THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 ISAAC FOOT
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 A GLANCE AT CURRENT CONDITIONS 
 AND POLITICS 
 
 8vo, 7s. 6d. net 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 CRITICAL AND POLITICAL 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 CRITICAL 
 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. BALFOUR BROWNE, K.C 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SOUTH AFRICA: A GLANCE AT 
 
 CURRENT CONDITIONS AND POLITICS," 
 
 "THE NEW FISCAL POLICY," ETC. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 PATERNOSTER ROW, London 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND I \i I UTTA 
 1907
 

 
 PREFACE 
 
 The essays here collected were written many years 
 ago, but they are concerned with matters — such as the 
 merits of great writers — which never grow old. It 
 is on that ground I have thought it worth while 
 reprinting them. In each case I have given the date 
 <>f the earlier publication that any of their contem- 
 porary references may be understood. The prisoner 
 who was asked if he had anything to say why sen- 
 tence should not be passed on him for the crime of 
 which he had been convicted, said that he hoped his 
 lordship would take into consideration "the youth 
 of his counsel." It would be foolish to claim that 
 these essays were "early" essays, and therefore en- 
 titled to clement criticism. The judgments expressed 
 were the opinions of a younger man than the writer 
 of this preface, as the dates frequently show, but 
 although the latter might alter some of the criticisms, 
 he on the whole agrees with these more youthful 
 utterances. He has to thank the manager of the Times 
 for his permission to reproduce two of the essays con- 
 tributed to its columns. 
 
 November 1906.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Charlotte Bronte i 
 
 Westminster Review, 1878 
 
 II. George Eliot as a Novelist • • • • 34 
 
 Westminster Review, 1878 
 
 III. Walter Savage Landor ..... 80 
 
 The Times, 1876 
 
 IV. Michael Angelo ioo 
 
 The Times, 1876 
 
 V. Bleak House (Dickens) in 
 
 VI. Macready's Reminiscences . . . . 123 
 
 Westminster Review, 1875 
 
 VII. Whim. Conquest 152 
 
 Westminster Review, 1876 
 
 VIII. The Warfare of Science 181 
 
 Westminster Review, 1877 
 
 IX. Niccolo Machiavelli and his Tim 1 . . 206 
 
 Westminster Review, 1879 
 
 X. Theophrastus Such 239 
 
 Westminster Review, 1879 
 
 XI. I UK All 01 ACT IN'. ... . 255 
 
 II - tmi) lew, 1883 
 
 XII. Ak 1 1 1 U I lOPYRIGHl 278 
 
 Westmn: ru>, 1880 
 
 X II. Henry Faw< m i . 
 
 II < \/mit 1 
 
 2 93
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 1 
 
 Not an eventful life, by any means, was that which 
 began at Thornton — a somewhat ordinary one-street 
 village set amongst the shaggy Yorkshire hills — on the 
 21st April 1816, and which ended in the staring parson- 
 age-house at Haworth on the 31st of March 1855. A 
 life, indeed, so devoid of interest that Mrs. Gaskell, 
 who wrote it, had a difficulty in finding clay to make 
 her literary bricks with, and had to use some irre- 
 levant straw to eke out the tale. Indeed, the principal 
 events of Charlotte Bronte's thin career are adequately 
 referred to in Mr. Wemyss Reid's excellent mono- 
 graph, which is a work of modest dimensions, but of 
 more than modest merit. Such as these so-called 
 events were, we may trace some of their main features 
 broadly here, leaving those who desire more, or more 
 minute, information than we have the space or the 
 will to give, to have recourse to some of the increasing 
 sources of information which are coming to hand. 
 
 Mr. Wemyss Reid has a chapter on the " Pos- 
 thumous Honour-," which were conferred with the 
 usual worldly justice — which gives when it may well 
 
 1 "Charlotte Bronte: ■ Monograph." By T. Wemj 1 eid< London: 
 
 Co. 1877. 
 "A Note <m Charlotte Bronte." By Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
 London : ( batto A Windus. 1*77- 
 
 I. A
 
 2 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 withhold, and withholds when it might with benefit 
 confer; but amongst all the praises which fell with a 
 hollow sound on Charlotte Bronte's coffin, none were 
 at all comparable to those which after a long silence — 
 as if of careful meditation — have burst from Mr. Swin- 
 burne, and in more moderate and less fulsome strain 
 from Mr. Reid himself. With this repentant mood of 
 the critics, for long and unmerited neglect, we have 
 no fault to find. If there is not always justice in their 
 censures or their flatteries, there may possibly be a 
 mean between these which lies in the direction of 
 truth. When we come to speak of Charlotte Bronte's 
 works, we shall see, if we can, whether real justice 
 has now been done her ; but here we would note the 
 interest which must be felt in that remarkable little 
 woman, with her common little figure, her project- 
 ing forehead, her unobtrusive ways, and her great 
 performances in the region of pen and ink, when 
 thus long after her death — long after Mrs. Gaskell's ad- 
 mirable biography — we find such a work as that of 
 Mr. Reid, and such an eloquent "Note" as that of 
 Mr. Swinburne, given to and gratefully accepted by the 
 public. It is quite true we wanted more information 
 about that life which went quietly by us in il hodden 
 grey" in the obscurity of that West Riding village, 
 than it was in Mrs. Gaskell's power to give. So intri- 
 cate a matter is biography that it cannot be treated 
 with adequacy by a contemporary. The life which 
 may have just gone from the midst of us was so spread- 
 ing, so gadding an existence — even in the case of those 
 with the narrowest circle and most limited intercourse 
 — that it cannot be separated from its creeping de- 
 pendence on the lives of a hundred other persons, 
 and treated as if it were an independent thing. Life 
 is in no sense an independent matter "fought for one's 
 own hand," but a mingled thread made up of many 
 fibres intertwined on the great loom of Chance and
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 3 
 
 Change, with the spun destinies of a hundred others, 
 and forming the strange web of which History is a 
 far-away tracing and dim remembrance. To tear such 
 a life from its connection, and to pretend to study it 
 while suppressing much which may be disagreeable 
 to those who survive, is to attempt a ludicrous im- 
 possibility. A life is a matter of action and reaction, 
 of giving and taking, and it cannot be understood or 
 realised except in the integrity of its relations. A play 
 cannot be played out with half the actors on and half 
 off the stage, and hidden from the auditorium, on 
 account of their respected feelings. Mr. Reid very 
 justly remarks that Mrs. Gaskell was not, at the time 
 she wrote, in a position to do full justice to the life 
 of Charlotte Bronte. Many persons very closely con- 
 nected with the life that had to be written were still 
 alive, and details which might be necessary, from the 
 artist's point of view, had to be suppressed out of a 
 decent deference to their feelings, quick with the sense 
 of their recent loss. Besides, the materials for a com- 
 plete biography were not at hand ; for the materials 
 for a biography of a woman whose grave is not yet 
 green with the natural grass, and hirsute with the 
 natural neglect of years, are very coy and hard to 
 come at, and it is only when the shadows of oblivion 
 are beginning to fall that these dim facts, like night 
 birds, come out of their lurking-places. 1 It is true, 
 too, that it would at that time have been difficult to 
 retrace Charlotte Bronte's steps without treading on 
 a good many toes — sensitive or hypersensitive, as the 
 • may be — which were still on the familiar path. 
 Mrs. (ia^kell was unable to avoid some such en- 
 counters; 8 luit to avoid others, she had, it is pro- 
 
 1 See Mi. Reid 1 " Monograph," |>. 189. 
 
 2 Mr. Bronte laid to Mr. Raymond, <>f tin- New York Times, when hi 
 visited Hawortn, "Well, I think Mi . Ga kell tried to make us all appear as 
 
 • could " (" Monograph," p. 195).
 
 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 bable, to deviate in some places from the path she 
 undertook to point out. But Mr. Wemyss Reid, while 
 he fully appreciates these difficulties which to some 
 extent frustrated Mrs. Gaskell's enterprise/ seems to 
 be unaware that they are still existent, and that they 
 militate against the excellence of his own most careful 
 work. True, much has been added to our knowledge 
 of Charlotte Bronte, but we find that in most of the 
 letters which are now printed for the first time in this 
 country — although some of them appeared in an Ameri- 
 can magazine — the names of persons are expressed by 
 X's and Y's, as if they were algebraical quantities, or 
 with the strokes attached to these bare initials — as we 
 print suppressed oaths. Then in some places we find 
 him confessing that he cannot be more communicative, 
 for the very reason which made Mrs. Gaskell's bio- 
 graphy " necessarily incomplete." Thus, speaking of 
 the period of Charlotte Bronte's engagement to Mr. 
 Nicholls, he says: "Of the letters during these happy 
 months of peace and expectation I cannot quote 
 much ; they are too closely intertwined with the life 
 of those who survive to permit of this being done." 2 
 And while the story of her life at Brussels is suffi- 
 ciently hinted at, it is not, possibly could not be, ex- 
 plicitly told. He does, however, argue that the writer 
 of to-day is free from not a few of the difficulties and 
 restraints which weighed upon the writer of twenty 
 years ago, although he admits to being "oppressed 
 by" a "feeling that the pen which can do full justice 
 to one of the most moving and noble stories in English 
 literature has not yet been found." 3 If that is so, we 
 are convinced that it is not because the two pens 
 which have traced these loving memorials of the 
 "Life" and "Monograph'' were not capable of doing 
 that complete and fine justice which Charlotte Bronte 
 
 1 See "Monograph," pp. I and 189. 2 Ibid., p. 174. 
 
 3 Ibid., Preface, p. viii.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 5 
 
 merited, but because in the nature of things we must 
 wait a further period before criticism can speak the 
 whole truth. We must not attempt to write history 
 with a microscopic but rather with a telescopic eye. 
 We must take wide, not deep, views of men and 
 things, seeing that in our records of surveys of lives 
 or times we have to leave many of the characters in 
 decent blank to save acute feelings, needless throes, 
 or to tone down the acerbities of nature, so as to make 
 our picture less offensive to those who are mixed in 
 the field of our portraiture. One can understand how 
 the whole effect is marred by these sacrifices. As we 
 said, however, instalments of information about Char- 
 lotte Bronte are being paid, although somewhat slowly ; 
 and Mr. Wemyss Reid's work is on the whole a memor- 
 able contribution to this fund ; while Mr. Swinburne's 
 " Note " is a somewhat remarkable addition to the 
 criticisms we have already received, without stint, of 
 her writings. 
 
 That Mrs. Gaskell only did partial justice to Charlotte 
 Bronte's character might be abundantly clear from the 
 very nature of biography. At best a human character 
 in our heads or in our books is a synthesis of some 
 stray glimpses, some random traits, and at the best 
 the human soul can only be dimly depicted by means 
 <>f these, while the breath of life which moves the 
 portrait is not its own but another's. Still, if that 
 breath i-^ breathed into its nostrils with true sympathy, 
 we may get as a result what is vaguely called a "speak- 
 ing likeness," something as different as the life which is 
 supplied by transfusion is from the galvanic motion of 
 a dead body, which latter is all the spring of action 
 which most bookmakers can supply. In this sym- 
 pathy Mrs. Gaskell was not wanting, and we are pic 
 pared, even while discounting her efforts, to admit the 
 cution of a biography which has scarcely been 
 equalled in tin- e modern days, or -to use the words of
 
 6 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Thackeray — a biography "necessarily incomplete, though 
 most touching and admirable." 
 
 In one respect, however, according to our new 
 informant, Mrs. Gaskell failed signally. She, without 
 getting the advice which was given to Mr. Reid, a "not 
 to underrate " Charlotte Bronte's " oddity," took it, and 
 has made her a somewhat strange, joyless being from 
 her early youth to her premature death. She has too, 
 we learn, mistaken the real turning-point in her career ; 
 has ascribed an accession of gloom to the weird episode 
 connected with Branwell Bronte's ruin and tragic fate, 
 instead of to the deep and heart-rending experience 
 which she had at Brussels. Mr. Reid wishes to make 
 out that Charlotte Bronte was " not naturally a morbid 
 person," 2 that "her life was by no means so joyless 
 as the world now believes it to have been," 3 and that, 
 though "gay her existence could not be called," her 
 letters show "that it was unquestionably peaceful, 
 happy, and wholesome." 4 Well, to some extent he 
 makes good his point. Without doubt the episodes — 
 some harrowing enough — of her life in Brussels had 
 a very marked effect upon her character. But even 
 allowing for this change, we cannot see that her life, 
 even before she went abroad, was a very cheerful one. 
 Indeed, we are constrained to take a moderate view of 
 the happiness which she enjoyed even in those young 
 days when, if at any time in life, happiness ought to 
 be in full possession. Without endeavouring to sketch 
 the character of Charlotte Bronte's father, the mention 
 of some of its features, as they are known to us, would 
 suggest the impossibility of a very happy home in the 
 Haworth parsonage-house for his children. We wish 
 to say no ill of the dead, and in the case of Mr. Bronte 
 such a proverb would have double force ; for it seems 
 that before his death he had changed much, and that 
 
 1 '' Monograph," p. 231. 2 Ibid. See also p. 39. 
 
 :; Ibid., p. 2. 4 Ibid., p. 44.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 7 
 
 if he came into the world and passed through it like 
 a lion, he went out like a genial lamb ; that his harsh, 
 rough, vain old self died long before he himself passed 
 away. But if the character of Mr. Helstone in 
 " Shirley " is a daughter's likeness of Mr. Bronte — drawn 
 by a loving, patient, and long-suffering daughter too — 
 he cannot have been a man to make the parsonage- 
 house much of a "home" for his motherless children. 
 That he was polite to strangers, that he had a great 
 admiration for the stern rectitude he found among 
 his flock, cannot have compensated to those of his 
 household for his passionate, vain, self-willed, and 
 habitually cold demeanour to those who had the closest 
 claims on his kindness and such urbanity as he 
 possessed. We can see the sharp-eyed old man, his 
 chin buried in the starched tower of his white neck- 
 cloth, take his at first sulky, then passionate offence 
 at the pretty figured dress over which the woman's 
 heart of his gentle wife was rejoicing with harmless 
 vanity and happy gratitude. Not many pretty bright 
 things came to the grey parsonage-house ; and when 
 that parcel came and disclosed from its brown-paper 
 wrappage the gay gift within, we could understand the 
 dim eyes of the mother and of the little ones, whose 
 tiptoe curiosity surround the table, being lit with the 
 fine light of rare happiness. But these very lights made 
 Mr. Bronte the more wrathful ; and his pride and 
 passion were not sated by a harsh command thai 
 the dress should not be worn, but wreaked their poor 
 vengeance on the gaudy stuff, which he cut in pieces, 
 which became kaleidoscopic through the shifting lenses 
 of his wife's tears — and withdrew to his own room to 
 have his meal alone, as was his wont. 
 
 Perhaps, as Charlotte suggests of that fiery rector 
 Mr. Helstone, he ought to have been a soldier — at 
 least he took martial ways of calming his ruffled 
 spirits. He not only carried loaded pistols in his
 
 8 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 pockets, but used to riddle the door of an outhouse 
 with bullets when excited. It must have sounded 
 strange to the villagers who sat in the church on 
 Sunday and heard the doctrines of a religion of peace, 
 to hear this quite other sermon from their vicar, and 
 to see the effects of his discourse on that poor fetish 
 the barn door. We learn, too, from these veracious 
 pages before us, that this man whose anger was wont 
 to speak even with the lips of a pistol, could stoop to 
 an almost contemptible cunning to gain his poor ends. 
 We can scarcely imagine a happy childhood spent in 
 his vicinity. No wonder that the children never were 
 children, and that when on a rare occasion some of 
 the Sunday scholars were invited to the parsonage, 
 the Brontes had to be taught how to play before they 
 could associate in glee with these little companions. 
 We know of few sadder records than that of these 
 motherless children having to ask to be taught to play. 
 Their games, if games they can be called, were grim 
 enough, and remind us of the feeble efforts of the 
 dingy swallows at Thraves Inn, or some other abode 
 of two or three sooty trees amidst mouldy buildings, 
 which, according to Dickens, with a daring imagination 
 said to one another, ''Come let us play at Country." 
 The Brontes seem to have been like old people who 
 had agreed to play at being children, and who had 
 succeeded but ill. To us there is something sad in 
 the inverted image of the big world in the dark 
 shallows of their poor little lives in the parsonage 
 which they thought "play," and which was so unlike 
 the happy exuberance of real childhood, which makes 
 and dwells in a beautiful world of crumbling romance 
 all unknown to the paltry squalor of reality. 
 
 But there were occasions, other than these, for 
 tears rather than smiles, in these early days. If the 
 picture in "Jane Eyre" be a correct one of the 
 charitable institution at which Charlotte Bronte spent
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 9 
 
 some of her school-days — and we cannot doubt that 
 it is photographic— we can scarcely believe that much 
 happiness fell to her lot there. One thing Charlotte 
 Bronte said of the Lowick Institution, 1 which Mr. 
 Reid here proves to have been true of Cowan Bridge 
 School, and that is, that " during the whole time of 
 their sojourn there, the young Brontes scarcely ever 
 knew what it was to be free from the pangs of 
 hunger.'" 2 It was at that time, too, that Charlotte 
 was initiated into the great blank mystery of death ; 
 for it was during her stay at that stern place, under 
 its cold penurious roof, and amidst its debasing asso- 
 ciations, that she lost her two eldest sisters. That 
 even at that early age (nine years) she felt the loss 
 poignantly, we cannot doubt. And all these elements 
 go to make no pleasing picture of girlish days. Then, 
 again, although her fear of strangers and shyness in 
 their presence may have been natural, it was a fact, 
 and, as we see from the pages of this memoir, 3 it 
 must have marred much of the enjoyment she might 
 otherwise have had, and precluded the relief from the 
 tedium of a dim life and sombre ways which she 
 might otherwise have secured. Then the letters upon 
 which Mr. Reid principally relies to prove his case 
 scarcely bear out his argument. The fun in these is 
 t'> our ear for the most part forced, the melancholy is 
 the prevailing and natural key. We question whether 
 the sentences on page 35 of the "Monograph" — "Now, 
 Ellen, laugh heartily at all that rodomontade. But you 
 have brought it on yourself" — are rightly described by 
 Mr. Reid as "the burst of laughter," and certainly 
 those letters which are printed on pages .)<) and 50 of 
 the "Monograph" are not SUCh letters as we should 
 have hoped for from a blithe girl about twenty wars of 
 
 < )i these Mr. Reid himself says, "The woman 
 
 1 " I ii- l-'.vrc," chapters vii. and iti. 
 I 1 iph f " p. I bid., p. 33.
 
 io CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 who was afterwards accused of 'heathenism' was going 
 through tortures sucli as Cowper knew in his darkest 
 hours, and like him was acquiring faith, humility, 
 and resignation in the midst of conflict." l 
 
 Still, some of her letters of this period are un- 
 doubtedly as he describes them, " cheerful and even 
 merry " ; and there are some, although not many, 
 countervailing lights to be set against these shadows 
 in the balance of chiaroscuro in her life at this time. 
 Thus she had a real living friendship formed at Roe- 
 head School, to which she went subsequently to her 
 miserable residence at that " charitable institution " ; 
 and where, if we judge aright, her days were passed 
 in peace and comfort. This friendship was intense in 
 its affection and wholesome in its effects. She says in 
 one of her letters of Miss Ellen Nussey with truth, 
 " I have lavished the warmest affection of a very hot 
 tenacious heart upon you." Her affection and respect, 
 too, for Miss Wooler, her attached teacher, was not 
 without its pleasing and salutary influence upon her 
 days. Her life as a governess was not pleasant to her. 
 Her books are an epic of governesses, but if one 
 wishes to know her real sentiments as to that life 
 which for a time she led, he may find them legibly 
 written down as if from the words of Mrs. Prior in 
 " Shirley," and she has even more directly described 
 the " cup of life as it is made for the class termed 
 governesses" as particularly distasteful to her. Mr. 
 Reid, wishing to look at the best side, says that this 
 life was " not unbearable," and thinks sympathy has 
 been thrown away in this direction. Perhaps he 
 brightens the picture a little, but not much. 
 
 But besides the flowers which friendship planted 
 beside her rough path, there seem to have been others 
 which "glinted" into her days, and gave them light and 
 fragrance. From what we can gather of the truth of 
 
 1 " Monograph," p. 51.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE it 
 
 the episodes of these days, the fancy of Charlotte Bronte 
 seems to have been taken by some one who brought to 
 friendship the intoxicating element of difference of sex. 
 Charlotte, from all we know of her character, seems 
 to us to have been a very woman. It is true Miss 
 Martineau said of her, that "in her vocation she had, in 
 addition to the deep intuitions of a gifted woman, the 
 strength of a man, the patience of a hero, and the con- 
 scientiousness of a saint," but we cannot help thinking 
 that the phrase "strength of a man" is misapplied or 
 misleading. Much more accurately has Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning applied a similar epithet where she 
 speaks of George Sand as " large-brained woman and 
 large-hearted man." Charlotte Bronte's strength was pecu- 
 liarly womanly strength and endurance, and not manly 
 courage. Speaking as Lucy Snowe, she describes her- 
 self in one sentence in " Villette." " I fear a high wind," 
 she says, " because storm demands that exertion of 
 strength and use of action I always yield with pain ; but 
 the sullen downfall, the thick snow descent, or dark rush 
 of rain ask only resignation, the quiet abandonment of gar- 
 ments and person to be drenched." l This attitude with 
 ird to the weather is no bad illustration of her attitude 
 to the larger weather of life, which is the warring of 
 elements both in the upper and nether firmament. She 
 was a true woman from beginning to end, and while she 
 lacked some of the deepest intuitions of woman — as, for 
 in tance, the crowning motherly intuition, which we can 
 nowhere End in her character as written in her works— 
 sin- possessed the other line intuitions of her sex in a 
 more than ordinary degree. She was not indifferent to 
 her want of attractiveness — no true woman would be. 
 She was far from indifferent to th.it dearer, stronger 
 friendship, which even before her sojourn in Brussels 
 seems to have been offered her. Her very loneliness 
 made her look with more anxiety to the time when the 
 
 ' " Villette," ■ baptei utxiv.
 
 12 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 great passions of life might make up to her for the lack 
 of those lesser passions and feebler sentiments which are 
 the stuff of zealous friendship and acquaintance. She 
 had not frittered away her heart in random loves, and 
 had all her woman's nature to give to some burning im- 
 pulse. That she had no presentiment of a mother's love 
 made this one passionate presentiment all the stronger. 
 She looked to a heaven of love to redress the inequalities 
 of justice which had been wreaked upon her young life, 
 upon her shy solitude. As yet she had clung to the 
 known, the familiar, the intimate, and she naturally 
 looked forward to the time when to these lesser loves 
 should be added the grander passion which should 
 replace the stolid love of custom and wont with the fire 
 of intoxicating novelty and answering affinity. 
 
 But like a true woman, with the qualities we have 
 alluded to, she could look for such a high fruition of her 
 hope only from some one quite different from herself — 
 some one with a quality for each one of her wants — 
 some one who instead of the slow gift of endurance 
 should have the quick gift of command — some one in 
 whom she could " to the finest fibre of her nature " feel 
 an absolute sense of fitness and correspondence to 
 herself. Even in these days, if we judge rightly from 
 the sparse records, she thought she had found some 
 one who would answer these exorbitant requirements. 
 A man ! a master ! A fine strong man, not without 
 faults, but dearer for them. Rough as she was smooth ! 
 Possibly, nay probably, as in most of these cases, she 
 was labouring under a school-girl's mistake. We often 
 clothe people in fine robes from the wardrobe of 
 imagination, and do not see that the bundle of shrunk 
 shanks inside is ludicrously inadequate in their rickety 
 disproportions to such fine trappings. It seems certain 
 that in this case Charlotte Bronte very soon found out 
 that the gruff being she had pictured as a lion was only 
 in the borrowed hide of a more daring heart, and hid
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 13 
 
 long ears and a timid braying heart under all that mane. 
 No harm was done permanently to her heart by this 
 first fancy, but she recurred to the encounter with its 
 experiences long after, and had her first girl's love before 
 her mind when she described Rochester. 
 
 We think we may take it that she went to Brussels 
 heart-whole ; but it was there, if we may believe Mr. 
 Reid and Charlotte Bronte herself, that the real mis- 
 chief was done. This, according to the author of the 
 " Monograph," was the turning-point. He does not, as 
 we said before, speak very explicitly about her life at 
 Brussels; but we think his utterances have no doubtful 
 sound when taken in connection with Charlotte Bronte's 
 autobiographical novel "Villette." 
 
 Indeed we must remember that Charlotte Bronte has 
 given us more real autobiographical matter than any 
 writer of fiction. Her want of wide experience — she had 
 no lack of deep experience, and knew some natures 
 from the froth to the dregs — made her dependent upon 
 herself and those who were closely connected with her 
 for her subject-models. She did not invent much. 
 She was in truth more a writer of veritable history than 
 of unveracious fiction. She takes her characters from 
 actual life. Her incidents she borrowed from the real 
 facts which fell under her own observation. The places 
 she describes were all familiar to her. Thus, as we 
 have seen, we must read "Cowan Bridge School" for 
 "Lowick Institution," and some terrible chapters in 
 "Jane Byre" pass out of fiction into history. In 
 "Shirley" all the scenes are real ones, and Mr. k'eid 
 give-> picture of " Pieldhead " and " Briarfield " Church 
 in tin-, '' Monograph." Villette was Brussels. We have 
 seen, loo, that we have biographical matter relating to 
 Mr. Bronte when we read of the "gallanl old Cossack 
 Helstone." Caroline Helstone was her friend Miss 
 Nussey. Shirley Keeldar was her sister Emily, the 
 consummate author ot "Wuthering Heights." We
 
 i 4 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 think readers familiar with her works will recognise 
 the Rochester of "Jane Eyre" and the Robert Moore 
 of " Shirley " in two friends mentioned in a letter 
 printed on page 65 of Mr. Wemyss Reid's work. The 
 Mr. Macarthy, with his "steady-going clerical faults," 
 mentioned at the end of " Shirley " as the successor of 
 the " rampant boisterous " Mr. Malone, is Mr. A. 
 Nicholls, who was afterwards her husband. But, as we 
 have said, not only are places and persons excerpts from 
 actual fact, but most of the incidents are inventions 
 rather of the chance which rules the world than the 
 genius which made the book. Thus the brave cautery 
 performed by Shirley Keeldar when bitten by a dog 
 she supposed to be mad, the courage with which she 
 bore this horrible self-surgery, and patience with 
 which she kept the sickening secret from others, are 
 not inventions but simple facts, and the story passes 
 out of the region of fiction into that of domestic 
 history when we read "Emily Bronte," for "Shirley 
 Keeldar" throughout. Then in a letter printed in the 
 " Monograph " on pages 82 and 83, we think we find 
 reference to facts upon which the story of James 
 Helstone as told in "Shirley" is founded. But 
 passing from these illustrations of her method to the 
 actual autobiographical facts, we find that in Lucy 
 Snowe we have Charlotte Bronte. The Dr. John of 
 " Villette " and the four letters are not without their 
 counterpart in Charlotte Bronte's real experience, al- 
 though there is an intentional transposition of dates 
 in this reference. Then Lucy Snowe's visit to the con- 
 fessional is not a fancied incident. Charlotte Bronte, 
 " during one of the long lonely holidays in the foreign 
 school, when her mind was restless and disturbed, her 
 heart heavy, her nerves jarred and jangled, fled from 
 the great empty schoolrooms to seek peace in the 
 street, and she found not peace, perhaps, but sym- 
 pathy at least, in the counsels of a priest seated at the
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 15 
 
 confessional in a church into which she wandered, 
 who took pity on the little heretic and soothed her 
 troubled spirit without attempting to enmesh it in 
 the folds of Romanism." 1 But is there not much 
 more truth in " Villette " than these stray illustrations ? 
 May we not in Madame Beck have some likeness of 
 Madame Heger ? and might we not find a real proto- 
 type for Paul Emanuel himself ? 
 
 Let us ascertain how Mr. Reid deals with the history 
 of her stay in Brussels, and then find out what Charlotte 
 Bronte herself says. " Up to the moment of that visit," 
 says Mr. Reid, "she had been a simple, kindly, truthful 
 Yorkshire girl endowed with strange faculties, carried 
 away at times by burning impulses, moved often by 
 emotions, the nature of which she could not fathom, 
 but always hemmed in by her narrow experiences, her 
 limited knowledge of life and the world." Well, what 
 happened there ? She was a pupil and afterwards a 
 teacher in Madame Heger's pensionnat ', and that was 
 the "turning-point in her life which changed its 
 currents and gave it a new purpose, a new meaning. 
 . . . She learnt much during her two years' sojourn 
 in the Belgian capital, but the greatest of all lessons 
 she mastered while there was that self-knowledge, 
 the taste of which is so bitter to the mouth though 
 so wholesome to the life." 2 A little further on 
 we lind these words quoted from a letter of Charlotte 
 Bronte's written many years after that time of "storm 
 and stress" : "I returned to Brussels after aunt's death 
 inst my conscience, prompted by what then seemed 
 ail irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish 
 folly by a total withdrawal for more than two years 
 of happiness and peace of mind." And Mr. Reid adds, 
 "Why did she thus go back 'against her conscience' ? 
 Her friends declared that her future husband dwelt 
 somewhere within sound ol the chimes of St. Glldule, 
 1 " Monograph," |>. <>.;• - [bid., pp. 5S, 59.
 
 1 6 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 and that she insisted upon returning to Brussels because 
 slu was about to be married there. We know now how 
 different was the reality. . . . Yet none the less had her 
 spirit, if not her heart, been captured and held captive in the 
 Belgian city." l And then, after telling us that the whole 
 truth is not to be found in the letters of this period — 
 and certainly most of them are reticent, and in one she 
 says she cannot put on paper what she would like to 
 pour out into the ear of confidence — he concludes : 
 "Yes, she was 'disillusioned' now, and she had 
 brought back from Brussels a heart which could 
 never be quite so light, a spirit which could never 
 again soar so buoyantly as in those earlier years when 
 the tree of knowledge was still untasted and the 
 mystery of life still unrevealed." - And finally he tells 
 us what we think no one could doubt, that in Lucy 
 Snowe we possess the truest picture of the real Char- 
 lotte Bronte, and that not a few of the fortunes which 
 befell this strange heroine are literal transcripts from 
 her own life. 
 
 With this assistance and other stray words which 
 Mr. Wemyss Reid lets fall, 3 may we not surmise with 
 certainty how it happened with Charlotte Bronte at 
 Brussels ? Was there not a real Paul Emanuel, a 
 " magnificent-minded, grand-hearted, dear, faulty little 
 man," who made himself very dear to that lonely, un- 
 lovely, unfriended woman ? Was there not a real 
 man who, " unknown and unloved, I held him harsh 
 and strange — the low stature, the wiry make, the 
 angles, the darkness, the manner displeased me. Now, 
 penetrated with his influence and living by his affection, 
 having his worth by intellect and his goodness by heart 
 — I preferred him before all humanity." 4 Is this not 
 a real confession which a heart remembering its old 
 emotions might make almost with the privilege of 
 
 1 "Monograph," p. 60. 2 Ibid., p. 61. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 63, 222, 224, 225. * " Villette," chapter xli.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 17 
 
 secrecy, through the medium of fiction, to the public 
 ear ? To us it seems certain that there was such 
 a short, sinuous, dark, angular, irascible man ; that 
 he was at one time Charlotte Bronte's teacher or 
 professor ; that at first he was scarcely noticed, 
 that subsequently he was secretly feared, then as 
 secretly admired, and last of all loved by this English 
 girl. He was unattractive, he was even repellent 
 at first with his sudden manners and quick irasci- 
 bility ; he may even, like that real scheming Madame 
 Beck, have pried into the governess's desk, and at 
 first left only the smell of cigar-smoke, but after- 
 wards the comfitures which showed that he had 
 sometimes kindly thoughts under his harsh mask 
 of demeanour. When he was looked at more nar- 
 rowly he was found to have power with his vehe- 
 mence, was no purposeless fumer but an impetuous 
 doer. His eyes were jetty, but they had some- 
 times a soft kindness in them ; his voice rang like 
 a trumpet from the cstradc, but it could sound 
 with a soft coo under its clanging tones. He had 
 defects, but they proved him to be a man. He was 
 strange and strong, and firm and kind, and to him 
 the lonely governess, who had been lonely all her life, 
 to whom even the world seemed a foreign country, 
 and this Brussels doubly foreign as compared with 
 the bleak moors of Yorkshire, turned her reverent 
 eyes and hungry heart. That she was unlovely made 
 In-, kindness doubly dear to her; that he had faults, 
 that lie was not loved, that he was feared, that he too 
 was lonely, made her love the more necessary to him. 
 Besides, he was a strong man, and Charlotte Bronte 
 
 never could have loved a fribble or a tool. She has a 
 COntempI for the feather brain of De Hainal ; hut the 
 force and iinpn 1011-aiess of a Rochester could have 
 won her, and oi 1'aul in his angn In- says, "lie was 
 roused, and 1 loved him in his wrath with a passion 
 I. B
 
 rS CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 beyond what I had yet felt." * She was a woman to 
 be won by capture, not by convenance, Paul Emanuel 
 is too real for fiction. Every touch is a dogged piece 
 of pre-Raphaelite portraiture. But if there was love, 
 there was no marriage — that we also know. That 
 some obstacle existed to their union is more than 
 probable from "Villette" itself, but that the obstacle 
 was far other than is there hinted at seems also 
 likely. The remorse over that return to Brussels 
 " against her conscience " points to the fact that 
 others had rights to his love and him which negatived 
 her heart's urgent claim as that of a usurper. To us 
 it seems more than probable that Madame Beck had 
 more reason to be a detective in her own house than 
 appears from "Villette." Her character as shown in 
 these vivid pages is not pleasing, but it is not easy to 
 understand her conduct until just at the end Lucy 
 Snowe explains that she too desired Paul Emanuel's 
 love. May not the real explanation be that she had 
 such right as marriage could give her to that inflam- 
 mable commodity ? This seems to us an explanation, 
 if not the explanation of Charlotte Bronte's hatred for 
 the woman who sat for Madame Beck, a hatred which 
 not only finds full vent in the pages of "Villette," 2 
 but which she quite irrelevantly, but with genuine 
 bitterness, has introduced incidentally into "Shirley," 
 where she says, " I remember once seeing a pair of 
 blue eyes that were usually thought sleepy, secretly 
 on the alert, and I knew by their expression — an 
 expression which chilled my blood, it was in that 
 quarter so wondrously unexpected — that for years 
 they had been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The 
 world called the owner of these blue eyes ' bonne 
 petite femme' (she was not an Englishwoman). I 
 learned her nature afterwards — got it off by heart 
 — studied it in its farthest, most hidden recesses — 
 
 1 "Villette," chapter xli. 2 Chapter viii.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 19 
 
 she was the finest, deepest, subtlest schemer in 
 Europe." 1 
 
 All this, to our mind, points to the reason why 
 her love for Paul Emanuel never could be crowned 
 with marriage, and explains her years of remorse for 
 a return to Brussels when she knew the insuperable 
 obstacles to sanctioned love, and the claims which 
 holy Mother Church had given that jealous, cunning, 
 scheming woman to Paul Emanuel's fidelity. Any one 
 who will read the strange history of passion which is 
 written in " Villette " will know more of the truth of 
 Charlotte Bronte's stay in Brussels than if a dozen bio- 
 graphers had undertaken to tell him the whole truth. 
 We have failed, however, if we have led the reader 
 to suppose that there was anything criminal in this 
 love. She had a heart of lava, but a flesh of snow. 
 " Villette " is true in every particular, and there never 
 was more love-making between these twain than be- 
 tween Lucy Snowe and Paul Emanuel. In this light 
 we can understand her unwillingness to alter the ending 
 of "Villette," even on the persuasion of her father. 
 She must be true to the stern facts, and even entreaty 
 will not make her write a happy ending to her book, 
 and she will yield only in so far as to "veil the catas- 
 trophe." 2 It was no wonder that on her return to 
 Haworth, with the memory of these fiery chapters in 
 her life, she was a woman full of sorrow; no wonder 
 thai she sought action to deaden the pain which inaction 
 gives us time to gloat over in agony. "What I wish 
 for now is active exertion — a stake in life," she says in 
 one of her letters. "I know life is passing away, and 
 I am doing nothing, earning nothing — a bitter know- 
 ledge it i*-, but I am in no way out of the mist," sin 
 write, in another; and she puts almost the same words 
 in tin- mouth of Caroline Helstone 8 when she is 
 
 1 "Shirley," chapter xiv. " I 1 ipli," p. 255. 
 
 :| " Shirley," chapter xii-
 
 zo CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 yearning for love which will not come her way, 
 yearning for one who cannot be hers. It was then 
 she began to write first poetry. 
 
 " A use in measured language lies 
 
 • ••■>■ 
 
 Like dull narcotics numbing pain." 
 
 And the result of her then labours we have in the 
 triune volume of 1846. She over and over again speaks 
 of the efficacy that lies in such work to relieve heart- 
 aches the most poignant. She makes Shirley Keeldar, 
 while speaking of Cowper, say, " That gift of poetry, 
 the most divine bestowed on man, was, I believe, 
 granted to allay emotions when their strength threatens 
 harm." 1 And again, when conversing with Henry 
 Simpson, who says, " I'll write a book that I may dedi- 
 cate it to you," she says, " You will write it that you 
 may give your soul its natural release." 2 To this end 
 these poems of Charlotte Bronte may have contributed ; 
 but other and better work lay to her hand, and was 
 begun when the three sisters sat down in that dull 
 Haworth parsonage and began "The Professor," 
 " Wuthering Heights," and "Agnes Grey." The three 
 great rivers of Scotland — the Clyde, the Tweed, and 
 the Annan — all take their feeble rise in the side of one 
 bare hill, and thence take their varied courses down 
 through rough valleys, fattening plains, populous cities, 
 from whence they bear the fleets of commerce to the 
 sea. But when did three such works as these have 
 such a humble and neighbour source ? Here we have 
 only to do with one of these. Most readers know that 
 " Currer Bell," 3 having started with the determination 
 that her hero was " never to get a shilling he had not 
 
 1 " Shirley," chapter v. 2 Ibid., chapter xii. 
 
 3 It is suggested with some probability that the nom de plume of " Bell " 
 was taken by the sisters from the Haworth chimes, which were the one good 
 thing about Haworth in those days — so good that those who loved such large- 
 scale landscape music used to go up to the top of Ilkley Moor to hear those 
 famous " bells."
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 21 
 
 earned," no sudden turns of fortune which were to 
 " lift him in a moment to wealth and high station, and 
 he was not even to marry a beautiful girl or a lady 
 of rank " — " as Adam's son, he should share Adam's 
 doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate 
 cup of enjoyment " — wrote a somewhat dull novel, and 
 that it was rejected by the publishers to whom the 
 MS. was entrusted. That the manuscript was not so 
 dull as the publishers, events have proved, for there 
 are very few who cannot read " The Professor " now 
 with interest and admiration, and a "publisher's reader" 
 ought to have foreseen that. However, " Currer Bell " 
 gave her publishers another chance, and sent them 
 " Jane Eyre." That they accepted and published in 
 1848, and pressed for more books of a like sort, and 
 so " Shirley " and " Villette " were given to the world. 
 While these literary labours were progressing, Charlotte 
 Bronte was resident at Haworth, but Haworth shorn 
 of many of the attractions which had formerly made 
 it tolerable. Branwell, who was long remembered and 
 loved in the village, after a career which had stained 
 his name and brought infinite sorrow into the par- 
 sonage-house, died tragically standing — and was buried. 
 Emily, too, the greatest of them all, had borne 
 patiently till the end, putting aside sympathy; but 
 when that end was wellnigh come she whispered, " I 
 will see a doctor now if you send for him," and then 
 passed away. Anne, too, had gone, and there was now 
 no <»iie left in the parsonage-house but the old man 
 and his famous daughter, who took her fame very 
 quietly; for after all it was not fame that was the 
 wisli of her woman's heart, but love. That, however, 
 Was not for her. True it is that she was loved : first 
 by one concerning whom she speaks in several ol her 
 litters to her friend Ellen, 1 and again with a long 
 
 1 [1 is probable that the ,l l>r. John" episode which is made use <>f in 
 '■ Villette " reall) belong! to thi p< riod "i hei lit'-, foi we tee thai bo i 1" elj
 
 22 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 patient love by Mr. Nicholls, to whom she was ulti- 
 mately married. At first all thought of this presumptuous 
 love was scouted by Mr. Bronte, and Mr. Nicholls was 
 driven from Haworth. Charlotte Bronte had com- 
 passion for him at this time, but no love. Indeed, 
 even when her father's strange mood changed, and he 
 became as imperiously anxious for the marriage as he 
 had before been opposed to it, when Mr. Nicholls had 
 returned to Haworth and was actually engaged to 
 Charlotte Bronte, we do not find that she was in love 
 with him ; rather, it would seem that she was coerced 
 into marrying him by circumstances. A woman who 
 writes thus of the man she is going to marry, and that 
 woman is Charlotte Bronte, is not in love : " I hope 
 Mr. C. and Mr. Nicholls may meet some day. I 
 believe mutual acquaintance would in time bring mutual 
 respect ; but one of them, at least, requires knowing 
 to be appreciated. And I must say that I have not yet 
 found him to lose with closer knowledge. I make no 
 grand discoveries, but I occasionally come upon a 
 quiet little nook of character which excites esteem." J 
 It was not thus she wrote of Dr. John, of Rochester, 
 her first love, of Paul Emanuel, her last. But here 
 again are some words written immediately after mar- 
 riage : " I trust I feel thankful to God for having 
 enabled me to make a right choice, and pray to be 
 enabled to repay as I ought the affectionate devotion 
 of a truthful, honourable, and unboastful man." Four 
 months after marriage she writes, " People don't com- 
 pliment me as they do Arthur — excuse the name — it 
 has grown natural to use it now." Excuse the name ! 
 There is not much love yet. It may be increasing, 
 but here is a confession written about six months after 
 
 had she followed facts in that novel that she feared she might have made her 
 translations too literal, and allowed the MS. to pass into the hands of the 
 original " Dr. John." " Monograph," p. 141. 
 1 "Monograph," p. 172.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 23 
 
 marriage : " He is well, thank God, and so am I, and 
 he is 'my dear boy' certainly — dearer now than he 
 was six months ago. In three days we shall actually 
 have been married that length of time." ! 
 
 Concerning Mr. Nicholls we of course need say 
 nothing here. He seems to have loved the woman 
 long and earnestly, and the writer little. Perhaps 
 he was a little jealous of her books, or of some 
 people in them. He discouraged her continued labours 
 in the field of literature, but his discouragements would 
 not have been enough to stop obedience to the high 
 behests of her nature, for we know that she com- 
 menced another story of friendless girlhood. 2 But 
 the great discouragement came. Sudden illness and 
 peremptory death summoned her ; and the quiet, 
 uneventful, but troubled life came to an end, and 
 another now famous name had to be added to the 
 already long list on the tablet under the organ-loft in 
 Haworth Church. 
 
 Now what are we to say of Currer Bell ? Of the 
 woman we can speak no words which would not 
 echo the high and pure praise given in Mr. Wemyss 
 Reid's work. Of the infamous slanders which were 
 vilely circulated to her detriment during her pure, 
 quiet, and simple life we could speak with indignation, 
 had not a master of the art already denounced the 
 sources of such base calumny in burning language. 
 Now it seems to us no injustice can be done to Char- 
 lotte Bronte as a woman. 
 
 As a writer, however, injustice may be and has been 
 done to her. Mr. Wemyss Reid points out the neglect 
 winch lias followed the sudden popularity once ac- 
 corded to her works, and that neglect is to our think- 
 ing quite unmerited. But it would, we conceive, have 
 been easier to ,p<ak with weighed praise of tin . 
 
 1 " Monograph," p. i j$. 
 
 2 Published in Cornhill Moga itu, -April 1X60.
 
 ^ + CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 admirable performances had not Mr. Swinburne, with 
 a liberality of flattery and a lavishness of praise which 
 flows in melodious sentences of vivid prose through 
 the pages of his "Note," done her more than justice, 
 or — if he has not done her more than justice — had 
 not in his comparisons done others less. We confess 
 we are far outpraised by Mr. Swinburne. Nothing 
 that we could say of Charlotte Bronte's merits would 
 sound adequate after Mr. Swinburne's sonorous eulogy 
 and snarling comparisons. True, it is difficult to 
 ascertain the rank of such a woman in literature 
 without comparing her with others ; but when the 
 comparison is founded on nothing but that ultimate 
 resource of critics, "his own instinct," and when from 
 that arbitrary standpoint vials of unpunctuated wrath 
 are poured upon some who to the instincts of others 
 may seem more than comparable to Charlotte Bronte, 
 one is apt to retaliate upon the flatterer with a want 
 of justice to the person flattered. We should wish 
 above all things to avoid this. While differing from 
 some of the views expressed by Mr. Swinburne, we 
 agree with him in much. Few poets are gifted with 
 Mr. Swinburne's critical faculty, and he has read the 
 very heart out of Charlotte Bronte's works ; but he 
 is more in sympathy with the strong pulsating heart 
 of the " fiery-hearted vestal of Haworlh " than with 
 the calmer rhythm of that of Fielding, of Scott, of 
 Thackeray, or George Eliot. He admires the absorb- 
 ing oneness of Currer Bell, but has no width to 
 appreciate the manifoldness of these; and he seems 
 even to detract from the great master Cervantes him- 
 self in his comparison between Don Quixote and 
 Paul Emanuel. True, we find in this "Note" per- 
 spicuous glances into the very pith and marrow of 
 more books than we have here to do with. His 
 criticisms of " Daniel Deronda " and the " Mill on 
 the Floss" are not mere eloquent bluster, but are
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 25 
 
 fine nervous appreciations of the real merits and 
 real defects of a master's works. He does kind justice 
 to George Eliot's children, which deserve kindly treat- 
 ment, and compare very favourably with the dim 
 realisation of childhood which could give us Jane 
 Eyre, the Yorkes, and Paulina Home as denizens of 
 the joyous world, which laughs the work-a-day world 
 out of its place. Currer Bell had no notion of what 
 a child was, and seems to have thought that gnarled 
 human crab-trees grew into fine blossoming apples. 
 These appreciations — and other true but sweeping 
 condemnations of some commanding rubbish of the 
 present day — indicate his marvellous critical faculty, 
 and also his acute sense of real justice. But when 
 We come to the real central merit of Currer Bell, we 
 think we find that he has lost the scales of justice, 
 and has nothing but the eye-bandage and sword left, 
 with which latter he makes some rude havoc on those 
 with whom he compares her great merits. 
 
 Mr. Swinburne is right in his canon of criticism. 
 What we have to look for from such a writer is the 
 supreme power of " painting and handling of human 
 character in mutual relation and reaction." This is 
 no new canon ; it is a recognised rule. We require 
 the writer to body forth human beings in such shape 
 and guise that we can realise them not as clever 
 sketches but as familiar friends. True studies of 
 character must be addressed to those who know what 
 character is. Writers are not supposed to write for 
 born idiots. hut given the man of real knowledge 
 and experience of the world, the writer who can make 
 him realise in bodily presence, in mental constitution, 
 in action and passion, a creation of Ins or her own 
 imagination can make him understand the man thus 
 created in himself and in Ins infinite relations with 
 nature, with man, and fate, is the true consul ate 
 
 artist ; and he or she who (an do this hist is the
 
 26 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 greatest. We know a man by his words, his acts, his 
 expressions ; we speculate on his future, we anticipate 
 his words and his acts with more or less certainty 
 as we understand the motives of his action and his 
 stalwart or cringing demeanour to the world with 
 its stubborn circumstances. The author must give 
 us the same knowledge of his men and women as we 
 — if we are competent observers — have of the men 
 and women we meet in daily life, the men and women 
 whose actions and passions shape our own courses, 
 and affect our own natures with hopes and fears, likes 
 and dislikes, loves and hates. 
 
 Mr. Swinburne distinguishes three classes of writers 
 who attempt this difficult enterprise: "The lowest, 
 which leaves us in a complacent mood of acquies- 
 cence with the graceful or natural inventions and 
 fancies of an honest and ingenious workman, and 
 in no mind to question or dispute the accuracy of 
 his transcript from life or the fidelity of his design 
 to the modesty and the likelihood of nature ; the 
 second, of high enough quality to engage our judg- 
 ment in its service, and make direct demand on our 
 grave attention for deliberate assent or dissent ; the 
 third, which in the exercise of its highest faculties 
 at their best neither solicits nor seduces nor provokes 
 us to acquiescence or demur, but compels us without 
 question to positive acceptance and belief." 1 We 
 question whether this is at all a correct division. We 
 know not what acceptance and belief are worth if 
 they are not founded on grave and deliberate assent 
 or dissent. Mr. Swinburne seems to argue in favour 
 of a supreme court of prejudice which gives no 
 reason, which has no reason for its judgments except 
 that it is compelled to believe. But even if his tri- 
 partite division of the doers of imaginative work were 
 
 1 "Note," p. 9.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 27 
 
 right, what should we say to his judgment when he 
 begins to apply these classes to persons, and after 
 placing George Eliot in the second class, goes on 
 to say, " Of the third — if in such a matter as this I 
 may trust my own instinct, that last resource and 
 ultimate reason of all critics in every case and on 
 every question — there is no clearer and more positive 
 instance in the whole world of letters than that supplied 
 by the genius of Charlotte Bronte"? 1 Now, if we 
 are each to have recourse to these ultimate grounds 
 of belief, then we might be content to say that to 
 our instinct Charlotte Bronte does not possess that 
 power of compelling adhesion to and acceptance of 
 her imaginative product in so marked a degree as 
 others; and as we are likely to trust our own in- 
 stincts in preference to those of another, we might 
 rest satisfied with such a blank contradiction of ultimate 
 effects. But any such appeal to individual instincts 
 must be an end to all criticism, which is not merely 
 an interpreter of impressions, but an exponent of the 
 rational basis of impressions, of sentiments and beliefs ; 
 and we prefer to believe that the imaginative work 
 of Currer Bell, like that of George Eliot, must be taken 
 not simply in blind faith like Catholic dogmas, but 
 with questioning and doubt like the more stubborn 
 morsels which Protestants attempt to swallow. To 
 our mind, then, Charlotte Bronte has not succeeded 
 in showing us men and women in the entangled web 
 of circumstances, has not shown us men and women 
 balded and battling the strenuous contentions of their 
 moving environment, and allowed us to stand before 
 these human souls, and know and understand their 
 pa sions, their sufferings, their aspirations, and their 
 fears, with anything like the same broad truth as 
 Fielding, Thackeray, Scott, Eliot, or Sand; and we 
 
 1 " Note," p. 10.
 
 28 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 would account for Mr. Swinburne's mistake in this 
 regard by the fact, that while as a true wide artist 
 of Shakespearean grasp and reach, Currer Bell has 
 not risen so high as others in the task of giving us 
 real men and women moving through the varying 
 world with its varying scenes, she has with more force 
 than these given us true pictures of men and women 
 in the one passion which draws the prime of the sexes 
 impulsively together. She is the artist of the grand 
 overmastering passion which fulfils a woman's ex- 
 istence, and which is the beginning of higher life in 
 men. Her world is a love-toil. Her heroes are lovers ; 
 her heroines are women wanting love, loving or lacking 
 love, and that too with the fierceness and energy of 
 ;i lonely, friendless, unlovely nature, which has found 
 a rough, harsh, shunned human being with whom it 
 can impulsively sympathise, and whom it can ardently 
 adore. If that, then, is to be the test of true art, 
 we admit Charlotte Bronte's supremacy ; but we do 
 not admit that that is all the artist's work. Men do 
 not live by bread alone, and there are other, higher, 
 separate aims and purposes both for men and women 
 which she did not understand, but which are yet as 
 deep, as true as the mutual pleasance of young hearts. 
 When she did attempt to give another turn to a man's 
 ambition, as she did in " Shirley " when she painted 
 Robert Moore, she failed even to make a recognisable 
 human being. When she confined herself to the rough 
 man and his rough passion, as in the case of Rochester 
 and Paul Emanuel, she rose superior almost to any. 
 Still we think this is but a narrow sphere to move in. 
 We sympathise with Miss Martineau, who condemned 
 the manner in which "all the female characters, in 
 all their thoughts and lives," were represented as "being 
 full of one thing — love." J 
 
 We have seen that Mr. Swinburne happily calls her 
 
 1 " Monograph," p. 152.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 29 
 
 that "fire-hearted vestal of Haworth " ; but is fire the 
 stuff an artist's heart ought to be made of ? We 
 think not. We think there ought to be tears too. We 
 saw how her fire scathed the children she handled in 
 her books, how her fire forbade sympathy with those 
 young ones in whom fires are not yet kindled. We 
 think that this want of knowledge of and sympathy 
 with children, is a part of that very nature which was 
 fire-hearted, although vestal. But without motherly 
 love only half the world was known to her. She 
 could not be wide and beneficent, although she might 
 be devoted and true, without that third revelation in 
 a woman's life — -which series begins with birth, then 
 comes love, then motherhood, then death. 
 
 Hut glancing for an instant at the works of the 
 other writers we have mentioned in this disagreeable 
 connection of comparison — a connection which is forced 
 upon us by Mr. Swinburne's repeated references — we 
 find that if they do not know so much of, they know 
 other things than, that grand, that terrible passion. 
 They know m;my men who were not lovers, men 
 who had other aims than successful love, who had 
 other thoughts than the woman they sought. They 
 knew women who were not love-sick ; women who 
 knew other sacrifices than sacrifices of the heart, and 
 who had other and as true sorrows as those of the 
 lovelorn. They too, as a proof of it, knew the humor- 
 ous side of life, and each one of these had deep 
 genuine laughter in their souls, which they have offered 
 in full measure to others. But Currer Bell is too 
 really in love to know humour; laughter is folly to 
 her, and her moods are those of passionate joy or as 
 donate sorrow. It is not necessary to refer to 
 individual instances from the works of these to make 
 our propositions more certain. These are facts known 
 to every competent reader, and the e truths lie at the 
 very core of this matter. True, then, Charlotte Bronte
 
 jo CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 was a consummate genius in transcribing in legible 
 form the passion which interacts between men and 
 women. But when we have said this of her genius 
 we have almost exhausted the matter. She was very 
 far, in our estimation, from being a literary artist. 
 Her stories are arranged upon too mechanical a plan 
 to have real merit as aesthetic wholes. In many 
 instances her characters are altogether irrelevant, and 
 sometimes they are dropped suddenly, like disagree- 
 able acquaintances. She sometimes anticipates with- 
 out any proper reason for her beforehand confidences, 
 and often conceals — with the view of sharpening 
 curiosity — by the too palpable expedient of confidences 
 interrupted, and her books are too evidently arranged 
 for the one or two principal characters. As a writer 
 she is powerful, but often in her power rough and 
 slovenly. She overloads many passages, until the 
 surgery of "skipping" is upon the point of being had 
 recourse to. She had, no doubt, some sympathy with 
 nature, although little when compared with Emily's 
 deep love, and some of her descriptions are eloquent 
 and bold. That quoted by Mr. Swinburne as a speci- 
 men — from Louis Moore's diary in "Shirley" — of 
 exalted and perfect poetry is as follows : " The moon 
 reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she 
 Save herself to its fierce caress with love," 1 and of 
 which he says, "Nothing can beat that, no one can 
 match it," is of the passionate complexion which is 
 not the be-all and end-all of literature. However, we 
 do not wish to dwell upon minor artistic defects in 
 one undoubtedly possessed of what is above art. She 
 must be tried by higher canons. We have pointed 
 out that in the supreme merit of making men she is 
 almost matchless, while these men are at the same 
 time lovers ; we have said that in the wider merit of 
 
 1 " Note," p. 56.
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 31 
 
 making other men and women with other ends and 
 aims, with higher and deeper hopes and fears, she is 
 more than matched. The central defect is not want 
 of intensity but of extensity — a want not of depth but 
 of breadth in her view of man, his life, and his des- 
 tiny ; a defect which in our eyes places her below 
 those others who stand in the first ranks of ima- 
 ginative literature. 
 
 Mr. Wemyss Reid, in some judicious criticisms, which 
 help to make his book such a valuable contribution 
 to the library of literary biography, while admitting a 
 lack of literary polish, and also that her range as an 
 artist of character is a very limited one, does full 
 justice to the real merits of these "masterful books." 
 The absolute sincerity and truthfulness, as he points 
 out, of these so-called "fictions" is certainly one of 
 their real merits, but at the same time we cannot 
 help regarding it as connected with their cardinal 
 defect. Every artist must be true to life as he sees 
 it, and the highest artist sees life in its truest lights. 
 But there the difference between artists lies. There 
 is a higher and a lower truth addressed to those whose 
 observation is competent. There is the truth of bare 
 repetition, which might be given under the sanction of 
 a witness-box oath ; and there is the truth of imagina- 
 tive recollection, which is given under the sanction and 
 responsibility of the whole of one's high artistic nature. 
 These are scarcely recognisable as sisters. To the 
 former of these Charlotte Bronte was absolutely con- 
 scientious ; to the latter she does not seem to us to 
 have much aspired. She was content with life as 
 she had seen it in its vivid and sometimes cruel re- 
 lations to her own often despised self — life which had 
 made such deep, such poignant impressions upon her 
 sensitive flesh that time with its salve of oblivion 
 could not cure or erase these open wounds. All her 
 best writing was copying from these hot, these tearful
 
 32 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 records. The great possibilities which were present 
 even under the harrowing circumstances of her own 
 experience were unheeded by her. She looked back 
 on these times she had herself lived through, and all 
 her nerves suffered again with a pain scarcely less 
 intense than that of the first pungent experience. 
 Her emotion was actually revived, not sedately re- 
 membered ; and the very presence of these renewed 
 experiences precluded the more wise review of the 
 past through the medium of many informing and 
 beautifying experiences, and prevented her vehement 
 knowledge from becoming calm wisdom. To her the 
 past became the present, and she lived again her fiery 
 experiences, as her pen gave her some dull relief from 
 the sharpness of memory. She did not, it seems to 
 us, give her imagination scope, but trammelled it to 
 the wheels of a memory which crushed her life in its 
 haggard progress through heart's blood and tears. 
 We have seen how she always sketched from the 
 living model, we have seen how her scenes and 
 incidents are not imaginary but real, and we have 
 and know the results of such patient artistic copy- 
 ing. What imagination with real wings, but with- 
 out the plodding feet to gather any such experi- 
 ences, or the patience to draw with constraining 
 accuracy from actual facts, could do, we see in 
 "Wuthering Heights." 
 
 Emily Bronte's characters are as true to life — are to 
 our mind truer to life than those of her more famous 
 sister ; and yet they are the real children of the ima- 
 gination. True, we shudder when we read her wither- 
 ing romance, but the shudder is accompanied by an 
 intense awe and wonder at the power of the artist 
 and the startling reality of that rare book. Here we 
 find a reality more true than the real— a truth which 
 in its boldness and breadth transcends all accuracy. 
 Here rather than in Charlotte Bronte's works do we
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 33 
 
 find the true creative faculty, which makes men and 
 women out of the word of power, and makes them 
 live with human souls which are sparks of the genius 
 of the author. Charlotte Bronte had seen and re- 
 cognised men and women with passionate souls, and 
 has continued for us existences which were, and which 
 cannot die ; Emily has created people who never were, 
 but are now immortal. 
 
 I.
 
 II 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT AS A NOVELIST 
 
 We must judge of books as we judge of men, and the 
 fair way to appreciate one's fellow-creatures is not to 
 pay exclusive attention to any one mental or moral 
 trait, and in that way produce a psychological carica- 
 ture — but to endeavour to form a true, adequate, and 
 complete conception of the man's whole thinking and 
 feeling nature. Books which are in the completest 
 sense the immortal parts of men and go on living 
 and moving and teaching and doing good or evil long 
 after the hands which wrote them, or the brains which 
 dictated them, have passed into the indistinguishable 
 dust of the grave, must be criticised in the same manner 
 that men are. No trivial inquiry into the style, no 
 dry disquisition as to the manner, will meet the one 
 case any more than a description of a man's coat will 
 meet the other. Writings are not inorganic matters 
 to be placed on the trim shelves of some museum 
 to be comprehended in classes under some byword ; 
 but organic things which are transfused with the life 
 from which they emanate : and to understand them in 
 their oneness and manifoldness you must understand 
 the life that is in them. Any earnest criticism must 
 go deeper than the skin of style, must concern itself 
 with more than the niceties of expression, must weigh 
 and understand the meaning of the book and the writer 
 who stands behind it — as a man stands behind a mask, 
 whose mimic features are a nimble likeness of his own — 
 
 34
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 35 
 
 must determine the thought and purpose of the one 
 and the other. 
 
 How do we then arrive at our conclusions as to 
 men ? How is it we eagerly accord our admiration 
 to some, are indifferent to others, and are earnestly 
 antagonistic to a third class? It is doubtless true 
 that in many cases our likes and dislikes are scarcely 
 rational. Men embrace or strike at one another, if 
 not in the dark at least in very dim twilight. In many 
 cases habit, prejudice, common interests of the mart, 
 community of feeling about trivial pleasures, common 
 purpose in slight affairs, are the bonds which attach 
 men to their so-called friends. But these are casual 
 friends, who are lightly come by and may as lightly 
 g( 1 : they are not the friends who, in the words of 
 Ecclesiasticus, are the " medicine of life and immor- 
 tality." These wholesome friendships have to be sought 
 oftener in the large field of history than in the narrow 
 garden of society. We ransack the past for our heroes, 
 if the present will give us no human worthiness to 
 worship, and the bonds between the great of the past 
 and ourselves are quite other than those which attach 
 us in ephemeral friendships with our poor contempo- 
 raries. Our community with these is in noble thought, 
 in strong conscience, in clear resolve, and in diligent 
 execution of unselfish purpose. It is these qualities 
 we look for in our heroes — it is these qualities which 
 command our ready, our officious admiration and 
 re pect, which make us the worshippers of those who 
 have them in great measure, the friends of those who 
 have them in some allowance; and it is for these 
 qualities which we must look in all the works which 
 men perform before we can pronounce them good or 
 bad Books arc no exception to this rule; for books 
 are on the whole the noblesl works that men have ever 
 created, the mo, I adequate monument to his tran- 
 scendent genius. It is true that other great deeds have
 
 36 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 been done besides those which the pen have accom- 
 plished. Besides writing noble books men have at 
 all times been busy in the paramount duty of living 
 noble lives — which latter is a prerequisite of the former, 
 and indeed the end and object of all these other works, 
 whether they are done in words, in stone, in colour, 
 or in music. But while we praise books we must 
 not forget that many men have found the sword more 
 proximate to their strong hand and valiant heart than 
 the pen, and they have served good ends with that 
 coarser instrument. Man's hand, too, has wielded the 
 trowel to noble purpose ; and we have those umbrageous 
 works of stone which with massive lightness keep 
 shelter sacred through centuries of time and storm. 
 The brush, too, has been used with conscience, and 
 the results of the patient labour of those who have 
 dipped the sun's rays in their dye-pots, light our dark 
 days with reflections, as in a sworn mirror, of the 
 beauty and brightness of the past. 
 
 But whether we deal with painting, or sculpture, or 
 architecture, or literature, we must consider the same 
 spiritual facts, the honesty of the worker, the tem- 
 pered flesh which was a ready instrument at the beck 
 of high thought and great purpose. We come back 
 always to the question as to the moral and intellectual 
 nature of the man who did the work and his relation 
 to us in our twofold nature. He is speaking to 
 us through these his works, he is influencing us 
 through these his endeavours, and our business in 
 criticism is to find out how he is affecting us — with 
 what purpose and result. 
 
 These principles may be understood by most readers, 
 but they are apt to be lost sight of in the ordinary 
 bustle of criticism. Criticism every day sinks beneath 
 its high function because it is almost impossible to 
 find a competent critic. To understand a man and 
 his work, one would require to be the man and yet
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 37 
 
 to be some one other than the man at the same time. 
 One must be the man in all his sympathy with the 
 work ; but other than the man in all his sympathy 
 with himself. Hence the real difficulty of excellent 
 criticism. To criticise George Eliot and her books 
 one ought to follow her through every effort of her 
 consummate genius from the first to the last, retrace 
 her laborious steps of effort, sympathise with every 
 thought which has passed through her brain and 
 every feeling which has been in her heart, and yet 
 ought, notwithstanding this intense intimacy, almost 
 identity with one's subject, to transcend that subject 
 by sharing in none of her selfish aims, by being 
 dissociated from her in all her personal wishes. And 
 to accomplish this work, to assume this attitude, it 
 would require a genius greater than that possessed 
 by George Eliot herself. However difficult it may 
 be, under these circumstances, to find a competent 
 critic for such works as she has given to England 
 and the world — for national boundaries are too small 
 for such large gifts — some earnest essay in criticism 
 may be made, and perhaps is called for, when we find 
 that the claim, which has been made for her, to be 
 regarded as amongst the first of English novelists has 
 been eloquently disputed by Mr. Swinburne, who 
 would place Charlotte Bronte in the position from 
 which he has, according to his own view, deposed 
 the author of "The Mill on the Floss" by his poetical 
 bluster. 
 
 I >ne preliminary word. While we regard George 
 Eliot as one of the greatest of story-tellers, as one of 
 the greatest masters of the art of peopling the world 
 of thought with veritable men and women, as a writer 
 
 who transcends all writers Of fiction in the richness ol 
 her page, in errant wisdom, in delicious humour, and in 
 tin- crowding thoughts and reflections which make hei 
 books an inexhaustible magazine of wayside philosophy,
 
 3 8 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 we confess at once to a much more deep and sincere 
 admiration of George Eliot's earlier than of her later 
 writings. While in every book that bears her name 
 there is almost incomparable merit, in some of the 
 most recent there are many grave faults. We cannot 
 look with the like satisfaction on all her works. Our 
 criticism cannot be one current of unmitigated praise, 
 and therefore our task is not only difficult but in a 
 sense unpleasant. We could have wished to recognise 
 a gradual growth of power, a gradual sublimation of 
 purpose, a gradual increase of ease and mastery over 
 the mere material of her art in every successive effort 
 of her genius ; but to our thinking the ° Scenes in 
 Clerical Life" are in some ways more admirable as 
 complete works of simple art than the elaborately 
 tedious efforts of her later years. Certainly neither 
 "Middlemarch" nor "Daniel Deronda" will, in their 
 laborious length or in their painful elaboration, com- 
 pare with those effortless productions of her masterful 
 genius which have taken a unique place in our 
 literature under the titles of "Silas Marner " and "The 
 Mill on the Floss." There is the strength of growth 
 about these ; there is the weakness of planned effort 
 about those. In these earlier works she moved with a 
 grace and simplicity which can only be compared 
 with nature's motions, as in the wavy flight of a bird 
 over a sliding river, or the unconscious ease of the 
 sunflower as it follows the day with its own orb-like 
 face. In the later works she moves with an artistic 
 grace which is by no means despicable, but it is the 
 grace as of society, which has taken thought as to 
 its courtesies and is not averse to show the art of its 
 smiles. True, these latter would have moved our most 
 ready assent and most grateful admiration had we not 
 had her earlier works to judge her by. No one but 
 herself could have lost reputation by two such works 
 as " Middlemarch " and "Daniel Deronda."
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 39 
 
 The writer whether of fiction or of any other work 
 has to understand and report Nature. He is just the 
 world's secretary, who has to see, to comprehend, and 
 to take down all that happens at this wonderful con- 
 gress which is taking place in the world. All our books 
 are " minutes," and he is the best secretary who has 
 noted most, and most accurately, what passed in his 
 own cognizance, whether that was a cognizance of 
 feeling or knowing. But a writer may become trivial. 
 A great many of his own experiences are quite worth- 
 less, a great many of his emotions are merely personal 
 — to write these would be to note down things which 
 others would not care to read. And hence the secre- 
 tary has not only to write but to select what he will 
 write, and to do so well he must understand and sym- 
 pathise with the wishes and feeling of those to whom 
 his writings are addressed. It is in this matter of 
 selection that the art of the writer primarily lies. His 
 whole nature dictates the choice of his subject and of 
 the various subordinate matters which illustrate and 
 carry forward his central purpose, and therefore upon 
 the nature of the man depends the excellence of his 
 choice and the merit of his books. The man with a 
 foul mind might go through heaven and think it a 
 brothel ; while the saint would walk unharmed — save 
 for pity — through the nether world. And so it is 
 that bud men always find bad in the world to make 
 l>nok^ of, while the good and noble find great funds 
 of good and nobility in nature ready to their hands in 
 generous abundance, and it is thus that their books 
 come to be noble and excellent. So it is that the 
 wide man reports all Nature in his work, while the 
 narrow man will report some trivial corner or back- 
 er of the open universe. As we said before, this is 
 true of fiction as it is of other writing, lor fiction is 
 after all just a kind of dissenting, nonconforming his- 
 tory. A man's book-., therefore, are, as we have
 
 4 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 argued, a means of measuring the man. If he is trivial, 
 they cannot be great ; if he is wicked, they cannot be 
 good; if he is full of greed, and instead of aspirations 
 has only needs, his books will not be full of nobleness. 
 Books are not things altogether apart from their 
 writers, they are rather the moods which they have 
 shed. Hence it comes about that in judging of real 
 books we are criticising real human characters, and 
 in noting a change in the character of an author's 
 work we are at the same time noting a commensu- 
 rate change in his own nature. We would here, then, 
 endeavour to form some estimate of the large, loving 
 nature from which we have received these works 
 which stand so prominent amongst the books of our 
 time ; and then, after some endeavour to appreciate 
 her earlier works, we would attempt to indicate the 
 reason of the failure of her matuier efforts. 
 
 Few writers, it seems to us, have done so much 
 work of first-class merit as George Eliot. Few men 
 have created half so many real men and women who 
 are not only the toys of our idle moments when our 
 mind is lolling over her pages, but are true influ- 
 ences in our lives long after we have closed the book. 
 Few writers have moulded so many real human forms 
 which, Galatea-like, have come to life and moved 
 amongst men and women born in the ordinary way. 
 We may call these latter real, but they are less real to 
 us, they are more strange in all their characteristics, 
 in their motives, in their desires, in their predicable 
 actions, than such men as Adam Bede or Tito Melema, 
 or such women as Dinah or Maggie Tulliver. Most 
 men have the power of giving some life to their 
 descriptions of their fellows. The art of assuming for 
 the nonce the physical or mental characteristics of 
 persons whom we remember or imagine is not by any 
 means uncommon. The art of the mimic, which con- 
 sists in the assumption of physical characteristics, is a
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 41 
 
 very common gift. The art of the actor, who enters 
 fully into the mental and emotional as well as the 
 physical attitude of persons who have to say certain 
 words and do certain acts, is not rare, but it is a 
 much less common gift than that of the mimic. The 
 art of thinking and feeling with imagined beings, and 
 of developing a course of conduct from such imagined 
 thoughts and feelings, and harmonising all the acts 
 and speech of these fancied beings with the conceived 
 ideas and emotions which we are thinking and suffer- 
 ing with and for them, is the art of the novelist, 
 and in a small degree it is enjoyed by many, in a 
 great degree it is possessed by very few, and of 
 these few it is possessed only by three, so far as we 
 know, in a greater degree than we find it in George 
 Eliot. 
 
 Shakespeare, a man of transcendent capacity in 
 quite other ways, possessed this faculty or power in 
 an equally transcendent degree. He was peculiarly 
 fecund of men and women. He may have taken up 
 into himself innumerable things which of right be- 
 longed to others, but which by virtue of his potence he 
 made his own. He may have borrowed a thousand 
 of the sayings he has made current in one language 
 from the common stock of the literary properties of 
 the green-room, but the men and women he sent 
 upon our stage are his own, the life he gave them is 
 an excrescence of his own overflowing genius. Into 
 these he breathed the breath of life, so that Ins 
 Hamlets and Macbeths, his Othellos and Lears, his 
 Juliet, and Desdemonas, became more immortal than 
 their creator, who, as becomes a maker or god, is 
 shrouded in curiously impenetrable mystery. Scott, 
 a man of quite inferior capacity, had, nevertheless, 
 
 this great gift in an altogether exceptional degree; 
 
 and it was probably in right oi this commanding 
 quality thai he enjoyed the abundant popularity of
 
 42 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 his own day, a homage which has been but inade- 
 quately paid to his works of late. 
 
 Fielding, a man with more cleverness than Scott, 
 had the same transcendent power. His vein is quite 
 different from that of Scott or Shakespeare, but in 
 realising men and in appreciating the describable 
 characteristics by which they could be recognised 
 in their integrity of disposition, and in deftly dealing 
 with these qualities so as to enforce a similarly vivid 
 realisation in others, he was quite comparable with 
 these. But with these three exceptions we know of 
 no one in English literature — or indeed in any litera- 
 ture — who has possessed this power in greater per- 
 fection than George Eliot. We would not compare 
 her works with those of Shakespeare, which are in 
 all respects transcendent ; we would not wish to 
 compare the works of Scott with some of hers, 
 except in respect of this supreme power. But in 
 this peculiar possession these four writers seem in 
 many respects comparable, although we think that 
 the order which we have chosen for their mention 
 is a proper parallel to the order of degree in which 
 they possessed this creative faculty. Apart altogether 
 from this supreme faculty, we find qualities in George 
 Eliot's work which we do not find in that of Sir Walter 
 Scott or Fielding, but so far as the translation of 
 men's characters and dispositions, men's motives and 
 desires, men's aspirations and men's fears, into words 
 which have the effect of an alto-relievo, and let 
 the human being stand out not as a synthesis of 
 psychological qualities but as a real veritable man — 
 these writers were largely endowed, more largely en- 
 dowed perhaps even than this writer of our own 
 time, of whom we are so justly proud. 
 
 We cannot but think that the " Antiquary " will 
 compare with any of George Eliot's works in respect 
 of this paramount quality of the novelist, compared
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 43 
 
 with which all other qualities which may be possessed 
 by the story-teller are secondary and inconsiderable. 
 This godlike quality of conceiving for others men 
 and women who shall cease to be imaginative crea- 
 tions but become real men and women of our higher 
 acquaintance and more select friendship, with whom 
 we may not eat or drink, but with whom we can 
 laugh or weep, with whom we can think and sym- 
 pathise, is shown in an altogether unique degree in 
 that most admirable novel. But the curious excel- 
 lence of these writers has been their prolificacy in 
 that respect. They have not produced only one being 
 who might be a careful transcript of their own long 
 experiences of themselves, and might have the truth 
 of a confession, but they have produced innumerable 
 men and women, with each one of which they have 
 actively sympathised, they have carefully thought, and 
 they have for moments or hours identified themselves, 
 at the same time retaining their own individuality in 
 critical separateness. 
 
 This great gift of wide sympathy has been very 
 sparsely given to men. It is the gift of the poet of 
 character — the novelist. And to none has it been 
 given more lavishly, by none has it been exercised 
 more liberally than by the great writers we have men- 
 tioned. In their works we find no type of character 
 upon which they are so opulent of pains that they 
 must stint those of another. They have sympathies 
 which are not kept in channels like streams, but which 
 overflow everything like a flood. 
 
 Fielding is as true to life in Parson Adams as in 
 Tom [ones. Scott understands Dandie Dinmont as 
 well as he does K'.i hleigh Osbaldistone. And George 
 Kliot enters into the feelings of holly Winthrop as 
 fully as she doc, into those of Romola. It is then in 
 this quality, which is the primary one in .ill writers 
 
 of fiction, whether it is fiction for the stage or the
 
 44 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 study, that George Eliot transcends all contemporary 
 writers — transcends them as much in this quality as 
 she does in respect to all those which must be regarded 
 when her true position in literature is to be considered. 
 Only one woman is at all comparable with George Eliot 
 in this respect. In our admiration for the one we must 
 be careful to do no injustice to the other, and we 
 would say here that the author of " Ruth," " Mary 
 Barton," and "Cousin Phillis " is second to none in 
 her conception of feminine purity and loveliness of 
 soul, second only to George Eliot — of all the writers 
 of our time — in her appreciation of other sterling and 
 sterile characters, and in the graphic power of making 
 these live and move among us. 
 
 In absolute purity of nature the author of " Ruth " 
 stands separate from all others. No one knew what 
 a womanly saint was except this saintly, pure, and 
 tenderly pathetic writer. But as compared with the 
 author of "Silas Marner " and " Romola," it will be 
 seen that her knowledge of motives was less com- 
 plete, her sympathy was not so perfectly catholic, and 
 her treatment of character is on the whole more 
 episodical than thoroughly analytic. It is then in 
 this quality that we recognise George Eliot as almost 
 unrivalled in English literature. It is in this faculty 
 that we find her almost unique among the writers of 
 her time. We do not say that others may not have 
 recognised and appreciated some particular type of 
 character high or low, and may have rendered that 
 with adequate pains in words, but it is because no 
 type is shown in her works ; because all characters are 
 adequately rendered — from the light-minded Hetty to 
 the high-minded Romola ; from the paltry Stephen 
 Guest to the genuine Adam Bede — in her pages ; because 
 she has known and sympathised with and loved all 
 manner of men and women. Possibly in one aspect, 
 as we have said elsewhere, Charlotte Bronte is more than
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 45 
 
 comparable with this strong-minded, richly-cultured, 
 large-hearted woman. In Paul Emanuel and Rochester 
 she has given us vivid portraitures of men in their 
 emotional relation to women, who looked upon love 
 as a pleasant slavery. No doubt these are masterful 
 creations. But Charlotte Bronte was altogether want- 
 ing in George Eliot's catholicity ; her sympathies ran 
 in a passionate but narrow channel ; she was intense 
 where she loved, but her heart was very compact, and 
 she had no wide human sympathy, no spreading 
 motherly love. She was as hot as fire to some, not 
 widely genial to all, like summer. Her conception of 
 the world of character was altogether straitened and 
 inadequate, while George Eliot's is wide and almost 
 as all-embracing as the loving arms of Nature herself. 
 
 In these estimates of George Eliot — estimates by 
 comparison, for it is difficult to appreciate excellence 
 in any other way — we do not lay any stress upon her 
 more recent productions. We shall refer to some of 
 these hereafter ; but at present, in endeavouring to 
 define her exact literary rank among her peers, we are 
 content to bear in mind her earlier triumphs. In the 
 works of her more mature years there is too much 
 • it, too much strain and stress, to allow of their 
 being placed in the small list of perfect works of art. 
 Ease and simplicity are characteristics of the purest 
 products of geniu . The products of that faculty of 
 faculties arc marked by an entire absence of studied 
 elegance, of conscious power, of considered effort. 
 They are a natural as a bird's song, as a moonri: e, 
 Or the morning incense of flowers. But in George 
 Eliofj recent works we find none of that luscious 
 
 spontaneity which marked her earlier books; they are 
 elaborately wrought, they arc careful compiled from 
 a rich and miscellaneous experience, they are skilfully 
 finished, bul every one of these results 'hows the 
 mechanism by which they were produced. The author
 
 46 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 seems now to be doing out of duty what at one time 
 she did out of love — as an old person might go stiffly 
 through a dance which at one time seemed the free 
 and harmonious play of their lithe limbs. George 
 Eliot has for some time been doing affectedly, against 
 the grain of her mood, what at one time she did 
 naturally and with her whole nature ; and so great is 
 the glamour of this true genius, so closely in some 
 respects has she copied the model which she herself 
 set in her prime, that a great many people have failed 
 to perceive the change which has taken place. 
 
 The catholicity and width which we admire in her 
 early books is an unconscious catholicity and width, 
 not a laborious sympathy with the separate and remote. 
 Her width of thought and sympathy while she was 
 the exponent of the romance of English provincial 
 life was infinite. Her width of thought and feeling 
 since she has preached — as she does principally in 
 her poems — a barren philosophy ; since she has de- 
 voted herself to the somewhat intricate exposition of 
 the cheap truths of popular science ; since she has 
 become didactic as to certain great social problems ; 
 has been confined within somewhat narrow limits. 
 These objects, which were apart from the larger purpose 
 of comprehending human life, have had the effect of 
 curtailing the real proportions of her great sympathy, 
 and have, as a result, rendered her productions less 
 the spontaneous products of a great, opulent, over- 
 flowing nature, than the laboured performances of a 
 somewhat ambitious but penurious culture. She used 
 to write from a real human experience of the hearts 
 and minds of men in their interrelations with the 
 universe ; she has recently written from a somewhat 
 pedantic knowledge of science, a biassed view of politics, 
 and a scarcely genuine sympathy with Jewish aspira- 
 tions. But our views, in this regard, will be better 
 understood if we examine one or two of the works
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 47 
 
 which belong both to her early years, and one or two 
 of those upon which her later fame must rest. 
 
 As a complete work of art u Silas Marner " stands 
 foremost amongst her great works. It possesses all the 
 qualities which go to make an excellent fiction. The 
 interest is healthy and sustained. The characters, from 
 Silas himself to Godfrey Cass, or even to the pithy 
 sketch of the more contemptible "Dunsey," are all 
 drawn by a deft and vigorous hand, and without the 
 redundant painstaking and accumulation of laborious 
 detail which is characteristic of inferior work. We 
 see that the author has an accurate knowledge of all 
 kinds of men, and a power adequate to expressing 
 their characters in harmonious action and accordant 
 speech. Here that power is shown in the quick, strong 
 strokes of a master, and not in the laboured execution 
 and tentative development of a tyro. Nothing could 
 be more complete or excellent than her vivid por- 
 traiture of the miser Silas, and his regeneration, after 
 the loss of his treasured gold, by the advent of the 
 youthful influence into his bent and broken life — that 
 influence which constantly regenerates a sordid world, 
 and like new tides on our wont-fouled shores, brings 
 wholesome cleanness and wide ablution to the canker- 
 ing souls of our age. No sermon on the text from 
 Wordsworth — 
 
 "A child, more than all other gifts 
 That earth can offer to declining man, 
 Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts" — 
 
 which she has chosen to illustrate, could be more 
 excellent and eloquent than this line romance. 
 
 Hut it is not only on the bent figure, and at one time 
 bent soul of the weaver, with his strange cataleptic 
 
 /ures, that all her marvellous power of portraiture 
 is expended. There is not a single sketch which is 
 not a truthful transcript from the spiritual nude. A
 
 48 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 person may only appear on this narrow stage for a com- 
 paratively short period, like William Dane of Lantern 
 Yard with his dishonest tampering with the larger 
 lots of life, which are more fateful than those which 
 wrongly declared Silas guilty of the theft ; but although 
 he only passes across the scene he leaves indelible 
 traces on memory, and is rewarded with ready hatred. 
 
 Nancy Lammeter, too, although so little is said of 
 her, stands out in firm relief as a fine, pure, loving 
 woman, with tender heart and a stiff conscience. All 
 these are like some of Rembrandt's pictures, where a 
 few dashes of apparently random colour produce a 
 face with all marks of life upon its over-featured 
 features. But we trace the master's hand as much 
 in the unconsidered trifles of art as in the high 
 emprises upon which reputation depends. Thus the 
 men who talk at the " Rainbow " about the " red 
 Durham," the coming of Mr. Lammeter to the 
 Warrens from a " bit north'ard," and the super- 
 natural phenomena connected with Cliff's Holiday, 
 are each possessed of a characteristic individuality. 
 The scenes at the " Rainbow," of which that neutral- 
 minded man Mr. Snell is the landlord, are inimitable. 
 
 The readiness with which this large - souled and 
 strong-brained woman can sympathise with the plod- 
 ding intellects and stupid thoughts, strifes, and super- 
 stitions of these countrymen, is an indication of the 
 great range of character which has inspired these 
 immortal books. The really great man is great 
 in his being the fellow not of the peer or the savant, 
 not of the clever or the good, but because he is the 
 fellow and the friend of the tramp and the ignorant, 
 the fellow and the friend of the stupid and the bad. 
 The great man is kith and kin with everything human. 
 He calls the thief cousin on one side as the saint 
 is on the other. And so it is George Eliot is at 
 home with the stolid nonsense and consummate
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 49 
 
 numbskulledness of Mr. Macey, and the " negative 
 spirit," Mr. Dowlas, and enters into their dark moods 
 with a real sympathy and yet with such strongly 
 contrasted intelligence that the result is heartily 
 laughter-moving. The humour of these scenes and 
 of many that we find in the works of this period 
 is genuine ; our smiles are not demanded by any 
 poor mannerism or trick of words, an expedient 
 which is of constant resource in the works of Dickens, 
 but in sympathising apprehension of the incongruity 
 between the dim thoughts of these men we are over- 
 hearing and the facts as they are known to us — 
 an incongruity which touches our pity but commands 
 our laughter. 
 
 Excellent specimens of this humour are to be found 
 in the quaint talk of Dolly Winthrop. Here is an 
 example of her theology, in a sentence in which she 
 persuades Silas Marner to go to church : — 
 
 " For I feel so set up and comfortable as niver was, 
 when I've been and heard the prayers, and the 
 singing to the praise and glory o' God, as Mr. Macey 
 gives out — and to Mr. Crackenthorp saying good 
 words, and more partic'lar on Sacramen' day ; and if 
 a bit o' trouble comes I feel as I can put up wi' 
 it, for I've looked for help i' the right quarter, and 
 gev* myself up to Them as we must all give ourselves 
 up to at the last ; and if we've done our part, it isn't 
 to be believed as Them as are above us 'till be worse 
 than we are, and come short o' Theirn." 
 
 This is her opinion of men in one aspect : — 
 
 " I've seen men as are wonderful handy wi' children. 
 The men are awk'aid and COntrairy mostly, Cod help 
 'em — but when the drink's out of 'cm they aren't 
 insen ible, though they're bad for leeching and ban- 
 daging — so fiery and impatient." 
 
 And hear h< 1 description of and excuse for the pups 
 which "the lads are allays a-r caring": — 
 
 I. I>
 
 So CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 "They will worry and gnaw — worry and gnaw they 
 will, if it was one's Sunday cap as hung anywhere 
 so as they could drag it. They know no difference, 
 God help 'em ; it's the pushing o' the teeth that sets 
 them on, that's what it is." 
 
 In none of these is there any exaggeration with the 
 view to laughter. Each word is genuinely charac- 
 teristic of the good, simple woman who utters it, 
 and we love her well while we laugh at her quaint 
 views, and admire her kind actions. There is no 
 such excellent humour in her recent works as that 
 which we find so close packed in " Adam Bede," 
 "The Mill on the Floss," and "Silas Marner," and 
 it is perhaps in this quality that her works are pecu- 
 liarly transcendent. Other artists have had as large a 
 command over pathos as George Eliot. Mrs. Gaskell 
 has as much claim upon our tears, whether in her 
 larger works like " Ruth " and " Mary Barton," or in 
 her shorter stories like " The Half-Brothers," as George 
 Eliot, but she scarcely ever insists on our smiles or 
 laughter. She does not possess this great mastery over 
 all our lighter moods, which is the characteristic of 
 the greatest genius. She may possess all the dark 
 lands which belong to sorrow, but she is not ruler 
 over the brighter, kinder lands which are the heritage 
 of joy. She has one half of us, and that the half 
 with conscience in it, but over the other half, which 
 is the home of health, she has no sway. But George 
 Eliot is a genuine humorist. She can laugh herself, 
 and her laughter is taken up by her readers until 
 the whole of the waters of the spirit are shaken as if 
 with the wholesome stirring of stagnant soul by an 
 angel visitant. She is a complete woman, and a com- 
 plete woman must have sympathy with the joys as 
 well as the sorrows, must be able to laugh as well as 
 to weep, must have moments of genuine sport as well 
 as of earnest prayer.
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 51 
 
 One other thing we would wish to note in relation 
 to George Eliot's method. She never leaves the stories 
 in the skies, as it were, but always gives them a local 
 habitation in time and space. The historical atmos- 
 phere of her books is full of genuine chiaroscuro. 
 And in each of her works there are valuable bits of 
 landscape art which do credit to her clear eyes 
 and clever hand. One always understands the social 
 conditions which surround the persons of the drama, 
 whether it is the strange thin atmosphere of the Lantern 
 Yard community, or the lavish feast and inherited 
 customs of the Osgoods and Casses at Raveloe. The 
 pictures, too, of Raveloe, of the cottage by the stone 
 pits, of the town of St. Oggs, of Dorlcote Mill, are 
 each in their own way perfect. Her style, too, in these 
 excellent works is excellent. She has always some- 
 thing worth listening to to say, which is good in itself, 
 either for the weight of wisdom or the buoyancy of 
 wit which is in it, but at the same time furthers the 
 purpose of her succinct tale. These are all worth 
 remembering, and as they are natural parts of the story 
 they are there of right, and not, like the graces of style 
 of inferior writers, only on sufferance. 
 
 But passing from these matters, the line purpose of 
 the book is what we praise, by our appreciation, most. 
 If it has a moral— as all things have — it is " that when 
 a man turns a blessing from his door it falls to them 
 .1 take it in." This is a true lesson. We must earn 
 our blessings. Tins simple story tells how Silas Maimer 
 is blessed exceedingly, when Ins gold has been stolen 
 from him, by the advent of Eppie ; how the gold which 
 dissociated him from the world of human hearts and 
 human sympathies, and which, while he thought he 
 clutched it, clutched him, was mercifully taken from 
 him, and how a child angel led him out of the prison 
 (it his lite, and brought back' to him men's care and 
 love and fellowship. It tells, too, how Godfrey Cass,
 
 52 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 who had spurned the blessings which were offered 
 him ; who had shrunk from duty when it was irksome 
 to do, and would have involved the sacrifice of the 
 then most desired pleasure, Nancy Lammeter ; comes 
 in time to wish for the very blessing he rejected — the 
 blessing of a young life and young love associated 
 with his own sere existence— and cannot have his wish. 
 We see how the lonely Marner is blessed with a child ; 
 and how the father, Godfrey Cass, is cursed with child- 
 lessness. Who has preached a sermon on duty which 
 will go more powerfully, more poignantly to people's 
 hearts than this simple story ? Simple it is and yet 
 adroit. The events are all consistently connected. 
 There is, too, an entire absence of exaggeration — 
 Marner's merits are not made too much of nor Godfrey 
 Cass's demerits too darkly coloured. The former is 
 still the simple man even after his regeneration ; never 
 rightly understanding how the "lots" at Lantern Yard 
 came to be wrong, and still clinging to the hope that 
 he had been cleared of the false imputation — but 
 admirable withal, and lovable by reason of his strong, 
 tender, beautiful love for Eppie. 
 
 But there are other characters in this full little 
 book which deserve some mention. We have referred 
 to George Eliot's strange power of completely sketch- 
 ing a character by means of a few well-weighed 
 and well-placed words. That a word in a wise 
 mouth will tell more than a dictionary in the mouth 
 of a fool is certain, and is illustrated over and over 
 again here. Miss Priscilla Lammeter stands out plain, 
 sharp, and outspoken from these bossed pages. Nancy 
 is drawn to the life, if not from the life, which is 
 after all the truer way of drawing. Eppie is only 
 a child — but there are few children in literature like 
 those of George Eliot. As a baby, as we see her 
 the first night at Marner's cottage, she is painted 
 as only a Reynolds could paint a child. What a
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 53 
 
 real baby scene it is when she "toddles about with 
 her pretty stagger," and Silas follows lest she should 
 fall against something and hurt herself, and when 
 "she is happily occupied with the primary mystery 
 of her own toes, inviting Silas with much chuckling 
 to consider the mystery too." These are only touches, 
 but they are touches which make great pictures. The 
 tragic element, too, of the discovery of the dead mother, 
 low in the furze and half covered with the shaken 
 snow, by the infant with the cry of "Mammy," is 
 dealt with in a masterly way. But George Eliot is 
 admittedly clever in her portraiture of children. She 
 has a light and a true hand for these subjects, and 
 a great motherly love which makes her sympathy 
 with them intense. She, like Romola, has a "maternal 
 instinct which was one hidden source of her passionate 
 tenderness." All her children are real children. 
 Nothing, for instance, could be more excellent in the 
 way of portraiture than her sketch of Lillo, who 
 "is as sensible as can be," and when Ninna cries 
 "goes and thumps Monna Lisa." "Lillo, conscious 
 that his legs were in question, pulled his shirt up 
 a little higher, and looked down at their olive round- 
 ness with a dispassionate and curious air. Romola 
 laughed, and stooped to give him a caressing shake 
 and a kiss." No one but Victor Hugo has done 
 such justice to children ;is George Eliot. One re- 
 quires to turn to "Ninety-three," look into the 
 library at La Jourgue and follow the play of Ren£- 
 [ean, Gro -Alain, and Georgette to find anything in 
 literature bettei than George Eliot's children. No 
 one else has given the dumb impulses which are 
 strong in the mother's heart adequate expression. 
 But she has otlur and wider sympathies. She has 
 a deep feeling foi animals. In this little hook there 
 are animals to make pets of for ever. First, there 
 i the "iiicndU donkey browsing with a log-fastened
 
 54 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 foot " which Eppie and Silas pass on their way home 
 from church — "a meek donkey, not scornfully critical 
 of human trivialities, but thankful to share in them 
 if possible, by getting his nose scratched." Then 
 there is the brown terrier which is " barking and 
 dancing" at their feet in a "hysterical manner," 
 which " rushed with a worrying noise at a tortoise- 
 shell kitten under the loom and then rushed back 
 with a sharp bark again, as much as to say, ' I 
 have done my duty by this feeble creature, you 
 perceive.' " And last there is the lady mother of the 
 kitten, who sat "sunning her white bosom in the 
 window, and looked round with a sleepy air of ex- 
 pecting caresses, though she was not going to take 
 any trouble for them." 
 
 Adam, it is said, gave names to the animals, but 
 very few writers, with the exception, perhaps, of Burns, 
 have given such accurate descriptions of animals as 
 these. Natural history is beside the mark when you 
 have such pictures as these of your friends of the 
 rug and the paddock. There is a school of describers 
 in colour who can do for animals on canvas what 
 George Eliot can on paper, a school which had 
 Landseer for its first great master, and is at present 
 ably represented by Briton Riviere and Marks. 
 
 This is not an unimportant fact. By this means 
 we may measure the capacity of sympathy of this 
 great writer. In none of her writings does her large 
 and liberal nature seem more capable, more sincere, 
 than in this small volume. In none of her works is 
 there such a world of sincere matter — matter which 
 is not light reading for us, but serious, didactic stuff, if 
 we have the brain and nerves, the passions, the love, and 
 the conscience to understand it. If you have only read 
 it once, read it again ; if many times, still read it again. 
 It is a fund of pure pleasure and wholesome thought, 
 and it is out of these that great resolves are made.
 
 GEORGE ELIOT SS 
 
 But although "The Mill on the Floss" is a less 
 pleasing work, it is scarcely less excellent. In it we 
 find all George Eliot's best powers braced to efforts 
 which show their comely and fine proportions. Much 
 of the book is profoundly humorous, and touches 
 all the chords which have laughter for their tune. 
 The book, too, is full of that sporadic wisdom which 
 is one of the great charms of her rich writings. We 
 follow with intense interest the story of the lives of 
 those her creatures — creatures so real that they seem 
 creatures independent of the author — as they move 
 in her pages with the march of history, and are 
 associated in all their vital relations ; creatures which 
 in their whole conception are devoid of the increases 
 and diminutions, the exaggerations and disproportions, 
 which are the frequent blemishes of inadequate art. 
 We follow the career of the old miller, who has, like 
 all other earnest men, had a hard struggle with this 
 world, and for whom this world has been "too many" ; 
 we follow his career with painful interest, for it is the 
 story of genuine qualities which are cramped by many 
 baffling circumstances, and which with all their right 
 direction end in futility. We follow the common 
 career of the hard, narrow, and selfish Tom with in- 
 terest — not, however, because his hardness, his trading, 
 and his success have much claim on our regard. His 
 qualities were .ill of the common sort out of which 
 success on the quay at St. Oggs or in the business 
 of Guest & Co. could be readily attained. We note 
 him tor his steadiness, prudence, self-seeking, and other 
 decent apologies for the lack of virtues. We have, 
 too, some sympathy with his efforts to secure his 
 father's good name and to get back the mill. But lus 
 principal interest for us is in his relations to Maggie. 
 It i almOSl the rule that the coarse and cruel should 
 influence the -nod and noble in this life, and it is a 
 sad part of the due history Oi this world that th.it
 
 56 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 altogether tragic relation should exist. But, as we 
 said, we follow these histories and the liner narrative 
 of Maggie Tulliver, which is one of the most excellent 
 stories in the whole range of literature, with a sym- 
 pathy and a pity which is not dry-eyed, and at the 
 same time we are in the presence of one of the most 
 transcendent literary productions of our times. The 
 book, like some fine wood, is constantly opening innu- 
 merable vistas on either hand through bosky or lawny 
 depths which are all subordinated to, but all asso- 
 ciated with, the broad, sad path of narrative which 
 we are following. 
 
 These innumerable shrewd glances at all matters 
 which may attract or interest are characteristic of 
 some high minds. Shakespeare was full of topics ; 
 Victor Hugo ransacks all nature, and his pages teem 
 with philosophic remarks, often even to the detri- 
 ment of the current interest of his tale. But George 
 Kliot, although rich in these by-matters, subordinates 
 the interest of these to the main interest in her book. 
 But, as we have pointed out before, the purpose of 
 the book is what we have primarily to do with — and the 
 purpose of "The Mill on the Floss," although not the 
 noblest, is perhaps the honestest in literature. We can 
 conceive few more pathetic stories than that which is 
 told in this book ; although, as we said, it is full of 
 humour ; although the scenes with the Dodson aunts, 
 whether at Dorlcote Mill, when they come merely in 
 the way of friendship, or when, after Mr. Tulliver's 
 failure, they come to see what can be done for "poor 
 Bessy," are in some senses inimitable. Mr. Pullet, 
 with his fine memory for the medicine bottles, and 
 his lozenge-infested tongue ; Mr. Glegg, with his 
 observations as to great political events, and the con- 
 current appearance of slugs or green flies in his 
 garden, are both laughter-moving sketches. Of quite 
 another, and more genial kind of laughter, Bob Jakin
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 57 
 
 and Mumps are the pleasant centres. But notwith- 
 standing all these occasions for smiles which are to 
 be found in these volumes, the book is incomparably 
 sad ; and all these gleams of the light of humour 
 only serve to make the darkness of the tragedy the 
 more pathetic. The tragic element is never lost sight 
 of throughout. We can laugh at the "having" Mrs. 
 Glegg with her Dodson traditions and her Baxter's 
 "Saints' Rest"; at Mrs. Pullet with her medicine- 
 taking, her nosological reminiscences, and her intri- 
 cate system of locking things up, and locking up the 
 keys in puzzling complexity. We can laugh at stupid 
 Mrs. Tulliver with the sorrow which kept her awake 
 of nights — that her best bleached linen should be all 
 over the country, and that the silver teapot should go to 
 "The Golden Lion," although it had a "straight spout." 
 But under all these, as under the lights which sparkle 
 and tlicker on the tide, there are deep currents of 
 darkness and sorrow. In no page of the book do we 
 escape from a haunting sense of sadness. Maggie is 
 not a happy child ; her lot has fallen upon somewhat 
 uncongenial soil. But most of the good seed falls by 
 the wayside or among thorns. We see her finer 
 nature amongst human surroundings which torment 
 her. Her father's love for the "little wench" is beau- 
 tiful, luit her mother is always hard to her, and 
 her own beautiful unrequited love for Tom is 
 ii< it happy love. That her childhood has not been 
 happy, the nails in the head of the fetish in the long 
 garret, and tin; other injuries which have been in- 
 flicted upon its patient woodenness, bear witness. No 
 t'.iy of childhood 1 more exquisite or more pathetic 
 than tin ol Maggie Tulliver. The girl Maggie is not 
 perfect withal — far from it. She is by no means an 
 inpl.uy good child, and she doc. not grow up into 
 1 model woman with a nature like garden soil, shallow 
 
 but well-regulated, with walls of duty laid out here,
 
 58 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 buds of culture there, and walls of principle hemming 
 all in ; but a large, loving, luxuriant, gadding nature, 
 with great desires, with large reaches of conscience, 
 with luxuriant and sudden growths of affection 
 and passion, and with timeous repentance and long 
 remorse. We see how wayward she is as a child — 
 how she rebels against irksome duty until she comes 
 upon the long ago marked copy of Thomas a Kempis, 
 and how she retaliates on herself, as she used to do 
 on the wooden doll, by a harsh asceticism. We see 
 how her nature carries her into a beautiful love 
 which is inextricable from her womanly pity for 
 Philip Wakem, and how she sacrifices herself and him 
 to the calls of revengeful duty at the instance of her 
 brother. We know throughout that she has fightings 
 within and fears without. We feel that hers is a real 
 human nature, with strong desires, a pinching con- 
 science, and immense funds of undrawn-upon affection. 
 It is not a model nature, with all the effective faculties 
 in just proportions. A nature like Tom's, with which 
 it is in fine contrast, will go through life in well-regu- 
 lated decorum, but it wots not of the temptations 
 which she has to suffer. It is the supernatural that is 
 tempted most — that sees the kingdoms of the earth 
 spread out, for rule, or angels ready to bear one up 
 in any rashness — the stolid human animal knows 
 of none of these things. But it is in relation to her 
 temptations that Maggie must be tried, and when 
 fairly tried she will be found noble, inexpressibly 
 noble, but it is a nobility which has won its spurs in 
 terrible conflicts. She is not good because she has 
 never been tempted, but because she has been tempted, 
 because she has fallen, and because, notwithstanding 
 that fall, and all the attendant conditions which, as 
 with an omnipotent inertia of motion, tend to carry 
 the human soul lower and lower, she recovers her 
 conscience in that supreme moment, and turns back
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 59 
 
 into the incalculably distressing path of duty and 
 walks upright in that. To our thinking this is the 
 story of Maggie Tulliver, a story which could not end 
 in any other way than it does. There was no possible 
 noble end to that book but the one which is here 
 written, and written also on the tombstone in Dorlcote 
 churchyard. To live after that triumph, to live to 
 new temptations and possibly to new falls, was im- 
 possible of contemplation. The only mercy was in 
 death, and the flood puts the only bearable, although 
 it is a tearfully sad end to this great story. 
 
 It has, however, come to our notice that some by 
 no means incompetent critics have lavished much 
 resonant abuse upon George Eliot because of these 
 last incidents in Maggie Tulliver's career. One, after 
 speaking in adequately eloquent terms of the first two- 
 thirds of this novel, says : " But who can forget the 
 horror of inward collapse, the sickness of spiritual 
 reaction, the reluctant, incredulous rage of disenchant- 
 ment and disgust, with which he came upon the thrice 
 unhappy third part?" and with characteristic unwill- 
 ingness to leave a theme which gives opportunities 
 for the unstinted flow of loud and laborious abuse, 
 he continues : " If we are really to take it on trust, 
 to confront it as the contingent and conceivable possi- 
 bility, resting our reluctant faith on the authority of 
 so great a female writer, that a woman of Maggie 
 Tulliver's kind can be moved to any sense but that 
 of bitter disgust and sickening disdain by a thing — I 
 will not write, .1 man — of Stephen Quest's stamp; it we 
 are to accept as truth and fact, however astonishing 
 and revolting, so shameful an avowal, so vile a revela- 
 tion as this; in that ugly and lamentable case, Our 
 
 only remark, as our only comfort, must be that now 
 at least the last word of realism has surely been spoken, 
 the last abyss of cynicism has surely been sounded 
 
 and laid bare."
 
 60 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 There are other vituperative criticisms of a like sort 
 in the pages to which we refer, and when a man of 
 such competent faculty falls into such a vital mistake, 
 some explanation may seem necessary ; although to 
 our thinking, unaided by this recent instance, the book 
 itself seemed to contain all necessary explanation. We 
 have no admiration for Stephen Guest, but to call 
 him " a thing " does not advance our knowledge 
 much ; and to suppose that a girl with Maggie Tulliver's 
 nature could not fall in love with this man, with his 
 handsome face and form, his deep manly voice, and 
 his manly passion, is to make a supposition which 
 is only excusable on the ground of a curious ignor- 
 ance of the truth of woman's nature, and a curious care- 
 lessness in the reading of the pages in which Maggie 
 Tulliver's stands so eloquently confessed. This fall, 
 or slip of Maggie Tulliver's, is sad, inexpressibly sad ; 
 this, far more than the death of herself and her brother 
 — reconciled in that supreme moment — in each other's 
 arms, is what constitutes the tragedy of the book. 
 This it is that wrings our hearts more than the happy 
 deliverance which is brought by the wide waters, and 
 the crushing wreck which obliterates these tragic 
 children from the glittering face of these sorrowful 
 floods. The tears which flow thus are sweet ; the 
 shuddering sense of Maggie's error, the sickening sym- 
 pathy with her when she goes back to the crown of 
 thorns as preferable to any flower-crown which pleasure 
 could put upon her flushed brow for an instant, is 
 infinitely poignant. But to deny the truth of this, 
 is to make a foolish assertion, which our whole know- 
 ledge of life, and a consistent reading of Maggie's 
 character, refute. To have made her walk straight 
 to the goal of duty, to have made her consistently 
 noble throughout, would have been to be dishonest 
 to the whole purpose of the book, would have been 
 a violence to the whole of the early part of the story.
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 61 
 
 Maggie was a martyr, but she was tempted, sorely 
 tempted — and that is the truth not only of this story 
 but of the larger life which is around us, and is here 
 reflected as in a globed water-drop. It is real life 
 which here sits for its portrait, and it is portrayed 
 with a fidelity and accuracy which we find in few 
 other pages of fiction. George Eliot did not set her- 
 self to write a pleasing book. She did not set herself 
 to write — perhaps she was incapable of writing— such 
 a stainless and almost sacredly pure book as the great 
 work of Mrs. Gaskell ; but she did set herself honestly 
 to write a book about nobleness which is mixed with 
 dross, of character which is complicated with pas- 
 sions ; of conscience which is not master, but is 
 mastering, although it wrestles a fall with the world 
 and the flesh. The truth of her story is expressed 
 in one sentence of Philip Wakem's letter to Maggie, 
 where he speaks of the love of Stephen Guest and 
 Maggie. " I believed then, as I believe now, that the 
 strong attraction which drew you together proceeded 
 only from one side of your characters, and belonged 
 to the partial, divided action of one nature which 
 makes half the tragedy of human lot." 
 
 We know the tragedy which came of it here. We 
 know the sorrow which was the terrible consequence 
 of that partial love which Maggie gave vehemently 
 for an instant to Stephen Guest, and we know of the 
 return to sane motives, the repentance, the remorse, 
 and the end. We might have had more pleasure in 
 Maggie it she had never had these divided aims, these 
 wayward impulses heavenward and otherward, if she 
 had been trong in right but would we have felt hei 
 to be a ister, a we do when we see her subject, even 
 in her nobleness, to like solicitations from that which 
 is not noble in her, as have visited us? would we, as 
 
 Tom did in the lasl instant when the end was come, 
 
 call her by the endearing name of " Magsie " ? and
 
 62 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 would we always think of her with such intimate love, 
 with such deep and understanding sympathy, as we do 
 when we have closed this incomparable book ? 
 
 So much, then, for two of her earlier works. Let us 
 turn to some of her later books, and see whether the 
 high standard which she gave us is maintained in these. 
 First, we would remark that the later books read less 
 like novels than the earlier. There is a taste of medi- 
 cine remains on the tongue, as there used to do when 
 we had, in our youth, incautiously partaken of some 
 officiously proffered preserves out of a spoon, instead 
 of waiting to enjoy the stray scrapings of the pot in 
 delicious furtiveness. Sometimes we detect a flavour 
 of ill-concealed politics, as in " Felix Holt." Some- 
 times we find vague flavours of science in the pages 
 of a book devoted to a study of social martyrdom, as 
 in " Middlemarch" ; or again we find suggestions of 
 large social and national questions, such as the gather- 
 ing together of the scattered Jews, in " Daniel Deronda." 
 We do not say that her treatment of such questions 
 is absolutely incompatible with the performance of the 
 highest work of the art of fiction. Large themes have 
 been chosen as the central ideas of three of Victor 
 Hugo's great romance poems. The triple avajKi], as 
 he calls the fatality of dogmas, the oppression of laws, 
 and the immovability of nature, have been expounded 
 in the marvellous pages of " Notre Dame de Paris," 
 " Les Miserables," and "Travailleurs sur Mer." But the 
 peculiarity of Victor Hugo's method has made such 
 polemics or such didacticism compatible with the 
 production of perfect and unrivalled novel - poems, 
 which we may call novels, but which do not deserve 
 the name in the English sense. In these, which are 
 in some ways the greatest literary products of the 
 century, there is not the same effort made to realise 
 human character, and the action is rather the action of 
 overmastering ideas than of vacillating human beings.
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 63 
 
 We are, when we read them, conscious that we are 
 looking at the world, but we are at the same time 
 aware that there is another world which we do not 
 see, which is influencing and guiding the visible uni- 
 verse. There are men and women, loves and hates, 
 and pleasures and passions on the scene ; but these are 
 rather puppets in the hands of fate, than the actual 
 makers of fate. These books do not read like stories 
 of life and character, but like poems of man and 
 destiny. They are not works which can be compared 
 with the ordinary English novel, and a success in 
 Victor Hugo's hands would augur nothing of the 
 possibility of a similar success in the hands of others. 
 Victor Hugo is a poet who has tried to write prose. 
 George Eliot is a prose writer who has tried to write 
 poetry ; and to our thinking all these efforts which we 
 have noted to conjoin problems of religion, of science, 
 of politics, and of race, with her fictional products, 
 have only tended to make her novels less satisfying 
 as works of art, while they have not — save in quite 
 exceptional quarters — done anything to create a repu- 
 tation for her in these various departments of thought 
 in which she has essayed to express herself. We say 
 again that we do not deny the possibility of com- 
 bining these earnest subjects with the lighter kinds 
 of literature, but we deny that George Eliot has done 
 without serious detriment to both. She may in- 
 doctrinate us in politics, she may teach us science, she 
 may give us vigorous views of the future of Judaism, 
 but in giving us all this knowledge she is forgetful thai 
 she is sacrificing our sympathy, that she is estranging 
 us from her moods, with which before we were so 
 happily intimate. It is possible, we believe, that all 
 tin-, might have been taught and our sympathy retained, 
 but we do not find that George Eliot has succeeded 
 in this difficult task. She mav have taken some stray 
 readers by these learned novels, but she has lost the
 
 64 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 masses, and in this instance we are satisfied to be in 
 the majority. 
 
 Her politics in "Felix Holt the Radical" earned her 
 small praise. Here, as in all her novels, there were 
 many things that no one else could have written. 
 The first chapter is as full of beautiful description as 
 any similar number of pages in any book. Some of the 
 Sproxton collier's talk is excellent over-hearing. But 
 although there are many beauties there are grave faults. 
 Her theories concerning the animal basis of all the 
 moral virtues might have been interesting elsewhere. 
 Her opinions on many matters might have deserved 
 the prominence they attain in these pages — in pages of 
 their own. The book retains no hold upon our heart 
 and memory as her earlier works do. In "Middle- 
 march," too, we have a good deal of science of a cheap 
 and popular sort, although it is occasionally somewhat 
 obscurely expounded, for George Eliot's style has lost 
 some of its clearness, as her novels have lost their 
 succinctness. As her books have grown unwieldy in 
 their large proportions, her sentences have got some- 
 what tumid — not always with meaning, it seems to us. 
 But even in " Middlemarch" — notwithstanding the 
 fact that she had returned to her own peculiar held, 
 English provincial life — notwithstanding many great 
 merits, she failed to reach the high mark of her 
 former excellence, she failed to gain the hearty assent 
 of the readers of this country. In " Daniel Deronda," 
 her most recent work, we find her prophesying much 
 as to the future of Judaism, and it may have been 
 pleasant reading to certain Jews who share her hopes 
 and foresee the imminent fulfilment of her prophecies ; 
 but these have scarcely been regarded as enhancing the 
 somewhat forced, if fashionable, fiction, which goes by 
 the name of that walking gentleman of slender char- 
 acter, who must by courtesy be called the hero. 
 
 How different it is with all her earlier works, from
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 65 
 
 the slightest of the "Scenes in Clerical Life," to 
 "Romola." In these there is no high flown purpose 
 to be served, no gospel to be preached except the 
 ever-interesting, ever-supreme gospel of the human 
 heart, a gospel which is as old as time, but has its 
 new revelations each day, each hour. In these great 
 works, great although small, there was apparently no 
 didactic purpose, but there was a far higher meaning, 
 a far richer hope, a far more opulent promise than 
 is to be found in any of these her latest books. 
 " Middlemarch " is a most melancholy work: it is a 
 book full of futile action: while "Daniel Deronda" 
 is silly, for it is full of foolish hopes which may have 
 a meaning to a single race, but for which George 
 Eliot has failed to secure a catholic response or a 
 common sympathy. In the first we have at least a 
 beautiful life revealed to us, and if its success is 
 sorrow, we are not left without the consciousness of 
 the fine compensatory hopes. Compare Silas Marner, 
 for instance, with his heart made young again by that 
 finer alchemy which substituted Eppie with her golden 
 hair for his bag of tarnished money, with Lydgate, 
 and his anxiety to find out tl what was the primitive 
 tissue," and to follow further in the great steps of 
 Bichat — with his flippant marriage, his failure in Middle- 
 march, his ultimate Treatise on Gout, "a disease which 
 has a good deal of wealth on its side," his success and 
 death. Compare Dorothea, that woman who beside 
 "provincial fashion had the impressiveness of a line 
 quotation from the Bible <>r from the older poets in 
 a paragraph <>f to-day's newspaper," with her disgusting 
 a« 1 mm e to the paltry pedant Casaubon and hei ultimate 
 marriage with the as paltry sniatterer Will Ladislaw 
 — with Maggie Tulliver, her mistake and her expiation, 
 and we will sec' how hopeful the earlier works win-, 
 
 how hopeless this redundant story " M iddlcni.u eh " is. 
 
 To us these comparisons are disheartening. We 
 
 I. E
 
 66 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 read the early works with delight, we rose from them 
 with hope. We had been in intercourse with the 
 people of the world, some good, some indifferent, 
 some bad ; some had had our abhorrence, some our 
 pity, some our love, and we could go on loving these 
 to the end. But in these later books we have a 
 more populous world almost, for there are crowds 
 of people in these over-grown works, but in no case 
 do we find any who are so absolutely real in their 
 merit or demerit as to command our unhesitating 
 acceptance of them as veritable human beings, who 
 have come on the paper, as it were, in spite of the 
 author ; we rather feel in each case that the author 
 has much credit for constructive ability, and we 
 rise from the books in the end with feelings of dis- 
 appointment and doubt. True, each book has merits, 
 and we would not wish to make our criticisms too 
 wide. Caleb Garth, for instance, is a fine sketch — 
 it may be, little more than a sketch, but everything 
 which is material to our just conception of his char- 
 acter is here literally taken down. There are other 
 clever sketches in this novel ; and there is much 
 which, while it does not equal the power which we 
 have noted in her earlier works, recalls with vivid- 
 ness that great faculty. But there is much of the 
 work too mechanical in this book. Mrs. Cadwallader 
 is too clever to have much character, or her char- 
 acter is sacrificed to her epigrams, which no doubt 
 are good, but have less of the genuine ring of true 
 humour about them than the fine sayings of Mrs. 
 Poyser, for instance. 
 
 George Eliot now makes fun as if she were a 
 little old and tired of sport. Her treatment of the 
 characters of Mr. Brooke and Sir James Chettam, 
 errs in the same way. Tricks of expression, such 
 as the former's "You know," and the latter's "Oh 
 why ? " are apt to mislead the reader, and the writer
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 67 
 
 for that matter, into a belief that character is sketched 
 when only mechanical accidents of character are 
 deciphered, and it is altogether beneath the dignity 
 of an able writer to get fun out of the mere in season 
 and out of season repetition of habitual phrases. 
 However, there is more merit about the latter por- 
 traiture than about the former, and we could, if we 
 had the mind to, quote some most excellent sentences 
 which fell from Sir James, which show that the old 
 power of entering into slow feelings and stupid 
 thoughts is still instinct in George Eliot ; the old art 
 of bringing these humorously to her readers also 
 remains. But although " Middlemarch " contains much 
 excellence, we cannot believe that as a whole our 
 feelings of disappointment are not well founded. We 
 confess we find much of the same literary skill, but 
 it is the same skill jaded, and there is a want of the 
 old spontaneous rush which produces the very highest 
 literary excellence. The excellent, wise, and witty 
 things which are constant like daisies among the 
 ordinary herbage of her prose, and which would make 
 a sound and genial proverbial philosophy, and which 
 enrich our language much in the same way— although, 
 of course, not nearly to the same degree — that Shake- 
 speare does, have in her recent works more the look 
 Of manufacture about them than of growth. Her 
 humour, too, smells of the shop. 
 
 There is some mechanical humour in " Middlemarch," 
 ;is, for instance, the scene in the wainscoted parlour 
 while Mr. Featherstone lies dead upstairs; but we 
 think these passages contrast but poorly with those 
 111 her earlier works, while in "Daniel Deronda" 
 there is a plentiful lack of humour of any quality. 
 We confess that our liking for that sad and futile 
 novel, "Middlemarch," is greater than for that so- 
 called "hopeful" book, "Daniel Deronda." It is true, 
 the former leaves us a legacy of dissatisfaction, doubt,
 
 68 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 disappointment. There is nothing stimulating, nothing 
 hopeful, in the story of high hopes declining into 
 paltry affections, or great ambitions satisfied with 
 insignificant successes of the monetary sort. Such 
 stories do not leave us better or nobler, and we rise 
 dejected and baffled from this story of provincial life. 
 But even then we have memory of power wasted, of 
 capacity shown if misdirected, and of faculties still 
 possessed if not as vitally effective as heretofore. 
 
 In " Daniel Deronda" we cannot find those indications 
 of pre-eminence which were not wanting in its pre- 
 decessor. There are some clevernesses in it. The 
 shallow Gwendolin Harleth, with her deepening nature, 
 would have been a clever creation if it had come from 
 less creative hands than those of George Eliot. We 
 do not object to the ideal of Mordecai — we see that 
 George Eliot intended to invite our sympathy for this 
 consumptive Jew and his great purposes, his huge 
 aspirations, but we are sadly concerned that she has 
 failed to secure that sympathy — that her art has been 
 insufficient to secure an interest in this man, which 
 makes Deronda's action with regard to him intelligible. 
 We look at his aspirations without feeling their warmth 
 and stimulation, we scrutinise his hopes and language 
 without being touched with these. We have no inti- 
 macy with, no love for this Jew. And it is George 
 Eliot's fault that we are thus indifferent. It is not 
 because he is a Jew that we are aloof from him, for 
 Christ has won millions of hearts, and He was a 
 Jew ; it is not because this is a fiction, for Walter 
 Scott could make us love the Jewess Rebecca and 
 indifferent to the Saxon Rowena. It is because George 
 Eliot has attempted a task beyond her cunning. The 
 very apologies which are put forth for this creation 
 are a confession of the failure. 
 
 It is said that George Eliot has not imagined a 
 character, but has drawn from the life ; that such a
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 69 
 
 man as Mordecai did actually exist ; that he was one 
 of the club of students who met some forty years ago 
 in Red Lion Square, Holborn, and that he was described 
 by Mr. Lewes in an article in the Fortnightly Review 
 in 1866. We say such historical sanction for this lame 
 creation is a confession of irretrievable failure. Who 
 ever thought it necessary to defend any of her great 
 creations by such paltry evidence as " true in fact " ? 
 Such creations ought to carry all their credentials to 
 belief with them, ought to require no extraneous or 
 historical proof of consistency and truth, and when 
 such are offered it is a confession of the poor claims 
 these have on us, claims which are disputed until a 
 certificate of birth is forthcoming. 
 
 The great creations need never have been born — 
 they are here ; we care not whether such men or 
 women ever existed — they exist. There is a truth in 
 the best fiction which is higher than that of history, 
 and it loses its reputation by consorting with such 
 a scriveuer-like fellow. 
 
 But passing from Mordecai, what are we to think 
 of Daniel Deronda and Mirah ? These surely are 
 faintly limned characters. There is in one place some 
 fine analysis of Daniel Deronda's motives and vacil- 
 lations, but it is analysis and not creation. We think 
 it clever while we read it, but it leaves no indelible 
 impression of the man's spiritual presence on our 
 memory. Indeed from beginning to end we get the 
 faintest conception of this so-called man. A walking 
 gentleman in a comedy, who has to look well, become 
 his clothe-, and say nothing, affects us as much and 
 as permanently as this man. I low Gwendolin came 
 
 to regard him as a hero and a guide, it would be diffi- 
 cult to say, but thai we remember that women will 
 
 be women. Thai Mirah had a line voice and sung 
 
 well we believe because Klesmer said so, but for 
 indications <>t anything else hue we have looked in
 
 70 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 vain. Indeed, the book abounds with smudged sketches 
 of character rather than complete and redolent crea- 
 tions. It may be, that as in '* Middlemarch " we have 
 the story of the fall of two souls, bent on high pur- 
 poses, with far-stretching resolves, with great claims 
 to noble action, by the contamination of common life 
 and common love, so in "Daniel Deronda" we have 
 two souls saved by the failure of selfish hopes and 
 the awakening of higher purposes than the gratifica- 
 tion of desire, or by having a dilettante indifference 
 turned into the large stream of national duty. These 
 may be the purposes of these books, and for the dis- 
 appointment which we experience with Dorothea and 
 Lydgate, we may have been intended to compensate 
 our natures with the hopes which might arise in re- 
 lation to Gwendolin and Deronda. But again these 
 theories are but poor excuses for the works. No such 
 hypotheses were necessary in the case of Shakespeare's 
 art. There was no need of such for Scott or Fielding, 
 nor for George Eliot herself in her more genuine 
 works. Not that such purposes are not legitimate. 
 Some such aim is in every great work of art, but 
 when the purpose renders the art less recognisable, 
 when the purpose is all that can be pleaded for the 
 book, the art of the artist has failed. 
 
 Before we could care for the loss or gain of souls, 
 it was incumbent upon the writer to make these near 
 and dear to us. As it is, the fall of the one is almost 
 as much a matter of indifference to us as the salva- 
 tion of the other. They are not of like flesh and 
 blood with our own, as the earlier creations were ; 
 they are not "kith and kin " to us as these were, and 
 will not be our friends for all time. 
 
 To us, we confess these have been disappointments, 
 notwithstanding the great claims which the books in 
 which they occur have upon our respect and admira- 
 tion ; and they will continue to yield us only partial
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 71 
 
 enjoyments and half pleasures in the time to come. 
 We will go back to "Silas Marner," to "The Mill 
 on the Floss," to " Romola," and to "Adam Bede," 
 with our old delight when we want to see George 
 Eliot as the true woman speaking truly from her 
 heart, and as the true artist speaking with all the 
 rules of her art latent in her nice taste and teeming 
 genius. 
 
 We have insisted on one thing in this essay, and 
 that is the identity of a man and his books. The 
 book may be looked upon as the profile of his char- 
 acter. But while we think that this identification is 
 essential in any intimate criticism, we must not forget 
 that there must at the same time be an essential 
 separateness between the man and his works of art. 
 The object of the novel-writer is to tell a story. We 
 do not say that his sole function is to amuse the 
 idle or to occupy empty hours. Too many people 
 seem to think such the duty of the writer of fiction, 
 but we would not degrade his high office and great 
 duties by any such misapprehension. Still, the primary 
 duty of such writers is to narrate, and when an 
 author forgets that duty, and becomes speculative, 
 expository, literary, or historical, to the neglect of 
 the tale which has to be told, the result must neces- 
 sarily be a failure. A story may carry instruction, it 
 may have a moral, it may teach some truth of science, 
 it may be a stimulus to action, a persuasion to well- 
 doing; but when any one of these becomes the objed 
 of the tale, the work ceases to be a work of fictional 
 art, and will probably be only second rate as ,1 
 treatise on ethics or on science, an oration or .1 
 sermon Now, any earnest human being may find it 
 difficult in the e days to remain indifferent to many 
 paramount questions. Science none oi us can ignore 
 with impunity. Religious questions are rife, and 
 dogmas arc a "drug m the market." The age is lull
 
 72 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of questionings, and just because the answers are few, 
 the intellectual activity is great, and the dissatisfac- 
 tion which is the spring of all great achievements is 
 common amongst us. It could not be expected that 
 a woman like George Eliot could remain apart from 
 the intense and rapid eddying currents of the life of 
 the age. Even in her early life, she entered into the 
 religious questions by translating Strauss's " Life of 
 Christ," and Feuerbach's " Essence of Christianity " ; 
 and since that time much of the scientific life of the 
 period has been reflected in her own life. She has 
 lived intensely in relation to certain important prob- 
 lems, and these have influenced her not only in her 
 life, but in her art. It is here that we would have 
 insisted upon separateness. All that is essentially 
 human in George Eliot is compatible with a narrative 
 which she may carry to the widest circles in space 
 and the most remote circles in time. Homer may 
 be obsolete some day, but after two thousand years 
 there are closenesses in his and our humanity which 
 makes his language ours ; and George Eliot might 
 expect to charm centuries whose foundations are not 
 yet laid, except in such books as her own. But as we 
 said, to convey a tale one must make that the object, 
 one must subordinate all one's personal vanities, or 
 affections, or clevernesses, or eruditions, or sciences, 
 and make the tale with the human beings whose 
 doings and sufferings make the story permanent. 
 It is for this reason that the creation of human 
 character is the primary merit of the novelist, for it 
 is that which is the indispensable element of story- 
 telling. But the inferior writers of fiction are always 
 two-minded ; they have a story to tell, and they have 
 also to prove that they are excellent story-tellers, or 
 that they know all science, or are "well up" in art, 
 or that they are anxious to save souls alive — and hence 
 they fail. If they could have kept their pettiness
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 73 
 
 apart from the tale, if they could have separated 
 their vain or learned or religious selves from the 
 narrative, they might have conveyed the incidents 
 with explicable clearness, but they chose to be exposi- 
 tory or what not, and they have been dull com- 
 panions and disregarded teachers. The very intensity 
 of their feelings about these matters has been their 
 ruin. Their art was not all in all, their science or 
 religion was something to them. So it has been with 
 George Eliot to some extent. While she dissociated 
 herself from to-day and the matters of the hour 
 which had an intense personal interest for her, she 
 was great. Her pictures of provincial life were ex- 
 quisite. Other writers had chosen to dissociate their 
 artistic from their personal interest by choosing the 
 remote as a subject, and none have run the risk 
 of bringing these two into conflict by treating with 
 scarcely concealed didacticism the great problems of 
 the age. To Fielding, and Austen, and Scott, these 
 problems were as nothing compared with their art, 
 and they have not risked that by the treatment of 
 these. George Eliot has, and where she has made 
 this endeavour she has, as we think we have shown, 
 failed She has failed to subordinate her personal 
 interests to the larger interests of her art; she has 
 failed to see that there are questions of more import- 
 ance to all ages than the science and the aspirations 
 of this, and thai her duty was to tell stories which 
 would command the sympathies not ot the learned 
 merely, but of the learned and simple, not of her 
 own time only but of all ages. She is content to 
 allow her learning to appear in her books almost 
 more prominently than her real gift. She seems 
 scarcely to have assimilated these views, opinions, 
 and theories suffi< nntly to inform and enrich hei 
 style merely, bul (he is in her later works always 
 
 prating about them. An old man of consummate
 
 74 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 science, if we meet him in society, is perhaps a more 
 agreeable and pleasant man by reason of his science. 
 A young man of flippant acquirements and trivial 
 experience is generally the more disagreeable on 
 account of his. The former carries all his experience 
 lightly, and knows that his load is not ^//-important 
 to his fellow-men. The latter will vaunt his latest 
 discovery, will lead conversation to his own little 
 eminence, and could never be mistaken for anything 
 but a man of science. Now it is thus with George 
 Eliot in her recent works. She is not content to 
 know and be influenced by the spirit of the age, 
 but she will parade it. Her acquirements are so new 
 that they will not go into small compass and be 
 decently concealed. She must talk at length upon 
 these great matters about which, she seems to ima- 
 gine, all her readers wish to be informed. So it 
 comes that there are passages in some of her works 
 which read like passages from scientific essays, save 
 only that some of them are lacking in the direct 
 clearness which ought to be a quality of scientific 
 exposition. Here, for instance, is a sentence from 
 " Middlemarch " :— 
 
 "These kinds of inspiration Lydgate regarded as 
 rather vulgar and ruinous compared with the imagina- 
 tion that reveals subtle actions inaccessible by any 
 sort of lens, but tracked in that outer darkness 
 through long pathways of necessary sequence by the 
 inward light which is the last refinement of energy ; 
 capable of bathing even the ethereal atoms in its ideally 
 illuminated space." 
 
 We confess that that might be clearer, but we do 
 not wish to do more than refer to this matter. It 
 is to this circumstance that we ascribe George Eliot's 
 failure to maintain a reputation which she made sud- 
 denly so great — a reputation which, notwithstanding 
 that these laborious and bulky efforts have not added
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 75 
 
 to it, must always remain as one of the brightest 
 ornaments of English literary history. 
 
 We said that in forming a true estimate of men 
 we were bound to come to a conclusion not about 
 external accidental matters, but about such central 
 matters as high thought, strong conscience, and clear 
 resolve. We have in criticising the novels of George 
 Eliot — for we have not had space to deal with the 
 works in which she has chosen to express herself in 
 a poetical form, for it is much more a matter of de- 
 liberate choice than it ought to be with a great poet, 
 whose matter, like the soul of which Spenser speaks, 
 makes itself a beautiful and resonant body — we say 
 that in criticising these novels we have borne these 
 matters in mind. We have seen that she possesses 
 the great gift, which is only rarely bestowed, of un- 
 derstanding character in its infinite relations with its 
 environment — relations not merely of passion and re- 
 ception, but of action or aggression, and of enforcing 
 her own conclusions by adequate and beautiful speech. 
 We have found her execution peculiarly skilful, and 
 her purpose in most of her works a reassuring one, 
 while in others it is somewhat impotent and futile. 
 But we would note one more central matter in relation 
 to her works, and that is the latent conscience which 
 is in them, and the actual conscience which is a primary 
 motive in each. Men may go through an ordinary 
 London world without discovering thai there is a 
 "God's ecretary," as Milton called "conscience," in 
 men at all. Society seems to get on very well if people 
 have taste enough to avoid rudeness and gaucheries. 
 I ''iii to the real man or woman, conscience is a real 
 fact, and an all - important element in the world's 
 - and in man's life. This George Eliot has 
 
 een, and we not only recognise an intense COn- 
 
 utioiiMie in h« writings to be true to the dic- 
 
 t.tti o! Ini own wide and woin.mK nature, which
 
 76 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 is the necessity of genius ; but we find throughout 
 her works that conscience plays a prominent part, 
 and that her characters have souls as well as dispo- 
 sitions, have aspirations as well as tendencies. Had 
 it not been so, we would have had reason to com- 
 plain of George Eliot on the ground of incompleteness ; 
 she would have done injustice to life and character. 
 But her merit is her sympathy, as we have said, with 
 all men or with all moods and phases of character. 
 With this faculty, in one sense divine, she has acute 
 sympathy. We find this as much in " Romola " and 
 "The Spanish Gypsy," as in the books we have already 
 somewhat lengthily referred to. Our whole interest 
 in Romola is in her great moral nature, which, as all 
 great natures in this life have, has become associated 
 with that shallower nature in its beautiful form, that 
 nature which has continued the past and yet thought 
 to receive the future, that nature which has been con- 
 tent to forego the claims of conscience for those of 
 vanity and ambition. The contrast between Romola 
 and Tito is excellently instructive, and it has its whole 
 meaning in those ethical questions which are para- 
 mount elements in human existence. There was 
 nothing strange in the association of these two. It 
 will be remembered that when Tito came first to the 
 solitary and dutiful woman, in the dark library of 
 Bardi, his presence " was like a wreath of spring dropped 
 suddenly in Romola's young but wintry life." We see 
 how the same struggle has to be fought, under far 
 other circumstances than those of Florence at the 
 time of the revival of Hellenic and Latin thought and 
 spirit under the literary and artistic sway of Lorenzo 
 de Medici — under far other guidance than that of the 
 great Dominican, Savonarola — upon the banks of the 
 legend-haunted Floss. We see a crisis in conscience 
 there when Maggie comes upon the marked copy of 
 the " Imitation of Christ," and when the claims of
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 77 
 
 the past are felt and recognised — not merely an in- 
 herited past of nature, or a traditional past of vows 
 of revenge against the Wakems, but a past which 
 has associated us with others, which has knit us in 
 bonds of duty which none but rash and wicked hands 
 will try to break. We find the same story told of 
 Janet and Edgar Tryan in the tale of her repentance. 
 Indeed, as we have said, in all her early works we find 
 the same problem, and in all the same result. In each, 
 conscience is the victor, not with easily secured laurels, 
 but after vigorous battles with temptation — battles 
 which are as hard, as real, as those we have to fight ; 
 and the victory in these may serve to nerve and en- 
 courage us in our own contests. In these we never 
 find that George Eliot for an instant shakes the founda- 
 tions of duty, never for an instant loses sight of the 
 great law of benevolence, and our duties to others : 
 in each she counsels vigorous endeavours after a 
 righteousness which is above religion, and a human 
 love which is above all passion. This, then, is the great 
 lesson we learn from these early books, while she 
 seemed to be teaching nothing. It is a lesson which 
 we see adumbrated, but scarcely so definitely taught, 
 in the books in which she seemed of purpose didactic. 
 Not that in any of her works are these the sole motives. 
 Her books are as varied as nature, and that is their 
 merit Conscience is an element, but not the only 
 element in life. And hence there are places for sen- 
 suous longings, even for sensual lusts, in these books ; 
 but the latter are subordinated to the higher claims 
 of nature, and in this way her books are moral, while 
 they are at the same time true to all the facts which 
 piebald nature presents to the mind and heart of the 
 artist. It is in this respect, then, that her books are 
 so peculiarly excellent. 
 
 We may seem to have done some injustice to 
 (ieorge Eliot's great merits. The temptation of the
 
 78 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 critic is to understate or overstate defects or merits. 
 Loud praise or deep imprecation is much easier of 
 accomplishment, is generally much more popular when 
 accomplished, than weighed and considered criticism. 
 We have endeavoured to avoid either of those unjust 
 extremes. We have endeavoured to convey an idea 
 rather of the fine proportions of George Eliot's great 
 works, than to dwell with flattery or blame upon any 
 individual triumphs or failures. We have endeavoured 
 to give some idea of her fidelity to nature, a fidelity 
 which is characteristic of all great writing, but it is a 
 fidelity which is produced by a nice appreciation of 
 the rules of art and not by a literary pre-Raphaelism, 
 or photographic exactness. This fidelity is very great, 
 so great that her books, when one remembers them, 
 seem to one not so much as writings, but as facts. 
 The writer does, as it were, stand aside and allow us 
 to see the world past her, and that is a characteristic 
 of high genius. A genius ought to write with such skill, 
 with such care, with such art-concealing art, as to 
 produce the illusion in us that he is nothing, that we 
 are not in his presence, but in the presence of the 
 men and the incidents here referred to. He ought to 
 move with such grace that we cannot see that it is grace, 
 any more than we can recognise that the glistening 
 waves of the cornfield are graceful, or that the hum 
 of insects in the heat is musical. If he has this power 
 his books transcend books, and become parts of a living 
 vital nature, and they interest us as if the people in 
 them had personal relations to ourselves, which were 
 enduring and true, and as if the events and circum- 
 stances were matters we must ourselves shape our 
 conduct by. 
 
 "Daily life" is, according to Goethe, "more instruc- 
 tive than the most instructive book." But in the perfect 
 book we have daily life and art too ; we have daily 
 life which is more instructive than the bare nature
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 79 
 
 which presents itself to us in the work-a-day world. 
 In this quality, then, George Eliot's novels are most 
 excellent, and we are pleased to acknowledge our 
 great indebtedness to these books. We may have 
 failed in placing our deep and most pleasantly acquired 
 convictions upon this paper, in such a way as to carry 
 the same certitude of belief to others, but we have at 
 least endeavoured to estimate merits which have con- 
 tributed so much to our pleasure and our higher 
 thought — so much, indeed, that any expression of grati- 
 tude looks startlingly inadequate in the presence of 
 our deep sense of these infinite obligations.
 
 Ill 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 1 
 
 Of all biographies those of literary men are most diffi- 
 cult to write. To put upon paper an adequate life of 
 any individual is always a difficult task ; but when there 
 is a story of action to tell, when there is a series of 
 incidents to narrate, the pages need not be dull, how- 
 ever far short the performance may fall of an ideal 
 biography. But when, on the other hand, the life has 
 been void of events ; when the man has made no 
 conquests but personal ones ; when his achievements 
 have been books, which are at once the incidents and 
 their histories — the difficulty becomes very much greater. 
 But the difficulty of writing a life of Walter Savage 
 Landor was great from quite another cause. A pas- 
 sionate man, with a consummate self-assertiveness, 
 cannot go almost ninety years through the world with- 
 out encountering many untoward events. In the career 
 of Landor there is no lack of incidents, and many of 
 them might be matter for sad interest. But no man 
 undertakes to write the life of an individual he does not 
 himself admire. If he did not admire — indeed, if he 
 did not love — his hero, he could not understand him. 
 But there are so many things in the life of Landor 
 which are anything but admirable ; so many things 
 concerning which a biographer can be kinder to his 
 memory by his reticence than by his candour ; so many 
 
 1 " Walter Savage Landor." A Biography, by John Forster. Second 
 
 edition. Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1876. Works. Chapman 
 
 and Hall. 1876. 
 
 80
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 81 
 
 circumstances which ingenuity cannot disguise so as to 
 avert the inevitable censure, that the writer has a most 
 difficult work to perform, if, as is his duty, he is to 
 succeed in making his reader love Landor too. He 
 cannot avoid all mention of circumstances which detract 
 from the brightness of Landor's character, or he would 
 have very little left to say. 
 
 The history of his stubborn rebelliousness begins very 
 early. He lived so long that his childhood had been 
 forgotten, but we find that at the age of fifteen or six- 
 teen he was not, it is true, expelled from Rugby, where 
 he had already distinguished himself by his ability, but 
 removed, as the less discreditable punishment, at the 
 head-master's suggestion. "There was nothing," said 
 his brother, Mr. Robert Landor, in writing of this 
 episode, " unusual or disgraceful in the particular trans- 
 gression, but a fierce defiance of all authority and a 
 refusal to ask forgiveness." At eighteen years of age he 
 entered as a commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, but 
 remained there little more than a year. " He had fired 
 his fowling-piece into the window of some one whom 
 he hated for his Toryism." He was rusticated for one 
 year, but he never returned to Oxford. He had, how- 
 ever, remained there long enough to make not only 
 some reputation for ability — for he wrote admirable 
 Latin verses — but a less desirable reputation for the 
 most uncompromising opinions. Still, there was not 
 much harm in that; if a man has at any time a right 
 to be audacious in opinion, it is when he is ;i boy. But 
 the frequent differences of opinion and angry alter- 
 cations — which amounted on the son's part Id intem- 
 perate violence and arrogance — between Landor and 
 his father were without excuse'. With whom the tault 
 of these quarrels lay there is not much room to 
 doubt. A lady who both liked and admired him 
 said to his biographer that "the great enjoyment of 
 walking out with linn had only one drawback, that 
 I. F
 
 82 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 he was always knocking somebody down," and this 
 metaphorical offensiveness was not confined to those 
 who were strangers in blood or in the ties which 
 make blood relationships, for he not only quarrelled 
 with his father, but seems to have been for about 
 twenty-five years estranged from his brother, Mr. 
 Robert Landor, who was one of his sincerest and 
 most candid admirers. But the catalogue of his violent 
 indiscretions is not nearly complete. Even his noblest 
 impulses led to some intemperate fiascos. Landor 
 had the most generous hatred of oppression, and 
 when the events of the beginning of this century 
 called for help to Spain against Napoleon's avarice 
 of dominion and unchecked ambition, Landor volun- 
 teered not only his own help, but the assistance of his 
 purse to equip men and to contribute to the common 
 stock. Possibly it was quixotic, but quixotic actions 
 are very often noble. He landed at Corunna and 
 marched to Villa Franca. At the former place Charles 
 Stuart was Envoy, and Charles Robert Vaughan, of 
 All Souls', Oxford, who had been at Rugby with 
 Landor, was attached to his mission. While at Corunna 
 Landor sent to the Governor 10,000 reals for the 
 relief of the town of Venturada, which had been burnt 
 by the French ; and while at Villa Franca, overhearing 
 a part of a sentence spoken by Stuart when address- 
 ing the Junta with reference to another person, whom 
 he described as a fool and a pauper, and supposing 
 the words to be spoken of himself, he at once wrote 
 an angry and offensive letter to Vaughan and made 
 up his mind to return home. Thus it was always 
 with Landor. If there was a possibility of taking 
 offence, he was sure to take it, and even when there 
 was none his ingenuity invented occasions for his 
 violence. Nothing could be more ridiculous than his 
 suspicion and mistake upon this occasion. 
 
 After his return from Spain, and after the com-
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 83 
 
 pletion of "Count Julian," he fell in love with a girl, 
 not in spite of her poverty, but because she was 
 poor, married her, and they went to reside at Llan- 
 thony Abbey. The acquisition of that estate, which 
 brought so many misfortunes upon/ Landor, was 
 characteristic of his stubborn impetuosity. There was 
 little to recommend it to a man of Landor's tastes, 
 except its beauty, and he soon found that there was 
 much that was uncongenial to him in his surround- 
 ings. He never had got on well with neighbours. 
 Even in the Warwickshire days, when there was some 
 talk after mess about his receiving a commission in 
 the Militia, most of the officers had expressed their 
 intention of resigning if he joined the regiment. And 
 now he entered upon a series of disastrous quarrels 
 with his neighbours and tenants in Wales, which led 
 to libels, law-suits, and ultimately to his leaving 
 England. But Landor never learnt that wisdom from 
 events which is so necessary to the careful and 
 peaceful conduct of life. When he quitted England, 
 after troubles which he had in a great measure 
 brought upon himself, he had gone first to Jersey, 
 and was there joined by Mrs. Landor and one of his 
 sister . Landor had made up his mind to remain 
 permanently in France, but his wife had also a mind 
 to make up, and their wishes clashed. The stub- 
 borness of the one was only equalled by the per- 
 tinacity of the other. Argument in such conditions 
 1 a liort road to anger, and out of these disputes 
 there came recriminations, and at last upon the pari 
 
 ,,l Mi . Landor an allusion was made to the differ- 
 ence of years between herself and her husband in the 
 presence ol her sister, which Landor regarded as a 
 deliberate insult. He made up Ins mind to leave her. 
 
 He went from fei <y to Tours, but the extreme griei 
 
 and serious illnes of his wife, which resulted from 
 
 the separation, brought aboul a reconciliation. In
 
 84 CRITICAL. ESSAYS 
 
 the September of 1815, Landor and his brother left 
 Tours for Italy. All the obloquy of the unseemly 
 quarrel of which we have been speaking must not 
 fall on Mrs. Landor, for her husband cannot have 
 been a very agreeable companion if the account given 
 of him in one of his brother's letters is to be 
 believed : u He is seldom out of a passion or a 
 sulky fit, excepting at dinner, when he is more 
 boisterous and good-humoured than ever. Then his 
 wife is a darling, a beauty, an angel, and a bird. 
 But for just as little reason the next morning she is 
 a fool. She certainly is gentle, patient, and sub- 
 missive." And so on. Every circumstance goes to 
 show that Landor was an impulsive, impatient, in- 
 temperate man, always counting, and not only count- 
 ing, but killing and eating, his chickens before they 
 were hatched ; and that whatever faults — and a want 
 of sympathy is in one sense a fault — there may have 
 been upon the part of his wife, there were many 
 shortcomings upon his part. 
 
 Nowhere could he live on easy terms with his neigh- 
 bours. His first permanent residence after quitting 
 Tours was at Coino. There, however, some one wrote 
 an invective in the form of a sonnet against England, 
 and Landor answered it in Latin. This answer, and 
 the other writings which were to be published with it, 
 were pronounced libels by the censor, and Landor 
 not only expostulated with him, but appealed from 
 his decision to that of Count Strasoldo, Principal of 
 the Council. The Count communicated with his 
 superior, the Regio Delegate of the Province, who 
 sent for Landor. The former characterised Landor's 
 letter to the Count as "insolent," and the latter told 
 him he would have horsewhipped him for the use of 
 such a word if it had been uttered elsewhere. It 
 was a pretty quarrel, and soon after it Landor 
 determined to quit Corao and to settle at Pisa.
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 85 
 
 From Pisa he passed, after a residence of more than 
 a year, to Florence, and resided in the Palazzo 
 Medici for about five years. But here, in the summer 
 of 1822, he is in a scrape with the Secretary of 
 Legation, who had, according to Landor, treated him 
 with such marked indignity that he had requested to 
 be informed in what part of England or France they 
 might become better acquainted in a few minutes. 
 This is how he writes • of him : " To show his 
 courage, whenever he meets mv wife in the streets he 
 walks up and sings or whistles. This has affected 
 her health, and I am afraid may oblige me to put 
 him to death before we can reach England." He 
 then, after a short interval in the winter of the years 
 1828 and 1829, which he spent in the Casa Giugni, 
 settled at Fiesole. He somewhere speaks, with truth, 
 of his " wandering Lares " ; and it is evident from 
 these records of his life that he had himself to thank 
 for the circumstances which led to his being chased 
 from place to place. A man who ought to have 
 been welcomed on account of his genius by any city 
 is driven from most on account of his infirmities of 
 temper and indiscretions of behaviour. At the close 
 of 1829, he has a quarrel with the Tuscan authorities, 
 tells one of his subordinates that he will drag the 
 bit on governo before the Grand Duke by the throat, 
 and uses other expressions which were equally offen- 
 ive. He was ordered to quit Tuscany. He wrote to 
 the Grand Duke, and, notwithstanding the inter- 
 vention of some powerful friends, the order that he 
 should < 1 1 1 i 1 Tuscany was confirmed. He revisited 
 England in 1832, but in 1833 we find him again settled 
 
 in Italy; but not for long. In April [835, Landor 
 
 left the Villa Gherardescha on account of a quarrel 
 
 with In wife, and returned soon after to England. As 
 
 to the cause of tin- long estrangement which was thus 
 
 commenced, Mr. Forster'a "Life" is peculiarly in-
 
 86 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 explicit. He quotes from a letter from one of 
 Landor's friends, who was present upon the occasion 
 of the rupture, but even it is only vaguely ex- 
 culpatory of Landor. 
 
 From the time of his second return to England he 
 
 resided principally at Bath until he was again driven 
 
 from his native country in 1857. In spite of the advice 
 
 of friends, he had embroiled himself in some ridiculous 
 
 disputes, and contrary to their wish, and in breach of 
 
 an undertaking which his solicitors had given on his 
 
 behalf in the previous year, he published certain libels, 
 
 and those whose characters were impugned brought 
 
 actions against him. He was advised that there was no 
 
 defence, and to save the wrecked remains of his property 
 
 he, an old man, to whom the many years which he 
 
 had seen might have taught sedateness, was obliged to 
 
 fly from England. He was still, although eighty-three 
 
 years of age, as rash as a boy of nineteen, a man of 
 
 most turbulent nature, to whom even the weight of 
 
 years did not bring rest from petty strifes, and to 
 
 whom the calm which comes with age brought no 
 
 peace. The record of his next six years is sorrowful 
 
 enough. Once the owner of an estate which yielded 
 
 somewhere about ^3000 a year, surrounded with friends 
 
 who not only loved the man for the fine but gusty 
 
 qualities of his heart, but respected and admired him 
 
 for the rare gifts of his intellectual nature, he now 
 
 found himself almost penniless, and strangely aloof 
 
 from those who were nearest to him in blood upon 
 
 the earth, and to whom he ought to have been dearest. 
 
 It was to his brothers that his friends had to apply 
 
 for the means which were necessary to support this 
 
 old man during the few years which might elapse 
 
 before his death. Happily, some of those who were more 
 
 bounden to him did not stand aloof until the sad end. 
 
 Two of his sons were near to him when he dropped 
 
 the pen from his hand in the summer of 1864. His
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 87 
 
 death was appropriate to his life. He had not taken 
 to literature for a livelihood, but had become a man 
 of letters from a generous love of learning. He was 
 one, as Emerson said of him, " of the foremost of that 
 small class who make good in the nineteenth century 
 the claims of pure literature. In these busy days of 
 avarice and ambition, when there is so little disposition 
 to profound thought or to any but the most superficial 
 intellectual entertainment, a faithful scholar, receiving 
 from past ages the treasures of wit, and enlarging them 
 by his own love, is a friend and consoler of mankind." 
 It was right that such a man — a man with such a 
 mission — should die with the pen in his hand. The 
 picture of his death is pathetic enough. About two 
 o'clock in the morning of that summer day he rang 
 for his attendant, and insisted upon having his room 
 lighted and its windows thrown open. He asked for 
 pen, ink, and paper, and inquired what day it was. 
 He was told it was the dawn of the first day of May. 
 And in the gentle light his hand traced some lines of 
 verse, and then, leaning back, he said, " I shall never 
 write again. Put out the lights and draw the curtains." 
 This was done, and after that he became more and 
 more indifferent to outward things until the great 
 indifference fell upon him, and he passed away. It 
 was thus that Walter Savage Landor died, and that all 
 his petty quarrels, all his differences, all his impetuosity, 
 all his turbulence came to an end. 
 
 hut it would give quite an erroneous impression ol 
 Landor's character to allude only to those strange 
 occurrences which harassed a gre.d soul in this 
 troublous woi Id. He was not a mere hectoring writer 
 or a quarrelsome man. He was sensitively impatient 
 and querulously exacting of those who were closely 
 
 associated with him ; and for business of any kind 
 
 requiring prudence and patience he was, according to 
 
 his biographer, "dangerously unfit." I'.ul he was a
 
 88 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 man of large, generous sympathies, and the very names 
 of his friends are a guarantee for his sterling worth 
 of character. His biographer says : " He desired 
 nothing so much as that some record having claim to 
 be remembered of his early intercourse with Southey, 
 and as far as possible of the letters they interchanged, 
 should be made by me. . . ." Looked at in this 
 light the work before us is thoroughly adequate. 
 There was a close and high friendship between Landor 
 and Southey, and as during many years they lived 
 very far apart from one another, the intimacy was 
 one rather of books and letters than the spoken word- 
 to-word intercourse of ordinary friendship. In this 
 way there are some delightful records of the lasting 
 respect and affection which existed between these two 
 remarkable men. Landor is not read as he ought to 
 be, and Southey is almost less known to the present 
 generation than the author of the u Imaginary Con- 
 versations " ; but the discredit of the fact is due to 
 the people who do not read and not to the books which 
 they neglect. But these records of their friendship 
 are goodly reading, not only for the pleasant glimpses 
 we have in these letters of the cordial admiration 
 that each of these great men had for the other and 
 his achievements, and the unstinting praise which 
 each discriminatingly bestows, but as being themselves 
 specimens of genial, manly literature. Many of these 
 letters which are here collected are written in the 
 most admirable and stalwart English, such as no 
 other men but Southey and Landor could in these 
 days write. But it is not only from his lasting friend- 
 ship with Southey that we can, as by a reflected 
 light, judge of Landor's sterling worth ; a man who 
 could command the respect, the admiration, and the 
 love of Wordsworth, Lamb, the Hares, Emerson, 
 Dickens, Milnes, Browning, and his biographer, must 
 have had high and endearing qualities. It is no faint
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 89 
 
 praise of a man to say he could make and keep 
 friends, and when the friends are men like those 
 whose names we have enumerated, it is an encomium 
 upon Landor to say that he could attach such men to 
 him notwithstanding his caprice, his waywardness, his 
 imprudence ; and that he could retain their respect 
 and friendship notwithstanding his sturdy and in- 
 tolerant opinions and variable temper. He was loyal 
 in his friendships and most generous in his charities, 
 and while we have referred to many of the indiscretions 
 which made his life difficult to write, it would be 
 easy to accumulate instances of his fine impulses to 
 good, which were more at the heart of the man than 
 those irritating excrescences of his impatience and 
 rebelliousness. 
 
 So far as Landor's correspondence goes, Mr. Forster's 
 biography is admirable. There are some most in- 
 teresting extracts from the letters which Landor wrote 
 to Forster while he was residing at Bath, before his 
 final departure from England. They are printed here 
 under the title " Silent Companions." In converse 
 Landor must frequently have shown himself weak, 
 and often have shown himself an angry and irritable 
 disputant ; but whenever he put pen to paper he 
 wrote himself clown a thinker as well as a thorough 
 master of words. He was an especially able critic in 
 all literary matters. It is true he unduly depreciated 
 Spenser, but that was his only literary heresy. It is 
 true lie had a good opinion <>l his own powers; in 
 
 one letter he wmtc, "I will say that these 'Conver- 
 sations' contain as forcible writing as exists on earth ;" 
 and, in allusion to Ireland, he wrote to Southev : 
 u Her governors have not thought about it so much 
 as 1 have, nor could they if they would, for I put 
 more thought in motion every half-hour than they 
 
 united could do in three centuries." But, although 
 
 such expressions would more becomingly have come
 
 9 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 from other sources, they are, no doubt, in the main 
 true. Southey said of Landor's prose, "There is a 
 life and vigour in it to which I know no parallel ; it 
 has the poignancy of champagne and the body of 
 English October." Here we must refer to that which 
 interests us more about Landor than his life as seen 
 in acts and passions — and that is, his works. Here in 
 his books we find the man more truly than we do 
 in the perplexed politician who was at war with 
 authority ; than the harassed landlord who was at 
 loggerheads with his tenants ; than the fickle-tempered 
 husband and doting father, who was always quarrel- 
 ling with the natural objects of his affection. Here 
 we find the man solemnised in the great presence of 
 which he was conscious, awed out of rebellion, and 
 obedient to the authority of the Past, which ruled 
 him with its stern simplicity and yet left him free to 
 labour and to produce results which raise these modern 
 days to a level with the high clear times of early 
 literature. Had Landor recognised any authority in 
 life similar to that which influenced him in literature, 
 he would have been as capable a man of action 
 among his fellow-men as he was a capable man of 
 letters among his fellow-poets. We have seen that 
 there is a most difficult problem to solve in connec- 
 tion with Landor's life, and that is, the reconcilement 
 of his great qualities of head and heart with the petty 
 qualities which embittered his career, and which detract 
 so much from our estimate of a man who yet has 
 paramount claims upon our ardent admiration. But 
 there is a no less difficult problem presented to us 
 when we come to look at Landor's works and his 
 fame. Who can reconcile these two ? No one has 
 done so much in literature and earned so little — not 
 of money, but of appreciation and praise. " Gebir," 
 his first important work, was published when he was 
 about twenty-two, and the author said he would be
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 91 
 
 satisfied if there were ten men of taste and genius in 
 England who would applaud his poem. " I will call 
 for a division ; I shall count a majority." But, notwith- 
 standing his modest wishes, it is a question whether 
 such applause was vouchsafed to "Gebir" for a con- 
 siderable time, and even now he must be content to 
 weigh and not count his readers. It was a curiously 
 admirable work, brocaded with the most felicitous 
 imaginings, with calm "eternal things" flashing from 
 every verse of the clear and harmonious diction ; and 
 yet, according to his brother, " it remained quite 
 unknown till an article appeared, written by Southey, 
 in the Critical Review, full of generous commendations. 
 This was the beginning of their friendship." But 
 wen Southey's article could not make Landor's work 
 popular, and some years afterwards we find his friend 
 Isaac Mocata writing apologetically to him of the 
 reception of his works, and trying to solve the prob- 
 lem to which we have referred. "Are you not," he 
 writes, "too profound and classical for most readers?" 
 Soon after the publication of "Gebir" some imitations 
 < i it were printed. "The Conspiracy of Gowrie," by 
 Sergeant Rough, was the one which attracted most 
 attention. It might in these days — when it seemed 
 that Landor was founding a school of poetry — have 
 been thought that a day must soon come when his 
 own work-, would be read and appreciated, but 
 every new venture only confirmed his disappointment. 
 Not, perhaps, that he was disappointed; he did not 
 care foi the cheap praise of the crowd, and waited for 
 the silent recognition of the centuries. He wrote, 
 when he heard that lus old friend Julius I laic had 
 on In-, deathbed said, "Deal Landor, 1 hope we shall 
 meet once more " — 
 
 1 1 I' ame ' bow feeblei all thy breath 
 Than Virtui expiring word
 
 92 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 But still to all men fair recognition is more pleasant 
 than contumely or neglect, and in very few quarters, 
 except those where friendship read between the lines, 
 were Landor's works received as they ought to have 
 been. "Poems by the Author of ' Gebir,' " Landor's 
 second sixpenny pamphlet, was no more successful 
 than the first. He protested that he wished to know 
 not merely whether his poetry was good, but whether 
 it was wanted. His biographer answers his question 
 succinctly — "that it was good, but was not wanted; 
 falling dead-born, yet containing what the world should 
 not have let perish so indifferently." After his return 
 from Spain he published "Count Julian." That work was 
 in some ways a consummate effort of genius. Weighty 
 authorities have pronounced it more than admirable, 
 and yet they have not succeeded in gaining for it 
 public acceptance. The poem is full of character, and 
 full of imperishable thoughts exquisitely expressed. 
 No man's works, indeed, are fuller of felicitous 
 expressions than those of Walter Savage Landor. It 
 is true that, although an admirable poem, it was not 
 an altogether excellent drama. Southey pronounced it 
 "too Greek for representation," and Landor's own 
 theory of tragedy may have contributed to the defect 
 which made the work one for the closet rather than the 
 stage. In writing to Southey long afterwards about 
 his comedy, "The Charitable Dowager," he says : "A 
 comedy must have bustle ; a tragedy should have none. 
 The passions will permit no movements but their own 
 — they should be painted naked, like heroes and gods." 
 But in "Count Julian" it seems that there is too little 
 movement ; bustle, it is true, is suitable for comedy, or 
 rather farce ; but a tragedy must in its statuesqueness 
 have many poses, and modern passions have not the 
 sedateness of Greek sculpture. Mr. Forster has wisely 
 said, " Landor's five-act dramas had been dialogues, 
 but his dialogues were to be one-act dramas." But
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 93 
 
 even with this promise it was difficult to find publishers 
 for the various series of the " Imaginary Conversations," 
 and the publishers who did undertake the work of 
 printing and offering them to the public found it almost 
 as difficult to find readers. Yet few such offers have 
 been made to the book-loving world as these dramatic 
 dialogues. Nevertheless, so little are they known that 
 Mr. Forster does not hesitate to give in the Life, which 
 forms the first volume of this complete edition of 
 Landor's works, elaborate sketches of and numerous 
 quotations from them. These summaries are well done, 
 but convey, after all, a very faint impression of the 
 excellent matter which is packed into every sentence 
 of the six series. Here, as elsewhere, Landor shows 
 himself, to use the words he himself applied to 
 Wordsworth and Southey, " a serene creator of eternal 
 things." Hut there seems no effort about his creation, 
 no necessity to rest after his works ; succinct wisdom, 
 happy images, clear expression of what has been 
 seeking utterance, are to be found in every one of 
 these delightful dialogues. His genius seems to par- 
 take of the qualities of the diamond. It burns and 
 Bashes with fire at every turn, and yet it is always 
 calm, and cool, and clear. The " Five Scenes, being 
 the last Imaginary Conversations," although scarcely 
 equal to some of the favourite scenes in the earlier 
 scries, such as those between Roger Ascham and Lady 
 Jane Orey, or Newton and Harrow, or Penn and Lord 
 Peterborough, are like them admirable. But to praise 
 most those which most deserve praise among these 
 graphic colloquies would be a very difficult task where 
 eacli is so admirable. Even the best critics have 
 differed much as to which is the best. Hut before 
 
 quitting this mere catalogue of his works we must 
 
 allude to his inimitable " Examination of Shakespeare 
 for Deei Stealing." Mr. Forster has some high praise 
 of this work, o! which some one said, not without
 
 94 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 truth, that only two men could have written it — 
 Shakespeare himself and Landor. Landor expected 
 that this work at least would be a success. "This is," 
 he wrote of it, "full of fun — I know not whether of 
 wit. It is the only thing I ever wrote that is likely to 
 sell." But this had the same fate as all his other works. 
 It was put aside by one incompetent critic as "a mere 
 silly imitation of obsolete law proceedings and phrases," 
 and it was not read by the public. The " Pericles and 
 Aspasia " was audacious in design, but triumphant in 
 execution. " Landor had chosen," says Forster, " for 
 that the bow of Ulysses, and it obeyed his hand;" 
 and certainly his hand was not less able to wield the 
 unwieldy and to perform miracles of literature when 
 it wrote the Pentameron of Boccaccio and Petrarca. 
 Still, " fascinating as it proved to the few, for the many 
 it fell stillborn ; " indeed, Emerson's criticism is true. 
 He says : — 
 
 " Landor is strangely undervalued in England ; 
 usually ignored and sometimes savagely attacked in 
 the Reviews. The criticism may be right or wrong, 
 and it is quickly forgotten ; but year after year the 
 scholar must still go back to Landor for a multitude 
 of elegant sentences, for wisdom, wit, and indignation 
 that are unforgettable." 
 
 Even now we have not mentioned the plays which 
 he wrote, his essays, or his Hellenics, and the scrap- 
 book to which he gave the name of " Drysticks Faggoted 
 by W. S. Landor." The last of these is the only one 
 that deserves little notice ; the others will repay innu- 
 merable perusals. But about all the same fiat has 
 gone forth from the public ; Landor is not and never 
 will be popular. He is and ever will be the friend of 
 the scholar and of the genuine lover of literary excel- 
 lence ; and it is the reason of this disparity of judg- 
 ment which we would wish to discover. 
 
 Goethe has somewhere said that there are three
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 95 
 
 classes of men — those who are content if they see 
 something going on, those who desire to feel, and 
 those who are dissatisfied unless they can reflect. 
 The last is a very small class, and he who would 
 write for these must lay his account with rewards 
 such as Landor received. It is true that some of our 
 greatest men are favourites with the many, but if 
 their fame be analysed it will be found that Shake- 
 speare and Milton are liked for what is worst in 
 them by the many, and for what is best in them by 
 the few. Their writings are not addressed to a class, 
 but to mankind. They are praised by one for merits 
 which a hundred overlook. The Shakespeare of one 
 is not the Shakespeare of another. Indeed, there are 
 as many Shakespeares as there are readers. In his 
 works, as in Nature herself, each man finds some- 
 thing that is akin to him. In the works of Landor — 
 which, however, in their broadcast reflections re- 
 semble Shakespeare's own — only the scholar can find 
 that which is dear to him. Landor wrote merely for 
 those men who reflect. Landor has himself finely 
 said : " As if men of genius are not men of business 
 in the highest sense of the word, of business in 
 which the State and Society are implicated for ages ! " 
 While scholars exist Landor will be remembered, 
 but only by them. He has said a hundred things 
 which carry their own patent of precedence with 
 them ; he has written books full of poetry and wisdom, 
 and yet the tipper edges of his books are covered 
 with dust. Nothing can be sadder than this neglect 
 of the best, not for their sakes, for they are beyond 
 the reach of it, but for the sake of those who are 
 thus neglectful of the great books which have been 
 given to them. 
 
 But there is another problem which is interesting 
 in connection with Landor and his works. He was 
 a man full of fury, and yet his works are full of
 
 96 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 .i majestic calm. He was a man upon occasions 
 "breathing oul threatenings and slaughter" — a very 
 [shmael, with hand against every neighbour, of most 
 intolerant opinions, and yet a writer of retlective 
 works which have the statuesque repose we tind in 
 ancient art. We have seen that he was a termagant 
 with his neighbours; we know him as a strong man 
 of genial sympathies and of great benevolence in his 
 works ; a touchy Englishman in his intercourse with 
 his fellows in the same town or neighbourhood, but 
 a wide-hearted philosopher in his larger intercourse 
 with mankind ; intemperate in much of his speech, 
 but temperate almost to holiness in his great works. 
 Here is a strange mixture of fire and ice. Had he 
 carried more of the wisdom of his maxims into his 
 life, and more of the fire of his life into his works, 
 he would have been a better citizen and neighbour, 
 and a more popular writer. What could be more 
 admirable than his advice to Parr, which we find in 
 some of his early letters ? After a little explosive 
 outburst of violent words against a writer in the 
 Anti- Jacobin, he says : — 
 
 " You also are mentioned with a proportionate 
 share of insolence. Let them pass. Who would stop 
 a cloud that overshadows his garden ? The cloud is 
 transitory ; the garden blooms. Thank God, I have a 
 mind more alive to kindness than to contumely. The 
 statue of Memnon is insensible to the sands that blow 
 against it, but answers in a tender tone to the first 
 touches of the sun." 
 
 Very excellent, but not quite an accurate descrip- 
 tion of himself, as we have seen. Still, we must 
 accept our great men as they are with gratitude. It 
 is a question whether Landor is likely to be better 
 known through Mr. Forster's biography than through 
 Dickens's kindly sketch of him under the name of 
 Mr. Boythorn in "Bleak House." These pages hang
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 97 
 
 somewhat loosely about the meagre story of his life, 
 and, although the sterling prose of his letters and the 
 endowment of his happy expressions redeem the nar- 
 rative from anything like insipidity, we think that the 
 history might have been more shortly written. But 
 Mr. Forster was a competent critic as well as a 
 conscientious biographer, and many of his estimates 
 of Landor's individual works are worthy of perusal. 
 What we have to complain of in the Life is what 
 we have always felt to be a drawback to Landor's 
 greatness, and that is miscellaneousness. Landor had 
 great force without much definite purpose. He was 
 a man of speculation, but it seems to have been 
 frittered away, not uselessly by any means, but in the 
 production of small miscellaneous effects. He had no 
 system in his works, and the purport of his teaching 
 it would be difficult to determine. His merit is in 
 the incessant coruscation of bright reflection, and 
 thoughtful, wise suggestion. But in extenuation, if 
 the word can be applied to such a splendid error, it 
 must be remembered that Landor did not pretend to 
 be a philosopher, but a poet. His genius was re- 
 flectively imaginative, not imaginatively reflective. No 
 one but a poet would have been so contemptuous of 
 science, so critically capricious as to the exactness of 
 the English language ; and no one but a poet could 
 have written such admirable prose. In many ways 
 it will compare with some of Bacon's best efforts. 
 There are the same new maxims, which embody 
 truths known for centuries, but never said before ; 
 large generalisations, which seem to be balances weigh- 
 ing the whole universe, or seem to be intellectual 
 telescopes which allow us to see the whole heavens 
 in an object-glass of a few inches diameter. The 
 <nne deft word-handling of great problems, and the 
 happy disposition of the most fortuitous figures, which 
 show the graphic side of gigantic questions, are found 
 I. G
 
 9 8 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 in both authors. But mere description of such qualities 
 of style is useless without adequate illustrations of the 
 pith of sense which lies in his close sentences. Here, 
 however, we cannot quote, and, indeed, it would be 
 impossible to show in a few sentences the worth of 
 the seven volumes which comprise this edition of his 
 works. It was equally impossible for Mr. Forster to 
 show what the real contents of Landor's works are in 
 his introductory biography ; but we think it fair 
 ground for complaint that he does not exactly body 
 forth the man as we should wish readers to know 
 him. We feel that it is a picture in which there is 
 some delicate limning and some clever touches, but 
 we cannot feel that it is the man. Some charac- 
 teristics are dwelt upon ; thus, his great, open, joyous 
 laugh, which threw back his head and taxed the 
 resources of his lungs, is described ; his love for 
 Pomero the dog, and his sorrow when Pomero died, 
 and the curious retentiveness of his rich memory, are 
 alluded to ; but these traits do not give us the living 
 man. Still, most of the facts are before us, and 
 although we in some places regret the biographer's 
 reticence, we cannot censure it. One thing seems 
 certain from a consideration of Landor's life, and it 
 is that he would have been a better man if he had 
 had less of his own way. He required the authority 
 of stern principles to keep him in order, and had he 
 been trained to endure some irksome dictation he 
 would have been a happier man. Whether he would 
 have achieved more in literature it is impossible to 
 say. His achievements, as may be gathered even 
 from this short summary, are far from inconsiderable, 
 but in some aspects his life is very sad to contem- 
 plate. Not that it is uncommon for great men to 
 find the world a hard task-master and the world's 
 ways woeful enough ; and, as Landor himself says, 
 "those who are not quite satisfied are the benefactors
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 99 
 
 of the world." But Landor, as we have seen, although 
 a truly great man — a writer of valiant books which 
 the wise in all times will find friendly companions — 
 was disproportionately occupied by all the little troubles 
 of his life, and now seems to have obtained from 
 most men, if not for his errors — which survive in 
 memory — at least for his works, which few care to 
 read — oblivion. If his career is not a sad story, we 
 know not which of the tragedies of literature and 
 men of letters — and these are a tragic class — merit 
 the name.
 
 IV 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 1 
 
 Michael Angelo, the greatest of the great men of 
 a great age, has had a long line of biographers. 
 There was much in the life of that most remarkable 
 man to invite the pens of writers, and a great many 
 biographies of that incomparable artist have, from 
 time to time, been given to the world. Even without 
 the exaggeration and unauthentic reminiscences of 
 Vasari and Condiri, who had opportunities of better 
 information and more accurate narration, there is 
 enough in the true story of his career to command 
 attention and interest. He himself as a man is 
 wonderfully attractive. His marvellous genius enabled 
 him, not only to become the greatest sculptor of 
 modern times, and to paint the frescoes of the Sistine, 
 which taught a lesson even to Raphael, but also to 
 excel all the architects of his time by his airy achieve- 
 ment, the cupola of St. Peter's. But even these works 
 do not show the full extent of his versatility. He was 
 not only the sculptor of " Moses," not only the painter 
 of the "Last Judgment," not only the sketch builder 
 of the beautiful dome which was modelled by Giovanni 
 Franzese, but he was, when the policy of Leo X. made 
 it expedient to encourage the excavation of marble in 
 Tuscany, a capable quarryman and engineer, and, 
 when the need of Florence called for defences against 
 
 1 " Life and Works of Michael Angelo Buonaroti," by Charles Heath Wilson ; 
 the Life partly compiled from that of Commend. Aurelio Gotti, Director of the 
 Royal Galleries of Florence. London: Murray, 1876.
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 101 
 
 the powerful allies of Medici, Michael Angelo became, 
 under the compulsion of patriotism, a military engineer, 
 and constructed bastions and embrasures with adequate 
 skill. He could wield not only the brush, and the 
 chisel and the plumb-line, but the pen ; and his letters 
 are written in clear, straightforward prose which shapes 
 his meaning with accuracy and force, while his verses 
 show that he had no mean powers of poetic imagi- 
 nation. Few men have shown genius in so many 
 quarters, few men have achieved greatness in so many 
 departments of art. But even were his doings less con- 
 siderable, his character is of no small interest. He 
 was by no means perfect. Though commonly of calm 
 demeanour, he had a volcanic temper which broke the 
 blunt crust of his ordinary courtesy, sometimes even 
 in the presence of the great. It was this temper 
 which led to the fierce blow of Pietro Torrigiani which 
 broke Michael Angelo's nose and disfigured him for 
 life. It was this temper which led him to insult 
 Leonardo da Vinci. It was this temper which 
 induced him, when Pope Julius asked him when he 
 would have done with the Chapel (the Sistine), to 
 answer gruffly, "When I shall be able," and brought 
 the Pope's cane upon his head. It was this temper 
 which made him write the angry and impatient letter 
 to his nephew Leonardo, which is dated July 1544, 
 and which brought other troubles upon him. Hume 
 aid that his own happy disposition was better worth 
 having than y.'iooo a year, and, if that is so, the fret- 
 fulness o! Michael Angelo might be equivalent to a 
 considerable pecuniary deficit. Hut tins rugged side 
 oi I11-. greal nature is compensated for by his loyalty, 
 
 obedii nee, and kindness to a somewhat greedy, exact- 
 ing, and unappreciating father; by his kindness to Ins 
 
 brothers; by In. warm friendship for many who knew 
 
 Ins worth; and by his geiieioii, -ill. to many who 
 
 were ignorant of his generosity. Me was an inde-
 
 io2 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 fatigable worker, a brave and self-denying liver, a gene- 
 rous giver, and, with all his foibles, a truly great man. 
 He not only did great work which deserved great 
 praise, but he was in truth a successful man. He 
 earned his reward in his lifetime, and had not to 
 leave it to other centuries to do that justice to his merit 
 which had been withheld by his own. It is true he 
 complains much of the tardy payments of the Popes ; 
 but though some of his employers doubtless cozened 
 him, he made money, and, it is evident, must have 
 invested very considerable sums in land. Greatness is 
 not always a match for the light-fingered world ; 
 but Michael Angelo seems to have been a capable 
 man of business, and to have held his own. He 
 commanded the respect of popes and princes — the 
 admiration of many, the love of some ; and all the 
 honours which could be bestowed upon him were 
 unstintingly conferred. 
 
 Yet with all these sources of gratification Michael 
 Angelo was not a happy man. He had a mission, 
 and that was to bring men out of marble. This, 
 however, he was not allowed to achieve. Pope Julius 
 II. at first commissioned Michael Angelo to design 
 and sculpture his monument, and the artist promised 
 that, when completed, it should " be without its equal 
 in the world." This was his profession ; here he was 
 working with the grain. But for some unexplained 
 cause — for, as Mr. Wilson points out, the jealousy of 
 Bramante is not sufficient to account for it — the 
 Pope changed his mind, and would spend no more 
 money on his monument. Michael Angelo left Rome, 
 and it was with difficulty that he was persuaded to 
 return to the Pope's service. When he did accede 
 to the Pope's wishes and went to Bologna, he was 
 ordered to make a statue of the Pope in bronze. 
 With difficulty, and after some disappointing failure, the 
 work was completed, and the statue was erected
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 103 
 
 over the door of San Petronio. Then Michael Angelo 
 was summoned to Rome by the Pope, and in- 
 formed that he was not to go on with the monu- 
 ment, but to paint in fresco the vault of the Sistine 
 Chapel in the Vatican. He protested that "painting 
 was not his profession," and suggested that the com- 
 mission should be given to Raphael ; but it was no 
 use. Even after the completion of these incomparable 
 works, he was not allowed to return to his favourite 
 art. The discovery of marble in the mountains of 
 Serravezza induced Leo X. and Cardinal de Medici 
 to insist on Michael Angelo having recourse to the 
 Tuscan rather than the Carrara quarries. Thus he 
 was employed not only as the architect of the front 
 of San Lorenzo at Florence, but in road-making and 
 quarrying in the mountains of Tuscany. It is not 
 to be wondered at that, at this time, he complains 
 that " I die with vexation from not being able to 
 do that which I would do but for my evil fortune." 
 Freed from this unworthy labour, he resumed, at scant 
 intervals, his chisel. Even in these brief periods of 
 unmolested time, however, his achievements were great. 
 He worked with extraordinary energy and rapidity. 
 The flakes of marble fell quickly before his vigorous 
 hand, and the living statue stood confessed. With 
 wanton folly Piero de Medici, it is said, once employed 
 Michael Angelo to make a statue of snow; but when 
 lie was at work on the hard marble, it seemed snow 
 under his hand. All through his life, however, he 
 w,h forced to work at tilings "not his profession." 
 
 The design of the monument of Julius 11. was re- 
 peatedly changed, tor it was found that tin- exigencies 
 and jealousies of his successors, and the amount of 
 tunc .it Michael Angelo's disposal, would not permit 
 of it being carried out. But even the curtailed and 
 modified designs made »low progress. Michael Angelo, 
 nil protesting thai architecture "was not his pro-
 
 io 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 fession/' was employed to design the Laurentian Library. 
 After Florence, in spite of brave resistance, to which 
 the artist, as we have seen, contributed, had fallen 
 again under the power of the Medici, Michael Angelo 
 resumed his work upon the monuments of the Medici, 
 and executed the " Dawn," which rests on the tomb 
 of Lorenzo, and the " Night," which is scarcely more 
 cheerless than the "Dawn." But Paul III. came to 
 the Papal throne, and Michael Angelo had, against 
 his will, to paint the " Last Judgment," in the Sistine 
 Chapel. He completed it when he was sixty-six years 
 of age, but even then there was comparatively uncon- 
 genial work ready to his hand. In the same year 
 Sangallo completed the Pauline Chapel, and the Pope 
 was desirous that it should be painted by Michael 
 Angelo on one side with a picture representing the 
 crucifixion of St. Peter, and on the other the conver- 
 sion of St. Paul. The anxiety of Michael Angelo to 
 continue and complete the long-delayed monument of 
 Julius was of no avail, and the great artist had again 
 to turn his hand to the uncongenial work of frescoes, 
 which, as he complains in one of his letters, is not 
 the labour for an old man. But there is a monotony 
 about the obstructions which are thrown in the way 
 of his dearest wishes which becomes tedious. We 
 find him, even in his advanced age, working on the 
 fortifications of Rome, on the Farnese Palace, and 
 finally crowning his life and making an altogether 
 exceptional and new reputation, by his design for the 
 cupola of St. Peter's. It is a long history of unwilling 
 work, which, however reluctantly undertaken, is always 
 honestly and admirably executed. 
 
 Some of Michael Angelo's actions have to be looked 
 at in the light of his correspondence to be thoroughly 
 understood, and it is easy to garble his statements and 
 to misrepresent portions of his conduct. Thus, he 
 left Florence at a very critical time. It was a time
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 105 
 
 when Florence had need for all her citizens — a time 
 when the city, in a throe to be free, was waging an 
 unequal war. Besides, the city had shown its great 
 confidence in Michael Angelo by asking him to under- 
 take the fortifications of her walls, and by nominating 
 him as a member of the Committee of Nine. Yet 
 thus Nardi speaks of Michael Angelo's flight : " Michael 
 Angelo and Rinaldo Corsini were of one mind, and 
 for fear of the war absented themselves from Florence, 
 as often happens from human weakness, but, repenting, 
 they returned." So it has come down to us that this 
 man, so valiant with all the weapons of art, was a 
 coward ! But not only have his true motives in re- 
 lation to his flight from Florence been misrepresented, 
 but the meaning of his departure from Rome, where 
 in 1556 the Duke of Alba brought his Spanish army 
 to the gates of the city, has been ascribed to the 
 same unworthy cause. He is represented as sharing 
 in the general terror, and as having " secretly " fled 
 from Rome. This account, we are glad to say, is 
 utterly incompatible with his clear letters written at 
 the time, and even with the facts of his conduct. It 
 is now certain that his flight from Florence was due 
 to a fear of secret assassination, not to a fear of death 
 in open war. Neither had his departure from Rome 
 for LorettO at a subsequent time anything to do with 
 poltroonery. His letter to his nephew, which is dated 
 list of October 1556, and his return to Rome while 
 danger was yet imminent, and while the Duke of 
 Alba's troops were still on the Campagna, negative 
 any sueh suspicion. But as there were those who 
 hated him during life, and would willingly have seen 
 him disgraced by his great masters the Popes, SO 
 
 there were those who since his death have done 
 
 much to throw di credil on Ins fair tame. Even his 
 
 biographer I have in in. my instances failed to do linn 
 justice.
 
 106 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Vasari states that during the siege of Florence 
 Michael Angelo " secretly worked at the sepulchres of 
 the Medici," which, if it were true, would throw doubt 
 upon his good faith to the city which had thrown out 
 the Medici and had taken up arms to prevent the return 
 of their magnificent tyranny. But this statement is 
 shown to be incorrect. Indeed, there are innumerable 
 exaggerated and inaccurate statements touching the 
 life of this great artist, which any competent biographer 
 must make it his duty to clear away. Mr. Wilson in 
 his life of Michael Angelo has set himself to do this. 
 He has had good means of information, and has made 
 excellent use of his opportunities. We have here a 
 careful and accurate life of Michael Angelo, and what 
 particularly strikes us with reference to the author's 
 capacity to undertake such a work is his judicial ability. 
 He is not a mere advocate who wishes to say the 
 best word for his client. He weighs and considers, 
 and endeavours always to speak the very truth. He 
 is an admirer of Michael Angelo, but he is conscious 
 that the great master can command admiration even 
 when his worst faults are fairly stated. He has, too, 
 a true appreciation of the merits and defects of Michael 
 Angelo's works. That is too rare a quality in a writer 
 of a life, who is usually colour-blind to the shades of 
 defect. But that is not so here. Mr. Wilson speaks 
 explicitly and correctly of the grave defects in the 
 Laurentian Library. It is too often taken for granted 
 that any work of a great master must be great. Even 
 Michael Angelo, who worked so many miracles in art, 
 could not design a perfect building without the lessons 
 which failures teach. The Laurentian Library is a 
 most disappointing performance, and while the corner 
 of the Farnese Palace is rich and magnificent, the upper 
 story, which was also designed by Michael Angelo, 
 shows that he had a meretricious desire for decorative 
 details without regarding constructive conditions. He
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 107 
 
 lost sight of utility and meaning of numbers in the 
 display of bizarre details for the mere purpose of orna- 
 mentation. But still, Michael Angelo was only learn- 
 ing the art of architecture, and nothing could have been 
 more exquisite than the proportions of the majestic 
 dome of St. Peter's, in which the details were simple, 
 and subordinated throughout to the purpose of the 
 whole. But, while he was learning to be the greatest 
 architect of his age, he was possibly unlearning his 
 skill as a painter — not the mere hand-skill which 
 seconds the efforts of the quick brain and ready eye, 
 but the larger skill which constitutes the true artist. 
 Mr. Wilson shows how much the "Last Judgment" 
 falls short of the earlier frescoes of the Sistine in rever- 
 ence, and how the later frescoes of the Pauline Chapel 
 are evidently the product of failing powers. It cannot 
 be doubted that here we find manner instead of style ; 
 we find the confident artist painting from memory and 
 not from immediate study, and we find an even greater 
 want of that seemly reverence which had clothed all 
 the admirable work of his youth. In the "Last Judg- 
 ment" Christ is an athlete, and the Virgin an apathetic 
 dame. In the "Conversion of St Paul" the figure of 
 the Saviour is remarkable for nothing but the clever 
 application of the art of foreshortening. But these 
 are not the qualities of great art. It is strange that 
 so devout, so Christian a man as Michael Angelo should 
 have become so irreverent in the studio. In his early 
 works there is the deepest sentiment. The Pieta which 
 he executed for the Cardinal of St. Denis is the ten- 
 deresl stone - work in the world. It is instinct with 
 truth to nature and truth to tin- moral and religions 
 nature of man. The " Madonna and Child " at Bruges, 
 too, 1-. of tins period of his life and ot this high phase of 
 his ,ut. lint thai was probably executed in 1498, and 
 in 1521 he sculptured his "Christ" foi Metello Varj 
 which, incomparable as a work ot art, is also incom-
 
 108 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 parable as a work of degraded religious sentiment and 
 of heartless irreverence. It is incomprehensible how 
 so devout a man could have fallen into such grave 
 errors — errors of bad taste they must appear even to 
 those who do not share Michael Angelo's religious be- 
 liefs. But we dwell too long on these defects, and 
 say too little of his stupendous merits. All we could 
 say would fall far short of an adequate estimate of 
 such works as his " David," which was placed in front 
 of the Palace of the Signory at Florence, and which 
 has been in the Academy of Fine Arts in that city 
 since 1873; or as his "Moses," which is perhaps the 
 greatest work of modern sculpture. Even a description 
 of his cartoon for the mural painting in the ancient 
 palace of the Municipality of Florence — which in the 
 work before us extends over several careful pages — 
 gives but a poor and inadequate impression of the 
 excellence of that great work. 
 
 An interesting question presents itself for considera- 
 tion and possible answer in connection with Michael 
 Angelo's works in stone. Did he revive an ancient 
 art, and equal the great masters who had perfected it in 
 Greece, or did the art of the Renaissance differ from 
 that of the earlier civilisation ? There is certainly a 
 wide difference between the art of Michael Angelo 
 and that bequeathed to us by the earlier times. The 
 latter are more perfectly beautiful, the former more 
 tragic. The Greeks were perfect delineators of ex- 
 quisite forms, but there is a picturesqueness, an energy, 
 about the possibly more rugged creations of Michael 
 Angelo which is wanting to these. We admire and 
 wonder at the beauty of the former, we sympathise 
 with the latter. The sculptures of the ancients had an 
 ideal beauty of limb and form ; but the sculptures of 
 Michael Angelo had hearts and brains. The former 
 appeal to dilettanti and artists, the latter appeal to 
 men. There is beauty in the marbles of Greece, there
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 109 
 
 is passion in the marbles of Michael Angelo. In this 
 way Michael Angelo founded a school of art, a school 
 which appealed to men, not through the sense of 
 beauty merely, but through the emotions. Faces were 
 no longer to be merely beautiful, but were to be full 
 of purpose. Just as the old days, which brought 
 the art of the ancients to perfection, differed from the 
 modern days in which Michael Angelo lived, so did 
 the two art products differ. 
 
 There are one or two personal traits in Michael 
 Angelo's character which must not be overlooked. 
 He seemed in some sense incapable of founding a 
 school in the real sense of the word. Raphael left 
 pupils who were able to continue his beautiful works. 
 But Michael Angelo seems to have had difficulties 
 with most of his assistants. It is true that, like all 
 great artists of his time, he had recourse to the help 
 of others. It seems certain that considerable portions 
 of the frescoes in the vault of the Sistine Chapel were 
 executed by other hands than his, and we know that 
 many of his statues were finished by other sculptors. 
 Hut he never formed a school. All schools profited 
 by his art, but none was founded on it. His 
 irascibility may, to some extent, account for his 
 inability to attach men to himself. Only one of his 
 assistants, Francesco d'Urbino, seems to have re- 
 mained with him for a long time, although it seems 
 doubtful, from various documents, whether he was 
 faithful in Michael Angelo's service. However, when 
 In- died, his master mourned truly and deeply for him. 
 When Michael Angelo himself passed away, leaving ;i 
 model of St. Peter's which it ought to have been a 
 pride for his successors in the office of architect to 
 < arry out, his plans and purposes were modified, as 
 Sangallo had modified those of Bramante and as 
 Michael Angdo himself modified those of Sangallo. 
 Still, although his dead hand could nol direct the
 
 no CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 completion of St. Peter's, it has directed the exertions 
 of many of the best artists since his time, and indeed 
 the best that has been done in sculpture since his day, 
 m;iy be said to be due to Michael Angelo. Thus he 
 has a school of pupils even now, and all who want 
 to know what modern art can accomplish, all who 
 wish to accomplish anything considerable in modern 
 art, must apprentice themselves to Michael Angelo.
 
 BLEAK HOUSE (Dickens) 
 
 The currency, in passing from hand to hand, becomes 
 defaced as to its "image and superscription," and in 
 time it has to return to the mint. But if this is true 
 with regard to our gold coins, a similar observation 
 is true in respect of the currency of opinions, and it 
 is well that, from time to time, the verdicts which 
 have been given on men and books, and which have 
 become part of the floating capital of opinion, should 
 be reconsidered and revised. And this is true, not 
 only of the views we have accepted ready-made at 
 the questionable hands of authority, but of the opinions 
 we ourselves may have formed at a former period. 
 The estimate of a work of art depends not on the 
 inherent merits of the work itself, but upon the culture 
 of the person who is the critic. If you put one of 
 George Meredith's novels or one of Browning's best 
 poems into the hands of a child who has just learned 
 to read, the appreciation of these must be puerile, and 
 the criticism silly. And if that young reader never 
 revisits these gorgeous haunts, this crude opinion may 
 remain in a disgusted memory. In such a case there 
 is evidently ground for what lawyers call a new trial, 
 an appeal from the callow reader to the mature 
 student, from the child who knew nothing oi life, or 
 men and women, to the man who has, it may be pre- 
 nmed, learned something from dictating experience 
 
 It is for these reasons that cases in literature take 
 as long to determine in the chancery of opinion as
 
 ii2 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 the famous case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce did in the 
 rumbling and tardy Court of Chancery in the time of 
 Dickens, and that, even in the case of that great 
 writer himself, it is worth while to have his claim 
 upon admiration re-stated, and the weight of his merits 
 again weighed in the balance. 
 
 Dickens is described in encyclopaedias and like 
 places as "the great English novelist," and certainly, 
 if we measure his greatness by the extent of his 
 contributions to the library of fiction, the epithet is 
 deserved. He has, too, secured a firm hold upon a 
 certain reading public, which of itself may constitute 
 greatness. M. Taine points to Dickens's boundless 
 wealth of imagination as his merit; but many readers 
 would, we think, although admitting Taine's criticism, 
 rather lay stress upon his careful observation, and 
 his microscopic attention to details, especially the 
 details which provoke laughter. But the question 
 still remains, Was Dickens a great English novelist ? 
 and in our view the answer to that question must 
 be in the negative. There is always a danger to 
 accuracy in taking too comprehensive a view of a man's 
 work : at the same time, injustice might well be done 
 to a writer, by selecting as the basis of an estimate 
 one of his worst productions, although even a man's 
 worst work is a window which allows you to see 
 into the man. 
 
 To reconsider and revise my estimate of Charles 
 Dickens, I have re-read "Bleak House." It is one 
 of his best works, written at a time when he had 
 established his reputation, and it is, in my view, 
 exceedingly characteristic of the man. Its pages 
 display him at his best and his worst as a writer. 
 His merits and his methods, in all his works, are 
 those that are to be found in this very elaborate 
 novel. It is, as many of his works were, a novel 
 not with a problem but with a purpose, for Dickens
 
 BLEAK HOUSE 113 
 
 posed as a reformer as well as a writer. The high 
 purpose of this book was, we take it, Law Reform. 
 He had seen, as many others had, that the " law's 
 delays " were exceedingly tardy, and that suits in 
 the Court of Chancery might and did go on for 
 years, and that litigation, which is too often the result 
 of grasping greed, of arid avarice, might result in 
 the deterioration of the characters of those who 
 played at that costive and costly game. The book 
 is all about Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, and the moral is, 
 that by a system of legal administration which is 
 tedious and expensive, the whole substance of a 
 great estate which is in dispute may be eaten up 
 in costs, and that the cormorant profession which 
 lives and flourishes on the carcases claims to be an 
 ornament to the nation. All that it would seem to 
 teach, then, is that the processes are too slow, although 
 Mr. Jarndyce's conduct might seem deliberately to 
 inculcate the lesson that it is wrong to go to law 
 at all. But that, except for the purposes of fun, 
 could not be the writer's moral. Of course, although 
 the suit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce is as it were the 
 thready canvas upon which all the coloured stitches 
 of his wool-work picture are worked, we really 
 learn nothing as to the suit itself — as to why it took 
 so long to dispose of the issue, or as to how the 
 processes of Lincoln's Inn or Westminster Hall are 
 to be expedited. There is, of course, no suggestion 
 .1-, to what is to be done. We see the victims 
 or get glimpses of the victims of the suit : Tom 
 Jarndyce, who blew his brains out — I suppose be- 
 cause lie was tired of waiting ; the wards in farn- 
 dyce v. Jarndyce, kichard, who is so weak a youth 
 that he will do nothing at the professions he tries Ins 
 hand at, and yet wastes his own money and Ada's 
 money in the hopeless quesl for the fortune which 
 is going drop by drop in to the legal profession, Kenge 
 I. 11
 
 ti 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 and Carboy, Vholes, and the rest. We have inci- 
 dentally the evils of the system pointed out by illus- 
 trations of the mad Miss Flite — who is not really 
 mad at all — and the folly of the u man from Shrop- 
 shire," who dies mock-tragically in George's shooting 
 gallery. But so far as the philanthropic purpose 
 of the book is concerned, that is all we have. Of 
 course Dickens knew that a Chancery suit would do 
 for the background of a story, but would not do 
 for the story itself. At the same time he is credited 
 with the authorship of works with a purpose, and to 
 some extent that is a detriment to his reputation, and 
 an injury to his success as a novelist. We acquit 
 him of having promoted the Judicature Act, but to 
 some careless readers a novel that furthered such a 
 reform, or called attention to a dirty system of can- 
 ning meat at Chicago, has a special right to our regard 
 as a novel, and it is that we deny. The novelist's pur- 
 pose should not be to teach the evils of a legal 
 system, or the haggard harshness of a poor law, or 
 the poisonous effect of capitalist trusts and combines; 
 his legitimate purpose is to tell a story, and in so 
 far as he forgets or neglects that duty of his pen, 
 he spoils the work of art which it is his duty to 
 produce. 
 
 We must try the writer, then, by his success as a 
 story-teller ; and as stories are about men and women, 
 the supreme art of the novelist is the production, upon 
 the stage of his page, of these. The more veritable 
 these are, the more true is the story. But although 
 stories are about men and women, they are about 
 men and women in the world, surrounded by an en- 
 vironment ; men and women not merely living, but 
 acting and being acted upon ; and therefore a novel 
 must be a history of events. The events will not 
 look as if they were real unless there are real men and 
 women in their maelstrom, but at the same time it is
 
 BLEAK HOUSE 115 
 
 the maelstrom with the human swimmer in its glassy 
 whirls, in the suck of fate which is in the funnel of 
 the pool, that makes the history. It is in this way 
 that a good novel must have a good plot, and so true 
 is this that many writers have sacrificed other qualities 
 of greatness to the intricacy of their designs. 
 
 A story which delights the young is one with " love 
 and fear and fighting in't," and such books are called 
 novels of incident ; and in many of them you find so 
 much made of the events, the happenings, that the 
 writer seems to have lost sight of the men and women 
 who have to play their parts. Dickens's plots were 
 intricate, for he knew that his readers had curiosity. 
 We are curious about the details of a murder, 
 although we know nothing about the persons con- 
 cerned in the squalid drama. But what is such 
 casual curiosity, satiated by a newspaper paragraph, 
 to a living interest in such a weird transaction carried 
 out to its dreadful issue by people we have known 
 and loved ? But the newspaper sells, and that is 
 enough for the publisher, and the novel of incident 
 a sudden and transient vogue, and that is often 
 enough for the author. 
 
 Take the plot of "Bleak House" as an illustration 
 of Dickens's method. Esther Summerson is the ille- 
 gitimate daughter of a lady, who, after the birth and 
 itter the supposed death of the child, marries Sir 
 Leicester Dedlock. The mother believes the child is 
 dead, but as a fact Esther is brought up somewhat 
 Cruelly by Lady Dedlock's forbidding sister, and is 
 ultimately adopted — it is not very clear why — by 
 Mi. [arndyce. Lady Dedlock is a very imperious 
 
 mty, but eems to have cherished some affection 
 for her seducer, an officer of the name of Hawdon. 
 
 Of him we know nothing but that when tin .o t ion 
 open-. In- 1^ living in a poor way by writing for a 
 law Stationer — Snagsby — and shortly afterwards dies
 
 n6 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of an overdose of laudanum. We have no interest in 
 him, although he is said to have been kind to Jo, 
 at one time a crossing-sweeper — and his death docs 
 not affect us to the extent of a sigh. But Lady 
 Dedlock, now for the tirst time for years, seems to 
 have some interest in her deceased lover, and visits 
 his poor grave in disguise under the guidance of Jo, 
 who seems to have retired from crossing-sweeping. 
 This is the pivot of the plot, such as it is. Mr. 
 Tulkinghorn, the family solicitor, sets himself to dis- 
 cover something, and with the assistance of a dismissed 
 lady's maid, Bucket the detective, and Jo, and a 
 bundle of Lady Dedlock's letters to the worthless 
 Hawdon, finds out everything. He threatens Lady 
 Dedlock to publish her secret, and going home to 
 his chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields he is shot through 
 the head — on the whole, deserving it. Then in comes 
 curiosity. "Who did it?" George is arrested for the 
 murder by Bucket, but all the facts point to Lady 
 Dedlock as the murderess. But of course she did 
 not commit the crime, and George, who is the harum- 
 scarum son of Mrs. Rouncewell, the housekeeper at 
 Sir Leicester's " place in Lincolnshire," and who is 
 now an exemplary old soldier, is also guiltless. It was 
 Hortense, the dismissed maid of Lady Dedlock, that 
 shot him ! A great many of the motives which were 
 meant to make the events hang together are quite 
 inadequate. George's detestation of Mr. Tulkinghorn 
 is quite uncalled for. The lawyer had offered him 
 £$ for some writing of the late Hawdon, which he 
 at first refuses, but afterwards accepts. Yet we hear 
 of him haunting the lawyer and threatening him. 
 Why ? No one knows, but it is obvious that it is 
 only to give a ground for the suspicions which lead 
 to his arrest. We must postpone the gratification 
 of curiosity — that is the art. Again, what induced 
 Lady Dedlock to be at Mr. Tulkinghorn's rooms in
 
 BLEAK HOUSE 117 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields just before the murder was com- 
 mitted ? It is impossible to say, except that it was 
 necessary for the plot to throw suspicion of the 
 murder upon her. But further, why Hortense should 
 have shot the lawyer, it is still harder to determine. 
 He had employed her once to come to his rooms 
 with Detective Bucket to have the disguise that Lady 
 Dedlock had used when she visited Hawdon's grave 
 identified by Jo, and had paid her two guineas for it. 
 She afterwards applies to him to find her a situation, 
 and when he declines she throws the two guineas at 
 him, and that, so far as the reader knows, is the 
 only reason why Hortense desires to take his life. 
 It is a serious outlook for those who keep Servants' 
 Registers if the failure to find employment for their 
 half-crown clients is to be punished with death. The 
 only explanation is that the French maid — who once 
 took off her shoes and walked through wet grass — is 
 madder than Miss Flite, but the real compelling fate 
 in the matter is the plot. Some one must kill Mr. 
 Tulkinghorn, suspicion must fall on George and on Lady 
 Dedlock, but they must, of course, both be innocent. 
 So some one must be got to do the deed, and there 
 is no one else but the dismissed maid, whose guilt is 
 discovered by the inimitable Bucket, with whose wife 
 Hortense has been lodging. So she is handcuffed 
 and walked away by the detective. We never hear 
 what became of her afterwards, and don't care, for 
 from the beginning we never had any i uteres! in her. 
 This silence, however, suggests that the criminal law 
 may be as dilatory as the Court of Chancery. But 
 now that Tulkinghorn is gone the secret is, of course, 
 sure to come nut, and Lady Dedlock leaves the 
 house 'it Sir Leicester — of course in the worst <>l 
 weather-, -trudges to St. Albans to see her child, 
 changes her clothes with a woman called Jenny, 
 trudges back again i" London i<> die on the worthle
 
 1 1 8 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 grave of the worthless Hawdon. But although that 
 is an outline of the main plot — I think Dickens 
 would have called it a tragic plot — there are other 
 plots in the book. There is Ada's love affair with 
 Richard Carstone and their clandestine marriage. 
 There is Richard's "decline and fall" in the meshes 
 of the suit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, and his death, 
 which, although it is meant to be sad, is not a bit 
 affecting. No one misses him but his silly wife, who 
 is always spoken of as " my darling pet," " my sweet 
 girl," by Miss Esther Summerson, whose pen is 
 supposed to write half the book in precisely the same 
 style as the author's own half. Then there is the 
 subsidiary plot of Allan Woodcourt's love for Esther 
 and her engagement to her guardian Mr. Jarndyce — 
 an angel in smalls — and all these plots are supposed 
 to keep up a languid interest in the reader through 
 the very lengthy narrative. Some people would call 
 it an excellent plot, but it is in our view full of flaws 
 and blunders. 
 
 But the story principally fails in its pathos. It is 
 meant to be full of pathetic situations, of heartrending 
 scenes, but they are all so unreal as to have no effect 
 on an intelligent reader. The ghost that walks the 
 terrace in Sir Leicester Dedlock's " place in Lincoln- 
 shire " is the unrealest ghost in literature, and that 
 is saying a good deal ; but Dickens's pathos is unrealer 
 than the ghost. The pathetic is continually attempted, 
 but never comes off. He prepares the way for the 
 pathos of Mr. Tulkinghorn's death by working up to 
 the situation in a page or two of prophetic warnings. 
 Mr. Tulkinghorn had informed Lady Dedlock that 
 he was going home. He compares his watch with a 
 clock in the staircase and says, "What do you say?" 
 Then the author begins to work up the agony. "If 
 it said, now, Don't go home," and the watch would be 
 returning good for evil, if it ticked "Don't go home,"
 
 BLEAK HOUSE 119 
 
 and so on for a page or two to work the reader up 
 to a high-strung pitch of agonised suspense — but when 
 the shot is fired no one cares for the tragic end of 
 the lawyer. We are asked, as it were, to sympathise 
 and cannot. Even when the angelic heroine, Esther 
 Summerson, loses her good looks after the small-pox, 
 and feels it as a girl naturally would, we are indifferent. 
 There is supposed to be pathos in Miss Flite, in her 
 waiting for a judgment and her promise to give free- 
 dom to her birds and " bestow estates " when the judg- 
 ment is given, but there is really nothing that touches 
 the heart in the poor little woman, who only wears 
 eccentricity — and spurious eccentricity at that — as a 
 cloak. "Guster's" fits are only the subject of fun to 
 the writer. Jo, as we have said, who is meant to be 
 a harrowing character, is really a grotesque figure of 
 poverty. Richard Carstone's " decline and fall " and 
 death is not a bit pathetic ; Lady Dedlock's curious 
 escapade and death is not tragic. The death of Gridley, 
 the man from Shropshire, is only theatrical. The only 
 things in the book that have a touch of deep feeling in 
 them are Sir Leicester Dedlock's waiting for the return 
 of his wife, when he knew all the story of her shame, 
 ;ind Mr. Jarndyce's preparations for Esther's happiness 
 with the man she loves in the new Bleak House. 
 
 Now, how does this come about in the hands of a 
 man who has observed much, and who has deservedly 
 attained such a high reputation as a novelist? The 
 fact is that Dickens was not a great novelist, but 
 he was undoubtedly a great humorist writing novel,. 
 It is in consequence of that fact that his charac- 
 ters are caricatures -a collection of wax figures. 
 
 Tins novel is an interminable iaree. Snagsby, Chad- 
 band, Guppy, Skimpole, Boythorn, Smallweed, "Phil," 
 Mrs. Jellyby, Mr. Turveydrop, are all characters in 
 the farce. The more ridiculous they are tin- funniei 
 they are. It is this thai makes the whole atmosphere
 
 120 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of the book unreal. He plays with his story through 
 pages and pages of farcical fun of the broadest sort, 
 but it is play and not business. He can write excellent 
 English, and use words in the masterful way which 
 shows the artist. A hundred instances where words 
 are laid on one another which produce an idea could 
 be quoted which show the artist's hand. He speaks 
 of Volumnia as a "tuckered sylph." He says of 
 Bucket that he gave his nose "one triumphant rub," 
 but every page almost has some deft phrase which 
 creates an image ; but on the other hand, as a professed 
 funny man, he makes too much play with phrases which 
 have no real meaning, and only get a mechanical 
 funniness from their repetition, like Jo's " I know 
 nothink," like the " deportment " of Turveydrop, the 
 " Shake me up " and the " Brimstone parrot " of 
 Smallweed, or the "Discipline must be maintained" 
 of Bagnet. Yet no one can deny the humour of many 
 of the scenes— the entourage at Mrs. Jellyby's, the 
 " improving of the occasion " by the oily Chadband 
 at Mrs. Snagsby's entertainment, Mr. Guppy's with- 
 drawal of his pretensions to the hand of Esther Sum- 
 merson, or the renewal of his addresses in the irate 
 presence of Mrs. Guppy, his mother, who insists upon 
 every one "getting out." These, and a dozen other 
 instances, are examples of Dickens's best farce style. 
 But it is nothing more. Indeed we may say of those 
 who have read his pages, as he says of the people who 
 were streaming out of the court at Westminster after 
 the great suit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce had collapsed, 
 " Still they were all exceedingly amused, and were more 
 like people coming out from a fair or a juggler than 
 from a court of justice." That Dickens had genius 
 none can doubt, but it was the genius of the comic 
 artist. He is the " Little Swills " of literature, and while 
 such art can keep people on the grin, it is not equal 
 to the production of a fateful romance or a great novel.
 
 BLEAK HOUSE 121 
 
 Indeed, although fun has a legitimate place in such 
 literature, it must be kept within some bounds, and 
 made subordinate to the main purpose of the tale. 
 In " Bleak House" the comic muse usurps the stage. 
 
 We mentioned the tight corners he was driven into 
 by the exigencies of plot when he had to make the 
 characters George, Lady Dedlock, and Hortense act 
 without adequate motives. Such an action without 
 roots seems and is unnatural, and makes the character 
 unnatural too, and that, as we have seen, is the worst 
 sin that a writer of a real novel can commit. It is a 
 mere peccadillo in a writer of farcical romance. But 
 Dickens is careless at other times. Why he makes 
 Lady Dedlock go and die on the grave of Hawdon 
 we may conjecture. All the evidence is against the sup- 
 position that she had any affection for that vague 
 opium-eating love. She had apparently had no com- 
 munication with him for years. But that might be 
 forgiven by hearts which are always willing to forgive 
 even unnatural affection in other hearts. But why 
 Lady Dedlock should go to the Snagsbys' servant 
 Guster, of the fits, whom, so far as we know, she had 
 never seen or heard of, and entrust a letter to her con- 
 taining her " last words and dying confession," when 
 she might have posted it, it is impossible to conjecture. 
 How the inscrutable Bucket, miles away from London, 
 came to the conclusion that she had done so, is equally 
 a mystery ; and why the detective and Dr. Allan Wood- 
 court should rob Guster of the letter while she was 
 in a lit also requires explanation and apology. Here-, 
 again, that hard taskmaster, Plot, may have forced 
 him to these expedients. We are not inclined to 
 blame Dickens for having called to his aid the <|iies- 
 tionable theory ol "spontaneous combustion/' because 
 111 the year 1IS51 2 that was to some extent, although 
 on ridiculously insufficient grounds, believed in. Bui 
 we would question die filthy details ol Krook's death.
 
 122 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 That " spontaneous combustion " should fill the air 
 with the smell of cooking chops is a possible but not 
 poetical hypothesis, but that it should smear the 
 window-sills with fatty matter could be true to fact 
 we do not believe, and it is disgusting as a matter of 
 taste. But these are small matters, and all could be 
 forgiven if Dickens had taken his art seriously, and 
 tried first of all to make men and women instead of 
 funny puppets — if he had been in earnest to begin 
 with and funny afterwards : but he has reversed the 
 process and been funny first — and amongst all the 
 comic characters which make the grinning face sore, 
 he has tried to throw some real people to give the book 
 a look of the world. But he has failed. Jarndyce, Esther 
 Summerson, Ada, Clair, are all angels, but they are 
 not human angels, and it is these we want in a book, 
 if we are to love them and admire them. Their tawdry 
 perfection leaves our hearts cold. He has failed of 
 that magic which can make us love his people, because 
 he has failed to make them real flesh and blood as 
 we are. And so with all our admiration for Dickens, 
 "Bleak House" leaves us with a sense of disappoint- 
 ment.
 
 VI 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES » 
 
 To one class of readers there are few more in- 
 teresting biographies than those of actors ; to another 
 there is scarcely any kind of reading that is more 
 dull and vapid than the iterative history of stage 
 triumphs. To the former the stage door, although it 
 may be in a dark alley, is the entrance to the land 
 of romance. The foot and top lights make a poetical 
 day on the green sward of the thin carpet — the 
 canvas trees never shed their leaves in the palsying 
 autumn ; the paper snow brings no chilblains ; the 
 "rosined lightnings" kill no cattle and blast no trees; 
 the screeching rain wets not ; and the sun does not 
 scorch. Then there are pleasant mimic circles of 
 society in this world, and strange transformations. A 
 draggled miss who has come mud-spotted from the 
 filthy streets — in the crucible of the green-room he- 
 roines transformed into a fairy, all clad in a mist of 
 calyx-like petticoats. A sallow man, with pale sunken 
 < heeks and haggard lines of woe on his thin flesh, 
 soon comes smiling on the scene, and laughs in such 
 a way that every one who hears feels the infection of 
 fun, and the house resounds with merriment. A 
 woman with a somewhat tawdry character, who conns 
 to the theatre in a brougham, and who has been 
 heard to swear, goes upon the stage so artless, so 
 
 1 " M.i< ready 1 1 Reminiscence , and Selections from In • Diaries and 
 Letters." Edited l>y Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart, one <>i his Executors, 
 In two volunx I >ndon, i s 7 5 .
 
 i2 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 innocent, so demure, that to the ready sympathies of 
 the crowd, the villain, whose confidence they have, 
 seems doubly wicked to entertain foul thoughts of so 
 pure a maiden. All this is romance. But further, 
 here one sees the manners of many countries without 
 the toil of travel. One lives in many ages, and has 
 many lives in one's own little span. It is a world of 
 wonders, and to the young the lives of the men and 
 women who play the many parts are full of interest. 
 But the young have imagination, and the world has 
 not taught them its stern lessons of reality. The 
 man who has learned from the prosaic world — with 
 its grim features — some of its hard facts, loses interest 
 in the stage ; knows that half its effects are tricks ; to 
 him the light does not look like sunshine, and will 
 ripen no corn ; the trees will fetch nothing as timber ; 
 the jewels in his majesty's crown are nothing but 
 glass, and the lives of those people who strut about 
 in the trivial mimicry of the scene, even when they 
 are virtuous, are not worth writing, and when written 
 are not worth reading. To have re-told the slow 
 achievements of the actor in his loud career, has no 
 interest for them. The dim echo from the written 
 page of applause, which has long ceased to reverberate 
 in the world, is but sorry pastime. The mere mention 
 of the sums received by the actor, of the benefits 
 arranged for, of the casts in the plays, is dreary 
 reading to them. 
 
 In the " Reminiscences of Macready," however, 
 there is interest for both these classes. In these 
 written memories we find a man as well as an actor. 
 There is no mere theatrical model before us in these 
 pages, on which managers were wont to hang the 
 drapery of such characters as they had to "cast"; 
 but a man with a character of his own, which was a 
 power within its sphere, and which has served to 
 mould these reminiscences into a faithful likeness of
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 125 
 
 itself. No man can fail to have interest in man ; in- 
 deed there is no other interest that we know of 
 under the sun. All the books that are written, all 
 the sciences that are taught, all the pictures that are 
 painted, illustrate man and have a human interest. 
 In this aspect this autobiography has a double interest. 
 It is a story of the stage, and it is a well- written life of 
 a man. Here, then, there is pleasant reading for those 
 who love the poetry of art, and for those who desire 
 only a science of nature. 
 
 Macready was far more a man of the world than 
 an actor. He was a practical man of business as 
 well as an artist. Yet there was romance in his life, 
 as there is in every life, if we had but the eyes to 
 see it and the heart to understand. He was the son 
 of a somewhat impecunious lessee of theatres in 
 Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, and elsewhere, 
 and was born in London on the 3rd March 1793. 
 From a preparatory school at Kensington he was 
 removed to one in St. Paul's Square, Birmingham, at 
 that time kept by a Mr. Edgell. This man, choleric 
 and stupid as he was — and with no title to the 
 " Revd." which he prefixed to his name — had dis- 
 covered voice and expression in his pupil, and even 
 in those early days we find Macready reciting pieces 
 from "Enfield's Speaker." Macready's school re- 
 miniscences, whether they refer to Edgell's or to 
 Rugby, to which he was subsequently sent, differ but 
 little from those of other boys. He makes some 
 shrewd remarks as to the inefficiency of corporal 
 punishment, 1 and many of his stories told in con- 
 nection with the reminiscences of his school days, 
 -.how the error of the public school system of fagging 
 111 a strong light Surely the toleration of this 
 barbarous discipline has gone far enough! We have 
 seen the evil of trusting power, without stint, even to 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. i> p. 17.
 
 126 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 wise men, whose reputation is a pledge to society for 
 their right and humane use of tyranny ; why should 
 we go on allowing foolish boys to exercise unlimited 
 and cruel authority over their weaker neighbours ? 
 Why should we suffer a system of inhuman slavery, a 
 system by which stupid strength is allowed to inflict 
 wanton cruelties upon, and exact menial services from, 
 the sensitive weakness of others ? 
 
 Throughout his school career Macready showed 
 capacity. He was last but three on the school list 
 when he went to Rugby, and he attained the fifth 
 form in three years. In his day Dr. Inglis, a some- 
 what stern, inaccessible man, but one who commanded 
 his pupils' respect, was head-master, and he seems to 
 have discouraged Macready from going on the stage, 
 for here, as at Edgell's, his dramatic ability had 
 attracted attention. Here, too, he showed that he was 
 possessed not only of voice and the means of dis- 
 ciplining it, but of a perseverance which was certain 
 to prove the means of attaining ultimate distinction. 
 One thing is somewhat curious in this connection. 
 Notwithstanding his early and marked success in 
 recitation — a success which is well illustrated by a 
 note on a card or programme, which was held by 
 an old gentleman present upon the occasion of the 
 recitations on the annual speech day at Rugby 
 school, in June 1808 — which, opposite the printed 
 announcement, 
 
 " M'CREADY— Hamlet— Shakespeare," 
 
 runs as follow, " Surprisingly well indeed ; " notwith- 
 standing his success in the private theatricals which 
 were got up among the boys at school, he does not 
 seem to have become enamoured of his art. If there 
 is one well-known rule for liking, it is that men like 
 what they do well. And it is well it is so. What a 
 man can do that he is bound to do ! Every man
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 127 
 
 has a mission, and his credentials are written in his 
 capacity. That a man should like what he is capable 
 of, is not only natural but wise. In this way labour 
 becomes its own reward ; and the stubborn work of 
 early acquisition is requited by the delightful ease of 
 later execution. Yet, in this instance, Macready seems 
 to be an exception to that rule. He never seems to 
 have had any enthusiasm for his profession. 1 He 
 entered it without ardour, he prosecuted it without 
 satisfaction, he succeeded in it without pleasure, and 
 he retired from it without regret. In one place he 
 says, in speaking of his own acting — and he is a 
 
 1 To our thinking, he had too sensitive a conception of the unworthiness of 
 his calling. He harps upon drawbacks of his profession. Thus we find him 
 saying, " In other callings the profession confers dignity on the initiated ; on 
 the stage, the player must contribute respect to the exercise of his art. This 
 truth, experienced too late, has given occasion to many moments of depression, 
 many angry sweliings of the heart, many painful convictions of the uncertainty 
 of my position. I was not aware in taking it that this step in life was a 
 descent from that equality in which I had found myself to stand with those of 
 family and fortune whom our education had made my companions" (i. p. 27). 
 And he goes on to complain because an officer refused to fight a duel with him 
 because he was an actor, and that while barristers and clergymen are received 
 at court, players are not. This is one of the gravest faults we find in 
 Macready, and he is as candid about it as if it were his greatest virtue. lie 
 does not see that no profession can give dignity to the man, and that a real 
 man can give dignity to any honourable calling. Had he been thrust into a 
 profession which stunted his moral or intellectual growth instead of limiting his 
 social advancement, there might have been reason to complain. But an artist 
 ought to be above the jealousy of place. He had chosen a calling which gave 
 icope for all his ability, a calling which demanded from him an honourable 
 devotion, and which extorted from him nothing that a high-minded man 
 might not give ; and yet the idea that legally an actor would be described as a 
 vagabond, while a barrister might write esquire after his name, causes liim 
 moments of d n, and angry swellings of the heart. He knows thai 
 
 Shakespeare and Molii-rc would be in the same category ; yd even thai doe 
 
 not content him. Some officei has refused to fight him! All this is Li 
 
 , sensitive] \ man ought to know bettei than to firel about such 
 
 things; be ought to have an ambition above a presentation al a 1< 
 
 he ought to know that all the distinction which ocietj can confei on the 
 
 ot worth having, and that the real honours which are worthy oi him 
 
 arc to l>c conferred only by the man himself The crowd may put an idiot on 
 
 the throne, but cannot make him a kiiu; 1! hi 1 not one.
 
 128 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 most intelligent and just critic, both of his own 
 performances and those of others— " I oth October, 1836. 
 Acted Macbeth as badly as I did it well on Monday 
 last. The gallery was noisy, but that is no excuse 
 for me. I could not feel myself in the part ; I was 
 labouring to play Macbeth ; on Monday last I was 
 Macbeth." 1 Our impression is that Macready, for the 
 most part, "laboured" conscientiously and success- 
 fully to play his parts, and that he very seldom be- 
 came the character he assumed. We respect him as 
 one of the most talented actors that ever appeared on 
 the English stage, but we feel that he lacked genius. His 
 acting was always more calculating than abandoned. 
 His ease was the grace of study, not the freedom of 
 nature. He was always right in his conception, in 
 his estimate, in his attitudes, in his emphasis, but he 
 was always elaborate. It is somewhat disappoint- 
 ing to find him so loth to enter upon a career which 
 might be, and was in his case, made most honourable 
 as well as illustrious. He describes how he came 
 to determine upon his profession early in these re- 
 miniscences. His father was in difficulties, unable to 
 pay his son's school bills for the last half-year, and 
 Macready writes : " I was determined not to go back 
 to Rugby under such circumstances. What, then, 
 was to be done ? Would not my going on the stage 
 relieve my father from the further expense of my 
 education ? My expectations did not go beyond 
 this result." 2 Here is a wise, cool head upon young 
 shoulders. Still, a boy — for he was little more than 
 fifteen at that time — would be all the better for some 
 bold hopes. To relieve his father from the expense 
 of his further education— that is all he anticipates ! 
 The boy is choosing the life of an artist, and he 
 dares to hope for nothing more than that. He had, 
 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. ii. p. 51. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 26.
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 129 
 
 at least, a cool head ; and when, at the age of sixteen, 
 owing to his father's incarceration in Lancaster Castle 
 for debt, he was thrust, thus early, into the position 
 of manager of a theatre, it seems to have stood him 
 in good stead. His conduct in that capacity, both at 
 Chester and Newcastle, was wise and prudent. But 
 the responsibility weighed heavily on him, and he 
 was glad to relinquish the position upon his father's 
 release. Then comes the story of his first appearance 
 on the stage. The Birmingham play-bills announced 
 that "on Thursday evening, June 7th, will be pre- 
 sented the tragedy of 'Romeo and Juliet' (written by 
 Shakespeare). The part of Romeo by a young gentle- 
 man, being his first appearance on any stage." The 
 play seems to have gone well, and here, for the first 
 time, we find sparks of fine enthusiasm kindling in 
 him under the breath of applause. Having finished his 
 part he is asked, "Well, sir; how do you feel now?" 
 " I feel," he answered, " as if I should like to act it 
 all over again." 1 But the sparks never became flames. 
 This is the more curious, because Macready was not 
 a phlegmatic man. He had a temper which caused 
 much uneasiness in his home relations with his father, 
 from whom, indeed, he seems to have inherited his 
 irritable disposition. It led to some quick, harsh, and 
 regretted words addressed to those with whom he 
 was associated in his professional career. 2 It was the 
 cause of his attack upon the tormenting, insulting, 
 and disreputable manager and lessee of Drury Lane 
 (Mr. Bunn) ; and it was the occasion of the most 
 heartfelt regret and humiliation to its possessor, as is 
 amply proved by innumerable contrite passages in 
 these Reminiscences and Diaries. 9 He was not a man 
 in whom all lire was burned out ; he was not one of 
 
 those men of smouldering disposition, with slow thoughts, 
 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. i. p. ,)i. ■ [bid., vol. i. p. 360. 
 
 [bid., vol. ii. pp. 23, 25. 
 1. I
 
 i 3 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 dull feelings, and numb passions. He was quick of 
 thought. His feelings were warm and deep ; and his 
 passion of anger was fiercely and uncontrollably sudden. 
 Still he never was an enthusiast for his profession. 
 Few men have achieved so much on the stage ; few 
 actors carried with them into their retirement such 
 a high and clear name, not only as an artist of in- 
 comparable merit, as a manager of high purpose, who 
 had by conscientious labour regenerated the drama 
 and exalted the stage — but as a man of many virtues, 
 which were only outnumbered by the friends and 
 admirers which they had been the means of making. 
 Yet he never was satisfied with his public life. He 
 even admits his callousness. " How often," he says, 
 " have I envied in others, less fortunate than myself 
 in public favour, this passionate devotion to the stage. 
 To me its drawbacks were ever present." l And again, 
 when he is in Sheffield, in 1845, he writes in his 
 Diary, " Everything here makes me reflect. I see a 
 life gone in an unworthy and unrequiting pursuit. 
 Great energy, great power of mind, ambition, and 
 activity, that with direction might have done anything, 
 now made into a player." 2 To us, we confess, this 
 half-heartedness is sad enough. Life is a sorry game 
 if men will not play it with a zest. The work of the 
 world is drudgery to him who will not bring enthu- 
 siasm to his labour ; and art, without the love of it in 
 the heart of the artist, is little better than artifice. 
 Even failure ought not to make a brave man turn 
 disgusted from art ; but how much more ought a suc- 
 cessful man to be bound to it in affection and in love ! 
 How successful Macready was in his public life, 
 those who read these Reminiscences will very plea- 
 santly learn. The fresh, vigorous way in which he 
 has set his life before those for whom the Remi- 
 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 53. See also vol. i. p. 27. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 257.
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 131 
 
 niscences were intended is past praise. There is no 
 ostentation about his writing. It is simple and direct, 
 without beinu bald or stunted. Many of his criticisms 
 are acute and valuable. He never stints praise or 
 blame, either to himself or others. When tie praises, 
 there is merit to warrant it ; when he blames, there 
 is fault which is deserving of his censure. He is 
 never generous, to avoid the suspicion of being envious 
 of others ; he is never critical upon the performances 
 of others merely to show the excellence of his own. 1 
 No one could be a more severe self-censor than he. 
 The man was genuine, and these his Reminiscences 
 have the ring of truth. Lord Lytton— who was in 
 the chair at the farewell dinner given to Macready on 
 his retirement from the stage in 1851 — amongst other 
 true and admirable things said of him : " He was 
 original, because he never sought to be original, but 
 to be truthful ; because, in a word, he is as conscien- 
 tious in his art as he is in his actions." He was as 
 conscientious in these, his daily jottings and Reminis- 
 cences of the early part of his career upon the stage, 
 .1^ he was in his art and in his life. 
 
 We regret much that the Reminiscences only bring 
 the story of his life down to the year 1826. After thai 
 
 1 This is a pleasant specimen of easy criticism : " If Mrs. Siddons appeared 
 a personification of the tragic muse, certainly all the attributes of Thalia were 
 ■ joyously combined in Mrs. Jordan. With a spirit of fun that would have 
 out-laughed Puck himself there was a discrimination, an identity with her 
 character, on artistic arrangement of the scene, thai made all appeal sponta- 
 neous and accidental, though elaborated with the greatest care. Her voice wa 
 of the mosl melodious I ever heard, which she could vary by certain 
 
 would have disturbed the gravity of a Ih-rmil ; and who 
 that once heard that laugh of hers could ever forget il ! The words "I 
 Milman would have applied t" her, 'Oh, the words laughed on her lips.' 
 Mi . Nesbitt, the charming actress of a later day, had a fascinating powei 
 in tl ly ringing notes of her hearty mirth, hut Mrs. Jordan's laugh 
 
 was . 10 apparently irrepressible, so del usly self-enjoying, as to 
 
 ,: all times irresistible. I contagious power would have broken 
 down the conventional serenity oi Lord Chesterfield himself" ("Reminis- 
 cences," voL i- p. 63).
 
 1 32 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 date we have to trace his actions in the fragmentary 
 notes which he found time to make from day to day 
 in a very busy and, for an actor, a somewhat eventful 
 life. It is in these diaries we read of his taking 
 Covent Garden, of his management of that theatre, of 
 his failing hopes and diminishing balance, and ulti- 
 mately of his success. Here we get the details of his 
 visit to America and Paris, where he left a name and 
 reputation as high as that which he had earned in 
 England. Here also we get pleasant glimpses of his 
 home life, of his social circle, of his generous culture 
 and his refined tastes. But diaries have one draw- 
 back. They are for the most part the work of empty 
 days, when there is comparatively little to chronicle. 
 But when "events are in the saddle" there is no 
 time to write them down. When men are called 
 upon to do, they have not time to think about how 
 their deed will say. When they have to act, their 
 hand trembles too much to allow them to write. It 
 is just those persons whose diaries would be of most 
 importance that never write them. It is always those 
 men who have nothing to tell that have most time to 
 think about the method of telling it. Had Macready 
 continued his Reminiscences down to a later date, 
 many jottings in his diary would have been ex- 
 tended into delightful pages ; and many trivial 
 entries which fill much space in these two volumes 
 would have found no place in the continuous history 
 of his life. These diaries are full of interesting matter, 
 but we should have preferred to have become ac- 
 quainted with the parts of his life from a continuation 
 of the genial narrative which describes his youth and the 
 earlier part of his professional career. Still, we are 
 not ungrateful to the very careful and competent 
 editor for affording us an opportunity of perusing 
 these pleasant fragments. Some of them are admir- 
 ably vivid, and quite as good as the description in his
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 133 
 
 Reminiscences of his appearance with Mrs. Siddons, 1 
 and his eulogy on her admirable art ; his criticisms 
 of Talma,- and his pleasant descriptions of his tour 
 in Italy. 1 - But we need not enumerate the excellent 
 passages which are to be found in these volumes. 
 His descriptions of scenery, his estimates of men, his 
 judgments upon actors, all are good. He could 
 wield the pen as well as the voice. He could appeal 
 to the reason of men as well as to their feelings and 
 passions. He was altogether a clear and accurate 
 writer, and these volumes are a very great addition to 
 the literature of the lives of actors. Too many of the 
 recent works of that sort have been flimsy, flippant 
 things. Here, however, we have a real life, which 
 bodies forth a man in all his excellence, and yet, 
 with all his faults which make that excellence bear- 
 able to those of us who might envy him his merit — 
 faults, too, which these pages show were deeply 
 mourned and truly repented. 
 
 Macready was not without enemies. What upright 
 man of ability is ? Idiots and cringing cowards may 
 escape hatred, seeing that they merit contempt ; but 
 the very qualities which will make friends among the 
 high and true, will make enemies among the low and 
 false. Macready had many true, warm, loyal friends, 
 and he led his own illustrious life in companionship 
 with many whose names are England's honour. But 
 he secured for himself enemies as well. Many ol 
 iln e were detractors while he was living, some oi 
 them may even be calumniators now that he is dead. 
 It has been mosl unfairly said, that Macready never 
 saw merits in those actors who might be his compcti 
 tors; that lie was careful only to praise the dead; that 
 he was insatiable for applause, and avariciou ■ <>! money. 
 Those who knew him well — and these volumes prove 
 
 1 '• Reminiscence ," »ol. i. p. S7- * [bid., vol. i. p. 274. 
 
 ' (bid., vol. i. |>. 2^ ;.
 
 134 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 that he knew himself well — know how false these allega- 
 tions were. He was always truthful in his criticisms, 
 and adulations which are not truthful may be flattering, 
 but they are not praise. His anxiety to obtain a 
 competency was with a view to retirement from a 
 profession which he regarded as unworthy, and a 
 desire to provide for the children that he loved. That 
 he knew the worth of money is proved by many 
 passages. Thus we find him enjoying the curious 
 breathing sound which issues from the crater of 
 Vesuvius and the view which was seen from that 
 furnace summit, and writing thus : " My summer in 
 England might have been turned to good account in 
 a pecuniary point of view, but the memory of a 
 spectacle of true sublimity like this, was a treasure of 
 thought not to be computed by coin." 1 He was no 
 more avid of applause than any other actor. Indeed, 
 we should say that few actors showed a more 
 philosophical contempt for the noisy opinions of his 
 audiences. 2 He is a man who knows what he deserves, 
 as every genuine man does ; eleemosynary praise does 
 not please him. He likes to be admired for what is 
 worthy in him, not for what is worthless. Here is a 
 sentence from his diary for 1833. It is dated January 
 4th. "My acting to-night was coarse and crude — no 
 identification of myself with the scene — and what in- 
 creased my chagrin on the subject, some persons in 
 the pit gave frequent vent to indulgent and misplaced 
 admiration. The consciousness of unmerited applause 
 makes it quite painful and even humiliating to me." 
 This is not a solitary sentence, which might only be 
 an indication of indigestion, but these pages are full 
 of similar repudiations of applause which was not 
 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 263. 
 
 - We find him, in 1837, writing thus: "Acted Lord Hastings very ill; 
 indeed, in the worst possible taste and style. I really am ashamed to think of 
 it ; the audience applauded, but I deserve some reprobation" (vol. ii. p. 56).
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 135 
 
 deserved by his merit as an actor, but was caused by 
 the demerit of his audience as critics. 
 
 Indeed, these pages are full of disproofs of the 
 allegations that he only praised those from whom he 
 had nothing to fear. His criticisms of Young, Charles 
 Kemble, and Kean are as genuine as are those of 
 Miss O'Neil, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Siddons, or Rachel. 
 We cannot praise enough his probity of words. We 
 cannot say less than he does of his generosity in 
 money. We find, however, that even while he is most 
 anxious to increase the amount of his investments, he 
 never stints the poor. We find, now and again, casual 
 mention, in connection with a record of cold weather, 
 of a benefaction in coals to the poor. We find just 
 a note of a subscription to some one, of whom he 
 knew little, but whose needs and whose humanity were 
 chums sufficient on his purse, and we hear in the 
 lisping question of one of his children, who, on 
 hearing that Macready had, upon the previous evening, 
 conversed with the Queen, asked — u Did he tell her to 
 be kind to the poor ? " an echo of the lessons which had 
 been taught by a father who would have blushed to 
 say one thing and do another. But the admiration 
 which he received, and the character and genius of 
 those who rendered it, are sufficient answers to the 
 envious cavillings of lesser men. Where would there 
 be fair fame if the foul breath of gossiping malice was 
 capable of tarnishing it ? 
 
 There are many of the details of this man's life 
 which it would give us pleasure to retrace here. His 
 affectionate and reverent remembrance of his gentle 
 mother 1 shown by a few allusions in these pages. 
 The w.iy he learnt some of the important lessons of 
 his art has interest in it. He profited by the lesson 
 that Mackhn, the author of the " Man of the World," 
 taught some inattentive player, whose eves wandered, 
 and who was thus gruffly admonished: ''Look at me,
 
 136 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 sir ; look at me. Keep your eye iixed on me when I 
 am speaking to you. Attention is always fixed ; if you 
 take your eye from me you rob the audience of my 
 effects, and you rob me of their applause." x And he 
 profited most of all, we should say, by Mrs. Siddons' 
 advice. She said to him: "You are in the right way, 
 but remember what I say — study, study, study ; and do 
 not marry until you are thirty. . . . Keep your mind 
 fixed on your art ; do not remit your study and you 
 are certain to succeed." 2 To us it seems that he took 
 this advice. He always was diligent and persevering, 
 and he carried these quantities into his art, and made 
 most excellent use of them. He never affects, as so 
 many men do, to succeed without affort. He is con- 
 scious that his success is due to hard work. He more 
 than once in these diaries writes, " Without study I can 
 do nothing." These and other maxims were carried 
 into his life, and influenced his conduct. He never 
 rested content with his work ; he was not blinded to 
 the defects of his portraiture of a character by applause 
 or favourable criticism, but read and re-read the scenes; 
 went over them in the theatre of memory — and even 
 when scant or apathetic audiences discouraged him he 
 was honest enough to do his best, and reasoned well 
 that he might profit by the discipline to be derived 
 from such rehearsals. All this, however, shows the 
 man of attainments more than the man of genius. 
 His success was achieved by fair endeavour and hard 
 work. Inspiration is all very well, but the painstaking 
 labour of a man with a conscience is better. 
 
 Macready made his first appearance on the stage in 
 June 1808. For eight years he laboured in provincial 
 towns, and was content to study in the excellent 
 schools for actors at that time afforded by towns 
 like Bath, Edinburgh, and York, before he appeared 
 
 1 " Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 29. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 57-
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 137 
 
 in London. In September 1816 he made his first 
 appearance at Covent Garden. Even now his advance- 
 ment was tardy. He earns golden opinions, but he is 
 also disparaged. One of the newspapers speaks of him 
 as the " plainest and most awkwardly made man that 
 ever trod the stage." The Times, allowing "a certain 
 amount of ability, did not conceive it was sufficient to 
 shake Young, or much intimidate Charles Kemble." 
 Then came the unenviable reputation of being capable 
 only of playing villains — an idea which had for some 
 time possession of the public mind in reference to 
 Macready. However, he got better parts in time, and 
 now he was becoming worthy of them, for he is con- 
 scious of improvement. Pleasant reminiscences of 
 favours shown, friendships made, and successes achieved, 
 together with cheery anecdotes, bright and dark home 
 incidents, and clever sketches, abound in the narrative 
 of his first five years' engagement in London. 
 
 The mere chronicle of the production of some of 
 the plays which have often delighted some of the older 
 of us would be pleasant to these, although it would 
 lack interest to those who have become acquainted with 
 the stage in these later and more unworthy days. 
 Sheridan Knowles' name, however, is still somewhat 
 familiar to us as that of a playwright, and although 
 some of his once popular plays have been laid upon 
 the shelf, or huddled into the dustbins, there are still 
 some which find a place on our stage, and sympathy 
 and appreciation in our theatres. For most of these we 
 are indebted to the enterprise of Macready, who was 
 the firsl to discover, and the readiest, and certainly the 
 ablest, to illustrate, what was then looked upon as the 
 genius of the dramatist, although now we are more 
 willing to regard it a, the cleverness of the- playwright. 
 But all these matters we must omit to mention. Much, 
 very much, m these volumes will please and fa cinate 
 many readers. Throughout one is conscious, while one
 
 138 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 reads these Reminiscences and Diaries, that one is in 
 the company of a man of culture as well as of an 
 actor. It was his culture that made him great, and 
 made him acceptable to modern taste. He was not 
 narrow, as so many stage players are, whose perform- 
 ances are tricks of bodily knack or of face cleverness, 
 but who lack the capacity to understand the meaning 
 of their art, and the power to appreciate a character 
 as an aesthetic whole. There is a curious mistake as 
 to the real meaning of acting. Many people would 
 confound acting with mimicry, but it is no more 
 mimicry than music is echo. It is true that music is 
 founded on the expression of emotion, but the crude 
 cries of sorrow and joy, the hoarse utterance of anger, 
 the cooing whispers of love, have to be idealised before 
 they become true music. Music is as much a child of 
 the head as of the throat. And so it is with acting. 
 Attitude and speech are expressions of thought and 
 passion, and it is the thoughts and passions of various 
 individuals which form the strange mosaic we call a 
 drama. Still, the mere mimicry of these would make 
 but a poor play. Here again imagination must enter 
 in to save the whole from the vapid staleness of 
 unreal reality. Merely to see to-day put upon a stage, 
 with the consciousness that it was an acted to-day after 
 all, and that, instead of being in the current of events, 
 we only looked at them from a distance, could not 
 please us. Something must be added to the garish events 
 to give us some real high pleasure, which the reality 
 has not. Mimicry must be idealised before it becomes 
 acting. Many mimics are altogether deficient in power 
 of idealising. Individual peculiarities they can imitate 
 with their nimble muscles or their flexible voices, just 
 as some musicians can imitate the songs of birds or 
 the sounds of battle in their music. But the true 
 composer must rise far higher than this deft ear-work. 
 He must, in the words of Jean Paul, make his score
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 139 
 
 " speak to men of things, which in their endless life 
 they have not found and shall not find," must suggest 
 emotions which they have never felt and shall never 
 feel. 
 
 So the actor who confines himself to the tran- 
 scription of nature is not an artist. To raise mimicry 
 to the level of art he must transcend nature. To 
 transcend nature he must have thought, and to 
 transcend nature — which is always individual, and 
 never general — he must form conceptions of many 
 actions as forming " a whole " of character, he must 
 comprehend many individual traits in one general 
 idea of disposition, and he must endeavour in that 
 way to idealise his mimicry, and so from a peddling 
 copyist of nature become an artist. The former is 
 the slave of what he sees, the latter is the lord and 
 master of what comes nigh him. 
 
 We note with regret how few artists we have upon 
 our stage in modern times. It is wonderful how 
 much modern success can be attained by making 
 " points," and how few actors set themselves to pro- 
 duce a real work of art. This is to be seen in 
 relation to Mr. Irving's " Hamlet." He is an actor of 
 considerable ability. He has in a very short time, 
 from a careless ranter become a careful interpreter — 
 but his interpretation is confined to passages and 
 scenes. He shows ingenuity and versatility in con- 
 nection with certain points in the play, but he lias 
 not attained to that comprehensive knowledge of 
 character which is indispensable to the great actor. 
 1 1 i -> Hamlet is heterogeneous and confused. There 1 
 no harmoniou, unity, making a whole out of the 
 many varying -.< en< . Mr. Irving is also, it seems to 
 11 , too conscious "I his audience, too forgetful of his 
 art. Il<- appeals too much to the audience and 
 applies himself too little to the st.r in some 
 
 scenes where llainlet is inc.int to be on the stage, yet
 
 i 4 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 only half in the attention of the audience, as in the 
 scene with the Ghost, Mr. Irving is impatient of his 
 obscurity, and brings himself into undue prominence. 
 The audience is not allowed for one instant to listen 
 to the Ghost, so eager is Mr. Irving for their eyes 
 and ears. He has still to learn the excellence of 
 reticence. When we compare his method with that 
 of Macready we are forcibly struck with the dis- 
 parity. Macready always remembered Shakespeare's in- 
 junction, "in the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind 
 of your passion, to acquire and beget a temperance 
 that may give it smoothness." He was always in 
 earnest with his art. 1 He endeavoured to make his 
 performance of any part an intellectual unity, and he 
 succeeded in doing so by means of conscientious and 
 painstaking study. He speaks in one place of the 
 danger of placing reliance upon momentary impulse 
 for the attainment of effect, and the result of his 
 perseverance was, using the words he himself applied 
 to Talma, " the perfection of art, raising it to an 
 intellectual level with the sculptor's or painter's con- 
 ceptions ; and for current value, wanting only a 
 medium more tenacious than memory whereon to 
 stamp the fidelity of its portraiture." 2 
 
 1 "Reminiscences," vol. i. p. 101. 
 
 1 Ibid., vol. i. p. 275. This reference to the want of permanence 
 which attaches to the best effects of the ablest actors is somewhat 
 characteristic. Macready was not content with the ready-money business 
 of an actor, and seemed to think that it was better to give the public 
 credit in the matter of applause, lie more than once sighs because there 
 is no permanence in the actor's work. His name may live, but there 
 is nothing to keep a real memory of him alive. The artist leaves his 
 pictures, the author his books, the sculptor his statues, and these speak 
 for him long after he is silent. The actor leaves nothing behind him but 
 slippery memories. This is his regret. But this shows that he was 
 working for fame, and not for love of art. There is, however, a mis- 
 conception in the complaint The artist lives, not in his picture, but in 
 the minds of the men who see it, and it is after all only a jotting or 
 memorandum of the man. The actor, too, lives only in their minds; 
 and while he is in their minds memory is not fallacious. Besides, he can
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 141 
 
 One curious question has occurred to us while 
 reading these Reminiscences, recalling as they do to 
 memory the names of Holman, Henderson, Kemble, 
 Kean, Young, and Macready, and of many other 
 great actors and incomparable artists — and that is as 
 to the decadence of the art. The world is going for- 
 ward ; is the stage keeping pace with it ? Is the stage 
 an institution of to-day, with a real influence on our 
 present lives, or is its interest, in so far as it is a 
 worthy one, antiquarian— and the amusement which 
 is afforded by it, trivial? In early times, before 
 books were numerous, the pulpit and the stage had 
 their great uses. But the printing-press has usurped 
 the functions of the pulpit, and the pulpit has to 
 some extent become a substitute for the stage. While 
 men had to be taught by the ears the Church did 
 good service, and the intellectual development of the 
 world is to a large extent due to pulpit teachings. 
 While men's moral and emotional nature had to be 
 formed by the unselfish sympathy which they could 
 feel with virtue which did not thwart their aims, with 
 nobilitv which frustrated none of their baser ends, the 
 stage was an excellent school. But books enabled 
 men to learn by means of their eyes, and the pulpit 
 became comparatively useless — books enabled men to 
 sympathise with a world which did not clash with 
 their daily needs and greeds, and raised them above 
 their own narrow circumstances, and the stage be- 
 came less of a teacher and more of a playfellow. 
 Bu1 it may be that even this relationship is under 
 going modification. The world is changing; is the 
 e changing with it? in other words, is the stage 
 the doll's house of young civilisation, and does the 
 
 hnvc the of feeling that, .-i qo li<- can live, so no truth can 
 
 ever die. [f he has madi one man love truth more, he has a higher triumph 
 than if he left whole oi pictnn to represent him, The occult good 
 
 be has done is better than the risible perform thai man who « 
 
 art.
 
 i 4 2 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 world, as it grows older and wiser, put away these 
 childish things? Does it cease to be interested in 
 seeing the puppets in its doll's house dressed in the 
 different trappings of the emotions ? As men's minds 
 change their amusements must vary. The games of 
 childhood no longer delight the man, the dances of 
 the savage no longer give pleasure to the civilised. 
 The question for us here is, whether the stage is 
 capable of an advance with the times, whether it can 
 suit itself to the new requirements of the mental life 
 of to-day, or whether it is ceasing to afford amuse- 
 ment to civilised audiences ? To us this seems a 
 curiously interesting question, for it has to do with 
 the future of all art. 
 
 There are well-marked changes in the character of 
 the stage plays of different ages, just as there have 
 been changes in the philosophy of each successive era. 
 At one time, as Hegel remarks, the man who believed 
 neither in ghosts nor devil was called a philosopher, 
 and indeed, in such doubt, we may well see the 
 beginning of the inquiring, of the philosophical spirit. 
 At one time, too, people were wont to feel all the 
 pleasant throes of emotion in relation to plays which 
 represented gods in the flowing palla, in the high- 
 heeled cothurnus, and with a voice which came 
 through the throat of a trumpet. Everything on the 
 Greek stage was exaggerated. The facial muscles were 
 not competent to express sufficient emotions, hence 
 the use of the mask. The human form looked in- 
 significant at a distance, and therefore the adoption of 
 the cothurnus. In these circumstances we see the 
 method of the Greek dramatists. They intensified the 
 features of the real world, and in that way attained 
 their ideal or artistic world. But a drama founded upon 
 such palpable exaggeration could not continue to please 
 the world. We find the drama becoming more and 
 more realistic as time goes on. The exaggeration of
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 143 
 
 the old times is discarded, and accuracy is the feature of 
 the more modern drama. Now we find that the face 
 is all-important in tragedy, and the mask is only used 
 to make folks laugh. Large attitudes, which were in 
 vogue in earlier times, are to a great extent aban- 
 doned, and even the deepest emotions are represented 
 with a temperate reticence of display. The exagge- 
 ration of the attitudes of grief, or anger, or pity no 
 longer intensifies the kindred emotions of the audience, 
 but produces a sense of incongruity which leads to 
 laughter. What would make a country audience creep 
 with horror would make a town audience smile with 
 merriment. The difference between tragedy and bur- 
 lesque is sometimes difficult to define. This feature in 
 relation to modern art reminds one of the story of 
 the strolling players who went to a country house in 
 some dripping autumn weather, and asked leave to play 
 to the proprietor and his guests. The permission was 
 given, but the guests, whose spirits were drooping — as 
 the spirits of guests in a dull country house, under low- 
 roofed skies, and during dreary wet days, while the 
 leaves are falling, will droop — demanded a comedy 
 from the players. It was, however, not within the 
 power of the strollers to comply with the request. 
 Their repertory consisted of nothing but tragedies, but 
 they undertook to perform a tragedy and make it as 
 funny as they could. Perhaps they did not know how 
 v it was to succeed in their endeavour. The real 
 difficulty which is felt in relation to modern audiences 
 is to keep them from looking upon all tragedy as 
 comedy. The world, it lias been said, is a tragedy to 
 those who weep, and a comedy to those who laugh. 
 There is so little of real tragedy in our lives that it is 
 difficult to bring us into sympathy with moek tragedy. 
 
 Bui this is a sign of the tendency in relation to the 
 drama which we desire to note. The drama is, it 
 seems to us, meant for the unlettered who feel deeply
 
 i 4 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 The rise of culture is to our thinking the downfall of 
 the stage. 
 
 But this attitude of the cultivated and uncultivated 
 in relation to the ranting and loud passions of the 
 stage of to-day illustrates the equivalent attitude of 
 the cultivated of earlier and later times in relation 
 to the exaggeration of effects. The cause of this 
 difference is not difficult to find. Of old, men were 
 more like children and less like men. Children's 
 lives are emotional : men's lives are rational. Not 
 perfectly rational by any means, but dimly and 
 obscurely becoming more rational day by day. To 
 rational natures the emotions are foolish. To emo- 
 tional natures emotion is everything. What is addressed 
 to the head is occult to the heart. What is spoken 
 to the heart is gibberish to the head. But it may be 
 useful to inquire into the meaning of the emotions. 
 The child cries when it is hurt, and the sympathy 
 it receives mitigates the suffering of the instant by 
 withdrawing attention from the pain. Even anger 
 has had its excellent uses. If a man has done some 
 injury to his neighbour it is evident that his own 
 sense of probity or his higher nature has failed to 
 convince him of the wrong he was about to do, has 
 failed to restrain him from doing it. The anger of 
 the neighbour who is injured may, however, deter 
 him for the future. The revenge which follows the 
 injury may be such as to dissuade him from a re- 
 petition of the act which excited the malice. But 
 where reason has become embodied in institutions, 
 and bodies of men have become states, private malice 
 is no longer necessary to the redress of wrongs. 
 Anger becomes less and less useful, as justice becomes 
 more and more secure. It is a useful but crude 
 instrument of justice, but when the sword of justice 
 has been forged, and is held with the scales, this 
 private sense of wrong, this private righting of injury,
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 145 
 
 would itself be unjust. So it is with other emotions. 
 Each has its own uses in earlier times, when men 
 are half-educated, and before they become rational. 
 But as men advance in civilisation the emotions be- 
 come less useful, reason becomes more paramount. 
 A man does not weep if he cannot obtain what he 
 wishes. He begins to know that many circumstances 
 are not influenced by his desires. He would not 
 rage at the sky and think to make it pitiful ; he would 
 not hope and pray for a harvest, and believe he could 
 influence the summer weather. He begins to know 
 that even amongst his fellows his emotions only 
 affect those who have not become rational. That he 
 weeps because something has been refused could not, to 
 a wise man, be a reason for granting it to him. If the 
 man who has withheld the thing in question has not 
 considered all the consequences of his refusal he has 
 not refused wisely ; if he has considered all the con- 
 sequences, the supplicant's tears are foolish ; if they 
 could move this man to change his mind, there might 
 be meaning in them ; but, by hypothesis, they could 
 only be effective in that way if the man had fault 
 in his judgment, and had acted without wisdom in 
 his refusal. If the man has acted wisely, the tears 
 are ridiculous. They prove inferiority in the man 
 who weeps, for they show that he had not reason 
 enough to understand that they would be unavailing, 
 or restraint to resist useless and unworthy emotion. 
 Emotion which can effect nothing is simply folly 
 or insanity. But time will more and more conduce 
 to make men wisely reticent of emotion. Even in 
 our days, we find a wonderful change in this respect. 
 Patienl courage, which utters no cry, is the virtue 
 we most admire. Bui even the faces ol to-day bear 
 witness to the fact. It is much more difficult to 
 read the faces of our time than of earlier ages; 
 they have become much more in crutable. Society, 
 1. K
 
 146 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 which one time meant sympathy in passions, in later 
 times meant sympathy in emotions, is becoming 
 more and more a means to sympathy in thought. 
 The best society is that in which the emotions are 
 most subdued. Men meet from day to day, transact 
 from year to year, without showing any stronger 
 emotion than that which is indicated by a smirk. 
 The emotions which do sway men are less violent 
 than formerly, as is proved by the gradual ameliora- 
 tions of our penal code. As men learn to control 
 themselves, the control of the law becomes less neces- 
 sary. Even the gentler emotions, which do influence 
 us, are kept more for home and the closet than 
 shown in the market-place. Formerly, every gentle- 
 man swore ; now it is vulgar to express one's feelings 
 in language which is, to say the least of it, generally 
 beside the mark. All this shows an advance in the 
 civilisation of our time. We trace the same series 
 of changes in individual life. First there is a period 
 of boisterous passions — childhood ; then there is a 
 period of powerful emotions — youth; and then the 
 period of thought — prime. In the race we find the 
 savage, the devotee, the thinker. These are the three 
 stages ; let us hope that we have, to some extent, 
 passed through this growth of the world, so that the 
 age of our prime is at hand. These very changes 
 to which we have referred are encouraging. And 
 this leads us to consider this subject in relation to 
 the exigencies of expression. 
 
 Expression is an absolute necessity to man. With- 
 out some expression life could not be maintained. 
 But expression has had stages of development. The 
 child's expression is limited in range and unlimited 
 in intensity. It shows disappointment by excessive 
 grief, desire by intense passion. Whenever it feels 
 pain it cries. This is its only resort. It must de- 
 pend upon others for the removal of the cause, and
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 147 
 
 consequently it must express its suffering. It is un- 
 able to laugh in its earlier months ; subsequently it 
 acquires the power of expressing pleasure, and ulti- 
 mately it acquires the means of expressing thought. 
 Now the range of expression is increasing, and the 
 intensity is diminishing. It no longer cries when- 
 ever it is hurt : it has learned self-control ; and the 
 more the education of its intellectual faculties advances, 
 the more power will it obtain over its animal and 
 emotional natures. Its powers of expression are 
 now becoming more exact and accurate. It need 
 not cry when it suffers ; it can explain, and think, 
 and cither remove the cause of the suffering, or give 
 others the information which will enable them to do 
 so. Thus it is that the development of the expres- 
 sion of thought limits the sphere of the expression 
 of emotion. But there is a further fact in the in- 
 tellectual development of an individual which is 
 noteworthy in this regard. The very limitation of 
 the expression of emotion is a means of limiting 
 the emotions themselves. Healthy emotions are 
 communal or social, not individual. They have an 
 external reference in all cases in which they occur 
 in a healthy mind. If, therefore, they cease to be 
 expressed, they cease to be. In bodily organism 
 it is use of function which causes the nutrition <>l 
 tin organ; and so it is in mental economy as well. 
 Consequently, as we should expect, the most eino- 
 tional period of a life is that in winch expression is 
 most limited, and with the extension of the power 
 of expression there ^ a correlative limitation ol the 
 power of emotion. Bui there is a physical aspect in 
 which this proposition is illustrated. All expressions 
 may be looked upon as symptoms of the character 
 oi a life. It the expressions are expressions of thought, 
 yon may take it tint the life is intellectual; if emo- 
 tional, the life will be emotional. Bui if, as is the
 
 , 4 s CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 case ni advancing yens, the expression of thoughts 
 becomes more frequent, and the expression of emo- 
 tions less SO, we may conclude that there is an habitual 
 direction given to mental energy — that the nervous 
 force which is ordinarily used in the production of 
 visceral changes, muscular motions, or the continu- 
 ance of mental states, has been appropriated to the 
 continuance of a certain class of mental attitudes — 
 these being attitudes of thought, and not of feeling. 
 Hut the peculiarity of feeling is that it always exter- 
 nalises itself by means of muscular action. Hence 
 we have contortions of the facial muscles, some- 
 times expressive attitudes, often changes in the vascular 
 and other circulation, and sometimes tears. Thought, 
 on the other hand, is silent, and at no time demands 
 a larger utterance than words afford it. This fact 
 must be familiar to most readers. There is an 
 intense truth in Carlyle's doctrine of silence. It is 
 always the emptiest men who make most noise. 
 What instrument makes more noise than a drum ? 
 But so far may thought go as almost to dispense with 
 words. Able men can make their meaning clear to 
 one another by a hint. To them there is no neces- 
 sity for loud speaking, or much shrugging, or illustra- 
 tion. They are leading, as it were, the same life. 
 A man does not act to himself. Hence the silence 
 between these. 
 
 But what is true of the individual is true also of the 
 race. We can see limitation of the sphere of emotion 
 going on from age to age, as the power of expression 
 is increased. An increase of the rational life of the 
 race and decrease of the emotional life of mankind 
 are correlative processes which make equal progress in 
 these times. 
 
 But this process cannot be without its effect upon 
 the drama. Already, as it seems to us, it has had its 
 influence. The sphere of the drama is the emotional
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 149 
 
 expression of thought, and the thoughtful expression 
 of emotion. Mere ratiocination or exposition would 
 not make a play. We must have passion, hatred, love, 
 revenge, and fear at our command before we can 
 construct a drama. To be effective these emotions 
 must not be echoes of archaic feelings, but repre- 
 sentatives of the emotions which stir the hearts of 
 those to whom the play is addressed. If men no 
 longer felt or expressed fear, no play founded upon 
 cowardice would affect them. Reasonings as to the 
 cause or nature of timidity might appeal to their 
 intellectual faculties, but the exhibition of fear upon the 
 stage — even if the actor were capable of doing so — 
 would not affect them. The player plays, not to my 
 eyes but to my heart ; if my heart be blind he plays 
 not to me at all. This tendency, to which we have 
 referred, will in long ages have the effect of blinding 
 the heart, for it would seem that the less we express 
 emotion, the less we will understand it ; the more 
 thoughtful we become, the more will our higher life 
 repudiate the exhibition of savagery which is in effect 
 the display of the emotions, the more will we resent 
 even the tame plays of our present stage. To suit the 
 drama of to-day to the changed aspects of mental life 
 they have cut out much of the emotion. Our plays 
 are bits of factual genre. But that is only a com- 
 promise and cannot last long. Conventional conver- 
 sation will not make plays. There must be other stuff 
 in them than that. If emotion cannot be put upon the 
 stage nothing can. That is the dilemma. We have 
 already laughed rant off the stage, yet much passion 
 was boisterous ranting in early days ; we will soon fail 
 to understand even the more domestic emotions, llirting, 
 and genteel seductions, and stage plays will, when that 
 time shall have CO me, have lost their meaning tor us. 
 We do not say that that day is at hand; we should 
 lh.it the day when even the majority ol playgoers
 
 150 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 lead rational lives must be far distant, but we cannot 
 but think the tendency of progress which points to it 
 worthy of remark. We think that this tendency may 
 account for much in connection with our stage which 
 but for it would be incomprehensible. The difficulties 
 the modern artist has to contend with, the dearth of 
 actors of ability, the tendency to the most minute and 
 literal realism which is entered upon partly with the 
 view of avoiding the ridicule which would fall upon 
 any exaggeration, all these are to our thinking con- 
 nected with this tendency. We can, we think, find 
 traces of its influences — although we find no trace of 
 its recognition — in these Reminiscences of Macready. 
 His very temperance as an actor, his success through 
 careful study rather than through strong genius, his 
 perception of the decline of the drama and of the 
 inclination of many managers to resort to unworthy 
 expedients to quicken the failing interest in the stage 
 — all these seem to us tacit recognitions of the facts, 
 the origin of which we have attempted to account 
 for. If our surmises are correct, the influence of the 
 stage, which has, as we have seen, waned since the 
 introduction of the printing-press, must suffer even 
 further decadence. Once, as we have said, it was the 
 teacher of man, and it became the playfellow : it is 
 now little more than the bauble. It may happen that 
 it will cease to amuse altogether. If that should be 
 the case there will be less and less to write about 
 actors in time to come, for there will be fewer artists 
 amongst them. If that should be so, a curious interest 
 would attach to the annals of the stage in the days of 
 its vitality, an interest not merely its own, but an 
 interest connected with the lives and histories of those 
 who found amusement and delight in its representations. 
 When that time shall come, if it ever does, Macready's 
 Reminiscences will not be less valuable or interesting 
 than they are now ; and his name will be remembered
 
 MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES 151 
 
 as one of those who, in the palmy days of the drama, 
 did much to revive for a time the tradition of the 
 stage as a teacher, and to make the name of an actor 
 respected among men. He was possessed of great 
 ability, and few men could have written a work with such 
 humility and yet have impressed his readers with a 
 more real belief in his greatness. He has done this, 
 and left a faithful record of a high and well-spent life 
 to be an example to those who may never have seen 
 or known him as an actor, but who, if they read these 
 volumes with the care they deserve, cannot fail to 
 know him as a man.
 
 VII 
 WHITE CONQUEST 1 
 
 At the present time there seems to be a good deal 
 of doubt in people's minds as to how history ought 
 to be written. History is without doubt the earliest 
 and the most enduring of the arts, for history in its 
 truest sense merely means a narrative of events which 
 have occurred. It is, indeed, the foundation of all 
 science, of all literature ; and without the clay which 
 history secures from the layers of past centuries, 
 the manufacture of poetry, of philosophy, of science, 
 would be impossible. 
 
 But history in this sense is no plaything : it is a 
 veritable and valuable guide and teacher, ready, if it 
 be rightly interrogated, to give us not only glimpses 
 of the dim past, but prophetic warning as to the 
 obscure future ; for the future is, in many ways, but 
 the inverted image of the past, and we may well learn 
 to deal competently with to-morrow if we know well 
 the nature of yesterday, and note well the mood of 
 to-day. It is not to be doubted, then, that it would 
 be above all things most important to have a real 
 history ; and that very circumstance makes it abso- 
 lutely necessary that the method of history should 
 be carefully scrutinised, and the making of history 
 thoroughly understood. We are all of us in one 
 sense historians. Memory is a book in which innu- 
 merable narratives are written. We each of us uncon- 
 
 1 " White Conquest." By William Ilepworth Dixon. In two volumes. 
 London : 1876. 
 
 152
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 153 
 
 sciously carry forward some traditions, and the best 
 of written histories may be likened to the memory of 
 a race. But men aspire to be more than the uncon- 
 scious carrier-pigeons of the past : men " look before 
 and after," and it is their "pining for what is not" 
 that makes historians, and gives those persons who 
 read them their appetite for the varied records of 
 harlequin times. So long as writers confine them- 
 selves to simple narratives of trivial events, whether 
 these events have taken place in court or camp, in 
 castle or cottage, little harm can be done by these 
 useless memoirs. But if they presume to call such 
 writings " history," their claims to attention and 
 credence must be more carefully examined. A man 
 who is conversing witli his neighbour, who seeks 
 only amusement from their mutual wordy intercourse, 
 may be allowed some licence in his gossiping expa- 
 tiation. But if he is called upon to assist in the 
 administration of justice — if property, or character, or 
 life is at stake — it is necessary that he should be 
 pledged to speak the truth according to the best of 
 his ability, and that his ability and good faith should 
 be tested by cross-examination. It is true that to a 
 conscientious man all conversation would be on a 
 level with evidence in its truth and accuracy ; to a 
 conscientious writer all his narrative ought to ap- 
 proach to the excellence of history. But as all men 
 .uc not gifted with consciences, it is necessary to see 
 whether the works which pretend to be history are 
 true, and whither the writers who claim to be his- 
 torians have any title in that regard. It lias been 
 found necessary to have an assay-office for the 
 precious metals, and the Press is the assay-office of 
 literature. Mere, as in court matters, great interests are 
 at stake. Is not the property of Hie presenl in the 
 
 pa t in danger if these hands are lawless? Is nol 
 
 the charactei of past times jeopardised by slandering
 
 154 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 writers ? Hence the necessity of arriving at some 
 true understanding of the nature of true history. 
 
 But the difficulties of writing a real history are 
 excessive. The description even of the trivial is by 
 no means easy, and implies the possession of more 
 than a glib tongue or fluent pen ; for, to describe 
 any event or circumstance, a man must be familiar 
 with what is significant in these, and must know how 
 to give due prominence to the true characteristics of 
 the event. A mere catalogue of observations is not 
 really a description, any more than a real representa- 
 tion of things is a picture. A child would draw the 
 retreating cornice of a house straight, because it knew 
 that it was level ; it could not see the dip of per- 
 spective through the blaze of fact. In thus setting 
 down what it believed to be its actual experience, 
 it would, in fact, set down what it had never ex- 
 perienced. It would paint an inference. So it might 
 be that a writer, in describing anything— say granite, 
 for instance — might chronicle, as amongst its attributes, 
 its smooth, bright, polished, reflecting surface, and 
 that only because his knowledge of granite was limited 
 by his experience of it in its manufactured state. 
 
 Here, then, is one of the difficulties associated with 
 the writing of history. He who would be a historian 
 must distinguish what is significant from what is insig- 
 nificant. He must make a choice, and the excellence 
 of that choice depends upon his knowledge, his char- 
 acter, his beliefs, his prejudices. To be a perfect 
 historian a man must be perfect. 
 
 This necessity has been overlooked. Historians 
 have for the most part failed to understand even the 
 problem they had to solve ; and it is consequently not a 
 matter for wonder if they failed to accomplish anything 
 noteworthy. We have said that history was a narra- 
 tive of events, but it has now become evident that 
 to be good it must be a narrative of select events ;
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 155 
 
 and the question of importance in this connection is, 
 to decide according to what rule or standard events 
 are to be selected. To us it seems that, as far as 
 possible, the selection of the events which are to form 
 the material of history should be a natural selection ; 
 that is, the selection of the events themselves, rather 
 than by the leanings of the historian — a survival of the 
 fittest in his pages, altogether apart from his whims 
 and wishes. To secure such a result, we must have a 
 high, able man, who is open to the conviction of events, 
 and not one who has already become the slave to some 
 trivial mechanical dialectic — one who has been raised 
 above the common prejudices of the vulgar, who has 
 discarded the superstitions of the ignorant, who is a 
 partisan only of what is good, a believer only in what 
 is true. In him the facts have fair play ; in him, if 
 in any man, facts may select themselves. To procure 
 history, then, we must secure a historian. Not every 
 garbled account of the past, not every zealot's view 
 of the present, not every votary's adulations of his 
 creed, not every general's description of his battles, 
 de crves the name of history. History ought to be the 
 articulation of the organised experience of centuries. 
 That articulation, to be perfect, must come from the 
 full lips of a harmonious and perfect man ; not through 
 the thin lips of an ascetic, who condemns to-day; nor 
 through the rude lips of those who only live in to-day, 
 and can see no excellence in the sainted past. 
 
 Bui further, when the writer has selected his materials, 
 he must arrange them. This, too, is no easy matter. 
 He has to draw the likeness of centuries on a canvas 
 ot minutes. But there is one almost insurmountable 
 difficulty. The events of history come in crowds; he 
 must treat them a. individuals. In his narrative he 
 must make sequence do the work of simultaneity. 
 The world or country, whichever he describes, was 
 wide. Events were taking place all ovei it at the
 
 156 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 same time. No event was a Melchisedec, without 
 father and mother, or kith and kin ; but each had 
 innumerable relations to all the other events which 
 filled the time. The historian, however, can think of 
 these only in succession. These events were knots, 
 and he can only show the disentangled cords of 
 which their stiff grip was composed. This, then, 
 is almost an infinite difficulty. To give any true 
 conception of the actual facts, the historian must 
 convey the whole impression of this inter-relation and 
 association in time. The facts did not dribble down 
 the bare centuries in thin drops, but flowed down in 
 massive floods. He must give an impression of solid 
 from what is only surface. This is the great art of 
 history, and there is only one method by which this 
 result can be attained. No mere accumulation of 
 incidents will give the impression which is desired so 
 long as all are looked at from the same point of view. 
 To get at the real directions of the bulk of time, we 
 must look at it from various standpoints. We judge 
 of the distance of the sun from the amount of appa- 
 rent displacement of an object seen from the two 
 different sides of the earth. When, however, we come 
 to deal with the immense distances of the so-called 
 fixed stars, the difference of these two positions is 
 insufficient to be a basis of the calculation, and we 
 have to take the two opposite points on the earth's 
 orbit, which, instead of being 8000 miles apart, are 
 180,000,000 miles from one another. 
 
 Now, in judging of real distance, we are really 
 arriving at a conclusion as to the solid or triply ex- 
 tended nature of the universe ; and to arrive at the 
 conception of the extension of history, we must intro- 
 duce into the study of it, and the writing of it, a sort 
 of moral parallax, which will enable us to correct the 
 false estimates of narrow vision. When we look at 
 a photograph, we lose the idea of solidity, because
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 157 
 
 the picture was taken from one point in space : by 
 taking pictures from two points in space, as far separated 
 from one another as are our eyes, and by looking at 
 these two pictures at the same time, we get back our 
 impression of the solidity of the world, or of the three 
 dimensions of all objects in space. This is the whole 
 theory of the stereoscope ; and in order to allow 
 events to body themselves forth in all their dimen- 
 sions, in order to introduce the idea of concurrence 
 into our narrative, we must adapt some such method 
 to the study of history. But to accomplish this our 
 historian must have two eyes. He must be a man 
 wide in sentiment, wide in experience, wide in sym- 
 pathy. He must be able, as it were, to get away from 
 himself. He must, at the same time, be himself and 
 his antipodes. Parallax is impossible to one who is 
 physically chained. Moral parallax is impossible to 
 him who is cribbed and cabined in some narrow 
 dogma, or confined in some trivial prejudice. But 
 the qualities which we have claimed as the necessity 
 of our historian are those which are the true char- 
 acteristics of the great man. Of him one-ness is not 
 so much the distinguishing attribute as two-ness or 
 many-ness. The rational man is the man who is 
 divided against himself — in thought, for his conclusions 
 are never so strong as to preclude doubt — in feeling, 
 for Ins selfishness is never so great as to prevent that 
 rational selflessness— a deep compassion. Nothing is 
 so compact, so self-centred, as ignorance and prejudici . 
 But such gifts as those we have alluded to are rare, 
 and the accomplishment of a real history by such 
 in 1 exceedingly difficult; so much so, that mosl 
 
 writers have despaired ot attaining the result, and have 
 
 contented themselves with treating one department of 
 In .tory with straight reference, and more or less truth 
 and accura< y. It is in thi^ way we have politi- 
 cal histories, military histories, ecclesiastical histories,
 
 158 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 histories of philosophy, histories of literature, histories 
 of painting, histories of art. And each of these is 
 rather a confession of the impossibility of writing history 
 than a fair essay to achieve the object in view ; each 
 is rather a collection of material for the production 
 of a history than a history. It would be the com- 
 bination of these, and many others, into one living 
 whole which would be the true work of the historian 
 — a work which we may well despair of seeing ac- 
 complished. 
 
 One more preliminary question we may speak of in 
 this place. For a long time it was thought that 
 history was the sum of biographies, and indeed the 
 biographies of one or two men who bulked most 
 largely in the public eye seem to constitute some, at 
 least, of our so-called histories. We have, it seems to 
 us, a creed to thank for this aberration in the method 
 of history. To many people the existence of some 
 single individual is wholly significant. To them ages 
 are reflections of their great men ; whereas great men 
 are the foci of the rays of their age. To them the 
 influence of individuals upon periods has been all- 
 powerful. According to the creed just mentioned, 
 great men were the creators, not the children, of 
 their times ; and therefore it came about that the 
 study of history was regarded as the study of indi- 
 viduals, and that we find eras and periods labelled 
 with the names of single men or women. These 
 tenets seem to have been connected with a philoso- 
 phical theory as to the freedom of the will, and that 
 reverence for great men which has found such an 
 ardent advocate, and at the same time such a veritable 
 hero, in Mr. Carlyle. It is, however, a question 
 whether this is not the most pernicious method of 
 historical composition. It was founded on the error 
 that the character of the age is created by the cata- 
 clysms of the gifted, instead of by the quiet, slow
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 159 
 
 forces of the common. It took for granted that the 
 times were changed by forces from above, instead of 
 from below — which was like believing that the base 
 of a pyramid depended from the pointed crowning 
 corner-stone, instead of the whole superstructure being 
 supported on the base. And it was indeed on a par 
 with the philosophy which ignored physiology in its 
 reverence for self-probing or introspective psychology. 
 Indeed, the same persons are the advocates of both 
 these pernicious systems. Still, it is doubtless true 
 that history has much to do with biography. If it is 
 not the sum of the biographies of an age, it is the 
 essence of them. It is a story, not of individual lives, 
 but a story of the life of races, the life of peoples, 
 the life of nations, and in that authentic record the 
 lives of individuals must weigh for what they are 
 worth. We do not deny the potence of men, but we 
 deny the impotence of conditions. We do not say 
 that history must not have niches for biography, just 
 as architecture has for sculpture ; but we do deny 
 that history is nothing more than the biographies of 
 great men, and that when you have found the leaders 
 of a century, you have found the forces of the time, 
 and assert rather that they are the feathers which 
 show the invisible winds of doctrine which blow all 
 things in their broad drift. 
 
 Who shall tell the great man of an age ? Was 
 it he who took a town, or who made some small 
 invention which lightened the bent back of labour, 
 made nature more and more the slave of man, and 
 man more and more free from the tyranny of nature? 
 Was it he who made laws upon crumbling parchment, 
 or he who, by >ome discovery, however trivial it might 
 n at the time, made laws for posterity — laws, too, 
 winch have hul then efficacy, nol in the suffering of 
 any, but in the wealth and happiness of all? 
 
 Mere, too, we may refer to another ciioi which
 
 160 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 has found some votaries, and that is the somewhat 
 undue importance which has been attached to his- 
 tories of laws and constitutions. It was no wonder 
 that writers made their histories full of the drum 
 and fife, the banner and the clash of battles, for to 
 readers such as they got these things were popular ; 
 but the writers of legal and constitutional histories 
 had not that excuse for their misdeeds. They were 
 not pandering to the tastes of the vulgar, but they 
 devoted exclusive attention to these questions because 
 they believed that they were indirectly " feeling the 
 pulse " of the people while they were studying the 
 medicines which certain physicians had thought it 
 necessary to administer. They forgot that there was a 
 possibility that they were only studying the ignorance 
 and presumption of the doctor who had prescribed 
 these remedies. 
 
 It is doubtless true that something is to be learned 
 from the history of laws, for these are, looked at 
 truly, the expression of the thoughts of mankind as 
 to the conduct of life. Every law was written on a 
 heart before it was written in the statute-book. And 
 in that laws and observances are the protection of 
 the good against the bad, the outcome of the endur- 
 ing sentiments of mankind, they have much and real 
 significance to the historian. But the history of laws 
 proves that the bona fides of the Legislature is not 
 in every instance to be relied upon, and perhaps 
 on the whole the life of the world is to be better 
 studied in some of the minor matters of the cottage 
 than in the major matters of the senate and the 
 judgment-hall. He who said, "Let me write the 
 songs of a people, and I care not who makes its 
 laws," said well ; and in as true a sense we might 
 well say, that he who reads the songs of a people 
 learns more of their history than he who studies 
 their statute-book.
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 161 
 
 We have spoken of the writers of history, and 
 their qualification for the task; but something must 
 be said of the readers of history, and of their quali- 
 fication for the task. He who cannot bring a manly 
 heart to the book cannot understand the history of 
 the heroic. He who cannot bring to the reading 
 much that is in the book will fail to understand its 
 meaning. Men only write and speak to their fellows ; 
 to a chimpanzee a Shakespeare is only a man. The 
 reader must have some mind and some heart, other- 
 wise the book was not written for him. It is true 
 that on the book-level we are at our best. Even a 
 mean man, if he has some sparks of generosity in 
 his narrow heart, can feel with the generous action 
 which is not done within his actual peddling sphere. 
 Even the liar can laud truth, and the libertine virtue, 
 when these are in books. But he who can bring no 
 heart need not read — he cannot read about the 
 generous. He who cannot enter into Plato's thought 
 cannot read of Plato's life. 
 
 It follows, then, that in this copartnery of reading 
 and writing books we find a compromise. Both the 
 readers and the writers make the books. If the readers 
 bring little to the books, the books will soon become 
 trivial. If the books of a time are noble, there is 
 something excellent, both in the men who indited 
 and the men that perused their pages. In this way 
 it comes, then, that books themselves are a good un- 
 conscious history of the intellectual history of an age. 
 If we know a nation's likings, we know at least some- 
 thing of its life. But every writer has some responsi- 
 bility. Bach man is to some extent the teacher of 
 his fellows. He who wields the pen wields a seeptre. 
 He rules a country which may be invisible, but which 
 is none the less real ; and although he knows not 
 his Btibjects, he has his grave responsibilities to them. 
 A writer who merelv writes for readers in these days 
 I. L
 
 [62 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 is pretty sure to obtain them ; but the duty of each 
 writer of ability would seem to be to write for the 
 best readers he can obtain, and that although he may 
 possibly sell fewer copies of his book, or get less 
 excellent terms from his publisher. It is only by 
 each man striving strenuously and earnestly to do 
 his best that real excellence can be attained. If each 
 man is content simply to do the best for his own 
 pocket, the world will not advance ; for it is through 
 morality that advancement is to be obtained, and 
 morality teaches men that a conscience is a better 
 guide of conduct than a purse, and that the balance 
 at one's publisher's is not the best standard of the 
 literary excellence of the work named at the head 
 of the ledger-page. 
 
 Of course there is excuse for the method of writing 
 history or travels — and it is hard to say under which 
 of these heads Mr. Hepworth Dixon means his "White 
 Conquest " to be classed — which has been adopted by 
 our author. It is the libraries that buy such books, 
 and the majority of library readers want something 
 amusing, something entertaining. Indeed, the book to 
 succeed in these days must be one which is capable 
 of entering into competition with the novels, and it is 
 certain that Mr. Dixon's work will do this in more 
 ways than one. We cannot see anything to admire in 
 Mr. Dixon's method. Goethe has said that there are 
 three classes of men — the first, and lowest, is content 
 if they see something going on ; the second desire to 
 feel ; and the third, or highest, is not content unless 
 they reflect. Mr. Dixon has written for the first two 
 of these three classes. He tills his pages with purpose- 
 less incident, with the most unfinished pictures of 
 land and sea, with crude sketches of men and manners ; 
 but from the beginning of his book to the end there 
 is something going on. He certainly is not tiresome. 
 But further, he has written for those who desire to
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 163 
 
 feel. He has accumulated innumerable stories of the 
 escapades of the brigands of Texas and Nevada. He 
 devotes several chapters to the miserable career of a 
 half-caste, Vasquez, who was brutal in his cruelty, 
 cowardly in his attacks, faithless to his friend, and false 
 to his mistress, and who had the advantage of an in- 
 terview with Mr. Dixon before his execution, which 
 took place in March last. But the early part of the 
 first volume of Mr. Dixon's book is full of those anec- 
 dotes of thieves and murderers which are popular with 
 certain young readers, as may be surmised from the 
 fact that there is a considerable sale of an American 
 sixpenny library, in which the lives of such heroes are 
 sketched, possibly with less regard to grammar, but 
 probably with not less regard to historical accuracy, 
 than that which we find in Mr. Dixon's pages. Mr. 
 Dixon tells us (i. 75) that " Lives of Vasquez, Adventures 
 of Vasquez, Captures of Vasquez, are written for the 
 lowest grade of Mexican and Californian readers," and 
 thereupon he devotes two chapters at least to the his- 
 tory of this hero, which he has compiled doubtless 
 from these authentic sources, and which he offers for 
 the perusal of the highest grade of English readers. 
 
 Not content with detailing how Moreno, another 
 hero of the road, murdered his chief, Senati, for the 
 sake of the fifteen hundred dollars which were offered 
 for his body, dead or alive, and how he stabbed his 
 comrade Bulvia, who had overheard the pistol-shot 
 which terminated the disreputable career of Senati, 
 and with a good many other stories of a similar kind, 
 
 Mr. Dixon dwells at considerable length, in the same 
 volume, on "Blood Atonement" (p. 232) and "White 
 Vendetta." In thi connection he has ascertained the 
 intere ting particular-, of some brutal murders which 
 have taken place in Cartervilie, in Illinois, where it 
 appeal thai the rule ol blood-atonement, or the ex 
 action nl .1 life for a life, an eye for an eye, is the
 
 164 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 rule of honourable conduct. Here a series of most 
 diabolical outrages have come under the notice of our 
 historian, who has, we doubt not, faithfully reproduced 
 their haggard circumstances in his fluent pages. 
 
 Close upon these desultory sketches, which remind 
 one rather of extracts from Lloyd's Newspaper than of 
 a sober history which pretends to deal with the inte- 
 resting problem of the future of the Whites on the 
 American Continent, comes a chapter upon a Red 
 War" (i. 251). In this chapter we find the particulars 
 of the scalping of a gentleman who lived on Blue 
 Ridge, and the carrying off of his daughters by a cer- 
 tain Grey Eagle, a chief of the Cheyennes, and of an 
 attack upon some peaceful Osage Indians and their 
 squaws by a Captain Rickers and his troop of horse, 
 who are not satisfied with having secured their victory 
 by fraud rather than courage, and with having killed 
 four out of nineteen, but who go so far as to scalp, 
 hack, and slash the dead bodies of their foes. All this 
 is set down for us, like the story of the White Ven- 
 detta, with vivid power, and we have no reason to 
 doubt the grim accuracy of any of these nice details. 
 Then comes a chapter upon " Cherokee Feuds." Here, 
 too, as might have been expected, there is a good 
 deal of sensational material to be used up. A certain 
 Billy Ross, who is the leader of the Conservative- 
 party amongst the Cherokees, seems to have threatened 
 the town of Vinita, which was inhabited by Cherokees 
 who favoured White reforms ; and although we do 
 not from our author learn what ultimately became of 
 Vinita, or of the squaws, who were apparently already in 
 the train which was to convey them into safety under 
 the protecting guns of Fort Scott, we have the murder 
 of Boudinot, the history of the Pin League, the shooting 
 of Adair, all in the same short chapter. But for those 
 who desire to feel, and who are not particular about 
 their sensations, these volumes are full of occasions for
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 165 
 
 shudders. In the chapter "Texas and Texans" we 
 have some lively descriptions of most lawless crime. 
 This is one of the stories, more shortly than it is told 
 by Mr. Hepworth Dixon. A negro, named Zete Fly, 
 quarrels with a boy named Dixon, and shoots him 
 there in the road. Dixon's brother goes to Zete Fly's 
 house, and is shot dead by Zete. Some settlers deter- 
 mine to capture Zete, and deliver him up to justice. 
 To secure their prisoner without danger to themselves, 
 they propose to set his house on fire. The threat has 
 the desired effect, and Zete, having given himself up, 
 is being conducted to Gonzales by two of his captors, 
 when he is taken from them by some seven or eight 
 mounted men. These men, who were masked by the 
 darkness, were the creatures of Judge Lynch. How- 
 ever, Zete's end was not yet. He was rescued from 
 these men by the Blacks after a fight, and although 
 wounded in the skirmish, was carried away by the 
 Blacks, who tended and protected him in a ranche 
 on the plains. Here, however, although surrounded 
 by forty armed negroes, he was not safe. The Whites 
 attacked them, and they ran away, leaving Zete and 
 one man, who were shot dead by the Whites. All 
 tlii-. is given with a glib quickness, sometimes even with 
 picturesqueness, which could not fail to recommend a 
 better theme, but which is, it seems to us, but ill 
 used on such ghastly materials. If it was important 
 to indicate the lawlessness of these border-lands, the 
 Object could have been effected without half the 
 trouble; and at the best, it scarcely seems an end 
 
 which demands any, seeing that every English readei 
 
 tlready SOmewhal conversant with the terrible re- 
 lation-, which exist on these border -lands of country 
 and tin border-lands of race. Bui it is not only on 
 that border-land thai Mr. Dixon finds work for his 
 sensational sketching. Ordinary incidents seem to pall 
 upon his jomewhal morbid appetite at once, and he
 
 1 66 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 tills even his descriptions of San Francisco with stories 
 of outrage and murder. Mr. Dixon, during his resi- 
 dence in California, visited China Town, and after 
 very meagre glimpses of the population, we get this 
 startling bit of narrative : — 
 
 " In passing from yard to yard, you catch the slam 
 of doors, the shot of bolts, and feel by instinct that 
 every ruffian standing behind these planks, alarmed by 
 strange footsteps and loud voices in the dead of night, 
 is listening at his door, with hatchet raised to strike, 
 or rifle poised to fire. 
 
 " ' Open the door ! ' cries your guide in a peremptory 
 tone, stopping in front of a log-cabin. ' Open the 
 door ! ' 
 
 " ' You foolee me ? You foolee me ? ' 
 
 "'No, no. Open the door!' 
 
 "The voice is recognised within, the door is slowly 
 opened, and you peep into the crib — a cupboard as to 
 size, but occupied by five or six men and women. 
 Heaps of stolen goods are on the floor ; but neither 
 blade nor gun is visible. At another crib we are- 
 repulsed. To the inquiry, ' How ? You foolee me ? ' 
 we answer as before, ' No, no ; ' but instead of seeing 
 the door open, we catch the rapid exchange of whispers 
 made. 
 
 " ' Go ; you not foolee me ! ' cries a voice, accom- 
 panied by the click of a rifle. 
 
 " ' Dip and slide,' whispers our companion, and we 
 instantly dip and slide" (ii. 266, 267). 
 
 This may be an accurate description of China Town, 
 and Mr. Dixon's late ramble may have been quite as 
 intrepid as he describes : but somehow we incline to 
 the belief that the picture of every door defended by 
 a ruffian, with hatchet or rifle, even on the occasion 
 of our historian's untimely feat, is a little exaggerated, 
 although we see no reason to doubt the truth of his 
 assertion that he did "dip and slide."
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 167 
 
 We might have thought that such a grim description 
 and such a hairbreadth escape would be enough of 
 sensational incident for one chapter ; but no, only 
 two pages further on we find Mr. Dixon sipping tea 
 on Lock Sin's balcony. Suddenly, " a yell comes from 
 the street below." 
 
 " ' Excuse me,' says my escort, and before I can 
 reply he is gone from my side. King vanishes like a 
 ghost. Moonface, with knife, escapes just as my 
 escort swoops into the murderous circle ; but the 
 fellow with the hatchet is arrested on the spot, and 
 carried to the city ward. His weapon, when examined, 
 proves to be a long blade, sheathed in a layer of fine 
 cloth, so that, in case of a fatal plunge, the blood 
 might have been removed, and the stainless knife 
 replaced under the white smock, as clean and innocent 
 in appearance as the soft-eyed Asiatic who had plunged 
 it into his neighbour's heart ! " 
 
 This is all very fine writing, doubtless. The picture 
 of the polite escort, who had, seeing murder and 
 hearing yells in the street below, stayed to say " Excuse 
 me" to Mr. Dixon, "swooping" into the circle, which, 
 by a sort of catachresis, Mr. Dixon calls " murderous," 
 is, of course, remarkable. The description of the 
 precautions taken by the Chinaman with a view to 
 escape detection "in case of a fatal plunge" — although 
 why the precaution should have been against that one 
 event it is hard to see — is, of course, interesting, but 
 it is all of a piece with much that has the same excel- 
 lence m these volumes. 
 
 But the fad ieems to be, that Mr. Hepworth Dixon 
 has made up his mind never to allow his reader to 
 think him dull. It In- has no incident to glance at, 
 he has Some light joke or gentle anecdote to relate. 
 Ilis writing is light and lively, his sketches slight and 
 (puck, Ins incidi nt 1 iensational, and his reflections 
 trivial. The whole movemenl oi thought through Ins
 
 1 68 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 pages is rapid. But this intense desire not to weary 
 his readers shows that Mr. Dixon has very little faith 
 in the value of the message he has to convey. The 
 ambassador from the world of facts to the court of 
 mind will be received whether he is lively or dull. If 
 a man has something great to tell, he will think less 
 of the necessity to amuse his hearers. Amusement is 
 of use to attract attention when interest fails. In the 
 best period of Gothic architecture the builders were 
 never afraid to have blank wall-spaces ; but when the 
 art had become less excellent, the architects fretted 
 their walls with ornaments. The great men of the 
 middle period of Gothic, strong in the sense of their 
 own power in the perfection of their art, never thought 
 of time-serving the eye with bespattered ornaments, 
 but were content to leave passages of broad prose in 
 their great stone poems. The lesser men of the later 
 period, with less high thought, with less real merit, 
 were not satisfied if there were passages even of blank 
 verse in their structures, but jingled every stone 
 couplet, and made up for the want of the essentials of 
 poetry in their work by the adoption of the more 
 poetical forms of expression. 
 
 Now, Mr. Dixon is a writer who reminds one of 
 that more florid period of architecture. He has very 
 little of importance to convey to his readers, and he 
 has consequently to exert himself to convey that little 
 in such a way as to be most attractive. One can take 
 medicine in spite of its bad taste ; but if one becomes 
 aware that the so-called medicine is simply bread-pills, 
 and that it has no therapeutic value, then its bitterness 
 may be a deterrent from the valetudinarian indulgence. 
 So it is with the medicine of books. If one knows 
 that the thoughts are full of healing, one can take 
 them in spite of occasional weariness. If, on the 
 other hand, one knows that the thoughts are simply 
 inert, one may still partake of them as a luxury if
 
 WHITE CONOUEST 169 
 
 they delight the palate, but will one swallow them if 
 they disgust ? Mr. Dixon seems to know that his 
 books can have no permanent value, and he has con- 
 sequently endeavoured to please and attract those 
 readers who desire to see something going on, and to 
 have the luxury of feeling. He who writes for the 
 ignorant has a chance of having more readers than 
 he who writes for those who have culture. 
 
 We said, however, that there were three classes of 
 men, and consequently three classes of readers. And 
 while we have admitted that Mr. Dixon has written 
 directly for the first two classes, we cannot overlook 
 the fact that he has pretended to write for the third 
 also. He has assumed an audience amongst those 
 who think as well as amongst those who see and feel. 
 His work pretends to be a contribution to a very 
 curious chapter of the history of race. 
 
 There is no more interesting question than that 
 with regard to the effect and influence of one race 
 upon another. The whole of nature is full of fighting, 
 and the world is only one great battlefield ; but it is 
 curious to note that it is to this terrible internecine 
 war that all real development is ultimately traceable. 
 The museum shelves of the strata show the remains 
 of many extinct races of plants and animals, and 
 these races have ceased to be in consequence of the 
 great battles which have raged in the past, battles 
 which rage even now. But not only have certain 
 kinds of plants and animals passed away, and left 
 the world for those of their kin which had more skill 
 to live, but it would seem that the same process is at 
 the pre ent time going 011 on the higher level ol 
 
 humanity that certain races are dying out, and leav- 
 ing their places for races with more pliable, with 
 
 more capable vitality. It is this phase <>i history 
 which Mi. Hepworth Dixon pretends to deal with 
 
 in the work before US. 11 1 this victory dl race over
 
 i 7 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 race which is referred to in the title of his book, and 
 to which he repeatedly refers in the course of his 
 desultory narrative. He distinctly says : — 
 
 "A negro cannot stand the impact of free life; the 
 pressure rends and grinds him. All the vital forces 
 of this world are relative, and for twenty centuries 
 Europe has been the nursery of living power. Europe 
 supplies the other continents with life — life in plants 
 and animals, as well as in the higher forms of man. 
 You bring a spruce from Europe to America. That 
 spruce will grow into a forest, and will kill the native 
 trees all round. Import a horse and cow, and they 
 will drive out buffalo and elk. The lower forms give- 
 way in the presence of the higher type " (ii. 143). 
 
 This passage is, we need scarcely say, full of fallacies ; 
 for it is evident that the law enunciated is universally 
 false, that the lower forms do not give way in the 
 presence of the higher, that the success of lower or 
 higher forms depends entirely upon conditions external 
 to the organisation of each, and that " low " and " high," 
 as used by Mr. Dixon, have a meaning only in relation 
 to the conditions in which the organism is placed. 
 Further, we need scarcely say that the horse or cow 
 by themselves would never drive out the elk or buffalo, 
 but that the domestic horse and cow, with man's 
 assistanee, may well introduce conditions into a conti- 
 nent which are incompatible with the continued survival 
 of wild animals. But it is a poetical licence to talk 
 about the meek cow driving out the fierce buffalo, 
 and the docile horse chasing the wild deer. We quote 
 the above passage, however, to show what work Mr. 
 Dixon has in hand when he meddles with " White 
 Conquest." 
 
 Now it is certain that a thorough treatment of the 
 problems connected with this important question of 
 race would have been a valuable contribution to his- 
 torv ; but unfortunately Mr. Dixon has not dealt with
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 171 
 
 the subject in a way to commend itself to the student 
 of ethnology, or to anybody who desires more than 
 a smattering narrative of unstable social conditions. 
 He has not formulated any law ; he has not even 
 observed or reported any facts which could be useful 
 in this relation. His study of the many riff-raff inci- 
 dents of border-life seems to have led him to the con- 
 clusion that the crossing of breeds is not an advantage 
 to the offspring, and that hybrids generally inherit all 
 the vices of both the races of their parents. 1 But this 
 observation has been made repeatedly before. De 
 Warren, speaking of the half-castes of India, says that 
 they inherit more of the vices of both parents than 
 the virtues of either. 2 But even with regard to the 
 main part of this history — the "White Conquest" — 
 Mr. Dixon leaves his reader in very great doubt as 
 to whether there is any real White Conquest after all. 
 
 It was certainly unnecessary at this time to write 
 a history in two volumes to say that the Indians are 
 dying out, as it is a fact with which everybody has 
 been familiar for a very great number of years. In 
 that direction the White Conquest has been a certainty 
 for more than a century. With reference to the Blacks, 
 the future seems less definitely foreshadowed. We 
 have seen that in one place Mr. Dixon says the "negro 
 cannot stand the impact of free life"; but when he 
 really deals at Length with the question, he has nothing 
 SO certain to bring forward ; indeed, his chapter on 
 " Black Ascendancy" (ii. 134) is full of most inte- 
 resting questions, to which our author seems unable 
 ive any iatisfactory answer. In one place, he says: 
 "Every stati I owns that they (the Africans) are tlOl 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 65. 
 
 1 Perier, Mem. de la Soc. (TAttthrop. <lr Paris, vol. ii. 1865, p. 295. 
 
 See also lettei to the Timet of <>tli Septembei 1874, from the Archdeacon 
 
 m ■•' Octobei [874, p. ,ss s See al Waits, 
 
 " Anltir ■ 1.
 
 1 72 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 growing under freedom as they grew under servitude ; " 
 but then elsewhere, after speaking of the diminution 
 of the number of negroes in the Northern States, he 
 says: "Whether the whole displacement springs from 
 a mere shifting of the Africans from North to South 
 is matter of dispute." Then again : " Will the Black 
 men under freedom fail as the Red men fail ? " (ii. 141). 
 Now this is doubtless a very interesting question, and 
 it is one of the questions which we should have ex- 
 pected Mr. Dixon, in dealing with White Conquest, 
 not only to have asked, but to have answered. How- 
 ever, no answer is vouchsafed. His description of the 
 Southern States shows that in many of them the Blacks 
 at the present time exercise very considerable political 
 influence. The history of the machinations of Kellogg 
 in New Orleans, some of the features of which were 
 personally observed, and are here picturesquely enough 
 described by Mr. Dixon, shows that Presidents of the 
 United States who desire a " third term," although they 
 may have ultimately to " back down," may think it well 
 to conciliate the Black populations even if it is necessary 
 to violate constitutional principles, and become a dic- 
 tator for the nonce, in order to secure the vote of the 
 coloured people. In passing, we would say that the 
 early chapters in the second of these two volumes, 
 in which the doings in New Orleans in the last days 
 of 1874 and the first weeks of 1875 are described, are 
 perhaps the best in Mr. Dixon's work. True, we cannot 
 believe every word he says even in this connection, 
 although he seems to have been an eye-witness of some 
 of the scenes alluded to. There is too much pic- 
 turesqueness about some of these to recommend the 
 descriptions as accurate ; but, on the whole, the sketches 
 are spirited, and the description sufficiently explicit to 
 make the relations of various actors readily understood, 
 while the details are not so numerous as to overload 
 the slight incidents which are, after all, the staple of
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 173 
 
 the story. But we must remember Mr. Dixon has 
 undertaken to deal with the Black question. He has 
 stated the problem ; and although he has not answered 
 it directly, it would be interesting to discover if he has 
 given the materials for a rational solution. 
 
 His description of the condition of South Carolina 
 would, it seems to us, indicate that the Blacks in 
 America are not helpless, that the "impact of freedom" 
 has not done them much harm. As appears from the 
 last census, there are ten Africans to seven Europeans 
 in that State, and though the Whites have majorities 
 in ten of the counties, the Blacks have majorities in 
 twenty-two. But again, Mr. Dixon points out that 
 South Carolina is daily becoming more and more the 
 country of the Blacks. He describes a great zone of 
 swamp and savannah, stretching from Cape Fear to 
 the Mississippi, which is the new home of these con- 
 gregating Africans. "Within this zone," he remarks, 
 " he lives and thrives ; and if he has a preference within 
 this zone, it is for the hot and humid regions lying 
 between Columbia and the sea. Climate and produce 
 suit him equally. Squash is cheap, tobacco grows 
 wild, and sugar-canes abound. Here, if anywhere, the 
 negro may hope to make a stand " (ii. 136). This state- 
 ment of itself is some answer to the question, Must 
 the Blacks fail ? and it shows that the Blacks are 
 making a good use of their freedom, and have learned 
 One great lesson -the necessity of propitiating con- 
 ditions. Here, then, we hear that the Blacks are thriv- 
 ing ; but against that we must weigh his suggestion 
 that every fact points to the probable decrease ot the 
 Black family undei freedom (i. 34K). "The Whites," 
 lie ays, "are recruited from Europe; the Blacks are 
 not recruited from Africa. One tone expand-, the 
 
 other wanes." 
 
 Tin. is an indication of Mi. Dixon's slipshod method 
 
 of dealing with great questions. In another part of
 
 i74 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 this work (ii. 356), he takes a great deal of trouble 
 to show that emigration from Europe to America is 
 coming to an end. He offers some statistics to show 
 that the number of emigrants to the United States has 
 very materially diminished ; he points to the fact that 
 now in England and Ireland you can find many 
 persons who have been to America and have re- 
 turned, as an indication that the tide has turned, 
 and to the fact that Germany has become alive to 
 the drain of emigration upon her human resources, 
 and is about to take means to prevent the continued 
 exodus of her people. Indeed, in so many words, 
 Mr. Dixon, forgetting what he had said in the first 
 volume as to the recruiting of the White population, 
 at the end of the second says that the springs from 
 which the increase came are drying up l (ii. 358), 
 and that that circumstance is a cause of panic 
 amongst the Whites, whose conquest he had under- 
 taken to celebrate. On the whole, then, we find 
 that Mr. Dixon shilly-shallies with this question, and 
 gives us no reason for believing that there is any 
 probability that the Blacks will be beaten in the 
 struggle for existence which is raging on the Western 
 Continent. One argument he brings forward in 
 support of his belief that the Blacks must succumb 
 to the Whites, and that is, that even in the swamp 
 and savannah of South Carolina infanticide is very 
 common, and that negroes are averse to rearing 
 children. But is that an argument at all ? Infan- 
 ticide never killed out a race ; indeed, we may say 
 that no race ever died by suicide, but that every 
 dead race has been murdered. Child-murder is a 
 proof that the population is prolific. Infanticide is 
 the result of a too numerous, not of a too sparse, 
 
 1 "America must lean in future on her own staff, and stand by her own 
 strength ; expecting no more help from Europe than England expects from 
 Germany, or Italy expects from France" (ii. 365).
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 175 
 
 population. But besides, infanticide can be put an 
 end to. If it is so common, it calls for stricter laws, 
 and the more firm and careful administration of 
 justice. One of Mr. Dixon's own illustrations shows 
 the futility of his reasoning : u Child-murder, I am 
 told, is now as common in the negro swamp as in a 
 Chinese street or on a Tartar steppe " (ii. 140). Surely 
 the fact that it is common amongst the Chinese and 
 Tartars shows that it is not destructive of a race, 
 and that it is only where life is prolific that popula- 
 tions are reckless of it. But Mr. Dixon's utterances 
 as to the Whites are quite as contradictory as those 
 with regard to the Blacks. We find him in one 
 place saying that Black ascendancy will fail before 
 White science (ii. 143), and prophesying the extinc- 
 tion of the Black races before the White ; in another 
 we find him referring to the fact that the birth-rate 
 in America amongst the Whites is rapidly declining, 1 
 and to the opinion of able statists and physicians 
 that the White race cannot live on the American soil 
 (ii. 310). Does that look like White conquest ? How 
 can America continue her conquest with a dwindling 
 population ? How can we hope for White ascendancy 
 with increasing and thriving Black populations ? 
 
 But there is another important aspect of this sub- 
 ject, which is dealt with by Mr. Dixon under the 
 title of the "Yellow Question." Mr. Dixon has, it 
 ins, become a little infected with the alarmist 
 spirit of the Western States in connection with the 
 increasing immigration of Chinese into San Francisco. 
 It has, without doubt, become a question of very 
 greal importance in the United States, and Mr. Dixon 
 has devoted ;i good deal of space to its miscellaneous 
 discussion. Like all the rest of Mr. Dixon's dis- 
 cussions and reflections, the whole- question is hit 
 
 1 The birth-rate in the United Slates is lowei than that oi any country in 
 Europe .
 
 176 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 ultimately in doubt. He is quite in doubt himself as to 
 the real significance of this increment to the popula- 
 tion of the United States, and he is consequently 
 unable to assist his reader to any definite thought 
 on the matter. Still he says quite enough to show 
 that the Chinaman is a most formidable rival to the 
 White man on the American Continent. The fact 
 that he is driving the European out of every work- 
 shop, every manufactory, every service, and every 
 trade ; the fact that he has the qualities which enable 
 him to do better and more cheaply what the Euro- 
 pean has only done well, are not to be lost sight of 
 when speculating as to the future of America. Ulti- 
 mately the fight there, as all over the world, will be 
 to those who are strong in the qualities possessed by 
 the emigrant Mongol. A time will come when those 
 who can work the hardest upon the sparest diet, 
 and still maintain the maximum of health, must be 
 the survivors of the more voracious and less capable 
 workers. The Chinese have proved themselves most 
 apt at learning trades, most industrious in their pur- 
 suits, most docile in their service. They live on rice, 
 and are content with a " whiff of opium and a pinch of 
 tea," and can consequently underbid any worker who eats 
 beef and drinks beer, in the labour-market. " John," says 
 Mr. Dixon, " will live and save where Pat must shrink 
 and fall " (ii. 136). It is an admitted fact that the 
 number of Chinese arriving in America is yearly in- 
 creasing ; and even if Mr. Dixon has a little exaggerated 
 the numbers from thousands to tens of thousands — 
 even if his friend the senator in Sacramento has over- 
 anticipated the future, which is to bring "tens of 
 millions whence the tens of thousands came" — the 
 facts are large enough to make the matter one of the 
 utmost importance, and have been thought worthy 
 of some sentences in the President's recent message 
 to Congress. Mr. Dixon, with his usual pleasure in
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 177 
 
 indulging in large statements founded upon hasty 
 observations, rather than in accurate inferences from 
 exhaustive and laborious inquiries, speaks thus of the 
 Chinese immigration : " Under the increase of such 
 an invasion from China, threatening at no distant 
 date to swallow up the civilisation of Europe in the 
 barbarism of Asia," &c. But if that is so, are we 
 not looking forward rather to a Yellow than to a 
 White conquest ? if that is so, where is the truth of 
 Mr. Dixon's thesis, that " Europe supplies the other 
 continents with life — life in plants and animals, as 
 well as in the higher forms of men" (ii. 143), or of 
 his interesting question, " Are shades of colour grades 
 of power ? " (i. 280), which he answers in the affirma- 
 tive, with a great many loose epigrams ? "No white 
 people serve a dusky ruler, and no aristocratic class 
 is black." " In every part of Europe people in the 
 upper ranks are fairer than people in the lower 
 ranks." 
 
 So much, then, for the value of our author's main 
 speculation — the speculation as to the future of the 
 White race on the American Continent. We have 
 seen how one of his pages contradicts another ; we 
 have seen how he vacillates in his opinions, and how 
 he jumps at his judgments. We have discovered 
 the sparseness of his facts, the inaccuracy of his obser- 
 vation-,, and the worthlessness of his conclusions; and 
 we have found that the facts which he himself has 
 forth are in many instances far from compelling 
 to the conclusions at which — when he has any wish 
 in the matter — he would have us arrive. We confess, 
 then, to a feeling of disappointment thai the great 
 
 issues which were hinted at by the title of his bonk 
 have not been disposed of; that they have, in fact, 
 only been surrounded with a great deal ot limp re- 
 flection and flippant writing. However well Mr. 
 
 Dixon may have succeeded in making a book tor 
 
 I. M
 
 178 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 those who want to see and those who want to feel, 
 we cannot say that he has contributed anything for 
 Goethe's third class, or for those who desire to think. 
 Our conclusion, therefore, is, that this is not the way 
 to write history. We spoke of the method of history 
 in an earlier part of this article, and we admitted the 
 great difficulties which lay in the way of any one 
 who aspired to narrate those large stories which have 
 for their object the making of the past present, the 
 bringing of the distant near. What we have said of 
 "White Conquest" will show that we do not consider 
 that Mr. Dixon has succeeded in that difficult task. 
 We look upon his clever sketches and slender thoughts 
 as well calculated to take the place of common novels 
 in idle hands for a not unpleasant hour or two, but 
 his work, as a whole, can never become of permanent 
 value in the library of history. He has somewhat 
 feebly, in his interrogation of the past, derived for us 
 information for the future. The past he deals with is 
 a quite recent past, and yet he does not bring that 
 before us as a master would. A real master would bring 
 us to the past in its reality, and not to the mere 
 fictional ghost of a past which can be vamped up by 
 any lively imagination, and described by any quick 
 pen. Besides, the writer about the past ought to be 
 " upon honour," and we confess that we think Mr. 
 Dixon sometimes loses sight of that rule. Again, we 
 think that the writer who would make the distant 
 near, who would bring the there here, must make the 
 great endeavour at his peril. If he is to succeed, he 
 must not bring gossipy fragments of the foreign home 
 to us — he must not bring us only tales of bandits, 
 of White vengeance, of Red war, of Yellow feuds, and 
 other wild romances ; for even if they are not mere 
 travellers' tales, if they are true in fact, they are false 
 in being dissociated from other circumstances with 
 which they were actually associated. He must give
 
 WHITE CONQUEST 179 
 
 us the whole or nothing. We cannot think that Mr. 
 Dixon has done this. When he reflects, as he is 
 very fond of doing, upon the large social questions 
 which the scene presents — when he deals with pro- 
 hibitive legislation in relation to drink (ii. 329), upon 
 education (ii. 340), or on the question of sex (ii. 310), 
 we find him thinking with desultory breadth, and 
 expatiating with conceited inconsequence. He is not 
 gifted by nature with the faculties which enable him 
 to deal strongly with any of these problems ; and as 
 most of these are obstreperous enough, it is not a 
 matter for wonder if he fails to conduct the investi- 
 gations to anything like satisfactory conclusions. 
 
 But although in all these respects Mr. Dixon fails 
 —although he cannot bring the past to life, although 
 he cannot bring what is not here here, although his 
 speculations upon society and the great questions 
 which are to be studied in connection with that 
 living organism are, for the most part, worthless, 
 and although he has therefore failed to write either 
 a great history or a good book of travels, we cannot 
 deny him the credit of having written a very read- 
 able book. That is his merit. Here is his description 
 of San Francisco, which is, we suppose, meant to 
 be very fine : — 
 
 " Closing the passage by the Golden Gate, a city of 
 white houses, spires, and pinnacles rises from the 
 water-line, and rolling backward over flat and sand- 
 drift, strikes a headland on the right, and singing 
 up two hills, creams round their tides, and runs in 
 foam to yet more di-tant heights" (i. 254). 
 
 Here is an unique de .cription of a tortuous journey : 
 " Prom Winnemucca, .in Indian camp in Nevada, 
 tn Brigham, a prosperous Mormon town in Salt Lake 
 Valley, we race and ;/<• through a mountain district, 
 
 not more triking in physical aspeel than in human 
 interest Rolling on the level of Ben Nevis, with a
 
 180 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 score of snowy peaks in front and Hank, we climb 
 through woods of stunted pine, ascending by the 
 Pallisades to Pequop, at the height of Mont d'Or, 
 from which we slide by way of Humboldt's Well and 
 the American desert direct to Brigham, in the land of 
 Zion" (ii. 182). 
 
 In his description of the Rotunda, New Orleans, he 
 says : — 
 
 " Persons present — General Sheridan, with his staff ; 
 Lieutenant-Governor Perm, Senators, Members of Con- 
 gress, foreign Consuls, sea-captains, newspaper scouts, 
 orderlies, messengers, telegraph clerks, and other crowds, 
 including two English travellers" (ii. 112). 
 
 But Mr Dixon's taste is not better than his style. 
 Here are one or two of his jokes : — 
 
 " Here you play billiards, there poker, everywhere 
 the deuce " (ii. 113). 
 
 This is what he reports of certain White damsels 
 in San Francisco. One reads " in one of Helen M. 
 Coke's rhapsodies that ' kisses on the brow ' make the 
 richest diadem for a woman. 'Guess that sort of 
 kisses is rather thin,' sneers a girl; 'and I doubt 
 whether Nellie Coke herself likes them very much.'" 
 
 " ' Guess my husband's got to look after me, and 
 make himself agreeable to me, if he can,' says a 
 pretty young woman in a tone of banter, but a tone 
 that carries much meaning. 'If he don't, there's 
 plenty will'" (i. 166). 
 
 This is Mr. Dixon's idea of refinement. But not- 
 withstanding the numerous and grave faults in the work 
 before us, there is certainly some pleasant reading in 
 it. If Mr. Dixon is content with the success which 
 this can obtain for it, we have no right to complain. 
 We have no doubt that Mr. Dixon has done his best, 
 but it is the critic's duty to point out that Mr. Dixon's 
 best is not the best, and to show how it falls short of 
 excellence.
 
 VIII 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 1 
 
 It has always seemed to us a matter for some wonder 
 that people should take such a deep interest in the 
 peddling events of poor individual human existences, 
 and so little in the dynasty of ideas, that they should 
 be content to wear their eyes out over the drivelling 
 three-volumed account of the loves and hates of 
 vapid men and women ; to indulge their finest emo- 
 tions over the fifth act of some puling melodrama, 
 and yet be altogether indifferent to the gigantic 
 drama of truth, in which the unity of place is the 
 world, the unity of time the centuries, and the 
 actors are beneficent truths or malevolent errors. 
 Why men should be indifferent to those momentous 
 events in the past which constituted the history of 
 science, the history of philosophy, and, in the truest 
 sense, the history of religion ; and yet should enter 
 with such eager zest into the gossip of the day and 
 the trivialities of personal reminiscence, it is difficult to 
 say. Why they should be quidnuncs of the borough, 
 when they might be denizens of the larger realm of 
 vital history, it is not easy to conjecture. I in!, liow- 
 i hard it may be to discover the meaning of, there 
 i, no possibility of doubting the fact. While tin' 
 personal histories of men who have very small (Linn, 
 upon our bettei ympathies arc read with avidity, the 
 
 '"The Warfare <•! Science." By Andrew Did on White, L.L.D., 
 ident of Cornell University. With Prefatory Note bj Professoi Tyndall. 
 
 London ■ I lenry S. Km I a 1876. 
 
 . 1
 
 1 82 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 impersonal narrative of truths which have paramount 
 claims upon our hearts and heads are treated with 
 the passive contempt of neglect. Men are much to 
 us, while doctrines are little. We like to have our 
 truths in the flesh ; and we are too apt, when we 
 find a doctrine incarnated, to neglect the sacred reve- 
 lation and worship the man, to transfer the reverence 
 which is due to an idea to the individual who is, as 
 it were, the bearer of it. Here we have, in epitome, 
 the history of many religions. Men will worship the 
 truth with startled reverence, then they will worship 
 the truth-bearer, and overlook the truth, in the symbol, 
 and forget that of which it is the sign. 
 
 But the history of science is not a tranquil narrative 
 of happy revelations, but a troubled history of battle 
 and murder. Here those who have a sympathy with 
 the quiet evolution of great thoughts will not alone 
 be satisfied, but the lover of the stirring incidents of 
 cruel persecution, of brave perseverance, and of in- 
 trepid martyrdom, will also find much to his morbid 
 taste. The annals of science are ghastly indeed, and 
 the intellectual truths which contain the broad like- 
 ness of Nature, can boast as many martyrs as the 
 moral truths which depict the human heart. Dr. 
 White is not guilty of straining a metaphor when he 
 speaks of the "Warfare of Science," and he has the 
 merit of having written a very readable account of 
 the incidents of the long campaign of the war between 
 the growing revelation of facts and the decaying reve- 
 lation of superstition. We are constrained to praise 
 not only the contents of this little book, but the 
 spirit in which the work has been conceived and 
 executed. The President of Cornell University is an 
 able man, but he has undertaken to treat in very few 
 pages of print a very difficult subject. The barren 
 detail of the horrid facts of persecution might of 
 itself have been easy, but to retain command of the
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 183 
 
 temper and judicial calmness so necessary to the 
 adequate exposition of the grim inter-relations of 
 science and religion, was by no means easy. Some 
 unfairness, some intellectual bigotry against doctrines 
 which had been held to sanction such outrages 
 to truth, might have been pardoned, but the absence 
 of the necessity for such excuse from these succinct 
 and graphic pages calls for grateful recognition and 
 admiration. Dr. White is peculiarly fair and just, 
 and yet the result is, as Professor Tyndall says in 
 the prefatory note, that he shows "that against the 
 benefits which religious associations have conferred 
 upon humanity stands a vast debit of committed 
 wrong." Had the conclusion been other than that, the 
 history of the war must have been improperly read — 
 and facts disguised. But, as we said above, Dr. White 
 is peculiarly fair ; and considering the dimensions of 
 the work, it is peculiarly full. What we required from 
 a writer who undertook to treat of that paramount 
 warfare which has been going on through all these 
 later centuries, and which is not ended even now, 
 was a wisdom which could see the excellent uses to 
 which, in the gradual progress of humanity, religions 
 have been put ; and yet at the same time, while he 
 treated prejudices with the consideration which those 
 defects of intellectual culture deserve, would yet recog- 
 nise the evils which had been wrought in the name 
 of religion, and by those who professed to be the 
 chartered exponents of God's truth, while they were 
 "riding with darkness," and afraid of the dawn which 
 they were ungenerous enough for a long time to 
 Obscure. It would have been easy to declaim upon 
 h ;i Bubject, hiit tin- Presidenl oi Cornell University 
 1 contenl to explain; and the story itself is eloquenl 
 enough of abuses of power, and subversions <>i re- 
 ligious truths, without tin' aid of extraneous rhetoric. 
 But we iid that the warfare of science is not ended,
 
 1 84 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 and consequently a history of the struggle between 
 the Church and the truth is by no means unimpor- 
 tant to us. We cannot but think that Dr. Maudsley, 
 in his introductory lecture at University College, made 
 too liuht of the difficulties which are in these new 
 days thrown in the way of the promulgation of scien- 
 tific truths. It is true, as he says, that the modern 
 scientist has not to encounter the Inquisition, which 
 made Galileo say with his tongue words which were 
 apostasy to his heart ; nor has he to go, like Giordano 
 Bruno, to the stake as the alternative of a refusal to 
 utter a recantation of the truth ; but had he read 
 Dr. White's book further, he would have found in- 
 stances enough of the continued war which is waged 
 against science even in these free days. It is true 
 that the war is waged more feebly by religionists 
 now than it was. They are losing ground. They 
 have lost temporal sovereignty for their Pope, and 
 they have set up the spiritual despotism of infalli- 
 bility instead. But in miniature we see the same 
 blind ignorance opposed to scientific advances, we 
 see the same resistance of the light by those who 
 pretend that it is their duty to make the Sun of right- 
 eousness to shine, the same intolerance of truth which 
 is not hall-marked by themselves, which was so dia- 
 bolically illustrated by the persecution of Copernicus, 
 of Galileo, of Roger Bacon, of Vesalius. Even Dr. 
 Maudsley himself, with considerable shrewdness, in an 
 earlier portion of his lecture, points to the agitation 
 against vivisection as an instance of theological oppo- 
 sition to scientific discovery; for he says that "there 
 was more in the fierceness of that agitation than a 
 laudable feeling of compassion for the animals — an in- 
 tensity of acridity betraying another origin." But in 
 the work before us there are instances enough of this 
 modern warfare. Here is one instance of that bigoted 
 intolerance which is the great enemy of progress. In
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 185 
 
 1847 Sir James Simpson advocated the use of anaes- 
 thetics in obstetrical cases. The fact that that able 
 physician was a devoted, nay, almost a fanatical reli- 
 gionist, did not protect him from the roughness of a 
 storm of theological opposition and abuse. The pulpits 
 — like great religious mortars — began to open fire with 
 their explosive texts. His suggestion and practice were 
 denounced as impious, on the ground that Scripture 
 had said that women were "to bring forth children 
 in sorrow," and that the use of anaesthetics "was an 
 attempt to avoid one part of the primeval curse on 
 woman." Here we have the same old arm furbished 
 up, and again — as during many centuries of stark 
 ignorance — doing war against science — the argument 
 that the Bible is not only an excellent compilation 
 of wise and, in some instances, dramatic poems, 
 but is an inspired hand-book, not only of chemistry, 
 of astronomy, of meteorology, and of geology, but of 
 midwifery. 
 
 Sir James Simpson replied to his adversaries. He 
 even turned their own guns upon them, and in one 
 of his pamphlets he said : " My opponents forget the 
 twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis. 
 That is the record of the first surgical operation ever 
 performed, and that text proves that the Maker of the 
 universe, before He took the rib from Adam's side for 
 the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon 
 Adam." 
 
 But the Scotch controversialists were not to be 
 silenced by one text. Other hireling verses were forced 
 into the service, and not a little sacred abuse- was be- 
 stowed upon the physician who had done so much 
 to alleviate suffering — to make the dark and burden 
 some hours of life less dreary and less heavy to rob 
 disease Of its tortures, and death itself of some of its 
 anguish. Those who know the amenities of Scotch 
 
 theological controversy will understand Sir James
 
 1 86 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Simpson's position. In the end, however, Dr. Thomas 
 Chalmers — a most wise and good man — engaged in 
 the battle on the side of humanity, and secured to 
 his suffering fellow-creatures one of the greatest boons 
 which has been given to mankind even by science. 
 But those who think that peace has been proclaimed 
 must be ignorant of many facts of modern history. 
 It is not long since conscientious men, both in Sweden 
 and the United States, objected to the taking of a 
 census because the numbering of Israel was condemned 
 in the Old Testament, and David was punished for 
 his disobedience in that regard. And in Bishop Dupan- 
 loup's writings, Darwin, Huxley, and Lyell are stigma- 
 tised as authors of " shameful theories " ; and a vigorous 
 and determined attack was made upon advanced edu- 
 cation in France by the Cardinal de Bonnechose in 
 the Senate. It is true that in that recent encounter, 
 as ultimately in all others, science was victorious, and 
 the energetic dignitaries of the Church were only 
 laughed at after their vigorous explosion of tremendous 
 invective ; but the incident is of itself sufficient to 
 show that the struggle is not ended, and that this 
 history of the warfare of science is interesting to us 
 not only in its antiquarian aspects, but has a very 
 urgent present concern to all who have the good cause 
 of truth at heart — a cause which can only be advanced 
 by the possession of liberty, which it has always been 
 the object of religion to withhold. That some of the 
 incidents of the warfare should be put upon paper 
 without fear or favour is therefore a matter of some 
 importance. 
 
 There is always danger in a figure of speech. "We 
 all of us," says George Eliot, "grave or light, get our 
 thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on 
 the strength of them ; " and it is very certain that men 
 who have created tropes have not unfrequently been 
 ruled by them. It is a very obvious metaphor to call
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 187 
 
 the incessant struggle which has been going on for 
 centuries between the emissaries of science and the 
 emissaries of the Church a warfare. There have been 
 deeds done which change the metaphor into dire fact. 
 It is not improper to compare the various rhetorical 
 and polemical missiles to instruments of battle. There 
 is therefore no want of appropriateness in the title of 
 Dr. White's book, but it is unfortunate, we think, 
 that he should have been so much influenced by the 
 happiness of his simile as to carry it with him 
 throughout. There is as much genius shown in knowing 
 when to drop as when to employ a figure of speech, 
 and possibly Dr. White carries his comparison to too 
 great a length. It is possible, however, that the origin 
 of the work — for it was at first a lecture, and was 
 expanded into its present form — may account for the 
 continuity which is given to a trope which gets 
 rather threadbare before he has finished with it. 
 Figures of speech are best put to ephemeral uses. 
 
 It cannot be doubted, then, that the work is full of 
 interest. The subject is a great one — nay, one of the 
 greatest — and although some of Dr. White's chapters 
 are sketchy and inadequate, it is only fair to say that, 
 in view of the object and dimensions of the work, it 
 1 a remarkably full and perspicuous history of some 
 very terrible events — events which have an intense 
 interest in relation to the history of progress, events 
 which in their ugly outlines are here starkly sketched 
 as a ghastly lesson to a foolish, a superstitious, and 
 cruel humanity. Each of the individual episodes is a 
 itartling human tragedy. The lives of the martyrs 
 here referred to demand as many tears and more 
 admiration than those win. died for a faith which, 
 win 11 it , day of power came, could in its turn become 
 persecutor— a faith which set its face against God and 
 His daily revelations of science, and attempted t<» 
 
 stamp out the truth ol the world by the aid of the
 
 1 88 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 self-same means which the pertinacity and firmness of 
 Christianity had baffled. As we said above, even for 
 those who cannot rise to the high sympathy with 
 truth itself — to those to whom the vicissitudes of men 
 are fraught with far more fascination than the vicissi- 
 tudes of thoughts, this book contains much matter 
 that will interest. The story of Galileo, which since 
 the discovery of the documents relating to the trial of 
 that martyr to science, by M. de l'Epinois in 1867, 
 has not been fully given in our language, is here 
 narrated with care and accuracy. The strange infatua- 
 tion of ecclesiastics in relation to scientific truth is as 
 well illustrated by the Church's treatment of Galileo 
 as by any other chapter in history. The astronomical 
 fallacies which were adopted by the Church were only 
 paralleled by the geographical absurdities which she 
 put forth as scientific explanations of the phenomena 
 of Nature. Nothing is more curious in the history of 
 ideas than the circumstances of their genesis. Just as, 
 before the sun shows his brightness above the eastern 
 edge of day, hill-tops glow with a proxy splendour 
 which may well dazzle the eye into the belief that the 
 sun is atop the morn ; so ideas, before they are in 
 the sufficient sky of the intellectual firmament, seem 
 to send out their rays of illumination to lofty minds, 
 and make these prematurely bright with the unfulfilled 
 truth. Thus it is that, even when the truth has come 
 and is recognised, we seem to have been familiar with 
 it from of yore, for the dawn " broke the news " of 
 day. Thus from early times there seems to have been 
 slight adumbrations of the rotundity of the earth. 
 
 In the works both of Plato and Cicero there are 
 definite foreshadowings of the truth as to this matter ; 
 and the references in other places to this cardinal fact 
 were sufficiently explicit to induce certain fathers of 
 the Church to assume a hostile attitude to the coming 
 doctrine. They began to insist upon the interpretation
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 189 
 
 of natural phenomena in the light of revelation. No 
 doubt a revelation, if authentic, would be an absolute 
 guide to truth concerning all matters in connection 
 with which it pretended to enlighten ; but there has 
 always been a difficulty in ascertaining the authenticity 
 of the so-called revelations, and their supposed accuracy 
 has been speedily refuted and shown to be false in the 
 light of the revelation of progress which broadens 
 through the centuries, which is not a fortuitous gift, 
 but a laborious achievement, the revelation of learning, 
 of science, and of true philosophy. 
 
 Very early in the history of Christianity we find an 
 inimical attitude towards science. Eusebius endeavoured 
 to throw contempt upon those who would follow physi- 
 cal science. Lactantius was of opinion that the pursuit 
 of astronomy was " mad and senseless," and argued that 
 it was " ridiculous to suppose that there are men whose 
 footsteps are higher than their heads, that the crops 
 and trees grow downwards, and that the rains and 
 snow and hail fall upward toward the earth." Such 
 arguments, however absurd, could be met and refuted ; 
 but the doctrine which was opposed to this true 
 geographical notion of the earth's rotundity was that 
 which has been opposed to almost every scientific 
 discovery, to almost every social advance — the doctrine 
 that Scripture did not teach the truth, and that con- 
 sequently the notion must be false and heretical. II 
 is a fat;il error to attempt to make a book, however 
 excellent that book may be, the measure of the 
 universe. Even man himself is no measure of the 
 universe, if by "man" we mean the individual and 
 not the race j but the product of individuals— however 
 
 able these individuals may have been who could only 
 reflect the dim Lights of a necessarily dark age, nm I 
 inevitably fall holier and shorter as a hand book of 
 morality, of philosophy, and of icience, as the race 
 advances from feeble beginnings toward perfect day.
 
 i 9 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 The multifarious Nature unfolding herself before the 
 centuries in all her order and in all her brightness, 
 was but ill depicted in the dreams of early singers or 
 the expositions of half-informed preachers. To dis- 
 credit all those features which they had not seen 
 was the retrograde policy of the Church. Thus St. 
 Augustine took his stand upon Scripture in the con- 
 troversy as to the rotundity of the earth. Scrip- 
 ture had not mentioned any descendants of Adam 
 inhabiting the other side of the earth, and consequently 
 there could be none such. It never occurred to those 
 men that in opposing Nature to a Book they were 
 pitting the weak against the strong, and that the only 
 result which could follow was the refutation of the 
 fallacies which abounded in their favourite text-book. 
 They were blind to the very obvious truth that they 
 were showing the futility of Scripture as a guide to 
 physical science, and were not in any way impugning 
 the truth of the scientific doctrine they assailed. The 
 Bible has, however, by almost all those who have 
 opposed the advance of truth from the direction of 
 science, been regarded not only as a valuable history, 
 which it is ; not only as a volume of almost incompar- 
 able poetry, which it is ; not only as a compendium 
 of the purest and most beautiful morality, which, in its 
 latter portions at least, it is ; but as an exact scientific 
 text-book, which it is not. They have been content to 
 tear the soul out of grand passages of poetry in order 
 that they might substitute the meagre statements of 
 what they supposed to be science. They were content 
 to lose sight of the higher truths which were taught 
 by the genius of these early writers, in which sense 
 truly they might have laid genuine claim to inspiration ; 
 and were anxious to make good their reputation in the 
 field of accurate science, in relation to which they 
 were, in no sense, prophetic. 
 
 But as the doctrine of the rotundity of the earth
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 191 
 
 was not snuffed out by a whiff of Patristic contempt, 
 it fell to the lot of Cosmas to demonstrate by means 
 of the Scripture that the earth is a flat parallelogram, 
 surrounded by four great seas. At the outer edges of 
 these seas, according to this religious toady, rise walls 
 which make the universe a sort of box, the lid whereof 
 is the vault of heaven. This ridiculous theory was 
 supported by numerous texts from Scripture warped 
 from their true meaning, and turned to the base use 
 of buttressing the weakness of absurdity. The curious 
 conception of proof which must have existed to 
 sanction such a palpably fallacious method is worthy 
 of illustration. That the heavens were a lid was 
 proved by the words of Isaiah, " It is He that sitteth 
 upon the circle of the earth, that stretcheth out the 
 heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a 
 tent to dwell in ; " and the theory that above the 
 star-sprinkled firmament there is a vast reservoir of 
 water is proved by the quotation of the text, " Let 
 there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and 
 let it divide the waters from the waters ; " and the 
 accuracy of this surmise is confirmed by a reference 
 to the fine ejaculation in the Psalms, " Praise Him, ye 
 heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the 
 heavens." Bacon said that the ugliness of the ape lay 
 in his resemblance to man, and the contemptibleness 
 of such reasonings as these is the greater because of 
 their distant resemblance to proof, and because they 
 ume the sacred likeness of demonstration. They 
 might he amusing if we could regard them as the 
 efforts of children who had said, "Come let us play 
 at Logic;" but 1 Ley are pitiable when we have to 
 look upon them ;is grave efforts at scientific explana- 
 tion. Lnt had the action <>l the Church gone no 
 farther than the attempt to heap the obloquy of haul 
 words upon the sacred achievements <>i science, had 
 it gone no farther than the childish ratiocination of
 
 1 92 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 Cosmas, little harm would have come of it. Time 
 fights against foolishness. The ridiculous cannot stand 
 the test of centuries, and laughter is sure to follow 
 upon the heels of such a feeble science as that which 
 Cosmas invented in the supposed interests of religion. 
 But unfortunately religion has not been content to 
 leave results to the stronger arguments ; but having 
 the power, has attempted, at all times, to force con- 
 clusions by means of violence where it could not 
 compel them by reason ; and to insist upon con- 
 victions with threats and tortures, where it could not 
 win belief by argument. It is always difficult to 
 contend in controversy with an antagonist who does 
 not hesitate to secure acquiescence by means of an 
 Inquisition or a stake; and the Church has always 
 shown herself an unflinching advocate of the efficacy 
 of compulsory conviction. Even in this early contro- 
 versy, theologians were not content with representing 
 a belief in the antipodes as a damnable heresy, but 
 had recourse to the persecution of those who believed 
 it. However, the faith in the flatness of the earth, 
 which they regarded as so salvatory, was destined to 
 die out. It has been said that the difficulties we 
 encounter are our allies, and in that case Columbus 
 had no need of friends. He had in the first instance 
 to encounter the obstinate opposition of the Bishop 
 of Ceuta in Portugal, and in the second he was 
 opposed in the Junta of Salamanca by the theologians, 
 who proved to their own satisfaction, from the writings 
 of St. Paul and St. Augustine, that the audacious 
 speculation of Columbus could have no foundation in 
 fact. Still Columbus succeeded — succeeded in making 
 his gigantic contribution to the geography of the earth, 
 a contribution which greatly strengthened the doctrine 
 of the sphericity of the world. But victories have 
 been won from the Church foot by foot ; and even 
 after this notable discovery of a new world, Pope
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 193 
 
 Alexander VI. issued a Bull, laying down a line of 
 demarcation upon the earth as a flat disc, and in the 
 plenitude of his power divided the East and the West 
 between the Spaniards and the Portuguese. In 1519, 
 however, the earth was circumnavigated by Magellan, 
 and the arguments of the theologians and the Bulls 
 of Popes were shrivelled in the strong light of truth. 
 
 But the Church showed a wonderful inaptitude to 
 learn by experience, and it profited little from its ex- 
 posed errors of the past in its controversy as to the 
 centre of the universe. The pathetic stories of the 
 lives of Copernicus and Galileo are narrated with care 
 and candour in Dr. White's work ; and as possibly 
 it is in this connection that his essay is most adequate, 
 and as it is in relation to the struggle between Faith 
 and Science as to the astronomical discoveries of 
 these men that readers are best informed, we propose 
 only to allude to what Dr. White properly designates 
 one of the greatest battle-fields in the warfare he has 
 undertaken to describe. 
 
 Any reader who has truth at heart must sorrow as 
 much for the compulsory apostasy of such a man 
 as Galileo as for the martyrdom of a Giordano Bruno. 
 Every man or woman whose heart is open to the 
 large and kindly influences of human sympathy, and 
 who is not precluded from genuine feeling with 
 others by the narrow selfishness of superstition, must 
 feel revolted by the trickery with which the Church 
 endeavoured to crush the truth which was too strong 
 for it; and by the pettifogging logic and scurrilous 
 casuistry of those apologists who, when the truth had 
 prevailed, endeavoured to excuse and vindicate the 
 barbarous actions of that holy institution. 
 
 lint it is necessary to point out, as the President 
 
 of Cornell University does -for, as w< have said 
 
 above, there is no bigotry in his pages, and no bias 
 
 in his book except the bia 5 to the side of truth that 
 
 I. N
 
 [94 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 this opposition to the truth was not confined to the 
 Roman Catholic Church, but that the truth had as 
 vindictive enemies amidst the professors of the Re- 
 formed doctrines. 
 
 Nothing is stranger than the uselessness of experi- 
 ence to some persons. After the early vicissitudes of 
 the Christian Church, one would have imagined that 
 those who professed the religion of peace — those who 
 took for their example the lowly and forgiving Preacher 
 of the Sermon on the Mount — those who had had 
 experience of the horrors, and at the same time of 
 the ineffectiveness of persecution to stamp out doctrines 
 even when it annihilates men, would have been the 
 last to have recourse to those weapons of power and 
 of cowardice which had branded not the victims but 
 the persecutors with infamy, while they sealed the 
 truth of certain great moral doctrines with blood. 
 One would have thought that the children of martyrs 
 would have been the last to become persecutors. One 
 would have imagined that they would have had con- 
 fidence in doctrines which had flourished in spite of 
 the malice of power, and which had not yielded to 
 the violence of infidelity ; that they would have had no 
 fear for the integrity of such doctrines when power was 
 upon their side, and when emperors and kings counted 
 themselves the subjects of a great spiritual hierarchy. 
 But, strange to say, they had not learned that lesson. 
 The wealth and power of the Church as an institution 
 had become great, but it abused that wealth and that 
 power with an indiscretion and a recklessness which 
 were quite comparable to the folly of those who had 
 preceded them in these dangerous possessions. Those 
 who ought to have learned tolerance from their own 
 early need of it, only showed intolerance, or the in- 
 capacity to exercise power when fortune favoured them 
 with that edged tool. But if such would have been 
 rational expectations with regard to the early Church,
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 195 
 
 surely we might upon similar grounds have anticipated 
 better things, in relation to science, from the men 
 who carried out the Reformation. We might have 
 believed that those who saw so many errors in the 
 Church of Rome that they felt it necessary to free 
 themselves from her trammels, who protested against 
 the superstitions of the Church, and separated them- 
 selves from her communion at personal risk and in 
 spite of Bulls and proclamations, would have accorded 
 a similar freedom to those who prosecuted science, to 
 that which they claimed for themselves in their own 
 devotion to a pure religion — that men who had been 
 alive to certain important truths which negatived the 
 pretensions and chicanery of the Roman See, would 
 hive yielded their assent to the facts which were 
 brought to their knowledge by science. But that was 
 not so, and Luther was no less urgent for the recognition 
 of the Bible as a hand-book of astronomy than Bellar- 
 mine. "People," he said, "gave ear to an upstart 
 astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolves, 
 not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the 
 moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise- 
 some new system, which of all systems is of course 
 the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire 
 science of astronomy. But sacred Scripture tells us 
 that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not 
 tin earth." And Melancthon, too, argued in the same 
 way. "The eyes," he says, "are witnesses that the 
 heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. 
 But certain men, either from the love of novelty or to 
 m;ike a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the 
 earth moves, and (hey maintain that neither the eighl 
 spheres nor the sun revolves. Now, it is a wanl of 
 
 honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, 
 
 and the example is pernicious, it is the part ol good 
 
 men to accepl the truth as revealed by God, and to 
 
 acquiesce in it."
 
 196 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 We might concur with Melancthon in the last pro- 
 position, although we would differ from him in regard 
 to the exact nature of revelation. Not, as he seemed 
 to think, has God spoken only through the writers of 
 Psalms and Ecclesiastes— which, according to him, 
 leave no doubt as to the fixity of the earth — but 
 through all men has the truth of the universe been 
 made clear. If Moses was, as Bacon finely calls him, 
 "God's first pen," surely Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius, 
 Kepler, and Newton have been eyes and hands to 
 God. If the writers of books which we would not 
 hesitate to call sacred — for the presence of truth will 
 sanctify all meaner things — were inspired, not less 
 inspired were those who read the great Book of the 
 Universe, and interpreted the language of Nature in 
 the interests of the welfare, the happiness, and the 
 prosperity of mankind. These men, too, were revealers 
 of the truth, and we may well say with Melancthon 
 that it is the part of a good mind to accept it, and to 
 acquiesce in it. 
 
 We have already said the work before us is exceed- 
 ingly explicit as to the life of Galileo, and the perse- 
 cutions which took place in connection with the 
 heliocentric theory in astronomy ; for its author not 
 only traces the painful details of that indelible blot 
 upon the Christian escutcheon, but also describes the 
 pusillanimous excuses which have been made for the 
 conduct of the Church in relation to Galileo, and the 
 casuistic apologetics of such writers as Marini, De 
 Bonald, Rallaye, and De Gabriac. 
 
 His reference, too, to the nebular hypothesis, 
 although very short, is not without interest. That 
 theory, guessed at by Bruno, reasoned out by Kant, 
 and fully developed by Laplace — that theory of the 
 natural evolution of an organised universe, was op- 
 posed by the religious world. It was a blow at the 
 Mosaic cosmogony, and hence those who dealt it
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 197 
 
 were assailed with hard names ; for religious people 
 have a very vituperative vocabulary, and even when 
 worsted in argument are seldom excelled in the use 
 of sacred Billingsgate. 
 
 However, hard names break no bones and cannot 
 long impede the progress of the truth. For a time 
 the opponents of this nebular hypothesis were trium- 
 phant, when the construction of more powerful tele- 
 scopes resolved many heavenly bodies which had in 
 earlier times been regarded as nebulae into distinct 
 stars, and they inferred, somewhat hastily, that because 
 some of the so-called nebulae had been proved to be 
 galaxies of stars, all would in time be resolved. They 
 were content to wait until a larger reflector than that 
 at Slough was constructed. 
 
 The all-important discovery of the spectroscope, 
 however, set this disputed matter at rest. The dis- 
 covery of Frauenhofer, that the spectrum of a solid 
 or liquid body is continuous, while that of a gaseous 
 body is discontinuous, was made a means, in the able 
 huids of Kirchhoif in Germany, and of Huggins and 
 others in this country, of determining the real nature 
 of a great number of the nebulae, and it has been 
 proved that a very large number of these are gaseous 
 bodies; and therefore we find that the nebular hypo- 
 thesis has been startlingly confirmed from a new and 
 unexpected quarter. 
 
 Passing, however, to Dr. White's chapter upon 
 1 hemistry and physics, we would note a contribution 
 to the interesting controversy as to Lord Bacon's 
 services to Philosophy and Science. After referring 
 to the great pioneer of modern science, Albert <>l 
 Bollstadt, against whom the charge of sorcery was 
 brought so effectually as to procure his condemnation 
 by tin- authorities of tin- Dominican order, and ulti- 
 mately, alas I In . < ompliance with the scholastic methods 
 which were prescribed to him ; aftei alluding to
 
 198 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Vincent of Beauvais and to Roger Bacon, concerning 
 whom he speaks some admiring but not fulsome 
 words, he refers to the life and labours of Francis 
 Bacon, who did so much to lead the modern world 
 to the appreciation of the proper use of the experi- 
 mental method. "Strange as it may at first seem," 
 he says, " Francis Bacon, whose keenness of sight 
 revealed the delusions of the old path and the promises 
 of the new, that man whose boldness in thought did 
 so much to turn the world from the old path into the 
 new, presents, in his own writings, one of the most 
 striking examples of the strength of the evil he did 
 so much to destroy." And by some apt quotations 
 he shows that while Bacon fully understood the 
 pernicious consequences of the theological method, 
 and appreciated to the full the advantages of experi- 
 ment and observation untrammelled by Scriptural 
 interpretation and foregone conclusions, yet that he 
 himself yielded, upon occasions, to the temptation 
 of forming that spurious amalgam of science and 
 religion, and would incorporate with his perspicuous 
 observations of nature some vague and superstitious 
 interpretations of the sacred writings. But possibly 
 he infers too much from the existence of some stray 
 expressions in Bacon's writings which favour that 
 view. Possibly every bookmaker is a little of a time- 
 server, and while Bacon was a thorough disciple of 
 the true method, and especially repudiated the old 
 as an unmitigated evil, we cannot but think that 
 these expressions were only sops to the Cerberus 
 of popular superstition. Bacon was not only a great 
 philosopher, and, in so far as science went, a great 
 scientist, but he was one of the greatest of literary 
 men. He wrote not merely expository works, but 
 contributed to the classical literature of the country. 
 Possibly that fact may account for the existence of 
 these phrases in the " Advancement of Learning,"
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 199 
 
 which would seem to show that Bacon was not true 
 to his own creed, as he repeatedly stated it in the 
 " Novum Organon." We confess we cannot think 
 that Bacon did vacillate as to this matter, but rather 
 lean to the belief that in his works, as in his life, he 
 showed himself as not only a philosopher, but a 
 courtier. But in our admiration for Francis Bacon 
 we would not wish to depreciate his great prede- 
 cessor in name and method. We have only recently 
 learned to do anything like justice to the memory 
 of Roi£er Bacon. But the more we know of his 
 achievements, the more admiration is demanded of 
 us. He not only advocated the experimental method 
 in science, but practised it with success, and attained 
 what can only be regarded as wonderful results. A 
 mere enumeration of the benefits which we directly 
 or indirectly owe to his labours is sufficiently con- 
 vincing. Clocks, lenses, burning specula, telescopes, 
 are amongst these. We find in his writings formulae 
 for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and bismuth, 
 and it is said — and not without some evidence — that 
 he had investigated the power and use of steam. 
 These are gigantic practical benefits to the world, 
 but it is a question whether we are not even more 
 his debtors for the institution of that method in the 
 natural sciences which has been so fruitful in the 
 hands Of those who were to come after him. But 
 this greal man lived three centuries before Lord Bacon, 
 and was charged with magic, and all the other sins 
 which were in the Church's foolish head associated 
 with scientific progress. Here there are some instruc- 
 tive passages in the history of persecution. At firsl 
 Bacon was protected, owing to the elevation of his 
 friend Guy Foulkes to the popedom; but Ins respite 
 was short. The rabble of the priesthood gave tongue 
 
 as usual, and even the two orders, Franciscan and 
 Dominican, entered into the controversy, and used
 
 200 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 their influence to stay the tide of progress. In 1243 
 the Dominicans interdicted every member of their 
 order from the study of medicine, and a few years 
 later they issued a similar prohibition in relation to 
 the study of chemistry. In 1278 the Franciscans 
 condemned Bacon's teachings. But condemnation 
 was not enough, and the Church endeavoured to 
 defraud the world of the benefactions of this great 
 man by means of violence. Bacon, now an old man, 
 was imprisoned, and was, after fourteen years, re- 
 leased only to pass to the larger liberty of death. 
 We know of few more pathetic utterances than that 
 of Bacon. "Would," he said, "that I had not given 
 myself so much trouble for the love of science ! " 
 An inexpressibly sad sigh of the old man, worn by 
 the persecutions of a Church which ought to have 
 fostered and cherished him, looking with dissatis- 
 faction at the little he had done, and with longing 
 to the great things he might have accomplished, con- 
 fessing his love for science, even while he feels worn 
 and weary with the harshness and cruelty of the 
 world, and looking forward to the quietness of that 
 cloister which persecution cannot invade, and where 
 trouble cannot come. But there is a haggard same- 
 ness about the history of the attitude of religion 
 towards each of the sciences. Thus we find that 
 geology has been vigorously opposed by religionists, 
 not only with vituperation and obloquy, but by means 
 of certain pious frauds. Even now, however, that 
 battle rages, and its incidents are familiar to the 
 readers of these pages. 
 
 In the history of another new science — political 
 economy — there are some instructive instances of the 
 lolly of those who oppose themselves to the truth. 
 Tlr.it chosen as an illustration by Dr. White is well 
 adapted for the purpose. The Church has always and 
 in all places opposed the receipt of interest, however
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 201 
 
 moderate, for money lent. Certain texts in the Old 
 and New Testaments are regarded as authorities for 
 condemning the practice of lending or borrowing 
 money at interest. The fathers, both of the Eastern 
 and the Western Church, were emphatic in their con- 
 demnation of the practice. Amongst the former St. 
 Chrysostom held that nothing could be "more un- 
 reasonable than to sow without land, without rain, 
 without ploughs. All those who give themselves to 
 this damnable agriculture shall reap only tares. Let 
 us cut off those monstrous births of gold and silver, 
 let us stop this execrable fecundity." And St. Basil, 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen, Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Augustine, and St. Jerome were equally hard upon 
 money-lenders and their practices. Interest-bearing 
 loans were universally condemned. In many countries 
 the estates of money-lenders were confiscated, and the 
 Third Council of the Lateran decreed that every "im- 
 penitent money-lender should be excluded from the 
 altar, from absolution in the hour of death, and from 
 Christian burial." 
 
 In the beginning of the fourteenth century, too, 
 the Council of Vienna declared "that if any one shall 
 pertinaciously affirm that the taking of interest for 
 money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heretic fit 
 fur punishment." 
 
 It is not to be doubted that the results of this 
 action upon the part of the Church were, in an eco- 
 nomic point of view, disastrous. It led to the crippling 
 of enterprise and to the practice of usury. It favoured 
 pauperism and (.lipped the wings of commerce. But 
 further, seeing that the accumulation of capital was 
 by the-^e foolish doctrines discouraged, it led to a 
 lavish luxury on the pari of the wealthy, and ;i (lis 
 regard of that self-denial which is one of the Ik- I 
 moral attributes of prudence and economy. In the 
 
 litt.' nth century, John Gei on, at tii.it tune Chancelloi
 
 202 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of the University of Paris, a learned theologian and 
 an able orator, raised his voice against this ridiculous 
 prohibition. "Better it is," he said, "to lend money 
 at reasonable interest, and thus to give aid to the 
 poor, than to see them reduced by poverty to steal, 
 waste their goods, and sell at a low price their 
 personal and real property." But most voices of 
 reason and right speaking to the Church were voices 
 "crying in a wilderness." His arguments were met 
 with quotations. But the error was not only an error 
 of the Church of Rome. The Reformed Church 
 adopted this glaring economic fallacy. Thus Luther 
 says, "To exchange anything with any one, and gain 
 by the exchange, is not to do a charity, but to steal. 
 Every usurer is a thief worthy of the gibbet. I call 
 those usurers who lend money at five or six per cent." 
 This sounds somewhat strong language to modern 
 ears, who are familiar with such institutions as banks. 
 But while Luther was thus vituperative, Calvin took 
 a more rational view of the matter, and saw no ob- 
 jection to interest-bearing loans, although he set his 
 canon against loans at illegal or oppressive interest. 
 But even so late as the seventeenth century the Theo- 
 logical Faculty of the Sorbonne declared that usury 
 is the taking of any interest at all, no matter how 
 little, and this position was defended by a reference 
 to the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel. Popes them- 
 selves have taken an interest in this market contro- 
 versy, and there are several condemnatory Bulls and 
 declarations which thoroughly identify the infall- 
 ible heads of the Church with this flagrant politico- 
 economical heresy. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to follow further the intri- 
 cate history of this foolish and pernicious error. It 
 is somewhat humiliating, however, to find that such 
 a man as Bossuet could lend his strong, keen facul- 
 ties and his vigorous eloquence to such a ridiculous
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 203 
 
 cause as the condemnation of a system which is 
 undoubtedly the most advantageous arrangement in 
 relation to capital and production which could be 
 devised. Dr. White, although he has confined him- 
 self very much to the ground already traversed by 
 Lecky, has written a clear and pithy chapter upon 
 this episode of the war. 
 
 Those who wish to follow more in detail, and yet 
 shortly, the history of the various fights which science 
 has well fought, will find what they seek in the work 
 before us. Even with the recent guerilla warfare, 
 which continues, although some of the graver aspects 
 of that great struggle have ceased, these pages deal. 
 Perhaps it was scarcely necessary. We are only too 
 familiar with the intolerance of so-called religious 
 people at the present time. We know too well how 
 the word "Materialist" is used by them as a weapon 
 of offence and defence against those who are en- 
 deavouring to advance science, and how some of the 
 ablest leaders of science are shuddered at as " atheists " 
 and "unbelievers." There is the same spirit rife 
 among such people as instituted the Inquisition ; and 
 although there is not a Papal, there is a social 
 u Index," in which the names — we may be sure — of 
 most of the best books are entered. Have we not 
 ourselves seen the opposition to the Evolution Hypo- 
 thesis of Darwin? Have we not heard it denounced 
 by well-meaning men who knew nothing of it except 
 th.it it was a theory of natural history unsanctioned 
 by Scripture? Have we not seen Professor Tyndall 
 ealled by very hard names in consequence of some 
 Candid utterances of his at the meeting of the British 
 Association at Belfast? Are we not, each one of us, 
 familiar with the dogged resistance which all new 
 truth encounters bom old dogma? It is true that 
 the Church is feebler. It is true it has had its teeth 
 
 drawn, but it shows the old animosity by munching
 
 2o 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 with its gums what it can no longer bite. Science is 
 stronger. Its votaries may be sent to Coventry, but 
 not to gaol. The press is no longer gagged, the 
 laboratory is no longer trammelled, and men are free 
 to pursue the great path of science to secure for 
 themselves — if no other reward — that of their own 
 conscience by well-doing, and for mankind the ines- 
 timable benefits which accrue from a faithful study of 
 nature, from a diligent pursuit of science. The great 
 work — of accumulating knowledge — is in progress. 
 The dissemination of truth goes on. Those who 
 devote themselves to science owe a duty of faithful 
 and earnest work to those great men who laid the 
 foundations of the stately edifice at their peril, and 
 cemented its first stones with their blood. They will 
 not do that duty unless they carry on the work with- 
 out fear or favour, unless they are, in the words of 
 Fichte, "men whose chosen friend is Truth, who 
 adhere to her in life and death, who receive her 
 when she is cast out by all the world, who take her 
 openly under their protection when she is traduced 
 and calumniated, who for her sake will joyfully bear 
 the cunningly concealed enmity of the great, the dull 
 sneer of the coxcomb, and the compassionate shrug 
 of the fool." 
 
 One word in mitigation of the sentence which may 
 be passed on those implicated in this indictment which 
 has been drawn by the President of Cornell Univer- 
 sity. In a great many instances truth has come from 
 within the pale of the Church. The first opponent 
 of Cosmas and his ridiculous geographic notions was 
 a Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg, who asserted his belief 
 in the existence of the antipodes. Then we know 
 that Copernicus was at one time a professor at Rome, 
 and that afterwards, through the influence of his 
 uncle, who was bishop, he procured a canonry in the 
 Cathedral of Frauenburg ; Roger Bacon was a monk ;
 
 THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 205 
 
 Bernard Palissy, who first broached the true theory 
 of geology, was a "devoted Christian"; and John 
 Gerson, who, as we have pointed out, was the first 
 person who made a vigorous stand against the Church 
 doctrine that it was damnable to take interest for 
 money lent, was so noted for his piety that men 
 ascribed to him the authorship of "The Imitation of 
 Christ " ; and without enumerating other instances, 
 we have seen that Dr. Chalmers took up arms against 
 the so-called orthodox party when it opposed the use 
 of anaesthetics in relation to obstetrics. 
 
 These facts may, we say, be pleaded in mitigation ; 
 but even with such a set-off, how poor a figure does 
 the Church make through all these centuries ! Has 
 she not attempted to stifle and stamp out the truth ? 
 has she not endeavoured to divert effort from the 
 true channel of effective achievement ? has she not 
 endeavoured to do the worst of violence by endea- 
 vouring to make men think her thoughts instead of 
 thinking — to use the fine phrase of Kepler — "the 
 thoughts of God " ? It is well for the little credit 
 which is left to the Church that she has not suc- 
 ceeded in this great crime, well that she has been 
 worsted in the long campaign of the Warfare of 
 Science.
 
 IX 
 NICCOL6 MACH1AVELL1 AND HIS TIMES 1 
 
 No man ever earned for himself by means of the pen 
 a more sinister reputation than Niccolo Machiavelli. 
 It requires a good deal of villainy to secure a man an 
 immortality of obloquy, but that Machiavelli achieved. 
 His name has passed into many languages as a term 
 of reproach. It has been said that we ourselves 
 have derived a familiar name for the devil from his 
 Christian name, and an epithet for a false and faith- 
 less schemer from his surname. No man ever did 
 so much for the vocabulary of abuse. But all this 
 was done by the little Florentine with the "gentle 
 disposition," by means of his pen. His works have 
 produced profound sensations in high quarters. They 
 have been condemned by a Pope, interdicted by a 
 Council of the Church, and refuted by a king. They 
 have come under the gifted hands of great critics 
 and the foul fingers of the common hangman. Never 
 did a few reams of paper, and a few volumes of lurid 
 prose, make such a stir in the over-righteous world. 
 Never were such heaps of abuse piled upon the 
 memory of a mere writer as those which have monu- 
 mented the infamy of this useful servant of the 
 Republic of Florence who wrote "The Prince." 
 
 1 " Niccolo Machiavelli and his Times." By Prof. Pasquale Villari, author 
 of " Life of Savonarola." Translated by Lunda Villari. London : C. Kegan 
 Paul& Co., 1878. 
 
 "The Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy." By Jacob 
 
 Burckhardt. Authorised translation by S. G. C. Middlemore. London : 
 
 C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. 
 
 206
 
 NICCOL6 MACHIAVELLI 207 
 
 But venom is apt to overshoot the mark. It has 
 often happened that the Church in its attempts to 
 anathematise has sanctified. Its persecutions mark 
 better saints than its calendar, and in this case the 
 bad name which was given to the long-dead Secretary 
 of the Ten of Florence excited inklings of pity which 
 were the beginnings of justice. Burns, in his large- 
 hearted sympathy with nature, has shown that he can 
 feel for the "silly sheep" and " ourie cattle," which 
 are exposed to the grim war of a winter's night, but 
 has also an obscure sympathy with and a hope for 
 the regeneration of the author of evil himself, "Auld 
 Nicky Ben." So some impartial persons had an idea 
 that the world, when it sets itself to praise or blame, 
 only knows one measure, and that is, {t Too much ; " 
 and hence came to the conclusion that possibly even 
 Machiavelli was not really such a terrible person as 
 he was painted, not nearly so diabolical as he had 
 himself induced the world to believe him. There 
 was a sympathy with the man who after centuries, 
 which usually have the mercy of oblivion for the 
 worst men's memories, was still remembered and 
 mentioned as a household word of shame and censure ; 
 and this led to some more searching and intelligent 
 criticism than had hitherto been devoted to what was 
 thought so unworthy a subject. One thing at once 
 became clear, and that was that Machiavelli had earned 
 his infamy at the hands of posterity rather than at 
 those of his contemporaries. 
 
 It appeared that in early life he had been little 
 known, but the first definite information we have of 
 him .hows thai lie had been carefully educated, and 
 that while still a youth he commanded the respect 
 of those who were brought into close contact with 
 In keen intelligence. We know, too, thai at a some- 
 what early age he entered into the employment of 
 Florence, and held with increasing reputation the office
 
 208 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 of Secretary to the Ten, for fifteen years. During 
 these strangely deformed years, which were made bright 
 by the new-risen sun of culture and art, which might 
 have been happy in the possession of far-reaching 
 commerce, but which were blackened by the infamous 
 crimes of the Borgias, and torn by the dissensions 
 of the rival states of Italy, which invited the trampling 
 feet of foreign hosts, he was employed upon various 
 missions of importance. He went to Caterina Sforza 
 at Forli in 1499; to Louis XII. in France in 1500; 
 to Valentinois in Romagna in 1502 ; to Rome in 
 1503 ; to France again in 1504, and to Piombino 
 in the same year ; to Perugia in 1505 ; and to Rome 
 to Pope Julius II. in 1506. And it further appeared 
 from trustworthy sources, which yielded to more care- 
 ful research and more candid criticism, that he had 
 discharged most of his duties with consummate ability, 
 and had earned golden opinions. Even his errors 
 did not seem to bring him discredit. He embarked 
 with the Gonfaloniere Soderini in the foolish enter- 
 prise of turning the course of the Arno away from 
 Pisa ; he it was who advocated the appointment of 
 the strangler and assassin, Don Michelotto, as the 
 captain of the new-formed militia ; but in spite of 
 these mistakes he seems to have been much re- 
 spected. 
 
 It is evident even to a prejudiced eye that he 
 possessed many qualities which would make him a 
 useful public servant. He was a man of diligence, 
 although he may also have been a man of pleasure. 
 He had not too much conscience, although it would 
 be wrong to suppose that he was devoid of moral 
 sense. He was gifted with clear intelligence, powers 
 of accurate observation, and wrote a pellucid and 
 vigorous style. His nature was not a commanding 
 one — which is often one which is itself commanded 
 by some overmastering passion or despotic idea.
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 209 
 
 His was rather a mind which was open to receive 
 truth than bound to disseminate it. He was ready 
 to be influenced by others rather than to be a power 
 over these. There could be no more complete con- 
 trast between two men than that between Savonarola 
 and Machiavelli. The one was a man of the pulpit, 
 the other of the pen. The one influenced the age 
 by his character and eloquence ; the other, while he 
 seems to have gained respect by his graphic de- 
 spatches and his other works, seems to have exercised 
 little influence upon his age — so little that no one 
 thought it worth his while to write his life or to place 
 a monument over his remains. The one was a great 
 spiritual influence protesting against the tendencies 
 of his times, mercilessly lashing the crimes which were 
 perpetrated even on the Papal throne ; the other was 
 in the current of the progress which the age was 
 making, and shared in the refinements, the tastes, the 
 learning, and the vices which were in vogue. The 
 one was a genuine survival of Medievalism, the 
 other was a genuine product of the Renaissance. 
 The one was an enthusiast, whose enthusiasm carried 
 him sometimes to the verge of imposture, sometimes 
 to the debatable ground between sanity and insanity; 
 the other had no enthusiasm, and was veritably one 
 of the sanest men of his time. The one aimed at 
 ruling a spiritual kingdom, the other aimed at creating 
 a science for the government of an earthly one. The 
 one hoped for an immortality beyond the grave, the 
 other for an immortality OH this side of it. There 
 could not be a more complete antithesis than these 
 two characters. There was 00 sympathy possible 
 between them, and Machiavelli, who called Savon- 
 arola the "weaponless prophet" — supposing, doubt- 
 less, that ;i Mahomet with a conquering sword was 
 more of a prophet than the Dominican of San 
 Marco seems to have been incapable oi Feeling 
 I. o
 
 2io CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Savonarola's influence, and thought he was answered 
 with a sneer. 
 
 We find, then, that there is in this connection a 
 very curious circumstance, which demands some ex- 
 planation. We find that Machiavelli, while he was 
 not illustrious amongst his contemporaries, was re- 
 spected and trusted by them, and that he has only 
 been contemned by posterity ; that his cross-grained 
 performances in literature caused no very particular 
 sensation in his own days, and in his own country, 
 but that they have been loathed and abhorred by 
 succeeding generations and distant nations. Another 
 thing is certain, and that is, that Machiavelli is not 
 the man to be dismissed from notice with a puff of 
 scorn, as some critics have supposed. He has not 
 been relegated to obscurity by the Papal interdict. 
 The refutation which Frederick the Great gave to 
 the world as antidote to that bane, " The Prince," 
 when he was about to wield a sceptre instead of a 
 pen, got little credit for its author, and added nothing 
 to the discredit of its subject. Even now Machiavelli 
 attracts the interest and curiosity of many, and well 
 deserves the careful and useful study even of our 
 own days. 
 
 In this aspect, then, Professor Villari's book, which 
 we have before us, in its very clear and forcible English 
 shape, is a welcome contribution to our knowledge. 
 True, so far as Machiavelli is concerned, the present 
 work is very incomplete. It only deals with his career 
 until the time when he ceased to be the Secretary of 
 the Ten, and although it was during these years that 
 he contributed so many graphic despatches not only 
 to the pigeon-holes of a bureau at Florence but to 
 the political history of the world, our interest in 
 Machiavelli as a literary man begins when that period 
 comes to an end. While he was prosperous he was 
 the useful official with more talent for accurate
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 211 
 
 observation and strong and pithy expression than most 
 of his contemporaries. But even that praise is not 
 to be applied without qualification. Many of his de- 
 spatches are admirable. Those which were written 
 during his mission to Caesar Borgia in 1502 have 
 scarcely been equalled in any portfolio. They are 
 dramatic as well as accurate, more dramatic than the 
 pseudo-despatch which he afterwards wrote under the 
 name of " Discrezione." But these were the days of 
 wonderful despatches, and the ambassadors of such 
 States as Florence and Venice were not only making 
 history but were writing it at the same time with most 
 graphic pens. Still, as we said, our real interest in 
 Machiavelli begins when his official connection with 
 Florence for a time ceased. The shade is good for 
 literary men, and it was when fortune turned her back 
 upon Machiavelli that he began to write those enduring 
 works, those heinous books which have been such a 
 puzzle to posterity, and which have earned for Machia- 
 velli two reputations. For he is not only blamed as 
 one of the worst men of a bad time, but is praised as 
 one of the best, and ablest, which the prolific and re- 
 dundant age of the Renaissance produced. It was in 
 this time of obscurity that Machiavelli wrote "The 
 Prince," which is in itself one of the prime curiosities 
 of literature. How Machiavelli, who was a friend of 
 liberty, should write a work with the view of teaching 
 that principalities are to be governed and maintained 
 by mendacity and fraud, that morality is a consi- 
 deration altogether apart from statecraft, and that the 
 WOrsi rule is justified by the success of its sway and 
 excused by the treachery of the mob, is a question 
 which has been asked ever since criticism came to be 
 more than a Pope's Bull, or the Interdict of a Council. 
 It is a question which will trouble candid people cen- 
 turies hence. It is an urgent and important question, 
 not becau le thi hook teaches these doctrines, for much
 
 212 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 literarv rubbish has before now preached false trash, 
 but because the book was written by a man of un- 
 questionably clear sight, of admitted power and pru- 
 dence, and a man who had not lost sight of the beauty 
 of liberty or the excellence of virtue. 
 
 The main questions, then, which interest us in re- 
 lation to this remarkable man and his perverse per- 
 formances are connected with the portion of his life 
 which is not as yet written by Professor Villari. No 
 doubt this most recent biographer has given us some 
 important documents which were not before in our 
 possession. He has corrected some errors which had 
 crept into the notes even of such a careful edition 
 of Machiavelli's works as that of Passerini and Melanesi, 
 and especially as to the supposed volumes of Machia- 
 velli's private letters which, it was said, had passed 
 into the hands of the English collector, Mr. Phillips. 
 All these matters of assistance must be acknowledged, 
 but as yet we cannot say that Professor Villari has 
 contributed much to our better knowledge of Machia- 
 velli. The pages which concern themselves with his 
 life are lucid and interesting, and every question is 
 treated with calmness and judicial fairness. But when 
 all is weighed we question if the work, so far, has made 
 any material difference in our understanding of Machia- 
 velli. We have a more accurate knowledge of several 
 events, but we have no better means of comprehending 
 the course of the intricate threads which make up his 
 somewhat twisted character. We know that we are 
 expressing a hasty opinion, for only half the work has 
 been performed ; but Professor Villari has invited an 
 opinion on his partial effort, otherwise he would have 
 reserved this literary instalment until he could pay in 
 full. This fragment is the more scanty because so little 
 is known of the early life of Machiavelli. It may be 
 convenient to say what little is to be said of his early 
 life here.
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 213 
 
 He came of an old Tuscan family, and inherited 
 little but a few barren rights. His father was a 
 jurisconsult, and filled at one time the office of 
 Treasurer in Marca. He married a woman with a 
 scanty, if any, dower, and had four children. How 
 these scrambled through childhood we know not. 
 Although Niccolo, the second of the four, wrote so 
 many volumes, he does not tell us anything about these 
 times, and his pen always traced times remote from 
 his own personal and private experiences. We cannot 
 read anything of his own life between the lines of his 
 novel or his comedy. His works are peculiarly 
 reticent as to his private affairs. We know nothing 
 from him of the death of his mother, which seems to 
 have happened in October 1496, shortly before Niccolo 
 entered upon his public career. His pen was not for 
 these private matters. It wrote the first chapters of a 
 revived history which was to supersede the works of 
 chroniclers ; it praised the stupendous ability of rulers 
 who had no scruples, no honour, no fears, and no 
 pity. These were lit themes for his public pen, but 
 such matters as the death of the mother who had given 
 him birth, who had borne with his youth, and hoped and 
 prayed for his manhood, that is too obscure a bypath 
 to invite his notice. Even the wife whom he married 
 shortly before his mission to Valentinois in Romagna 
 cannot secure his literary attention. He can write 
 graphic despatches to the Signoria but cannot write 
 home. It is true they have only just been married. 
 It is true Machiavelli was unwilling to go upon the 
 mission, lor winch he timidly felt some incapacity, 
 partly beGause of his new married joys. But although 
 he was absenl from Florence for a long time, and 
 owing to his small pay and large ways contracted con- 
 siderable debts during hi absence, neither his thoughts 
 1101 his pen turn to Ins wife. He seldom il ever 
 writes to Marietta, and the young wife, who built
 
 2i 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 such hopes of happiness upon her clever husband, only 
 hears indirectly of him. He has time to write his 
 dramatic despatches — that, of course, was a primary 
 duty ; he has time to write ribald letters to Buona- 
 corsi and others in Florence ; he has time to bother 
 these by repeated requests for a copy of Plutarch's 
 " Lives " — which was not to be had in Florence, but was 
 procured for his entreaties from Venice — and other 
 matters which impose duties which make his friends 
 grumble a little ; but he has no time to write to his wife. 
 She has to hang about the Chancery and has to pester 
 his colleagues for news of him. He has even time, it 
 would seem, for other " not very edifying " affairs 
 besides those nasty letters to Buonacorsi, but Villari 
 passes these over with some " swiftness of narration " 
 which is at least merciful to the private memory of 
 Machiavelli. 
 
 But passing these traits — and even Villari has to 
 acknowledge that "as a father, a husband, a son," 
 if " we have found little to blame (sic), there has been 
 equally little to admire " — we find him put forward 
 as the spokesman of his family in 1497, when a letter 
 was to be written as to the right to the gift of the 
 living of Santa Maria della Fagna in the Mugillo, and 
 the letter was in Latin. That circumstance proved that 
 his friends and relations had confidence in him, and 
 that he had been somewhat carefully educated. Still 
 it seems certain that Machiavelli was not u learned," 
 as the word was then used. He read much, and his 
 memory was usefully retentive, as his books prove. 
 But quotation was a trick of the times, which were a 
 curious amalgam of old-world learning and new-birth 
 intelligence. Machiavelli's quotations were confined to 
 Latin, and he seems only to have read Greek authors in 
 translations. On the whole Varchi's description of him, 
 that he was "rather not without letters than lettered," 
 seems accurate. This Latin letter was his first public
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 215 
 
 appearance upon any stage, and soon afterwards, in 
 1497, upon the death of Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary 
 of the Republic, who was succeeded by Marcello Virgilio, 
 and upon the dismissal of a Secretary to the Signoria, 
 Machiavelli was appointed by the votes of the Great 
 Council. That is almost all we can learn of him until 
 his public life began. Then he writes for a time his 
 own biography in his letters and despatches. 
 
 The mere enumeration of a man's qualities seldom 
 gives one an idea of the man. Psychological dissection 
 gives one little real conception of character. So it 
 comes about that many of our best describers of 
 character have told us more of the impressions that 
 the men they wish us to understand have made upon 
 others, than of the actual qualities or sentiments of 
 which they were supposed to be possessed, and from 
 these reflected lights of emotion we gather more know- 
 ledge, and attain a better insight into the disposition 
 of the man, than we could arrive at by any analysis 
 of his mental faculties, or any enumeration of his 
 deeds. We know more of a man after we have heard 
 him abused or praised by some one who is familiar 
 with him, than we would if we had his whole phreno- 
 logical development quantitatively described. 
 
 The genuine sympathy that Thackeray has with 
 some men lets us know more of their character than 
 we could obtain from hours of reading about their bad- 
 ness or goodness. There is not much of this indirect 
 light of contemporary criticism to be thrown upon 
 Machiavelli. We know what he looked like. He was 
 small and slender. His eyes were always on the 
 alert in his small head. His hair was dark, his lips 
 thin and compressed, his nose aquiline. A dappei 
 man with a keen mind. That is our impression of 
 him. He does not seem to have had many friends. 
 lb- was not tin- kind of man to make friendships, 
 and from hum- acquaintances we learn nothing. A
 
 216 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 friend must be purblind, but Machiavelli was very 
 seeing. He was friendly with Buonaeorsi, and 
 they exchanged many letters, some of which were 
 paltry pieces of obscenity, and he seems to have gained 
 that calm form of admiration we call respect from 
 many by reason of his admirable discharge of his 
 public duties. His writings, too, were such as to 
 command respect in those days of taste and immorality, 
 but few seem to have cared much for him, and he does 
 not seem to have cared much for any. He respected 
 Valentinois when he was powerful, unscrupulous, and 
 successful — -it mattered not that his ugly success had 
 been attained by hideous crimes, by the worst arts 
 and vices and perfidies that ever discredited human 
 nature and blackened the pages of history ; but he 
 saw through him when he had fallen, when after the 
 death of Alexander VI. he was in the power of Julius 
 II., and was now as humble as he had been proud, as 
 grovelling as he had once been soaring. No, Machiavelli 
 had no capacity for loving, no command of others' love. 
 He could command respect, and win such praises as 
 are the reward of successful officialism, nothing more. 
 He was not able to "wield much influence over 
 others," and as influence is a measure more of char- 
 acter than cleverness, and has more to do with con- 
 science than with despatch-writing, we may form some 
 conception of this man, whose books have been such 
 a trouble to the world. 
 
 So far for the story of his life as treated in these 
 volumes. His present biographer felt the scantiness 
 of these details. He knew that Machiavelli's life is 
 written more upon his own papers than it can now 
 be by any biographer. No one at the time of his 
 death, as we have said, thought that a life had passed 
 away which was worth recording. No one seems to 
 have thought him the remarkable man he really was. 
 No one thought his grave worthy of a monument
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 217 
 
 until Earl Cowper, in 1787, thought his increasing 
 memory deserved a stone. It is only when men are 
 remembered by other things that we monument their 
 remains. When there is nothing to know the dead 
 by but their tombs, do not these mock man's forget- 
 fulness and preach a homily on oblivion ? It was, then, 
 for that reason that Professor Villari thought to supply 
 the place of details of Machiavelli's early life by a 
 history of the times. Indeed, these two volumes are 
 far more a history of the times than a biography of 
 Machiavelli. The whole, however, is exceedingly in- 
 teresting and valuable. 
 
 No doubt the history of Italy during the Renaissance 
 is difficult to write. It is not so much one history 
 as many histories. There was no real national life, 
 but there were important municipal lives— cities with 
 rulers as important as those which have held sway 
 over great countries, with commerce and riches which 
 covered the seas and the markets of the world, with 
 an activity of intellectual life which looked almost like 
 the delirium of fever after the coma of the Middle 
 Ages. Each city was the manufactory of history, and 
 a connected narrative of the history of the Renais- 
 sance is most difficult. All these have a look of mis- 
 cellaneousnes^ which confuses the unfamiliar reader. 
 Even Burckhardt's admirable book, although full of 
 wisdom, is admittedly devoid of that method which is 
 indispensable to history. Professor Villari's method 
 is not altogether good. He first gives short histories 
 Oi the towns of lt;ily. He then deals with the great 
 men whose names are associated with these. He sub- 
 sequently deals generally with the revival of learning, 
 and concludes the Introduction with a chapter ..11 tin- 
 political condition ot Italy at the end of the fifteenth 
 
 century. 
 
 In this way the reader is conscious th.it he is often 
 
 ling ovei the same ground twice, an impression whi< h
 
 2i 8 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 is strengthened by the fact that in half-a-dozen in- 
 stances Professor Villari repeats observations which he 
 has made earlier in the volume. Still, the same thing 
 may be said with even greater force of the hither-and- 
 thither method of Burckhardt, and as we have said, 
 the history of these times by Professor Villari is ex- 
 ceedingly interesting and admirable. We do not forget 
 that he has had the advantage of reading Burckhardt's 
 books, but even making allowance for that circum- 
 stance, we think this work worthy of careful reading, 
 and are certain that it will command sincere admiration. 
 We cannot doubt that some such Introduction as 
 that which is here given us by Professor Villari was re- 
 quired. The puzzle in relation to Machiavelli's writings 
 to which we have referred has been variously solved. 
 Some have said that "The Prince," with all its terrible 
 lessons in immorality, was not a serious work. It 
 was a haggard joke, that was all ! Ugly but funny. 
 It was said that Machiavelli was so true a republican, 
 so great a lover of liberty, that he desired to bring 
 absolutism into contempt, and that, therefore, he 
 wrote this book. But that ingenious theory is worth- 
 less. The book is a book with a purpose quite other 
 than laughter. He had no desire to bring absolute 
 power into contempt by his advocacy of breaches of 
 faith and his adulation of force and fraud. What he 
 did admire was a directness of purpose which was 
 balked by no scruples, which was marred by no foolish 
 fancies or squeamish ness, but which with force and 
 firmness achieved its ends. It was these qualities that 
 he admired in Caesar Borgia ; it was to these means 
 that he looked for the rule of a State after he had 
 found from bitter experience that such a free govern- 
 ment as that which failed at Florence, before the 
 return of the Medici, could not govern a State and 
 preserve its independence amidst the States of Italy. 
 He had seen Soderini fail, he saw Lorenzo to some
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 219 
 
 extent succeed. To him the existence of the State 
 seemed threatened, not so much from without as from 
 within ; and the remedy was to secure the firmness, 
 the persistence, the directness in thought and action, 
 which was possible to a prince, but which he despaired 
 of from a republic. Even then his ideal great man 
 was only a confused and incomplete conception, for 
 he did not conceive a man capable of great ends, 
 but a man capable of firm and expeditious means. 
 It was the man of action he admired, not the man 
 whose actions were sudden and whose aims were high. 
 He only understood a splendid human instrument, 
 not a great human being. In this aspect it is that 
 we find the meaning of his '* Prince" and "Discourse on 
 Livy." In this aspect we see that he was, as Burck- 
 hardt says, "a patriot in the fullest meaning of the 
 word." It matters not that the Florentines treated 
 him as a criminal. They mistook him, as nations 
 are apt to do their great men, throughout. They 
 misunderstood his patriotism, they did not see his 
 want of a moral principle. That which was worthy 
 of censure they overlooked. That which was above 
 praise they punished. 
 
 Hut those who supposed these serious writings to 
 be ridicule erred egregiously. The whole tone nega- 
 tives such a supposition. There is not an indication 
 throughout that he is in other than serious, often in 
 bitter, earnest. Besides, in his earlier writings, as 
 Villari points out, we tind indications of the doctrines 
 which lie elaborated in these more mature productions. 
 The satire must have been the work of :i lifetime it 
 the theory, to which we have alluded, be correct. There 
 is a more probable theory, and that is, that "The Prince" 
 Was written when Machiavelli was in disgrace, to 
 
 tire 'he favour of the Medici. 
 
 Ill, letter to Vettoi i, which was di covered m [8l0, 
 is in favour "I this view. I'.ut even thru we do not say
 
 220 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 that it was a base attempt to gain favour. He did 
 not pretend to opinions in order to flatter Lorenzo ; 
 he did not advocate views of which he was not convinced. 
 As we have seen, at one time he had an exaggerated 
 admiration for the murderous and brutal success of 
 Ca;sar Borgia. He was with him at the instant of his 
 greatest triumph, and he formed too exalted a notion 
 of this man's ability. He thus formulated in his own 
 mind the principles of government. He was only 
 familiar with small States, where the good of the 
 individuals is indissolubly connected with the good 
 of the State. His very knowledge of the history of 
 Greece and Rome taught him the same lesson, that 
 the happiness of the citizens was only to be attained 
 through the prosperity of the city. In his own day 
 that prosperity was to be attained, it seemed to him, 
 through the organising influence of a single will. The 
 State could not be preserved from its external enemies, 
 it could not be cured of its own diseases, except by 
 strong measures, and these were only to be wielded 
 by a strong man. He had no conception of a national 
 conscience which could organise a nation, as the forces 
 of Nature organise a crystal — he only understood the 
 running of human nature into a mould which would 
 give the State definite and useful shape. He turned 
 his eyes to the past, as all men were at that time 
 doing. The faces of all were averted from the present. 
 They pushed on to the future with restless activity, 
 but they kept their eyes fixed on Greece and Rome. 
 
 It is a fact in physiological observation that if a man 
 walks onward while he fixes his eye upon some point 
 behind him he will find it impossible to walk straight, 
 but will diverge from the path obliquely. It is the 
 same, it seems to us, in national progress. And the 
 Renaissance, which sought its inspiration from the old 
 times of Paganism with a view to escape from the 
 trammels and superstitions of Medievalism, and pushed
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 221 
 
 forward into the new times which were opening to 
 humanity, went literally astray in a very remarkable 
 way. 
 
 It was because Machiavelli kept his eyes fixed on 
 Rome that he advocated his admirable reform — the 
 creation of a national militia — and it was for the 
 same reason that he saw no medicine for the dis- 
 eases of the State but those which had been admin- 
 istered by powerful and ambitious rulers in the old 
 time. Machiavelli understood the State as he saw 
 it, but not as it now exists. The good of that State 
 was the supreme good which he thought ought to 
 be the end and aim of politics ; and he did not 
 see that the good of the citizen may be distinguished 
 from, may be antagonistic to, the good of the State. 
 The good of the latter too frequently goes into kings' 
 coffers. It is rulers who win and wear the spoils 
 won by war. It is the people who are enriched by 
 the triumphs of peace. But, as we have pointed out, 
 in Machiavelli's time it was difficult to distinguish 
 these two results. When the State is small these 
 distinctions are not easy. In Florence these two 
 possible ends of politics could not at that time be 
 in fact separated. The benefit of the Florentines 
 was to be obtained by Florentine arms. The good 
 of the whole was to be obtained by conciuests. And 
 the arms were ill wielded and blunt in the hands of 
 the republic. 
 
 Machiavelli saw these evils, and he thought that 
 the n Hi' dy was to be found in kingly rule. He aimed 
 ;it the greatness of Florence, and to attain thai end 
 he would hive razed Ak/.zo to the ground. It was 
 in the same intere 1 thai he developed his idea ol a 
 militia and despaired of hireling troops. Ii is difficult 
 to conceive how, at that time, he could have attained 
 
 to truer notions ol politics; how he could have come 
 
 to tin conclusion thai a larger unity than he desired
 
 222 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 would be better for Italy. The times were inimical to 
 the organisation of a united Italy. The petty tyrants 
 h.ul created petty States, the petty States made petty 
 wars, and these wars were the opportunity of the 
 foreign power, which, as Machiavelli himself said, 
 " was the death of Freedom." 
 
 It was these circumstances, then, which, when the 
 republic had passed away, made him despair of 
 freedom, and look to a prince like Caesar Borgia, 
 who by his genius could organise a State, by his 
 arms could keep it safely. That the king who was 
 to rule was without moral nature ; that his word was 
 no word ; that he had no scruples, and stopped at 
 no crime, no cruelty, in the attainment of his pur- 
 pose, were matters beside the question. In these 
 times we have our prisons and our hangman. Then 
 the times were so bad that these ends could only 
 be served by such violent remedies as fraud, injustice, 
 fear, and the like. 
 
 He did not know that State nosology is a pro- 
 gressive science, and that the medicines which had 
 cured Rome might kill Florence. It was these con- 
 siderations that made him believe in the theories he 
 advocated in " The Prince." He honestly thought 
 that virtue was a good thing, that morality was not 
 to be despised, but that they had nothing to do with 
 the science of government. 
 
 He served a republic, but he felt that a republic 
 could not in those days secure liberty in the same 
 way that a monarch could. He was in favour of 
 the step which was taken when the office of Gonfa- 
 loniere was given to Soderini for life. In his army 
 reforms he saw that a leader was a necessity, and he 
 cared not how detestable the man who led might 
 be, how unworthy of respect, how worthy of loathing. 
 What he required was a man who could make him- 
 self feared and obeyed — a man whose hand would not
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 223 
 
 be turned from complete conquest, even the conquest 
 of extirpation, by any feelings or sentiments, by any 
 conscience or by any scruples — and when an oppor- 
 tunity occurred for putting these theories in practice 
 he did not shrink from the act. 
 
 It was through him that Don Michelotto was 
 chosen captain of the Florentine militia — that Don 
 Michelotto who had been the vile instrument of 
 Valentinois' worst crimes, who had been chief strangler 
 and assassin to a murderous Duke. We think these 
 circumstances are sufficient to explain the meaning 
 of that literary curiosity "The Prince." There is 
 another excuse often made for Machiavelli, and that 
 is that the "times" were bad. No doubt the times 
 were out of joint, and it is not strange if we have 
 few complete and shapely characters emerging from 
 them. They were full of contradictions, and a har- 
 monious nature was scarcely to be expected as a 
 product of such an age. But although this theory 
 might explain Machiavelli's character, it would not 
 explain his works. The times are much to a man. 
 If they are not his guide they are his antagonist, and 
 our enemies make us as much as our preceptor. But 
 wc must not suppose that when we have studied the age 
 that we know all the men in it. At one time history 
 was thought to be merely an aggregate of biographies. 
 That was a grave error, for there is a national life 
 quite apart from individual careers. But it would be 
 as grave an error to suppose that if you have sketched 
 the national life you have secured features which are 
 applicable to individual characters. Savonarola was, 
 we have seen, in strange contrast to the life of the 
 times, while Machiavelli was a real child of the 
 Renaissance. It therefore becomes important, as 
 Professor Villari saw, to study with some minuteness 
 the circumstances of the times in which Machiavelli 
 lived, and his history of these is, as we have said,
 
 12A 
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 in many respects admirable. In this connection, in 
 dealing with the phenomena of the Renaissance, we 
 have recourse not only to Professor Villari's work but 
 tn Burckhardt's most valuable treatise, which has been 
 on the whole carefully translated by Mr. Middlemore. 
 What, then, are we to say of that curious age? If 
 Machiavelli's life is a puzzle, the Renaissance is a 
 greater one. In some ways it commands our admira- 
 tion in a way which few other epochs do, and at the 
 same time it cannot be studied without feelings of 
 contempt and loathing. It produced no such man as 
 Dante, who closed the doors of the Middle Ages ; 
 no such man as Luther, who opened the gates of the 
 new times. Yet it was rife with greatness. It set 
 innumerable examples if its own achievements were 
 comparatively inconsiderable. In literature Guicciar- 
 dini and Machiavelli set examples of how to write 
 political history. In architecture, Brunelleschi, who 
 combined the products of Pagan and Christian times, 
 created an art which was poor in comparison 
 with the works in stone of the Middle Ages, but 
 was great in that it was new, and set an example 
 of original conception, or free treatment of existing 
 designs. Donatello set an example of what sculpture 
 ought to be, and that revival was carried to a magni- 
 ficent development under the hand of Michael Angelo. 
 Painting, too, had a new birth, and returned from the 
 cloister to the market-place, from an ascetic heaven 
 to a rich and beautiful earth, and examples were set 
 which prepared the way for the achievements of 
 Raphael. But although the Renaissance set these 
 examples which led to such great results, its own 
 accomplishments were somewhat inconsiderable. It 
 was rather an age of revolution than an age of con- 
 struction. Its duty was to pull down high ideals 
 in order that the world might in time secure higher. 
 Image-breaking is necessary, but it is seldom accom-
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 225 
 
 plished by an age or an individual who can replace 
 the images, when those at which their indignation 
 was levelled have been reduced to disillusioning frag- 
 ments. An age gets great credit because it ploughs 
 up the world or sows good seed, but it only deserves 
 half the credit if it only ploughs and sows, for the 
 harvest has to be gathered. The Renaissance was the 
 farmer of the spring of modern history, but it never 
 saw the fruition of its hopes. The credit it deserves 
 is that which we give to him who breaks out the 
 painted windows of a church which stain the light 
 and blanch the soul. No doubt the golden rays 
 of the sun come in, but the winds and rains beat in 
 too, and the work is not completed until the weather 
 is kept out, while the light, unspotted by the gewgaw 
 garments of saints, comes in freely. This was the 
 work of the Renaissance — to break out the mediaeval 
 lights ; and it dirtied itself in the process. When the 
 world was ready to free itself from the superstitions 
 of the Middle Ages, it looked to something which had 
 been before the Middle Ages were, for salvation. The 
 Middle Ages were to blame, not because they were a 
 part of the great past, but because they were domi- 
 nated by superstition and religion. There was an 
 inevitable reaction against the unnatural developments 
 of th;it ascetic time, but in the reaction men were 
 n<>t prepared to trust to their own originality, to 
 walk alone. They had recourse to the past for 
 guidance, but it was the Pagan, not the Christian 
 past. They wanted light, and they sought it in times 
 when the sky was above men instead of times when 
 they abridged space by the cloister. These times, 
 from whose clammy darkness men were escaping, 
 had emphasised the soul in man, and had condemned 
 and bruised the nature which was not a less real 
 part of humanity. It was this fatal error which the 
 world had discovered, and in its reaction it fell into 
 I. P
 
 226 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 the opposite extreme — into an error equally flagrant. 
 Nature was now everything, the soul nothing. It was 
 this sentiment that made the age akin to the antique 
 world. It was because in those early days Nature 
 w.is understood, its beauty and excellence were per- 
 ceived and loved as it had never been since. The 
 Renaissance felt itself a sister of Greece. But there 
 was a fundamental error in this conception of life. 
 Life cannot be a simple worship of Nature except in 
 its earliest awakening, and it is not much use if later 
 generations play at being children again. You cannot 
 bring back the past, and it is ridiculous for the old 
 to assume the dress of the young and think they are 
 rejuvenated. That was what the Renaissance did ! 
 The antiquity in which there had been a genuine 
 love for Nature, when art was so exquisite that it 
 seemed to partake of the placid spirit of Nature 
 herself, when literature had been full of the undi- 
 vided fervour of youth, that past could not be re- 
 called. Hence there was an affectation of antiquity, 
 and that we call the Renaissance. 
 
 The love for antiquity was shown by a madness. 
 Men became misers of codices, became curators of 
 their own museum-like collections of relics. Writings 
 and speeches were nothing but quotations, and when 
 men ceased to quote they began to drivel. A man 
 to succeed must imitate the ancients, for antiquity 
 was a passion and a pastime. No one was exempt 
 from this mental itch. Even cut-throats and assassins, 
 who earned their base livelihood by war and sedition, 
 professed an admiration for literature. The camps 
 of the condottieri, the courts of bravo princes, enter- 
 tained the learned and the literary. Even popes had 
 more secretaries and abbreviators than " nephews," 
 and even republics like Florence chose men of letters 
 for their servants. These men liked to hear Livy 
 and Cicero read to them, liked to be called Hannibals
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 227 
 
 and what-not in poetry. These men, who made war 
 for money and cut throats for pay ; these men, who 
 sold their swords to the highest bidder, and often 
 would prove false to those that paid them for bribes, 
 favoured the eruditi and literati ; and kings would 
 subsidise a hireling pen like that of Filelfo to secure 
 the paltry fame which it could bestow, or to avoid 
 the trivial libel which when unpaid it could write. 
 Not only were poets crowned but poets could crown. 
 To be the subject of verse seemed to the men of that 
 age to be the heirs to immortality. Having lost all 
 hopes of the other world, the best of this world was 
 something in its stead. It was partly upon this account 
 that poets, artists, and the like were petted. Men thirsted 
 for an immortality, if not for good deeds then for bad, 
 as Machiavelli has it. This was all an affectation, asso- 
 ciated with a genuine reverence for antiquity ; and it 
 was this reverence which gave promise for the future. 
 But when men placed so much store by codices and 
 manuscripts, when a man like Poggio was praised as 
 much for the works of antiquity which he had brought 
 to light as for his own somewhat echo-like perform- 
 ances, it shows almost a superstitious reverence for 
 the medicine which was to cure the disease. 
 
 No doubt there was a passage by the Pagan past by 
 which the world might attain a reformation altogether 
 independent of religious tenets, but their adulation of 
 the past was almost childish. They were content with 
 the speeches of their orators if these smacked of the 
 old world) and were more indicative of a retentive 
 memory than of original genius. The oration ol 
 Manetti upon the death of Bruni is a fair specimen 
 of the stilted erudition which look the place oi better 
 ech in the e days, and it would be difficult to find 
 .1 pecimen oi real eloquence in all the writings of the 
 times, if we except one 01 two from the pen ol Bneai 
 Silvui .
 
 228 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Words and not ideas were what they desired, and 
 the age showed an altogether exaggerated respeet for 
 language. Despatehes were written with a literary 
 eare which makes them works of art now as well as 
 documents of business at the time. The predomi- 
 nance of words is shown by a few instances. Thus, 
 Lorenzo de Medici by force of argument persuaded 
 Ferrante d'Aragona to put an end to the war between 
 them, and cajoled him into an alliance. Alfonso the 
 Magnanimous had skill of words to persuade Filipo 
 Maria Visconti, a gloomy and cruel tyrant, to liberate 
 him ; and the Florentine Podesta with fine reasoning 
 persuaded Bernardo Nardi, who had stirred up a re- 
 volution at Prato, to spare his life, although the 
 matter had gone so far that the halter was about the 
 persuader's neck, according to Machiavelli. 
 
 "To a man of learning," says Villari, "words were 
 of greater value than facts." Manetti, by means of 
 a Latin letter to the condottiere Piccinini, induced him 
 to give up eight horses which had been stolen by some 
 of his soldiers ; and Galeazzo Maria Visconti declared 
 himself more afraid of one of Salutati's letters than 
 of one thousand Florentine knights. But with all this 
 artificial reverence for literature it is not to be denied 
 that the times were full of literary activity. Petrarch 
 was the first of the learned men. Boccaccio almost 
 belongs to this age in time and entirely in sympathy. 
 But besides these we find such names as Leonardo 
 Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and Manetti associated with 
 Florence ; Valla, Biondo, and Enea Silvio with Rome ; 
 Felelfo with Milan. But besides these this age can 
 boast the possession of such men as Ficinio, Alberti, 
 Poliziano, Lorenzo de Medici, Pontanus, Pulci, and 
 Boiardo. These men were not without their great sig- 
 nificance in a revival of literature. It is true that much 
 that some of them produced is worthless, much 
 might easily have been much more worthy. Some of
 
 NICCOL6 MACHIAVELLI 229 
 
 their invectives are unreadable, and seem to us to have 
 neither wit or wisdom, and to have but ill supplied 
 the place of these by scurvy jests and scurrilous abusive- 
 ness. Some of the poetry is lacking in anything like 
 high purpose or genuine inspiration, and the philosophy 
 is but a weak revival of that of Porphyry and Plotinus. 
 And beyond all we find that these men, like most of 
 the men of their time, were wholly without moral prin- 
 ciple. " Most of the eruditi were of no moral character," 
 says Villari. Indeed, just as Machiavelli thought that 
 government should be dissociated from morality, so the 
 poets argued that conscience was a thing altogether apart 
 from poetry. Their high calling was not understood. 
 Their grave responsibilities sat lightly on their laughing 
 shoulders. Their lives were gutter lives. They had 
 rid themselves of religion. They hated priests, and they 
 lived in a fine free immorality because they had not 
 learned the higher rule of life which ought to regulate 
 conduct, instead of religion ; because they had found 
 no confessor and guide within their own natures. But 
 they were not only corrupt in life and morals but, as 
 Burckhardt has shown, they were corrupt in their in- 
 tellectual being. They had got rid of some super- 
 stitions to fall the victims of others. In deposing 
 religion they had made room for the silliest beliefs. 
 Even the great men were not exempt. Cristoforo 
 Landino, Battista Mantovano, drew horoscopes of re- 
 ligion ; Lodovico il Moro never took any step in life 
 without consulting an astrologer; Guicciardini and 
 Machiavelli believed in spirits of the air, and so on. 1 
 One could chronicle many such superstitions if one 
 desired to indict the age. This, then, is a rough-drawn 
 likeness of Italy in these new times, and it is scarcely 
 
 a matter for wonder that even with these gie.it men, 
 
 even with their new freedom and their greal models, 
 the productions which have been added to the small 
 
 1 See foi othei ii . Bun khardt, vol. ii. p. 300.
 
 230 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 select library of the world have been of little real 
 value. The intellectual activity was great, and was to 
 be marked in revivals in every department of thought, 
 in every sphere of life ; but at the time that this 
 new splendour of Italy attracted the attention and 
 admiration of the world, it was at the same time falling 
 into hideous corruption. Knowledge was increased 
 and loved, culture and refinement were cherished and 
 sought after, and yet there was an immorality, a 
 licence, a superstition and a cowardice, which would 
 make even a greater age contemptible and loathsome 
 in the sight of modern nations. We do not say that 
 all men were bad in that age of respected reprobates. 
 There were some men of culture and ability to set 
 noble examples of probity and virtue. Some few men 
 deserve to be distinguished for their nobility of mind, 
 and amongst these Manetti, Biondo, Vetterino, and 
 Boiardo. Besides these men, who were illustrious as 
 well as noble-minded, who had character as well as 
 talents, there may have been many among the simple 
 who were good men and true. Obscurity is the 
 common cover of infamy and excellence. It is sought 
 by the former, it is endured by the latter. But on 
 the whole the age, although the mark for the admi- 
 ration and imitation of many centuries, was hopelessly 
 corrupt. 
 
 Hitherto we have concerned ourselves with a de- 
 scription of the men and the times. Men without 
 virtue, times without true greatness. The old virtues 
 had disappeared, the old standards of morality were 
 lost; in cutting free from the trammels of the past 
 the times had severed their moorings and were drift- 
 ing. In the Middle Ages liberty was not ; obedience and 
 its sister, ignorance, were the only rulers of men's minds 
 and consciences. There was no individual thought, 
 no free action. The State ruled men's lives, and the 
 Church ruled men's minds and the State. But freedom
 
 NICCOL6 MACHIAVELLI 231 
 
 was growing even in these ages, but as yet, in the 
 Renaissance, individual liberty had not been secured ; 
 but the liberty which had been gained by crafts, asso- 
 ciations (arti) in which the individual interests were 
 lost sight of in the regard for those of the guild, was 
 a step towards it. 
 
 It has been said that the Renaissance was the age 
 of associations — and we know how much of the history 
 of Italy consists of the struggles of these major and 
 minor " arti." And it is in this fact that we see that 
 the age was really preparing the way for a complete 
 realisation of individual freedom. 
 
 It was not until after the Renaissance had passed 
 away, and that new birth of corruption out of the 
 decay of the past— a new birth as of flies from carrion 
 —had become a thing of the past, that we find real 
 individual liberty recognised and achieved. 
 
 Even a Machiavelli could not at that time under- 
 stand such a thing. His ideas of democracy were 
 quite old-world ideas. He could not understand the 
 self-rule of the people, and he regarded Venice— the 
 city in which the greatest amount of freedom was 
 granted to the citizens — as the chief enemy of Italian 
 liberty. And Guicciardini thought that a monarchy, 
 " which is more impartial to all " than a republic, 
 which only gives liberty to its own proper citizens, 
 the best form of government. No doubt, however, 
 the liberty obtained and the power wielded by these 
 as ociations were the means by which the power <>l 
 the State was broken, and by which liberty, which 
 had been the prerogative of the few, was made iii 
 time the possession of all. 
 
 Here, as in everything else, we find a state of tran- 
 sition. The morality of the Middle Ages had been 
 
 a morality ol discipline, and partly <>t superstitions, 
 hut it served to draw the family ties closer, it had 
 the effect of making the family a sacred institution.
 
 232 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Both law and that presentiment of law, custom, were 
 guardians of the hearth. In some instances marriage 
 into another commune was not allowed, and mar- 
 riages between family enemies were strictly forbidden. 
 In this way the affections were kept warm and tena- 
 cious, the spirit of self-sacrifice was real and heroic. 
 
 But all this passed away with this new birth. Indi- 
 vidual liberty was coming, and men could not dis- 
 tinguish it from individual license. Just as a youth, 
 who is emancipated from strict home rules, is apt to 
 use his newly come by freedom recklessly and ill, so 
 is a nation, and the emancipation from the obedience 
 of the Middle Ages led the Renaissance into abuses, 
 immorality, and corruption. The family was no longer 
 sacred, family ties were no longer respected. Indi- 
 vidual liberty was supreme, and the individual was 
 careless whether the excesses of his will curtailed the 
 freedom and happiness of others. While the good 
 went the bad remained. The Middle Ages had been 
 full of revenge, but the vendetta of the Renaissance 
 was not less bloodthirsty. 
 
 These circumstances account for the curious anomaly 
 that men of undoubted learning and culture could 
 advocate systematic bad faith in a ruler, and think 
 it excused by the treachery of the people ; that men 
 who delighted in the society of artists and literati, 
 who had a taste for pictures and sculpture, who could 
 admire Fra Angelico or Giotto, had no scruple in 
 using the dagger or poisoned cup for the paltriest 
 purposes of their poor ambitions. Courage, too, had 
 it seemed passed away. It had become a profession, 
 and was to be bought, and any bought virtue is but 
 a masked vice. 
 
 The art of war was changing, as everything else 
 was. In the time of the communes, war had been 
 carried on by lightly armed foot soldiers. Then came 
 the age of the heavily armed men-at-arms, who had
 
 NICCOL6 MACHIAVELLI 233 
 
 followers to carry their metal shells, which they donned 
 only when going into actual battle. The very weight 
 of these arms could crush lightly-armed troops as 
 a moving mountain would. These tin-pot soldiers 
 won battles by the force of gravity. But to wield 
 such arms was not a matter for untrained inexperi- 
 ence. The spear which was carried was like a weaver's 
 beam, and if the man-at-arms fell, he could not rise 
 again without assistance, so great was the weight of 
 the arms he bore. 
 
 The short service which the people of the communes 
 had given to drill was quite useless when men had to 
 be trained in the use of these arms, and arms necessarily 
 became a profession. But the profession required 
 captains. Thus it was that men of influence, of ability, 
 or courage, became the leaders of these heavy hosts, 
 and sold their services to States and cities which were 
 too busy or too rich to defend themselves or punish 
 their enemies. Hence arose the profession of the 
 condottieri. These men were constantly in the market, 
 seeking the pay of this or that city. They would 
 fight for one to-day and would side with its enemy 
 to-morrow. Their wars had gain and not glory for 
 their purpose, and became rather pillages than battles. 
 Their hosts were at the service of the highest bidder, 
 and sometimes they received pay from those with 
 whom they fought as well as from their allies. 
 It was their object to prolong wars, to continue 
 strife, and not by decisive action to put an end to 
 these. Bloodshed seems to have been an accident ol 
 some of their battles. Although human life was never 
 sacred, it seemed to be respected in some of these 
 wars, for the poliey of these captains was to earn 
 reputation, and money, bul to preserve their followers 
 and to avoid decisive victories. Some ol these con- 
 dottieri secured Mum reputation and influence by their 
 personal ability and courage thus Sfor/.a had been
 
 234 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 a Held labourer, Piccinini a butcher — but ferocity 
 and cunning were the stuffs that most of their suc- 
 cesses were made of, not real military genius. Even 
 the success of Valentinois was secured more by 
 treachery than by genius. But sometimes the treachery 
 by which these men sought to secure their success 
 was requited by death. Thus the Florentines put 
 Viletti to death, and Carmagnola met a similar fate 
 at the hands of the Venetians. But such captains as 
 these made war ridiculous, and it became clear that 
 those who paid such mercenary leaders and their 
 mercenary troops were fooled for their pains. 
 
 It was an experience of these that made Machiavelli 
 think that the time for a new system had arrived, and 
 that, instead of such hireling chivalry, Florence ought 
 to depend for her defence and her conquests upon a 
 militia of her own citizens. 
 
 "Hearts and homes" is a better motto in war than 
 " 30,000 ducats for the Condotta " and " 50,000 ducats 
 from the enemy's camp." 
 
 No doubt Machiavelli deserves credit for this idea, 
 and for the way in which he achieved his end. But 
 even here we must be careful not to praise him un- 
 duly. His work on the art of war has much that 
 is valuable in it, because it was written by an acute 
 observer and a man of undoubted literary genius, but 
 it is not the work of a military genius. Nothing could 
 be further from the truth than such a description. 
 Machiavelli was a man of despatches, a diplomatist, 
 but not a great captain. He had no experience of 
 military matters, could not manoeuvre even a hand- 
 ful of troops, and could see such a little way into 
 the future that he had an entire disbelief in the efficacy 
 of firearms as a means of warfare. However, he 
 did see the truth as to hireling soldiery, and instituted 
 the Florentine militia. He understood, too, that it 
 is only good men who can make good soldiers. " You
 
 NICCOL6 MACHIAVELLI 235 
 
 will learn," he wrote, "even in your time, how great 
 is the difference between fellow - citizens who are 
 soldiers by choice and such as you have at present 
 by corruption ; for now, if any man has been a dis- 
 obedient son and squandered his substance in dissi- 
 pation, he it is who becomes a soldier, whereas on 
 the new system well-brought-up men, educated in 
 honest schools, will do honour to themselves and 
 their country" (Villari, App. Doc. xxxvii.) ; and yet 
 it was he who chose Don Michelotto, the assassin, 
 the strantfler, the tool of Valentinois, "a monster of 
 iniquity, an enemy to God and man," as captain of 
 this host of honest, well-conducted citizens. Good- 
 ness was valuable in the soldiery but not in the 
 general. The general must be feared and respected. 
 Don Michelotto's sinister reputation would inspire 
 the necessary awe. He had no soft heart to turn 
 his hand from the necessary severity. He would 
 not spare enemies. These were his reasons for this 
 strange choice, a choice which was, as we have said, 
 in perfect keeping with the doctrines laid down in 
 his literary works. To him statecraft was separate 
 and distinct from morality, and the rule of an army 
 was another name for statecraft. His idea — if he 
 had had any — of the government of the world would 
 have been the rule of an unyielding devil and not 
 of a merciful God. 
 
 But even in this design to give Florence an army 
 he was only patriotic Oil a small scale. True, he 
 was in earnest, and although there is no enthusiasm 
 in the man he is as enthusiastic in this matter as 
 he COUld be. Burckhardt says that there is no en- 
 thusiasm in any ol his works, and he was even, by the 
 admission of Villari, a cold-blooded animal, not given 
 to ardours or enthusiasms of any sort; but that was 
 nut the age <>i enthu iasms. 
 
 The Middle Ages had developed many enthusiasms,
 
 236 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 and hence the Renaissance, in its protest against the 
 dark ages of history, continued the tine frenzies which 
 make a man a genius and a poor people a great nation. 
 It was just because the Middle Ages had condemned 
 art and literature because these pertained to the 
 Pagan world which had been before Christ, that the 
 Renaissance was heart and soul antiquarian, and nothing 
 but artistic and literary. But Machiavelli was in earnest 
 about his army organisation scheme. But it was a 
 scheme for Florence. His patriotism never rose to 
 a conception of national unity, but was content with 
 municipalism. No doubt it was all the patriotism 
 which was called for, but a greater mind would have 
 risen to a higher and larger sense of brotherhood than 
 that which was bounded by the walls of Florence. 
 To that, however, Machiavelli never attained. Still, 
 amidst all these disparagements, we cannot fail to see 
 in this little man, with his deft pen and subtle brain, 
 a meaning and significance which is not to be pooh- 
 poohed by a sneer or an epithet, which is not to be 
 burned out by the actual cautery which was applied 
 to those running sores — his books. 
 
 We cannot fail to see in him one of the founders 
 of the new science of political history, a man of con- 
 summate acuteness, of great literary tact, and a ready 
 wit. We must respect him for recognising the fact 
 that social phenomena are to be studied altogether 
 apart from theological theories, and that there are 
 invariable laws of human action ; but he failed to see 
 that there are principles in politics more powerful and 
 more permanent than the wills of princes and poten- 
 tates. 
 
 No doubt he was in many ways perverse. Even 
 Guicciardini accused him of an over preference " for 
 extraordinary deeds and ways," and he seems to have 
 approved the principle which he himself describes 
 where he says, " Men, if unable to obtain glory by
 
 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 237 
 
 worthy deeds, seek it by vile, since to make their 
 names live after them is their sole desire." While 
 he was himself of a gentle disposition, he was an 
 ardent admirer of a Caesar Borgia, a patron of a Don 
 Michelotto. We cannot, however, withhold from him 
 our admiration of his great literary genius. No one 
 wrote better Italian prose at that time, or almost at 
 any other time. His comedy is excellent ; his novel, 
 although a trifle, has in it much to amuse, and has 
 merits which some of his graver works, like his life of 
 Castruccio Castracani, lack. Although his works were 
 condemned by Paul IV. and interdicted by the Coun- 
 cil of Trent, these anathemas cannot blind us to the fact 
 that in many ways Machiavelli was one of the greatest 
 men of that corrupt transition age of the Renaissance. 
 It is an age which attracts our attention and commands 
 our interest, notwithstanding the purlieus of history 
 which we find in it ; for while the men who went 
 before, even Dante himself, spoke to our ears the 
 strange tongue of the Middle Ages — with which our 
 interest is rather that of students than of kinsmen — 
 these men of the Renaissance, even when they wrote 
 their mixed Italian and Latin, spoke the tongue of 
 the new time of which we are ourselves products. 
 We have a sympathy with all their intellectual life 
 if we are in antagonism to all their corruption. The 
 pens of that age have been inherited by our times. 
 The intellectual life then begun is still being lived. 
 We are greater than these nun only because we haw- 
 added conscience to <>nr possessions, and we have 
 no longer to lean on the crutches <>f antiquity in our 
 nrogreS . It is in this way, then, thai we ieel thai 
 
 our own age is the fellow of that old time in much. We 
 
 have had attempted revival- ol .Mcili.c\.ili in in these 
 
 days. We have had pre-Raphaelitism in art, Gothicism 
 in architecture! we have had neo-Platonism in literature 
 and Rituali <m in the Church ; but withal we are still
 
 238 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 more in harmony with the intellectual life »»t the 
 Renaissance th;m that of any other age. Thus it is 
 we are interested in these times even while we abhor 
 the enormities which they brought forth ; that we arc 
 in intense sympathy with them, their dainty speech, 
 their wide culture, their refined taste and accurate 
 learning, while we condemn the corruption of thought 
 and manners and the baseness of feelings and action 
 which were also characteristic of the time. It is 
 because of this interest and sympathy that we feel 
 grateful for these two works, which deal so ably with 
 the many interesting problems of that age, and with 
 no more interesting problem than the life and works 
 of Niccolo Machiavelli.
 
 X 
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 1 
 
 This is a very difficult book to review, for the 
 reviewer must not only feel the full force of a book, 
 but he must be able to put his feeling into articulate 
 language, which will enable a reader to form some 
 conception of the cause of the intellectual and emotional 
 effect which the work has produced. 
 
 Theophrastus Such is, no doubt, a man of ability, 
 but we question whether any injustice would be done 
 him if the public estimated him a little less highly 
 than he does himself. Shrewdness is to be discovered 
 upon every page of his " Impressions," and doubtless 
 upon every page of his earlier work, which we have 
 not seen, although it has been translated, as Theo- 
 phrastus mentions with a little pardonable vanity 
 (p. 10), into Cherokee ; but then, is shrewdness all 
 we want from ;i writer, even when that shrewdness is 
 combined, as it is in this case, with a deft and rich 
 style ? No doubt Such is candid, as candid as any 
 man can be, about his own failings and defects. His 
 description of his personal appearance is by no 
 means wanting in candid criticism. His feet, he admits 
 frankly, are awkward (p. 10), and have an odd habit, 
 like ladies' thimbles, of turning up in places where 
 they would be least expected. His upper lip is long, 
 and he doe. wall; with Ins head foremost, and like- 
 animals who walk upon more limbs than Theophrastus 
 
 i " imp., don "I Theophi tstu u li." By I leorg( Eliot, Edinburgh 
 
 and I. i"i' i ; ">7 ( > 
 
 239
 
 2 4 o CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 does, ,md with his chin projecting (p. n). There are 
 other peculiarities in his appearance which use may 
 have blinded Such to, but which have been marked 
 by the candid eye of friendship, for all men are more 
 or less flattered by their friends' shortcomings. 
 
 But, alter all, Theophrastus' candour leads to little. 
 His anxiety seems to be a wish to deprecate criticism 
 of his mental faculties by means of an exceptional 
 candour as to his physical defects. Thus, we find 
 him, upon an early page of the work before us, 
 admitting that he is "tempted to remonstrate when 
 the physical points I have mentioned are apparently 
 taken to warrant unfavourable inferences concerning 
 my mental quickness" (p. n). And again, on page 
 306, he requests that the justice of his ideas may not 
 be estimated by his facial expression. But we would 
 all of us admit ugliness if you would credit us with 
 genius, and consequently we cannot think that Such's 
 candour was more self-sacrificing than the abnegation 
 of the little girl who refused oranges which she knew 
 to be sour, with a view to an invitation to partake of 
 apples which she had experience to tell her were of 
 exceptional quality. One thing Such does make out 
 with all his self-depreciation, and that is, that of all the 
 fellows mentioned in this book he is the cleverest and 
 nicest. He has a conscience and beautiful memories, 
 while all his friends — Touchwood, Mixtus, Mordan, 
 and the rest — have only foibles. His conscience may 
 be a little out of proportion, just as his features are, 
 and the lower jaw may be as prominent in it as it 
 is, by his own confession, in his face — if we may 
 judge of him by his Essay upon Moral Swindlers ; 
 but even if it is a little out of perfect symmetry, we 
 are glad to recognise it. All consciences are like 
 bowls, and have a strong bias. They would run 
 crooked even over a perfectly smooth world, but 
 over the world as it is there is an element of
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 241 
 
 incalculableness about their motions which has in it 
 the possibility of astonishing surprises or dire dis- 
 appointments. Theophrastus Such has a conscience 
 and a fine eye for scenery. 
 
 Were this the only work which we had to judge 
 him by, we might not form such a superlative estimate 
 of his powers as a landscape painter, for here he 
 treats rather of men than of meadows, and of the 
 deformities of mental portraits rather than of the 
 beauties of those fat, quiet midlands he knows so 
 well and loves so dearly. Still there are some de- 
 scriptions here which will compare favourably with 
 almost anything which has been done by that great 
 Master of the School, George Eliot. Here are some 
 passages from " Looking Backward," and that is Theo- 
 phrastus Such's real gift : — 
 
 " Indeed, my philosophical notions, such as they 
 are, continually carry me back to the time when the 
 fitful gleams of a spring day used to show me my 
 own shadow as that of a small boy on a small pony, 
 riding over the breezy uplands, which we used to 
 dignify with the name of hills, or along by-roads 
 with broad grassy borders and hedgerows reckless of 
 utility, on our way to outlying hamlets whose groups 
 of inhabitants were as distinctive to my imagination 
 as if they had belonged to different regions of the 
 globe" (p. 41). 
 
 On this delightful glimpse into pleasant parochial 
 journeyings we desire to say nothing that could be 
 construed as derogatory criticism, hut we may 
 remark that the description of hedgerows "reckless of 
 utility" is too suggestively like a similar description 
 in that line first eliaper of "Felix Holt," where they 
 arc spoken of as "the liberal homes of unmarketable 
 beauty." Here is another fragrant sentence about the 
 country : — 
 
 "But Our woodlands and pastures, our hedge-parted 
 
 i- Q
 
 1+1 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 cornfields and meadows, our bits of high common, 
 where we used to plant the windmills, our quiet little 
 rivers, here and there fit to turn a mill-wheel, our 
 villages along the old coach-roads, are all easily alter- 
 able lineaments that seem to make the face of our 
 mother-land sympathetic with the laborious lives of 
 her children." 
 
 One more quotation from the pleasantest of these 
 papers. It also has the smell of earth, and the scent 
 of the meadows and the hay-field about it : — 
 
 "Our rural tracts — where no Babel chimney scales 
 the heavens — are without mighty objects to fill the 
 soul with the sense of an outer world unconquerably 
 aloof from our efforts. The wastes are play-grounds 
 (and let us try to keep them such, for the children's 
 children who will inherit no other sort of demesne) ; 
 the grasses and reeds nod to each other over the 
 river, but we have cut a canal close by ; the very 
 heights laugh with corn in August, or lift the plough 
 team against the sky in September. Then comes a 
 crowd of burly navvies, with pickaxes and barrows, 
 and while hardly a wrinkle is made in the fading 
 mother's face, or a new curve of health on the bloom- 
 ing girl's, the hills are cut through, or the trenches 
 between them spanned, we choose our level, and the 
 white steam-pennon flies along it. 
 
 " But because our land shows this readiness to be 
 changed, all signs of permanence upon it raise a 
 tender attachment instead of awe ; some of us at least 
 love the scanty relics of our forests, and are thankful 
 if a bush is left of the old hedgerow. A crumbling 
 bit of wall, where the delicate ivy-leaved toad-flax 
 hangs its light branches, or a bit of grey thatch with 
 its patches of dark moss on its shoulder, and a troop 
 of grass-stems on its ridge, is a thing to visit. And 
 then the tiled roof of cottage and homestead, of the 
 long cow-shed, where generations of the milky mothers
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 243 
 
 have stood patiently, of the broad-shouldered barns, 
 where the old-fashioned flail made resonant music 
 while the watch-dog barked at the timidly venture- 
 some fowls making pecking raids on the out-flying 
 grain — the roofs that have looked out from among the 
 elms and walnut-trees, or beside the yearly group of 
 hay and corn stacks, or below the square stone steeple, 
 gathering their grey or ochre-tinted lichens, and their 
 olive-green mosses under all ministries — let us praise 
 the sober harmonies they give to our landscape, 
 helping to unite us pleasantly with the elder gene- 
 rations who tilled the soil for us before we were born, 
 and paid heavier and heavier taxes with much grum- 
 bling, but without that deepest root of corruption — 
 the self-indulgent despair which cuts down and con- 
 sumes, and never plants." 
 
 The picture of the upland team against the high 
 September sky; of the fowls about the flying ''pickles" 
 which rebound from the noisy bruises of the whirling 
 flail, while the watch-dog, from a stern sense of duty, 
 barks at the peculations of the marauding hens, whose 
 hungry temerity is perhaps due to their knowledge of 
 hi being "on the chain," are incomparable except 
 with similar etchings in other works from the same 
 hand. The former reminds us of F. Walker's pictures, 
 while the hitter brings I Iocndikcetur vividly before us. 
 I'.ni this '• Looking Backward" is the only paper in 
 
 tin volume which abounds in these pleasant glances 
 
 into the memories of older date, for it is these memories 
 which are in truth the mother of the Muses, and not 
 Such's memori of more recent date — memories oi 
 
 clubs and drawing-mom-, which form the staple of 
 
 ih. resl of tin. work. Perhaps these latter memories 
 are too young to In- the mother "i anything bul affec- 
 tation. Bui this booh invites attention not so much as 
 a panorama of landscape , bul as a kind ol portrait 
 gallery. These "Impre ions" are concerned with
 
 244 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 men, as we said, more than their environment by 
 Nature. There are likenesses of men and women 
 which may hurt the feelings of those who sat for them, 
 much as one's face, seen in a glass when one's ex- 
 pression is not at its best, jars upon one. Lowering 
 brows, twitching muscles, the flush of anger, may all 
 be useful upon occasion, but one does not desire to 
 have those phases of character made prominent in 
 portraiture. A man tries to show the pleasanter side 
 of his character to the artist or photographer. But 
 many of the subjects of these sketches have shown 
 the one side of their disposition which was defective 
 to Mr. Such ; and he has sketched their defects with 
 a flattery rather of the defect than of the person. He 
 looks upon men much as a hospital surgeon might. 
 They are subjects which illustrate with more or less 
 instruction the phases of disease. Even some of the 
 titles of his essays invite attention to their claims to 
 be pathological studies of portraiture. They remind 
 one more of an anatomical plate of the muscles and 
 veins and nerves which go to make up our features, 
 than a wholesome modelling of the features as they 
 meet the eye of ordinary acquaintance. No one was 
 more capable than George Eliot of painting men in 
 their vital reality — men as men, and not as subjects of 
 dissection or vivisection. No one has peopled the 
 world of books with more veritable men and women 
 whom we know as such, and love as friends or hate 
 as enemies ; and although in this mature work she 
 has taken to the scalpel instead of the brush, and has 
 made men as "interesting cases," instead of human 
 beings with claims upon our admiration, our pity, or 
 contempt, we question much whether she is doing 
 work at all comparable in excellence in this patho- 
 logical theatre to that which she did in the artist's 
 studio in which her earlier works were written. 
 
 One thing which we always felt in reading works
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 245 
 
 from her hand was, that they were works from the 
 heart too. There was a large motherly sympathy with 
 the poor, the paltry, even with the erring, which we 
 can ill spare from these pages, and the absence of 
 which is but ill compensated by accurate knowledge 
 of psychological constitution, and the morbific ten- 
 dencies of healthy minds. But here the writer has 
 concealed all that large-heartedness and feminine tender- 
 ness which before was so conspicuous. We confess to 
 a sense of sorrow that Theophrastus Such should have 
 written so harshly in this book. In speaking of Mordan 
 (" The Watch-dog of Knowledge," p. 149), he says :— 
 
 " I cannot feel sure how my voting will affect the 
 condition of Central Asia in the coming ages, but 1 
 have good reason to believe that the future populations 
 there will be none the worse off because I abstain 
 from conjectural vilification of my opponents, during 
 the present session, and I am very sure that I shall 
 be less injurious to my contemporaries. On the 
 whole, and in the vast majority of instances, the 
 action by which we can do the best for future ages 
 is of the sort which has a certain beneficence and 
 grace lor contemporaries." 
 
 Hut we have sought these pages in vain for the grace 
 and beneficence to the literary contemporaries of 
 Theophrastus Such, which will be best for future ages. 
 He tell us thai he has learned "to care much for 
 foreign countries, for literatures, foreign and ancient, 
 for the life of Continental towns dozing round old 
 cathedrals, tor the life of London, half sleepless with 
 
 eager tllOUghl and strife, with indigestion or with 
 hunger, and now," he adds, "my consciousness is 
 
 chiefly of t!i<- l>usy, anxious, metropolitan sort. My 
 system responds sensitively to London weather, signs 
 political, ioi ial, literary, and my bachelor's hearth is 
 embedded where by much craning of head and nick 
 i ca n catch >igh1 oi a sycamore in the Square-garden.
 
 246 CRITICAL KSSAYS 
 
 I belong to the nation of London" (pp. 51, 52). Hut 
 although Theophrastus has hud this wide experience of 
 rural scenes and city life, of the dreamy country and 
 the delirious town, of the quiet past and the noisy present, 
 his impressions in this volume are only gathered from 
 the narrow Square-garden of literary life, where vega- 
 tation is of a rank, forced sort, and where over all 
 there is a deposit of foul blackness. All these por- 
 traits are of literary men, or men who live and breathe 
 that they may say something, and that the whole 
 world may hear them when they say it. Merman has 
 the quick, glib pen of the magazine-writer, and turns 
 it from its facile course to the great work of setting 
 Grampus right as to the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis. 
 Lentulus is potentially a literary man of mark in his 
 own estimation ; Hinze is of the same set. Mixtus, 
 the half-bred money-making man who marries Scintilla, 
 has had his literary ambition, and has his unfinished 
 manuscript by him. Ganymede too is a writer, who 
 has youth on his side until he is surprised by old age, 
 which is upon him. Pepin is a too ready writer. 
 Vorticella has written a work on "The Channel Islands, 
 with Appendix and Notes." The whole interest of the 
 book is connected with literary achievements, or rather 
 with literary failures. There is no genuine success 
 mentioned in the book. Each essay carps cleverly 
 enough at some small vice of character, some small 
 failing of temper, some sacrifice of ideals, some pre- 
 datory instincts in authorship or conversation, or some 
 small vanity of the pen. Is this, we wonder, all that 
 the great nation of London can produce in its literary 
 circles ? Are there no virtues to be seen and admired, 
 no noblenesses to be known and imitated ? Does the 
 execution of literary work spoil men, as it seems to 
 have spoiled Pepin, or Vorticella, or Lentulus ? or does 
 it ruin lives as it did that of poor Merman, who con- 
 centrated himself for his great work of setting Grampus
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 247 
 
 right, and was rewarded with contumely and penury 
 for himself, and after a time the appropriation of his 
 idea by Grampus himself ? Is there no redeeming 
 trait in these men, who sway the sceptre of the pen? 
 Is there nothing kingly about these modern monarchs 
 of the press, or are they all like the paltry subjects of 
 these scathing portraits ? Was it worth Such's while 
 to accumulate these instances of defects, and make his 
 book a sort of Greenwich Hospital for lameness of 
 the literary sort ? Was it necessary to make the pen, 
 which has done so much in literature, into a whip to 
 lash such men as Sir Gavial Mantrap? Was it really 
 necessary to tell us that a man who builds churches 
 and distributes alms, but who robs widows and 
 orphans by the cat's-paw of a company, is not moral, 
 and that he may be more wicked than a man whose 
 life is loose in social bonds, and who takes a view of 
 the relation of the sexes which would not be approved 
 by a Church dignitary ? Was it worth his while to 
 write this essay upon u Moral Swindlers," to enlarge 
 the meaning of the word " immorality," which Theo- 
 phrastus seems to believe is limited to libertinism in 
 some minds, and make it include those haggard crimes 
 which wreck a hundred or a thousand homes, which 
 convulse a commercial world, and destroy a national 
 credit? We confess that we think there would be few 
 persons who would call such public malefactors, even 
 if they lived at Tip-Top, on the paltry income derived 
 From the one or two hundred thousand pounds settled 
 mi their wives moral. Then, again, why does Such 
 laugh SO uncontrollably at Vorticella, who wrote Hie 
 book on "The Channel Islands, with Notes and 
 Appendix"? Was the disease of her stupid vanity in 
 
 that oik- production, and in the critical notices o! it in the 
 
 Pumpetei new ipaper 1, worth including in this nosology ? 
 
 And besides, 1 the disease rightly diagnosed:' Was it 
 the hook that made her vain and gave hei this disc. re
 
 248 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of small authorship ? or was not the seed-germ in 
 Vorticella's pompous bosom before ? To us it seems 
 that she was none the worse for her research into the 
 question of "Drag-nets," and we can scarcely believe 
 that the disease was caused by the Quarto or the 
 opinion in the Medley Pie. But even if it were, was 
 it necessary to write this essay about her paltry vanity 
 — was it right to look only at the overgrown side of 
 Vorticella's character, without attempting to form a 
 conception of the fine healthiness which, we doubt not, 
 flourished alongside of this garish weed of disease ? 
 We can imagine her a kind mother for all her vanity, 
 we can imagine her an upright woman and a devoted 
 wife, although she has "The Channel Islands" hand- 
 somely bound and laid on a table by itself. And little is 
 gained by looking at the worst side of things, or men, 
 or women. There are crimes which deserve our indig- 
 nant loathing and articulate censure, but there are faults 
 which merit our merciful silence ; or if we must speak 
 about them, let us do justice to the other qualities of 
 head and heart which redeem these peccadilloes. 
 
 But is it only " small authorship " that has faults ? 
 When we have written a dozen great books which 
 have been praised by the London dailies, and by the 
 many quarterlies, are we free from that itch of vanity 
 which Vorticella laboured under ? Has great author- 
 ship not its failings and diseases? We should say 
 that even Theophrastus Such has some vanity. He 
 might not show his craving as stupidly as Monas, the 
 author of " Here and There, or a Trip from Truro to 
 Transylvania," did (p. 274). We confess that we think 
 few people would, and that we believe that the sketch 
 of Monas is "imaginary" in the same sense that 
 much that Callista said was credited to imagination, 
 but was really the result of inaccuracy (p. 234). Is 
 not one of the diseases of great authorship shown in 
 a persistent disregard of advice ? An author may
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 249 
 
 have views as to "drag-nets" to begin with, but how- 
 ever vain he is, he will, while he is still in the 
 category of " small authors," learn something from his 
 critics in whom he discerns honest purpose and 
 capable criticism. But when one has written many 
 books, and is sure of much Pumpeter, John o' Groats, 
 and Land's End praise, one is less willing to believe 
 one's critics, even when they speak the truth. The 
 disease of vanity — infantile and curable in early author- 
 ship — may in the great authors become chronic, and 
 defy the physiological efforts of the most salutary 
 medicine. Has not Theophrastus this disease? His 
 career has had two distinct phases, as has been noted 
 before. His earlier career was marked by artistic 
 productions of incomparable merit, redolent with an 
 ability, a genius, which was beyond all learning. His 
 later life has been marked by works of a curious 
 second-hand erudition in science and philosophy, and 
 the pride of this paltry knowledge and these small 
 attainments keeps him from becoming again the scholar 
 of his younger self, and imitating the great works of 
 his freshness and youth. Is there no vanity, no disease 
 of great authorship, in continuing in this course in 
 defiance of public opinion? True, public opinion is 
 very often valueless in such matters, and an author 
 must be above the stimulus or guidance of clamour ; 
 but an author must at the same time be receptive oi 
 truth, although it may be uttered in the hubbub of 
 false and misleading noises. It is at one's peril that 
 one misses a true word, although it is spoken in 
 a Babel. Surely Such's own nice appreciation, ii he 
 
 had still been in the healthy condition in which he 
 
 was when "Scenes in Clerical Life" or "The Mill <>n 
 the Floss" were written, would have known thai his 
 later work- did not satisfy the canons ot the high( I 
 art. Is it not ,1 disease oi greal authorship which has 
 vitiated hi nice taste? Again, may not this disease
 
 250 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 account for a defect of style which becomes more 
 conspicuous in each successive work ? There is a 
 lavish use of words, not to say wordiness, in this 
 book, which is peculiarly misleading in its attempts 
 to be copiously perspicuous. Formerly it was difficult 
 to miss his crisp and direct meaning. There were 
 depths in his style which gave possibilities of thought 
 and feeling which were not on the surface. A sug- 
 gestion is often more to a good mind than an 
 explanation. But Such explains so fully as almost to 
 become wearisome at times, and with his occasional 
 verbosity he sometimes fails to make his meaning as 
 clear as he might if he said less and hinted more. 
 An epigram would be safe enough in the hands of 
 most of his readers. We confess, for instance, to a 
 difficulty in following this : — 
 
 " Depend upon it, vanity is human, native alike to 
 men and women ; only in the male it is of denser 
 texture, less volatile, so that it less immediately informs 
 you of its presence, but is more massive and capable 
 of knocking you down if you come into collision 
 with it ; while in women vanity lays by its small 
 revenges, as in a needle-case, always at hand. The 
 difference is in muscle and finger-tips, in traditional 
 habits and mental perspective, rather than in original 
 appetite of vanity" (p. 275). 
 
 We may be writing ourselves down asses by our 
 confession, but we believe that we shall have associates 
 in the category. And again : — 
 
 14 Merely to maintain an attitude and gait which I 
 notice in certain club-men, and especially an inflation 
 of the chest accompanying very small remarks, there 
 goes, I am convinced, an expenditure of psychical 
 energy little appreciated by the multitude — a mental 
 vision of self and deeply-impressed beholders which is 
 quite without antitype in what we call the effect pro- 
 duced by that hidden process" (p. 276).
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 251 
 
 If we understand this sentence, it seems scarcely 
 worth the trouble which went to its elaborate con- 
 struction. No doubt men have tricks which have 
 been consciously planned, which fail of their effect 
 upon those upon whom they are played. A heav- 
 ing of the chest before speaking, or taking breath 
 even before uttering a commonplace, may be one of 
 them, although it can scarcely be called an attitude 
 or a gait, and it may have been thought over by the 
 actor in full view of contemplated consequences on 
 his auditors ; but was it worth while telling us so, in 
 so many words, and with such fine phrases as "psychical 
 energy " ? 
 
 Of course the reviewers will say that this book will 
 not be popular with the "ordinary reader." Such an 
 Opinion has the advantage of safety from refutation, 
 and it is rather pleasant to speak about a class of 
 people who are "ordinary readers," and mentally 
 to separate yourself from the class. Much of our 
 censure of others is only a delicate way of praising 
 ourselves. But is there any meaning in such a 
 criticism ? Is there one superlatively great work that 
 has been popular with the ordinary reader ? We 
 pretend to believe that Shakespeare is read, but do we 
 not know that merit is generally in the inverse ratio 
 to the sale of a book? But, besides, this is not an 
 ordinary book, it is not addressed to ordinary readers, 
 it is not to be tried by the canons of criticism which 
 are applicable to novels. The purpose of the work 
 not narrative, but criticism. No doubt George 
 Eliot's tales appeal to ;i much larger audience than 
 such a work as tins would. In a novel there is action, 
 and the commonest minds are pleased if they can see 
 something being done. It is a higher class ol minds 
 which has pleasure in reflecting on character, on the 
 mIi, cure springs oi action, and the occull ;ources of 
 disposition. H is to these latter thai this book — a
 
 2 5 2 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 book of valuable essays on feelings and foibles — a 
 ik of drastic criticisms of men and manners, which 
 is enlivened here and there with hue free play of the 
 most genial humour — is addressed. Nothing, for in- 
 stance, could be better in the way of humour than 
 the sketch of the cunning Pummel — although the 
 sketch appears to occur without much appropriateness 
 in the essay on "The Watch-dog of Knowledge." 
 Here is one of Pummel's circumspect answers to a 
 puzzling question, "What is the cause of the tides, 
 Pummel?" "Well, sir, nobody rightly knows. Many 
 give their opinion, but if I was to give mine, it 'ud 
 be different" (p. 153). True, many of the sketches 
 are not genial, but rather punitory. But then the 
 essayist is dealing with faults and follies, with pre- 
 sumptions and vanities ; but when he comes to a 
 true woman's love and sacrifice, as in the case of 
 Julia — Merman's wife — we see what an intense sym- 
 pathy the author has with the good and the true. 
 
 We cannot but think that the impersonal papers in 
 this volume will be read with most pleasure and 
 profit. That is surely a curious remark to make of 
 an author whose power to interest us in persons — 
 whether those persons were high or low, rich or 
 poor — was paramount ; but it is, we believe, true. 
 Here we find much less to delight us in these strained 
 sketches of men or half-men with their faultiness and 
 naughtiness, than in the essays which deal exclusively 
 with other topics. We have read with interest the 
 essay upon the future of the Jews ("The Modern Hep- 
 hep-hep"), and are in close agreement with its argu- 
 ment, an argument which is eloquently worded and 
 vigorously enforced. Again, the essay on " Debasing 
 the Mural Currency" (p. 173) is a trenchant protest 
 against a phase of our so-called civilisation which is 
 disgusting to every man who lias a taste for the 
 beautiful, a love for the sacred, or a sense of the
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 253 
 
 right. There is at the present time a perilous attempt 
 to turn all that is sacred, all that is awe-inspiring or 
 love-moving, to the ephemeral purposes of paltry 
 laughter, and there is a need for some such protest 
 as that which Theophrastus has hurled into words in 
 this paper. Nothing in these times is serious or 
 sedate, nothing is full of the springs of compassion 
 or moral motive, that is not turned to the poor 
 purposes of trivial ridicule. Our children are taught 
 to laugh at everything and to tremble at nothing. 
 We ourselves frequent theatres and books for the 
 pleasure of fanciful and facetious fooling, which leaves 
 us with nothing but the ashes of the thorns which 
 crackled under our simmering-pot of imbecile enjoy- 
 ment. A protest against this burlesque movement was 
 wanted, and it is here in eloquent words : — 
 
 "The art of spoiling," says Such, "is within the 
 reach of the dullest faculty. The coarsest clown with 
 a hammer in his hand might chip the nose off every 
 statue and bust in the Vatican, and stand grinning at 
 the effect of his work" (p. 177). 
 
 " I have been amazed to find that some artists 
 whose own works have the ideal stamp are quite in- 
 sensible to the damaging tendency of the burlesquing 
 spirit which ranges to and fro, and up and down 
 on the earth, seeing no reason (except a precarious 
 censorship) why it should not appropriate every 
 sacred, heroic, and pathetic theme, which serves to 
 in, ike up the treasure of human admiration, hope, and 
 love. This is what I call debasing the moral currency, 
 lowering tin- value of every inspiring fact and tradition, 
 sn that it will command less and less of the spiritual 
 
 product i, the generous motives which sustain the 
 
 ( harm and elevation of our social existence the some- 
 thing beside, hie. id by which a man ave Ins soul 
 
 199 
 ive. 
 
 hut did Theophrastus Such think that he too had
 
 254 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 grave responsibilities, which wore scarcely discharged 
 by these sketches ? Did he comprehend the power 
 for good which he would be to his fellow-men if he 
 increased our compassion, if he knit the infinite links 
 of love and friendship which unite us with our 
 fellow-men ? and if he understood that he was a 
 Priest to make such divine marriages between men 
 and men, between men and ideas, why did he be- 
 come a light-minded Divorce Court, with his sneer 
 for a decree, and dissolve our unions by such drastic 
 ridicule of men who had qualities in them which 
 could have commanded our love and reverence ? Is not 
 this work conceived in the burlesquing spirit? Is 
 there any high purpose to be gathered from it ? is 
 there any stimulus to action, any guidance for conduct, 
 any hope to cheer us, any wisdom to comfort us ? 
 Has Theophrastus Such, before he dipped his pen 
 into his rather bitter ink to make pleasant fooling for 
 our meagre smiles out of his friends and acquaintances 
 who do not come up to his standard of intellectual 
 or moral perfection— has he asked himself whether he 
 purposed any real good by his work? True, he has 
 passed judgment upon some men, but will not all 
 men, if we judge them by our speculative knowledge, 
 be found wanting ? and if we judge men by the 
 practical working of our theories, may we not find 
 some saints to worship still ? May it not be, then, in 
 this light that these culprits have merits beyond these 
 estimates, and that Theophrastus, for all his genius, 
 has been guilty of faults for which he stands self- 
 condemned? Has he not been tampering with a 
 currency whose integrity ought to have been dear to 
 him ? Has he not been burlesquing men and women, 
 who had much laughter-and-sneer-worthy in them, no 
 doubt, but who had claims upon our respect, our admi- 
 ration, or love? Is there not something sacred in these 
 men which Theophrastus has overlooked in his sneering ?
 
 XI 
 THE ART OF ACTING 1 
 
 There is, in these days, no lack of theatrical criticism. 
 The daily and weekly papers teem with notices of new 
 plays, teem with criticisms of our players, but it may be 
 questioned whether any of this criticism has any per- 
 manent worth, whether it can either be a guide to the 
 public what to see or not to see, or to the actors how- 
 to act, or not to act. There has been much said 
 recently as to the establishment of a Dramatic School, 
 and one thing seems very certain, and that is, that the 
 players get no teaching from the writers about plays, 
 and if they are to have any teaching at all, they must 
 look elsewhere than the Press for their lessons. 2 We 
 were prepared to hear that contemporary criticism of 
 matters theatrical was worthless, but we have to note 
 with some regret that such justice as might be done 
 by the pen is, according to Mr. Mowbray Morris, 
 tampered with, and that the judgment of the critic is 
 influenced to no small extent, in these clays, by ties of 
 personal friendship, "or, as may possibly happen, by 
 ties of personal interest to the actor," and that the 
 
 1 "The Actor's Art: a Practical Treatise on Stage Declamation, Public 
 Speaking, and Deportment, for the Use of Artists, Students, and Amateurs." 
 By Gustave (jarcia. Illustrated by A. Foustige. London : 1882. 
 
 " Essays in Theatrical Criticism." By Mowbray Morris. London : 1882. 
 
 - It is only fair, however, to admit that there arc conspicuous exceptions. 
 Mr. Lewis's book was full of shrewd and balanced criticism, and most of his 
 chapters had been newspaper articles. But even with that exception the 
 literature of dramatic criticism will compare but poorly with that of the time 
 of Lamb and I Iazlitt, and Leigh Hum. 
 
 "55
 
 256 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 actor's bad art is condoned if he is a "charming 
 dispenser of champagne and chicken and other things 
 perhaps more convenient." Indeed, Mr. Mowbray 
 Morris, himself an acute critic, seems to regard the 
 criticism of to-day as "only another and gratuitous 
 form of theatrical advertisement," a view which is 
 verbally erroneous in the use of the word "gratuitous" 
 to the extent of the value of the " champagne and 
 chicken and other things perhaps more convenient," 
 but which, if it is otherwise true, may to some extent 
 account for the very small value of most of the 
 writings about our stage and our players. Without, 
 however, going to the roots of this ugly matter — roots 
 are mostly dirty — we may say that there are many 
 reasons why our present theatrical criticism should be 
 comparatively worthless. The writer for the daily 
 paper must write on the instant ; he has no time to 
 correct his impressions by careful reconsideration. 
 His article must follow on the heels, and " sometimes 
 gall the kibe," of the "first night." Thus, his article 
 must necessarily be superficial. He has to deal with 
 the play and the acting in it. He must unfortunately 
 say something "smart," whether it be in praise or 
 blame, and all this under the pressure for "copy 
 urgently required." Under these circumstances of pro- 
 duction — circumstances of production which mar a 
 great deal of the work which might otherwise be 
 admirable in the daily and weekly Press — is it to be 
 wondered at if the criticism is of little intrinsic worth ? 
 And if the criticisms of the stage are valueless, how 
 can we expect much merit on the stage itself ? The 
 stage is a good school for the world, but the Press 
 ought to be a good school for the stage. 
 
 It seems, then, that some more sober criticism of 
 the stage and acting is not uncalled for, although to 
 a great many people talk of the plays which are no 
 longer on the boards will appear like the whipping of
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 257 
 
 a dead horse. Still, to us it seems that the expression 
 of deep convictions about acting as an art may have 
 some significance in days when the " dramatic critic " 
 has neither time nor opportunity to express more 
 than his haphazard conclusions. Mr. Mowbray Morris's 
 work is no doubt a contribution to the literature of 
 criticism of more permanent value than the ephemeral 
 matter we have been speaking of. But even he in 
 his clever pages deals rather with passing phases than 
 with the essentials of art, although here and there he 
 says things which really touch the core of this matter. 
 There is an old standing question which each 
 person who thinks about it decides as pleases him- 
 self — whether art is to be for the amusement or for 
 the instruction of mankind ? On the one hand we 
 hear that books are for " betterment," on the other that 
 that writer f;iils of his purpose who does not interest 
 and amuse his readers. And perhaps there is some 
 truth in both these views. Books may be medicine, 
 but the medicine which has the pleasantest taste will 
 hive the better chance of being taken, whatever its 
 physiological effect may be. But while many would 
 admit that books ;ire education — so much of education, 
 perhaps unfortunately, consists of books — most people 
 would deny that the stage was to be a pulpit, and 
 assert that they went to the theatre only to while 
 some hours away, in short, to be amused. Perhaps ! 
 Bui it is an error to suppose that amusement is nol 
 education: indeed, those things which amuse us most 
 are only those parts of education which we take with 
 the greatest avidity, the lessons we really learn. Bui 
 from tlu-> admission il must not be assumed that we 
 countenance the theory that whatever pleases is right, 
 that full houses mean good plays, and that, il the 
 world is amused by bad plays, the world is by all 
 means to have them. No, the world may be amused 
 by, and interested in, that which is high, as well as 
 I. R
 
 258 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 thai which is low, and it is the duly of the artist to 
 lead the gaping world from the latter to the former, 
 
 to educate men's tastes, and we venture to think thai 
 it is the duty of the critic to help in this enterprise. 
 The actor is no mere mountebank to make laughter 
 for those who cannot amuse themselves : he is an 
 artist whose function it is to help men to higher 
 amusements, to a wider range of sympathy, to a 
 deeper insight than they can attain to without his 
 help. If actors would look upon this as their calling 
 we should have better plays and better actors than 
 we have at the present time, even without a school of 
 dramatic art. The best school for all doing is a 
 knowledge of one's duty, and a conscience which will 
 keep one doing it. But unfortunately very few actors 
 take this view of their profession. They seem to 
 think their highest function is to pander to the tastes 
 of the public, and their highest triumph to secure the 
 large audiences which reward this derogation from 
 their art. It is because of this wrong notion of their 
 functions that we find the author becoming the sub- 
 ordinate in the high co-partnery of the theatre, that 
 we find plays written for actors, and a gradual 
 depreciation of our dramatic literature in consequence. 
 In the human body, according to George Herbert," Each 
 part calls the furthest brother, and head with foot 
 hath private amity ; " and it is certain that in the 
 enterprise of art one error will affect all parts of the 
 delicate organism, and the abdication of the true 
 functions of the actor necessitate the degradation of 
 the author. 
 
 The right method in this matter is that which was 
 in vogue in earlier times. The dramatist must have 
 some idea to express — idea which can be best ex- 
 pressed, I would say adequately expressed, only in 
 dramatic form, and which can be efficiently embodied 
 only by means of dramatic representation. If all these
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 259 
 
 conditions are satisfied he produces a play. It was 
 because those conditions were satisfied in the case of 
 the writers of the Elizabethan age that our national 
 drama, perhaps the highest achievement of English 
 genius, was produced. If, on the other hand, the 
 writer has no idea, and has to write it in three or live 
 acts for the purpose of setting off and giving oppor- 
 tunities to the peculiar talents of some particular 
 actor ; if the actor is the only idea that has to be 
 expressed, and the play is shaped and the incidents 
 twisted to display him, the result is an abortion, not 
 a drama. 
 
 Now, there can be very little question that at the 
 present time our plays are deplorably bad, and our 
 actors worthy of such plays. Not that there is not 
 much cleverness at work with pens, not that there is 
 not much ability brought to bear upon the plastic art 
 of acting. Mr. Tennyson has brought, scarcely his 
 genius, into the service of dramatic composition, but 
 he has written well. No one who saw "The Cup" 
 could fail to admire his work, although he must have 
 admired the triumphs of the carpenter and the scene- 
 painter almost as much. The play was splendidly 
 "mounted," but still the play had merit. But besides 
 Mr. Tennyson, whose dramatic work, though good, is 
 quite inferior to his work of another nature, Mr. Wills 
 has written pieces of some mark for the stage. The 
 late Mr. Robertson produced some pieces of stage 
 genre, which are as good as anything that modern 
 comedy can show. Mr. Gilbert has succeeded in 
 getting a clever coadjutor to set continuations of the 
 "Bab Ballads" to music. Mr. Byron has written 
 "Our Boys," and other pieces, which have held the 
 
 stage for immense lengths of time, but have seldom 
 
 11 revived after having been once withdrawn. Mr. 
 
 Pinero has had some success, Mr. Godfrey's plays 
 
 have some merit. But with all the cleverness, there
 
 260 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 does not seem to be one phiy produced, which is 
 really a notable addition to our dramatic literature. 
 Take them all away, and our exchequer does not 
 seem a whit the poorer. When, therefore, the art of 
 the writer is so poor, it is not a matter for surprise 
 that the art of the actor should also be inferior. Still, 
 we must distinguish. It would be unfair to say that 
 we have no dramatic art on our stage. There is an 
 immense deal of very clever acting on the boards, 
 and possibly at no former time in the history of the 
 stage were plays, as a whole, better put before the 
 public. The average dramatic ability is considerable, 
 but unfortunately that average excellence seems to be 
 accompanied by an almost total absence — if that is 
 not an Irishism — of anything like superior power. 
 
 We have spoken of the way in which plays are 
 " mounted " in these days. It is the gossip of the 
 clubs — and of those newspapers which eavesdrop to 
 print that vapid gossip — that some recent plays have 
 cost sums which seem almost fabulous, to put upon 
 the stage, and we too often find that half the current 
 praise given is bestowed upon the scenery and pro- 
 perties, possibly because these deserve it and the 
 actors don't. But is not this statement another way 
 of confirming the ineptitude of the stage ? Bad 
 pictures require good frames. It is bad plays that 
 require all this u mounting." If the incidents of the 
 play were such as to stir our hearts ; if the acting of 
 the play were such as to carry us in the full career 
 of the writer's moving thought ; if we were intent upon 
 the love of this one, and the hate of that one, or if 
 we felt cold with the fear of another ; if the words 
 were such as they ought to be, to fill the mind as 
 well as the ears of us listening, could we be look- 
 ing at the trees in the side scenes, or the shimmer 
 of that velvet doublet ? No, it is because there is 
 less to look at in the frame that our artists are
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 261 
 
 particular about that appendage. It is since distinc- 
 tive characters have disappeared from our novels that 
 we have descriptions of scenery instead, so that this 
 evil is rife in all the arts, and we have too much 
 stress laid upon harmonious wholes, because none of 
 the parts have especial merit. Truly a harmonious 
 whole of mediocrity is not a thing to be very 
 proud of. 
 
 We know, of course, that this theory may go too 
 far. A great actor in a barn might be able to move 
 us to salutary tears or refreshing laughter without a 
 single accessory. He himself is stage, scenery, dresses, 
 and all. But although such would be the perfection 
 of the magic art, there is no reason why an actor 
 should strip himself and his play of all the adven- 
 titious circumstances which the scene-painter and 
 lamplighter can help him with. Still, there is a 
 limit to dependence on the art of these adjutants. 
 We protest against mounting being made more of 
 than the play. All your scenery must assist, not go 
 before, the author's thought. We would rather see 
 the best play in the barn than the worst upon your 
 splendid stage. All the painters should try to do is 
 to further the play, not to put anything in the place 
 Of it. "The play's the thing," to twist a quotation. 
 Too often the play is a series of tableaux; too often, 
 like a small man in a great mantle, the play is lost 
 in its trappings. We would rather see our plays less 
 expensively set if they were of a better "water" and 
 more firmly cut, if they caught in their faeets, not 
 the pi' tures of our trivial society, but the large and 
 noble pictures of true thought and passion. We would 
 be content, as our ancestors had to be, with sonic 
 
 quite incapable actors in minor parts, so that we 
 
 did but have 30me men and women ol real genius 
 to -.how us in picturesque act their intrepid readings 
 
 ol iome right worthy text. We should have no tune
 
 262 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 for the trivial criticisms of the stage if we were satis- 
 fied with the high sense of the drama given to us by 
 authentic artists. 
 
 Now at the present time, while we admit much 
 miscellaneous ability at work both in the writing and 
 acting of plays, much care and talent at work upon 
 the production of dramas with taste, with propriety, 
 and with opulence, we confess we fail to find any- 
 thing like an adequate illustration of the actor's art. 1 
 It may be worth our while to consider what the 
 actor's art really is, and how far it can be counted 
 on in our time as an element of our real intellectual 
 life. Those who go to the theatre as they go to a royal 
 review, a procession, or a circus, bent upon that most 
 heinous of murders the "killing of time," to those we 
 cannot address ourselves ; but to those persons who 
 can read the English drama with appreciation, to 
 such persons as hope from the theatre to gather richer 
 meanings in Shakespeare's text, and to find the beauties 
 of our best plays enhanced by the added charms of 
 stage representation — to find the mere perspective of 
 the dramatist in the high relief of the actor's art, to 
 those we can at any rate speak in a language which 
 will be understood. 
 
 And let us say at once that the dramatic art, like 
 every art, is not imitation, but creation. The mere 
 mimic is the lowest of actors. The highest of actors 
 is poet, sculptor, and orator all in one. There is an 
 entire difference between assuming the same expression, 
 attitude, and voice as another man, and having his 
 idea. It is true that if you attain to a man's mental 
 attitude you will probably have, to some extent, the 
 same voice, attitude, and expression as he has, but 
 
 1 There is no question that " Much Ado about Nothing" is produced with 
 opulence, but we question whether the scene in " The Church " is in the best 
 " taste." The sensibilities of many persons must be shocked by the exact 
 reproduction of an " altar " on the stage.
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 263 
 
 these are the accidents of the occasion ; the essential 
 thing is to have the idea or feeling. And there is a 
 serious but a very common error in confounding the 
 external appearance with the inner thought. We have 
 seen excellent mimics, who had chameleon features, 
 and could remind you with face and voice of 
 almost any one you had seen, and yet such persons, 
 from mere lack of intellectual power, were incapable 
 of any high artistic work upon the stage. The writer 
 of great plays did not shape his story for an individual 
 man ; it was written to develop some idea, and one 
 of the ways of developing all ideas is by portraying 
 human thoughts and feelings in their relation to the 
 events of time. It is that that makes a play. But the 
 actor who would act the play must understand the 
 thoughts, must understand the feelings, and must not 
 he content with mere outward signs of them. If he 
 does the former he is an actor ; if he attains only to the 
 latter, he is a mimic. Acting must be heart deep, not 
 skin deep. In the order of nature thoughts are the 
 first, expressions are the second, and the order of art 
 must be the same. No man will impress you — the audi- 
 ence — with the writer's thought unless he thinks it. It 
 is feelings that are contagious, and unless the actor has 
 these he cannot propagate them any more than a man 
 who has had a skilfully imitated eruption produced on 
 his skin by means of paint would propagate the disease 
 from which the eruption is imitated. The actor's art 
 begins, continues, and ends in understanding and be- 
 < oming one with his author, and the highest actor is the 
 One who understand and can interpret the highest 
 author the highest author being that writer who tells 
 
 us most of that greal human nature which is the sub- 
 
 jed which interests all nun most, if it is not in very 
 truth the only suhjxt. 
 
 But it may be urged thai interpretation is not in 
 
 any real sense creative. We Can conceive the ob|( etion
 
 264 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 that the actor has only to imitate the author's meaning, 
 and that if he goes beyond that and creates, as we 
 would have him do, he is not true to his duty by 
 his author — he is making a drama, not acting it. This 
 view is so plausible that it has deceived many, and led 
 to an entire misconception of the actor's art. The 
 difference to many has seemed like that between the 
 legislature and the judicature. It is the former that 
 makes the law ; the latter must add or subtract no jot 
 or tittle from the laws as made, but must interpret 
 and apply them in certain particular cases. This view 
 is, we admit, specious, but it is erroneous. No artist 
 creates in the sense of making new things by the word 
 of his power, but every artist creates in the sense of 
 making new ideas by the magic of that word. The 
 materials for these are to his hand. The sculptor re- 
 disposes the clay or the marble, and out of a clod 
 or a stone there comes an idea. In one sense you 
 may say with his nimble clay he imitates the human 
 form, in the true sense he creates an idea. The poet, 
 again, is no imitator of nature. Look how he lays 
 all the world under embargo for his metaphors and 
 similes. All nature seems to run together to illustrate 
 some simple scene when it is in the poet's eye. The 
 same circumstances seen in their separateness were 
 simple prose, empty of any meaning. Now in the 
 poet's mouth they are full of ideas. Or the painter ! 
 How does his work differ from photography ? He pro- 
 duces not pieces of landscape, but it is the landscape 
 seen through the Claude Lorraine of his own tinged 
 thought. Some people seem to think that the painter 
 who depicts nature in its sterile accuracy the best, is 
 the greatest painter ; but two things go to fill up the 
 idea of the word "Nature" in such an expression — 
 there is the landscape spread out like a gorgeous fan 
 and the mind that looks at it. Both have to be painted 
 — otherwise you have not produced a work of pictorial
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 265 
 
 art. Now in the same way the actor's art is creative, 
 not imitative. He has to make the written drama into 
 act, just as the painter has to translate the landscape 
 and the feelings it engenders into colour. The drama 
 has to be thoroughly understood and appreciated by 
 the actor, and he must have such command of attitude, 
 of expression, of voice, as to turn the play into life, 
 for the audience. Here, then, is the sphere for the 
 actor's individuality ; here there is no room for the 
 bald trivialities of the mimetic art. We do not, then, 
 take a low view of the actor's art, but rank it with 
 the highest. But just as we have grades and ranks 
 amongst painters, and as we think a Teniers with his 
 coarse fairs and vulgar merrymakings inferior to Rem- 
 brandt, with his grand portrait pictures : as we think 
 even portraiture inferior, high as it is, to the grand 
 dramas in the stately pictures of Veronese, or the mag- 
 nificent imaginings of Michael Angelo — who, if he did 
 not bring heaven upon earth, certainly took earth up 
 to heaven — so we say that the faithful representation 
 of the Butterman in "Our Boys," the accurate por- 
 traiture of Robertson's conceptions in "Ours," "School," 
 "Caste," and the other small carpet-dramas which have 
 held the stage in our days, is an entirely inferior art 
 to that which can represent a Macbeth or Othello, a 
 II. unlet, or a Romeo. Modern life and the comedies 
 which reflect it have loo little scope for genius. Our 
 ic-ty lives in a mask, and to portray the small 
 < lianges, the trivial passions, and the conventional 
 simper or frown which our code of manners dictates 
 is but a meagre enterprise for a great actor, lint to 
 reach the heights oi passion, to realise the supreme 
 
 moments 0( existence, when men arc nobly mad with 
 
 love, when they are ignobly mad with fear, when they 
 
 strain every nerve and fibre with ambition, 01 are 
 
 earned away from the road of prudence in a whirlwind 
 of hate, these are matters which try an artist's whole
 
 266 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 soul. In such roles his capacity or incapacity will 
 stand starkly confessed. You know the man ! and you 
 can determine at once his qualities as an actor, which 
 depend, it is to be remembered, although people seem 
 to forget this obvious proposition, upon his qualities 
 as a man. 
 
 And here let us say at once that there seems to be 
 some misunderstanding as to what a school of dramatic- 
 art can do for the stage. Not that we are unwilling 
 to see such a school established, for we are anxious 
 to see such a recognition of the high and responsible 
 position of the actor publicly and liberally made, but 
 that we fear that many who prate about it expect far 
 too much from such a seminary. True, in most of the 
 technicalities of the art of acting our artists are 
 thoroughly unlearned. Of most of the things which 
 are so well referred to in M. Garcia's " Actor's Art " 
 they are profoundly ignorant. Mr. Burnand has pointed 
 out with truth the curious failure of our actors to 
 speak their own language, and it seems to be agreed 
 upon all hands that elocution is a dead art, so far as 
 the English stage is concerned. The intelligence of 
 Mr. Irving's performances is curiously marred by a 
 management of the voice which grates upon the ear ; 
 his excellent acting in many parts is reduced almost 
 to the verge of the ridiculous by a mannered strut 
 which is provocative of, and would even excuse, some 
 irrelevant laughter. The use he makes of his voice in 
 many of his sentences is destructive of the sense he 
 fully appreciates and is anxious to convey. 
 
 Now all these defects in the actor's art are on the 
 surface, and all these might have been to some extent 
 cured if the actor had gone to school, instead of 
 picking up his art as best he could in the arduous 
 career which he had chosen. That there is a need of 
 teaching is only too obvious ; but that teaching will 
 make great actors is simply ridiculous. One might as
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 267 
 
 well expect to produce Shakespeares and Bacons by 
 means of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. The 
 actor's power is in him, it is in no books or masters, 
 and however much some might be assisted over the 
 grammar of their language by a school, it is well to 
 recognise the fact that schools can do little for true 
 genius after all. If the man has the force, he will 
 overcome all difficulties ; if he has not the force, there 
 is no use in clearing the wav for him. Who thinks 
 that Burns would have been a better poet if he had 
 passed through a university curriculum ? Who ima- 
 gines that Mr. Irving would have learnt anything from 
 any teacher he could have got in this country ? It is 
 not Mr. Irving's external merits that make him an 
 actor, it is his intellectual power which makes him 
 paramount on the stage. His elocution is, as we have 
 said, bad ; his manner in most parts curiously stilted, 
 and his person and face unattractive ; and yet withal 
 there is no actor on the English stage at the present 
 time who can so enter into the pith and marrow of 
 passion, there is no one who can place himself en 
 rapport with the thoughts of the dramatist and carry 
 them to their just conclusion in picturesque art so 
 well as he can ; and that not because of anything 
 which a school could give, or a school could take- 
 away, but through large gifts of Nature, and an intel- 
 lectual power greater than that of all his fellows. 
 
 There is, in these days, a rage for "schooling," and 
 
 we would be the last to say that the desire was not in 
 
 ome senses a healthy one. We would be the last t<> 
 
 Say that the present faults of our "stage players" do 
 
 not point In the necessity of some systematic training. 
 
 Hut what we wish t<> guard our readers against is the 
 
 idea than any school < an make greal actors. Schools 
 are for the averagi man, not for the genius. The 
 
 lattei 1 In own school, and no school thai has evei 
 been invented can teach the dunce to follow shake
 
 268 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 speare's niceties of thought : no master can make the 
 interior man superior. At the best, schools and masters 
 can only raise the level of general excellence, and can 
 prevent nice sensibilities from being shocked by the 
 gaucheries of a common actor ; but the capabilities of 
 schools, of books, of masters, are limited to that. We 
 could scarcely expect M. Garcia to agree with us to 
 the full in this, but Mr. Mowbray Morris, who is a 
 stickler for the mint and anise and cummin of the 
 stage, has, following Mr. Matthew Arnold, who in his 
 careful essay has emphasised the fact that the difference 
 between great and little actors lies in the possession 
 or want of real intellectual power — has admitted 
 " without this power, all the training in the world will 
 never enable an actor really to satisfy his audience, 
 when dealing with fine thoughts and noble language, 
 whether cast in the form of poetry or not; without 
 the impress of the speaker's own intelligence, of his 
 own understanding and appreciation, the finest speaking 
 in the world, the justest emphasis, the most melodious 
 cadences, will be after all but a caput mortuum ; indeed, 
 without this, one might almost say that there can be 
 no fine speaking, no justness of emphasis, no melody 
 of cadence." With all of which we heartily agree, 
 more thoroughly, we think, than Mr. Mowbray Morris 
 himself, for we find considerable stress laid upon quite 
 minor matters in his clever and interesting pages. 
 
 There is one thing which, we think, a school would 
 or might do for the stage. It might remove from it 
 a stigma which has too long hung about it, a stigma 
 which has produced the very evil it was intended to 
 remedy. It is a very sad fact, that if you give a dog 
 a bad name you may as well hang it, for by reason 
 of your bad repute you will continue it in its wicked 
 courses. On the other hand, the giving of reputation 
 is often the first step towards deserving it. Not only 
 has the bad repute of the stage done harm to those
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 269 
 
 who have chosen it as a profession, but it has precluded 
 all those men and women of genius in the better ranks 
 of life from adopting it as a profession. What man 
 of ability and position, leaving the university after 
 having taken a good degree, would think of the stage 
 as a legitimate "walk in life" at the present time? 
 Mr. Irving, in his address to the Philosophical Institu- 
 tion at Edinburgh, regretted this, and we think, with 
 justice ; yet his utterances there have found some dis- 
 favour and a little misrepresentation at the hands of 
 some of his critics. He has been sneered at because 
 he thought it a matter for congratulation that the ranks 
 of the theatrical profession are being now copiously 
 recruited with young men well educated, seriously 
 interested, and of good connections. The unhappy 
 phrase, "good connections," pulled the string of a 
 shower-bath of criticism, and brought quantities of 
 cold water about his ears. But what we desire to 
 see is the ranks of the theatrical profession recruited 
 from all ranks of society. It has been too much the 
 fashion to suppose that all excellence, all genius, must 
 come from the people. That is a grave error. Genius 
 is often born in the purple as well as in the home- 
 spun, and true Liberalism will open the paths of dis- 
 tinction to both these indiscriminately; a school of 
 dramatic art would teach the world to drop some of 
 its prejudices, and to that extent, at any rate, it would 
 do a good work. 
 
 There are some persistent errors in vogue about the 
 stage which seem to warp the judgments of many ^^ 
 fair but amateur critics. For instance, many seem t<> 
 think that an actor must fed and act as if flu- tarts 
 <>\ the drama were real facts. No graver error could 
 exist. The actor must never lose sighl of the fact that 
 
 hi acting 1 1 art. It he becomes the murderer, he 
 
 ought to be hanged, not applauded. "Art is ;irt," 
 
 . , Goethe, "because it is not nature." There is
 
 270 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 always a line difference between real passions and 
 those we see upon the stage. The dramatist has seen 
 this, and has tempered his words to the exigencies of 
 the boards. No man, stirred as his hero would have 
 been by the circumstances of the play, would have 
 spoken as his hero does. Admitting that many strong 
 emotions choose a metric form of expression, that 
 certain thoughts lead to " harmonious numbers," and 
 that the cry of David for his son Absalom was instinct 
 with the true music of poetry, there are very few 
 occasions in life when men would speak in blank 
 verse. Now the passions which poetry or the drama 
 stir in the reader or hearer are not those which would 
 be incident to the real events depicted. We could 
 not sit in a box and see fraud triumph even for one 
 act, if we knew that it was real fraud which was then 
 behind the footlights. We would, if we were true men, 
 protest against the stage villainy if we knew it to be 
 real malice in act. It is because we know that it is 
 art that we are pleased with it ; and that we can 
 compare the artistic passions excited in us by the 
 scene, with the real passions which we know^ and we 
 find pleasure and instruction in the comparison, and 
 admiration for the genius which can create these 
 idealised, these artistic passions in us. But while this 
 is obviously true, few playgoers recognise the truth. 
 
 Let us take another illustration of the player's art. 
 The common critic will tell you that the perfection of 
 art is attained when each actor acts as he individually 
 would feel under the circumstances of the drama. 
 This view seems plausible, but we do not hesitate to 
 say that if it were recognised as a canon it would put 
 an end to acting as an art. Remember that the actor 
 has his author to deal with ; it is his idea which it is 
 the function of the actor to develop. If each actor 
 were to act as he would individually feel under the 
 circumstances, the play would, to use a cant phrase,
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 271 
 
 "be nowhere." Let us take an illustration which will 
 make our meaning clear. Most people will remember 
 Mr. Irving's Hamlet. In many ways it was an ex- 
 ceedingly clever performance, in some ways it was 
 strikingly original, and in some eminently picturesque. 
 But to any reader who knows the play, it is obvious 
 that although Hamlet is intended to " bulk largely " 
 in the scene — and the play of "Hamlet" without the 
 character has become a byword for the omission of 
 all that is important — still he is not meant to be 
 obtrusive. But Mr. Irving's Hamlet would not let 
 the audience's eyes or ears dwell on any other actor. 
 He was too greedy of attention. To understand the 
 play at all the audience must listen to every word the 
 Ghost says. Shakespeare makes Hamlet say nothing 
 during the whole time the Ghost is speaking. Why ? 
 Not because Hamlet would not, under the circum- 
 stances, have said nothing ; it is highly probable he 
 would have behaved differently ; have groaned : nay, 
 he might even have cross-examined the Ghost. But 
 the exigencies of art made Shakespeare ask the whole 
 attention of the audience to every syllable that the 
 Ghost said. Everything in the play hangs on the 
 Ghost's story. The play depends on your attention 
 to what the visitant of the "glimpses of the moon" 
 has to say. What did Mr. Irving do? Acting upon 
 tin- vicious theory that he must behave exactly as he 
 would if he had really seen a ghost, he went on dis- 
 tracting the attention of the audience to himself. At 
 more than one point he cried out "O God 1" his 
 trembling is made audible by the point of the sword 
 "tittering" on the stage, and the like. All this in- 
 capacity ol reticence was the prime fault in his acting. 
 All great poets are content on occasion to write prose. 
 It i> only the rhymester who cloys his verse with too 
 many sweets. So the great actOl is Content to have 
 
 In. prose passages in acting, lie heightens the effect
 
 272 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of Ins presence by temporary absences. This fault, 
 which, as we say, Mr. Irving had when he acted 
 Hamlet, he has to some extent corrected. In his 
 performance of Benedick, he is content to be little 
 on the stage at times, to be great at other times. 
 
 It may seem to our readers that we have written 
 much and said nothing as to the art of acting. We 
 confess that in the sense in which M. Garcia uses the 
 phrase we have said but little. We have not meddled 
 with the minutiae of art. The muscles which express 
 anger or fear, the lips that are indicative of culture or 
 cowardice, the attitudes or walks which best become 
 vanity, or pride or humility — these matters are but the 
 crust of the actor's art ; we are dealing with the kernel 
 and not the shell. It may be true that certain con- 
 tours of features may be indicative of certain mental 
 characteristics, but the knowledge of that fact will not 
 seriously help or hinder the good or the bad actor. 
 It was Newman who said that all virtue led to 
 happiness, but that, if we were virtuous to secure the 
 pleasure, it was not virtue. But so it is with acting. 
 If the actor has the true conception of the part, all 
 the minutiae of art will be given to him. If he aim 
 at the attitudes and expressions he will lose sight of 
 the conception which is the virtue of the play. 
 
 But this fallacy runs through most of our criticism. 
 People would in season and out of season inculcate 
 on actors the maxim, " Be natural." That, according 
 to the opinion of many, is the essence of theatrical 
 excellence. It would, it seems to us, be just as wise 
 to advise the actor to be artificial. A man who carries 
 nature on to the stage in its naturalness will never 
 be an actor. There is nature, of course, in our best 
 plays, but it is nature under artistic conditions, and 
 it is by reason of the fact that, notwithstanding these 
 conditions, the art impresses us with the idea of 
 naturalness that it comes to be the highest art. All
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 273 
 
 will remember the praise of Chantrey's bust, that it 
 was more like Wordsworth than Wordsworth himself. 
 A play must be more like the world than society is, 
 and if it attains to this crowning excellence its success 
 is due not only to the author but to the actor's 
 art. Let us just refer to one or two things which 
 preclude the possibility of carrying out the ad captandum 
 view of the art of acting. In nature we have none 
 of the confidences of the stage. Soliloquies in real 
 life are very seldom overheard; "asides," which are 
 a constant means of explanation by the dramatist to 
 his audience, are not countenanced in society. In real 
 life we have not to think of keeping our faces to the 
 audience ; on the stage the actors have. In life we say a 
 hundred things which are meant to be heard : on the 
 stage everything is meant to be overheard as well. 
 One's expressions of features in life are meant, as a rule, 
 for the persons addressed ; on the stage they are meant 
 for the "house " as well. Much of the conversation of the 
 drawing-room is irrelevant ; there ought to be nothing 
 irrelevant in ;i good play. In the play, everything which 
 tells the story, which develops the characters, without 
 which the story is nothing, is necessary ; whatever goes 
 beyond that is out of place. There must therefore be, 
 in plays, a subordination of the characters to the 
 purpose of the plot ; in real life, the plot is subordi- 
 nated to the purposes of the characters. Now all these 
 conditions, which are amongst the pre-requisites of the 
 smallest stage-play, show how difficult it would be to 
 Secure all these and still be natural. And yet there is 
 a truth in the claim, although it is ;i truth by accident, 
 and is not directly accurate. The play, however the 
 effect i^ produced, must impress us with the idea that 
 it is natural; if it sins against this requisite, it falls 
 mod "i being a play at all. So in a picture; we who 
 know nothing about the technicalities ol patch or line, 
 
 we who '.Lit' nothing about the niceties ol pyramidal 
 
 I. S
 
 274 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 or circular grouping, can tell whether the picture seems 
 natural as a whole or not. It is an end to be aimed 
 at, this "naturalness," but it is not a means to an 
 end. The actor who is simply natural is not an actor. 
 Who can deny that Miss Terry is "natural"? Those 
 who remember her excellent performance in Mr. Wills' 
 adaptation of "The Vicar of Wakefield," those who saw 
 her in " The Belle's Stratagem," will remember how 
 admirably natural, in an artistic sense, she was. And 
 now we can see her as Beatrice, and all our former 
 experience, gained from an observation of her in a 
 class of characters in which she is absolutely unrivalled 
 on our stage, is confirmed and strengthened. But this 
 naturalness is the result of incomparable genius and of 
 the most careful art. If this demand for naturalness 
 were founded on truth, we should set a hoyden to play 
 a hoyden, and with what result ? Simply that it would 
 be no play at all. But Miss Terry's art is consummate 
 in certain parts, and although it seems a paradox, it is 
 truth to say that there is no nature in her most 
 natural performances. 
 
 But lest we should create a false impression, let 
 us add that there is a deeper truth connected with 
 this matter than would at first sight appear. All art 
 seems to be the idealisation of nature. The poet or 
 painter stoops to the peasant, and, for a time, takes 
 his nature upon him, and he can speak and move 
 like the peasant, still instinct with all his higher 
 thoughts, still learned with all his rules of art ; and 
 the actor must do the same. He must rise to the 
 dignity of kings, or sink to the vulgarity of the lout, 
 if the part requires it; and that is only to be accom- 
 plished by becoming, as it were, for the time, the ruler 
 or the serf. At the same time, while he identities 
 himself with these, he must still remain the actor. 
 In this sense, then, the demand for naturalness has 
 a truth in it, but a truth, as it were, by the way.
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 275 
 
 After what has been said, it will be seen that we 
 take by no means a low view of the actor's art, and 
 the fact that we cannot look with favour on the 
 present stage, is due to the circumstance that the 
 actor has not himself formed an equally high ideal 
 of his life-work. We have purposely refrained from 
 touching upon the technicalities of stage-playing ; of 
 these M. Garcia's book contains a careful and intelli- 
 gent summary, and concerning these there are many 
 shrewd remarks and well-balanced opinions in the 
 " Essays on Theatrical Criticism." Of these we are 
 not in a position to speak, nor is this the place to 
 speak of them. But of the elements of the art of 
 acting we have ventured to say some words, because 
 of these we are in a better position to form a judg- 
 ment than those professional persons who are con- 
 cerned with the daily business of the stage, or than 
 those professional critics who would transgress against 
 the rules of their profession if they made wide excur- 
 sions into those larger matters of principle which 
 surround and underlie all the plays and playing which 
 they criticise. That these high questions of art and 
 acting concern us all deeply, there can be no question. 
 Even while we deplore the fact that they are so 
 seldom illustrated in these days, we can look back 
 to times when not only were great dramas written, 
 but when these great dramas were greatly acted. We 
 have 3een too, that at one house at least, "Shakespeare," 
 in the cant phrase, has not spelt "ruin," and we may 
 hope that 111 time to come a somewhat healthier taste 
 may arise than that which is satisfied by such plays 
 .1 "I'ml: hoiiiinoo," or "Brighton." It is in the 
 interest of mankind that the stage should become the 
 house of something better than such " trulls " of plays ; 
 th.it it should open il -ell to Something a little highri 
 
 ih. in tho e racks of language, burlesques, ill. ui those 
 
 prostitutions of music, "opera bouffes," or than those
 
 276 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 small funninesses in verse and melody which Messrs. 
 Gilbert and Sullivan make English and Transatlantic 
 fortunes out of. When the stage is su ready to wel- 
 come a fine lady, whose position in society and not 
 her art is to be made the means of attracting the 
 public, and when the crumbs of scandal form the 
 advertisement of a debutante who can make better 
 terms for an American tour than any actress or vocalist 
 on the English stage, these circumstances speak ill 
 for the profession into which she has intruded her- 
 self, speak ill for the stage on which she has made 
 such a triumph. Still, as we say, although there are 
 many discouraging signs there is some room for hope. 
 Mr. Irving's and Miss Terry's acting is, in certain 
 parts, excellent. Mr. Irving, we think, began his career 
 ill : not that his Digby Grand was not a good per- 
 formance, but we date his great success from the 
 production and popularity of " The Bells." That play 
 was quite unworthy of the merits of the actor. The 
 chief demand which was made upon him was to die, 
 and he died so tl naturally," it was said he had studied 
 that phase of life — if we may use the expression — in 
 hospitals. We do not know whether his " death " was 
 worthy or not of that study, but we do know that 
 not dying, but living, is the proper function of the 
 actor as it is of the man. It is to act life and not 
 death that he goes upon the stage, and those plays 
 are generally the worst in which lingering deaths 
 are shown upon the " horror-stricken boards." 
 
 Hut Mr. Irving rose from this pathological phase 
 of his acting, although he harped a little on the same 
 string in " Eugene Aram," and tried himself in alto- 
 gether better and worthier dramas. His Richelieu 
 was admirable ; his Hamlet, although not so good, 
 was good ; his Richard the Third suited him ; his 
 Romeo was a mistake, and his Benedick admir- 
 able. The last, we confess, surprised us greatly. The
 
 THE ART OF ACTING 277 
 
 more deep the sentiments, the more thrilling the 
 interest, the less time have we to look for, to think 
 about, physical defects, uncongenial mannerisms. In 
 tragedy, if the actor but realises our idea, we will 
 forgive awkwardness ; but when the interest is not 
 intense, when the scene invites us to laugh and not 
 to weep, we have time to criticise and can afford 
 to laugh at, instead of with, the actor. Thus we 
 admit that Mr. Irving in "The Belle's Stratagem" dis- 
 appointed us as greatly as Miss Terry delighted us, 
 so that we were prepared for further disappointment 
 when we went to see "Much Ado about Nothing." 
 But we admit that on seeing it we were greatly sur- 
 prised. Mr. Irving has never been seen to greater 
 advantage. His intelligence was always manifest in 
 his performance, but his intelligence now, it seems to 
 us, shines the brighter by reason of a greater reticence, 
 a more thorough self-command. In the froth of Bene- 
 dick's character he is scarcely mousse enough, but in 
 the solid pith and purpose of the man he is admirable. 
 Mr. Irving wants lightness of touch, and this is pain- 
 fully emphasised by comparison with Miss Terry, who 
 possesses it in no ordinary degree. " Much Ado about 
 Nothing," as played at the Lyceum, is an admirable 
 illustration of whal good and careful stage-playing 
 ought to be. There is much pleasure and much profit 
 to be gol out of such a play.
 
 XII 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 1 
 
 The attention of the public has been directed to the 
 subject of Artistic Copyright, not only by the Report 
 of the Royal Commission, and the Bill which was 
 introduced into Parliament at the close of the Session, 
 1879, but by a Memorial of the Royal Academy which 
 was laid before Government with the view of influenc- 
 ing possible legislation. Of course, besides these con- 
 spicuous documents there has been a good deal of 
 subsidiary literary discussion : there have been letters 
 and leading articles in the morning papers ; and there 
 have been more pretentious essays in less frequent 
 publications. The Bill of last Session, which dis- 
 heartened artists, was not passed into law, and be- 
 lieving that, even thus late, the Government might be 
 induced to change its mind as to the policy of copy- 
 right legislation, they have quite recently returned to 
 the text, and again preached the somewhat familiar 
 sermon from it. There is still an opportunity to say 
 some words upon this by no means unimportant 
 matter ; and those words may not be the less weighty 
 because they are written after the somewhat full expres- 
 sion of the views and opinions on either side of the 
 controversy which has already taken place. 
 
 It is worth while, as a preliminary, to consider the 
 meaning of copyright, and to ascertain the purpose 
 
 1 " Report of the Royal Commission on Copyright. " 1878. 
 
 " Memorial of the Royal Academy to the Government on the Subject of 
 
 Copyright." Published in the 'J'inies, loth Feb. 1879. 
 
 278
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 279 
 
 for which it was created. It is scarcely necessary to 
 say that the public is supremely interested in having 
 books and pictures, that the nation should have the 
 valuable teaching of the study and the studio, as well 
 as the lessons of the school and the church. Any 
 one who overlooked the great and ennobling influence 
 of works of art on civilisation — which is the education 
 of the race — would be but a paltry historian. It may 
 be true that great books and great pictures are fair- 
 weather teachers, and that while they adorn and 
 beautify the lives of the high and noble, they are too 
 much of simple palliatives to affect the haggard exist- 
 ence of the low and wicked, whose squalor makes so 
 large a feature in our national life. Still, even ad- 
 mitting the necessity of a drastic morality, as well as 
 of a soothing culture, the admission of the necessity 
 of the one is not a condemnation of the other. And 
 we may say distinctly that as years go on the im- 
 portance of the printing press and the painting brush 
 must be enormously increased, while the importance 
 of fine and imprisonment will be enormously diminished. 
 This is not too sanguine a view, for it is founded 
 upon a process of appreciation and depreciation which 
 is going on. 
 
 Hut it to secure the production of works of art be 
 a paramount need, it is not unimportant to consider 
 how such a production can be best secured. And 
 first, the producers must be remunerated. True, no 
 mon< v payment can make a man write a great book 
 — tlu- wealth of the Indies cannot command one great 
 idea ; but the writers of great books, the thinkers of 
 great thought-, must live; weekly bills will come in 
 ;i to a genius. And no man can devote him sell to 
 the arduous profession Ol literature or of art unless 
 
 the labour bestowed upon the work ol Ins life is to 
 lie remunerated. Wen- there no means of securing 
 an adequate reward foi such high labours, men must,
 
 280 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 unless they happen to be the heirs of wealthy ancestors 
 as well as of the ages, cease to devote anything but 
 hard-earned leisure to the work of literature or of art. 
 Were such a thing to happen, were a man of real 
 capacity to cease to write books — which might sow 
 that better seed which will bring harvests of good 
 deeds and high thoughts — and take to ploughing the 
 land with a view to the next autumn's yield, one need 
 scarcely say that the loss to mankind would be utterly 
 incommensurable with the few bushels which he might 
 thresh from the corn on the sounding floor after 
 harvest. 
 
 But the question of how the writer is to be remu- 
 nerated is a very difficult one. If a man has written 
 a book and had it printed, and sells one copy, the pur- 
 chaser of that copy, unless there were some law to the 
 contrary, might reproduce and sell copies of his copy 
 at a much lower rate than the author. The author 
 would have to make each copy he sold bear a pro- 
 portionate part of the cost he was at to produce the 
 manuscript as well as the cost of the publication, 
 while the purchaser of the one copy could sell copies 
 which only bore a proportionate part of the propor- 
 tionate part of that initial cost. No one would pur- 
 chase the author's copies. Mere freedom of sale 
 would not, therefore, be a means to the adequate re- 
 muneration of workers in literature or art. There are, 
 however, two methods by means of which such 
 workers might be paid — (i) State patronage; and 
 (2) Copyright. The former has not been tried, and the 
 latter has been adopted. By the latter, the right to 
 copy from a book is limited. A right which the pur- 
 chaser of a book undoubtedly had is taken away from 
 him for the benefit of the author ; for the reason that, 
 but for some such endowment of the author, he 
 would not continue to write, and the public would 
 suffer by reason of his reticence.
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 281 
 
 We know, of course, that there are some men who 
 attempt to put the doctrine of copyright upon a far 
 higher level than this. They argue with a vigour of 
 rhetoric which is often accompanied by a painful 
 debility of reason that men have an " indefeasible 
 right to their own ideas"; and while men keep their 
 own ideas to themselves the proposition is not likely 
 to be seriously disputed. But when a man, with that 
 peculiar modesty which characterises the possessors 
 of ideas, has told his thought to me, it seems that I 
 have an equally indefeasible right to his idea since 
 it has become mine. That he has got it first-hand 
 from Nature, while I have received it second-hand 
 from him, can make no difference. There is nothing 
 more difficult to trace than the genealogy of an idea, 
 and it would be impossible in any instance to deter- 
 mine that any man was the very first to think any 
 thought. It is, therefore, no argument to say that 
 I have no right to the idea because I did not originate 
 it ; it is mine if it is in me, just as it was his because 
 it was in him. If, carrying the matter further, I 
 buy a book, apart from the law, have I not got an 
 indefeasible right to read it, have I not an inde- 
 ible right to burn it, or to sell it for waste paper? 
 Does the writer's right to his own ideas, apart from 
 law, prevent me making them mine if I am so 
 minded; does it prevent me from conveying them 
 to Others; or does it prevent me copying extracts 
 into my polite correspondence? No! this claim on 
 behalf of -cuius, by people who believe that they 
 are preferring a claim on behalf of themselves, seems 
 to us a very foolish claim. We can understand the 
 
 law stepping in, and saying, "To get books wc must 
 pay the authors; to pay the authors wc must enable 
 them to charge sufficient loyalty on copies <>l then 
 
 bool 1 to remunerate them foi the trouble <>i author- 
 
 ihip ; and '■> enable them to do s<>, with success, w<
 
 282 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 must prohibit every other person from producing 
 copies of their works except those who are authorised 
 by them." This, then, it seems to us, is the real 
 foundation of copyright in literary productions, and 
 it is more easily, in the first instance, understood in 
 relation to these than in relation to works of art, 
 because in a book the ideas are the principal ele- 
 ment of value, while in works of art there may be, 
 in most cases there are, elements of value, which are 
 incapable of being copied. So much so is this the 
 case, that it was thought by one of the Commis- 
 sioners that, as pictures had an intrinsic value, it was 
 unnecessary to protect them by copyright. 
 
 But the reason for the protection of works of art 
 seems to us exactly similar to that which can be 
 urged for copyright in literary productions. Although, 
 no doubt, the hand of the artist contributes much 
 to a picture, the mind of an artist contributes more. 
 The mental part of the work can be taken, the design 
 borrowed, and copies made by others which may, 
 and in most cases would, take from the value of the 
 original picture. 
 
 Let us suppose that an artist has painted a picture, 
 and that, before it is sold, it is seen by some pilferer 
 of thoughts, and that, owing to the lightness of fingers 
 of that pick-brain, another picture is in the market 
 as soon as the original from which the design has 
 been stolen. Would not such a piracy take from 
 the value of the real work of art ? and would not 
 such a possibility be a deterrent to any man showing 
 his works to others, perhaps to his devoting him- 
 self to art at all ? But the law has protected him 
 from that contingency, and has given him a valuable 
 property in his picture, to which he has no inherent 
 right. It has endowed him with a kind of monopoly 
 by way of public payment for his great benefactions 
 to mankind. He has been bribed to go on painting.
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 283 
 
 But suppose the artist sells the work of art, what 
 becomes of the copyright ? It is evident that great 
 artists are not in the habit of repeating their works. 
 No man with ideas will repeat a thought which has 
 once been adequately expressed. A great man would 
 hold it as criminal to plagiarise from himself as from 
 another. Imagine a poet writing replicas, and you 
 have an idea of the ignominy of an artist painting 
 them. He is no longer an artist, but a copyist of 
 his dead self. Still, some artists do paint replicas, 
 and it is evident that if an artist sold a picture for 
 a substantial sum, and then went home and painted 
 another like it, and sold that too, he would be guilty 
 of a fraud upon the purchasers. That is not a question 
 of law, or of artistry, but of morals ! Nothing could 
 justify such an act but the consent of the purchaser 
 of the original, and the full knowledge of the buyer 
 of the copy ; and even then the painter would be 
 injuring himself, and, if he were a really capable 
 artist, depriving the world of some other work of art 
 while he wasted his time in being an amanuensis to 
 himself. 
 
 But there is a question of law, or rather of the 
 policy of legislation, which has been the turning-point 
 of this discussion. Under the Act of 1862, which was 
 the first Act which established a copyright in paint- 
 ings, unless there is an agreement at the time of the 
 sale of the picture, the copyright which passes away 
 from the artist is not vested in the owner of the 
 picture. It does not go to the purchaser and does 
 not remain in the artist. This condition ol the law 
 has been described as deplorably bad ; but while we 
 admit the possibility of a more excellent provision as 
 to Copyright, we would not go as tar as utterly to 
 Condemn that enactment. It seems to have been 
 
 founded "n the belie! that ii neither the purchaser 
 
 nor the sellei thought it worth thm while to make .1
 
 284 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 bargain about the copyright, it was not worth while 
 preserving it by legal enactment. But it is certain 
 that works in connection with which copyright, at 
 the time of sale, might be regarded as of little value, 
 sometimes come in time to have great value in that 
 connection. Under such circumstances, of course, 
 there is inconvenience in the present law. It ought 
 in every case to be easily ascertainable to whom the 
 right of making copies belongs. At present, in most 
 cases, as most pictures are sold without anything 
 being said at the time of sale as to copyright,: copy- 
 right has fallen to the ground. It seems to us that 
 under such circumstances it might have been a con- 
 venient modification of the law if it had been enacted 
 that in every case when, upon the sale of a picture, 
 the copyright was not made the subject of special 
 agreement, the copyright of such a picture should 
 thereupon vest in the State. It would, undoubtedly, 
 be better that the copyright should belong to the 
 public, than that it should belong to no one. When 
 there are no heirs to property it vests in the Crown ; 
 when neither the painter of a picture nor the person 
 purchasing it thinks the copyright worth preserving 
 by contract it might with some expediency vest in 
 the Crown, like unclaimed Consols. But although 
 such an enactment would have had the advantage of 
 making the law perfectly definite, and might possibly 
 have gone further to meet the views of the artists 
 who have contested this matter, the Royal Commission 
 proposed another method of removing the vagueness 
 which exists under the Act of 1862. They proposed, 
 and the Bill of last Session is framed in accordance 
 with their views, that in all cases the copyright 
 should go with the picture, unless there was an 
 express agreement at the time of the sale. It is this 
 proposal which has been criticised and condemned at 
 the meeting of artists at the Grosvenor Gallery, and
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 285 
 
 in the Memorial of the Royal Academy. More re- 
 cently, Sir Frederick Leighton and Mr. Wells have 
 contributed some strictures to the pages of the Nine- 
 teenth Century (December 1879). The opinion of the 
 artists is that in every case the copyright should 
 belong to the painter unless it is transferred by 
 agreement to the purchaser of the work. It was 
 upon this issue that the newspaper war was waged. 
 
 The question, which is not a very large one, must 
 be determined by considerations of expediency. It 
 was considerations of expediency which guided the 
 Royal Commissioners to their conclusion, and it is 
 expediency which artists plead in favour of their 
 views. The reasons which appealed to the Com- 
 missioners were these. In most cases they held, and 
 held rightly, the purchaser believes he is buying the 
 copyright when he buys a picture; he naturally 
 thinks that he can do what he likes with it, as he can 
 with a table or a chair, and he would be surprised if 
 told that, while he had purchased the property in the 
 picture, the artist retained the right to make copies 
 from it, or to part with that right to any other 
 person. On the other hand, if the law were altered 
 in accordance with their suggestion, the artist would 
 never be deprived of any property in ignorance of 
 his rights, and the Commissioners thought that in a 
 transaction where one party knows all about his 
 rights, and the other does not, it is necessary to 
 protect the latter and not the former. All that 
 will be necessary, if the artist desires to retain the 
 copyrighl of his work, will be a mention ol the cir- 
 cumstance at the time of sale, and a bargain to that 
 effect. It will be competent for an artist to advertise 
 his work, lor sale without copyright, but it seems fail 
 that the prison who is likely to be ignorant of his 
 rights ihould not be the one upon whom the duty of 
 bargaining for them should be cast.
 
 286 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 It is quite true that this recommendation of the 
 Commission has been viewed in very different lights. 
 Thus, Mr. Wells, who rightly understands that copy- 
 right was created for the protection of the artist, 
 would have us believe that this recommendation is 
 that it should be given to the owner. This miscon- 
 ception lies at the root of Mr. Wells' argument, and 
 it is easy to understand that an argument founded 
 upon an initial fallacy is likely to be somewhat 
 infirm. It would, of course, have been a silly thing 
 to attempt to protect artists by giving a copyright to 
 somebody else. But what is done is not that. Copy- 
 right is given to the artist and not to the owner ; but 
 the law says, and says rightly, it shall go to the 
 owner on the sale of the picture, unless the artist 
 keeps it by agreement. It is as rational to speak of 
 the Commission giving copyright to the owner of the 
 picture as it would be to say that the law gives the 
 copyright of a literary work to the publisher, because 
 after the writer has sold it it is vested in him. This 
 attempted confusion is not good argument. But that 
 the view of the Commission is the correct one, and 
 that most purchasers believe they are buying the 
 copyright with the picture, is confirmed by a signi- 
 ficant sentence in the Memorial. In the first place, 
 the memorialists quote from the Report that " artists 
 seldom ask for agreements, preferring that copyright 
 should drop," and they proceed to remark that — "In 
 these circumstances it may be well understood why 
 artists hesitate to obtrude, in every case of a picture, 
 business details which would bring results in a small 
 proportion of cases only." Why should it bring results 
 in a small proportion of cases only ? Why do they 
 prefer to let the copyright drop rather than mention 
 the agreement ? Is it not that they know that the 
 purchaser is under the impression that he is pur- 
 chasing the picture with all rights, and would be
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 287 
 
 surprised out of his offer possibly if he was informed 
 that while he had paid for the picture he had not 
 acquired the copyright ? That is the inference which 
 we draw from that sentence, and it is an inference 
 which confirms us in the belief that the recommen- 
 dation of the Commissioners is a wise one. 
 
 Again, there was another consideration of expedi- 
 ency which must have weighed in favour of the deter- 
 mination arrived at. No doubt it is best in all cases 
 that the work of art and the right to copy it should 
 be vested in the same person. When these rights are 
 separate many difficulties might be thrown in the way 
 of the exercise of the rights of copy by the owner 
 of the work. But these inconveniences are not so 
 great as to prevent the separation of those two rights, 
 and consequently the sale or retention of the copy- 
 right of a picture, independently of the retention or 
 sale of the picture, is allowed by law. But it is a 
 different thing to allow a man to assume openly and 
 knowingly the onerous character of such a proprietor- 
 ship with rights over another, and creating that separa- 
 tion by law ; and in reference to the difficulty which 
 is raised by Mr. Wells, that a purchaser of a picture 
 will never know whether he gets the copyright or 
 not, and that to secure it an elaborate legal transfer 
 will be necessary, it is only necessary to say that the 
 matter would not be simplified by the copyright 
 having been left in the artist in the first instance, as 
 it may have changed hands half-a-dozen times since, 
 and the obvious remedy lor all such uncertainties is 
 to be found in registration. 
 
 We cannol think it worth while seriously to COn- 
 ider or refute such statements as those made by Sir 
 Coutts Lindsay at the Grosvenor meeting, that, for 
 instance, "it is cruel to make artists part with both 
 then properties (the property in the picture and the 
 property in the idea) in one." The cruelty is not
 
 288 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 manifest to us. We know, however, that the artist is 
 not made to part with his property either in the idea 
 or in the picture. He may sell the picture or not, 
 just as he pleases. He may sell or keep his copy- 
 right. But if he is so sensitive a being that he cannot 
 — as the Royal Academy Memorial hints, like a 
 common, coarse business man, or haggling lawyer — 
 explain that the price which he has asked, and which 
 is one of the details he can enter upon, covers only 
 the picture and not the idea, then we can see no 
 cruelty in depriving him of it. 
 
 There is one statement in the Memorial of the 
 Royal Academy which is worthy of attention. It is 
 that, if the artist does not under existing circumstances 
 make a bargain as to copyright, he will not be likely 
 to do so " when his request will be nothing less than a 
 demand upon the purchaser to remit property attaching 
 to his purchase by law." This is a curiously loose 
 statement. The Memorial seems to have been drawn 
 by a lawyer, but there are several of the statements in 
 it which are exceedingly misleading, and that is one 
 of them. It will in no sense be a demand on the 
 purchaser to remit anything belonging to him. The 
 transaction seems to have been misconceived by the 
 memorialists. When the purchaser is bargaining he 
 has got nothing, there is no property attaching to his 
 purchase, for he has made none. But before making 
 any contract it is only fair and honourable that he 
 should know what he is bargaining for. There can be 
 no greater irksomeness in saying "The price I mention 
 does not include copyright," than saying " It does not in- 
 clude a frame." The main question is, What rights are 
 to be protected ? and the answer is, Those which are 
 the least likely to be respected. Are they those of the 
 man who knows he has rights but is too shy to say a 
 word about them, or those of the man who thinks he 
 is getting rights for purchase-money, whereas he may
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 289 
 
 not in fact be buying them ? As to this question of 
 onus — for that is the real question here — there is a 
 significant admission in the Memorial. That document 
 points out that the " commissioner of a picture of 
 exceptional character is not likely to omit the needful 
 stipulations for his protection. The necessity for them 
 will be present to his mind, and the onus of making 
 them should be upon him, and he should not be 
 protected in his negligence by a law that woula 
 tell against the artist in every transaction, even the 
 smallest, throughout the whole of a professional life." 
 
 The memorialists have curiously chosen the ex- 
 ceptional case of a commissioner of a picture, "tc 
 whose mind the necessity of protection might be 
 present " ; but the ordinary purchaser is the person 
 whose rights are left in doubt, and with reference 
 to him we wish no better principle for our guidance 
 to the policy of the law than the sentence quoted. 
 That principle is that it is on the party to a bargain, 
 to whose mind the necessity for protection is present, 
 that the onus of demanding the protection should rest. 
 That is the proposition of the memorialists, and it is 
 the principle involved in the recommendation of the 
 Royal Commission. Granting them their exceptional 
 
 e, can it be doubted that in all ordinary sales of 
 pictures the necessity for protection is more likely to 
 be present to the mind of the artist than to that of 
 the purchaser ? 
 
 But although there are these considerations of ex- 
 pediency in favour of the view expressed by the 
 Commissioners, there is one argument which seems tc 
 have been 1<> t light of in this inquiry. It is, however, 
 referred to in the Memorial of the Royal Academy, 
 and explained in Mr. Wells' Kssay. There are various 
 way. in which the light to copy a picture may be 
 exercised. It may be painted m replica by the artist 
 him ill or by others. It may be copied m the same 
 I. T
 
 290 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 medium, but of ;i smaller or larger size. It may be 
 copied in a different medium; may be translated into 
 black and white by means of engraving or lithography, 
 or it may be photographed. Now, perhaps the most 
 important questions of copyright at the present time 
 arise in connection with the copying of pictures in 
 engravings. This is art important industry, an im- 
 portant branch of art. It is important, not merely 
 because it is in relation to this right to copy that by 
 far the largest sums of money are paid, but because 
 it is a means of popularising one beautiful art by 
 another. It was Reynolds who said that McArdell 
 would make him immortal, and he might have said 
 the same of a great many of the admirable mezzotint 
 engravers of his time. Only one man can possess 
 a picture but many can possess engravings of it, and 
 it is rather by means of these wandering works of art 
 that the education of the nation is carried on, than 
 by the original works of which these itinerants are 
 copies. Now, the right to engrave a picture is, no 
 doubt, in many cases a valuable property, and it is 
 said to be analogous to the right to dramatise a novel, 
 which the Royal Commissioners recommend should 
 remain in the author. In this respect it has been 
 said the recommendations of the Commission are in- 
 consistent. It does seem that if the right to dramatise 
 a novel should remain with the author, the right to 
 engrave a picture should remain with the artist. The 
 arguments in favour of the former rule seem applicable 
 to the latter. It is said that a novelist's reputation 
 may be injured if an inferior drama founded upon his 
 book is produced ; but the same is true of a bad 
 engraving founded on a good picture. Again, it is 
 said a novelist's reputation might be increased by such 
 a play. It may advertise his book ; and, therefore, it 
 is urged that he should have the sole right of copy- 
 ing his book into the dramatic form. But a precisely
 
 ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT 291 
 
 similar remark might be made with equal truth of an 
 artist. The question is really one of expediency. The 
 existence of copyright at all is, as we have seen, a com- 
 promise. It is a monopoly which is in itself objection- 
 able, but in its results is for the public interest. But 
 we confess we can see no reason why the rule should 
 not be that the sale of the copyright of a novel should 
 carry with it the right to dramatise the novel, unless 
 that right should be expressly reserved by the author. 
 All the arguments seem to be in favour of that view. 
 We think the cases are analogous, and that the rule 
 ought to be the same in both. 
 
 There is an argument which bears upon this question 
 which seems to us to have more weight than has 
 been given to it. It is said, with truth, that if the 
 copyright is to go with the picture, and the picture is 
 copied in engraving subsequently, the true interests of 
 the public will suffer by reason of the fact that the 
 artist will not necessarily superintend the engraving of 
 his work, as he would and does when the copyright 
 is purchased from him instead of from the owner of 
 the picture. No doubt the artist is the person primarily 
 interested in having a good and valuable copy pro- 
 duced, a copy which will represent and not mis- 
 represent his pictures. Mr. Wells, in his Essay to 
 which we have more than once referred, alludes to 
 the familiar instances of the care which Landseer and 
 Turner brought to bear upon the engravings of their 
 works, and no one familiar with the result of the 
 engraver's efforts, ;^ guided by the art of such Men, 
 will question the gain to the public which will follow 
 the association of the artist and his picture during 
 the pro< '•! engraving. But to iay th.it the copy- 
 right ihould be left in the hands of the artist, because 
 in those hands it will best lerve the state by the 
 
 adequate development oi the artistic idea, as Mr. Wells 
 
 doe-., 1 to say too much. Could we obtain engraving
 
 292 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 by no other means, could the superintending care of 
 the artist never be obtained in any case in which the 
 right to copy was not purchased directly from him, 
 there might be some force in the argument. Hut, as 
 a fact, even when the copyright in a picture is sold 
 to a publisher by some one who has previously pur- 
 chased the picture, it will still be possible for the 
 publisher, it will be still for his interest, to secure 
 the superintendence and correction of the artist in 
 passing his engraving through the press. We have 
 said that the public have to rely more upon copies in 
 engraving for their notions of pictures than upon a 
 familiarity with the original, and are chiefly interested 
 in having the best copies possible. Those are only to 
 be obtained with the assistance of the artist. Hut 
 that assistance can be secured by the publisher, although 
 he may have purchased the copyright elsewhere. True, 
 the publisher would have to pay the artist, but he 
 would under these circumstances pay the owner less 
 for the copyright, and the copyright which was trans- 
 ferred in the first instance with the work of art would 
 be a little less valuable. We cannot see then that 
 there is any real validity in the objection which has 
 been made to the recommendation of the Commission, 
 and after an examination of the views which have 
 been expressed upon both sides of this important 
 question, we can only come to the conclusion that 
 the Commissioners were, in the main, right in this 
 matter of art copyright, and that if their recommen- 
 dations are carried out there will be a substantial 
 improvement in the law affecting copyright.
 
 XIII 
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 1 
 
 Henry Fawcett, whose life is well written in this 
 volume, was a man it was easy to overpraise. He was 
 possessed of great talents, of indomitable perseverance, 
 of stalwart pluck, and of hearty good-humour. If he 
 lacked genius he was possessed of what is much dearer 
 to most common heads, sound common sense ; and if 
 his nature was perhaps a little narrow, it was, what is 
 perhaps better than width, warm and loving. But 
 besides all these qualities, his history was one to make 
 friends. He raised himself, as his robust-natured 
 father had done, from a comparatively humble to an 
 important position. He was the son of a pushing and 
 prosperous draper in the town of Salisbury, he took a 
 good degree at Cambridge, represented Brighton and 
 Haekney in Parliament, and was Postmaster-General 
 in Gladstone's Government of 1880. Even that careei 
 is sufficient Id create interest and admiration; but 
 when it is remembered that that eareer, whieh the boy 
 Fawcett had set before himself at a very early age — so 
 early, indeed, that his expressed intention of being 
 "a Member of Parliament" was received with "roars 
 of laughter "—had to be persevered in, and achieved 
 notwith itanding the loss of sight at a critical age, the 
 heart warm, to the brave man who overcame so much, 
 who lived neh an excellent life, and carried hi i 
 courageous ambition so far. Undei these circumstani e 
 
 1 "Life "I Henrj Fawcett." B L lie Stephen. London: Smith, 
 Eldei I 1 385. 
 
 »V3
 
 294 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 there would have been nothing to be said against a 
 biography which was little more than panegyric and 
 eulogy. Fawcett, although a man of "stirt and strife," 
 although he adopted a career which involves bitter 
 animosities, never made an enemy. He had a peculiarly 
 open, hearty nature, which invited to love and friend- 
 ship. Even his opponents admired and liked him. It 
 would then have been easy to overpraise the man, 
 without outraging the feelings of readers of his biography. 
 That the writer of this Life has not done so is, under 
 the circumstances, one of the highest marks of the 
 merit of his book. Mr. Leslie Stephen has written a 
 calm, admiring, judicious, almost judicial record of 
 Fawcetfs life. There is a good deal of quiet enthusiasm 
 for Fawcett in these pages, a great deal of moderate 
 sympathy with his life and work ; but what strikes 
 one most is the eminent fairness of the estimate, the 
 real diffusion of light upon every part of the character 
 and doings which are here carefully described. Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen seldom produces a vivid picture, but 
 there is a care in detail, and a warm glow over every 
 part of this composition, which if it does not command 
 the eye, yet makes for itself a genial home in memory. 
 
 Mr. Fawcett was in many ways one of the most 
 interesting figures in the masque of English politics in 
 these recent days. He attracted a share of attention 
 which was scarcely in due proportion to his merits, 
 great as these were ; but that the public gave him 
 liberal measure is a circumstance which no one could 
 be found to grudge. Fawcett was without doubt a 
 man of considerable capacity, with a warm kindly 
 nature, with a perseverance which carried his purposes 
 far to achievement, but he had not that sensitiveness 
 which is at the same time the characteristic and the 
 curse of much greatness ; nor had he the width either 
 of view or of sympathy which as often mars as it makes 
 the career of a man in this troublous world. Owing
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 295 
 
 to the fact that he was not very sensitive, he bore with 
 more than patience the loss of sight which would have 
 put an end to most ambitions, which would have 
 stopped the progress of most careers, but which, in 
 his case, never diverted him from his firmly held pro- 
 jects for a day. To the narrowness, which even his 
 biographer admits, we ascribe the curious one-sidedness 
 of his education, and the firm grip of principles which 
 he did not see enough of to observe that they were 
 inconsistent. These are not detractions from our 
 estimate of Fawcett. We are not certain that we do 
 not admire him the more for the hearty way in which 
 he took life, which enabled him to bear great ills with 
 fortitude, although it may have deprived him of ex- 
 periences of sorrow in which he seemed peculiarly 
 deficient. We like a robust man who takes life jollily, 
 as Fawcett did. And as to the latter, even although 
 there was, as it seems to us, serious inconsistencies 
 in his political creed, which he sometimes got over 
 by the usual excuse that he was not "the slave of an 
 abstract principle," or some such glib stroke over thin 
 ice, we admire the persistency with which he drove 
 at his object. A man with more doubt, although he 
 might have come nearer the truth, would not have 
 achieved as much or carried so far. 
 
 Most people remember Fawcett's face and figure. 
 These are well recalled by the portraits in this volume. 
 He had a long, strong, uncouth body; rather rough- 
 hewn slouching features; a hearty laugh, which the 
 portraits cannot recall, and a long swinging pa< e 
 Which those who walked with him must have found 
 it difficult to match. There is nothing very particular 
 to tell about Ins youth. It was not very remarkable. 
 The old opinion that "just as the twig is bent the 
 tree' inclined," was peculiarly true in his ca ie, although 
 it is as obviously false in a great numbei of others. 
 gome very trong natures "set" jusl the other way
 
 296 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 from that in which, as twigs, they have been directed. 
 And nature and the sun are more powerful than any 
 pruning. That is not the history of Fawcett's develop- 
 ment, however. His mother was the daughter of a 
 solicitor, who was Liberal agent in Salisbury — and if 
 there is a decided politician, it is an agent for a party. 
 Besides, Fawcett's father, who had been mayor of 
 the town in 1832, was a politician of marked Liberal 
 opinions, and Fawcett very early came to follow in 
 their footsteps. As we have already said, he early 
 said he would be a Member of Parliament, which is 
 a saying which is remembered more because the events 
 made it prophetic than that it was really prophetic. 
 His school life was not remarkable. At Queenwood 
 he showed some straining in the direction of literature, 
 and with Mr. Mansergh, the well-known engineer, was 
 editor of a school newspaper. Had Fawcett's pen 
 proved famous, this early editorship would be the 
 delight of his second-rate biographers. Of course we 
 are not referring to Mr. Leslie Stephen. He does 
 not say one word too much about these early days, 
 although he is a little inclined to strain references 
 in early essays upon the steam-engine or the uses of 
 steam into adumbrations of the politico-economical 
 bias of Fawcett's after-life, in much the same way as 
 the early essay of the boy who described a horse as an 
 animal with four legs, one at each corner, was thought 
 to have indicated thus early the making of a great 
 morphologist. Fawcett never was literary in the true 
 sense. His best approaches to style were some speci- 
 mens of stilted rhetoric. He had even in early college 
 days — a time when men are often the bond-slaves of 
 certain books or the writer of them — a contempt for 
 literary studies, and his best efforts with the pen in 
 Liter years are not excellent in any literary sense. 
 His speeches, too, lack much that a more careful 
 literary training might have given them. His repeti-
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 297 
 
 tions are frequent, his expressions very often inadequate 
 to the matter to be conveyed. Indeed, he never was, 
 and never will be, regarded as a master of any style. 
 But one thing he was determined upon, and that was 
 to push his way. He had a good command over his 
 muscles, which is one of the elements of success, as 
 his victory at quoits and billiards over the formidable 
 " Captain " in his freshman days shows ; and he always 
 had a keen animal enjoyment in most kinds of exercise, 
 which is a good means of health, as his walking, his 
 long-stride skating, and his riding testify. After the 
 early billiard exploit, the name of "the old serpent" 
 clung to him in college for some time. But boys 
 generally indulge in misnomers, for although Fawcett 
 on more than one occasion indicated shrewdness, as 
 these pages show, there never was any one who de- 
 served the name of serpent less than he, except upon 
 the ground of his length, which, we are a little sur- 
 prised to note, was over six feet three inches. 
 
 He destined himself for the Bar as a means of passing 
 into politics as a profession, and we are inclined to 
 agree with the writer of his life that he would have 
 done well in that profession. He seems, from all we 
 can gather, to have had all the qualities which would 
 have commanded success in that walk, or, as some 
 of the juniors are inclined to call it, "crawl," in life. 
 We cannot say that we think the Bar is the profession 
 which requires the very highest human qualities, and 
 we incline to the (.[union that when the highest qualities 
 are carried largely into that profession they sutler by 
 tin- work they have to do. But Fawcett's nature w.is 
 
 ol tin; exact kind oi itufi that would have made an 
 
 excellenl counsel. As Mr. Leslie Stephen points out, 
 much oi his work upon the Indian Committee was 
 
 m the nature of cro .s-exaiuination, and cross-examina- 
 tion is a very difficult art. So far as we can see, 
 
 Fawcetl eems to have done this work admirably.
 
 298 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 There is much in Fawcett's college career, and in 
 his after-life, so far as it was connected with his 
 college and his university, which interests a con- 
 temporary like his present biographer. His own interest 
 in these pleasant days, when a "senior wrangler'' 
 was so much to him that even now there is a sort 
 of bated breath in his prose when he speaks of one, 
 in the serious disputes in the combination-room on 
 the tactics of Fawcett and the junior party in Trinity 
 Hall, by which the senior party, who desired to keep 
 fellowships still connected with celibacy and to give 
 them for the life of the fellows, and in the ultimate 
 success of Fawcett, with the aid of the University 
 Commissioners, in that regard, is so great, that to 
 peruse these pages in which the story is clearly told 
 will interest his readers. But for the public we think 
 the real interest of Fawcett's life is associated with 
 his political career, and begins where his intimate 
 association with the university to some extent ceased. 
 Of course, in one sense his connection with Cambridge 
 continued to the end. 1 He was, it must be re- 
 membered, Professor of Political Economy for many 
 years ; and he was, we think, made a Doctor of 
 Political Economy of Wurzburg University in 1882. 
 But, after all, although he delivered several excellent 
 courses of lectures, and wrote, at the instigation of 
 Mr. Macmillan, who saw that it would found a claim 
 to the chair which was then soon to be vacant, a 
 good " Manual," his contributions to political economy 
 are not by any means remarkable. He had, as is 
 pointed out in these pages, a useful way of associating 
 the principles of that now rather discredited science 
 with the affairs which were going on around him, 
 which even in the chair of political economy marked 
 
 1 Tie held his professorship until his death. lie lived in Cambridge for 
 a portion of each year. He died there at last, and was buried in Trump- 
 ington Churchyard.
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 299 
 
 his strong tendency towards the practical side of the 
 science or to politics themselves. 
 
 We confess we have a sincere sympathy with Faw- 
 cett's attitude in more than one of its aspects. He 
 himself, although blind, was a real lover of rural 
 scenery. His early days were spent in pleasant pasture 
 lands and by clear trout streams, and he never lost his 
 love for the beauties of external nature, although he 
 had to see these vicariously through the eyes of others. 
 That he should be the champion of High Beach in 
 Epping Forest when it was threatened by the axe ; 
 that he should also vigorously defend the New Forest 
 against attacks, is a matter that causes us no wonder, 
 and indeed invites our eager sympathy. There is far too 
 little rural beauty left in England, and the preservation 
 of these forests, which are in themselves the best of 
 ancient monuments, and at the same time the new 
 product of every spring, seems to us a most excellent 
 work. There is, as we have been told by Ruskin, far 
 more to be done in this direction. Our rivers, too, 
 require protection from their prostitution into sewers. 
 But it is an odd thing that here we find Ruskin, who 
 is not certainly in any strict sense of the word an 
 economist, and Fawcett, who professed to be of the 
 strictest sect of those who follow what he would not 
 allow to be called "thai dismal science," upon the same 
 platform. The second point in which we coincide with 
 him is his large sympathy with the poor. He had 
 compassion on the people. In early days he knew a 
 good deal OJ the agricultural labourers about Salisbury, 
 lie am one of those friendly men to whose hen t 
 
 humanity is a sufficient introduction, and much of his 
 
 political life was regulated by considerations ot how 
 the life Oi the poor and the distressed could he made 
 brighter and happier. It struck him then Ihat the 
 
 dreary monotony and squalor ol those poor lives 
 
 would become woi <■ and hardei ii they weie deprived
 
 3 oo CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 of the free access for their weary feet to such resorts 
 as Epping Forest, the broad commons which the hills 
 hear on their backs, and the shady nooks which the 
 trees of Hampshire hold in their arms. It was these 
 two considerations, we think, that made Fawcett such 
 an active member of the Commons Preservation Society, 
 and which dictated his action in this connection in 
 Parliament. He could depart from his principles when 
 his sympathies invited him, and at the same time he 
 could profess to be a Liberal of the old type, objecting 
 to the new-fangled notion of statesmanship, which 
 meddles and interferes in every relation. That he 
 succeeded in his efforts in Parliament, often with 
 the help of the Tory vote, is only a sign of the times. 
 Rightly or wrongly, we seem to be abandoning the 
 old-fashioned Liberalism which boasted laissez faire as 
 a creed, and we are adopting a policy of doing by 
 State help that which men used to do for themselves, 
 or of rectifying the results of private action by public 
 control. Fawcett was on both sides in this controversy. 
 His action as an administrator, when at last, after 
 bothering the Government through one Parliament about 
 Indian and other affairs, and fighting with his party 
 through the Parliament elected in 1874, he was re- 
 warded with the Postmaster-Generalship, is another 
 indication, we think, of the same attitude of facing 
 both ways. It is true that in some of the additions 
 which he made to the duties of the Postal Department 
 he was following out suggestions which had been made 
 by predecessors in office ; hut the eagerness with which 
 he threw himself into these so-called reforms, the energy 
 with which he carried them out and furthered new 
 departures, show that he was heart and soul in the 
 policy of aggregating further functions to the Depart- 
 ment over which he presided. The question as to 
 whether a Government should carry our letters, spread 
 information, or become the owners of the telegraph,
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 301 
 
 had not to be decided in his day. The wisdom or 
 unwisdom of such a policy is no doubt even now an 
 open question. We can understand, however, even a 
 thorough-going Liberal of the old school accepting 
 office and doing nothing to reverse a policy which had 
 been determined upon and acted upon. But it is a 
 little difficult to think of one of the old-school Liberals 
 inaugurating and pressing the reforms with which Faw- 
 cett's name is identified. It is common to defend the 
 action of Government in relation to the Post Office by 
 saying that it pays. But surely that can be no suffi- 
 cient reason for the exercise by the State of a function 
 which does not properly belong to it. It is obvious 
 that, if the State became the sole baker of bread, large 
 profits could be realised for the Exchequer. Some, 
 however, of the reforms which Fawcett inaugurated do 
 not seem even to have the excuse which we have 
 mentioned. The Parcel Post is an extension of the 
 functions of the office in a new direction. Why parcels 
 should be carried, and goods and passengers not 
 carried, by the State, it seems a little difficult to say. 
 Yet Fawcett was happy in achieving the one, and Ins 
 principles would have been outraged if the other had 
 been suggested. There are, no doubt, objections to 
 private banking in relation to the poor, and it is diffi- 
 cult obviously for persons with small sums of money 
 to invest them in Government securities. But do these 
 facts justify the extinction of the old savings banks, 
 and the- institution ol Government as a stockbroker for 
 the lower orders? Ik-re, of course, Fawcetl sit al de- 
 fiance tin- rule ol the economists, that persons must be 
 allowed In manage their own affairs, and that tin 1 most 
 good will be done to the whole community it each 
 pei 'in 1, allowed to do the verv best he can for luin- 
 
 i, and private enterprise is allowed to have tan play. 
 That telegrams should Ik- cheapened is, ol coui <-, an 
 
 advantage to the public ; hut that the senders of
 
 302 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 messages should have their messages sent at the expense 
 of other persons does not seem sneh an obvious justice. 
 Again, the annuities and insurances which the Post 
 Office now undertake, might possibly by strict eco- 
 nomists have been left to private enterprise ; and the 
 Postal Order system, which Fawcett also inaugurated, 
 has questionable aspects in an economical point of 
 view. Many of these projects were opposed by persons 
 interested in insurance or in banking, and the limits 
 of the transactions which Fawcett desired that the 
 Post Office should undertake was, at their instance, 
 reduced, in order that the Post Office might, as little 
 as possible, interfere with the existing machinery which 
 was in the hands of capitalists. But the fact of itself 
 shows the direction of these reforms. It is an easy 
 thing to submit at first to a limit, but it is a hardship 
 to those whose transactions are just beyond such limit, 
 th.it they should not have the advantage which is 
 reaped by their poorer neighbour. Are not such reforms, 
 then, the small end of the wedge which will drive 
 capital to the wall ? We desire to express no opinion 
 on these matters, having, as we said, much sympathy 
 with Fawcett's feelings in the matter. But we again say 
 that we fail to see how he could reconcile such projects 
 with a refusal — to take a single instance — to support 
 the extension of the Factory Acts to adult women. 
 
 But perhaps, after all, we are making too much of 
 this point. The man who can be happily inconsistent 
 is possibly to be congratulated, and Fawcett had, as 
 we have seen, one of those blunt, happy natures, 
 which presses on through proximate duties without 
 much reference to conscientious quibbles, or the nicer 
 questions of logical casuistry. Fawcett was, as we know, 
 a democrat, and on more than one occasion there 
 was talk about his being an exceedingly dangerous 
 person. No doubt that is a very old Tory weapon of 
 defence, and there are very few men who have come
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 303 
 
 to the front of affairs who have not at one time or 
 other been dubbed " dangerous persons." But although 
 Fawcett was a believer in democracy, he was a good 
 deal of a Conservative too. Indeed most men are, 
 when the exigencies of parties permit of it, Radical 
 only in one or two aspects, while they are Conservative 
 in many of their instincts and tendencies. We see 
 how conservative Fawcett was of Cambridge, and the 
 various means which had by the constitution of the 
 university and colleges been provided to allow merit 
 to come readily to the front. But in the larger sphere 
 of politics he saw that there were serious evils inci- 
 dent to unadulterated democracy, and it was because 
 he perceived that that he became as ardent a follower 
 of Mr. Hare in his proposals for proportional repre- 
 sentation, as he was of Mill in the main features of 
 his politico-economical creed. That Mr. Hare's scheme 
 would be a sufficient remedy for the evils in question 
 may be open to doubt, but Fawcett thoroughly believed 
 that it was at any rate one way by which the oppres- 
 sion of minorities might be prevented. So strenuous 
 was his belief, that it is not improbable that he would, 
 like his friend Mr. Courtney, have retired from office 
 when the opportunity of adopting the principle was 
 neglected by the late Government. 
 
 Most of his doings while he was in the House, in 
 connection with India, must have every one's hearty 
 approval. lie was perhaps unwisely scrupulous in 
 beginning his campaign by objecting to the payment 
 of the expenses of the hall which was given at the 
 India Office to the Shah out of the revenues of India. 
 It was a comparatively small matter, and Mill seems 
 to have disapproved "I his action. Still, on the whole, 
 we think he was right in the principle of his protest, 
 tin, we agree with Mill in thinking that there was 
 almost a contemptible meanness in making India pay 
 for the presents which the Duke of Edinburgh had
 
 3 o 4 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 given to Indian princes and the like during his tour, 
 unless the presents which the Duke had received had 
 been given to the Indian people. But apart from 
 those small matters, we think that Fawcett's action 
 in relation to India, and Indian finance, was most 
 salutary. It behoves this country to be especially 
 careful in dealings with the finances of that cestui que 
 trust; and that far more economy than was practised 
 was necessary, that a better system of accounts was 
 called for, is now admitted on all hands. We cannot 
 follow Fawcett through all the hard work that he did 
 on the Committee which sat during the three sessions, 
 1871, 1872, 1873. Much light has been thrown upon 
 Indian affairs by the minutes taken before that Com- 
 mittee, and a great deal of information was elicited 
 by Fawcett's searching method of examination. To 
 readers of the Westminster Review, much of the in- 
 formation which is contained in this chapter of Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen's book will not be new, and therefore, 
 it is the less necessary to refer to it in this place. 1 
 Still, the chapter is an interesting one, although there 
 are one or two errors, inaccuracies, or misprints, which 
 might have been corrected. For instance, the word 
 "noticed" occurs twice in a line on page 367; the 
 words "and no credit is given upon the original out- 
 lay," on page 393, should surely read, "no credit is 
 given for the original outlay." On page 396 he says, 
 " it became an invasion," the antecedent to it being 
 "the English embassy." But, on the whole, there are 
 very few mistakes in these carefully written pages. 
 
 1 But Fawcetl was right in thinking that the public knew and cared very 
 little about India or Indian affairs, and the attention which he called to these 
 matters was a distinct benefit in the formation of public opinion. The abuse, 
 which his efforts was a means of putting an end to, of the introduction of the 
 Indian budget in the sweltering August days, when every member is panting 
 to be away from London, is an excellent illustration of the way Indian affairs 
 used to be treated before he became " the Member for India." India re- 
 quires some champion in the House.
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 305 
 
 It is impossible in the limits which we have set 
 ourselves to give anything like an accurate descrip- 
 tion of the life-work of a man like Fawcett. Indeed, 
 it requires all Mr. Leslie Stephen's 472 well-concreted 
 pages to do so. In Fawcett's political career, we 
 admit errors. Even in relation to his favourite India, 
 we think he never fully understood the significance 
 of the Afghan War, or the importance of checking the 
 hostile advances of Russia. We think, too, that his 
 protest against the employment of Indian troops in 
 Europe was a mistake. At that time he was sup- 
 ported in his protest by those who were his colleagues 
 in office, when recourse was again had to India for 
 troops to be employed in Egypt without protest from 
 anybody. But Fawcett's errors were small in com- 
 parison with those which have been committed by 
 most politicians. One thing we are convinced of, that 
 while he was shrewd and acute, he was honest, and 
 that, however he may have merited the name of " the 
 old serpent " in his undergraduate days at Cambridge, 
 it was entirely inapplicable to him in his political 
 career. He lived a good, vigorous, happy life, and 
 although he died before old age had approached him, 
 he had done as much as most men who have not 
 lost their sight effect in much longer lives. He seems 
 to have had few cares, sorrows, or troubles; his 
 domestic life appears to have been especially happy ; 
 In- relations to his parents and his sister Maria strike 
 u> as being exceedingly beautiful. He seems, notwith- 
 standing the position to which he had attained, never 
 to have grown less of a son or a brother, as the years, 
 which in mosl cases bring some estrangement, passed 
 by. The same qualities, no doubt, which kept those 
 relations sweet, brought him numerous friends, not 
 only amongst men of like position and culture, but 
 amongsl all with whom he was brought into any 
 contact. There are some letters, good to read, in the 
 1. i'
 
 3 o6 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 lasl chapter, from working men, which are excellent 
 tributes to Fawcett's heart. He lived a good life, and 
 has had a good Life written of him. 
 
 We have not spoken of Fawcett's official work, except 
 when alluding to the reforms which he introduced in 
 relation to postal communication and to the Depart- 
 ment generally. These, as we have seen, may be 
 regarded by some as departures in a right, by others 
 as departures in a wrong, direction. But no one who 
 knew Fawcett, and who knew the work he did, could 
 entertain any other opinion than that he made a most 
 excellent official. The fact that he entered the service 
 of Government so late in life, was a positive advan- 
 tage. Many men become connected with a service 
 or a Department so early in life that their mental 
 growth is a development only in relation to the red 
 tape in which they are swaddled. To these men, 
 "officialism" is second nature. But Fawcett always 
 regarded that " officialism " as a " fetish," and de- 
 nounced the ** evil spirit engendered by the tacit 
 assumption that the nation exists to maintain the 
 office." Into all the duties he had to perform he 
 brought what is better than a "Treasury minute," or 
 rule, or precedent — a warm heart, a careful conscience, 
 and a good head. He spared no pains in arriving 
 at the truth ; he always looked upon his subordinates 
 as human beings ; and any laxity of discipline which, 
 as some stricter officials thought, his conduct gave 
 colour for, was an indication of a vice which leaned 
 so decidedly to virtue's side, that we gladly forgive 
 him. Fawcett had a great capacity for work ; and 
 we believe that, had he been spared, he would in all 
 probability have distinguished himself more as the 
 administrator of a Department than as a practical 
 statesman in the long run. 
 
 We are almost sorry to quit Fawcett as the subject 
 of our thoughts. Even in the memory of him there
 
 HENRY FAWCETT 307 
 
 is something genial and bracing, which rewards us 
 while we think of him. His death was a distinct loss 
 to the public life of England. What could be done 
 to compensate for that loss by a good Life of him, 
 has, as we have said, been done by Mr. Leslie Stephen, 
 and the good repute of his actions is here preserved 
 for us, and for those who are to come after us, not 
 only as a pleasant but as a wholesome lesson. 
 
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