AM \\-^ al *4l%>> to \ < V— r-T' Z 5 < < CO > > t THAT HAV! .IS THE GENU'S OF CIVILISATION. After a Photograph from thr a "/man in the Cfngres: Library at Washington. By Permission of Curtis and Game* .: -n\\K UNIVERSITY EDITION Grownefc fllbasterpteces OF ^literature THAT HAVE ADVANCED CIVILIZATION As Preserved and Presented by Zbe TOorlfc's Beat JEesaw From the Earliest Period to the Present Time DAVID J. BREWER Editor EDWARD A. ALLEN WILLIAM SCHUYLER Associate Editors * TEN VOLUMES VOL, VI JO ST. I-OIIH v I •: it l> . i\ KAI8 B R iooa *Glnft>ersft£ Efcftfon SPECIAL TESTIMONIAL SET copyright 1900 Copyright 1902 BY FERD. P. KAISER All right* reserved Editor Publisher Phi THE ADVISORY COUNCIL O^c SIR WALTER BESANT, M. A., F. S. A., V. £, Soho Square, London W. , England. PROFESSOR KUNO FRANCKE, Ph. D., Department of German, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. HIRAM CORSON, A. M., LL. D., Department of English Literature, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS, Ph. D., Dean of the Department of Law, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. RICHARD GOTTHEIL, Ph. D., Professor of Oriental Languages, Columbia University, in the City of New York. MRS. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, Author « Swallow Flights,* « Bed-Time Stories,» etc. Boston, Mass. WILLIAM VINCENT BYARS, Manager The Valley Press Bureau, St. Louis. F. M. CRUNDEN, A. M., Librarian St. Louis Public Library; President (1890) American Library Association. MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D., Professor of English and Literature, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. ALCEE FORTIER, Lit. D.. Professor of Romance Languages, Tulane University, New Orleans, La. SHELDON JACKSON, D. D., LL. D., Bureau of Education, Washington, D C. A. MARSHALL ELLIOTT, Ph. D., LL. D., Professor of Romance Languages, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. WILLIAM P. TRENT. M. A., Professor of English Literature, Columbia University, in the City of New York. CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY Litt. D , Department of English, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. RICHARD JONES, Ph. D., Department of English, vice Austin H. Merrill, deceased, Department of Elocution, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. W. STUART SYMINGTON, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Romance Languages, Amherst College. Amherst, Mass. TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME VI LIVED PAGE Hallam, Henry 1777-1S59 2045 The First Books Printed in Europe Poets Who Made Shakespeare Possible Hamerton, Philip Gilbert 1834-1894 2056 Women and Marriage To a Lady of High Culture Hamilton, Alexander 1757-1804 2062 On War between the States of the Union Hare, J. C, and A. W. 1795-1855; 1792-1834 2070 That It Is Better to Laugh than to Cry Harrington, James 1611-1677 2077 Of a Free State The Principles of Government Harrison, Frederic 1831- 2080 On the Choice of Books Hawkesworth, John «7i5~ I 773 2I °5 On Gossip and Tattling Hawthorne, Nathaniel 1804-1864 21 10 The Hall of Fantasy A Rill from the Town Pump Hazlitt, William 1778-183* 2128 On the Periodical Essayists Hkgkl, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 1770-1831 2I 4S History as the Manifestation of Spirit The Relation of Individuals to the World's History Law and Liberty Religion, Art, and Philosophy LIVED PAGE Heine, Heinrich 1799-1856 2153 Dialogue on the Thames His View of Goethe Napoleon Helmholtz, Herman Ludwig Ferdinand von 1821-1894 2164 Universities, English, French, and German Helps, Sir Arthur 2813-1875 2170 On the Art of Living with Others Greatness How History Should Be Read Herder, Johann Gottfried von E744-1803 2180 The Sublimity of Primitive Poetry Marriage as the Highest Friendship Herschel, Sir John 1792-1871 2186 Science as a Civilizer The Taste for Reading HlLLEBRAND, KARL 1829-1884 2193 Goethe's View of Art and Nature Hobbes, Thomas i 588-1679 2197 «The Desire and Will to Hurt» Brutality in Human Nature Holmes, Oliver Wendell 1809-1894 2201 My First Walk with the Schoolmistress Extracts from My Private Journal My Last Walk with the Schoolmistress On Dandies On « Chryso- Aristocracy * Hood, Thomas 1798-1845 2218 An Undertaker The Morning Call Hook, Theodore 1788-1841 2224 On Certain Atrocities of Humor Hooker, Richard ^1553-1600 2229 The Law which Angels Do Work by Education as a Development of the Soul Vll LIVED PAGE Hughes, John 1677-1720 2234 The Wonderful Nature of Excellent Minds Hugo, Victor 1802-1885 2239 The End of Talleyrand's Brain The Death of Balzac A Retrospect Waterloo — (< Quot Libras in Duce }) Humboldt, Alexander von 1769-1859 2251 Man Hume, David 1711-1776 2258 Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature Of the First Principles of Government Of Interest Hunt, Leigh 1784-1859 2269 «The Wittiest of English Poets • Charles Lamb Light and Color Petrarch and Laura Moral and Personal Courage Huxley, Thomas Henry 1825-1895 2276 On the Method of Zadig Ingalls, John James 1833-1900 2291 Blue Grass Irving, Washington 1783-1859 2301 Bracebridge Hall The Busy Man Gentility Fortune Telling Love Charms The Broken Heart Stratford-on-Avon Jameson, Anw Brownell 1794-1860 2330 Ophelia, Poor Ophelia Jay, John 1745-1829 2337 Concerning Hangers from Foreign Force and In- fluence VTli LIVED Jebb, Richard Claverhouse 1841- Homer and the Epic Jefferies, Richard 1848-1887 A Roman Brook Jefferson, Thomas 1743-1826 Truth and Toleration against Error Jeffrey, Lord Francis 1773- 1 %5° Watt and the Work of Steam On Good and Bad Taste Jerome, Jerome K. 1859— On Getting On in the World Jerrold, Douglas 1803-1857 Barbarism in Birdcage Walk Johnson, Samuel 1 709-1 784 Omar, the Son of Hassan Dialogue in a Vulture's Nest On the Advantages of Living in a Garret Some of Shakespeare's Faults Parallel between Pope and Dryden Jonson, Ben c. i 573-1637 On Shakespeare — On the Difference of Wits On Malignancy in Studies Of Good and Evil Junius (Sir Philip Francis?) 1740-1818 To the Duke of Grafton Kant, Immanuel 1724-1804 The Canon of Pure Reason Keightley, Thomas 1789-1872 On Middle-Age Romance Arabian Romance How to Read Old-English Poetry Kempis, Thomas a c. 1 380-1 471 Of Wisdom and Providence in Our Actions Of the Profit of Adversity PAGE 2342 2350 2354 2360 2369 2375 2382 2401 2408 2414 2422 2428 UVED PAGE Kempis, Thomas A — Continued Of Avoiding Rash Judgment Of Works Done in Charity Of Bearing with the Defects of Others Of a Retired Life Kingsley, Charles 1819-1875 2434 A Charm of Birds Krapotkin, Prince 1842- 2441 The Course of Civilization La Bruyere, Jean de 1645-1696 2443 On the Character of Mankind On Human Nature in Womankind FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME VI PAGE Law as the Genius of Civilization (Photogravure) Frontispiece Petrarch's First Meeting with Laura (Photogravure) 2269 Watt Discovering the Power of Steam (Photogravure) 2360 Charles Kingsley (Portrait, Photogravure) *434 2Q45 HENRY HALLAM (1777-1859) (allam's "Literary Essays and Characters," published in 1852, are made up of selections from his <( Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seven- teenth Centuries," — a work which, until Taine's " History of Eng- lish Literature " appeared, held the first place among books of its class. Hallam's style is as unlike Taine's as possible and his method is the antithesis of Taine's, but he preceded, if he did not instruct, Taine in the classical method of dividing and subdividing a great subject into essays forming its topical units, so that each topic is presented in its wholeness, as well as in its connection with the larger whole. Hallam's (( Literature of Europe" — which the general public has accepted as his masterpiece — becomes, as a result of this method, a true sequence of essays, each of which has an individuality of its own, while in many of them this individuality is so well defined that they are fully as capable of standing alone, outside of their con- nection, as any detached literary essay of De Quincey or Macaulay. As an essayist, Hallam deals in facts to a much greater extent than Macaulay or any of those essayists who formed their style as critical reviewers. His work represents original research, wide and deep. Professor Edward Robinson says that " in science and theology, mathematics and poetry, metaphysics and law, he is a competent and always a fair, if not a profound, critic," and adds that <( the great quali- ties displayed in his work, conscientiousness, accuracy, and enormous reading, have been universally acknowledged." This is especially true of the "History of European Literature," which shows a range of reading equaled only by Gibbon. Hallam's "View of the Middle Ages " and his « Constitutional History of England » trace the devel- opment of modern England from the Feudal system to its present form of aristocratic constitutional government. It lacks the general interest which Blackstone knows how to give to even the most ab- stract subject, but it has become a recognized authority among Eng- lish lawyers and public men, and if it is seldomer read than the "History of European Literature," it is not less widely distributed in England and America. In both countries, Hallam holds his place on the shelves with Gibbon, as he deserves to do because of a faculty of amassing and using details in which Gibbon alone surpasses him. 2046 HENRY HALLAM Hallam was born at Windsor, England, in 1777. After taking his degree at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1799, he studied at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar ; but although his knowledge of the principles of law was profound, he never practiced his profession. His life was devoted to literature and to the historical research which appears so unmistakably in his three great works: <( A View of the State of Europe during the Middle' Ages, " 181 8; « The Constitutional History of England, " 1827; and the <( Introduction to the Literature of Europe," eleven years later. His eldest son, Arthur Henry Hallam, a young man of brilliant promise, died at the age of twenty-one, and was immortalized by Tennyson's (< In Memoriam." In 1834 Hallam published < ( The Remains in Prose and Verse of Arthur Henry Hal- lam, with a Sketch of His Life." The "Literary Essays and Charac- ters" already referred to followed this as the last of his important publications. He died January 21st, 1859, surviving all the great Whigs of the first half of the century except Macaulay, who died in December of the same year, and Brougham, who lingered in sec- ond childhood until 1868. Although Hallam took no direct part in politics, he was himself one of the "great Whigs" of his generation, but his Whiggery involved no leaning towards Democracy. He be- lieved in the English constitution as an evolution of national charac- ter and in Aristocracy as a part of it, but he had the genuine Whig hatred of despotism. His death and that of Macaulay in the same year left the potent Whig idea of the eighteenth century without ade- quate representation in the literature of England during the second half of the nineteenth century. Old school Whiggery was succeeded by a quarter of a century of « Liberalism " which, as its logic worked out at the close of the century, has demonstrated itself as something far less masculine than the political idea, which from the days of Chatham to the middle of the nineteenth century was so decisive a factor in the progress of the world. W. V. B. THE FIRST BOOKS PRINTED IN EUROPE About the end of the fourteenth century we find a practice of taking impressions from engraved blocks of wood; some- times for playing cards, which were not generally used long before that time, sometimes for rude cuts of saints. The latter were frequently accompanied by a few lines of letters cut in the block. Gradually entire pages were impressed in this manner; and thus began what are called block books, printed in fixed characters, but never exceeding a very few leaves, Of these HENRY HALLAM 2047 there exist nine or ten, often reprinted, as it is generally thought, between 1400 and 1440. In using the word Printed, it is of course not intended to prejudice the question as to the real art of printing. These block books seem to have been all executed in the Low Countries. They are said to have been followed by several editions of the short grammar of Donatus. These also were printed in Holland. This mode of printing from blocks of wood has been practiced in China from time immemorial. The invention of printing, in the modern sense, from mov- able letters, has been referred by most to Gutenberg, a native of Mentz, but settled at Strasburg. He is supposed to have con- ceived the idea before 1440, and to have spent the next ten years in making attempts at carrying it into effect, which some assert him to have done in short fugitive pieces, actually printed from his movable wooden characters before 1450. But of the existence of these, there seems to be no evidence. Gutenberg's priority is disputed by those who deem Lawrence Costar of Haarlem the real inventor of the art. According to a tradition, which seems not to be traced beyond the middle of the sixteenth century, but resting afterwards upon sufficient testimony to prove its local re- ception, Costar substituted movable for fixed letters as early as 1430; and some have believed that a book called "Speculum Hu- manae Salvationis, "of very rude wooden characters, proceeded from the Haarlem press before any other that is generally recognized. The tradition adds that an unfaithful servant, having fled with the secret, set up for himself at Strasburg or Mentz; and this treachery was originally ascribed to Gutenberg or Fust, but seems, since they have been manifestly cleared of it, to have been laid on one Gensfleisch, reputed to be the brother of Gutenberg. The evidence, however, as to this is highly precarious; and even if we were to admit the claims of Costar, there seems no fair rea- son to dispute that Gutenberg might also have struck out an idea, which surely did not require any extraordinary ingenuity, and left the most important difficulties to be surmounted, as they undeniably were, by himself and his coadjutors. It is agreed by all that about 1450 Gutenberg, having gone to Mentz, entered into partnership with Fust, a rich merchant of that city, for the purpose of carrying the invention into effect, and that Fust supplied him with considerable sums of money. The subsequent steps are obscure. According to a passage in the nales Hirsargienses » of Trithemius, written sixty years after- 2048 HENRY HALLAM wards, but on the authority of a grandson of Peter Schaeffer, their assistant in the work, it was about 1452 that the latter brought the art to perfection, by devising an easier mode of cast- ing types. This passage has been interpreted, according to a lax construction, to mean that Schaeffer invented the method of cast- ing types in a matrix; but seems more strictly to intimate that we owe to him the great improvement in letter casting, namely, the punches of engraved steel, by which the matrices or molds are struck, and without which, independent of the economy of labor, there could be no perfect uniformity of shape. Upon the former supposition Schaeffer may be reckoned the main inventor of the art of printing; for movable wooden letters, though small books may possibly have been printed by means of them, are so inconvenient, and letters of cut metal so expensive, that few great works were likely to have passed through the press till cast types were employed. Van Praet, however, believes the Psalter of 1457 to have been printed from wooden characters; and some have conceived letters of cut metal to have been employed both in that and in the first Bible. Lambinet, who thinks (< the essence of the art of printing is in the engraved punch, w naturally gives the chief credit to Schaeffer; but this is not the more usual opinion. The earliest book, properly so called, is now generally believed to be the Latin Bible, commonly called the Mazarin Bible, a copy having been found, about the middle of the last century, in Car- dinal Mazarin's library at Paris. It is remarkable that its exist- ence was unknown before; for it can hardly be called a book of very extraordinary scarcity, nearly twenty copies being in differ- ent libraries, half of them in those of private persons in England. No date appears in this Bible, and some have referred its publi- cation to 1452, or even to 1450, which few, perhaps, would at pres- ent maintain; while others have thought the year 1455 rather more probable. In a copy belonging to the Royal Library at Paris an entry is made importing that it was completed in bind- ing and illuminating at Mentz, on the Feast of the Assumption (Aug. 15), 1456. But Trithemius, in the passage above quoted, seems to intimate that no book had been printed in 1452; and, considering the lapse of time that would naturally be employed in such an undertaking during the infancy of the art, and that we have no other printed book of the least importance to fill up the interval till 1457, and also that the binding and illuminating HENRY HALLAM 2049 the above-mentioned copy is likely to have followed the publica- tion at no great length of time, we may not err in placing its appearance in the year 1455, which will secure its hitherto un- impeached priority in the records of bibliography. It is a very striking circumstance that the high-minded in- ventors of this great art tried at the very outset so bold a flight as the printing an entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and radiant armor, ready at the moment of her nativity to sub- due and destroy her enemies. The Mazarin Bible is printed, some copies on vellum, some on paper of choice quality, with strong, black, and tolerably handsome characters, but with some want of uniformity, which has led, perhaps unreasonably, to a doubt whether they were cast in a matrix. We may see in im- agination this venerable and splendid volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to the serv- ice of heaven. A metrical exhortation, in the German language, to take arms against the Turks, dated in 1454, has been retrieved in the pres- ent century. If this date unequivocally refers to the time of printing, which does not seem a necessary consequence, it is the earliest loose sheet that is known to be extant. It is said to be in the type of what is called the Bamberg Bible, which we shall soon have to mention. Two editions of Letters of indulgence from Nicolas V., bearing the date of 1454, are extant in single printed sheets, and two more editions of 1455; but it has justly been observed that even if published before the Mazarin Bible, the printing of the great volume must have commenced long be- fore. An almanac for the year 1457 has also been detected; and as fugitive sheets of this kind are seldom preserved, we may justly conclude that the art of printing was not dormant so far as these light productions are concerned. A Donatus, with Schaeffer's name, but no date, may or may not be older than a Psalter published in 1457 by Fust and Schaeffcr (the partnership with Gutenberg having been dissolved in November, i455> an( ^ having led to a dispute and litigation), with a colophon, or notice, subjoined in the last page, in these words: — ' «Psalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus, rubricationibusque suf- ficients distinctus, adinventione artificiosa itnprimendi ac caracterizandi, abs- que calami ulla exaratione sic effigiatus, et ad euscbiam Dei industrie est vi — 129 2050 HENRY HALLAM summatus. Per JoJiannem Fust, civem Moguntinum, et Petrum Schaffer de Gernsheim, anno Domini millesimo cccclvii. In vigilia Assumptionis* A colophon, substantially similar, is subjoined to several of the Fustine editions. And this seems hard to reconcile with the story that Fust sold his impressions at Paris, as late as 1463, for manuscripts. Another Psalter was printed by Fust and Schaeffer with simi- lar characters in 1459; and, in the same year, <( Durandi Rationale, 8 a treatise on the liturgical offices of the church; of which Van Praet says that it is perhaps the earliest with cast types to which Fust and Schaeffer have given their name and date. The two Psalters he conceives to have been printed from wood. But this would be disputed by other eminent judges. In 1460 a work of considerable size, the (< Catholicon" of Balbi, came out from an opposition press established at Mentz by Gutenberg. The Clem- entine Constitutions, part of the canon law, were also printed by him in the same year. These are the only monuments of early typography acknowl- edged to come within the present decennium. A Bible without a date, supposed by most to have been printed by Pfister at Bamberg, though ascribed by others to Gutenberg himself, is reckoned by good judges certainly prior to 1462, and perhaps as early as 1460. Daunou and others refer it to 1461. The antiq- uities of typography, after all the pains bestowed upon them, are not unlikely to receive still further elucidation in the course of time. From (< Introduction to the Literature of Europe, w Chap. iii. POETS WHO MADE SHAKESPEARE POSSIBLE «tn the latter end of King Henry the Eighth's reign, w says Put- tenham in his (< Art of Poesie," <( sprung up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder and Henry, Earl of Surrey were the two chieftains, who having trav- ailed into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of the Italian poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie, from that it had been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers HENRY HALLAM 205 1 of our English metre and style. In the same time or not long after was the Lord Nicolas Vaux, a man of much facility in vul- gar makings. 8 The poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who died in 1544, and of the Earl of Surrey, executed in 1547, were first published in 1557, with a few by other hands, in a scarce little book called <( Tottel's Miscellanies. * They were, however, in all probability, known before; and it seems necessary to mention them in this period, as they mark an important epoch in English literature. Wyatt and Surrey, for we may best name them in the order of time, rather than of civil or poetical rank, have had recently the good fortune to be recommended by an editor of extensive acquaintance with literature, and of still superior taste. It will be a gratification to read the following comparison of the two poets, which I extract the more willingly that it is found in a publication somewhat bulky and expensive for the mass of readers : — (< They were men whose minds may be said to have been cast in the same mold, for they differ only in those minuter shades of char- acter which always must exist in human nature, — shades of difference so infinitely varied, that there never were and never will be two per- sons in all respects alike. In their love of virtue and their instinc- tive hatred and contempt of vice, in their freedom from personal jealousy, in their thirst after knowledge and intellectual improvement, in nice observation of nature, promptitude to action, intrepidity and fondness for romantic enterprise, in magnificence and liberality, in generous support of others and high-spirited neglect of themselves, in constancy in friendship, and tender susceptibility of affections of a still warmer nature, and in everything connected with sentiment and principle, they were one and the same; but when those qualities branch out into particulars, they will be found in some respects to differ. w Wyatt had a deeper and more accurate penetration into the characters of men than Surrey had; hence arises the difference in their satires. Surrey, in his satire against the citizens of London, deals only in reproach; Wyatt, in his, abounds with irony, and those nice touches of ridicule which make us ashamed of our faults, and therefore often silently effect amendment. Surrey's observation of nature was minute ; but he directed it towards the works of nature in general, and the movements of the passions, rather than to the foibles and characters of men ; hence it is that he excels in the description of rural objects, and is always tender and pathetic. In Wyatt's * Com- plaint* we hear a strain of manly grief which commands attention, 3052 HENRY HALLAM and we listen to it with respect, for the sake of him that suffers. Surrey's distress is painted in such natural terms that we make it our own, and recognize in his sorrows emotions which we are conscious of having felt ourselves. <( In point of taste and perception of propriety in composition, Sur- rey is more accurate and just than Wyatt; he therefore seldom either offends with conceits or wearies with repetition, and when he imitates other poets he is original as well as pleasing. In his numerous trans- lations from Petrarch he is seldom inferior to his master; and he seldom improves upon him. Wyatt is almost always below the Ital- ian, and frequently degrades a good thought by expressing it so that it is hardly recognizable. Had Wyatt attempted a translation of Vir- gil, as Surrey did, he would have exposed himself to unavoidable failure. M To remarks so delicate in taste and so founded in knowledge, I should not venture to add much of my own. Something, how- ever, may generally be admitted to modify the ardent panegyrics of an editor. Those who, after reading this brilliant passage, should turn for the first time to the poems either of Wyatt or of Surrey, might think the praise too unbounded, and, in some re- spects perhaps, not appropriate. It seems to be now ascertained, after sweeping away a host of foolish legends and traditionary prejudices, that the Geraldine of Surrey, Lady Elizabeth Fitzger- ald, was a child of thirteen, for whom his passion, if such it is to be called, began several years after his own marriage. But in fact there is more of the conventional tone of amorous song, than of real emotion, in Surrey's poetry. The "Easy sighs, such as men draw in love, 8 are not like the deep sorrows of Petrarch, or the fiery transports of the Castilians. The taste of this accomplished man is more striking than his poetical genius. He did much for his own country and his native language. The versification of Surrey differs very consid- erably from that of his predecessors. He introduced, as Dr. Nott says, a sort of involution into his style, which gives an air of dig- nity and remoteness from common life. It was, in fact, borrowed from the license of Italian poetry, which our own idiom has re- jected. He avoids pedantic words, forcibly obtruded from the Latin, of which our earlier poets, both English and Scotch, had been ridiculously fond. The absurd epithets of Hoccleve, Lyd- HENRY HALL AM 2053 gate, Dunbar, and Douglas are applied equally to the most dif- ferent things, so as to show that they annexed no meaning to them. Surrey rarely lays an unnatural stress on final syllables, merely as such, which they would not receive in ordinary pronun- ciation, — another usual trick of the school of Chaucer. His words are well chosen and well arranged. Surrey is the first who introduced blank verse into our English poetry. It has been doubted whether it had been previously em- ployed in Italian, save in tragedy; for the poems of Alamanni and Rucellai were not published before many of our noble poet's compositions had been written. Dr. Nott, however, admits that Boscan and other Spanish poets had used it. The translation by Surrey of the second book of the "JEneid," in blank verse, is among the chief of his productions. No one had, before his time, known how to translate or imitate with appropriate expression. But the structure of his verse is not very harmonious, and the sense is rarely carried beyond the line. If we could rely on a theory, advanced and ably supported by his editor, Surrey deserves the still more conspicuous praise of having brought about a great revolution in our poetical numbers. It had been supposed to be proved by Tyrwhitt that Chaucer's lines are to be read metrically, in ten or eleven syllables, like the Italian, and, as I apprehend, the French of his time. For this purpose it is necessary to presume that many terminations, now mute, were syllabically pronounced; and where verses prove refractory after all our endeavors, Tyrwhitt has no scruple in de- claring them corrupt. It may be added that Gray, before the appearance of Tyrwhitt's essay on the versification of Chaucer, had adopted without hesitation the same hypothesis. But, accord- ing to Dr. Nott, the verses of Chaucer, and of all his successors down to Surrey, are merely rhythmical, to be read by cadence, and admitting of considerable variety in the number of syllables, though ten may be the more frequent. In the manuscripts of Chaucer the line is always broken by a caesura in the middle, which is pointed out by a virgule; and this is preserved in the early editions down to that of 1532. They come near, therefore, to the short Saxon line, differing chiefly by the alternate rhyme, which converts two verses into one. He maintains that a great many lines of Chaucer cannot be read metrically, though har- monious as verses of cadence. This rhythmical measure he pro- ceeds to show in Hoccleve, Lydgatc, Hawes, Barclay, Skelton, and 2054 HENRY HALLAM even Wyatt; and thus concludes that it was first abandoned by Surrey, in whom it very rarely occurs. This hypothesis, it should be observed, derives some additional plausibility from a passage in Gascoyne's <( Notes of Instruction concerning the Making of Verse or Rhyme in English, }> printed in 1575: — w Whosoever do peruse and well consider his [Chaucer's] works, he shall find that, although his lines are not always of one self-same number of syllables, yet, being read by one that hath understanding, the longest verse, and that which hath most syllables in it, will fall (to the ear) correspondent unto that which hath fewest syllables; and likewise that which hath fewest syllables shall be found yet to con- sist of words that have such natural sound as may seem equal in length to a verse which hath many more syllables of lighter accents." A theory so ingeniously maintained, and with so much induc- tion of examples, has naturally gained a good deal of credit. I cannot, however, by any means concur in the extension given to it. Pages may be read in Chaucer, and still more in Dunbar, where every line is regularly and harmoniously decasyllabic; and though the caesura may perhaps fall rather more uniformly than it does in modern verse, it would be very easy to find exceptions, which could not acquire a rhythmical cadence by any artifice of the reader. The deviations from the normal type, or decasyllable line, were they more numerous than, after allowance for the license of pronunciation, as well as the probable corruption of the text, they appear to be, would not, I conceive, justify us in con- cluding that it was disregarded. For these aberrant lines are much more common in the dramatic blank verse of the seven- teenth century. They are, doubtless, vestiges of the old rhyth- mical forms; and we may readily allow that English versification had not, in the fifteenth or even sixteenth centuries, the numer- ical regularity of classical or Italian metre. In the ancient bal- lads, Scotch and English, the substitution of the anapest for the iambic foot is of perpetual recurrence, and gives them a remark- able elasticity and animation; but we never fail to recognize a uniformity of measure, which the use of nearly equipollent feet cannot, on the strictest metrical principles, be thought to impair. If we compare the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey with that of Barclay or Skelton, about thirty or forty years before, the differ- ence must appear wonderful. But we should not, with Dr. Nott, HENRY HALLAM 2055 attribute this wholly to superiority of genius. It is to be remem- bered that the later poets wrote in a court, and in one which, besides the aristocratic manners of chivalry, had not only imbibed a great deal of refinement from France and Italy, but a consid- erable tinge of ancient literature. Their predecessors were less educated men, and they addressed a more vulgar class of readers. Nor was this polish of language peculiar to Surrey and his friend. In the short poems of Lord Vaux, and of others about the same time, even in those of Nicolas Grimoald, a lecturer at Oxford, who was no courtier, but had acquired a classical taste, we find a rejection of obsolete and trivial phrases, and the beginnings of what we now call the style of our older poetry. From « Introduction to the Literature of Europe, M Part I., Chap. viii. 2056 PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON (1 834-1 894) !he "Intellectual Life, » by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, is a series of essays written in the form of letters to imaginary corre- spondents who are supposed to have consulted the writer on some subject of literature or art. Hamerton was a landscape painter and etcher of ability, and among his most notable publications were w Etching and Etchers, » <( The Graphic Arts, 8 and (< Contemporary French Painters, w volumes which are treasured because of his ad- mirably etched illustrations. He was born in Lancashire, England, September 10th, 1834. His taste for rural life was marked, and some of his best books are impregnated with it. His autobiography, left incomplete at his death (November 5th, 1894), was published by his widow, with a supplement. His works include several novels, a num- ber of books of art criticism, and his essays on the <( Intellectual Life,* — the latter his most popular production. WOMEN AND MARRIAGE The subject of marriage is one concerning which neither I nor anybody else can have more than an infinitesimally small atom of knowledge. Each of us knows how his or her own marriage has turned out; but that, in comparison with a knowl- edge of marriage generally, is like a single plant in comparison with the flora of the globe. The utmost experience on this sub- ject to be found in this country extends to about three trials or experiments. A man may become twice a widower, and then marry a third time, but it may be easily shown that the variety of his experience is more than counterbalanced by its incomplete- ness in each instance. For the experiment to be conclusive even as to the wisdom of one decision, it must extend over half a life- time. A true marriage is not a mere temporary arrangement, and although a young couple are said to be married as soon as the lady has changed her name, the truth is that the real mar- riage is a long slow intergrowth, like that of two trees planted quite close together in the forest. PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 2057 The subject of marriage generally is one of which men know less than they know of any other subject of universal interest. People are almost always wrong in their estimates of the mar- riages of others, and the best proof how little we know the real tastes and needs of those with whom we have been most inti- mate is our unfailing surprise at the marriages they make. Very old and experienced people fancy they know a great deal about younger couples, but their guesses, there is good reason to believe, never exactly hit the mark. Ever since this idea, that marriage is a subject we are all very ignorant about, had taken root in my own mind, many little incidents were perpetually occurring to confirm it; they proved to me, on the one hand, how often I had been mistaken about other people, and, on the other hand, how mistaken other people were concerning the only marriage I profess to know anything about, namely, my own. Our ignorance is all the darker that few men tell us the little that they know, that little being too closely bound up with that innermost privacy of life which every man of right feeling re- spects in his own case, as in the case of another. The only in- stances which are laid bare to the public view are the unhappy marriages, which are really not marriages at all. An unhappy al- liance bears exactly the same relation to a true marriage that disease does to health, and the quarrels and misery of it are the crises by which nature tries to bring about either the recovery of happiness, or the endurable peace of a settled separation. All that we really know about marriage is that it is based upon the most powerful of all our instincts, and that it shows its own justification in its fruits, especially in the prolonged and watchful care of children. But marriage is very complex in its effects, and there is one set of effects resulting from it, to which remarkably little attention has been paid hitherto, — I mean its effects upon the intellectual life. Surely they deserve considera- tion by all who value culture. I believe that for an intellectual man only two courses are open; either he ought to marry some simple, dutiful woman who will bear him children, and see to the household matters, and love him in a trustful spirit without jealousy of his occupations; or else, on the other hand, he ought to marry some highly intelli- gent lady, able to carry her education far beyond school expe- riences, and willing to become his companion in the arduous paths 2058 PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON of intellectual labor. The danger in the first of the two cases is that pointed out by Wordsworth in some verses addressed to lake tourists who might feel inclined to buy a peasant's cottage in Westmoreland. The tourist would spoil the little romantic spot if he bought it ; the charm of it is subtly dependent upon the po- etry of a simple life, and would be brushed away by the influence of the things that are necessary to people in the middle class. I remember dining in a country inn with an English officer whose ideas were singularly unconventional. We were waited upon by our host's daughter, a beautiful girl, whose manners were remark- able for their natural elegance and distinction. It seemed to us both that no lady of rank could be more distinguished than she was; and my companion said that he thought a gentleman might do worse than ask that girl to marry him, and settle down quietly in that quiet mountain village, far from the cares and vanities of the world. That is a sort of dream which has occurred no doubt to many an honorable man. Some men have gone so far as to try to make the dream a reality, and have married the beautiful peasant. But the difficulty is that she does not remain what she was; she becomes a sort of make-belief lady, and then her igno- rance, which in her natural condition was a charming nai'vete\ becomes an irritating defect. If, however, it were possible for an intellectual man to marry some simple-hearted peasant girl, and keep her carefully in her original condition, I seriously believe that the venture would be less perilous to his culture than an alliance with some woman of our Philistine classes, equally incapable of comprehending his pursuits, but much more likely to interfere with them. I once had a conversation on this subject with a distinguished artist, who is now a widower, and who is certainly not likely to be prejudiced against marriage by his own expe- rience, which had been an unusually happy one. His view was that a man devoted to art might marry either a plain-minded woman, who would occupy herself exclusively with household matters and shield his peace by taking these cares upon herself, or else a woman quite capable of entering into his artistic life; but he was convinced that a marriage which exposed him to un- intelligent criticism and interference would be dangerous in the highest degree. And of the two kinds of marriage which he considered possible he preferred the former, that with the entirely ignorant and simple person from whom no interference was to be apprehended. He considered the first Madame Ingres the PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 2059 true model of an artist's wife, because she did all in her power to guard her husband's peace against the daily cares of life and never herself disturbed it, acting the part of a breakwater which protects a space of calm, and never destroys the peace that it has made. This may be true for artists whose occupation is rather aesthetic than intellectual, and does not get much help or benefit from talk; but the ideal marriage for a man of great lit- erary culture would be one permitting some equality of compan- ionship, or, if not equality, at least interest. That this ideal is not a mere dream, but may consolidate into a happy reality, sev- eral examples prove; yet these examples are not so numerous as to relieve me from anxiety about your chances of finding such companionship. The different education of the two sexes sepa- rates them widely at the beginning; and to meet on any common ground of culture, a second education has to be gone through. It rarely happens that there is resolution enough for this. The want of thoroughness and reality in the education of both sexes, but especially in that of women, may be attributed to a sort of policy which is not very favorable to companionship in married life. It appears to be thought wise to teach boys things which women do not learn, in order to give women a de- gree of respect for men's attainments, which they would not be so likely to feel if they were prepared to estimate them critically; whilst girls are taught arts and languages which until recently were all but excluded from our public schools, and won no rank at our universities. Men and women had consequently scarcely any common ground to meet upon, and the absence of serious mental discipline in the training of women made them indisposed to submit to the irksomeness of that earnest intellectual labor which might have remedied the deficiency. The total lack of accuracy in their mental habits was then, and is still for the im- mense majority of women, the least easily surmountable impedi- ment to culture. The history of many marriages which have failed to realize intellectual companionship is comprised in a sentence which was actually uttered by one of the most accomplished of my friends: " She knew nothing when I married her. I tried to teach her something; it made her angry, and I gave it up. w Letter I. on Women and Marriage complete. From « Intellectual Life. » 2060 PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE I think that the greatest misfortune in the intellectual life of women is that they do not hear the truth from men. All men in cultivated society say to women as much as possible that which they may be supposed to wish to hear, and women are so much accustomed to this that they can scarcely hear without resentment an expression of opinion which takes no account of their personal and private feeling. The consideration for the feelings of women gives an agreeable tone to society, but it is fatal to the severity of truth. Observe a man of the world whose opinions are well known to you, — notice the little pause before he speaks to a lady. During that little pause he is turn- ing over what he has to say, so as to present it in the manner that will please her best; and you may be sure that the integrity of truth will suffer in the process. If we compare what we know of the man with that which the lady hears from him, we perceive the immense disadvantages of her position. He ascer- tains what will please her, and that is what he administers. He professes to take a deep interest in things which he does not care for in the least, and he passes lightly over subjects and events which he knows to be of the most momentous importance to the world. The lady spends an hour more agreeably than if she heard opinions which would irritate, and prognostics which would alarm her, but she has missed an opportunity for culture, she has been confirmed in feminine illusions. If this happened only from time to time, the effect would not tell so much on the mental constitution; but it is incessant, it is continual. Men dis- guise their thoughts for women as if to venture into the feminine world were as dangerous as traveling in Arabia, or as if the thoughts themselves were criminal. There appeared two or three years ago in Punch a clever drawing which might have served as an illustration to this sub- ject. A fashionable doctor was visiting a lady in Belgravia who complained that she suffered from debility. Cod-liver oil being repugnant to her taste, the agreeable doctor, wise in his genera- tion, blandly suggested as an effective substitute a mixture of cream and curagoa. What that intelligent man did for his pa- tient's physical constitution, all men of politeness do for the in- tellectual constitution of ladies. Instead of administering the PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 2061 truth which would strengthen, though unpalatable, they adminis- ter intellectual cream and curacoa. The primary cause of this tendency to say what is most pleas- ing to women is likely to be as permanent as the distinction of sex itself. It springs directly from sexual feelings, it is heredi- tary and instinctive. Men will never talk to women with that rough frankness which they use between themselves. Conversa- tion between the sexes will always be partially insincere. Still I think that the more women are respected, the more men will desire to be approved by them for what they are in reality, and the less they will care for approval which is obtained by dissim- ulation. It may be observed already that, in the most intel- lectual society of great capitals, men are considerably more outspoken before women than they are in the provincial middle classes. Where women have most culture, men are most open and sincere. Indeed, the highest culture has a direct tendency to command sincerity in others, both because it is tolerant of variety in opinion, and because it is so penetrating that dissim- ulation is felt to be of no use. By the side of an uncultivated woman, a man feels that if he says anything different from what she has been accustomed to, she will take offense; whilst if he says anything beyond the narrow range of her information, he will make her cold and uncomfortable. The most honest of men, in such a position, finds it necessary to be very cautious, and can scarcely avoid a little insincerity. But with a woman of cul- ture equal to his own, these causes for apprehension have no existence, and he can safely be more himself. These considerations lead me to hope that as culture becomes more general women will hear truth more frequently. When- ever this comes to pass, it will be, to them, an immense intel- lectual gain. Letter VIII. on Women and Marriage complete. From « Intellectual Life.» 2062 ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1757-1804) Alexander Hamilton, the celebrated founder of the Federalist party, was born in the West Indies, January nth, 1757. He came to the United States in 1772, and entered actively into politics before attaining his majority. The talent for political writ- ing, which had such marked effect when he displayed it through the Federalist after the Constitution had been framed, attracted attention in 1774-75. an( i when he entered the army he became a favorite mem- ber of Washington's staff. After serving with distinction he was elected to the Continental Congress, and in 1787 to the convention which submitted the Federal Constitution to the states. In the New York convention, called to pass upon the Federal constitution, he met powerful opposition ably represented, and defeated it by a force and flexibility of intellect which had not been shown before In American public affairs. From October, 1787, to April, 1788, he co-operated with Jay and Madison in writing the Federalist essays, which appeared serially in the Independent Journal of New York. They owe their form to the Whig Examiner of Addison's time, and their spirit to strong Anglican conservatism and repugnance to everything French. The contest between English ideals and those of eighteenth-century France was waged in America with bitterness during the decade which preceded the actual hostilities of the Revolution, when Otis, Samuel Adams, and Jefferson represented the extreme of opposition to what was afterwards called Federalism. Otis seems first to have pro- mulgated in' America the doctrine of (< Individual Sovereignty,* which was held by Virginia <( Jacobins * with Jefferson, and afterwards by New England <( Radicals 8 with Ralph Waldo Emerson, — who in his (< English Traits » pronounces it the only distinctive "American idea." Otis died in 1783, however, and during the time of Hamilton's great- est successes, Jefferson was absent in France. Returning and finding how his followers and friends had been overmatched, Jefferson be- came embittered against Hamilton and began organizing the country for his overthrow. In his R Anas ,) Jefferson writes characteristically of the beginning of this contest, and the passage, while it cannot be fairly described, except as an exasperated attack, is vital for an un- derstanding of Hamilton's career and of the next half-century of American history. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 2063 «The want of some authority which should procure justice to the public creditors, w Jefferson writes, <( and an observance of treaties with foreign na- tions, produced . . . the call of a convention of the states at Annapolis. Although, at this meeting, a difference of opinion was evident on the question of a republican or kingly government, yet so general through the states was the sentiment in favor of the former, that the friends of the latter confined themselves to a course of obstruction only, and delay, to everything proposed; they hoped that nothing being done, and all things going from bad to worse, a kingly government might be usurped, and submitted to by the people, as better than anarchy and wars internal and external, the certain consequences of the present want of a general government. The effect of their manoeuvres, with the defective attendance of Deputies from the states, resulted in the measure of calling a more general convention, to be held at Philadelphia. At this the same party exhibited the same practices, and with the same views of preventing a government of concord, which they foresaw would be republican, and of forcing through anarchy their way to monarchy. But the mass of that convention was too honest, too wise, and too steady, to be baffled and misled by their manoeuvres. One of these was a form of government proposed by Col. Hamilton, which would have been in fact a compromise between the two parties of royalism and republicanism. According to this, the executive and one branch of the legislature were to be during good behavior, i. e., for life, and the governors of the states were to be named by these two permanent organs. This, however, was rejected; on which Hamilton left the convention, as desperate, and never returned again until near its final conclusion. These opinions and efforts, secret or avowed, of the advocates for monarchy had be- gotten great jealousy through the states generally; and this jealousy it was which excited the strong opposition to the conventional constitution, — a jeal- ousy which yielded at last only to a general determination to establish certain amendments as barriers against a government either monarchical or consoli- dated. In what passed through the whole period of these conventions, I have gone on the information of those who were members of them, being absent myself on my mission to France. W I returned from that mission in the first year of the new government, having landed in Virginia in December, 1789, and proceeded to New York in March, 1790, to enter on the office of Secretary of State. Here, certainly, I found a state of things which, of all I had ever contemplated, I the least ex- pected. I had left France in the first year of her revolution, in the fervor of natural rights, and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to these rights could not be heightened, but it had been aroused and excited by daily exercise. The President received me cordially, and my colleagues and the circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I cannot describe -the wonder and mortification with which the table conversation filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican government was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be, nor yet a hypocrite; and I found my- self, for the most part, the only advocate on the republican side of the ques- tion, unless among the guests there chanced to be some member of that 2064 ALEXANDER HAMILTON party from the legislative houses. Hamilton's financial system had then passed. It had two objects: first, as a puzzle, to exclude popular understand- ing and inquiry; second, as a machine for the corruption of the legislature, — for he avowed the opinion that man could be governed by one of two motives only, force or interest; force, he observed, in this country was out of the ques- tion, and the interests, therefore, of .the members must be laid hold of, to keep the legislative in unison with the executive. And with grief and shame it must be acknowledged that his machine was not without effect; that even in this, the birth of our government, some members were found sordid enough to bend their duty to their interests, and to look after personal rather than pub- lic good.** This defines the partisan issue on which the Federalist party was defeated and disorganized in 1800. Hamilton, who had been Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795, was appointed Commander in Chief of the army in 1799, and he was the real leader of the Federalist party in the struggle which seemed to result in the complete repudiation of his ideas. This appearance was delusive, however, for his ideas represent the inevitable tendencies of all parties when they are in administration; and regardless of party names and individual prefer- ences, the Hamiltonian idea came back under Jefferson's own admin- istration and developed until it resulted in John Quincy Adams. Briefly stated, it was that governments are founded to do everything which, in their own opinion, promote the general welfare. Jefferson's theory was that their object is the exercise of granted powers as trustees acting under instructions from the grantors. The Embargo and the purchase of Louisiana without waiting for the constitutional amendment which Jefferson said was necessary to authorize it, were in full accord with Hamilton's ideal of government, and but for Burr's bullet he might have lived to indorse as ideal Republicanism that for favoring which he himself had been so hotly denounced as a dis- guised monarchist. John Adams, who represented with Hamilton the Federalistic idea in the campaign of 1800, did live to renew toward Jefferson the esteem which had characterized their association in the early days of the struggle against England. Every party in op- position must become more or less Jeffersonian to succeed, while the whole tendency of power is to make every party in administration Hamiltonian. Perhaps this is logic in which reason ought never to acquiesce, but it is the logic of events ; and except as it is checked by reason, it controls. W. V. B. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 20O5 ON WAR BETWEEN THE STATES OF THE UNION Assuming it as an established truth that in case of disunion the several states, or such combinations of them as might happen to be formed out of the wreck of the general con- federacy, would be subject to those vicissitudes of peace and war, of friendship and enmity with each other, which have fallen to the lot of all neighboring nations not united under one govern- ment, let us enter into a concise detail of some of the conse- quences that would attend such a situation. War between the states, in the first periods of their separate existence, would be accompanied with much greater distresses than it commonly is in those countries where regular military establishments have long obtained. The disciplined armies always kept on foot on the continent of Europe, though they bear a malignant aspect to liberty and economy, have, notwithstanding, been productive of the signal advantage of rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of preventing that rapid desolation which used to mark the progress of war prior to their introduc- tion. The art of fortification has contributed to the same ends. The nations of Europe are encircled with chains of fortified places, which mutually obstruct invasion. Campaigns are wasted in reducing two or three frontier garrisons, to gain admittance into an enemy's country. Similar impediments occur at every step, to exhaust the strength, and delay the progress of an in- vader. Formerly an invading army would penetrate into the heart of a neighboring country, almost as soon as intelligence of its approach could be received; but now, a comparatively small force of disciplined troops, acting on the defensive, with the aid of posts, is able to impede, and finally to frustrate the enter- prises of one much more considerable. The history of war, in that quarter of the globe, is no longer a history of nations sub- dued, and empires overturned ; but of towns taken and retaken — of battles that decide nothing — of retreats more beneficial than victories — of much effort and little acquisition. In this country the scene would be -altogether reversed. The jealousy of military establishments would postpone them as long as possible. The want of fortifications, leaving the frontiers of one ,state open to another, would facilitate inroads. The populous states would, with little difficulty, overrun their less populous vi — 130 2o66 ALEXANDER HAMILTON neighbors. Conquests would be as easy to be made, as difficult to be retained. War, therefore, would be desultory and preda- tory. Plunder and devastation ever march in the train of irregu- lars. The calamities of individuals would make the principal figure in the events which would characterize our military ex- ploits. This picture is not too highly wrought; though, I confess, it would not long remain a just one. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual dan- ger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free. The institutions chiefly alluded to are standing armies, and the correspondent appendages of military establishment. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new constitu- tion; and it is thence inferred that they would exist under it. This inference, from the very form of the proposition, is, at best, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be re- plied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the confederacy. Frequent war, and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker states or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neigh- bors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of popula- tion and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be obliged to strengthen the executive arm of government; in doing which, their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction towards monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense "of the legislative authority. The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the states or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of ALEXANDER HAMILTON 2067 these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important states or confederacies would permit them long to sub- mit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country, the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our reasonings will be likely to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard. These are not vague inferences, deduced from speculative de- fects in a constitution, the whole power of which is lodged in the hands of the people, or their representatives and delegates; they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs. It may perhaps be asked by way of objections, why did not standing armies spring up out of the contentions which so often distracted the ancient republics of Greece ? Different answers, equally satisfactory, may be given to this question. The indus- trious habits of the people of the present day, absorbed in the pursuits of gain, and devoted to the improvements of agriculture and commerce, are incompatible with the condition of a nation of soldiers, which was the true condition of the people of those republics. The means of revenue, which have been so greatly multiplied by the increase of gold and silver, and of the arts of industry, and the science of finance, which is the offspring of modern times, concurring with the habits of nations, have pro- duced an entire revolution in the system of war, and have ren- dered disciplined armies, distinct from the body of citizens, the inseparable companion of frequent hostility. There is a wide difference, also, between military establish- ments in a country which, by its situation, is seldom exposed to invasions, and in one which is often subject to them, and always apprehensive of them. The rulers of the former can have no good pretext, if they are even so inclined, to keep on foot armies SO numerous as must of necessity be maintained in the latter. These armies being, in the first case, farely, if at all, called into activity for interior defense, the people are in danger of being broken to military subordination. The laws are not accustomed to relaxations in favor of military exigencies; the civil state re- mains in full vigor, neither corrupted nor confounded with the 206S ALEXANDER HAMILTON principles or propensities of the other state. The smallness of the army forbids competition with the natural strength of the community, and the citizens, not habituated to look up to the military power for protection, or to submit to its oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery: they view them with a spirit of jealous acquiescence in a necessary evil, and stand ready to resist a power which they suppose may be exerted to the preju- dice of their rights. The army, under such circumstances, though it may usefully aid the magistrate to suppress a small faction, or an occasional mob or insurrection, will be utterly incompetent to the purpose of enforcing encroachments against the united efforts of the great body of the people. But in a country where the perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it, her armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The con- tinual necessity for his services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhab- itants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees, the peo- ple are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their pro- tectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them as masters is neither remote nor dif- ficult, but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpa- tions, supported by the military power. The kingdom of Great Britain falls within the first descrip- tion. An insular situation and a powerful marine, guarding it in a great measure against the possibility of foreign invasion, su- persede the necessity of a numerous army within the kingdom. A sufficient force to make head against a sudden descent till the militia could have time to rally and embody is all that has been deemed requisite. No motive of national policy has demanded, nor would public opinion have tolerated a larger number of troops upon its domestic establishment. This peculiar felicity of situa- tion has, in a great degree, contributed to preserve the liberty which that country to this day enjoys, in spite of the prevalent venality and corruption. If Britain had been situated on the con- tinent, and had been compelled, as she would have been by that ALEXANDER HAMILTON 2069 situation, to make her military establishments at home coextensive with those of the other great powers of Europe, she, like them, would, in all probability, at this day be a victim to the absolute power of a single man. It is possible, though not easy, for the people of that island to be enslaved from other causes; but it cannot be by the prowess of an army so inconsiderable as that which has been usually kept up within the kingdom. If we are wise enough to preserve the union, we may for ages enjoy an advantage similar to that of an insulated situation. Eu- rope is at a great distance from us. Her colonies in our vicinity will be likely to continue too much disproportioned in strength to be able to give us any dangerous annoyance. Extensive mili- tary establishments cannot, in this position, be necessary to our security. But if we should be disunited, and the integral parts should either remain separated, or, which is most probable, should be thrown together into two or three confederacies, we should be, in a short course of time, in the predicament of the continental powers of Europe. Our liberties would be a prey to the means of defending ourselves against the ambition and jealousy of each other. This is an idea not superficial nor futile, but solid and weighty. It deserves the most serious and mature consideration of every prudent and honest man, of whatever party. If such men will make a firm and solemn pause, and meditate dispassionately on its vast importance; if they will contemplate it in all its attitudes, and trace it to all its consequences, they will not hesitate to part with trivial objections to a constitution, the rejection of which would, in all probability, put a final period to the Union. The airy phantoms that now flit before the distempered imaginations of some of its adversaries would then quickly give place to the more substantial prospects of dangers, real, certain, and extremely for- midable. Number VIII. complete. From the Federalist. 2070 J. C. AND A. W. HARE (1795-1855; 1792-1834) [uesses at Truth, w a series of charming essays by Julius Charles and Augustus William Hare, was published as their joint work in 1827. The authors were brothers and both clergy- men of the Church of England. Julius Charles Hare, who became Archdeacon of Lewes in 1840, was celebrated as a pulpit orator and as the author of several books on divinity and ecclesiastical subjects. His sermons often present examples of melodious (< concords of sweet sounds, w which make them almost unique in the pulpit oratory of the English language. "Guesses at Truth, » however, is the work by which he is best remembered. THAT IT IS BETTER TO LAUGH THAN TO CRY J^IDBNTEM dicere verum quid vetat ? In the first place all the ■**■ sour faces in the world, stiffening into a yet more rigid asperity at the least glimpse of a smile. I have seen faces, too, which so long as you let them lie in their sleepy torpor, un- shaken and unstirred, have a creamy softness and smoothness, and might beguile you into suspecting their owners of being gentle; but if they catch the sound of a laugh, it acts on them like thun- der, and they also turn sour. Nay, strange as it may seem, there have been such incarnate paradoxes as would rather see their fellow-creatures cry than smile. But is not this in exact accordance with the spirit which pro- nounces a blessing on the weeper, and a woe on the laugher ? Not in the persons I have in view. That blessing and woe are pronounced in the knowledge how apt the course of this world is to run counter to the kingdom of God. They who weep are declared to be blessed, not because they weep, but because they shall laugh; and the woe threatened to the laughers is in like manner, that they shall mourn and weep. Therefore, they who have this spirit in them will endeavor to forward the blessing and to avert the woe. They will try to comfort the mourner, so J. C. and A. W. HARE 2071 as to lead him to rejoice ; and they will warn the laugher, that he may be preserved from the mourning and weeping, and may ex- change his passing for lasting joy. But there are many who merely indulge in the antipathy, without opening their hearts to the sym- pathy. Such is the spirit found in those who have cast off the bonds of the lower earthly affections, without having risen as yet into the freedom of heavenly love — in those who have stopped short in the state of transition between the two lives, like so many skeletons stripped of their earthly, and not yet clothed with a heavenly body. It is the spirit of stoicism, for instance, in phi- losophy, and of vulgar fatalism, which in so many things answers to stoicism in religion. They who feel the harm they have re- ceived from worldly pleasures are prone at first to quarrel with pleasure of every kind altogether; and it is one of the strange per- versities of our self-will to entertain anger, instead of pity, towards those whom we fancy to judge or act less wisely than ourselves. This, however, is only while the scaffolding is still standing around the edifice of their Christian life, so that they cannot see clearly out of the windows, and their view is broken up into disjointed parts. When the scaffolding is removed, and they look abroad without hindrance, they are readier than any to delight in all the beauty and true pleasure around them. They feel that it is their blessed calling, not only to rejoice always themselves, but likewise to rejoice with all who do rejoice in innocence of heart. They feel that this must be well-pleasing to him who has filled his uni- verse with ever-bubbling springs of gladness ; so that whithersoever we turn our eyes, through earth and sky as well as sea, we be- hold the dvrjptO/iov yikaafia of nature. On the other hand, it is the harshness of an irreligious temper clothing itself in religious zeal, and not seldom exhibiting symptoms of mental disorganization, that looks scowlingly on every indication of happiness and mirth. Moreover, there is a large class of people who deem the busi- ness of life far too weighty and momentous to be made light of; who would leave merriment to children, and laughter to idiots; and who hold that a joke would be as much out of place on their lips as on a gravestone or in a ledger. Wit and wisdom being sisters, not only arc they afraid of being indicted for bigamy were they to wed them both, but they shudder at such a union as incestuous. So, to keep clear of temptation, and to preserve their faith where they have plighted it, they turn the 2072 J. C. and A. W. HARE }-ounger out of doors; and if they see or hear of anybody tak- ing her in, they are positive he can know nothing of the elder. They would not be witty for the world. Now, to escape being so is not very difficult for those whom nature has so favored that wit with them is always at zero, or below it. Or, as to their wisdom, since they are careful never to overfeed her, she jogs leisurely along the turnpike road, with lank and meagre car- cass, displaying all her bones, and never getting out of her own dust. She feels no inclination to be frisky, but if a coach or wagon passes her, is glad, like her rider, to run behind a thing so big. Now, all these people take grievous offense if any one comes near them better mounted, and they are in a tremor lest the neighing and snorting and prancing should be contagious. Surely, however, ridicule implies contempt; and so the feeling must be condemnable, subversive of gentleness, incompatible with kindness ? Not necessarily so, or universally; far from it. The word ridicule, it is true, has a narrow, one-sided meaning. From our proneness to mix up personal feelings with those which are more purely objective and intellectual, we have in great measure re- stricted the meaning of ridicule, which would properly extend over the whole region of the ridiculous, the laughable, where we may disport ourselves innocently, without any evil emotion; and we have narrowed it, so that in common usage it mostly cor- responds to derision, which does indeed involve personal and offensive feelings. As the great business of Wisdom in her spec- ulative office is to detect and reveal the hidden harmonies of things, those harmonies which are the sources and the ever- flowing emanations of law, the dealings of wit, on the other hand, are with incongruities. And it is the perception of incon- gruity, flashing upon us, when unaccompanied, as Aristotle ob- serves (Poet., Chap, v.), by pain, or by any predominant moral disgust, that provokes laughter and excites the feeling of the ridiculous. But it no more follows that the perception of such an incongruity must breed or foster haughtiness or disdain than that the perception of anything else that may be erroneous or wrong should do so. You might as well argue that a man must be proud and scornful because he sees that there is such a thing as sin, or such a thing as folly, in the world. Yet, unless we blind our eyes, and gag our ears, and hoodwink our minds, we shall seldom pass through a day without having some form of J. C. AND A. W. HARE 2073 evil brought in one way or other before us. Besides, the percep- tion of incongruity may exist, and may awaken laughter, without the slightest reprobation of the object laughed at. We laugh at a pun, surely without a shade of contempt either for the words punned upon or for the punster; and if a very bad pun be the next best thing to a very good one, this is not from its flatter- ing any feeling of superiority in us, but because the incongruity is broader and more glaring. Nor when we laugh at a droll combination of imagery do we feel any contempt, but often ad- miration at the ingenuity shown in it, and an almost affectionate thankfulness toward the person by whom we have been amused, such as is rarely excited by any other display of intellectual power, as those who have ever enjoyed the delight of Professor Sedgwick's society will bear witness. It is true, an exclusive attention to the ridiculous side of things is hurtful to the character and destructive of earnestness and gravity. But no less mischievous is it to fix our attention exclusively, or even mainly, on the vices and other follies of mankind. Such contemplations, unless counteracted by whole- somer thoughts, harden or rot the heart, deaden the moral prin- ciple, and make us hopeless and reckless. The objects toward which we should turn our minds habitually are those which are great, and good, and pure; the throne of virtue, and she who sits upon it; the majesty of truth, the beauty of holiness. This is the spiritual sky through which we should strive to mount, * springing from crystal step to crystal step, * and bathing our souls in its living, life-giving ether. These are the thoughts by which we should whet and polish our swords for the warfare against evil, that the vapors of the earth may not rust them. But in a warfare against evil, under one or other of its forms, we are all of us called to engage ; and it is a childish dream to fancy that we can walk about among mankind without perpetual necessity of remarking that the world is full of many worse in- congruities besides those which make us laugh. Nor do I deny that a laugher may often be a scoffer and a scorner. Some jesters are fools of a worse breed than those who used to wear the cap. Sneering is commonly found along with a bitter splenetic misanthrophy j or it may be a man's mockery at his own hollow heart, venting itself in mockery at others. Cruelty will try to season or to palliate its atrocities by derision. The hyena grins in its den; most wild beasts over their prey. 2074 J- c - AND A - w - HARE But though a certain kind of wit, like other intellectual gifts, may coexist with moral depravity, there has often been a play- fulness in the best and greatest men, — in Phocion, in Socrates, in Luther, in Sir Thomas More, — which, as it were, adds a bloom to the severer graces of their character, shining forth with ama- ranthine brightness when storms assail them, and springing up in fresh blossoms under the ax of the executioner. How much is our affection for Hector increased by his tossing his boy in his arms, and laughing at his childish fears! Smiles are the lan- guage of love; they betoken the complacency and delight of the heart in the object of its contemplation. Why are we to assume that there must needs be bitterness or contempt in them, when they enforce a truth or reprove an error ? On the contrary, some of those who have been richest in wit and humor have been among the simplest and kindest-hearted of men. I will only instance Fuller, Bishop Earle, La Fontaine, Matthias Claudius, Charles Lamb. Le mdchant n' est jamais comique is wisely remarked by De Maistre, when canvassing the pretensions of Voltaire (Soirees, i. 273); and the converse is equally true: Le comique, le vrai comique, n'est jamais me'chant. A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart; but without kindness there can be no true joy. And what a dull, plodding, tramping, clanking would the ordinary intercourse of society be without wit to en- liven and brighten it! When two men meet they seem to be kept at bay through the estranging effects of absence, until some sportive sally opens their hearts to each other. Nor does any- thing spread cheerfulness so rapidly over a whole party, or an assembly of people, however large. Reason expands the soul of the philosopher; imagination glorifies the poet, and breathes a breath of spring through the young and genial; but if we take into account the numberless glances and gleams whereby wit lightens our every-day life, I hardly know what power ministers so bountifully to the innocent pleasures of mankind. Surely, too, it cannot be requisite to a man's being in ear- nest that he should wear a perpetual frown. Or is there less of sincerity in Nature during her gambols in spring than during the stiffness and harshness of her wintry gloom ? Does not the bird's blithe carolling come from the heart quite as much as the quadruped's monotonous cry? And is it then altogether impos- sible to take up one's abode with Truth, and to let all sweet homely feelings grow about it and cluster around it, and to smile J. C. and A. W. HARE 2075 upon it as on a kind father or mother, and to sport with it, and hold light and merry talk with it, as with a loved brother or sister; and to fondle it, and play with it, as with a child ? No otherwise did Socrates and Plato commune with Truth; no other- wise Cervantes and Shakespeare. This playfulness of Truth is beautifully represented by Landor, in the conversation between Marcus Cicero and his brother, in an allegory which has the voice and the spirit of Plato. On the other hand, the outcries of those who exclaim against every sound more lively than a bray or a bleat, as derogatory to truth, are often prompted, not so much by their deep feeling of the dignity of the truth in question, as of the dignity of the person by whom that truth is maintained. It is our vanity, our self-conceit, that makes us so sore and irritable. To a grave argument we may reply gravely, and fancy that we have the best of it; but he who is too dull or too angry to smile cannot answer a smile, except by fretting and fuming. Olivia lets us into the secret of Malvolio's distaste for the Clown. For the full expansion of the intellect, moreover, to preserve it from that narrowness and partial warp which our proneness to give ourselves up to the sway of the moment is apt to produce, its various faculties, however opposite, should grow and be trained up side by side — should twine their arms together, and strengthen each other by love wrestles. Thus will it be best fitted for dis- cerning and acting upon the multiplicity of things which the world sets before it. Thus, too, will something like a balance and order be upheld, and our minds preserved from that exag- geration on the one side, and depreciation on the other side, which are the sure results of exclusiveness. A poet, for instance, should have much of the philosopher in him; not, indeed, thrust- ing itself forward at the surface — this would only make a mon- ster of his work, like the Siamese twins, neither one thing nor two — but latent within; the spindle should be out of sight, but the web should be spun by the Fates. A philosopher, on the other hand, should have much of the poet in him. A historian cannot be great without combining the elements of the two minds. A statesman ought to unite those of all the three. A great re- ligious teacher, such as Socrates, Bernard, Luther, Schleiermacher, needs the statesman's practical power of dealing with men and things, as well as the historian's insight into their growth and purpose. He needs the philosopher's ideas, impregnated and im- personated by the imagination of the poet. In like manner, our 2076 J. C. and A. W. HARE graver faculties and thoughts are much chastened and bettered by a blending and interfusion of the lighter, so that <( the sable cloud * may (< turn her silver lining on the night w ; while our lighter thoughts require the graver to substantiate them and keep them from evaporating. Thus Socrates is said, in Plato's <( Ban- quet, 9 to have maintained that a great tragic poet ought likewise to be a great comic poet — an observation the more remarkable, because the tendency of the Greek mind, as at once manifested in their Polytheism, and fostered by it, was to insulate all their ideas; and, as it were, to split up the intellectual world into a cluster of Cyclades, leading to confusion, is the characteristic of modern times. The combination, however, was realized in him- self, and in his great pupil; and may, perhaps, have been so to a certain extent in ^schylus, if we may judge from the fame of his satiric dramas. At all events the assertion, as has been re- marked more than once — for instance by Coleridge ("Remains," ii. 12), — is a wonderful prophetical intuition, which has received its fulfillment in Shakespeare. No heart would have been strong enough to hold the woe of Lear and Othello, except that which had the unquenchable elasticity of Falstaff and the <( Midsummer Night's Dream. * He, too, is an example that the perception of the ridiculous does not necessarily imply bitterness and scorn. Along with his intense humor, and his equally intense piercing insight into the darkest, most fearful depths of human nature, there is still a spirit of universal kindness, as well as universal justice, pervading his works; and Ben Jonson has left us a pre- cious memorial of him, where he calls him ** My gentle Shakes- peare. 8 This one epithet sheds a beautiful light on his character; its truth is attested by his wisdom, which could never have been so perfect unless it had been harmonized by the gentleness of the dove. A similar union of the graver and lighter powers is found in several of Shakespeare's contemporaries, and in many others among the greatest poets of the modern world: in Boccaccio, in Cervantes, in Chaucer, in Goethe, in Tieck; so was it in Walter Scott. Complete. From <( Guesses at Truth. » ao77 JAMES HARRINGTON (1611-1677) |he Commonwealth of Oceana. m by James Harrington, has been called the most curious book in existence, but without at- tempting to contest its claims to uniqueness, the discrimina- ting reader will remember that Swedenborg and Fourier have written, each in his own way, on the same subjects with which (< Oceana * deals. It embodies Harrington's ideas of how model men would live in a model commonwealth. Many of the essays on morals and gov- ernment in it are in the form of speeches supposed to be delivered in the political discussions of (< Oceana. » The most distinctive and practical feature of the work is the "Rotation in Office, 8 on which Harrington insists for all executive officers. The attempt at <( Rota- tion w in the United States was made, undoubtedly, as a result of this suggestion. Harrington was born in Northamptonshire, England, in January, 161 1. At Oxford, he had Chillingworth for a tutor, and while still a young man enjoyed the friendship of the Prince of Orange and the Queen of Bohemia. His strong Republican ideas did not lose him the con- fidence of Charles I., and he was one of the friends who accompanied the deposed king to the scaffold. « Oceana w displeased Cromwell, and he ordered its suppression while it was in the printer's hands; but Harrington won him over, and when the book appeared in 1656 it was with a dedication to the Lord Protector, who then, if not al- ways, was as far removed from Republican ideas as Charles I. him- self. Under Charles II., Harrington was imprisoned until his health was broken and his intellectual powers impaired. He died Septem- ber nth, 1677. OF A FREE STATE If the liberty of a man consists in the empire of his reason, the absence whereof would betray him to the bondage of his passions, then the liberty of a commonwealth consists in the empire of her laws, the absence whereof would betray her to the lust of tyrants. And these I conceive to be the principles upon 2078 JAMES HARRINGTON which Aristotle and Livy (injuriously accused by Leviathan for not writing out of nature) have grounded their assertion that a commonwealth is an empire of laws, and not of men. But they must not carry it so. For, says he, the liberty, whereof there is so frequent and honorable mention in the history and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the writings and dis- courses of those that from them have received all their learning in the politics, is not the liberty of particular men, but the lib- erty of the commonwealth. He might as well have said that the estates of particular men in a commonwealth are not the riches of particular men, but the riches of the commonwealth; for equality of estates causes equality of power, and equality of power is the liberty not only of the commonwealth, but of every man. But sure a man would never be thus irreverent with the greatest authors, and positive against all antiquity, without some certain demonstration of truth ; and, what is it ? Why, there is written on the turrets of the city of Lucca in great characters at this day the word Libertas; yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether a com- monwealth be monarchical or popular, the freedom is the same. The mountain has brought forth, and we have a little equivoca- tion! for to say that a Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity from the laws of Lucca than a Turk has from those of Constan- tinople; and to say that a Lucchese has no more liberty or immunity by the laws of Lucca than a Turk has by those of Constantinople, are pretty different speeches. The first may be said of all governments alike ; the second scarce of any two ; much less of these, seeing it is known that whereas the greatest Basha is a tenant, as well of his head as of his estate, at the will of his lord, the meanest Lucchese that has land is a freeholder of both, and not to be controlled but by the law, and that framed by every private man to no other end (or they may thank themselves) than to protect the liberty of every private man, which by that means comes to be the liberty of the com- monwealth. But seeing they that make the laws of the commonwealth are but men, the main question seems to be, how a commonwealth comes to be an empire of laws and not of men, or how the de- bate or result of a commonwealth is so sure to be according to JAMES HARRINGTON 2079 reason; seeing they who debate, and they who resolve, be but men. And as often as reason is against a man, so often will a man be against reason. From <( Oceana. w THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT All government is founded upon overbalance, in propriety, power, or ownership. If one man hold the overbalance unto the whole peo- ple in propriety, his propriety causeth absolute monarchy. If the few hold the overbalance unto the whole people in propriety, their propriety causeth aristocracy, or mixed monarchy. If the whole people be neither overbalanced by the propriety of one, nor of a few, the propriety of the people or of the many causeth democracy, or popular government. The government of one against the balance is tyranny. The government of a few against the balance is oligarchy. The government of the many (or attempt of the people to govern) against the balance is rebellion or anarchy. Where the balance of propriety is equal, it causeth a state of war. To hold that government may be founded upon community is to hold that there may be a black swan, or a castle in the air, or that what thing soever is as imaginable, as what hath been in practice, must be as practicable as what hath been in practice. If the overbalance of propriety be in one man, it necessitat- eth the form of government to be like that of Turkey. If the overbalance of propriety be in the few, it necessitat- eth the form of government to be like that of king, lords, and commons. If the people be not overbalanced by one or a few, they are not capable of any other form of government than that of a senate and a popular assembly. From « Oceana. » 2080 FREDERIC HARRISON (1831-) ^rederic Harrison's essay «On the Choice of Books, 8 which appeared in 1886, is one of the most notable literary essays of the generation to which its author belongs. It was widely discussed and, it may be imagined, with some asperity by the genera- tion which it characterized as reading Zola's seventeenth romance and listening to (C Pinafore w for three hundred nights. Such a generation, according to Mr. Harrison, will read critical observations on the sub- lime and the beautiful, but will neither recognize them nor care for them. He speaks in a striking way of the « nausea which idle cul- ture seems to produce w for what is best in literature. The symptoms he thus describes undoubtedly existed to a marked extent and they were undoubtedly diseased, but they belong as naturally to every transition state resulting from the diffusion of knowledge, as measles and similar disagreeable eruptions do to childish growth. Harrison was born in London, October 18th, 1831. He graduated at Oxford, studied law, and began his literary career as an essayist on legal and ethical subjects. Among his works are <( The Weaving of History, » « Order and Progress," "Social Statics, w "Oliver Crom- well, » and <( The Annals of an Old Manor House. 8 ON THE CHOICE OF BOOKS It is the fashion for those who have any connection with letters, in the presence of thoughtful men and women, eager for knowledge, and anxious after all that can be gotten from books, to expatiate on the infinite blessings of literature, and the miraculous achievements of the press; to extol, as a gift above price, the taste for study and the love of reading. Far be it from me to gainsay the inestimable value of good books, or to discourage any man from reading the best; but I often think that we forget that other side to this glorious view of literature : — the misuse of books, the debilitating waste of life in aimless pro- miscuous vapid reading, or even, it may be, in the poisonous in- halation of mere literary garbage and bad men's worst thoughts. FREDERIC HARRISON 208 i For what can a book be more than the man who wrote it ? The brightest genius, perhaps, never puts the best of his own soul into his printed page; and some of the most famous men have certainly put the worst of theirs. Yet are all men desirable companions, much less teachers, fit to be listened to, able to give us advice, even of those who get reputation and command a hear- ing ? Or, to put out of the question that writing which is posi- tively bad, are we not, amidst the multiplicity of books and of writers, in continual danger of being drawn off by what is stimu- lating rather than solid, by curiosity after something accidentally notorious, by what has no intelligible thing to recommend it, ex- cept that it is new ? Now, to stuff our minds with what is sim- ply trivial, simply curious, or that which at best has but a low nutritive power, this is to close our minds to what is solid and enlarging, and spiritually sustaining. Whether our neglect of the great books comes from our not reading at all, or from an in- corrigible habit of reading the little books, it ends in just the same thing. And that thing is ignorance of all the greater litera- ture of the world. To neglect all the abiding parts of knowledge for the sake of the evanescent parts is really to know nothing worth nothing. It is in the end the same thing, whether we do not use our minds for serious study at all, or whether we ex- haust them by an impotent voracity for idle and desultory (( in- formation, » as it is called — a thing as fruitful as whistling. Of the two plans I prefer the former. At least, in that case, the mind is healthy and open. It is not gorged and enfeebled by excess in that which cannot nourish, much less enlarge and beau- tify our nature. But there is much more than this. Even to those who reso- lutely avoid the idleness of reading what is trivial, a difficulty is presented, a difficulty every day increasing by virtue even of our abundance of books. What are the subjects, what are the class of books we are to read, in what order, with what connection, to what ultimate use or object ? Even those who are resolved to read the better books are embarrassed by a field of choice prac- tically boundless. The longest life, the greatest industry, the most powerful memory, would not suffice to make us profit from a hundredth part of the world of books before us. If the great Newton said that he seemed to have been all his life gathering a few shells on the shore, whilst a boundless ocean of truth still lay beyond and unknown to him, how much more to each of us vi — 131 2082 FREDERIC HARRISON must the sea of literature be a pathless immensity beyond our powers of vision or of reach, — an immensity in which industry itself is useless without judgment, method, discipline; where it is of infinite importance what we can learn and remember, and of utterly no importance what we may have once looked at or heard of. Alas! the most of our reading leaves as little mark even in our own education as the foam that gathers round the keel of a passing boat! For myself, I am inclined to think the most use- ful part of reading is to know what we should not read, what we can keep out from that small cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of (< information, w the corner which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing knowledge. Is not the accumulation of fresh books a fresh hindrance to our real knowledge of the old ? Does not the multiplicity of volumes become a bar upon our use of any ? In literature especially does it hold — that we cannot see the wood for the trees. A man of power, who has got more from books than most of his contemporaries, has lately said : <( Form a habit of reading, do not mind what you read, the reading of better books will come when you have a habit of reading the inferior. w I cannot agree with him. I think a habit of reading idly debilitates and cor- rupts the mind for all wholesome reading; I think the habit of reading wisely is one of the most difficult habits to acquire, needing strong resolution and infinite pains; and I hold the habit of reading for mere reading's sake, instead of for the sake of the stuff we gain from reading, to be one of the worst and commonest and most unwholesome habits we have. Why do we still suffer the traditional hypocrisy about the dignity of litera- ture, — literature, I mean, in the gross, which includes about equal parts of what is useful and what is useless ? Why are books as books, writers as writers, readers as readers, meritorious and hon- orable, apart from any good in them, or anything that we can get from them ? Why do we pride ourselves on our powers of absorbing print, as our grandfathers did on their gifts in imbib- ing port, when we know that there is a mode of absorbing print which makes it impossible we can ever learn anything good out of books ? Our stately Milton said in a passage which is one of the watchwords of the English race, <( As good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book.* But has he not also said that he would "have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane themselves as well as FREDERIC HARRISON 2083 men, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors 9 ? . . . Yes! they do kill the good book who deliver up their few and precious hours of reading to the trivial book; they make it dead for them; they do what lies in them to destroy (< the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalm'd and treasured up on pur- pose to a life beyond life w ; they <( spill that season'd life of man preserv'd and stor'd up in Bookes. 8 For in the wilderness of books most men, certainly all busy men, must strictly choose. If they saturate their minds with the idler books, the w good book," which Milton calls y or the <( Bride of Lammermoor," "Ivanhoe," (( Quentin Durward," and w Old Mortality, B at least once a year afresh. Now Scott is a perfect library in himself. A constant reader of romances would find that it needed months to go through even the best pieces of the inexhaustible painter of eight full centuries and every type of man, and he might re- peat the process of reading him ten times in a lifetime without a sense of fatigue or sameness. The poetic beauty of Scott's creations is almost the least of his great qualities. It is the uni- versality of his sympathy that is so truly great, the justice of his estimates, the insight into the spirit of each age, his intense ab- sorption of self in the vast epic of human civilization. What are the old almanacs that they so often give us as histories beside these living pictures of the ordered succession of ages ? As in Homer himself, we see in this prose (< Iliad B of modern history the battle of the old and the new, the heroic defense of ancient strongholds, the long impending and inevitable doom of mediaeval life. Strong men and proud women struggle against the destiny FREDERIC HARRISON 2093 of modern society, unconsciously working out its ways, undaunt- edly defying its power. How just is our island Homer! Neither Greek nor Trojan sways him; Achilles is his hero; Hector is his favorite; he loves the councils of chiefs and the palace of Priam; but the swineherd, the charioteer, the slave girl, the hound, the beggar, and the herdsman, all glow alike in the harmonious coloring of his peopled epic. We see the dawn of our English nation, the defense of Christendom against the Koran, the grace and the terror of feudalism, the rise of monarchy out of baron- ies, the rise of parliaments out of monarchy, the rise of industry out of serfage, the pathetic ruin of chivalry, the splendid death struggle of Catholicism, the sylvan tribes of the mountain (rem- nants of our prehistoric forefathers) beating themselves to pieces against the hard advance of modern industry; we see the grim heroism of the Bible martyrs, the catastrophe of feudalism over- whelmed by a practical age which knew little of its graces and almost nothing of its virtues. Such is Scott, who, we may say, has done for the various phases of modern history what Shakes- peare has done for the manifold types of human character. And this glorious and most human and most historical of poets, with- out whom our very conception of human development would have ever been imperfect, this manliest and truest and widest of romancers we neglect for some hothouse hybrid of psychological analysis, for the wretched imitators of Balzac and the jacka- napes phrasemongering of some Osric of the day, who assures us that Scott is an absolute Philistine. In speaking with enthusiasm of Scott, as of Homer, or of Shakespeare, or of Milton, or of any of the accepted masters of the world, I have no wish to insist dogmatically upon any single name, or two or three in particular. Our enjoyment and rever- ence of the great poets of the world is seriously injured nowa- days by the habit we get of singling out some particular quality, some particular school of art for intemperate praise or, still worse, for intemperate abuse. Mr. Ruskin, I suppose, is answerable for the taste for this one-sided and spasmodic criticism; and every young gentleman who has the trick of a few adjectives will languidly vow that Marlowe is supreme, or Murillo foul. It is the mark of rational criticism as well as of healthy thought to maintain an evenness of mind in judging of great works, to rec- ognize great qualities in due proportion, to feel that defects are made up by beauties, and beauties are often balanced by weak- 2094 FREDERIC HARRISON ness. The true judgment implies a weighing of each work and each workman as a whole, in relation to the sum of human cul- tivation and the gradual advance of the movement of ages. And in this matter we shall usually find that the world is right, the world of the modern centuries and the nations of Europe to- gether. It is unlikely, to say the least of it, that a young person who has hardly ceased making Latin verses will be able to re- verse the decisions of the civilized world; and it is even more unlikely that Milton and Moliere, Fielding and Scott, will ever be displaced by a poet who has unaccountably lain hid for one or two centuries. I know that in the style of to-day I ought hardly to venture to address you about poetry unless I am pre- pared to unfold to you the mysterious beauties of some unknown genius who has recently been unearthed by the Children of Light and Sweetness. I confess I have no such discovery to announce. I prefer to dwell in Gath and to pitch my tents in Ashdod; and I doubt the use of the sling as a weapon in modern war. I de- cline to go into hyperbolic eccentricities over unknown geniuses, and a single quality or power is not enough to arouse my en- thusiasm. It is possible that no master ever painted a buttercup like this one, or the fringe of a robe like that one; that this poet has a unique subtlety, and that an undefinable music. I am still unconvinced, though the man who cannot see it, we are told, should at once retire to the place where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am against all gnashing of teeth, whether for or against a particular idol. I stand by the men, and by all the men, who have moved mankind to the depths of their souls, who have taught generations, and formed our life. If I say of Scott, that to have drunk in the whole of his glorious spirit is a liberal education in itself, I am asking for no exclusive devotion to Scott, to any poet, or any school of poets, or any age, or any country, to any style or any order of poet, one more than another. They are as various, fortunately, and as many-sided as human nature itself. If I delight in Scott, I love Fielding, and Richardson, and Sterne, and Goldsmith, and Defoe. Yes, and I will add Cooper and Mar- ryat, Miss Edge worth and Miss Austen — to confine myself to those who are already classics, to our own country, and to one form of art alone, and not to venture on the ground of contem- porary romance in general. What I have said of Homer, I would say in a degree, but somewhat lower, of those great Ancients who FREDERIC HARRISON 2095 are the most accessible to us in English — ^schylus, Aristophanes, Virgil, and Horace. What I have said of Shakespeare I would say of Calderon, of Moliere, of Corneille, of Racine, of Voltaire, of Alfieri, of Goethe, of those dramatists, in many forms, and with genius the most diverse, who have so steadily set themselves to idealize the great types of public life and of the phases of human history. Let us all beware lest worship of the idiosyncrasy of our peerless Shakespeare blind us to the value of the great mas- ters who in a different world and with different aims have pre- sented the development of civilization in a series of dramas, where the unity of a few great types of man and of society is made paramount to subtlety of character or brilliancy of language. What I have said of Milton, I would say of Dante, of Ariosto, of Petrarch, and of Tasso; nor less would I say it of Boccaccio and Chaucer, of Camoens and Spenser, of Rabelais and of Cervantes, of Gil Bias and the Vicar of Wakefield, of Byron and of Shelley, of Goethe and of Schiller. Nor let us forget those wonderful idealizations of awakening thought and primitive societies, the pictures of other races and types of life removed from our own: all those primeval legends, ballads, songs, and tales, those prov- erbs, apologues, and maxims, which have come down to us from distant ages of man's history — the old idyls and myths of the Hebrew race; the tales of Greece, of the Middle Ages of the East; the fables of the Old and the New World; the songs of the Nibelungs ; the romances of early feudalism ; the <( Morte d'Arthur w ; the <( Arabian Nights 8 ; the ballads of the early nations of Eu- rope. I protest that I am devoted to no school in particular: I con- demn no school; I reject none. I am for the school of all the great men; and I am against the school of the smaller men. I care for Wordsworth as well as for Byron, for Burns as well as Shelley, for Boccaccio as well as for Milton, for Bunyan as well as Rabelais, for Cervantes as much as for Dante, for Corneille as well as for Shakespeare, for Goldsmith as well as Goethe. I stand by the sentence of the world; and I hold that in a matter so human and so broad as the highest poetry the judgment of the nations of Europe is pretty well settled, at any rate, after a century or two of continuous reading and discussing. Let those who will assure us that no one can pretend to culture unless he swear by Fra Angelico and Sandro Botticelli, by Arnolpho the son of Lapo, or the Lombardic bricklayers, by Martini and Galuppi 2096- FREDERIC HARRISON (all, by the way, admirable men of the second rank) ; and so, ■ in literature and poetry, there are some who will hear of noth- ing but Webster or Marlowe; Blake, Herrick or Keats; William Langland or the Earl of Surrey; Heine or Omar Khayyam. All of these are men of genius, and each with a special and inimita- ble gift of his own. But the busy world, which does not hunt poets as collectors hunt for curios, may fairly reserve these lesser lights for the time when they know the greatest well. So, I say, think mainly of the greatest, of the best known, of those who cover the largest area of human history and man's common nature. Now when we come to count up these names accepted by the unanimous voice of Europe, we have some thirty or forty names, and amongst them are some of the most volumi- nous of writers. I have been running over but one department of literature alone, the poetic. I have been naming those only, whose names are household words with us, and the poets for the most part of modern Europe. Yet even here we have a list which is usually found in not less than a hundred volumes at least. Now poetry and the highest kind of romance are exactly that order of literature, which not only will bear to be read many times, but that of which the true value can only be gained by frequent, and indeed habitual reading. A man can hardly be said to know the twelfth Mass or the ninth Symphony, by virtue of having once heard them played ten years ago; he can hardly be said to take air and exercise because he took a country walk once last autumn. And so he can hardly be said to know Scott, or Shakespeare, Moliere, or Cervantes, when he once read them since the close of his school days, or amidst the daily grind of his professional life. The immortal and universal poets of our race are to be read and re-read till their music and their spirit are a part of our nature; they are to be thought over and di- gested till we live in the world they created for us; they are to be read devoutly, as devout men read their Bibles and fortify their hearts with psalms. For as the old Hebrew singer heard the heavens declare the glory of their Maker, and the firmament show- ing his handiwork, so in the long roll of poetry we see transfig- ured the strength and beauty of humanity, the joys and sorrows, the dignity and struggles, the long life-history of our common kind. I have said but little of the more difficult poetry, and the re- ligious meditations of the great idealists in prose and verse, whom FREDERIC HARRISON 2097 it needs a concentrated study to master. Some of these are hard to all men, and at all seasons The « Divine Comedy, » in its way, reaches as deep in its though tfulness as Descartes himself. But these books, if they are dinicult to all, are impossible to the glut- tons of the circulating library. Vo these munchers of vapid mem- oirs and monotonous tries, such books arc closed indeed. The power of enjoyment and of understanding is withered up within them. To the besotted gambler on the turf the lonely hillside glowing with heather grows to be as dreary as a prison; and so, too, a man may listen nightly to burlesques, till <( Fidelio » inflicts on him intolerable fatigue. One may be a devourer of books, and be actually incapable of reading a hundred lines of the wisest and most beautiful. To read one of such books comes only by habit, as prayer is impossible to one who habitually dreads to be alone. In an age of steam it seems almost idle to speak of Dante, the most profound, the most meditative, the most prophetic of all poets, in whose epic the panorama of mediaeval life, of feudal- ism at its best and Christianity at its best, stands, as in a micro- cosm, transfigured, judged, and measured. To most men, the (< Paradise Lost," with all its mighty music and its idyllic pic- tures of human nature, of our first-child parents in their naked purity and their awakening thought, is a serious and ungrateful task — not to be ranked with the simple enjoyments; it is a pos- session to be acquired only by habit. The great religious poets, the imaginative teachers of the heart, are never easy reading. But the reading of them is a religious habit, rather than an in- tellectual effort. I pretend not now to be dealing with a mat- ter so deep and high as religion, or indeed with education in the fuller sense. I will say nothing of that side of reading which is really hard study, an effort of duty, matter of meditation and reverential thought. I need speak not now of such reading as that of the Bible ; the moral reflections of Socrates, of Aristotle, of Confucius; the <( Confessions w of St. Augustine and the <( City of God » ; the discourses of St. Bernard, of Bossuet, of Bishop But- ler, of Jeremy Taylor; the vast philosophical visions that were opened to the eyes of Bacon and Descartes; the thoughts of Pas- cal and Vauvenargues, of Diderot and Hume, of Condorcct and de Maistrc; the problem of man's nature as it is told in the <( Ex- cursion," or in « Faust, » in "Cain," or in the « Pilgrim's Progress »; the unsearchable outpouring of the heart in the great mystics, of vi — 132 2098 FREDERIC HARRISON many ages and many races; be the mysticism that of David or of John, of Mahomet or of Buddha; of Fdnclon or of Shelley. I pass by all these. For I am speaking now of the use of books in our leisure hours. I will take th books of simple en- joyment, bcoks thr.t one can laugh over ..nd weep over; and learn from, and laugh and weep again % which have in them humor, truth, human nature in all its siden, pictures of the great phases of human history; and withal sound teaching in honesty, manli- ness, gentleness, patience. Of such books, I say, books accepted by the voice of all mankind as matchless and immortal, there is a complete library at hand for every man, in his every mood, whatever his tastes or his acquirements. To know merely the hundred volumes or so of which I have spoken would involve the study of years. But who can say that these books are read as they might be, that we do not neglect them for something in a new cover, or which catches our eye in a library ? It is not merely to the idle and unreading world that this complaint holds good. It is the insatiable readers themselves who so often read to the least profit. Of course they have read all these household books many years ago, read them, and judged them, and put them away forever. They will read infinite dissertations about these authors ; they will write you essays on their works ; they will talk most learned criticism about them. But it never occurs to them that such books have a daily and perpetual value, such as the de- vout Christian finds in his morning and evening psalm; that the music of them has to sink into the soul by continual renewal; that we have to live with them and in them, till their ideal world habitually surrounds us in the midst of the real world ; that their great thoughts have to stir us daily anew, and their generous pas- sion has to warm us hour by hour; just as we need each day to have our eyes filled by the light of heaven, and our blood warmed by the glow of the sun. I vow that when I see men forgetful of the perennial poetry of the world, muck-raking in a litter of •fugitive refuse, I think of that wonderful scene in the <( Pilgrim's Progress, w where the Interpreter shows the wayfarers the old man raking in the straw and dust, whilst he will not see the Angel who offers him a crown of gold and precious stones. This gold, refined beyond the standard of the goldsmith, these pearls of great price, the united voice of mankind has assured us are found in those immortal works of every age and of every race whose names are household words throughout the world. FREDERIC HARRISON 2099 And we shut our eyes to them for the sake of the straw and lit- ter of the nearest library or bookshop. A lifetime will hardly suffice to know, as they ought to be known, these great master- pieces of man's genius. How many of us can name ten men who may be said entirely to know (in the sense in which a thoughtful Christian knows the Psalms and the Epistles) even a few of the greatest poets ? I take them almost at random, and I name Homer, ^Eschylus, Aristophanes, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Calderon, Corneille, Moliere, Milton, Field- ing, Goethe, Scott. Of course every one has read these poets, but who really knows them, the whole of them, the whole mean- ing of them ? They are too often taken (< as read, ® as they say in the railway meetings. Take of this immortal choir the liveliest, the easiest, the most familiar, take for the moment the three — Cervantes, Moliere, Fielding. Here we have three poets who unite the profoundest insight into human nature with the most inimitable wit: (< Pen- seroso" and Only one other copy exists in this country." I will not mention the FREDERIC HARRISON 2IOI work to-night, because I know that, if I did, to-morrow morning at least fifty libraries would be ransacked for it, which would be unpardonable waste of time. (< I am bringing out, B says another, quite simply, (( ( The Lives of the Washerwomen of the Queens of England. ' 8 And when it comes out we shall have a copious collection of washing books some centuries old, and at length un- derstand the mode of ironing a ruff in the early mediaeval period. A very learned friend of mine thinks it perfectly monstrous that a public library should be without an adequate collection of works in Dutch, though I believe he is the only frequenter of it who can read that language. Not long ago I procured for a Russian scholar a manuscript copy of a very rare work by Greene, the contemporary of Shakespeare. Greene's (( Funeralls }) is, I think, as dismal and worthless a set of lines as one often sees; and as it has slumbered for nearly three hundred years, I should be willing to let it be its own undertaker. But this un- savory carrion is at last to be dug out of its grave, for it is now translated into Russian and published in Moscow (to the honor and glory of the Russian professor) in order to delight and in- form the Muscovite public, where perhaps not ten in a million can as much as read Shakespeare. This or that collector again, with the labor of half a lifetime and by means of half his for- tune, has amassed a library of old plays, every one of them worthless in diction, in plot, in sentiment, and in purpose; a col- lection far more stupid and uninteresting in fact than the bur- lesques and pantomimes of the last fifty years. And yet this insatiable student of old plays will probably know less of Moliere and Alfieri than Moliere's housekeeper or Alfieri's valet, and possibly he has never looked into such poets as Calderon and Vondel. Collecting rare books and forgotten authors is perhaps of all the collecting manias the most foolish in our day. There is much to be said for rare china and curious beetles. The china is occa- sionally beautiful, and the beetles at least are droll. But rare books now are, by the nature of the case, worthless books, and their rarity usually consists in this: that the printer made a blun- der in the text, or that they contain something exceptionally nasty or silly. To affect a profound interest in neglected authors and uncommon books is a sign, for the most part, not that a man has ^exhausted the resources of ordinary literature, but that lie has no real respect for the greatest productions of the greatest aioz FREDERIC HARRISON men in the world. This bibliomania seizes hold of rational beings and so perverts them, that in the sufferer's mind the human race exists for the sake of the books, and not the books for the sake of the human race. There is one book they might read to good purpose — the doings of a great book collector who once lived in La Mancha. To the collector, and sometimes to the scholar, the book becomes a fetich or idol, and is worthy of the worship of mankind, even if it cannot be the slightest use to anybody. As the book exists, it must have the compliment paid it of being invited to the shelves. The (< library is imperfect without it, B al- though the library will, so to speak, stink when it has got it. The great books are of course the common books, and these are treated by collectors and librarians with sovereign contempt. The more dreadful an abortion of a book the rare volume may be, the more desperate is the struggle of libraries to possess it. Civilization in fact has evolved a complete apparatus, an order of men and a code of ideas for the express purpose, one may say, of degrading the great books. It suffocates them under mountains of little books, and give the place of honor to that which is plainly liter- ary carrion. Now I suppose, at the bottom of all this lies that rattle and restlessness of life which belongs to the industrial maelstrom wherein we ever revolve. And connected therewith comes also that literary dandyism which results from the pursuit of letters without any social purpose or any systematic faith. To read from the pricking of some cerebral itch rather than from a desire of forming judgments; to get, like an Alpine club stripling, to the top of some unsealed pinnacle of culture ; to use books as a seda- tive, as a means of exciting a mild intellectual titillation, instead of as a means of elevating the nature ; to dribble on in a perpet- ual literary gossip in order to avoid the effort of bracing the mind to think — such is our habit in an age of utterly chaotic educa- tion. We read, as the bereaved poet made rhymes — <( For the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.* We, for whom steam and electricity have done almost everything except give us bigger brains and hearts, who have a new inven- FREDERIC HARRISON 2103 tion ready for every meeting of the Royal Institution, who want new things to talk about faster than children want new toys to break, we cannot take up the books we have seen about us since our childhood: Milton, or Moliere, or Scott. It feels like donning knee breeches and buckles, to read what everybody has read, that everybody can read, and which our very fathers thought good entertainment scores of years ago. Hard-worked men and over- wrought women crave an occupation which shall free them from their thoughts and yet not take them from their world. And thus it comes that we need at least a thousand new books every sea- son, whilst we have rarely a spare hour left for the greatest of all. But I am getting into a vein too serious for ,our purpose: education is a long and thorny topic. I will cite but the words, on this head, of the great Bishop Butler: "The great number of books and papers of amusement which, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way, have in part occasioned, and most per- fectly fall in with and humor, this idle way of reading and con- sidering things. By this means time, even in solitude, is happily got rid of, without the pain of attention ; neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear say- ing, is spent with less thought than great part of that which is spent in reading. B But this was written exactly a century and a half ago, in 1729; since which date, let us trust, the multiplicity of print and the habits of desultory reading have considerably abated. A philosopher with whom I hold (but with whose opinion I have no present intention of troubling you) has proposed a method of dealing with this indiscriminate use of books, which I think is worthy of attention. He has framed a short collection of books for constant and general reading. He put it forward <( with the view of guiding the more thoughtful minds among the people in their choice for constant use. a He declares that, (< both the in- tellect and the moral character suffer grievously at the present time from irregular reading. D It was not intended to put a bar upon other reading, or to supersede special study. It is designed as a type of a healthy and rational syllabus of essential books, fit for common teaching and daily use. It presents a working epitome of what is best and most enduring in the literature of the world. The entire collection would form, in the shape in which books now exist in modern libraries, something like five hundred volumes. They embrace books both of ancient and modern times, in all the 2104 FREDERIC HARRISON five principal languages of modern Europe. It is divided into four sections: poetry, science, history, religion. The principles on what it is framed are these: First it col- lects the best in all the great departments of human thought, so that no part of education shall be wholly wanting. Next it puts together the greatest books, of universal and permanent value, and the greatest and the most enduring only. Next it measures the greatness of books not by their brilliancy, or even their learning, but by their power of presenting some typical chapter in thought, some dominant phase of history; or else it measures them by their power of idealizing man and nature, or of giving harmony to our moral and intellectual activity. Lastly, the test of the general value of books is the permanent relation they bear to the common civilization of Europe. Some such firm foothold in the vast and increasing torrent of literature it is certainly urgent to find, unless all that is great in literature is to be borne away in the flood of books. With this we may avoid an interminable wandering over a pathless waste of waters. Without it, we may read everything and know nothing; we may be curious about anything that chances, and indifferent to everything that profits. Having such a catalogue before our eyes, with its perpetual warning, — non miilta sed vnil- tum, — we shall see how with our insatiable consumption of print we wander, like unclassed spirits, round the outskirts only of these Elysian fields where the great dead dwell and hold high converse. As it is we hear but in a faint echo that voice which cries: — <( Onorate Valtissimo Poeta : L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartita? We need to be reminded every day how many are the books of inimitable glory, which, with all our eagerness after reading, we have never taken in our hands. It will astonish most of us to find how much of our very industry is given to the books which leave no mark, how often we rake in the litter of the printing press, whilst a crown of gold and rubies is offered us in vain. Complete. From the original text as it was read before the London Insti- tution and published in the Fortnightly Review, April ist, 1879. 2105 JOHN HAWKESWORTH (c. 17*5-1773) TaxWCfli [he Adventurer, which gave Hawkesworth his place among classical English essayists, was founded by him in 1752. He had Johnson, Bathurst, and Warton for coadjutors, but of the one hundred and forty numbers which appeared, seventy-six are attrib- uted to Hawkesworth himself. He is highly praised by the author of the <( Readers' Handbook," and in his own generation the Arch- bishop of Canterbury made him a LL.D. for his essays. A single one of them, however, will be sufficient to illustrate both the John- sonian style and the moral ideas of the others. Hawkesworth was born in London about 17 15. He began life as apprentice to a clockmaker, but getting a similar place in an attorney's office, he found oppor- tunity to develop his taste for books. When in 1744 Dr. Johnson ceased compiling (or composing) his remarkable parliamentary re- ports for the Gentleman's Magazine, Hawkesworth succeeded him. In 1761 he edited Swift's works and published a volume of "Fairy Tales. w In 1773 he published three volumes of the papers of Cap- tain Cook, for editing which the English government paid him ,£6,000. His work was severely criticized, however, and it is said that his death (November 17th, 1773) was hastened by his abnormal sensitive- ness. ON GOSSIP AND TATTLING Mmtid funjfiova Zujxtzot^v. — Greek Proverb. "Far from my table be the telltale guest. w It has been remarked that men are generally kind in proportion as they are happy; and it is said even of the devil, that he is good-humored when he is pleased. Every act, therefore, by which another is injured, from whatever motive, contracts more guilt and expresses great malignity, if it is committed in those seasons which are set apart to pleasantry and good-humor, and brightened with enjoyments peculiar to rational and social beings. 2106 JOHN HAWKESWORTH Detraction is among those vices, which the most languid vir- tue has sufficient force to prevent; because, by detraction, that is not gained which is taken away : (< He who filches from me my good name," says Shakespeare, (< enriches not himself, but makes me poor indeed * : as nothing, therefore, degrades human nature more than detraction,' nothing more disgraces conversa- tion. The detractor, as he is the lowest moral character, reflects greater dishonor upon his company than the hangman; and he whose disposition is a scandal to his species should be more dili- gently avoided than he who is scandalous only by his office. But for this practice, however vile, some have dared to apol- ogize, by contending that the report by which they injured an absent character was true: this, however, amounts to no more than that they have not complicated malice with falsehood, and that there is some difference between detraction and slander. To relate all the ill that is true of the best man in the world would probably render him the object of suspicion and distrust; and if this practice were universal, mutual confidence and esteem, the comforts of society, and the endearments of friendship would be at an end. There is something unspeakably more hateful in those species of villainy by which the law is evaded than in those by which it is violated and defied. Courage has sometimes preserved rapacity from abhorrence, as beauty has been thought to apologize for prostitution ; but the injustice of cowardice is universally abhorred, and, like the lewdness of deformity, has no advocate. Thus hate- ful are the wretches who detract with caution; and while they perpetrate the wrong, are solicitous to avoid the reproach : they do not say that Chloe forfeited her honor to Lysander, but they say that such a report has been spread, they know not how true. Those who propagate these reports frequently invent them, and it is no breach of charity to suppose this to be always the case, because no man who spreads detraction would have scrupled to produce it, and he who should diffuse poison in a brook would scarce be acquitted of a malicious design, though he should allege that he received it of another who is doing the same elsewhere. Whatever is incompatible with the highest dignity of our na- ture should indeed be excluded from our conversation. As com- panions, not only that which we owe to ourselves, but to others, is required of us; and they who can indulge any vice in the JOHN HAWKESWORTH 2 1 07 presence of each other are become obdurate in guilt and insen- sible to infamy. Reverence thyself, is one of the sublime precepts of that ami- able philosopher, whose humanity alone was an incontestible proof of the dignity of his mind. Pythagoras, in his idea of virtue, comprehended intellectual purity; and he supposed that by him who reverenced himself those thoughts would be suppressed by which a being capable of virtue is degraded. This divine precept evidently presupposes a reverence of others, by which men are re- strained from more gross immoralities; and with which he hoped a reverence of self would also co-operate as an auxiliary motive. The great Duke of Marlborough, who was perhaps the most accomplished gentleman of his age, would never suffer any ap- proaches to obscenity in his presence; and it was said by the late Lord Cobham, that he did not reprove it as an immorality in the speaker, but resented it as an indignity to himself: and it is evi- dent that to speak evil of the absent, to utter lewdness, blas- phemy, or treason, must degrade not only him who speaks, but those who hear; for surely that dignity of character which a man ought always to sustain is in danger when he is made the con- fidant of treachery, detraction, impiety, or lust: for he, who in conversation displays his own vices, imputes them ; as he who boasts to another of a robbery presupposes that he is a thief. It should be a general rule never to utter anything in con- versation which would justly dishonor us if it should be reported to the world. If this rule could be always kept, we should be se- cure in our own innocence against the craft of knaves and para- sites, the stratagems of cunning, and the vigilance of envy. But after all the bounty of nature, and all the labor of virtue, many imperfections will be still discerned in human beings, even by those who do not see with all the perspicacity of human wis- dom; and he is guilty of the most aggravated detraction, whore- ports the weakness of a good mind discovered in an unguarded hour; something which is rather the effect of negligence than de- sign; rather a folly than a fault; a sally of vanity rather than an eruption of malevolence. It has therefore been a maxim in- violably sacred among good men, never to disclose the secrets of private conversation; a maxim, which though it seems to arise from the breach of some other, does yet imply that general rec- titude, which is produced by a consciousness of virtuous dignity, and a regard to that reverence which is due to ourselves and 2io8 JOHN HAWKESWORTH others: for to conceal any immoral purpose, which to disclose is to disappoint; any crime, which to hide is to countenance; or any character, which to avoid is to be safe; as it is incompatible with virtue, and injurious to society, can be a law only among those who are enemies to both. Among such, indeed, it is a law which there is some degree of obligation to fulfill; and the secrets even of their conversation are, perhaps, seldom disclosed, without an aggravation of their guilt; it is the interest of society, that the veil of taciturnity should be drawn over the mysteries of drunkenness and lewd- ness; and to hide even the machinations of envy, ambition, or re- venge, if they happen to mingle in these orgies among the rites of Bacchus, seems to be the duty of the initiated, though not of the profane. If he who has associated with robbers, who has reposed and accepted a trust, and whose guilt is a pledge of his fidelity, should betray his associates for hire; if he is urged to secure himself, by the anxiety of suspicion, or the terrors of cowardice, or to punish others by the importunity of resentment and revenge; though the public receive benefit from his conduct, and may think it expedient to reward him, yet he has only added to every other species of guilt that of treachery to his friends: he has demonstrated that he is so destitute of virtue as not to possess even those vices which resemble it; and that he ought to be cut off as totally unfit for human society, but that, as poison is an antidote to poison, his crimes are a security against the crimes of others. It is, however, true that if such an offender is stung with re- morse, if he feels the force of higher obligations than those of an iniquitous compact, and if urged by a desire to atone for the injury which he has done to society, he gives in his information and delivers up his associates, with whatever reluctance, to the laws; by this sacrifice he ratifies his repentance, he becomes again the friend of his country, and deserves not only protection, but esteem: for the same action may be either virtuous or vicious, and may deserve either honor or infamy, as it may be performed upon different principles; and indeed no action can be morally classed or estimated without some knowledge of the motive by which it is produced. But as there is seldom any other clue to the motives of par- ticular actions than the general tenor of his life by whom they JOHN HAWKESWORTH 2109 are performed; and as the lives of those who serve their country by bringing its enemies to punishment are commonly flagitious in the highest degree; the ideas of this service, and the most sor- did villainy are so connected that they always recur together: if only this part of a character is known, we immediately infer that the whole is infamous; and it is, therefore, no wonder that the name by which it is expressed, especially when it is used to denominate a profession, should be odious; or that a good man should not always have sufficient fortitude to strike away the mask of dis- simulation, and direct the sword of justice. But whatever might be thought of those who discharge their obligations to the public by treachery to their companions, it cannot be pretended that he to whom an immoral design is com- municated by inadvertence or mistake is under any private obli- gation to conceal it; the charge which devolves upon him, he must instantly renounce : for while he hesitates, his virtue is sus- pended: and he who communicates such design to another, not by inadvertence or mistake, but upon presumption of concurrence, commits an outrage upon his honor, and defies his resentment. Let none, therefore, be encouraged to profane the rites of conversation, much less of friendship, by supposing there is any law which ought to restrain the indignation of virtue, or deter repentance from reparation. From the Adventurer complete. 2IIO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (i 804- 1 864) !f Nathaniel Hawthorne had not been one of the best story- tellers of modern times, he might have been the greatest American essayist. As it is, he has left only a few idyls to suggest what he might have done as an essayist, if he had loved to express his thoughts directly as well as he does to involve them in allegory. In the subtlety with which he conceals a deep allegorical meaning under what is seemingly a story told for its own sake, he often approaches the <( Odyssey » itself, and perhaps among Moderns he is only approached by De la Motte Fouque. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4th, 1804. At Bowdoin College, where he was graduated in 1825, he had John S. C. Abbott and Longfellow for classmates. And in 1837, when his « Twice-Told Tales" appeared, Longfellow noticed them favorably in the North American Review. It was not until 1839, however, that Hawthorne's genius was officially recognized by his appointment as <( weigher and gauger » in the Fed- eral customs service, — a position he owed to the good offices of the historian Bancroft, then collector of customs at Boston. From 1846 to 1850 Hawthorne was himself <( surveyor of the port » of Salem, and during this period he found leisure to write <( The Scarlet Letter, » an immortal work which if it be thus the result of the favoritism of President Polk for a fellow-Democrat, is the one result of his ad- ministration for which posterity will thank him more than for all the rest. In accounting for it, it is worth remembering that one of Hawthorne's own ancestors was a Puritan magistrate, a witch- finder and a persecutor of Quakers. After taking up his residence in the <( Manse » at Concord, Hawthorne enjoyed the friendship of Emer- son and Thoreau, to whom, in nearly everything, he was as unlike as possible. He died — or perhaps we should say, his avatar ended — May 19th, 1864. His was a mind which took hold on the super- natural as part of its own essence. Among the story-tellers of all ages, no higher or sweeter soul has come on earth to give human nature assurance of its divine possibilities. It is the consciousness of such divinity which sounds in the minor chords of Hawthorne's harmonies. His feeling for eternal things saddened him with the things of time, but his sadness is a manifestation of his highest hope, — a part of that pain which the genius of Edmund Burke has rec- ognized as inevitably incident to consciousness of the sublime. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 21 1 1 THE HALL OF FANTASY It has happened to me on various occasions to find myself in a certain edifice which would appear to have some of the char- acteristics of a public exchange. Its interior is a spacious hall, with a pavement of white marble. Overhead is a lofty dome, supported by long rows of pillars of fantastic architecture, the idea of which was probably taken from the Moorish ruins of the Alhambra, or perhaps from some enchanted edifice in the Arabian tales. The windows of this hall have a breadth and grandeur of design and an elaborateness of workmanship that have nowhere been equaled, except in the Gothic cathedrals of the Old World. Like their prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven only through stained and pictured glass, thus filling the hall with many- colored radiance and painting its marble floor with beautiful or grotesque designs; so that its inmates' breathe, as it were, a vi- sionary atmosphere, and tread upon the fantasies of poetic minds. These peculiarities, combining a wilder mixture of styles than even an American architect usually recognizes as allowable, — Grecian, Gothic, Oriental, and nondescript, — cause the whole edifice to give the impression of a dream, which might be dissipated and shat- tered to fragments by merely stamping the foot upon the pave- ment. Yet, with such modifications and repairs as successive ages demand, the Hall of Fantasy is likely to endure longer than the most substantial structure that ever cumbered the earth. It is not at all times that one can gain admittance into this edifice, although most persons enter it at some period or other of their lives; if not in their waking moments, then by the universal passport of a dream. At my last visit I wandered thither unawares while my mind was busy with an idle tale, and was startled by the throng of people who seemed suddenly to rise up around me. (< Bless me ! Where am I ? n cried I, with but a dim recognition of the place. ■ You are in a spot," said a friend who chanced to be near at hand, <( which occupies in the world of fancy the same position which the Bourse, the Rialto, and the Exchange do in the com- mercial world. All who have affairs in that mystic region, which lies above, below, or beyond the actual, may here meet and talk over the business of their dreams. w 2i 12 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE <( It is a noble hall," observed I. « Yes, 8 he replied. <( Yet we see but a small portion of the edifice. In its upper stories are said to be apartments where the inhabitants of earth may hold converse with those of the moon; and beneath our feet are gloomy cells, which communicate with the infernal regions, and where monsters and chimeras are kept in confinement and fed with all unwholesomeness. 8 In niches and on pedestals around about the hall stood the statues or busts of men who in every age have been rulers and demigods in the realms of imagination and its kindred regions. The grand old countenance of Homer; the shrunken and decrepit form, but vivid face of ^Esop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild Ariosto; Rabelais's smile of deep- wrought mirth; the pro- found pathetic humor of Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for an allegoric structure ; the severe divinity of Milton ; and Bunyan, molded of homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire,— were those that chiefly attracted my eye. Field- ing, Richardson, and Scott occupied conspicuous pedestals. In an obscure and shadowy niche was deposited the bust of our country- man, the author of (< Arthur Mervyn. » « Besides these indestructible memorials of real genius, * re- marked my companion, "each century has erected statues of its own ephemeral favorites in wood. 8 (< I observe a few crumbling relics of such, 8 said I. <( But ever and anon, I suppose, Oblivion comes with her huge broom and sweeps them all from the marble floor. But such will never be the fate of this fine statue of Goethe. 8 «Nor of that next to it,— Emanuel Swedenborg, 8 said he. « Were ever two men of transcendent imagination more unlike ? 8 In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the water of which continually throws itself into new shapes and snatches the most diversified hues from the stained atmosphere around. It is impossible to conceive what a strange vivacity is imparted to the scene by the magic dance of this fountain, with its endless transformations, in which the imaginative beholder may discern what form he will. The water is supposed by some to flow from the same source as the Castilian spring, and is ex- tolled by others as uniting the virtues of the Fountain of Youth with those of many other enchanted wells long celebrated in tale and song. Having never tasted it, I can bear no testimony to its quality. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 21 13 «Did you ever drink this water ?» I inquired of my friend. «A few sips now and then/ answered he. <( But there are men here who make it their constant beverage,— or, at least, have the credit of doing so. In some instances it is known to have intoxicating qualities. * ■ Pray, let us look at these water drinkers, * said I. So we passed among the fantastic pillars till we came to a spot where a number of persons were clustered together in the light of one of the great stained windows, which seemed to glorify the whole group as well as the marble that they trod on. Most of them were men of broad foreheads, meditative countenances, and thoughtful, inward eyes; yet it required but a trifle to summon up mirth, peeping out from the very midst of grave and lofty musings. Some strode about, or leaned against the pillars of the hall, alone and in silence; their faces wore a rapt expression, as if sweet music were in the air around them, or as if their inmost souls were about to float away in song. One or two, perhaps, stole a glance at the bystanders, to watch if their poetic absorp- tion were observed. Others stood talking in groups, with a live- liness of expression, a ready smile, and a light, intellectual laughter, which showed how rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing to and fro among them. A few held higher converse, which caused their calm and melancholy souls to beam moonlight from their eyes. As I lin- gered near them, — for I felt an inward attraction towards these men, as if the sympathy of feeling, if not of genius, had united me to their order, — my friend mentioned several of their names. The world has likewise heard those names; with some it has been familiar for years; and others are daily making their way deeper into the universal heart. "Thank Heaven, 8 observed I to my companion, as we passed to another part of the hall, w we have done with this techy, way- ward, shy, proud unreasonable set of laurel gatherers. I love them in their works, but have little desire to meet them else- where. w "You have adopted an old prejudice, I see," replied my friend, who was familiar with most of these worthies, being him- self a student of poetry, and not without the poetic flame. (< But, so far as my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted withTthe social qualities; and in this age there appears to be a fellowfeeling among them which had not heretofore been devel- vi— 133 21 14 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE oped. As men, they ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their fellowmen; and as authors, they have thrown aside their proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a generous brotherhood. * <( The world does not think so, * answered I. c< An author is received in general society pretty much as we honest citizens are in the Hall of Fantasy. We gaze at him as if he had no busi- ness among us, and question whether he is fit for any of our pursuits. • "Then it is a very foolish question, » said he. « Now, here are a class of men whom we may daily meet on 'Change. Yet what poet in the hall is more a fool of fancy than the sagest of them ? » He pointed to a number of persons, who, manifest as the fact was, would have deemed it an insult to be told that they stood in the Hall of Fantasy. Their visages were traced into wrinkles and furrows, each of which seemed the record of some actual experience in life. Their eyes had the shrewd, calculating glance which detects so quickly and so surely all that it concerns a man of business to know about the characters and purposes of his fellowmen. Judging them as they stood, they might be hon- ored and trusted members of the Chamber of Commerce, who had found the genuine secret of wealth and whose sagacity gave them the command of fortune. There was a character of detail and matter of fact in their talk which concealed the extravagance of its purport, insomuch that the wildest schemes had the aspect of every-day realities. Thus the listener was not startled at the idea of cities to be built, as if by magic, in the heart of pathless forests; and of streets to be laid out where now the sea was tossing; and of mighty rivers to be stayed in their courses in or- der to turn the machinery of a cotton mill. It was only by an effort, and scarcely then, that the mind convinced itself that such speculations were as much matter of fantasy as the old dream of Eldorado, or as Mammon's Cave, or any other vision of gold ever conjured up by the imagination of needy poet or romantic adventurer. " Upon my word, B said I, " it is dangerous to listen to such dreamers as these. Their madness is contagious. M "Yes, 8 said my friend, "because they mistake the Hall of Fantasy for actual brick and mortar, and its purple atmosphere for unsophisticated sunshine. But the poet knows his where- NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 2115 about, and therefore is less likely to make a fool of himself in real life.* <( Here again, » observed I, as we advanced a little further, w we see another order of dreamers, peculiarly characteristic, too, of the genius of our country." These were the inventors of fantastic machines. Models of their contrivances were placed against some of the pillars of the hall, and afforded good emblems of the result generally to be anticipated from an attempt to reduce daydreams to practice. The analogy may hold in morals as well as physics; for instance, here was the model of a railroad through the air and a tunnel under the sea. Here was a machine — stolen, I believe — for the distillation of heat from moonshine; and another for the con- densation of morning mist into square blocks of granite, where- with it was proposed co rebuild the entire Hall of Fantasy. One man exhibited a sort of lens whereby he had succeeded in making sunshine out of a lady's smile; and it was his pur- pose wholly to irradiate the earth by means of this wonderful invention. « It is nothing new," said I; <( f or most of our sunshine comes from woman's smile already." "True," answered the inventor; (< but my machine will secure a constant supply for domestic use, whereas hitherto it has been very precarious." Another person had a scheme for fixing the reflections of ob- jects in a pool of water, and thus taking the most lifelike portraits imaginable; and the same gentleman demonstrated the practica- bility of giving a permanent dye to ladies' dresses, in the gorgeous clouds of sunset. There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual mo- tion, one of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper edi- tors and writers of every description. Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous storm in a gum-elastic bag. I could enumer- ate many more of these Utopian inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is to be found in the Patent Office at Wash- ington. Turning from the inventors, we took a more general survey of the inmates of the hall. Many persons were present whose right of entrance appeared to consist in some crotchet of the brain, which, so long as it might operate, produced a change in their relation to the actual world. It is singular how very few there are who do not occasionally gain admittance on such a score, 2ii6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE either in abstracted musings, or momentary thoughts, or bright anticipations, or vivid remembrances ; for even the actual becomes ideal, whether in hope or memory, and beguiles the dreamer into the Hall of Fantasy. Some unfortunates make their whole abode and business here, and contract habits which unfit them for all the real employments of life. Others — but these are few — pos- sess the faculty, in their occasional visits, of discovering a purer truth than the world can impart among the lights and shadows of these pictured windows. And with all its dangerous influences, we have reason to thank God that there is such a place of refuge from the gloom and dull- ness of actual life. Hither may come the prisoner, escaping from his dark and narrow cell and cankerous chain, to breathe free air in this enchanted atmosphere. The sick man leaves his weary pillow, and finds strength to wander hither, though his wasted limbs might not support him even to the threshold of his cham- ber. The exile passes through the Hall of Fantasy to revisit his native soil. The burden of years rolls down from the old man's shoulders the moment that the door uncloses. Mourners leave their heavy sorrows at the entrance, and here rejoin the lost ones whose faces would else be seen no more, until thought shall have become the only fact. It may be said, in truth, that there is but half a life — the meaner and earthlier half — for those who never find their way into the hall. Nor must I fail to mention that in the observatory of the edifice is kept that wonderful perspective- glass, through which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains showed Christian the far-off gleam of the Celestial City. The eye of Faith still loves to gaze through it. (< I observe some men here," said I to my friend, (< who might set up a strong claim to be reckoned among the most real per- sonages of the day. * (< Certainly, * he replied. <( If a man be in advance of his age, he must be content to make his abode in this hall until the lin- gering generations of his fellowmen come up with him. He can find no other shelter in the universe. But the fantasies of one day are the deepest realities of a future one. * (< It is difficult to distinguish them apart amid the gorgeous and bewildering light of this hall,* rejoined I. "The white sun- shine of actual life is necessary in order to test them. I am rather apt to doubt both men and their reasonings till I meet them in that truthful medium.* NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 21 17 <( Perhaps your faith in the ideal is deeper than you are aware, • said my friend. (< You are at least a democrat; and methinks no scanty share of such faith is essential to the adoption of that creed. * Among - the characters who had elicited these remarks were most of the noted reformers of the day, whether in physics, poli- tics, morals, or religion. There is no surer method of arriving at the Hall of Fantasy than to throw oneself into the current of a theory; for, whatever landmarks of fact may be set up along the stream, there is a law of nature that impels it thither. And let it be so; for here the wise head and capacious heart may do their work; and what is good and true becomes gradually hard- ened into fact, while error melts away and vanishes among the shadows of the hall. Therefore may none who believe and re- joice in the progress of mankind be angry with me because I recognized their apostles and leaders amid the fantastic radiance of those pictured windows. I love and honor such men as well as they. It would be endless to describe the herd of real or self-styled reformers that peopled this place of refuge. They were the rep- resentatives of an unquiet period, when mankind is seeking to cast off the whole tissue of ancient custom like a tattered gar- ment. Many of them had got possession of some crystal frag- ment of truth, the brightness of which so dazzled them that they could see nothing else in the wide universe. Here were men whose faith had embodied itself in the form of a potato; and others whose long beards had a deep spiritual significance. Here was the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea like an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good and evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense, — a most incongruous throng. Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he abjured his fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throb- bing in sympathy with the spirit that pervaded these innumera- ble theorists. It was good for the man of unquickened heart to listen even to their folly. Far down beyond the fathom of the intellect the soul acknowledged that all these varying and con- flicting developments of humanity were united in one sentiment. Be the individual theory as wild as fancy could make it, still the wiser spirit would recognize the struggle of the race after a bet- ter and purer life than had yet been realized on earth. My faith revived even while I rejected all their schemes. It could 21 1 8 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE not be that the world should continue forever what it has been; a soil where Happiness is so rare a flower and Virtue so often a blighted fruit; a battlefield where the good principle, with its shield flung above its head, can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences. In the enthusiasm of such thoughts I gazed through one of the pictured windows, and behold ! the whole exter- nal world was tinged with the dimly glorious aspect that is pecul- iar to the Hall of Fantasy, insomuch that it seemed practicable at that very instant to realize some plan for the perfection of mankind. But, alas! if reformers would understand the sphere in which their lot is cast, they must cease to look through pic- tured windows. Yet they not only use this medium, but mistake it for the whitest sunshine. "Come," said I to my friend, starting from a deep reverie, "let us hasten hence, or I shall be tempted to make a theory, after which there is little hope of any man.® <( Come hither, then, * answered he. (< Here is one theory that swallows up and annihilates all others." He led me to a distant part of the hall where a crowd of deeply attentive auditors were assembled round an elderly man of plain, honest, trustworthy aspect. With an earnestness that betokened the sincerest faith in his own doctrine, he announced that the destruction of the world was close at hand. * It is Father Miller himself ! " exclaimed I. <( No less a man," said my friend; "and observe how pictur- esque a contrast between his dogma and those of the reformers whom we have just glanced at. They look for the earthly per- fection of mankind, and are forming schemes which imply that the immortal spirit will be connected with a physical nature for innumerable ages of futurity. On the other hand, here comes good Father Miller, and with one puff of his relentless theory scatters all their dreams like so many withered leaves upon the blast. » (< It is, perhaps, the only method of getting mankind out of the various perplexities into which they have fallen," I replied. * Yet I could wish that the world might be permitted to endure until some great moral shall have been evolved. A riddle is pro- pounded. Where is the solution ? The sphinx did not slay her- self until her riddle had been guessed. Will it not be so with the world? Now, if it should be burned to-morrow morning, I am at a loss to know what purpose will have been accomplished, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 21 19 or how the universe will be wiser or better for our existence and destruction. <( We cannot tell what mighty truths may have been embodied in act through the existence of the globe and its inhabitants," rejoined my companion. K Perhaps it may be revealed to us after the fall of the curtain over our catastrophe; or not impossibly, the whole drama, in which we are involuntary actors, may have been performed for the instruction of another set of spectators. I cannot perceive that our own comprehension of it is at all es- sential to the matter. At any rate, while our view is so ridicu- lously narrow and superficial it would be absurd to argue the continuance of the world from the fact that it seems to have ex- isted hitherto in vain." ■ The poor old earth, " murmured I. <( She has faults enough, in all conscience; but I cannot bear to have her perish." «It is no great matter," said my friend. <( The happiest of us has been weary of her many a time and oft." «I doubt it," answered I, pertinaciously; "the root of human nature strikes down deep into this earthly soil, and it is but re- luctantly that we submit to be transplanted, even for a higher cultivation in heaven. I query whether the destruction of the earth would gratify any one individual, except perhaps some em- barrassed man of business whose notes fall due a day after the day of doom." Then methought I heard the expostulating cry of a multitude against the consummation prophesied by Father Miller. The lover wrestled with Providence for his foreshadowed bliss. Par- ents entreated that the earth's span of endurance might be pro- longed by some seventy years, so that their newborn infant should not be defrauded of his lifetime. A youthful poet mur- mured because there would be no posterity to recognize the in- spiration of his song. The reformers, one and all, demanded a few thousand years to test their theories, after which the universe might go to wreck. A mechanician, who was busied with an im- provement of the steam engine, asked merely time to perfect his model. A miser insisted that the world's destruction would be a personal wrong to himself, unless he should first be permitted to add a specified sum to his enormous heap of gold. A little boy made dolorous inquiry whether the last day would come before Christmas, and thus deprive him of his anticipated dainties. In short, nobody seemed satisfied that this mortal scene of things 2I2C NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE should have its close just now. Yet, it must be confessed, the motives of the crowd for desiring its continuance were mostly so absurd that unless Infinite Wisdom had been aware of much bet- ter reasons, the solid earth must have melted away at once. For my own part, not to speak of a few private and personal ends, I really desired our old mother's prolonged existence for her own dear sake. <( The poor old earth ! " I repeated. <( What I should chiefly regret in her destruction would be that very earthliness which no other sphere or state of existence can renew or compensate. The fragrance of flowers and of new-mown hay; the genial warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a sunset among clouds; the com- fort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the deliciousness of fruits and of all good cheer; the magnificence of mountains, and seas, and cataracts, and the softer charm of rural scenery; even the fast-falling snow and the gray atmosphere through which it de- scends, — all these and innumerable other enjoyable things of earth must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the homely hu- mor; the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in which body and soul conjoin so heartily! I fear that no other world can show us anything just like this. As for purely moral enjoyments, the good will find them in every state of being. But where the material and the moral exist together, what is to happen then ? And then our mute four-footed friends and the winged songsters of our woods! Might it not be lawful to regret them, even in the hallowed groves of Paradise ? " a You speak like the very spirit of earth, imbued with a scent of freshly turned soil," exclaimed my friend. <( It is not that I so much object to giving up these enjoy- ments on my own account," continued I, (< but I hate to think that they will have been eternally annihilated from the list of joys." <( Nor need they be, " he replied. <( I see no real force in what you say. Standing in this Hall of Fantasy, we perceive what even the earth-clogged intellect of man can do in creating circum- stances which, though we call them shadowy and visionary, are scarcely more so than those that surround us in actual life. Doubt not, then, that man's disembodied spirit may re-create time and the world for itself, with all their peculiar enjoyments, should there still be human yearnings amid life eternal and infinite. But I doubt whether we shall be inclined to play such a poor scene over again." NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 212 I * Oh, you are ungrateful to our mother earth ! w rejoined I. * Come what may, I never will forget her ! Neither will it sat- isfy me to have her exist merely in idea. I want her great, round, solid self to endure interminably, and still to be peopled with the kindly race of man, whom I uphold to be much better than he thinks himself. Nevertheless, I confide the whole matter to Provi- dence, and shall endeavor so to live that the world may come to an end at any moment without leaving me at a loss to find foot- hold somewhere else." <( It is an excellent resolve, M said my companion, looking at his watch. (c But come ; it is the dinner hour. Will you partake of my vegetable diet ? " A thing so matter of fact as an invitation to dinner, even when the fare was to be nothing more substantial than vegetables and fruit, compelled us forthwith to remove from the Hall of Fantasy. As we passed out of the portal we met the spirits of several per- sons who had been sent thither in magnetic sleep. I looked back among the sculptured pillars and at the transformations of the gleaming fountain, and almost desired that the whole of life might be spent in that visionary scene where the actual world, with its hard angles, should never rub against me, and only be viewed through the medium of pictured windows. But for those who waste all their days in the Hall of Fantasy, good Father Miller's prophecy is already accomplished, and the solid earth has come to an untimely end. Let us be content, therefore, with merely an occasional visit, for the sake of spiritualizing the gross- ness of this actual life, and prefiguring to ourselves a state in which the Idea shall be all in all. Complete. From « Mosses from an Old Manse. » A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP {Scene— The corner of two principal streets. The Town Pump talking through its nose.) Noon, by the north clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly we public characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town officers, 2122 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE chosen at March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed, in per- petuity, upon the Town Pump ? The title of (< town treasurer B is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chair- man, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians to the Board of Health. As a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers will confess me equal to the con- stable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by pro- mulgating public notices, when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother offi- cers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial dis- charge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am and to keep people out of the gutters. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the parched popu- lace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dramseller on the mall, at muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice: Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam— better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price, here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay ! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen ! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day; and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and a fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jellyfish. Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 2 1 23 fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to express the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man ! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cel- lar, tavern, or any kind of a dramshop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious ? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-bye; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. Who next ? Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your bloom- ing face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child, put down the cup and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What ! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine cellars. Well, well, sir, — no harm done, I hope! Go, draw the cork, tip the decan- ter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again. Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout ? Are you all satisfied ? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and while my spout has a moment's leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, be- neath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strown earth, in the very spot where you now be- hold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious as liquid diamonds. The Indian Sagamores drank of it from time immemorial, till the fearful del- uge of fire water burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race away from the cold fountains. Endicott and his followers 2124 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was of birch bark. Governor Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here, out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was the watering place, and, as it were, the washbowl of the vicinity — whither all decent folks resorted, to purify their visages and gaze at them afterwards — at least the pretty maid- ens did — in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days, when- ever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the communion table of the humble meeting- house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one generation after another was consecrated to heaven by its waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides, and cartloads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud puddle at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But, in the course of time, a town pump was sunk into the source of the an- cient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place — and then another, and still another — till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. Drink, and be re- freshed! The water is pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red Sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story, that, as the wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your fathers' days, be recognized by all. Your pardon, good people; I must interrupt my stream of eloquence and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the watermark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 2 1 25 sighs of oalm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking vessel. An ox is your true toper. But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me the better men and women will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing days; though, on that account alone, I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me also to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the Town Pump, and found me always at my post, firm amid the confusion, and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. No; these are trifles compared with the merits which wise men concede to me — if not in my single self, yet as the repre- sentative of a class — of being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish, which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water! The Town Pump and the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally monopolize the whole busi- ness of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then, Poverty shall pass away from the land, find no hovel so wretched, where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw her own heart, and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength. Until now, the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, trans- mitted from sire to son, and rekindled, in every generation, by 2i 2 6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war — the drunkenness of nations — perhaps will cease. At least, there will be no war of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy — a calm bliss of temperate affec- tions — shall pass hand and hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close. To them, the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such mo- ments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a linger- ing smile of memory and hope. Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unprac- ticed orator. I never conceived, till now, what toil the temper- ance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my in- strumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honor of the Town Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon the spot. Such monuments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the dis- tinguished champions of my cause. Now, listen; for something very important is to come next. There are two or three honest friends of mine — and true friends I know they are — who, nevertheless, by their fiery pug- nacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable cause of the Town Pump, in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy bottle ? Or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exem- plified than by plunging, slap dash, into hot water, and woefully scalding yourself and other people ? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage — and indeed in the whole conduct of your lives — you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry at- mosphere, the turbulent and manifold disquietudes of the world NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 2127 around me, to reach that deep calm well of purity, which may- be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old! Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink tt Success to the Town Pump ! * Complete. From « Twice-Told Tales. » 2128 WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830) Jazlitt was born in Kent, England, April 10th, 1778. His tastes as a young man led him to join the study of metaphysics to that of painting. When he went to London, it was to develop what he conceived to be his faculties for these antagonistic modes of intellectual activity. Naturally, he failed in both, but he established himself as a literary critic and popular essayist. It is said that he had Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, and Thomas Moore for friends, and that he quarreled with them all. His nerves were too sensitive for the protracted literary work he attempted and the reac- tion from it gave him the irritability which, as it is said to charac- terize all " the race of poets, }> is perhaps no less liable to attack those who make a profession of criticizing them. This Hazlitt did with such success that though he is under the sweeping condemna- tion of some, who accuse him of habitual "cramming," others praise him as one of the first to demonstrate that Shakespeare's apparent simplicity is due to the highest art. He died September 18th, 1830, after a life which was far from happy. Among his most notable works are his (< Lectures on English Poetry, " "Lectures on the Eng- lish Comic Writers, » "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, " (( Table Talk," <( Original Essays, and "Political Essays." "Other men have been said to speak like books," writes Richard Garnett, " Hazlitt's books speak like men." ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS "The proper study of mankind is man.* I now come to speak of that sort of writing which has been so successfully cultivated in this country by our Periodical Essay- ists, and which consists in applying the talents and resources of the mind to all that mixed mass of human affairs, which, though not included under the head of any regular art, science, or profession, falls under the cognizance of the writer, apd " comes home to the business and bosoms of men." Quicquid agunt WILLIAM HAZLITT 2 1 29 homines nostri farrago libelli, is the general motto of this depart- ment of literature. It does not treat of minerals or fossils, of the virtues of plants, or the influence of planets; it does not meddle with forms of belief, or systems of philosophy, nor launch into the world of spiritual existences; but it makes familiar with the world of men and women, records their actions, assigns their motives, exhibits their whims, characterizes their pursuits in all their singular and endless variety, ridicules their absurdities, ex- poses their inconsistencies, (< holds the mirror up to nature, and shows the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure w ; takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, words, thoughts, and ac- tions; shows us what we are, and what we are not; plays the whole game of human life over before us, and by making us en- lightened spectators of its many-colored scenes, enables us (if possible) to become tolerably reasonable agents in the one in which we have to perform a part. K The act and practic part of life is thus made the mistress of our theorique. a It is the best and most natural course of study. It is in morals and manners what the experimental is in natural philosophy, as opposed to the dogmatical method. It does not deal in sweeping clauses of proscription and anathema, but in nice distinctions and liberal constructions. It makes up its general accounts from details, its few theories from many facts. It does not try to prove all black or all white as it wishes, but lays on the intermediate colors (and most of them not unpleasing ones), as it finds them blended with * the web of our life, which is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. 9 It inquires what human life is and has been, to show what it ought to be. It follows it into courts and camps, into town and country, into rustic sports or learned disputations, into the various shades of prejudice or ignorance, of refinement or barbarism, into its private haunts or public pageants, into its weaknesses and littlenesses, its professions and its practices — before it pretends to distinguish right from wrong, or one thing from another. How, indeed, should it do so otherwise ? * Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.^ The writers I speak of are, if not moral philosophers, moral historians, and that's better: or if they are both, they found the one character upon the other; their premises precede their con- vi— 134 2130 WILLIAM HAZLITT elusions; and we put faith in their testimony, for we know that it is true. Montaigne was the first person who in his <( Essays w led the way to this kind of writing among the Moderns. The great merit of Montaigne then was, that he may be said to have been the first who had the courage to say as an author what he felt as a man. And as courage is generally the effect of conscious strength, he was probably led to do so by the richness, truth, and force of his own observations on books and men. He was, in the truest sense, a man of original mind, that is, he had the power of look- ing at things for himself, or as they really were, instead of blindly trusting to, and fondly repeating what others told him that they were. He got rid of the go-cart of prejudice and affectation, with the learned lumber that follows at their heels, because he could do without them. In taking up his pen he did not set up for a philosopher, wit, orator, or moralist, but he became all these by merely daring to tell us whatever passed through his mind, in its naked simplicity and force, that he thought always worth communicating. He did not, in the abstract character of an au- thor, undertake to say all that could be said upon a subject, but what in his capacity as an inquirer after truth he happened to know about it. He was neither a pedant nor a bigot. He neither supposed that he was bound to know all things, nor that all things were bound to conform to what he had fancied or would have them to be. In treating of men and manners, he spoke of them as he found them, not according to preconceived notions and abstract dogmas; and he began by teaching us what he him- self was. In criticizing books he did not compare them with rules and systems, but told us what he saw to like or dislike in them. He did not take his standard of excellence <( according to an exact scale w of Aristotle, or fall out with a work that was good for anything, because <( not one of the angles at the four corners was a right one." He was, in a word, the first author who was not a bookmaker, and who wrote, not to make con- verts of others to established creeds and prejudices, but to satisfy his own mind of the truth of things. In this respect we know not which to be most charmed with, the author or the man. There is an inexpressible frankness and sincerity, as well as power, in what he writes. There is no attempt at imposition or concealment, no juggling tricks or solemn mouthings, no labored attempts at proving himself always in the right, and everybody WILLIAM HAZLITT 21 31 else in the wrong; he says what is uppermost, lays open what floats at the top or the bottom of his mind, and deserves Pope's character of him, where he professes to — « pour out all as plain As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." He does not converse with us like a pedagogue with his pupil, whom he wishes to make as great a blockhead as himself, but like a philosopher and friend who has passed through life with thought and observation, and is willing to enable others to pass through it with pleasure and profit. A writer of this stamp, I confess, appears to me as much superior to a common bookworm as a library of real books is superior to a mere bookcase, painted and lettered on the outside with the names of celebrated works. As he was the first to attempt this new way of writing, so the same strong natural impulse which prompted the undertaking, carried him to the end of his career. The same force and hon- esty of mind which urged him to throw off the shackles of cus- tom and prejudice would enable him to complete his triumph over them. He has left little for his successors to achieve in the way of just and original speculation on human life. Nearly all the thinking of the two last centuries of that kind which the French denominate morale obscrvatricc is to be found in Mon- taigne's "Essays": there is a germ, at least, and generally much more. He sowed the seed and cleared away the rubbish, even where others have reaped the fruit, or cultivated and decorated the soil to a greater degree of nicety and perfection. There is no one to whom the old Latin adage is more applicable than to Montaigne, Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. There has been no new impulse given to thought since his time. Among the specimens of criticisms on authors which he has left us, are those on Virgil, Ovid, and Boccaccio, in the account of books which he thinks worth reading, or (which is the same thing) which he finds he can read in his old age, and which may be reckoned among the few criticisms which are worth reading at any age. Montaigne's w Essays" were translated into English by Charles Cotton, who was one of the wits and poets of the age of Charles II. ; and Lord Halifax, one of the noble critics of that day, declared it to be w the book in the world he was the best pleased with." This mode of familiar essay-writing, free from 2132 WILLIAM HAZLITT the trammels of the schools and the airs of professed authorship, was successfully imitated, about the same time, by Cowley and Sir William Temple in their miscellaneous essays, which are very agreeable and learned talking upon paper. Lord Shaftesbury, on the contrary, who aimed at the same easy, degage" mode of communicating his thoughts, to the world, has quite spoiled his matter, which is sometimes valuable, by his manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, flowery, figurative, flirting style of ami- cable condescension to the reader, to an excess more tantalizing than the most starched and ridiculous formality of the age of James I. There is nothing so tormenting as the affectation of ease and freedom from affectation. The ice being thus thawed, and the barrier that kept authors at a distance from common sense and feeling broken through, the transition was not difficult from Montaigne and his imitators to our Periodical Essayists. These last applied the same unre* strained expression of their thoughts to the more immediate and passing scenes of life, to temporary and local matters; and in order to discharge the invidious office of Censor Morum more freely, and with less responsibility, assumed some fictitious and humorous disguise, which, however, in a degree, corresponded to their own peculiar habits and character. By thus concealing their own name and person under the title of the Tatler, Specta- tor, etc., they were enabled to inform us more fully of what was passing in the world, while the dramatic contrast and iron- ical point of view to which the whole is subjected, added a greater liveliness and piquancy to the descriptions. The philosopher and wit here commences newsmonger, makes himself master of <( the perfect spy o' th' time," and from his various walks and turns through life, brings home little curious specimens of the humors, opinions, and manners of his contemporaries, as the botanist brings home different plants and weeds, or the mineralogist dif- ferent shells and fossils, to illustrate their several theories, and be useful to mankind. The first of these papers that was attempted in this country was set up by Steele in the beginning of the last century; and of all our Periodical Essayists, the Tatler (for that was the name he assumed) has always appeared to me the most accom- plished and agreeable. Montaigne, whom I have proposed to con- sider as the father of this kind of personal authorship among the Moderns, in which the reader is admitted behind the curtain, and WILLIAM HAZLITT 2133 sits down with the writer in his gown and slippers, was a most magnanimous and undisguised egotist ; but Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. , was the more disinterested gossip of the two. The French au- thor is contented to describe the peculiarities of his own mind and person, which he does with a most copious and unsparing hand. The English journalist good-naturedly lets you into the secret both of his own affairs and those of his neighbors. A young lady, on the other side of Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass for half a day together, but Mr. Bickerstaff takes due notice of it ; and he has the first intelligence of the symptoms of the belle passion appearing in any young gentleman at the west end of the town. The departures and arrivals of widows with handsome jointures, either to bury their grief in the country, or to procure a second husband in town, are regularly recorded in his pages. He is well acquainted with the celebrated beauties of the preceding age at the court of Charles II. ; and the old gentleman (as he feigns himself) often grows romantic in recounting