  petty ; 


Stranger.  269 


the  mind  must  not  be  obtusely  passive ;  light  touches  will  not 
stimulate  a  sluggish  inaction.  This  dependence  on  the  mood  of 
mind  of  the  reader  makes  it  dangerous  to  elucidate  this  sort  of 
art  by  quotation  ;  Beranger  has,  however,  the  following : — 

'  Laideur  et  Beaute. 

1  Sa  trop  grande  beaute  m'obsede  ; 
C'est  un  masque  aisement  trompeur. 
Oui,  je  voudrais  qu'elle  fut  laide, 
Mais  laide,  laide  a  faire  peur. 
Belle  ainsi  faut-il  que  je  1'aime  ! 
Dieu,  reprends  ce  don  eclatant ; 
Je  le  demande  a  1'enfer  meme  : 
Qu'elle  soit  laide  et  que  je  1'aime  autant. 

'  A  ces  mots  m'apparait  le  diable  ; 
C'est  le  pere  de  la  laideur. 
"  Rendons-la,"  dit-il,  "effroyable, 
De  tes  rivaux  trompons  1'ardeur. 
J'aime  assez  ces  metamorphoses. 
Ta  belle  ici  vient  en  chantant ; 
Perles,  tombez  ;  fanez-vous,  roses  : 
La  voila  laide,  et  tu  1'aimes  autant." 

1  — Laide  !  moi  ?  dit-elle  e'tonne'e. 
Elle  s'approche  d'un  miroir, 
Doute  d'abord,  puis,  consternee, 
Tombe  en  un  morne  desespoir. 
"JPour  moi  seul  tu  jurais  de  vivre," 
Lui  dis-je,  a  ses  pieds  me  jetant ; 
"  A  mon  seul  amour  il  te  livre. 
Plus  laide  encore,  je  t'aimerais  autant." 

'  Ses  yeux  eteints  fondent  en  larmes, 
Alors  sa  douleur  m'attendrit. 
"  Ah  !   rendez,  rendez-lui  ses  charmes." 
"  — Soit !  "  r^pond  Satany  qui  sourit. 
Ainsi  que  nait  la  fraiche  aurore, 
Sa  beaute  renait  a  1'instant. 
Elle  est,  je  crois,  plus  belle  encore : 
Elle  est  plus  belle,  et  moi  je  1'aime  autant. 


270  B  Granger. 


'  Vite  au  miroir  elle  s'assure 
Qu'on  lui  rend  bien  tous  ses  appas  ; 
Des  pleurs  restent  sur  sa  figure, 
Qu'elle  essuie  en  grondant  tout  bas. 
Satan  s'envole,  et  la  cruelle 
Fuit  et  s'e'crie  en  me  quittant : 
"  Jamais  fille  que  Dieu  fit  belle 
Ne  doit  aimer  qui  peut  1'aimer  autant." ' 

And  this  is  even  a  more  characteristic  specimen : 

1  La  Mouche. 

(  Au  bruit  de  notre  gaitd  folle, 
Au  bruit  des  verres,  des  chansons, 
Quelle  mouche  murmure  et  vole, 
Et  revient  quand  nous  la  chassons  ?  (bis.) 
C'est  quelque  dieu,  je  le  soupgonne, 
Qu'un  peu  de  bonheur  rend  jaloux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

'  Transformed  en  mouche  hideuse, 
Amis,  oui,  c'est,  j'en  suis  certain, 
La  Raison,  delte*  grondeuse, 
Qu'irrite  un  si  joyeux  festin. 
L'orage  approche,  le  ciel  tonne, 
Voila  ce  que  dit  son  courroux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

1  C'est  la  Raison  qui  vient  me  dire : 
"  A  ton  age  on  vit  en  reclus. 
Ne  bois  plus  tant,  cesse  de  rire, 
Cesse  d'aimer,  ne  chante  plus." 
Ainsi  son  beffroi  toujours  sonne 
Aux  lueurs  des  feux  les  plus  doux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

1  C'est  la  Raison,  gare  a  Lisette  ! 
Son  dard  la  menace  toujours. 


B  Granger.  271 


Dieux  !  il  perce  la  collerette : 
Le  sang  coule  !  accourez,  Amours ! 
Amours !  poursuivez  la  f elonne ; 
Qu'elle  expire  enfin  sous  vos  coups. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

'  Victoire  !  amis,  elle  se  noie 
Dans  1'ai  que  Lise  a  verse. 
Victoire !  et  qu'aux  mains  de  la  Joie 
Le  sceptre  enfin  soit  replace*,  (bis.) 
Un  souffle  ebranle  sa  couronne ; 
Une  mouche  nous  troublait  tous. 
Ne  craignons  plus  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous.' 

To  make  poetry  out  of  a  fly  is  a  difficult  operation.  It 
used  to  be  said  of  the  Lake  school  of  criticism,  in  Mr.  Words- 
worth's early  and  more  rigid  days,  that  there  was  no  such  term 
as  <  elegant '  in  its  nomenclature.  The  reason  is  that,  dealing, 
or  attempting  to  deal,  only  with  the  essential  aboriginal  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature,  that  school  had  no  room  and  no  occasion 
for  those  minor  contrivances  of  thought  and  language  which  are 
necessary  to  express  the  complex  accumulation  of  little  feelings, 
the  secondary  growth  of  human  emotion.  The  underwood  of 
nature  is  '  elegant ; '  the  bare  ascending  forest-tree  despises 
what  is  so  trivial, — it  is  grave  and  solemn.  To  such  verses,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  have  been  quoted,  '  elegance  '  is  essential;  the 
delicate  finish  of  fleeting  forms  is  the  only  excellence  they 
can  have. 

The  characteristic  deficiencies  of  French  literature  have  no 
room  to  show  themselves  in  this  class  of  art.  '  Though  France 
herself  denies,'  says  a  recent  writer,  '  yet  all  other  nations  with 
one  voice  proclaim  her  inferiority  to  her  rivals  in  poetry  and 
romance,  and  in  all  the  other  elevated  fields  of  fiction.  A 
French  Dante,  or  Michael  Angelo,  or  Cervantes,  or  Murillo,  or 
Goethe,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  we  at  once  perceive  to  be  a 
mere  anomaly  ;  a  supposition  which  may,  indeed,  be  proposed  in 


272  B  Granger. 


terms,  but  which  in  reality  is  inconceivable  and  impossible.'   In 
metaphysics,  the  reason  seems  to  be  that  the  French  character 
is  incapable   of  being   mastered   by  an  unseen   idea,  without 
being  so  tyrannised  over  by  it  as  to  be  incapable  of  artistic 
development.     Such  a  character  as  Eobespierre's  may  explain 
what  we  mean.     His  entire  nature  was  taken  up  and  absorbed 
in  certain  ideas ;  he  had  almost  a  vanity  in  them ;  he  was  of 
them,  and  they  were  of  him.     But  they  appear  in  his  mind, 
in  his  speeches,  in  his  life,  in  their  driest  and  barest  form ; 
they  have  no  motion,  life,  or  roundness.     We  are  obliged  to 
use  many  metaphors  remotely  and  with  difficulty  to  indicate 
the  procedure  of  the  imagination.     In  one  of  these  metaphors 
we  figure  an  idea  of  imagination  as  a  living  thing,  a  kind  of 
growing  plant,  with  a  peculiar  form,  and  ever  preserving  its 
identity,  but  absorbing  from  the  earth  and  air  all   kindred, 
suitable,  and,  so  to  say,  annexable  materials.     In  a  mind  such 
as  Robespierre's,  in  the  type  of  the  fanatic  mind,  there  is  no 
such  thing.     The  ideas  seem  a  kind  of  dry  hard  capsules,  never 
growing,  never  enlarging,  never  uniting.   Development  is  denied 
them ;  they  cannot  expand,  or  ripen,  or  mellow.     Dogma  is  a 
dry  hard   husk;   poetry   has  the  soft  down  of  the  real   fruit. 
Ideas  seize  on  the  fanatic  mind  just  as  they  do  on  the  poetical ; 
they  have  the  same  imperious  ruling  power.     The  difference 
is,  that  in  the  one   the  impelling  force  is  immutable,  iron, 
tyrannical ;  in  the  other  the  rule  is  expansive,  growing,  free, 
taking  up  from  all  around  it  moment  by  moment  whatever  is 
fit,  as  in  the  political  world  a  great  constitution  arises  through 
centuries,  with  a  shape  that  does  not  vary,  but  with  movement 
for  its  essence  and  the  fluctuation  of  elements  for  its  vitality. 
A  thin  poor  mind  like  Eobespierre's  seems  pressed  and  hampered 
by  the  bony  fingers  of  a  skeleton  hand;  a  poet's  is  expanded 
and  warmed  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  impelled  by  a  pure 
life-blood  of  imagination.     The  French,  as  we  have  said,  are 
hardly  capable  of  this.     When  great  remote  ideas  seize  upon 
them  at  all,  they  become   fanatics.     The  wild,  chimerical,  re- 


B  Granger.  273 


volutionary,  mad  Frenchman  has  the  stiffest  of  human  minds. 
He  is  under  the  law  of  his  creed ;  he  has  not  attained  to  the 
higher  freedom  of  the  impelling  imagination.  The  prosing 
rhetoric  of  the  French  tragedy  shows  the  same  defect  in  another 
form.  The  ideas  which  should  have  become  living  realities, 
remain  as  lean  abstractions.  The  characters  are  speaking 
officials,  jets  of  attenuated  oratory.  But  exactly  on  this  very 
account  the  French  mind  has  a  genius  for  the  poetry  of  society. 
Unable  to  remove  itself  into  the  higher  region  of  imagined 
forms,  it  has  the  quickest  detective  insight  into  the  exact 
relation  of  surrounding  superficial  phenomena.  There  are  two 
ways  of  putting  it:  either,  being  fascinated  by  the  present, 
they  cannot  rise  to  what  is  not  present ;  or  being  by  defect  of 
nature  unable  to  rise  to  what  is  not  present,  they  are  concen- 
trated and  absorbed  in  that  which  is  so.  Of  course  there  ought 
not  to  be,  but  there  is,  a  world  of  bonbons,  of  salons,  of  esprit. 
Living  in  the  present,  they  have  the  poetry  of  the  present.  The 
English  genius  is  just  the  opposite.  Our  cumbrous  intellect  has 
no  call  to  light  artificialities.  We  do  not  excel  in  punctuated 
detail  or  nicely-squared  elaboration.  It  puts  us  out  of  patience 
that  others  should.  A  respectable  Englishman  murmured  in  the 
Oaf 6  de  Paris,  '  I  wish  I  had  a  hunch  of  mutton.'  He  could 
not  bear  the  secondary  niceties  with  which  he  was  surrounded. 
Our  art  has  the  same  principle.  We  excel  in  strong,  noble 
imagination,  in  solid  stuff.  Shakespeare  is  tough  work  ;  he  has 
the  play  of  the  rising  energy,  the  buoyant  freedom  of  the  un- 
bounded mind ;  but  no  writer  is  so  destitute  of  the  simplifying 
dexterities  of  the  manipulating  intellect. 

It  is  dangerous  for  a  foreigner  to  give  an  opinion  on  minutice 
of  style,  especially  on  points  affecting  the  characteristic  excel- 
lences of  national  style.  The  French  language  is  always  neat ; 
all  French  styles  somehow  seem  good.  But  Beranger  appears  to 
have  a  peculiar  neatness.  He  tells  us  that  all  his  songs  are 
the  production  of  a  painful  effort.  If  so,  the  reader  should 
be  most  grateful;  he  suffers  no  pain.  The  delicate  elaboration 

VOL.  II.  T 


274  B  Granger. 


of  the  writer  has  given  a  singular  currency  to  the  words. 
Difficult  writing  is  rarely  easy  reading.  It  can  never  be  so  when 
the  labour  is  spent  in  piecing  together  elements  not  joined 
by  an  insensible  touch  of  imagination.  The  highest  praise  is 
due  to  a  writer  whose  ideas  are  more  delicately  connected  by 
unconscious  genius  than  other  men's  are,  and  yet  who  spends 
labour  and  toil  in  giving  the  production  a  yet  cunninger  finish, 
a  still  smoother  connection.  The  characteristic  aloofness  of  the 
Grothic  mind,  its  tendency  to  devote  itself  to  what  is  not  present, 
is  represented  in  composition  by  a  want  of  care  in  the  petti- 
nesses of  style.  A  certain  clumsiness  pervades  all  tongues  of 
German  origin.  Instead  of  the  language  having  been  sharpened 
and  improved  by  the  constant  keenness  of  attentive  minds,  it 
has  been  habitually  used  obtusely  and  crudely.  Light,  loqua- 
cious Graul  has  for  ages  been  the  contrast.  If  you  take  up  a 
pen  just  used  by  a  good  writer,  for  a  moment  you  seem  to  write 
rather  well.  A  language  long  employed  by  a  delicate  and 
critical  society  is  a  treasure  of  dexterous  felicities.  It  is  not, 
according  to  the  fine  expression  of  Mr.  Emerson,  '  fossil  poetry;' 
it  is  crystallised  esprit. 

A  French  critic  has  praised  Beranger  for  having  retained 
the  refrain,  or  burden,  '  la  rime  de  I'airJ  as  he  calls  it.  Per- 
haps music  is  more  necessary  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  poetry 
of  society  than  it  is  to  any  other  poetry.  Without  a  sensuous 
reminder,  we  might  forget  that  it  was  poetry ;  especially  in  a 
sparkling,  glittering,  attenuated  language,  we  might  be  ab- 
sorbed as  in  the  defined  elegances  of  prose.  In  half  trivial  com- 
positions we  easily  forget  the  little  central  fancy.  The  music 
prevents  this  :  it  gives  oneness  to  the  parts,  pieces  together  the 
shavings  of  the  intellect,  makes  audible  the  flow  of  imagination. 

The  poetry  of  society  tends  to  the  poetry  of  love.  All  poetry 
tends  that  way.  By  some  very  subtle  links,  which  no  meta- 
physician has  skilfully  tracked,  the  imagination,  even  in  effects 
and  employments  which  seem  remote,  is  singularly  so  connected. 
One  smiles  to  see  the  feeling  recur.  Half  the  poets  can  scarcely 
keep  away  from  it :  in  the  high  and  dry  epic  you  may  see  the 


Stranger.  275 


poet  return  to  it.  And  perhaps  this  is  not  unaccountable.  The 
more  delicate  and  stealing  the  sensuous  element,  the  more  the 
mind  is  disposed  to  brood  upon  it ;  the  more  we  dwell  on  it  in 
stillness,  the  more  it  influences  the  wandering,  hovering  faculty 
which  we  term  imagination.  The  first  constructive  effort  of  ima- 
gination is  beyond  the  limit  of  consciousness ;  the  faculty  works 
unseen.  Eut  we  know  that  it  works  in  a  certain  soft  leisure 
only :  and  this  in  ordinary  minds  is  almost  confined  to,  in  the 
highest  is  most  commonly  accompanied  by,  the  subtlest  emotion 
of  reverie.  So  insinuating  is  that  feeling,  that  no  poet  is  alive 
to  all  its  influences ;  so  potent  is  it,  that  the  words  of  a  great 
poet,  in  our  complex  modern  time,  are  rarely  ever  free  from  its 
traces.  The  phrase  '  stealing  calm,'  which  most  naturally  and 
graphically  describes  the  state  of  soul  in  which  the  imagination 
works,  quite  equally  expresses,  it  is  said,  the  coming  in  and 
continuance  of  the  not  uncommon  emotion.  Passing,  however, 
from  such  metaphysics,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  believing  that 
the  poetry  of  society  will  tend  to  the  most  romantic  part  of 
society, — away  from  aunts  and  uncles,  antiquaries  and  wigs,  to 
younger  and  pleasanter  elements.  The  talk  of  society  does  so, 
probably  its  literature  will  do  so  likewise.  There  are,  never- 
theless, some  limiting  considerations,  which  make  this  tendency 
less  all-powerful  than  we  might  expect  it  to  be.  In  the  first 
place,  the  poetry  of  society  cannot  deal  with  passion.  Its  light 
touch  is  not  competent  to  express  eager,  intense  emotion.  Eather, 
we  should  say,  the  essential  nature  of  the  poetry  of  amusement 
is  inconsistent  with  those  rugged,  firm,  aboriginal  elements 
which  passion  brings  to  the  surface.  The  volcano  is  inconsistent 
with  careless  talk  ;  you  cannot  comfortably  associate  with  lava. 
Such  songs  as  those  of  Burns  are  the  very  antithesis  to  the 
levity  of  society.  A  certain  explicitness  pervades  them  : 

1  Come,  let  me  take  thee  to  my  breast, 
And  pledge  we  ne'er  shall  sunder  ; 

And  I  shall  spurn  as  vilest  dust 
The  warld's  wealth  and  grandeur.' 

•r  2 


276  B  Granger. 


There  is  a  story  of  his  having  addressed  a  lady  in  society,  some 
time  after  he  came  to  Edinburgh,  in  this  direct  style,  and  being 
offended  that  she  took  notice  of  it.  The  verses  were  in  English, 
and  were  not  intended  to  mean  anything  particular,  only  to  be 
an  elegant  attention ;  but  you  might  as  well  ask  a  young  lady 
to  take  brandy  with  you  as  compliment  her  in  this  intense 
manner.  The  eager  peasant -poet  was  at  fault  in  the  polished  re- 
finements of  the  half-feeling  drawing-room.  Again,  the  poetry 
of  society  can  scarcely  deal  with  affection.  No  poetry,  except 
in  hints,  and  for  moments,  perhaps  ever  can.  You  might  as 
well  tell  secrets  to  the  town-crier.  The  essence  of  poetry  some- 
how is  publicity.  It  is  very  odd  when  one  reads  many  of  the 
sentiments  which  are  expressed  there, — the  brooding  thought, 
the  delicate  feeling,  the  high  conception.  What  is  the  use  of 
telling  these  to  the  mass  of  men  ?  Will  the  grocer  feel  them  ? 
— will  the  greasy  butcher  in  the  blue  coat  feel  them  ?  Are 
there  not  some  emphatic  remarks  by  Lord  Byron  on  Mr.  Sanders 
('  the  d — d  saltfish  seller  '  of  Venice),  who  could  not  appreciate 
Don  Juan?  Nevertheless,  for  some  subtle  reason  or  other, 
poets  do  crave,  almost  more  than  other  men,  the  public  appro- 
bation. To  have  a  work  of  art  in  your  imagination,  and  that  no 
one  else  should  know  of  it,  is  a  great  pain.  But  even  this 
craving  has  its  limits.  Art  can  only  deal  with  the  universal. 
Characters,  sentiments,  actions,  must  be  described  in  what  in 
the  old  language  might  be  called  their  conceptual  shape.  There 
must  always  be  an  idea  in  them.  If  one  compares  a  great 
character  in  fiction,  say  that  of  Hamlet,  with  a  well-known 
character  in  life,  we  are  struck  almost  at  once  by  the  typical 
and  representative  nature  of  the  former.  We  seem  to  have  a 
more  summary  conception  of  it,  if  the  phrase  may  be  allowed, 
than  we  have  of  the  people  we  know  best  in  reality.  Indeed, 
our  notion  of  the  fictitious  character  rather  resembles  a  notion 
of  actual  persons  of  whom  we  know  a  little,  and  but  a  little, — of 
a  public  man,  suppose,  of  whom  from  his  speeches  and  writings 
we  know  something,  but  with  whom  we  never  exchanged  a  word. 


B  granger.  277 


We  generalise  a  few  traits  ;  we  do  what  the  historian  will  have 
to  do  hereafter ;  we  make  a  man,  so  to  speak,  resembling  the 
real  one,  but  more  defined,  more  simple  and  comprehensible. 
The  objects  on  which  affection  turns  are  exactly  the  opposite. 
In  their  essence  they  are  individual,  peculiar.  Perhaps  they 
become  known  under  a  kind  of  confidence  ;  but  even  if  not, 
nature  has  hallowed  the  details  of  near  life  by  an  inevitable 
secrecy.  You  cannot  expect  other  persons  to  feel  them  ;  you 
cannot  tell  your  own  intellect  what  they  are.  An  individuality 
lurks  in  our  nature.  Each  soul  (as  the  divines  speak)  clings 
to  each  soul.  Poetry  is  impossible  on  such  points  as  these: 
they  seem  too  sacred,  too  essential.  The  most  that  it  can  do 
is,  by  hints  and  little  marks  in  the  interstices  of  a  universalised 
delineation,  to  suggest  that  there  is  something  more  than  what 
is  stated,  and  more  inward  and  potent  than  what  is  stated. 
Affection  as  a  settled  subject  is  incompatible  with  art.  And 
thus  the  poetry  of  society  is  limited  on  its  romantic  side  in 
two  ways  :  first,  by  the  infinite,  intense  nature  of  passion,  which 
forces  the  voice  of  art  beyond  the  social  tone  ;  and  by  the  con- 
fidential, incomprehensible  nature  of  affection,  which  will  not 
bear  to  be  developed  for  the  public  by  the  fancy  in  any  way. 

Being  so  bounded  within  the  ordinary  sphere  of  their  art, 
poets  of  this  world  have  contrived  or  found  a  substitute.  In 
every  country  there  is  a  society  which  is  no  society.  The  French, 
which  is  the  most  worldly  of  literatures,  has  devoted  itself  to  the 
delineation  of  this  outside  world.  There  is  no  form,  comic  or 
serious,  dramatic  or  lyrical,  in  which  the  subject  has  not  been 
treated  :  the  burden  is — 

'  Lisette,  ma  Lisette, 
Tu  m'as  trompe  toujours  ; 
Mais  vive  la  grisette  ! 

Je  veux,  Lisette, 
Boire  a  nos  amours.' 

There  is  obviously  no  need  of  affection  in  this  society.     The 


278  B Granger. 


whole  plot  of  the  notorious  novel,  La  Dame  aux  Camelias, — 
and  a  very  remarkable  one  it  is, — is  founded  on  the  incongruity 
of  real  feeling  with  this  world,  and  the  singular  and  inappro- 
priate consequences  which  result,  if,  by  any  rare  chance,  it  does 
appear  there.  Passion  is  almost  a  fortiori  out  of  the  question. 
The  depths  of  human  nature  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  life. 
On  this  account,  perhaps,  it  is  that  it  harmonises  so  little  with 
the  English  literature  and  character.  An  Englishman  can 
scarcely  live  on  the  surface  ;  his  passions  are  too  strong,  his 
power  of  finesse  too  little.  Accordingly,  since  Defoe,  who 
treated  the  subject  with  a  coarse  matter-of-factness,  there  has 
been  nothing  in  our  literature  of  this  kind — nothing  at  least 
professedly  devoted  to  it.  How  far  this  is  due  to  real  excel- 
lence, how  far  to  the  bourgeois  and  not  very  outspoken  temper 
of  our  recent  writers,  we  need  not  in  this  place  discuss.  There 
is  no  occasion  to  quote  in  this  country  the  early  poetry  of 
Beranger,  at  least  not  the  sentimental  part  of  it.  We  may 
take,  in  preference,  one  of  his  poems  written  in  old,  or  rather 
in  middle  age : 

1  Cinquante  Ans. 

'  Pourquoi  ces  fleurs  ?  est-ce  ma  fete  ? 
Non  ;  ce  bouquet  vient  m'annoncer 
Qu'un  demi-siecle  sur  ma  tete 
Acheve  aujourd'hui  de  passer. 
Oh  !  combien  nos  jours  sont  rapides  ! 
Oh  !  combien  j'ai  perdu  d'instants  ! 
Oh  !  combien  je  me  sens  de  rides  ! 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

'  A  cet  age,  tout  nous  e"chappe  ; 
Le  fruit  meurt  sur  1'arbre  jauni. 
Mais  a  ma  porte  quelqu'un  frappe  ; 
N'ouvrons  point :  mon  role  est  fini. 
C'est,  je  gage,  un  docteur  qui  jette 
Sa  carte,  ou  s'est  logd  le  Temps. 
Jadis,  j'aurais  dit  :  C'est  Lisette. 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 


B Granger.  279 


'  En  maux  cuisants  vieillesse  abonde  : 
C'est  la  goutte  qui  nous  meurtrit ; 
La  ce'cite',  prison  profonde  ; 
La  surdite",  dont  chacun  rit. 
Puis  la  raison,  lampe  qui  baisse, 
N'a  plus  que  des  feux  tremblotants. 
Enfants,  honorez  la  vieillesse  ! 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans  ! 

'  Ciel  !  j'entends  la  Mort,  qui,  joyeuse, 
Arrive  en  se  frottant  les  mains. 
A  ma  porte  la  fossoyeuse 
Frappe  ;  adieu,  messieurs  les  humains  ' 
En  bas,  guerre,  famine  et  peste  ; 
En  haut,  plus  d'astres  e'clatants. 
Ouvrons,  tandis  que  Dieu  me  reste. 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

*  Mais  non  ;  c'est  vous  !  vous,  jeune  amie, 
Sceur  de  charite  des  amours  ! 
Vous  tirez  mon  ame  endormie 
Du  cauchemar  des  mauvais  jours. 
Semant  les  roses  de  votre  age 
Partout,  comme  fait  le  printemps, 
Parfumez  les  reves  d'un  sage. 
He'las  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans.' 

This  is  the  last  scene  of  the  grisette,  of  whom  we  read  in  so 
many  songs  sparkling  with  youth  and  gaiety. 

A  certain  intellectuality,  however,  pervades  Beranger's  love- 
songs.  You  seem  to  feel,  to  see,  not  merely  the  emotion,  but 
the  mind,  in  the  background  viewing  that  emotion.  You  are 
conscious  of  a  considerateness  qualifying  and  contrasting  with 
the  effervescing  champagne  of  the  feelings  described.  Desire 
is  rarefied;  sense  half  becomes  an  idea.  You  may  trace  a 
similar  metamorphosis  in  the  poetry  of  passion  itself.  If  we 
contrast  such  a  poem  as  Shelley's  Epipsychidion  with  the 
natural  language  of  common  passion,  we  see  how  curiously  the 
intellect  can  take  its  share  in  the  dizziness  of  sense.  In  the 


280  B  Granger 


same  way,  in  the  lightest  poems  of  Beranger  we  feel  that  it 
may  be  infused,  may  interpenetrate  the  most  buoyant  effer- 
vescence. 

Nothing  is  more  odd  than  to  contrast  the  luxurious  and 
voluptuous  nature  of  much  of  Beranger's  poetry  with  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life.  He  never  in  all  his  productive  time  had 
more  than  801.  a  year ;  the  smallest  party  of  pleasure  made  him 
live,  he  tells  us  himself,  most  ascetically  for  a  week ;  so  far 
from  leading  the  life  of  a  Sybarite,  his  youth  was  one  of  anxiety 
and  privation.  A  more  worldly  poet  has  probably  never  writ- 
ten, but  no  poet  has  shown  in  life  so  philosophic  an  estimate  of 
this  world's  goods.  His  origin  is  very  unaristocratic.  He  was 
born  in  August  1780,  at  the  house  of  his  grandfather,  a  poor 
old  tailor.  Of  his  mother  we  hear  nothing.  His  father  was  a 
speculative,  sanguine  man,  who  never  succeeded.  His  principal 
education  was  given  him  by  an  aunt,  who  taught  him  to  read 
and  to  write,  and  perhaps  generally  incited  his  mind.  His 
school-teaching  tells  of  the  philosophy  of  the  revolutionary  time. 
By  way  of  primary  school  for  the  town  of  Peronne,  a  patriotic 
member  of  the  National  Assembly  had  founded  an  instiiut 
d'enfants.  '  It  offered,'  we  are  told,  '  at  once  the  image  of  a 
club  and  that  of  a  camp  ;  the  boys  wore  a  military  uniform ;  at 
every  public  event  they  named  deputations,  delivered  orations, 
voted  addresses  :  letters  were  written  to  the  citizen  Eobespierre 
and  the  citizen  Tallien.'  Naturally,  amid  such  great  affairs 
there  was  no  time  for  mere  grammar  ;  they  did  not  teach  Latin. 
Nor  did  Beranger  ever  acquire  any  knowledge  of  that  language  ; 
and  he  may  be  said  to  be  destitute  of  what  is  in  the  usual  sense 
called  culture.  Accordingly  it  has  in  these  days  been  made 
a  matter  of  wonder  by  critics,  whom  we  may  think  pedantic, 
that  one  so  destitute  should  be  able  to  produce  such  works. 
But  a  far  keener  judge  has  pronounced  the  contrary.  Groethe, 
who  certainly  did  not  undervalue  the  most  elaborate  and  artful 
cultivation,  at  once  pronounced  Beranger  to  have  6  a  nature 
most  happily  endowed,  firmly  grounded  in  himself,  purely  de- 


B  Granger.  281 


veloped  from  himself,  and  quite  in  harmony  with  himself.'  In 
fact,  as  these  words  mean,  Beranger,  by  happiness  of  nature  or 
self-attention,  has  that  centrality  of  mind,  which  is  the  really 
valuable  result  of  colleges  and  teaching.  He  puts  things 
together ;  he  refers  things  to  a  principle ;  rather,  they  group 
themselves  in  his  intelligence  insensibly  round  a  principle. 
There  is  nothing  distrait  in  his  genius  ;  the  man  has  attained 
to  be  himself;  a  cool  oneness,  a  poised  personality  pervades 
him.  '  The  unlearned,'  it  has  been  said,  'judge  at  random.' 
Beranger  is  not  unlearned  in  this  sense.  There  is  no  one  who 
judges  more  simply,  smoothly,  and  uniformly.  His  ideas  refer 
to  an  exact  measure.  He  has  mastered  what  comes  before  him. 
And  though  doubtless  unacquainted  with  foreign  and  incongru- 
ous literatures,  he  has  mastered  his  own  literature,  which  was 
shaped  by  kindred  persons,  and  has  been  the  expression  of 
analogous  natures;  and  this  has  helped  him  in  expressing 
himself. 

In  the  same  way,  his  poor  youth  and  boyhood  have  given  a 
reality  to  his  productions.  He  seems  to  have  had  this  in  mind 
in  praising  the  '  practical  education  which  I  have  received.' 
He  was  bred  a  printer ;  and  the  highest  post  he  attained  was  a 
clerkship  at  the  university,  worth,  as  has  been  said,  801.  per 
annum.  Accordingly  he  has  everywhere  a  sympathy  with  the 
common  people,  an  unsought  familiarity  with  them  and  their 
life.  Sybarite  poetry  commonly  wants  this.  The  aristocratic 
nature  is  superficial ;  it  relates  to  a  life  protected  from  simple 
wants,  depending  on  luxurious  artifices.  'Mamma,'  said  the 
simple-minded  nobleman,  '  when  poor  people  have  no  bread, 
why  do  not  they  eat  buns  ?  they  are  much  better.'  An  over-per- 
fumed softness  pervades  the  poetry  of  society.  You  see  this  in 
the  songs  of  Moore,  the  best  of  the  sort  we  have ;  all  is  beauti- 
ful, soft,  half-sincere.  There  is  a  little  falsetto  in  the  tone,  every- 
thing reminds  you  of  the  drawing-room  and  the  pianoforte ; 
and  not  only  so — for  all  poetry  of  society  must  in  a  measure  do 
this — but  it  seems  fit  for  no  other  scene.  Naturalness  is  the 


282  B  granger. 


last  word  of  praise  that  would  be  suitable.  In  the  scented  air 
we  forget  that  there  is  a  pav6  and  a  multitude.  Perhaps  France 
is  of  all  countries  which  have  ever  existed  the  one  in  which  we 
might  seek  an  exception  from  this  luxurious  limitation.  A  cer- 
tain tyalitt  may  pervade  its  art  as  its  society.  There  is  no 
such  difference  as  with  us  between  the  shoeblack  and  the  gentle- 
man. A  certain  refinement  is  very  common ;  an  extreme  re- 
finement possibly  rare.  Beranger  was  able  to  write  his  poems 
in  poverty  :  they  are  popular  with  the  poor. 

A  success  even  greater  than  what  we  have  described  as 
having  been  achieved  by  Beranger  in  the  first  class  of  the 
poems  of  society — that  of  amusement — has  been  attained  by 
him  in  the  second  class,  expressive  of  epicurean  speculation. 
Perhaps  it  is  one  of  his  characteristics  that  the  two  are  for  ever 
running  one  into  another.  There  is  animation  in  his  thinking ; 
there  is  meaning  in  his  gaiety.  It  requires  no  elaborate  ex- 
planation to  make  evident  the  connection  between  scepticism 
and  luxuriousness.  Every  one  thinks  of  the  Sadducee  as  in  cool 
halls  and  soft  robes ;  no  one  supposes  that  the  Sybarite  believes. 
Pain  not  only  purifies  the  mind,  but  deepens  the  nature.  A 
simple,  happy  life  is  animal ;  it  is  pleasant,  and  it  perishes.  All 
writers  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  explanation  of  this 
world's  view  of  itself  are  necessarily  in  a  certain  measure  Sad- 
ducees.  The  world  is  Sadducee  itself;  it  cannot  be  anything 
else  without  recognising  a  higher  creed,  a  more  binding  law,  a 
more  solemn  reality — without  ceasing  to  be  the  world.  Equa- 
nimity is  incredulous  ;  impartiality  does  not  care  ;  an  indifferent 
politeness  is  sceptical.  Though  not  a  single  speculative  opinion 
is  expressed,  we  may  feel  this  in  Roger  Bontemps  : — 

'  Roger  Bontemps. 

1  Aux  gens  atrabilfcires 
Pour  exemple  donne, 
En  un  temps  de  miseres 
Roger  Bontemps  est  n& 


B Granger.  283 


'  Vivre  obscur  a  sa  guise, 
Narguer  les  me'contents  : 
Eh  gai  !  c'est  la  devise 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

'  Du  chapeau  de  son  pere 
Coiffd  dans  les  grands  jours, 
De  roses  ou  de  lierre 
Le  rajeunir  toujours ; 
Mettre  un  manteau  de  bure, 
Vieil  ami  de  vingt  ans  : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  parure 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

'  Posse"der  dans  sa  hutte 
Une  table,  un  vieux  lit, 
Des  cartes,  une  flute, 
Un  broc  que  Dieu  remplit, 
Un  portrait  de  maitresse, 
Un  coffre  et  rien  dedans  : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  richesse 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

'  Aux  enf ans  de  la  ville 
Montrer  de  petits  jeux  ; 
Etre  un  faiser  habile 
De  contes  graveleux ; 
Ne  parler  que  de  danse 
Et  d'almanachs  chantants  : 
Eh  gai  !  c'est  la  science 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

1  Faute  de  vin  d'elite, 
Sabler  ceux  du  canton  ; 
Pre'fe'rer  Marguerite 
Aux  dames  du  grand  ton  ; 
De  joie  et  de  tendresse 
Remplir  tous  ses  instants  : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  sagesse 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 


284  Stranger. 


(  Dire  au  Ciel  :  Je  me  fie, 
Mon  pere,  a  ta  bonte  ; 
De  ma  philosophie 
Pardonne  la  gait^  ; 
Que  ma  saison  derniere 
Soit  encore  un  printemps  : 
Eh  gai  !  c'est  la  priere 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

'  Yous,  pauvres  pleins  d'envie, 
Vous,  riches  ddsireux, 
Yous,  dont  le  char  deVie 
Apres  un  cours  heureux  ; 
Yous,  qui  perdrez  peut-etre 
Des  titres  eclatants, 
Eh  gai  !  prenez  pour  maitre 
Le  gros  Roger  Bontemps.' 

At  the  same  time,  in  Beranger  the  scepticism  is  not  extreme. 
The  skeleton  is  not  paraded.  That  the  world  is  a  passing  show? 
a  painted  scene,  is  admitted ;  you  seem  to  know  that  it  is  all 
acting  and  rouge  and  illusion  :  still  the  pleasantness  of  the  act- 
ing is  dwelt  on,  the  rouge  is  never  rubbed  off,  the  dream  runs 
lightly  and  easily.  No  nightmare  haunts  you,  you  have  no  un- 
easy sense  that  you  are  about  to  awaken.  Persons  who  require 
a  sense  of  reality  may  complain  ;  pain  is  perhaps  necessary  to 
sharpen  their  nerves,  a  tough  effort  to  harden  their  conscious- 
ness :  but  if  you  pass  by  this  objection  of  the  threshold,  if  you 
admit  the  possibility  of  a  superficial  and  fleeting  world,  you  will 
not  find  a  better  one  than  Beranger's  world.  Suppose  all  the 
world  were  a  restaurant,  his  is  a  good  restaurant;  admit  that 
life  is  an  effervescing  champagne,  his  is  the  best  for  the  moment. 
In  several  respects  Beranger  contrasts  with  Horace,  the  poet 
whom  in  general  he  most  resembles.  The  song  of  Roger  Bon- 
temps  suggests  one  of  the  most  obvious  differences.  It  is 
essentially  democratic.  As  we  have  said  before,  Beranger  is  the 
poet  of  the  people ;  he  himself  says,  Le  peuple  c'est  ma  muse. 
Throughout  Horace's  writings,  however  much  he  may  speak, 


B  Granger.  285 


and  speak  justly,  of  the  simplicity  of  his  tastes,  you  are  always 
conscious  that  his  position  is  exceptional.  Everybody  cannot 
be  the  friend  of  Maecenas  ;  every  cheerful  man  of  the  world 
cannot  see  the  springs  of  the  great  world.  The  intellect  of 
most  self-indulgent  men  must  satisfy  itself  with  small  indul- 
gences. Without  a  hard  ascent  you  can  rarely  see  a  great 
view.  Horace  had  the  almost  unequalled  felicity  of  watching 
the  characters  and  thoughts  and  tendencies  of  the  governors 
of  the  world,  the  nicest  manipulation  of  the  most  ingenious 
statesmen,  the  inner  tastes  and  predilections  which  are  the 
origin  of  the  most  important  transactions  ;  and  yet  had  the  ease 
and  pleasantness  of  the  common  and  effortless  life.  So  rare  a 
fortune  cannot  be  a  general  model ;  the  gospel  of  Epicureanism 
must  not  ask  a  close  imitation  of  one  who  had  such  very  special 
advantages.  Beranger  gives  the  acceptors  of  that  creed  a 
commoner  type.  Out  of  nothing  but  the  most  ordinary  advan- 
tages— the  garret,  the  almost  empty  purse,  the  not  over-attired 
grisette — he  has  given  them  a  model  of  the  sparkling  and 
quick  existence  for  which  their  fancy  is  longing.  You  cannot 
imagine  commoner  materials.  In  another  respect  Horace  and 
Beranger  are  remarkably  contrasted.  Beranger,  sceptical  and 
indifferent  as  he  is,  has  a  faith  in,  and  zeal  for,  liberty.  It 
seems  odd  that  he  should  care  for  that  sort  of  thing ;  but  he 
does  care  for  it.  Horace  probably  had  a  little  personal  shame 
attaching  to  such  ideas.  No  regimental  officer  of  our  own  time 
can  have  'joined'  in  a  state  of  more  crass  ignorance,  than  did 
the  stout  little  student  from  Athens  in  all  probability  join  the 
army  of  Brutus ;  the  legionaries  must  have  taken  the  measure 
of  him,  as  the  sergeants  of  our  living  friends.  Anyhow  he  was 
not  partial  to  such  reflections ;  zeal  for  political  institutions  is 
quite  as  foreign  to  him  as  any  other  zeal.  A  certain  hope  in 
the  future  is  characteristic  of  Beranger — 

{  Qui  decouvrit  un  nouveau  monde  ? 
Un  fou  qu'on  raillait  en  tout  lieu.' 

Modern   faith    colours   even    bystanding    scepticism.     Though 


286  B Granger. 


probably  with  no  very  accurate  ideas  of  the  nature  of  liberty, 
Beranger  believes  that  it  is  a  great  good,  and  that  France 
will  have  it. 

The  point  in  which  Beranger  most  resembles  Horace  is  that 
which  is  the  most  essential  in  the  characters  of  them  both — 
their  geniality.  This  is  the  very  essence  of  the  poems  of  society ; 
it  springs  in  the  verses  of  amusement,  it  harmonises  with  ac- 
quiescing sympathy  the  poems  of  indifference.  And  yet  few 
qualities  in  writing  are  so  rare.  A  certain  malevolence  enters 
into  literary  ink ;  the  point  of  the  pen  pricks.  Pope  is  the  very 
best  example  of  this.  With  every  desire  to  imitate  Horace,  he 
cannot  touch  any  of  his  subjects,  or  any  kindred  subjects, 
without  infusing  a  bitter  ingredient.  It  is  not  given  to  the 
children  of  men  to  be  philosophers  without  envy.  Lookers-on 
can  hardly  bear  the  spectacle  of  the  great  world.  If  you  watch 
the  carriages  rolling  down  to  the  House  of  Lords,  you  will  try 
to  depreciate  the  House  of  Lords.  Idleness  is  cynical.  Both 
Beranger  and  Horace  are  exceptions  to  this.  Both  enjoy  the 
roll  of  the  wheels ;  both  love  the  glitter  of  the  carriages ;  neither 
is  angry  at  the  sun.  Each  knows  that  he  is  as  happy  as  he  can 
be — that  he  is  all  that  he  can  be  in  his  contemplative  philosophy. 
In  his  means  of  expression  for  the  purpose  in  hand,  the  French- 
man has  the  advantage.  The  Latin  language  is  clumsy.  Light 
pleasure  was  an  exotic  in  the  Eoman  world  ;  the  terms  in  which 
you  strive  to  describe  it  suit  rather  the  shrill  camp  and  droning 
law-court.  In  English,  as  we  hinted  just  now,  we  have  this  too. 
Business  is  in  our  words ;  a  too  heavy  sense  clogs  our  literature  ; 
even  in  a  writer  so  apt  as  Pope  at  the  -finesse,  of  words,  you  feel 
that  the  solid  Gothic  roots  impede  him.  It  is  difficult  not  to  be 
cumbrous.  The  horse  may  be  fleet  and  light,  but  the  wheels 
are  ponderous  and  the  road  goes  heavily.  Beranger  certainly 
has  not  this  difficulty ;  nobody  ever  denied  that  a  Frenchman 
could  be  light,  that  the  French  language  was  adapted  for 
levity. 

When  we  ascribed  an  absence  of  bitterness  and  malevolence 


B granger.  287 


to  Beranger,  we  were  far  from  meaning  that  he  is  not  a  satirist. 
Every  light  writer  in  a  measure  must  be  so.  Mirth  is  the 
imagery  of  society ;  and  mirth  must  make  fun  of  somebody. 
The  nineteenth  century  has  not  had  many  shrewder  critics  than 
its  easy  natured  poet.  Its  intense  dulness  particularly  strikes 
him.  He  dreads  the  dreariness  of  the  Academy;  pomposity 
bores  him ;  formalism  tires  him ;  he  thinks,  and  may  well  think, 
it  dreary  to  have 

*  Pour  grands  hommes  des  journalistes, 
Pour  amusement  1'Opera.' 

But  skilful  as  is  the  mirth,  its  spirit  is  genial  and  good-natured. 
<  You  have  been  making  fun  of  me,  Sydney,  for  twenty  years,' 
said  a  friend  to  the  late  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  '  and  I  do  not  think 
you  have  said  a  single  thing  I  should  have  wished  you  not  to 
say.'  So  far  as  its  essential  features  are  concerned,  the  nine- 
eenth  century  may  say  the  same  of  its  musical  satirist.  Perhaps, 
nowever,  the  Bourbons  might  a  little  object.  Clever  people 
have  always  a  little  malice  against  the  stupid. 

There  is  no  more  striking  example  of  the  degree  in  which 
the  gospel  of  good  works  has  penetrated  our  modern  society, 
than  that  Beranger  has  talked  of  <  utilising  his  talent.'  The 
epicurean  poet  considers  that  he  has  been  a  political  mis- 
sionary. Well  may  others  be  condemned  to  the  penal  servi- 
tude of  industry,  if  the  lightest  and  idlest  of  skilful  men  boasts 
of  being  subjected  to  it.  If  Beranger  thinks  it  necessary  to 
think  that  he  has  been  useful,  others  may  well  think  so  too ;  let 
us  accept  the  heavy  doctrine  of  hard  labour  ;  there  is  no  other 
way  to  heave  off  the  rubbish  of  this  world.  The  mode  in  which 
Beranger  is  anxious  to  prove  that  he  made  his  genius  of  use,  is 
by  diffusing  a  taste  for  liberty,  and  expressing  an  enthusiasm 
for  it ;  and  also,  as  we  suppose,  by  quizzing  those  rulers  of 
France  who  have  not  shared  either  the  taste  or  the  enthu- 
siasm. Although,  however,  such  may  be  the  idea  of  the  poet 
himself,  posterity  will  scarcely  confirm  it.  Political  satire  is 


288  B Granger. 


the  most  ephemeral  kind  of  literature.  The  circumstances  to 
which  it  applies  are  local  and  temporary ;  the  persons  to  whom 
it  applies  die.  A  very  few  months  will  make  unintelligible 
what  was  at  first  strikingly  plain.  Beranger  has  illustrated 
this  by  an  admission.  There  was  a  delay  in  publishing  the 
last  volume  of  his  poems,  many  of  which  relate  to  the  years  or 
months  immediately  preceding  the  Kevolution  of  1830  ;  the 
delay  was  not  long,  as  the  volume  appeared  in  the  first  month 
of  1833,  yet  he  says  that  many  of  the  songs  relate  to  the  pass- 
ing occurrences  of  a  period  <  dejd  loin  de  nous.9  On  so  shift- 
ing a  scene  as  that  of  French  political  life,  the  jests  of  each 
act  are  forgotten  with  the  act  itself ;  the  eager  interest  of  each 
moment  withdraws  the  mind  from  thinking  of  or  dwelling  on 
anything  past.  And  in  all  countries  administration  is  ephe- 
meral ;  what  relates  to  it  is  transitory.  Satires  on  its  detail 
are  like  the  jests  of  a  public  office;  the  clerks  change,  oblivion 
covers  their  peculiarities ;  the  point  of  the  joke  is  forgotten. 
There  are  some  considerable  exceptions  to  the  saying  that 
foreign  literary  opinion  is  a  *  contemporary  posterity ' ;  but  in 
relation  to  satires  on  transitory  transactions  it  is  exactly  ex- 
pressive. No  Englishman  will  now  care  for  many  of  Beranger's 
songs  which  were  once  in  the  mouths  of  all  his  countrymen, 
which  coloured  the  manners  of  revolutions,  perhaps  influenced 
their  course.  The  fame  of  a  poet  may  have  a  reference  to 
politics ;  but  it  will  be  only  to  the  wider  species,  to  those  social 
questions  which  never  die,  the  elements  of  that  active  hu- 
man nature  which  is  the  same  age  after  age.  Beranger  can 
hardly  hope  for  this.  Even  the  songs  which  relate  to  liberty 
can  hardly  hope  for  this  immortality.  They  have  the  vague- 
ness which  has  made  French  aspirations  for  freedom  futile.  So 
far  as  they  express  distinct  feeling,  their  tendency  is  rather 
anti-aristocratic  than  in  favour  of  simple  real  liberty.  And 
an  objection  to  mere  rank,  though  a  potent,  is  neither  a  very 
agreeable  nor  a  very  poetical  sentiment.  Moreover,  when  the 
love  of  liberty  is  to  be  imaginatively  expressed,  it  requires  to 


B  Granger.  289 


an  Englishman's  ear  a  sound  bigger  and  more  trumpet-tongued 
than  the  voice  of  Beranger. 

On  a  deeper  view,  however,  an  attentive  student  will  dis- 
cover a  great  deal  that  is  most  instructive  in  the  political 
career  of  the  not  very  business-like  poet.  His  life  has  been  con- 
temporaneous witrTthe  course  of  a  great  change ;  and  through- 
out it  the  view  which  he  has  taken  of  the  current  events  is 
that  which  sensible  men  took  at  the  time,  and  which  a  sensi- 
ble posterity  (and  these  events  will  from  their  size  attract 
attention  enough  to  insure  their  being  viewed  sensibly)  is 
likely  to  take.  Beranger  was  present  at  the  taking  of  the 
Bastille,  but  he  was  then  only  nine  years  old  ;  the  accuracy  of 
opinion  which  we  are  claiming  for  him  did  not  commence  so 
early.  His  mature  judgment  begins  with  the  career  of  Napoleon ; 
and  no  one  of  the  thousands  who  have  written  on  that  subject 
has  viewed  it  perhaps  more  justly.  He  had  no  love  for  the 
despotism  of  the  Empire,  was  alive  to  the  harshness  of  its  ad- 
ministration, did  not  care  too  much  for  its  glory,  must  have 
felt  more  than  once  the  social  exhaustion.  At  the  same  time, 
no  man  was  penetrated  more  profoundly,  no  literary  man  half 
so  profoundly,  with  the  popular  admiration  for  the  genius  of  the 
Empire.  His  own  verse  has  given  the  truest  and  most  lasting 

expression  of  it : 

'  Les  Souvenirs  du  Peuple. 

f  On  parlera  de  sa  gloire 
Sous  le  chaume  bien  longtemps. 
L'humble  toit,  dans  cinquante  ans, 
Ne  connaitra  plus  d'autre  histoire. 
La  viendront  les  villageois, 
Dire  alors  a  quelque  vieille  : 
"  Par  des  re'cits  d'autrefois, 
Mere,  abregez  not  re  veille. 
Bien,  dit-on,  qu'il  nous  ait  nui, 
Le  peuple  encor  le  revere, 

Oui,  le  reVere. 
Parlez-nous  de  lui,  grand'mere  ; 

Parlez-nous  de  lui."     (bis.) 
VOL.  II.  U 


290  B Granger. 


f  "  Mes  enfants,  dans  ce  village, 
Suivi  de  rois,  il  passa. 
Voila  bien  longtemps  de  ga  : 
Je  venais  d'entrer  en  manage. 
A  pied  grimpant  le  coteau 
Ou  pour  voir  je  m'e'tais  mise, 
II  avait  petit  chapeau 
Avec  redingote  grise. 
Pres  de  lui  je  me  troublai ; 
II  me  dit  :  '  Bonjour,  ma  chere, 

Bonjour,  ma  chere.' " 
— "  II  vous  a  parle,  grand'mere  ! 
II  vous  a  parle  !  " 

f  "  L'an  d'apres,  moi,  pauvre  femme, 
A  Paris  e*tant  un  jour, 
Je  le  vis  avec  sa  cour  : 
II  se  rendait  a  Notre-Dame. 

Tous  les  cceurs  e*taient  contents  ; 
On  admirait  son  cortege. 
Chacun  disait :  '  Quel  beau  temps  ! 
Le  ciel  toujours  le  protdge.' 
Son  sourire  e*tait  bien  doux, 
D'un  fils  Dieu  le  rendait  pere, 

Le  rendait  pere." 

— "  Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous,  grand'mere  ! 
Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous  !  " 

c  "  Mais,  quand  la  pauvre  Champagne 
Fut  en  proie  aux  Strangers, 
Lui,  bravant  tous  les  dangers, 
Semblait  seul  tenir  la  campagne. 
Un  soir,  tout  comme  aujourd'hui, 
J'entends  frapper  a  la  porte. 
J'ouvre.     Bon  Dieu  !  c'e'tait  lui, 
Suivi  d'une  faible  escorte. 
II  s'asseoit  ou  me  voila, 
S'e'criant :  '  Oh  !  quelle  guerre  ! 

Oh  !  quelle  guerre  !  " 
— "  II  s'est  assis  la,  grand'mere  ! 
II  s'est  assis  la  !  " 


B Granger.  291 


"  «  J'ai  faim,'  dit-il  ;  et  bien  vite 
Je  sers  piquette  et  pain  bis  ; 
Puis  il  seche  ses  habits, 

Meme  a  dormir  le  feu  Finvite. 
Au  reveil,  voyant  mes  pleurs, 
II  me  dit  :  '  Bonne  espe"rance  ! 
Je  cours,  de  tous  ses  malheurs, 
Sous  Paris,  venger  la  France/ 
II  part  ;  et,  comme  un  tre'sor, 
J'ai  depuis  garde  son  verre, 


"  Vous  1'avez  encor,  grand'mere  ! 
Vous  1'avez  encor  !  " 

'  "  Le  voici.     Mais  a  sa  perte 
Le  he'ros  fut  entraine. 
Lui,  qu'un  pape  a  couronne, 
Est  mort  dans  une  ile  deserte. 
Longtemps  aucun  ne  1'a  cru  ; 
On  disait  :  c  II  va  paraitre  ; 
Par  mer  il  est  accouru  ; 
L'^tranger  va  voir  son  maitre.' 
Quand  d'erreur  on  nous  tira, 
Ma  douleur  fut  bien  amere  ! 

Fut  bien  amere  !  " 
—  "  Dieu  vous  be*nira,  grand'mere  ; 
Dieu  vous  b^nira."  ' 

This  is  a  great  exception  to  the  transitoriness  of  political 
poetry.  Such  a  character  as  that  of  Napoleon  displayed  on  so 
large  a  stage,  so  great  a  genius  amid  such  scenery  of  action, 
insures  an  immortality.  c  The  page  of  universal  history  '  which 
he  TV  as  always  coveting,  he  has  attained  ;  and  it  is  a  page  which, 
from  its  singularity  and  its  errors,  its  shame  and  its  glory,  will 
distract  the  attention  from  other  pages.  No  one  who  has  ever 
had  in  his  mind  the  idea  of  Napoleon's  character  can  forget  it. 
Nothing  too  can  be  more  natural  than  that  the  French  should 
remember  it.  His  character  possessed  the  primary  imagination, 
the  elementary  conceiving  power,  in  which  they  are  deficient. 
So  far  from  being  restricted  to  the  poetry  of  society,  he  would 

u  2 


292  B Granger. 


not  have  even  appreciated  it.  A  certain  bareness  marks  his 
mind ;  his  style  is  curt ;  the  imaginative  product  is  left  rude  ; 
there  is  the  distinct  abstraction  of  the  military  diagram.  The 
tact  of  light  and  passing  talk,  the  detective  imagination  which 
is  akin  to  that  tact,  and  discovers  the  quick  essence  of  social 
things, — he  never  had.  In  speaking  of  his  power  over  popular 
fancies,  Beranger  has  called  him  '  the  greatest  poet  of  modern 
times.'  No  genius  can  be  more  unlike  his  own,  and  therefore 
perhaps  it  is  that  he  admires  it  so  much.  During  the  Hundred 
Days,  Beranger  says  he  was  never  under  the  illusion,  then  not 
rare,  that  the  Emperor  could  become  a  constitutional  monarch. 
The  lion,  he  felt,  would  not  change  his  skin.  After  the  return 
of  the  Bourbons,  he  says,  doubtless  with  truth,  that  his  '  instinct 
du  peuple*  told  him  they  could  never  ally  themselves  with 
liberal  principles,  or  unite  with  that  new  order  of  society  which, 
though  dating  from  the  Eevolution,  had  acquired  in  five-and- 
twenty  years  a  half-prescriptive  right.  They  and  their  followers 
came  in  to  take  possession,  and  it  was  impossible  they  could 
unite  with  what  was  in  possession.  During  the  whole  reign  of  the 
hereditary  Bourbon  dynasty,  Beranger  was  in  opposition.  Repre- 
senting the  natural  sentiments  of  the  new  Frenchman,  he  could 
not  bear  the  natural  tendency  of  the  ruling  power  to  the  half- 
forgotten  practices  of  old  France.  The  legitimate  Bourbons 
were  by  their  position  the  chieftains  of  the  party  advocating 
their  right  by  birth ;  they  could  not  be  the  kings  of  a  people ; 
and  the  poet  of  the  people  was  against  them.  After  the  genius 
of  Napoleon,  all  other  governing  minds  would  seem  tame  and 
contracted;  and  Charles  X.  was  not  a  man  to  diminish  the 
inevitable  feeling.  Beranger  despised  him.  As  the  poet  warred 
with  the  weapons  of  poetry,  the  Government  retorted  with  the 
penalties  of  State.  He  was  turned  out  of  his  petty  clerkship, 
he  was  twice  imprisoned ;  but  these  things  only  increased  his 
popularity;  and  a  firm  and  genial  mind,  so  far  from  being 
moved,  sang  songs  at  La  Force  itself.  The  Revolution  of  1830 
was  willing  to  make  his  fortune. 


B Granger.  293 


{ Je  1'ai  traite"e,'  he  says, '  comme  une  puissance  qui  peut  avoir  des 
caprices  auxquels  il  faut  £tre  en  mesure  de  resister.  Tous  ou  presque 
tous  mes  amis  ont  passe  au  ministere  :  j'en  ai  meme  encore  un  ou  deux 
qui  restent  suspendus  a  ce  mat  de  cocagne.  Je  me  plais  a  croire  qu'ils 
y  sont  accroches  par  la  basque,  malgre  les  efforts  qu'ils  font  pour  des- 
cendre.  J'aurais  done  pu  avoir  part  a  la  distribution  des  emplois. 
Malheureusement  je  n'ai  pas  1'amour  des  sinecures,  et  tout  travail 
oblige  m'est  devenu  insupportable,  hors  peut-etre  encore  celui  d'ex- 
peditionnaire.  Des  me'disants  ont  pretendu  que  je  faisais  de  la  vertu. 
Fi  done  \  je  faisais  de  la  paresse.  Ce  defaut  m'a  tenu  lieu  de  bien  des 
qualites  ;  aussi  je  le  recommande  a  beaucoup  de  nos  bonnet es  gens. 
II  expose  pourtant  a  de  singuliers  reproches.  C'est  a  cette  paresse  si 
douce,  que  des  censeurs  rigides  ont  attribue  1'eloignement  ou  je  me 
suis  tenu  de  ceux  de  mes  honorables  amis  qui  ont  eu  le  malheur  d'ar- 
river  au  pouvoir.  Faisant  trop  d'honneur  a  ce  qu'ils  veulent  bien 
appeler  ma  bonne  tete,  et  oubliant  trop  cornbien  il  y  a  loin  du  simple 
bon  sens  a  la  science  des  grandes  affaires,  ces  censeurs  pr^tendent  que 
mes  conseils  eussent  eclaire  plus  d'un  ministre.  A  les  croire,  tapi 
derriere  le  fauteuil  de  velours  de  nos  hommes  d'etat,  j'aurais  conjure" 
les  vents,  dissipe  les  orages,  etxfait  nager  la  France  dans  un  ocean  de 
delices.  Nous  aurions  tous  de  la  liberte  a  revendre  ou  plutot  a  donner, 
car  nous  n'en  savons  pas  bien  encore  le  prix.  Eh  !  messieurs  mes  deux 
ou  trois  amis,  qui  prenez  un  chansonnier  pour  un  magicien,  on  ne 
vous  a  done  pas  dit  que  le  pouvoir  est  une  cloche  qui  empeche  ceux 
qui  la  mettent  en  branle  d'entendre  aucun  autre  son  ?  Sans  doute  des 
ministres  consultent  quelquefois  ceux  qu'ils  ont  sous  la  main  :  con- 
sulter  est  un  moyen  de  parler  de  soi  qu'on  neglige  rarement.  Mais  il 
ne  suffirait  pas  de  consulter  de  bonne  foi  des  gens  qui  conseilleraient 
de  meme.  II  faudrait  encore  exdcuter  :  ceci  est  la  part  du  caractere. 
Les  intentions  les  plus  pures,  le  patriotisme  le  plus  e'claire'  ne  le  don- 
nent  pas  toujours.  Qui  n'a  vu  de  hauts  personnages  quitter  un  don- 
neur  d'avis  avec  une  pensee  courageuse,  et,  1'instant  d'apres,  revenir 
vers  lui,  de  je  ne  sais  quel  lieu  de  fascination,  avec  1'einbarras  d'un 
dementi  donne  aux  resolutions  les  plus  sages  ?  "  Oh  ! "  disent-ils,  "nous 
n'y  serons  plusrepris  !  quelle  galere  !  "  Le  plushonteux  ajoute  :  "  Je 
voudrais  bien  vous  voir  a  ma  place  !  "  Quand  un  ministre  dit  cela, 
soyez  sur  qu'il  n'a  plus  la  tete  a  lui.  Cependant  il  en  est  un,  mais  un 
seul,  qui,  sans  avoir  perdu  la  tete,  a  repete  souvent  ce  mot  de  la  meil- 
leure  foi  du  monde  ;  aussi  ne  l'adressait-il  jamais  a  un  ami.' 

The  statesman  alluded  to  in  the  last  paragraph  is  Manuel, 


294  B Granger. 


his  intimate  friend,  from  whom  he  declares  he  could  never  have 
been  separated,  but  whose  death  prevented  his  obtaining  poli- 
tical honours.  Nobody  can  read  the  above  passage  without 
feeling  its  tone  of  political  sense.  An  enthusiasm  for,  yet  half 
distrust  of,  the  Eevolution  of  July  seems  as  sound  a  sentiment 
as  could  be  looked  for  even  in  the  most  sensible  contemporary. 
What  he  has  thought  of  the  present  dynasty  we  do  not  know. 
He  probably  has  as  little  concurred  in  the  silly  encomiums  of 
its  mere  partisans  as  in  the  wild  execrations  of  its  disappointed 
enemies.  His  opinion  could  not  have  been  either  that  of  the 
English  who  feted  Louis  Napoleon  in  1855,  or  of  those  who 
despised  him  in  1851.  The  political  fortunes  of  France  during 
the  last  ten  years  must  have  been  a  painful  scene  of  observa- 
tion to  one  who  remembered  the  taking  of  the  Bastille.  If 
there  be  such  a  thing  as  failure  in  the  world,  this  looks  like  it. 

Although  we  are  very  far  from  thinking  that  Beranger's 
claims  on  posterity  are  founded  on  his  having  utilised  his  talent 
in  favour  of  liberty,  it  is  very  natural  that  he  should  think  or 
half-think  himself  that  it  is  so.  His  power  over  the  multitude 
must  have  given  him  great  pleasure ;  it  is  something  to  be  able 
to  write  mottoes  for  a  revolution  ;  to  write  words  for  people  to 
use,  and  hear  people  use  those  words.  The  same  sort  of  pleasure 
which  Horace  derived  from  his  nearness  to  the  centre  of  great 
action,  Beranger  has  derived  from  the  power  which  his  thorough 
sympathy  with  his  countrymen  has  given  him  over  them.  A 
political  satire  may  be  ephemeral  from  the  rapid  oblivion  of  its 
circumstances ;  but  it  is  not  unnatural  that  the  author,  inevit- 
ably proud  of  its  effect,  may  consider  it  of  higher  worth  than 
mere  verses  of  society. 

This  shrewd  sense  gives  a  solidity  to  the  verses  of  Beranger 
which  the  social  and  amusing  sort  of  poetry  commonly  wants ; 
but  nothing  can  redeem  it  from  the  reproach  of  wanting  back 
thought.  This  is  inevitable  in  such  literature ;  as  it  professes 
to  delineate  for  us  the  light  essence  of  a  fugitive  world,  it  can- 
not be  expected  to  dwell  on  those  deep  and  eternal  principles 


B Granger.  295 


on  which  that  world  is  based.  It  ignores  them  as  light  talk 
ignores  them.  The  most  opposite  thing  to  the  poetry  of  society 
is  the  poetry  of  inspiration.  There  exists,  of  course,  a  kind  of 
imagination  which  detects  the  secrets  of  the  universe — which 
fills  us  sometimes  with  dread,  sometimes  with  hope — which 
awakens  the  soul,  which  makes  pure  the  feelings,  which  ex- 
plains nature,  reveals  what  is  above  nature,  chastens  c  the  deep 
heart  of  man.'  Our  senses  teach  us  what  the  world  is  ;  our  in- 
tuitions where  it  is.  We  see  the  blue  and  gold  of  the  world, 
its  lively  amusements,  its  gorgeous  if  superficial  splendour,  its 
currents  of  men ;  we  feel  its  light  spirits,  we  enjoy  its  happi- 
ness ;  we  enjoy  it,  and  we  are  puzzled.  What  is  the  object  of  all 
this  ?  Why  do  we  do  all  this  ?  What  is  the  universe  for  ?  Such 
a  book  as  Beranger's  suggests  this  difficulty  in  its  strongest  form. 
It  embodies  the  essence  of  all  that  pleasure-loving,  pleasure- 
giving,  unaccountable  world  in  which  men  spend  their  lives, — 
which  they  are  compelled  to  live  in,  but  which  the  moment  you 
get  out  of  it  seems  so  odd  that  you  can  hardly  believe  it  is 
real.  On  this  account,  as  we  were  saying  before,  there  is  no 
book  the  impression  of  which  varies  so  much  in  different  moods 
of  mind.  Sometimes  no  reading  is  so  pleasant ;  at  others  you 
half-despise  and  half-hate  the  idea  of  it ;  it  seems  to  sum  up  and 
make  clear  the  littleness  of  your  own  nature.  Few  can  bear  the 
theory  of  their  amusements ;  it  is  essential  to  the  pride  of  man 
to  believe  that  he  is  industrious.  We  are  irritated  at  literary 
laughter,  and  wroth  at  printed  mirth.  We  turn  angrily  away 
to  that  higher  poetry  which  gives  the  outline  within  which  all 
these  light  colours  are  painted.  From  the  capital  of  levity,  and 
its  self-amusing  crowds  ;  from  the  elastic  vaudeville  and  the 
grinning  actors  ;  from  chansons  and  cafes  we  turn  away  to  the 
solemn  in  nature,  to  the  blue  over-arching  sky  :  the  one  remains, 
the  many  pass ;  no  number  of  seasons  impairs  the  bloom  of 
those  hues,  they  are  as  soft  to-morrow  as  to-day.  The  im- 
measurable depth  folds  us  in.  'Eternity,'  as  the  original 
thinker  said,  <  is  everlasting.'  We  breathe  a  deep  breath.  And 


296  B Granger. 


perhaps  we  have  higher  moments.  We  comprehend  the  c  unin- 
telligible world  ; '  we  see  into  c  the  life  of  things ; '  we  fancy 
we  know  whence  we  come  and  whither  we  go ;  words  we  have 
repeated  for  years  have  a  meaning  for  the  first  time  ;  texts  of 

old  Scripture  seem  to  apply  to  us And — and — Mr. 

Thackeray  would  say,  You  come  back  into  the  town,  and  order 
dinner  at  a  restaurant,  and  read  Beranger  once  more. 

And  though  this  is  true — though  the  author  of  Le  Dieu  des 
Bonnes  Gens  has  certainly  no  claim  to  be  called  a  profound 
divine — though  we  do  not  find  in  him  any  proper  expression, 
scarcely  any  momentary  recognition,  of  those  intuitions  which 
explain  in  a  measure  the  scheme  and  idea  of  things,  and  form 
the  back-thought  and  inner  structure  of  such  minds  as  ours, — 
his  sense  and  sympathy  with  the  people  enable  him,  perhaps 
compel  him,  to  delineate  those  essential  conditions  which  consti- 
tute the  structure  of  exterior  life,  and  determine  with  inevit- 
able certainty  the  common  life  of  common  persons.  He  has 
no  call  to  deal  with  heaven  or  the  universe,  but  he  knows  the 
earth;  he  is  restricted  to  the  boundaries  of  time, but  he  under- 
stands time.  He  has  extended  his  delineations  beyond  what  in 
this  country  would  be  considered  correct ;  Les  Cinq  Etages  can 
scarcely  be  quoted  here ;  but  a  perhaps  higher  example  of  the 
same  kind  of  art  may  be  so  : 

'  Le   Vieux   Vagabond. 

'  Dans  ce  fosse"  cessons  de  vivre  ; 
Je  finis  vieux,  infirme  et  las  ; 
Les  passants  vont  dire  :  "II  est  ivre." 
Tant  mieux  !  ils  ne  me  plaindront  pas. 
J'en  vois  qui  detournent  la  tete  ; 
D'autres  me  jettent  quelques  sous. 
Courez  vite,  allez  a  la  fete  : 
Yieux  vagabond,  je  puis  mourir  sans  vous. 

'  Oui,  je  meurs  ici  de  vieillesse, 
Parce  qu'on  ne  meurt  pas  de  faim. 
J'espe"rais  voir  de  ma  detresse 
L'hdpital  adoucir  la  fin ; 


Stranger.  297 


Mais  tout  est  plein  dans  chaque  hospice, 
Tant  le  peuple  est  infortune. 
La  rue,  helas  !    fut  ma  nourrice  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  mourons  ou  je  suis  ne\ 

'  Aux  artisans,  dans  mon  jeune  age, 
J'ai  dit  :  "  Qu'on  m'enseigne  un  me'tier." 
"  Ya,  nous  n'avons  pas  trop  d'ouvrage," 
Repondaient-ils,  "  va  mendier." 
Riches,  qui  me  disiez  :  "  Travaille," 
J'eus  bien  des  os  de  vos  repas  ; 
J'ai  bien  dormi  sur  votre  paille  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  ne  vous  maudis  pas. 

'  J'aurais  pu  voler,  moi,  pauvre  homme  ; 
Mais  non  :  mieux  vaut  tendre  la  main. 
Au  plus,  j'ai  derobe  la  pomme 
Qui  murit  au  bord  du  chemin. 
Vingt  f  ois  pourtant  on  me  verrouille 
Dans  les  cachots,  de  par  le  roi. 
De  mon  seul  bien  on  me  depouille  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  le  soleil  est  a  moi. 

'  Le  pauvre  a-t-il  une  patrie  1 
Que  me  font  vos  vins  et  vos  bles, 
Votre  gloire  et  votre  industrie, 
Et  vos  orateurs  assembles  ? 
Dans  vos  murs  ouverts  a  ses  armes 
Lorsque  1'etranger  s'engraissait, 
Comme  un  sot  j'ai  verse  des  larmes  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  sa  main  me  nourrissait. 

'  Comme  un  insecte  fait  pour  nuire, 
Hommes,  que  ne  m'ecrasiez-vous  ! 
Ah  !  plutdt  vous  deviez  m'instruire 
A  travailler  au  bien  de  tous. 
Mis  a  1'abri  du  vent  contraire, 
Le  ver  fut  devenu  fourmi ; 
Je  vous  aurais  cheris  en  frere  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  meurs  votre  ennemi.' 

Pathos  in  such  a  song  as  this  enters  into  poetry.      We  sym- 


298  B Granger. 


pathise  with  the  essential  lot  of  man.  Poems  of  this  kind  are 
doubtless  rare  in  Beranger.  His  commoner  style  is  lighter  and 
more  cheerful ;  but  no  poet  who  has  painted  so  well  the  light 
effervescence  of  light  society  can,  when  he  likes,  paint  so  well 
the  solid,  stubborn  forms  with  which  it  is  encompassed.  The 
genial,  firm  sense  of  a  large  mind  sees  and  comprehends  all  of 
human  life,  which  lies  within  the  sphere  of  sense.  He  is  an 
epicurean,  as  all  merely  sensible  men  by  inevitable  consequence 
are ;  and  as  an  epicurean,  he  prefers  to  deal  with  the  superficial 
and  gay  forms  of  life ;  but  he  can  deal  with  others  when  he 
chooses  to  be  serious.  Indeed,  there  is  no  melancholy  like  the 
melancholy  of  the  epicurean.  He  is  alive  to  the  fixed  conditions 
of  earth,  but  not  to  that  which  is  above  earth.  He  muses  on 
the  temporary,  as  such ;  he  admits  the  skeleton,  but  not  the  soul. 
It  is  wonderful  that  Beranger  is  so  cheerful  as  he  is. 

We  may  conclude  as  we  began.  In  all  his  works,  in  lyrics  of 
levity,  of  politics,  of  worldly  reflection, — Beranger,  if  he  had  not 
a  single  object,  has  attained  a  uniform  result.  He  has  given  us 
an  idea  of  the  essential  French  character,  such  as  we  fancy  it 
must  be,  but  can  never  for  ourselves  hope  to  see  that  it  is.  We 
understand  the  nice  tact,  the  quick  intelligence,  the  gay  preci- 
sion ;  the  essence  of  the  drama  we  know — the  spirit  of  what  we 
have  seen.  We  know  his  feeling  :— 

'  J'aime  qu'un  Russe  soit  Russe, 
Et  qu'un  Anglais  soit  Anglais  ; 
Si  Ton  est  Prussien  en  Prusse, 
En  France  soyons  Frangais.' 

He  has  acted  accordingly :  he  has  delineated  to  us  the  essential 
Frenchman. 


Mr.  C long  ft  s  Poems.  299 


ME.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.1 

(1862.) 

No  one  can  be  more  rigid  than  we  are  in  our  rules  as  to  the 
publication  of  remains  and  memoirs.  It  is  very  natural  that 
the  friends  of  a  cultivated  man  who  seemed  about  to  do  some- 
thing, but  who  died  before  he  did  it,  should  desire  to  publish 
to  the  world  the  grounds  of  their  faith,  and  the  little  symptoms 
of  his  immature  excellence.  But  though  they  act  very  natu- 
rally, they  act  very  unwisely.  In  the  present  state  of  the  world 
there  are  too  many  half-excellent  people :  there  is  a  superfluity 
of  persons  who  have  all  the  knowledge,  all  the  culture,  all  the 
requisite  taste, — all  the  tools,  in  short,  of  achievement,  but  who 
are  deficient  in  the  latent  impulse  and  secret  vigour  which 
alone  can  turn  such  instruments  to  account.  They  have  all 
the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  future  success ;  they  want  the 
invisible  spirit,  which  can  only  be  demonstrated  by  trial  and 
victory.  Nothing,  therefore,  is  more  tedious  or  more  worthless 
than  the  posthumous  delineation  of  the  possible  successes  of  one 
who  did  not  succeed.  The  dreadful  remains  of  nice  young 
persons  which  abound  among  us  prove  almost  nothing  as  to 
the  future  fate  of  those  persons,  if  they  had  survived.  We  can 
only  tell  that  any  one  is  a  man  of  genius  by  his  having  produced 
some  work  of  genius.  Young  men  must  practise  themselves 
in  youthful  essays  ;  and  to  some  of  their  friends  these  may  seem 
works  not  only  of  fair  promise,  but  of  achieved  excellence.  The 
cold  world  of  critics  and  readers  will  not,  however,  think  so ; 
that  world  well  understands  the  distinction  between  promise 
and  performance,  and  sees  that  these  laudable  juvenilia  differ 

1  Poems.    By  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  sometime  Fellow  of  Oriel  College,  Ox- 
ford.    With  a  Memoir.     Macmillan. 


300  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

from  good  books  as  much  as  legitimate  bills  of  exchange  differ 
from  actual  cash. 

If  we  did  not  believe  that  Mr.  Clough's  poems,  or  at  least 
several  of  them,  had  real  merit,  not  as  promissory  germs,  but  as 
completed  performances,  it  would  not  seem  to  us  to  be  within 
our  province  to  notice  them.  Nor,  if  Mr.  Clough  were  now 
living  among  us,  would  he  wish  us  to  do  so.  The  marked 
peculiarity,  and,  so  to  say,  the  flavour  of  his  mind,  was  a  sort  of 
truthful  scepticism,  which  made  him  anxious  never  to  overstate 
his  own  assurance  of  anything ;  which  disinclined  him  to  over- 
rate the  doings  of  his  friends ;  and  which  absolutely  compelled 
him  to  underrate  his  own  past  writings,  as  well  as  his  capability 
for  future  literary  success.  He  could  not  have  borne  to  have 
his  poems  reviewed  with  '  nice  remarks '  and  sentimental  epithets 
of  insincere  praise.  He  was  equal  to  his  precept  :— 

'  Where  are  the  great,  whom  thou  wouldst  wish  to  praise  thee  ? 
Where  are  the  pure,  whom  thou  wouldst  choose  to  love  thee  ? 
Where  are  the  brave,  to  stand  supreme  above  thee, 
Whose  high  commands  would  cheer,  whose  chiding  raise  thee  ? 
Seek,  seeker,  in  thyself  ;  submit  to  find 
In  the  stones,  bread,  and  life  in  the  blank  mind.' 

To  offer  petty  praise  and  posthumous  compliments  to  a  stoic  of 
this  temper,  is  like  buying  sugar-plums  for  St.  Simon  Stylites. 
We  venture  to  write  an  article  on  Mr.  Clough,  because  we 
believe  that  his  poems  depict  an  intellect  in  a  state  which  is 
always  natural  '  to  such  a  being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the 
present,5  which  is  peculiarly  natural  to  us  just  now  ;  and  because 
we  believe  that  many  of  these  poems  are  very  remarkable  for 
true  vigour  and  artistic  excellence,  although  they  certainly  have 
defects  and  shortcomings,  which  would  have  been  lessened,  if 
not  removed,  if  their  author  had  lived  longer  and  had  written 
more. 

In  a  certain  sense  there  are  two  great  opinions  about  every- 
thing. There  are  two  about  the  universe  itself.  The  world  as 
we  know  it  is  this.  There  is  a  vast,  visible,  indisputable  sphere, 


Mr.  Clougtis  Poems.  301 

of  which  we  never  lose  the  consciousness,  of  which  no  one 
seriously  denies  the  existence,  about  the  most  important  part  of 
which  most  people  agree  tolerably  and  fairly.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  the  invisible  world,  about  which  men  are  not 
agreed  at  all,  which  all  but  the  faintest  minority  admit  to  exist 
somehow  and  somewhere,  but  as  to  the  nature  or  locality  of 
which  there  is  no  efficient  popular  demonstration,  no  such  com- 
pulsory argument  as  will  force  the  unwilling  conviction  of  any 
one  disposed  to  denial.  As  our  minds  rise,  as  our  knowledge 
enlarges,  as  our  wisdom  grows,  as  our  instincts  deepen,  our 
conviction  of  this  invisible  world  is  daily  strengthened,  and  our 
estimate  of  its  nature  is  continually  improved.  But — and 
this  is  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  whole  subject — the 
more  we  improve,  the  higher  we  rise,  the  nobler  we  conceive 
the  unseen  world  which  is  in  us  and  about  us,  in  which  we 
live  and  move,  the  more  unlike  that  world  becomes  to  the 
world  which  we  do  see.  The  divinities  of  Olympus  were  in 
a  very  plain  and  intelligible  sense  part  and  parcel  of  this 
earth ;  they  were  better  specimens  than  could  be  found  below, 
but  they  belonged  to  extant  species ;  they  were  better  editions 
of  visible  existences ;  they  were  like  the  heroines  whom  young 
men  imagine  after  seeing  the  young  ladies  of  their  vicinity 
— they  were  better  and  handsomer,  but  they  were  of  the  same 
sort ;  they  had  never  been  seen,  but  they  might  have  been  seen 
any  day.  So  too  of  the  (rod  with  whom  the  Patriarch  wrestled : 
he  might  have  been  wrestled  with  even  if  he  was  not ;  he  was 
that  sort  of  person.  If  we  contrast  with  these  the  God  of 
whom  Christ  speaks — the  Grod  who  has  not  been  seen  at  any 
time,  whom  no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see,  who  is  infinite  in 
nature,  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out,  the  transition  is  pal- 
pable. We  have  passed  from  gods — from  an  invisible  world 
which  is  similar  to,  which  is  a  natural  appendix  to,  the  world 
in  which  we  live, — and  we  have  come  to  believe  in  an  invisible 
world,  which  is  altogether  unlike  that  which  we  see,  which  is 
certainly  not  opposed  to  our  experience,  but  is  altogether 


302  Mr.  ClougKs  Poems. 

beyond  and  unlike  our  experience;  which  belongs  to  another 
set  of  things  altogether ;  which  is,  as  we  speak,  transcendental. 
The  '  possible '  of  early  barbarism  is  like  the  reality  of  early 
barbarism ;  the  '  may  be,'  the  4  great  perhaps,'  of  late  civili- 
sation is  most  unlike  the  earth,  whether  barbaric  or  civilised. 

Two  opinions  as  to  the  universe  naturally  result  from  this 
fundamental  contrast.  There  are  plenty  of  minds  like  that  of 
Voltaire,  who  have  simply  no  sense  or  perception  of  the  invisible 
world  whatever,  who  have  no  ear  for  religion,  who  are  in  the 
technical  sense  unconverted,  whom  no  conceivable  process  could 
convert  without  altering  what  to  bystanders  and  ordinary  ob- 
servers is  their  identity.  They  are,  as  a  rule,  acute,  sensible, 
discerning,  and  humane ;  but  the  first  observation  which  the 
most  ordinary  person  would  make  as  to  them  is,  that  they 
are  '  limited ; '  they  understand  palpable  existence  ;  they  ela- 
borate it,  and  beautify  and  improve  it ;  but  an  admiring 
bystander,  who  can  do  none  of  these  things,  who  can  beautify- 
nothing,  who,  if  he  tried,  would  only  make  what  is  ugly  uglier, 
is  conscious  of  a  latent  superiority,  which  he  can  hardly  help 
connecting  with  his  apparent  inferiority.  We  cannot  write 
Voltaire's  sentences ;  we  cannot  make  things  as  clear  as  he 
made  them ;  but  we  do  not  much  care  for  our  deficiency.  Per- 
haps we  think  6  things  ought  not  to  be  so  plain  as  all  that.'  There 
is  a  hidden,  secret,  unknown  side  to  this  universe,  which  these 
picturesque  painters  of  the  visible,  these  many-handed  manipu- 
lators of  the  palpable,  are  not  aware  of,  which  would  spoil  their 
dexterity  if  it  were  displayed  to  them.  Sleep-walkers  can 
tread  safely  on  the  very  edge  of  a  precipice ;  but  those  who 
see,  cannot.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  whose  minds 
have  not  only  been  converted,  but  in  some  sense  inverted. 
They  are  so  occupied  with  the  invisible  world  as  to  be  absorbed 
in  it  entirely  ;  they  have  no  true  conception  of  that  which 
stands  plainly  before  them ;  they  never  look  coolly  at  it,  and 
are  cross  with  those  who  do ;  they  are  wrapt  up  in  their  own 
faith  as  to  an  unseen  existence ;  they  rush  upon  mankind  with 


Mr.  Clougtis  Poems.  303 

6  Ah,  there  it  is  !  there  it  is  ! — don't  you  see  it  ?  '  and  so  incur 
the  ridicule  of  an  age. 

The  best  of  us  try  to  avoid  both  fates.  We  strive,  more  or 
less,  to  'make  the  best  of  both  worlds.'  We  know  that  the 
invisible  world  cannot  be  duly  discerned,  or  perfectly  appre- 
ciated. We  know  that  we  see  as  in  a  glass  darkly ;  but  still 
we  look  on  the  glass.  We  frame  to  ourselves  some  image  which 
we  know  to  be  incomplete,  which  probably  is  in  part  untrue, 
which  we  try  to  improve  day  by  day,  of  which  we  do  not  deny 
the  defects, — but  which  nevertheless  is  our  '  all ; '  which  we 
hope,  when  the  accounts  are  taken,  may  be  found  not  utterly 
unlike  the  unknown  reality.  This  is,  as  it  seems,  the  best  re- 
ligion for  finite  beings,  living,  if  we  may  say  so,  on  the  very 
edge  of  two  dissimilar  worlds,  on  the  very  line  on  which  the 
infinite,  unfathomable  sea  surges  up,  and  just  where  the  queer 
little  bay  of  this  world  ends.  We  count  the  pebbles  on  the 
shore,  and  image  to  ourselves  as  best  we  may  the  secrets  of  the 
great  deep. 

There  are,  however,  some  minds  (and  of  these  Mr.  Clough's 
was  one)  which  will  not  accept  what  appears  to  be  an  intellec- 
tual destiny.  They  struggle  against  the  limitations  of  mor- 
tality, and  will  not  condescend  to  use  the  natural  and  needful 
aids  of  human  thought.  They  will  not  make  their  image.  They 
struggle  after  an  '  actual  abstract.'  They  feel,  and  they  rightly 
feel,  that  every  image,  every  translation,  every  mode  of  concep- 
tion by  which  the  human  mind  tries  to  place  before  itself  the 
Divine  mind,  is  imperfect,  halting,  changing.  They  feel,  from 
their  own  experience,  that  there  is  no  one  such  mode  of  repre- 
sentation which  will  suit  their  own  minds  at  all  times,  and  they 
smile  with  bitterness  at  the  notion  that  they  could  contrive  an 
image  which  will  suit  all  other  minds.  They  could  not  become 
fanatics  or  missionaries,  or  even  common  preachers  without  for- 
feiting their  natural  dignity,  and  foregoing  their  very  essence. 
To  cry  in  the  streets,  to  uplift  their  voice  in  Israel,  to  be  '  pained 
with  hot  thoughts,'  to  be  '  preachers  of  a  dream,'  would  reverse 


304  Mr.  ClougJis  Poems. 

their  whole  cast  of  mind.  It  would  metamorphose  them  into 
something  which  omits  every  striking  trait  for  which  they  were 
remarked,  and  which  contains  every  trait  for  which  they  were 
not  remarked.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  quite  as  op- 
posite to  their  whole  nature  to  become  followers  of  Voltaire. 
No  one  knows  more  certainly  and  feels  more  surely  that  there 
is  an  invisible  world,  than  those  very  persons  who  decline  to 
make  an  image  or  representation  of  it,  who  shrink  with  a  nerv- 
ous horror  from  every  such  attempt  when  it  is  made  by  any 
others.  All  this  inevitably  leads  to  what  common,  practical 
people  term  a  '  curious '  sort  of  mind.  You  do  not  know  how 
to  describe  these  'universal  negatives,'  as  they  seem  to  be. 
They  will  not  fall  into  place  in  the  ordinary  intellectual  world 
any  how.  If  you  offer  them  any  known  religion,  they  '  won't 
have  that ; '  if  you  offer  them  no  religion,  they  will  not  have 
that  either ;  if  you  ask  them  to  accept  a  new  and  as  yet  unre- 
cognised religion,  they  altogether  refuse  to  do  so.  They  seem 
not  only  to  believe  in  an  '  unknown  Grod,'  but  in  a  Grod  whom 
no  man  can  ever  know.  Mr.  Clough  has  expressed,  in  a  sort  of 
lyric,  what  may  be  called  their  essential  religion  : 

*  O  Thou  whose  image  in  the  shrine 
Of  human  spirits  dwells  divine  ! 
Which  from  that  precinct  once  conveyed, 
To  be  to  outer  day  displayed, 
Doth  vanish,  part,  and  leave  behind 
Mere  blank  and  void  of  empty  mind, 
Which  wilful  fancy  seeks  in  vain 
With  casual  shapes  to  fil   again  ! 

0  Thou,  that  in  our  bosom's  shrine 
Dost  dwell,  unknown  because  divine  ! 

1  thought  to  speak,  I  thought  to  say, 

"  The  light  is  here,"  "  Behold  the  way," 
"  The  voice  was  thus  "  and  "  Thus  the  word," 
And  "  Thus  I  saw,"  and  "  That  I  heard,"— 
But  from  the  lips  that  half  essayed 
The  imperfect  utterance  fell  unmade. 


Mr.  Clougtts  Poems.  305 

0  Thou,  in  that  mysterious  shrine 
Enthroned,  as  I  must  say,  divine  ! 

1  will  not  frame  one  thought  of  what 
Thou  mayest  either  be  or  not. 

I  will  not  prate  of  "  thus  "  and  "  so," 
And  be  profane  with  "  yes  "  and  "  no," 
Enough  that  in  our  soul  and  heart 
Thou,  whatso'er  Thou  mayst  be,  art.' 

It  was  exceedingly  natural  that  Mr.  Clough  should  incline 
to  some  such  creed  as  this,  with  his  character  and  in  his  cir- 
cumstances. He  had  by  nature,  probably,  an  exceedingly  real 
mind,  in  the  good  sense  of  that  expression  and  the  bad  sense. 
The  actual  visible  world  as  it  was,  and  as  he  saw  it,  exercised 
over  him  a  compulsory  influence.  The  hills  among  which  he 
had  wandered,  the  cities  he  had  visited,  the  friends  whom  he 
knew, — these  were  his  world.  Many  minds  of  the  poetic  sort 
easily  melt  down  these  palpable  facts  into  some  impalpable  ether 
of  .their  own.  To  such  a  mind  as  Shelley's  the  'solid  earth'  is 
an  immaterial  fact ;  it  is  not  even  a  cumbersome  difficulty — it 
is  a  preposterous  imposture.  Whatever  may  exist,  all  that  clay 
does  not  exist ;  it  would  be  too  absurd  to  think  so.  Common 
persons  can  make  nothing  of  this  dreaminess  ;  and  Mr.  Clough, 
though  superficial  observers  set  him  down  as  a  dreamer,  could 
not  make  much  either.  To  him,  as  to  the  mass  of  men,  the 
vulgar,  outward  world  was  a  primitive  fact.  '  Taxes  is  true,' 
as  the  miser  said.  Eeconcile  what  you  have  to  say  with  green 
peas,  for  green  peas  are  certain ;  such  was  Mr.  Clough's  idea. 
He  could  not  dissolve  the  world  into  credible  ideas  and  then 
believe  those  ideas,  as  many  poets  have  done.  He  could  not 
catch  up  a  creed  as  ordinary  men  do.  He  had  a  straining,  in- 
quisitive, critical  mind ;  he  scrutinised  every  idea  before  he 
took  it  in ;  he  did  not  allow  the  moral  forces  of  life  to  act  as 
they  should  ;  he  was  not  content  to  gain  a  belief  «  by  going  on 
living.'  He  said, 

'Action  will  furnish  belief;  but  will  that  belief  be  the  true  one  ? 
This  is  the  point,  you  know.' 
VOL.  II.  X 


306  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

He  felt  the  coarse  facts  of  the  plain  world  so  thoroughly  that 
he  could  not  readily  take  in  anything,  which  did  not  seem  in 
accordance  with  them  and  like  them.  And  what  common  idea 
of  the  invisible  world  seems  in  the  least  in  accordance  with 
them  or  like  them  ? 

A  journal-writer  in  one  of  his  poems  has  expressed  this : 

1  Comfort  has  come  to  me  here  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city, 
Comfort — how  do  you  think  ? — with  a  barrel-organ  to  bring  it. 
Moping  along  the  streets,  and  cursing  my  day  as  I  wandered, 
All  of  a  sudden  my  ear  met  the  sound  of  an  English  psalm-tune. 
Comfort  me  it  did,  till  indeed  I  was  very  near  crying. 
Ah,  there  is  some  great  truth,  partial  very  likely,  but  needful, 
Lodged,  I  am  strangely  sure,  in  the  tones  of  the  English  psalm-tune: 
Comfort  it  was  at  least ;  and  I  must  take  without  question 
Comfort,  however  it  come,  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city. 

'  What  with  trusting  myself,  and  seeking  support  from  within  me, 
Almost  I  could  believe  I  had  gained  a  religious  assurance, 
Formed  in  my  own  poor  soul  a  great  moral  basis  to  rest  on. 
Ah,  but  indeed  I  see,  I  feel  it  factitious  entirely  ; 
I  refuse,  reject,  and  put  it  utterly  from  me  ; 
I  will  look  straight  out,  see  things,  not  try  to  evade  them  ; 
Fact  shall  be  fact  for  me,  and  the  Truth  the  Truth  as  ever, 
Flexible,  changeable,  vague,  and  multiform,  and  doubtful. — 
Off,  and  depart  to  the  void,  thou  subtle,  fanatical  tempter  ! ' 

Mr.  dough's  fate  in  life  had  been  such  as  to  exaggerate 
this  naturally  peculiar  temper.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Arnold's ; 
one  of  his  best,  most  susceptible  and  favourite  pupils.  Some 
years  since  there  was  much  doubt  and  interest  as  to  the  effect 
of  Arnold's  teaching.  His  sudden  death,  so  to  say,  cut  his  life 
in  the  middle,  and  opened  a  tempting  discussion  as  to  the  effect 
of  his  teaching  when  those  taught  by  him  should  have  become 
men  and  not  boys.  The  interest  which  his  own  character  then 
awakened,  and  must  always  awaken,  stimulated  the  discussion, 
and  there  was  much  doubt  about  it.  But  now  we  need  doubt 
no  longer.  The  Rugby  6  men '  are  real  men,  and  the  world  can 
pronounce  its  judgment.  Perhaps  that  part  of  the  world  which 


Mr.  Clougtis  Poems.  307 

cares  for  such  things  has  pronounced  it.  Dr.  Arnold  was  al- 
most indisputably  an  admirable  master  for  a  common  English 
boy, — the  small,  apple-eating  animal  whom  we  know.  He 
worked,  he  pounded,  if  the  phrase  may  be  used,  into  the  boy  a 
belief,  or  at  any  rate  a  floating,  confused  conception,  that  there 
are  great  subjects,  that  there  are  strange  problems,  that  know- 
ledge has  an  indefinite  value,  that  life  is  a  serious  and  solemn 
thing.  The  influence  of  Arnold's  teaching  upon  the  majority 
of  his  pupils  was  probably  very  vague,  but  very  good.  To 
impress  on  the  ordinary  Englishman  a  general  notion  of  the 
importance  of  what  is  intellectual  and  the  reality  of  what  is 
supernatural,  is  the  greatest  benefit  which  can  be  conferred 
upon  him.  The  common  English  mind  is  too  coarse,  sluggish, 
and  worldly  to  take  such  lessons  too  much  to  heart.  It  is  im- 
proved by  them  in  many  ways,  and  is  not  harmed  by  them  at 
all.  But  there  are  a  few  minds  which  are  very  likely  to  think 
too  much  of  such  things.  A  susceptible,  serious,  intellectual 
boy  may  be  injured  by  the  incessant  inculcation  of  the  awful- 
ness  of  life  and  the  magnitude  of  great  problems.  It  is  not 
desirable  to  take  this  world  too  much  au  serieux ;  most  persons 
will  not ;  and  the  one  in  a  thousand  who  will,  should  not.  Mr. 
Clough  was  one  of  those  who  will.  He  was  one  of  Arnold's 
favourite  pupils,  because  he  gave  heed  so  much  to  Arnold's 
teaching ;  and  exactly  because  he  gave  heed  to  it,  was  it  bad 
for  him.  He  required  quite  another  sort  of  teaching :  to  be 
told  to  take  things  easily  ;  not  to  try  to  be  wise  overmuch ;  to 
be  '  something  beside  critical ; '  to  go  on  living  quietly  and 
obviously,  and  see  what  truth  would  come  to  him.  Mr.  Clough 
had  to  his  latest  years  what  may  be  noticed  in  others  of  Ar- 
nold's disciples, — a  fatigued  way  of  looking  at  great  subjects. 
It  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  put  into  them  before  his  time,  had 
seen  through  them,  heard  all  which  could  be  said  about  them, 
had  been  bored  by  them,  and  had  come  to  want  something  else. 
A  still  worse  consequence  was,  that  the  faith,  the  doctrinal 
teaching  which  Arnold  impressed  on  the  youths  about  him,  was 

x  2 


308  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

one  personal  to  Arnold  himself,  which  arose  out  of  the  peculi- 
arities of  his  own  character,  which  can  only  be  explained  by 
them.  As  soon  as  an  inquisitive  mind  was  thrown  into  a  new 
intellectual  atmosphere,  and  was  obliged  to  naturalise  itself  in  it, 
to  consider  the  creed  it  had  learned  with  reference  to  the  facts 
which  it  encountered  and  met,  much  of  that  creed  must  fade 
away.  There  were  inevitable  difficulties  in  it,  which  only  the 
personal  peculiarities  of  Arnold  prevented  his  perceiving,  and 
which  everyone  else  must  soon  perceive.  The  new  intellectual 
atmosphere  into  which  Mr.  Clough  was  thrown  was  peculiarly 
likely  to  have  this  disenchanting  effect.  It  was  the  Oxford  of 
Father  Newman ;  an  Oxford  utterly  different  from  Oxford  as  it 
is,  or  from  the  same  place  as  it  had  been  twenty  years  before. 
A  complete  estimate  of  that  remarkable  thinker  cannot  be  given 
here ;  it  would  be  no  easy  task  even  now,  many  years  after  his 
influence  has  declined,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  the  present  pur- 
pose. Two  points  are  quite  certain  of  Father  Newman,  and 
they  are  the  only  two  which  are  at  present  material.  He  was 
undeniably  a  consummate  master  of  the  difficulties  of  the  creeds 
of  other  men.  With  a  profoundly  religious  organisation  which 
was  hard  to  satisfy,  with  an  imagination  which  could  not  help 
setting  before  itself  simply  and  exactly  what  different  creeds 
would  come  to  and  mean  in  life,  with  an  analysing  and  most 
subtle  intellect  which  was  sure  to  detect  the  weak  point  in  an 
argument  if  a  weak  point  there  was,  with  a  manner  at  once  grave 
and  fascinating, — he  was  a  nearly  perfect  religious  disputant, 
whatever  may  be  his  deficiencies  as  a  religious  teacher.  The 
rr.iosl.  accomplished  theologian  of  another  faith  would  have  looked 
anxiously  to  the  joints  of  his  harness  before  entering  the  lists 
with  an  adversary  so  prompt  and  keen.  To  suppose  that  a 
youth  fresh  from  Arnold's  teaching,  with  a  hasty  faith  in  a 
scheme  of  thought  radically  inconsistent,  should  be  able  to 
endure  such  an  encounter,  was  absurd.  Arnold  flattered  him- 
self that  he  was  a  principal  opponent  of  Mr.  Newman  ;  but  he 
was  rather  a  principal  fellow-labourer.  There  was  but  one 


Mr.  ClougEs  Poems.  309 

quality  in  a  common  English  boy  which  would  have  enabled  him 
to  resist  such  a  reasoner  as  Mr.  Newman.  We  have  a  heavy 
apathy  on  exciting  topics,  which  enables  us  to  leave  dilemmas 
unsolved,  to  forget  difficulties,  to  go  about  our  pleasure  or  our 
business,  and  to  leave  the  reasoner  to  pursue  his  logic  :  '  any 
how  he  is  very  long ' — that  we  comprehend.  But  it  was  exactly 
this  happy  apathy,  this  commonplace  indifference,  that  Arnold 
prided  himself  on  removing.  He  objected  strenuously  to  Mr. 
Newman's  creed,  but  he  prepared  anxiously  the  very  soil  in  which 
that  creed  was  sure  to  grow.  A  multitude  of  such  minds  as 
Mr.  Clough's,  from  being  Arnoldites,  became  Newmanites. 

A  second  quality  in  Mr.  Newman  is  at  least  equally  clear. 
He  was  much  better  skilled  in  finding  out  the  difficulties  of 
other  men's  creeds  than  in  discovering  and  stating  a  distinct 
basis  for  his  own.  In  most  of  his  characteristic  works  he  does 
not  even  attempt  it.  His  argument  is  essentially  an  argument 
ad  hominem ;  an  argument  addressed  to  the  present  creed  of  the 
person  with  whom  he  is  reasoning.  He  says :  f  Give  up  what 
you  hold  already,  or  accept  what  I  now  say ;  for  that  which  you 
already  hold  involves  it.'  Even  in  books  where  he  is  especially 
called  on  to  deal  with  matters  of  first  principle,  the  result  is  un- 
satisfactory. We  have  heard  it  said  that  he  has  in  later  life 
accounted  for  the  argumentative  vehemence  of  his  book  against 
the  Church  of  Eome  by  saying :  4 1  did  it  as  a  duty  ;  I  put  my- 
self into  a  state  of  mind  to  write  that  book.'  And  this  is  just 
the  impression  which  his  arguments  give.  His  elementary  prin- 
ciples seem  made,  not  born.  Very  likely  he  would  admit  the 
fact,  and  yet  defend  his  practice.  He  would  say :  *  Such  a 
being  as  man  is,  in  such  a  world  as  this  is,  must  do  so ;  he 
must  make  a  venture  for  his  religion ;  he  may  see  a  greater 
probability  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  is  true  than  that  it 
is  false ;  he  may  see  before  he  believes  in  her  that  she  has 
greater  evidence  than  any  other  creed  ;  but  he  must  do  the  rest 
for  himself.  By  means  of  his  will  he  must  put  himself  into 
a  new  state  of  mind  ;  he  must  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Church 


3io  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

here  and  hereafter ;  then  his  belief  will  gradually  strengthen ; 
he  will  in  time  become  sure  of  what  she  says/  He  undoubtedly, 
in  the  time  of  his  power,  persuaded  many  young  men  to  try 
some  such  process  as  this.  The  weaker,  the  more  credulous, 
and  the  more  fervent,  were  able  to  persevere  ;  those  who  had  not 
distinct  perceptions  of  real  truth,  who  were  dreamy  and  fanciful 
by  nature,  persevered  without  difficulty.  But  Mr.  Clough  could 
not  do  so ;  he  felt  it  was  *  something  factitious.5  He  began  to 
speak  of  the  c  ruinous  force  of  the  will,'  and  *  our  terrible  notions 
of  duty.'  He  ceased  to  be  a  Newmanite. 

Thus  Mr.  Clough's  career  and  life  were  exactly  those  most 
likely  to  develop  and  foster  a  morbid  peculiarity  of  his  intellect. 
He  had,  as  we  have  explained,  by  nature  an  unusual  difficulty 
in  forming  a  creed  as  to  the  unseen  world ;  he  could  not  get  the 
visible  world  out  of  his  head ;  his  strong  grasp  of  plain  facts 
and  obvious  matters  was  a  difficulty  to  him.  Too  easily  one 
great  teacher  inculcated  a  remarkable  creed ;  then  another  great 
teacher  took  it  away ;  then  this  second  teacher  made  him  be- 
lieve for  a  time  some  of  his  own  artificial  faith ;  then  it  would 
not  do.  He  fell  back  on  that  vague,  impalpable,  unembodied 
religion  which  we  have  attempted  to  describe. 

He  has  himself  given  in  a  poem,  now  first  published,  a  very 
remarkable  description  of  this  curious  state  of  mind.  He  has 
prefixed  to  it  the  characteristic  motto,  <  II  doutait  de  tout,  meme 
de  I 'amour. ,'  It  is  the  delineation  of  a  certain  love-passage 
in  the  life  of  a  hesitating  young  gentleman,  who  was  in  Eome 
at  the  time  of  the  revolution  of  1848  ;  who  could  not  make  up 
his  mind  about  the  revolution,  who  could  not  make  up  his  mind 
whether  he  liked  Rome,  who  could  not  make  up  his  mind 
whether  he  liked  the  young  lady,  who  let  her  go  away  without 
him,  who  went  in  pursuit  of  her,  and  could  not  make  out  which 
way  to  look  for  her, — who,  in  fine,  has  some  sort  of  religion,  but 
cannot  himself  tell  what  it  is.  The  poem  was  not  published  in 
the  author's  lifetime,  and  there  are  some  lines  which  we  are  per- 
suaded he  would  have  further  polished,  and  some  parts  which  he 


Mr.  ClowgJis  Poems.  3 1 1 

would  have  improved,  if  he  had  seen  them  in  print.  It  is  written 
in  conversational  hexameters,  in  a  tone  of  semi-satire  and  half- 
belief.  Part  of  the  commencement  is  a  good  example  of  them  : 

'  Rome  disappoints  me  much ;  I  hardly  as  yet  understand,  but 
Rubbishy  seems  the  word  that  most  exactly  would  suit  it. 
All  the  foolish  destructions,  and  all  the  sillier  savings, 
All  the  incongruous  things  of  past  incompatible  ages, 
Seem  to  be  treasured  up  here  to  make  fools  of  present  and  future. 
Would  to  Heaven  the  old  Goths  had  made  a  cleaner  sweep  of  it  I 
Would  to  Heaven  some  new  ones  would  come  and  destroy  these 

churches ! 

However,  one  can  live  in  Rome  as  also  in  London. 
Rome  is  better  than  London,  because  it  is  other  than  London. 
It  is  a  blessing,  no  doubt,  to  be  rid,  at  least  for  a  time,  of 
All  one's  friends  and  relations, — yourself  (forgive  me  !)  included, — 
All  the  assujettissement  of  having  been  what  one  has  been, 
What  one  thinks  one  is,  or  thinks  that  others  suppose  one ; 
Yet,  in  despite  of  all,  we  turn  like  fools  to  the  English. 
Vernon  has  been  my  fate;  who  is  here  the  same  that  you  knew  him,- 
Making  the  tour,  it  seems,  with  friends  of  the  name  of  Trevellyn. 

6  Rome  disappoints  me  still  \  but  I  shrink  and  adapt  myself  to  it. 
Somehow  a  tyrannous  sense  of  a  superincumbent  oppression 
Still,  wherever  I  go,  accompanies  ever,  and  makes  me 
Feel  like  a  tree  (shall  I  say  ?)  buried  under  a  ruin  of  brickwork. 
Rome,  believe  me,  my  friend,  is  like  its  own  Monte  Testaceo, 
Merely  a  marvellous  mass  of  broken  and  castaway  wine-pots. 
Ye  Gods  !  what  do  I  want  with  this  rubbish  of  ages  departed, 
Things  that  Nature  abhors,  the  experiments  that  she  has  failed  in  ? 
What  do  I  find  in  the  Forum?  An  archway  and  two  or  three  pillars. 
Well,  but  St.  Peter's  1     Alas,  Bernini  has  filled  it  with  sculpture ! 
No  one  can  cavil,  I  grant,  at  the  size  of  the  great  Coliseum. 
Doubtless  the  notion  of  grand  and  capacious  and  massive  amusement, 
This  the  old  Romans  had ;  but  tell  me,  is  this  an  idea  ? 
Yet  of  solidity  much,  but  of  splendour  little  is  extant : 
"  Brickwork  I  found  thee,  and  marble  I  left  thee  ! "  their  Emperor 

vaunted ; 
"  Marble  I  thought  thee,  and  brickwork  I  find  thee  ! '  the  Tourist 

may  answer.' 


3 1 2  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

As  he  goes  on,  he  likes  Rome  rather  better,  but  hazards  the 
following  imprecation  on  the  Jesuits  :— 

'  Luther,  they  say,  was  unwise;  he  didn't  see  how  things  were  going ; 
Luther  was  foolish, — but,  0  great  God  !  what  call  you  Ignatius  ? 

0  my  tolerant  soul,  be  still  !  but  you  talk  of  barbarians, 
Alaric,  Attila,  Genseric;— why,  they  came,  they  killed,  they 
Ravaged,  and  went  on  their  way ;  but  these  vile,  tyrannous  Spa- 
niards, 

These  are  here  still, — how  long,  O  ye  heavens,  in  the  country  of 

Dante  ? 

These,  that  fanaticised  Europe, which  now  can  forget  them,  release  not 
This,  their  choicest  of  prey,  this  Italy;  here  you  see  them,— 
Here,  with  emasculate  pupils  and  gimcrack  churches  of  Gesu, 
Pseudo-learning  and  lies,  confessional -boxes  and  postures,— 
Here,  with  metallic  beliefs  and  regimental  devotions,— 
Here,  overcrusting  with  slime,  perverting,  defacing,  debasing 
Michael  Angelo's  dome,  that  had  hung  the  Pantheon  in  heaven, 
Raphael's  Joys  and  Graces,  and  thy  clear  stars,  Galileo!' 

The  plot  of  the  poem  is  very  simple,  and  certainly  is  not 
very  exciting.  The  moving  force,  as  in  most  novels  of  verse  or 
prose,  is  the  love  of  the  hero  for  the  heroine ;  but  this  love  as- 
suredly is  not  of  a  very  impetuous  and  overpowering  character. 
The  interest  of  this  story  is  precisely  that  it  is  not  overpower- 
ing. The  over-intellectual  hero,  over-anxious  to  be  composed, 
will  not  submit  himself  to  his  love;  over-fearful  of  what  is 
voluntary  and  factitious,  he  will  not  make  an  effort  and  cast  in 
his  lot  with  it.  He  states  his  view  of  the  subject  better  than 
we  can  state  it : — 

'  I  am  in  love,  meantime,  you  think;  no  doubt  you  would  think  so. 

1  am  in  love,  you  say,  with  those  letters,  of  course,  you  would  say  so. 
I  am  in  love,  you  declare.     I  think  not  so ;  yet  I  grant  you 

It  is  a  pleasure  indeed  to  converse  with  this  girl.     Oh,  rare  gift, 
Rare  felicity,  this  !  she  can  talk  in  a  rational  way,  can 
Speak  upon  subjects  that  really  are  matters  of  mind  and  of  thinking, 
Yet  in  perfection  retain  her  simplicity;  never,  one  moment, 
Never,  however  you  urge  it,  however  you  tempt  her,  consents  to 
Step  from  ideas  and  fancies  and  loving  sensations  to  those  vain 


Mr.  C long Jis  Poems.  313 

Conscious  understandings  that  vex  the  minds  of  mankind. 
No,  though  she  talk,  it  is  music  ;  her  fingers  desert  not  the  keys ;  'tis 
Song,  though  you  hear  in  the  song  the  articulate  vocables  sounded, 
Syllables  singly  and  sweetly  the  words  of  melodious  meaning. 

I  am  in  love,  you  -say  ;  I  do  not  think  so,  exactly. 
There  are  two  different  kinds,  I  believe,  of  human  attraction : 
One  which  simply  disturbs,  unsettles,  and  makes  you  uneasy, 
And  another  that  poises,  retains,  and  fixes  and  holds  you. 
I  have  no  doubt,  for  myself,  in  giving  my  voice  for  the  latter. 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  moved,  but  growing  where  I  was  growing, 
There  more  truly  to  grow,  to  live  where  as  yet  I  had  languished. 
I  do  not  like  being  moved :  for  the  will  is  excited ;  and  action 
Is  a  most  dangerous  thing ;  I  tremble  for  something  factitious, 
Some  malpractice  of  heart  and  illegitimate  process ; 
We  are  so  prone  to  these  things,  with  our  terrible  notions  of  duty. 
Ah,  let  me  look,  let  me  watch,  let  me  wait,  unhurried,  unprompted ! 
Bid  me  not  venture  on  aught  that  could  alter  or  end  what  is  present ! 
Say  not,  Time  flies,  and  Occasion,  that  never  returns,  is  departing ! 
Drive  me  not  out,  ye  ill  angels  with  fiery  swords,  from  my  Eden, 
Waiting,  and  watching,  and  looking!     Let  love  be  its   own  in- 
spiration ! 

Shall  not  a  voice,  if  a  voice  there  must  be,  from  the  airs  that  environ, 
Yea,  from  the  conscious  heavens,  without  our  knowledge  or  effort, 
Break  into  audible  words  ?     And  love  be  its  own  inspiration  ? ' 

It  appears,  however,  that  even  this  hesitating  hero  would 
have  come  to  the  point  at  last.  In  a  book,  at  least,  the  hero 
has  nothing  else  to  do.  The  inevitable  restrictions  of  a  pretty 
story  hem  him  in ;  to  wind  up  the  plot,  he  must  either  propose 
or  die,  and  usually  he  prefers  proposing.  Mr.  Claude — for  such 
is  the  name  of  Mr.  dough's  hero — is  evidently  on  his  road 
towards  the  inevitable  alternative,  when  his  fate  intercepts  him 
by  the  help  of  a  person  who  meant  nothing  less.  There  is  a  sister 
of  the  heroine,  who  is  herself  engaged  to  a  rather  quick  person, 
and  who  cannot  make  out  anyone's  conducting  himself  diffe- 
rently from  her  George  Vernon.  She  writes  : — 

'  Mr.  Claude,  you  must  know,  is  behaving  a  little  bit  better; 
He  and  Papa  are  great  friends  ;  but  he  really  is  too  shilly-shally, — 
So  unlike  George  !     Yet  I  hope  that  the  matter  is  going  on  fairly. 


314  Mr.  Clougtis  Poems. 

I  shall,  however,  get  George,  before  he  goes,  to  say  something. 
Dearest  Louise,  how  delightful  to  bring  young  people  together ! ' 

As  the  heroine  says,  '  dear  Greorgina '  wishes  for  nothing  so 
much  as  to  show  her  adroitness.  George  Vernon  does  interfere, 
and  Mr.  Claude  may  describe  for  himself  the  change  it  makes 
in  his  fate  : 

'  Tibur  is  beautiful  too,  and  the  orchard  slopes,  and  the  Anio 
Falling,  falling  yet,  to  the  ancient  lyrical  cadence  ; 
Tibur  and  Anio's  tide  ;  and  cool  from  Lucretilis  ever, 
With  the  Digentian  stream,  and  with  the  Bandusian  fountain, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  : — 
So  not  seeing  I  sung  ;  so  seeing  and  listening  say  I, 
Here  as  I  sit  by  the  stream,  as  I  gaze  at  the  cell  of  the  Sibyl, 
Here  with  Albunea's  home  and  the  grove  of  Tiburnus  beside  me  ;  * 
Tivoli  beautiful  is,  and  musical,  0  Teverone, 
Dashing  from  mountain  to  plain,  thy  parted  impetuous  waters  ! 
Tivoli's  waters  and  rocks  ;  and  fair  under  Monte  Gennaro, 
(Haunt  even  yet,  I  must  think,  as  I  wander  and  gaze,  of   the 

shadows, 
Faded  and  pale,  yet  immortal,  of  Faunus,  the  Nymphs,  and  the 

Graces,) 

Fair  in  itself,  and  yet  fairer  with  human  completing  creations, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  : — 
So  not  seeing  I  sung  ;  so  now — Nor  seeing,  nor  hearing, 
Neither  by  waterfall  lulled,  nor  folded  in  sylvan  embraces, 
Neither  by  cell  of  the  Sibyl,  nor  stepping  the  Monte  Gennaro, 
Seated  on  Anio's  bank,  nor  sipping  Bandusian  waters, 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  down  on  the  tile-clad  streets,  the 
Cupolas,  crosses,  and  domes,  the  bushes  and  kitchen-gardens, 
Which,  by  the  grace  of  the  Tibur,  proclaim  themselves  Rome  of  the 

Roman, — 

But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  forth  to  the  vapoury  mountains, 
Cheating  the  prisoner  Hope  with  illusions  of  vision  and  fancy, — 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  with  these  weary  soldiers  by  me, 
Waiting  till  Oudinot  enter,  to  reinstate  Pope  and  Tourist. 


' domus  Albuneae  resonantis, 

Et  prseceps  Anio,  et  Tiburni  lucus,  et  uda 
Mobilibus  pomaria  rivis.' 


Mr.  ClougEs  Poems.  315 

Yes,  on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city, — 
So  it  appears  ;  though  then  I  was  quite  uncertain  about  it. 
So,  however,  it  was.  And  now  to  explain  the  proceeding. 

I  was  to  go,  as  I  told  you,  I  think,  with  the  people  to  Florence. 
Only  the  day  before,  the  foolish  family  Yernon 
Made  some  uneasy  remarks,  as  we  walked  to  our  lodging  together, 
As  to  intentions,  forsooth,  and  so  forth.     I  was  astounded, 
Horrified  quite  ;  and  obtaining  just  then,  as  it  happened,  an  offer 
(No  common  favour)  of  seeing  the  great  Ludovisi  collection, 
Why,  I  made  this  a  pretence,  and  wrote  that  they  must  excuse  me. 
How  could  I  go  ?  Great  Heavens  !  to  conduct  a  permitted  flirtation. 
Under  those  vulgar  eyes,  the  observed  of  such  observers  ! 
Well,  but  I  now,  by  a  series  of  fine  diplomatic  inquiries, 
Find  from  a  sort  of  relation,  a  good  and  sensible  woman, 
Who  is  remaining  at  Rome  with  a  brother  too  ill  for  removal, 
That   it  was  wholly  unsanctioned,   unknown, — not,  I   think,  by 

Georgina  : 

She,  however,  ere  this, — and  that  is  the  best  of  the  story, — 
She  and  the  Yernon,  thank  Heaven,  are  wedded  and  gone — honey- 
mooning. 

So — on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city. 
Tibur  I  have  not  seen,  nor  the  lakes  that  of  old  I  had  dreamt  of ; 
Tibur  I  shall  not  see,  nor  Anio's  waters,  nor  deep  en- 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  ; 
Tibur  I  shall  not  see  ; — but  something  better  I  shall  see. 
Twice  I  have  tried  before,  and  failed  in  getting  the  horses  ; 
Twice  I  have  tried  and  failed  :  this  time  it  shall  not  be  a  failure.' 

But,  of  course,  he  does  not  reach  Florence  till  the  heroine 
and  her  family  are  gone ;  and  he  hunts  after  them  through 
North  Italy,  not  very  skilfully,  and  then  he  returns  to  Rome  ; 
and  he  reflects,  certainly  not  in  a  very  dignified  or  heroic 
manner : 

'  I  cannot  stay  at  Florence,  not  even  to  wait  for  a  letter. 
Galleries  only  oppress  me.     Remembrance  of  hope  I  had  cherished 
(Almost  more  than  as  hope,  when  I  passed  through  Florence  the 

first  time) 

Lies  like  a  sword  in  my  soul.     I  am  more  a  coward  than  ever, 
Chicken-hearted,  past  thought.     The  cafes  and  waiters  distress  me. 
All  is  unkind,  and,  alas  !  I  am  ready  for  any  one's  kindness. 


316  Mr.  C long Jis  Poems. 

Oh,  I  knew  it  of  old,  and  knew  it,  I  thought,  to  perfection, 
If  there  is  any  one  thing  in  the  world  to  preclude  all  kindness, 
It  is  the  need  of  it, — it  is  this  sad,  self-defeating  dependence. 
Why  is  this,  Eustace  ?  Myself,  were  I  stronger,  I  think  I  could  tell 

you. 

But  it  is  odd  when  it  comes.     So  plumb  I  the  deeps  of  depression, 
Daily  in  deeper,  and  find  no  support,  no  will,  no  purpose. 
All  my  old  strengths  are  gone.     And  yet  I  shall  have  to  do  some- 
thing. 

Ah,  the  key  of  our  life,  that  passes  all  wards,  opens  all  locks, 
Is  not  1  will,  but  /  must.     I  must, — I  must, — and  I  do  it. 

'  After  all,  do  I  know  that  I  really  cared  so  about  her  ? 
Do  whatever  I  will,  I  cannot  call  up  her  image  ; 
For  when  I  close  my  eyes,  I  see,  very  likely,  St.  Peter's, 
Or  the  Pantheon  fagade,  or  Michael  Angelo's  figures, 
Or,  at  a  wish,  when  I  please,  the  Alban  hills  and  the  Forum, — 
But  that  face,  those  eyes, — ah  no,  never  anything  like  them  ; 
Only,  try  as  I  will,  a  sort  of  featureless  outline, 
And  a  pale  blank  orb,  which  no  recollection  will  add  to. 
After  all,  perhaps  there  was  something  factitious  about  it ; 
I  have  had  pain,  it  is  true  :  I  have  wept,  and  so  have  the  actors. 

'  At  the  last  moment  I  have  your  letter,  for  which  I  was  waiting  ; 
I  have  taken  my  place,  and  see  no  good  in  inquiries. 
Do  nothing  more,  good  Eustace,  I  pray  you.     It  only  will  vex  me. 
Take  no  measures.    Indeed,  should  we  meet,  I  could  not  be  certain ; 
All  might  be  changed,  you  know.    Or  perhaps  there  was  nothing  to 

be  changed. 

It  is  a  curious  history,  this  ;  and  yet  I  foresaw  it ; 
I  could  have  told  it  before.     The  Fates,  it  is  clear,  are  against  us  ; 
For  it  is  certain  enough  I  met  with  the  people  you  mention  ; 
They  were  at  Florence  the  day  I  returned  there,  and  spoke  to  me 

even  ; 

Stayed  a  week,  saw  me  often  ;  departed,  and  whither  I  know  not. 
Great  is  Fate,  and  is  best.     I  believe  in  Providence  partly. 
What  is  ordained  is  right,  and  all  that  happens  is  ordered. 
Ah,  no,  that  isn't  it.     But  yet  I  retain  my  conclusion. 
I  will  go  where  I  am  led,  and  will  not  dictate  to  the  chances. 
Do  nothing  more,  I  beg.     If  you  love  me,  forbear  interfering.' 

And  the  heroine,  like  a  sensible,  quiet  girl,  sums  up : 


Mr.  ClougJis  Poems.  3 1 7 

1  You  have  heard  nothing ;  of  course,  I  know  you  can  have  heard 
nothing. 

Ah,  well,  more  than  once  I  have  broken  my  purpose,  and  some- 
times, 

Only  too  often,  have  looked  for  the  little  lake-steamer  to  bring  him. 

But  it  is  only  fancy, — I  do  not  really  expect  it. 

Oh,  and  you  see  I  know  so  exactly  how  he  would  take  it : 

Finding  the  chances  prevail  against  meeting  again,  he  would  banish 

Forthwith  every  thought  of  the  poor  little  possible  hope,  which 

I  myself  could  not  help,  perhaps,  thinking  only  too  much  of  ; 

He  would  resign  himself,  and  go.     I  see  it  exactly. 

So  I  also  submit,  although  in  a  different  manner. 

Can  you  not  really  come  ?     We  go  very  shortly  to  England.' 

And  there,  let  us  hope,  she  found  a  more  satisfactory  lover  and 
husband. 

The  same  defect  which  prevented  Mr.  Claude  from  obtain- 
ing his  bride  will  prevent  this  poem  from  obtaining  universal 
popularity.  The  public  like  stories  which  come  to  something ; 
Mr.  Arnold  teaches  that  a  great  poem  must  be  founded  on  a 
great  action,  and  this  one  is  founded  on  a  long  inaction.  But 
Art  has  many  mansions.  Many  poets,  whose  cast  of  thought 
unfits  them  for  very  diffused  popularity,  have  yet  a  concentrated 
popularity  which  suits  them  and  which  lasts.  Henry  Taylor  has 
wisely  said  '  that  a  poet  does  not  deserve  the  name  who  would 
not  rather  be  read  a  thousand  times  by  one  man,  than  a  single 
time  by  a  thousand.'  This  repeated  perusal,  this  testing  by 
continual  repetition  and  close  contact,  is  the  very  test  of  in- 
tellectual poetry ;  unless  such  poetry  can  identify  itself  with 
our  nature,  and  dissolve  itself  into  our  constant  thought,  it  is 
nothing,  or  less  than  nothing  ;  it  is  an  ineffectual  attempt  to 
confer  a  rare  pleasure  ;  it  teazes  by  reminding  us  of  that  plea- 
sure, and  tires  by  the  effort  which  it  demands  from  us.  But  if 
a  poem  really  possesses  this  capacity  of  intellectual  absorption — 
if  it  really  is  in  matter  of  fact  accepted,  apprehended,  delighted 
in,  and  retained  by  a  large  number  of  cultivated  and  thoughtful 
minds, — its  non-recognition  by  what  is  called  the  public  is  no 


318  Mr.  ClougKs  Poems. 

more  against  it  than  its  non-recognition  by  the  coal-heavers. 
The  half-educated  and  busy  crowd,  whom  we  call  the  public,  have 
no  more  right  to  impose  their  limitations  on  highly  educated 
and  meditative  thinkers,  than  the  uneducated  and  yet  more 
numerous  crowd  have  to  impose  their  still  narrower  limitations 
on  the  half-educated.  The  coal-heaver  will  not  read  any  books 
whatever ;  the  mass  of  men  will  not  read  an  intellectual  poem : 
it  can  hardly  ever  be  otherwise.  But  timid  thinkers  must  not 
dread  to  have  a  secret  and  rare  faith.  But  little  deep  poetry  is 
very  popular,  and  no  severe  art.  Such  poetry  as  Mr.  Clough's, 
especially,  can  never  be  so ;  its  subjects  would  forbid  it,  even  if 
its  treatment  were  perfect :  but  it  may  have  a  better  fate  ;  it 
may  have  a  tenacious  hold  on  the  solitary,  the  meditative,  and 
the  calm.  It  is  this  which  Mr.  Clough  would  have  wished ;  he 
did  not  desire  to  be  liked  by  4  inferior  people ' — at  least  he 
would  have  distrusted  any  poem  of  his  own  which  they  did 
like. 

The  artistic  skill  of  these  poems,  especially  of  the  poem 
from  which  we  have  extracted  so  much,  and  of  a  long  vacation 
pastoral  published  in  the  Highlands,  is  often  excellent,  and 
occasionally  fails  when  you  least  expect  it.  There  was  an  odd 
peculiarity  in  Mr.  Clough's  mind  ;  you  never  could  tell  whether 
it  was  that  he  would  not  show  himself  to  the  best  advantage,  or 
whether  he  could  not ;  it  is  certain  that  he  very  often  did  not, 
whether  in  life  or  in  books.  His  intellect  moved  with  a  great 
difficulty,  and  it  had  a  larger  inertia  than  any  other  which  we 
have  ever  known.  Probably  there  was  an  awkwardness  born 
with  him,  and  his  shyness  and  pride  prevented  him  from  curing 
that  awkwardness  as  most  men  would  have  done.  He  felt  he 
might  fail,  and  he  knew  that  he  hated  to  fail.  He  neglected, 
therefore,  many  of  the  thousand  petty  trials  which  fashion  and 
form  the  accomplished  man  of  the  world.  Accordingly,  when 
at  last  he  wanted  to  do  something,  or  was  obliged  to  attempt 
something,  he  had  occasionally  a  singular  difficulty.  He  could 
not  get  his  matter  out  of  him. 


Mr.  ClougHs  Poems.  3 1 9 

In  poetry  he  had  a  further  difficulty,  arising  from  perhaps 
an  over-cultivated  taste.  He  was  so  good  a  disciple  of  Words- 
worth, he  hated  so  thoroughly  the  common  sing-song  metres  of 
Moore  and  Byron,  that  he  was  apt  to  try  to  write  what  will 
seem  to  many  persons  to  have  scarcely  a  metre  at  all.  It  is 
quite  true  that  the  metre  of  intellectual  poetry  should  not  be 
so  pretty  as  that  of  songs,  or  so  plain  and  impressive  as  that  of 
vigorous  passion.  The  rhythm  should  pervade  it  and  animate 
it,  but  should  not  protrude  itself  upon  the  surface,  or  intrude 
itself  upon  the  attention.  It  should  be  a  latent  charm,  though 
a  real  one.  Yet,  though  this  doctrine  is  true,  it  is  nevertheless 
a  dangerous  doctrine.  Most  writers  need  the  strict  fetters  of 
familiar  metre ;  as  soon  as  they  are  emancipated  from  this,  they 
fancy  that  any  words  of  theirs  are  metrical.  If  a  man  will 
read  any  expressive  and  favourite  words  of  his  own  often  enough, 
he  will  come  to  believe  that  they  are  rhythmical;  probably  they 
have  a  rhythm  as  he  reads  them;  but  no  notation  of  pauses 
and  accents  could  tell  the  reader  how  to  read  them  in  that 
manner ;  and  when  read  in  any  other  mode  they  may  be  prose 
itself.  Some  of  Mr.  Clough's  early  poems,  which  are  placed  at 
the  beginning  of  this  volume,  are  perhaps  examples,  more  or 
less,  of  this  natural  self-delusion.  Their  writer  could  read  them 
as  verse,  but  that  was  scarcely  his  business ;  and  the  common 
reader  fails. 

Of  one  metre,  however,  the  hexameter,  we  believe  the  most 
accomplished  judges,  and  also  common  readers,  agree  that  Mr. 
Clough  possessed  a  very  peculiar  mastery.  Perhaps  he  first 
showed  in  English  its  flexibility.  Whether  any  consummate 
poem  of  great  length  and  sustained  dignity  can  be  written  in 
this  metre,  and  in  our  language,  we  do  not  know.  Until  a 
great  poet  has  written  his  poem,  there  are  commonly  no  lack  of 
plausible  arguments  that  seem  to  prove  he  cannot  write  it ;  but 
Mr.  Clough  has  certainly  shown  that,  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful 
and  animated  artist,  it  is  capable  of  adapting  itself  to  varied 
descriptions  of  life  and  manners,  to  noble  sentiments,  and  to 


320  Mr.  Clougtts  Poems. 

changing  thoughts.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  flexible  of  English 
metres.  Better  than  any  others,  it  changes  from  grave  to  gay 
without  desecrating  what  should  be  solemn,  or  disenchanting 
that  which  should  be  graceful.  And  Mr.  Clough  was  the  first 
to  prove  this,  by  writing  a  noble  poem,  in  which  it  was 
done. 

In  one  principal  respect  Mr.  Clough's  two  poems  in  hexame- 
ters, and  especially  the  Koman  one,  from  which  we  made  so 
many  extracts,  are  very  excellent.  Somehow  or  other  he 
makes  you  understand  what  the  people  of  whom  he  is  writing 
precisely  were.  You  may  object  to  the  means,  but  you  cannot 
deny  the  result.  By  fate  he  was  thrown  into  a  vortex  of 
theological  and  metaphysical  speculation,  but  his  genius  was 
better  suited  to  be  the  spectator  of  a  more  active  and  moving 
scene.  The  play  of  mind  upon  mind;  the  contrasted  view 
which  contrasted  minds  take  of  great  subjects ;  the  odd  irony 
of  life  which  so  often  thrusts  into  conspicuous  places  exactly 
what  no  one  would  expect  to  find  in  those  places, — these  were 
his  subjects.  Under  happy  circumstances,  he  might  have  pro- 
duced on  such  themes  something  which  the  mass  of  readers 
would  have  greatly  liked ;  as  it  is,  he  has  produced  a  little 
which  meditative  readers  will  much  value,  and  which  they  will 
long  remember. 

Of  Mr.  dough's  character  it  would  be  out  of  place  to  say 
anything,  except  in  so  far  as  it  elucidates  his  poems.  The  sort 
of  conversation  for  which  he  was  most  remarkable  rises  again  in 
the  Amours  de  Voyage,  and  gives  them  to  those  who  knew  him 
in  life  a  very  peculiar  charm.  It  would  not  be  exact  to  call  the 
best  lines  a  pleasant  cynicism ;  for  cynicism  has  a  bad  name,  and 
the  ill-nature  and  other  offensive  qualities  which  have  given  it 
that  name  were  utterly  out  of  Mr.  Clough's  way.  Though  with- 
out much  fame,  he  had  no  envy.  But  he  had  a  strong  realism. 
He  saw  what  it  is  considered  cynical  to  see — the  absurdities  of 
many  persons,  the  pomposities  of  many  creeds,  the  splendid  zeal 
with  which  missionaries  rush  on  to  teach  what  they  do  not 


Mr.   Clougfis  Poems.  321 

know,  the  wonderful  earnestness  with  which  most  incomplete 
solutions  of  the  universe  are  thrust  upon  us  as  complete  and 
satisfying.  'Le  fond  de  la  Providence,'  says  the  French  novelist, 
6  vest  Vironie.'  Mr.  Clough  would  not  have  said  that ;  but  he 
knew  what  it  meant,  and  what  was  the  portion  of  truth  con- 
tained in  it.  Undeniably  this  is  an  odd  world,  whether  it 
should  have  been  so  or  no ;  and  all  our  speculations  upon  it 
should  begin  with  some  admission  of  its  strangeness  and  singu- 
larity. The  habit  of  dwelling  on  such  thoughts  as  these  will 
not  of  itself  make  a  man  happy,  and  may  make  unhappy  one 
who  is  inclined  to  be  so.  Mr.  Clough  in  his  time  felt  more  than 
most  men  the  weight  of  the  unintelligible  world ;  but  such 
thoughts  make  an  instructive  man.  Several  survivors  may  think 
they  owe  much  to  Mr.  Clough's  quiet  question,  e  Ah,  then,  you 
think —  ? '  Many  pretending  creeds,  and  many  wonderful  de- 
monstrations, passed  away  before  that  calm  inquiry.  He  had  a 
habit  of  putting  your  own  doctrine  concisely  before  you,  so  that 
you  might  see  what  it  came  to,  and  that  you  did  not  like  it. 
Even  now  that  he  is  gone,  some  may  feel  the  recollection  of  his 
society  a  check  on  unreal  theories  and  half-mastered  thoughts. 
Let  us  part  from  him  in  his  own  words  : — 

1  Some  future  day,  when  what  is  now  is  not, 
When  all  old  faults  and  follies  are  forgot, 
And  thoughts  of  difference  passed  like  dreams  away, 
We'll  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

When  all  that  hindered,  all  that  vexed  our  love, 
As  tall  rank  weeds  will  climb  the  blade  above, 
When  all  but  it  has  yielded  to  decay, 
We'll  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

When  we  have  proved,  each  on  his  course  alone, 
The  wider  world,  and  learnt  what's  now  unknown, 
Have  made  life  clear,  and  worked  out  each  a  way, 
We'll  meet  again, — we  shall  have  much  to  say. 
VOL.  II.  Y 


322  Mr.yiougKs  Poems. 

With  happier  mood,  and  feelings  born  anew, 
Our  boyhood's  bygone  fancies  we'll  review, 
Talk  o'er  old  talks,  play  as  we  used  to  play, 
And  meet  again,  on  many  a  future  day. 

Some  day,  which  oft  our  hearts  shall  yearn  to  see, 
In  some  far  year,  though  distant  yet  to  be, 
Shall  we  indeed, — ye  winds  and  waters,  say  ! — 
Meet  yet  again,  upon  some  future  day  ? J 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  323 


HENRY  CRABB  ROBINSON.1 

(1869.) 

PEKHAPS  I  should  be  ashamed  to  confess  it,  but  I  own  I  opened 
the  three  large  volumes  of  Mr.  Eobinson's  memoirs  with  much 
anxiety.  Their  bulk,  in  the  first  place,  appalled  me ;  but  that 
was  by  no  means  my  greatest  apprehension.  I  knew  I  had  a 
hundred  times  heard  Mr.  Kobinson  say,  that  he  hoped  something 
he  would  leave  behind  would  *  be  published  and  be  worth  pub- 
lishing.' I  was  aware  too — for  it  was  no  deep  secret — that  for 
half  a  century  or  more  he  had  kept  a  diary,  and  that  he  had 
been  preserving  correspondence  besides;  and  I  was  dubious 
what  sort  of  things  these  would  be,  and  what — to  use  Carlyle's 
words — any  human  editor  could  make  of  them.  Even  when 
Mr.  Kobinson  used  to  talk  so,  I  used  to  shudder ;  for  the  men 
who  have  tried  to  be  memoir-writers  and  failed,  are  as  nume- 
rous, or  nearly  so,  as  those  who  have  tried  to  be  poets  and  failed. 
A  specific  talent  is  as  necessary  for  the  one  as  for  the  other. 
But  as  soon  as  I  had  read  a  little  of  the  volumes,  all  these 
doubts  passed  away.  I  saw  at  once  that  Mr.  Kobinson  had 
an  excellent  power  of  narrative-writing,  and  that  the  editor 
of  his  remains  had  made  a  most  judicious  use  of  excellent 
materials. 

Perhaps  more  than  anything  it  was  the  modesty  of  my  old 
friend  (I  think  I  may  call  Mr.  Kobinson  my  old  friend,  for 
though  he  thought  me  a  modern  youth,  I  did  know  him  twenty 
years) — perhaps,  I  say,  it  was  his  modesty  which  made  me  ner- 
vous about  his  memoirs  more  than  anything  else.  I  have  so 
often  heard  him  say  (and  say  it  with  a  vigour  of  emphasis  which 

1  Diary,  Reminiscences,  and  Correspondence  of  Henry  Crabb  Rolwison, 
Barristcr-at-Law,  F.S.A.  Selected  and  Edited  by  Thomas  Sadler,  Ph.D.  In 
Three  Volumes.  London,  1869. 

Y  2 


324  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 


is  rarer  in  our  generation  even  than  in  his), — '  Sir,  I  have  no 
literary  talent.  I  cannot  write.  I  never  could  write  anything* 
and  I  never  would  write  anything,' — that  being  so  taught,  and 
so  vehemently,  I  came  to  believe.  And  there  was  this  to  justify 
my  creed.  The  notes  Mr.  Robinson  used  to  scatter  about  him 

and  he  was  fond  of  writing  rather  elaborate  ones — were  not 

always  very  good.     At  least  they  were  too  long  for  the  busy  race 
of  the  present  generation,  and  introduced  Schiller  and  Q-oethe 
where  they  need  not  have  appeared.      But  in  these  memoirs 
(especially  in  the  Keminiscences  and  the  Diary ;    for  the  mo- 
ment he  gets  to  a  letter  the  style  is  worse)  the  words  flow  with 
such   an   effectual    simplicity,  that   even   Southey,  the   great 
master  of  such  prose,  could  hardly  have  written  better.     Pos- 
sibly it  was  his  real  interest  in  his  old  stories  which  preserved 
Mr.  Robinson ;  in  his  letters  he  was  not  so  interested  and  he 
fell  into  words  and  amplifications ;   but  in  those  ancient  anec- 
dotes, which  for  years  were  his  life  and  being,  the  style,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  could  scarcely  be  mended  even  in  a  word.     And 
though,  undoubtedly,  the  book  is  much  too  long  in  the  latter 
half,  I  do  not  blame  Dr.  Sadler,  the  editor  and  biographer,  for 
it,  or  indeed  blame  anyone.     Mr.  Eobinson  had  led  a  very  long 
and  very  varied  life,  and  some  of  his  old  friends  had  an  interest 
in  one  part  of  his  reminiscences  and  some  in  another.     An  un- 
happy editor  entrusted  with  c  a  deceased's  papers,'  cannot  really 
and  in  practice  omit  much  that  any  surviving   friends  much 
want  to  have  put  in.    One  man  calls  with  a  letter  '  in  which  my 
dear  and  honoured  friend  gave  me  advice  that  was  of  such  in- 
estimable value,  I  hope,  I  cannot  but  think  you  will  find  room; 
for  it.'     And   another   calls  with   memoranda  of  a  dinner — a 
most '  superior  occasion,'  as  they  say  in  the  North — at  which,  he 
reports,  '  there  was  conversation  to  which  I  never,  or  scarcely 
ever,  heard  anything  equal.     There  were  A.  B.  and  C.  D.  and 
E.  F.,  all  masters,  as  you  remember,  of  the  purest  conversa- 
tional eloquence ;  surely  I  need  not  hesitate  to  believe  that  you 
will  say  something  of  that  dinner.'     And  so  an  oppressed  bio- 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  325 

grapher  has  to  serve  up  the  crumbs  of  ancient  feasts,  though 
well  knowing  in  his  heart  that  they  are  crumbs,  and  though  he 
feels,  too,  that  the  critics  will  attack  him,  and  cruelly  say  it  is 
his  fault.  But  remembering  this,  and  considering  that  Mr. 
Robinson  wrote  a  diary  beginning  in  1811,  going  down  to  1867, 
and  occupying  thirty-five  closely  written  volumes,  and  that 
there  were  6  Reminiscences '  and  vast  unsorted  papers,  I  think 
Dr.  Sadler  has  managed  admirably  well.  His  book  is  brief 
to  what  it  might  have  been,  and  all  his  own  part  is  written 
with  delicacy,  feeling,  and  knowledge.  He  quotes,  too,  from 
Wordsworth  by  way  of  motto — 

*  A  man  he  seems  of  cheerful  yesterdays 
And  confident  to-morrows  ;  with  a  face 
Not  worldly  minded,  for  it  bears  too  much 
A  nation's  impress, — gaiety  and  health, 
Freedom  and  hope  \ — but  keen  withal  and  shrewd  : 
His  gestures  note, — and,  hark,  his  tones  of  voice 
Are  all  vivacious  as  his  mien  and  looks.' 

It  was  a  happy  feeling  for  Mr.  Robinson's  character  that  selected 
these  lines  to  stand  at  the  beginning  of  his  memoirs. 

And  yet  in  one  material  respect — in  this  case  perhaps  the 
most  material  respect — Dr.  Sadler  has  failed,  and  not  in  the 
least  from  any  fault  of  his.  Sydney  Smith  used  to  complain 
that  ( no  one  had  ever  made  him  his  trustee  or  executor  ; '  being 
really  a  very  sound  and  sensible  man  of  business,  he  felt  that  it 
was  a  kind  of  imputation  on  him,  and  that  he  was  not  appre- 
ciated. But  some  one  more  justly  replied,  '  But  how  could  you, 
Sydney  Smith,  expect  to  be  made  an  executor  ?  Is  there  any 
one  who  wants  their  "  remains  "  to  be  made  fun  of  ?  '  Now  every 
trustee  of  biographical  papers  is  exactly  in  this  difficulty,  that 
he  cannot  make  fun.  The  melancholy  friends  who  left  the 
papers  would  not  at  all  like  it.  And,  besides,  there  grows  upon 
every  such  biographer  an  *  official'  feeling — a  confused  sense  of 
vague  responsibilities — a  wish  not  to  impair  the  gravity  of  the 
occasion  or  to  offend  anyone  by  levity.  But  there  are  some 


326  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 

men  who  cannot  be  justly  described  quite  gravely  ;  and  Crabb 
Kobinson  is  one  of  them.  A  certain  grotesqueness  was  a  part 
of  him,  and,  unless  you  liked  it,  you  lost  the  very  best  of  him. 
He  is  called,  and  properly  called,  in  these  memoirs  Mr.  Robin- 
son ;  but  no  well-judging  person  ever  called  him  so  in  life.  He 
was  always  called  « old  Crabb,'  and  that  is  the  only  name  which 
will  ever  bring  up  his  curious  image  to  me.  He  was,  in  the 
true  old  English  sense  of  the  word,  a  '  character ; '  one  whom 
a  very  peculiar  life,  certainly,  and  perhaps  also  a  rather  peculiar 
nature  to  begin  with,  had  formed  and  moulded  into  something 
so  exceptional  and  singular  that  it  did  not  seem  to  belong  to 
ordinary  life,  and  almost  caused  a  smile  when  you  saw  it  moving 
there.  '  An  aberrant  form,'  I  believe,  the  naturalists  call  the  seal 
and  such  things  in  natural  history ;  odd  shapes  that  can  only  be 
explained  by  a  long  past,  and  which  swim  with  a  certain  incon- 
gruity in  their  present  milieu.  Now  '  old  Crabb '  was  (to  me 
at  least)  just  like  that.  You  watched  with  interest  and  plea- 
sure his  singular  gestures,  and  his  odd  way  of  saying  things, 
and  muttered,  as  if  to  keep  up  the  recollection,  '  And  this  is 
the  man  who  was  the  friend  of  Goethe,  and  is  the  friend  of 
Wordsworth  ! '  There  was  a  certain  animal  oddity  about  '  old 
Crabb,'  which  made  it  a  kind  of  mental  joke  to  couple  him  with 
such  great  names,  and  yet  he  was  to  his  heart's  core  thoroughly 
coupled  with  them.  If  you  leave  out  all  his  strange  ways  (I 
do  not  say  Dr.  Sadler  has  quite  left  them  out,  but  to  some  ex- 
tent he  has  been  obliged,  by  place  and  decorum,  to  omit  them), 
you  lose  the  life  of  the  man.  You  cut  from  the  Ethiopian  his 
skin,  and  from  the  leopard  his  spots.  I  well  remember  poor 
Clough,  who  was  then  fresh  from  Oxford,  and  was  much  puzzled 
by  the  corner  of  London  to  which  he  had  drifted,  looking  at 
'  old  Crabb '  in  a  kind  of  terror  for  a  whole  breakfast  time,  and 
muttering  in  mute  wonder,  almost  to  himself,  as  he  came 
away,  '  Not  at  all  the  regular  patriarch.'  And  certainly  no  one 
could  accuse  Mr.  Robinson  of  an  insipid  regularity  either  in 
face  or  nature. 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  327 

Mr.  Robinson  was  one  of  the  original  founders  of  University 
College,  and  was  for  many  years  both  on  its  senate  and  council ; 
and  as  he  lived  near  the  college  he  was  fond  of  collecting  at 
breakfast  all  the  elder  students — especially  those  who  had  any 
sort  of  interest  in  literature.  Probably  he  never  appeared  to  so 
much  advantage,  or  showed  all  the  best  of  his  nature,  so  well  as 
in  those  parties.  Like  most  very  cheerful  old  people,  he  at 
heart  preferred  the  company  of  the  very  young ;  and  a  set  of 
young  students,  even  after  he  was  seventy,  suited  him  better  as 
society  than  a  set  of  grave  old  men.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he 
would  invite — I  do  not  say  some  of  his  contemporaries,  few  of 
them  even  in  1847  were  up  to  breakfast  parties,  but  persons  of 
fifty  and  sixty — those  whom  young  students  call  old  gentlemen. 
And  it  was  amusing  to  watch  the  consternation  of  some  of  them 
at  the  surprising  youth  and  levity  of  their  host.  They  shuddered 
at  the  freedom  with  which  we  treated  him.  Middle-aged  men, 
of  feeble  heads  and  half-made  reputations,  have  a  nice  dislike 
to  the  sharp  arguments  and  the  unsparing  jests  of  c  boys  at 
college ; '  they  cannot  bear  the  rough  society  of  those  who,  never 
having  tried  their  own  strength,  have  not  yet  acquired  a  fellow- 
feeling  for  weakness.  Many  such  persons,  I  am  sure,  were  half 
hurt  with  Mr.  Robinson  for  not  keeping  those  '  impertinent 
boys  '  more  at  a  just  distance  ;  but  Mr.  Robinson  liked  fun  and 
movement,  and  disliked  the  sort  of  dignity  which  shelters 
stupidity.  There  was  little  to  gratify  the  unintellectual  part  of 
man  at  these  breakfasts,  and  what  there  was  was  not  easy  to  be 
got  at.  Your  host,  just  as  you  were  sitting  down  to  breakfast, 
found  he  had  forgotten  to  make  the  tea,  then  he  could  not  find 
his  keys,  then  he  rang  the  bell  to  have  them  searched  for ;  but 
long  before  the  servant  came  he  had  gone  off  into  '  Schiller- 
Goethe,'  and  could  not  the  least  remember  what  he  had  wanted. 
The  more  astute  of  his  guests  used  to  breakfast  before  they 
came,  and  then  there  was  much  interest  in  seeing  a  steady 
literary  man,  who  did  not  understand  the  region,  in  agonies  at 
having  to  hear  three  stories  before  he  got  his  tea,  one  again 


328  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 

between  his  milk  and  his  sugar,  another  between  his  butter  and 
his  toast,  and  additional  zest  in  making  a  stealthy  inquiry  that 
was  sure  to  intercept  the  coming  delicacies  by  bringing  on 
Schiller  and  Goethe. 

It  is  said  in  these  memoirs  that  Mr.  Robinson's  parents  were 
very  good-looking,  and  that  when  married  they  were  called  the 
handsome  couple.  But  in  his  old  age  very  little  regular  beauty 
adhered  to  him,  if  he  ever  had  any.  His  face  was  pleasing  from 
its  animation,  its  kindness,  and  its  shrewdness,  but  the  nose  was 
one  of  the  most  slovenly  which  nature  had  ever  turned  out,  and 
the  chin  of  excessive  length,  with  portentous  power  of  extension. 
But,  perhaps,  for  the  purpose  of  a  social  narrator  (and  in  later 
years  this  was  Mr.  Robinson's  position),  this  oddity  of  feature 
was  a  gift.  It  was  said,  and  justly  said,  that  Lord  Brougham 
used  to  punctuate  his  sentences  with  his  nose ;  just  at  the  end  of 
a  long  parenthesis  he  could,  and  did,  turn  up  his  nose,  which 
served  to  note  the  change  of  subject  as  well,  or  better,  than  a 
printed  mark.  Mr.  Robinson  was  not  so  skilful  as  this,  but  he 
made  a  very  able  use  of  the  chin  at  a  conversational  crisis,  and 
just  at  the  point  of  a  story  pushed  it  out,  and  then  very  slowly 
drew  it  in  again,  so  that  you  always  knew  when  to  laugh,  and 
the  oddity  of  the  gesture  helped  you  in  laughing. 

Mr.  Robinson  had  known  nearly  every  literary  man  worth 
knowing  in  England  and  Germany  for  fifty  years  and  more.  He 
had  studied  at  Jena  in  the  *  great  time,'  when  Goethe,  and 
Schiller,  and  Wieland  were  all  at  their  zenith ;  he  had  lived  with 
Charles  Lamb  and  his  set,  and  Rogers  and  his  set,  besides  an 
infinite  lot  of  little  London  people  ;  he  had  taught  Madame  de 
Stael  German  philosophy  in  Germany,  and  helped  her  in  busi- 
ness afterwards  in  England ;  he  was  the  real  friend  of  Words- 
worth, and  had  known  Coleridge  and  Southey  almost  from  their 
'  coming  out '  to  their  death.  And  he  was  not  a  mere  literary 
man.  He  had  been  a  Times  correspondent  in  the  days  of 
Napoleon's  early  German  battles,  now  more  than  '  seventy  years 
since  ; '  he  had  been  off  Corunna  in  Sir  John  Moore's  time ;  and 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  329 

last,  but  almost  first  it  should  have  been,  he  was  an  English 
barrister,  who  had  for  years  a  considerable  business,  and  who 
was  full  of  picturesque  stories  about  old  judges.  Such  a  varied 
life  and  experience  belong  to  very  few  men,  and  his  social  nature 
— at  once  accessible  and  assailant — was  just  the  one  to  take 
advantage  of  it.  He  seemed  to  be  lucky  all  through :  in 
childhood  he  remembered  when  John  Grilpin  came  out;  then 
he  had  seen — he  could  not  hear — John  Wesley  preach;  then 
he  had  heard  Erskine,  and  criticised  him  intelligently,  in  some 
of  the  finest  of  the  well-known  <  State  trials ; '  and  so  on  during 
all  his  vigorous  period. 

I  do  not  know  that  it  would  be  possible  to  give  a  better 
idea  of  Mr.  Kobinson's  best  conversations  than  by  quoting 
almost  at  random  from  the  earlier  part  of  these  memoirs : — 

'At  the  Spring  assizes  of  1791,  when  I  had  nearly  attained  my 
sixteenth  year,  I  had  the  delight  of  hearing  Erskine.  It  was  a  high 
enjoyment,  and  I  was  able  to  profit  by  it.  The  subject  of  the  trial 
was  the  validity  of  a  will — Braham  v.  Rivett.  Erskine  came  down 
specially  retained  for  the  plaintiff,  and  Mingay  for  the  defendant. 
The  trial  lasted  two  days.  The  title  of  the  heir  being  admitted,  the 
proof  of  the  will  was  gone  into  at  once.  I  have  a  recollection  of  many 
of  the  circumstances  after  more  than  fifty-four  years  ;  but  of  nothing 
do  I  retain  so  perfect  a  recollection  as  of  the  figure  and  voice  of 
Erskine.  There  was  a  charm  in  his  voice,  a  fascination  in  his  eye  ; 
and  so  completely  had  he  won  my  affection,  that  I  am  sure  had  the 
verdict  been  given  against  him  I  should  have  burst  out  crying.  Of  the 
facts  and  of  the  evidence,  I  do  not  pretend  to  recollect  anything 
beyond  my  impressions  and  sensations.  My  pocket-book  records  that 
Erskine  was  engaged  two  and  a  half  hours  in  opening  the  case,  and 
Mingay  two  hours  and  twenty  minutes  in  his  speech  in  defence.  E.'s 
reply  occupied  three  hours.  The  testatrix  was  an  old  lady  in  a  state 
of  imbecility.  The  evil  spirit  of  the  case  was  an  attorney.  Mingay 
was  loud  and  violent,  and  gave  Erskine  an  opportunity  of  turning 
into  ridicule  his  imagery  and  illustrations.  For  instance,  M.  having 
compared  R.  to  the  Devil  going  into  the  Garden  of  Eden,  E.  drew  a 
closer  parallel  than  M.  intended.  Satan's  first  sight  of  Eve  was  related 
in  Milton's  words — 


330  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 


'  "  Grace  was  in  all  her  steps,  heaven  in  her  eye, 
In  every  gesture  dignity  and  love  ;  " 

and  then  a  picture  of  idiotcy  from  Swift  was  contrasted.  But  the 
sentence  that  weighed  on  my  spirits  was  a  pathetic  exclamation — "  If, 
gentlemen,  you  should  by  your  verdict  annihilate  an  instrument  so 
solemnly  framed,  I  should  retire  a  troubled  man  from  this  court." 
And  as  he  uttered  the  word  court,  he  beat  his  breast  and  I  had  a 
difficulty  in  not  crying  out.  When  in  bed  the  following  night  I 
awoke  several  times  in  a  state  of  excitement  approaching  fever — the 
words  "  troubled  man  from  this  court  "  rang  in  my  ears. 

'  A'  new  trial  was  granted,  and  ultimately  the  will  was  set  aside. 
I  have  said  I  profited  by  Erskine.  I  remarked  his  great  artifice,  if  I 
may  call  it  so  ;  and  in  a  small  way  I  afterwards  practised  it.  It  lay 
in  his  frequent  repetitions.  He  had  one  or  two  leading  arguments 
and  main  facts  on  which  he  was  constantly  dwelling.  But  then  he  . 
had  marvellous  skill  in  varying  his  phraseology,  so  that  no  one  was 
sensible  of  tautology  in  the  expressions.  Like  the  doubling  of  a  hare, 
he  was  perpetually  coming  to  his  old  place.  Other  great  advocates  I 
have  remarked  were  ambitious  of  a  great  variety  of  arguments. 

'  About  the  same  time  that  I  thus  first  heard  the  most  perfect 
of  forensic  orators,  I  was  also  present  at  an  exhibition  equally  admi- 
rable, and  which  had  a  powerful  effect  upon  my  mind.  It  was,  I  believes 
in  October  1790,  and  not  long  before  his  death,  that  I  heard  John 
Wesley  in  the  great  round  meeting-house  at  Colchester.  He  stood  in 
a  wide  pulpit,  and  on  each  side  of  him  stood  a  minister,  and  the  two 
held  him  up,  having  their  hands  under  his  armpits.  His  feeble  voice 
was  barely  audible.  But  his  reverend  countenance,  especially  his  long 
white  locks,  formed  a  picture  never  to  be  forgotten.  There  was  a 
vast  crowd  of  lovers  and  admirers.  It  was  for  the  most  part  pan- 
tomime, but  the  pantomime  went  to  the  heart.  Of  the  kind  I  never 
saw  anything  comparable  to  it  in  after  life,' 

And  again : — 

*  It  was  at  the  Summer  Circuit  that  Rolfe  made  his  first  appear- 
ance. He  had  been  at  the  preceding  Sessions.  I  have  a  pleasure  in 
recollecting  that  I  at  once  foresaw  that  he  would  become  a  distin- 
guished man.  In  my  Diary  I  wrote,  "  Our  new  junior,  Mr.  Rolfe, 
made  his  appearance.  His  manners  are  genteel ;  his  conversation  easy 
and  sensible.  He  is  a  very  acceptable  companion,  but  I  fear  a  dangerous 
rival."  And  my  brother  asking  me  who  the  new  man  was,  I  said, 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  331 

"  I  will  venture  to  predict  that  you  will  live  to  see  that  young  man 
attain  a  higher  rank  than  any  one  you  ever  saw  upon  the  circuit." 
It  is  true  he  is  not  higher  than  Leblanc,  who  was  also  a  puisne  judge, 
but  Leblanc  was  never  Solicitor-General ;  nor,  probably,  is  Rolfe  yet 
at  the  end  of  his  career.  One  day,  when  some  one  remarked,  "  Chris- 
tianity is  part  and  parcel  of  the  law  of  the  land,"  Rolfe  said  to  me, 
"  Were  you  ever  employed  to  draw  an  indictment  against  a  man  for 
not  loving  his  neighbour  as  himself  1 " 

1  Rolfe  is,  by  universal  repute,  if  not  the  very  best,  at  least  one  of 
the  best  judges  on  the  Bench.  He  is  one  of  the  few  with  whom  I 
have  kept  up  an  acquaintance.' l 

Of  course,  these  stories  came  over  and  over  again.  It  is 
the  excellence  of  a  reminiscent  to  have  a  few  good  stories,  and 
his  misfortune  that  people  will  remember  what  he  says.  In 
Mr.  Robinson's  case  an  unskilled  person  could  often  see  the 
anecdote  somewhere  impending,  and  there  was  often  much 
interest  in  trying  whether  you  could  ward  it  off  or  not.  There 
was  one  great  misfortune  which  had  happened  to  his  guests, 
though  he  used  to  tell  it  as  one  of  the  best  things  that  had 
ever  happened  to  himself.  He  had  picked  up  a  certain  bust  of 
Wieland  by  Schadow,  which  it  appears  had  been  lost,  and  in 
the  finding  of  which  Goethe,  even  Goethe,  rejoiced.  After  a 
very  long  interval  I  still  shudder  to  think  how  often  I  have 
heard  that  story ;  it  was  one  which  no  skill  or  care  could  long 
avert,  for  the  thing  stood  opposite  our  host's  chair,  and  the 
sight  of  it  was  sure  to  recall  him.  Among  the  ungrateful 
students  to  whom  he  was  so  kind,  the  first  question  always 
asked  of  anyone  who  had  breakfasted  at  his  house  was,  6  Did 
you  undergo  the  bust  ? ' 

A  reader  of  these  memoirs  would  naturally  and  justly  think 

1  '  Since  writing  the  above,  Baron  Eolfe  has  verified  my  prediction  more 
strikingly  by  being  created  a  peer,  by  the  title  of  Lord  Cranworth,  and  ap- 
pointed a  Vice-Chancellor.  Soon  after  his  appointment,  he  called  on  me,  and  I 
dined  with  him.  I  related  to  Lady  Cranworth  the  anecdote  given  above,  of  my 
conversation  with  my  brother,  with  which  she  was  evidently  pleased.  Lady 
Cranworth  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Carr,  Solicitor  to  the  Excise,  whom  I 
formerly  used  to  visit,  and  ought  soon  to  find  some  mention  of  in  my  journals. 
Lord  Granworth  continues  to  enjoy  universal  respect. — H.  C.  K.  1851.' 


332  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 

that  the  great  interest  of  Mr.  Kobinson's  conversation  was  the 
strength  of  the  past  memory ;  but  quite  as  amusing  or  more  so 
was  the  present  weakness.  He  never  could  remember  names, 
and  was  very  ingenious  in  his  devices  to  elude  the  defect.  There 
is  a  story  in  these  Memoirs : — 

1 1  was  engaged  to  dine  with  Mr.  Wansey  at  Walthamstow.  "When 
I  arrived  there  I  was  in  the  greatest  distress,  through  having  for- 
gotten his  name.  And  it  was  not  till  after  half  an  hour's  worry  that 
I  recollected  he  was  a  Unitarian,  which  would  answer  as  well ;  for  I 
instantly  proceeded  to  Mr.  Cogan's.  Having  been  shown  into  a  room, 
young  Mr.  Cogan  came — "  Your  commands,  sir  ?  "-— "  Mr,  Cogan,  I 
have  taken  the  liberty  to  call  on  you  in  order  to  know  where  I  am 
to  dine  to-day."  He  smiled.  I  went  on  :  "  The  truth  is,  I  have  ac- 
cepted an  invitation  to  dine  with  a  gentleman,  a  recent  acquaintance, 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten ;  but  I  am  sure  you  can  tell  me,  for 
he  is  a  Unitarian,  and  the  Unitarians  are  very  few  here." ' 

And  at  his  breakfasts  it  was  always  the  same ;  he  was  always  in 
difficulty  as  to  some  person's  name  or  other,  and  he  had  regular 
descriptions  which  recurred,  like  Homeric  epithets,  and  which 
he  expected  you  to  apply  to  the  individual.  Thus  poor  Clough 
always  appeared — 'That  admirable  and  accomplished  man. 
You  know  whom  I  mean.  The  one  who  never  says  anything.' 
And  of  another  living  poet  he  used  to  say :  *  Probably  the  most 
able,  and  certainly  the  most  consequential,  of  all  the  young 
persons  I  know.  You  know  which  it  is.  The  one  with  whom 
I  could  never  presume  to  be  intimate.  The  one  whose  father 
I  knew  so  many  years.'  And  another  particular  friend  of  my 
own  always  occurred  as — t  That  great  friend  of  yours  that  has 
been  in  Germany — that  most  accomplished  and  interesting  per- 
son— that  most  able  and  excellent  young  man.  Sometimes  I 
like  him,  and  sometimes  I  hate  him.  You,'  turning  to  me, 
;  know  whom  I  mean,  you  villain  ! '  And  certainly  I  did  know  ; 
for  I  had  heard  the  same  adjectives,  and  been  referred  to  in  the 
same  manner  very  many  times. 

Of  course,  a  main  part  of  Mr.  Robinson's  conversation  was 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  333 


on  literary  subjects ;  but  of  this,  except  when  it  related  to  per- 
sons whom  he  had  known,  or  sonnets  to  'the  conception  of 
which  he  was  privy,'  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  just  to  speak 
very  highly.  He  spoke  sensibly  and  clearly — he  could  not  on 
any  subject  speak  otherwise ;  but  the  critical  faculty  is  as  spe- 
cial and  as  peculiar  almost  as  the  poetical ;  and  Mr.  Robinson 
in  serious  moments  was  quite  aware  of  it,  and  he  used  to  deny 
that  he  had  the  former  faculty  more  than  the  latter.  He  used 
to  read  much  of  Wordsworth  to  me ;  but  I  doubt — though 
many  of  his  friends  will  think  I  am  a  great  heretic — I  doubt 
if  he  read  the  best  poems ;  and  even  those  he  did  read  (and  he 
read  very  well)  rather  suffered  from  coming  in  the  middle  of 
a  meal,  and  at  a  time  when  you  wanted  to  laugh,  and  not  to 
meditate.  Wordsworth  was  a  solitary  man,  and  it  is  only  in 
solitude  that  his  best  poems,  or  indeed  any  of  his  characteristic 
poems,  can  be  truly  felt  or  really  apprehended.  There  are 
some  at  which  I  never  look,  even  now,  without  thinking  of  the 
wonderful  and  dreary  faces  which  Clough  used  to  make  while 
Mr.  Robinson  was  reading  them.  To  Clough  certain  of  Words- 
worth's poems  were  part  of  his  inner  being,  and  he  suffered  at 
hearing  them  obtruded  at  meal  times,  just  as  a  High  Church- 
man would  suffer  at  hearing  the  collects  of  the  Church.  Indeed, 
these  poems  were  among  the  collects  of  dough's  Church. 

Still  less  do  I  believe  that  there  is  any  special  value  in  the 
expositions  of  German  philosophy  in  these  volumes,  or  that  there 
was  any  in  those  which  Mr.  Robinson  used  to  give  on  such  mat- 
ters in  conversation.  They  are  clear,  no  doubt,  and  accurate ; 
but  they  are  not  the  expositions  of  a  born  metaphysician.  He 
speaks  in  these  Memoirs  of  his  having  a  difficulty  in  concentra- 
ting his  '  attention  on  works  of  speculation.'  And  such  books  as 
Kant  can  only  be  really  mastered,  can  perhaps  only  be  usefully 
studied,  by  those  who  have  an  unusual  facility  in  concentrating 
their  mind  on  impalpable  abstractions,  and  an  uncommon  in- 
clination to  do  so.  Mr.  Eobinson  had  neither ;  and  I  think  the 
critical  philosophy  had  really  very  little  effect  on  him,  and  had, 


334  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 

during  the  busy  years  which  had  elapsed  since  he  studied  it, 
very  nearly  run  off  him.  There  was  something  very  curious  in 
the  sudden  way  that  anything  mystical  would  stop  in  him.  At 
the  end  of  a  Sunday  breakfast,  after  inflicting  on  you  much 
which  was  transcendental  in  Wordsworth  or  Groethe,  he  would 
say,  as  we  left  him,  with  an  air  of  relish,  '  Now  I  am  going  to 
run  down  to  Essex  Street  to  hear  Madge.  I  shall  not  be  in 
time  for  the  prayers ;  but  I  do  not  so  much  care  about  that ; 
what  I  do  like  is  the  sermon  ;  it  is  so  clear.'  Mr.  Madge  was  a 
Unitarian  of  the  old  school,  with  as  little  mystical  and  tran- 
scendental in  his  nature  as  any  one  who  ever  lived.  There  was 
a  living  piquancy  in  the  friend  of  G-oethe — the  man  who  would 
explain  to  you  his  writings — being  also  the  admirer  of  4  Madge ; ' 
it  was  like  a  proser,  lengthily  eulogising  Kant  to  you,  and  then 
saying,  4  Ah  !  but  I  do  love  Condillac ;  he  is  so  clear.' 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  used  to  hold — I  was  reading  law 
at  the  time,  and  so  had  some  interest  in  the  matter — that  Mr. 
Kobinson  much  underrated  his  legal  knowledge,  and  his  practical 
power  as  a  lawyer.  What  he  used  to  say  was,  c  I  never  knew 
any  law,  sir,  but  I  knew  the  practice.  ...  I  left  the  bar 
because  I  feared  my  incompetence  might  be  discovered.  I  was 
a  tolerable  junior ;  but  I  was  rising  to  be  a  leader,  which  I  was 
unfit  to  be  ;  and  so  I  retired,  not  to  disgrace  myself  by  some 
fearful  mistake.'  In  these  Memoirs  he  says  that  he  retired 
when  he  had  made  the  sum  of  money  which  he  thought  enough 
for  a  bachelor  with  few  wants  and  not  a  single  expensive  taste. 
The  simplicity  of  his  tastes  is  certain ;  very  few  Englishmen 
indeed  could  live  with  so  little  show  or  pretence.  But  the  idea 
of  his  gross  incompetence  is  absurd.  No  one  who  was  incom- 
petent ever  said  so.  There  are,  I  am  sure,  plenty  of  substantial 
and  well-satisfied  men  at  the  English  bar  who  do  not  know 
nearly  as  much  law  as  Mr.  Kobinson  knew,  and  who  have  not 
a  tithe  of  his  sagacity,  but  who  believe  in  themselves  and  in 
whom  their  clients  believe.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Eobinson 
had  many  great  qualifications  for  success  at  the  bar.  He  was  a 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  335 

really  good  speaker :  when  over  seventy  I  have  heard  him  make 
a  speech  that  good  speakers  in  their  full  vigour  would  be  glad 
to  make.     He  had  a  good  deal  of  the  actor  in  his  nature,  which 
is  thought,  and  I  fancy  justly  thought,  to  be  necessary  to  the 
success  of  all  great  advocates,  and  perhaps  of  all  great  orators. 
He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  petty  technicalities  which  in- 
tellectual men  in  middle  life  in  general  cannot  learn,  for  he  had 
passed  some  years  in  an  attorney's  office.      Above  all,  he  was  a 
very  thinking  man,  and  had  an  *  idea  of  business ' — that  in- 
scrutable something  which  at  once  and  altogether  distinguishes 
the  man  who  is  safe  in  the  affairs  of  life  from  those  who  are 
unsafe.     I  do  not  suppose  he  knew  much  black-letter  law ;  but 
there  are  plenty  of  judges  on  the  bench  who,  unless  they  are 
much   belied,  also    know   very  little — perhaps  none.     And  a 
man  who  can  intelligently  read  Kant,  like  Mr.  Eobinson,  need 
not  fear  the  book-work  of  English  law.      A  very  little  serious 
study  would  have  taught  him  law  enough  to  lead  the  Norfolk 
circuit.     He  really  had  a  sound,  moderate,  money-making  busi- 
ness, and  only  a  little  pains  was  wanted  to  give  him  more. 

The  real  reason  why  he  did  not  take  the  trouble,  I  fancy,  was 
that,  being  a  bachelor,  he  was  a  kind  of  amateur  in  life,  and 
did  not  really  care.  He  could  not  spend  what  he  had  on  him- 
self, and  used  to  give  away  largely,  though  in  private.  And 
even  more,  as  with  most  men  who  have  not  thoroughly  worked 
when  young,  daily,  regular  industry  was  exceedingly  trying  to 
him.  No  man  could  be  less  idle  ;  far  from  it,  he  was  always  doing 
something ;  but  then  he  was  doing  what  he  chose.  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  one  of  the  best  workers  of  his  time,  used  always  to  say 
that c  he  had  no  temptation  to  be  idle,  but  the  greatest  tempta- 
tion, when  one  thing  was  wanted  of  him,  to  go  and  do  some- 
thing else.'  Perhaps  the  only  persons  who,  not  being  forced  by 
mere  necessity,  really  conquer  this  temptation,  are  those  who 
were  early  broken  to  the  yoke,  and  are  fixed  to  the  furrow  by 
habit.  Mr.  Robinson  loitered  in  Grermany,  so  he  was  not  one 
of  these. 


336  Henry  Crabb  Robinson. 

I  am  not  regretting  this.  It  would  be  a  base  idolatry  of 
practical  life,  to  require  every  man  to  succeed  in  it  as  far  as  he 
could,  and  to  devote  to  it  all  his  mind.  The  world  certainly  does 
not  need  it ;  it  pays  well,  and  it  will  never  lack  good  servants. 
There  will  always  be  enough  of  sound,  strong  men  to  be  working 
barristers  and  judges,  let  who  will  object  to  become  so.  But  I 
own  I  think  a  man  ought  to  be  able  to  be  a  c  Philistine  '  if 
he  chooses ;  there  is  a  sickly  incompleteness  about  people  too 
fine  for  the  world,  and  too  nice  to  work  their  way  in  it.  And 
when  a  man  like  Mr.  Kobinson  had  a  real  sagacity  for  affairs, 
it  is  for  those  who  respect  his  memory  to  see  that  his  reputa- 
tion does  not  suffer  from  his  modesty,  and  that  his  habitual 
self-depreciations — which,  indeed,  extended  to  his  powers  of 
writing  as  well  as  to  those  of  acting — are  not  taken  to  be 
exactly  true. 

In  fact,  Mr.  Kobinson  was  usefully  occupied  in  University 
College  business  and  University  Hall  business,  and  other  such 
things.  But  there  is  no  special  need  to  write  on  them  in  con- 
nection with  his  name ;  and  it  would  need  a  good  deal  of  writing 
to  make  them  intelligible  to  those  who  do  not  know  them  now. 
And  the  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent  in  society  where  his 
influence  was  always  manly  and  vigorous.  I  do  not  mean  that 
he  was  universally  popular ;  it  would  be  defacing  his  likeness  to 
say  so.  4I  am  a  man,'  he  once  told  me,  'to  whom  a  great 
number  of  persons  entertain  the  very  strongest  objection.'  In- 
deed he  had  some  subjects  on  which  he  could  hardly  bear  oppo- 
sition. Twice  he  nearly  quarrelled  with  me :  once  for  writing 
in  favour  of  Louis  Napoleon,  which,  as  he  had  caught  in  Ger- 
many a  thorough  antipathy  to  the  first  Napoleon,  seemed  to 
him  quite  wicked ;  and  next  for  my  urging  that  Hazlitt  was  a 
much  greater  writer  than  Charles  Lamb — a  harmless  opinion 
which  I  still  hold,  but  which  Mr.  Eobinson  met  with  this  out- 
burst :  c  You,  sir,  you  prefer  the  works  of  that  scoundrel,  that 
odious,  that  malignant  writer,  to  the  exquisite  essays  of  that 
angelic  creature  I '  I  protested  that  there  was  no  evidence  that 


Henry  Crabb  Robinson.  337 

angels  could  write  particularly  well ;  but  it  was  in  vain,  and  it 
was  some  time  before  he  forgave  me.  Some  persons  who  casually 
encountered  peculiarities  like  these,  did  not  always  understand 
them.  In  his  last  years,  too,  augmenting  infirmities  almost 
disqualified  Mr.  Eobinson  for  general  society,  and  quite  dis- 
abled him  from  showing  his  old  abilities  in  it.  Indeed,  I  think 
that  these  Memoirs  will  give  almost  a  new  idea  of  his  power  to 
many  young  men  who  had  only  seen  him  casually,  and  at  times 
of  feebleness.  After  ninety  it  is  not  easy  to  make  new  friends. 
And,  in  any  case,  this  book  will  always  have  a  great  charm  for 
those  who  knew  Mr.  Eobinson  well  when  they  were  themselves 
young,  because  it  will  keep  alive  for  them  the  image  of  his 
buoyant  sagacity,  and  his  wise  and  careless  kindness. 


VOL.    II. 


338        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning , 


WORDSWORTH,  TENNYSON,  AND  BROWNING;  OR, 
PURE,  ORNATE,  AND  GROTESQUE  ART  IN 
ENGLISH  POETRY.1 

(1864.) 

WE  couple  these  two  books  together,  not  because  of  their  like- 
ness, for  they  are  as  dissimilar  as  books  can  be ;  nor  on  account 
of  the  eminence  of  their  authors,  for  in  general  two  great 
authors  are  too  much  for  one  essay;  but  because  they  are  the 
best  possible  illustration  of  something  we  have  to  say  upon 
poetical  art — because  they  may  give  to  it  life  and  freshness. 
The  accident  of  contemporaneous  publication  has  here  brought 
together  two  books  very  characteristic  of  modern  art,  and  we 
want  to  show  how  they  are  characteristic. 

Neither  English  poetry  nor  English  criticism  have  ever 
recovered  the  eruption  which  they  both  made  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  into  the  fashionable  world.  The  poems  of  Lord 
Byron  were  received  with  an  avidity  that  resembles  our  present 
avidity  for  sensation  novels,  and  were  read  by  a  class  which  at 
present  reads  little  but  such  novels.  Old  men  who  remember 
those  days  may  be  heard  to  say,  '  We  hear  nothing  of  poetry 
now-a-days;  it  seems  quite  down.'  And  'down'  it  certainly 
is,  if  for  poetry  it  be  a  descent  to  be  no  longer  the  favourite 
excitement  of  the  more  frivolous  part  of  the  '  upper '  world. 
That  stimulating  poetry  is  now  little  read.  A  stray  schoolboy 
may  still  be  detected  in  a  wild  admiration  for  the  Giaour  or 

1  Enoch  Arden,  $c.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.C.L.,  Poet  Laureate.  Dra- 
matis Persona.  By  Kobert  Browning. 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  339 

the  Corsair  (and  it  is  suitable  to  his  age,  and  he  should  not  be 
reproached  for  it),  but  the  real  posterity — the  quiet  students 
of  a  past  literature — never  read  them  or  think  of  them.  A  line 
or  two  linger  on  the  memory ;  a  few  telling  strokes  of  occasional 
and  felicitous  energy  are  quoted,  but  this  is  all.  As  wholes, 
these  exaggerated  stories  were  worthless ;  they  taught  nothing, 
and  therefore  they  are  forgotten.  If  now-a-days  a  dismal  poet 
were,  like  Byron,  to  lament  the  fact  of  his  birth,  and  to  hint 
that  he  was  too  good  for  the  world,  the  Saturday  Reviewers 
would  say  that  '  they  doubted  if  he  was  too  good  ;  that  a  sulky 
poet  was  a  questionable  addition  to  a  tolerable  world ;  that 
he  need  not  have  been  born,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned.' 
Doubtless,  there  is  much  in  Byron  besides  his  dismal  exaggera- 
tion, but  it  was  that  exaggeration  which  made  '  the  sensation ' 
which  gave  him  a  wild  moment  of  dangerous  fame.  As  so  often 
happens,  the  cause  of  his  momentary  fashion  is  the  cause  also  of 
his  lasting  oblivion.  Moore's  former  reputation  was  less  ex- 
cessive, yet  it  has  not  been  more  permanent.  The  prettiness  of 
a  few  songs  preserves  the  memory  of  his  name,  but  as  a  poet  to 
read  he  is  forgotten.  There  is  nothing  to  read  in  him;  no 
exquisite  thought,  no  sublime  feeling,  no  consummate  descrip- 
tion of  true  character.  Almost  the  sole  result  of  the  poetry 
of  that  time  is  the  harm  which  it  has  done.  It  degraded  for 
a  time  the  whole  character  of  the  art.  It  said  by  practice, 
by  a  most  efficient  and  successful  practice,  that  it  was  the  aim, 
the  duty  of  poets,  to  catch  the  attention  of  the  passing,  the 
fashionable,  the  busy  world.  If  a  poem  'fell  dead,'  it  was 
nothing ;  it  was  composed  to  please  the  '  London  '  of  the  year, 
and  if  that  London  did  not  like  it,  why,  it  had  failed.  It  fixed 
upon  the  minds  of  a  whole  generation,  it  engraved  in  popular 
memory  and  tradition,  a  vague  conviction  that  poetry  is  but 
one  of  the  many  amusements  for  the  enjoying  classes,  for  the 
lighter  hours  of  all  classes.  The  mere  notion,  the  bare  idea, 
that  poetry  is  a  deep  thing,  a  teaching  thing,  the  most  surely 

z  2 


340        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

and  wisely  elevating  of  human  things,  is  even  now  to  the  coarse 
public  mind  nearly  unknown. 

As  was  the  fate  of  poetry,  so  inevitably  was  that  of  criticism. 
The  science  that  expounds  which  poetry  is  good  and  which  is 
bad,  is  dependent  for  its  popular  reputation  on  the  popular 
estimate  of  poetry  itself.  The  critics  of  that  day  had  a  day, 
which  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  some  since ;  they  professed 
to  tell  the  fashionable  world  in  what  books  it  would  find  new 
pleasure,  and  therefore  they  were  read  by  the  fashionable  world. 
Byron  counted  the  critic  and  poet  equal.  The  Edinburgh 
Review  penetrated  among  the  young,  and  into  places  of  female 
resort  where  it  does  not  go  now.  As  people  ask, '  Have  you  read 
Henry  Dunbar  ?  and  what  do  you  think  of  it  ? '  so  they  then 
asked,  '  Have  you  read  the  Giaour  ?  and  what  do  you  think  of 
it  ? '  Lord  Jeffrey,  a  shrewd  judge  of  the  world,  employed 
himself  in  telling  it  what  to  think ;  not  so  much  what  it  ought 
to  think,  as  what  at  bottom  it  did  think,  and  so  by  dexterous 
sympathy  with  current  society  he  gained  contemporary  fame 
and  power.  Such  fame  no  critic  must  hope  for  now.  His 
articles  will  not  penetrate  where  the  poems  themselves  do  not 
penetrate.  When  poetry  was  noisy,  criticism  was  loud;  now 
poetry  is  a  still  small  voice,  and  criticism  must  be  smaller  and 
stiller.  As  the  function  of  such  criticism  was  limited,  so  was  its 
subject.  For  the  great  and  (as  time  now  proves)  the  permanent 
part  of  the  poetry  of  his  time — for  Shelley  and  for  Wordsworth 
— Lord  Jeffrey  had  but  one  word.  He  said l  '  It  won't  do.' 
And  it  will  not  do  to  amuse  a  drawing-room. 

The  doctrine  that  poetry  is  a  light  amusement  for  idle 
hours,  a  metrical  species  of  sensational  novel,  did  not  indeed 
become  popular  without  gainsay ers.  Thirty  years  ago,  Mr. 
Carlyle  most  rudely  contradicted  it.  But  perhaps  this  is  about 
all  that  he  has  done.  He  has  denied,  but  he  has  not  disproved  ^ 
He  has  contradicted  the  floating  paganism,  but  he  has  not 

1  The  first  words   in  Lord  Jeffrey's   celebrated  review  of  the  Excursion 
were, '  This  will  never  do.' 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   341 

founded  the  deep  religion.  All  about  and  around  us  a  faith  in 
poetry  struggles  to  be  extricated,  but  it  is  not  extricated. 
Some  day,  at  the  touch  of  the  true  word,  the  whole  confusion 
will  by  magic  cease;  the  broken  and  shapeless  notions  will 
cohere  and  crystallize  into  a  bright  and  true  theory.  But  this 
cannot  be  yet. 

But  though  no  complete  theory  of  the  poetic  art  as  yet  be 
possible  for  us,  though  perhaps  only  our  children's  children  will 
be  able  to  speak  on  this  subject  with  the  assured  confidence 
which  belongs  to  accepted  truth,  yet  something  of  some  cer- 
tainty may  be  stated  on  the  easier  elements,  and  something 
that  will  throw  light  on  these  two  new  books.  But  it  will  be 
necessary  to  assign  reasons,  and  the  assigning  of  reasons  is 
a  dry  task.  Years  ago,  when  criticism  only  tried  to  show  how 
poetry  could  be  made  a  good  amusement,  it  was  not  impossible 
that  criticism  itself  should  be  amusing.  But  now  it  must  at 
least  be  serious,  for  we  believe  that  poetry  is  a  serious  and  a 
deep  thing. 

There  should  be  a  word  in  the  language  of  literary  art  to 
express  what  the  word  '  picturesque  '  expresses  for  the  fine  arts. 
Picturesque  means  fit  to  be  put  into  a  picture ;  we  want  a 
word  literatesque,  '  fit  to  be  put  into  a  book.'  An  artist  goes 
through  a  hundred  different  country  scenes,  rich  with  beauties, 
charms  and  merits,  but  he  does  not  paint  any  of  them.  He 
leaves  them  alone  ;  he  idles  on  till  he  finds  the  hundred-and- 
first — a  scene  which  many  observers  would  not  think  much  of, 
but  which  he  knows  by  virtue  of  his  art  will  look  well  on  can- 
vas, and  this  he  paints  and  preserves.  Susceptible  observers, 
Chough  not  artists,  feel  this  quality  too  ;  they  say  of  a  scene, 
6  How  picturesque ! '  meaning  by  this  a  quality  distinct  from 
that  of  beauty,  or  sublimity,  or  grandeur — meaning  to  speak 
not  only  of  the  scene  as  it  is  in  itself,  but  also  of  its  fitness 
for  imitation  by  art  ;  meaning  not  only  that  it  is  good,  but 
that  its  goodness  is  such  as  ought  to  be  transferred  to  paper  ; 
meaning  not  simply  that  it  fascinates,  but  also  that  its  fasci- 


34 2        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

nation  is  such  as  ought  to  be  copied  by  man.  A  fine  and  in- 
sensible instinct  has  put  language  to  this  subtle  use;  it  ex- 
presses an  idea  without  which  fine  art  criticism  could  not  go  on, 
and  it  is  very  natural  that  the  language  of  pictorial  art  should 
be  better  supplied  with  words  than  that  of  literary  criticism, 
for  the  eye  was  used  before  the  mind,  and  language  embodies 
primitive  sensuous  ideas,  long  ere  it  expresses,  or  need  express, 
abstract  and  literary  ones. 

The  reason  why  a  landscape  is  c  picturesque '  is  often  said  to 
be,  that  such  landscape  represents  an  '  idea.'  But  this  ex- 
planation, though,  in  the  minds  of  some  who  use  it,  it  is  near 
akin  to  the  truth,  fails  to  explain  that  truth  to  those  who  did 
not  know  it  before ;  the  word  '  idea  '  is  so  often  used  in  these 
subjects  when  people  do  not  know  anything  else  to  say ;  it 
represents  so  often  a  kind  of  intellectual  insolvency,  when 
philosophers  are  at  their  wits'  end,  that  shrewd  people  will 
never  readily  on  any  occasion  give  it  credit  for  meaning  any- 
thing. A  wise  explainer  must,  therefore,  look  out  for  other 
words  to  convey  what  he  has  to  say.  Landscapes,  like  every- 
thing else  in  nature,  divide  themselves  as  we  look  at  them  into 
a  sort  of  rude  classification.  We  go  down  a  river,  for  example, 
and  we  see  a  hundred  landscapes  on  both  sides  of  it,  resem- 
bling one  another  in  much,  yet  differing  in  something ;  with 
trees  here,  and  a  farmhouse  there,  and  shadows  on  one  side, 
and  a  deep  pool  far  on,  a  collection  of  circumstances  most 
familiar  in  themselves,  but  making  a  perpetual  novelty  by  the 
magic  of  their  various  combinations.  We  travel  so  for  miles 
and  hours,  and  then  we  come  to  a  scene  which  also  has  these 
various  circumstances  and  adjuncts,  but  which  combines  them 
best,  which  makes  the  best  whole  of  them,  which  shows  them 
in  their  best  proportion  at  a  single  glance  before  the  eye.  Then 
we  say,  '  This  is  the  place  to  paint  the  river ;  this  is  the  pic- 
turesque point ! '  Or,  if  not  artists  or  critics  of  art,  we  feel 
without  analysis  or  examination  that  somehow  this  bend  or 
sweep  of  the  river  shall  in  future  be  the  river  to  us :  that  it  is 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   343 

the  image  of  it  which  we  will  retain  in  our  mind's  eye,  by  which 
we  will  remember  it,  which  we  will  call  up  when  we  want  to 
describe  or  think  of  it.  Some  fine  countries,  some  beautiful 
rivers,  have  not  this  picturesque  quality :  they  give  us  elements 
of  beauty,  but  they  do  not  combine  them  together ;  we  go  on 
for  a  time  delighted,  but  after  a  time  somehow  we  get  wearied  ; 
we  feel  that  we  are  taking  in  nothing  and  learning  nothing  ;  we 
get  no  collected  image  before  our  mind ;  we  see  the  accidents' 
and  circumstances  of  that  sort  of  scenery,  but  the  summary 
scene  we  do  not  see  ;  we  find  disjecta  membra,  but  no  form ; 
various  and  many  and  faulty  approximations  are  displayed 
in  succession ;  but  the  absolute  perfection  in  that  country's 
or  river's  scenery — its  type — is  withheld.  We  go  away  from 
such  places  in  part  delighted,  but  in  part  baffled  ;  we  have  been 
puzzled  by  pretty  things  ;  we  have  beheld  a  hundred  different 
inconsistent  specimens  of  the  same  sort  of  beauty;  but  the 
rememberable  idea,  the  full  development,  the  characteristic 
individuality  of  it,  we  have  not  seen. 

We  find  the  same  sort  of  quality  in  all  parts  of  painting. 
We  see  a  portrait  of  a  person  we  know,  and  we  say,  '  It  is  like 
— yes,  like,  of  course,  but  it  is  not  the  man ; '  we  feel  it  could 
not  be  anyone  else,  but  still,  somehow  it  fails  to  bring  home 
to  us  the  individual  as  we  know  him  to  be.  He  is  not  there. 
An  accumulation  of  features  like  his  are  painted,  but  his 
essence  is  not  painted ;  an  approximation  more  or  less  excel- 
lent is  given,  but  the  characteristic  expression,  the  typical  form, 
of  the  man  is  withheld. 

Literature — the  painting  of  words — has  the  same  quality, 
but  wants  the  analogous  word.  The  word  '  literatesque '  would 
mean,  if  we  possessed  it,  that  perfect  combination  in  the 
subject-matter  of  literature,  which  suits  the  art  of  literature. 
We  often  meet  people,  and  say  of  them,  sometimes  meaning 
well  and  sometimes  ill,  *  How  well  so-and-so  would  do  in  a 
book  ! '  Such  people  are  by  no  means  the  best  people ;  but  they 
are  the  most  effective  people — the  most  rememberable  people. 


344        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

Frequently,  when  we  first  know  them,  we  like  them  because 
they  explain  to  us  so  much  of  our  experience ;  we  have  known 
many  people  c  like  that,'  in  one  way  or  another,  but  we  did  not 
seem  to  understand  them ;  they  were  nothing  to  us,  for  their 
traits  were  indistinct ;  we  forgot  them,  for  they  hitched  on  to 
nothing,  and  we  could  not  classify  them.  But  when  we  see  the 
type  of  the  genus,  at  once  we  seem  to  comprehend  its  charac- 
ter ;  the  inferior  specimens  are  explained  by  the  perfect  em- 
bodiment ;  the  approximations  are  definable  when  we  know  the 
ideal  to  which  they  draw  near.  There  are  an  infinite  number 
of  classes  of  human  beings,  but  in  each  of  these  classes  there 
is  a  distinctive  type  which,  if  we  could  expand  it  in  words, 
would  define  the  class.  We  cannot  expand  it  in  formal  terms 
any  more  than  a  landscape,  or  a  species  of  landscape ;  but  we 
have  an  art,  an  art  of  words,  which  can  draw  it.  Travellers 
and  others  often  bring  home,  in  addition  to  their  long  journals 
— which,  though  so  living  to  them,  are  so  dead,  so  inanimate, 
so  undescriptive  to  all  else — a  pen-and-ink  sketch,  rudely  done 
very  likely,  but  which,  perhaps,  even  the  more  for  the  blots  and 
strokes,  gives  a  distinct  notion,  an  emphatic  image,  to  all  who 
see  it.  We  say  at  once,  now  we  know  the  sort  of  thing.  The 
sketch  has  hit  the  mind.  True  literature  does  the  same.  It 
describes  sorts,  varieties,  and  permutations,  by  delineating  the 
type  of  each  sort,  the  ideal  of  each  variety,  the  central,  the 
marking  trait  of  each  permutation. 

On  this  account,  the  greatest  artists  of  the  world  have  ever 
shown  an  enthusiasm  for  reality.  To  care  for  notions  and 
abstractions;  to  philosophise;  to  reason  out  conclusions;  to 
care  for  schemes  of  thought,  are  signs  in  the  artistic  mind  of 
secondary  excellence.  A  Schiller,  a  Euripides,  a  Ben  Jonson, 
cares  for  ideas — for  the  parings  of  the  intellect,  and  the  distil- 
lation of  the  mind ;  a  Shakespeare,  a  Homer,  a  Goethe,  finds 
his  mental  occupation,  the  true  home  of  his  natural  thoughts, 
in  the  real  world — '  which  is  the  world  of  all  of  us  ' — where  the 
face  of  nature,  the  moving  masses  of  men  and  women,  are 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   345 

ever  changing,  ever  multiplying,  ever  mixing  one  with  the 
other.  The  reason  is  plain — the  business  of  the  poet,  of  the 
artist,  i.s  with  types  \  and  those  types  are  mirrored  in  reality. 
As  p  painter  must  not  only  have  a  hand  to  execute,  but  an 
eye  to  distinguish — as  he  must  go  here  and  there  through  the 
real  world  to  catch  the  picturesque  man,  the  picturesque  scene, 
whicL1  is  to  live  on  his  canvas — so  the  poet  must  find  in  that 
reality,  the  iiteratesque  man,  the  literatesque  scene  which 
nature  intends  for  him,  and  which  will  live  in  his  page.  •  Even 
in  reality  he  will  not  find  this  type  complete,  or  the  charac- 
teristics perfect ;  but  there  he  will  find,  at  least,  something, 
some  hint,  some  intimation,  some  suggestion ;  whereas,  in 
the  stagnant  home  of  his  own  thoughts  he  will  find  nothing 
pure,  nothing  as  it  is,  nothing  which  does  not  bear  his  own 
mark,  which  is  not  somehow  altered  by  a  mixture  with 
himself. 

The  first  conversation  of  Groethe  and  Schiller  illustrates  this 
conception  of  the  poet's  art.  Groethe  was  at  that  time  pre- 
judiced against  Schiller,  we  must  remember,  partly  from  what 
he  considered  the  outrages  of  the  Robbers,  partly  because  of 
the  philosophy  of  Kant.  Schiller's  '  Essay  on  Grace  and  Dig- 
nity,' he  tells  us — 

'  Was  yet  less  of  a  kind  to  reconcile  me.  The  philosophy  of  Kant, 
which  exalts  the  dignity  of  mind  so  highly,  while  appearing  to  re- 
strict it,  Schiller  had  joyfully  embraced  :  it  unfolded  the  extraordinary 
qualities  which  Nature  had  implanted  in  him  ;  and  in  the  lively  feel- 
ing of  freedom  and  self-direction,  he  showed  himself  unthankful  to 
the  Great  Mother,  who  surely  had  not  acted  like  a  step-dame  towards 
him.  Instead  of  viewing  her  as  self -subsisting,  as  producing  with  a 
living  force,  and  according  to  appointed  laws,  alike  the  highest  and 
the  lowest  of  her  works,  he  took  her  up  under  the  aspect  of  some 
empirical  native  qualities  of  the  human  mind.  Certain  harsh  pas- 
sages T  could  even  directly  apply  to  myself  :  they  exhibited  my  con- 
fession of  faith  in  a  false  light  ;  and  I  felt  that  if  written  without 
particular  attention  to  me,  they  were  still  worse  ;  for,  in  that  case, 
the  vast  chasm  which  lay  between  us  gaped  but  so  much  the  more 
distinctly.' 


346        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

After  a  casual  meeting  at  a  Society  for  Natural  History,  they 
walked  home,  and  Groethe  proceeds : 

*  We  reached  his  house  ;  the  talk  induced  me  to  go  in.  I  then 
expounded  to  him,  with  as  much  vivacity  as  possible,  the  Metamor- 
phosis of  Plants,1  drawing  out  on  paper,  with  many  characteristic 
strokes,  a  symbolic  plant  for  him,  as  I  proceeded.  He  heard  and  saw 
all  this,  with  much  interest  and  distinct  comprehension  ;  but  when  I 
had  done,  he  shook  his  head  and  said  :  "  This  is  no  experiment,  this 
is  an  idea."  I  stopped  with  some  degree  of  irritation  ;  for  the  point 
which  separated  us  was  most  luminously  marked  by  this  expression. 
The  opinions  in  Dignity  and  Grace  again  occurred  to  me ;  the  old 
grudge  was  just  awakening  ;  but  I  smothered  it,  and  merely  said  :  "  I 
was  happy  to  find  that  I  had  got  ideas  without  knowing  it,  nay,  that 
I  saw  them  before  my  eyes." 

'  Schiller  had  much  more  prudence  and  dexterity  of  management 
than  I ;  he  was  also  thinking  of  his  periodical  the  Horen,  about  this 
time,  and  of  course  rather  wished  to  attract  than  repel  me.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  answered  me  like  an  accomplished  Kantite  ;  and  as  my 
stiff-necked  Realism  gave  occasion  to  many  contradictions,  much  bat- 
tling took  place  between  us,  and  at  last  a  truce,  in  which  neither 
party  would  consent  to  yield  the  victory,  but  each  held  himself  in- 
vincible. Positions  like  the  following  grieved  me  to  the  very  soul : 
How  can  there  ever  be  an  experiment,  that  shall  correspond  with  an 
idea  ?  The  specific  quality  of  an  idea  is,  that  no  experiment  can 
reach  it  or  agree  with  it.  Yet  if  he  held  as  an  idea,  the  same  thing 
which  I  looked  upon  as  an  experiment,  there  must  certainly,  I 
thought,  be  some  community  between  us — some  ground  whereon  both 
of  us  might  meet  ! ' 

With  Groethe's  natural  history,  or  with  Kant's  philosophy, 
we  have  here  no  concern  ;  but  we  can  combine  the  expressions 
of  the  two  great  poets  into  a  nearly  complete  description  of 
poetry.  The  '  symbolic  plant '  is  the  type  of  which  we  speak, 
the  ideal  at  which  inferior  specimens  aim,  the  class  character- 
istic in  which  they  all  share,  but  which  none  shows  forth  fully. 

1  *  A  curious  physiologico-botanical  theory  by  Goethe,  which  appears  to  be 
entirely  unknown  in  this  country  :  though  several  eminent  continental  bo- 
tanists have  noticed  it  with  commendation.  It  is  explained  at  considerable 
length,  in  this  same  Morpliologie? 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  347 

Goethe  was  right  in  searching*  for  this  in  reality  and  nature ; 
Schiller  was  right  in  saying  that  it  was  an  'idea,'  a  transcending 
notion  to  which  approximations  could  be  found  in  experience, 
but  only  approximations — which  could  not  be  found  there  itself. 
Goethe,  as  a  poet,  rightly  felt  the  primary  necessity  of  out- 
ward suggestion  and  experience ;  Schiller,  as  a  philosopher, 
rightly  felt  its  imperfection. 

But  in  these  delicate  matters,  it  is  easy  to  misapprehend. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  a  sort  of  poetry  which  is  produced  as  it 
were  out  of  the  author's  mind.  The  description  of  the  poet's 
own  moods  and  feelings  is  a  common  sort  of  poetry — perhaps 
the  commonest  sort.  But  the  peculiarity  of  such  cases  is,  that 
the  poet  does  not  describe  himself  as  himself :  autobiography 
is  not  his  object ;  he  takes  himself  as  a  specimen  of  human 
nature  ;  he  describes,  not  himself,  but  a  distillation  of  himself : 
he  takes  such  of  his  moods  as  are  most  characteristic,  as  most 
typify  certain  moods  of  certain  men,  or  certain  moods  of  all 
men  ;  he  chooses  preponderant  feelings  of  special  sorts  of  men, 
or  occasional  feelings  of  men  of  all  sorts ;  but  with  whatever 
other  difference  and  diversity,  the  essence  is  that  such  self- 
describing  poets  describe  what  is  in  them,  but  not  peculiar  to 
them, — what  is  generic,  not  what  is  special  and  individual. 
Gray's  Elegy  describes  a  mood  which  Gray  felt  more  than  other 
men,  but  which  most  others,  perhaps  all  others,  feel  too.  It 
is  more  popular,  perhaps,  than  any  English  poem,  because  that 
sort  of  feeling  is  the  most  diffused  of  high  feelings,  and  because 
Gray  added  to  a  singular  nicety  of  fancy  an  habitual  prone- 
ness  to  a  contemplative — a  discerning  but  unbiassed — medita- 
tion on  death  and  on  life.  Other  poets  cannot  hope  for  such 
success :  a  subject  so  popular,  so  grave,  so  wise,  and  yet  so 
suitable  to  the  writer's  nature,  is  hardly  to  be  found.  But  the 
same  ideal,  the  same  unautobiographical  character  is  to  be  found 
in  the  writings  of  meaner  men.  Take  sonnets  of  Hartley  Cole- 
ridge, for  example :  — 


348        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 


TO   A   FRIEND. 

'  When  we  were  idlers  with  the  loitering  rills, 
The  need  of  human  love  we  little  noted  : 
Our  love  was  nature  ;  and  the  peace  that  floated 
On  the  white  mist,  and  dwelt  upon  the  hills, 
To  sweet  accord  subdued  our  wayward  wills  : 
One  soul  was  ours,  one  mind,  one  heart  devoted, 
That,  wisely  doating,  ask'd  not  why  it  doated, 
And  ours  the  unknown  joy,  which  knowing  kills. 
But  now  I  find,  how  dear  thou  wert  to  me  ; 
That  man  is  more  than  half  of  nature's  treasure, 
Of  that  fair  Beauty  which  no  eye  can  see, 
Of  that  sweet  music  which  no  ear  can  measure ; 
And  now  the  streams  may  sing  for  others'  pleasure, 
The  hills  sleep  on  in  their  eternity.' 

n. 

TO    THE    SAME. 

'  In  the  great  city  we  are  met  again, 
Where  many  souls  there  are,  that  breathe  and  die, 
Scarce  knowing  more  of  nature's  potency, 
Than  what  they  learn  from  heat,  or  cold,  or  rain, 
The  sad  vicissitude  of  weary  pain  ; — 
For  busy  man  is  lord  of  ear  and  eye, 
And  what  hath  nature,  but  the  vast,  void  sky, 
And  the  thronged  river  toiling  to  the  main  ? 
Oh  !  say  not  so,  for  she  shall  have  her  part 
In  every  smile,  in  every  tear  that  falls, 
And  she  shall  hide  her  in  the  secret  heart, 
Where  love  persuades,  and  sterner  duty  calls  : 
But  worse  it  were  than  death,  or  sorrow's  smart, 
To  live  without  a  friend  within  these  walls.' 

in. 

TO    THE    SAME. 

'  We  parted  on  the  mountains,  as  two  streams 
From  one  clear  spring  pursue  their  several  ways  ; 
And  thy  fleet  course  hath  been  through  many  a  maze 
In  foreign  lands,  where  silvery  Padus  gleams 
To  that  delicious  sky,  whose  glowing  beams 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  349 

Brightened  the  tresses  that  old  Poets  praise  ; 
Where  Petrarch's  patient  love,  and  artful  lays, 
And  Ariosto's  song  of  many  themes, 
Moved  the  soft  air.     But  I,  a  lazy  brook, 
As  close  pent  up  within  my  native  dell, 
Have  crept  along  from  nook  to  shady  nook, 
Where  flow'rets  blow,  and  whispering  Naiads  dwell. 
Yet  now  we  meet,  that  parted  were  so  wide, 
O'er  rough  and  smooth  to  travel  side  by  side.' 

The  contrast  of  instructive  and  enviable  locomotion  with 
refining  but  instructive  meditation  is  not  special  and  peculiar 
to  these  two,  but  general  and  universal.  It  was  set  down  by 
Hartley  Coleridge  because  he  was  the  most  meditative  and  re- 
fining of  men. 

What  sort  of  literatesque  types  are  fit  to  be  described  in 
the  sort  of  literature  called  poetry,  is  a  matter  on  which  much 
might  be  written.  Mr.  Arnold,  some  years  since,  put  forth  a 
theory  that  the  art  of  poetry  could  only  delineate  great  actions. 
But  though,  rightly  interpreted  and  understood — using  the 
word  action  so  as  to  include  high  and  sound  activity  in  contem- 
plation— this  definition  may  suit  the  highest  poetry,  it  certainly 
cannot  be  stretched  to  include  many  inferior  sorts  and  even 
many  good  sorts.  Nobody  in  their  senses  would  describe  Gray's 
Elegy  as  the  delineation  of  a  '  great  action ; '  some  kinds  of 
mental  contemplation  may  be  energetic  enough  to  deserve  this 
name,  but  Gray  would  have  been  frightened  at  the  very  word. 
He  loved  scholarlike  calm  and  quiet  inaction ;  his  very  great- 
ness depended  on  his  not  acting,  on  his  '  wise  passiveness,'  on 
Ms  indulging  the  grave  idleness  which  so  well  appreciates  so 
much  of  human  life.  But  the  best  answer — the  reductio  ad 
absurdum — of  Mr.  Arnold's  doctrine,  is  the  mutilation  which 
it  has  caused  him  to  make  of  his  own  writings.  It  has  forbidden 
him,  he  tells  us,  to  reprint  Empedocles — a  poem  undoubtedly 
containing  defects  and  even  excesses,  but  containing  also  these 
lines : — 


350        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

1  And  yet  what  days  were  those  Parmenides  ! 
When  we  were  young,  when  we  could  number  friends 
In  all  the  Italian  cities  like  ourselves, 
When  with  elated  hearts  we  join'd  your  train, 
Ye  Sun-born  virgins  !  on  the  road  of  Truth. 
Then  we  could  still  enjoy  ;  then  neither  thought 
Nor  outward  things  were  clos'd  and  dead  to  us, 
But  we  receiv'd  the  shock  of  mighty  thoughts 
On  simple  minds  with  a  pure  natural  joy  ; 
And  if  the  sacred  load  oppress'd  our  brain, 
We  had  the  power  to  feel  the  pressure  eas'd, 
The  brow  unbound,  the  thoughts  flow  free  again, 
In  the  delightful  commerce  of  the  world. 
We  had  not  lost  our  balance  then,  nor  grown 
Thought's  slaves,  and  dead  to  every  natural  joy. 
The  smallest  thing  could  give  us  pleasure  then — 
The  sports  of  the  country  people  ; 
A  flute  note  from  the  woods  ; 
Sunset  over  the  sea  : 
Seed-time  and  harvest  ; 
The  reapers  in  the  corn  ; 
The  vinedresser  in  his  vineyard  ; 
The  village-girl  at  her  wheel. 
Fulness  of  life  and  power  of  feeling,  ye 
Are  for  the  happy,  for  the  souls  at  ease, 
Who  dwell  on  a  firm  basis  of  content. 
But  he  who  has  outliv'd  his  prosperous  clays, 
But  he,  whose  youth  fell  on  a  different  world 
From  that  on  which  his  exil'd  age  is  thrown  ; 
Whose  mind  was  fed  on  other  food,  was  train'd 
By  other  rules  than  are  in  vogue  to-day  ; 
Whose  habit  of  thought  is  fix'd,  who  will  not  change, 
But  in  a  world  he  loves  not  must  subsist 
In  ceaseless  opposition,  be  the  guard 
Of  his  own  breast,  fetter'd  to  what  he  guards, 
That  the  world  win  no  mastery  over  him  ; 
Who  has  no  friend,  no  fellow  left,  not  one  ; 
Who  has  no  minute's  breathing  space  allow'd 
To  nurse  his  dwindling  faculty  of  joy  ; — 
Joy  and  the  outward  world  must  die  to  him 
As  they  are  dead  to  me.' 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  351 

What  freak  of  criticism  can  induce  a  man  who  has  written 
such  poetry  as  this,  to  discard  it,  and  say  it  is  not  poetry  ?  Mr. 
Arnold  is  privileged  to  speak  of  his  own  poems,  but  no  other 
critic  could  speak  so  and  not  be  laughed  at. 

We  are  disposed  to  believe  that  no  very  sharp  definition  can 
be   given — at  least  in  the  present  state  of  the  critical  art — 
of  the  boundary  line  between  poetry  and  other  sorts  of  imagina- 
tive delineation.     Between  the  undoubted  dominions  of  the  two 
kinds  there  is  a  debatable  land ;  everybody  is  agreed  that  the 
6  CEdipus  at  Colonus  '  is  poetry  :  everyone  is  agreed  that  the 
wonderful  appearance  of  Mrs.  Veal  is  not  poetry.   But  the  exact 
line  which  separates  grave  novels  in  verse  like  Aylmer's  Field  or 
Enoch  Arden,  from  grave  novels  not  in  verse  like  Silas  Marner 
or  Adam  Bede,  we  own  we  cannot  draw  with  any  confidence. 
Nor,  perhaps,  is  it  very  important ;    whether   a   narrative   is 
thrown  into  verse  or  not,  certainly  depends  in  part  on  the  taste 
of  the  age,  and  in  part  on  its  mechanical  helps.     Verse  is  the 
only  mechanical  help  to  the  memory  in  rude  times,  and  there  is 
little  writing  till  a  cheap  something  is  found  to  write  upon,  and 
a  cheap  something  to  write  with.     Poetry — verse,  at  least — is 
the  literature  of  all  work  in  early  ages ;  it  is  only  later  ages 
which  write  in  what  they  think  a  natural  and  simple  prose. 
There  are  other  casual  influences  in  the  matter  too ;  but  they 
are  not  material  now.     We  need  only  say  here   that   poetry, 
because  it  has  a  more  marked  rhythm  than  prose,  must  be  more 
intense  in  meaning  and  more  concise  in  style  than  prose.   People 
expect  a  '  marked  rhythm  '  to  imply  something  worth  marking ; 
if  it  fails  to  do  so  they  are  disappointed.     They  are  displeased 
at   the  visible  waste  of  a  powerful  instrument ;   they  call   it 
6  doggerel,'  and  rightly  call  it,  for  the  metrical  expression  of  full 
thought  and  eager  feeling — the  burst  of  metre — incident   to 
high  imagination,  should  not  be  wasted  on  petty  matters  which 
prose  does  as  well, — which  it  does  better — which  it  suits  by  its 
very  limpness  and  weakness,  whose   small   changes  it   follows 
more  easily,  and  to  whose  lowest  details  it  can  fully  and  without 


352        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

effort  degrade  itself.  Verse,  too.  should  be  more  concise,  for 
long-continued  rhythm  tends  to  jade  the  mind,  just  as  brief 
rhythm  tends  to  attract  the  attention.  Poetry  should  be  me- 
morable and  emphatic,  intense,  and  soon  over. 

The  great  divisions  of  poetry,  and  of  all  other  literary  art, 
arise  from  the  different  modes  in  which  these  types — these 
characteristic  men,  these  characteristic  feelings — may  be  vari- 
ously described.  There  are  three  principal  modes  vvhich  we 
shall  attempt  to  describe — the  pure,  which  is  sometimes,  but  not 
very  wisely,  called  the  classical ;  the  ornate,  which  is  a]  so  un- 
wisely called  romantic  ;  and  the  grotesque,  which  might  be  called 
the  mediaeval.  We  will  describe  the  nature  of  these  a  little. 
Criticism,  we  know,  must  be  brief — not,  like  poetry,  because  its 
charm  is  too  intense  to  be  sustained — but,  on  the  contrary, 
because  its  interest  is  too  weak  to  be  prolonged ;  but  elementary 
criticism,  if  an  evil,  is  a  necessary  evil ;  a  little  while  spent 
among  the  simple  principles  of  art  is  the  first  condition,  the 
absolute  pre-requisite,  for  surely  apprehending  and  wisely  judg- 
ing the  complete  embodiments  and  miscellaneous  forms  of  actual 
literature. 

The  definition  of  pure  literature  is,  that  it  describes  the  type 
in  its  simplicity — we  mean,  with  the  exact  amount  of  accessory 
circumstance  which  is  necessary  to  bring  it  before  the  mind  in 
finished  perfection,  and  no  more  than  that  amount.  The  type 
needs  some  accessories  from  its  nature — a  picturesque  landscape 
does  not  consist  wholly  of  picturesque  features.  There  is  a 
setting  of  surroundings — as  the  Americans  would  say,  of  fixings 
— without  which  the  reality  is  not  itself.  By  a  traditional 
mode  of  speech,  as  soon  as  we  see  a  picture  in  which  a  complete 
effect  is  produced  by  detail  so  rare  and  so  harmonised  as  to 
escape  us,  we  say,  How  '  classical ' !  The  whole  which  is  to  be 
seen  appears  at  once  and  through  the  detail,  but  the  detail  itself 
is  not  seen  :  we  do  not  think  of  that  which  gives  us  the  idea  ; 
we  are  absorbed  in  the  idea  itself.  Just  so  in  literature,  the  pure 
art  is  that  which  works  with  the  fewest  strokes  ;  the  fewest,  that 


Or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   353 

is,  for  its  purpose,  for  its  aim  is  to  call  up  and  bring  home  to 
men  an  idea,  a  form,  a  character,  and  if  that  idea  be  twisted, 
that  form  be  involved,  that  character  perplexed,  many  strokes 
of  literary  art  will  be  needful.  Pure  art  does  not  mutilate  its 
object ;  it  represents  it  as  fully  as  is  possible  with  the  slightest 
effort  which  is  possible  :  it  shrinks  from  no  needful  circumstances, 
as  little  as  it  inserts  any  which  are  needless.  The  precise  pecu- 
liarity is  not  merely  that  no  incidental  circumstance  is  inserted 
which  does  not  tell  on  the  main  design  :  no  art  is  fit  to  be  called 
art  which  permits  a  stroke  to  be  put  in  without  an  object ;  but 
that  only  the  minimum  of  such  circumstance  is  inserted  at  all. 
The  form  is  sometimes  said  to  be  bare,  the  accessories  are  some- 
times said  to  be  invisible,  because  the  appendages  are  so  choice 
that  the  shape  only  is  perceived. 

The  English  literature  undoubtedly  contains  much  impure 
literature  ;  impure  in  its  style,  if  not  in  its  meaning  :  but  it  also 
contains  one  great,  one  nearly  perfect,  model  of  the  pure  style 
in  the  literary  expression  of  typical  sentiment ;  and  one  not 
perfect,  but  gigantic  and  close  approximation  to  perfection  in 
the  pure  delineation  of  objective  character.  Wordsworth,  per- 
haps, comes  as  near  to  choice  purity  of  style  in  sentiment  as  is 
possible ;  Milton,  with  exceptions  and  conditions  to  be  ex- 
plained, approaches  perfection  by  the  strenuous  purity  with 
which  he  depicts  character. 

A  wit  once  said,  that  'pretty  women  had  more  features 
than  beautiful  women,'  and  though  the  expression  may  be 
criticised,  the  meaning  is  correct.  Pretty  women  seem  to 
have  a  great  number  of  attractive  points,  each  of  which  attracts 
your  attention,  and  each  one  of  which  you  remember  after- 
wards ;  yet  these  points  have  not  grown  together,  their  features 
have  not  linked  themselves  into  a  single  inseparable  whole. 
But  a  beautiful  woman  is  a  whole  as  she  is ;  you  no  more  take 
her  to  pieces  than  a  Greek  statue ;  she  is  not  an  aggregate  of 
divisible  charms,  she  is  a  charm  in  herself.  Such  ever  is  the 
dividing  test  of  pure  art ;  if  you  catch  yourself  admiring  its 

VOL.    II.  A  A 


354        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

details,  it  is  defective  ;  you  ought  to  think  of  it  as  a  single  whole 
which  you  must  remember,  which  you  must  admire,  which  some- 
how subdues  you  while  you  admire  it,  which  is  a  *  possession'  to 
you  '  for  ever.' 

Of  course,  no  individual  poem  embodies  this  ideal  perfectly  ; 
of  course,  every  human  word  and  phrase  has  its  imperfections, 
and  if  we  choose  an  instance  to  illustrate  that  ideal,  the  in- 
stance has  scarcely  a  fair  chance.  By  contrasting  it  with  the 
ideal,  we  suggest  its  imperfections  ;  by  protruding  it  as  an  ex- 
ample, we  turn  on  its  defectiveness  the  microscope  of  criticism. 
Yet  these  two  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  may  be  fitly  read  in  this 
place,  not  because  they  are  quite  without  faults,  or  because 
they  are  the  very  best  examples  of  their  kind  of  style ;  but 
because  they  are  luminous  examples  ;  the  compactness  of  the 
sonnet  and  the  gravity  of  the  sentiment,  hedging  in  the  thoughts, 
restraining  the  fancy,  and  helping  to  maintain  a  singleness  of 
expression. 

'THE   TROSACHS. 

1  There's  not  a  nook  within  this  solemn  Pass, 
But  were  an  apt  Confessional  for  one 
Taught  by  his  summer  spent,  his  autumn  gone, 
That  Life  is  but  a  tale  of  morning  grass 
Withered  at  eve.     From  scenes  of  art  which  chase 
That  thought  away,  turn,  and  with  watchful  eyes 
Feed  it  'mid  Nature's  old  felicities, 
Rocks,  rivers,  and  smooth  lakes  more  clear  than  glass 
Untouched,  unbreathed  upon.     Thrice  happy  guest, 
If  from  a  golden  perch  of  aspen  spray 
(October's  workmanship  to  rival  May) 
The  pensive  warbler  of  the  ruddy  breast 
That  moral  sweeten  by  a  heaven-taught  lay, 
Lulling  the  year,  with  all  its  cares,  to  rest ! ' 

'  COMPOSED   UPON   WESTMINSTER   BRIDGE,    SEPT.    3,    1802. 

4  Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair  : 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 
A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty  : 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   355 

This  city  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 

The  beauty  of  the  morning  ;  silent,  bare, 

Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 

Open  unto  the  fields  and  to  the  sky ; 

All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 

Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 

In  his  first  splendour,  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 

Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep  ! 

The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will  : 

Dear  God  !     The  very  houses  seem  asleep  ; 

And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still ! ' 

Instances  of  barer  style  than  this  may  easily  be  found 
instances  of  colder  style — few  better  instances  of  purer  style. 
Not  a  single  expression  (the  invocation  in  the  concluding 
couplet  of  the  second  sonnet  perhaps  excepted)  can  be  spared, 
yet  not  a  single  expression  rivets  the  attention.  If,  indeed,  we 
take  out  the  phrase — 

1  The  city  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning/ 

and  the  description  of  the  brilliant  yellow  of  autumn — 
'  October's  workmanship  to  rival  May,' 

they  have  independent  value,  but  they  are  not  noticed  in  the 
sonnet  when  we  read  it  through  ;  they  fall  into  place  there? 
and  being  in  their  place,  are  not  seen.  The  great  subjects  of 
the  two  sonnets,  the  religious  aspect  of  beautiful  but  grave 
nature — the  religious  aspect  of  a  city  about  to  awaken  and  be 
alive,  are  the  only  ideas  left  in  our  mind.  To  Wordsworth  has 
been  vouchsafed  the  last  grace  of  the  self-denying  artist ;  you 
think  neither  of  him  nor  his  style,  but  you  cannot  help  thinking 
of — you  must  recall — the  exact  phrase,  the  very  sentiment  he 
wished. 

Milton's  purity  is  more  eager.  In  the  most  exciting  parts 
of  Wordsworth — and  these  sonnets  are  not  very  exciting — you 
always  feel,  you  never  forget,  that  what  you  have  before  you  is 

A   A   2 


356        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

the  excitement  of  a  recluse.  There  is  nothing  of  the  stir  of 
life ;  nothing  of  the  brawl  of  the  world.  But  Milton,  though 
always  a  scholar  by  trade,  though  solitary  in  old  age,  was 
through  life  intent  on  great  affairs,  lived  close  to  great  scenes, 
watched  a  revolution,  and  if  not  an  actor  in  it,  was  at  least 
secretary  to  the  actors.  He  was  familiar — by  daily  experi- 
ence and  habitual  sympathy — with  the  earnest  debate  of  ar- 
duous questions,  on  which  the  life  and  death  of  the  speakers 
certainly  depended,  on  which  the  weal  or  woe  of  the  country 
perhaps  depended.  He  knew  how  profoundly  the  individual 
character  of  the  speakers — their  inner  and  real  nature — modi- 
fies their  opinion  on  such  questions ;  he  knew  how  surely  that 
nature  will  appear  in  the  expression  of  them.  This  great  ex- 
perience, fashioned  by  a  fine  imagination,  gives  to  the  debate 
of  the  Satanic  Council  in  Pandsemonium  its  reality  and  its  life. 
It  is  a  debate  in  the  Long  Parliament,  and  though  the  theme 
of  Paradise  Lost  obliged  Milton  to  side  with  the  monarchical 
element  in  the  universe,  his  old  habits  are  often  too  much 
for  him ;  and  his  real  sympathy — the  impetus  and  energy  of 
his  nature — side  with  the  rebellious  element.  For  the  purposes 
of  art  this  is  much  better.  Of  a  court,  a  poet  can  make  but 
little ;  of  a  heaven,  he  can  make  very  little ;  but  of  a  courtly 
heaven,  such  as  Milton  conceived,  he  can  make  nothing  at  all. 
The  idea  of  a  court  and  the  idea  of  a  heaven  are  so  radically 
different,  that  a  distinct  combination  of  them  is  always  gro- 
tesque and  often  ludicrous.  Paradise  Lost,  as  a  whole,  is  radi- 
cally tainted  by  a  vicious  principle.  It  professes  to  justify  the 
ways  of  Grod  to  man,  to  account  for  sin  and  death,  and  it  tells 
you  that  the  whole  originated  in  a  political  event ;  in  a  court 
squabble  as  to  a  particular  act  of  patronage  and  the  due  or 
undue  promotion  of  an  eldest  son.  Satan  may  have  been 
wrong,  but  on  Milton's  theory  he  had  an  arguable  case  at 
least.  There  was  something  arbitrary  in  the  promotion  ;  there 
were  little  symptoms  of  a  job ;  in  Paradise  Lost  it  is  always 
clear  that  the  devils  are  the  weaker,  but  it  is  never  clear  that 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  357 

the  angels  are  the  better.  Milton's  sympathy  and  his  imagi- 
nation slip  back  to  the  Puritan  rebels  whom  he  loved,  and 
desert  the  courtly  angels  whom  he  could  not  love,  although  he 
praised  them.  There  is  no  wonder  that  Milton's  hell  is  better 
than  his  heaven,  for  he  hated  officials  and  he  loved  rebels, — he 
employs  his  genius  below,  and  accumulates  his  pedantry  above. 
On  the  great  debate  in  Pandsemonium  all  his  genius  is  concen- 
trated. The  question  is  very  practical ;  it  is,  c  What  are  we 
devils  to  do,  now  we  have  lost  heaven  ? '  Satan,  who  presides 
over  and  manipulates  the  assembly — Moloch, 

'  The  fiercest  spirit 
That  fought  in  Heaven,  now  fiercer  by  despair,' 

who  wants  to  fight  again  ;  Belial,  '  the  man  of  the  world,'  who 
does  not  want  to  fight  any  more ;  Mammon,  who  is  for  com- 
mencing an  industrial  career ;  Beelzebub,  the  official  statesman, 

1  Deep  on  his  front  engraven, 
Deliberation  sat  and  Public  care,' 

who,  at  Satan's  instance,  proposes  the  invasion  of  earth — are 
as  distinct  as  so  many  statues.  Even  Belial, '  the  man  of  the 
world,'  the  sort  of  man  with  whom  Milton  had  least  sympathy, 
is  perfectly  painted.  An  inferior  artist  would  have  made  the 
actor  who  '  counselled  ignoble  ease  and  peaceful  sloth,'  a  de- 
graded and  ugly  creature  ;  but  Milton  knew  better.  He  knew 
that  low  notions  require  a  better  garb  than  high  notions.  Hu- 
man nature  is  not  a  high  thing,  but  at  least  it  has  a  high  idea 
of  itself ;  it  will  not  accept  mean  maxims,  unless  they  are  gilded 
and  made  beautiful.  A  prophet  in  goatskin  may  cry,  '  Eepent, 
repent,'  but  it  takes  '  purple  and  fine  linen  '  to  be  able  to  say 
*  Continue  in  your  sins.'  The  world  vanquishes  with  its  spe- 
ciousness  and  its  show,  and  the  orator  who  is  to  persuade  men 
to  worldliness  must  have  a  share  in  them.  Milton  well  knew 
this ;  after  the  warlike  speech  of  the  fierce  Moloch,  he  intro- 
duces a  brighter  and  a  more  graceful  spirit. 


358        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

'  He  ended  frowning,  and  his  look  denounced 
Desp'rate  revenge,  and  battle  dangerous 
To  less  than  Gods.     On  th'  other  side  up  rose 
Belial,  in  act  more  graceful  and  humane  : 
A  fairer  person  lost  not  Heaven  ;  he  seem'd 
For  dignity  composed  and  high  exploit  : 
But  all  was  false  and  hollow,  though  his  tongue 
Dropt  manna,  and  could  make  the  worse  appear 
The  better  reason,  to  perplex  and  dash 
Maturest  counsels  ;  for  his  thoughts  were  low  ; 
To  vice  industrious,  but  to  nobler  deeds 
Tim'rous  and  slothful :  yet  he  pleased  the  ear, 
And  with  persuasive  accent  thus  began  :  ' 

He  does  not  begin  like  a  man  with  a  strong  case,  but  like 
a  man  with  a  weak  case ;  he  knows  that  the  pride  of  human 
nature  is  irritated  by  mean  advice,  and  though  he  may  pro- 
bably persuade  men  to  take  it,  he  must  carefully  apologise  for 
giving  it.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  though  the  formal  address  is  to 
devils,  the  real  address  is  to  men  :  to  the  human  nature  which 
we  know,  not  to  the  fictitious  diabolic  nature  we  do  not  know. 

1 1  should  be  much  for  open  war,  0  Peers  ! 
As  not  behind  in  hate,  if  what  was  urged 
Main  reason  to  persuade  immediate  war, 
Did  not  dissuade  me  most,  and  seem  to  cast 
Ominous  conjecture  on  the  whole  success  : 
When  he  who  most  excels  in  fact  of  arms, 
In  what  he  counsels,  and  in  what  excels 
Mistrustful,  grounds  his  courage  on  despair, 
And  utter  dissolution,  as  the  scope 
Of  all  his  aim,  after  some  dire  revenge. 
First,  what  revenge  ?     The  tow'rs  of  Heav'n  are  fill'd 
With  armed  watch,  that  render  all  access 
Impregnable  ;  oft  on  the  bord'ring  deep 
Encamp  their  legions,  or  with  obscure  wing 
Scout  far  and  wide  into  the  realm  of  night, 
Scorning  surprise.     Or  could  we  break  our  way 
By  force,  and  at  our  heels  all  Hell  should  rise 
With  blackest  insurrection,  to  confound 
Heav'n's  purest  light,  yet  our  Great  Enemy, 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   359 

All  incorruptible,  would  on  His  throne 
Sit  unpolluted,  and  th'  ethereal  mould 
Incapable  of  stain  would  soon  expel 
Her  mischief,  and  purge  off  the  baser  fire 
Victorious.     Thus  repulsed,  our  final  hope 
Is  flat  despair.     We  must  exasperate 
Th'  Almighty  Victor  to  spend  all  His  rage, 
And  that  must  end  us  :  that  must  be  our  cure, 
To  be  no  more  ?     Sad  cure  ;  for  who  would  lose, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity, 
To  perish  rather,  swallow'd  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night, 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion  ?     And  who  knows, 
Let  this  be  good,  whether  our  angry  Foe 
Can  give  it,  or  will  ever  ?     How  He  can 
Is  doubtful ;  that  He  never  will  is  sure. 
Will  He,  so  wise,  let  loose  at  once  His  ire 
Belike  through  impotence,  or  unaware, 
To  give  His  enemies  their  wish,  and  end 
Them  in  His  anger,  whom  His  anger  saves 
To  punish  endless  ?     Wherefore  cease  we  then  ? 
Say  they  who  counsel  war,  we  are  decreed, 
Reserved,  and  destined,  to  eternal  woe  ; 
Whatever  doing,  what  can  we  suffer  more, 
What  can  we  suffer  worse  *?     Is  this  then  worst, 

Thus  sitting,  thus  consulting,  thus  in  arms  ? ' 

##*### 

And  so  on. 

Mr.  Pitt  knew  this  speech  by  heart,  and  Lord  Macaulay  has 
called  it  incomparable  ;  and  these  judges  of  the  oratorical  art 
have  well  decided.  A  mean  foreign  policy  cannot  be  better 
defended.  Its  sensibleness  is  effectually  explained,  and  its 
tameness  as  much  as  possible  disguised. 

But  we  have  not  here  to  do  with  the  excellence  of  Belial's 
policy,  but  with  the  excellence  of  his  speech  ;  and  with  that 
speech  in  a  peculiar  manner.  This  speech,  taken  with  the  few 
lines  of  description  with  which  Milton  introduces  them,  em- 
body, in  as  short  a  space  as  possible,  with  as  much  perfection  as 


360        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

possible,  the  delineation  of  the  type  of  character  common  at 
all  times,  dangerous  in  many  times  ;  sure  to  come  to  the  sur- 
face in  moments  of  difficulty,  and  never  more  dangerous  than 
then.  As  Milton  describes  it,  it  is  one  among  several  typical 
characters  which  will  ever  have  their  place  in  great  councils, 
which  will  ever  be  heard  at  important  decisions,  which  are  part 
of  the  characteristic  and  inalienable  whole  of  this  statesmanlike 
world.  The  debate  in  Pandsemonium  is  a  debate  among  these 
typical  characters  at  the  greatest  conceivable  crisis,  and  with 
adjuncts  of  solemnity  which  no  other  situation  could  rival. 
It  is  the  greatest  classical  triumph,  the  highest  achievement 
of  the  pure  style  in  English  literature ;  it  is  the  greatest 
description  of  the  highest  and  most  typical  characters  with  the 
most  choice  circumstances  and  in  the  fewest  words. 

It  is  not  unremarkable  that  we  should  find  in  Milton  and 
in  Paradise  Lost  the  best  specimen  of  pure  style.  Milton  was 
a  schoolmaster  in  a  pedantic  age,  and  there  is  nothing  so  un- 
classical — nothing  so  impure  in  style — as  pedantry.  The  out- 
of-door  conversational  life  of  Athens  was  as  opposed  to  bookish 
scholasticism  as  a  life  can  be.  The  most  perfect  books  have 
been  written  not  by  those  who  thought  much  of  books,  but  by 
those  who  thought  little,  by  those  who  were  under  the  restraint 
of  a  sensitive  talking  world,  to  which  books  had  contributed 
something,  and  a  various,  eager  life  the  rest.  Milton  is  gene- 
rally unclassical  in  spirit  where  he  is  learned,  and  naturally, 
because  the  purest  poets  do  not  overlay  their  conceptions  with 
book  knowledge,  and  the  classical  poets,  having  in  comparison 
no  books,  were  under  little  temptation  to  impair  the  purity  of 
their  style  by  the  accumulation  of  their  research.  Over  and 
above  this,  there  is  in  Milton,  and  a  little  in  Wordsworth  also, 
one  defect  which  is  in  the  highest  degree  faulty  and  unclassical, 
which  mars  the  effect  and  impairs  the  perfection  of  the  pure 
style.  There  is  a  want  of  spontaneity,  and  a  sense  of  effort. 
It  has  been  happily  said  that  Plato's  words  must  have  grown  into 
their  places.  No  one  would  say  so  of  Milton  or  even  of  Words- 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  361 

worth.  About  both  of  them  there  is  a  taint  of  duty ;  a  vicious  1 1 
sense  of  the  good  man's  task.  Things  seem  right  where  they  \\ 
are,  but  they  seem  to  be  put  where  they  are.  Flexibility  is 
essential  to  the  consummate  perfection  of  the  pure  style,  be- 
cause the  sensation  of  the  poet's  efforts  carries  away  our  thoughts 
from  his  achievements.  We  are  admiring  his  labours  when  we 
should  be  enjoying  his  words.  But  this  is  a  defect  in  those  two 
writers,  not  a  defect  in  pure  art.  Of  course  it  is  more  difficult 
to  write  in  few  words  than  to  write  in  many  ;  to  take  the  best 
adjuncts,  and  those  only,  for  what  you  have  to  say,  instead  of 
using  all  which  comes  to  hand ;  it  is  an  additional  labour  if  you 
write  verses  in  a  morning,  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  in 
choosing,  that  is,  in  making  those  verses  fewer.  But  a  perfect 
artist  in  the  pure  style  is  as  effortless  and  as  natural  as  in  any 
style,  perhaps  is  more  so.  Take  the  well-known  lines : — 

'  There  was  a  little  lawny  islet 
By  anemone  and  violet, 

Like  mosaic,  paven  : 
And  its  roof  was  flowers  and  leaves 
Which  the  summer's  breath  enweaves, 
Where  nor  sun,  nor  showers,  nor  breeze, 
Pierce  the  pines  and  tallest  trees, 

Each  a  gem  engraven  : 
Girt  by  many  an  azure  wave 
With  which  the  clouds  and  mountains  pave 

A  lake's  blue  chasm.' 

Shelley  had  many  merits  and  many  defects.  This  is  not  the 
place  for  a  complete  or  indeed  for  any  estimate  of  him.  But 
one  excellence  is  most  evident.  His  words  are  as  flexible  as 
any  words  ;  the  rhythm  of  some  modulating  air  seems  to  move 
them  into  their  place  without  a  struggle  by  the  poet,  and  almost 
without  his  knowledge.  This  is  the  perfection  of  pure  art,  to 
embody  typical  conceptions  in  the  choicest,  the  fewest  accidents, 
to  embody  them  so  that  each  of  these  accidents  may  produce 
its  full  effect,  and  so  to  embody  them  without  effort. 


362        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

The  extreme  opposite  to  this  pure  art  is  what  may  be  called 
ornate  art.  This  species  of  art  aims  also  at  giving  a  delineation 
of  the  typical  idea  in  its  perfection  and  its  fulness,  but  it  aims 
at  so  doing  in  a  manner  most  different.  It  wishes  to  surround 
the  type  with  the  greatest  number  of  circumstances  which  it 
will  bear.  It  works  not  by  choice  and  selection,  but  by  ac- 
cumulation and  aggregation.  The  idea  is  not,  as  in  the  pure 
style,  presented  with  the  least  clothing  which  it  will  endure,  but 
with  the  richest  and  most  involved  clothing  that  it  will  admit. 

We  are  fortunate  in  not  having  to  hunt  out  of  past  literature 
an  illustrative  specimen  of  the  ornate  style.  Mr.  Tennyson  has 
just  given  one  admirable  in  itself,  and  most  characteristic  of 
the  defects  and  the  merits  of  this  style.  The  story  of  Enoch 
Arden,  as  he  has  enhanced  and  presented  it,  is  a  rich  and 
splendid  composite  of  imagery  and  illustration.  Yet  how  simple 
that  story  is  in  itself.  A  sailor  who  sells  fish,  breaks  his  leg,  gets 
dismal,  gives  up  selling  fish,  goes  to  sea,  is  wrecked  on  a  desert 
island,  stays  there  some  years,  on  his  return  finds  his  wife  married 
to  a  miller,  speaks  to  a  landlady  on  the  subject,  and  dies.  Told 
in  the  pure  and  simple,  the  unadorned  and  classical  style,  this 
story  would  not  have  taken  three  pages,  but  Mr.  Tennyson  has 
been  able  to  make  it  the  principal — the  largest  tale  in  his  new 
volume.  He  has  done  BO  only  by  giving  to  every  event  and 
incident  in  the  volume  an  accompanying  commentary.  He  tells 
a  great  deal  about  the  torrid  zone,  which  a  rough  sailor  like 
Enoch  Arden  certainly  would  not  have  perceived  ;  and  he  gives 
to  the  fishing  village,  to  which  all  the  characters  belong,  a 
softness  and  a  fascination  which  such  villages  scarcely  possess 
in  reality. 

The  description  of  the  tropical  island  on  which  the  sailor  is 
thrown,  is  an  absolute  model  of  adorned  art : — 

'  The  mountain  wooded  to  the  peak,  the  lawns 
And  winding  glades  high  up  like  ways  to  Heaven, 
The  slender  coco's  drooping  crown  of  plumes, 
The  lightning  flash  of  insect  and  of  bird, 


or,  P^lre,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   363 

The  lustre  of  the  long  convolvuluses 

That  coil'd  around  the  stately  stems,  and  ran 

Ev'n  to  the  limit  of  the  land,  the  glows 

And  glories  of  the  broad  belt  of  the  world, 

All  these  he  saw  ;  but  what  he  fain  had  seen 

He  could  not  see,  the  kindly  human  face, 

Nor  ever  hear  a  kindly  voice,  but  heard 

The  myriad  shriek  of  wheeling  ocean-fowl, 

The  league-long  roller  thundering  on  the  reef, 

The  moving  whisper  of  huge  trees  that  branch'd 

And  blossom 'd  in  the  zenith,  or  the  sweep 

Of  some  precipitous  rivulet  to  the  wave, 

As  down  the  shore  he  ranged,  or  all  day  long 

Sat  often  in  the  seaward-gazing  gorge, 

A  shipwreck'd  sailor,  waiting  for  a  sail  : 

No  sail  from  day  to  day,  but  every  day 

The  sunrise  broken  into  scarlet  shafts 

Among  the  palms  and  ferns  and  precipices  ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  east ; 

The  blaze  upon  his  island  overhead  ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  west ; 

Then  the  great  stars  that  globed  themselves  in  Heaven, 

The  hollower-bellowing  ocean,  and  again 

The  scarlet  shafts  of  sunrise — but  no  sail.' 

No  expressive  circumstances  can  be  added  to  this  description, 
no  enhancing  detail  suggested.  A  much  less  happy  instance 
is  the  description  of  Enoch's  life  before  he  sailed  : — 

{  While  Enoch  was  abroad  on  wrathful  seas, 
Or  often  journeying  landward  ;  for  in  truth 
Enoch's  white  horse,  and  Enoch's  ocean  spoil 
In  ocean-smelling  osier,  and  his  face, 
Rough-redden'd  with  a  thousand  winter  gales, 
Not  only  to  the  market- cross  were  known, 
But  in  the  leafy  lanes  behind  the  down, 
Far  as  the  portal- warding  lion- whelp, 
And  peacock  yew-tree  of  the  lonely  Hall, 
Whose  Friday  fare  was  Enoch's  ministering.' 

So  much  has  not  often  been  made  of  selling  fish.     The  essence 


364        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

of  ornate  art  is  in  this  manner  to  accumulate  round  the  typical 
object,  everything  which  can  be  said  about  it,  every  associated 
thought  that  can  be  connected  with  it  without  impairing  the 
essence  of  the  delineation. 

The  first  defect  which  strikes  a  student  of  ornate  art — the 
first  which  arrests  the  mere  reader  of  it — is  what  is  called  a 
want  of  simplicity.  Nothing  is  described  as  it  is ;  everything 
has  about  it  an  atmosphere  of  something  else.  The  combined 
and  associated  thoughts,  though  they  set  off  and  heighten  par- 
ticular ideas  and  aspects  of  the  central  and  typical  conception, 
yet  complicate  it :  a  simple  thing — '  a  daisy  by  the  river's 
brim  ' — is  never  left  by  itself,  something  else  is  put  with  it ; 
something  not  more  connected  with  it  than  '  lion-whelp  '  and 
the  '  peacock  yew-tree '  are  with  the  '  fresh  fish  for  sale  '  that 
Enoch  carries  past  them.  Even  in  the  highest  cases,  ornate 
art  leaves  upon  a  cultured  and  delicate  taste,  the  conviction 
that  it  is  not  the  highest  art,  that  it  is  somehow  excessive 
and  over- rich,  that  it  is  not  chaste  in  itself  or  chastening  to 
the  mind  that  sees  it — that  it  is  in  an  explained  manner  un- 
satisfactory, '  a  thing  in  which  we  feel  there  is  some  hidden 
want ! ' 

That  want  is  a  want  of  *  definition.'  We  must  all  know 
landscapes,  river  landscapes  especially,  which  are  in  the  highest 
sense  beautiful,  which  when  we  first  see  them  give  us  a  delicate 
pleasure ;  which  in  some — and  these  the  best  cases — give  even 
a  gentle  sense  of  surprise  that  such  things  should  be  so  beauti- 
ful, and  yet  when  we  come  to  live  in  them,  to  spend  even  a  few 
hours  in  them,  we  seem  stifled  and  oppressed.  On  the  other 
hand  there  are  people  to  whom  the  sea-shore  is  a  companion, 
an  exhilaration  ;  and  not  so  much  for  the  brawl  of  the  shore  as 
for  the  limited  vastness,  the  finite  infinite  of  the  ocean  as  they 
see  it.  Such  people  often  come  home  braced  and  nerved,  and 
if  they  spoke  out  the  truth,  would  have  only  to  say,  '  We  have 
seen  the  horizon  line  ; '  if  they  were  let  alone  indeed,  they  would 
gaze  on  it  hour  after  hour,  so  great  to  them  is  the  fascination, 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   365 

so  full  the  sustaining  calm,  which  they  gain  from  that  union  of 
form  and  greatness.  To  a  very  inferior  extent,  but  still,  perhaps, 
to  an  extent  which  most  people  understand  better,  a  common 
arch  will  have  the  same  effect.  A  bridge  completes  a  river 
landscape  ;  if  of  the  old  and  many-arched  sort,  it  regulates  by  a 
long  series  of  denned  forms  the  vague  outline  of  wood  and  river, 
which  before  had  nothing  to  measure  it ;  if  of  the  new  scientific 
sort,  it  introduces  still  more  strictly  a  geometrical  element ;  it 
stiffens  the  scenery  which  was  before  too  soft,  too  delicate,  too 
vegetable.  Just  such  is  the  effect  of  pure  style  in  literary  art. 
It  calms  by  conciseness ;  while  the  ornate  style  leaves  on  the 
mind  a  mist  of  beauty,  an  excess  of  fascination,  a  complication 
of  charm,  the  pure  style  leaves  behind  it  the  simple,  defined, 
measured  idea,  as  it  is,  and  by  itself.  That  which  is  chaste 
chastens  ;  there  is  a  poised  energy — a  state  half  thrill  and  half 
tranquillity — which  pure  art  gives,  which  no  other  can  give  ;  a 
pleasure  justified  as  well  as  felt ;  an  ennobled  satisfaction  at 
what  ought  to  satisfy  us,  and  must  ennoble  us. 

Ornate  art  is  to  pure  art  what  a  painted  statue  is  to  an 
unpainted.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  a  touch  of  colour 
does  bring  out  certain  parts  ;  does  convey  certain  expressions ; 
does  heighten  certain  features,  but  it  leaves  on  the  work  as 
a  whole,  a  want,  as  we  say,  *  of  something ; '  a  want  of  that 
inseparable  chasten  ess  which  clings  to  simple  sculpture,  an 
impairing  predominance  of  alluring  details  which  impairs  our 
satisfaction  with  our  own  satisfaction ;  which  makes  us  doubt 
whether  a  higher  being  than  ourselves  will  be  satisfied  even 
though  we  are  so.  In  the  very  same  manner,  though  the  rouge 
of  ornate  literature  excites  our  eye,  it  also  impairs  our  confidence. 

Mr.  Arnold  has  justly  observed  that  this  self-justifying, 
self-proving  purity  of  style  is  commoner  in  ancient  literature 
than  in  modern  literature,  and  also  that  Shakespeare  is  not 
a  great  or  an  unmixed  example  of  it.  No  one  can  say  that  he 
is.  His  works  are  full  of  undergrowth,  are  full  of  complexity, 
are  not  models  of  style  ;  except  by  a  miracle,  nothing  in  the 


366        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

Elizabethan  age  could  be  a  model  of  style ;  the  restraining  taste 
of  that  age  was  feebler  and  more  mistaken  than  that  of  any 
i other  equally  great  age.  Shakespeare's  mind  so  teemed  with 
creation  that  he  required  the  most  just,  most  forcible,  most 
constant  restraint  from  without.  He  most  needed  to  be  guided 
among  poets,  and  he  was  the  least  and  worst  guided.  As  a 
whole  no  one  can  call  his  works  finished  models  of  the  pure 
style,  or  of  any  style.  But  he  has  many  passages  of  the  most 
pure  style,  passages  which  could  be  easily  cited  if  space  served. 
And  we  must  remember  that  the  task  which  Shakespeare  under- 
took was  the  most  difficult  which  any  poet  has  ever  attempted, 
and  that  it  is  a  task  in  which  after  a  million  efforts  every  other 
poet  has  failed.  The  Elizabethan  drama — as  Shakespeare  has 
immortalised  it — undertakes  to  delineate  in  five  acts,  under 
stage  restrictions,  and  in  mere  dialogue,  a  whole  list  of  dramatis 
personce,  a  set  of  characters  enough  for  a  modern  novel,  and 
with  the  distinctness  of  a  modern  novel.  Shakespeare  is  not 
content  to  give  two  or  three  great  characters  in  solitude  and  in 
dignity,  like  the  classical  dramatists  ;  he  wishes  to  give  a  whole 
party  of  characters  in  the  play  of  life,  and  according  to  the 
nature  of  each.  He  would  '  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,'  not 
to  catch  a  monarch  in  a  tragic  posture,  but  a  whole  group  of 
characters  engaged  in  many  actions,  intent  on  many  purposes, 
thinking  many  thoughts.  There  is  life  enough,  there  is  action 
enough,  in  single  plays  of  Shakespeare  to  set  up  an  ancient 
dramatist  for  a  long  career.  And  Shakespeare  succeeded.  His 
characters,  taken  en  masse,  and  as  a  whole,  are  as  well  known 
as  any  novelist's  characters;  cultivated  men  know  all  about 
them,  as  young  ladies  know  all  about  Mr.  Trollope's  novels.  But 
no  other  dramatist  has  succeeded  in  such  an  aim.  No  one  else's 
characters  are  staple  people  in  English  literature,  hereditary 
people  whom  everyone  knows  all  about  in  every  generation. 
The  contemporary  dramatists,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Ben 
Jonson,  Marlowe,  &c.,  had  many  merits,  Some  of  them  were 
great  men.  But  a  critic  must  say  of  them  the  worst  thing  he 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   367 

has  to  say :  '  they  were  men  who  failed  in  their  characteristic 
aim ; '  they  attempted  to  describe  numerous  sets  of  complicated 
characters,  and  they  failed.      No  one  of  such  characters,   or 
hardly  one,  lives  in  common  memory ;  the  Faustus  of  Marlowe, 
a  really  great  idea,  is  not  remembered.   They  undertook  to  write 
what  they  could  not  write — five  acts  full  of  real  characters, 
and  in  consequence,  the  fine  individual  things  they  conceived 
are  forgotten  by  the  mixed  multitude,  and  known  only  to  a  few 
of  the  few.     Of  the  Spanish  theatre  we  cannot  speak ;  but  there 
are  no  such  characters  in  any  French  tragedy  :  the  whole  aim  of 
that  tragedy  forbad  it.     Goethe  has  added  to  literature  a  few 
great   characters ;   he   may  be   said  almost  to  have  added  to 
literature  the  idea  of  '  intellectual  creation,' — the  idea  of  de- 
scribing the  great  characters  through  the  intellect ;  but  he  has 
not  added  to  the  common  stock  what  Shakespeare  added,  a  new 
multitude  of  men  and  women  ;  and  these  not  in  simple  attitudes, 
but  amid  the  most  complex  parts  of  life,  with  all  their  various 
natures  roused,  mixed,  and  strained.     The  severest   art  must 
have  allowed  many  details,  much  overflowing  circumstance  to  a 
poet  who  undertook  to  describe  what  almost  defies  description. 
Pure  art  would  have  commanded  him  to  use  details  lavishly,  for 
only  by  a  multiplicity  of  such  could  the  required  effect  have 
been  at  all  produced.     Shakespeare  could  accomplish  it,  for  his 
mind  was  a  spring,  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  human  nature, 
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  being  compelled  by  the  task  of  his 
time  to  let  the  fulness  of  his  nature  overflow,  he  sometimes 
let  it  overflow  too  much,  and  covered  with  erroneous  conceits 
and  superfluous  images  characters  and  conceptions  which  would 
have   been   far  more  justly,  far   more   effectually,  delineated 
with  conciseness  and  simplicity.     But  there  is  an  infinity  of 
pure  art  in  Shakespeare,  although   there  is  a  great  deal  else 
also. 

It  will  be  said,  if  ornate  art  be  as  you  say,  an  inferior  species 
of  art,  why  should  it  ever  be  used  ?  If  pure  art  be  the  best  sort 
of  art,  why  should  it  not  always  be  used  ? 


368        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 



The  reason  is  this  :  literary  art,  as  we  just  now  explained,  is 
concerned  with  literatesque  characters  in  literatesque  situations ; 
and  the  best  art  is  concerned  with  the  most  literatesque  cha- 
racters in  the  most  literatesque  situations.  Such  are  the  subjects 
of  pure  art ;  it  embodies  with  the  fewest  touches,  and  under  the 
most  select  and  choice  circumstances,  the  highest  conceptions ; 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  only  the  best  subjects  are  to  be 
treated  by  art,  and  then  only  in  the  very  best  way.  Human 
nature  could  not  endure  such  a  critical  commandment  as  that, 
and  it  would  be  an  erroneous  criticism  which  gave  it.  Any 
literatesque  character  may  be  described  in  literature  under  any 
circumstances  which  exhibit  its  literatesqueness. 

The  essence  of  pure  art  consists  in  its  describing  what  is 

as  it  is,  and  this  is  very  well  for  what  can  bear  it,  but  there 

ire  many  inferior  things  which  will  not  bear   it,  and   which 

tevertheless  ought  to  be  described  in  books.     A  certain  kind 

literature  deals  with  illusions,  and  this  kind  of  literature 
ias  given  a  colouring  to  the  name  romantic.  A  man  of  rare 
Igenius,  and  even  of  poetical  genius,  has  gone  so  far  as  to  make 
these  illusions  the  true  subject  of  poetry — almost  the  sole 
subject. 

'  Without,'  says  Father  Newman,  of  one  of  his  characters,  '  being 
himself  a  poet,  he  was  in  the  season  of  poetry,  in  the  sweet  spring- 
time, when  the  year  is  most  beautiful  because  it  is  new.  Novelty  was 
beauty  to  a  heart  so  open  and  cheerful  as  his  ;  not  only  because  it  was 
novelty,  and  had  its  proper  charm  as  such,  but  because  when  we  first 
see  things,  we  see  them  in  a  gay  confusion,  which  is  a  principal 
element  of  the  poetical.  As  time  goes  on,  and  we  number  and  sort 
and  measure  things, — as  we  gain  views,  we  advance  towards  philo- 
sophy and  truth,  but  we  recede  from  poetry. 

'  When  we  ourselves  were  young,  we  once  on  a  time  walked  on  a 
hot  summer  day  from  Oxford  to  Newington — a  dull  road,  as  anyone 
who  has  gone  it  knows  ;  yet  it  was  new  to  us  ;  and  we  protest  to  you, 
reader,  believe  it  or  not,  laugh  or  not,  as  you  will,  to  us  it  seemed  on 
that  occasion  quite  touchingly  beautiful ;  and  a  soft  melancholy  came 
over  us,  of  which  the  shadows  fall  even  now,  when  we  look  back  upon 
that  dusty,  weary  journey.  And  why  ?  because  every  object  which 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   369 

met  us  was  unknown  and  full  of  mystery.  A  tree  or  two  in  the 
distance  seemed  the  beginning  of  a  great  wood,  or  park,  stretching 
endlessly  ;  a  hill  implied  a  vale  beyond,  with  that  vale's  history  ;  the 
bye-lanes,  with  their  green  hedges,  wound  on  and  vanished,  yet  were 
not  lost  to  the  imagination.  Such  was  our  first  journey  ;  but  when 
we  had  gone  it  several  times,  the  mind  refused  to  act,  the  scene  ceased 
to  enchant,  stern  reality  alone  remained  ;  and  we  thought  it  one  of  the 
most  tiresome,  odious  roads  we  ever  had  occasion  to  traverse.' 

That  is  to  say,  that  the  function  of  the  poet  is  to  introduce 
a  '  gay  confusion,'  a  rich  medley  which  does  not  exist  in  the 
actual  world — which  perhaps  could  not  exist  in  any  world — 
but  which  would  seem  pretty  if  it  did  exist.  Everyone  who 
reads  Enoch  Arden  will  perceive  that  this  notion  of  all  poetry 
is  exactly  applicable  to  this  one  poem.  Whatever  be  made  of 
Enoch's  '  Ocean-spoil  in  ocean-smelling  osier,'  of  the  '  portal- 
warding  lion-whelp,  and  the  peacock  yew-tree,'  everyone  knows 
that  in  himself  Enoch  could  not  have  been  charming.  People 
who  sell  fish  about  the  country  (and  that  is  what  he  did,  though 
Mr.  Tennyson  won't  speak  out,  and  wraps  it  up)  never  are  beau- 
tiful. As  Enoch  was  and  must  be  coarse,  in  itself  the  poem 
must  depend  for  a  charm  on  a  '  gay  confusion  ' — on  a  splendid 
accumulation  of  impossible  accessories. 

Mr,  Tennyson  knows  this  better  than  many  of  us— he  knows 
the  country  world ;  he  has  proved  that  no  one  living  knows 
it  better ;  he  has  painted  with  pure  art — with  art  which  de- 
scribes what  is  a  race  perhaps  more  refined,  more  delicate,  more 
conscientious,  than  the  sailor — the  Northern  Farmer,  and  we 
all  know  what  a  splendid,  what  a  living  thing,  he  has  made  of 
it.  He  could,  if  he  only  would,  have  given  us  the  ideal  sailor 
in  like  manner — the  ideal  of  the  natural  sailor  we  mean — the 
characteristic  present  man  as  he  lives  and  is.  But  this  he  has 
not  chosen.  He  has  endeavoured  to  describe  an  exceptional 
sailor,  at  an  exceptionally  refined  port,  performing  a  graceful 
act,  an  act  of  relinquishment.  And  with  this  task  before  him, 
his  profound  taste  taught  him  that  ornate  art  was  a  necessary 

VOL.    II.  B  B 


370        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

medium — was  the  sole  effectual  instrument — for  his  purpose. 
It  was  necessary  for  him  if  possible  to  abstract  the  mind  from 
reality,  to  induce  us  not  to  conceive  or  think  of  sailors  as  they 
are  while  we  are  reading  of  his  sailors,  but  to  think  of  what 
a  person  who  did  not  know,  might  fancy  sailors  to  be.  A  casual 
traveller  on  the  seashore,  with  the  sensitive  mood  and  the  ro- 
mantic imagination  Dr.  Newman  has  described,  might  fancy, 
would  fancy,  a  seafaring  village  to  be  like  that.  Accordingly, 
Mr.  Tennyson  has  made  it  his  aim  to  call  off  the  stress  of 
fancy  from  real  life,  to  occupy  it  otherwise,  to  bury  it  with 
pretty  accessories  ;  to  engage  it  on  the  '  peacock  yew-tree,'  and 
the  'portal-warding  lion-whelp.'  Nothing,  too,  can  be  more 
splendid  than  the  description  of  the  tropics  as  Mr.  Tennyson 
delineates  them,  but  a  sailor  would  not  have  felt  the  tropics  in 
that  manner.  The  beauties  of  nature  would  not  have  so  much 
occupied  him.  He  would  have  known  little  of  the  scarlet 
shafts  of  sunrise  and  nothing  of  the  long  convolvuluses.  As  in 
Kobinson  Crusoe,  his  own  petty  contrivances  and  his  small  ail- 
ments would  have  been  the  principal  subject  to  him.  'For 
three  years,'  he  might  have  said,  4  my  back  was  bad ;  and  then 
I  put  two  pegs  into  a  piece  of  drift  wood  and  so  made  a  chair ; 
and  after  that  it  pleased  Grod  to  send  me  a  chill.'  In  real  life 
his  piety  would  scarcely  have  gone  beyond  that. 

It  will  indeed  be  said,  that  though  the  sailor  had  no  words 
for,  and  even  no  explicit  consciousness  of,  the  splendid  details 
of  the  torrid  zone,  yet  that  he  had,  notwithstanding,  a  dim 
latent  inexpressible  conception  of  them :  though  he  could  not 
speak  of  them  or  describe  them,  yet  they  were  much  to  him. 
And  doubtless  such  is  the  case.  Rude  people  are  impressed  by 
what  is  beautiful — deeply  impressed — though  they  could  not 
describe  what  they  see,  or  what  they  feel.  But  what  is  absurd 
in  Mr.  Tennyson's  description — absurd  when  we  abstract  it 
from  the  gorgeous  additions  and  ornaments  with  which  Mr. 
Tennyson  distracts  us — is,  that  his  hero  feels  nothing  else  but 
these  great  splendours.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  physical  ail- 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  371 

ments,  the  rough  devices,  the  low  superstitions,  which  really 
would  have  been  the  first  things,  the  favourite  and  principal 
occupations  of  his  mind.  Just  so  when  he  gets  home  he  may 
have  had  such  fine  sentiments,  though  it  is  odd,  and  he  may 
have  spoken  of  them  to  his  landlady,  though  that  is  odder  still, 
—but  it  is  incredible  that  his  whole  mind  should  be  made  up 
of  fine  sentiments.  Beside  those  sweet  feelings,  if  he  had  them, 
there  must  have  been  many  more  obvious,  more  prosaic,  and 
some  perhaps  more  healthy.  Mr.  Tennyson  has  shown  a  pro- 
found judgment  in  distracting  us  as  he  does.  He  has  given  us 
a  classic  delineation  of  the  Northern  Farmer  with  no  ornament 
at  all — as  bare  a  thing  as  can  be — because  he  then  wanted  to 
describe  a  true  type  of  real  men :  he  has  given  us  a  sailor 
crowded  all  over  with  ornament  and  illustration,  because  he 
then  wanted  to  describe  an  unreal  type  of  fancied  men, — not 
sailors  as  they  are,  but  sailors  as  they  might  be  wished. 

Another  prominent  element  in  Enoch  Arden  is  yet  more 
suitable  to,  yet  more  requires  the  aid  of,  ornate  art.  Mr. 
Tennyson  undertook  to  deal  with  half  belief.  The  presenti- 
ments which  Annie  feels  are  exactly  of  that  sort  which  every- 
body has  felt,  and  which  everyone  has  half  believed — which 
hardly  anyone  has  more  than  half  believed.  Almost  everyone, 
it  has  been  said,  would  be  angry  if  anyone  else  reported  that 
he  believed  in  ghosts ;  yet  hardly  anyone,  when  thinking  by 
himself,  wholly  disbelieves  them.  Just  so  such  presentiments 
as  Mr.  Tennyson  depicts,  impress  the  inner  mind  so  much  that 
the  outer  mind — the  rational  understanding — hardly  likes  to 
consider  them  nicely  or  to  discuss  them  sceptically.  For  these 
dubious  themes  an  ornate  or  complex  style  is  needful.  Classical 
art  speaks  out  what  it  has  to  say  plainly  and  simply.  Pure 
style  cannot  hesitate ;  it  describes  in  concisest  outline  what  is, 
as  it  is.  If  a  poet  really  believes  in  presentiments  he  can  speak 
out  in  pure  style.  One  who  could  have  been  a  poet — one  of 
the  few  in  any  age  of  whom  one  can  say  certainly  that  they 
could  have  been  and  have  not  been — has  spoken  thus : — 

B  B   2 


372        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

(  When  Heaven  sends  sorrow, 
Warnings  go  first, 
Lest  it  should  burst 
With  stunning  might 
On  souls  too  bright 

To  fear  the  morrow. 

*  Can  science  bear  us 

To  the  hid  springs 
Of  human  things  1 
Why  ma^  not  dream, 
Or  thought's  day-gleam, 
Startle,  yet  cheer  us  ? 

*  Are  such  thoughts  fetters, 

While  faith  disowns 
Dread  of  earth's  tones, 
Kecks  but  Heaven's  call, 
And  on  the  wall, 

Reads  but  Heaven's  letters  ? ' 

But  if  a  poet  is  not  sure  whether  presentiments  are  true  or 
not  true ;  if  he  wishes  to  leave  his  readers  in  doubt ;  if  he 
wishes  an  atmosphere  of  indistinct  illusion  and  of  moving 
shadow,  he  must  use  the  romantic  style,  the  style  of  miscel- 
laneous adjunct^  the  style  '  which  shirks,  not  meets '  your  in- 
tellect, the  style  which,  as  you  are  scrutinising,  disappears. 

Nor  is  this  all,  or  even  the  principal  lesson,  which  Enoch 
Arden  may  suggest  to  us,  of  the  use  of  ornate  art.  That  art 
is  the  appropriate  art  for  an  unpleasing  type.  Many  of  the 
characters  of  real  life,  if  brought  distinctly,  prominently,  and 
plainly  before  the  mind,  as  they  really  are,  if  shown  in  their 
inner  nature,  their  actual  essence,  are  doubtless  very  unpleasant. 
They  would  be  horrid  to  meet  and  horrid  to  think  of.  We  fear 
it  must  be  owned  that  Enoch  Arden  is  this  kind  of  person. 
A  dirty  sailor  who  did  not  go  home  to  his  wife  is  not  an  agree- 
able being :  a  varnish  must  be  put  on  him  to  make  him  shine. 
It  is  true  that  he  acts  rightly  ;  that  he  is  very  good.  But  such 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  373 

is  human  nature  that  it  finds  a  little  tameness  in  mere  morality. 
Mere  virtue  belongs  to  a  charity  school-girl,  and  has  a  taint  of 
the  catechism.  All  of  us  feel  this,  though  most  of  us  are  too 
timid,  too  scrupulous,  too  anxious  about  the  virtue  of  others  to 
speak  out.  We  are  ashamed  of  our  nature  in  this  respect,  but 
it  is  not  the  less  our  nature.  And  if  we  look  deeper  into  the 
matter  there  are  many  reasons  why  we  should  not  be  ashamed 
of  it.  The  soul  of  man,  and  as  we  necessarily  believe  of  beings 
greater  than  man,  has  many  parts  beside  its  moral  part.  It  has 
an  intellectual  part,  an  artistic  part,  even  a  religious  part,  in 
which  mere  morals  have  no  share.  In  Shakespeare  or  Groethe, 
even  in  Newton  or  Archimedes,  there  is  much  which  will  not 
be  cut  down  to  the  shape  of  the  commandments.  They  have 
thoughts,  feelings,  hopes — immortal  thoughts  and  hopes — 
which  have  influenced  the  life  of  men,  and  the  souls  of  men, 
ever  since  their  age,  but  which  the  '  whole  duty  of  man,'  the 
ethical  compendium,  does  not  recognise.  Nothing  is  more  un- 
pleasant than  a  virtuous  person  with  a  mean  mind.  A  highly 
developed  moral  nature  joined  to  an  undeveloped  intellectual 
nature,  an  undeveloped  artistic  nature,  and  a  very  limited  re- 
ligious nature,  is  of  necessity  repulsive.  It  represents  a  bit  of 
human  nature — a  good  bit,  of  course — but  a  bit  only,  in  dis- 
proportionate, unnatural,  and  revolting  prominence ;  and  there- 
fore, unless  an  artist  use  delicate  care,  we  are  offended.  The 
dismal  act  of  a  squalid  man  needed  many  condiments  to  make 
it  pleasant,  and  therefore  Mr.  Tennyson  was  right  to  mix  them 
subtly  and  to  use  them  freely. 

A  mere  act  of  self-denial  can  indeed  scarcely  be  pleasant 
upon  paper.     An  heroic  struggle  with  an  external  adversary, 
even  though  it  end  in  a  defeat,  may  easily  be  made  attractive. 
Human   nature   likes   to   see  itself  look  grand,  and  it  looks 
grand  when  it  is  making  a  brave  struggle  with  foreign  foes. 
But  it  does  not  look  grand  when  it  is  divided  against  itself.  | 
An  excellent  person  striving  with  temptation  is  a  very  admi-  ' 
rable  being  in  reality,  but  he  is  not  a  pleasant  being  in  descrip- 


374        Wordsworth^  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

tion.  We  hope  he  will  win  and  overcome  his  temptation  ;  but 
we  feel  that  he  would  be  a  more  interesting  being,  a  higher 
being,  if  he  had  not  felt  that  temptation  so  much.  The  poet 
must  make  the  struggle  great  in  order  to  make  the  self-denial 
virtuous,  and  if  the  struggle  be  too  great,  we  are  apt  to  feel 
some  mixture  of  contempt.  The  internal  metaphysics  of  a 
divided  nature  are  but  an  inferior  subject  for  art,  and  if  they 
are  to  be  made  attractive,  much  else  must  be  combined  with 
them.  If  the  excellence  of  Hamlet  had  depended  on  the 
ethical  qualities  of  Hamlet,  it  would  not  have  been  the  master- 
piece of  our  literature.  He  acts  virtuously  of  course,  and  kills 
the  people  he  ought  to  kill,  but  Shakespeare  knew  that  such 
goodness  would  not  much  interest  the  pit.  He  made  him  a 
handsome  prince,  and  a  puzzling  meditative  character ;  these 
secular  qualities  relieve  his  moral  excellence,  and  so  he  be- 
comes c  nice.'  In  proportion  as  an  artist  has  to  deal  with  types 
essentially  imperfect,  he  must  disguise  their  imperfections ;  he 
must  accumulate  around  them  as  many  first-rate  accessories 
as  may  make  his  readers  forget  that  they  are  themselves 
second-rate.  The  sudden  'millionaires  of  the  present  day 
hope  to  disguise  their  social  defects  by  buying  old  places,  and 
hiding  among  aristocratic  furniture ;  just  so  a  great  artist  who 
has  to  deal  with  characters  artistically  imperfect,  will  use  an 
ornate  style,  will  fit  them  into  a  scene  where  there  is  much  else 
to  look  at. 

For  these  reasons  ornate  art  is,  within  the  limits,  as  legiti- 
mate as  pure  art.  It  does  what  pure  art  could  not  do.  The 
very  excellence  of  pure  art  confines  its  employment.  Precisely 
because  it  gives  the  best  things  by  themselves  and  exactly  as 
they  are,  it  fails  when  it  is  necessary  to  describe  inferior  things 
among  other  things,  with  a  list  of  enhancements  and  a  crowd 
of  accompaniments  that  in  reality  do  not  belong  to  it.  Illusion, 
half  belief,  unpleasant  types,  imperfect  types,  are  as  much  the 
proper  sphere  of  ornate  art,  as  an  inferior  landscape  is  the 
proper  sphere  for  the  true  efficacy  of  moonlight.  A  really 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   375 

great  landscape  needs  sunlight  and  bears  sunlight ;  but  moon- 
light is  an  equaliser  of  beauties ;  it  gives  a  romantic  unreality 
to  what  will  not  stand  the  bare  truth.  And  just  so  does  ro- 
mantic art. 

There  is,  however,  a  third  kind  of  art  which  differs  from 
these  on  the  point  in  which  they  most  resemble  one  another. 
Ornate  art  and  pure  art  have  this  in  common,  that  they  paint  • 
the  types  of  literature  in  a  form  as  perfect  as  they  can.  Ornate  j 
art,  indeed,  uses  undue  disguises  and  unreal  enhancements ; j; 
it  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  best  types  ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  its  office  to  make  the  best  of  imperfect  types  and  lame  ap- 
proximations ;  but  ornate  art,  as  much  as  pure  art,  catches  its 
subject  in  the  best  light  it  can,  takes  the  most  developed  aspect 
of  it  which  it  can  find,  and  throws  upon  it  the  most  congruous 
colours  it  can  use.  But  grotesque  art  does  just  the  contrary. 
It  takes  the  type,  so  to  say,  in  difficulties.  It  gives  a  repre- 
sentation of  it  in  its  minimum  development,  amid  the  cir- 
cumstances least  favourable  to  it,  just  while  it  is  struggling 
with  obstacles,  just  where  it  is  encumbered  with  incongruities. 
It  deals,  to  use  the  language  of  science,  not  with  normal  types 
but  with  abnormal  specimens ;  to  use  the  language  of  old 
philosophy,  not  with  what  nature  is  striving  to  be,  but  with 
what  by  some  lapse  she  has  happened  to  become. 

This  art  works  by  contrast.  It  enables  you  to  see,  it  makes 
you  see,  the  perfect  type  by  painting  the  opposite  deviation. 
It  shows  you  what  ought  to  be  by  what  ought  not  to  be  ;  when 
complete  it  reminds  you  of  the  perfect  image,  by  showing  you 
the  distorted  and  imperfect  image.  Of  this  art  we  possess  in 
the  present  generation  one  prolific  master.  Mr.  Browning  is 
an  artist  working  by  incongruity.  Possibly  hardly  one  of  his 
most  considerable  efforts  can  be  found  which  is  not  great 
because  of  its  odd  mixture.  He  puts  together  things  which 
no  one  else  would  have  put  together,  and  produces  on  our 
minds  a  result  which  no  one  else  would  have  produced,  or  tried 
to  produce.  His  admirers  may  not  like  all  we  may  have  to  say 


376        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

of  him.  But  in  our  way  we  too  are  among  his  admirers.  No 
one  ever  read  him  without  seeing  not  only  his  great  ability  but 
his  great  mind.  He  not  only  possesses  superficial  useable 
talents,  but  the  strong  something,  the  inner  secret  something, 
which  uses  them  and  controls  them ;  he  is  great  not  in  mere 
accomplishments,  but  in  himself.  He  has  applied  a  hard  strong 
intellect  to  real  life ;  he  has  applied  the  same  intellect  to  the 
problems  of  his  age.  He  has  striven  to  know  what  is :  he  has 
endeavoured  not  to  be  cheated  by  counterfeits,  not  to  be  in- 
fatuated with  illusions.  His  heart  is  in  what  he  says.  He  has 
battered  his  brain  against  his  creed  till  he  believes  it.  He 
has  accomplishments  too,  the  more  effective  because  they  are 
mixed.  He  is  at  once  a  student  of  mysticism  and  a  citizen  of 
the  world.  He  brings  to  the  club-sofa  distinct  visions  of  old 
creeds,  intense  images  of  strange  thoughts :  he  takes  to  the 
bookish  student  tidings  of  wild  Bohemia,  and  little  traces  of 
the  demi-monde.  He  puts  down  what  is  good  for  the  naughty, 
and  what  is  naughty  for  the  good.  Over  women  his  easier 
writings  exercise  that  imperious  power  which  belongs  to  the 
writings  of  a  great  man  of  the  world  upon  such  matters.  He 
knows  women,  'and  therefore  they  wish  to  know  him.  If  we 
blame  many  of  Browning's  efforts,  it  is  in  the  interest  of  art, 
and  not  from  a  wish  to  hurt  or  degrade  him. 

If  we  wanted  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  grotesque  art  by  an 
exaggerated  instance,  we  should  have  selected  a  poem  which  the 
chance  of  late  publication  brings  us  in  this  new  volume.  Mr. 
Browning  has  undertaken  to  describe  what  may  be  called  mind 
in  difficulties — mind  set  to  make  out  the  universe  under  the 
worst  and  hardest  circumstances.  He  takes  '  Caliban,'  not  per- 
haps exactly  Shakespeare's  Caliban,  but  an  analogous  and  worse 
creature ;  a  strong  thinking  power,  but  a  nasty  creature — a 
gross  animal,  uncontrolled  and  unelevated  by  any  feeling  of 
religion  or  duty.  The  delineation  of  him  will  show  that  Mr. 
Browning  does  not  wish  to  take  undue  advantage  of  his  readers 
by  a  choice  of  nice  subjects. 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  377 

'  [Will  sprawl,  now  that  the  heat  of  day  is  best, 
Flat  on  his  belly  in  the  pit's  much  mire, 
With  elbows  wide,  fists  clenched  to  prop  his  chin  ; 
And,  while  he  kicks  both  feet  in  the  cool  slush, 
And  feels  about  his  spine  small  eft-things  course, 
Run  in  and  out  each  arm,  and  make  him  laugh  ; 
And  while  above  his  head  a  pompion  plant, 
Coating  the  cave-top  as  a  brow  its  eye, 
Creeps  down  to  touch  and  tickle  hair  and  beard, 
And  now  a  flower  drops  with  a  bee  inside, 
And  now  a  fruit  to  snap  at,  catch  and  crunch  : ' 

This  pleasant  creature  proceeds  to  give  his  idea  of  the  origin 
of  the  Universe,  and  it  is  as  follows.  Caliban  speaks  in  the 
third  person,  and  is  of  opinion  that  the  maker  of  the  Universe 
took  to  making  it  on  account  of  his  personal  discomfort : — 


1  Setebos,  Setebos,  and  Setebos  ! 
'Thinketh,  He  dwelleth  i'  the  cold  o'  the  moon. 

'  'Thinketh  He  made  it,  with  the  sun  to  match, 
But  not  the  stars  :  the  stars  came  otherwise  ; 
Only  made  clouds,  winds,  meteors,  such  as  that : 
Also  this  isle,  what  lives  and  grows  thereon, 
And  snaky  sea  which  rounds  and  ends  the  same. 

'  'Thinketh,  it  came  of  being  ill  at  ease  : 
He  hated  that  He  cannot  change  His  cold, 
Nor  cure  its  ache.     'Hath  spied  an  icy  fish 
That  longed  to  'scape  the  rock -stream  where  she  lived, 
And  thaw  herself  within  the  lukewarm  brine 
0'  the  lazy  sea  her  stream  thrusts  far  amid, 
A  crystal  spike  'twixt  two  warm  walls  of  wave  ; 
Only  she  ever  sickened,  found  repulse 
At  the  other  kind  of  water,  not  her  life, 
(Green-dense  and  dim-delicious,  bred  o'  the  sun) 
Flounced  back  from  bliss  she  was  not  born  to  breathe, 
And  in  her  old  bounds  buried  her  despair, 
Hating  and  loving  warmth  alike  :  so  He. 

'  'Thinketh,  He  made  thereat  the  sun,  this  isle, 
Trees  and  the  fowls  here,  beast  and  creeping  thing. 


378        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

Yon  otter,  sleek- wet,  black,  lithe  as  a  leech  ; 

Yon  auk,  one  fire- eye,  in  a  ball  of  foam, 

That  floats  and  feeds  ;  a  certain  badger  brown 

He  hath  watched  hunt  with  that  slant  white-wedge  eye 

By  moonlight  ;  and  the  pie  with  the  long  tongue 

That  pricks  deep  into  oakwarts  for  a  worm, 

And  says  a  plain  word  when  she  finds  her  prize, 

But  will  not  eat  the  ants  ;  the  ants  themselves 

That  build  a  wall  of  seeds  and  settled  stalks 

About  their  hole — He  made  all  these  and  more, 

Made  all  we  see,  and  us,  in  spite  :  how  else  1 ' 


It  may  seem  perhaps  to  most  readers  that  these  lines  are 
very  difficult,  and  that  they  are  unpleasant.  And  so  they  are. 
We  quote  them  to  illustrate,  not  the  success  of  grotesque  art, 
but  the  nature  of  grotesque  art.  It  shows  the  end  at  which 
this  species  of  art  aims,  and  if  it  fails  it  is  from  over-boldness 
in  the  choice  of  a  subject  by  the  artist,  or  from  the  defects  of 
its  execution.  A  thinking  faculty  more  in  difficulties — a  great 
type, — an  inquisitive,  searching  intellect  under  more  disagree- 
able conditions,  with  worse  helps,  more  likely  to  find  falsehood, 
less  likely  to  find  truth,  can  scarcely  be  imagined.  Nor  is  the 
mere  description  of  the  thought  at  all  bad  :  on  the  contrary,  if 
we  closely  examine  it,  it  is  very  clever.  Hardly  anyone  could 
have  amassed  so  many  ideas  at  once  nasty  and  suitable.  But 
scarcely  any  readers — any  casual  readers — who  are  not  of  the 
sect  of  Mr.  Browning's  admirers  will  be  able  to  examine  it 
enough  to  appreciate  it.  From  a  defect,  partly  of  subject,  and 
partly  of  style,  many  of  Mr.  Browning's  works  make  a  demand 
upon  the  reader's  zeal  and  sense  of  duty  to  which  the  nature  of 
most  readers  is  unequal.  They  have  on  the  turf  the  conve- 
nient expression  '  staying  power ' :  some  horses  can  hold  on 
and  others  cannot.  But  hardly  any  reader  not  of  especial  and 
peculiar  nature  can  hold  on  through  such  composition.  There 
is  not  enough  of  '  staying  power  '  in  human  nature.  One  of 
his  greatest  admirers  once  owned  to  us  that  he  seldom  or  never 
began  a  new  poem  without  looking  on  in  advance,  and  fore- 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  379 

seeing  with  caution  what  length  of  intellectual  adventure  he 
was  about  to  commence.  Whoever  will  work  hard  at  such 
poems  will  find  much  mind  in  them :  they  are  a  sort  of  quarry 
of  ideas,  but  who  ever  goes  there  will  find  these  ideas  in  such 
a  jagged,  ugly,  useless  shape  that  he  can  hardly  bear  them. 

We  are  not  judging  Mr.  Browning  simply  from  a  hasty, 
recent  production.  All  poets  are  liable  to  misconceptions,  and 
if  such  a  piece  as  '  Caliban  upon  Setebos '  were  an  isolated  error, 
a  venial  and  particular  exception,  we  should  have  given  it  no 
prominence*.  We  have  put  it  forward  because  it  just  elucidates 
both  our  subject  and  the  characteristics  of  Mr.  Browning.  But 
many  other  of  his  best  known  pieces  do  so  almost  equally  ; 
what  several  of  his  devotees  think  his  best  piece  is  quite 
enough  illustrative  for  anything  we  want.  It  appears  that  on 
Holy  Cross  day  at  Rome-  the  Jews  were  obliged  to  listen  to  a 
Christian  sermon  in  the  hope  of  their  conversion,  though  this 
is,  according  to  Mr.  Browning,  what  they  really  said  when  they 
came  away : — 

'  Fee,  faw,  f um  !  bubble  and  squeak  ! 
Blessedest  Thursday's  the  fat  of  the  week. 
Rumble  and  tumble,  sleek  and  rough, 
Stinking  and  savoury,  smug  and  gruff, 
Take  the  church-road,  for  the  bell's  due  chime 
Gives  us  the  summons — 't  is  sermon- time. 

'  Boh,  here's  Barnabas  !  Job,  that's  you  ? 
Up  stumps  Solomon — bustling  too  ? 
Shame,  man  !  greedy  beyond  your  years 
To  handsel  the  bishop's  shaving-shears  1 
Fair  play's  a  jewel  !  leave  friends  in  the  lurch  1 
Stand  on  a  line  ere  you  start  for  the  church. 

'  Higgledy,  piggledy,  packed  we  lie, 
Rats  in  a  hamper,  swine  in  a  stye, 
Wasps  in  a  bottle,  frogs  in  a  sieve, 
Worms  in  a  carcase,  fleas  in  a  sleeve. 
Hist  !  square  shoulders,  settle  your  thumbs 
And  buzz  for  the  bishop — here  he  comes.' 


380        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

And  after  similar  nice  remarks  for  a  church,  the  edified  congre 
gation  concludes  : — 

*  But  now,  while  the  scapegoats  leave  our  flock, 
And  the  rest  sit  silent  and  count  the  clock, 
Since  forced  to  muse  the  appointed  time 
On  these  precious  facts  and  truths  sublime, — 
Let  us  fitly  employ  it,  under  our  breath, 
In  saying  Ben  Ezra's  Song  of  Death. 

1  For  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  the  night  he  died, 
Called  sons  and  son's  sons  to  his  side, 
And  spoke,  "  This  world  has  been  harsh  and  strange  ; 
Something  is  wrong  :  there  needeth  a  change. 
But  what,  or  where  ?  at  the  last,  or  first  ? 
In  one  point  only  we  sinned,  at  worst. 

1  "  The  Lord  will  have  mercy  on  Jacob  yet, 
And  again  in  his  border  see  Israel  set. 
When  Judah  beholds  Jerusalem, 
The  stranger-seed  shall  be  joined  to  them  : 
To  Jacob's  House  shall  the  Gentiles  cleave. 
So  the  Prophet  saith  and  his  sons  believe. 

'  "  Ay,  the  children  of  the  chosen  race 
Shall  carry  and  bring  them  to  their  place : 
In  the  land  of  the  Lord  shall  lead  the  same, 
Bondsmen  and  handmaids.     Who  shall  blame, 
When  the  slave  enslave,  the  oppressed  ones  o'er 
The  oppressor  triumph  for  evermore  ? 

'  "  God  spoke,  and  gave  us  the  word  to  keep  : 
Bade  never  fold  the  hands  nor  sleep 
'Mid  a  faithless  world, — at  watch  and  ward, 
Till  Christ  at  the  end  relieve  our  guard. 
By  His  servant  Moses  the  watch  was  set : 
Though  near  upon  cock-crow,  we  keep  it  yet. 

' "  Thou  !  if  Thou  wast  He,  who  at  mid  watch  came, 
By  the  starlight,  naming  a  dubious  Name  ! 
And  if,  too  heavy  with  sleep — too  rash 
With  fear— O  Thou,  if  that  martyr  gash 
Fell  on  Thee  coming  to  take  Thine  own, 
And  we  gave  the  Cross,  when  we  owed  the  Throne — 


or,  Piire,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   381 

*  "  Thou  art  the  Judge.     We  are  bruised  thus. 
But,  the  judgment  over,  join  sides  with  us  ! 
Thine  too  is  the  cause  !  and  not  more  Thine 
Than  ours,  is  the  work  of  these  dogs  and  swine, 
Whose  life  laughs  through  and  spits  at  their  creed, 
Who  maintain  Thee  in  word,  and  defy  Thee  in  deed  ! 

'  "  We  withstood  Christ  then  1  be  mindful  how 
At  least  we  withstand  Barabbas  now  ! 
Was  our  outrage  sore  ?     But  the  worst  we  spared, 
To  have  called  these — Christians,  had  we  dared  ! 
Let  defiance  to  them  pay  mistrust  of  Thee, 
And  Rome  make  amends  for  Calvary  ! 

1 "  By  the  torture,  prolonged  from  age  to  age, 
By  the  infamy,  Israel's  heritage, 
By  the  Ghetto's  plague,  by  the  garb's  disgrace, 
By  the  badge  of  shame,  by  the  felon's  place, 
By  the  branding-tool,  the  bloody  whip, 
And  the  summons  to  Christian  fellowship, — 

'  "  We  boast  our  proof  that  at  least  the  Jew 
Would  wrest  Christ's  name  from  the  Devil's  crew. 
Thy  face  took  never  so  deep  a  shade 
But  we  fought  them  in  it,  God  our  aid  ! 
A  trophy  to  bear,  as  we  march,  Thy  band 
South,  Kast,  and  <>n  to  the  Pleasant  Land  !  "' 

It  is  very  natural  that  a  poet  whose  wishes  incline,  or  whose 
genius  conducts  him  to  a  grotesque  art,  should  be  attracted 
towards  mediaeval  subjects.  There  is  no  age  whose  legends  are 
so  full  of  grotesque  subjects,  and  no  age  whose  real  life  was  so 
fit  to  suggest  them.  Then,  more  than  at  any  other  time,  good 
principles  have  been  under  great  hardships.  The  vestiges  of 
ancient  civilisation,  the  germs  of  modern  civilisation,  the  little 
remains  of  what  had  been,  the  small  beginnings  of  what  is,  were 
buried  under  a  cumbrous  mass  of  barbarism  and  cruelty.  Grood 
elements  hidden  in  horrid  accompaniments  are  the  special 
theme  of  grotesque  art,  and  these  mediaeval  life  and  legends 
afford  more  copiously  than  could  have  been  furnished  before 


382         Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

Christianity  gave  its  new  elements  of  good,  or  since  modern 
civilisation  has  removed  some  few  at  least  of  the  old  elements 
of  destruction.  A  buried  life  like  the  spiritual  mediaeval  was 
Mr.  Browning's  natural  element,  and  he  was  right  to  be  attracted 
by  it.  His  mistake  has  been,  that  he  has  not  made  it  pleasant ; 
that  he  has  forced  his  art  to  topics  on  which  no  one  could  charm, 
or  on  which  he,  at  any  rate,  coul  1  not ;  that  on  these  occasions 
and  in  these  poems  he  has  failed  in  fascinating  men  and  women 
of  sane  taste. 

We  say  '  sane '  because  there  is  a  most  formidable  and 
estimable  insane  taste.  The  will  has  great  though  indirect 
power  over  the  taste,  just  as  it  has  over  the  belief.  There  are 
some  horrid  beliefs  from  which  human  nature  revolts,  from 
which  at  first  it  shrinks,  to  which,  at  first,  no  effort  can  force 
it.  But  if  we  fix  the  mind  upon  them  they  have  a  power  over 
us  just  because  of  their  natural  offensiveness.  They  are  like  the 
sight  of  human  blood  :  experienced  soldiers  tell  us  that  at  first 
men  are  sickened  by  the  smell  and  newness  of  blood  almost  to 
death  and  fainting,  but  that  as  soon  as  they  harden  their  hearts 
and  stiffen  their  minds,  as  soon  as  they  will  bear  it,  then  comes 
an  appetite  for  slaughter,  a  tendency  to  gloat  on  carnage,  to 
love  blood,  at  least  for  the  moment,  with  a  deep,  eager  love.  It 
is  a  principle  that  if  we  put  down  a  healthy  instinctive  aversion, 
nature  avenges  herself  by  creating  an  unhealthy  insane  attrac- 
tion. For  this  reason,  the  most  earnest  truth-seeking  men  fall 
into  the  worst  delusions ;  they  will  not  let  their  mind  alone ; 
they  force  it  towards  some  ugly  thing,  which  a  crotchet  of  ar- 
gument, a  conceit  of  intellect  recommends,  and  nature  punishes 
their  disregard  of  her  warning  by  subjection  to  the  ugly  one,  by 
belief  in  it.  Just  so  the  most  industrious  critics  get  the  most 
admiration.  They  think  it  unjust  to  rest  in  their  instinctive 
natural  horror  :  they  overcome  it,  and  angry  nature  gives  them 
over  to  ugly  poems  and  marries  them  to  detestable  stanzas. 

Mr.  Browning  possibly,  and  some  of  the  worst  of  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's admirers  certainly,  will  say  that  these  grotesque  objects 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  383 

exist  in  real  life,  and  therefore  they  ought  to  be,  at  least  may 
be,  described  in  art.  But,  though  pleasure  is  not  the  end  of 
poetry,  pleasing  is  a  condition  of  poetry.  An  exceptional  mon- 
strosity of  horrid  ugliness  cannot  be  made  pleasing,  except  it  be 
made  to  suggest — to  recall — the  perfection,  the  beauty,  from 
which  it  is  a  deviation.  Perhaps  in  extreme  cases  no  art  is 
equal  to  this ;  but  then  such  self-imposed  problems  should  not 
be  worked  by  the  artist ;  these  out-of-the-way  and  detestable 
subjects  should  be  let  alone  by  him.  It  is  rather  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Browning  to  neglect  this  rule.  He  is  the  most  of  a 
realist,  and  the  least  of  an  idealist,  of  any  poet  we  know.  He 
evidently  sympathises  with  some  part  at  least  of  Bishop  Bloug- 
ram's  apology.  Anyhow  this  world  exists.  '  There  is  good  wine 
— there  are  pretty  women — there  are  comfortable  benefices — 
there  is  money,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  spend  it.  Accept  the  creed 
of  your  age  and  you  get  these,  reject  that  creed  and  you  lose 
them.  And  for  what  do  you  lose  them  ?  For  a  fancy  creed  of 
your  own,  which  no  one  else  will  accept,  which  hardly  anyone 
will  call  a  "  creed,"  which  most  people  will  consider  a  sort  of 
unbelief.'  Again,  Mr.  Browning  evidently  loves  what  we  may 
call  the  realism,  the  grotesque  realism,  of  orthodox  Christianity. 
Many  parts  of  it  in  which  great  divines  have  felt  keen  difficulties 
are  quite  pleasant  to  him.  He  must  see  his  religion,  he  must 
have  an  '  object-lesson '  in  believing.  He  must  have  a  creed 
that  will  take,  which  wins  and  holds  the  miscellaneous  world, 
which  stout  men  will  heed,  which  nice  women  will  adore.  The 
spare  moments  of  solitary  religion — the  '  obdurate  questionings,5 
the  high  'instincts,'  the  'first  affections,'  the  'shadowy  re- 
collections,' 

'  Which,  do  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day — 
Are  yet  a  master-light  of  all  our  seeing  ; ' 

the  great  but  vague  faith — the  unutterable  tenets — seem  to  him 
worthless,  visionary  ;  they  are  not  enough  immersed  in  matter  ; 
they  move  about '  in  worlds  not  realised.'  We  wish  he  could  be 


384        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ; 

tried  like  the  prophet  once ;  he  would  have  found  (rod  in  the 
earthquake  and  the  storm  ;  he  would  have  deciphered  from  them 
a  bracing  and  a  rough  religion  :  he  would  have  known  that  crude 
men  and  ignorant  women  felt  them  too,  and  he  would  accord- 
ingly have  trusted  them ;  but  he  would  have  distrusted  and 
disregarded  the  c  still  small  voice : '  he  would  have  said  it  was 
'  fancy ' — a  thing  you  thought  you  heard  to-day,  but  were  not 
sure  you  had  heard  to-morrow  :  he  would  call  it  a  nice  illusion, 
an  immaterial  prettiness  ;  he  would  ask  triumphantly 4  How  are 
you  to  get  the  mass  of  men  to  heed  this  little  thing  ?  '  he  would 
have  persevered  and  insisted  '  My  wife,  does  not  hear  it.' 

But  although  a  suspicion  of  beauty,  and  a  taste  for  ugly 
reality,  have  led  Mr.  Browning  to  exaggerate  the  functions, 
and  to  caricature  the  nature  of  grotesque  art,  we  own,  or  rather 
we  maintain,  that  he  has  given  many  excellent  specimens  of 
that  art  within  its  proper  boundaries  and  limits.  Take  an 
example,  his  picture  of  what  we  may  call  the  bourgeois  nature 
in  difficulties ;  in  the  utmost  difficulty,  in  contact  with  magic 
and  the  supernatural.  He  has  made  of  it  something  homely, 
comic,  true ;  reminding  us  of  what  bourgeois  nature  really  is. 
By  showing  us  the  type  under  abnormal  conditions,  he  reminds 
us  of  the  tv^r  under  its  Uest  and  most-  satisfactory  c<»mli 
tions  :— 

k  Hamelin  Town's  in  Brunswick, 

By  famous  Hanover  city  ; 
The  river  Weser,  deep  and  wide, 
Washes  its  walls  on  the  southern  side  ; 
A  pleasanter  spot  you  never  spied  ; 

But,  when  begins  my  ditty, 
Almost  five  hundred  years  ago, 
To  see  the  townsfolk  suffer  so 

From  vermin,  was  a  pity. 

'  Rats  ! 

They  fought  the  dogs,  and  killed  the  cats, 
And  bit  the  babies  in  the  cradles, 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.    385 

And  ate  the  cheeses  out  of  the  vats, 

And  licked  the  soup  from  the  cook's  own  ladles, 
Split  open  the  kegs  of  salted  sprats, 
Made  nests  inside  men's  Sunday  hats, 
And  even  spoiled  the  women's  chats, 

By  drowning  their  speaking 

With  shrieking  and  squeaking 
In  fifty  different  sharps  and  flats. 

1  At  last  the  people  in  a  body 

To  the  Town  Hall  came  flocking  : 
"  'Tis  clear,"  cried  they,  "  our  Mayor's  a  noddy  ; 

And  as  for  our  Corporation — shocking, 
To  think  we  buy  gowns  lined  with  ermine, 
For  dolts  that  can't  or  won't  determine 
What's  best  to  rid  us  of  our  vermin  ! 
You  hope,  because  you're  old  and  obese, 
To  find  in  the  furry  civic  robe  ease  1 
Rouse  up,  Sirs  !     Give  your  brains  a  racking 
To  find  the  remedy  we're  lacking, 
Or,  sure  as  fate,  we'll  send  you  packing  !  " 
At  this  the  Mayor  and  Corporation 
Quaked  with  a  mighty  consternation.' 

A  person  of  musical  abilities  proposes  to  extricate  the 
civic  dignitaries  from  the  difficulty,  and  they  promise  him  a 
thousand  guilders  if  he  does. 

*  Into  the  street  the  Piper  stept, 

Smiling  first  a  little  smile, 
As  if  he  knew  what  magic  slept 

In  his  quiet  pipe  the  while  ; 
Then,  like  a  musical  adept, 
To  blow  the  pipe  his  lips  he  wrinkled, 
And  green  and  blue  his  sharp  eye  twinkled 
Like  a  candle-flame  when  salt  is  sprinkled; 
And  ere  three  shrill  notes  the  pipe  uttered 
You  heard  as  if  an  army  muttered  ; 
And  the  muttering  grew  to  a  grumbling  ; 
And  the  grumbling  grew  to  a  mighty  rumbling  : 
And  out  of  the  houses  the  rats  came  tumbling. 

VOL.    II.  G    C 


386        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

Great  rats,  small  rats,  lean  rats,  brawny  rats, 
Brown  rats,  black  rats,  grey  rats,  tawny  rats, 
Grave  old  plodders,  gay  young  friskers, 

Fathers,  mothers,  uncles,  cousins, 
Cocking  tails  and  pricking  whiskers, 

Families  by  tens  and  dozens. 
Brothers,  sisters,  husbands,  wives — 
Followed  the  Piper  for  their  lives. 
From  street  to  street  he  piped  advancing, 
And  step  for  step  they  followed  dancing 
Until  they  came  to  the  river  Weser, 
Wherein  all  plunged  and  perished  ! 
— Save  one  who,  stout  as  Julius  Ceesar, 
Swam  across  and  lived  to  carry 
(As  he,  the  manuscript  he  cherished) 
To  Rat-land  home  his  commentary  : 
Which  was,  "  At  the  first  shrill  notes  of  the  pipe, 
I  heard  a  sound  as  of  scraping  tripe, 
And  putting  apples,  wondrous  ripe, 
Into  a  cider-press's  gripe  : 
And  a  moving  away  of  pickle-tub  boards, 
And  a  leaving  ajar  of  conserve-cupboards, 
And  a  drawing  the  corks  of  train-oil  flasks, 
And  a  breaking  the  hoops  of  butter  casks  ; 
And  it  seemed  as  if  a  voice 
(Sweeter  far  than  by  harp  or  by  psaltery 
Is  breathed)  called  out,  Oh  rats,  rejoice  ! 
The  world  is  grown  to  one  vast  drysaltery  ! 


So  munch  on,  crunch  on,  take  your  nuncheon, 
Breakfast,  supper,  dinner,  luncheon  ! 
And  just  as  a  bulky  sugar-puncheon, 
All  ready  staved,  like  a  great  sun  shone 
Glorious  scarce  an  inch  before  me, 
Just  as  methought  it  said,  Come,  bore  me  ! 
— I  found  the  Weser  rolling  o'er  me." 
You  should  have  heard  the  Hamelin  people 
Ringing  the  bells  till  they  rocked  the  steeple. 
"Go,"  cried  the  Mayor,  "and  get  long  poles, 
Poke  out  the  nests  and  block  up  the  holes  ! 
Consult  with  carpenters  and  builders, 
And  leave  in  our  town  not  even  a  trace 
Of  the  rats  !  " — when  suddenly,  up  the  face 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.   387 

Of  the  Piper  perked  in  the  market-place, 

With  a  "  First,  if  you  please,  my  thousand  guilders-!  " 


*  A  thousand  guilders  !     The  Mayor  looked  blue  ; 
So  did  the  Corporation  too. 

For  council  dinners  made  rare  havoc 

With  Claret,  Moselle,  Vin-de-Grave,  Hock  ; 

And  half  the  money  would  replenish 

Their  cellar's  biggest  butt  with  Rhenish. 

To  pay  this  sum  to  a  wandering  fellow 

With  a  gipsy  coat  of  red  and  yellow ! 

"Beside,"  quoth  the  Mayor  with  a  knowing  wink, 

"  Our  business  was  done  at  the  river's  brink ; 

We  saw  with  our  eyes  the  vermin  sink, 

And  what's  dead  can't  come  to  life,  I  think. 

So,  friend,  we're  not  the  folks  to  shrink 

From  the  duty  of  giving  you  something  for  drink, 

And  a  matter  of  money  to  put  in  your  poke  ; 

But  as  for  the  guilders,  what  we  spoke 

Of  them,  as  you  very  well  know,  was  in  joke. 

Beside,  our  losses  have  made  us  thrifty. 

A  thousand  guilders  !     Come,  take  fifty  ! 

'  The  Piper's  face  fell,  and  he  cried, 
"  No  trifling  !     I  can't  wait,  beside  ! 
I've  promised  to  visit  by  dinner  time 
Bagdat,  and  accept  the  prime 
Of  the  Head-Cook's  pottage,  all  he's  rich  in, 
For  having  left,  in  the  Caliph's  kitchen, 
Of  a  nest  of  scorpions  no  survivor — 
With  him  I  proved  no  bargain-driver. 
With  you,  don't  think  I'll  bate  a  stiver  ! 
And  folks  who  put  me  in  a  passion 
May  find  me  pipe  to  another  fashion." 

*  "  How  1 "  cried  the  Mayor,  "  d'ye  think  I'll  brook 
Being  worse  treated  than  a  Cook  1 

Insulted  by  a  lazy  ribald 
With  idle  pipe  and  vesture  piebald  ? 
c  c  2 


388        Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  ; 

You  threaten  us,  fellow  ?     Do  your  worst, 
Blow  your  pipe  there  till  you  burst  ! " 

1  Once  more  he  stept  into  the  street ; 

And  to  his  lips  again 
Laid  his  long  pipe  of  smooth  straight  cane  ; 

And  ere  he  blew  three  notes  (such  sweet 
Soft  notes  as  yet  musician's  cunning 

Never  gave  the  enraptured  air) 
There  was  a  rustling  that  seemed  like  a  bustling 
Of  merry  crowds  justling  at  pitching  and  hustling, 
Small  feet  were  pattering,  wooden  shoes  clattering, 
Little  hands  clapping  and  little  tongues  chattering, 
And,  like  fowls  in  a  farm-yard  when  barley  is  scattering, 
Out  came  the  children  running. 

'  All  the  little  boys  and  girls, 
With  rosy  cheeks  and  flaxen  curls, 
And  sparkling  eyes  and  teeth  like  pearls, 
Tripping  and  skipping,  ran  merrily  after 
The  wonderful  music  with  shouting  and  laughter. 
*******         * 

And  I  must  not  omit  to  say 

That  in  Transylvania  there's  a  tribe 

Of  alien  people  that  ascribe 

The  outlandish  ways  and  dress 

On  which  their  neighbours  lay  such  stress, 

To  their  fathers  and  mothers  having  risen 

Out  of  some  subterraneous  prison 

Into  which  they  were  trepanned 

Long  time  ago-  in  a  mighty  band 

Out  of  Hamelin  town  in  Brunswick  land, 

But  how  or  why  they  don't  understand.' 

Something  more  we  had  to  say  of  Mr.  Browning,  but  we 
must  stop.  It  is  singularly  characteristic  of  this  age  that  the 
poems  which  rise  to  the  surface  should  be  examples  of  ornate 
art,  and  grotesque  art,  not  of  pure  art.  We  live  in  the  realm 
of  the  half  educated.  The  number  of  readers  grows  daily,  but 


or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and  Grotesque  Art  in  Poetry.  389 

the  quality  of  readers  does  not  improve  rapidly.  The  middle 
class  is  scattered,  headless ;  it  is  well-meaning,  but  aimless ; 
wishing  to  be  wise,  but  ignorant  how  to  be  wise.  The  aristo- 
cracy of  England  never  was  a  literary  aristocracy,  never  even 
in  the  days  of  its  full  power — of  its  unquestioned  predomi- 
nance, did  it  guide — did  it  even  seriously  try  to  guide — the 
taste  of  England.  Without  guidance  young  men,  and  tired 
men,  are  thrown  amongst  a  mass  of  books ;  they  have  to  choose 
which  they  like ;  many  of  them  would  much  like  to  improve 
their  culture,  to  chasten  their  taste,  if  they  knew  how.  But 
left  to  themselves  they  take,  not  pure  art,  but  showy  art ;  not 
that  which  permanently  relieves  the  eye  and  makes  it  happy 
whenever  it  looks,  and  as  long  as  it  looks,  but  glaring  art 
which  catches  and  arrests  the  eye  for  a  moment,  but  which  in 
the  end  fatigues  it.  But  before  the  wholesome  remedy  of 
nature — the  fatigue  arrives — the  hasty  reader  has  passed  on  to 
some  new  excitement,  which  in  its  turn  stimulates  for  an 
instant,  and  then  is  passed  by  for  ever.  These  conditions  are 
not  favourable  to  the  due  appreciation  of  pure  art — of  that  art 
which  must  be  known  before  it  is  admired — which  must  have 
fastened  irrevocably  on  the  brain  before  you  appreciate  it — 
which  you  must  love  ere  it  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love. 
Women  too,  whose  voice  in  literature  counts  as  well  as  that  of 
men — and  in  a  light  literature  counts  for  more  than  that  of 
men — women,  such  as  we  know  them,  such  as  they  are  likely 
to  be,  ever  prefer  a  delicate  unreality  to  a  true  or  firm  art.  A 
dressy  literature,  an  exaggerated  literature  seem  to  be  fated  to 
us.  These  are  our  curses,  as  other  times  had  theirs. 

<  And  yet 

Think  not  the  living  times  forget, 
Ages  of  heroes  fought  and  fell, 
That  Homer  in  the  end  might  tell ; 
O'er  grovelling  generations  past 
Upstood  the  Doric  fane  at  last ; 
And  countless  hearts  on  countless  years 


390         Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning. 



Had  wasted  thoughts,  and  hopes,  and  fears, 
Rude  laughter  and  unmeaning  tears  ; 
Ere  England  Shakespeare  saw,  or  Rome 
The  pure  perfection  of  her  dome. 
Others  I  doubt  not,  if  not  we, 
The  issue  of  our  toils  shall  see  ; 
Young  children  gather  as  their  own 
The  harvest  that  the  dead  had  sown, 
The  dead  forgotten  and  unknown.' l 

1  The  Poems  and  Prose  Remains  of  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  vol.  ii.  p.  472. 


APPENDIX. 

THE  IGNORANCE   OF  MAN.1 
(1862.) 

A  BOLD  man  once  said  that  religion  and  morality  were  inconsistent. 
He  argued  thus  :  The  essence  of  religion — part  of  the  essence,  at  any 
rate — is  recompense  ;  a  belief  in  another  life  is  only  another  name 
for  the  anticipation  of  a  time  when  wickedness  will  be  punished,  and 
when  goodness  will  be  rewarded.  If  you  admit  a  Providence,  you 
acknowledge  the  existence  of  an  adjusting  agency,  of  a  power  which 
is  recompensing  by  its  very  definition,  and  of  its  very  nature,  whick 
allots  happiness  to  virtue  and  pain  to  vice.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
essence  of  morality  is  disinterestedness  ;  a  man  who  does  good  for  the 
sake  of  a  future  gain  to  himself  is,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  altogether 
inferior  to  one  who  does  good  for  the  good's  sake,  who  hopes  for 
nothing  again,  who  is  not  thinking  of  himself,  who  is  not  calculating 
his  own  futurity.  Between  a  man  who  does  good  to  the  world  because 
he  takes  an  intelligent  view  of  his  real  interest,  and  another  who  does 
harm  to  the  world  because  he  is  blind  to  that  interest,  there  is  only 
an  intellectual  difference, — the  one  is  mentally  longsighted,  the  other 
mentally  shortsighted.  By  the  admission  of  all  mankind,  a  dis- 
interested action  is  better  than  a  selfish  action ;  a  disinterested  man 
is  higher  than  a  selfish  man.  Yet  how  is  it  possible  that  a  religious 
man  can  be  disinterested  ?  Heaven  overarches  him,  hell  yawns 
before  him.  How  can  he  help  having  his  eyes  attracted  by  the 
one  and  terrified  by  the  other  1  He  boasts,  indeed,  that  religion  is 
useful  to  mankind  by  producing  good  actions ;  he  extols  the  attractive 
influence  of  future  reward,  and  the  deterring  efficacy  of  apprehended 
penalty.  But  his  boast  is  absurd  and  premature  ;  by  holding  forth 
these  anticipated  bribes,  by  menacing  these  pains,  he  extracts  from 

1  Science  in  Theology.     Sermons  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford. 
By  the  Rev.  Adam  S.  Farrar.    Longmans. 


392  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

virtue  its  virtue  ;  he  makes  it  selfishness  like  the  rest ;  he  constructs 
an  edifying  and  hoping  saint,  but  he  spoils  the  disinterested  and 
uncalculating  man. 

These  thoughts  are  not  often  boldly  expressed.  Fundamental 
difficulties  rarely  are.  They  constantly  confuse  the  mind,  and  they 
are  always  floating  like  a  vague  mist  in  the  intellectual  air ;  they 
distort  and  blur  the  outlines  of  everything  else,  but  they  have  no  dis- 
tinct outline  of  their  own.  An  obscure  difficulty  is  a  pervading  evil ; 
the  first  requisite  for  removing  it  is  to  make  it  clear  ;  if  you  assign  a 
limit,  you  notify  the  frontier  at  which  it  may  be  attacked. 

The  objection  is,  in  most  people's  apprehensions,  and  in  its 
common  incomplete  expressions,  confined  exclusively  to  the  doctrine 
of  a  future  life,  but  it  is  at  least  equally  applicable  to  the  belief  in  a 
God  who  rules  and  governs.  We  can  of  course  conceive  of  superna- 
tural beings  who  do  not  interfere  with  us,  who  do  not  care  for  us, 
who  do  not  help  us,  who  have  no  connection  with  our  moral  life,  who 
do  good  to  no  one,  who  do  evil  to  no  one.  Such  were  the  gods  of 
Lucretius,  the  most  fascinating  of  pure  inventions  ;  but  such  gods  are 
not  the  gods  of  religion.  The  ancient  Epicurean,  in  times  when 
obscure  difficulties  were  discussed  in  plainer  words  than  is  now  either 
possible  or  advisable,  expressly  defended  them  on  that  ground.  He 
did  not  want  his  gods  to  interfere  with  him ;  he  thought  it  would 
impair  the  ideal  languor  of  their  life,  as  well  as  the  inapprehensive 
security  of  his  own  life.  They  lived  *  self-scanned,  self-centred,  self- 
secure,'  and  he  was,  in  so  far  as  was  possible,  to  do  so  also.  He  did 
not  wish  the  voluptuaries  of  heaven  to  become  the  busybodies  of 
earth.  He  liked  to  have  a  pleasant  dream  of  the  upper  world,  but  he 
did  not  wish  it  to  descend  and  rule  him.  But  as  soon  as  we  abandon 
the  natural  fiction  of  the  voluptuous  imagination ;  as  soon  as  we  accept 
the  idea  of  a  God  who  is  a  providence  in  the  universe,  and  not  an 
idol  in  heaven ;  as  soon  as  we  allow  that  He  loves  good  and  hates 
evil ;  as  soon  as  we  are  sure  that  He  is  our  Father,  and  chastises  us 
as  children ;  as  soon  as  we  acknowledge  a  God  such  as  the  human 
heart  and  conscience  crave  for,  the  God  of  Christianity, — we  at  once 
reach  the  primitive  difficulty.  Here  is  a  Being  whom  we  know  will 
reward  the  good  and  punish  the  evil ;  how  can  we  do  good  without 
reference  to  that  supernatural  recompense,  or  evil  without  shrinking 
from  that  apprehended  penalty  1 

Nor  is  it  for  this  purpose  in  the  least  material,  though  for  many 
other  purposes  it  is  very  material,  whether  we  consider  God  as  acting 
by  irrevocable  laws  fixed  once  for  all,  or  upon  a  system  which  (though 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  393 

foreseen  and  immutable  to  Him,  to  whom  all  the  future  is  as  present 
as  all  the  past)  is  according  to  our  view  of  it, — to  our  translation  of 
it,  so  to  speak,  into  our  limited  capacities, — capable  of  flexibility  at 
His  touch,  and  of  modification  at  His  pleasure.  If  we  know  that  we 
are  rewarded  and  punished,  it  matters  little,  as  respects  our  hope  and 
our  apprehension,  whether  that  punishment  be  inflicted  by  a  machine 
or  by  a  person ;  in  one  case  we  shall  shun  the  contact  with  the 
lacerating  wheel,  in  the  other  we  shall  dread  a  blow  from  the  puni- 
tive hand.  But  in  either  case  the  pain  will  be  the  determining 
motive,  the  deterring  thought.  We  shall  act  as  we  do  act,  not  from 
a  disinterested  intention  to  do  our  duty  whatever  be  the  consequences, 
but  from  a  sincere  wish  to  get  off  patent  and  proximate  suffering. 
The  difficulty  of  reconciling  a  true  morality  with  a  true  religion  is  not 
confined  to  that  part  of  religion  which  relates  to  the  anticipated  life  of 
man  hereafter,  but  extends  to  the  very  idea  of  a  superintending  pro- 
vidence and  preadjusting  Creator,  in  whatever  mode  we  conceive  that 
superintendence  to  be  exercised,  and  that  adjustment  to  have  .been 
made. 

The  answer  most  commonly  given  to  this  difficulty  is  unquestion- 
ably fallacious.  It  is  said  that  the  desire  of  eternal  life  for  ourselves 
is  a  motive  far  greater  and  far  better  than  the  desire  of  anything  else, 
either  for  ourselves  or  for  others.  It  is  not  conceived  as  a  form  of 
selfishness  at  all — at  least,  not  when  regarded  in  this  connection,  and 
employed  to  solve  this  problem.  At  other  times,  indeed,  divines  are 
ready  enough  to  twist  the  argument  the  other  way.  They  will  expand 
at  length  the  notion  that  there  is  a  '  common  sense  '  in  the  Gospel ; 
that  it  appeals  to  '  business-like  motives ; '  that  there  is  nothing 
'  high-flown  *  about  it ;  that  it  aims  to  persuade  sensible  men  of  this 
world,  on  sufficient  reasons  of  sound  prudence,  to  sacrifice  the  present 
world  in  order  to  gain  the  invisible  one  ;  that,  whatever  sentimen- 
talists may  assert,  it  is  reward  which  incites  to  achievement,  and  fear 
that  restrains  from  misdoing.  Sermons  are  written  in  consecrated 
paragraphs,  each  of  which  is  sufficient  to  itself,  and  the  connection 
between  which  is  not  intended  to  be  precisely  adjusted  ;  each  has  an 
edifying  tendency,  and  the  writer  and  the  hearer  wish  for  no  more. 
Otherwise  it  would  not  be  possible,  as  it  often  is,  to  hear  religion 
commended  in  the  same  discourse  at  one  time  as  self-sacrificing,  and 
at  another  as  prudential ;  to  have  a  eulogium  on  disinterestedness  in 
the  exordium,  and  an  appeal  to  selfishness  at  the  conclusion.  A  mode 
of  composition  which  less  disguised  the  true  ideas  of  the  composer, 
would  show  that  many  divines  really  believe  a  desire  for  a  long 


394  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

pleasure  in  heaven,  to  be  not  only  more  longsighted  and  sensible,  but 
intrinsically  higher,  nobler,  and  better  than  a  desire  for  a  short  happi- 
ness on  earth.  Yet,  when  stated  in  short  sentences  and  plain  English, 
the  idea  is  palpably  absurd.  The  { wish  to  come  into  a  good  thing '  is 
of  the  same  ethical  order,  whether  the  good  thing  be  celestial  or  be 
terrestrial,  be  distantly  future,  or  be  close  at  hand. 

A  second  mode  of  solving  the  difficulty,  though  more  ingenious, 
and  in  every  way  far  better,  is  erroneous  also.  It  is  said,  '  men 
generally  act  from  mixed  motives,  and  they  do  so  in  this  case.  They 
are  partly  disinterested,  and  partly  not  disinterested.  They  are  desi- 
rous of  doing  good  because  it  is  good,  and  they  are  desirous  also  of 
having  the  reward  of  goodness  hereafter.  They  wish  at  the  very 
same  time  to  benefit  their  neighbour  in  this  world,  and  also  to  bene- 
fit themselves  in  the  world  to  come.'  The  reply  is  ingenious,  but  it 
overlooks  the  point  of  the  difficulty  ;  it  mistakes  the  nature  of  mixed 
motives.  The  constitution  of  man  is  such  that  if  you  strengthen  one 
of  two  co-operating  motives,  you  weaken,  other  things  being  equal, 
the  force  of  the  other  :  the  lesser  impulse  tends  always  to  be  absorbed 
in  the  stronger,  and  it  may  pass  entirely  out  of  thought  if  the  stronger 
is  strengthened,  if  the  greater  become  more  prominent.  We  see  this 
in  common  life  ;  it  is  undoubtedly  possible  for  a  statesman  to  act  at 
the  same  moment  both  from  the  love  of  office  and  from  the  love  of 
his  country ;  from  a  wish  to  prolong  his  power  and  a  wish  to  benefit 
his  nation.  But  strengthen  one  of  these  motives,  and,  cceteris  pari- 
bus,  you  weaken  the  other.  Make  the  statesman  love  office  more,  you 
thereby  make  him  love  his  country  less ;  he  will  be  readier  to  sacrifice 
what  he  will  call  a  '  vague  theory  and  an  impracticable  purpose '  for 
the  sake  of  the  power  which  he  loves ;  he  will  cease  to  care  to  do 
what  he  ought,  from  a  wish  to  retain  the  capacity  of  doing  something. 
Or,  suppose  a  further  case  :  there  have  been  many  times  and  countries 
where  the  loss  of  office  was  equivalent  to  the  loss  of  liberty,  perhaps 
to  that  of  life.  In  one  age  of  English  history,  one  great  historian 
says,  *  There  was  but  a  single  step  from  the  throne  to  the  scaffold/ 
In  another  age,  another  great  historian  says,  '  It  was  as  dangerous  to 
be  leader  of  opposition  as  to  be  a  highwayman.'  The  possessors  of 
power  in  those  times,  upon  principle,  destroyed  or  endeavoured  to 
destroy  their  predecessors.  Such  a  prospect  would  induce  a  statesman 
to  love  office  for  its  own  sake.  It  would  absorb  the  whole  of  his 
attention  ;  he  could  hardly  be  asked  to  think  of  his  country.  Extra- 
ordinary men  would  do  so,  but  ordinary  men  would  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  'violent  motive '  of  personal  fear  ;  they  would  only  be  thinking 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  395 

of  themselves  even  when  they  were  doing  what  in  truth  and  fact  was 
beneficial  to  their  country. 

The  case  is  similar  to  the  '  violent  motive,'  as  Paley  calls  it,  of 
religion,  when  presented  in  the  same  manner  in  which  Paley  presents 
it.  If  you  could  extend  before  men  the  awful  vision  of  everlasting 
perdition,  if  they  could  see  it  as  they  see  the  things  of  earth — as  they 
see  Fleet  Street  and  St.  Paul's ;  if  you  could  show  men  likewise  the  in- 
citing vision  of  an  everlasting  heaven,  if  they  could  see  that  too  with 
undeniable  certainty  and  invincible  distinctness, — who  could  say  that 
they  would  have  a  thought  for  any  other  motive  1  The  personal  in- 
centive to  good  action,  and  the  personal  dissuasion  from  bad  action, 
would  absorb  all  other  considerations,  whether  deterrent  or  per- 
suasive. We  could  no  more  break  a  divine  law  than  we  could  commit 
a  murder  in  the  open  street.  The  fact  that  men  act  from  mixed 
motives  is  no  explanation  of  the  great  difficulty  with  which  we  started; 
for  the  precise  peculiarity  of  that  difficulty  is  to  raise  one  of  those 
mixed  motives  to  an  intensity  which  seems  likely  to  absorb,  extin- 
guish, and  annihilate  the  other. 

The  true  explanation  is  precisely  "the  reverse.  The  moral  part  of 
religion — the  belief  in  a  moral  state  hereafter,  dependent  for  its 
nature  on  our  goodness  or  our  wickedness,  the  belief  in  a  moral  Pro- 
vidence, who  apportions  good  to  good,  and  evil  to  evil — does  not  an- 
nihilate the  sense  of  the  inherent  nature  of  good  and  evil  because  it 
is  itself  the  result  of  that  sense.  Our  only  ground  for  accepting  an 
ethical  and  retributive  religion  is  the  inward  consciousness  that  virtue 
being  virtue  must  prosper,  that  vice  being  vice  must  fail.  From  these 
axioms  we  infer,  not  logically,  but  practically,  that  there  is  a  con- 
tinuous eternity,  in  which  what  we  expect  will  be  seen,  that  there  is 
a  Providence  who  will  apportion  what  is  good,  and  punish  what  is 
evil.  Of  the  mode  in  which  we  do  so  we  will  speak  presently  more 
at  length ;  but  granting  that  this  description  of  our  religion  is  true, 
it  undeniably  solves  our  difficulty.  Our  religion  cannot  by  possibility 
swallow  up  morality  because  it  is  dependent  for  its  origin — for  its 
continuance — on  that  morality. 

Suppose  a  person,  say  in  a  prison,  to  have  no  knowledge  by  the 
senses  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  human  law ;  suppose  that  he 
never  saw  either  the  judicial  or  the  executive  authorities,  and  that  no 
one  ever  told  him  of  their  existence;  suppose  that  by  a  consciousness 
of  the  inherent  nature  of  good  and  evil,  the  fact  that  such  an  insti- 
tution must  exist  should  dawn  upon  his  mind, — of  course  it  would 
not,  but  imagine  that  it  should, — it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  he 


396  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

would  feel  his  power  of  doing  what  is  right  because  it  is  right  di- 
minished. When  he  goes  out  into  the  world,  when  he  hears  his 
judge,  when  he  sees  the  policeman,  when  he  surveys  the  intrusive, 
the  incessant,  the  pervading  moral  apparatus  of  human  society, — 
then  he  would  be  able  to  disregard  and  to  forget  what  is  due  to  in- 
trinsic goodness  and  what  is  to  be  feared  from  intrinsic  evil.  No  one 
will  or  can  say  that  he  now  abstains  from  stealing  oranges  under 
a  policeman's  eyes  from  any  motive,  good  or  bad,  save  fear  of  the 
policeman;  that  motive  is  so  evident,  so  pressing,  so  irresistible,  that 
it  becomes  the  only  motive.  But  if  he  only  thought  the  policeman 
must  exist  because  he  believed  stealing  oranges  to  be  wrong,  he  would 
feel  it  quite  possible  to  abstain  from  stealing  oranges  out  of  pure 
and  unselfish  considerations. 

Assume  that  a  person  only  knows  a  particular  fact  from  a  certain 
informant,  and  suppose  that  on  a  sudden  he  doubts  that  informant, 
of  course  his  confidence  in  the  communicated  fact  ceases,  or  is  di- 
minished. So,  if  all  our  knowledge  of  the  religious  part  of  morality 
be  derived  from  the  intrinsic  impression  of  morality,  as  soon  as  we 
question  the  accuracy  of  the  informant,  that  instant  we  must  be  du- 
bious of  the  information.  The  derivative  cannot  be  stronger  than 
the  original ;  cannot  overpower  it;  must  grow  when  it  grows,  and 
wane  when  it  wanes. 

But  is  our  knowledge  of  the  moral  part  of  religion  thus  deriva- 
tive and  dependent  1  Two  classes  of  disputants  will  deny  it  entirely : 
one  class  will  say  they  derive  their  knowledge  from  Natural  Theo- 
logy; another  will  say  they  derive  it  from  Revelation;  and  until  the 
arguments  of  both  classes  are  examined,  the  subject  must  remain  in 
partial  darkness.  Natural  theology  is  the  simplest  of  theologies ;  it 
contains  only  a  single  argument,  and  establishes  but  one  conclusion. 
Observing  persons  have  gone  to  and  fro  through  the  earth,  and  they 
have  accumulated  a  million  illustrations  of  a  single  analogy.  They 
have  accumulated  indications  of  design  from  all  parts  of  the  universe. 
They  have  not,  indeed,  shown  that  matter  was  created ;  the  substance 
of  matter,  if  there  be  a  substance,  shows  no  structure,  no  evidence  of 
design :  according  to  all  common  belief,  according  to  the  admission  of 
such  scientific  men  as  admit  its  existence,  that  matter  is  unorganised. 
By  its  nature  it  is  a  raw  material ;  it  is  that  to  which  manufacture, 
manipulation,  design — call  it  what  you  like — is  to  be  applied ;  neces- 
sarily therefore  it  shows  no  indication  of  design  itself.  The  reasoners 
from  the  workmanship  of  man  to  that  of  God  must  always  fail  in  this: 
man  only  adapts  what  he  finds :  God  creates  what  He  uses.  But  within 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  397 

its  legitimate  limits  the  argument  from  design  has  been  most  effectual 
for  two  thousand  years.  On  a  certain  class  of  purely  intellectual 
minds,  who  think  more  than  they  live,  who  reason  more  than  they 
imagine,  it  has  produced  the  strongest  and  most  vivid  conception  of 
God  which,  with  their  experience  and  their  mental  limitation,  they 
are  capable  of  receiving.  It  has  shown  that  out  of  the  causes  we 
know,  none  is  so  likely  to  have  worked  up  the  substance  of  matter 
into  its  present  form  as  a  designing  and  powerful  mind.  /Subject  to 
this  assumption,  it  shows  that  this  mind  intended  to  erect  that  mixed, 
composite,  involved  human  society  which  we  see.  These  theologians 
prove,  for  example,  that  man  has  a  structure  of  body  which  enables 
him  to  be  what  he  is,  which  prevents  his  being  in  appearance,  and  in 
most  real  particularities,  different  from  what  he  is.  They  show  that 
the  physical  world  is  constructed  so  as  to  enable  man  to  be  what  he 
is,  and  to  show  what  he  is,  so  as  to  limit  his  power  of  being  greatly 
different,  or  of  seeming  so.  They  show,  in  fact,  that,  if  the  expres- 
sion be  allowed,  we  live,  as  far  as  they  can  tell  us,  in  a  factory,  the 
builder  of  which  projected  certain  results,  contrived  certain  large 
plans,  devised  certain  particular  machines,  foresaw  certain  functions, 
which  he  meant  for  us,  which  he  made  our  interest,  which  he  gave  us 
wages  to  perform.  They  show  not,  indeed,  that  an  omnipotent  Being 
created  the  universe,  but  that  an  able  being  has  been  (so  to  say)  about 
it.  They  do  not  demonstrate  that  an  infinite  Being  created  all  things, 
but  they  do  show,  and  show  so  that  the  mass  of  ordinary  men  will  com- 
prehend and  believe  it,  that  a  large  mind  has  been  concerned  in  manu- 
facturing most  things. 

But  these  results  do  not  constitute  the  interior  essence ;  scarcely, 
indeed,  begin  the  exterior  outwork  of  a  substantial  religion.  They 
touch  neither  that  part  of  it  which  moves  men's  hearts,  nor  that  part 
which  occasions  our  primary  difficulty.  They  do  not  show  us  an 
eternal  state  of  man  hereafter,  in  which  the  anomalies  of  this  world 
may  be  rectified  and  recompensed ;  they  do  not  show  us  an  infinite 
Perfection,  distributing  just  reward  with  an  omniscient  accuracy, 
according  to  a  perfect  law.  It  is  not,  indeed,  to  be  expected  that 
natural  philosophy  should  prove  the  immortality  of  man,  since  it  does 
not  prove  the  immortality  of  God.  It  shows  that  an  artful  and  able 
designer  has  been  concerned  in  the  construction  of  the  strange  existing 
world;  but  may  it  not  have  been  the  last  work  of  the  great  artist  1 
There  is  nothing  in  contriving  skill  to  evince  immortality;  nothing  to 
prove  that  the  *  great  artificer '  has  always  been  or  is  always  going  to 
be  Of  his  moral  views  we  collect  from  natural  theology  as  much  as 


398  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

this.     There  are  certain  laws  of  the  physical  universe  which  cannot 
be  broken  without  pain,  which  avenge  themselves  on  those  who 
overlook,  neglect,  or  violate  them.     These  were  presumedly  designed 
(according  to  the  moral  assumption  of  natural  theology)  for  the  end 
which  they  effect ;  they  were  doubtless  meant  to  accomplish  that  which 
they  conspicuously  do.     On  a  disregard  of  such  laws,  natural  theology 
shows  that  the  Providence  of  which  it  speaks  has  imposed  a  penalty; 
the  contriving  God  (so  to  speak,  for  it  is  necessary  to  speak  plainly)  is 
opposed  to  recklessness.  He  does  not  wish  His  devices  to  be  impaired  or 
His  plans  neglected.  Every  animal  has  in  natural  theology,  if  not  a  mis- 
sion, at  least  a  function.     There  are  certain  results  which  a  polyp  must 
produce  or  die ;  certain  others  which  a  horse  must  effect,  or  it  will  be 
first  in  pain  and  then  die  too  ;  certain  other  and  more  complex  results 
which  man  must  produce,  or  he  also  will  suffer  and  perish.     But 
recklessness  is  only  a  single  form  of  vice :  a  watchful,  heedful  selfish- 
ness is  another  form.     For  the  latter,  there  is  no  indication  in  natural 
theology  of  any  divine  disapprobation,  or  of  any  impending  penalty. 
A  heedful  being  contriving  for  himself,  living  in  the  framework  of, 
adjusting  himself  with  nice  discernment  and  careful  discretion  to,  the 
laws  of  the  visible  world,  incurs  no  censure  from  the  theology  of  de- 
sign.    On  the  contrary,  he  could  justly  say  he  had  done  what  was 
required  of  him.     He  had  studiously  observed,  he  could  say,  the  rules 
of  the  factory  in  which  he  lived ;  he  had  finished  his  own  work ;  he 
had  not  hindered  any  others  from  accomplishing  theirs ;  he  had  com- 
plied with  the  arrangements  of  the  establishment :  natural  theology 
seems  to  require  no  more.     Self-absorbed  foresight  and  contriving  dis- 
cretion may  not  be  great  virtues  according  to  a  high  morality,  or 
according  to  a  true  religion;  but  they  are  profitable  in  the  visible 
world.     They  are  the  virtues  of  men  skilful  in  what  they  see.     Ac- 
cordingly, they  suit  a  theology  which  is  exclusively  based  upon  an 
analysis  of  the  visible  world,  which  computes  physical  profits  and 
sensible  results,  which  aims  to  show  that  Providence  is  prudent,  that 
God  is  wise  in  His  generation. 

Natural  theology,  therefore,  contains  nothing  to  disturb  the  expla- 
nation we  have  given  of  our  original  difficulty.  The  most  cursory 
examination  of  it  would  show  as  much.  We  have  only  to  open  the 
well-known  volumes  in  which  the  munificence  of  a  former  genera- 
tion has  embalmed  the  most  striking  arguments  of  a  theology  which 
that  generation  valued  at  more  than  it  is  worth.  We  find  there 
pictures  of  a  bat's  wing,  of  the  human  hand,  of  a  calf's  eye ;  and  we 
are  told  how  ingenious,  how  clever,  so  to  say, — for  it  is  the  true 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  399 

word — these  contrivances  are.  But  no  one  could  learn,  or  expect 
to  learn,  from  a  calf's  eye,  that  the  Creator  is  pure,  just,  merciful ; 
that  He  is  eternal  or  omnipotent ;  that  he  rewards  good,  and  punishes 
evil.  Throughout  all  the  physical  world  He  sends  rain  upon  the 
just  and  the  unjust ;  and  no  refined  analysis  of  that  world  will 
detect  in  it  a  preference  of  the  former  to  the  latter.  As  it  is  with 
the  moral  holiness  of  God,  so  it  is  with  the  immortality  of  man  : 
no  one  could  expect  to  discover  by  a  minute  inspection  of  the  perish- 
able body,  what  was  the  fate  of  the  imperceptible  soul.  Physical 
science  may  examine  the  structure  of  the  brain,  but  it  cannot  foresee 
the  fortunes  of  the  mind. 

What,  then,  of  Revelation  1  Does  this  informant  disturb  the 
solution  of  our  problem  1  The  change  from  the  world  of  natural 
theology  to  that  of  any  revelation  is  most  striking.  The  most  im- 
pressive characteristic  of  natural  theology  is  its  bareness.  It  accu- 
mulates facts  and  proves  little ;  it  has  voluminous  evidences  and  a 
short  creed.  Accordingly,  the  reason  why  it  does  not  disturb  our 
philosophy  is  that  its  communications  are  insufficient.  It  does  not 
impart  to  us  such  a  knowledge  of  a  divine  rewarder  and  punisher, 
of  future  human  punishment  and  future  human  reward,  as  would 
render  it  impossible  to  be  disinterested  and  hardly  possible  not  to 
be  foreseeing  and  selfish,  because  it  communicates  no  knowledge  on 
the  subject.  It  does  not  teach  the  divine  characteristic  which  in- 
volves the  difficulty ;  it  does  not  tell,  either,  that  part  of  man's 
future  fate  which  involves  it  likewise.  With  revelation  it  is  far 
otherwise.  That  informant  is  precise,  full,  and  clear.  It  tells  us 
plainly  what  God  is ;  it  warns  us  what  may  happen,  and  easily  happen, 
to  ourselves.  We  learn  from  it  that  God  is  the  divine  ruler ;  we 
learn  from  it  that  we  are  punishable  creatures,  whose  fate  depends  on 
ourselves.  The  observations  which  have  been  justly  made  on  natural 
theology  are  here  entirely  inapplicable.  We  have  passed  from  a 
vacuum  into  a  plenum. 

The  real  reason  why  revealed  religion  does  not  invalidate  our 
pre-existing  moral  nature,  is  because  it  is  itself  dependent  on  that 
nature.  When  we  examine  the  evidence  for  revelation  we  alight 
at  once  on  a  great  and  fundamental  postulate ;  we  assume  that 
God  is  veracious  ;  we  are  so  familiar  with  this  great  truth,  that 
we  hardly  think  of  it  save  as  an  axiom ;  both  the  readers  of  the 
treatises  on  the  evidences  and  the  writers  of  them  pass  rapidly 
and  easily  over  it.  But,  putting  aside  for  a  moment  the  evidence 
of  our  inner  consciousness,  and  regarding  the  subject  with  the  pure 


400  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

intellect  and  bare  eyes,  the  assumption  is  an  audacious  one.  How 
do  we  know  that  it  is  true  ?  We  have  proved  by  natural  theology 
that  a  designing  Being,  of  great  power,  considerable  age,  ingenious 
habits,  and  benevolent  motives,  somewhere  exists  ;  but  how  do  we 
know  that  Being  to  be  '  veracious '  1  We  see  that  among  human 
beings,  the  class  of  intellectual  beings  of  whom  we  know  most,  and 
whom  we  can  observe  best,  veracity  is  a  rare  virtue.  We  know 
that  some  nations  seem  wholly  destitute  of  it,  and  that  one  sex  in 
all  countries  is  deficient  in  it.  We  know  that  a  human  being  may 
have  great  power,  and  not  tell  the  truth  ;  ingenious  habits,  and  not 
tell  the  truth  ;  kind  intentions,  and  not  tell  the  truth.  Why  may 
not  a  superhuman  Being  be  constituted  in  the  same  way,  possess  a 
character  similarly  mixed,  be  remarkable  not  only  for  morals  similar 
to  man's,  but  also  for  defects  analogous  to  his  ?  Our  inner  nature 
revolts  at  the  supposition  ;  but  we  are  not  now  concerned  with  our 
inner  nature  ;  we  have,  for  the  sake  of  distinctness,  abstracted  and 
left  it  on  one  side.  We  are  dealing  now  not  with  the  evidence  of 
the  heart,  but  with  the  evidence  of  the  eyes  ;  we  are  discussing  not 
what  really  is,  but  what  would  seem  to  be — what  is  all  we  could 
know  to  be,  if  we  had  only  five  senses  and  a  reasoning  understanding. 
From  these  informants,  how  could  we  know  enough  of  the  ingenious 
unknown  Being,  who  is  so  useful  in  the  world,  as  to  be  confident  He 
would  tell  us  the  truth  in  every  case  1  How  could  we  presume  to 
guess  His  unexperienced  speech,  His  latent  motives,  His  imperceptible 
character  1  Our  knowledge  of  the  moral  part  of  the  Divine  cha- 
racter, of  His  veracity, — as  well  as  of  His  justice, — comes  from  our 
own  moral  nature.  We  feel  that  God  is  holy,  just  as  we  feel  that 
holiness  is  holiness  ;  just  as  we  know  by  internal  consciousness  that 
goodness  is  good  in  itself,  and  by  itself  ;  just  as  we  know  that  God 
in  Himself  is  pure  and  holy.  We  feel  that  God  is  true,  for  veracity 
is  a  part  of  holiness  and  a  condition  of  purity.  But  if  we  did  not 
think  holiness  to  be  excellent  in  itself,  if  we  did  not  feel  it  to  be 
a  motive  unaffected  by  consequences  and  independent  of  calculation, 
our  belief  in  the  Divine  holiness  would  fade  away,  and  with  it  would 
fade  our  belief  in  the  Divine  veracity  also. 

Revelation,  therefore,  cannot  undermine  the  very  principle  upon 
which  it  is  itself  dependent.  Our  notion  of  the  character  of  God 
being  revealed  to  us  by  our  moral  nature,  cannot  impair  or  weaken 
the  conclusion  of  that  nature.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  profound 
saying  of  Coleridge,  that  'all  religion  is  revealed.'  He  meant  that 
all  knowledge  of  God's  character  which  is  worth  naming  or  regarding, 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  401 

which  excites  any  portion  of  the  religious  sentiment,  which  ex- 
cites our  love,  our  awe,  or  our  fear,  is  communicated  to  us  by 
our  internal  nature,  by  that  spirit  within  us  which  is  open  to  a 
higher  world,  by  that  spirit  which  is  in  some  sense  God's  Spirit. 
True  religion  of  this  sort  does  not  impair  the  moral  spirit  which 
revealed  it ;  it  does  not  dare  do  so,  for  it  knows  that  spirit  to  be 
its  only  evidence. 

But  all  religion  is  not  true.  A  superstitious  mind  permits  a 
certain  aspect  of  God's  character,  say  its  justice,  to  obtain  an  ex- 
clusive hold  on  it,  to  tyrannise  over  it,  to  absorb  it.  The  soul 
becomes  bound  down  by  the  weight  of  its  own  revelation.  Con- 
science is  overshadowed,  weakened,  and  almost  destroyed  by  the  very 
idea  which  it  originally  suggested,  and  of  which  it  is  really  the  only 
reliable  informant.  Such  minds  are  incapable  of  true  virtue.  The 
essential  opposition  which  is  alleged  to  exist  between  morality  and  all 
religion  does  exist  between  morality  and  their  religion.  They  have  a 
selfish  fear  of  the  future,  which  destroys  their  disinterestedness,  and 
almost  destroys  their  manhood. 

The  same  effect  is  undeniably  produced  on  many  minds — not 
necessarily  produced,  but  in  fact  produced — by  a  belief  in  revelation. 
They  are  fearful  of  future  punishment,  because  some  being  in  the  air 
has  threatened  it.  They  have  not  the  true  belief  in  the  Divine  holi- 
ness which  arises  from  a  love  of  holiness ;  they  have  not  the  true  con- 
ception of  God  which  was  suggested  by  conscience,  and  is  kept  alive 
by  the  activity  of  conscience ;  but  they  have  a  vague  persuasion  that 
a  great  Personage  has  asserted  this,  and  why  they  should  believe  that 
Personage  they  do  not  ask  or  know.  While  revelation  remains  con- 
nected in  the  mind  with  the  spirituality  on  which  it  is  based,  it  is  as 
consistent  with  true  morality  as  religion  of  any  other  sort;  but  if 
disconnected  from  that  spirituality,  if  it  has  become  an  isolated 
terrific  tenet,  like  any  other  superstition,  it  is  inconsistent. 

The  original  difficulty  with  which  we  started,  and  the  true  answer 
to  that  difficulty,  may  be  summed  up  thus  :  The  objection  is,  that  the 
extrinsic  motive  to  goodness  (which  religion  reveals)  must  absorb  the 
intrinsic  motives  to  goodness  (which  morality  reveals).  The  answer 
is,  that  the  second  revelation  is  contingent  upon  the  first ;  that  those 
only  have  a  substantial  ground  for  believing  the  extrinsic  motive  who 
retain  a  lively  confidence  in  the  intrinsic.  Perhaps  some  may  think 
this  principle  too  plain ;  perhaps  others  may  think  it  too  unimportant 
to  justify  so  long  an  exposition  and  such  a  strenuous  inculcation. 
But  if  we  dwell  upon  it  and  trace  it  to  its  attendant  results  and 

VOL,    II.  D    D 


4O2  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

consequences,  we  shall  find  that  it  will  account  for  more  of  the  world 
than  almost  any  other  single  principle — at  any  rate,  will  explain 
much  which  puzzles  us,  and  much  which  is  important  to  us. 

First,  this  principle  will  explain  to  us  the  use  and  the  necessity  of 
what  we  may  call  the  screen  of  the  physical  world.    Every  one  who  has 
religious  ideas  must  have  been  puzzled  by  what  we  may  call  the  irrele- 
vancy of  creation  to  his  religion.     We  find  ourselves  lodged  in  a  vast 
theatre,  in  which  a  ceaseless  action,  a  perpetual  shifting  of  scenes,  an 
unresting  life,  is  going  forward ;  and  that  life  seems  physical,  unmoral, 
having  no  relation  to  what  our  souls  tell  us  to  be  great  and  good,  to 
what  religion  says  is  the  design  of  all  things.     Especially  when  we  see 
any  new  objects,  or  scenes,  or  countries,  we  feel  this.     Look  at  a  great 
tropical  plant,  with  large  leaves  stretching  everywhere,  and  great 
stalks  branching  out  on  all  sides ;  with  a  big  beetle  on  a  leaf,  and  a 
humming-bird  on  a  branch,  and  an  ugly  lizard  just  below.    What  has 
such  an  object  to  do  with  us — with  anything  we  can  conceive,  or  hope, 
or  imagine  1    What  could  it  be  created  for,  if  creation  has  a  moral  end 
and  object  1     Or  go  into  a  gravel-pit,  or  stone-quarry ;  you  see  there 
a  vast  accumulation  of  dull  matter,  yellow  or  grey,  and  you  ask, 
involuntarily  and  of  necessity,  why  is  all  this  waste  and  irrelevant 
production,  as  it  would  seem,  of  material  ?    Can  anything  seem  more 
stupid  than  a  big  stone  as  a  big  stone,  than  gravel  for  gravel's  sake  ? 
What  is  the  use  of  such  cumbrous,  inexpressive  objects  in  a  world 
where  there  are  minds  to  be  filled,  and  imaginations  to  be  aroused, 
and  souls  to  be  saved  ?     A  clever  sceptic  once  said  on  reading  Paley 
that  he  thought  the  universe  was  a  furniture  warehouse  for  unknown 
beings;  he  assented  to   the  indications  of  design  visible  in  many 
places,  but  what  the  end  of  most  objects  was,  why  such  things  were, 
what  was  the  ultimate  object  contemplated  by  the  whole,  he  could 
not  understand.     He  thought  '  divines  are  right  in  saying  that  much 
of  the  universe  has  an  expression,  but  surely  sceptics  are  right  in 
saying  that  as  much  or  more  has  no  expression.'     Some  of  the  world 
seems  designed  to  show  a  little  of  God ;  but  much  more  seems  also 
designed  to  hide  Him  and  keep  Him  off.    The  reply  is,  that  if  morality 
is  to  be  disinterested,  some  such  irrelevant  universe  is  essential.    Life, 
moral  life,  the  life  of  tempted  beings  capable  of  virtue  and  liable  to 
vice,  of  necessity  involves  a  theatre  of  some  sort;  it  could  not  be 
carried  on  in  a  vast  vacuum ;  some  means  of  communication  between 
mind  and  mind,  some  external  motive  to  question  inward  impulses, 
some  outward  events  as  the  result  of  past  action  and  the  stimulus  to 
new  action,  seem  essential  to  the  life  of  a  voluntary  moral  being,  to  a 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  403 

being  tempted  as  a  man  is,  living  as  a  man  lives.  The  only  admissible 
question  is  the  nature  of  that  theatre.  Is  it  to  be  in  all  its  parts  and 
objects  expressive  of  God's  character  and  communicative  of  man's  fate  ? 
or  is  it,  as  many  say,  in  most  parts  to  express  nothing  and  tell  nothing  ? 
The  reply  is,  that  if  the  universe  were  to  be  incessantly  expressive 
and  incessantly  communicative,  morality  would  be  impossible;  we 
should  live  under  the  unceasing  pressure  of  a  supernatural  interfer- 
ence, which  would  give  us  selfish  motives  for  doing  everything,  which 
would  menace  us  with  supernatural  punishment  if  we  left  anything 
undone.  We  should  be  living  in  a  chastising  machine,  of  which  the 
secret  would  be  patent  and  the  penalties  apparent.  We  are  startled 
to  find  a  universe  we  did  not  expect.  But  if  we  lived  in  the  universe 
we  did  expect,  the  life  which  we  lead,  and  were  meant  to  lead,  would 
be  impossible.  We  should  expect  a  punitive  world  sanctioning  moral 
laws,  and  the  perpetual  punishment  of  those  laws  would  be  so  glaringly 
apparent  that  true  virtue  would  become  impossible.  An  'unfeeling 
nature,'  an  unmoral  universe,  a  sun  that  shines  and  a  rain  which  falls 
equally  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  are  essential  to  morality  in  a 
being  free  like  man,  and  created  as  man  was.  A  miscellaneous  world 
is  a  suitable  theatre  for  a  single-minded  life,  and,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  the  only  one. 

The  same  sort  of  reasoning  partly  elucidates,  even  if  it  does  not 
explain,  the  brevity  of  our  apparent  life.  If  visible  life  were  eternal, 
future  punishments  must  be  visible.  We  should  meet  in  our  streets 
with  old,  old  men  enduring  the  consequences  of  offences  which  hap- 
pened before  we  were  born.  We  should  not  see,  perhaps,  old  age  as 
we  now  see  it ;  decrepitude  would  be  unknown  to  us.  If  there  was 
immortal  life  on  earth,  there  would  probably  also  be  immortal  youth  ; 
at  any  rate,  immortal  activity.  The  perpetuity  of  existence  would 
not  be  divided  from  the  perpetuity  of  what  makes  life  desirable,  of 
what  makes  effective  life  possible.  But  if  children  saw  their  fathers, 
and  their  fathers'  fathers,  and  their  fathers'  ancestors,  in  an  unending 
chain,  suffering  penalties  for  certain  acts,  and  obtaining  rewards  for 
certain  deeds,  how  is  it  possible  that  they  could  act  otherwise  than 
according  to  those  visible  and  evident  examples  ?  The  consecutive 
tradition  of  self-interest  would  be  so  strong  among  a  perpetual  race 
of  immortal  men  that  disinterested  virtue  would  be  not  so  much 
impracticable  as  unthought-of  and  unknown.  The  exact  line  of  real 
self-benefit  would  be  chalked  out  so  plainly,  so  conspicuously,  so 
glaringly,  that  no  other  action  would  be  conceivable,  or  possible.  The 
evidence  of  all  consequences  would  be  like  the  evidences  of  legal 

D  D2 


404  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 


consequences  now,  only  infinitely  more  effective  and  infinitely  more 
perceptible.  In  human  law,  the  detection  of  the  offence  by  man  is  a 
pre-requisite  of  all  punishment  by  man.  An  offence  not  proved  to 
the  'satisfaction  of  the  court'  escapes  the  judgment  of  the  court.  But 
in  a  visible  immortal  life,  this  pre-requisite  would  not  be  needful.  If 
there  be  a  future  punishment,  and  if  man  lived  for  all  futurity  upon 
earth,  that  future  punishment  would  be  on  earth,  and  it  would  be  in- 
flicted by  God.  Undetected  crime,  that  general  bad  character  without 
specific  proved  offence,  which  now  mocks  all  law  and  laughs  at  visible 
punishment,  would  then,  under  our  very  eyes,  receive  that  punish- 
ment. Job's  friends  kindly  argued  with  him,  '  You  are  suffering, 
therefore  you  are  guilty.'  And  the  argument  was  bad,  because  they 
only  saw  an  exceptional  accident  in  the  life  of  a  good  man,  not  his 
entire  life  through  a  subsequent  eternity ;  but  if  that  eternal  life  had 
been  passed  in  continuous  residence  on  this  globe,  if  notorious  bad 
fortune  had  pursued  him  through  eternity  in  the  nineteenth  genera- 
tion, his  descendants  might  well  have  said,  '  Oh,  Job,  there  is  some- 
thing wrong  in  you,  for  you  never  come  out  right.'  A  great  historian 
has  observed, — 

'  That  honesty  is  the  best  policy,  is  a  maxim  which  we  firmly  believe  to  be 
generally  correct,  even  with  respect  to  the  temporal  interest  of  individuals ; 
but  with  respect  to  societies,  the  rule  is  subject  to  still  fewer  exceptions,  and 
that  for  this  reason,  that  the  life  of  societies  is  larger  than  that  of  indi- 
viduals. It  is  possible  to  mention  men  who  have  owed  great  worldly  pros- 
perity to  breaches  of  private  faith ;  but  we  doubt  whether  it  be  possible  to 
mention  a  state  which  has,  on  the  whole,  been  a  gainer  by  a  breach  of  public 
faith.' 

If  the  visible  life  of  individuals  were  yet  longer  than  the  life  of 
societies,  the  rule  would  be  subject  to  still  fewer  exceptions ;  if  that 
visible  life  were  eternal,  the  rule  would  be  subject  to  no  exceptions ; 
the  staring  evidence  of  conspicuous  results  would  purge  temptation 
out  of  the  world. 

The  physical  world  now  rewards  what  we  may  call  the  physical 
virtues,  and  punishes  what  we  may  call  the  physical  vices.  There  is 
a  certain  state  of  the  body  which  is  a  condition  of  physical  well-being, 
and  (as  life  is  constituted)  very  much  of  all  well-being.  If  by  gross 
excess  any  man  should  impair  that  condition,  physical  law  will  punish 
him.  The  body  is  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  to  the  soul ;  it  enforces 
on  us  the  preparatory  merits,  it  scourges  out  of  us  the  preparatory 
defects.  The  law  of  human  government  is  similar ;  it  enforces  on  us 
that  adherence  to  obvious  virtue,  and  that  avoidance  of  obvious  vice, 


The  Ignorance  q/  Man.  405 

which  are  the  essential  preliminaries  of  real  virtue.  There  is  no  true 
virtue  or  vice,  so  long  as  physical  law  and  human  law  are  what  they 
are  in  any  such  matters.  The  dread  of  the  penalties  is  too  powerful 
not  to  extinguish  (speaking  generally,  and  peculiar  cases  excepted)  all 
other  motives.  But  these  teachers  strengthen  the  mental  instruments 
of  real  virtue.  They  strengthen  our  will ;  they  hurt  our  vanity  ;  they 
confirm  our  manhood.  Physical  law  and  human  law  train  and  build 
up,  if  the  expression  may  be  permitted,  that  good  pagan,  that  sound- 
bodied,  moderate,  careful  creature,  out  of  which  a  good  Christian  may, 
if  he  will  and  by  God's  help,  in  the  end  be  constructed.  If  visible 
life  were  eternal  instead  of  temporary,  the  same  intense  discipline 
which  so  usefully  creates  the  preparatory  pre-requisites  would  like- 
wise efface  the  possibility  of  disinterested  virtue. 

Again,  the  great  scene  of  human  life  may  be  explained,  or  at  least 
illustrated,  in  like  manner  :  we  are  souls  in  the  disguise  of  animals. 
We  lead  a  life  in  great  part  neither  good  nor  evil,  neither  wicked  nor 
excellent.  The  larger  number  of  men  seem  to  an  outside  observer  to 
walk  through  life  in  a  torpid  sort  of  sleep.  They  are  decent  in  their 
morals,  respectable  in  their  manners,  stupid  in  their  conversation. 
The  incentives  of  their  life  are  outward ;  its  penalties  are  outward  too! 
The  life  of  such  people  seems  to  some  men  always — to  many  men  at 
times — inexplicable.  But  if  such  beings  were  not  permitted  in  the 
world,  perhaps  a  higher  life  might  be  impossible  for  any  beings.  They 
act  like  a  living  screen,  just  as  we  say  matter  acts  like  a  dead  screen. 
It  is  not  desirable  that  the  results  of  goodness  should  be  distinctly 
apparent ;  arid  if  all  human  life  were  intensely  and  exclusively  moral ; 
if  all  men  were  with  all  their  strength  pursuing  good  or  pursuing  evil, 
the  isolated  consequences  of  that  isolated  principle  must  be  apparent ; 
at  least,  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  so.  If  one  set  of  men  were  cooped 
up  in  the  exclusive  pursuit  of  virtue,  and  were  very  ardent  and  warm 
about  it,  and  another  set  of  men  were  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  evil, 
and  cared  for  nothing  but  evil,  the  world  would  fall  asunder  into  two 
dissimilar  halves.  If  goodness  in  the  visible  world  had  any>  the 
least,  tendency  to  produce  visible  happiness,  then  incessant  goodness 
would  be  very  happy.  The  accumulations  of  the  slight  tendency  by 
perpetual  renewal  would  amount  of  necessity  to  a  vast  sum-total.  In- 
cessant badness  would  produce  awful  misery.  Those  absorbed  in  vice 
would  be  warnings  dangerous  to  disinterestedness  ;  those  absorbed  in 
virtue,  attractions  and  examples  almost  more  dangerous.  The  mis- 
chief is  prevented  by  those  unabsorbed,  purposeless,  divided  characters 
which  seem  to  puzzle  us.  They  complicate  human  life,  and  they  do  so 


406  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

the  more  effectually  that  they  typify  and  represent  so  much  of  what 
every  man  feels  and  must  feel  within  himself.  In  each  man  there  is 
so  much  which  is  unmoral,  so  much  which  comes  from  an  unknown 
origin,  and  passes  forward  to  an  unknown  destination,  which  is  of  the 
earth,  earthy ;  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  hell  or  heaven ;  which  oc- 
cupies a  middle  place  not  recognised  in  any  theology ;  which  is  hateful 
both  to  the  impetuous  'friends of  God'  and  His  most  eager  enemies. 
This  pervading  and  potent  element  involves  life  as  it  were  in  confusion 
and  hurry.  We  do  not  see  distinctly  whither  we  are  going.  Disin- 
terestedness is  possible,  for  calculation  is  confuse  d.  Doubtless,  even 
on  earth  virtue  of  all  kinds  eventually  must  have,  on  a  large  average 
of  cases,  some  slight  tendency  to  produce  happiness.  This  earth  is 
an  extract  from  the  moral  universe — partakes  its  nature.  But  that 
tendency  is  too  slight  to  be  a  considerable  motive  to  high  action ;  it 
would  not  be  discovered  but  for  the  inward  principle  which  sets  us  to 
look  for  it ;  and  even  when  we  find  it,  it  is  transient,  and  small,  and 
dubious.  It  is  lost  in  the  vast  results  of  the  unmoral  universe,  in  the 
vague  shows,  the  multiform  spectacle  of  human  life. 

Again,  we  may  understand  why  the  convictions  of  what  duty  is, 
and  what  religion  is,  vary  so  much  and  so  often  among  men.  If  all 
our  convictions  on  these  points,  on  these  infinitely  important  points, 
were  identical  and  alike,  an  accumulated  public  opinion  would  oppress 
us,  would  destroy  the  freedom  of  our  action  and  the  purity  of  our 
virtue.  If  every  one  said  that  certain  penalties  would  be  the  conse- 
quence of  certain  actions,  we  should  believe  that  the  consequences 
would  be  so  and  so,  not  because  we  felt  those  actions  to  be  intrinsically 
bad,  but  because  we  were  told  that  such  would  be  the  consequences. 
"We  should  believe  upon  report,  and  a  vague  impression  would  haunt 
us,  not  produced  by  our  own  conscience,  or  our  own  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  would  impair  both  our  manhood  and  our  virtue.  The 
extraordinary  discrepancies  of  believed  religion  and  believed  morality 
have  weighed  on  many  and  will  weigh  on  many  ;  but  they  have  this 
use — they  enable  men  to  be  disinterested.  As  there  is  no  sanctioned 
invincible  firm  custom,  there  are  no  customary  penalties,  there  is 
nothing  men  must  shun ;  as  the  world  has  not  made  up  its  mind, 
there  is  no  executioner  of  the  world  ready  to  enforce  that  mind  upon 
every  one. 

Lastly,  the  same  essential  argument  may  be  applied  to  a  problem 
yet  more  delicate  and  difficult,  to  one  which  it  is  difficult  to  treat  in 
He  viewer's  phraseology.  Why  is  God  so  far  from  us  ?  is  the  agonising 
question  which  has  depressed  so .  many  hearts,  so  long  as  we  know 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  407 


there  were  hearts,  has  puzzled  so  many  intellects  since  intellects  began 
to  puzzle  themselves.  But  the  moral  part  of  God's  character  could  not 
be  shown  to  us  with  sensible  conspicuous  evidence  ;  it  could  not  be 
shown  to  us  as  Fleet  Street  is  shown  to  us,  without  impairing  the  first 
pre-requisite  of  disinterestedness,  and  the  primary  condition  of  man's 
virtue.  And  if  the  moral  aspect  of  God's  character  must  of  necessity 
be  somewhat  hidden  from  us,  other  aspects  of  it  must  be  equally  hidden. 
An  infinite  Being  may  be  viewed  under  innumerable  aspects.  God 
has  many  qualities  in  His  essence  which  the  word  '  moral '  does  not 
exhaust,  which  it  does  not  even  hint  at.  Perhaps  this  essay  has 
seemed  to  read  too  sternly ;  as  if  the  moral  side  of  the  Divine  charac- 
ter, which  is  and  must  be  to  imperfect  beings  in  some  sense  a  terrible 
side, — as  if  the  moral  side  of  human  life,  which  must  be  to  mankind 
not  always  a  pleasant  side,— had  been  forced  into  an  exclusive  promin 
ence  which  of  right  did  not  belong  to  it.  But  the  attractive  aspects 
of  God's  character  must  not  be  made  more  apparent  to  such  a  being 
as  man  than  His  chastening  and  severer  aspects.  We  must  not  be  in- 
vited to  approach  the  Holy  of  holies  without  being  made  aware,  pain- 
fully aware,  what  Holiness  is.  We  must  know  our  own  un  worthiness 
ere  we  are  fit  to  approach  or  imagine  an  Infinite  Perfection.  The  most 
nauseous  of  false  religions  is  that  which  affects  a  fulsome  fondness  for  a 
Being  not  to  be  thought  of  without  awe,  or  spoken  of  without  reluctance. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  necessary  ignorance  of  man  explains 
to  us  much ;  it  shows  us  that  we  could  not  be  what  we  ought  to  be,  if 
we  lived  in  the  sort  of  universe  we  should  expect.  It  shows  us  that 
a  latent  Providence,  a  confused  life,  an  odd  material  world,  an  ex- 
istence broken  short  in  the  midst  and  on  a  sudden,  are  not  real 
difficulties,  but  real  helps  ;  that  they,  or  something  like  them,  are 
essential  conditions  of  a  moral  life  to  a  subordinate  being.  If  we 
steadily  remember  that  we  only  know  the  ultimate  fate,  the  extrinsic 
consequences  of  vice  and  virtue,  because  we  know  of  their  inherent 
nature  and  intrinsic  qualities,  and  that  any  other  evidence  of  the  first 
would  destroy  the  possibility  of  the  second,  then  much  which  used  to 
puzzle  us  may  become  clear  to  us. 

But  it  may  be  said,  What  sort  of  evidence  is  this  on  which  you 
base  the  future  moral  life  of  man,  and  the  present  existence  of  a  moral 
Providence  ?  Is  it  not  impalpable  1  It  is  so,  and  necessarily  so.  If  a 
consecutive  logical  deduction,  such  as  has  often  been  sought  between 
an  immutable  morality  and  a  true  religion,  could  in  fact  be  found,  we 
should  be  again  met  with  our  fundamental  difficulty,  though  in  a 
disguised  and  secondary  form.  Morality  might  fall  out  of  sight 


408  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

because  religion  was  obtruded  upon  us.  Morality  would  be  the  axiom, 
religion  the  deduction ;  and  as  a  geometer  does  not  keep  Euclid's 
axioms  in  his  head  when  he  is  employed  upon  conic  sections,  as  a 
student  of  the  differential  calculus  may  half  forget  the  commencement 
of  algebra, — so  the  great  truths  of  religion,  if  rigorously  and  mathe- 
matically deduced  from  the  beginnings  of  morality,  might  overshadow 
and  destroy  those  *  beggarly  elements.'  No  one  who  has  proved  im- 
portant doctrines  by  rigorous  reasoning  always  retains  in  his  mind  the 
primitive  principles  from  which  he  set  out.  As  the  concrete  deduc- 
tions advance,  the  primary  abstractions  recede.  Happily,  the  con- 
nection between  morality  and  religion  is  of  a  very  different  kind. 
Religion  (in  its  moral  part)  is  a  secondary  impression,  produced  and 
kept  alive  by  the  first  impression  of  morality.  The  intensity  of 
the  second  feeling  depends  on  the  continued  intensity  of  the  first 
feeling. 

The  highest  part  of  human  belief  is  based  upon  certain  developable 
instincts.  Not  the  most  important,  but  the  most  obvious  of  these,  is 
the  instinct  of  beauty.  Since  the  commencement  of  speculation,  in- 
genious thinkers,  who  delight  in  difficulties,  have  rejoiced  to  draw  out 
at  length  the  difficulties  of  the  subject.  It  is  said,  How  can  you  be 
certain  that  there  is  such  an  attribute  as  beauty,  when  no  one  is  sure 
what  it  is,  or  to  what  it  should  be  applied  1  A  barbarian  thinks  one 
thing  charming,  the  Greek  another.  Modern  nations  have  a  standard 
different  most  materially  from  the  ancient  standard — founded  upon  it 
in  several  important  respects,  no  doubt,  but  differing  from  it  in  others 
as  important,  and  almost  equally  striking.  Even  within  the  limits  of 
modern  nations  this  standard  differs.  The  taste  of  the  vulgar  is 
one  thing,  the  taste  of  the  refined  and  cultivated  is  altogether  at 
variance  with  it.  The  mass  of  mankind  prefer  a  gaudy  modern  daub 
to  a  faded  picture  by  Sir  Joshua,  or  to  the  cartoons  of  Raphael.  What 
certainty,  the  sceptic  triumphantly  asks,  can  there  be  in  matters  on 
which  people  differ  so  much,  on  which  it  seems  so  impossible  to  argue  ; 
which  seem  to  depend  on  causes  and  relations  simply  personal ;  which 
are  susceptible  of  no  positive  test  or  ascertained  criterion  1  You  talk 
of  impalpability,  he  adds  ;  here  it  is  in  perfection.  But  these  re- 
condite doubts  impose  on  no  one.  Not  a  single  educated  person  would 
sleep  less  soundly  if  he  were  told  that  his  life  depended  on  the  correct- 
ness of  his  notion  that  the  cartoons  of  Raphael  are  more  sublime  and 
beautiful  than  a  common  daub.  He  cannot  prove  it,  and  he  cannot 
prove  that  Charles  the  First  was  beheaded ;  but  he  is  quite  as  certain 
of  one  as  of  the  other.  This  is  an  instance  of  an  obvious,  unmistak- 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  409 

able  instinct,  which  does  produce  effectual  belief,  though  sceptics 
explain  to  us  that  it  should  not. 

The  nature  of  this  instinct  differs  altogether  from  that  of  those 
intuitive  and  universal  axioms  which  are  borne  in  infallibly  upon 
all  the  human  race,  in  every  age  and  every  place.  It  is  not  like 
the  assertion  that  'two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space,'  or  the 
truth  that  two  and  two  make  four.  These  are  believed  by  every  one, 
and  no  one  can  dream  of  not  believing  them.  But  half  of  mankind 
would  reject  the  idea  that  the  cartoons  were  in  any  sense  admirable  ; 
they  would  prefer  the  overgrown  enormities  of  West,  which  are  side 
by  side  with  them.  The  characteristic  peculiarity  of  this  instinct  is, 
not  that  it  is  irresistible,  but  that  it  is  developable.  The  higher 
students  of  the  subject,  the  more  cultivated,  meditate  upon  it,  acquire 
a  new  sense,  which  conveys  truth  to  them,  though  others  are  ignorant 
of  it,  and  though  they  themselves  cannot  impart  it  to  those  others. 
The  appeal  is  not  to  the  many,  as  with  axioms  of  Euclid,  but  to  those 
few, — the  exceptional  few, — at  whom  the  many  scoff. 

The  case  is  similar  with  the  yet  higher  instincts  of  morality  and 
of  religion.  It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  much  of  them  can  be  found 
among  bloody  savages,  or  simple  and  remote  islanders,  or  a  degraded 
populace.  It  is  still  idler  to  fancy  that  because  they  cannot  be 
discovered  there  full-grown,  and  complete,  and  paramount,  there  is 
no  evidence  for  them,  and  no  basis  for  relying  upon  them.  They 
resemble  the  instinct  of  beauty  precisely.  The  evidence  of  the  few— 
of  the  small,  high-minded  minority,  who  are  the  exception  of  ages, 
and  the  salt  of  the  earth — out  weighs  the  evidence  of  countless  myriads 
who  live  as  their  fathers  lived,  think  as  they  thought,  die  as  they 
died ;  who  would  have  lived  and  died  in  the  very  contrary  impressions, 
if  by  chance  they  had  inherited  these  instead  of  the  others.  The 
criterion  of  true  beauty  is  with  those  (and  they  are  not  many)  who 
have  a  sense  of  true  beauty  ;  the  criterion  of  true  morality  is  with 
those  who  have  a  sense  of  true  morality ;  the  criterion  of  true  religion 
is  with  those  who  have  a  sense  of  true  religion. 

Nor  can  this  defect  of  an  absolute  criterion  throw  the  world  into 
confusion.  We  see  it  does  not,  and  there  was  no  reason  to  expect  it 
would.  We  all  of  us  feel  an  analogous  fluctuation  and  variation  in 
ourselves.  We  all  of  us  feel  that  there  are  times  in  which  first  prin- 
ciples seem  borne  in  upon  us  by  evidence  as  bright  as  noonday,  and 
that  there  are  also  times  in  which  that  evidence  is  much  less,  in  which 
it  seems  to  fade  away,  in  which  we  reckon  up  the  number  of  persons 
who  differ  from  us,  who  reject  our  principles ;  times  at  which  we  ask, 


410  The  Ignorance  of  Man. 

Who  are  we,  that  we  should  be  right  and  other  men  wrong  1  The  un- 
believing moods  of  each  mind  are  as  certain  as  the  unbelieving  state 
of  much  of  the  world.  But  no  sound  mind  permits  itself  to  be  per- 
manently disturbed,  though  it  may  be  transiently  distracted,  by  these 
variations  in  its  own  state.  We  have  a  criterion  faculty  within  us, 
which  tells  us  which  are  lower  moods  and  which  are  higher.  This 
faculty  is  a  phase  of  conscience,  and  if  at  its  bidding  we  struggle 
with  the  good  moods,  and  against  the  bad  moods,  we  shall  find  that 
great  beliefs  remain,  and  that  mean  beliefs  pass  away. 

There  is  an  analogous  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Beliefs  altogether  differ  at  the  base  of  society,  but  they  agree,  or  tend 
to  agree,  at  its  summit.  As  society  goes  on,  the  standard  of  beauty, 
and  of  morality,  and  of  religion  also,  tends  to  become  fixed.  The  creeds 
of  the  higher  classes  throughout  the  world,  though  far  from  identical 
in  these  respects,  are  not  entirely  unlike,  approach  to  similarity, 
approach  to  it  more  and  more  as  cultivation  augments,  goodness 
improves,  and  disturbing  agencies  fall  aside. 

'  The  Ethiop  gods  have  Ethiop  lips, 
Bronze  cheeks,  and  woolly  hair  ; 
The  Grecian  gods  are  like  the  Greeks, 
As  keen-eyed,  cold,  and  fair.' 

Such  is  the  various  and  miscellaneous  religion  of  barbarism ;  but  the 
religion  and  the  morality  of  all  the  best  among  all  nations  tend  more 
and  more  to  be  the  same  with  'the  progress  of  the  suns,'  and  as  society 
itself  improves. 

The  instincts  of  morality  and  religion,  though  we  have  called  them 
two  for  facility  of  speech,  run  into  one  another,  and  in  practical 
human  nature  are  not  easily  separated.  The  distinction,  like  so  many 
others  in  mental  philosophy,  is  not  drawn  where  accurate  science 
would  have  directed,  but  where  the  first  notions  of  mankind,  and 
the  necessity  of  easy  speaking,  in  a  language  shaped  according  to 
those  notions,  have  suggested.  In  a  refined  analysis,  the  instinct  of 
religion,  as  we  have  called  it,  is  a  complex  aggregate  of  various  in- 
stincts, not  a  single  and  homogeneous  one.  But  to  analyse  these,  or 
even  to  name  them,  would  be  far  from  our  purpose  now.  Our  busi- 
ness is  with  the  relation  between  the  instinct  of  morality  and  that  of 
religion,  and  with  no  other  perplexities  or  difficulties.  The  instinct 
of  morality  is  the  basis,  and  the  instinct  of  moral  religion  is  based 
upon  it,  and  arises  out  of  it.  We  feel  first  the  intrinsic  qualities  of 
good  actions  and  bad  actions  j  then,  as  the  Greek  proverb  expressed  it, 


The  Ignorance  of  Man.  4 1 1 

Where  there  is  shame  there  is  fear  ; '  we  expect  consequences  appor- 
tioned to  our  actions,  good  and  evil ;  lastly,  for  within  the  limits  of 
purely  moral  ideas  there  is  no  higher  stage,  we  rise  to  the  conception 
of  Him  who  in  His  wisdom  adjusts  and  allots  those  far-off  conse- 
quences to  those  conspicuous  actions.  The  higher  instinct  is  based 
on  the  lower  •  would  fade  in  the  mind  should  the  lower  fade.  The 
coalescence  of  instinct  effects  what  no  other  contrivance  known  to  us 
could  effect  j  it  enables  us  to  be  disinterested,  although  we  know  the 
consequences  of  evil  actions,  because  conscience  is  the  revealing  sen- 
sation, and  we  only  know  those  consequences  so  long  as  we  are 
disinterested. 

These  fundamental  difficulties  of  life  and  morals  are  little  discussed. 
Few  think  of  them  clearly,  and  still  fewer  speak  of  them  much.  But 
they  cloud  the  brain  and  confuse  the  hopes  of  many  who  never  stated 
them  explicitly  to  themselves,  and  never  heard  them  stated  explicitly 
by  others.  Meanwhile  superficial  difficulties  are  in  every  one's  mouth ; 
we  are  deafened  with  controversies  on  remote  matters  which  do  not 
concern  us ;  we  are  confused  with  '  Aids  to  Faith '  which  neither  harm 
nor  help  us.  A  tumult  of  irrelevant  theology  is  in  the  air  which  op- 
presses men's  heads,  and  darkens  their  future,  and  scatters  their  hopes. 
For  such  a  calamity  there  is  no  thorough  cure  ;  it  belongs  to  the  con- 
fused epoch  of  an  age  of  transition,  and  is  inseparable  from  it.  But 
the  best  palliative  is  a  steady  attention  to  primary  difficulties — if  pos- 
sible, a  clear  mastery  over  them  ;  if  not,  a  distinct  knowledge  how  we 
stand  respecting  them.  The  shrewdest  man  of  the  world  who  ever 
lived  tells  us,  '  That  he  who  begins  in  certainties  shall  end  in  doubts  ; 
but  he  who  begins  in  doubts  shall  end  in  certainties ;'  and  the  maxim 
is  even  more  applicable  to  matters  which  are  not  of  this  world  than 
to  those  which  are. 


4 1 2  On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction. 


ON  THE  EMOTION  OF  CONVICTION.1 
(1871.) 

WHAT  we  commonly  term  Belief  includes,  I  apprehend,  both  an 
Intellectual  and  an  Emotional  element ;  the  first  we  more  properly  call 
'  assent,'  and  the  second  '  conviction/  The  laws  of  the  Intellectual 
element  in  belief  are  '  the  laws  of  evidence/  and  have  been  elaborately 
discussed  ;  but  those  of  the  Emotional  part  have  hardly  been  discussed 
at  all — indeed,  its  existence  has  been  scarcely  perceived. 

In  the  mind  of  a  rigorously  trained  inquirer,  the  process  of  believ- 
ing is,  I  apprehend,  this  : — First  comes  the  investigation,  a  set  of  facts 
are  sifted,  and  a  set  of  arguments  weighed ;  then  the  intellect  perceives 
the  result  of  those  arguments,  and,  we  say,  assents  to  it.  Then  an 
emotion  more  or  less  strong  sets  in,  which  completes  the  whole.  In 
calm  and  quiet  minds,  the  intellectual  part  of  this  process  is  so  much 
the  strongest  that  they  are  hardly  conscious  of  anything  else  ;  and  as 
these  quiet,  careful  people  have  written  our  treatises,  we  do  not  find  it 
explained  in  them  how  important  the  emotional  part  is. 

But  take  the  case  of  the  Caliph  Omar,  according  to  Gibbon's 
description  of  him.  He  burnt  the  Alexandrine  Library,  saying, '  All 
books  which  contain  what  is  not  in  the  Koran  are  dangerous  ;  all 
those  which  contain  what  is  in  the  Koran  are  useless.'  Probably  no 
one  ever  had  an  intenser  belief  in  anything  than  Omar  had  in  this. 
Yet  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  it  preceded  by  an  argument.  His 
belief  in  Mahomet,  in  the  Koran,  and  in  the  sufficiency  of  the  Koran, 
came  to  him  probably  in  spontaneous  rushes  of  emotion  ;  there  may 
have  been  little  vestiges  of  argument  floating  here  and  there,  but  they 
did  not  justify  the  strength  of  the  emotion,  still  less  did  they  create  it, 
and  they  hardly  even  excused  it. 

There  is  so  commonly  some  considerable  argument  for  our  modern 
beliefs,  that  it  is  difficult  nowadays  to  isolate  the  emotional  element, 
and  therefore,  on  the  principle  that  in  Metaphysics  *  egotism  is  the 

1  Contemporary  Review  for  April  1871. 


On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction.  413 

truest  modesty,'  I  may  give  myself  as  an  example  of  utterly  irrational 
conviction.  Some  years  ago  I  stood  for  a  borough  in  the  West  of 
England,  and  after  a  keen  contest  was  defeated  by  seven.  Almost 
directly  afterwards  there  was  accidentally  another  election,  and  as  I 
would  not  stand,  another  candidate  of  my  own  side  was  elected,  and 
I  of  course  ceased  to  have  any  hold  upon  the  place,  or  chance  of 
being  elected  there.  But  for  years  I  had  the  deepest  conviction  that 
I  should  be  Member  for  '  Bridgwater  ' ;  and  no  amount  of  reasoning 
would  get  it  out  of  my  head.  The  borough  is  now  disfranchised  ; 
but  even  still,  if  I  allow  my  mind  to  dwell  on  the  contest, — if  I  think 
of  the  hours  I  was  ahead  in  the  morning,  and  the  rush  of  votes  at 
two  o'clock  by  which  I  was  defeated, — and  even  more,  if  I  call  up 
the  image  of  the  nomination  day,  with  all  the  people's  hands  out- 
stretched, and  all  their  excited  faces  looking  the  more  different  on 
account  of  their  identity  in  posture,  the  old  feeling  almost  comes 
back  upon  me,  and  for  a  moment  I  believe  that  I  shall  be  Member 
for  Bridgwater. 

I  should  not  mention  such  nonsense,  except  on  an  occasion  when 
I  may  serve  as  an  intellectual  '  specimen,' 1  but  I  know  I  wish  that  I 
could  feel  the  same  hearty,  vivid  faith  in  many  conclusions  of  which 
my  understanding  says  it  is  satisfied,  that  I  did  in  this  absurdity. 
And  if  it  should  be  replied  that  such  folly  could  be  no  real  belief, 
for  it  could  not  influence  any  man's  action,  I  am  afraid  I  must  say 
that  it  did  influence  my  actions.  For  a  long  time  the  ineradicable 
fatalistic  feeling,  that  T  should  some  time  have  this  constituency,  of 
which  I  had  no  chance,  hung  about  my  mind,  and  diminished  my 
interest  in  other  constituencies,  where  my  chances  of  election  would 
have  been  rational,  at  any  rate. 

This  case  probably  exhibits  the  maximum  of  conviction  with  the 
minimum  of  argument,  but  there  are  many  approximations  to  it. 
Persons  of  untrained  minds  cannot  long  live  without  some  belief  in 
any  topic  which  comes  much  before  them.  It  has  been  said  that  if 
you  can  only  get  a  middle-class  Englishman  to  think  whether  there 
are  '  snails  in  Sirius,'  he  will  soon  have  an  opinion  on  it.  It  will  be 
difficult  to  make  him  think,  but  if  he  does  think,  he  cannot  rest  in  a 
negative,  he  will  come  to  some  decision.  And  on  any  ordinary  topic, 
of  course,  it  is  so.  A  grocer  has  a  full  creed  as  to  foreign  policy,  a 
young  lady  a  complete  theory  of  the  sacraments,  as  to  which  neither 
has  any  doubt  whatever.  But  in  talking  to  such  persons,  I  cannot 

1  It  should  be  stated  that  this  essay  was  originally  read  as  a  paper  before 
a  society  which  discusses  subjects  of  a  metaphysical  nature. 


4 1 4  On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction. 


but  remember  my  Bridgwater  experience,  and  ask  whether  causes 
like  those  which  begat  my  folly  may  not  be  at  the  bottom  of  their 
'  invincible  knowledge.' 

Most  persons  who  observe  their  own  thoughts  must  have  been 
conscious  of  the  exactly  opposite  state.  There  are  cases  where  our 
intellect  has  gone  through  the  arguments,  and  we  give  a  clear  assent 
to  the  conclusions.  But  our  minds  seem  dry  and  unsatisfied.  In 
that  case  we  have  the  intellectual  part  of  Belief,  but  want  the 
emotional  part. 

That  belief  is  not  a  purely  intellectual  matter  is  evident  from 
dreams,  where  we  are  always  believing,  but  scarcely  ever  arguing  \ 
and  from  certain  forms  of  insanity,  where  fixed  delusions  seize  upon 
the  mind  and  generate  a  firmer  belief  than  any  sane  person  is  capable 
of.  These  are,  of  course,  *  unorthodox  '  states  of  mind  ;  but  a  good 
psychology  must  explain  them,  nevertheless,  and  perhaps  it  would 
have  progressed  faster  if  it  had  been  more  ready  to  compare  them 
with  the  waking  states  of  sane  people. 

Probably,  when  the  subject  is  thoroughly  examined,  'conviction' 
will  be  proved  to  be  one  of  the  intensest  of  human  emotions,  and 
one  most  closely  connected  with  the  bodily  state.  In  cases  like  the 
Caliph  Omar's,  it  governs  all  other  desires,  absorbs  the  whole  nature, 
and  rules  the  whole  life.  And  in  such  cases  it  is  accompanied  or 
preceded  by  the  sensation  that  Scott  makes  his  seer  describe  as  the 
prelude  to. a  prophecy  :— 

'  At  length  the  fatal  answer  came, 
In  characters  of  living  flame — 
Not  spoke  in  word,  nor  blazed  in  scroll, 
But  borne  and  branded  on  my  soul.' 

A  hot  flash  seems  to  burn  across  the  brain.  Men  in  these  intense 
states  of  mind  have  altered  all  history,  changed  for  better  or  worse 
the  creed  of  myriads,  and  desolated  or  redeemed  provinces  and  ages. 
Nor  is  this  intensity  a  sign  of  truth,  for  it  is  precisely  strongest  in 
those  points  in  which  men  differ  most  from  each  other.  John  Knox 
felt  it  in  his  anti- Catholicism  ;  Ignatius  Loyola  in  his  anti-Pro- 
testantism ;  and  both,  I  suppose,  felt  it  as  much  as  it  is  possible  to 
feel  it. 

Once  acutely  felt,  I  believe  it  is  indelible ;  at  least,  it  does  some- 
thing to  the  mind  which  it  is  hard  for  anything  else  to  undo.  It 
has  been  often  said  that  a  man  who  has  once  really  loved  a  woman, 
never  can  be  without  feeling  towards  that  woman  again.  He  may 


On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction.  415 

go  on  loving  her,  or  he  may  change  and  hate  her.  In  the  same 
way,  I  think,  experience  proves  that  no  one  who  has  had  real  pas- 
sionate conviction  of  a  creed,  the  sort  of  emotion  that  burns  hot 
upon  the  brain,  can  ever  be  indifferent  to  that  creed  again.  He  may 
continue  to  believe  it,  and  to  love  it ;  or  he  may  change  to  the  oppo- 
site, vehemently  argue  against  it,  and  persecute  it.  But  he  cannot 
forget  it.  Years  afterwards,  perhaps,  when  life  changes,  when 
external  interests  cease  to  excite,  when  the  apathy  to  surroundings 
which  belongs  to  the  old,  begins  all  at  once,  to  the  wonder  of  later 
friends,  who  cannot  imagine  what  is  come  to  him,  the  grey-headed 
man  returns  to  the  creed  of  his  youth. 

The  explanation  of  these  facts  in  metaphysical  books  is  very  im- 
perfect. Indeed,  I  only  know  one  school  which  professes  to  explain 
the  emotion,  as  distinguished  from  the  intellectual  element  in  belief. 
Mr.  Mill  (after  Mr.  Bain)  speaks  very  instructively  of  the  '  animal 
nature  of  belief,'  but  when  he  comes  to  trace  its  cause,  his  analysis 
seems,  to  me  at  least,  utterly  unsatisfactory.  He  says  that  '  the  state 
of  belief  is  identical  with  the  activity  or  active  disposition  of  the 
system  at  the  moment  with  reference  to  the  thing  believed.'  But  in 
many  cases  there  is  firm  belief  where  there  is  no  possibility  of  action 
or  tendency  to  it.  A  girl  in  a  country  parsonage  will  be  sure  *  that 
Paris  never  can  be  taken,'  or  that  '  Bismarck  is  a  wretch,'  without 
being  able  to  act  on  these  ideas  or  wanting  to  act  on  them.  Many 
beliefs,  in  Coleridge's  happy  phrase,  slumber  in  the  '  dormitory  of  the 
soul ' ;  they  are  present  to  the  consciousness,  but  they  incite  to  no 
action.  And  perhaps  Coleridge  is  an  example  of  misformed  mind  in 
which  not  only  may  *  Faith  '  not  produce  '  works/  but  in  which  it 
had  a  tendency  to  prevent  works.  Strong  convictions  gave  him  a 
kind  of  cramp  in  the  will,  and  he  could  not  act  on  them.  And  in 
very  many  persons  much-indulged  conviction  exhausts  the  mind  with 
the  attached  ideas  ;  teases  it,  and  so,  when  the  time  of  action  comes, 
makes  it  apt  to  turn  to  different,  perhaps  opposite  ideas,  and  to  act 
on  them  in  preference. 

As  far  as  I  can  perceive,  the  power  of  an  idea  to  cause  conviction, 
independently  of  any  intellectual  process,  depends  on  four  properties. 

1st.  Clearness.  The  more  unmistakable  an  idea  is  to  a  particular 
mind,  the  more  is  that  mind  predisposed  to  believe  it.  In  common 
life  we  may  constantly  see  this.  If  you  once  make  a  thing  quite 
clear  to  a  person,  the  chances  are  that  you  will  almost  have  persuaded 
him  of  it.  Half  the  world  only  understand  what  they  believe,  and 
always  believe  what  they  understand. 


4i 6  On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction. 

2nd.  Intensity.  This  is  the  main  cause  why  the  ideas  that  flash 
on  the  minds  of  seers,  as  in  Scott's  description,  are  believed  ;  they 
come  mostly  when  the  nerves  are  exhausted  by  fasting,  watching,  and 
longing  ;  they  have  a  peculiar  brilliancy,  and  therefore  they  are  be- 
lieved. To  this  cause  I  trace  too  my  fixed  folly  as  to  Bridg water. 
The  idea  of  being  member  for  the  town  had  been  so  intensely  brought 
home  to  me  by  the  excitement  of  a  contest,  that  I  could  not  eradicate 
it,  and  that  as  soon  as  I  recalled  any  circumstances  of  the  contest  it 
always  came  back  in  all  its  vividness. 

3rd.  Constancy.  As  a  rule,  almost  everyone  does  accept  the  creed 
of  the  place  in  which  he  lives,  and  everyone  without  exception  has  a 
tendency  to  do  so.  There  are,  it  is  true,  some  minds  which  a  mathe- 
matician might  describe  as  minds  of  '  contrary  flexure,'  whose  par- 
ticular bent  it  is  to  contradict  what  those  around  them  say.  And 
the  reason  is  that  in  their  minds  the  opposite  aspect  of  every  subject 
is  always  vividly  presented.  But  even  such  minds  usually  accept 
the  axioms  of  their  district,  the  tenets  which  everybody  always 
believes.  They  only  object  to  the  variable  elements  ;  to  the  inferences 
and  deductions  drawn  by  some,  but  not  by  all. 

4th.  On  the  Interestingness  of  the  idea,  by  which  I  mean  the 
power  of  the  idea  to  gratify  some  wish  or  want  of  the  mind.  The 
most  obvious  is  curiosity  about  something  which  is  important  to  me. 
Rumours  that  gratify  this  excite  a  sort  of  half-conviction  without 
the  least  evidence,  and  with  a  very  little  evidence  a  full,  eager,  not 
to  say  a  bigoted  one.  If  a  person  go  into  a  mixed  company,  and  say 
authoritatively  '  that  the  Cabinet  is  nearly  divided  on  the  Russian 
question,  and  that  it  was  only  decided  by  one  vote  to  send  Lord 
Granville's  despatch,'  most  of  the  company  will  attach  some  weight 
more  or  less  to  the  story,  without  asking  how  the  secret  was  known. 
And  if  the  narrator  casually  add  that  he  has  just  seen  a  subordinate 
member  of  the  Government,  most  of  the  hearers  will  go  away  and 
repeat  the  anecdote  with  grave  attention,  though  it  does  not  in  the 
least  appear  that  the  lesser  functionary  told  the  anecdote  about  the 
Cabinet,  or  that  he  knew  what  passed  at  it. 

And  the  interest  is  greater  when  the  news  falls  in  with  the  bent 
of  the  hearer.  A  sanguine  man  will  believe  with  scarcely  any  evi- 
dence that  good  luck  is  coming,  and  a  dismal  man  that  bad  luck  is 
coming.  As  far  as  I  can  make  out,  the  professional  '  Bulls '  and 
*  Bears '  of  the  City  do  believe  a  great  deal  of  what  they  say,  though, 
of  course,  there  are  exceptions,  and  though  neither  the  most  sanguine 
'  bull '  nor  the  most  dismal  *  bear '  can  believe  all  he  says. 


On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction.  4 1 7 

Of  course,  I  need  not  say  that  this  *  quality '  peculiarly  attaches 
to  the  greatest  problems  of  human  life.  The  firmest  convictions  of 
the  most  inconsistent  answers  to  the  everlasting  questions  '  whence  ? ' 
and  *  whither  1 '  have  been  generated  by  this  *  interestingness '  with- 
out evidence  on  which  one  would  invest  a  penny.  * 

In  one  case,  these  causes  of  irrational  conviction  seem  contradic- 
tory. Clearness,  as  we  have  seen,  is  one  of  them  ;  but  obscurity, 
when  obscure  things  are  interesting,  is  a  cause  too.  But  there  is  no 
real  difficulty  here.  Human  nature  at  different  times  exhibits  con- 
trasted impulses.  There  is  a  passion  for  sensualism,  that  is,  to  eat 
and  drink;  and  a  passion  for  asceticism,  that  is,  not  to  eat  and  drink-; 
so  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  clearness  of  an  idea  may  sometimes  cause 
a  movement  of  conviction,  and  that  the  obscurity  of  another  idea 
may  at  other  times  cause  one  too. 

These  laws,  however,  are  complex — can  they  be  reduced  to  any 
simpler  law  of  human  nature  ?  *  I  confess  I  think  that  they  can,  but 
at  the  same  time  I  do  not  presume  to  speak  with  the  same  confidence 
about  it  that  I  have  upon  other  points.  Hitherto  I  have  been  dealing 
with  the  common  facts  of  the  adult  human  mind,  as  we  may  see  it  in 
others  and  feel  it  in  ourselves.  But  I  am  now  going  to  deal  with  the 
{ prehistoric  '  period  of  the  mind  in  early  childhood,  as  to  which  there 
is  necessarily  much  obscurity. 

My  theory  is,  that  in  the  first  instance  a  child  believes  everything. 
Some  of  its  states  of  consciousness  are  perceptive  or  presentative, — 
that  is,  they  tell  it  of  some  heat  or  cold,  some  resistance  or  non- 
resistance,  then  and  there  present.  Other  states  of  consciousness  are 
representative, — that  is,  they  say  that  certain  sensations  could  be  felt 
or  certain  facts  perceived,  in  time  past  or  in  time  to  come,  or  at  some 
place,  no  matter  at  what  time,  then  and  there  out  of  the  reach  of 
perception  and  sensation.  In  mature  life,  too,  we  have  these  presen- 
tative and  representative  states  in  every  sort  of  mixture,  but  we 
make  a  distinction  between  them.  Without  remark  and  without 
doubt,  we  believe  the  '  evidence  of  our  senses,'  that  is,  the  facts  of 
present  sensation  and  perception  ;  but  we  do  not  believe  at  once  and 
instantaneously  the  representative  states  as  to  what  is  non-present, 
whether  in  time  or  space.  But  I  apprehend  that  this  is  an  acquired 
distinction,  and  that  in  early  childhood  every  state  of  consciousness 
is  believed,  whether  it  be  presentative  or  representative. 

Certainly  at  the  beginning  of  the  '  historic  '  period  we  catch  the 
mind  at  a  period  of  extreme  credulity.  When  memory  begins,  and 
when  speech  and  signs  suffice  to  make  a  child  intelligible,  belief  is 

VOL.    II,  E    E 


4 1'8  On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction. 

almost  omnipresent,  and  doubt  almost  never  to  be  found.  Childlike 
credulity  is  a  phrase  of  the  highest  antiquity,  and  of  the  greatest 
present  aptness.  . 

So  striking,  indeed,  on  certain  points,  is  this  impulse  to  believe, 
that  philosophers  have  invented  various  theories  to  explain  in  detail 
some  of  its  marked  instances.  Thus  it  has  been  said  that  children 
have  an  intuitive  disposition  to  believe  in  'testimony ' — that  is,  in  the 
correctness  of  statements  orally  made  to  them.  And  that  they  do  so 
is  certain.  Every  child  believes  what  the  footman  tells  it,  what  its 
nurse  tells  it,  and  what  its  mother  tells  it,  and  probably  every  one's 
memory  will  carry  him  back  to  the  horrid  mass  of  miscellaneous  con- 
fusion which  he  acquired  by  believing  all  he  heard.  But  though  it  is 
certain  that  a  child  believes  all  assertions  made  to  it,  it  is  not  certain 
that  the  child  so  believes  in  consequence  of  a  special  intuitive  pre- 
disposition restricted  to  such  assertions.  It  may  be  that  this  indis- 
criminate belief  in  all  sayings  is  but  a  relic  of  an  omnivorous  acqui- 
escence in  all  states  of  consciousness,  which  is  only  just  extinct  when 
childhood  is  plain  enough  to  be  understood,  or  old  enough  to  be 
remembered. 

Again,  it  has  been  said  much  more  plausibly  that  we  want  an 
intuitive  tendency  to  account  for  our  belief  in  memory.  But  I 
question  whether  it  can  be  shown  that  a  little  child  does  believe  in 
its  memories  more  confidently  than  in  its  imaginations.  A  child  of 
my  acquaintance  corrected  its  mother,  who  said  that  '  they  should 
never  see '  two  of  its  dead  brothers  again,  and  maintained,  '  Oh  yes, 
mamma,  we  shall ;  we  shall  see  them  in  heaven,  and  they  will  be  so 
glad  to  see  us.'  And  then  the  child  cried  with  disappointment 
because  its  mother,  though  a  most  religious  lady,  did  not  seem  ex- 
actly to  feel  that  seeing  her  children  in  that  manner  was  as  good  as 
seeing  them  on  earth.  Now  I  doubt  if  that  child  did  not  believe 
this  expectation  quite  as  confidently  as  it  believed  any  past  fact,  or  as 
it  could  believe  anything  at  all,  and  though  the  conclusion  may  be 
true,  plainly  the  child  believed,  not  from  the  efficacy  of  the  external 
evidence,  but  from  a  strong  rush  of  inward  confidence.  Why,  then, 
should  we  want  a  special  intuition  to  make  children  believe  past  facts 
when,  in  truth,  they  go  farther  and  believe  with  no  kind  of  difficulty 
future  facts  as  well  as  past  1 

If  on  so  abstruse  a  matter  I  might  be  allowed  a  graphic  illustra- 
tion, I  should  define  doubt  as  '  a  hesitation  produced  by  collision.' 
A  child  possessed  with  the  notion  that  all  its  fancies  are  true,  finds 
that  acting  on  one  of  them  brings  its  head  against  the  table.  This 


On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction.  4 1 9 

gives  it  pain,  and  makes  it  hesitate  as  to  the  expediency  of  doing  it 
again.  Early  childhood  is  an  incessant  education  in  scepticism,  and 
early  youth  is  so  too.  All  boys  are  always  knocking  their  heads 
against  the  physical  world,  and  all  young  men  are  constantly  knock- 
ing their  heads  against  the  social  world.  And  both  of  them  from 
the  same  cause — that  they  are  subject  to  an  eruption  of  emotion  which 
engenders  a  strong  belief,  but  which  is  as  likely  to  cause  a  belief  in 
falsehood  as  in  truth.  Gradually,  under  the  tuition  of  a  painful  ex- 
perience, we  come  to  learn  that  our  strongest  convictions  may  be 
quite  false,  that  many  of  our  most  cherished  ones  are  and  have  been 
false  ;  and  this  causes  us  to  seek  a  *  criterion '  as  to  which  beliefs  are 
to  be  trusted  and  which  are  not ;  and  so  we  are  beaten  back  to  the  laws 
of  evidence  for  our  guide,  though,  as  Bishop  Butler  said,  in  a  similar 
case,  we  object  to  be  bound  by  anything  so  '  poor.' 

That  it  is  really  this  contention  with  the  world  which  destroys 
conviction  and  which  causes  doubt,  is  shown  by  examining  the  cases 
where  the  mind  is  secluded  from  the  world.  In  '  dreams,'  where 
we  are  out  of  collision  with  fact,  we  accept  everything  as  it  comes, 
believe  everything  and  doubt  nothing.  And  in  violent  cases  of  mania, 
where  the  mind  is  shut  up  within  itself,  and  cannot,  from  impotence, 
perceive  what  is  without,  it  is  as  sure  of  the  most  chance  fancy,  as  in 
health  it  would  be  of  the  best  proved  truths. 

And  upon  this  theory  we  perceive  why  the  four  tendencies  to 
irrational  conviction  which  I  have  set  down,  survive,  and  remain  in 
our  adult  hesitating  state  as  vestiges  of  our  primitive  all- believing 
state.  They  are  all  from  various  causes  '  adhesive  '  states — states 
which  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of,  and  which,  in  consequence 
have  retained  their  power  of  creating  belief  in  the  mind,  when  other 
states,  which  once  possessed  it  too,  have  quite  lost  it.  Clear  ideas  are 
certainly  more  difficult  to  get  rid  of  than  obscure  ones.  Indeed, 
some  obscure  ones  we  cannot  recover,  if  we  once  lose  them.  Every- 
body, perhaps,  has  felt  all  manner  of  doubts  and  difficulties  in  master- 
ing a  mathematical  problem.  At  the  time,  the  difficulties  seemed  as 
real  as  the  problem,  but  a  day  or  two  after  a  man  has  mastered  it, 
he  will  be  wholly  unable  to  imagine  or  remember  where  the  diffi- 
culties were.  The  demonstration  will  be  perfectly  clear  to  him,  and 
he  will  be  unable  to  comprehend  how  anyone  should  fail  to  perceive 
it.  For  life  he  will  recall  the  clear  ideas,  but  the  obscure  ones  he 
will  never  recall,  though  for  some  hours,  perhaps,  they  were  painful, 
confused,  and  oppressive  obstructions.  Intense  ideas  are,  as  every 
one  will  admit,  recalled  more  easily  than  slight  and  weak  ideas.  Con- 

B  E  2 


420  On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction. 

stantly  impressed  ideas  are  brought  back  by  the  world  around  us, 
and  if  they  are  so  often,  get  so  tied  to  our  other  ideas  that  we  can 
hardly  wrench  them  away.  Interesting  ideas  stick  in  the  mind  by 
the  associations  which  give  them  interest.  All  the  minor  laws  of 
conviction  resolve  themselves  into  this  great  one  :  '  That  at  first  we 
believe  all  which  occurs  to  us — that  afterwards  we  have  a  tendency 
to  believe  that  which  we  cannot  help  often  occurring  to  us,  and  that 
this  tendency  is  stronger  or  weaker  in  some  sort  of  proportion  to 
our  inability  to  prevent  their  recurrence.'  When  the  inability  to 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  the  idea  is  very  great,  so  that  the  reason 
is  powerless  on  the  mind,  the  consequent  '  conviction '  is  an  eager, 
irritable,  and  ungovernable  passion. 

If  these  principles  are  true,  they  suggest  some  lessons  which  are 
not  now  accepted.     They  prove  : 

1.  That  we  should  be  very  careful  how  we  let  ourselves  believe 
that  which  may  turn  out  to  be  error.    Milton  says  that  '  error  is  but 
opinion,'  meaning  true  opinion,   '  in  the  making.'      But  when  the 
conviction  of  any  error  is  a  strong  passion,  it  leaves,  like  all  other 
passions,  a  permanent  mark  on  the  mind.     We  can  never  be  as  if 
we  had  never  felt  it.     '  Once  a  heretic,  always  a  heretic,'  is  thus  far 
true,  that  a  mind  once  given  over  to  a  passionate  conviction  is  never 
as  fit  as  it  would  otherwise  have  been  to  receive  the  truth  on  the 
same  subject.     Years  after  the  passion  may  return  upon  him,  and 
inevitably  small  recurrences  of  it  will  irritate  his  intelligence  and 
disturb  its  calm.     We  cannot  at  once  expel  a  familiar  idea,  and  so 
long  as  the  idea  remains,  its  effect  will  remain  too. 

2.  That  we  must  always  keep  an  account  in  our  minds  of  the 
degree  of  evidence  on  which  we  hold  our  convictions,  and  be  most 
careful  that  we  do  not  permanently  permit  ourselves  to  feel  a  stronger 
conviction  than  the  evidence  justifies.     If  we  do,  since  evidence  is 
the  only  criterion  of  truth,  we  may  easily  get  a  taint  of  error  that 
may  be  hard  to  clear  away.     This  may  seem  obvious,  yet,  if  I  do  not 
mistake,  Father  Newman's  Grammar  of  Assent  is  little  else  than  a 
systematic  treatise  designed  to  deny  and  confute  it. 

3.  That  if  we  do,  as  in  life  we  must  sometimes,  indulge  a  '  provi- 
sional enthusiasm,'  as  it  may  be  called,  for  an  idea — for  example,  if 
an  orator  in  the  excitement  of  speaking  does  not  keep  his  phrases  to 
probability,  and  if  in  the  hurry  of  emotion  he  quite  believes  all  he 
says,  his  plain  duty  is  on  other  occasions  to  watch  himself  carefully, 
and  to  be  sure  that  he  does  not  as  a  permanent  creed  believe  what 
in  a  peculiar  and  temporary  state  he  was  led  to  say  he  felt  and  to  feel. 


On  the  Emotion  of  Conviction.  42 1 


Similarly,  we  are  all  in  our  various  departments  of  life  in  the 
habit  of  assuming  various  probabilities  as  if  they  were  certainties. 
In  Lombard  Street  the  dealers  assume  that  *  Messrs.  Baring's  accept- 
ance at  three  months'  date  is  sure  to  be  paid,'  and  that  '  Peel's  Act 
will  always  be  suspended  in  a  panic.'  And  the  familiarity  of  such 
ideas  makes  it  nearly  impossible  for  anyone  who  spends  his  day  in 
Lombard  Street  to  doubt  of  them.  But,  nevertheless,  a  person  who 
takes  care  of  his  mind  will  keep  up  the  perception  that  they  are  not 
certainties. 

Lastly,  we  should  utilise  this  intense  emotion  of  conviction  as  far 
as  we  can.  Dry  minds,  which  give  an  intellectual  '  assent '  to  con- 
clusions which  feel  no  strong  glow  of  faith  in  them,  often  do  not 
know  what  their  opinions  are.  They  have  every  day  to  go  over 
the  arguments  again,  or  to  refer  to  a  note-book  to  know  what  they 
believe.  But  intense  convictions  make  a  memory  for  themselves, 
and  if  they  can  be  kept  to  the  truths  of  which  there  is  good  evidence, 
they  give  a  readiness  of  intellect,  a  confidence  in  action,  a  consistency 
in  character,  which  are  not  to  be  had  without  them.  For  a  time, 
indeed,  they  give  these  benefits  when  the  propositions  believed  are 
false,  but  then  they  spoil  the  mind  for  seeing  the  truth,  and  they  are 
very  dangerous,  because  the  believer  may  discover  his  error,  and  a 
perplexity  of  intellect,  a  hesitation  in  action,  and  an  inconsistency  in 
character  are  the  sure  consequences  of  an  entire  collapse  in  pervading 
and  passionate  conviction. 


422         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 


THE    METAPHYSICAL    BASIS    OF    TOLERATION.1 

(1874.) 

ONE  of  the  most  marked  peculiarities  of  recent  times  in  England  is 
the  increased  liberty  in  the  expression  of  opinion.  Things  are  now 
said  constantly  and  without  remark,  which  even  ten  years  ago  would 
have  caused  a  hubbub,  and  have  drawn  upon  those  who  said  them 
much  obloquy.  But  already  I  think  there  are  signs  of  a  reaction. 
In  many  quarters  of  orthodox  opinion  I  observe  a  disposition  to  say, 
'  Surely  this  is  going  too  far  ;  really  we  cannot  allow  such  things  to 
be  said.'  And  what  is  more  curious,  some  writers,  whose  pens  are 
just  set  at  liberty,  and  who  would,  not  at  all  long  ago,  have  been 
turned  out  of  society  for  the  things  that  they  say,  are  setting  them- 
selves to  explain  the  '  weakness  '  of  liberty,  and  to  extol  the  advan  - 
tages  of  persecution.  As  it  appears  to  me  that  the  new  practice  of 
this  country  is  a  great  improvement  on  its  old  one,  and  as  I  conceive 
that  the  doctrine  of  Toleration  rests  on  what  may  be  called  a  meta- 
physical basis,  I  wish  shortly  to  describe  what  that  basis  is. 

I  should  say  that,  except  where  it  is  explained  to  the  contrary,  I 
use  the  word  *  Toleration  '  to  mean  toleration  by  law.  Toleration  by 
Society  of  matters  not  subject  to  legal  penalty  is  a  kindred  subject  on 
which,  if  I  have  room,  I  will  add  a  few  words,  but  in  the  main  I 
propose  to  deal  with  the  simpler  subject, — toleration  by  law.  And 
by  toleration,  too,  I  mean,  when  it  is  not  otherwise  said,  toleration 
in  the  public  expression  of  opinions.  Toleration  of  acts  and  practices 
is  another  allied  subject  on  which  I  can,  in  a  paper  like  this,  but 
barely  hope  to  indicate  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  truth.  And 
I  should  add,  that  I  deal  only  with  the  discussion  of  impersonal 
doctrines.  The  law  of  libel,  which  deals  with  accusations  of  living 
persons,  is  a  topic  requiring  consideration  by  itself. 

Meaning  this  by  '  toleration,'  I  do  not  think  we  ought  to  be  sur- 
prised at  a  reaction  against  it.  What  was  said  long  ago  of  slavery 
seems  to  be  equally  true  of  persecution, — it  '  exists  by  the  law  of 
nature.'  It  is  so  congenial  to  human  nature,  that  it  has  arisen  every - 

1   Contemporary  Review  for  April  1874, 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.         423 


where  in  past  times,  as  history  shows  ;  that  the  cessation  of  it  is  a 
matter  of  recent  times  in  England  ;  that  even  now,  taking  the  world 
as  a  whole,  the  practice  and  the  theory  of  it  are  in  a  triumphant 
majority.  Most  men  have  always  much  preferred  persecution,  and 
do  so  still ;  and  it  is  therefore  only  natural  that  it  should  continually 
reappear  in  discussion  and  argument. 

One  mode  in  which  it  tempts  human  nature  is  very  obvious. 
Persons  of 'strong  opinions  wish,  above  all  things,  to  propagate  those 
opinions.  They  find  close  at  hand  what  seems  an  immense  engine  for 
that  propagation ;  they  find  the  State,  which  has  often  in  history  in- 
terfered for  and  against  opinions, — which  has  had  a  great  and  unde- 
niable influence  in  helping  some  and  hindering  others, — and  in  their 
eagerness  they  can  hardly  understand'  why  they  should  not  make  use 
of  this  great  engine  to  crush  the  errors  which  they  hate,  and  to 
replace  them  with  the  tenets  they  approve.  So  long  as  there  are 
earnest  believers  in  the  world,  they  will  always  wish  to  punish 
opinions,  even  if  their  judgment  tells  them  it  is  unwise,  and  their 
conscience  that  it  is  wrong.  They  may  not  gratify  their  inclination, 
but  the  inclination  will  not  be  the  less  real. 

Since  the  time  of  Carlyle,  { earnestness '  has  been  a  favourite 
virtue  in  literature,  and  it  is  customary  to  treat  this  wish  to  twist 
other  people's  belief  into  ours  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  the  love  of  truth. 
And  in  the  highest  minds  so  it  may  be.  But  the  mass  of  mankind 
have,  as  I  hold,  no  such  fine  motive.  Independently  of  truth  or  false- 
hood, the  spectacle  of  a  different  belief  from  ours  is  disagreeable  to 
us,  in  the  same  way  that  the  spectacle  of  a  different  form  of  dress 
and  manners  is  disagreeable.  A  set  of  schoolboys  will  persecute  a 
new  boy  with  a  new  sort  of  jacket ;  they  will  hardly  let  him  have 
a  new-shaped  penknife.  Grown-up  people  are  just  as  bad,  except 
when  culture  has  softened  them.  A  mob  will  hoot  a  foreigner 
who  looks  very  unlike  themselves.  Much  of  the  feeling  of  '  earnest 
believers '  is,  I  believe,  altogether  the  same.  They  wish  others  to 
think  as  they  do,  not  only  because  they  wish  to  diffuse  doctrinal 
truth,  but  also  and  much  more  because  they  cannot  bear  to  hear 
the  words  of  a  creed  different  from  their  own.  At  any  rate,  with- 
out further  analysing  the  origin  of  the  persecuting  impulse,  its. 
deep  root  in  human  nature,  and  its  great  power  over  most  men, 
are  evident. 

But  this  natural  impulse  was  not  the  only  motive — perhaps 
was  not  the  principal  one — of  historical  persecutions.  The  main  one, 
or  a  main  one,  was  a  most  ancient  political  idea  which  once  ruled 


424         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

the  world,  and  of  which  deep  vestiges  are  still  to  be  traced  on  many 
sides.  The  most  ancient  conception  of  a  State  is  that  of  a  c  religious 
partnership,'  in  which  any  member  may  by  his  acts  bring  down  the 
wrath  of  the  gods  on  the  other  members,  and,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
whole  company.  This  danger  was,  in  the  conception  of  the  time,  at 
once  unlimited  and  inherited  ;  in  any  generation,  partners  A,  C,  D, 
&c.,  might  suffer  loss  of  life,  or  health,  or  goods — the  whole  association 
even  might  perish,  because  in  a  past  generation  the  ancestors  of  Z  had 
somehow  offended  the  gods.  Thus  the  historian  of  Athens  tells  us 
that  after  a  particular  act  of  sacrilege — a  breach  of  the  local  privileges 
of  sanctuary — the  perpetrators  were  compelled  '  to  retire  into  banish- 
ment ; '  and  that  those  who  had  died  before  the  date  he  is  speaking  of 
were  '  disinterred  and  cast'beyond  the  borders.'  *  Yet,'  he  adds, '  their 
exile  continuing,  as  it  did,  only  for  a  time,  was  not  held  sufficient  to 
expiate  the  impiety  for  which  they  had  been  condemned.  The  Alk- 
moonids,  one  of  the  most  powerful  families  in  Attica,  long  continued 
to  be  looked  upon  as  a  tainted  race,  and  in  cases  of  public  calamity 
were  liable  to  be  singled  out  as  having  by  their  sacrilege  drawn  down 
the  judgment  of  the  gods  upon  their  countrymen.'  And  as  false 
opinions  about  the  gods  have  almost  always  been  thought  to  be  pecu- 
liarly odious  to  them,  the  misbeliever,  the  '  miscreant,'  has  been  almost 
always  thought  to  be  likely  not  only  to  impair  hereafter  the  salvation 
of  himself  and  others  in  a  future  world,  but  also  to  bring  on  his  neigh- 
bours  and  his  nation  grievous  calamities  immediately  in  this.  He  has 
been  persecuted  to  stop  political  danger  more  than  to  arrest  intel- 
lectual error. 

But  it  will  be  said, — Put  history  aside,  and  come  to  things  now. 
Why  should  not  those  who  are  convinced  that  certain  doctrines  are 
errors,  that  they  are  most  dangerous,  that  they  may  ruin  man's  wel- 
fare here  and  his  salvation  hereafter,  use  the  power  of  the  State  to 
extirpate  those  errors  ?  Experience  seems  to  show  that  the  power  of 
the  State  can  be  put  forth  in  that  way  effectually.  Why,  then,  should 
it  not  be  put  forth  ?  If  I  had  room,  I  should  like  for  a  moment  to 
criticise  the  word  '  effectually.'  I  should  say  that  the  State,  in  the 
cases  where  it  is  most  wanted,  is  not  of  the  use  which  is  thought.  I 
admit  that  it  extirpates  error,  but  I  doubt  if  it  creates  belief — at 
least,  if  it  does  so  in  cases  where  the  persecuted  error  is  suitable  to  the 
place  and  time.  In  such  cases,  I  think  the  effect  has  often  been  to 
eradicate  a  heresy  among  the  few,  at  the  cost  of  creating  a  scepticism 
among  the  many  ;  to  kill  the  error,  no  doubt,  but  also  to  ruin  the 
general  belief.  And  this  is  the  cardinal  point,  for  the  propagation  of 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.        425 

the  '  truth  '  is  the  end  of  persecution;  all  else  is  only  a  means.  But 
I  have  not  space  to  discuss  this,  and  will  come  to  the  main  point. 

I  say  that  the  State  power  should  not  be  used  to  arrest  discussion, 
because  the  State  power  may  be  used  equally  for  truth  or  error,  for 
Mohammedanism  or  Christianity,  for  belief  or  no-belief,  but  in  dis- 
cussion truth  has  an  advantage.  Arguments  always  tell  for  truth,  as 
such,  and  against  error  as  such  ;  if  you  let  the  human  mind  alone,  it 
has  a  preference  for  good  argument  over  bad  ;  it  oftener  takes  truth 
than  not.  But  if  you  do  not  let  it  alone,  you  give  truth  no  advantage 
at  all ;  you  substitute  a  game  of  force,  where  all  doctrines  are  equal, 
for  a  game  of  logic,  where  the  truer  have  the  better  chance. 

The  process  by  which  truth  wins  in  discussion  is  this, — certain 
strong  and  eager  minds  embrace  original  opinions,  seldom  all  wrong, 
never  quite  true,  but  of  a  mixed  sort,  part  truth,  part  error.  These 
they  inculcate  on  all  occasions,  and  on  every  side,  and  gradually  bring 
the  cooler  sort  of  men  to  a  hearing  of  them.  These  cooler  people 
serve  as  quasi-judges,  while  the  more  eager  ones  are  a  sort  of  advo- 
cates ;  a  Court  of  Inquisition  is  sitting  perpetually,  investigating, 
informally  and  silently,  but  not  ineffectually,  what,  on  all  great  sub- 
jects of  human  interest,  is  truth  and  error.  There  is  no  sort  of  infalli- 
bility about  the  Court  ;  often  it  makes  great  mistakes,  most  of  its 
decisions  are  incomplete  in  thought  and  imperfect  in  expression. 
Still,  on  the  whole,  the  force  of  evidence  keeps  it  right.  The  truth 
has  the  best  of  the  proof,  and  therefore  wins  most  of  the  judgments. 
The  process  is  slow,  far  more  tedious  than  the  worst  Chancery  suit. 
Time  in  it  is  reckoned  not  by  days,  but  by  years,  or  rather  by 
centuries.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  it  creeps  along,  if  you  do  not  stop  it. 
But  all  is  arrested,  if  persecution  begins — if  you  have  a  coup  d'Jtat,  and 
let  loose  soldiers  on  the  Court ;  for  it  is  perfect  chance  which  litigant 
turns  them  in,  or  what  creed  they  are  used  to  compel  men  to  believe. 

This  argument,  however,  assumes  two  things.  In  the  first  place, 
it  presupposes  that  we  are  speaking  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  dis- 
cussion is  possible.  And  such  societies  are  not  very  common.  Uncivi- 
lised man  is  not  capable  of  discussion  :  savages  have  been  justly 
described  as  having  '  the  intellect  of  children  with  the  passions  and 
strength  of  men.'  Before  anything  like  speculative  argument  can  be 
used  with  them,  their  intellect  must  be  strengthened  and  their  pas- 
sions restrained.  There  was,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  long  preliminary 
period  before  human  nature,  as  we  now  see  it,  existed,  and  while  it 
was  being  formed.  During  that  preliminary  period,  persecution,  like 
slavery,  played  a  most  considerable  part.  Nations  mostly  became 


426         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

nations  by  having  a  common  religion.  It  was  a  necessary  condition 
of  the  passage  from  a  loose  aggregate  of  savages  to  a  united  polity,  that 
they  should  believe  in  the  same  gods  and  worship  these  gods  in  the 
same  way.  What  was  necessary  was,  that  they  should  for  a  long 
period — for  centuries,  perhaps — lead  the  same  life  and  conform  to  the 
same  usages.  They  believed  that  the  '  gods  of  their  fathers  '  had  com- 
manded these  usages.  Early  law  is  hardly  to  be  separated  from 
religious  ritual ;  it  is  more  like  the  tradition  of  a  Church  than  the 
enactments  of  a  statute-book.  It  is  a  thing  essentially  immemorial 
and  sacred.  It  is  not  conceived  of  as  capable  either  of  addition  or 
diminution ;  it  is  a  body  of  holy  customs  which  no  one  is  allowed 
either  to  break  or  to  impugn.  The  use  of  these  is  to  aid  in  creating  a 
common  national  character,  which  in  aftertimes  may  be  tame  enough 
to  bear  discussion,  and  which  may  suggest  common  axioms  upon 
which  discussion  can  be  founded.  Till  that  common  character  has 
been  formed,  discussion  is  impossible  ;  it  cannot  be  used  to  find  out 
truth,  for  it  cannot  exist  ;  it  is  not  that  we  have  to  forego  its  efficacy 
on  purpose,  we  have  not  the  choice  of  it,  for  its  prerequisites  cannot  be 
found.  The  case  of  civil  liberty  is,  as  I  conceive,  much  the  same. 
Early  ages  need  a  coercive  despotism  more  than  they  need  anything 
else.  The  age  of  debate  comes  later.  An  omnipotent  power  to  enforce 
the  sacred  law  is  that  which  is  then  most  required.  A  constitutional 
opposition  would  be  born  before  its  time.  It  would  be  dragging  the 
wheel  before  the  horses  were  harnessed.  The  strongest  advocates 
both  of  Liberty  and  Toleration  may  consistently  hold  that  there  were 
unhappy  ages  before  either  became  possible,  and  when  attempts  at 
either  would  have  been  pernicious. 

The  case  is  analogous  to  that  of  education.  Every  parent  wisely 
teaches  his  child  his  own  creed,  and  till  the  child  has  attained  a 
certain  age,  it  is  better  that  he  should  not  hear  too  much  of  any 
other.  His  mind  will  in  the  end  be  better  able  to  weigh  arguments, 
because  it  does  not  begin  to  weigh  them  so  early.  He  will  hardly 
comprehend  any  creed  unless  he  has  been  taught  some  creed.  But 
the  restrictions  of  childhood  must  be  relaxed  in  youth,  and  abandoned 
in  manhood.  One  object  of  education  is  to  train  us  for  discussion, 
and  as  that  training  gradually  approaches  to  completeness,  we  should 
gradually  begin  to  enter  into  and  to  take  part  in  discussion.  The 
restrictions  that  are  useful  at  nine  years  old  are  pernicious  at  nineteen. 

This  analogy  would  have  seemed  to  me  obvious,  but  there  are 
many  most  able  persons  who  turn  the  matter  just  the  other  way. 
They  regard  the  discipline  of  education  as  a  precedent  for  persecution. 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.        427 

They  say,  '  I  would  no  sooner  let  the  nation  at  large  read  that  bad 
book  than  I  would  let  my  children  read  it.'  They  refuse  to  admit 
that  the  age  of  the  children  makes  any  difference.  At  heart  they 
think  that  they  are  wiser  than  the  mass  of  mankind,  just  as  they  are 
wiser  than  their  children,  and  would  regulate  the  studies  of  both  un- 
hesitatingly. But  experience  shows  that  no  man  is  on  all  points  so 
wise  as  the  mass  of  men  are  after  a  good  discussion,  and  that  if  the 
ideas  of  the  very  wisest  were  by  miracle  to  be  fixed  on  the  race,  the 
certain  result  would  be  to  stereotype  monstrous  error.  If  we  fixed 
the  belief  of  Bacon,  we  should  believe  that  the  earth  went  round  the 
sun  :  if  we  fixed  that  of  Newton,  we  should  believe  *  that  the  Argo- 
nautic  expedition  was  a  real  event,  and  occurred  B.C.  937  ;  that 
Hercules  was  a  real  person,  and  delivered  Theseus,  another  real  person, 
B.C.  936  ;  that  in  the  year  1036  Ceres,  a  woman  of  Sicily,  in  seeking 
her  daughter  who  was  stolen,  came  into  Attica,  and  there  taught  the 
Greeks  to  sow  corn.'  And  the  worst  is,  that  the  minds  of  most  would-be 
persecutors  are  themselves  unfixed  ;  their  opinions  are  in  a  perpetual 
flux  ;  they  would  persecute  all  others  for  tenets  which  yesterday  they 
had  not  heard  of  and  which  they  will  not  believe  to-morrow. 

But  it  will  be  said,  the  theory  of  Toleration  is  not  so  easy  as  that 
of  education.  We  know  by  a  certain  fact  when  a  young  man  is 
grown  up  and  can  bear  discussion.  We  judge  by  his  age,  as  to  which 
every  one  is  agreed.  But  we  cannot  tell  by  any  similar  patent  fact 
when  a  state  is  mature  enough  to  bear  discussion.  There  may  be 
two  opinions  about  it.  And  I  quite  agree  that  the  matter  of  fact  is 
more  difficult  to  discover  in  one  case  than  in  the  other  ;  still  it  is  a 
matter  of  fact  which  the  rulers  of  the  State  must  decide  upon  their 
responsibility,  and  as  best  they  can.  And  the  highest  sort  of  rulers 
will  decide  it  like  the  English  in  India — with  no  reference  to  their 
own  belief.  For  years  the  English  prohibited  the  preaching  of 
Christianity  in  India,  though  it  was  their  own  religion,  because  they 
thought  that  it  could  not  be  tranquilly  listened  to.  They  now  permit 
it,  because  they  find  that  the  population  can  bear  the  discussion.  Of 
course,  most  Governments  are  wholly  unequal  to  so  high  a  morality 
and  so  severe  a  self-command.  The  Governments  of  most  countries 
are  composed  of  persons  who  wish  everybody  to  believe  as  they  do, 
merely  because  they  do.  Some  here  and  there,  from  a  higher  motive, 
so  eagerly  wish  to  propagate  their  opinions,  that  they  are  unequal  to 
consider  the  problem  of  toleration  impartially.  They  persecute  till 
the  persecuted  become  strong  enough  to  make  them  desist.  But  the 
delicacy  of  a  rule  and  the  unwillingness  of  Governments  to  adopt  it, 


428         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

do  not  prove  that  it  is  not  the  best  and  the  right  one.  There  are 
already  in  inevitable  jurisprudence  many  lines  of  vital  importance 
just  as  difficult  to  draw.  The  line  between  sanity  and  insanity  has 
necessarily  to  be  drawn,  and  it  is  as  nice  as  anything  can  be.  The 
competency  of  people  to  bear  discussion  is  not  intrinsically  more 
difficult  than  their  competency  to  manage  their  own  affairs,  though 
perhaps  a  Government  is  less  likely  to  be  impartial  and  more  likely 
to  be  biassed  in  questions  of  discussion  than  in  pecuniary  ones. 

Secondly,  the  doctrine  that  rulers  are  to  permit  discussion  assumes 
not  only,  as  we  have  seen,  that  discussion  is  possible,  but  also  that 
discussion  will  not  destroy  the  Government.  No  Government  is  bound 
to  permit  a  controversy  which  will  annihilate  itself.  It  is  a  trustee 
for  many  duties,  and  if  possible,  it  must  retain  the  power  to  perform 
those  duties.  The  controversies  which  may  ruin  it  are  very  different 
in  different  countries.  The  Government  of  the  day  must  determine 
in  each  case  what  those  questions  are.  If  the  Roman  Emperors  who 
persecuted  Christianity  really  did  so  because  they  imagined  that 
Christianity  would  destroy  the  Roman  Empire,  I  think  they  are  to 
be  blamed  not  for  their  misconception  of  duty,  but  for  their  mistake 
of  fact.  The  existence  of  Christianity  was  not  really  more  inconsis- 
tent with  the  existence  of  the  Empire  in  the  time  of  Diocletian  than 
in  that  of  Constantino  ;  but  if  Diocletian  thought  that  it  was  incon- 
sistent, it  was  his  duty  to  preserve  the  Empire. 

It  will  be  asked,  '  What  do  you  mean  by  preserving  a  society  ? 
All  societies  are  in  a  state  of  incipient  change  ;  the  best  of  them  are 
often  the  most  changing  ;  what  is  meant,  then,  by  saying  you  will 
"  preserve  "  any  ?  You  admit  that  you  cannot  keep  them  unaltered, 
what  then  do  you  propose  to  do  ? '  I  answer  that,  in  this  respect,  the 
life  of  societies  is  like  the  life  of  the  individuals  composing  them. 
You  cannot  interfere  so  as  to  keep  a  man's  body  unaltered  ;  you  can 
interfere  so  as  to  keep  him  alive.  What  changes  in  such  cases  will  be 
fatal,  is  a  question  of  fact.  The  Government  must  determine  what 
will,  so  to  say,  '  break  up  the  whole  thing '  and  what  will  not.  No 
doubt  it  may  decide  wrong.  In  France,  the  country  of  experiments, 
General  Cavaignac  said,  '  A  Government  which  allows  its  principle  to 
be  discussed,  is  a  lost  Government/  and  therefore  he  persecuted  on 
behalf  of  the  Republic,  thinking  it  was  essential  to  society.  Louis 
Napoleon  similarly  persecuted  on  behalf  of  the  Second  Empire  ;  M. 
Thiers  on  behalf  of  the  Republic  again  ;  the  Due  de  Broglie  now  per- 
secutes on  behalf  of  the  existing  nondescript.  All  these  may  be  mis- 
takes or  some  of  them,  or  none.  Here,  as  before,  the  practical 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.         429 

difficulties  in  the  application  of  a  rule  do  not  disprove  its  being  the 
true  and  the  only  one. 

It  will  be  objected  that  this  principle  is  applicable  only  to  truths 
which  are  gained  by  discussion.  *  We  admit,'  such  objectors  say, 
'  that  where  discussion  is  the  best  or  the  only  means  of  proving  truth, 
it  is  unadvisable  to  prohibit  that  discussion,  but  there  are  other  means 
besides  discussion  of  arriving  at  truth,  which  are  sometimes  better 
than  discussion  even  where  discussion  is  applicable,  and  sometimes  go 
beyond  it  and  attain  regions  in  which  it  is  inapplicable  ;  and  where 
those  more  efficient  means  are  applicable  it  may  be  wise  to  prohibit 
discussion,  for  in  these  instances  discussion  may  confuse  the  human 
mind  and  impede  it  in  the  use  of  those  higher  means.  The  case  is 
analogous  to  that  of  the  eyes.  For  the  most  part  it  is  a  sound  rule  to 
tell  persons  who  want  to  see  things,  that  they  must  necessarily  use  both 
their  eyes,  and  rely  on  them.  But  there  are  cases  in  which  that  rule  is 
wrong.  If  a  man  wants  to  see  things  too  distant  for  the  eyes,  as  the 
satellites  of  Jupiter  and  the  ring  of  Saturn,  you  must  tell  him,  on  the 
contrary,  to  shut  one  eye  and  look  through  a  telescope  with  the  other. 
The  ordinary  mode  of  using  the  common  instruments  may,  in  excep- 
tional cases,  interfere  with  the  right  use  of  the  supplementary  instru- 
ments.' And  I  quite  admit  that  there  are  such  exceptional  cases  and 
such  additional  means  ;  but  I  say  that  their  existence  introduces  no 
new  difficulty  into  the  subject,  and  that  it  is  no  reason  for  prohibiting 
discussion  except  in  the  cases  in  which  we  have  seen  already  that  it 
was  advisable  to  prohibit  it. 

Putting  the  matter  in  the  most  favourable  way  for  these  objectors, 
and  making  all  possible  concessions  to  them,  I  believe  the  exceptions 
which  they  contend  for  must  come  at  last  to  three. 

First,  There  are  certain  necessary  propositions  which  the  human 
mind  will  think,  must  think,  and  cannot  help  thinking.  For  ex- 
ample, we  must  believe  that  things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing 
are  equal  to  each  other, — that  a  thing  cannot  both  be  and  not  be, — 
that  it  must  either  be  or  not  be.  These  truths  are  not  gained  by  dis- 
cussion; on  the  contrary,  discussion  presupposes  at  least  some  of  them, 
for  you  cannot  argue  without  first  principles  any  more  than  you  can 
use  a  lever  without  a  fulcrum.  The  prerequisites  of  reasoning  must 
somehow  be  recognised  by  the  human  mind  before  we  begin  to  reason. 
So  much  is  obvious,  but  then  it  is  obvious  also  that  in  such  cases 
attempts  at  discussion  cannot  do  any  harm.  If  the  human  mind  has 
in  it  certain  first  principles  which  it  cannot  help  seeing,  and  which  it 
accepts  of  itself,  there  is  no  harm  in  arguing  against  those  first  prin- 


430         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

ciples.  You  may  contend  as  long  as  you  like,  that  things  which  are 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  not  equal  to  each  other,  or  that  a  thing 
can  both  exist  and  not  exist  at  the  same  time,  but  you  will  not  con- 
vince anyone.  If  you  could  convince  anyone  you  would  do  him 
irreparable  harm,  for  you  would  hurt  the  basis  of  his  mind  and 
destroy  the  use  of  his  reason.  But  happily  you  cannot  convince  him. 
That  which  the  human  mind  cannot  help  thinking  it  cannot  help 
thinking,  and  discussion  can  no  more  remove  the  primary  perceptions 
than  it  can  produce  them.  The  multiplication  table  will  remain  the 
multiplication  table,  neither  more  nor  less,  however  much  we  may 
argue  either  for  it  or  against  it. 

But,  though  the  denial  of  the  real  necessary  perceptions  of  the 
human  mind  cannot  possibly  do  any  harm,  the  denial  of  alleged 
necessary  perceptions  is  often  essential  to  the  discovery  of  truth.  The 
human  mind,  as  experience  shows,  is  apt  to  manufacture  sham  self- 
evidences.  The  most  obvious  case  is,  that  men  perpetually  '  do  sums ' 
wrong.  If  we  dwell  long  enough  and  intently  enough  on  the  truths 
of  arithmetic  they  are  in  each  case  self-evident;  but,  if  we  are  too 
quick,  or  let  our  minds  get  dull,  we  may  make  any  number  of  mis- 
takes. A  certain  deliberation  and  a  certain  intensity  are  both  essen- 
tial to  correctness  in  the  matter.  Fictitious  necessities  of  thought 
will  be  imposed  on  us  without  end  unless  we  are  careful.  The  great- 
est minds  are  not  exempt  from  the  risk  of  such  mistakes  even  in  mat- 
ters most  familiar  to  them.  On  the  contrary,  the  history  of  science 
is  full  of  cases  in  which  the  ablest  men  and  the  most  experienced 
assumed  that  it  was  impossible  to  think  things  which  are  in  matter 
of  fact  true,  and  which  it  has  since  been  found  possible  to  think  quite 
easily.  The  mode  in  which  these  sham  self-evidences  are  distinguished 
from  the  real  ones  is  by  setting  as  many  minds  as  possible  to  try  as 
often  as  possible  whether  they  can  help  thinking  the  thing  or  not. 
But  such  trials  will  never  exist  without  discussion.  So  far,  therefore, 
the  existence  of  self-evidences  in  the  human  mind  is  not  a  reason  for 
discouraging  discussion,  but  a  reason  for  encouraging  it. 

Next,  it  is  certainly  true  that  many  conclusions  which  are  by  no 
means  self-evident  and  which  are  gradually  obtained,  nevertheless, 
are  not  the  result  of  discussion.  For  example,  the  opinion  of  a  man 
as  to  the  characters  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances  is  not  the  result 
of  distinct  argument,  but  the  aggregate  of  distinct  impressions:  it 
is  not  the  result  of  an  investigation  consciously  pursued,  but  the  effect 
of  a  multiplicity  of  facts  involuntarily  presented;  it  is  a  definite 
thing  and  has  a  most  definite  influence  on  the  mind,  but  its  origin  is 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.         431 

indefinite  and  not  to  be  traced;  it  is  like  a  great  fund  raised  in  very 
small  subscriptions  and  of  which  the  subscribers'  names  are  lost. 
But  here  again,  though  these  opinions  too  were  not  gained  by  dis- 
cussion, their  existence  is  a  reason  for  promoting  discussion,  not  for 
preventing  it.  Every-day  experience  shows  that  these  opinions  as  to 
character  are  often  mistaken  in  the  last  degree.  Human  character 
is  a  most  complex  thing,  and  the  impressions  which  different  people 
form  of  it  are  as  various  as  the  impressions  which  the  inhabitants  of 
an  impassable  mountain  have  of  its  shape  and  size.  Each  observer 
has  an  aggregate  idea  derived  from  certain  actions  and  certain  say- 
ings, but  the  real  man  has  always  or  almost  always  said  a  thousand 
sayings  of  a  kind  quite  different  and  in  a  connection  quite  different; 
he  has  done  a  vast  variety  of  actions  among  '  other  men  '  and  '  other 
minds ; '  a  mobile  person  will  often  seem  hardly  the  same  if  you 
meet  him  in  very  different  societies.  And  how,  except  by  discussion, 
is  the  true  character  of  such  a  person  to  be  decided  1  Each  observer 
must  bring  his  contingent  to  the  list  of  data;  those  data  must  be 
arranged  and  made  use  of.  The  certain  and  positive  facts  as  to 
which  everyone  is  agreed  must  have  their  due  weight :  they  must  be 
combined  and  compared  with  the  various  impressions  as  to  which  no 
two  people  exactly  coincide.  A  rough  summary  must  be  made  of 
the  whole.  In  no  other  way  is  it  possible  to  arrive  at  the  truth 
of  the  matter.  Without  discussion  each  mind  is  dependent  on  its 
own  partial  observation.  A  great  man  is  one  image — one  thing,  so 
to  speak — to  his  valet,  another  to  his  son,  another  to  his  wife, 
another  to  his  greatest  friend.  None  of  these  must  be  stereotyped; 
all  must  be  compared.  To  prohibit  discussion  is  to  prohibit  the  cor- 
rective process. 

Lastly,  I  hold  that  there  are  first  principles  or  first  perceptions 
which  are  neither  the  result  of  constant,  though  forgotten  trials  like 
those  last  spoken  of,  nor  common  to  all  the  race  like  the  first.  The 
most  obvious  seem  to  me  to  be  the  principles  of  taste.  The  primary 
perceptions  of  beauty  vary  much  in  different  persons,  and  for  different 
persons  at  the  same  time,  but  no  one  can  say  that  they  are  not  most 
real  and  most  influential  parts  of  human  nature.  There  is  hardly  a 
thing  made  by  human  hands  which  is  not  affected  more  or  less  by  the 
conception  of  beauty  felt  by  the  maker ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  human 
life  which  would  not  have  been  different  if  the  idea  of  beauty  in  the 
mind  of  the  man  who  lived  it  had  been  different. 

But  certainly  it  would  not  answer  to  exclude  subjects  of  taste 
from  discussion,  and  to  allow  one  school  of  taste-teachers  to  reign 


432         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

alone,  and  to  prohibit  the  teaching  of  all  rival  schools.  The  effect 
would  be  to  fix  on  all  ages  the  particular  ideas  of  one  age  on  a  matter 
which  is  beyond  most  others  obscure  and  diincult  to  reduce  to  a 
satisfactory  theory.  The  human  mind  evidently  differs  at  various 
times  immensely  in  its  conclusions  upon  it,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  the  era  of  the  persecutor  is  wiser  than  any  other  era,  or 
that  his  opinion  is  better  than  anyone  else's. 

The  case  of  these  variable  first  principles  is  much  like  that  of  the 
'  personal  equation,'  as  it  is  called  in  the  theory  of  observations.  Some 
observers,  it  is  found,  habitually  see  a  given  phenomenon,  say  the 
star  coming  to  the  meridian,  a  little  sooner  than  most  others;  some 
later ;  no  two  persons  exactly  coincide.  The  first  thing  done  when 
a  new  man  comes  into  an  observatory  for  practical  work  is  to  deter- 
mine whether  he  sees  quick  or  slow;  and  this  is  called  the  '  personal 
equation.'  But,  according  to  the  theory  of  persecution,  the  national 
astronomer  in  each  country  would  set  up  his  own  mind  as  the  standard; 
in  one  country  he  would  be  a  quick  man,  and  would  not  let  the  slow 
people  contest  what  he  said;  in  another  he  would  be  a  slow  man, 
and  would  not  tolerate  the  quick  people,  or  let  men  speak  their 
minds;  and  so  the  astronomical  observations — the  astronomical  creeds 
if  I  may  say  so — of  different  countries  would  radically  differ.  But 
as  toleration  and  discussion  are  allowed,  no  such  absurd  result  follows. 
The  observations  of  different  minds  are  compared  with  those  of  others, 
and  truth  is  assumed  to  lie  in  the  mean  between  the  errors  of  the 
quick  people  and  the  errors  of  the  slow  ones. 

No  such  accurate  result  can  be  expected  in  more  complex  matters. 
The  phenomena  of  astronomical  observation  relate  only  to  very  simple 
events,  and  to  a  very  simple  fact  about  these  events.  But  perceptions 
of  beauty  have  an  infinite  complexity :  they  are  all  subtle  aggregates 
of  countless  details,  and  about  each  of  these  details  probably  every 
mind  in  some  degree  differs  from  every  other  one.  But  in  a  rough 
way  the  same  sort  of  agreement  is  possible.  Discussion  is  only  an 
organised  mode,  by  which  various  minds  compare  their  conclusions 
with  those  of  various  others.  Bold  and  strong  minds  describe  graphic 
and  definite  impressions  :  at  first  sight  these  impressions  seem  wholly 
different.  Writers  of  the  last  century  thought  classical  architecture 
altogether  inferior  to  Gothic;  many  writers  now  put  it  just  the  other 
way,  and  maintain  a  mediaeval  cathedral  to  be  a  thing  altogether 
superior  in  kind  and  nature  to  anything  classical.  For  years  the 
world  thought  Claude's  landscapes  perfect.  Then  came  Mr.  Huskin, 
and  by  his  ability  and  eloquence  he  has  made  a  whole  generation  de- 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.        433 

predate  them,  and  think  Turner's  altogether  superior.  The  extrica- 
tion of  truth  by  such  discussions  is  very  slow  \  it  is  often  retarded ; 
it  is  often  thrown  back ;  it  often  seems  to  pause  for  ages.  But  upon 
the  whole  it  makes  progress,  and  the  principle  of  that  progress  is 
this  : — Each  mind  which  is  true  to  itself,  and  which  draws  its  own 
impressions  carefully,  and  which  compares  those  impressions  with 
the  impressions  of  others,  arrives  at  certain  conclusions,  which  as  far 
as  that  mind  is  concerned  are  ultimate,  and  are  its  highest  conclu- 
sions. These  it  sets  down  as  expressively  as  it  can  on  paper,  or 
communicates  by  word  of  mouth,  and  these  again  form  data  which 
other  minds  can  contrast  with  their  own.  In  this  incessant  com- 
parison eccentric  minds  fall  off  on  every  side  \  some  like  Milton,  some 
Wordsworth,  some  can  see  nothing  in  Drydeii,  some  find  Racine 
intolerably  dull,  some  think  Shakespeare  barbarous,  others  consider 
the  contents  of  the  Iliad  '  battles  and  schoolboy  stuff.'  With  history 
it  is  the  same  ;  some  despise  one  great  epoch,  some  another.  Each 
epoch  has  its  violent  partisans,  who  will  listen  to  nothing  else,  and 
who  think  every  other  epoch  in  comparison  mean  and  wretched. 
These  violent  minds  are  always  faulty  and  sometimes  absurd,  but 
they  are  almost  always  useful  to  mankind.  They  compel  men  to  hear 
neglected  truth.  They  uniformly  exaggerate  their  gospel;  but  it 
generally  is  a  gospel.  Carlyle  said  many  years  since  of  the  old  Poor 
Law  in  England  : — '  It  being  admitted  then  that  outdoor  relief  should 
at  once  cease,  what  means  did  great  Nature  take  to  make  it  cease  ? 
She  created  various  men  who  thought  the  cessation  of  outdoor  relief 
the  one  thing  needful.'  In  the  same  way,  it  being  desirable  that  the 
taste  of  men  should  be  improved  on  some  point,  Nature's  instru- 
ment on  that  point  is  some  man  of  genius,  of  attractive  voice  and 
limited  mind,  who  declaims  and  insists,  not  only  that  the  special 
improvement  is  a  good  thing  in  itself,  but  the  best  of  all  things, 
and  the  root  of  all  other  good  things.  Most  useful,  too,  are  others 
less  apparent  ;  shrinking,  sensitive,  testing  minds,  of  whom  often 
the  world  knows  nothing,  but  each  of  whom  is  in  the  circle  just  near 
him  an  authority  on  taste,  and  communicates  by  personal  influence 
the  opinions  he  has  formed.  The  human  mind  of  a  certain  maturity, 
if  left  alone,  prefers  real  beauty  to  sham  beauty,  and  prefers  it  the 
sooner  if  original  men  suggest  new  charms,  and  quiet  men  criticise 
and  judge  of  them. 

But  an  sesthetical  persecution  would  derange  all  this,  for  generally 
the  compulsive  power  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  believers  in 
some  tradition.  The  State  represents  '  the  rough  force  of  society,' 

VOL.    II.  F    F 


434         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

and  is  little  likely  to  be  amenable  to  new  charms  or  new  ideas ;  and 
therefore  the  first  victim  of  the  persecution  would  be  the  original 
man  who  was  proposing  that  which  in  the  end  would  most  improve 
mankind ;  and  the  next  would  be  the  testing  and  discerning  critic  who 
was  examining  these  ideas  and  separating  the  chaff  from  the  wheat 
in  them.  Neither  would  conform  to  the  old  tradition.  The  inventor 
would  be  too  eager ;  the  critic  too  scrupulous ;  and  so  a  heavy  code  of 
ancient  errors  would  be  chained  upon  mankind.  Nor  would  the  case 
be  at  all  the  better  if  by  some  freak  of  events  the  propounder  of  the 
new  doctrine  were  to  gain  full  control,  and  to  prohibit  all  he  did  not 
like.  He  would  try,  and  try  in  vain,  to  make  the  inert  mass  of  men 
accept  or  care  for  his  new  theory,  and  his  particular  enemy  would 
be  the  careful  critic  who  went  with  him  a  little  way  and  then  refused 
to  go  any  further.  If  you  allow  persecution,  the  partisans  of  the 
new  sort  of  beauty  will,  if  they  can,  attack  those  of  the  old  sort ; 
and  the  partisans  of  the  old  sort  will  attack  those  of  the  new  sort ; 
while  both  will  turn  on  the  quiet  and  discriminating  person  who  is 
trying  to  select  what  is  good  from  each.  Some  chance  taste  will  be 
fixed  for  ages. 

But  it  will  be  said,  '  "Whoever  heard  of  such  nonsense  as  an 
sesthetical  persecution1?  Everybody  knows  such  matters  of  taste 
must  be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves;  as  far  as  they  are  con- 
cerned, nobody  wants  to  persecute  or  prohibit/  But  I  have  spoken 
of  matters  of  taste  because  it  is  sometimes  best  to  speak  in  parables. 
The  case  of  morals  and  religion,  in  which  people  have  always  perse- 
cuted and  still  wish  to  persecute,  is  the  very  same.  If  there  are  (as 
I  myself  think  there  are)  ultimate  truths  of  morals  and  religion 
which  more  or  less  vary  for  each  mind,  some  sort  of  standard  and 
some  kind  of  agreement  can  only  be  arrived  at  about  it  in  the  very 
same  way.  The  same  comparison  of  one  mind  with  another  is  neces- 
sary ;  the  same  discussion ;  the  same  use  of  criticising  minds ;  the 
same  use  of  original  ones.  The  mode  of  arriving  at  truth  is  the 
same,  and  also  the  mode  of  stopping  it. 

We  now  see  the  reason  why,  as  I  said  before,  religious  persecution 
often  extirpates  new  doctrines,  but  commonly  fails  to  maintain  the 
belief  in  old  tenets.  You  can  prevent  whole  classes  of  men  from 
hearing  of  the  religion  which  is  congenial  to  them,  but  you  cannot 
make  men  believe  a  religion  which  is  uncongenial.  You  can  prevent 
the  natural  admirers  of  Gothic  architecture  from  hearing  anything  of 
it,  or  from  seeing  it ;  but  you  cannot  make  them  admire  classical 
architecture.  You  may  prevent  the  admirers  of  Claude  from  seeing 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.         435 

his  pictures,  or  from  praising  them ;  but  you  cannot  make  them 
admirers  of  Turner.  Just  so,  you  may  by  persecution  prevent  minds 
prone  to  be  Protestant  from  being  Protestant;  but  you  will  not 
make  men  real  Catholics:  you  may  prevent  naturally  Catholic 
minds  from  being  Catholic ;  but  you  will  not  make  them  genuine 
Protestants.  You  will  not  make  those  believe  your  religion  who  are 
predisposed  by  nature  in  favour  of  a  different  kind  of  religion ;  you 
will  make  of  them,  instead,  more  or  less  conscious  sceptics.  Being 
denied  the  sort  of  religion  of  which  the  roots  are  in  their  minds 
and  which  they  could  believe,  they  will  for  ever  be  conscious  of  an 
indefinite  want.  They  will  constantly  feel  after  something  which 
they  are  never  able  to  attain ;  they  will  never  be  able  to  settle  upon 
anything ;  they  will  feel  an  instinctive  repulsion  from  everything ; 
they  will  be  sceptics  at  heart,  because  they  were  denied  the  creed 
for  which  their  heart  craves ;  they  will  live  as  indifferentists,  because 
they  were  withheld  by  force  from  the  only  creed  to  which  they  would 
not  be  indifferent.  Persecution  in  intellectual  countries  produces  a 
superficial  conformity,  but  also  underneath  an  intense,  incessant, 
implacable  doubt. 

Upon  examination,  therefore,  the  admission  that  certain  truths 
are  not  gained  by  discussion  introduces  no  new  element  into  the 
subject.  The  discussion  of  such  truths  is  as  necessary  as  of  all  other 
truths.  The  only  limitations  are  that  men's  minds  shall  in  the  par- 
ticular society  be  mature  enough  to  bear  the  discussion,  and  that  the 
discussion  shall  not  destroy  the  society. 

I  acknowledge  these  two  limitations  to  the  doctrine  that  discussion 
should  be  free,  but  I  do  not  admit  another  which  is  often  urged.  It 
is  said  that  those  who  write  against  toleration  should  not  be  tolerated ; 
that  discussion  should  not  aid  the  enemies  of  discussion.  But  why 
not  ?  If  there  is  a  strong  Government  and  a  people  fit  for  discussion, 
why  should  not  the  cause  be  heard  ?  We  must  not  assume  that  the 
liberty  of  discussion  has  no  case  of  exception.  We  have  just  seen 
that  there  are,  in  fact,  several  such.  In  each  instance,  let  the  people 
decide  whether  the  particular  discussion  shall  go  on  or  not.  Very 
likely,  in  some  cases,  they  may  decide  wrong ;  but  it  is  better  that 
they  should  so  decide,  than  that  we  should  venture  to  anticipate  all 
experience,  and  to  make  sure  that  they  cannot  possibly  be  right. 

It  is  plain,  too,  that  the  argument,  here  applied  to  the  toleration 
of  opinion  has  no  application  to  that  of  actions.  The  human  mind, 
in  the  cases  supposed,  learns  by  freely  hearing  all  arguments,  but  in 
no  case  does  it  learn  by  trying  freely  all  practices.  Society,  as  we  now 

F  F  2 


436         The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration. 

have  it,  cannot  exist  at  all  unless  certain  acts  are  prohibited.  It  goes 
on  much  better  because  many  other  acts  are  prohibited  also.  The 
Government  must  take  the  responsibility  of  saying  what  actions  it 
will  allow ;  that  is  its  first  business,  and  the  allowance  of  all  would 
be  the  end  of  civilisation.  But  it  must,  under  the  conditions  specified, 
hear  all  opinions,  for  the  tranquil  discussion  of  all  more  than  any- 
thing else  promotes  the  progressive  knowledge  of  truth,  which  is  the 
mainspring  of  civilisation. 

Nor  does  the  argument  that  the  law  should  not  impose  a  penalty 
on  the  expression  of  any  opinion  equally  prove  that  society  should 
not  in  many  cases  apply  a  penalty  to  that  expression.  Society  can 
deal  much  more  severely  than  the  law  with  many  kinds  of  acts, 
because  it  need  be  far  less  strict  in  the  evidence  it  requires.  It  can 
take  cognisance  of  matters  of  common  repute  and  of  things  of  which 
everyone  is  sure,  but  which  nobody  can  prove.  Particularly,  it  can 
fairly  well  compare  the  character  of  the  doctrine  with  the  character 
of  the  agent,  which  law  can  do  but  imperfectly,  if  at  all.  And  it  is 
certain  that  opinions  are  evidence  of  the  character  of  those  who  hold 
them — not  conclusive  evidence,  but  still  presumptive.  Experience 
shows  that  every  opinion  is  compatible  with  what  every  one  would 
admit  to  be  a  life  fairly  approvable,  a  life  far  higher  than  that  of  the 
mass  of  men.  Great  scepticism  and  great  belief  have  both  been 
found  in  characters  whom  both  sceptics  and  believers  must  admire. 
Still,  on  the  whole,  there  is  a  certain  kinship  between  belief  and 
character  ;  those  who  disagree  with  a  man's  fundamental  creed  will 
generally  disapprove  of  his  habitual  character.  If,  therefore,  society 
sees  a  man  maintaining  opinions  which  by  experience  it  has  been  led 
to  connect  with  actions  such  as  it  discountenances,  it  is  justified  in 
provisionally  discountenancing  the  man  who  holds  those  opinions. 
Such  a  man  should  be  put  to  the  proof  to  show  by  his  life  that  the 
opinions  which  he  holds  are  not  connected  with  really  pernicious 
actions,  as  society  thinks  they  are.  If  he  is  visibly  leading  a  high 
life,  society  should  discountenance  him  no  longer ;  it  is  then  clear  that 
he  did  not  lead  a  bad  life,  and  the  idea  that  he  did  or  might  lead  such 
a  life  was  the  only  reason  for  so  doing.  A  doubt  was  suggested,  but 
it  also  has  been  removed.  This  habit  of  suspicion  does  not,  on  the 
whole,  impair  free  discussion ;  perhaps  even  it  improves  it.  It  keeps 
out  the  worst  disputants,  men  of  really  bad  character,  whose  opinions 
are  the  results  of  that  character,  and  who  refrain  from  publishing 
them,  because  they  fear  what  society  may  say.  If  the  law  could 
similarly  distinguish  between  good  disputants  and  bad,  it  might  use- 


The  Metaphysical  Basis  of  Toleration.       .  437 

fully  impose  penalties  on  the  bad.  But,  of  course,  this  is  impossible. 
Law  cannot  distinguish  between  the  niceties  of  character ;  it  must 
punish  the  publication  of  an  opinion,  if  it  punishes  at  all,  no  matter 
whether  the  publisher  is  a  good  man  or  whether  he  is  a  bad  one.  In 
such  a  matter,  society  is  a  discriminating  agent  :  the  law  is  but  a 
blind  one. 

To  most  people  I  may  seem  to  be  slaying  the  slain,  and  proving 
what  no  one  doubts.  People,  it  will  be  said,  no  longer  wish  to 
persecute.  But  I  say,  they  do  wish  to  persecute.  In  fact,  from  their 
writings,  and  still  better  from  their  conversation,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  very  many  believers  would  persecute  sceptics,  and  that  very 
many  sceptics  would  persecute  believers.  Society  may  be  wiser ;  but 
most  earnest  believers  and  most  earnest  unbelievers  are  not  at  all 
wiser. 


- 
438          The  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill. 


THE  PUBLIC  WORSHIP  REGULATION  BILL.* 

(1874.) 

IF  the  *  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill '  dealt  only  with  subjects 
theological  or  religious,  we  should  not  interfere  in  the  discussion  ;  but 
it  deals  also  with  political  questions,  on  which  we  do  not  think  it 
right  to  be  silent,  especially  as  many  whom  we  much  respect  have, 
we  think,  selected  a  policy  of  which  the  effect  will  be  the  reverse  of 
what  they  expect,  and  the  success  of  which  they  may  hereafter  much 
regret. 

All  changes  in  England  should  be  made  slowly  and  after  long 
discussion.  Public  opinion  should  be  permitted  to  ripen  upon  them. 
And  the  reason  is,  that  all  the  important  English  institutions  are 
the  relics  of  a  long  past ;  that  they  have  undergone  many  transforma- 
tions ;  that,  like  old  houses  which  have  been  altered  many  times, 
they  are  full  both  of  conveniences  and  inconveniences  which  at  first 
sight  would  not  be  imagined.  Very  often  a  rash  alterer  would  pull 
down  the  very  part  which  makes  them  habitable,  to  cure  a  minor 
evil  or  improve  a  defective  outline. 

The  English  Church  is  one  of  those  among  our  institutions  which, 
if  it  is  to  be  preserved  at  all,  should  be  touched  most  anxiously.  It 
is  one  of  our  oldest  institutions.  Every  part  of  it  has  a  history, 
which  few  of  us  thoroughly  understand,  but  which  we  all  know  to 
be  long  and  important.  In  its  political  relations  it  has  been  altered 
many  times,  and  each  time  under  circumstances  of  considerable  com- 
plexity. The  last  settlement  was  made  more  than  two  hundred  years 
ago,  when  men's  minds  were  in  a  very  different  state  from  what  they 
are  now  :  when  Newton  had  not  written,  when  Locke  had  not 
thought,  when  physical  science,  as  we  now  have  it,  did  not  exist, 
when  modern  philosophy,  for  England  at  least,  had  not  begun.  The 

1  [This  paper  originally  appeared  in  the  Economist  on  the  occasion  of  the 
adoption  by  the  Government  of  the  late  Mr.  Russell  Gurney's  Public  Worship 
Regulation  Bill.  It  is  here  included  as  a  telling  practical  illustration  of  the 
teaching  of  the  previous  essay. — EDITOR.] 


The  P^t,blic  Worship  Regulation  Bill.         439 

railways,  the  telegraphs,  the  very  common  sense  of  these  times,  would 
have  been  unintelligible  in  the  year  1660  ;  they  would  have  been 
still  more  unintelligible  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  To  attempt 
to  enforce  on  us  now  a  settlement  made  in  times  so  different,  is  a 
grave  undertaking  ;  it  ought  only  to  be  made  after  the  most  ample 
discussion,  and  when  every  competent  person  has  had  time  to  consider 
the  effect. 

We  have  as  yet  felt  little  inconvenience  from  our  old  law,  because 
we  have  dealt  with  it  in  a  truly  English  manner.  Always  refusing 
to  change  it  explicitly,  always  saying  that  we  would  never  so  change 
it,  we  were  changing  it  silently  all  the  while.  Year  by  year  this 
practice  was  omitted,  or  this  habit  insensibly  changed.  Each  genera- 
tion differed  from  its  fathers  ;  and  though  they  might  in  part  utter 
the  same  words,  they  did  not  mean  the  same  things ;  their  intellectual 
life  was  different.  Incessant  changes  in  science,  in  literature,  in  art, 
and  in  politics — in  all  that  forms  thinking  minds — have  made  it 
impossible  that  really  and  in  fact  we  should  think  the  same  things  in 
1874  as  our  ancestors  in  1674  or  1774.  Just  as  in  legal  theory  Queen 
Victoria  has  pretty  much  the  same  prerogative  as  Queen  Elizabeth,  so 
too  in  legal  theory  the  English  Church  may  be  identical  with  that 
of  two  hundred  years  ago  ;  but  the  Church  is  not  a  legal  theory,  it  is 
'a  congregation  of  faithful  men; '  and  no  one  of  these  is  in  a  state  of 
mind  identical,  or  nearly  identical,  with  those  of  two  hundred  years 
ago. 

Many  Continental  statesmen  would  be  much  puzzled  at  this 
insensible  alteration  ;  they  would  have  a  difficulty  in  imagining  a 
law  which  was  a  law  in  theory  but  not  a  law  in  practice,  which  no 
one  would  alter  in  word  and  no  one  enforce  in  reality.  But  the 
English  are  very  practised  in  this  sort  of  arrangement — they  have  a 
kind  of  genius  for  the  compensation  of  errors.  For  many  years  we 
had  probably  the  worst  and  most  bloody  penal  law  in  Europe  ;  it  is 
awful  to  read  the  old  statutes  which  fix  death  as  the  penalty  for 
minor  acts  altogether  undeserving  of  it.  But  these  statutes  did  not 
work  nearly  so  much  evil  as  might  have  been  expected.  There  was 
besides  a  complex  system  of  indictments  which  let  off  very  many 
culprits  upon  trifling  flaws,  and  there  was  also  an  absurd  system  of  in- 
cessant remissions  and  pardons  ;  the  worst  evils  of  an  excessively  bad 
law  were  exceedingly  mitigated  by  a  very  bad  mode  of  applying  it. 
Speaking  roughly,  and  subject  to  minor  criticism,  the  history  has 
been  the  same  in  the  Church  ;  in  it,  too,  an  imperfect  law  has  been 
remedied  by  an  imperfect  mode  of  procedure.  The  Church  has  been 


440          The  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill. 

allowed  to  change  in  this  and  that  because  it  has  been  exceedingly 
difficult  to  interfere  with  it.  The  legal  penalty  against  change  has 
been  distant,  costly,  and  uncertain ;  and  therefore  it  has  not  been 
applied.  Change  has  been  possible  because  the  punishment  of  change 
was  difficult.  But  the  essence  of  the  '  Public  Worship  Regulation 
Bill '  is  to  make  that  punishment  easy.  '  If  the  Rubric  says  so,'  say 
its  supporters,  '  the  Rubric  ought  to  be  enforced.'  This  is  as  if  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly  had  attacked,  not  our  bad  penal  code,  but  our  bad 
penal  procedure.  If,  by  the  historical  growth  of  approximate  equiva- 
lents, A  mitigates  .5,  you  will  deteriorate,  not  improve  the  world,  if 
you  change  A  without  changing  JS,  though  both  may  be  evils. 

The  analogy,  indeed,  very  imperfectly  expresses  the  truth.  In  the 
recent  history  of  the  Church,  the  English  have  conspicuously  shown 
another  of  their  predominant  peculiarities — indifference  to  abstract 
truth.  When  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  English  lawyers  in  the 
Court  of  Privy  Council  were  first  required  to  decide  theological  ques- 
tions, they  did  so  in  a  way  which  astonished  theologians.  They 
declined  to  supply  any  abstract  proposition.  If  the  enacted  formu- 
laries contained  such  and  such  words,  no  clergyman  of  the  Church 
could,  according  to  them,  contradict  those  words,  but  they  allowed 
the  clergy  to  say  anything  else.  We  cannot  use  theological  terms 
here ;  but  suppose,  by  an  economical  analogy,  the  formulary  had  said 
that  'Free  trade  was  beneficial  to  mankind, 'the  lawyers  would  have 
decided  that  no  clergyman  could  say  that  free  trade  was  not  beneficial; 
but  they  would  have  allowed  him  to  say  that  '  Commercial  liberty 
was  inexpressibly  disastrous  to  mankind,'  because  as  lawyers  they 
would  not  undertake  to  say  that '  free  trade '  and  '  commercial  liberty  ' 
meant  the  same  thing,  or  that  in  an  abstract  subject  the  two  phrases 
might  not  in  some  way  and  to  some  minds  seem  consistent.  In  mere 
description  this  kind  of  decision  may  not  seem  very  sensible,  and  it 
is  utterly  contrary  to  any  which  a  theologian  would  ever  have 
adopted  ;  but  in  practice  it  preserved  the  Church  Establishment.  It 
was  first  applied  in  the  Gorham  case,  and  retained  the  Evangelical 
clergy  in  the  Church  •  then,  in  the  Essays  and  Reviews  case,  it 
retained  the  Broad  Church  ;  and  lastly,  in  Mr.  Bennett's  case,  it  re- 
tained the  High  Church.  If  the  Establishment  was  to  be  maintained, 
it  was  necessary  that  all  these  parties  should  be  kept  side  by 
side  within  it,  and  by  this  system  of  interpretation  they  were  thus 
kept. 

Unfortunately,  the  courts  of  law  have  not  been  able  to  apply  the 
same  sort  of  judicial  decision  to  the  practical  directions  for  the  public 


The  Piiblic  Worship  Regulation  Bill.         441 

worship  of  the  Church  which  they  applied  to  her  theoretical  teachings. 
There  is  inevitably  something  more  distinct  and  clear  about  acts 
which  are  required  to  be  done  at  a  given  time  and  place,  than  in  state- 
ments of  abstract  doctrine.  When  the  courts  have  been  appealed  to, 
it  has  not  been  possible  to  apply  to  ritual  the  same  comprehensiveness 
which  has  had  such  excellent  political  effects  in  the  case  of  doctrine. 
But,  nevertheless,  there  is  exactly  the  same  necessity  for  it.  Almost 
every  party  in  the  Church  is  harassed  by  some  of  her  rules,  just  as  it 
is  hampered  by  some  of  her  words.  The  Broad  Church  dislikes  the 
Athanasian  creed,  and  avoids  the  use  of  it.  The  Low  Church  and 
the  High  Church  are  in  vital  and  necessary  opposition  as  to  the  mode 
of  conducting  the  Sacramental  services.  In  every  characteristic 
Church  every  party  thinks  probably  something  is  done  which  the 
strict  Rubric  would  forbid,  or  something  omitted  which  it  would 
prescribe.  Until  now  this  difficulty  has  not  been  very  acutely  felt. 
As  we  have  explained,  the  imperfection  of  the  law  was  cured  by  the 
imperfection  of  the  procedure.  No  doubt  the  rubrics  were  framed  in 
other  days  ;  no  doubt  they  took  no  notice  of  the  wants  of  the  present 
day  ;  no  doubt  a  strict  adherence  to  them  would  expel  from  the 
Church  very  many  whose  doctrines  had  been  decided  to  be  consistent 
with  hers.  But  then,  to  enforce  the  observance  of  the  Rubric  was 
difficult,  costly,  and  dubious,  and  so  the  natural  evil  did  not  happen. 
The  wants  of  various  minds  were  variously  met  by  various  deviations 
from  the  law,  which  in  theory  were  liable  to  penalties,  but  which  in 
practice  were  unpunished. 

The  scope  of  the  *  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill '  is  to  destroy 
this  variety.  It  is  a  new  Act  of  Uniformity  as  far  as  '  public  wor- 
ship '  is  concerned.  A  short  and  simple  process — which  has  been  so^ 
often  stated  that  we  need  not  here  describe  it — is  prescribed  which 
will  enable  objectors  to  enforce  any  rubric,  and  which  no  doubt  will 
cause  them  to  be  so  enforced.  The  proposers  of  the  Bill  have  not 
enough  considered  the  applicability  of  this  primary  assumption  :  no 
Church  can  have  only  a  single  form  of  public  worship  unless  it  has 
also  a  single  creed.  An  apparent  uniformity  may  be  maintained  in 
specified  details  ;  but  in  spirit,  in  feeling,  in  its  deepest  consequences 
on  those  who  habitually  hear  and  see,  the  effect  will  be  different.  A 
service  conducted  by  a  Broad  Churchman,  explained  in  his  sermon, 
and  commented  upon  in  his  manner,  will  be  very  unlike  what  it 
would  be  if  that  service  is  conducted  by  a  bond  fide  dogmatic  believer. 
No  mere  Act  of  Uniformity  can  prevent  this.  Still  less  can  it  efface 
the  inevitable  difference  between  a  Sacramental  service  in  the  hands 

VOL.    II.  G    G 


442  The  Piiblic  Worship  Regulation  BilL 

of  a  High  Church  clergyman  and  in  those  of  a  Low  Church.  The 
two  belong  to  separate  and  unlike  species.  The  one  believes  that  the 
service  contains  a  supernatural  act,  the  other  that  it  is  an  edifying  rite; 
.the  one  regards  it  as  an  invisible  miracle,  the  other  as  a  conspicuous 
exhortation.  Make  what  laws  you  like,  how  can  the  two  perform 
these  services  with  the  same  tone  of  mind,  the  same  kind  of  thought, 
the  same  effect  on  the  congregation  ?  You  may  dress  two  men  up  in 
the  same  clothes,  but  they  will  be  two  men  for  all  that.  If  once  you 
permit  two  or  more  faiths  in  a  Church,  you  in  truth  permit  two  or 
more  Rituals.  The  various  feelings  and  the  various  creeds  will  some- 
how find  a  means  of  bringing  themselves  into  contact  with  the  minds 
with  which  they  wish  to  be  in  contact.  You  have  *  swallowed  the 
camel '  when  you  permitted  the  creed,  and  it  is  useless  to  strain  at 
the  gnat  and  forbid  the  expression  of  it. 

This  is  to  be  especially  borne  in  mind  by  those  who  think  that 
there  is  a  party  in  the  Church  that  desires  to  introduce  Romanism, 
and  who  approve  of  this  Bill  because  they  think  it  will  counteract 
that  party.  The  essence  of  Romanism  is  not  in  its  ceremonies,  but 
in  its  doctrines.  As  was  explained  to  the  House  of  Commons  on 
Wednesday,  nothing  could  be  simpler  than  the  mode  in  which  Mr. 
Newman  used  to  conduct  his  services  at  Oxford ;  and  yet  he  then  held 
'  Roman.'  doctrine,  and  penetrated  half  the  young  men  about  him 
with  a  deep  faith  in  the  highest  sacramental  principle.  Unless  you 
reverse  the  decision  in  the  Bennett  case,  a  doctrine  which  no  common 
person  will  distinguish  from  Romanism  will  continue  to  be,  and  must 
be,  taught  in  the  Church  of  England.  We  do  not  believe  it  will  lose 
in  strength  by  being  denied  this  or  that  form  of  Ritual.  It  will 
attract  in  any  case  the  minds  to  whom  it  is  congenial,  and  it  will 
rather  gain  than  lose  in  eclat  by  seeming  to  be  persecuted. 

We  shall  be  told  that  this  argument  proves  too  much;  for  that  it 
proves  that  this  Bill  will  do  nothing  at  all,  and  that  therefore  at  least 
it  will  do  no  harm.  But  it  will,  we  think,  do  great  harm — at  least, 
if  it  be  good  to  keep  the  Establishment,  and  if  it  does  harm  to  weaken 
it.  The  real  danger  of  the  Establishment  is  from  within,  not  from 
without.  The  manner  in  which  its  sections  have  been  retained  within 
its  limits  has  in  part  developed,  and  as  time  goes  on  is  still  developing 
more  largely,  a  great  evil.  Specially  the  Low  Church,  specially  the 
Broad  Church,  and  specially  the  High  Church,  have  all  been  kept  in 
her  communion  because  the  judges  refused  to  draw  certain  logical  in- 
ferences from  her  formularies  ;  as  lawyers  they  declined  to  draw  them. 


The  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill.          443 

• 

But  intellectual  young  men,  who  are  thinking  of  becoming  clergymen, 
do  not  like  this  reasoning.     They  say  :  *  The  courts  of  law  may  not 
like  to  draw  these  inferences,  but  I  must.     I  have  spent  my  youth  in 
a  mental  training  which  has  prepared  me  to  draw  them,  and  which 
compels  me  to  do  so.     Educated  as  I  have  been,  I  cannot  take  half 
an  argument  and  leave  it ;  I  must  work  it  out  to  the  end.     That  end 
seems  to  me  inconsistent  with  this  or  that  of 'the  formularies  of  the 
Church.      Others  say  it  is  not,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  ;  at 
any  rate,  I  do  not  like  to  risk  the  happiness  of  my  life  upon  its  being 
consistent.     If  in  after  years  my  investigation  should  run  counter  to 
a  vast  collection  of  assertions  framed  by  various  men,  in  various  ages, 
of  various  minds,  what  will  be  my  fate  1     I  must  either  sacrifice  the 
profession  by  which  I  live,  or  the  creed  in  which  I  believe.       The 
lawyers  probably  might  not  turn  me  out  indeed;  but  my  conscience 
was  not  made  by  lawyers — I  shall  have  to  turn  myself  out.'     This  is 
the  sort  of  thought  which  more  and  more  prevents  intellectual  young 
men  from  taking  orders,  and  we  are  beginning  to  see  the  effect.      The 
moral  excellence  and  the  practical  piety  of  the  clergy  are  as  good  as 
ever  ;  but  they  want  individuality  of  thought  and  originality  of  mind. 
They  have  too  universal  a  conformity  to  commonplace  opinion.  They 
are  not  only  conscientious,  but  indecisive  ;  more  and  more  they  belong 
to  the  most  puzzling  class  to  argue  with,  for  more  and  more  they 
4  candidly  confess '    that  they  must  admit  your  premises,  but,  on 
*  account  of  the  obscurity  of  the  subject,'  must  decline  to  draw  the 
inevitable  inference.     Already  this  intellectual  poorness  is  beginning 
to  be  felt  ;  and  if  it  should  augment,  it  will  destroy  the  Establish- 
ment.    She  will  not  have  in  her  ranks  arguers  who  can  maintain  her 
position  either  against  those  who  believe  more  or  against  those  who 
believe  less.     Scepticism  sends  trained  and  logical  minds  to  the  intel- 
lectual conflict ;  Romanism  does  so  also  ;  but  the  Established  Church 
refuses  them — refuses  them  silently  and  indirectly,  but  still  effectually. 
The  Public  Worship  Bill  will,  we  conceive,  augment  this  difficulty 
almost  at  the  very  point  at  which  its  being  augmented  will  be  most 
calamitous.       Many  young  men  who  are  acutely  conscious  of  the 
restraints  of  the  Establishment  in  speculation,  are  attracted  by  its 
freedom  in  practice.     '  I  may  be  cramped  in  metaphysics,'  they  think 
at  heart,  'but  I  shall  be  free  in  action.'      But  this  Bill  will  be  a 
measure — for  aught  young  men  can  tell,  the  first  of  a  series — which 
will  limit  the  freedom  of  their  lives,  and  cramp  them  on  the  side  of 
practice    as  they  already  are   on  the   side  of  thought.     The  most 


444          The  Piiblic  Worship  Regulation  Bill. 


malevolent  enemy  of  the  Established  Church  could  deal  her  no  acuter 
wound. 

Upon  the  whole,  we  can  conceive  nothing  clearer  than  that  this 
Bill  should  not  pass  this  year.  We  are  certain  that  members  of  Par- 
liament have  not  considered  the  necessary  arguments,  and  that  the 
nation  has  not  done  so  either. 


THE 


PRINTED    BY 

eFOTYISWOODE    AND   CO.,    NEW-STREET   SQUARE 
tXXNDON 


H  Classifieb   Catalogue 

OF  WORKS  IN 

GENERAL    LITERATURE 

PUBLISHED    BY 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO. 

39    PATERNOSTER   ROW,    LONDON,    E.G. 
AND    15  EAST  i6xH  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 

1894. 


INDEX     OF    AUTHORS. 

Page                                              Page                                              Page                                             Page 

Abbott  (Evelyn)   -        -    2,  13 

Dent  (C.  T.)          -        -          8 

Lees  (J.  A.)  -        -        -    7,  21  :  Saintsbury  (G.)    -        -          9 

—  (T.  K.)  -        -        -        10 

De  Salis  (Mrs.)     -        -        21 

Leonard  (A.  G.)    -        -        23    Scott-Montagu  (J.)       -          q 

—  (E.  A.)  -        -        -        10 

De  Tocqueville  (A.)      -          2  j  Leslie  (T.  E.  C.)  -        -        12    Seebohm  (F.)        -        -4,5 

Acland  (A.  H.  D.)         -          2 

Devas  (C.  S.)        -        -        12    Lewes  (G.  H.)       -        -        n    Sewell  (Eliz.  M.)  -        -        17 

Acton  (Eliza)        -        -        21 

Dougall(L.)-        -        -        15  1  Leyton  (F.)  -                         14  '  Shakespeare          -        -5,15 

^Eschvlus                                 13 

Dowell  (S.)                             12    Lodge  (H,  C.)       -        -          3  ;  Shand  (A.  J.  I.)    -                  g 

Allingham  (W.)    -        -  14,  22 

Doyle  (A.  Conan)         -        16 

Loftie  (W.  J.)       -        -          3  !  Sharpe  (R.  R.)      -        -          4 

Anstey  (F.)  -        -        -        15 
Aristophanes        -        -        13 
Aristotle        -        -        -        10 

Ewald  (H.)    -        -        -          2 
Falkener  (E.)                            9 
Farnell  (G.  S.)      -        -        13 

Longman  (C.  J.)  -         8,  9,  23    Shearman  (M.)                         8 
Longman  (F.  W.)         -          9  !  Sheppard  (Edgar)         -          4 
Lubbock  (Sir  John)      -        13    Shirres  (L.  P.)      -        -        12 

Armstrong  (E.)                         2 

Farrar  (Archdeacon)    -  12,  16 

Lyall  (Edna)         -        -        16    Sidgwick  (Alfred)          -        n 

—  (G.  F.  Savage)      -        14 

Fitzpatrick  (W.  J.)       -          3 

Lytton  (Earl  of  )  -        -        15    Sinclair  (A.)-        -        -          8 

—  (E.  J.)  -               5,  14,  22 

Fitzwygram  Sir  F.        -           7 

Macaulay  (Lord)  -      4,  is,  21  \  Smith  (R.  Bosworth)   -          4 

Arnold  (Sir  Edwin)     6,  14,  20 

Ford  (H.)                                  9   Macdonald  (George)    -    ~  24!  (W.  P.  Haskett)  -          7 

—  (Dr.  T.)                            2 

Forster  (F.)  -        -        -        16  |  Macfarren  (Sir  G.  A.)  -        23    Sophocles     -        -        -        13 

Ashley  (W.  J.)      -        -         12 

Fowler  (T.  K.)       -        -          9  !  Mackail  (J.  W.)    -        -        13  I  Southey  (R.)         -        -        23 

Astor  (J.  J.)  -        -        -        15 

Francis  (Francis)         -          9  ,  Macleod  (H.  D.)  -        -  12,  21  j  Stanley  (Bishop)  -        -        18 

Atelier  duLys  (Author  of)    20 

Francis  (H.  R.)     -        -        22  J  Macpherson  (H.  A.)     -          9    Steel  (A.  G.)          -        -          8 

Bacon   -                         -    5,  10 

Freeman  (Edward  A.)  -          3 

Maher  (M.)  -        -        -         n 

(J.H.)            -        -          7 

Bagehot  (Walter)        5,  12,  22 

Froude  (James  A.)        3,  5,  16 

Marbot  (Baron  de)       -          5 

Stephen  (Sir  James)    -          6 

Bagwell  (R.)          -        -          2 

Furneaux  (W.)     -        -        17 

Marshman  (J.  C.)         -          5    Stephens  (H.  Morse)   -          4 

Bain  (Alexander)  -        -        10 

Gardiner  (Samuel  R.)  -          3 

Martin  (A.  P.)      -        -          6    Stevenson  (R.  L.)      15,  17,  20 

Baker  (James)      -        -        15 

Gilkes  (A.  H.)       -        -        16 

Martineau  (James)       -        24    Stock  (St.  George)        -        n 

—  (Sir  S.  W.)    -        -      6,  8 

Gleig  (G.  R.)                            6 

Maskelyne  (J.  N.)         -          9 

'  Stonehenge  '        -        -          7 

Ball(T.  T.)   -                           2 

Goethe                                    14 

Maunder  (S.)         -        -        19 

Stuart-Wortley  (A.  J.)            9 

Baring-Gould  (S.)         -        22 

Graham  (G.  F.)     -        -        12 

Max  Miiller  (F.)  -     n,  12,  24 

Stubbs  (J.  W.)      -        -          4 

Barnett  (S.  A.  and  Mrs.)        12 

Granville(H.,  Countess)        5 

May  (Sir  T.  Erskine)  -          4 

Sturgis  (J.)    -        -        -        15 

Battye  (Aubyn  Trevor)        22 

Graves  (R.  P.)      -        -          5 

Meade  (L.  T.)       -        -        19 

Suffolk  and  Berkshire 

Baynes  (T.  S.)      -        -        22 

Green  (T.  Hill)     -        -        10 

Melville  (G.  J.  Whyte)        16 

(Earl  of)         -        -          8 

Beaconsfield  (Earl  of)  -        15 

Greville  (C.  C.  F.)        -          3 

Mendelssohn  (Felix)    -        23 

Sullivan  (Sir  E.)  -        -          8 

Beaufort  (Duke  of)       -          8 

Grey  (Mrs.  W.)     -        -        20 

Merivale  (Dean)  -        -          4 

Sully  (James)         -        -        n 

Becker  (Prof.)       -        -        13 

Haggard  (H.  Rider)      -  16,  20 

Mill  (James)          -        -        n 

Sutherland  (A.  and  G.)           5 

Bell  (Mrs.  Hugh)-        -        14 

Halliwell-Phillipps  (J.)          5 

(John  Stuart)        -  n,  12 

Suttner  (B.  von)                    17 

Bent  (J.  Theodore)      -          6 

Harrison  (Jane  E.)       -         13 

Milner  (G.)   -                 -        23 

Swinburne  (A.  J.)         -        n 

Besant  (Walter)  -        -          2 

Hart  (A.  B.)-        -        -          3 

Molesworth  (Mrs.)        -        20 

Symes  (J.  E.)        -        -        12 

Bjornsen  (B.)        -        -        14 

Harte  (Bret)          -        -        16 

Monck  (W.  H.  S.)        -        n 

Theocritus                               13 

Boase(C.  W.)      -        -          3 

Hartwig  (G.)         -        -  17,  18 

Montague  (C.)      -        -          7 

Thomson  (Archbishop)         11 

Boedder  (B.)         -        -        n 

Hassall  (A.)                               5 

Montagu  (F.  C.)  -        -          4 

Todd  (A.)      ---          5 

Boothby  (Guy)     -        -          6 

Hawker  (Col.  Peter)    -          9 

Murdoch  (W.  G.  Burn)          7 

Toynbee(A.)         -        -        12 

Boyd  (A.  K.  H.)    -       5,  22,  24 

Hearn  (W.  E.)     -         -    3,  10 

Nansen  (F.)  -        -        -          7 

Trevelyan  (Sir  G.  O.)  -          5 

Brassey  (Lady)     -        -          6 

HeathcoteQ.  M.&C.G.)       8 

Nesbit  (E.)   -        -        -        15 

Trollope  (Anthony)      -        17 

—  (Lord)   -        -         2,  8,  12 

Helmholtz  (Hermann  von)  18 

O'Brien  (W.)        -        -          4 

Tyrrell  (R.  Y.)      -        -         13 

Bray  (C.  and  Mrs.)       -         10 

Hodgson  (Shad.  H.)     -  10,  22 

Oliphant  (Mrs.)    -        -        16 

Verney  (Francis  P.)     -          6 

Bright  (J.  F.)        -        -          2 

Hooper  (G.)                             5 

Osbourne  (L)                          17 

Virgil                                        13 

Bryden  (H.  A.)     -        -          7 

Hornung  (E.  W.)          -         16 

Parr  (Mrs.)    -        -        -         16 

Von  Hohnel  (L.)  -        -          7 

Buckle  (H.  T.)      -        -          2 

Howard  (B.  D.)    -       -         7 

Payn  (James)        -        -        16 

Wakeman  (H.  O.)         -          5 

Bull  (T.)        ...        21 

Howitt  (William)         -          7 

Payne-Gallwey  (Sir  R.)      8,  9 

Walford  (Mrs.)     -        -    6,  17 

Burrows  (Montagu)      -          3 

Hullah  (John)       -        -        23  !  Peary  (J.  and  R.)  -    .    -          7 

Wallaschek  (R.)   -        -        23 

Bury  (Viscount     -        -          8 

Hume  (David)      -        -        10    Perring  (Sir  P.)    -        -        23 

Walker  (Jane  H.)         -        22 

Butler  (E.  A.)        -        -         17 

Hunt  (W.)     -        -        -          3  j  Phillipps-Wolley  (C.)  -    8,  16 

Walnole  (Spencer)       -          5 

(Samuel)       -        -        22 

Hutchinson  (Horace  G.)         8  j  Piatt  (S.  &  J.  J.)  -        -         15 

Walsingham  (Lord)     -          8 

Campbell-Walker  (A.)-          9 
Cholmondeley-Pennell(H.)  8 
Cicero  -        -        -        -         13 

Huth  (A.  H.)         -        -        13 
Ingelow  (Jean)      -     14,  19,  20 
Tames  (C.  A.)        -        -        23 

Plato     -        -        -        -        13 
Pole  (W.)      ---          9 
Pollock  (W.  H.)   -        -          8 

Walter  (J.)    -        -        -          6 
Watson  (A.  E.  T.)        -      8,  o 
Webb  (S.  and  B.)         -        12 

Clarke  (R.  F.)                 -        n 

Jefferies  (Richard)        -  21,  23 

Poole  (W.  H.  and  Mrs.)        22 

Webb  (T.  E.)        -        -        11 

Clegg  (J.  T.)         -        -        15 
Clodd  (Edward)    -        -  13,  18 

Johnson  (J.  &  J.  H.)    -        23 
Johnstone  (L.)      -        -         10 

Prerdergast  (J.  P.)       -          4 
Pritchett  (R.  T.)  -        -          8 

Weir(R.)      -        -        -          8 
West  (B.  B.)         -        -  17.  23 

Clutterbuck  (W.  J.)      -          7 
2omyn  (L.  N.)      -        -        20 

Jones  (E.  E.  C.)   -        -        10 
Jordan  (W.  L.)     -        -        12 

Proctor  (R.  A.)     -       9,  18,  23 
Raine  (James)                         3 

(C.)        -        -        -        22 
Weyman  (Stanley)       -        17 

Dochrane  (A.)                -         14 

Joyce  (P.  W.)       -        -          3 

Ransome  (Cyril)  -        -          2 

Whately  (Archbishop)-         11 

Donington  (John)         -        13 
Conybeare(W.J.)How- 

Justinian                                 10 
Kalisch  (M.  M.)    -        -        24 

Rhoades  (J.)         -     13,  15,  16 
Rich  (A.)       -        -        -        13 

-  (E.  J.)   -        .        -        12 
Whishaw(F.  J.)  -        -          7 

son  (J.  T.)       -        -        20 

Kant  (I.)                                   10 

Richardson  (Sir  B.  W.)        23 

Wilcocks  (J.  C.)  -        -          Q 

3ox  (Harding)      -        -          8 

Kendall  (May)       -        -         14 

Rickaby  (John)     -        -        11 

Wilkins  (G.)-        -        -        13 

Crake  (A.  D.)        -        -        19 

Killick  (A.  H.)      -        -        10 

(Joseph)                           ii 

Willich  (C.  M.)     -    .    -        IQ 

^reighton  (Bishop)      -      2,  3 

Kitchin  (G.  W.)   -                  3 

Riley  (J.  W.)        -                 15 

Wilson  (A.  J.)       -        -        12 

3rozier  (J.  B.)      -        -        10 

Knight  (E.  F.)       -        -    7,  21 

Rockhill  (W.  W.)                   7 

Wishart  (G.)         -        -          5 

3urzon  (Hon.  G.  N.)    -          2 

Ladd  (G.  T.)         -        -        n 

Roget  (Peter  M.)  -           12,  19 

Wolff  (H.  W.)       -        -        12 

Cutts  (E.  L.)         -        -          3 

Lang  (Andrew) 

Romanes  (G.  J.)  -                 13 

Woodgate  (W.  B.)       -          8 

Dante   -        -        -        -        14 

3,  8,  13,  14,  16,  19,  23 

Roberts  (C.  G.  D.)                15 

Wood  (J.  G.)        -        -        18 

Davidson  (W.  L.)         -  10,  12 

Lascelles  (Hon.  G.)      -      8,  9 

Ronalds  (A.)          -                   9 

Wylie(J.  H.)        -        -          5 

De  la  Saussaye  (C.)      •         24 
Deland  (Mrs.'i        -         -  is.  20 

Lear  (H.  L.  Sidney)     -        22 
Leckv  (W.  E.  H.)          -    i.  14. 

Roosevelt  (T.)      -                  3 
Rossetti  (M.  F.)   -        -  21,  23 

Youatt  (W.)                             7 
Zeller(E.)                              n 

MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


CONTENTS. 


BADMINTON  LIBRARY  (THE)    - 
BIOGRAPHY,  PERSONAL  MEMOIRS,  ETC.    - 

CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 

CLASSICAL   LITERATURE,  TRANSLATION, 

ETC. 

COOKERY,  DOMESTIC  MANAGEMENT,  ETC. 

EVOLUTION,  ANTHROPOLOGY,  ETC.  - 

FICTION,  HUMOUR,  ETC. 

FUR  AND  FEATHER  SERIES 

HISTORY,  POLITICS,  POLITY,   POLITICAL 

MEMOIRS,  ETC. 

INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 

LANGUAGE,  HISTORY  AND  SCIENCE  OF     - 


PAGE 

8 


MENTAL,  MORAL,  AND  POLITICAL  PHILO- 
5         SOPHY  - 
rg     MISCELLANEOUS  AND  CRITICAL  WORKS   - 

MISCELLANEOUS  THEOLOGICAL  WORKS  - 
13     POETRY  AND  THE  DRAMA 
21     POLITICAL  ECONOMY  AND  ECONOMICS 
13     POPULAR  SCIENCE  - 
15     SILVER  LIBRARY  (THE)   - 
9     SPORT  AND  PASTIME 

TRAVEL  AND  ADVENTURE,  THE  COLONIES, 

ETC.       ----.-. 

i     VETERINARY  MEDICINE,  ETC.  - 
12    WORKS  OF  REFERENCE    .... 


History,  Politics,  Polity 

Abbott. — A    HISTORY   OF    GREECE.      By 
EVELYN  ABBOTT,  M.A.,  LL.D. 
Part  I. — From   the   Earliest  Times  to  the 
Ionian  Revolt.     Crown  8vo.,  IDS.  6d. 
Part  II. — 500-445  B.C.     Crown  8vo.,  los.  6d. 

Acland  and  Eansome. — A  HANDBOOK  IN 
OUTLINE  OF  THE  POLITICAL  HISTORY  OF 
ENGLAND  TO  1890.  Chronologically  Ar- 
ranged. By  the  Right  Hon.  A.  H.  DYKE 
ACLAND,  M.P.,  and  CYRIL  RANSOME,  M.A. 
Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

ANNUAL  REGISTER,  (THE).     A  Re- 
view of  Public  Events  at  Home  and  Abroad, 
for  the  year  1893.     8vo.,  185. 
Volumes  of  the  ANNUAL  REGISTER  for  the 
years  1863-1892    can   still  be  had.       185. 
each. 

Armstrong. — ELIZABETH  FARNESE;  The 
Termagant  of  Spain.  By  EDWARD  ARM- 
STRONG, M.A.,  Fellow  of  Queen's  College, 
Oxford.  8vo.,  165. 

Arnold.— Works  by  T.  ARNOLD,  D.D., 
formerly  Head  Master  of  Rugby  School. 

INTRODUCTORY  LECTURES  ON  MODERN 

HISTORY.     8vo.,  75.  6d. 
MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS.     8vo.,  75.  6d. 

Bagwell. — IRELAND  UNDER  THE  TUDORS. 
By  RICHARD  BAGWELL,  LL.D.  (3  vols.) 
Vols.  I.  and  II.  From  the  first  invasion  of 
the  Northmen  to  the  year  1578.  8vo.,  325. 
Vol.  III.  1578-1603.  8vo.  185. 

Ball.— HISTORICAL  REVIEW  OF  THE  LEGIS- 
LATIVE SYSTEMS  OPERATIVE  IN  IRELAND, 
from  the  Invasion  of  Henry  the  Second  to 
the  Union  (1172-1800).  By  the  Rt.  Hon.  J. 
T.  BALL.  8vo.,  65. 

Besant.— THE  HISTORY  OF  LONDON.  By 
WALTER  BESANT.  With  74  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  is.  gd  Or  bound  as  a  School 
Prize  Book,  2s.  6d. 

Brassey. — PAPERS  AND  ADDRESSES.  By 
LORD  BRASSey.  Naval  and  Maritime.  2 
vols.  Crown  8vo.,  los. 


,  Political  Memoirs,  &e. 

Bright. — A  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.     By 
the  Rev.  J.  FRANK  BRIGHT,  D.  D. 
Period    I.     MEDIAEVAL    MONARCHY  :     The 

Departure  of  the  Romans,  to  Richard  III. 

A.D.  449  to  1485.     Crown  8vo.,  45.  6d. 
Period  II.     PERSONAL  MONARCHY  :  Henry 

VII.  to  James  II.     1485  to  1688.     Crown 

8vo.,  55. 
Period  III.     CONSTITUTIONAL  MONARCHY  : 

William  and  Mary,  to  William  IV.     1689 

to  1837.     Crown  8vo.,  75.  6d. 
Period  IV.     THE  GROWTH  OF  DEMOCRACY  : 

Victoria.     1837  to  1880.     Crown  8vo.,  65. 

Buckle.— HISTORY  OF  CIVILISATION 
ENGLAND  AND  FRANCE,  SPAIN  AND  SCOT- 
LAND. By  HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE.  3 
vols.  Crown  8vo.,  245. 

Creighton.  —  HISTORY    OF    THE    PAPACY 

DURING   THE   REFORMATION.       By  MANDELL 

CREIGHTON,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bishop  of  Peter- 
borough. Vols.  I.  and  II.,  1378-1464,  325. 
Vols.  III.  and  IV.,  1464-1518,  245.  Vol.  V., 
1517-1527,  8vo.,  155. 

Curzon. — Works  by  the  Hon.  GEORGE  N. 

CURZON,  M.P. 

PROBLEMS  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  :  JAPAN, 
COREA,  CHINA.  8vo.,  215. 

PERSIA  AND  THE  PERSIAN  QUESTION. 
With  g  Maps,  96  Illustrations,  Appendices, 
and  an  Index.  2  vols.  8vo.,  425. 

De  Tocqueville.— DEMOCRACY  IN  AMER- 
ICA. By  ALEXIS  DE  TOCQUEVILLE.  2  vols. 
Crown  8vo.,  165. 

Ewald. — Works  by  HEINRICH  EWALD, 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Gottengen. 

THE    ANTIQUITIES   OF   ISRAEL.      8vo., 

i2s.  6d. 
THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL.     8  vols.,  8vo., 

Vols.  I.  and  II.,  245.     Vols.  III.  and  IV. 

215.     Vol.  V.,  185.     Vol.  VI.,  165.      Vol 

VII.   2is.     Vol.  VIII.,  185. 


MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &>  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


History,  Polities,  Polity,  Political  Memoirs,  &e. — continued. 


Fitzpatrick. — SECRET  SERVICE  UNDER 
PITT.  By  W.  J.  FITZPATRICK,  8vo.,  75.  6d. 

Freeman. — THE  HISTORICAL  GEOGRAPHY 
OF  EUROPE.  By  EDWARD  A.  FREEMAN. 
D.C.L.,  LL.D.  With  65  Maps.  2  vols. 
8vo.,  315.  6d. 

Froude. — Works  by  JAMES  A.  FROUDE, 
Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  in  the 
University  of  Oxford. 

THE    HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND,  from  the 
Fall   of  Wolsey   to    the    Defeat   of    the 
Spanish  Armada. 
Popular  Edition.      12  vols.     Crown  8vo. 

35.  6d.  each. 
Silver  Library  Edition.     12  vols.     Crown 

8yo.  35.  6d.  each. 

THE  DIVORCE  OF  CATHERINE  OF  ARA- 
GON  :  the  Story  as  told  by  the  Imperial 
Ambassadors  resident  at  the  Court  of 
Henry  VIII.  In  usum  Laicorum.  Crown 
8vo.,"6s. 

THE  SPANISH  STORY  OF  THE  ARMADA, 
and  other  Essays,  Historical  and  Descrip- 
tive. Crown  8vo.,  65. 

THE  ENGLISH  IN  IRELAND  IN  THE 
EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  3  vols.  Crown 
8vo.,  i8s. 

SHORT  STUDIES  ON  GREAT  SUBJECTS. 
4  vols.  Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d.  each. 

CAESAR  :  a  Sketch.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Gardiner. — Works  by  SAMUEL  RAWSON 
GARDINER,  M.A.,  Hon.  LL.D.,  Edinburgh. 

HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  (rom  the  Ac- 
cession of  James  I.  to  the  Outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War,  1603-1642.  10  vols.  Crown 
8vo.,  65.  each. 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR, 
.     1642-1649.     4  vols.     Crown  8vo.,  6s.  each 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH 
AND  THE  PROTECTORATE. 

[Vol.  I.  Nearly  ready. 

THE  STUDENT'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

With  378  Illustrations.    Crown  8vo.,  12s. 

Also  in  Three  Volumes. 
Vol.    I.    B.C.   55 — A.D.    1509.      With  173 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  45. 
Vol.    II.    1509-1689.      With  q6   Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.  45. 
Vol.   III.  1689-1885.     With  109  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.  45. 

Greville. — A  JOURNAL  OF  THE  REIGNS  OF 
KING  GEORGE  IV.,  KING  WILLIAM  IV.,  AND 
QUEEN  VICTORIA.  By  CHARLES  C.  F. 
GREVILLE,  formerly  Clerk  of  the  Council. 
8  vols.  Crown  8vo.,  65.  each. 


Hart. —PRACTICAL  ESSAYS  IN  AMERICAN 
GOVERNMENT.  By  ALBERT  BUSHNELL 
HART,  Ph.D.  &c.  Editor  of  '  Epochs  of 
American  History,'  &c.,  &c.  Crown  8vo.  65. 

Hearn. — THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  ENGLAND: 
its  Structure  and  its  Development.  By  W. 
EDWARD  HEARN.  8vo.,  165. 

Historic  Towns. — Edited  by  E.  A.  FREE- 
MAN, D.C.L.,  and  Rev.  WILLIAM  HUNT, 
M.A.  With  Maps  and  Plans.  Crown  8vo., 
35.  6d.  each. 

BRISTOL.     By  the  Rev.  W.  HUNT. 
CARLISLE.     By  MANDELL  CREIGHTON, 
D.D.,  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 

CINQUE  PORTS.  By  MONTAGU  BUR- 
ROWS. 

COLCHESTER.     By  Rev.  E.  L.  CUTTS. 

EXETER.     By  E.  A.  FREEMAN. 

LONDON.     By  Rev.  W.  J.  LOFTIE. 

OXFORD.     By  Rev.  C.  W.  BOASE. 

WINCHESTER.  By  Rev.  G.  W.  KIT- 
CHIN,  D.D. 

YORK.     BY  Rev.  JAMES  RAINE. 

NEW  YORK.    By  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

BOSTON  (U.S.)  By  HENRY  CABOT 
LODGE. 

Joyce. — A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND, 
from  the  Earliest  Times  to  1608.  By 
P.  W.  JOYCE,  LL.D.  Crown  8vo.,  los.  6dm 

Lang. — ST.  ANDREWS.  By  ANDREW  LANG. 
With  8  Plates  and  24  Illustrations  in  the 
Text  by  T.  HODGE.  8vo.,  155.  net. 

Lecky. — Works  by  WILLIAM  EDWARD 
HARTPOLE  LECKY. 

HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGH- 
TEENTH CENTURY. 

Library  Edition.     8  vols.     Svo.,  £j  45. 
Cabinet    Edition.      ENGLAND.      7    vols. 
Crown    8vo.,    6s.   each.     IRELAND.     5 
vols.     Crown  8vo.,  6s.  each. 

HISTORY  OF  EUROPEAN  MORALS  FROM 
AUGUSTUS  TO  CHARLEMAGNE.  2  vols. 
Crown  8vo..  i6s. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  RISE  AND  INFLUENCE 
OF  THE  SPIRIT  OF  RATIONALISM  IN 
EUROPE.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.,  i6s. 

THE  EMPIRE  :  its  Value  and  its  Growth. 
An  Inaugural  Address  delivered  at  the  Im- 
perial Institute,  November  20, 1893,  under 
the  Presidency  of  H.R.H.  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  Crown  Svo.  is.  6d. 


MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &•  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


History,  Polities,  Polity,  Political  Memoirs,  &e.—  continued. 


Macaulay.  —  Works  by  LORD  MACAULAY. 
COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  LORD  MACAULAY 


Cabinet  Edition. 
16. 


16   vols.      Post   8vo. 


Library  Edition.     8  vols.     8vo.,  £5  55. 

HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  FROM  THE  AC- 
CESSION OF  JAMES  THE  SECOND. 
Popular  Edition.     2  vols.     Cr.  8vo.,  55. 
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[Vol.  III.  in  the 


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Baker.— Works  by  Sir  S.  W.  BAKER. 

EIGHT  YEARS  IN  CEYLON.  With  6  Illus- 
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Bent. — Works  by  J.  THEODORE  BENT, 
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ploration in  1891.  With  Map,  13  Plates, 
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THE  SACRED  CITY  OF  THE  ETHIOPIANS  : 
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Boothby.— ON  THE  WALLABY;  or,Through 
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THE  LAST  VOYAGE  TO  INDIA  AND  AUS- 
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tone, and  nearly  200  Illustrations  in  the 
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A  VOYAGE  IN  THE  '  SUNBEAM  •' ;  OUR 

HOME  ON  THE  OCEAN  FOR  ELEVEN 

MONTHS. 

Library  Edition.  With  8  Maps  and 
Charts,  and  118  Illustrations.  8vo.  215. 

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SUNSHINE  AND  STORM  IN  THE  EAST. 
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Bryden.  —  KLOOF  AND  KAROO  :  Sport, 
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lopes and  Larger  Game.  By  H.  A.  BRYDEN. 
With  17  full-page  Illustrations.  8vo.,  55. 

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Howitt. — VISITS  TO  REMARKABLE  PLACES. 
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Knight.— Works  by  E.  F.  KNIGHT. 

THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  '  ALERTE  ' :  the  nar- 
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WHERE  THREE  EMPIRES  MEET:  a  Nar- 
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Lees  and  Ciutterbuck.— B.  C.  1887  :  A 
RAMBLE  IN  BRITISH  COLUMBIA.  By  J.  A. 
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'Three  in  Norway'.  With  Map  and  75 
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Montague. — TALES  OF  A  NOMAD  :  or, 
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Murdoch. — FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  THE 
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J.  J.  W.  CAMPBELL  and  C.  W.  DONALD. 
M.B. 

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THE   FIRST  CROSSING  OF  GREENLAND. 
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ESKIMO  LIFE.    Translated  by  WILLIAM 
ARCHER.   With  31  Illustrations.   8vo.,  165. 

Peary. — MY  ARCTIC  JOURNAL  :  a  Year 
among  Ice-Fields  and  Eskimos.  By 
JOSEPHINE  DIEBITSCH-PEARY.  With  19 
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Rockhill. — THE  LAND  OF  THE  LAMAS  : 
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golia, and  Tibet.  By  WILLIAM  WOOD- 
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Smith. — CLIMBING  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES. 
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tions by  ELLIS  CAR. 

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Part  II.  WALES.  [In  preparation. 

Part  III.  SCOTLAND.          [In  preparation. 

THREE  IN  NORWAY.  By  Two  of  Them. 
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Von  Hohnel.— DISCOVERY  OF  LAKES 
RUDOLF  and  STEFANIE  :  A  Narrative  of 
Count  SAMUEL  TELEKI'S  Exploring  and 
Hunting  Expedition  in  Eastern  Equatorial 
Africa  in  1887  and  1888.  By  Lieutenant 
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Whishaw. — OUT  OF  DOORS  IN  TSARLAND: 
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A  TREATISE  ON  THE  DISEASES  OF  THE 

DOG.    With  88  Illustrations.    8vo.,  IDS.  6d. 
A  TREATISE  ON  THE  DISEASES  OF  THE 

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THE  HORSE.  Revised  and  Enlarged  by 
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THE    DOG. 

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Revised 

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and     Enlarged. 


8          MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &>  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Sport  and   Pastime. 

THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY. 

Edited  by  the  DUKE  of  BEAUFORT,  K.G.,  assisted  by  ALFRED  E.  T.  WATSON. 


ARCHERY.  By  C.  J.  LONGMAN  and 
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BIG  GAME  SHOOTING.  By  CLIVE 
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MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &•  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.        15 


Poetry  and   the  Drama — continued. 


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16       MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &•  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GEi 


Works  of  Fiction,   Humour,   &e.— continued. 


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MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &•  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.       21 


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MESSRS.  LONGMANS  6-  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  V/ORKS.      23 


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gelist Georg  Lutz,  formerly  Parish  Priest 
and  Dean  in  Oberroth,  Bavaria.  By  L.  W. 
SCHOLLER.  Translated  from  the  German 
by  W.  WALLIS.  Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 
SUPERNATURAL  RELIGION  :  an 
Inquiry  into  the  Reality  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion. 3  vols.  8vo.,  365. 
REPLY  (A)  TO  DR.  LIGHTFOOT'S  ESSAYS. 

By  the  Author  of '  Supernatural  Religion  ". 

8vo.,  6s. 
THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PETER  : 

a  Study.    By  the  Author  of  '  Supernatural 

Religion  '.      8vo.,  65. 


PR  4049  .82  L5  1891  v.2 

SMC 

Bagehot,  Walter, 

1826-1877. 
Literary  studies, 

AKA-3518  (sk)