CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 ILonton: FETTER LANE, E.G. 
 
 C. F. CLAY, Manager 
 
 (!FO(nbutflI) : loo, PRINCES STREET 
 
 Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO. 
 
 ILcipjifl: F. A. BROCKHAUS 
 
 i^tto lorfe: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 JSomiag anti Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 Edited with Introduction and Notes 
 
 by 
 GEORGE SAMPSON 
 
 /// 
 
 Cambridge : 
 
 at the University Press 
 
 1912
 
 FK1362 
 
 (Cambritigc 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 .Carlyle : On HistoiT r 
 
 ^Macaulay : Ranke's History of the Popes . . . 15 
 
 Bagehot : Shakespeare — the Man 59 
 
 Newman : Literature 107 
 
 RusKiN : Sir Joshua and Holbein 130 
 
 ^ Arnold: Marcus Aurelius . . . . . . 141 
 
 Stevenson : A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured . 168 
 
 ^' Notes 176 
 
 «3
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The choice of pieces and the extent of an- 
 notation in this volume may seem to need some 
 exculpatory remarks. First, as to the text. To 
 call a book "Nineteenth Century Essays" and 
 include no specimen of Lamb whose "Elia" 
 volumes appeared respectivefy in 1823 and 1833, 
 or of Hazlitt whose record as an essayist stretches 
 from i8f7'to 1826, or of Leigh Hunt whose pub- 
 lished work falls wholly within the century, is, 
 apparently, to take very arbitrary liberties with 
 chronology. But literary chronology, like syn- 
 chroni.sed time, is often wrong. Thus, though 
 Carlyle was born in the eighteenth century, he 
 belongs in spirit almost to our own days ; and 
 though Leigh Hunt died in the same year as 
 Macaulay, he belongs as plainly to the Georgian 
 age of Revolution as Macaulay to the Victorian 
 period of Free Trade. As a matter of fact the 
 volume covers exactly a century ; for Carlyle, the 
 first of our essayists, was born in I795) '^'"'^ 
 Stevenson, the last, died in 1894. If any weakness 
 is discernible in the latter part of the book, not 
 the editor, but the inexorable interdict of copyright 
 must be blamed. This matter is altogether too 
 large for discussion here ; but room should be 
 found for a bitter, if brief, complaint that the harsh
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 - exercise of copyright veto is a dreadful difficulty 
 • in the way of the English teacher, and produces 
 ■ in the mind of the pupil a fixed impression that 
 '; literature ended abruptly somewhere about the 
 \ time of Wordsworth. A book of Nineteenth 
 Century Essays should certainly have included 
 , examples from some writers here unrepresented, 
 i but my attempts to secure one or two which 
 I I specially wished to include were met by flat, 
 I not to say fierce, refusals. It is with the greater 
 pleasure that I record my thanks to Messrs Long- 
 mans for permission to use the amended form 
 of Bagehot's "Shakespeare the Man" from Vol. I. 
 of the Literary Studies, and to Messrs Chatto 
 and VVindus for the readiness with which they 
 allowed me to reprint Stevenson's "A Penny Plain 
 and Twopence Coloured" from Memories and 
 Portraits. 
 
 Next, as to the notes. I fear that some young 
 lions among English teachers will roar furiously 
 at so old-fashioned a production as a school book 
 with elaborate annotation. Now it is quite un- 
 deniable that one of the most valuable acquire- 
 ments a student can gain during the English 
 course at school is the ability to use a plain text ; 
 but a place still remains for the annotated volume 
 as a means to that most valuable disciplinary 
 exercise in literary work, the intensive study of a 
 piece or group of pieces. The present agitation 
 against notes is a reaction, not really against notes, 
 but against unsuitable notes. That is a fact 
 frequently overlooked. Because past students in 
 their teens were injudiciously offered two pages 
 of philological and antiquarian information about 
 the use of some particular word or phrase, 
 some teachers have vigorously proclaimed that 
 present students in their teens must be offered
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 nothing at all about anything. This is a great 
 mistake. The mind of youth is inquisitive, and 
 its curiosity must be neither defrauded nor wil- 
 fully handicapped. To urge that a boy should 
 read Macaulay without notes and consult an 
 encyclopjedia for solution of his difficulties is 
 magnificent but not practical. Every teacher 
 knows the precise amount of uncompelled reference 
 he can expect from the average labour-saving 
 schoolboy. In the present instance, the notes are 
 many, not for quantit}''s sake, but because allusion 
 is the salt of an essay, and allusions need elucida- 
 tion. A student who reads intelligently the 
 Macaulay essay here given should be stimulated 
 by its multitudinous allusions to a proper literary 
 curiosity. Baffle that curiosity by denying informa- 
 tion, and the student will miss one of Macaulay's 
 chief merits. At the same time it cannot be too 
 strongly urged that the text is truly, though not 
 in corporal fact, the beginning and the end of this 
 volume. The student may entirely ignore the 
 notes, and, with only partial understanding of the 
 text, learn much about the essayists of the nine- 
 teenth century ; on the other hand, he may dili- 
 gently acquire every fact recorded in the notes, 
 and know nothing at all about the matter. The 
 text is the thing : the notes are an appended 
 encyclopaedia to which recourse may be had 
 (fruitfully I hope) when curiosity prompts. As far 
 as I know, none of the essays here printed has been 
 annotated before, and I am therefore relieved from 
 making the usual acknowledgments to predecessors. 
 I have, of course, pillaged the usual works of 
 reference, and I am indebted, also, to some kindly 
 correspondents. 
 
 In preparing the volume I have had in view 
 the upper forms of secondary schools, and, especially. 
 
 ] 
 
 fc)
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 the needs of those students who are preparing" for 
 the Board of Education's Prehminary Examination 
 for the Teachers' Certificate, the requirements of 
 which, in the matter of general reading, are 
 excellent in intention though disconcertingly- 
 vague in statement. My own experience among 
 candidates for this examination has shewn me 
 that even the simplest classical allusions are not 
 understood by some, and such allusions are 
 therefore explained here. These and similar notes 
 can be simply ignored by those who do not need 
 them. 
 
 The choice of essays is deliberate : I have 
 tried to select different types, — the abstract, the 
 historical, the aesthetic, the critical, the bio- 
 graphical, and the actual. That some passages 
 will be beyond the comprehension of the young 
 student is very possible ; but each essay as a 
 general rule should be not only intelligible but 
 attractive. The pieces are arranged in order of 
 composition without reference to the authors' 
 birth-dates. In the little biographical notes 
 I have aimed at two things : first, to add some- 
 thing to the impulse each essay should give 
 towards further reading, and next, to suggest the 
 books in which that further reading may be most 
 profitably sought. 
 
 The volume raises the interesting question. 
 What is an essay ? What is there in common 
 between the elaborate review-article and the purely 
 personal note; between Macaulay's wide historical 
 survey and Stevenson's charming trifle ; between 
 the hundred-and-forty pages of Carlyle's Scott 
 and the forty lines of Bacon's Adversity} One 
 might, perhaps rather frivolously, suggest that the 
 modern essay is generally a discourse (occupying 
 some fifty-five minutes in delivery) decorously
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 disguised for use in printed form. Certainly, more 
 than one of the present pieces began life as a 
 lecture ; and one of them retains, I think un- 
 fortunately, the actual vocatives of an address. 
 That, however, does not tell us what an essay is, 
 nor shall any attempt be here made to give a 
 formal answer to the question. Let us be content 
 to say (evading definition), that an essay is more 
 than a paragraph and less than a treatise, and, 
 at its best, includes some of the most delightful 
 reading that prose has to give. 
 
 GEORGE SAMPSON. 
 
 Barnes, S.W. 
 December^ 191 1.
 
 sf 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 ON HISTORY 
 1830 
 
 Clio was figured by the ancients as the eldest 
 daughter of Memory, and chief of the Muses ; which 
 dignity, whether we regard the essential qualities of 
 her art, or its practice and acceptance among men, 
 we shall still find to have been fitly bestowed. History, 
 as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first 
 distinct product of man's spiritual nature; his earliest 
 expression of what can be called Thought. It is a 
 looking both before and after; as, indeed, the coming 
 Time already waits, unseen, yet definitely shaped, pre- 
 determined and inevitable, in the Time come; and 
 only by the combination of both is the meaning of 
 either completed. The Sibylline Books, though old, 
 are not the oldest. Some nations have prophecy, 
 some have not: but of all mankind, there is no tribe 
 so rude that it has not attempted History, though 
 several have not arithmetic enough to count Five. 
 History has been written with quipo-threads, with 
 feather-pictures, with wampum-belts; still oftener 
 with earth-mounds and monumental stone-heaps, 
 whether as pyramid or cairn; for the Celt and the 
 Copt, the Red man as well as the White, lives be- 
 tween two eternities, and warring against Oblivion, 
 he would fain unite himself in clear conscious relation, 
 as in dim unconscious relation he is already united, 
 with the whole Future and the whole Past.
 
 2 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 A talent for History may be said to be born with 
 us, as our chief inheritance. In a certain sense all 
 men are historians. Is not every memory written 
 quite full with Annals, wherein joy and mourning, 
 conquest and loss manifoldly alternate; and, with or 
 without philosophy, the whole fortunes of one little 
 inward Kingdom, and all its politics, foreign and 
 domestic, stand ineffaceably recorded ? Our very 
 speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may 
 observe, speak only to narrate; not in imparting what 
 they have thought, which indeed were often a very 
 small matter, but in exhibiting what they have under- 
 gone or seen, which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers 
 dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the 
 stream of conversation, even among the wisest, lan- 
 guish into detached handfuls, and among the foolish 
 utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but enact 
 History, we say little but recite it: nay rather, in that 
 widest sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon. 
 For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too 
 but recorded Experience, and a product of History; 
 of which, therefore. Reasoning and Belief, no less 
 than Action and Passion, are essential materials? 
 
 Under a limited, and the only practicable shape. 
 History proper, that part of History which treats of 
 remarkable action, has, in all modern as well as 
 ancient times, ranked among the highest arts, and 
 perhaps never stood higher than in these times of 
 ours. For whereas, of old, the charm of History lay 
 chiefly in gratifying our common appetite for the 
 wonderful, for the unknown ; and her office was but 
 as that of a Minstrel and Storyteller, she has now 
 farther become a Schoolmistress, and professes to 
 instruct in gratifying. Whether, with the stateliness 
 of that venerable character, she may not have taken 
 up something of its austerity and frigidity; whether in 
 the logical terseness of a Hume or Robertson, the 
 graceful ease and gay pictorial heartiness of a 
 Herodotus or Froissart may not be wanting, is not 
 the question for us here. Enough that all learners.
 
 ON HISTORY 3 
 
 all inquiring minds of every order, are gathered round 
 her footstool, and reverentlj' pondering her lessons, as 
 the true basis of Wisdom. Poetry, Divinity, Politics, 
 Physics, have each their adherents and adversaries; 
 each little guild supporting a defensive and offensive 
 war for its own special domain; while the domain of 
 History is as a Free Emporium, where all these bel- 
 ligerents peaceably meet and furnish themselves; and 
 Sentimentalist and Utilitarian, Sceptic and Theologian, 
 with one voice advise us: Examine History, for it is 
 ' Philosophy teaching by Experience.' 
 
 Far be it from us to disparage such teaching, the 
 very attempt at which must be precious. Neither 
 shall we too rigidly inquire: How much it has hitherto 
 profited ? Whether most of what little practical 
 wisdom men have, has come from study of professed 
 History, or from other less boasted sources, whereby, 
 as matters now stand, a Marlborough may become 
 great in the world's business, with no History save 
 what he derives from Shakespeare's Plays ? Nay, 
 whether in that same teaching by Experience, his- 
 torical Philosophy has yet properly deciphered the 
 first element of all science in this kind: What the 
 aim and significance of that wondrous changeful Life 
 it investigates and paints may be ? Whence the 
 course of man's destinies in this Earth originated, 
 and whither they are tending? Or, indeed, if they 
 have any course and tendency, are really guided 
 forward by an unseen mysterious Wisdom, or only 
 circle in blind mazes without recognisable guidance ? 
 Which questions, altogether fundamental, one might 
 think, in any Philosophy of History, have, since the 
 era when Monkish Annalists were wont to answer 
 them by the long-ago extinguished light of their 
 Missal and Breviary, been by most philosophical His- 
 torians only glanced at dubiously and from afar; by 
 many, not so much as glanced at. 
 
 The truth is, two difficulties, never wholly sur- 
 mountable, lie in the way. Before Philosophy can 
 teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in 
 
 I — 2
 
 4 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 readiness, the Experience must be gathered and in- 
 telhgibly recorded. Now, overlooking the former 
 consideration, and with regard only to the latter, let 
 any one who has examined the current of human 
 affairs, and how intricate, perplexed, unfathomable, 
 even when seen into with our own eyes, are their 
 thousandfold blending movements, say whether the 
 true representing of it is easy or impossible. Social 
 Life is the aggregate of all the individual men's Lives 
 who constitute society; History is the essence of in- 
 numerable Biographies. But if one Biography, nay 
 our own Biography, study and recapitulate it as we 
 may, remains in so many points unintelligible to us; 
 how much more must these million, the very facts 
 of which, to say nothing of the purport of them, we 
 know not, and cannot know ! 
 
 Neither will it adequately avail us to assert that 
 the general inward condition of Life is the same in 
 all ages; and that only the remarkable deviations 
 from the common endowment and common lot, and 
 the more important variations which the outward 
 figure of Life has from time to time undergone, 
 deserve memory and record. The inward condition 
 of Life, it may rather be affirmed, the conscious or 
 half-conscious aim of mankind, so far as men are not 
 mere digesting-machines, is the same in no two ages; 
 neither are the more important outward variations 
 easy to fix on, or always well capable of representa- 
 tion. Which was the greatest innovator, which was 
 the more important personage in man's history, he 
 who first led armies over the Alps, and gained the 
 victories of Cannae and Trasimene; or the nameless 
 boor who first hammered out for himself an iron 
 spade ? When the oak-tree is felled, the whole forest 
 echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted 
 silently by some unnoticed breeze. Battles and war- 
 tumults, which for the time din every ear, and with 
 joy or terror intoxicate every heart, pass away like 
 tavern-brawls; and, except some few Marathons and 
 Morgartens, are remembered by accident, not by
 
 ON HISTORY 5 
 
 desert. Laws themselves, political Constitutions, are 
 not our Life, but only the house wherein our Life is 
 led: nay they are but the bare walls of the house; all 
 whose essential furniture, the inventions and traditions, 
 and daily habits that regulate and support our exist- 
 ence, are the work not of Dracos and Hampdens, but 
 of Phcenician mariners, of Italian masons and Saxon 
 metallurgists, of philosophers, alchemists, prophets, 
 and all the long-forgotten train of artists and artisans; 
 who from the first have been jointly teaching us how 
 to think and how to act, how to rule over spiritual and 
 over physical Nature. Well may we say that of our 
 History the more important part is lost without re- 
 coveiy; and, — as thanksgivings were once wont to be 
 offered 'for unrecognised mercies,' — look with rever- 
 ence into the dark untenanted places of the Past, 
 where, in formless oblivion, our chief benefactors, with 
 all their sedulous endeavours, but not with the fruit of 
 these, lie entombed. 
 
 So imperfect is that same Experience, by which 
 Philosophy is to teach. Nay, even with regard to 
 those occurrences which do stand recorded, which, at 
 their origin have seemed worthy of record, and the 
 summary of which constitutes what we now call 
 History, is not our understanding of them altogether 
 incomplete; is it even possible to represent them as 
 they were ? The old story of Sir Walter Raleigh's 
 looking from his prison-window, on some street tumult, 
 which afterwards three witnesses reported in three 
 different ways, himself differing from them all, is still 
 a true lesson for us. Consider how it is that historical 
 documents and records originate; even honest records, 
 where the reporters were unbiassed by personal regard; 
 a case which, were nothing more wanted, must ever 
 be among the rarest. The real leading features of a 
 historical Transaction, those movements that essenti- 
 ally characterise it, and alone deserve to be recorded, 
 are nowise the foremost to be noted. At first, among 
 the various witnesses, who are also parties interested, 
 there is only vague wonder, and fear or hope, and the
 
 6 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 noise of Rumour's thousand tongues; till, after a 
 season, the conflict of testimonies has subsided into 
 some general issue; and then it is settled, by majority 
 of votes, that such and such a ' Crossing of the Rubi- 
 con,' an 'Impeachment of Strafford,' a 'Convocation 
 of the Notables,' are epochs in the world's history, 
 cardinal points on which grand world-revolutions have 
 hinged. Suppose, however, that the majority of votes 
 was all wrong; that the real cardinal points lay far 
 deeper; and had been passed over unnoticed, because 
 no Seer, but only mere Onlookers, chanced to be 
 there ! Our clock strikes when there is a change from 
 hour to hour; but no hammer in the Horologe of 
 Time peals through the universe when there is a 
 change from Era to Era. Men understand not what 
 is among their hands: as calmness is the character- 
 istic of strength, so the weightiest causes may be most 
 silent. It is, in no case, the real historical Transaction, 
 but only some more or less plausible scheme and 
 theory of the Transaction, or the harmonised result 
 of many such schemes, each varying from the other 
 and all varying from truth, that we can ever hope to 
 behold. 
 
 Nay, were our faculty of insight into passing things 
 never so complete, there is still a fatal discrepancy 
 between our manner of observing these, and their 
 manner of occurring. The most gifted man can ob- 
 serve, still more can record, only the series of his own 
 impressions: his observation, therefore, to say nothing 
 of its other imperfections, must be successive, while 
 the things done were often siiniiltaiieotis; the things 
 done were not a series, but a group. It is not in 
 acted, as it is in written History: actual events are 
 nowise so simply related to each other as parent and 
 offspring are; every single event is the offspring not 
 of one, but of all other events, prior or contempo- 
 raneous, and will in its turn combine with all others 
 to give birth to new : it is an ever-living, ever-working 
 Chaos of Being, wherein shape after shape bodies 
 itself forth from innumerable elements. And this
 
 ON HISTORY 7 
 
 Chaos, boundless as the habitation and duration of 
 man, unfathomable as the soul and destiny of man, 
 is what the historian will depict, and scientifically 
 gauge, we may say, by threading it with single lines 
 of a few ells in length ! For as all Action is, by its 
 nature, to be figured as extended in breadth and in 
 depth, as well as in length; that is to say, is based on 
 Passion and Mystery, if we investigate its origin ; and 
 spreads abroad on all hands, modifying and modified; 
 as well as advances towards completion, — so all Nar- 
 rative is, by its nature, of only one dimension; only 
 travels forward towards one, or towards successive 
 points: Narrative is linear, Action is solid. Alas for 
 our 'chains,' or chainlets, of 'causes and effects,' which 
 we so assiduously track through certain handbreadths 
 of years and square miles, when the whole is a broad, 
 deep Immensity, and each atom is 'chained' and com- 
 plected with all! Truly, if History is Philosophy 
 teaching by Experience, the writer fitted to compose 
 History is hitherto an unknown man. The Experience 
 itself would require All-knowledge to record it, — were 
 the All-wisdom needful for such Philosophy as would 
 interpret it, to be had for asking. Better were it that 
 mere earthly Historians should lower such pretensions, 
 more suitable for Omniscience than for human science ; 
 and aiming only at some picture of the things acted, 
 which picture itself will at best be a poor approxi- 
 mation, leave the inscrutable purport of them an 
 acknowledged secret; or at most, in reverent Faith, 
 far different from that teaching of Philosophy, pause 
 over the mysterious vestiges of Him, whose path is in 
 the great deep of Time, whom History indeed reveals, 
 but only all History, and in Eternity will clearly 
 reveal. 
 
 Such considerations truly were of small profit, did 
 they, .instead of teaching us vigilance and reverent 
 humility in our inquiries into History, abate our esteem 
 for them, or discourage us from unweariedly prose- 
 cuting them. Let us search more and more into the 
 Past; let all men explore it, as the true fountain of
 
 8 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 knowledge; by whose light alone, consciously or un- 
 consciously employed, can the Present and the Future 
 be interpreted or guessed at. For though the whole 
 meaning lies far beyond our ken; yet in that complex 
 Manuscript, covered over with formless inextricably- 
 entangled unknown characters, — nay which is a 
 Palimpsest, and had once prophetic writing, still 
 dimly legible there, — some letters, some words, may 
 be deciphered; and if no complete Philosophy, here 
 and there an intelligible precept, available in practice, 
 be gathered : well understanding, in the meanwhile, 
 that it is only a little portion we have deciphered; 
 that much still remains to be interpreted; that History 
 is a real Prophetic Manuscript, and can be fully 
 interpreted by no man. 
 
 But the Artist in History may be distinguished 
 from the Artisan in History; for here, as in all other 
 provinces, there are Artists and Artisans; men who 
 labour mechanically in a department, without eye for 
 the Whole, not feeling that there is a Whole; and 
 men who inform and ennoble the humblest depart- 
 ment with an Idea of the Whole, and habitually know 
 that only in the Whole is the Partial to be truly 
 discerned. The proceedings and the duties of these 
 two, in regard to History, must be altogether different. 
 Not, indeed, that each has not a real worth, in his 
 several degree. The simple husbandman can till his 
 field, and by knowledge he has gained of its soil, sow 
 it with the fit grain, though the deep rocks and central 
 fires are unknown to him: his little crop hangs under 
 and over the firmament of stars, and sails through 
 whole untracked celestial spaces, between Aries and 
 Libra; nevertheless it ripens for him in due season, 
 and he gathers it safe into his barn. As a husband- 
 man he is blameless in disregarding those higher 
 wonders; but as a thinker, and faithful inquirer into 
 Nature, he were wrong. So likewise is it with the 
 Historian, who examines some special aspect of 
 History; and from this or that combination of cir- 
 cumstances, political, moral, economical, and the issues
 
 ON HISTORY 9 
 
 it has led to, infers that such and such properties 
 belong to human society, and that the like circum- 
 stances will produce the like issue; which inference, 
 if other trials confirm it, must be held true and practi- 
 cally valuable. He is wrong only, and an artisan, 
 when he fancies that these properties, discovered or 
 discoverable, exhaust the matter; and sees not, at 
 every step, that it is inexhaustible. 
 
 However, that class of cause-and-effect speculators, 
 with whom no wonder would remain wonderful, but 
 all things in Heaven and Earth must be computed and 
 'accounted for'; and even the Unknown, the Infinite 
 in man's Life, had under the words enthusiasm, super- 
 stition, spirit of the age and so forth, obtained, as it 
 were, an algebraical symbol and given value, — have 
 now wellnigh played their part in European culture; 
 and may be considered, as in most countries, even in 
 England itself where they linger the latest, verging 
 towards extinction. He who reads the inscrutable 
 Book of Nature as if it were a Merchant's Ledger, 
 is justly suspected of having never seen that Book, 
 but only some school Synopsis thereof; from which, 
 if taken for the real Book, more error than insight is 
 to be derived. 
 
 Doubtless also, it is with a growing feeling of the 
 infinite nature of History, that in these times, the old 
 principle, division of labour, has been so widely ap- 
 plied to it. The Political Historian, once almost the 
 sole cultivator of History, has now found various 
 associates, who strive to elucidate other phases of 
 human Life; of which, as hinted above, the political 
 conditions it is passed under are but one, and though 
 the primary, perhaps not the most important, of the 
 many outward arrangements. Of this Historian him- 
 self, moreover, in his own special department, new 
 and higher things are beginning to be expected. From 
 of old, it was too often to be reproachfully observed 
 of him, that he dwelt with disproportionate fondness in 
 Senate-houses, in Battle-fields, nay even in Kings' Ante- 
 chambers; forgetting, that far away from such scenes,
 
 10 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 the mighty tide of Thought and Action was still roll- 
 ing on its wondrous course, in gloom and brightness; 
 and in its thousand remote valleys, a whole world of 
 Existence, with or without an earthly sun of Happi- 
 ness to warm it, with or without an heavenly sun of 
 Holiness to purify and sanctify it, was blossoming and 
 fading, whether the 'famous victory' were won or 
 lost. The time seems coming when much of this 
 must be amended; and he who sees no world but that 
 of courts and camps; and writes only how soldiers 
 were drilled and shot, and how this ministerial con- 
 juror out-conjured that other, and then guided, or at 
 least held, something which he called the rudder of 
 Government, but which was rather the spigot of Taxa- 
 tion, wherewith, in place of steering, he could tap, and 
 the more cunningly the nearer the lees, — will pass for 
 a more or less instructive Gazetteer, but will no longer 
 be called a Historian. 
 
 However, the Political Historian, were his work 
 performed with all conceivable perfection, can accom- 
 plish but a part, and still leaves room for numerous 
 fellow-labourers. Foremost among these comes the 
 Ecclesiastical Historian; endeavouring, with catholic 
 or sectarian view, to trace the progress of the Church ; 
 of that portion of the social establishments, which 
 respects our religious condition ; as the other portion 
 does our civil, or rather, in the long-run, our econo- 
 mical condition. Rightly conducted, this department 
 were undoubtedly the more important of the two; 
 inasmuch as it concerns us more to understand how 
 man's moral well-being had been and might be pro- 
 moted, than to understand in the like sort his physical 
 well-being; which latter is ultimately the aim of all 
 Political arrangements. For the physically happiest 
 is simply the safest, the strongest; and, in all condi- 
 tions of Government, Power (whether of wealth as in 
 these days, or of arms and adherents as in old days) 
 is the only outward emblem and purchase-money of 
 Good. True Good, however, unless we reckon Plea- 
 sure synonymous with it, is said to be rarely, or rather
 
 ON HISTORY 11 
 
 never, offered for sale in the market where that coin 
 passes current. So that, for man's true advantage, 
 not the outward condition of his life, but the inward 
 and spiritual, is of prime influence; not the form of 
 Government he lives under, and the power he can 
 accumulate there, but the Church he is a member of, 
 and the degree of moral elevation he can acquire by 
 means of its instruction. Church History, then, did 
 it speak wisely, would have momentous secrets to 
 teach us: nay, in its highest degree, it were a sort of 
 continued Holy Writ; our Sacred Books being, in- 
 deed, only a History of the primeval Church, as it 
 first arose in man's soul, and symbolically embodied 
 itself in his external life. How far our actual Church 
 Historians fall below such unattainable standards, 
 nay below quite attainable approximations thereto, 
 we need not point out. Of the Ecclesiastical Historian 
 we have to complain, as we did of his Political fellow- 
 craftsman, that his inquiries turn rather on the 
 outward mechanism, the mere hulls and superficial 
 accidents of the object, than on the object itself: as 
 if the Church lay in Bishops' Chapter-houses, and 
 Ecumenic Council-halls, and Cardinals' Conclaves, 
 and not far more in the hearts of Believing Men; in 
 whose walk and conversation, as influenced thereby, 
 its chief manifestations were to be looked for, and its 
 progress or decline ascertained. The History of the 
 Church is a History of the Invisible as well as of 
 the Visible Church; which latter, if disjoined from the 
 former, is but a vacant edifice; gilded, it may be, 
 and overhung with old votive gifts, yet useless, nay 
 pestilentially unclean; to write whose history is less 
 important than to forward its downfall. 
 
 Of a less ambitious character are the Histories 
 that relate to special separate provinces of human 
 Action ; to Sciences, Practical Arts, Institutions and 
 the like; matters which do not imply an epitome of 
 man's whole interest and form of life; but wherein, 
 though each is still connected with all, the spirit of
 
 12 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 each, at least its material results, may be in some 
 degree evolved without so strict a reference to that of 
 the others. Highest in dignity and difficulty, under 
 this head, would be our histories of Philosophy, of 
 man's opinions and theories respecting the nature of 
 his Being, and relations to the Universe Visible and 
 Invisible: which History, indeed, were it fitly treated, 
 or fit for right treatment, would be a province of 
 Church History; the logical or dogmatical province 
 thereof; for Philosophy, in its true sense, is or should 
 be the soul, of which Religion, Worship is the body; 
 in the healthy state of things the Philosopher and 
 Priest were one and the same. But Philosophy itself 
 is far enough from wearing this character; neither 
 have its Historians been men, generally speaking, 
 that could in the smallest degree approximate it 
 thereto. Scarcely since the rude era of the Magi 
 and Druids has that same healthy identification of 
 Priest and Philosopher had place in any country: 
 but rather the worship of divine things, and the 
 scientific investigation of divine things, have been in 
 quite different hands, their relations not friendly but 
 hostile. Neither have the Bruckers and Buhles, to 
 say nothing of the many unhappy Enfields who have 
 treated of that latter department, been more than 
 barren reporters, often unintelligent and unintelligible 
 reporters, of the doctrine uttered; \vithout force to 
 discover how the doctrine originated, or what refer- 
 ence it bore to its time and country, to the spiritual 
 position of mankind there and then. Nay, such a task 
 did not perhaps lie before them, as a thing to be 
 attempted. 
 
 Art also and Literature are intimately blended 
 with Religion; as it were, outworks and abutments, 
 by which that highest pinnacle in our inward world 
 gradually connects itself with the general level, and 
 becomes accessible therefrom. He who should write 
 a proper History of Poetry, would depict for us the 
 successive Revelations which man had obtained of
 
 ON HISTORY 13 
 
 the Spirit of Nature; under what aspects he had 
 caught and endeavoured to body forth some glimpse 
 of that unspeakable Beauty, which in its highest 
 clearness is Religion, is the inspiration of a Prophet, 
 yet in one or the other degree must inspire every true 
 Singer, were his theme never so humble. We should 
 see by what steps men had ascended to the Temple; 
 how near they had approached; by what ill hap they 
 had, for long periods, turned away from it, and 
 grovelled on the plain with no music in the air, or 
 blindly struggled towards other heights. That among 
 all our Eichhorns and Wartons there is no such 
 Historian, must be too clear to every one. Never- 
 theless let us not despair of far nearer approaches to 
 that excellence. Above all, let us keep the Ideal of 
 it ever in our ej'e; for thereby alone have we even a 
 chance to reach it. 
 
 Our histories of Laws and Constitutions, wherein 
 many a Montesquieu and Hallam has laboured with 
 acceptance, are of a much simpler nature; yet deep 
 enough if thoroughly investigated; and useful, when 
 authentic, even with little depth. Then we have 
 Histories of Medicine, of Mathematics, of Astronomy, 
 Commerce, Chivalry, Monkery; and Goguets and 
 Beckmanns have come forward with what might be 
 the most bountiful contribution of all, a History of 
 Inventions. Of all which sorts, and many more not 
 here enumerated, not yet devised and put in practice, 
 the merit and the proper scheme may, in our present 
 limits, require no exposition. 
 
 In this manner, though, as above remarked, all 
 Action is extended three ways, and the general sum 
 of human Action is a whole Universe, with all limits 
 of it unknown, does History strive by running path 
 after path, through the Impassable, in manifold 
 directions and intersections, to secure for us some 
 oversight of the Whole; in which endeavour, if each 
 Historian look well around him from his path, track- 
 ing it out with the eye, not, as is more common, with
 
 14 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 the nose, she may at last prove not altogether un- 
 successful. Praying only that increased division of 
 labour do not here, as elsewhere, aggravate our 
 already strong Mechanical tendencies, so that in the 
 manual dexterity for parts we lose all command over 
 the whole, and the hope of any Philosophy of History 
 be farther off than ever, — let us all wish her great 
 and greater success.
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 
 1840 
 
 It is hardly necessary for us to say that this is an 
 excellent book excellently translated. The original 
 work of Professor Ranke is known and esteemed 
 wherever German literature is studied, and has been 
 found interesting even in a most inaccurate and dis- 
 honest French version. It is indeed the work of a 
 mind fitted both for minute researches and for large 
 speculations. It is written also in an admirable spirit, 
 equally remote from levity and bigotry, serious and 
 earnest, yet tolerant and impartial. It is therefore 
 with the greatest pleasure that we now see it take 
 its place among the English classics. Of the trans- 
 lation we need only say that it is such as might be 
 expected from the skill, the taste, and the scrupulous 
 integrity of the accomplished lady who, as an inter- 
 preter between the mind of Germany and the mind 
 of Britain, has already deserved so well of both 
 countries. 
 
 The subject of this book has always appeared to 
 us singularly interesting. How it was that Protes- 
 tantism did so much, yet did no more, how it was that 
 the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, 
 not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly 
 half of what she had lost, is certainly a curious and 
 most important question; and on this question Pro- 
 fessor Ranke has thrown far more light than any other 
 person who has written on it.
 
 16 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 There is not, and there never was on this earth, a 
 work of human policy so well deserving of examination 
 as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that 
 Church joins together the two great ages of civilization. 
 No other institution is left standing which carries the 
 mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice 
 rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and 
 tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The 
 proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when com- 
 pared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That 
 line we trace back in an unbroken series from the 
 Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; 
 and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty 
 extends till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The 
 republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the 
 republic of Venice was modern when compared with 
 the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and 
 the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in 
 decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful 
 vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to 
 the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous 
 as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still 
 confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with 
 which she confronted Attila. The number of her 
 children is greater than in any former age. Her 
 acquisitions in the New World have more than com- 
 pensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her 
 spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries 
 which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape 
 Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not im- 
 probably contain a population as large as that which 
 now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion 
 are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty 
 millions; and it will be difBcuIt to show that all other 
 Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty 
 millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that 
 the term of her long dominion is approaching. She 
 saw the commencement of all the governments and of 
 all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 17 
 
 the world ; and we feel no assurance that she is not 
 destined to see the end of them all. She was great 
 and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, 
 before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian 
 eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were 
 still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may 
 still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller 
 from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, 
 take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to 
 sketch the ruins of St Paul's. 
 
 We often hear it said that the world is constantly 
 becoming more and more enlightened, and that this 
 enlightening must be favourable to Protestantism and 
 unfavourable to Catholicism. We wish that we could 
 think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether 
 this be a well-founded expectation. We see that during 
 the last two hundred and fifty years the human mind 
 has been in the highest degree active, that it has made 
 great advances in every branch of natural philosophy, 
 that it has produced innumerable inventions tending to 
 promote the convenience of life, that medicine, surgery, 
 chemistry, engineering have been very greatly improved, 
 that government, police, and law, have been improved, 
 though not to so great an extent as the physical 
 sciences. Yet we see that, during these two hundred 
 and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests 
 worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as 
 there has been a change, that change has been in 
 favour of the Church of Rome. We cannot there- 
 fore feel confident that the progress of knowledge will 
 necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the 
 least, stood its ground in spite of the immense progress 
 which knowledge has made since the days of Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Indeed the argument which we are considering 
 seems to us to be founded on an entire mistake. 
 There are branches of knowledge with respect to 
 which the law of the human mind is progress. In 
 mathematics, when once a proposition has been de- 
 monstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every 
 
 s.
 
 18 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure 
 as the original foundation was. Here therefore there 
 is a constant addition to the stock of truth. In the 
 inductive sciences again, the law is progress. Every 
 day furnishes new facts, and thus brings theory nearer 
 and nearer to perfection. There is no chance that, 
 either in the purely demonstrative or in the purely 
 experimental sciences, the world will ever go back 
 or even remain stationary. Nobody ever heard of 
 a reaction against Taylor's theorem, or of a reaction 
 against Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the 
 blood. 
 
 But with theology the case is very different. As 
 respects natural religion — revelation being for the pre- 
 sent altogether left out of the question — it is not easy 
 to see that a philosopher of the present day is more 
 favourably situated than Thales or Simonides. He 
 has before him just the same evidences of design in 
 the structure of the universe which the early Greeks 
 had. We say just the same; for the discoveries of 
 modern astronomers and anatomists have really added 
 nothing to the force of that argument which a reflect- 
 ing mind finds in every beast, bird, insect, fish, leaf, 
 flower and shell. The reasoning by which Socrates, 
 in Xenophon's hearing, confuted the little Atheist 
 Aristodemus, is exactly the reasoning of Paley's Na- 
 tural Theology. Socrates makes precisely the same 
 use of the statues of Polycletus and the pictures of 
 Zeuxis which Paley makes of the watch. As to the 
 other great question — the question what becomes of 
 man after death — we do not see that a highly educated 
 European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely 
 to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a 
 single one of the many sciences in which we surpass 
 the Blackfoot Indians throws the smallest light on 
 the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct. 
 In truth all the philosophers, ancient and modern, 
 who have attempted without the help of revelation 
 to prove the immortality of man, from Plato down to 
 Franklin, appear to us to have failed deplorably.
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 19 
 
 Then again all the great enigmas which perplex the 
 natural theologian are the same in all ages. The in- 
 genuity of a people just emerging from barbarism is 
 quite sufficient to propound those enigmas. The wis- 
 dom of Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve them. 
 It is a mistake to imagine that subtle speculations 
 touching the Divine attributes, the origin of evil, the 
 necessity of human actions, the foundation of moral 
 obligation, imply any high degree of intellectual cul- 
 ture. Such speculations, on the contraiy, are in a 
 peculiar manner the delight of intelligent children 
 and of half-civilized men. The number of boys is not 
 small who, at fourteen, have thought enough on these 
 questions to be fully entitled to the praise which Vol- 
 taire gives to Zadig : 'II en savait ce qu'on en a su 
 dans tous les ages; c'est-a-dire, fort peu de chose.' 
 The book of Job shows that, long before letters and 
 arts were known to Ionia, these vexing questions were 
 debated with no common skill and eloquence under the 
 tents of the Idumean Emirs; nor has human reason, 
 in the course of three thousand years, discovered any 
 satisfactory solution of the riddles which perplexed 
 Eliphaz and Zophar. 
 
 Natural theology, then, is not a progressive science. 
 That knowledge of our origin and of our destiny which 
 we deris'e from revelation is indeed of very different 
 clearness and of very different importance. But neither 
 is revealed religion of the nature of a progressive 
 science. All Divine truth is, according to the doctrine 
 of the Protestant Churches, recorded in certain books. 
 It is equally open to all who, in any age, can read those 
 books ; nor can all the discoveries of all the philosophers 
 in the world add a single verse to any of those books. 
 It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be 
 a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking 
 place in pharmacy, geology and navigation. A Chris- 
 tian of the fifth century with a Bible is on a par with 
 a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, 
 candour and natural acuteness being of course sup- 
 posed equal. It matters not at all that the compass,
 
 20 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a 
 thousand other discoveries and inventions, which were 
 unknown in the fifth century, are familiar to the nine- 
 teenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has 
 the smallest bearing on the question whether man is 
 justified by faith alone, or whether the invocation of 
 saints is an orthodox practice. It seems to us there- 
 fore that we have no security for the future against 
 the prevalence of any theological error that ever has 
 prevailed in time past among Christian men. We are 
 confident that the world will never go back to the solar 
 system of Ptolemy; nor is our confidence in the least 
 shaken by the circumstance that even so great a man 
 as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn ; for 
 Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound 
 conclusion which are within our reach, and which 
 secure people who would not have been worthy to 
 mend his pens from falling into his mistakes. But 
 we are very differently affected when we reflect that 
 Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. He was a man of eminent talents. 
 He had all the information on the subject that we 
 have, or that while the world lasts any human being 
 will have. The text, ' This is my body,' was in his 
 New Testatnent as it is in ours. The absurdity of 
 the literal interpretation was as great and as obvious 
 in the sixteenth century as it is now. No progress 
 that science has made, or will make, can add to what 
 seems to us the overwhelming force of the argument 
 against the real presence. We are therefore unable 
 to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed 
 respecting transubstantiation may not be believed to 
 the end of time by men equal in abilities and honesty 
 to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More is one 
 of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue; 
 and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of 
 proof charge. A faith which stands that test will 
 stand any test. The prophecies of Brothers and the 
 miracles of Prince Hohenlohe sink to trifles in the 
 comparison.
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 21 
 
 One reservation indeed must be made. The books 
 and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled with 
 propositions strictly theological, other propositions, 
 purporting to rest on the same authority, which relate 
 to physics. If new discoveries should throw discredit 
 on the physical propositions, the theological proposi- 
 tions, unless they can be separated from the physical 
 propositions, will share in that discredit. In this way, 
 undoubtedly, the progress of science may indirectly 
 serve the cause of religious truth. The Hindoo my- 
 thology, for example, is bound up with a most absurd 
 geography. Every young Brahmin, therefore, who 
 learns geography in our colleges, learns to smile at 
 the Hindoo mythology. If Catholicism has not suf- 
 fered to an equal degree from the Papal decision that 
 the sun goes round the earth, this is because all intel- 
 ligent Catholics now hold with Pascal that, in decid- 
 ing the point at all, the Church exceeded her powers, 
 and was therefore justly left destitute of that superna- 
 tural assistance which, in the exercise of her legitimate 
 functions, the promise of her Founder authorised her 
 to expect. 
 
 This reservation affects not at all the truth of our 
 proposition, that divinity, properly so called, is not a 
 progressive science. A very common knowledge of 
 history, a very little observation of life, will suffice to 
 prove that no learning, no sagacity, affords a security 
 against the greatest errors on subjects relating to the 
 invisible world. Bayle and Chillingworth, two of the 
 most sceptical of mankind, turned Catholics from sin- 
 cere conviction. Johnson, incredulous on all other 
 points, was a ready believer in miracles and appari- 
 tions. He would not believe in Ossian ; but he believed 
 in the second sight. He would not believe in the 
 earthquake of Lisbon; but he was willing to believe 
 in the Cock Lane Ghost. 
 
 For these reasons we have ceased to wonder at 
 any vagaries of superstition. We have seen men, not 
 of mean intellect or neglected education, but qualified 
 by their talents and acquirements to attain eminence
 
 22 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 either in active or speculative pursuits, well read 
 scholars, expert logicians, keen observers of life and 
 manners, prophesying, interpreting, talking unknown 
 tongues, working miraculous cures, coming down with 
 messages from God to the House of Commons. We 
 have seen an old woman, with no talents beyond the 
 cunning of a fortune-teller and with the education of 
 a scullion, exalted into a prophetess and surrounded 
 by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many of 
 whom were, in station and knowledge, immeasurably 
 her superiors; and all this in the nineteenth century, 
 and all this in London. Yet why not? For of the 
 dealings of God with man no more has been revealed 
 to the nineteenth century than to the first, or to 
 London than to the wildest parish in the Hebrides. 
 It is true that, in those things which concern this life 
 and this world, man constantly becomes wiser and 
 wiser. But it is no less true that, as respects a higher 
 power and a future state, man, in the language of 
 Goethe's scoffing fiend, 
 
 bleibt stets von gleichem Schlag, 
 Und ist so wunderlich als wie am ersten Tag. 
 
 The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates 
 these observations. During the last seven centuries 
 the public mind of Europe has made constant progress 
 in every department of secular knowledge. But in 
 religion we can trace no constant progress. The 
 ecclesiastical history of that long period is a history 
 of movement to and fro. Four times since the 
 authority of the Church of Rome was established in 
 Western Christendom has the human intellect risen 
 up against her yoke. Twice she remained completely 
 victorious. Twice she came forth from the conflict 
 bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the 
 principle of life still strong within her. When we 
 reflect on the tremendous assaults which she has 
 survived, we find it difficult to conceive in what way 
 she is to perish. 
 
 The first of these insurrections broke out in the
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 23 
 
 region where the beautiful language of Oc was spoken. 
 That country, singularly favoured by nature, was, in 
 the twelfth century, the most flourishing and civilized 
 portion of Western Europe. It is in nowise a part of 
 France. It had a distinct political existence, a dis- 
 tinct national character, distinct usages and a distinct 
 speech. The soil was fruitful and well cultivated; and 
 amidst the cornfields and vinej'ards arose many rich 
 cities, each of which was a little republic, and many 
 stately castles, each of which contained a miniature 
 of an imperial court. It was there that the spirit of 
 chivalry first laid aside its terrors, first took a humane 
 and graceful form, first appeared as the inseparable 
 associate of art and literature, of courtesy and love. 
 The other vernacular dialects, which since the fifth 
 century had sprung up in the ancient provinces of 
 the Roman empire, were still rude and imperfect. 
 The sweet Tuscan, the rich and energetic English, 
 were abandoned to artisans and shepherds. No clerk 
 had ever condescended to use such barbarous jargon 
 for the teaching of science, for the recording of great 
 events, or for the painting of life and manners. But 
 the language of Provence was already the language of 
 the learned and polite, and was employed by numerous 
 writers, studious of all the arts of composition and 
 versification. A literature rich in ballads, in war- 
 songs, in satire, and above all in amatory poetry, 
 amused the leisure of the knights and ladies whose 
 fortified mansions adorned the banks of the Rhone 
 and Garonne. With civilization had come freedom 
 of thought. Use had taken away the horror with 
 which misbelievers were elsewhere regarded. No 
 Norman or Breton ever saw a Mussulman except to 
 give and receive blows on some Syrian field of battle. 
 But the people of the rich countries which lay under 
 the Pyrenees lived in habits of courteous and profit- 
 able intercourse with the Moorish kingdoms of Spain, 
 and gave an hospitable welcome to skilful leeches and 
 mathematicians wh(j, in the schools of Cordova and 
 Granada, had become versed in all the learning of the
 
 24 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 Arabians. The Greek, still preserving in the midst of 
 political degradation the ready wit and the inquiring 
 spirit of his fathers, still able to read the most perfect 
 of human compositions, still speaking the most power- 
 ful and flexible of human languages, brought to the 
 marts of Narbonne and Toulouse, together with the 
 drugs and silks of remote climates, bold and subtle 
 theories long unknown to the ignorant and credulous 
 West. The Paulician theology — a theology in which, 
 as it should seem, many of the doctrines of the modern 
 Calvinists were mingled with some doctrines derived 
 from the ancient Manichees — spread rapidly through 
 Provence and Languedoc. The clergy of the Catholic 
 Church were regarded with loathing and contempt. 
 'Viler than a priest,' *I would as soon be a priest,' 
 became proverbial expressions. The Papacy had lost 
 all authority with all classes, from the great feudal 
 princes down to the cultivators of the soil. 
 
 The danger to the hierarchy was indeed formid- 
 able. Only one transalpine nation had emerged from 
 barbarism ; and that nation had thrown off all respect 
 for Rome. Only one of the vernacular languages of 
 Europe had yet been extensively employed for literary 
 purposes; and that language was a machine in the 
 hand of heretics. The geographical position of the 
 sectaries made the danger peculiarly formidable. 
 They occupied a central region communicating directly 
 with France, with Italy and with Spain. The provinces 
 which were still untainted were separated from each 
 other by this infected district. Under these circum- 
 stances it seemed probable that a single generation 
 would suffice to spread the reformed doctrine to Lisbon, 
 to London and to Naples. But this was not to be. 
 Rome cried for help to the warriors of northern France. 
 She appealed at once to their superstition and to their 
 cupidity. To the devout believer she promised pardons 
 as ample as those with which she had rewarded the 
 deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. To the rapacious 
 and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile plains 
 and wealthy cities. Unhappily the ingenious and
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 25 
 
 polished inhabitants of the Languedocian provinces 
 were far better quahfied to enrich and embeUish their 
 country than to defend it. Eminent in the arts of 
 peace, unrivalled in the *gay science,' elevated above 
 many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that iron 
 courage and that skill in martial exercises which dis- 
 tinguished the chivalry of the region beyond the Loire, 
 and were ill fitted to face enemies who in every country 
 from Ireland to Palestine, had been victorious against 
 tenfold odds. A war, distinguished even among wars 
 of religion by merciless atrocity, destroyed the Albi- 
 gensian heresy, and with that heresy the prosperity, 
 the civilisation, the literature, the national existence 
 of what was once the most opulent and enlightened 
 part of the great European family. Rome, in the 
 meantime, warned by that fearful danger from which 
 the exterminating swords of her crusaders had nar- 
 rowly saved her, proceeded to revise and to strengthen 
 her whole system of polity. At this period were insti- 
 tuted the Order of Francis, the Order of Dominic, the 
 Tribunal of the Inquisition. The new spiritual police 
 was everywhere. No alley in a great city, no hamlet 
 on a remote mountain, was unvisited by the begging 
 friar. The simple Catholic, who was content to be 
 no wiser than his fathers, found wherever he turned 
 a friendly voice to encourage him. The path of the 
 heretic was beset by innumerable spies; and the 
 Church, lately in danger of utter subversion, now 
 appeared to be impregnably fortified by the love, the 
 reverence, and the terror of mankind. 
 
 A century and a half passed away, and then came 
 the second great rising up of the human intellect 
 against the spiritual domination of Rome. During 
 the two generations which followed the Albigensian 
 crusade, the power of the Papacy had been at the 
 height. Frederic II, the ablest and most accomplished 
 of the long line of German Ca:sars, had in vain ex- 
 hausted all the resources of military and political skill 
 in the attempt to defend the rights of the civil power 
 against the encroachments of the Church. The ven-
 
 26 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 geance of the priesthood had pursued his house to the 
 third generation. Manfred had perished on the field 
 of battle, Conradin on the scaffold. Then a turn took 
 place. The secular authority, long unduly depressed, 
 regained the ascendant with startling rapidity. The 
 change is doubtless to be ascribed chiefly to the general 
 disgust excited by the way in which the Church had 
 abused its power and its success. But something must 
 be attributed to the character and situation of indi- 
 viduals. The man who bore the chief part in effecting 
 this revolution was Philip IV of France, surnamed the 
 Beautiful, a despot by position, a despot by tempera- 
 ment, stern, implacable and unscrupulous, equally pre- 
 pared for violence and for chicanery, and surrounded 
 by a devoted band of men of the sword and of men of 
 law. The fiercest and most highminded of the Roman 
 Pontiffs, while bestowing kingdoms and citing great 
 princes to his judgment-seat, was seized in his palace 
 by armed men, and so foully outraged that he died 
 mad with rage and terror. 'Thus,' sang the great 
 Florentine poet, 'was Christ, in the person of his 
 vicar, a second time seized by ruffians, a second time 
 mocked, a second time drenched with the vinegar and 
 the gall.' The seat of the Papal court was carried 
 beyond the Alps, and the Bishops of Rome became 
 dependants of France. Then came the great schism 
 of the West. Two Popes, each with a doubtful title, 
 made all Europe ring with their mutual invectives and 
 anathemas. Rome cried out against the corruptions 
 of Avignon; and Avignon with equal justice recrimi- 
 nated on Rome. The plain Christian people, brought 
 up in the belief that it was a sacred duty to be in com- 
 munion with the Head of the Church, were unable to 
 discover amidst conflicting testimonies and conflicting 
 arguments, to which of the two worthless priests, who 
 w^ere cursing and reviling each other, the headship of 
 the Church rightfully belonged. It was nearly at this 
 juncture that the voice of John Wycliffe began to 
 make itself heard. The public mind of England was 
 soon stirred to its inmost depths: and the influence of
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 27 
 
 the new doctrines was soon felt, even in the distant 
 kingdom of Bohemia. In Bohemia indeed there had 
 long been a predisposition to heresy. xMerchants from 
 the Lower Danube were often seen in the fairs of 
 Prague; and the Lower Danube was peculiarly the 
 seat of the Paulician theology. The Church, torn by 
 schism, and fiercely assailed at once in England and 
 in the German empire, was in a situation scarcely less 
 perilous than at the crisis which preceded the Albi- 
 gensian crusade. 
 
 But this danger also passed by. The civil power 
 gave its strenuous support to the Church ; and the 
 Church made some show of reforming itself. The 
 Council of Constance put an end to the schism. The 
 whole Catholic world was again united under a single 
 chief; and rules were laid down which seemed to make 
 it improbable that the power of that chief would be 
 grossly abused. The most distinguished teachers of 
 the new doctrine were put to death. The English 
 government put down the Lollards with merciless 
 rigour; and, in the next generation, no trace of the 
 second great revolt against the Papacy could be found 
 except among the rude population of the mountains of 
 Bohemia. 
 
 Another century went by ; and then began the third 
 and the most memorable struggle for spiritual freedom. 
 The times were changed. The great remains of 
 Athenian and Roman genius were studied by thou- 
 sands. The Church had no longer a monopoly of 
 learning. The powers of the modern languages had 
 at length been developed. The invention of printing 
 had given new facilities to the intercourse of mind 
 with mind. With such auspices commenced the great 
 Reformation. 
 
 We will attempt to lay before our readers, in a short 
 compass, what appears to us to be the real history of 
 the contest which began with the preaching of Luther 
 against the Indulgences, and which may, in one sense, 
 be said to have been terminated a hundred and thirty 
 years later by the treaty of Westphalia.
 
 28 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 In the northern parts of Europe, the victory of Pro- 
 testantism was rapid and decisive. The dominion of 
 the Papacy was felt by the nations of the Teutonic 
 blood as the dominion of Italians, of foreigners, of men 
 who were aliens in language, manners, and intellectual 
 constitution. The large jurisdiction exercised by the 
 spiritual tribunals of Rome seemed to be a degrading 
 badge of servitude. The sums which, under a thou- 
 sand pretexts, were exacted by a distant court, were 
 regarded both as a humiliating and as a ruinous tribute. 
 The character of that court excited the scorn and dis- 
 gust of a grave, earnest, sincere, and devout people. 
 The new theology spread with a rapidity never known 
 before. All ranks, all varieties of character, joined the 
 ranks of the innovators. Sovereigns impatient to ap- 
 propriate to themselves the prerogatives of the Pope, 
 nobles desirous to share the plunder of abbeys, suitors 
 exasperated by the extortions of the Roman Camera, 
 patriots impatient of a foreign rule, good men scandal- 
 ised by the corruptions of the Church, bad men desirous 
 of the license inseparable from great moral revolutions, 
 wise men eager in the pursuit of truth, weak men allured 
 by the glitter of novelty — all were found on one side. 
 Alone among the northern nations the Irish adhered 
 to the ancient faith : and the cause of this seems to 
 have been that the national feeling which, in happier 
 countries, was directed against Rome, was in Ireland 
 directed against England. In fifty years from the day 
 on which Luther publicly renounced communion with 
 the Church of Rome and burned the bull of Leo before 
 the gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism attained its 
 highest ascendancy — an ascendancy which it soon lost 
 and which it has never regained. Hundreds, who could 
 well remember Brother Martin a devout Catholic, lived 
 to see the revolution, of which he was the chief author, 
 victorious in half the states of Europe. In England, 
 Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Livonia, Prussia, Saxony, 
 Hesse, Wurtemburg, the Palatinate, in several cantons 
 of Switzerland, in the Northern Netherlands, the Re- 
 formation had completely triumphed; and in all the
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 29 
 
 other countries on this side of the Alps and the Pyre- 
 nees, it seemed on the point of triumphing. 
 
 But while this mighty work was proceeding in the 
 north of Europe, a revolution of a very different kind 
 had taken place in the south. The temper of Italy and 
 Spain was widely different from that of Germany and 
 England. As the national feeling of the Teutonic 
 nations impelled them to throw off the Italian supre- 
 macy, so the national feeling of the Italians impelled 
 them to resist any change which might deprive their 
 countiy of the honours and advantage of being the 
 seat of the government of the universal Church. It 
 was in Italy that the tributes were spent of which 
 foreign nations so bitterly complained. It was to 
 adorn Italy that the traffic in Indulgences had been 
 carried to that scandalous excess which had roused 
 the indignation of Luther. There was among the 
 Italians both much piety and much impiety; but with 
 very few exceptions neither the piety nor the impiety 
 took the turn of Protestantism. The religious Italians 
 desired a reform of morals and discipline, but not a 
 reform of doctrine, and least of all a schism. The 
 irreligious Italians simply disbelieved Christianity with- 
 out hating it. They looked at it as artists or as states- 
 men ; and so looking at it, they liked it better in the 
 established form than in any other. It was to them 
 what the old Pagan worship was to Trajan and Pliny. 
 Neither the spirit of Savonarola nor the spirit of 
 Machiavelli had anything in common with that of the 
 religious or political Protestants of the North. 
 
 Spain again was, with respect to the Catholic 
 Church, in a situation very different from that of the 
 Teutonic nations. Italy was, in fact, a part of the em- 
 pire of Charles V; and the court of Rome was on many 
 important occasions his tool. He had not, therefore, 
 like the distant princes of the North, a strong selfish 
 motive for attacking the Papacy. In fact the very 
 measures which provoked the sovereign of England to 
 renounce all connection with Rome were dictated by 
 the sovereign of Spain. The feelings of the Spanish
 
 30 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 people concurred with the interest of the Spanish 
 government. The attachment of the Castihan to the 
 faith of his ancestors was pecuHarly strong and ardent. 
 With that faith were inseparably bound up the insti- 
 tutions, the independence, and the glory of his country. 
 Between the day when the last Gothic king was van- 
 quished on the Xeres and the day when Ferdinand 
 and Isabella entered Granada in triumph, nearly eight 
 hundred years had elapsed; and during those years 
 the Spanish nation had been engaged in a desperate 
 struggle against misbelievers. The Crusades had been 
 merely an episode in the history of other nations. The 
 existence of Spain had been one long Crusade. After 
 fighting Mussulmans in the Old World, she began to 
 fight heathens in the New. It was under the authority 
 of a Papal bull that her children steered into unknown 
 seas. It was under the standard of the cross that they 
 marched fearlessly into the heart of great kingdoms. 
 It was with the cry of ' St James for Spain ' that they 
 charged armies which outnumbered them a hundred- 
 fold. And men said that the Saint had heard the call, 
 and had himself, in arms, on a grey war-horse, led the 
 onset before which the worshippers of false gods had 
 given way. After the battle every excess of rapacity 
 or cruelty was sufficiently vindicated by the plea that 
 the sufferers were unbaptized. Avarice stimulated 
 zeal. Zeal consecrated avarice. Proselytes and gold 
 mines were sought with equal ardour. In the very 
 year in which the Saxons, maddened by the exactions 
 of Rome, broke loose from her yoke, the Spaniards, 
 under the authority of Rome, made themselves masters 
 of the empire and of the treasures of Montezuma. 
 Thus Catholicism, which in the public mind of Northern 
 Europe was associated with spoliation and oppression, 
 was in the public mind of Spain associated with liberty, 
 victory, dominion, wealth, and glory. 
 
 It is not therefore strange that the effect of the great 
 outbreak of Protestantism in one part of Christendom 
 should have been to produce an equally violent out- 
 break of Catholic zeal in another. Two reformations
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 31 
 
 were pushed on at once with equal energy and effect 
 — a reformation of doctrine in the North, a reforma- 
 tion of manners and discipline in the South. In the 
 course of a single generation the whole spirit of the 
 Church of Rome underwent a change. From the halls 
 of the Vatican to the most secluded hermitage of the 
 Apennines the great revival was everywhere felt and 
 seen. All the institutions anciently devised for the 
 propagation and defence of the faith were furbished 
 up and made efficient. Fresh engines of still more 
 formidable power were constructed. Everywhere old 
 religious communities were remodelled and new reli- 
 gious communities called into existence. Within a 
 year after the death of Leo the order of Camaldoli 
 was purified. The Capuchins restored the old Fran- 
 ciscan discipline — the midnight prayer and the life of 
 silence. The Barnabites and the society of Somascha 
 devoted themselves to the relief and education of the 
 poor. To the Theatine order a still higher interest 
 belongs. Its great object was the same with that of 
 our early Methodists — to supply the deficiencies of the 
 parochial clergy. The Church of Rome, wiser than 
 the Church of England, gave every countenance to 
 the good work. The members of the new brotherhood 
 preached to great multitudes in the streets and in the 
 fields, prayed by the beds of the sick, and administered 
 the last sacraments to the dying. Foremost among 
 them in zeal and devotion was Gian Pietro Caraffa, 
 afterwards Pope Paul IV. In the convent of the 
 Theatines at Venice, under the eye of Caraffa, a 
 Spanish gentleman took up his abode, tended the 
 poor in the hospitals, went about in rags, starved 
 himself almost to death, and often sallied into the 
 streets, mounted on stones, and, waving his hat to 
 invite the passers-by, began to preach in a strange 
 jargon of mingled Castilian and Tuscan. The Thea- 
 tines were among the most zealous and rigid of men; 
 but to this enthusiastic neophyte their discipline seemed 
 lax and their movements sluggish ; for his own mind, 
 naturally passionate and imaginative, had passed
 
 32 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 through a trauiing which had given to all its pecu- 
 liarities a morbid intensity and energy. In his early 
 life he had been the very prototype of the hero of 
 Cervantes. The single study of the young hidalgo 
 had been chivalrous romance; and his existence had 
 been one gorgeous day-dream of princesses rescued 
 and infidels subdued. He had chosen a Dulcinea, 
 ' no countess, no duchess ' — these are his own words 
 — 'but one of far higher station'; and he flattered 
 himself with the hope of laying at her feet the keys 
 of Moorish castles and the jewelled turbans of Asiatic 
 kings. In the midst of these visions of martial glory 
 and prosperous love, a severe wound stretched him on 
 a bed of sickness. His constitution was shattered and 
 he was doomed to be a cripple for life. The palm of 
 strength, grace, and skill in knightly exercises was no 
 longer for him. He could no longer hope to strike 
 down gigantic soldans, or to find favour in the sight 
 of beautiful women. A new vision then arose in his 
 mind and mingled itself with his old delusions in a 
 manner which to most Englishmen must seem singular, 
 but which those who know how close was the union 
 between religion and chivalry in Spain will be at no 
 loss to understand. He would still be a soldier; he 
 would still be a knight errant; but the soldier and 
 knight errant of the spouse of Christ. He would 
 smite the Great Red Dragon. He would be the 
 champion of the Woman clothed with the Sun. He 
 would break the charm under which false prophets 
 held the souls of men in bondage. His restless spirit 
 led him to the Syrian deserts and to the chapel of the 
 Holy Sepulchre. Thence he wandered back to the 
 farthest West, and astonished the convents of Spain 
 and the schools of France by his penances and vigils. 
 The same lively imagination, which had been employed 
 in picturing the tumult of unreal battles and the 
 charms of unreal queens, now peopled his solitude 
 with saints and angels. The Holy Virgin descended 
 to commune with him. He saw the Saviour face to 
 face with the eye of flesh. Even those mysteries of
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 33 
 
 religion which are the hardest trial of faith were in 
 his case palpable to sight. It is difficult to relate 
 without a pitying smile that, in the sacrifice of the 
 mass, he saw transubstantiation take place, and that 
 as he stood praying on the steps of the Church of 
 St Dominic, he saw the Trinity in Unity, and wept 
 aloud with joy and wonder. Such was the celebrated 
 Ignatius Loyola, who in the great Catholic reaction 
 bore the same part which Luther bore in the great 
 Protestant movement. 
 
 Dissatisfied with the system of the Theatines, the 
 enthusiastic Spaniard turned his face towards Rome. 
 Poor, obscure, without a patron, without recommenda- 
 tions, he entered the city where now two princely 
 temples, rich with painting and many-coloured marble, 
 commemorate his great services to the Church; where 
 his form stands sculptured in massive silver; where his 
 bones, enshrined amidst jewels, are placed beneath 
 the altar of God. His activity and zeal bore down 
 all opposition ; and under his rule the order of Jesuits 
 began to exist and grew rapidly to the full measure of 
 its gigantic powers. With what vehemence, with what 
 policy, with what exact discipline, with what dauntless 
 courage, with what self-denial, with what forgetfulness 
 of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stub- 
 born devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous 
 laxity and versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits 
 fought the battle of their Church, is written in every 
 page of the annals of Europe during several genera- 
 tions. In the order of Jesus was concentrated the 
 quintessence of the Catholic spirit; and the history 
 of the order of Jesus is the history of the great 
 Catholic reaction. That order possessed itself at 
 once of all the strongholds which command the public 
 mind — of the pulpit, of the press, of the confessional, 
 of the academies. Wherever the Jesuit preached, the 
 church was too small for the audience. The name of 
 Jesuit on a title-page secured the circulation of a book. 
 It was in the ears of the Jesuit that the powerful, the 
 noble, and the beautiful, breathed the secret history of 
 
 s. n
 
 34 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 their lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the 
 youth of the higher and middle classes were brought 
 up from the first rudiments to the courses of rhetoric 
 and philosophy. Literature and science, lately asso- 
 ciated with infidelity or with heresy, now became the 
 allies of orthodoxy. Dominant in the south of Europe, 
 the great order soon went forth conquering and to 
 conquer. In spite of oceans and deserts, of hunger 
 and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of dungeons 
 and racks, of gibbets and quartering-blocks, Jesuits 
 were to be found under every disguise and in every 
 country — scholars, physicians, merchants, serving-men ; 
 in the hostile court of Sweden, in the old manor-house 
 of Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught; arguing, 
 instructing, consoling, stealing away the hearts of the 
 young, animating the courage of the timid, holding up 
 the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. Nor was it 
 less their office to plot against the thrones and lives 
 of apostate kings, to spread evil rumours, to raise 
 tumults, to inflame civil wars, to arm the hand of the 
 assassin. Inflexible in nothing but in their fidelity to 
 the Church, they were equally ready to appeal in her 
 cause to the spirit of loyalty and to the spirit of free- 
 dom. Extreme doctrines of obedience and extreme 
 doctrines of liberty, the right of rulers to misgovern 
 the people, the right of every one of the people to 
 plunge his knife in the heart of a bad ruler, were 
 inculcated by the same man, according as he addressed 
 himself to the subject of Philip or to the subject of 
 Elizabeth. Some described these men as the most 
 rigid, others as the most indulgent, of spiritual di- 
 rectors; and both descriptions were correct. The truly 
 devout listened with awe to the high and saintly 
 morality of the Jesuit. The gay cavalier who had 
 run his rival through the body, the frail beauty who 
 had forgotten her marriage vow, found in the Jesuit 
 an easy, well-bred man of the world, tolerant of the 
 little irregularities of people of fashion. The confessor 
 was strict or lax according to the temper of the peni- 
 tent. His first object was to drive no person out of
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 35 
 
 the pale of the Church. Since there were bad people, 
 it was better that they should be bad Catholics than 
 bad Protestants. If a person was so unfortunate as 
 to be a bravo, a libertine, or a gambler, that was no 
 reason for making him a heretic too. 
 
 The Old World was not wide enough for this strange 
 activity. The Jesuits invaded all the countries which 
 the great maritime discoveries of the preceding age had 
 laid open to European enterprise. In the depths of the 
 Peruvian mines, at the marts of the African slave- 
 caravans, on the shores of the Spice Islands, in the 
 observatories of China, they were to be found. They 
 made converts in regions which neither avarice nor 
 curiosity had tempted any of their countrymen to 
 enter; and preached and disputed in tongues of which 
 no other native of the West understood a word. 
 
 The spirit which appeared so eminently in this order 
 animated the whole Catholic world. The Court of Rome 
 itself was purified. During the generation which pre- 
 ceded the Reformation, that court had been a scandal 
 to the Christian name. Its annals are black with 
 treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respect- 
 able members were utterly unfit to be ministers of 
 religion. They were men like Leo X; men who, with 
 the Latinity of the Augustan age, had acquired its 
 atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded those 
 Christian mysteries, of which they were stewards, just 
 as the Augur Cicero and the Pontifex Maximus Caesar 
 regarded the Sibylline books and the pecking of the 
 sacred chickens. Among themselves, they spoke of 
 the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the Trinity, in 
 the same tone in which Cotta and Velleius talked of 
 the oracle of Delphi or the voice of Faunus in the 
 mountains. Their years glided by in a soft dream 
 of sensual and intellectual voluptuousness. Choice 
 cookery, delicious wines, lovely women, hounds, fal- 
 cons, horses, newly-discovered manuscripts of the 
 classics, sonnets and burlesque romances in the 
 sweetest Tuscan, just as licentious as a fine sense of 
 the graceful would permit, plate from the hand of 
 
 3—2
 
 3CS THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michael Angelo, 
 frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics, and gems, just 
 dug up from among the ruins of ancient temples and 
 villas — these things were the delight and even the 
 serious business of their lives. Letters and the fine 
 arts undoubtedly owe much to this not inelegant sloth. 
 But when the great stirring of the mind of Europe 
 began, when doctrine after doctrine was assailed, 
 when nation after nation withdrew from communion 
 with the successor of St Peter, it was felt that the 
 Church could not be safely confided to chiefs whose 
 highest praise was that they were good judges of 
 Latin compositions, of paintings, and of statues; whose 
 severest studies had a pagan character ; and who were 
 suspected of laughing in secret at the sacraments which 
 they administered, and of believing no more of the 
 Gospel than of the Morgante Maggiore. Men of a 
 very different class now rose to the direction of eccle- 
 siastical affairs, men whose spirit resembled that of 
 Dunstan and of Becket. The Roman Pontiffs exhi- 
 bited in their own persons all the austerity of the 
 early anchorites of Syria. Paul IV brought to the 
 Papal throne the same fervent zeal which had carried 
 him into the Theatine convent. Pius V, under his 
 gorgeous vestments, wore day and night the hair 
 shirt of a simple friar; walked barefoot in the streets 
 at the head of processions; found, even in the midst 
 of his most pressing avocations, time for private 
 prayer; often regretted that the public duties of his 
 station were unfavourable to growth in holiness; and 
 edified his flock by innumerable instances of humility, 
 charity, and forgiveness of personal injuries; while at 
 the same time he upheld the authority of his see and 
 the unadulterated doctrines of his Church with all the 
 stubbornness and vehemence of Hildebrand. Gregory 
 XIII exerted himself not only to imitate but to surpass 
 Pius in the severe virtues of his sacred profession. As 
 was the head, such were the members. The change 
 in the spirit of the Catholic world may be traced in 
 every walk of literature and of art. It will be at once
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 37 
 
 perceived by every person who compares the poem 
 of Tasso with that of Ariosto, or the monuments of 
 Sixtus V with those of Leo X. 
 
 But it was not on moral influence alone that the 
 Catholic Church relied. The civil sword in Spain and 
 Italy was unsparingly employed in her support. The 
 Inquisition was armed with new powers and inspired 
 with a new energy. If Protestantism, or the semblance 
 of Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter, it was 
 instantly met, not by petty, teasing persecution, but by 
 persecution of that sort which bows down and crushes 
 all but a very few select spirits. Whoever was sus- 
 pected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning, or his 
 reputation, was to purge himself to the satisfaction of a 
 severe and vigilant tribunal, or die by fire. Heretical 
 books were sought out and destroyed with the same 
 unsparing rigour. Works which were once in every 
 house were so eff^ectually suppressed that no copy of 
 them is now to be found in the most extensive libraries. 
 One book in particular, entitled Of tJie Benefits of tlie 
 Death of Christ, had this fate. It was written in 
 Tuscan, was many times reprinted, and was eagerly 
 read in every part of Italy. But the Inquisitors de- 
 tected in it the Lutheran doctrine of justification by 
 faith alone. They proscribed it ; and it is now as 
 utterly lost as the second decade of Livy. 
 
 Thus while the Protestant reformation proceeded 
 rapidly at one extremity of Europe, the Catholic re- 
 vival went on as rapidly at the other. About half a 
 century after the great separation, there were, through- 
 out the North, Protestant governments and Protestant 
 nations. In the South were governments and nations 
 actuated by the most intense zeal for the ancient 
 Church. Between these two hostile regions lay, 
 morally as well as geographically, a great debatable 
 land. In France, Belgium, Southern Germany, Hun- 
 gary, and Poland, the contest was still undecided. 
 The governments of those countries had not renounced 
 their connection with Rome ; but the Protestants were 
 numerous, pf)werful, bold, and active. In France they
 
 38 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 formed a commonwealth within the realm, held fort- 
 resses, were able to bring great armies into the field, 
 and had treated with their sovereign on terms of 
 equality. In Poland the king was still a Catholic; 
 but the Protestants had the upper hand in the Diet, 
 filled the chief offices in the administration, and in 
 the large towns took possession of the parish churches. 
 ' It appeared,' says the Papal nuncio, ' that in Poland 
 Protestantism would completely supersede Catholi- 
 cism.' In Bavaria the state of things was nearly the 
 same. The Protestants had a majority in the As- 
 sembly of the States, and demanded from the duke 
 concessions in favour of their religion as the price 
 of their subsidies. In Transylvania the House of 
 Austria was unable to prevent the Diet from con- 
 fiscating, by one sweeping decree, the estates of the 
 Church. In Austria proper it was generally said 
 that only one-thirtieth part of the population could 
 be counted on as good Catholics. In Belgium the 
 adherents of the new opinions were reckoned by 
 hundreds of thousands. 
 
 The history of the two succeeding generations is 
 the history of the great struggle between Protestant- 
 ism possessed of the North of Europe and Catholicism 
 possessed of the South, for the doubtful territory which 
 lay between. All the weapons of carnal and of spiri- 
 tual warfare were employed. Both sides may boast of 
 great talents and of great virtues. Both have to blush 
 for many follies and crimes. At first the chances 
 seemed to be decidedly in favour of Protestantism; 
 but the victory remained with the Church of Rome. 
 On every point she was successful. If we overleap 
 another half century we find her victorious and domi- 
 nant in France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, 
 Poland and Hungary. Nor has Protestantism, in the 
 course of two hundred years, been able to reconquer 
 any portion of what was then lost. 
 
 It is moreover not to be dissembled that this won- 
 derful triumph of the Papacy is to be chiefly attributed 
 not to the force of arms, but to a great reflux in public
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 39 
 
 opinion. During the first half century after the com- 
 mencement of the Reformation, the current of feehng 
 in the countries on this side of the Alps and of the 
 Pyrenees ran impetuously towards the new doctrines. 
 Then the tide turned and rushed as fiercely in the 
 opposite direction. Neither during the one period 
 nor during the other did much depend upon the event 
 of battles or sieges. The Protestant movement was 
 hardly checked for an instant by the defeat at Muhl- 
 berg. The Catholic reaction went on at full speed in 
 spite of the destruction of the Armada. It is difficult 
 to say whether the violence of the first blow or of the 
 recoil was the greater. Fifty years after the Lutheran 
 separation, Catholicism could scarcely maintain itself 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean. A hundred years 
 after the separation, Protestantism could scarcely main- 
 tain itself on the shores of the Baltic. The causes of 
 this memorable turn in human affairs well deserve to 
 be investigated. 
 
 The contest between the two parties bore some 
 resemblance to the fencing match in Shakespeare, 
 ' Laertes wounds Hamlet ; then, in scuffling, they 
 change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.' The 
 war between Luther and Leo was a war between firm 
 faith and unbelief, between zeal and apathy, between 
 energy and indolence, between seriousness and frivolity, 
 between a pure morality and vice. Very different was 
 the war which degenerate Protestantism had to wage 
 against regenerate Catholicism. To the debauchees, 
 the poisoners, the atheists, who had worn the tiara 
 during the generation which preceded the Reforma- 
 tion, had succeeded Popes who, in religious fervour 
 and severe sanctity of manners, might bear a com- 
 parison with Cyprian or Ambrose. The order of Jesuits 
 alone could show many men not inferior in sincerity, 
 constancy, courage, and austerity of life, to the apos- 
 tles of the Reformation. But while danger had thus 
 called forth in the bosom of the Church of Rome many 
 of the highest qualities of the Reformers, the Reformers 
 had contracted some of tiie corruptions which had been
 
 40 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 justly censured in the Church of Rome. They had be- 
 come lukewarm and worldly. Their great old leaders 
 had been borne to the grave and had left no successors. 
 Among the Protestant princes there was little or no 
 hearty Protestant feeling. Elizabeth herself was a 
 Protestant rather from policy than from firm convic- 
 tion. James I, in order to effect his favourite object 
 of marrying his son into one of the great continental 
 houses, was ready to make immense concessions to 
 Rome, and even to admit a modified primacy in the 
 Pope. Henry IV twice abjured the reformed doctrines 
 from interested motives. The Elector of Saxony, the 
 natural head of the Protestant party in Germany, sub- 
 mitted to become, at the most important crisis of the 
 struggle, a tool in the hands of the Papists. Among 
 the Catholic sovereigns on the other hand we find a 
 religious zeal often amounting to fanaticism. Philip II 
 was a Papist in a very different sense from that .in 
 which Elizabeth was a Protestant. Maximilian of 
 Bavaria, brought up under the teaching of the Jesuits, 
 was a fervent missionary wielding the powers of a 
 prince. The Emperor Ferdinand II deliberately put 
 his throne to hazard over and over again, rather than 
 make the smallest concession to the spirit of religious 
 innovation. Sigismund of Sweden lost a crown which 
 he might have preserved if he would have renounced 
 the Catholic faith. In short everywhere on the Pro- 
 testant side we see languor; everywhere on the Catholic 
 side we see ardour and devotion. 
 
 Not only M-as there at this time a much more 
 intense zeal among the Catholics than among the 
 Protestants, but the whole zeal of the Catholic's was 
 directed against the Protestants, while almost the 
 whole zeal of the Protestants was directed against 
 each other. Within the Catholic Church there were 
 no serious disputes on points of doctrine. The de- 
 cisions of the Council of Trent were received; and 
 the Jansenian controversy had not yet arisen. The 
 whole force of Rome was, therefore, effective for the 
 purpose of carrying on the war against the Reforma-
 
 RAXKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 41 
 
 tion. On the other hand the force which ought to 
 have fought the battle of the Reformation was ex- 
 hausted in civil conflict. While Jesuit preachers, 
 Jesuit confessors, Jesuit teachers of youth overspread 
 Europe, eager to expend every faculty of their minds 
 and every drop of their blood in the cause of their 
 Church, Protestant doctors were confuting, and Pro- 
 testant rulers were punishing, sectaries who were just 
 as good Protestants as themselves ; 
 
 Cumque superba foret BABYLON spolianda tropjeis, 
 Bella geri placuit nuUos habitura triumphos. 
 
 In the Palatinate a Calvinistic prince persecuted 
 the Lutherans. In Saxony a Lutheran prince per- 
 secuted the Calvinists. In Sweden everybody who 
 objected to any of the articles of the Confession of 
 Augsburg was banished. In Scotland Melville was 
 disputing with other Protestants on questions of 
 ecclesiastical government. In England the gaols 
 were filled with men who, though zealous for the 
 Reformation, did not exactly agree with the Court 
 on all points of discipline and doctrine. Some were 
 in ward for denying the tenet of reprobation; some 
 for not wearing surplices. The Irish people might 
 at that time have been, in all probability, reclaimed 
 from Popery at the expense of half the zeal and ac- 
 tivity which Whitgift employed in oppressing Puritans, 
 and Martin Marprelate in reviling bishops. 
 
 As the Catholics in zeal and in union had a great 
 advantage over the Protestants, so had they also an 
 infinitely superior organisation. In truth. Protestant- 
 ism, for aggressive purposes, had no organisation at 
 all. The Reformed Churches were mere national 
 Churches. The Church of England existed for Eng- 
 land alone. It was an institution as purely local as 
 the Court of Common Pleas, and was utterly without 
 any machinery for foreign operations. The Church 
 of Scotland, in the same manner, existed for Scotland 
 alone. The operations of the Catholic Church, on 
 the other hand, took in the whole world. Nobody at
 
 42 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 Lambeth or at Edinburgh troubled himself about what 
 was doing in Poland or Bavaria. But at Rome, Cracow 
 and Munich were objects of as much interest as the 
 purlieus of St John Lateran. Our island, the head of 
 the Protestant interest, did not send out a single mis- 
 sionary or a single instructor of youth to the scene of 
 the great spiritual war. Not a single seminary was 
 established here for the purpose of furnishing a supply 
 of such persons to foreign countries. On the other 
 hand, Germany, Hungary, and Poland, were filled with 
 able and active Catholic emissaries of Spanish or Italian 
 birth ; and colleges for the instruction of the northern 
 youth were founded at Rome. The spiritual force of 
 Protestantism was a mere local militia, which might 
 be useful in case of an invasion, but could not be sent 
 abroad, and could therefore make no conquests. Rome 
 had such a local militia; but she had also a force dis- 
 posable at a moment's notice for foreign service, how- 
 ever dangerous or disagreeable. If it was thought at 
 headquarters that a Jesuit of Palermo was qualified by 
 his talents and character to withstand the Reformers 
 in Lithuania, the order was instantly given and in- 
 stantly obeyed. In a month, the faithful servant of 
 the Church was preaching, catechising, confessing 
 beyond the Niemen. 
 
 It is impossible to deny that the polity of the 
 Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human 
 wisdom. In truth nothing but such a polity could, 
 against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. 
 The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the 
 ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of 
 statesmen, have improved it to such perfection that 
 among the contrivances of political ability it occupies 
 the highest place. The stronger our conviction that 
 reason and Scripture were decidedly on the side of 
 Protestantism, the greater is the reluctant admira- 
 tion with which we regard that system of tactics 
 against which reason and Scripture were arrayed 
 in vain. 
 
 If we went at large into this most interesting
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 43 
 
 subject, we should fill volumes. We will therefore, 
 at present, advert to only one important part of the 
 policy of the Church of Rome. She thoroughly un- 
 derstands, what no other Church has ever understood, 
 how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects, parti- 
 cularly in infant sects, enthusiasm is suffered to be 
 rampant. In other sects, particularly in sects long 
 established and richly endowed, it is regarded with 
 aversion. The Catholic Church neither submits to 
 enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it. She con- 
 siders it as a great moving force which in itself, like 
 the muscular power of a fine horse, is neither good 
 nor evil, but which may be so directed as to produce 
 great good or great evil; and she assumes the direction 
 to herself. It would be absurd to run down a horse 
 like a wolf. It would be still more absurd to let him 
 run wild, breaking fences and trampling down pas- 
 sengers. The rational course is to subjugate his will 
 without impairing his vigour; to teach him to obey 
 the rein and then to urge him to full speed. When 
 once he knows his master, he is valuable in proportion 
 to his strength and spirit. Just such has been the 
 system of the Church of Rome with regard to enthu- 
 siasts. She knows that when religious feelings have 
 obtained the complete empire of the mind they impart 
 a strange energy; that they raise men above the do- 
 minion of pain and pleasure; that obloquy becomes 
 glory; that death itself is contemplated only as the 
 beginning of a higher and happier life. She knows 
 that a person in this state is no object of contempt. 
 He may be vulgar, ignorant, visionary, extravagant; 
 but he will do and suffer things which it is for her 
 interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from 
 which calm and sober-minded men would shrink. 
 She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to 
 him some forlorn hope in which intrepidity and im- 
 petuosity are more wanted than judgment and self- 
 command, and sends him forth with her benedictions 
 and her applause. 
 
 In England it not unfrequently happens that a
 
 44 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 tinker or coalheaver hears a sermon or falls in with 
 a tract which alarms him about the state of his soul. 
 If he be a man of excitable nerves and strong imagina- 
 tion, he thinks himself given over to the Evil Power. 
 He doubts whether he has not committed the unpar- 
 donable sin. He imputes every wild fancy that springs 
 up in his mind to the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is 
 broken by dreams of the great judgment-seat, the open 
 books, and the unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape 
 from these vexing thoughts, he flies to amusement or 
 to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only makes 
 his misery darker and more hopeless. At length a turn 
 takes place. He is reconciled to his offended Maker. 
 To borrow the fine imagery of one who had himself 
 been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and 
 snares, of quagmires and precipices, of evil spirits 
 and ravenous beasts. The sunshine is on his path. 
 He ascends the Delectable Mountains, and catches 
 from their summit a distant view of the shining city 
 which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in 
 his mind a natural, and surely not a censurable desire, 
 to impart to others the thoughts of which his own 
 heart is full, to warn the careless, to comfort those 
 who are troubled in spirit. The impulse which urges 
 him to devote his whole life to the teaching of religion 
 is a strong passion in the guise of a duty. He exhorts 
 his neighbours; and if he be a man of strong parts, he 
 often does so with great effect. He pleads as if he 
 were pleading for his life, with tears and pathetic 
 gestures and burning words; and he soon finds with 
 delight, not perhaps wholly unmixed with the alloy 
 of human infirmity, that his rude eloquence rouses 
 and melts hearers who sleep very composedly while 
 the rector preaches on the apostolical succession. 
 Zeal for God, love for his fellow-creatures, pleasure 
 in the exercise of his newly discovered powers, impel 
 him to become a preacher. He has no quarrel with 
 the establishment, no objection to its formularies, its 
 government, or its vestments. He would gladly be
 
 RAXKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 45 
 
 admitted among its humblest ministers; but, admitted 
 or rejected, his vocation is determined. His orders 
 have come down to him, not through a long and 
 doubtful series of Arian and Popish bishops, but 
 direct from on high. His commission is the same 
 that on the mountain of Ascension was given to the 
 Eleven. Nor will he, for lack of human credentials, 
 spare to deliver the glorious message with which he is 
 charged by the true Head of the Church. For a man 
 thus minded, there is within the pale of the establish- 
 ment no place. He has been at no college; he cannot 
 construe a Greek author, nor write a Latin theme; 
 and he is told that, if he remains in the communion 
 of the Church, he must do so as a hearer, and that if 
 he is resolved to be a teacher, he must begin by being 
 a schismatic. His choice is soon made. He harangues 
 on Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation is 
 formed. A license is obtained. A plain brick build- 
 ing, with a desk and benches, is run up, and named 
 Ebenezer or Bethel. In a few weeks the Church has 
 lost for ever a hundred families, not one of which 
 entertained the least scruple about her articles, her 
 liturgy, her government, or her ceremonies. 
 
 Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant 
 enthusiast whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, 
 and, whatever the polite and learned may think, a most 
 dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a cham- 
 pion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with 
 a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope round 
 his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. 
 He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away 
 from the revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives 
 by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character 
 and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, 
 not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a way 
 which moves the passions of uneducated hearers; 
 and all his influence is employed to strengthen the 
 Church of which he is a minister. To that Church 
 he becomes as strongly attached as any of the car- 
 dinals whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the
 
 46 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 entrance of the palace on the Ouirinal. In this way 
 the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength 
 of establishment and all the strength of dissent. With 
 the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she 
 has all the energy of the voluntary system below. It 
 would be easy to mention very recent instances in 
 which the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged 
 from her by the selfishness, sloth, and cowardice of the 
 beneficed clergy, have been brought back by the zeal 
 of the begging friars. 
 
 Even for female agency there is a place in her 
 system. To devout women she assigns spiritual func- 
 tions, dignities, and magistracies. In our country, if 
 a noble lady is moved by more than ordinary zeal for 
 the propagation of religion, the chance is that, though 
 she may disapprove of no doctrine or ceremony of the 
 Established Church, she will end by giving her name 
 to a new schism. If a pious and benevolent woman 
 enters the cells of a prison to pray with the most 
 unhappy and degraded of her own sex, she does so 
 without any authority from the Church. No line of 
 action is traced out for her; and it is well if the Or- 
 dinary does not complain of her intrusion and if the 
 Bishop does not shake his head at such irregular bene- 
 volence. At Rome, the Countess of Huntingdon would 
 have a place in the calendar as St Selina, and Mrs Fry 
 would be foundress and first Superior of the Blessed 
 Order of Sisters of the Gaols. 
 
 Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain 
 to become the head of a formidable secession. Place 
 John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be the first 
 General of a new society devoted to the interest and 
 honour of the Church, Place St Teresa in London. 
 Her restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, not 
 untinctured with craft. She becomes the prophetess, 
 the mother of the faithful, holds disputations with the 
 devil, issues sealed pardons to her adorers, and lies in 
 of the Shiloh. Place Joanna Southcote at Rome. 
 She founds an order of barefooted Carmelites, every 
 one of whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 47 
 
 Church ; a solemn service is consecrated to her 
 memory; and her statue, placed over the holy water, 
 strikes the eye of every stranger who enters St 
 Peter's. 
 
 We have dwelt long on this subject, because we 
 believe that, of the many causes to which the Church 
 of Rome owed her safety and her triumph at the close 
 of the sixteenth century, the chief was the profound 
 policy with which she used the fanaticism of such 
 persons as St Ignatius and St Teresa. 
 
 The Protestant party was now indeed vanquished 
 and humbled. In France, so strong had been the 
 Catholic reaction that Henry IV found it necessary 
 to choose between his religion and his crown. In 
 spite of his clear hereditary right, in spite of his 
 eminent personal qualities, he saw that, unless he re- 
 conciled himself to the Church of Rome, he could not 
 count on the fidelity even of those gallant gentlemen 
 whose impetuous valour turned the tide of battle at 
 Ivry. In Belgium, Poland, and South Germany, 
 Catholicism had obtained complete ascendancy. The 
 resistance of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate 
 was conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony were over- 
 flowed by Catholic invaders. The King of Denmark 
 stood forth as the Protector of the Reformed Churches : 
 he was defeated, driven out of the empire, and attacked 
 in his own possessions. The armies of the House of 
 Austria pressed on, subjugated Pomerania, and were 
 stopped in their progress only by the ramparts of 
 Stralsund. 
 
 And now again the tide turned. Two violent out- 
 breaks of religious feeling in opposite directions had 
 given a character to the whole history of a whole 
 century. Protestantism had at first driven back 
 Catholicism to the Alps and the Pyrenees. Catho- 
 licism had rallied and had driven back Protestantism 
 even to the German Ocean. Then the great southern 
 reaction began to slacken, as the great northern 
 movement had slackened before. The zeal of the 
 Catholics became cool ; their union was dissolved.
 
 48 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 The paroxysm of religious excitement was over on 
 both sides. The one party had degenerated as far 
 from the spirit of Loyola, as the other from the spirit 
 of Luther. During three generations religion had 
 been the mainspring of politics. The revolutions and 
 civil wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, the 
 long struggle between Philip and Elizabeth, the bloody 
 competition for the Bohemian crown, had all origin- 
 ated in theological disputes. But a great change now 
 took place. The contest which was raging in Germany 
 lost its religious character. It was now, on one side, 
 less a contest for the spiritual ascendancy of the Church 
 of Rome than for the temporal ascendancy of the 
 House of Austria. On the other, it was less a con- 
 test for the reformed doctrines than for national 
 independence. Governments began to form them- 
 selves into new combinations, in which community 
 of political interest was far more regarded than 
 community of religious belief. Even at Rome, the 
 progress of the Catholic arms was observed with 
 very mixed feelings. The Supreme Pontiff was a 
 sovereign prince of the second rank, and was anxious 
 about the balance of power as well as about the pro- 
 pagation of truth. It was known that he dreaded 
 the rise of a universal monarchy even more than 
 he desired the prosperity of the Universal Church. 
 At length a great event announced to the world that 
 the war of sects had ceased and that the war of states 
 had succeeded. A coalition, including Calvinists, Lu- 
 therans and Catholics, was formed against the House 
 of Austria. At the head of that coalition were the first 
 statesman and the first warrior of the age ; the former 
 a prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished by the 
 vigour and success with which he had put down the 
 Huguenots; the latter a Protestant king who owed 
 his throne to a revolution caused by hatred of Popeiy. 
 The alliance of Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time 
 at which the great religious struggle terminated. The 
 war which followed was a war for the equilibrium of 
 Europe. When at length the peace of Westphalia
 
 RAXKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 49 
 
 was concluded, it appeared that the Church of Rome 
 remained in full possession of a vast dominion, which 
 in the middle of the preceding century she seemed to 
 be on the point of losing. No part of Europe remained 
 Protestant except that part which had become thor- 
 oughly Protestant before the generation which heard 
 Luther preach had passed away. 
 
 Since that time there has been no religious war 
 between Catholics and Protestants as such. In the 
 time of Cromwell, Protestant England was united 
 with Catholic France, then governed by a priest, 
 against Catholic Spain. William III, the eminently 
 Protestant hero, was at the head of a coalition which 
 included many Catholic powers, and which was secretly 
 favoured even by Rome against the Catholic Louis. 
 In the time of Anne, Protestant England and Pro- 
 testant Holland joined with Catholic Savoy and 
 Catholic Portugal for the purpose of transferring the 
 crown of Spain from one bigoted Catholic to an- 
 other. 
 
 The geographical frontier between the two reli- 
 gions has continued to run almost precisely where it 
 ran at the close of the Thirty Years' War; nor has 
 Protestantism given any proofs of that ' expansive 
 power' which has been ascribed to it. But the Pro- 
 testant boasts, and boasts most justly, that wealth, 
 civilisation and intelligence have increased far more 
 on the northern than on the southern side of the 
 boundary; that countries so little favoured by nature 
 as Scotland and Prussia are now among the most 
 flourishing and best governed portions of the world, 
 while the marble palaces of Genoa are deserted, while 
 banditti infest the beautiful shores of Campania, while 
 the fertile sea-coast of the Pontifical State is abandoned 
 to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be doubted 
 that, since the sixteenth century, the Protestant na- 
 tions have made decidedly greater progress than their 
 neighbours. The progress made by those nations in 
 which Protestantism, though not finally successful, 
 yet maintained a long struggle and left permanent 
 
 b. 4
 
 50 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 traces, has generally been considerable. But when 
 we come to the Catholic land, to the part of Europe 
 in which the first spark of reformation was trodden 
 out as soon as it appeared, and from which proceeded 
 the impulse which drove Protestantism back, we find 
 at best a very slow progress, and on the whole a re- 
 trogression. Compare Denmark and Portugal. When 
 Luther began to preach the superiority of the Portu- 
 guese was unquestionable. At present the superiority 
 of the Danes is no less so. Compare Edinburgh and 
 Florence. Edinburgh has owed less to climate, to soil 
 and to the fostering care of rulers than any capital, 
 Protestant or Catholic. In all these respects, Florence 
 has been singularly happy. Yet whoever knows what 
 Florence and Edinburgh were in the generation pre- 
 ceding the Reformation, and what they are now, will 
 acknowledge that some great cause has during the 
 last three centuries operated to raise one part of the 
 European family and to depress the other. Compare 
 the history of England and that of Spain during the 
 last century. In arms, arts, sciences, letters, com- 
 merce, agriculture, the contrast is most striking. The 
 distinction is not confined to this side of the Atlantic. 
 The colonies planted by England in America have im- 
 measurably outgrown in power those planted by Spain. 
 Yet we have no reason to believe that at the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century the Castilian was in any re- 
 spect inferior to the Englishman. Our firm belief is 
 that the North owes its great civilisation and prosperity 
 chiefly to the moral effect of the Protestant Reforma- 
 tion ; and that the decay of the southern countries of 
 Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great Catholic 
 "evival. 
 
 About a hundred years after the final settlement 
 of the boundai-y line between Protestantism and 
 Catholicism began to appear the signs of the fourth 
 great peril of the Church of Rome. The storm which 
 was now rising against her was of a very different 
 kind from those which had preceded it. Those who 
 had formerly attacked her had questioned only a part
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 51 
 
 of her doctrines. A school was now growing up which 
 rejected the whole. The Albigenses, the Lollards, the 
 Lutherans, the Calvinists had a positive religious sys- 
 tem and were strongly attached to it. The creed of 
 the new sectaries was altogether negative. They took 
 one of their premises from the Protestants and one 
 from the Catholics. From the latter they borrowed 
 the principle that Catholicism was the only pure and 
 genuine Christianity. With the former they held that 
 some parts of the Catholic system were contrary to 
 reason. The conclusion was obvious. Two proposi- 
 tions, each of which separately is compatible with 
 the most exalted piety, formed, when held in con- 
 junction, the groundwork of a system of irreligion. 
 The doctrine of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is 
 affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of Tillotson 
 that transubstantiation is an absurdity, when put 
 together, produced by logical necessity the inferences 
 of Voltaire. 
 
 Had the sect which was rising at Paris been a sect 
 of mere scoffers, it is very improbable that it would 
 have left deep traces of its existence in the institu- 
 tions and manners of Europe. Mere negation, mere 
 Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly ob- 
 serves, has never disturbed the peace of the world. 
 It furnishes no motive for action. It inspires no en- 
 thusiasm. It has no missionaries, no crusaders, no 
 martyrs. If the Patriarch of the Holy Philosophical 
 Church had contented himself with making jokes 
 about Saul's asses and David's wives, and with criti- 
 cising the poetry of Ezekiel in the same narrow spirit 
 in which he criticised that of Shakespeare, the Church 
 would have had little to fear. But it is due to him 
 and to his compeers to say that the real secret of 
 their strength lay in the truth which was mingled with 
 their errors and in the generous enthusiasm which was 
 hidden under their flippancy. They were men who 
 with all their faults, moral and intellectual, sincerely 
 and earnestly desired the improvement of the condi- 
 tion of the human race; whose blood boiled at the 
 
 4—2
 
 52 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 sight of cruelty and injustice; who made manful war, 
 with every faculty which they possessed, on what they 
 considered as abuses; and who on many signal occa- 
 sions placed themselves gallantly between the powerful 
 and the oppressed. While they assailed Christianity 
 with a rancour and an unfairness disgraceful to men 
 who called themselves philosophers, they yet had, in 
 far greater measure than their opponents, that charity 
 towards men of all classes and races which Chris- 
 tianity enjoins. Religious persecution, judicial torture, 
 arbitrary imprisonment, the unnecessary multiplication 
 of capital punishments, the delay and chicanery of tri- 
 bunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, slavery, 
 the slave trade, were the constant subjects of their 
 lively satire and eloquent disquisitions. When an 
 innocent man was broken on the wheel at Toulouse; 
 when a youth, guilty only of an indiscretion, was 
 beheaded at Abbeville ; when a brave officer, borne 
 down by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag 
 in his mouth, to die on the Place de Greve; a voice 
 instantly went forth from the banks of Lake Leman, 
 which made itself heard from Moscow to Cadiz, and 
 which sentenced the unjust judges to the contempt 
 and detestation of all Europe. The really efficient 
 weapons with which the philosophers assailed the 
 evangelical faith were borrowed from the evangelical 
 morality. The ethical and dogmatical parts of the 
 Gospel were unhappily turned against each other. 
 On the one side was a Church boasting of the purity 
 of a doctrine derived from the Apostles, but disgraced 
 by the massacre of St Bartholomew, by the murder 
 of the best of kings, by the war of Cevennes, by the 
 destruction of Port- Royal. On the other side was a 
 sect laughing at the Scriptures, shooting out the tongue 
 at the sacraments, but ready to encounter principali- 
 ties and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, and 
 toleration. 
 
 Irreligion, accidentally associated with philan- 
 thropy, triumphed for a time over religion accident- 
 ally associated with political and social abuses.
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 53 
 
 Everything gave way to the zeal and activity of the 
 new reformers. In France every man distinguished 
 in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave 
 birth to works in which the fundamental principles 
 of the Church were attacked with argument, invec- 
 tive, and ridicule. The Church made no defence 
 except by acts of power. Censures were pronounced, 
 editions were seized, insults were offered to the re- 
 mains of infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal 
 came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appeared 
 not a single defence of the Catholic doctrine which 
 produced any considerable effect or which is now 
 even remembered. A bloody and unsparing perse- 
 cution, like that which put down the Albigenses, 
 might have put down the philosophers. But the 
 time for De Montforts and Dominies had gone by. 
 The punishments which the priests were still able to 
 inflict were sufficient to irritate, but not sufficient to 
 destroy. The war was between power on one side 
 and wit on the other; and the power was under far 
 more restraint than the wit. Orthodoxy soon became 
 a badge of ignorance and stupidity. It was as neces- 
 sary to the character of an accomplished man that he 
 should despise the religion of his country as that he 
 should know his letters. The new doctrines spread 
 rapidly through Christendom. Paris was the capital 
 of the whole continent. French was everywhere the 
 language of polite circles. The literary glory of Italy 
 and Spain had departed. That of Germany had not 
 yet dawned. That of England shone, as yet, for the 
 English alone. The teachers of France were the 
 teachers of Europe. The Parisian opinions spread 
 fast among the educated classes beyond the Alps; nor 
 could the vigilance of the Inquisition prevent the con- 
 traband importation of the new heresy into Castile and 
 Portugal. Governments, even arbitrary governments, 
 saw with pleasure the progress of this philosophy. 
 Numerous reforms, generally laudable, sometimes 
 hurried on without suf^cient regard to time, to 
 place, and to public feeling, showed the extent of its
 
 54 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 influence. The rulers of Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, 
 and of many smaller states, were supposed to be among 
 the initiated. 
 
 The Church of Rome was still in outward show 
 as stately and splendid as ever; but her foundation was 
 undermined. No state had quitted her communion or 
 confiscated her revenues ; but the reverence of the 
 people was everywhere departing from her. 
 
 The first great warning stroke was the fall of 
 that society which, in the conflict with Protestantism, 
 had saved the Catholic Church from destruction. 
 The order of Jesus had never recovered from the 
 injury received in the struggle with Port-Royal. It 
 was now still more rudely assailed by the philosophers. 
 Its spirit was broken; its reputation was tainted. In- 
 sulted by all the men of genius in Europe, condemned 
 by the civil magistrate, feebly defended by the chiefs 
 of the hierarchy, it fell ; and great was the fall of it. 
 
 The movement went on with increasing speed. 
 The first generation of the new sect passed away. 
 The doctrines of Voltaire were inherited and exag- 
 gerated by successors who bore to him the same 
 relation which the Anabaptists bore to Luther, or the 
 Fifth-Monarchy men to Pym. At length the Revolu- 
 tion came. Down went the old Church of France, 
 with all its pomp and wealth. Some of its priests 
 purchased a maintenance by separating themselves 
 from Rome and by becoming the authors of a fresh 
 schism. Some, rejoicing in the new license, flung 
 away their sacred vestments, proclaimed that their 
 whole life had been an imposture, insulted and per- 
 secuted the religion of which they had been ministers, 
 and distinguished themselves, even in the Jacobin 
 Club and the Commune of Paris, by the excess of 
 their impudence and ferocity. Others, more faithful 
 to their principles, were butchered by scores without 
 a trial, drowned, shot, hung on lamp-posts. Thousands 
 fled from their country to take sanctuary under the 
 shade of hostile altars. The churches were closed; 
 the bells were silent; the shrines were plundered; the
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 55 
 
 silver crucifixes were melted down. Buffoons, dressed 
 in copes and surplices, came dancing the carmagnole 
 even to the bar of the Convention. The bust of Marat 
 was substituted for the statues of the martyrs of 
 Christianity. A prostitute, seated in state in the 
 chancel of Xotre Dame, received the adoration of 
 thousands, who exclaimed that at length, for the first 
 time, those ancient Gothic arches had resounded with 
 the accents of truth. The new unbelief was as in- 
 tolerant as the old superstition. To show reverence 
 for religion was to incur the suspicion of disaffection. 
 It was not without imminent danger that the priest 
 baptized the infant, joined the hands of lovers, or 
 listened to the confession of the dying. The absurd 
 worship of the Goddess of Reason was indeed of short 
 duration; but the deism of Robespierre and Lepaux 
 was not less hostile to the Catholic faith than the 
 atheism of Clootz and Chaumette. 
 
 Nor were the calamities of the Church confined 
 to France. The revolutionary spirit, attacked by all 
 Europe, beat all Europe back, became conqueror in 
 its turn, and, not satisfied with the Belgian cities 
 and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went 
 raging over the Rhine and through the passes of 
 the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war 
 against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the 
 base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the 
 obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated 
 by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the 
 Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the 
 Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was 
 stripped of the treasures piled up by the devotion of 
 six hundred years. The convents of Rome were 
 pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the top of 
 the Castle of St Angelo. The successor of St Peter 
 was carried away captive by the unbelievers. He 
 died a prisoner in their hands ; and even the honours 
 of sepulture were long withheld from his remains. 
 
 It is not strange that, in the year 1799, even saga- 
 cious observers should have thought that at length the
 
 56 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAU LAY 
 
 hour of the Church of Rome was come. An infidel 
 power ascendant, the Pope dying in captivity, the most 
 illustrious prelates of France living in a foreign coun- 
 try on Protestant alms, the noblest edifices, which the 
 munificence of former ages had consecrated to the 
 worship of God, turned into temples of Victory, or 
 into banqueting-houses for political societies, or into 
 Theophilanthropic chapels — such signs might well be 
 supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long 
 domination. 
 
 But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, 
 the milk-white hind was still fated not to die. Even 
 before the funeral rites had been performed over the 
 ashes of Pius VI, a great reaction had commenced, 
 which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears 
 to be still in progress. Anarchy had had its day. A 
 new order of things rose out of the confusion ; new 
 dynasties, new laws, new titles; and amidst them 
 emerged the ancient religion. The Arabs have a fable 
 that the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian 
 kings, and alone of all the works of men bore the 
 weight of the flood. Such as this was the fate of 
 the Papacy. It had been buried under the great in- 
 undation ; but its deep foundations had remained 
 unshaken ; and when the waters abated, it appeared 
 alone amidst the ruins of a world which had passed 
 away. The republic of Holland was gone, and the 
 empire of Germany, and the Great Council of Venice, 
 and the old Helvetian League, and the House of 
 Bourbon, and the parliaments and aristocracy of 
 France. Europe was full of young creations, a French 
 empire, a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the 
 Rhine. Nor had the late events afi^ected only terri- 
 torial limits and political institutions. The distribution 
 of property, the composition and spirit of society, had, 
 through great part of Catholic Europe, undergone a 
 complete change. But the unchangeable Church was 
 still there. 
 
 Some future historian, as able and temperate as 
 Professor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress of
 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 57 
 
 the Catholic revival of the nineteenth century. We 
 feel that we are drawing too near our own time, and 
 that if we go on we shall be in danger of saying much 
 which may be supposed to indicate, and which will 
 certainly excite, angry feelings. We will therefore 
 make only one more observation, which in our opinion 
 is deserving of serious attention. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, the influence of the 
 Church of Rome was constantly on the decline. Un- 
 belief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic 
 countries of Europe, and in some countries obtained 
 a complete ascendancy. The Papacy was at length 
 brought so low as to be an object of derision to infidels, 
 and of pity, rather than of hatred, to Protestants. 
 During the nineteenth century, this fallen Church has 
 been gradually rising from her depressed state and re- 
 conquering her old dominion. No person who calmly 
 reflects on what, within the last few years, has passed 
 in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in the 
 Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt 
 that her power over the hearts and minds of men is 
 now greater far than it was when the EncyclopcEdia 
 and the Philosophical Dictionary appeared. It is 
 surely remarkable that neither the moral revolution 
 of the eighteenth century, nor the moral counter- 
 revolution of the nineteenth, should in any perceptible 
 degree have added to the domain of Protestantism. 
 During the former period, whatever was lost to Catho- 
 licism was lost also to Christianity; during the latter, 
 whatever was regained by Christianity in Catholic 
 countries was regained also by Catholicism. We 
 should naturally have expected that many minds, on 
 the way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way 
 back from infidelity to superstition, would have stopped 
 at an intermediate point. Between the doctrines taught 
 in the schools of the Jesuits and those which were 
 maintained at the little supper parties of the Baron 
 Holbach, there is a vast interval in which the human 
 mind, it should seem, might find for itself some rest- 
 ing-place more satisfactory than either of the two
 
 58 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 
 
 extremes. And at the time of the Reformation 
 miUions found such a resting-place. Whole nations 
 then renounced Popery without ceasing to believe in 
 a first cause, in a future life, or in the Divine autho- 
 rity of Christianity. In the last century, on the other 
 hand, when a Catholic renounced his belief in the real 
 presence, it was a thousand to one that he renounced 
 his belief in the Gospel too; and when the reaction 
 took place, with belief in the Gospel came back belief 
 in the real presence. 
 
 We by no means venture to deduce from these 
 phenomena any general law; but we think it a most 
 remarkable fact that no Christian nation, which did 
 not adopt the principles of the Reformation before 
 the end of the sixteenth century, should ever have 
 adopted them. Catholic communities have since that 
 time become infidel and become Catholic again; but 
 none has become Protestant. 
 
 Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the most 
 important portions of the history of mankind. Our 
 readers will have great reason to feel obliged to us if 
 we have interested them sufficiently to induce them to 
 peruse Professor Ranke's book. We will only caution 
 them against the French translation, a performance 
 which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable to the 
 moral character of the person from whom it proceeds 
 as a false affidavit or a forged bill of exchange would 
 have been, and advise them to study either the ori- 
 ginal, or the English version in which the sense and 
 spirit of the original are admirably preserved.
 
 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 
 1853 
 
 The greatest of English poets, it is often said, is 
 but a name. ' No letter of his writing, no record of 
 his conversation, no character of him drawn with any 
 fulness by a contemporary,' have been extracted by 
 antiquaries from the piles of rubbish which they have 
 sifted. Yet of no person is there a clearer picture in 
 the popular fancy. You seem to have known Shake- 
 speare — to have seen Shakespeare — to have been 
 friends with Shakespeare. We would attempt a slight 
 delineation of the popular idea which has been formed, 
 not from loose tradition or remote research, not from 
 what some one says some one else said that the poet 
 said, but from data which are at least undoubted, from 
 the sure testimony of his certain works. 
 
 Some extreme sceptics, we know, doubt whether 
 it is possible to deduce anything as to an author's 
 character from his works. Yet surely people do not 
 keep a tame steam-engine to write their books; and 
 if those books were really written by a man, he must 
 have been a man who could write them ; he must 
 have had the thoughts which they express, have ac- 
 quired the knowledge they contain, have possessed the 
 style in which we read them. The difficulty is a defect 
 of the critics. A person who knows nothing of an 
 author he has read, will not know much of an author 
 whom he has seen.
 
 60 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 First of all, it may be said that Shakespeare's works 
 could only be produced by a first-rate imagination 
 working on a first-rate experience. It is often difficult 
 to make out whether the author of a poetic creation is 
 drawing from fancy, or drawing from experience; but 
 for art on a certain scale, the two must concur. Out 
 of nothing, nothing can be created. Some plastic 
 power is required, however great may be the material. 
 And when such works as Hamlet and Othello, 
 still more, when both they and others not unequal, 
 have been created by a single mind, it may be fairly 
 said, that not only a great imagination but a full 
 conversancy with the world was necessary to their 
 production. The whole powers of man under the 
 most favourable circumstances, are not too great for 
 such an effort. We may assume that Shakespeare 
 had a great experience. 
 
 To a great experience one thing is essential, an 
 experiencing nature. It is not enough to have oppor- 
 tunity, it is essential to feel it. Some occasions come 
 to all men; but to many they are of little use, and to 
 some they are none. What, for example, has experi- 
 ence done for the distinguished Frenchman, the name 
 of whose essay is prefixed to this paper ? M. Guizot 
 is the same man that he was in 1820, or, we believe, 
 as he was in 1814. Take up one of his lectures, pub- 
 lished before he was a practical statesman; you will 
 be struck with the width of view, the amplitude and 
 the solidity of the reflections; you will be amazed that 
 a mere literary teacher could produce anything so wise ; 
 but take up afterwards an essay published since his fall 
 — and you will be amazed to find no more. Napoleon 
 the First is come and gone — the Bourbons of the old 
 regime have come and gone — the Bourbons of the 
 new regime have had their turn. M. Guizot has been 
 first minister of a citizen king; he has led a great 
 party; he has pronounced many a great discoitrs that 
 was well received by the second elective assembly in 
 the world. But there is no trace of this in his writings. 
 No one would guess from them that their author had
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 61 
 
 ever left the professor's chair. It is the same, we are 
 told, with small matters: when M. Guizot walks the 
 street, he seems to see nothing; the head is thrown 
 back, the eye fixed, and the mouth working. His 
 mind is no doubt at work, but it is not stirred by 
 what is external. Perhaps it is the internal activity 
 of mind that overmasters the perceptive power. Any- 
 how there might have been an eiiieiite in the street 
 and he would not have known it; there have been 
 revolutions in his life, and he is scarcely the wiser. 
 Among the most frivolous and fickle of civilised na- 
 tions he is alone. They pass from the game of war 
 to the game of peace, from the game of science to 
 the game of art, from the game of liberty to the game 
 of slavery, from the game of slavery to the game of 
 license; he stands like a schoolmaster in the play- 
 ground, without sport and without pleasure, firm and 
 sullen, slow and awful. 
 
 A man of this sort is a curious mental phenomenon. 
 He appears to get early — perhaps to be born with — -a 
 kind of dry schedule or catalogue of the universe; he 
 has a ledger in his head, and has a title to which he 
 can refer any transaction ; nothing puzzles him, nothing 
 comes amiss to him, but he is not in the least the wiser 
 for anything. Like the book-keeper, he has his heads 
 of account, and he knows them, but he is no wiser for 
 the particular items. After a busy day, and after a slow 
 day, after a few entries, and after many, his knowledge 
 is exactly the same: take his opinion of Baron Roth- 
 schild, he will say: 'Yes, he keeps an account with us'; 
 of Humphrey Brown: 'Yes, we have that account, 
 too.' Just so with the class of minds which we are 
 speaking of, and in greater matters. Very early in 
 life they come to a certain and considerable acquaint- 
 ance with the world ; they learn very quickly all they 
 can learn, and naturally they never, in any way, learn 
 any mcjre. Mr Pitt is, in this country, the type of the 
 character. Mr Alison, in a well-known passage, makes 
 it a matter of wonder that he was fit to be a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer at twenty-three, and it is a great
 
 62 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 wonder. But it is to be remembered that he was no 
 more fit at forty-three. As somebody said, he did not 
 grow, he was cast. Experience taught him nothing, 
 and he did not believe that he had anything to learn. 
 The habit of mind in smaller degrees is not very rare, 
 and might be illustrated without end. Hazlitt tells a 
 story of West, the painter, that is in point : When 
 some one asked him if he had ever been to Greece, 
 he answered : ' No ; I have read a descriptive cata- 
 logue of the principal objects in that country, and 
 I believe I am as well conversant with them as if I had 
 visited it.' No doubt he was just as well conversant, 
 and so would be any doctrinaire. 
 
 But Shakespeare was not a man of this sort. If he 
 walked down a street, he knew what was in that street. 
 His mind did not form in early life a classified list of 
 all the objects in the universe, and learn no more about 
 the universe ever after. From a certain fine sensibility 
 of nature, it is plain that he took a keen interest not 
 only in the general and coarse outlines of objects, but 
 in their minutest particulars and gentlest gradations. 
 You may open Shakespeare and find the clearest proofs 
 of this; take the following: — 
 
 'When last the young Orlando parted from you, 
 He left a promise to return again 
 Within an hour ; and, pacing through the forest, 
 Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, 
 Lo, what befel ! he threw his eye aside, 
 And mark what object did present itself! 
 Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age, 
 And high top bald with dry antiquity, 
 A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, 
 Lay sleeping on his back : about his neck 
 A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself, 
 Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd 
 The opening of his mouth; but suddenly 
 Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself. 
 And with indented glides did slip away 
 Into a bush ; under which bush's shade 
 A lioness, with udders all drawn dry. 
 Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 63 
 
 When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis 
 The royal disposition of that beast, 
 To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead : 
 This seen,' etc., etc' 
 
 Or the more celebrated description of the hunt: — 
 
 'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, 
 Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles, 
 How he outruns the wind, and with what care 
 He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles : 
 The many musets through the which he goes 
 Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. 
 
 'Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, 
 To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, 
 And sometime where earth-delving conies keep. 
 To stop the loud pursuers in their yell ; 
 And sometimes sorteth with a herd of deer ; 
 Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear: 
 
 'For there his smell with others being mingled, 
 The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, 
 Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled. 
 With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out ; 
 Then do they spend their mouths : Echo replies. 
 As if another chase were in the skies. 
 
 ' By this, poor Wat, far off, upon a hill. 
 Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, 
 To harken if his foes pursue him still ; 
 Anon their loud alarums he doth hear ; 
 And now his grief may be compared well 
 To one sore sick that hears the passing bell. 
 
 'Then thou shalt see the dew-bedabbled wretch 
 Turn, and return, indenting with the way; 
 Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch. 
 Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay : 
 For misery is trodden on by many, 
 And being low, never relieved by any'-^.' 
 
 It is absurd, by the way, to say we know nothing 
 about the man who wrote that; we know that he had 
 been after a hare. It is idle to allege that mere 
 
 ' As You Like li, iv. 3. 
 ^ Venus and Adonis.
 
 64 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 imagination would tell him that a hare is apt to run 
 among a flock of sheep, or that its so doing disconcerts 
 the scent of hounds. But no single citation really re- 
 presents the power of the argument. Set descriptions 
 may be manufactured to order, and it does not follow 
 that even the most accurate or successful of them was 
 really the result of a thorough and habitual knowledge 
 of the object. A man who knows little of Nature may 
 write one excellent delineation, as a poor man may 
 have one bright guinea. Real opulence consists in 
 having many. What truly indicates excellent know- 
 ledge, is the habit of constant, sudden, and almost 
 unconscious allusion, which implies familiarity, for it 
 can arise from that alone,— and this very species of 
 incidental, casual, and perpetual reference to ' the 
 mighty world of eye and ear',' is the particular 
 characteristic of Shakespeare. 
 
 In this respect Shakespeare had the advantage 
 of one whom, in many points, he much resembled — 
 Sir Walter Scott. For a great poet, the organisation 
 of the latter was very blunt; he had no sense of smell, 
 little sense of taste, almost no ear for music (he knew 
 a few, perhaps three, Scotch tunes, which he avowed 
 that he had learnt in sixty years, by hard labour and 
 mental association), and not much turn for the minutiae 
 of Nature in any way. The effect of this may be seen 
 in some of the best descriptive passages of his poetry, 
 and we will not deny that it does (although proceeding 
 from a sensuous defect), in a certain degree, add to 
 their popularity. He deals with the main outlines and 
 great points of Nature, never attends to any others, 
 and in this respect he suits the comprehension and 
 knowledge of many who know only those essential 
 and considerable outlines. Young people, especially, 
 who like big things, are taken with Scott, and bored 
 by Wordsworth, who knew too much. And after all, 
 the two poets are in proper harmony, each with his 
 own scenery. Of all beautiful scenery the Scotch is 
 the roughest and barest, as the English is the most 
 1 Wordsworth : Tintefti Abbey.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 65 
 
 complex and cultivated. What a difference is there 
 between the minute and finished delicacy of Rydal 
 Water and the rough simplicity of Loch Katrine ! 
 It is the beauty of civilisation beside the beauty of 
 barbarism. Scott has himself pointed out the effect 
 of this on arts and artists. 
 
 'Or see yon weather-beaten hind, 
 Whose sluggish herds before him wind, 
 Whose tattered plaid and rugged cheek 
 His Northern clime and kindred speak; 
 Through England's laughing meads he goes, 
 And England's wealth around him flows ; 
 Ask if it would content him well, 
 At ease in those gay plains to dwell. 
 Where hedgerows spread a verdant screen, 
 And spires and forests intervene. 
 And the neat cottage peeps between ? 
 No, not for these would he exchange 
 His dark Lochaber's boundless range. 
 Not for fair Devon's meads forsake 
 Ben Nevis grey and Garry's lake. 
 
 'Thus while I ape the measures wild 
 Of tales that charmed me yet a child. 
 Rude though they be, still, with the chime. 
 Return the thoughts of early time ; 
 And feelings roused in life's first day, 
 Glow in the line and prompt the lay. 
 Then rise those crags, that mountain tower. 
 Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour. 
 Though no broad river swept along, 
 To claim perchance heroic song; 
 Though sighed no groves in summer gale, 
 To prompt of love a softer tale ; 
 Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed 
 Claimed homage from a shepherd's reed, 
 Yet was poetic impulse given 
 By the green hill and clear blue heaven. 
 It was a barren scene and wild, 
 Where naked cliffs were rudely piled, 
 But ever and anon between. 
 Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green ; 
 And well the lonely infant knew 
 Recesses where the wallflower grew.
 
 66 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 And honeysuckle loved to crawl 
 Up the low crag and ruined wall. 
 
 'From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask 
 The classic poet's well-conned task? 
 Nay, Erskine, nay — On the wild hill 
 Let the wild heathbell flourish still ; 
 Cherish the tulip, prune the vine. 
 But freely let the woodbine twine, 
 And leave untrimmed the eglantine. 
 Nay, my friend, nay — Since oft thy praise 
 Hath given fresh vigour to my lays. 
 Since oft thy judgment could refine 
 My flattened thought or cumbrous line, 
 Still kind, as is thy wont, attend. 
 And in the minstrel spare the friend. 
 Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale, 
 Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale^.' 
 
 And this is wise, for there is beauty in the North as 
 well as in the South. Only it is to be remembered 
 that the beauty of the Trossachs is the result of but 
 a few elements — say birch and brushwood, rough hills 
 and narrow dells, much heather and many stones — 
 while the beauty of England is one thing in one dis- 
 trict and one in another ; is here the combination of 
 one set of qualities, and there the harmony of opposite 
 ones, and is everywhere made up of many details and 
 delicate refinements; all which require an exquisite 
 delicacy of perceptive organisation, a seeing eye, a 
 minutely hearing ear. Scott's is the strong admira- 
 tion of a rough mind; Shakespeare's, the nice minute- 
 ness of a susceptible one. 
 
 A perfectly poetic appreciation of nature contains 
 two elements, a knowledge of facts, and a sensibility 
 to charms. Everybody who may have to speak to 
 some naturalists will be well aware how widely the 
 two may be separated. He will have seen that a man 
 may study butterflies and forget that they are beautiful, 
 or be perfect in the 'Lunar theory' without knowing 
 what most people mean by the moon. Generally such 
 
 ' Ma7-mioii^ Introduction to canto ill.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 67 
 
 people prefer the stupid parts of nature — worms and 
 Cochin-China fowls. But Shakespeare was not obtuse. 
 The lines — 
 
 'Daffodils 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
 Or Cytherea's breath \' 
 
 seem to show that he knew those feelings of youth, to 
 which beauty is more than a religion. 
 
 In his mode of delineating natural objects Shake- 
 speare is curiously opposed to Milton. The latter, who 
 was still by temperament, and a schoolmaster by trade, 
 selects a beautiful object, puts it straight out before him 
 and his readers, and accumulates upon it all the learned 
 imagery of a thousand years; Shakespeare glances at 
 it and says something of his own. It is not our inten- 
 tion to say that, as a describer of the external world, 
 Milton is inferior; in set description we rather think 
 that he is the better. We only wish to contrast the 
 mode in which the delineation is effected. The one is 
 like an artist who dashes off any number of picturesque 
 sketches at any moment; the other like a man who has 
 lived at Rome, has undergone a thorough training, and 
 by deliberate and conscious effort, after a long study 
 of the best masters, can produce a few great pictures. 
 Milton, accordingly, as has been often remarked, is 
 careful in the choice of his subjects; he knows too 
 well the value of his labour to be very ready to 
 squander it; Shakespeare, on the contrary, describes 
 anything that comes to hand, for he is prepared for 
 it whatever it may be, and what he paints he paints 
 without effort. Compare any passage from Shake- 
 speare — for example, those quoted before — and the 
 following passage from Milton: — 
 
 'Southward through Eden went a river large. 
 Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill 
 Passed underneath inguif'd; for God had thrown 
 That mountain as His garden mould, high raised 
 
 ' A Witttet-'s Talc, iv. 4. 
 
 5-2
 
 68 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 Upon the rapid current, which through veins 
 
 Of porous earth, with kindly thirst up-drawn, 
 
 Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill 
 
 Water'd the garden ; thence united fell 
 
 Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood. 
 
 Which from his darksome passage now appears 
 
 And now divided into four main streams 
 
 Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm 
 
 And country, whereof here needs no account ; 
 
 But rather to tell how, — if art could tell, — 
 
 How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,- 
 
 Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, 
 
 With mazy error under pendent shades 
 
 Ran nectar, visiting each plant; and fed 
 
 Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 
 
 In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon 
 
 Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain. 
 
 Both where the morning sun firm warmly smote 
 
 The open field, and where the unpierced shade 
 
 Imbrown'd the noontide bowers. Thus was this place 
 
 A happy rural seat of various view ; 
 
 Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm ; 
 
 Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind. 
 
 Hung amiable (Hesperian fables true, 
 
 If true, here only), and of delicious taste : 
 
 Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks 
 
 Grazing the tender herb, were interposed : 
 
 Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap 
 
 Of some irriguous valley spread her store ; 
 
 Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose*.' 
 
 Why, you could draw a map of it. It is not 'Nature 
 boon,' but 'nice art in beds and curious knots'; it is 
 exactly the old (and excellent) style of artificial gar- 
 dening, by which any place can be turned into trim 
 hedgerows, and stiff borders, and comfortable shades; 
 but there are no straight lines in Nature or Shake- 
 speare. Perhaps the contrast may be accounted for 
 by the way in which the two poets acquired their 
 knowledge of scenes and scenery. We think we de- 
 monstrated before that Shakespeare was a sportsman, 
 
 ' Paradise Lost, book iv.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 69 
 
 but if there be still a sceptic or a dissentient, let him 
 read the following remarks on dogs: — 
 
 'My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 
 With ears that sweep away the morning dew, 
 Crook-kne'd and dewlapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; 
 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, 
 Each under each. A cry more tunable 
 Was never hoUoa'd to nor cheer'd with horn 
 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly'.' 
 
 'Judge when you hear'-.' It is evident that the 
 man who wrote this was a judge of dogs, was an out- 
 of-door sporting man, full of natural sensibility, not 
 defective in 'daintiness of ear,' and above all things, 
 apt to cast on Nature random, sportive, half-boyish 
 glances, which reveal so much, and bequeath such 
 abiding knowledge. Milton, on the contrary, went 
 out to see Nature. He left a narrow cell, and the 
 intense study which was his ' portion in this life,' to 
 take a slow, careful, and reflective walk. In his trea- 
 tise on education he has given us his notion of the way 
 in which young people should be familiarised with 
 natural objects. ' But,' he remarks, ' to return to 
 our institute ; besides these constant exercises at 
 home, there is another opportunity of gaining plea- 
 sure from pleasure itself abroad ; in those vernal 
 seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, 
 it were an injury and sullenness against Nature, not 
 to go out and see her riches and partake in her re- 
 joicing in heaven and earth. I should not therefore 
 be a persuader to them of studying much in these, 
 after two or three years, that they have well laid 
 their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with 
 prudent and staid guides, to all quarters of the land; 
 learning and observing all places of strength, all 
 commodities of building and of soil, for towns and 
 tillage, harbours and ports of trade. Sometimes 
 
 ' Mii/s!ti/i>/icr Nighfs Ihrnm, W. i . 
 - I did., next line.
 
 70 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 taking sea as far as our navy, to learn there also 
 what they can in the practical knowledge of sailing 
 and of sea-fight.' Fancy ' the prudent and staid 
 guides.' What a machinery for making pedants. 
 Perhaps Shakespeare would have known that the 
 conversation would be in this sort: 'I say, Shallow, 
 that mare is going in the knees. She has never been 
 the same since you larked her over the fivebar, while 
 Moleyes was talking clay and agriculture. I do not 
 hate Latin so much, but I hate " argillaceous earth " ; 
 and what use is that to a fellow in the Guards, / 
 should like to know ? ' Shakespeare had himself 
 this sort of boyish buoyancy. He was not ' one of 
 the staid guides.' We might further illustrate it. 
 Yet this would be tedious enough, and we prefer to 
 go on and show what we mean by an experiencing 
 nature in relation to men and women, just as we 
 have striven to indicate what it is in relation to 
 horses and hares. 
 
 The reason why so few good books are written, 
 is that so few people that can write know anything. 
 In general an author has always lived in a room, has 
 read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with 
 the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he 
 is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. 
 He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life 
 is a vacuum. The mental habits of Robert Southey, 
 which about a year ago were so extensively praised in 
 the public journals, are the type of literary existence, 
 just as the praise bestowed on them shows the ad- 
 miration excited by them among literary people. He 
 wrote poetry (as if anybody could) before breakfast; 
 he read during breakfast. He wrote history until 
 dinner; he corrected proof-sheets between dinner and 
 tea ; he wrote an essay for the Quarterly afterwards ; 
 and after supper, by way of relaxation, composed the 
 'Doctor' — a lengthy and elaborate jest. Now, what 
 can any one think of such a life — except how clearly 
 it shows that the habits best fitted for communicating 
 information, formed with the best care, and daily re-
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 71 
 
 gulated by the best motives, are exactly the habits 
 which are Hkely to afPord a man the least information 
 to communicate. Southey had no events, no experi- 
 ences. His wife kept house and allowed him pocket- 
 money, just as if he had been a German professor 
 devoted to accents, tobacco, and the dates of Horace's 
 amours. And it is pitiable to think that so meritorious 
 a life was only made endurable by a painful delusion. 
 He thought that day by day, and hour by hour, he was 
 accumulating stores for the instruction and entertain- 
 ment of a long posterity. His epics were to be in the 
 hands of all men, and his history of Brazil, the ' Hero- 
 dotus of the South American Republics.' As if his 
 epics were not already dead, and as if the people who 
 now cheat at Valparaiso care a real who it was that 
 cheated those before them. Yet it was only by a con- 
 viction like this that an industrious and caligraphic 
 man (for such was Robert Southey), who might have 
 earned money as a clerk, worked all his days for half 
 a clerk's wages, at occupation much duller and more 
 laborious. The critic in The Vicar of Wakefield lays 
 down that you should always say that the picture 
 would have been better if the painter had taken more 
 pains ; but in the case of the practised literary man, 
 you should often enough say that the writings would 
 have been much better if the writer had taken less 
 pains. He says he has devoted his life to the subject 
 — the reply is: 'Then you have taken the best way to 
 prevent your making anything of it.' Instead of read- 
 ing studiously what Burgersdicius and ^noesidemus 
 said men were, you should have gone out yourself, 
 and seen (if yf)u can see) what they are. 
 
 After all, the original way of writing books may 
 turn out to be the best. The first author, it is plain, 
 could not have taken anything from books, since there 
 were no books for him to copy from ; he looked at 
 things for himself. Anyhow, the modern system fails, 
 for where are the amusing books from voracious stu- 
 dents and habitual writers ? Not that we mean exactly 
 to say that an author's hard reading is the cause of his
 
 72 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 writing that which is hard to read. Tiiis would be near 
 the truth, but not quite the truth. The two are con- 
 comitant effects of a certain defective nature. Slow 
 men read well, but write ill. The abstracted habit, 
 the want of keen exterior interests, the aloofness of 
 mind from what is next it, all tend to make a man feel 
 an exciting curiosity and interest about remote literary 
 events, the toil of scholastic logicians, and the petty 
 feuds of Argos and Laced^emon ; but they also tend 
 to make a man veiy unable to explain and elucidate 
 those exploits for the benefit of his fellows. What 
 separates the author from his readers, will make it 
 proportionately difficult for him to explain himself to 
 them. Secluded habits do not tend to eloquence ; 
 and the indifferent apathy which is so common in 
 studious persons is exceedingly unfavourable to the 
 liveliness of narration and illustration which is needed 
 for excellence in even the simpler sorts of writing. 
 Moreover, in general it will perhaps be found that 
 persons devoted to mere literature commonly become 
 devoted to mere idleness. They wish to produce a 
 great work, but they find they cannot. Having re- 
 linquished evei'j^'thing to devote themselves to this, 
 they conclude on trial that this is impossible. They 
 wish to write, but nothing occurs to them. Therefore 
 they write nothing, and they do nothing. As has been 
 said, they have nothing to do. Their life has no events, 
 unless they are very poor. With any decent means of 
 subsistence, they have nothing to roiise them from an 
 indolent and musing dream. A merchant must meet 
 his bills, or he is civilly dead and uncivilly remembered. 
 But a student maj' know nothing of time and be too 
 lazy to wind up his watch. In the retired citizen's 
 journal in Addison's Spectator, we have the type of 
 this way of spending the time : Mem. Morning 8 to 9, 
 'Went into the parlour and tied on my shoe-buckles.' 
 This is the sort of life for which studious men com- 
 monly relinquish the pursuits of business and the 
 society of their fellows. 
 
 Yet all literary men are not tedious, neither are
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 73 
 
 they all slow. One great example even these most 
 tedious times have luckily given us, to show us what 
 may be done by a really great man even now, the 
 same who before served as an illustration — Sir Walter 
 Scott. In his lifetime people denied he was a poet, 
 but nobody said that he was not 'the best fellow' in 
 Scotland — perhaps that was not much — or that he 
 had not more wise joviality, more living talk, more 
 graphic humour, than any man in Great Britain. 
 ' Wherever we went,' said Mr Wordsworth, ' we 
 found his name acted as an open sesame, and I be- 
 lieve that in the character of the sheriff's friends, we 
 might have counted on a hearty welcome under any 
 roof in the border country.' Never neglect to talk 
 to people with whom you are casually thrown, was 
 his precept, and he exemplified the maxim himself. 
 ' I believe,' observes his biographer, ' that Scott has 
 somewhere expressed in print his satisfaction, that 
 amid all the changes of our manners, the ancient 
 freedom of personal intercourse may still be indulged 
 between a master and an out-of-door servant; but in 
 truth he kept by the old fashion, even with domestic 
 servants, to an extent which I have hardly ever seen 
 practised by any other gentleman. He conversed 
 with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often did, 
 on the box — with his footman, if he chanced to be in 
 the rumble. Indeed, he did not confine his humanity 
 to his own people; any steady-going servant of a friend 
 of his was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and 
 was sure to have a kind little colloquy to himself at 
 coming or going.' 'Sir Walter speaks to every man 
 as if he was his blood relation,' was the expressive 
 comment of one of these dependants. It was in this 
 way that he acquired the great knowledge of various 
 kinds of men, which is so clear and conspicuous in 
 his writings; nor could that knowledge have been 
 acquired on easier terms, or in any other way. No 
 man could describe the character of Dandie Dinmont, 
 with(jut having been in Lidderdale. Whatever has 
 been once in a book may be put into a book again;
 
 74 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 but an original character, taken at first hand from 
 the sheepwalks and from Nature, must be seen in 
 order to be known. A man, to be able to describe — 
 indeed, to be able to know — various people in life, 
 must be able at sight to comprehend their essential 
 features, to know how they shade one into another, 
 to see how they diversify the common uniformity of 
 civilised life. Nor does this involve simply intellectual 
 or even imaginative pre-requisites, still less will it be 
 facilitated by exquisite senses or subtle fancy. What 
 is wanted is, to be able to appreciate mere clay — which 
 mere mind never will. If you will describe the people, 
 — nay, if you will write for the people, you must be one 
 of the people. You must have led their life, and must 
 wish to lead their life. However strong in any poet 
 may be the higher qualities of abstract thought or 
 conceiving fancy, unless he can actually sympathise 
 with those around him, he can never describe those 
 around him. Any attempt to produce a likeness of 
 what is not really liked by the person who is describ- 
 ing it, will end in the creation of what may be correct, 
 but is not living — of what may be artistic, but is like- 
 wise artificial. 
 
 Perhaps this is the defect of the works of the 
 greatest dramatic genius of recent times — Goethe. 
 His works are too much in the nature of literary 
 studies ; the mind is often deeply impressed by them, 
 but one doubts if the author was. He saw them as 
 he saw the houses of Weimar and the plants in the 
 act of metamorphosis. He had a clear perception of 
 their fixed condition and their successive transitions, 
 but he did not really (if we may so speak) comprehend 
 their motive power. So to say, he appreciated their 
 life, but not their liveliness. Niebuhr, as is well known, 
 compared the most elaborate of Goethe's works — the 
 novel Wilhelm Meister — to a menagerie of tame ani- 
 mals, meaning thereby, as we believe, to express much 
 the same distinction. He felt that there was a defi- 
 ciency in mere vigour and rude energy. We have a 
 long train and no engine —a great accumulation of
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 75 
 
 excellent matter, arranged and ordered with masterly 
 skill, but not animated with over-buoyant and un- 
 bounded play. And we trace this not to a defect in 
 imaginative power, a defect which it would be a simple 
 absurdity to impute to Goethe, but to the tone of his 
 character and the habits of his mind. He moved 
 hither and thither through life, but he was always a 
 man apart. He mixed with unnumbered kinds of 
 men, with courts and academies, students and women, 
 camps and artists, but everywhere he was with them, 
 yet not of them. In every scene he was there, and he 
 made it clear that he was there with a reserve and as 
 a stranger. He went there to experience. As a man 
 of universal culture and well skilled in the order and 
 classification of human life, the fact of any one class 
 or order being beyond his reach or comprehension 
 seemed an absurdity, and it was an absurdity. He 
 thought that he was equal to moving in any descrip- 
 tion of society, and he was equal to it ; but then on 
 that exact account he was absorbed in none. There 
 were none of surpassing and immeasurably prepon- 
 derating captivation. No scene and no subject were 
 to him what Scotland and Scotch nature were to 
 Sir Walter Scott. 'If I did not see the heather once 
 a year, I should die,' said the latter; but Goethe would 
 have lived without it, and it would not have cost him 
 much trouble. In every one of Scott's novels there is 
 always the spirit of the old moss trooper — the flavour 
 of the ancient border; there is the intense sympathy 
 which enters into the most living moments of the 
 most living characters — the lively energy which he- 
 comes the energy of the most vigorous persons 
 delineated. Nlarmion was 'written' while he was 
 galloping on horseback. It reads as if it were so. 
 
 Now it appears that Shakespeare not only had 
 that various commerce with, and experience of nien, 
 which was common both to Goethe and to Scott, but 
 also that he agrees with the latter rather than with 
 the former in the kind and species of that experience. 
 He was not merely with men, but of men; he was not
 
 76 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 a 'thing apart \' with a clear intuition of what was in 
 those around him; he had in his own nature the germs 
 and tendencies of the very elements that he described. 
 He knew what was in man, for he felt it in himself. 
 Throughout all his writings you see an amazing sym- 
 pathy with common people, ratheran excessive tendency 
 to dwell on the common features of ordinary lives. 
 You feel that common people could have been cut out 
 of him, but not without his feeling it; for it would have 
 deprived him of a very favourite subject — of a portion 
 of his ideas to which he habitually recurred. 
 
 ''Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour? 
 
 Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, 
 that decerns you nearly. 
 
 Leoti. Brief, I pray you ; for you see 'tis a busy time 
 with me. 
 
 Dog. Marry, this it is, sir. 
 
 Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir. 
 
 Leon. What is it, my good friends ? 
 
 Dog. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: 
 an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt, as, God help, 
 I would desire they were ; but, in faith, honest as the skin 
 between his brows. 
 
 Vefg. Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man 
 living, that is an old man, and no honester than I. 
 
 Dog. Comparisons are odorous : — paiabras, neighbour 
 Verges. 
 
 Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious. 
 
 Dog. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the 
 poor duke's officers; but, truly, for mine own part, if I were 
 as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all 
 of your worship. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I^con. I would fain know what you have to say. 
 
 Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your wor- 
 ship's presence, have ta'en a couple ot as arrant knaves as any 
 in Messina. 
 
 Dog. A good old man, sir; he will be talking ; as they 
 say, When the age is in, the wit is out ; God help us ! it is a 
 world to see! — Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges : — well, 
 God's a good man ; an two men ride of a horse, one must 
 
 Byron: Don Jiiaii., I., CXCIV.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 77 
 
 ride behind: — An honest soul, i' faith, sir ; by my troth he is, 
 as ever broke bread ; but God is to be worshipped : All men 
 are not alike ; alas, good neighbour! 
 
 Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too far short of you. 
 
 Dog. Gifts that God gives,' — etc., etc.* 
 
 *■ Stafford. Ay, sir. 
 
 Cade. By her he had two children at one birth. 
 
 Staff. That's false. 
 
 Cade. Ay, there's the question ; but, I say, 'tis true ; 
 The elder of them, being put to nurse, 
 Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away : 
 And, ignorant of his birth and parentage, 
 Became a bricklayer, when he came to age ; 
 His son am I ; deny it, if you can. 
 
 Dick. Nay, 'tis too true ; therefore he shall be king. 
 
 Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and 
 the bricks are alive at this day to testify it ; therefore, deny 
 it notl' 
 
 Shakespeare was too wise not to know that for 
 most of the purposes of human life stupidity is a most 
 valuable element. He had nothing of the impatience 
 which sharp logical narrow minds habitually feel when 
 they come across those who do not apprehend their 
 quick and precise deductions. No doubt he talked to 
 the stupid players, to the stupid door-keeper, to the 
 property man, who considers paste jewels 'very pre- 
 ferable, besides the expense ' — talked with the stupid 
 apprentices of stupid Fleet Street, and had much 
 pleasure in ascertaining what was their notion of 
 King Lear. In his comprehensive mind it was enough 
 if every man hitched well into his own place in human 
 life. If every one were logical and literary, how would 
 there be scavengers, or watchmen, or caulkers, or 
 coopers? Narrow minds will be 'subdued to what' 
 they 'work in.' The 'dyer's hand'' will not more 
 clearly carry off its tint, nor will what is moulded 
 
 ' Much Ado about Nothing, m. 5. 
 ''■ 2 King Hetiry VI, iv. 2. 
 ' Shakespeare : Sonnet, cxi.
 
 78 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 more precisely indicate the confines of the mould. 
 A patient sympathy, a kindly fellow-feeling for the 
 narrow intelligence necessarily induced by narrow 
 circumstances — a narrowness which, in some degrees, 
 seems to be inevitable, and is perhaps more service- 
 able than most things to the wise conduct of life — 
 this, though quick and half-bred minds may despise 
 it, seems to be a necessary constituent in the com- 
 position of manifold genius. 'How shall the world 
 be served?' asks the host in Chaucer. We must 
 have cart-horses as well as race-horses, draymen as 
 well as poets. It is no bad thing, after all, to be a 
 slow man and to have one idea a year. You don't 
 make a figure, perhaps, in argumentative society, which 
 requires a quicker species of thought, but is that the 
 worse ? 
 
 '•Hoi. Via., Goodman Dull; thou hast spoken no word 
 all this while. 
 
 Dull. Nor understood none either, sir. 
 
 Hoi. A lions, we will employ thee. 
 
 Dull. I'll make one in a dance or so, or I will play on the 
 tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. 
 
 Hoi. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport away^' 
 
 And such, we believe, was the notion of Shakespeare. 
 S. T. Coleridge has a nice criticism which bears on 
 this point. He observes that in the narrations of un- 
 educated people in Shakespeare, just as in real life, 
 there is a want of prospectiveness and a superfluous 
 amount of regressiveness. People of this sort are 
 unable to look a long way in front of them, and they 
 wander from the right path. They get on too fast 
 with one half, and then the other hopelessly lags. 
 They can tell a story exactly as it is told to them 
 (as an animal can go step by step where it has been 
 before), but they can't calculate its bearings before- 
 hand, or see how it is to be adapted to those to whom 
 they are speaking, nor do they know how much they 
 have thoroughly told and how much they have not. 
 'I went up the street, then I went down the street; 
 
 1 Love's Labour's Lost., v. i.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 79 
 
 no, first went down and then — but you do not follow 
 me; I go before you, sir.' Thence arises the complex 
 style usually adopted by persons not used to narration. 
 They tumble into a story and get on as they can. 
 This is scarcely the sort of thing which a man could 
 foresee. Of course a metaphysician can account for 
 it, and, like Coleridge, assure you that if he had not 
 observed it, he could have predicted it in a moment; 
 but, nevertheless, it is too refined a conclusion to be 
 made out from known premises by common reasoning. 
 Doubtless there is some reason why negroes have 
 woolly hair (and if you look into a philosophical 
 treatise, you will find that the author could have 
 made out that it would be so, if he had not, by a 
 mysterious misfortune, known from infancy that it 
 was the fact), — still one could never have supposed 
 it oneself. And in the same manner, though the 
 profounder critics may explain in a satisfactory and 
 refined manner, how the confused and undulating 
 style of narration is peculiarly incident to the mere 
 multitude, yet it is most likely that Shakespeare de- 
 rived his acquaintance with it from the fact, from 
 actual hearing, and not from what may be the surer, 
 but is the slower, process of metaphysical deduction. 
 The best passage to illustrate this is that in which the 
 nurse gives a statement of Juliet's age; but it will not 
 exactly suit our pages. The following of Mrs Quickly 
 will suffice: — 
 
 'Tilly-fally, Sir John, never tell me ; your ancient swag- 
 gerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tizzick, 
 the Deputy, t'other day; and, as he said to me, — it was no 
 longer ago than Wednesday last, — Neighbour Quickly, says 
 he; —Master Dumb, our minister, was by then ; — Neighbour 
 Quickly, says he, receive those that are civil; for, saith he, 
 you are in an ill name: — now, he said so, I can tell you 
 whereupon ; for, says he, you are an honest woman, and well 
 thought on ; therefore take heed to what guests you receive: 
 Receive, says he, no swaggering companions. — There comes 
 none here ; — you would bless you to hear what he said : — no, 
 ril no swaggerers'.' 
 
 ' 2 King Henry IV, u. 4.
 
 80 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 Now, it is quite impossible that this, any more than 
 the political reasoning on the parentage of Cade, which 
 was cited before, should have been written by one not 
 habitually and sympathisingly conversant with the talk 
 of the illogical classes. Shakespeare felt, if we may 
 say so, the force of the bad reasoning. He did not, 
 like a sharp logician, angrily detect a flaw, and set it 
 down as a fallacy of reference or a fallacy of amphi- 
 bology. This is not the English way, though Dr 
 Whately's logic has been published so long (and, as 
 he says himself, must now be deemed to be irrefut- 
 able, since no one has ever offered any refutation of 
 it). Yet still people in this country do not like to be 
 committed to distinct premises. They like a Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer to say: 'It has during very 
 many years been maintained by the honourable mem- 
 ber for Montrose that two and two make four, and I 
 am free to say, that I think there is a great deal to be 
 said in favour of that opinion ; but, without committing 
 her Majesty's Government to that proposition as an 
 abstract sentiment, I will go so far as to assume two 
 and two are not sufficient to make five, which with 
 the permission of the House, will be a sufficient basis 
 for all the operations which I propose to enter upon 
 during the present year.' We have no doubt Shake- 
 speare reasoned in that way himself. Like any other 
 Englishman, when he had a clear course before him, 
 he rather liked to shuffle over little hitches in the 
 argument, and on that account he had a great sym- 
 pathy with those who did so too. He would never 
 have interrupted Mrs Quickly; he saw that her mind 
 was going to and fro over the subject; he saw that it 
 was coming right, and this was enough for him, and 
 will be also enough of this topic for our readers. 
 
 We think we have proved that Shakespeare had 
 an enormous specific acquaintance with the common 
 people ; that this can only be obtained by sympathy. 
 It likewise has a further condition. 
 
 In spiritedness, the style of Shakespeare is very 
 like to that of Scott. The description of a charge of
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 81 
 
 cavalry in Scott reads, as was said before, as if it was 
 written on horseback. A play by Shakespeare reads 
 as if it were written in a playhouse. The great critics 
 assure you that a theatrical audience must be kept 
 awake, but Shakespeare knew this of his own know- 
 ledge. When you read him, you feel a sensation of 
 motion, a conviction that there is something 'up,' a 
 notion that not only is something being talked about, 
 but also that something is being done. We do not 
 imagine that Shakespeare owed this quality to his 
 being a player, but rather that he became a player 
 because he possessed this quality of mind. For after, 
 and notwithstanding, everything which has been, or 
 may be, said against the theatrical profession, it cer- 
 tainly does require from those who pursue it a certain 
 quickness and liveliness of mind. Mimics are com- 
 monly an elastic sort of persons, and it takes a little 
 levity of disposition to enact even the 'heavy fathers.' 
 If a boy joins a company of strolling players, you may 
 be sure that he is not a 'good boy'; he maybe a trifle 
 foolish, or a thought romantic, but certainly he is not 
 slow. And this was in truth the case with Shakespeare. 
 They say, too, that in the beginning he was a first-rate 
 link-boy; and the tradition is affecting, though we fear 
 it is not quite certain. Anyhow, you feel about Shake- 
 speare that he could have been a link-boy. In the 
 same way you feel he may have been a player. You 
 are sure at once that he could not have followed any 
 sedentary kind of life. But wheresoever there was 
 anything acted in earnest or in jest, by way of mock 
 representation or by way of serious reality, there he 
 found matter for his mind. If anybody could have 
 any doubt about the liveliness of Shakespeare, let 
 them consider the character of Falstafl'. When a 
 man has created that without a capacity for laughter, 
 then a blind man may succeed in describing colours. In- 
 tense animal spirits are the single sentiment (if they be 
 a sentiment) of the entire character. If most men were 
 to save up all the gaiety of their whole lives, it would 
 come about to the gaiety of one speech in Falstafl'.
 
 82 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 A morose man might have amassed many jokes, 
 might have observed many details of jovial society, 
 might have conceived a Sir John, marked by rotundity 
 of body, but could hardly have imagined what we call 
 his rotundity of mind. We mean that the animal 
 spirits of Falstaff give him an easy, vague, diffusive 
 sagacity which is peculiar to him. A morose man, 
 I ago, for example, may know anything, and is apt to 
 know a good deal ; but what he knows is generally all 
 in corners. He knows number 1, number 2, number 3, 
 and so on, but there is not anything continuous, or 
 smooth, or fluent in his knowledge. Persons conver- 
 sant with the works of Hazlitt will know in a minute 
 what we mean. Everything which he observed he 
 seemed to observe from a certain soreness of mind; 
 he looked at people because they offended him; he 
 had the same vivid notion of them that a man has 
 of objects which grate on a wound in his body. But 
 there is nothing at all of this in Falstaff ; on the con- 
 trary, everything pleases him, and everything is food 
 for a joke. Cheerfulness and prosperity give an easy 
 abounding sagacity of mind which nothing else does 
 give. Prosperous people bound easily over all the 
 surface of things which their lives present to them; 
 very likely they keep to the surface; there are things 
 beneath or above to which they may not penetrate 
 or attain, but what is on any part of the surface, that 
 they know well. ' Lift not the painted veil which those 
 who live call life',' and they do not lift it. What is 
 sublime or awful above, what is 'sightless and drear ^' 
 beneath, — these they may not dream of. Nor is any 
 one piece or corner of life so well impressed on them 
 as on minds less happily constituted. It is only people 
 who have had a tooth out, that really know the den- 
 tist's waiting-room. Yet such people, for the time at 
 least, know nothing but that and their tooth. The 
 easy and sympathising friend who accompanies them 
 knows everything; hints gently at the contents of the 
 
 1 Shelley: Somie/ (iSiS). 
 
 2 /did.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 83 
 
 Times, and would cheer you with Lord Pahnerston's 
 raphes. So, on a greater scale, the man of painful 
 experience knows but too well what has hurt him, 
 and where and why; but the happy have a vague and 
 rounded view of the round world, and such was the 
 knowledge of Falstaff. 
 
 It is to be observed that these high spirits are 
 not a mere excrescence or superficial point in an ex- 
 periencing nature; on the contrary, they seem to be 
 essential, if not to its idea or existence, at least to its 
 exercise and employment. How are you to know 
 people without talking to them, but how are you to 
 talk to them without tiring j-ourself? A common man 
 is exhausted in half an hour; Scott or Shakespeare 
 could have gone on for a whole day. This is, perhaps, 
 peculiarly necessary for a painter of English life. The 
 basis of our national character seems to be a certain 
 energetic humour, which may be found in full vigour 
 in old Chaucer's time, and in great perfection in at 
 least one of the popular writers of this age, and which 
 is, perhaps, most easily described by the name of our 
 greatest painter — Hogarth. It is amusing to see how 
 entirely the efforts of critics and artists fail to natural- 
 ise in England any other sort of painting. Their efforts 
 are fruitless; for the people painted are not English 
 people: they may be Italians, or Greeks, or Jews, but 
 it is quite certain that they are foreigners. We should 
 not fancy that modern art ought to resemble the 
 mediaeval. So long as artists attempt the same class 
 of paintings as Raphael, they will not only be inferior 
 to Raphael, but they will never please, as they might 
 please, the English people. What we want is what 
 Hogarth gave us — a representation of ourselves. It 
 may be that we are wrong, that we ought to prefer 
 something of the old world, some scene in Rome or 
 Athens, some tale from Carmel or Jerusalem; but, 
 after all, we do not. These places are, we think, 
 abroad, and had their greatness in former times; we 
 wish a copy of what now exists, and of what we have 
 seen. London we know, and Manchester we know, 
 
 6-2
 
 84 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 but where are all these ? It is the same with htera- 
 ture, Milton excepted, and even Milton can hardly 
 be called a popular writer; all great English writers 
 describe English people, and in describing them, they 
 give, as they must give, a large comic element; and, 
 speaking generally, this is scarcely possible, except in 
 the case of cheerful and easy-living men. There is, 
 no doubt, a biting satire, like that of Swift, which has 
 for its essence misanthropy. There is the mockery 
 of Voltaire, which is based on intellectual contempt; 
 but this is not our English humour — it is not that of 
 Shakespeare and Falstaff ; ours is the humour of a man 
 who laughs when he speaks, of flowing enjoyment, of 
 an experiencing nature. 
 
 Yet it would be a great error if we gave anything 
 like an exclusive prominence in this aspect of Shake- 
 speare. Thus he appeared to those around him — in 
 some degree they knew that he was a cheerful, and 
 humorous, and happy man; but of his higher gift they 
 knew less than we. A great painter of men must (as 
 has been said) have a faculty of conversing, but he 
 must also have a capacity for solitude. There is much 
 of mankind that a man can only learn from himself. 
 Behind every man's external life, which he leads in 
 company, there is another which he leads alone, and 
 which he carries with him apart. We see but one 
 aspect of our neighbour, as we see but one side of 
 the moon ; in either case there is also a dark half, 
 which is unknown to us. We all come down to 
 dinner, but each has a room to himself. And if we 
 would study the internal lives of others, it seems 
 essential that we should begin with our own. If we 
 study this our datum, if we attain to see and feel 
 how this influences and evolves itself in our social 
 and (so to say) public life, then it is possible that we 
 may find in the lives of others the same or analogous 
 features; and if we do not, then at least we may 
 suspect that those who want them are deficient like- 
 wise in the secret agencies which we feel produce 
 them in ourselves. The metaphysicians assert, that
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 85 
 
 people originally picked up the idea of the existence 
 of other people in this way. It is orthodox doctrine 
 that a baby says: 'I have a mouth, mamma has a 
 mouth: therefore I'm the same species as mamma. 
 I have a nose, papa has a nose: therefore papa is 
 the same genus as me.' But whether or not this 
 ingenious idea really does or does not represent the 
 actual process by which we originally obtain an ac- 
 quaintance with the existence of minds analogous to 
 our own, it gives unquestionably the process by which 
 we obtain our notion of that part of those minds 
 which they never exhibit consciously to others, and 
 which only becomes predominant in secrecy and soli- 
 tude and to themselves. Now, that Shakespeare has 
 this insight into the musing life of man, as well as into 
 his social life, is easy to prove; take, for instance, the 
 following passages: — 
 
 'This battle fares like to the morning's war, 
 When dying clouds contend with growing light; 
 What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, 
 Can neither call it perfect day nor night. 
 Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea, 
 Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind ; 
 Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea 
 Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind: 
 Sometime, the flood prevails ; and then, the wind : 
 Now, one the better; then, another best; 
 Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, 
 Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered ; 
 So is the equal poise of this fell war. 
 Here on this molehill will I sit me down. 
 To whom God will, there be the victory ! 
 For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too. 
 Have chid me from the battle; swearing both 
 They prosper best of all when I am thence. 
 Would I were dead! if God's good will were so; 
 F"or what is in this world but grief and woe .'' 
 Oh God ! methinks it were a happy life, 
 To be no better than a homely swain : 
 To sit upon a hill, as I do now, 
 To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 
 Thereby to see the minutes how they run: 
 How many make the hour full complete,
 
 86 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 How many hours brino^ about the day, 
 
 How many days will finish up the year, 
 
 How many years a mortal man may live. 
 
 When this known, then to divide the time : 
 
 So many hours must I tend my flock ; 
 
 So many hours must I take my rest ; 
 
 So many hours must I contemplate; 
 
 So many hours must 1 sport myself; 
 
 So many days my ewes have been with young ; 
 
 So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean ; 
 
 So many years ere I shall shear the fleece ; 
 
 So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, 
 
 Pass'd over to the end they were created, 
 
 Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. 
 
 Ah, what a life were this I how sweet! how lovely! 
 
 Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
 
 To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep 
 
 Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy 
 
 To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery? 
 
 O yes, it doth ; a thousand-fold it doth. 
 
 And to conclude, — the shepherd's homely curds. 
 
 His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle. 
 
 His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, 
 
 All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, 
 
 Is far beyond a prince's delicates. 
 
 His viands sparkling in a golden cup, 
 
 His body couched in a curious bed. 
 
 When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him'.' 
 
 'A fool, a fool! — I met a fool i' the forest, 
 A motley fool I — a m.iserable world ; — 
 As I do live by food, I met a fool; 
 Who laid him down and basked him in the sun. 
 And railed on lady Fortune in good terms. 
 In good set terms, — and yet a motley fool. 
 "Good-morrow, fool," quoth I: "No, sir," quoth he, 
 "Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune": 
 And then he drew a dial from his poke. 
 And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, 
 Says, very wisely, "It is ten o'clock: 
 Thus may we see," quoth he, "how the world wags; 
 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine; 
 And after one hour more, 'twill be eleven ; 
 And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, 
 
 1 3 King Henry V/, ii. 5.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 87 
 
 And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot, 
 And thereby hangs a tale." When I did hear 
 The motley fool thus moral on the time, 
 l\Iy lungs began to crow like chanticleer, 
 That fools should be so deep-contemplative ; 
 And I did laugh, sans intermission, 
 An hour by his dial^.' 
 
 No slight versatility of mind and pliancy of fancy 
 could pass at will from scenes such as these to the 
 ward of Eastcheap and the society which heard the 
 chimes at midnight. One of the reasons of the rarity 
 of great imaginative works is that in very few cases is 
 this capacity for musing solitude combined with that 
 of observing mankind. A certain constitutional though 
 latent melancholy is essential to such a nature. This 
 is the exceptional characteristic in Shakespeare. All 
 through his works you feel you are reading the popular 
 author, the successful man ; but through them all there 
 is a certain tinge of musing sadness pervading, and, as 
 it were, softening their gaiety. Not a trace can be 
 found of 'eating cares' or narrow and mind-con- 
 tracting toil, but everywhere there is, in addition to 
 shrew sagacity and buoyant wisdom, a refining element 
 of chastening sensibility, which prevents sagacity from 
 being rough, and shrewdness from becoming cold. He 
 had an eye for either sort of life : — 
 
 'Why, let the stricken deer go weep. 
 The hart ungallcid play ; 
 For some must watch, and some must sleep, 
 Thus runs the world away''^.' 
 
 In another point also Shakespeare, as he was, must 
 be carefully contrasted with the estimate that would 
 be formed of him from such delineations as that of 
 Falstaff, and that was doubtless frequently made by 
 casual, though only by casual, frequenters of the Mer- 
 maid. It has been said that the mind of Shakespeare 
 contained within it the mind of Scott; it remains to 
 
 ' j4s You Like //, li. 7. 
 ''■ Hamlet, iii. 2.
 
 S8 WALTER BAG E HOT 
 
 be observed that it contained also the mind of Keats. 
 For, beside the delineation of human life, and beside 
 also the delineation of Nature, there remains also for 
 the poet a third subject — the delineation of fancies. 
 Of course these, be they what they may, are like to, 
 and were originally borrowed from, either man or 
 Nature — from one or from both together. We know 
 but two things in the simple way of direct experience, 
 and whatever else we know must be in some mode or 
 manner compacted out of them. Yet ' books are a 
 substantial world, both pure and good,' and so are 
 fancies too. In all countries, men have devised to 
 themselves a whole series of half-divine creations — 
 mythologies Greek and Roman, fairies, angels, beings 
 who may be, for aught we know, but with whom, in 
 the meantime, we can attain to no conversation. The 
 most known of these mythologies are the Greek, and 
 what is, we suppose, the second epoch of the Gothic, 
 the fairies; and it so happens that Shakespeare has 
 dealt with them both, and in a remarkable manner. 
 We are not, indeed, of those critics who profess simple 
 and unqualified admiration for the poem of Venus 
 and Adonis. It seems intrinsically, as we know it 
 from external testimony to have been, a juvenile pro- 
 duction, written when Shakespeare's nature might be 
 well expected to be crude and unripened. Power is 
 shown, and power of a remarkable kind; but it is not 
 displayed in a manner that will please or does please 
 the mass of men. In spite of the name of its author, 
 the poem has never been popular — and surely this is 
 sufficient. Nevertheless, it is remarkable as a literary 
 exercise, and as a treatment of a singular, though un- 
 pleasant subject. The fanciful class of poems differ 
 from others in being laid, so far as their scene goes, 
 in a perfectly unseen world. The type of such pro- 
 ductions is Keats's Endyniion. We mean that it is 
 the type, not as giving the abstract perfection of this 
 sort of art, but because it shows and embodies both 
 its excellences and defects in a very marked and pro- 
 minent manner. In that poem there are no passions
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 89 
 
 and no actions, there is no art and no life; but there 
 is beaut}-, and that is meant to be enough, and to a 
 reader of one and twenty it is enough and more. 
 What are exploits or speeches ? what is Caesar or 
 Coriolanus? what is a tragedy like Lear, or a real 
 view of human life in any kind whatever, to people 
 who do not know and do not care what human life 
 is? In early youth it is, perhaps, not true that the 
 passions, taken generally, are particularly violent, or 
 that the imagination is in any remarkable degree 
 powerful ; but it is certain that the fancy (which though 
 it be, in the last resort, but a weak stroke of that same 
 faculty, which, when it strikes hard, we call imagina- 
 tion, may yet for this purpose be looked on as distinct) 
 is particularly wakeful, and that the gentler species of 
 passions are more absurd than they are afterwards. 
 And the literature of this period of human life runs 
 naturally away from the real world; away from the 
 less ideal portion of it, from stocks and stones, and 
 aunts and uncles, and rests on mere half-embodied 
 sentiments, which in the hands of great poets assume 
 a kind of semi-personality, and are, to the distinction 
 between things and persons, ' as moonlight unto sun- 
 light, and as water unto wine^' The Sonnets of 
 Shakespeare belong exactly to the same school of 
 poetry. They are not the sort of verses to take any 
 particular hold upon the mind permanently and for 
 ever, but at a certain period they take too much. For 
 a young man to read in the spring of the year among 
 green fields and in gentle air, they are the ideal. As 
 First of April poetry they are perfect. 
 
 The Midsummer Night's Dream is of another 
 order. If the question were to be decided by \''ciiiis 
 and Adonis, in spite of the unmeasured panegyrics 
 of many writers, we should be obliged in equity to 
 hold, that as a poet of mere fancy Shakespeare was 
 much inferior to the late Mr Keats and even to meaner 
 men. Moreover, we should have been prepared with 
 
 ' Tennyson : Locksley Hall.
 
 90 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 some refined reasonings to show that it was unlikely 
 that a poet with so much hold on reality, in life and 
 Nature, both in solitude and in society, should have 
 also a similar command over /<;/reality: should possess 
 a command not only of flesh and blood, but of the 
 imaginary entities which the self-inworking fancy brings 
 forth — impalpable conceptions of mere mind: qiicedam 
 simulacra iniris pallentia niodis^, thin ideas, which 
 come we know not whence, and are given us we know 
 not why. But, unfortunately for this ingenious, if not 
 profound suggestion, Shakespeare, in fact, possessed 
 the very faculty which it tends to prove that he would 
 not possess. He could paint Poins and Falstaff, but 
 he excelled also in fairy legends. He had such 
 
 ' Seething brains ; 
 Such shaping fantasies that apprehend 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends'^.' 
 
 As, for example, the idea of Puck, or Queen Mab, of 
 Ariel, or such a passage as the following: — 
 
 ^ Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you? 
 J^at. Over hill, over dale, 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough briar, 
 
 Over park, over pale, 
 
 Thorough flood, thorough fire, 
 
 I do wander everywhere. 
 
 Swifter than the moones sphere ; 
 
 And I serve the fairy queen, 
 
 To dew her orbs upon the green : 
 
 The cowslips tall her pensioners be : 
 
 In their gold coats spots you see; 
 
 Those be rubies, fairy favours, 
 
 In those freckles live their savours: 
 I must go seek some dew-drops here, 
 And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 
 Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone ; 
 Our queen and all our elves come here anon. 
 
 Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night ; 
 Take heed the queen come not within his sight. 
 For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, 
 
 ' Lucretius, I. 124. 
 
 ^ Midsummer Night's Dtram., v. i.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 91 
 
 Because that she, as her attendant, hath 
 
 A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; 
 
 She never had so sweet a changeling : 
 
 And jealous Oberon would have the child 
 
 Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild : 
 
 But she, perforce, withholds the lov^d boy. 
 
 Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy 
 
 And now they never meet in grove, or green. 
 
 By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen 
 
 But they do square ; that all their elves, for fear, 
 
 Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there. 
 
 Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite. 
 Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite 
 Call'd Robin Good-fellow: are not you he 
 That fright the maidens of the villagery; 
 Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern. 
 And bootless make the breathless housewife churn ; 
 And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm ; 
 Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? 
 Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, 
 You do their work, and they shall have good luck : 
 Are not you he ? 
 
 Puck. Thou speak'st aright ; 
 
 1 am that merry wanderer of the night. 
 I jest to Oberon, and make him smile. 
 When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, 
 Neighing in likeness of a filly foal : 
 And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl. 
 In very likeness of a roasted crab; 
 And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, 
 And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale. 
 The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, 
 Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me ; 
 Then slip I from beneath, down topples she. 
 And tailor cries, and falls into a cough ; 
 And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh ; 
 And waxen in their mirth, and neeze and swear 
 A merrier hour was never wasted there. — 
 But room. Fairy, here comes Oberon. 
 
 I'ai. And here my mistress: — Would that he were 
 goneM' 
 
 Probably he believed in these things. Why not? 
 Everybody else believed in them then. They suit our 
 
 • Midsummer Night^s Druuii, ii. i.
 
 92 WALTER BAG E HOT 
 
 climate. As the Greek mythology suits the keen Attic 
 sky, the fairies, indistinct and half-defined, suit a land 
 of wild mists and gentle airs. They confuse the 
 'maidens of the villagery'; they are the paganism 
 of the South of England. 
 
 Can it be made out what were Shakespeare's 
 political views ? We think it certainly can, and that 
 without difficulty. From the English historical plays, 
 it distinctly appears that he accepted, like everybody 
 then, the Constitution of his countrj'. His lot was 
 not cast in an age of political controversy, nor of 
 reform. What was, was from of old. The Wars of 
 the Roses had made it very evident how much room 
 there was for the evils incident to an hereditary 
 monarchy, for instance, those of a controverted suc- 
 cession, and the evils incident to an aristocracy, as 
 want of public spirit and audacious selfishness, to 
 arise and continue within the realm of England. 
 Yet they had not repelled, and had barely discon- 
 certed, our conservative ancestors. They had not 
 become Jacobins; they did not concur — and history, 
 except in Shakespeare, hardly does justice to them — 
 in Jack Cade's notion that the laws should come out 
 of his mouth, or that the commonwealth was to be 
 reformed by interlocutors in this scene: 
 
 ' Geo. I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress 
 the Commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap on it. 
 
 John. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say 
 it was never inerry world in England since gentlemen 
 came up. 
 
 Geo. O miserable age ! Virtue is not regarded in handi- 
 crafts-men. 
 
 John. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons. 
 
 Geo. Nay more: the king's council are no good workmen. 
 
 John. True ; and yet it is said, Labour in thy vocation ; 
 which is as much as to say, as let the magistrates be labour- 
 ing men, and therefore should we be magistrates. 
 
 Geo. Thou hast hit it, for there is no better sign of a brave 
 mind than a hard hand. 
 
 John. I see them! I see theniM' 
 
 1 2 King Henry V/, iv. 2.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 93 
 
 The English people did see them, and know them, 
 and therefore have rejected them. An audience 
 which, bona fide, entered into the merit of this scene, 
 would never believe in everybody's suffrage. They 
 would know that there is such a thing as nonsense, 
 and when a man has once attained to that deep 
 conception, you may be sure of him ever after. And 
 though it would be absurd to say that Shakespeare 
 originated this idea, or that the disbelief in simple 
 democracy is owing to his teaching or suggestions, 
 yet it may, nevertheless, be truly said, that he shared 
 in the peculiar knowledge of men — and also possessed 
 the peculiar constitution of mind — which engender 
 this effect. The author of Con'olaiiiis never believed 
 in a mob, and did something towards preventing any- 
 body else from doing so. But this political idea was 
 not exactly the strongest in Shakespeare's mind. We 
 think he had two other stronger, or as strong. First, 
 the feeling of loyalty to the ancient polity of this 
 country — not because it was good, but because it 
 existed. In his time, people no more thought of the 
 origin of the monarchy than they did of the origin 
 of the iMendip Hills. The one had always been there, 
 and so had the other. God (such was the common 
 notion) had made both, and one as much as the other. 
 Everywhere, in that age, the common modes of poli- 
 tical speech assumed the existence of certain utterly 
 national institutions, and would have been worthless 
 and nonsensical except on that assumption. This 
 national habit appears as it ought to appear in our 
 national dramatist. A great divine tells us that the 
 Thirty-nine Articles are 'forms of thought'; inevi- 
 table conditions of the religious understanding: in 
 politics, ' kings, lords, and commons ' are, no doubt, 
 'forms of thought,' to the great majority of English- 
 men; in these they live, and beyond these they never 
 move. You can't reason on the removal (such is the 
 notion; of the English Channel, nor St George's 
 Channel, nor can you of the English Constitution, 
 in like manner. It is to most of us, and to the
 
 94 WALTER BAG E HOT 
 
 happiest of us, a thing immutable, and such, no doubt, 
 it was to Shakespeare, which, if any one would have 
 proved, let him refer at random to any page of the 
 historical English plays. 
 
 The second peculiar tenet which we ascribe to his 
 political creed, is a disbelief in the middle classes. 
 We fear he had no opinion of traders. In this age, 
 we know, it is held that the keeping of a shop is 
 equivalent to a political education. Occasionally, in 
 country villages, where the trader sells everything, 
 he is thought to know nothing, and has no vote ; but 
 in a town where he is a householder (as, indeed, he 
 is in the country), and sells only one thing— there we 
 assume that he knows everything. And this assump- 
 tion is, in the opinion of some observers, confirmed by 
 the fact. Sir Walter Scott used to relate, that when, 
 after a trip to London, he returned to Tweedside, he 
 always found the people in that district knew more 
 of politics than the Cabinet. And so it is with the 
 mercantile community in modern times. If you are 
 a Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is possible that you 
 may be acquainted with finance; but if you sell figs it 
 is certain that you will. Now we nowhere find this 
 laid down in Shakespeare. On the contrary, you will 
 generally find that when a 'citizen' is mentioned, he 
 generally does or says something absurd. Shakespeare 
 had a clear perception that it is possible to bribe a 
 class as well as an individual, and that personal ob- 
 scurity is but an insecure guarantee for political 
 disinterestedness. 
 
 'Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 
 His private arbours and new-planted orchards 
 On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, 
 And to your heirs for ever: common pleasures, 
 To walk abroad and recreate yourselves. 
 Here was a Caesar! when comes such another^?' 
 
 He everywhere speaks in praise of a tempered and 
 ordered and qualified polity, in which the pecuniary 
 
 1 Julius Ccesar, ill. 2.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 95 
 
 classes have a certain influence, but no more, and 
 shows in every page a keen sensibility to the large 
 views and high-souled energies, the gentle refinements 
 and disinterested desires, in which those classes are 
 likely to be especially deficient. He is particularly 
 the poet of personal nobility, though, throughout his 
 writings, there is a sense of freedom, just as Milton is 
 the poet of freedom, though with an underlying refer- 
 ence to personal nobility; indeed, we might well expect 
 our two poets to combine the appreciation of a rude 
 and generous 'liberty with that of a delicate and re- 
 fined nobleness, since it is the union of these two 
 elements that characterises our society and their 
 experience. 
 
 There are two things — good-tempered sense and 
 
 ill-tempered sense. In our remarks on the character 
 
 of Falstaff, we hope we have made it very clear that 
 
 Shakespeare had the former; we think it nearly as 
 
 certain that he possessed the latter also. An instance 
 
 of this might be taken from that contempt for the 
 
 perspicacity of the bourgeoisie which we have just 
 
 been mentioning. It is within the limits of what may 
 
 be called malevolent sense, to take extreme and habitual 
 
 pleasure in remarking the foolish opinions, the narrow 
 
 notions, and fallacious deductions which seem to cling 
 
 to the pompous and prosperous man of business. Ask 
 
 him his opinion of the currency question, and he puts 
 
 'bills' and 'bullion' together in a sentence, and he 
 
 does not seem to care what he puts between them. 
 
 But a more proper instance of (what has an odd 
 
 sound), the malevolence of Shakespeare is to be found 
 
 in the play of Measure for Measure. We agree with 
 
 Hazlitt, that this play seems to be written, perhaps 
 
 more than any other, con amore, and with a relish ; 
 
 and this seems to be the reason why, notwithstanding 
 
 the unpleasant nature of its plot, and the absence of 
 
 any very attractive character, it is yet one of the plays 
 
 which take hold on the mind most easily and most 
 
 powerfully. Now the entire character of Angelo, 
 
 which is the expressive feature of the piece, is nothing
 
 96 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 but a successful embodiment of the pleasure, the male- 
 volent pleasure, which a warm-blooded and expansive 
 man takes in watching the rare, the dangerous and in- 
 animate excesses of the constrained and cold-blooded. 
 One seems to see Shakespeare, with his bright eyes 
 and his large lips and buoyant face, watching with 
 a pleasant excitement the excesses of his thin-lipped 
 and calculating creation, as though they were the 
 excesses of a real person. It is the complete picture 
 of a natural hypocrite, who does not consciously dis- 
 guise strong impulses, but whose very passions seem 
 of their own accord to have disguised themselves and 
 retreated into the recesses of the character, yet only 
 to recur even more dangerously when their proper 
 period is expired, when the will is cheated into se- 
 curity by their absence, and the world (and, it may be, 
 the 'judicious person' himself) is impressed with a 
 sure reliance in his chilling and remarkable recti- 
 tude. 
 
 It has, we believe, been doubted whether Shake- 
 speare was a man much conversant with the intimate 
 society of women. Of course no one denies that he 
 possessed a great knowledge of them— a capital ac- 
 quaintance with their excellences, faults, and foibles; 
 but it has been thought that this was the result rather 
 of imagination than of society, of creative fancy rather 
 than of perceptive experience. Now that Shakespeare 
 possessed, among other singular qualities, a remarkable 
 imaginative knowledge of women, is quite certain, for 
 he was acquainted with the soliloquies of women. A 
 woman we suppose, like a man, must be alone, in order 
 to speak a soliloquy. After the greatest possible in- 
 timacy and experience, it must still be imagination, or 
 fancy at least, which tells any man what a woman 
 thinks of herself and to herself. There will still — get 
 as near the limits of confidence or observation as you 
 can — ^be a space which must be filled up from other 
 means. Men can only divine the truth — reserve, in- 
 deed, is a part of its charm. Seeing, therefore, that 
 Shakespeare had done what necessarily and certainly
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 97 
 
 must be done without experience, we were in some 
 doubt whether he might not have dispensed with it 
 ahogether. A grave reviewer cannot know these 
 things. We thought indeed of reasoning that since 
 the dehneations of women in Shakespeare were ad- 
 mitted to be first-rate, it should follow, — at least there 
 was a fair presumption, — that no means or aid had 
 been wanting to their production, and that conse- 
 quently we ought, in the absence of distinct evidence, 
 to assume that personal intimacy as well as solitary 
 imagination had been concerned in their production. 
 And we meant to cite the 'questions about Octavia,' 
 which Lord Byron, who thought he had the means of 
 knowing, declared to be 'women all over.' 
 
 But all doubt was removed and all conjecture set 
 to rest by the coming in of an ably-dressed friend from 
 the external world, who mentioned that the language 
 of Shakespeare's women was essentially female lan- 
 guage; that there were certain points and peculiarities 
 in the English of cultivated English women, which 
 made it a language of itself, which must be heard 
 familiarly in order to be known. And he added, 
 'Except a greater use of words of Latin derivation, 
 as was natural in an age when ladies received a learned 
 education, a few words not now proper, a few conceits 
 that were the fashion of the time, and there is the very 
 same English in the women's speeches in Shakespeare.' 
 He quoted — 
 
 'Think not I love him, though I ask for him ; 
 'Tis but a peevish boy: — yet he talks well; — 
 But what care I for words ? yet words do well, 
 When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. 
 It is a pretty youth :— not very pretty: — 
 But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him; 
 He'll make a proper man : The best thin^ in him 
 Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue 
 Did make offence, his eye did heal it up. 
 He is not tall ; yet for his years he's tall : 
 His Ic},' is but so-so: and yet 'tis well. 
 There was a pretty redness in his lip; 
 A little riper and more lusty red
 
 98 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 Than that mix'd in his cheek ; 'twas just the difference 
 
 Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. 
 
 There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him 
 
 In parcels as I did, would have gone near 
 
 To fall in love with him : but, for my part, 
 
 I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet 
 
 I have more cause to hate him than to love him: 
 
 For what had he to do to chide at me ? 
 
 He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black, 
 
 And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me : 
 
 I marvel why I answer'd not again : 
 
 But that's all ont^' ; 
 
 and the passage of Perdita's cited before about the 
 daffodils that — 
 
 'take 
 The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim. 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. 
 Or Cytherea's breath' ; 
 
 and said that these were conclusive. But we have 
 not, ourselves, heard young ladies converse in that 
 manner. 
 
 Perhaps it is in his power of delineating women, 
 that Shakespeare contrasts most strikingly with the 
 greatest master of the art of dialogue in antiquity — 
 we mean Plato. It will, no doubt, be said that the 
 delineation of women did not fall within Plato's plan; 
 that men's life was in that age so separate and pre- 
 dominant that it could be delineated by itself and 
 apart; and no doubt these remarks are very true. 
 But what led Plato to form that plan ? What led 
 him to select that peculiar argumentative aspect of 
 life, in which the masculine element is in so high a 
 degree superior ? We believe that he did it because 
 he felt that he could paint that kind of scene much 
 better than he could paint any other. If a person 
 will consider the sort of conversation that was held 
 in the cool summer morning, when Socrates was 
 knocked up early to talk definitions and philosophy 
 with Protagoras, he will feel, not only that women 
 
 ^ As You Like It, ill. 5.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 99 
 
 would fancy such dialogues to be certainly stupid, 
 and very possibly to be without meaning, but also 
 that the side of character which is there presented 
 is one from which not only the feminine but even 
 the epicene element is nearly, if not perfectly, ex- 
 cluded. It is the intellect surveying and delineating 
 intellectual characteristics. We have a dialogue of 
 thinking faculties ; the character of every man is 
 delineated by showing us, not his mode of action or 
 feeling, but his mode of thinking, alone and by itself. 
 The pure mind, purged of all passion and affection, 
 strives to view and describe others in like manner; 
 and the singularity is, that the likenesses so taken 
 are so good, — that the accurate copying of the merely 
 intellectual effects and indications of cl'taracter gives 
 so true and so firm an impression of the whole char- 
 acter, — that a daguerreotype of the mind should almost 
 seem to be a delineation of the life. But though in 
 the hand of a consummate artist, such a way of repre- 
 sentation may in some sense succeed in the case of 
 men, it would certainly seem sure to fail in the case 
 of women. The mere intellect of a woman is a mere 
 nothing. It originates nothing, it transmits nothing, 
 it retains nothing; it has little life of its own, and 
 therefore it can hardly be expected to attain any 
 vigour. Of the lofty Platonic world of the ideas, 
 which the soul in the old doctrine was to arrive at 
 by pure and continuous reasoning, women were never 
 expected to know anything. Plato (though Mr Grote 
 denies that he was a practical man) was much too 
 practical for that; he reserved his teaching for people 
 whose belief was regulated and induced in some mea- 
 sure by abstract investigations; who had an interest 
 in the pure and (as it were) geometrical truth itself ; 
 who had an intellectual character (apart from and 
 accessory to their other character) capable of being 
 viewed as a large and substantial existence, Shake- 
 speare's being, like a woman's, worked as a whole- 
 He was capable of intellectual abstractedness, but 
 commonly he was touched with the sense of earth. 
 
 7—2
 
 100 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 One thinks of him as firmly set on our coarse world 
 of common clay, but from it he could paint the 
 moving essence of thoughtful feeling — which is the 
 best refinement of the best women. Imogen or 
 Juliet would have thought little of the conversation 
 of Gorgias. 
 
 On few subjects has more nonsense been written 
 than on the learning of Shakespeare. In former times, 
 the established tenet was, that he was acquainted with 
 the entire range of the Greek and Latin classics, and 
 familiarly resorted to Sophocles and ^schylus as 
 guides and models. This creed reposed not so much 
 on any painful or elaborate criticism of Shakespeare's 
 plays, as on one of the a priori assumptions permitted 
 to the indolence of the wise old world. It was then 
 considered clear, by all critics, that no one could write 
 good English who could not also write bad Latin. 
 Questioning scepticism has rejected this axiom, and 
 refuted with contemptuous facility the slight attempt 
 which had been made to verify this case of it from 
 the evidence of the plays themselves. But the new 
 school, not content with showing that Shakespeare 
 was no formed or elaborate scholar, propounded the 
 idea that he was quite ignorant, just as Mr Croker 
 ' demonstrates ' that Napoleon Bonaparte could 
 scarcely write or read. The answer is, that Shake- 
 speare wrote his plays, and that those plays show 
 not only a very powerful, but also a very cultivated 
 mind. A hard student Shakespeare was not, yet he 
 was a happy and pleased reader of interesting books. 
 He was a natural reader; when a book was dull he 
 put it down, when it looked fascinating he took it up, 
 and the consequence is, that he remembered and 
 mastered what he read. Lively books, read with lively 
 interest, leave strong and living recollections; the in- 
 structors, no doubt, say that they ought not to do so, 
 and inculcate the necessity of dry reading. Yet the 
 good sense of a busy public has practically discovered 
 that what is read easily is recollected easily, and what 
 is read with difficulty is remembered with more. It is
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 101 
 
 certain that Shakespeare read the novels of his time, 
 for he has founded on them the stories of his plays; 
 he read Plutarch, for his words still live in the dialogue 
 of the ' proud Roman ' plays ; and it is remarkable 
 that Montaigne is the only philosopher that Shake- 
 speare can be proved to have read, because he deals 
 more than any other philosopher with the first im- 
 pressions of things which exist. On the other hand, 
 it may be doubted if Shakespeare would have perused 
 his commentators. Certainly, he would have never 
 read a page of this review, and we go so far as to 
 doubt whether he would have been pleased with the 
 admirable discourses of M. Guizot, which we our- 
 selves, though ardent admirers of his style and ideas, 
 still find it a little difficult to read; — and what would 
 he have thought of the following speculations of an 
 anonymous individual, whose notes have been re- 
 cently published in a fine octavo by Mr Collier, and, 
 according to the periodical essayists, ' contribute 
 valuable suggestions to the illustration of the im- 
 mortal bard ' ? 
 
 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona 
 
 'Act I. Scene i. 
 
 'P. 92. The reading of the subsequent line has hitherto 
 been 
 
 "'Tis true; for you are over boots in love"; 
 
 but the manuscript corrector of the Folio, 1632, has 
 changed it to 
 
 "'Tis true; dut you are over boots in love," 
 which seems more consistent with the course of the dialogue; 
 for Proteus, remarking that Leandcr had been "more than 
 over shoes in love," with Hero, Valentine answers, that Proteus 
 was even more deeply in love than Leander. Proteus observes 
 of the fable of Hero and Leander — 
 
 "That's a deep story of a deeper love, 
 For he was more than o\cr shoes in love." 
 Valentine retorts — 
 
 "'Tis true; />u/ you are over boots in love." 
 
 For instead of iui was perhaps caught by the compositor 
 from the preceding line.
 
 102 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 It is difficult to fancy Shakespeare perusing a volume 
 of such annotations, though we allow that we admire 
 them ourselves. As to the controversy on his school 
 learning, we have only to say, that though the alleged 
 imitations of the Greek tragedians are mere nonsense, 
 yet there is clear evidence that Shakespeare received 
 the ordinary grammar-school education of his time, 
 and that he had derived from the pain and suffering 
 of several years, not exactly an acquaintance with 
 Greek or Latin, but, like Eton boys, a firm conviction 
 that there are such languages. 
 
 Another controversy has been raised as to whether 
 Shakespeare was religious. In the old editions it is 
 commonly enough laid down that, when writing his 
 plays, he had no desire to fill the Globe Theatre, but 
 that his intentions were of the following description. 
 *In this play,' Cyiiibeluie, 'Shakespeare has strongly 
 depicted the frailties of our nature, and the effect of 
 vicious passions on the human mind. In the fate of 
 the Queen we behold the adept in perfidy justly sacri- 
 ficed by the arts she had, with unnatural ambition, 
 prepared for others; and in reviewing her death and 
 that of Cloten, we may easily call to mind the words 
 of Scripture,' etc. And of King Lear it is observed 
 with great confidence, that Shakespeare, ' no doubt, 
 intended to mark particularly the afflicting character 
 of children's ingratitude to their parents, and the 
 conduct of Goneril and Regan to each other; especi- 
 ally in the former's poisoning the latter, and laying 
 hands on herself, we are taught that those who want 
 gratitude towards their parents (who gave them their 
 being, fed them, nurtured them to man's estate) will 
 not scruple to commit more barbarous crimes, and 
 easily to forget that, by destroying their body, they 
 destroy their soul also.' And Dr Ulrici, a very 
 learned and illegible writer, has discovered that in 
 every one of his plays Shakespeare had in view the 
 inculcation of the peculiar sentiments and doctrines 
 of the Christian religion, and considers the Midsummer 
 Night's Dream to be a specimen of the lay or amateur
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 103 
 
 sermon. This is wliat Dr Ulrici thinks of Shake- 
 speare; but what would Shakespeare have thought of 
 Dr Ulrici? We believe that *Via, goodman Dull,' is 
 nearly the remark which the learned professor would 
 have received from the poet to whom his very careful 
 treatise is devoted. And yet, without prying into the 
 Teutonic mysteries, a gentleman of missionary apti- 
 tudes might be tempted to remark that in many points 
 Shakespeare is qualified to administer a rebuke to 
 people of the prevalent religion. Meeting a certain 
 religionist is like striking the corner of a wall. He 
 is possessed of a firm and rigid persuasion that you 
 must leave off this and that, stop, cry, be anxious, 
 be advised, and, above all things, refrain from doing 
 what you like, for nothing is so bad for any one as 
 that. And in quite another quarter of the religious 
 hemisphere, we occasionally encounter gentlemen who 
 have most likely studied at the feet of Dr Ulrici, or at 
 least of an equivalent Gamaliel, and who, when we, or 
 such as we, speaking the language of mortality, remark 
 of a pleasing friend: 'Nice fellow, so and so! Good 
 fellow as ever lived ! ' reply sternly, upon an unsus- 
 pecting reviewer, with — ' Sir, is he an earnest man ? ' 
 To which, in some cases, we are unable to return a 
 sufficient answer. Yet Shakespeare, differing, in that 
 respect at least, from the disciples of Carlyle, had, we 
 suspect, an objection to grim people, and we fear would 
 have liked the society of Mercutio better than that 
 of a dreary divine, and preferred Ophelia or 'that 
 Juliet' to a female philanthropist of sinewy aspect. 
 And, seriously, if this world is not all evil, he who has 
 understood and painted it best must probably have 
 some good. If the underlying and almighty essence 
 of this world be good, then it is likely that the writer 
 who most deeply approached to that essence will be 
 himself good. There is a religion of week-days as 
 well as of Sundays, of 'cakes and ale'' as well as 
 of pews and altar cloths. This England lay before 
 
 Twflflh N/i;/i/, II 
 
 J-
 
 104 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 Shakespeare as it lies before us all, with its green 
 fields, and its long hedgerows, and its many trees, 
 and its great towns, and its endless hamlets, and its 
 motley soeiety, and its long history, and its bold ex- 
 ploits, and its gathering power, and he saw that they 
 were good. To him, perhaps, more than to any one 
 else, has it been given to see that they were a great 
 unity, a great religious object; that if you could only 
 descend to the inner life, to the deep things, to the 
 secret principles of its noble vigour, to the essence of 
 character, to what we know of Hamlet and seem to 
 fancy of Ophelia, we might, so far as we are capable 
 of so doing, understand the nature which God has 
 made. Let us, then, think of him not as a teacher 
 of dry dogmas, or a sayer of hard sayings, but as — 
 
 'A priest to us all, 
 Of the wonder and bloom of the world'' — 
 
 a teacher of the hearts of men and women ; one from 
 whom may be learned something of that inmost prin- 
 ciple that ever modulates — 
 
 'With murmurs of the air, 
 And motions of the forests and the sea, 
 And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 
 Of night and day and the deep heart of man 2.' 
 
 We must pause, lest our readers reject us, as the 
 Bishop of Durham the poor curate, because he was 
 ' mystical and confused.' 
 
 Yet it must be allowed that Shakespeare was 
 worldly, and the proof of it is, that he succeeded in 
 the world. Possibly this is the point on which we 
 are most richly indebted to tradition. We see gener- 
 ally indeed in Shakespeare's works the popular author, 
 the successful dramatist; there is a life and play in his 
 writings rarely to be found, except in those who have 
 had habitual good luck, and who, by the tact of experi- 
 ence, feel the minds of their readers at every word, as 
 
 ' Matthew Arnold : The Youth of Nature. 
 - Shelley: Alastor.
 
 SHAKESPEARE— THE MAN 105 
 
 a good rider feels the mouth of his horse. But it would 
 have been difficult quite to make out whether the pro- 
 fits so accruing had been profitably invested — whether 
 the genius to create such illusions was accompanied 
 with the care and judgment necessary to put out their 
 proceeds properly in actual life. We could only have 
 said that there was a general impression of entire calm- 
 ness and equability in his principal works, rarely to be 
 found where there is much pain, which usually makes 
 gaps in the work and dislocates the balance of the 
 mind. But happily here, and here almost alone, we 
 are on sure historical ground. The reverential nature 
 of Englishmen has carefully preserved what they 
 thought the great excellence of their poet — that he 
 made a fortuned It is certain that Shakespeare was 
 proprietor of the Globe Theatre — that he made money 
 there, and invested the same in land at Stratford-on- 
 Avon, and probably no circumstance in his life ever 
 gave him so much pleasure. It was a great thing 
 that he, the son of the wool-comber, the poacher, the 
 good-for-nothing, the vagabond (for so we fear the 
 phrase went in Shakespeare's youth), should return 
 upon the old scene a substantial man, a person of 
 capital, a freeholder, a gentleman to be respected, 
 and over whom even a burgess could not affect the 
 least superiority. The great pleasure in life is doing 
 what people say you cannot do. Why did Mr Disraeli 
 take the duties of the Exchequer with so much relish ? 
 Because people said he was a novelist, an ad captati- 
 dtiiii man, and — nioiistru>n Jiorretidion ! — a Jew, that 
 
 ^ The only antiquarian thing which can be fairly called 
 an anecdote of Shakespeare is, that Mrs Alleyne, a shrewd 
 woman in those times, and married to Mr Alleyne, the 
 founder of Duhvich Hospital, was one day, in the absence 
 of her husband, applied to on some matter by a player who 
 gave a reference to Mr Hemmings (the 'notorious' Mr 
 Hemmin<(s, the commentators say) and to Mr Shakespeare 
 of the Globe, and that the latter, when referred to, said : 
 'Yes, certainly, he knew him, and he was a rascal and good- 
 for-nothing.' The proper speech of a substantial man, such 
 as it is worth while to give a reference to.
 
 106 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 could not add up. No doubt it pleased his inmost 
 soul to do the work of the red-tape people better than 
 those who could do nothing else. And so with Shake- 
 speare: it pleased him to be respected by those whom 
 he had respected with boyish reverence, but who had 
 rejected the imaginative man — on their own ground 
 and in their own subject, by the only title which they 
 would regard — in a word, as a moneyed man. We 
 seem to see him eyeing the burgesses with good- 
 humoured fellowship and genial (though suppressed 
 and half-unconscious) contempt, drawing out their 
 old stories, and acquiescing in their foolish notions, 
 with everything in his head and easy sayings upon 
 his tongue, — a full mind and a deep dark eye, that 
 played upon an easy scene — now in fanciful solitude, 
 now in cheerful society; now occupied with deep 
 thoughts, now, and equally so, with trivial recreations, 
 forgetting the dramatist in the man of substance, and 
 the poet in the happy companion; beloved and even 
 respected, with a hope for every one and a smile 
 for all.
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 LITERA TURK 
 
 1858 
 
 Wishing to address you, Gentlemen, at the com- 
 mencement of a new Session, I tried to find a subject 
 for discussion, which might be at once suitable to the 
 occasion, yet neither too large for your time, nor too 
 minute or abstruse for your attention. I think I see 
 one for my purpose in the very title of your Faculty. 
 It is the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Now the 
 question may arise as to what is meant by ' Philosophy,' 
 and what is meant by 'Letters.' As to the other 
 Faculties, the subject-matter which they profess is in- 
 telligible, as soon as named, and beyond all dispute. 
 We know what Science is, what Medicine, what Law, 
 and what Theology; but we have not so much ease in 
 determining what is meant by Philosophy and Letters. 
 Each department of that twofold province needs ex- 
 planation : it will be sufficient, on an occasion like this, 
 to investigate one of them. Accordingly I shall select 
 for remark the latter of the two, and attempt to 
 determine what we are to understand by Letters or 
 Literature, in what Literature consists, and how it 
 stands relatively to Science. We speak, for instance, 
 of ancient and modern literature, the literature of the 
 day, sacred literature, light literature; and our lectures 
 in this place are devoted to classical literature and 
 Hnglish literature. Are Letters, then, synonymous
 
 108 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 with books ? This cannot be, or they would include 
 in their range Philosophy, Law, and, in short, the 
 teaching of all the other Faculties. Far from con- 
 fusing these various studies, we view the works of 
 Plato or Cicero sometimes as philosophy, sometimes 
 as literature; on the other hand, no one would ever 
 be tempted to speak of Euclid as literature, or of 
 JMatthiae's Greek Grammar. Is, then, literature sy- 
 nonymous with composition ? with books written with 
 an attention to style? is literature fine writing? again, 
 is it studied and artificial writing? 
 
 There are excellent persons who seem to adopt 
 this last account of Literature as their own idea of it. 
 They depreciate it, as if it were the result of a mere 
 art or trick of words. Professedly indeed, they are 
 aiming at the Greek and Roman classics, but their 
 criticisms have quite as great force against all litera- 
 ture as against any. I think I shall be best able to 
 bring out what I have to say on the subject by ex- 
 amining the statements which they make in defence 
 of their own view of it. They contend then, L that 
 fine writing, as exemplified in the Classics, is mainly 
 a matter of conceits, fancies, and prettinesses, decked 
 out in choice words; 2. that this is the proof of it, 
 that the classics will not bear translating; — (and this 
 is why I have said that the real attack is upon litera- 
 ture altogether, not the classical only; for, to speak 
 generally, all literature, modern as well as ancient, 
 lies under this disadvantage. This, however, they 
 will not allow ; for they maintain,) 3. that Holy 
 Scripture presents a remarkable contrast to secular 
 writings on this very point, viz. in that Scripture 
 does easily admit of translation, though it is the most 
 sublime and beautiful of all writings. 
 
 Now I will begin by stating these three positions 
 in the words of a writer, who is cited by the estimable 
 Catholics in question as a witness, or rather as an 
 advocate, in their behalf, though he is far from being 
 able in his own person to challenge the respect which 
 is inspired by themselves.
 
 LITERATURE 109 
 
 'There are two sorts of eloquence,' says this writer, 
 'the one indeed scarce deserves the name of it, which 
 consists chiefly in laboured and polished periods, an 
 over-curious and artificial arrangement of figures, 
 tinselled over with a gaudy embellishment of words, 
 which glitter, but convey little or no light to the 
 understanding. This kind of writing is for the most 
 part much affected and admired by the people of 
 weak judgment and vicious taste; but it is a piece 
 of affectation and formality the sacred writers are 
 utter strangers to. It is a vain and boyish eloquence; 
 and, as it has always been esteemed below the great 
 geniuses of all ages, so much more so with respect to 
 those writers who were actuated by the spirit of In- 
 finite Wisdom, and therefore wrote with that force 
 and majesty with which never man writ. The other 
 sort of eloquence is quite the reverse to this, and 
 which may be said to be the true characteristic of 
 the Holy Scriptures; where the excellence does not 
 arise from a laboured and far-fetched elocution, but 
 from a surprising mixture of simplicity and majesty, 
 which is a double character, so difficult to be united 
 that it is seldom to be met with in compositions 
 merely human. We see nothing in Holy Writ of 
 affectation and superfluous ornament... Now, it is 
 observable that the most excellent profane authors, 
 whether Greek or Latin, lose most of their graces 
 whenever we find them literally translated. Homer's 
 famed representation of Jupiter — his cried-up descrip- 
 tion of a tempest, his relation of Neptune's shaking 
 the earth and opening it to its centre, his description 
 of Pallas's horses, with numbers of other long-since 
 admired passages, flag, and almost vanish away, in 
 the vulgar Latin translation. 
 
 'Let any one but take the pains to read the com- 
 mon Latin interpretations of Virgil, Theocritus, or even 
 of Pindar, and one may venture to affirm he will be 
 able to trace out but few remains of the graces which 
 charmed him so much in the original. The natural 
 conclusion from hence is, that in the classical authors,
 
 no JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 the expression, the sweetness of the numbers, occa- 
 sioned by a musical placing of words, constitute a great 
 part of their beauties; whereas, in the sacred writings, 
 they consist more in the greatness of the things them- 
 selves than in the words and expressions. The ideas 
 and conceptions are so great and lofty in their own 
 nature that they necessarily appear magnificent in the 
 most artless dress. Look but into the Bible, and we 
 see them shine through the most simple and literal 
 translations. That glorious description which Moses 
 gives of the creation of the heavens and the earth, 
 which Longinus...was so greatly taken with, has not 
 lost the least whit of its intrinsic worth, and though 
 it has undergone so many translations, yet triumphs 
 over all, and breaks forth with as much force and 
 vehemence as in the original.. ..In the history of 
 Joseph, where Joseph makes himself known, and 
 weeps aloud upon the neck of his dear brother 
 Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard him, 
 at that instant none of his brethren are introduced 
 as uttering aught, either to express their present joy 
 or palliate their former injuries to him. On all sides 
 there immediately ensues a deep and solemn silence; 
 a silence infinitely more eloquent and expressive than 
 anything else that could have been substituted in its 
 place. Had Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or any of 
 the celebrated classical historians, been employed in 
 writing this history, when they came to this point 
 they would doubtless have exhausted all their fund 
 of eloquence in furnishing Joseph's brethren with 
 laboured and studied harangues, which, however fine 
 they might have been in themselves, would neverthe- 
 less have been unnatural, and altogether improper on 
 the occasion.' 
 
 This is eloquently written, but it contains, I con- 
 sider, a mixture of truth and falsehood, which it will 
 be my business to discriminate from each other. Far 
 be it from me to deny the unapproachable grandeur 
 and simplicity of Holy Scripture; but I shall maintain 
 that the classics are, as human compositions, simple
 
 LITERATURE 111 
 
 and majestic and natural too. I grant that Scripture 
 is concerned with things, but I will not grant that 
 classical literature is simply concerned with words. 
 I grant that human literature is often elaborate, but 
 I will maintain that elaborate composition is not 
 unknown to the writers of Scripture. I grant that 
 human Hterature cannot easily be translated out of 
 the particular language to which it belongs ; but it 
 is not at all the rule that Scripture can easily be 
 translated either; — and now I address myself to my 
 task : — 
 
 Here, then, in the first place, I observe, Gentle- 
 men, that Literature, from the derivation of the word, 
 implies writing, not speaking; this, however, arises 
 from the circumstance of the copiousness, variety, and 
 public circulation of the matters of which it consists. 
 What is spoken cannot outrun the range of the 
 speaker's voice, and perishes in the uttering. When 
 words are in demand to express a long course of 
 thought, when they have to be conveyed to the ends 
 of the earth, or perpetuated for the benefit of pos- 
 terity, they must be written down, that is, reduced to 
 the shape of literature ; still, properly speaking, the 
 terms, by which we denote this characteristic gift of 
 man, belong to its exhibition by means of the voice, 
 not of handwriting. It addresses itself, in its primary 
 idea, to the ear, not to the eye. We call it the power 
 of speech, we call it language, that is, the use of the 
 tongue; and, even when we write, we still keep in mind 
 what was its original instrument, for we use freely 
 such terms in our books as 'saying,' 'speaking,' 
 'telling,' 'talking,' 'calling'; we use the terms 'phrase- 
 ology' and 'diction'; as if we were still addressing 
 ourselves to the ear. 
 
 Now I insist on this, because it shows that speech, 
 and therefore literature, which is its permanent record, 
 is essentially a personal work. It is not some pro- 
 duction or result, attained by the partnership of several 
 persons, or by machinery, or by any natural process, 
 but in its very idea it proceeds, and must proceed,
 
 112 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 from some one given individual. Two persons cannot 
 be the authors of the sounds which strike our ear; 
 and, as they cannot be speaking one and the same 
 speech, neither can they be writing one and the same 
 lecture or discourse, — which must certainly belong to 
 some one person or other, and is the expression of that 
 one person's ideas and feelings, — ideas and feelings 
 personal to himself, though others may have parallel 
 and similar ones, — proper to himself, in the same 
 sense as his voice, his air, his countenance, his car- 
 riage, and his action, are personal. In other words. 
 Literature expresses, not objective truth, as it is called, 
 but subjective; not things, but thoughts. 
 
 Now this doctrine will become clearer by consider- 
 ing another use of words, which does relate to objective 
 truth, or to things; which relates to matters, not per- 
 sonal, not subjective to the individual, but which, even 
 were there no individual man in the whole world to 
 know them or to talk about them, would exist still. 
 Such objects become the matter of Science, and words 
 indeed are used to express them, but such words are 
 rather symbols than language, and however many we 
 use, and however we may perpetuate them by writing, 
 we never could make any kind of literature out of them, 
 or call them by that name. Such, for instance, would 
 be Euclid's Elements ; they relate to truths universal 
 and eternal ; they are not mere thoughts, but things: 
 they exist in themselves, not by virtue of our under- 
 standing them, not in dependence upon our will, but 
 in what is called the nature of things, or at least on 
 conditions external to us. The words, then, in which 
 they are set forth are not language, speech, literature, 
 but rather, as I have said, symbols. And, as a proof 
 of it, you will recollect that it is possible, nay usual, 
 to set forth the propositions of Euclid in algebraical 
 notation, which, as all would admit, has nothing to do 
 with literature. What is true of mathematics is true 
 also of every study, so far forth as it is scientific ; it 
 makes use of words as the mere vehicle of things, and 
 is thereby withdrawn from the province of literature.
 
 LITERATURE 113 
 
 Thus metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy, 
 chemistry, theology, cease to be literature in the same 
 degree as they are capable of a severe scientific treat- 
 ment. And hence it is that Aristotle's works on the 
 one hand, though at first sight literature, approach in 
 character, at least a great number of them, to mere 
 science ; for even though the things which he treats 
 of and exhibits may not always be real and true, yet 
 he treats them as if they were, not as if they were the 
 thoughts of his own mind ; that is, he treats them 
 scientifically. On the other hand. Law or Natural 
 History has before now been treated by an author 
 with so much of colouring derived from his own mind 
 as to become a sort of literature ; this is especially 
 seen in the instance of Theology, when it takes the 
 shape of Pulpit Eloquence. It is seen too in his- 
 torical composition, which becomes a mere specimen 
 of chronology, or a chronicle, when divested of the 
 philosophy, the skill, or the party and personal feelings 
 of the particular writer. Science, then, has to do with 
 things, literature with thoughts ; science is universal, 
 literature is personal ; science uses words merely as 
 symbols, but literature uses language in its full com- 
 pass, as including phraseology, idiom, style, composition, 
 rhythm, eloquence, and whatever other properties are 
 included in it. 
 
 Let us then put aside the scientific use of words, 
 when we are to speak of language and literature. 
 Literature is the personal use or exercise of language. 
 That this is so is further proved from the fact that 
 one author uses it so diff'erently from another. Lan- 
 guage itself in its very origination would seem to be 
 traceable to individuals. Their peculiarities have given 
 it its character. We are often able in fact to trace 
 particular phrases or idioms to individuals; we know 
 the history of their rise. Slang surely, as it is called, 
 comes of, and breathes of the personal. The con- 
 nection between the force of words in particular 
 languages and the habits and sentiments of the 
 nations speaking them has often been pointed out. 
 
 s. 8
 
 114 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 And, while the many use language as they find it, 
 the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal 
 to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his 
 own peculiarities. The throng and succession of ideas, 
 thoughts, feelings, imaginations, aspirations, which pass 
 within him, the abstractions, the juxtapositions, the 
 comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions, 
 which are so original in him, his views of external 
 things, his judgments upon life, manners, and history, 
 the exercises of his wit, of his humour, of his depth, 
 of his sagacity, all these innumerable and incessant 
 creations, the very pulsation and throbbing of his 
 intellect, does he image forth, to all does he give 
 utterance, in a corresponding language, which is as 
 multiform as this inward mental action itself and 
 analogous to it, the faithful expression of his intense 
 personality, attending on his own inward world of 
 thought as its very shadow: so that we might as well 
 say that one man's shadow is another's as that the 
 style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but 
 himself. It follows him about as a shadow. His 
 thought and feeling are personal, and so his language 
 is personal. 
 
 Thought and speech are inseparable from each 
 other. Matter and expression are parts of one: style 
 is a thinking out into language. This is what I have 
 been laying down, and this is literature; not filings, 
 not the verbal symbols of things ; not on the other 
 hand mere words ; but thoughts expressed in language. 
 Call to mind. Gentlemen, the meaning of the Greek 
 word which expresses this special prerogative of man 
 over the feeble intelligence of the inferior animals. 
 It is called Logos : what does Logos mean ? it stands 
 both for reason and for speech, and it is difficult to 
 say which it means more properly. It means both 
 at once: why? because really they cannot be divided, 
 ■ — because they are in a true sense one. When we 
 can separate light and illumination, life and motion, 
 the convex and the concave of a curve, then will it be 
 possible for thought to tread speech under foot, and
 
 LITERATURE 115 
 
 to hope to do without it — then will it be conceivable 
 that the vigorous and fertile intellect should renounce 
 its own double, its instrument of expression, and the 
 channel of its speculations and emotions. 
 
 Critics should consider this view of the subject 
 before they lay down such canons of taste as the 
 writer whose pages I have quoted. Such men as he 
 is consider fine writing to be an addition from witJi- 
 out to the matter treated of, — a sort of ornament 
 superinduced, or a luxury indulged in, by those who 
 have time and inclination for such vanities. They 
 speak as if one man could do the thought, and another 
 the style. We read in Persian travels of the way in 
 which young gentlemen go to work in the East, when 
 they would engage in correspondence with those who 
 inspire them with hope or fear. They cannot write 
 one sentence themselves ; so they betake themselves 
 to the professional letter-writer. They confide to him 
 the object they have in view. They have a point to 
 gain from a superior, a favour to ask, an evil to de- 
 precate ; they have to approach a man in power, or to 
 make court to some beautiful lady. The professional 
 man manufactures words for them, as they are wanted, 
 as a staticjner sells them paper, or a schoolmaster might 
 cut their pens. Thought and word are, in their con- 
 ception, two things, and thus there is a division of 
 labour. The man of thought comes to the man of 
 words; and the man of words, duly instructed in the 
 thought, dips the pen of desire into the ink of de- 
 votedness, and proceeds to spread it over the page 
 of desolation. Then the nightingale of affection is 
 heard to warble to the rose of loveliness, while the 
 breeze of anxiety plays around the brow of expecta- 
 tion. This is what the Easterns are said to consider 
 fine writing; and it seems pretty much the idea of the 
 school of critics to whom I have been referring. 
 
 We have an instance in literary history of this very 
 proceeding nearer home, in a great University, in the 
 latter years of the last century. 1 have referred to it 
 before now in a public lecture elsewhere; but it is too 
 
 8—2
 
 116 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 much in point here to be omitted. A learned Arabic 
 scholar had to deliver a set of lectures before its doc- 
 tors and professors on an historical subject in which 
 his reading had lain. A linguist is conversant with 
 science rather than with literature; but this gentle- 
 man felt that his lectures must not be without a style. 
 Being of the opinion of the Orientals, with whose 
 writings he was familiar, he determined to buy a style. 
 He took the step of engaging a person, at a price, to 
 turn the matter which he had got together into orna- 
 mental English. Observe, he did not wish for mere 
 grammatical English, but for an elaborate, pretentious 
 style. An artist was found in the person of a country 
 curate, and the job was carried out. His lectures re- 
 main to this day, in their own place in the protracted 
 series of annual Discourses to which they belong, dis- 
 tinguished amid a number of heavyish compositions 
 by the rhetorical and ambitious diction for which he 
 went into the market. This learned divine, indeed, 
 and the author I have quoted, differ from each other 
 in the estimate they respectively form of literary 
 composition ; but they agree together in this, — in 
 considering such composition a trick and a trade ; 
 they put it on a par with the gold plate and the 
 flowers and the music of a banquet, which do not 
 make the viands better, but the entertainment more 
 pleasurable; as if language were the hired servant, 
 the mere mistress of the reason, and not the lawful 
 wife in her own house. 
 
 But can they really think that Homer, or Pindar, 
 or Shakespeare, or Dryden, or Walter Scott, were ac- 
 customed to aim at diction for its own sake, instead of 
 being inspired with their subject, and pouring forth 
 beautiful words because they had beautiful thoughts ? 
 this is surely too great a paradox to be borne. Rather, 
 it is the fire within the author's breast which overflows 
 in the torrent of his burning, irresistible eloquence; it 
 is the poetry of his inner soul, which relieves itself in 
 the Ode or the Elegy; and his mental attitude and 
 bearing, the beauty of his moral countenance, the
 
 LITERATURE 117 
 
 force and keenness of his logic, are imaged in the 
 tenderness, or energy, or richness of his language. 
 Nay, according to the well-known line, 'facit indig- 
 natio versus'; not the words alone, but even the 
 rhythm, the metre, the verse, will be the contem- 
 poraneous offspring of the emotion or imagination 
 which possesses him. ' Poeta nascitur, non fit,' says 
 the proverb; and this is in numerous instances true 
 of his poems, as well as of himself. They are born, 
 not framed; they are a strain rather than a composi- 
 tion; and their perfection is the monument, not so 
 much of his skill as of his power. And this is true 
 of prose as well as of verse in its degree : who will not 
 recognize in the vision of Mirza a delicacy and beauty 
 of style which is very difficult to describe, but which 
 is felt to be in exact correspondence to the ideas of 
 which it is the expression ? 
 
 And, since the thoughts and reasonings of an author 
 have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder 
 that his style is not only the image of his subject, but 
 of his mind. That pomp of language, that full and 
 tuneful diction, that felicitousness in the choice and 
 exquisiteness in the collocation of words, which to 
 prosaic writers seems artificial, is nothing else but 
 the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect. Aristotle, 
 in his sketch of the magnanimous man, tells us that 
 his voice is deep, his motions slow, and his stature 
 commanding. In like manner, the elocution of a great 
 intellect is great. His language expresses, not only 
 his great thoughts, but his great self. Certainly he 
 might use fewer words than he uses; but he fertilizes 
 his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of 
 details, and prolongs the march of his sentences, and 
 sweeps round to the full diapason of his harmony, as 
 if Kv^e'i yaioH', rejoicing in his own vigour and richness 
 of resource. I say, a narrow critic will call it verbiage, 
 when really it is a sort of fulness of heart, parallel to 
 that which makes the merry boy whistle as he walks, 
 or the strong man, like the smith in the novel, flourish 
 his club when there is no one to fight with.
 
 118 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 Shakespeare furnishes us with frequent instances 
 of this pecuHarity, and all so beautiful, that it is 
 difficult to select for quotation. For instance, in 
 Macbeth : — 
 
 ' Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And, with some sweet oblivious antidote. 
 Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff, 
 Which weighs upon the heart?' 
 
 Here a simple idea, by a process which belongs to 
 the orator rather than to the poet, but still comes 
 from the native vigour of genius, is expanded into a 
 many-membered period. 
 
 The following from Hamlet is of the same kind : — 
 
 ' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
 Nor customary suits of solemn black. 
 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, 
 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
 Nor the dejected haviour of the visage. 
 Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, 
 That can denote me truly.' 
 
 Now, if such declamation, for declamation it is, 
 however noble, be allowable in a poet, whose genius 
 is so far removed from pompousness or pretence, 
 much more is it allowable in an orator, whose very 
 province it is to put forth words to the best advantage 
 he can. Cicero has nothing more redundant in any 
 part of his writings than these passages from Shake- 
 speare. No lover then at least of Shakespeare may 
 fairly accuse Cicero of gorgeousness of phraseology 
 or diffuseness of style. Nor will any sound critic be 
 tempted to do so. As a certain unaffected neatness 
 and propriety and grace of diction may be required 
 of any author who lays claim to be a classic, for the 
 same reason that a certain attention to dress is 
 expected of every gentleman, so to Cicero may be 
 allowed the privilege of the ' os magna sonaturum,'
 
 LITERATURE 119 
 
 of which the ancient critic speaks. His copious, 
 majestic, musical flow of language, even if sometimes 
 bej-ond what the subject-matter demands, is never out 
 of keeping with the occasion or with the speaker. It 
 is the expression of lofty sentiments in lofty sentences, 
 the ' mens magna in corpore magno.' It is the de- 
 velopment of the inner man. Cicero vividly realised 
 the status of a Roman senator and statesman, and 
 the 'pride of place' of Rome, in all the grace and 
 grandeur which attached to her; and he imbibed, 
 and became, what he admired. As the exploits of 
 Scipio or Pompey are the expression of this greatness 
 in deed, so the language of Cicero is the expression 
 of it in word. And, as the acts of the Roman ruler 
 or soldier represent to us, in a manner special to 
 themselves, the characteristic magnanimity of the 
 lords of the earth, so do the speeches or treatises 
 of her accomplished orator bring it home to our 
 imaginations as no other writing could do. Neither 
 Livy, nor Tacitus, nor Terence, nor Seneca, nor 
 Pliny, nor Quintilian, is an adequate spokesman for 
 the Imperial City. They write Latin; Cicero writes 
 Roman. 
 
 You will say that Cicero's language is undeniably 
 studied, but that Shakespeare's is as undeniably na- 
 tural and spontaneous; and that this is what is meant, 
 when the Classics are accused of being mere artists 
 of words. Here we are introduced to a further large 
 question, which gives me the opportunity of antici- 
 pating a misapprehension of my meaning. I observe, 
 then, that, not only is that lavish richness of style, 
 which I have noticed in Shakespeare, justifiable on 
 the principles which I have been laying down, but, 
 what is less easy to receive, even elaborateness in 
 composition is no mark of trick or artifice in an 
 author. Undoubtedly the works of the Classics, 
 particularly the Latin, are elaborate; they have cost 
 a great deal of time, care, and trouble. They have 
 had many rough copies; I grant it. I grant also that 
 there are writers of name, ancient and modern, who
 
 120 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 really are guilty of the absurdity of making sentences, 
 as the very end of their literary labour. Such was 
 Isocrates; such were some of the sophists; they were 
 set on words, to the neglect of thoughts or things ; 
 I cannot defend them. If I must give an English 
 instance of this fault, much as I love and revere the 
 personal character and intellectual vigour of Dr John- 
 son, I cannot deny that his style often outruns the 
 sense and the occasion, and is wanting in that sim- 
 plicity which is the attribute of genius. Still, granting 
 all this, I cannot grant, notwithstanding, that genius 
 never need take pains, — ^that genius may not improve 
 by practice, — that it never incurs failures, and succeeds 
 the second time, — that it never finishes off at leisure 
 what it has thrown off in the outline at a stroke. 
 
 Take the instance of the painter or the sculptor; 
 he has a conception in his mind which he wishes to 
 represent in the medium of his art; — the Madonna 
 and Child, or Innocence, or Fortitude, or some his- 
 torical character or event. Do you mean to say he 
 does not study his subject? does he not make sketches? 
 does he not even call them 'studies'? does he not call 
 his workroom a sfitdio? is he not ever designing, re- 
 jecting, adopting, correcting, perfecting? Are not the 
 first attempts of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle extant, 
 in the case of some of their most celebrated composi- 
 tions ? Will any one say that the Apollo Belvidere is 
 not a conception patiently elaborated into its proper 
 perfection ? These departments of taste are, according 
 to the received notions of the world, the very province 
 of genius, and yet we call them arts ; they are the 
 ' Fine Arts.' Why may not that be true of literary 
 composition which is true of painting, sculpture, 
 architecture, and music ? Why may not language 
 be wrought as well as the clay of the modeller? why 
 may not words be worked up as well as colours? why 
 should not skill in diction be simply subservient and 
 instrumental to the great prototypal ideas which are 
 the contemplation of a Plato or a Virgil ? Our greatest 
 poet tells us,
 
 LITERATURE 121 
 
 ' The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 
 And, as imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name.' 
 
 Now, is it wonderful that that pen of his should 
 sometimes be at fault for a while, — that it should 
 pause, write, erase, re-write, amend, complete, before 
 he satisfies himself that his language has done 
 justice to the conceptions which his mind's eye 
 contemplated ? 
 
 In this point of view, doubtless, many or most 
 writers are elaborate; and those certainly not the 
 least whose style is furthest removed from ornament, 
 being simple and natural, or vehement, or severely 
 business-like and practical. Who so energetic and 
 manly as Demosthenes ? Yet he is said to have 
 transcribed Thucydides many times over in the for- 
 mation of his stj'^le. Who so gracefully natural as 
 Herodotus? yet his very dialect is not his own, but 
 chosen for the sake of the perfection of his narra- 
 tive. Who exhibits such happy negligence as our own 
 Addison ? yet artistic fastidiousness was so notorious 
 in his instance that the report has got abroad, truly or 
 not, that he was too late in his issue of an important 
 state-paper, from his habit of revision and re-composi- 
 tion. Such great authors were working by a model 
 which was before the eyes of their intellect, and they 
 were labouring to say what they had to say, in such 
 a way as would most exactly and suitably express it. 
 It is not wonderful that other authors, whose style 
 is not simple, should be instances of a similar literary 
 diligence. Virgil wished his ..'Eneid to be burned, ela- 
 borate as is its composition, because he felt it needed 
 more labour still, in order to make it perfect. The 
 historian Gibbon in the last century is another instance 
 in point. You must not suppose I am going to recom- 
 mend his style for imitation, any more than his prin- 
 ciples; but I refer tf) him as the example of a writer
 
 122 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 feeling the task which lay before him, feeling that he 
 had to bring out into words for the comprehension of 
 his readers a great and complicated scene, and wishing 
 that those words should be adequate to his undertaking. 
 I think he wrote the first chapter of his History three 
 times over; it was not that he corrected or improved 
 the first copy; but he put his first essay, and then his 
 second, aside — he recast his matter, till he had hit the 
 precise exhibition of it which he thought demanded by 
 his subject. 
 
 Now in all these instances, I wish you to observe, 
 that what I have admitted about literary workmanship 
 differs from the doctrine which I am opposing in this, 
 — that the mere dealer in words cares little or nothing 
 for the subject which he is embellishing, but can paint 
 and gild anything whatever to order; whereas the artist, 
 whom I am acknowledging, has his great or rich visions 
 before him, and his only aim is to bring out what he 
 thinks or what he feels in a way adequate to the thing 
 spoken of, and appropriate to the speaker. 
 
 The illustration which I have been borrowing from 
 the Fine Arts will enable me to go a step further. I 
 have been showing the connection of the thought with 
 the language in literary composition ; and in doing so 
 I have exposed the unphilosophical notion, that the 
 language was an extra which could be dispensed with, 
 and provided to order according to the demand. But 
 I have not yet brought out, what immediately follows 
 from this, and which was the second point which I had 
 to show, viz. that to be capable of easy translation is 
 no test of the excellence of a composition. If I must 
 say what I think, I should lay down, with little hesi- 
 tation, that the truth was almost the reverse of this 
 doctrine. Nor are many words required to show it. 
 Such a doctrine, as is contained in the passage of the 
 author whom I quoted when 1 began, goes upon the 
 assumption that one language is just like another 
 language, — that every language has all the ideas, turns 
 of thought, delicacies of expression, figures, associa- 
 tions, abstractions, points of view, which every other
 
 LITERATURE 123 
 
 language has. Now, as far as regards Science, it is 
 true that all languages are pretty much alike for the 
 purposes of Science ; but even in this respect some 
 are more suitable than others, which have to coin 
 words, or to borrow them, in order to express scientific 
 ideas. But if languages are not all equally adapted 
 even to furnish symbols for those universal and eternal 
 truths in which Science consists, how can they reason- 
 ably be expected to be all equally rich, equally forcible, 
 equally musical, equally exact, equally happy in ex- 
 pressing the idiosyncratic peculiarities of thought of 
 some original and fertile mind, who has availed him- 
 self of one of them ? A great author takes his native 
 language, masters it, partly throws himself into it, 
 partly moulds and adapts it, and pours out his multi- 
 tude of ideas through the variously ramified and de- 
 licately minute channels of expression which he has 
 found or framed: — does it follow that this his personal 
 presence (as it may be called) can forthwith be trans- 
 ferred to every other language under the sun ? Then 
 may we reasonably maintain that Beethoven's piano 
 music is not really beautiful, because it cannot be 
 played on the hurdy-gurdy. Were not this astonish- 
 ing doctrine maintained by persons far superior to the 
 writer whom I have selected for animadversion, I should 
 find it difficult to be patient under a gratuitous extra- 
 vagance. It seems that a really great author must 
 admit of translation, and that we have a test of his 
 excellence when he reads to advantage in a foreign 
 language as well as in his own. Then Shakespeare 
 is a genius because he can be translated into German, 
 and not a genius because he cannot be translated into 
 French. Then the multiplication-table is the most 
 gifted of all conceivable compositions, because it loses 
 nothing by translation, and can hardly be said to be- 
 long to any one language whatever. Whereas 1 should 
 rather have conceived that, in proportion as ideas are 
 novel and recondite, they would be difficult to put into 
 words, and that the very fact of their having insinuated 
 themselves into one language would diminish the
 
 124 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 chance of that happy accident being repeated in an- 
 other. In the language of savages you can hardly 
 express any idea or act of the intellect at all : is the 
 tongue of the Hottentot or Esquimaux to be made 
 the measure of the genius of Plato, Pindar, Tacitus, 
 St Jerome, Dante, or Cervantes? 
 
 Let us recur, I say, to the illustration of the Fine 
 Arts. I suppose you can express ideas in painting 
 which you cannot express in sculpture ; and the more 
 an artist is of a painter, the less he is likely to be of 
 a sculptor. The more he commits his genius to the 
 methods and conditions of his own art, the less he will 
 be able to throw himself into the circumstances of 
 another. Is the genius of Fra Angelico, of Francia, 
 or of Raffaelle disparaged by the fact that he was 
 able to do that in colours which no man that ever 
 lived, which no Angel, could achieve in wood ? Each 
 of the Fine Arts has its own subject-matter; from the 
 nature of the case you can do in one what you cannot 
 do in another; you can do in painting what you cannot 
 do in carving; you can do in oils what you cannot do 
 in fresco; you can do in marble what you cannot do in 
 ivory; you can do in wax what you cannot do in bronze. 
 Then, I repeat, applying this to the case of languages, 
 why should not genius be able to do in Greek what it 
 cannot do in Latin ? and why are its Greek and Latin 
 works defective because they will not turn into Eng- 
 lish ? That genius, of which we are speaking, did not 
 make English; it did not make all languages, present, 
 past, and future; it did not make the laws of any lan- 
 guage : why is it to be judged of by that in which it had 
 no part, over which it has no control ? 
 
 And now we are naturally brought on to our third 
 point, which is on the characteristics of Holy Scripture 
 as compared with profane literature. Hitherto we have 
 been concerned with the doctrine of these writers, viz. 
 that style is an extra, that it is a mere artifice, and 
 that hence it cannot be translated ; now we come 
 to their fact, viz. that Scripture has no such 
 artificial style, and that Scripture can easily be
 
 LITERATURE 125 
 
 translated. Surely their fact is as untenable as their 
 doctrine. 
 
 Scripture easy of translation ! then why have there 
 been so few good translators ? why is it that there 
 has been such great difficulty in combining the two 
 necessary qualities, fidelity to the original and purity 
 in the adopted vernacular ? why is it that the author- 
 ized versions of the Church are often so inferior to 
 the original as compositions, except that the Church 
 is bound above all things to see that the version is 
 doctrinally correct, and in a difficult problem is obliged 
 to put up with defects in what is of secondary import- 
 ance, provided she secure what is of first ? If it were 
 so easy to transfer the beauty of the original to the 
 copy, she would not have been content with her 
 received version in various languages which could be 
 named. 
 
 And then in the next place, Scripture not elaborate I 
 Scripture not ornamented in diction, and musical in 
 cadence ! Why, consider the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 — where is there in the classics any composition more 
 carefully, more artificially written ? Consider the book 
 of Job — is it not a sacred drama, as artistic, as perfect, 
 as any Greek tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides ? Con- 
 sider the Psalter — are there no ornaments, no rhythm, 
 no studied cadences, no responsive members, in that 
 divinely beautiful book ? And is it not hard to under- 
 stand ? are not the Prophets hard to understand ? is 
 not St Paul hard to understand ? Who can say that 
 these are popular compositions ? who can say that they 
 are level at first reading with the understandings of the 
 multitude ? 
 
 That there are portions indeed of the inspired 
 volume more simple both in style and in meaning, 
 and that these are the more sacred and sublime pas- 
 sages, as, for instance, parts of the Gospels, I grant at 
 once; but this does not militate against the doctrine 
 I have been laying down. Recollect, Gentlemen, my 
 distinction when I began. I have said Literature is 
 one thing, and that Science is another; that Literature
 
 126 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 has to do with ideas, and Science with reahties; that 
 Literature is of a personal character, that Science 
 treats of what is universal and eternal. In proportion, 
 then, as Scripture excludes the personal colouring of 
 its writers, and rises into the region of pure and mere 
 inspiration, when it ceases in any sense to be the 
 writing of man, of St Paul or St John, of Moses or 
 Isaias, then it comes to belong to Science, not Litera- 
 ture. Then it conveys the things of heaven, unseen 
 verities, divine manifestations, and them alone — not 
 the ideas, the feelings, the aspirations, of its human 
 instruments, who, for all that they were inspired and 
 infallible, did not cease to be men. St Paul's epistles, 
 then, I consider to be literature in a real and true 
 sense, as personal, as rich in reflection and emotion, 
 as Demosthenes or Euripides; and, without ceasing 
 to be revelations of objective truth, they are expres- 
 sions of the subjective notwithstanding. On the other 
 hand, portions of the Gospels, of the book of Genesis, 
 and other passages of the Sacred Volume, are of the 
 nature of Science. Such is the beginning of St John's 
 Gospel, which we read at the end of Mass. Such is 
 the Creed. I mean, passages such as these are the 
 mere enunciation of eternal things, without (so to say) 
 the medium of any human mind transmitting them to 
 us. The words used have the grandeur, the majesty, 
 the calm, unimpassioned beauty of Science; they are 
 in no sense Literature, they are in no sense personal; 
 and therefore they are easy to apprehend, and easy to 
 translate. 
 
 Did time admit I could show you parallel instances 
 of what I am speaking of in the Classics, inferior to 
 the inspired word in proportion as the subject-matter 
 of the classical authors is immensely inferior to the 
 subjects treated of in Scripture — but parallel, inas- 
 much as the classical author or speaker ceases for 
 the moment to have to do with Literature, as speak- 
 ing of things objectively, and rises to the serene 
 sublimity of Science. But I should be carried too 
 far if I began.
 
 LITERATURE 127 
 
 I shall then merely sum up what I have said, and 
 come to a conclusion. Reverting, then, to my original 
 question, what is the meaning of Letters, as contained, 
 Gentlemen, in the designation of your Faculty, I have 
 answered, that by Letters or Literature is meant the 
 expression of thought in language, where by 'thought' 
 I mean the ideas, feelings, views, reasonings, and other 
 operations of the human mind. And the Art of Let- 
 ters is the method by which a speaker or writer brings 
 out in words, worthy of his subject, and sufficient for 
 his audience or readers, the thoughts which impress 
 him. Literature, then, is of a personal character; it 
 consists in the enunciations and teachings of those 
 who have a right to speak as representatives of their 
 kind, and in whose words their brethren find an inter- 
 pretation of their own sentiments, a record of their 
 own experience, and a suggestion for their own judg- 
 ments. A great author. Gentlemen, is not one who 
 merely has a copia verboriDii, whether in prose or 
 verse, and can, as it were, turn on at his will any 
 number of splendid phrases and swelling sentences; 
 but he is one who has something to say and knows 
 how to say it. I do not claim for him, as such, any 
 great depth of thought, or breadth of view, or philo- 
 sophy, or sagacity, or knowledge of human nature, 
 or experience of human life, though these additional 
 gifts he may have, and the more he has of them the 
 greater he is; but I ascribe to him, as his character- 
 istic gift, in a large sense the faculty of Expression. 
 He is master of the two-fold Logos, the thought and 
 the word, distinct, but inseparable from each other. 
 He may, if so be, elaborate his compositions, or he 
 may pour out his improvisations, but in either case 
 he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily before 
 him, and is conscientious and single-minded in ful- 
 filling. That aim is to give forth what he has within 
 him; and from his very earnestness it comes to pass 
 that, whatever be the splendour of his diction or the 
 harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm 
 of an incommunicable simplicity. Whatever be his
 
 128 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 
 
 subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its 
 own sake. If he is a poet, 'nil molitur ijiepte.' If he 
 is an orator, then too he speaks, not only 'distincte' 
 and 'splendide,' but also '■apteS His page is the lucid 
 mirror of his mind and life — 
 
 ' Quo fit, ut omnis 
 Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella 
 Vita senis.' 
 
 He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; 
 forcibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too 
 clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; 
 he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; 
 he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and there- 
 fore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and 
 therefore he is luminous. When his imagination 
 wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is 
 touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the 
 right word for the right idea, and never a word too 
 much. If he is brief, it is because few words suffice; 
 when he is lavish of them, still each word has its 
 mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the vigorous march 
 of his elocution. He expresses what all feel, but all 
 cannot say; and his sayings pass into proverbs among 
 his people, and his phrases become household words 
 and idioms of their daily speech, which is tesselated 
 with the rich fragments of his language, as we see in 
 foreign lands the marbles of Roman grandeur worked 
 into the walls and pavements of modern palaces. 
 
 Such pre-eminently is Shakespeare among our- 
 selves ; such pre-eminently Virgil among the Latins ; 
 such in their degree are all those writers who in every 
 nation go by the name of Classics. To particular 
 nations they are necessarily attached from the 
 circumstance of the variety of tongues, and the 
 peculiarities of each ; but so far they have a catholic 
 and ecumenical character, that what they express is 
 common to the whole race of man, and they alone are 
 able to express it. 
 
 If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any
 
 LITERATURE 129 
 
 that can be named, — if the origin of language is by 
 many philosophers even considered to be nothing short 
 of divine, — if by means of words the secrets of the 
 heart are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, 
 hidden grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel 
 imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetu- 
 ated, — if by great authors the many are drawn up 
 into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, 
 the past and the future, the East and the West are 
 brought into communication with each other, — if such 
 men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of 
 the human family, — it will not answer to make light 
 of Literature or to neglect its study; rather we may 
 be sure that, in proportion as we master it in what- 
 ever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves 
 become in our own measure the ministers of like 
 benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in 
 the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life, 
 — who are united to us by social ties, and are within 
 the sphere of our personal influence.
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 SIR JOSHUA AND HOLBEIN 
 i860 
 
 Long ago discarded from our National Gallery, 
 with the contempt logically due to national or English 
 pictures, — lost to sight and memory for many a year in 
 the Ogygian seclusions of Marlborough House — there 
 have reappeared at last, in more honourable exile at 
 Kensington, two great pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 Two, with others; but these alone worth many an en- 
 tanglement among the cross-roads of the West, to see 
 for half-an-hour by spring sunshine : — the Holy Family, 
 and the Graces, side by side now in the principal room. 
 Great, as was ever work wrought by man. In placid 
 strength, and subtlest science, unsurpassed : — in sweet 
 felicity, incomparable. 
 
 If you truly want to know what good work of 
 painter's hand is, study those two pictures from side 
 to side, and miss no inch of them (you will hardly, 
 eventually, be inclined to miss one) : in some respects 
 there is no execution like it ; none so open in the 
 magic. For the work of other great men is hidden 
 in its wonderful ness — you cannot see how it was done. 
 But in Sir Joshua's there is no mystery : it is all 
 amazement. No question but that the touch was so 
 laid; only that it could have been so laid, is a marvel 
 for ever. So also there is no painting so majestic in 
 sweetness. He is lily-sceptred : his power blossoms,
 
 SIR JOSHUA AND HOLBEIN 131 
 
 but burdens not. All other men of equal dignity 
 paint more slowlj'; all others of equal force paint less 
 slightly. Tintoret lays his line like a king marking 
 the boundaries of conquered lands ; but Sir Joshua 
 leaves it as a summer wind its trace on a lake ; he 
 could have painted on a silken veil, where it fell free, 
 and not bent it. 
 
 Such at least is his touch when it is life that he 
 paints: for things lifeless he has a severer hand. If 
 you examine that picture of the Graces you will find 
 it reverses all the ordinary ideas of expedient treat- 
 ment. By other men flesh is firmly painted, but 
 accessories lightly. Sir Joshua paints accessories 
 firmly S flesh lightly; — nay, flesh not at all, but spirit. 
 The wreath of flowers he feels to be material ; and 
 gleam by gleam strikes fearlessly the silver and violet 
 leaves out of the darkness. But the three maidens 
 are less substantial than rose petals. No flushed 
 nor frosted tissue that ever faded in night wind is so 
 tender as they; no hue may reach, no line measure, 
 what is in them so gracious and so fair. Let the 
 hand move softly — itself as a spirit; for this is Life, 
 of which it touches the imagery. 
 
 ' And yet ' 
 
 Yes : you do well to pause. There is a ' yet ' 
 to be thought of. I did not bring you to these 
 pictures to see wonderful work merely, or womanly 
 beauty merely. I brought you chiefly to look at that 
 Madonna, believing that you might remember other 
 Madonnas, unlike her; and might think it desirable 
 to consider wherein the difference lay: — other Ma- 
 donnas not by Sir Joshua, who painted Madonnas 
 but seldom. Who perhaps, if truth must be told, 
 painted them never: for surely this dearest pet of an 
 English girl, with the little curl of lovely hair under 
 her ear, is not one. 
 
 * As showing gigantic power of hand, joined with utmost 
 accuracy and rapidity, the folds of drapery under the breast 
 of the Virgin are, perhaps, as marvellous a piece of work as 
 could be found in any picture, of whatever lime or master.
 
 132 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 Why did not Sir Joshua — or could not — or would 
 not Sir Joshua — paint Madonnas? neither he, nor 
 his great rival-friend Gainsborough ? Both of them 
 painters of women, such as since Giorgione and 
 Correggio had not been ; both painters of men, such 
 as had not been since Titian. How is it that these 
 English friends can so brightly paint that particular 
 order of humanity which we call 'gentlemen and 
 ladies,' but neither heroes, nor saints, nor angels ? 
 Can it be because they were both country-bred boys, 
 and for ever after strangely sensitive to courtliness ? 
 Why, Giotto also was a country-bred boy. Allegri's 
 native Correggio, Titian's Cadore, were but hill vil- 
 lages; yet these men painted, not the court, nor the 
 drawing-room, but the Earth : and not a little of 
 Heaven besides: while our good Sir Joshua never 
 trusts himself outside the park palings. He could 
 not even have drawn the strawberry girl, unless she 
 had got through a gap in them — or rather, I think, 
 she must have been let in at the porter's lodge, for 
 her strawberries are in a pottle ready for the ladies 
 at the Hall. Giorgione would have set them, wild 
 and fragrant, among their leaves, in her hand. Be- 
 tween his fairness, and Sir Joshua's May-fairness, 
 there is a strange, impassable limit — as of the white 
 reef that in Pacific isles encircles their inner lakelets, 
 and shuts them from the surf and sound of sea. 
 Clear and calm they rest, reflecting fringed shadows 
 of the palm-trees, and the passing of fretted clouds 
 across their own sweet circle of blue sky. But 
 beyond, and round and round their coral bar, lies 
 the blue of sea and heaven together — blue of eternal 
 deep. 
 
 You will find it a pregnant question, if you follow 
 it forth, and leading to many others, not trivial, why 
 it is, that in Sir Joshua's girl, or Gainsborough's we 
 always think first of the Ladyhood ; but in Giotto's, 
 of the Womanhood ? Why, in Sir Joshua's hero, or 
 Vandyck's, it is always the Prince or the Sir whom 
 we see first; but in Titian's the man.
 
 SIR JOSHUA AND HOLBEIN 133 
 
 Not that Titian's gentlemen are less finished than 
 Sir Joshua's; but their gentlemanliness^ is not the 
 principal thing about them; their manhood absorbs, 
 conquers, wears it as a despised thing. Nor^ — and 
 this is another stern ground of separation — will Titian 
 make a gentleman of every one he paints. He will 
 make him so if he is so, not otherwise ; and this not 
 merely in general servitude to truth, but because in 
 his sympathy with deeper humanity, the courtier is 
 not more interesting to him than any one else. 'You 
 have learned to dance and fence; you can speak with 
 clearness, and think with precision; your hands are 
 small, your senses acute, and your features well- 
 shaped. Yes: I see all this in you, and will do it 
 justice. You shall stand as none but a well-bred 
 man could stand; and your fingers shall fall on the 
 sword-hilt as no fingers could but those that knew 
 the grasp of it. But for the rest, this grisly fisher- 
 man, with rusty cheek and rope-frayed hand, is a man 
 as well as you, and might possibly make several of 
 you, if souls were divisible. His bronze colour is 
 quite as interesting to me, Titian, as your paleness, 
 and his hoary spray of stormy hair takes the light 
 as well as your waving curls. Him also will I paint, 
 with such picturesqueness as he may have; yet not 
 putting the picturesqueness first in him, as in you 
 I have not put the gentlemanliness first. In him 
 I see a strong human creature, contending with all 
 hardship: in you also a human creature, uncontend- 
 ing, and possibly not strong. Contention or strength, 
 weakness or picturesqueness, and all other such 
 accidents in either, shall have due place. But the 
 
 1 The reader must observe that I use the word here in a 
 limited sense, as meanin},^ only the efTcc t of careful education, 
 ;,'ood society, and refined habits of life, on averai^rc temper 
 and character. Of deep and true gentlemanliness- -based 
 as it is on intense sensibility and sincerity, perfected by 
 courage, and other qualities of race ; as well as of that union 
 of insensibility with cunning, which is the essence of \ul- 
 gaiity, I shall have to speak at length in another place.
 
 134 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 immortality and miracle of you — this clay that burns, 
 this colour that changes — are in truth the awful 
 things in both : these shall be first painted — and 
 last.' 
 
 With which question respecting treatment of 
 character we have to connect also this further one: 
 How is it that the attempts of so great painters as 
 Reynolds and Gainsborough are, beyond portraiture, 
 limited almost like children's ! No domestic drama 
 — no history — no noble natural scenes, far less any 
 religious subject: — only market carts; girls with pigs; 
 woodmen going home to supper; watering places; 
 grey cart-houses in fields, and such like. Reynolds, 
 indeed, once or twice touched higher themes, — 
 'among the chords his fingers laid,' and recoiled; 
 wisely; for, strange to say, his very sensibility deserts 
 him when he leaves his courtly quiet. The horror 
 of the subjects he chose (Cardinal Beaufort and 
 Ugolino) showed inherent apathy: had he felt deeply, 
 he would not have sought for this strongest possible 
 excitement of feeling, — would not willingly have dwelt 
 on the worst conditions of despair — the despair of the 
 ignoble. His religious subjects are conceived even 
 with less care than these. Beautiful as it is, this 
 Holy Family by which we stand has neither dignity 
 nor sacredness, other than those which attach to 
 every group of gentle mother and ruddy babe; while 
 his Faiths, Charities, or other well-ordered and em- 
 blem-fitted virtues are even less lovely than his ordinary 
 portraits of women. 
 
 It was a faultful temper, which having so mighty 
 a power of realization at command, never became so 
 much interested in any fact of human history as to 
 spend one touch of heartfelt skill upon it ; — which, 
 yielding momentarily to indolent imagination, ended, 
 at best, in a Puck, or a Thais; a Mercury as Thief, or 
 a Cupid as Linkboy. How wide the interval between 
 this gently trivial humour, guided by the wave of a 
 feather, or arrested by the enchantment of a smile, — 
 and the habitual dwelling of the thoughts of the great
 
 SIR JOSHUA AND HOLBEIN 139 
 
 own way, with the earnestness and silent swell of the 
 strong river — not unconscious of the awe, nor of the 
 sanctities of his life. The snows of the eternal Alps 
 giving forth their strength to it ; the blood of the 
 St Jakob brook poured into it as it passes by — not 
 in vain. He also could feel his strength coming from 
 white snows far off in heaven. He also bore upon 
 him the purple stain of the earth sorrow. A grave 
 man, knowing what steps of men keep truest time to 
 the chanting of Death. Having grave friends also; — 
 the same singing heard far off, it seems to me, or, 
 perhaps, even low in the room, by that family of Sir 
 Thomas More; or mingling with the hum of bees in 
 the meadows outside the towered walls of Basle; or 
 making the words of the book more tuneable, which 
 meditative Erasmus looks upon. Nay, that same soft 
 Death-music is on the lips of Holbein's Madonna. 
 Who, among many, is the Virgin you had best com- 
 pare with the one before whose image we have stood 
 so long. 
 
 Holbein's is at Dresden, companioned by the 
 Madonna di San Sisto ; but both are visible enough 
 to you here, for, by a strange coincidence, they are 
 (at least so far as I know) the only two great pictures 
 in the world which have been faultlessly engraved. 
 
 The received tradition respecting the Holbein Ma- 
 donna is beautiful; and I believe the interpretation to 
 be true. A father and mother have prayed to her for 
 the life of their sick child. She appears to them, her 
 own Christ in her arms. She puts down her Christ 
 beside them — takes their child into her arms instead. 
 It lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand 
 to its father and mother, saying farewell. 
 
 This interpretation of the picture has been doubted, 
 as nearly all the most precious truths of pictures have 
 been doubted, and forgotten. But even supposing it erro- 
 neous, the design is not less characteristic of Holbein. 
 For that there are signs of suffering on the features 
 of the child in the arms of the Virgin, is beyond 
 question ; and if this child be intended for the Christ,
 
 140 JOHN RUSKIX 
 
 it would not be doubtful to my mind, that, of the two 
 — Raphael and Holbein — ^the latter had given the 
 truest aspect and deepest reading of the early life of 
 the Redeemer. Raphael sought to express His power 
 only: but Holbein His labour and sorrow. 
 
 There are two other pictures which you should 
 remember together with this (attributed, indeed, but 
 with no semblance of probability-, to the elder Holbein, 
 none of whose work, preserved at Basle, or elsewhere, 
 approaches in the slightest degree to their power), the 
 St Barbara and St Elizabeth'. I do not know among 
 the pictures of the great sacred schools any at once 
 so powerful, so simple, so pathetically expressive of 
 the need of the heart that conceived them. Not 
 ascetic, nor quaint, nor feverishly or fondly passionate, 
 nor wrapt in withdrawn solemnities of thought. Only 
 entirely true — ^entirely pure. Xo depth of glowing 
 heaven beyond them — but the clear sharp sweetness 
 of the northern air: no splendour of rich colour, 
 striving to adorn them with better brightness than of 
 the day : a grey glorj'. as of moonlight without mist, 
 dwelling on face and fold of dress ; — all faultless-fair. 
 Creatures they are, humble by nature, not by self con- 
 demnation ; merciful by habit, not by tearful impulse ; 
 loft}' without consciousness ; gentle without weakness; 
 wholly in this present world, doing its work calmly; 
 beautiful with all that holiest life can reach — yet 
 already freed from all that holiest death can cast 
 away. 
 
 ^ Pinacothek of Munich.
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 1863 
 
 Mr Mill says, in his book on Libertj-, that ' Christian 
 moralit\- is in great part merely a protest against 
 paganism : its ideal is negative rather than positive, 
 passive rather than active." He says, that, in certain 
 most important respects, 'it falls far below the best 
 morality of the ancients.' Now the object of systems 
 of morality is to take possession of human life, to save 
 it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift 
 at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the 
 practice of virtue : and this object they seek to attain 
 by prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, 
 fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as well as in 
 its inspired moments, in its days of languor and gloom 
 as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, human 
 life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always 
 be making way towards its goal. Christian moralitj^ 
 has not failed to supply to human life aids of this 
 sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly than 
 many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite 
 document, after those of the New Testament, of 
 all that the Christian spirit has ever inspired, — the 
 Iwifation. — by no means contains the whole of Chris- 
 tian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality 
 would think themselves sure of triumphing if one 
 agreed to look for it in the Iiuitaiion only. But even
 
 142 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 the Imitation is full of passages like these: 'Vita sine 
 proposito languida et vaga est'; — 'Omni die renovare 
 debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes : nunc hodie 
 perfecte incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus feci- 
 mus'; — 'Secundum propositum nostrum est cursus 
 profectus nostri'; — 'Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte 
 vincimus, et ad quofidiaiiKin profectum non accendi- 
 mur'; — 'Semper aliquid certi proponendum est'; — 
 'Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac ' : {A life without 
 a purpose is a languid, drifting thing; — Every day 
 xve ought to renew our purpose, saying to ourselves : 
 This day let us make a sound beginning, for what 
 we have hitherto done is nought ; — Our improvement 
 is in proportion to our purpose; — We hardly ever 
 manage to get completely rid even of one fault, and 
 do not set our hearts on daily improvement ; — Always 
 place a definite purpose before thee ; — Get the habit 
 of mastering thine inclination.) These are moral 
 precepts, and moral precepts of the best kind. As 
 rules to hold possession of our conduct, and to keep 
 us in the right course through outward troubles and 
 inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever 
 furnished by the great masters of morals — Epictetus 
 or Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and 
 then rigorously followed as laws, are, and must be, 
 for the sage only. The mass of mankind have neither 
 force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly as 
 ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them 
 strictly as laws. The mass of mankind can be carried 
 along a course full of hardship for the natural man, 
 can be borne over the thousand impediments of the 
 narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding 
 emotion. It is impossible to rise from reading Epic- 
 tetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint 
 and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid 
 upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. 
 Honour to the sages who have felt this, and yet have 
 borne it ! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labour 
 and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 143 
 
 a relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever 
 creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian 
 Paul, have insisted on the necessity of an inspiration, 
 a living emotion, to make moral action perfect; an 
 obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of 
 truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the contro- 
 versy on justification by faith has flooded the world. 
 But, for the ordinary man, this sense of labour and 
 sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification ; it 
 paralyses him; under the weight of it, he cannot 
 make way towards the goal at all. The paramount 
 virtue of religion is, that it has lighted up morality; 
 that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration 
 needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way 
 perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man along it at 
 all. Even the religions with most dross in them have 
 had something of this virtue ; but the Christian religion 
 manifests it with unexampled splendour. ' Lead me, 
 Zeus and Destiny!' says the prayer of Epictetus, 
 'whithersoever I am appointed to go: I will follow 
 without wavering ; even though I turn coward and 
 shrink, I shall have to follow all the same.' The 
 fortitude of that is for the strong, for the few; even 
 for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it sur- 
 rounds them is bleak and gray. But, ' Let Thy loving 
 spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness'; — 
 'The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and 
 thy God thy glory'; — 'Unto you that fear My Name 
 shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in 
 his wings,' says the Old Testament ; ' Born, not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
 of man, but of God'; — 'Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God'; — 'Whatsoever 
 is born of God, overcometh the world,' says the New. 
 The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine 
 warmth; — the austerity of the sage melts away under 
 it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is vivi- 
 fied by it renews his strength; 'all things are possible 
 to him'; 'he is a new creature.' 
 
 Epictetus says: 'Every matter has two handles,
 
 144 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 one of which will bear taking hold of, the other not. 
 If thy brother sin against thee, lay not hold of the 
 matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this 
 handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But 
 rather lay hold of it by this, that he is thy brother, 
 thy born mate; and thou wilt take hold of it by what 
 will bear handling.' Jesus, asked whether a man is 
 bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, 
 answers: 'I say not unto thee, until seven times, but 
 until seventy times seven.' Epictetus here suggests 
 to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which 
 Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is 
 on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the 
 warmth, the emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his 
 hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while 
 the thought in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with 
 Christian morality in general : its distinction is not 
 that it propounds the maxim, 'Thou shalt love God 
 and thy neighbour,' with more development, closer 
 reasoning, truer sincerity, than other moral systems ; 
 it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration 
 which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him 
 act upon it. It is because Mr Mill has attained to the 
 perception of truths of this nature, that he is, — instead 
 of being, like the school from which he proceeds, 
 doomed to sterilit3^ — a writer of distinguished mark 
 and influence, a writer deserving all attention and 
 respect; it is (I must be pardoned for saying) because 
 he is not sufficiently leavened with them, that he falls 
 just short of being a great writer. 
 
 That which gives to the moral writings of the 
 Emperor Marcus Aurelius their peculiar character 
 and charm, is their being suffused and softened by 
 something of this very sentiment whence Christian 
 morality draws its best power. Mr Long has recently 
 published in a convenient form a translation of these 
 writings, and has thus enabled English readers to 
 judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has ren- 
 dered his countrymen a real service by so doing. 
 Mr Long's reputation as a scholar is a sufficient
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 145 
 
 guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his 
 translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly 
 entitled to speak, and my praise is of no value. But 
 that for which I and the rest of the unlearned may 
 venture to praise Mr Long is this ; that he treats 
 Marcus Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other 
 remains of Greek and Roman antiquity which he 
 touches, not as a dead and dry matter of learning, 
 but as documents with a side of modern applicability 
 and living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this 
 side in them can be made clear; that as in his notes 
 on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with the modern 
 epoch of Caesar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, 
 but as food for men, and men engaged in the current 
 of contemporary life and action, so in his remarks and 
 essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this truly modern 
 striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, 
 but as a present source from which to draw 'example 
 of life, and instruction of manners.' Why may not a 
 son of Dr Arnold say, what might naturally here be 
 said by any other critic, that in this lively and fruitful 
 way of considering the men and affairs of ancient 
 Greece and Rome, Mr Long resembles Dr Arnold ? 
 
 One or two little complaints, however, I have 
 against Mr Long, and I will get them off my mind 
 at once. In the first place, why could he not have 
 found gentler and juster terms to describe the trans- 
 lation of his predecessor, Jeremy Collier, — the re- 
 doubtable enemy of stage plays, — than these: 'a most 
 coarse and vulgar copy of the original ?' As a matter 
 of taste, a translator should deal leniently with his 
 predecessor ; but putting that out of the question, 
 Mr Long's language is a great deal too hard. Most Lng- 
 lish people who knew Marcus Aurelius before Mr Long 
 appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy 
 Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus 
 Aurelius is such an imperishable benefit, that one 
 can never lose a peculiar sense of obligation towards 
 the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon 
 one's tenderness, however, .Jeremy Collier's version
 
 146 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 deserves respect for its genuine spirit and vigour, 
 the spirit and vigour of the age of Dryden. Jeremy 
 Collier too, like Mr Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius 
 the living moralist, and not the dead classic; and his 
 warmth of feeling gave to his style an impetuosity and 
 rhythm which from Mr Long's style (I do not blame it 
 on that account) are absent. Let us place the two side 
 by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's 
 fifth book, Mr Long translates thus: — 
 
 'In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let 
 this thought be present : I am rising to the work of a 
 human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am 
 going to do the things for which I exist and for which 
 I was brought into the world ? Or have I been made 
 for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself 
 warm ? — But this is more pleasant. — Dost thou exist 
 then to take any pleasure, and not at all for action or 
 exertion ? ' 
 
 Jeremy Collier has : — 
 
 'When you find an unwillingness to rise early in 
 the morning, make this short speech to yourself : " I 
 am getting up now to do the business of a man; and 
 am I out of humour for going about that which I was 
 made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the 
 world ? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze 
 and batten beneath the counterpane ? I thought action 
 had been the end of your being." ' 
 
 In another striking passage, again, Mr Long 
 has : — 
 
 ' No longer wonder at hazard ; for neither wilt 
 thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the an- 
 cient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from 
 books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. 
 Hasten then to the end which thou hast before thee, 
 and, throwing away idle hopes, come to thine own 
 aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy 
 power.' 
 
 Here his despised predecessor has: — 
 
 ' Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp 
 yourself. Alas, you have no time left to peruse your
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 147 
 
 diary, to read over the Greek and Roman history : 
 come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the 
 main chance, to the end and design of reading, and 
 mind life more than notion: I say, if you have a kind- 
 ness for your person, drive at the practice and help 
 yourself, for that is in your own power.' 
 
 It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy 
 Collier can (to say the least) perfectly stand compari- 
 son with Mr Long. Jeremy Collier's real defect as a 
 translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his 
 imperfect acquaintance with Greek ; this is a serious 
 defect, a fatal one; it rendered a translation like Mr 
 Long's necessary. Jeremy Collier's work will now be 
 forgotten, and Air Long stands master of the field; 
 but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his pre- 
 decessor's grave unharmed, even if he will not throw 
 upon it, in passing, a handful of kindly earth. 
 
 Another complaint I have against Mr Long is, that 
 he is not quite idiomatic and simple enough. It is a 
 little formal, at least, if not pedantic, to say Ethic and 
 Dialectic, instead of Ethics and Dialectics, and to 
 say 'Hellenes and Romans' instead of 'Greeks and 
 Romans.' And why, too, — the name of Antoninus 
 being preoccupied by Antoninus Pius, — will Mr Long 
 call his author Marcus Antoninus instead of Marcus 
 AureliKS? Small as these matters appear, they are 
 important when one has to deal with the general 
 public, and not with a small circle of scholars ; and 
 it is the general public that the translator of a short 
 masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of Marcus 
 Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to 
 make Marcus Aurelius's work as popular as the 
 Imitation, and Marcus Aurelius's name as familiar 
 as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, there- 
 fore, punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much 
 to be sought as accessibility and currency; everything 
 which may best enable the Emperor and his precepts 
 volitare per ora viruin. It is essential to render him 
 in language perfectly plain and unpnjfessional, and to 
 call hiiii by the name by which he is best and most 
 
 lO — 2
 
 148 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 distinctly known. The translators of the Bible talk 
 of pence and not denarii, and the admirers of Voltaire 
 do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet. 
 
 But, after these trifling complaints are made, one 
 must end, as one began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr 
 Long for his excellent and substantial reproduction in 
 English of an invaluable work. In general the sub- 
 stantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr Long's 
 rendering are (I cannot but think) as conspicuous as 
 the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and 
 these qualities are particularly desirable in the trans- 
 lator of a work like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which 
 the language is often corrupt, almost always hard and 
 obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr Long's 
 merits as a translator may read, in the original and in 
 Mr Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth 
 book; he will see how, through all the dubiousness and 
 involved manner of the Greek, Mr Long has firmly 
 seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at 
 the bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly 
 rendering this thought, has at the same time thrown 
 round its expression a characteristic shade of painful- 
 ness and difficulty which just suits it. And Marcus 
 Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered as 
 accurately as Mr Long renders it, even those who 
 know Greek tolerably well may choose to read rather 
 in the translation than in the original. For not only 
 are the contents here incomparably more valuable 
 than the external form, but this form, the Greek of 
 a Roman, is not exactly one of those styles which 
 have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of 
 their author, which stamp an indelible impression 
 of him on the reader's mind. An old Lyons com- 
 mentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius's Greek, 
 something characteristic, something specially firm and 
 imperial; but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly 
 find this : he will find crabbed Greek, without any 
 great charm of distinct physiognomy. The Greek of 
 Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who 
 reads them in a translation, however accurate, loses
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 149 
 
 it, and loses much in losing it ; but the Greek of 
 Marcus Aurelius, lilie the Greek of the New Testa- 
 ment, and even more than the Greek of the New 
 Testament, is wanting in it. If one could be assured 
 that the English Testament were made perfectly ac- 
 curate, one might be almost content never to open 
 a Greek Testament again; and, Mr Long's version of 
 Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an Englishman who 
 reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth 
 let the Greek original repose upon its shelf. 
 
 The man whose thoughts Mr Long has thus faith- 
 fully reproduced, is perhaps the most beautiful figure 
 in history. He is one of those consoling and hope- 
 inspiring marks, which stand for ever to remind our 
 weak and easily discouraged race how high human 
 goodness and perseverance have once been carried, 
 and may be carried again. The interest of mankind 
 is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal goodness 
 in high places ; for that testimony to the worth of 
 goodness is the most striking which is borne by those 
 to whom all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence 
 lay open, by those who had at their command the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus 
 Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest of empires; and 
 he was one of the best of men. Besides him, history 
 presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their good- 
 ness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus 
 Aurelius has, for us moderns, this great superiority in 
 interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and 
 acted in a state of society modern by its essential 
 characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a 
 brilliant centre of civilisation. Trajan talks of 'our 
 enlightened age' just as glibly as the Times talks of 
 it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like 
 ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. 
 Saint Louis inhabits an atmosphere of mediaeval 
 Catholicism, which the man of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish 
 to inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really 
 inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state cjf society (I say it
 
 150 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 with all deference to the Saturday Review critic who 
 keeps such jealous watch over the honour of our Saxon 
 ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint 
 Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us 
 as Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 The record of the outward life of this admirable 
 man has in it little of striking incident. He was born 
 at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year 121 of the 
 Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his 
 predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When 
 Antoninus died, he was forty years old, but from the 
 time of his earliest manhood he had assisted in ad- 
 ministering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's 
 death in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as em- 
 peror. The barbarians were pressing on the Roman 
 frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's nine- 
 teen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His 
 absences from Rome were numerous and long. We 
 hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece ; but, 
 above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the 
 war with the barbarians was going on, — in Austria, 
 Moravia, Hungary. In these countries much of his 
 Journal seems to have been written ; parts of it are 
 dated from them ; and there, a few weeks before his 
 fifty-ninth birthday, he fell sick and died^ The record 
 of him on which his fame chiefly rests is the record 
 of his inward life, — his Journal, or Commentaries, or 
 Meditations, or Thoughts, for by all these names has 
 the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting 
 of the records of his outward life is that which the 
 first book of this work supplies, where he gives an 
 account of his education, recites the names of those 
 to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his 
 obligations to each of them. It is a refreshing and 
 consoling picture, a priceless treasure for those, who, 
 sick of the 'wild and dreamlike trade of blood and 
 guile,' which seems to be nearly the whole that 
 history has to offer to our view, seek eagerly for that 
 
 ^ He died on the 17th of March, A.D. 180.
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 151 
 
 substratum of right thinking and well-doing which in all 
 ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without 
 it the continued life of humanity would have been 
 impossible. 'From my mother I learnt piety and 
 beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds 
 but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity 
 in my way of living, far removed from the habits of 
 the rich.' Let us remember that, the next time we 
 are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. ' From my 
 tutor I learnt ' (hear it, ye tutors of princes !) ' endur- 
 ance of labour, and to want little, and to work with 
 my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's 
 affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.' The 
 vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician — 
 the Gnecuhis esitrieiis — are in everybody's mind; but 
 he who reads Marcus Aurelius's account of his Greek 
 teachers and masters, will understand how it is that, 
 in spite of the vices and foibles of individual Grccculi, 
 the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt 
 which can never be overrated. The vague and colour- 
 less praise of history leaves on the mind hardly any 
 impression of Antoninus Pius : it is only from the 
 private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what 
 a disciplined, hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man 
 he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind less 
 than his immortal nephew only because he has left in 
 writing no record of his inner life, — caret quia vate 
 sacro. Of the outward life and circumstances of 
 Marcus Aurelius, beyond these notices which he has 
 himself supplied, there are few of much interest and 
 importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech 
 when he heard of the assassination of the revolted 
 Avidius Cassius, against whom he was marching; he 
 was sorry, he said, to be deprived of the pleasure of 
 pardoning him. And there are one or two more 
 anecdcjtes of him which show the same spirit. But 
 the great record for the outward life of a man who 
 has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations 
 as that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear 
 consenting voice of all his contemporaries, — high and
 
 152 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 low, friend and enemy, pagan and Christian, — in praise 
 of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The world's 
 charity does not err on the side of excess, and here 
 was a man occupying the most conspicuous station in 
 the world, and professing the highest possible standard 
 of conduct; — yet the world was obHged to declare that 
 he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his 
 death, his bust was to be seen in the houses of private 
 men through the wide Roman empire ; it may be the 
 vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with 
 the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its 
 nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead ; 
 these busts of xMarcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, 
 Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not to the inmates' 
 frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but to 
 their reverential memory of the passage of a great 
 man upon the earth. 
 
 Two things, however, before one turns from the 
 outward to the inward life of Marcus Aurelius, force 
 themselves upon one's notice, and demand a word of 
 comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had 
 for his son the vicious and brutal Commodus. The 
 persecution at Lyons, in which Attains and Pothinus 
 suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which Polycarp 
 suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of 
 his tolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of 
 his wish to refrain from severe measures against the 
 Christians, of his anxiety to temper the severity of these 
 measures when they appeared to him indispensable, 
 there is no doubt : but, on the one hand, it is certain 
 that the letter, attributed to him, directing that no 
 Christian should be punished for being a Christian, is 
 spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged answer 
 to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that 
 Christians persisting in their profession shall be dealt 
 with according to the law, is genuine. Mr Long seems 
 inclined to try and throw doubt over the persecution 
 at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons 
 Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended 
 by miraculous and incredible incidents. 'A man,' he
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 153 
 
 says, 'can only act consistently by accepting all this 
 letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for 
 either.' But it is contrary to all experience to say that 
 because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and 
 embellishments, therefore it probably never happened 
 at all; or that it is not, in general, easy for an impartial 
 mind to distinguish between the fact and the embel- 
 lishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution 
 took place, and that the punishment of Christians for 
 being Christians was sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. 
 But then I must add that nine modern readers out of 
 ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a per- 
 fectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus 
 Aurelius, in sanctioning that punishment, really was. 
 They imagine Trajan, or Antoninus Pius, or Marcus 
 Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the Gospel, fully 
 aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints 
 ordering their extermination because he loved darkness 
 rather than light. Far from this, the Christianity which 
 these emperors aimed at repressing was, in their con- 
 ception of it, something philosophically contemptible, 
 politically subversive, and morally abominable. As 
 men, they sincerely regarded it much as well-condi- 
 tioned people, with us, regard Mormonism ; as rulers, 
 they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, with us, 
 regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted 
 as a vast secret society, with obscure aims of political 
 and social subversion, was what Antoninus Pius and 
 Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to be repressing 
 when they punished Christians. The early Christian 
 apologists again and again declare to us under what 
 odious imputations the Christians lay, how general was 
 the belief that these imputations were well-grounded, 
 how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. 
 The multitude, convinced that the Christians were 
 atheists who ate human flesh and thought incest no 
 crime, displayed against them a fury so passionate 
 as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severe 
 expressions of Tacitus, exitiabilis siipcrsfitio — odio 
 hiiniani generis convicti, show how deeply the
 
 154 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 prejudices of the multitude imbued the educated class 
 also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a 
 doctrine so benign as that of Christ can have in- 
 curred misrepresentation so monstrous. The inner 
 and moving cause of the misrepresentation lay, no 
 doubt, in this, — that Christianity was a new spirit in 
 the Roman world, destined to act in that world as its 
 dissolvent; and it was inevitable that Christianity in 
 the Roman world, like democracy in the modern world, 
 like every new spirit with a similar mission assigned to 
 it, should at its first appearance occasion an instinctive 
 shrinking and repugnance in the world which it was 
 to dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the 
 misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, 
 the confounding of the Christians with the Jews, that 
 isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, 
 fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the fancy 
 of a civilised Roman yet further exaggerated ; the 
 atmosphere of mystery and novelty which surrounded 
 the Christian rites ; the very simplicity of Christian 
 theism : for the Roman statesman, the character of 
 secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian 
 community wore, under a State-system as jealous of 
 unauthorised associations as the Code Napoleon. 
 
 A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position 
 could not well see the Christians except through the 
 mist of these prejudices. Seen through such a mist, 
 the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not 
 their own ; but it has not been sufficiently remarked 
 that faults, really their own, many of them assuredly 
 appeared with besides, faults especially likely to strike 
 such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm 
 him in the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. 
 We look back upon Christianity after it has proved 
 what a future it bore within it, and for us the sole 
 representatives of its early struggles are the pure and 
 devoted spirits through whom it proved this ; Marcus 
 Aurelius saw it with its future yet unshown, and with 
 the tares among its professed progeny not less con- 
 spicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 155 
 
 the professing Christians of the second century, as 
 among the professing Christians of the nineteenth, 
 there was plentj- of folly, plenty of rabid nonsense, 
 plenty of gross fanaticism ? who will even venture to 
 affirm that, separated in great measure from the in- 
 tellect and civilisation of the world for one or two 
 centuries, Christianity', wonderful as have been its 
 fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its 
 inestimable germ ? Who will venture to affirm that, 
 by the alliance of Christianity with the virtue and 
 intelligence of men like the Antonines, — of the best 
 product of Greek and Roman civilisation, while Greek 
 and Roman civilisation had yet life and power, — 
 Christianity and the world, as well as the Antonines 
 themselves, would not have been gainers ? That alli- 
 ance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with 
 an utter misconception of Christianity; Christianity 
 grew up in the Catacombs, not on the Palatine. 
 Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by having 
 authorised the punishment of the Christians; he does 
 not thereby become in the least what we mean by a 
 persecutor. One may concede that it was impossible 
 for him to see Christianity as it really was; — as impos- 
 sible as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury to 
 see the Antonines as they really were; — one may con- 
 cede that the point of view from which Christianity 
 appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which 
 the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to 
 suppress, was inevitably his. Still, however, it remains 
 true that this sage, who made perfection his aim, and 
 reason his law, did Christianity an immense injustice, 
 and rested in an idea of State-attributes which was 
 illusive. And this is, in truth, characteristic of Marcus 
 Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet, in a certain sense, 
 unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, 
 there is something melancholy, circumscribed, and 
 ineffectual. 
 
 For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, 
 one must say that he is not to be blamed on that 
 account, but that he is unfortunate. Disposition and
 
 156 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 temperament are inexplicable things ; there are natures 
 on which the best education and example are thrown 
 away; excellent fathers may have, without any fault 
 of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remem- 
 bered also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous 
 age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, 
 at that age, was but beginning a twenty years' appren- 
 ticeship to wisdom, labour, and self-command, under 
 the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. 
 Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favourites; 
 and if the story is true which says that he left, all 
 through his reign, the Christians untroubled, and 
 ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistress 
 Marcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well 
 as to evil; for such a nature to be left at a critical age 
 with absolute power, and wholly without good counsel 
 and direction, was the more fatal. Still one cannot 
 help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius 
 could have availed more with his own only son ; one 
 cannot but think that with such virtue as his there 
 should go, too, the ardour which removes mountains, 
 and that the ardour which removes mountains might 
 have even won Commodus; the word ineffectual 
 again rises to one's mind; Marcus Aurelius saved his 
 own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no 
 more. Happy they who can do this ! but still happier, 
 who can do more ! 
 
 Yet, when one passes from his outward to his 
 inward life, when one turns over the pages of his Medi- 
 tations, — entries jotted down from day to day, amid 
 the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, 
 for his own guidance and support, meant for no eye 
 but his own, without the slightest attempt at style, 
 with no care, even, for correct writing, not to be sur- 
 passed for naturalness and sincerity, — all disposition 
 to carp and cavil dies away, and one is overpowered 
 by the charm of a character of such purity, delicacy, 
 and virtue. He fails neither in small things nor in 
 great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great 
 springs of action may be right in him, and that the
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 157 
 
 minute details of action may be right also. How 
 admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, 
 with a passion for thinking and reading, is such a 
 memorandum as the following: — 
 
 'Not frequentlj' nor without necessity to say to any 
 one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor 
 continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by 
 our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging 
 urgent occupation.' 
 
 And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what 
 an 'idea' is this to be written down and meditated by 
 him: — 
 
 'The idea of a polity in which there is the same 
 law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal 
 rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of 
 a kingly government which respects most of all the 
 freedom of the governed.' 
 
 And, for all men who ' drive at practice,' what 
 practical rules may not one accumulate out of these 
 Meditations : — 
 
 ' The greatest part of what we say or do being 
 unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have 
 more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on 
 every occasion, a man should ask himself: "Is this 
 one of the unnecessary things ? " Now a man should 
 take away not only unnecessary acts, but also unneces- 
 sary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow 
 after.' 
 
 And again: — 
 
 'We ought to check in the series of our thoughts 
 everything that is without a purpose and useless, but 
 most of all the over-curious feeling and the malignant; 
 and a man should use himself to think of those things 
 only about which if one should suddenly ask, "What 
 hast thou now in thy thoughts ? " with perfect open- 
 ness thou mightest immediately answer, "This or 
 That " ; so that from thy words it should be plain 
 that everything in thee is simple and benevolent, and 
 such as beHts a social animal, and one that cares not 
 for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry
 
 158 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou 
 wouldst blush if thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy 
 mind.' 
 
 So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Frank- 
 lin, he discourses on his favourite text, Let nothing be 
 done without a purpose. But it is when he enters 
 the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when 
 he utters his thoughts on the ground -motives of human 
 action, that he is most interesting ; that he becomes 
 the unique, the incomparable Marcus Aurelius. Chris- 
 tianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood 
 when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, 
 from the vulgar motives of worldly interest, or vanity, 
 or love of human praise, but 'that their Father which 
 seeth in secret may reward them openly.' The motives 
 of reward and punishment have come, from the mis- 
 conception of language of this kind, to be strangely 
 overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the de- 
 terioration and disfigurement of Christianity. Marcus 
 Aurelius says, truly and nobly: — 
 
 'One man, when he has done a service to another, 
 is ready to set it down to his account as a favour con- 
 ferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in 
 his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and 
 he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does 
 not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine 
 which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing 
 more after it has once produced its proper fruit. 
 As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has 
 caught the game, a bee when it has made its honey, 
 so a man when he has done a good act, does not call 
 out for others to come and see, but he goes on to an- 
 other act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes 
 in season. Must a man, then, be one of these, who in 
 a manner acts thus without observing it ? Yes.' 
 
 And again: — 
 
 'What more dost thou want when thou hast done 
 a man a service ? Art thou not content that thou 
 hast done something conformable to thy nature, and 
 dost thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 159 
 
 demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for 
 zeal king ? ' 
 
 Christianity, in order to match morality of this 
 strain, has to correct its apparent offers of external 
 reward, and to say: The kingdom of God is xviiJiin 
 yon. 
 
 I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that 
 the morality of Marcus Aureliiis acquires a special 
 character, and reminds one of Christian morality. 
 The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the in- 
 tellect ; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to 
 the character ; the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find 
 their way to the soul. I have said that religious 
 emotion has the power to iight up morality: the 
 emotion of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up 
 his morality, but it suffuses it ; it has not power to 
 melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite away, 
 but it shines through them and glorifies them ; it is 
 a spirit, not so much of gladness and elation, as of 
 gentleness and sweetness; a delicate and tender senti- 
 ment, which is less than joy and more than resignation. 
 He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, 
 one of his teachers, ' cheerfulness in all circumstances 
 as well as in illness ; and a just admixture in the 
 moral character of sweetness and dignity': and it 
 is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity 
 which makes him so beautiful a moralist. It enables 
 him to carry even into his observation of nature, a 
 delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy 
 of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the 
 following seems to me to have no parallel in the whole 
 range of Greek and Roman literature: — 
 
 'Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open ; and in 
 the ripe olives the very circumstance of their being 
 near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. 
 And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's 
 eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth 
 of wild boars, and many other things, — though they 
 are far from being beautiful, in a certain sense, — still, 
 because they come in the course of nature, have a
 
 160 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 beauty in them, and they please the mind ; so that if 
 a man should have a feeling and a deeper insight with 
 respect to the things which are produced in the uni- 
 verse, there is hardly anything which comes in the 
 course of nature which will not seem to him to be in 
 a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.' 
 
 But it is when his strain passes to directly moral 
 subjects that his delicacy and sweetness lend to it the 
 greatest charm. Let those who can feel the beauty 
 of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an 
 emperor who prized mental superiority highly: — 
 
 'Thou sayest, "Men cannot admire the sharpness 
 of thy wits." Be it so; but there are many other 
 things of which thou canst not say, "I am not formed 
 for them by nature." Show those qualities, then, 
 which are altogether in thy power, — sincerity, gravity, 
 endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment 
 with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, 
 frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, 
 magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities 
 thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there is 
 no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet 
 thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark ? Or 
 art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished 
 by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, 
 and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to 
 please men, and to make great display, and to be so 
 restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest 
 have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, 
 if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather 
 slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert 
 thyself about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking 
 pleasure in thy dulness.' 
 
 The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, 
 when he sees the isolation and moral death caused by 
 sin, not on the cheerless thought of the misery of this 
 condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is 
 blest with the power to escape from it : — 
 
 ' Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the 
 natural unity, — for thou wast made by nature a part,
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 161 
 
 but now thou hast cut thyself off, — yet here is this 
 beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to 
 unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, 
 — after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come 
 together again. But consider the goodness with which 
 he has privileged man ; for he has put it in his power, 
 when he has been separated, to return and to be united 
 and to resume his place.' 
 
 It enables him to control even the passion for re- 
 treat and solitude, so strong in a soul like his, to which 
 the world could offer no abiding city: — 
 
 'Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the 
 country, seashores, and mountains; and thou, too, art 
 wont to desire such things very much. But this is 
 altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, 
 for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to 
 retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more 
 quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire 
 than into his own soul, particularly when he has within 
 him such thoughts that by looking into them he is im- 
 mediately in perfect tranquillity. Constantly, then, give 
 to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself ; and let thy 
 principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as 
 thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse 
 the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all 
 discontent with the things to which thou returnest.' 
 
 Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, 
 so natural to the great for whom there seems nothing 
 left to desire or to strive after, but so enfeebling to 
 them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased 
 to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in 
 remembrance the blessings of his lot; the true bless- 
 ings of it, not the false: — 
 
 'I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to 
 a ruler and a father (Antoninus Pius) who was able 
 to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to 
 the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live 
 in a palace without either guards, or embroidered 
 dresses, or any show of this kind ; but that it is in 
 such a man's power to bring himself very near to the 
 
 S. II
 
 162 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 fashion of a private person, without being for this 
 reason either meaner in thought or more remiss in 
 action with respect to the things which must be done 
 for pubHc interest....! have to be thankful that my 
 children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; 
 that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, 
 and the other studies, by which I should perhaps have 
 been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was 
 making great progress in them;... that I knew Apollo- 
 nius, Rusticus, Maximus;...that. I received clear and 
 frequent impressions about living according to nature, 
 and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as de- 
 pended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, and inspiration, 
 nothing hindered me from forthwith living according 
 to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own 
 fault, and through not observing the admonitions of 
 Heaven, and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; 
 that my body has held out so long in such a kind of 
 life as mine; that though it was my mother's lot to 
 die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; 
 that whenever I wished to help any man in his need, 
 I was never told that I had not the means of doing it; 
 that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not 
 fall into the hands of a sophist.' 
 
 And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and 
 blessings vouchsafed to him, his mind (so, at least, it 
 seems to me) would sometimes revert with awe to the 
 perils and temptations of the lonely height where he 
 stood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, 
 in their hideous blackness and ruin ; and then he wrote 
 down for himself such a warning entry as this, signi- 
 ficant and terrible in its abruptness: — 
 
 'A black character, a womanish character, a stub- 
 born character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, coun- 
 terfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, tyrannical ! ' 
 
 Or this: — 
 
 'About what am I now employing my soul ? On 
 every occasion I must ask myself this question, and 
 enquire. What have I now in this part of me which 
 they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 163 
 
 I now? — that of a child, or of a young man, or of a 
 weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of one of the lower 
 animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?' 
 
 The character he wished to attain he knew well, 
 and beautifully he has marked it, and marked, too, his 
 sense of shortcoming; — 
 
 'When thou hast assumed these names, — good, 
 modest, true, rational, equal-minded, magnanimous, — 
 take care that thou dost not change these names; and, 
 if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If 
 thou maintainest thyself in possession of these names 
 without desiring that others should call thee by them, 
 thou wilt be another being, and wilt enter on another 
 life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto 
 been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, 
 is the character of a very stupid man, and one overfond 
 of his life, and like those half-devoured fighters with 
 wild beasts, who though covered with wounds and gore 
 still entreat to be kept to the following day, though they 
 will be exposed in the same state to the same claws 
 and bites. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of 
 these few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, 
 abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy Islands.' 
 
 For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's 
 point of life 'between two infinities' (of that expression 
 Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was to him any- 
 thing but a Happy Island, and the performances on 
 it he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in 
 general more gloomy and monotonous than declama- 
 tions on the hollowness and transitoriness of human 
 life and grandeur: but here, too, the great charm of 
 Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the 
 monotony and to break through the gloom; and even 
 on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, 
 and striking: — 
 
 'Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. 
 Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, 
 bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, 
 trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, ob- 
 stinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for 
 
 II — 2
 
 164 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 somebody to die, grumbling about the present, loving, 
 heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or kings. 
 Weil then that life of these people no longer exists at 
 all. Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again 
 the same. Their life too is gone. But chiefly thou 
 shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself known 
 distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to 
 do what was in accordance with their proper consti- 
 tution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content 
 w^ith it.' 
 
 Again : — 
 
 ' The things which are much valued in life are 
 empty, and rotten, and trifling ; and people are like 
 little dogs, biting one another, and little children 
 quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing. 
 But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth are 
 fled 
 
 "Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth." • 
 
 What then is there which still detains thee here ?' 
 
 And once more: — 
 
 ' Look down from above on the countless herds of 
 men, and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely 
 varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differ- 
 ences among those who are born, who live together, 
 and die. And consider too the life lived by others in 
 olden time, and the life now lived among barbarous 
 nations, and how many know not even thy name, and 
 how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps 
 now are praising thee will very soon blame thee, and 
 that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor 
 reputation, nor anything else.' 
 
 He recognised, indeed, that (to use his own words) 
 ' the prime principle in man's constitution is the social ' ; 
 and he laboured sincerely to make not only his acts 
 towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, suitable 
 to this conviction: — 
 
 'When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of 
 the virtues of those who live with thee; for instance, 
 the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 165 
 
 the liberality of a third, and some other good quality 
 of a fourth.' 
 
 Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to 
 live in a state of rapture at the spectacle afforded 
 to him by his fellow-creatures ; above all it is hard, 
 when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was 
 placed, and has had the meanness and perversity of 
 his fellow-creatures thrust, in no common measure, 
 upon his notice, — has had, time after time, to experi- 
 ence how 'within ten days thou wilt seem a god to 
 those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape.' 
 His true strain of thought as to his relations with 
 his fellow-men is rather the following. He has been 
 enumerating the higher consolations which may sup- 
 port a man at the approach of death, and he goes 
 on : — 
 
 ' But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort 
 which shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made best 
 reconciled to death by observing the objects from which 
 thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those 
 with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it 
 is no way right to be offended with men, but it is thy 
 duty to care for them and to bear with them gently; 
 and yet to remember that thy departure will not be 
 from men who have the same principles as thyself. 
 For this is the only thing, if there be any, which could 
 draw us the contrary way and attach us to life, to be 
 permitted to live with those who have the same prin- 
 ciples as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is 
 the distress caused by the difference of those who live 
 together, so that thou mayest say: "Come quick, O 
 death, lest perchance I too should forget myself." ' 
 
 O faithless and perverse generation I liow long 
 shall I be with yon ? how long shall I suffer you ? 
 Sometimes this strain rises even to passion : — 
 
 'Short is the little which remains to thee of life. 
 Live as on a mountain. Let men see, let them know, 
 a real man, whf) lives as he was meant to live. If they 
 cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is 
 better than to live as men do.'
 
 166 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 It is remarkable how little of a merely local and 
 temporary character, how little of those scorice which 
 a reader has to clear away before he gets to the 
 precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or 
 question, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits^ 
 In general, the action he prescribes is action which 
 
 ^ Perhaps there is one exception. He is fond of urging 
 as a motive for man's cheerful acquiescence in whatever 
 befalls him, that ' whatever happens to every man is for the 
 iitterest of the lutiversaP ; that the whole contains nothing 
 which is not for its advantage', that everything which hap- 
 pens to a man is to be accepted, 'even if it seems disagree- 
 able, because it leads to the health of the universe.^ And the 
 whole course of the universe, he adds, has a providential re- 
 ference to man's welfare : ' all otiier things have been made 
 for the sake of rational beings' Religion has in all ages 
 freely used this language, and it is not religion which will 
 object to Marcus Aurelius's use of it; but science can hardly 
 accept as severely accurate this employment of the terms 
 interest and advafttage ; even to a sound nature and a clear 
 reason the proposition that things happen 'for the interest of 
 the universal,' as men conceive of interest, may seem to have 
 no meaning at all, and the proposition that 'all things have 
 been made for the sake of rational beings ' may seem to be 
 false. Yet even to this language, not irresistibly cogent when 
 it is thus absolutely used, Marcus Aurelius gives a turn which 
 makes it true and useful, when he says : ' The ruling part of 
 man can make a material for itself out of that which opposes 
 it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and rises higher by 
 means of this very material'; — when he says: 'What else 
 are all things except exercises for the reason ? Persevere 
 then until thou shalt have made all things thine own, as the 
 stomach which is strengthened makes all things its own, as 
 the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything 
 that is thrown into it' ; — when he says : 'Thou wilt not cease 
 to be miserable till thy mind is in such a condition, that, what 
 luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall be to thee, 
 in every matter which presents itself, the doing of the things 
 which are conformable to man's constitution ; for a man ought 
 to consider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his 
 power to do according to his own nature, — and it is in his 
 power everywhere.' In this sense it is, indeed, most true 
 that ' all things have been made for the sake of rational 
 beings'; that 'all things work together for good.'
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 167 
 
 every sound nature must recognise as right, and the 
 motives he assigns are motives which every clear 
 reason must recognise as vaHd. And so he remains 
 the especial friend and comforter of scrupulous and 
 difficult, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving souls, 
 in those ages most especially that walk by sight, not 
 by faith, but j-et have no open vision ; he cannot give 
 such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he gives 
 them much ; and what he gives them, they can receive. 
 Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that 
 such souls love him most ! it is rather because of the 
 emotion which gives to his voice so touching an accent, 
 it is because he too yearns as they do for something 
 unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity 
 had this persecutor of the Christians! The effusion 
 of Christianity, its relieving tears, its happy self-sacri- 
 fice, were the very element, one feels, for which his 
 soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, 
 he touched them, he passed them by. One feels, too, 
 that the Marcus Aurelius one knows must still have 
 remained, even had they presented themselves to him, 
 in a great measure himself; he would have been no 
 Justin; — but how would they have affected him? in 
 what measure would it have changed him ? Granted 
 that he might have found, like the Alogi of modern 
 times, in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel 
 which has leavened Christendom most powerfully, the 
 Gospel of St John, too much Greek metaphysics, too 
 much gliosis ; granted that this Gospel might have 
 looked too like what he knew already to be a total 
 surprise to him : what, then, would he have said to 
 the Sermon on the Mount, to the twenty-sixth chapter 
 of St Matthew? What would have become of his 
 notions of the exitiabilis sitperstitio,oi the 'obstinacy 
 of the Christians'? Vain question 1 yet the greatest 
 charm of Marcus Aurelius is that he makes us ask it. 
 We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, thankful, 
 blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out 
 his arms for something beyond, — tendentemque maniis 
 riptc liUcrion's iniiore.
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED 
 
 1884 
 
 These words will be familiar to all students of 
 Skelt's Juvenile Drama. That national monument, 
 after having changed its name to Park's, to Webb's, 
 to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has now 
 become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its 
 pillars, like Stonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean 
 vanished. It may be the Museum numbers a full set; 
 and Mr lonides perhaps, or else her gracious Majesty, 
 may boast their great collections ; but to the plain 
 private person they are become, like Raphaels, un- 
 attainable. I have at different times, possessed 
 Aladdin, The Red Rover, The Blind Boy, The Old 
 Oak Chest, The Wood Dcsnion, Jack Sheppard, The 
 Miller and his Men, Der FreiscJiiifz, TJie Smuggler, 
 The Forest of Bondy, Robin Hood, The Water-man, 
 Richard I, My Poll and my Partner Joe, The Inch- 
 cape Bell (imperfect), and TJiree-Fingered Jack, The 
 Terror of Jamaica ; and I have assisted others in the 
 illumination of The Maid of the Inn and The Battle 
 of Waterloo. In this roll-call of stirring names you 
 read the evidences of a happy childhood ; and though 
 not half of them are still to be procured of any living 
 stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all 
 survive, kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of 
 the past.
 
 PENNY PLAIN, TWOPENCE COLOURED 169 
 
 There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how 
 fallen !) a certain stationer's shop at a corner of the 
 wide thoroughfare that joins the city of my childhood 
 with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a 
 party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and 
 since in those days I loved a ship as a man loves 
 Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself had been enough 
 to'Tiallow it. But there was more than that. In the 
 Leith Walk window, all the year round, there stood 
 displayed a theatre in working order, v^ath a 'forest 
 set,' a 'combat,' and a few 'robbers carousing' in the 
 slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! 
 the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay 
 tumbled one upon another. Long and often have 
 I lingered there with empty pocfi'ets." One figure, we 
 shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, 
 bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the 
 clothyard arrow ; I would spell the name : was it 
 Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff", 2d dress? 
 O, how I would long to see the rest ! how — if the 
 name by chance were hidden — I would wonder in 
 what play he figured, and what immortal legend 
 justified his attitude and strange apparel ! And then 
 to go within, to announce yourself as an intending 
 purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo 
 those bundles and breathlessly devour those pages of 
 gesticulating villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, 
 palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses and prison 
 vaults— it was a giddy joy. That shop, which was 
 dark and smelt of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all 
 that bore the name of boy. They could not pass it 
 by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a place 
 besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding 
 Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the 
 stick's end, frowned us down, snatched each play out 
 of our hand ere we were trusted with another; and, f 
 increditable as it may sound, used to demand of us 1 
 upon our entrance, like banditti, if we came with | 
 money or with empty hand. Old Mr Smith himself, I 
 worn out with my eternal vacillation, once swept the 
 
 I
 
 170 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 treasures from before me, with the cry: 'I do not 
 believe, child, that you are an intending purchaser at 
 all ! ' These were the dragons of the garden ; but for 
 such joys of paradise we could have faced the Terror 
 of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was 
 another lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; 
 it was like wallowing in the raw stuff of story-books. 
 I know nothing to compare with it save now and then 
 in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain 
 unwrit stories of adventure, from which I awake to 
 find the world all vanity. The crux of Buridan's 
 donkey was as nothing to the uncertainty of the boy 
 as he handled and lingered and doated on these 
 bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in 
 the sight and touch of them which he would jealously 
 prolong; and when at length the deed was done, the 
 play selected, and the impatient shopman had brushed 
 the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth 
 again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into 
 light in the blue winter's even, and TJie Miller, or 
 The Rover, or some kindred drama clutched against 
 his side — on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed 
 aloud in exultation ! I can hear that laughter still. 
 Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but one 
 home-coming to compare with these, and that was on 
 the night when I brought back with me the Arabian 
 Enfertainmeiits in the fat, old, double-columned 
 volume with the prints. I was just well into the 
 story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my 
 clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty 
 stiff) came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. 
 But instead of ordering the book away, he said he 
 envied me. Ah, well he might! 
 
 The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that 
 was the summit. Thenceforth the interest declined 
 by little and little. The fable, as set forth in the play- 
 book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and 
 characters: what fable would not? Such passages 
 as : ' Scene 6. The Hermitage. Night set scene. 
 Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of stage and
 
 PENNY PLAIN, TWOPENCE COLOURED 171 
 
 hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting 
 direction' — such passages, I say, though very practical, 
 are hardly to be called good reading. Indeed, as 
 literature, these dramas did not much appeal to me. 
 I forget the very outline of the plots. Of The Blind 
 Boy, beyond the fact that he was a most injured 
 prince and once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. 
 And The Old Oak Chest, what was it all about? 
 that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of 
 banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the 
 magnificent kitchen in the third act (was it in the 
 third ?) — they are all fallen in a deliquium, swim 
 faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. 
 
 I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; 
 nor can I quite forgive that child who, wilfully foregoing 
 pleasure, stoops to 'twopence coloured.' With crimson 
 lake (hark to the sound of it — crimson lake ! — the 
 horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear) — with 
 crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to 
 be compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian 
 could not equal. The latter colour with gamboge, a 
 hated name although an exquisite pigment, supplied a 
 green of such a savoury greenness that to-day my 
 heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender 
 weakness the very aspect of the water where I dipped 
 my brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. 
 But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it, all 
 was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or 
 two to look at; but to cut the figures out was simply 
 sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, 
 the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantment of an 
 actual performance. Two days after the purchase 
 the honey had been sucked. Parents used to com- 
 plain ; they thought 1 wearied of my play. It was not 
 so: no more than a person can be said to have wearied 
 of his dinner when he leaves the bones and dishes; I 
 had got the marrow of it and said grace. 
 
 Then was the time to turn to the back of the 
 play-book and to study that enticing double file of 
 names, where poetry, for the true child of Skelt,
 
 172 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the 
 Queen. Much as I have travelled in these realms of 
 gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or abstract, 
 names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of 
 memory, and are still but names. The Floating 
 Beacon — why was that denied me ? or The Wreck 
 Ashore? Sixteen-Sf ring Jack whoin I did not even 
 guess to be a highwayman, troubled me awake and 
 haunted my slumbers; and there is one sequence of 
 three from that enchanted calender that I still at 
 times recall, like a loved verse of poetry: Lodoiska, 
 Silver Palace, EcJio of Westminster Bridge. Names, 
 bare names, are surely more to children than we poor, 
 grown-up, obliterated fools remember. 
 
 The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part 
 and parcel of the charm of his productions. It may 
 be different with the rose, but the attraction of this 
 paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept 
 into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's 
 nest. And now v\^e have reached Pollock, sounding 
 deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt appears so 
 stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to design 
 these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much 
 art. It is even to be found, with reverence be it said, 
 among the works of nature. The stagey is its generic 
 name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred staginess; 
 not French, domestically British; not of to-day, but 
 smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of 
 melodrama: a peculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering 
 its unimportant message in a tone of voice that has 
 the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon 
 the art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful 
 characters that once so thrilled our soul with their 
 bold attitude, array of deadly engines and incom- 
 parable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the 
 extreme hard favour of the heroine strikes me, I had 
 almost said with pain; the villain's scowl no longer 
 thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes themselves, 
 those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts 
 of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on
 
 PENNY PLAIN, TWOPENCE COLOURED 173 
 
 the other side the impartial critic rejoices to remark 
 the presence of a great unity of gusto; of those direct 
 clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead and buriable 
 when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the 
 ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a 
 thing not one with cold reality, but how much dearer 
 to the mind ! 
 
 The scenery of Skeltdom — or shall we say, the 
 kingdom of Transpontus? — had a prevailing character. 
 Whether it set forth Poland as in The Blind Boy, 
 or Bohemia with TJie Miller and his Men, or Italy 
 with TJie Old Oak Chest, still it was Transpontus. 
 A botanist could tell it by the plants. The holly- 
 hock was all pervasive, running wild in deserts; 
 the dock was common, and the bending reed; and 
 overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, 
 and Quercus Skeltica — brave growths. The caves 
 were all embowelled in the Surreyside formation; the 
 soil was all betrodden by the light pump of T. P. 
 Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet another, an oriental 
 string: he held the gorgeous east in fee; and in the 
 new quarter of Hyeres, say, in the garden of the Hotel 
 des lies d'Or, you may behold these blessed visions 
 realised. But on these I will not dwell ; they were an 
 outwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt 
 was all himself. It had a strong flavour of England; 
 it was a sort of indigestion of England and drop- 
 scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How 
 the roads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, 
 how the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and 
 how the congregated clouds themselves up-roll as 
 stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the 
 usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the 
 rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and 
 corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama must 
 be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob 
 Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and 
 eight-day clock; and there again is that impressive 
 dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to colour. 
 England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses,
 
 174 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames — England, 
 when at last I came to visit it, was only Skelt made 
 evident : to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, 
 to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and 
 there the horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faith- 
 ful Skelt. If, at the ripe age of fourteen years, I 
 bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load it, and 
 thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my 
 own ideal, radiating pure romance — still I was but a 
 puppet in the hand of Skelt; the original of that 
 regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the 
 bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, 
 had adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild, pi. 1. 'This 
 is mastering me,' as Whitman cries, upon some lesser 
 provocation. What am I ? what are life, art, letters, 
 the world, but what my Skelt has made them ? He 
 stamped himself upon my immaturity. The world 
 was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; 
 but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go 
 to the theatre to see a good old melodrama, 'tis but 
 Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold scene in nature, 
 Skelt would have been bolder; there had certainly 
 been a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree — 
 that set piece — I seem to miss it in the foreground. 
 Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtru- 
 sive, and infantile art, I seem to have learned the very 
 spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there the shadows 
 of the characters I was to read about and love in a 
 late future; got the romance of Der Freischiitz long 
 ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; 
 acquired a gallery of scenes and characters with which, 
 in the silent theatre of the brain, I might enact all 
 novels and romances; and took from these rude cuts 
 an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader — 
 and yourself? 
 
 A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late 
 J. Redington, No. 73 Hoxton Street, not only pub- 
 lishes twenty-three of these old stage favourites, but 
 owns the necessary plates and displays a modest 
 readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art,
 
 PENNY PLAIN, TWOPENCE COLOURED 175 
 
 folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, 
 or to Clarke's of Garrick Street. In Pollock's list of 
 publicanda I perceive a pair of my ancient aspirations: 
 Wreck AsJiore and Sixfeen-Sfriiig Jack; and I cherish 
 the belief that when these shall see once more the 
 light of day, B. Pollock will remember this apologist. 
 But, indeed, I have a dream at times that is not all a 
 dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly street 
 — E. W., I think, the postal district — close below the 
 fool's-cap of St Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of 
 the echo of the Abbey bridge. There in a dim shop, 
 low in the roof and smelling strong of glue and foot- 
 lights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt 
 himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I 
 buy, with what a choking heart — I buy them all, all 
 but the pantomimes ; I pay my mental money, and go 
 forth ; and lo ! the packets are dust.
 
 NOTES 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE: ON HISTORY 
 
 Thomas Carlyle ( 1 795 — 1881 ) , born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, 
 was the son of a stonemason. A poor Scottish boy had then (and 
 still has) a much greater chance than his English equal of gaining 
 an education worthy of his natural gifts; and so, in spite of poverty 
 at home, Carlyle proceeded from the village school to the Annan 
 Grammar School, and thence to the University of Edinburgh, where 
 his later studies were pursued with the purpose of fitting hnnself for 
 the ministry. He soon found, however, that he had no vocation for 
 the clerical life, and very little for the pedagogic, into which he had 
 stumbled in 1814. The real call came from literature; and he 
 answered with a mass of miscellaneous writing and a great burst of 
 hard reading, during which he encountered the influence that did 
 most towards shaping his whole life — the influence of German 
 literature, and, in particular, of Goetiie. By 1822 he was in London, 
 hard at work producing essays, translations, and biographies arising 
 mainly from his German studies ; but it was not till more than ten 
 years later that the first really characteristic Carlyle work appeared 
 in the shape of Sartor Jiesar/us, a critical-satirical fantasia upon 
 things-in-general, presented gravely as a philosophy of clothes. In 
 steady succession came other books that we specially associate with 
 his name — the French Revolution (1837), Heroes and Hero- Worship 
 (1841), and a series of brilliant attacks on the greed and materialism 
 of the age in Chartism (1839), Fast and Fresent (1843), and 
 Latter-day Famphlets (1850). CVowwt-// appeared in 1845, and his 
 longest work, Frederick the Great, between 1858 and 1865. He 
 died at Chelsea in 1881. His long life linked the Georgian to the 
 Victorian era, and his vivid, caustic, and often unkind Reminiscences 
 of men like Lamb and Coleridge, published after his death, were 
 specially interesting to a generation that knew those famous writers 
 only in print. 
 
 Even in an age of intellectual giants, Carlyle was a remarkable 
 and outstanding figure. He had the personal greatness that im- 
 presses national feeling and influences national conduct. Like a
 
 NOTES 177 
 
 nineteenth-century Elijah, he was fiercely honest, violently sincere, 
 and unquenchably zealous in denouncing social sin and demanding 
 social repentance. But that is not all. In literature, too, Carlyle 
 takes a very high place as an historian and moralist expressing 
 himself in the most vivid of styles. Scarcely anyone has equalled 
 him in painting a character or in focussing the tendencies of an age. 
 But the very strength of his individuality makes much of his work 
 unsuitable for school-reading : the young student is likely to imitate 
 the vices and not the merits of his fiery and thunderous style ; and 
 so Carlyle is represented here by one of his early essays, a quiet 
 piece, in which, however, something of his characteristic eloquence 
 is discernible. 
 
 p. 1, 1. 1. Clio. Over the arts and sciences known to the 
 Greeks — over History, Poetry,Tragedy,Comedy, Dancing, Astronomy, 
 etc. — presided nine goddesses called Muses, who inspired the chosen 
 bard or artist in his labours. The Muses were the daughters of 
 Zeus and Mnemosyne (or Memory) and the first of them was Clio, 
 the Muse of History. 
 
 p. 1, 1. 13. The Sibylline Books. See note on p. 192. 
 
 p. 1, 1. 18. Quipo-tlireads. In ancient Peru records were kept 
 and messages transmitted by a system of knots in cords of various 
 colours. Wampum is the name given by American Indians to strings 
 of beads or shells. The point of the whole passage is that there is 
 scarcely any nation so barbarous as to be unwilling to record, in 
 some way, its deeds of bravery. Thus even the Indian's scalps are 
 recorded history, of a kind. 
 
 p. 1, 1. 24. He would fain \mite himself, etc. The thought is 
 that of certain stanzas in Gray's Elegy; notably this : 
 For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
 This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned. 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day. 
 Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? 
 p. 2, 1. 37. Hume or Robertson, etc. David Hume (171 1 — 1776) 
 was a famous historian and philosopher. His History of England, 
 begun in 1754, and left unfinished, was continued by another famous 
 writer, Smollett. Hume's philosophical writings are now esteemed 
 above his history. William Robertson (1721 — 1793) was a Scottish 
 divine who wrote a history of Scotland, a history of the reign of 
 Charles V, and a history of .\merica. Much admired in his own day, 
 Robertson is not greatly read in this. For Herodotus, see p. 213. 
 Jean Froissart (1333 — 1419) was born in P'landers and became an 
 official at the court of Edward IH. He wrote a long Chronicle of 
 the part of the Hundred Years' War that fell within his knowledge 
 and experience. The point of the ]>assage depends upon the fact 
 thai Hume and Robertson wrote formal and elaborate histories, 
 while Herodotus and Froissart wrote in a chatty, anecdotal 
 fa.shion. 
 
 S. 12
 
 178 NOTES 
 
 p. 3, 1. 11. Philosophy teaching by Experience. This is Carlyle's 
 variation of a passage occurring in the Letters on the Study and 
 Use of History by Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, the famous 
 Tory statesman of Queen Anne's reign. 'I have read' (he writes) 
 'somewhere or other, ^in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think — that 
 History is Philosophy teaching by examples.' For the present 
 purpose it is not necessary to trace the quotation to any remoter 
 source. 
 
 p. 3, 1. 18. Marlborough. John Churchill, Duke of Marl- 
 borough (1650 — 1722), the famous politician and soldier, victor at 
 Blenheim, Kami] lies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. 
 
 p. 3, 1. 31. Which questions, etc. The sentence is a little 
 tangled. The old monks who wrote history were quite ready, in 
 the simplicity of their faith, to settle such fundamental matters as 
 the final aim and object of the stream of human life and events that 
 they depicted. The modern philosophic historian does not even 
 attempt to face these difficulties. 
 
 p. 4, 1. 30. He who first led, etc. Hannibal (247 — 183 B.C.), 
 the greatest of Carthaginian soldiers, hero of many stiuggles in the 
 long contiict between the mighty Mediterranean powers of Carthage 
 and Rome. In spile of dreadful obstacles he crossed the Alps from 
 southern Gaul into Italy — most probably by the Little St Bernard 
 Pass — and inflicted two crushing defeats on the Romans, one at 
 Lake Trasimene (217) and another at CanncE (216). 
 
 p. 4, 1. 39. Marathons and Morgartens. Marathon is the 
 name of a village twenty-six miles from Athens, the scene of a 
 decisive victory of the Greeks over the invading Persians (490 B.C.). 
 The news of the triumph was brought to Athens by the great runner 
 Pheidippides, who reached the city in an hour, cried ' Rejoice, we 
 conquer !'— and fell dead. The battle of Morgarten (1315), at 
 which the Duke Leopold of Austria was defeated by the Swiss, was 
 the first important step in the establishment of Swiss independence. 
 
 p. 5, 1. 6. Dracos and Hampdens. Dracon (or Draco) was 
 the compiler of the first code of laws in Athens about 621 B.C. 
 The severity of his system, which punished almost every offence 
 by death, gave rise to the word Draconian, meaning excessively 
 rigorous. John Hampden (1^94 — 1643) took a leading share in 
 the controversies of Charles I's reign, and, by his protest against 
 Ship Money, did much to make impossible the levying of taxes by 
 royal prerogative. The point of the passage is that we of to-day 
 really owe more to the nameless artists, thinkers and craftsmen of 
 all ages and countries, than to the few great patriots and law-makers 
 whose names are preserved in history. 
 
 p. 5, 1. 27. The old story of Sir Walter Raleigh. I cannot 
 trace this story further back than the Letters of Literature (1785), 
 written by the Scottish antiquary Johii Pinkerton under the pen- 
 name of Robert Heron. In that version, however, there is only
 
 NOTES 179 
 
 one witness, not three. As, proverbially, a tale never loses in the 
 telling, the other witnesses may liave crept in during the half-century 
 of repetition between Heron's Letters and Carlyle's essay. This is 
 the story as told in Letter 31 : 'Sir Walter Ralegh, when confined 
 in the Tower, had prepared the second volume of his immortal 
 History for the press. He was standing at the window of his 
 apartment, ruminating on the office of an historian, and on the 
 sacred regard which he ought to pay to the truth, when of a sudden, 
 his attention was excited by an uproar in the court into which his 
 prospect was directed. He saw one man strike another, whom by 
 his dress he judged an officer, and who, drawing his sword, ran the 
 assailant through the body ; who did not however fall till he had 
 knocked down the officer with his fist. The officer was instantly 
 seized, while lying senseless, and carried away by the servants of 
 justice ; while at the same time the body of the man he had murdered 
 was borne off by some persons, apparently his friends, who, with 
 great difficulty pierced through the vast crowd that was now gathered 
 round. Next day an acquaintance of Sir Walter called on him ; a 
 man, of whose severe probity and honour, Sir Walter was convinced 
 from innumerable proofs, and rated his friendship accordingly. 
 Ralegh, after their first compliments, told the story of yesterday's 
 fray ; which had impressed him deeply, as being a spectator of the 
 whole affair. What was his surprise, when his friend told him that 
 he was perfectly mistaken in his whole story ! That his officer was 
 no officer, but a servant of a foreign ambassador ; that this apparent 
 officer gave the first blow : that he did not draw his sword, but the 
 other drew it, and it was wrested out of his hands, but not till after 
 he had run its owner through the body with it : that after this, a 
 foreigner in the mob knocked the murderer down, in order that he 
 should not escape : that some foreigners had carried off the servant's 
 body : and that orders had arrived from court for the murderer to 
 be tried instantly, and no favour shewn, as the person murdered 
 was one of the principal attendants of the Spanish ambassador. 
 "Sir," says Ralegh, "allow me to say that, though I may be 
 mistaken as to the officership of the murderer, yet I know of a 
 certainty, that all my other circumstances are strictly true ; because 
 I was a spectator of the whole transaction, which passed on that 
 very spot opposite, where you see a stone of the pavement a little 
 raised above the rest." "Sir Walter," says the friend, "upon that 
 very stone did I stand during the whole affiiir, and received this 
 little scratch in my cheek, in wresting the sword out of the fellow's 
 hand: and as I shall answer to God, you are totally mistaken." 
 " You grow warm, my friend, let us talk of other matters," said 
 Sir Walter ; and after some conversation his friend departed. 
 
 ' Ralegh took up the manuscript of the second volume of his 
 history, then just completed; "How many falsehoods are here?" 
 said he. "If I cannot judge of the truth of an event that passes 
 under my eyes, how shall I truly narrate those which have passed 
 tliousands of years before my birth ; or even those that happened
 
 180 NOTES 
 
 since my existence? Truth, I sacritice to thee!'' The fire was 
 already feeding on his invaluable work, the labour of years: and he 
 calmly sat till it was utterly consumed, and the sable ghost of the 
 last leaf flitted up the chimney.' 
 
 p. 6, 1. 4. Crossing of the Rubicon. The Rubicon, a tiny 
 stream near Rimini, formed part of the boundary between Cisalpine 
 Gaul and Italia proper. Cisalpine Gaul was part of the great 
 province governed by Csesar ; and when, in 53 B.C., as the result of 
 Pompey's intrigues, Cssar was ordered by the senate of Rome to 
 disband his forces and resign his power, the great leader, instead of 
 obeying, crossed the Rubicon with his army, and thus became the 
 invader of his own country. After this momentous step, only two 
 courses were possible : either Rome must crush and destroy Caesar, 
 or Coesar must subdue and govern Rome. As we know, Coesar 
 triumphed, and became master of Italy and of the world. The 
 phrase ' To cross the Rubicon ' has become proverbial for taking 
 any momentous, irrevocable step. 
 
 p. 6, 1. 5. Impeachment of Strafford. Thomas Wentworth, 
 Earl of Strafford (1593 — 1641), the most able and masterful of 
 Charles I's advisers, believed in the efficacy of vigorous personal 
 government by the sovereign. Thus he was the greatest obstacle in 
 the way of the constitutional parliamentary party headed by Pym, 
 and his removal was absolutely necessary to the success of the 
 struggle against royal tyranny. Strafford was impeached by the 
 Long Parliament in 1641, and, when the impeachment was altered 
 to a ' bill of attainder ' to which the royal assent was necessary, 
 Charles meanly abandoned his faithful servant, and Strafford was 
 beheaded. 
 
 p. 6, 1. 5. Convocation of the Notables. The accession of 
 Louis XVI in 1774 found France in a dreadful condition, — the 
 populace degraded and brutalized by poverty and crushing exactions, 
 and the government itself bankrupt, and unable either to decrease 
 its expenses or increase its revenue. Many expedients were tried, and, 
 at last, one minister, Calonne, decided to summon a council of the 
 nobles — the nobles being the greatest obstacle in the way of reform. 
 This Convocation of the Notables met on February 22, 1787, and 
 apparently did nothing ; but one suggestion — made by Lafayette — 
 was adopted, namely a summoning of the States-General, the great 
 French representative assembly, that had not met since 1614. 
 From this time change after change was proposed and made, until 
 in 1789 came the greatest change of all, the visible outbreak of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 The essence of Carlyle's meaning is that each of the events 
 described in the last three notes was a turning-point in the world's 
 history, though not recognised as such at the time. 
 
 p. 8, 1. 7. Palimpsest. Parchment being a stout and ex- 
 pensive writing material, old manuscripts were sometimes used 
 again after the original script had been scraped out or partly
 
 NOTES 181 
 
 obliterated. Such a re-written parchment was called a palimpsest. 
 It sometimes happened that, to discerning eyes, the scraped-out 
 original writing disclosed some gem of thought or fragment of 
 immortal verse otherwise unknown. That is the idea in the text. 
 
 p. 8, 1. 32. Aries and Libra. Two constellations at opposite 
 points of the celestial horizon — the first and seventh of the twelve 
 ' Signs of the Zodiac ' marking the apparent path of the sun during 
 the course of the year. 
 
 p. 9, 1. 13. Enthusiasm. This word was formerly used in a 
 derogatory sense, and signilied fanaticism, or wrong-headed zeal for 
 some absurd belief. 
 
 p. 10, 1. 7. Famous victory. An obvious reference to Southey's 
 familiar lines After Blenheim. 
 
 p. 10, 1. 14. Spigot. The tap which was inserted in the bung- 
 hole of a cask to draw off its contents. ' Oh base Hungarian 
 wight! Wilt thou the spigot wield?' asks Pistol of Bardolph 
 (turned tapster) in the Merry Wives. 
 
 p. 10, 1. 23. Catholic. Not, of course, Catholic (with a capital), 
 but catholic or universal as opposed to sectarian or local. 
 
 p. 11, 1. 23. Ecumenic Council-halls. In the early centuries 
 of the Christian Church false beliefs arose and it was necessary for 
 the Church to arrive at a collective decision about the disputed 
 points. For this purpose representative councils of the whole 
 Church were summoned — such councils being Universal or Oecu- 
 menical Councils. 
 
 p. 12, 1. 23. Bruckers and Buhles. Johann Jakob Brucker of 
 Augsburg (1696 — 1770) wrote a lengthy Critical History of Philo- 
 sophy. Johann Gottlieb Bi'ihle of Brunswick (1763 — 182 1) wrote 
 elaborate treatises on the history of philosophy. 
 
 p. 12, 1. 24. Enfields. William Enfield (1741 — 1797), a dis- 
 senting minister, author of many theological works, compiler of 
 the popular Speaker, a literary anthology chosen for elocutionary 
 purposes. He adapted into English (1791) Brucker's Ci-itical 
 History of Philosophy mentioned above. 
 
 p. 13, 1. 12. Eichhorns and Wartons. Johann Gottfried 
 Eichhorn (1752 — 1827), German theologian and historian, author 
 of many theological works, and also of a History of Literature 
 from the Origijis to the Present Day, and a History of Intellectual 
 Culture and Modern Literature. Thomas Warton (1728 — 1790), 
 fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry, and Poet 
 Laureate. His works were many, but his chief title to fame is the 
 History of English Poetry — still deservedly reprinted and read. 
 
 p. 13, 1. 19. Montesquieu and Hallam. Montesquieu (1689 — 
 1755), French noble, scientist, and philosopher, whose famous 
 constitutional treatise The Spirit of Laws (1748) attacked the 
 current despotism in France, and was one of the liidden forces that
 
 182 NOTES 
 
 helped to bring about the Revohition. Henry Hallam (1777 — 1859)) 
 a famous English historian, wrote a Fze7i> of the State of Europe in 
 the Middle Ages, an Ijitroductio7i to the Literature of Europe during 
 the if,th, 16th and i^th Centuries, and a Constitutional History of 
 England, to which Carlyle especially alludes. 
 
 p. 13, 1. 24. Goguets and Beckmanns. Antoine Ives Goguet 
 (1716 — 1758), a learned French historian and lawyer, wrote a 
 great treatise on the Origin of Laws, Arts and Sciences. Johann 
 Beckmann (1739 — 181 1), a German scientist, wrote an elaborate 
 history of discoveries and inventions. 
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY: 
 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 
 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 — 1859) was born at Rothley 
 Temple, Leicestershire, son of Zachary Macaulay, one of the leaders 
 of the movement for the abolition of slavery. He was educated at 
 a private school, and proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 
 18 1 8. He was a brilliant student and debater, and was irresistibly 
 attracted to literature. His first really striking piece of work was 
 the essay on Milton contributed to the Edinburgh Revieiv in 1825, 
 the beginning of a long and remarkable connection with that once 
 famous periodical. He entered Parliament in 1830 as a Whig, 
 strongly supported the Reform Bill, and became, in 1834, adviser to 
 the Supreme Council of India. After his return to England in 
 1838 he began the famous History of England which gained, as 
 it deserved, a wide popularity ; for it was most brilliantly written, 
 and it made known a significant period of our history that had 
 hitherto been but slightly regarded. He was made a peer in 1857 
 and died in London two years later. His biography by his nephew, 
 Sir G. O. Trevelyan, is a most delightful volume. 
 
 Macaulay has often been accused of unfairness. It is true that 
 he was a sturdy Whig and wrote frankly from that standpoint ; but 
 then most people have views of their own and write more or less 
 frankly from their own standpoints. The greater a man is, the more 
 likely he is to assert strongly the beliefs that he holds strongly. In 
 that case, the unfairness of a known bias can always be discounted. 
 But Macaulay's desire to be clear and downright in style, to paint 
 incidents vividly, and to sketch characters incisively sometimes made 
 him unfair in another way. He exaggerated. However, there is 
 no denying his clearness, his vigour, or his vividness. His thought 
 cannot be called noble or his views elevated ; but his command of 
 his matter is superb and his presentment of it masterly. He had 
 something to say — not very subtle, not very deep, but extremely in- 
 teresting ; and he said it clearly and distinctly. There are many
 
 NOTES 183 
 
 greater writers than Macaulay ; there are few more readable. Two 
 special qualities of his style may be noticed : his concreteness and 
 his allusiveness. Thus, he does not say: ' The Catholic Church was 
 great and respected in the darkest ages of modern history — before 
 the sixth century, before the fifth, even before the fourth' ; but in his 
 peculiarly concrete, allusive way he writes : ' vShe was great and re- 
 spected before the Saxon had set foot in Britain, before the Frank had 
 passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, 
 when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca.' Observe 
 the difference : in the one case, the past is merely recorded ; in the 
 other it is peopled. Of his general allusiveness (one result of his 
 marvellous memory) no more need be said than this, that the 
 present essay has required far more annotation than any other in 
 the volume. 
 
 On the whole it is a specially characteristic production of the 
 writer's, showing both his strength and his weakness. In matter it 
 is admirable, in thought rather trivial. It makes a most stimulating 
 summary of many centuries of history. It is well planned, and 
 interesting throughout. Further, its point of view is European 
 rather than merely British, and it should leave the reader with a 
 keen desire to widen the boundaries of his historical reading. 
 However, it is certainly not very deep, and its excursions into 
 philosophical argument are not very valuable. Affairs of the spirit 
 were not Macaulay's strong point ; but, on the other hand, it is 
 certain that his weakness in spiritual insight is scarcely likely to 
 trouble the young student. This, at least, is worthy of notice. 
 Macaulay was a strong Protestant, and wrote with a distinct 
 religious bias against the Roman Church ; yet he pays to Catholicism 
 a tribute that is at once noble, generous and sincere. English 
 people often forget that Catholicism means medieval Europe and 
 much of modern Europe: they sometimes think it is merely one 
 among the many sects with places of worship in England. 
 Catholicism is not only a religious fact : it is also an historical fact. 
 Many writers of history have confused the two — Macaulay among 
 them ; but not here. Here, on religious grounds, he is the uncom- 
 promising enemy of the Papal system; but, writing as an historian, 
 he reverences its virtues even when denouncing its crimes. 
 
 p. 15, 1. 3. Professor Eanke. Leopold von Ranke (1795 — 
 1886) the author of the book upon which Macaulay founded his 
 essay, was a German historian of enormous industry and output. 
 His works include histories of France, of England, of Prussia, and 
 of several southern European states, and are remarkable for their 
 accuracy and statesmanlike breadth of view. The His/ory of the 
 Popes was first published in 1834, and was revised by Ranke as 
 recently as 1885. 
 
 p. 16, 1. 5. Dishonest Frencli version. A translation of 
 Ranke's work by J. llaii)er. edited with an introduction by A. de 
 Saint-Cheron, appeared in Paris in 1836. The introduction speaks 
 with pious approval of the Protestant Ranke's impartiality; but the
 
 184 NOTES 
 
 actual text, with equal piety, and without acknowledgment, is 
 carefully sub-edited in the interests of Catholicism. Ranke was 
 very angry at this dishonesty and appreciated the more Mrs Austin's 
 accurate version. 
 
 p. 15, 1. 15. The accomplished lady. Sarah Taylor (1793 — 
 1867), a clever writer on education, and a careful translator of 
 several famous French and German books. She married, in 1820, 
 John Austin, the author of a famous treatise on jurisprudence. 
 
 p. 16, 1. 4. Two great ages of civilization. That is, it is a 
 link between Roman and modern civilisation. The Pantheon, 
 founded by Agrippa 27 B.C., and dedicated by Pope Boniface IV 
 to Christian worship in 609 under the name of Santa Maria Rotonda, 
 is the only Roman building of classical times still in a state of 
 complete preservation. The building originally contained statues 
 of certain of the gods, but the purpose of the founder is unknown. 
 The name Pantheon was taken to signify a place or abode of all the 
 gods ; but a sounder derivation is from Panihcitm, meaning a most 
 sacred place. The Flavian amphitheatre, better known to modern 
 readers as the Colosseum or Coliseum, was founded by Vespasian 
 and consecrated by Titus, a.d. 80. These emperors belonged to 
 the Flavian family, hence the name. 
 
 p. 16, 1. 13. Pepin. Pepin, son of Charles Martel and father 
 of Charlemagne, became king of the Franks in 751, and was 
 crowned by Pope Stephen II. Napoleon was crowned by Pope 
 Pius VII. 
 
 p. 16, 1. 15. The republic of Venice. The Republic of Venice 
 grew out of settlements made at the head of the Adriatic after the 
 invasion of Italy by Attila in 451 a.d. It was extinguished by 
 Napoleon (see Wordsworth's famous sonnet), its territories being 
 divided between France and Austria by the Treaty of Campo 
 Formio (1797). 
 
 p. 16, 1. 25. Confronted Attila. For the embassy of Pope Leo 
 the Great to Attila, when 'the pressing eloquence of Leo, his 
 majestic aspect, and sacerdotal robes excited the veneration of 
 Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians,' see Gibbon's 
 Decline and Fall, chap. 35. 
 
 p. 16, 1. 25. The number of her children. A recent contro- 
 versial book (McCabe, llie Decay of the Chinrh of Rovie, 1909) 
 endeavours to prove that the Roman Church has lost many millions 
 of its adherents during the last century; but even if the writer's 
 figures be correct, the force of Macaulay's argument remains un- 
 impaired, for these losses to Rome have not been gains to the 
 Protestant Churches. 
 
 p. ;17, 1. 3. Before the Saxon, etc. The first English settle- 
 ments in Britain were made during the fifth century. The Franks 
 crossed the Rhine under Clovis and established themselves in Gaul 
 at the end of the fifth century, though there was an earlier crossing
 
 NOTES 185 
 
 {360) when Julian was Cassar in the west. Greek eloquence was at 
 its height in Antioch when that cit>- was Julian's capital. Paganism 
 flourished in Mecca before the rise of Mahomet at the end of the 
 sixth century. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 3. The inductive sciences. The inductive sciences 
 are those in which laws are discovered after the consideration of 
 many facts. Such laws are thus always subject to modification in 
 the light of fresh facts. The natural sciences — physics, biology, etc. 
 — are examples of inductive sciences. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 10. Taylor's theorem. Brook Taylor (1685 — 1731) 
 was an eminent Cambridge mathematician. His theorem is one of 
 the established general rules in higher mathematics. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 11. Harvey's doctrine. William Harvey (1578 — 
 1657), the famous physician who first enunciated the theory of the 
 circulation of the blood, in a treatise published in 1628. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 14. Natural religion. Natural religion, the evidences 
 of a Deity in the works of nature ; the correlative of revealed 
 religion, which is recorded in the Bible or preserved by the Church. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 17. Ttales or Simonides. Thales, earliest of Greek 
 natural philosophers, flourished about the sixth century B.C. He is 
 said to have foretold an eclipse of the sun, and to have taught that 
 water is the elemental principle of all things. Simonides : There 
 are two Greek writers of this name, (i) Simonides of Amorgos, 
 a satirical reflective poet, who flourished in the seventh century B.C., 
 and (2) Simonides of Ceos, a famous lyric poet, who flourished 
 during the sixth century B.C. But neither can be called a philosopher 
 in the same sense as Thales. 
 
 p. 18, I. 24. The reasoning by which Socrates, etc. This 
 incident is related in the fourth chapter of Xenophon's Memorabilia 
 of Socrates (pp. 24 — 26, ' Everyman ' edition). The argument is 
 too long to quote. Its substance is that since Aristodemus admires 
 the genius of Polycletus in statuary and of Zeuxis in painting, he 
 ought surely to admire still more the power that could frame, not 
 copies, but original living creatures. Further, the endowing of 
 these living creatures with numerous organs, each with a special 
 function, is sure evidence in favour of design in creation and against 
 blind chance. The first two chapters of Paley's Natural Tlicolot^y 
 (published in 1802) point out that a watch is an elaborate piece 
 of work containing many parts each with a special purpose ; next, 
 that such a work could never occur by mere chance but must be 
 expressly framed by some skilful craftsman ; and further, that the 
 vast, incalculable realm of nature, far outsoaring in wonder and 
 complexity any, even the most elaborate, of man's works, could 
 never have occurred by mere chance or blind law, but must have 
 been brought into being by some almighty creator. Macaulay's 
 point is that since Paley can find no better argument than the one 
 used more than two thousand years earlier by Socrates, it is highly
 
 186 NOTES 
 
 improbable that any better argument ever will he found. That is, 
 theology is not an inductive, or progressive science. 
 
 p. 18, 1. 40. Franklin. Benjamin Franklin (1706 — 1790), the 
 famous American printer, journalist, politician and natural philo- 
 sopher, who played a great part in the quarrel between England 
 and the American colonies, especially in negotiating the alliance 
 between the colonies and Prance ; he demonstrated the identity of 
 lightning and electricity, and suggested the use of lightning- 
 conductors. 
 
 p. 19, 1. 5. Locke or Clarke. John Locke (1632 — 1704), the 
 famous English philosopher, author of the Essay concerning Human 
 Understanding, Thoughts on Education, etc. Samuel Clarke 
 (1675 — 1729), the well-known English theologian and philosopher; 
 chief work. Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of 
 God. 
 
 p. 19, 1. 15. Zadig. Voltaire (1694 — 1778), the great French 
 poet, historian, and philosopher. Flis Zadig (1747) is a satirical 
 and very amusing Eastern romance. The praise given to Zadig is 
 that ' he knew as much as any one has known in any age, that is to 
 say — next to nothing.' 
 
 p. 19, 1. 18. Ionia. Part of Asiatic Greece. Its more or less 
 mythical colonisation took place about 1300 — 1000 B.C. The belief 
 that the bonk of Job belongs to pre- Mosaic times is now quite 
 abandoned. Parts of the book are older than others and much of it 
 belongs probably to the seventh century B.C. 
 
 p. 19, 1. 23. Eliphaz and Zophar. These are two of the 
 friends who argue with Job about the meaning and purpose of his 
 afflictions. Job was an ' Idumean Emir,' that is, a chief dwelling 
 in Idumea, the region on the edge of the Syrian desert, north of 
 Arabia. 
 
 p. 20, 1. 12. Ptolemy. The Alexandrian astronomer who 
 flourished during the second century of the Christian era. His 
 famous doctrine that the earth is the centre of the universe round 
 which the heavenly bodies revolve was generally believed till it was 
 opposed by the doctrine of Copernicus, the Polish astronomer 
 (1473 — 1543), that the sun is the centre of the universe. 
 
 p. 20, 1. 14. Galileo. The Copernican theory was supported 
 by the famous Italian philosopher Galileo (1564 — 1642), who 
 endured great persecution at the hands of the ecclesiastical authori- 
 ties because his view that the sun stood still and the earth moved 
 was held to be contrary to religion. The universe of Milton's 
 Paradise Lost follows the Ptolemaic view, and there is a curious 
 discussion between Adam and Raphael in Bk viii as to whether 
 that or the newer Copernican theory is the true one. 
 
 p. 20, 1. 20. Sir Thomas More. Sir Thomas More, the famous 
 lawyer, was born in 1478, and succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor 
 in 1529. He was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to take an oath
 
 NOTES 187 
 
 affirming that King Henry VIII was Supreme Head of the Church 
 in England. 
 
 p. 20, 1. 38. Tlie prophecies of Brothers. Richard Brothers, 
 born 1757 in Newfoundland, was a religious fanatic who, in 1793, 
 declared that he was Prince of the Hebrews, and appointed to lead 
 the Jews back to the Promised Land. In the next year he published 
 A Revealed Knoivlcdge of the Prophecies and Times, and foretold 
 that George III would shortly die. He spent many years in an 
 asylum and died in 1824. 
 
 p. 20, 1. 38. The miracles of Prince Hohenlohe. Prince 
 Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfiirst (1794 — 1849), the Hungarian 
 noble who entered the Church and became a member of a religious 
 order, is interesting to modern readers mainly on account of his 
 miracles of healing. He operated solely by prayer, and refused 
 help to none who asked. He even told his patients the very hour 
 when their disease would leave them. His method was thus what 
 we should call 'faith-healing,' and anticipated the modern legiti- 
 mate treatment of certain cases by mental suggestion, and the more 
 doubtful procedure of Christian Scientists and Peculiar People. 
 
 p. 21, 1. 17. Pascal. Blaise Pascal (1623 — 1662), theologian, 
 man of science, and man of letters — one of the greatest of French- 
 men. He became a Port Royalist (see note, p. 199) and defended 
 the Jansenist Arnauld in a series of superbly ironical Provincial 
 Letters against the Jesuits. Still more famous are his Pens^es, a 
 number of detached thoughts ' on man and fate and all existence.' 
 It is in the first-named work that he makes the judgment to which 
 Macaulay refers. 
 
 p. 21, 1. 29. Bayle and Chillingworth. Pierre Bayle, a French 
 philosopher, was born in 1647 and died in 1706. He was a Catholic 
 for a very short lime, and his later works were held to have a 
 sceptical tendency. William Chillingworth (1602 — -1643), an English 
 theologian who became a Catholic. When asked to write an account 
 of his conversion, he examined the question so carefully that he was 
 re-converted to a Protestant belief. 
 
 p. 21, 1. 33. Ossian. Ossian is the name of the ancient Gaelic 
 bard to whom James Macpherson (1736 — 1796) attributed certain 
 Celtic epics collected and translated by himself. Great controversy 
 was aroused by the poems, and there is no doubt that much of the 
 alleged Ossianic verse was written by Macpherson. Macpherson 
 took Johnson's searching criticism in very jjad part, and threatened 
 violence. For the famous letter in which Johnson replied to 
 Macpherson's threat, see Boswell's Life. That he was willing to 
 believe in second sight appears mainly in the [oiirney to the Western 
 Islands 0/ Scotland, and also in at least three passages of Boswell. 
 
 p. 21, 1. 36. The Cock Lane Ghost. During the year 1762 
 mysterious knock ings were heard in a house in Cock Lane, Stock- 
 well, now a London suburb. Parsons, the owner of the house,
 
 188 NOTES 
 
 averred that the noises were caused by the ghost of a murdered 
 woman knocking on her coffin. The affair caused much sensation, 
 until it was found that the rappings were caused by Parsons' 
 daughter knocking on a board concealed in her bed. It is too 
 much to say that Johnson was ' willing to believe ' in this story. 
 He was certainly willing to see if there were any truth in the affair, 
 and, in fact, he helped to expose it. The earthquake of Lisbon 
 took place in December, 1755. It is hardly correct to say that 
 Johnson disbelieved in this event. An article of his in the Literary 
 Magazine suggests that current reports to the effect that ' Lisbon is 
 no more ' were no doubt wild exaggerations. 
 
 p. 21, 1. 38. We have seen, etc. The 'prophesying, interpreting, 
 talking unknown tongues ' refer to events in the sensational ministry 
 of Edward Irving (1792 — 1834). He preached at the Scottish 
 Church in Hatton Garden, London, on the second coming of Christ, 
 carried his sensational prophecies further at the church in Regent's 
 Square, and was finally deposed for heretical opinions. His influence 
 over his followers was enormous, and they formed a new body called 
 the Catholic Apostolic Church — the chief seat of their worship being 
 situate in Gordon Square- The ' miraculous cures ' are those of 
 Prince Hohenlohe before referred to. The ' messages from God ' 
 were those of Brothers (see p. 187), who wrote in 1792 to the King 
 and the Government that God had ordered him to make known to 
 the House of Commons that now was the time when the Fifth 
 Monarchy — that of the Saints — was at hand. Another 'divine' 
 messenger to the House was Drummond, a follower of Irving. 
 
 p. 22, 1. 6. An old woman. The ' prophetess ' referred to is 
 Joanna Southcott, born about 1750. She appropriated to herself 
 the Biblical description : ' a woman clothed with the sun, and the 
 moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars' 
 (Rev. xii. i). She published several prophetic books, and, later, 
 announced that she was about to give birth to the Child described 
 in Rev. xii. 5. Her numerous followers devoutly believed in her, 
 and their belief long survived her death in 18 14. 
 
 p. 22, 1. 21. Bleibt stets, etc. From the ' Prologue in Heaven,' 
 introductory to Faust. Mephistopheles, the scoffing fiend, says : 
 
 [Man] sticks to the same old way, 
 And is as whimsical as on Creation's day. 
 
 p. 23, 1. 1. Beautiful language of Oc. In medieval times 
 the word for ' yes ' was ' oil ' in northern France and ' oc ' in 
 southern. Thus Provence was part of the ' oc ' region. A province 
 of France was actually named ' Languedoc,' that is, ' the land of 
 the language of oc' 
 
 p. 24, 1. 9. The Paulician theology. The Paulicians were 
 an eastern sect who arose about the middle of the seventh century. 
 They paid special reverence to the apostle Paul and his writings, 
 and laid stress on the doctrine that it is by faith and not by works
 
 NOTES 189 
 
 that a man is justified in the eyes of God. This doctrine of 
 'justification by faith' was strongly held by all the Protestant 
 Reformers, among whom one of the greatest was John Calvin 
 (1509— 1564). 
 
 p. 24, 1. 12. The Manicliees. The disciples of a certain Mani 
 who flourished in the third century. He taught that all things 
 sprang from two opposing forces of light and darkness, good and 
 evil. 
 
 p. 25, 1. 4. The gay science. The art of the troubadours, 
 i.e., love-poetry. 
 
 p. 25, 1. 11. The Albigensian heresy. The Paulician-Manichaean 
 belief described above. The people were named Albigenses from 
 the town of Alby, N.E. of Toulouse. The father of Simon de 
 Montfort was one of the leaders in the war against the Albigenses 
 (1208). 
 
 p. 25, 1. 19. This period. Ihe thirteenth century. Francis of 
 Assisi (1182 — 1226) is the lovable saint who founded the Franciscan 
 order of friars, a body of men whose unwearied personal service 
 among the poor and outcast resembles that of the modern Salvation 
 Army. Dominic (11 70 — 1221), a native of Castile, founded the 
 preaching order of friars named after him. The Franciscans were 
 called 'Grey Friars,' and the Dominicans 'Black Friars' from the 
 colour of their gowns. The Inquisition (as such) was established in 
 the thirteenth century, though its more familiar activities came later. 
 
 p. 25, 1. 36. Frederic II (i 194— 1250). Grandson of ' Barba- 
 rossa' (P^ederick I). 
 
 p. 26, 1. 2. Manfred (1232 — 1266). King of Sicily, son of 
 Frederick II, slain at the battle of Benevento against the French. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 3. Conradin (1252 — 1268), nephew of Manfred, led 
 the Sicilians and Neapolitans against the French, but was defeated 
 and captured at Tagliacozzo, and executed by the direction of Pope 
 Clement \l. 
 
 \>. 26, 1. 16. The fiercest of the Roman Pontiffs. Boniface VIII, 
 seized by Philip at Anagni in 1303. He died later in the same 
 year. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 20. The great Florentine. Dante. See Fttr^. Canto 
 XX, 11. 85 — 90 (Gary's version). Many of the actors and incidents 
 in the struggle between the Empire and the Papacy are of course 
 referred to in Dante's great poem. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 25. Beyond the Alps. To Avignon. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 26. The great schism. 1378 to 1417. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 27. Two Popes. Urban VI and Clement VII. 
 
 p. 26, 1. 38. John Wycliffe. (1325 ?— 1384.) First of the 
 great English reformers, and zealous opponent of Papal power in
 
 X 
 
 190 NOTES 
 
 England. His views, spread by a band of itinerant preachers, 
 became immensely popular, and gained him many followers (called 
 Lollards) whose influence persisted in spite of burnings and tortur- 
 ings, and prepared the way for the Reformation. His tracts 
 written in homely English to reach the less learned of readers make 
 him the father of English prose— just as his contemporary Chaucer 
 is the father of English poetry. 
 
 p. 27, 1. 2. Bohemia. John Hus (1369 — 1415) was a Bohemian 
 disciple of Wyclifi'e. He was persecuted for many years and 
 finally burnt. Jerome of Prague was another Wycliffite, and, like 
 his friend Hus, perished at the stake (1416). 
 
 p. 27, 1. 13. The Council of Constance. 1414 to 1417. 
 
 p. 27, 1. 18. The most distinguished teachers, etc. Hus and 
 Jerome. 
 
 p. 27, 1. 31. The invention of printing. This art was invented 
 (or revived, or developed) about 1450. The honour of being the 
 sole and original inventor has been claimed, by various enthusiasts, 
 for Fust, Gutenberg, Schoffer, Coster, and several others. 
 
 p. 27, 1. 37. The preaching of Luther against Indulgences. 
 
 Sin, according to the Catholic view, incurs two kinds of punishment 
 • — that here, and that hereafter. I'he present or temporal punish- 
 ment is remitted by prayer, alms, fasting, etc., or by Indulgences 
 granted by the Church for certain considerations. The sale of 
 Indulgences became a great scandal in pre-Reformation times, and 
 was attacked by many notable men, especially the German monk, 
 Martin Luther, who began a campaign against the practice in 151 7 
 by drawing out a series of arguments against Indulgences and 
 nailing them to the door of the church at Wittenberg. 
 
 p. 27, 1. 40. The treaty of Westphalia. The treaty which 
 ended the Thirty Years' War, 1648. 
 
 p. 28, 1. 18. The Roman Camera. The Papal Court. 
 
 p. 28, 1. 30. The bull of Leo. Luther's campaign against 
 Indulgences developed between 1517 and 1520 into a vigorous 
 attack on all the abuses of the Church. In the latter year Leo X 
 condemned the teachings of Luther in a bull which the bold 
 reformer publicly scorned by burning it before a great crowd of the 
 Wittenberg doctors, students, and citizens. 
 
 p. 29, 1. 27. Trajan and Pliny. Trajan (98 — 117), a great 
 Roman emperor, who persecuted Christianity, not because he was 
 enthusiastic about Paganism, but because the new religion seemed 
 a dangerous departure from the useful old religion of the state. 
 Pliny the Younger (62 — 114), a Roman author, wrote an account of 
 the eruption that destroyed Pompeii, and an elaborate eulogy of 
 the emperor Trajan ; but he holds an abiding place in literature by 
 right of his many Lelters. His religious views resembled Trajan's. 
 In some celebrated letters to that emperor, he attacked Christianity
 
 NOTES 191 
 
 as a degraded superstition ; but he had no exalted admiration for 
 the old Paganism, which, indeed, he regarded as little more 
 than a necessary, because traditional, part of the respectability 
 of life. 
 
 p. 29, 1. 28. Savonarola, etc. The great Florentine preacher 
 (1452 — 149S) famiharized to all English readers by George Eliot's 
 Romoia. He was a Puritan among Cathohcs, and attacked the 
 current frivoliiy and luxury which the practice of Rome sanctioned 
 and encouraged. He was tortured, strangled, and burnt. His 
 ' spirit ' was that of a reformer, not that of a schismatic. He 
 attacked, not the doctrines, but the morals and discipline of the 
 Church. Machiavelli I.1469 — 1527), the great Florentine statesman 
 and political philosopher, with w-hom Macaulay contrasts Savona- 
 rola, was frankly critical of Christian doctrine ; and, while believing 
 religion necessary to the state, believed also that clericalism was 
 dangerous. 
 
 p. 30, 1. 6. The last GotMc king. Roderick, defeated by the 
 Moors at the battle of Xeres (711) and drowned while escaping. 
 
 p. 30, 1. 8. Entered Granada. Granada, the Moorish capital 
 in Spain, fell in 1492. 
 
 p. 30, 1. 16. A Papal bull. The bull of 1493 which defined 
 the spheres of influence of S|)ain and Portugal in the newly 
 discovered West and the newly accessible East. 
 
 p. 30, 1. 28. In the very year, etc. The Saxon revolt began 
 in 1521. In that year was completed the violent conquest of 
 Montezuma's dominion of Mexico by the Spanish commander 
 Hernando Cortes. 
 
 p. 31, 1. 14. The death of Leo. Leo X died in 1521. 
 
 p. 31, 1. 14. The order of Camaldoli. A reformed congrega- 
 tion of Benedictine monks founded by St Romuald of Ravenna in 
 the eleventh century. 
 
 p. 31, 1. 16. The Capuchins. A sixteenth century Franciscan 
 named Matthew de Baschi believed that the friars of his order were 
 not as strict as those in the days of their founder, and that the cowl 
 (or 'capuche') was not of the original kind. He therefore formed 
 (1526) a new order of brothers, called the Capuchins, among whom 
 the original discipline was restored. 
 
 p. 31, 1. 17. The Barnabites. An order of clergy founded at 
 Milan in the sixteenth century for the purpose of teaching, preaching, 
 etc. They were called Barnabites l)ecause their first assemblies were 
 held in the church of St Barnabas at Milan. 
 
 p. 31, 1. 17. The society of Somascha. An order of clergy 
 formed in the sixteenth century to undertake the work of founding 
 and maintaining asylums for orphans. The chief institution was at 
 Somascha, between Milan and Bergamo — hence the name of the 
 order.
 
 192 NOTES 
 
 p. 31, 1. 19. The Theatine order. An order of clergy founded 
 by Giovanni Pietro Carafta (1476— 1 559), bishop of Chieti, after- 
 wards Pope Paul IV, in concert with Cajetan (1469 — 1534)- The 
 order took its name from Theate, the ancient name for Chieti. 
 The Theatines not only preached, but laboured among the sick and 
 the criminals. 
 
 p. 32, 1. 27. The Great Red Dragon. See Revelation, chap. xii. 
 
 p. 33, 1. 8. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, 
 was born in Spain in 1491. His leg was shattered at the siege of 
 Pampeluna (1512). He founded his famous order in 1534, and 
 secured Papal approval of its rules in 1540. He died in Rome in 
 the year 1556. 
 
 p. 33, 1. 14. Two princely temples. Sant' Ignazio and the 
 Gesii — the latter a particularly gorgeous church. The remains of 
 Ignatius are kept in a sarcophagus beneath the high altar of the 
 GesLi. 
 
 p. 35, 1. 26. They regarded those Christian mysteries, etc. 
 That is, with polite contempt. The sacred Sibylline books, accord- 
 ing to tradition, were nine in number, and were offered by the Sibyl 
 Amalthrea of Cumse to Tarquin the Proud. He refused them, 
 whereupon the Sibyl burnt three and offered him the rest. He 
 again refused them, and the prophetess burned three more. Tarquin 
 then bought the remaining three at the price originally demanded 
 for the nine, and these surviving books were solemnly kept in the 
 Capitol as sacred possessions. The early Romans attached much 
 importance to omens and especially to the auspices, or signs given 
 by birds, the manner in which the creatures ate being specially 
 significant. The auspices were taken by the augurs — a college of 
 prophets dating from the oldest days of the city. The pontifex 
 maximus was chief of the priestly order which had charge of all 
 sacred functions. By the time of Ca;sar (100 — 44 B.C.) and Cicero 
 (106 — 43 B.C.) the religious mysteries associated with the augurs 
 and pontifices had ceased to command respect, but the offices were 
 maintained and held for political and secular reasons. 
 
 p. 35, 1. 32. Cotta and Velleius, etc. Two of the speakers in 
 Cicero's dialogue On the A^atitre of the Gods. They take a very 
 sceptical view of the ancient deities and speak with scant respect of 
 the traditional mysteries. The oracle of Delphi was an opening in 
 the ground on one of the slopes of Mt Parnassus. From the chasm 
 came a vapour which inspired a priestess who inhaled it to utter 
 obscure prophecies which were supposed to be the words of Apollo. 
 Faunus, the Latin equivalent of the Greek Pan, god of shepherds 
 and tillers of the soil, also foretold the future in dreams and strange 
 voices to those who slept within his precincts after appropriate 
 sacrifices. Cultured and sceptical Romans of a later age scoffed at 
 such mysteries as mere superstitions, respectable only for their 
 antiquity.
 
 NOTES 193 
 
 p. 36, 1. 1. Benvenuto. Benvenuto Cellini (1500 — 1571), the 
 great Florentine metal-worker. He has described his wild and 
 adventurous life in a famous Autobiography. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 1. Michael Angelo. Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 — 
 1564), Florentine painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, was the 
 grandest and most forceful of all the artists of the Renaissance. 
 His greatest paintings are the decorations on the walls and ceiling 
 of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 2. Raphael. Kaffaello Santi (1483 — 1520), born 
 at Urbino, was one of the noblest of Italian painters. He is fairly 
 well represented in the English national collections, though many 
 of his greatest works are frescoes painted on the walls of chambers 
 in the Vatican. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 17. ' Morgante Maggiore. ' This is the name (meaning 
 ' Morgante the Giant ') of a poetic romance of chi\ ally written in 
 1 48 1 by the Florentine poet Luigi Pulci (1432 — 1484). The poem 
 relates many incredible adventures and is really written (as Don 
 Quixote was, more than a century later) to ridicule the absurdities 
 of the popular romances of chivalry. Byron has translated the first 
 canto of this poem. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 24. Pius V. This pope (1504 — 1572) ruled during 
 some of the Reformation struggles, and is interesting to us as the 
 pontiff who in 1570 launched a bull of deposition against Queen 
 Elizabeth and released her subjects from their allegiance. Another 
 bull of his, issued in 1568, claimed a supremacy of the pope over 
 all temporal sovereigns like that urged in the eleventh century 
 by Hildebrand (Gregory VII), who reduced the Emperor Henry IV 
 to submission and enforced from him a humiliating penance. It is 
 interesting to remember that William the Conqueror in England, 
 while granting great liberty to the Church, steadfastly refused to 
 acknowledge the temporal supremacy of Hildebrand. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 35. Gregory XIII. This pope (1502 — 1585) was 
 specially zealous in the cause of education. His name is immor- 
 talized in the term ' Gregorian Calendar ' through his reform in the 
 method of computing time. The change made by Gregory in 1582 
 was not adopted in England till 1751- It was Gregory XIII 
 who had a special medal struck to celebrate the massacre on 
 .St Bartholomew's Day (1572). 
 
 p. 37, 1. 1. The poem of Tasso, etc. Orlando Furioso was 
 written early in the sixteenth century by Ludovico Ariosto (1474 — 
 1533); Gcrusalcmme Liherata (Jerusalem Delivered) by Torquato 
 Tasso (1544 — 1595) in the latter part of the same century. The 
 difference implied by Macaulay is that the first is a romantic poem 
 of love and chivalry, the second an epic of the Crusades. The 
 other comparison has the same point. Sixtus V was a vigorous 
 and reforming pope from 1585 to 1590, while, on the other hand, 
 Leo X, who ruled from 1513 to 1522, was a cultured, sceptical man 
 
 s. 13
 
 194 NOTES 
 
 of the world rather than a spiritual pontiff. The buildings which 
 Leo inspired are Pagan in style and character, while those of Sixtus 
 are much severer; and, to make room for them and the new roads 
 he made, he had no scruples about destroying the remains of Pagan 
 antiquity. 
 
 p. 37, 1. 20. 'Of the Benefits of the Death of Christ.' By Aonio 
 Paleario. A copy of the original Italian work (dated 1543) exists 
 in the library of St John's College, Cambridge, and the book, in an 
 English version, has been several times reprinted. 
 
 p. 37, 1. 26. The second decade of Livy. Titus Livius Pata- 
 vinus (59 B.C. — 17 A.D.) was perhaps the greatest of Roman 
 historians. Much of his work has totally disappeared. The first 
 ten books exist ; but the second decade, and many of the later books 
 have vanished. 
 
 p. 39, 1. 9. Muhlberg. The Emperor Charles V defeated his 
 Protestant subjects at Muhlberg, in Saxony (1547). The famous 
 equestrian portrait of the emperor by Titian represents him at this 
 battle. 
 
 p. 39, 1. 30. The tiara. The Papal crown. Alexander VI 
 was both debauchee and poisoner, and Leo X, if not exactly an 
 atheist, was certainly not an orthodox Christian. 
 
 p. 39, 1. 34. Cyprian and Ambrose. St Cyprian, a great 
 bishop during the third century, who attacked the claims of the 
 bishop of Rome to universal dominion, and was martyred (258) by 
 the Emperor \'alerian. St Ambrose, the famous bishop of Milan 
 during the fourth century, was remarkable for the strictness of his 
 own life and his fearless denunciation of sin, no matter how 
 important the sinner — even the Emperor Theodosius being denied 
 admission to the services of the Church until he had made a public 
 repentance of his share in the massacre of Thessalonica (390). 
 
 p. 40, 1. 11. Henry IV. Not the English king, but the great 
 'Henri Quatre ' of song and story. He was born in 1553, ^'^s 
 carefully educated as a Protestant, and became ruler of the 
 Pyrenean kingdom of Navarre, and leader of the Huguenots. His 
 first abjuration of Prote>tantism was made in Paris to escape death 
 at the Massacre of St Bartholomew (1572). Four years later he 
 returned to Protestantism. He succeeded to the French crown in 
 1589, and, hndijig that his position as Protestant king in a Catholic 
 state was difficult and dangerous, he again abjured {1593) to 
 conciliate the nobles and people of France, and especially of Paris, 
 saying of that city that ' it was worth a Mass.' 
 
 p. 40, 1. 37. Council of Trent. A great Council of the Church 
 assembled in 1545 at Trent (on the Adige) to discuss the eccle- 
 siastical position after the Protestant Reformation. The sittings 
 lasted at intervals until 1563, and the decrees of the Council laid 
 upon the Catholic Church a strict system of morals and doctrine.
 
 NOTES 195 
 
 p. 40, 1. 38. The Jansenian controversy. Cornelius Jansen 
 (1585 — 1638), a Dutch theolou;ian, attacked certain teachings of the 
 Jesuits in a book that appeared just before his death. His views — 
 which may be called a sort of Puritan Catholicism — were violently 
 opposed by the Jesuits and were officially condemned by the pope 
 in 1642. Many great thinkers, however (notably Pascal), took the 
 Jansenist side, and a great controversy raged in France on the 
 matter for nearly a hundred years. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 10. Cumque superba, etc. Lucan i. 10. 'Though 
 proud Babylon might have been despoiled of its trophies, they 
 preferred to wage a war which could bring no triumphs.' 
 
 p. 41, 1. 12. The Palatinate. A state of the Empire on the 
 Rhine, prominent later in the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 15. The Confession of Augsburg. The statement of 
 Lutheran Protestant doctrine drawn up by Luther and Melanchthon 
 in 1530. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 16. Melville. Andrew Melville (1545 — 1662), a 
 zealous Scottish Presbyterian who played a leading part in the 
 religious and political controversies of his time. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 22. The tenet of reprobation, etc. The Calvinistic 
 doctrine that some are predestined to future punishment. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 26. Whitgift. John Whitgift (1533?— 1604), Eliza- 
 beth's zealous Archbishop of Canterbury, who, while Calvinistic 
 enough to hold the doctrine of reprobation (see above), was Church- 
 man enough to persecute the Puritans for their views on Church 
 government and their hatred of forms and ceremonies. 
 
 p. 41, 1. 27. Martin Marprelate. The Puritans of Elizabeth's 
 reign who had derived their views on Church discipline from Calvin 
 objected strongly to Church government by bishops. They were 
 roughly dealt with by Whitgift for refusing to obey the Act of 
 Uniformity (1559) and retaliated by issuing a stream of most violent 
 and scurrilous tracts written by several authors under the general 
 pseudonym of 'Martin Marprelate,' the episcopal system, as the 
 name implies, being the subject of special attack. 
 
 p. 42, 1. 4. St John Lateran. In the south-east quarter of 
 Rome. It is the 'mother church' of the city — and, indeed, of 
 the Catholic world. 
 
 p. 42, 1. 22. Lithuania. North of Poland and west of Russia 
 proper. It is mentioned by Macaulay as being sufficiently remote 
 from Palermo in Sicily to convey a clear idea of the widespread 
 activity of the Jesuits. 
 
 p. 43, 1. 40. A tinker, etc. The paragraph that follows is a 
 summary of the >[)irilual life of Bunyan. 
 
 p. 44, 1. 14. Of one who had, etc. Bunyan. 
 
 p. 44, I. 35. The apostolical succession. The doctrine that 
 
 13—2
 
 196 NOTES 
 
 the only valid priests are those ordained by valid bishops. This 
 means that theie must be no break in the line of ordination from 
 the first ' laying on of hands ' by the Apostles. The High Church 
 movement was in vigorous action at the time when Macaulay 
 wrote ; so that many rectors would be preaching on the apostolical 
 succession — either for or against it. 
 
 p. 45, 1. 4. Arian bishops. Arius (born about 260) was a 
 priest of Alexandria, who maintained that Christ was not co-equal 
 and co-eternal with God. His views aroused such fierce controversy 
 that a great Council was called at Nicrea (325) where Arius pre- 
 sented his views and was strongly opposed by Athanasius. The 
 Council affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity, and thus the views of 
 Arius were condemned ; but they persisted for another century in 
 the Eastern Church, and even longer among the Teutonic tribes 
 that overthrew the Roman Empire. 
 
 p. 45, 1. 35. Massillon. Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663 — 1742), 
 the good and gentle bishop of Clermont in France, was a great 
 preacher — perhaps the noblest of all pulpit orators. 
 
 p. 46, 1. i. The Quirinal. The Quirinal is one of the ' Seven 
 Hills ' upon which Rome is built, and its name is given to a palace 
 begun in the sixteenth century, and used as a summer residence of 
 the popes. Since 1870, however, it has been the palace of the 
 king of Italy, so that obviously the carriages of the cardinals no 
 longer crowd its entrance. 
 
 p. 46, 1. 25. Countess of Huntingdon. Selina, Countess of 
 Huntingdon (1707 — 1791), was a noble lady who came under the 
 religious influence of Wesley and Whitefield. She formed a branch 
 of the Methodists called ' The Countess of Huntingdon's Con- 
 nexion ' (just as the main body is called 'The Wesleyan Methodist 
 Connexion '), founded many chapels, and instituted a college for 
 the training of ministers — now at Cambridge. 
 
 p. 46, 1. 26. Mrs Fry. Elizabeth Fry (1780— 1845) was the 
 daughter of a rich banker (one of the Gurneys). Both before and 
 after her marriage she devoted herself to works of charity, especially 
 to labour in the prisons, where, at this time, women with their 
 children were herded together in circumstances of unutterable horror. 
 
 p. 46, 1. 33. St Teresa. St Teresa (1515 — 1582) was a noble 
 lady of Castile. She entered a Carmelite convent, and in course of 
 time founded other religious houses where the strictness of the 
 ancient Carmelite rule was revived and fully practised. Her book, 
 T/ie Way 0/ Perfection, is a most popular work of extreme devotion, 
 and her sanctity is hymned Ijy the English poet Crashaw. The 
 allusions here are explained in the earlier note on Joanna Southcott. 
 
 p. 47, 1. 11. The Protestant party was... vanquished. In this 
 paragraph the allusions are to the earlier part of the Thirty Years' 
 War which began in 16 18 in a dispute about the crown of Bohemia.
 
 NOTES 197 
 
 The Protestant revolutionists chose Frederick, ruler of the Palatinate 
 and son-in-law of our own James I ; but the legal sovereign was 
 Ferdinand, the emperor, and head of the house of Austria. The 
 Catholics, i.e. the adherents of the Austrian house, were at first 
 entirely successful. The king of Denmark alluded to is Christian IV 
 
 p. 47, 1. 20. Ivry. Henry IV as a Protestant leader defeated 
 the army of the Catholic League at Ivry in 1 590. The battle is the 
 subject of a well-known ballad by Macaulay. 
 
 p. 47, 1. 29. The ramparts of Stralsund. The Imperial 
 armies under the famous Wallenstein and Tilly had been victorious 
 in all the Protestant provinces, but received their first serious check 
 at Stralsund (1628). 
 
 p. 48, 1. 27. A great event, etc. Macaulay is here referring 
 to the later part of the Thirty Years' War. When Catholic triumph 
 in that war seemed to mean merely the triumph of the house of 
 Austria, the primary religious nature of the struggle was lost sight 
 of, and Catholic powers were ready to join with Protestants against 
 other Catholics. The coalition here mentioned was that of Catholic 
 France and Protestant Sweden against Cathohc Austria. 
 
 p. 48, 1. 31. The first statesman. Cardinal Richelieu (1585 — 
 1642), the great foreign minister of France. 
 
 p. 48, 1. 32. The first warrior. Gustavus Adolphus (1594 — 
 1632), king of Sweden. He took a leading part in the great Thirty 
 Years' War between the Protestants and Catholics, and gained 
 many wonderful victories, at the last of which, Liitzen, he was 
 killed. 
 
 p. 49, 1. 13. The head of a coalition. The allusion here is to 
 the War of the Grand Alliance (1689 — 1697) against Louis XIV's 
 aggressive policy of expansion. The coalition included England, 
 Holland, Savoy, Spain, and some of the German states. 
 
 p. 49, 1. 16. In the time of Anne. Macaulay is here referring 
 to the War of the Spanish Succession (1704 — 17 13) in which the 
 English allies took the side of the Catholic Archduke Charles 
 against the Catholic Philip who was supported by France and Spain. 
 
 p. 50, 1. 36. The fourth great peril. The philosophical 
 rationalism of the eighteenth century especially associated with 
 the names of Diderot and Voltaire. 
 
 p. 61, 1. 15. Bossuet. Jacques Bossuet (1627 — 1704) was a 
 great French theologian and pulpit orator. 
 
 p. 61, 1. 16. Tillotson. John Robert Tillotson (1630 — 1694), 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and great pulpit orator. His views were 
 what would now be called very ' Low Church,' and naturally his 
 inferences from Scripture would be very unlike those of Bossuet. 
 
 p. 61, 1. 24. Bacon most justly observes. ' Atheism did never 
 perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no 
 further.' Essay, Of Superstition.
 
 198 NOTES 
 
 p. 51, 1. 28. The Patriarcli of the Holy Philosophical Church. 
 
 Voltaire, who made the stories of the Scriptures and the dogmas of 
 the Church the subject of biting ridicule. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 15. An innocent man. Jean Calas, a Protestant 
 tradesman of Toulouse, was accused by the Church of having 
 murdered his son for proposing to become a Catholic. He was 
 sentenced to death and broken on the wheel in 1762. Voltaire 
 took up the case, and owing to his efforts, the poor dead man was 
 declared innocent and his family received monetary compensation ; 
 but no punishment was meted out to the Churchmen who had 
 invented the monstrous lie. The supposed murdered son had 
 really committed suicide. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 17. A youth, etc. Macaulay's ' beheaded ' is a 
 strangely inadequate statement of an atrocious case. The Chevalier 
 de la Barre was a youth of less than twenty, and inclined to the 
 wildness and impiety fashionable in eighteenth-century France. 
 In these he seems to have been encouraged by his relative, the 
 extremely unreverend Abbess of a religious order at Abbeville, a 
 lady to whom a certain magistrate named Duval had paid amorous 
 attentions. One day two crucifixes in public places of Abbeville 
 were found wantonly and indecently disfigured. Suspicion fell on 
 La Barre and some of his companions, and Duval, jealous of the 
 young man's favour with the Abbess, urged the ecclesiastical 
 authorities to punish him. La Barre was seized. One of his 
 companions escaped, and another, a lad of sixteen, confessed, in 
 fear of torture, that La Barre had frequently sung blasphemous and 
 atheistical songs. La Barre was put to the torture and confessed 
 that he was guilty of the crucifix outrage ; but no proof was ever 
 forthcoming, nor were the crucifixes mentioned in his sentence. At 
 any rate, he had behaved foolishly and wickedly, and deserved, as 
 Voltaire acknowledged, severe punishment. But what actually 
 happened was this : he was adjudged guilty of ' Wickedly and 
 from impiety passing with deliberate steps before the holy sacrament 
 without taking off the hat or kneeling ; singing blasphemous songs, 
 etc' ; and he was sentenced to be put to torture for the purpose of 
 extorting the names of his accomplices; to have his tongue torn out 
 by the roots with red-hot pincers of iron ; to have his right hand cut 
 off at the door of the principal church at Abbeville ; to be drawn in 
 a cart to the market-place and there burned to death by slow fire. 
 The case was carried to Paris, but the Church fought bitterly, and 
 the only result of the appeal was that La Barre was allowed to be 
 beheaded before his body was burned. Five executioners accom- 
 panied him back to Abbeville, and on July i, 1766, the hideous 
 atrocity was perpetrated. Attempts to tear out the tongue failed ; 
 and all this and the rest were borne by the poor lad with the utmost 
 resignation and fortitude. Voltaire had fully believed that the 
 sentence would never be carried out, and he was inexpressibly 
 shocked. He wrote vigorous letters to all his influential friends,
 
 NOTES 199 
 
 and a popular pamphlet that gave the dreadful story the widest 
 circulation. He rescued the boy who had escaped. He wrote 
 further, and laboured till his death to get the memory of La Barre 
 cleared. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 18. A torave officer. The Comte de Lally was a 
 noble Frenchman (1702 — 1766) who distinguished himself by service 
 against the British in India during the -Seven Years' War. After 
 much vigorous fighting he was besieged in Pt)ndicherri, which he 
 was finally compelled to surrender in 1761 after a ten months' siege. 
 He was charged with cowardice, and in 1766 his enemies at home 
 secured his condemnation and execution after a long imprisonment. 
 Voltaire supported the efforts of Lally's son to clear his father's 
 memory, and the cause of justice was at last successful in 1778, 
 when a royal decree reversed the iniquitous sentence. The son, 
 Marquis de Lally-Tollendal, distins^uished himself by taking the 
 side of reform in the early days of the Revolution. It is interesting 
 to recall that Voltaire exerted himself to prevent the political 
 murder of our Admiral Byng in 1757, and described the execution 
 in a contemptuous chapter of his Candide, concluding with the 
 famous remark that in England it is thought advisable to kill an 
 admiral now and then in order to encourage the others. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 20. The Place de Grdve. The square in which for 
 several centuries the public executions in Paris took place. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 21. Lake Leman. Voltaire lived at Femey, near 
 Geneva. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 32. Tlie best of kings. Henri IV, stabbed in 1610 by 
 
 a Catholic fanatic named Kavaillac. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 32. Tlie war of Cevennes. This was a religious war 
 brought about by the Revocation (in 1*^85) of the Edict of Nantes 
 which had granted toleration to Protectants. Dreadful cruelties 
 were committed during its course by the Catholic troopers under 
 Marshal Villars. The Protestants of the Cevennes who had taken 
 arms after the Revocation were led by Jean Cavalier, and were 
 generally called the ' Camisards ' from the sort of smock they wore 
 over their clothes. All over France the Protestants suffered. If 
 taken while trying to escape the men were sent to the galleys, 
 the women into slavery, and the children into convents. Many, 
 however, did escape, some to England, where they brought the 
 manufactures that the gieat minister Colbert had taken such pains 
 to establish. 
 
 p. 52, 1. 33. Port-Royal. Antoine Arnauld (1612 — 1694), a 
 brilliant French theologian, became head of a religious house at 
 Port- Royal, where, with some friends, the chi -f being the great 
 Pascal, he led the Jansenist attack on the Jesuits in a series of 
 vigorous writings. The Jesuits, however, had friends at Court. 
 The Port- Royalists were hunted down, and Arnauld had to go into 
 hiding to escape death.
 
 200 NOTES 
 
 p. 64, 1. 1. The riders of Prussia, etc. Frederick the Great 
 of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia, and the Emperor Joseph II. 
 
 p. 54, 1. 23. Anabaptists... Fifth- Monarchy men. Macaulay's 
 point is that the views of the Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy men 
 were mere caricatures of the sober Protestantism of Luther and the 
 sober Puritanism of Pym. The Anabaptists beheved that infant 
 baptism was sinful, and that any person so baptised must, when 
 adult, receive a second baptism. One of their leaders, John of 
 Leyden, set up a spiritual kingdoin at Mtinster in 1534, and 
 established community of goods, plurality of wives, and other 
 practices believed to be authorised by Scripture. The Fifth 
 Monarchy men were English Puritan fanatics, who laid stress upon 
 Daniel's prophecy of the four kingdoms of the earth, and believed 
 that the time had come for establishing the fifth monarchy, that of 
 the Saints, as described in Daniel vii. 18. 
 
 p. 54, I. 33. The Jacobin Club and the Commune of Paris. 
 The fiercest spirits of the French Revolution. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 2. The carmagnole. A popular song and dance 
 during the wildest times of the Revolution. The Convention was 
 the representative body which replaced the Legislative Assembly in 
 1792. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 3. Marat. One of the most virulent of revolutionaries 
 (1743 — 1793)- He was assassinated by Charlotte Corday. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 6. Chancel of Notre Dame. The worship of Reason 
 was solemnly established in 1793, a woman being enthroned to 
 represent that quality. 
 
 p. 65, 1. 16. Lepaux, etc. Lepaux, Clootz and Chaumette were 
 minor figures in the French Revolution. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 30. The Cisalpine republic. During the early years 
 of Napoleon's military glory the Lombard states and northern Italy 
 generally as far south as the States of the Church were united into 
 a Cisalpine Republic ; the old Republic of Genoa became the 
 Ligurian Republic, and the kingdom of Naples the Parthenopean 
 Republic — all under French control. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 31. The shrine of Loretto. A place of pilgrimage in 
 Italy, supposed to be the house of the Virgin Mary, translated 
 thither. 
 
 p. 55, 1. 35. The Castle of St Angelo. The fortress of the 
 popes on the Tiber in Rome. 
 
 p. 56, 1. 35. The successor of St Peter. Pope Pius VI, who, 
 after captivity in several places, died at \'alence, 1 799. 
 
 p. 56, 1. 8. Theophilanthropic chapels. Theophilanthropy — 
 the sacred love of mankind — was a new form of religion that arose 
 in France during the Revolutionary period. Lepaux, before referred 
 to, was its founder.
 
 NOTES 201 
 
 p. 66, 1. 12. The milk-white hind. In Dryden's allegorical 
 poem, The Hind and the Panther, the Catholic Church is repre- 
 sented by a hind : 
 
 A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, 
 
 Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged ; 
 
 Without unspotted, innocent within. 
 
 She found no danger, for she knew no sin. 
 
 Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds. 
 
 And Scythian shafts; and many-winged wounds 
 
 Aimed at her heart ; was often forced to fly, 
 
 And doomed to death, though fated not to die. 
 
 p. 56, 1. 27. The republic of Holland was gone, etc. French 
 conquest in 1793 made Holland into the Batavian Republic. The 
 elective German or Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist in 1806, 
 and its place was partly taken by the new hereditary Austrian 
 Empire. The Republic of \'enice was extinguished in 1797. The 
 Helvetian League of Switzerland became the Helvetic Republic in 
 1798. The house of Bourbon (the French Royal house) and the 
 Parlements (the judicial assemblies of France) ceased to exist at 
 the Revolution. The French Republic became an Empire under 
 Napoleon in 1804; Napoleon's conquests in northern Italy were 
 consolidated into a Kingdom of Italy in 1805 ; and the Confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine, a united group of German states subject to 
 France, was formed by Napoleon in 1 806. All these changes were 
 due to the Revolution, and most of them to Napoleon. 
 
 p. 57, 1. 22. The 'Encyclopaedia.' The great work edited by 
 Diderot (17 13 — 1784), which became the great literary reservoir 
 into which all the keen philosophical criticism of government and 
 religion was poured. It began to appear in 1751. 
 
 p. 57, 1. 23. The ' Philosophical Dictionary.' This was one of 
 the famous works of Voltaire attacking the religious and eccle- 
 siastical system of his day. It contained, among other things, his 
 contributions to the Encyclopcvdia. Possession of a copy of this 
 was one of the facts that helped to condemn La Barre. 
 
 p. 57, 1. 37. Baron Holbach. Baron Holbach (1723 — 1789), 
 born in Germany, became French by sentiment and settlement. 
 He was a philo.sopher like Voltaire, holding extreme views on the 
 subject of religion — one of his doctrines being that the notion of 
 God was invented by priests and kings for their own profit.
 
 202 NOTES 
 
 WALTER BAGEHOT: SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Walter Bagehot (1826 — 1877) was a Somerset man. He was 
 educated at a school in Bristol, and at University College, London, 
 where one of his friends was R. H. Hiitton, whose charming 
 biographical sketch of him is prefixed to the Literary Studies, tie 
 read for the Bar, but decided finally to follow the family career of 
 banking — his father being the head of ' Stuckey's,' the famous West 
 of England firm whose ' paper ' has been preferred by honest 
 Somerset farmers to that of the Bank of England. The name of 
 Walter Bagehot is specially associated with finance, for not only 
 was he concerned with the management of a banking business, but 
 he married the daughter of James Wilson, the founder of The 
 Economist, and presently succeeded to the editorship of that famous 
 organ of high finance. The conduct of this paper brought him 
 into close touch with English politics, and the intimacy of his 
 acquaintance is shown in a most suggestive series of essays forming 
 the volume called The English Constitution. Two other books, 
 Lombard Street and Economic Studies, reflect his knowledge of 
 financial theory and practice. It will be seen, then, that Bagehot 
 differs from all the other writers represented in this volume in being 
 a man of affairs as well as a man of letters. His business life 
 influenced his writing considerably, and one trace of its effect can 
 be seen in the scorn he expresses here for mere bookworms who try 
 to write of man without knowing men. One might say that all his 
 literary work is the product of two Walter Bagehots. The robust 
 common-sense, the air of practicality, the keenly critical observation 
 — a sort of ' auditing ' of famous reputations — are the contribution 
 of the man of business; while the highly original style, the terse- 
 ness, the wealth of epigram, the unexpected sallies of humour and 
 cynicism, are the contribution of the man of letters. His Literary 
 Studies and Biographical Studies form a body of most stimulating 
 and enlightening literature, and represent the purely critical spirit of 
 the nineteenth century at its best. (Pronounced ' Bajot.') 
 
 p. 59, title. ' Shakespeare the Man.' A. later essay with the 
 same title is to be found in Mr A. C. Biadley's admirable Oxford 
 Lectures on Poetry. 
 
 p. 60, 1. 23. The distinguished Frenchman. Guizot. In 
 accordance with the literary convention of the day, Bagehot wrote 
 his essay as a ' review ' of certain books. In such an essay, the 
 topical books are perhaps briefly mentioned, but seldom discussed. 
 They are a mere excuse, a starting-point. The essay of Macaulay 
 in this volume is a further example of the review-essay. One of 
 the two books named at the head of Bagehot's paper is a study 
 of Shakespeare by Fran9ois Guizot (1787 — 1874), who was a 
 voluminous writer on French and English historical subjects as well
 
 NOTES 203 
 
 as a distinguished statesman. He was for a time French ambassador 
 in London. 
 
 His political career began in 1 8 14, after the retirement of Napoleon 
 to Elba. He w as a leader of the Liberal opposition which overthrew 
 the attempted absolutism of Charles X at the Revolution of 1830 ; 
 and in 1S40 he became first minister of the 'citizen-king' Louis 
 Philippe. He supported that sovereign's reactionary attempts to 
 rule by a personal regime of benevolent despotism, and when the 
 Revolution of 1848 overthrew the monarchy Guizot escaped to 
 London. This is the 'fall' to which Bagehot refers. Guizot tried to 
 lead an opposition to the new Republic ; but when its president 
 Louis Napoleon triumphantly declared himself Emperor with the 
 title 'Napoleon HI,' Guizot felt that his own political defeat was 
 final. From 1851 he took no part in affairs of state, and devoted 
 himself to his historical compositions. 
 
 p. 61, 1. 8. An emeute. A riot. 
 
 p. 61, 1. 38. Mr Alison. Archibald Alison (1792 — 1867), a 
 once famous lawyer and historian. His principal work was a. 
 History of Europe from 1789 to \%^\. He was made a baronet in 
 1852. 
 
 p. 62, 1. 6. Hazlltt. William Hazlitt (1778— 1830), the 
 famous essayist. The West referred to is Benjamin West (1738— 
 1820), a painter of some importance in his day, but now very 
 slightly regarded. He was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in 
 England, where he painted many vast pictures, chiefly historical in 
 character. He became President of the Royal Academy in 1792. 
 
 p. 62, 1. 13. Doctrinaire. A doctrinaire is a person who holds 
 strong views of life or government, and is prepared to carry them 
 to an immoderate extreme without any compromise, or regard for 
 results. 
 
 p. 62, 1. 38. Indented glides. ' Glides ' is here a noun — wavy 
 glidings. 
 
 p. 63, 1 9. He cranks. He twists and turns. 
 
 p. 63, 1. 10. Musets. Holes or gaps in a hedge. 
 
 p. 63, 1. 14. Earth-delving conies. Burrowing rabbits. 
 
 p. 63, 1. 21. Cold fault. The loss of the scent. 
 
 p. 63, 1. 24. Poor Wat. Familiar name for the hare. 
 
 p. 67, 1. 8. Cytherea's breath. Cytherea was one of the 
 many names of the goddess Venus. 
 
 p. 68, 1. 13. Mazy error. ' Error' is used in its strictly literal 
 sense of ' wandering.' 
 
 p. 68, 1. 16. Nice art. ' Nice' in its old sense of 'over-choice,' 
 or ' too particular. '
 
 204 NOTES 
 
 p. 68, 1. 24. Hesperian fables. The old stories of the Garden 
 of the Hesperides where grew trees bearing mysterious apples of 
 gold. The 'golden apples' were undoubtedly oranges, much 
 magnified by report. 
 
 p. 69, 1. 4. So flewed, so sanded. With large hanging cheeks 
 and of sandy colour. 
 
 p. 69, 1. 6. Dewlapped like Thessalian bulls. With loose 
 flesh hanging from the throat. Thessaly was the central part of 
 Greece — a northern province of modern Greece. 
 
 p. 69, 1. 20. Treatise on education. Milton wrote a Tractate 
 on Education in the form of an elaborate letter. 
 
 p. 70, 1. 10. Argillaceous earth. Clay soil. 
 
 p. 70, 1. 36. The 'Doctor." Robert Southey (1774— 1843), Poet 
 Laureate, essayist, historian, was much more important in his own 
 age than this, which knows him chiefly as the writer of the brief 
 Life of Nelson and of some admirable short poems. The Doctor is 
 a vast miscellany into which is collected a diver.sified assortment of 
 fact, fancy, and fiction. 
 
 p. 71, 1. 15. Care a real. A ' real ' was a Spanish coin, the 
 phrase being Bagehot's humorous perversion of our own ' care 
 twopence ' (or similar sums). 
 
 p. 71, 1. 19. Half a clerk's wages. Southey, however, died 
 worth ;/^ 1 2,000. 
 
 p. 71, 1. 21. The critic in 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' See 
 Chapter xx. 
 
 p. 71, 1. 30. Burgersdicius and .ffincesidemus. Merely used 
 as typifying pedantic compilers of useless learning. 
 
 p. 72, 1. 8. Petty feuds of Argos and Lacedsemon. The 
 unimportant disputes between small Greek states — and therefore 
 not worth too close study by men of to-day. 
 
 p. 73, 1. 17. His biographer. J. G. Lockhart, Scott's son-in- 
 law. 
 
 p. 73, 1. 38. Dandie Dinmont. The excellent Lidderdale 
 farmer in Scott's Guy Mannering. 
 
 p. 74, 1. 29. Weimar. Goethe lived for the last fifty-seven 
 years of his life at the court of the Grand Duke of Weimar. 
 
 p. 74, 1. 29. plants in the act of metamorphosis. Goethe was 
 much interested in science, and his works include botanical and 
 optical treatises. 
 
 p. 74, 1. 36. ' Wilhelm Meister.' Well known in England through 
 Carlyle's translation. 
 
 p. 76, 1. 26. Palabras. A Spanish word meaning 'words.' 
 It also occurs in the Taming of the Shrew, ' Paucas pallabris,' 
 meaning few words.
 
 NOTES 205 
 
 p. 80, 1. 8. fallacy of reference, etc. Logical terms that do 
 not need to be explained, since Bagehot uses them merely to ridicule 
 the over-clever people who are fond of calling simple things by 
 ditticult names. 
 
 p. 80, 1. 9. Dr Whately's logic. Richard Whately (1787— 
 1863) played a large part in the religious controversies of the 
 nineteenth century. He became Archbishop of Dublin in 1831. 
 His works (mainly theological) include a once popular treatise on 
 logic. 
 
 p. 83, 1. 1. Lord Palmerston's replies. Lord Palmerston 
 (1784 — 1865), the famous statesman of the mid-Victorian era, was, 
 when Foreign Secretary, famous for his rather truculent replies 
 both to ministers abroad and to critics at home. His brusque, 
 John Bullish assertiveness caused considerable trouble in diplomatic 
 matters, but earned him immense popularity among the general 
 public. Long after his death, the average Englishman wished for 
 another ' Pam ' to enforce upon ' the foreigners ' respect for British 
 superiority. 
 
 p. 83, 1. 20. One of the popular writers of this age. Dickens. 
 
 p. 83, 1. 22. Hogarth. William Hogarth (1697— 1764), the 
 famous moral and satirical painter. His works are valuable 
 illustrations of the less admirable side of eighteenth-century social 
 life. Bagehot calls him ' our greatest painter,' for Ku-.kin's historic 
 championship of Turner and other great landscape artists was, at 
 the date of this essay, only in the early stages of its influence ; but 
 though one would hardly go so far now, he could certainly be called 
 one of the most English of painters. His best work, the series 
 called ' Marriage a la Mode,' is in the National Gallery; so too are 
 'Calais Gate' and many portraits. Two other important sets, 
 'The Rake's Progress' and 'The Election,' are in the interesting 
 Soane Museum in London. One of Charles Lamb's admirable 
 essays in criticism deals with the work of Hogarth. 
 
 p. 87, 1. 9. The ward of Eastcheap, etc. A reference to the 
 Boar's Head scenes in the two parts of Henry IV. The 'society 
 that heard the chimes at midnight ' assembled at the house of 
 Mr Justice Shallow — see 2 Henry IV, Act ill, Scene ii. 
 
 p. 87, 1. 21. eating cares. A reference to Milton's HAllegi-o. 
 
 p. 87, 1. 35. Frequenters of the Mermaid. ' The creator of 
 Falstaff could have been no stranger to tavern life, and he doubtless 
 took part with zest in the convivialities of men of letters. Tradition 
 reports that Shakespeare joined, at the Mermaid Tavern in Bread 
 Street, in those meetings of Jonson and his associates which 
 Beaumont described in his poetical Letter to Jonson : 
 What things have we seen 
 Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been 
 So nimble, and so full of suljile llaiiic, 
 As if that every one from whence tiiey came
 
 206 NOTES 
 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life.' 
 
 (Sidney Lee, Shakespeare' s Life and Work.') 
 
 p. 89, 1. 37. The late Mr Keats. Keats had died in 182 1. 
 Even by 1853, the date of this es^ay, it could hardly be said that 
 he had taken an unchallengeable place in the ranks of immortal 
 poets. 
 
 p. 90, 1. 7. Qusedam simulacra, etc. Lucretius, i. 123: 
 'certain phantoms pale in wondrous wise.' 
 
 p. 91, 1. 35. And ' tailor ' cries. An exclamation, the meaning 
 of which is much disputed. 
 
 ' Neeze,' in a neighbouring line, is ' sneeze.' 
 
 p. 92, 1. 21. Jacobins. The members of the Jacobins' club 
 were the most uncompromising of the Revolutionists in France. 
 The term came to be generally used in England of discontented 
 persons who desired to abolish the advantages and privileges of rank. 
 
 p. 93, 1. 4. Everybody's suffrage. Although the right of 
 voting was greatly extended by the Reform Bill of 1832, it was still 
 (1853) very restricted. The ordinary householder and the ordinary 
 workman had no vote. Hence the famous 'People's Charter' of 
 1846 included, as one of its ' points,' universal suffrage, or the right 
 of every man, propertied or not, to have a vote. This demand was 
 felt, at the time, to be absurdly extreme, and the point is not even 
 yet conceded, though likely to be in the near future ; but the 
 franchise was greatly extended in 1867 by Disraeli, and in 1884 by 
 Gladstone. 
 
 p. 93, 1. 31. A great divine. Frederick Denison Maurice 
 (1805 — 1872), leader of the Christian Socialist Movement, founder 
 of the Working Men's College and of the Queen's College for 
 women. 
 
 p. 94, 1. 11. Has no vote. Bagehot was writing before the 
 great extensions of the franchise mentioned in the note above. 
 
 p. 97, 1. 12. Questions about Octavia. A reference to Antony 
 and Cleopatra, Act III, Sc. iii, where Cleopatra (who loves Antony) 
 questions Charmian jealously about Octavia, whom Antony had 
 married for political reasons. Byron might be presumed to know 
 the ways of women since so many women had been in love with 
 him because of his handsome appearance and romantic character. 
 
 p. 98, 1. 37. When Socrates was knocked up, etc. The views 
 of Socrates, the great Greek philosopher (fifth century B.C.), were 
 expressed in elaborate dialogues or conversations recorded by his 
 disciple Plato. The knocking up of Socrates in the early morning 
 and the ensuing discussion are described in the dialogue named 
 Protago7'as from the false philosopher whose views are exposed by 
 Socrates.
 
 NOTES 207 
 
 p. 99, 1. 5. The epicene element. The word 'epicene' is 
 a grammatical term signifying 'common in gender.' However, 
 the word is sometimes used to describe those people who seem to 
 hover, in character, between the two sexes — the effeminate man and 
 the masculine woman. Bagehot means that the dialogues of Plato 
 appeal only to a strong, virile intellect, free from sentimentality. 
 
 p. 99, 1. IT. A daguerreotype. The first photographs were 
 called daguerreotypes from Daguerre (1789 — 1851), a Frenchman, 
 one of the several persons who discovered the first processes of 
 photography early in the nineteenth century. 
 
 p. 99, 1. 29. Mr Grote. George Grote (1794 — 1871), a banker 
 who devoted himself to historical and political literature. His 
 greatest work is the famous History of Greece, but he wrote, as well, 
 separate treatises on Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 p. 100, 1. 6. Gorgias. One of the characters in Plato's dialogue 
 of that name. 
 
 p. 100, 1. 14. a priori assumptions. Principles that are assumed 
 to exist in order to explain certain results. The phrase is used by 
 Bagehot to mean notions that no one had thought of questioning. 
 
 p. 100, 1. 24. Mr Croker. John Wilson Croker (1780 — 1857), 
 a notorious writer on the side of the Court and Tory party in the 
 early years of the nineteenth century. He is the original of Rigby, 
 the corrupt and fawning politician in Disraeli's novel Coningsby, 
 and he is the subject of a slashing attack by Macaulay in the essay 
 on Dr Johnson. He wrote very many essays for the Qziarterly 
 Review ; and among his published volumes is a collection of Essays 
 on the French Revolution. 
 
 p. 101, 1. 5. Montaigne. Gonzalo's description of a perfect 
 Commonwealth is based upon one of the Essays of Montaigne 
 ('5.33 — '59'2)> fi''st 3-'ifl best of all essayists. 
 
 p. 101, 1. 18. Mr Collier. John Payne Collier (1789—1833) 
 was a journalist and a keen student of the old drama. He is 
 principally remembered for his alleged 'discoveries' in Shake- 
 speare. He asserted that in an old folio of Shakespeare he had 
 bought there were marginal notes and corrections written in a 
 seventeenth-century handwriting. He collected tliese corrections 
 and puldished them as Notes and Enuudations to the text of Shake- 
 speare's Plays from early Manuscript Corrections iti a Copy of the 
 Folio of 1632, etc. Tliis is the second of the two books placed by 
 Bagehot at the head of his article — the first being Guizot's work to 
 which earlier reference has been made. Collier's corrections aroused 
 a storm of contr<jversy, and an examination of tiie folio volume 
 proved them to be fabrications of his own. Bagehot quotes a 
 specimen. His remark 'we allow that we admire them ourselves' 
 is of course sarcastic.
 
 208 NOTES 
 
 p. 102, 1. 35. Dr Ulrici. Hermann Ulrici (1806—1884) was a 
 German philosopher who wrote, among many other things, an 
 elaborate and laborious treatise on Shakespeare's dramatic art, 
 containing extremely dull descriptions of what Dr Ulrici conceived 
 that Shakespeare meant by his plays. Bagehot calls him ' illegible ' 
 because his work is dreary and ' unreadable.' 
 
 p. 105, 1. 29. An ad captandum man. A person who bids for 
 popular applause ; so, a showy, shallow person, one who ' plays to 
 the gallery.' ' jSIonstrum horrendum ' (Virgil, Aineid ill. 658), 
 a dreadful monster — part of the description of the blinded Cyclops, 
 Polyphemus. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN: LITERATURE 
 
 John Henry Newman (1801 — 1890) was born in the City of 
 London not far from the place where Liverpool Street Station now 
 stands. He was educated at Ealing, and proceeded to Trinity 
 College, Oxford, 18 17. From early years he was intended for the 
 ministry, and in 1828 he became Vicar of St Mary's, Oxford, a 
 church that his wonderful preaching and magical charm of per- 
 sonality made a centre of attraction and influence. The careful 
 study of early ecclesiastical history caused him reluctantly and 
 painfully to abandon the ' Low ' Church beliefs in which he had 
 been brought up, and to adopt gradually views that many people 
 held to be dangerously like Catholicism. Much of the deep distress 
 he felt at his unsettled spiritual condition can be traced in his 
 poems, especially in that called 'The Pillar of the Cloud,' known 
 literally to everyone as the hymn ' Lead, Kindly Light.' The new 
 ' High ' Church views held by him and his friends were put forth in 
 a series of Tracts for the Times, many of which provoked a storm 
 of opposition, especially the ninetieth, W'ritten in 1841 by Newman 
 himself. Several of the ' Tractarians,' as they were called, joined 
 the Roman Church ; and, after a great spiritual conflict, Newman 
 himself followed in 1845, shattering the hopes of many devout 
 Anglicans who had been fascinated by his preaching and writing, 
 and had looked upon him as their leader. As a Catholic, he 
 entered the brotherhood of the Oratorians, and established a branch 
 of that order at Edgbaston, near Birmingham, where nearly all the 
 rest of his long life was spent, and where he died in 1890. He had 
 been made a Cardinal by Leo XHI in 1879. 
 
 Apart from his historical importance, first as the most influential 
 figure in the modern High Church movement, and next as the 
 acknowledged leader of the broad-minded and enlightened section 
 of English Catholics, Newman has great literary importance as one 
 of the masters of English prose. This fact is concealed from many
 
 NOTES 209 
 
 readers not specifically interested in theology by the unattractive 
 titles of most of his boolis. They suggest not merely theology, 
 but controversial theology, which is rarely amiable and even 
 more rarely productive of good reading. Such an impression is 
 totally false in the case of Newman ; and the student may turn to 
 almost any of his works wiih the certainty of enjoying the charm of 
 a winning personality and the grace of a clear, supple, and exquisitely 
 expressive prose style. All the following represent him at his best : 
 The Idea of a University ; Lectia-es on the Present Position of 
 Catholics ; Lectures on Anglican Difficulties ; the Apologia pro vita 
 sua (a sort of spiritual autobiography); Discussions and Arguments; 
 Essays ; and Historical Sketches. Even the sermons must not be 
 overlooked ; — indeed, the opening paragraphs of one, entitled The 
 Second Spring, may be called without fear of contradiction a piece 
 of perfect prose. Some of his verses, too, are good, especially the 
 wonderful Dream of Gerontius. 
 
 What Newman says about literature in the present essay is the 
 result of his own experience. Few writers are so individual in style 
 as he ; yet that style was developed by the repeated imitation of 
 others — even of styles as diverse as those of Addison and Gibbon, 
 Steele and Johnson. In all that he wrote, his one aim was to say 
 as clearly as possible everything that he meant, from the plainest 
 matter down to the finest shades. He tells us that, in preparing 
 a new book, he would write and re-write, put the work away for a 
 time, take it up, and re-write once more. Even when it had been 
 to the printers he would fiercely correct, and correct again, and still 
 be dissatisfied. There is, however, no trace of such labour in the 
 finished product, which, in ease and urbanity, is surpassed by no 
 prose in the language. It is not an instrument of one note. It is 
 at will ironical or majestic, indignant or pathetic ; and it has yet 
 another quality : the prose of some men is admirable ; the prose of 
 Newman is lovable. 
 
 p. 107, 1. 1. Gentlemen. This essay was originally written as 
 a lecture, the audience being students of the Catholic University in 
 Dublin. The places, however, in which Newman may be said to 
 speak definitely as a Catholic to Catholics are very few in number, 
 and so unimportant as to be negligible. 
 
 p. 108, 1. 36. A writer. Laurence Sterne (1713 — 1768), the 
 famous author of Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey. 
 The quotation is from .Sermon XLii. 
 
 p. 109, 1. 4. Over-curious. Used in its older sense of 'over- 
 elaborate.' 
 
 p. 109, 1. 28. Homer's famed representation, etc. The descrip- 
 tion of Jupiter occurs at I. 52(S of the Iliad: 'The son of Cronos 
 spake, and nodded his shadow-ed brow-s, while the ambrosial locks 
 flowed waving from his immortal head ; and great Olympus quaked 
 and trembled at his nod.' The relation of Neptune's shaking the 
 
 S. 14
 
 210 NOTES 
 
 earth is found at xx. 54 of the Iliad. Perhaps it is best given in 
 Lord Derby's translation : 
 
 Thundered on high the Sire of Gods and men 
 With awful din ; while Neptune shook beneath 
 The boundless earth and lofty mountain tops. 
 The spring-abouncling Ida quaked and rocked 
 From her firm basis to her loftiest peak, 
 And Troy's proud city, and the ships of Greece. 
 Pluto, the infernal monarch, heard alarmed, 
 And, springing from his throne, cried out in fear. 
 Lest Neptune, breaking through the solid earth. 
 To mortals and Immortals should lay bare 
 His dark and drear abode, of gods abhorred. 
 
 The description of a tempest is no doubt that in Odyssey v. It 
 is given here in Worsley's version : 
 
 Even as he spoke a mighty wave uncurled 
 Downward, around him with a hideous leap. 
 He from the torn deck violently hurled. 
 Nor able in his clasp the helm to keep. 
 Fell at a distance in the swirling deep; 
 And the fierce hurricane split the groaning mast. 
 For mingled in a wild convulsive sweep 
 Madly the universal winds rushed past, 
 And in the foaming flood canvas and sailyard cast. 
 
 Long time he lay submerged in the great wave, 
 Nor could recover from the ruinous stroke, 
 Encumbered with the robes Calypso gave ; 
 Yet from the dark depths at the last upbroke. 
 Sputtering the salt seawater, nigh to choke. 
 Nor even then did he forget the ship 
 In the wild buffetings whereto he woke. 
 But struggling, clutched it with an iron grip, 
 And the bark clomb, and sat hoping Death's toils to slip. 
 
 Her all the while the mighty waves o'erpower, 
 And whirl in dire distraction to and fro. 
 As when the north wind, in autumnal hour. 
 O'er the wide champaign thistledown doth blow, 
 Clinging together as it can, even so, 
 Dashed by the winds she drifted here and there 
 In the mid billows. Now did Notus throw 
 The bark to Boreas ; nor did Eurus spare 
 His ire, then spewed her forth for Zephyrus to tear. 
 
 ' Pallas's horses' should be really 'Hera's horses,' though in 
 Iliad V Athene rides in the chariot. Generally, Athene has no 
 horses or car. This is doubtless the passage referred to : 
 
 She urged her horses : nothing loth, they flew 
 Midway between the earth and starry Heaven ;
 
 NOTES 211 
 
 Far as his sight extends, who from on high 
 Looks from liis watch-tower o'er the dark-bkie sea, 
 So far at once the neighing horses bound. 
 But when to Troy they came, beside the streams 
 Where Simois' and Scamander's waters meet, 
 The white-armed Goddess stayed her flying steeds, 
 Loosed from the car, and veiled in densest cloud. 
 
 p. 109, 1. 36. Virgil, etc. Virgil (70—19 B.C.) was the greatest 
 of Latin poets. His epic, the Aiiieid, celebrates the life and 
 adventures of ^neas, the Trojan hero and legendary founder of the 
 Latin people ; his Georgics describe in verse the arts of the 
 husbandman ; and his Eclogues are exquisite pastorals (of the type 
 familiarized to English readers by W\\\.o\\\ Lycidas) closely modelled 
 on the Idylls of Theocritus, the Sicilian poet, who flourished in the 
 third century B.C. Pindar (522 — 443 B.C.) is the greatest of Greek 
 lyric poets. His many odes are elaborate compositions celebrating 
 various aspects of Greek ceremonial life — victories, triumphs, pro- 
 cessions, etc. Gray calls two of his most famous poems Pindaric 
 Odes. 
 
 p. 110, 1. 12. Longinus. A Greek philosopher of the third 
 century. His famous treatise On the Sublivie is a classic of literary 
 criticism. Longinus criticises Homer for degrading the gods into 
 men when he describes their quarrels, combats, wounds and tears, 
 and points out the superiority of passages where the poet suggests 
 deity in its majesty and perfection. He supports his contention 
 thus : 
 
 ' So likewise the Jewish legislator — no ordinary person — having 
 conceived a just idea of the power of God, has nobly expressed it in 
 the beginning of his law. And God said — What? — " Let there be 
 light"; and there was light. "Let the earth be"; and the earth 
 was.' 
 
 p. 110, 1. 26. Thucydides, etc. See notes on p. 213. 
 
 p. 116, 1. 40. A public lecture elsewhere. In the third of his 
 Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, Newman 
 relates, at somewhat greater length, this story of ' a certain learned 
 Mr White, well known in the University of Oxford, Professor of 
 Arabic in that seat of learning,' and his adventure in hiring a 
 Devonshire curate to translate his bald matter into a decorated 
 'style.' 
 
 p. 117, 1. 3. Facit indignatio versus. Juvenal i. 19: 'Si 
 natura negat, facit indignatio versus'; that is, 'If nature gives no 
 talent, indignation (at public evils) fashions the verses.' 
 
 p. 117, 1. 7. Poeta nascitur, etc. The poet is born, not made. 
 It is a proverbial saying. 
 
 p. 117, 1. 14. The vision of Mirza. A famous Spectator paper 
 by Addison. See the Selections from the Spectator in this series. 
 
 14 — 2
 
 212 NOTES 
 
 p. 117, 1. 25. Aristotle in his sketch, etc. The magnanimous 
 man is described with scientific fulness in Bk iv. Chap. 3 of 
 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The passage to which Newman 
 particularly refers is this : ' The gait of the magnanimous man is 
 slow, his voice deep, and his language stately ; for he who only 
 feels anxiety about few things is not apt to be in a hurry ; and he 
 who tliinks highly of nothing is not vehement ; and shrillness and 
 quickness df speaking arise from these things.' 
 
 p. 117, 1. 35. KvSe'i -yaCwv. Exulting in his strength. 
 
 p. 118, 1. 38. Os magna sonaturum. Horace, Satires i. 4. 44; 
 ' a diction capable of expressing great ideas.' Horace (65 — 8 B.C.) 
 is called ' the ancient critic,' because one of his poems deals with 
 some aspects of the art of poetry. 
 
 p. 119, 1. 6. Mens magna in corpore magno. A great soul in 
 a noble body. Adapted from the 'mens sana,' etc. of Juvenal 
 X. 356. 
 
 p. 119, 1. 12. Scipio. Publius Cornelius Scipio (237 — 183 B.C.), 
 called Africanus from his great victories over the Carthaginians. 
 
 p. 119, 1. 12. Pompey. Cneius Pompeius Magnus, great Roman 
 soldier, at first an ally of Caesar and next his rival. He led the 
 army of Csesar's enemies, but was totally defeated at Pharsalia 
 {48 B.C.) and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. 
 
 p. 119, 1. 20. Livy nor Tacitus, etc. Quoted as representative 
 examples of Latin literature. Livy and Tacitus were great his- 
 torians ; Terence and Seneca dramatists, the latter philosopher as 
 well ; Pliny was most famous as a writer of letters ; and Quintilian 
 as an orator and writer on oratory. 
 
 p. 120, 1. 3. Isocrates. The great Athenian orator who 
 flourished about 400 B.C. His many orations have all the good 
 qualities of great speeches — except (as Newman hints) greatness 
 of matter. He must not, of course, be confused with the philosopher 
 Socrates. 
 
 p. 120, 1. 3. The sophists. The sophists were teachers of 
 rhetoric in Greece. The word is generally used to mean those 
 shallow people who value form above matter. 
 
 p. 120, 1. 25. Michael Angelo and Raffaelle. See note on p. 193. 
 
 p. 120, 1. 27. Apollo Belvidere. The famous statue, found in 
 the fifteenth century, and now one of the greatest treasures of the 
 Vatican Museum : 
 
 in his eye 
 And nostril, beautiful disdain and might 
 And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
 Developing in that one glance the Deity. 
 
 Childe Harold, I v. 161.
 
 NOTES 213 
 
 p. 120, 1. 39. Our greatest poet tells us. Shakespeare, in the 
 Midsittnmer Xighfs Dicani, Act V, Sc. i. 
 
 p. 121, 1. 18. Demosthenes. The greatest of Greek orators, 
 flourished during the fourth century B.C. 
 
 p. 121, 1. 19. Thucydides. The greatest of Greek historians, 
 flourished during the fifth century B.C. 
 
 p. 121, 1. 21. Herodotus. The ' Father of History ' was the 
 first Greek historian to make history something more than a bald 
 narrative of fact. He flourished during the fifth century B.C., some- 
 what earlier than Thucydides. He wrote, not in the ' Attic ' dialect of 
 Athens, but in the ' Ionic,' of which, in an older form, Homer was 
 the great exemplar. 
 
 p. 121. 1. 24. Addison. Joseph Addison (1672 — X719) was not 
 only a famous essayist, but a busy politicinn on the Wliig side 
 during the reigns of Anne and George I. The story referred to is 
 Newman's variation of the remark made by Pope to Spence that 
 Addison could not give a common order in writing from his en- 
 deavouring always to word it too finely. The various legends about 
 Addison's unfitness for public life are mere invention. He was a 
 good, though not a great minister; and the numerous official letters 
 of his that actually exist show that his alleged unproductiveness is a 
 fable. 
 
 p. 121, 1. 36. The historian Gibbon. Edward Gibbon (1737 — 
 1794), whose Deciinc and Fall of the Roman Empire is the greatest 
 of English historical works. His style is as majestic as his theme — 
 'cursed Gibbonian fine writing' Charles Lamb called it; and his 
 principles, being not only anti-ecclesiastical, but also anti-Christian, 
 were naturally not such as a Catholic priest could recommend to 
 Catholic students. Hence Newman's disparagement. 
 
 p. 124. 1. 14. Fra Angelico. Guido di Pietri (1387 — r455) was 
 a Dominican friar — 'Brother Angclico' being his religious name — 
 who was also a great painter. The best of ins pictures, the Coro- 
 nation of the Virgin, is in the Louvre, but innumerable reproductions 
 have made it familiar even to the untravelled. He is represented in 
 the National Gallery by a 'Christ in Glory,' a picture in five com- 
 partments, showing Christ surrounded by the angelic choir and 
 groups of kneeling figures — two hundred and sixty-five in number. 
 
 p. 124, 1. 14. Francia. Francesco Raibolini (14=0 — 15 17), 
 generally called Francia, was a famous religious painter. His 
 'lunette' (picture with a curved upper half) of the entombment of 
 Christ is one of the best-known pictures in the National Gallery. 
 
 p. 125, 1. 7. Authorized versions... so inferior. Newman here 
 speaks as a Catholic, and his judgment is true only of versions 
 authorized by the Catholic Church. In general (as Matthew Arnold 
 indicates on p. 149), the English 'Authorized Version' surpasses, 
 as literature, the originals from which it was made.
 
 214 NOTES 
 
 p. 125, 1. 24. Sophocles or Euripides. Sophocles (496 — 405 B.C.), 
 Euripides (480 — 406 B.C.) were great Greek writers of tragedy. 
 
 p. 127, 1. 19. Copia verborum. A full flow of words. 
 
 p. 128, 1. 2. Nil molitur inepte. Horace, Art of Poetry, 140: 
 'he enters on no pointless task.' The other words explain them- 
 selves. 
 
 p. 128, 1. 6. Quo fit, etc. Horace, Satires 11. i. 32. 'Hence 
 it comes about that the whole life of an ancient writer is revealed as 
 though portrayed upon some picture dedicated in thanks to the 
 gods.' 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN: SIR JOSHUA AND 
 HOLBEIN 
 
 John Ruskin {1819 — 1900) was born in Camberwell, London, 
 the son of wealthy parents. He went to Oxford and was soon 
 drawn to the study of art. His first important work. Modern 
 Painters, began to appear in 1843 and immediately attracted 
 attention, first because of its provocative views, and next because of 
 its magnificence of style. It asserted with boldness and conviction 
 the superiority of modern landscapes, and especially those of Turner, 
 over the more formal and classic representations of natural scenes, 
 and it proclaimed the greatness of early Italian artists whose work 
 had been generally regarded as rude and rustic, and only tolerable 
 on the ground of its antiquity. The Seven Lamps of Architecture 
 and The Stones of Venice followed a few years later, and deepened 
 the impression of force and splendour made by the earlier work. In 
 these three treatises Ruskin had insisted on the moral value of art. 
 Some of his later books — for example, Sesame and Lilies and The 
 Crown of IVild Olive — deal more directly with life and conduct, 
 and are only incidentally critical. The strongest, and probably the 
 most enduring part of his work, is that which attacks the social and 
 economic injustice of the age. It is shown at its best in JMunera 
 Pulveris and Unto this Last. The six works named above are 
 representative of the range and variety of his style and matter ; but 
 they form only a portion of his enormous output. 
 
 Ruskin's mind and character formed themselves early. From 
 the beginning his views were definite and distinct, and they were 
 expressed dogmatically and imperiously. Even the manner of 
 expression, though ' changed in outward lustre,' remained essentially 
 the same. The splendour of his latest prose was mitigated : its 
 florid ornament became less luxuriant, its rhetoric less rotund; but 
 its strength and character remained unaltered. In Modern Painters 
 Ruskin is a prose poet. His descriptions are accumulations of
 
 NOTES 215 
 
 splendour, and, in this respect, are excelled by those of no other 
 writer. Most readers of good taste, however, will prefer the 
 chastened prose of his later years. Its magnificence may be less, 
 but its force is even greater. In Modern Painters one feels that 
 the writer is trying to say everything as splendidly as possible, in 
 Fors Clavigera as clearly as possible ; and the balance of conviction 
 is with the later style. The present essay is a good, though perhaps 
 a gentle, example of this stronger style, which is seen at its best in 
 Unto this Last. 
 
 Ruskin was one of the greatest moral and aesthetic forces of the 
 nineteenth century. He helped to shape English views of art, life 
 and nature for nearly three generations, and his influence was in- 
 variably good. Even though we differ from him now in this and 
 that, it was he who helped us to have the power of judgment. His 
 life was noble. His benefactions were many. He wrote, lectured 
 and taught without stint to raise the moral standard of life ; and if 
 he preached that bodily labour was good, he was ready to shoulder 
 pick and spade to approve the doctrine in his own person. His 
 prose is great; but his life was greater still. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 2. Logically due. Ruskin means that English people 
 are, as a rule, indifferent or contemptuous towards English art. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 4. Ogygian seclusions. Ogyges was a mythical 
 Boeotian king, during whose reign occurred a great inundation called 
 the Ogygian flood. Thus Ogygian has much the same meaning as 
 our 'antediluvian' — dim, distant, fabled, prehistoric. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 4. Marlborougli House, etc. During the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, part of the present National Gallery building 
 was occupied by the Royal Academy, and some of the national 
 pictures had to be hung elsewhere. Thus, from 1850 to 1859, ^^^ 
 Vernon Collection, together with some other British pictures, was at 
 Marlborough House ; and when that building was needed as the 
 town-house of the Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII) the 
 pictures were lent to H.M. Office of Works and the South Kensington 
 Museum. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 6. Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 (1723 — 1792), one of the greatest of English artists, was born in 
 Devonshire, l)ut is generally associated with London where he lived 
 and worked during the height of his fame, and where he enjoyed the 
 intimacy of Dr Johnson, Burke, Garrick and (ioldsmith at the 
 celebrated C^lub. He is equally famous for his dignified portraits and 
 for his pictures of children. He is well represented in the national 
 collections,«Qnd his best works have been made familiar in countless 
 reproductions. His writings on art are quite admirable. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 9. The ' Holy Family.' A beautiful group painted by 
 Sir Joshua in 1788, representing Joseph and Mary with the infant 
 Jesus and John the Baptist. The picture, like many others painted 
 at this time, had sadly deteriorated by the middle of the nineteenth
 
 216 NOTES 
 
 century, and was withdrawn from public exhibition. It was replaced 
 in the National Gallery in 1907 after a restoration that is a triumph 
 of skilful treatment. An excellent reproduction in colour has been 
 issued by the Medici Society of London. 
 
 p. 130, 1. 10. The 'Graces.' This is a fanciful portrait of the 
 three daughters of Sir William Montgomery who are painted as 
 'The Graces decorating a Statue of Hymen.' 
 
 p. 131, 1. 3. Tintoret. Jacobo Robusti (1518—1594), called 
 Tintoretto (' the little dyer ') from his father's trade, was a great 
 Venetian painter. His pictures, other than portraits, usually depict 
 some great event in sacred history, and are enormous compositions 
 crowded with figures. He is represented in the National Gallery 
 by a fine ' St George and the Dragon.' 
 
 p. 132, 1. 3. Gainstoorough. Thomas Gainsborough (1727 — 
 1788), one of the greatest of English painters. Ruskin calls him the 
 ' rival-friend ' of Reynolds, because they were friends and neighbours 
 (Reynolds in Leicester Square and Gainsborough in Pall Mall) and 
 were in great demand at the same time as painters of portraits. 
 Thus, each painted famous portraits of Mrs Siddons, and their 
 pictures of ' Perdita ' Robinson hang now almost side by side at 
 Hertford House. Gainsborough painted landscapes as well as 
 portraits, and is well represented in the national collections. One 
 of Sir Joshua's ' Discourses ' expressly criticises the art of Gains- 
 borough. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 4. Giorgione. Giorgio Barbarelli (1478 — 151 1), called 
 Giorgione, was a famous painter of the Venetian School. Very fev*' 
 genuine pictures by him exist, and there are none of any importance 
 in the national collections. The magnificently coloured ' Three 
 Philosophers' (or 'The Three Wise Men'j at \'ienna and a beautiful 
 ' Portrait of a Man Unknown ' (claimed as Giorgione's) in a private 
 English collection have been well reproduced in colour by the 
 Medici Society ; while numerous photographs of the Dresden 
 ' Venus ' have made that romantic picture very well known. 
 Picture-lovers of to-day would be inclined to think of Giorgione 
 more as a painter of men than of women. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 5. Correggio. Antonio Allegri (1494 — 1534), called 
 Correggio because he was born in that little north Italian town, was 
 a famous painter of sacred and classical subjects. At first over- 
 praised and then over-depreciated, he is now recognised as a great 
 figure in the second rank of artists. His ' Education of Cupid ' is 
 a very popular picture in the National Gallery. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 6. Titian. Tiziano Vecelli (1477 — 1576), owe of the su- 
 premely great artists of the world, was born at Cadore in the romantic 
 Dolomite region of Tyrol. His work is remaikable for magnificence 
 of design and splendour of colour, and its wide range includes 
 portraits of celebrities like the Emperor Charles V, and of unknown 
 persons like the famous ' Man with the Glove ' in the Louvre,
 
 NOTES 217 
 
 together with pictures representing subjects drawn from sacred and 
 profane history. He is well represented in England — his ' Bacchus 
 and Ariadne ' in the National Gallery being one of the best known, 
 as it is one of the greatest, pictures in that collection. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 12. Giotto. Giotto (1266 — 1337) was born in a small 
 village near Florence. He may be called the Father of Modern 
 Painting because he introduced naturalness and simplicity into the 
 stift'and awkward religious art of his time. His work is not well 
 known save to travellers (though his portrait of Dante is familiar in 
 reproductions), for much of it is in fresco, that is, painted upon the 
 walls of churches or buildings in Italian towns. The beautiful 
 campanile or bell-tower at Florence was designed by Giotto. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 18. Tlie strawberry girl. Now in the Wallace Col- 
 lection at Hertford House, London. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 24. Sir Joshua's May-fairness. His \\orldliness, 
 Mayfair being a fashionable residential district in London. 
 
 p. 132, 1. 39, Vandyck. Antony Vandyck (1599 — [64r) was 
 born at Antwerp, and, after studying with Rubens, visited Italy. 
 He came in 1632 to England and spent much of the rest of his life 
 here. His work falls into two main classes : sacred pictures and 
 portraits ; and in all he is noble, graceful, and dignified. He is 
 well represented in England, wliere his portraits of Charles I have 
 made that monarch perhaps the most instantly recognised of English 
 kings. 
 
 p. 133, 1. 18. This grisly fisherman. The ' well-bred man ' 
 with fingers on sword-hilt might very well be the Philip II in the 
 Prado or at Naples ; but the ' grisly fisherman ' does not seem to 
 occur in any of Titian's pictures. The St Christopher of the Ducal 
 Palace at Venice answers some of the requirements, but he is far 
 from 'grisly.' Mr Charles Ricketts, who knows more of Titian 
 than most people, tells me that he thinks the passage is a mere literary 
 flourish without reference to any actual picture. 
 
 p. 133, 1.40. In another place. Ruskin reverts to this theme 
 in his Modern Painters. 
 
 p. 134, 1. 18. Cardinal Beaufort and Ugolino. Sir Joshua 
 painted 'The Death of Cardinal jjcauforl ' as an illustration of 
 2 Henry VI, Act III. It has often been reproduced in illustrated 
 Shakespeares. Ugolino is the sul^ject of the dreadful story lokl by 
 Dante in Inferno xxxm. Count Ugolino, a proud and treacherous 
 tyrant, having betrayed the I'isans, was seized by the infuriated 
 citizens and cast with two sons and two grandsons into a tower, 
 the door of which was locked and the key thrown into the Arno. 
 Here in this Tower of Famine they perished miserably of thirst and 
 hunger. Sir Joshua's picture of this— so unlike his gentler art — is 
 in a private collection ; but a sketch for the head of Ugolino is in 
 the National Gallery. 
 
 14—5
 
 218 NOTES 
 
 p. 134, 1. 28. Faiths, Charities, etc. Sir Joshua designed a 
 stained-glass window for the chapel at New College, Oxford, repre- 
 senting the Seven Cardinal Virtues. 
 
 p. 134, I. 36. Puck, etc. These are all the names of actual 
 pictures by Reynolds— none of them in the public galleries of 
 England. 
 
 p. 135, 1. 27. Meaner men. The editors of the Library Edition 
 indicate that when Ruskin wrote these words he was thinking of 
 Barry, West, Opie, Fuseli, and Haydon. 
 
 p. 135, 1. 32. The Heraclidse. The mighty and rightful rulers— 
 an allusion to the conquerors of southern Greece who claimed, in 
 justification of their rule, to be descendants of Heracles or Hercules. 
 
 p. 136, 1. 14. Madonna di San Sisto. The masterpiece of 
 Raphael in the Dresden Gallery. Countless reproductions have 
 made it one of the best-known of pictures. The ' Mrs Pelham ' to 
 which Ruskin refers is a portrait by Sir Joshua, typical of his gentle 
 pictures of women. 
 
 p. 136, 1. 20. Hans Holbein. There were two Hans Holbeins, 
 the elder (1460— 1524) (referred to later in this essay) a painter of 
 indifferent merit, far surpassed by his son, Hans Holbein the 
 younger (1497— 1543), one of the greatest of all artists. He was 
 born at Augsburg, but is chiefly associated with Basle, where he 
 spent much of his life, painting many pictures and engraving many 
 blocks for woodcuts. He visited England twice, becoming friendly 
 with Sir Thomas More, and attracting the notice of Henry VHI to 
 whom he became Court Painter. Here he drew and painted a mag- 
 nificent series of English portraits— the King, More, Warham, 
 Guildford, Norfolk— and here, in London, he died. Holbein is 
 well represented in England, but many of his works are in private 
 collections. The National Gallery contains two masterpieces, 
 ' The Princess Christina ' and ' The Ambassadors.' There are other 
 portraits at Hampton Court, and a magnificent set of drawings at 
 Windsor. 
 
 p. 136, 1. 37. The Hausmann George Gyzen. Georg Gisze (as 
 his name is generally spelt in Germany) was a merchant of the 
 Steelyard. His portrait by Holbein is in the Royal Gallery at 
 Berlin, and has been admirably reproduced in colours by the Medici 
 Society of London. 
 
 p. 139, 1. 12. Family of Sir Thomas More. Holbein painted a 
 picture of More and his household, now lost; but the vigorous pen- 
 and-ink sketch for it is still at Basle. 
 
 p. 139, 1. 16. Erasmus. Holbein painted several portraits of 
 the great Dutch reformer. The best-known is the splendid picture 
 in the Louvre, in which Erasmus is represented in profile engaged 
 in writing. Other portraits of Erasmus with a book are at Pamia 
 and Basle.
 
 NOTES 219 
 
 p. 139, 1. 17. Holbein's Madonna. The famous Madonna painted 
 for Meier, the burgomaster of Basle. The picture is familiar here 
 in reproductions. It is now generally believed that the Dresden 
 picture is only a copy, the original being at Darmstadt. 
 
 p. 140, 1. 6. Two other pictures. The 'St Barbara' and 
 * St Elizabeth ' to which Ruskin refers are the two wings of a 
 triptych in the ' Pinakothek,' tlie gallery of Munich. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD: MARCUS 
 AURELIUS 
 
 Matthew Arnold (1822 — 1888) was born at Lalehani, on the 
 Thames, not far from Windsor, eldest son of Dr Arnold, the famous 
 head-master of Rugby. He was educated at Winchester and Rugby, 
 and proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. The old University city 
 exercised a singular fascination upon him, and its influence colours 
 much of his work directly and all of it indirectly. There is little 
 to say of his later career. His life was the quiet and uneventful 
 existence of a public servant who is at the same time a man of 
 letters. He died quite suddenly at Liverpool of heart failure after 
 hurr)-ing for a vehicle. 
 
 Matthew Arnold is important in three spheres of activity — in 
 education, in criticism, and in poetry. He became an inspector of 
 schools in 1S51 and exerciseil an enlightening, humanising influence 
 in elementary education, where it was much needed, and wrote, in 
 this official capacity, reports on English and foreign schools which 
 form a valuable body of pedagogical literature. As a poet his place 
 is high in the ranks of those who are below the best. He is not to 
 be named with Shakespeare or Milton, with Wordsworth or Shelley, 
 not even with his great contemporaries Tennyson and Browning ; 
 but he has his sure and appointed place ; for his message and his 
 style have distinct beauty and individuality. 7kyrsis and The 
 Scholar Gipsy, Sohrab and Riistmn, The Forsaken Merman, Rugby 
 Chapel, together with some exquisite short poems, are among the 
 choicest, even though not the greatest, of our poetic possessions, and 
 must form part of the reading of every educated Englishman. As a 
 critic he exercised a most important influence on literary thought 
 during the latter part of the nineteenth century. His manner was 
 ironical, diffident, delicate; yet he exposed our national deficiencies 
 in culture with much deadlier effect than if he had bullied and 
 Vjlustered in his prose. The sort of ' downrightncss' and ' [jlain
 
 220 NOTES 
 
 bluntness' of honest John Bull— the quality that, admirable as it is 
 in many Avays, degenerates in most cases into national awkwardness 
 and rusticity— was the object of his unsparing and courteous ridicule; 
 and there is no doubt that we are much the better for his delicate, 
 moderating influence. This critical work is to be found in his many 
 volumes of essays (Essays in Criticism, Mixed Essays, On the Study 
 of Celtic Literature, Irish Essays, Discourses in America) and in 
 such volumes as Culture and Anarchy, and Literature and Dogma. 
 His prose has the unstudied grace and ease of first-rate conver- 
 sation lightly touched with quiet humour and irony ; but his verse 
 strikes a very different note. He lived during that part of the nine- 
 teenth century when the teachings of natural science had unsettled 
 the religious beliefs of many good men. Arnold was one who 
 suffered. He wanted a faith, yet could not find one. Like his own 
 Forsaken Merman he was forced to stand outside the church into 
 which he would fain have entered. This hovering between faith 
 and unbelief, this 
 
 Wandering between two worlds, one dead. 
 The other powerless to be born, 
 
 makes him very representative of his time, and (more important) 
 gives to all his work in verse a tone of wistful regret that is strangely 
 moving. ^ 
 
 p. 141, 1. 1. Mr Mill. John Stuart Mill (1806—1873), the great 
 English philosopher and political economist, author of A System of 
 Logic, Principles of Political Economy, On Liberty, and other famous 
 works. 
 
 p. 141,1. 21. 'The Imitation.' The Imitation of Christ, gve&test 
 of all devotional books, was written (it is generally believed) early 
 in the fifteenth century by a Dutch monk, Thomas of Kempen, 
 usually called Thomas a Kempis (1379— 1471). Those who have 
 read George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss will recall the striking 
 part played in this story by the Imitation. 
 
 p. 142, 1. 23. Epictetus. Epictetus, born about the middle of 
 the first century of the Christian era, was a crippled slave who was 
 afterwards set free and became a great moral philosopher. He was 
 banished from Rome by Domitian. His works— collected and 
 written down by Arrian, one of his followers — have been well 
 translated by the George Long whose version of Marcus Aurelius 
 was the occasion of the present essay. Arnold, in an early sonnet, 
 acknowledges how much he owed to 
 
 That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 
 Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 
 Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. 
 
 p. 143, 1. 2. Empedocles. Empedocles was a Greek philosopher 
 of Sicily who flourished in the fifth century B.C. In popular story 
 he is more famous for his death than his life ; for it is alleged that, 
 desiring to seem divine and to make a mysterious disappearance
 
 NOTES 221 
 
 from the world, he plunged into the crater of Mt Etna, but was 
 betrayed by the casting up of his sandals. For this adventure Lamb 
 includes him among the great 'fools' in his essay All Fools' Day; 
 and Milton places him in the Paradise of P'ools as 
 
 he who, to be deemed 
 A god, leaped fondly into Etna flames. 
 
 Arnold makes him the subject of his poetic drama Ernpedoclfs on 
 Etna. 
 
 p. 143, 1. 7. Justification by faith. One of the great contro- 
 versies of the Reformation period was whether a man is justified and 
 made righteous by faiih in the Saviour or by his good works. The 
 Reformers insisted that faith alone justified a man ; but their doctrine 
 was rejected by Catholics at the Council of Trent. The Jansenists 
 held a somewhat similar view. See the notes on Macaulay's essay 
 in this volume. 
 
 p. 143, 1. 25. Let Thy loving spirit, etc. The sources of the 
 following quotations are respectively : Psalm cxliii. lo (Prayer Book 
 version); Isaiah Ix. 19; Malachi iv. 2; John i. 13; John iii. 3; 
 I. John V. 4. 
 
 p. 143, 1. 38. All things are possible. Mark ix. 23. 
 
 p. 143, 1. 39. A new creature. II. Corinthians v. 17. 
 
 p. 144, 1. 10. Seventy times seven. Matthew xviii. 22. 
 
 p. 144, 1. 25. The school, etc. The school of ' Utilitarian 
 Philosophy,' specially associated with the names of Mill and 
 Bentham. It was material rather than spiritual in character, and 
 some of its aims have been condensed into the phrase ' The greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number.' 
 
 p. 144, 1. 35. Mr Long. George Long (1800— 1879), ^ Cam- 
 bridge man in the time of Macaulay. He became later a Professor 
 of Classics. 
 
 p. 145, 1. 28. Jeremy Collier. Jeremy Collier (1630— 1726), a 
 High Church and Jacobite clergyman whose Short Viezv of the 
 Immorality of the English Stage aroused great controversy at the 
 end of the seventeenth century. 
 
 p. 147, 1. 25. Calls his author Marcus Antoninus. The 
 emperor's name was Marcus Verus Annius Aurelius Antoninus. 
 Mr Long might have pleaded, in answer to Matthew Arnold's 
 objection, the great precedent of Gibbon, who calls the emperor 
 sometimes Marcus, sometimes Marcus Antoninus, and never Marcus 
 Aurelius. 
 
 p. 147, 1. 38. Volltare per ora vlrum. Virgil, Georgics iii. 8, 
 'to flutter through the mouths of men.' 
 
 p. 148, 1. 3. Arouet. Voltaire's real name was Fran9ois Marie 
 Arouet.
 
 222 NOTES 
 
 p. 149, 1. 27. Saint Louis. Louis IX, king of France from 
 1226 to 1270. He was not only a good man and a crusader, but 
 also a reformer of the French legal and political system. 
 
 p. 149, 1. 32. Trajan. The good and vigorous Roman emperor 
 who ruled from a.d. 98 to 117. 
 
 p. 150, 1. 1. The 'Saturday Review' critic. E. A. Freeman 
 (1823 — 1892), the famous historian who wrote lengthily and authori- 
 tatively on early English history and other subjects. 
 
 p. 150, 1. 37. The whole that history has to offer. Compare 
 Gibbon : ' History, which is little more than the register of the 
 crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.' So Burke [Reflections 
 on the Revolution in France) : ' History consists, for the greater 
 part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, 
 avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all 
 the train of disorderly appetites.' 
 
 p. 151, 1. 9. The sixth satire of Juvenal. Juvenal was a 
 Roman poet who flourished during the latter part of the first 
 century a.d. His satires are attacks on the vices of the day. The 
 sixth is a bitter criticism of the Roman wives and mothers. 
 
 p. 151, 1. 15. Graculus esuriens. 'The greedy Greekling'— 
 a term of contempt used by Juvenal {Sat. ill. 78). 
 
 p. 151, 1. 27. Caret quia vate sacro. Horace, Odes iv. 9. 28, 
 'because he lacks a heaven-sent bard.' 
 
 p. 151, 1. 33. Avidius Cassius. In 175 Marcus Aurelius set out 
 for the East where Avidius Cassius, urged by Faustina, wife of 
 Aurelius, had revolted and proclaimed himself emperor. 
 
 p. 153, 1. 24. Mormonism. The popular name given to the 
 ' Church of the Latter-day Saints ' founded in America by Joseph 
 Smith (1805 — 1844) who wrote the Book 0/ iMorinoii from instructions 
 given, he alleged, by an angelic visitor who revealed to him the 
 mysterious words of an ancient prophet named Mormon. The 
 feature in Mormonism that aroused popular notice and indignation 
 and to which Arnold refers was a plurality of wives ; and this was 
 suppressed later by the United States government. 
 
 p. 153, 1. 39. Exitiabilis superstitio, etc. Tacitus, Annals xv. 
 44, ' The deadly superstition.' The most interesting, though not 
 the most sympathetic, account of Christianity in the Roman Empire 
 is to be found in the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of 
 Gibbon, and to those the student should refer. The passage of 
 Tacitus from which Arnold quotes is as follows : 'In order to remove 
 the imputation [of having set fire to Rome] Nero determined to 
 transfer the guilt to others. For this purpose he punished, with 
 exquisite torture, a race of men detested for their evil practices, by 
 vulgar appellation called Christians. The name was derived from 
 Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered under Pontius Pilate,
 
 NOTES 223 
 
 the procurator of Judea. By that event the sect, of which he was 
 the founder, received a IjIow, which, for a time, checked the growth 
 of a dangerous superstition ; but it soon revived, and spread with 
 recruited vigour, not only in Judea, the soil that gave it biith, 
 but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which every- 
 thing infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters 
 of the world. Nero proceeded with his usual artifice. He found a 
 set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who were induced to 
 confess themselves guilty, and, on the evidence of such men, a 
 number of Chiistians were convicted, not indeed upon clear evidence 
 of their having set the city on fire, but rather on account of their 
 sullen hatred of the whole human race. They were put to death 
 with exquisite cruelty, and to their sufferings Nero added mockery 
 and derision. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and 
 left to be devoured by dogs ; others were nailed to the cross ; 
 numbers were burnt alive; and many, covered over with inflammable 
 matter, were lighted up, when the day declined, to serve as torches 
 
 during the night At length the cruelty of these proceedings 
 
 filled every breast with compassion. Humanity relented in favour 
 of the Christians. The manners of that people were, no doubt, of a 
 pernicious tendency, and their crimes called for the hand of justice ; 
 but it was evident that they fell a sacrifice, not for the puljlic good, 
 but to glut the rage and cruelty of a single man.' 
 
 p. 154, 1. 24. Tlie Code Napoleon. The standard body of French 
 civil law compiled during i8oo — 1804 by order of Napoleon and, in 
 some ways, with his actual co-operation. The Code contains over 
 two thousand articles regulating French civil relations. 
 
 p. 155, 1. 18. The Catacombs. The Catacomljs, the famous 
 underground burial places in which the Christians sought refuge 
 from persecution. The Palatine was the chief of the Roman hills, 
 and upon it were built several of the Imperial palaces. 
 
 p. 155, 1. 24. Fleury. Claude Fleury (1640 — 1723), a famous 
 French writer of ecclesiastical history, not to be confused with 
 Cardinal Fleuiy (1653 — 174.3), 'he great peace-minister of France 
 contempora'-y with our own peace-minister Walpole. 
 
 p. 159, 1. 5. Tlie kingdom of God is within you. Luke xvii. 21. 
 
 p. 159, 1. 10. Seneca. The famous Roman tragedian and moral 
 philosopher, born 4 B.C., ordered by Nero to kill himself A.D. 65. 
 He was one of the favourite moralists of the Middle Ages, but he is 
 now very little read. 
 
 p. 162, 1. 9. ApoUonius, Rusticus, Maximus. Three of 
 .Marcus's tutors. 
 
 p. 162, 1. 29. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian. Four of the 
 most wicked of the Roman emperors, reigning respectively 14 — 37, 
 37 — 41, 54 — 68, 81 — 96 A.U. Some historians believe the wicked- 
 ness of Tiberius 10 have been exaggerated in lejjorl.
 
 224 NOTES 
 
 p. 163, 1. 23. The Happy Islands. The Fortunate Isles or Isles 
 of the Blessed, mythically placed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, 
 where the souls of heroes dwelt. 
 
 p. 163, 1. 36. Vespasian. Roman emperor a.d. 69 — 79. 
 
 p. 165, 1. 33. faithless, etc. Matthew xvii. 17; also 
 Luke ix. 41. 
 
 p. 167, 1. 23. Justin. Justin the Martyr, an Eastern Christian 
 of the second century, wrote a famous Apology or defence of 
 Christianity addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the pre- 
 decessor of Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 p. 167, I. 25. Alogi. A second-century sect that denied the 
 divinity of Christ and the authenticity of St John's Gospel. 
 
 p. 167, 1. 29. Gnosis. Literally 'knowledge,' but used specially 
 of sacred, mystic knowledge. 
 
 p. 167, 1. 39. Tendentemque manus, etc. Virgil, Aeneid vi. 
 314, 'Stretching forth their hands in longing for the farther shore.' 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: A PENNY 
 PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 — 1894) was born in Edinburgh. 
 He was educated at the University of his native city, and called to 
 the Scottish Bar. His father and grandfather were lighthouse 
 engineers, and his knowledge of the sea, gained by participation in 
 the cruises necessitated by the family calling, distinctly coloured 
 much that he afterwards wrote. His earliest bent was for literature, 
 and, in the essay called A College Magazine, he describes the hard 
 apprenticeship to which he put himself with the object of learning 
 how to write. His stories of adventure. Treasure Island, Kidnapped, 
 Catriona, and The Black Arrow, are familiar to all. The Nezo 
 { Arabian iVights, The Dynamiters and The Wrong Box are romances 
 \ partly grotesque and partly farcical. Higher in value are The 
 % Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a terrible and unforgettable 
 fable, Weir of fiermiston, a fine fragment of tragic story, and the 
 collection of tales called The Merry Men. His maternal grand- 
 father was a clergyman, and from him Stevenson humorously 
 declared he had derived an incurable tendency to preach. Certainly 
 \ the best of his writing is to be found in the various books of essays 
 I — Virginibus Pnerisqiie, Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 
 I Alemories and Portraits, Across the Plains — the last^^^rhaps, the
 
 NOTES 225 
 
 most entirely satisfying of all his volumes. His poems are generally i 
 subsrdtary to his prose; but one volume, J ChiWs Garden of Vc-rses, 
 is an exquisite and enduring evocation of the joys and fears of child- -; 
 hood. Many other books are not enumerated here. Stevenson was 
 consumptive, and his life was a continual Odyssey in search of 
 health. To Switzerland, to Califomiar tmd,- at last, to the South 
 Seas'he journeyed, and journeyed in vain. The last five years of his 
 life were spent at Samoa where he died suddenly in December, 
 
 '894. 
 
 The best biography of Stevenson is contained in his own letters ; 
 and, indeed, the best thing in all Stevenson's books is Stevenson 
 himself. From nearly every page exhales the spirit of a brave, gay, 
 romantic, boyish personality; and, just as the man fascinated all his 
 friends, so his writing fascinates aTl his readers. His prose is 
 enchantingly phrased and modulated. The words are chosen with 
 curious and, sometimes, quaint felicity, and sentences of most 
 pleasingly unforeseen turn abound in his best work. He was not a 
 great writer — in the sense in which Shakespeare is ^reat. He 
 belongs to the order of men who produce little things and shape j 
 them lovingly and exquisitely. In the Elysian Fields where the ; 
 souls of dead authors foregather, Robert Louis Stevenson should be i- 
 seen not far from Charles Lamb. 
 
 p. 168, 1. 2. Skelt's Juvenile Drama. It is just possible that 
 some readers may be unfamiliar with this once popular amusement 
 of childhood. A paper proscenium, coloured and mounted on card- 
 board, was set up on a box and formed a tiny stage. A play was 
 bought, and, with it, sheets of the necessary scenery and characters, 
 which were coloured, mounted on card, and cut out, the scenes 
 being set up at the back of the mimic stage, and the characters, 
 stuck in a tin clip with a long wire handle, pushed on and pulled off 
 from the sides as the exigence of the scene demanded. The actual 
 dialogue was read by the children playing, or, sometimes, by one 
 solitary player, who in his sole imagination became producer, stage- 
 manager and scene-shifter, as well as all tiie dramatis personce at 
 once. Surely not every child will admit ' the tedium, the worry, 
 and the long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance ' 
 which .Stevenson, later, charges against the Juvenile Drama ! 
 
 p. 168, 1. 8. Mr lonides. Constantine Alexander lonides (1833 
 — 1900), a Manchester merchant of Greek descent, was a great 
 
 collector of pictures, drawings, etchings, etc. His collection was > 
 
 bequeathed to the nation and is now at South Kensington. Steven- \ 
 
 son's suggestion that he or Queen Victoria possessed sets of 'Skelt's | 
 
 Juvenile Drama' is of course quite humorous. | 
 
 p. 168, 1. 14. Der Freischiitz. Literally, 'The Free Shooters,' a 
 romantic story of magic bullets cast with diabolic enchantments, 
 familiar to all music-lovers in its form as an opera by Weber. 
 
 p. 169, 1. 1. But now how fallen. A reminiscence of Satan's 
 first speech, Paradise Lost, 1. 84.
 
 226 NOTES 
 
 p. 169, 1. 3. The city of my childhood. Edinburgh, connected 
 with Leith, its port, by the ' wide thoroughfare' of Leith Walk. 
 
 i p. 169, 1. 33. The Jews rebuilding Salem. The Jews who 
 
 I returned from tlie Captivity and rebuilt the Temple and Holy City 
 had a double task, first to build, and next to prevent any participation 
 in the building of the mixed and unorthodox race of Samaritans who 
 peopled the land during the Captivity. See the books of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. 
 
 p. 170, 1. 11. The crux of Buridan's donkey. A ' crux ' (plural 
 'cruces'), literally a ' cross,' is a 'problem' or 'an almost insuperable 
 difficulty.' Jean Buridan was a fourteenth-century philosopher, 
 Rector of the University of Paris. The famous crux associated with 
 his name but, apparently, not propounded by him, may be stated 
 thus: A perfect donkey, placed exactly midway between two 
 perfectly equal bundles of hay, would be bound to starve, because, 
 the attractions of the two bundles being exactly equal, he would be 
 unable to turn away from one to go to the other. The crux is thus 
 a humorous illustration of the difficulty of making up one's mind. 
 
 p. 171, 1. 12. A deliquium. Literally, the liquid state following 
 the absorption of atmospheric moisture by certain solids. Calcium 
 chloride, for instance, rapidly liquefies on exposure to damp air. 
 
 p. 171, 1. 17. The horns of elf-land. 
 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
 from one of the songs in Tennyson's Princess. 
 p. 171, 1. 20. Titian. See p. 216. 
 
 p. 172, 1. 2. These realms of gold. A reminiscence of Keats's 
 sonnet ' On first looking into Chapman's Homer ' : 
 
 Much have I travelled in the realms of gold. 
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen. 
 
 p. 172, 1. 17. Different with the rose. The allusion is, of course, 
 to the familiar passage in Romeo and Juliet, Act 11, Sc. ii : 
 
 What's in a name? That which we call a rose 
 By any other name would smell as sweet. 
 
 p. 172, 1. 28. 0. Smith, Fitzball. Nineteenth-century authors of 
 numerous totally forgotten melodramas. 
 
 p. 173, 1. 5. Transpontine. A general note may serve for 
 several allusions that follow. The fashionable theatres of London 
 are on the north or Middlesex side of the river. Up to the early 
 nineties, the theatres 'across the bridges' — the 'transpontine' 
 theatres (chief of them being the Surrey Theatre in the Blackfriars 
 Road) — purveyed the popular ' melodrama,' — the drama of strong 
 'domestic interest, full of clap-trap appeals' to popular sentiment 
 and morals. Hence the allusions to the kingdom of Transpontus ' 
 and ' the Surreyside formation. '
 
 NOTES 227 
 
 p. 173. 1. 17. Quercus Skeltica. The ' Skeltic oak ' — a mock 
 botanical term, just as the ' Surreyside formation' is a mock 
 geological term. 
 
 p. 173. 1. 19. T. P. Cooke. Thomas Potter Cooke (1786 — 1864) 
 was inspired with love of the sea by witnessing a nautical melodrama, 
 and became, very appropriately, first a sailor, and then an actor 
 specializing in nautical parts. He is said to have 'brought the 
 smell of the sea across the footlights,' and to have been without 
 rival in such parts as that of William, hero of Black Eyed 
 Susan. 
 
 p. 173, 1. 21. Tlie gorgeous east in fee. A reminiscence of 
 Wordsworth's sonnet ' On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic' : 
 
 Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, 
 And was the safeguard of the West. 
 
 p. 174, 1. 1. England, when at last I came to visit it. For 
 the first impressions of a Scotsman in England, see Stevenson's 
 pleasant essay, ']'he Foreigner at Home. 
 
 p. 174, 1. 14. Whitman. Walt Whitman (1819— 1892), pro- 
 bably the greatest of American poets, expressed freely his views 
 of life in vivid strains of irregular verse, the best of his volumes 
 being that entitled Leaves of Grass. 
 
 p. 174, 1. 30. Weber or the mighty Formes. Carl Maria von 
 Weber (1786 — 1826), composer of romantic operas, the best-known 
 being Der Freischiilz, others, such as Euryanthe and Oberoii, being 
 familiar to modern music-lovers only by their splendid overtures. 
 Weber died in London. Karl Formes (1819 — 1889) was a great 
 bass singer, one of whose most famous parts was that of Kaspar, in 
 Der Freischiitz. The name Formes, being German, must be pro- 
 nounced in two syllables. 
 
 p. 175, 1. 10. The fool's-cap of St Paul's. Surely not a happy 
 term for the mighty dome! 
 
 p. 175, 1. 17. The packets are dust. The implied lament that 
 we cannot recapture the joys of ciiiidhood receives its most wonderful 
 expression in the opening lines of Wordsworth's Ode on the Intima- 
 tions of I>nmortality, etc. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: PRIMED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
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