THE ART OF CONVERSATION 
 
 OTHEE PAPEKS 
 
 LY 
 
 THOMAS DE QUIIsTOEY 
 
 EDINBUEGH 
 ADAM AND CHAELES BLACK 
 
 MDCCCLXIII 
 
 [The right of Translation is reserved.^ 
 
NKILL AND i;OMl'AN\, lUINTKUS. EDINULRCK 
 
Vs 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Several papers in this Volume were revised by the 
 x\uthor; others are republished in their original form. 
 
 Two of those in the latter class demand a special remark, 
 in justice to the Author's memory. The " Letters to a 
 Young Man whose Education has been Neglected/' were 
 always kept in abeyance, with the intention of being con- 
 siderably extended. In like manner, the paper " On the 
 Knocking at the G-ate in Macbeth," was marked out for 
 alteration and enlargement. 
 
 Edinburgh, January/ 1863. 
 
 551 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letters to a Young Man whose Education has eei-n 
 
 Neglected, ..... 9 
 
 Orthographic Mutineers, . . . .95 
 
 John Paul Frederick liicHTER, . . .113 
 
 The Art of Conversation, . . , . 1 50 
 
 Presence of Mind, ..... 180 
 
 On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth, . . 192 
 
 The Antigone of Sophocles, . . . .198 
 
 Traditions of the Rabbins, .... 234 
 
 Modern Greece, . . . * . 288 
 
LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN 
 
 WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 My dear Sir, — When I had the pleasure of meeting 
 you at Ch — , for the second time in my life, I was much 
 concerned to remark the general dejection of your manner. 
 I may now add, that I was also much surprised ; your 
 cousin's visit to me having made it no longer a point of 
 delicacy to suppress that feeling. General report had re- 
 presented you as in possession of all which enters into the 
 worldly estimate of happiness — great opulence, unclouded 
 reputation, and freedom from unhappy connexions. That 
 you had the priceless blessing of unfluctuating health, I 
 know upon your own authority. And the concurring opin- 
 ions of your friends, together with my own opportunities 
 for observation, left me no room to doubt that you wanted 
 not the last and mightiest among the sources of happiness 
 — a fortunate constitution of mind, both for moral and in- 
 tellectual ends. So many blessings as these, meeting in 
 the person of one man, and yet all in some mysterious way 
 defeated and poisoned, presented a problem too interesting, 
 both to the selfish and the generous curiosity of men, to 
 
10 LETTERS. 
 
 make it at all wonderful that at that time and place you 
 should have been the subject of much discussion. Now 
 and then some solutions of the mystery were hazarded ; in 
 particular, I remember one from a young lady of seventeen, 
 who said, with a positive air, " That Mr. M — 's dejection 
 was well known to arise from an unfortunate attachment in 
 early life," which assurance appeared to have great weight 
 with some other young ladies of sixteen. But, upon the 
 whole, I think that no account of the matter was proposed 
 at that time which satisfied myself, or was likely to satisfy 
 any reflecting person. 
 
 At length the visit of your cousin L — , in his road to 
 Th — , has cleared up the mystery in a way more agreeable 
 to myself than I could have ventured to anticipate from any 
 communication short of that which should acquaint me with 
 the entire dispersion of the dejection under which you 
 laboured. I allow myself to call such a disclosure agree- 
 able, partly upon the ground that where the grief or dejec- 
 tion of our friends admits of no important alleviation, it is 
 yet satisfactory to know that it may be traced to causes of 
 adequate dignity ; and, in this particular case, I have not 
 only that assurance, but the prospect of contributing some 
 assistance to your emancipation from these depressing recol- 
 lections, by co-operating with your own efforts in the way 
 you have pointed out for supplying the defects of your early 
 education. 
 
 L — explained to me all that your own letter had left 
 imperfect ; in particular, how it was that you came to be 
 defrauded of the education to which even your earliest and 
 humblest prospects had entitled you ; by what heroic eifforts, 
 but how vainly, you laboured to repair that greatest of 
 losses j what remarkable events concurred to raise you to 
 your present state of prosperity ; and all other circumstances 
 
LETTERS. 1 1 
 
 which appeared necessary to put me fully in possession of 
 your present wishes and intentions. 
 
 The two questions which you addressed to me through 
 him I have answered below : these were questions which I 
 could answer easily and without meditation ; but for the 
 main subject of our future correspondence, it is so weighty, 
 and demands such close attention (as even / find, who have 
 revolved the principal points almost daily for many years), 
 that I would willingly keep it wholly distinct from the 
 hasty letter which I am now obliged to write ; on which 
 account it is that I shall forbear to enter at present upon 
 the series of letters which I have promised, even if I should 
 find that my time were not exhausted by the answers to 
 your two questions below. 
 
 To your first question, — Whether to you, with your pur- 
 poses and at your age of thirty-two, a residence at either of 
 our English universities, or at any foreign university, can 
 be of much service ? — my answer is, firmly and unhesita- 
 tingly, JSTo. The majority of the undergraduates of your 
 own standing, in an academic sense, will be your juniors by 
 twelve or fourteen years j a disparity of age which could 
 not but make your society mutually burthensome. What, 
 then, is it that you would seek in a university ? Lectures 1 
 These, whether public or private, are surely the very worst 
 modes of acquiring any sort of accurate knowledge ; and are 
 just as much inferior to a good book on the same subject, 
 as that book hastily read aloud, and then immediately with- 
 drawn, would be inferior to the same book left in your 
 possession, and open at any hour, to be consulted, retraced, 
 collated, and in the fullest sense studied. But, besides 
 this, university lectures are naturally adapted, not so much 
 to the general purpose of communicating knowledge, as to 
 the specific purpose of meeting a particular form of exami- 
 
1 2 LETTERS. 
 
 nation for degrees, and a particular profession to which the 
 whole course of the education is known to be directed. The 
 two single advantages which lectures can ever acquire, to 
 balance those which they forego, are either, first, the obvious 
 one of a better apparatus for displaying illustrative experi- 
 ments than most students can command; and the cases 
 where this becomes of importance it cannot be necessary to 
 mention; second, the advantage of a rhetorical delivery, 
 when that is of any use (as in lectures on poetry, &c.) 
 These, however, are advantages more easily commanded in 
 a great capital than in the most splendid university. What, 
 then, remains to a university, except its libraries'? And 
 with regard to those the answer is short : to the greatest 
 of them undergraduates have not free access ; t) the infe- 
 rior ones (of their own college, &c.) the libraries of the 
 great capitals are often equal or superior; and, for mere 
 purposes of study, your own private library is far preferable 
 to the Bodleian or the Vatican. To you, therefore, a uni- 
 versity can oJBfer no attraction except on the assumption 
 that you see cause to adopt a profession ; and, as a degree 
 from some university would in that case be useful (and in- 
 dispensable except for the bar), your determination on this 
 first question must still be dependent on that which you 
 form upon the second. 
 
 In this second question you call for my opinion upon the 
 eleventh chapter of Mr. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, 
 as applied to the circumstances in which you yourself are 
 placed. This chapter, to express its substance in the most 
 general terms, is a dissuasion from what Herder, in a pas- 
 sage there quoted, calls " Die Authorschaft ;" or, as Mr. 
 Coleridge expresses it, "the trade of authorship ;" and the 
 amount of the advice is, — that, for the sake, of his own 
 happiness and respectability, every man should adopt some 
 
LETTERS. 1 3 
 
 trade or profession, and should make literature a subordi- 
 nate pursuit. On this advice, I understand you to ask, 
 iiTst^ whether it is naturally to be interpreted, as extending 
 to cases such as yours ; and, second^ if so, what is my 
 judgment on such advice so extended % As to my judgment 
 upon this advice, supposing it addressed to men of your age 
 and situation, you will easily collect, from all which I shall 
 say, that 1 think it as bad as can well be given. 
 
 Waiving this, however, and to consider your other ques- 
 tion — in what sense, and with what restrictions, the whole 
 chapter is to be interpreted — that is a point which I find 
 it no easy matter to settle. Mr. Coleridge, who does not 
 usually offend by laxity and indecision of purpose, has, in 
 this instance, allowed the very objects of his advice to shift 
 and fluctuate before him ; and, from the beginning to the 
 end, nothing is firmly constructed for the apprehension to 
 grasp, nor are the grounds of judgment steadily maintained. 
 From the title of the chapter (an afi'ectionate exhortation 
 to those who in early life feel themselves disposed to be- 
 come authors), and, from the express words of Herder, in 
 the passage cited from him as the final words of the chapter^ 
 which words discountenance " authorship" only as *' zu friih 
 Oder unniassig gebraucht" (practised too early, or with too 
 little temperance), it would have been a natural presump- 
 tion that Mr. Coleridge's counsels regarded chiefly or alto- 
 gether the case of very youthful authors, and the unfortunate 
 thirst for premature distinction. And if this had been the 
 purpose of the chapter, excepting that the evil involved in 
 such a case is not very great, and is generally intercepted 
 by the difficulties which prevent, and overpunished by the 
 mortifications which attend any such juvenile acts of pre- 
 sumption, there could have been no room for differing with 
 IMr. Coleridge, except upon the propriety of occupying his 
 
14 LETTERS. 
 
 great powers with topics of such trivial interest. But this, 
 though from the title it naturally should have been, is not 
 the evil, or any part of it, which Mr. Coleridge is contem- 
 plating. What Mr. Coleridge really has in his view are 
 two most difierent objections to literature, as the principal 
 pursuit of life ; which, as I have said, continually alternate 
 with each other as the objects of his arguments, and some- 
 times become perplexed together, though incapable of blend- 
 ing into any real coalition. The objections urged are : 
 First, To literature considered as a means of livelihood ; 
 as any part of the resources which a man should allow 
 himself to rely on for his current income, or worldly credit 
 and respectability. Here the evils anticipated by Mr. 
 Coleridge are of a high and positive character, and such as 
 tend directly to degrade the character, and indirectly to 
 aggravate some heavy domestic evils. Second, To litera- 
 ture considered as the means of sufficiently occupying the 
 intellect. Here the evil apprehended is an evil of defect ; 
 it is alleged that literature is not adequate to the main end 
 of giving due and regular excitement to the mind and the 
 spirits, unless combined with some other summons to men- 
 tal exercise of periodical recurrence — determined by ,an 
 overruling cause, acting from ^thout — and not dependent 
 therefore on the accidents of individual will, or the caprices 
 of momentary feeling springing out of temper or bodily 
 health. Upon the last objection, as by far the most im- 
 portant in any case, and the only one at all applicable to 
 yours, I would wish to say a word ; because my thoughts 
 on that matter are from the abundance of my heart, and 
 drawn up from the very depths of my own experience. If 
 there has ever lived a man who might claim the privilege 
 of speaking with emphasis and autiiority on this great 
 question, — By what means shall a man best support the 
 
LETTERS. 15 
 
 acti^dty of his own mind in solitude ? — I probably am that 
 man ; and upon this ground, that I have passed more of 
 my life in absolute and unmitigated solitude, voluntarily, 
 and for intellectual purposes, than any person of my age 
 whom I have ever either met with, heard of, or read of. 
 With such pretensions, what is it that I offer as the result 
 of my experience, and how far does it coincide with the 
 doctrine of Mr. Coleridge ? Briefly this : I wholly agree 
 with him that literature, in the proper acceptation of the 
 term, as denoting what is otherwise called Belles Lettres, 
 &c. — that is, the most eminent of the fine arts, and so 
 understood, therefore, as to exclude all science whatsoever — 
 is not, to use a Greek word, avrapKrjs, — not self-sufficing ; 
 no, not even when the mind is so far advanced that it can 
 bring what have hitherto passed for merely literary or 
 (Esthetic questions under the light of philosophic principles ; 
 when problems of " taste" have expanded to problems of 
 human nature. And why 1 Simply for this reason, that 
 our power to exercise the faculties on such subjects is not, 
 as it is on others, in defiance of our own spirits ; the diffi- 
 culties and resistances to our progress in these investigations 
 are not susceptible of minute and equable partition (as in 
 mathematics) ; and, therefore, the movements of the mind 
 cannot be continuous, but are either of necessity tumultuary 
 and per saltum, or none at all. When, on the contrary, 
 the difficulty is pretty equally dispersed and broken up into, 
 a series of steps, no one of which demands any exertion 
 sensibly more intense than the rest, nothing is required of 
 the student beyond that sort of application and coherent 
 attention which, in a sincere student of any standing, may 
 be presumed as a habit already and inveterately established. 
 The dilemma, therefore, to which a student of pure litera- 
 ture is continually reduced — such a student, suppose, as the 
 
1 6 LETTERS. 
 
 Schlegels, or any other man who has cultivated no acquaint- 
 ance with the severer sciences — is this : either he studies 
 literature as a mere man of taste, and perhaps also as a 
 philologer — and in that case his understanding must find a 
 daily want of some masculine exercise to call it out and 
 give it play — or (which is the rarest thing in the world) 
 having begun to study literature as a philosopher, he seeks 
 to renew that elevated walk of study at all opportunities ; 
 but this is often as hopeless an effort as to a great poet it 
 would be to sit down upon any predetermination to compose 
 in his character of poet. Hence, therefore, if (as too often 
 it happens) he has not cultivated those studies (mathema- 
 tics, e.g.) which present such difficulties as will bend to a 
 resolute effort of the mind, and which have the additional 
 recommendation that they are apt to stimulate and irritate 
 the mind to make that effort, he is often thrown by the 
 very cravings of an unsatisfied intellect, and not- by passion 
 or inclination, upon some vulgar excitement of business or 
 pleasure, which becomes constantly more necessary to him. 
 I should do injustice to myself if I were to say that I 
 owed this view of the case solely to my own experience ; 
 the truth is, I easily foresaw, upon the suggestion almost of 
 an instant, that literature would not suffice for my mind 
 with my purposes. I foresaw this, and I provided for it 
 from the very first ; but how ? N'ot in the way recom- 
 mended by Mr. Coleridge, but according to a plan which 
 you will collect from the letters I am to write, and which, 
 therefore, I need not here anticipate. "What, however, you 
 will say (for that is the main inquiry), what has been the 
 success ? Has it warranted me to look back upon my past 
 life, and to pronounce it upon the whole a happy one *? I 
 answer in calmness, and with sincerity of heart, Yes. To 
 you, with your knowledge of life, T need not say that it is 
 
LETTERS. 1 7 
 
 a vain thing for any man to hope that he can arrive at my 
 age without many troubles ; every man has his own, and 
 more especially he who has not insulated himself in this 
 world, but has formed attachments and connexions, and 
 has thus multiplied the avenues through which his peace 
 is assailable. But, setting aside these inevitable deductions, 
 I assure you that the great account of my days, if summed 
 up, would present a great overbalance of happiness ; and 
 of happiness during those years which I lived in solitude, 
 of necessity derived exclusively from intellectual sources. 
 Such an evil, indeed, as time hanging heavy on my hands, 
 I never experienced for a moment. On the other hand, 
 to illustrate the benefits of my plan by a picture of the 
 very opposite plan, though pursued under the most splendid 
 advantages, I would direct your eyes to the case of an emi- 
 nent living Englishman, with talents of the first order, and 
 yet, upon the evidence of all his works, ill-satis?.ed at any 
 time either with himself or those of his own age. This 
 Englishman set out in life, as I conjecture, with a plan 
 of study modelled upon that of Leibnitz ; that is to say, 
 he designed to make himself (as Leibnitz most tndy was) 
 a FolylmtoT^ or Catholic student. For this reason, and 
 because at a very early age I had become familiar with the 
 writings of Leibnitz, I have been often tempted to draw 
 a parallel between that eminent German and the no lesb 
 eminent Englishman of whom I speak. In many things 
 they agreed ; these I shall notice at some other oppor- 
 tunity ; only in general I will say, that, as both had minds 
 not merely powerful, but distinguished for variety and 
 compass of power, so in both were these fine endowments 
 completed and accomplished for works of Herculean endur- 
 ance and continuity, by the alliance of a bodily constitution 
 resembling that of horses. They were centaurs \ heroic 
 A 2 
 
1 8 LETTERS. 
 
 iutellects with brutal capacities of body. What partiality 
 in nature ! In general, a man has reason to think himself 
 well off in the great lottery of this life if he draws the 
 prize of a healthy stomach without a mind, or the prize of 
 a fine intellect with a crazy stomach; but that any man 
 should draw both is truly astonishing, and, I suppose, 
 happens only once in a century. Thus far (as indeed 
 much further) they agreed. The points of difference were 
 many, and not less remarkable. Two I shall allege as 
 pertinent to the matter before me. First, I remarked that 
 Leibnitz, however anxious to throw out his mind upon the 
 whole encyclopaedia of human research, yet did not forget 
 to pay the price at which only any right to be thus dis- 
 cursive can be earned. He sacrificed to the austerer muses. 
 Knowing that God geometrizes eternally, he rightly supposed 
 that in the universal temple Mathesis must furnish the 
 master-key which would open most shrines. The English- 
 man, on the contrary, I remarked to have been too self- 
 indulgent, and almost a voluptuary in his studies ; sparing 
 himself all toil, and thinking, apparently, to evade the 
 necessity of artificial power by an extraordinary exertion of 
 his own native power. Neither as a boy nor as a man had 
 he submitted to any regular study or discipline of thought. 
 His choice of subjects had lain too much amongst those 
 dependent upon politics, or rather fleeting interests ; and, 
 when this had not happened, yet never amongst those 
 which admitted of continuous thinking and study, and 
 which support the spirits by perpetual influxes of pleasure, 
 from the constant sense of success and difiiculty overcome. 
 As to the use of books, the German had been a discursive 
 reader, — the Englishman a desultory reader. 
 
 Secondly, I remarked that Leibnitz was always cheerful 
 and obliging, most courteous and communicative to his 
 
LETTERS. 1 9 
 
 follow-labourers in literature or science ; with a single 
 exception (which rests, I think, as the sole stain upon his 
 memory), just, and even generously just, to the claims ot 
 others ; uncensorious, and yet patient of censure ; willing 
 to teach, and most willing to be taught. Our English con- 
 temporary was not, I think, naturally less amiable than 
 Leibnitz ; and therefore I ascribe it to his unfortunate 
 plan of study — ^leaving him, of necessity, too often witli 
 no subjects for intellectual exertion but such as cannot be 
 pursued successfully, unless in a state of genial spirits — 
 that we find him continually in ill-humour, distempered and 
 untuned with uncharitable feelings ; directing too harsh and 
 acrimonious a spirit of criticism always against the age in 
 which he lives, sometimes even against individuals ; queru- 
 lous*"" under criticism, almost to the extent of believing him- 
 self the object of conspiracies and organized persei^.ution ; 
 finally (which to me is far the gloomiest part of the picture), 
 he neither will consent to believe that any man of his own 
 
 * That this appears on the very face of his writings, may be inferred 
 from a German work, published about two years ago, by a Hamburg 
 barrister (I think) — Mr. Jacobs. The subject of the book is, the 
 Modern Literature of England, with the lives, etc., of the most popular 
 authors. It is made up in a great measure from English literary 
 journals, but not always ; and in the particular case of the author 
 now alluded to, Mr. Jacobs imputes to him not merely too lively a 
 sensitiveness to censure, but absolutely a '* wasserscheue'"' (hydropho- 
 bia) with regard to reviewers and critics. How Mr. Jacobs came to 
 use so strong an expression, or this particular expression, I cannot 
 guess ; unless it were that he had happened to see (which, however, 
 does not appear) in a work of this eloquent Englishman the following 
 picturesque sentence: " By an unconscionable extension of the old 
 adage, ' Noscitur a socio,'' my friends are never under the waterfall 
 of criticism, but I must be wet through with the spray." Spray, 
 indeed ! I wish' some of us know no more of these angry cataract? 
 than their spray. 
 
20 LETTERS. 
 
 age (at least of his own country) can teach him anything, — 
 professing all his obligations to those who are dead, or else 
 to some rusty old German ; nor, finally, will he consent to 
 teach others, with the simple-minded magnanimity of a 
 scholar, who should not seek to mystify and perplex his 
 pupil, or to illuminate only with half-lights, nor put himselt 
 on his guard against his reader, as against a person seeking 
 to grow as knowing as himself. On the contrary, who should 
 rejoice to believe — if he could believe it — that all the world 
 knew as much as himself ; and should adopt as his motto 
 (which I make it my pride to have done from my earliest 
 days) the simple grandeur of that line in Chaucer's descrip- 
 tion of his scholar : 
 
 " That gladly would he learn and gladly teach." 
 
 Such were the two features of difference which I had 
 occasion perpetually to remark between two great scholars, 
 in many other features so closely resembling each other. 
 In general these two features would be thought to exist 
 independently ; but, with my previous theory of the neces- 
 sity, in all cases, that, with studies of so uncertain and 
 even morbid an effect upon the spirits as literature, should 
 be combined some analytic exercise of inevitable healthy 
 action, in this respect it was natural that / should connect 
 them in my mind as cause and effect ; and, in that view, 
 they gave a double attestation to Mr. Coleridge's advice 
 where it agrees with mine, and to mine where it differs 
 from his. 
 
 Thus far I have considered Mr. Coleridge's advice simply 
 as it respects the student. But the object of his studies is 
 aliso entitled to some consideration. If it were better for 
 the literary body that all should pursue a profession as their 
 Ipyov (or business), and literature as a irapepyov (an 
 
LETTERS. 21 
 
 accessaiy, or mere by-business), how far is literature itself 
 likely to benefit by such an arrangement 1 Mr. Coleridge 
 insists upon it that it will ; and at page 225 he alleges 
 seven names, to which at page 233 he adds an eighth, of 
 celebrated men, who have " shown the possibility of com- 
 bining weighty performances in literature with full and 
 independent employment." On various grounds it would 
 be easy, I think, to cut down the list, as a list any way 
 favourable for Mr. Coleridge's purpose, to one name, viz., 
 that of Lord Bacon. But, waiving his examples, let us 
 consider his arguments. The main business, the epyov, 
 after exhausting a man's powers during the day, is supposed 
 to leave three hours at night for the wapepyov, Now, we 
 are to consider that our bright ideal of a literatus may 
 chance to be married, — in fact, Mr. Coleridge agrees to 
 allow him a wife. Let us suppose a wife, therefore ; and 
 the more so, because else he will perhaps take one without 
 our permission. I ask, then, what portion of these three 
 hours is our student to give up to the pleasure of his wife's 
 society ] For, if a man finds pleasure in his wife's company 
 at any time, I take it for granted that he would wish to 
 spend the evening with her. Well, if you think so (says 
 Mr. Coleridge, in effect, who had at first supposed the 
 learned man to "retire into his study"), in fact he need 
 not retire. How then 1 Why, he is to study, not in his 
 study, but in his drawing-room, whilst " the social silence, 
 or undisturbing voices of a wife or sister, will be like a 
 restorative atmosphere." Silence, by the way, is a strange 
 mode of social pleasure. I know not what Mr. Coleridge 
 does when he sits with a young woman ; for my part, I 
 do " mon possible" to entertain her, both with my wit and 
 my wisdom ; and am happy to hear her talk, even though 
 she should chance to be my own wife ; and never think of 
 
22 LETTERS. 
 
 tolerating silence for one instant. But, not to quarrel 
 about tastes, what is this " sister" that so pleasantly 
 intrudes herself into the party 1 The wife, I understand ; 
 but, in the north of England, or any place where I have 
 lived, wives do not commonly present men with sisters, but 
 with children. Suppose, then, our student's wife should 
 give him a son ; or, what is noisier, a daughter ; or, what 
 is noisier than either, both ^ What 's to be done then *? 
 Here's a worshipful audience for a philosopher! — here's 
 a promising company for " undisturbing voices," and 
 *' social silence 1" I admire Mr. Coleridge's way of 
 blinking this question, of masking this youthful battery 
 with " a sister." Children, however, are incidents that do 
 and will occur in this life, and must not be blinked. I 
 have seen the case again and again ; and I say it, and say 
 it with pain, that there is no more respect for philosophy 
 amongst that lively part of society than Mr. Coleridge and 
 I have for French philosophy. They may, however, be 
 banished to their nursery. True ; but if they are ever 
 admitted to the drawing-room, in houses where not so 
 much company is kept, I observe that this visit is most 
 interesting to all parties in the evening ; and if they would 
 otherwise be admitted, no good-natured student would wish 
 to have their expulsion charged upon his books. After all, 
 however, it is clear that Mr. Coleridge's voice is for the 
 " retiring" system ; and he gives lis pretty plainly to 
 understand (p. 230) that it is far better for men to be 
 separated from their wives throughout the day. But, in " 
 saying this, he forgets that, in the case under consideration, 
 the question is not so properly whether they are ever to be 
 separated, as whether they are ever to meet. Indeed, 
 taking what Mr. Coleridge says on the subject as addressed 
 to literary men especially, I know not why they should 
 
LETTERS. 23 
 
 be supposed likely to make unhappy marriages more than 
 other men. They are not called upon to pass more of their 
 time with their wives than country gentlemen, or men 
 generally without a profession. On the other hand, if we 
 are to understand the words of Mr. Coleridge as of universal 
 application, I hope that he gives us a very unfair view of 
 the average tenor of life in this important particular. Yet, 
 if it be settled that men will quarrel, and must quarrel 
 with their wives, or their wives with them, unless sepa- 
 rated, would not a large screen meet the emergency 1 Or, 
 might not the learned man, as soon as breakfast is ended, 
 bow to his wife and withdraw to his library, where he 
 might study or be sulky according to his taste, leaving her 
 for the rest of the day to amuse or to employ herself in the 
 way most agreeable to her sex, rank, and previous educa- 
 tion *? But, in whatever way this difficulty may be disposed 
 of, one point is clear to my judgment : that literature must 
 decay unless we have a class wholly dedicated to that 
 service, — not pursuing it as an amusement only, with 
 wearied and pre-occupied minds. The reproach of being 
 a " nation houtiqui^rej" now so eminently inapplicable to 
 the English, would become indeed just, and in the most 
 unfortunate sense just, if, from all our overstocked trades 
 and professions, we could not spare men enough to compose 
 a garrison on permanent duty for the service of the highest 
 purposes which grace and dignify our nature. 
 
 You will not infer from all this any abatement in my 
 old respect for Mr. Coleridge's great and various powers ; 
 no man admires them more. But there is no treason, I 
 hope, in starting a little game now and then from the 
 thickets of llie Friend, the Biographia Liter aria, or even 
 from Mr. Coleridge's Sermons , considering that they are 
 Lay ones. Young men must have some exercise this frosty 
 
24 LETTERS. 
 
 weather. Hereafter I sliall have occasion to break a lance 
 with Mr. Coleridge on more difficult questions ; and very- 
 happy I shall be if the amusement which I shall make it 
 my business to strike out, by my hammering, from the 
 flinty rock of his metaphysics, should either tempt any one 
 to look into his valuable writings, or should tempt Mr. 
 Coleridge to sally out of his hiding-place into a philosophic 
 passion, and to attack me with the same freedom. Such 
 an exhibition must be amusing to the public. I conceive 
 
 that two transcendentalists, who are also two s, can 
 
 hardly ever before have stripped in any ring. But, by the 
 way, I wish he would leave transcendentalism to me and 
 other young men ; for, to say the truth, it does not prosper 
 in his hands. / will take charge of the public principles 
 in that point, and he will thus be more at leisure to give 
 us another Ancient Mariner, which, I will answer for it, 
 the whole literary body would receive with gratitude and a 
 fervent " plaudit e." 
 
 LETTEE 11. 
 
 OUTLINE OF THE WORK NOTICE OF FORMER WRITERS 
 
 ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 My bear M. — In this my second and last letter of preface, 
 I shall settle the idea and the arrangement of my papers. 
 There will be in all about seven, of which four will exhibit the 
 material on which the student is to work ; the other three, 
 the tools with which the workmanship is to be conducted. 
 First, what is to be done, and, secondly, how is the natural 
 
LETTERS. 25 
 
 and obvious distribution of the work ; that is to say, the 
 business is to assign, first, the end, and, secondly, the 
 means. And, because the end should reasonably determine 
 the means, it would seem natural that, in the arrangement 
 of the work, all which relates to that should have pre- 
 cedency. Nevertheless, I mean to invert this order, and 
 for the following reason : All that part of the means, which 
 are so entirely determined by the end as to presuppose its 
 full and circumstantial development, may be concluded 
 specially restricted to that individual end. In proportion 
 to this restriction they will, therefore, be of nan'ow appli- 
 cation, and are best treated in direct connexion, and 
 concurrently with the object to which they are thus 
 appropriated. On the other hand, those means or instru- 
 ments of thought, which are sufficiently complex and 
 important to claim a separate attention to themselves, are 
 usually of such large and extensive use that they belong 
 indifferently to all schemes of study, and may safely be 
 premised in any plan, however novel in its principles or 
 peculiar in its tendencies. What are these general instru- 
 ments of study ] According to my view they are three, 
 — first. Logic ; secondly. Languages ; thirdly. Arts of 
 Memory. With respect to these, it is not necessary that 
 any special end should be previously given. Be his end 
 what it maj'-, every student must have thoughts to arrange, 
 knowledge to transplant, and facts to record. Means 
 which are thus universally requisite may safely have pre- 
 cedency of the end ; and it will not be a preposterous 
 order if I dedicate my first three letters to the several 
 subjects of Logic, Languages, and Arts of Memory, which 
 v/ill com.pose one half of my scheme, leaving to the other 
 half the task of unfolding the course of study for which 
 these instruments will be available. Having thus settled 
 :xiii. — B 
 
26 LETTERS. 
 
 the arrangement, and implicitly, therefore, settled in part 
 the idea or ratio of my scheme, I shall go on to add what 
 may be necessary to confine your expectations to the right 
 track, and prevent them from going above or below the 
 true character of the mark I aim at. I profess, then, to 
 attempt something much higher than merely directions for 
 a course of reading. Not that such a work might not be 
 of eminent service ; and in particular at this time, and with 
 a constant adaptation to the case of rich men, not literary, 
 I am of opinion that no more useful book could be executed 
 than a series of letters (addressed, for example, to country 
 gentlemen, merchants, &c.) on the formation of ^ library. 
 The uses of such a treatise, however, are not those which I 
 contemplate ; for, either it would presume and refer to a 
 plan of study already settled — and in that light it is a 
 mere complement of the plan I propose to execute — or else 
 it would attempt to involve a plan of study in the course of 
 reading suggested j and that would be neither more nor le^s 
 than to do in concreto, what it is far more convenient, as 
 well as more philosophical, to do (as I am now going to do) 
 directly and in ahstracto. A mere course of reading, there- 
 fore, is much below what I propose ; on the other hand, an 
 organon of the human understanding is as much above it. 
 Such a work is a labour for a life ; that is to say, though 
 it may take up but a small part of every day, yet could it 
 in no other way accumulate its materials than by keeping 
 the mind everlastingly on the watch to seize upon such 
 notices as may arise daily throughout a life under the 
 favour of accident or occasion. Forty years are not too 
 large a period for such a work ; and my present work, 
 however maturely meditated must be executed with rapidity. 
 Here, in fact, I do but sketch or trace in outline (ws^ eV 
 TVTTc^ 'n-epiXa^eiv) what there it would become my duty to 
 
I-ETTERS. 27 
 
 develop, to fill up in detail, to apply, and to illustrate on 
 the most extensive scale. 
 
 After having attempted in my first part to put you in 
 possession of the best method for acquiring the instruments 
 of study ; and, with respect to logic in particular, having 
 directed a philosophic light upon its true meaning and pur- 
 pose, with the hope of extinguishing that anarchy of errors 
 which have possessed this ground from the time of Lord 
 Bacon to the moment at which I write, — I then, in the 
 second division, address myself to the question of ends. 
 Upon which word let me disting-uish : upon ends, in an 
 absolute sense, as ultimate ends, it is presumption in any 
 man to offer counsel to another of mature age. Advice of 
 that sort, given under whatever hollow pretences of kind- 
 ness, is to be looked upon as arrogance in the most repul- 
 sive shape ; and to be rejected with that scrt of summary 
 disdain, which any man not of servile nature would testify 
 towards him who should attempt to influence his choice of 
 a wife. A student of mature age must be presumed to be 
 best acquainted with his own talents and his own intellec- 
 tual infirmities, with his "forte" and his "foible," with his 
 own former experience of failure or success, and with the 
 direction in which his inclinations point. Far be it from 
 me to violate by the spirit of my counsels a pride so rea- 
 sonable, which, in truth, I hold sacred. My scheme takes 
 an humbler ground. Ends, indeed, in a secondary sense, 
 the latter half professes to deal with ; but such ends as, 
 though bearing that character in relation to what is purely 
 and merely instrumental, yet again become means in rela- 
 tion to ends absolutely so called. The final application of 
 your powers and knowledge it is for yourself only to deter- 
 mine : my pretensions in regard to that election are limited 
 to this, — that I profess to place you on a vantage ground 
 
28 LETTERS. 
 
 from which you may determine more wisely, by determin- 
 ing from a higher point of survey. My purpose is not to 
 m?i,p the whole course of your journey, but to serve as your 
 guide to that station at which you may be able to lay down 
 your future route for yourself. The former half of my 
 work I have already described to you ; the latter half en- 
 deavours to construct such a system of study as shall com- 
 bine these two advantages : 1. Systematic unity ; that is, 
 such a principle of internal connexion, as that the several 
 parts of the plan shall furnish assistance interchangeably. 
 2. The largest possible compass of external relations. Some 
 empires, you know, are built for growth ; others are essen- 
 tially improgressive, but are built for duration, on some 
 principle of strong internal cohesion. Systems of know- 
 ledge, however, and schemes of study, should propose both 
 ends : they should take their foundations broad and deep, 
 
 " And lay great bases for eternity," 
 which is the surest key to internal and systematic connec- 
 tion j and, secondly, they should provide for future growth 
 and accretion, regarding all knowledge as a nucleus and 
 centre of accumulation for other knowledge. It is on this 
 latter principle, by the way, that the system of education 
 in our public schools, however otherwise defective, is justly 
 held superior to the specious novelties of our suburban aca- 
 demies ; for it is more radical, and adapted to a larger 
 superstructure. Such, I say, is the character of my scheme ; 
 and, by the very act of claiming for it, as one of its bene- 
 fits, that it leaves you in the centre of large and compre- 
 hensive relations to other parts of knowledge, it is pretty 
 apparent that I do not presume to suggest in what direction 
 of these manifold relations you should afterwards advance ; 
 that^ as I have now sufficiently explained, will be left to 
 your own self-knowledge ; but to your self-knowledge illu- 
 
LETTERS. 29 
 
 mined at the point Y/here I leavo you by that other kno\v- 
 ledge which my scheme of study professes to communicate. 
 From this general outline of my own plan, I am led by 
 an easy transition to a question of yours, respecting the 
 merits of the most celebrated amongst those who have trod 
 the same ground in past times. Excepting only a little 
 treatise of Erasmus, Be Ratione Studii, all the essays on 
 this subject by eminent continental writers appeared in the 
 seventeenth century ; and, of these, a large majority before 
 the year 1640. They were universally written in Latin ; 
 and, the Latin of that age being good, they are so far agree- 
 able to read ; beyond this, and the praise of elegance in 
 their composition and arrangement, I have not much to say 
 in their behalf. About the year 1645, Lewis Elzevir pub- 
 lished a corpus of these essays, amounting in all to four-and- 
 twenty. In point of elegance and good sense, their merits 
 are various ; thus far they ditfer ; but, in regard to the 
 main point, they hold a lamentable equality of pretension 
 — being all thoroughly hollow and barren of any practical 
 use.* I cannot give you a better notion of their true place 
 
 * Not for the sake of any exception in its favour from the general 
 censure here pronounced on this hody of essays, but for its extraor- 
 dinary tone of passion and frantic energy, and at times of noble sen- 
 timent eloquently expressed, I must notice, as hy far the most me- 
 morable of these essays of the seventeenth century, that of Joachim 
 Forz Ringelberg, On the Method of Study (De Ratione Studii). It 
 is one of those books which have been written most evidently not 
 merely by a madman (as many thousands have), but by a madman 
 under a high paroxysm of his malady ; and, omitting a few instances 
 of affectation and puerihty, it is highly affecting. It appears that 
 the author, though not thirty years of age at the date of his book, 
 was afflicted with the gravel — according to his belief, incurably ; 
 and much of the book was actually written in darkness (on waxen 
 tablets, or on wooden tablets, with a stylus formed of charred bones), 
 during the sleepless nights of pain consequent upon his disease. 
 
30 LETTERS. 
 
 and relation to the class of works of which you are in 
 search of, than by an analogy drawn from the idea of 
 • didactic poetry, as it exists in the Roman literature and 
 our own. So thoroughly is this sometimes misunderstood, 
 that I have seen it insisted on as a merit in a didactic poem, 
 that the art which it professed to deliver might be learned 
 and practised in all its technicalities, without other assist- 
 ance than that which the poem supplied. But, had this 
 been true, so far from being a praise, it would instantly 
 have degraded the poem from its rank as a work among 
 the products of Fine Arts ; ijjso facto, such a poem would 
 have settled down from that high intellectual rank into the 
 ignoble pretensions of mechanic art, in which the metre, 
 and the style which metre introduces, would immediately 
 have lost their justification. The tme idea of didactic 
 poetry is this : either the poet selects an art which fur- 
 nishes the occasion for a series of picturesque exhibitions 
 (as Virgil, Dyer, &c.) ; and, in that case, it is true that he 
 derives part of his power from the art which he delivers ; 
 not, however, from what is essential to the art, but from 
 its accidents and adjuncts. Either he does this, or else (as 
 
 " ^tas abiit," says he, " reditura nunquam — Ah ! nunquam reJi- 
 tura ! Tametsi annum nunc solum trigesimum ago, spem tamen 
 ademit calcuH mofbus." And again : " Sic interim meditantem 
 calculi premunt, ut gravi ipsa dolore mcereat mens, et plerumque 
 noctes abducat insomnes angor." Towards the end it is that he 
 states the remarkable circumstances under which the book was com- 
 posed. *' Bonam partem libri hujus in tenebris scripsi, quando 
 soranus me ob calculi dolorem reliquerat ; idque quum sol adversa 
 nobis %eret vestigia, nocte vagante in medio ccelo. Deerat lumen ; 
 verum tabulas habeo, quibus etiam in tenebris utof." It is singular 
 that so interesting a book should nowhere have been noticed to my 
 knowledge in English literature, except, indeed, in a slight and 
 inaccurate way, by Br. Vicesimus Knox, in his Winter Evening 
 liUClibrations. 
 
LETTERS. 3l 
 
 is the case with Lord Eoscommon, Pope, &c.), so far from 
 seeking in his subject for any part of the ijower, he seeks 
 in that only for the resistance with which he contends by 
 means of the power derived from the verse and the artifices 
 of style. To one case or other of this alternative all didac- 
 tic poems are reducible ; and, allowing for the differences 
 of rhetoric and poetry, the same ideal must have presided 
 in the composition of the various essays of the seventeenth 
 century, addressed to students ; the subject was felt to be 
 austere and unattractive, and almost purely scholastic ; it 
 was the ambition of the writers, therefore, to show that 
 they could present it in a graceful shape ; and that under 
 their treatment the subject might become interesting to the 
 reader, as an arena, upon which skill was exhibited, baffliog 
 or evading difficulties, even at the price of all benefit to the 
 anxious and earnest disciple. Spartam nactus es, was their 
 motto, hanc exorna ; and, like Cicero, in his Idea of an 
 Orator, with relation to the practical duties ; or Lord 
 Shaftesbury, w^ith relation to the accurate knowledge of 
 the academic philosophy ; they must be supposed deliber- 
 ately to have made a selection from the arts or doctrines 
 before them, for the sate of a beautiful composition which 
 should preserve all its parts in harmony, and only second- 
 arily (if at all) to have regarded the interests of the student. 
 By all of them the invitation held out was not so much 
 Indocti discant, as Ament meminisse 2?eriti. 
 
 In our own country there have been numerous " letters," 
 &c., on this interesting subject ; but not one that has laid 
 any hold on the public mind, except the two works of Dr. 
 Watts, especially that upon the " Improvement of the 
 Mind." Being the most imbecile of books, it must have 
 owed its success — 1. To the sectarian zeal of his party in 
 religion, — his fellows and his followers ; 2. To the fact of 
 
32 LETTERS. 
 
 its having gained for its author, from two Scotch univer- 
 sities, the highest degree they could bestow ; 3. To the 
 distinguished honour of having been adopted as a lecture- 
 book (q. as an examination-book *?) by both English uni- 
 versities ; 4. To the extravagant praise of Dr. Johnson, 
 amongst -whose infirmities it was to praise warmly when 
 he was flattered by the sense of his own great superiority 
 in powers and knowledge. Dr. Johnson supposes it to 
 have been modelled on Locke's'Conduct of the Understand- 
 ing ; but surely this is as ludicrous as to charge upon 
 Silence any elaborate imitation of Mr. Justice Shallow. 
 That Silence may have borrowed from another man half of 
 a joke, or echoed the roar of his laughter, is possible ; but 
 of any more grave or laborious attempts to rob he stands 
 ludicrously acquitted by the exemplary imbecility of his 
 nature. ISTo ; Dr. Watts did not steal from Mr. Locke ; in 
 matters of dulness a man is easily original ; and I suppose 
 that even Feeble or Shallow might have had credit for the 
 effort necessary to the following counsels, taken at random 
 from Dr. Watts, at the page where the book has happened 
 to fall open. 
 
 1. Get a distinct and comprehensive knowledge of the 
 subject which you treat of ; survey it on all sides, and 
 make yourself perfect master' of it ; then (then ! what then ? 
 — Think of Feeble making an inference. Well, " then") 
 you wall have all the sentiments that relate to it in your 
 view ; 2. Be well skilled in the language wdiich you speak ; 
 3. Acquire a variety of words, a cojDia verhorum. Let your 
 memory be rich in synonymous terms, p. 228, edit. 1817. 
 
 Well done, most magnanimous Feeble ! Such counsels I 
 suppose that any man might have produced, and you will 
 not wish to see criticised. Let me rather inquire, what 
 common defect it is which has made the works of much 
 
LETTERS. 33 
 
 more ingenious men, and in particular that of Locke, utterly 
 useless for the end proposed. The error in these books is 
 the same which occurs in books of ethics, and which has 
 made them more or less useless for any practical purpose. 
 As it is important to put an end to all delusion in matters 
 of such grave and general concern as the improvement of 
 our understandings, or the moral valuation of actions, and 
 as I repeat that the delusion here alluded to has affected 
 both equally (so far as they can be affected by the books 
 written professedly to assist them), it may be worth while 
 to spend a few lines in exposing it. I believe that you are so 
 far acquainted with the structure of a syllogism as to know 
 how to distinguish between the major and minor proposition ; 
 there is, indeed, a technical rule which makes it impossible 
 to err ; but you will have no need of tha% if you once appre- 
 hend the rationale of a syllogism in the light under which I 
 will here place it. In every syllogism one of the two premises 
 (the major) lays down a rule, under which rule the other (the 
 minor) brings the subject of your argument as a particular 
 case. The minor is, therefore, distinguished from the major 
 by an act of the judgment, namely^ a subsumption of a special 
 case under a rule. Now consider how this applies to morals : 
 here the conscience supplies the general rule, or major 
 proposition, and about this there is no question ; but, to 
 bring the special case of conduct, which is the subject of 
 your inquiry, under this general rule ; here first commences 
 the difficulty, and just upon this point are ethical treatises 
 for the most part silent. Accordingly, no man thinks of 
 consulting them for his direction under any moral per- 
 plexities \ if he reads them at all, it is for the gratification 
 of his understanding in surveying the order and relation 
 amongst the several members of a system ; never for the 
 information of his moral judgment. 
 
Si LETTERS. 
 
 For any practical use in that way, a casidstry, that is, 
 a subsumption of the cases most frequently recurring in 
 ordinary life, should be combined with the system of moral 
 principles* — the latter supplying the major (or normal) 
 proposition ; the former supplying the minor proposition, 
 which brings the special case under the rule. With the 
 help of this explanation, you will easily understand on 
 what principle I venture to denounce, as unprofitable, the 
 whole class of books written on the model of Locke's 
 Conduct of the Understanding, According to Locke, the 
 student is not to hurry, but again not to loiter ; not to be 
 too precipitate, nor yet too hesitating ; not to be too con- 
 fiding, but far less too suspicious ; not too obstinate in his 
 own opinions, yet again (for the love of God !) not too 
 resigned to those of others ; not too general in his divisions, 
 but (as he regards his own soul) not too minute, &c. &c. 
 
 But surely no man, bent on the improvement of his 
 
 * Accordingly, our fasliionable moral practitioner for this generation, 
 Dr. Paley, who prescribes for the consciences of both universities, and, 
 indeed, of most respectable householders, has introduced a good deal 
 of casuistry into his work, though not under that name. In England 
 there is an aversion to the niere name, founded partly on this, that 
 casuistry has been most cultivated by Roman Catholic divines, and 
 too much with a vie,w to an indulgent and dispensing morality ; and 
 partly on the excessive subdivision and hair-splitting of cases ; which 
 tends to the infinite injury of morals, by perplexing and tampering 
 with the conscience, and by presuming morality to be above the 
 powers of any but the subtlest minds. All this, however, is but the 
 abuse of casuistry ; and without casuistry of some sort or other, no 
 practical decision could be made in the accidents of daily life. Of 
 this, on a fitter occasion, I could give a cumulative proof. Mean- 
 time let it suffice to observe that law, which is the most practical of 
 all things, is a perpetual casuistry ; in which an immemorial usage, 
 a former decision of the court, or positive statute, furnishes the major 
 proposition; and the judgment of the jury, enlightened by the 
 knowledge of the bench, furnishes the minor or casuistical proposition. 
 
LETTERS. 35 
 
 faculties, was ever guilty of these errors under these names, 
 that is, knowingly and deliberately. If he is so at all, it 
 is either that he has not reflected on his own method, or 
 that, having done so, he has allowed himself in the act or 
 habit offending these rules on a false view of its tendency 
 and character ; because, in fact, having adopted as his rule 
 (or major) that very golden mean which Mr. Locke recom- 
 mends, and which, without Mr. Locke's suggestion, he 
 would have adopted for himself, it has yet been possible 
 for him, by an erroneous judgment, to take up an act or 
 habit under the rule, which with better advice he would 
 have excluded ; which advice is exactly what Mr. Locke 
 has — not given. Over and above all this, the method of 
 the book is aphoristic ; and, as might be expected from 
 that method, without a plan ; and which is partly the cause 
 and partly the consequence of having a plan without foun- 
 dation. 
 
 This wovd foundation leads me to one remark suggested 
 by your letter ; and with that I shall conclude my own. 
 AVhen I spoke above of the student's taking his foundations 
 broad and deep, I had my eye chiefly on the corner-stones 
 of strong-built knowledge, namely, on logic ; on a jDroper 
 choice of languages ; on a particular part of what is called 
 metaphysics ; and on mathematics. Now you allege (I sup- 
 pose upon occasion of my references to mathematics in my 
 last letter) that you have no "genius" for mathematics ; 
 and you speak with the usual awe (pavor attonitorum) of 
 the supposed "profundity" of intellect necessary to a great 
 progress in this direction. Be assured that you are in utter 
 error, though it be an error all but universal. In mathe- 
 matics, upon two irresistible arguments which I shall set 
 ill a clear light, when I come to explain the procedure of 
 the mind with regard to that sort of evidence, and that sort 
 
86 LETTERS. 
 
 of investigation, there can be no subtlety ; all minds are 
 levelled except as to the rapidity of tlie course, and, from 
 the entire absence of all those acts of mind which do really 
 imply profundity of intellect, it is a question whether an 
 idiot might not be made an excellent mathematician. Listen 
 not to the romantic notions of the world on this subject ; 
 above all, listen not to mathematicians. Mathematicians, 
 as mathematicians, have no business with the question. It 
 is one thing to understand mathematics ; another, and far 
 different, to understand the philosophy of mathematics. 
 With respect to this, it is memorable, that in no one of the 
 great philosophical questions which the ascent of mathe- 
 matics has from time to time brought up above the horizon 
 of our speculative view, has any mathematician who was 
 merely such (however eminent) had depth of intellect ade- 
 quate to its solution, without insisting on the absurdities 
 published by mathematicians, on the philosophy of the in- 
 finite, since that notion was introduced into mathematics, or 
 on the fruitless attempts of all but a metaphysician to settle 
 the strife between the conflicting modes of valuing living 
 forces ; — I need only ask what English or French mathe- 
 matician has been able to exhibit the notion of negative 
 quantities, in a theory endurable even to a popular philo- 
 sophy, or which has commanded any assent % Or again, 
 what Algebra is there existing which does not contain a 
 false and ludicrous account of the procedure in that science, 
 as contrasted with the procedure in geometry % But, not 
 to trouble you with more of these cases so opprobrious to 
 mathematicians, lay this to heart, that mathematics are veiy 
 easy and very important ; they are, in fact, the organ of 
 one large division of human knowledge. And, as it is of 
 consequence that you should lose no time by waiting for my 
 letter on that subject, let me forestall so much of it, as to 
 
LETTERS. 37 
 
 advise that you would immediately commence with Euclid ; 
 reading those eight books of the Elements which are usually 
 road, and the Data. If you should go no further, so much 
 geometry will be useful and delightful ; and so much, by 
 reading for two hours a day, you will easily accomplish in 
 about thirteen weeks, that is, one quarter of a year. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 My dear Sir, — In my three following letters I am to con- 
 sider, 1st, Languages; 2d, Logic; Arts of Memory; not 
 as parts of knowledge sought or valued on their own 
 account, but simply as the most general amongst the means 
 and instruments of the student, estimated therefore with a 
 reference to the number and importance of the ends which 
 they further, and fairly to be presumed in all schemes ot 
 self-improvement liberally planned. In this letter I will 
 speak of languages ; my thoughts, and a twenty years' 
 experience as a student, having furnished me with some 
 hints that may be useful in determining your choice, where 
 choice is at first sight so difficult, and the evils of an 
 erroneous choice so great. On this Babel of an earth 
 which you and I inhabit, there are said to be about three 
 thousand languages and jargons. Of nearly five hundred 
 you will find a specimen in the Mithridates of Adelung, 
 and in some other German works of more moderate bulk.* 
 
 * Especially one, wliose title I forget, by Vater, the editor and 
 completer of the 3Iithridates, after Adelung's death. By the way, 
 for the sake of the merely English reader, it may be well to mention 
 that the Mithridates is so called with an allusion to the great king of 
 
38 LETTERS. 
 
 The final purposes of tliis vast engine for separating nations 
 it is not difficult in part to perceive ; and it is presumable 
 that those purposes have been nearly fulfilled ; since there 
 can be little doubt that within the next two centuries all 
 the barbarous languages of the earth (that is, those without 
 a literature) will be one after one strangled and exterminated 
 by four European languages, namely, the English, the 
 Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Kussian. Central Africa, 
 and that only, can resist the momentum of civilisation for 
 a longer period. Xow, languages are sometimes studied, 
 not as a key to so many bodies of literature, but as an 
 object j:»er se^ for example, by Sir William Jones, Dr. 
 Leyden, &c. ; and where the researches are conducted with 
 the enthusiasm and the sagacity of the late extraordinary 
 Professor of Oriental Languages in Edinburgh, Dr. Alexander 
 Murray, it is impossible to withhold one's admiration ; he 
 had a theory, and distinct purposes, which shed light upon 
 his paths that are else " as dark as Erebus.'' Such labours 
 conducted in such a spirit must be important, if the eldest 
 records of the human race be important ; for the affinities 
 of language furnish the main clue for ascending, through 
 the labyrinths of nations, to their earliest origins and con- 
 nexions. To a professed linguist, therefore, the natural 
 advice would be — examine the structure of as many 
 languages as possible ; gather as many thousand specimens 
 as possible into your hortus siccus, beginning with the 
 eldest forms of the Teutonic, namely,* the Visigothic and 
 the Icelandic, for which the aids rendered by modern 
 
 that name contemporary with Sylla, Lncullus, &c., of whom the tra- 
 dition was that, in an immense and polyglot army, composed from a 
 great variety of nations, he could talk to every soldier in his own 
 language. 
 
LETTERS. 39 
 
 learning are immense. To a professed philologist, T say, 
 the natural advice would be this. But to you, who have 
 no such purposes, and whom I suppose to wish for lan- 
 guages simply as avenues to literatvu^e not otherwise 
 accessible, I will frankly say, start from this principle — 
 that the act of learning a language is in itself an evil ; and 
 so frame your selection of languages, that the largest 
 possible body of literature available for your purposes shall 
 be laid open to you at the least possible price of time and 
 mental energy squandered in this direction. I say this with 
 some earnestness. For I will not conceal from you, that 
 one of the habits most unfavourable to the growth and 
 sincere culture of the intellect in our day, is the facility 
 with which men surrender themselves to the barren and 
 ungenial labour of language -learning. Unless balanced by 
 studies that gi\Q more exercise, more excitement, and more 
 aliment to the faculties, I am convinced, by all I have ob- 
 served, that this practice is the dry rot of the human mind. 
 How should it be otherwise ^ The act of learning a science 
 is good, not only for the knowledge which results, but for 
 the exercise which attends it ; the energies wliich the 
 learner is obliged to put forth are true intellectual energies, 
 and his very errors are full of instruction. He fails to . 
 construct some leading idea, or he even misconstructs it ; 
 he places himself in a false position with respect to certain 
 propositions ; views them from a false centre ; makes a 
 false or an imperfect antithesis ; apprehends a definition 
 with insufficient rigour ; or fails in his use of it to keep it 
 self-consistent. These and a thousand other errors are met 
 by a thousand appropriate resources — all of a true intel- 
 lectual character ; comparing, combining, distinguishing, 
 generalizing, subdividing, acts of abstraction and evolution, 
 of synthesis and analysis, until the most torpid minds are 
 
(0 LETTERS. 
 
 ventilated, and healthily excited by this introversion of the 
 faculties upon themselves. 
 
 But, in the study of language (with an exception, how- 
 ever, to a certain extent, in favour of Latin and Greek, 
 wdiich I shall notice hereafter), nothing of all this can take 
 place, and for one simple reason — that all is arbitrary. 
 Wherever there is a law and system, wherever there is rela- 
 tion and corresponde^ce of parts, the intellect will make its 
 way — will interfuse amongst the dry bones the blood and 
 pulses of life, and create " a soul under the ribs of death." 
 But whatsoever is arbitrary and conventional — which yields 
 no reason why it should be this way rather than that, obey- 
 ing no theory or law — must, by its lifeless forms, kill and 
 mortify the action of the intellect. If this be true, it be- 
 comes every student to keep watch upon himself, that he 
 does not, upon any light temptation, allow himself an over- 
 balance of study in this direction ; for the temptations to 
 such q^n excess, which in our days are more powerful than 
 formerly, are at all times too powerful. Of all the weapons 
 in the armoury of the scholar, none is so showy or so cap- 
 tivating to commonplace minds as skill in languages. 
 Vanity is, therefore, one cause of the undue application to 
 languages, A second is the national fashion. What nation 
 but ourselves ever made the language of its eternal enemy 
 an essential part of even a decent education *?* What 
 should we think of Eoman policy, if, during the Second 
 Punic War, the Carthaginian language had been taught as 
 
 * See the advertiseraents of the humblest schools ; in -which, how- 
 ever low the price of tuition, &c., is fixed, French never fails to enter 
 as a principal branch of the course of study. To which fact I may 
 add, that even twelve or fifteen years ago I have seen French cir- 
 culating libraries in London chiePiy STipported by people in a humble 
 rack. 
 
LETTERS. 41 
 
 a matter of course to the children of every Koman citizen ? 
 But a third cause, which I believe has more efficacy than 
 either of the former, is mere levity — the simple fact of 
 being unballasted by any sufficient weight of plan or settled 
 purpose to present a counterpoise to the slightest momentum 
 this way or that, arising from any impulse of accident or 
 personal caprice. When there is no resistance, a breath of 
 air will be sufficient to determine the motion. I remember 
 once that, happening to spend an autumn in Ilfracombe, on 
 the west coast of Devonshire, I found all the young ladies 
 whom I knew busily employed on the study of marine 
 botany. On the opposite shore of the channel, in all the 
 South Welsh ports of Tenby, &c., they were no less busy 
 upon conchology. In neither case from any previous love 
 of the science, but simply availing themselves of their local 
 advantages. Now, here a man must have been truly ill- 
 natured to laugh ; for the studies were in both instances 
 beautiful. A love for it was created, if it had not pre- 
 existed ; and, to women and young women, the veiy absence 
 of all austere unity of purpose and self-determination was 
 becoming and graceful. Yet, when this same levity and 
 liability to casuax impulses come forward in the acts and 
 purposes of a man, I must own that I have often been un- 
 able to check myself in something like a contemptuous 
 feeling ; nor should I wish to check myself, but for remem- 
 bering how many men of energetic minds constantly give 
 way to slight and inadequate motives, simply for want of 
 being summoned to any anxious reviews of their own con- 
 duct. How many cases have I known where a particular 
 study — as, suppose, of the Hartleian philosophy— was pur- 
 sued throughout a whole college simply because a man of 
 talents had talked of it in the junior common-room 1 How 
 many where a book became pop-ilar because it had been 
 b2 
 
42 LETTERS. 
 
 mentioned in the House of Commons ? How many where 
 a man resolved to learn Welsh because he was spending a 
 month or two at Barmouth ? or Italian because he had 
 found a Milan series of the poets in his aunt's library ? or 
 the violin because he had bought a fine one at an auction 1 
 
 In 1808-9 you must well remember what a strong im- 
 pulse the opening of the Peninsular War communicated to 
 our current literature. The presses of London and the pro- 
 vinces teemed with editions of Spanish books, dictionaries, 
 and grammars ; and the motions of the British armies were 
 accompanied by a corresponding activity among British 
 compositors. From the just interest which is now renewed 
 in Spapish affiiirs, I suppose something of the same scene 
 will recur. Now, for my own part, though undoubtedly I 
 would) for the sake of Calderon alone (judging .of him 
 through a German translation), most willingly study the 
 Spanish literature (if I had leisure), yet I should be ashamed 
 to do so upon the irrelevant and occasional summons of an 
 interesting situation in Spanish affairs. I should feel that 
 by such an act I confessed a want of pre-occupation in my 
 mind, a want of self-origination in my plans, an inertness 
 of will, which, above all things, I do and ought to detest. 
 If it were right for me (right, I mean, in rel-ation to my 
 previous scheme of study) to have dedicated a portion of 
 my life to the Spanish literature, it must have been right 
 before the Spanish politics took an interesting aspect. If 
 it were not right, it could not become so upon a suggestion 
 so purely verbal as the recurrence of the word Spanish in 
 the London journals. 
 
 This, I am sure, you will interpret candidly. I am not 
 supposing you less furnished with powers of self-determina- 
 tion than myself. I have no personal allusion or exception; 
 but I suppose every man liable to be acted on unduly, or by 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 43 
 
 inadequate impulses, so long as he is not possessed by some 
 l)lan that may steady that levity of nature which is implied 
 in the mere state of indifference to all settled plans. This 
 levity, in our days, meets with an accidental ally in the 
 extraordinary facilities for studying languages in the shape 
 of elementary books ; which facilities of themselves form a 
 fourth cause of the disproportionate study given to Ian-, 
 guages. But a fifth cause occurs to me, of a less selfish 
 and indolent character than any of the preceding ; and, as 
 it seems to me hardly possible that it should not influence 
 you more or less to make your choice of languages too 
 large and comprehensive, I shall tell you, from my own 
 case, what may be sufficient to set you on your guard 
 against too much indulgence to a feeling in itself just and 
 natural. In my youthful days, I never entered a great 
 library, suppose of one hundred thousand volumes, but my 
 predominant feeling was one of pain and disturbance of 
 mind, — -not much unlike that which drew tears from 
 Xerxes, on viewing his immense army, and reflecting that 
 in one hundred years not one soul would remain alive. To 
 me, with respect to the books, the same effect would be 
 brought about by my own death. Here, said I, are one 
 hundred thousand books, the worst of them capable of giv- 
 ing me some pleasure and instruction ; and before I can have 
 had time to extract the honey from one-twentieth of this 
 hive, in all likelihood I shall be summoned away. This 
 thought, I am sure, must have often occurred to yourself ; 
 and you may judge how much it was aggravated when I 
 found that, subtracting all merely professional books — books 
 of reference, as dictionaries, &c. &c. &c. — from the universal 
 library of Europe, there would still remain a total of not less 
 than twelve hundred thousand books over and above what 
 the presses of Europe are still disemboguing into the ocean 
 
44 LETTERS. 
 
 of literature, many of them immense folios or quartos. Now, 
 I had been told by an eminent English author, that, with 
 respect to one single work, namely, the History of Thuanus, 
 a calculation had been made by a Portuguese monk, which 
 showed that barely to read over the words (and allowing 
 no time for reflection) would require three years' labour, at 
 the rate of (I think) three hours a day. Further, I had 
 myself ascertained that to read a duodecimo volume, in 
 prose, of four hundred pages — all skipping being barred, 
 and the rapid reading which belongs to the vulgar interest 
 of a novel — was a very sufficient work for one day. Con- 
 sequently, three hundred and sixty-five per annum — ^that is 
 (with a very small allowance for the claims of life on one's 
 own account and that of one's friends), one thousand for 
 every triennium ; that is, ten thousand for thirty years — 
 will be as much as a man who lives for that only can hope 
 to accomplish. From the age of twenty to eighty, there- 
 fore — if a man were so unhappy as to live to eighty — the 
 utmost he could hope to travel through would be twenty 
 thousand volumes, — a number not, perhaps, above jive 'per 
 cent, of what the mere current literature of Europe would 
 accumulate in that period of years. ISTow, from^ this amount 
 of twenty thousand make a deduction on account of books 
 of larger size, books to be studied and books to be read 
 slowly and many times over (as all works in v\^hich the 
 composition is a principal part of their pretensions), — allow 
 a fair, discount for such deductions, and the twenty thou- 
 sand will perhaps shrink to eight or five thousand. All 
 this arithmetical statement you must not conceive to relate 
 to any fanciful case of misery. No ; T protest to you that 
 I speak of as real a case of suffering as ever can have ex- 
 isted. And it soon increased ; for the same panic seized 
 upon me with respect to the works of art. I found that I 
 
LETTEES. 45 
 
 had no chance of hearing the twenty-five thousandth part 
 of the music that had been produced. And so of other 
 arts. Nor was this all ; for, happening to say to myself, 
 one night as I entered a long street, " I shall never see the 
 one thousandth part of the people who are living in this 
 single street," it occurred to me that every man and woman 
 was a most interesting book, if one knew how to read them. 
 Here opened upon me a new world of misery ; for, if books 
 and works of art existed by millions, men existed by hun- 
 dreds of millions. Nay, even if it had been possible for 
 me to know all of my own generation, yet, like Dr. Faustus, 
 who desired to see " Helen of Greece," I should still have 
 been dissatisfied ; for what was one generation to all that 
 were past ] Nay, my madness took yet a higher flight ; 
 for I considered that I stood on a little isthmus of time, 
 which connected the two great worlds, the past and the 
 future. I stood in equal relation to both ; I asked for ad- 
 mittance to one as much as to the other. Even if a necro- 
 mancer could have brought up the gTeat men of the seven- 
 teenth century, I should have said, " What good does all 
 this do me 1 Where are those of the twentieth century f 
 — and so onward ! In short, I never turned my thoughts 
 this way but I fell into a downright midsummer madness. 
 I could not enjoy what I had, — craving for that which I 
 had not, and could not have ; was thirsty, like Tantalus, in 
 the midst of waters ; even when using my present wealth, 
 thought only of its perishableness ; and " wept to have what 
 I so feared to lose." 
 
 But all this, you will say, was, by my own admission, 
 <' madness." Madness, I grant ; but such a madness ! not 
 as lunatics suffer ; no hallucination of the brain ; but a 
 madness like that of misers, — the usurpation and despotism 
 of one feeling, natural in itself, but travelling into an excess, 
 
46 LETTERS. 
 
 wliicli at last upset all which should have balanced it. And 
 I must assert that, with allowance for difference of degrees, 
 no madness is more common. Many of those who give 
 themselves up to the study of languages do so under the 
 same disease which I have described ; and, if they do not 
 carry it on to the same extremity of wretchedness, it is be- 
 cause they are not so logical, and so consistent in their 
 madness, as I was. Under our present enormous accumu- 
 lation of books, I do affirm that a miserable distraction of 
 choice (which is the germ of such a madness) must be very 
 generally incident to the times ; that the symptoms of it 
 are, in fact, very prevalent ; and that one of the chief 
 symptoms is an enormous " gluttonism " for books, and for 
 adding language to language ; and in this way it is that 
 literature becomes much more a source of torment than of 
 pleasure. ISTay, I will go further, and will say that, of many 
 who escape this disease, some owe their privilege simply to 
 the narrowness of their minds, and contracted range of their 
 sympathies with literature, which, enlarged, they would 
 soon lose it. Others, again, owe it to their situation ; as, 
 for instance, in a country town, where books being few, a 
 man can use up all his materials ; his appetite is unpalled, 
 and he is grateful for the loan of a MS., &c. But bring 
 him up to London ; show him the waggon-loads of unused 
 stores which he is at liberty to work up ; tell him that 
 these even are but a trifle, perhaps, to what he may find in 
 the libraries of Paris, Dresden, Milan, &c., of religious 
 houses, of English noblemen, &c., — and this same man who 
 came up to London blithe and happy will leave it pale and 
 sad. You have ruined his peace of mind. A subject which 
 he fancied himself capable of exhausting he finds to be a 
 labour for centuries. He has no longer the healthy plea- 
 sure of feeling himself master of his materials : he is de- 
 
LETTERS. 47 
 
 graded into tlieir slave. Perhaps I dwell too mucli on this 
 subject ; but allow me, before I leave it, to illustrate what 
 I have said by the case of two eminent literati, who are at 
 this moment exhibiting themselves as a couple of figurantes 
 (if I may so say) on the stage of Europe, and who have 
 sacrificed their own happiness and dignity of mind to the 
 very madness I have been describing ; or, if not, to the 
 far more selfish passion for notoriety and ostentatious dis- 
 play. The men I mean are F. Bouterwek and Frederick 
 Schlegel, better known to the English public as the friend 
 of Madame de Stael. 
 
 The history of the first is somewhat ludicrous. Coming 
 upon the stage at a time when Kant possessed the national 
 mind of Germany, he thought it would be a good speculation 
 not to fall iuto the train of the philosopher, but to open a 
 sort of chapel of dissent. He saw no reason why men 
 should not swear by Bouterwek, as well as by Kant ; and, 
 connecting this fact with the subsequent confession of 
 Bouterwek, that he was in reality playing off a conscious 
 hoax, it is laughable to mention, that for a time he abso- 
 lutely found some followers — who worshipped him, but 
 suspiciously and provisionally. Unfortunately, however, as 
 he had no leisure or ability to understand Kant, he was 
 obliged to adopt Dr. Priestley's plan of revoking and can- 
 celling in every successive work all his former works, as 
 false, pestilent, and hereticaL This upset him. The phi- 
 losopher was unfrocked ; and in that line of business he 
 found himself bankrupt. At this crisis things looked ill. 
 However, being young, he pleaded his tender years. George 
 Barnwell and others had been led astray as well as himself, 
 by keeping bad company : he had now quitted all connexion 
 with metaphysics ; and begged to inform the public that he 
 had opened an entirely new concern for criticism in all its 
 
48 LETTERS. 
 
 branches. He kept his word ; he left off hoaxing, and 
 applied himself to a respectable line of business. 
 
 The fruits of his labours were a history, in twelve 
 volumes, of modern literature from the end of the thir- 
 teenth century. Of this work I have examined all that I 
 pretend to judge of, namely, the two sections relating to the 
 German and the English literature ; and, not to do him in- 
 justice, if it professed to be no more than a bibliographical 
 record of books, it is executed with a very laudable care and 
 fidelity. But imagine to yourself the vast compass of his 
 plan. He professes to give the history of — 1. Spanish; 
 2. Portuguese ; 3. English ; 4. German ; 5. French; 6. 
 Italian literature ; no sketch, observe, or abstract of them, 
 but a full and formal history. Conceive, if you can, the 
 monstrous and insane pretensions involved in such a scheme. 
 At starting he had five languages to learn, besides the 
 dialects of his own ; not only so, but five languages, each 
 through all its varieties for the space of half a millennium : 
 English, for instance, not merely of this day, but the English 
 of Chaucer, of the Metrical Romances ; nay, even of Robert 
 of Gloucester, in 1280. ISText, the mere printed books 
 (to say nothing of the MSS.) in any one of these languages, 
 to be read and meditated, as they ought to be by a his- 
 torian of the literature, would have found full employment 
 for twelve able-bodied men through an entire life. And 
 after all, when the materials were ready, the work of com- 
 position would be still to begin. Such were Bouterwek's 
 pretensions. As to Schlegel's, who, without any more 
 genius or originality, has much more talent, — his were still 
 more extravagant, and were pushed to an extremity that 
 must, I should think, at times disquiet his admirers with 
 a feeling that all is not sound. For, though he did not 
 profess to go so much into detail as Bouterwek, still his 
 
LETTERS. 40 
 
 abstracts are represented as built on as much reading, 
 though not directly quoted ; and to all that Bouterwek 
 held forth in his promises Schlegel added, as a little bonus 
 to his subscribers, 1. Oriental literature; 2. The Scandi- 
 navian literature ; 3. The Provencal literature ; and, for 
 aught I know, a billion of things besides ; to say nothing 
 of an active share in the current literature, as reviewer, 
 magazinist, and author of all work. Now, the very history 
 of these pretensions exposes their hollowness : to record 
 them is to refute them. Knowing, as we all know, how 
 many years it demands, and by what a leisurely and genial 
 communication with their works it is that we can gain any 
 deep intimacy with even a few great artists, such as Shaks- 
 pere, Milton, or Euripides, how monstrous a fiction would 
 that man force on our credulity, who tells us that he has 
 read and weighed in the balances the total products of 
 human intellect dispersed through thirty languages for a 
 period of three thousand years ; and how gross a delusion 
 does he practise upon his own mind who can persuade 
 himself that it is reading to cram himself with words, the 
 bare sense of which can hardly have time to glance, like 
 the lamps of a mail coach, upon his hurried and bewildered 
 understanding ! There is a picture at Oxford, which I saw 
 when a boy, of an old man, with misery in his eye, in the 
 act of copying a book ; and the story attached (I forget 
 whether with any historic foundation) is that he was under 
 a vow to copy out some great portion of the Bible before 
 he allowed himself (or was allowed) to eat. I dare say 
 you know the picture ; and perhaps I tell the story wrong. 
 However, just such a man, and just so wo-begone, must 
 this man of words appear when he is alone in his study ; 
 with a frozen heart and a famished intellect ; and every 
 now and then, perhaps exclaiming with Alcibiades, "0 ye 
 
 XI II. — 
 
50 LETTERS. 
 
 Athenians ! wliat a world of hardship I endure to obtain 
 your applause ! " So slightly is his knowledge worked into 
 the texture of his mind, that I am persuaded a brain fever 
 would sweep it all away. With this sketch of Messrs. 
 Bouterwek and Schlegel, it is superfluous to add that their 
 criticisms are utterly worthless ; being all words — ^words — 
 words : however, with this difference, that Bouterwek's are 
 simply = 0, being the mere rubbishy sweepings from the 
 works of literatuli long since defunct : but Schlegel's, 
 agreeably to his natural haughtiness and superior talents, 
 are bad in a positive sense — being filled with such conceits, 
 fancies, and fictions, as you would naturally^expect from a 
 clever man talking about what he had never, in any true 
 sense of the word, read.* genius of English good sense, 
 
 * The most disingenuous instances in Schlegel of familiar ac- 
 quaintance claimed with subjects of which he is necessarily ignorant, 
 are the numerous passages in which he speaks of philosophers, espe- 
 cially of Spiuoza, Leibnitz, and Kant. In such cases his sentences 
 are always most artifically and jesuitically constructed, to give him the 
 air of being quite at his ease on the one hand, and yet, on the other, 
 to avoid committing himself by too much descent into particulars. 
 So dangerous, however, is it for the ablest man to attempt speaking 
 ol what he does not understand, that, as a sailor will detect a lauds- 
 man, however expert in the use of nautical diction, before he has 
 uttered two sentences, so, with all his art and finesse, and speaking 
 besides to questions of his own choosing, yet cannot Schlegel escape 
 detection in any one instance when he has attempted to act the 
 philosopher. Even where the thing said is not otherwise objec- 
 tionable, it generally detects itself as the remark of a novice, by ad- 
 dressing itself to something extra-essential in the philosophy, and 
 w^hich a true judge would have passed over as impertinent to the 
 real business of the system. Of the ludicrous blunders which inevit- 
 ably arise in both Bouterwek and Schlegel, from hasty reading, or 
 no reading at all, I noted some curious instances in my pocket-book ; 
 but, noi having it with me, I shall mention two from memory. 
 Bouterwek and Schlegel both would be highly offended, T suppose, 
 if 1 vrere to doubt whether they had ever read the Paradise Lest. 
 
LETTERS. 51 
 
 keep any child of mine from ever sacrificing his peace and 
 intellectual health to such a life of showy emptiness, of 
 pretence, of noise, and of words ; and even with a view to 
 the opinion of others, if it were worth while sacrificing very 
 much to tha% teach him how far more enviable is the repu- 
 tation of having produced even one work, though but in a 
 lower department of art, and which has given pleasure to 
 myriads — (such, suppose, as The Vicar of Wakefield) — 
 than to have lived in the wonderment of a gazing crowd, 
 like a rope-dancer, or a posture-master, with the fame of 
 
 " calumny, vile cakimny ! We that have given such fine criticisms 
 upon it, not to have read it ! " Yes ; hut there is such a case in 
 rerum natura as that of criticising a work which the critic had not 
 even seen. Now, that Bouterwek had not read the Paradise Lost, I 
 think prohahle from this : Bodmer, during part of the first half of the 
 last century, as is known to the students of German literature, was 
 at the head of a party who supported the English literature against the 
 French party of the old dolt Gottsched. From some work of Bodmer's, 
 Bouterwek quotes with praise a passage which, from being in plain 
 German prose, he supposes to be Bodmer's, but which, unfortunately, 
 happens to be a passage in the Paradise Lost, and so memorable a 
 passage that no one having once read it could have failed to recog- 
 nise it. So much for Bouterwek. As to Schlegel, the presumption 
 against him rests upon this ; he is lecturing Milton in a high profes-^ 
 sor's style for his choice qf a subject : " Milton," says he, "did not 
 consider that the fall of man was but an inchoate action, but a part 
 of a system, of which the restoration of man is another and equally 
 essential part. The action of the Paradise Lost is, therefore, essen- 
 tially imperfect." (Quoting from memory, and from a memory some 
 years old, I do not pretend to give the words, but this is the sense.) 
 Now, pace tanti viri, Milton did consider this, and has provided for 
 it by a magnificent expedient, which a man who had read the Para- 
 dise Lost would have been likely to remember, namely, by the Vision 
 combined with the Narrative of the Archangel, in which his final 
 restoration is made known to Adam ; without which, indeed, to say 
 nothing of Mr. Schlegel's objection, the poem could not have closed 
 with that repose necessaiy as the final impression of any great work 
 of art. 
 
52 LETTERS. 
 
 incredible attainments that tend to no man's pleasure, and 
 which perish to the remembrance of all men as soon as 
 their possessor is in his grave. 
 
 Thus, at some risk of fatiguing you, I have endeavoured 
 to sharpen your attention to the extreme danger which 
 threatens a self*instructor in the besetting temptations to 
 an over cultivation of languages ; temptations which, 
 whether appealing to his vanity and love of ostentation, or 
 to his craving for a multifarious mastery over books, termi- 
 nate in the same evil of substituting a barren study of 
 words, which is, besides, the most lingering of all studies, 
 for the healthy exercises of the intellect. All the great 
 European poets, orators, and wits, are mentioned in a man's 
 hearing so often, and so much discussion is constantly going 
 on about their comparative merits, that a body of irritation 
 and curiosity collects about these names, and unites with 
 more legitimate feelings to persuade a man that it is necessary- 
 he should read them all — each in his own language. In a 
 celebrated satire {The Pursuits of Literature), much read 
 in my youth, and which I myself read about twenty-five 
 years ago, I remember one counsel — there addressed to 
 young men, but, in fact, of universal application. " I call 
 upon them," said the author, " to dare to be ignorant of 
 many things : " a wise counsel, and justly expressed ; for it 
 requires much courage to forsake popular paths of know- 
 ledge, merely upon a conviction that they are not favourable 
 to the ultimate ends of knowledge. In you, however, that 
 sort of courage may be presumed ; but how will you " dare 
 to be ignorant" of many things in opposition to the cravings 
 of your own mind ? Simply thus : destroy these false 
 cravings by introducing a healthier state of the organ. A 
 good scheme of study will soon show itself to be such by 
 - this one test — that it will exclude as powerfully as it wilj 
 
LETTERS. ^ 53 
 
 appropriate ; it will be a system of repulsion no less tlian 
 of attraction ; once thoroughly possessed and occupied by 
 the deep and genial pleasures of one truly intellectual pui- 
 suit, you will be easy and indifferent to all others that had 
 previously teased you with transient excitement ; just as 
 you will sometimes see a man superficially irritated, as it 
 were, with wandering fits of liking for three or four women 
 at once, which he is absurd enough to call " being in love;" 
 but, once profoundly in love (supposing him capable of being 
 so), he never makes such a mistake again, all his feelings 
 after that being absorbed into a sublime unity. Now, 
 without anticipating this scheme of study out of its place, 
 yet in general you know whether your intentions lean most 
 to science or to literature. For upon this decision revolve 
 the whole motives which can determine your choice of 
 languages ; as, for instance, if you are in quest of science 
 or philosophy, no language in Europe at this day (unless 
 the Turkish) is so slenderly furnished as the Spanish ; on 
 the other hand, for literature, I am disposed to think that 
 after the English none is so wealthy (I mean in quality, not 
 in quantity). 
 
 Here, however, to prevent all mistakes, let me establish 
 one necessary distinction. The word literature is a per- 
 petual source of confusion, because it is used in two senses, 
 and those senses liable to be confounded with each other. 
 In a philosophical use of the word, literature is the direct 
 and adequate antithesis of books of knowledge. But, in a 
 popular use, it is a mere term of convenience for expressing 
 inclusively the total books in a language. In this latter 
 sense, a dictionary, a grammar, a spelling-book, an almanac, 
 a pharmacopoeia, a Parliamentary report, a system of farriery, 
 a treatise on billiards, the Court Calendar, &e., belong to the 
 literature. But, in the philosophical sense, not only would 
 
54 * LErrEEs. 
 
 ifc be ludicrous to reckon these as parts of the literature, 
 but even books of much higher pretensions must be ex- 
 cluded — as, for instance, books of voyages and travels, and 
 generally all books in which the matter to be communicated 
 is paramount to the manner or form of its communication 
 (" ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri"). It is difficult to 
 construct the idea of "literature" with severe accuracy; 
 for it is a fine art — the supreme fine art, and liable to the 
 difficulties which attend such a subtle notion ; in fact, a 
 severe construction of the idea must be the result of a 
 philosophical investigation into this subject, and cannot 
 precede it. But, for the sake of obtaining some expression 
 for literature that may answer our present purpose, let us 
 throw the question into another form. I have said that 
 the antithesis of literature is books of knowledge. Now, 
 what is that antithesis to hnoivledge^ which is here implicitly 
 latent in the word literature ? The vulgar antithesis is 
 pleasure (" aut prodesse. volunt, aut delectare poetse"). 
 Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. 
 Indeed ! However, not to spend any words upon it, I 
 suppose you will admit that this wretched antithesis will 
 be of no service to us. And, by the way, let me remarlc 
 to you, in this, as in other cases, how men by their own 
 errors of understanding, by feeble thinking, and inadequate 
 distinctions, forge chains of meanness and servility for 
 themselves. For, this miserable alternative being once 
 admitted, observe what follows. In which class of books 
 Joes the Paradise Lost stand % Among those which instruct, 
 or those which amuse ? ISTow, if a man answers among 
 those which instruct, he lies ; for there is no instruction in 
 it, nor could be in any great poem, according to the 
 meaning which the word must bear in this distinction, 
 unless it is meant that it should involve its own antithesis. 
 
LETTERS. 55 
 
 But if he says, " "No ; amongst those which amuse," then 
 what a beast must he be to degrade, and in this way, what 
 has done the most of any human work to raise and dignify 
 human nature. But the truth is, you see that the idiot 
 does not wish to degrade it ; on the contrary, he would 
 willingly tell a lie in its favour, if that would be admitted ; 
 but such is the miserable state of slavery to which he has 
 reduced himself by his own puny distinction ; for, as soon as 
 he hops out of one of his little cells, he is under a necessity 
 of hopping into the other. The true antithesis* to know- 
 ledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is 
 literature seeks to communicate power ; all that is not 
 literatiure, to communicate knowledge. Now, if it be asked 
 what is meant by communicating power, I, in my turn, 
 would ask by what name a man would designate the case 
 in which I should be made to feel vividly, and with a vital 
 consciousness, emotions which ordinary life rarely or never 
 
 * For which distinction, as for most of the sound criticism on 
 poetry, or any subject connected with it that I have ever met with, 
 1 must acknowledge my obligations to many years' conversation 
 with Mr. Wordsworth. Upon this occasion it may be useful to notice 
 that there is a rhetorical use of the word " power," very different 
 from the analytic one here introduced, which, also, is due originally 
 to Mr. Wordsworth, and will be found in no book before 1798 ; this 
 is now become a regular slang term in London conversation. In 
 reference to which, it is worth notice that a critic, speaking of the 
 late Mr. Shelley, a year or two ago, in the most popular literary 
 journal of the day, said, "It is alleged that there is power in Mr. 
 Shelley's poetry; now, there can be no power shown in poetry, except 
 by writing good poems" (or words to that effect). Waiving, however, 
 the question of Mr, Shelley's merits, so far is this remark from being 
 true, that the word was originally introduced expressly to provide 
 for the case where, though the poem was not good from defect in the 
 composition, or from other causes, the stamina and materiel of good 
 poetry as fine thinking and passionate conceptions, could not be 
 denied to exist. 
 
56 LETTERS. 
 
 supplies occasions for exciting, and which had previously 
 lain unwakened, and hardly within the dawn of conscious- 
 ness — as myriads of modes of feeling are at this moment 
 in every human mind for want of a poet to organize them ? 
 I say, when these inert and sleeping forms are organized, 
 when these possibilities are actualized, is this conscious and 
 living possession of mine poiver, or what is it ] 
 
 When, in King Lear, the height, and depth, and breadth, 
 of human passion is revealed to us, and, for the purposes 
 of a sublime antagonism, is revealed in the weakness of an 
 old man's nature, and in one night two worlds of storm are 
 brought face to face — the human world, and the world of 
 physical nature — mirrors of each other, semichoral anti- 
 phonies, strophe and antistrophe heaving with rival con- 
 vulsions, and with the double darkness of night and 
 madness, — when I am thus suddenly startled into a feeling 
 of the infinity of the world within me, is this power, or 
 what may I call it ? Space, again, what is it in most 
 men's minds ? The lifeless form of the world without us, 
 a postulate of the geometrician, with no more vitality or 
 real existence to their feelings than the square root of two. 
 But, if Milton has been able to inform this empty theatre, 
 peopling it with Titanic shadows, forms that sat at the 
 eldest counsels of the infant world, chaos and original 
 night, — 
 
 " Ghostly shapes, 
 To meet at noontide, Fear and trembling Hope, 
 
 Death the Skeleton, 
 And Time the Shadow," — 
 
 so that, from being a thing to inscribe with diagrams, it 
 has become under his hands a vital agent on the human, 
 mind, — I presume that I may justly express the tendency 
 of the Paradise Lost, by saying that it communicates 
 
LETTEES. 57 
 
 power j a pretension far above all communication of know- 
 ledge. Henceforth, therefore, I shall use the antithesis 
 power and knowledge as the most philosophical expression 
 for literature (that is, Literse Humaniores) and anti-literature 
 (that is, Literse didacticse — IlatSeta). 
 
 JSTow, then, prepared with this distinction, let us inquire 
 whether — weighing the difficulties against the benefits — 
 there is an overbalance of motive for you with your purposes 
 to study what are inaccurately termed the " classical" lan- 
 guages.* And first with respect to Greek, w^e have often had 
 the question debated, and in our own days, solemn challenges 
 thrown out, and solemn adjudications given on the question, 
 whether any benefit corresponding to the time and the 
 labour can be derived from the study of the ancient classics. 
 Hitherto, however, the question could not be rightly shaped ; 
 for, as no man chose to plead " amusement'^ as a sufficient 
 motive for so great an undertaking, it was always debated 
 with a single reference to the knowledge involved in those 
 literatures. But this is a ground wholly untenable. For, 
 let the knowledge be what it might, all knowledge is 
 
 * A late writer has announced it as a matter of discovery, that the 
 term "classics" is applicable also to the modern languages. But, 
 surely, this was never doubted by any man who considered the mean- 
 ing and origin of the term. It is drawn, as the reader must be 
 reminded, from the political economy of Eome. Such a man was 
 rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth, 
 and so on ; but he who was in the highest was said emphatically to 
 be of the class, "classicus," a class-man, without adding the num- 
 ber, as in that case superfluous. Hence, by an obvious analogy, 
 the best authors were rated as classici, or men of the highest class ; 
 just as in English we say, " men of rank," absolutely, for men who 
 are in the highest ranks of the State. The particular error by which 
 this mere formal term of relation was materiated (if I may so say) in 
 one of its accidents (namely, the application to Greek and Roman 
 writers), is one of the commonest and most natural. 
 
58 LETTERS. 
 
 translateable ; and translateable without one atom of loss. 
 If this were all, therefore, common sense would prescribe 
 that faithful translations should be executed of all the 
 classics, and all men in future depend upon these vicarious 
 labours. With respect to the Greek, this would soon be 
 accomplished ; for what is the knowledge which lurks in 
 that language ? All knowledge may be commodiously 
 distributed into science and erudition ; of the latter (anti- 
 quities, geography, philology, theology, &c.), there is a 
 very considerable body ; of the former, but little, namely, 
 \he mathematical and musical works, and the medical 
 works — what else 1 Nothing that can deserve the name 
 of science, except the single organon of Aristotle. With 
 Greek medicine I suppose that you have no concern. As 
 to mathematics, a man must be an idiot if he were to study 
 Greek for the sake of Archimedes, Apollonius, or Diophantus. 
 In Latin or in French you may find them all regularly 
 translated, and parts of them embodied in the works of 
 English mathematicians. Besides, if it were otherwise, 
 where the notions and all the relations are so few, ele- 
 mentary, and determinate, and the vocabulary therefore so 
 scanty, as in mathematics, it could not be necessary to 
 learn Greek, even if you were disposed to read the mathe- 
 maticians in that language. I see no marvel in Halley's 
 having translated an Arabic manuscript on mathematics, 
 with no previous knowledge of Arabic ; on the contrary, it 
 is a case (and not a very difficult case) of the art of de- 
 ciphering, so much practised by Wallis and other great 
 mathematicians contemporary with Halley. But all this is 
 an idle disputation j for the knowledge of whatsoever sort 
 which lies in Grecian mines, wretchedly as we are furnished 
 wdth vernacular translations, the Latin version will always 
 Bupply. This, thereforCj is not the ground to be talien by 
 
LETTERS. 59 
 
 tlie advocate of Greek letters. It is not for knowledge 
 that Greek is worth learning, but for power. Here arises 
 the question — Of what value is this power 1 that is, how 
 is the Grecian literature to be rated in relation to other 
 literatures 1 Now, is it not oaly because " De Carthagiiie 
 satius est silere quam parcius dicere," but also because in 
 my judgment there is no more offensive form of levity than 
 the readiness to speak on great problems, incidentally and 
 occasionally, — that I shall wholly decline this question. 
 We have hitherto seen no rational criticism on Greek 
 literature ; nor, indeed, to say the truth, much criticism 
 which teaches anything, or solves anything, upon any 
 literature. I shall simply suggest one consideration to you. 
 The question is limited wholly, as you see, to the value of 
 the literature in "the proper sense of that word. Now, it is 
 my private theory, to which you will allow what degree of 
 weight you please, that the antique or pagan literature is a 
 polar antagonist to the modern or Christian literature ; that 
 each is an evolution from a distinct principle, having nothing 
 in common but what is necessarily common to all modes of 
 thought, namely, good sense and logic ; and that they are 
 to be criticised from different stations and points of view. 
 This same thought has occurred to others ; but no 
 great advance is made simply by propounding the general 
 thesis ; and as yet nobody has done more.* It is only 
 by the development of this thesis that any real service 
 
 •* Nor do I much expect, will do more : which opinion I build on 
 the particular formula chosen for expressing the»opposition of the 
 antique and th^ Christian literature, namely, the classical and the 
 romantic. This seeming to me to imply a total misconception of the 
 true principle on which the distinction rests, I naturally look for no 
 further developments of the thesis from that quarter. 
 
60 LETTERS. 
 
 can be performed. This I have myself attempted, in a 
 series of " reveries" on that subject ; and, if you continue 
 to hesitate on the question of learning Greek now that you 
 know exactly how that question is shaped, and to what it 
 points, my manuscript contains all the assistance that it is 
 in my power to offer you in such a dilemma. The difference 
 of the antique from the Christian literature, you must bear 
 in mind, is not like that between English and Spanish 
 literature — species and species — but as between genus and 
 genus. The advantages, therefore, are — 1, the power which 
 it offers generally as a literature ; 2, the new phases under 
 which it presents the human mind ; the antique being the 
 other hemisphere, as it were, which, with our own or 
 Christian hemisphere, composes the entire sphere of human 
 intellectual energy. 
 
 So much for the Greek. Now, as to the Latin, the case 
 is wholly reversed. Here the literature is of far less value.; 
 and, on the whole, with your views, it might be doubted 
 whether it would recompense your pains. But the anti- 
 literature (as for want of a strict antithesis I must call it) 
 is inestimable ; Latin having been the universal language 
 of Christendom for so long a period. The Latin works 
 since the restoration of letters are alone of immense vahie 
 for knowledge of every kind ; much science, inexhaustible 
 erudition ; and to this day in Germany, and elsewhere on 
 the Continent, the best part of the latter is communicated 
 in Latin. Now, though all knowledge is (which power is 
 not) adequately communicable by translation, yet as there 
 is no hope that the immense bibliotheca of Latin accumu- 
 lated in the last three centuries ever will be translated, you 
 cannot possibly dispense with this language ; and, that 
 being so, it is fortunate that you have already a superficial 
 
LETl'ERS. 61 
 
 acquaintance with it. The best means of cultivating it 
 further, and the grounds of selection amongst the modern 
 languages of Christendom, I will discuss fully in my next 
 letter. 
 
 LETTEE IV. 
 
 My r)EAE Sir, — It is my misfortune to have been under 
 the necessity too often of writing rapidly, and without 
 opportunities for after-revision. • In cases where much com- ' 
 'position* is demanded, this is a serious misfortune, and 
 sometimes irreparable, except at the price of recasting the 
 whole work. But, to a subject like the present, little of 
 what is properly called composition is applicable ; and 
 somewhat the less from the indeterminate form of letters 
 into which I have purposely thrown my communications. 
 Errors in composition apart, there can be no others of im- 
 portance, except such as relate to the matter; and those 
 are not at all the more incident to a man because he is in 
 a hurry. Not to be too much at leisure is, indeed, often 
 an advantage. On no occasion of their lives do men 
 generally speak better than on the scaftbld, and with the 
 executioner at their side ; partly, indeed, because they are 
 then most in earnest, and unsolicitous about effect ; but 
 partly, also, because the pressure of the time sharpens and 
 
 * " Composition.^^ — This word I use in a sense, not indeed peculiar 
 to myself, but yet not very common, nor anywhere, that I know of, 
 sufficiently developed. It is of the highest importance in criticism ; 
 and, therefore, I shall add a note upon the true construction of the 
 idea, either at the end of this letter or the next, according to the 
 epace left. 
 
62 LETTERS. 
 
 condenses the faculty of abstracting tlie capital points at 
 issue. On this account I do not plead haste as an absolute 
 and unmitigated disadvantage. Haste palliates what haste 
 occasions. ISTow, there is no haste which can occasion 
 oversights, as to the matter, to him who has meditated 
 sufficiently upon his subject ; all that haste can do in such 
 a case is to affect the language with respect to accuracy 
 and precision ; and thus far I plead it. I shall never plead 
 it as shrinking from the severest responsibility for the 
 thoughts and substance of anything I say ; but often in 
 palliation of expressions careless or ill chosen. And at no 
 time can I stand more in need of such indulgence than at 
 present, when' I write both hastily and under circumstances 
 of — But no matter what. Believe, in general, that I 
 write under circumstances as unfavourable for careful selec- 
 tion of words as can well be imagined. 
 
 In my last letter I declined to speak of the antique 
 literature, as a subject too unwieldy and unmanageable for 
 my limits. I now recur to it for the sake of guarding and 
 restraining that particular sentence in which I have spoken 
 of the Roman literature as inferior to the Greek. In 
 common with all the world, I must, of necessity, think it 
 so in the drama, and generally in poetry Kar ^^o^qv. In- 
 deed, for some forms of poetry, even of the lower order, it 
 was the misfortune of the Roman literature that they were 
 not cultivated until the era of fastidious taste, which in 
 every nation takes place at a certain stage of society. They 
 were harshly transplanted as exotics, and never passed 
 through the just degrees of a natural growth on Roman 
 soil. Notwithstanding this, the most exquisite specimens 
 of the lighter lyric which the world has yet seen must be 
 sought for in Horace ; and very few writers of any country 
 have approached to Virgil in the art of composition, how- 
 
LETTERS. 63 
 
 ever low we may be disposed at this day to rank him as a 
 poet, when tried in the unequal contest with the sublimities 
 of the Christian literature. The truth is (and this is worth 
 being attended to), that the peculiar sublimity of the 
 Koman mind does not express itself, nor is it at all to be 
 sought, in their poetry. Poetry, according to the Eoman 
 ideal of it, was not an adequate organ for the grander 
 movements of the national mind. Roman sublimity must 
 be looked for in Eoman acts and in Roman sayings. 
 
 For the acts, see their history for a thousand years, the 
 early and fabulous part not excepted, — which, for the very 
 reason that it is fabulous,* must be taken as so much the 
 purer product of the Roman mind. Even the infancy of 
 Rome was like the cradle of Hercules, glorified by splen- 
 did marvels, — " Nee licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre." 
 For their sayings, for their anecdotes, their serious bon-mots, 
 there are none equal to the Roman in grandeur. " English- 
 
 *■ In addition to the arguments lately urged in the Quarterly 
 EevieWf for bastardizing and degrading the early history of Eome, I 
 may here mention two others, alleged many years ago in conversa- 
 tion by a friend of mine. 1. The immoderate length of time assigned 
 to the reigns of the kings. For though it is possible that one king's 
 reign may cover two entire generations (as that of George iii.), or 
 even two and a half (as that of Louis xiv.), yet it is in the highest 
 degree improbable that a series of seven kings, immediately conse- 
 cutive, should average, in the most favourable cases, more than 
 twenty-four years for each : for the proof of which, see the Collective 
 Chronology of Ancient and Modern Europe. 2. The dramatic and 
 artificial casting of the parts for these kings. Each steps forward as 
 a scenical person, to play a distinct part or character. One makes 
 Eome ; another makes laws ; another makes an army ; another, re- 
 
 - ligious rights, &c. ' And last of all comes a gentleman who '' enacts 
 the brute part" of destroying, in effect, what his predecessors had 
 constructed ; and thus furnishes a decorous catastrophe for the 
 
 _ whole play, and a magnificent birth for the republican form of 
 government. 
 
64 LETTERS. 
 
 man!" said a Frenchman once to me, "you that contest 
 our claim to the sublime, and contend that *la mani^re 
 noble' of our artists wears a falsetto character, what do you 
 think of that saying of a king of ours, That it became not 
 the King of France to avenge the injuries of the Duke of 
 Orleans (that is, of himself, under that title) f " Think !" 
 said I, " why, I think it is a magnificent and regal speech, 
 and such is my English generosity, that I heartily wish the 
 Emperor Hadrian had not said the same thing fifteen hun- 
 dred years before." * I would willingly give five shillings 
 myself to purchase the copyright of the saying for the 
 French nation ; for they want it, and the Komans could 
 spare it. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt ! Cursed 
 be the name of Hadrian that stands between France and 
 the sublimest of bon-mots ! Where, again, will you find a 
 more adequate expression of the Eoman majesty than in 
 the saying of Trajan — Imperatorem oportere stantem mori 
 — that Caesar ought to die standing, a speech of impera- 
 torial grandeur ; implying that he, who was " the foremost 
 man of all this world," and, in regard to aU other nations, 
 the representative of his own, should express its character- 
 istic virtue in his farewell act, — should die in procinctu, — 
 aud should meet the last enemy, t as the first, with a 
 
 * Submonente quodam ut in pristinos inimicos animadverteret, 
 negavit se ita facturum ? adjecta civili voce, — Minime licere Principi 
 Komano, ut quae privatus agitasset odia — ista Imperator exequi. 
 Spdrtian in Had. — Yid. Histor. August. 
 
 f Neither let it be objected that it is irrational to oppose what 
 there is no chance of opposing with success. When the Roman 
 Senate kept their seats immovably upon the entrance of the Gauls 
 reeking from the storm of Rome, they did it not as supposing that 
 this spectacle of senatorial dignity could disarm the wrath of their 
 savage enemy ; if they had, their act would have lost all its splen- 
 dotir. The language of their conduct was this : So far as the graa- 
 
LETTEKS. 65 
 
 Roman countenance, and in a soldier's attitude. If this 
 had an imperatorial, what follows had a consular majesty, 
 and is almost the grandest story upon record. Marius, the 
 man who rose cb caligd to be seven times consul, was in a 
 dungeon, and a slave was sent in with commission to put 
 him to death. These were the persons, — the two extre- 
 mities of exalted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and its 
 rearward man, a Roman consul and an abject slave. But 
 their natural relations to each other were, by the caprice 
 of fortune, monstrously inverted. The consul was in chains : 
 the slave was for a moment the arbiter of his fate. By 
 what spells, what magic, did Marius reinstate himself in 
 his natural prerogatives ] By what marvels, drawn from 
 heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 again invest himself with the purple, and place between 
 himself and his assassin" a host of shadowy lictors ] By 
 the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak ones. 
 He fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. 
 Standing " like Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and 
 said, " Tunc, homo, audes occidere C. Marium ? " Dost 
 thou, fellow, presume to kill Caius Marius ? Whereat the 
 reptile, quaking under the voice, nor daring to affront the 
 consular eye, sank gently to the ground, turned round upon 
 his hands and feet, and, crawling out of the prison like 
 any other vermin, left Marius standing in solitude, as stead- 
 fast and immovable as the capitol. 
 
 In such anecdotes as these it is — in the actions of trying 
 
 deur of the will is concerned, we have carried our resistance to the 
 last extremity, and have expressed it in the way suitable to our 
 rank. For all beyond we were not answerable; and, having recorded 
 our " protest" in such an emphatic language,- death becomes no dis- 
 honour. The stantem mori expresses the same principle, but in a 
 symbolic act. 
 
 o2 
 
66 LETTERS. 
 
 emergencies and their appropriate circumstances — that I 
 find the revelation of the Roman mind under its highest 
 aspect. The Roman mind was great in the presence of 
 man, mean in the presence of nature ; impotent to compre- 
 hend or to delineate the internal strife of passion,'^ but 
 powerful beyond any other national mind to display the 
 energy of the will victorious over all passion. Hence it is 
 that the true Roman sublime exists nowhere in such purity 
 as in those works which were not composed with a refer- 
 ence to Grecian models. On this account I wholly dissent 
 from the shallow classification which expresses the relations 
 of merit between the writers of the Augustan period and 
 that which followed, under the type of a golden and silver 
 age. As artists, and with reference to composition, no 
 doubt many of the writers Qf the latter age were rightly 
 so classed ; but an inferiority quoad hoc argues no uniform 
 and absolute inferiority ; and the fact is, that, in weight 
 and grandeur of thought, the silver writers were much 
 superior to the golden. Indeed, this might have been 
 looked for on a priori grounds ; for the silver writers were 
 more truly Roman writers from two causes : first, because 
 they trusted more to their own native style of thinking, 
 and, looking less anxiously to Grecian archetypes, they 
 wrote more naturally, feelingly, and originally ; secondly, 
 because the political circumstances of their times were ad- 
 vantageous, and liberated them from the suspicious caution 
 which cramped the natural movements of a Roman mind 
 on the first establishment of the monarchy. Whatever 
 outrages of despotism occurred in the times of the silver 
 
 * So palpable is this truth, that the most unreflecting critics have 
 hence been led to suspect the pretensions of the Atjs to a Eoman 
 ongin. 
 
LETTERS. 67 
 
 writers were sudden, transient, capricious, and personal, in 
 their origin and in their direction : but, in the Augustan age, 
 it was not the temper of Augustus, personally, and certain- 
 ly not the temper of the writers leading them to any ex- 
 cesses of licentious speculation, which created the danger of 
 bold thinking. The danger was in the times, which were 
 unquiet and revolutionary. The struggle with the re- 
 publican party was yet too recent ; the wounds and cica- 
 trices of the State too green ; the existing order of things 
 too immature and critical : the triumphant party still view- 
 ed as a party, and for that cause still feeling itself a party 
 militant. Augustus had that chronic complaint of a " crick 
 in the neck," of which later princes are said to have an 
 acute attack every 30th of January. Hence a servile and 
 timid tone in the literature. The fiercer republicans could not 
 be safely mentioned. Even Cicero it was not decorous to 
 praise ; and Virgil, as perhaps you know, has, by insinua- 
 tion, contrived to insult* his memory in the JEneid. But, 
 as the irresponsible power of the emperors grew better 
 secured, their jealousy of republican sentiment abated much 
 of its keenness. And, considering that republican freedom 
 of thought was the very matrix of Boman sublimity, it 
 
 * Orabunt alii causas melius, u^n. VI. — An opinion upon the 
 Grecian superiority in this point, which is so doubtful even to us in 
 our perfect impartiality at this day, as a general opinion without dis- 
 crimination of persons, that we may be sure it could not spontane- 
 ously have occurred to a Roman in a burst of patriotic feeling, and 
 must have been deliberately manufactured to meet the malignant 
 wishes of Augustus. More especially because, in whatever relation 
 of opposition or of iudifference to the principles of a military govern- 
 ment, to the Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, Virgil might 
 view the fine arts of painting, statuary, &c., he could not but have 
 viewed the arts of forensic eloquence as standing in the closest alli- 
 ance with that principle. 
 
68 LETTERS. 
 
 ought not to surprise us, that as fast as the national mind 
 was lightened from the pressure which weighed upon the 
 natural style of its sentiment, the literature should recoil 
 into a freer movement, with an elasticity proportioned to 
 the intensity and brevity of its depression. Accordingly, in 
 Seneca the philosopher, in Lucan, in Tacitus, even in Pliny 
 the Younger, &c., but especially in the two first, I affirm 
 that there is a loftiness of thought more eminently and cha- 
 racteristically Roman than in any preceding writers : and in 
 that view to rank them as writers of a silver age, is worthy 
 only of those who are servile to the commonplaces of un- 
 thinking criticism. 
 
 The style of thought in the silver writers, as a raw ma- 
 terial, was generally more valuable than that of their pre- 
 decessors, however much they fell below them in the art of 
 working up that material. And I shall add further that, 
 when I admit the vast defects of Luther, for instance, as an 
 artist, I would not be understood as invuDlving in that con- 
 cession the least toleration of the vulgar doctrine, that the 
 ' diction of the silver writers is in any respect below the 
 standard of pure Latinity as existing in the writers of the 
 Ciceronian age. A better structure of Latinity I will affirm 
 boldly, does not exist than that of Petronius Arbiter : and 
 taken as a body, the writers of what is denominated the sil- 
 ver age are for diction no less Roman, and for thought 
 much more intensely Roman, than any other equal number 
 of writers from the preceding ages ; and, with a very few 
 exceptions, are the best fitted to take a permanent station 
 in the regard of men at your age or mine, when the medi- 
 tative faculties, if they exist at all, are apt to expand, and 
 to excite a craving for a greater weight of thought than 
 is usually to be met with in the elder writers of the Roman 
 literature. This explanation made, and having made that 
 
LETTERS. 69 
 
 ''amende honorable" to the Roman literature which my 
 own gratitude demanded, I come to the remaining part of 
 my business in this letter, namely, the grounds of choice 
 amongst the languages of modern Europe. Reserving to 
 my conclusion anything I have to say upon these languages^ 
 as depositories of literature properly so called, I shall first 
 speak of them as depositories of hnowledge. Among the 
 four great races of men in Europe, namely — 1. The Celtic, 
 occupying a few of the western extremities* of Europe ; 
 2. The Teutonic, occupying the northern and midland 
 parts ;t 3. The Latin (blended with Teutonic tribes) occu- 
 pying the south ;J and, 4. The Sclavonic, occupying the 
 east, it is evident that of the first and the last it is un- 
 necessary to say anything in this place, because their pre- 
 tensions to literature do not extend to our present sense of 
 the word. No Celt even, however extravagant, pretends 
 ■ to the possession of a body of Celtic philosophy and Celtic 
 science of independent growth. The Celtic and Sclavonic 
 languages therefore dismissed, our business at present is with 
 those of the Latin and the Teutonic families. Now three of 
 the Latin family, namely, the Italian, Spanish, and Portu- 
 guese, are at once excluded for the purpose before us : be- 
 cause it is notorious that, from political and religious causes, 
 these three nations have but feebly participated in the gene- 
 
 * Namely: 1. In the Cornish, Welsh, Manks, Highland, Scotch, 
 and Irish provinces of the British empire (in the first and last it is 
 true that the barharous Celtic blood has been too much improved by 
 Teutonic admixture to allovr of our considering the existing races 
 as purely Celtic ; this, however, does not affect the classification of 
 their genuine literary relics) ; 2. In Biscay; and 3. In Basse Bre- 
 tagne (Armorica) ; to say nothing of a Celtic district said to exist in 
 the Alps, &c. 
 
 t Namely : Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, 
 Netherlands, England, and Scotch Lowlands. 
 
 X Namely : Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. 
 
70 LETTERS. 
 
 ral scientific and philosophic, labours of the age. Italy, in- 
 deed, has cultivated natural philosophy with an exclusive 
 zeal ; a direction probably impressed upon the national 
 mind by patriotic reverence for her great names in that de- 
 partment. But, merely for the sake of such knowledge 
 (supposing no other motive), it would be idle to pay the 
 price of learning a language, — all the current contributions 
 to science being regularly gathered into the general garner 
 of Europe by the scientific journals both at home and abroad. 
 Of the Latin languages, therefore, which are wholly the 
 languages of Catholic nations, but one — that is, the French 
 — can present any sufficient attractions to a student in 
 search of general knowledge. Of the Teutonic literatures, 
 on the other hand, which are the adequate representatives 
 of the Protestant intellectual interest in Europe (no Ca- 
 tholic nations speaking a Teutonic language except the 
 southern states of Germany and part of the Netherlands), 
 all give way at once to the paramount pretensions of the 
 English and the German. I do not say this with the levity 
 of ignorance, as if presuming, as a matter of course, that 
 in a small territory, such as Denmark, e.g., the literature 
 must, of necessity, bear a value proportioned to its political 
 rank. On the contrary, I have some acquaintance with the 
 Danish literature f and though, in the proper sense of the 
 word literature as a body of creative art, I cannot esteem 
 
 * I take this opportunity of mentioning a curious fact which I as- 
 certained about twelve years ago, when studying the Danish. The 
 English and Scotch philologists have generally asserted that the 
 Danish invasions in the ninth and tenth centuries, and their settle- 
 ments in various parts of the island (as Lincolnshire, Cumberland, 
 &c.), had left little or no traces of themselves in the language. This 
 opinion has been lately reasserted in Dr. Murray's work on the Euro- 
 pean languages. It is, however, inaccurate. For the remarkable dia- 
 lect spoken amongst the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, 
 
LETTERS. 71 
 
 it highly, yet as a depository of knowledge in one particu- 
 lar direction — namely, the direction of historical and anti- 
 quarian research — it has, undoubtedly, high claims upon 
 the student's attention. But this is a direction in which a 
 long series of writers descending from a remote antiquity is 
 of more importance than a great contemporary body ; 
 whereas, for the cultivation of knowledge in a more com- 
 prehensive sense, and arrived at its present stage, large 
 simultaneous efforts are of more importance than the long- 
 est successive efforts. Now, for such a purpose, it is self- 
 evident that the means at the disposal of every State must 
 be in due proportion to its statistical rank ; for not only 
 must the scientific institutions, the purchasers of books, 
 &c., keep pace with the general progress of the country, 
 but commerce alone, and the arts of life, which are so 
 much benefited by science, naturally react upon science in 
 a degree proportioned to the wealth of every State in their 
 demand for the aids of chemistry, mechanics, engineering, 
 &c. &c. ; a fact with its inevitable results, to which I need 
 scarcely call your attention. Moreover, waiving all mere 
 presumptive arguments, the bare amount of books annually 
 published in the several countries of Europe puts the mat- 
 ter out of all doubt that the great commerce of thought 
 and knowledge in the civilized world is ^t this day con- 
 together with the names of the mountains, tarns, &c., most of which 
 resist all attempts to unlock their meaning from the Anglo-Saxon, 
 or any other form of the Teutonic, are pure Danish — generally intel- 
 ligihle from the modern Danish of this day, hut in all cases from the 
 elder form of the Danish. Whenever my Opera Omnia sltq collected, 
 I shall reprint a little memoir on this suhject, which I inserted ahout 
 four years ago in a provincial newspaper : or possihly before that 
 event, for the amusement of the lake tourists, Mr. "Wordsworth may 
 do me the favour to accept it as an appendix to his work on the 
 English lakes. 
 
72 LETTERS. 
 
 ducted in three languages — the English, the German, and 
 the French. You, therefore, having the good fortune to be 
 an Englishman, are to make your choice between the two 
 last ; and this being so, I conceive that there is no room 
 for hesitation, — the " detur pulchriori" being, in this case 
 (that is, remember, with an exclusive reference to know- 
 ledge), a direction easily followed. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was accustomed to say of the French lite- 
 rature, as the kindest thing he had to say about it, that 
 he valued it chiefly for this reason — that it had a book 
 upon every subject. How far this might be a reasonable 
 opinion fifty years ago, and understood, as Dr. Johnson 
 must have meant it, of the French literature, as compared 
 with the English of the same period, I will not pretend 
 to say. It has certainly ceased to be true even under 
 these restrictions, and is in flagrant opposition to the 
 truth if extended to the French in its relation to the Ger- 
 man. Undoubtedly the French literature holds out to the 
 student some peculiar advantages, as what literature does 
 not ? — some, even, which we should not have anticipated : 
 for, though we justly value ourselves as a nation upon our 
 classical education, yet no literature is poorer than the 
 English in the learning of classical antiquities, — our Bent- 
 leys, even, and our Porsons, having thrown all their learn- 
 ing into the channel of philology ; whilst a single volume 
 of the Memoirs of the French Academy of Inscriptions con- 
 tains more useful antiquarian research than a whole English 
 library. In digests of history, again, the French language 
 is richer than ours, and in their dictionaries of miscellan- 
 eous knowledge {not in their encyclopedias). But all these 
 are advantages of the French only in relation to the English 
 and not to the German literature, which, for vast compass, 
 variety, and extent, far exceeds all others as a depository for 
 
 J 
 
LETTERS. 73 
 
 the current accumulations of knowledge. The mere num- 
 ber of hooks published annually in Germany, compared with 
 the annual product of France and England, is alone a satis- 
 factory evidence of this assertion. With relation to France, 
 it is a second argument in its favour that the intellectual 
 activity of Germany is not intensely accumulated in one 
 great capital, as it is in Paris ; but w^hilst it is here and 
 there converged intensely enough for all useful purposes 
 (as at Berlin, Konigsberg, Leipsic, Dresden, Vienna, Munich, 
 &c.), it is also healthily diffused over the whole territory. 
 There is not a sixth-rate town in Protestant Germany which 
 does not annually contribute its quota of books : intellec- 
 tual culture has manured the whole soil ; not a district but 
 
 it has penetrated, 
 
 "Like Spring, 
 Which leaves no comer of the land untouched." 
 
 A third advantage on the side of Germany (an advantage 
 for this purpose) is its division into a great number of in- 
 dependent states. From this circumstance it derives the 
 benefit of an internal rivalship amongst its several mem- 
 bers, over and above that general external rivalship which 
 it maintains with other nations. An advantage of the 
 same kind we enjoy in England. The British nation is 
 fortunately split into three great divisions, and thus a 
 national feeling of emulation and contest is excited, — slight, 
 indeed, or none at all on the part of the English (not from 
 any merit, but from mere decay of patriotic feeling), stronger 
 on the part of the Irish, and sometimes illiberally and odiously 
 strong on the part of the Scotch (especially as you descend 
 below the rank of gentlemen). But, disgusting as it some- 
 times is in its expression, this nationality is of great service 
 to our efforts in all directions. A triple powder is gained 
 for internal excitement of the national energies ; whilst, in 
 
 XIII. — D 
 
74 LETTERS. 
 
 regard to any external enemy or any external rival, the three 
 nations act with the unity of a single force. But the most 
 conspicuous advantage of the German literature is its great 
 originality and boldness of speculation, and the character of 
 masculine austerity and precision impressed upon their scien- 
 tific labours by the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolff hereto- 
 fore, and by the severer philosophy of modem days. Speaking 
 of the German literature at all, it would be mere affectation 
 to say nothing on a subject so far-famed and so much misre- 
 presented as this. Yet, to summon myself to an effort of 
 this kind at a moment of weariness and exhausted attention, 
 would be the certain means of inflicting great weariness upon 
 you. For the present, therefore, I take my leave. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 My dear Sir, — In my last letter, having noticed the Eng- 
 lish, the German, and the French, as the three languages in 
 which the great commerce of thought and knowledge in the 
 civilized world is at this day conducted, and having attri- 
 buted three very considerable advantages to the German as 
 compared with the French, I brought forward in conclu- 
 sion, as an advantage more conspicuous even than any I 
 had before insisted on, the great originality and boldness 
 of speculation which have distinguished the philosophic re- 
 searches of Germany for the last hundred and fifty years.* 
 On this point, as it stood opposed to some prejudices and 
 gross mis-statements among ourselves, I naturally declined to 
 speak at the close of a letter which had, perhaps, already 
 
 * Dating from the earliest works of Leibnitz, rather more. 
 
LETTERS. 70 
 
 exhausted your attention. But, as it would be mere affec- 
 tation wholly to evade a question about which so much 
 interest* has gathered, and an interest which, from its ob- 
 jects and grounds, must be so durable, I gave you reason 
 to expect that I would say a few words on that which is at 
 this time understood by the term German Philosophy, that 
 is, the philosophy of Kant. This I shall now do. But, 
 let me remind you for what purpose, that you may not lay 
 to my charge, as a fault, that limited notice of my subject 
 which the nature and proportions of my plan prescribe. In 
 a short letter it cannot be supposed possible, if it were 
 otherwise right on this occasion, that I should undertake 
 
 * I have heard it alleged as a reason why no great interest in the 
 German philosophy can exist or can be created amongst the Eng- 
 lish that '* there is no demand for books on that subject :" in which 
 lemark there is a singular confusion of thought. Was there any 
 *' demand" for the Newtonian philosophy, until the Newtonian philo- 
 Bopliy appeared ? How should there be any ** demand" for books 
 which do not exist ? But, considering the lofty pretensions of the 
 ^antean philosophy, it would argue a gross ignorance of human 
 nature to suppose that no interest had already attended the statement 
 of these pretensions whenever they have been made known ; and, in 
 fact, amongst thoughtful and intellectual men a very deep interest 
 has long existed on the subject, as my own experience has been 
 sufficient to convince me. Indeed, what evidence could be alleged 
 more strong of apathy and decay in all intellectual activity, and in 
 all honourable direction of intellectual interests, than the possibility 
 tliat a systematic philosophy should arise in a great nation near to 
 our own, and should claim to have settled for ever many of the 
 weightiest questions which concern the dignity and future progress 
 of the human species, and should yet attract no attention or interest ? 
 We may be assured that no nation not thoroughly emasculated in 
 power of mind — that is, so long as any severe studies survive amongst 
 her — can ever be so far degraded. But these judgments come of 
 attending too much to the movements of what is called " the literary 
 world :" literature very imperfectly represents the intellectual interests 
 of any people ; and literary people are, in a large proportion, as little 
 intellectual people as any one meets with. 
 
76 LETTERS. 
 
 an analysis of a philosophy so comprehensive as to leave no 
 track of legitimate interests untouched, and so profound as 
 to presuppose many preparatory exercises of the understand- 
 ing. What the course of my subject demands is, that I 
 should liberate the name and reputation of the Kantean 
 philosophy from any delusion which may collect about its 
 purposes and pretensions, through the representations of 
 those who have spoken of it amongst ourselves. The case 
 is this : I have advised you to pay a special attention to 
 the German literature, as a literature of knowledge, not of 
 power ; and, amongst other reasons for this advice, I have 
 alleged the high character and pretensions of its philosophy. 
 But these pretensions have been met by attacks, or by gross 
 misrepresentations, from all writers, within my knowledge, 
 who have at all noticed the philosophy in this country. So 
 far as these have fallen in your way, they must naturally 
 have indisposed you to my advice ; and it becomes, there- 
 fore, my business to point out any facts which may tend to 
 disarm the authority of these writers, just so far as to re- 
 place you in the situation of a neutral and unprejudiced 
 student. 
 
 The persons who originally introduced the Kantean phi- 
 losophy to the notice of the English public, or rather at- 
 tempted to do so, were two Germans — Dr. Willich and 
 (not long after) Dr. Mtsch. Dr. Willich, I think, has 
 been gone to Hades for these last dozen years ; certainly 
 his works have : and Dr. Kitsch, though not gone to Hades, 
 is gone (I understand) to Germany, which answers my pur- 
 pose as well ; for it is not likely that a few words uttered 
 in London will contrive to find out a man buried in the 
 throng of thirty million Germans. Quoad hoc, therefore, 
 Dr. Mtsch may be considered no less defunct than Dr. 
 Willich ; and I can run no risk of wounding anybody's 
 
LETTERS. 77 
 
 feelings if I should pronounce both doctors very eminent 
 blockheads. It is difficult to say which wrote the more 
 absurd book. Willich's is a mere piece of book-making, 
 and deserves no sort of attention. But Nitsch, who seems 
 to have been a painstaking man, has produced a work which 
 is thus far worthy of mention, that it reflects as in a mirror 
 one feature common to most of the German commentaries 
 upon Kant's works, and which it is right to expose. With 
 very few exceptions, these works are constructed upon one 
 simple principle : Finding it impossible to obtain any 
 glimpse of Kant's meaning or diift, the writers naturally 
 asked themselves what was to be done. Because a man 
 does not understand one iota of his author, is he therefore 
 not to comment upon him 1 That were hard indeed ; and 
 a sort of abstinence which it is more easy to recommend 
 than to practise. Commentaries must be written ; and, if 
 not by those who understand the .system (which would be 
 the best plan), then (which is clearly the second-best plan) 
 by those who do not understand it. Dr. Nitsch belonged 
 to this latter very respectable body, for whose great nume- 
 rical superiority to their rivals I can take upon myself to 
 vouch. Being of their body, the worthy doctor adopted 
 their expedient, which is simply this : never to deliver any 
 doctrine except in the master's words ; on all occasions to 
 parrot the ipsissima wrha of Kant ; and not even to ven- 
 ture upon the experiment of a new illustration drawn from 
 their own funds. Pretty nearly upon this principle was it 
 that the wretched Brucker and others have constructed 
 large histories of philosophy. Having no comprehension 
 of the inner meaning and relations of any philosophic opin- 
 ion, nor suspecting to what it tended, or in what necessities 
 of the intellect it had arisen, how could the man do more 
 than superstitiously adhere to that formula of words in 
 
78 LETTERS. 
 
 which it had pleased the philosopher to clothe it ? It was 
 unreasonable to expect he should. To require of him that 
 he should present it in any new aspect of his own devising 
 would have been tempting him into dangerous and perplex- 
 ing situations : it would have been, in fact, a downright 
 aggression upon his personal safety, and calling upon him 
 to become felo de se. Every turn of a sentence might risk 
 his breaking down ; and no man is bound to risk his neck, 
 credit, or understanding, for the benefit of another man's 
 neck, credit, or understanding. "It's all very well," Dr. 
 Mtsch and his brethren will say, — " it's all very well for 
 you, gentlemen, that have no commenting to do, to under- 
 stand your author ; but, to expect us to understand him 
 also, that have to write commentaries on him for two, four, 
 and all the way up to twelve volumes 8vo, just serves to 
 show how far the unreasonableness of human nature can 
 go." The Doctor was determined on moral principles to 
 make no compromise with such unreasonableness ; and, in 
 common with all his brethren, set his face against under- 
 standing each and every chapter, paragraph, or sentence, of 
 Kant, so long as they were expected to do duty as com.- 
 mentators. I treat the matter ludicrously ; but, in sub- 
 stance, I assure you that I do no wrong to the learned 
 commentators ; * and, under such auspices, you will not 
 suppose that Kant came before the English public with any 
 advantage of patronage. Between two such supporters as 
 a Nitsch on the right hand, and a Willich on the left, I 
 
 * Under this denomination I comprehend all the rabble of abbre- 
 viators, abstractors, dictionary-makers, etc. etc., attached to the 
 establishment of the Kantean philosophy. One of the last, by the 
 way, Schmidt, the author of a Kantean dictionary, may be cited as 
 the heau ideal of Kantean commentators. He was altogether agreed 
 with Dr. Nitsch upon the duty of not understanding one's author ; 
 
LETTERS. 79 
 
 know not that pliilosopher tliat would escape foundering. 
 But, fortunately for Kant, the supporters themselves foun- 
 dered ; and no man that ever I met with had seen or heard 
 of their books, or seen any man that had seen them. It 
 did not appear that they were, or, logically speaking, could 
 be forgotten ; for no man had ever remembered them. 
 
 The two doctors having thus broken down, and set off 
 severally to Hades and Germany, I recollect no authors of 
 respectability who have since endeavoured to attract the 
 attention of the English public to the Kantean philosophy, 
 except — 1. An anonymous writer in an early number of the 
 Edinhurgh Review ; 2. Mr. Coleridge ; 3. Mr. Dugald 
 Stewart ; 4. Madame de Stael, in a work published, I be- 
 lieve, originally in this country, and during her residence 
 amongst us. I do not add Sir William Drummond to this 
 list, because my recollection of anything he has written on 
 the subject of Kant (in his Academical Questions) is very 
 imperfect ; nor Mr. W — , the reputed author of an article 
 on Kant (the most elaborate, I am told, which at present 
 exists in the English language) in the Encyclopaedia Londin- 
 ensis ; for this essay, together with a few other notices of 
 Kant in other encyclopaedias, or elsewhere, have not hap- 
 pened to fall in my way. The four writers above men- 
 tioned were certainly the only ones on this subject who 
 commanded sufficient influence, either directly in their own 
 persons, or (as in the first case) vicariously in the channel 
 through which the author communicated with the public. 
 
 and acted up to his principle through life — being, in fact, what the 
 Cambridge men call a Bergen-op-zoom, that is, one that sturdily 
 defies his author, stands a siege of twelve or twenty years upon his 
 understanding, and holds out to the last, impregnable to all the 
 assaults of reason or argument, and the heaviest batteries of common 
 Bense. 
 
80 LETTERS. 
 
 considerably to affect the reputation of Kant in this country 
 for better or worse. None of the four, except Mr. Cole- 
 ridge, having, or professing to have, any direct acquaint- 
 ance with the original works of Kant, but drawing their 
 information from imbecile French books, &c., it would not 
 be treating the other three with any injustice to dismiss 
 their opinions without notice ; for, even upon any one phi- 
 losophical question, much more upon the fate of a great 
 philosophical system supposed to be sub Judice, it is as 
 unworthy of a grave and thoughtful critic to rely upon 
 the second-hand report of a flashy rhetorician, as it 
 would be unbecoming and extra-judicial in a solemn trial 
 to occupy the ear of the court with the gossip of a country 
 town. 
 
 However, to omit no point of courtesy to any of these 
 writers, I shall say a word or two upon each of them 
 separately. The first and the third wrote in a spirit of 
 hostility to Kant ; the second and fourth, as friends. In 
 that order I shall take them. The writer of the article in 
 •the Edinburgh Review, I suppose, upon the internal evi- 
 dence, to have been the late Dr. Thomas Brown, a pupil 
 of Mr. Dugald Stewart's, and his successor in the Moral 
 Philosophy chair at Edinburgh. This is a matter of no 
 importance in itself; nor am I in the habit of troubling 
 myself or others with literary gossip of that sort ; but I 
 mention it as a conjecture of my own ; because, if I happen 
 to be right, it would be a very singular fact that the onty 
 two writers within my knowledge who have so far forgot 
 the philosophic character as to attempt an examination of 
 a vast and elaborate system of philosophy, not in the origi- 
 nal, not in any authorized or accredited Latin version (of 
 which there were two even at that time), not in any version 
 at all, but in the tawdry rhetoric of a Parisian philosophie 
 
lETTEES. 81 
 
 h la mode, a sort of pJdlosopIiie pour les dames, — ^tliat these 
 two writers, thus remarkably agreeing in their readiness to 
 forget the philosophic character, should also happen to have 
 stood nearly connected in literary life. In such coincidences 
 w^e suspect something more than a blind accident ; we sus- 
 pect the natural tendency of their philosophy, and believe 
 ourselves furnished with a measure of its power to liberate 
 the mind from rashness, from caprice, and injustice, in such 
 deliberate acts, which it either suggests or tolerates. If 
 their own philosophic curiosity was satisfied with informa- 
 tion so slender, mere justice required that they should not, 
 on so slight and suspicious a warrant, have grounded any- 
 thing in disparagement of the philosophy or its founder. 
 The book reviewed by the Edinburgh reviewer, and relied 
 on for his account of the Kantean philosophy, is the essay 
 of Villars ; a book so entirely childish, that perhaps no 
 mortification more profound could have fallen upon the 
 reviewer than the discovery of the extent to which he had 
 been duped by his author. Of this book no more needs to 
 be said than that the very terms do not occur in it which ex- 
 press the hinges of the system. Mr. Stewart has confided 
 chiefly in D%^rando ; a much more sober-minded author, 
 of more good sense, and a greater zeal for truth, but, un- 
 fortunately, with no more ability to penetrate below the 
 surface of the Kantean system. M. Ddg^rando is repre- 
 sented as an unexceptionable evidence by Mr. Stewart, on 
 the ground that he is admitted to be so by Kant's " country- 
 men." The " countrymen" of Kant,* merely as country- 
 
 * The reader may suppose that this could not possibly have been 
 the meaning of Mr. Stewart. But a very general mistake exists as to 
 the terminology of Kant — as though a foreigner must find some diffi- 
 culties in it which are removed to a native. " His own countrymen," 
 
82 LETTERS. 
 
 men, can have no more title to an opinion upon this poiiit 
 than a Grantham man could have a right to dogmatize on 
 Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy, on the ground that he was 
 a fellow-townsman of Sir Isaac's. The air of Konigsberg 
 makes no man a philosopher. But, if Mr. Stewart means 
 that the competency of M. D^gdrando has been admitted 
 by those countrymen of Kant's whose educations have fitted 
 them to understand him, and whose writings make it evi- 
 dent that they have understood him (such, for instance, as 
 Eeinhold, Schulze, Tieftrunk, Beck, Fichte, and Schelling), 
 then he has been misinformed. The mere existence of such 
 works as the Histoire Comparee of M. D^gdrando, which 
 cannot be regarded in a higher light than that of verbal 
 indices to the corpus philosophise, is probably unknown to 
 them ; certainly, no books of that popular class are ever 
 noticed by any of them, nor could rank higher in their eyes 
 than an elementary school algebra in the eyes of a mathe- 
 matician. -If any man acknowledges D(^g^rando's attempt 
 at a popular abstract of Kant as a .. sound one, ipso facto, 
 he degrades himself from the right to any opinion upon the 
 - matter. The elementary notions of Kant, even the main 
 problem of his great work, are not once so much as alluded 
 to by Ddg^rando. And, by the way, if any man ever talks 
 in your presence about Kant, and you suspect that he is 
 talking without knowledge, and wish to put a stop to him, 
 I will tell you how you shall effect that end. Say to him 
 
 says a respectable literary journal, when speaking of Kant {Edhiburgh 
 Monthly Beview for August 1820, p. 168) — " His own countrymen 
 find it difficult to comprehend his meaning ; and they dispute about 
 it to this day." Why not? The terminology of Kant is partly 
 Grecian, partly scholastic; and how should either become intelli- 
 gible to a German qua German, merely because they are fitted with 
 German terminations and inflexions ? 
 
LETTERS. 83 
 
 as follows : Sir, I am instructed by my counsel, learned in 
 this matter, that the main problem of the philosophy you 
 are talking of lies involved in the term transcendental, and 
 that it may be thus expressed : " An detur aliquid tran- 
 scendentale in mente humand,^'' — '* Is there in the human 
 mind anything which realizes the notion of transcendental 
 (as that notion is regulated and used by Kant) ?" Now, 
 as this makes it necessary above all things to master that 
 notion in the fullest sense, I will thank you to explain it to 
 me. And, as I am further instructed that the answer to this 
 question is affirmative, and is involved in the term synthetic 
 unity, I will trouble you to make it clear to me wherein 
 the difference lies between this and what is termed analytic 
 unity. Thus speaking, you will in all probability gag him ; 
 which is, at any rate, one desirable thing gained when a 
 man insists on disturbing a company by disputing and talk- 
 ing philosophy. 
 
 But, to return : as there must always exist a strong pre- 
 sumption against philosophy of Parisian manufacture (which 
 is in that department the Birmingham ware of Europe) ; 
 secondly, as M. D^g^rando had expressly admitted (in fact, 
 boasted) that he had a little trimmed and embellished the 
 Kantean system, in order to fit it for the society of " les 
 gens comme il faut /" and, finally, as there were Latin ver- 
 sions, &c., of Kant, it must reasonably occur to any reader 
 to ask why Mr. Stewart should not have consulted these. 
 To this question Mr. Stewart answers, that he could not 
 tolerate their "barbarous" style and nomenclature. I must 
 confess that in such an answer I see nothing worthy of a 
 philosopher ; and should rather have looked for it from a 
 literary petit-maUre than from an emeritus Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy. Will a philosopher decline a useful ex- 
 periment in physics because it will soil his kid gloves] 
 
84 LETTEES. 
 
 Who thinks or cares about style in such studies that is 
 sincerely and anxiously in quest of truth *?* In fact, style^ 
 in any proper sense, is no more a possible thing in such 
 investigations as the understanding is summoned to by 
 Kant, than it is in Euclid's Elements. As to the nomen- 
 clature again, supposing that it had been barbarous, who 
 objects to the nomenclature of modern chemistry, which is, 
 quoad materiam, not only a barbarous, but a hybrid no- 
 menclature 1 Wherever law and intellectual order prevail, 
 they deharharize (if I may be allowed such a coinage) what 
 in its elements might be barbarous ; the form ennobles the 
 matter. But, how is the Kantean terminology barbarous, 
 which is chiefly composed of Grecian or Latin terms "? In 
 constructing it, Kant proceeded in this way : where it was 
 possible, he recalled obsolete and forgotten terms from the 
 Platonic philosophy and from the schoolmen, or restored 
 words abused by popular use to their original philosophic 
 meaning. In other cases, when there happen to exist 
 double expressions for the same notion, he called in and 
 reminted them, as it were. In doing this he was sometimes 
 forestalled in part, and guided by the tendency of language 
 itself. All languages, as it has been remarked, tend to 
 clear themselves of synonymes as intellectual culture ad- 
 vances, — the superfluous words being taken up and appro- 
 priated by new shades and combinations of thought evolved 
 in the progress of society. And, long before this appro- 
 
 * The diction of the particular oook wliicli had been recommended 
 to Mr. Stewart's attention, namely, the Expositio Systematica of 
 Phiseldek, a Danish professor, has all the merits which a philosophic 
 diction can have, being remarkably perspicuous, precise, simple, and 
 unaffected. It is too much of a mere metaphrase of Kant, and has 
 too little variety of illustration : otherwise I do not know a better 
 digest of the philosophy. 
 
LETTERS. 85 
 
 piiation is fixed and petrified, as it were, into tlie acknow- 
 ledged vocabulary of the language, an insensible clinamen 
 (to borrow a Lucretian word) prepares the way for it. Thus, 
 for instance, long before Mr. Wordsworth had unveiled the 
 great philosophic distinction between the powers of fancy 
 and imagination, the two words had begun to diverge from 
 each other ; the first being used to express a faculty some- 
 what capricious* and exempted from law, the latter to ex- 
 press a faculty more self-determined. When, therefore, it 
 was at length perceived that under an apparent unity of 
 meaning there lurked a real dualism, and for philosophic 
 purposes it was necessary that this distinction should have 
 its appropriate expression, this necessity was met half way 
 by the clinamen which had already affected the popular 
 usage of the words. So, again, in the words Deist and 
 Theist ; naturally, they should express the same notion : 
 the one to a Latin, the other to a Grecian ear. But, of 
 what use are such duplicates ? It is well that the neces- 
 sities of the understanding gradually reach all such cases 
 by that insensible clinamen which fits them for a better 
 purpose than that of extending the mere waste fertility of 
 language, namely, by taking them up into the service of 
 thought. In this instance Deist was used pretty generally 
 throughout Europe to express the case of him who admits 
 a God, but under the fewest predicates that will satisfy the 
 conditions of the understanding. A Theist, on the other 
 
 * Which distinction comes out still more strongly in the secondary 
 derivative /a?ici/itZ, and the primary derivative fantastic. I say pri- 
 mary derivative, in reference to the history of the word : — 1, (fxuvraaia, 
 whence phantasy : 2, for metrical pur^DOses, pliant'' sy (as it is usually 
 spelt in Sylvester's Du Bartas, and other scholarlike poems of that 
 day) : 3, by dropping the t in pronunciation ; phansy or fancy. Now, 
 from No. 1 comes fantastic ; from No. 3 comes fane ful. 
 
86 LETTERS. 
 
 hand, even in popular use, denoted him who admits a God 
 with some further (transcendental) predicates ; as, for ex- 
 ample, under the relation T3f a moral governor to the world. 
 In such cases as this, therefore, where Kant found himself 
 already anticipated by the progress of language, he did no 
 more than regulate and ordinate the evident nisits and ten- 
 dency of the popular usage into a severe definition. Where, 
 however, the notions were of too subtle a nature to be laid 
 hold of by the popular understanding, and too little within 
 the daily use of life to be ever affected by the ordinary 
 causes which mould the course of a language, there he com- 
 menced and finished the process of separation himself 
 
 And what were the uses of all this 1 Why, the uses 
 were these : Jirsf, in relation to the whole system of the 
 transcendental philosophy : the new notions which were 
 thus fixed and recorded were necessary to the system ; 
 they were useful in proportion as that was useful, that is, 
 in proportion as it was true. Secondly, they extended the 
 domain of human thought, apart from the system and in- 
 dependently of it. A perpetual challenge or summons is 
 held out to the mind in the Kantean terminology to clear 
 up and regulate its own conceptions, wluch, without disci- 
 pline, are apt from their own subtle affinities to blend and run 
 into each other. The new distinctions are so many intel- 
 lectual problems to be mastered. And, even without any 
 view to a formal study of the transcendental philosophy, 
 great enlargement would be given to the understanding by 
 going through a Kantean dictionary, well explained and 
 well illustrated.* This terminology, therefore, was useful : 
 1. As a means to an end (being part of the system) ; 2. 
 
 * In some cases it is true that the construction of the ideas is 
 posterior to the system, and presupposes a knowledge of it, rather 
 tiian precedes it ; but this is not generally true. 
 
LETTERS. 87 
 
 As au end in itself. So mucli for tlie uses. As to the 
 power of mind put forth in constructing it (between which 
 and the uses lies the valuation of Kant's service ; for, if no 
 uses, then we do not thank him for any difficulty he may 
 have overcome ; if no difficulty overcome, then we do not 
 ascribe as a merit to him any uses which may flow from 
 it), — as to the power of mind put forth in constructing it, 
 I do not think it likely that you will make the same mis- 
 take which I have heard from some unreflecting persons, 
 and which, in fact, lurks at the bottom of much that has 
 been written against Kant's obscurity, as though Kant had 
 done no more than impose new names. Certainly, if that 
 were all, the merit would not be very conspicuous. It 
 would cost little eflbrt of mind to say. Let this be A, and 
 that be D : let this notion be called transcendent, and that 
 be called transcendental. Such a statement, however, 
 supposes the ideas to be already known and familiar, and 
 simply to want names. In this lies the blunder. When 
 Kant assigned the names, he created the ideas ; that is, 
 he drew them within the consciousness. In assigning to 
 the complex notion X the name transcendental , Kant was 
 not simply transferring a word which had previously been 
 used by the schoolmen to a more useful office ; he was 
 bringing into the service of the intellect a new birth ; 
 that is, drawing into a synthesis, which had not existed 
 before as a synthesis, parts or elements which exist and 
 come forward hourly in every man's mind. I urge this 
 upon your attention, because you will often hear such 
 challenges thrown out as this (or others involving the same 
 error), "Now, if there be any sense in this Mr. Kant's 
 writings, let us have it in good old mother English." That 
 is, in other words, transfer into the unscientific language 
 of life scientific notions and relations vvhich it is not fitted 
 
88 LETTERS. 
 
 to express. The challenger proceeds upon the common 
 error of supposing all ideas fully developed to exist in esse 
 in all understandings, et'go, in his own ; and all that are in 
 his own he thinks that we can express in English. Thus 
 the challenger, on his notions, has you in a dilemma, at any 
 rate ; for, if you do not translate it, then it confirms his 
 belief that the whole is jargon ; if you do (as, doubtless, 
 with the help of much periphrasis, you may translate it 
 into English, that will be intelligible to a man who already 
 understands the philosophy), then where was the use of the 
 new terminology ] But the way to deal with this fellow 
 is as folloAvs : My good sir, I shall do what you ask ; but, 
 before I do it, I beg that you will oblige me by — 1. Trans- 
 lating this mathematics into the language of chemistry ; 
 2. By translating this chemistry into the language of ma- 
 thematics ; 3. Both into the language of cookery ; and, 
 finally, solve me the Cambridge problem, «* Given the 
 captain's name, and the year of our Lord, to determine the 
 longitude of the ship." This is the way to deal with such 
 fellows. 
 
 The terminology of Kant, then, is not a rebaptism of 
 ideas already existing in the universal consciousness ; it is 
 in part an enlargement of the understanding by new terri- 
 tory (of which I have spoken), and in part a better regula- 
 tion of its old territory. This regulation is either negative, 
 and consists in limiting more accurately the boundary-line 
 of conceptions that had hitherto been imperfectly defined ; 
 or it is positive, and consists in the substitutions of names 
 which express the relations and dependencies of the object* 
 
 *" In a couversatioa which I once had with the late Bishop of 
 Llandaff, on the subject of Kant, he objected chiefly to the termino- 
 logy, and assigned as one instance of what seemed to him needless 
 innovations, the word apperception. " If this word means self-con- 
 
LETTERS. 89 
 
 (termini organict) for the conventional names which have 
 arisen from accident, and do not express those relations 
 {teimini hruti). It is on this principle that the nomen- 
 clature of chemistry is constructed : substances that were 
 before known by arbitrary and non-significant names are 
 now known by systematic names ; that is, such as express 
 their relations to other parts of the system. In this way 
 a terminology becomes, in a manner, organic ; and, being 
 itself a product of an advanced state of the science, is an 
 important re-agent for facilitating further advances. 
 
 These are the benefits of a sound terminology ; to which 
 let me add, that no improved terminology can ever be in- 
 vented — nay, hardly any plausible one — which does not 
 pre-suppose an improved theory. JSTow, surely benefits such 
 as these ought to outweigh any offence to the ears or the 
 taste, if there were any. But the elegance of coherency is , 
 the sole elegance which a terminology needs to possess, or 
 indeed can possess. The understanding is, in this case, the 
 arbiter ; and where that approves, it must be a misplaced 
 fastidiousness of feeling which does not submit itself to the 
 presiding faculty. As an instance of a repulsive termino- 
 logy, I would cite that of Aristotle, which has something 
 harsh and technical in it that prevents it from ever blend- 
 ing with the current of ordinary language ; even to this, 
 
 sciotjsness," said he, " I do not see why Mr. Kant might not have 
 contented himself with what contented his father." But the truth 
 is, that this word exactly illustrates the explanation made ahove ; it 
 expresses one fact in a system sub ratione, and with a retrospect to 
 another. This would have been the apology for the word : however, 
 in this particular instance, I chose rather to apologize for Kant, by 
 alleging that Wolff and Leibnitz had used the word ; so that it was 
 an established word before the birth of the transcendental philosophy, 
 and it might, therefore, be doubted whether Mr. Kant, senior, had 
 contented himself in this case with less than Mr. Kant, junior. 
 ]) 2 
 
90 LETTEPwS. 
 
 however, so far as it answers its purposes, the mind soon 
 learns to reconcile itself. But here, as in other more im- 
 portant points, the tenninology of Kant is advantageously 
 distinguished from the Aristotelian, by adapting itself with 
 great ductility to any variety of structure and arrangement 
 incident to a philosophic diction. 
 
 I have spoken so much at length on the subject of Kant's 
 terminology, because this is likely to be the first stumbling- 
 block to the student of his philosophy ; and because it has 
 been in fact the main subject of attack amongst those who 
 have noticed it in this country ; if that can be called attack 
 which proceeds in acknowledged ignorance of the original 
 works. 
 
 A much more serious attack upon Kant has been the 
 friendly notice of Madame de Stael. The sources from 
 which she drew her opinions were understood to be the two 
 Schlegels, and, probably, M. Ddgdrando. Like some coun- 
 trymen of Kant's {e.g. Kiesewetter), she has contrived to 
 translate his philosophy into a sense which leaves it toler- 
 ably easy to apprehend ; but unfortunately at the expense 
 of all definite purpose, applicability, or philosophic meaning. 
 On the other hand, Mr. Coleridge, whose great philosophic 
 powers and undoubted acquaintance with the works of Kant 
 would have fitted him beyond any man to have explained 
 them to the English student, has unfortunately too little 
 talent for teaching or communicating any sort of knowledge, 
 and apparently too little simplicity of mind or zealous desire 
 to do so. Hence it has happened that, so far from assist- 
 ing Kant's progress in this country, Mr. Coleridge must 
 have retarded it by expounding the oracle in words of more 
 Delphic obscurity than the German original could have pre- 
 sented to the immaturest student. It is, moreover, charac- 
 teristic of Mr. Coleridge's mind that it never gives back 
 
LETTERS. 91 
 
 anything as it receives it. All things are modified and 
 altered in passing through his thoughts ; and from this 
 cause, I believe, combined with his aversion to continuous 
 labour, arises his indisposition to mathematics ; for that he 
 must be content to take as he finds it. Kow, this in- 
 docility of mind greatly unfits a man to be the faithful 
 expounder of a philosophic system ; and it has, in fact, led 
 Mr. Coleridge to make various misrepresentations of Kant ; 
 one only, as it might indispose you to pay any attention to 
 Kant, I shall notice. In one of his works he has ascribed 
 to Kant the foppery of an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine ; 
 and that upon grounds wholly untenable. The direct and 
 simple-minded Kant, I am persuaded, would have been more 
 shocked at this suspicion than any other with which he 
 could have been loaded. 
 
 I throw the following remarks together as tending to 
 correct some of the deepest errors with which men come to 
 the examination of philosophic systems, whether as students 
 or as critics. 
 
 1. A good terminology will be one of the first results 
 from a good theory ; and hence, though a coherent termi- 
 nology is not a sufficient evidence in favour of a system, 
 the absence of such a terminology is a sufficient evidence 
 against it. 
 
 2. It is asked which is the true philosophy. But this 
 aS not the just way of putting the question. The purpose 
 of philosophy is not so much to accumulate positive truths 
 in the first place, as to rectify the position of the human 
 mind, and to correct its mode of seeing. The progress of 
 the human species in this path is not direct, but oblique. 
 One philosophy does not differ from another solely by the 
 amount of truth and error which it brings forward ; there 
 is none which has ever had much interest for the human 
 
92 LETTERS. 
 
 mind but will be found to contain some truth of importance, 
 or some approximation to it. One philosophy has differed 
 from another rather by the station it has taken, and the 
 aspect imder which it has contemplated its object. 
 
 3. It has been objected to Kant, by some critics in this 
 country, that his doctrines are, in some instances, reproduc- 
 tions only of doctrines brought forward by other philoso- 
 phers. The instances alleged have been very unfortunate ; 
 l3ut, doubtless, whatsoever truth is contained (according to 
 the last remark) in the erroneous systems, and sometimes 
 in the very errors themselves of the human mind, will be 
 gathered up in its progress by the true system. Where the 
 erroneous path has wandered in all directions, has returned 
 upon itself perpetually, and crossed the field of inquiry 
 with its mazes in every direction, doubtless the path of 
 truth will often intersect it, and perhaps for a short dis- 
 tance coincide with it ; but that in this coincidence it re- 
 ceives no impulse or determination from that with which it 
 coincides, will appear from the self-determining force which 
 will soon cany it out of the same direction as inevitably as 
 it entered it. 
 
 4. The test of a great philosophical system is often falsely 
 conceived. Men fancy a certain number of great out- 
 standing problems of the highest interest to human nature, 
 upon which every system is required to try its strength ; 
 and that will be the true one, they think, which solves 
 them all ; and that the best approximation to the true one 
 which solves most. But this is a most erroneous way of 
 judging. True philosophy will often have occasion to show 
 that these supposed problems are no problems at all, but 
 mere impositions of the mind upon itself, arising out of 
 its imrectified position-terrors grounded upon errors. A 
 much better test of a sound philosophy than the number of 
 
LETTERS. 93 
 
 the pre-existing problems which it solves will be the quality 
 of those which it proposes. By raising the station of the 
 spectator, it will bring a region of new inquiry within his 
 view ; and the very faculty of comprehending these ques- 
 tions will often depend on the station from which they are 
 viewed. For, as the earlier and ruder problems that stimu- 
 late human curiosity often turn out. baseless and unreal, so 
 again the higher order of problems will be incomprehen- 
 sible to the undisciplined understanding. This is a fact 
 w^hich should never be lost sight of by those who presume 
 upon their natural and uncultivated powers of mind to 
 judge of Kant, Plato, or any other great philosopher. 
 
 5. But the most general error which I have ever met 
 with, as a ground for unreasonable expectations in reference 
 not to Kant only, but to all original philosophers, is the 
 persuasion which men have that their understandings con- 
 tain already in full development all the notions which any 
 philosophy can demand ; and this not from any vanity, but 
 from pure misconception. Hence they naturally think that 
 all which the philosopher has to do is to point to the ele- 
 ments of the knowledge as they exist ready prepared, and 
 forthwith the total knowledge of the one is transferred to 
 any other mind. Watch the efforts of any man to master 
 a new doctrine in philosophy, and you will find that in- 
 voluntarily he addresses himself to the mere dialectic labour 
 of transposing, dissolving, and re-combining, the notions 
 wdiich he already has. But it is not thus that any very 
 important truth can be developed in the mind. N'ew 
 matter is wanted as well as new form. And the most impor- 
 tant remark which I can suggest as a caution to those who 
 approach a great system of philosophy as if it were a series 
 of riddles and their answers, is this : ISTo complex or very 
 important truth was ever yet transferred in full develop- 
 
94 LETTERS. 
 
 ment from one mind to another. Truth of that character 
 is not a piece of furniture to be shifted ; it is a seed which 
 must be sown, and pass through the several stages of growth. 
 No doctrine of importance can be transferred in a matured 
 shape into any man's understanding from without : it must 
 arise by an act of genesis within the understanding itself. 
 With this remark I conclude ; and am, most truly yours. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 "WITH A SPECIAL EEFEEENCE TO 
 THE WORKS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOE. 
 
 As we are all of us crazy when the wind sits in some par- 
 ticular quarter, let not Mr. Landor be angry with me for 
 suggesting that he is outrageously crazy upon the one 
 solitary subject of spelling. It occurs to me, as a plausible 
 solution of his fury upon this point, that perhaps in his 
 earliest school-days, when it is understood that he was 
 exceedingly pugnacious, he may have detested spelling, and 
 (like Koberte the Deville*) have found it more satisfactory 
 for all parties, that when the presumptuous schoolmaster 
 differed from him on the spelling of a word, the question 
 between them should be settled by a stand-up fight. Both 
 parties would have the victory at times ; and if, according 
 
 * ^^ Boberte the Deville:^' — See the old metrical romance of that 
 name : it belongs to the fom-teenth century, and was printed some 
 thirty years ago, with wood engravings of the illuminations. Eo- 
 berte, however, took the liberty of murdering his schoolmaster. But 
 could hq well do less ? Being a reigning Duke's son, and after the 
 rebellious schoolmaster had said — 
 
 " Sir, ye hee too holde : 
 And therewith tooJce a rodde hymfor to chasteV 
 
 Upon which the meek Eobin, without using any bad language as the 
 schoolmaster had done, simply took out a long dagger " hymfor to 
 chaste,'^ which he did effectually. The schoolmaster gave no bad 
 langTiage after that. 
 
96 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 to Pope's expression, "justice nil'd the ball,'* tlie seliool- 
 master (who is always a villain) would be floored three 
 times out of four ; no great matter whether wrong or not 
 upon the immediate point of spelling discussed. It is in 
 this way, viz., from the irregular adjudications upon liti- 
 gated spelling, which must have arisen under such a mode 
 of investigating the matter, that we account for Mr. Lan- 
 dor's being sometimes in the right, but too often (with 
 regard to long words) egregiously in the wrong. As he 
 grew stronger and taller, he would be coming more and 
 more amongst polysyllables, and more and more would be 
 getting the upper hand of the schoolmaster ; so that at 
 length he would have it all his own way ; one round would 
 decide the turn-up ; and thenceforwards his spelling would 
 become frightful. Now, I myself detested spelling as much 
 as all people ought to do, except Continental compositors, 
 who have extra fees for doctoring the lame spelling of 
 ladies and gentlemen. But, unhappily, I had no power to 
 thump the schoolmaster into a conviction of his own ab- 
 surdities ; which, however, I greatly desired to do. Still, 
 my nature, powerless at that time for any active recusancy, 
 was strong for passive resistance ; and that is the hardest 
 to conquer. I took one lesson of this infernal art, and 
 then declined ever to take a second ; and, in fact, I never 
 did. Well I remember that unique morning's experience. 
 It was the first page of Entick's Dictionary that I had to 
 get by heart — a sweet sentimental task ; and not, as may 
 be fancied, the spelling only, but the horrid attempts of 
 this dep aved Entick to explain the supposed meaning of 
 words that probably had none ; many of these, it is my 
 belief, Entick himself forged. Among the strange, grim- 
 looking words, to whose acquaintance I was introduced on 
 that unhappy morning, were abalienate and ahlaqueation — 
 
OUTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEEES. 97 
 
 most respectable words, I am fully persuaded, but so ex- 
 ceedingly retired in their habits, that I never once had the 
 honour of meeting either of them in any book, pamphlet, 
 journal, whether in prose or numerous verse, though haunt- 
 ing such society myself all my life. I also formed the 
 acquaintance, at that time, of the word abacus, which, as a 
 Latin word, I have often used, but as an English one, 1 
 really never had occasion to spell, until this very moment. 
 Yet, after all, what harm comes of such obstinate recusancy 
 against orthography 1 I was an ^' occasional conformist ;" 
 I conformed for one morning, and never more. But, for 
 all that, I spell as well as my neighbours ; and I can spell 
 ahlaqueation besides, which I suspect that some of them 
 can not. 
 
 My own spelling, therefore, went right, because I was 
 left to nature, with strict neutrality on the part of the 
 authorities. Mr. Landor's too often went wrong, because 
 he was thrown into a perverse channel by his continued 
 triumphs over the prostrate schoolmaster. To toss up, as 
 it were, for the spelling of a word, by the best of nine 
 rounds, inevitably left the impression that chance governed 
 all j and this accounts for the extreme capriciousness of 
 Landor. 
 
 It is a work for a separate dictionary in quarto to record 
 all the proposed revolutions in spelling, through which our 
 English blood, either at home or in America, has thrown 
 off, at times, the surplus energy that consumed it. I con- 
 ceive this to be a sort of cutaneous affection, like nettle- 
 rash, or ring-worm, through which the patient gains relief 
 for his own nervous distraction, whilst, in fact, he does no 
 harm to anybody : for usually he forgets his own reforms, 
 and if he should not, everybody else does. Not to travel 
 back into the seventeenth century, and the noble army of 
 
 XIII. — E 
 
98 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 short-hand writers who have all made war upon orthography, 
 for secret purposes of their own, even in the last century, 
 and in the present, what a list of eminent rebels against 
 the spelling-book might be called up to answer for their 
 wickedness at the bar of the Old Bailey, if anybody would 
 be kind enough to make it a felony ! Cowper, for instance, 
 too modest and too pensive to raise upon any subject an 
 open standard of rebellion, yet, in quiet Olney, made a small 
 emeute as to the word " Grecian." Everybody else was 
 content with one "e;" but he, recollecting the cornucopia 
 of es, which Providence had thought fit to empty upon the 
 mother word Greece, deemed it shocking to disinherit the 
 poor child of its hereditary wealth, and wrote it, therefore, 
 Greecian throughout his Homer. Such a modest reform 
 the sternest old Tory could not find in his heart to de- 
 nounce. But some contagion must have collected about 
 this word Greece ; for the next man, who had much occa- 
 sion to use it — viz., Mitford^ — who wrote that " History 
 
 * Mitford, who was the brother of a man better known than him- 
 self to the public eye, viz., Lord Eedesdale, may be considered a very 
 unfortunate author. His work upon Greece, which Lord Byron cele- 
 brated for its "wrath and its partiality," really had those merits: 
 choleric it was in excess, and as entirely partial, as nearly perfect in 
 its injustice, as human infirmity would allow. Nothing is truly per- 
 fect in this shocking world ; absolute injustice, alas ! the perfection 
 of wrong must not be looked for until we reach siome high Platonic 
 form of polity. Then shall we revel and bask in a vertical sun of 
 iniquity. Meantime, I will say — that to satisfy all bilious and un- 
 reasonable men, a better historian of Greece than Mitford could not 
 be fancied. And yet, at the very moment when he was stepping 
 into his harvest of popularity, down comes one of those omnivorous 
 Germans that, by reading everything and a trifle besides, contrive to 
 throw really learned men — and perhaps better thinkers than them^ 
 selves — into the shade. Ottfried Miiller, with other archseologists 
 and travellers into Hellas, gave new aspects to the very purposes of 
 Grecian history. Do you hear, reader ? not new answers, but new 
 
ORTHOGHAPHIC MUTINEERS. 90 
 
 of Greece" so eccentric, and so eccentrically praised by Lord 
 Byron, absolutely took to spelling like a heathen, slashed 
 right and left against decent old English words, nntil, in 
 fact, the whole of Entick's Dictionary {ahlaqueation and 
 all) was ready to swear the peace against him. Mitford, 
 in course of time, slept with his fathers ; his grave, I trust, 
 not haunted by the injured words whom he had toma- 
 hawked j and, at this present moment, the Bishop of St. 
 David's reigneth in his stead. His Lordship, bound over 
 to episcopal decorum, has hitherto been sparing in his 
 assaults upon pure old English words ; but one may trace 
 the insurrectionary taint, passing down from Cowper through 
 the word Grecian, in many of his Anglo-Hellenic forms. 
 For instance, he insists on our saying — not Heracleidce and 
 PelopidcB, as we all used to do — but Heracleids and Pelo- 
 pids. A list of my Lord's barbarities, in many other 
 cases, upon unprotected words, poor shivering aliens that 
 fall into his power, when thrown upon the coast of his 
 diocese, I had — had, I say, for, alas ! fuit Ilium. 
 
 questions. And Mitford, that was gradually displacing the unlearned 
 Gillies, &c., was himself displaced by those who intrigued with Ger- 
 many. His other work on "The Harmony of Language," though 
 one of the many that attempted, and the few that accomplished, the 
 distinction between accent and quantity, or learnedly appreciated the 
 metrical science of Milton, was yet, in my hearing, pronounced utterly 
 unintelligible, by the best practical commentator on Milton, viz., the 
 best reproducer of his exquisite effects in blank verse that any gene- 
 ration since Milton has been able to show. Mr. Mitford was one of 
 the many accomplished scholars that are ill used. Had he possessed 
 the splendid powers of the Landor, he would have raised a clatter on 
 the armour of modern society, such as Samson threatened to the giant 
 Harapha. For, in many respects, he resembled Landor: he had 
 much of his learning — he had the same extensive access to books and 
 influential circles in great cities — the same gloomy disdain of popular 
 falsehoods or common-places — and the same disposition to run a-muck 
 against all nations, languages, and spelHng;books. 
 
100 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 Yet, really, one is ashamed to linger on cases so mild as 
 those, coming, as one does, in the order of atrocity, to 
 Elphinstone, to Noah Webster, a Yankee — which word 
 means, not an American, but that separate order of Ame- 
 ricans, growing in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connec- 
 ticut, in fact, a New Englander"^ — and to the rabid Ritson. 
 Noah would naturally have reduced us all to an antedilu- 
 vian simplicity. Shem, Ham, and Japhet, probably sepa- 
 rated in consequence of perverse varieties in spelling ; so 
 that orthographical unity might seem to him one condition 
 for preventing national schisms. But as to the rabid Rit- 
 son, who can describe his vagaries 1 "What great arithme- 
 lician can furnish an index to his absurdities, or what great 
 decipherer furnish a key to the principles of these absurdi- 
 ties 1 In his very title-pages, nay, in the most obstinate 
 of ancient technicalities, he showed his cloven foot to the 
 astonished reader. Some of his many works were jjrinted 
 in Pali-Mall ; now, as the world is pleased to pronounce 
 that word Pel-Mel^ thus and no otherwise (said Ritson) it 
 shall be spelled for ever. Whereas, on the contrary, some 
 men would have said : The spelling is well enough, it is 
 the public pronunciation which is wrong. This ought to 
 be Paul-Maul ; or, perhaps- — agreeably to the sound which 
 we give to the a in such words as what, quantity, want — 
 still better, and with more gallantry, Poll-Moll, The word 
 Mr., again, in Ritson' s reformation, must have astonished the 
 Post-office. He insisted that this cabalistical-looking form, 
 
 * ^^ In fad, a New Englander.'^ — This explanation, upon a matter 
 familiar to the well-informed, it is proper to repeat occasionally, be- 
 cause we English exceedingly perplex and confound the A.mericans 
 by calling, for instance, a Virginian or a Kentuck by the name of 
 Yankee, whilst that term was originally introduced as antithetic to 
 these more southern States. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. lOl 
 
 which might as reasonably be translated into monster^ was 
 a direct fraud on the national language, quite as bad as 
 clipping the Queen's coinage. How, then, should it be 
 written ? Reader ! reader ! that you will ask such a ques- 
 tion ! mister, of course ; and mind that you put no capital 
 m; unless, indeed, you are speaking of some great gun, 
 some mister of misters, such as Mr. Pitt of old, or perhaps 
 a reformer of spelling. The plural, again, of such words as 
 romance, age, horse, he wrote romaneees, agees, horsees ; 
 and upon the following equitable consideration, that, inas- 
 much as the e final in the singular is mute, that is, by a 
 general vote of the nation has been allowed to retire upon 
 a superannuation allowance, it is abominable to call it back 
 upon active service — like the modern Chelsea pensioners — 
 as must be done, if it is to bear the w^hole 'weight of a 
 separate syllable like ces. Consequently, if the nation and 
 Parliament mean to keep faith, they are bound to hire a 
 stout young e to run in the traces with the old original e, 
 taking the whole work off his aged shoulders. Volumes 
 would not suffice to exhaust the madness of Ritson upon 
 this subject. And there was this peculiarity in his mad- 
 ness, over and above its clamorous ferocity, that being no 
 classical scholar (a meagre self-taught Latinist, and no 
 Grecian at all), though profound as a black-letter scholar, he 
 cared not one straw for ethnographic relations of words, 
 nor for unity of analogy, which are the principles that 
 generally have governed reformers of spelling. He was 
 an attorney, and moved constantly under the monomaniac 
 idea that an action lay on behalf of misused letters, mutes, 
 liquids, vowels, and diphthongs, against somebody or other 
 (John Doe, was it, or Richard Roe f) for trespass on any 
 rights of theirs which an attorney might trace, and of 
 course for any direct outrage upon their persons. Yet no 
 
102 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 man was more systematically an offender in both ways than 
 himself; tying up one leg of a quadruped word, and forcing 
 it to run upon three ; cutting off noses and ears, if he 
 fancied that equity required it : and living in eternal hot 
 water with a language which he pretended eternally to 
 protect. 
 
 And yet all these fellows were nothing in comparison of 
 Mr. Pinkerton.* The most of these men did but ruin the 
 national spelling ; but Pinkerton — the monster Pinkerton 
 — proposed a revolution which would have left us nothing 
 to spell. It is almost incredible— if a book regularly 
 l^rinted and published, bought and sold, did not remain to 
 attest the fact — that this horrid barbarian seriously pro- 
 posed, as a glorious discovery for refining our language, the 
 following plan : — All people were content with the compass 
 of the English language : its range of expression was equal 
 to anything ; but, unfortunately, as compared with the 
 sweet orchestral languages of the south — Spanish the 
 stately, and Italian the lovely — it wanted rhythmus and 
 melody. Clearly, then, the one supplementary grace, which 
 it remained for modern art to give, is that every one should 
 add at discretion o and a, ino and ano^ to the end of the 
 English words. The language, in its old days, should be 
 taught struttare sUmttissimamente, As a specimen, Mr. 
 Pinkerton favoured us with his own version of a famous 
 passage in Addison, viz., " The Vision of Mirza." The pas- 
 
 * Pinkerton published one of his earliest volumes, under this title 
 — " Kimes, by Mr. Pinkerton," not having the fear of Ritson before 
 his eyes. And, for once, we have reason to thank Eitson for his 
 remark — that the form Mr. might just as well be read Monster. 
 Pinkerton in this point was a perfect monster. As to the word Bimes^ 
 instead of Bhymes^ h6 had something to stand upon ; the Greek 
 rythmos was certainly the remote fountain, but the proximate foun- 
 tain must have been the Italian rima. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 103 
 
 sage, which begins thus, "As I sat on the top of a rock,'* 
 being translated into, "As I satto on the toppino of a 
 rocko," &c. But luckilissime this proposalio of the absur- 
 dissimo Fiiikertonio was not adaptado by anyhody-ini 
 wliatever-ano.^ 
 
 Mr. Landor is more learned, and probably more consist- 
 ent in his assaults upon the established spelling than most 
 of these elder reformers. But that does not make him 
 either learned enough or consistent enough. He never 
 ascends into Anglo-Saxon, or the many cognate languages 
 of the Teutonic family, which is indispensable to a search- 
 ing inquest upon our language ; he does not put forrvard 
 in this direction even the slender qualifications of Home 
 Tooke. But Greek and Latin are quite unequal, when dis- 
 joined from the elder wheels in our etymological system, 
 to the working of the total machinery of the English lan- 
 guage. Mr. Landor proceeds upon no fixed principles in 
 his changes. Sometimes it is on the principle of internal 
 analogy with its roots ; sometimes on the principle of 
 euphony, or of metrical convenience. Even within such 
 principles he is not uniform. All well-built English schol- 
 ars, for instance, know that the word fealty cannot be made 
 into a dissyllable : trissyllabic it ever wast with the elder 
 poets — Spenser, Milton, &c. ; and so it is amongst all the 
 
 * The most extravagant of all experiments on language is brought 
 forward in the " Letters of Literature^ by Robert Heron." But Ro- 
 bert Heron is a pseudonyme for John Pinkerton ; and I have been 
 told that Pinkerton's motive for assuming it was — because Heron had 
 been the maiden name of his mother. Poor lady, she would have 
 stared to find herself, in old age, transformed into Mistressina Heron- 
 ilia. What most amuses one in pursuing the steps of such an attempt 
 at refinement, is its reception by ' Jack ' in the navy. 
 
 t " -/< ever was"" — and, of course, being (as there is no need to tell 
 Mr. Landor) a form obtained by contraction from Jidelitas, 
 
104 ORTHOGRlPHie MUTINEERS. 
 
 modern poets who have taken any pains with their English 
 studies : e, g. 
 
 ** The eagle, lord of land and sea, 
 Stoop'd down — to pay him fe-al-ty." 
 
 It is dreadful to hear a man ^ixj feal-ty in any case ; but 
 here it is luckily impossible. JSTow, Mr. Landor generally 
 is correct, and trisects the word ; but once at least he 
 bisects it. I complain, besides, that Mr. Landor, in urging 
 the authority of Milton for orthographic innovations, does 
 not always distinguish as to Milton's motives. It is true, 
 as he contends, that in some instances, Milton reformed the 
 spelling in obedience to the Italian precedent : and certainly 
 without blame ; as in sovran, sdeign, which ought not to be 
 printed (as it is) with an elision before the 5, as if short for 
 disdain ; but in other instances Milton's motive had no re- 
 ference to etymology. Sometimes it was this. In Milton's 
 day, the modern use of italics was nearly unknown. Every- 
 body is aware that, in our authorized version of the Bible, 
 published in Milton's infancy, italics are never once used for 
 the purpose of emphasis — but exclusively to indicate such 
 words or auxiliary forms as, though implied and virtually 
 present in the original, are not textually expressed, but must 
 be so in English, from the different genius of the language.'^' 
 
 * Of this a ludicrous illustration is mentioned by the writer once 
 known to the public as Trinity Jones. Some young clergyman, un- 
 acquainted with the technical use of italics by the original composi- 
 tors of James the First's Bihle, on coming to 1 Kings xiii. 27, " And 
 he," (viz. the old prophet of Bethel), "spake to his sons, saying, 
 Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him ;" (where the italic him 
 simply meant that this word was involved, but not expressed, in the 
 original), read it, " And they saddled him;" as though these undu- 
 tiful sons, instead of saddling the donkey, had saddled the old prophet. 
 In fact, the old gentleman's directions are not quite without an open- 
 ing for a filial misconception, if the reader examines them as closely 
 BS I examine words. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTIN^EERS. 105 
 
 Now, tliis Y/ant of a proper technical resource amongst the 
 compositors of the age, for indicating a peculiar stress upon 
 a word, evidently drove Milton into some perplexity for a 
 compensatory contrivance. It was unusually requisite for 
 him, with his elaborate metrical system and his divine ear, 
 to have an art for throwing attention upon his accents, and 
 upon his muffing of accents. When, for instance, he 
 wishes to direct a bright jet of emphasis upon the posses- 
 sive pronoun their, he writes it as we now write it. But, 
 vrhen he wishes to take off the accent, he writes it thir.'^ 
 Like Eitson, he writes therefor and wherefor without the 
 final e ; not regarding the analogy, but singly the metrical 
 quantity : for it was shocking to his classical feeling that a 
 sound so short to the ear should be represented to the eye 
 by so long a combination as fore ; and the more so, be- 
 cause uneducated people did then, and do now, often equi- 
 librate the accent between the two syllables, or rather make 
 the quantity long in both syllables, whilst giving an over- 
 balance of the accent to the last. The Paradise Lost, being 
 printed during Milton's blindness, did not receive the full 
 and consistent benefit of his spelling reforms, which (as 
 I have contended) certainly arose partly in the imperfec- 
 tions of typography in that era : but such changes as had 
 happened most to impress his ear with a sense of their 
 importance, he took a special trouble, even under all the 
 disadvantages of his darkness, to have rigorously adopted. 
 He must have astonished the compositors, though not 
 quite so much as the tiger-cat Ritson or the Mr. (viz. mon- 
 ster) Pinkerton — each after his kind — astonished their 
 compositors. 
 
 * He uses this and similar artifices, in fact, as the damper in a 
 modern pianoforte, for modifying the swell of the intonation. 
 
106 ORTHOGEAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 But the caprice of Mr. Landor is shown most of all upon 
 Greek names. Noils autres say " Aristotle," and are quite 
 content with it, until we migrate into some extra-superfine 
 world ; but this title will not do for Jiim : " Aristotles" it 
 must be. And why so 1 Because, answers the Landor, if 
 once I consent to say Aristotle, then I am pledged to go the 
 whole hog ; and perhaps the next man I meet is Empe- 
 docles, whom, in that case, I must call him Empedocle. 
 AYell, do so. Call him Empedocle ; it will not break his 
 back, which seems broad enough. But, now, mark the 
 contradictions in which Mr. Landor is soon landed. He 
 says, as everybody says, Terence and not Terentius, Hor- 
 ace and not Horatius ; but he must leave off such horrid 
 practices, because he dares not call Lucretius by the analo- 
 gous name of Lucrece, since that would be putting a she 
 instead of a he ; nor Propertius by the name of Properce, 
 because that would be speaking French instead of English. 
 Next he says, and continually he says, Virgil for Virgil ius. 
 But, on that principle he ought to say Valer for Valerius ; 
 and yet again he ought not ; because, as he says TuUy and 
 not Tull for TuUius, so also he is bound in Christian equity, 
 to say Valery for Valer ; but he cannot say either Valer 
 or Valery. So here we are in a mess. Thirdly, I charge 
 him with saying Ovid for Ovidius ; which / do, which 
 everybody does, but which he must not do : for, if he means 
 to persist in that, then, upon his own argument from ana- 
 logy, he must call Didius Julianus by the shocking name 
 of Bid, which is the same thing as Tit — since T is D soft. 
 Did was a very great man indeed, and for a very short time 
 indeed. Probably Did was the only man that ever bade 
 for an empire, and no mistake, at a public auction. Think 
 of Did's bidding for the Koman empire : nay, think also of 
 Did's having the lot actually knocked down to him ; and 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 107 
 
 of Did's going liome to dinner with the lot in his pocket. 
 It makes one perspire to think that, if the reader or my- 
 self had been living at that time, and had been prompted 
 by some whim within us to bid against him — that is, he or 
 I — should actually have come down to posterity by the 
 abominable name of Anti-Did. All of us in England say 
 Livy when speaking of the great historian, not Livius. 
 Yet Livius Andronicus it would be impossible to indulge 
 with that brotherly name of Livy. Marcus Antonius is 
 called — not by Shakspere only, but by all the world — 
 Mark Anthony ; but who is it that ever called Marcus 
 Brutus by the affectionate name of Mark Brute ? " Keep 
 your distance," we say, to that very doubtful brute, " and 
 expect no pet names from us." Finally, apply the principle 
 of abbreviation, involved in the names Pliny, Livy, Tully, 
 all substituting y for ius^ to Marius — that grimmest of 
 grim visions that rises up to us from the phantasmagoria of 
 Eoman history. Figure to yourself, reader, that truculent 
 face, trenched and scarred with hostile swords, carrying 
 thunder in its ominous eye-brows, and frightening armies 
 a mile off with its scowl, being saluted by the tenderest 
 of feminine names, as " My Mary." 
 
 jS'ot only, therefore, is Mr. Landor inconsistent in these 
 innovations, but the innovations themselves, supposing 
 them all harmonized and established, would but plough up 
 the landmarks of old hereditary feelings. "We learn often- 
 times, by a man's bearing a good-natured sobriquet amongst 
 his comrades, that he is a kind-hearted, social creature, 
 popular with them all ! And it is an illustration of the 
 same tendency, that the scale of popularity for the classical 
 authors amongst our fathers, is registered tolerably well, in 
 a gross general way, by the difference between having and 
 not having a familiar name. If we except the first Caesar, 
 
108 OP.THOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 the mighty Caius Julius, who was too majestic to invite 
 familiarity, though too gracious to have repelled it, there is 
 no author whom our forefathers loved, but has won a sort 
 of Christian name in the land. Homer, and Hesiod, and 
 Pindar, we all say : we cancel the alien us ; but we never 
 say Theocrit for Theocritus. Anacreon remains rigidly 
 Grecian marble ; but that is only because his name is not 
 of a plastic form — else everybody loves the sad old fellow. 
 The same bar to familiarity existed in the names of the 
 tragic poets, except perhaps for J^schylus ; who, however, 
 like Csesar, is too awful for a caressing name. But Eoman 
 names were, generally, more flexible. Livy and Sallust 
 have ever been favourites with men ; Livy with everybody ; 
 Sallust, in a degree that may be called extravagant, with 
 many celebrated Frenchmen, as the President des Brosses, 
 and in our own days with M. Lerminier, a most eloquent 
 and original writer (Etudes Historiques) ; and two cen- 
 turies ago, with the greatest of men, John Milton, in a de- 
 gree that seems to me absolutely mysterious. These 
 ^vriters are baptized into our society — have gained a settle- 
 ment in our parish ; when you call a man Jack, and not 
 I>Ir. John, it's plain you like him. But, as to the gloomy 
 Tacitus, our fathers liked him not. He was too vinegar a 
 fellow for them ; nothing hearty or genial about him ; he 
 thought ill of everybody ; and we all suspect that, for 
 those times, he was perhaps the worst of the bunch him- 
 self Accordingly, this Tacitus, because he remained so 
 perfectly tacit for our jolly old forefathers' ears, never 
 slipped into the name Tacit for their mouths ; nor ever 
 will, I predict, for the mouths of posterity. Coming to 
 the Roman poets, I must grant that three great ones, viz., 
 Lucretius, Statins, and Valerius Placcus, have not been 
 complimented with the freedom of our city, as they should 
 
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 109 
 
 liaYe been, in a gold box. I regret, also, the ill fortune, 
 in this respect, of Catullus, if he was really the author of 
 that grand headlong dithyrambic, the Atys : he certainly 
 ought to have been ennobled by the title of Catull. Look- 
 ing to very much of his writings, much more I regret the 
 case of Plautus : and I am sure that if her Majesty would 
 warrant his bearing the name and arms of Plant in all time 
 coming, it would gratify many of us. As to the rest, or 
 those that anybody cares about, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, 
 Lucan, Martial, Claud ian, all have been raised to the peer- 
 age. Ovid was the great poetic favourite of Milton j and 
 not without a philosophic ground : his festal gaiety, and 
 the brilliant velocity of his aurora horealis intellect, form- 
 ing a deep natural equipoise to the mighty gloom and 
 solemn planetary movement lA the mind of the other ; like 
 the wedding of male and female counterparts. Ovid was, 
 therefore, rightly Milton's favourite. But the favourite of 
 all the world is Horace. Were there ten peerages, were 
 there three blue ribbons, vacant, he ought to have them 
 all. 
 
 Besides, if Mr. Landor could issue decrees, and even 
 harmonize his decrees for reforming our Anglo-Grecian 
 spelling — decrees which no Council of Trent could execute, 
 without first rebuilding the Holy Office of the Inquisition — 
 still there would be little accomplished. The names of all 
 continental Europe are often in confusion, from different 
 causes, when Anglicised : German names are rarely spelled 
 rightly by the laity of our isle : Polish and Hungarian 
 never. Many foreign towns have in England what botanists 
 would call trivial names ; Leghorn, for instance, Florence, 
 Madrid, Lisbon, Vienna, Munich, Antwerp, Brussels, the 
 Hague — all unintelligible names to the savage Continental 
 native. Then, if Mr. Landor reads as much of Anglo-Indian 
 
110 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 books as I do, he must be aware that, for many years back, 
 they have all been at sixes and sevens ; so that now most 
 Hindoo words are in masquerade, and we shall soon require 
 English pundits in Leadenhall Street.* How does he like, 
 for instance, Sipahee the modern form for Sepoy ? or Tepheen 
 for Tiffin ? At this rate of metamorphosis, absorbing even 
 the consecrated names of social meals, we shall soon cease 
 to understand what that disjune was which his sacred 
 Majesty graciously accepted at Tillietudlem. But even 
 elder forms of oriental speech are as little harmonized in 
 Christendom. A few leagues of travelling make the 
 Hebrew unintelligible to us ; and the Bible becomes a 
 Delphic mystery to Englishmen amongst the countrymen 
 of Luther ; Solomon is there called Salamo ; Samson is 
 called Simson, though probably he never published an edition 
 of Euclid. Nay, even in this native isle of ours, you may 
 be at cross purposes on tl^e Bible with your own brother. 
 I am, myself, next door neighbour to Westmoreland, being 
 
 * The reasons for this anarchy in the naturalization of Eastern 
 words are to be sought in three causes : 1. In national rivalships : 
 French travellers in India, like Jacquemont, &c., as they will not 
 adopt our English First Meridian, will not, of course, adopt our Eng- 
 lish spelling. In one of Paul Richter's novels a man assumes the 
 First Meridian to lie generally, not through Greenwich, but through 
 his own skull, and always through his own study. I have myself 
 long suspected the Magnetic Pole to lie under a friend's wine-cellar, 
 from the vibrating movement which I have remarked constantly 
 going on in his cluster of keys towards that particular point. Eeally, 
 the French, like Sir Anthony Absolute, must ''get an atmosphere 
 of their own," such is their hatred to holding anything in common 
 with us. 2. They are to be sought in local Indian differences of pro- 
 nunciation. 3. In the variety of our own British population — soldiers, 
 missionaries, merchants, who are unlearned or half-learned — scholars, 
 really learned, hut often fantastically learned, and lastly (as you may 
 swear) young ladies —anxious, above all things, to mystify us outside 
 barbarians. 
 
pRTHOGEAPHIC MUTINEERS. Ill 
 
 a Lancashire man ; and, one day, I was talking with a 
 Westmoreland farmer, whom, of course, I ought to have 
 understood very well ; but I had no chance with him : for 
 I could not make out who that No was, concerning whom 
 or concerning which, he persisted in talking. It seemed to 
 me, from the context, that No must be a man, and by no 
 means a chair ; but so very negative a name, you perceive, 
 furnished no positive hints for solving the problem. I said 
 as much to the farmer, who stared in stupefaction. " What," 
 cried he, " did a far-larn'd man, like you, fresh from Oxford, 
 never hear of No, an old gentleman that should have been 
 drowned, but was not, when all his folk were drowned % " 
 " Kever, so help me Jupiter," was my reply : " never heard 
 of him to this hour, any more than of Yes, an old gentle- 
 man that should have been hanged, but was not, when all 
 his folk were hanged. Populous No — I had read of in 
 the Prophets ; but that was not an old gentleman." It 
 turned out that the farmer and all his compatriots in bonny 
 Martindale had been taught at the parish school to rob the 
 patriarch Noah of one clear moiety appertaining in fee 
 simple to that ancient name. But afterwards I found that 
 the farmer was not so entirely absurd as he had seemed. 
 The Septuagint, indeed, is clearly against him j for there, as 
 plain as a pike-stafF, the farmer might have read Nwe. 
 But, on the other hand, Pope, not quite so great a scholar 
 as he was a poet, yet still a fair one, always made Noah 
 into a monosyllable ; and that seems to argue an old Eng- 
 lish usage ; though I really believe Pope's reason for adher- 
 ing to such an absurdity was with a prospective view to the 
 rhymes Mow, or roiv, or stoiv (an important idea to the Ark), 
 which struck him as likely words, in case of any call for 
 writing about Noah. 
 
 The long and the short of it is — that the whole world 
 
112 ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS. 
 
 lies in heresy or schism on the subject of orthography. 
 Ail climates alike groan under heterography. It is abso- 
 lutely of no use to begin with one's own grandmother in 
 such labours of reformation. It is toil thrown away : and 
 as nearly a hopeless task as the proverb insinuates that it 
 is to attempt a reformation in that old lady's mode of eat- 
 ing eggs. She laughs at one. She has a vain conceit 
 that she is able, out of her own proper resources, to do both, 
 viz., the spelling and the eating of the eggs. And all that 
 remains for philosophers, like Mr. Landor and myself, is — 
 to turn away in sorrow rather than in anger, dropping a 
 silent tear for the poor old lady's infatuation. 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 Grasmere, Oct. 18, 1821, 
 My dear F. — ^You ask me to direct you generally in your 
 choice of German authors ; secondly, and especially, among 
 those authors to name my favourite. In such an ocean as 
 German literature, your first request is of too wide a compass 
 for a letter ; and I am not sorry that, by leaving it un- 
 touched, and reserving it for some future conversation, I shall 
 add one moment (in the language of dynamics) to the attrac- 
 tions of friendship, and the local attractions of my residence ; 
 — insufficient, as it seems, of themselves, to draw you so far 
 northwards from London. Come, therefore, dear F., bring 
 thy ugly countenance to the lakes ; and I will engraft such 
 German youth and vigour on thy English trunk, that hence- 
 forwards thou shalt bear excellent fruit. I suppose, F., 
 you know that the golden pippin is now almost, if not 
 quite, extinct in England : and why ? Clearly from want 
 of some exotic, but congenial inoculation. So it is with 
 literatures of whatsoever land : unless crossed by some 
 other of different breed, they all tend to superannuation. 
 Thence comes it that the French literature is now in the 
 last stage of phthisis — dotage — palsy, or whatever image 
 will best express the most abject state of senile — (senile ? 
 no ! of anile) — imbecility. Its constitution, as you well know, 
 E 2 
 
114 JOHN PAUL FREBERICK RICHTER. 
 
 was, in its best days, marrowless and without nerve ; its 
 youth without hope, and its manhood without dignity. 
 For it is remarkable, that to the French people only, of all 
 nations that have any literature at all, has it been, or can it 
 be, justly objected — that they have ^^ no paramount book ;" 
 none, that is to say, which stands out as a monument 
 adequately representative of the intellectual power of a 
 whole nation ; none which has attested its own power by 
 influencing the modes of thinking, acting, educating, through 
 a long tract of centuries. They have no book on which 
 the national mind has adequately acted ; none, which has 
 re-acted, for any great end, upon the national mind. We 
 English have mighty authors, almost, I might say, almighty 
 authors, in whom (to speak by a scholastic term) the 
 national mind is contained eminenter ; that is, virtually 
 contained in its principles : and reciprocally, these abstracts 
 of the English mind continue, in spite of many counteract- 
 ing forces, to mould and modulate the national tone of 
 thought ; I do not say directly, for you will object that 
 they are not sufficiently studied ; but indirectly, inasmuch 
 as the hundreds in every generation, who influence their 
 contemporary millions, have themselves derived an original 
 influence from these books. The planet Jupiter, according 
 to the speculations of a great German philosopher, is just 
 now coming into a habitable condition : its primeval man 
 is, perhaps, now in his Paradise : the history, the poetry, 
 the woes of Jupiter, are now in their cradle. Suppose, 
 then, that this Jovian man were allowed to come down 
 upon our earth, to take an inquest among us, and to call 
 us — nation by nation — to a solemn audit on the question 
 of our intellectual efforts and triumphs. What could the 
 earth say for herself ? For our parts, we should take him 
 into Westminster Abbey : and standing upon the ancestral 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 115 
 
 dust of England, we should present him with two volumes 
 — one containing Hamlet, Lear, and Othello ; the other 
 containing Paradise Lost. This, we should say, this is 
 what we have achieved : these are our Pyramids. But 
 what could France present him 1 and where 1 Why, her 
 best offering must be presented in a boudoir : the im- 
 pudence even of a Frenchman would not dare to connect the 
 sanctities of religious feeling with any book in his language : 
 the wildest vanity could not pretend to show the correlate 
 of Paradise Lost. To speak in a language suitable to a 
 Jovian visitor, that is, in the language of astronomy, oitr 
 books would appear to him as two heavenly bodies of the 
 first magnitude, whose jyeriod, the cycle and the revolution 
 of whose orbit, were too vast to be calculated : whilst the 
 very best of France could be regarded as no more than 
 satellites, fitted to move about some central body of 
 insignificant size. Now whence comes this poverty of 
 the French literature ? Manifestly hence, that it is too 
 intensely steeped in French manners to admit of any influ- 
 ences from without : it has rejected all alliance with exotic 
 literature ; and like some royal families, or like a particular 
 valley in this county, from intermarrying too exclusively 
 in their own narrow circle, it is now on its last legs ; and 
 will soon go out like a farthing rushlight. 
 
 Having this horrid example before our eyes, what should 
 we English do 1 Why, evidently we should cultivate an 
 intercourse with that literature of Europe which has most 
 of a juvenile constitution. Now that is beyond all doubt 
 the German. I do not so much insist on the present ex- 
 cellence of the German literature (though, poetry apart, the 
 current literature of Germany appears to me by much the 
 best in Europe) : what weighs most with me is the promise 
 and assurance of future excellence held out by the originality 
 
116 .TDHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 and masculine strength of thought which has moulded the 
 German mind since the time of Kant, Whatever be thought 
 of the existing authors, it is clear that a mighty power has 
 been at work in the German mind since the French Kevo- 
 lution, which happily coincided in point of time with the 
 influence of Kant's great work.* Change of any kind was 
 good for Germany. One truth was clear — Whatever was, 
 was bad. And the evidence of this appears on the face of 
 the literature. Before 1789, good authors were rare in 
 Germany : since then, they are so numerous, that in any 
 sketch of their literature all individual notice becomes 
 impossible : you must confine yourself to favourite authors, 
 or notice them by classes. And this leads me to your 
 question — Who is my favourite author : My answer is, that 
 I have three favourites ; and those are Kant, Schiller, and 
 John Paul Eichten But setting Kant aside, as hardly 
 belonging to the literature^ in the true meaning of that 
 word, I have, you see, two. In what respect there is 
 any aiTinity between them, I will notice before I conclude. 
 For the present, I shall observe only, that in the case of 
 Schiller, I love his works chiefly because I venerate the 
 memory of the man : whereas, in the case of Eichter, my 
 veneration and affection for the man is founded wholly on 
 my knowledge of his works. This distinction will point 
 out Eichter as the most eligible author for your present 
 purpose. In point of originality, indeed, there cannot 
 arise a question between the pretensions of Eichter and 
 those of any other German author whatsoever. He is no 
 man's rej)resentative but his own ; nor do I think he will 
 
 * The Critih der Beinen Vernunft was pubh'shed about five years 
 before the French Eevolution, but lay unnoticed in the publisher's 
 warehouse for f«ur or five yenrs. 
 
 1 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 117 
 
 ever have a successor. Of his style of writing, it may be 
 said, with an emphatic and almost exclusive propriety, that 
 except it proceeds in a spirit of perfect freedom, it cannot 
 exist ; unless moving from an impulse self-derived, it 
 cannot move at all. What then is his style of writing ? 
 What are its general characteristics ? These I will endea- 
 vour to describe with sufficient circumstantiality to meet 
 your present wants : premising only that I call him fre- 
 quently John Paul, without adding his surname, both 
 because all Germany gives him that appellation as an 
 expression of affection for his person, and because he has 
 himself sometimes assumed it in the title-pages of his 
 w^orks. 
 
 First. — The characteristic distinction of Paul Eichter 
 amongst German authors, I will venture to add amongst 
 modern authors generally, is the two-headed power which 
 he possesses over the pathetic and the humorous ; or, rather, 
 let me say at once, what I have often felt to be true, and 
 could (I think) at a fitting opportunity prove to be so, this 
 power is not two-headed, but a one-headed Janus with two 
 faces : the pathetic and the humorous are but different 
 phases of the same orb ; they assist each other, melt indis- 
 cernibly into each other, and often shine each through each 
 like layers of coloured crystals placed one behind another. 
 Take, as an illustration, Mrs. Quickly's account of Talstaff's 
 death. Here there were three things to be accomplished : 
 first, the death of a human being was to be described ; of 
 necessity, therefore, to be described pathetically ; for death 
 being one of those events which call up the pure generali- 
 ties of human nature, and remove to the background all 
 individualities, whether of life or character, the mind would 
 not in any case endure to have it treated with levity ; so 
 that, if any circumstances of humour are introduced by the 
 
118 JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 poetic painter, they must be such as will blend and fall 
 into harmony with the ruling passion of the scene : and, 
 by the way, combining it with the fact, that humorous cir- 
 cumstances often have been introduced into death-bed scenes, 
 both actual and imaginary, — this remark of itself yields a 
 proof that there is a humour which is in alliance with 
 pathos. How else could we have borne the jests of Sir 
 Thomas Moore after his condemnation, which, as jests, would 
 have been unseasonable from anybody else : but being felt 
 in him to have a root in his character, they take the dig- 
 nity of humorous traits ; and do, in fact, deepen the pathos. 
 So again, mere naivete, or archness, when it is felt to flow 
 out of the cheerfulness of resignation, becomes humorous, 
 and at the same time becomes pathetic : as, for instance, 
 Lady Jane Grey's remark on the scaffold — ^' I have but a 
 little neck," &c. But to return : the death of Falstaff, as 
 the death of a man, was, in the first place, to be described 
 v/ith pathos, and if with humour, no otherwise than as the 
 one could be reconciled with the other ; but, 2d, it was 
 the death not only of a man, but also of a Falstaff; and 
 we could not but require that the description should revive 
 the image and features of so memorable a character ; if 
 not, why describe it at all li The understanding would as 
 little bear to forget that it was the death-bed of a Falstaff, 
 as the heart and affections to forget that it was the death- 
 bed of a fellow-creature. Lastly, the description is given, 
 not by the poet speaking in his own universal language, 
 but by Mrs. Quickly — a character as individually portrayed, 
 and as well known to us, as the subject of her description. 
 Let me recapitulate ; 1st, it was to be pathetic, as relat- 
 ing to a man ; 2d, humorous, as relating to Falstaff ; 3d, 
 humorous in another style, as coming from Mrs. Quickly. 
 These were difiiculties rather greater than those of levelling 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 119 
 
 hills, filling up valleys, and arranging trees, in picturesque 
 groups : yet Capability Brown was allowed to exclaim, on 
 surveying a conquest of Ms in this walk of art — " Ay ! 
 none but your Browns and your G — Almighties can do 
 such things as these." Much more then might this irre- 
 verent speech be indulged to the gratitude of our veneration 
 for Shakspere, on witnessing such triumphs of his art. 
 The simple words, '^ and cC hahhled of green fields,'^ I 
 should imagine, must have been read by many a thousand 
 with tears and smiles at the same instant ; I mean, con- 
 necting them with a previous knowledge of Falstaff and of 
 Mrs. Quickly. Such then being demonstrably the possi- 
 bility of blending, or fusing, as it were, the elements of 
 pathos and of humour — and composing out of their union 
 a third metal sui generis (as Corinthian brass, you know, is 
 said to have been the product of all other metals, from the 
 confluence of melted statues, &c., at the burning of 
 Corinth) — I cannot but consider John Paul Eichter as by 
 far the most eminent artist in that way since the tim.e of 
 Shakspere. What ! you will say, greater than Sterne ? 
 I answer yes, to my thinking ; and I could give some argu- 
 ments and illustrations in support of this judgment. But 
 I am not anxious to establish my own preference, as founded 
 on anything of better authority than my idiosyncrasy, or 
 more permanent, if you choose to think so, than my own 
 caprice. 
 
 Second. — Judge as you will on this last point, that is, 
 on the comparative pretensions of Sterne and Kichter to the 
 spolia opima in the fields of pathos and of humour ; yet in 
 one pretension he not only leaves Sterne at an infinite dis- 
 tance in the rear, but really, for my part, I cease to ask 
 who it is that he leaves behind him, for I begin to think 
 with myself, who it is that he approaches. If a man could 
 
120 JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 reach Venus or Mercury, we should not say he has advanced 
 to a great distance from the earth : we should say, he is 
 very near to the sun. So also, if in anything a man ap- 
 proaches Shakspere, or does but remind us of him, all 
 other honours are swallowed up in that : a relation of 
 inferiority to him is a more enviable distinction than all 
 degrees of superiority to others, the rear of Ms splendours 
 a more eminent post than the supreme station in the van 
 of all others. I have already mentioned one quality of 
 excellence, viz. the interpenetration '^ of the humorous and 
 the pathetic, common to Shakspere and John Paul : but 
 this, apart from its quantity or degree, implies no more of 
 a participation in Shaksperian excellence, than the posses- 
 sion of wit, judgment, good sense, &c., which, in some degree 
 or other, must be common to all authors of any merit at all. 
 Thus far I have already said that I would not contest the 
 point of precedence with the admirers of Sterne : but, in 
 the claim I now advance for Kichter, which respects a 
 question of degree, I cannot allow of any competition at all 
 from that quarter. What then is it that I claim ? Briefly, 
 an activity of understanding, so restless and indefatigable 
 that all attempts to illustrate, or express it adequately by 
 images borrowed from the natural world, from the motions 
 of beasts, birds, insects, &c. from the leaps of tigers or 
 
 * *' Interpenetration: " — this word is from the mint of Mr. Coleridge ; 
 and, as it seems to me a very " laudable" word (as surgeons say of 
 pus) I mean to patronize it ; and beg to recommend it to my friends 
 and the pubHc in general. By the way, the public, of whose stupidity 
 I have often reason to complain, does not seem to understand it. The 
 prefix inter has the force of the French entre, in such words as s'en- 
 trelacer : reciprocal penetration is the meaning : as if a black colour 
 should enter a crimson one, yet not keep itself distinct ; but, being in 
 turn pervaded by the crimson, each should diffuse itself through the 
 other. 
 
JOHN PAUL FEEDERICK RICHTER. 121 
 
 leopards, from the gamboling and tumbling of kittens, the 
 antics of monkeys, or the running of antelopes and ostriches, 
 &c., are baffled, confounded, and made ridiculous by the 
 enormous and overmastering superiority of impression left 
 by the thing illustrated. The rapid, but uniform motions 
 of the heavenly bodies, serve well enough 1o typify the grand 
 and continuous motions of the Miltonic mind. But the 
 wild, giddy, fantastic, capricious, incalculable, springing, 
 vaulting, tumbling, dancing, waltzing, caprioling, 'pirouetting ^ 
 sky-rocketing of the chamois, the harlequin, the Vestris, the 
 storm-loving raven — the raven % no, the lark (for often he 
 ascends " singing up to heaven's gates," but like the lark he 
 dwells upon the earth), in short, if the Proteus, the Ariel, 
 the Mercury, the monster — John Paul, can be compared to 
 nothing in heaven or earth, or the waters under the earth, 
 except to the motions of the same faculty as existing in 
 Shakspere. Perhaps, meteorology may hereafter furnish 
 us with some adequate analogon or adumbration of its mul- 
 titudinous activity : hereafter^ observe ; for, as to lightning, 
 or anything we know at present, it pants after them " in 
 vain," in company with that pursy old gentleman Time, as 
 painted by Dr. Johnson.* To say the truth, John Paul's 
 intellect — his faculty of catching at a glance all the relations 
 of objects, both the grand, the lovely, the ludicrous, and the 
 fantastic — is painfully and almost morbidly active : there 
 is no respite, no repose allowed ; no, not for a moment, in 
 some of his works, not whilst you can say Jack Robinson, 
 And, by the way, a sort of namesake of this Mr. Kobinson, 
 viz. Jack-o'-the-lantern, comes as near to a semblance of 
 
 * '* And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.*' 
 
 So that, according to the Doctor, Shakspere performed a match 
 against Time ; and, being backed by Nature, it seems he won it. 
 XIII. — F 
 
122 JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTEK. 
 
 John Paul as anybody I know. Shakspere himself has 
 given us some account of Jack : and I assure you that the 
 same account will serve for Jack Paul Kichter. One of his 
 books {Vorschide der Aesthetik) is absolutely so surcharged 
 with quicksilver, that I expect to see it leap off the table 
 as often as it is laid there ; and therefore, to prevent acci- 
 dents, I usually load it with the works of our good friend 
 , Esq. and F.R.S. In fact, so exuberant is this peril- 
 ous ^as of wit in John Paul, that, if his works do not 
 explode, at any rate, I think John Paul himself will blow 
 up one of these days. It must be dangerous to bring a 
 candle too near him : many persons, especially half-pay 
 officers, have lately " gone off," by inconsiderately blowing 
 out their bed-candle."^ They were loaded with a different 
 sort of spirit, it is true : but I am sure there can be none 
 more inflammable than that of John Paul ! To be serious, 
 however, and to return from chasing this Will-o'-the-wisp, 
 there cannot be a more valuable endowment to a writer of 
 inordinate sensibility, than this inordinate agility of the 
 understanding ; the active faculty balances the passive ; and 
 
 * Of wliich the most tremendous case I have met with was this ; 
 and, as I greatly desire to believe so good a story, I should be more 
 easy in mind if I knew that anybody else had ever believed it. In 
 the year 1818, an Irishman, and a great lover of whiskey, persisted 
 obstinately, though often warned of his error, in attempting to blow 
 out a candle : the candle, however, blew out the Irishman, and the 
 following result was sworn to before the coroner. The Irishman shot 
 off like a Congreve rocket, passed with the velocity of a twenty-four 
 pounder through I know not how many storeys, ascended to the 
 " highest heaven of invention," viz. to the garrets, where slept a 
 tailor and his wife. Feather-beds, which stop cannon-balls, gave way 
 before the Irishman's skull: he passed like a gimlet through two 
 mattresses, a feather-bed, &c., and stood grinning at the tailor and 
 his wife, without his legs, however, which he had left behind him in 
 the second floor. 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RTCHTER. 123 
 
 without such a balance, there is great risk of falling into a 
 sickly tone of maudlin sentimentality, from which Sterne 
 cannot be pronounced wholly free, — and still less a later 
 author of pathetic tales, whose name I omit. By the way, 
 I must observe, that it is this fiery, meteoric, scintillatmg, 
 coruscating power of John Paul, which is the true founda- 
 tion of his frequent obscurity. You will find that he is 
 reputed the most dilB&cult of all German authors ; and many 
 Germans are so little aware of the true derivation of this 
 difficulty, that it has often been said to me, as an English- 
 man, '' What ! can you read John Paul f — meaning to say, 
 can you read such difficult German ? Doubtless, in some 
 small proportion, the mere language and style are responsible 
 for his difficulty ; and, in a sense somewhat different, apply- 
 ing it to a mastery over the language in which he writes, 
 the expression of Quintilian in respect to the student of 
 Cicero may be transferred to the student of John Paul : 
 " lUe se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit :" he may 
 rest assured that he has made a competent progress in 
 the German language who can read Paul Kichter. Indeed 
 he is a sort of pi^oof author in this respect ; a man, who 
 can " construe'' him, cannot be stopped by any difficulties 
 purely verbal. But, after all, these verbal obscurities are 
 but the necessary result and product of his style of thinking ; 
 the nimbleness of his transitions often makes him elliptical : 
 the vast expansion and discursiveness in his range of notice 
 and observation, carries him into every department and nook 
 of human life, of science, of art, and of literature ; whence 
 comes a proportionably extensive vocabulary, and a prodi- 
 gious compass of idiomatic phraseology : and finally, the 
 fineness and evanescent brilliancy of his oblique glances and 
 surface-skimmering allusions, often fling but half a meaning 
 on the mind ; and one is puzzled to make out its comple- 
 
124 JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 ment. Hence it is, that is to say, from his mode of pre- 
 senting things, his lyrical style of connexion, and the 
 prodigious fund of knowledge on which he draws for his 
 illustrations and his images, that his obscurity arises. And 
 these are causes which must affect his own countrymen no 
 less than foreigners. Further than as these causes must 
 occasionally produce a corresponding difficulty of diction, I 
 know of no reason why an Englishman should be thought 
 specially concerned in his obscurity, or less able to find his 
 way through it than any German. But just the same mis- 
 take is commonly made about Lycophron : he is represented 
 as the most difficult of all Greek authors. Meantime, as 
 far as language is concerned, he is one of the easiest : 
 some peculiar words he has, I acknowledge, but it is not 
 single words that constitute verbal obscurity ; it is the 
 construction, synthesis, composition, arrangement, and invo- 
 lution of words, which only can obstruct the reader ; now in 
 these parts of style Lycophron is remarkably lucid. Where 
 then lies his reputed darkness 1 Purely in this, — that, by 
 way of colouring the style with the sullen views of prophetic 
 vision, Cassandra is made to describe all those on whom the 
 fates of Troy hinged, by enigmatic periphrases, oftentimes 
 drawn from the most obscure incidents in their lives : just 
 as if I should describe Cromwell by the expression, " unfor- 
 tunate tamer of horses,'^ because he once nearly broke his 
 neck in Hyde-Park, when driving four-in-hand ; or should 
 describe a noble lord of the last century as " the roaster of 
 men^'' because when a member of the Hell-fire Club, he 
 actually tied a poor man to the spit ; and having spitted 
 him, proceeded to roast him.* 
 
 * " Proceeded to roast him, — yes : but did he roast him?" Keally 
 I can't say. Some people like their mutton underdone ; and Lord — 
 might Hke his man underdone. All T know of the sequel is, that the 
 
JOHN PAUL FKEDERICK EICHTER. 125 
 
 Third, — You will naturally collect from the account here 
 given of John Paul's activity of understanding and fancy, 
 that over and above his humour, he must have an over- 
 flowing opulence of wit. In fact he has. On this earth of 
 ours (I know nothing about the books in Jupiter, where 
 Kant has proved that the authors will be far abler than 
 any poor Terrse Filius, such as Shakspere or Milton), but 
 on this poor earth of ours I am acquainted with no book of 
 such unintermitting and brilliant wit as his Vorschule der 
 Aesthetik ; it glitters like the stars on a frosty night j or 
 
 like the stars on Count 's coat ; or like the dvdpLdfxov 
 
 veXacTfjLa, the multitudinous laughing of the ocean under 
 the glancing lights of sunbeams ; or like a feu-de-joie of 
 fireworks : in fact, John Paul's works are the galaxy of 
 the German literary jfirmament. I defy a man to lay his 
 hand on that sentence which, is "not vital and ebullient 
 with wit. What is wit ? We are told that it is the per- 
 ception of resemblances ; whilst the perception of differences, 
 we are requested to believe, is reserved for another faculty. 
 Very profound distinctions no doubt, but very senseless for 
 all that. I shall not here attempt a definition of wit : but 
 I will just mention w^hat I conceive to be one of the dis- 
 tinctions between wit aild humour, viz., that whilst wit 
 is a purely intellectual thing, into every act of the humor- 
 ous mood there is an influx of the moral nature : rays, 
 direct or refracted, from the will and the affections, 'from 
 the disposition and the temperament, enter into all humour ; 
 and thence it is, that humour is of a diffusive quality, per- 
 vading an entire course of thoughts ; whilst wit — because 
 
 sun expressed no horror at this Thyestean cookery, which might be 
 because he had set two hours before : but the Sun newspaper did, 
 when it rose some nights after (as it always does) at six o'clock in the 
 evening. 
 
126 JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 
 
 it has no existence apart from certain logical relations of a 
 thought which are definitely assignable, and can be counted 
 even — is always punctually concentrated within the circle of 
 a few words. On this account I would not advise you to 
 read those of John Paul's works which are the wittiest, 
 but those which are more distinguished for their humour. 
 You will thus see more of the man. In a future letter I 
 will send you a list of the whole distributed into classes. 
 
 Fourthly 2iudi finally. — Let me tell you what it is that 
 has fixed John Paul in my esteem and afiection. Did you 
 ever look into that sickening heap of abortions — the Ire- 
 land forgeries 1 In one of these (Deed of Trust to John 
 Hemynges) he makes Shakspere say, as his reason for 
 having assigned to a friend such and such duties usually 
 confided to lawyers — that he had " founde muche wicked- 
 nesse amongste those of the la we." On this, Mr. Malone, 
 whose indignation was justly roused to Shakspere's name 
 borrowed to countenance such loathsome and stupid vul- 
 garity, expresses himself with much feeling ; '^ and I confess 
 that, for my part, that passage alone, without the innumer- 
 able marks of grossest forgery which stare upon one in 
 every word, would have been quite sufficient to expose the 
 whole as a base and most childish imposture. For, so far 
 was Shakspere from any capability of leaving behind him 
 a malignant libel on a whole body of learned men, that, 
 among all writers of every age, he stands forward as the 
 one who looked most benignantly, and with the most 
 fraternal eye, upon all the ways of men, however weak or 
 foolish. From every sort of vice and infirmity he drew 
 nutriment for his philosophic mind. It is to the honour 
 of John Paul, that in this, as in other respects, he con- 
 stantly reminds me of Shakspere. Everywhere a spirit of 
 
 * Inquiry^ &c., p. 279. 
 
JOHN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER. 1 27 
 
 kindness prevails ; his satire is everywhere playful, delicate, 
 and clad in smiles ; never bitter, scornful, or malignant. 
 But this is not all. I could produce many passages from 
 Shakspere, which show that, if his anger was ever roused, 
 it was against the abuses of the time ; not mere political 
 abuses, but those that had a deeper root and dishonoured 
 human nature. Here again the resemblance holds in John 
 Paul ; and this is the point in which I said that I would 
 notice a bond of affinity between him and Schiller. Both 
 were intolerant haters of ignoble things, though placable 
 towards the ignoble men. Both yearned, according to their 
 different temperaments, for a happier state of things : I 
 mean for human nature generally, and, in a political sense, 
 for Germany. To his latest years, Schiller, when suffering 
 under bodily decay and anguish, was an earnest contender 
 for whatever promised to elevate human nature, and bore 
 emphatic witness against the evils of the time.'"' John Paul, 
 who still lives, is of a gentler nature ; but his aspirations 
 tend to the same point, though expressed in a milder and 
 more hopeful spirit. With all this, however, they give a 
 rare lesson on the manner of conducting such a cause ; for 
 you will nowhere find that they take any indecent liberties, 
 of a personal sort, with those princes whose governments 
 they most abhorred. Though safe enough from their ven- 
 geance, they never forgot in their indignation, as patriots 
 and as philosophers, the respect due to the rank of others, 
 or to themselves as scholars, and the favourites of their 
 country. Some other modern authors of Germany ma^ be 
 great writers, but Frederick Schiller and John Paul Eichter 
 I shall always view with the feelings due to great men. 
 
 * Goethe has lately {Morphologie, p. 108, Zweyter heft) recurred 
 to Ills conversations with Schiller in a way which places himself in 
 rather an unfavourable contrast. 
 
128 ANALECTS FKOM RICHTER. 
 
 ANALECTS FKOM KIGHTER. 
 
 THE HAPPY LIFE OF A PARISH PRIEST IN SWEDEN. 
 
 Sweden apart, the condition of a parish priest is in 
 itself sufhciently happy ; in Sweden, then, much more so. 
 There he enjoys summer and winter pure and unalloyed by 
 any tedious interruptions. A Swedish spring, which is 
 always a late one, is no repetition, in a lower key, of the 
 harshness of winter, but anticipates, and is a prelibation of 
 perfect summer — laden with blossoms — radiant with the 
 lily and the rose ; insomuch, that a Swedish summer night 
 represents implicitly one half of Italy, and a winter night 
 one half of the world beside. 
 
 I will begin with winter, and I will suppose it to be 
 Christmas. The priest, whom we shall imagine to be a 
 German, and summoned from the southern climate of Ger- 
 many upon presentation to the church of a Swedish hamlet 
 lying in a high polar latitude, rises in cheerfulness about 
 seven o'clock in the morning, and till half-past nine he 
 burns his lamp. At nine o'clock the stars are still shining, 
 and the unclouded moon even yet longer. This prolonga- 
 tion of star-light into the forenoon is to him delightful, for 
 he is a German, and has a sense of something marvellous 
 in a starry forenoon. Methinks I behold the priest and his 
 flock moving towards the church with lanterns ; the lights 
 dispersed amongst the crowd connect the congregation into 
 the appearance of some domestic group or larger household, 
 and carry the priest back to his childish years during the 
 winter season and Christmas matins, when every hand bore 
 its candle. Arrived at the pulpit, he declares to his 
 audience the plain truth, word for word, as it stands in 
 
ANALECTS FEOM RICHTER. 129 
 
 the gospel ; in the presence of God all intellectual preten- 
 sions are called upon to be silent, the very reason ceases to 
 be reasonable, nor is anything reasonable in the sight of 
 
 God but a sincere and upright heart 
 
 , Just as he and his flock are issuing from the church the 
 bright Christmas sun ascends above the horizon, and shoots 
 his beams upon their faces. The old men, who are nume- 
 rous in Sweden, are all tinged with the colours of youth 
 by the rosy morning lustre j and the priest, as he looks 
 away from them to mother earth lying in the sleep of 
 winter, and to the churchyard, where the flowers and the 
 men are all iw their graves together, might secretly exclaim 
 with the poet — "Upon the dead mother, in peace and 
 utter gloom, are reposing the dead children. After a time, 
 uprises the everlasting sun ; and the mother starts up at 
 the summons of the heavenly dawn with a resurrection of 
 her ancient bloom. And her children ] Yes : but they 
 must wait awhile." 
 
 At home he is awaited by a warm study, and a " long- 
 levelled rule" of sunlight upon the book-clad wall. 
 
 The afternoon he spends delightfully ; for, having before 
 him such perfect flower -stand of pleasures, he scarcely 
 knows where he should settle. Supposing it to be Christmas 
 day, he preaches again : he preaches on a subject which 
 calls up images of the beauteous eastern-land, or of eternity. 
 By this time, twilight and gloom prevailed through the 
 church : only a couple of wax-lights upon the altar throw 
 wondrous and mighty shadows through the aisles : the 
 angel that hangs down from the roof above the baptismal 
 font is awoke into a solemn life by the shadows and the 
 rays, and seems almost in the act of ascension : through 
 the windows the stars or the moons are beginning to peer : 
 aloft, in the pulpit, which is now hid in gloom, the priest 
 
130 ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. 
 
 is inflamed and possessed by the sacred burden of glad 
 tidings which he is announcing : he is lost and insensible 
 to all besides ; and from amidst the darkness which sur- 
 rounds him, he pours down his thunders, with tears and 
 agitation, reasoning of future worlds, and of the heaven of 
 lieavens, and whatsoever else can most powerfully shake 
 the heart and the affections. 
 
 Descending from his pulpit in these holy fervours, he 
 now, perhaps, takes a walk : it is about four o'clock ; and 
 he walks beneath a sky lit up by the shifting northern 
 lights, that to his eye appear but an Aurora striking up- 
 wards from the eternal morning of the south, or as a forest 
 composed of saintly thickets, like the fiery bushes of Moses, 
 that are round the throne of God. 
 
 Thus, if it be the afternoon of Christmas-day ; but, if it 
 be any other afternoon, visitors, perhaps, come and bring 
 their well-bred, grown-up daughters. Like the fashionable 
 world in London, he dines at sunset ; that is to say, like 
 the im-fashionable world of London, he dines at two 
 o'clock ; and he drinks coffee by moonlight ; and the par- 
 sonage-house becomes an enchanted palace of pleasure 
 gleaming with twilight, starlight, and moonlight. Or, per- 
 haps, he goes over to the schoolmaster, who is teaching his 
 afternoon school : there, by the candle-light, he gathers 
 round his knees all the scholars, as if — being the children 
 of his spiritual children — they must therefore be his own 
 grandchildren ; and with delightful words he wins their 
 attention, and pours knowledge into their docile hearts. 
 
 All these pleasures failing, he may pace up and down in 
 his library, already, by three o'clock, gloomy with twilight, 
 but fitfully enlivened by a glowing fire, and steadily by the 
 bright moonlight ; and he needs do no more than taste at 
 every turn of his walk a little orange marmalade — to call 
 
ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. ] 3 1 
 
 Up images of beautiful Italy, and its gardens, and orange 
 groves, before all his five senses, and, as it were, to the 
 very tip of his tongue. Looking at the moon, he will not 
 fail to recollect that the very same silver disc hangs at the 
 very same moment between the branches of the laurels in 
 Italy. It will delight him to consider that the j^olian 
 harp, and the lark, and indeed music of all kinds, and the 
 stars, and children, are just the same in hot climates and 
 in cold. And when the post-boy, that rides in with news 
 from Italy, winds his horn through the hamlet, and with a 
 few simple notes raises up on the frozen window of his 
 study a vision of flowery realms ; and when he plays with 
 treasured leaves of roses and of lilies from some departed 
 summer, or with plumes of a bird of paradise, the memorial 
 of some distant friend ; when further, his heart is moved 
 by the magnificent sounds of Lady -day, Sallad- season, 
 Cherry-time, Trinity- Sundays, the rose of June, &c., how 
 can he fail to forget that he is in Sweden by the time that 
 his lamp is brought in ; and then, indeed, he will be some- 
 what disconcerted to recognise his study in what had now 
 shaped itself to his fancy as a room in some foreign land 
 However, if he would- pursue this airy creation, he need 
 but light at his lamp a wax-candle end, to gain a glimpse 
 through the whole evening into that world of fashion and 
 splendour, from which he purchased the said wax-candle 
 end. For I should suppose, that at the court of Stock- 
 holm, as elsewhere, there must be candle-ends to be bought 
 of the state- footmen. 
 
 But now, after the lapse of half-a-year, all at once there 
 strikes upon his heart something more beautiful than Italy, 
 where the sun sets so much earlier in summer-time than it 
 does at our Swedish hamlet : and what is that ? It is the 
 longest day, witli the rich freight it carries in its bosom, 
 
132 ANALECTS FROM RICHTEB. 
 
 and leading by tlie hand the early dawn blushing with rosy 
 light, and melodious with the carolling of larks at one 
 o'clock in the morning. Before two, that is, at sunrise, the 
 elegant party that we mentioned last winter arrive in gay 
 clothing at the parsonage ; for they are bound on a little 
 excursion of pleasure in company with the priest. At two 
 o'clock they are in motion ; at which time all the flowers 
 are glittering, and the forests are gleaming with the mighty 
 light. The ^i^varm sun threatens them with no storm nor 
 thunder showers ; for both are rare in Sweden. The priest, 
 in common with the rest of the company, is attired in the 
 costume of Sweden ; he wears his short jacket with a 
 broad scarf, his short cloak above that, his round hat with 
 floating plumes, and shoes tied with bright ribbons ; like 
 the rest of the men, he resembles a Spanish knight, or a 
 Proven9al, or other man of the south ; more especially 
 when he and his gay company are seen flying through the 
 lofty foliage luxuriant with blossom, that within so short a 
 period of weeks has shot forth from the garden plots and 
 the naked boughs. 
 
 That a longest day like this, bearing such a cornucopia 
 of sunshine, of cloudless ether, of buds and bells, of blos- 
 soms and of leisure, should pass away more rapidly than 
 the shortest — is not difficult to suppose. As early as eight 
 o'clock in the evening the party breaks up ; the sun is now 
 burning more gently over the half-closed sleepy flowers ; 
 about nine he has mitigated his rays, and is beheld bathing 
 as it were naked in the blue depths of heaven ; about ten, 
 at which hour the company reassemble at the parsonage, 
 the priest is deeply moved, for throughout the hamlet, 
 though the tepid sun, now sunk to the horizon, is still 
 shedding a sullen glow upon the cottages and the window- 
 panes, everything reposes in profoundest silence and sleep : 
 
ANALECTS FROM EICHTER. 133 
 
 the birds even are all slumbering in the golden summits of 
 the woods ; and at last, the solitary sun himself sets, like a 
 moon, amidst the universal quiet of nature. To our priest, 
 walking in his romantic dress, it seems as though rosy- 
 coloured realms were laid open, in which fairies and spirits 
 range ; and he would scarcely feel an emotion of wonder, 
 if, in this hour of golden vision, his brother, who ran away 
 in childhood, should suddenly present himself as one alight- 
 ing from some blooming heaven of enchantment. 
 
 The priest will not allow his company to depart : he 
 detains them in the parsonage garden, where, says he, every 
 one that chooses may slumber away in beautiful bowers the 
 brief, warm hours until the reappearance of the sun. This 
 proposal is generally adopted, and the garden is occupied : 
 many a lovely pair are making believe to sleep, but, in fact, 
 are holding each other by the hand. The happy priest 
 walks up and down through the parterres. Coolness comes, 
 and a few stars. His night -violets and gilly-flowers open 
 and breathe out their powerful odours. To the north, from 
 the eternal morning of the pole, exhales as it were a golden 
 dawn. The priest thinks of the village of his childhood 
 far away in Germany ; he thinks of the life of man, his 
 hopes, and his aspirations ; and he is calm and at peace 
 with himself. Then all at once starts up the morning sun 
 in his freshness. Some there are in the garden who would 
 fain confound it with the evening sun, and close their eyes 
 again ; but the larks betray all, and awaken every sleeper 
 from bower to bower. 
 
 Then again begin pleasure and morning in their pomp of 
 radiance ; and almost I could persuade myself to delineate 
 the course of this day also, though it differs from its pre- 
 decessor hardly by so much as the leaf of a rose-bud. 
 
134 ANALECTS FROM RICHTES. 
 
 DREAM UPON THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 I HAD been reading an excellent dissertation of Kriiger's 
 upon the old vulgar error which regards the space from one 
 earth and sun to another as empty. Our sun, together with 
 all its planets, fills only the 31,419,460,000,000,000th 
 part of the whole space between itself and the next solar 
 body. Gracious Heavens ! thought I, in what an unfathom- 
 able abyss of emptiness were this universe swallowed up 
 and lost, if all were void and utter vacuity except the few 
 shining points of dust which we call a planetary system ! 
 To conceive of our earthly ocean as the abode of death and 
 essentially incapable of life, and of its populous islands as 
 being no greater than snail-shells, would be a far less error 
 in proportion to the compass of our planet than that which 
 attributes emptiness to the great mundane spaces ; and the . 
 error would be far less if the marine animals were to ascribe 
 life and fulness exclusively to the sea, and to regard the 
 atmospheric ocean above them as empty and untenanted. 
 According to Herschel, the most remote of the galaxies 
 which the telescope discovers, lie at such a distance from 
 us, that their light, which reaches us at this day, must have 
 set out on its journey two millions of years ago ; and thus 
 by optical laws it is possible that whole squadrons of the 
 starry hosts may be now reaching us with their beams, 
 which have themselves perished ages ago. Upon this scale 
 of computation for the dimensions of the world, what 
 heights and depths and breadths must there be in this uni- 
 verse — in comparison of which the positive universe would 
 be itself a nihility, were it crossed, pierced, and belted 
 about by so illimitable a wilderness of nothing ! But is it 
 possible that any man can for a moment overlook those vapt 
 forces which must pervade these imaginary deserts witb 
 
ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. 135 
 
 eternal surges of flux and reflux, to make tlie very paths to 
 those distant stany coasts voyageable to our eyes 1 Can 
 you lock up in a sun or in its planets their reciprocal forces 
 of attraction ? Does not the light stream through the im- 
 measurable spaces between our earth and the nebula which 
 is furthest removed from us ? And in this stream of light 
 there is as ample an existence of the positive, and as much 
 a home for the abode of a spiritual world, as there is a 
 dwelling-place for thy own spirit in the substance of the 
 brain. To these and similar reflections succeeded the fol- 
 lowing dream : — 
 
 Methought my body sank down in ruins, and my inner 
 form stepped out apparelled in light ; and by my side there 
 stood another form which resembled my own, except that 
 it did not shine like mine, but lightened unceasingly. " Two 
 thoughts," said the form, " are the wings with which I move : 
 the thought of Here, and the thought of There. And, be- 
 hold ! I am yonder," — pointing to a distant world. " Come, 
 then, and wait on me with thy thoughts and with thy flight, 
 that I may show to thee the universe under a veil." And 
 I flew along with the Form. In a moment our earth fell 
 back, behind our consuming flight, into an abyss of distance; 
 a faint gleam only was reflected from the summits of tbe 
 Cordilleras, and a few moments more reduced the sun to a 
 little star ; and soon there remained nothing visible of our 
 system except a comet which was travelling from our sun 
 with angelic speed in the direction of Sirius. Our flight 
 now carried us so rapidly through the flocks of solar bodies 
 — flocks past counting, unless to their heavenly Shepherd — 
 that scarcely could they expand themselves before us into 
 the magnitude of moons, before they sank behind us into 
 pale nebular gleams ; and their planetary earths could not 
 reveal themselves for a moment to the transcendent rapidity 
 
136 ANALECTS FEOM EICHTER. 
 
 of our course. At length Sirius and all the brotherhood of 
 our constellations and the galaxy of our heavens stood far 
 below our feet as a little nebula amongst other yet more 
 distant nebulae. Thus we flew on through the starry wil- 
 dernesses : one heaven after another unfurled its immea- 
 surable banners before us, and then rolled up behind us : 
 galaxy behind galaxy towered up into solemn altitudes be- 
 fore which the spirit shuddered ; and they stood in long 
 array through which the Infinite Being might pass in pro- 
 gress. Sometimes the Form that lightened would outfly 
 my weary thoughts ; and then it would be seen far off be- 
 fore me like a coruscation amongst the stars — till suddenly 
 I thought again to myself the thought of There, and then 
 I was at its side. But, as we were thus swallowed up by 
 one abyss of stars after another, and the heavens above our 
 eyes were not emptier, neither were the heavens below 
 them fuller ; and as suns without intermission fell into the 
 solar ocean like water-spouts of a storm which fall into the 
 ocean of waters ; then at length the human heart within 
 me was overburdened and weary, and yearned after some 
 narrow cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cfithedral 
 of the universe. And I said to the Form at my side, " Oh, 
 Spirit ! has then this universe no end ! " And the Form 
 answered and said, " Lo ! it has no beginning." 
 
 Suddenly, however, the heavens above us appeared lo be 
 emptied, and not a star was seen to twinkle in the mighty 
 abyss ; no gleam of light to break the unity of the infinite 
 darkness. The starry hosts behind us had all contracted 
 into an obscure nebula : and at length that also had 
 vanished. And I thought to myself, " At last the universe 
 has ended :" and I trembled at the thought of the illimit- 
 able dungeon of pure, pure darkness which here began to 
 imprison the creatior ; I shuddered at the dead sea of 
 
ANALECTS FROM EICHTER. 137 
 
 nothing, in whose unfathomable zone of blackness the jewel 
 of the glittering universe seemed to be set and buried for 
 ever ; and through the night in which we moved I saw the 
 Form which still lightened as before, but left all around it 
 unilluminated. Then the Form said to me in my anguish 
 — " Oh ! creature of little faith ! Look up ! the most 
 ancient light is coming 1" I looked ; and in a moment 
 came a twilight — in the twinkling of an eye a galaxy — 
 and then with a choral burst rushed in all the company of 
 stars. For centuries grey with age, for millennia hoary 
 with' antiquity, had the starry light been on its road to us ; 
 and at length out of heights inaccessible to thought it had 
 reached us. JSTow then, as through some renovated century, 
 we flew through new cycles of heavens. At length again 
 came a starless interval ; and far longer it endured, before 
 the beams of a starry host again had reached us. 
 
 As we thus advanced for ever through an interchange of 
 nights and solar heavens, and as the interval grew still 
 longer and longer before the last heaven we had quitted 
 contracted to a point, and as once we issued suddenly from 
 the middle of thickest night into an Aurora Borealis, the 
 herald of an expiring world,' and we found throughout this 
 cycle of solar systems that a day of judgment had indeed 
 arrived ; the suns had sickened, and the planets were 
 heaving — rocking, yawning in convulsions, the subterrane- 
 ous waters of the great deeps were breaking up, and light- 
 nings that were ten diameters of a world in length ran 
 along — from east to west — from Zenith to Nadir ; and 
 here and there, where a sun should have been, we saw in- 
 stead through the misty vapour a gloomy, ashy, leaden 
 corpse of a solar body, that sucked in flames from the 
 perishing world, but gave out neither light nor heat ; 
 and as I saw, through a vista which had no end, mountain 
 ^2 
 
138 ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. 
 
 towering above mountain, and piled up with what seemed 
 glittering snow from the conflict of solar and planetary- 
 bodies ; then my spirit bent under the load of the universe, 
 and I said to the Form, " Kest, rest ; and lead me no 
 farther : I am too solitary in the creation itself ; and in its 
 deserts yet more so : the full world is great, but the empty 
 world is greater ; and with the universe increase its 
 Zaarahs." 
 
 Then the Form touched me like the flowing of a breath, 
 and spoke more gently than before : — " In the presence oi 
 God there is no emptiness : above, below, between, and' 
 round about the stars, in the darkness and in the light, 
 dwelleth the true and very Universe, the sum and fountain 
 of all that is. But thy spirit can bear only earthly images 
 of the unearthly ; now then I cleanse thy sight with 
 euphrasy ; look forth, and behold the images." Immedi- 
 ately my eyes were opened ; and I looked, and I saw as it 
 were an interminable sea of light — sea immeasurable, sea 
 unfathomable, sea without a shore. All spaces between all 
 heavens were fiUed with happiest light : and there was a 
 thundering of floods : and there were seas above the seas, 
 and seas below the seas : and I saw all the trackless regions 
 that we had voyaged over : and my eye comprehended the 
 farthest and the nearest : and darkness had become light, 
 and the light darkness : for the deserts and wastes of the 
 creation were now filled with the sea of light, and in this 
 sea the suns floated like ash-grey blossoms, and the planets 
 like black grains of seed. Then my heart comprehended 
 that immortality dwelled in the spaces between the worlds, 
 and death only amongst the worlds. Upon all the suns 
 there walked upright shadows in the form of men : but 
 they were glorified when they quitted these perishable 
 worlds, and when they sank into the sea of light ; and the 
 
AXALECTS FROM PJCHTER. 139 
 
 murky plaPxets, I perceived, were but cradles for tlie iu- 
 fant spirits of the universe of light. In the ^aarahs of 
 the creation T saw — I heard — I felt — the glittering — the 
 echoing — the breathing of life and creative power. The 
 suns were but as spinning-wheels, the planets no more than 
 weavers' shuttles, in relation to the infinite web which com- 
 poses the veil of Isis ;* which veil is hung over the whole 
 creation, and lengthens as any finite being attempts to raise 
 it. And in sight of this immeasurability of life, no sad- 
 ness could endure ; but only joy that knew no limit, and 
 happy prayers. 
 
 But in the midst of this great vision of the Universe the 
 Form that lightened eternally had become invisible, or had 
 vanished to its home in the unseen world of spirits : I was 
 left alone in the centre of a universe of life, and I yearned 
 after some sympathizing being. Suddenly from the starry 
 deeps there came floating through the ocean of light a 
 planetary body; and upon it there stood a woman whose 
 face was as the face of a Madonna ; and by her side there 
 stood a child, whose countenance varied not, neither was 
 it magnified as he drew nearer. This child was a king, for 
 I saw that he had a crown upon his head : but the crown 
 was a crown of thorns. Then also I perceived that the 
 planetary body was our unhappy earth ; and, as the earth 
 
 * On this antique mode of symbolizing the mysterious Nature which 
 is at the heart of all things and connects all things into one whole, 
 possibly the reader may feel not unwilling to concur with Kant's re- 
 inark at page 197 of his Critik der UrtheilsJcraft : "Perhaps in all 
 human composition there is no passage of greater sublimity, nor 
 amongst all subhme thoughts any which has been more sublimely 
 expressed, than that which occurs in the inscription upon the temple 
 of Isis (the Great Mother — Nature) : lam whatsoever is — whatsoever 
 has heen — whatsoever shall he : and the veil which is over my counte- 
 nance, no mortal hand has ever raised^ 
 
140 ANALECTS FEOM EICHTER. 
 
 drew near, this child who had come forth from the stari-y 
 deeps to comfort me threw upon me a look of gentlest pity 
 and of unutterable love, so that in my heart I had a 
 sudden rapture of joy such as passes all understanding, 
 and I awoke in the tumult of my happiness. 
 
 I awoke : but my happiness survived my dream ; and I 
 exclaimed — Oh ! how beautiful is death, seeing that we 
 die in a world of life and of creation without end 1 and I 
 blessed God for my life upon earth, but much more for the 
 life in those unseen depths of the universe which are 
 emptied of all but the Supreme Eeality, and where no 
 earthly life nor perishable hope can enter. 
 
 COMPLAINT OP THE BIRD IN A BAEKENED CAGE. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the imprisoned bird, " how unhappy were 
 1 in my eternal night, but for those melodious tones which 
 sometimes make their way to me like beams of light from 
 afar, and cheer my gloomy day. But I will myself repeat 
 these heavenly melodies like an echo, until I have stamped 
 them in my heart ; and then I shall be able to bring com- 
 fort to myself in my darkness ! " Thus spoke the little 
 warbler, and soon had learned the sweet airs that were sung 
 to it with voice and instrument. That done, the curtain 
 was raised ; for the darkness had been purposely contrived 
 to assist in its instruction. man ! how often dost thou 
 complain of overshadowing grief and of darkness resting 
 upon thy days ! And yet what cause for complaint, unless 
 indeed thou hast failed to learn wisdom from suffering ? 
 For is not the whole sum of human life a veiling and an 
 obscuring of the immortal spirit of man 1 Then £rst, when 
 the fleshly curtain falls away, may it soar upwards into a 
 region of happier melodies ! 
 
ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. 141 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF YOUNG CHILDREN. 
 
 Ephemera die all at sunset, and no insect of this class 
 has ever sported in the beams of the morning sun.* Hap- 
 pier are ye, little human ephemera ! Ye played only in 
 the ascending beams, and in the early dawn, and in the 
 eastern light ; ye drank only of the prelibations of life ; 
 hovered for a little space over a world of freshness and of 
 blossoms ; and fell asleep in innocence before yet the morn- 
 ing dew was exhaled ! 
 
 THE PROPHETIC DEW-DROPS. 
 
 A delicate child, pale and prematurely wise, was com- 
 plaining on a hot morning that the poor dew-drops had 
 been too hastily snatched away, and not allowed to glitter 
 on the flowers like other happier dew-drops t that live the 
 whole night through, and sparkle in the moonlight and 
 through the morning onwards to noon-day. " The sun," 
 said the child, " has chased them away with his heat, or 
 swallowed them in his wrath." Soon after came rain and 
 a rainbow ; whereupon his father pointed upwards : " See," 
 said he, "there stand thy dew-drops gloriously re-set — a 
 glittering jewellery — in the heavens ; and the clownish 
 foot tramples on them no more. By this, my child, thou 
 art taught that what withers upon earth blooms again in 
 heaven." Thus the father spoke, and knew not that he 
 spoke prefiguring words : for soon after the delicate child. 
 
 * Some class of ephemeral insects are bom about five o'clock in 
 the afternoon, and die before midnight, supposing them to Hve to 
 old age. 
 
 t If the dew is evaporated immediately upon the sun-rising, rain 
 End storm follow in the afternoon ; but, if it stays and glitters for a 
 long time after sunrise, the day continues fair. 
 
142 ANALECTS FKOM EICHTER. 
 
 with the morning brightness of his early wisdom, was ex- 
 haled, like a dew-drop, into heaven. 
 
 ON DEATH. 
 
 We should all think of death as a less hideous object, if 
 it simply untenanted our bodies of a spirit, without corrupt- 
 ing them ; secondly, if the grief which we experience at the 
 spectacle of our friends' graves were not by some confusion 
 of the mind blended with the image of our own ; thirdly, 
 if w^e had not in this life seated ourselves in a warm domes- 
 tic nest, which we are unwilling to quit for the cold blue 
 regions of the unfathomable heavens ; finally, if death were 
 denied to us. Once in dreams I saw a human being of 
 heavenly intellectual faculties, and his aspirations were 
 heavenly ; but he was chained (methought) eternally to the 
 earth. The immortal old man had five great wounds in 
 his happiness — five worms that gnawed for ever at his 
 heart : he was unhappy in spring-time, because that is a 
 season of hope, and rich with phantoms of far happier 
 days than any which this aceldama of earth can realize. 
 He was unhappy at the sound of music, which dilates the 
 heart of man into its whole capacity for the infinite, and he 
 cried aloud — " Away, away ! Thou speakest of things 
 -which throughout my endless life I have found not, and 
 shall not find ! " He was unhappy at the remembrance of 
 earthly affections and dissevered hearts : for love is a plant 
 w^hich may bud in this life, but it must flourish in another. 
 He was unhappy under the glorious spectacle of the starry 
 host, and ejaculated for ever in his heart — " So then, I am 
 parted from you to all eternity by an impassable abyss : 
 the great universe of suns is above, below, and round about 
 me : but I -am chained to a little ball of dust and ashes." 
 He was unhappy before the great ideas of Virtue, of 
 
ANALECTS FEOM RICHTER. 143 
 
 Truth, and of God ; because he knew how feeble are the 
 approximations to them which a son of earth can make. 
 But this was a dream : God be thanked, that in reality- 
 there is no such craving and asking eye directed upwards 
 to heaven, to which death will not one day bring an 
 answer ! 
 
 IMAGINATION UNTAMED BY THE COARSER REALITIES 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 Happy is every actor in the guilty drama of life, to 
 ^^^hom the higher illusion within supplies or conceals the 
 external illusion ; to whom, in the tumult of his part and 
 its intellectual interest, the bungling landscapes of the 
 stage have the bloom and reality of nature, and whom, 
 the loud parting and shocking of the scenes disturb not in 
 his dream ! 
 
 SATIRICAL NOTICE OF REVIEWERS. 
 
 In Suabia, in Saxony, in Pomerania, are towns in which 
 fire stationed a strange sort of officers — valuers of author's 
 flesh, something like our old market-lookers in this town.* 
 They are commonly called tasters (or Prcegustatores) because 
 they eat a mouthful of every book beforehand, and tell the 
 people whether its flavour be good. We authors, in spite, 
 call them reviewers : but I believe an action of defamation 
 would lie against us for such bad words. The tasters 
 write no books themselves j consequently they have the 
 more time to look over and tax those of other people. Or, if 
 they do sometimes write books, they are bad ones : which 
 
 * " JlarJcet-loohers^^ is a provincial term (I know not whether used 
 in London) for the public officers who examine the quality of the pro- 
 visions exposed for sale. By this town I suppose John Paul to mean 
 Bayreuth, the place of his residence. 
 
144 ANALECTS FROM PJCHTER, 
 
 again is very advantageous to them ; for who can under- 
 stand the theory of badness in other people's books so well 
 as those who have learned it by practice in their own ? 
 They are reputed the guardians of literature and the literati 
 for the same reason that St. Nepomuk is the patron saint of 
 bridges and of all who pass over them — viz., because he 
 himself once lost his life from a bridge. 
 
 FEMALE TONGUES. 
 
 Hippel, the author of the book " Upon Marriage," says 
 — " A woman, that does not talk, must be a stupid 
 woman." But Hippel is an author whose opinions it is 
 more safe to admire than to adopt. The most intelligent 
 women are often silent amongst women ; and again the 
 most stupid and the most silent are often neither one nor 
 the other except amongst men. In general the current 
 remark upon men is valid also with respect to women — 
 that those for the most part are the greatest thinkers who 
 are the least talkers ; as frogs cease to croak when light is 
 brought to the water edge. However, in fact, the dispro- 
 portionate talking of women arises out of the sedentariness 
 of their labours ; sedentary artisans, as tailors, shoemakers, 
 weavers, have this habit as well as hypochondriacal ten- 
 dencies in common with women. Apes do not talk, as 
 savages say, that they may not be set to work ; but 
 women often talk double their share — even because they 
 work. 
 
 FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Nothing is more moving to man than the spectacle of 
 reconciliation : our weaknesses are thus indemnified and 
 are not too costly — being the price we pay for the hour 
 of forgiveness : and the archangel, who has never felt 
 anger, has reason to envy the man who subdues it. When 
 
ANALECTS FEOM RICHTER. 145 
 
 thou forgivest, — the man, who has pierced thy heart, 
 stands to thee in the relation of the sea-worm that per- 
 forates the shell of the mussel, which straightway closes 
 the wound with a pearl. 
 
 Tlie graves of the best of men, of the noblest martyrs, 
 are, like the graves of the Herrnhuters (the Moravian 
 Brethren), level and un distinguishable from the universal 
 earth : and, if the earth could give up her secrets, our 
 whole globe would appear a Westminster Abbey laid flat. 
 Ah ! what a multitude of tears, what myriads of bloody 
 drops have been shed in secrecy about the three corner 
 trees of earth — the tree of life, the tree of knowledge, and 
 the tree of freedom — shed, but never reckoned ! It is 
 only great periods of calamity that reveal to us our great 
 men, as comets are revealed by total eclipses of the sun. 
 Not merely upon the field of battle, but also upon the 
 consecrated soil of virtue, and upon the classic ground of 
 truth, thousands of nameless heroes miist fall and struggle 
 to build up the footstool from which history surveys the 
 one hero, whose name is embalmed, bleeding — conquering 
 — and resplendent. The grandest of heroic deeds are those 
 which are performed within four walls and in domestic 
 privacy. And, because history records only the self-sacri- 
 fices of the male sex, and because she dips her pen only 
 in blood, therefore is it that in the eyes of the unseen 
 spirit of the world our annals appear doubtless far more 
 beautiful and noble than in our own. 
 
 THE GEANDEUR OF MAN IN HIS LITTLENESS. 
 
 Man upon this earth would be vanity and hoUowness, 
 dust and ashes, vapour and a bubble, were it not that he 
 felt himself to be so. That it is possible for him to 
 
 XIII. — G 
 
r46 ANALECTS FKOM EICHTER. 
 
 harbour such a feeling, — this, by implying a comparison of 
 himself with something higher in himself, this is it which 
 makes him the immortal creature that he is. 
 
 The earth is every day overspread with the veil of night 
 for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened — 
 viz., that we may the more readily apprehend the higher 
 harmonies of thought in the hush and quiet of darkness. 
 Thoughts, which day turns into smoke and mist, stand 
 about us in the night as lights and flames : even as the 
 column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in 
 the daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar 
 of fire. 
 
 THE STAKS. 
 
 Look up, and behold the eternal fields of light that lie 
 round about the throne of God. Had no star ever appeared 
 in the heavens, to man there would have been no heavens ; 
 and he would have laid himself down to his last sleep, in a 
 spirit of anguish, as upon a gloomy earth vaulted over by 
 a material arch — solid and impervious. 
 
 MAETYRDOM. 
 
 To die for truth — is not to die for one's country, but to 
 die for the world. Truth, like the Venus de Medici, will 
 pass down in thirty fragments to posterity : but posterity 
 will collect and recompose them into a goddess. Then 
 also thy temple, eternal Truth ! that now stands half 
 below the earth, made hollow by the sepulchres of its 
 witnesses, will raise itself in the total majesty of its pro- 
 portions y and will stand in monumental granite ; and 
 every pillar on which it rests, will be fixed in the grave of 
 a martyr. 
 
ANALECTS FEOM RICHTER, 147 
 
 THE QUARRELS OF FRIENDS. 
 
 Why is it that the most fervent love becomes more 
 fervent by brief interruption and reconciliation ? and why 
 must a storm agitate our affections before they can raise 
 the highest rainbovr of peace ? Ah ! for this reason it is — 
 because all passions feel their object to be as eternal as 
 themselves, and no love can admit the feeling that the 
 beloved object should die. And under this feeling of imper- 
 ishableness it is that we hard fields of ice shock together 
 so harshly, whilst all the while under the sunbeams of a 
 little space of seventy years we are rapidly dissolving. 
 
 DREAMING. 
 
 But for dreams, that lay mosaic worlds tesselated with 
 flowers and jewels before the blind sleeper, and surround 
 the recumbent living with the figures of the dead in the 
 upright attitude of life, the time would be too long before 
 we are allowed to rejoin our brothers, parents, friends : 
 every year we should become more and more painfully 
 sensible of the desolation made around us by death, if 
 sleep — the ante-chamber of the grave — were not hung by 
 dreams with the busts of those who live in the other 
 world. 
 
 TV/O DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHIC MINDS. 
 
 There are two very different classes of philosophical 
 heads, which, since Kant has introduced into philosophy 
 the idea of positive and negative quantities, I shall willingly 
 classify by means of that distinction. The positive intellect 
 is, like the poet, in conjunction with the outer world, the 
 father of an inner world ; and, like the poet also, holds up 
 a transforming mirror in which the entangled and distorted 
 
148 ANALECTS FROM RICHTER. 
 
 members as they are seen in our actual experience enter 
 into new combinations which compose a fair and luminous 
 world : the hypothesis of Idealism (i.e. the Ficht^an sys- 
 tem), the Monads and the Pre-established Harmony of 
 Leibnitz — and Spinozism are all births of a genial moment, 
 and not the wooden carving of logical toil. Such men 
 therefore as Leibnitz, Plato, Herder, &c., I call positive 
 intellects ; because they seek and yield the positive ; and 
 because their inner world, having raised itself higher out 
 of the water than in others, thereby overlooks a larger 
 prospect of island and continents. A negative head, on 
 the other hand, discovers by its acuteness — not any posi- 
 tive truths but the negative (i.e. the errors) of other people. 
 Such an intellect, as for example Bayle, one of the greatest 
 of that class — appraises the funds of others, rather than 
 brings any fresh funds of his own. In lieu of the obscure 
 ideas which he finds he gives us clear ones : but in this 
 there is no positive accession to our knowledge ; for all that 
 the clear idea contains in development, exists already by 
 implication in the obscure idea. Negative intellects of 
 every age are unanimous in their abhorrence of everything 
 positive. Impulse, feeling, instinct — everything in short 
 which is incomprehensible, they can endure just once — 
 that is, at the summit of their chain of arguments as a sort 
 of hook on which they may hang them, but never after- 
 wards. 
 
 DIGNITY OF MAN IN SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 That, for which man offers up his blood or his property, 
 must be more valuable than they. A good man does not 
 fight with half the courage for his own life that he shows 
 in the protection of another's. The mother, who will 
 hazard netting for herself, will hazard all in defence of her 
 
ANALECTS FEOM EICHTEE. 1 49 
 
 cliild : in sliort, only for the nobility within us, only for 
 virtue, will man open his veins and offer up his spirit : but 
 this nobility, this virtue, presents different phases : with 
 the Christian martyr it is faith ; with the savage it is 
 lionour ; with the republican it is liberty. 
 
CONYERSATIOK 
 
 Amongst tlie arts connected with the elegancies of social 
 life, in a degree which nobody denies, is the art of conver- 
 sation ; but in a degree which almost everybody denies, if 
 one may judge by their neglect of its simplest rules, this 
 same art is not less connected with the uses of social life. 
 Neither the luxury of conversation, nor the possible benefit 
 of conversation, is to be found under that rude administra- 
 tion of it which generally prevails. Without an art, with- 
 out some simple system of rules, gathered from experience 
 of such contingencies as are most likely to mislead the 
 practice, when left to its own guidance, no act of man nor 
 effort accomplishes its purposes in perfection. The saga- 
 cious Greek would not "So much as drink a glass of wine 
 amongst a few friends without a systematic art to guide 
 him, and a regular form of polity to control him, which art 
 and which polity (begging Plato's pardon) were better than 
 any of more ambitious aim in his Kepublic. Every sym- 
 posium had its set of rules, and rigorous they were ; had 
 its own symposiarch to govern it, and a tyrant he was. 
 Elected democratically, he became, when once installed, an 
 autocrat not less despotic than the King of Persia. Pur- 
 poses still more slight and fugitive have been organized into 
 arts. Taking soup gracefully, under the difficulties opposed 
 
CONVERSATION. 151 
 
 to it by a dinner dress at that time fashionable, was reared 
 into an art about forty-five years ago by a Frenchman, who 
 lectured upon it to ladies in London ; and the most bril- 
 liant duchess of that day, viz., the Duchess of Devonshire, 
 was amongst his best pupils. Spitting, if the reader will 
 pardon the mention of so gross a fact, was shown to be a 
 very difficult art, and publicly prelected upon about the 
 same time, in the same great capital. The professors in 
 this faculty- were the hackney-coachmen ; the pupils were 
 gentlemen, who paid a guinea each for three lessons ; the 
 chief problem in this system of hydraulics being to throw 
 the salivating column in a parabolic curve from the centre 
 of Parliament Street, when driving four-in-hand, to the foot 
 pavements, right and left, so as to alarm the consciences of 
 guilty peripatetics on either side. The ultimate problem, 
 which closed the curriculum of study, was held to lie in 
 spitting round a corner ; when that was mastered, the pupil 
 was entitled to his doctor's degree. Endless are the pur- 
 poses of man, merely festal or merely comic, and aiming but 
 at the momentary life of a cloud, which have earned for 
 themselves the distinction and apparatus of a separate art. 
 Yet for conversation, the great paramount purpose of social 
 meetings, no art exists or has been attempted. 
 
 That seems strange, but is not really so. A limited 
 process submits readily to the limits of a technical system ; 
 but a process so unlimited as the interchange of thought, 
 seems to reject them. And even, if an art of conversation 
 were less unlimited, the means of carrying such an art into 
 practical effect amongst so vast a variety of minds, seems 
 wanting. Yet again, perhaps, after all, this may rest on a 
 mistake. What we begin by misjudging is the particular 
 phasis of conversation which brings it under the control of 
 ait and discipline. It is not in its relation to the intellect 
 
152 CONVERSATION. 
 
 that conversation ever has been improved or will be im- 
 proved primarily, but in its relation to manners. Has a 
 man ever mixed with what in technical phrase is called 
 " good company," meaning company in the highest degree 
 polished, company which (being or not being aristocratic as 
 respects its composition) is aristocratic as respects the stan- 
 dard of its manners and usages 1 If he really has, and 
 does not deceive himself from vanity or from pure inac- 
 quaintance with the world, in that case he must have 
 remarked the large effect impress^ed upon the grace and 
 upon the freedom of conversation by a few simple instincts 
 of real good breeding. Good breeding — what is it % There 
 is no need in this place to answer that question comprehen- 
 sively ; it is sufficient to say that it is made up chiefly of 
 negative elements ; that it shows itself far less in what it 
 prescribes than in what it forbids. Now, even under this 
 limitation of the idea, the truth is — that more will be done 
 for the benefit of conversation by the simple magic of good 
 manners (that is, chiefly by a system of forbearances), ap- 
 plied to the besetting vices of social intercourse, than ever 
 wa^ or can be done by all varieties of intellectual power 
 assembled upon the same arena. Intellectual graces of the 
 highest order may perish and confound each other when 
 exercised in a spirit of ill-temper, or under the license of 
 bad manners ; whereas, very humble powers, when allowed 
 to expand themselves colloquially in that genial freedom 
 which is possible only under the most absolute confidence 
 in the self-restraint of your collocutors, accomplish their 
 purpose to a certainty, if it be the ordinary purpose of 
 liberal amusement, and have a chance of accomplishing it. 
 even wdien this purpose is the more ambitious one of com- 
 municating knowledge or exchanging new views upon 
 truth. 
 
CONVEESATION. 153 
 
 In my own early years, having been formed by nature 
 too exclusively and morbidly for solitary thinking, I ob- 
 served nothing. Seeming to have eyes, in reality I saw- 
 nothing. But it is a matter of no very uncommon experi- 
 ence — that, whilst the mere observers never became medi- 
 tators, the mere meditators, on the other hand, may finally 
 ripen into close observers. Strength of thinking, through 
 long years, upon innumerable themes, will have the efiect 
 of disclosing a vast variety of questions, to which it soon 
 becomes apparent that answers are lurking up and down 
 the whole field of daily experience ; and thus an external 
 experience which was slighted in youth, because it w^as a 
 dark cipher that could be read into no meaning, a key that 
 answered to no lock, gradually becomes interesting as it is 
 found to yield one solution after another to problems that 
 have independently matured in the mind. Thus, for in- 
 stance, upon the special functions of conversation, upon its 
 powers, its laws, its ordinary diseases, and their appropriate 
 remedies, in youth I never bestowed a thought or a care. 
 I viewed it, not as one amongst the gay ornamental arts 
 of the intellect, but as one amongst the dull necessities of 
 business. Loving solitude too much, I understood the 
 capacities of colloquial intercourse too little. And thus it 
 is, though not for my reason, that most people estimate the 
 intellectual relations of conversation. Let these, however, 
 be what they may, one thing seemed undeniable — that this 
 world talked a great deal too much. It would be better 
 for all parties, if nine in every ten of the winged words, 
 flying about in this world (Homer's epea pteroentd) had 
 their feathers clipped amongst men, or even amongst women, 
 who have a right to a larger allowance of words. Yet, as 
 it was quite out of my power to persuade the world into 
 any such self-denying reformation, it seemed equally out of 
 
15i CONVERSATION. 
 
 the line of my duties to nourisli any moral anxiety in that 
 direction. To talk seemed to me at that time in the same 
 category as to sleep ; not an accomplishment, but a base 
 physical infirmity. As a moralist, I really was culpably 
 careless upon the whole subject. I cared as little what 
 absurdities men practised in their vast tennis-courts of con- 
 versation, where the ball is flying backwards and forwards 
 to no purpose for ever, as what tricks Englishmen might 
 play with their monstrous national debt. Yet at length 
 what I disregarded on any principle of moral usefulness, I 
 came to make an object of the profoundest interest on 
 principles of art. Betting, in like manner, and wagering 
 which apparently had no moral value, and for that reason 
 had been always slighted as inconsiderable arts (though, by 
 the way, they always had one valuable use, viz., that of 
 evading quarrels, since a bet summarily intercepts an alter- 
 cation), rose suddenly into a philosophic rank, when suc- 
 cessively, Huygens, the Bernoullis, and De Moivre, were 
 led by the suggestion of these trivial practices amongst men, 
 to throw the light of a high mathematical analysis upon 
 the wdiole doctrine of Chances. Lord Bacon had been 
 led to remark the capacities of conversation as an organ 
 for sharpening one particular mode of intellectual power. 
 Circumstances, on the other hand, led me into remarking 
 the special capacities of conversation, as an organ for 
 absolutely creating another mode of power. Let a m.an 
 have read, thought, studied, as much as he may, rarely will 
 he reach his possible advantages as a ready man, unless he 
 has exercised his powers much in conversation — that, I 
 think, was Lord Bacon's idea. Now, this wise and useful 
 remark points in a direction not objective, but subjective ; 
 that is, it does not promise any absolute extension to truth 
 Itself, but only some greater facilities to the man who ex- 
 
CON VERS A TION. 155 
 
 pounds or diffuses the truth. Nothing will be done for truth 
 objectively that would not at any rate be done ; but subjec- 
 tively it will be done with more fluency, and at less cost of 
 exertion to the doer. On the contrary, my own growing 
 reveries on the latent powers of conversation (which, though 
 a thing that then I hated, yet challenged at times unavoid- 
 ably my attention) pointed to an absolute birth of new insight 
 into the truth itself, as inseparable from the finer and more 
 scientific exercise of the talking art. It v/ould not be the 
 brilliancy, the ease, or the adroitness of the expounder that 
 would benefit, but the absolute interests of the thing ex- 
 pounded. A feeling dawned on me of a secret magic 
 lurking in the peculiar life, velocities, and contagious 
 ardour of conversation, quite separate from any which 
 belonged to books ; arming a man with new forces, and 
 not merely with a new dexterity in wielding the old ones. 
 I felt, and in this I could not be mistaken, as too certainly 
 it was a fact of my own experience, that in the electric 
 kindling of life between two minds — and far less from the 
 kindling natural to conflict (though that also is something), 
 than from the kindling through sympathy with the object 
 discussed, in its momentary coruscation of shifting phases 
 — there sometimes arise glimpses, and shy revelations of 
 afiinity, suggestion, relation, analogy, that could not have 
 been approached through any avenues of methodical study. 
 Great organists find the same effect of inspiration, the same 
 result of power creative and revealing, in the mere move- 
 ment and velocity of their own voluntaries, like the heavenly 
 wheels of Milton, throwing off fiery flakes and bickering 
 flames ; these impromptu torrents of music create rapturous 
 fioriture, beyond all capacity in the artist to register, or 
 afterwards to imitate. The reader must be well aware that 
 many philosophic instances exist where a change in the 
 
156 CONVERSATION. 
 
 N degree makes a change in the kind. Usually this is other- 
 wise; the prevailing rule is, that the principle subsists un- 
 affected by any possible variation in the amount or degree 
 of the force. But a large class of exceptions must have 
 met the reader, though, from want of a pencil, he has im- 
 properly omitted to write them down in his pocket-book — 
 cases, viz., where upon passing beyond a certain point in 
 the graduation, an alteration takes place suddenly in the 
 Icind of effect, a new direction is given to the power. Some 
 illustration of this truth oCcurs in conversation, where a 
 velocity in the movement of thought is made possible 
 (and often natural), greater than ever can arise in methodical 
 books ; and where, 2c?/y, approximations are more obvious 
 and easily effected between things too remote for a steadier 
 contemplation. One remarkable evidence of a s'pecific power 
 lying hid in conversation may be seen in such WTitings as 
 have moved by impulses most nearly resembling those of 
 conversation ; for instance, in those of Edmund Burke. 
 For one moment, reader, pause upon the spectacle of two 
 contrasted intellects, Burke's and Johnson's : one an intellect 
 essentially going forward, governed by the very necessity of 
 growth — by the law of motion in advance \ the latter, 
 essentially an intellect retrogressive, retrospective, and 
 throwing itself back on its own steps. This original dif- 
 ference was aided accidentally in Burke by the tendencies 
 of political partisanship, which, both from moving amongst 
 moving things and uncertainties, as compared with the more 
 stationary aspects of moral philosophy, and also from its 
 more fluctuating and fiery passions, must unavoidably reflect 
 in greater life the tumultuary character of conversation. 
 The result from these original differences of intellectual con- 
 stitution, aided by these secondary differences of pursuit, 
 is, that Dr. Johnson never, in any instance, grows a truth 
 
COXVEF-SATION-. 157 
 
 before your eyes, whilst in the act of delivering it, or 
 moving towards it. All that he offers up to the end of the 
 chapter he had when he began. But to Burke, such was 
 the prodigious elasticity of his thinking, equally in his con- 
 versation and in his writings, the mere act of movement 
 became the principle or cause of movement. Motion pro- 
 pagated motion, and life threw off life. The very violence 
 of a projectile, as thrown by him, caused it to rebound in 
 fresh forms, fresh angles, splintering, coruscating, which 
 gave out thoughts as new (and as startling) to himself as 
 they are to his reader. In this power, which might be 
 illustrated largely from the writings of Burke, is seen 
 something allied to the powers of a prophetic seer, who 
 is compelled oftentimes into seeing things, as unexpected 
 by himself as by others. Now in conversation, considered as 
 to its tendencies and capacities, there sleeps an intermitting 
 spring of such sudden revelation, showing much of the same 
 general character ; a power putting on a character essentially 
 differing from the character worn by the power of books. 
 
 If, then, in the colloquial commerce of thought, there 
 lurked a power not shared by other modes of that great 
 commerce, a power separate and sui generis, next it was 
 apparent that a great art must exist somewhere, applicable 
 to this power ; not in the Pyramids, or in the tombs of 
 Thebes, but in the unwrought quarries of men's minds, so 
 many and so dark. There was an art missing. If an art, 
 then an artist was missing. If the art (as w^e say of foreign 
 mails) were " due," then the artist was " due." How 
 happened it that this great man never made his appearance ? 
 But perhaps he had. Many persons think Dr. Johnson the 
 exemplar of conversational power. I think otherwise, for 
 reasons which I shall soon explain, and far sooner I should 
 look for such an exemplar in Burke. But neither Johnson 
 
158 CONVERSATION. 
 
 nor Burke, however tliey migiit rank as powers, was tlie 
 artist that I demanded. Burke vakied not at all the re- 
 putation of a great performer in conversation ; he scarcely 
 contemplated the skill as having a real existence ; and a 
 man will never be an artist who does not value his art, or 
 even recognise it as an object distinctly defined. Johnson, 
 again, relied sturdily upon his natural powers for carrying 
 him aggressively through all conversational occasions or 
 difficulties that English society, from its known character 
 and composition, could be supposed likely to bring forward, 
 without caring for any art or system of rules that might 
 give further'^effect to that power. If a man is strong 
 enough to knock down ninety-nine in a hundred of all 
 antagonists, in spite of any advantages as to pugilistic 
 science, which they may possess over himself, he is not 
 likely to care for the improbable case of a hundredth man 
 appearing with strength equal to his own, superadded to 
 the utmost excess of that artificial skill which is wanting 
 in himself. Against such a contingency it is not worth 
 while going to the cost of a regular pugilistic training. 
 Half a century might not bring up a case of actual call for 
 its application. Or, if it did, for a single extra case of 
 that nature, there would always be a resource in the extra 
 (and, strictly speaking, foul) arts of kicking, scratching, 
 pinching, and tearing hair. 
 
 The conversational powers of Johnson were narrow 
 in compass, however strong within their own essential 
 limits. As a conditio sine qua non, he did not absolutely 
 demand a personal contradictor by way of ^ stoker' to 
 supply fuel and keep up his steam, but he demanded 
 at least a subject teeming with elements of known con- 
 tradictory opinion, whether linked to partisanship or 
 not. His views of all things tended to negation, never to 
 
CONVEESATION. 159 
 
 the positive and tlie creative. Hence may be explained a 
 fact, which cannot have escaped any keen observer of those 
 huge Johnsonian memorabilia which we possess, viz., that 
 the gyration of his flight upon any one question that ever 
 came before him was so exceedingly brief There was no 
 process, no evolution, no movements of self-conflict or pre- 
 paration ; a word, a distinction, a pointed antithesis, and, 
 above all, a new abstraction of the logic involved in some 
 popular fallacy, or doubt, or prejudice, or problem, formed 
 the utmost of his efforts. He dissipated some casual per- 
 plexity that had gathered in the eddies of conversation, but 
 he contributed nothing to any weightier interest ; he un- 
 choked a strangulated sewer in some blind alley, but what 
 river is there that felt his cleansing power '] There is no 
 man that can cite any single error which Dr. Johnson 
 unmasked, or any important truth which he expanded. 
 Nor is this extraordinary. Dr. Johnson had not within 
 himself the fountain of such power, having not a brooding 
 or naturally philosophic intellect. Philosophy in any ac- 
 quired sense he had none. How else could it have happened 
 that, upon David Hartley, upon David Hume, upon Vol- 
 taire, upon Eousseau, the true or the false philosophy of 
 his own day, beyond a personal sneer, founded on some 
 popular slander, he had nothing to say and said nothing 1 
 A new world was moulding itself in Dr. Johnson's meridian 
 hours, new generations were ascending, and " other palms 
 were won." Yet of all this the Doctor suspected nothing. 
 Countrymen and contemporaries of the Doctor's, brilliant 
 men, but (as many think) trifling men, such as Horace 
 Walpole and Lord Chesterfield, already in the middle of 
 that eighteenth century, could read the signs of the great 
 changes advancing, already they started in horror from the 
 portents which rose before them in Paris, like the proces- 
 
160 CONVERSATION. 
 
 sion of regal phantoms before Macbeth, and have left in 
 their letters records ^undeniable (such as now read like 
 Cassandra prophecies) that already they had noticed tremors 
 in the ground below their feet, and sounds in the air, 
 running before the great convulsions under which Europe 
 was destined to rock full thirty years later. Many in- 
 stances, during the last war, showed us that in the frivolous 
 dandy might often lurk the most fiery and accomplished of 
 aides-de-camp ; and these cases show that men, in whom 
 the world sees only elegant roues^ sometimes from careless- 
 ness, sometimes from want of opening for display, conceal 
 qualities of penetrating sagacity, and a learned spirit of 
 observation, such as may be looked for vainly in persons of 
 more solemn and academic pretension. But there was a 
 greater defect in Dr. Johnson for purposes of conversation 
 than merely want of eye for the social phenomena rising 
 around him. He had no eye for such phenomena, because 
 he had a somnolent want of interest in them ; and why ] 
 because he had little interest in man. Having no sympathy 
 with human nature in its struggles, or faith in the progress 
 of man, he could not be supposed to regard with much 
 interest any forerunning symptoms of changes that to him 
 were themselves indifferent. And the reason that he felt 
 thus careless was the desponding taint in his blood. It is 
 good to be of a melancholic temperament, as all the ancient 
 physiologists held, but only if the melancholy is balanced 
 by fiery aspiring qualities, not when it gravitates essentially 
 to the earth. Hence the drooping, desponding character, 
 and the monotony of the estimate which Dr. Johnson 
 applied to life. We were all, in Im view, miserable, scro- 
 fulous wretches; the " strumous diathesis" was developed 
 in our fiesh, or soon would be ; and but for his piety, which 
 was the best indication of some greatness latent within him, 
 

 CONVERSATION. 161 
 
 he would have suggested to all mankind a nobler use for 
 garters than any which regarded knees. In fact I believe, 
 that but for his piety, he would not only have counselled 
 hanging in general, but hanged himself in particular. Now 
 this gloomy temperament, not as an occasional but as a 
 permanent state, is fatal to the power of brilliant conversa- 
 tion, in so far as that power rests upon raising a continual 
 succession of topics, and not merely of using with lifeless | 
 talent the topics offered by others. Man is the central! 
 interest about which revolve all the fleeting phenomena of 
 life ; these secondary interests demand the first ; and with 
 the little knowledge about them which must follow from 
 little care about them, there can be no salient fountain of 
 conversational themes. " Pectus,^ says Quintilian, " id est 
 quod disertum facit ;" — The JieaH (and not the brain) is 
 tlmt which makes a man eloquent. From the heart, from 
 an interest of love or hatred, of hope or care, springs all 
 permanent eloquence ; and the elastic spring of conversation 
 is gone, if the talker is a mere showy man of talent, pulling 
 at an oar which he detests. 
 
 What an index might be drawn up of subjects interest- 
 ing to human nature, and suggested by the events of the 
 Johnsonian period, upon which the Doctor ought to have 
 talked, and must have talked, if his interest in man had 
 been catholic, but on which the Doctor is not recorded to 
 nave uttered one word 1 Visiting Paris once in his whole 
 life, he applied himself diligently to the measuring of what ] 
 Of gilt mouldings and diapered panels ! Yet books, it will 
 be said, suggest topics as well as life, and the moving 
 sceneries of life ; and surely Dr. Johnson had this fund to / 
 draw upon ? No ; for though he had read much in a de- / 
 sultory way, he had studied nothing ;'^ and, without that 
 
 * " Had studied nothing :^^ — It may be doubted whether Dr. 
 
 g2 
 
162 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Bort of systematic reading, it is but a rare chance that 
 books can be brought to bear effectually, and yet indirectly, 
 upon conversation ; whilst to make them directly and 
 formally the subjects of discussion, pre-supposes either a 
 learned audience, or, if the audience is not so, much pe- 
 dantry and much arrogance in the talker. 
 
 The flight of our human hours, not really more rapid at 
 any one moment than another, yet oftentimes to our feelings 
 seems more rapid, and this flight startles us like guilty 
 things with a more affecting sense of its rapidity, when a 
 distant church-clock strikes in the night-time, or when, upon 
 some solemn summer evening, the sun's disc, after settling 
 for a minute with farewell horizontal rays, suddenly drops 
 out of sight. The record of our loss in such a case seems 
 to us the first intimation of its possibility ; as if we could 
 not be made sensible that the hours were perishable until 
 it is announced to us that already they have perished. We 
 feel a perplexity of distress when that which seems to us the 
 crudest of injuries, a robbery committed upon our dearest 
 possession by the conspiracy of the world outside, seems 
 also as in part a robbery sanctioned by our own collusion. 
 The world, and the customs of the world, never cease to 
 
 Jolinson understood any one thing thoroughly, except Latin ; not 
 that he understood even that with the elaborate and circumstantial 
 accuracy required for the editing critically of a Latin classic. But if 
 he had less than that, he also had more : He possessed that language 
 in a way that no extent of mere critical knowledge could confer. He 
 wrote it genially, not as one translating into it painfully from Eng- 
 lish, but as one using it for his original organ of thinking. And in 
 Latin verse he expressed himself at times with the energy and free- 
 dom of a Roman. With Greek his acquaintance was far more slender. 
 
CONVERSATION. 163 
 
 levy taxes upon our time ; that is true, and so far the blame 
 is not ours ; but the particular degree in which we suffer 
 by this robbery depends much upon the weakness with 
 which we ourselves become parties to the wrong, or the 
 energy with which we resist it. Kesisting or not, however, 
 we are doomed to suffer a bitter pang as often as the irre- 
 coverable flight of our time is brought home with keenness 
 to our hearts. The spectacle of a lady floating over the 
 sea in a boat, and waking suddenly from sleep to find her 
 magnificent ropes of pearl-necklace, by some accident de- 
 tached at one end from its fastenings, the loose string hang- 
 ing down into the water, and pearl after pearl slipping off for 
 ever into the abyss, brings before us the sadness of the case. 
 That particular pearl, which at the very moment is rolling 
 off into the unsearchable deeps, carries its own separate re- 
 proach to the lady's heart. But it is more deeply reproachful 
 as the representative of so many others, uncounted pearls, 
 that have already been swallowed up irrecoverably whilst 
 she was yet sleeping, and of many beside that must follow, 
 before any remedy can be applied to what we may call this 
 jewelly haemorrhage. A constant hsemorrhage of the same 
 kind is wasting our jewelly hours. A day has perished 
 from our brief calendar of days : and that we could endure ; 
 but this day is no more than the reiteration of many other 
 days, days counted by thousands, that have perished to the 
 same extent and by the same unhappy means, viz., the evil 
 usages of the world made effectual and ratified by our own 
 Idchete. Bitter is the upbraiding which we seem to hear 
 from a secret monitor — " My friend, you make very free 
 with your days : pray, how many do you expect to have ] 
 What is your rental, as regards the total harvest of days 
 which this life is likely to yield ?" Let us consider. Three- 
 score years and ten produce a total sum of 25,550 days ; 
 
1 6 t CONVERSATION 
 
 to say notliiiig of some seventeen or eighteen more that will 
 be payable to you as a bonus on account of leap years. Now, 
 out of this total, one-third must be deducted at a blow for 
 a single item, viz., sleep. Next, on account of illness, of 
 recreation, and the serious occupations spread over the sur- 
 face of life, it will be little enough to deduct another third. 
 Kecollect also that twenty years will have gone from the 
 earlier end of your life (viz., above seven thousand days) 
 before you can have attained any skill or system, or any 
 definite purpose in the distribution of your time. Lastly, 
 for that single item which, amongst the Roman armies, was 
 indicated by the technical phrase " corpus curare,'' tendance 
 on the animal necessities, viz., eating, drinking, washing, 
 bathing, and exercise, deduct the smallest allowance con- 
 sistent with propriety, and, upon summing up all these 
 appropriations, you will not find so much as four thousand 
 days left disposable for direct intellectual culture. Four 
 thousand, or forty hundreds, will be a hundred forties ; 
 th^,t is, according to the lax Hebrew method of indicating 
 six weeks by the phrase of " forty days," you will have a 
 hundred bills or drafts on Father Time, value six weeks 
 each, as the w^hole period available for intellectual labour. 
 A solid block of about eleven and a half continuous years 
 is all that a long life will furnish for the development of 
 w^hat is most august in man's nature. After tlia% the night 
 comes when no man can work ; brain and arm will be alike 
 unserviceable ; or, if the life should be unusually extended, 
 the vital powers will be drooping as regards all motions in 
 advance. 
 
 Limited thus severely in his direct approaches to know- 
 ledge, and in his approaches to that which is a thousand 
 times more important than knowledge, viz., the conduct and 
 discipline of the knowing faculty, the more clamorous is the 
 
CONVERSATION. 165 
 
 necessity that a wise man sliould turn to account any in- 
 DiPwECT and supplementary means towards the same ends ; 
 and amongst these means a chief one by right and poten- 
 tially is CONVERSATION. Evcn the primary means, books, 
 study, and meditation, through errors from without and 
 errors from within, are not that which they might be made. 
 Too constantly, when reviewing his own efforts for improve- 
 ment, a man has reason to say (indignantly, as one injured 
 by others ; penitentially, as contributing to this injury him- 
 self), ** Much of my studies have been thrown away ; many 
 books which were useless, or worse than useless, I have 
 read ; many books which ought to have been read, I have 
 left unread j such is the sad necessity under the absence of 
 all preconceived plan ; and the proper road is first ascer- 
 tained when the journey is drawing to its close." In a 
 wilderness so vast as that of books, to go astray often and 
 widely is pardonable, because it is inevitable ; and in pro- 
 portion as the errors on this primary field of study have 
 been great, it is important to have reaped some compensa- 
 tory benefits on the secondary field of conversation. Books 
 teach by one machinery, conversation by another ; and, if 
 these resources were trained into correspondence to their 
 own separate ideals, they might become reciprocally the 
 complements of each other. The false selection of books, 
 for instance, might often be rectified at once by the frank 
 collation of experiences which takes place in miscellaneous 
 colloquial intercourse. But other and greater advantages 
 belong to conversation for the effectual promotion of intel- 
 lectual culture. Social discussion supplies the natural in- 
 tegration for the deficiencies of private and sequestered 
 study. Simply to rehearse, simply to express in words 
 amongst familiar friends, one's own intellectual perplexities, 
 is oftentimes to clear them up. It is well knoAvn that the 
 
1 6 15 CONVERSATION. 
 
 I best means of learning is by teaching ; the effort that m 
 I made for others is made eventually for ourselves ; and the 
 readiest method of illuminating obscure conceptions, or 
 maturing such as are crude, lies in an earnest effort to 
 make them apprehensible by others. Even this is but one 
 amongst the functions fulfilled by conversation. Each 
 separate individual in a company is likely to see any pro- 
 blem or idea under some difference of angle. Each may, 
 have some difference of views to contribute, derived either 
 from a different course of reading, or a different tenor of 
 reflection, or perhaps a different train of experience. The 
 advantages of colloquial discussion are not only often com- 
 mensurate in degree to those of study, but they recommend 
 themselves also as being different in kiiid ; they are special 
 and Bui generis. It must, therefore, be important that so 
 great an organ of intellectual development should not be 
 neutralized by mismanagement, as generally it is, or ne- 
 glected through insensibility to its latent capacities. The 
 importance of the subject should be measured by its relation 
 to the interests of the intellect j and on this principle we 
 do not scruple to think that, in reviewing our own expe- 
 rience of the causes most commonly at war with the free 
 movement of conversation as it ought to be, we are in effect 
 contributing hints for a new chapter in any future ' Essay 
 on the Improvement of the Mind.' Watt's book under that 
 title is really of little practical use, nor would it ever have 
 been thought so had it not been patronized, in a spirit of 
 partisanship, by a particular section of religious dissenters. 
 Wherever that happens, the fortune of a book is made ; for 
 the sectarian impulse creates a sensible current in favour of 
 the book ; and the general or neutral reader yields passively 
 to the motion of the current, without knowing or caring to 
 know whence it is derived. 
 
CONVERSATION. 167 
 
 Our remarks must of necessity be cursory here, so that 
 they will not need or permit much preparation ; but one 
 distinction, which is likely to strike on some minds, as to 
 the two dijfferent purposes of conversation, ought to be 
 noticed, since otherwise it will seem doubtful whether we 
 have not confounded them ; or, secondly, if we have not 
 confounded them, which of the two it is that our remarks 
 contemplate. In speaking above of conversation, we have 
 fixed our view on those uses of conversation which are 
 ministerial to intellectual culture ; but, in relation to the 
 majority of men, conversation is far less valuable as an organ 
 of intellectual culture than of social enjoyment. For one 
 man interested in conversation as a means of advancing his 
 studies, there are fifty men whose interest in conversation 
 points exclusively to convivial pleasure. This, as being a 
 more extensive function of conversation, is so far the more 
 dignified function ; whilst, on the other hand, such a purpose 
 as direct mental improvement seems by its superior gravity 
 to challenge the higher rank. Yet, in fact, even here the 
 more general purpose of conversation takes precedency ; for 
 when dedicated to the objects of festal delight, conversation 
 rises by its tendency to the rank of a fine art. It is true 
 that not one man in a million rises to any distinction in 
 this art ; nor, whatever France may conceit of herself, has 
 any one nation, amongst other nations, a real precedency in 
 this art. The artists are rare indeed ; but still the art, as 
 distinguished from the artist, may, by its difficulties, by the 
 quality of its graces, and by the range of its possible bril- 
 liances, take rank as 2^fi7ie art ; or, at all events, according 
 to its powers of execution, it tends to that rank ; whereas 
 the best order of conversation that is simply ministerial to 
 a purpose of use, cannot pretend to a higher name than that 
 of a mechanic art. But these distinctions, though they 
 
168 CONVERSATION. 
 
 \7ould form the grounds of a separate treatment in a regulai 
 treatise on conversation, may be practically neglected on this 
 occasion, because ths hints offered, by the generality of the 
 terms in which they express themselves, may be applied 
 indifferently to either class of conversation. The main 
 diseases, indeed, which obstruct the healthy movement of 
 conversation, recur everywhere ; and alike whether the ob- 
 ject be pleasure or profit in the free interchange of thought, 
 almost universally that free interchange is obstructed in the 
 very same way, by the very same defect of any controlling 
 principle for sustaining the general rights and interests of 
 the company, and by the same vices of self-indulgent indo- 
 lence, or of callous selfishness, or of insolent vanity, in the 
 individual talkers. 
 
 Let us fall back on the recollections of our own experience. 
 In the course of our life we have heard much of what was 
 reputed to be the select conversation of the day, and we 
 have heard many of those who figured at the moment as 
 effective talkers ; yet in mere sincerity, and without a 
 vestige of misanthropic retrospect, we must say, that never 
 once has it happened to us to come away from any display 
 of that nature without intense disappointment ; and it always 
 appeared to us that this failure (which soon ceased to be a 
 disajypointment) was inevitable by a necessity of the case. 
 For here lay the stress of the difficulty : almost all depends 
 in most trials of skill, upon the parity of those who are 
 matched against each other. An ignorant person supposes 
 that, to an able disputant, it must be an advantage to have 
 a feeble opponent ; whereas, on the contrary, it is ruin to 
 him ; for he cannot display his own powers but through 
 something of a corresponding power in the resistance of his 
 antagonist. A brilliant fencer is lost and confounded in 
 playing with a novice ; and the same thing takes place in 
 
CONVERSATION, 1 69 
 
 playing at ball, or battledore, or in dancing, where a power- 
 less partner does not enable jou to shine the more, but 
 reduces you to mere helplessness, and takes the wind alto- 
 gether out of your sails. Now, if by some rare good luck 
 the great talker — the protagonist — of the evening has been 
 provided with a commensurate second, it is just possible that 
 something like a brilliant " passage of arms" may be the 
 result, though much, even in that case, will depend on the 
 chances of the moment for furnishing a fortunate theme ; 
 and even then, amongst the superior part of the company, 
 a feeling of deep vulgarity and of mountebank display is 
 inseparable from such an ostentatious duel of wit. On the 
 other hand, supposing your great talker to be received like 
 any other visitor, and turned loose upon the company, then 
 he must do one of two things ; either he will talk upon 
 outre subjects specially tabooed to his own private use, 
 in which case the great man has the air of a quack-doctor 
 addressing a mob from a street stage ; or else he will talk 
 like ordinary people upon popular topics ; in which case the 
 company, out of natural politeness, that they may not seem 
 to be staring at him as a lion, will hasten to meet him in 
 the same style, the conversation will become general, the 
 great man will seem reasonable and well-bred ; but at the 
 same time we grieve to say it, the great man will have been 
 extinguished by being drawn off from his exclusive ground. 
 The dilemma, in short, is this : if the great talker attempts 
 the plan of showing off by firing cannon-shot when every- 
 body else is content with musketry, then undoubtedly he 
 produces an impression, but at the expense of insulating 
 himself from the sympathies of the company, and standing 
 aloof as a sort of monster hired to play tricks of funambulism 
 for the night. Yet again, if he contents himself with a 
 musket like other people, then for us, from whom he mo- 
 
 XIII. — H 
 
170 CONVERSATION. 
 
 deftly hides his talent under a bushel, in what respect is he 
 different from the man who has no such talent % 
 
 *' If she be not fair to me, 
 What care I how fair she be ?" 
 The reader, therefore, may take it upon the a priori logic 
 of this dilemma, or upon the evidence of our own experi- 
 ence, that all reputation for brilliant talking is a visionary 
 thing, and rests upon a sheer impossibility, viz., upon such 
 a histrionic performance in a state of insulation from the 
 rest of the company as could not be effected, even for a 
 single time, without a rare and difficult collusion, and could 
 not, even for that single time, be endurable to a man of 
 delicate and honourable sensibilities. 
 
 Yet surely Coleridge had such a reputation, and without 
 needing any collusion at all ; for Coleridge, unless he could 
 have all the talk, would have none. But then this was not 
 conversation. It was not colloquium, or talking with the 
 company, but alloquium, or talking to the company. As 
 Madame de Stael observed, Coleridge talked, and could talk, 
 only by monologue. Such a mode of systematic trespass 
 upon the conversational rights of a whole party, gathered 
 together under pretence of amusement, is fatal to every 
 purpose of social intercourse, whether that purpose be con- 
 nected with direct use and the service of the intellect, or 
 with the general graces and amenities of life. The result 
 is the same, under whatever impulse such an outrage is 
 practised ; but the impulse is not always the same ; it 
 varies, and so far the criminal intention varies. In some 
 people this gross excess takes its rise in pure arrogance. 
 They are fully aware of their own intrusion upon the gene- 
 ral privileges of the company ; they are aware of the temper 
 in which it is likely to be received ; but they persist wil- 
 fully in the wrong, as a sort of homage levied compulsorily 
 
CONVEESATION. 171 
 
 upon those who may wish to resist it, but hardly c^n do so 
 without a violent interruption, wearing the same shape of 
 indecorum as that which they resent. In most people, 
 however, it is not arrogance which prompts this capital 
 offence against social rights, but a blind selfishness, yielding 
 passively to its own instincts, without being distinctly aware 
 of the degree in which this self-indulgence trespasses on the 
 rights of others. We see the same temper illustrated at 
 times in travelling ; a brutal person, as we are disposed at 
 first to pronounce him, but more frequently one who yields 
 unconsciously to a lethargy of selfishness, plants himself at 
 the public fireplace, so as to exclude his fellow-travellers 
 from all but a fraction of the warmth. Yet he does not do 
 this in a spirit of wilful aggression upon others ; he has 
 but a glimmering suspicion of the odious shape which his 
 own act assumes to others, for the luxurious torpor of self- 
 indulgence has extended its mists to the energy and clear- 
 ness of his perceptions. Meantime, Coleridge's habit of 
 soliloquizing through a whole evening of four or five hours, 
 had its origin neither in arrogance nor in absolute selfish- 
 ness. The fact was that he could not talk unless he were 
 uninterrupted, and unless he were able to count upon this 
 concession from the compaiiy. It was a silent contract^ 
 between him and his hearers, that nobody should speak but 
 himself. If any man objected to this arrangement, why did 
 he come % For the custom of the place, the lex loci, being 
 notorious, by coming at all he was understood to profess his 
 allegiance to the autocrat who presided. It was not, 
 therefore, by an insolent usurpation that Coleridge persisted 
 in monology through his whole life, but in virtue of a con- 
 cession from the kindness and respect of his friends. You 
 could not be angry with him for using his privilege, for it 
 was a privilege conferred by others, and a privilege which 
 
172 COIs^TEESATION. 
 
 he was ready to resign as soon as any man demurred to 
 it. But though reconciled to it by these considerations, 
 and by the ability with which he used it, you could not but 
 feel that it worked ill for all parties. Himself it tempted 
 oftentimes into pure garrulity of egotism, and the listeners 
 it reduced to a state of debilitated sympathy or of absolute 
 torpor. Prevented by the custom from putting questions, 
 from proposing doubts, from asking for explanations, react- 
 ing by no mode of mental activity, and condemned also to 
 the mental distress of hearing opinions or doctrines stream 
 past them by flights which they must not arrest for a mo- 
 ment, so as even to take a note of them, and which yet 
 they could not often understand, or, seeming to understand, 
 could not always approve, the audience sank at times into 
 a listless condition of inanimate vacuity. To be acted upon 
 for ever, but never to react, is fatal to the very powers by 
 which sympathy must grow, or by which intelligent admi- 
 ration can be evoked. For his own sake, it was Coleridge's 
 interest to have forced his hearers into the active commerce 
 of question and answer, of objection and demur. Not other- 
 wise was it possible that even the attention could be kept 
 from drooping, or the coherency and dependency of the 
 arguments be forced into light. 
 
 The French rarely make a mistake of this nature. The 
 graceful levity of the nation could not easily err in this 
 direction, nor tolerate such deliration in the greatest of men. 
 !N"ot the gay temperament only of the French people, but 
 the particular qualities of the French language, which (how- 
 ever poor for the higher purposes of passion) is rich beyond 
 all others for purposes of social intercourse, prompt them to 
 rapid and vivacious exchange of thought. Tediousness, 
 therefore, above all other vices, finds no countenance or 
 indulgence amongst the French, excepting always in two 
 
CONVERSATION. 173 
 
 memorable cases, viz., first, the case of tragic dialogue on 
 tlie stage, which is privileged to be tedious by usage and 
 tradition ; and, secondly, the case (authorized by the best 
 usages in living society) of narrators or raconteurs. This 
 is a shocking anomaly in the code of French good taste as 
 applied to conversation. Of all the bores whom man in 
 his folly hesitates to hang, and Heaven in its mysterious 
 wisdom suffers to propagate their species, the most insuf- 
 ferable is the teller of "good stories" — a nuisance that 
 should be put down by cudgelling, a submersion in horse- 
 ponds, or any mode of abatement, as summarily as men 
 would combine to suffocate a vampire or a mad dog. This 
 case excepted, however, the French have the keenest pos- 
 sible sense of all that is odious and all that is ludicrous in 
 prosing, and universally have a horror of des longeurs. It 
 is not strange, therefore, that Madame de Stael noticed 
 little as extraordinary in Coleridge beyond this one capital 
 monstrosity of unlimited soliloquy, that being a peculiarity 
 w^hich she never could have witnessed in France ; and, con- 
 sidering the burnish of her French tastes in all that con- 
 cerned colloquial characteristics, it is creditable to her for- 
 bearance that she noticed even this rather as a memorable 
 fact than as the inhuman fault which it was. On the other 
 liand, Coleridge was not so forbearing as regarded the bril- 
 liant French lady. He spoke of her to ourselves as a very 
 frivolous person, and in short summary terms that disdained 
 to linger on a subject so inconsiderable. It is remarkable 
 that Goethe and Schiller both conversed with Madame de 
 Stael, like Coleridge, and both spoke of her afterwards in 
 the same disparaging terms as Coleridge. But it is equally 
 remarkable that Baron William Humboldt, w^ho was per- 
 sonally acquainted with all the four parties — Madame de 
 Stael, Goethe, Schiller, and Coleridge — gave it as his opi- 
 
174 CONVERSATION. 
 
 nion (in letters subsequently published) that the lady had 
 been calumniated through a very ignoble cause, viz., mere 
 ignorance of the French language, or, at least, non-fami- 
 liarity with the fluencies of oral French. Neither Goethe 
 nor Schiller, though well acquainted with written French, 
 had any command of it for purposes of rapid conversation ; 
 and Humboldt supposes that mere spite at the trouble which 
 they found in limping after the lady so as to catch one 
 thought that she uttered, had been the true cause of their 
 unfavourable sentence upon her. Not malice aforethought, 
 so much as vindictive fury for the sufferings they had 
 endured, accounted for their severity in the opinion of the 
 diplomatic baron. He did not extend the same explanation 
 to Coleridge's case, because, though even then in habits of 
 intercourse with Coleridge, he had not heard of his inter- 
 view with the lady, nor of the results from that inter- 
 view ; else what was true of the two German wits was true 
 ci fortiori of Coleridge : the Germans at least read French 
 and talked it slowly, and occasionally understood it when 
 talked by others. But Coleridge did none of these things. 
 We are all of us well aware that Madame de Stael was not 
 a trifler ; nay, that she gave utterance at times to truths 
 as worthy to be held oracular as any that were uttered by 
 the three inspired wits, all philosophers, and bound to 
 truth ; but all poets, and privileged to be wayward. This 
 we may collect from these anecdotes, that people accus- 
 tomed to colloquial despotism, and who wield a sceptre 
 within a circle of their own, are no longer capable of im- 
 partial judgments, and do not accommodate themselves with 
 patience, or even with justice, to the pretensions of rivals ; 
 and were it only for this result of conversational tyranny, 
 it calls clamorously for extinction by some combined action 
 upon the part of society. 
 
CONVERSATION. 175 
 
 Is such a combination on the part of society possible as 
 a sustained effort 1 We imagine that it is in these times, 
 and will be more so in the times which are coming. For- 
 merly the social meetings of men and women, except only 
 in capital cities, were few ; and even in such cities the in- 
 fusion of female influence was not broad and powerful 
 enough for the correction of those great aberrations from 
 just ideals which disfigured social intercourse. But great 
 changes are proceeding : were it only by the vast revolution 
 in our means of intercourse, laying open every village to the 
 contagion of social temptations, the world of western Europe 
 is tending more and more to a mode of living in public. 
 Under such a law of life, conversation becomes a vital in- 
 terest of every hour, that can no more sufier interruption 
 from individual caprice or arrogance than the animal pro- 
 cess of respiration from transient disturbances of health. 
 Once, when travelling was rare, there was no fixed law for 
 the usages of public rooms in inns or coffee-houses ; the 
 courtesy of individuals was the tenure by which men held 
 their rights. If a morose person detained the newspaper 
 for hours, there was no remedy. At present, according to 
 the circumstances of the case, there are strict regulations, 
 which secure to each individual his own share of the com- 
 mon rights. 
 
 A corresponding change will gradually take place in the 
 usages which regulate conversation. It will come to be 
 considered an infringement of the general rights for any 
 man to detain the conversation, or arrest its movement, for 
 more than a short space of time, which gradually wiU be 
 more and more defined. This one curtailment of arrogant 
 pretensions will lead to others. Egotism will no longer 
 freeze the openings to intellectual discussions ; and conver- 
 sation will then become, what it never has been before, a 
 
176 CONVERSATION. 
 
 powerful ally of education and generally of self-culture. 
 The main diseases that besiege conversation at present are 
 — 1st, The want of timing. Those w^ho are not recalled, 
 by a sense of courtesy and equity, to the continual remem- 
 brance that, in appropriating too large a share of the con- 
 versation, they are committing a fraud upon their com- 
 panions, are beyond all control of monitory hints or of reproof, 
 which does not take a direct and open shape of personal 
 remonstrance ; but this, where the purpose of the assembly 
 is festive and convivial, bears too harsh an expression for 
 most people's feelings. That objection, however, would not 
 apply to any mode of admonition that was universally esta- 
 blished. A public memento carries with it no personality. 
 For instance, in the Eoman law-courts, no advocate com- 
 plained of the clepsydra J or water time-piece, which regu- 
 lated the duration of his pleadings. Now such a contriv- 
 ance would not be impracticable at an after-dinner talk. To 
 •invert the clepsydra, when all the water had run out, 
 w^ould be an act open to any one of the guests, and liable 
 to no misconstruction, when this check was generally ap- 
 plied, and understood to be a simple expression of public 
 defence, not of private rudeness or personality. The clep- 
 sydra ought to be filled with some brilliantly-coloured fluid, 
 to be placed in the centre of the table, and with the capa- 
 city, at the very most, of the little minute-glasses used for 
 regulating the boiling of eggs. It would obviously be in- 
 supportably tedious to turn the glass every two or three 
 minutes ; but to do so occasionally would avail as a sufii- 
 cient memento to the company. 2dj Conversation suffers 
 from the want of some discretional power, lodged in an 
 individual for controlling its movements. Very often it 
 sinks into flats of insipidity through mere accident. Some 
 trifle has turned its current upon ground, where few of the 
 
CONVERSATION, 177 
 
 company have anything to say — the commerce of thought 
 languishes ; and the consciousness that it is languishing 
 about a narrow circle, " undo pedem proferre pudor vetat," 
 operates for the general refrigeration of the company. Now 
 the ancient Greeks had an officer appointed over every con- 
 vivial meeting, whose functions applied to all cases of 
 doubt or interruption that could threaten the genial har- 
 mony, or, perhaps, the genial movement intellectually, of 
 the company. We also have such officers, presidents, vice- 
 presidents, &c. ; and we need only to extend their powers 
 so that they may exercise over the movement of the con- 
 versation the beneficial influence of the Athenian symposi- 
 arch. At present the evil is, that conversation has no 
 authorized originator ; it is servile to the accidents of the 
 moment, and generally these accidents are merely verbal. 
 Some word or some name is dropped casually in the course 
 of an illustration ; and that is allowed to suggest a topiq 
 though neither interesting to the majority of the persons 
 present, nor leading naturally into other collateral topics^ 
 that are more so. Now in such cases it will be the busi- 
 ness of the symposiarch to restore the interest of the con- 
 versation, and to rekindle its animation, by recalling it from 
 any tracks of dulness or sterility into which it may have 
 rambled. The natural excursiveness of colloquial inter- 
 course, its tendency to advance by subtle links of associa^ 
 tion, is one of its advantages ; but mere vagrancy from 
 passive acquiescence in the direction given to it by chance 
 or by any verbal accident, is amongst its worst diseases. 
 The business of the symposiarch will be, to watch these 
 morbid tendencies, which are not the deviations of graceful 
 freedom, but the distortions of imbecility and collapse. His 
 business it will also be, to derive occasions of discussion 
 bearing a general and permanent interest from the fleeting 
 
178 CONVEESATION. 
 
 events or the casual disputes of the day. His business 
 again it will be to bring back a subject that has been im- 
 perfectly discussed, and has yielded but half of the interest 
 which it promises, under the interruption of any accident 
 which may have carried the thoughts of the company into 
 less attractive channels. Lastly, it should be an express 
 office of education to form a particular style, cleansed from 
 verbiage, from elaborate parenthesis, and from circumlocu- 
 tion,* as the only style fitted for a purpose which is one of 
 pure enjoyment, and where every moment used by the 
 speaker is deducted from a public stock. 
 
 Many other suggestions for the improvement of conver- 
 sation might be brought forward within ampler limits ; and 
 especially for that class of conversation which moves by 
 discussion, a whole code of regulations might be proposed 
 that would equally promote the interests of the individual 
 speakers, and the public interests of the truth involved in 
 the question discussed. Meantime nobody is more awa.re 
 than we are that no style of conversation is more essentially 
 vulgar than that which moves by disputation. This is the 
 vice of the young and the inexperienced, but especially of 
 those amongst them who are fresh from academic life. But 
 discussion is not necessarily disputation ; and the two 
 orders of conversation — that, on the one hand, which con- 
 templates an interest of knowledge, and of the self-develop- 
 ing intellect ; that, on the other hand, which forms one 
 and the widest amongst the gay embellishments of life — 
 will always advance together. Whatever there may remain 
 of illiberal in the first (for, according to the remark of 
 
 * Circumlocution and parenthesis agree in this — that they keep 
 the attention in a painful condition of suspense. But suspense is 
 anxiety. 
 
CONVEESATION. 179 
 
 Burke, there is always something illiberal in the severer 
 aspects of study until balanced by the influence of social 
 amenities), will correct itself, or will tend to correct itself, 
 by the model held up in the second ; and thus the great 
 organ of social intercourse, by means of speech, which 
 hitherto has done little for man, except through the channel 
 of its ministrations to the direct business of daily necessi- 
 ties, will at length rise into a rivalship with books, and 
 become fixed amongst the alliances of intellectual progress, 
 not less than amongst the ornamental accomplishments of 
 convivial life. 
 
PEESENCE OF MIND: 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 The Eoman formula for summoning an earnest concentra- 
 tion of the faculties upon any object whatever, that happened 
 to be critically urgent, was Hoc age, " Mind this /" or, in 
 other words, do not mind that. The antithetic formula was 
 " aliud agere,'' to mind something alien, or remote from the 
 interest then clamouring for attention. Our modern military 
 orders of ^- Attention /" and " Eyes straight!'''' were both in- 
 cluded in the Hoc age. In the stern peremptoriness of this 
 Eoman formula, we read a picturesque expression of the 
 Roman character both as to its strength and its weakness — 
 of the energy which brooked no faltering or delay (for be- 
 yond all other races the Roman was natus rebus agendis) — 
 and also of the morbid craving for action, which was in- 
 tolerant of anything but the intensely practical. 
 
 In modern times, it is we of the Anglo-Saxon blood, that 
 (s, the British and the Americans of the United States, who 
 inherit the Roman temperament with its vices and its fear- 
 ful advantages of power. In the ancient Roman these vices 
 appeared more barbarously conspicuous. We, the country- 
 men of Lord Bacon and Sir Isaac ISTewton, and at one time 
 the leaders of austere thinking, cannot be supposed to shrink 
 from the speculative through any native incapacity for 
 
PRESENCE OF MIND, 181 
 
 souuding its depths. But the Eoman had a real inaptitude 
 for the speculative ; to him nothing was real that was not 
 practical. He had no metaphysics ; he wanted the meta- 
 physical instinct. It is a strange distinction amongst races 
 and nations, that of men having a literature — the Roman, 
 and the Roman only, had no metaphysics. There was no 
 school of natwe Roman philosophy : the Roman was merely 
 an eclectic or dilettante, picking up the crumbs which fell 
 from Grecian tables ; and even mathematics was so repul- 
 sive in its sublimer aspects to the Roman mind, that the 
 very word MathemMics had in Rome collapsed into another 
 name for the dotages of astrology. The mathematician was, 
 a mere variety of expression for the wizard or the conjuror. 
 
 From this unfavourable aspect of the Roman intellect, it 
 is but justice that we should turn way to contemplate those 
 situations in which that same intellect showed itself preter- 
 naturally strong. To face a sudden danger by a correspond- 
 ing weight of sudden counsel or sudden evasion — that was a 
 privilege essentially lodged in the Roman mind. But in every 
 nation some minds much more than others are representa- 
 tive of the national type ; they are normal minds, reflecting, 
 as in a focus, the characteristics of the race. Thus Louis 
 XIV. has been held to be the idealized expression of the 
 French character ; and amongst the Romans there cannot 
 be a doubt that the first Caesar offers in a rare perfection 
 the revelation of that peculiar grandeur which belonged to 
 the children of Romulus. 
 
 What was that grandeur? "We do not need, in this 
 place, to attempt its analysis. One feature will suffice for 
 our purpose. The late celebrated John Foster, in his essay 
 on Decision of Character, amongst the accidents of life which 
 might serve to strengthen the natural tendencies to such a 
 character, or to promote its development, rightly insists on . 
 
182 PEESENCE OF MIND. 
 
 desertion. To find itself in solitude, and still more to find 
 itself thrown upon that state of abandonment by sudden 
 treachery, crushes the feeble mind, but rouses a terrific re- 
 action of haughty self-assertion in that order of spirits which 
 matches and measures itself against difficulty and danger. 
 There is something corresponding to this case of human 
 treachery in the sudden caprices of fortune. A danger, 
 offering itself unexpectedly in some momentary change of 
 blind external agencies, assumes to the feelings the charac- 
 ter of a perfidy accomplished by mysterious powers, and 
 calls forth something of the same resentment, and in a 
 gladiatorial intellect something of the same spontaneous 
 resistance. A sword that breaks in the very crisis of a 
 duel, a horse killed by a flash of lightning in the moment 
 of collision with the enemy, a bridge carried away by an 
 avalanche at the instant of a commencing retreat, affect the 
 feelings like dramatic incidents emanating from a human 
 will. This man they confound and paralyse, that man they 
 rouse into resistance as by a personal provocation and insult. 
 And if it happens that these opposite effects show them- 
 selves in cases wearing a national importance, they raise 
 what would else have been a mere casualty, into the tragic 
 or the epic grandeur of a fatality. The superb character, 
 for instance, of Csesar's intellect, throws a colossal shadow 
 as of predestination over the most trivial incidents of his 
 career. On the morning of Pharsalia, every man who reads 
 a record of that mighty event feels, by a secret instinct,'^ 
 that an earthquake is approaching which must determine the 
 
 * ^^ Feels by a secret instincts — A sentiment of this nature is 
 finely e-xpressed hy Lucan in the passage heginning, *' Advenisse 
 diem," &c. The circumstance hy which Lucan chiefly defeats the 
 grandeur and s-imphcities of the truth, is the monstrous numerical 
 exaggeration of the combatants and the killed at Pharsalia. 
 
PEESENCE OF MIND, 183 
 
 final distribution of the ground, and tlie relations amongst 
 the whole family of man through a thousand generations. 
 Precisely the inverse case is realized in some modern sec- 
 tions of history, where the feebleness or the inertia of the 
 presiding intellect communicates a character of triviality to 
 events that otherwise are of paramount historical import- 
 ance. In Caesar's case, simply through the perfection of 
 his preparations arrayed against all conceivable contingencieSj 
 there is an impression left as of some incarnate Providence, 
 veiled in a human fonn, ranging through the ranks of the 
 legions ; whilst, on the contrary, in the modern cases to 
 which we allude, a mission, seemingly authorized by in- 
 spiration, is suddenly quenched, like a torch falling into 
 water, by the careless character of the superintending intel- 
 lect. IS'either case is without its appropriate interest. The 
 spectacle of a vast historical dependency, pre-organized by 
 an intellect of unusual grandeur, wears the grace of con- 
 gruity and reciprocal proportion. And, on the other hand, 
 a series of mighty events contingent upon the motion this 
 way or that of a frivolous hand, or suspended on the breath 
 of caprice, suggests the wild and fantastic disproportions of 
 ordinary life, when the mighty masquerade moves on for 
 * ever through successions of the gay and the solemn — of the 
 petty and the majestic. 
 
 Caesar's cast of character owed its impressiveness to the 
 combination which it offered of moral grandeur and monu- 
 mental immobility, such as we see in Marius, with the 
 dazzling intellectual versatility found in the Gracchi, in 
 Sylla, in Catiline, in Antony. The comprehension and the 
 absolute perfection of his prescience did not escape the eye 
 of Lucan, who describes him as " Ml actum reputans, si 
 quid superesset agendum." A fine lambent gleam of his 
 character escapes also in that magnificent fraction of a like, 
 
184 PEESENCE OF MIND. 
 
 where he is described as one incapable of learning the stylo 
 and sentiments suited to a private interest — " Indocilis pri- 
 vata loqui." 
 
 There has been a disposition manifested amongst modern 
 writers to disturb the traditional characters of Caesar and 
 his chief antagonist. Audaciously to disparage Caesar, and 
 without a shadow of any new historic grounds to exalt his 
 feeble competitor, has been adopted as the best chance for 
 filling up the mighty gulf between them. Lord Brougham, 
 for instance, on occasion of a dinner given by the Cinque 
 Ports at Dover to the Duke of Wellington, vainly attempted 
 to raise our countryman by unfounded and romantic depre- 
 ciations of Csesar. He alleged that Caesar had contended 
 only with barbarians. Now, that happens to be the literal 
 truth as regards Pompey. The victories on which his early 
 reputation was built were won from semi-barbarians — luxu- 
 rious, it is true, but also effeminate in a degree never sus- 
 pected at Eome until the next generation. The slight but 
 summary contest of Caesar with Pharnaces, the son of Mith- 
 ridates, dissipated at once the cloud of ignorance in which 
 Rome had been involved on this subject by the vast dis- 
 tance and the total want of familiarity with Oriental 
 habits. But Caesar s chief antagonists, those whom Lord 
 Brougham specially indicated, viz., the Gauls, were not bar- 
 barians. As a military people they were in a stage of civi- 
 lisation next to that of the Romans. They were quite as 
 much agicerris, hardened and seasoned to war, as the chil- 
 dren of Rome. In certain military habits they were even 
 superior. For purposes of war four races were then pre- 
 eminent in Europe, viz., the Romans, the Macedonians, 
 certain select tribes amongst the mixed population of the 
 Spanish peninsula, and finally the Gauls. These were all 
 open to the recruiting-parties of Caesar ; and amongst them 
 
PRESENCE OF MIND. 1 85" 
 
 all he had deliberately assigned his prefereuce to the Gauls. 
 The famous legion, who carried the Alauda (the lark) upon 
 their helmets, was raised in Gaul from Caesar's private 
 funds. They composed a select and favoured division in 
 his army, and, together with the famous tenth legion, con- 
 stituted a third part of his forces — a third numerically on 
 the day oi battle, but virtually a half. Even the rest of 
 Csesar's army had been for so long a space recruited in the 
 Gauls, Transalpine as well as Cisalpine, that at Pharsalia 
 the bulk of his forces is known to have been Gaulish. 
 There were more reasons than one for concealing that fact. 
 The policy of Caesar was, to conceal it not less from Eome 
 than from the army itself. But the truth became known 
 at last to all wary observers. Lord Brougham's objection 
 to the quality of Csesar's enemies falls away at once when 
 it is collated with the deliberate composition of Caesar's 
 own army. Besides that, Caesar's enemies were not in any 
 exclusive sense Gauls. The German tribes, the Spanish, 
 the Helvetian, the Illyrian, Africans of every race, and 
 Moors ; the islanders of the Mediterranean, and the mixed 
 populations of Asia, had all been faced by Caesar. And if 
 it is alleged that the forces of Pompey, however superior in 
 numbers, were at Pharsalia largely composed of an Asiatic 
 rabble, the answer is, that precisely of such a rabble were 
 the hostile armies composed from which he had won his 
 laurels. False and windy reputations are sown thickly in 
 history ; but never was there a reputation more thoroughly 
 histrionic than that of Pompey. The late Dr. Arnold of 
 Rugby, amongst a million of other crotchets, did (it is 
 true) make a pet of Pompey ; and he was encouraged in 
 this caprice (which had for its origin the doctor's political'*' 
 
 * It Is very evident that Dr. Arnold could not have understood the 
 position of politics in Eome, when he allowed himself to make a 
 h2 
 
186 PRESENCE OF MIND. 
 
 animosity to Cassar) by one military critic, viz., Sir William 
 Napier. This distinguislied soldier conveyed messages to 
 Dr. Arnold warning Mm against the popular notion, that 
 Pompey was a poor strategist, Now, had there been any 
 Komaii state-paper office, which Sir William could be sup- 
 posed to have searched and weighed against the statements 
 of surviving history, we might, in deference to Sir William's 
 great experience and talents, have consented to a rehearing 
 of the case. Unfortunately, no new materials have been 
 discovered ; nor is it alleged that the old ones are capable 
 of being thrown into new combinations, so as to reverse 
 or to suspend the old adjudications. The judgment of his- 
 tory stands ; and amongst the records which it involves, 
 none is more striking than this — that, whilst Caesar and 
 
 favourite of Pompey. The doctor hated aristocrats as he hated the 
 gates of Erebus. Now Pompey was not only the leader of a most 
 selfish aristocracy, but also their tool. Secondly, as if this were not 
 bad enough, that section of the aristocracy to which he had dedicated 
 his services was an odious oligarchy ; and to this oligarchy, again, 
 though nominally its head, he was in ejBfect the most submissive of 
 tools. Csesar, on the other hand, if a democrat in the sense of work- 
 ing by democratic agencies, was bending all his efforts to the recon- 
 struction of a new, purer, and enlarged aristocracy, no longer reduced 
 to the necessity of buying and selling the people in mere self-defence. 
 The everlasting war of bribery, operating upon universal poverty, the 
 internal disease of Roman society, would have been redressed by 
 Caesar's measures, and was redressed according to the degree in which 
 those measures were really brought into action. New judicatures 
 were wanted, new judicial laws, a new aristocracy^ by slow degrees a 
 new people, and the right of suffrage exercised within new restric- 
 tions — all these things were needed for the cleansing of Rome ; and 
 that Caesar would have accomplished this labour of Hercules was the 
 true cause of his assassination. The scoundrels of the oligarchy felt 
 their doom to be approaching. It was the just remark of Napoleon, 
 that Brutus (but still more, we may say, Cicero), though falsely ac- 
 credited as a patriot, was, in faot, the most exclusive and the most 
 selfish of aristocrats. 
 
PRESENCE OF MmD. 187 
 
 Poinpey were equally assaulted by sudden surprises, the 
 first invariably met the sudden danger (sudden but never 
 unlooked-for) by counter resources of evasion. He showed 
 a new front as often as his situation exposed a new peril. 
 At Pharsalia, where the cavalry of Pompey was far supe- 
 rior to his own, he anticipated and was in full readiness 
 for the particular manoeuvre by which it was attempted to 
 make this superiority available against himself. By a new 
 formation of his troops he foiled the attack, and caused it 
 to recoil upon the enemy. Had Pompey then no rejoinder 
 ready for meeting this reply ? No. His one arrow being 
 shot, his quiver was exhausted. Without an effort at 
 parrying any longer, the mighty game was surrendered as 
 desperate. " Check to the king ! " was heard in silent sub- 
 mission ; and no further stratagem was invoked, even in 
 silent prayer, but the stratagem of flight. Yet Csesar him- 
 self, objects a celebrated doctor (viz., Bishop Warburton), 
 was reduced by his own rashness at Alexandria to a con- 
 dition of peril and embarrassment not less alarming than 
 the condition of Pompey at Pharsalia. How far this sur- 
 prise might be reconcilable with Caesar's military credit, is 
 a question yet undecided ; but this at least is certain, that 
 he was equal to the occasion ; and, if the surprise was all 
 but fatal, the evasion was all but miraculous. Many were 
 the sudden surprises which Caesar had to face before and 
 after this — on the shores of Britain, at Marseilles, at 
 Munda, at Thapsus — from all of which he issued trium- 
 phantly, failing only as to that final one from which he 
 had in pure nobility of heart announced his determination 
 to shelter himself under no precautions. 
 
 Such cases of personal danger and escape are exciting to 
 the imagination, from the disproportion between the in- 
 terests of an individual and the interests of a whole nation. 
 
188 PRESENCE OF MIND. 
 
 which for the moment happen to be concurrent. The death 
 or the escape of Csesar, at one moment rather than another, 
 would make a difference in the destiny of the human race. 
 And in kind, though not in degree, the same interest has 
 frequently attached to the fortunes of a prince or military 
 leader. Effectually the same dramatic character belongs to 
 any struggle with sudden danger, though not (like Caesar's) 
 successful. That it was not successful, becomes a new 
 reason for pursuing it with interest ; since equally in that 
 result, as in one more triumphant, we read the altered 
 course by which history is henceforward destined to flow. 
 
 For instance, how much depended — ^wliat a weight of 
 history hung in suspense, upon the evasions, or attempts at 
 evasion, of Charles I. He was a prince of great ability ; 
 and yet it confounds us to observe, with how little of fore- 
 sight, or of circumstantial inquiry, either as regarded things 
 or persons, he entered upon these difficult enterprises of 
 escape from the vigilance of military guardians. His first 
 escape, viz., that into the Scottish camp before Newark, 
 was not surrounded with any circumstances of difficulty. 
 His second escape from Hampton Court had become a 
 matter of more urgent policy, and was proportionally more 
 difficult of execution. He was attended on that occasion 
 by two gentlemen (Berkely and Ashburnham), upon whose 
 qualities of courage and readiness, and upon whose acquaint- 
 ance with the accidents, local or personal, that surrounded 
 their path, all was staked. Yet one of these gentlemen 
 was always suspected of treachery, and both were imbecile 
 as regarded that sort of wisdom on which it was possible 
 for a royal person to rely. Had the questions likely to 
 arise been such as belong to a masquerading adventure, 
 these gentlemen might have been qualified for the situation. 
 As it \vas, they sank in mere distraction under the responsi- 
 
PRESENCE OF MIND. 189 
 
 bilities of the occasion. The king was as yet iu safety. 
 At Lord Southampton's country mansion, he enjoyed the 
 protection of a loyal family ready to face any risk in his 
 behalf ; and his retreat was entirely concealed. Suddenly 
 this scene changes. The military commander in the Isle of 
 Wight is gratuitously made acquainted with the king's 
 situation, and brought into his presence, together with a 
 military guard, though no effort had been made to exact 
 securities from his honour in behalf of the king. His 
 single object was evidently to arrest the king. His military 
 honour, his duty to the Parliament, his private interest, all 
 pointed to the same result, viz., the immediate apprehen- 
 sion of the fugitive prince. What was there in the oppo- 
 site scale to set against these notorious motions % Simply 
 the fact that he was nephew to the king's favourite chap- 
 lain, Dr. Hammond. What rational man, in a case of that 
 nature, would have relied upon so poor a trifle ? Yet even 
 this inconsiderable bias was much more than balanced by 
 another of the same kind, but in the opposite direction. 
 Colonel Hammond was nephew to the king's chaplain ; so 
 far but in the meantime he was the husband of Cromwell's 
 niece ; and upon Cromwell privately, and the whole faction 
 of the Independents politically, he relied for all his hopes 
 of advancement. The result was, that, from mere inertia 
 of mind and criminal negligence in his two attendants, the 
 poor king had run right into the custody of the very jailer 
 whom his enemies would have selected by preference. 
 
 Thus, then, from fear of being made a prisoner, Charles 
 had quietly walked into the military rat-trap of Carisbrook 
 Castle. The very security of this prison, however, might 
 throw the governor off his guard. Another escape might 
 be possible ; and again an escape was arranged. It reads 
 like some leaf torn from the records of a lunatic hospital. 
 
190 PRESENCE OF MEND. 
 
 to hear its circinnstances and the particular point upon 
 which it foundered. Charles was to make his exit through 
 a window. This window, however, was fenced by iron 
 bars ; and these bars had been to a certain extent eaten 
 through with aquafortis. The king had succeeded in 
 pushing his head through, and upon that result he relied 
 for his escape ; for he connected this trial with the follow- 
 ing strange maxim or postulate, viz., that wheresoever the 
 head could pass, there the whole person could pass. It needs 
 not to be said, that, in the final experiment, this absurd 
 rule was found not to hold good. The king stuck fast 
 about the chest and shoulders, and was extricated with some 
 difficulty. Had it even been otherwise, the attempt would 
 have failed ; for, on looking down from amidst the iron bars, 
 the kmg beheld, in the imperfect light, a number of people 
 who were not amongst his accomplices. 
 
 Equal in fatuity, almost one hundred and fifty years 
 later, were the several attempts at escape concerted on be- 
 half of the French royal family. The abortive escape to 
 Varennes is now familiarly known to all the world, and 
 impeaches the good sense of the king himself not less than 
 of his friends. The arrangements for the falling in with 
 the cavalry escort could not have been worse managed had 
 they been intrusted to children. But even the general 
 outline of the scheme, an escape in a collective family 
 party — father, mother, children, and servants — and the 
 king himself, whose features, by means of the coinage, were 
 known to millions, not even withdrawing himself from the 
 public gaze at the stations for changing horses — all this is 
 calculated to perplex and sadden the pitying reader with 
 the idea that some supernatural infatuation had bewildered 
 the predestined victims. Meantime an earlier escape than 
 this to Yarennes had been planned, viz., to Brussels. The 
 
PEESENCE OF MIND. 191 
 
 preparations for this, which have been narrated by Madame 
 de Campan, were conducted with a disregard of conceal- 
 ment even more astounding to people of ordinary good 
 sense. " Do you really need to escape at all V would 
 have been the question of many a lunatic ; "If you do, 
 surely you need also to disguise your preparations for 
 escape." 
 
 But alike the madness or the providential wisdom of 
 such attempts commands our profoundest interest ; alike — 
 whether conducted by a Caesar, or by the helpless members 
 of families utterly unfitted to act independently for them- 
 selves. These attempts belong to history, and it is in that 
 relation that they become philosophically so impressive. 
 Generations through an infinite series are contemplated by 
 us as silently awaiting the turning of a sentinel round a 
 corner, or the casual echo of a footstep. Dynasties have 
 trepidated on the chances of a sudden cry from an infant 
 carried in a basket ; and the safety of empires has been 
 suspended, like the descent of an avalanche, upon the 
 moment earlier or the moment later of a cough or a 
 sneeze. And, high. above all, ascends solemnly the philo- 
 sopMc truth, that the least things and the greatest are 
 bound together as elements equally essential of the mysteri- 
 ous universe. 
 
ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE 
 
 IN MACBETH. 
 
 Feom my boyish days I had always felt a great per- 
 plexity on one point in Macbeth. It was this : the 
 knocking at the gate, which succeeds to the murder of 
 Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I 
 never could account. The effect was, that it reflected 
 back upon the murderer a peculiar awfulness and a depth 
 of solemnity ; yet, however obstinately I endeavoured with 
 my understanding to comprehend this, for many years I 
 never could see why it should produce such an effect. 
 
 Here I pause for one moment, to exhort the reader 
 never to pay any attention to his understanding, when it 
 stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. 
 The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, 
 is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most to 
 be distrusted ; and yet the great majority of people trust 
 to nothing else, which may do for ordinary life, but not 
 for philosophical purposes. Of this out of ten thousand 
 instances that I might produce, I will cite one. Ask of 
 any person whatsoever, w^ho is not previously prepared for 
 the demand by a knowledge of the perspective, to draw in 
 the rudest way the commonest appearance which depends 
 
MACBETH. 193 
 
 upon the laws of that science ; as, for instance, to represent 
 the effect of two walls standing at right angles to each 
 other, or the appearance of the houses on each side of a 
 street, as seen by a person looking down the street from 
 one extremity. Now in all cases, unless the person has 
 happened to observe in pictures how it is that artists pro- 
 duce these effects, he will be utterly unable to make the 
 smallest approximation to it. Yet why ? For he has 
 actually seen the effect every day of his life. The reason 
 is — that he allows his understanding to overrule his eyes. 
 His understanding, which includes no intuitive knowledge 
 of the laws of vision, can furnish him with no reason why 
 a line which is known and can be proved to be a horizontal 
 line, should not appear a horizontal line ; a line that made 
 any angle with the perpendicular, less than a right angle, 
 would seem to him to indicate that his houses were all 
 tumbling down together. Accordingly, he makes the line 
 of his houses a horizontal line, and fails, of course, to pro- • 
 duce the effect demanded. Here, then, is one instance out 
 of many, in which not only the understanding is allowed 
 to overrule the eyes, but where the imderstanding is posi- 
 tively allowed to obliterate the eyes, as it were ; for not 
 only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding 
 in opposition to that of his eyes, but (what is monstrous !) 
 the idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. 
 He does not know that he has seen (and therefore quoad 
 his consciousness has not seen) that which he has seen 
 every day of his life. 
 
 But to return from this digression, my understanding 
 could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in 
 Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In 
 fact, my understanding said positively that ijb could not 
 produce any effect. But I knew better; I felt that it 
 
 XIII. — I 
 
194 MACBETH. 
 
 did ; and I waited and clung to the problem until further 
 knowledge should enable me to solve it. At length, in 
 1812, Mr. Williams made his debut on the stage of Kat- 
 cliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleled murders 
 which have procured for him such a brilliant and undying 
 reputation. On "which murders, by the way, I must 
 observe, that in one respect they have had an ill effect, by 
 making the connoisseur in murder very fastidious in his 
 taste, and dissatisfied by anything that has been since done 
 in that line. All other murders look pale by the deep 
 crimson of his ; and, as an amateur once said to me in a 
 querulous tone, " There has been absolutely nothing doinc/ 
 since his time, or nothing that's worth speaking of." But 
 this is wrong ; for it is unreasonable to expect all men to 
 be great artists, and born with the genius of Mr. Williams. 
 Now it will be remembered, that in the first of these mur- 
 ders (that of the Marrs), the same incident (of a knocking 
 at the door, soon after the work of extermination was com- 
 plete) did actually occur, which the genius of Shakspere 
 has invented ; and all good judges, and the most eminent 
 dilettanti, acknowledged the felicity of Shakspere's sugges- 
 tion, as soon as it was actually realized. Here, then, was 
 a fresh proof that I was right in relying on my own feeling, 
 in opposition to my understanding ; and I again set myself 
 to study the problem ; at length I solved it to my own 
 satisfaction, and my solution is this. Murder, in ordinary 
 cases, where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case 
 of the murdered person, is an incident of coarse and 
 vulgar horror ; and for this reason, that it flirgs the 
 interest exclusively upon the natural but ignoble instinct 
 by which we cleave to life ; an instinct which, as being 
 indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is the 
 same in kind (though different in degree) amongst all 
 
MACBETH. 195 
 
 living creatures : this instinct, tlierefore, because it anni- 
 hilates all distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to 
 the level of " the poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits 
 human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. 
 Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. 
 What then must he do 1 He must throw the interest 
 on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him (of 
 course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy 
 by which we enter into his feelings, and are made to un- 
 derstand them, — not a sympathy of pity or approbation*). 
 In the murdered person, all strife of thought, all flux and 
 reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by one over- 
 whelming panic ; the fear of instant death smites him 
 " with its petrific mace." But in the murderer, such a 
 murderer as a poet will condescend to, there must be 
 raging some great storm of passion — jealousy, ambition, 
 vengeance, hatred — ^which will create a hell within him ; 
 and into this hell we are to look. 
 
 In Macbeth, for the sake of gxatifying his own enormous 
 and teeming faculty of creation, Shakspere has introduced 
 two murderers : and, as usual in his hands, they are re 
 markably discriminated : but, though in Macbeth the strife 
 of mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not so 
 awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from 
 her, — yet, as both were finally involved in the guilt of 
 
 * It seems almost ludicrous to guard and explain my use of a 
 word, in a situation where it would naturally explain itself. But it 
 has become necessary to do so, in consequence of the unscholarlikc 
 use of the word sympathy, at present so general, by whicl^, instead 
 of taking it in its proper sense, as the act of reproducing in our 
 minds the feelings of another, whether for hatred, indignation, love, 
 pity, or approbation, it is made a mere synonyme of the word pity; 
 and hence, instead of saying '' sympathy w;z'^A another," many wiiters 
 adopt tho monstrous barbarism of ** sympathy /or anotter." 
 
196 MACBETH. 
 
 murder, the murderous mind ef necessity is finally to Le 
 presumed in both. This was to be expressed ; and on its 
 own account, as well as to make it a more proportionable 
 antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, " the 
 gracious Duncan." and adequately to expound " the deep 
 damnation of his taking off," this was to be expressed with 
 peculiar energy. We were to be made to feel that the 
 human nature, i.e., the divine nature of love and mercy, 
 spread through the hearts of all creatures, and seldom utterly 
 withdrawn from man — was gone, vanished, extinct ; and 
 that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this 
 effect is marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and 
 soliloquies themselves, so it is finally consummated by the 
 expedient under consideration ; and it is to this that I now 
 solicit the reader s attention. If the reader has ever wit- 
 nessed a wife, daughter, or sister in a fainting fit, he may 
 chance to have observed that the most afi'ecting moment in 
 such a spectacle is that in which a sigh and a stirring 
 announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, if 
 the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis, on 
 the day when some great national idol was carried in 
 funeral pomp to his grave, and chancing to walk near the 
 course through which it passed, has felt powerfully in the 
 silence and desertion of the streets, and in the stagnation 
 of ordinary business, the deep interest which at that moment 
 was possessing the heart of man — if all at once he should 
 hear the death-like stillness broken up by the sound of 
 wheels rattling away from the scene, and making known 
 that the transitory vision was dissolved, he will be aware 
 thatat no moment was his sense of the complete suspension 
 and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and affecting, 
 as at that moment when the suspension ceases, and the 
 goings-on of human life are suddenly resumed. All action 
 
MACBETH. 1 97 
 
 in any direction is best expounded, measured, and made 
 apprehensible, by reaction.] Now apply this to the case in 
 Macbeth. Here, as I have said, the retiring of the human 
 heart, and the entrance of the fiendish heart was to be ex- 
 pressed and made sensible. Another world has stept in ; 
 and the murderers are taken out of the region of human 
 things, human purposes, human desires. They are trans- 
 figured : Lady Macbeth is " unsexed ; " Macbeth has forgot 
 that he was bom of woman ; both are conformed to the 
 image of devils ; and the world of devils is suddenly re- 
 vealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable ? 
 In order that a new world may step in, this world must for 
 a time disappear. The murderers, and the murder must be 
 insulated — cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordi- 
 nary tide and succession of human affairs — locked up and 
 sequestered in some deep recess ; we must be made sensible 
 that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested — ^laid 
 asleep — tranced — racked into a dread armistice ; time must 
 be annihilated ; relation to things without abolished ; and 
 all must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and sus- 
 pension of earthly passion. Hence it is, that when the 
 deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then 
 the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the 
 clouds : the knocking at the gate is heard ; and it makcd 
 known audibly that the reaction has commenced ; the 
 human has made its reflux upon the fiendish ; the pulses 
 of life are beginning to beat again ; and the re-establish- 
 ment of the goings-on of the world in which we live, first 
 makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that 
 had suspended them. 
 
 mighty poet ! Thy works are not as those of other 
 men, simply and merely great works of art ; but are also 
 like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the 
 
198 MACBETH. 
 
 stars and the flowers ; like frost and snow, rain and dew, 
 liail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with enthe 
 submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith 
 that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing 
 useless or inert — but that, the farther we press in our dis- 
 coveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self- 
 supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen 
 nothin'^r but accident ! 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES 
 
 AS EEPRESENTED ON THE EDINBUKGH STAGE. 
 
 EvEEYTHiNG in OUT days is new. Roads, for instance, 
 which, being formerly " of the earth, earthy," and therefore 
 perishable, are now iron, and next door to being immortal ; 
 tragedies, which are so entirely new, that neither we nor 
 our fathers, through eighteen hundred and ninety odd years, 
 gone by, since Caesar did our little island the honour to sit 
 upon its skirts, have ever seen the like to this " Antigone ;" 
 and, finally, even more new are readers, who, being once an 
 obedient race of men, most humble and deferential in the 
 presence of a Greek scholar, are now become intractably 
 mutinous ; keep their hats on whilst he is addressing them ; 
 and listen to him or not, as he seems to talk sense or non- 
 sense. Some there are, however, who look upon all these 
 new things as being intensely old. Yet, surely the rail- 
 roads are new 1 No ; not at all. Talus, the iron man in 
 Spenser, w^ho continually ran round the island of Crete, 
 administering gentle warning and correction to offenders, 
 by flooring them with an iron flail, was a very ancient 
 personage in Greek fable ; and the received opinion is, that 
 he must have been a Cretan railroad, called The Great 
 Circular Coast-Line, that carried my lords the judges on 
 
200 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 their circuits of jail-delivery. The " Antigone," again, 
 that wears the freshness of morning dew, and is so fresh 
 and dewy in the beautiful person of Miss Faucit, had really 
 begun to look faded on the Athenian stage, and even " of 
 a certain age," about the death of Pericles, whose meridian 
 year was the year 444 before Christ. Lastly, these modern 
 readers, that are so obstinately rebellious to the once Papal 
 authority of Greek, they — No ; on consideration, they are 
 new. Antiquity produced many monsters, but none like 
 them. 
 
 The truth is, that this vast multiplication of readers, 
 within the last twenty-five years, has changed the prevail- 
 ing character of readers. The minority has become the 
 overwhelming majority : the quantity has disturbed the 
 quality. Formerly, out of every five readers, at least four 
 were, in some degree, classical scholars : or, if that would 
 be saying too much, if two of the four had " small Latin 
 and less Greek," they were generally connected with those 
 who had more, or at the worst, who had much reverence for 
 Latin, and more reverence for Greek. If they did not all 
 share in the services of the temple, all at least shared in 
 the superstition. But, now-a-days, the readers com.e chiefly 
 from a class of busy people who care very little for ances- 
 tral crazes. Latin they have heard of, and some of them 
 know it as a good sort of industrious language, that even, 
 in modern times, has turned out many useful books, astro- 
 nomical, medical, philosophical, and (as Mrs. Malaprop 
 observes) diabolical ; but, as to Greek, they think of it as 
 of an ancient mummy : you spend an infinity of time in 
 unswathing it from its old dusty wrappers, and when you 
 have come to the end, what do you find for your pains ? 
 A woman's face, or a baby's, that certainly is not the better 
 for being 3000 yefa\s old ; and perhaps a few ears of wheat. 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPnOCLE5. '20l 
 
 fituleu fiom Pharaoh's granary ; which wheat, when sown* 
 in Norfolk or Mid-Lothian, reaped, thrashed, ground, baked, 
 and hunted through all sorts of tortures, yields a breakfast 
 roll that (as a Scottish baker observed to me) is " not just 
 that bad," Certainly not : not exactly " tJiat bad j" not 
 worse than the worst of our own ; but still, much fitter for 
 Pharaoh's breakfast-table than for ours. 
 
 L for my own part, stand upon an isthmus, connecting 
 me, at one terminus, with the rebels against Greek, and, at 
 the other, with those against whom they are in rebellion ; on 
 the one hand, it seems shocking to me, who am steeped to the 
 iips in antique prejudices, that Greek, in unlimited quantities, 
 should not secure a limited privilege of talking nonsense. 
 Is all reverence extinct for old and ivy-mantled and worm- 
 eaten things ? Surely, if your own grandmother lectures on 
 morals, which perhaps now and then she does, she will 
 command that reverence from you, by means of her grand- 
 motherhood, which by means of her ethics she might not. 
 To be a good Grecian, is now to be a faded potentate ; a 
 sort of phantom Mogul, sitting at Delhi, with an English 
 sepoy bestriding his shoulders. Matched against the master 
 of ologies, in OUr days the most accomplished of Grecians is 
 becoming what the " master of sentences" had become 
 long since, in competition with the political economist. 
 Yet, be assured, reader, that all the " ologies" hitherto 
 christened oology, ichthyology, ornithology, conchology, 
 palseodontology, &c., do not furnish such mines of labour 
 as does the Greek language when thoroughly searched. 
 The " Mithridates" of Adelung, improved by the commen- 
 taries of Vater and of subsequent authors, numbers up 
 about 4000 languages and jargons on our polyglot earth ; 
 
 * " When sown;^^ as it has been repeatedly ; a fact which some 
 readers may not be aware of. 
 
202 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 nob including the chuckling of poultry, nor caterwauling, 
 nor barking, howling, braying, lowing, nor other respect- 
 able and ancient dialects, that perhaps have their ele- 
 gant and their vulgar varieties, as well as prouder forms 
 of communication. But my impression is, that the Greek, 
 taken by itself, this one exquisite language, considered as 
 a quarry of iritellectual labour, has more work in it, is 
 more truly a piece de resistance, than all the remaining 
 3999, with caterwauling thrown into the bargain. So far 
 I side with the Grecian, and think ihat he ought to be 
 honoured wdth a little genuflexion. Yet, on the other hand, 
 the finest sound on this earth, and which rises like an 
 orchestra, above all the uproars of earth and the Babels of 
 earthly languages, is truth — absolute truth ; and the hate- 
 fulest is conscious falsehood. Now, there is falsehood, nay 
 (which seems strange), even sycophancy, in the old un- 
 distinguishing homage to all that is called classical. Yet 
 why should men be sycophants in cases where they must 
 be disinterested *? Sycophancy grows out of fear, or out of 
 mercenary self-interest. But what can there exist of 
 either pointing to an old Greek poet 1 Cannot a man 
 give his free opinion upon Homer, without fearing to be 
 waylaid by his ghost ? But it is not that which startles 
 him from publishing the secret demur which his heart 
 prompts, upon hearing false praises of a Greek poet, 
 or praises which, if not false, are extravagant. What 
 he fears, is the scorn of his contemporaries. Let once 
 a party have formed itself, considerable enough to protect 
 a man from the charge of presumption in throwing off the 
 yoke of servile allegiance to all that is called classical, — 
 let it be a party ever so small numerically, and the rebels 
 will soon be many. What a man fears is, to affront the 
 whole storm of indignation, real and affected, in his own 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 203 
 
 solitary person. " Goth !" " Vandal !" he hears from every 
 side. Break that storm by dividing it, and he will face 
 its anger. " Let me be a Goth," he mutters to himself, 
 " but let me not dishonour myself by affecting an enthu- 
 siasm which my heart rejects !" 
 
 Ever since the restoration of letters there has been a 
 cabal, an academic interest, a factious league . amongst 
 universities, and learned bodies, and individual scholars, 
 for exalting as something superterrestrial, and quite unap • 
 proachable by moderns, the monuments of Greek literature. 
 France, in the time of Louis xiv., England, in the latter 
 part of that time ; in fact, each country as it grew polished 
 at some cost of strength, carried this craze to a dangerous 
 ex/x5ss — dangerous a^ ail things false are dangerous, and 
 depressing to the aspirations of genius. Boileau, for in- 
 stance, and Addison, though neither of them accomplished 
 in scholarship,'"* nor either of them extensively read in any 
 department of the classic literature, speak everywhere of 
 the classics as having notoriously, and by the general con- 
 fession of polished nations, carried the functions of poetry 
 and eloquence to that sort of faultless beauty which prob- 
 ably does really exist in the Greek sculpture. There are 
 few things perfect in this world of frailty. Even lightning 
 is sometimes a failure : Niagara has horrible faults ; and 
 Mont Blanc might be improved by a century of chiselling 
 from judicious artists. Such are the works of blind ele- 
 ments, which (poor things !) cannot improve by experience. 
 As to man who does^ the sculpture of the Greeks in their 
 marbles and sometimes in their gems, seems the only act of 
 
 * Boileau, it is true, translated Longinus. But there goes little 
 Greek to tliat. It is ia dealing with Attic Greek, and Attic jioetSf 
 thut a man can manifest his Grecian skill. 
 
604 O^SE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 his workmanship which has hit the bull's eye in the target 
 at which we are all aiming. Not so, with permission from 
 Messrs. Boileau and Addison, the Greek literature. The 
 faults in this are often conspicuous j nor are they likely to 
 be hidden for the coming century, as they have been for the 
 three last. The idolatry will be shaken : as idols, some of 
 the classic models are destined to totter ; and I foresee, 
 without gifts of prophecy, that many labourers will soon be 
 in this field — many idoloclasts, who will expose the signs 
 of disease, which zealots had interpreted as power ; and of 
 weakness, which is not the less real because scholars had 
 fancied it health, nor the less injurious to the total effect 
 because it was inevitable under the accidents of the Grecian 
 position. 
 
 Meantime, I repeat, that to disparage anything whatever, 
 or to turn the eye upon blemishes, is no part of my present 
 purpose. Nor could it be : since the one sole section of 
 the Greek literature, as to which I profess myself an enthu- 
 siast, happens to be the tragic drama ; and here, only, I 
 myself am liable to be challenged as an idolater. As regards 
 the Antigone in particular, so profoundly do I feel the im- 
 passioned beauty of her situation in connexion with her 
 character, that long ago, in a work of my own (yet unpub- 
 lished), having occasion (by way of overture introducing one 
 of the sections) to cite before the reader's eye the chief 
 pomps of the Grecian theatre, after invoking <* the magnifi- 
 cent witch" Medea, I call up Antigone to this shadowy 
 stage by the apostrophe, " Holy heathen, daughter of God, 
 before God was known,* flower from Paradise after Para- 
 dise was closed ; that quitting all things for which flesh 
 hmguishes, safety and honour, a palace and a home, didst 
 
 * " Before God was Jcnown;'' — i.e., known in Greece. 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. ^05 
 
 make thyself a houseless pariah, lest the poor pariah king, 
 thy outcast father, should want a hand to lead him in his 
 darkness, or a voice to whisper comfort in his misery ; 
 angel, that badst depart for ever the glories of thy own 
 bridal day, lest he that had shared thy nursery in childhood 
 should want the honours of a funeral ; idolatrous, yet 
 Christian Lady, that in tjie spirit of martyrdom trodst alone 
 the yawning billows of the grave, flying from earthly hopes, 
 lest everlasting despair should settle upon the grave of thy 
 brother," &c. In fact, though all the groupings, and what 
 I would call permanent attitudes of the Grecian stage, are 
 majestic, there is none that, to my mind, towers into such 
 affecting grandeur as this final revelation, through Antigone 
 herself, and through her own dreadful death, of the tremen- 
 dous wo that destji^y had suspended over her house. If 
 therefore my business had been chiefly with the individual 
 di'ama, I should have found little room for any sentiment 
 but that of profound admiration. But my present business 
 is different ; it concerns the Greek drama generally, and the 
 attempt to revive it ; aud its object is to elucidate, rather 
 than to praise or to blame. To explain this better, I will 
 describe two things : — 1st, The sort of audience that I sup- 
 pose myself to be addressing ; and, 2dlp, As growing out 
 of that, the particular quality of the explanations which I 
 wish to make. 
 
 1st, As to the audience : In order to excuse the tone 
 (which occasionally I may be obliged to assume) of one 
 speaking as from a station of knowledge, to others having 
 no knowledge, I beg it to be understood, that I take that 
 station deliberately, on no conceit of superiority to my 
 readers, but as a companion adapting my services to the 
 wants of those who need them. I am not addressing those 
 already familiar v*^ith the Greek drama, but those who 
 
206 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 frankly confess, and (according to their conjecitural appre- 
 ciation of it) who regret their non- familiarity with that 
 drama. It is a thing well known to publishers, through 
 remarkable results, and is now showing itself on a scale 
 continually widening, that a new literary public has arisen, 
 very different from any which existed at the beginning of 
 this century. The aristocracy of the land have always 
 been, in a moderate degree, literary ; less, however, in 
 connexion with the current literature, than with literature 
 generally — past as well as present. And this is a tendency 
 naturally favoured and strengthened in them, by the fine 
 collections of books, carried forward through successive 
 generations, which are so often found as a sort of heredi- 
 tary foundation in the country mansions of our nobility. 
 But a class of readers, prodigiously more extensive, has 
 formed itself within the commercial orders of our great 
 cities and manufacturing districts. These orders range 
 through a large scale. The highest classes amongst them 
 were always literary. But the interest of literature has 
 now swept downwards through a vast compass of descents : 
 and this large body, though the busiest in the nation, yet, 
 by having under their undisturbed command such leisure 
 time as they have at all under their command, are eventu- 
 ally able to read more than those even who seem to have 
 nothing else but leisure. In justice, however, to the nobility 
 of our land, it should be remembered, that their stations 
 in society, and their wealth, their territorial duties, and 
 their various public duties in London, as at court, at public 
 meetings, in Parliament, &c., bring crowded claims upon 
 their time ; whilst even sacrifices of time to the graceful 
 courtesies of life are, in reference to their stations, a sort of 
 secondary duties. These allowances made, it still remains 
 true that the busier classes are the main reading classv*s j 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 207 
 
 whilst from their immense numbers, they are becoming 
 effectually the body that will more and more impress upon 
 the moving literature its main impulse and direction. One 
 other feature of difference there is amongst this commercial 
 class of readers : amongst the aristocracy all are thoroughly 
 educated, excepting those who go at an early age into the 
 army ; of the commercial body, none receive an elaborate, 
 and what is meant by a liberal education, except those 
 standing by their connexions in the richest classes. Thus 
 it happens that, amongst those who have not inherited but 
 achieved their stations, many men of fine and powerful 
 understandings, accomplished in manners, and admirably 
 informed, not having had the benefits when young of a 
 regular classical education, find (upon any accident bringing 
 up such subjects) a deficiency which they do not find on 
 other subjects. They are too honourable to undervalue ad- 
 vantages, which they feel to be considerable, simply because 
 they were denied to themselves. They regret their loss. 
 And yet ib seems hardly worth while, on a simple prospect 
 of contingencies that may never be realized, to undertake 
 an entirely new course of study for redressing this loss. 
 But they would be glad to avail themselves of any useful 
 information not exacting study. These are the persons, 
 this is the class, to which I address my remarks on the 
 "Antigone ;" and out of their particular situation, suggest- 
 ing upon all elevated subjects a corresponding tone of liberal 
 curiosity, will arise the particular nature and direction of 
 these remarks. 
 
 Accordingly, I presume, secondly, that this curiosity will 
 take the follovvdng course : These persons will naturally 
 wish to know, at starting, what there is differentially in- 
 teresting in a Grecian tragedy, as contrasted with one of 
 Shakspere's or of Schiller's : in what respect^ and by what 
 
208 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 agencies, a Greek tragedy affects us, or is meant to affe(*t 
 us, otherwise than as they do ; and how far the Antigone 
 of Sophocles was judiciously chosen as the particular 
 medium for conveying to British minds a first impression, 
 and a representative impression, of Greek tragedy. So far, 
 in relation to the ends proposed, and the means selected. 
 Finally^ these persons will be curious to know the issue of 
 such an experiment. Let the purposes and the means have 
 been bad or good, what was the actual success ? And not 
 merely success, in the sense of the momentary acceptance 
 by half a dozen audiences, whom the mere decencies of jus- 
 tice must have compelled to acknowledge the manager's 
 trouble and expense on their behalf ; but what was the 
 degree of satisfaction felt by students of the Athenian* 
 tragedy, in relation to their long-cherished ideal ] Did the 
 representation succeed in realizing, for a moment, the awful 
 pageant of the Athenian stage ] Did Tragedy, in Milton's 
 immortal expression,— 
 
 " Come sweeping by 
 In sceptred pall ? " 
 
 Or was the whole, though successful in relation to the 
 thing attempted, a failure in relation to what ought to 
 have been attempted % Such are the quesrions to be 
 answered. 
 
 The first elementary idea of a Greek tragedy, is to be 
 
 * At times, I say pointedly, the Athenian rather than the Grecian 
 tragedy, in order to keep the reader's attention awake to a remark 
 made by Paterculus, — viz.. That although Greece coquettishly wel- 
 comed homage to herself, as generally concerned in the Greek liti ?a- 
 ture, in reality Athens only had any original share in the drama, >x 
 in the oratory of Greece. 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 209 
 
 souglit in a serious Italian opera. The Greek dialogue is 
 represented by the recitative, and the tumultuous lyrical 
 parts assigned chiefly, though not exclusively, to the chorus 
 on the Greek stage, are represented by the impassioned airs, 
 duos, trios, choruses, &c., on the Italian. And here, at the 
 very outset, occurs a question which lies at the threshold of 
 a Fine Art, — that is, of any Fine Art : for had the views 
 of Addison upon the Italian opera had the least foundation 
 in truth, there could have been no room or opening for 
 any mode of imitation except such as belongs to a mechanic 
 art. 
 
 The reason for at all connecting Addison with this case 
 is, that he chiefly was the person occupied in assailing the 
 Italian opera ; and this hostility arose, probably, in his 
 want of sensibility to good (that is, to Italian) music. But 
 whatever might be his motive for the hostility, the single 
 argument by which he supported it was this, — that a hero 
 ought not to sing upon the stage, because no hero known 
 to history ever summoned a garrison in a song, or charged 
 a battery in a semichorus. In this argument lies an igno- 
 rance of the very first principle concerned in every Fine 
 Art. In all alike, more or less directly, the object is to 
 reproduce in the mind some great effect, through the 
 agency of idem in alio. The idem, the same impression, 
 is to be restored ; but in alio, in a different material, — by 
 means of some different instrument. For instance, on the 
 Koman stage there was an art, now entirely lost, of narrat- 
 ing, and in part of dramatically representing an impassioned 
 tale, by means of dancing, of musical accompaniment in the 
 orchestra, and of elaborate pantomime in the performer. 
 Saltavit Hypermnestram, he danced (that is, he represented 
 by dancing and pantomime the story of) Hypermnestra. 
 Jl^ow, suppose a man to object, that young ladies, when 
 I 2 
 
210 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 saving tlieir youthful husbands at midnight from assassina- 
 tion, could not be capable of waltzing or quadrilling, how 
 wide is this of the whole problem 1 This is still seeking 
 for the mechanic imitation, some imitation founded in the 
 very fact ; whereas the object is to seek the imitation in 
 the sameness of the impression drawn from a different, or 
 even from an impossible fact. If a man, taking a hint 
 from the Roman " Saltatio" (saltavit Andromachen), should 
 say that he would " whistle Waterloo," that is, by whistling 
 connected with pantomime, would express the passion and 
 the charges of Waterloo, it would be monstrous to refuse him 
 his postulate on the pretence that " people did not whistle 
 at Waterloo." Precisely so : neither are most people made 
 of marble, but of a material as different as can well be 
 imagined, viz., of elastic flesh, with warm blood coursing 
 along its tubes ; and yet, for all that^ a sculptor will draw 
 tears from you, by exhibiting, in pure statuary marble, on 
 a sepulchral monument, two young children with their little 
 heads on a pillow, sleeping in each other's arms ; whereas, 
 if he had presented them in wax-work, which yet is far 
 more like to flesh, you would have felt little more pathos in 
 the scene than if they had been shown baked in gilt ginger- 
 bread. He has expressed the idem^ the identical thing ex- 
 pressed in the real children ; the sleep that masks death, 
 the rest, the peace, the purity, the innocence ; but in alio, 
 in a substance the most diflerent ; rigid, non-elastic, and as 
 unlike to flesh, if tried by touch, or eye, or by experience 
 of life, as can well be imagined. So of the whistling. It 
 is the very worst objection in the world to say, that the 
 strife of Waterloo did not reveal itself through whistling : 
 undoubtedly it did not ; but that is the very ground of the 
 man's art. He will reproduce the fury and the movement 
 Es to the only point which concerns you, viz., the efiect^ 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES; 211 
 
 upon your own sympathies, througli a language that seems 
 without any relation to it : he will set before you what 
 was at Waterloo through that which w^as not at Waterloo. 
 Whereas any direct factual imitation, resting upon painted 
 figures drest up in regimentals, and worked by watchwork 
 through the whole movements of the battle, would have 
 been no art whatsoever in the sense of a Fine Art, but a 
 base mechanic mimicry. 
 
 This principle of the idem in alio^ so widely diffused 
 through all the higher revelations of art, it is peculiarly 
 requisite to bear in mind when looking at Grecian tragedy, 
 because no form of human composition employs it in so 
 much complexity. How confounding it would have been 
 to Addison, if somebody had told him, that, substantially, 
 he had himself committed the offence (as he fancied it) 
 which he charged so bitterly upon the Italian opera ; and 
 that, if the opera had gone farther upon that road than 
 himself, the Greek tragedy, which he presumed to be so 
 prodigiously exalted beyond modern approaches, had gone 
 farther even than the opera. Addison himself, when writ- 
 ing a tragedy, made this violation (as he would have said) 
 of nature, made this concession (as I should say) to a higher 
 nature, that he compelled his characters ^to talk in metre. 
 It is true this metre was the common iambic, which (as 
 Aristotle remarks) is the most natural and spontaneous of 
 all metres ; and, for a sufficient reason, in all languages. 
 Certainly j but Aristotle never meant to say that it was 
 natural for a gentleman in a passion to talk threescore and 
 ten iambics consecutively : a chance line might escape him 
 once and away ; as we know that Tacitus opened one of 
 his works by a regular dactylic hexameter in full curl, 
 without ever discovering it to his dying day (a fact which 
 is clear from his never having corrected it) ; and this being 
 
213 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 a very artificial metre, a foHiori Tacitus might have slipped 
 into a simple iambia But that was an accident, whilst 
 Addison had deliberately and uniformly made his characters 
 talk in verse. According to the common and false meaning 
 [which was his own meaning] of the word Nature, he had 
 as undeniably violated the principle of the natural^ by this 
 metrical dialogue, as the Italian opera by musical dialogue. 
 If it is hard and trying for men to sing their emotions, not 
 less so it must be to deliver them in verse. 
 
 But, if this were shocking, how much more shocking 
 would it have seemed to Addison, had he been introduced 
 to parts which really exist in the Grecian drama ? Even 
 Sophocles, who, of the three tragic poets surviving from the 
 wrecks of the Athenian stage, is reputed the supreme artist,'^ 
 if not the most impassioned poet, with what horror he would 
 have overwhelmed Addison, when read by the light of those 
 principles which he had himself so scornfully applied to the 
 opera ! In the very monsoon of his raving misery, from 
 calamities as sudden as they were irredeemable, a king is 
 
 * " The supreme artist:''' — It is chiefly by comparison with Euri- 
 pides, that Sophocles is usually crowned with the laurels of art. 
 But there is some ganger of doing wrong to the truth in too blindly 
 adhering to these old rulings of critical courts. The judgments would 
 sometimes be reversed, if the pleadings were before us. There were 
 blockheads in those days. Undoubtedly it is past denying that 
 Euripides at times betrays marks of carelessness in the structure of 
 his plots, as if writing too much in a hurry : the original cast of the 
 fable is sometimes not happy, and the evolution or disentangling is 
 too precipitate. It is easy to see that he would have remoulded them 
 in a revised edition, or diasheue [dLao-Kevij]. On the other hand, 1 
 remember nothing in the Greek drama more worthy of a great artist 
 than parts in his Phoeiiissa^,. Neither is he the effeminately tender, 
 or merely pathetic poet that some people imagine. He was able to 
 sweep all the chords of the impassioned spirit. But the whole of this 
 Bubject is in arrear : it is in lact res Integra, almost unbroken ground. 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 213 
 
 introduced, not only conversing, but conversing in metre : 
 not only in metre, but in tbe most elaborate of choral 
 metres ; not only under the torture of these lyric difficul- 
 ties, but also chanting ; not only chanting, but also in alt 
 probability dancing. What do you think of that, Mr. 
 Addison ? 
 
 There is, in fact, a scale of graduated ascents in thes(5 
 artifices for unrealizing the efi'ects of dramatic situations : 
 
 1. We may see, even in novels and prose comedies, a 
 keen attention paid to the inspiriting and di^essing of the 
 dialogue : it is meant to be life-like, but still it is a little 
 raised, pointed, coloured, and idealized. 
 
 2. In comedy of a higher and more poetic cast, we find 
 the dialogue metrical. 
 
 3. In comedy or in tragedy alike, which is meant to be 
 still further removed from ordinary life, we find the dialogue 
 fettered not only by metre, but by rhyme. We need not 
 go to Dryden, and others, of our own middle stage, or to 
 the French stage for this : even in Shakspere, as for 
 example, in parts of Komeo and Juliet (and for no capri- 
 cious purpose), we may see effects sought from the use of 
 rhyme. There is another illustration of the idealizing effect 
 to be obtained from a particular treatment of the dialogue, 
 seen in the Hamlet of Shakspere. In that drama there 
 arises a necessity for exhibiting a play within a play. This 
 interior drama is to be further removed from the spectator 
 than the principal drama ; it is a deep below a deep ; and, 
 to produce that effect, the poet relies chiefly upon the stif- 
 fening the dialogue, and removing it still farther, than the 
 general dialogue of the including or outside drama, from 
 the standard of ordinary life. 
 
 4. We may suppose, superadded to these artifices for 
 idealizing the situations, even music of an intermitting 
 
214 , THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 character, sometimes less, sometimes more impassioned — • 
 recitatives, airs, choruses. Here we have reached the 
 Italian opera. 
 
 5. And, finally^ besides all these resources of art, we 
 find dancing introduced ; but dancing of a solemn, mystical, 
 and symbolic character. Here, at last, we have reached 
 the Greek tragedy. Probably the best exemplification of 
 a Grecian tragedy that ever will be given to a modern 
 reader is found in the Samson Agonistes of Milton. Now, 
 in the choral or lyric parts of this fine drama, Samson not 
 only talks, Is^, metrically (as he does everywhere, and in 
 the most level parts of the scenic business), but, 2<i, in very 
 intricate metres, and, 3c?, occasionally in rhymed metres 
 (though the rhymes are perhaps too sparingly and too capri- 
 ciously scattered by Milton), and, ^th^ singing or chanting 
 these metres (for, as the chorus sang, it was impossible that 
 he could be allowed to talk in his ordinary voice, else he 
 would have put them out, and ruined the music). Finally, 
 5 th, I am satisfied that Milton meant him to dance. The 
 office of the chorus was imperfectly defined upon the Greek 
 stage. They are generally understood to be the moralizers 
 of the scene. But this is liable to exceptions. Some of 
 them have been known to do very bad things on the stage, 
 and to come within a trifle of felony : as to misprision of 
 felony, if there is such a crime, a Greek chorus thinks 
 nothing of it. But that is no business of mine. What I 
 was going to say is, that, as the chorus sometimes inter- 
 mingles too much in the action, so the actors sometimes 
 intermingle in the business of the chorus. Now, when you 
 are at Home, you must do as they do at Eome. And that 
 the actor, who mixed with the chorus, was compelled to 
 sing, is a clear case ; for his part in the choral ode is always 
 in the nature of an echo, or answer, or like an antiphcmy 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 215 
 
 in cathedral services. But no thing could be more absurd 
 than that one of these antiphonies should be sung, and 
 another said. That he was also compelled to dance, I am 
 satisfied. The chorus only sometimes moralized, but it 
 always danced : and any actor, mingling with the chorus, 
 must dance also. A little incident occurs to my remem- 
 brance, from the Moscow expedition of 1812, which may 
 here be used as an illustration ; One day King Murat, 
 flourishing his plumage as usual, made a gesture of invita- 
 tion to some squadrons of cavalry that they should charge 
 the enemy : upon which the cavalry advanced, but mali- 
 ciously contrived to envelop the king of dandies, before he 
 liad time to execute his ordinary manoeuvre of riding off to 
 the left and becoming a spectator of their prowess. The 
 cavalry resolved that for this once his Majesty should ride 
 down at their head to the melee, and taste what fighting 
 was like ; and he, finding that the thing must be, though 
 liorribly vexed, made a merit of his necessity, and after- 
 wards pretended that he liked it very much. Sometimes, 
 in the darkness, in default of other misanthropic visions, 
 the wickedness of this cavalry, their mechancete, causes me 
 to laugh immoderately. Now, I conceive that any inter- 
 loper into the Greek chorus must have danced when they 
 danced, or he would have been swept away by their im 
 petus : nolens volens, he must have rode along with the 
 orchestral charge, he must have rode on the crest of the 
 choral billows, or he would have been rode down by their 
 impassioned sweep. Samson, and CEdipus, and others, 
 must have danced, if they sang ; and they certainly did 
 sing, by notoriously intermingling in the choral business.* 
 
 * I see a possible screw loose at this point : if you see it, reader, 
 have tlie goodness to hold your tongue. 
 
21(5 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES, 
 
 " But now," says the plain English reader, " what was 
 the object of all these elaborate devices 1 And how came 
 it that the English tragedy, which surely is as good as the 
 Greek" (and at this point a devil of defiance whispers to 
 him, like the quarrelsome servant of the Capulets or the 
 Montagues, " say hette?-'''), *< that the English tragedy con- 
 tented itself with fewer of these artful resources than the 
 Athenian ]" I reply, that the object of all these things 
 was — to nnrealize the scene. The English drama, by its 
 metrical dress, and by other arts* more disguised, unrealized 
 itself, liberated itself from the oppression of life in its 
 ordinary standards, up to a certain height. Why it did 
 not rise still higher, and why the Grecian did, I will en- 
 deavour to explain. It was not that the English tragedy 
 was less impassioned ; on the contrary, it was far more so ; 
 the Greek being awful rather than impassioned ; but the 
 passion of each is in a different key. It is not again that 
 the Greek drama sought a lower object than the English : 
 it sought a different object. It is not imparity, but disparity, 
 that divides the two magnificent theatres. 
 
 Suffer me, reader, at this point, to borrow from myself, 
 and do not betray me to the authorities that rule in this 
 journal, if you happen to know (which is not likely) that I 
 am taking an idea from a paper which years ago I wrote 
 for an eminent literary journal. As I have no copy of that 
 paper before m^e, it is impossible that I should save myself 
 any labour of writing. The words, at any rate, I must 
 invent afresh : and, as to the idea, you never ca7i be such 
 a churlish man as, by insisting on a new one, in effect to 
 insist upon my writing a false one. In the following para- 
 graph, therefore, I give the substance of a thought suggested 
 by myself some years ago. 
 
 That kind of feeling, which broods over the Grecian 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 217 
 
 tragedy, and to court which feeling the tragic poets of 
 Greece naturally spread all their canvas, was more nearly 
 allied to the atmosphere of death than that of life. This 
 expresses rudely the character of awe and religious horror 
 investing the Greek theatre. But to my own feeling the 
 different principle of passion which governs the Grecian 
 conception of tragedy, as compared with the English, is 
 best conveyed by saying that the Grecian is a breathing 
 from the world of sculpture, the English a breathing from 
 the world of painting. What we read in sculpture is not 
 absolutely death, but still less is it the fulness of life. We 
 read there the abstraction of a life that reposes, the subli- 
 mity of a life that aspires, the solemnity of a life that is 
 thrown to an infinite distance. This last is the feature of 
 sculpture which seems most characteristic ; the form which 
 presides in the most commanding groups " is not dead but 
 sleepeth :" true, but it is the sleep of a life sequestrated, 
 solemn, liberated from the bonds of space and time, and 
 (as to both alike) thrown (I repeat the words) to a distance 
 which is infinite. It affects us profoundly, but not by 
 agitation. Now, on the other hand, the breathing life — 
 life kindling, trembling, palpitating — that life which speaks 
 to us in painting, this is also the life that speaks to us in 
 English tragedy. Into an English tragedy even festivals 
 of joy may enter ; marriages and baptisms, or commemora- 
 tions of national trophies ; which, or anything like which, 
 is incompatible with the very being of the Greek. In that 
 tragedy what uniformity of gloom ; in the English what 
 light alternating with depths of darkness ! The Greek, 
 how mournful ; the English, how tumultuous ! Even the 
 catastrophes how different ! In the Greek we see a breath- 
 less waiting for a doom that cannot be evaded ; a waiting, 
 as it were, for the last shock of an earthquake, or the in- 
 
 XIII. — K 
 
218 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 exorable rising of a deluge : in the English it is like a 
 midnight of shipwreck, from which up to the last and till 
 the final ruin comes, there still survives the sort of hope 
 that clings to human energies. 
 
 Connected with this original awfulness of the Greek 
 tragedy, and possibly in part its cause, or at least lending 
 strength to its cause, we may next remark the grand dimen- 
 sions of the ancient theatres. Every citizen had a right to 
 accommodation. There at once was a pledge of grandeur. 
 Out of this original standard grew the magnificence of 
 many a future amphitheatre, circus, hippodrome. Had the 
 original theatre been merely a speculation of private interest, 
 then, exactly as demand arose, a corresponding supply 
 would have provided for it through its ordinary vulgar 
 channels ; and this supply would have taken place through 
 rival theatres. But the crushing exaction of " room for 
 every citizen," put an end to that process of subdivision. 
 Drury Lane, as I read (or think that I read) thirty years 
 ago, allowed sitting room for three thousand eight hundred 
 people. Multiply that by ten; imagine thirty-eight thou- 
 sand instead of thirty-eight hundred, and then you have an 
 idea of the Athenian theatre.* 
 
 * ^^ Athenian Theatre:^'' — Many corrections remain to be made. 
 Athens, in her bloom, was about as big as Calcutta, which contained, 
 forty years ago, more than half a milHon of people ; or as Naples, 
 which (being long rated at three hundred thousand), is now known to 
 contain at least two hundred thousand more. The well-known census 
 of Demetrius Phalereus gave twenty-one thousand citizens. Multiply 
 this by 5, or 4|, and you have their families. Add ten thousand, 
 multiplied by 4 J, for the Metoihoi. Then add four hundred thousand 
 for the slaves : total, about five hundred and fifty thousand. But 
 upon the fluctuations of the Athenian population there is much room 
 for speculation. And, qitcere, was not the population of Athens 
 greater two centuries before Demetrius, in the days of Pericles ? 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 219 
 
 Next, out of that grandeur in tlie architectural propor- 
 tions arose, as by necessity, other grandeurs. You are 
 aware of the cothurnus, or buskin, which raised the actor's 
 heel by two and a half inches ; and you think that this 
 must have caused a deformity in the general figure as 
 incommensurate to this height. Not at all. The flowing 
 dress of Greece healed all that. 
 
 But, besides the cothurnus, you have heard of the mask. 
 So far as it was fitted to. swell the intonations of the voice, 
 you are of opinion that this mask would be a happy con- 
 trivance j for what, you say, could a common human voice 
 avail against the vast radiation from the actor's centre of 
 more than three myriads ^ If, indeed (like the Homeric 
 Stentor), an actor spoke in point of loudness, ocrov aAAot 
 TrevTTjKovra, as much as other fifty, then he might become 
 audible to the assembled Athenians without aid. But this 
 being impossible, art must be invoked ; and well if the 
 mask, together with contrivances of another class, could 
 correct it. Yet if it could, still you think that this mask 
 would bring along with it an overbalancing evil. For the 
 expression, the fluctuating expression, of the features, the 
 play of the muscles, the music of the eye and of the lips — 
 aids to acting that, in our times, have given immortality to 
 scores — ^whither w^ould those have vanished 1 Eeader, it 
 mortifies me that all which I said to you upon the peculiar 
 and separate grandeur investing the Greek theatre is for- 
 gotten. For, you must consider, that where a theatre is 
 built for receiving upwards of thirty thousand spectators, 
 the curve described by what in modern times you would 
 call the tiers of boxes, must be so vast as to make the ordi- 
 nary scale of human features almost ridiculous by dispro- 
 portion. Seat yourself this day in the amphitheatre at 
 Verona, and judge for yourself In an amphitheatre, the 
 
220 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 stage, or properly the arena, occupying, in fact, the place 
 of our modern pit, was much nearer than in a scenic theatre 
 to the surrounding spectators. Allow for this, and placing 
 some adult in a station expressing the distance of the 
 Athenian stage, then judge by his appearance if the delicate 
 pencilling of Grecian features could have told of the Grecian 
 distance. But even if it could, then I say that this circum- 
 stantiality would have been hostile o th 3 general tendencies 
 (as already indicated) of the Grecian drama. The sweeping 
 movement of the Attic tragedy ought not to admit of inter- 
 ruption from distinct human features ; the expression of an 
 eye, the loveliness of a smile, ought to be lost amongst 
 effects so colossal. The mask aggrandized the features : 
 even so far it acted favourably. Then figure to yourself 
 this mask presenting an idealized face of the noblest Grecian 
 outline, moulded by som_e skilful artist Phidiacd manu, so 
 as to have the effect of a marble bust ; this accorded with 
 the aspiring cothurnus ; and the motionless character im- 
 pressed upon the features, the marble tranquillity, would (I 
 contend) suit the solemn processional character of Athenian 
 tragedy, far better than the most expressive and flexible 
 countenance on its natural scale. " Yes," you say, on con- 
 sidering the character of the Greek drama, " generally it 
 might ; in forty-nine cases suppose out of fifty : but what 
 shall be done in the fiftieth, where some dreadful discovery 
 or anagnorisis (i.e., recognition of identity) takes place 
 within the compass of a single line or two ; as, for instance, 
 in the GEdipus Tyrannus, at the moment when GEdipus by 
 a final question of his own, extorts his first fatal discover}^, 
 viz., that he had been himself unconsciously the murderer 
 of Laius ■?" True, he ha^ no reason as yet to suspect that 
 Laius was his own father ; which discovery, when made 
 further on, will draw with it another still more dreadful, 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 221 
 
 viz., that by this parricide he had opened his road to a 
 tnrone, and to a marriage with his father's widow, who 
 was also his own natural mother. He does not yet know 
 the worst : and to have killed an arrogant prince, w^ould 
 not in those days have seemed a very deep offence : but 
 then he believes that the pestilence had been sent as a 
 secret vengeance for this assassination, which is thus in- 
 vested with a mysterious character of horror. Just at this 
 point, Jocasta, his mother and his wife, says,* on witness- 
 ing the sudden revulsion of feeling in his face, " I shudder, 
 king, when looking on thy countenance." Now, in what 
 way could this passing spasm of horror be reconciled with 
 the unchanging expression in the marble-looking mask 1 
 This, and similar cases to this, must surely be felt to 
 argue a defect in the scenic apparatus. But I say, no : 
 Jirst, Because the general indistinctness from distance is 
 a benefit that applies equally to the fugitive changes of the 
 features and to their permanent expression. You need not 
 regret the loss through absence, of an appearance that would 
 equally, though present, have been lost through distance. 
 Secondly, The Greek actor "had always the resource, under 
 such difficulties, of averting his face ; a resource sanctioned 
 in similar cases by the greatest of the Greek painters. 
 Thirdly, The voluminous draperies of the scenic dresses, 
 and generally of the Greek costume, made it an easy thing 
 to muffle the features altogether by a gesture most natural 
 to sudden horror. Fourthly, We must consider that there 
 were no stage lights ; but, on the contrary, that the general ^ 
 light of day was specially mitigated for that particular 
 part of the theatie ; just as various architectural devices 
 
 * Having no Sophocles at hand, I quote from memory, not pre- 
 tenuing therefore to exactness : hut the sense is what I state. 
 
222 THE ANTIGONE OE SOPHOCLES. 
 
 were employed to swell the volume of souud. Finally, 1 
 repeat my sincere opinion, that the general indistinctness 
 of the expression was, on principles of taste, an advantage, 
 as harmonizing with the stately and sullen monotony of the 
 Greek tragedy. Grandeur in the attitudes, in the gestures, 
 in the groups, in the processions — all this was indispens- 
 able : but, on so vast a scale as the mighty cartoons of the 
 Greek stage, an Attic artist as little regarded the details of 
 physiognomy, as a great architect would regard, on the 
 frontispiece of a temple, the miniature enrichments that 
 might be suitable in a drawing-room. 
 
 With these views upon the Grecian theatre, and other 
 views that it might oppress the reader to dwell upon in this 
 place, suddenly in December last an opportunity dawned — 
 a golden opportunity, gleaming for a moment amongst thick 
 clouds of impossibility that had gathered through three-and- 
 twenty centuries — for seeing a Grecian tragedy presented 
 on a British stage, and with the nearest approach possible 
 to the beauty of those Athenian pomps which Sopho- 
 cles, which Phidias, which Pericles created, beautified, pro- 
 moted. I protest, when seeing the Edinburgh theatre's 
 lyrogrammte, that a note dated from the Vatican would not 
 have startled me more, though sealed with the seal of* the 
 fisherman, and requesting the favour of my company to take 
 coffee with the Pope. Nay, less : for channels there were 
 through which I might have compassed a presentation to his 
 Holiness ; but the daughter of (Edipus, the holy Antigone, 
 could I have hoped to see her " in the flesh V This tra- 
 gedy in an English version,* and with German music, had 
 
 ^ Wliose version, I do not know. But one unaccountable error was 
 forced on one's notice. Thebes, which by Milton and by every scholar 
 is made a monosyllable, is here made a dissyllable. But Thehez^ the 
 dissyllable, is a Syrian city. It is true that Causabon deduces from 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 223 
 
 f r?t been placed before the eyes and ears of our countrymen 
 at Covent Garden during the winter of 1844-45. It was 
 said to have succeeded. And soon after a report sprang up, 
 from nobody knew where, that Mr. Murray meant to repro- 
 duce it in Edinburgh. 
 
 What more natural 1 Connected so nearly with the noblest 
 house of scenic artists that ever shook the hearts of nations, 
 nobler than ever raised undying echoes amidst the mighty 
 walls of Athens, of Kome, of Paris, of London — himself a 
 man of talents almost unparalleled for versatility — why 
 should not Mr. Murray, always so liberal in an age so un- 
 grateful to his profession, have sacrificed something to this 
 occasion 1 He, that sacrifices so much, why not sacrifice to 
 the grandeur of the Antique 1 I was then in Edinburgh, or 
 in its neighbourhood ; and one morning, at a casual assembly * 
 of some literary friends, present Professor Wilson, Messrs. 
 J. F., C. I^., L. C, and others, advocates, scholars, lovers 
 of classical literature, we proposed two resolutions, of which 
 the first was, that the news was too good to be. true. That 
 passed nem. con.; and the second resolution w^as nearly 
 passing, viz., that a judgment would certainly faU upon Mr. 
 JMurray, had a second report proved true, viz., that not the 
 Antigone, but a burlesque on the Antigone, was what he 
 meditated to introduce. This turned out false ; * the original 
 I'eport was suddenly revived eight or ten months after. 
 Immediately on the heels of the promise the execution fol- 
 
 a Syriac word meaning a case or enclosure (a theca), the name of 
 Thebes, whether Bceotian or Egyptian. It is probable, therefore, 
 that Thebes the hundred-gated of Uppor Egypt, Thebes the seven- 
 gated of Greece, and Thebes of Syria, had all one origin as regards 
 the name. But this matters not ; it is the English name that we 
 are concerned with, which is, was, ever will be, and ought to be. 
 
 * ** False:''^ or rather inaccurate. The burlesque was not on tlj« 
 Antigone, but on the Medea of Euripides ; and very amusing. 
 
224 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 lowed ; and on the last (wliich I believe was the seventh) 
 representation of the Antigone, I prepared myself to attend. 
 It had been generally reported as characteristic of myself, 
 that in respect to all coaches, steamboats, railroads, wed- 
 ding-parties, baptisms, and so forth, there was a fatal neces- 
 sity of my being a trifle too late. Some malicious fairy, 
 not invited to my own baptism, was supposed to have en- 
 dowed me with this infirmity. It occurred to me that for 
 once in my life I would show the scandalousness of such a 
 belief by being a trifle too soon, say, three minutes. And 
 no name more lovely for inaugurating such a change, no 
 memory with which I could more willingly connect any 
 reformation, than thine, dear, noble Antigone ! Accordingly, 
 because a certain man (whose name is down in my pocket- 
 book for no good) had told me that the doors of the theatre 
 opened at half-past six, whereas, in fact, they opened at 
 seven, there was I, if you please, freezing in the little colon- 
 nade of the theatre precisely as it wanted six-and-a-half 
 minutes to seven, — six-and-a-half minutes observe too soon. 
 Upon which this son of absurdity coolly remarked, that, if 
 he had not set me half-an-hour forward, by my own showing, 
 I should have been twenty~three-and-a-half minutes too late. 
 What sophistry ! But thus it happened (namely, through 
 the wickedness of this man), that, upon entering the theatre, 
 I found myself like Alexander Selkirk, in a frightful soli- 
 tude, or like a single family of Arabs gathering at sun-set 
 about a solitary cofiee-pot in the boundless desert. Was 
 there an echo raised 1 it was from my own steps. Did 
 anybody cough ? it was too evidently m3^se]f. I was the 
 audience ; I was the public. And, if any accident happened 
 to the theatre, such as being burned down, Mr. Murray 
 would certainly lay the blame upon me. My business, 
 xsieantime, as a critic, was- — to find out the most malicioua 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 225 
 
 Beat, i.e., the seat from which all things would take the most 
 
 unfavourable aspect. I could not suit myself in this respect ; 
 
 however bad a situation might seem, I still fancied some 
 
 other as promising to be worse. And I was not sorry when 
 
 an audience, by mustering in strength through all parts of 
 
 the house, began to divide my responsibility as to burning 
 
 down the building, and, at the same time, to limit the 
 
 caprices of my distracted choice. At last, and precisely at 
 
 half-past seven, the curtain drew up : a thing not strictly 
 
 correct on a Grecian stage. But in theatres, as in other 
 
 places, one must forget and forgive. Then the music began, 
 
 of which in a moment. The overture slipped out at one 
 
 ear, as it entered the other, which, with submission to Mr. 
 
 Mendelssohn, is a proof that it must be horribly bad ; for, 
 
 if ever there lived a man that in music can neither forget 
 
 nor forgive, that man is myself. Whatever is very good 
 
 never perishes from my remembrance, — that is, sounds in 
 
 my ears by intervals for ever ; and for whatever is bad, I 
 
 consign the author, in my wrath, to his own conscience, and 
 
 to the tortures of his own discords. The most villanous 
 
 things, however, have one merit ; they are transitory as the 
 
 best things ; and that was true of the overture : it perished. 
 
 Then, suddenly — heavens ! what a revelation of beauty ! 
 
 — forth stepped, walking in brightness, the most faultless 
 
 of Grecian marbles. Miss Helen Faucit as Antigone. What 
 
 perfection of Athenian sculpture ! the noble figure, the lovely 
 
 arms, the fluent drapery ! What an unveiling of the ideal 
 
 statuesque ! Is it Hebe 1 is it Aurora Ms it a goddess 
 
 that moves before us ? Perfect she is in form ; perfect in 
 
 attitude ; 
 
 " Beautiful exceedingly, 
 Like a ladle from a far countrie. 
 
 Here was the redeemuig jewel of the pexfoimance. It 
 
22Q THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 flattered one's patriotic feelings, to see this noble young 
 country^voman realizing so exquisitely, and restoring to our 
 imaginations, the noblest of Grecian girls. "We critics, dis- 
 persed through the house, in the very teeth of duty and 
 conscience, all at one moment unanimously fell in love with 
 Miss Faucit. We felt in our remorse, and did not pretend 
 to deny, that our duty was — to be savage. But when was 
 the voice of duty listened to in the first uproars of passion 1 
 One thing I regretted, viz., that from the indistinctness of 
 my sight for distant faces, I could not accurately discriminate 
 Miss Eaucit's features ; but I was told by my next neigh- 
 bour that they were as true to the antique as her figure. 
 Miss Faucit's voice is fine and impassioned, being deep for 
 a female voice : but in this organ lay also the only blemish 
 of lier personation. In her last scene, which is injudiciously 
 managed by the Greek poet — too long by much, and perhaps 
 misconceived in the modern way of understanding it — her 
 voice grew too husky to execute the cadences of the intona- 
 tions; yet, even in this scene, her fall to the ground, under 
 the burden of her farewell anguish, was in a high degree 
 sculpturesque through the whole succession of its stages. 
 
 Antigone in the written drama, and still more in the 
 personated drama, draws all thoughts so entirely to herself, 
 as to leave little leisure for examining the other parts ; and, 
 under such circumstances, the first impulse of a critic's 
 mind is, that he ought to massacre all the rest indiscrimin- 
 ately ; it being clearly his duty to presume everything bad 
 which he is not unwillingly forced to confess good, or con- 
 cerning which he retains no distinct recollection. But I, 
 after the first glory of Antigone's avatar had subsided, ap- 
 plied myself to consider the general " setting" of this Theban 
 jewel. Creon, whom the Greek tragic poets take delight 
 in describing as a villain, has very little more to do (until 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 227 
 
 his own turn comes for grieving) than to tell Antigone, by 
 minute-guns, that die she must. ".Well, uncle, don't say 
 that so often," is the answer which, secretly, the audience 
 whispers to Antigone. Our uncle grows tedious ; and one 
 wishes at last that he himself could be " put up the spout." 
 Mr. Glover, from the sepulchral depth of his voice, gave 
 effect to the odious Creontic menaces ; and, in the final 
 lamentations over the dead body of Hsemon, being a man 
 of considerable intellectual power, Mr. Glover drew the part 
 into a prominence which it is the fault of Sophocles to" have 
 authorized in that situation ; for the closing sympathies of 
 the spectator ought not to be diverted, for a moment, from 
 Antigone. 
 
 But the chorus, how did they play their part % Mainly 
 their part must have always depended on the character of 
 the music : even at Athens, that must have been very much 
 the case, and at Edinburgh altogether, because dancing on 
 the Edinburgh stage there was none. How came that 
 about ] For the very word " orchestral," suggests to a 
 Greek ear dancing^ as the leading element in the choral 
 functions. Was it because dancing with us is never used 
 mystically and symbolically, never used in our religious 
 services % Still it would have been possible to invent solemn 
 and intricate dances, that might have appeared abundantly 
 significant, if expounded by impassioned music. But that 
 music of Mendelssohn ! — like it I cannot. Say not that 
 Mendelssohn is a great composer. He is so. But here he 
 was voluntarily abandoning the resources of his own genius, 
 and the support of his divine art, in quest of a chimera ; 
 that is, in quest of a thing called Greek music, which for 
 U8 seems far more irrecoverable than the " Greek fire." I 
 myself, from an early date, was a student of this subject. 
 I read book after book upon it ; and each successive book 
 
228 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 sank me lower into darkness, until I had so vastly improved 
 in ignorance, that I could myself have written a quarto 
 upon it, which all the world should not have found it pos- 
 sible to understand. It should have taken three men to 
 construe one sentence. I confess, however, to not having 
 yet seen the writings upon this im|)racticable theme of Colo- 
 nel Perronet Thompson. To write experimental music for 
 choruses that are to support the else meagre outline of a 
 Greek tragedy, will not do. Let experiments be tried upon 
 v/orthless subjects ; and if this of Mendelssohn's be Greek 
 music, the sooner it takes itself off the better. Sophocles 
 will be delivered from an incubus, and we from an affliction 
 of the auditory nerves. 
 
 It strikes me that I see the source of this music. Wo, 
 that were learning German some thirty years ago, must 
 remember the noise made at that time about Mendelssohn, 
 the Platonic philosopher. And w^hy 1 Was there anything 
 particular in " Der Phsedon," on the immortality of the 
 soul ? Not at all ; it left us quite as mortal as it found 
 us j and it has long since been found mortal itself. Its 
 venerable remains are still to be met with in many worm- 
 eaten trunks, pasted on the lids of which I have myself 
 perused a matter of thirty pages, except for a part that had 
 been too closely perused by worms. But the key to all the 
 popularity of the Platonic Mendelssohn is to be sought in 
 the whimsical nature of German liberality, which, in those 
 days, forced Jews into paying toll at the gates of cities, 
 ^under the title of " swine," but caressed their infidel philo- 
 sophers. Now, in this category of Jew and infidel, stood 
 the author of " Phsedon." He was certainly liable to toll 
 as a hog ; but, on the other hand, he was much admired as 
 one who despised the Pentateuch. Now that Mendelssohn, 
 whose learned labours lined our trunks, was the father of 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 229 
 
 tins Mendelssohn, whose Greek music afflicts our ears. 
 Naturally, then, it strikes me, that as "papa" Mendelssohn 
 attended the synagogue to save appearances, the filial Men- 
 delssohn would also attend it. I likewise attended tho 
 synagogue now and then at Liverpool, and elsewhere. We 
 all three have been cruising in the same latitudes ; and, 
 trusting to my own remembrances, I should pronounce that 
 Mendelssohn has stolen his Greek music from the synagogue. 
 There was, in the first chorus of the " Antigone," one sub- 
 lime ascent (and once repeated), that rang to heaven : it 
 might have entered into the music of Jubal's lyre, or have 
 glorified the timbrel of Miriam. All the rest, tried by the 
 deep standard of my own feeling, that clamours for the im- 
 passioned in music, even as the daughter of the horse-leech 
 says, " Give, give," is as much without meaning as most of 
 the Hebrew chanting that I heard at the Liverpool syna- 
 gogue. I advise Mr. Murray, in the event of his ever 
 reviving the " Antigone," to make the chorus sing the 
 Hundredth Psalm^ rather than Mendelssohn's music ; or, 
 which would be better still, to import from Lancashire tho 
 Handel chorus-singers. 
 
 But then, again, whatever change in the music were 
 made, so as to " better the condition " of the poor audience, 
 something should really be done to " better the condition " 
 of the poor chorus. Think of these worthy men, in their 
 white and sky-blue liveries, kept standing the whole even- 
 ing ; no seats allowed, no dancing, no tobacco ; nothing to 
 console them but Antigone's beauty ; and all this in our 
 climate, latitude fifty-five degrees, 30th of December, and 
 Fahrenheit groping about, I don't pretend to know where, 
 but clearly on his road down to the wine-cellar. Mr. Mur- 
 ray, I am perfectly sm^e, is too liberal to have gi'udged the 
 
230 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 expense, if he could have found any classic precedent for 
 treating the chorus to a barrel of ale. Ale, he may object, 
 is an unclassical tipple; but perhaps not. Xenophon, the 
 most Attic of prose writers, mentions pointedly in his Ana- 
 basis, that the Ten Thousand, when retreating through 
 snowy mountains, and in circumstances very like our Gene- 
 ral Elphinstone's retreat from Cabul, came upon a consider- 
 able stock of bottled ale. To be sure, the poor ignorant 
 man calls it barley-wine \olvos Kpi9ivos\ : but the flavour 
 was found so perfectly classical that not one man of the ten 
 thousand, not even the Attic bee himself, is reported to 
 have left any protest against it, or indeed to have left much 
 of the ale. 
 
 But stop : perhaps I am intruding upon other men's 
 space. Speaking, therefore, now finally to the principal 
 question. How far did this memorable experiment succeed ? 
 I reply, that, in the sense of realizing all that the. joint 
 revivers proposed to realize, it succeeded ; and failed only 
 where these revivers had themselves failfed to comprehend 
 the magnificent tendencies of Greek tragedy, or where the 
 limitations of our theatres, arising out of our habits and 
 social differences, had made it impossible to succeed. In 
 London, I believe that there are nearly thirty theatres, and 
 many more, if every place of amusement (not bearing the 
 technical name of theatre) were included. All these must 
 be united to compose a building such as that which received 
 the vast audiences, and consequently the vast spectacles, of 
 some ancient cities. And yet, from a great mistake in our 
 London and Edinburgh attempts to imitate the stage of the 
 Greek theatres, little use was made of such advantages as 
 really were at our disposal. The possible depth of the 
 Edinburgh stage was not laid open. Listead of a regd 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 231 
 
 hall in Thebes, I protest I took it for the boudoir of 
 Antigone. It was painted in light colours, an error which 
 was abominable, though possibly meant by the artist (but 
 quite unnecessarily) as a proper ground for relieving the 
 sumptuous dresses of the leading performers. The doors of 
 entrance and exit were most unhappily managed. As to 
 the dresses, those of Creon, of his queen, and of the two 
 loyal sisters, were good : chaste, and yet princely. The 
 dress of the chorus was as bad as bad could be : a few 
 surplices borrowed from Episcopal chapels, or rather the 
 ornamented alhes^ &c., from any rich Eoman Catholic 
 establishment, would have been more effective. The Cory- 
 phccus himself seemed, to my eyes, no better than a railway 
 labourer, fresh from tunnelling or boring, and wearing a 
 blouse to hide his working dress. These ill-used men ought 
 to " strike" for better clothes, in case Antigone should 
 again revisit the glimpses of an Edinburgh moon ; and at 
 the same time they might mutter a hint about the ale. 
 But the great hindrances to a perfect restoration of a Greek 
 tragedy, lie in peculiarities of our theatres that cannot be 
 removed, because bound up with their purposes. I suppose 
 that Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre ; but at 
 least a Cathedral would be required in dimensions, York 
 Minster or Cologne. Lamp-light gives to us some advant- 
 ages which the ancients had not. But much art would be 
 required to train and organize tbe lights and the masses of 
 superincumbent gloom, that should be such as to allow no 
 calculation of the dimensions overhead. Aboriginal night 
 should brood over the scene, and the sweeping movements 
 of the scenic groups : bodily expression should be given to 
 the obscure feeling of that dark power which moved in 
 ancient tragedy : and we should be made to know why it 
 is that, with the one exception of the Fersce, founded on 
 
232 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPEOCLES. 
 
 tlie second Persian invasion,* in which iEschylus, the author, 
 was personally a combatant, and therefore a contemporary^ 
 not one of the thirty-four Greek tragedies surviving, but 
 recedes into the dusky shades of the heroic, or even fabu- 
 lous times. 
 
 A failure, therefore, T think the " Antigone," in relation 
 to an object that for us is unattainable ; but a failure worth 
 more than many ordinary successes. "We are all deeply 
 indebted to Mr. Murray's liberality, in two senses ; to his 
 liberal interest in the noblest section of ancient literature, 
 and to his liberal disregard of expense. To have seen a 
 Grecian play is a great remembrance. To have seen Miss 
 Helen Faucit's Antigone, were that all, with her bust, 
 ws ayaX/xaroSjt and her uplifted arm " pleading against 
 unjust tribunals," is worth — what is it worth ? Worth 
 the money 1 How mean a thought ! To see Helen, to see 
 Helen of Greece, was the chief prayer of Marlow's Dr. 
 Fastus ; the chief gift which he exacted from the fiend. 
 To see Helen of Greece ? Dr. Fastus, we have seen her : 
 Mr. Murray is the Mephistopheles that showed her to us. 
 It was cheap at the price of a journey to Siberia, and is 
 the next best thing to having seen Waterloo at sunset on 
 the 18th of June 1815. + 
 
 * Bat in this instance, perhaps, distance of space, combined with 
 the unrivalled grandeur of the war, was felt to equiponderate the 
 distance of time, Susa, the Persian capital of Susa, being fourteen 
 hundred miles from Athens. 
 
 f Irrepva 6' cos ay aXfiaros, her hosom as the bosom of a statue; an 
 expression of Euripides, and applied, I think, to Polyxena at the 
 moment of her sacrifice on the tomb of Achilles, as the bride that 
 was being married to him at the moment of his death. 
 
 I Amongst the questions wliich occurred to me as requiring an 
 answer, in connexion with this revival, was one with regard to the 
 comparative fitness of the Antigone for giving a representative idea 
 
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 233 
 
 of tlie Greek stage. I am of opinion that it was the worst choice 
 which could have been made ; and for the very reason which no doubt 
 governed that choice, viz., because the austerity of the tragic passion 
 is disfigured by a love episode. Kousseau in his letter to D'Alembert 
 upon his article Geneve in the French Encyclopedic, asks, — " Qui 
 est-ce qui doute que, sur nos theatres, la meilleure piece de Sophocle ne 
 tombdt tout-a-plat T^ And his reason (as collected from other passages) 
 is — because an interest derived from the passion of sexual love can 
 rarely be found on the Greek stage, and yet cannot be dispensed with 
 on that of Paris. But why was it so rare on the Greek stage ? Not 
 from accident, but because it did not harmonize with the principle of 
 that stage, and its vast overhanging gloom. It is the great infirmity 
 of the French, and connected constitutionally with the gaiety of their 
 temperament, that they cannot sympathize with this terrific mode 
 of grandeur. We can. And for us the choice should have been 
 more purely and severely Grecian ; whilst the slendemess of the plot 
 in any Greek tragedy would require a far more effective support from 
 tumultuous movement in the chorus. Even the French are not 
 uniformly insensible to this Grecian grandeur. 1 remember that, 
 Voltaire, amongst many just remarks on the Electra of Sophocles, 
 mixed with others that are not just, bitterly condemns this demand 
 for a love fable on the French stage, and illustrates its extravagance 
 by the French tragedy on the same subject, of Crebillon. He (in 
 default of any more suitable resource) has actually made Electra, 
 whose character on the Greek stage is painfully vindictive, in love 
 with an imaginary son of jEgisthus, her father's murderer. Some- 
 thing should also have been said of IMrs. Leigh Murray's Ismene, 
 which was very effective in supporting and in relieving the mag- 
 nificent impression of Antigone. I ought also to have added a note 
 on the scenic mask, and the common notion (not authorized, I am 
 satisfied, by the practice in the supreme era of Pericles) that it 
 exhibited a Janus face, the windward side exhibiting grief or horror, 
 the leeward expressing tranquillity. Believe it not, reader. But on 
 this and other points, it will be better to speak circumstantially, in a 
 separate paper on the Greek drama, as a majestic but very exclusive 
 and almost, if one may so say, bigoted form of the scenic art. 
 
 K 2 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 The chief portion of the Eabbinical fantasies is derived 
 from Indian fables ; and among those the transmigration 
 of souls seems to have made the most powerful impression. 
 It is singular that this doctrine, utterly unsupported as it 
 is by any approach to evidence, should have yet prevailed 
 among a vast multitude, or rather the great majority, of 
 ancient mankind ; and the question is still dubious to 
 which of the three most learned and investigating nations 
 of antiquity the doctrine is first due. It belonged at once 
 to India, Egypt, and Greece. Yet its origin may probably 
 be traced to India, and there to some of those corruptions 
 of the primal revelation, and of the second birth of mankind, 
 the spirit transmitted from ,the antediluvian race into the 
 descendants of Noah, the representative of the first man, 
 and beginner of a new patriarchal line. The doctrine, too, 
 served the purpose of offering an apparent explanation of 
 that mysterious Providence by which the guilty sometimes 
 exhibit striking examples of prosperity. It further gave 
 some equally obscure hope of an explanation of the uses, 
 partial sufferings, and general degradation of the lower 
 animal creation. The transfer of the soul of a tyrant to 
 the body of a tiger seemed not unnatural ; of the glutton's 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 235 
 
 to the hog, or the robber's to the wolf, the vulture, or the 
 hyena : all displayed a species of natural justice which 
 might gradually render the transmigration probable to the 
 quick and figurative fancies of the East. Their style of 
 expression, too, the forms and emblems by which, in the 
 early rudeness of penmanship they laboured to describe 
 moral and mental qualities, tended to reinforce the doctrine. 
 The outline of a dog expressed the persevering or tha 
 faithful, the lion characterized the bold, or the eagle gave 
 the natural conception of lofty aspirings and indomitable 
 ardour. For this doctrine the Rabbinical name is Gilgul 
 Neshameih (the revolving of souls). 
 
 But the Rabbins sometimes deform the poetical part of 
 this conception by their absurd habits of 'particularizing. 
 In the Nislimeth Chajim we are thus told that the soul of 
 the man who transgresses by attempting to provoke another 
 to anger, passes inevitably into a beast. Those who were 
 engaged in the rebellion at the building of Babel were 
 punished by three judgments. The best among them were 
 punished by the confusion of tongues. The second rank, 
 or those who attempted to set up the idol, were sent to in- 
 habit cats and monkeys. The third more ambitious, and 
 more impious, who attempted to scale the heavens and 
 assault the divine throne with earthly weapons, were flung 
 down from their height, and transformed into evil spirits, 
 whose torment is, to be always in restless and agonizing 
 motion. A prevailing cabalistic doctrine is the transmi- 
 gration of the human spirit into cattle. But this depends 
 on the degree of guilt. "If he hath committed one sin 
 more than the number of his good works," he must undergo 
 transmigration. The soul of the man who thinks on his 
 good works is the more fortunate ; for, though he must 
 
236 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 undergo the degradation of passing into the form of a 
 beast, yet it is of a clean or ruminant one. But the soul 
 of the profligate, or the shedder of blood, passes into an 
 unclean beast, the camel, the rabbit, or the hog. The sen- 
 sualist is generally condemned to the form of a reptile. 
 
 Eabbinism has continued full of trivial observances ; 
 and the Jew of the present day is harassed with a weight 
 of ceremonies, which exceed the heaviest burdens of the 
 ancient law. This yoke he has laid upon himself. A 
 rigour, worthy of the Pharisee, is exercised in minute and 
 perpetual triflings worthy of a child. One of those ordin- 
 ances which pass through every portion of Jewish society, 
 relates to the smoothness of their knife-blades. The knife 
 with which the Jew puts bird or beast to death must be 
 without jags or notches of any kind. The Avodath Hahho- 
 desk assigns the important reason : " Sometimes the soul 
 of a righteous man is found in a clean beast or fowl. The 
 Jews are therefore commanded to have their killing-knives 
 without notches, to the end that they may give as little 
 pain as possible to the souls contained therein." 
 
 The treatise Ginelc Ilammelech gives the following in- 
 stance of the penal effect of the transmigration as detailed 
 by the Kabbi Mosche Gallante, chief judge of Jerusalem : 
 " When, in the first ages of Israel, the Eabbi Isaac Lurja 
 — blessed be his memory ! — was passing through the Holy 
 Land, he came faint and weary to a grove of olives, and* 
 there laid him down. He said to the Eabbi Mosche, 
 * Here let us rest ;' but the Eabbi would not, for he 
 looked round, and the place whereon they lay was a grave 
 of the wicked. But the Eabbi Isaac, pointing to a tree 
 above, on which sat a raven loudly croaking, said, * There 
 is no spirit in this grave. Dost thou not remember Is'iij- 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 23T 
 
 math, the extortioner of the city?' ' I remember him 
 well,' answered the Rabbi Mosche ; ' he was the grand 
 collector of the customs, and was cm'sed every day he lived 
 for his cruelty. He robbed the rich, and he trampled on 
 the poor ; the old he deprived of their property, and the 
 young of their inheritance. May his name be black as 
 night, and his memory be buried deep as the bottom. of the 
 sea.' < He is sorry enough now for his oppression,' said 
 the Rabbi Isaac Lurja. * The King of Judgment hath 
 sentenced his evil soul to be imprisoned in the body of that 
 raven, and its complainings are its sorrows for its state, 
 and its supplications to me to pray for its release.* 
 *And wilt thou pray for the son of evil V asked the 
 Rabbi Mosche. ' Sooner will I pray that this staff be the 
 serpent of the magician,' answered Rabbi Isaac ; and there- 
 upon rising, he flung it at the raven, which, with a yell of 
 fury, waved its wings, and shot up in agony into the bosom 
 of the clouds." 
 
 But, even in its original state, the soul, according to the 
 Rabbins, is under a multiform shape. They hold that the 
 human soul has no less than five different forms or stages. 
 *' The first is the Nephesh, the bodily soul. The second is 
 the Ruach, the spirit. The third is the Neshama^ the 
 more celestial soul. The fourth, the Chaja, the life. The 
 fifth is the Jechida, the solitary. And these divisions have 
 their appropriate occasions and uses, every remarkable 
 period of human existence requiring a due reinforcement of 
 the soul, as a principle. "In the working and week days, 
 between the new moon and the feast-day, thou must be con- 
 tent with having the Nephesh. On the Feast-day comes 
 the Ruach. On the day of Atonement comes the ]N"eshama. 
 On the Sabbath comes the Chaja, or supernumerary soul, 
 and in the final and future life of happiness comes the 
 
238 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 Jechida." The tenet that on the Sabbath man receives an 
 additional soul, is established among the Eabbins. But the 
 extravagance of those conceptions is occasionally qualified 
 among the latter commentators by the explanation that 
 those diversities of the human spirit simply mean the gra- 
 dual advance of the soul from excellence to excellence in 
 the course of prayer, and the study of divine things. 
 
 By a singular improvement on the pagan doctrine of the 
 metempsychosis, there is also a reverse change of bodies ; 
 and the spirit which had inhabited the form of a wild beast 
 becomes occasionally the inhabitant of the human shape. 
 The tenet of the famous Rabbi Lurja, in the treatise Gineh 
 Hammelech, is, that the violences and follies so conspicu- 
 ous and unaccountable on human grounds, in certain indi- 
 viduals, are explained by this transmission. The vulture, 
 the panther, the jackal, the fox, transmit their spirits into 
 men, and thence we obviously derive the gluttonous, the 
 rapacious, the base, the crafty, the whole train of the pro- 
 fligate and the mischievous of mankind ; the race whom no 
 precept can guide, no fear can restrain, and no principle 
 can regulate ; the whole lineage of the desperate and im- 
 practicable among men. 
 
 Such are the doctrines in their ruder state. But they 
 sometimes take a finer and more fanciful shape, and rise 
 into the boldness and imagery of oriental fiction. " What," 
 says the Shaar Aikhune^ " is the fall of the guiltiest of 
 the guilty ; of those who have made themselves abominable 
 in the sight of earth and heaven ; of those who have exulted 
 in their sins ; of the man who has slain a son of Israel ; 
 of the apostate who has denied the supremacy of the re- 
 ligion of Israel over all other religions on the earth ; of 
 the spy who has betrayed a Jew, or a community of Jews 1 
 Shall they ascend to heaven 1 shall they be worthy to plant 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 239 
 
 tHeir steps in the courts of the palaces of the angels 1 No ; 
 [he angels are their punishers ; they utter the sentence of 
 ruin against them ; they drive them downward, and sum- 
 mon a hand of evil spirits to chase them round the world. 
 The dark tormentors rush after them with goads and whips 
 of fire ; their chase is ceaseless ; they hunt them from the 
 plain to the mountain, from the mountain to the river, from 
 the river to the ocean, from the ocean round the circle of 
 the earth. Thus the tormented fly in terror, and the tor- 
 mentors follow in vengeance, until the time decreed is done. 
 Then the doomed sink into dust and ashes. Another be- 
 ginning of existence, the commencement of a second trial, 
 awaits them. They become clay, they take the nature of 
 the stone and of the mineral ; they are water, fire, air ; 
 they roll in the thunder ; they float in the cloud ; they 
 rush in the whirlwind. They change again. They enter 
 into the shapes of ^ the vegetable tribes ; they live in the 
 shrub, the flower, and the tree. Ages on ages pass in their 
 transformations ; they wither ; they are tossed by the tem- 
 pest ; they are trampled by man ; they are smote by the 
 axe j they are consumed by fire. Another change comes. 
 They enter into the shape of the beast, the bird, the fish, 
 the insect ; they traverse the desert, they destroy, and are 
 destroyed ; they soar into the clouds ; they shoot through 
 the depths of the ocean ; they burrow their invisible way 
 through the recesses of the earth ; they come by devouring 
 millions in the locust ; they sting in the scorpion ; they 
 crumble away the roots of vegetation in the hosts of the 
 ant j they destroy the promise of the year in the caterpil- 
 lar ; they drive the flocks and herds into famine and mad- 
 ness in the hornet and the fly zebib. They at last are 
 suffered to ascend into the rank of human beings once 
 more. Yet their ascent is step by step. They are first 
 
240 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 slaves ; tliey see their first light in the land of misery. 
 The African or the Asiatic sun scorches them by day ; 
 they are frozen with the dews of the night ; they live in 
 perpetual toil ; their frames are lacerated with the scourge ; 
 their steps clank with the chain ; their souls faint within 
 them in hopeless misery, till they long to die. At last they . 
 die, and again commence life in a higher rank ; they are 
 now free, but they cultivate a sterile soil ; they are impo- 
 verished, trampled, tortured by tyrant rulers ; they are 
 dragged to war by jfierce ambition ; they are pursued, 
 starved, ruined by furious >war ; they are thrown into 
 dungeons ; they are banished ; and, above all, their souls 
 are degraded by the darkness of superstitions bathed in 
 blood. They are bowed down to idols which they dread 
 while they despise ; they repeat prayers to things which 
 they know to be the work of men's hands, stocks and 
 stones, which yet from infancy they have taught them- 
 selves to adore ; and thus drag on life in torture of mind, 
 in shame, the twilight of truth, and the bewilderment of 
 ignorance ; they worship with their lips, yet scorn with 
 their hearts. But their scorn breaks forth ; they are 
 grasped by power ; they resist ; they are dragged to the 
 rack and the flame ; they are slain. The final change is 
 now come. They are Israelites. They have risen into the 
 first class of mankind ; they are of the chosen people ; the 
 sons of Abraham, to whom has been given the promise of 
 universal dominion. Joy to them unspeakable, if they hold 
 their rank ; misery tenfold if they fall, for their fall now 
 will be without redemption." 
 
 Those are the theories, and they bear evidence of that 
 mixture of Greek philosophy and Asiatic invention, which 
 forms the romance of the early ages. But they are some- 
 times embodied into narratives of singular imagination. 
 
TPcADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 241 
 
 The Tliousand and One Nights are rivalled, and the Sultana 
 Scheherazade might find some of her originality thrown 
 into the shade by those tales. The Widow of Hebron is 
 an example. 
 
 " The Rabbi Joseph, the son of Jehoshaphat, had been 
 praying from noon until the time of the going down of the 
 sun, w^hen a messenger from the chief of the Synagogue of 
 Hebron came to him, and besought him to go forth and 
 pray for a woman who was grievously tormented. The 
 Rabbi, ever awake to the call of human sorrow, rose from 
 his knees, girt his robe round him, and went forth. The 
 messenger led him to a building deep in the forest that 
 grew on the south side of the hill of Hebron. The building 
 had more the look of the palace of one of the princes of 
 Israel than of a private dwelling. But if its exterior struck 
 the gaze of the Rabbi, its apartments excited his astonish- 
 ment. He passed through a succession of halls worthy o^ 
 the days of the first Herod, when Jerusalem raised her 
 head again after the ruin of Antiochus, when her long civil 
 wars were past, and she had become once more the most 
 magnificent city of the Eastern world. Marble columns, 
 silken veils suspended from the capitals of the pillars, 
 tissues wrought with the embroidery of Sidon, and coloured 
 with the incomparable dyes of Caesarea, vases of Armenian 
 crystal, and tables of Grecian mosaic, filled chambers, in 
 which were trains of attendants of every climate, Ethiopian, 
 Indian, Persian, and Greek, all habited in the richest dresses. 
 All that met the eye wore an air of 'the most sumptuous 
 and habitual magnificence. 
 
 *' The Rabbi, however, had but a short time for wonder, 
 before he was summoned to the chamber of the sick person. 
 But all the costliness that he had seen before was eclipsed 
 by the singular brilliancy of this apartment. It was small, 
 
 XIII. — L 
 
242 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 and evidently contrived for the secluded hours of an indivi- 
 dual, but everything was sumptuous, all gold or pearl, amber 
 or lapis-lazuli. And in the midst of this pomp reclined, 
 half-sitting, half-lying, on huge pillows of Shiraz silk, a 
 female, whose beauty, in all the languor of pain, riveted 
 even the ancient eye of the pious Rabbi. The sufferer was 
 young ; but the flush that from time to time broke across 
 her countenance, and then left it to the paleness of the 
 grave, showed that she was on the verge of the tomb. The 
 Rabbi was famous for his knowledge of herbs and minerals, 
 and he offered her some of those medicaments which he' had 
 found useful in arresting the progress of decay. The dying 
 beauty thanked him, and said in a faint voice that she had 
 implored his coming, not to be cured of a disease which 
 she knew to be fatal, but to disburden her mind of a secret 
 which had already hung heavy on her, and which must 
 extinguish her existence before the morn. The Rabbi, on 
 hearing this, besought her to make him the depositary of 
 her sorrow, if he could serve her ; but, if he could not, for- 
 bade her to tell him what might hang darkly on the memory 
 of a man of Israel. * I am the daughter,' said she, ' of 
 your friend the Rabbi Ben Bechai, whose memory be blessed, 
 but the widow of a prince, the descendant of Ishmael. You 
 see the riches in this house ; but they are not the riches of 
 the sons of the Pesert. They were desperately gained, 
 bitterly enjoyed, and now they are repented of when it is 
 too late.' As the lovely being spoke, her countenance 
 changed ; she suddenly writhed and tossed with pain, and 
 in her agony cried out words that pierced the holy man's 
 ears with terror. He cast his eyes on the ground and 
 prayed, and was strengthened; but when he looked up 
 again, an extraordinary change had come upon the woman's 
 countenance. Its paleness was gone, her cheeks were burn- 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBIKS. 243 
 
 iiig, her hollow eyes were darting strange light ; her lips, 
 which had been thin and faded as the falling leaf, were full, 
 crimson, and quivering with wild passion and magic energy. 
 The Kabbi could not believe that he saw the dying woman 
 by whose side he had so lately knelt, in the fierce and bold, 
 yet still beautiful creature, that now gazed full and fearless 
 upon him. ^ You see me now,' said she, ^ with surprise ; 
 but these are the common changes of my suffering. The 
 deadly disease, that is sinking me to the dust, thus varies 
 its torment hour by hour ; but I must submit and suffer.' 
 The Eabbi knew by those words that the woman was tor- 
 mented with an evil spirit. Upon this he sent for a famous 
 unction, which had been handed down to him from his 
 ancestor the Rabbi Joseph, who had been physician to 
 King Herod the Great, and had exorcised the evil spirit 
 out of the dying king. On its being brought, he anointed 
 the forehead of the woman, her eyes, and the tips of her 
 fingers. He then made a fire of citron-wood and cinnamon, 
 and threw on it incense. As the smoke arose, he bowed 
 her head gently over it, that she might imbibe the odour 
 in her nostrils, which was an established way of expelling 
 the evil spirit. 
 
 " The woman's countenance now changed again ; it was 
 once more pale with pain, and she cried out in her tor- 
 ment j at length in strong agony she uttered many words. 
 But the Rabbi perceived, from her fixed eyes and motion- 
 less lips, that it was the spirit within her that spoke the 
 words. It said : ^ Why am I to be disturbed with anoint- 
 ings and incense ] Why am I to hear the sound of prayer, 
 and be smitten with the voice of the holy ] Look round 
 the chamber. Is it not full of us and our punishers ? Are 
 we not pursued for ever by the avenging angels ? Do they 
 not hold scourges of fire in their hands, and fill every 
 
244 TEADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 wound they make with thrice-distilled poison of the tree 
 Asgard, that grows by the lake of fire ] I was an Egyptian ; 
 -five hundred years ago I lived at the court of Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus. I longed for power, and I obtained it ; I 
 longed to possess the fairest daughters of the land, and I 
 possessed them. I longed for riches, and I practised all 
 evil to gain them. I was at length accused before the king 
 of sorcery. I longed for revenge on my accuser, and I en- 
 joyed my revenge. I stabbed him as he was sleeping in 
 his chamber. The murder was known ; I was forced to 
 fiy. But I first sent a present of perfumed cakes of 
 Damascus to the mistress of the man who made the dis- 
 covery ; they feasted on them together, and together they 
 died. The ship in which I fled was overtaken by a storm. 
 I was charged with having brought the anger of Heaven on 
 the vessel. I was seized, and about to be slain. I drove 
 my dagger through the captain, sprang overboard, and 
 reached the shore. From it, in triumphant revenge, I saw 
 the ship and all the crew perish in the waters. I was now 
 in the Great Desert of AMca ; and was starving and 
 scorched, until I lay down to die. But at the last moment 
 an old man came from among the tombs, and off'ered me 
 bread and water. I followed him to his dwelling in the 
 tombs. He scoffed at my ' complaints of ill-fortune, and 
 swore to place me once again at the height of my wishes-, if 
 I would be ready at his call at the end of a hundred years. 
 I could have then drunk fire and blood in my fury against 
 mankind, and my thirst of possession. I swore to be his, 
 and prepared to begin my hundred years of enjoyment. 
 
 " ^ I returned to Egypt. I had been supposed to have 
 sunk to the bottom of the waters with the wreck of the 
 vessel My countenance was no longer the same. No man 
 remembered me. I began my career. I was full of wild ambi- 
 
TEADITIONS OE THE EABBINS. 245 
 
 tion, eager desire, and matchless sagacity. I rapidly out- 
 stripped all rivalry. I rose to the first rank under the 
 Ptolemies. I enjoyed the delight of ruining every man who 
 had formerly thwarted me. All Egypt rang with ray fame. 
 I had secret enemies, and strange rumours of the means of 
 my perpetual success began to be spread. But I had spies 
 everywhere ; a whisper was repaid by death. A frown was 
 avenged like an open accusation. My name became a uni- 
 versal terror. But I had my followers and flatterers only the 
 more. I trampled on mankind. I revelled in seeing the proud 
 grovelling at my feet. I corrupted the lowly, I terrified 
 the high, I bound the strong to my basest services. I was 
 hated and cursed, but I was feared. Daggers, poison, 
 secret rage, and public abhorrence, all were levelled against 
 me j I encountered them all, defied them all, challenged 
 and triumphed over them all. I was the most successful, 
 the most envied, and the most wretched of human beings. 
 But my passions at length changed their colour ; I had lost 
 all sense of enjoyment ; habit had worn its sense away ; 
 the feast, rank, splendour, the adulation of the great, the 
 beauty of woman, all had grown tasteless and wearisome. 
 Life was withering. But I had a fierce enjoyment still, and 
 one that grew keener with the advance of years. I rejoiced 
 in the degradation of my fellow-men. I revelled in corrupt- 
 ing the mercenary, in hardening the ferocious, in inflaming 
 the vindictive, in stimulating the violent. I lived, too, in 
 an evil time of the monarchy. Desperate excesses in the 
 court were all but rivalled by furious vice in the people. 
 The old age of the Greek dynasty was a sinking of the soul 
 and body of dominion together. The deepest sensuality, 
 the wildest waste of public wealth, the meanest extortion, 
 the most reckless tyranny, all that could fester the memory 
 of a nation, were the daily crimes of the decaying court of 
 
246 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 the Ptolemies. I had come at the right time. Invested 
 with power which made the monarch a cipher, I exulted in 
 the coming ruin ; I blinded the eyes of this voluptuous 
 tyranny to its inevitable fate ; I had but little to do in 
 urging it to new crime, but I did that little. I wove round 
 it a web of temptation that the strength even of virtue 
 could have scarcely broken, but into which the eager disso- 
 luteness of the Egyptian court plunged as if it had been the 
 most signal gift of fortune. I exulted in the prospect of 
 my accomplished task of precipitating a guilty palace and 
 people into utter ruin ; but in the fever of my exultation I 
 had forgot that my time was measured. At a banquet in 
 the king's chamber I saw a guest whose face struck me as 
 having been known to me at some remote period. He was 
 the chieftain of one of the Bactrian tribes, who now came 
 to offer compensation for some outrages of his wild horse- 
 men on a caravan returning from the Indus to Egypt. He 
 was a man of marvellous age, the signs of which he bore in 
 his visage, but of the most singular sagacity. His repu- 
 tation had gone forth among the people ; and all the 
 dealers in forbidden arts, the magi, the soothsayers, and 
 the consulters of the dead, acknowledged their skill outdone 
 by this exhausted and decrepit barbarian. The first glance 
 of his keen eye awoke me to strange and fearful remem- 
 brances, but his first word put an end to all doubt, and 
 made me feel the agonies of despair. At the sound of his 
 voice I recognised the old man of the tombs, and felt that 
 the terrible time for his payment was come. It was true ; 
 I was to die ; I was to suffer for the long banquet of life ; 
 I was to undergo the torture of the place of all torture ; 
 I was to suffer a hideous retribution for' the days of my 
 triumph. They had been many, but they now seemed to 
 me but a moment. Days, months, years, were compressed 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBIKS. 247 
 
 into a thought, and I groaned within my inmost soul at 
 the frenzy which had bound me to a master so soon to de- 
 mand the penalty to the uttermost. 
 
 " ^ I fled from the royal chamber ; my mind was a whirl 
 of terror, shame, loathing, hatred, and remorse. I seized 
 my sword, and was about to plunge it into my heart, and 
 end a suspense more stinging than despair, when I found 
 my hand arrested, and, on turning, saw the visage of the 
 Bactrian. I indignantly attempted to wrest the sword 
 from him, and drive it home to a heart burning with the 
 poison of the soul. But he held it with a grasp to which 
 my utmost strength was a child's. I might as well have 
 forced a rock from its base. He smiled, and said, " I am 
 Sammael. You should have known, that to resist me was 
 as absurd as to expect pity from our race. I am one of 
 the princes of evil ; I reign over the south-east ; I fill the 
 Bactrian deserts with rapine, the Persian chambers with 
 profligacy, and am now come to fling the firebrands of civil 
 war into this court of efl'emirate Asiatics, savage Africans, 
 and treacherous Greeks. The work was nearly done with- 
 out me ; but Sammael must not let the wickedness of man 
 triumph alone. He tempts, ensnares, betrays, and he must 
 have his reward like mankind. This kingdom will soon be 
 a deluge of blood where it is not a deluge of conflagration, 
 and a deluge of conflagration where it is not a deluge of 
 blood." As he spoke his countenance grew fiery, his voice 
 became awful, and I fell at his feet^ without the power to 
 struggle or to speak. He was on the point of plunging me 
 through the crust of the earth ten thousand times ten thou- 
 sand fathoms deep, below the roots of the ocean, to abide 
 in tlie region of rack and flame. He had already lifted his 
 heel to trample me down. But he paused, and uttered a 
 groan. I saw a burst of light that covered him from the 
 
2iS TRADITTONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 Lead to the foot, and in which he writhed as if it had been 
 a robe of venom. I looked up and saw a giant shape, one 
 of the sons of Paradise who watch over the children of 
 Israel, standing before the evil King. They fought for me 
 with lances bright and swift as flashes of lightning. But 
 Sammael was overthrown. He sprang from the ground, 
 and, cursing, spread his wings and flew up into a passing 
 thunder-cloud. The son of Paradise still stood over me 
 with a countenance of wrath, and said, " Child of guilt, why 
 chall not vengeance be wrought upon the guilty ? Why 
 shall not the subject of the evil one be stricken with his 
 punishment, and be chained on the burning rocks of his 
 dungeon, that are deep as the centre of the earth, and wide 
 as its surface spread out ten thousand times ?" I clasped 
 his knees, and bathed them with tears ; I groaned, and 
 beat my bosom in the terrors of instant death. The bright 
 vision still held the blow suspended, and saying " that I 
 had been preserved from ruin only by being the descendant 
 of an Israelitish mother, but that my life had earned pun- 
 ishment which must be undergone ;" as he spoke the words, 
 he laid his hand upon my forehead with a weight which 
 seemed to crush my brain. 
 
 " ' I shrank and sprang away in fear ; I rushed wildly 
 through the palace, through the streets, through the high- 
 ways. I felt myself moving with a vigour of limb and 
 savage swiftness that astonished me. On the v/ay I over- 
 took a troop of Alexandrian merchants going towards the 
 desert of the Pentapolis. I felt a strange instinct to rush 
 among them ; I was hungry and parched with thirst. I 
 sprang among a group who had sat down beside one of the 
 wells that border the sands. They all rose up at my sight 
 with a hideous outcry. Some fled, some threw tliemselven 
 down behind the shelter of the thickets, but some sei/.ed 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 249 
 
 their swords and lances, and stood to defend themselves. 
 I glowed with unaccountable rage 1 The sight of their de- 
 fiance doubly inflamed me ; the very gleam of their steel 
 seemed to me the last insult, and I rushed forward to make 
 them repent of their temerity. At the same instant I felt 
 a sudden thrill of pain ; a spear, thrown by a powerful 
 hand, was quivering in my side. I bounded resistlessly on 
 my assailant, and in another moment saw him lying in 
 horrid mutilation at my feet. The rest instantly lost all 
 courage at the sight, and, flinging down their weapons, 
 scattered in all directions, crying for help. But those das- 
 tards were not worth pursuit. The well was before me ; I 
 was burning with thirst and fatigue, and I stooped down 
 to drink of its pure and smooth water. What was my 
 astonishment when I saw a lion stooping in the mirror of 
 the well ! I distinctly saw the shaggy mane, the huge 
 bloodshot eyes, the rough and rapidly moving lips, the 
 pointed tusks, and all red with recent gore. I shrank in 
 strange perturbation. I returned to the well again, stooped 
 to drink, and again saw the same furious monster stoop to 
 its calm, blue mirror. A horrid thought crossed my mind. 
 I had known the old doctrine of the Egyptians and Asiatics, 
 which denounced punishment in the shape of brutes to the 
 guilty dead. Had I shared this hideous punishment ? I 
 again gave a glance at the water. The sight was now con- 
 viction. I no longer wondered at the wild outcry of the 
 caravan, at the hurried defence, at the strange flight, at 
 the ferocious joy with which I tore down my enemy, and 
 trampled and rent him till he had lost all semblance of 
 man. The punishment had come upon me. My fated spirit 
 had left its human body, and had entered into the shape of the 
 savage inhabitant of the wilderness. The thought w^as one 
 of indescribable horror. I bounded away with furious speed, 
 
250 TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS^. 
 
 I tore up the sands, I darted my fangs into my own flesh, 
 and sought for some respite from hideous thought in the 
 violence of bodily pain. I flew along the limitless plains 
 of the desert, from night till morning, and from morning 
 till night, in hope to exhaust bitter memory by fatigue. 
 All was in vain. I lay down to die, but the vast strength 
 of my frame was proof against fatigue. 
 
 " ^ I rushed from hill to valley with the speed of the 
 whirlwind, and still I was but the terror of the wilderness, 
 all whose tenants flew before me. I sought the verge of 
 the little villages, where the natives hide their heads from 
 the scorching sun and the deadly dews. I sought them, 
 to perish by their arrows and lances. I was often wounded ; 
 I often carried away with me their barbed iroli in my flesh. 
 I often writhed in the agony of poisoned wounds. Still I 
 lived. My life was the solitary existence of the wild beast. 
 I hunted down the antelope, the boar, and the goat, and 
 gorged upon their blood. I then slept, until hunger, or the 
 cry of the hunter, roused me once more to commence the 
 same career of flight, pursuit, watching, and wounds. This 
 life was hideous. With the savage instincts of the wild 
 beast, I retained the bitter recollections of my earlier 
 nature, and every hour was felt with the keenness of a 
 punishment allotted by a Judge too powerful to be ques- 
 tioned, and to stern to be propitiated. How long I endured 
 this state of evil I had no means of knowing. I had lost 
 the human faculty of measuring the flight of time. I 
 howled in rage at the light of the moon as I roamed through 
 the wilderness ; I shrank from the broad blaze of the sun, 
 which at once parched my blood and warned my prey of 
 my approach ; I felt the tempests of the furious season, 
 wliich drove all the feebler animals from the face of the 
 land to hide in caves and woods. I felt the renewed fires 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 251 
 
 of the season when the sun broke through his clouds once 
 more, and the earth, refreshed with the rains, began to be 
 withered like the weed in the furnace. But, for all other 
 purposes, the moon and the sun rose alike to my mind, 
 embodied as it was in the brute, and sharing the narrowness 
 and obscurity of the animal intellect. Months and years 
 passed unnoted. In the remnant of understanding that 
 was left to me in vengeance, I laboured in vain to recount 
 .the periods of my savage suffering ; but the periods of my 
 human guilt were, by some strange visitation of wrath, always 
 and instantly ready at my call. I there saw my whole 
 career with a distinctness which seemed beyond all human 
 memory. I lived over every hour, every thought, every 
 passion, every pang. Then the instincts of my degraded 
 state would seize me again ; I was again the devourer, the 
 insatiate drinker of blood, the terror of the African, the 
 ravager of the sheepfold, the monarch of the forest. But 
 my life of horror seemed at length to approach its limit : 
 I felt the gradual approach of decay. My eyes, once keen 
 as the lightning, could no longer discern the prey on the 
 edge of the horizon ; my massive strength grew weary j 
 my limbs, the perfection of muscular strength and activity, 
 became ponderous, and bore me no longer with the light- 
 ness that had given the swiftest gazelle to my grasp. I 
 shrank within my cavern, and was to be roused only by the 
 hunger which I bore long after it had begun to gnaw me. 
 One day I dragged out my tardy limbs, urged by famine to 
 seize upon the buffaloes of a tribe passing across the desert- 
 I sprang upon the leader of the herd, and had already 
 dragged it to the earth, when the chieftain of the tribe 
 rushed forward with his lance, and, uttering a loud outcry, 
 I turned from the fallen buffalo to attack the hunter. But 
 in that glance I saw an aspect which I remembered after 
 
252 TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 tlie lapse of so many years of misery. The countenance of 
 the being who had crushed me out of human nature was 
 before me. I felt the powerful pressure ; a pang new to 
 me, a sting of human feeling, pierced through my frame. 
 I dared not rush upon this strange avenger ; I cow^ered in 
 the dust ; I would have licked bis feet. My fury, my 
 appetite for carnage, my ruthless delight in rending and 
 devouring the helpless creatures of the wilderness had 
 passed away. I doubly loathed my degradation, and, if I 
 could have uttered a human voice, I should at this moment 
 have implored the being before me to plunge his spear into 
 my brain, and* extinguish all consciousness at once. As the 
 thought arose, I looked on him once more ; he was no 
 longer the African ; he wore the grandeur and fearful 
 majesty of Azrael. I knew the Angel of Judgment. 
 Again he laid his grasp upon my front. Again I felt it 
 like the weight of a thunderbolt. I bounded in agony 
 from the plain, fell at his feet, and the sky, the earth, and 
 the avenger disappeared from my eyes. 
 
 " ^ When life returned to me again, I found that I was 
 rushing forward with vast speed, but it was no longer the 
 bound and spring of my sinewy limbs. I felt, too, that I 
 was no longer treading the sands that had so long burned 
 imder my feet. I was tossed by winds ; I w^as drenched 
 with heavy moisture ; I saw at intervals a strong glare of 
 light bursting on me, and then suddenly obscured. My 
 senses gradually cleared, and I became conscious that my 
 being had undergone a new change. I glanced at my limbs, 
 and saw them covered with plumage ; but the talons were 
 still there. I still felt the fierce eagerness for blood, the 
 instinctive desire of destroying life, the eagerness of pursuit, 
 the savage spirit of loneliness. Still I was the sullen 
 king of the forest ; in every impulse of my spirit I 
 
TEADITIONS OF TGE EABBINS. 253 
 
 rushed on. As far as my eye could gaze — and it now 
 possessed a jjower of vision which seemed to give mo 
 the command of the earth — I saw clouds rolling in huge 
 piles as white as snow, and wilder than the surges of 
 an uproused sea. I saw the marble pinnacles of moun- 
 tains piercing through the vapoury ocean like the points of 
 lances ; I saw the whole majesty of the kingdom of the air, 
 with all its splendour of colouring, its gathering tempests, 
 its boundless reservoirs of the rain, its fiery forges of the 
 thunder. Still I rushed on, sustained by unconscious power, 
 and filled wdth a fierce joy in my new strength. As I 
 accidentally passed over a broad expanse of vapour, which 
 lay calm and smooth under the meridian beams, I looked 
 downwards. The speed of my shadow as it swept across 
 the cloud first caught my eye. But I was in another 
 moment struck with still keener astonishment at the shape 
 which fell there. It bore the complete outline of an eagle ; 
 I saw the broad wings, the strong form, the beak and head 
 framed for rapine ; the destruction of prey was in every 
 movement. The truth flashed on me. My spirit had 
 transmigrated into the king of the feathered race. My 
 first sensations were of the deepest melancholy. I was to 
 be a prisoner once more in the form of an inferior nature. 
 I was still to be exiled from the communion of man. I 
 was, for years or ages, to be a fierce and blood-devouring 
 creature, the dweller among mountains and precipices, pur- 
 sued by man, a terror to all the beings of its nature, stern, 
 solitary, hated, and miserable. Yet I had glimpses of con- 
 solation. Though retaining the ruthless impulses of my 
 forest state, I felt that my lot was now softened, that my 
 fate was cast in a mould of higher capabilities of enjoy- 
 ment, that I was safer from the incessant fears of pursuit, 
 from the famine, the thirst, the wounds, and the inclem- 
 
254 TEADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 cncy of the life of the wilderness. I felt still a higher 
 alleviation of my destiny in the sense that the very enjoy- 
 ments, few and lonely as they were, which were added to 
 my existence, were proof that my captivity was not to 
 be for ever. The recollections of my human career still 
 mingled with the keen and brute impulses of my present 
 being : but they were no longer the scorpion scourges that 
 had once tortured me, I remembered with what eager 
 longing I had often looked upon the clear heavens of Egypt, 
 and envied every bird that I saw soaring in the sunshine. 
 I remembered how often, in even the most successful hours 
 of my ambition, I had wished to exchange existence with 
 the ibis that I had seen sporting over the banks of the 
 Nile, and then spreading his speckled wings, and floating 
 onward to the Thebais, at a height inaccessible to the arrow. 
 How often had I gazed at the eagles which I started at 
 the head of my hunting train from the country of the 
 Cataracts, and while I watched their flight into the highest 
 region of the blue and lovely atmosphere, saw their plum- 
 age turned to gold and purple as they rose through the 
 coloured light of the clouds, or poised themselves in the 
 full radiance of the sunbeams ! This delight was now fully 
 within my possession, and I enjoyed it to the full. The 
 mere faculty of motion is an indulgence ; but to possess it 
 without restraint — to have unlimited space before me for 
 its exercise, and to traverse it without an exertion — to be 
 able to speed with a swiftness surpassing all human rapidity 
 — to speed through a world, and to speed with the simple 
 wave of a wing — was a new sense, a source of pleasure that 
 alone might almost have soothed my calamity. The beauty 
 of nature, the grandeur of the elemental changes, the con- 
 trasted majesty of the mountains with the living and 
 crowded luxuriance of the plains below, were perpetually 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBIXS. 255 
 
 before my eye ; and tardily as they impressed themselves 
 on my spirit, and often as they were degraded and darkened 
 by the necessities of my animal nature, they still made their 
 impression. My better mind was beginning to revive. At 
 length, one day as I lay on my poised pinions, basking in 
 the sun, and wondering at the flood of radiance that from 
 his orb illumined earth and heaven, I lamented, with almost 
 the keenness of human regret, that I was destitute of the 
 organs to make known to man the magnificence of the 
 powers of creation, thus seen nigh, cloudless, and serene. 
 In this contemplation I had forgotten that a tempest had 
 been gathering in the horizon. It had rapidly advanced 
 towards me. It enwrapped me before I had time to spread 
 my pinions and escape from its overwhelming ruin. When 
 I made the attempt, it was too late. I saw nothing before, 
 below, or above me, but rolling volumes of vapour, which 
 confused my vision and clogged my wings. Lightning 
 began to shoot through the depths of the world of cloud. 
 As I still struggled fiercely to extricate myself, I saw a 
 shape standing in the heart of the storm. I knew the 
 countenance. It was Azrael ; still awful, but with its 
 earlier indignation gone. My strength sank and withered 
 before him. My powerful pinion flagged. I waited the 
 blow. It was mxcrcy. I saw him stretch forth the fatal 
 hand again. The lightning burst around me. I was en- 
 veloped in a whirlwind of fire, felt one wild pang, and felt 
 no more. 
 
 " ' I awoke *in the midst of a chamber filled with a 
 crowd of wild-looking men and women, who, on seeing me 
 open my eyes, could not suppress their wonder and joy. 
 They danced about the chamber with all the gesticulations 
 of barbarian delight. As I gazed round, with some hope 
 or fear of seeing the mighty angel who had smote me, my 
 
256 TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 gesture was mistaken for a desire to breathe the open air. 
 I was carried towards a large casement, from which a view 
 of the country spread before me. I was instantly, and for 
 the first time, now sensible that another change had come 
 upon me. "Where were the vast volumes of clouds, on 
 which I had floated in such supreme command 1 Where 
 were the glittering pinnacles of the mountains, on which I 
 had for so many years looked down from a height that 
 made them dwindle into spear-heads and aiTOW-points 1 
 Where was that broad and golden splendour of the sun, on 
 which I had for so many thousand days gazed, as if I 
 drank new life from the lustre ? I now saw before me only 
 a deep and gloomy ravine, feathered with pines, and filled 
 with a torrent that bounded from the marble summit of 
 the precipice. The tops of the hills seemed to pierce the 
 heavens, but they were a sheet of sullen forest ; the sun 
 was shut out, and, but for a golden line that touched the 
 ridge, I should have forgotten that he had an existence. I 
 had left the region of lights and glories ; I was now a 
 wingless, powerless, earth-fixed thing, a helpless exile from 
 the azure provinces of the sky. W^hat I had become, I 
 toiled in vain to discover. I was changed ; I knew no 
 more ; my faculties still retained the impressions made on 
 them by long habit ; and I felt myself involuntarily attempt- 
 ing to spring forward, and launch again upon the bosom of 
 the air. But I was at length to be fully acquainted with • 
 the truth. 
 
 " ' As the evening came on, I heard signals of horns 
 and wild cries ; the sounds of many voices roused me, and, 
 soon after, the women whom I had seen before, rushed into 
 the chamber, bringing a variety of ornaments and robes, 
 which they put on me. A mirror, which one of them held 
 to my face when all was completed, showed me that I had 
 
TEADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 257 
 
 transmigrated into the form of a young female. I was now 
 the daughter of a Circassian chieftain. The being whose 
 form I now possessed had been memorable for her beauty, 
 was accordingly looked upon as a treasure by her parents, 
 and destined to be sold to the most extravagant purchaser. 
 But envy exists even in the mountains of Circassia ; and a 
 dose of opium, administered by a rival beauty, had suddenly 
 extinguished a bargain, which had been already far advanced, 
 with an envoy from the royal harem of Persia. My parents 
 were inconsolable, and they had torn their garments, and 
 vowed revenge over me for three days. On this evening 
 the horsemen of the whole tribe were to have assembled for 
 an incursion upon the tribe of my successful rival, and to 
 have avenged my death by general extermination. While 
 all was in suspense, the light had come into the eyes of the 
 dead beauty, the colour had dawned on her cheeks, her lips 
 had moved ; and her parents, in exultation at the hope of 
 renewing their bargain, had at once given a general feast 
 to their kinsmen, loaded me with their family ornaments, 
 and invited the Persian to renew his purchase, and carry 
 me without delay beyond the chance of future doses of 
 opium. 
 
 " ' The Persian came in full gallop, and approved of me 
 for the possession of his long-bearded lord. My parents 
 embraced me, wept over me, protested that I was the light 
 of their eyes, and sold me without the slightest ceremony. 
 That night I was packed up like a bale of Curdistan cloth, 
 was flung on a horse, and carried far from the mountains 
 of Cu-cassia. 
 
 '- ' At the Persian Court I lived sumptuously, and in 
 
 perpetual terror. I ate off dishes of gold, and slept on 
 
 beds fringed with pearl, yet I envied the slave who swept 
 
 the chamber. Everything aroimd me was distrust, discoil- 
 
 l2 
 
258 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 tent, and treachery. My Persian lord was devoted to me 
 for a month ; and, at the end of that thne, I learned from 
 an old female slave that I was to be poisoned, as my place 
 was to be supplied by a new favourite, and it w^as contrary 
 to the dignity of the court that I should be sold to a 
 subject. My old friend further told me that the poison 
 was to be administered in a pomegranate that night at 
 supper, and mentioned by what mark I was to know the 
 fatal fruit. On that night there was a banquet in the 
 harem ; the monarch was beyond all custom courteous, and 
 he repeatedly invited me to drink perfumed liquors, as the 
 highest token of his regard, from his own table. At length, 
 in a sportive tone, he ordered a dish of pomegranates from 
 his favourite garden to be divided amongst the fairest of the 
 fair of the harem. My heart sank within me, as I heard the 
 sentence of death. But I became only the more vigilant. 
 The dish was brought. The fruits were flung by the mon- 
 arch to his delighted guests, till at last but two remained. 
 One of them, I saw, was the marked one. To have refused 
 it, would have argued detection of the treachery, and must 
 have been followed by certain death. At the moment when 
 his hand touched it, I exclaimed that a scorpion had stnng 
 me, and fell on the floor in agony ! This produced a mo- 
 mentary confusion. The monarch dropped the fruit from 
 his hand, and turned to summon assistance. Quick as the 
 love of life could urge me, I darted towards the table, and 
 changed the places of the two pomegranates. The confusion 
 soon subsided, and I received from the hand of the Soft the 
 one which was now next to his royal touch. I bowed to the 
 ground in gratitude, and tasted the fruit, which I praised 
 as the most exquisite of all productions of the earth. The 
 monarch, satisfied with his performance, now put the 
 remaining one to his lips. I saw the royal epicure devour 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 259 
 
 it to the last morsel, and observed the process without the 
 least compunction ; he enjoyed it prodigiously. In the 
 consciousness that he would not enjoy it long, I packed up 
 every jewel and coin I could gather in my chamber the 
 moment I left the banquet, desiring the old slave to bring 
 me the earliest intelligence of the catastrophe. My labours 
 were scarcely completed, when an uproar in the palace told 
 me that my pomegranate was effectual. The old slave came 
 flying in immediately after, saying that all the physicians 
 of the city had been ordered to come to the Soft's chamber ; 
 that he was in agony, and that there were " strong sus- 
 picions of his having been poisoned ! " The old Nubian 
 laughed excessively as she communicated her intelligence, 
 and, at the same time, recommended my taking advantage 
 of the tumult to escape. I lost no time, and we fled 
 together. 
 
 " ' But, as I passed the windows of the royal chamber, 
 I could not resist the impulse to see how his supper suc- 
 ceeded with him. Climbing on my old companion s shoulders 
 I looked in. He was surrounded by a crowd of physicians 
 of all ranks and races, Jews and infidels, all offering their 
 nostrums ; and all answered by the most furious threats, 
 that unless they recovered him before the night was over, 
 the dawn should see every one of them without his head. 
 He then raved at his own blunder, which he appeared to 
 have found out in all points, and cursed the hour when he 
 ate pomegranates for supper, and was outwitted by a 
 woman. He then rolled in agony. I left him yelling, and 
 heard him long after I had reached the boundaries of the 
 harem garden. He died before he had time to cut off the 
 physicians' heads. Before dawn he was with his fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 " ^ Through what changes of life I now ran, I remember 
 
260 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 but little more. All is confused before my eyes, I became 
 the captive of a Bedouin, fed his camels, moved the 
 jealousy of the daughter of a neighbouring robber, was 
 carried off by his wild riders in consequence, and left to 
 perish in the heart of the Hedjaz. From this horrible fate 
 I was rescued, after days of wandering and famine, by a 
 caravan which had lost its way, and, straying out of the 
 right road, came to make prize of me. The conductor of 
 the escort seized me as his property, fed me until I was in 
 due fulness for the slave-market at Astrachan, and sold 
 me to a travelling Indian dealer in Angora goats' hair and 
 women. I was hurried to the borders of the Ganges, and 
 consigned to the court of a mighty sovereign, black as 
 ebony, and with the strongest resemblance to an overgrown 
 baboon. I was next the sultana of a Kajahpoot. I was 
 then the water-carrier of a Turcoman horse-stealer ; I was 
 the slave of a Koman matron at Constantinople, who 
 fandshed and flogged me to make me a convert, and, when 
 I at last owned the conversion, famished and flogged me 
 to keep me to my duty. She died, and I was free from 
 the scourge, the temple, and the dungeon. I have but one 
 confession more to make. Can the ear of the holy son of 
 Jehoshaphat, the wisest of the wise, listen to the compacts 
 of the tempter 1 ' The fair speaker paused ; the Kabbi 
 shrank at the words. But the dying penitent before him 
 was no longer an object of either temptation or terror. He 
 pressed his hands upon his bosom, bowed his head, and 
 listened. 
 
 " The fainting beauty smiled, and, taking from her 
 locks a rich jewel, placed it on the hand of her hearer. 
 ^ My story is at an end,' said she. ' I had but one trial 
 yet to undergo. The King of the Spirits of Evil urged me 
 to deliver myself over to him. He promised me instant 
 
TKADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 261 
 
 liberty, the breaking of my earthly chain, the elevation 
 into the highest rank of earth, the enjoyment of riches 
 beyond the treasures of kings. The temptation was power- 
 ful ; the wealth which you now see round me was brought 
 by hands that might have controlled the elements ; but I 
 had learned to resist all that dazzled the eye. Ambition 
 was not for my sex, yet I might have at this hour ranked 
 at the head of the race of woman ; a spell was within my 
 power, by the simple uttering of which I might have sat 
 on a throne, the noblest throne at this hour upon earth. 
 This, too, I resisted. But the more overwhelming tempta- 
 tion was at hand : The King of Evil stood before me in a 
 garb of splendour inexpressible, and offered to make me the 
 possessor of all the secrets of magic. He raised upon the 
 earth visions of the most bewitching beauty ; he filled 
 these halls with shapes of the most dazzling brightness ; he 
 touched my eyes, and I saw the secrets of other worlds, the 
 people of the stars, the grandeur of the mighty regions that 
 spread above this cloudy dwelling and prison of man. The 
 temptation was beyond all resistance. I was on the point 
 of yielding, when I saw the Spirit of Evil suddenly writhe 
 as if an arrow had shot through him. His brightness 
 instantly grew dim, his strength withered, and, even while 
 I gazed, he sank into the earth. Where he had stood, I 
 saw nothing but a footprint, marked as if the soil had 
 borne fire ; but another form arose. I knew Azrael ; his 
 countenance had now lost all its terrors. He told me that 
 my trials were come to their conclusion ; that, guilty as I 
 was, my last allegiance to the tempter was broken ; that 
 the decree had gone forth for my release, and that this 
 night I was to inhabit a form of clay no more.' The 
 Rabbi listened in holy fear *to the language of the wearied 
 spirit, and for a while was absorbed in supplication. He 
 
262 TEADITIOXS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 then repeated the prayers for the dying honrs of the 
 daughters of Israel. 
 
 " ' It was for this that I summoned you, son of Jeho- 
 shaphat/ said the sinking form. < It was to soothe my 
 last hour on earth with the sounds of holy things, and to 
 fill my dying ear with the wisdom of our fathers. So shall 
 my chain be gently divided, and the hand of the angel of 
 death lead me through the valley of darkness without 
 treading on the thorns of pain.' The Eabbi knelt, and 
 prayed more fervently. But he was roused by the deep 
 sigh of the sufferer. ^ Now, pray for me no longer,' were 
 her words ; * pray for the peace of Jerusalem.' The Eabbi 
 prayed for the restoration of Zion. As his prayer arose, he 
 heard it echoed by voices of sweetness that sank into his 
 soul. He looked upon the couch ; the sufferer was dead ; 
 but the struggle of death had not disturbed a feature. She 
 lay still lovely, and he knew that the fetter of the spirit 
 had been loosed for ever, and that the trial had been ended 
 in mercy. He rose to call the attendants to watch by the 
 dead, but the halls were empty. He then turned to the 
 porch, and, pondering on the ways of destiny, set his face 
 in awe and sorrow towards his own home. He looked 
 back once more, but where was the porch through which 
 he had so lately passed ? Where was the stately mansion 
 itself ^ All before the eye was the dim and yellow expanse 
 of weeds that covers the foot of Hebron. He looked 
 around him — he saw but the heathy sides of the hill, with 
 the city on its brow ; he looked below him — he saw but 
 the endless range of fertile plain that is lost in the desert ; 
 above him, all was the blue glory of midnight. The palace 
 was air. Had he been in a trance '? Had he seen a vision ? 
 Had a warning been given to him in a dream 1 Who 
 knoweth *? But is it not recorded in the book of the house 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 263 
 
 of Jeliosliapliat ; who shall tell ] Go, thou who readest, 
 and learn wisdom. Are not all things dust and air f 
 
 Some of the traditions allow a much more extensive 
 transmigration. The treatise Zohar claims the privilege, 
 or admits the punishment, for it may be either, of trans- 
 migrating no less than a thousand times. ; on these grounds : 
 When the great Judge causes the soul of a man to trans- 
 migrate, it is generally because it has not prospered or done 
 good in its former state. It is then that the soul is torn 
 from one existence and planted in the form of another ; 
 and this is called the " changing of the place." On the 
 third change it receives a new appellative, and this is called 
 the " changing of the name." A more marked stage is the 
 alteration to a new form, with a consequent alteration of 
 all the objects, pursuits, and faculties ; this is called the 
 " changing of the work." But " how often," asks the 
 treatise, *' may those changes take place ? To one thousand 
 times," is the answer. 
 
 But this singular doctrine is urged still further, and is 
 made to comprehend even the fallen angels. The treatise 
 Tnf Haraez declares that, as it is not the will of Providence 
 that any Jew should be lost, and the command of circum- 
 cision was given to Abraham, the resource of transmigration 
 was devised for the assistance of those who might neglect 
 that essential rite ; as thus, instead of being utterly cast 
 forth, they were to be only temporarily separated from the 
 chosen people, being sent to transmigrate through a series 
 of bodies, until their due purification should be accomplished. 
 Upon the discovery of this proviso, the treatise tells us that 
 the fallen angels, conceiving themselves not much worse 
 than an uncircumcised Jew, laid their claim to a similar 
 privilege. Sammael and his seventy princes pleaded their 
 cause, on the ground that as they were the work of creation 
 
264 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 not less than the sons of Abraham, they, fallen as they 
 might be, deserved the same consideration. " For, what 
 had Abraham done that he should be preferred to beings 
 originally so much his superiors ?" The answer was, that 
 the patriarch's merits had entitled him to this privilege ; 
 " that he had gone into the fire of the Chaldeans," to prove 
 his zeal, which was more than Sammael and his seventy 
 princes had ever thought of doing. The application was 
 closed by a summary command that it should not be re- 
 peated. " Ye have not hallowed my words ; therefore 
 speak no more, good or bad." 
 
 When we read those perversions of Scripture, which seem 
 to be engendered of the most wilful ignorance, and the 
 blindest infatuation, we may well account for the earnest- 
 ness with which the apostolical writers warned the Chris- 
 tian world against the traditionary spirit of the Jews, 
 against the *' old wives' fables," the entangled genealogies, 
 and the endless mysticism. We have here specimens of 
 the wisdom of the proud and stubborn generation which 
 rejected the Messiah, and, with the oracles of divine truth 
 in their hands, actually loved the false, the extravagant, 
 and the trifling. We may well understand the force of 
 the caution against " will worship," and prying into things 
 of which no knowledge has been vouchsafed to man — the 
 nature of angels, and the transactions of Heaven. We see 
 here the fantastic humility, the uncalled-for mortification, 
 the unauthorized homage to the living saints or the dead. 
 It is not less palpable that the propensity to load scriptural 
 ti'uth with human inventions has been the characteristic of 
 the corruption of Christianity, not less than of Judaism ; 
 and that Eome may vie, at this hour, in legendary extrava- 
 gance, the worshipping of angels, the prayers for those 
 spirits who are beyond ail human intervention, the homage 
 
TEADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 265 
 
 to the saints and martyrs, the useless and frivolous miracieF?, 
 and the misty, fluctuating, and irreverent doctrines suggested 
 for their support, with the wildest and most worthless fabri- 
 cations of the Kabbins. 
 
 Like all Oriental writings on theology, the Eabbinical 
 traditions discuss largely the glories, wonders, and delights 
 of the future state. The Sacred Scriptures, written for 
 higher purposes than curiosit}^, or the indulgence of an ex- 
 travagant imagination, are nearly silent on the subject, 
 probably from the double reason, that sufficient grounds 
 are laid down for virtue without this detail of its rewards, 
 and that human faculties are still but feebly fitted to com- 
 prehend the development, were it made. Yet even they 
 are not without indications of the peculiar species of happi- 
 ness reserved for the immortal spirit. They give us state- 
 ments of the temper in which Paradise will be enjoyed, 
 the combination of love, gratitude, adoration, ardour of 
 spirit, and activity of powers, which will constitute the 
 purified nature ; and which, if it existed on earth, would 
 make earth itself, with all its inclemencies of nature, and 
 anxieties of circumstance, almost a Paradise. And, in 
 those declarations, they exhibit the same wisdom, and the 
 same sublime simplicity, which characterize the visible ope- 
 rations of Providence ; for they give us the principle of 
 happiness, without embarrassing us with the details. They 
 give us an incitement to the vigorous performance of our 
 human duty, by suggesting a magnificent and various 
 future, yet of which neither the magnificence is suffered to 
 dazzle, nor the variety to distract, the mind. 
 
 But the famous treatise Nkmath Chajim settles all ques- 
 tions at once, according to the wisdom of the sons of Solo- 
 mon. After announcing that there are seven regions, or 
 dwellings, in the place of evil, for the punishment of the 
 xni. — M 
 
26G TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 v/icked, it cheers the true believer by telling him thfit 
 Paradise is similarly partitioned, and equally large. The 
 discovery is made in the form of a commission, directed by 
 the Eabbi Gamaliel to the Kabbi Jehoscha ben Levi, a 
 renowned name in the legendary world, for the purpose of 
 deciding whether any of the Gojim (Gentiles, or Infidels) 
 are in Paradise, and whether any of the children of Israel 
 are in hell. The angel of death bears the commission to 
 the Eabbi, and the Rabbi sets out immediately on his in- 
 quisition. The result of his investigation is, that Paradi; e 
 contains seven houses, or general receptacles for the blissful. 
 Those houses are unquestionably adapted for a large popu- 
 lation ; for each house is twelve times ten thousand miles 
 long, and twelve times ten thousand miles broad, or one 
 hundred and twenty thousand miles square. He then pro- 
 ceeds to report on their distinctions. 
 
 The first house fronts the first gate of Paradise, and is 
 inhabited by converts from the Infidels, who have volun- 
 tarily embraced the Jewish faith. The walls are of glass, 
 and the timbers cedar. He proposed to give accuracy to 
 his statement by actually measuring the extent. But the 
 converts, probably jealous of his superior sanctity, and con- 
 ceiving that he was about to eject them, began to ofier 
 opposition. Fortunately, Obadiah the prophet, their super- 
 intendent saint, happening to be on the spot, he remon- 
 strated with them, and the measurement v/as suffered to go 
 on in peace. The second house fronts the second gate of 
 Paradise. Its walls are of silver, and its beams cedar. It 
 is inhabited by those who have repented, and they are super- 
 intended by a penitent : Manasseh, the son of Hezeldah, is 
 set over them. The third house is opposite to the third 
 gate, is built of silver and gold, and is inhabited by Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all the Israelites who caiae 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 267 
 
 out of Egypt, and all that were in the desert. In this 
 house, also, dwell David, Solomon, and all the other sons 
 of David, with the exception of Absalom. But those do not 
 comprehend the whole habitancy of this well-stocked house. 
 It contains, in addition, the whole succession of the kings 
 of Judah, with the exception of Manasseh, who, as we have 
 already seen, is occupied in governing the second house. 
 At the head of this dwelling are Moses and Aaron. The 
 Ecibbi now, observing that this household possessed a great 
 quantity of handsome furniture, gold and silver plate, &c., 
 and that the chambers were provided with beds, couches, 
 and candlesticks of pearls and diamonds, asked David the 
 purport of this opulence. " These," said David, " are for 
 the children of the world from whom you came." The 
 Rabbi then inquired whether any of the Gentiles, or of the 
 children of Esau, were there. " None," was the answer. 
 " Whatever good they may do, is rewarded in the world ; 
 but their natural destiny is hell." But every one who is 
 wicked among the children of Israel is punished in his life- 
 time, but obtains the life to come ; as it is written, — " He 
 repayeth those that hate him." 
 
 The fourth house fronts the fourth gate of Paradise, and 
 is built, as the first man was framed, in perfection. It is 
 built with oil-tree (olive) wood. But why is it thus built 1 
 Because the house is built for the habitation of the perfectly 
 righteous, and their earthly days were bitter, like the oil- 
 tree. The fifth house is built of silver, fine gold, glass, and 
 crystal. The river Gihon flows through the midst of it. 
 The framework is of gold and silver, with an odour far 
 exceeding that of Lebanon wood. The couches are also 
 more costly than those of the others ; being formed of gold, 
 silver, spice, and scarlet and blue silk, which was woven 
 by Eve ; and also crimson silk, and the finest linen, and 
 
268 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 cloth of goats' hair, which was woven by angels. In this 
 house dwell Messiah ben David, and Elias of blessed me- 
 mory ; and to the chamber with pillars of silver, and carpets 
 of scarlet, where Messiah especially dwells, with Elias per- 
 petually declaring to him, " Be at ease ; for the end is at 
 hand, when thou art to redeem Israel," Moses, Aaron, 
 David, and Solomon, with the kings of Israel, and of the 
 house of David, come on the second and fifth day of every 
 week, and also on every Sabbath and festival, to lament 
 with him, and comfort him, saying, "Be at ease, rely on 
 Heaven, for the end is at hand." 
 
 But the fourth day of the week is reserved for a differ^ 
 ent assemblage. On this day, Korah and his company, 
 with Dathan and Abiram, come to him, and ask, " When 
 will be the end of what is wonderful ; and when shall we 
 be raised from death, and suffered to come out of the abyss 
 of the earth ? And duly they hear the same scornful answer, 
 " Go to your fathers and ask them." This answer is deci- 
 sive : they are overwhelmed with shame, shrink, and dis- 
 appear. Two houses remain ; but description has been 
 exhausted, and they seem to be yet either inadequately 
 finished, or inadequately filled. The sixth is for those who 
 have rigidly walked in the path of the commandments ; the 
 seventh for those who died, whether of sorrow for the 
 national sins, or innocent and undue victims, swept away 
 in the times of national calamity. 
 
 But among the possessors of Paradise, independently of 
 the great historic characters of the race of Israel, there are 
 ranks, differing in dignity according to their merits, or the 
 circumstances of their lives or deaths. The first order con- 
 sists of those who suffered death for the honour of their law 
 and nation, by the hands of Infidel governments ; such as 
 the Kabbi Akkiba and his disciples, who were put to deatli 
 
TRADITIONS OP THE RABBINS. 269 
 
 by the Eoman authorities. The second order consists of 
 those who have been drowned at sea. The third, of the 
 famous Eabbi Ben Saccai and his disciples ; the fourth, of 
 those on whom the Shekinah, or glory, has descended ; the 
 fifth, of true penitents, who rank with the perfectly righte- 
 ous ; the sixth, of those who have never married, yet have 
 lived a life of purity ; the seventh, of those in humble life, 
 who have constantly exercised themselves in the Bible, and 
 the study of the Mishna, and have had an honest vocation. 
 For each order there is a distinct abode. The highest order 
 is that of the martyrs for the Law, the order of Akkiba and 
 his disciples. 
 
 The decorations assigned to those fortunate classes are 
 various ; yet as even the Rabbinical imagination can invent 
 nothing finer than gold and jewels, the diversity is not 
 marked with sufficient distinctness to gratify European 
 taste. All, however, is in the true Oriental profusion. 
 Eabbi Jehoscha, still the great authority for supramundane 
 affairs, relates, according to the Jalhut Schimoni, " That 
 at the two ruby gates of Paradise, stand sixty times ten 
 thousand spirits ministering, and that the countenance of 
 each of them shines like the brightness of the firmament. 
 On the arrival of one of the righteous from Earth, those 
 spirits surround him, receive him with due honours, strip 
 him of his grave-clothes, and robe him in no less than eight 
 garments of clouds of glory. They next put upon his head 
 two crowns, one of pearls and diamonds, and the other of 
 pure gold, and put eight myrrh branches into his hands. 
 They then sing a chorus of praise round him, and bid him 
 go and eat his bread in joy ! They next lead him to 
 s])rings of water, margined with eight hundred species of 
 roses and myrrh, where to each of the righteous is assigned 
 a separate canopy from the heat, or the splendour, or botL 
 
270 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 From the springs flow four rivers, of milk, wine, balsam, 
 and honey. The canopies are crowned and lighted by pearls, 
 each of which gives a light equal to that of the planet 
 Venus. Under every canopy is laid a table of pearls and 
 precious stones. And over the head of each hover a group 
 of angels, who say to him, " Go now, and eat honey with 
 joy, because thou hast studied the Law, and exercised thy- 
 self therein ; and go and drink the wine which is preserved 
 from the six days of the creation." 
 
 Among the righteous, the least handsome are like Joseph 
 and Eabbi Jochanan (who was celebrated for his beauty). 
 'No night comes there ; and there also the process of 
 beauty and beatification is a matter of a few hours. In the 
 time of the first watch, the righteous becomes an infant of 
 Paradise, passes into the place where the spirits of infants 
 are, and feels all the joyousness belonging to infancy. In 
 the second watch, he starts into Paradisiac youth, passes 
 into the dwelling of the youthful spirits, and enjoys their 
 pursuits and pastimes. In the third watch, he enters into 
 the state of Paradisiac manhood ; his perfection is complete, 
 and he is thenceforth master of all the faculties and enjoy- 
 ments of the region of happiness. 
 
 Paradise, too, retains its old supremacy over all gardens, 
 from its abundance of trees, of which the Rabbins give it 
 no less than eighty times ten thousand species in each of 
 the quarters of this famous spot of celestial horticulture. 
 Angels in abundance are also provided, either to cultivate 
 or to admire them ; for there are six hundred thousand in 
 each quarter, floating about, or guarding the fruit. The 
 tree of life stands there, with its branches covering the 
 whole extent of Paradise, and with fruits suitable to all the 
 various tastes of the righteous, for they have five hundred 
 thousand several flavours. Seven clouds of glory sit above 
 
TEADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 271 
 
 it, and at every wind which shakes it the fragrance passes 
 from one end of the world to the other. The disciples of 
 the sages are peculiarly favoured, for they have their especial 
 seats allotted under this tree. Their merit is to have pro- 
 foundly studied and eloquently explained the Law. 
 
 A large portion of the Eabbinical writings is filled wdth 
 those descriptions of lavish and fanciful beauty, but deformed 
 with extravagancies, which offend even against the wildness 
 of Eastern fiction. The light which supplies the place of 
 sun to the righteous occupies a large space in the descrip- 
 tion. The treatise Avodath Hahlcadesh^ after saying that 
 the extent of the garden is immense, states that there stands 
 in the centre a vast laver, filled with dew from the highest 
 celestial region ; and in its centre stands a light incapable 
 of being eclipsed or obscured, it being of the nature of that 
 v>^hich was originally given for the use of Adam, and by 
 which he was enabled to see at a glance from one end of 
 the world to the other. But the ground in the neighbour- 
 hood of this prodigious luminary conduces partially to this 
 result, as it is an entire pavement of precious stones, each 
 of which gives a light brilliant as that of a burning torch ; 
 the whole forming an illumination of indescribable lustre. 
 
 It is obvious that, in their inventions, the Traditionists 
 had no reluctance to borrow from the written letter. They 
 seize just enough of the facts of Scripture to form a frame- 
 work for the fiction, and over this they flourish their rambling 
 and legendary conceptions. But, as they borrow largely, so 
 they have been prodigally borrowed from. The Komish 
 doctrines of supererogation, purgatory, and individual inter- 
 cession, are not the work of Kome alone ; they are as old 
 as the Rabbins ; and the only merit which the Romish 
 adopters can claim is that of having turned a play of ima- 
 gination into a principle of practice, made a rambling tenet 
 
272 TKADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 a profitable dogma, and fabricated dreams and visions into 
 a source of tlie deepest corruption that ever violated the 
 simplicity of religion, revolted human reason, and stained 
 the feeble purity of the human heart. In the Nismath 
 Chajim we are told that the Eabbi Akkiba, their great 
 doctor, one day, as he was going to be present at the burial 
 of one of his disciples, was surprised at the sight of a being 
 with the shape of a man, running with an enormous pile of 
 wood on his shoulders — yet running with the speed of a 
 liorse. The compassionate Eabbi stopped his celerity, and, 
 l^erceiving that he was human, asked him why he was con- 
 demned to this singular labour, adding, " that he pitied him 
 so much, that if he were a slave, and his master would be 
 content to sell him, he himself would be the purchaser, in 
 order to free him from this severity of toil ; or, if his poverty 
 were the cause, that he would give him some opportunity 
 of obtaining wealth." The man listened, but with wild 
 impatience ; he struggled to break away, but, awed by the 
 power of the great Akkiba, he could not move from the 
 spot. At length he burst into a passionate cry, imploring 
 that he might be suffered to go on, and fly over the world, 
 bearing his melancholy burden. The Eabbi was astonished, 
 but he now began to perceive that he was conversing with 
 a beiug not of this world, and sternly demanded, " Art thou 
 man or deviH" The unfortunate being in agony exclaimed, 
 ^' I have passed away from earth, and now my eternal por- 
 tion is to carry fuel to the Great Fire.'' The startled Eabbi 
 asked what act of his life could have plunged him into this 
 dreadful calamity. The criminal answered that he had been 
 a collector of the public taxes, and had abused his office by 
 favouring the rich and oppressing the poor. The next 
 question was whether he had ever heard, in his place of 
 punishment, that there was any remedy for his guilt ? The 
 
TEAPITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 273 
 
 condemned now began to be impatient, through fear of in- 
 creasing his punishment by delaying his task, and eagerly 
 implored the Kabbi to let him go. At length, acknow- 
 ledging that he had heard of one redemption — namely, that 
 if he had a son, who could stand forth in the congregation, 
 and there say the prayer of the Synagogue, beginning with 
 " Blessed be the blessed Lord" — he might be delivered from 
 his sentence. On his being asked, whether he had a son, 
 he answered that he did not know ; that he had left his 
 widow when she was about to have a child, but that he 
 now could not know whether it was a son or a daughter ; 
 or, if a son, whether he wa^ sufficiently instructed in the 
 Law. To the further inquiry, where his family. were to be 
 found, he answered that his own name was Akkiba, his 
 wife's Susmira, and his city Alduca. The man was now 
 suffered to recommence his fearful race again. And the 
 benevolent Rabbi began a pilgrimage from city to city until 
 he found the due place. There he inquired for the dwelling 
 of the husband. But he seems to have been unpopular 
 among his countrymen, for the general answer to the Rabbi 
 was, " May his bones be bruised in hell." The perplexed 
 inquirer now attempted to ascertain the fate of the widow ; 
 but she appeared to be scarcely more fortunate than her 
 husband, for the reply was, " Let her name be rooted out 
 of the world." His sole resource now was the son ; and 
 of him the answer was not much more favourable : " He 
 was not circumcised, his parents having had no regard to 
 the Covenant." 
 
 But the Rabbi was not to be repelled ; he discovered the 
 boy at last, took him to his home, found him a preternatu- 
 ral dunce, into whom the Law could not by possibility 
 make way ; and was driven to a fast of forty days, which 
 by divine aid at length accomplished the task of teaching 
 
274 TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 him the alphabet. After this his education advanced to 
 the extent of reading the prayer Shema, (Dent. vi. 4.) 
 The Eahbi now brought forward his pupil, the prayer of 
 spiritual liberation was recited, and in that hour the father 
 was freed from his. task. He soon after appeared to the 
 Kabbi in a dream, saying, " May the rest of Paradise be 
 thy portion, because thou hast rescued me from the punish- 
 ment of hell." Then the Eabbi burst out into rejoicings, 
 and repeated a holy hymn in honour of the achievement. 
 
 The only distinction between this pious performance and 
 the exploits of later times is in the penance. If the Eabbi 
 Akkiba had done his purgatorial work at Eome instead of 
 at Jerusalem, he would have made others fast instead of 
 mortifying himself, and he would have put a handsome sum 
 into his purse for masses and indulgences, instead of en- 
 cumbering himself with hospitality to the tardy subject of 
 circumcision. 
 
 Some of those stories are publicly founded on the facts 
 of the Jewish persecutions, though the historian who would 
 take them,, in their present state, for authority, would tread 
 upon slippery ground. The treatise Sanhedrin gives the 
 following account of the origin of the celebrated book . 
 Zohar : — 
 
 The Eabbis Jehuda, Isaac, and Shimeon, were conversing, 
 when Jehuda ben Gerim, a convert, came to them. On 
 Jehuda' s observing that the Eomans excelled in buildings 
 and public works, that they had erected markets, bridges, 
 and baths, the Eabbi Shimeon contested their merit, by say- 
 ing that they had done those things with selfish or corrupt 
 objects. The convert was clearly unworthy of hearing so 
 much wisdom, for he carried the conversation to the im- 
 ])erial ear, and sentence soon followed, that the Eabbi who 
 liad spoken contemptuously of the reigning power should be 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 275 
 
 slain, and the Rabbi who had kept silence should be 
 banished, while the laudatory Rabbi should be promoted. 
 On this announcement the Rabbi Shimeon, the chief culprit, 
 fled with his son, and they hid themselves in the school, 
 his wife bringing them bread and water every day. But 
 the pursuit becoming close, and Shimeon observing to his 
 son, with more truth than gallantry, that women were 
 somewhat light-minded, and that the Romans might tease 
 his wife into discovering the place of their retreat, he de- 
 termined to put this casualty out of her power by hiding 
 in a cave. There they must, however, have met with a 
 ftite as evil as the Roman sword ; for they were on the point 
 of famine, when a fruit-tree and a spring were created for 
 their support. Here, whether for comfort, concealment, or 
 saving their clothes, they undressed themselves, sat up to 
 the neck in sand, and spent the day in study. At the time 
 of prayer, however, they recollected the decorums of their 
 law, dressed themselves, performed their service, and then 
 jaid aside their clothing once more. At the end of twelve 
 3'ears of this life of nakedness and learning, the prophet 
 Elias stood at the entrance of the cave, and cried aloud, 
 *' Who will tell the son of Jochai that the emperor is dead, 
 and his decree is come to an end f Then went out the 
 Rabbi Shimeon and his son. But their studies had ren- 
 dered them unfit for the easy morality of the world into which 
 they were re-entering. They saw mankind as busy as ever 
 with their worldly affairs, ploughing and trading, pursuing 
 wealth, passion, and pleasure. They instantly exclaimed, 
 '^ Behold a race of evil ! behold a people who neglect eter- 
 nal things !" Their words were fearful, but their effect 
 was more fearful still, for whatever they denounced, or 
 whatever object fell beneath their indignant glance, was 
 instantly consumed with flame. But this discipline would 
 
276 TRADITIONS OF THE EABBEN-S. 
 
 have thinned mankind too rapidly to be suffered long. A 
 voice came forth from the clouds, "Ai'e ye come out only 
 to destroy the world 1 Keturn to your cave." The hermits 
 were not disobedient to the high admonition. They re- 
 turned to their solitude, and there abode a whole year. At 
 the end of that period the Rabbi Shimeon lifted up his 
 voice, and said, " Even in hell the wicked are punished 
 but twelve months." This remonstrance was graciously 
 listened to. The voice was heard again, commanding that 
 they should come forth from the cave. They now came 
 forth, restraining their wrath at the incorrigible worldliness 
 of man, and shutting those fiery eyes whose glances con- 
 sumed all they fell upon, like flashes of lightning. They 
 suffered the world to take its own way, they took theirs ; 
 and thenceforth lived in popularity, ate their bread in peace, 
 and escaped the turbulent life and thankless death of those 
 who trouble themselves with the morals of their neigh- 
 bours. But their sojourn in the cave was not unproductive ; 
 for their wise heads and industrious fingers produced the 
 famous treatise, Zohar. 
 
 With those conceptions of the power of man and angels, 
 it may be presumed that the Rabbins have not neglected 
 the space offered to the imagination in the kingdom of dark- 
 ness. There they arrange, distribute, and define all kinds 
 of faculties, pursuits, and punishments, in the most exuber- 
 ant and sometimes in the most striking style. Their legends 
 exhibit all the characteristics of the oriental school, and are 
 alternately feeble and forcible, absurd and interesting, trivial 
 and sublime. One portion of the spirits of evil they con- 
 ceive to possess a kind of middle state between the worlds 
 of nature and spirit. They are declared to resemble angels 
 in three things — the power of flight, foresight, and passing 
 from one part of the earth to the other with instant and 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 277 
 
 angelic speed. To the humbler race of man they are linked 
 also by three things — by feeling the necessity of food, by 
 being increased according to human generation, and by being 
 liable to death. Those evil spirits know no Salic law, for 
 they have no less than four queens, named the Lilis, the 
 Naama, the Igerith, and the Machalath; each of these 
 formidable sovereigns waving the sceptre over bands of 
 unclean spirits utterly beyonji calculation. They are sever- 
 ally paramount, each presiding over a fourth of the year, 
 but in this period reigning over nature only from the hour 
 of sunset till midnight. Once in the year they assemble 
 with their dark legions on the heights of Nishpa, in the 
 centre of the mountains of the equator. But over them 
 all Solomon had power. These four are, however, the wives 
 of one, the Prince Sammael, who reigns over Esau ; to 
 whom the Kabbins have a peculiar aversion, which they 
 display on all occasions. The four queens are among the 
 inconveniences which beset the daily life of the Jew. The 
 Christian peasantry of Europe have their unlucky day, 
 Friday ; and the Moslems are not without their day of 
 casualty. But the Jew must be a dexterous steersman, 
 who can make his way through any of the seven days of 
 the week without running foul of misfortune regularly laid 
 down in the calendar. The Kabbinical caution especially lies 
 against venturing out alone in the nights of Thursdays or the 
 Sabbaths, for on those nights the Igerith is especially abroad 
 with an army of no less than 180,000 evil spirits, ready to 
 pluck the truest of believers from the face of the earth at 
 the instant of his putting his foot beyond the threshold. 
 
 But the Lilith, or Lilis^ is the lady of romance. When 
 Adam was first formed, Lilis was his wife. She was made 
 of earth, but her earthly compound was ill suited to the 
 perfection of the first father of mankind. She contested 
 
278 TEADITIONS OF THE RAEEIXS. 
 
 his right of being master of his own house, and then began 
 that quarrel which has been so often renewed since the be- 
 ginning of the world. Lilis would not recede ; Adam would 
 not concede ; and the result was, as in later times, a demand 
 for a separate maintenance. Lilis pronounced the Shem 
 Hamphorash ; wings started from her shoulders at the 
 words, and she darted upward from the presence of her 
 astonished lord, to range the kingdoms of the air. Adam 
 appealed to authority ; and thr^e angels, Sensi, Sansenoi, 
 and Sammangelof, were sent in full wing after her. A 
 decree was issued, that if she came back voluntarily all 
 should be forgiven ; but if she refused to come, one hun- 
 dred of her children should die every day ! But Lilis had 
 already felt the charms of freedom, and she resolved to 
 enjoy them to her utmost. The three angels supplicated in 
 vain. She waved her plumage across the earth ; they pur- 
 sued. She fled across the farthest waters of the ocean. 
 There, at length, she was overtaken. She still refused. The 
 angels threatened to strip her of her wings, to plunge her 
 in the waters which rolled beneath them, and bind her in 
 chains at the bottom of the sea for ever. Still Lilis was 
 inflexible, and she even awed them with the declaration, 
 that she had been created with the especial power to destroy 
 children, the males from the day of their birth to the eighth 
 day (the day of circumcision), but the females until the 
 tenth day. This menace rendered it only the more indis- 
 pensable that this formidable truant should be brought back 
 to her allegiance. They now proceeded to exert their power- 
 ful means : when Lilis offered a compromise, that whenever 
 she saw any of the names or pictures of the angels on a 
 Kamea (a slip of parchment hung round a child's neck), 
 she would spare the child. The subsequent offspring of 
 Lilis were evil spirits, of whom a hundred die daily, but 
 
THADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 279 
 
 unfortunately tlie produce is more rapid than the extinction. 
 But the Doctors of the Law acknowledge the value of the 
 agreement, and therefore write the names of the angels 
 upon all children's necks, that Lilis may be equally true to 
 the compact, and spare the rising generation of Israel. 
 
 Solomon, the perpetual theme of oriental story, of course 
 flourishes in the annals of those inexhaustible dealers in 
 prodigies. One of the Chaldee Paraphrases tells us of a 
 feast which Solomon, the son of David, the wise and holy, 
 gave in the days of his glory, and to which he invited ail 
 the kings of the earth, from east to west. He regaled his 
 guests with more than royal- magnificence ; and in the course 
 of the banquet, when his heart was high with wine,' showed 
 them the wonders of his power. He first ordered the troops 
 of minstrels trained by his father to enter and exhibit their 
 skill on the harp, cymbal, trumpet, and other instruments. 
 Nothing could be more exquisite. All were astonished and 
 delighted. But he had a more striking display in reserve. 
 At the waving of his sceptre, and the uttering of a com- 
 mand to all the creatures of the earth to attend, the halls 
 of the immense palace were instantly crowded with a con- 
 course of all the kinds of animals, from the lion to the ser- 
 pent, and from the eagle to the smallest of the birds. The 
 terror of his kingly guests was at first excessive, but it was 
 changed to wonder by seeing the whole crowd of animals 
 acknowledging the power of the man of wisdom ; uttering 
 voices to him, all which he understood and answered, and 
 displaying all their qualities and beauties in homage to the 
 mighty monarch. But a still more astounding spectacle 
 was to follow. The king, ordering a small cup of a single 
 chrysolite to be brought to him, poured into it a liquid of a 
 dazzling brightness, till the whole cup glowed like a star ; 
 and a flame ascending from it shot forth a thousand dis- 
 
280 TEADITTONS OF THE EABBIXS. 
 
 tinct shafts of fire to all parts of the horizon. In a short 
 time sounds of the most fearful kind were heard in earth 
 and air, and the army of the demons, night-spectres, and 
 evil spirits, submissive to his will, poured into the palace. 
 The numbers on this public occasion may be imagined from 
 their habits of congregating on the most private ones. The 
 Eabbins hold that the whole system of nature is so crowded, 
 with them, that a true believer has scarcely room to turn 
 on his heel without treading on the hoofs of some of them. 
 The Kabbi Benjamin says, that if a man is not cautious how 
 he opens his eye, there are some who will be sure to get 
 between the lids. Others assert that they stand round us 
 as thick as the fences of a garden. The treatise Baf Ham 
 gives the actual number that molest a Rabbi, — an occupa- 
 tion in which they naturally take a peculiar pleasure. This 
 number amounts to a thousand on his left side, and, by 
 some curious preference of mischief, ten thousand on his 
 right. The treatise Rahha proceeds to solve some of the 
 more obvious earthly inconveniences which beset the Israelite 
 by this perverse presence. Thus the thronging and press- 
 ing in the synagogue, which produces so much confusion 
 and surprise, when every one seems to perceive that there 
 is room enough for all, is really occasioned by those invisible 
 intruders, who are so fond of hearing the discourses of the 
 Jewish priests, that they fill the synagogue to suffocation. 
 The whole fatigue felt in the service also proceeds from 
 their pressure. Even the tearing and wearing of the clothes 
 of the Israelites — a matter which they seem to feel as a 
 peculiar grievance — proceeds from the restless movement 
 and remorseless rubbing of their viewless associates. 
 
 But on this feast day of their mighty master none dared 
 to make experiments on his sufferance. All displayed them- 
 selves in their best points of view ; and nothing could be 
 
TEADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 281 
 
 more strange, more wonderful, or more dazzling, than the 
 whole measureless muster of the hosts of the nether world. 
 There followed, in long march, shapes of fire ; some flash- 
 ing beams, keen as lightning ; some shedding light, soft as 
 the rainbow ; some of colossal stature ; some of the small- 
 est dwarfishness ; some in the naked and powerful propor- 
 tions of the antediluvian giant ; some of the most delicate 
 and subtle loveliness of form, clothed in silk and gold ; 
 some wearing armour, royal robes, coronets studded with 
 stars small as the eye of a mole, yet sparkling with intoler- 
 able brilliancy ; some on the wing ; some in floating 
 chariots of metals unknown on earth, yet exceeding the 
 gossamer in lightness, and gold in splendour ; some riding 
 coursers of the most inconceivable strength and stupendous 
 magnitude, tall as the towers of a city, and beside which 
 the elephant would have looked like a fawn ; some steering 
 barges, entirely formed of rich jewels, through the air, and 
 sweeping round the pillars and sculptures of the palace with 
 infinite velocity ; some on foot, and treading on tissues of 
 silver and scarlet, which continually spread wherever they 
 trode, and threw up living roses at each step ; some with 
 countenances marked with the contortions of pain and 
 terror, but some of an exquisite and intense beauty, which 
 at once fixed and overwhelmed the eye. All moved to the 
 sound of an infinite number of instruments, warhke, pas- 
 toral, and choral, according to their states and powers, and 
 all formed the most singular and wondrous sight imaginable. 
 Yet, though all the guests confessed that they had never 
 seen the equal of this display, they yet acknowledged that 
 it inspired them with indescribable fear. They felt that 
 they were in an evil presence ; and not even the charm of 
 those allurements and temptations which still remain to 
 fallen spirits — not even their wisdom, beauty, and know- 
 m2 
 
282 TRADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 ledge of the secrets of nature, their brilliant intellect and 
 universal skill — could prevent the kings from praying Solo- 
 mon that he would command his terrible vassals, the tribes 
 of the world of darkness, to depart from the palace. The 
 king, in compassion to their human weakness, complied, 
 and taking up the cup of chrysolite, poured into it a liquor 
 of the colour of ebony. The cup suddenly grew black as 
 night, and a thousand shafts of darkness shot out from it 
 to all parts of the horizon. They pierced through the ranks 
 of the evil spirits like a flight of arrows, and instantly the 
 vrhole mighty multitude broke up, and scattered in all 
 directions through the air. Their flight was long seen like 
 a fall of fiery meteors ; and their yells, as they flew, wore 
 lieard as far as Babylon. 
 
 Wolf, the missionary, who is now rambling through Asia, 
 and rejoicing in the perilous encounter of Eajahs, tigers, 
 angry Israelites, and dagger-bearing Moslems, will probably 
 soon, give a new public interest to one of tlie most popular 
 conceptions that ever fell into oblivion, — the existence of 
 the lost tribes of Israel. The present object of this inde- 
 fatigable rambler is declaredly to bring to light the retreats 
 of the famous revolters of Jeroboam. What resources for 
 the discovery he may find in his own possession, we must 
 leave to time. But, if he should condescend to take his 
 wisdom from the pages of the Rabbins, he will find them 
 ready and copious in supplying him with the most unhesi- 
 tating information on every point of possible curiosity. 
 The Rabbi Benjamin, in his work, Massaoth Shel Rahbi 
 Benjamin, long since informed the wondering world that 
 " from the city Raahar, formerly called Fomheditha, on 
 the banks of the Euphrates, it is exactly twenty-one days' 
 journey through the desert of Saba, in the direction of 
 Sincar, to the frontier of the country called that of the 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 283 
 
 RecJiabites. Their capital is the city of Tema, where the 
 Prince Chanan, who is also a Kabbi, governs the nation. 
 The city is of large dimensions, and the territory is worthy 
 of the capital. It. extends sixteen days' journey between 
 the northern mountains. The people are numerous and 
 warlike, yet they are subject to the Gojim, a Gentile power, 
 which forays to a great distance, in company with some 
 hordes of wild Arabs, who live on their northern boundary. 
 Those Kechabite Jews plough and keep cattle ; give the 
 tenth of their possessions to the scribes and sages, who live 
 in the schools, and to the poorer Jews, and especially to 
 those who mourn over Sion ; and neither eat flesh nor drink 
 v/ine, but who perpetually wear black garments, in sign of 
 the sorrows of Jerusalem. The number of the people living 
 in Tema and Tilima is about one hundred thousand. And 
 thither come, once in the year, Prince Solomon, and his 
 brother Chanan, of the line of David, with shattered cloth- 
 ing, to fast forty days, and pray for the miseries of those 
 Jews who are in exile. 
 
 " In the country of the prince, who thus comes periodi- 
 cally to fast with the Eechabites, the people seem to be 
 tolerably prosperous. He has fifty cities, two hundred 
 villages, and a hundred fortresses. His capital is Thenai, 
 remarkably strong, and fifteen miles square, containing 
 fields, gardens, and orchards. Tilima is also a very strong 
 city, seated in the mountains. From Tilima it is three 
 days' journey to Kibar, where the people declare themselves 
 of the tribes Reuben^ Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 
 which Shalmaneser, the Assyrian, carried into captivity. 
 They are a singularly belligerent race ; they have large and 
 strong cities. They wage constant hostilities with their 
 neighbours, and are almost secure of impunity, by having 
 in their frontier a desert of eighteen days' journey, utterly 
 
284: TEADITIONS OF THE RABBINS. 
 
 uninhabitable by man. The city of Kibar also is large, 
 with about fifty thousand Jews among the InhabitantB. 
 They carry on frequent wars with the people of Sincar and 
 the north. The other Israelites spread to the east ; and 
 the country of Aliman touches even the borders of India." 
 We are in some fear that these names will not be found in 
 the modern maps ; but the detail is confident, and if the 
 missionary should blunder in the regions between the Euxine 
 and the Caspian, he will have the satisfaction of blundering 
 upon high Rabbinical authority. 
 
 But it w^as to be presumed that a tradition, which had 
 so long excited popular curiosity, w^ould at some time or 
 other be adopted for the purposes of ingenious imposture. 
 How few instances are there of the mysterious death of a 
 prince, or the fall of a dynasty, which have not exhibited a 
 ready succession of dexterous pretenders, from the days of 
 Sebastian of Portugal down to the late Dauphin, the un- 
 fortunate son of the unfortunate Louis xvi. ! The treatise 
 Shibboleth gives a sketch of one of these bold adventurers. 
 In the year of the world the 1466th after the destruction 
 of the second temple (a.d. 1534), there appeared in Europe 
 a man from a distant country, who called himself Rabbi 
 David, a Reubenite, He went to Rome, where he had an 
 interview with Clement vii., and was favourably received. 
 On being questioned by the pontiff as to himself, he said 
 that he was the Commander-in-Chief of the army of the 
 King of Israel. He was of a Moorish complexion, short 
 in stature, and about forty-five years of age. From Rome 
 he went to Portugal, where he was received by the king ; 
 and, understanding only Hebrew and Arabic, spoke gener- 
 ally by an interpreter. He declared that he was sent as 
 ambassador from the Israelite Kings of Chalach, Chabar, 
 and the nations on the river Gozan, to demand assistance, 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EALBINS. 285 
 
 and peculiarly cannon, from the European princes, that they, 
 the Israelites, might be enabled to make head against their 
 infidel enemies. The Rabbi remained for a considerable 
 time in Portugal, and converted to Judaism one of the 
 king's private secretaries, who, though a Christian, was of 
 Jewish parents. On this conversion, the Rabbi David left 
 the country, and took with him his convert, who now bore 
 the name of Solomon Malco. The convert was a man of 
 ability and eloquence ; and though he had previously no 
 knowledge of the law, and was of the uncircumcised, yet, 
 when he came among his new brethren, he preached power- 
 fully, especially in Italy, where his expounding both the 
 written and the oral law astonished the most celebrated 
 teachers, and perplexed the people, who wondered where he 
 could have found his singular wisdom. His own account of 
 it was satisfactory ; he had been endowed with it by an 
 angel. Solomon Malco now wrote several treatises which 
 increased his fame ; he next declared himself to be one of 
 the messengers of the Messiah. He was remarkably hand- 
 some, and his manners were high-bred and courteous. 
 Rabbi David, too, had his share of public wonder, for he 
 fasted for six days and nights, without suffering anything 
 to enter his lips — a fact proved by accurate witnesses. But 
 the career of the more aspiring or more active missionary 
 was to have an unhappy close. Rabbi Solomon ventured 
 himself within the presence of Charles v. at Mantua. To 
 what the actual conference amounted has escaped history, 
 but the result was an order that he should be delivered 
 over to the secular arm. The unfortunate zealot was 
 brought to the stake, gagged, through fear, as the Jews 
 say, of his using some strong spell, or form of words, by 
 which he might escape his tormentors. His life was offered 
 to him, but he firmly rejected the offer, and died without 
 
2SQ TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 
 
 shrinking. Eabbi David's career was extinguislied at the 
 same time, but by a less cruel catastrophe. He was sent 
 a prisoner into Spain, where he died. 
 
 Subsequent narratives state that the two missionaries 
 had attempted to convert the King of Portugal, the Fope, 
 and the Emperor — an attempt which certainly wanted 
 nothing of the boldness of proselytism ; and that the 
 Eabbi's refusal to be converted in turn was the immediate 
 cause of the sentence. Solomon was burned in Mantua, 
 A.D. 1540. 
 
 But to those who desire a more detailed account of th6 
 expatriated and long-hidden nations, let the learned Eabbi 
 Eldad the Danite supply intelligence. " There," says this 
 faithful topographer, " is the tribe of Moses, our instructor, 
 the just, and the servant of Heaven. Those Jews are sur- 
 rounded with the river Sahhatajon, the compass of which is 
 as much as one can walk in three months. They live in 
 stately houses, and have magnificent buildings and towers 
 erected by themselves. There is no unclean thing among 
 them ; no scorpion, no serpent, no wild beast. Their flocks 
 and herds' bring forth twice a year. They have gardens, 
 stocked with all kinds of fruits ; but they neither sow nor 
 reap. They are a people of faith, and well instructed in 
 the Mishna, Gemara, and Aggada. Their Talmud is 
 written in the Hebrew tongue. They say, our forefathers 
 have taught us out of the mouth of Joshua, out of the 
 .mouth of Moses, and out of the mouth of God. They know 
 nothing of the Talmudic doctrines which were in being in 
 the time of the second temple. They lengthen their days 
 to a hundred and twenty years. Neither sons nor daugh- 
 ters die in the lifetime of their parents ; they advance to 
 the third and fourth generation. A child drives their 
 cattle many days' journey, because they have neither wild 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE EABBINS. 287 
 
 beasts, murderers, nor evil spirits to fear. Their Levites 
 labour in the law and in the commandments. They see no 
 man, and are seen of none, except the four tribes which 
 dwell on the further side of the river of Ethiopia, Dan, 
 NapJithalij Gad, and Asser. The sand of the river Sabba- 
 tajon is holy. In an hour-glass it runs six days of the 
 week j but on the seventh it is immovable. The people are 
 twice as numerous as when they left Judea." 
 
 But those narratives are endless. Though probably con- 
 taining some fragments of truth, the fact is so encumbered 
 with the fiction that they become a mere matter of romance. 
 But the graver consideration remains : Are such things 
 the wisdom of the chosen people ? Are the reveries of the 
 Talmuds the study by which the learned of the Jews at 
 this hour are to be advanced in sacred knowledge It Are 
 those giddy and wandering inventions to be the substitute 
 for those " Oracles," which the greatest writer of their 
 nation, even Saul of Tarsus, pronounced to be the pre- 
 eminent privilege of the sons of Israel 1, Unhappily, the 
 question cannot be answered in the negative. The Tal- 
 muds are at this hour the fount from which the immense 
 multitude of Judaism draw aU their knowledge of reli- 
 giDu. Some learned men among them may study the 
 learning of the Scriptures. Some holy men among them — 
 for there are those even in the community of Israel, who 
 have not been utterly forsaken by the light of truth — the 
 seven thousand who have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, 
 may love the wisdom of inspiration. But to the majority the 
 Talmuds are the grand obstruction to light and knowledge, 
 the fatal source of that stubborn resistance to sacred truth, 
 and to the severest lessons of national suffering, which, 
 even in all the advances of later times, keeps the Jew in 
 irremediable darkness and inexorable chains. 
 
MODERN GREECE.* 
 
 What are the nuisances, special to Greece, wliich repel 
 tourists from that country ? They are three — robbers, fleas, 
 and dogs. It is remarkable that all are, in one sense, re- 
 spectable nuisances — they are ancient, and of classical de- 
 scent. The monuments still existing from pre-Christian 
 ages, in memory of honest travellers assassinated by bri- 
 gands of klephts (KAcTrrat), show that the old respectable 
 calling of freebooters by sea and land, which Thucydides, 
 in a well-known passage, describes as so reputable an invest- 
 ment for capital during the times preceding his own, and, 
 as to northern Greece, even during his own, had never 
 entirely languished, as with us it has done, for two genera- 
 tions, on the heaths of Bagshot, Hounslow, or Finchley. 
 Well situated as these grounds were for doing business, 
 lying at such convenient distances from the metropolis, and 
 studying the convenience of all parties (since, if a man 
 were destined to lose a burden on his road, surely it was 
 pleasing to his feelings that he had not been sufiered to act 
 as porter over ninety or a hundred miles, in the service of 
 one who would neither pay him nor thank him) ; yet. 
 
 * 1842. Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Ionian Islands, 
 By William Mure of Caldwell. 
 
MODEEN GREECE. 289 
 
 finally, what through banks, and what through policemen, 
 the concern has dwindled to nothing. In England, we 
 believe, this concern was technically known amongst men 
 of business and "family men," as the "Low Toby." In 
 Greece it was called AT^o-reta ; and Homerically speaking, it 
 was perhaps the only profession thoroughly respectable. A 
 few other callings are mentioned in the Odyssey as furnish- 
 ing regular bread to decent men — viz., the doctor's, the 
 fortune-teller's or conjurer's, and the armourer's. Indeed 
 it is clear, from the offer made to Ulysses of a job, in the 
 way of hedging and ditching, that sturdy big-boned beggars, 
 or what used to be called " Abraham men " in southern 
 England, were not held to have forfeited any heraldic dig- 
 nity attached to the rank of pauper (which was consider- 
 able), by taking a farmer's pay where mendicancy happened 
 to be "looking downwards." Even honest labour was 
 tolerated, though, of course, disgraceful. But the Corin- 
 thian order of society, to borrow Burke's image, was the 
 bold sea-rover, the buccaneer, or (if you will call him so) 
 the robber in all his varieties. Titles were, at that time, 
 not much in use — honorary titles we mean ; but had our 
 prefix of "Eight Honourable" existed, it would have been 
 assigned to burglars, and by no means to privy-councillors ; 
 as again our English prefix of "Venerable" would have 
 been settled, not on so sheepish a character as the arch- 
 deacon, but on the spirited appropriator of church plate. 
 We were surprised lately to find, in a German work of 
 some authority, so gross a misconception of Thucydides, as 
 that of supposing him to be in jest. Nothing of the sort. 
 The question which he represents as once current, on speak- 
 ing a ship in the Mediterranean, " Pray, gentlemen, are you 
 robbers ? " actually occurs in Homer ; and to Homer, no 
 doubt, the historian alludes. It neither was, nor could be 
 
 XIII.— N 
 
290 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 conceived, as other than complimentary ; for the altemative 
 supposition presumed him that mean and well-known char- 
 acter — the merchant, who basely paid for what 'he took. 
 It was plainly asking, Are you a knight grand-cross of 
 some martial order, or a sort of costermonger 1 And we 
 give it as no hasty or fanciful opinion, that the South Sea 
 islands (which Bougainville held to be in a state of con- 
 siderable civilisation) had, in fact, reached the precise stage 
 of Homeric Greece. The power of levying war, as yet not 
 sequestered by the ruling power of each community, was a 
 private right inherent in every individual of any one state 
 against all individuals of any other. Captain Cook's ship, 
 the Resolution, and her consort, the Adventure, were as 
 much independent states and objects of lawful war to the 
 islanders, as Owyhee, in the Sandwich group, was to Ton- 
 gataboo in the Friendly group. So that to have taken an 
 Old Bailey view of the thefts committed on the deck was 
 unjust, and, besides, ineffectual ; the true remedy being by 
 way of treaty or convention with the chiefs of every island. 
 And perhaps, if Homer had tried it, the same remedy (in 
 effect, regular payments of hlacJc-mail) might have been 
 found available in his day. 
 
 It is too late to suggest that idea now. The princely 
 pirates are gone ; and the last dividend has been paid upon 
 their booty ; so that, whether he gained or lost by them, 
 Homer's estate is not liable to any future inquisitions from 
 commissioners of bankruptcy or other sharks. He, whether 
 amongst the plundered, or, as is more probable, a consider- 
 able shareholder in the joint-stock privateers from Tenedos, 
 &c., is safe both from further funding and refunding. We 
 are not. And the first question of moment to any future 
 tourist is, What may be the present value, at a British 
 insurance office, of any given life risked upon a tour in 
 
MODERN GEEECE. 291 
 
 Greece 1 Much will, of course, depend upon the extent 
 and the particular route. A late prime minister of Greece, 
 under the reigning king Otho, actually perished by means 
 of one day's pleasure excursion from Athens, though meet- 
 ing neither thief nor robber. He lost his way ; and this 
 being scandalous in an ex-chancellor of the exchequer hav- 
 ing ladies under his guidance, who were obliged, like those 
 in the Midsummer Night's Dream, to pass the night in an 
 Athenian wood, his excellency died of vexation. Where 
 may not men find a death ? But we ask after the calcula- 
 tion of any office which takes extra risks ; and, as a basis 
 for such a calculation, we submit the range of tour sketched 
 by Pausanias, more than sixteen centuries back — that 
 UavcravLaKr] irepioSos, as Colonel Leake describes it, which 
 carries a man through the heart of all that can chiefly • 
 interest in Greece. Where are the chances, upon such a 
 compass of Greek travelling, having only the ordinary escort 
 and arms, or having no arms (which the learned agree in 
 thinking the safer plan at present), that a given traveller 
 will revisit the glimpses of an English moon, or again 
 embrace his " placens uxor V As with regard to Ireland, 
 it is one stock trick of Whiggery to treat the chances of 
 assassination in the light of an English hypochondriacal 
 chimera, so for a different reason it has been with regard 
 to Italy, and soon will be for Greece. Twenty years ago it 
 was a fine subject for jesting — the English idea of stilettos 
 in Kome, and masqued bravos, and assassins who charged 
 so much an inch for the depth of their wounds. But aU 
 the laughter did not save a youthful English marriage-party 
 from being atrociously massacred ; a grave English profes- 
 sional man with his wife from being earned off to a moun- 
 tainous captivity, and reserved from slaughter only by the 
 prospect of ransom ; a British nobleman's son from death 
 
292 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 or the consequences of Italian barbarity ; or a prince, made 
 such by the universal Father of Christendom, the brother 
 of Napoleon, from having the security of his mansion vio- 
 lated, and the most valuable captives carried off by day- 
 light from his household. In Greece apparently the state 
 of things is worse, because absolutely worse under a far 
 slighter temptation. But Mr. Mure is of opinion that 
 Greek robbers have private reasons as yet for sparing Eng- 
 lish tourists. 
 
 So far then is certain : viz., that the positive danger is 
 greater in poverty-stricken Greece than in rich and splendid 
 Italy. But as to the valuation of the danger, positively 
 and not relatively, it is probably as yet imperfect from 
 mere defect of experience : the total amount of travellers 
 is unknown. And it may be argued that at least Colonel 
 Leake, Mr. Dodwell, and our present Mr. Mure, with as 
 many more as have written books, cannot be among the 
 killed, woundedj and missing. There is evidence in octavo 
 that they are yet " to the fore." StiU with respect to 
 books, after all, they may have been posthumous works : 
 or, to put the case in another form, who knows how many 
 excellent works in medium quarto, not less than crown 
 octavo, may have been suppressed and intercepted in their 
 rudiments by these expurgatorial ruffians ? Mr. Mure 
 mentions as the exquisite reason for the present fashion of 
 shooting from an ambush first, and settling accounts after- 
 wards, that by this means they evade the chances of a 
 contest. The Greek robber, it seems, knows as well as 
 Cicero that " non semper viator a latrone, nonnunquam 
 etiam latro a viatore occiditur" — a disappointment that 
 makes one laugh exceedingly. JSTow this rule as to armed 
 travellers is likely to bear hard upon our countrymen, who 
 being rich (else how come they in Greece ?) will surely be 
 
MODERN GREECE. 293 
 
 hrilliantly armed ; and thus again it may be said, in a 
 sense somewhat different from Juvenal's — 
 
 " Et vacuus cantat coram latrone viator ;" 
 
 Vacuus not of money, but of pistols. Yet on the other 
 hand, though possibly sound law for the thickets of Mount 
 Cithseron, this would be too unsafe a policy as a general 
 rule : too often it is the exposure of a helpless exterior 
 which first suggests the outrage. And perhaps the best 
 suggestion for the present would be, that travellers should 
 carry in their hands an apparent telescope or a reputed 
 walking-cane j which peaceful and natural part of his 
 appointments will first operate to draw out his lurking 
 forest friend from his advantage ; and on closer colloquy, 
 if this friend should turn restive, then the " Tuscan artist's 
 tube," contrived of course a double debt to pay, will sud- 
 denly reveal another sort of tube, insinuating an argument 
 sufficient for the refutation of any sophism whatever. This 
 is the best compromise which w^e can put forward with the 
 present dilemma in Greece, where it seems that to^be armed 
 or to be unarmed is almost equally perilous — to be armed 
 is to insure a shot from an ambush. But our secret 
 opinion is, that in all countries alike, the only absolute 
 safeguard against highway robbery is — a railway ; for then 
 the tables are turned ; not he who is stopped incurs the 
 risk, but he who stops : we question whether Samson him- 
 self could have pulled up his namesake on the Liverpool 
 railway. Kecently, indeed, in the Court of Common Pleas, 
 on a motion to show cause by Sergeant Bompas, in Hewitt 
 V. Price, Tindal (Chief- Justice) said — " We cannot call a 
 railway a public security,* I think" Qaughter) ; but we 
 
 * Chief- Justice squinted probably at the Versailles affair, where 
 parties were incinerated; for which, in Yorkshire, there is a iocal 
 
294 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 think otherwise. In spite of " laughter," we consider it a 
 ppecific against the " Low Toby." And, en attendant, there 
 is but one step towards amelioration of things for Greece, 
 which lies in summary ejecting of the Bavarian locusts. 
 Where all offices of profit or honour are engrossed by needy 
 aliens, you cannot expect a cheerful temper in the people. 
 And, unhappily, from moody discontent in Greece to the 
 taking of purses is short transition. 
 
 Thus have we disposed of " St. Nicholas's Clerks." Next 
 we come to fleas and dogs : Have we a remedy for these li 
 "We have : but as to fleas, applicable or not, according to 
 the purpose with which a man travels. If, as happened at 
 times to Mr. Mure, a natural, and, for his readers, a bene- 
 ficial anxiety to see something of domestic habits, overcomes 
 all sense of personal inconvenience, he will wish, at any cost, 
 to sleep in Grecian bedrooms, and to sit by German hearths. 
 On the other hand, though sensible of the honour attached 
 to being bit by a flea lineally descended from an Athenian 
 flea that in one day may possibly have bit three such men 
 as Pericles, Phidias, and Euripides, many quiet, unambitious 
 travellers might choose to dispense with " glory," and content 
 themselves with a view of Greek external nature. To these 
 persons we would recommend the plan of carrying amongst 
 their baggage a tent, with portable camp-beds ; one of those, 
 as originally invented upon the encouragement of the Pen- 
 insular campaigns from 1809 to 1814, and subsequently 
 
 word — crozelled, applied to those who lie down upon a treacherous 
 lime-pit, whose crust gives way to their weight. But if he meant 
 security in the sense of public funds, Chief- Justice was still more in 
 error, as he will soon learn. For the British railways now yield a 
 regular income of three millions per annum — one-tenth of the interest 
 of the national debt ; offer as steady an investment as the three per 
 cent, consols ; and will soon be quoted in other securities. ) 
 
MODERN GREECE. ^95 
 
 improved, would meet all ordinary wants. It is objected, 
 indeed, that by this time the Grecian fleas must have colo- 
 nized the very hills and woods : as once, we remember, 
 upon Westminster Bridge, to a person who proposed 
 bathing in the Thames by way of a ready ablution from 
 the July dust, another replied, " My dear sir, by no means ; 
 the river itself is dusty. Consider what it is to have 
 received the dust of London for nineteen hundred years 
 since Caesar's invasion, without having once been swept." 
 But in any case the water-cups, in which the bed-posts 
 rest, forbid the transit of creatures not able to swim or to 
 fly. A flea indeed leaps ; and, by all report, in a way that 
 far beats a tiger — taking the standard of measurement from 
 the bodies of the competitors. But even this may be 
 remedied : giving the maximum leap of a normal flea, it is 
 always easy to raise the bed indefinitely from the ground 
 — space upwards i§ unlimited — and the supporters of the 
 bed may be made to meet in one pillar, coated with so 
 viscous a substance as to put even a flea into chancery. 
 
 As to dogs, the case is not so easily settled ; and before 
 the reader is in a condition to judge of our remedy, he 
 ought to understand the evil in its whole extent. After all 
 allowances for vermin that waken you before your time, or 
 assassins that send you to sleep before your time, no single 
 Greek nuisance can be placed on the same scale with the 
 dogs attached to every menage^ whether household or 
 pastoral. Surely as a stranger approaches to any inhospit- 
 able door of the peasantry, often before he knows of such 
 a door as in rerum natura, out bounds upon him by huge 
 careering leaps a horrid infuriated ruffian of a dog — often- 
 times a huge moloss, big as an English cow — active as a 
 leopard, fierce as a hyena, but more powerful by much, and 
 quite as little disposed to hear reason. So situated — seeing 
 
296 MODEEN GREECE. 
 
 an enemy in motion with whom it would be as idle to 
 negotiate as with an earthquake — what is the bravest man 
 to do ? Shoot him ? Ay ; that was pretty much the 
 course taken by a young man who lived before Troy : and 
 see what came of it. This man, in fact a boy of seventeen, 
 had walked out to see the city of Mycenae — which in those 
 day was as fashionable as Baden-Baden — leaving his elder 
 cousin at the hotel sipping his wine. Out sprang a huge 
 dog from the principal house in what you might call the 
 High Street of My cense ; the young man's heart began to 
 ])alpitate ; he was in that state of excitement which affects 
 most people when fear mingles with excessive anger. What 
 was he to do 1 Pistols he had none, not even Colt's re- 
 volvers. And, as nobody came out to his aid, he put his 
 hand to the ground ; seized a chermadion (or paving- 
 stone), smashed the skull of the odious brute, and with 
 quite as much merit as Count Robert of Paris was entitled 
 to have claimed from his lucky hit in the dungeon, then 
 walked off to report his little exploit to his cousin at the 
 hotel 1 But what followed ? The wretches' in the house, 
 who never cared to show themselves so long as it might 
 only be the dog killing a boy, all came tumbling out by 
 crowds when once it became clear that a boy had killed the 
 dog. " A la lanterne /" they yelled out ; valiantly charged 
 en masse ; and among them they managed to kill the boy. 
 But there was a reckoning to pay for this. Had they 
 known who it was that sat drinking at the hotel, they 
 would have thought twice before they backed their brute. 
 That cousin, whom the poor boy had left at his wine, 
 happened to be an ugly customer — Hercules incog. It is 
 needless to specify the result. The child unborn had reason 
 to rue the murder of the boy. For his cousin proved quite 
 as deaf to all argument or submission as their own foul 
 
MODERN GREECE. 297 
 
 thief of a dog or themselves. Suffice it that the royal 
 house of Mycenae, in the language of ISTapoleon's edicts, 
 ceased to reign. But here is the evil ; few men leave a 
 Hercules at their hotel ; and all will have to stand the 
 vindictive fury of the natives for their canine friends, if you 
 should happen to pistol them. Be it in deliverance of 
 your own life, or even of a lady's by your side, no apology 
 would be listened to. In fact, besides the disproportionate 
 annoyance to a traveller's nerves, that he shall be kept 
 uneasy at every turn of the road in mere anxiety as to the 
 next recurrence of struggles so desperate, it arms the indig- 
 nation of a bold Briton beforehand — that a horrid brute 
 shall be thought entitled to kill him ; and if he does^ it is 
 pronounced an accident : but if he, a son of the mighty 
 island, kills the brute, instantly a little hybrid Greek 
 peasant shall treat it as murder. 
 
 Many years ago, we experienced the selfsame annoyance 
 in the north of England. Let no man talk of courage in 
 such cases. Most justly did Mardchal Saxe ask an officer 
 sneeringly, who protested that he had never known the 
 sensation of fear, and could not v/ell imagine what it was 
 like, had he never snuffed a candle with his fingers % " Be- 
 cause, in that case," said the veteran, " I fancy you must 
 have felt afraid of burning your thumb." A brave man, 
 on a service of known danger, braces up his mind by a 
 distinct effi)rt to the necessities of his duty. The great 
 sentiment that it is his duty, the sentiments of honour and 
 of country, reconcile him to the service while it lasts. No 
 use, besides, in ducking before shot, or dodging, or skulk- 
 ing ; he that faces the storm most cheerfully, has after all 
 the best chance of escaping — were that the object of con- 
 sideration. But, as soon as this trial is over, and the energy 
 called forth by a high tension of duty has relaxed, the very 
 
298 MODERN GREKCK 
 
 same man often shrinks from ordinary trials of his prowess. 
 Having, perhaps, little reason for confidence in his own 
 bodily strength, seeing no honour in the struggle, and sure 
 that no duty would be hallowed by any result, he slirinks 
 from it in a way which surprises those who have heard of 
 his martial character. Brave men in extremities are many 
 times the most nervous, and the shyest under perils of a 
 mean order. We, without claiming the benefit of these 
 particular distinctions, happened to be specially " soft" on 
 on this one danger from dogs. Not from the mere terror 
 of a bite, but from the shocking doubt besieging such a case 
 for four or five months that hydrophobia may supervene. 
 Think, excellent reader, if we should suddenly prove hydro- 
 pliobous in the middle of this paper, how would you distin- 
 guish the hydrophobous from the non-hydrophobous parts 'i 
 You would say, as Voltaire of Rousseau, " Sa plume ap- 
 paremment brulera le papier." Such being the horror ever 
 before our mind — images of eyeballs starting from their 
 sockets, spasms suffocating the throat — we could not see a 
 dog starting off into a yell of sudden discovery bound for 
 the foot of our legs, but that undoubtedly a mixed sensation 
 of panic and fury overshadowed us ; a x^P/^^^^oi/ was not 
 always at hand ; and without practice we could have little 
 confidence in our power of sending it home, else many is 
 the head we should have crushed. Sometimes, where more 
 than one dog happened to be accomplices in the outrage, 
 we were not altogether out of danger. " Euripides," we 
 said, " was really torn to pieces by the dogs of a sovereign 
 prince ; in Hounslow, but a month since, a little girl was 
 all but worried by the buck-houuds of a greater sovereign 
 than Archelaus ; and why not we by the dogs of a farmer V 
 The scene lay in Westmoreland and Cumberland. Often- 
 times it would happen that in summer we had turned aside 
 
MODERN GREECE. 299 
 
 from the road, or perhaps the road itself forced us to pass 
 a farm-house from which the family might be absent in the 
 hay-field. Unhappily the dogs in such a case are often left 
 behind And many have been the fierce contests in which 
 we have embarked ; for, as to retreating, be it known 
 that there (as in Greece) the murderous savages will pursue 
 you — sometimes far into the highroad. That result it was 
 which uniformly brought us back to a sense of our own 
 wrong, and finally of our rights. " Come," we used to say, 
 " this is too much; here at least is the king's highway, and 
 things are come to a pretty pass indeed, if we, who partake 
 of a common nature with the king, and write good Latin, 
 whereas all the world knows what sort of Latin is found 
 among dogs, may not have as good a right to standing- 
 room as a low-bred quadruped v/ith a tail like you." 
 Non usque adeo summis permiscuit ima longa dies, &c. 
 We remember no instance which ever so powerfully illus- 
 trated the courage given by the consciousness of rectitude. 
 So long as we felt that we were trespassing on the grounds 
 of a stranger we certainly sneaked, we seek nut to deny it. 
 But once landed on the highroad, where we knew our own 
 title to be as good as the dog's, not aU the world should 
 liave persuaded us to budge one foot. 
 
 Our reason for going back to these old Cumbrian remem- 
 brances will be found in what follows. Deeply incensed at 
 the insults we had been obliged to put up with for years, 
 brooding oftentimes over 
 
 "Wrongs tmredressM, and insults unavenged," 
 we asked ourselves — Is vengeance hopeless ? And at length 
 we hit upon the following scheme of retribution. This it 
 is — useless to myself as it happened on English ground — 
 which we propose as applicable to Greece. Well acquainted 
 with the indomitable spirit of the bull-dog, and the fidelity 
 
300 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 of the mastiff, we determined to obtain two such compaHions ; 
 to re-traverse all our old ground ; to make a point, like 
 Tulus, of visiting every house where we had been grossly 
 insulted by dogs ; and to commit our cause to the manage- 
 ment of these new allies. " Let us see," said we, " if they 
 will speak in the same bullying tone this time." " But 
 with what ulterior views V the dispassionate reader asks. 
 The same, we answer, which Mr. Pitt professed as the 
 objects of the Eevolutionary war — " Indemnity for the past, 
 and security for the future." Years, however, passed on ; 
 Charles x. fell from his throne ; the Keform Bill passed ; 
 other things occurred, and at last this change struck us — 
 that the dogs, on whom our vengeance would alight, gene- 
 rally speaking, must belong to a second generation, or even 
 a third, in descent from our personal enemies. !N"ow, this 
 vengeance " by procuration" seemed no vengeance at alL 
 But a plan which failed as regarded our own past wrongs, 
 may yet apply admirably to a wrong current and in pro- 
 gress. If we Englishmen may not pistol Greek canine 
 ruffians, at any rate we suppose an English bull-dog has a 
 right to make a tour in Greece. A mastiff, if he pays for 
 his food and lodgings, possesses as good a title to see Athens 
 and the Peloponnesus as a Bavarian, perhaps even as 
 Themistocles in times of old, and a better than a Turk ; 
 and, if he cannot be suffered to pass quietly along the roads 
 on his own private affairs, the more is the pity. But as- 
 suredly the consequences will not fall on him; we know 
 enough of the sublime courage bestowed on that heroic 
 animal, to be satisfied that he will shake the life out of any 
 enemy that Greece can show. The embassy sent by ]N'apo- 
 leon to the Shah of Persia about the year 1810, complained 
 much and often of the huge dogs scattered over all parts of 
 Western Asia, whether Turkish or Persian ; and, by later 
 
MODERN GREECE. 301 
 
 travels amongst the Himalayas, it seems that the same 
 gigantic ruffians prevail in Central Asia. But the noble 
 English bull-dogs, who, being but three in number, did not 
 hesitate for one instant to rush upon the enormous lion at 
 "Warwick, will face any enemy in the world, and will come 
 off victors, unless hyperbolically overweighted ; a peril which 
 need not be apprehended, except perhaps in Laconia or 
 Messenia. 
 
 Here, therefore, we should be disposed to leave the sub- 
 ject. But, as it is curious for itself, is confessedly of 
 importance to the traveller, and has thrown light upon a 
 passage in the Odyssey that had previously been unintel- 
 ligible, we go on to one other suggestion furnished by the 
 author before us. It is really a discovery ; and is more 
 worthy of a place in annotations upon Homer than nine in 
 ten of all that- we read : — 
 
 ^* Among the numerous points of resemblance with which 
 the classical traveller cannot fail to be struck, between the 
 habits of pastoral and agricultural life, as still exemplified 
 in Greece, and those which formerly prevailed in the same 
 country, there is none more calculated to arrest his atten- 
 tion than the correspondence of the shepherds' encampments, 
 scattered on the face of the less cultivated districts, with 
 the settlements of the same kind whose concerns are so fre- 
 quently brought forward in the imagery of the Iliad and 
 Odyssey. Accordingly, the passage of Homer to which the 
 existing peculiarity above described " (viz., of pelting off dogs 
 by large jagged stones) " affords the most appropriate com- 
 mentary, is the scene where Ulysses, disguised as a beggar, 
 in approaching the farm of the swineherd, is fiercely assaulted 
 by the dogs, but delivered by the master of the establish- 
 ment. Pope's translation, with the exception of one or two 
 expressions" (amongst which Mr. Mure notices mastiff as 
 
302 MODERN aUEECE. 
 
 " not a good term for a slieep-dog"), ** liere conveys with 
 tolerable fidelity the spirit of the original : — 
 
 ** * Soon as Ulysses near the enclosure drew 
 With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew ; 
 Down sate the sage ; and, cautious to withstand, 
 Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand. 
 Sudden the master runs — aloud he calls ; 
 And from his hasty hand the leather falls ; 
 With showers of stones he drives them far away ; 
 The scatter'd dogs around at distance hay.' " — 
 
 Odyss. xiv. 29. 
 
 First, however, let us state the personal adventure which 
 occasions this reference to Homer, as it illustrates a feature 
 in Greek scenery, and in the composition of Greek society. 
 In the early part of his travels, on a day when Mr. Mure 
 was within a few hours of the immortal Missolonghi, he (as 
 better mounted) had ridden ahead of his suite. Suddenly 
 he came upon " an encampment of small, low, reed wig- 
 wams," which in form resembled " the pastoral capanne of 
 the Eoman plain," but were " vastly inferior in size and 
 structure." "Women and children were sitting outside : but 
 finally there crawled forth from the little miserable hovels 
 two or three male figures of such gigantic dimensions as 
 seemed beyond the capacity of the entire dwellings. Seve- 
 ral others joined them, all remarkable for size and beauty. 
 And one, whose air of authority bespoke his real rank of 
 chief, Mr. Mure pronounces " a most magnificent-looking 
 barbarian." This was a nomad tribe of Wallachian shep- 
 herds, descended (it is supposed) from the Dacian colonies, 
 Eomans intermingled with natives, founded by the later 
 Csesars ; the prevalent features of their faces are, it seems, 
 Italian ; their language is powerfully veined with Latin ; 
 their dress, differing from that of all their Albanian neigh- 
 bours, resembles the dress of Dacian captives sculpt lu-ed on 
 
MODERN GREECE. 303 
 
 the triumphal monuments of Rome ; and lastly, their pecu- 
 liar name, Vlacic Wallachian, indicates in the Sclavonic 
 language pretty much the same relation to a foreign origin, 
 as in German is indicated by the word Welsh : an affinity 
 of which word is said to exist in our word Walnut, where 
 ivall (as the late Mr. Coleridge thinks) means alien, out- 
 landish. The evidence, therefore, is as direct for their 
 non-Grecian descent as could be desired. But they are 
 interesting to Greece at this time, because annually migrat- 
 ing from Thessaly in the summer, and diffusing themselves 
 in the patriarchal style with their wives, their children, and 
 their flocks, over the sunny vales of Boeotia, of Peloponne- 
 sus, and in general of southern Greece. Their men are 
 huge, but they are the mildest of the human race. Their 
 dogs are huge also ; so far the parallel holds. We regret 
 that strict regard to truth forbids us to pursue the com- 
 parison. 
 
 " I found myself on a sudden," says Mr. Mure, " sur- 
 rounded by a fierce pack of dogs, of size proportioned to 
 that of their masters, and which rushed forth on every side 
 as if bent on devouring both myself and beast : being alto- 
 gether unprovided with any means of defence but the rope- 
 end of the same halter that supplied my stirrups, I was (I 
 confess) not a little disconcerted by the assault of so unex- 
 pected an enemy." From this he was soon delivered at 
 the moment by some of the gentle giants, who " pelted 
 off the animals with the large loose stones that lay scattered 
 over the rocky surface of the heath." But upon the char- 
 acter of the nuisance, and upon the particular remedy 
 employed, both of which are classical, and older than Troy, 
 Mr. Mure makes the following explanations : — 
 
 " The number and ferocity of the dogs that guard the 
 Greek hamlets and sheepfolds, as compared with those kept 
 
304 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 for similar purposes in other parts of the world, is one of the 
 peculiarities of this country, which not only first attracts the 
 attention of the tourist, but is chiefly calculated to excite 
 his alarm, and call into exercise his prowess or presence of 
 mind. It is also amongst the features of modern Greek life 
 that supply the most curious illustrations of classical anti- 
 quity. Their attacks are not confined to those who approach 
 the premises of which they are the appointed guardians j" 
 they do not limit themselves to defensive war : " in many 
 districts they are in the habit of rushing from a considerable 
 distance to torment the traveller passing along the public 
 track : and when the pastoral colonies, as is often the case, 
 occur at frequent intervals, the nusiance becomes quite into- 
 lerable." But in cases where the succession is less conti- 
 nuous, we should imagine that the nuisance was in the same 
 proportion more dangerous ; and Mr. Mure acknowledges 
 that under certain circumstances, to a solitary stranger, 
 the risk would be serious ; though generally, and in the 
 case of cavalcades, the dogs fasten chiefly upon the horses. 
 
 But endless are the compensations which we find in the 
 distributions of nature. Is there a bane ? Near it lies an 
 antidote. Is there a disease ? Look for a specific in that 
 same neighbourhood. Here, also, the universal rule pre- 
 vails. As it was destined that Greece in aU ages should 
 be scourged by this intestine enemy, it was provided that 
 a twofold specific should travel concurrently with the evil. 
 And because the vegetable specific, in the shape of oaken 
 cudgels, was liable to local failure (at this moment, in fact, 
 from the wreck of her woods by means of incendiary armies, 
 Greece is, for a season, disafforested), there exists a second 
 specific of a mineral character, which (please Heaven T) shall 
 never fail, so long as Greece is Greece. " The usual weapons 
 of defence, employed in such cases by the natives, are the 
 
MODERN GREECE. 305 
 
 large loose stones with whicli the soil is everywhet^e strewed 
 — a natural feature of this region, to which also belongs its 
 own proper share of classic interest." The character of the 
 rocks prevailing in those mountain ridges which intersect 
 the whole of Greece is, that whilst in its interior texture 
 " of iron-hard consistency," yet at the surface it is " broken 
 into detached fragments of infinitely varied dimensions." 
 Balls, bullets, grape, and canister shot, have all been 
 "parked" in inexhaustible magazines ; whilst the leading 
 feature which strikes the mind with amazement in this 
 natural artillery, is its fine 7'etail distribution. Everywhere 
 you may meet an enemy : stoop, and everywhere there is 
 shot piled for use. We see a Leibnitzian pre-established 
 harmony between the character of the stratification and the 
 character of the dogs. 
 
 Cardinal de Retz explains why that war, in the minority 
 of Louis XIV., was called the Fronde; and it seems that 
 in Greece, where an immortal fronde was inevitable, an 
 immortal magazine was supplied for it — one which has been 
 and will continue to be, under all revolutions ; for the uncul- 
 tured tracts present the missiles equally diffused, and the 
 first rudiments of culture show themselves in collections of 
 missiles along the roads. Hence, in fact, a general mistake 
 of tourists. " It is certain," says Mr. Mure, " that many 
 of the circular mounds, which are noticed in the itineraries 
 under the rubric of ancient tumulus, have been heaped up 
 in this manner. It is to these stones that travellers, and 
 the population at large, instinctively have recourse as the 
 most effectual weapon against the assaults of the dogs." 
 The small shot of pebbles, however, or even stoaes equal 
 to pigeon's eggs, would avail nothing : " those selected are 
 seldom smaller than what a man, exerting his whole force, 
 can conveniently lift and throw with one hand." Thence, in 
 N 2 
 
306 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 factj and from no other cause, comes (as Mr. Mure observes) 
 the Homeric designation of such stones, viz., chermadion, 
 or handful ; of which he also cites the definition given by 
 Lucian, At^os x^^P^'^^l^V^y « hand-filling stone. Ninety 
 generations have passed since the Trojan war, and each of 
 the ninety has used the same bountiful magazine. All 
 readers of the Iliad must remember how often Ajax or 
 Hector took up cJiermadia, ^* such as twice five men in our 
 degenerate days could barely lift," launching them at light- 
 armed foes, who positively would not come nearer to take 
 their just share of the sword or spear. " The weapon is 
 the more efiectual, owing to the nature of the rock itself, 
 broken as it is in its whole surface into angular and sharp- 
 pointed inequalities, which add greatly to the severity of the 
 wound inflicted. Hence, as most travellers will have expe- 
 rienced, a fall amongst the Greek rocks is unusually pain- 
 ful." It is pleasing to find Homer familiar not only with 
 the use of the weapon, but with its finest external " deve- 
 lopments." Not only the stone must be a bouncer, a cher- 
 madion, with some of the properties (we believe) marking 
 a good cricket-ball, but it ought to be oKpioecs — such is the 
 Homeric epithet of endearment, his caressing description of 
 a good brainer, viz., splinting-jagged. 
 
 This fact of the chermadic weight attached to the good 
 war-stone explains, as Mr. Mure ingeniously remarks, a 
 simile of Homer's, which ought to have been pure nonsense 
 for Pope and Cowper, viz., that in describing a dense mist, 
 such as we foolishly imagine peculiar to our own British 
 climate, and meaning to say that a man could scarcely 
 descry an object somewhat ahead of his own station, he 
 says, roorcrov ns r eiri Xevo-crec ocrov t iin Aaav i7](Tt : so far 
 does man see as he hurls a stone. Now, in the skirmish of 
 " bickering," this would argue no great limitation of eys- 
 
MODERN GEEEUE. 307 
 
 sight. " Why, man, how far would yon see ? Would you 
 eee round a corner V "A shot of several hundred yards," 
 says Mr. Mure, " were no great feat for a country lad well 
 skilled in the art of stone-throwing." But this is not 
 Homer's meaning — " The cloud of dust" (which went be- 
 fore an army advancing, and which it is that Homer com- 
 pares to a mist on the hills perplexing the shepherd) " was 
 certainly much denser than to admit of the view extending 
 to such a distance. In the Homeric sense, as allusive to 
 the hurling of the ponderous chermadion, the figure is 
 correct and expressive." And here, as everywhere, we see 
 the Horatian parenthesis upon Homer, as one qui nil mo- 
 litur inepte, wdio never speaks vaguely, never wants a rea- 
 son, and never loses sight of a reality, amply sustained. 
 Here, then, is a local resource to the British tourist besides 
 the imported one of the bull-dog ; and it is remarkable 
 that, except where the dogs are preternaturally audacious, 
 a mere hint of the chermadion sufl&ces. Late in our own 
 experience, too late for glory, we made the discovery that 
 all dogs have a mysterious reverence for a trundling-stone. 
 It calls off attention from the human object, and strikes 
 alarm into the caitiff's mind. He thinks the stone alive. 
 Upon this hint we thought it possible to improve : Stoop- 
 ing down, we " made believe" to launch a stone, when in 
 fact we had none ; and the effect generally followed. So 
 well is this understood in Greece, that, according to a 
 popular opinion reported by Mr. Mure, the prevailing habit 
 in Grecian dogs, as well as bitches, of absenting themselves 
 from church, grows out of the frequent bowing and genu- 
 flexions practised in the course of the service. The con- 
 gregation, one and all, simultaneously stoop ; the dog's 
 wickedness has made him well acquainted with the mean- 
 ing of that act ; it is a symbol but too significant to his 
 
308 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 conscience ; and he takes to his heels with the belief that a 
 whole salvo of one hundred and one chermadia are fasten- 
 ing on his devoted " hurdles." 
 
 Here, therefore, is a suggestion at once practically useful, 
 and which furnishes more than one important elucidation 
 to passages in Homer hitherto unintelligible. For the sake 
 of one other such passage, we shall, before dismissing the 
 subject, pause upon a novel fact communicated by Mr. 
 Mure, which is equally seasonable as a new Homeric light, 
 and as a serviceable hint in a situation of extremity. 
 
 In the passage already quoted under Pope's version from 
 Odyssey, xiv. 29, what is the meaning of that singular 
 couplet — 
 
 " Down sate the sage; and cautions to withstand, 
 Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand." * 
 
 Mr. Mure's very singular explanation will remind the 
 naturalist of something resembling it in the habits of 
 buffaloes. Dampier mentions a case which he witnessed in 
 some oriental island with a Malay population, where a herd 
 of buffaloes continued to describe concentric circles, con- 
 tinually narrowing around a party of sailors, and at last 
 submitted only to the control of children not too far beyond 
 the state of infancy. The white breed of wild cattle, once 
 so well known at Lord Tankerville's, in JSTorthumberland, 
 and at one point in the south-west of Scotland, had a 
 similar instinct for regulating the fury of their own attack ; 
 
 * As respects the elegance of this translation, tliere is good reason 
 to warn the reader that much of the Odyssey was let off by contract, 
 Hke any poor-house proposal for " clods" and " stickings" of beef, to 
 low undertakers, such as Broome and Fenton"^ Considering the ample 
 fortune which Pope drew from the whole work, we have often been 
 struck by the inexplicable indulgence wdth which this scandalous 
 partition is treated by Pope's biographers. It is simply the lowest 
 act of self-desradation ever connected wi'h literature. 
 
MODERN GEEECE. 309 
 
 l)ut it was understood that when the final circle had been 
 woven the spell was perfect, and that the herd would " do 
 business" most effectually. As respects the Homeric case, 
 *' I," says Mr. Mure, " am probably not the only reader 
 who has been puzzled to understand the object of this 
 manoeuvre*' (the sitting down) " on the part of the hero. 
 I was first led to appreciate its full value in the following 
 manner : — At Argos one evening, at the table of General 
 Gordon" (then commanding-in- chief throughout the Morea, 
 and the best historian of the Greek Eevolution, but who 
 subsequently resigned, and died in the spring of 1841 at 
 his seat in Aberdeenshire), " the conversation happened to 
 turn, as it frequently does where tourists are in company, 
 on this very subject of the number and fierceness of the 
 Grecian dogs, when one of the company remarked that he 
 knew of a very simple expedient for appeasing their fury. 
 Happening on a journey to miss his road, and being over- 
 taken by darkness, he sought refuge for the night at a 
 pastoral settlement by the wayside. As he approached, the 
 dogs rushed out upon him, and the consequences might 
 have been serious had he not been rescued by an old shep- 
 herd (the Eumeus of the fold), who, after pelting off his 
 assailants, gave him a hospitable reception in his hut. The 
 guest made some remark on the zeal of his dogs, and on 
 the danger to which he had been exposed from their attack. 
 The old man replied that it was his own fault, from not 
 taking the customary precaution in such an emergency ; 
 that he ought to have stopped, and sate down until some 
 person came to protect him." Here we have the very act 
 of Ulysses, with the necessary circumstance that he laid 
 aside his arms ; after which the two parties were under a 
 provisional treaty. And Adam Smith's doubtful assumption 
 that dogs are incapable of exchange, or of any reciprocal 
 
310 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 understanding, seems still more doubtful. As this expe- 
 dient \Fas new to the traveller, "he made some further 
 inquiries ; and was assured that, if any person in such a 
 predicament will simply seat himself on the ground, laying 
 aside his weapon of defence, the dogs will also squat in a 
 circle round him ; that, as long as he remains quiet, they 
 will follow his example ; but that as soon as he rises and 
 moves forward, they will renew their assault. This story, 
 though told without the least reference to the Odyssey^ at 
 once brought home to my own mind the scene at the fold 
 of Eumeus with the most vivid reality. The existence of 
 the custom was confirmed by other persons present, from 
 their own observation or experience." Yet, what if the 
 night were such as is often found even in Southern Greece 
 during winter — a black frost ; and that all the belligerents 
 were found in the morning symmetrically grouped as petri- 
 factions ? However, here again we have the Homer qui nil 
 molitur mepte, who addressed a people of known habits. 
 Yet qucei^e — as a matter of some moment for Homeric 
 disputes — were these habits of Ionian colonies, or exchi- 
 sively of Greece Proper, on which Homer may, after all, 
 not be so good an authority as Murray, price 8s. 6d. 
 
 But enough of the repulsive features in Greek travelling. 
 We, for our part, have endeavoured to meet them with re- 
 medies both good and novel. Now let us turn to a different 
 question. What are the positive attractions of Greece ? 
 What motives are there to a tour so costly 1 What are the 
 pros, supposing the cons dismissed 1 JChis is a more diffi- 
 cult question than is imagined : so difficult that most people 
 set out without waiting for the answer ; they travel first 
 and leave to providential contingencies the chance that, on 
 a review of the tour in its course, some adequate motive 
 may suggest itself. Certainly it may be said, that the word 
 
MODEEN GEEECE. 3 1 1 
 
 Greece already in itself contains an adequate motive ; and 
 we do not deny that a young man, full of animal ardour 
 and high classical recollections, may, without blame, give 
 way to the mere instincts of wandering. It is a fine thing 
 to bundle up your traps at an hour's warning, and fixing 
 your eye upon some bright particular star, to say, " I will 
 travel after thee j I will have no other mark j I will chase 
 thy rising or thy setting ;" that is, on Mr. Wordsworth's 
 hint derived from a Scottish lake, to move on a general 
 object of stepping westwards, or stepping eastwards. But 
 there are few men qualified to travel, who stand in this free 
 " unhoused " condition of license to spend money, to lose 
 time, or to court peril. . In balancing the pretensions of 
 difibrent regions to a distinction so costly as an effectual 
 tour, money it is, simply the consideration of cost, which 
 furnishes the chief or sole gTOund of administration ; having 
 but £100 disposable in any one summer, a man finds his 
 fi.eld of choice circumscribed at once ; and rare is the house- 
 hold that can allow twice that sum annually. He contents 
 liimself with the Rhine, or possibly, if more adventurous, 
 he may explore the passes of the Pyrenees ; he may un- 
 thread the mazes of romantic Auvergne, or make a stretch 
 even to the Western Alps of Savoy. 
 
 But for the Mediterranean, and especially for the Levant 
 — these he resigns to richer men ; to those who can com- 
 mand from £300 to £500. And next, having submit- 
 ted to this preliminary limitation of radius, he is guided in 
 selecting from what remains by some indistinct prejudice 
 of his early reading. Many are they in England who start 
 with a blind faith, inherited from Mrs. Radcliffe's romances, 
 and thousands beside, that, in Southern France or in Italy, 
 from the Milanese down to the fiu-thest nook of the Sicilies, 
 it is physically impossible for the tourist to go wrong. And 
 
312 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 thus it happens that a spectacle, somewhat painful to good 
 sense, is annually renewed of confiding households leaving a 
 real Calabria in Montgomeryshire or Devonshire, for dreary, 
 sunburned flats in Bavaria, in Provence, in Languedoc, or 
 in the " Legations " of the Papal territory. " Vintagers," 
 at a distance, how romantic a sound ! Hops, on the other 
 hand, how mercenary, nay, how culinary, by the feeling 
 connected with their use, or their taxation ! Arcadian shep- 
 herds again, or Sicilian from the " bank of delicate Galesus," 
 can these be other than poetic 1 The hunter of the Alpine 
 ibex — can he be other than picturesque *? A sandalled 
 monk mysteriously cowled, and in the distance (but be sure 
 of that /) a band of robbers reposing at noon amidst some 
 Salvator-Kosa-looking solitudes of Calabria — how often have 
 such elements, semi-consciously grouped, and flashing upon 
 the indistinct mirrors lighted up by early reading, seduced 
 English good sense into undertakings terminating in angry 
 disappointment *? We acknowledge that the English are 
 the only nation under this romantic delusion ; but so saying, 
 we pronounce a very mixed censure upon our country. In 
 itself it is certainly a folly which other nations (Germany 
 excepted) are not above, but very far below ; a folly which 
 presupposes a most remarkable distinction for our litera- 
 ture, significant in a high moral degree. The plain truth 
 is, that Southern Europe has no romance in its household 
 literature ; has not an organ for comprehending what it is 
 that we mean by Radcliffian romance. The old ancestral 
 romance of knightly adventure, the San^real, the Round 
 Table, &c., exists for Southern Europe as an antiquarian 
 subject ; or if treated sesthetically, simply as a subject 
 adapted to the ludicrous. And the secondary romance of 
 our later literature is to the south unintelligible. ISTo French- 
 man, Spaniard, or Italian, at all comprehends the grand 
 
MODERN GREECE. 313 
 
 poetic feeling employed and nursed by narrative fictions 
 through the last seventy years in England, though connected 
 by us with their own foolishly exaggerated scenery. 
 
 Generally, in speaking of Southern Europe, it may be 
 affirmed that the idea of heightening any of the grander 
 passions by association with the shadowy and darker forms 
 of natural scenery, heaths, mountainous recesses, "forests 
 drear," or the sad desolation of a silent sea-shore, of the 
 desert, or of the ocean, is an idea not developed amongst 
 them, nor capable of combining with their serious feelings. 
 By the evidence of their literature, viz., of their poetry, 
 their drama, their novels, it is an interest to which the 
 whole race is deaf and blind. A Frenchman or an Italian 
 (for the Italian, in many features of Gallic insensibility, 
 will be found ultra-Gallican) can understand a state in 
 which the moving principle is sympathy with the world of 
 conscience. Not that his own country will furnish him 
 with any grand exemplification of such an interest ; but, 
 merely as a human being, he cannot escape from a certain 
 degree of human sympathy with the dread tumults going 
 on in that vast theatre — a conscience-haunted mind. So 
 far he stands on common ground with ourselves ; but how 
 this mode of shedding terror can borrow any alliance from 
 chapels, from ruins, from monastic piles, from Inquisition 
 dungeons, inscrutable to human justice, or dread confes- 
 sionals, — all this is unfathomably mysterious to Southern 
 Europe. The Southern imagination is passively and abjectly 
 dependent on social interests ; and these must conform to 
 modern types. . Hence, partly, the reason that only the 
 British travel. The German is generally too poor. The 
 Frenchman desires nothing but "what he finds at home : 
 having Paris at hand, why should he seek an inferior Paris 
 m distant lands ] To an Englishman this demur could Bel- 
 
 XIII. — 
 
314 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 (iom exist. He may think, and, with introductions into tho 
 higher modes of aristocratic life, he may know that London 
 and St. Petersburg are far more magnificent capitals than 
 Paris ; but that will not repel his travelling instincts. A 
 superior London he does not credit or desire ; but what he 
 seeks is not a superior, it is a different life ; not new- 
 degrees of old things, but new kinds of experience are what 
 he asks. His scale of conception is ampler ; whereas, 
 generally, the Frenchman is absorbed into one ideal. Why 
 else is it, that, after you have allowed for a few French- 
 men carried of necessity into foreign lands by the diploma- 
 tic concerns of so vast a country, and for a few artists 
 travelling in quest of gain or improvement, we hear of no 
 French travellers as a class ? And why is it that, except 
 as regards Egypt, where there happens to lurk a secret 
 political object in reversion for France, German literature 
 builds its historic or antiquarian researches almost exclu- 
 sively upon English travellers ? Our travellers may happen 
 or not to be professional ; but they are never found travel- 
 ling for professional objects. Some have been merchants 
 or bankers, many have been ecclesiastics ; but neither com- 
 mercial nor clerical or religious purposes have furnished any 
 working motive, unless where, as express missionaries, they 
 have prepared their readers to expect such a bias to their 
 researches. Colonel Leake, the most accurate of travellers, 
 is a soldier ; and in reviewing the field of Marathon, of 
 Platsea, and others deriving their interest from later wars, 
 he makes a casual use of his soldiership. Captain Beaufort, 
 again, as a sailor, uses his nautical skill where it is properly 
 called for. But in the larger proportions of their works, 
 even the professional are not professional ; whilst such is 
 our academic discipline, that all alike are scholars. And in 
 this quality of merit the author before us holds a distin- 
 
MODERN GREECE. 315 
 
 guished rank. He is no artist, though manifesting the eye 
 learned in art and in landscape. He is not professionally 
 a soldier ; he is so only by that secondary tie, which, in 
 our island, connects the landed aristocracy with the landed 
 militia ; yet though not, in a technical sense, military, he 
 disputes, with such as are, difficult questions of Greek 
 martial history. He is no regular agriculturist, yet he con- 
 • veys a good general impression of the Greek condition with 
 relation to landed wealth or landed skill, as modified at 
 this moment by the unfortunate restraints on a soil handed 
 over, in its best parts, by a Turkish aristocracy that had 
 engrossed them, to a Bavarian that cannot use them. In 
 short, Mr. Mure is simply a territorial gentleman ; elevated 
 enough to have stood a contest for the representation of a 
 great Scottish county ; of general information ; and, in par- 
 ticular, he is an excellent Greek scholar ; which latter fact 
 we gather, not from anything we have heard, but from 
 these three indications meeting together : 1. That his 
 verbal use of Greek, in trying the true meaning of names 
 (such as Mycene, the island of Asteris, &c.), is original as 
 well as accurate. 2. That his display of reading (not 
 volunteered or selected, but determined by accidents of local 
 suggestion) is ample. 3. That the frugality of his Greek 
 citations is as remarkable as their pertinence. He is never 
 tempted into trite references ; nor ever allows his page to 
 be encumbered by more of such learning than is severely 
 needed. 
 
 With regard to the general motives for travelling, his 
 for Greece had naturally some relation to his previous read- 
 ing ; but perhaps an occasional cause, making his true 
 motives operative, may have been his casual proximity to 
 Greece at starting — for he was then residing in Italv. 
 Others, however, amongst those qualified to succeed him, 
 
316 MODERN GHEECE. 
 
 wanting tliis advantage, will desire some positive objects cf 
 a high value, in a tour both difficult as regards hardships, 
 costly, and too tedious, even with the aids of steam, for 
 those whose starting-point is England. These objects, real 
 or imaginary, in a Greek tour, co-extensive with the new 
 limits of Greek jurisdiction, let us now review : — 
 
 I. The Greek People. — It is with a view to the Greeks 
 personally, the men, women, and children, who in one sense 
 at least, viz., as occupants of the Greek soil, represent the 
 ancient classical Greeks, that the traveller will undertake 
 this labour. Eepresentatives in one sense ! Why, how 
 now li are they not such in all senses % Do they not trace 
 their descent from the classical Greeks ? We are sorry to 
 say not ; or in so doubtful a way, that the interest derived 
 from that source is too languid to sustain itself against the 
 opposing considerations. Some authors have peremptorily 
 denied that one drop of genuiDO Grecian blood, transmitted 
 from the countrymen of Pericles, now flows in the veins of 
 any Greek subject. Falmereyer, the German, is at the 
 head (we believe) of those who take that vi^w. And many 
 who think Falmereyer in excess, make these unpleasant 
 concessions, viz., \st^ That in Athens and throughout Attica, 
 where, by special preference, one would wish to see the 
 Grecian cast of face predominating, tliere^ to a single family 
 almost, you may affirm all to be Albanian. Well^ but 
 what is Albanian % For the Albanian race, as having its 
 head-quarters in regions once undoubtedly occupied by a 
 Greek race, Epirus, for instance, Acaruania, &c., may still 
 be Grecian by descent : but unfortunately it is not so. 
 The Albanians are no more Grecian, and notoriously no 
 more represent the old legitimate Greeks, who thumped the 
 Persians and whom the Eomans thumped, than the modem 
 Englisli represent the Britons, or the modern Lowland 
 
MODERN GREECE. 317 
 
 Scotch represent the Scoti, of the centuries immediately fol- 
 lowing the Christian era. Both English and Lowland 
 Scotch, for the first ^ye centuries after the Christian era, 
 were ranging the forests of north Germany or of southern 
 Sweden. The men who fought with Csesar, if now repre- 
 sented at all, are so in Wales, in Cornwall, or other western 
 recesses of the island. And the Albanians are held to be 
 a Sclavonic race — such at least is the accredited theory ; 
 so that modern Greece is connected with Eussia not merely 
 by the bond of a common church, but also by blood, since 
 the Eussian people is the supreme branch of the Sclavonic 
 race. This is the first concession made which limits any 
 remnant of the true Greek blood to parts of the ancient 
 Hellas not foremost in general interest, nor most likely to 
 be visited. 
 
 A second is, that if any claim to a true Grecian descent 
 does exist extensively, it must be looked for amongst 
 Mahometan clans, descended from renegades of former days, 
 now confounded with our Mussulmans ejected from Greece, 
 and living in Thrace, or other regions under the Sultan's 
 sceptre. But even here the purity of the descent is in the 
 last degree uncertain. 
 
 This case is remarkable. From the stationary character 
 of all things in the East, there was a probability beforehand, 
 that several nations — as in particular, four that we will men- 
 tion : the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Persians, the AfFghans — 
 should have presented the same purity of descent, untainted 
 by alien blood, which we find in the children of Ishmael, and 
 the children of his half-brother the patriarch Isaac. Yet, in 
 that case, where would have been the miraculous unity of 
 race predicted for these two nations exclusively by the Scrip- 
 tures 1 The fact is, the four nations mentioned have been 
 so profoundly changed by deluges of foreign conquest or 
 
818 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 foreign intrusion, that at this day, perhaps, no solitary in- 
 dividual could be found whose ancestral line had not been 
 confounded with other bloods. The Arabs only, and the 
 Jews, are under no suspicion of this hybrid mixture. Vast 
 deserts, which insulate one side of the Arabian peninsula ; 
 the sea, which insulates the other sides, have, with other 
 causes, preserved the Arab blood from all general attaint of 
 its purity. Ceremonies, institutions, awful scruples of con- 
 science, and through many centuries, misery and legal per- 
 secution, have maintained a still more impassable gulf 
 between the Jews and other races. Spain is the only Chris- 
 tian land where the native blood was at any time inter- 
 mingled with the Jewish ; and hence one cause for the 
 early vigilance of the Inquisition in that country more than 
 elsewhere ; hence also the horror of a Jewish taint in the 
 Spanish hidalgo ; Judaism masking itself in Christianity, 
 was so keenly suspected, or so haughtily disclaimed, simply 
 because so largely it existed. It was, however, under a 
 very peculiar state of society, that, even during an interval, 
 and in a corner, Jews could have intermarried with Chris- 
 tians. Generally, the intensity of reciprocated hatred, long 
 oppression upon the one side, deep degradation upon the 
 other, perpetuated the alienation, had the repulsion of 
 creeds even relaxed. And hence, at this day, the intense 
 purity of the Jewish blood, though probably more than six 
 millions of individuals. 
 
 But with respect to the Grecians, as no barrier has ever 
 existed between them and any other race than the Turks,'"* 
 
 * Some will urge- the intolerance of the Greeks for Christians of 
 the Latin Church. But that did not hinder alliances, and ambitious 
 attempts at such alliances, with their Venetian masters in the most 
 distinguished of the Greek houses. Witness the infernal atrocities 
 by which the Venetian government avenged at times what they 
 yiewed as unpardonable presumption. See their own records. 
 
MODERN GREECE. 319 
 
 and tliese only in the shape of religious scruples, which on 
 one side had the highest political temptation to give way, 
 there was no pledge stronger than individual character, 
 there could be no national or corporate pledge, for the 
 maintenance of this insulation. As therefore, in many re- 
 corded cases, the strongest barrier (viz., that against Ma- 
 hometan alliances) is known to have given way, as in other 
 cases (innumerable, but forgotten), it must be presumed to 
 have given way ; this inference follows, viz., that if any- 
 where the Grecian blood remains in purity, the fact will be 
 entirely without evidence ; and for us, the result will be 
 the same as if the fact had no existence. Simply as a 
 matter of curiosity, if our own opinion were asked as to 
 the probability, that in any situation, a true-blooded popu- 
 lation yet survives at this day, we should answer that, if 
 anywhere, it will be found in the most sterile of the Greek 
 islands. Yet, even there the bare probability of such a 
 result will have been open to many disturbances ; and espe- 
 cially if the island happen to be much in the way of navi- 
 gators, or the harbours happen to be convenient, or if it 
 happen to furnish a good stage in a succession of stages 
 (according to the ancient usages of Mediterranean seaman- 
 ship), or if it possessed towns containing accumulations of 
 provisions or other stores, or offered good watering-places ; 
 under any of these endowments, an island might be tempt- 
 ing to pirates, or to roving adventures, or to remote over- 
 peopled parts of Italy, Africa, Asia Minor, &c. ; in short, 
 to any vicious city where but one man amongst the poorer 
 classes knew the local invitations to murderous aggressions. 
 Under so many contingencies operative through so many 
 centuries, and revolutions so vast upon nations so multiplied, 
 v/e believe that even a poor unproductive soil is no absolute 
 pledge for non-molestation to the most obscure of recesses. 
 
320 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 For instance, tlie poorest district of the large island 
 Crete, might (if any could) be presumed to have a true 
 Greek population. There is little to be found in that dis- 
 trict beyond the means of bare subsistence ; and (consider- 
 ing the prodigious advantages of the ground for defensive 
 war) little to be looked for by an invader but hard knocks, 
 <' more kicks than halfpence," so long as there was any in- 
 digenous population to stand up and kick. But often it 
 must have happened in a course of centuries, that plague, 
 small-pox, cholera, the sweating-sickness, or other scourges 
 of universal Europe and Asia, would absolutely depopulate 
 a region no larger than an island ; as in fact, within our 
 brief knowledge of the New Hollanders, has happened 
 through small-pox alone, to entire tribes of those savages ; 
 and, upon a scale still more awful, to the American Indians. 
 In such cases, mere strangers would oftentimes enter upon 
 the lands as a derelict. The Sfakians, in that recess of 
 Crete which we have noticed, are not supposed by scholars 
 to be a true Grecian race ; nor do we account them such. 
 And one reason of our own, superadded to the common 
 reasons against allowing a Greek origin, is this : — The 
 Sfakians are a large-limbed, fine-looking race, more resemb- 
 ling the "Wallachians whom we have already noticed, than 
 the other races of Crete, or the other Greek islanders, and 
 like the Wallachians, are often of colossal stature. But the 
 classical Greeks, we are pretty certain, were a race of 
 little men. We have more arguments than one for this 
 belief. But one will be sufficient. The Athenian painter 
 who recorded the Battle of Marathon in fresco upon 
 the walls of a portico, was fined for representing the 
 Persians as conspicuously taller than the Greeks. But 
 'why ? Why should any artist have ascribed such an 
 mlvantage to the enemy, unless because it w^as a fact ] 
 
MODERN GREECE. 321 
 
 Wliat plausible motive, other than the notoriety of the fact, 
 can be imagined in the painter? In reality, this artist 
 proceeded as a general rule amongst the Greeks, and a rule 
 strictly, if not almost superstitiously observed, and of ancient 
 establishment, which was, that all conquerors in any con- 
 test, or at any games, Olympic, or whatsoever they might 
 b€, were memorialized by statues exactly representing the 
 living man in the year of victory, taken even with ^eir 
 personal defects. The dimensions were preserved with such 
 painful fidelity, as though the object had been to collect 
 and preserve for posterity, a series from every generation, 
 of those men who might be presumed by their trophies to 
 liave been the models by natural prefiguration for that par- 
 ticular gymnastic accomplishment in which they had sever- 
 ally excelled. [See the Acad, des Inscriptions^ about the 
 year 1725.] At the time of Marathon, fought against the 
 lieutenant of Darius, the Olympic games had existed for 
 two hundred years, minus thirteen ; and at the closing 
 battle of Platsea, fought against the lieutenant of Xerxes, 
 for two hundred, minus only two. During all this period, 
 it is known for certain, perhaps even from far older times, 
 that this rule of exact portraiture^ a rigid demand for dup- 
 licates or fac-similes of the individual men, had prevailed 
 in Greece. The enormous amount of Persian corpses buried 
 by the Greeks (or perhaps by Persian prisoners), in the 
 Polyandrium on the field of battle, would be measured and 
 observed by the artists against the public application for 
 their services. And the armour of those select men-at-arms, 
 or oTrAtrat, who had regular suits of armour, would remain 
 for many centuries suspended as consecrated avaOrjfiara in 
 the Grecian temples ; so that Greek artists would never 
 want sure records of the Persian dimensions. Were it not 
 for this rule, applied sternly to all real conflicts, it might 
 
322 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 have been open to imagine that the artist had exaggerated 
 the persons of the enemy by way of exalting to posterity 
 the terrors which their ancestors had faced; a more logical 
 vanity than that inverse artifice imputed to Alexander, of 
 burying in the Punjab gigantic mangers and hyperbolical 
 suits of armour, under the conceit of impressing remote 
 ages with a romantic idea of the bodily proportions in the 
 men and horses composing the elite of the Macedonian army. 
 This was the true secret for disenchanting the martial pre- 
 tensions of his army. Were you indeed such colossal men ? 
 In that case, the less is your merit ; of which most part 
 belongs manifestly to a physical advantage : and in the 
 ages of no gunpowder the advantage was less equivocal than 
 it is at present. In the other direction, the logic of the 
 Greek artist who painted Marathon is more cogent. The 
 Persians were numerically superior, though doubtless this 
 superiority has been greatly exaggerated, not wilfully so 
 much as from natural mistakes incident to the oriental 
 composition of armies ; and still more on the Grecian side, 
 from extreme inaccuracy in the original reports, which was 
 so great that even Herodotus, who stood removed from 
 Platsea at the time of commencing his labours, by pretty 
 much the same interval as we in 1842 from Waterloo, is 
 rightly observed by Colonel Leake (Travels in Greece) to 
 have stated to him the Greek numbers on the great day of 
 Plataea, rather from the basis of fixed rateable contingents 
 which each state was bound to furnish, than of any positive 
 return that he could allege. However, on the whole, it 
 seems undeniable that even at Platsea, much more at Mara- 
 thon, the Persians had the advantage in numbers. If, be- 
 sides this numerical advantage, they had another in qualities 
 of bodily structure, the inference was the greater to the 
 Grecian merit. So far from slighting a Persian advantage 
 
MODERN GREECE. 323 
 
 which really existed, a Greek painter might rather be sus- 
 pected of inventing one which did not. We apprehend, 
 however, that he invented nothing. For, besides that sub- 
 sequent intercourse with Persians would have defeated the 
 effect of his representation had it reposed on a fiction, it is 
 known that the Greeks did not rightly appreciate tallness. 
 " Procerity," to use Dr. Johnson's tall word in speaking of 
 the Prussian regiment, was underrated in Greece ; perhaps 
 for this reason, that in some principal gymnastic contests, 
 running, leaping, horsemanship, and charioteering, it really 
 was a disadvantage. The best jockeys at Newmarket and 
 Doncaster are always little men. And hence possibly arose 
 a fact which has been often noticed with surprise, viz., that 
 the legendary Hercules was never delineated by the Greek 
 artists as more than an athletic man of the ordinary stand- 
 ard with respect to height and bulk. The Greek imagina- 
 tion was extravagantly mastered by physical excellence; 
 this is proved by the almost inconceivable value attached 
 to gymnastic merit. Nowhere, except in Greece, could a 
 lyrical enthusiasm have been made available in such a service. 
 But amongst physical qualities they did not adequately value 
 that of lofty stature. At all events, the rule of portraiture 
 — the whole portrait and nothing but the portrait — which 
 we have mentioned as absolute for Greece, coerced the 
 painter into the advantageous distinction for the Persians 
 which we have mentioned. And this rule, as servile to the 
 fact, is decisive for the Greek proportions of body in com- 
 parison with the Persian. 
 
 But were not some tribes amongst the Greeks celebrated 
 for their stature ^ Yes ; the Daulians, for instance, both 
 men and women : and in some modern tourist we remem- 
 ber a distinction of the same kind claimed for the present 
 occupants of Daulis. But the ancient claim had reference 
 
324 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 only to the Grecian scale. Tall, were they 1 Yes, but tall 
 for Grecians. The Eomans were possibly a shade taller 
 than the Greeks, but they also were a little race of men. 
 This is certain. And, if a man were incautious enough to 
 plead in answer the standard of the modem Italians, who 
 are often both tall and athletic, he must be reminded that 
 to Tramontanes, in fact, such as Goths, Heruli, Scyrra, 
 Lombards, and other tribes of the Ehine, Lech, or Danube, 
 Italy is indebted for the improved breed of her carcases.* 
 ]\Ian, instead of degenerating according to the scandalous 
 folly of books, very slowly improves everywhere ; and the 
 carcases of the existing generation, weighed off, million for 
 million, against the carcases of any pre-Christian generation, 
 
 * It may be remarked, as a general prevailing tendency amongst 
 the great Italian masters of painting, that there is the same conspi- 
 cuous leaning to regard the gigantic as a vulgar straining after effect. 
 "Witness St. Paul before Agrippa, and St. Paul at Athens ; Alexander 
 the Great, or the Archangel Michael. Nowhere throughout the whole 
 world is the opposite defect carried to a more intolerable excess than 
 amongst the low (but we regret to add — and in all but the very 
 highest) of London artists. Many things, which the wretched Yon 
 Paumer said of EngHsh art, were abominable and malicious false- 
 hoods ; circulated not for London, but for Berlin, and Dresden, where 
 English engravers and landscape-painters are too justly prized by the 
 wealthy purchasers nor to be hated by the needy sellers. Indeed, 
 to hear Von Paumer's account of our water-colour exhibitions, you 
 would suppose that such men as Turner, Dewint, Prout, and many 
 others, had no merit whatever, and no name except in London. 
 Paumer is not an honest man. But had he fixed his charges on the 
 book-decorators amongst us, what an unlimited field for ridicule the 
 most reasonable ! In most sentimental poems, the musing young 
 gentlemen and ladies usually run to seven and eight feet high. And 
 in a late popular novel connected with the Tower of London, by Mr. 
 Ainsworth [which really pushes its falsifications of history to an 
 unpardonable length, as e.g. in the case of the gentle victim Lady 
 Jane Grey], the Spanish ambassador seems to us at least fourteen 
 feet high ; and his legs meant for some ambassador who happened to 
 be twenty-seven feet high. 
 
MODERN GREECE. ^ 325 
 
 we feel confident would be found to have the advantage by 
 many thousands of stones [the butchers' stone is eight pounds] 
 upon each million. And universally the best ^^r^ma facie 
 title to a pure Greek descent will be an elegantly formed, 
 but somewhat under-sized, person, with a lively, animated, 
 and intelligent physiognomy ; of which last may be said, 
 tbat, if never in the highest sense rising to the noble, on 
 the other hand, it never sinks to the brutal. At Liverpool, 
 we used to see in one day many hundreds of Greek sailors 
 from all parts of the Levant ; these were amongst the most 
 probable descendants from the children of Ion or of CEolus, 
 and the character of their person was what we describe — 
 short but symmetrical figures and faces, upon the whole, 
 delicately chiselled. These men generally came from the 
 Greek islands. 
 
 Meantime, what is Mr. Mure's opinion upon this much- 
 v^exed question ? Into the general problem he declines to 
 enter ; not, we may be sure, from want of ability to treat 
 it with novelty and truth. But we collect that he sees no 
 reason for disputing the general impression, that an Alba- 
 nian or hybrid population is mainly in possession of the 
 soil, and that perhaps he would say, lis est de pauper e 
 regno ; for, if there is no beauty concerned in the decision, 
 nor any of the quality of physical superiority, the less 
 seems the value of the dispute. To appropriate a set of 
 plain faces, to identify the descent of ordinary bodies, seems 
 labour lost. And in the race now nominally claiming to 
 be Grecian, Mr. Mure evidently finds only plain faces, and 
 ordinary bodies. Those, whom at any time he commends 
 for beauty or other advantages of person, are tribes con- 
 fessedly alien ; and, on the other hand, with respect to 
 those claiming to be Greek, he pronounces a pointed con- 
 demnation by disparaging their women. It is notcriously 
 
326 ^ MODEKN GREECE. 
 
 a duty of the female sex to be beautiful, if they can, with 
 a view to the recreation of us males — whom Lily's Gram- 
 mar affirms to be " of the worthier gender." Sitting at 
 breakfast (which consisted " of red herrings and Gruy^re 
 cheese"), upon the shore of Megara, Mr. Mure beheld the 
 Megarensian lasses mustering in force for a general ablution 
 of the Megarensian linen. The nymphs had not turned out 
 upon the usual principles of female gatherings — 
 
 '' Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsas;" 
 
 and yet, between them, the two parties reciprocated the 
 functions. Each to the other was a true spectacle. A long 
 Scotchman, 
 
 " Qui sicca solus secum spatiatur arena," 
 
 and holding in his dexter mauley a red herring, whilst a 
 white table-cloth (the centre of his motions) would proclaim 
 some mysterious rite, must to the young ladies have 
 seemed a merman suddenly come up from the sea, without 
 sound of conch ; whilst to him the large deputation from 
 female Megara furnished an extra theatre for the inspection 
 of Greek beauty. " There was no river mouth visible, 
 the operation being performed in the briny sea itself;" 
 and, so far from this being unusual, Mr. Mure notices it as 
 a question of embarrassment to the men of Plutarch's age, 
 why the Phoeacian princess in the Odyssey did not wash in 
 the sea, but mysteriously preferred the river {Sympos. I. 
 qu, 9) ; but as to beauty, says Mr. Mure, " I looked in vain 
 for a figure, which either as to face or form could claim 
 even a remote resemblance to Nausicaa. The modern Greek 
 woman indeed appeared to me, upon the whole, about the 
 most ill-favoured I have met with in any country." And 
 it attests the self-consistency of Mr. Mure, that in Ar^cova, 
 the only place where he notices the women as having any 
 
MODERN GREECE. . 327 
 
 pretensions to beauty, lie and others agree that their coun- 
 tenances are not true to the national type ; they are 
 generally reputed to offer something much nearer to the 
 bloom and the embonpoint of female rustics in Germany ; 
 and accordingly, it is by the Bavarian officers of King 
 Otho's army that these fair Ardcovites have been chiefly 
 raised into celebrity. We cannot immediately find the 
 passage in IMr. Mure's book relating to Ardcova ; but we 
 remember that, although admitting the men to be a toler- 
 ably handsome race, he was disappointed in the females. 
 Tall they are, and stout, but not, he thinks, beautiful. 
 
 Yet, in dismissing this subject of personal appearance, 
 as the most plausible test now surviving for the claim of 
 a pure Greek descent, we must not forget to explain — that 
 it is far from our design to countenance the hypothesis of 
 any abrupt supercession, at any period or by any means, 
 to the old Grecian blood. The very phrase of " national 
 type," which we used in the last paragraph, and the diffu- 
 sion of a language essentially Greek, argue at once a slow 
 and gradational transition of the population into its present 
 physical condition. Mr. Mure somewhere describes, as 
 amongst the characteristics of the present race, swarthiness 
 and leanness. These we suspect to have been also charac- 
 teristic of the old original ton d' apameibomenoi Greeks. If 
 so, the fact would seem to argue, that the changes, after 
 all, had not been on a scale sufficient to obliterate the 
 primitive type of Hellenic nature ; whilst the existence of 
 any diffused type marks a tendency to national unity, and 
 shows that some one element has so much predominated as 
 to fuse the rest into a homogeneous whole. Indeed, it is 
 pretty certain that a powerful cross in any human breed, 
 whatever effects it may have in other respects, leaves the 
 intellect improved — if not in the very highest qualities, yet 
 
328 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 in mobility, activity, and pertinacity of attention. TLe 
 Greek nation has also shown itself morally improved ; their 
 revolutionary war evoked and tried, as in a furnace, the 
 very finest qualities of courage, both adventurous and en- 
 during ; and we heartily agree in the sentiment delivered 
 so ably by Mr. Mure, that the struggles of these poci 
 shepherds and herdsmen, driven into caves and thickets, 
 and having no great rallying principle but the banner of 
 the Cross against the Crescent, were as much more truly 
 sublime in suffering and in daring, than the classical strug- 
 gles against the Persians, as they are and will be more 
 obscure in the page of general history. We do not at all 
 question great stamina and noble elements in the modern 
 Greek character — generations of independence will carry 
 this character to excellence ; but still we affirm, that he 
 who loolcs for direct descendants from the race of Miltiades, 
 Pericles, or Epaminondas, is likely to be disappointed ; and 
 most disappointed in that Athens, which for all of us alike 
 (as appealing to our imaginative feelings) still continu s to 
 be what it was for Cicero — true and very Greece ; in 
 which, therefore, of all cities locally recalling the classical 
 times, w^e can least brook a disappointment. 
 
 If not the people of Greece, is it then the natural 
 SCENERY of Greece which can justify the tourist in this 
 preference ? Upon this subject it is difficult to dispute. 
 What a man is likely to relish in scenery — what style or 
 mode of the natural picturesque ; and, secondly^ what 
 weight or value he will allow to his own preferences — are 
 questions exceedingly variable. And the latter of these 
 questions is the more important, for the objection is far less 
 likely to arise against this mode of scenery or that, since 
 every characteristic mode is relished as a change, than uni- 
 versally against all modes alike as adequate indemnifications 
 
MODERN GREECE. 329 
 
 for the toils of travelling. Female travellers are apt to talk 
 of "scenery" as all in all, but men require a social interest 
 superadded. Mere scenery palls upon the mind, where it 
 is the sole and ever-present attraction relied on. It should 
 come unbidden and unthought of, like the warbling of 
 birds, to- sustain itself in power. And at feeding-time, we 
 observe that men of all nations and languages, Tros Tyriusve, 
 grow savage, if, by a fine scene, you endeavour to make 
 amends for a bad beef- steak. The scenery of the Himalaya 
 will not " draw houses" till it finds itself on a line of good 
 hotels. 
 
 This difference, noted^above, between the knowledge and 
 the power of a scenery-hunter may be often seen illustrated 
 in the fields of art. How common is the old sapless con- 
 noisseur in pictures, who retains his learned eye and his 
 distinguished skill, but whose sensibilities are as dry as 
 summer dust to the interests of the art *? On the other 
 hand, daily you see young people whose hearts and souls 
 are in the forests and the hills, but for whom the eye is 
 perfectly untutored. If, now, to the differences in this 
 respect you add the extensive differences which prevail as 
 to the kinds of scenery, it is es.sy to understand how rich 
 in the materials for schism must be every party that starts 
 up on the excitement of mere scenery. Some laud the 
 Caucasus ; some the northern and eastern valleys of Spain ; 
 some the Alpine scenery ; some the Pyrenean. All these 
 are different ; and from all alike differs again what Mr. 
 Mure classes as the classical character of scenery. For 
 this, he thinks a regular education of the eye requisite. 
 Such an education he himself had obtained from a residence 
 in Italy, And, subject to that condition, he supposes the 
 scenery on the Eurotas (to the eastern side of the Pelopon- 
 nesus) the most delightful in Europe. We know not. It 
 o2 
 
330' MODERN GREECE. 
 
 Diay be so. For ourselves, the obscure sense of being or 
 moving under a vast superincumbency of some great natural 
 power, as of a mighty forest, or a trackless succession of 
 mountainous labyrinths, has a charm of secret force far 
 better than any distinct scenes to which we are introduced. 
 Such things ought not to be. But still so it is, that tours 
 in search of the picturesque are particularly apt to break 
 up in quarrels. Perhaps on the same principle which has 
 caused a fact generally noticed, viz., that conchologists, 
 butterfly-fanciers, &c., are unusually prone to commit felo- 
 nies, because too little of a human interest circulates through 
 their arid pursuits. The morbid irritation accumulates until 
 the amateur rushes out with a knife, lets blood in some 
 quarter, and so restores his own connexion with the vitali- 
 ties of human nature. In any case, we advise the Greek 
 tourist to have at least two strings to his bow besides 
 scenery. 
 
 III. — Is it, then, the monuments of the antique, the 
 memorials of Pericles and Phidias, which a man should 
 seek in Greece ] If so, no great use in going beyond 
 Athens. Because, though more solemn images survive in 
 other places, associated with powers more mysterious and 
 ages more remote, as the gate of Lions at Mycenae, or the 
 relics yet standing (and perhaps to stand for ever) of Cyclo- 
 pean cities, forms of art that for thousands of years have 
 been dying away through dimness of outlines and vegetable 
 overgrowth into forms of nature — yet in Athens only is 
 there a great open museum of such monuments. The 
 Athenian buildings, though none of them Homeric in point 
 of origin, are old enough for us. Two-and-a-half millennia 
 satisfy our grovelling aspirations. And Mr. Mure himself, 
 whilst insisting on their too youthful character, admits that 
 they are "superior in number, variety, and elegance to 
 
MODERN GREECE. 331 
 
 those wliicli the united cities of Greece can now show." 
 Yet even these pure monuments have been combined with 
 modern aftergrowths, as in the case of the Propylyoea, of 
 which multitudes doubt [Mr. Mure in particular] whether 
 they can now be detached from the connexion with effect. 
 For more reasons than one, it will, perhaps, be advisable to 
 leave them in their present condition, and that is as hybrid 
 as the population. But, with respect to Athenian build- 
 ings, it strikes our feelings, that finish and harmony are 
 essential conditions to their effect. Euins are becoming to 
 Gothic buildings ; decay is there seen in a graceful form ; 
 but to an Attic building decay is more expressive of dis- 
 ease — it is scrofula ; it is phagedsenic ulcer. And unless 
 the Bavarian government can do more than is now held 
 out or hoped, towards the restoration and disengagement of 
 the public buildings surmounting the city, we doubt whether 
 there will not be as much of pain as of an artist's pleasure 
 in a visit to the Athenian capital, though now raised to the 
 rank of metropolis for universal Greece. 
 
 IV. — There are, however, mixed monuments, not artifi- 
 cial in their origin, but which gradually came to act upon 
 the feelings as such from their use and habitual connexion 
 with human purposes. Such for instance is the Acro- 
 Corinthus, of which Mr. Mure says, that it " is by far the 
 most striking object that I have ever seen, either abroad or 
 at home. Neither the Acropolis of Athens, nor the Larissa 
 of Argos, nor even Gibraltar, can enter into the remotest 
 competition with this gigantic citadel." Indeed, when a 
 man is aware of the impression produced by a perpendicular 
 rock over six hundred feet high, he may judge of the stu- 
 pendous effect from a citadel rising almost insulated in the 
 centre of a plain, sloping to the sea, and ascending to the 
 height of nineteen hundred feet. 
 
332 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 Objects of this class, together with the mournful Pelasgic 
 remains, the ruins or ruined plans which point back to 
 Egypt, and to Phoenicia, these may serve as a«further bribe 
 to the tourist in Greece. If a collection of all the objects 
 in'every class, according to the best order of succession for 
 the traveller, were arranged skilfully, we believe that a 
 maritime circuit of Greece, with a few landings and short 
 excursions, would bring the whole of what is first-rate 
 within a brief period of weeks and an easy effort. As to 
 the people, they will become more or less entitled to a 
 separate interest, according to the improvement and im- 
 proved popularity of their government. And upon that 
 will depend much of the comfort, much even of the safety, 
 to be looked for by tourists. The prospects at present are 
 not brilliant. A government and a court, drawn from a 
 needy aristocracy like the Bavarian, are not suited to a 
 needy people, struggling with the difficulties of a new 
 colony. However, we will hope for the best. And for the 
 tourist in Greece as it is, perhaps Mr. Mure s work is the 
 best fitted for popularity. He touches all things suffi- 
 ciently, but exhausts none. And we add, very sincerely, 
 this antithesis, as due to him, that of what may be called 
 personal guides, or those who maintain a current of per- 
 sonal interest in their adventures, or in the selecting from 
 their private experience, he is the most learned ; whilst of 
 learned guides he is, in the sense explained, the most 
 amusingly personal. 
 
 END OP THIRTEENTH VOLUME. 
 
 N2ILL AND COMPANY, PPINTlCllS, EDINBURGH. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWALS ONLY— TEL. NO. 642-3405 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 9.U3 
 
 ■ 07^ 
 
 Q CO 
 ^^ 
 
 2"^ 
 
 (D — 
 
 .$ O 
 i> 
 
 CD I— 
 Q-r— 
 
 -5" 
 
 (Q ^ 
 ■tnCO 
 
 T!?7B T " 
 
 01 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 > 
 
 o 
 
 To 
 
 C c? 
 
 K3 
 
 U 
 
 01: 
 
 OS 
 5c 
 
 IS 
 
 7 
 
 < 
 n 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 CO 
 
 O 
 GO 
 
 ^ 21A-40m-. 
 
 (J6057sl0i47|^A|; 
 
 Geaeral Library 
 University of California 
 '^ ' 'Berkeley 
 
iim.-MM ?.f.?.!5,^'-^Y LIBRARIES