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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 !. book I 
 
 .ast date stamped below 
 
 / 
 
 SOUTHEP^N BRANCH, 
 
 ilVERSlTY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LLEiRARY, 
 
 1X>8 ANCZELES. CALIF.
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 AT LO;
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 AND 
 
 MARGINALIA. 
 
 BY 
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS BROTHER. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL II. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 1851. 
 
 67257
 
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 I.O.M>UK : 
 
 iiiiAPni'iiv AMI Ev.l^a, phintku!!, « iiiit;i'Ki mis.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'age 
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS 3 
 
 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE 129 
 
 NOTES ON ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S LIVES OF HOGARTH 
 
 AND REYNOLDS 201 
 
 NOTES ON brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE . . 269 
 
 EXTRACTS PROM NOTE BOOKS : — 
 
 ASSERTION OF LUTHER RESPECTING GOD . . ■ 325 
 
 ON THE VIRGIN MARY 226 
 
 ON THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN FRANCE . . 331 
 
 ON PARISH CLERKS, AND PARISH VESTRIES . . 336 
 
 ON PROFANENESS 340 
 
 ON INDULGENCES 342 
 
 THE CASA SANCTA AT LORETTO 345 
 
 THE BIDDING PRAYER 346 
 
 ON BURUL GROUNDS 348
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 ON HOLT THINGS 350 
 
 ON PEWS 351 
 
 DUTIES OF A GOVEKNMENT, AND UELATION TO THE 
 
 CHURCH 355
 
 MARGINALIA. 
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 VOL. II. Y^
 
 The following notes arc taken, for the most part, from Ander- 
 son's Collection of British Poets, in thirteen volumes, — the same 
 in the blank pages of which the rhymed sketches, published among 
 tlic Poems, were originally written. The remarks on Pope are taken 
 from one of the Author's numerous common-place books, and 
 those on Burns from the margins of Allan Cunningham's edition in 
 eight volumes.
 
 NOTES ON BEITISn POETS. 
 
 DRAYTON. 
 
 " He wanted neither fire nor imagination, and possessed great 
 command of liis abilities. He lias written no masques ; his per- 
 sonifications of the passions are few ; and that allegorical vein 
 which the popularity of Spenser's works may fairly be supposed to 
 have rendered fashionable, but seldom occurs in him." — Headley, 
 quoted in the Life of Drayton. 
 
 What is the Polyolbion but an allegory? and as 
 for personification, I should think the Passions were 
 as capable of it as the Counties. Why it should have 
 been a peculiar commendation to have written no 
 masques, I cannot perceive. Would Milton have 
 been greater had he not written Comus? Are not 
 Ben Jonson's and Daniel's masques replete with 
 lovely poetry ? And does not the masque in general 
 bear the same relationship to the Faery Queen as 
 the Greek Tragedies to the Iliad and the Odyssey ? 
 Neither Mr. Headley nor Dr. Anderson seem to have 
 been aware that Drayton was a dramatic writer, 
 which it is evident from Collier's Annals of the Stage 
 that he was. Besides the Merry Devil of Edmonton. 
 
 B 2
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 which Charles Lamb would fain believe his, he is 
 entered in Henslowe's Diary as the author of two 
 plays, neither of which have been discovered ; Mother 
 Redcap, in which he assisted Antony Munday, 1577, 
 acted by the Lord Admiral's servants ; and William 
 Longsword, regarding which there is the following 
 entry: "I received forty shillings of Mr. Philip 
 Hinslowe in part of 3L for the playe of Willm. Long- 
 sword, to be deliv^ psent wtl> 2 or three dayes : the xx^'' 
 of feverary 1598, Michael Drayton." His signature 
 is a vile scrawl. Drayton was also concerned with 
 Chettle in the famous Wars of Henry I. and the 
 Prince of Wales, and with Antony Munday, Went- 
 worth, Smith, and Henry Chettle, in the History of 
 Cardinal Wolsey. It is difficult to conceive how four 
 authors contrived to uuite in composing one play. 
 Perhaps they were not all engaged at the same time, 
 but in successive alterations or reformations. 
 
 CAREW. 
 
 " Tom Carew was neat, but be bad a fault 
 Tliat would not well stand with a laureat ; 
 His muse was hide-bound, and the issue of 's brain 
 Was seldom brought forth, but with trouble and pain." 
 
 Suckling, quoted in the Life of Carew, 
 
 If the laureates of either Charles' days had no more 
 to perform than their successors since the Revolution, 
 the most hide-bound muse might have managed the 
 brace of odes. But in the days of " jy^asque and antique
 
 CAREW. 5 
 
 pageantry " the laureate's office was no sinecure ; and 
 as he might often be called upon to produce at short 
 notice, slowness of composition was a real disqualifica- 
 tion for the place. Headley's criticism is sad non- 
 sense. Carevv, as an amatory poet, is no way to be 
 compared to Habington or Lovelace, to say nothing 
 of the exquisite love-scenes in the dramatic writers. 
 He has none of that tenderness, sometimes, it is 
 true, approaching to silliness, that makes the old 
 madrigals so charming ; nor can he compare with 
 Waller in gallantry of compliment. Then what is 
 meant by " the ease without the pedantry of Waller? " 
 Ease and pedantry are mere antipathies ; and as for 
 conceit, he has as much as his wit could supply. But 
 he certainly writes like a gentleman, not as a 
 gentleman would now write for ladies' perusal, but as 
 ladies were well content to be addressed in his age ; 
 and like most gentlemen writers who do not affect the 
 a-la-mode slang, he writes a language which has 
 never become obsolete. Hence his diction has a very 
 modern appearance. His versification is easy and 
 regular, sometimes vigorous, particularly his blank 
 verse in the masque. Some of his more serious 
 pieces, as the lines on Dr. Donne, and his addresses 
 to Jonson and Davenant, display powers of mind 
 much above his anacreontics.
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 TO T. H., A LADY RESEMBLING MY MISTRESS. 
 " Fair copy of my Celia's face," &c. 
 
 This is really a witty piece of sophistry. Carew 
 and his contemporaries would have made excellent 
 album contributors or annualists. They had a conceit 
 for every possible contingency. A painted flower, 
 a rice-paper butterfly, the day of the month, the 
 lady's name, would have been quite sufficient to 
 wind up the clock-work of their wits to strange 
 complexities of motion. They diflfer from modern 
 metrical triflers in this, that the curious machinery 
 ui their brains did actually move. The modems 
 cannot be accused of throwing thought away : even 
 in Moore it is often too obvious that the occasion was 
 devised for the conceit or the simile, and then one 
 pretty thing follows another, with little or no con- 
 nection ; whereas in Carew, Waller, Cowley, &c., the 
 notches of the wheels are fitted with a watch-maker's 
 nicety. As it has been said that there is a logic of 
 passion, a logic of imagination, a logic of wit, so 
 these industrious idlers have proved that there is a 
 logic of nonsense. Tlieir quaint fancies, like saturated 
 solution of alum dropped upon glass, are regularly 
 crystallised. Their minds were like kaleidoscopes, 
 and formed an endless diversity of figures out of a 
 few glittering fragments of thought. They are 
 perfectly distinct from the impassioned concetti of 
 Petrarch and his followers, and from the fancies of 
 Shakspeare and Crashaw, which rather resemble the 
 fantastic imagery of cloud-land. Bftt am I not awk- 
 wardly imitating the style I would define "^
 
 CAKEW. 7 
 
 UPON THE KING'S ILLNESS. 
 
 " Sickness, the minister of death, doth lay," &c. 
 
 There is a similar strain of thought iu Jeremy 
 Taylor's Holy Dying, but as much superior as Jeremy 
 was to Tom. One should not think by these lines 
 that Carew cared much about the king's illness, but 
 this is an unfair and unphilosophic inference. Men 
 who have acquired a certain trick of thought and 
 e.xpression, will continue it under all varieties of 
 feeling. Fancy will " talk as she 's most used to do." 
 A dancing-master would probably turn out his toes 
 were he hastening to his father's death-bed, yet he 
 might be a very good son for all that. Lear's fool 
 can only give fool's comfort, yet he loved his master 
 truly. Mercutio observes, " that his wound is not so 
 wide as a church door, nor so deep as a well," yet he 
 feels that it is enough. Sir Thomas More died with 
 a jest, and he was a martyr, at least to his own 
 sincerity. Men may joke and quibble till they cannot 
 do otherwise, and yet not have joked away all feeling. 
 To come nearer to the point. Is there any difiference 
 in style between Donne's Sacred Poems and his 
 wildest love riddles ? Are even his Sermons quite 
 free from the same taste ? 
 
 " So, in equal distance lay 
 
 Two fair lambs in the wolfs way. 
 The hungry beast will starve ere choose his prey."' 
 
 A dignifying paraphrase of the ass and bundles of
 
 8 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 hay. It is certainly as great an improvement as 
 W. W.'s translation of a wash-tub into a turtle-shell ; * 
 but it is impossible to keep the donkey out of one's 
 head. 
 
 TO BEN JONSON. 
 
 UPOX OCCASION OF HIS ODE OF DEFIANCE ANNEXED TO HIS PLAV OP 
 THE NEW INN. 
 
 " 'Tis true, (Dear Ben,) " &c. 
 
 I have seldom read a more kindly, manly, gentle- 
 manly mixture of praise and admonition than this. 
 I hope Ben took it as it was meant, and yet I can 
 well excuse the old man's anger at the dishonour 
 done to the child of his old age, which he might 
 regard at once with a fathers and a grandsire's love. 
 Nothing can be crueller than to reproach an aged 
 author with the decay of bis powers. 
 
 OBSEQUIES TO THE LADY ANNE HAY. 
 
 " I that ne'er more of private sorrow knew. 
 Than from my pen some froward mistress drew, 
 And for the public woe had my dull sense 
 So scared by ever adverse influence 
 As the invader's sword might h.ave unfelt, 
 Pierced my dead bosom, yet began to melt." 
 
 You did no such thing ; or, if you did, it was as the 
 clouds melt to hailstones. So cold was the atmo- 
 sphere of your fancy, it froze your " melodious tears " 
 
 • I venture to think the substitution of a turtle-shell for a wash-tub no 
 improvement in Wordsworth's beautiful poem. It destroys the veri- 
 similitude — the matter-of-fact character upon whifh the interest of the 
 story depends. — D. C. 
 
 I
 
 CAREW. 
 
 as they fell, into odder shapes than the microscope 
 discovers in snow-flakes. Yet all this impeaches not 
 the kindness of your heart, and I like you far better 
 for your quaint conceited sorrow, than if you had 
 mimicked the language of a real affliction. " The 
 branch of Denny's ancient stem," thus early withered, 
 could not be daughter of that empress of coquettes, 
 more generally known as Countess of Carlisle, who 
 was a Percy, and, it is to be hoped, never a mother. 
 
 THE PRIMROSE. 
 
 " Ask me why I send you here 
 This firstling," &c. 
 
 This poem, with some slight variations, is also 
 asci-ibed to Herrick, to whom I should be inclined to 
 give it ; first, because Herrick's poems were printed 
 in his lifetime, and probably under his own superin- 
 tendence, which does not appear to have been the 
 case with Carew's ; secondly, the thought and the 
 versification have much more of Herrick than Carew. 
 Herrick was the laureate of flowers and perfumes. 
 His quaintness is sweetened with a fond, child-like 
 tenderness, rarely to be found in the courtly sewer. 
 As the works of the Antliologists of that age were 
 truly fugitive pieces, handed about in MS., or 
 printed, if printed at all, on loose sheets (emblematical 
 of the matter), and not collected till long after the 
 writers' deaths, they were exceedingly apt to be laid 
 at wrong doors. Some were possibly fathered on the
 
 10 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 dead, which the living did not care to o^vu. The 
 two Raptures, especially the first, appear to me better 
 and worse than Carew could or would have written. 
 His naughty things are for the most part mere witti- 
 cisms, such as no doubt passed current even in the 
 court of the first Charles, uttered rather in forgetful- 
 ness tliau in defiance of morality. But there is a 
 sincere voluptuousness in the Rapture, accompanied 
 with a conscious and determined recklessness, not 
 unlike what Byron might have written then, and 
 which savours strongly of Rochester, who never 
 neglects an opportunity of expressing his contempt 
 of honour. 
 
 A FANCY. 
 
 " Mark bow this polished caBtern sheet 
 Dotli witli our northern tincture meet," &e. 
 
 This fancy informs me of two facts, that India paper 
 was imported, and patches worn, in Charles the 
 First's time. 
 
 There is a good deal which a dexterous plagiarist 
 might pilfer and appropriate in these verses. But 
 how could Headley so completely forget (Dr. A. 
 probably knew nothing about it) the sweet and 
 perfume-burning poetry of the previous half century, 
 as to consider Carew an improver either of gallantry 
 or versification? He seems to have made Donne 
 his ideal. He is far smoother ; but where is the 
 strength, the boundless wealth of thought, the heart 
 beating beneath its twisted mail ? *
 
 CAREW. 1 I 
 
 CCELUM BRITANNIARUM.— A MASQUE. 
 
 This Masque is in a higher strain than anything 
 
 else that Carew has written. I cannot, indeed, 
 
 agree with Dr. Anderson, that it is sublime, but it is 
 
 very animated, well versified, and expressed in manly 
 
 mother-English. The speeches of Momus are so 
 
 like the best modern prose, that it is hard to believe 
 
 they were written in 1633. They are very witty 
 
 and lifesome, throw a good deal of light on the 
 
 manners and passages of the times, and, considei'ing 
 
 that they were spoken in the king's presence, very 
 
 liberal. Many of the allusions, especially that to 
 
 Ganymede, would be unintelligible or horrifying to 
 
 any modest woman of these days ; yet they doubtless 
 
 were uttered not for the gratification of the vulgar, 
 
 on a public stage (the common plea of critics for the 
 
 improprieties of dramatists), but at the Court of 
 
 Whitehall, before the queen and her ladies. We 
 
 cannot much wonder that old Prynne found a 
 
 satire on players a convenient vehicle for invective 
 
 against the Court. The minute description of the 
 
 getting up of this Masque is very curious and 
 
 valuable. Inigo Jones must have been a clever 
 
 machinist. It proves that the passion for pantomime 
 
 and pageantry is not new to the English stage, and 
 
 that it did not originate with the galleries. Nothing 
 
 at Sadler's Wells could be more ridiculous than the 
 
 dance of monsters representing natural deformity. 
 
 Yet these Masques were the most intellectual enter-
 
 \2 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 tainmeut that ever amused the Court of Britain : a 
 vast deal of poetiy was elicited by them, and they 
 were at least as rational as a fancy ball. I reckon it 
 among the bright spots of Charles's character, that 
 he disdained not to take a part in such divertissements. 
 But these relaxations, as they make a beloved 
 mouai-oh truly popular, so do they bring tlireefold 
 scandal on him that has incurred the displeasure 
 of the many. The French never affected puritanical 
 austerity, yet the levities of Marie Antoinette were 
 blazoned and exaggerated as a bonne louche for 
 Jacobin malice. A popular character, while he is 
 popular, can do no wrong ; an unpopular character 
 can do no right. Yet if Cliarles had not cai-ried his 
 love of theatricals to church — if he had not worn a 
 mask upon the throne, I do not think that his 
 private theatricals, or his devotion to Shakspeare, 
 would have done him much harm. • 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 A FUNERAL POEM 
 
 UPON THE DEATH OF THE LATE EARL OF DEVONSUIBE. 
 
 " had'st read 
 
 Man and his breath so well, as made thee force* 
 The less to speak." 
 
 1 1 strong sense and high morality, expressed in 
 pure, weighty, and considerate language, be enough 
 
 * " Force," i. e. care. Thus, in the old pastoral, Ilarpatus : — 
 " Corin was her only joy 
 Who forced her not a pin."
 
 DANIEL. 13 
 
 to constitute poetry, this memorial is a noble poem, 
 notwithstanding the dead march of the verse, which 
 might have been composed to the knell of muffled 
 bells, the slow rumble of a heavy hearse, and the 
 monotony of a funeral sermon. It is a perfect con- 
 trast to Ford's essay on the same occasion, which is 
 the dullest string of conceits, the purest specimen of 
 " the furious tame," that ever issued from the pen 
 of an undeveloped genius. Daniel's allusion to his 
 patron's connection with Lady Kich is manly and 
 delicate. Ford thinks to bully over the matter. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 
 
 " Now, Bolinbroke, these miseries here shown 
 Do much unload thy sin, make thy ill good. 
 For if thou didst by wrong attain the crown, 
 'Twas without cries ; it cost but little blood." 
 
 This expression savours not of Daniel's usual 
 wisdom. Bolingbroke's usurpation cost all the blood. 
 I am always provoked when I hear of " the bloodless 
 Revolution of '88," as if it were not the aftermath of 
 the great rebellion, and as if there had been no blood 
 shed at Killiekrankie, the Boyne, Londonderry, 
 Aghrim, Sherrif Moor, Preston Pans, or CuUoden, — 
 not to speak of the noble lives that perished on the 
 scaffold, on the tree, to them not ignominious, and 
 of the bloody wasteful foreign war, of which that 
 dirty business was at least a co-cause.
 
 14 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 TO THE LORD HENRY HOWARD. 
 
 " Praise, if it be not cboicc," &c. 
 
 A curious instance how rhymes may be wasted, and 
 the poet have all the restraint and trouble, while 
 the reader has none of the effect, except indeed now 
 and then a perplexed suspicion of a jingle, in the 
 monotonous blank verse. — S. T. C* 
 
 TO THE LADY MARGARET. 
 
 " He that of such a height hath built his mind," &c. 
 
 A noble poem in all respects. — S. T. C. 
 
 TO THE LADY LUCY. 
 
 " And though books, madam, canuot make this mind, 
 "Which we must bring, apt to be set aright, 
 Yet do thiy rectify it in tliat kind, 
 And touch it so as that it turns that way 
 Where judgment lies. And thougli we cannot find 
 The certain place of truth, yet do tlicy stay. 
 And entertain us near about tlie same. 
 And give the soul the best delight that may 
 Enchcar it most, and most our spirits enflamc 
 To thoughts of glory and to worthy ends." 
 
 Annex these lines as a note and modest answer 
 
 ' With reference to these notes of S. T. Coleridge, there appear the 
 following playful remarks on the fly-leaf: — 
 
 " Whereas this third (fourth) volume of Anderson's Poets doth contain 
 certain notes and observations written hy the late Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge, of blessed memory, with his own hand, as I, Hartley Coleridge, 
 am ready to make aflii-mation ; 
 
 This is to give Notice, 
 
 Tliat any person or persons presuming to exscind, cut out, purloin, or
 
 DANIEL. 15 
 
 to the lines in Milton's " Paradise Regained," in 
 Christ's reply. (Par. Reg. b. iv.) 
 
 " However, many books 
 Wise men have said are wearisome," &c. 
 
 " The passion of a distressed man, ■who, being in a tempest on 
 the sea, and having in his boat two women (of whom he loved the 
 one that disdained him, and scorned the other who affected him), 
 was, by commandment of Neptune, to cast out one of them to 
 appease the rage of tlie tempest ; but which, was referred to his 
 own choice; — 
 
 And therefore, since compassion cannot be 
 Cruel to either, Neptune, take all three. 
 
 Mesumptio. 
 
 But that were to be cruel to all three ; 
 
 Slic must be cast away that would not save." 
 
 This resumption has done away the chief possible 
 merit of this most [strange] case, by destroying its 
 only possible moral, viz., that for our lives we are 
 not answerable, but for our actions. If, therefore, 
 life be offered me at the price of a bad action, let 
 it be one or twenty, the murder is with the offerer, 
 
 abstract the said notes, or observations, or any thereof, or any line, word, 
 syllablo, or letters thereof, shall be prosecuted with the utmost severity 
 of the law. 
 
 As witness my hand, 
 December ilst,lS43. Hartley Coleridge. 
 
 Ye autograph-secreting thieves, 
 Keep scissor.s from these precious leaves. 
 And likcwi.sp tlnimbs, profane and greasy. 
 From pages hallowed by S. T. C." 
 
 In the same volume there is a MS. note by R. Soutbey.— D. C.
 
 16 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 I die uot only iuuocent, but virtuous. Better a 
 thousaud die than one commit a crime ; for of what 
 a crime is, it were impiety to pretend to be ignorant ; 
 what death is, it were presumption to pretend to 
 know.— S. T. C. 
 
 BROWNE. 
 
 " It (tlie first liook of Britannia's Pastorals) was ushered into 
 the world by couipliment.ary verses from some of his ingenious and 
 learned friends, among whom were Drayton, Seldcn, Jonson," &c. 
 
 Tfie Life of Browne. 
 
 I HALF, nay, three-quarters, regret that these com- 
 plimentary verses are not given, though I dare say 
 most of them were bad enough. Anything of Selden's 
 must have been worth preserving, if it did but show 
 what such a man could not do. To see such names as 
 Drayton, Jonson, Selden, Wither, in company with 
 such heirs of oblivion as Charles Croke and his brother 
 Unton, Francis Dynne, and Augustus Caesar, of the 
 Inner Temple, is like finding the dear fists (" hand- 
 writing ") and dear, ugly appellatives of old and de- 
 parted friends, in the album of some Alpine hostel, 
 amid a legion of cits and lords. 
 
 Wood says, " Lord Pembroke had great respect for 
 him (Browne), and took him into his family, and that 
 he got wealth and purchased an estate, and that he 
 had a great mind in a little body." 
 
 The time of his death is uncertain, though it 
 probably happened in 1015. Wood says— " In my
 
 BROWNE. 17 
 
 researches I find that one William Browne, of Ottery 
 St. Mary, Devon, died in the winter time, 1645 ; 
 whether the same with the poet I am hitherto 
 ignorant." 
 
 For family reasons, I should be glad to know for 
 certain that Browne passed his latter days at Ottery : 
 but William Browne is too common a name to build 
 upon. Of all the poets that Devon has produced, 
 Herrick alone appears to have lived in rustic memory ; 
 and no wonder, for though a poet below the mark of 
 Browne, and moreover no true lover of his vicarage, 
 he has identified his verses so completely with the 
 occupations, merry-makings, and courtships of his 
 country neighbours, and has dallied so prettily with 
 the second childhood of their superannuated super- 
 stitions, rocking them with pleasant lullabies to the 
 sleep of death, that he may almost be regarded as a 
 type of Burns. And then he was a jolly cavalier, 
 and a parson that mixed mirth with devotion, and in 
 both senses of the word kept holyday. I am, how- 
 ever, right proud that Browne " had a great mind in 
 a little body," and joyful that he got wealth, and 
 purchased an estate. Qu. : Where was his land ? 
 
 " This is all that is known of Browne, a man who obtained the 
 highest distinction in a learned and poetical age, and to whose 
 memory time has by no means done justice." 
 
 Justice indeed ! nothing like it. Even our great 
 quoters, our patrons of the illustrious obscure, the 
 admirers of Quarles, Wither, Herrick, rarely give 
 a line of him. I wish I could do him right myself. 
 
 vot, ir. c
 
 18 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS. 
 
 " This Poem is full of delightful passages. Of all our old 
 Poets he seems to me to have been the most accurate observer of 
 natural imagery. The plan is boyish, but perhaps a work of more 
 promise never appeared." — R. S. (Robert Soutliey.) 
 
 Browue is one of those poets whom few but children 
 and poets will either like or love. Few writers 
 have apparently had less fear of criticism, or seem 
 to pour forth their fancies with more heartfelt 
 delight. He describes rural objects and pursuits 
 with wonderful minuteness, and abounds in tender, 
 beautiful images, perhaps still further intenerated by 
 the playful, babe-like familiarity of his phrases. His 
 yvb)}xai too, though not very profound, are often 
 happily expressed ; and, trite as they are, derive a 
 new life from the sincerity with which they are 
 uttered. Some of his allegorical personages are 
 finely portrayed, especially Memory, which is almost 
 worthy of Spenser; but there is an incongruity 
 in his allegory, which if Spenser has not wholly 
 avoided, he has at least better disguised, Browne 
 could never have succeeded as an allegorical poet. 
 His very genius was against it. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 I DO not know whether it has been set down in the 
 liber conformitatum by those who consider Milton 
 a type and precursor of Wordsworlh, that both were
 
 MILTON. 19 
 
 sons of scriveners ; for the scrivener of former days, 
 while in name he represented the ancient ypa/xjuarei;?, 
 exercised many of the functions of a sohcitor ; and 
 that each had a brother Christopher, wlio rose as 
 much above him in public station as he fell short in 
 literary fame.* Kit Milton, however, could not 
 make a royalist or Church of Englandist of John. 
 Both passed their youth in revolutionary times, and 
 neither escaped the infection of republican feelings, 
 though I am far from asserting that Wordsworth 
 ever cast in his lot with those who plotted for change 
 in his own country. Milton, perhaps before he 
 saw how far the change was to go, certainly be- 
 fore he foresaw how it was to end, identified him- 
 self too much with the anti-prelatists, who became 
 anti-monarchists, to recede without owning himself 
 to have been in the wrong, the one great self-cruci- 
 fixion from which the Stoic shrinks. Wordsworth's 
 patriotism made him early anti-Gallican, and the 
 Gallican anti-patriotism of the Whigs, who were also 
 his severest critics, drove him to the side of Pitt's 
 successors, some time before his principles were 
 matured to that ardent veneration for time-hallowed 
 orders and institutions, which constitute him a philo- 
 sophic Church monarchist. Tt is hard to guess what 
 Milton would have been in these times. He could 
 have liad no sympathy with utilitarian libcraux or 
 societarian philanthropists. That, his pride, his 
 poetry, his lofty moral creed forbade. Then, though 
 
 * Some indulgence is generally required by an antithesis of this sort ; 
 but where there is no competition, there Is, properly speaking, no com- 
 parison. — D.C. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 there was a regicide in England, there was no reign 
 of Terror ; though there was a luiHtary dictator, 
 there was not a Jacobin despotism to wean him from 
 the hopes of his youth. To the shameless atheistic 
 profligacy of France, England presented no parallel 
 before the Restoration, and the character of Charles 
 the Second and his courtiers was not likely to remove 
 his prejudices against kings and courts. Milton, I 
 conjecture, would not in the nineteenth century have 
 been a Whig, a lladical, or moderate Reformer, a 
 Leaguer, or a Free-trader ; but I doubt whether he 
 would ever have accepted the existing hierarchy and 
 aristocracy as an adequate type of the moral and 
 religious aristocracy which he long hoped to realise, 
 and never ceased to consider as the just form of a 
 Christian commonwealth. He would have avoided 
 all collision with authorities, probably have con- 
 demned all agitation against authorities ; but he would 
 never have shed the rays of his genius on the 
 remains of feudal state and ecclesiastical splendour. 
 He would not have received an honorary degree at 
 either university. The correspondence between 
 Wordsworth and Milton must be sought in their 
 genius ; not in the scale of their genius, equal 
 though J deem it to be, nor yet in the kind of their 
 genius, for though they have much in common, each 
 has much that is peculiar; but in their lofty venera- 
 tion for their genius as an emanation [from], rather 
 than a gift of the Eternal Light ; both writing under 
 a sense of saci-ed duty, duty to God and man, with 
 a regal sense of irresponsibility t(S any number of
 
 MILTON. 21 
 
 individuals. Wordsworth alone, of all the followers of 
 Milton, had a right to appropriate his "Fit audience 
 may I find, though few." lu all others it is as 
 ridiculous as it is insincere, and far more pitiably 
 ludicrous than General Tom Thumb assuming the 
 dress and arms of Napoleon. I may elsewhere 
 pursue the parallel, but this is enough for this 
 present 9th of December, 1847, being Milton's 
 birthday, and a nasty squally night. 
 
 PARADISE LOST.— Book iv. 
 
 had not soon 
 
 The Eternal to prevent such horrid fray 
 
 Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen 
 
 Betwixt Astraea," &c. 
 
 ILIAD.— 9. VIII. 69. 
 
 Kal Tore 5?j xp^'^^^^ Traryp iriTaiVf Ta\avTa 
 *£»' 5' Indii 5uo K-i)pe ravriKeyeos Oavdroto, 
 Tpuuv 6' iTTTroSajUO)!', Kol ^AxaM" X'^^^^X'''''^'''*"'" 
 "EAke 5e iifcrrra \a0(iv, pdire 5' aUffiixov ^/J-ap 'Ax«'«<'»'. 
 Ai fiev 'Axa^c^y icrjpfs eVi x^opI TrouAu/SoTfipj; 
 'E(ea6r]V Tpdoiv 5e, irphs ovpj.vhv evpiiv iepdef, 
 
 I never could admire this hind-counter, cheese- 
 mongerly, Newmarket, cock-fighting figment, even in 
 Homer. But Homer's Jupiter has no sanctity to 
 lose. If he were not a cheesemonger, " 't were well 
 if he were so honest a man." Milton ascribes the 
 balance and the weights to the Eternal, the Father of 
 the Only Begotten, and not of Jupiter's innumerable
 
 29 NOTES ON CRITISPI POETS. 
 
 misbegotten. The image or allegory cannot, I think, 
 be defended by the sublime metaphor of Isaiah, xl. 12 : 
 " Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of 
 his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and 
 comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, 
 and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in 
 a balance?" First, because Isaiah's expression is 
 metaphorical. Milton, as well as Homer, must be 
 supposed to relate a fact, as real as any other incident 
 iu the tale of Troy divine, or diviner Eden. Se- 
 condly, because in the prophetic imagery there is an 
 obnous purpose to diminish the mightiest of created 
 things in comparison with the Creator; — in oppo- 
 sition to the heathen, whose supreme God was 
 really Ylav, — the universe, — out of, and besides 
 which, they knew no God, and whose brute forces 
 they personified under various fetishes, — brute, 
 human, or inanimate, of which tyrants and robbers, 
 dead or living, were the worst. Nor can Milton 
 derive authority from the Apocalypse, c. vi., where, 
 after the opening of the third seal, the Prophet 
 " beheld a black horse, and he that sat on him had a 
 pair of balances in his hand." Whatever the black 
 horse and his rider may typify (Mess * Brown thinks 
 the equity of Providence, and the reputed equity of 
 Severus), his scales are not put into the hand of 
 Jehovah, and can as little serve Milton's turn, as his 
 proclamation of a measure of wheat for a penny can 
 
 ' John Brown, Minister of Haddington, author of a Dictionary of the 
 Bible, a copy of which belonged to the author of these Marginalia. It 
 was much read by him, and enriched witli 5IS. annotations after his 
 usual manner. Moss is a title anciently given to Scotch clergymen, 
 jocularly applied to Mr. Brown.
 
 MILTON. 23 
 
 justify those false prophets of plenty whom I need 
 not name. For the Apocalypse is a vision, or series 
 of visions, and, though in many places highly poetical, 
 is not a poem. " Paradise Lost " is a poem, and is 
 not a vision. Still less to the purpose are the scales 
 in which Ezekiel was commanded to weigh and 
 divide his hair. Be it rememhered, that in the most 
 poetical of the Prophets (and of the prophet-poets 
 Ezekiel is the least poetical — Daniel is not a poet at 
 all), poetry is but a subordinate object. Therefore, 
 though all their types are no doubt divinely fit for 
 their sacred purpose, many of them are not fit for 
 modern poetry ; for they are not beautiful, and are 
 only sublime where they are, in the sacred writings, 
 and by right of their sacred significance. Besides, 
 the sacrificial and ceremonial usages of the ancient 
 Gentiles, no less than of the Jews, dignified and 
 sanctified many utensils and processes, on which 
 Protestant Chi-istianity at least confers neither 
 honour nor holiness. As, for instance, the sheep 
 and ox-butchcring, at which the Homeric heroes are 
 80 expert. Cowper complained of the difiiculty of 
 killing a sheep with dignity in English. When 
 there was a god Sterquilinius, an agricultural poet 
 might be allowed to sing of stercoration, or, as the 
 French authors call it, amendement. The cat, the 
 onion, and the beetle, were held sacred in Egypt. 
 The Egyptian poets (but were there any ?) might, 
 therefore, write solemn hymns to Tabby, in a different 
 vein from Gray, Southey, or even Wordsworth ; — 
 might compare the concentric orbits of the planets,
 
 24 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 or, if such had been the creed of Thebes or Mempliis, 
 the circles of the heavens, or of Tartai'us, or the 
 orders of spirits approaching in concentric orbs to the 
 central monad, to the coats of an onion ; and refer to 
 its efficacy " to ope the sacred source of sympathetic 
 tears," in illustration of the effects of a moving appeal 
 of penitence, or of beauty in distress. He might make 
 many mystic allusions to the supposed spontaneous 
 generation of the Scarabteus, or compare it, in respect 
 of its coleopterous armour and cyanean breast-plate, 
 to " a mailed angel on a battle-day," not as a sport 
 of fancy, but with religious seriousness. But it 
 would not be discreet in a Protestant poet of the 
 19th or even of the 17th century to introduce any of 
 these Egyptian archaisms into a serious, far less a 
 religious, poem. The power of rehgious associations 
 to exalt even the most repulsive objects is forcibly 
 exemplified by the Cross. One of the most diabolical 
 instruments of human cruelty is become the orna- 
 ment of diadems, rests glittering on the heaving 
 bosom, once adorned the knightly shield, and is still 
 coveted as a knightly order by some who, perhaps, 
 set little by it in any other point of view. But 
 associations, short of religious, have in their degree 
 a dignifying and beautifying influence : witness the 
 griffins and vfjverns, the orles and tressures, the 
 chevrons and gyrons of heraldry, that shine almost 
 as brilliant in the pages of old romance as in the 
 jewel-tinctured window of baronial hall or abbey church. 
 Gules and azure were not only red and blue to the 
 men of the shield and the lance, nor ire the chequers
 
 MILTON. 25 
 
 only a draughts-board or an ale-house sign to those 
 whose ancestors bore them to Cressy or Ascalon. 
 The numerous allusions to falconry in Shakspeare 
 are not so much to be attributed to his fondness for 
 a sport which his youthful fortunes hardly permitted 
 him to pursue, as to its aristocratic character. He 
 wrote when nobles and high-born dames were painted 
 with hawks on their hands, and an emperor would 
 not have deemed it beneath his ambition to imitate 
 the chivalric and imperial poet, Frederick II. of 
 Hohenstauffen, who wrote a book " De arte venandi 
 cum avibus." Nor had a noble abbess, Juliana Ber- 
 ners, more recently, thought the subject unbecoming 
 either her sex or her vows, though tlie clergy had been 
 vainly prohibit^ed hawking by the Councils of Adda, 
 Essaon, and Ma^on. In reading Pindar, it is neces- 
 sary to bear in mind that the victors at the sacred 
 games of Greece were not, in Greek estimation, like 
 the fancij of the palmy days of the ring, or the riders 
 against time, who ought to have their whips woni to 
 threads over their own shoulders, and their spurs 
 applied in such a manner as to prevent their riding 
 for one while. A jJoet should present such images, 
 such acts, such characters, and such costumes as 
 are either essentially grand, beautiful, excellent, 
 or at least pleasing in themselves (which is best), 
 or such as are dignified by the nobler associations 
 of his own age, — recollecting that though he may 
 write for future times, and may be valuable to 
 posterity by recording the peculiarities of his own 
 era, he cannot write for the past, or reinvest
 
 26 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 with adventitious splendour the mean and unlovely 
 accidents of outworn antiquity. The Grecian deities 
 need not be exiled from modem poetry. They 
 should not be employed, as Camoens and Voltaire 
 have employed them, as machinery in a Christian 
 story, or in any story, even Greek or Koman, that 
 belongs to accredited history. But for imagery, 
 simile, or allusion they are still good ; for their 
 forms are beautiful or terrible. But nothing can be 
 made of the ugly monsters of Syrian, Egyptian, and 
 Hindoo idolatry. Venus may still be the power of 
 beauty and desire, — Apollo the everlasting life of 
 light and music ; but Apis can be nothing but a bull- 
 calf, — and a leek can hardly be poetical even to a 
 Welshman. Southey has, indeed, made a splendid 
 poem founded on the Hindoo mythology ; but then 
 he is a most heterodox Brahmin, and has ingeniously 
 disguised the complicated monstrosities of the Hindoo 
 sculptured metaphors. Milton, whose taste rarely 
 misled him, when his classic prejudices did not per- 
 vert his judgment, knew better than to depict Satan 
 with horns and tail (though that would have been 
 accordant to the popular belief of his contemporaries), 
 or to make Beelzebub the lord of flies, or to give 
 Moloch a bull's head, though such is supposed to have 
 been the figure of his infanticide idol. To the Egyptian 
 beast-gods lie but just alludes. That Milton was 
 much the better for his classic lore it would be absurd 
 to deny. Neither Milton nor Ben Jonson had too much 
 learning, nor had Shakspeare or Burns too little. 
 Each had the portion and the kincJ of learning best
 
 MILTON. 27 
 
 appoiuted to feed and clothe their genius, — though 
 Burns certainly read too much twaddling, sentimental 
 trash, the ill effects whereof are visible both in his 
 latter works, letters particularly, and in his life. 
 Milton's Greek allusions are sometimes exquisitely 
 beautiful, especially in his earlier poems, Latin and 
 English. But I cannot help thinking that his direct 
 imitations of the ancients, and his comparison of 
 sacred persons to gods and demi-gods of Homeric 
 and Ovidian fame, are sorely out of place in his two 
 great poems. They are, to use an e.xcellent Greek 
 word, aroTTa. S. T. C. himself wished that the com- 
 parison of Satan baffled by our Saviour, to Antfeus 
 squeezed to death by Hercules, when he could not 
 touch the ground, were omitted. Spenser had a right 
 to mingle all creeds, all mythologies, all fancies of 
 all ages and countries. It is as if the wealth of the 
 sea, of all the ships that have sunk since Deucalion, 
 were shown by magic through a crjstal ocean. The 
 variety interferes not with such dream-like credence 
 as the "Faery Queen" demands. It is no more 
 offensive than the anachronism which brings King 
 Arthur, and St. George, and Queen Elizabeth, and 
 Lord Grey together, now on the banks of Styx, and 
 now by Mulla's stream. But the characters and in- 
 cidents of "Paradise Lost" are too real, too awful, 
 and the mode of treatment too matter-of-fact, and, 
 tant pis, too doctrinal, to tolerate such eclectic heresies. 
 I may add, too, that the spirit and moral of the poem 
 are too Hebraic to admit of any allusion to fables, 
 wliich a zealous Hebrew would have deemed it
 
 "28 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 unlawful to know. The " Faerj Queen" makes a 
 winning appeal to the natui-al good of human nature 
 through the imagination. "Paradise Lost" makes 
 an imperative demand on the faith by which we live. 
 Yet, for weightier reasons than these patches of poetic 
 heathenism, too like the Grecian emblems on Chris- 
 tian monuments, I would warn all young enthusiasts 
 to beware of taking their faith from Milton, or com- 
 mitting the worse error of rejecting the meanings of 
 Scripture, on the supposition that Milton and the 
 Bible are one. 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 It is a comfort that Dryden occupies more than 
 half this volume, though not more than half of him 
 is really valuable. No writer since Pindar has been 
 tasked with such unworthy drudgery. I should have 
 been inclined to throw overboard much of his com- 
 pliment, not a word of his satire, and fill up the 
 space with poetical passages from his plays. It is 
 agreeable to see how Rochester in his soberer moments 
 could write, and to compare the characters given of 
 Dorset and Montague with their real merits. But 
 how came Stepney, and Sprat, and Iving, and Duke, 
 and id genus omne, to hold a permanent place among 
 poets ? Popular they never were, though as courtiers 
 and lampooners they might be in* some measure
 
 DRTDEN. 29 
 
 fashionable. W. W.'s explanation is not satisfactory. 
 If mere amount of contemporary sale ■were the cri- 
 terion, many forgotten writers, not included in any 
 collection, far exceeded them. That they were 
 inserted in the volumes of Anderson and Chalmers 
 was owing to their previous appearance in the list of 
 Dr. Johnson. But this was published a full centur}' 
 after most of them were departed, and when the 
 personal interest of their rank, and the occasional 
 interest of their subject, must have passed away. If, 
 therefore, they continued to be read by the public, it 
 should be prima facie evidence that they possessed 
 some hold on public estimation. But not so. They 
 held their place by prescription, the true conserva- 
 tive principle of right. Their own station in society 
 or their eminence as scholars, their academical 
 honours, and the favour of literary leaders obtained 
 notice for their productions, which were strictly con- 
 formable to the then predominant criticism. Dryden, 
 Prior, Addison, and Pope paid court to them while 
 living, and sometimes flattered them when dead. 
 They became, in verity, " The classics of an age that 
 heard of none." They constructed their couplets 
 upon the model of Dryden, and in their stanzas 
 imitated Waller, as an Eton boy follows Virgil in 
 longs, Tibullus in longs and shorts, and Horace in 
 lyrics ; — therefore they were classical. It was good 
 taste to praise them : not to admire them, or to 
 admire them less than Spenser or Milton, was to 
 he a Zoilus and a Midas. They, therefore, were 
 placed in the first collections : they were called poets
 
 30 NOTES ON BBITISH POETS. 
 
 by Shell, and it would have been revolutionary to 
 turn them out. For many years the study of our 
 true classics was not only neglected, but absolutely 
 interdicted to all who aimed at the reputation of 
 politeness and good sense. To have admired them 
 as anything but barbarian prodigies would have been 
 heretical, and, what is ten times worse, it would have 
 been odd. It would, I doubt not, have made a prudent 
 father or tutor shake his head most ominously had a 
 young man ventured to prefer Milton to Dry den, and 
 a strait waistcoat would have been provided for the 
 advocate of Quarles or Wither. I have been seriously 
 lectured by grave persons for my own admiration of 
 Wordsworth. A self-elected corporation of aristarchs 
 (an hereditary aristocracy could not have been so bad) 
 had decided that the legitimate succession of poets 
 began with Waller. It is true there were always a 
 few bold assertors of ancient ]il)erty, but they were 
 too few and too wrong-headed to bear up against 
 prescription. Men thought it presumptuous to doubt 
 the wisdom of their ancestors, and were too indolent 
 to examine whether their ancestors' ancestors might 
 not have been yet wiser. We should judge better and 
 dispute less if every one of us thought for himself. 
 
 Milton has been censured for saying that Dryden 
 was a good rhymer, but no poet. Now, not to 
 go into the question whether he ever said so at all, 
 wc may just consider at what time of Dryden's 
 career Milton could have said this. Milton died in 
 1674, before Dryden published his Absalom and 
 Achitophel, lleligio Laici, Medal, ffind and Panther,
 
 DRTDEN. 31 
 
 or Fables. Apart from his tragedies, the best of 
 which were not then written, what would Dryden be 
 without these works ? It seems his heroic stanzas 
 first brought him into notice. Sui'ely, for a man of 
 seven and twenty these verses afford as little promise 
 as need be. Dryden's mind, like Swift's, was of slow 
 growth ; but, unlike the poor Dean, he continued to 
 grow in power as long as he lived ; — nay, we may almost 
 fancy that his mind was intended for an antediluvian 
 body, and that the septuagenarian poet died pre- 
 maturely, just when his genius was attaining puberty, 
 so little of age, or even ripeness, appears in his latest 
 productions. He never settled down or cleared. 
 There is a yesty fermentation in everything he put 
 forth. Under his grey hairs he continued intellectually 
 a waxing giant, — a hobble-de-hoy Orion, with all the 
 fervour and restless strength, and somewhat of the 
 rawness and acidity of the teens. The improvement of 
 his later years must be ascribed less to practice in com- 
 position than to his enlarged knowledge of mankind. 
 He was a great observer of the town and of the times. 
 He had a leamed spirit in human dealing ; but he 
 never reaped the harvest of a quiet eye, — never looked 
 inward. He seems to have had no passion but anger : 
 his love, his lust, his admiration were alike factitious, 
 but his scorn and indignation were perfectly sincere. 
 For all else, he viewed things and persons under 
 intellectual, not moral, relations ; and perhaps the 
 rant and obscenity of his dramas might, in some 
 measure, arise from his incapability of realising and 
 impersonating his conceptions. To make them any-
 
 32 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 thing tangible, lie was obliged to exhibit them under 
 strong physical impulses. 
 
 '•' The same year he wrote a copy of verses prefixed to the 
 'Poems of John Huddeson,' London, 12mo, 1650, imder 
 this title — /. Dryden, of Trinity College, to his friend the Author 
 vpon his Divine Epigrams." 
 
 I should like to see these epigrams. The un- 
 accountable gambols of intellect in the divine poetry 
 of that day, are among those phenomena at which, 
 according to one's humour, one may laugh heartily, 
 or think profoundly. 
 
 " The next year (1674), he published ' The State of Inno- 
 cence, or the Fall of Man,' an opera, or rather a tragedy, in 
 heroic rhyme, founded on ' Paradise Lost.' " 
 
 It is reported, I know not on what authority, 
 that he asked Milton's permission to commit this 
 sacrilege, and that Milton answered, " Yes, he 
 may tag my lines." Dates make the tale improbable. 
 I hope Milton never heard Dryden's abomination. 
 Who, indeed, could have had the face to read it 
 to him? 
 
 A second part of " Absalom and Achitophel " was 
 written by Tate. It had, perhaps, been to the 
 honour of the English nation if poor Nahum, good- 
 natured, fuddling companion as he was, had only 
 been remembered in the list of laureates. His lolly-
 
 DRYDEN. 33 
 
 pop adulteration of King Lear, and his, I hope, 
 unintentional travesty of the Psalms, are more dis- 
 creditable to the English stage and Church than to 
 the poor scribbler himself. Yet his Brutus of Alba 
 has a tang of the older tones of tragedy, and some 
 of his translations have a good vein of English. 
 Still, for the sake of Psalmody, I wish Nahum were 
 even with Elkanah. What a rascally Whig trick of 
 Rowe (worthy to be Nathaniel) to take the Laureate's 
 paltiy hundred and butt of sack from poor Tate in his 
 old age, thus forcing him to die broken-hearted in the 
 Mint. For misgovemment, political blindness, igno- 
 rance of the public rights, and duties of rulers and 
 subjects, and of the true Christian foundation of 
 liberty and authority. Whig and Tory need not re- 
 prove each other. Picllections on the rear-ward 
 nigritude of the kettle proceed with an ill grace from 
 its sable companions of the scullery. Perhaps the 
 Pittite Tories have been more lavish, using the 
 public purse as their peculiar, and taking credit for 
 their generous expenditure of what is not their own. 
 But for personal baseness, huckstering, shuffling, 
 penny-wisdom, selfishness, and hard-heartedness, the 
 Whigs are above all competition. 
 
 DRYDEN'S SONS. 
 
 The " Quarterly Review " carelessly instances the 
 
 sons of Dryden, as almost the only poetical sons of 
 
 poets. Has he forgotten Bernardo and Torquato 
 
 Tasso ? It is, however, pretty remarkable that no 
 
 VOL. U. D
 
 34 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 English poet has made a family. It is said, indeed, 
 that there are descendants of Spenser in existence. 
 Genius is certainly not hereditary, though a certain 
 degree of talent sometimes descends, — oftener in the 
 female than the male. Scribbling is very infectious, 
 and authors have a habit of warning their sons against 
 the trade, which is most wise. 
 
 " One of his opinions, though prevalent in his time, will do him 
 no honor in the present age. He put great coufidcncc in the 
 prognostications of judicial astrology." 
 
 Dryden's belief in judicial astrology throws a light 
 upon his character which helps to explain some of 
 the most censured parts of it. It shows him, with 
 much mental scepticism, to have been morally cre- 
 dulous, and anxious for assurance of the future more 
 than reason gives, a temper which might have made 
 a more inward-seeking man a visionary, and perhaps 
 did make him a Catholic. 
 
 " The letter to liis sons in Italj' contains an indubitable 
 
 proof of his religious sincerity." 
 
 I have always thought that the insincerity of 
 Dryden's conversion has been far too lightly and 
 uncharitably taken for granted. The arguments of 
 the Romanists are not easily answered : me judice, 
 they are, upon high Church-of-England principles, 
 unanswerable. Why may not a man's convictions 
 chance to coincide with those of his sovereign and 
 benefactor? A true, loyal, Church-and-King man 
 ought to be of the King's religion, seriously : men are 
 
 i
 
 DRYDEN. 35 
 
 sometimes charged •with apostacy at the moment that 
 they first become honest. I have little doubt that Burke 
 had been an aristocratic Tory in his heart, ever since 
 his judgment was good for anything. Circumstances 
 and connections threw him into the ranks of the 
 opposition, and he gave up to party what was meant 
 for mankind, till the French Revolution roused and 
 frightened him into truth, and he threw off the mask 
 of Whiggism, as Junius Brutus discarded his disguise 
 of idiocy. In like manner, I hold it probable that 
 Dryden had been long inclined to the unreformed 
 Church, and only took courage to dec^lare himself 
 when the prospects of his sect smiled treacherous 
 hope. This hypothesis does not indeed make him 
 quite honest ; but it supposes him as honest as nine- 
 tenths of us would be under similar circumstances. 
 Perhaps he was more assured of the goodness than 
 of the truth of Christianity in any form, and deemed 
 the Romanist the most effective as it is certainly the 
 most popular, and the least affected by secular change, 
 the most permeating and independent, and in all 
 human probability the most permanent, as having an 
 establishment unconnected with civil states. At the 
 same time, I cannot think his letter to his son is an 
 indubitable proof of his sincerity. No man with a grain 
 of sense could endure that his son should think him 
 a hypocrite, and most men would have their children 
 to be Christians. Whatever Dryden thought of the 
 popish doctrines, he certainly did not think that they 
 endangered salvation. At worst, he held the Church 
 of Rome as good as any. 
 
 d2
 
 36 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 " His prefaces have not, as Dr. Johnson observes, the formality 
 of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays 
 the other." 
 
 Odd enough that Johnson should have pointed out 
 the very fault of his own style. I think Drydeu, 
 next to Paley, the best writer of pedestrian prose, 
 the most difficult style in the world. 
 
 " Dr. Bcattie's comparison of the versification of Dryden and 
 Pope merits particular attention." 
 
 So far as the decision of the world can be con- 
 sidered as final, the Dryden and Pope cause may be 
 said to have received a definitive sentence. Pope is 
 read twenty times as much as Dryden, whose original 
 works, indeed, if we except " Alexander's Feast," 
 are hardly read at all out of the literaiy class. The 
 decision, I think, is just. Pope is a better poet than 
 Dryden, though I hold Dryden by far the better 
 versifier, and out and out the stronger intellect. 
 But his miud was essentially vulgar. He was 
 neither (f)t\dyados, nor (^tAo'KoAos, nor </)tAaAr;^?/s 
 (a lover of goodness, beauty, or truth). He never 
 seems to dwell fondly on a thought, an image, a 
 character, or even a sound, and his apparent zeal 
 for moral, political, critical, or religious positions, is 
 but the artificial heat of a barrister, who can talk 
 himself into a real passion on any cause whatever. 
 His delight is the consciousness and exercise of 
 intellectual power. His energy seemed compounded 
 of the mercenary valour of a Swiss, and an Irish- 
 man's disinterested love of fighting.
 
 DEYDEN. St 
 
 Dr. Johnson has spoken admirably of Dryclen's 
 distinguishing qualities and faculties, but when he 
 comes to assign him his rank among poets, he 
 betrays not so much a partiality for Dryden, as an 
 utter ignorance of the greatness, an insensibility to 
 the sweetness, a blindness to the grace and beauty 
 of Dryden's predecessors. Perhaps the lateritiam 
 invenit refers only to the current literature, and par- 
 ticularly the couplet writings at the era of Dryden's 
 debut, but even then the assertion vnll be over- 
 strained. Much more truly might it be said, auream 
 invenit, lateritiam reliquit, — he found it gold, and left 
 it pinchbeck; for though this could not be said of 
 his own writings, it is satirically true of general 
 literature influenced by his predominance. No con- 
 stellation in any horoscope he ever cast had a more 
 malign aspect. Had our poetry at the Restoration 
 been what the French was in the age of Richelieu, — 
 had we possessed no greater poets than Ronsard, 
 Bellay, or Gamier, English literature would have 
 been just as cold and passionless as French serious 
 verse became under the tyranny of Louis XIV., 
 while we should not have acquired the light counter- 
 poise of French elegance and vivid superficiality. 
 We should have been bad second-hand Frenchmen. 
 But, heaven be praised, we had Chaucer, Spenser, 
 Shal^speare, and Milton, to say nothing of Ben 
 Jonson, Donne, Fletcher, Cowley, and a hundred 
 others, who could not be shoved aside by any change 
 of fashion or taste. Our national genius had attained 
 that healthy, youthful manhood, which can bear 
 
 f* 7 •■> '■; 7
 
 38 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 shocks and indulgences fatal at an earlier, or much 
 later period. At Dryden's death was there one 
 living poet ? Hardly one, for Pope was a mere boy. 
 Addison and Congreve were decidedly no poets, 
 whatever their merit as coryphaei, each after their 
 kind, of two species of comedy. I know not whether 
 Tickle had appeared. Prior was the best living 
 writer of verse, and even his claims to the title of 
 poet are very disputable. Dryden was a writer quite 
 in Dr. Johnson's way. His harmony was within the 
 compass of the Doctor's ear; his strong sense and 
 vigorous wit were Johnsonic : his remarks gave John- 
 son new knowledge, or confirmed his own, and there 
 is no call for aught he had not. 
 
 HEROIC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF OLIVER 
 CROMAVELL. 
 
 " And now 'tis time; for tlieir ofTicious haste, 
 
 Who would before have borne him to the sky. 
 Like eager Romans, as all rites were past, 
 Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly," &c. 
 
 These stanzas must have been written very soon 
 after Cromwell's death, and probably during the brief 
 protectorate of Pilchard ; else the lines — 
 
 " No civil broils have since his deatli arose," &c. 
 
 would be too impudently mendacious even for Dryden. 
 The lines certainly are not such as any driveller 
 could have slavered, but they do not indicate genius ; 
 and the style in which they are composed is easier 
 than it seems. Davenant appears to be the inventor 
 of our so-called elegiac stanza, which I agree with
 
 DRYDEN. 39 
 
 Dryden in thinkiug capable of high majesty. Perhaps 
 no English measure admits of so much real conden- 
 sation. But still I cannot think it well adapted 
 for narrative ; and the licence lately revived, of 
 inosculating the stanzas, should be used sparingly, 
 and never -without a full close, and perceptible pause. 
 I never heard of a whale cast ashore just before 
 Nol's death. Stanza xxxv. 
 
 ASTR^A REDUX. 
 
 A POEM ON THB HAPPY RESTORATION AND EETUEN OF HIS SACEED MAJESTY 
 CHARLES II. 1660. 
 
 '* Now with a general peace the world was blest," &c. 
 
 The times in which a young poet could change 
 tune so completely in two years, must have had a dull 
 moral sense ; but we should not too hastily conclude 
 that the men were worse than ourselves. In all 
 compliments we ought to consider what the coin really 
 goes for, not its image and superscription. Loyalty 
 and gallantry are not, like patriotism, true love and 
 religion, to be construed literally. Where there is 
 no deception meant or made, there can be no dis- 
 honesty, whatever words or signs are used. Still such 
 court language is vioU exempli. It is an evil fashion, 
 and I am heartily glad that it is no longer tolerated. 
 
 There is in this piece a sad waste of memorable 
 lines It is a hoard of quotation, the better because 
 the best thoughts are rather injured by the connexion 
 in which they are set. Dryden prudently refrains 
 from any direct reflections on Cromwell.
 
 40 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY. 
 
 A PANEOYEIC ON HIS CORONATION. 
 
 The best that can be said of this panegyric is, 
 that it is worthy of the occasion, and that it contains 
 one admirable couplet — 
 
 " No promise can oblige a prince so much 
 Still to be good, as Umgto bave been such;" 
 
 and a great many ingenious advances towards the 
 abyss of unidead vacancy. 
 
 The prophecy about "souls of kings unborn,"* 
 was by no means so lucky in its fulfilment as it is 
 curious in its theory of generation. A coronation was 
 not then so very unmeaning a show as it is now. The 
 language of symbols still retained some significance, 
 and many yet attributed a real effect to ceremonials. 
 Charles had not then forfeited the good opinion of the 
 nation. Might not a happier marriage, and legiti- 
 mate issue, have made him a better man ? He had 
 good sense, and good dispositions enough to have 
 mended a worse heart. But Clarendon managed 
 him badly, advised him ill, complied when he ought 
 to have resisted, and was an intolerant high-church- 
 man. He would hardly have stood so high among 
 statesmen even in royalist estimation, had he not 
 been the historian of royalism, and succeeded by 
 ministers whom bigotry itself is ashamed to praise. 
 
 * " A queen near whose chaste womb ordain'd by fate 
 The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait."
 
 DRTDEN. 41 
 
 TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE. 
 
 " While flattering crowds officiously appear," &c. 
 
 This is a wonderful concatenation of thoughts. 
 Dryden borrows all his illustrations from books, some- 
 times from history, oftener from mythology, and often 
 from the natural or metaphysical philosophy of the 
 time ; — hardly ever from visible nature. Not seldom 
 his allusions to history are such as we must look long 
 and narrowly to understand ; as, for instance, in the 
 " Astrsea Redux," Galba's adoption of Piso is by no 
 means so well-known an event as to furnish a happy 
 poetical example. Attention is suspended by the 
 effort of memory. Shakspeare has some allusions 
 of the same kind, as that to the Pontic Sea, in 
 " Othello ;" and to the owl being a baker's daughter, 
 in " Hamlet ; " but they are diversified with so many 
 others so natural and graphic, that perhaps they are 
 not very disagreeable. I like Dryden the better for 
 following the bent of his own mind. Any sort of 
 illustrations, however recherches or pedantic, are 
 better than stale common-place naturalitics, which 
 show no acquaintance with actual nature. 
 
 How false proved the prediction that fortune could 
 do no further injury to Clarendon,* whom I knew 
 not ever to have been a poet. |- 
 
 * " You have already wearied Fortune so, 
 
 She cannot further hv your friend or foe," &c. 
 
 t " The Muses, who your early courtship boast," &c.
 
 4U NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 SATIRE ON THE DUTCH, 1662. 
 " As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands," &c. 
 
 Capital ! Pity that it cannot be quoted before 
 ladies. There seems to have been an outcry for a 
 Dutch war, as strong as for a Spanish war in Wal- 
 pole's times, with perhaps less justice, with no better 
 polic)', and with as unprofitable an issue. Poets are 
 less disgracefully employed when they flatter kings, 
 or king's mistresses or minions, than when they join 
 in a mobbish halloo for blood and plunder. Yet 
 Dryden and Marvel (who had less excuse, inasmuch 
 as his religion and politics were Dutch enough) set 
 their wits to inflame the passions, by exciting the con- 
 tempt of the multitude in a cause not national. Com- 
 mercial wars have the guilt without the glory of 
 ambitious wars. On a mere calculation of profit and 
 loss no trade can be worth fighting for. Thomson, 
 Glover, Lyttelton, even Pope, clubbed their wit and 
 indignation (poor Thomson, indeed, only his dulness) 
 to force Sir Piobert into a contest with Spain against 
 his better judgment. Poets are vile politicians — that's 
 the truth of it. Drydcn's brains never desert him. 
 Perhaps he was never sincere enough to feel his 
 powers oppressed by the feeling of insincerity. His 
 talent never resented the base uses it was made to 
 serve. It was as sharp as trusty, and as unscrupulous 
 as a bravo 's dagger, that never turns its point where- 
 ever its master may direct it.
 
 DRYDEN. 43 
 
 TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS OF YORK. 
 " When for our sakes your hero you resign'd," &c. 
 
 Dryden had hardly softness of soul to be an adroit 
 flatterer of a lady. Waller far outdid him in this 
 line. John can hardly help laughing outright when 
 he talks of " ten thousand Cupids strong." 
 
 ANNUS MIRABILIS, 1666. 
 
 Claudian among the ancients, and Dryden among 
 the moderns, are the only tolerable poets laureate, — 
 the only writers who have given a poetic coloui'ing to 
 contemporary events, without unjustifiably violating 
 the truth of histoiy. The sea-fight in this history is a 
 master-piece of description; yet the fight is forgotten. 
 Poets exaggerate their powers of conferring immor- 
 tality on historical characters, or perhaps their praise 
 is so lavish that it has lost its value. 
 
 AN ESSAY UPON SATIRE. 
 
 BT MR. DRYDEN AND TUE EARL OF MULGRAVE. 
 
 The hand of Dryden is but too evident in this 
 lampoon ; the more the pity. The Duchess of 
 Portsmouth was not much to blame for getting him 
 cudgelled. A cudgel is the fit reward for a lampooner 
 who could insult a woman, albeit a courtezan and a spy. 
 But was thei'e no curb on the press in those days ? 
 If I am not mistaken I have seen a bishop's imprimatur 
 on some very harmless books, grammars, &c. Or
 
 44 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 was Charles, with all his absolutism, too sluggish to 
 protect himself and his mistresses from blackguards? 
 Perhaps his sacred majesty might have remembered 
 this [lampoon] when he sent out Mulgrave in a leaky 
 vessel. It is just as likely as the story of his court- 
 ship of Anne. 
 
 ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 
 
 " In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin," &c. 
 
 This terrible satire first appeared Nov. 17, 1G81, 
 while Shaftesbury was in the Tower on a charge of 
 high treason. Such an attack upon a man in such a 
 predicament would now be considered not only cruel, 
 but in effect illegal, or contrary to the spirit of the 
 law ; but it had no effect on the grand jury who cast 
 out the Bill. The medal which provoked Dryden's 
 anger was struck on this occasion. 
 
 TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK. 
 
 " When fashion's rage to cruel exile drove," &c. 
 
 Dryden had surely a very low opinion of female 
 intellect. Whenever he addresses a lady he writes 
 not that sort of Johnsonian nonsense which sounds 
 as if it meant an infinity, not the nonsense in which 
 Cowley and himself indulge, wherein thought " over- 
 leaps itself; " but pure, unadulterate, virgin nonsense, 
 honest unpretending nonentity, mere gilt gingerbread. 
 Pope, with more of malice against the sex, certainly 
 at the bottom respected them more. He could talk 
 to a woman as a rational creature. *
 
 DRYDEN. 45 
 
 A LETTER TO SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE. 
 
 " To you who live in dull degree," &c. 
 
 Our ancestors seem to have had strange notions of 
 the dulness and bibulosity of the Germans. Ches- 
 terfield professed not to know wliether there were 
 any books wortli reading in the German language ; 
 but certainly German literature was at a low ebb 
 in his time. I doubt if the Almains were greater 
 soakers than other Teutons, Perhaps hard drinking 
 continued obligatory in the petty German courts 
 longer than in others.* 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHERN, 
 
 ON HIS COMEDY CALLED TUE " WIFE'S EXCUSE." 
 
 "Sure there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain," &c. 
 
 It appears from hence that Southern, like Ben 
 Jonson, Dryden himself, and even Shakspeare, (if 
 Pericles were his,) failed in his first attempt on the 
 stage. The English, from the first rudiments of 
 their drama, had a passion for foreign actors, singers, 
 and other exhibitors. As early as the time of 
 Richard the Third there were Austrian and Ba- 
 varian minstrels in England ; Spanish and Italian 
 names continually occur in tho lists of the king's 
 musicians. There were Italian players in Eliza- 
 beth's time, from whom the hint of extemporal 
 plays and characters of pantaloon, &c., are supposed 
 
 » "Then Khenioh rummers went the round, 
 In bumpers every king is crown'd," &c.
 
 46 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 to have been taken. French players were patronised 
 by Charles I. and his queen. A wild Indian, a 
 Laplander, or a Muscovite,* was always a profitable 
 show. We had lately the Russian horn-band, the 
 Tyrolese family, &c. &c. 
 
 DRYDEN'S SONGS. 
 
 The fineness of Dryden's ear, and the coarseness 
 of his mind, are very conspicuous in tliese songs. 
 They deserve to be studied by all who would write 
 for music. Earely has he admitted a word which 
 could perplex the composer or the singer. 
 
 TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 " Once I beheld the fairest of her kind," &c. 
 
 This is really an excellent epistle, manly com- 
 mendation founded on just criticism, expressed in 
 language equally fit for verse or prose. Whether 
 Kneller had either genius or inclination to rival 
 Rafifaelle and Titian in historical painting is another 
 question. I suspect he was better employed in illus- 
 trating the real history of England by conveying to us 
 the features of poets and of statesmen, than he could 
 have been by attempting to body forth what he had 
 not seen. Dryden's pi'aises were ample payment for 
 
 • " But let a monster Muscovite appear, 
 
 lie draws a crowded audience all the year."
 
 DRYDEN. 47 
 
 his picture.* It is an interesting fact that Kneller 
 presented Dryden with Shakspeare's portrait. 
 
 ELEONORA. 
 
 Prefauct. — " They who despise the rules of virtue, both in their 
 practice and their morals, will think this a trivial commendation." 
 
 The word morals is here used correctly. There 
 are few viler abuses of words than that which makes 
 morality to mean a good life. A bad action is indeed 
 immoral, as it is in the Bible sense unlawful; but 
 neither law nor morals are righteousness. 
 
 " Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet 
 of our nation," &c. 
 
 I cannot think that Donne as a wit was at all to 
 be compared to Butler, who exerted the most extra- 
 ordinary power of volition over the greatest store and 
 variety of thoughts and allusions of any writer, 
 Rabelais perhaps excepted, that I ever read. But 
 Donne was an impassioned poet — Butler only a 
 profound wit. 
 
 Few of Dryden's panegjTical addresses are so 
 pleasing as this. It is a master-piece of style: there 
 is little in it (barring a few querulous expressions) 
 which one is not glad to believe. All the praise it 
 
 * " His picture by Kneller," obsei-ves Dr. Anderson, in the Life of 
 Dryden, " would load us to suppose that he was gracoful in his person ; 
 but Kneller was a f,'roat mender of nature." On this, II. C. remarks, 
 " Kneller has hit Dryden"s miud, if not his features."
 
 48 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 contains might be true, and so little is remembered 
 of the parties whom it concerns that few can prove 
 it to be false. But neither poets, nor sculptors, nor 
 painters can erect lasting monuments to any but 
 themselves. The exactest copy of the fairest face, 
 or loveliest soul, becomes in a few years a mere ideal, 
 only commendable as it expresses universal beauty 
 or absolute goodness. It is the decree of Heaven 
 that intellect alone shall combat oblivion. Beauty, 
 ever fleeting and perpetually renewed, does its work — 
 then drops, like the petals of the blossoms, when the 
 fruit is set. Valour and power may achieve a place 
 in history, but where are they when their possessors 
 are gone ? Their effects may remain, but they live 
 not in them any more than the fire in the work of 
 the potter. Piety has a real, substantial immortality 
 in heaven : its life is laid up with God ; but on earth 
 its record is but a tale. But intellect really exists 
 in its products. Its Icingdom is here. The beauty 
 of the picture is an abiding concrete of the painter's 
 art. The Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, are not 
 mere matters of history. The genius of Shakspeare 
 does not rest on testimony. It is, and will be while 
 the earth endures. The body of Newton is in the 
 grave — his soul, 1 trust, with its Father ; Imt his 
 mind is with us still. Hence may we perceive the 
 superiority of intellect to all other gifts of earth ; its 
 low subordination beneath the grace which is of 
 heaven.* 
 
 * See introduction to the works of Massinger and Ford, page xxii. This 
 is one of the very few instances in whicli any of the author's marginalia 
 have been worked up into a subsequent composition.
 
 DKTDEN. 49 
 
 " Scarcely she knew tliat she was great or fair, 
 Or wise beyond what other women are; 
 Or, which is better, knew, but never durst compare. 
 For to be conscious of what all admire 
 And not be vain, advances virtue higher." 
 
 Most excellent; the true character of Christian 
 humility, -which never can consist in error or igno- 
 rance. To know whatever of good the Allgiver has 
 bestowed upon us, is fit ; but the knowledge should 
 never lead us to invidious comparisons with others, 
 the inventory of whose inward wealth we cannot read. 
 Whatever we have — be it in mind, body, estate, or 
 soul — is given us ; our virtues are no more our own 
 making than our faces or abilities. They are but 
 talents, arguments of thankfulness and of duty, not 
 of pride ; — snares and stumbling-blocks, when they 
 make us look down upon our neighbours : but it is 
 gross falsehood to deny even to ourselves that we 
 possess them ; and a great absurdity to attempt to 
 persuade children that they are uglier, or stupider 
 than they really are. The deception is sure to be 
 found out, and the discovery produces much more 
 vanity than it was intended to prevent. Vanity can 
 only be subdued (for it always exists) by fixing the 
 attention on high and serious objects — by inducing 
 efforts in which all must find their weakness and 
 imperfection. He who aims at little things will be 
 vain, if he succeed ; splenetic and envious if he be 
 outdone. 
 
 A truly noble poem, perfect iu versilication, almost 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 faultless in diction, admirable in sentiment ; only 
 objectionable in some too bold allusions to sacred 
 things. It shows that Dryden perfectly knew what 
 Christian virtue is in the idea ; to what it may aj)- 
 proximate in practice. Though he often wrote non- 
 sense to women, he could write excellent sense of 
 them. The allusion to himself is manly and elo- 
 quent.* 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF AMYNTAS. 
 
 A PASTORAL ELEGY. 
 
 A sad relapse. Pastoral elegies (good Pan forliid 
 that there should be any on the Ettrick Shepherd), 
 by the sweet and tender fancies of Spenser and 
 young Milton have been piped so sweetly, that I 
 cannot find in my heart to abuse them ; but the anti- 
 feminine intellect of DrydSn was more unfit for such 
 dainty workmanship than Hercules to spin gossamer. 
 When he deserts the track of hard, knotty thought, 
 and witty ratiocination, he becomes silly without 
 being playful or impassioned. He had so little of 
 the woman in him that he could resemble nothing 
 She, or else I should say that his attempts at 
 tenderness reminded me of a pohtico-economical blue 
 fondling a poodle. 
 
 ' I^et this suffice : nor thou, great saint, refuse 
 This humble tribute of no vulgar muse ; 
 Who not by cares, or wants, or age deprest, 
 Stems a wild deluge with a dauntless breast," &c. 
 
 » 

 
 DRTDEN. 51 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST BOOK OF OVID'S 
 METAMORPHOSES. 
 
 " Yet I must say this in reference to Homer, that he is more 
 capable of exciting the manly passions than those of grief and 
 pity." 
 
 Wrong, wrong, twice over. Grief and pity may not 
 be what one should call He, or Cock and Bull passions. 
 One would not paint them with a beard ; but they 
 are truly manly, for he must be more or less than 
 man who feels them not. Secondly, Homer is as 
 capable of exciting the pathetic emotions as any 
 writer that ever lived ; they are the only passions he 
 ever does excite, though not the only passions he 
 enacts. Who sympathises with the Greeks ? What 
 interest has any one in Achilles, that is not derived 
 from his second-sight of his own speedy destructic)n, 
 and his lion-like fury of sorrow for Patroclus? It 
 is an old remark, that must readers take part with 
 the Trojans. Now as this could hardly be Homer's 
 design (indeed, it is his distinguisliing excellence that 
 he is so perfectly undesigning), it can only arise from 
 his superior skill in depicting the tearful passions. 
 In fact, he is by no means a martial poet. He had 
 not the organs of pugnacity. Whatever bird he may 
 have transmigrated into, it certainly was not a game- 
 cock. He presents his combatants vividly before 
 the mind's eye, but he has none of the fighting 
 enthusiasm that glows in the war-songs of the Scan- 
 dinavians and Celts. There is more military passion 
 in " Chevy Chase " than in the whole " Iliad." How 
 
 E 2
 
 52 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 much more of the soldier has jiEschylus displayed iu 
 his 'EVra and Persians, than appears even in the 
 massacre of the suitors? Yet Homer sympathises 
 with Ulysses more than he ever did with Achilles, 
 Diomed, Ajax, or ever a thick-skinned hero of the 
 set. I really think the French Zoilists were the 
 first to say a word of sense about Homer, after Aris- 
 totle, who certainly saw that he was in essence 
 dramatic. His ovbev arjOes is the truth. Terrasson, 
 &c., had sense to see what Homer was not, but 
 wanted heart to feel what he was. Dryden's remark 
 on Andromache's* family history is shallow enough. 
 Women, especially, are very apt when once they begin 
 complaining to run over every topic of sorrow, or re- 
 proacli they can think of, however well-known or often 
 repeated. Besides, John might have been the better 
 for Trunnion's rebuke to Hatchway : — " And what 
 if you have heard it ; — there 's the stranger. You 
 ha' heard a hundred times, have you ? " 
 
 ROSCOMMON. 
 
 " At Caen ho is said by Aubrey to have liad some preternatural 
 mtcnigencc of his father's death ; but the name of Aubrey cannot 
 recommend any account of that kind to credit in the present age." — 
 
 From tJie Life. 
 
 I DO not reject all tales of this kind. I do believe 
 
 * " Andromache in the midst of her concernment and fright for Hector, 
 runs off her bias to tell him a story of her pedigree and of the lamentable 
 death of lier fatlior, her mother, and her seven bnjithers. The Devil was 
 in Hector if he kuew not all this matter as well as she wlio told it him."
 
 ROSCOMMON. 
 
 53 
 
 that there is a mysterious sympathy between all 
 nature and all created beings, which sometimes rises 
 above the horizon of consciousness. 
 
 " About this time he began to form a society for refining and 
 fixing the English language. The same excellent design was 
 revived by Swift ; and was again defeated by the conflict of 
 parties." 
 
 This is one of the very few objects for which we 
 have not now a society. Such an institution would do 
 more harm than good if indeed it did anytliing. Every 
 language, while it lives, must grow. No prohibitory 
 laws could prevent importation ; but I do not see 
 that the conflict of parties prevents the formation of 
 societies. We should have half-a-dozen if we had 
 one, and the poor old language would be torn to 
 pieces between them. Every word would be whig, 
 tory, or radical, and every election produce a confla- 
 gration of grammars and dictionaries. Even spelling- 
 books and primers would grow political, and ABC 
 be blue or yellow. Yet I cannot think that nothing 
 is to be done to preserve our speech from corruption ; 
 but it must be done by logic and philosophy, — by 
 clear ideas which are not made up of societarian 
 constitutions, but emanate from individual minds. 
 Societies like the Royal, Geographical, Zoological, &c., 
 may collect facts, make experiments, collate evidence, 
 encourage inquiries, — but they cannot discover laws or 
 principles. A metaphysical, theological, or critical 
 society is an absurdity. A political society is a sedi- 
 tious nuisauce, only justifiable by the necessity of
 
 54 NOTES ON BRITISn POETS. 
 
 self-defence. The governraeut which tolerates any 
 is bound to tolerate all, so long as they do not violate 
 actual law ; but a wise and vigorous government 
 would tolerate none which were not part and parcel 
 of itself. Literary societies are good in so far as 
 they diffuse a taste for literature and promote the 
 friendly intercourse of literary men; but they can 
 neither elicit genius, nor regulate taste. No man 
 can think correctly who does not think for himself 
 and by himself. I do hope England, society-ridden 
 as she is, will never submit to a critical society, ex- 
 clusive or popular. A society might produce a dic- 
 tionary ; but then the majority must submit to be 
 mere operatives under a master-mind. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE " ARS POETICA" OF 
 HORACE. 
 
 " Unpolished verses pass with many men," &c. 
 
 His " unspotted " lordship has here acted on his 
 own principle — that 'tis much safer to leave out than 
 add, and forborne blanking no less than twelve lines 
 from " Syllaba longa " to " crimiue turpi." The 
 lines themselves are sufficiently Horatian. They 
 display the happy nack which Pope probably learnt 
 from the French, and the French as probably caught 
 from Horace of versifying mere prose in a happy and 
 surprising manner, without running into mock-heroic. 
 To animate and personify the iambic and the spondee ; 
 to give them not only personality, blit rights, privi-
 
 OTWAT. 55 
 
 leges, manners ; to ascribe to two syllables an amiable 
 spirit of accommodation, tempered with a prudent 
 firmness, knowing where concession ought to stop, — 
 is the work of a most ingenious fancy. 
 
 « M, 
 
 ' Non ita pridem 
 Tardior ut paulo, graviorque veniret ad aures 
 SpondsBOS stabiles in jura patema recepit 
 Commodus et patiens, non ut de sede secuuda 
 Cederet aut quartu socialiter." 
 
 " 'Twas but late 
 To meet the ear with movement more sedate, 
 And the slow pomp of staid magnific state, 
 The firm-foot Spondee was admitted free, 
 To equal rights and confraternity; 
 Iambus yielded, as a liberal must, 
 Confest that Spondee's claims were nought but just, 
 And shrugged his shoulders, happy to oblige,— 
 Y'et stickled still for ancient privilege. 
 He would do something for conciliation ; 
 
 But open all his boroughs— no ! 
 
 ' Two seats, at least, I never will resign ; 
 Second and fourth are mine, and shall be mine.' " 
 
 But tliis is not Horace. Eoscommon was right 
 in omitting the passage, but wrong in translating 
 Horace so heavily. 
 
 OTWAY. 
 
 Few writers have been more injudiciously praised 
 than poor Tom Otway. He has been celebrated for 
 pathetic tenderness, as the poet of pity, for the 
 beauty and softness of his females, while his dramatic 
 skill, and the Jacobin energy of his villains, have 
 been overlooked. Collins probably read his plays 
 with a feeling of his personal afflictions. He fancied
 
 56 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 he was pitying Monimia and Belvidera (foi* surely 
 he could pity no one else !) ■while he was pitying 
 Otway. Perhaps, too, he recollected some favourite 
 actress, and forgot that the voice and action, and 
 even the simulated tears, of a pretty woman will 
 make anything pathetic. Miss O'Neil, I well re- 
 remher, made me weep with Belvidera ; but she 
 would have done the same had she spoken in an 
 unknown tongue. The voice, the look, and the 
 situation was all, — the words went for nothing. But 
 Otway's plots are not pathetic — they are horrible ; 
 and " The Orphan " atrocious. His scenes of sarcasm 
 and defiance are well and dramatically written. He 
 makes his traitors and misanthropes respectable ; for 
 where no virtue is supposed, bold villainy always 
 commands respect : but when he means to be tender 
 he is mawkish. He knew nothing of the affections 
 of a virtuous woman. Belvidera is a fond girl in 
 the first week of the honey-moon, not an affectionate 
 mie and mother. Then her delirium is downright 
 nonsense. Lute, laurels, seas of milk, and ships 
 of amber, are not the objects which even delirium 
 would present under such circumstances. Besides, 
 Jaffier is such a pitiful rascal that he degi*ades the 
 passion of which he is the object. No play that I 
 know, which is readable at all, gains so much by 
 acting as " Venice Preserved." I do not vividly 
 remember " The Orphan," and I never saw it per- 
 formed ; but my impression is that it is the better 
 composition of the two. But the story is unendurable. 
 Otway was a man of genius, and, perhaps, the best
 
 STEPNEY. 57 
 
 tragic writer since the Restoration ; but that is not 
 saying much, for all the rest -were weak cattle, or 
 merely poets in dialogue. I speak of those fabri- 
 cating acting tragedy only. But he was neitlier 
 "child of the Graces," nor "nurseling of the Loves,"* 
 for he had little grace of any sort, poor fellow, and 
 his loves are manifestly trivial. He was a fierce 
 Jacobin, worse than indifferent to virtue. His rest- 
 less life of dissipation and want affected his genius, 
 which was not strong enough to cany him far out of 
 himself. Hence he has none of those green, sunny 
 pastoral spots, which appear in the works of George 
 Peele, and Robert Green, men whose conduct and 
 fortune resembled his own. He had not a spark 
 of wit or humour : his comedy is as dull as it is 
 scandalous. His poems are not worth much, but 
 the " Poet's Complaint" is worth reading. 
 
 STEPNEY. 
 
 I DO not cite Stepney as a proof of the futility of 
 public judgment in the assigning of poetic honours ; 
 for there is no proof that Stepney ever enjoyed any 
 reputation for verse above that of a clever West- 
 minster lad. But his admission among poets shows 
 the influence of fashion and position to have had 
 much greater influence at the commencement of the 
 
 * " Child of the Graces, nurseling of the Loves, 
 III houseless beggary poor Otway roves." 
 
 From a Poem by Mr. Preston.
 
 58 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 isth century than at present. Such a writer as 
 Stepney would not now pass for a poet in any draw- 
 ing-room, however distinguished his society, or suc- 
 cessful his diplomacy. It is not impossible that 
 some of the stingingest productions which procured 
 eclat for the Dorsets, Walshes, Dukes and Stepneys, 
 may never have appeared in print at all, or been 
 printed in such perishable forms, that they wei'e not 
 to be recovered when the collections were formed, or 
 have been suppressed by desire of offended parties, 
 or too licentious for any time but that which gave 
 them birth. 
 
 PHILIPS. 
 
 "In 1703 he published TIte Splendid Shilling. It has the un- 
 common merit of being an original specimen of burlesque, that 
 has lost nothing by time, the peculiar manners of which it did 
 not like Hudibras represent, and therefore will be longer intel- 
 ligible than that celebrated poem which is not built on observa- 
 tions of nature." — From the Life. 
 
 Der Teufel ! original of burlesque ! longer intelli- 
 gible than Hudibras ! and the " Splendid Shilling " 
 built on observation of nature ! To be sure, the want 
 of a shilling is a very natural and a very permanent 
 topic of lamentation, not at all dependent upon 
 peculiar manners ; and Philip's " Shilling," or brass 
 button, rubbed smooth, and smeared with quicksilver, 
 is worth as much now as ever it was, though it has gone 
 for twenty times its value. But whatever merit it 
 does possess, consists in the light *it throws on the
 
 WALSH. 59 
 
 college and Temple life of the times, and the recoi'd it 
 contains of the shifts and mishaps of a penniless wit. 
 But, on another score, it is a pleasant proof tliat a 
 burlesque is not necessarily malicious or irreverent. 
 Philips worshipped Milton, albeit he employed, what 
 he fancied to be, Miltonic phrase, in the hope of raising 
 laugliter. But he did not perceive that the language 
 and metre of Milton were just as absurd when applied 
 to an apple * as to a shilling. But it often happens 
 that writers, when they mean to be ridiculous, are 
 only unmeaning, and outdo all ridicule when they 
 mean to be sublime. Sheridan's mock tragedy in 
 the " Critic " is not half so rich a specimen of travestie 
 as his " Pizarro." 
 
 WALSH. 
 
 Walsh, though no very great things of a poet, at 
 least wrote more like a gentleman than most of the 
 class and age to which he belonged. That he was 
 included in the earlier collections of our poets, may 
 fairly be ascribed to the compliments of Dryden and 
 of Pope, and to his own extensive acquaintance with 
 the literaiy, ftishionable, and political circles. He 
 now keeps his place by prescription. A radical 
 reform is imperiously called for in the parliament of 
 poets. The Gattons, and Old Sarums, and Applebys, 
 will be disfranchised. The influence of peers and 
 ministers shall dispose of seats no longer. The 
 
 * Alludiog to Philips's poem on Cider. — D.C.
 
 60 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 unbouglit, unintimidated suffrage of fame, shall return 
 a truly repi'esentative House of Bards. 
 
 Walsh, however, if he possess no great merit, is 
 not without claims to a share in the representation of 
 his country ; — for poetic representation includes the 
 past as well as the present and the permanent ; and 
 he is of some value as showing the very low estimation 
 in which woman was held, in what has been called a 
 polite and gallant age, There should be a separate 
 collection of such verses, as, without any intrinsic 
 value, illustrate history, politics, or manners. 
 
 SMITH. 
 ON THE LATIN EPITAPH BY MR. ADAMS, 
 
 OF CUEIST CHUECU. 
 
 It has been matter of question whether an epitaph 
 should be in a living or a dead language. The com- 
 position of most epitaphs is so utterly the reverse of 
 what it ought to be, so discordant with the feelings 
 which nature itself would connect with a grave ; the 
 popular productions of this kind are, with a few 
 exceptions, such vile doggrel ; and those of higher 
 mark so full of conceit, false thoughts, false sentiment, 
 heathenism, and antithetical adulation, that the fewer 
 church-goers can read them, the better. At all events, 
 it is well that the simple folk who might understand 
 them by the letter, should not be accustomed to asso- 
 ciate a church or a churchyard with language which 
 can only escape the imputation of falsehood by the
 
 SMITH. 61 
 
 confession of fiction. Mr. Adams, of Christ Church, 
 probably meant no harm, — meant, in fact, notliing 
 at all, but to record his friendship, and to display his 
 ingenuity by telling, in the most astonishing phrases, 
 that his latinity afforded, that Smith was a clever 
 writer of Latin hexameters, lyrics, and orations ; that 
 he had compiled a drama on the classical model, and 
 that he had just translated " Longinus " when he 
 died. I do not accuse Adams, or any other epitaph- 
 writer, of intentional dishonesty, but I do accuse 
 them of unintentional profaneness. 
 
 I am apt to suspect that the irregularities of Smith, 
 and of some other scholastic wits, were at first affected 
 for the sake of "amazing the weak minds of the 
 natives:" but, commenced in vanity, they were con- 
 tinued in pride and contempt till they gained the 
 fatal force of habit. Unfortunately the trick is too 
 often suffered to succeed, at least in its first unworthy 
 object of excithig wonder. Had Smith been a regular 
 man, he would hardly have attained a place among 
 the poets of Great Britain. He would probably 
 have written more and better, but he would not have 
 obtained credit for the capacity of doing more than 
 he actually performed. 
 
 ON THE RETURN OF KING -WILLI A:M FROM IRELAND 
 AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. 
 
 " O ingens Heros ! O tot dcfunctc pcriclis." 
 
 Contemporary events, if they must be sung at all, 
 should be sung in English Ballad, or Latin heroics.
 
 fi2 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 Such compositions can at best be only versus poUtici. 
 Generally they are mere husks, the highest merit 
 whereof is a skilful adaptation of ancient phrases to 
 modern use. Yet I would advise the manufacturers 
 of such things to translate or paraphrase such names 
 as Schombergus, Dunkirkus, &c. Boileau objects 
 to the introduction of Clovis and Dagobert, even in 
 vernacular poetry. 
 
 A POEM TO MR. JOHN PHILIPS. 
 
 Smith would have done wisely had he celebrated 
 Cyder Philips as he has done the Boyne. What 
 is merely ingenious is ever the better as the material 
 is rare and exotic, and the workmanship difficult. 
 Besides, it is better to lie in any language than one's 
 own ; and when Rag * sets Philips above Butler, 
 JJryden, and Milton, and compares him to Cervantes, 
 he must bave known that he was lying. Yet some facts 
 may be deduced from this memorial, to wit, that one 
 of the later JMedici was a cyder-drinker, and tliat his 
 minister translated some of Philips into Italian blank 
 verse. But it is not a fact that Spenser first intro- 
 duced the Italian tsdes or numbers into English. 
 Chaucer had imitated Petrarch and Boccaccio before. 
 So had Surrey. Neither Ariosto nor Tasso were 
 Pisans, and the Spenserian stanza is not of Italian 
 invention. 
 
 * Smitti went by the name of Captain Rag, from tlie negligence of liis 
 dress. — D. C.
 
 DUKE. 63 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 ♦— 
 
 TO MR. CREECH ON HIS TRANSLATION OF 
 LUCRETIUS. 
 
 " Had Providence e'er meant that in despite 
 Of art and nature such dull clods should -n-rite, 
 Bavius and ISlKvius had been saved by fate 
 For Settle and for Shadwell to translate ; 
 As it so many ages has for thee 
 Preserved the mighty work that now we see." 
 
 There is really more wit in this turn than I have 
 found anywhere in Duke. As a work of skill and toil, 
 Creech's " Lucretius," the notes included, is a great 
 performance ; but he fails in the attempt to convey 
 either the occasional bursts of poetical imagination, or 
 the zeal and strength of conviction, which raise even 
 the minutest details of Lucretius to impassioned 
 eloquence. Lucretius is the sincerest of poetic phi- 
 losophers. 
 
 I cannot say that Mister Duke's verses are the 
 very worst I ever read, for he knew the statute 
 measure of a line, and was not altogether ignorant 
 of syntax. But of all the Bavii that I ever read, he 
 is the most utterly worthless. He would even be 
 better if be were worse. He is not absurd enough 
 to be ridiculous, or mad enough to wonder at. He 
 affords no kind of information as to facts, tastes, 
 manners, or opinions, that is not to be derived from 
 Drydeu, from whom his few tolerable lines are 
 palpably imitated, or absolutely stolen. The only 
 thing remarkable about him is the sacrilegious pro- 
 fanity of his adulation, in which he has contrived to
 
 64 NOTES ON BRITISn POETS. 
 
 outdo his master. Luckily be lies in little room, but 
 tbat room -would bave been better occupied by bis 
 namesake, Stephen Duck. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I HAVE, perhaps, spoken too contemptuously of 
 King in the life of Bentley. He appears to have 
 been a kind-hearted bon vivant, probably a deeper 
 drinker than thinker ; but there is some cm'ious 
 learning in him, and he helps to form the idea of 
 the times he Hved in. 
 
 SPRAT. 
 
 Wakdueton, who seems to have hated his brethren 
 of the cloth like a Radical or a Quaker, praises Pope 
 for setting Sprat in the van of the small wits, and 
 ridicules him for wishing himself a Westminster 
 scholar, saying he was nothing better than a school- 
 boy to the lust, &c. This is hardly just. Sprat was 
 certainly a minnow among the poets, and a conger 
 eel among the time-servers ; but he wanted not intel- 
 lect, and was as little of a boy as any man. 
 
 " He atoned for the inconsistencies and errors of his political 
 conduct, by the exemplary dignity and decency of his episcopal 
 and private character." — From the Life. 
 
 Dignity and decency, though good things enough 
 in their way, are not all that we require in a bishop, 
 nor is either consistent with gi'oss tergiversation.
 
 HALIFAX. 65 
 
 HALIFAX. 
 
 I LATELY fell ill with a mutilated copy of political 
 essays, by Halifax, which do great honour to his 
 abilities as a politician and a prose writer. 
 
 I suppose that tradition and the circumstances of 
 the character sufficiently determine that Bufo * was 
 meant for Halifax, or else it might apply as well to 
 any other Maecenas, who was himself an author. 
 When Pope speaks of his leaving the whole Castalian 
 state to Bufo, he swells like a toad himself, if he meant 
 Halifax. Previous to 1715 (the period of Halifax's 
 death) Pope could scarcely have interest enough to 
 be a patron, even in Parnassus ; if any, it must have 
 been through his connection with Harley and St. 
 John, or rather with Swift, who was an useful sup- 
 porter, and, what is worse, a dangerous enemy. The 
 little man makes a mighty merit of patronising the 
 ex-minister in his misfortunes, — 
 
 " I shun liis zenith, court his mild decline; 
 Thus Sumers oucc and Halifax wtru mine." 
 
 And iu a copy of verses dated 1715, he seems to 
 reproach the ingratitude of the !Muses in not having 
 the grace to mourn. According to Warburton, Halifax, 
 when restored to power at the commencement of 
 George the First's reign, offered Pope a pension, un- 
 clogged with engagements; but nothing came of it. 
 The offer was renewed by Craggs, who suggested how 
 
 * " Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, 
 
 Sat full-blown Bufo, pufi'd by every quill." — Pope. 
 VOL. n. F
 
 66 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 convenient a cliaviot would be to the infirm poet. But 
 Pope, for some reason, perhaps a wise one, declined 
 it. Of Craggs, however, he always spoke gratefully ; 
 but he was by no means without a sympathy with 
 popular resentments. The party to which Halifax 
 belonged had become exceedingly odious to the many, 
 and to the rising men. Swift, too, hated them ; and 
 I suspect there is a good deal in Pope that, though 
 Popes verses, are Swift's passion. 
 
 DORSET. 
 
 "He had as much wit as his first master, or his contemporaries, 
 Buckingham and Rodiestcr, without the royal want of feeling, 
 the duke's waut of principles, or tlie earl's want of thought." 
 
 From the lAfe. 
 
 A JusTER character of Dorset were, he had a great 
 deal more prudence than Rochester, a very little 
 more decency, and not a tenth part as much genius. 
 Rochester might have been a great man. Dorset was, 
 and always must have been, a little witling of a lord, 
 rich euougli to purchase the praises of poets, who 
 in their turn could afford to praise the talents which 
 they could not envy. His verses are worth reading, 
 chiefly as they show the value of dedicatory and 
 lapidary criticism. Drydeu, however, takes care 
 that his panegyric shall be incredible to every one 
 but its object, — to show that he was no fool himself, 
 though he might Cud it necessary to make a fool of 
 his patron. Prior's dedication, addressed to Dorset's 
 son and successor, is a delicate, skilful, and finely
 
 DORSET. 67 
 
 composed oraison funehre, which seems to be inspired 
 by real gratitude. Pope's epitaph is fulsome, and, 
 which is strange, awkward. 
 
 SONG, 
 
 WRITTEN AT SEA, IN THE FIRST DUTCH WAR, THE NIGHT BEFORE 
 THE ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 " To all you ladies now at land," &c. 
 
 His lordship did right to address this song to the 
 ladies. It is the only thing of his fit for a lady to 
 read, and really pretty ; yet if he composed it under 
 the circumstances stated, it says more for his courage 
 than for his piety. 
 
 ON THE COUNTESS OF DORCHESTER, 
 
 MISTRESS TO KINO JAMES II., 16S0. 
 
 "Tell me, Dorinda, why so gay," &c. 
 
 James II. was not king till 1685. Pope has imitated 
 this piece of brutality, as one cur imitates another 
 against a post. James should have protected his 
 mistress from the insults to which his passion exposed 
 her. Well might Sedley "curse the form that pleased 
 a king," when that king was not man enough To 
 prevent her being lampooned. Such filth thrown at 
 a virtuous woman can but oifend her nose, but it is 
 the poison of toads to her who has lost the antidote 
 of innocence. This grace of courts, in the most 
 courtly age, could call a king, or at least a king's 
 brother, " royal cully." Dan O'Connell would liave 
 
 F -1
 
 68 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 been a perfect geutleman in the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century. But James's connection with 
 Catherine Sedley was punished in rather a more 
 manly way by her father, who was an active pro- 
 moter of the Kevolution which our Church-and-King 
 men admire so much. He is reported to have said, 
 " I am quits with King James : he made my 
 daughter a duchess, and I have made his daughter a 
 queen." Such a man, and such a writer as Sedley, 
 had little right to resent the passion of his sovereign, 
 or the frailty of his child. The heroes of 1680 were 
 not all of them more immaculate than the Destruc- 
 tives of 1832, and were chargeable with an ingratitude 
 of which the latter were not guilty. Had Boswell 
 any other foundation than Dorset's abuse for saying 
 that Catherine Sedley was not handsome ? 
 
 PARNELL. 
 
 ANACREONTICS. 
 
 " From the towering eagle's plume 
 The generous hearts accept their doom ; 
 Shot by the peacock's painted eye, 
 The vain und airy lovers die," &c. 
 
 I KNOW not whether the Doctor (Southey) had this in 
 his mind, or, as is more probable, in the unconscious 
 limbo of his memory, whence dreams and unaccount- 
 able suggestions issue uncalled, when he wrote his 
 chapter on pens ; but it is certainly a variation of the 
 same theme.
 
 EOWE. 69 
 
 ROWE. 
 
 "The plan of it (the 'Fair Penitent') is borrowed from the 
 ' Fatal Dowry ' of Massinger." — From the Life. 
 
 For borrowed read stolen, inasmuch as the loan was 
 never acknowledged. It would be unjust to deny 
 that Rowe has, in some technical points, improved 
 upon Massinger, whose play is ill constructed. The 
 preliminary matter, which Rowe condenses into a 
 brief narrative, occupies far too much space in the 
 " Fatal Dowry," and does not necessarily prepare 
 the way for the sequel. From the period of Chara- 
 lois' marriage, a new interest commences. Beau- 
 melle's infidelity is but very loosely connected with 
 Charalois' heroic self-devotion. The circumstance 
 that her seducer is the son of her husband's enemy, 
 is too slight a link. Neither young Novel nor Beau- 
 melle are characters of sufficient dignity for tragedy. 
 They are merely ridiculous — in fact, farcical ; but 
 for this Field, not Massinger, was answerable. But 
 in all else, character, language, passion, moral, the 
 superiority of the elder dramatist is decided. There 
 is grossness of conception in both, much more than 
 even the subject required, but the " Fatal Dowry " 
 is only gross — the " Fair Penitent " is lascivious. 
 Rochfort, Charalois, and Romont, are beings of a far 
 higher race than Sciolto, Altamont, and Horatio. 
 Even Beaumelle and her Dandy are less offensive 
 than Calista and Lothario. To the versification 
 of Rowe, the praise of suavity cannot be denied.
 
 70 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 He seems to have been the only dramatist of the 
 second era who wrote blank verse systematically; 
 but his cadences are monotonous and undramatic, — 
 too evidently premeditated. His similes are mere 
 fine writing. Dr. Johnson's estimate is not far amiss, 
 though I know not where or how he improves the 
 understanding. His plays should be seen to be 
 appreciated, — pei'haps should have been seen as 
 played by the original actors, when acting did not 
 far recede from poetic reading. I never saw the 
 "Fair Penitent," but I should imagine the most 
 etfective scenes to be that in which Horatio accuses 
 Lothario of forging Calista's letter ; that in which he 
 accuses Calista of her incontinence ; and his quarrel 
 with Altamont. 
 
 ADDISON. 
 
 It is upon his sacred verses that Addison's sole 
 claim to the name of poet is founded. If we except 
 some passages of his prose, he wrote nothing else in 
 English that approximates to poetry. As a religious 
 bard, he is far inferior to many whose names are 
 heard in the world with surprise or ridicule ; not 
 comparable to Quarles, or Watts, or Charles Wesley, 
 or Crashaw. I speak not of Cowper, Heber, Mont- 
 gomery, and Keble ; for their fame is approved of 
 the many. Still, I believe that Addison was a firm 
 believer ; a higher merit, at least a greater distinction 
 in his days than in ours. His devotion was sincere, 
 though not very deep or fervent, and it raised him
 
 ADDISON. 
 
 71 
 
 above himself. Of the ode and hymns, I like the 
 paraphrase on the '28rd Psalm the best, and the more 
 celebrated imitation of the 19th the worst. I cannot 
 away with the " spangles" and the " shining frame." 
 They remind me of tambour-work. Perhaps if I had 
 never read the psalm in prose I might think the 
 verses fine. Dr. Johnson used to repeat them with 
 such enthusiasm that, as one saith, his face became 
 
 like the face of an angel. 
 
 Steele was cruelly abused in his lifetime, and 
 has' never had justice since his death ; yet his charac- 
 ter, malgre his lack of prudence, and it may be some 
 breaches of integrity which the imprudent rarely 
 escape, seems to have been most amiable, and he had 
 a fine warm English vein of humour. S. T. C. pre- 
 ferred him as an essayist to Addison, but few will 
 accede to that. However ineligible may be the trade 
 of authorship, those who arc once fairly in for it 
 cannot do better than stick to it in a business-like 
 way. They seldom mend their circumstances by 
 speculations in trade or politics. Steele, Aaron Hill, 
 Sir Walter Scott, Burns, and Hogg are warning 
 instances of the folly of poets turning farmers or 
 tradesmen. This, however, does not preclude the 
 young poet from choosing a profession, nor does it 
 forbid the tradesman to cultivate literature.
 
 72 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 SHEFFIELD. 
 
 " A story is told of tlie danger to which he was intentionally 
 exposed in a leaky vessel, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the 
 king." — From the Life. 
 
 Stories like this of the leaky vessel should never 
 be repeated without citing such authorities as shall 
 enable the reader to judge of their truth or falsehood. 
 When they rest only on vague rumour, or such books 
 as Mrs. Mauley's " Atalantis," they should not be 
 repeated at all. It says little for the morals of the 
 seventeenth century, that such a tale should be 
 believed on slight evidence. 
 
 " As a statesman, he is characterised by a steady attachment to 
 Tory principles of government, which is principally to be ascribed to 
 the personal obligations he was under to the royal family of Stuart." 
 
 What obligations if one of them tried to drown 
 Ixim only for courting his niece ? For obligations read 
 connection or attachment. But I believe his Toryism 
 to have been a natural emanation of his Hobbish 
 infidelity, though in this age when infidelity affects 
 democracy, and blaclvguards affect infidelity, this may 
 sound like a paradox. 
 
 " Dubius, sed non improbus vixi, 
 Incertus morior, sed inturbatus. 
 Humanum est iicscire et errare ; 
 Christum adveneror, Deo confido, 
 Ouinipotenti, benevolcntissimo ; 
 Ens cntium miserere mei."* 
 
 This epitaph, though not what I would have engraved 
 
 • Sheffield's Epitaph in Westminster Abbey as originally written by 
 himself.
 
 SHEFFIELD. 73 
 
 on my tomb, or probably what the present authorities 
 of the Abbey would permit to be inscribed on any 
 tomb, shows more mind than any of Sheffield's verse. 
 
 "Of his other poetical pieces, the 'Essay on Poetry' is the 
 most distinguished. It is ranked by Addison with Roscommon's 
 ' Essay on Translated Verse,' and Pope's ' Essay on Criticism.' " 
 
 As criticism, the three are pretty much on a par ; 
 but who would now think of comparing Sheffield's dull 
 lecture or Koscommon's awkward jingling prose, with 
 the wit and brilliance of Pope's fallacies ? Assuredly, 
 the English of the seventeenth century, at least the 
 latter half of it, and the commencement of the eight- 
 eenth, were the stupidest critics in the world. For 
 the French were at least lively, and sometimes acute, 
 though never subtle or profound. Their system was 
 bad, but it was consistent ; and at all events it did 
 produce something worthy the name of art. But even 
 Pope, who improved upon his French models greatly, 
 where men and manners are his theme, in his cri- 
 ticisms did little more than disguise in pointed sen- 
 tences vague notions, and impracticable expectations. 
 The hollowness of the Anglo-Gallican theory may be 
 evinced by the fact, that its main supporters, Boileau 
 and Pope, never attempted any serious, original com- 
 position, to which their rules were applicable. Dryden 
 has doubtless many shrewd and some wise remai'ks 
 in his prefaces, prologues, &c. ; but his opinions are 
 seldom to be relied on, for we know not when they 
 were sincere. Addison had a finer and more natural 
 taste than either Dryden or Pope, but his critical
 
 74 
 
 NOTES OX BRITISH POETS. 
 
 creed was irrecoverably tainted with the Galhc heresy. 
 And besides, he was a bigoted Virgilian. I have 
 heard that there are some truths in old Dennis, but 
 I am not acquainted with him. I suspect that there 
 is a good deal in Hurd.* 
 
 Wilson is the best critic that Scotland has pro- 
 duced ; — nay, that is saying too little. When he is 
 at his best, he is almost the best that Britain has 
 produced. 
 
 ELEGY TO THE DUCHESS OF R . 
 
 These blanks and initials are cowardly lampooners, 
 and the more mischievous as the more obscure. They 
 spare no one, and extend the slander to indefinite 
 numbers, like those who would fire grape shot among 
 a multitude for the chance of wounding an obnoxious 
 individual, who may not be there after all. The 
 
 Elegy accuses every mai-ried Duke of E of 
 
 brutality, every Duchess of R of lightness. I 
 
 know not indeed how many Dukes of R. there were 
 when it was written. Richmond, Roxburgh, and 
 Rutland, are the only R Dukes that I remember at 
 present. 
 
 " Thus precious jewels among Indians j^ovv, 
 Who not their use nor wondrous value know." 
 
 The same thought occurs in [Shakspeare's] Caesar, 
 and T believe in Othello, though the common reading 
 is Judfean. Tibbald's explanation that " the base 
 
 • Of whom, however, I have heard S. T. C. speak contemptuously as 
 " a toad-eater of Warburton."
 
 SHEFFIELD. 75 
 
 Judfcan " means Herod, and the pearl, Mariamne, is 
 utterly absui'd. 
 
 THE VISION, 
 
 WRITTEN DCBINO A SEA VOYAGE, ETC. 
 
 " Within the silent shades of soft repose," &c. 
 
 This " Vision," besides other and graver faults, has 
 the intolerable defect of not resembling any possible 
 dream or vision at all, no more than the " Spectator's" 
 dream about Public Credit, It does not seem even to 
 have been made out of the imperfect remembrance 
 of a dream, though it probably records a real intrigue, 
 
 perhaps with the Duchess of R . The leaky 
 
 vessel — the quatuor an septcm digitis — hardly inter- 
 posed between life and eternity, the ensuing peril of 
 battle did not give a more careful, though perhaps an 
 intenser turn to Sheffield's thoughts. No wonder. 
 Danger does not, of itself, convince of mortality, still 
 less of judgment to come. There must be pain and 
 sickness, an evacuation and abasement of corporal 
 nature, to make man fearful of his lusts. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON POETRY. 
 
 " Read Homer once, and you can read no more; 
 For all books else appear so mean, so poor, 
 Verse will seem prose." 
 
 Yes, such verse as your Grace's. H. N. Coleridge 
 has well observed, that the same class of fastidious 
 wits who in Finance became Zoilists, in England were 
 the stoutest stickers to Homer. But Boileau led the
 
 76 
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 way. Had he beeu a Zoilus, Sheffield, if not Pope, 
 might have been the same. The Duke must have 
 been utterly incapable of Homer, and probably never 
 read him but in Dacier's French declamation and 
 Pope's English Epigram. If he had known anything 
 of Homer, or Virgil either, he could never have 
 praised the absurd Punch — Bossu. The lines, 
 " Read Homer once," &c., look like a translation of 
 some French, or modern Latin Epigram. 
 
 Of the class of verse-making Peers to which he 
 belonged Sheffield is one of the best. To the name 
 of poet he had no pretensions. But he was a man of 
 strong sense, — a manly nature, not without heart, 
 though his moral capacities lacked good education. 
 His English is pure and unaffected, his versification 
 respectable, his satire for the most part just. His 
 powers of thought greatly outfathomed Roscommon, 
 Granville, Dorset, or Lyttelton. He has no pastoral 
 mythology, and in his gallantries, if he has not much 
 true tenderness, or moral affection, he writes at least 
 like a man and a gentleman. It is a wonder that 
 Johnson deals so hardly with so firm a Tory. Horace 
 Walpole's opinion is good for nothing. What Sheffield 
 attempted he did well, but his essay proves that be 
 bad little perception either of the grandeur or the 
 grace of true poetry.
 
 YAIJDEN. / i 
 
 YALDEN. 
 
 As a specimen of the feeble and paraphrastical, of 
 the power of a Yalden to turn sublimity to tawdiy 
 insignificance, and the voice of divine lamentation 
 into the squeak of a penny trumpet, it is a pity that 
 the doctor's Paraphrase on the 137th Psalm, ycleped 
 a Pindaric ode, is not to be found in this collection. 
 The parson is not content with blaspheming Pindar — 
 he makes Holy Scripture only not ridiculous, because 
 too dull to laugh at. Then he turns the captives of 
 Judah into rank heathens, talking of " a strange 
 reverse of fate," and " Zion, the darling of my Muse." 
 Hopkins and Sternhold have been ridiculed, and I 
 have little patience with Brady and Tate ; but when 
 T compare even their versions, bad as they are, and 
 the latter mere job-work, unsanctified by the pious 
 earnestness of the elder, with the pai'aphrases to be 
 found scattered in various collections, some by higher 
 names than Yalden, I confess the Church might go 
 farther and fare worse. The abomination in question 
 is prefixed to Macqueens " Essay on the Christian 
 Pilgrim's Conduct;'" a book worthy of a better overture. 
 
 HYMN TO DARKNESS. 
 
 " Darkness, thou first great parent of us all," &.c. 
 
 If this be Yaldens best poem, as Johnson says it 
 is, it is hard to conjecture what induced the great 
 moralist to place him among the four chosen witnesses
 
 78 KOTES OK BRITISH POETS. 
 
 to his own taste, whom he recommended to the book- 
 sellers to complete the elect of England's poets. Pom- 
 fret had at best the merit of pleasing many — the 
 many who liked common-places in easy rhyme. Watts, 
 if not a poet, is, and will be, a name of power with a 
 better class than the admirers of V omheVs fodaises. 
 Blackmore must excite curiosity by the quantity of 
 abuse lie sustained ; but Yalden cannot rank even 
 among the illustrious obscure. He illumines dark- 
 ness, not like a star of a glow-worm, but like three 
 farthing rushlights stuck against a board in a strolling 
 playhouse. 
 
 TO MR. CONGREVE. 
 
 " Famed wits and beauties share this common fate." 
 
 This epistolary ode was, happily for its subject, 
 anything but a true prognostication. Congreve had 
 no reason to complain of barren bays. I do not know 
 how the theatres paid liim, but he was as comfortably 
 placed and pensioned as any wit could reasonably 
 desire. The truth of the matter is, poets may have 
 some ground of complaint against managers and 
 booksellers ; it is their inevitable infelicity to receive 
 wages from those who neither do, nor can, nor ought 
 to regard their productions otherwise than as market- 
 able commodities. But poets, as such, have no right 
 to grumble at the public, — no personal right to 
 murmur at the established order of things. They were 
 certainly worse remunerated by the trade in Congreve's 
 time than now ; but even then they fared much better 
 than many of their fellow Christians. Had Congreve
 
 POPE. 79 
 
 got nothing by his Old Bachelor but the profits of 
 his third night, he would probably have received 
 more than the income of many a country vicarage, — 
 certainly quadruple the stipend of many a pious 
 curate. Authorship is a bad trade, not because it 
 is worse paid than other kinds of labour, — for the 
 veriest bookseller's drudge makes more, I say not 
 than an honest journeyman, or day-labourer, or 
 sempstress, but than a man without interest can 
 calculate on doing in the church, army, or navy, — 
 but because the ability to produce anything for which 
 an honourable gentleman would wish to be paid, is 
 not to be perpetuated by habit, or recalled by mere 
 volition. Spenser and Cowley were certainly less 
 fortunate than Waller, Congreve, and some others. 
 But Spenser's long expectation, and the fatal loss of 
 his Irish property, arose from political causes. 
 Cowley was ungratefully treated by rascally royalty ; 
 but this had nothing to do with his poetry. Neither 
 Spenser nor Cowley were ever in such abject poverty 
 as Yalden describes. 
 
 POPE.* 
 
 PROLOGUE TO SATIRES. 
 
 Vcr. 1. — " Shut, shut the door, good John ! " 
 
 JoHK Searl, his old and faithful servant, whom he 
 
 * The ohscrvations on Pope are selected from one of the Author's 
 note-books.
 
 80 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 has remembered under that character in his will ; 
 much to his credit. 
 
 Ver. 13.— "Then from the Mint," &c. 
 
 Curious enough that the Mint should become the 
 privileged retreat of poverty. Charles Lamb, in his 
 admirable essay on " Poor Relations," mentions his 
 awe of a queer old gentleman who used to dine with 
 his father when he could get a day rule, and whom he 
 understood to be an inhabitant of the Mint, where all 
 the money was coined. Of course, he was a poor 
 relation. Charles would have been yet more 
 astonished had the unfortunate kinsman been de- 
 scribed as a dweller of the King's Bench. Mints 
 were once numei'ous, money being coined in many 
 provincial towns. Were they all privileged ? Asylums 
 of this nature have existed in most countries as a 
 defence against the outrage of private vengeance, and 
 a set-off to the cruelty of public law. To pity the 
 criminal and the debtor, to confound prosecution and 
 persecution, may be weak and sickly ; but it is not, 
 as some assert, a novel disease. Rather is it a 
 remnant of old times, when law itself was with the 
 many an unpopular novelty, and neither life nor 
 property were guaranteed by public opinion. Feel- 
 ings often survive their justifying occasions. That 
 no debtor can be arrested on Sunday, must have 
 made the Christian Sabbath precious to others 
 besides men of rhyme, who took that opportunity to 
 emerge from their hiding-places, and breathe a purer 
 air. I think I have observed some such Sabbath-
 
 roPE. 81 
 
 day's-journey-men rusticating in the Parks. The 
 prisoners of the new poor-houses have not even this 
 hebdomadal glimpse of liberty. 
 
 Ver. 15. — " Is tliere a parson much bemused in beer.!*" 
 
 Beer does not seem to have been a favourite 
 beverage with Pope ; for he seldom mentions it but 
 in connexion with bad poets. The parson might be 
 Eusden, who, like too many both parsons and poets 
 of that period, was of the faith of Cratinus. The 
 maudlin poetess and rhyming peer were either meant 
 for real personages, or left to be individualised ad 
 libitum. Nothing helps a satire to sell better than 
 these obscure personalities, which flatter the reader 
 with a conceit of his own clevemess. There were 
 few counting-houses or attorneys' ofl&ces in which the 
 clerk might not have been found ; and doubtless the 
 versifying scribe of " the house," or " the concern," 
 was proud to be indigitated as the bull's-eye of Pope's 
 random shot. The darkened walls and desperate 
 charcoal may, if dates allow, allude to poor Smart. 
 But, alas ! it may allude to many more. Arthur, we 
 are told in the note, was Arthur Moore, Esq. 
 Fathers were lucky in those days, if Arthur alone 
 was cursed with a giddy son. This Arthur Moore 
 was probably an Irishman ; for in Horner's " High 
 German Doctor" he is nicknamed Atty Brogue. I 
 know little about him ; but he was one of Queen 
 Anne's Tories, impeached along with Oxford, Boling- 
 broke, Prior, Arc. This should have withheld Pope 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 82 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 from exposing his family affairs ; but very likely he 
 actually had damned Pope's works ; and sympathy 
 in politics goes but a little way with poets when 
 the crimen viajestatls has been committed against 
 their verses. Poor Cornus is said to have been 
 Wortley. I can remember when the blame of every 
 elopement was laid on Byron. 
 
 Ver. 45. — " The piece, you think, is incorrect ; why, take it, 
 
 I'm all submission ; what you M have it, make it." 
 
 Few modern writers, however 
 
 " Obliged by hunger, or request of friends," 
 
 are quite so humble as this comes to. They may, 
 
 indeed, request a sincere opinion, — desire Mr. '■ 
 
 to point out errors, &c. ; but he who takes them at 
 their word had better keep out of their paths, if he 
 have any apprehension of the evil eye. 
 
 Ver. 54. — " He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine." 
 
 There is some literary scandal here, that 1 do not 
 apprehend. 
 
 Who was the Bavins still admitted at one table ? 
 Who the bishop to whom Philips seemed a wit ? I 
 I'onfess I am not of the bishops opinion. Philips might 
 not deserve all that Pope has said of him. I know 
 not what, indeed, was meant by " pilfered pastorals." 
 The pastoralities which made up the pastorals of the 
 last century no man could swear to : you might as 
 well identify a brass shilling worn perfectly smooth. 
 
 *'
 
 POPE. 83 
 
 The rural graces had been so long in the town, that 
 ■whoever gave them a second-hand new suit, or even 
 six- pennyworth of rouge, might claim the honour of 
 taking them under protection. The " Letter from 
 Copenhagen "' is not uninteresting ; but its interest is 
 extraneous and accidental. I remember reading it in 
 Aikin's Calendar of Nature. The verses to Miss 
 Pulteney, &c., sound pretty and childlike ; but they 
 have no real tenderness or moral grace : the same 
 idle compliment is repeated ad nauseam. His poli- 
 tical rhymes are not better, nor much worse, than 
 such things generally are. The " Distressed Mother'' 
 has a taking title, and is about on the level of stage 
 tragedies. 
 
 I know not why Pope omitted the lines in the MS. 
 following. 
 
 Ver. 124. — " But, friuiid, this sliape, which you anil Curl admire, 
 Came not from Ammou's son, but from my sire; 
 And for my head, if you 11 the truth excuse, 
 I had it from n)y mother, not the Muse. 
 Happy, if he, in whom these frailties join'd, 
 Had heir'd as well tlie virtues of the mind." 
 
 In the note whereon, we are informed that Curl 
 "set his head up for a sign, — that his father was 
 crooked, and his mother subject to headaches." Yet. 
 in the Dunciad, the Bible is spoken of as Curl's sign. 
 
 Ver. 146. — " Not from the Burncts, Oklmixons, .and Cooks." 
 
 The annotator seems to suppose that the lUiniet 
 here meant was the bishop : but there is another 
 Burnet mentioned in the Duncied, who might be 
 
 o 
 
 9
 
 84 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 intended. Perhaps Pope was glad of a hit which, 
 seemingly aimed at the scribbler, might glance upon 
 the prelate. It is awkward to have vulgar namesakes. 
 
 Ver. 163. — " Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, 
 From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds." 
 
 Not often an epithet adopted for the sake of 
 ludicrous rhyme expresses a matter of fact so clearly 
 as that which denominates verbal critics "ribalds." 
 They usually bestow the most pains on the 
 smuttiest authors and the naughtiest passages, and 
 exhaust the slang vocabulary of Greece and Rome in 
 their mutual vituperations. It might be supposed 
 that they were sowing for themselves garlands of 
 ocynium, of which Pliny certifies, Cum maledictls et 
 2)robris serendum ut latius proveniat ; or that their 
 luculirations were produced during the Heracleia at 
 Lindus, when it was profane and indecent to utter 
 anything but profaneness and obscenity. But the 
 instances which the annotator pi'oduces are very 
 feeble, and rather display the self-importance than 
 the ribaldry of the scholiasts and grammarians. 
 
 I am not aware that Bentley, as a critic, indulged 
 much in ribaldry. A little haughty contempt, it may 
 be ; but I have not read any part of his animad- 
 versions on " Clericus," or on Hare's " Terence " and 
 " Phcedrus." As a litigant, he was abusive enough. 
 
 Warburton (whom I presume to have been the 
 annotator) had too much learning to skit at Bentley, 
 as Pope has done. He says — " This great man, with
 
 POPE. 85 
 
 all his faults, deserved to be put into better com- 
 pany." The following words of Cicero describe bim 
 not amiss : — 
 
 " Habuit a natura genus qnoddam acuminis, quod 
 arte limaverat, quod erat in reprebendendis verbis 
 versutum et solers ; sed sfepe stomacbosum, nonnun- 
 quam frigidum, interdum etiam facetum." 
 
 Nothing is more provoking than the vague way of 
 quoting an author or a French writer. Who was 
 " the agreeable French writer of the fair sex, that 
 said of somebody, — ' Rempli de ces defauts qui aident 
 a plaire et depechent de servir? ' " It is brought in 
 illustration of Pope's — 
 
 " So obliging that he ne'er obliged." 
 
 Is it conclusive evidence against Addison, that his 
 step-son, the Earl of Warwick, told Pope, " it was in 
 vain to think of being well with his step-father ; that 
 he envied Pope's genius, "&c. ? Few young blades 
 are very partial to their mothers' second liuslninds : 
 and perhaps Addison took more of the father upon 
 hira than was agreeable to a rakish young peer at th^ 
 hands of a commoner. It is indeed a raatter-of-fact 
 charge, that Addison hired Gildon to abuse Pope and 
 his fiimily, and paid him ten guineas for the service. 
 It was probably Warwick's design to make mischief. 
 But literary friendships are seldom lasting. The 
 quarrel was not very honourable to either side. War- 
 burton's account of it was doubtless derived from
 
 86 NOTES OX BRITISH POETS. 
 
 Pope himself. The rival translations were, perhaps, 
 the occasion, — a mutual dyspathy, irritated by their 
 respective sets, the primary cause of the rupture. 
 Pope had outrageously flattered Addison, and possibly 
 e.Kpected to be repaid in kind. It is now of small 
 moment to inquire whether Atticus was or was not 
 the true Addison. The character is representa- 
 tive — a type of a numei'ous race. In the first im- 
 pressions were these lines : 
 
 •' Who, if two wits on rival themes contest, 
 Approves of each, but likes tlie worst the best :" 
 
 alluding to the rival versions of the " Iliad" f 
 never read, at least never examined, Tickell's, which 
 is not likely to be the better, if it be Addison's ; for 
 Addison was a feeble translator, and, I suspect, but 
 an indifferent Grecian. He rarely, in his criticisms, 
 refers to a Greek author. Even in his analysis of 
 " Paradise Lost," the parallel passages are almost 
 all from the Latins. Why Pope should have been 
 shocked at Addison's advising him to leave the first 
 draught of the " Rape of the Lock ' alone, because it 
 was a delicious little thing, and merum sal, I cannot 
 guess, especially as he is said to have been remark- 
 ably accessible to advice, correction, or suggestion. 
 But no man likes, no vain man can endure, no proud 
 man forgive, advice which interferes with any favourite 
 project. Still it was nothing to be shocked at. 
 Addison might sincerely think the Piosicrucian ma- 
 chinery out of its place in a tale of modem fashion. 
 Pope has fitted it exactly to the circumstances. His 
 sylphs float as naturally in artificial essences, as Ariel
 
 POPE. 87 
 
 in the balmy air of the enchanted island. They are 
 fit to nestle in ringlets that have been twisted with 
 irons — to be the tutelars of hoops and earrings. But 
 exquisitely appropriate as they are to their place — 
 their office — to the very diction and versification of 
 the poem that bestows and illuminates their exist- 
 ence — they do nothing ; they influence neither act 
 nor thought ; they are not successfully interwoven 
 with the plot. We can see plainly that they were 
 superinduced upon it. Addison might anticipate this, 
 and express his opinion without jealousy. In the re- 
 marks on the " Imitation of Horace," B.ii.,E.i., 215, — 
 
 " Excuse some courtly stains ; 
 
 No whiter page than Addison remains," 
 
 the annotator returns to the attack on Addison. But 
 the whole burden of his accusation amounts to this : 
 that when Cato was first produced, he was very 
 anxious that it should not be considered a party play, 
 and was afraid that he might be suspected of designs 
 against the Government if " arise " were not altered 
 to " attend ;" whereas, when Anne was gone to her 
 long home, and the Tories were counted enemies of 
 the court, and the Hanoverians were at St. James's 
 and Downing Street, he was very willing that Cato 
 should be esteemed a sound Wliig, and zealous 
 Hanoverian Protestant. All this is very likely, and, 
 as the world goes, very excusable. When, indeed. 
 he talks of his muse, i. e., himself, " Boldly rising, 
 for Britamiia's laws," and " Engaging great Cato in 
 his country's cause," he talks nonsense ; — but what
 
 88 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 of that '? Warburton's assignment of Addison's in- 
 tellectual rank is better worth consideration : — 
 
 " Mr. A.'s literary character is much mistaken ; he was but an ordinary 
 poet, and worse critic. His verses are heavy, and his jiidfjment of men 
 and women supei-ticial. But in the pleasantry of comic adventures, and 
 in the difjnity of moral allegories, he is inimitable. Nature having 
 joined in liim, as once before in Lucian (who wanted the other's wisdom 
 to make a right use of it) the sublime of Plato to the humour of 
 Menander." 
 
 The humour of Menander we know nothing about ; 
 but I am disposed to think that Addison is as much 
 underrated as to liis humour, as he is absurdly 
 overrated as to his sublimity. The unfevourable 
 part of the estimate is ascribed by Dr. Anderson to 
 J. G. Cooper. I cannot consent that Addison is an 
 ordinary poet. He is not an ordinary poet, but an 
 extraordinarily flat versifier. If ever he approaches 
 to poetry, it is in his prose. His judgment of books 
 is not so much superficial — (for superficial judgment 
 may be right as far as it goes) — as it is wrong-prin- 
 cipled. He had a feeling of excellence, but he had 
 no ideas, and was misled by false maxims. But his 
 remarks on men and women in society — his strictures 
 on the morality of behaviour and social life — are 
 acute, and as profound as they should be. Comic 
 adventures are certainly not the constituents of his 
 humour, but minute, unconscious traits of character. 
 With more philosophy and a poetic mind, his humour 
 would have come nearer to the Cervantic than that 
 of any English writer. His religious papers were 
 well meant, but they are very shallow. I confess 
 myself obtuse to the charms of his style. It is, 
 however, pure English. The best use, if not the
 
 POPE. 89 
 
 highest merit, of the " Tatlers," " Spectators," and 
 " Guai'dians," consists in the light they throw on the 
 age when they appeared, the more valuable because 
 not intended. They are records, not merely of 
 manners and costumes, but of mores, in the Roman 
 sense. Tbey make us better acquainted with what 
 the better part of our proavi and proavcB at the com- 
 mencement of the last century were, how they looked, 
 and by what rules they lived, than any history, 
 sermon, or satire. They tell us much of city, some- 
 thing of country, life ; and as it was their evident 
 design to raise the standard of fashionable morals, 
 they afford pretty decisive proof that the standard 
 was e.x:ceedingly low. Addison has monopolised far 
 more than his share of credit in these delightful 
 works, and does not seem to have used Steele well 
 in any respect. Both he and Pope would have been 
 greater and better had they not been the enfants 
 gates of particular cliques. Both were spoiled by 
 the submission of men who should have been their 
 equals and superiors. Only when they met together, 
 did either encounter an independent equality. The 
 natural result was a good deal of hollow compliment, 
 followed by a great deal of discreditable bickering. 
 
 Voltaire seems to have been a great admirer of 
 Pope — as well he might ; seeing that Pope had made 
 the English language so spruce in a suit of French 
 fashion. W. cites a MS. letter of Voltaire's, writ- 
 ten from England: "I intend to send you two or 
 three poems of Mr. Pope, the best poet of England, 
 and at present, of all the world. I hope you are
 
 90 
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 acquainted enough with the English tongue to be 
 sensible of all the charms of his works. For my part, 
 I look on his poem called the ' Essay on Criticism ' 
 as superior to the Ars Poetica of Horace ; and his 
 ' Rape of the Lock ' is, in my opinion, above the 
 ' Lutrin ' of Despreaux. I never saw so amiable an 
 imagination, so gentle graces, so great variety, so 
 much wit, and so refined a knowledge of the world, 
 as in this little performance." (Oct. 15, 172G.) 
 
 Yet even Voltaire was, or pretended to be, scandal- 
 ised with the description of Sporus. What provo- 
 cation Lord Hervey may have given to incur such 
 uncleanly bespattering, I know not; but no provoca- 
 tion could justify it. It defiles the bespatterer, 
 whetlier it hit the object or not. The insinuation 
 contained in the nicknames Sporus and Fanny, sets 
 Pope in the list of the foulest libellers. Pope's 
 derelictions were sins against his own genius, and a 
 common injury to the cause of wit. Not that there 
 is much wit in the lampoon upon Sporus. Pope's 
 wrath was more feline than leonine ; he never writes 
 well in a rage, — whereas Dryden's powers are sub- 
 limed by fury. To borrow a sublimely ridiculous 
 comparison of his own, he appears a lion, 
 
 " Housed by the lash of his own stubborn tail." 
 
 The verses in question are bad metre, bad English 
 (in effect, they have no grammar at all), false in 
 thouglit, and lame in expression. Hobhouse, in his 
 Radical days, applied the last couplet to Canning — 
 
 " Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust, 
 Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust."
 
 POPE. 91 
 
 In sentences thus balanced, it is naturally to be 
 expected that if one member involve an antithesis, 
 the correspondent member will do the same. I^ow, 
 "beauty that shocks, and pride that licks the dust," 
 are vile antitheses indeed; but, untrusty parts and 
 creeping wit are no antitheses. There is nothing in 
 the simple conception of parts or talents opposed 
 to treacheiy ; nor is the notion of wit contra- 
 dictory to that of meanness.* It may be, Pope 
 suspected Hervey of misrepresenting him at court ; 
 of breathing — 
 
 " The whisper that, to greatness still too near, 
 Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear." 
 
 But as George II. professedly hated " brinting and 
 boetry too," and Pope was notoriously connected with 
 Bolingbroke, Atterbury, Swift, Marchmont, Cobham, 
 and, in general, with the old Tories and new country 
 
 * Tlie critic's moral sensibility seems Iiere to have Imparted a some- 
 what iiiidtie fastidiousness to his literary judgment. Morally considered, 
 the passage is ofl'ensive enough, — at once gross and ill-natured, not to 
 say malicious; — but surely it is abundantly witty, and in point of 
 composition, if not quite perfect, yet of very extraordinary merit. Where 
 shall we find more meaning, moi-e keenly expressed, than in the lines— 
 
 " Or at the ear of Kve. familiar to.ad, 
 Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad ■:■ " 
 
 Though, perhaps, it would have been still better if the allusion had been 
 to a fact in nature or history, ratlicr than to the fiction of another poet; 
 a proof, by-thc-byo, of tlie peculiar estimation in wliicli the " Paradise 
 Lost" must even tlien have been licld. The antitheses in the last couplet 
 are perhaps not quite exact ; though in e.'xcli case fliere is a certain 
 opposition in si'Use, as well as in soimd ; but tlu; poignancy is to be sought 
 in the correspondency of the several parts of the siniilituile, which is very 
 striking. A worse defect is, tliat there is a double comparison to the 
 tempter — as a toad, and as a cherub-faced serpent ; and the images are at 
 
 once somewhat alike, and yet inconsistent. However, it is better to be 
 
 repelled tlian attracted by such a specimen of misused power; and the 
 Editor will be well pleased that the reader should feel with his author 
 though he should disagree witli himself. — U.C.
 
 92 
 
 NOTES ON P.niTISH POETS. 
 
 party, there needed no whisper to make him un- 
 acceptable to a court which he ostentatiously slighted. 
 Or may be, Hervey was, or was supposed to be, the 
 author of the " Letter to a Doctor of Divinitj'," or 
 the " Verses to the Imitator of Horace," in which 
 Popes poetry, I suppose, is designated as 
 
 " Ilai'il as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure." 
 
 If his lordship really I'eflected on the poet's family 
 or infirmities. Pope's resentment was more than 
 venial ; but he should have wreaked it with a due 
 regard to his own dignity and his readers' stomachs. 
 I suspect Lord Hervey to have been a handsome 
 man, and a favourite with the ladies — perhaps a heau 
 gargon ; — keen aggravations of an offence in the eyes 
 of the ugly, the diminutive, the lass-lorn, and the 
 unfashionable. 
 
 Dryden was evidently no favourite withWarburton. 
 In his observations on the oft-quoted distich — 
 
 " That not in Fancy's maze he wandcr'd long, 
 But stoop'd to trutli, and moralised the song," — 
 
 he remarks, " tliat he (Pope) soon discovered in what 
 his strength lay, and he made the best of that 
 advantage by a sedulous cultivation of his proper 
 talent. For having read Quintilian early, this pre- 
 cept did not escape him : ' Sunt hsec duo vitanda 
 prorsus ; unum, ne tentes quod effici non potest ; 
 alterum, ne ab eo quod quis optime facit, in aliud, cui 
 minus est idoneus, transferas.' It was in this know- 
 ledge and cultivation of his genius that he had 
 principally the advantage of his great master, Dryden,
 
 POPE. 93 
 
 who, by his ' Mac Flecuo,' his ' Absalom and Achito- 
 phel,' but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, ap- 
 pears to have had great talents for this species of moral 
 poetry ; but, unluckily, he seemed neither to under- 
 stand nor attend to it." Again, with much more 
 justice, in addition to a very shallow note, signed P., 
 and probably Pope s own writing, in which he speaks 
 of those latter works of Ben Jonson, called by Dryden 
 his '■ dotages," — " Dryden does indeed call them so, 
 but very undeservedly. The truth is, he was not 
 sufficiently acquainted with the manners of the pre- 
 ceding age to judge of them. Besides, nothing is 
 more inconstant than his characters of his own 
 country poets, nor less reasonable than most of his 
 critical notions ; for he had many occasional ends to 
 serve, and few principles to go upon. This may be 
 said as to the character of his critical works in 
 general, though written with great spirit and vivacity." 
 I applaud the annotator for taking the part of the 
 children of Ben's old age, the more because those 
 dotages were rather favourites of S. T. C. As to the 
 inconstancy of Dryden's judgment, nothing better 
 can be said than has been said by Dr. Trapp, and 
 confirmed by Dr. Johnson : — " Novimus viri illius 
 maxime non semper accuratissiraas esse censuras, 
 nee ad severissimam norraam critices exactas ; illo 
 judice, id plerumque optimum est quod prse manibus 
 habet, et in quo nunc occupatur." Whatever form of 
 verse or description of poem he is writing — whatever 
 author he is translating — whatever lord, lady, or 
 bona roha he is eulogising, — are certain to be most
 
 1» 
 
 94 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 dignified, most noble, most everything. When lie 
 had composed the " Annus Mirabilis," in the elegiac 
 quatrain (which probably owed its temporary popu- 
 larity to Waller's Panegyric), he tells Sir Robert 
 Howai'd — "I have chosen to write my poem in 
 quatrains, or stanzas of four, in alternate rhyme, 
 because I have ever judged them more noble and of 
 greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than 
 any other form of verse in use among us ; in which I 
 am sure I have your approbation." I do not think 
 him altogether wrong in this judgment. I think the 
 decasyllabic quatrain much more impressive tlian the 
 couplet, the octo-syllabic, the Alexandrine, the long 
 measure, the anapaestic, — in short, than any rhymed 
 metre whatever, except the Spenserian, which is 
 itself less favourable to condensation of thought. 
 But no stanza shorter than the ottava rima can be 
 well adapted to continuous narrative or prolonged 
 discussion ; nor can any stanza be really proper for 
 a poem in which the lyric element does not prevail. 
 Johnson is right in maintaining the unsuitableness 
 of the quatrain to that species of elegy of which the 
 characteristic is simplicity and tenuity ; but, in truth, 
 it were lost labour to invent a metre fit for a species 
 of composition so la-la and lackadaisical. For mere 
 love verses — indeed, for all verses in which simple ten- 
 derness should murmur — the measures of the Scotch 
 songsters seem to me the best, as their love is itself 
 the most natural — neither refined nor corporealised 
 above nor below the level of nature. But love is 
 capable of calling forth high and ardent or profound
 
 POPE. 95 
 
 and self-searchiug thoughts — pity armed with the 
 might of indignation — hopes, and wishes, and fears, 
 in which all mankind — all human nature, and its 
 awful interests, have part — speculations not bounded 
 by time and space. All these may be the subject of 
 elegy, and may sound aright in the elegiac stanza. 
 I am not aware that Dryden ever contradicted this 
 preference ; but he is supposed to have implicitly 
 withdrawn it, by composing all his subsequent works 
 (his odes, songs, and some of his plays excepted) in 
 th§ heroic couplet. But the superior facility of the 
 couplet, and his own conscious skill in its construc- 
 tion, sufficiently explain his desertion of the quatrain, 
 without supposing a change of judgment. But 
 Twining has shrewdly pointed out the inconsistency 
 of Drydeu's estimates of dramatic and of epic poetry 
 in the notes to the translation of Aristotle's Poetics, 
 note 273. In his "Essay on Dramatic Poetry " — the 
 dialogue, I presume, published in 1<)68 — he says: 
 " Though tragedy be justly preferred before the 
 other" — I. e. epic poetry. In liis dedication to 
 Virgil's ^Eneis, he declares that "An heroic poem, 
 truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest work wliich 
 tlie soul of a man is capable to perform." When 
 Virgil was his theme, all other writers were to be 
 depreciated ; but when he had translated a book of 
 Homer, he manifestly inclines the balance to the 
 latter. After all, there is nothing more than natural 
 in this inconstancy. Dryden had little pleasure in 
 any writer — any subject, sacred or profane — except 
 as matter for the exercise of liis own intellectual
 
 96 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 activity ; and that was to him the best, which called 
 forth the latest and most self-pleasing energies. 
 
 The most pleasing, if not the brightest, passage in 
 this long epistle, is that which alludes to Pope's 
 parents, — rendered the more interesting by the fact 
 that his motlier died a few weeks after it was finished. 
 The son, disappointed in his wish, 
 
 " To keep awhile one parent from the sky," 
 
 erected a monument in Twickenham church, with this 
 inscription : — 
 
 D.O.M. 
 
 ALEXASDRO POPE, VI HO INNOCUO, PROBO, PIO, 
 
 QUI VIXIT AXXOS 75, OB. 1717, 
 
 ET EDITH.«; C0N.7UGI IXCULPABILI, 
 
 PIENTI.SSIM.E, 
 QU^ VIXIT ANXOS 9.3, OB. 1733, 
 PARENTIBUS BENE MERESTIBUS FILIUS FECIT 
 ET .SIBI. 
 
 Johnson, whose admiration of Pope arose more 
 from insensibility to the merits of others than from 
 any deep intellectual sympathy or moral affection, 
 not only aggravates the real faults of that great little 
 man, but does very scanty justice to his many social 
 and christian virtues. His filial piety was not to be 
 denied ; but the great moralist, who balanced an ultra- 
 fidian credulity in the supernatural with an extra- 
 ordinary degree of scepticism in things natural and 
 human, retails Pope's account of his own family as if 
 it were at best a very doubtful affair. This is pure 
 ill-nature and ill-manners. The fact I take to be, 
 that Johnson, having a Tory veneration for pedigree, 
 envied Pope his gentle blood, and thought he did 
 not deserve to have an uncle lulled for King Charles.
 
 POPE. 97 
 
 The account, which is signed with Pope's initial, is 
 as follows: — "Mr. P.'s father was of a gentleman's 
 family in Oxfordshire, the head of wliich was the 
 E. of Downe, whose sole heiress married the E. of 
 Lindsay. His mother was the daughter of W. Turner, 
 Esq., of York. She had three brothers, one of whom 
 was killed, the other died, in the service of King 
 Charles ; the eldest following his fortunes, and 
 becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what 
 estate remained after the sequestrations and for- 
 feitures of her family." — All this is well, and yet 
 Pope's father might have been a mechanic, a hatter, 
 and even a bankrupt. The truth I believe to have 
 been that he was a respectable tradesman. But 
 sensible people in these days seldom inquire what is 
 a man's blood, though they may be anxious to know 
 something about his early habits and associations. I 
 can, however, w-ell believe that the gentlemen of the 
 press, and such-like vermin, twitted Pope with his 
 origin, the religion of his parents, and even his shape 
 and personal infirmities. Such are the general topics 
 of abuse with the dunces and hirelings of the present 
 day. I wish that Alexander the Little had not con- 
 tracted some symptoms of the disease of his rcvilers, 
 which was indeed the epidemic of that age. There 
 are plenty of Budgells, Curls, Duckets, and Moores 
 even now, who are not one whit better than the Curls 
 and Moores of the Dunciad ; but I will venture to 
 affirm that no man, approximating to the rank of 
 Pope in literature or in society, would degrade him- 
 self by answering them so nearly in their own way as 
 VOL. a. »
 
 98 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 Pope was too often provoked to do, — far less by 
 classing with tbeiu innocent distress or real genius. 
 Blackguards, in short, are just what they were at the 
 commencement of the last century ; but gentlemen 
 are both multiplied and very greatly improved. 
 
 There are many things in this epistle which I do 
 not yet understand ; for Pope has hardly a line with- 
 out an allusion. It was obviously, as he tells us it 
 was, begun many years before its publication, and 
 drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions 
 offered. As might be expected, the joinery is very 
 palpable, and not remarkably ingenious. Pope's 
 thoughts seldom generated each other. Seldom, very 
 seldom, is an idea expounded and articulated through 
 a lengthened passage. The successive couplets either 
 repeat the same conceit or observation in different 
 words, or else are brought together arbitrarily, with 
 no more intrinsic relation, confluence, or mutual 
 modification, than the pebbles of a tesselated pave- 
 ment. Passages of mere enumeration or specification, 
 of course, are out of the question. I doubt not that 
 it was Pope's general practice to set down every line, 
 lialf line, or lucky phrase that occurred to him in a 
 book, and either to find or make a place for them 
 when and where he could. Hence he is, of all 
 writers, the best to quote ; for the quotation never 
 changes meaning when severed from the context. 
 His best things are milliners' flowers, and have no 
 root. Yet he has much more sincerity than Dryden ; 
 but it is the sincerity of the man, not of the poet.
 
 POPE. 99 
 
 His versification has been over-praised and unjustly 
 depreciated. Nothing, in fact, can be better in its 
 kind. It leaves nothing to wish for; but that is 
 itself a proof that it is not of a very excellent kind, 
 — for whatever is truly excellent involves an idea, 
 and excites a desire of something greater and better 
 than itself; of something that cannot be realised in 
 earthly materials. Still it is not true that Pope is 
 a monotonous or merely a regular versifier. His 
 verses may be read monotonously; but it is by readers 
 who would make no verse at all of Shakspeare or 
 Milton. Hardly two lines consecutive of Pope scan 
 alike. They may, indeed, be reduced to ten syllables ; 
 but there is no foot which does not enter into the 
 combination. 
 
 IMITATIONS OF HORACE. 
 
 Pope's " Imitations of Horace," as indeed be or his 
 editor has confessed, are as unlike Horace as they 
 well can be — I mean in manner and expression ; for 
 the accommodations are as pat as they can be made : 
 and I hardly recollect an instance where an allusion, 
 merely Roman, remains in the original costume, — a 
 fault which Uryden frequently commits in his para- 
 phrases, which are neither ancient nor modern. 
 Some strokes of satire hit nothing in Rome, while 
 the majority are exclusively Roman. Johnson, in 
 his "London," is more careful or more lucky, and 
 has much of the rhetorical manner of Juvenal. But 
 Pope is hardly more remote from Homer than from 
 Horace. It is indeed not easy to conceive what was 
 
 H 2
 
 100 NOTES ON BIIITISII POETS. 
 
 tlie effect of Horace s hexameters upon a Roman ear. 
 It could hardly be quite colloquial : this the strong, 
 metrical close of the hexameter must have pre- 
 vented. The lines could never flow into easy para- 
 graphs, like the quieter parts of Cowper's Task ; but 
 assuredly it could not resemble the acute-angular, 
 ear-stmging epigrams of Pope. In the lighter 
 passages it might come nearer to the gossiping 
 octo-syllabics of Moore's Fables, Cottons Visions, 
 Matthew Greens Spleen, and such compositions in 
 the same measure as have not affected humorous 
 rhymes, or sharp turns of expression. The graver 
 parts approach the couplets of Ben Jonson, except 
 that they are not laden with the same weight of 
 meaning. Horace loiters for lack of purpose ; Ben 
 pauses with deep consideration ; Horace tacks 
 about, like a yacht in a liglit breeze ; Ben rows 
 a deep-freighted vessel against the tide. Pope re- 
 sembles a steam-boat, repeating the same trip day 
 after day, with different fi'eights and passengers, but 
 for tlie most part in the same track, and the same 
 time. To vary the metaphor. Pope has cryst.allised 
 Horace. The likeness to Juvenal, which he claims 
 for his Imitation, consists rather in the virus of the 
 satire than the form of its exhibition. Juvenal is a 
 long thunder-storm, peal after peal, growling away, 
 now close at your ear, now far off and within an ace 
 of silence, then rattling over-head again. Pope lets 
 off a series of crackers, matters of mere amusement 
 to all but those they are aimed at. The " Epistle to 
 Augustus " is unquestionably the best of the series, 
 tlioiigh the rest is good in its way. t
 
 G. WEST. 101 
 
 SWIFT. 
 
 The verses of Swift, though not equal to his prose 
 in grave humour, and upon subjects generally local, 
 often trivial, and not seldom nauseous, are well 
 worthy of an attentive perusal. No writer with whom 
 I am acquainted has conveyed the colloquial familiar 
 of daily life in rhyme with so good an effect, unless 
 indeed it be Prior. He is not prosaic, and yet in his 
 liveliest verses there is not a phrase which would 
 not be admissible in good prose. His odes are about 
 !is good as Pindarics generally are. In the lirst, he 
 imitates Cowley, but without striking success. The 
 ode has been called the most difficult of compo- 
 sitions. Certainly it is that in which failure is most 
 frequent. Wordswoith's Ode on Immortality is 
 decidedly the finest in any language. 
 
 G. WEST. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 OCCASIONED BY RRADINO MU. WEST's TUASSI.ATION OP PIVDAR. 
 BY THE UEV. I)B. .lOSEPIl WAKTON. 
 
 Dear, good-natured Joey ! — I daresay he thought 
 this Pindaric very like the real thing. He had sense 
 and scholarship to see (for I have my doubts whether 
 he or any man could hear) that Pindar's odes are 
 regular, and that Horace, when he speaks of nnmeris 
 lege sohitis, must refer to the dithyrambics no longer
 
 10^ NOTES OX BRITISH POETS. 
 
 extant. But he did not see, or chose to forget, that 
 tlie passionate inspiration, the Hebraic earnestness 
 which he ascribes to Pindar, applies no more to those 
 prize poems which — the more the pity — are all the 
 remaining witness to his fame, than the metrical 
 irregularity. He did and could feel no enthusiasm 
 about Olympic or Nemaean victories. Like modern 
 laureates and makers of installation odes, he takes 
 every occasion, or rather every opportunity, to escape 
 from his task into dark antiquity and general reflec- 
 tion, and it is in his wise, his religious reflections 
 that his main value consists. I do but report the 
 judgment, if not the words, of that revered father 
 who, while yet a young father, bequeathed these 
 volumes to me with a solemn injunction never 
 to part with them but in extremity. Though I do 
 not hold the authority of Johnson very high, in re 
 vietricd, I am disposed to agree with him that the 
 strophic and anti-strophic form does not agree well 
 with our language, except perhaps in pieces designed 
 for a musical accompaniment. The practice of Horace 
 proves that he thought it unfit for the Latin. Joey's 
 comparison of smooth rhymes to wax candles which 
 never gutter nor flare, is more in the taste of Cowley's 
 Pindarics than of Pindar's.- 
 
 • '• As well might ye comp<arc 
 
 The glimmerings of a waxen fiaroe, 
 Emblem of verse, correctly tame, 
 To liis own Etna's sulpbur-spoutiug caves."
 
 AKENSIDE. 103 
 
 AKENSIDE. 
 
 " Mr. Brand .... alleges that a halt which he had in his gait 
 was occasioned," &c. — Frmii the Life. 
 
 There have been so many lame poets that it is no 
 wonder if a few poets have been lame men. Tyrtseus, 
 Akenside, Scott, Byron, and, I dare say, others. 
 Some have included Shakspeare, but I know not on 
 what authority, except an ambiguous expression in 
 one of his sonnets. 
 
 " When he resolved not to be a dissenting minister, he probably 
 did not cease to be a dissenter." 
 
 It is probable enough that Akenside never ceased 
 to dissent, but in none of his works can I discover a 
 trace of the dissenter. Indeed, heterodox as I am, 
 I doubt whether there was ever a dissenter poet, 
 though the Non-conformists have produced a fair 
 proportion of poetry. As far as I know, Keble is 
 the fa-st, — certainly the best Church-of-England 
 poet.* Satire on the Church of Rome does not make 
 a Church-of-England poet, nor abuse of the Cliurch 
 of England a dissenter poet. Cowper may, however, 
 be regarded as a Low-Church poet. The best hymns 
 of Watts, the Westleys, the Olney Hymns, &c., have 
 nothing sectarian. They differ from the rigid orthodox 
 only by being more personal and subjective than 
 episcopal prudentiality would allow, at least in public 
 
 * II.C. must have forgotten llerbert.— D.C.
 
 104 NOTES ON BniTlSH POETS. 
 
 worship. I am -n-ofully ignorant of the early Chris- 
 tian poets. What I have seen of the Cathohc hymns, 
 rhythmic or rhyming, makes me desirous of seeing 
 more. Akenside, dissenter or not, coukl not have de- 
 rived from modern dissenters that classical Quixotism, 
 that almost heathenish admiration of ancient manners, 
 ancient virtues, ancient patriotism, ancient philosophy, 
 which exposed him to the ridicule of Smollett. Upon 
 certain minds the study of the Greek and Roman 
 writers, and, perhaps yet more, the surpassing beauty 
 of antique art, produced a state of mind as far removed 
 from common sense, though far from so noble and 
 devoted, as that which La Mancha's Knight imbibed 
 from the chivalric romances. A not dissimilar effect 
 was produced in certain sects by the translation 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures. They became more 
 Hebrew than either European or Christian. Has 
 not the perusal of the Fathers and Monastics given 
 rise to a similar delusion in our own day? But 
 there is no necessity for any of those fjLovofxavLat. — 
 no need to prohibit either books of chivalry, or of 
 Heathen or Hebrew antiquity ; far less would T seem 
 to censure the religious study of Christian divines of 
 any age. It is the exclusive study alone that is 
 morbid and dangerous. Not the reading this or that 
 too much, but reading it so as to leave insufficient 
 time and thought for anything else. But to read any 
 ancient work as it should be I'ead, there is needed a 
 discerning spirit to divide the substance from the phe- 
 nomenon, — the proper form from the accidental shape, 
 — the shape itself from the drapery ; to distinguish
 
 DYER. 105 
 
 between an arbitrary sign or emblem and an essential 
 correspondence ; above all, to discern the permanent, 
 which is eternal truth and life everlasting, from the 
 positive and conventional, which, however long it 
 seems to last, is the birth of time, and heir of 
 corruption. 
 
 DYER. 
 
 " I have been told that Akcnside . . . said that he would regulate 
 Lis opinion of the reigning taste by the sale of Dyer's Fleece^'' &c. 
 
 Dr. Johnson'' s Life of Dyer. 
 
 Dyer and his " Fleece " have since obtained the praise 
 of a poet who beliolds beauty and truth with clearer 
 eyes than Akenside, and has recorded his approbation 
 in a sonnet which I cannot help thinking supei'ior to 
 its subject. Dyer was doubtless a poet. He looked 
 at nature for himself, and saw her well ; but he did 
 not possess in any high degree the faculty of making 
 others see a whole, — far less had he the Wordsworthiau 
 faculty of revealing more in the objects of sight or 
 hearing than meets the common eye and ear. Yet the 
 Fleece would be a beautiful poem, if Dyer had not 
 encumbered himself with the fancied duty of teaching 
 what few not personally interested in the woollen trade 
 care to learn, and what they probably know better than 
 he did. The attempt to give aught of an Arcadian 
 character to shepherd life is utterly defeated by these 
 utilitarian details. The real life of a northern shepherd 
 suggests much poetry ; but with this Dyer does not 
 seem to have been intimate.
 
 106 
 
 KOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 THE RUINS OF ROME. 
 " Enough of Grongar, and the shady dales," &c. 
 
 This is an eloquent and stately poem, with some 
 striking pictures, strong versification, and manly 
 though somewhat rigid diction. But I cannot con- 
 ceive a man with an eye so completely reverted as to 
 talk of Rome without an allusion to the greater 
 dominion she exercised after her pagan forces were 
 overthrown. Surely Hildebrand was a gi-eater man 
 than Scipio or Caesar. Nor is it true that the splen- 
 dours of ancient Rome were fruits of libert}'. They 
 were ei'ected by slaves out of the spoils of aggression. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 " It is related by RiifFliead, that when he determined on the 
 Churcli, he addressed himself to Pope, who, in a frolic, advised the 
 diligent perusal of St. Thomas Aquinas." — From the Life, 
 
 This vulgar joke-anecdote against Thomas Aquinas 
 reminds me of Fielding's observation of Aristotle, 
 that he was not quite so great a blockhead as he was 
 deemed by young gentlemen who had never read his 
 works. It is plain, however, from Young's writings, 
 that he really had formed his mind on the scholastic 
 writers. An edition of the " Night Thoughts," with 
 a running commentary from Aquinas and his fol- 
 lowers, would perhaps surprise such of our modem 
 critics as can construe Latin. — S. T. C.
 
 GRAY. 107 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 ON THE LIFE. 
 
 I HAVE heard or read somewhere that Gray, nervously 
 apprehensive of fire, kept a rope-ladder in his rooms, 
 of which some young men of fortune being apprised, 
 set a tub of water under his window, and raised a 
 cry of fire. The poet, descending rapidly, plunged into 
 the aqueous pitfall, and resolved to quit the spot where 
 youug men of fortune were perhaps only laughingly 
 admonished for a frolic, for which men of no fortune 
 would and ought to have been expelled. All practical 
 jokes are in bad taste ; but I most of all abhor those 
 which play upon the fears of the timid, or, like forged 
 love-letters, work on the affections of the susceptible ; 
 while I confess perhaps a too lenient toleration for 
 such tricks as only infringe on the purses of the 
 avaricious, or the dignity of self or official importance. 
 Age and infirmity however should at any rate be held 
 sacred. 
 
 ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 
 
 " Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, 
 
 Some Cromwell, guiltless of liis country's blood." 
 
 Originally, Tully and Coesar. In neither edition are 
 the lines excellent, though a IMilton and a Cromwell 
 become the churchyard of Stoke Poges better than a 
 Tully and a Cnesar. " Inglorious " does not imply
 
 108 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 mere negation of glory, any more than " infamous " the 
 negation of fame. They are contraries, not mere 
 negatives. Men as lowly as any in the " country 
 churchyard " have played the part of Cromwell s. 
 
 ODE FOR MUSIC, 
 
 PBRPORIIP.D AT THE SENATR-IIOTISF, AT OAMBUIDfiK, AT THE INSTAT.I.ATIOH 
 OP HIS ORAI-E AlKiUSTUS JIKNBY FITZ150Y, I)UKK OF GRAFTON, CHAN- 
 ORLr.OB OF TIIK fNIVEKSITV. 
 
 "Hence, avaunt ! ('tis holy ^ound,)" &c. 
 
 S. T. C. and W. W. consider this ode the best, or 
 one of tlie best, of Gray's compositions. I have 
 myself said that it was too good for the occasion. 
 It is certainly more Pindaric, and more original, than 
 any of his other odes. The versification is very skil- 
 fully woven, though ears with short memories may 
 think some of the rhymes too far apart. The histo- 
 rical allusions are cleverly introduced, and just enough 
 is said of each for the purpose. I know very little 
 about the Duke of Grafton, not relying much upon 
 " Junius ;" but I doubt whether the venerable J\lar- 
 <»aret, albeit her own descent was not absolutely 
 clear of bastardy, would look with much of pride or 
 satisfaction on a remote and spurious scion, whose 
 name, Fitzroy, explained the nature of his connection 
 with royalty. Gray owed his professorship to the 
 Duke of Grafton. 
 
 I can hardly forgive Dr. Anderson, who treats us 
 so liberally with the Latin no-verses of his com-
 
 R. WEST. 109 
 
 patriot and rival classic, Graeme, for omitting all tbe 
 Latin lyrics of Gray. To be sure, he could not con- 
 strue them. He has also omitted the sonnet to West. 
 And why have we not the epigram on Tophet ? which 
 proves that Gray, like his friend Mason, had talents 
 for satire of the first order. 
 
 R, WEST. 
 
 "Ante omnes morbos importunissima tussis." 
 
 It goes far to remove the contempt with which I 
 am too apt to regard the art of Latin versification, as 
 taught in our public schools, that its practice has 
 often diverted the pains of sickness, and the weariness 
 of old age. Johnson turned a prayer into Latin verse 
 when he apprehended that his intellect was depart- 
 ing, and was satisfied of his mental sanity, because 
 he was aware of the defects of the composition. 
 '() MoKaptTJ/s' beautifully compared the recurrence 
 of old men to the classical studies of their youth, to 
 the last lioht of the sun shining on the hill tops 
 over which it arose in tlie morning. T believe the 
 reference was to the INlarquis Wellesley. 
 
 Some writers manitani a sort of dubious, twilight 
 existence, from their connection with others of greater 
 name. R. West, though an elegant and promising 
 youth, is one of them, lie would have been forgotten 
 had he not been the friend of Gray. Jago would have
 
 110 
 
 NOTES ON BRITfSH POETS. 
 
 no place among poets had ho not been a favourite 
 of Shenstone. Kirke White will live by the kindness 
 of Southey. If aught of mine be preserved from 
 oblivion, it will be owing to my bearing the name of 
 Coleridge, and having enjoyed, I fear with less profit 
 than I ought, the acquaintance of Southey and of 
 Wordsworth. — Nov. ^7th, 1843, 
 
 LYTTELTON. 
 
 ON THE LIFE. 
 
 " When weary of fashion and debate, he used very often, with 
 Pitt, to visit his cousin West at Wickham, from whose con- 
 versation, it is said, he received that conviction of the truth of 
 Christianity whirh produced, in 17-17, his ' Dissertation on the 
 Conversion of St. Paul,' — a treatise to which infidelity has never 
 been able to fabricate a specious answer." 
 
 Johnson should have said that the conversion 
 of St. Paul, recorded in the Acts, and testified in 
 his Epistles, was an argument for Christianity, to 
 which infidelity could never fabricate a satisfactory 
 answer. The argument itself does appear to me 
 irrefragable, and Paley, in his " Horae Paulinae," has 
 made it not stronger, for that is impossible, but 
 clearer ; he has brought it in the best possible form 
 before the court of common sense. I cannot say so 
 much for Lyttelton. But Lyttelton lived in an age 
 when Christianity was at a discount ; and it was 
 something chivalric for a very fine gentleman, a patriot 
 and minister of state, and a pretty versifier, to appear
 
 LYTTELTON. Ill 
 
 as the advocate of so unfashionable a personage as 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Dr. Anderson complains that Johnson's estimate of 
 Lyttelton's poetical character is sparing and invidious. 
 It is seldom safe to contradict old Poz when the 
 subject-matter lay within the compass of liis common 
 sense and sympathy ; and surely Lyttelton's verses 
 are neither above him nor beyond him. He appears 
 to have said quite as much for the genteel and enno- 
 bled versifier as truth will warrant; — perhaps as his 
 lordship himself in his maturer years could have 
 believed. Whatever might be the intellectual powers 
 of Lyttelton, it is manifest that they were very lightly 
 tasked in the production of liis poetiy. He never 
 rhymed with his whole mind, — veiy seldom with his 
 whole heart. Now, whatever may be thought of reading 
 poetry for amusement, it is certain that good poetry, 
 even of the lighter species, cannot be written for 
 amusement. Not only must there be minute pains- 
 taking, such as might suffice a lady to flower a piece 
 of muslin, or paint a humniiiig-bird on rice paper 
 (and yet this is not unnecessary), but there must be 
 an intense, and sincere, and integral ere'pyeta of the 
 whole man ; and, what is more difficult, there must be 
 an absolute abstraction and secession of soul, and 
 exclusion of all regards that stand aloof from tlie 
 main point. Now it were slander against Lyttelton 
 to suppose that he Avrote the major part of his verses 
 with any greater earnestness than he might have 
 danced a minuet, or played a game at chess. Some
 
 1 1 2 KOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 of his amatory trifles are pretty and tender, and very 
 pleasing, because they were dictated by a real attach- 
 ment, which led to a happy marriage. The Monody 
 is interesting, because we know that it was suggested 
 by true and honourable grief, notwithstanding the 
 clumsy imitation of Lj^cidas, and the vile taste of 
 introducing mythology and pastoral allegory into a 
 matter-of-fact memorial of a departed Christian wife. 
 r>ut poetry which derives its principal charm from 
 an anecdote, or extraneous circumstance, cannot be 
 of a very high order. Of the Progress of Love, if it 
 be not blame enough that it is pastoral, it is some 
 discommendation that it is nonsense. " The Soliloquy 
 of a Country Beauty," " Blenheim," the " Epistle to 
 Dr. Ayscough," &c., are the verses of a boy, but not 
 of a boy poet. Johnson was right enough about such 
 blank as "Blenheim," yet he would pei'haps have 
 been better disposed towards the metre had he better 
 liked the hero. He certainly entertained, at a late 
 period of his life, that prejudice against Marlborough 
 which he derived from his early political associations. 
 I agree with him, that the " Advice to Belinda " is 
 the best of Lyttelton's metrical productions, because, 
 as far as relates to marriage at least, it is good advice, 
 though it indicates a very mean estimate of the capa- 
 city of female excellence, and contains expressions 
 which no virtuous woman in these days would tolerate, 
 — which no gentleman would now address to a virtuous 
 woman. But Lyttelton was young when he wrote it, 
 and caught the slang of a vile, degenerate age, to 
 which he was himself morally superior. When he
 
 LYTTELTON. 113 
 
 had truly loved, and found by experience what a 
 good woman really is, he spoke more reverently and 
 more wisely. Advice, however, is seldom poetical ; nor 
 does Lyttelton's advice indicate, as Johnson kindly 
 surmises, that any time or labour could have made 
 the author a poet. I never read Lyttelton's " Persian 
 Letters ;" but the disguise was not only stolen, but 
 ill-chosen. No Englishman could possibly appear to 
 view England with Persian eyes. All that he says 
 about liberty and patriotism in his verses is sad stuff. 
 He was too polite and too comfortable a gentleman 
 to know anything of the matter. But while I think 
 Johnson just to Lyttelton as a poet, I think him by 
 no means just to his merits as a man. Why should 
 the anxiety of a nobleman to have his book correct, 
 and correctly printed, be called vanity ? To be sure, 
 poor authors cannot purchase correctness at such an 
 expense, but that is no reason why rich authors should 
 not. Still more invidious is Johnson's statement, 
 that Lyttelton delighted in mortifying Shenstone by 
 exposing the weak points of the Leasowes. Per- 
 haps Shenstone might say so in a bilious mood, but 
 that is no excuse for those wiio repeated his words. 
 Truth may be a libel in morals, though it should not 
 be so held in law. I cannot help thinking that a 
 little bit of the radical lurked under Johnson's ultra 
 royalism ; for he certainly was an ultra royalist, and 
 no more a constitutional tory in the modern sense, 
 than Milton was in the modern sense a radical 
 reformer. 
 
 VOL. u. 1
 
 114 NOTES ON BKITISH POETS. 
 
 LLOYD. 
 
 ON THE FAME OF ACTORS. 
 
 " Yet, hapless artist ! though thy skill can raise 
 Tiic bursting peal of everlasting praise, — 
 Tlioiigli at thy beck Applause delighted stands, 
 And lifts, Briareus-like, her hundred hands, — 
 Know, Fame awards thee but a partial breath ; 
 Not all thy talents brave the stroke of death." 
 
 TIi£ Actor. 
 
 This complaint is not absolutely just. Betterton, 
 Quin, Garrick, Kemble, Siddons, are great names 
 still, — perhaps the greater because those who have 
 never seen them suppose them to have been all that 
 can be desired, and more than can be imagined, of 
 histrionic art. And what more than a name is 
 Apelles, Zeuxis, Praxiteles ? what more to the world 
 in general Michel Angelo ? What but a name is 
 Alexander, Hannibal, Scipiu, Marlborough ? What 
 else will Wellington be a hundred years hence ? The 
 heavier affliction is that actors, like beauties, are 
 liable to outlive the grounds of tlieir reputation, and 
 tci survive — the walking contradiction to their some- 
 time riatterers. ]3ut then posterity is sure to con- 
 ceive (jf them by the praises bestowed on their palmy 
 state, and set down all the retlections bestowed upon 
 their decline to envy and malice. Thus beauties, 
 once dead and forgotten, receive a new and ever- 
 lasting lease of loveUness. Who does not imagine 
 Marv on the scaffold as the same enchantress that
 
 LLOYD. 1 1 5 
 
 maddened pooi' Chatellar, and made John Knox 
 himself lament that so fair a work of God should 
 be given over to Satan ? Yet, by all accounts, she 
 was a shrivelled, gray, and miserable old woman, 
 bent and broken before her time by sorrow, — it is to 
 be feared by remorse likewise. A far greater draw- 
 back on the actor's happiness than the brevity of his 
 fame, is the unsatisfactory nature of that fame while 
 it lasts. If applause be given, the pleasure is too 
 violent and intoxicating to be wholesome ; if with- 
 held, the disappointed aspirant can derive little 
 consolation from the consciousness of well-deservmg, 
 — and he lacks that appeal to futurity which has at 
 least the advantage of never being rejected to the 
 suitor's earthly knowledge. He is, moreover, in 
 art what a demagogue is in politics. He must be 
 popular or nothing. The approbation of the few 
 will not even procure him admittance to the green- 
 room. His highest triumphs contribute little to 
 self-respect, because he knows that they are not 
 obtained from tlie respect of others. However ad- 
 mired, however caressed by rank, beauty, or fasliion, 
 he cannot conceal from himself that all this admiration 
 is very near akin to contempt. He is the guest and 
 the idol of peers and patronesses, because he cannot 
 be their equal. He holds something the same place 
 in society as the guardians of the seraglio in an 
 Oriental court, who are trusted and favoured because 
 they are not considered men. It were greatly to be 
 wished, if the stage is to be tolerated, that the stigma 
 attached to the profession of a player were altogether 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 () NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 done away. Were players respected as other citizens, 
 they would not be less respectable, and would per- 
 haps refuse to appear in any part that was incon- 
 sistent with their character as men and as gentlemen, 
 and so etfectually purify the stage itself. The man 
 or woman who despises actors, as such, commits an 
 unpardonable offence if ever seen in a theatre. 
 
 COOPER. 
 
 THE VISION OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 OCTOSYLLABIC METRE. 
 
 This Vision is a fair, because a good, instance of 
 that over-dressed fashion of language which W. W. 
 has condemned as false poetic diction. It is a sort of 
 cento of the prettiest phrases which the author's 
 memory supplies. The expression is mere drapery, 
 — gold lace, and ribbons, and milliner's flowers, — not 
 the body and sensuous phenomenon of the thought. 
 It is, indeed, genteel finery, — not soiled and tawdry 
 frippery. Cooper's highest praise seems to be that 
 he writes like a gentleman, and this is saying a good 
 deal. He was commendable for varying the monotony 
 of the octosyllabic, which requires the spice of Hudi- 
 brastic rhymes to preserve it from somnolence. The 
 L'Allegro, II Penseroso, and a hundred other delicia, I 
 
 may seem to contradict this; but these owe their i 
 
 delightful variety to the judicious intermixture of 
 trochees, spondees, and even anapaests, — a matter of
 
 p. WHITEHEAD. 117 
 
 uo small difficulty and delicacy ; and even when this 
 is effected, the occasional alternation of the rhymes 
 authorised by Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron is a 
 pleasurable relief Besides, the wild impassioned 
 lyrical spirit of these writers is quite another thing 
 from the metrical chit-chat of Prior, Lloyd, Swift, &c., 
 in which there is nothing lyrical, — no pervading 
 stream of music, meandering and eddying with every 
 turn and vagary of fancy and feeling. These talkers 
 are apt to be tiresome, if they continue long in one 
 strain. But do what you will, French levities will 
 acquire a specific gravity in English, and taste like 
 champagne in a heel-tap. 
 
 P. WHITEHEAD. 
 — * — 
 
 ON THE IMITATORS OF POPE. 
 
 Lord Byron, in his acute and caustic, but coarse 
 and prejudiced. Letters to Bowles, maintains the 
 superiority of Pope to the naturals, by asserting that 
 Pope's influence and example had made many excel- 
 lent poets; whereas the followers of Wordsworth, &c., 
 had been wretched drivellers. I do not remember 
 the words, but the sense. The argument would not 
 be absolutely conclusive, even were the premises 
 true. On the other hand, one should conjecture that 
 the excellence which could be successfully imitated 
 by mediocrity could not be e.xcellence of a first-rate 
 order. It is easy to mimic the peculiarities, to adopt
 
 J8 
 
 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 the phrases, to copy the turns, to echo the sentiments 
 of any writer ; and the involuntary burlesque of insane 
 admirers shows up an author's weak points better 
 than any intentional parody or travestie. But to 
 compose in the spirit of a great master is quite 
 another affair. To do this there must be, if not an 
 equality, yet a congeneity of genius ; or a high 
 dramatic power, capable of assuming a foreign nature 
 and alien modes of seeing, thinking, and feeling. 
 But, in fact, really great minds, though ecjual, are 
 never alike, and always fail if they attempt to imitate 
 each other. Not that they may not, and do not, in- 
 riuence and modify each other; not that they do not 
 give and receive mutual inspiration ; not that they do 
 not often borrow thoughts, and trains of thought, and 
 carry on a profitable barter of expression. But, then, all 
 is digested, assimilated, integrated ; — each remains the 
 same distinct and distinguishable integral monad. But 
 the truth is. Pope, though he has had many imitators, 
 has had no successful imitators. Perhaps nothing 
 testifies his merit — certainly nothing perpetuates his 
 fame — more than his immeasurable pre-eminence 
 over all his disciples. Even his versification has 
 never been approached in its peculiar excellences ; 
 nor is it well understood at this day, or it would not 
 be called monotonous, nor would so many really 
 monotonous jinglers have passed for correct, orthodox 
 Papists. Writing couplets, each one of which parts 
 m the middle, as if it were made to double up and 
 slip into the pocket like a carpenter's rule, is no 
 more writing like Pope than making lines of lengths
 
 p. WHITEHEAD. 119 
 
 as disproportionate as the speeches of a tragedy, 
 clipped to the satisfaction of a monopolising star, is 
 writing like Pindar. Who has attained to the smooth 
 sweetness and technical perfection of his pastorals, 
 that can boast no other than metrical recommenda- 
 tions ? As an essayist, a moralist, an epistolary 
 amorist, in the comic epic, and mock heroic, he 
 has had abundance of followers, but no successful 
 imitators ; — rivals are out of the question. It is as 
 absurd to call Goldsmith an imitator of Pope, because 
 he writes decasyllabic distichs, as it would be to call 
 Cowper an imitator of Milton because he uses a 
 measure without rhyme. The imitations of the 
 Dunciad would fill many columns in a bibliography, 
 and are little likely to be found elsewhere. Who 
 knows aught of the Hilliad, the Smartiad, the Scrib- 
 leriad, the Fribleriad, the Baviad, and tlie Majviad, 
 though perhaps the last had more of Pope's venom, 
 with less of his dirt, than most of the rest ? Where 
 is the pendant to the Kape of the Lock ? Of the 
 various essays written in imitation of the Essay on 
 Man, the most notorious, if not the best reputed, is 
 Wilkes Essay on Woman, which excused his expul- 
 sion from the House (of Commons) ; and yet it is as 
 dull a piece of smut and profaneness as any man 
 need be ashamed of having read. But the most 
 direct, professed, and palpable imitators of Pope were 
 Paul Whitehead, Cawthorne, and Barbarossa Brown, 
 — three as worthless writers, the first especially, as 
 ever wasted foolscap. In fact, Pope was not the 
 founder, but head scholar and perfectionator of a
 
 120 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 school. He was to Drjdeu what Virgil was to 
 Homer. But his models were French, not English ; 
 and it is always better to imitate foreigners than 
 countrymen. In one way he greatly benefited our 
 literature ; but it was in a way the very reverse of 
 Byron's assumption. Aspirants for fame or popularity, 
 possessed of anything like real power, saw that it was 
 in vain to attempt excelling Pope in his own way, — 
 that the cleverest im.itation of his manner could only 
 be like modern Latin verses compared to the ancient 
 classics. He was not a banian, whose suckers de- 
 rived and communicated strength and beauty ; but a 
 yew-tree, in whose shade nothing could gi'ow to 
 maturity. This turned the young mind of England 
 into another track. True poets, like Young and 
 Thomson, opened new fountains on the sacred hill. 
 The higher order of talent recurred to the elder 
 classics of our own tongue, to Italy, or to Greece. 
 Even the devotees of fashion found it easier to 
 imitate the badinage of the later Frenchmen then 
 the satiric declamation of the age of Louis XIV., 
 and left the imitation of Pope to the mei'e verse- 
 makers, who prided themselves upon writing school- 
 boy-like, after the standard ; and to the lower order 
 of satirists, who generally chose topics of temporary 
 scandal, the ephemeral novelty whereof carried off 
 the staleness of their method and the second-handi- 
 ness of their costume. Perhaps Byron, in compli- 
 menting the followers of Pope, meant to remunerate 
 (jifford for closing the Quarterly against the many 
 jobations which doubtless were concocted for his
 
 p. WHITEHEAD. 1^1 
 
 Lordship's benefit by the devout, the decent, and 
 the loyal. I really believe that throughout the 
 Pope controversy he was little more than Gifford's 
 mouthpiece. Perhaps, too, he intended to gratify 
 Rogers and Campbell, for whom he appeal's to have 
 felt kindly ; but neither Rogers nor Campbell are 
 Popeans. They belong to another school — the senti- 
 mental, which, let me observe, did not begin with 
 Sterne. Sterne was not by nature a sentimentalist, 
 but an humourist. In his first and best volumes, 
 whatever of sentiment occurs is dramatic, — belongs 
 to the character and situation, not to the author. 
 But finding that his humour was understood by few, 
 while his sentiment was on every tongue, and his 
 sly allusions procured both abuse and purchasers, 
 (the more of the latter, in consequence of the former,) 
 he found it convenient to affect the character which 
 had been thnist upon him, and not only loaded his 
 latter works with a double portion both of sentiment 
 and of obscenity, but, far more mischievously, made 
 a sort of (Solomon's) balm of Gilead, — a dram medi- 
 cated with honey and cantharides out of the two. At 
 the same time, I acquit him of any worse intention 
 than that of selling his book and setting his repi'overs 
 at defiance. Perhaps he was the worse for being 
 invested with a function for which he had no call ; 
 but nothing, I believe, was further from his thoughts 
 than the promulgation of a sensual philosophy, or 
 the setting of mere animal emotion in the seat of 
 duty
 
 122 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 LOGAN. 
 
 PARAPHRASE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 The second, fourth, and fifth of these hymns are 
 claimed for liruce. Except for poor Logan's charac- 
 ter, the question is of small importance, for all 
 paraphrases of Scripture fall so immeasureably below 
 tlie mark as to be absolutely painful to a reader who 
 can really appreciate the original or the authorised 
 translation. In these involuntary travesties, the 
 awful truths of the Bible sound like stale truisms ; 
 the imagery — the divine Hebrew imagery — looks like 
 an «)ld piece of embroidery that has been turned so 
 often that no one can tell which was originally the 
 right side. What the author himself supplies is 
 always nut of keeping, and the phrases which are 
 truly Scriptural have the air of quotations in a strange 
 tongue. Yet the Scotch paraphrases are better rhyme 
 than Sternhold, and l^etter devotion than Tate and 
 Brady. A church reform ought to begin with 
 Psalmody. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 The (old) Scotch songs (in Allan Cunningham's 
 Edition of Burns) are valuable. They prove that 
 Sawney is a fellow of humour, which has been per- 
 tinaciously denied. What he wants is elegance, but 
 he is no more to be blamed for this than a male 
 creature for not giving suck.
 
 BURNS. 1-23 
 
 " There is a degree of wild irrcgularitj in niaiiv of the coni- 
 l)ositioiis and fragments which are daily sung by my compeers, the 
 common people, — a certain happy arrangement of old Scotcii 
 syllables, and yet, very frequently, nothing, not even rhyme or 
 sameness of jingle, in the ends of the lines. Tliis has made me 
 sometimes imagine that it might be possible for a Scotch poet, 
 witli a nice judicious ear, to set compositions to many of our most 
 favourite airs, independent of rhyme altogether." 
 
 Tliis is an experiment I would gladly see fairly 
 tried upon the Psalms. There is no reason why the 
 Psalms should be reduced to metre at all, except for 
 the purposes of congregational psalmody. For all 
 ends of poetry, ajiart from music, the prayer-book 
 version is abundantly rhythmical. I see no necessity 
 of tagging them with rhyme, though something of 
 assonance should be observed in the terminations. 
 
 "According to tlie levercnd Westminster divines, conviction 
 must precede conversion." — Vol. vi., p. 63. 
 
 I think the Westminster divines quite in the wrong. 
 Conversion must precede real conviction, though it 
 may neither precede nor follow assent. 
 
 BURNS' ENGLISH PROSE STYLE. 
 " Equally sincere as fervent," &c. 
 
 Burns' English, though not quite so racy as his 
 Scotch, is generally correct, perhaps the more so 
 because he was obliged to ponder upon it a little.
 
 124 NOTES ON BRITISH POETS. 
 
 But in the phrase " equally sincere as fervent," if he 
 has not broken Priscian's head, he has at least boxed 
 his ears. Better were "alike sincere and fervent," 
 or " as sincere as fervent." This, however, is a trifle 
 I need not have noticed. But I cannot help wishing 
 that he had been less fascinated by the sentimental 
 prose of his age. This long paragraph, though 
 printed as prose, is in the worst style of tlie worst 
 parts of Thomson's Seasons. Indeed, Thomson, fat 
 as he was, became sentimentality better than Burns, 
 for he had not the peasant muscle of Burns' mind. 
 
 " You ought therefore to deal more sparingly for the future, in 
 tlie provincial dialect," &c. — Letter from Dr. Moore to Burns. 
 
 1 much doubt the wisdom of Zeluco's counsels. 
 The best things of Burns would have been much 
 worse if written in English, even had he possessed as 
 pure and copious a vein of English as Wordsworth. 
 Neither can I believe, from aught that Burns has 
 written, that he would have written better with more 
 book-knowledge, or that he would have produced 
 anything worthy of himself of a dramatic or epic cast, 
 even a romantic or historical ballad. But he might 
 have done something in the line of sentiment and 
 reflection more than he has done, had the course of 
 his life made meditation and inward-looking more 
 comfortable. But even in this kind I do not think 
 he would have succeeded in a long sustained poem, 
 requiring architectural construction and proportions.
 
 BURNS. 125 
 
 SCOTCH HUMOUR. 
 
 I muse how auy man can say that the Scotch, as a 
 people, are deficient in humour. Why, Sawney has 
 a humour of his own so strong and irrepressible, that 
 it broke out all the stronger in spite of worldly thrift, 
 kirk session, cutty stool, and lecturer. Four Univer- 
 sities, and Presbyteries — I know not how many — 
 have not put down the humour of Scotland. 
 
 " Blink o'er the burn, sweet Betty." 
 
 Bums himself could not write, no man could write, 
 like the warblings of the old songsters. He did 
 sometimes better, often worse, but never like them.
 
 MARGINALIA. 
 
 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE.
 
 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 FHOM STOCKDAI.E'S EDITION OF THE PLAY?. 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGE AND MANNERS OF 
 SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMAS. 
 
 " Wliile the partiality of the nation shall wish to secure the 
 language in purity, and while the inhabitants shall continue to 
 admire the manners of their ancestors," &c. — Preface to the 
 Second Edition of Stoclcdales Shakapeare. 
 
 One might have thought it difficult to find false 
 topics of panegyric for Shakspeare ; yet Mr. Stock- 
 dale (the publisher), twice out of thrice, has contrived 
 to be as near wrong as possible. The partiality of the 
 nation to the purity of the language has not been 
 proved by any sufficient instances. The innovators are 
 to the conservators ten to one. But, be that as it 
 may. not the purity, but the power, of the language is 
 to be found in Shakspeare. He used our kindly 
 vernacular more like his wife than his mother ; — not 
 with the despotism of a usurper, but with tlie 
 authority of a sovereign ; — not with the license of a 
 seducer, but with the familiarity of a husband. He 
 does not, indeed, innovate for the mere sake of 
 
 VOL. IT. K
 
 130 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 novelty, but so long as his phrase expressed his 
 meaning to himself, he cared little whether or not it 
 were authorised by usage, or amenable to grammar. 
 He is not an author to be construed and parsed. In 
 his hands words become like things inspired, possessed 
 with a new, an overmastering soul, which they had 
 not before him, and cannot retain when his magic is 
 not working. In plain fact, the language was not 
 fixed in Shakspeare's day, and he did not fix it. As 
 far as it ever has been fixed, the work was done by 
 the translators of the Bible. Our English Bible is 
 the only well of English uiidefiled. Shakspeare, 
 though a popular, was not in his day, nor for many 
 many days after, a standard writer. His fame, 
 indeed, was planted in his lifetime, and has continued 
 ever since, growing and spreading its leafy branches, 
 till they overshadow the land ; but his reputation as 
 a classic English author is altogether new, and not 
 yet undisputed. Then, as to the manners of our 
 ancestors, it is little that we learn about our ancestors 
 or their manners from Shakspeare, — less than from 
 most of his contemporaries. He has, indeed, ghosts, 
 witches, and fairies ; but they are ghosts, witches, 
 fairies of his own invention. He has a tavern, very 
 like a tavern of the present day — except where his 
 wit, humour, philosophy make it to differ. He has 
 many allusions to popular customs and superstitions, 
 but seldom directly dramatises any. His scenes are 
 not laid in the halls or oratories of baronial state : 
 he has little of chivalry — the most in Troilus and 
 Cressida, where it is utterlv out of time. His music
 
 TEMPEST. 131 
 
 is neither the minstrel harp, nor the convent bell. 
 He has left costumes to the property-man, and all 
 that belongs to -one age more than another, to his 
 commentators. Incidentally, no doubt, Shakspeare 
 does throw light ou the manners of his own time, but 
 it is neither his characteristic merit, nor his peculiar 
 value. Ben Jonson, Dekkar, and Hey wood have far 
 more historical information. 
 
 TEMPEST. 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE S SUPREMACY UN THE STAGE. 
 
 The supremacy of Shakspeare* over his contem- 
 poraries has been even greater on the stage than in the 
 closet. Only one play of Massinger, two of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, and two at most of Ben Jonson, have 
 been stock pieces for many years. Samuel Pepys, in 
 his Diary, that odd mixture of statesman, churchman, 
 gossip, old woman, and knave, where simplicity of 
 heart blends with simplicity of head, unaccountably 
 mixed up with politic wisdom, mentions seeing the 
 Tempest, and remarks that it was the most innocent 
 play he ever beheld ! ! I It must have been Shak- 
 speare's Tempest that he saw, not Dryden's and 
 Davenant's. 
 
 Whether Shakspeare were afraid of making even 
 a white wizard too amiable for orthodoxy, I know 
 not; but certainly Prospero is a most tyrannical 
 master, not only to Caliban, the legitimate sovereign 
 
 K 2
 
 132 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 of the isle, but even to the gentle Ariel. There is a 
 beautiful syniputhy between the human and the 
 supernatural characters. Miranda. bears the same 
 relation to Ariel as Trinculo and Stephano to Caliban. 
 
 ARIEL. 
 
 As Ariel's presence throughout the play is manifest 
 to none but Prospero, it were an improvement in the 
 acting if this dainty spirit were personated by a voice 
 alone. No human form, however sylph-like, but must 
 belie the words of the invisible and tricksy Ax'iel. 
 The voice, shifting from place to place, now above, now 
 below, now in motion, now pausing, and anon multiplied 
 from all quarters, would have a truly magical effect 
 in scenic representation. 
 
 ON THE MASQUE. 
 
 There is not much either of meaning or melody iu 
 this masque. Prospero, when his spell enforced 
 attendance of the spirits, should have furnished them 
 with smoother couplets and sager discourse. But 
 perhaps it is as good as the masques in which 
 the queen and her ladies performed, and to have 
 made it better would have been disloyal emulation. 
 Tliere are lines in it, too, which smack of the poet. 
 Iris, in her invocation to Ceres, is delightfully agri- 
 cultural — the second verse is a harvest in itself. The 
 third might have been written on Latrigg before it 
 was ploughed. In announcing herself as at once the
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 133 
 
 bow and the messenger of Juno, she slips into the 
 common confusion of mythology, which scarce any of 
 the ancients, save Homer, have wholly avoided. Shak- 
 speare manifestly turns the Heathen Deities into the 
 elementary powers, resolving the Greek anthropo- 
 morphism into its first principles. Ceres is the eartii. 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 This play was a task, and not quite so happy a one 
 as Cowper's. That Queen Bess should have desired 
 to see Falstaff making love proves her to have been, 
 as she was, a gross-minded old baggage. Shakspeare 
 has evaded the difficulty with gi-eat skill. He knew 
 that Falstaff could not be in love ; and has mixed but 
 a little, a very little primtus with his fortune-hunting 
 courtship. But the Falstaff of the Merry Wives is 
 not the Falstaff of Henry the Fourth It is a big- 
 bellied irapostoi', assuming his name and style, or at 
 best it is Falstaff" in dotage. The Mrs. Quickly of 
 Windsor is not mine Hostess of the Boar's Head ; 
 but she is a very pleasant, busy, good-natured, un- 
 principled old woman, whom it is impossible to be 
 angry with. Shallow should not have left his seat in 
 Gloucestershire and his magisterial duties. Ford's 
 jealousy is of too serious a complexion for the rest of 
 the play. The merry wives are a delightful pair. 
 Methinks I see them, with their comely middle-aged
 
 ] 34 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 visages, their dainty white ruffs and toys, their half 
 witchlike conic hats, their full farthingales, their neat 
 though not over-slim waists, their housewifely keys, 
 their girdles, their sly laughing looks, their apple- 
 red cheeks, their brows, the lines whereon look more 
 like the work of mirth than years. And sweet Anne 
 Page — she is a pretty little creature whom one would 
 like to take on one's knee. And poor Slender, how 
 pathetically he fancies himself into love ; how tearfully 
 laughable he is in his disappointment, and how pain- 
 fully ludicrous in his punctilio; how delightful in his 
 valour ! How finely he sets forth his achievement to 
 pretty Anne ! — "I have seen Sackersonloose." Othello 
 could not brag more amorously. Parson Hugh is a 
 noble Cambro-Briton, but Doctor Caius is rather so- 
 so. Mine Host of the Garter is evidently a portrait. 
 The plot is rather farcical ; but no matter, it is 
 exceedingly diverting. There is one passage which 
 shows Shakspeare to have been a Christian, player 
 though he was — 
 
 " Since therein she doth c'vitatc' and sliun 
 A thousiind iiroligious rnrscd hours. 
 Which forced marriage would liave brought upon lier.' 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 CHARACTER OF DON JOHN. 
 
 There is, alas ! but too much nature in this sulky 
 rascal. Men who are inly conscious of being des-
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT KOTHING. 135 
 
 picable take it for granted that all their fellow- 
 creatures despise them, aud hate the whole human 
 race by anticipation. Such men there are, who im- 
 merse their souls in wilful gloom, and think that all 
 joy insults their sullenness ; that beauty is only 
 beautiful to make their deformity the more hideous, 
 and that virtue is virtue purely to spite them. 
 
 BENEDICT AND BEATRICE. 
 
 It has not, I think, been noted that these trickers un- 
 wittingly speak truth. It is evident enough from the 
 foregoing scenes, that Beatrice and Benedict are, 
 without owning it to themselves, mutually in love ; and 
 the somewhat clumsy and twice-repeated stratagem 
 is not the real cause of their attachment, but its ap- 
 parent justification. No modest woman makes game 
 of a man whom she does not like at the bottom. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLVY. 
 
 This play is one of Shakspeare's few essays at 
 what may be called genteel comedy, and proves that 
 neither genius, wit, humour, nor gentility will serve 
 to produce excellence in that kind. It wants that 
 truth of ideal nature which was Shakspeare's forte, 
 and does not present enough of the truth of real 
 life and manners to compensate for the deficiency. 
 The more impassioned scenes are scarcely in place. 
 Tragi-comedy is one thing, comi-tragedy is another.
 
 13G NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Where pathos is predominant, it often may derive 
 an increase of power from lighter scenes ; but where 
 the ground-work is comic, it is vain to work in flowers 
 of sombre line. The tale, too, is improbable, without 
 being romantic. Still it is Shakspeare — delightful 
 in each part, but unsatisfactory in the effect of the 
 whole. 
 
 P.S. I never censure Shakspeare without finding 
 reason to eat my words. 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAT. 
 
 This play was probably one of Shakspeare 's earliest 
 efforts, partially retouched at a later period. It has 
 all his wit, much of his poetry, but little or nothing 
 of his profundity. The characters seem like exagge- 
 rated copies of real life, not, as in his riper works, 
 impersonal ideas, representative of classes. I think 
 most of Shakspeare 's early plays, as this, the Comedy 
 of Errors, Richard the Second, and King John, 
 may be discerned by the frequent and irregular in- 
 termixture of rhyme, — the greatest offence, by the 
 way, which he ever committed against the just and 
 universal laws of the drama. 
 
 When I wrote this, I knew not that the oldest 
 plays presented on the public stage were all in 
 rhyme or prose, though Gorboduc and some others 
 acted at court, or not at all, had used blank verse. 
 Marlowe was the first improver of this noble metre ;
 
 MIDSUMMER XIGHT's DREAM. ]:3T 
 
 all before him, and many after, thought it suflficieut 
 to write ten syllable lines, not rhyme. 
 
 MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 "Lo, she is one of the confederacy," &c Act hi., Scene ii. 
 
 There is a dialogue of Maiden Friendship in the 
 " Two Noble Kinsmen " so like this, that many have 
 ascribed it to Shakspeare. But it was not Shak- 
 speare's way to emulate himself. The resemblance 
 to this scene is prund facie evidence that it is not 
 Shakspeare's. It is, besides, quite in the best 
 manner of Fletcher, who, when he was not lazy, 
 generally did his best ; said all the good things that 
 could be said on a given subject without much caring 
 whether the occasion justified them or not. Hence 
 Fletcher is much less injured by discerption than 
 Shakspeare. A quoted passage of Fletcher may be 
 thorouglily understood with very little previous 
 explanation. But Shakspeare's best things are 
 absolutely slandered when separate from the context. 
 In the present case, Emilia's description of her own 
 affection to Flavia, is a better piece of writing than 
 Helena's reproach of Hermia ; but it is a deliberate 
 piece of good writing, an ornate wax taper, cere- 
 moniously consecrated at the shrine of female friend- 
 ship ; whereas Helena's speech is the quick com- 
 bustion of love and anger. Still, it must be con- 
 fessed, that if Fletcher did write the speech of
 
 13f^ NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Emilia, he has imitated Skakspeare's diction and 
 versification very closely. 
 
 P.S. I now am convinced that the scene in the 
 "Two Noble Kinsmen " is Shakspeare's. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 I know not any play of Shakspeare's in which the 
 language is so uniformly unexceptionable as this. 
 It is all poetry, and sweeter poetry was never 
 written. One defect there may be. Perhaps the 
 distress of Hermia and Helena, arising from Puck's 
 blundering application of Love in Idleness, is too 
 serious, too real for so fantastic a source. Yet their 
 altercation is so very, very beautiful, so girlish, so 
 loveable, that one cannot wish it away. The charac- 
 ters might be arranged by achromatic scale, gradually 
 shading from the thick-skinned Bottom and the rude 
 mechanicals, the absolute old father, the proud and 
 princely Theseus and his warrior bride, to the lusty, 
 high-hearted wooers, and so to the sylph-like maidens, 
 till the line melts away in Titania and her fait}' 
 train, who seem as they were made of the moonshine 
 wherein they gambol. 
 
 MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 THE PLOT OF THE DRAMA. 
 
 This play, like King Lear, has been adduced (and 
 by gi-eat authority) as an instance of a superstructure
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 139 
 
 of fine nature built on a foundation of mere impossi- 
 bility. That such a bond as Antonio's could ever 
 have stood good in law, I will not assert ; but the 
 ferocious powers given to creditors against debtors in 
 tlie first ages of European commerce, suffice to give 
 dramatic credibility to the tale. It was probably 
 accredited as a fact in Shakspeare's time. But is 
 it not within the prerogative of a poet to display the 
 odiousness of a passion by a magnified picture ? May 
 not many Shylocks learn from Shakspeare's what a 
 crocodile's egg they are warming in their bosom, 
 though happily our climate may never allow it to 
 produce anything bigger than a venomous newt ? He 
 that hateth his brother is a murderer. We should 
 never know the evil of sin if it were not sometimes 
 permitted to enlai-ge itself in effects which the 
 healthy atmosphere of legal society stifles. 
 
 AS YOL' LIKE IT. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 1 should mucli like to peruse Lodges Rosalind, 
 published in 1590, from whence Shakspeare derived 
 not only the story, but, some say, certain thoughts 
 and phrases of As You Like It, to know how far 
 Lodge is answerable for the manifold improbabilities 
 of the plot, and what share he may claim in the 
 more numerous beauties of the poetry, the characters, 
 and the tine out-of-doors forest feeling which makes
 
 1^0 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 this i^lay perhaps the sweetest of all ronmiitic 
 dramas. Jacques, old Adam, and the Clown are 
 Shakspeare's own, and true Shakspeare they are. 
 In a more regular and serious composition, it might 
 be objected that Jacques is a supernumerary; he does 
 nothing; he is KrjbevTrjs airpaKTos. But such criticism 
 is impertinent in Arden. Rosalind is not a very 
 dutiful daughter, but her neglecting so long to make 
 herself known to her father, though not quite proper, 
 is natural enough. She cannot but be aware that in 
 her disguise she is acting a perilous and not very 
 delicate part, which yet is so delightful, that she 
 cannot prevail on herself to forego it, as her father 
 •would certainly have commanded her to do. Nothing 
 is more common than for children to evade the sin of 
 Hat disobedience by deception and concealment. 
 Jenny Deans, a stricter moralist than Rosalind, set 
 out on her pious pilgrimage without consulting her 
 father, because she could expect no blessing if she 
 had incurred his expressed prohibition. This, to be 
 sure, was a practical sophism ; but no Jesuit s head 
 is so full of sophistry as a woman's heart under the 
 influence of strong affection. Yet Rosalind might 
 at any rate have shown more interest in her father's 
 fortunes. The two fjiir cousins are beautifully con- 
 trasted ; even their respective sizes are character- 
 istic and emblematic of their several natures, though 
 perhaps it originated in the necessities of the stage. 
 Allusions to the scanty dimensions of the female cha- 
 racters are common in old plays. It might not be 
 easy to procure youths of a tall woman's height with
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 141 
 
 feminine looks and uncracked voices. Orlando, though 
 an indifferent versifier, is a sweetly poetic lover, and 
 a noble fellow ; but Oliver is thoroughly odious in 
 the first scenes, and his sudden change of nature 
 baffles all credulity of imagination. Such a man 
 could not change, unless it pleased Omnipotence to 
 annihilate his soul and create another in the same 
 body. Celia is even more imprudent than her 
 cousin, to love and vow without longer trial. This 
 I think the worst defect of the play. The usurping 
 duke, though not much better than Oliver, has at 
 least a more powerful motive for his villany. His 
 reformation is unskilfully managed, and the last act 
 is altogether hurried and unsatisfactory. Nothing 
 can exceed the mastery with which Shakspeare, 
 without any obtrusive or un dramatic description, 
 transports the imagination to the sunny glades and 
 massy shadows of umbrageous Arden. The leaves 
 rustle and glisten, the brooks murmur unseen in the 
 copses, the flowers enamel the savannahs, the sheep 
 wander on the distant hills, the deer glance by and 
 hide themselves in the thickets, and the sheepcotes 
 sprhikle the far landscape all spontaneously, without 
 being shown off, or talked about. You hear the song 
 of the birds, the belling of the stags, the bleating of 
 the flocks, and a thousand sylvan, pastoral sounds 
 beside, blent with the soft plaints and pleasant 
 ambiguities of the lovers, the sententious satire of 
 Jacques, and the courtly fooling of Touchstone, 
 without being told to listen to them. Shakspeare 
 does all that the most pictorial dramatist could do.
 
 142 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 without ever sinking the dramatist in the landscape- 
 painter. The exuberant descriptions of some recent 
 authors are little more dramatic than the voluminous 
 stage directions in translated German melodramas. 
 ] know not what share the absence of painted scenes 
 might have in preserving our old dramatists from lliis 
 excess, but I believe that the low state of estimation 
 of landscape painting had a good deal to do with it. 
 Luxurious description characterises the second child- 
 hood of poetry. In its last stage, it begins, like Fal- 
 staff. to babble of green fields. 
 
 ON THE USES OF ADVERSITY. 
 
 ACT II., SCESE I. 
 
 "Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venouious, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in its bead." 
 
 There is a beautiful propriety in the word uses 
 here, which I do not remember to have seen 
 remarked. It is the use, not the mere effect of 
 adversity, wherein resides the sweet. Whether 
 adversity shall prove a stumbling-block, a discipline, 
 or a blessing, depends altogether on the use made 
 of it. There is no natural necessary operation of 
 adversity, to strengthen, to purify, or to humanise. 
 Men may be made better by affliction, but they can- 
 not be made good. From an evil-heart, the harder it 
 is wrung, the blacker the drops that issue. If per- 
 fumes are the sweeter for crushing, so are stenches 
 more pestiferous. Even the average quality of man- 
 kind are much oftener the worse than the better for
 
 AS you LIKE IT. 143 
 
 continued suffering. All, indeed, might be better for 
 chastening; but that any individual will be the better, 
 no one has a right to presume, for we know not what 
 use he will make of the dispensation. There is, 
 however, an important distinction, too often practi- 
 cally overlooked. Inflictions of Providence, such as 
 sickness, loss of friends, unfavourable seasons, blows 
 of fortune in which no human hand is seen, do act 
 for the most part kindly on all but the worst natures. 
 If for a while they wrestle with God, like Job, they 
 submit in the end, and obtain a blessing. But when 
 the penal agent is a fellow-creature, when sorrow 
 comes of unkinduess, ruin of fraud or violence, 
 dejection of oppression, then indeed there needs a 
 special grace to make sweet use of adversity. It is 
 the very damnation of tyranny that it causes many 
 to sin, yea, to sin against the Lord and their own 
 souls. The wise Christian will acknowledge the 
 decree of Providence in all things, whether they 
 come by the hand of man, of nature, or of fate. To 
 him, therefore, all things work together for good ; 
 and such should we all strive to be in ourselves : but 
 in our dealings with others, we should ever presume 
 that the happier men are, the better they are like to 
 be : that God can send affliction when it is fit, and 
 that, while He reserves this painful prerogative to 
 Himself, He Who alone knows how and when to 
 exert it, imparts to us the blessed privilege to be 
 the ministers and stewards of His bounties. If 
 God chastenetli whom He loveth. He hateth the 
 instruments of chastisement.
 
 144 NOTES ON SHAKSPEAEE. 
 
 POETRY INTRODUCED AS SUCH BY SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 ACT IV., SCENE II. 
 
 " .Art thou god to shepherd turn'd," &c. 
 
 Phebe is no great poetess. It may be remarked 
 in general that the poetry introduced as such by 
 Shakspeare is seldom better than doggrel. A poem 
 in a poem, a play in a play, a picture in a picture, 
 the imitation oi" flageolet or trumpet in pianoforte 
 )nusic, are all departures from legitimate art ; and yet 
 how frequent in our old drama was the introduction of 
 play within play? Sometimes, as in Bartholomew 
 Fair, the Knight of the Burning Pestle, the Taming 
 of the Shrew, and others, the main perfoi*mance is 
 as it were double-dramatised ; an expedient which 
 Moore, in his Lalla Piookh, has transferred to nar- 
 rative. But more frequently the episodic drama is 
 more or less subservient to the plot, as in Hamlet, 
 the Roman Actor, &c. ; or purely burlesque, as in 
 the Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 CHARACTER OF OLIVER. 
 
 ACT v., SCENE II. 
 
 1 confess I know nothing in Shakspeare so impro- 
 bable, or, truth to say, so unnatural, as the sudden 
 conversion of Oliver from a worse than Cain, a 
 coward fratricide in will, to a generous brother and 
 a romantic lover. Neither gratitude nor love work 
 such wonders with the Olivers of real life. Of love 
 they are indeed incapable, and desire does but exas-
 
 TAMING OF THE SHREW. 145 
 
 perate their villainy. Obligation, even for life and 
 honour, may check the course of their malice for a 
 time, but, increasing the consciousness of their guilt, 
 will only in the long run urge them on to renewed 
 atrocities, liomance is all very well in the forest of 
 Arden, but Oliver is made too bad in the first scenes 
 ever to be worthy of Celia, or capable of inspiring a 
 kindly interest in his reformation. Celia is rather 
 imprudent in accepting so suddenly a man of so in- 
 different a reputation ; she should at least have put 
 his repentance on a twelvemonth "s trial. But in the 
 fifth act ladies have no time for discretion. 
 
 TAMING OF THE SHRf:W. 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 This play approaches nearer to farce than any 
 other of Shakspeare, except the Comedy of Errors, 
 All that relates to Bianca and her lovers is dull and 
 uu-Shakspearian. Garrick was not much to blame in 
 separating the scenes between Catharine and Pe- 
 truchio, which 1 believe to be true Shakspeare. 
 Shakspeare has done wisely in making Pctruchio a 
 fortune-hunter. None but a fool would marry a 
 shrew for love in the expectation of taming her. It 
 is now pretty well understood that the Taming of the 
 Shrew is borrowed from an old play of nearly the 
 same title, and that the underplot is little altered. 
 The induction, which is an old story, the germ of 
 which may be found in the Arabian Nights, is 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 re-written ; the language certainly politer, but little 
 added to the humour. 
 
 If there be any purpose in this comedy, beyond a 
 hearty laugh, (which of itself is good for soul and 
 body,) it is not to show how husbands should deal 
 with unruly wives, but to admonish wives, and women 
 in general, of the impotence of that which some 
 women pride themselves in, and call a high spirit, 
 which is only strong against the weak, cruel to the 
 kind, and utterly unavailing when its use becomes 
 justifiable. It is only in duty, affection, piety, that 
 woman can, or ought to be strong. Her power is in 
 her weakness. Tobin's Honeymoon is a fair imita- 
 tion ; but, by making Duke Aranza a lover at the 
 bottom, he has changed the farcical improbability of 
 Shakspeare into unnatural impossibility. 
 
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 
 Laf. — " A fistula, my lord." — Act i., Scene i. 
 
 What a malady for a king to languish of, and a 
 maiden to cure ! Yet, if we may trust the commen- 
 tators on Rabelais, the chivalrous Francois premier 
 was afflicted with a like ailment. Nothing evinces 
 the aTitipoKoKia of our ancestors more than the 
 frequency of their allusions to the most loathsome 
 infirmities, not always satirical, or confined to puni- 
 tive inflictions. Spenser, the sweet Spenser, is not 
 absolutely free from this deformity. It was the vice
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT, 147 
 
 of the time, rathex* fostered than corrected by certain 
 divines who thought to unsensualize mankind by- 
 making the body as disgusting as possible. 
 
 CHARACTER OF BERTRAM. 
 
 Is not Bertram made worse than even the plot 
 requires ? That he should desert a wife who was 
 forced upon him, and pursue other dames, is natural 
 and excusable enough ; but what need of making him 
 so abominable a liar? But it was the fashion of 
 Shakspeare's day, and of the days before him, to re- 
 present men as villainous, to prove woman patient 
 and forgiving. What a rascal, for instance, is Duke 
 Walter ; how unworthy of Griselda — how worthy of a 
 halter ! 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT 
 
 Strange alchemy of Shakspeare ! — of such a tale 
 to make so sweet a play. Never did lovely love show 
 lovelier than in the sweet mystery of Viola's riddles ; 
 never was maiden pride more masterly rebuked than 
 in Olivia's quick-conceiving passion ! Slie, who dis- 
 dained all love, to love at one sight, and to love so 
 far awry. But poor Malvolio is my favom-ite. What 
 though drunken Sir Toby and the minx Maria mock 
 him, Shakspeare did not.
 
 148 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 In this wild drama the comedy is excellent, the 
 pastoral is exquisite ; but of the scenes which carry 
 on the plot, some appear to me to be harsh in the 
 thouglit, and infelicitous in diction : — Shakspeare 
 throughout, but not always Shakspeare in a happy 
 vein. The sudden jealousy of Leontes, though un- 
 accountable, is not impossible. I am not sure that 
 the ready soliciting of Hermione and the easy com- 
 pliance of Polixenes might not produce, in a better 
 mind, a momentary cloud, a wish that the request 
 had not been made, an impatience for Polixenes' de- 
 parture. How slight a spark may cause explosion 
 in the foul atmosphere of a despot's heart it is hard 
 to say. Irresponsible power is tyranny without, and 
 moral anarchy within. We should little wonder at 
 the conduct of Leontes in an Eastern tale. Many 
 of the sultans in the Arabian Nights act as madly and 
 wickedly, whom yet the inventors evidently meant 
 for wise and gracious princes; nay, history records 
 abundant instances of like abjuration of reason in 
 men not incapable of generosity or incidental great- 
 ness, to say nothing of taste and sensibility for which 
 some of the worst of kings have been conspicuous. 
 But the exhibition of such madness of the heart, if fit 
 for drama at all, should be confined to the sternest 
 tragedy. The grossuess of Leontes' imaginations, his
 
 winter's tale. 149 
 
 murderous suggestions, and inaccessibility to reason, 
 remorse, or religion, is naturally consequent on the 
 base passion, say rather the unclean dsemon, that 
 possesses him. It is nature such as may still be 
 found in St. Giles's. But is it possible that one who 
 had once fallen thus could ever again be worthy of a 
 restoration to happiness ? In the constituted order 
 of human progression — surely never. Remorse, the 
 tyrant would feel ; but it would urge him to vengeance 
 on the instruments of his crimes — perhaps to some 
 superstitious rite — some self-sought atonement ; but 
 never to a heart-cleansing repentance. For the im- 
 probability of the events I care as little as for the 
 violation of the unities and the outrages on geography. 
 Except Autolycus, none of the characters show 
 much of Shakspeare's philosophic depth. On him 
 I think I could lecture very psychologically. Her- 
 mione is frank and noble, rising in dignity as she falls 
 in fortune — not unlike Marie Antoinette, whose un- 
 suspecting levity, though it alienated not her husband, 
 exposed her to the slander of foul minds that had 
 not even the excuse of jealousy — in sunshine a but- 
 terfly, in misery a martyr. Paulina is an honest scold. 
 Perdita a pretty piece of poetry. Polixenes not 
 very amiable, nor, in truth, much of anything. The 
 length of time he remains witness to his son's court- 
 ship, before he discovers himself, is a sacrifice to 
 effect. Camillo is an old rogue whom I can hardly 
 forgive for his double treachery. The Shepherd and 
 his son are well enough in their way ; but Mopsa 
 and Dorcas might be countrified enough with better
 
 150 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 tongues in their heads. Of the rest nothing need 
 be said. The progressive interest of the play, malgre 
 the vast hiatus for which Shakspeare himself thought 
 it necessary to apologise, is well sustained ; but the 
 catastrophe is hurried, and the queen's reanimation, 
 in the last scene, beyond all dramatic credibility. 
 Yet it acts well, and the whole is pleasing and 
 effective on the stage. 
 
 NARRATIVE PORTIONS. 
 
 ACT v., 8CBNE n. 
 
 What was Shakspeare 's motive for conveying by 
 narrative what he might have made so pathetic in 
 representation ? This is the more strange and pro- 
 voking, inasmuch as narrative is by no means his 
 forte, except when it is combined with action or pas- 
 sion ; and those euphuistic gentlemen talk mere 
 epigram and antithesis, very like, I dare say, the 
 newsmongers of that day, when it was as essential 
 to gentility to be quaint as at present to be common- 
 place. I suspect Shakspeare sometimes was hurried 
 in his latter scenes, and could compose this sort of 
 dialogue with the least aid from inspiration. 
 
 KING JOHN. 
 
 ON THE HISTORICAL PLAYS. 
 
 Shakspeare s historical plays certainly include a 
 considerable space of time, but their duration should
 
 KING JOHN. 151 
 
 not be computed by tlie chronicle dates. However 
 distant the events miglit be in actual occurrence, if 
 the drama makes them interdependently consecutive, 
 they have all the connection which just criticism re- 
 quires. If the ideal unity be preserved, if the con- 
 tinuity be uninterrupted, it is little matter whether 
 the period be long or shoi't in which the incidents are 
 supposed to occur. It must be recollected that the 
 Dramatic History is a distinct species of composition, 
 inferior, perhaps, to the regular tragedy as a panorama 
 is inferior to a true tragic or epic picture ; but, at any 
 rate, different, and not amenable to the same rules. 
 
 ELEANOR AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 ACT II., .SCENE I. 
 
 I should be glad to find that this altercation was 
 transferred from the old " ti'oublesome reign," for it 
 is very troublesome to think it Shakspeare. I do not 
 exactly know how great ladies scold, and there are 
 reasons for supposing that Queen Elizabeth herself 
 was not always quite queenlike in her wrath ; but there 
 is so little of humour, propriety, or seemliness in the 
 discourse of the two princesses, and Constance is at 
 last so confused and unintelligible, if not corrupt, that 
 the whole might well be spared. Massinger, in the 
 Duke of IMilan, has a yet grosser dialogue of vitu- 
 peration between Mariana, Isabella, and Marcelia ; 
 but it is not so utterly out of place ; and, besides, 
 Massingers ladies are seldom gentlewomen.
 
 152 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 CHARACTER OF KING JOHN. 
 
 ACT III., SCENE III. 
 
 In the old play of King John, 1591, Faulcon- 
 bridge's execution of this order is exhibited on the 
 stage, and he finds a young smooth-skinned nun 
 in a chest where the abbot's treasures were supposed 
 to be deposited. It showed the good taste and bold- 
 ness of Shakspeare that he did not retain this incident, 
 so well calculated to make vulgar spectators laugh. 
 He makes no reflection on the doctrine or discipline 
 of Rome, far less does he calumniate the purity of 
 her devoted virgins. He makes a king speak the 
 sentiments of every king who did not need the Pope's 
 countenance. John, when he found this need, 
 crouched as vilely to the Pope as the most grovelling 
 of Papists, and Shakspeare does not conceal the cir- 
 cumstance. How different from tlie absurdity of 
 Bishop Bale, who makes the murderous, lustful, im- 
 pious infidel John, a Protestant hero. 
 
 LATTER SCENES OF THE PLAY. 
 
 These latter scenes of King John are very serious. 
 After the death of Artliur all interest is at an end, 
 and Faulconbridge himself proves bad enough to be 
 the legitimate son of a speech-making peer. Fine 
 lines, fine sentences, fine orations may be quoted, but 
 all lies dead ; neither for John nor his opponents do 
 we longer care. This protraction of the business, 
 after the interest has ceased, is a crying sin, and, in
 
 KING RICHARD II. 153 
 
 fact, the worst that Shakspeare is ever guilty of. 
 Some other plays have it in a less degree, e. g. 
 Henry YIII., where it is impossible to care about any 
 body after Wolsey and Queen Catherine are gone. 
 Of the dying scene, where King John begs for cold 
 comfort, I could never make up my judgment. It is 
 either admirable or execrable ; but, at any I'ate, it 
 does not result from the foregoing passages of the 
 play. Of the historic dramas, King John is perhaps 
 the worst constructed, and King Richard II., which 
 wants little to be a regular tragedy, is certainly the 
 best. The course of action, which commences in the 
 first scene, proceeds with little interruption to the 
 conclusion. In pathos few plays excel it, yet it is 
 not a general favourite, perhaps for want of a striking 
 female character. As to the Queen, though she 
 makes some pretty womanly speeches, she might be 
 left out altogether without making a hole in the 
 ballad. Yet it appears to have been once highly 
 popular; for it was three times printed before 1023, 
 viz. in 1597, 1598—1608. 
 
 KING RICHARD II. 
 
 CHARACTKR OF THE PLAY. 
 
 Why is this play set down among Shakspeare "s 
 minors ? In point of construction it approaches more 
 nearly to a regular tragedy than any other of the 
 historic dramas. The catastrophe is a plain conse-
 
 154 NOTES ON SHAKSPEAKE. 
 
 qiience of the series of actions opened iu the first 
 scene. There is little or nothing throughout the 
 play that can be pronounced inconsequent. The de- 
 position and deatli of Richard result, and are clearly 
 shown to result, from his unjust interference in the 
 quarrel of Norfolk and Bolingbroke ; and every step 
 in the drama advances towards the conclusion. Then 
 the composition, if we except a little, a very little too 
 much of rhyme and conceit in the first act, is in Shak- 
 speare's best manner, just as poetical as it should be, 
 and no more ; in philosophy it is only second to 
 Hamlet, in political wisdom second to none. In 
 truth, it is almost a prophecy ; for Shakspeare"s 
 Richard the Second was the real Charles the First. 
 The defect of the play is that Richard stands alone : 
 tlie other characters are nobodies, uuless we except 
 old York — that true, good, wrong-beaded, ultra 
 royalist. 
 
 FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. 
 
 shakspeake's plots borkowed. 
 Both Henry IV. and Henry V. were founded on 
 an old play — The Famous Victories of Henry V, 
 I have never seen it, but it appears to have been dull 
 and worthless. The Prince a drunken rake, and 
 Oldcastle a witless blackguard. It has sometimes 
 been alleged, in disparagement of Shakspeare, that 
 his plots are generally, perhaps it might be said, 
 always borrowed, and that many of his plays were
 
 FIRST PART OF KING HENKY.IV. 155 
 
 refacciamenti of elder dramas ; now, I believe nothing 
 would more exalt our estimation of his genius than 
 an acquaintance with the sources from -which he de- 
 rived his incidents ; the " lateritiam invenit mar- 
 moream reliquit " would apply more truly to him 
 than to Dryden. 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE S KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 The hill that rises over the battle-field near Shrews- 
 bury is called Haughmond Hill. Mr. Blakeway says 
 that Shakspeare has described the ground as accu- 
 rately as if he had surveyed it. " It still merits the 
 appellation of a bosky hill." — Pict. Shakspeare. With 
 Mr. Blakeway 's leave, I must suppose him to have 
 been bosky when he made the observation. Shakspeare 
 does not describe the ground at all. It is no part of a 
 dramatist's duty to describe a present object as if he 
 had surveyed it. Neither do I think that Worcester's 
 simile of "the cuckoo's bird" proves Shakspeare a 
 better naturalist than Pliny or Linuseus, though it does 
 avoid mistakes in which the Swede has followed the 
 Roman, both of whom, I am informed, believed that 
 the young cuckoo devours first the nestlings and then 
 the parent bird. Shakspeare knew much of nature, — 
 of birds, and beasts, and plants, and streams, and 
 seasons. Even in London he was not necessarily in 
 the condition of him who " saw nought lovely but the 
 sky and stars." London, in his day, was not indeed 
 Rus in Urbe but Urbs in Rure. Meditator as he was, 
 he was no abstract muser : he walked with his eyes
 
 156 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 and ears open, too zealously awake not to see without 
 prying and to hear without listening of malice pre- 
 pense. His mind was no less receptive than assimi- 
 lative and generative (creative no human mind can 
 be), as sensitive to impressions as photogenized paper, 
 an intimate, but not I should conjecture a student or 
 scientific observer of nature, therefore not a naturalist 
 in the very best sense of the word, but in the sense, 
 the only sense in which a dramatic poet as such 
 ought to be a naturalist. Besides, I believe, he was 
 a keen sportsman, and in his boyhood better acquainted 
 with bird's nests than the friends of humanity might 
 wish. He was not likely to consult Pliny for the 
 natural history of the cuckoo, and though I dare say 
 he knew a fair portion of Latin, would hardly read 
 hira in the original. Philemon Holland's translation 
 was not published till IGOl. That must have been 
 as great a favourite with Shakspeare as with the elder 
 dramatists, but Henry IV. was printed 1598. Pliny 
 says nothing of the cuckoo's partiality for the hedge- 
 sparrow's nest, but says that it " lays in other birds' 
 nests, and most of all in the stockdove's," which may 
 be true in Italy. Dr, Jennerwas the first to observe 
 how the young cuckoo uses its fellow nestlings. 
 
 KING HENRTS CLOSING SPEECH. 
 
 If we are to consider this " first part " as an entire 
 play, King Harry's closing speech ofiends sadly 
 against Aristotle, in a point wherein Aristotle's 
 authority, if sound in itself, has a jurisdiction general.
 
 SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. 157 
 
 and not limited by the usages of the Greek stage. 
 It is a conclusion in which nothing is concluded. 
 Now the Stagyrite expressly defines the conclusion 
 thus — TeAeuTTJ 8e, 6 avTO ju.er' aAAo TT€<pVK€V (Ivai, 
 lx€Ta be TovTo aAAo ovbev. Had the last speech been 
 omitted, the fault would not have been palpable ; 
 for the tragic interest of the play rests solely upon 
 Hotspur, and closes with his death. 
 
 SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. 
 
 HOW TO BREAK THE NARRATIVE. 
 
 ACT I., SCENE I. 
 
 This is a scene in which Shakspeare bears com- 
 parison with the Greek tragedians. A largo part of 
 almost every Greek play is taken up in conjectures 
 and relations of news. Now there is nothing, either 
 in epic or dramatic poetry, so unmanageable as plain 
 statement. The fine art is to break the narrative by 
 passionate questions, to draw it from interested and 
 interesting personages. To avoid a set story or 
 gazette, if possible. Shakspeare, like iEschylus, 
 assumes the utmost pomp of diction on these occa- 
 sions, complying, unweetingly, with Aristotle's pre- 
 cepts respecting the apya ^^pi]-
 
 158 NOTES ON SHAKSPEABE. 
 
 FALSTAP'F. 
 
 ACT I., SCENE II. 
 
 It is probable that some notorious beggar or 
 exhibiting mau-mountain of Shakspeare's own tirae 
 was present to the author's eye. Be it always remem- 
 bered that Falstaff did not live under Heniy IV. 
 His better moiety lived never and lives ever, but 
 his husky circumstance was bred under Elizabeth. 
 Shakspeare's genius did not lead him to deal mucli 
 in matters of the day, but when an allusion occurred 
 he thought nothing about posterity. 
 
 INTEREST FELT BY SHAKSPEARE S CONTEMPORARIES 
 IN THE HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 ACT II., SCENE III. 
 
 Excellent as this scene is in its kind, replete with 
 politic prudence and apt illustrations, embodied in 
 language apposite and dignified, yet sufi&ciently con- 
 versational, and in metre truly dramatic and eloquent, 
 yet we may well wonder by what power of patience 
 in the auditory, what grace and charm of elocution in 
 the actors, it ever could be performed without making 
 the house either drowsy or fidgetty. Modern dramatists 
 have been justly censured for indulging too much in 
 still-life lullaby poetry, j-et of poetry a sweet voice and 
 graceful carriage may always make something ; while 
 here we have neither action nor passion, nor luxury of 
 music and fancy, but quiet deliberation, — an orderly 
 cabinet council. The explanation can only be found
 
 SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. 159 
 
 in the deep historic interest which our ancestors felt 
 in the acted histories. 
 
 FAXSTAFF. 
 
 ACT v., SCEXE V. 
 
 Ch. Just. — " Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet." 
 
 Poor Falstaff! Such is the just reward of a mighty 
 intellect misused I This is the true moral of the 
 play — not to exalt Henry's reformation, a low con- 
 trived trick, but to rebuke the prostitution of powers, 
 essentially philosophic, to vanity, buffoonery, and 
 sensuality. Poins was not far wrong in judging Hal 
 a most princely hypocrite. 
 
 CHAK.\CTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 Notwithstanding the masterly writing of ibis play, 
 it is in its serious parts the least interesting of all the 
 historical dramas. Neither for the royalists nor the 
 insurgents do we care anything — both talk well and 
 wisely, but both are alike hollow and selfish. The 
 death-bed of the King has been as much selected and 
 bepraised as anything in Shakspeare ; but it is no 
 surpassing favourite of mine. I know not another 
 passage so encumbered with conceits, crabbed, and 
 hidebound in themselves, and not justified, as Shak- 
 speare's conceits generally are by character and 
 passion. There is an intense kinginess about the 
 elder Harry which takes from our sympathies with
 
 160 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 his sufferings as a father and a dying man, and 
 thougli he confesses his guilty acquisition of the crown 
 he testifies no repentance 
 
 KING HENRY V. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 Of all Shakspeare's dramas, Henry V. is, in its 
 serious parts, the least truly dramatic. It abounds, 
 above all his works, in description — description, per- 
 haps, more poetical than picturesque, since almost 
 every image is instinct with passion, or significant of 
 thought. In truth, Shakspeare could hardly have 
 described a picture — a still scene, either of nature or 
 life, had he tried. In the Tarquin and Lucrece he 
 has tried, and failed, as utterly, though far more 
 gloriously, as any of the rhyming gentry who have 
 employed their pens in giving advice to painters ; all 
 of whom, from Anacreon down to Blackmore, seem to 
 have forgotten that a painter can represent but one 
 single moment of time, though, indeed, a poetical 
 painter will make that moment representative of a 
 whole action — an adequate symbol of a total life. 
 Shakspeare's mistake is not so much the neglect of 
 simultaneity in the objects presented to the imagina- 
 tion as the describing of things as painted which are 
 not objects either of the outer or inward eye, but 
 pure operations of mind, passion, recollection, antici- 
 pation.
 
 KING HENRY V. 161 
 
 This play bears a comparison in some respects 
 with the Persse of ^schylus. Both, probably, were 
 peace-ofFe rings to national vanity, in which the judg- 
 ment of the authors had little share. Both contain 
 much narration, a good deal of stage-bustle, but little 
 real dramatic action, and not much effective pathos. 
 The same mixture of gorgeous diction with familiar, 
 pithy, idiomatic phrases, would, I doubt not, be 
 manifest in both were Greek capable of sounding 
 familiarly to English ears. The ragged coat and 
 miserable plight of Xerxes, and the howling concert 
 in which he leads the senatorial band of Persia, are 
 as alien to tragic dignity as King Henry's courtship 
 or Princess Catherine's broken English. But 
 ^schylus, himself a warrior, assumes the port of 
 Mars more gracefully than Shakspeare, who is seldom 
 less himself than on the field of battle ; not that he 
 wants martial fire, but "he thinks too much," and is 
 ery impatient of narration. The chorus of this play 
 is, it must be confessed, a very inartificial expedient, 
 though the lines themselves are beautiful. But 
 Shakspeare was aware that the reign of the fifth Harry 
 was a theme for the epic rather than the scenic poet, 
 and finding much description and much narrative 
 indispensable, took the shortest mode to acquit him- 
 self of the task, without loading and retarding the 
 action of the drama. Besides, the proud veneration 
 with which the public looked back to the days of 
 Harry and of Agiucourt required and justified a 
 more ceremonious induction than might suit a less 
 redoubtable tale. 
 
 VOU II. • „ • 
 
 V
 
 162 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 The comic scenes are far more hearty, vital, and 
 Shakspearean than those which strictly speaking are 
 historical. I cannot say much, indeed, for the Prin- 
 cess's English lesson, nor any of the parts where the 
 French are principals, but the death of Falstaff. the 
 disguised King's encounter with Williams, and the 
 whole character of Fluellen are worthy of their 
 author. 
 
 I am glad to find that in my apology for the chorus, 
 I am anticipated by Schlegel, whose lectures I had 
 never read when the above was written. 
 
 FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS COMilENTATORS. POPULARITY. 
 
 To what shall I liken Shakspeare and his annota- 
 tors? To the sun kissing carrion and breeding 
 maggots ? To a fine statue, dressed up in all the 
 absurdities of an old clothes shop ? To justice and 
 reason, expounded in the statutes at large? To a 
 god, half-choked with unsavoury incense? To a 
 giant, surprised in his sleep, and tied to the earth 
 by his own hair and beard ? A philosophical editor 
 of Shakspeare has not yet appeared on earth.* Even 
 his text, for which Tibbald, good, honest, dull Tib- 
 
 * When I \»TOte this, I had not seen —indeed, I li.ive not yet seen — 
 either Knight's or Collier's .Shakspeare. I douht not they are rich mines 
 of antiquarian knowledge. But Knight — to judge from his Life of 
 Shakspeare— is a great deal too hypothetical.
 
 FIRST PART OF KTXG HENRY VI. 163 
 
 bald, has done the most, is far from perfectly restored. 
 A competent knowledge of provincial dialect, and an 
 enlarged view of the logic of universal grammar, 
 would elucidate and correct passages which now 
 remain in misapprehended conceit and idolised non- 
 sense. What antiquarian research can do for him, it 
 is probable that Malone and Steeveus have pei-formed. 
 Their notes are, hosvever, much more valuable for 
 the quantity of curious information and odd quotation 
 they contain, than for the light they throw on Shak- 
 speare, whose allusions to obsolete customs are by no 
 means the most pregnant source of his difficulties. 
 It is always delightful to trace the reading of a great 
 author, and yet more to observe the effect of his 
 works on his great contemporaries. The dramatists, 
 particularly Fletcher, doubtless, owe something to 
 Shakspeare, but we do not find him in the graver 
 treatises, nor in the fashionable uudramatic poetry. 
 Drayton, however, had studied him, as his Nym- 
 phidia* proves ; but perhaps even he owed his 
 acquaintance with him more to the stage than the 
 closet. I know not any work so Shakspearean in its 
 diction and tone of sentiment as England's Heroical 
 Epistles. Shakspeare in his own day was doubtless 
 popular; but the popularity of a dramatist, who 
 claimed no rank in the learned literature of his age, 
 and did not even publish liis plays, must have been 
 confined to the suspected race of play-goei-s. His 
 Venus and Adonis obtained a dubious notoriety, not 
 
 ' I am not certain of tho dates of Drayton's Nyniphidia and Heroical 
 Kpistles. Shakspeare might be borrower. 
 
 It o
 
 164 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 likely to recommend him to the austere and solid 
 scholars who composed fohos and quartos. No 
 wonder that Bacon quotes him not. The Chancellor 
 was, perhaps, seldom at a play, and could not safely 
 quote from the mouth of an actor. No collection of 
 Shakspeare s plays was published till long after the 
 principal works of Bacon were completed, nor, if we 
 except the Essays, do they furnish many occasions 
 for poetical quotation at all. Burton once mentions 
 Shakspeare. Hakewell, a solemn reasoner on the 
 course of Providence, could not decorously allude to 
 the wood-notes of an illiterate stage-player. Shak- 
 speare was popular, and his fame was securely 
 planted, but he was not a writer of reputation — for 
 reputation is somewhat different both from popularity 
 and fome. Popularity is the gift of the people. 
 Fame is conferred by the permanent universal reason. 
 Reputation is the opinion of the judging, not always 
 the judicious few. Virgil, of all writers, has had the 
 greatest reputation. Ovid and Horace are more 
 ]>opular. Homer and Shakspeare are his rivals in 
 fame. Addison and Pope, Locke and Paley, of 
 English authors, have enjoyed the strongest reputa- 
 tion, but they are neither so popular, nor in the 
 truest sense so famous, as John Bunyan. Of living 
 writers, I should say Scott was the most popular, 
 Southey the best reputed, Wordsworth the most 
 famous. Popularity is, however, a much better 
 earnest of fame than reputation — for popularity and 
 fame alike are effects of a work — reputation is merely 
 imputed — it is a decision by statute, not in equity.
 
 FIRST PAHT OF EINCt HENRY VI. 165 
 
 A popular book may be mischievous, but it cannot 
 be inert. There is little chance of a work obtaining 
 posthumous popularity -which misses at its first 
 appearance. Collins might be cited as au exception. 
 but his poems were scarce published in his lifetime. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. — SPURIOUS DRAMAS. 
 
 Wordsworth expresses a doubt, whether Shakspeare 
 was, in his lifetime, more famous or popular than his 
 dramatic contemporaries ; but surely the number of 
 worthless plays falsely imputed to him sufficiently 
 evince his pre-eminence in public favour, even were 
 it not confirmed by the unwilling testimony and 
 invidious carpings of play-wrights and pamphleteers, 
 whose reputation was afflicted by his predominance. 
 Of the tirst part of Henry VT., I do not believe he 
 wrote many lines. It is unpoetical, flatly versified, 
 and, if we except the death scene of the two Talbots, 
 does not contain a single passage of eminent merit. 
 Who will believe that the noble-minded Shakspeare 
 would have so foully libelled the heroine of Arc? It 
 is remarkable tliat pseudo-Shakspearean plays are 
 among the worst in tlie language. The Yorkshire 
 Tragedy is, however, powerfully written. Pericles is 
 much if not all Sbakspeare. Some commentators, 
 and Johnson among them, suggest that these plays 
 might be Shakspeare 's early efforts, but they are no 
 more adolescetitia Shaksperii than the Odyssey is 
 seniutn Honieri. What is his — and in the second
 
 166 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 and third parts there is a good deal of his — is rather 
 in his riper than his earlier manner. The character 
 of Gloster emanates from the same mind that pro- 
 duced Richard III. In these parts Shakspeare 
 resembles a great master who has partially retouched 
 and coloured a picture of which the dead ground had 
 been worked in by a common sign-painter. Much of 
 the colouring, and many fine traits of expression are 
 his ; but the design, the grouping, the composition 
 betokens an inferior hand. Indeed the subject itself 
 is utterly unmanageable. It is too long, diffused and 
 sprawling even for a poem. Daniel has given it 
 neither unity, continuity, or legitimate beginning, 
 middle, or end. A score of tragedies or legends 
 might be made out of the same space of history ; but 
 they would all labour under the disadvantage that 
 the conclusions would not be conclusive. Compare 
 the versification of this scene, and indeed of the 
 dead ground of all the three parts, with that of the 
 rudest plays of Shakspeare (as the Comedy of Errors) 
 — compare the whole texture of thought and language 
 with the worst of his genuine works, and you will be 
 convinced (if you have sense enough to be worth con- 
 vincing) that these are none of Shakspeare 's/Mre?ji7ta. 
 He may have sometimes written in worse taste, more 
 quaintly, obscurely, or extravagantly, but when did 
 he write at all like these scenes ? When does he not 
 display a fluency, an interfluence of thought and 
 music, which is here utterly wanting? There is no 
 inosculation. Line is piled upon line — sentence upon 
 sentence — neatly and orderly enough, like planks in
 
 FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. 167 
 
 a timber-yard ; whereas the genuine Shakspeare, in 
 liis wilder works, is an Indian forest, where the trees 
 not only knit their imperious branches on high, but 
 are so netted and manacled together by creepers and 
 filaments, and so beset with suckers, that it is hard 
 to establish the individuality of a single trunk, and 
 the very Hamadryads are at a loss to know their own. 
 Yet, though the play contains little of poetry, little 
 that takes root and germinates in the mind, there is 
 so much action, such a vernacular strength of diction, 
 such downright business-like vigour about it, espe- 
 cially in the quarrelling and fighting parts, that it 
 cannot be deemed uninteresting notwithstanding the 
 want, the fatal want, of any one leading character. 
 Had Talbot been brought more into relief, and had 
 his death formed the catastrophe, it would have been 
 a most spirited, stirring drama. But it has no unity 
 of purpose, and that is a unity that cannot be dis- 
 pensed with. Wlioever was the author, he could 
 have written plays much better adapted to keep an 
 audience or a reader alive, than the dreamy Amcebaean 
 poetry of some moderns ! composed to the tune that 
 Hermes played to Argus, when one by one the 
 hundred eyes were drowsed. 
 
 " The Duke of Bedford had a prisoner," &c. 
 
 How Strong a trait of the aristocratic spirit of 
 chivalry : a true knight would rather be in Tartarus, 
 with noble blood, than sit before the mercy-seat of 
 heaven with base mechanicals and fisliermen. These
 
 168 NOTES ON SIIAKSPEARF,. 
 
 things are true history : the old chronicles are full of 
 them, but the so-called histories, which alone are 
 accessible to the many, seldom deign to mention any 
 of them. Thus, mahjre the confusion and manifold 
 blunders of this drama, I count it better history than 
 Hume's or Macintosh's Essay on the same period. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTICE. ORIGIN OF THE HISTORIC 
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 Who was the author of this play ? It scarce carries 
 one mark of Shakspeare. It is too sober for Marlowe 
 or Kidd, and yet no man could have written it but 
 one who was capable of better things. Ancient 
 poetry shot forth like a star from a pitchy cloud. 
 Homer collected into his orb all the vagrant meteors 
 of heroic fiction, and all that was before him was like 
 the light of the first day, ere the sun was created or 
 the moon and stars began their everlasting journey. 
 Modern poetry was like a spark blown into fulgence 
 by the dying breath of the ancients ; — one single 
 faggot among a heap of dry branches, and when it 
 blazed the highest there was a smoke and a crackling 
 that bewrayed the ligneous and carbonaceous quality 
 of the fuel. The rliyming chronicles led the way to 
 the Mirror for Magistrates, and that gave the hint 
 for the dramatic histories. Drayton and Sackville 
 wrote legends — Shakspeare may be excused for 
 writing historic plays.
 
 SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI. 169 
 
 SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI. 
 
 Cade. Contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast 
 built a paper-mill. — Act. iv., Scene vii. 
 
 According to my book, which is not indeed over 
 trustworthy, the first paper-mill in England was 
 erected at Dartford, Kent, 1588. Possibly, though 
 it is not easy to see why, this was a topic of popular 
 outcry. Perhaps foreigners were employed — perhaps 
 the projector was unpopular. There have always 
 been a race of politicians averse to all improvements 
 and innovations, and, whether Whigs or Tories, they 
 have seldom scrupled to solicit the multitude to fly 
 in the tail of their prejudices. 
 
 CHARACTER OF MOBS. 
 
 In one thing, mobs must have altered greatly, if 
 Shakspeare's representations were ever true. A speech 
 might stir them, but could never put them down ; and 
 they are now anything but mobile. They move indeed, 
 but it is as a stone trundling down a mountain side, by 
 the mere vis incrVm. I doubt, indeed, whether Cade 
 was deserted in consequence of any arguments like 
 those put into Clifford's mouth. The ambitious wars of 
 Henry V. had laden the Commons with burdens, and 
 proved a source of universal distress and beggary. 
 They had ended, too, in worse than nothing. I do 
 not believe the English mob were ever very partial 
 to heroes, unless they bo of their own side, and 
 popular characters to boot. Nelson was a mob-idol
 
 J 70 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 indeed, so was Vernon in bis day ; but tbey were 
 sailors, and Jack Tar is a jolly fellow, and a general 
 favourite — he treats all round. But Marlborough 
 and Wellington, our greatest generals, have been 
 anything but popular, though of opposite politics, and 
 not very similar characters. Wars are sometimes 
 popular while they last, but they seldom leave agree- 
 able recollections, even when brought to a glorious 
 conclusion. 
 
 I well recollect my dear father remarking that it 
 was a great shame of Mister Alexander Iden not to 
 give Cade a meal of meat before he fought him. His 
 exultation over the carcase was perhaps in the spirit 
 of the devout age of Queen Elizabeth, when England 
 was in the hey-day of her zeal ; but it is very 
 shocking. 
 
 THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI. 
 
 METAPHORS. — SHAKSPEARE, MASSINGER, CAREW. 
 
 ACT v., SCENE IV. 
 
 A CURIOUS instance of a metaphor spun out to an 
 allegory. There is something like it in Quarles, but 
 much more quaint and ingenious. Shakspeare's 
 broken metaphors have been censured, but they are 
 far more true, vital, imaginative, and dramatic than 
 this painful fancy-work. In truth, tlie speech would be 
 quite as much in character if uttered by Commodore 
 Trunnion, or any of Dibdin's Jack Tars. There is 
 a rather shorter string of naval similitudes in the
 
 THIKD PART OF HENRY VI. 171 
 
 death scene of King John, which, though shorter, is 
 perhaps still more utottov. Another like string of 
 sea-similes is in JMassinger's Guardian, Act iv., 
 Scene 9, where an imprudent lady complains that her 
 understanding is stowed under hatches. Massinger 
 was lilve Dryden, much addicted to technicals. Carew 
 has something of the same kind about a bark, a tide 
 of pride, gulfs of disdain, despair at the helm, &c. ;* 
 but this being neither drama nor divinity, but the 
 privileged nonsense of a fancy, not heart-sick lover in 
 a miff, may pass for as much as it is worth. 
 
 Capel, whom S. T. C. designated the worst of 
 commentators, (and if so, he must be bad indeed,)" 
 remarks on the lines — "What, will the aspiring blood 
 of Lancaster," &c., that he who cannot discern the 
 pen who wrote them ought never to pretend to dis- 
 cernment hereafter. Now it happens that this speech 
 is taken almost verbatim from the true tragedy of 
 Richard Duke of Yorke, with the death of good King 
 Henry VI., and the whole contention between the 
 two houses of York and Lancaster, as it was sundry 
 times enacted by the II. II. the Earl of Pembroke's 
 servants — 1595. This play, ascribed to Marlowe with 
 much probability, but without direct evidence, was 
 sold by Evans, Oct. 12, 1841, for fifteen pounds. 
 That it was not published till two years after ^Marlowe's 
 death, does not go to disprove his authorship. It 
 was certainly the original, which Shakspeare partially 
 retouched without much improving the rudeness of 
 the outhne. 
 
 * " Oh, geiitlo liivp, do not forsake tlie guide 
 Of my frail bark,'' &c.
 
 1T2 NOTES ON SHAKSrEARE. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTICE. 
 
 All these three parts bespeak a most unlicked state 
 of dramatic composition, if composition it can be called, 
 wherein the several portions have no other cohesion 
 than wliat they derive from a history which they do 
 not half disclose. Events are constantly alluded to 
 which are neither presented nor related. Shakspeare 
 doubtless wrote many lines and speeches, but gave 
 up the arrangement of the scenes as a bad job. 
 
 RICHARD III. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 In quantity and proportion, Richard the Second is 
 a more regular tragedy than Richard the Third ; in 
 quality, there never was a profounder tragedy than that 
 which commences on this page — an absolute destiny 
 involved in a human will — an instrument of fate self- 
 cliosen, self-condemned, excommunicated by nature, 
 yet with an intellect concentrated by frost, works in 
 the raishaped shape of Richard — a thing far more to 
 be pitied than abhorred. It is not tragic, it is 
 tragedy. 
 
 ACT. I., SCENE II. 
 
 'O MaKapLTr}9, whose dealings with Shakspeare 
 sometimes remind me of Bentley's Milton, and of the
 
 RICilAHD iir. 173 
 
 Socinian version of the New Testament, disliked this 
 scene so much that he would not admit it to be of 
 Shakspeare's original conception, though he could not 
 deny that the words, as they stand at present, were 
 of his composition. Of that, indeed, there can be no 
 doubt. Any one of the old writers in such a scene 
 would have been far more gross and oiTensive. Still 
 it is possible that he borrowed the situation from an 
 older play ; and, as it is admirably adapted for acting, 
 to have omitted it would have offended both the 
 audience and the actors. There was a play of Samuel 
 llowley, called " R. 3, or the English Profit " (Pro- 
 phet), a revival of which is noticed in the oflBce-book 
 of Sir H. Herbert, as licensed 27th July, 1623, for 
 the Palgrave's Players, though it is not absolutely 
 clear whether the play itself, or the reformation, as 
 alterations were then called, were the work of 
 Rowley, who was certainly alive in 1623. But there 
 is no proof that this play was older than Shakspeare, 
 to whom Rowley appears to have been junior. The 
 second title (a good sample of Sir Henry's spelling), 
 whatever it may refer to, shows plainly that a dif- 
 ferent plot was pursued. Probably the prophet 
 whose ominous G. occasioned the death of Clarence, 
 was a conspicuous personage.*- The play, I believe, is 
 not extant. We may, howevever, be sure that so 
 tragical a portion of English history, and one so 
 nearlv connected with the fjlorv of the Tudors, had 
 
 ' Clarence. A wizard told him tliiit by G 
 llis issue disinherited sliould be. 
 And, for my name of (.ieorge begins with G, 
 It follows in his thought that I am he.
 
 174 NOTES ON SIIAKSPEARE. 
 
 been dramatised before Shakspeare was connected 
 with the theatre. But that any part of the present 
 play, as it now stands, was composed by any other 
 than Shakspeare, appears to me very improbable. It 
 smacks of the master in every line. It appears to 
 have been highly popular, being three times printed 
 by 1600— in 1597, 1598. 1600. It must, therefore, 
 have been one of Shakspeare 's earlier pieces. I think, 
 however, that the period of Shakspeare 's debut as an 
 independent dramatist is fixed too late by modern 
 editors. He was not likely in 1593 to present his 
 Venus and xidonis to a distinguished nobleman in 
 terras that imply something like favoured intimacy, 
 if he had hud heretofore no other name or mark 
 than that of a vamper of old plays. Strong pro- 
 babilities fix the date of Romeo and Juliet in 1591. 
 The absence of any comic character from Richard 
 the Third, as well as from Richard the Second, is a 
 remarkable circumstance, and goes far to prove that 
 they are not partial improvements or reformations of 
 elder dramas, l)ut entire works of their great author. 
 The quantity of rhyme in Richard the Second inclines 
 me to suppose it to be older than Richard the Third, 
 the fame of which did not prevent other writers from 
 attempting the same subject. Henslowe, in 100-^, 
 advanced lOZ. to Ben Jonson, in earnest of a book called 
 " Richard Crookback." Whether Ben ever finished 
 the play is not obvious, — no such is now to be found 
 with his name. The sum was very large for an earnest 
 in those days, when, a little before, the price of an 
 entire play did not exceed 0/. IO5. But Ben's
 
 RICHARD III. 175 
 
 reputation was high, and, besides, he had also made 
 additions to Jeronimo. What they were is not known. 
 
 KICHARD S DREAM. 
 
 ACT v., SCENE III. 
 
 There is an apparent absurdity in either painting 
 or acting a dream, which no beauty of execution can 
 conceal. Jacob's dream has been painted by Rem- 
 brandt and by Alston — beautifully, I dare say, by 
 both ; but both make the mistake, as it appears to 
 me, of introducing the sleeping Jacob in a corner. 
 Who has not seen Joseph's dream and his sheaves ? 
 I am not forgetful that, according to the speculations 
 of Shakspeare's day, separate spirits did converse 
 with souls in sleep, — indeed, the opinion is older 
 than Homer — must have been as old as the belief in 
 prophetic dreams ; but then the spirits were not 
 supposed to be visible or audible to men awake. 
 The best defence that can be made for Shakspeare in 
 this case is, that the audience are to be identified with 
 the personages of the drama; to know, and feel, and 
 see, whatever is known, or felt, or seen by any one 
 whom the poet introduces, and should always sink 
 their own presence and existence. Thus does Camp- 
 bell, in his Life of Mi's. Siddons, justify the actual 
 appearance of Banquo's ghost on the stage when 
 none but Macbeth is sup^wsed to behold it. But the 
 cases are not exactly similar. Ghosts were, in 
 popular faith, objective existences whose visibility 
 depended on their own volition. Not so dreams.
 
 170 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 KEMARKS ON THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 The prologue to King Henry the Eighth, gives us 
 three pieces of information : — First, that certain 
 auditors attended the historical plays with a purpose 
 of seeing authentic history acted ; secondly, that the 
 price — we may suppose for the better places, corres- 
 ponding to the modern pit and boxes — was one 
 shilling ; thirdly, that the stage-fools wore a long 
 motley coat, guarded or trimmed with yellow. Per- 
 haps we may add — fourtlily, that the attraction of 
 stage-processions, trumpets, &c., is not of modern 
 date ; nor the processions themselves an original sin 
 of modern managers. If theatrical pageantry was 
 less dazzling in former times than now, it was be- 
 cause theatres were poorer, not because taste was 
 better. I agree with Dr. Johnson in doubting 
 whether the prologue and epilogue to King Henry 
 the Eighth were Shakspeare's own, — not because they 
 speak contemptuously of fool and fight, but because 
 they have not the seve and verdeur of his vintage. 
 Some commentator remarks that the coronation in 
 this play is as objectionable as a battle. If the ob- 
 jection be to spectacle in genere, it may be so ; but 
 if the impossibility of adequate representation be 
 alleged, Elliston has completely refuted it. It was a 
 question whether the show went off better at the 
 Abbey or at Drury Lane. In fact, it was very
 
 KING HENKY VIII. 177 
 
 splendid, expensive, and absurd at both. Old Drury 
 could not have come so near the original Waterloo. 
 
 Unfit, as modern critics, apin^f the nicety of 
 Athens, which forbade the tragedising of recent 
 historj', may think the events of a reign so fully and 
 freshly in remembrance, as those of Henry VIII. 
 must have been in Shakspeare's day, and bold as 
 certainly was the introduction by name of persons 
 whose immediate descendants were living, Shak- 
 speare's is not the only drama on the subject. 
 Rowley's " When you see me, you know me," accord- 
 ing to Collier, dramatised some part of Henry's his- 
 tory. It is not easy to guess how the name applied ; 
 but the dramatists of that age, like the article writers 
 and paragraphists of this, sought for taking titles 
 without caring whether they fitted very close or not. 
 The conflagration of the Globe theatre, 29th of June, 
 took place during the performance of a play called 
 " All is true," which Collier thinks might be Shak- 
 speare's Heniy VIII. The name would certainly 
 characterise the historical fidelity. Shakspeare, 
 with great prudence, has made no allusion to the 
 religious disputes of the time. Indeed, both as a 
 writer and as a man, he displayed more of that un- 
 romantic quality than some people suppose compatible 
 with lofty genius. We never hear of his coming in 
 collision with the Master of the Revels, or bringing 
 the wrath of court or city upon his profession. The 
 naughtiness of his " Venus and Adonis " exposed him 
 to the censure of the graver sort; but even their 
 rebukes are so gently worded, as to show that he was 
 
 VOL. 11. N
 
 ] 78 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 a general favourite, while too many of his contem- 
 pox'aries were not only quarrelling with each other, 
 but risking the very existence of the stage by their 
 audacious discussions of religious and political topics 
 on the boards, — a license probably derived from the 
 old miracle plays and moralities — very tempting at a 
 time when the playhouses and conventicles supplied 
 the want of newspapers, and therefore not easily 
 checked by the menacing orders of the privy council 
 and the pruning hand of the licenser. This play 
 comprises a space of nearly thirteen years, com- 
 mencing soon after the meeting of Henry and Francis 
 in the summer of 15'20, and ending with the birth 
 of Elizabeth, September 1533. 
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 ACT IV., SCENE I. 
 
 These stage directions are manifestly by Shakspeare 
 himself; and curious, as almost the only real prose 
 that remains of his composition. They show, too, 
 that he was a consummate master of effect, and did 
 not disdain to arrange the o\f/Ls. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTE. 
 
 The necessity of complimenting, or, at least, 
 applying to the present, has induced Shakspeare to 
 protract this play beyond its natural conclusion. It 
 should certainly have ended with the departure of 
 Queen Catherine and of Wolsey. Shakspeare is 
 highly to be commended for his close adherence to
 
 CORIOLANUS. 179 
 
 the chronicles, and the masterly manner in which 
 he has dramatised their contents, — still more for the 
 exact justice done to Wolsey, and tlie noble vindica- 
 tion of Queen Catherine. 
 
 " Indent with beauty how far to extend, 
 Set down desire a limit where to end, 
 Then cliarm thine eyes that they no more may wound, 
 And limit love to keep within a bound." 
 
 Ih-ayt07i's Heroical Epistles. 
 
 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 CHARACTER OF PLAY. 
 
 I'lRST and best in the series of Roman plays 
 appears Coriolanus. As far as incident is concerned, 
 it is Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus described in 
 scenes. The character, too, is exactly Plutarch's 
 Coriolanus talking English blank verse. In fact, 
 Plutarch was the Shakspeare of biography. What a 
 volume of pohtics — what a searching examen of 
 humanity might bo made in form of a commentary 
 on this play! In " Coriolanus," the Ptoman and the 
 man are so finely blended, that not a thread avows 
 whether it be woof or warp. 
 
 Ist Servant. — " Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy ; mulled, 
 deaf, sleepy, insensible ; a getter of more bastard children than 
 war's a destroyer of men." — Act iv., Scene v. 
 
 "Plague of this dead peace, — this bastard-breeding, lousy, idle- 
 ness." — Fletchers Mad Lover, Act I. 
 
 By these, and many other scattered allusions in 
 
 N 2
 
 180 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 the plays of the period, ■we may conjecture that the 
 long shutting of the Temple of Janus by the Rex 
 Pacificus was far from popular. Yet there can be 
 no doubt that in preserving peace, and neglecting the 
 military, he acted most beneficially for the people, 
 though ruinously for his family and for the regal 
 power. War is the interest of kings, but it is quite 
 as much the passion of nations. If man were not 
 by nature a fighting, invading, plundering beast of 
 prey, there would never have been kings at all. The 
 patriarchal state would have been perpetuated. Yet 
 neither kings nor ministers are answerable for all the 
 mischief. Was not Walpole forced into a needless 
 and impolitic war by mere popular clamour ? As for 
 the anti-Malthusian tendencies of peace, perhaps the 
 observation arises from the fact, that bastardy is 
 accounted a deadlier sin when the lawfully begotten 
 are three in a bed. 
 
 JULIUS CflESAR. 
 
 ACT I., SCENE III. 
 
 Casca. — " And yesterday the liird of night did sit." 
 
 Obscoenique canes, importunseque volucres 
 Signa dabant. — Vlrg. Geor. i. 470, 
 
 To the most affecting prognostic of Caesar's death 
 Shakspeare has not alluded. The horses which had 
 crossed the Rubicon, and which, ever since, had been 
 allowed to range at liberty, refused to graze, and 
 Suetonius says wept abundantly, uhertim jdeverunt.
 
 JULIUS C^SAR. 181 
 
 Bi-utus. — " Be patient till the last." — Act hi., Scene ii. 
 
 This is a speech of consummate skill. Brutus, 
 unused and reluctant to speak before a vulgar audi- 
 ence, at first recurs to his common-places, as if he 
 were striving to recollect the lessons he had been 
 taught in the schools of rhetoric. Having mistaken 
 the conclusions of a deluded understanding for the 
 mandate of reason, he defends himself according to 
 the tutored forms of the understanding in formal 
 prose ; but as he grows warm, and half convinced by 
 his own argument, his heart gets up, and he becomes 
 sincerely eloquent. The latter part of the speech, 
 from " Who 's here so base," &c., is verse, and should 
 be so printed. Many instances might be produced 
 where Shakspeare begins in prose and slides into 
 metre. It may, indeed, be assumed that he never 
 wrote prose, from laziness or the passion of conve- 
 nience. His prose is harder than his verse. I have 
 no doubt that he wrote blank verse quicker than 
 prose, and, perhaps, rhyme quicker than either, as 
 any man may do that has an ordinary command of 
 language and knows all the feasible rhymes. Then, 
 liow admirably does the speech of Brutus contrast 
 with Antony's, and yet both begin with an artful 
 calmness, — both are inflamed by their own fluency ; 
 but the one only rises to a patriotic glow, — the other 
 blazes into a passion.
 
 182 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 ACT IV., SCENE III. 
 Brutus. — " Say'st thou thy leaden mace," &c. 
 
 " A mate is the ancient term for a sceptre." — New Edition. 
 
 The spirit of blundering has laid his leaden mace 
 on the note-writer. A mace was a most formidable 
 weapon, calculated for stunning. Had the allusion 
 meant to royalise slumber, the epithet " murderous " 
 ■would not have appeared. Besides, drowsiness is 
 much better represented by a lord mayor or a vice- 
 chancellor, or, best of all, a university preacher, — 
 all of whom are attended by mace-bearers, — than by 
 a king, who is proverbially wakeful. 
 
 END OF PLAY. 
 
 Sbakspeare seldom introduces many long or poetical 
 speeches in his last acts — knowing that, in the crisis 
 of action, men talk little. His conclusions are well 
 adapted for representation. He was by no means so 
 regardless, as certain both of his encomiasts and bis 
 detractors assert, of stage effect. Instead of the 
 jingling morality appended to modern tragedies, 
 which the walking gentleman, stumbling over the 
 dead bodies to before the lamps, recites for the edifi- 
 cation of the pit, and then bows to the galler^y, — 
 Shakspeare ends with a march, a dance, with some 
 solemn or cheerful music, appropriate to the occasion.
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 183 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 The general neglect of " Antony and Cleopatra " 
 by all but students of Shakspeare, and the preference 
 long given to Dryden's play on the same subject, 
 prove the danger of protracting the interest of a plot, 
 in order to introduce a greater variety of incidents. 
 The scenes, for example, wherein Pompey figures, 
 though well- written, are wholly inconclusive ; they 
 form a part of the biogi'aphy of Antony, not of his 
 tragedy. Nor is it easy to conjecture Shakspeare's 
 reason for introducing so many short scenes, which 
 serve no purpose but to let the auditor know the 
 news. They form a sort of back-ground to the pic- 
 ture, but they detain the action. For poetry and 
 character, there are few dramas superior ; nor is there 
 any want of deep and grand pathos ; but perhaps 
 both Antony and Cleopatra are too heroic to be 
 pitied for weakness, and too viciously foolish to be 
 admired for their heroism. Seldom has unlawful 
 love been rendered so interesting ; but the interest, 
 though not dangerous, is not perfectly agreeable. 
 
 " I'll set .a bourne liow far to be beloved." 
 
 If Antony owed to Cleopatra the loss of empire, 
 he is indebted to her for less hateful renown than 
 would else have clung to him. Shakspeare and
 
 184 NOTKS ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Uryden make the Philippics forgotten, and the mur- 
 derer of Cicero is lost in the lover of Cleopatra. 
 
 Eno. — " The barge she sat in," &c. — Act ii., Scene ii. 
 
 Beautiful as this description is, one might almost 
 desire that it had been uttered by a more interesting 
 personage. Dryden has transferred it to Antony, — 
 copied it pretty closely, — or perhaps kept closer to 
 Plutarch's prose. The poetry he almost suppresses ; 
 but he certainly introduces the story more artfully. 
 Narration for its own sake is not, however, a frequent 
 fault of Shakspeare. 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLAY. 
 
 Campbell considers " Timon " as the worst of all 
 Shakspeare's genuine plays. It is certainly one of 
 the least pleasing and poetical. The plot is defective; 
 after the -TreptTrereia, which takes place too soon — 
 there is no further progress. The two last acts 
 contain nothing but repeated instances of Timon's 
 misanthropy. In fact, the story is too bare to furnish 
 out a five-act drama. Lucian's dialogue is quite long 
 enough. The episode of Alcibiades is not very skil- 
 fully interwoven, and grossly violates a well-known 
 history. Yet, considered as a philosophic satire, the 
 play has high merit ; and some passages are almost
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 185 
 
 equal to " King Lear " in terrific grandeur. The 
 curses of Timon are of the very soul of Jacobinism, 
 and his address to the courtezans is as a voice from 
 a charnel house, — so like the wind whistling through 
 hollow bones. Who but Shakspeare could thus have 
 elicited tragic terror from what, in itself, is merely- 
 loathsome ? Timon, be it observed, is as indiscrimi- 
 nate in his philanthropy as in his misanthropy. 
 Neither his benevolence nor his hate have any specific 
 object. How different from the sentimental man- 
 haters of modern plays ! 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 Who was the author of Titus Andronicus ? Shak- 
 speare it certainly was not ; yet it was no ordinary 
 man. Marlowe has been suggested ; but it is un- 
 likely that a work of Marlowe's would have been 
 unclaimed. I think Thomas Kidd the most pro- 
 bable person. It is shallow argument to conclude 
 that because a few passages of a play are strikingly 
 superior to the rest, they must necessarily have had 
 a different author. The same man might produce a 
 few lines of volcanic splendour, and a long series of 
 dull declamations. True genius is like the healtliful 
 day that is shed over all the prospect, and shows its 
 presence as much by the shades as the lights. ]\Iad- 
 ness seems to burn and glow intensely, but never
 
 186 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 casts a ray on the circumambient darkness. Genius 
 is all things, and madness among the rest ; but mad- 
 ness is only madness, and its utmost cunning can 
 only represent sanity by solemn stupidity. The least 
 candle throws its light far and near, but the sulphu- 
 rous exhalation is rounded and defined by utter 
 gloom. The first scene in Titus Andronicus is that 
 where Aaron rescues his child from the nurse ; it is 
 also the only scene in which the moral feelings are 
 pleasurably interested. We have the evidence of 
 Ben that this strange play was once popular. No 
 wonder. I remember when I thought murder the 
 essence of tragedy, and could as easily conceive a 
 king without a croAvn, as a tragedy without homicide. 
 The same story has been dramatised in Dutch. 
 Schlegel maintains the authenticity, but he also stands 
 up for the London Prodigal, the Widow of Watling- 
 Street, Thomas Lord Cromwell, and Sir John Old- 
 castle, in which last Shakspeare is himself abused. 
 The evidence of Meres, and of Hemming, and Conder 
 prove nothing but that the play was ascribed to Shak- 
 speare in his life-time, perhaps with his own con- 
 nivance. Tliey were probably part of the property 
 of which he disposed on retiring from the theatre. 
 
 AUTHENTICITY OF THE PLAY ^MR. THEOBALD S OPINION. 
 
 " Mr. Tlicob.ald says, ' Tins is one of the plays whicli lie always 
 thought, with the better judges, ought not to be acknowledged in 
 the list of Shakspeare's genuine pieces.' " 
 
 I differ from Theobald here ; the versification is 
 indeed far less dramatic than Shakspeare, but it is
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 187 
 
 sometimes veiy sonorous and harmonious. It cannot 
 be denied that the external evidences for the authen- 
 ticity of Titus are very strong. It is, perhaps, most 
 likely that Shakspeare had some hand in it, after all. 
 In ati'ocity and bloodshed it is nothing to some of 
 the old plays. It is common to ascribe the low 
 comedy of our dramatists to the necessity of propi- 
 tiating the groundlings. I believe that the penny 
 part of the audience were better pleased with rant, 
 termagant, and slaughter, than even with fun and 
 grimace ; nothing draws a country audience like a 
 tale of murder, especially if founded on fact. 
 
 Tam. — " My lovely Aaron," &c. — Act ii., Scene hi. 
 
 This is a beautiful speech ; but Shakspeare would 
 not have put such sweet poetry into the mouth of a 
 libidinous fury. Yet " curtain'd with a counsel- 
 keeping cave,'' is much in Shakspeare 's manner. 
 
 CIIARACTEU OF THE PLAY. 
 
 The horrors of this lamentable tragedy remind 
 one of Hesiod's Paradox, that half is more than all. 
 They are so very thick sown, and so very hon-ible, 
 that they do not excite any horror at all. It is diffi- 
 cult to conceive how our ancestors, who, we are told, 
 greatly admired this play, if they could bear to see it 
 at all, could have seen it without laughter. Yet it 
 has much of that vigour of language in which the old 
 dramatists never failed. There is nothing of the
 
 1H8 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 involution, the conceit, tlie antithesis of Shakspeare's 
 first manner. The writer seems to have been tolerably 
 familiar with Latin school-books, notwithstanding 
 some strange anachronisms of pedantry ; as, for 
 instance, tribunes under the empire, and the white 
 electioneering apparel of the candidates. A satirical 
 allusion to Popery never came amiss, whatever chro- 
 nology might object to it. 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
 
 —* — 
 
 INTRODUCTOEY NOTICE. 
 
 Teoilus and Cressida, I opine, was a favourite bant- 
 ling of the gentle Willy's — one of the plays he wrote 
 for himself. Indeed it betrays unequivocal marks of 
 indulgence, being somewhat naughty, capricious, 
 whimsical, loquacious, fond, unruly — a thing of many 
 humours, and as like its father as it can stare — a 
 veritable spoiled child. The opposite points of Shak- 
 speare's genius, the fanciful, flowery-scented, many- 
 hued, amorous tendei'ness of the Venus and Adonis, 
 and the self-involved, self-fathoming, world-expounding 
 philosophy of Hamlet, in this strange drama, blend 
 their commingled rays. Who but Shakspeare would 
 or could have extracted thoughts deep as the centre, 
 politic maxims fit to rule a planet, truths that are the 
 very substance of prudential wisdom, out of a light 
 love tale ? What would an Aristarchus, wont to read 
 Homer, not only by the clear day-light of common 
 
 »'
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 189 
 
 sense, but through the glimmering perspective of 
 French criticism, who has taken it for granted that 
 Homer meant Achilles for a hero, a superhuman 
 personification of noble energy, -whose very sulkiness 
 was awful, and his cruelty sublime, — what would 
 such a blear-eyed idolator of his own misconceptions 
 think of Shakspeare's Achilles — a creature with a 
 womanish soul in a huge carcase, vain as a fine 
 singer, and fearful of making his cut-throat accom- 
 jjlishments cheap by using? Shakspeare had no 
 veneration for heroes. He understood them too 
 well. It is remarkable that he has scarce adopted 
 a single expression from the " Troilus and Creseide " of 
 Chaucer, the most beautiful diary of love ever written. 
 The work of Lollius* (if it ever existed) is not to 
 be found. I am disposed to think that Chaucer, 
 in disowning the invention of this sweet poem, only 
 followed the common practice of the minstrels. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTICE. 
 
 On what authority does Schlegel assert that 
 Troilus and Cressida was never acted ? It is difficult 
 indeed to imagine how any audience could have 
 listened to such long discourses of policy, devoid of 
 all but intellectual interest, or how they could be 
 satisfied with a conclusion wherein nothing is con- 
 cluded. But the same objections apply to other 
 plays which certainly were acted — witli what success 
 
 • Mr. Popo, after Dryden, informs us that tlio story of " Troilus and 
 Cressida '' was originally the work of one LoUius, a Lombard.
 
 190 NOTES OX SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 I know not. The Germans have a knack of writing 
 history scientifically — they deduce facts from pre- 
 mises with as much complacency as if they were 
 conclusions in mood and figure, or elements in an 
 algebraic process ; they determine that what must 
 have been, always has been. They succeed perfectly 
 in demolishing the foundations of historic dogmatism ; 
 but then they are too often dogmatically hypothetical. 
 Schlegel, however, understands the drift of Troilus 
 and Cressida perfectly. But it has been better ex- 
 pressed by S. T. C. — "Compare Nestor, Ajax, 
 Achilles, &c., in the Troilus and Cressida of Shak- 
 speare, with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old 
 heroes seem all to have been at school ever since.'" 
 Not a very good school, however. Their improve- 
 ment is intellectual only — morally they are the 
 same, and therefore worse. 
 
 CYMBELINE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 
 
 May it not plausibly be conjectured that Shak- 
 speare, by making causeless jealousy the foundation 
 of so many plays, intended an oblique compliment to 
 Queen Elizabeth — a delicate vindication of Anna 
 Bullen ? 
 
 Lovely as the poetry of Cymbeline is, and most 
 lovely as Imogen is, this play is, to me, one of the 
 least agreeable in the collection. Nowhere, not
 
 CYMBELTNE. 191 
 
 even in Leontes, is the odiousness of jealousy dis- 
 played in such glaring colours as in Posthumus, who, 
 in plain terms, acts a villain's part. A man who 
 could lay wagers upon his wife's virtue, and wilfully 
 expose her to the insults of such a ribald-scoundrel 
 as lachimo, is not only unworthy of Imogen, but 
 richly deserving of the worst possible consequences 
 of his folly. Shakspeare wisely conceives jealousy to 
 be a passion pre-existeut to the occasions it is sure 
 to find or seek. lachimo is a scamp, utterly unre- 
 deemed by the master mind and soldierly carriage of 
 lago and Edmund. The beautiful poetry he is made 
 to utter in Imogen's chamber, could scarce have 
 emanated from such a reptile spii'it. Cloten is a 
 mere ass, without humour, or even fun. Shakspeare 
 has not another such. It is, however, a just and 
 natural judgment upon the subtle witch, his mother, 
 to have borne such a moon-calf. These amazing 
 clever, wicked women, generally produce Clotens — 
 witness Semii"amis, Agrippiua, and Catherine the 
 Second. 
 
 ACT I., SCENE I. 
 
 As Dr. Johnson allows commentators to differ con- 
 cerning the opening speech of Cymbeline, without 
 animosity or shame, 1 hope I shall not offend his 
 manes by proposing my own interpretation of this 
 contested passage. 
 
 Our bloods, i.e., our natural complexions, are not 
 more swayed by sympathy with the planetary bodies 
 than our courtiers' (bloods or humours) seem to sym-
 
 192 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 pathise with the blood or humour of the king. The 
 notion is derived from the humoral pathology and 
 astrological physiology. The disposition of men was 
 supposed to be regulated by the crisis of their blood, 
 which again was influenced by spherical predomi- 
 nance. Tyrwhitt's altei'ation is plausible, and makes 
 the construction easier, but less Shakspearian. The 
 Doctors paraphrase is absolutely untenable.* 
 
 Imo. — " Ho, who 's here ? 
 If anything that's civil, speak; if savage, 
 Take, or lend." — Act in., Scene vi. 
 
 The text is probably right. Shakspeare does not 
 plan his sentences beforehand, and lay them out in 
 even compartments ; they grow and expand, like 
 trees, towards heaven. If you be civil, speak ; nay, 
 but however savage, at least assist me for recom- 
 pense. 
 
 Imo. — " His foot mercurial," &c. — Act iv.. Scene ir. 
 
 Shakspeare seldom, very seldom, repeats himself; 
 but certainly this mythological dissection is very like 
 
 • Dr. Johnson observes that tliis passage is so difficult, that commen- 
 tators may differ concerning it without animosity or shame; that the 
 lines stand as they were originally written, and that a paraphrase such 
 as the licentious and ahrujit expressions of our author too frequently 
 require, will make emendation unnecessary. " Wc do not meet a man 
 but frowns : our bloods," — our countenances, which in po))ular speech are 
 said to be regulated by our blood — " no more obey the laws of heaven" — 
 which direct us to appear what we really are— " than our courtiers," — 
 that is, than the blood of our courtiers : but our bloods, like theirs, 
 " still seem as doth the king's." Mr. Steevens is of opinion that blood is 
 here used for inclination ; and Mr. Tyrwhitt i)roposes to make the passage 
 clear by a very slight alteration, leaving out the last letters : You do 
 not meet a man but frowns ; our bloods no more obey the heavens, than 
 our courtiers still seem as the king does.
 
 CYMBELINE. 1 Oo 
 
 Hamlet's description of his father. In Hamlet, 
 however, not only is the tottos better made out, but 
 the application is much more natural and forcible. 
 Here, considering that the mercurial foot, herculean 
 brawns, &:c., belong in reality to Cloten, Shakspeare's 
 intention probably was to show how much the eyes 
 are fools of the mind, and how completely passion 
 makes the beauty or deformity it loves or loathes. 
 
 "Solemn music," &c. — Act v., Scene iv. 
 
 Stephens, following the opinion of Pope, is for 
 rejecting the ghosts and their woful ballad measure. 
 Schlegel, whom I should take to be a stanch be- 
 liever in the apocryphal Rowley, gives a very inge- 
 nious, but not very convincing, argument in their 
 favour, — to wit, that Posthumus's friends were poor 
 men of a former age, and are purposely made to speak 
 in a more obsolete style. In the measure, too, in 
 which the old translators make Virgil's ghosts talk, 
 there might indeed be a reason for making the dream- 
 spectres talk as unlike other persons as might be. 
 It would certainly be rash to mark these verses with 
 a f, but they are as little like Shakspeare as anything 
 that goes under his name. It is not improbable 
 that they may have been remodelled from some old 
 ballad ; for Shakspeare was little scrupulous of using 
 anything that would serve. The prophetic table is 
 much in the style of Merlin : but, blessed me — 
 •' mollis air," for *' mulier",* — what a piece of cabala ! 
 
 ' •• Be embraced l)y a piece of lender air," mollis air. miilior ! 
 
 VOL. II. o
 
 194 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 KIXG LEAR. 
 Fool. — "Here's my cockscomb," &c. — Act i., Scene iv. 
 
 Nature, Time, and Fashion are all great parodists. 
 Thus horns, which the ancients esteemed a type of 
 divinity ; which the son of Ammon adopted on his 
 coins ; which a prophet (a false one indeed) put on his 
 head to oblige a king (but in that he was not unique), 
 I Kings, xxii. 1 1 ; the ornaments of altars, the 
 emblems of abundance and of salvation, have come tt> 
 denote cuckoldom. In like manner the fool is little 
 aware, that his coxcomb was heretofore the regal 
 diadem of the Achsemenides. Yet, so it was. 
 Kvp'jiaa-La indifferently signifies the ornament of the 
 Persian bird, and of the Persian king : Aristophanes 
 in Avibus. (486.) Yet higher authority might be 
 adduced for the bells. 
 
 Jjtar. — "Who stock'd my servant," &c.— Act n., Scenf ii. 
 " For your own honesty, which is virgin." — Tne Loyal Subject. 
 
 The logic, if it may be so called, is much alike in 
 these passages; but there is more truth in Shakspeare. 
 The virginity of honesty is a mere metaphor. The 
 old age of the heavens is something more. Besides, I 
 suspect a pun in Fletcher, for in the language of the 
 time, honesty, applied to woman, imphed virginity, 
 or conjugal chastity, in wliich sense it was supplanted 
 by the more aristocratic term, honour. Honesty, 
 now confined to the sense of practical integrity in 
 money matters, anciently signified the moral KaKov ; 
 hence the distinctive virtue of sex or office.
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 191 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 Shakspeare has written better plays than Romeo and 
 Juliet, but perhaps he never achieved a work of more 
 harmonious unison. The same spirit of rashness, 
 and infatuation, the same predominance of the pre- 
 sent, and recklessness of the future, the same con- 
 tinuity of fancy, and inconstancy of will, appear alike 
 in the aged and the young, the menial and the noble ; 
 the passionate Romeo, and the vilipending ]Mercutio. 
 There is an absence of reason and calculation from 
 beginning to end. The loves of Romeo and Juliet 
 are every whit as rational as the hatred of their 
 respective parents. Friar Laurence and the Nurse 
 are beings of the same order ; each acting, as they 
 conceive, for the best ; — the heart is as good in one 
 as the other, the cultivation of intellect alone gives 
 the superiority to the Franciscan. The progress 
 from light, fanciful comedy to intense tragedy is 
 managed with exquisite art. In the deeper passages, 
 we feel the sacredncss of human purpose, the fatality 
 of a self-determined wilfulness — the majesty of passion. 
 There is a love that oversteps all conventional rules, 
 to become a law and religion to itself. The suicide 
 of the lovers no more offends the moral sense, tlian 
 that of Lucretia or of Cato. It is a sweet poem, like 
 the song of the nightingale oscillating betwixt mirth 
 and sadness, sorrow dallying with its own tender 
 
 fancies. 
 
 o 2
 
 ]9(3 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 R<mi. — " By a name," iScc. — Act ii., Scekk ii. 
 
 " If 't be my name tliat doth thee so olTenil, 
 
 No more myself shall be my own name's friend : — 
 Say 'tis accursed and fatal, and dispraise it, 
 If written, blot it : if engraven, rase it." — Drayton : 
 England's Heroical Epistles, Heni-y to Rosamond. 
 
 The number of passages in Drayton's " Heroical 
 Epistles," almost identical with lines of Shakspeare, 
 prove that the one must have been indebted to the 
 other. I would accuse neither of plagiarism. Pro- 
 perty was hardly acknowledged in Parnassus at that 
 time. There might be no deception meant; — marginal 
 acknowledgments were not then appended to plays 
 or poems. It was taken for granted, that every 
 writer availed himself of whatever was to his purpose. 
 These resemblances, however, are for the most part 
 in those early plays of Shakspeare, which might have 
 been written before 159o, — the date, according to 
 Pr. Anderson, of Drayton's " Heroical Epistles," the 
 style of which througliout, both in the fashion of the 
 language, and constitution of the thouglit, is more 
 Shal<spearian than any I am acquainted with. What 
 a pity that none of Drayton's plays are extant. 
 What they might be in point of plot is hard to 
 say : but in the Ae^ts and hiavoia, I doubt not they 
 were ti-uly dramatic. The Merry Devil of Edmonton* 
 does not read like him. It has none of the impas- 
 sioned sententiousness of his epistles, which are a 
 kind of monodrame. 
 
 • See Lamb's Specimens of Dramatic Poets, Vol. II., p. 59.
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 197 
 
 ACT, III., SCENE II. 
 
 That the conceits in this scene are suitable to 
 tragedy I cannot maintain ; but they have a smack 
 uf nature. The mind, surprised by sorrow in the 
 midst of playful delights, will not immediately change 
 its tune : — the confusion of feelings will produce an 
 antic blending of thoughts, a dance of death. 
 
 ACT III., SCENE V. 
 Lady Cap. — " Wc will have vengeance for it," &c. 
 
 The perfect nonchalance with which this horrid 
 proposition is uttered by a respectable matron proves 
 how familiar were the minds and ears of oui' virtuous 
 ancestors to deeds at which their demoralised pos- 
 terity would thrill with horror. It might, however, 
 be Shakspeare's art to make the old Capulets uu- 
 amiable, that our sympathy with Juliet might be the 
 less distracted by disapprobation of her disobedience. 
 Capulet's speech is about the worst that Shakspeare 
 ever wrote. But for a model of parental rebuke and 
 paternal despotism, I recommend the old gent's 
 behaviour to his daughter throughout the scene. 
 Shakspeare must have intended to show the vulgarity 
 of rage ; and true it is, a man in a passion is never 
 a gentleman — much less is a woman a lady. There 
 may be noble anger, as in Brutus ; but then it must 
 be just, and not exceed the bounds of self-possession. 
 Even Brutus forgets himself a little when irritated 
 by the intrusion of the men.
 
 lOS 
 
 NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 CONCLUDING NOTICE. 
 
 There is something hasty and inconsiderate in 
 these last scenes. Perhaps no human genius can 
 grapple with such aggregated disaster. Words can- 
 not express the horror of such judicial calamities 
 whicli overswell the capacity of conscious grief, and 
 must needs produce madness Or stupefaction, or, 
 likely enough, demoniac scorn and laughter. The 
 reconciliation of tlie parents seems to me more 
 lUDrul than natural. I doubt if real hatred is ever 
 cured. As for the golden statues, they are not so 
 good a monument as the sweetbriars growing from 
 the common grave of hapless lovei's in so many old 
 ballads. Garrick has certainly deepened and huma- 
 nised the pathos by making Juliet awake before 
 Romeo dies, which, I believe, is according to the 
 original story. Shakspeare followed an English poem. 
 There was a play on the same story as early as 150'^. 
 
 OTHELLO. 
 
 GENERAL NOTICE. 
 
 For once, Shakspeare and perfection are united. 
 From the first scene to the last of this play there is 
 a perpetuity of interest. Some gaps of time there 
 may Ije. We must allow a few hours, say seven 
 days, for the passage between Venice and Cyprus. 
 Set that down for the prologue of the play. Then 
 it will appear to be the most perfect specimen of 
 tragedv now extant.
 
 MARGINALIA. 
 
 NOTES ON ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S LIVES 
 OF HOGAETH AND EEYNOLDS.
 
 These Xotes may be compared with the Essays entitled, Igno- 
 ramus on the Fine Arts. They appear to have been written about 
 the same time, and take up the subject wliere it is left in the last 
 of these lively and characteristic compositions.
 
 NOTES ON ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S LIVES 
 OF HOGAETH AND REYNOLDS, 
 
 HOGARTH. 
 
 INTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 Page 9. — " In the background, St. George appears in the air, 
 combating with the dragon, vvliile Cleodelinda kneels in prayer 
 beside a lamb." 
 
 Is this the legendary name of the heroine whom 
 Spenser has converted into heavenly Una with her 
 milk-white lamb ? In the Seven Champions I think 
 she is called Zara. By the way, I see no reason 
 to fancy that the dragon was either the devil or 
 Athauasius, any more than that St. George himself 
 was a Cappadocian bacon-dealer, or the archangel 
 St. Michael. The virgin exposed to the monster was 
 a frequent incident in the Greek romance, witness 
 the tales of Perseus and Andromeda, Hercules and 
 Hesione. The legend-makers of the Church followed 
 the example of the Greeks and Romans, ascribing to 
 local saints every stray wonder that at all agreed with 
 their accorded characters. Probably a real George 
 had been a military saint, and, in consequence, a
 
 •^02 NOTES ON "THE LIFE OF HOGARTH."' 
 
 fit successor to the forfeited glories of profane fiction. 
 In Popery and Paganism I believe much has been 
 allegorised ; but that little was, in its first digestion, 
 either allegorical or symbolical, except the physio- 
 logical pantheism brought from Egypt and the East. 
 
 Page l3. — "The blunt rustics and illiterate nobles wbo com- 
 posed the torrent \ihich swept away the long-establibhcd glories of 
 the papal church, confounded the illuminated volumes of poets and 
 philosophers with the superstitious offspring of the Lady of the 
 Seven Hills."' 
 
 The rustics were blunt destructives enough ; the 
 nobles, with a few exceptions, unprincipled plunderers. 
 It may be true that these were the operatives of the 
 Reformation ; but they should not be confounded 
 with the reforming divines, who, though not very 
 polite, were certainly not illiterate. The illumi- 
 nations and the literature which perished might 
 have some historical value, but is probably no great 
 loss in any other respect. There is more good 
 poetry than any body can read as it is ; much more 
 school divinity than will ever be read again. But 
 the destruction of tlie abbeys is really to be regretted, 
 difficult as it seems, under a Protestant establish- 
 ment, to turn them to any religious purpose. 
 
 Page 16. — " In a better informed age, John Evelyn, a gentleman 
 of taste and taknits, pronounced the heathen atrocities of Verrio, 
 in Windsor Castle, sublime compositions, and their painter the first 
 of mankind ! " 
 
 And did not Locke consider Blackmore the first 
 
 I
 
 IN'TRODUCTIOX. '^Oo 
 
 of poets ? But geutlemeu of more taste tbaii Locke, 
 more genius and philosophy than Evelyn, are very 
 uncertain witnesses to the state of art or morals in 
 their times. Their works may be relied on, but their 
 testimony is little worth. I care for no mans judg- 
 ment of his contemporaries. The effect of a work 
 upon the age, the general heart of the people, is worth 
 any critical judgment. Prophecies of immortality, 
 bodings of oblivion, go for nothing with me. 
 
 Page 17. — "They were numbered with tlie common menials of 
 the court ; they h.ad their livery suit, their yearly dole, and their 
 weekly wages." 
 
 That certain painters were numbered with the 
 menials of the court is true ; many particulars as to 
 their mode of payment, &c., have been transcribed 
 from the old household books by Collier and others ; 
 but neither to be a menial of the court, nor to receive 
 weekly wages, was then derogatory to higher rank 
 tlian art of itself ever conferred. Besides, I believe 
 the painters in question were not artists but artisans ; 
 their business was to paint coats of arms, and to 
 furnish devices for the court pageants. This was 
 also tlie proper function of the serjeant painter. 
 Wilkes was not so very far wrong in confounding the 
 office of Serjeant and of house-painter. When the 
 palace was to be painted with representations of any- 
 thing real or imaginary, doubtless the seijeant painter 
 had to superintend the workmen, as well as to draw 
 the design.
 
 204 NOTES ON "THE LIFE OF HOGARTH. 
 
 Page 20. — " He (Henry YUl.) was sensible of the lustre whicli 
 literature and art can shed upon the throne; he saw the rival kings 
 of France and Spain marching to battle or to negotiation with 
 poets and painters in their trains, and he envied not a little the 
 unattainable brilliancy of their courts." 
 
 Of wliat poet was Charles the Fifth a patron? Had 
 Henry been as cruel and sensual as he has been 
 represented, he might nevertheless have delighted in, 
 and appreciated the arts. A tyrant may be an 
 Augustus ; an infidel hypocrite a Leo : a Maecenas 
 may be no pattern of the domestic virtues. 
 
 ON ALLEGORICAL PAINTING. 
 
 Page 34. — " Those allegorical histories are empty representations 
 of themselves, the supporters of nothing but clumsy forms and 
 clumsier conceits," &c. 
 
 This remark requires limitation. Allegory maybe 
 painted. A Spenser gallerj', as Hazlitt observes, 
 would make one of the finest subjects in the world. 
 Dante, the Pilgrim's Progress, the tale of Psyche, 
 the Judgment of Hercules, all might supply admir- 
 able pictures. But allegory should be kept to itself; 
 an allegorical portrait, or history-piece, is absurd. 
 ]5ut I must take a wider space to explain the difference. 
 These metaphors, such as nuda Veritas, green virginity, 
 Xc, should not be painted. 
 
 »•
 
 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOI.Y TRINITY. '-^Ou 
 
 ON PORTRAIT PAINTING. 
 
 Page 36. — " He (Vandyke) lias been equalled in freedom l)y 
 Reynolds, and surpassed in the fascination of female loveliness by 
 Lawrence; but no one has yet equalled him in manly dignity, in 
 the rare and important gift of endowing his heads with power to 
 think and act." 
 
 A portrait painter, idealise as lie will, can only 
 paint the sort of people that exist in his time. 
 Vandyke had not the lovely faces of Lawrences 
 sitters to imitate ; and neither Reynolds nor Law- 
 rence had the hard-thinkers and chivalric enter- 
 prisers of King Charles's day for models. The race 
 is extinct ; we have men of genius not a few — men 
 of courage as many as ever ; — hut poetry is hecorae 
 too feminine, war too mechanical to enlarge the 
 brow, and stamp the lineaments with the propor- 
 tions and traces of the olden time. The male dress 
 to which Vandyke has given name was a great 
 advantage to him. A portrait should be in the dress 
 of the time and country — yet how unhappy in this 
 respect was Reynolds. 
 
 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 Page 40. — " The Puritans affected to despise those productions, 
 because they wished to insult the king's memory." 
 
 I certainly think the Puritans would have been 
 right had they condemned such pictures only as 
 presumed to give a visible representation of the 
 Infinite and Invisible. But since the Second Person
 
 20G NOTES ox 'THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 of the Trinity did condescend to assume the likeness 
 of man, there appears no just reason why his human 
 lineaments should not be painted. Far less can I 
 comprehend why the loveliest productions of the art, 
 which pourtray 
 
 " The maid and mother undefiled," 
 
 should excite suspicion in any Christian soul. 
 
 Page 47. — " To the coming of Kncller some writers have 
 attrihulcd the death of Lcly." 
 
 Lely died in his grand climacteric, for he was born 
 1017, died 1G80. This is an age at which a man 
 may die without either poison or jealousy. But old 
 men do not like to be outdone. 
 
 Page 48. — " He painted Drvdcn in his own hair, in plain 
 drapery, holding a laurel, and made him a present of the work. 
 The poet repaid him by an epistle containing encomiums such as 
 few painters deserve." 
 
 Dryden's encomium on Kneller is good. If it 
 ascribes to Sir Godfrey wliat few painters deserve, it 
 shows a just idea of what the art is capable. Pope's 
 epitaph is oxdre. The second couplet is the best, for 
 it is peculiar ; few painters record two ages : but Pope 
 has bestowed his incense upon Jervas, whom Allan 
 Cunningham has never mentioned. Kneller was bora 
 at Lubec, 104H ; died 1723, aged 75. Whatever in 
 Addison's offering (which was meant for King George 
 the First, not for Kneller) is not taken from Dryden, 
 is mere persiflage. But it records the courtly and
 
 VANDYKE, LELY, KNELLER. *207 
 
 extensive field of Kneller's labours. Prior compli- 
 ments not Sir Godfrey, but the Duke of Ormonde. 
 Congreve is more moderate and sensible. 
 
 Page 49. — " I .ini aware that there is a certain air of stiffness in 
 the portraits of Holbein, that several of Vandyke's are unequal to 
 ills talents, that Lely is loose, and many of his pictures unlike, 
 and that Kneller exhibits much sameness, and very little 
 imagination." 
 
 How can it be ascertained that Lely's pictures were 
 unlike ? I never, as far as I know, saw a picture of 
 Holbein's. Vandyke, Lely, and Kneller, I must 
 have seen at Windsor, but they made no impression. 
 Their merits may be various, but their fame would 
 certainly be less, did they not illustrate the most 
 interesting period of our history, and give an image 
 to the highest names. Statesmen in their days miglit 
 l)e bad things — now they are mere things — or. rather, 
 no- things. 
 
 Page 64. — "Lord Oiford considered all nun as uninformed wlio 
 had ni>t received an university education." 
 
 Little as I admire Lord Orford, I do not think 
 these strictures altogether just. He might consider 
 men without classical attainments as uneducated, but 
 not therefore uninformed. \]o must have known 
 tliat the mind of a Hogarth cuuld not Imt be rich in 
 ideas, and well stored with facts and observations. 
 If he depreciated Hogarth's acquirements, he did no 
 worse by him than others have done by Shakspeare 
 and even Burns, and probably out of the same appe-
 
 208 NOTES ON "TUE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 tite for wonder-making. I suspect his lordship's 
 conversation was to the full as gross, as full of allu- 
 sions, and double entendre, and prurient scandal, 
 generally draped in French idioms, as that of 
 Hogarth. But then Hogarth would call things by 
 their English names. It is, however, no wonder 
 that any man of northern descent, and plebeian 
 associations, should appear gross to Horace, and that 
 such grossuess should be an unpardonable offence in 
 the eyes of one who, having neither virtue, religion, 
 nor honesty, was not a rascal, only because he was 
 a gentleman. We can hardly think that Hogarth 
 was destitute of agreeable qualifications, or how could 
 he fix the affection of a female not unacquainted witli 
 refined life ? But love is a great polisher, and too 
 often the Cimon relapses after the honeymoon. 
 
 I repent the harshness of my censure on Horace 
 Walpole. I have since read much good of him. 
 
 Page 70. — " Kindness shown to genius at the commencement of 
 its career is seldom forgotten." 
 
 Too often, especially if the benefactor, on the 
 strength of his benefaction, begins to advise, rebuke, 
 and direct ; or if he be an unfashionable old Quiz. 
 I am far from saying that men of genius are naturally 
 ungrateful; but they arc too frequently vain, proud, 
 testy, and suspicious. Like other men, however, they 
 are better and longer pleased with kindness, sweet 
 words, and smiling looks, and ready welcome, than 
 with substantial services which they are unable to
 
 Hogarth's portraits. 209 
 
 repay in kind, and begrudge to pay in homage, de- 
 ference, and unremitting attention. Gratitude is a 
 delightful sentiment, but, alas, how often is it a 
 grievous duty ! 
 
 Page 77. — " The calm, contemplative look, the elegance of 
 form without the grace of action," &c. 
 
 Elegance and grace are here properly distinguished. 
 Grace certainly implies motion. What is elegant 
 cannot indeed be ungraceful ; but what is graceful is 
 not necessarily elegant. Much grace may occasion- 
 ally be observed in rustics and grisettes, but only 
 ladies can be elegant. 
 
 Page 78. — " Compared with the productions of the great masters 
 of the art of portraiture, tliose of Hogarth are alike distinguished 
 for their vigorous coarseness and their literal nature." 
 
 I do not think that Hogarth would have failed in 
 the delineation of living beauty, especially if it were 
 of the florid and voluptuous cast. Lamb speaks 
 highly of his portrait of Peg Woffington. and 1 
 have seen a bad copy of his Lavinia Fenton (Polly 
 Peachum), which makes the passion of the Duke of 
 Bolton no mystery. There is a full length of Lord 
 Somebody, which looks as well as any mere gentleman 
 in the old court dress need do. But he certainly 
 wanted elegance. His beauties are hardly gentle- 
 women. Used to represent figures in action or 
 strong passion, he failed in giving expression to 
 repose. 
 
 VOL. II. >*
 
 iJlO NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 Page 80. — " Ilogartli's portrait of Henry Fielding, executed 
 after death from recollection, is remarkable as being the only like- 
 ness extant of the prince of English novelists." 
 
 Fielding's portrait is so very like the novelist that 
 one half suspects its likeness to the man. The same 
 observation applies to Eeynolds's Sterne, which is 
 obviouslycompoundedof Yorick and Tristram Shandy.* 
 
 Page 81. — " Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling 
 Hospital, sat for his portrait to Hogarth, and it is one of the best 
 he ever painted." 
 
 I well remember this portrait. It is in SmoUetts 
 " History of England." Poor Coram little foresaw 
 a time when his benevolent institution would be 
 censured by the loudest professors of philanthropy. 
 Most philanthropists have strong harsh features. 
 
 Page 83. — " For his Garrick as Richard the Tliird, he had 
 £200." 
 
 T cannot think this portrait one of Hogarth's happy 
 works. It is, as Hazlitt says of Sir Joshua's 
 
 ' Hogarth's portrait of Lovat is, like his portraits of Fielding and of 
 IJainbridge tlic jailer, in the Committee, and of Cliarteris and Mother 
 Noedham, in " The Harlot's I'rogress,"^likc Reynolds's Sterne (which 
 is Yorick, with a smatcli of Tristram), and the " Louis XL, " in the -Vsli- 
 raolean Mtiscnm, at Oxford, so very lik(^ the character, that I douht its 
 likeness to the person. The soul is seldom quite so visible in nature. 
 1 do not, however, tind th<' least fault with the painter who thus in- 
 tensifies and sublimates the physiognomical indications, and teaches 
 others to see what lie sees himscdf, idealising the character, as the painter 
 of grace and beauty must idealise the form and f(^aturc. Lovat probably 
 did look sometimes as villanous in the Highlands as in Hogarth's 
 sketch. In such a case there was no danger of overstepping the modesty 
 of nature.
 
 HARLOTS FUNERAL. 211 
 
 Mrs. Siddons, neither Garrick nor Richard, a defect 
 which besets theatrical portraits in general. For 
 Richard it is too handsome, and there wants the wild, 
 supernatural terror of Shakspeare. The expression is 
 that of bodily pain — more gout than ghost about it. 
 It does not tell its own story. But yet it must be 
 a fine pictui'e. 
 
 Page 88. — " The Harlot's Progress was commenced in 17.31." 
 " AVhat reflections does it aw.ike," observes Charles Lamb, 
 speaking of the harlot's funeral, " of the dreadful heartless state 
 in which the creature, a female, too, must have lived, who in 
 death wants the accompaniment of one genuine tear." 
 
 1 cannot help agreeing with Ireland, that the face 
 of her who is closing the coffin of her poor sister in 
 iniquity expresses, or rather suppresses, some feeling, 
 at least so much as prompts an inward " I shall come 
 to this : " little enough, but all she dare to feel. The 
 figure is one of the most beautiful Hogarth ever 
 drew. 
 
 In some particulars of this print Hogarth has con- 
 founded two styles, which for the present we may 
 desjcrnate the Cervantic and the Rabelaisian — drama- 
 tic satire and burlesque satire. The characters are 
 copies of real life, not exaggerated, but brought out ; 
 while the accompaniments, the mourning drapery, the 
 scutcheon, &c., are utterly absurd if we suppose any 
 imitation of a real street-walker's funeral intended. 
 This is not a common fault with Hogarth. Fielding 
 has fallen into it in Jonathan Wild. Massinger and 
 Ford perpetually in their comic parts. Shakspeare 
 only just escapes it in Pistol. 
 
 P 2
 
 21*2 NOTES ON '■ THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 The print may be regarded as the satyricon 
 appended to a fearful tragedy. 
 
 Page 89. — " One of them — a polished personage, who moved in 
 polite circles — still bore the brand of Pope when he was pilloried 
 to everlasting infamy by Hogarth." 
 
 I never beard that Charteris was a polished person. 
 As a money-lender he might have many acquaint- 
 ances among the nobility and gentry. I dare say he 
 knew how to make himself useful, and many young 
 bloods, whose titles guaranteed their caste, might 
 pamper their vanity with the reputation of knowing 
 the first villain of the age. The conventional morals 
 of the present age are certainly more decorous than 
 those of 1730 ; yet there are still youths of fashion 
 who court the acquaintance of the swell-mob and the 
 fancy, and very equivocal characters who have money 
 to lend, or the power of amusing, are not universally 
 shunned even by the makers of manners. But that 
 Charteris was, in the technical phrase, admitted into 
 society, that he had the entree of any respectable 
 house, is quite incredible. 
 
 Page 91. — "Either Hogarth's obscurity, says Nichols, was his 
 protection from the lash of Pope, or pcrliaps the bard was too 
 prudent to exasperate a painter who had already given such proofs 
 of his ability in satire." 
 
 In the Epistle to Arbuthnot, published about this 
 time, Pope records among his provocations — 
 
 ■' The libelled person and the pictured shape." 
 
 II 
 
 i 
 
 \\ 
 
 II
 
 CHARTERIS POPE — CHURCHILL. 213 
 
 Plogarth's Burlington Gate is a worthless affair. 
 Vulgarity and obscurity were not, in general, pro- 
 tections against Pope's satire, and he was by no 
 means shy of the subject in question ; in the Epistle 
 he speaks of those " who to the dean and silver bell 
 can swear," and, in a note, flatly denies the story of 
 the l,000i. But his enemies had not such an opinion 
 of his veracity as to desist from a report on liis bare 
 denial. It is not improbable that Pope shrunk from 
 a contest with one whom he could not answer in his 
 ov/n way. There is nothing which little men dread 
 so much as the exposure of their personal infirmities. 
 Pope's satire, moreover, was only for the few ; 
 Hogarth might have stuck him up in every print- 
 shop, and made every carman and pickpocket familiar 
 with his crookedness. 
 
 Churchill, ungainly as his figure was, had no such 
 apprehension, but he was backed by the vox popjili. 
 
 Page 94. — " An inscription which accompanies these historical 
 paintings in the Hospital, intimates that they were finished and 
 presented by our artist in 1 736." 
 
 I have often remarked this picture on the Hospital 
 stairs, whei*e it is so placed that one cannot see it. 
 Though in bad preservation, it shows Hogarth's 
 power as a colourist. But he should have let Scrip- 
 ture alone. His religious pictures have no devotion, 
 no faith, in them. It is not enough to represent a 
 Bible-history as it might have appeared in real life. 
 Very possibly St, Peter might have looked very like
 
 214 NOTES OX " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 a Jew, and St. Matthew retain some traits of the 
 receipt of custom. But an artist should paint up to 
 the desire of the mind — should gratify the affections 
 and conform to the reverence of a pious mind. His 
 representations should accord with the feelings which 
 Cliristians connect with the symbolic acts of the 
 fathers and founders of their faith. Everything 
 should be ideal, symbolical, instinct with Divinity. 
 The sacred unction should flow even to the skirts of 
 the garment ; even the landscape, the buildings, the 
 furniture and still-life, should be sublimed by a devout 
 imagination. The palm-trees should lift their heads 
 in an air consecrated by angel voices. The burning 
 bush should not be copied from tlie next thicket, nor 
 Jonah's gourd be sketched in the garden. I cannot 
 better explain myself than by saying that the adjuncts 
 of a religious picture should be as thoroughly pei*- 
 meated with the spirit of the action, as those of 
 Hogarth's satires are with his peculiar humour and 
 the characteristic expression of the scene. Thus in 
 (iin Lane, as Charles Lamb said, the very houses are 
 drunk. JMuch of this must be imparted by the 
 imagination of the beholder. There are no precise 
 rules for drawing religious stools, or trees, or animals ; 
 but then it is only a true artist that can communicate 
 to the imagination the fitting cUnamen. Some 
 modern, and some even of the Italian painters, are 
 as much too pretty, too amiable, too Greek, or, it 
 may be, too English, in their delineations of Scrip- 
 ture characters, as Hogarth is too gross and literal. 
 The Flemings are a great deal too Flemish ; Catholic
 
 RELIGIOUS PAINTING. 215 
 
 pictures are often more Catholic than Scriptural, 
 but still they have a tincture of devotion, though it 
 is not devotion of the purest order. Neither poets 
 nor painters have been sufficiently careful to dis- 
 tinguish the Greek from the Hebrew Genius, the 
 sacred from the mythological. Others substitute 
 bigness for grandeur, and think to attain the ideal by 
 arbitrary departure from nature and common sense. 
 They aim at breadth by the omission of detail, and, 
 instead of developing the parts from the whole, slur 
 over the parts altogether. This may not be always 
 amiss in mythological or allegorical subjects, but it is 
 highly so in Scripture pieces, which should never lose 
 the air of reality — should always look like facts; — not 
 mere fancies, but facts representative of everlasting 
 truths. 
 
 Page 102. — " Tlie persons who crowd the eiglit busy scenes of 
 the Rake's Progress are not so well known ; many are believed 
 to be portraits." 
 
 It is not, T think, difficult to guess which among 
 Hogarth's persons are portraits ; but he almost always 
 makes the portrait of the individual the representative 
 of the species. The pilfering scrivener in the first 
 scene — the parson in the Marriage — Captain Stab 
 in the Levee, whom he introduces again in the 
 Masquerade-ticket — the projector in the Fleet-prison 
 — are obviously from nature ; but then it remained 
 for Hogarth to bring out the inner man, and make 
 the whole life apparent in a single act. The rake 
 himself does not preserve the ojuotor in person.
 
 yi6 NOTES ON " TilE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 iior completely in character. He is best in the Fleet. 
 The deserted damsel might easily have been prettier. 
 
 P.age 104. — " One Huggins, the friend of Hog.irth, drew the 
 act," &c. 
 
 This Huggins, the son of that cruel keeper of 
 Newgate who was prosecuted along with Bainbridge, 
 had the insolence to translate "A riosto." There is 
 a story of his presenting Smollett, the editor of the 
 " Critical Review," with a haunch of venison, and 
 obtaining a favourable notice in consequence, which 
 the critic, on the story getting wind, had the impudent 
 baseness to retract. He also translated Dante, but 
 never published the translation ; and composed the 
 Oratorio of Judith, immortalised by Hogarth's 
 sonorous Music-piece, in which you can actually 
 discern in what key each performer is singing ; — the 
 bass, the treble, the counter-tenor, the soprano, are 
 all both visible and audible. 
 
 Page 106. — "The Sleeping Congregation, in which :i heavy 
 parson is promoting, with .ill the alacrity of dulness, the slumber 
 of a respectable, but singular auditoiy, is very clever." 
 
 Hogarth is certainly tlie most audible of painters, 
 as Dante is the most visible of poets. The soporific 
 drawl of the parson — said to represent Desaguliers 
 — and the whole gamut of snores in the congregation 
 rise from the print like a steam of rich distilled 
 perfume.
 
 SOUTHWARK FAIK. 217 
 
 Page 107.—" The second design is that of the Distressed 
 Poet," &c. 
 
 The poet's wife is perhaps the most loveable figure 
 that ever Hogarth drew ; while tlie milk-woman has 
 as little milkiness about her as if she had been 
 suckled on blue ruin and brimstone. 
 
 Page 107. — " Southwark Fair, another early work, but for 
 which there is no certain date, is one of his most elaborate 
 performances. It is, however, too crowded, and wants what all his 
 other works have, that central point of attraction," &c. 
 
 Ireland gives 1733 as the date of the Fair. I 
 do not think Allan's objection well-founded. The 
 female drummer is the central point of attraction, — 
 a perfect histrionic romance in herself. Of the other 
 figures none are very remarkable. Perhaps the 
 bailiffs are the best. But few pictures present a 
 scene more vividly to the senses. You see the Fair, 
 you hear the Fair, you almost smell the Fair. The 
 Fall of Bajazet is almost too serious a matter. 
 
 Page 108. — " Of Modern Midnight Conversation, which famous 
 piece we now conic to, it is said by Ireland that most of the 
 figures are portraits." 
 
 Was it the custom of tlogarth's day for clergy to 
 preside at midnight conversations in lull pontifica- 
 libus? or is the invincible-noddled divine invested 
 with gown and cassock by the same poetic license 
 which, in old illuminated manuscripts, portrayed
 
 218 
 
 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH. 
 
 kings as lying in bed with their crowns and sceptres ? 
 Judge Kettleby is also in bis wig and bar-gown — a 
 leering confutation of the adage, '' I?i vino Veritas." 
 A lake of punch as large as Ontario would not ex- 
 tract a moment's honesty from his lips or his soul. 
 Drunkenness only intensifies his rascality. His 
 triumphant scoundrelism rides like a victorious bark, 
 with all her tackle and her streaming bravery on the 
 topmost wave of ebriety. What a contrast to tbe 
 drunken pathetic of his weeping client, from wbose 
 eyes the vapours of the punch are distilling as fast 
 as ever did the cratur from forbidden still 1 Yet 
 better, if possible, is the crafty man (Amherst?) and 
 his roguish insolence helping tbe liquor. Tbe grave 
 citizen smoking in his nightcap, silent as the grave, 
 and seeming of as capacious a swallow, contrasts 
 admirably with the noisy members of the club, even 
 as the silent Ariadne of Titian with the rout of 
 Bacchanals. This print is a peculiar favourite in 
 France and Germany. It was the first Hogarth I 
 remember. It was at Charles Lamb's rooms. 
 
 Page 110. — "The next work of Hogarth was tlic Enraged 
 Musician It seems impossible to increase his annoy- 
 ance by the addition of any other din, save the braying of an ass, 
 which Cowper says is the only unmusical sound in nature." 
 
 I cannot agree with Cowper. There are more 
 unmusical sounds in nature than the braying of an 
 ass, which, to me, has something joyous in it ; e. g. the 
 caterwauling of a cat, the squeak of a pig being ringed,
 
 THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN. 219 
 
 the nocturnal dialogue of two chained dogs howling re- 
 sponsive, the screech of an owl, the roaring of a spoiled 
 bo}', and, at some times, the crowing of a cock, — than 
 which nothing can be more annoying to an invalid 
 just dropping into a doze. Talking of spoiled boys, 
 the figure which Allan Cunningham calls a French 
 drummer is evidently a little pampered and bedizened 
 wretch, indulged to his own utter misery, and the 
 torment of all about him. This figure is the only 
 satirical hit in the whole. The Enraged Musician 
 is the most purely comic of all Hogarth's works, — I 
 was going to say, the most purely good-natured ; but 
 I am afraid the artist, who certainly begrudged the 
 lavish rewards of foreign musicians, took a malicious 
 delight in the torments of the poor Frenchman. 
 
 Page 112. — "The Four Times of the Day, in four prints, 
 were the next works tliat appeared. The first scene is called 
 Morning. An old maiden lady, prim, withered, miserly and 
 morose, is walking to church." 
 
 Cowper has translated the Old Maid into verse 
 with great success ; but the fearful denunciation at 
 the close is in bad taste, of which there is much more 
 in Cowper's early couplet poems than in the Task. 
 Fielding has also adopted this unlovely specimen of 
 Eve's flesh as the Hkeness of Miss Ih-idget Alhvorthy. 
 Morning is one of the very best of Hogarth's prints : 
 it makes one shiver to look at it. 
 
 Page 114. — " 'I'lie second scene is Noon." 
 
 Noon is capital, too, — particularly the miniature
 
 220 NOTES ON " THE tIFE OF HOGARTH. ' 
 
 beau, and the yet more diminutive old man in the 
 Welsh wig. What expression in the stream of 
 bucks ! Hogarth had doubtless observed how very 
 self-satisfied, happy, and benevolent, people always 
 look when coming out of church. The damsel with 
 the dish is a beauty of Hogarth's school. You feel 
 that she is pretty, though her picture is but ordinary. 
 
 Page 115. — "The third is Afternoon, and the hour five 
 o'clock." 
 
 Evening, which Hazlitt did not like, is rather ill- 
 natured; but still it is worth anything. What u 
 woman ! what little cockatrices of children ! — the 
 girl her mother's own — the boy may be his papas : 
 he is quite as soft, but not yet quite so patient. 
 What helpless misery in the poor citizen's counte- 
 nance ; and what a sweltering afternoon ! — what an 
 atmosphere of punch and tobacco ! Such, we are 
 to believe, are the Sabbath rustications of London's 
 traders. Had Hogarth shown, on other occasions, a 
 more decided affection for the orthodox, we might 
 conjecture that the print was meant to satirise Sabbath- 
 breaking recreations. Pictures so derogatory to hu- 
 man nature should not, I think, be set forth without 
 some definite purpose. Hogarth did not love chil- 
 dren. Perhaps he was vexed that he had none him- 
 self. I hardly recollect one child meant to be 
 pleasing in all his original works. There is, indeed, 
 a fine arch little rascal in the picture of Sancho's 
 Feast — the best in the Quixote series.
 
 STROLLING ACTRESSES. 221 
 
 Page ] 15. — " The fourth scene is Night." 
 
 Night is not much in the print, but it may exhibit 
 fine effects of light and shade in the painting. What 
 rare blackguards the boys are I 
 
 Page 116. — "The next production was the Strolling Actresses." 
 
 I have no doubt that the intention of the Strolling 
 Actresses was to ridicule the mythological school of 
 painting ; especially the French and Flemish, where 
 gods and goddesses were draped — where draped at 
 all — a la Louis Quatorze. I suspect the Rubens" at 
 the Luxembourg Gallery were not altogether out of 
 Hogarth's thoughts. The absurd jumble of heathen 
 and Christian emblems in some allegorical pieces is 
 not overlooked, and the two little devils fighting for 
 a porter-pot on an altar explain themselves more 
 clearly than reverently. It is an allusion common 
 in llabelais. There is more of Pantagruelism in 
 this tlum in any other of Hogarth's works ; but his 
 genius was not Lucianic orllabelaisian. I caimot think 
 quite so ill of it as Charles Lamb and S. T. Coleridge 
 did ; but it has less imagination and less truth tlian 
 the author generally exhibits, and only satirising an 
 obsolete absurdity has lost whatever meaning it ever 
 possessed. It is, however, a glorious jumble. It 
 could not glance at the acted mysteries. Satire on a 
 folly two centuries dead would be neither humorous 
 nor intelligible. The operas and English pantomimes 
 probably suggested a part of the ridicule. It is an
 
 22'2 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 amusing scene ; but very far from deserving the com- 
 mendation of Horace Walpole. Much of its piquancy 
 may be lost by the lapse of time. Some, at least, of 
 the figures are, most likely, portraits of living theatrical 
 characters ; perhaps more are caricature copies from 
 ornamental pictures. The Diana does not look like 
 a virgin goddess : she is, in truth, a Venus, but not 
 Venus Urania. Juno has something of the character 
 of that celestial shrew — the most unamiable personage 
 on Olympus. The Tragic Muse is the three Eume- 
 nides in one. Night is old, but not venerable. 
 
 Page 124. — " Of this work (Marriage a-la-Mode) Dr. Shcbbcare 
 formed a novel, called The Marriage Act ; and the author of the 
 Clandestine Marriage found the story of his drama in its scenes." 
 
 I never saw Shebbeare's novel, but the story of 
 the " Clandestine Marriage " has no other relation to 
 the Marriage a-la-Mode than as it includes the 
 purposed union of a man of quality with a citizen's 
 daughter. But Sterling, with his grand tours, and 
 his hot rolls and butter, is a much more genial 
 character than Hogarth's Alderman, whose utter 
 unfeelingness in the last scene is odious and impro- 
 bable. On the whole the Marriage a-la-Mode is 
 perhaps the most perfect of Hogarth's performances, 
 though the murder scene is hardly equal to the rest. 
 The likeness of the two principal persons is admi- 
 rably preserved, and yet more admirably are the 
 expressions varied. To sustain a character qxalis ah 
 inccpto, through a series of adventures, is no slight 
 achievement; but to exhibit it as alter et idem — to
 
 MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 223 
 
 make the identity inviolate, and yet to portray the 
 changes of time, passion, circumstance, is a work of 
 genius vouchsafed to few. Now Hogarth, in the 
 Harlot's and Rake's Progress, though he fits the 
 expression admirably to the given scene, has not 
 perfectly preserved the identity of feature. He 
 seems to have worked after ditferent models. The 
 Uake, in particular, is very unlike himself in his 
 successive stages. But, in the Marriage a-la-Mode, 
 he has converted the sullen, petted, city school-girl, 
 into the dissipated woman of fashion ; and the over- 
 grown, coxcomb boy, into the vice-sick, dispirited 
 debauchee, without in anywise departing from the 
 original mould of faces and persons. No power of 
 imitation could do this. It is a feat of high imagina- 
 tion. Counsellor Silvertongue and the Alderman 
 preserve their original selves without much alteration. 
 Hogarth could liardly speak truth when he says that 
 none of the characters were personal. The Quack is 
 an obvious portrait, and might represent St. Andre. 
 The virago, who has given a false bill of health, is 
 said to resemble the daughter of Cocks, the auc- 
 tioneer ; but I would not willingly believe that 
 Hogarth would portray any female as a procuress 
 who was not actually of the profession. More likely 
 it was Betsy Careless, or some other notorious secre- 
 tary of vice. But however Hogarth might avail 
 himself of actual living features, his pictures are 
 seldom personal in the critical sense. It is upon 
 the universal, not the particular, likeness that the 
 effect depends ; when a real face answers his purpose.
 
 224 NOTES ON •' THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 he uses it without scruple. As a moral lesson, the 
 Marriage a-la-Mode is somewhat defective. Such a 
 man and such a woman could have been happy in no 
 marriage. To have justly exposed the evil of matches 
 of interest and ambition, the parties should have 
 been originally well-disposed, at least capable of 
 virtue, and their errors should have resulted from 
 the ill-assorted union. As far as thev show the 
 misery and ugliness of vice, the pictures are certainly 
 moral ; but they fail to elucidate the precise moral 
 doctrine which they proposed. Hogarth could have 
 made little of a happy marriage ; and it is quite as 
 well that he dropped tlie design. He was a bad 
 hand at sentiment ; and besides there is not much 
 to paint in domestic comfort. I do not conclude 
 with Wilkes, that his heart was bad, because he did 
 not choose to exhibit a series of pap-boats, cradles, 
 rocking-horses, children saying their prayers, or 
 learning their ABC, ladies in the straw, white- 
 robed in all the interesting importance of puerperal 
 languor ; gentlemen in their night-caps, receiving 
 their physic from a fond, consolatory-looking spouse : 
 or happy couples hob-nobbing over their frugal 
 meal. I rather approve of the practice of dramatists 
 and novelists who defer the happy marriage to the 
 last scene of the fifth act, or last chapter of the 
 third volume. Wilkie or Leslie might paint a happy 
 wedding, or a happy family, but not a series of happy 
 nuptial scenes. Hogarth, I dare say, understood 
 married happiness, enjoyed it himself, and felicitated 
 it in his friends ; but by painting he would only have
 
 THE PRESENTATION OF MOSES. 225 
 
 made it ridiculous or mawkish. Happiness is not 
 very picturesque, or poetesque either, far less dra- 
 matic, for it is serious without being tragic. But, by 
 your leave, Hogarth does give a happy marriage in 
 the Idle and Industrious 'Prentices. The scene 
 where Mr. Gocdchild and Miss West are praying 
 out of the same prayer-book, is one of his best- 
 natui'ed sketches ; nothing harmonises better with 
 love than devotion, and many happy matches origi- 
 nate in church. Allan hardly does justice to this 
 series, some parts of which ai'e equal to any Hogarth 
 has done ; but it is not industry and idleness, but 
 prudence and depravity. A dead set at a moral 
 generally misses in some point. 
 
 Page 1.34. — " A painting of a serious character escaped from his 
 hand during the pressure of more engrossing engagements : tiie 
 Presentation of young Moses to the daughter of Pharaoh." 
 
 I cannot say much for the seriousness of Moses, or 
 the Egyptian princess. The lady is very pretty — rather 
 alluring, but neither Egyptian, royal, nor scriptural. 
 Her attitude is very easy ; — one might suspect the same 
 of her virtue, for Moses is very, very like her ; and, 
 as Mrs. Wilkins says, those that hide know where to 
 find. The destined law-giver looks like Don Juan — 
 a little curly-pated, good-for-nothing, and mischief- 
 making rascal from his birth. I do not think that 
 Hog.arth, either in this picture, or the less equivocal 
 Paul before Felix, meant to ridicule the Bible. It 
 was the painters of saints and prophets, not the saints 
 and prophets themselves, whom he derided ; as some 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 
 
 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH. 
 
 have travestied Paradise Lost, without being aware 
 that they were infringing upon Genesis. The St. Paul, 
 however, is very flat and low ; and his serious picture 
 on the same subject, amply revenges Ptembraudt. It 
 is deplorable. 
 
 Page 1 35. — " Tlie March of tlie Guards to Finchley is a 
 performance of a different character." 
 
 It must be confessed, that though the March to 
 Finchley could give no encouragement to the rebels 
 who were rotting on the Moor of Drummossie, it was 
 not calculated to inspire foreigners with a high 
 opinion of English discipline ; and the dedication to 
 the King of Prussia, much moi'e renowned as a 
 tactician and disciplinarian than as a patron of art, 
 seems to finish the censure. In fact, I suspect, that 
 notwithstanding the military hobby-horse of George 
 the Second, our armies in general, and the guards in 
 especial, exhibited in his reign a very different army 
 from what modern inspectors would approve. The 
 foot-guards were then a sort of janissaries, or pra3- 
 torians. Many citizens entered the ranks as a pro- 
 tection against arrest, and still continued their ordinary 
 occupations. The service was by no means honour- 
 able. One of Philip Quarles' numerous wives is quite 
 indignant when she discovers that he belongs to the 
 foot-guards. At their first institution these house- 
 hold troops, the germ of the standing array, were very 
 unpopular.
 
 MARCH TO FINCHLET. "sJ'^T 
 
 Page 1 39. — " The two pictures called France and England," &n: 
 
 No one, however, can dispute the loyalty and John 
 Bullism of Hogarth. His France and England are 
 standing proofs of it. His Frenchmen resemble 
 nothing human ; they are absolute mandrakes, per- 
 sonifications of famine. The only figure of merit in 
 France is the Friar, feeling the axe. The grin on 
 his countenance is indeed damned good. It is the 
 true sensualism of cruelty. England is not much, 
 but there is a jolly good-humour about it very exhila- 
 rating. The little fifer has more ease than Hogarth 
 often exhibits. The prints were probably popular 
 at the time. A French invasion was actually threat- 
 ened in 1756; and some years afterwards Thurot 
 made a descent in Ireland. 
 
 Page 141.— « Of the Cockpit I shall speak first," &c. 
 
 The grave divine was not afraid to confess that he 
 had been witness to a cock-match — as fit a scene for 
 clergymen as an election. Lord Albemarle is not the 
 only nobleman present. Another, decorated with star 
 and ribbon, succumbs under the weight of a gigantic 
 carpenter, and in turn crushes au unfortunate indi- 
 vidual before against the barriers. Perhaps the best 
 figure is the deaf man. Bcllay, who wrote a hymn 
 in commendation of deafness, might have envied 
 him. 
 
 QJ
 
 228 NOTKS ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 Page 141. — "The Cockpit. I know not what influence the 
 
 satire of the painter had on this horrid pastime." 
 
 What influence could a print be expected to bave 
 upon men accustomed to behold the reality, which it 
 only copies ? Hogarth must himself have frequented 
 the cock-pit, or how could he have drawn it so vividly ; 
 and I dare say the barbarism of the spectacle did not 
 prevent him from heartily enjoying so rich a collection 
 of humour. The countenance of Lord A. Bertie is 
 marked with benevolence. I have known kind- 
 hearted cock-fighters. 
 
 Page 142. — " An election of a member of parliament opens a 
 wide field. ' Tlic Entertainment.' " 
 
 Charles Lamb thought this print Hogarth's chef 
 d'ceiivre ; and though I think that he has several of 
 pro founder interest, it may be questioned whether he 
 has any that displays so vigorous an invention — such 
 variety of countenances, each -with a character of its 
 own, and yet all possessed with the spirit of the time 
 — such marvellous skill in the grouping, such dis- 
 tinctness amid all the confusion, such wonderful 
 variation of attitude, and such strong historic humour, 
 where can we elsewhere find ? 
 
 Page 144. — "The second scene, ' The Canvass,' is laid in the 
 street of tlic liorough." 
 
 With all the riot and uproar, we may remark that 
 there is none of that personal bitterness which lets 
 
 »•
 
 THE ELECTION. 229 
 
 all hell loose at a modern election. All parties seem 
 aware that it is a game that is playing — a game from 
 which honesty is conventionally banished — a satur- 
 nalia — a sort of Alsatia where morals have no more 
 business than Cato at the Floral games : a state of 
 things bad enough if judged by rigid principles ; but 
 surely less diabolical than the Jacobin malignity and 
 patrician scorn which a contest now conjures up, 
 tui'iiing every gentlewoman into a she-devil, far more 
 disgusting than the old wife of Bath, whose caresses 
 the candidate is doomed to endure with such enforced 
 complacency ; as the bewigged parson, (Dr. Cosserat,) 
 who eats the God whom he adores, is, at any rate, 
 a more genial monster than the sanctified elec- 
 tioneerer in orders, who dares to appeal to moral and 
 religious feelings, and even stakes the authority of 
 the Church itself in the vile cause of sedition or 
 oppression. I would that, of the new-created boroughs, 
 none were worse than Guzzledown. Knavery is better 
 than spite. I think I should have backed the argu- 
 ments of the spouse of the conscientious tailor who 
 hesitates to receive the gratification. Jacky's bare 
 feet are eloquent pleaders. Sir John Parnell is the 
 facetious gentleman who is making a face with his 
 hand and handkerchief. I like him for volunteering 
 on the occasion. This is the way to defy satire. The 
 only thing that I dislike about the print is the figure 
 of the choking mayor. Apoplexy is no joke. A broken 
 head is all very well. The mottos — Give us back 
 our eleven days — Marry and jNIultiply — No Jews — 
 serve to realise the passages of the time, and exphun
 
 230 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 the topics on which his raajesty, the people, then chose 
 to be indignant. None of the other prints are equal 
 to the first, yet each of them has its merit. The 
 rustic between the two bribing landlords is a study 
 for the Judgment of Hercules. The hosts, too, are 
 well distinguished. Tlie one secure, bold, shameless, 
 bids openly, and thinks he has made a legal tender 
 which cannot reasonably be refused. The otlier sly, 
 smooth, fawmng, secret, a very pimp of Plutus, slides 
 a larger sum into the hard, yet sensitive palm of the 
 chaw-bacon, as sweetly as ever billet-doux slipped 
 into the white melting hand of half-willing virgin. 
 Pope's tickler could not have done it better ; the 
 man is sorely puzzled. His enjoyment is quite 
 amorous. The touch of the shiners thrills in every 
 vein. The disputants at the door of the Porto- 
 bello are evidently discussing the merits of Admiral 
 Vernon, one of the few heroes that have had the 
 honour of being mob-idols. The fellow astride the 
 sign of the " Crown," which he is sawing asunder 
 amid the huzzas of the country party, too drunk to 
 consider that its fall hazards his own neck, is one of 
 Hogarth's happiest attempts at pictorial allegory ; 
 but the coachman and footman playing cards on the 
 box of Britannia's down-breaking carriage, arc out of 
 place, and improbable. Allegory should be sparingly 
 blended with fact. The third is not to me a pleasing 
 print. The maimed, the sick, tlie idiotic, and the 
 dj'ing, are not pleasant objects of laughter. Hogarth 
 has suffered his indignation to grow too serious. Yet 
 the candidates and the lawyers — the security on one
 
 SIGISMUNDA. 231 
 
 side, the anxiety on the other, the hluster on both, 
 the heat, the hustle and the jam of the hustings, 
 are wonderfully true. The chairing is pure farce. 
 The best of it is the blind fiddler dancing to his own 
 music — a happy maniac in the solitude of his own 
 dark world. It may be observed- that Mr. Potter, the 
 candidate of the first scene, never makes his appear- 
 ance again. Bubb Dodington's Diary is an excellent 
 comment on these prints ; there is a degree of open 
 rascality which disarms all mere reprehension — one 
 cannot blame Bubb for being a knave — one rather 
 approves of his fulfilling the purpose of his creation 
 so diligently. He knew nothing, he never knew any- 
 thing, of honesty. Such was purity of election in the 
 old days of cramming, bludgeon, and bribery. It is 
 not much better in these times of fire and dagger 
 agitation, though the abridging the period of contests, 
 and dividing the places of polling, is a great improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Page 1.5(3. — " After many essays, Hogarth produced his Sigis- 
 munda, hut no more like Sigisnuinda than 1 to Hercules." 
 
 I never saw Hogarth's Sigismunda, of which I be- 
 lieve he made no engraving, therefore cannot speak 
 to the colouring ; but from a reduced copy, I conclude 
 that the picture, though not graceful or elegant, has 
 high dramatic merit. It embodies Dryden's Sigis- 
 munda. Hogartli could hardly make her more like 
 a strumpet than Dryden 4ias done It is" the picture 
 of a middle-aged woman, in the late summer of her 
 beauty; of strong passions, restrained, but not subdued,
 
 233 
 
 NOTES ON 
 
 ■JIIE LTtE OF HOGARTH. 
 
 aDtl a proud will. An expression of Christian patience 
 would hardly have suited a person meditating suicide. 
 I think Hogarth was ill-used about the picture. 
 Sir R. Grosvenor was a shabby dog. But it was 
 not wise in Hogarth to attempt to vie with a picture 
 of established fame. People don't like to be put 
 out of conceit with their old favourites. We do not 
 want anotiier- King Lear or another Othello. In 
 vindication of Horace Walpole, whose Whiggism does 
 not exclude him from the praise of Albemarle Street, 
 a Quarterly Reviewer remarks that, originally, Sigis- 
 munda was represented tearing off her ornaments, 
 and with bloody fingers. The heart is a disgusting 
 object, and should have been concealed. A lovers 
 heart in a picture must always look like a calf's heart. 
 It is seldom safe for author, actor, or painter, to enter 
 upon a new line at a late period of life. Should 
 Listen make ever so good a Hamlet, he would still 
 be looked on as Paul Pry. Had Kemble succeeded 
 ever so well in Falstaflf, the tones of Cato and Zanga 
 would have obstructed tlie public ear, and dashed 
 their mirth with perplexity. Whatever the merits of 
 Hogarth's Sigismunda, the Harlot and the Rake were 
 sure to stand in her light. Yet more unwise was it 
 to vex his old age with factious politics, and to tax 
 his declining powers with the worthless drudgery of 
 allegorical caricature. I never could understand the 
 allusions in ' The Times,' or see either wit, humour, 
 sense, or fun in it." The Avorst political caricature 
 
 * This drew forth ray print of " The Times," a subject which tended 
 to the restoraliou of peace and unanimity." — Hogarth.
 
 PORTRAIT OF WILKES. 233 
 
 ever published by Hone, Cruikshank, Tegg, or Rolaud- 
 son, has more meauiug. 
 
 How Hogarth could expect to quench a popular 
 conflagration with such a wet dish-clout, is unaccount- 
 able. It would hardly have told had it been on 
 the popular side. Allan is, I think, too severe on 
 Churchill ; Hogarth certainly struck the first blow, 
 and he was not a man who could reasonably expect 
 to be spared. It is not true that Churchill reproached 
 him with his age ; he censured the pursuits that 
 make age irreverend and infirmity unpitiable. When 
 Shakspeare says, " How ill grey hairs become a fool — 
 a jester," does he deride or vindicate the sanctity of 
 grey hairs ? Does the man who peers at the failings 
 of his fellow-creatures through spectacles, and depicts 
 them with a trembling hand, give a very amiable 
 idea of old age ? An old man should no more be a 
 satirist than a lover. On the whole, I think it had 
 been well for poor Churchill if his early death-bed 
 had been haunted with no heavier offence than bis 
 attack upon Hogarth. 
 
 Page IGo. — " Wilkes says truly, in allusion to his own portrait, 
 that he did not make himself," &c. 
 
 Satirists are apt to entertain very exaggerated 
 notions of their own power and influence. The fact 
 is, they are all but impotent, unless they swim with 
 the stream. Hogarth talks as if his portrait of 
 Wilkes was alone sufficient to strip that worthy of 
 all the imputed honours of political martyrdom ; as if,
 
 234 NOTES ON " THE LTFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 forsooth, a patriot might not squint, or a champion of 
 the people look like the deity of Lampsacus. Wilkes's 
 ugliness had not spoiled his fortune with the women ; 
 how, then, could his effigy impair his credit with the 
 mob? 
 
 Page 166.- — " Milton was not unwilling to claim the merit of 
 having shortened the life of Salmasius." 
 
 I should like to sec, indeed I must seek out, the 
 passage in which Milton exults in the death of 
 Salmasius. I hope neither he nor Churchill meant 
 the actual bond fide death of body or soul, but only 
 the destruction of force and influence. 
 
 Page 166. — " The last work of Hogarth was worth)- of his 
 genius, and is known to the world by the title of Credulity, 
 Superstition and Fanaticism." 
 
 I do not like this print at all. It has the profane- 
 ness without the humour of the Tale of a Tub. It 
 is an unsuccessful attempt at pantagruelism, with 
 all the outrageousness and none of the richness of 
 Rabelais. It is a jumble of various superstitions, 
 some sharply opposed to each other, never co-existent 
 in the same sect, hardly at the same time. It is a 
 vain attempt to crowd together all possible aberra- 
 tions of afflicted humanity iu regard to the unseen 
 world, to mingle in a witch's caldron all the poisonous 
 herbs and abortive births of the waste of ignorance, 
 and discharge the hell-broth on the head of Metho- 
 dism. But there is little metliod in the design, and 
 not much merit in the execution. The boy vomiting
 
 CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 235 
 
 pins, and the rabbit-breeder, are merely disgusting. 
 In the original sketch, which is iu all respects 
 superior to the alteration, though still very offensive, 
 the place of the former is occupied by a most devout 
 dog ; a figure which was really a light diffusing cheer- 
 fulness over the gloom. The faces of the Jew and the 
 clerk are also altered for the worse. The original 
 design is well copied iu the third volume of Ireland's 
 Hogarth. The two figures in the clerk's pew 
 evidently glance at a common reproach against the 
 followers of Wesley, but Wesley never inculcated the 
 worship of images ; the action, therefore, of the 
 extatic pair wants decorum in every sense of the 
 word, and is as absurd as it is gross. I am not one 
 who hold that all folly and all iniquity should be 
 sacred from ridicule, the moment that it assumes 
 the name and garb of religion, any more than that 
 sedition, slander, indecency, or breach of the peace, 
 should plead liberty of conscience against the law. 
 All manner of imposition, all dogmatism, whether 
 supported by bullying, or by sopliistry, all human 
 inventions that forge the Divine signature, all that 
 paraphernalia which would establish a spiritual 
 dominion by fascination of the senses, all the arts of 
 priestcraft, and all the despotism of hierarchy, are 
 just and laudable objects of satire, so long as the 
 satirist is careful not to weed up the wheat along with 
 the tares. The religion of the sense, the religion of 
 positive law, the religion of false expediency, may 
 lawfully be laughed to scorn ; but the religion of the 
 heart, the fears and groanings of the soul convinced
 
 236 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 of sin, the unutterable yearnings of the creature made 
 subject to vanity for freedom, even tlie vile error 
 that mistakes pliysical sensation, or the deceits of the 
 evil one, for the immediate presence of the Supreme, 
 a delirium for the beatific vision, are too holy or too 
 dreadful for ridicule. Man's heart, even in its delu- 
 sions, its perverseness, its sinfulness, is a holy — an 
 awful thing. Its issues are for eternity. As a 
 somewhat parallel case, I would say that the fashion 
 of gallantry is the fittest theme for comedy ; but true 
 love is too sacred, and lust too fearful to be sported 
 with. 
 
 Page 167. — "They whose enthusiastic delusions Bishop Laving- 
 ton terms ' religion run mad.' " 
 
 Bishop Lavington is inaccurate. True religion 
 never was mad ; but madness sometimes assumes the 
 form of religion. It is possible, indeed, that super- 
 stition, fanaticism, or ascetic devotion may produce 
 physical madness. 
 
 Page 174. — " Nicliols, a person who misconceived Hogarth's 
 genius, since he said it was exclusively comic, and who was there- 
 fore likely to misunderstand his character, has descrihcd him as a 
 man whose wliole powers of pleasing were confined to his pencil, 
 whose manners were gross and uncultivated." 
 
 The truth probably was, Hogarth was a gentleman 
 in gentlemen's company, but found himself more at 
 ease in society that furnished more available studies 
 for his pencil. That he was vulgar can hardly be 
 true. His intellect forbad it. His very representa-
 
 VAILS TO SEKVANTS. 237 
 
 tions of vulgarity are too ideal to be vulgar. If he 
 were gross it was the vice of his age. 
 
 The offences of Hogarth against decency are ^ew, 
 — for the most part latent, and never mischievous, 
 because never alluring. His aversion to religious 
 pictures, however, often leads him to the brink of 
 profaneness ; but, in extenuation, it must be remem- 
 bered that he lived in a very gross and a very irre- 
 ligious age. Methodism taught the necessity of zeal 
 to the clergy — the French Revolution convinced the 
 aristocracy that Christianity was essential to the 
 privileged order. 
 
 > 
 
 Page 176. — "'When I sat to Hogartli,' said Mr. Cole, 'the 
 custom of giving vails to servants was not discontinued.' " 
 
 Hogarth's conduct in regard to his servants seems 
 to have been altogether excellent. I can hardly 
 think Sir Joshua could have been serious in his offer 
 to his man, Ralph.* Nobility itself neither then nor 
 yet prohibits servants from exacting gratuities, when 
 mansions or galleries are open to the public. Hogarth, 
 partly from the circumstances of his birth and educa- 
 tion, partly fi'om the character of his genius and the 
 line of art which he pursued, was likely to understand 
 the menial classes much better than Reynolds, to 
 take a deeper interest in their welfare, their anmse- 
 ments and their enjoyments, and at the same time to 
 bear a more watchful eye on their cupidity and slyness. 
 
 * " Sir Joshua Reynolds gave his servant 6?. annually of wages, and 
 oflfered him 100?. a year /or the door."
 
 238 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 Ileynolds was certainly not deficient in generosity. 
 Had there been any appearance of meanness about 
 him, the liaughty Johnson would never have asked 
 remission of a debt which he had the means of paying. 
 But he seems, like many old bachelors, and T may 
 add like most persons of a refined and fastidious 
 taste, to have wanted that spirit of kindly good-nature 
 which wishes to be well witli all, and is eager to 
 bestow even a momentary pleasure on all that are 
 capable of being pleased. 
 
 Page 17. 0. — "Accompanying the prints of Hogarth's favorite 
 works, appeared explanations in verse, sometimes with the names 
 of the autliors, but oftener without, and all alike distinguished 
 by weakness and want of that graphic accuracy which marked tlic 
 engravings." 
 
 Surely the verses of Hoadly appended to tlie 
 Rake's Progress are not devoid of poetic merit. They 
 are sweetly versified and well expressed. Bankes 
 wrote lines descriptive of Southwark Fair, and of 
 the Modern Midnight Conversation — no way ex- 
 cellent, but the former curious and explanatory. But 
 few of Hogarth's works furnish good subjects for 
 l)oetry. No language is picturesque enough to fur- 
 nish terms equivalent to his strokes, and, for the 
 most part, his dramatis personoi are only fit for dumb 
 show. To make them speak otherwise than sucli 
 folks do speak would break the charm ; to write or 
 utter the words they must needs be saying were in- 
 tolerable to ear and eye. Poetical descriptions of 
 pictures are seldom very good. I am glad that poets
 
 ACADEMIES OF ART. 239 
 
 have left off giving directions to painters. A poet 
 may describe, or rather express, the feelings produced 
 by a picture ; but poetry must be always something 
 more or something less than painting. Poetic de- 
 scription should never be too definite. It should 
 feed and stimulate, not constrain, the shaping power. 
 
 Page 182. — " The morality of Hogarth has been questioned." 
 
 Perhaps no satirist is less obnoxious to the charge 
 of teaching the vices he exposes than Hogarth. 
 Whatever pity the Harlot or the Bake may excite by 
 their misfortunes, begets no secret liking for their 
 crimes. But there are persons who think all satire 
 immoral, and that the very existence of vice should 
 be concealed. _ 
 
 Page 1 82. — " He has been accused of want of knowledge in 
 the human form, and of grace and serenity of expression." 
 
 Hogarth was unquestionably deficient in drawing, 
 and judged merely by the eye. His attitudes are 
 seldom pleasing, and not always natural. But his 
 figures are almost as expressive as his faces. With 
 him a drunken man is drunk all over. The laziness 
 of the Idle Apprentice relaxes every joint and muscle ; 
 and when brought before his former fellow prentice, 
 he crouches with his wliolc soul and body. Serenity 
 would not have suited his subjects. 
 
 Page 183. — " In liis nicninnimlums respecting the establishment 
 of an Academy of Art in Knglaiul, he writes well and wisely." 
 
 I am partly of Hogarth's opinion. Academies may
 
 Page 18C. — '"As vl painter,' says Walpole, 'Hogarth has 
 slender merit.' " 
 
 If by a painter you mean an artist who charms the 
 eye by combinations of form ;ind colour, and who 
 satisfies the intellectual desire for symmetry, pro- 
 
 240 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF HOGARTH." 
 
 foster, but cannot create genius. That ours has 
 improved the mechanic art of painting cannot be 
 disputed. It has established a sort of aristocracy in 
 art, and probably improved the education of artists. 
 For poetry an academy can do absolutely nothing, and 
 just as little for the poetry of painting. Perhaps, 
 however, Hogarth under-rated the advantages of 
 instruction and association, as much as Reynolds 
 over-rated them. His own was a faculty that can be 
 neither learned, taught, nor acquired. More general ! 
 education might have given him more grace, more 
 temperance, more suavity, but perhaps might have 
 seduced him at times from the path in which he was 
 first and sole, to others, in which he could not have 
 been more than fifth or sixth. More professional 
 education might have taught him to draw better, if 
 he could have submitted to be taught ; but I believe 
 him to have been unteachable. Thus, liaving suc- 
 ceeded himself without instruction, by the force of 
 ideas potentiated by observation, he thought rules, 
 which are all that can be taught, were of no use to 
 anybody, — and here he was mistaken, — but there is 
 no occasion to ascribe his mistake to envy. Perhaps 
 conceit might have something to do with it.
 
 ON THE GENIUS OF HOGARTH. "211 
 
 portion, and the ovbev ayav, be certainly does not 
 rank with Raphael. As for the co-extension of the 
 terms, painter and poet, it does not much avail. * 
 Those who deny Hogarth to be a painter, would pro- 
 bably deny Crabbe to be a poet. 
 
 ON THE GENIUS OF HOGARTH. 
 
 " Perliaps if Hogarth had written his pictures, they would have 
 been much in the style of Hudibras." — Athcnceum. 
 
 This I think more than doubtful. In the first place, 
 Hogarth's pictures could not be written. They cannot 
 even be described. Hogarth's attempts at pictorial wit 
 are, for the most part, poor enough. He has every shade 
 and variety of humour that can be indicated to the 
 eye. Humour in the fulness of its ancient accepta- 
 tion. Farcical, as in the Strolling Actresses and 
 Enraged Musician ; pure comic, as in the Modern 
 Midnight Conversation; bitterly satiric, as in the 
 last scene of the Harlot's Progress; keenly pathetic 
 in a hundred instances ; sometimes wide and general, 
 as in South wark Fair, the Industrious Apprentice's 
 Mayoralty, the IMarch to Finchley, &c. ; sometimes 
 intensely individualised, as in the ProjectDr in the 
 Fleet, the Roguish Scrivener in the Rake's Progress, 
 the Quack in Marriage a-la-Mode, the congregation 
 issuing from the French Chapel in Noon ; but every- 
 vyhere it is humour. A twist, a perversion, a haul 
 goiit of the total man, a moral, not an intellectual 
 
 » " I claim a signification as wide for the word Painter, as for the 
 word Poet."— A. C. 
 
 VOL. IL a
 
 242 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 distortion. He takes just as much of the plebeian 
 half-animal man as looks and gestures can express, 
 and for which language affords no sufficient exponent. 
 His pictures might, were there Mathewses and 
 Mundens enough, be acted in dumb-show, but they 
 could not be dramatised in words. Secondly, there 
 is no resemblance of mind between Butler and 
 Hogarth. Had Butler been a painter like Hogarth, 
 or rather like Callot, he might have produced a 
 highly idealised resemblance of the allegorical carica- 
 tures of Gilray. Had Hogarth written, instead 
 of painted, his scenes and stories, I suspect he would 
 have approached to the harsher passages of Fielding. 
 Burns had more of Hogarth in him than had Butler. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Page 206. — " He who shared in imagination the imperial robe 
 of Mii;hel Angelo, would have scorned the meaner mantle of 
 Godfrey Kneller." 
 
 Sir Joshua had too much sense to sliare in imagi- 
 nation the robe of Michel ; he never attempted any- 
 thing in Michel Angelos style, and knew well enough 
 that his genius was not of Buonarotti's quality. He 
 showed a strongmind and a generousheart by awarding 
 the first place in art to a man whose power botli in 
 kind and degree differed so widely from his own.
 
 JACOB CATTS. HUDSON. J243 
 
 Page 209. — " But bis principal fund of imitation was Jacob 
 
 Catts's ' Book of Emblems,' &c The prints in Plutarch 
 
 are rude and uncouth ; those in the ' Book of Emblems ' are 
 more to the purpose," &c. 
 
 Both these books were once famiUar to me ; but I 
 don't know whether Jacob Catts would impress any- 
 one with an admiration of foreign art, though they 
 say much for the fertihty of Dutch fancy. They 
 were not to Reynolds what the song-book was to 
 Burns. 
 
 Page 212. — "Reynolds proceeded with his studies under Hudson ; 
 but it seldom happens that a man of no genius and moderate skill 
 can give sound counsel to one who longs for distinction,.and has 
 the talent to obtain it." 
 
 This, at least, admits of doubt. Men of no genius 
 and moderate skill may be very useful teachers ; for 
 moderate skill is all that can be taught. Men of 
 genius always strive to convey ideas ; men of mere 
 talent are content with giving rules ; and rules are 
 a Tiecessary discipline. Excellence above the pupil's 
 imitation will be apt to inspire despair, or to call 
 away the attention from those mechanical details 
 which lead to executive skill. It is in vain to aim at 
 great models before the pupil has learned to draw. 
 A vagueness and want of determinate aim is very apt 
 to beset the student who attempts to work in the 
 light of great principles before he has mastered the 
 rudiments of practice. Hudson, I believe, was a 
 better master for Reynolds than Michel Angelo or 
 Titian could have been. Great men of any kind are
 
 244 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 seldom fully aware of the process by which they 
 produce excellence, however deeply they may have 
 meditated on its constituent laws. There is, how- 
 ever, this difference between schoolmastei's of moderate 
 learning and artists of moderate skill — the school- 
 master's pride and glory is in his scholars, and the 
 more the pupil excels the master, the better for the 
 master's reputation. Artists, on the other hand, 
 behold in their pupils their future rivals, and, if they 
 be not very honest men, no common case with small 
 geniuses of any class, they have at least a temptation 
 to retard the progress which must soon become com- 
 petition. Hudson even could not bear to be out- 
 done. 
 
 II 
 
 " Would it not ofTcnd a person contemplating a capital picture of 
 St. Paul preaching at Alliens, to liave his attention called off to 
 observe a piece of drape ry naturally represented ? " — Sir J. R. ■ 
 
 Page 229. — " What is it that drapery ought to resemble, and 
 wherewithal shall a man be clothed that his garments may not 
 look too natural ? The living St. Paul was under no such 
 apprehension." — A. C. 
 
 Allan forgets that drapery may be imitated even in 
 painting much more nearly than life and motion, and 
 that a coloured statue may be, and often has been, 
 dressed in real clothes. If the living St. Paul had 
 chosen to wear a very splendid or fantastic garment, 
 there might have been some danger of his raiment 
 distracting the attention of his audience. Still I 
 think Reynolds wrong in advising a vague and gene- 
 ralising mode of painting the adjuncts to a picture.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 245 
 
 The imitation may be closei', or more remote, but it 
 should be equal in every part. Some painters pro- 
 duce a great effect by finishing particular parts in the 
 strongest nature, and leaving the rest in mere dead 
 colour. This was Kean's style ; but, though imposing, 
 it is not true. It is not genuine art, but artifice. 
 Not that all should be equally striking, but all should 
 be equally exact, as in poetry. Not every line should 
 be alike pregnant, sonorous, or luscious ; but none 
 should be awkward, unmetrical, or ungrammatical. 
 In all things, obediently follow the beautiful perspec- 
 tive and strict subordination of nature; but never 
 dream of idealising by mere omission. Not so did 
 the Greeks — not so Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante, 
 perhaps the most minute of all poets. Of the Apollo 
 it is sufficient to say that it is the statue of a god. 
 A close resemblance to actual life would have been as 
 much out of place as the individualities of Shakspeare 
 and Homer would have been in Milton's Adam and 
 Eve. 
 
 Page 2.38. — " Tt was Reynolds's good fortune also to make a 
 remark which Johnson perceived could only have arisen in the 
 mind of a man who thought for himself. The ladies were 
 regretting the death of a friend to whom they owed great obliga- 
 tions. ' You have, however, the comfort,' said Reynolds, ' of 
 being relieved from the burthen of gratitude.' They were shocked 
 at this selfish suggestion ; but Johnson maintained that it was 
 true to human nature, and, on going away, accompanied Rcvnolds 
 home. Thus commenced a friendship which was continued to old 
 age without much interruption."' 
 
 All the satires of Hogarth do not bear so hard on
 
 246 
 
 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS. 
 
 poor human nature as this speech of the courtly 
 Reynolds. For "gratitude " we should read obligation. 
 True " gratitude." though still owing, still to pay, is the 
 most delightful sensation of a good heart. But obli- 
 gations for benefits which we cannot repay in kind, 
 from persons whom we cannot love, and whom we 
 suspect of not loving us, is unquestionably a wound 
 in our pride. 
 
 Page 238. — "The rough and saturnine Johnson was very unlike 
 the soft, graceful, and flexible Reynolds," &c. 
 
 This is one of the best-written passages in the 
 book. Johnson came into polite life too late to 
 acquire the conventional graces, even if his natural 
 configuration of mind or of body had rendered the 
 acquisition possible at any time. He had, perhaps, 
 adopted an overbearing manner originally in self- 
 defence, for he Avas long doomed to companies from 
 whom respect is only to be extorted by fear ; and 
 when he had emerged into the great man of his age, 
 he pi-eferred the reputation of brutality to that of 
 gavcherie, and gave to his irremediable deficiencies 
 the air of choice and wilfulness. He often — for 1 
 suspect there was something of calculation in it — suc- 
 ceeded. Men perhaps of stronger minds, but weaker 
 nerves, shrunk from a contest which might have pro- 
 voked rudeness beyond a gentleman's endurance; 
 and his slightest attentions, in the strong light of his 
 reputation, and with the dark ground of his general 
 brusqverie, were as efficacious as the most refined 
 flatterv. Then his infirmities and oddities rendered
 
 TRUE CONCEPTION OF BEAUTY. 947 
 
 his assumption of superiority mucli less offensive to 
 the self-love of his associates, and fine gentlemen 
 were willing to hear him dictate as an oracle, whom 
 they could pity or ridicule as a monster and a bear. 
 
 Page 242. — " His acquaintance with Johnson induced him 
 about this time to write for the 'Idler' some papers on exact 
 imitations of nature and the true conception of beauty." 
 
 Notwithstanding the high praise bestowed on 
 Reynolds in the Biog. Lit., I very much doubt if 
 Reynolds quite understood himself when he talked 
 about beauty. If the productions of nature are all 
 beautiful, beauty is an unmeaning word. If he 
 mean all nature's works compose a beautiful whole, 
 it is a truth, but not to the purpose. In speaking 
 of nature, he manifestly confounds the beautiful and 
 the agreeable ; and wlieu talking of ideal beauty, does 
 not seem aware that beauty is itself a pure idea ; an 
 operation of mind, and no measureable or ponderable 
 quality of matter. He hunts for a material, concrete 
 beauty, different from the beauty of nature, and 
 thinks to lay hold of it by the Aristotelian doctrine 
 of mean proportionals, as if the beautiful were beauti- 
 ful not for what it is, but for what it is not. He 
 had got hold of certain truths, which he had nei- 
 ther imagination to realise, nor learning to expound 
 and illustrate. He saw partly that high art is not 
 a mere fac-simile, but his precepts afford no liglit 
 as to how it is to rise above fac-simile ; — he only
 
 248 NOTES ON " THE LIFK OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 substitutes a vague and general for a particular imita- 
 tion, not conceiving that beauty must be created by 
 an effort, and generative act, like in kind to, but 
 more intense in degree than, that by which beauty, 
 either in nature or in art, is perceived. Hogarth, 
 with even less learning, and probably a less refined 
 taste than Reynolds, exhibits in his analysis much 
 more of the elemental faculty of tlie philosopher, 
 though he had not escaped from the false notion, 
 that the mind, in the contemplation of beauty, is the 
 mere passive recipient of the impression on tlie re- 
 tina ; whence it would follow, that beauty is merely 
 the lust of the eye, the sensual pleasure of sight, 
 akin to the gratifications of the lower senses. But 
 his line, if not the sole constituent, is the most ade- 
 quate symbol of beauty, — the greatest variety in the 
 most perfect unity — a whole implied in an infinite 
 evolution of parts. Of the sublime, however, Hogarth 
 had little feeling, and no understanding; hence he 
 failed, and from the constitution of his genius must 
 have failed, however his genius had been cultivated 
 in scriptural subjects. He could contemplate a whole 
 as a whole in all its essential parts, but not abstract- 
 edly from the parts, lleynolds had not power to 
 produce the sublime, but I believe him capable of 
 feeling and appreciating it ; and he habitually de- 
 lighted in the culm, the dignified, the select. He 
 was a judicious, but not a profound man. As far as 
 I can judge from a very imperfect acquaintance with 
 his works, their characteristic is gentility, with rather 
 too much fashion.
 
 FEELING OF ENVY. 249 
 
 Page 246. — " One of the biographers of Reynolds imputes the 
 reflections contained in the conclusion of this letter to that kind 
 of envy which perhaps even Johnson felt, when comparing his 
 own annual gains with those of his more fortunate friends." 
 
 The world, and many men who pretend to despise 
 the workl, are remarkably liberal in charging great 
 artists, poets, and philosophers with envy. Johnson 
 envied Reynolds, — Hogarth envied Reynolds ; and 
 Reynolds envied Hogarth, Wilson, and Barry. I 
 can see no proof of any of these envies. Johnson 
 was a religionist, who had formed his creed and 
 standard, if I mistake not, more from the practical 
 divinity current in his youth, such as the Whole 
 Duty of Man, Gentleman's Religion, Decay of 
 Piety, &c., than from the weightier theologians of 
 the old school. Though by no means of an austere 
 life, he was an ascetic upon theory, and thought 
 religion ought to be the business, as well as the rule 
 and spirit, of human existence. He rarely speaks 
 even of poetry with much respect, and was strongly 
 inclined to consider all verse-making, except that 
 which turned moral common-places into epigrams, as 
 loss of time ; for he does not seem to have admired 
 devotional poetry so much as might have been ex- 
 pected. As for painting, he could not be expected 
 to enjoy what he could but imperfectly see, and 
 perhaps could not look at without pain. But he 
 rejoiced in the fortune of Reynolds, and his little 
 scrap of morality to Baretti is mere words of course.* 
 
 * " This c.xliiliition has fillinl tlic heads of artists and lovers of art. 
 Surely life, if it be not long;, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the 
 assistance of .so many trifles to rid us of that time which never can 
 return."— ./oAhso« to Bantti.
 
 250 NOTES ON " THE LTFR OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 It was lucky for the Doctor that his companion was 
 not Hogarth instead of Rej'nolds, when he was 
 swallowing the honey and clouted cream. Hogarth 
 and Reynolds could not understand, and very likely 
 might not much like, one another : hut I do not be- 
 lieve there was much envy on either side. Hogarth 
 had no just reason to conijilain of his success with the 
 public, tbough he had not experienced very liberal 
 patronage from the great. He had discontinued 
 jiortrait-painting, in a great measure, before Reynolds 
 appeared. The talents of Reynolds he was more likely 
 to underrate than to envy; and, as for his reputa- 
 tion, he must have known that his own fame was of 
 a stronger build. Both Johnson and Hogarth doubt- 
 less felt, and strongly expressed, a dissatisfaction 
 with the way in which fashion and fortune distributed 
 tlieir favours and their honours. Neither of them 
 were optimists ; but general dissatisfaction with the 
 state of things is a very different feeling from per- 
 sonal envy or ill-will. No man was less satisfied 
 with the world than my late father, — no man more 
 free from individual envy. If he had an angry 
 emotion, it was against the public, not against the 
 public's minions. Still more unlikely is it, that 
 I'eynolds's scanty praise of Hogarth and Wilson was 
 the result of envy. To Wilson he, perhaps, might 
 have been kinder. A distaste for a man's rough 
 manners is a very insufficient excuse for blindness or 
 silence as to his merits as a genius. But it is to be 
 considered that Sir Joshua was an aristocrat in art, 
 and probably thought that rakes and harlots, dram-
 
 FEELING OF ENVY. 251 
 
 drinkers, and idle apprentices, ^vere unworthy sub- 
 jects of the faculty divine, which had been graced by 
 Raphael and Michel Angelo. I think he was wrong ; 
 but an error of judgment, even a narrowness of taste, 
 should not be charged as an obliquity of morals. 
 Landscape was not a branch of art which he seems 
 to have highly appreciated ; perhaps because he did 
 not know how to apply to it his own theories of the 
 grand style. At all events, it was not the direct 
 topic of any of his lectures. The didactic nature of 
 those lectures ought to be considered. He was not 
 discussing all the ways in which genius might be 
 embodied by the pencil ; if he had, his slight notice 
 of Hogarth would have been a serious omission ; buj; 
 he was instructing youths in what he considered the 
 method of attaining or approaching to the highest 
 order of excellence. He must have known that none 
 but a Hogarth could become anything by imitating 
 Hogarth but a vulgar caricaturist, or, at best, a pic- 
 torial buffoon ; whereas a man could hardly imitate 
 Rapliael, Michel Angelo, or Leonardo, however un- 
 successfully, without exalting his conceptions and his 
 imagination. I suspect, however, that Reynolds was 
 no great believer in genius, and thought talent and 
 application could effect more in art than they are 
 really capable of. Having heard, and thought, and 
 dreamed mucli of the great schools of art, lie errone- 
 ously concluded that even average capacities can be 
 schooled into great artists. Sir Joshua was more- 
 over a prudent man, and a great admirer of prudence, 
 and might think that a violent admiration of Hogarth
 
 ii52 NOTES ON "THE LIFE OP EEYNOLDS." 
 
 or Wilson might seduce young men into the satirical 
 propensities of the former, and the porter-drinking 
 habits of the latter, while it would not communicate 
 the virtues or the genius of either. Still, it is not to 
 be denied that Reynolds had not a generous delight 
 in praising contemporaries of his own craft. The 
 courtship of public ftivour in any line is not calcu- 
 lated to make any man larger-hearted than it finds 
 him. Reynolds had many and great virtues, but I 
 never knew but one man in whom a highly refined 
 moral taste, undeviating rectitude, and prudence, co- 
 existed with openness, generosity, and a catholic 
 love of excellence, and a just allowance for tlio 
 frailties of his weak brethren.* 
 
 Page 283.—" AVhcn Dr. Tucker, the famous Dean of Gloucester, 
 asserted before the Society for encouraging Commerce and Manu- 
 factures, that a pin-maker was a more useful and valuable member 
 of Society than Uapliael, Sir Joshua was nettled, and replied with 
 some asperity." 
 
 Dean Tucker was probably not aware how perilous 
 his utilitarian principle might become to his own 
 order. Perhaps he would not have said so much at 
 Sir Joshua's table. There was a fashion of compli- 
 menting the trading and operative part of the com- 
 munity, at the expense of the intellectual arts, as 
 foolish, though not so heart-hardening as the contempt 
 which some tine folks express for all manual employ- 
 ment. Were it true that pin-making was more 
 
 • Robert Southey is doubtless intended.— D C.
 
 DEAN TUCKEE. 253 
 
 important to society than painting, it would by no 
 means follow that the individual pin-maker was 
 superior to the great artist. The just comparison is 
 not between artisans and artists, but between the 
 trades of use and those which minister to luxury and 
 vanity. A carpenter is certainly a more valuable 
 person than a trinket-maker or man-milliner. But 
 there is room enough for all ; and so long as no 
 necessary or innocent employment is debased or 
 oppressed, none ought to repine at the honour done 
 to another. All occupations cannot be equally honour- 
 able, but all should be equally respectable. Sir Joshua's 
 retoi't is not very profound. Arts and sciences are 
 no more an end than mechanics or agriculture ; an 
 enjoyment necessarily confined to a few cannot be 
 the final cause of human existence. I would rather 
 adopt the heresy of Dean Tucker than admit that 
 any human being is created for an end in which 
 himself has no part. 
 
 Page 286. — " A series of allegorical figures for the window of 
 New College Chapel, at Oxford, eni])l()yed his pencil during the 
 year 17!30, and for several buccecdiug years." 
 
 Without in anywise partaking Bishop Terricks 
 prejudice against pictures in churches, which I think 
 might be made both instructive and edifying, I cannot 
 think Reynolds or his New College patrons judicious 
 in exhibiting those allegorical personages, who are 
 never personified in Scripture, on a chapel window. 
 There is a fatal want of common-sense in all alle- 
 gorical painting. It can possess no merit but that
 
 254 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 of colour and design. I perfectly forget these chiaro- 
 scuros — a proof that they never made any impression 
 upon my eye. 
 
 Though I give the Bishop credit for well-meaning 
 in his refusal of the pictures offered to St. Paul's, I 
 can hardly think that he stated the true grounds of 
 his objection. He probably thought that the paintings 
 would be regarded as fine paintings are even in 
 popish countries, merely as works of art, and might 
 dissipate, in admiration of human genius, those 
 feelings which, within consecrated walls, should be 
 devoted to the Invisible alone. A truly zealous 
 Christian would have none to enter a church but for 
 prayer, praise, instruction, or meditation. Pictures 
 or other ornaments certainly attract dilettanti idlers, 
 whose technical raptures sound strangely in the 
 house of humiliation and godly fear. But perhaps 
 the most serious scruple in the question arises from 
 the character of English art itself. English angels 
 rather resemble the pretty creatures on earth whom 
 we catachrestically flatter with the name, than the 
 high imagination of a heavenly messenger. English 
 virgins are too tempting and luscious to be secure in 
 virginity. Mary Magdalen, in an English picture, 
 reminds one too much of the Magdalen Hospital ; and 
 the apostles and prophets look like comely actors 
 dressed for the parts, unless, indeed, their beards and 
 eyebrows are so exaggerated as to give them the air 
 of melodramatic banditti. Then the landscape, the 
 trees, the buildings, the animals, are so natural, and 
 the drapery so spruce and natty, that the whole looks
 
 RELIGIOUS PICTURES. 955 
 
 like a thing of to-day, and the austere religionist is 
 provoked to say, with Hercules, "Nil sacri es." 
 
 The naughty grotesques in the old missals could 
 hardly be more distracting. Now, the religious 
 pictures of the old masters, so far from bringing 
 down the events of Scripture history to the level of 
 to-day, open a vista through the dark backward 
 and abysm of time, and make visible the immutable 
 past, with all its hoary honours. Nothing belongs to 
 the world that is. Nothing challenges assent or 
 incredulity, like an on dit of the morning. The manger 
 in which the Saviour was born is not to be found at 
 Holkham, the cattle are not of Smithfield, and yet 
 there is no departure from nature to be detected. 
 As in true poetry, you feel as though the thoughts 
 could not have been otherwise expressed in rigid prose, 
 so in the sublime of art, you conceive not that aught 
 could be other than it is, had it sat for its likeness. 
 
 Page 2,05. — " Allan Ramsay, the king's painter, died in 1784, 
 and was succeeded in his office by Reynolds." 
 
 Reynolds could safely comply with the king's 
 wishes, and confer on tlie office that dignity which 
 the office could no longer confer on him ; for he was 
 neither a satirist, nor a moralist, nor a politician : 
 the very character of his genius fitted him for the 
 ornament of a court — as Johnson well observed that 
 his name was suited to a title. But Hogarth would 
 have done wisely to decline what a judicious minister 
 would not have offered. He was hardlv more fit for
 
 256 NOTKS ON " THE LIFE OF KEYNOLDS." 
 
 seijeant-painter than Gibber for poet-laureate. What- 
 ever differences of cliaracter or talent tliere might 
 be between Hogarth and Colley, there were ludici'ous 
 associations with both, which the court could ill 
 afford. Their appointment was likely to make their 
 enemies, enemies of the government, and certain to 
 expose them to tlie malignity of the disaff"ected. 
 Satire may be highly serviceable to an administration; 
 but then the satn-ist, like the sharp-shooter, should 
 be kept out of sight. Moreover, the cynical satirist, 
 the austere and stoic moralist, should never pay 
 compliments. Praise is so alien from their general 
 habits, that, however sincere, it is always suspected 
 of being either purchased, or mendicant, or ironical. 
 I speak, of course, of such satirists as have dignity 
 to lose ; not of parasites or all licensed fools ; and I 
 speak, too, of the effect produced on the public, — for 
 the compliments of a blunt man often tell upon their 
 direct object, because they are supposed to proceed 
 from affection. Reynolds, a painter of beauties and 
 children, might compliment as much as he chose : it 
 was his way, — he was not a professor of veracity. 
 How lovely, how purely innocent, is the poetic 
 flattery of Spenser ! Waller's is, at least, ingenious, 
 genteel, and harmless ; whereas the satiric Dryden 
 and the moral Young are absolutely nauseous in their 
 adulation. Reynolds's pictorial compliments were 
 not always ingenious. Clyteranestra would have 
 represented Catherine better than Hercules ; but his 
 flattery was never offensive except in the portrait of 
 Beattie. Where religion is even hinted, there should
 
 DUTIES OF A PRESIDENT. 257 
 
 be no compliment to mortal men. Our liturgy would 
 approximate yet nearer to perfection if some courtly 
 phrases were removed. The lapidary adulation which 
 lines the walls of our churches is a disgrace to 
 Christendom. 
 
 Page 310. — "Rules were the ornaments, not the fetters, of 
 genius." 
 
 Rules can never be ornaments ; and I do not 
 believe Sir Joshua ever said so. He might have 
 compared them to the zones of ancient, or to the 
 stays of modern, beauties; but I would rather call 
 them the bones of art. 
 
 Page 312. — " It was, I apprehend, too, the province of the 
 President to point out those natural qualities by which genius for 
 art might be distinguished from forwardness and j)rcsuniption, and 
 young men might see whether they were led by the false light of 
 vanity, or by light from heaven." 
 
 I much doubt whether any preceptor can do this 
 either by words or practical e.\perimeut, even were 
 he gifted with supernatural discernment to distinguish 
 between the first essays of genius, and those of mere 
 imitative cleverness, — for genius itself must be imita- 
 tive in its first stage. There are, indeed, some 
 natural defects that can never be surmounted ; such, 
 in the case of painting, are the want of a correct eye 
 and obedient hand. Where the perception of form is 
 indistinct, the sense of proportion wanting, or where 
 the hand cannot in anywise fulfil the intention of the 
 mind, where the pupil cannot foresee and determine 
 what sort of shape his pencil is about to produce, the 
 
 VOL. n. s
 
 258 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 case is palpably hopeless; the mere wish to be a 
 painter will no more bestow the faculty, than the 
 wish to see will give eyes to the blind; and you 
 might as well expect that the study of optics Avill 
 teach the blind to see, as that the study, aye, or the 
 profound theoretic knowledge of the principles of art, 
 will make an artist of one who, in relation to his 
 proper purpose, is as blind as if he could not see the 
 sun ; as helpless as if he were born without fingers, 
 toes, or mouth. But with such cases a professor has 
 seldom to deal, though many occur to an ordinary 
 drawing-master, and much time and money, and 
 much useless pain, is wasted in consequence. But a 
 correct eye and obedient hand will not make an 
 artist ; yet where they exist, I know not how an 
 instructor is to decide whether the possessor will 
 become an artist or not. He may have his private 
 thoughts, but they may possibly be wrong. I cannot 
 see that it was Sir Joshua's duty to command, where 
 he had little chance of being obeyed ; where his advice 
 would have been attributed to envy, would never 
 have made a dauber the fewer, and certainly might 
 have discouraged a true genius; for nothing dis- 
 courages presumptuous conceit. An honest man 
 would hardly persuade any youth to become an artist; 
 but where the passion is, dissuasion is useless ; 
 and it is better that one take any reputable course, 
 and pei-severe in it, than show the heels to one's 
 indentures. 
 
 I have just learned tliat the very advice which 
 Allan would have Sir Joshua give to the unpromising
 
 HOGARTH. 259 
 
 pupil, was actually given by Tintoretto to Ludovico 
 Carracci. So much for the duty of a president. 
 
 With many acute observations, I must needs say, 
 that this is the worst written, and worst natured, of 
 all Allan's Lives, What could have inspired him 
 with so ungenial a feeling towards Sir Joshua I can- 
 not tell. It is probable that Sir Joshua was some- 
 what over-rated by Burke, whose own " Sublime and 
 Beautiful" does not promise a philosophic discrimina- 
 tion in {Esthetics. Sir Joshua was an excellent artist 
 — a pleasing writer; but that is all. His pictures 
 delight the eyes, and benefit the heart, but they 
 add nothing to our powers of thought ; they do not, 
 like those of Hogarth, create or beget a new faculty; 
 evoke ideas, in the light whereof scenes hitherto 
 repulsive or merely ridiculous, aspects and characters 
 that excite disgust or inane laugliter, become replete 
 with profit and delight. But England, the world, 
 had but one Hogarth, and Hogarth did nothing to 
 advance his art. He has taught many to think, to 
 see, to observe — but none to paint. Reynolds's zeal 
 for his art blended with his patriotism ; it was his 
 great ambition to make England a land of painters. 
 His e.\.ample, his writings, his encouragement, more 
 than all, perliaps, his success, had all the same 
 tendency. Without B-eynolds we should not have 
 had Lawrence. 
 
 It is a wonder that more incidents and anecdotes 
 are not recorded of Hogarth. From his marriage 
 
 s2
 
 260 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 to his quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, his life 
 seems to have been only varied by his unlucky 
 trip to Calais, his eccentric schemes for disposing of 
 his pictures, and the bickerings arising from his 
 Analysis. His history is the history of his works. 
 Yet the few notices which he has left of himself are 
 highly interesting ; they show that he was not, as 
 certain detractors have given out, ignorant of his 
 native tongue. Whetlier he could spell or not, he 
 certainly was at no loss for words to express his 
 thoughts, and his thoughts were well worth expressing. 
 He speaks of himself with a manly sincerity, remote 
 alike from arrogance and from that affected self- 
 depreciation which betrays the most pitiful vanity. 
 But these memoranda tell not, what we most want 
 to know, where he gathered the materials for his 
 gi-eater pictures. They tell us, however, something of 
 the progress of his studies, and show that, self-taught 
 as he was, the circumstances of his situation and the 
 spirit of his age, the peculiar age of satire, of Pope, 
 of Swift, of Fielding, and of Smollet, cooperated 
 with his own original bias to make him what he was. 
 His first years were spent in the obscurity of a city 
 life, far from the gentle influences of nature, excluded 
 from the refinements of polished society, and vdth 
 little or no opportunity of contemplating the sublime 
 or beautiful in art, but doubtless with abundant 
 occasion to remark the mean, the low, the ludicrous, 
 the affected and the base in man. How far the 
 practice of silver-plate engraving tended to form his 
 hand, I cannot judge. Heraldic figures seem far
 
 INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 261 
 
 enough removed from life and manners, yet many 
 connoisseurs have given great prices for flagons and 
 salvers said to be enchased by Hogarth, and have not 
 failed to detect in his mantles and lambrequins, his 
 griflBns and wiverns, his crests and ciphers, even bis 
 chevrons and gyrons, strong indications of the Harlot's 
 Progress and the Marriage a la Mode. But these 
 notable prophets of the past would have found in a pair 
 of clouted shoes, heeltapped by poor Bloomfield, con- 
 siderable promise of the " Farmer's Boy." Yet there 
 is no animal, however fabulous, hardly an inanimate 
 object, which is not capable of a human expression ; 
 and Hogarth, in the maturity of his powers, could 
 put a charmed life into a joint-stool, a gibbet, a three- 
 cornered hat, or a wooden leg. He made the veriest 
 lumber tell a story, and could inspire a sign-post with 
 more meaning than many a well-paid and well- 
 employed K. A. can convey into the " human face 
 divine." But, as Allan Cunningham well observes, 
 " All the works which the necessities of genius 
 compel it to perform, are not therefore e.\cellent. 
 All artists are more or less compelled to labour for 
 bread, and even the most fortunate often execute 
 commissions alien to their feelings. By these things 
 they should not be judged." Allan should have 
 remembered this when he sneers at Sir Joshua 
 for painting so many uninteresting lords and squires. 
 Had he never condescended to less worthy subjects 
 than Johnson, he never could have afforded Johnson 
 so many good dinners. 
 
 In one or two specimens of Hogarth's armorial
 
 262 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 engraving which I have seen, there is considerable 
 fancy in the mantling and foliage. He had certainly 
 an exquisite sense of beauty in the combinations of 
 lines, however incapable he might be of representing 
 refined, or elegant, or exalted beauty in the human 
 form. But he never worked well to order ; he could 
 not or would not give an adequate shape to the 
 conceptions of others. The orgasm of invention was 
 needed to impregnate his imagination. Nothing can 
 well be worse than his illustrations of Don Quixote 
 and of Hudibras. Don Quixote, indeed, he could 
 scarcely have understood. The poetry of Cervantes 
 was quite out of his comprehension and alien to his 
 sympathies. There was nothing Spanish or chivalric 
 about him. He probably took it for granted that 
 Cervantes meant to hold up knight-errantry to con- 
 tempt, and saw nothing in the noblest compliment ever 
 paid to human nature but a coarse travesty or extrava- 
 gant "fiction. He confounded the overstraining of a 
 magnificent mind with crazy fatuity. Brooke and Sterne 
 appear to have been the first Englishmen who really 
 understood Don Quixote. In all that regards scenery 
 and costume, Hogarth was quite ignorant of Spain. 
 How should a man who never saw a higher eminence 
 than Primrose Hill, depict or imagine the wild passes 
 of the Sierra IMorena ? But he was altogether 
 unqualified for a work which might well have 
 devolved on Murillo or Salvator, and which Michael 
 Angelo would not have esteemed beneath his ambition. 
 With Hudibras a superficial conjecture might 
 suppose Hogarth at home. There he had no poetry,
 
 WIT CANNOT BE PAINTKD. 263 
 
 no romance, no mountains or forests to grapple with ; 
 and as much of the deformed and ridiculous as he 
 could desire. But not to mention that he wanted 
 the historical and antiquarian knowledge necessary 
 to give a vivid picture of obsolete vulgarities, all that 
 is really admii'able in Hudibras is absolutely out of 
 the reach of the pencil. There is no painting mere 
 thought ; you cannot sketch a sophism, nor present a 
 visible likeness of a metaphysical conceit. Hudibras 
 is not a work of nature nor of humour, but of wit 
 and of abstract intellect. Now wit cannot be painted, 
 though the finest shades of humour may. Wit does 
 not consist in representations of things, but in placing 
 things in new and surprising relations to each other. 
 It is the very antithesis of imagination, similitude 
 and dissimilitude are its elements ; but to constitute 
 wit, the sense of dissimilitude must preponderate. 
 Wit works with thought as punning does with words. 
 It is essentially bodiless and invisible, and does not 
 admit even of allegorical portraiture. You may 
 indeed draw a pun, as Tom Hood has abundantly 
 shown. Most political caricatures are made up of 
 pictorial puns and metaphors. But the true wit of 
 Butler, Swift, Pope, Congreve, and Sheridan, cannot be 
 painted. To take one instance from Brinsley. In "The 
 Duenna," Isaac the Israelite, neither Jew nor Chris- 
 tian, is compared to a dead wall between the church 
 and the synagogue, or to the blank pages betweeij 
 the Old and New Testaments. How could Hogarth, 
 or Hood, or Cruikshank pourtray this most witty 
 simile ? Not at all. Even when a witty writer does
 
 'sJ04 NOTES ON "the LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 employ visible images or actions, the painter cannot 
 convey his wit. A figure with three hats on his 
 head at once does not represent Lord Peter, and a 
 ragamuffin tearing the tags off his jacket tells you 
 nothing about Jack. A picture of a pigmy among 
 giants, or a giant among pigmies, does not very clearly 
 illustrate the wit of Gulliver. I do not mean to 
 assert that there is nothing in Hudibras which 
 addresses the eye. The grotesque forms of the 
 knight, his steed and squire, look droll enough in 
 picture : and the Bear-bait, Trulla's triumph, &c., 
 might furnish good comic sketches ; but even in these 
 Hogarth has not greatly succeeded. They are more 
 in the way of Leslie. The figures are ill drawn, 
 vulgar, and unmeaning : nor is the story told with 
 any of the skill which he exhibits when embodying 
 the ideas of his own genius. For his failure in 
 representing the ideas of others, perhaps the peculiar 
 nature of his memory, and his very medium of 
 thought, may be partly accountable. He thought by 
 images, not by words ; and we may easily conceive 
 that words conveyed very slight impulses to his 
 shaping faculty. His verbal memory was weak in 
 the extreme, while his eye never forgot an expression 
 or attitude which he had once noted. He had an 
 extraordinary power of drawing, as he happily termed 
 it, on the air. He could compose a picture in the 
 dark without so much as chalk or charcoal ; but he 
 could not, probably, have recalled a conversation, or 
 recomposed a sermon in the same situation. 
 
 Even when exercising his own invention, Hogarth
 
 SATIRIC GENIUSES. 265 
 
 did not immediately discover his true vein and 
 appropriate function. In his Taste of the Town, 
 Masquerade Ticlvet, Burlington Gate, and other early 
 prints, he stumbled on the unintelligible nonsense of 
 burlesque allegory, for which he wanted playfulness 
 of fancy. Whatever effect these juvenilia may have 
 produced at the time, they are quite worthless now. 
 It had been well if he had taken Wilkes's advice, and 
 never returned to such an ungenial employment of 
 his pencil. Few comic or satiric geniuses have found 
 out at once where their strength lay. Fielding's 
 comedies, operas, and burlesque tragedies, (always 
 excepting the incomparable " Tom Thumb,") are as 
 bad as need be. Swift began with Pindaric odes, 
 Smollett's fii'st production was a tragedy, Pope com- 
 menced with pastoral, and Foote made his debut as 
 Othello. Cervantes, Rabelais, and Sterne, were of 
 mature age when they produced the works for which 
 they are famous. Lucian was originally a rheto- 
 rician, Juvenal's Satires were written in his old age. 
 Persius, indeed, was a youth ; but though sometimes 
 a fine moral writer, he is a very inditferent satirist. 
 Congreve is almost a single exception ; but Con- 
 greve's wit is mere mental elaboration expressed in a 
 liigh-polished diction. His characters were traditions 
 of the stage. He had little fancy, and no imagina- 
 tion. He never conveys a profound truth or even an 
 imposing sophism. He could no more have con- 
 ceived Falstaff than Othello. His few attempts at 
 sentiment and generosity, as in " Love for Love,'' 
 are forced and extravagant. I believe Junius caught
 
 200 NOTES ON " THE LIFE OF REYNOLDS." 
 
 his manner from Congreve. Congreve was a wit 
 without humour ; and I think, on the whole, a less 
 man than either Vanbrugh or Farquhar, though the 
 very artificial air of his comedies, and the complete 
 absence of anything appealing to the moral sense, 
 make him less offensive to moral judgments. Of 
 human nature he knew nothing ; all he knew of the 
 world is soon learned, and little worth learning. 
 
 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S OPINION OF HIMSELF. 
 
 " It was the opinion of Allan Cunningham ' that his fame would 
 rest hereafter chiefly, if not entirely, on the kindly criticisms of 
 Sir Walter Scott and Southey." — Athenceum, 
 
 I AM right sorry that Allan should ever have said 
 this, for he did not believe it, and therefore it was a 
 falsehood, that is, if he said it ; but I conjecture that 
 wliat he meant was, that but for the encouragement 
 of Scott and Southey, he would never liave produced 
 anything worthy to live, or have found a spot wherein 
 to plant his fame. I should say the same of my 
 father; but for him, my things would either not 
 have been conceived, or would have been still-born 
 and would have perished in the infancy of neglect. 
 But no commendation of his can make them live 
 an hour beyond their time.
 
 MARGINALIA. 
 
 NOTES ON BROWN'S DICTIONARY OF THE 
 BIBLE, ETC.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following notes, which exhibit incidentally the author's views 
 on several important points of religious belief, have been tran- 
 scribed, with one or two exceptions, from the margins of " Brown's 
 Dictionary of the Bible : " the work of a Presbyterian and Calvinistic 
 divine, for whose piety tlic writer expresses much respect, but whose 
 statements he finds continual occasion to ronirovert.' Tlie book 
 was given to him when a child by his godfather, and was found 
 among his small collection of volumes after his death, enriched 
 with a double or treble scries of annotations, the last of recent date. 
 From the care with which these notes appear to have been written, 
 and in some instances corrected, it would seem that they were 
 designed as studies, of wliich he intended to make some after use, 
 and that they exhibit, speaking generally, his matured opinions 
 on the subjects of which they treat; yet as the task of selection and 
 revision has fallen into otlicr hands, as indeed if they had been 
 given to tiic world by jjiniself it would doubtless have been under 
 some other form, it may be hoped that they will be read with a 
 certain indulgence, more especially as regards particular turns of 
 expression. The matter will, it is believed, be found both interest- 
 ing and instructive, in tiie best sense of the words, whether the 
 conclusions of the writer in each case be adopted or rejected, while 
 the cliaracteiistic unconstraint and naivete of the style carries 
 with it an air of genuineness, which it is impossible to mistrust, and 
 which may well atone under all the circumstances for its occasional 
 fi'eedom.
 
 AZOTES OA BIIOWN'S DICTIONARY OE 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 AARON. 
 
 " Aaron and Hur attended Moses to the top of the adjacent hill 
 and held up his hands, &c." 
 
 Should we understand this literally, or does it impl}' 
 that Moses, when faint in prayer, had his spirit 
 renewed by the united petitions of Aarou and Hur? 
 
 " Some good authors think the story of the heathen Mercury to 
 have been hammered out of Aaron's; but may we not with far 
 more edification consider him as a personal type of Jesus Christ ?" 
 
 Of all pious absurdities, I think that of converting 
 tlie Scripture characters into Grecian gods and heroes 
 the most preposterous. Wherein consists the identity 
 of Aaron and Hermes? Aaron had a rod converted 
 into a serpent. Mercury also bore a rod or caduceus 
 with serpents twisted about it. Aaron was eloquent. 
 Hermes is the orator of Olympus. It is better to 
 pursue the parallel no farther.
 
 '270 NOTES ON •' brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 Doubtless Aaron, as priest, typified the mediatorial 
 office of Christ ; but all the other correspondences are 
 false or forced. But the desire to find Christ not 
 only in all the law and all the prophets, but in all 
 the favoured persons of the Old Testament, though 
 overstrained, is an error on the safe side, very dif- 
 ferent fi'om finding Homer, Hesiod, and Ovid in the 
 Bible.* 
 
 * Though I reject as dangerous dallying with a serious subject that 
 stniiige fancy of certain commentators, which finds the roots of all 
 mythologies in Scripture history, — makes Joiilithah's daughter into 
 Iphigenia, .Mercury into Aaron, Hacchns into Moses and Noah, Isis into 
 the Ark, and will have it that the Iliad and Odyssey are jilagiarisms 
 from the llible,— I think It undeniable that the (j reeks, and in later 
 times the Romans, appropriated and localised every tale and tradition, 
 whether derived from the original settlers, or gathered in their inter- 
 course with other nations, and identified tlie astronomical and pantheistic 
 gods of the Egyptians and Orientals with their local heroes. How other- 
 wise can we account for the many .Jupiters, Venuses, Dianas, ller- 
 culoses, &c., which furnish so fair a topic for C'icero"s sceptical Cotta '! In 
 like manner our own ancestors formed their romantic mythology, — their 
 cycles of heroes. Round Tables, &c.; and told the same story a hundred 
 ways, varying the scene and circumstance to the desire of their nationality, 
 and not seldom Gothicising the old (ireek and Roman legends. Almost 
 (•very fiction has its duplicate or triplicate. Isis became lo, and Ceres 
 Diana and I'roserpine. The wanderings and lamentations of Isis for 
 her husband were transformed into Ceres' endless search for her daughter. 
 Tammuz, yearly wounded, communicated his attrilnites to a fair y(mth 
 of Cyprus. The mermaid Atargatis of Syria lielped to mctamori)hose 
 sea-born Aphrodite into a fish in the Giant's War. Sometimes the tale 
 is stolen without any alteration but of name. Thus Nisus aiul I'tcrelaus 
 have each a yellow lock of immortality, which is cut otT by tlieir respective 
 daughters, Scylla and Cometlio. This must remind one of Samson. 
 Danae intrusts her Perseus, Auge her Telejihus, to an ark on tlie ocean : 
 some say Bacchus was preserved in the same nianm;r. Nor are those 
 parallels, of which Plutarch wrote a book, confined to fable. The tale of 
 Damon and Pythias is told by J'olyicnus of livepheims and Eucritus - 
 Dionysius is tln' tyrant in both cases. Perillus was not the sole patentee 
 of the Brazen Bull; but Newton and Leibnitz (was it not?) both dis- 
 covered llu.\ions, and Priestley and I.av(jisier both decomposed water. 
 The story of the lloratii and Curiatii, witli the niurder of the sister, is 
 related of a certain Critolaus of 'I'egca, who fell in the battle at Ther- 
 mopyliH, between Antiochus and the Romans. I find that the imitators 
 of Phalaris and Perillus were -'Emylius Censorinns, Tyrant of .Eglsta, 
 and Aruntius Paterculus, who was baked in the Brazen Ilor.se himself 
 had made. — From one of the Author's Note Books.
 
 0^ HEATHEN TRADITIONS. 271 
 
 ON HEATHEN TRADITIONS. 
 
 Metis, i. e., Counsel, was said to be the first wife of 
 Zeus. ApoUodorus iuforuis us that she gave Saturu 
 au emetic which made him disgorge his children 
 whom he had swallowed. Hygiuus, I believe it is, 
 asserts, that her worthy husband eat her in the first 
 month of her pregnancy, for fear she should produce 
 a child wiser than its father. The thunder-god had 
 sore need to be apprehensive of his offspring, seeing 
 how he and his sire before him obtained the monarchy 
 of heaven ; but this foreboding had as little or as ill 
 an effect on his morals as the equally reasonable 
 alarms of the Malthusiaus on their disciples of the 
 present day. These Mvdot may be allegorical, but 
 they do not say much for that exquisite purity of 
 taste which we are told our youth are to derive from 
 the classic writers ; neither do they testify that beau- 
 tiful imagination wliich has half paganised many 
 scholars, and persuaded some almost to regard 
 Christianity as a vulgarising destructive,— a puritan 
 iconoclast. Unquestionably the genius of Greece was 
 beautiful. Doubtless her intellect was subtle and 
 powerful as the liglitiiing. Her sages had a passion- 
 ate, a love-sick yearning after ideal triilli, which they 
 strove in vain to body forth in the gross material of 
 worlilly policy. But whatever of beauty or of moral 
 wisdom the poets or the philosophers infused into 
 the popular religion, was an insoititious graft, a light, 
 a hue and radiance like that of the sun reflected on
 
 272 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible," 
 
 the everlasting front of the Alps and Andes, ■which 
 fails to fertilise Avhat it illumines. Writers on 
 mythology have not been sufficiently careful to sepa- 
 rate what was in its origin poetical or philosophic — 
 however it may have gained common credence in 
 process of time — from the traditional groundwork 
 of polytheism, or, rather, Hylozoism on the one 
 hand, and the commemorative-symbolic mystic cere- 
 monies of the sacerdotal religion on the other. Many 
 of the popular fancies — and those the most pleasing 
 — were no more propei'ly religious, not more essential 
 portions of Hellenic heathenism, than the ordeals, 
 judicial combats, the giants, dragons, and fairies of 
 medieval romance were portions even of monastic 
 Christianity. The priests availed themselves of both, 
 but neither heathenism nor popery were involved in 
 either. The allegoric figments of the Pythagoreans 
 and Platonists have their correlatives in the Tiosi- 
 crucian and Paracelsian inventions of the 16th and 
 17th centuries. To the sacerdotal craft and to the 
 quackeries of Egypt and Syria I ascribe most of 
 what is obscene, bestial, and bloody in the ancient 
 worship; though there is sad evidence how much the 
 minds of the poets themselves were polluted and 
 sensualised by the contamination of an idolatry 
 adapted to the worst part of liuman nature, the 
 corruption by which mankind are made slaves to the 
 vilest of their sinful species. Fables like this of 
 IMetis, of Erichthonius, &c., very closely resemble 
 some of the foul conceits of the Rabbins, adopted by 
 Mohammed, probably to conciliate the Judaised
 
 CEEEDS OF HUMAN INVENTION. 273 
 
 Arabs. Those filthy dreamers hid their doctrine, as 
 beetles wrap their eggs, in dung. 
 
 Between the true words of God and all creeds 
 of human invention, you will find this striking 
 difference. The truth is ever pui-est at the source ; 
 nothing can be added or taken away without impair- 
 ing its excellence. Whereas, falsehood is corrupt at 
 the fountain ; muddy, salt, and pestilential : and 
 whatever of beauty or seeming good appears in 
 heathen systems, is superinduced by the endeavours 
 of men — not wholly evil — to accommodate their 
 belief to their reason and kindlier affections. But 
 the polluted stream never can run itself wholly 
 clean ; nor can all the freshness of tributary rills, 
 derived from the ancient mountains of righteousness, 
 do more than disguise, not correct, its aboriginal 
 poison. Whereas, the river of Heaven, whatever 
 swamps it may be constrained to traverse in its 
 course — whatever drains and sewers may discharge 
 their ti'ibute of city-bred uncleanness into its channels 
 — whatever dirty trades may be exercised on its 
 banks — though it be even compelled to turn the huge 
 factories of worldliness — urges onward to eternity, 
 overbearing all the moles and dams constructed to 
 arrest its speed, or make profit of its power, and 
 depositing every unwholesome and extraneous mix- 
 ture, is continually regaining the bright transparency 
 and life-bestowing sweetness wherewith it issues from 
 beneath the throne of God. 
 
 " None are all evil." Man is, necessarily, ori- 
 ginally sinful ; and, alas ! he is daily sinning. Yet, 
 
 VOL. II. T
 
 {^74 NOTES ON " brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 neither origiual sin, nor actual guilt, has utterly 
 defaced that divine image in which he was created. 
 Even under the deadly weight of ignorance and 
 error, of savagery or of idolatry, the good soil will 
 put forth fair flowers and wholesome fruits ; seeds of 
 beauty and of truth insinuate themselves between 
 the crannies of the ruin, and smile amid the heaps 
 of desolation. God left not himself without witness, 
 even in the isles of the Gentiles ; not only the 
 fields, the streams, the pleasant seasons, but the 
 hearts and imaginations of men, bore testimony to 
 His unconquerable love. Among the immortal inha- 
 bitants of the White Island, were the brothers 
 Amphinomus and Anapius, who, when Catana was 
 overflowed with lava-flames, and all were flying in 
 the selfishness of irresistible terror, took their aged 
 parents on their shoulders, resolved to save or perish 
 with them. It is said that the subterranean fire 
 respected their piety, and that Pluto, after their 
 death, placed them in that happy abode, of which 
 they were far meeter denizens than Achilles, Ajax, 
 or other rawboned homicides, whose only claim to 
 immortality was the multitudes whom they had 
 qualified for it. It is good to believe such tales as 
 this ; nor should they be exiled from history, because, 
 whether facts or not, they are truths; truths, perhaps, 
 the more important, if they be truths of the imagi- 
 nation only, for they are indices of the moral feeling 
 in which they originated. What matters it whether 
 the suicide of Lucrctia ever occurred in such a year 
 ab urhe conditd ? The truth that a great nation
 
 FABULOUS TRADITIONS. 275 
 
 esteemed the violation of woman's chastity a justify- 
 ing cause for the expulsion of a royal line, is worth 
 a hundred facts, though they were as certain as most 
 historic details are questionable. Of course, I speak 
 of accredited tradition, not of avowed fiction. Silius 
 has done well in preserving the legend of Amphino- 
 mus in his too historical poem, which, however, is 
 well worth more general reading than it obtains : — 
 
 " Turn Catana, uimium ardenti virina Typhoeo, 
 Et generasse pios quondam celeberrima fratres." 
 
 Ver. 196. 
 
 " Then Catana, too near the mount of flame. 
 Which erst the pious brethren gave to fame." 
 
 If the ancients were ignorant of that pure, reli- 
 gious love, which it is usual to ascribe to chivalry, — 
 though it is rather to be imputed to the influence of 
 Christianity, or the Teutonic veneration for woman- 
 hood, — they certainly knew of what heroic self-sacri- 
 fice woman is capable. Witness Homer's Penelope, 
 Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Alcestes. The 
 story of Androclea and Alcida, who, when Thebes 
 was hard pressed by the Orchomenians, and their 
 father, Antiprenans, refused to devote himself in 
 compliance with a blood-demanding oracle, gave up 
 themselves for a propitiatory offering, and were held 
 in high worship by their grateful countrymen, is of 
 a "mingled yarn." That any god should demand 
 the blood of innocence for the gratification of a 
 malicious appetite, is the most hateful of misbeliefs ; 
 for such a god, if such there were, would be a 
 devil. That the supreme powex's are propitiated by 
 
 t2
 
 276 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible. 
 
 voluntary sacrifice, by tlie might of love displayed 
 
 iu willing suffering, is a blessed— a divine truth, 
 
 hideously deformed and perverted by — no matter 
 
 whom. Hercules was quite right in dedicating a 
 
 lion in Diana's fane to honour those heroic virgins ; 
 
 and Pausanias should be commended for relating 
 
 their story. Why is not Pausanias, at least in 
 
 translation, studied at the Universities? Much of 
 
 the best of the ancient literature is neglected, where 
 
 little else is taught. 
 
 From one of the Author's Note-hooks. 
 
 ABOMINATION. 
 
 " Incense is an abomination to God, and the solemn meeting is 
 iniquity. The mere observance of the Jewish ceremonies after 
 their abolishment b_r the gospel, was iu God's account highly 
 detestable and criminal." 
 
 I KNOW not how it can be proved that the cere- 
 monial law was abolished by the gospel. It never 
 had any saving or purifying power in itself. As a 
 covenant, it was merely national and temporal. It 
 was binding on the Jews, like any other national 
 law, and the more cogent as the legislator was not 
 man, but God. It was obligator^' on the Jews so long 
 as they remained a state, and for aught that I can 
 understand, would and will be obligatory on them 
 should they become a state again. Upon the Gen- 
 tiles it never had any greater obligation than upon 
 Christians at this moment. Whatever was imputed 
 for sin to the Gentiles, whether it were omission or 
 commission, is sinful still ; sinful in the unconverted
 
 ABOMINATION. 277 
 
 heathen, and doubly sinful in professing Christians, 
 only because they sin against a fuller light of 
 knowledge. But no one, I should hope, at least, 
 considers uncircumcisiou any sin in the Hindoo, any 
 more than circumcision is a merit in the Moslem. 
 The ancient Egyptians and Colchians ■were circum- 
 cised ; so, I believe, were many of the pagan Arabs 
 before Mohammed ; yet they were not the more 
 included in the Old Testament covenant. Their 
 circumcision, not being commanded, pleased not 
 God ; neither did the uncircumcision of the Greeks 
 and Romans, on whom the seal and sign of the 
 ancient covenant had never been imposed, offend 
 Him. Christianity abrogated no duty where it even 
 had been a duty, neither for Jew nor Gentile. It is 
 obvious that the Apostles, in their own country, at 
 least, observed all the rites of the law. This was 
 never a question. The dispute was, whether the law 
 was to be enforced upon the gentile converts; whether, 
 in short, they might be received as Christians with- 
 out becoming Jews ; and against this oppression the 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles set his face like a flint; 
 not, however, because he thought any part of the law 
 detestable or criminal, but because he knew that no 
 part of it, considered simply as part of the Judaic 
 law, and exclusively of its natural and eternal righte- 
 ousness, or its fitness to the circumstances of the 
 converts, was binding or necessary, and tliat unne- 
 cessary commands and restrictions are superetitious 
 will-worship if imposed on ourselves, and tyranny if 
 enforced upon others. The moral law all, indeed, are
 
 278 NOTES ON " BROWN S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 bound to obej' ; not, however, because it was the law 
 delivered through Moses, but because it is the ever- 
 lasting law of the divine, eternal, ever-living reason. 
 It was not on Sinai for the first time that God made 
 murder, theft, adultery, criminal ; nay, nor was Noah 
 the first to whom homicide was forbidden. God for- 
 bade murder when he gave man life ; adultery, when 
 he instituted marriage ; theft, when he sanctioned 
 the division of property. There is much, very much, 
 in the law of Moses which is not abrogated, much, at 
 least, which it is our impx-escriptable duty to obey. 
 But there are also some things in the laws of 
 Lycurgus, of the Twelve Tables, of the Salians and 
 Burgundians, some even in the Koran, which we are 
 equally bound to obey. We may be obligated to 
 believe much, nay, all of the so-called Apostles' Creed ; 
 but we are not obligated to believe anything only 
 because it is in any creed of mortal compilation. 
 No doubt, St. Paul does use the word "law" symboli- 
 cally for the moral law, the law written in the heart, 
 by which the essential antipathy of sin and righteous- 
 ness is discernible ; but this he does only as a con- 
 troversialist arguing with Jews, and adapting his 
 language to the habits and associations of those whom 
 he was addressing. 
 
 But whatever may be thought of my judgment in 
 this momentous question. Brown's interpretation of 
 Isaiah is glaringly wrong, and beside the question 
 altogether. Isaiah does not speak of times when 
 sacrifices were abrogated or superseded, but when 
 they were rendered abominable by the impurity and
 
 ARK. 279 
 
 idolatry of the offerers. Moses would have said 
 the same, under similar circumstances, without the 
 slightest reference to a promised period when sacri- 
 fices would no more be required. The highest 
 churchman might say as much of the sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper, if it were in like manner ren- 
 dered impious by the wickedness of the partakers. 
 
 ARK. 
 
 " The sorts of four-footed beasts which cannot live in the water, 
 are about 72, or as Calmet divides them, 130." 
 
 Neither Calmet nor the minister of Haddington 
 were profound zoologists. If a narrative altogether 
 supernatural and incredible, by all rules of probability, 
 however imperative upon faith, should be explained 
 at all, I should say that the animals in the ark were 
 patriarchal, or representative of genera. Thus a 
 single pair might be the stock, not only of the 
 different varieties of dog, but of the wolf, jackal, &c. 
 The cat and the tiger may in the ark have abode in 
 the same loins. So also of the weasel kind, &c. 
 This hypothesis will apply still more strongly to the 
 birds of the anserine, gallinaceous, passerine, corvine 
 species, &c. 
 
 No fact rests upon so strong a tradition as the Deluge, 
 and the preservation of the one family in the ark. 
 This may be called historical. But that all the animal 
 tribes of all climates, laying aside their antipathies 
 and changing their fierce and carnivorous natures
 
 280 NOTES ON " brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 as Home assures us they did), assembled on the eve 
 of the flood, and, entering the ark, abode in peace 
 together till the waters subsided, is what cannot be 
 credited on human testimony, except as a direct and 
 continuous miracle ; and, if a miracle, why endeavour, 
 by clumsy conjectures, to make it less miraculous, as 
 if supernatural power went in a go-cart ? 
 
 " Was not the Jewish ark typical of Jesus Christ ? " 
 
 With all my aversion to mystification, I am the 
 last to deny or undervalue the real and prophetic 
 mysteries of the old law. INIost awful was the 
 mystery of that holy ark ; but did it not rather 
 typify the Church ? and was not the Shechinah itself 
 not so much a type as an actual presence of the 
 divine Logos ? 
 
 ASIITAROTH. 
 
 No doubt Ashtaroth, like Isis, was natura naturans 
 — the female of the two great sexes that animate the 
 world, sometimes symbolised by the moon, sometimes 
 by the earth, sometimes by the lower atmosphere, as 
 distinguished from ZET2, the empyreal heaven, 
 sometimes the radical moisture, sea-born Cytherea. 
 It is by no means improbable that some mutilated 
 masked and desecrated recollection of Eve entered into 
 this compost of female idolatry : nor is it too much 
 to say that the christened Pagans retained this poly- 
 onymous she-deity, and worshipped her under the
 
 AZAZEL. 281 
 
 name of the Holy Virgin, in the same manner as 
 the Greeks engrafted the adventures of certain 
 Theban heroes on the ixvOol of the Oriental Hercules 
 and Bacchus, converted the Syrian Thammuz into a 
 smock-faced boy of Cyprus, and the Egyptian Isis 
 into the daughter of Inachus. Luckily, — say, rather, 
 blessedly, — enough of Christianity always remained 
 in the Church to preserve the adoration of the 
 Sanctissima Purissima from the obscene emblems, 
 and horrid impurities of the older idolatry. Mary 
 was exalted to the impersonate idea of pure maternity, 
 while Ashtaroth, Isis, the mother of the gods. 
 Aphrodite, the Roman Flora (who, whatever was the 
 origin of her festivals, clearly meant the productive 
 power of the earth, and not any individual prostitute), 
 became the mere representatives of carnality, fit 
 associates for Pan and Priapus. 
 
 AZAZEL. 
 
 "Our version rightly renders it the scape-goat'; Witsius, Cocceius, 
 and others will have it to signify Satan." 
 
 " That proud honour claim'd 
 
 Azazcl as his right, a cherub tall, 
 Who forthwith from tlie glittering staff unfurl'd 
 The imperial ensign, which, full high advanced. 
 Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind." 
 
 Paradise Lost, B. i. 
 
 No man is competent to edit Milton with the 
 illustrations he deserves and requires, who is not 
 acquainted with the demonology of the Rabbins and 
 of the early Christians, heretic as well as orthodox. 
 
 h
 
 282 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible." 
 
 According to the Arabians, Djimn-Azazil is the highest 
 order of angels, whereof Eblis was chief before his fall. 
 
 BAAL. 
 
 OvK €Kaix\j/av yovv rf/ BdaA. Erasmus and Beza 
 plausibly account for the feminine article Trj by under- 
 standing duovi, " they have not bowed a knee to 
 the image of Baal," which, as Baal was a mere non- 
 entity, was all they could bow to. So, too, Pasor. 
 But would it be speculating further than most 
 expositors take the liberty of doing, if we suppose 
 St. Paul, by the feminine prefix, meant to insinuate 
 the real object to which the Baalites of Elijah's time 
 did bow — to wit, Jezabel? Seriously speaking, I 
 believe idolatry, as practised by the princes of Israel 
 and their flatterers, to have been merely political, — 
 an anti-national treason, — to which they were induced 
 partly by the desire to be in the fashion of other 
 Ivings, partly by dislike of the control of the law 
 and of the priests, while the multitude were allured 
 by the gorgeous sensualism of the idolatrous rites, 
 by discontent at the priestly government and demands, 
 and the common partiality of the ignorant for con- 
 jurors, fortune-tellers, and, in general, for religion 
 without morality. 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 The Church of England is express and admirable
 
 BASHAN. 283 
 
 in its article on infant baptism, which it enforces, as 
 most agreeable to the practice of ancient times. 
 Now, we may always assume that the practice of 
 ancient times was agreeable to apostolic institution, 
 when the contrary cannot be proved. But he who 
 asserts that infant baptism is enforced, recommended, 
 or even allowed by any text of Scripture, says the 
 thing that is not ; a course to which our divines are 
 too often impelled by their ultra-Protestant deter- 
 mination to find their whole discipline and practice, 
 as well as their creeds, in the letter of the Bible. 
 
 BASHAN. 
 
 " God's bringing his people from Bashan, a hill on the east, and 
 the depths of the sea on the west, imports his recovery of the Jews 
 from captivity," &c. 
 
 If, as is generally and probably supposed, the 
 68th Psalm were uttered on the bringing up of 
 the ark of the covenant to Zion, as described in 
 2 Sam., vi., 1 Chron., xiii. xv., it can only refer 
 typically, not histoiically, to the captivity and dis- 
 persion. But the historical sense, if not all, is 
 sufficient. It is strictly in poetical order, that the 
 Psalmist should first bethink him of the smaller and 
 more recent struggles of the Israelites with their 
 eastern borderers, designated collectively by Bashan, 
 as an English minstrel of the north country might 
 designate the Scotch marauders as Ettrick or 
 Galloway, and then mount to the primai7 and
 
 '-284 NOTES ON •' brown's dictionary of the biblk." 
 
 miraculous deliverance through the Rod Sea. From 
 the mention of the Temple, ver. 29, I have been half 
 induced to think that the psalm was produced when 
 the ark was deposited in the Temple by Solomon, 
 but on second thoughts I reject the supposition. 
 David had thought of being himself the builder of the 
 Temple, which was forbidden him, for a reason which 
 the author of the thanksgiving ode should have laid 
 to heart. Besides, the Hebrew may not necessarily 
 imply a temple, but any fixed place of divine wor- 
 ship. The psalm altogether makes me sorely repent 
 my neglect of Hebrew, which I wish I may yet have 
 time and means of repairing. Louth himself con- 
 fesses, " nobilissimo poemati plurimas insidere obscu- 
 ritates." The discrepancies between the two authorised 
 versions are perplexing, especially in the sixth verse. 
 I wish I could 6nd that any good MS. or ancient 
 version (I set much by ancient versions) justified the 
 Prayer-book reading ; for truly it is God that maketh 
 men to be of one mind in a house, and He alone 
 can. The thirteenth verse I would I might, with due 
 respect to the text, refer to the ark itself, recovered, 
 all glittering and glorious, from its captivity and exile. 
 
 BATS. 
 
 " Bats, being unclean under the law, might rcprceent persons 
 fearful, unbelievers, ignorant, and hypocritically wicked." 
 
 Rather, I should say, they represented half-believers. 
 
 I
 
 BEASTS. 285 
 
 almost Christians, neither fish, flesh, nor good red- 
 herring; haunters of the twilight between faith and 
 infidelity, that shrink from tlie full sun of the gospel, 
 — that flit about, not on the natural wings of faith, 
 but on a sort of pseudo-ptern. The inhabitants of 
 Borsippa, who fed on bats, did not much regard the 
 Mosaic law, which, nevertheless, I have little incli- 
 nation to violate in this case. Linnseus honours the 
 bat by placing it among the Primates, along with 
 man, the ape, and the lemur. 
 
 BEASTS. 
 
 Beasts want speech, because they want discourse of 
 reason, — because their impressions are as ours would 
 be, if we had not reason, single, unconnected, or 
 connected by mechanical associations only. Beasts 
 do speak, i. c, they have evidently some mode of 
 communicating their wants and wishes to each other 
 and to man. Dogs even go so far as to communicate 
 facts. They have words, whether those words be 
 expressed by sounds, or by gestures, or by smell ; 
 but they have no language, or a language in which 
 it is impossible that there should be any grammar. 
 The case of parrots imitating human utterance is 
 altogether out of point and logic ; for if beasts could 
 speak rationally, it by no means follows that they 
 would speak as men do. It is possible they might 
 have a very perfect language, as rich and various,
 
 286 NOTES ON " brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE.'" 
 
 and with a grammar as artificial as the Greek, and 
 yet not utter any sound. Darwin's notion that clear 
 ideas come by handling, though bizarre enough, is 
 more plausible than the hypothesis that reason is the 
 child of speech. 
 
 BEETLE. 
 
 That the word Chargol does not mean the black- 
 beetle, or the diamond-beetle, or the mantis, much 
 less the cantharide beetle, I am confident ; but what 
 it does mean I believe will never be the subject of a 
 stoical KaTdk-i]\j/Ls. This is the less to be regretted, 
 as few persons, will probably avail themselves of 
 the permission to eat the Chargol. Yet it is hard 
 to say. Lalande, the astronomer, was fond of 
 munching great spiders. Children in South America 
 pull the hideous scolopendras out of their holes, and 
 cranch them with high gusto ; so at least says " the 
 Voice of Humanity." I have heard that the Indian 
 soy is partly composed of a sort of beetle. According 
 to Herodotus, the Budini, a Scythian tribe, who 
 painted themselves blue and red, like our British 
 ancestors, (jyOnpoTpayiovcnv \xovvol tmv ravrri, were 
 the only louse-eaters in those parts. Whether this 
 remarkable diet produced the same effect as that of 
 tlie acridophagi, who were devoured at forty by 
 locusts of their own breeding, we are not informed. 
 Indeed, I suspect the integrity of the text. I have 
 little doubt it should be Kpeorpayeoucri, or something
 
 BEHEMOTH. BERYL. 287 
 
 equivalent. Not that the eating, what has eaten 
 so many philosophers, is itself so incredible, but 
 it does not follow from the context ; and though a 
 hexapede may be very well for a relish, I can 
 hardly suppose them abundant enough anywhere to 
 compose the staple article of food. It is said that 
 in 1688 there was a plague of cockchafers, county 
 Galway, and that the people, to whom they left little 
 else to eat, dressed and eat them after the manner of 
 locusts. 
 
 BEHEMOTH. 
 
 I DO not believe Behemoth was either an elephant 
 or a hippopotamus. We shall find him, and leviathan 
 too, in a fossil state by-aud-bye. 
 
 BERYL. 
 
 That the Hebrews had a language of jewels, as 
 some of the modern Orientalists have a language of 
 flowers, and as heraldry has a language of colours, I 
 have no doubt ; but it was a language which modern 
 commentators have not learned to read. The subject 
 is worth study. The magical properties ascribed to 
 gems by the Arabs and other Orientals, have no 
 scriptural foundation.
 
 288 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible. 
 
 BIBLE. 
 
 I AM iuformcd that my grandfather, John Coleridge, 
 assisted by a German, whose name I forget, but 
 whom S. T. Coleridge met in Germany, had no 
 small hand in the labour of Kennicott's Bible. Sic 
 vos non vobis* 
 
 BIRD. 
 
 " Our translation liken? the Jews to a speckled bird, and the 
 Chaldeans to ravenous birds ; but might not the sentence be 
 better rendered : Mine heritage is unto nie as a fierce and wild 
 hya;na, — has abused my kindness, and returned me hatred for my 
 love. ' Tlierefore every ravenous beast is upon lier.^ " — Jer. xii. 9. 
 
 Utterly unacquainted with the Hebrew text, I ven- 
 ture to prefer the authorised translation, as presenting 
 a much more natural and coherent image. " Mine 
 heritage is unto me as a speckled bird ; all the birds 
 round about are against me." I know nothing about 
 speckled, but I venture to interpret it a mongrel, 
 or hybrid bird, — a bird strange to the birds of the 
 forest. Now the tendency of wild birds to attack 
 any exotic who may have made his way to the wood, 
 has been remarked by naturalists, as well as fabulists ; 
 but for a poetic or prophetic illustration, popular 
 
 • But it is not the labour of sucli undertakings, or even the skill, in 
 wliicli tlie credit of them mainly consists, but the first conception, and 
 the subsequent direction of them. — D. C.
 
 BITTEKN. 289 
 
 credence, or a well-known fable, would be sufficient 
 authority. And what could more resemble Israel 
 seeking the alliance and society of the Gentiles, who 
 hated and scorned her, than such a stray party, 
 coloured fowl, consorting with, and pecked at by the 
 natives of the wood. 
 
 BITTERN. 
 
 ** Nineveh and Babylon became a, possession for the bittern, when 
 the spot was partly turned into a fen, or pool of water, Isaiah xiv, 
 23, and xxi, 1. — Zeph. ii. 14. But the Kippod is by some inter- 
 preters rendered an owl, an osprey, a tortoise, a beaver, and 
 Bochart will have it a hedge-hog." 
 
 Here again I must declare my adhesion to our 
 own good Bible. " I will also make it a habitation for 
 the bittern, and pools of water ; " a prophecy wondei'- 
 fully fulfilled, as good Father Rollin has shown. 
 The beaver, it might be said, would suit the pool as 
 well as the bittern. Let us try Zephaniah : " And 
 flocks shall lie down in the midst of her (Ninevehj, 
 all the beasts of the nations (perhaps alluding to the 
 hordes of Kurdes and Turcomans, and Arabs, that 
 frequent the lands where Babylon and Nineveh were 
 once) ; both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge 
 in the upper lintels of it." Here I prefer the mar- 
 ginal reading, "chapiters ; " unclean fowl should roost 
 on the capitals of fellen pillars. Whether the word 
 Kaath be here rightly rendered cormorant, or rather 
 pelican, as in the margin, is of the less moment as 
 both are birds frequenting wateiy places. At all 
 
 VOL. u. D
 
 290 NOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 events, the bittern is more naturally coupled with 
 either cormorant or pelican, than tortoise, hedgehog, 
 or owl. It may be objected, that in a preceding verse 
 the Prophet declares that Nineveh shall be made 
 a desolation, and dry like a \nlderness ; but this 
 must cither be understood of the remoter territor}% 
 or of wells and canals choked up with rubbish, 
 or express not physical siccity, but that uufruit- 
 fulness which in the desert results from want of 
 moisture ; not that the Tigris, on which Nineveh 
 stood, and by which its drunken inhabitants were 
 overwhelmed, should become suddenly dry, though 
 some of its ancient branches may be no more 
 discernible. 
 
 CHRISTIANS. 
 
 " They, by divine direction, first received this designation at 
 Antioch." 
 
 Where did Mess John discover that the name 
 Christians was bestowed by Divine appointment, 
 more than the names Whiggamore, Ranter, Whistler, 
 Quaker? Does he conclude the Divine imposition 
 of the name from the ambiguity of the verb yjjruxa- 
 riVai, which sometimes does signify oraculum edere? 
 There can be no rational doubt that the name was 
 given in the same spirit of mockery wherein Pilate 
 called Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews. But it 
 never occurred to me before this morning, June 2nd, 
 1847, when I read it in the Athenaeum, that
 
 CHRISTIANS. 
 
 '291 
 
 XpifTTtavbs, being in form a Latin, not a Greek, 
 derivative, must have been invented by persons 
 familiar with the Latin language, who hearing the 
 believers, who probably assumed no distinctive appel- 
 lation to themselves, preaching 'IrjfroSs as 6 XpCaTOi, 
 and invoking 'Irjaov Xpi(TT€, and not Imowing that 
 XpCaTos was the Greek translation of n^iya, or Mes- 
 siah, the expected Eedeemer and hope of all nations, 
 probably thought it the proper name of their founder 
 (as some nominal Christians fancy to this day), or a 
 god newly introduced into the Pantheon (as if the 
 invocation, 'Ijjo-oC Xptore, were like lo Poean, or lo 
 Bacche), or else some magical, or cabalistic, or merely 
 cant word. Thus the Russians call the English 
 Isaakis, from their frequent repetition of I say. 
 
 The word yjnaTiavo^ occurs but three times in 
 the New Testament, and never in such position as 
 to induce a belief that it was adopted as a generic 
 name by the Church itself, whose members spoke of 
 each other as 'A8eA(/)ot, Yliaroi, "Aytoi. 
 
 1st. — Acts xi. ^(i: Eye't'ero'6e yj)riiiaTi(TaL irpGirov 
 ev Ayrtoxeta tovs jxaOi'jTa^ xpLaridvov^. X[)riixaTi(rat 
 in the neuter passive sense, " to be called," " nuu- 
 cupari," does not seem to be very common. Beza 
 and Scapula cite but one instance in illustration of 
 the text, and that from Plutarch De Virtutibus Mulie- 
 rum (a treatise that ought to be edited with copious 
 prolegomena, notes, illustrations and translation, and 
 printed on satin, gorgeously bound by Mv. Westley, 
 and laid at the feet of her Majesty). Plutarch 
 says, that among the Xanthiaus children are named 
 
 u 2
 
 892 NOTES ON '* brown's dictionary of the bible." 
 
 X/)»7iuanXeti',* after the mother, not after the father. 
 The old Latin ♦' cluere " and English " hight " are 
 something similar. Erasmus's suggestion that XPV' 
 jwart'^etr, in this sense comes cltto tov xp'/Mcitos, 
 because folks were called after their trades, is unsatis- 
 factory. From Romans vii, 3, MoixciAt? \prjfxaTi(Tii, 
 I should render it, " got the name," but non crat his 
 locus. 
 
 2nd. — Heb. xxvi. 28; 'Ev oAtyw }j.e Tret^ets XP'" 
 (TTiavov yiveaOai. It is very likely that some justice 
 or other may have told George Fox or William Penn 
 that he was almost persuaded to become a Quaker, 
 but this did not prove that the nickname Quaker was 
 given by Divine appointment, or that it was assumed 
 by the disciples of Fox at all 
 
 3rd. — 1 Peter iv. 15, IG: " Let not any of you suffer 
 as a murderer, a thief, or malefactor," ?/ cus aAAorpto- 
 e7ri<TK07To?, as a pretender to rights of episcopacy or 
 surveillance in what does not concern him. Et" 6e 
 (US \pi(TTiavos jut) oX(J\pov diaOoi, plainly implying, 
 that Christian, a name in which the believer in Jesus 
 as the Anointed One should glory, had been given 
 by the world as a name of derision. Had the pri- 
 mitive Church taken a name from their Lord it 
 would rather have been 'iTjo-otiirai, or, better, ^Irjcrov- 
 XptcfTLavoi, than simply xptcrrtayot. They were, how- 
 ever, perfectly right to adopt and sanctify the inven- 
 tion of heathen scorn. 
 
 Beza's misomonachal oestrum stings him in his 
 
 • t^ofios i)v Tols =,afdi6ts f^ri ■Ko.TpddiV, aWa awh jxriTpos 
 
 XPTllMTl^ftl/.
 
 CHURCH. 293 
 
 comment on Acts xi. 26. After justly observing that 
 the naming of the body of Christ after its head gave 
 no countenance to the naming of sects after their 
 numerous doctors, as Luthei-ans, Calvinists, Zuing- 
 lians, &c., he falls tooth and nail on the Jesuits : 
 " Divinitus autem factum est ut locustte, quos nostra 
 meraoria puteu? Abyssi evomuit, callide pro monachis, 
 et a suo Ignatio Ignatianis, Clerici societatis Jesu, 
 et Jesuitae voluerint cognominari : sic nimirum impm- 
 dentes testati, dum commune Christianorum nomen 
 fastidiunt, se novum Jesum, qui non sit Christus, 
 sectari, et eum esse clerum, qui minime sit Chris- 
 tian us." From the same note I learn a fact, and an 
 etymology of which I was not before aware. " lis 
 vero quid facias, qui non tam a Christo, quam ab illo 
 suo idolo (Chrismate inquam illo quod etiara salutare 
 et plenis buccis adorare non pudet) se Christianos 
 dici contendunt?" But were there any such ? Has 
 not Beza taken a flight of rhetoric (plenty such like 
 are to be found in his own hallucinations) for a 
 serious assertion ? I can forgive honest John Brown, 
 and like him the better for all his vagaries of zeal, 
 but I can only forgive Beza. 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 " Above a million of them (the Waldenses) were slain." 
 
 In the statistics of massacres and persecutions it 
 is generally safe to divide by 5. Men must increase in 
 more than geometrical ratio to supply the insatiable 
 appetite of martyrologists.
 
 294 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible." 
 
 COCKATRICE. 
 
 The cockatrice is not the only fabulous creature 
 referred to in Scripture. The sacred writers were 
 not members of the Zoological Society ; and, if they 
 had been, still they might, like other poets, allude 
 to animals whose sole existence was in popular belief. 
 
 COLLOPS. 
 
 "To have coUops of flesh on one^s flavks {Job, xv, 27,) is 
 expressive of great prosperity and luxur)'." 
 
 Elegant ! Now, these phrases never offend a just 
 and pure taste when read in their place of Scripture ; 
 but wlien stuck in solitary state in concordances or 
 dictionaries, or quoted in sermons, or dilated in com- 
 mentary or paraphrase, they become ludicrous, if not 
 disgusting, as any one who is well-read in Quarles 
 and other simple, pious writers of the IGth and 17th 
 centuries, and with metrical pai*aphrases in general 
 (Blackmore's on Job, for instance), may satisfy them- 
 selves. The collops might perhaps have been soft- 
 ened in the translation. Collops are slices of flesh 
 cut off, and, therefore, cannot be properly said of 
 flesh on the flanks. The passage lias an anthro- 
 pophagous sound, from which I doubt not the Hebrew 
 is clear. A polite preacher, for "collops," would read 
 " cotelets."
 
 CONCUBINES — COTTAGE — ELIAKIM. 295 
 
 COTTAGE. 
 
 " The earth shall be removed like a cottage" — Isaiah, xxiv, 20. 
 
 From this simile we may conjecture that the prac- 
 tice of depopulation, the laying together of small 
 properties in sheep-walks, parks, and chases, and of 
 course the demolition of small tenements, was one of 
 the sins that brought the wrath of God upon the 
 house of Israel. (See Isaiah, v. 8 ; Job, iii. 14.) 
 
 ELIAKIM. 
 
 " Was he not a type of Jesus, our great Minister of State, and 
 who is over the wliolc household of God ? Doth He not succeed 
 a treacherous Adam ? " &c. 
 
 No ; unless it be insisted that every office of the 
 Jewish Court was typical. 
 
 Surely there was no resemblance between the un- 
 successful mission of Eliakim and the great embassy 
 of Jesus. Shebna bore no great resemblance to the 
 first Adam, who, though sinful, was not treacherous. 
 
 In Isaiah there are prophecies of the Saviour, 
 clear and irrefragable ; but, in what relates to Eliakim, 
 I can see nothing but the natural exultation of a 
 Hebrew patriot for the removal of a corrupt minister 
 and the appointment of an honest successor. All 
 that is said of Eliakim has a palpable reference to 
 his official duties as treasurer, and chamberlain, and 
 butler. There is also an allusion to his favour with 
 the king, his influence in the disposal of royal
 
 296 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary op the bible." 
 
 bounties, and the prosperity of his family and kindred. 
 The 24th verse is not very perspicuous, at least as 
 translated. It seems to allude primarily to his 
 charge over the king's plate, and figuratively to the 
 dependence of the weaker members of his father's 
 house, perhaps of the state at large, the vessels of small 
 quantity, upon his integrity, and the security of his 
 [remaining] in the king's good graces. The 25th 
 verse seems to foretell his fall, and that of all his 
 followers, but possibly the denunciation may be 
 levelled against Shebna. 
 
 Yet it must be owned that the obvious transfer of 
 Eliakim's office and authority to Him, that indeed 
 opens and none shall shut, goes a good way to justify 
 the interpretation of the chapter-heading. At all 
 events, the type was the keeper of the household, 
 not the pei"son Eliakim. 
 
 ENOCH. 
 
 " The book of Enoch stupidly maintained that, before the flood, 
 the angels, seeing the beautiful daughters of men," &c. 
 
 As for the stupidity which maintained the loves of 
 the angels and the Cainite women, it is a great 
 liberty with the text to deny it. I cannot see why a 
 cross between the race of Seth and of Cain should be 
 giants, which might naturally enough arise from the 
 union of superior natures with the daughters of men. 
 The supposition, which Moore has borrowed, I believe, 
 from the Rabbis, that the pure angelic essence
 
 ENOCH. 297 
 
 became gross and carnal by the operation of lust, is 
 by no means discordant with some parts of Scripture, 
 and is quite in the vein of the Fathers. Nay, do not 
 certain doctrines, held orthodox, imply that some 
 such derogation took place in the body of man him- 
 self, and, per contra, is it not a Catholic opinion that 
 the body may, by divine contemplation, discipline, 
 fasting, and virginity, attain, even in this world, to a 
 purity, a lightness, a sensibility to spiritual accesses 
 akin to the complexion of angels ; and is not our 
 vile body hereafter to be refined and glorified to 
 pure light, and become the instrument and vehicle of 
 celestial passions only. If flesh may be thus exalted 
 by holiness, may not spirit be proportionately debased 
 by lust — growing, by love of earth, earthy ? Heathen 
 tradition strongly supports this literal interpretation, 
 for which, however, I am far from vouching ; but 
 Mr. Brown should not have accused the book of 
 Enoch of stupidity. It is obvious to me that some 
 book, purporting to contain the history or prophecies 
 of Enoch, if not directly ascribed to him as author, 
 was extant in the time when Jude's epistle was 
 written. 
 
 FISH. 
 
 "What fish lo(lg:c(l the prophet Jonah in her hclly is not agreed, 
 &c. We know of no lish larger than the whale, except Bishop 
 Pontoppidan's kraken^^ &c. 
 
 The minister of Haddington should have had too 
 much respect both for Jonah and for the whale to 
 bring them into company with Pontoppidan, Nurem-
 
 298 
 
 bergius, the Kraken, and the bones brought from 
 Joppa, which, according to PHny, belonged to the sea- 
 monster, from whose jaws Andromeda was delivered 
 by Perseus, a supposition inconsistent with the fact 
 that the said monster was petrified by the new-severed 
 head of Medusa. To be serious, nothing is more 
 absurd in philosophy, nor more inexpedient in theo- 
 logy, than the stating or evading physical objections 
 to miracles, which are vi termini hyperphysical. 
 Such cavils are inadmissible even when opposed to 
 the most apocryphal davixara of heathens or monks. 
 
 GENEALOGIES. 
 
 " But since Jesus is come in the flesh there is no reason to give 
 heed to useless or endless registers of descent." {Titus, iii. 9.) 
 
 There could be no reasons for giving heed to use- 
 less registers at any time. The genealogies to which 
 St. Paul objects are not heraldic pedigrees, but the 
 heretical feons, — the endless genealogies of emana- 
 tions set forth by the Basilidians and others who 
 were not so much schismatic as counterfeit Christians. 
 They attempted to do what Mahomet succeeded in 
 doing — to set up a rival religion recommended by 
 clumsy or fantastic adoptions of Christian phrases, 
 but were no more Christians than the primitive 
 Anabaptists, Familists, &c., were Lutherans.
 
 GENEALOGIES — GIANTS. '^99 
 
 GIANTS. 
 " The Hebrews called them Nephilim." 
 It is not quite impossible that some vague tradition of 
 these Nephilim might give rise to the Greek fable of 
 the Centaurs, born of i^ec/je'Arj, a cloud. Many tales were 
 doubtless invented out of names, which the Greeks 
 always interpreted out of their own language. It is 
 more than probable that much of the antediluvian 
 and postdiluvian history is mystified in the earlier 
 mythology of Greece, but I can discern no traces of 
 Hebrew history, nothing later than the call of Abra- 
 ham. Iphigenia is not Jephtha's daughter, neither 
 is Bacchus Moses, nor Aaron Hermes, nor Pandora 
 nor Hermione Eve, nor Hercules Samson. 
 
 GOMER. 
 I WISH I could see Bochart's commentary on the 
 tenth chapter of Genesis. I deny not that Gomer 
 might be the ancestor of the Cymry and Gael, but the 
 name is a very uncertain index. The discoveries of 
 modern linguists, and diligent examination of inscrip- 
 tions, ruins, &c., may yet throw much additional 
 light on the primarj' distribution of the three great 
 races. Even the antiquities of a lost civilisation 
 beyond the Atlantic may give light backward over 
 tracts of ages, till we arrive finally at the tents of 
 the patriarchs. Of this I am confident, that the 
 more fearlessly and honestly the inquiiy is conducted, 
 the stronger and more satisfactory will be the con- 
 firmation of Scripture resulting from it in the end.
 
 300 NOTES ON " brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 JACOB. 
 
 " When the marriage came as a 'providenti.al punishment for 
 deceiving his dim-eyed father," &c. 
 
 Where is it asserted that this was a providential 
 punishment? Certainly not in Genesis. This hap- 
 hazard guessing at the motives of God's dealings 
 with his people is exceedingly presumptuous. Neither 
 in purchasing his brother's birthright, nor in fore- 
 stalling the blessing, does it appear that Jacob sinned 
 against the light that he possessed, any more than 
 in marrying two sisters. At all events the narrative 
 is not recorded by the Holy Spirit, either for 
 imitation nor for moral judgment, but to set forth the 
 purely proplietic and ministerial character of all 
 human, and especially sacei'dotal, blessings and curses. 
 It is not for man to bless or curse at his own dis- 
 cretion. Isaac could not be ignorant that to Jacob 
 was the promise given, and in attempting to bestow 
 it upon his own favourite, he sinned against his own 
 ghost. Neither father, bishop, priest, nor deacon, 
 can bless whom God has not blessed. Of course, 
 this consideration does not impose any new limita- 
 tion on the prayers of the church ; but prayers are 
 not authoritative blessings. Many articles of Jacob's 
 conduct, judged by Christian ethics, are more censur- 
 able or less excusable than his purloining the blessing ; 
 but to so judge them is not only to be wise beyond what 
 is written, but to show a pitiful narrowness of mind. 
 Morality, considered as a law of action, independent
 
 JACOB. 301 
 
 of, and prior to, all express moral science, "was as 
 unknown to the patriarchs of the house of Israel, as 
 the Newtonian system. They knew as little of ethics 
 as of Aristotle. To obey the express commands of 
 their Heavenly Father comprised their whole duty 
 of man. What had not been bond fide forbidden, 
 they conceived to be innocent, and to them it doubt- 
 less was so. They do not appear to have had any 
 notion of casuistiy or analogical reasoning. It were 
 ■well if human parents humbly imitated the All- 
 Father in His education of the chosen. Do as you 
 are bid is the one moral law that a child can compre- 
 hend, nor is any study, prematurely commenced, 
 more pernicious than that of ethical philosophy, 
 whether the utilitarian, the sentimental, or the ideal 
 system be adopted. 
 
 ISAAC. 
 
 Except in his sacrifice, which, as it was not actual 
 nor propitiator)', very imperfectly represents the death 
 of the Saviour, there is nothing typical in Isaac. 
 His birth, indeed, was miraculous, and he was a child 
 of promise, but in this he rather represented the 
 church than the Lord.
 
 302 NOTES ON " BEiOWN's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 " Isaiah's separate history of Uzziah's reign was uninspired, and 
 is now lost." 
 
 Where did the minister of Haddington learn that 
 Isaiah's history of Uzziah was uninspired? Rather 
 is it probable that those portions of it which had a 
 religious, and therefore permanent interest, were 
 extracted by Ezra or Nehemiah, omitting what was 
 mere civil history. For be it borne in mind, that 
 the books of Kings and of Chronicles do not contain 
 a history of the kingdom of Israel, but only of its 
 theocracy. One point only is kept in view, i. e., the 
 proof that in the worship of Jehovah, and the 
 observance of the law, Israel was great and pros- 
 perous, and that every departure from the way of 
 the Lord was a step towards ruin and subjugation : 
 in short, that the Hebrew state, unlike the kingdoms 
 of the world, was ordained to flourish by righteous- 
 ness, and to decay by iniquity. Whatever in the 
 public transactions did not bear clearly and directly 
 upon this point, is either passed over, or slightly 
 alluded to. I think I can perceive the hand of 
 Providence in the loss of the merely civil and 
 military histories of Israel and Judah. Had they 
 survived, how many things might have been drawn 
 into precedent that were never so meant, to the 
 serious disturbance of policy and public morals.
 
 KID — LANGUAGE. 303 
 
 KID. 
 
 " A kid's flesh was never to be boiled in its mother's milk, as 
 that would have been an appearance of cruelty, and an imitation 
 of Heathen superstition." 
 
 What heathen superstition would have been imitated 
 by seething the kid in its mother's milk, I know not; 
 and as for the appearance of cruelty, I don't see that 
 it is crueller to boil a kid in milk than in water, nor 
 in its mother's milk than in any other milk. The 
 expression is plainly proverbial, and as the context 
 shows, meant simply, live and let live. Be content 
 with moderate gains. Do not grudge the Lord his 
 part, the stranger his part. Be content to shear 
 without flaying. I wish our sticklers for the rights 
 of property, our Harry Gills that gather up the dry 
 branches snapped by the charitable winds, lest the 
 poor should boil their porridge gratis, our church- 
 reformers and political economists, would remember 
 not to seethe the kid in its mother's milk. 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 " When we observe the simplicity and emphasis of the Hebrew 
 tongue," <Scc. 
 
 A BETTER argument for the primogeniture of the 
 Hebrew than any here adduced, is, that the names 
 of the antediluvians arc all significant in that 
 language. But tliough I believe the Hebrew, as 
 conveyed in the earlier books of Scripture, to be
 
 30-1 NOTES ON " brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 the oldest language now extant, either in speech or 
 writing, I am not quite so confident that it was the 
 primaeval. Moses might he directed to translate 
 the names. I see no reason for referring the 
 diversities of language to the miraculous confusion at 
 Babel. It is contrary to the analogy of the divine 
 dealings that any miracle should have permanent 
 effects. I am disposed to believe all dialects to be 
 corruptions of that which was innate in our first 
 parents. 
 
 LAUGH. 
 
 " God laughs at men," &c. 
 
 Plato is wrath at the ye'Acos ckt^^cttos of the gods 
 at Vulcan's performing the office of Hebe. Yet the 
 Hebrews did not scruple to ascribe laughter to a 
 God awful far above even Plato's conception — a bone 
 for your literal expositors. The Spartans had a 0e6s 
 FeAcos, and yet they were a grave people. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 " The invention of letters is so marvellous and useful tluit I am 
 almost tempted to believe God himself the author of it, perhaps in 
 the tables of the Law." 
 
 If so, it is odd that the Bible does not mention it, 
 as it records the invention of music, metallurgy, and 
 nomadic life. As for the hypothesis that letters were
 
 LETTERS LEVI. 305 
 
 first used in the two tables, it is quite untenable. I 
 have no doubt that the Book of Job, if not the 
 earlier portions of Genesis, are older than the Law. 
 Moses refers to written characters as things known 
 and familiar. Can we suppose that so extraordinary 
 a revelation would not have been noted ? 
 
 LEVI. 
 
 That the seed of the murderer should be chosen to 
 the priestly office is subject for deep thought. It 
 strongly confirms the veracity of the books of Moses, 
 and the authenticity of Jacob's prophecies. Had the 
 blessings been coined, there can be little doubt that 
 the priestly race would be distinguished. 
 
 LUKE. 
 
 I HAVE as strong a belief as the case warrants that 
 the Gospel of St. Luke is the eldest of the four, 
 written during St. Paul's first visit to Rome, and 
 forming one work with the Acts of the Apostles. 
 1st. If there had been inspired or apostolic writings 
 on the life and docti-ines of Christ extant when Luke 
 composed his Gospel, would he have mentioned them 
 so slightly in his exordium as Tro'AAot, or could he 
 have been ignorant of their existence ? 2udly. Luke 
 is mentioned by St. Paul as famous for the Gospel. 
 This certainly is well explained, if we understand it 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 X
 
 300 NOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 of his written Gospel ; but it is an unusual phrase if 
 it only means famous as a preacher. 3rdly. The 
 Acts of the Apostles, evidently subsequent to Luke's 
 Gospel, were evidently finished soon after the period 
 at which the book closes ; probably while Paul was 
 at Rome for the first time : else why was not the 
 history carried forward ? But this is earlier than the 
 probable date of Matthew and Mark. Whether these 
 arguments should weigh against tradition, I will not 
 say. It is a matter of mere curiosity. 
 
 MAMRE. 
 
 Of the oak of Mamre, which, however, we are told 
 was not an oak, but a terebinth tree, Hebrew ailon, 
 there is some interesting intelligence in the Omniana, 
 to wit, that the Jews, the pagan Arabs, and the 
 Christians united in their reverence for it, and used 
 to assemble amicably, and perform their respective 
 rites, till Constantino put a stop to this impious 
 toleration. Eusebius is said to have been the 
 ecclesiastical commissioner in the case. A fair, no 
 uncommon offspring of religious pilgrimages on the 
 supposed locality of relics, was held under " the 
 trysting tree." Samitus, about a. d. 1300, says that 
 the tree was still in being in his age, though the 
 pilgrims were in the habit of cutting away pieces of 
 it, as less devout admirers have done from Shaks- 
 speare's mulberry. Some held that it was as old as 
 the creation ; others, that it was planted by Abraham,
 
 MAMRE. 307 
 
 and was the tree under which he entertained the 
 angels ; but the prettiest, and, therefore, in such a 
 matter, the best opinion is, that it grew from a staff 
 planted by one of the angels. 
 
 As a companion to the oak of Mamre, let me 
 introduce the bon Homme de Tatonville. Tatonville 
 must be a village near Houfleurs, at the mouth of 
 the Seine. About one hundred years ago the Seine 
 changed its course, and flowed close to the left bank 
 instead of kesping to the right, as it had done before, 
 and now does again. This change sorely perplexed 
 the pilots and steersmen, and many lives might have 
 perished but for the vigilance of an old pilot of 
 Tatonville, who, no longer able to buffet with the 
 currents, and expose his life to save others, resolved 
 not to abandon his vocation, but went before dawn, 
 and stayed till late at night on a far surveying hill, 
 calling aloud to any passing vessel, warning them of 
 the hidden and shifting sandbanks, and directing them 
 how to steer aright. When he felt at last " that 
 death with him was dealing," he prayed to God to 
 send one to take his place, whereupon his staff 
 took root, and became a tree, and still stands where 
 he was wont to stand, and is called le bon Homme de 
 Tatonville. One of its branches is so bent that it 
 seems to turn back almost to the stem, while another, 
 extended, points to the distance, and its foliage has 
 some resemblance to a large head with a sailor's 
 broad-brimmed hat upon it. The people made a 
 saint of the old man, and tell of the miracles wrought 
 by him. I hope the tree is still preserved, but 
 
 x 2
 
 308 NOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 all I know about it is from the review of a book 
 called "Excursions in Normandy," — Athenawn, 
 p. 729. 
 
 MANASSEH. 
 
 Nothing spoils a king or endangers a nation more 
 than a long minority. The worst Roman emperors, 
 Nero, Commodus, Heliogabalus, were mere boys on 
 their accession. Henry III., liichard II., Henry YI., 
 though not the worst, were among the weakest and 
 most unfortunate of our princes. Three long mino- 
 rities, those of Louis XIII., XIV. and XV., prepared 
 France for the Revolution. Joash is an instance of 
 a prince, virtuous in his youth, and corrupted after- 
 wards ; but it is to be feared be fell away as soon as 
 he felt his real power. Power, at all times perilous, 
 is trebly perilous in nonage. Nor is the matter much 
 mended if the exercise of authority be kept awhile 
 in abeyance. Tlie impatience to rule alone must 
 have an unfavoui'able influence on education, and he 
 must be of a weak spirit indeed who does not look 
 on his tutor with something akin to dislike. Indul- 
 gence corrupts, severity exasperates ; and flatterers 
 are always at hand to forestall the favours of majority. 
 The youth of Edward VI., thougli honourable to 
 himself, was not less disastrous to England, from the 
 unprincipled ambition of his regents Somerset and 
 Northumberland. Well does the Preacher say, 
 " Woe to thee, land, when thy King is a child," 
 Eccl. X. 10. The succession of brothers has certainly
 
 MAKNA. 309 
 
 some advantages over direct lineal inheritance. In 
 half barbarous or absolute states it is in a manner 
 indispensable. 
 
 MANNA. 
 Ehrenberg — whom I know nothing about, except 
 that his name and his naturalising of miracles de- 
 clares him German — supposes that the manna of the 
 Israelites flowed, and still flows, from the Tamarisk, 
 in consequence of the puncture of an insect of the 
 coccus kind. Some exudation of this kind is cer- 
 tainly among extant productions of nature ; but 
 Brown is right — we must believe the manna mira- 
 culous if we believe the Bible. 
 
 " Was not this manna a figure of Christ," &c. 
 
 That Christ is indeed the spiritual food of his 
 people, the bread of life that came down from Heaven, 
 what Christian knows not ? But I cannot approve 
 of this fashion of making a type dove- tail with its 
 antitype. Types and parables are like Homeric 
 similes. They go not on all fours. 
 
 Mr, Brown, who was probably a low sacramentarian, 
 makes no allusion to the mystery of the Eucharist, 
 in which Christ most eminently appears as the 
 spiritual manna, though St. Paul evidently justifies 
 this interpretation (1 Cor. x. 3), and many sayings of 
 Christ himself have the same bearing. Yet there is
 
 310 NOTES ON "BROAVN's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 something pleasing in the worthy minister's improve- 
 ments upon manna. We can never be far wrong in 
 giving a spiritual — a Christian significance, to the 
 miracles of mercy or of judgment, wrought under 
 the old dispensation. But in applying the merely 
 national and civil acts of the Jews under the law to 
 ourselves or to the Church, we may err perilously. 
 
 MARRIAGE, 
 
 " Polygamy is evidently contrary to the law of God." . 
 
 Contrary to the spirit of the Gospel certainly, but 
 not to any definite enactment. The strongest argu- 
 ment against polygamy, I never remember to have 
 seen distinctly stated. Man should never take a 
 liberty which he refuses to his correlative. It is 
 unjust to give the husband a privilege for which the 
 wife has no compensation. Now it is obvious that 
 to allow polygamy to both parties were to defeat 
 every purpose of marriage. The husband demands 
 the whole affection of the wife, and man's heart is 
 not so much larger than woman's that she should 
 give all, and be content with a fraction in return. 
 Neither is the love which can be satisfied with less 
 than all a just or satisfactory answer to such love as 
 a good man would bestow on her whom he makes 
 bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh : 
 
 " I 'A rather be a toad, 
 And feed upon the vapour of a dungeon, 
 Than keep a comer in the thing I love 
 For others' uses."
 
 ;marriage. 311 
 
 The true reason why polygamy was not absolutely 
 prohibited to the Patriarchs or to the Israelites under 
 the Mosaic dispensation, was that they had not 
 arrived at that point of moral and intellectual de- 
 velopment, at which the love that ought to subsist 
 between a Christian pair is possible. We must also 
 recollect the I'^w condition of women in all oriental 
 countries. Woman never began to take her just 
 place in society before Christianity. Even yet, she 
 has not fully attained it, — for Christianity, though in 
 its mysteries permanently complete, admitting neither 
 addition nor diminution, is, in its moral and social 
 influences, progressive, crescent, a germ continually 
 unfolding new leaves, blossoms, or fruits, subduing 
 things to itself by degrees and measures, eternally 
 appointed, yet continually promoted, by the free-will 
 of emancipated Christians. Christianity is not a law, 
 but a life, a power, and energising idea. Hence, too, 
 I conjecture the reason that Christ and his Apostles 
 have nowhere expressly prohibited polygamy, slavery, 
 or many other things undeniably adverse to the pure 
 docti'ine. The changes which the truth is to work in 
 positive laws, customs, and policies, are to proceed 
 from within, not to be forcibly imposed from without. 
 When the tree is made good the fruit will be good of 
 necessity. When we are really a Cliristian people, 
 we shall of necessity have a Christian state. Christian 
 rule, and Christian liberty. No possible good can 
 come of compelling men to act as Christians, before 
 they really are so. Popery, by forbidding marriage 
 to the clergy, did far more to impair the honour due
 
 31'2 NOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 to the nuptial state, to lower the standard of matri- 
 monial morals, than it compensated by making wed- 
 lock a ceremonial and typical sacrament, and referring 
 the whole management of it to the priesthood. If 
 marriage be not essentially holy — if it be contracted 
 on selfish, sensual, uusanctified principles, the per- 
 formance of the religious rite cannot hallow it, any 
 more than the swearing a falsehood can make it a 
 truth. 
 
 MARY MAGDALENE. 
 
 I 
 
 Lardner, in an epistle to Thomas Hanway, throws 
 discredit on the fact of Maiy ^Magdalene's identity with 
 the sinner, which seems to have no foundation in any 
 of the Gospels ; neither is it apparent that she was 
 the sister of IMartha and of Lazarus, who broke the 
 alabaster box of spikenard over the head of the 
 Saviour in the house of Simon the leper. Why, 
 indeed, should the Mary who dwelt in Bethany be 
 called of Magdala ? But I would not rashly upset a 
 popular belief which procures a certain measure of 
 pity, a glimmering of hope, for a most unhappy class 
 of beings. According to legendary history, Mary 
 Magdalene, with Martha, Lazarus, and many saints 
 besides, left Judaea, and arrived by sea at Marseilles, 
 where they made many converts ; so that Mary, to 
 avoid the press, withdrew, first to a grotto in the 
 rock whereon stood the Abbey of St. Victor, then to 
 Aygadales, where was founded a monastery of Carmes, 
 and finally to St. Beaume, where she ended her
 
 NUMBER. 313 
 
 days. Her first retreat was dedicated as a chapel to 
 Notre Dame de la Confession ; yet, though it might 
 seem appropi'iated to the sex, by, the inhabitation of 
 one female saint, and the protection of the very 
 sanctity of womanhood, no woman might enter therein 
 under pain of blindness. Queen Joan (of Naples, I 
 presume) was thus punished for her temerity, but 
 recovered her sight by putting a silver balustrade 
 round the image of the Virgin. The Beaume is a 
 romantic and interesting spot, visited, even in modern 
 times, by pilgrims, but with other feelings than 
 of old. 
 
 NUMBER. 
 
 I NEVER censure occult or abstruse learning when 
 applied to matters of avowed mystery. It is mystifi- 
 cation, not mystery, that I protest against. The 
 secret significances of numbers, as well as the lan- 
 guage of jewels, and the hieroglyphic import of 
 animals, should be devoutly studied by a commen- 
 tator on the Apocalypse, or Daniel, or Ezekiel, or 
 Zechariah. I suspect that the true prophetic key 
 once existed, but is lost, and may not be found till 
 all is fulfilled.
 
 314 NOTES ON "BKCWn's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 OPPOSITION. 
 
 " Oppositions of science, falsely so called, are the erroneous 
 principles of Heathen philosophy." 
 
 That no allusion whatever is made to heathen 
 philosoph}', I think pretty evident. I suspect the 
 word avTidea-L's has a technical meaning, and refers 
 to those vain antithetical distinctions and new-fangled 
 terminology, /3e/3?)Aous Kevoipoovias (j3e/3?jAous, per- 
 haps, as being borrowed from the heathen), under 
 which the nascent heresies already disguised their 
 unwillingness to submit to the austere simplicity of 
 the Gospel, — thus, dividing and opposing Jesus and 
 Christ, the Son of Mary and the Son of God, &c. 
 Science is not a good rendering of yvuxns, which 
 evidently refers to the Gnostics, who sought for an 
 esoteric Christianity. 
 
 ORACLES. 
 
 "The Heathen oracles were partly the illusions of Satan. He, 
 in the likeness of Samuel, predicted that, on the morrow, Saul and 
 his sons should be with him." {1st Sarmiel, xxyiii.) 
 
 Surely this is not said in Scripture. Yet I would 
 rather believe it were so than that Satan had 
 power to disturb the just that sleep in the Lord. 
 But this narrative admits an easy explanation, with- 
 out taking a greater liberty with the latter than is 
 here supposed. A learned collection, and philoso- 
 phical examination, of extra-scriptural oracles and
 
 ORACLES — PALM TREES. 315 
 
 predictions is a great desideratum, but hardly to be 
 expected from this age, when one party pique them- 
 selves on walking by sight, and another think that 
 an indiscriminate credulity is walking by faith. 
 
 PALM TREES. 
 
 The white willow, with its honied yellow blossoms, so 
 musical with bees, is in the north of England called 
 the palm. I have seen its branches carried on 
 Palm Sunday, in honour of our Saviour's entrance 
 into Jerusalem, a remnant of Catholic times I would 
 gladly see preserved. Many, I doubt not, actually 
 thought that these were the palms of Scripture ; but I 
 am afraid there are no palms of any sort this year in 
 Westmoreland for boys or bees, this present Palm 
 Sunday, 1845 (March 10), Easter being portentously 
 early, and spring remarkably late. Yet snow has 
 fallen ere now on a later Palm Sunday ; witness that 
 bloody day of Towton, March 29, O.S., 1461, when 
 the snowfall blinded the Lancastrians at the onset, 
 and betrayed their flight by bloody stains. Thus 
 did the men of old keep the sabbath. Thus did 
 they celebrate the day when our Lord entered 
 Jerusalem, meek, and riding upon an ass, the beast 
 of peace and industry, by that symbolic act pro- 
 claiming himself the Prince of Peace, and disclaiming 
 the Messiahship of Israel's blind imagination. It 
 is some comfort, however, that no one calls the wars 
 of the roses holy.
 
 316 NOTES ON *' brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 RAHAB. 
 
 " The spies might not know her character when they took up 
 their lodging, and she was mightily reformed before Salmon 
 married her," &c. 
 
 Scripture says nothing, that I know, about her 
 reformation. And how came Salmon to marry a 
 Canaanitish woman ? This was against the letter 
 of the law. Rahab was both an innkeeper and a 
 harlot : her dwelling upon the wall was much the 
 same as was assigned to her profession both in 
 ancient and modern times, and her concealing the 
 spies would have been of no use if she had not told 
 the lie, and James expressly commends her for it. 
 "Likewise was not Rahab, the harlot, justified by 
 works, when she received the messengers, and sent 
 them out by another way." He who commends an 
 act which could only be effected by certain means, 
 commends, or at least approves, the means. James 
 seems to have written with the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 before him. But the Lord commended the unjust 
 steward, and all the commendation which either 
 Paul or James bestows upon Rahab, is of the same 
 kind. Paul cites her as an example of faith; not of 
 divine or Christian faith, but simply as a person 
 who, by giving credence to a certain testimony, had 
 attained the reward she sought, — her personal secu- 
 rity. James guards against a misapplication of 
 Paul's simile (for in truth it is nothing more), by 
 explaining, that had not her faith produced an act, 
 it would not have availed her. Without faith the
 
 EAHAB. 317 
 
 act would never have been done. There is no con- 
 tradiction between tlie Apostles, but a strong mutual 
 coufirmation. The argument may be expanded 
 thus : — Rahab, a sinful inhabitant of a city divinely 
 doomed to destruction, believed the report of the spies, 
 and acting in conformity to that belief, escaped the 
 temporal destruction which befell her townsfolks. 
 So shall ye, if ye believe the messenger of the Lord, 
 sent to warn you of the spiritual judgment impend- 
 ing over your Jericho, the sinful world, and act in the 
 spirit of that belief, be spared in the day of visita- 
 tion. The events of the Old Testament are cited 
 by the Apostles, not as cases or instances of Chris- 
 tian faith and practice, but only as types or analogies ; 
 and analogies, too, which are not to be conjugated 
 through all moods and tenses, but confined strictly 
 to the purpose directly in view, St. Paul in the 
 Hebrews is speaking of the power of faith, not of the 
 character of those by whom it was exercised, or the 
 objects for which they exercised it. I do not find 
 that the marriage of Salmon and Rahab is anywhere 
 mentioned in the Old Testament, but it is said in 
 Joshua that slic dwelleth in Israel to this day, 
 which I should be disposed to interpret of her 
 descendants.
 
 318 KOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF TIIE BIBLE." 
 
 RUBY. 
 
 " The original word Peninim is tliought by some to signify 
 pearls." {Job, xxviii. 18.) 
 
 Parkhurst, followiug Hutchinsou, inclines to think 
 that x>eninim are magnets or loadstones, for no 
 reason that appears, except the resemblauce of the 
 word to the root panah, crrpicpeLv, to turn, from 
 which, with equal probability, he derived the Latin 
 pcenitet. Why not the English j^un, which certainly 
 turns the sense of words inside out ? Pan, for pan- 
 cakes require to be turned nicely ? Pain, which 
 makes one turn in bed ? The Latin jyvics, because 
 Alfred was scolded for not turning the cakes ? On 
 grounds of like validity, he concludes that some of 
 the ancient nations, particularly the Jews, Phoeni- 
 cians, and Arabians, to whom we may add the 
 Phaeacians and Chinese, were acquainted with the 
 polarity of the magnet, and with its use in navigation. 
 That it was known to the Chinese before the celestial 
 empire became renowned in Europe for tea and tea- 
 pots is generally allowed. That it miglit be known 
 to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, amid the 
 wreck of Punic art and literature, it would be rash 
 to deny. The length of their rumoured voyages, 
 and their discoveries in the obscure regions of 
 tlie north, dispose me to think that they had 
 some guide less prone to hidiug than the heavenly 
 bodies. What the Phaniciaus knew the Jews might 
 know. Solomon would spare no expense to obtain the 
 secret. But I can find no allusion in the English Bible
 
 RUBY. 319 
 
 to a phenomenon so remarkable, and so pregnant in 
 similes and analogies. There is no knowing what 
 the Hutchinsonians might find in the Hebrew. But 
 Parkhurst, who enumerates all the passages in wliich 
 the word peninim occurs (Job, xxvui. 18 ; Proverbs, 
 iii. 15; viii. 11 — 25; xxxi. 10; Lament., iv. 7), 
 though he says that considerable light is thrown on 
 these texts by the supposition that the Hebrews 
 knew the virtues of the magnet, has not suffered one 
 ray to beam from his pages. The Phaeacian know- 
 ledge of the use of the magnet in navigation is 
 surmised from the Odyssey, viii. 556, k, t. A., where 
 Alcinous talks of rational ships that know their 
 master's minds, and are well versed in geography : — 
 
 TlavToiv Xaaai ■7r6\ias Kal irlovas Hypovs 
 'AvOpuTrigy, 
 
 I think the lines that follow go much nearer to prove 
 that the Phaeacians had steamers : — 
 
 AalTjico rdxiffO' a.\hs (Kir^powcnv 
 
 I wonder the pious lexicograplier did not ascribe a 
 compass to the Argonauts, What else could he 
 mean by the oracular prow ? In all the texts wherein 
 peninim is found, except the last (Lament., iv. 7), 
 it is merely used as a measure of comparison to 
 exalt the value either of wisdom or of woman. In 
 Lamentations the context seems strong in favour of 
 the English translation. The Nazarites were purer 
 than snow, whiter than millv ; they were more ruddy 
 in body than rubies. But Parkhurst makes this very
 
 320 NOTES ON "brown's DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE." 
 
 passage support Hutchinson's hypothesis by the aid 
 of the learned Costard's {vide Miss Hawkins's Anec- 
 dotes, or the opium-eater's review thereof, in the 
 Lond. Mag., March, 1823) "History of Astro- 
 nomy," which says that the first and best sort of 
 loadstone from China and Bengal is of an iron, or 
 bloody colour, and that there is another sort found 
 in Arabia, and in the Eed Sea, like a tile of a reddish 
 colour. Anybody may be convinced by these argu- 
 ments that chooses. Bochart, in an elaborate disser- 
 tation, maintains that peninim signify pearls, but 
 I cannot refer to the work at present. If he founds 
 his judgment on the word Trivva (pinna, a pearl- 
 oyster), it is nearer in value to a pin than a pearl. 
 
 SAMARITANS. 
 
 From recent accounts, it appears that the Samaritans 
 are dwindled to a mere handful, not more than thirty 
 heads of families paying taxes, and few or none are 
 exempt. In general they are in middling circum- 
 stances. One affluent individual, named El Abdes 
 Samary (so not Samary Samaritan), was lately secre- 
 tary to the Mutesellim of Nabulus (no doubt Naplouse, 
 or Shechem), but now superseded by a Copt. The 
 modem Samaritan physiognomy is not Jewish, and 
 they repay the antipathy of Judah with interest. They 
 observe the sal)bath strictly, possess the books of the 
 law, but read them on festivals only. Four times in 
 the year they have a solemn assembly and procession
 
 SAMARITANS. 321 
 
 to Mount Gerizim, now called Jebel el Tur. Nothing 
 is said by my authority as to their priesthood. They 
 are, like the Jews and Gypsies, an affecting relic of 
 antiquity. I cannot but wish that the conversion of 
 all three might take place without destroying their 
 nationality ; that the gypsies could be allowed to 
 continue sons of Jabal, and that the Jews, restored 
 to the land of their fathers, might resume their 
 agricultural and pastoral life, and all of their law 
 that is not bloody ; might be clothed after the fashion 
 of their patriarchs, — their old men as Abraham, and 
 their young men as David, when he fed sheep in the 
 wilderness; their aged dames as Anna the prophetess, 
 and their young matrons like Ruth or Hannah ; and 
 their fair virgins like Jephtha's daughter. Their 
 original feasts, the Passover (in a Christian sense), 
 the feast of Tabernacles, the feast of Harvest, and 
 the feast of In-gathering, which is at the end of the 
 year, should remain. And let them keep Christmas 
 too, but not the feast of Expiation ; or look for 
 atonement or purification save in the blood of the 
 Lamb. Neither let them keep the feast of Purim, 
 which was of no divine appointment, only com- 
 memorated crime and massacre, and kept alive their 
 national hatred, which had no place in the worship 
 of iiiM who died for all mankind. But, above all, 
 let them not forget the year of Jubilee, which pro- 
 claims their God a God of liberty. May they sit 
 every man under his own vine and under his own 
 fig-tree, and may there be no king in Israel but the 
 Son of David, whom their fathers crucified ! 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 322 KOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible." 
 
 SHIPHRA AND PUAH. 
 
 " They (Shiphra and Puali) told him that the Hehrcw Women 
 ■were not like the Egyptians, hut could, and oft did, hring forth their 
 infants witliout help of midwives. Possibly there might be a great 
 deal of truth in this; but whatever falsehood was in their speech, 
 God did not reward it, but He rewarded their fear of Him, and 
 their love to the Hebrews." 
 
 It is strauge that holy men like the minister of 
 Haddington cannot perceive that this quibbling 
 method of intei-preting Scripture is much worse 
 falsehood than that of Shiphra and Puali could be. 
 True, God did not reward their falsehood simply as 
 falsehood ; neither did he reward the Levites who 
 massacred the calf-worshippers, or Phinehas, when 
 he pinned Zimri and Cosbi together with his spear, 
 for the mere act of homicide. But he rewarded the 
 zeal displayed in the one case by falsehood, and in 
 the other by bloodshed. Truth to tyrants, mercy to 
 idolators or fornicators, were not then understood as 
 duties ; and God judges only according to the light 
 and law that he has given. I think, however, thkt 
 the midwives were absolutely justifiable. To a 
 tyrant, or a murderer seeking innocent blood, truth 
 is not due. 
 
 TAMMUZ, OR THAMMUZ. 
 
 " It is said he was either Thamus, an ancient King of Upper 
 Egypt, or was Adonis the Son of Cyniras, an Assyrian, who founded 
 the city of Paplios in Cyprus, by his own daughter Myrrha." 
 
 How different a creature is a poet from a Puritan ! 
 Milton was as fierce an iconoclast as Mr. Brown 
 
 I
 
 TAMMUZ, OR THAMMUZ. 323 
 
 himself, yet bow tenderly does he record the delusion 
 of the Syrian damsels.* The transformation of the 
 Syrian god into a smock-faced stripling of Cyprus is a 
 fair instance of the Greek tendency to Hellenise and 
 beautify the oriental legends. How would a wor- 
 shipper of Thammuz have marvelled to recognise in 
 Shakspeare's pretty insensible his own most dreaded 
 deity ? Adonis reminds the ear of Adona. But far 
 more important and remarkable is the wide-spread 
 belief in the death and resurrection of gods and 
 heroes, which in some form or other occurs in almost 
 every system of idolatry. Is this to be ascribed to 
 a prophecy coeval, it may be, with the fall, variously 
 disguised, disfigured and corrupted by time and craft 
 and ignorance, but never wholly forgotten ? or is it a 
 prophetic yearning of the great spirit of the world 
 dreaming of things to come, an oracular utterance 
 of the human heart which the heathen misinter- 
 preted according to their own fancies. I believe that 
 both the hypotheses are in some measure true, but 
 maintain with far greater confidence that the All- 
 Wise and All-Good has at all times and in all places 
 preserved in the very errors and madness of man- 
 kind a type and testimony of the truth that is in 
 Christ. I am aware that there are €vviTviaC6fj.fiJ.ot 
 who explain all these deaths and resurrections (and 
 well were it if they stopped there) of the retirement 
 of the sun to the southem solstice, the decay and 
 revival of vegetation, tlie changes of the moon and 
 other natural phenomena, which certainly are not 
 
 * " The Love Talo," &c.— Paradise Lost, Book I.
 
 324 NOTES ON " brown's dictionary of the bible." 
 
 vpithout celebration among the Gentiles, but originally 
 as symbols of something above and beyond them. 
 
 TYRE. 
 
 The governor of Tyre has been committing excesses 
 upon Christian woman (before last May, 1841). 
 Their ruin and prophetically denounced judgments 
 do not appear to have improved Tyrian morals. 
 Their purple is become a theme for Pancirollus. 
 The precious shell yields the imperial tint no more, 
 but the sins of Tyre are as scarlet still. 
 
 Colonel Anderson, with the British sappers, artil- 
 lery, &c., on Mount Carmel ! How strange it seems 
 to think of an English colonel on the very spot where, 
 nigh 3000 years ago, Elijah confounded and extir- 
 pated the 450 priests of Baal, with engines, too, 
 the fire of which had appeared to the idolaters 
 of Israel not less miraculous than that which licked 
 up the water in the trenches around the Tishbite's 
 altar ! The sappers, though perhaps not over well 
 shod, will not tuni Carmelite friars. And Colonel 
 Macniven atNablous,the ancient Shechem, the Sychar 
 of the Samaritans, where the Saviour conversed 
 with the spouse of five ! There is something 
 puzzling to me, well as I know its certainty, in the 
 actual geographical existence of the scenes of the 
 old Testament events, for I have no such feeling in 
 respect to the New. I am apt to think of the Holy 
 Land as of the paradise of Izem, and I would as
 
 ASSERTION OF LUTHER RESPECTING GOD. 325 
 
 soon seek in Billedulgerid for the Garden of the 
 Hesperides, as for Naboth's vineyard in the pachalic 
 of Syria. This is a mere crotchet of the imagination. 
 My faith is perfectly historical. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS.* 
 
 ASSERTION OF LUTHER RESPECTING GOD. 
 
 @ott fan ntcl;t ®ott ^e^n cr muff 511 v^crn cin Zcu\fd ivcvlcn. 
 — Luther, torn. 5. 
 
 I QUOTE at second-hand from Sculteti Ethica ; but 
 I suppose the passage is to be found in the German 
 Boanerges, and startling as the expression seems, — 
 The God we worship, with his attributes of holiness, 
 justice, and mercy, in His characters of Judge, Re- 
 deemer, Sanctifier, Law-giver, could be conceived 
 only by the antithesis or antagonism of an actual or 
 possible evil principle. Analogically, we might say 
 that were there no fear, there could be no such virtue 
 as valour ; if no sensuality, no temperance or chastity, 
 and so forth. As I am not acquainted with the 
 context, I cannot tell what provoked Luther to such 
 an astounding way of expressing a very demonstrable 
 truth ; but Martin was one of those who delight in 
 putting their doctrines into the form most likely to 
 puzzle and alarm the common-sense of simple persons, 
 
 • The following extracts turn, more or less closely, upon the subject of 
 religion, and may be read in connexion witli the Notes immediately 
 preceding.
 
 326 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 like the worthy Unitarian parson who commenced 
 a sermon on the Divine Omnipresence with " God is 
 in Hell." After all, there is an equivocation in 
 Luther's proposition, inasmuch as it confounds the 
 absolute eternal self-existent and self-sufBcing One 
 with Jehovah, the Lord, the revealed and substan- 
 tiated Personality, the 0eos avTonddavTos with 
 Emmanuel, the God with us. More truly might he 
 have said : Were there no Devil, there would be 
 nothing but God ; nothing antithetic to, or distinguish- 
 able from God. God would be, as He promises to 
 be when Sin is destroyed. All, and All in All. 
 
 ON THE VIRGIN MARY. 
 
 " But Mary kept all these sayings in her heart." 
 
 A VERT serious question is suggested by these words. 
 Was Mary aware of her child's divinity? Probably 
 not. That her offspring was the Child of Promise, 
 the Hope of Israel, she always believed, and some- 
 times knew; but that He was the Lord Jeliovah, 
 perhaps was only revealed to her after his glorification. 
 There is little, very little about Mary in the Christian 
 Scriptures. That she was always a virgin is, I 
 believe, the orthodox opinion of the Church of Eng- 
 land; yet a man might maintain her to have been 
 bond fide the wife of Joseph without rejecting or 
 explaining away a single text. Indeed it requires a 
 very latitudinarian exposition to support the doctrine 
 of her perpetual virginity. Thus, Matthew i., 24, 25:
 
 THE VIRGIN MARY. 327 
 
 " Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the 
 angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto 
 him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought 
 forth her first-born son," ecos 8'ere/ce. Now certainly 
 these words do not necessarily imply that Joseph 
 ever did know her, were there any text implying that 
 he did not ; no cue could convict the Evangelist of 
 self-contradiction upon the strength of ecos on ; and all 
 the parallel passages which Beza adduces contra 
 Helvidianos (who were they ?) are quite supererogatory. 
 But still, as there is no sure text, — as Mary is never 
 styled the Virgin in any of the few passages in which 
 she is mentioned in the Gospels or Acts ; no one can say 
 that the perpetual virginity of Mary rests upon Bible 
 authority. The same line of argument applies to 
 the passages which speak of our Lord's brethren, who 
 we are to believe were his cousins only. I do believe 
 it ; I would rather believe them anything than that 
 they who scofFed at Jesus ever lay in the same womb 
 where he had lain. Nor can I conceive it possible 
 that she whom the Holy Ghost had overshadowed, 
 whose issue was called the Son of God, would be 
 mother to a mere fleshly progeny ; or that any man, 
 far less a pious man like Joseph, would dare to 
 approach a woman whom he knew by divine commu- 
 nication to have conceived by the Holy Ghost. If 
 the men of Bethsheinesh, who but looked into the 
 typical ark, were smitten, even fifty thousand and 
 three-score and three men, how could Joseph have 
 ventured to touch that sacred ark in which God 
 really dwelt, and perish not ? Perhaps some one
 
 328 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 may object that the old ark, deserted of Divinity, 
 would only have been a gilt cabinet, and that Mary, 
 delivered of Jesus, was only a woman. I anticipate 
 such scoffing objections, only to show how little I fear 
 them, and how easily they are answered. No doubt, 
 the brazen serpent which Moses erected in the wil- 
 derness, the emblem of our crucified Saviour, its 
 purpose done, was nothing but so much copper ; and 
 Hezekiah is seemingly commeiided for breaking it 
 to pieces when it became an idol. Balaam's ass, 
 when its miraculous voice was mute, was nothing 
 more than any other ass. But Mary was a woman, 
 capable of and participant of holiness, which wood, 
 or copper, or mere animal life, could not be. In fine, 
 my opinion in this case, as in many others, is the 
 orthodo.x and catholic opinion, though I defy the 
 most orthodox Oxoniensis to dig it out of the mere 
 words of Scripture. We must bring something to 
 the Bible, as to the study of nature, or we shall carry 
 nothing valuable away ; and they who think that I 
 disparage the Bible by this, might as well say that I 
 disparage nature. 
 
 Why was I led away into this unquiet path of 
 controversy, when I meant only to certify my inward 
 conviction that miracles, even to those who have 
 beheld or experienced them, can never be more 
 than subjective evidence. Mary who had borne Jesus 
 by a more than miracle, was yet only a believer in 
 Him. She treasured His sayings in her heart as so 
 many confirmations of a prophecy. She had a wishing, 
 hoping, praying, doubting, not an assured belief in
 
 "MYSTERY OF OUR LORd's LIFE. 329 
 
 [ the Messiahship of her own supernatural child. Did 
 He not rebuke her impatience at the marriage at 
 Cana of Galilee ? * 
 
 How far Jesus was conscious of His own Divinity 
 in His infancy, or whether there were any struggles 
 between His Divinity and His humanity, except in the 
 
 * The following beautiful stanzas— alas! unfinished — may be preserved 
 here in illustration of the above passage : — 
 
 LINES TO THE VIRGIN MARY. 
 
 Ave Maria ! so for many an age, 
 At stated hour, the universal voice 
 Of boy and girl, of nimble-witted page. 
 Of lord and serf and motley fool and sage. 
 Of all that mourned, and all that could rejoice 
 In the blithe prospect of the coming day :— 
 All knelt together, and tofrethcr prayed, 
 And never thought it toil or task to pray 
 For intercession of the Mother Maid. 
 
 Ave Maria ! may we not adore 
 
 The Virgin Mother, the sweet maid appointed 
 
 To be the mother of the Babe Anointed ? 
 
 And is it truly sin to bow before 
 
 The most immaculate form of womanhood, 
 
 The second and the better Eve, 
 
 Before all time predestined to conceive 
 
 The only man tliat could 
 
 Be wholly good ? 
 
 Ah ! lovely maiden ! 'twas enough for thee 
 
 To be the mother of thine own great Saviour, — 
 
 Tci hold the little .lesiis <m tliy knee, 
 
 And ponder o'er the childisli sweet behavioiir 
 
 Of that young Hilly One. Ah! didst thou know 
 
 All that He was, and was to undergo? 
 
 Didst thdii, indeed, when on thy breast He hung, 
 
 Ueliold II im Imnging on tlic cursed tree? 
 
 Or didst thou think the pretty babe that clung 
 
 To thee s<> close was very Deity ? 
 
 Ave Maria ! nothing that hath been 
 Can cease to be, — no act of God is jmst ! 
 So art thou still the JIaidcn Mother (Jueen, 
 And Jesus is thy babe from first to last! 
 Yet do they wrong thee who believe that thou 
 Art pleased with human misdirected prayer.
 
 330 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 temptation in the wilderness, and the agony in the 
 garden, are questions hidden till the last day. Only 
 I conjecture that the words of Luke, iv. 13, "he 
 departed from Him for a season," may be explained 
 of that fearful temptation which Jesus vanquished 
 with " Lord, not my will, but thine, be done." 
 
 Every part of our Lord's life which the Spirit has 
 recorded is a mystery, from the Annunciation to the 
 Resurrection. But by a mystery I do not mean a 
 rhapsody of words ; a strange entanglement of lines, 
 colours, &c. ; a numerical puzzle, or a mandate to 
 believe what, not knowing, we cannot know whether 
 we truly believe or not ; but an eternal, infinite, and 
 therefore incomprehensible truth, vital and operative 
 in, but not limited to, or circumscribed by, a definite 
 act or form. Thus the law, both ceremonial and 
 moral, was a mystery ; it always meant something 
 more than itself, but with this distinction : the moral 
 law meant itself, and something more ; the ceremonial 
 law has no meaning except as a mystery. (" It is 
 impossible that the blood of bulls or of goats should 
 cleanse away sin.") The municipal or merely 
 Jewish law was no mystery ; it meant nothing but 
 itself, and has no more to do with Christianity than 
 the laws of Charondas the Locrian. 
 
 Every act of our Lord's life was a mystery, but 
 not so every act of the Jewish people. I detest the 
 practice of mysticising the Old Testament events. It 
 is good for every Christian to observe how the 
 Almighty prepared all things for the advent of the 
 Only -begotten ; how each successive arrangement
 
 REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN FRANCE. 331 
 
 prophesied Christianity — as the blade, the stalk, the 
 ear all foretell the perfect grain. But further than 
 this we should not go, at least as English Christians. 
 If a Jew can find Christianity in the political history 
 of his ancestors, well and good ; better than not to 
 find it at all. 
 
 ON THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN FRANCE. 
 
 Religion, such as it is, seems to be reviving in 
 France. Images and hosts are carried in procession, 
 as in the days of St. Louis and of Louis le Grand; and 
 the Protestants of the Aveiron are knocked down if 
 they do not kneel before them. The Fete Dieu has 
 this year been celebrated with the accustomed solem- 
 nities. At Toulon the guns were fired, as in the 
 time of Charles X. ; and at Aix, in the Pas de Calais, 
 a fair damsel of seventeen, of a highly respectable 
 family, walked in the procession, Sunday, June 5, in 
 the character of the Virgin. According to my autho- 
 rity, she was so tired of her virginity, that in the 
 evening she eloped with an officer of cuirassiers. 
 That, however, looks very like a lie. What does all 
 this betoken? Is there a real reaction? Are the 
 French, or any portion of them, about to revolve 
 from infidelity to fanaticism, as the English at the 
 Restoration revolved from puritanism to latitudi- 
 narianisra ? Are the catholic ants recovering from 
 their stupor, and beginning to gather up the frag- 
 ments of their nests, which were blown up at the
 
 332 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 Revolution ? Have the devotees returned like 
 swallows from their long migration, or crept out of 
 their holes like worms after a thunder-storm ? Or is 
 the Citizen King persuaded that every monarchy, 
 however attained, requires the unction of some church 
 to give it stability ? — an idea he may have borrowed 
 from Napoleon. Or have the weight of empire and 
 the sense of insecurity rendered him sincerely super- 
 stitious ? I think the last supposition as probable as 
 any; though very likely all the conjectured occasions, 
 and many more, may be co-operant. Despots are 
 generally superstitious in some form or other. Even 
 Bonaparte had his star. Possibly there was an 
 infatuation of enthusiasm, as well as of vanity, in Alex- 
 ander's pretence to a divine origin, and assumption of 
 divine honours. The most profligate and sensual 
 tyrants, as Louis XT., Louis XIV., and Louis XV., 
 have been the slaves of supernatural terrors, and 
 endeavoured to curry favour with Heaven by abject 
 mummeries and persecuting cruelty ; for superstition 
 makes no man better ; never leads to real contrition, 
 or a true sense of sin ; never brings the sinner to 
 the Saviour. It ascribes a saving might to the chips 
 of the cross, but it never acknowledges the true and 
 all-sufficient sacrifice. Caligula and the stronger- 
 minded Tiberius, amid their impiety, were afflicted 
 with dread of the unseen powers. Nero and Helio- 
 gabalus tampered with magic. Some drunken crowned 
 heads, as our King John and William Rufus, may 
 have affected a braggart contempt of ail religion ; but 
 I believe Frederic XV. of Hohenstauffen. and his
 
 RELIGION IN FRANCE. 333 
 
 namesake of Prussia, are almost the only infidel 
 philosophers among monarchs. The contemptor 
 deum Mezentius will oftener be found in the soldier's 
 hut than in the rojal pavilion ; and the reason is 
 obvious. Men in ordinary stations are controlled by 
 their fellow men, baffled or assisted by trivial circum- 
 stances, and the sphere of their free agency is so 
 circumscribed, that they can easily discern and calcu- 
 late the effects of their own actions. They are like 
 those light substances upon which the laws of attrac- 
 tion and repulsion have scarcely any perceptible 
 influence. They see the hand that checks or leads 
 them ; the circumstances that surround them seem 
 mere casualties, and therefore, if not truly religious, 
 they ascribe all to human power or to chance. But 
 it is otherwise with the rulers of mankind. They 
 cannot but feel that the power which they seem to 
 wield is something external to themselves. They 
 are like the planets, which while they are deemed by 
 some the arbiters of destiny, are in fact blind, helpless 
 masses, with less of self-determining energy than the 
 leaf that trembles in the breeze. Then the accidents 
 of their public existence are huge and imposing ; and 
 upon the same principle that makes folks who see 
 nothing but chance or nature in a common shower of 
 rain, ascribe the thunder, the eclipse, the earthquake 
 to an olTended Deity, the accident which affects an 
 empire is deemed an accident no longer. If the piety 
 be wanting to refer it to the One All-wise, super- 
 stition will attribute it to a fate, a dsemon, or, 
 perhaps, to a charm. Kings are oftener reminded
 
 334 KXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 of the impotence of human might than their subjects 
 of the middle class, whose affairs are more manage- 
 able, and hence feel more need of supernatural aid ; 
 and, above all, absolute kings are beset with continual 
 danger; they have no confidence in men, and least of 
 all in themselves. Their very boasting is but a 
 mock courage, designed to conceal their weakness, if 
 possible, from themselves. Hence, if they have not 
 the wisdom, the virtue, or the knowledge to rely on 
 the Rock of Ages, they build themselves forts and 
 towers on foundations of sand, processions, relics, 
 purchased or commanded prayers, good works that 
 are not good because selfish, astrological predictions, 
 false promises of wizards, drunken prophecies, omens, 
 and dreams. All men are apt to be superstitious 
 whose hopes are placed in contingencies the issues of 
 which are incalculable. Gamesters are superstitious ; 
 so are ignorant miners and sailors. Who ever disre- 
 garded omens when he was in love ? But to return 
 to the religious symptoms of France. I know not 
 whether our gay neighbours are to be congratulated 
 on these re-appearances or not. Any measure of true 
 religion, thougli alloyed with much superstition, is 
 incomparably better than mere negation and unbelief ; 
 but a religion which is nothing but superstition, and 
 that superstition little more than pageantry and 
 legerdemain, though it may serve the purposes of a 
 state, is for the individual worse than a calm 
 rationalism, or a good-natured naturalism. But the 
 important question is, which affords the best prospect 
 of the reception of pure Christianity ? And this
 
 RELIGION IN FRANCE. 335 
 
 question I am not at present prepared to answer. 
 Undoubtedly, a truth-loving sceptic 'svill be more 
 easily converted than a bigoted papist or idolater ; 
 but there is a wide difference between the scepticism 
 which proceeds from a passion for truth, albeit mis- 
 directed or even presumptuous, — the doubt which may 
 be a stage in the development of faith, — and the 
 infidelity which is a fashion, a party bond, a fanaticism. 
 But I apprehend that the principal cause that true 
 Christianity is little believed in France is, that it is 
 little known ; that since the suppression of the 
 Jansenists, themselves replete with error, and not 
 free from suspicion of pious fraud, the Gospel has 
 been almost obsolete ; for the French Protestants, I 
 fear, are, and long have been, a weak cattle, differing 
 from the laxest English Socinians only for the worse. 
 Indeed, in a country where the Bible was not in the 
 hands of the people, the loathsome j^ot poiirri* of 
 cruelty, sensuality, and devotion, compounded by 
 Louis Quatorze and his successor, was enough to 
 disgust the nation with the very name of religion, 
 even if Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and the rest of 
 that set, had never lived. I have often wondered 
 that while missions are sent to the remotest savages, 
 a kingdom not less in need of Christian instruction, 
 much better prepared for it, and whose irreligion 
 acts perilously upon the English themselves, has not 
 engaged the attention of our missionary societies. 
 But it is not too late. Only the teachei's must be 
 content to preach the pure Christianity of St. Paul 
 
 * Substituted for tbe original word, which is illegible— D. C.
 
 336 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 and of St. John. They must not meddle at all with 
 politics, nor unnecessarily with manners, fashions, 
 or philosophy. Our missionaries, both at home and 
 abroad, injure their divine cause pei-petually by their 
 prying, meddling, busy-bodyism, and their extreme 
 anxiety (a true English infirmity) to form sects and 
 societies. They cannot be content to form hearts 
 and minds, and leave the rest to Providence. 
 
 When the above was written, I was not aware that 
 missionaries were at work in France, not without 
 success, if the Wesleyan journals may be trusted. 
 But I am afraid there is more English religion lost 
 across the Channel than the French converts as yet 
 will replace. 
 
 ON PARISH CLERKS, AND PARISH VESTRIES. 
 
 I MAINTAIN that no person should be allowed to 
 execute any office in Church or State by proxy, 
 except in the case of temporary disability or neces- 
 sary absence. If any official be permanently dis- 
 abled, let him be well-provided for by a retiring 
 pension, if he deserve it, and let another be appointed 
 in his room. If the business of the place be such as 
 a gentleman cannot execute without loss of caste, a 
 gentleman should not accept it, nor, indeed, should 
 he have the opportunity of refusing. Let me not be 
 misunderstood. There are divers offices whose proper 
 duty is merely superintendence, — the actual business 
 of which is fitly committed to operative hands. No
 
 PARISH CLERKS AND PARISH VESTRIES. 337 
 
 one will suppose that I intend that an architect 
 should mix mortar or handle the trowel. Other 
 offices there are, merely honorary, as, for example, 
 the Lords of the Bed Chamber, and others, once 
 efficient, whose occupation is gone by the change of 
 time. The propriety of retaining these in the State, 
 is no part of our present enquiry. In the Church, I 
 am confident that no such offices ought to exist. But 
 whatever be the duty of an active office, whether 
 superintendence or personal labour, it should be per' 
 formed personally and not by deputy. 
 
 The interests of the Church imperiously demand 
 that the duties of the clerk should always be per- 
 formed, not, indeed, by a clergyman, but by a person 
 of respectability and education. The place is too 
 often conferred, I fear, from motives of favour or 
 mistaken charity, or more mistaken economy ; with 
 little regard to character and none at all to acquire- 
 ment, beyond the simple capacity to read, write, and 
 set a psalm, on individuals who have no better claims 
 than having been old servants, or having large families, 
 or being like to be burdensome to the parish. IIow 
 often, in town and country, do we hear and see 
 our divine Liturgy rendered absolutely ludicrous by 
 all imaginable tones, twangs, drawls, mouthings, 
 wheezings, gruntings, snuffles, and quid-rollings, by 
 all diversities of dialects, cacologies, and cacophonies, 
 by twistings, contortions, and consolidations of visage, 
 squintings, and Winkings, and upcastings of eyes, 
 which remind one more of Punch than of any ani- 
 mated comedian ; and where the schoolmaster has 
 
 VOL. n. z
 
 338 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 been abroad, we are not seldom nauseated by con- 
 ceited airs and prim grimaces, and pronouncing- 
 dictionary affectations, that make us heartily wish for 
 the old grotesques again. Then, too, the discretion 
 assumed by these Hogartliic studies, of selecting the 
 tunes and the verses to be sung, makes the Psalmody, 
 instead of an integral and affecting portion of the 
 Service, as distracting and irrelevant an episode as 
 the jigs and country-dances scraped between the acts 
 of a tragedy. These selections of four stanzas out 
 of a long psalm, cut off from all connection and sig- 
 nification, are, at best, unmeaning ; but they very 
 frequently are made to allude slily to the politics of 
 the day or the scandal of the village, and so, if they 
 do not produce a universal titter, or a downright 
 commotion, give rise to infinite shuffling, whispering, 
 knowing looks, smiles, and frowns, and a train of 
 thoughts and feelings very unfit for the place and 
 occasion. 
 
 There would be no difficulty in getting properly 
 qualified persons to perform all the religious duties 
 of a parish clerk for small remuneration, or none, 
 were it not for the troublesome and often disagreeable 
 parish business annexed to the office. And this 
 brings me to the most important consideration arising 
 from the incident upon which I have been cora- 
 mentina.* Whv is it that radical or schismatic 
 vestries are allowed to insult and tyrannise over 
 clergy and congregations ? To starve and denude 
 the church ? Why are such wild boars permitted to 
 
 » It is not necessary to record the actual occurrence.
 
 PARISH CLERKS AND PARISH VESTRIES. 339 
 
 lay waste the Lord's vineyard ? For what cause, on 
 what pretence, are they suffered to defile the sanc- 
 tuary ? Clearly because the Church is tethered to 
 the State ; because ecclesiastical discipline has been 
 jumbled together with civil law ; because the worship 
 of the Almighty has been intricated with parish 
 business, with rates, and cesses, and marriage licenses, 
 and registrations, with bastardy and bigamy, with 
 wills and probates of wills, and a hundred things 
 besides, that have no more to do with religion than 
 the price of stocks has to do with the precession of the 
 equinoxes. Because the tables of the money-changers 
 have been set up in the court of the temple. If the 
 Church will legislate for the world, the world will and 
 is entitled to legislate for the Church. The griping 
 ambition of the Romish clergy, aided by their mono- 
 poly of learning, laid hold on all manner of secular 
 matters, and brought them under the dominion of 
 the Church ; and now the secular is grown too strong 
 for the spiritual, and will sink it to earth unless the 
 spirit resolutely break away and throw off the incon- 
 gruous mixture. The children of Israel cannot rule 
 in Egypt ; they must fly from it, and be free ; or 
 remain in it, and be slaves. In a word, the first 
 step towards a resurrection of the Church must be to 
 disentangle her from all secular business whatever, 
 and leave her enemies no pretence for intermeddling 
 with her holy interests. All men, whether saints or 
 sinners, have an undoubted right to a voice in the 
 regulation of their own worldly affairs, but those 
 worldly affairs should not be submitted to a vestry.
 
 340 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 Romanists or Sociuians ought not to legislate for the 
 Church of England, but they ought to have a share 
 in legislating for themselves. Let the Church there- 
 fore retain nothing which Romanist or Socinian can 
 claim; nothing which the State can cry halves in; 
 then let the Church govern herself by the laws of 
 Christ and the rules of Christian expediency, and 
 submit to no secular legislation whatever. 
 
 ON PROFANENESS. 
 
 " To a thorough Papist," says Philagathus,* "nothing 
 is too profane." Perhaps not : but is it always just 
 to predicate profaneness of every allusion that does 
 not tally with our notions of formal reverence ? 
 " Marry come up," saith Mrs. Slipslop—" people's 
 ears are sometimes the nicest parts about them ! " 
 She might have added, the most religious part also. 
 Surely it is as perverse and uncandid to designate 
 the familiar terms in which our ancestors conversed 
 of spiritual natures, profaneness, as to call their plain- 
 speaking, on certain other topics, obscenity. This 
 familiarity, and seeming levity, was the natural 
 effect of a palpable, matter-of-fact, objective faith, 
 and our circuitous, periphrastic fashion of hinting at 
 holy things, only bewrays the conscious boUowness 
 of our creed. It is the painted cheek that fears the 
 rain. We talk of all that concerns our immortal 
 souls as mincingly as of our uuseemliest corporal 
 
 ' Robert Southey — well described as the lover of good. 
 
 \
 
 PROFANEKESS. 341 
 
 infirmities. It is viauvais ton at best, to speak of 
 either in terms which convey any image, form, 
 feeling, or sense of reality. Hence, the polite world 
 have no other conception of spiritual essence or 
 influence, but that the one is not body, the other 
 is not sensation ; therefore neither, according to 
 their sum of experience, is anything. They are the 
 Nominalists of negative Christianity. Hence know- 
 ing, in spite of themselves, that their religion is a 
 bubble, that will break at the contact of any solid 
 substance, however slight, they have a nervous 
 apprehension of all associations that savour of the 
 reality — of whatever may provoke a comparison 
 between the sensuous objects which they do believe, 
 and the spiritual truths which they dare not quite 
 disbelieve. There is little distinction with these 
 dainty people, whether the homely household things 
 are approximated to the Holy One, to derive sanctity, 
 or to communicate vileness. It is their piety to 
 keep religion altogether aloof from the business, the 
 duties, the ingoings, or outgoings of life. God must 
 have nothing to do with " familiar matter of to-day." 
 If His operation is to be recognised at all, it must 
 be in connection with something very far off, or very 
 long ago ; as old as the Creation, or as distant as the 
 fixed stars. The Ens Entium with them is much 
 too great and refined a personage to trouble himself 
 about particulars. He may have condescended to 
 make a few worlds ; but it is highly derogatory to 
 His dignity to suppose that He troubles himself 
 about the creatures upon them, unless, indeed, it be
 
 342 ESTKACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 to keep the several species from extinction. They 
 cannot conceive Him stooping to the little disgusting 
 items that make up the sura of human existence. 
 Having adopted a false and aristocratic notion of the 
 dignity of man, they transfer the same artificial and 
 exclusive dignity to the Supreme ; and think it as unfit 
 for the Deity to meddle with the pursuits or passions 
 of mortals, as for a gentleman to make himself a 
 party in the quarrels or amours of his servants' hall. 
 It was otherwise with our ancestors, with the 
 adherents of the ancient Church, and with the first- 
 born of the Reformation. They recognised God in 
 everything ; their Father in heaven was to them as 
 real, as vital, as seeing, hearing, loving, and chasti- 
 sing a person as their fathers on earth. They spoke 
 of Him on all occasions, and in connection with all 
 things ; and it must be confessed, in their simplicity, 
 they often hazarded associations which had better 
 have been avoided ; and engaged the Almighty in 
 occupations very unsuitable to His pure and awful 
 idea. But this was not profaneness ; it was only bad 
 taste. 
 
 
 ON INDULGENCES. 
 
 Mac,* like Luther, makes his first attack on the 
 indulgences, and he is right ; for although there 
 may have been other errors and abuses as pemicious, 
 there was nothing in the unreformed Church at once 
 80 mean and so presumptuous as this huckstering of 
 
 * The Editor of " The Protestant," a Scotch publication.
 
 INDULGENCES. 343 
 
 salvation. With the old Romans it was a reproach 
 cauponare helium ; much worse is it cauponare 
 veritatem; but cauponare salutem is worst of all. 
 Suppose the indulgences to have been given and not 
 sold, — suppose them given on conditions of reforma- 
 tion, good life, &c., and that they had pretended to 
 no more than to supply the inevitable deficiencies of 
 human performance, they would have been less 
 shabby, and perhaps, in a temporal sense, less mis- 
 chievous ; but still they would have implied the 
 three fundamental fallacies of Romanism. First, 
 that man can do more than his duty, and thereby 
 acquire a supererogatory merit ; secondly, that human 
 gifts or graces can be imputed or rendered beneficial 
 to any other than the possessor, otherwise than by ' 
 direct actual communication ; or, to speak more 
 plainly, that there can be any other vicarious holiness 
 than that of Christ ; third, that the Pope, or the 
 Catholic Church, or any assembly of men existing at 
 any given time, and being or assuming to be a visible 
 Church, or rulers of such Churcli, can mediately or 
 immediately of their own act and will, or by any 
 opus opcratum, influence the spiritual condition of any 
 human creature in relation to God, and his own 
 salvation. These doctrines I hold to constitute the 
 sin and the danger of the Roman creed. Compared 
 to these, transubstantiation, the seven sacraments, 
 auricular confession, purgatory, invocation of saints, 
 salutation of images, consecration of relics, the 
 Papal claim to universal dominion, nay, inquisitorial 
 persecution itself, I maintain to be but as small dust
 
 344 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 in the balance, any further than as they are Hke the 
 rooted pillars of the banian, at once suckers and 
 supporters of that mystery of iniquity, which inter- 
 poses the priest between the sinner and the Saviour. 
 
 Hume asserts that the indulgences did not free 
 their purchasers from hell fire. The following is 
 given in the '* Protestant," as the form of the indul- 
 gence preached by Tetzel : — 
 
 " May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon 
 thee, and absolve thee by His most holy Passion, 
 and by His authority, and that of His Holy Apostles, 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the most Holy Pope, 
 granted and committed to me in these parts, 1 absolve 
 thee, first, from all ecclesiastical censures in whatever 
 manner they may have been incurred, and then from 
 all thy sins, how many soever they may be, even 
 from such as are reserved for the cognisance of the 
 Holy See ; and as far as the keys of the Holy Church 
 extend I remit to you all punishment in Purgatory 
 on their account, and I restore you to the Holy 
 Sacraments of the Church, to the Unity of the Faith- 
 ful, and to that purity which you possessed at 
 liaptism, that when you die the Gates of Hell shall 
 be shut, and the Gates of Paradise shall be opened ; 
 and if you shall not die at present, this Grace shall 
 remain in full force when you are at the point of 
 death. In nomine, &c." 
 
 Indulgences, it would seem, are not out of fashion 
 yet, at least were not in the Pontificate of Pius VII. 
 The following is the letter of indulgence dispatched 
 by His Hohness to Cork : —
 
 THE CASA SANCTA AT LORETTO. 345 
 
 " Pius VII., by Divine Providence, Pope, grants 
 unto each and all of the Faithful in Jesus Christ, 
 who after assisting at least eight times at the holy 
 exercise of the mission, at the new Cathedral of Cork, 
 shall confess his or her sins vfith true contrition, and 
 approach unto the Holy Communion, shall devoutly 
 visit the said Cathedral, and then offer up to God 
 for some time pious and fervent prayers for the pro- 
 pagation of the Gospel, according to Catholic Faith, 
 and to the intention of our Holy Father, a plenaiy 
 indulgence applicable to souls in Purgatory by way 
 of suffrage, and this by way of jubilee." 
 
 But it is plain enough how low the Seven Hills 
 are sunk, from the vague terms of this indulgence, 
 compared to the dauntless accuracy of the other. 
 
 THE CASA SANCTA AT LORETTO. 
 
 Who has not heard of the Sancta Casa of Loretto, 
 a lie of such consummate audacity that one is almost 
 frightened into believing it ? Had such a miracle 
 been dated within the period to which the Protestants 
 confine their belief of miracles, how triumphantly 
 would the " Christian Advocate " have asserted the im- 
 possibility of such a tale being invented, since, if it 
 were not true, thousands must have been witness to 
 its falsehood ! Alas ! there are times when men 
 dare neither see what they see, nor not see what is 
 not to be seen, but at the command of their spiritual 
 pastors and masters. The true marks of distinction
 
 346 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 between the really Christian miracles and all of 
 Popish or heathen manufacture, though subtle, are 
 definite and indelible ; but I never saw them fairly 
 stated. To state them fairly would be to put Chris- 
 tianity on higher grounds than suits the purposes of 
 those who would dictate to conscience in the name of 
 the Church ; it would be too liberal for certain 
 persons, and too deep for the Dissenters. The fears 
 of one party, and the common-sensical stupidity of 
 the other, expose the very foundations of our faith to 
 a cross fire from the Papists and the infidels, while the 
 more philosophic, rather say the more spiritual Chris- 
 tians, satisfied with their own experimental conviction, 
 knowing the truth of Christirnity as they know their 
 own moral responsibility, by a light from on high, 
 give themselves too little trouble about the matter, 
 and do not always intellectually perceive tliat the 
 miracles are an essential part, not a mere evidence of 
 Christianity. 
 
 THE BIDDING PRAYER. 
 
 " The form of bidding prayer was not begun by King Henn, as 
 some have weakly imagined, but was used in the times of Popery, 
 as will appear by the form of bidding the beads in Henry VII. 's 
 time. The way was first for the preacher to n.ime and open his 
 text, and then to call on the people to go to their prayers, and to 
 tell them what they were to pray for: after which all the people said 
 their beads in a general silence, and the minister kneeled down 
 also, and said his." — Burnet's History of Iteformation. 
 
 The omission of the Collects before sermon was a 
 great offence in the Tractarian clergy, and I cannot 
 see why a practice so reverend and edifying, as the
 
 BIDDING PBAYEK. 347 
 
 prefacing of preaching with prayer, should be neglected, 
 even if it be not enjoined by any precise canon. The 
 term, bidding prayer, I never heard applied but to the 
 tedious prelude to the St. Mary sermons at Oxford, 
 which would be all the better if performed like the 
 prelude to some of the old plays, in dumb show. The 
 muster-roll of founder and benefactors, Alcandrumque, 
 Heliumque, Noemonaque, Prytanimque, which is 
 shuffled in as a compensation for the prayers and 
 masses in expectation of which many of those founders 
 and benefactors made their foundations and bequests, 
 is as wearisome to the auricular, as offensive to the 
 moral sense. The practice of the old Church, the 
 solemn opening of the text, the call to prayer, the 
 interval of silence, broken only by the dropping of 
 the beads, the occupation of priest and people in one 
 act of mute adoration, must have been exceedingly 
 impressive. The Church of Rome did understand 
 these things. 
 
 You see few little peasant lasses without beads 
 about their necks ; but how very few of these pretty, 
 curly, sunburnt creatures know that a bead originally 
 meant a prayer ; and was only transferred to the 
 little balls used to reckon prayers, which Southey 
 calls mechanical aids for making fingers and thumbs 
 do the work of devotion. Yet he acknowledged that 
 the rosary is beautiful, whether in the hand or at 
 the girdle, which is more than could be said of 
 the English episcopal wig, whether on the bishop's 
 head or the wig-maker's block. It augurs well for 
 the Church of England that the greater part of her
 
 348 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 prelates have discarded these vile uncanonical monstro- 
 sities, which had not even antiquity to recommend 
 them, though their seeded-onion appearance might 
 lead a hasty antiquarian to refer them to the idolatry 
 of Egypt ; yet the lawn sleeves, the white vesture, 
 with its sable appendages, which I know not how to 
 name, do require some coiffure different from the 
 rough, shock, lank or frizzled thatch of lay sconces. 
 
 When the Piomish tonsure is imitated by a 
 naturally bald crown, as in the venerable and excel- 
 lent Bishop of Eipon, it is well to let well alone, 
 otherwise I would advise the black skull-cap. 
 
 ON BURIAL GROUND.S. 
 
 Amoncx the least reasonable demands of the Dissenters 
 is the I'ight of burial in parochial church-yards. It 
 was never a wise thing to make a church-yard a 
 cemetery at all, but there are members of the Epis- 
 copal communion who attribute a sanctity to Episcopal 
 consecration ; attach an importance to a grave in the 
 church-yard, which, though it is unauthorised alike 
 by reason and by Scripture, is too kindly a feeling to 
 be rashly violated. One would not for a small matter 
 offend a prejudice which may smooth the bed of 
 death, and hallow the memory of the dead. But 
 why should a Dissenter, who ascribes no sanctity to 
 church, or church-yard, one of whose charges against 
 the establishment is, that it gives too much counte- 
 nance to feelings allied to superstition, why should
 
 BUEIAL GROUNDS. 349 
 
 he desire that his carcase should render insalubrious 
 the atmosphere which so many of his fellow-citizens 
 must breathe weekly or oftener ? The sects are rich 
 enough to purchase burial-grounds for themselves. 
 It would, however, be well that there were public 
 cemeteries, uncousecrated, which should be open to 
 all either gratis or on payment of a small fee. 
 Numbers perish under circumstances which make it 
 highly unfit that, they should be interred with holy 
 offices, and yet no indignity should be inflicted on 
 the remains of the vilest malefactor. Now the 
 appointment of burial grounds open to all, would 
 prevent the desecration of religious rites, and at the 
 same time avoid any positive stigma on the deceased. 
 It were well, also, that when new churches were 
 erected in the populous parts of cities, no burial- 
 grounds should be attached to them ; or, rather, as 
 indeed is often the case, that the cemetery should be 
 at a distance in the outskirts. 
 
 Lest these suggestions should be spurned as the 
 crudities of a modern liberal, I will subjoin the words 
 of honest Latimer, the martyr : — 
 
 " I do marvel that London, being so rich a city, 
 hath no burying place without ; for, no doubt, it is 
 an unwholesome thing to bury within the city, 
 specially at such time when there be so great sick- 
 nesses and many die together. I think, verily, that 
 many a man taketh his death in Pauls church-yard ; 
 and this I speak of experience, for I, myself, when I 
 have been there some mornings to hear the sermons, 
 have felt such an ill-favoured, unwholesome savour,
 
 350 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 that I was the worse for it a great while after, and 1 
 ■think not but it is the occasion of much sickness and 
 death." 
 
 If London was so rich a city in Latimer's day, it 
 is not much poorer now. Some difference there 
 certainly is in the frequency of pestilential diseases, 
 but the good bishop's opinion still holds good in the 
 main. 1835. 
 
 ON HOLY THINGS.* 
 Oblatoire : An iron instrument with which the 
 sacramental bread is made. Laud gave great offence 
 to the Puritans, grossly superstitious in their dread 
 of superstition, by directing the solid elements to be 
 cut with a consecrated knife. Now, I hold it most 
 meet and comely, that all places, garments, and 
 instruments, employed in public worship, should be 
 so far holy, as to be exempt from all service to the 
 world ; it is well that they should bear a peculiar and 
 significant form, to imitate which, in utensils of 
 common use, is bad taste. Let no one make his 
 nutting-stick like a pastoral staff, or transfer the 
 symbolic ornament of a cathedral to his villa, kennel, 
 pigsty, or lati'ina. But superstition, yea, idolatry, 
 or worse, conjuration takes place, when these thuigs 
 are reverenced without a direct and conscious refer- 
 ence to Him, for whose service they are set apart ; 
 when they become talismans ; when they are believed 
 
 • The Note-Books from wliicli this ,ind the following article (on 
 Pews) are taken, might form an interesting,' contribution to a " General 
 Dictionary of Words and Things."
 
 PEWS. 351 
 
 to work upon body or spirit by any occult or sympa- 
 thetic virtue ; when they are set up as scarecrows 
 to frighten away daemons ; when they are supposed 
 to conciliate grace, or to atone for offence, as sin, 
 or free-will offerings ; and when their exhibition is 
 prostituted for the profit or power of any order, 
 regular or secular. 
 
 ON PEWS. 
 
 Banc, French : a bench, form, sand-bank. They 
 render King's Bench, Baiic du Hoi ; Banc ferme, 
 dans une Eglise, a pew. 
 
 Q. When did pew acquire its ecclesiastical — Arch- 
 deacon Hare would not call it, sacred — signification ? 
 The word occurs in Shakspeare, King Lear, Act iii., 
 Scene 4. Tom of Bedlam complains that the Fiend 
 had laid " knives under his pillow, and halters in his 
 pue." I am not clear as to the precise meaning of 
 pew in this passage, but Tom does not mean to 
 describe himself as a church-goer. Rather it implies 
 a closet or retirhig-room. Neither in French, German, 
 Italian, nor Latin, can I find any word to enable me 
 to guess at the etymology of this poor monosyllable, 
 which some, haply better churchmen than etymologists, 
 or punsters, might fetch from puer — the French, not 
 the Ptoman. Private boxes did not make a fairer 
 pretence for uproar in the never-to-be-forgotten days 
 of 0,P., than these private prayer boxes furnish for 
 the more decorous, but not less angiy, remonstrances
 
 352 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 of the Philarchaists, To make them as odious in High 
 Church eyes as possible, their introduction has been 
 ascribed to the Puritans, I am not deep enough in 
 Church history to know whether this charge is true. 
 But they were a very natural excrescence of the undue 
 predominance of the sitting part of the service, which 
 has survived the ti'oubled times when the pulpit was, 
 what the press is now, the great engine of agitation ; 
 and the introductory prayer served the purpose of a 
 gazette ; when the Church, in short, rivalled the 
 barbers, the bakers, the smithie and the Piialto, as a 
 news-shop and mart of sedition. I thoroughly revere 
 the zeal of the Anglo-Catholics in restoring prayer — 
 public, united, congregational prayer — to its due 
 eminence among I'eligious duties. I approve of their 
 design to restore to devotion her ancient and comely 
 drapery, so long as the ritual is employed as an aid, 
 not as a substitute for heart-worship ; and while no 
 superstitious materialism, no talismanic conjuration, 
 no fetish worship is smuggled under the outward 
 and visible ; and while ceremonies are not multiplied 
 to a distracting and burdensome excess. As for 
 pews, they are unquestionably ugly, whether empty 
 or full, they are utterly out of keeping with the 
 style of our old and holiest churches. They make 
 the house of prayer too much of a house of mer- 
 chandise, and what is worst of all, they are a constant 
 source of bickering and ill will. I never knew a 
 church built or repaired, but that the distribution of 
 the pews set divers individuals, if not the whole 
 parish at loggerheads, causing some to desert the
 
 PEWS. 353 
 
 church altogether, and others to attend it for worse 
 than worldly purposes. Often, too, they exhibit 
 much of the tasteless ostentation of new wealth, and 
 are fitted up with a sybarite self-indulgence, that 
 might seem to arise from a gross misinterpretation of 
 the text of St. Paul (1 Cor. xii. 23), which says that 
 those members of the body which we esteem less 
 honourable, upon those we bestow, (or put on) more 
 abundant honour. A text, mistaken also, by our 
 ancestors, in the days of embroidered brayettes, 
 trunk-hose, and by the ladies of the fashion with 
 their callypygian protuberances. But in removing 
 the evil, much caution will be requisite. Pews have 
 been allowed to become private property, a source of 
 profit both to the Church and to individuals. They 
 are recommended by that love of family privacy, 
 which the English esteem a virtue, and the safeguard 
 of all domestic virtue, but which they are apt to 
 carry to places where it is absurdly out of place, — 
 to holy places where none should seek his own, 
 and to public places, which those who dislike pub- 
 licity should never frequent at all. Still, people 
 do hke to have their fsimilies about them in church, 
 which certainly enables them to keep then- children 
 in better order ; and too many like to see their 
 tenants and servants at a safe distance, which ser- 
 vants at least are very far from objecting to. Should 
 a minister take upon himself to remove or throw open 
 the pews, he would probably be accused of levelling 
 and popularity-hunting ; if not, of a covert desire to 
 subvert all rights of property, and it is to be feared, 
 
 VOL. Jl. ■* *
 
 354 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 at least in the larger towns, that many refined per- 
 sons, especially of the mercantile and manufacturing 
 aristocracy, would leave the parish churches alto- 
 gether, and set up exclusive places of Sunday 
 pastime, as they have exclusive resorts of week-day 
 dissipation. 
 
 The connection of Infidelity with plebeian dis- 
 affection, and hostility to established orders, would 
 probably prevent them from entirely discontinuing the 
 forms of public worship ; and the imputed vulgarity 
 of dissent, would cause the highly-born and their 
 emulators, to prefer a building where the Liturgy was 
 read, and the minister might be presumed to be a 
 college gentleman. But they would have him more 
 dependent on themselves than on the Church, and 
 would ratlier admire and criticise his accomplishments, 
 than revere his function. The result would be, an 
 imperium in imjjerio, a rent within the Church much 
 more injurious than a bond fide separation from it. 
 The deformity must be tolerated till it shall please 
 God to send forth His spirit, in such measure as shall 
 make every congregation as one family, and all con- 
 gregations as one Church. When this comes to pass 
 (and every Christian may help to accelerate it), tlie 
 real grounds and meaning of Christian equality, and 
 Christian subordination, will be clearly perceived, 
 and neither jacobinism, nor aristocratism — rather 
 say, neither democratic nor aristocratic jacobinism — 
 will obstruct the edifying of the temple to a faint 
 type of the temple not built with hands.
 
 THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENT. 355 
 
 DUTIES OF A GOVERNMENT, AND RELATION TO 
 THE CHURCH.* 
 
 We must not expect more from positive institu- 
 tions than God intended they should produce. You 
 cannot make men moral, enlightened, or religious by 
 law : law has done its best when it prevents the evil- 
 disposed from being mischievous with impunity, and 
 leaves no pretext for any man to take the law into 
 his own hand. The first, not highest, duty of a 
 Government is, to constitute and maintain the State, 
 to defend the national existence and the public honour; 
 the second, to keep the peace at home, to give security 
 to person and property, and to protect religion and 
 morality from insult or oppression ; the third, to pro- 
 mote the healthy circulation of property by a well- 
 regulated taxation, and, as far as may be, to prevent 
 individuals from growing rich by making or keeping 
 others poor; to see that private wealth is not increased 
 without a proportionate increase of public wealth. 
 These I hold to contain the sum and substance of 
 the duties of a State — out of which duties arise the 
 just prerogatives of a State, and the just obedience of 
 the subject. No individual, no multitude or com- 
 bination of individuals, be their rank, education, or 
 usefulness what they may, have any right to set their 
 private will, interest, convenience, humour, or opinion 
 against the will of the State embodied in law ; but 
 then law should never represent the will, inclination, 
 
 » Extracted from a letter to a friend.
 
 356 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 or interest of any individual, or any class, but should 
 be the passionless exponent of practical reason. As 
 to the distribution of powers and functions, it is 
 plainly absurd to lay down any general rule, or to 
 assert the absolute unconditional right of any man or 
 number of men to a legislative voice ; but certainly, 
 that does appear to me to be the best condition of 
 society, in which the citizen is never wholly merged 
 in the subject, which gives to every adult, not, indeed, 
 direct political power, but a political existence, a 
 public character — which attributes to every man a 
 something beyond his bare human being. It seems 
 to me a great solecism to allot political privileges or 
 franchises to any man from which others of equal 
 rank, property, adaptation, and education are ex- 
 cluded, — the effect, by the way, of the blundering 
 ten-pound qualification, about the worst that could 
 have been devised. You will understand that I allude 
 to privilege and franchise emanating from and refer- 
 ing to the central government, not to the chartered 
 rights of self-governing bodies, as the Universities 
 and the Church ought to be. With regard to these, 
 it is sufficient that their privileges do not infringe on 
 the common rights of citizenship, far less intermeddle 
 with the imprescriptible duties — duties subjective, 
 and therefore rights objective — of men to their own 
 pure reason and their immortal souls, which are 
 called, I admit, by a very ineligible phrase, the 
 rights and liberties of conscience. Prerogatives may, 
 and must be, given to certain bodies and certain 
 persons — perhaps are most conveniently given to an
 
 THE DUTY OF GOVE"RNMEKT. 357 
 
 hereclitaiy first magistrate and an hereditary peerage ; 
 but these prerogatives should always be correlative 
 to duties ; should be no larger than the efficient per- 
 formance of the necessary duties requires. To aris- 
 tocratic privileges, apart from legislative or conserva- 
 tive functions, I am a decided enemy. In his private 
 capacity the rich man should have nothing more than 
 the poor man, but what he pays for. Sumptuary 
 laws, which confine certain luxuries of dress, diet, 
 amusement, to certain classes, are hateful — they 
 break down the sanctity of home if strictly executed, 
 and if, as in our Universities, they are gene- 
 rally suffered to sleep, they are incentives both to 
 extravagance and to deceit. They degrade and 
 demoralise the trading class, and introduce a hungry, 
 cringing, impudent race of contraband dealers. You 
 yourself would hardly defend privileges which entitle 
 a nobility or clergy to exemption from the common 
 operation of law, which allow, and in a manner encou- 
 rage, the aristocracy to oppress, wrong, and defraud 
 their inferiors. I believe the odious privileges of the 
 French nobility and clergy to have been a great cause 
 of the ferocity of the French revolution. Little of 
 this kind exists in England. The exemption of the 
 clergy from military service and onerous civil offices, 
 of course, is perfectly right, — and the personal 
 irresponsibility of the King is, perhaps, essential to 
 the monarchy ; but the exemption of real property 
 from the payment of debts seems to me a dishonesty 
 which no experience can justify ; and I see no reason 
 that a peer should be believed on his honour, while
 
 358 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE BOOKS. 
 
 a commoner is impiously required to wager his soul. 
 I rejoiced with the angels in heaven to find that my 
 revered parent thoroughly sympathised with my 
 abhorrence of the present system of administering 
 oaths. I hope all oaths — at least, all but the oaths 
 of witnesses in criminal cases — will be speedily 
 abolished. I hold that no private individual is 
 entitled to disobey or evade a law, simply because he 
 finds it inconvenient to obey it, or because he thinks 
 it unwise or unnecessary, or because he was not him- 
 self consulted in the making of it ; so long as it does 
 not enjoin what is sinful, or prohibit positive duty, 
 or compromise the natural rights of parents, husbands 
 and wives, &c., or forbid what, though not an absolute 
 duty to all, may be necessary to many, as marriage. 
 But then the law, to claim obedience, must respect 
 matter that is the proper subject of legislation, — 
 matter, in fact, terrene and secular, I am as decidedly 
 for an established and well-endowed Church as you 
 are ; but I would have it an independent establish- 
 ment, a complete self-government, — assoiled from 
 all earthly business, save the care of its own pro- 
 perty. I would have the Church polity purely 
 spiritual, — the State policy merely and absolutely 
 secular. I am far enough from a Kadical: there 
 is only one point (a mighty one to be sure) in 
 which I do agree with the Radicals, — that religion 
 should never operate as a political disqualification, — 
 that no act of the Church, or any Church, should 
 require a civil sanction, and no act of the State a 
 religious sanction, — that marriage for civil purposes.
 
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