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 LETTERS 
 
 DE QUINCE Y, 
 
 THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, 
 
 TO A YOUNG MAN WHOSE EDUCATION 
 HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 JOHN P E N I N G T O iY 
 
 169 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 1843. 
 

 C. Sherman, Printer, 
 
 19 St. James Street 
 
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 The Quarterly Review, notoriously chary of its 
 praise when in political opposition, after a copious 
 extract from the English Opium-Eater's recent no- 
 tice of Shakspeare,* exclaims, " Who, after read- 
 ing such passages as these, does not regret that 
 the author has written so little V This sentiment 
 will be emphatically echoed by those readers of the 
 following letters who can appreciate the depth of 
 thought they evolve, the peculiar raciness of the 
 style, and who can sympathize with their writer 
 in his enthusiastic love of learning. 
 
 They originally appeared in the London Maga- 
 zine for 1823, when English magazine literature 
 was in its zenith. Among the writers whose con- 
 tributions at this period placed and maintained the 
 
 * in the Encyclopaedia Bntannica, 7th edit. 
 
London in the front rank of British periodicals 
 were Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey, " the Eng- 
 lish Opium-Eater." The productions of the first 
 two have all, it is believed, appeared in separate 
 forms, but only a portion of those of the latter. 
 This hiatus it is the object of the present and of a 
 future publication to fill up. 
 
 Indocti discant should form the epigraphe to 
 " Letters to a Young- Man whose Education has 
 been Neglected ;" but men of mature age and 
 scholarship will feel in the following pages the 
 necessity of preserving in its integrity the oft 
 quoted line — 
 
 Indocti discant, et ament meminisse periti. 
 
 November, 1842. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 A YOUNG MAN, ETC. ETC. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 When I had the pleasure of meeting you 
 
 at Ch , for the second time in my life, 
 
 I was much concerned to remark the general 
 dejection of your manner. I may now add, 
 that I was also much surprised ; your cousin's 
 visit to me, having made it no longer a point 
 of delicacy to suppress that feeling. Ceneral 
 report had represented you as in possession of 
 all which enters into the worldly estimate of 
 happiness, — great opulence, unclouded reputa- 
 tion, and freedom from unhappy connexions. 
 That you had the priceless blessing of unfluc- 
 tuating health, I know upon your own autho- 
 2 
 
14 MYSTERY SOLVED CHARACTERISTICALLY. 
 
 rity. And the concurring opinions of your 
 friends, together with my own opportunities 
 for observation, left me no room to doubt that 
 you wanted not the last and mightiest among 
 the sources of happiness — a fortunate constitu- 
 tion of mind, both for moral and intellectual 
 ends. So many blessings as these, meeting 
 in the person of one man, and yet all in some 
 mysterious way defeated and poisoned, pre- 
 sented a problem too interesting both to the 
 selfish and the generous curiosity of men- — to 
 make it at all wonderful, that at that time and 
 place you should have been the subject of 
 much discussion. Now and then some solu- 
 tions of the mystery were hazarded : in parti- 
 cular I remember one from a young lady of 
 seventeen, who said with a positive air, " That 
 
 Mr. M \s dejection was well known to 
 
 arise from an unfortunate attachment in early 
 life," which assurance appeared to have great 
 weight with some other young ladies of six- 
 teen. But upon the whole, I think that no 
 account of the matter was proposed at that 
 time which satisfied myself, or was likely to 
 satisfy any reflecting person. 
 
MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 15 
 
 At length the visit of your cousin L in 
 
 his road to Th has cleared up the mystery 
 
 in a way more agreeable to myself than I could 
 have ventured to anticipate from any commu- 
 nication short of that which should acquaint 
 me with the entire dispersion of the dejection 
 under which you laboured. I allow myself to 
 call such a disclosure agreeable, partly upon 
 the ground that where the grief or dejection of 
 our friends admits of no important alleviation, 
 it is yet satisfactory to know, that it may be 
 traced to causes of adequate dignity : and, in 
 this particular case, I have not only that 
 assurance, but the prospect of contributing 
 some assistance to your emancipation from 
 these depressing recollections by co-operating 
 with your own efforts in the way you have 
 pointed out for supplying the defects of your 
 early education. 
 
 L explained to me all that your own 
 
 letter had left imperfect ; in particular how it 
 was that you came to be defrauded of the edu- 
 cation to which even your earliest and hum- 
 blest prospects had entitled you : by what 
 heroic efforts, but how vainly, you laboured to 
 
16 RESIDENCE AT A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 repair that greatest of losses : what remarkable 
 events concurred to raise you to your pre- 
 sent state of prosperity ; and all other circum- 
 stances which appeared necessary to put me 
 fully in possession of your present wishes and 
 intentions. 
 
 The two questions, which you addressed to 
 me through him, I have answered below : 
 these were questions which I could answer 
 easily and without meditation : but for the 
 main subject of our future correspondence, it 
 is so weighty, and demands such close atten- 
 tion (as even i" find, who have revolved the 
 principal points almost daily for many years), 
 that I would willingly keep it wholly distinct 
 from the hasty letter which I am now obliged 
 to write ; on which account it is that I shall 
 forbear to enter at present upon the series of 
 letters which I have promised, even if I should 
 find that my time were not exhausted by the 
 answers to your two questions below. 
 
 To your first question, — whether to you, 
 with your purposes and at your age of thirty- 
 two, a residence at either of our English 
 universities — or at any foreign university, can 
 
LECTURES. 
 
 be of much service? — my answer is firmly 
 and unhesitatingly — no. The majority of the 
 under-graduates of your own standing in an 
 academic sense will be your juniors by twelve 
 or fourteen years; a disparity of age which 
 could not but make your society mutually 
 burthensome. What then is it, that you would 
 seek in a university ? Lectures 1 These, whe- 
 ther public or private, are surely the very 
 worst modes of acquiring any sort of accurate 
 knowledge ; and are just as much inferior to a 
 good book on the same subject, as that book 
 hastily read aloud, and then immediately with- 
 drawn, would be inferior to the same book left 
 in your possession, and open at any hour to 
 be consulted, retraced, collated, and in the 
 fullest sense studied. But, besides this, uni- 
 versity lectures are naturally adapted not so 
 much to the general purpose of communicating 
 knowledge, as to the specific purpose of meeting 
 a particular form of examination for degrees, 
 and a particular profession to which the whole 
 course of the education is known to be directed. 
 The two single advantages which lectures can 
 
 ever acquire to balance those which they 
 
 2# 
 
18 LIBRARIES. 
 
 forego — are either, first, the obvious one of a 
 better apparatus for displaying illustrative ex- 
 periments than most students can command ; 
 and the cases where this becomes of impor- 
 tance it cannot be necessary to mention : 
 second, the advantage of a rhetorical delivery, 
 when that is of any use (as in lectures on 
 poetry, &c.) These, however, are advantages 
 more easily commanded in a great capital than 
 in the most splendid university. What then 
 remains to a university, except its libraries? 
 And with regard to those the answer is 
 short : to the greatest of them under-graduates 
 have not free access : to the inferior ones 
 (of their own college, &c.) the libraries of the 
 great capitals are often equal or superior : and 
 for mere purposes of study your own private 
 library is far preferable to the Bodleian or the 
 Vatican. To you, therefore, a university can 
 offer no attraction except on the assumption 
 that you see cause to adopt a profession : and, 
 as a degree from some university would in that 
 case be useful (and indispensable, except for 
 the bar), your determination on this first ques- 
 tion must still be dependent on that which you 
 form upon the second. 
 
AUTHORSHIP. 19 
 
 In this second question you call for my 
 opinion upon the 11th chapter of Mr. Cole- 
 ridge's Biographia Literaria, as applied to the 
 circumstances in which you yourself are placed. 
 This chapter, to express its substance in the 
 most general terms, is a dissuasion from what 
 Herder, in a passage there quoted, calls " Die 
 Authorschaft ;" or, as Mr. Coleridge expresses 
 it, " the trade of authorship :" and the amount 
 of the advice is — that, for the sake of his own 
 happiness and respectability, every man should 
 adopt some trade or profession — and should 
 make literature a subordinate pursuit. On this 
 advice, I understand you to ask, first, whether 
 it is naturally to be interpreted, as extending to 
 cases such as yours ; and second, if so, what is 
 my judgment on such advice so extended 1 As 
 to my judgment upon this advice, supposing it 
 addressed to men of your age and situation, 
 you will easily collect from all which I shall 
 say — that I think it as bad as can well be 
 given. 
 
 Waiving this, however, and to consider your 
 other question — in what sense, and with what 
 restrictions the whole chapter is to be inter- 
 
20 AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 preted ; that is a point which I find it no easy 
 matter to settle. Mr. Coleridge, who does not 
 usually offend by laxity and indecision of pur- 
 pose, has in this instance allowed the very 
 objects of his advice to shift and fluctuate 
 before him ; and from the beginning to the 
 end, nothing is firmly constructed for the 
 apprehension to grasp, nor are the grounds of 
 judgment steadily maintained. From the title 
 of the chapter (an affectionate exhortation to 
 those who in early life feel themselves disposed 
 to become authors), and from the express 
 words of Herder, in the passage cited from 
 him as the final words of the chapter, which 
 words discountenance " authorship" only as 
 " zu fruh oder unmassig gebraucht" (practised 
 too early, or with too little temperance), it 
 would have been a natural presumption that 
 Mr. Coleridge's counsels regarded chiefly or 
 altogether the case of very youthful authors, 
 and the unfortunate thirst for premature dis- 
 tinction. And if this had been the purpose of 
 the chapter, excepting that the evil involved in 
 such a case is not very great, and is generally 
 
COLERIDGE. 21 
 
 intercepted by the difficulties which prevent 
 and over-punished by the mortifications which 
 attend, any such juvenile acts of presumption, 
 there could have been no room for differing 
 with Mr. Coleridge, except upon the propriety 
 of occupying his great powers with topics of 
 such trivial interest. But this, though from 
 the title it naturally should have been, is not 
 the evil, or any part of it, which Mr. Coleridge 
 is contemplating. What Mr. Coleridge really 
 has in his view are two most different objec- 
 tions to literature, as the principal pursuit of 
 life; which, as I have said, continually alternate 
 with each other as the objects of his arguments, 
 and sometimes become perplexed together, 
 though incapable of blending into any real 
 coalition. The objections urged are : first, To 
 literature considered as a means of livelihood ; 
 — as any part of the resources which a man 
 should allow himself to rely on for his current 
 income, or worldly credit, and respectability : 
 here the evils anticipated by Mr. Coleridge are 
 of a high and positive character, and such as 
 tend directly to degrade the character, and 
 indirectly to aggravate some heavy domestic 
 
22 SOLITUDE. 
 
 evils. Second. To literature considered as the 
 means of sufficiently occupying the intellect. 
 Here the evil apprehended is an evil of defect ; 
 it is alleged that literature is not adequate 
 to the main end of giving due and regu- 
 lar excitement to the mind and the spirits, 
 unless combined with some other summons to 
 mental exercise of periodical recurrence — de- 
 termined by an overruling cause acting from 
 without — and not dependent therefore on the 
 accidents of individual will, or the caprices of 
 momentary feeling springing out of temper or 
 bodily health. Upon the last objection, as by 
 far the most important in any case, and the 
 only one at all applicable to yours, I would 
 wish to say a word ; because my thoughts on 
 that matter are from the abundance of my 
 heart, and drawn up from the very depths of 
 my own experience. If there has ever lived a 
 man who might claim the privilege of speaking 
 with emphasis and authority on this great 
 question — By what means shall a man best 
 support the activity of his own mind in soli- 
 tude ? — I probably am that man ; and upon 
 this ground that I have passed more of my 
 
PURE LITERATURE. 23 
 
 life in absolute and unmitigated solitude, volun- 
 tarily, and for intellectual purposes, than any 
 person of my age whom I have ever either 
 met with — heard of — or read of. With such 
 pretensions, what is it that I offer as the result 
 of my experience ? and how far does it coincide 
 with the doctrine of Mr. Coleridge? Briefly 
 this : I wholly agree with him that literature, 
 in the proper acceptation of the term, as de- 
 noting what is otherwise called Belles Lettres, 
 &c, i. e., the most eminent of the fine arts, 
 and so understood therefore as to exclude all 
 science whatsoever, — is not, to use a Greek 
 word, uvrapxris — not self-sufficing: no, not even 
 when the mind is so far advanced that it 
 can bring what have hitherto passed for merely 
 literary or cesthetic questions, under the light 
 of philosophic principles : when problems of 
 " taste" have expanded to problems of human 
 nature. And why 1 Simply for this reason — 
 that our power to exercise the faculties on such 
 subjects is not, as it is on others, in defiance 
 of our own spirits : the difficulties and resist- 
 ances to our progress in these investigations 
 are not susceptible of minute and equable parti- 
 
24 I J URE LITERATURE. 
 
 tion (as in mathematics) ; and therefore the 
 movements of the mind cannot be continuous, 
 but are either of necessity tumultuary and 
 per saltum, or none at all. When, on the 
 contrary, the difficulty is pretty equally dis- 
 persed and broken up into a series of steps, no 
 one of which demands any exertion sensibly 
 more intense than the rest, nothing is required 
 of the student beyond that sort of application 
 and coherent attention which in a sincere 
 student of any standing may be presumed as 
 a habit already and inveterately established. 
 The dilemma therefore to which a student of 
 pure literature is continually reduced,— such a 
 student suppose as the Schlegels, or any other 
 man who has cultivated no acquaintance with 
 the severer sciences, — is this : either he studies 
 literature as a mere man of taste, and perhaps 
 also as a philologer ; and in that case his under- 
 standing must find a daily want of some mas- 
 culine exercise to call it out, and give it play ; 
 or (which is the rarest thing in the world) 
 having begun to study literature as a philoso- 
 pher, he seeks to renew that elevated walk of 
 study at all opportunities : but this is often as 
 
MATHEMATICS. 25 
 
 hopeless an effort as to a great poet it would 
 be to sit down upon any predetermination to 
 compose in his character of poet. Hence, 
 therefore, — if (as too often it happens) he has 
 not cultivated those studies (mathematics, e. g.) 
 which present such difficulties as will bend to 
 a resolute effort of the mind, and which have 
 the additional recommendation that they are 
 apt to stimulate and irritate the mind to make 
 that effort ; he is often thrown by the very 
 cravings of an unsatisfied intellect, and not by 
 passion or inclination, upon some vulgar ex- 
 citement of business or pleasure, which becomes 
 constantly more necessary to him. I should 
 do injustice to myself, if I were to say — that 
 I owed this view of the case solely to my own 
 experience ; the truth is — I easily foresaw, 
 upon the suggestion almost of an instant, that 
 literature would not suffice for my mind with 
 my purposes. I foresaw this ; and I provided 
 for it from the very first : but how ? Not in 
 the way recommended by Mr. Coleridge, but 
 according to a plan which you will collect 
 from the letters I am to write ; and which 
 therefore I need not here anticipate. What, 
 3 
 
2G HAPPINESS FROM INTELLECTUAL SOURCES. 
 
 however, you will say (for that is the main 
 inquiry), what has been the success? has it 
 warranted me to look back upon my past life, 
 and to pronounce it upon the whole a happy 
 one ? I answer in calmness and with sincerity 
 of heart — Yes. To you with your knowledge 
 of life I need not say that it is a vain thing for 
 any man to hope that he can arrive at my age 
 without many troubles — every man has his 
 own ; and more especially he who has not 
 insulated himself in this world, but has formed 
 attachments and connexions, and has thus mul- 
 tiplied the avenues through which his peace is 
 assailable. But setting aside these inevitable 
 deductions, I assure you, that the great account 
 of my days, if summed up, w r ould present a 
 great overbalance of happiness ; and of happi- 
 ness during those years which I lived in soli- 
 tude, of necessity derived exclusively from 
 intellectual sources : such an evil indeed as 
 time hanging heavy on my hands, I never 
 experienced for a moment. On the other hand, 
 to illustrate the benefits of my plan by a pic- 
 ture of the very opposite plan, though pursued 
 under the most splendid advantages, I would 
 
27 
 
 direct your eyes to the case of an eminent 
 living Englishman, with talents of the first 
 order, and yet upon the evidence of all his 
 works, ill satisfied at any time either with him- 
 self or those of his own age. This English- 
 man set out in life, as I conjecture, with a plan 
 of study modelled upon that of Leibnitz — that 
 is to say, he designed to make himself (as 
 Leibnitz most truly was) a Polyhistor or 
 Catholic student. For this reason, and be- 
 cause at a very early age I had become fami- 
 liar with the writings of Leibnitz, I have been 
 often tempted to draw a parallel between that 
 eminent German, and the no less eminent 
 Englishman of whom I speak. In many things 
 they agreed : these I shall notice at some other 
 opportunity : only in general I will say that as 
 both had minds not merely powerful, but dis- 
 tinguished for variety and compass of power, 
 so in both were these fine endowments com- 
 pleted and accomplished for works of Hercu- 
 lean endurance and continuity, by the alliance 
 of a bodily constitution resembling that of 
 horses. They were Centaurs : heroic intel- 
 lects with brutal capacities of body. What 
 
28 LEIBNITZ- 
 
 partiality in nature ! In general a man has 
 reason to think himself well off in the great 
 lottery of this life if he draws the prize of a 
 healthy stomach without a mind, or the prize 
 of a fine intellect with a crazy stomach : but 
 that any man should draw both, is truly asto- 
 nishing : and I suppose happens only once in 
 a century. Thus far (as indeed much far- 
 ther) they agreed : the points of difference 
 were many, and not less remarkable: two I 
 shall allege as pertinent to the matter before 
 me. First, I remarked that Leibnitz, however 
 anxious to throw out his mind upon the whole 
 encyclopaedia of human research, yet did not 
 forget to pay the price at which only any right 
 to be thus discursive can be earned : he sacri- 
 ficed to the austerer muses : knowing that 
 God geometrizes eternally, he rightly supposed 
 that in the universal temple Mathesis must fur- 
 nish the master key which would open most 
 shrines. The Englishman, on the contrary, 
 I remarked to have been too self-indulgent and 
 almost a voluptuary in his studies ; sparing 
 himself all toil, and thinking apparently to 
 evade the necessity of artificial power by an ex- 
 
COLERIDGE AND LEIBNITZ. 29 
 
 traordinary exertion of his own native power. 
 Neither as a boy, nor as a man, had he sub- 
 mitted to any regular study or discipline of 
 thought : his choice of subjects had lain too 
 much amongst those dependent upon politics 
 or other fleeting interests ; and when this had 
 not happened, yet never amongst those which 
 admitted of continuous thinking and study, and 
 which support the spirits by perpetual influxes 
 of pleasure, from the constant sense of success 
 and difficulty overcome. As to the use of 
 books, the German had been a discursive 
 reader: the Englishman a desultory reader. 
 Secondly, I remarked that Leibnitz was always 
 cheerful and obliging ; most courteous and 
 communicative to his fellow-labourers in lite- 
 rature or science ; with a single exception 
 (which rests, I think, as the sole stain upon 
 his memory) just, and even generously just to 
 the claims of others : uncensorious, and yet 
 patient of censure; willing to teach, and most 
 willing to be taught. Our English contempo- 
 rary was not, I think, naturally less amiable 
 than Leibnitz : and therefore I ascribe it to his 
 
 unfortunate plan of study, leaving him of 
 
 3* 
 
30 COLERIDGE. 
 
 necessity too often with no subjects for intel- 
 lectual exertion, but such as cannot be pursued 
 successfully, unless in a state of genial spirits, 
 — that we find him continually in ill humour, 
 distempered and untuned with uncharitable 
 feelings ; directing too harsh and acrimonious 
 a spirit of criticism always against the age in 
 which he lives, sometimes even against indivi- 
 duals : querulous (Note A) under criticism, 
 almost to the extent of believing himself the ob- 
 ject of conspiracies and organized persecution : 
 finally (which to me is far the gloomiest part of 
 the picture) he neither will consent to believe that 
 any man of his own age (at least of his own 
 country) can teach him any thing — professing 
 all his obligations to those who are dead, or 
 else to some rusty old German ; nor finally 
 will he consent to teach others, with the 
 simple-minded magnanimity of a scholar, who 
 should not seek to mystify and perplex his 
 pupil ; or to illuminate only with half-lights : 
 nor put himself on his guard against his reader, 
 as against a person seeking to grow as know- 
 ing as himself. On the contrary, who should 
 rejoice to believe (if he could believe it) that 
 
THE CONTRAST. 31 
 
 all the world knew as much as himself; and 
 should adopt as his motto (which I make it 
 my pride to have done, from my earliest days) 
 the simple grandeur of that line in Chaucer's 
 description of his scholar — 
 
 " That gladly would he learn — and gladly teach." 
 
 Such were the two features of difference 
 which I had occasion perpetually to remark — 
 between two great scholars, in many other 
 features so closely resembling each other. In 
 general these two features would be thought to 
 exist independently ; but, with my previous 
 theory of the necessity in all cases that, with 
 studies of so uncertain and even morbid an 
 effect upon the spirits as literature, should be 
 combined some analytic exercise of inevitable 
 healthy action, in this respect it was natural 
 that I should connect them in my mind as 
 cause and effect ; and, in that view, they gave 
 a double attestation to Mr. Coleridge's advice 
 where it agrees with mine — and to mine where 
 it differs from his. 
 
 Thus far I have considered Mr. Coleridge's 
 advice simply as it respects the student. But 
 
32 LITERARY PERFORMANCES COMBINED 
 
 the object of his studies is also entitled to 
 some consideration : if it were better for the 
 literary body, that all should pursue a pro- 
 fession as their ipyov, (or business) and lite- 
 rature as a rfapspyov (an accessary or mere 
 by-business), — how far is literature itself 
 likely to benefit by such an arrangement? 
 Mr. Coleridge insists upon it that it will : and 
 at page 225 he alleges seven names, to which 
 at page 233 he adds an eighth, of celebrated 
 men who have shown " the possibility of com- 
 bining weighty performances in literature, with 
 full and independent employment :" on various 
 grounds it would be easy, I think, to cut down 
 the list, as a list any way favourable for 
 Mr. Coleridge's purpose, to one name — viz. 
 that of Lord Bacon. But waiving his exam- 
 ples, let us consider his arguments. The main 
 business, the sp^ov, after exhausting a man's 
 powers during the day, is supposed to leave 
 three hours at night for the tfapspyov. Now we 
 are to consider that our bright ideal of a lite- 
 ratus may chance to be married : in fact, 
 Mr. Coleridge agrees to allow him a wife : let 
 us suppose a wife therefore ; and the more so, 
 
WITH INDEPENDENT EMPLOYMENT. 33 
 
 because else he will perhaps take one without 
 our permission. I ask then what portion of 
 these three hours is our student to give up to 
 the pleasure of his wife's society ? For, if a 
 man finds pleasure in his wife's company at 
 any time, I take it for granted that he would 
 wish to spend the evening with her. Well, if 
 you think so (says Mr. Coleridge, in effect, 
 who had at first supposed the learned man 
 to " retire into his study") in fact, he need not 
 retire. How then 1 Why, he is to study, not 
 in his study — but in his drawing-room, whilst 
 " the social silence, or undisturbing voices of 
 a wife or sister, will be like a restorative 
 atmosphere." Silence, by the way, is a strange 
 mode of social pleasure. 1 know not what 
 Mr. Coleridge does when he sits with a young 
 woman : for my part, I do " mon possible" to 
 entertain her both with my wit and my wis- 
 dom ; and am happy to hear her talk even 
 though she should chance to be my own wife ; 
 and never think of tolerating silence for one 
 instant. But, not to quarrel about tastes, what 
 is this " sister" that so pleasantly intrudes her- 
 self into the party 1 The wife, I understand ; 
 
34 DOMESTIC LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 but, in the north of England, or any place 
 where I have lived, wives do not commonly 
 present men with sisters, but with children. 
 Suppose then our student's wife should give 
 him a son ; or, what is noisier, a daughter ; 
 or, what is noisier than either — both ? What's 
 to be done then ? Here's a worshipful audience 
 for a philosopher ; here's a promising company 
 for " undisturbing voices," and " social silence." 
 I admire Mr. Coleridge's way of blinking this 
 question, of masking this youthful battery with 
 " a sister." Children, however, are incidents 
 that do and will occur in this life ; and must 
 not be blinked. I have seen the case again 
 and again ; and I say it, and say it with pain, 
 that there is no more respect for philosophy 
 amongst that lively part of society than Mr. 
 Coleridge and I have for French Philosophy. 
 They may, however, be banished to their nur- 
 sery : true, but if they are ever admitted to the 
 drawing-room, in houses where not much com- 
 pany is kept, I observe that this visit is most 
 interesting to all parties in the evening ; and, 
 if they would otherwise be admitted, no good- 
 natured student would wish to have their ex- 
 
DOMESTIC LITERARY LIFE. 35 
 
 pulsion charged upon his books. After all, 
 however, it is clear that Mr. Coleridge's voice 
 is for the " retiring" system : and he gives us 
 pretty plainly to understand (p. 230) that it is 
 far better for men to be separated from their 
 wives throughout the day. But in saying this, 
 he forgets that in the case under consideration, 
 the question is not so properly whether they 
 are ever to be separated — as whether they are 
 ever to meet. Indeed, taking what Mr. Cole- 
 ridge says on this subject as addressed to lite- 
 rary men especially, I know not why they 
 should be supposed likely to make unhappy 
 marriages more than other men. They are 
 not called upon to pass more of their time with 
 their wives than country gentlemen, or men 
 generally without a profession. On the other 
 hand, if we are to understand the words of 
 Mr. Coleridge as of universal application, I 
 hope that he gives us a very unfair view of the 
 average tenour of life in this important parti- 
 cular. Yet, if it be settled that men will quar- 
 rel, and must quarrel with their wives, or their 
 wives with them, unless separated, — would not 
 a large screen meet the emergency 1 Or might 
 
36 LITERATURE THE SOLE PURSUIT. 
 
 not the learned man, as soon as breakfast is 
 ended, bow to his wife — and withdraw to his 
 library; where he might study or be sulky, 
 according to his taste ; leaving her for the rest 
 of the day to amuse or to employ herself in 
 the way most agreeable to her sex, rank, and 
 previous education? But, in whatever way 
 this difficulty may be disposed of, one point is 
 clear to my judgment : that literature must 
 decay, unless we have a class wholly dedi- 
 cated to that service, not pursuing it as an 
 amusement only with wearied and pre-occupied 
 minds. The reproach of being a " nation 
 boutiquiere" now so eminently inapplicable to 
 the English, would become indeed just, and in 
 the most unfortunate sense just, if from all our 
 overstocked trades and professions we could 
 not spare men enough to compose a garrison 
 on permanent duty for the service of the 
 highest purposes which grace and dignify our 
 nature. 
 
 You will not infer from all this any abate- 
 ment in my old respect for Mr. Coleridge's 
 great and various powers : no man admires 
 
TWO OriUM-EATERS. 37 
 
 them more. But there is no treason, I hope, 
 in starting a little game now and then from the 
 thickets of The Friend, the Biographia Lite- 
 raria, or even from Mr. Coleridge's Sermons, 
 considering that they are Lay ones. Young men 
 must have some exercise this frosty weather. 
 Hereafter I shall have occasion to break a lance 
 with Mr. Coleridge on more difficult questions : 
 and very happy I shall be, if the amusement 
 which I shall make it my business to strike out, 
 by my hammering, from the flinty rock of his 
 metaphysics, should either tempt any one to 
 look into his valuable writings — or should tempt 
 Mr. Coleridge to sally out of his hiding-place 
 in a philosophic passion, and to attack me with 
 the same freedom. Such an exhibition must 
 be amusing to the public. I conceive that two 
 
 transcendentalists, who are also two- s, can 
 
 hardly ever before have stripped in any ring. 
 But, by the way, I wish he would leave trans- 
 cendentalism to me and other young men : for, 
 to say the truth, it does not prosper in his 
 hands. I will take charge of the public prin- 
 ciples in that point : and he will thus be more 
 4 
 
38 THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 at leisure to give us another Ancient Mariner ; 
 which, I will answer for it, the whole literary 
 body would receive with gratitude and a fervent 
 " plaudite." 
 
 Yours, most faithfully, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
 December 24. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 Outline of the Work. — Notice of former Writers on the 
 same subject. 
 
 My Dear M , 
 
 In this, my second and last letter of preface, 
 I shall settle the idea and the arrangement of 
 my papers : there will be in all about seven, of 
 which four will exhibit the material on which 
 the student is to work ; the other three, the 
 tools with which the workmanship is to be con- 
 ducted. First, ivhat is to be done ; and second- 
 ly, haw is the natural and obvious distribution 
 of the work : that is to say, the business is to 
 assign, first, the end, and, secondly, the means. 
 And, because the end should reasonably deter- 
 mine the means, it would seem natural that in 
 the arrangement of the work, all which relates 
 to that should have precedency. Nevertheless, 
 I mean to invert this order ; and for the follow- 
 ing reason : all that part of the means, which 
 
40 INSTRUMENTS OF STUDY. 
 
 are so entirely determined by the end as to 
 presuppose its full and circumstantial develope- 
 ment, may be concluded specially restricted to 
 that individual end ; in proportion to this re- 
 striction they will, therefore, be of narrow 
 application, and are best treated in direct con- 
 nexion and concurrently with the object to 
 which they are thus appropriated. On the 
 other hand, those means or instruments of 
 thought, which are sufficiently complex and 
 important to claim a separate attention to them- 
 selves, are usually of such large and extensive 
 use, that they belong indifferently to all schemes 
 of study, and may safely be premised in any 
 plan, however novel in its principles, or pecu- 
 liar in its tendencies. What are these general 
 instruments of study 1 According to my view 
 they are three; first, Logic; secondly, Lan- 
 guages ; thirdly, Arts of Memory. With re- 
 spect to these, it is not necessary that any 
 special end should be previously given : be his 
 end what it may, every student must have 
 thoughts to arrange, knowledge to transplant, 
 and facts to record. Means, which are thus 
 universally requisite, may safely have pre- 
 
OUTLINE OF THE PLAN. 41 
 
 cedency of the end : and it will not be a pre- 
 posterous order, if I dedicate my first three 
 letters to the several subjects of Logic, Lan- 
 guages, and Arts of Memory ; which will com- 
 pose one half of my scheme : leaving to the 
 other half, the task of unfolding the course of 
 study for which these instruments will be avail- 
 able. Having thus settled the arrangement, 
 and implicitly, therefore, settled in part the idea 
 or ratio of my scheme, — I shall go on to add 
 what may be necessary to confine your expec- 
 tations to the right track, and prevent them 
 from going above or below the true character 
 of the mark I aim at. I profess then to attempt 
 something much higher than merely directions 
 for a course of reading. Not that such a work 
 might not be of eminent service ; and in par- 
 ticular at this time, and with a constant adapta- 
 tion to the case of rich men, not literary, I am 
 of opinion, that no more useful book could be 
 executed than a series of letters (addressed, for 
 example, to country gentlemen, merchants, &c.) 
 on the formation of a library. The uses of 
 such a treatise, however, are not those which I 
 contemplate ; for either it would presume and 
 4# 
 
42 AN ORGANON OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 refer to a plan of study already settled ; and in 
 that light, it is a mere complement of the plan 
 I propose to execute : or else it would attempt 
 to involve a plan of study in the course of read- 
 ing suggested ; and that would be neither more 
 nor less than to do in concrete), what it is far 
 more convenient as well as more philosophical 
 to do (as I am now going to do) directly and 
 in abstracto. A mere course of reading, there- 
 fore, is much below what I propose ; on the 
 other hand, an organon of the human under- 
 standing is as much above it : such a work is 
 a labour for a life : that is to say, though it 
 may take up but a small part of every day, yet 
 could it in no other way accumulate its mate- 
 rials, than by keeping the mind everlastingly 
 on the watch to seize upon such notices as may 
 arise daily throughout a life under the favour of 
 accident or occasion. Forty years are not too 
 large a period for such a work ; and my present 
 work, however maturely meditated, must be 
 executed with rapidity. Here, in fact, I do but 
 sketch or trace in outline (w£ sv rutfo) <7rsp»\a/3siv), 
 what there it would become my duty to de- 
 velope, to fill up in detail, to apply, and to 
 
ENDS AND MEANS. 43 
 
 illustrate on the most extensive scale. After 
 having attempted in my first part to put you in 
 possession of the best method for acquiring the 
 instruments of study; and with respect to logic 
 in particular, having directed a philosophic 
 light upon its true meaning and purpose — with 
 the hope of extinguishing that anarchy of errors 
 which have possessed this ground from the 
 time of Lord Bacon to the moment at which I 
 write, — I then, in the second division, address 
 myself to the question of ends* Upon which 
 word let me distinguish : upon ends, in an abso- 
 lute sense, as ultimate ends, it is presumption 
 in any man to offer counsel to another of ma- 
 ture age. Advice of that sort, given under 
 whatever hollow pretences of kindness, is to be 
 looked upon as arrogance in the most repulsive 
 shape; and to be rejected with that sort of 
 summary disdain, which any man not of ser- 
 vile nature would testify towards him who 
 should attempt to influence his choice of a wife. 
 A student of mature age must be presumed to 
 be best acquainted with his own talents, and his 
 own intellectual infirmities, with his "forte" 
 and his " foible," with his own former experi- 
 
44 SYSTEM OF STUDY. 
 
 ence of failure or success, and with the direction 
 in which his inclinations point. Far be it from 
 me to violate by the spirit of my counsels a 
 pride so reasonable, which, in truth, I hold 
 sacred. My scheme takes an humbler ground. 
 Ends indeed, in a secondary sense, the latter 
 half professes to deal with : but such ends as, 
 though bearing that character, in relation to 
 what is purely and merely instrumental, yet 
 again become means in relation to ends abso- 
 lutely so called. The final application of your 
 powers and knowledge it is for yourself only 
 to determine : my pretensions in regard to that 
 election are limited to this — that I profess to 
 place you on a vantage ground from which you 
 may determine more wisely, by determining 
 from a higher point of survey. My purpose is 
 not to map the whole course of your journey, 
 but to serve as your guide to that station, at 
 which you may be able to lay down your future 
 route for yourself. The former half of my 
 work I have already described to you : the lat- 
 ter half endeavours to construct such a system 
 of study as shall combine these two advantages 
 — 1. Systematic unity; i. e. such a principle of 
 
FOUNDATIONS BROAD AND DEEF. 45 
 
 internal connexion, as that the several parts of 
 the plan shall furnish assistance interchange- 
 ably : 2. The largest possible compass of ex- 
 ternal relations. Some empires, you know, 
 are built for growth : others are essentially im- 
 progressive, but are built for duration, on some 
 principle of strong internal cohesion. Systems 
 of knowledge, however, and schemes of study, 
 should propose both ends: — they should take 
 their foundations broad and deep, 
 
 And lay great bases for eternity : 
 
 which is the surest key to internal and systema- 
 tic connexion : and, secondly, they should pro- 
 vide for future growth and accretion ; regarding 
 all knowledge as a nucleus and centre of accu- 
 mulation for other knowledge. It is on this 
 latter principle, by the way, that the system of 
 education in our public schools, however other- 
 wise defective, is justly held superior to the 
 specious novelties of our suburban academies ; 
 for it is more radical, and adapted to a larger 
 superstructure. Such, I say, is the character 
 of my scheme ; and by the very act of claiming 
 for it, as one of its benefits, that it leaves you 
 
46 ESSAYS DE RATIONE STUDII. 
 
 in the centre of large and comprehensive rela- 
 tions to other parts of knowledge ; it is pretty 
 apparent that I do not presume to suggest in 
 what direction of these manifold relations you 
 should afterwards advance ; that, as I have 
 now sufficiently explained, will be left to your 
 own self-knowledge ; but to your self-know- 
 ledge illumined at the point where I leave you 
 by that other knowledge which my scheme of 
 study professes to communicate. 
 
 From this general outline of my own plan, I 
 am led by an easy transition to a question of 
 yours, respecting the merits of the most cele- 
 brated amongst those who have trod the same 
 ground in past times. Excepting only a little 
 treatise of Erasmus, cle Ratione Stuclii, all the 
 essays on this subject by eminent Continental 
 Writers appeared in the 17th century ; and of 
 these, a large majority before the year 1640. 
 They were universally written in Latin ; and, 
 the Latin of that age being good, they are so far 
 agreeable to read ; beyond this, and the praise 
 of elegance in their composition and arrange- 
 ment, I have not much to say in their behalf. 
 About the year 1645, Lewis Elzevir published 
 
DIDACTIC POETRY. 47 
 
 a, corpus of. these essays, amounting in all to 
 four-and-twenty ; in point of elegance and good 
 sense, their merits are various ; thus far they 
 differ : but, in regard to the main point, they 
 hold a lamentable equality of pretension — 
 being all thoroughly hollow and barren of any 
 practical use. (Note B.) I cannot give you a 
 better notion of their true place and relation to 
 the class of works of which you are in search of, 
 than by an analogy drawn from the idea of 
 didactic poetry, as it exists in the Roman lite- 
 rature and our own. So thoroughly is this 
 sometimes misunderstood, that I have seen it 
 insisted on as a merit in a didactic poem — that 
 the art, which it professed to deliver, might be 
 learned and practised in all its technicalities, 
 without other assistance than that which the 
 poem supplied. But, had this been true, — so 
 far from being a praise, it would instantly have 
 degraded the poem from its rank as a work 
 among the products of Fine Arts : ipso facto, 
 such a poem would have settled down from that 
 high intellectual rank into the ignoble preten- 
 sions of mechanic art, in which the metre, and 
 the style which metre introduces, would imme- 
 
48 DIDACTIC POETRY. 
 
 diately have lost their justification. The true 
 idea of didactic poetry is this ; either the poet 
 selects an art which furnishes the occasion for 
 a series of picturesque exhibitions (as Virgil, 
 Dyer, &c): and, in that case, it is true that he 
 derives part of his power from the art which he 
 delivers ; not, however, from what is essential 
 to the art, but from its accidents and adjuncts. 
 Either he does this ; or else (as is the case with 
 Lord Roscommon, Pope, &c.) so far from 
 seeking in his subject for any part of the power, 
 he seeks in that only for the resistance with 
 which he contends by means of the power de- 
 rived from the verse and the artifices of style. 
 To one case or other of this alternative all 
 didactic poems are reducible; and, allowing for 
 the differences of rhetoric and poetry, the same 
 ideal must have presided in the composition of 
 the various essays of the 17th century, ad- 
 dressed to students : the subject was felt to be 
 austere and unattractive, and almost purely 
 scholastic ; it was the ambition of the writers, 
 therefore, to show that they could present it in 
 a graceful shape : and that under their treat- 
 ment, the subject might become interesting to 
 
DR. WATTS. 49 
 
 the reader, as an arena, upon which skill was 
 exhibited, baffling or evading difficulties, — even 
 at the price of all benefit to the anxious and 
 earnest disciple. Spartam nactus es, was their 
 motto, hanc exorna ; and like Cicero, in his Idea 
 of an Orator, with relation to the practical 
 duties of the forum ; or Lord Shaftesbury, with 
 relation to the accurate knowledge of the 
 academic philosophy ; they must be supposed 
 deliberately to have made a selection from the 
 arts or doctrines before them, for the sake of a 
 beautiful composition which should preserve all 
 its parts in harmony, and only secondarily (if 
 at all) to have regarded the interests of the 
 student. By all of them the invitation held out 
 was not so much Indocti discant, as Ament 
 meminisse periti. 
 
 In our own country there have been nume- 
 rous "letters," &c. on this interesting subject; 
 but not one that has laid any hold on the public 
 mind, except the two works of Dr. Watt's, 
 especially that upon the " Improvement of the 
 Mind." Being the most imbecile of books, it 
 must have owed its success, 1. To the secta- 
 rian zeal of his party in religion — his fellows 
 5 
 
50 DR. WATTS. 
 
 and his followers : 2. To the fact of its having 
 gained for its author, from two Scotch universi- 
 ties, the highest degree they could bestow: 
 3. To the distinguished honour of having been 
 adopted as a lecture book (q. as an examination 
 book?) by both English universities : 4. To the 
 extravagant praise of Dr. Johnson, amongst 
 whose infirmities it was to praise warmly, when 
 he was flattered by the sense of his own great 
 superiority in powers and knowledge. Dr. 
 Johnson supposes it to have been modelled on 
 Locke's Conduct of the Understanding; but 
 surely this is as ludicrous as to charge, upon 
 Silence, any elaborate imitation of Mr. Justice 
 Shallow. That Silence may have borrowed 
 from another man half of a joke, or echoed the 
 roar of his laughter, is possible ; but of any 
 more grave or laborious attempts to rob he 
 stands ludicrously acquitted by the exemplary 
 imbecility of his nature. No: Dr. Watts did 
 not steal from Mr. Locke: in matters of dulness 
 a man is easily original : and I suppose that 
 even Feeble or Shallow might have had credit 
 for the effort necessary to the following coun- 
 
LOCKE. 51 
 
 sels, taken at random from Dr. Watts, at the 
 page where the book has happened to fall open. 
 
 1. Get a distinct and comprehensive know- 
 ledge of the subject which you treat of; survey- 
 it on all sides, and make yourself perfect mas- 
 ter of it : then (then ! what then ? — Think of 
 Feeble making an inference. Well, " then,") 
 you will have all the sentiments that relate to 
 it in your view: 2. Be well skilled in the lan- 
 guage which you speak : 3. Acquire a variety 
 of words, a copia verborum. Let your memory 
 be rich in synonymous terms, p. 228, edit. 
 1817. 
 
 Well done, most magnanimous Feeble. — 
 Such counsels, I suppose that any man might 
 have produced ; and you will not wish to see 
 criticised. Let me rather inquire, what com- 
 mon defect it is which has made the works of 
 much more ingenious men, and in particular 
 that of Locke, utterly useless for the end pro- 
 posed. The error in these books is the same 
 which occurs in books of ethics, and which has 
 made them more or less useless for any practi- 
 cal purpose. As it is important to put an end 
 to all delusion in matters of such grave and 
 
52 LOGICAL ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 general concern as the improvement of our 
 understandings, or the moral valuation of ac- 
 tions ; and as I repeat that the delusion here 
 alluded to has affected both equally (so far as 
 they can be affected by the books written pro- 
 fessedly to assist them), it may be worth while 
 to spend a few lines in exposing it. I believe 
 that you are so far acquainted with the struc- 
 ture of a syllogism as to know how to distin- 
 guish between the major and minor proposition: 
 there is, indeed, a technical rule which makes 
 it impossible to err ; but you will have no need 
 of that, if you once apprehend the rationale of 
 a syllogism in the light under which I will here 
 place it. In every syllogism one of the two 
 premises (the major) lays down a rule, under 
 which rule the other (the minor) brings the 
 subject of your argument as a particular case.. 
 The minor is, therefore, distinguished from the 
 major by an act of the judgment, viz. : a sub- 
 sumption of a special case under a rule. Now 
 consider how this applies to morals: here the 
 conscience supplies the general rule, or major 
 proposition ; and about this there is no question ; 
 but to bring the special case of conduct, which 
 
CONDUCT OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 53 
 
 is the subject of your inquiry, under this general 
 rule — here first commences the difficulty ; and 
 just upon this point are ethical treatises for the 
 most part silent. Accordingly no man thinks 
 of consulting them for his direction under any 
 moral perplexities ; if he reads them at all, it is 
 for the gratification of his understanding in 
 surveying the order and relation amongst the 
 several members of a system ; never for the 
 information of his moral judgment. 
 
 For any practical use in that way, a casuistry, 
 i. e, a subsumption of the cases most frequently 
 recurring in ordinary life, should be combined 
 (Note C) with the system of moral principles ; — 
 the latter supplying the major (or normal) pro- 
 position ; the former supplying the minor pro- 
 position, which brings the special case under the 
 rule. With the help of this explanation, you 
 will easily understand on what principle I ven- 
 ture to denounce, as unprofitable, the whole 
 class of books written on the model of Locke's 
 Conduct of the Understanding. According to 
 Locke, the student is not to hurry, but again 
 not to loiter ; not to be too precipitate, nor yet 
 too hesitating ; not to be too confiding, but far 
 5* 
 
54 CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 less too suspicious ; not too obstinate in his own 
 opinions, yet again (for the love of God !) not 
 too resigned to those of others ; not too general 
 in his divisions, but (as he regards his own 
 soul) not too minute, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 But surely no man, bent on the improvement 
 of his faculties, was ever guilty of these errors 
 under these names ; that is, knowingly and 
 deliberately. If he is so at all, it is either that 
 he has not reflected on his own method ; or 
 that, having done so, he has allowed himself, 
 in the act or habit offending these rules on a 
 false view of its tendency and character ; be- 
 cause, in fact, having adopted as his rule (or 
 major) that very golden mean which Mr. 
 Locke recommends, and which, without Mr. 
 Locke's suggestion he would have adopted for 
 himself; — it has yet been possible for him by 
 an erroneous judgment, to take up an act or 
 habit under the rule — which with better ad- 
 vice he would have excluded ; which advice is 
 exactly what Mr. Locke has — not given. Over 
 and above all this the method of the book is 
 aphoristic ; and, as might be expected from 
 that method, without a plan ; and, which is 
 
MATHEMATICS. 55 
 
 partly the cause and partly the consequence of 
 having a plan, without a foundation. This 
 word foundation leads me to one remark sug- 
 gested by your letter; and with that I shall 
 conclude my own. When I spoke above of the 
 student's taking his foundations broad and deep, 
 I had my eye chiefly on the corner-stones of 
 strong-built knowledge, viz. : on logic ; on a 
 proper choice of languages ; on a particular 
 part of what is called metaphysics; and on 
 mathematics. Now you allege (I suppose upon 
 occasion of my references to mathematics in 
 my last letter) that you have no " genius" for 
 mathematics ; and you speak with the usual 
 awe (pavor attonitorum) of the supposed "pro- 
 fundity" of intellect necessary to a great pro- 
 gress in this direction. Be assured that you 
 are in utter error ; though it be an error all 
 but universal. In mathematics, upon two irre- 
 sistible arguments which I shall set in a clear 
 light, when I come to explain the procedure of 
 the mind with regard to that sort of evidence, 
 and that sort of investigation, there can be no 
 subtlety: all minds are levelled except as to 
 the rapidity of the course ; and, from the entire 
 
56 MATHEMATICS. 
 
 absence of all those acts of mind which do 
 really imply profundity of intellect, it is a ques- 
 tion whether an idiot might not be made an 
 excellent mathematician. Listen not to the 
 romantic notions of the world on this subject ; 
 above all listen not to mathematicians. Mathe- 
 maticians, as mathematicians, have no business 
 with the question. It is one thing to under- 
 stand mathematics ; another and far different 
 to understand the philosophy of mathematics. 
 With respect to this, it is memorable, that in no 
 one of the great philosophical questions which 
 the ascent of mathematics has from time to time 
 brought up above the horizon of our specula- 
 tive view, has any mathematician who was 
 merely such (however eminent) had depth of 
 intellect adequate to its solution : without in- 
 sisting on the absurdities published by mathe- 
 maticians, on the philosophy of the infinite, 
 since that notion was introduced into mathe- 
 matics ; or on the fruitless attempts of all but 
 a metaphysician to settle the strife between the 
 conflicting modes of valuing living forces ; — I 
 need only ask what English or French mathe- 
 matician has been able to exhibit the notion of 
 
EUCLID. 57 
 
 negative quantities, in a theory endurable even 
 to a popular philosophy, or which has com- 
 manded any assent? Or again, what Algebra 
 is there existing which does not contain a false 
 and ludicrous account of the procedure in that 
 science, as contrasted with the procedure in 
 geometry ? But, not to trouble you with more 
 of these cases so opprobrious to mathematicians, 
 lay this to heart, that mathematics are very 
 easy and very important ; they are, in fact, the 
 organ of one large division of human know- 
 ledge. And, as it is of consequence that you 
 should lose no time by waiting for my letter on 
 that subject, let me forestal so much of it — as 
 to advise that you would immediately com- 
 mence with Euclid ; reading those eight books 
 of the Elements which are usually read, and 
 the Data. If you should go no farther, so 
 much geometry will be useful and delightful : 
 and so much, by reading for two hours a-day, 
 you will easily accomplish in about thirteen 
 weeks, i. e. one quarter of a year. 
 
 Yours, most truly, X. Y. Z. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 In my three following letters I am to consi- 
 der, 1st, Languages, 2d, Logic; Arts of Me- 
 mory ; not as parts of knowledge sought or 
 valued on their own account, but simply as the 
 most general amongst the means and instru- 
 ments of the student, estimated therefore with 
 a reference to the number and importance of 
 the ends which they further, and fairly to be 
 presumed in all schemes of self-improvement 
 liberally planned. In this letter I will speak of 
 languages ; my thoughts, and a twenty years' 
 experience as a student, having furnished me 
 with some hints that may be useful in deter- 
 mining your choice, where choice is at first 
 sight so difficult, and the evils of an erroneous 
 choice so great. On this Babel of an earth which 
 you and I inhabit, there are said to be about 
 three thousand languages and jargons. Of 
 
LANGUAGES. 59 
 
 nearly five hundred, you will find a specimen 
 in the Mithridates of Adelung,andin some other 
 German works of more moderate bulk (NoteD). 
 The final purposes of this vast engine for sepa- 
 rating nations, it is not difficult in part to per- 
 ceive ; and it is presumable that these purposes 
 have been nearly fulfilled ; since there can be 
 little doubt that within the next two centuries, all 
 the barbarous languages of the earth (i. e. those 
 without a literature) will be one after one stran- 
 gled and exterminated by four European lan- 
 guages, viz. the English, the Spanish, the Por- 
 tuguese, and the Russian. Central Africa, and 
 that only, can resist the momentum of civiliza- 
 tion for a longer period. Now, languages are 
 sometimes studied, not as a key to so many 
 bodies of literature, but as an object per se ; 
 for example, by Sir William Jones, Dr. Ley- 
 den, &c. : and where the researches are con- 
 ducted with the enthusiasm and the sagacity 
 of the late extraordinary Professor of Oriental 
 Languages in Edinburgh, Dr. Alexander Mur- 
 ray, it is impossible to withhold one's admira- 
 tion ; he had a theory, and distinct purposes, 
 which shed light upon his paths that are else 
 
60 LANGUAGES. 
 
 " as dark as Erebus." Such labours conducted 
 in such a spirit must be important, if the eldest 
 records of the human race be important ; for 
 the affinities of language furnish the main 
 clue for ascending, through the labyrinths of 
 nations, — to their earliest origins and con- 
 nexions. To a professed linguist, therefore, the 
 natural advice would be — examine the struc- 
 ture of as many languages as possible ; gather 
 as many thousand specimens as possible into 
 your Jwrtus siccus ; beginning with the eldest 
 forms of the Teutonic, viz. : the Visigothic and 
 the Icelandic, for which the aids rendered by 
 modern learning are immense. To a professed 
 philologist, I say, the natural advice would be 
 this. But to you, who have no such purposes, 
 and whom I suppose to wish for languages 
 simply as avenues to literature not otherwise 
 accessible, I will frankly say — start from this 
 principle — that the act of learning a language 
 is in itself an evil ; and so frame your selec- 
 tion of languages, that the largest possible 
 body of literature available for your purposes 
 shall be laid open to you at the least possible 
 price of time and mental energy squandered in 
 
MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 61 
 
 this direction. I say this with some earnest- 
 ness. For I will not conceal from you, that 
 one of the habits most unfavourable to the 
 growth and sincere culture of the intellect in 
 our day is the facility with which men surren- 
 der themselves to the barren and ungenial 
 labour of language learning. Unless balanced 
 by studies that give more exercise, more ex- 
 citement, and more aliment to the faculties, 
 I am convinced, by all I have observed, that 
 this practice is the dry rot of the human mind. 
 How should it be otherwise 1 The act of learn- 
 ing a science is good, not only for the know- 
 ledge which results, but for the exercise which 
 attends it : the energies which the learner is 
 obliged to put forth, are true intellectual ener- 
 gies : and his very errors are full of instruc- 
 tion. He fails to construct some leading idea ; 
 or he even misconstructs it : he places himself 
 in a false position with respect to certain pro- 
 positions ; views them from a false centre ; 
 makes a false or an imperfect antithesis ; ap- 
 prehends a definition with insufficient rigour ; 
 or fails in his use of it to keep it self-consistent. 
 These and a thousand other errors are met by 
 6 
 
62 MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 
 
 a thousand appropriate resources — all of a true 
 intellectual character ; comparing, combining, 
 distinguishing, generalizing, subdividing, acts 
 of abstraction and evolution, of synthesis and 
 analysis, until the most torpid minds are venti- 
 lated, and healthily excited by this introversion 
 of the faculties upon themselves. But in the 
 study of language (with an exception, however, 
 to a certain extent, in favour of Latin and 
 Greek, which [ shall notice hereafter), nothing 
 of all this can take place, and for one simple 
 reason — that all is arbitrary. Wherever there 
 is a law and system — wherever there is rela- 
 tion and correspondence of parts, the intellect 
 will make its way ; will interfuse amongst the 
 dry bones the blood and pulses of life, and 
 create " a soul under the ribs of death." But 
 whatsoever is arbitrary and conventional, which 
 yields no reason why it should be this way 
 rather than that, obeying no theory or law, 
 must, by its lifeless forms, kill and mortify the 
 action of the intellect. If this be true, it be- 
 comes every student to keep watch upon him- 
 self, that he does not upon any light tempta- 
 tion allow himself an overbalance of studv in 
 
LANGUAGES. 63 
 
 this direction. For the temptations to such an 
 excess, which in our days are more powerful 
 than formerly, are at all times too powerful. 
 Of all the weapons in the armoury of the 
 scholar, none is so showy or so captivating to 
 common-place minds as skill in languages. 
 Vanity is, therefore, one cause of the undue 
 application to languages. A second is — the 
 national fashion. What nation but ourselves 
 ever made the language of its eternal enemy an 
 essential part of even a decent (Note E) educa- 
 tion? What should we think of Roman policy, 
 if, during the second Punic war, the Carthagi- 
 nian language had been taught as a matter of 
 course to the children of every Roman citizen ? 
 But. a third cause, which I believe has more 
 efficacy than either of the former, is mere 
 levity ; the simple fact of being unballasted by 
 any sufficient weight of plan or settled purpose, 
 to present a counterpoise to the slightest mo- 
 mentum this way or that, arising from any 
 impulse of accident or personal caprice. When 
 there is no resistance, a breath of air will be 
 sufficient to determine the motion. I remem- 
 ber once, that happening to spend an autumn 
 
64 ACCIDENTAL IMPULSES. 
 
 in Ilfracombe, on the west coast of Devon- 
 shire — I found all the young ladies whom I 
 knew, busily employed on the study of Marine 
 Botany : on the opposite shore of the channel, 
 in all the South Welch ports of Tenby, &c. 
 they were no less busy upon Conchology ; in 
 neither case from any previous love of the 
 science, but simply availing themselves of their 
 local advantages. Now, here a man must 
 have been truly ill-natured to laugh. For the 
 studies were in both instances beautiful : a 
 love for it was created, if it had not pre- 
 existed : and to women, and young women, 
 the very absence of all austere unity of pur- 
 pose and self-determination was becoming and 
 graceful. Yet, when this same levity and 
 liability to casual impulses come forward in 
 the acts and purposes of a man, I must own, 
 that I have often been unable to check myself 
 in something like a contemptuous feeling : nor 
 should I wish to check myself, but for remem- 
 bering how many men of energetic minds con- 
 stantly give way to slight and inadequate mo- 
 tives, simply for want of being summoned to 
 any anxious reviews of their own conduct. 
 
ACCIDENTAL IMPULSES. 65 
 
 How many cases have I known where a parti- 
 cular study, as, suppose, of the Hartleian phi- 
 losophy, was pursued throughout a whole col- 
 lege, — simply because a man of talents had 
 talked of it in the junior common-room : how 
 many, where a book became popular, because 
 it had been mentioned in the House of Com- 
 mons : how many, where a man resolved to 
 learn Welch, because he was spending a month 
 or two at Barmouth, — or Italian, because he 
 had found a Milan series of the poets in his 
 aunt's library, — or the violin, because he had 
 bought a fine one at an auction. 
 
 In 1808-9, you must well remember what 
 a strong impulse the opening of the Peninsular 
 War communicated to our current literature : 
 the presses of London and the provinces teemed 
 with editions of Spanish books, dictionaries, 
 and grammars : and the motions of the British 
 armies were accompanied by a corresponding 
 activity among British compositors. From the 
 just interest which is now renewed in Spanish 
 affairs, I suppose something of the same scene 
 will recur. Now, for my own part, though 
 undoubtedly I would, for the sake of Calderon 
 6* 
 
66 SELF-DETERMINATION. 
 
 alone (judging of him through a German trans- 
 lation), most willingly study the Spanish lite- 
 rature (if I had leisure) ; yet I should be 
 ashamed to do so upon the irrelevant and 
 occasional summons of an interesting situation 
 in Spanish affairs. I should feel that by such 
 an act I confessed a want of pre-occupation in 
 my mind — a want of self-origination in my 
 plans — an inertness of will, which, above all 
 things, I do and ought to detest. If it were 
 right for me (right I mean in relation to my 
 previous scheme of study) to have dedicated a 
 portion of my life to the Spanish literature, it 
 must have been right before the Spanish poli- 
 tics took an interesting aspect : if it were not 
 right, it could not become so upon a suggestion 
 so purely verbal as the recurrence of the word 
 Spanish in the London journals. 
 
 This, I am sure, you will interpret candidly. 
 I am not supposing you less furnished with 
 powers of self-determination than myself. T 
 have no personal allusion or exception : but T 
 suppose every man liable to be acted on unduly, 
 or by inadequate impulses, so long as he is not 
 possessed by some plan that may steady that 
 
BOOKS. 67 
 
 levity of nature which is implied in the mere 
 state of indifference to all settled plans. This 
 levity in our days, meets with an accidental 
 ally in the extraordinary facilities for studying 
 languages in the shape of elementary books ; 
 which facilities of themselves form a fourth 
 cause of the disproportionate study given to 
 languages. But a fifth cause occurs to me, of 
 a less selfish and indolent character than any 
 of the preceding ; and as it seems to me hardly 
 possible that it should not influence you more 
 or less to make your choice of languages too 
 large and comprehensive, I shall tell you from 
 my own case, what may be sufficient to set you 
 on your guard against too much indulgence to 
 a feeling in itself just and natural, In my 
 youthful days I never entered a great library, 
 suppose of 100,000 volumes, but my predomi- 
 nant feeling was one of pain and disturbance of 
 mind — not much unlike that which drew tears 
 from Xerxes, on viewing his immense army, 
 and reflecting that in 100 years not one soul 
 would remain alive. To me, with respect to 
 the books, the same effect would be brought 
 about by my own death. Here, said I, are 
 
68 BOOKS. 
 
 100,000 books — the worst of them capable of 
 giving me some pleasure and instruction ; and 
 before I can have had time to extract the honey 
 from one-twentieth of this hive, in all likelihood 
 I shall be summoned away. This thought, I 
 am sure, must often have occurred to yourself; 
 and you may judge how much it was aggra- 
 vated, when I found that, subtracting all merely 
 professional books — books of reference (as dic- 
 tionaries, &c. &c. &c.) — from the universal 
 library of Europe, there would still remain a 
 total of not less than twelve hundred thousand 
 books over and above what the presses of 
 Europe are still disemboguing into the ocean of 
 literature ; many of them immense folios or 
 quartos. Now I had been told by an eminent 
 English author, that with respect to one single 
 work, viz : the History of Thuanus, a calcula- 
 tion had been made by a Portuguese monk, 
 which showed, that barely to read over the 
 words (and allowing no time for reflection) 
 would require three years' labour, at the rate 
 of (I think) three hours a-day. Further, I had 
 myself ascertained, that to read a duodecimo 
 volume in prose, of four hundred pages — all 
 
BOOKS. 69 
 
 skipping being barred, and the rapid reading 
 which belongs to the vulgar interest of a novel — 
 was a very sufficient work for one day. Con- 
 sequently three hundred and sixty-five per 
 annum, that is (with a very small allowance 
 for the claims of life on one's own account, and 
 that of one's friends), one thousand for every 
 triennium— that is, ten thousand for thirty 
 years — will be as much as a man, who lives 
 for that only, can hope to accomplish. From 
 the age of twenty to eighty, therefore, if a man 
 were so unhappy as to live to eighty, the utmost 
 he could hope to travel through would be twenty 
 thousand volumes; a number not, perhaps, 
 above jive per cent, of what the mere current 
 literature of Europe would accumulate in that 
 period of years. Now from this amount of 
 twenty thousand, make a deduction on account 
 of books of larger size — books to be studied — 
 and books to be read slowly, and many times 
 over (as all works in which the composition is 
 a principal part of their pretensions), allow a 
 fair discount for such deductions, and the 
 twenty thousand will, perhaps, shrink to eight 
 or five thousand. All this arithmetical state- 
 
70 MORBID SENSITIVENESS. 
 
 ment you must not conceive to relate to any 
 fanciful case of misery : no, I protest to you, 
 that I speak of as real a case of suffering as 
 ever can have existed. And it soon increased. 
 For the same panic seized upon me with respect 
 to the works of art: I found that I had no 
 chance of hearing the twenty-five thousandth 
 part of the music that had been produced ; and 
 so of other arts. Nor was this all. For, hap- 
 pening to say to myself one night as I entered 
 a long street, " I shall never see the one thou- 
 sandth part of the people who are living in this 
 single street," it occurred to me that every man 
 and woman was a most interesting book, if one 
 knew how to read them. Here opened upon 
 me a new world of misery. For if books and 
 works of art existed by millions, men existed 
 by hundreds of millions. Nay, even if it had 
 been possible for me to know all of my own 
 generation, yet, like Dr. Faustus who desired 
 to see " Helen of Greece," I should still have 
 been dissatisfied ; for what was one generation 
 to all that were past? Nay, my madness took 
 yet a higher flight. For I considered that I 
 stood on a little isthmus of time, which con- 
 
DESPOTISM OF ONE FEELING. 71 
 
 nected the two great worlds — the past and the 
 future. I stood in equal relation to both ; I 
 asked for admittance to one as much as to the 
 other. Even if a necromancer could have 
 brought up the great men of the seventeenth 
 century, I should have said, what good does all 
 this do me? where are those of the twentieth cen- 
 tury? and so onward ! In short, I never turned 
 my thoughts this way, but I fell into a down- 
 right midsummer madness ; I could not enjoy 
 what I had, craving for that which I had not, 
 and could not have ; was thirsty like Tantalus 
 in the midst of waters ; even when using my 
 present wealth, thought only of its perishable- 
 ness ; and " wept to have — what I so feared to 
 lose!" But all this, you will say, was by my 
 own admission " madness." Madness, I grant, 
 but such a madness — not as lunatics suffer — 
 no hallucination of the brain ; but a madness 
 like that of misers — the usurpation and despo- 
 tism of one feeling, natural in itself, but travel- 
 ling into an excess, which at last upset all 
 which should have balanced it. And I must 
 assert, that with allowance for difference of 
 degrees, no madness is more common. Many 
 
72 BOOKS. 
 
 of those who give themselves up to the study 
 of Languages do so under the same disease 
 which I have described ; and, if they do not 
 carry it on to the same extremity of wretched- 
 ness, it is because they are not so logical, and 
 so consistent in their madness, as I was. Un- 
 der our present enormous accumulation of 
 books, I do affirm, that a miserable distraction 
 of choice (which is the germ of such a madness) 
 must be very generally incident to the times ; 
 that the symptoms of it are, in fact, very preva- 
 lent ; and that one of the chief symptoms is an 
 enormous " gluttonism" for books, and for 
 adding language to language ; and in this way 
 it is that literature becomes much more a source 
 of torment than of pleasure. Nay, I will go 
 farther, and will say that of many, who escape 
 this disease, some owe their privilege simply to 
 the narrowness of their minds and the contrac- 
 ted range of their sympathies with literature — 
 which, enlarged, they would soon lose it ! others 
 again owe it to their situation ; as, for instance, 
 in a country town, where, books being few f a 
 man can use up all his materials, his appetite 
 is unpalled — and he is grateful for the loan of 
 
LITERARY DISPLAY. 73 
 
 a MS. &c. : but bring him up to London — show 
 him the wagon loads of unused stores which he 
 is at liberty to work up — tell him that these 
 even are but a trifle, perhaps, to what he may 
 find in the libraries of Paris, Dresden, Milan, 
 dec. — of religious houses — of English noble- 
 men, &c. ; and this same man, who came up 
 to London blithe and happy, will leave it pale 
 and sad. You have ruined his peace of mind : 
 a subject which he fancied himself capable of 
 exhausting, he finds to be a labour for centu- 
 ries : he has no longer the healthy pleasure of 
 feeling himself master of his materials ; he is 
 degraded into their slave. Perhaps I dwell too 
 much on this subject ; but allow me, before I 
 leave it, to illustrate what I have said by the 
 case of two eminent literati, who are at this 
 moment exhibiting themselves as a couple of 
 figurantes (if I may so say) on the stage of 
 Europe, and who have sacrificed their own 
 happiness and dignity of mind to the very mad- 
 ness I have been describing ; or, if not, to the 
 far more selfish passion for notoriety and 
 ostentatious display. The men I mean are 
 F. Bouterwek and Frederic Schlegel, better 
 7 
 
74 BOUTERWEK. 
 
 known to the English public as the friend of 
 Madame de Stael. The history of the first is 
 somewhat ludicrous. Coming upon the stage 
 at a time when Kant possessed the national mind 
 of Germany, he thought it would be a good 
 speculation not to fall into the train of the phi- 
 losopher — but to open a sort of chapel of dis- 
 sent. He saw no reason why men should not 
 swear by Bouterwek, as well as by Kant; and, 
 connecting this fact with the subsequent con- 
 fession of Bouterwek, that he was in reality 
 playing off a conscious hoax, it is laughable to 
 mention, that for a time he absolutely found 
 some followers — who worshipped him, but 
 suspiciously and provisionally; unfortunately, 
 however, as he had no leisure or ability to 
 understand Kant, he was obliged to adopt Dr. 
 Priestley's plan of revoking and cancelling in 
 every successive work all his former works as 
 false, pestilent, and heretical. This upset him. 
 The philosopher was unfrocked; and in that 
 line of business he found himself bankrupt. At 
 this crisis things looked ill. However, being 
 young, he pleaded his tender years. George 
 Barnwell and others had been led astray as 
 
BOUTERWEK. 75 
 
 well as himself, by keeping bad company : he 
 had now quitted all connection with metaphy- 
 sics ; and begged to inform the public that he 
 had opened an entirely new concern for criti- 
 cism in all its branches. He kept his word : 
 he left off hoaxing ; and applied himself to a 
 respectable line of business. The fruits of his 
 labours were a history, in twelve volumes, of 
 modern literature from the end of the thirteenth 
 century. Of this work I have examined all 
 that I pretend to judge of; viz. the two sections 
 relating to the German and the English litera- 
 ture; and, not to do him injustice, if it professed 
 to be no more than a bibliographical record of 
 books, it is executed with a very laudable care 
 and fidelity. But imagine to yourself the vast 
 compass of his plan. He professes to give the 
 history of — 1. Spanish; 2. Portuguese; 3. 
 English ; 4. German ; 5. French ; 6. Italian 
 literature ; no sketch, observe, or abstract of 
 them — but a full and formal history. Conceive, 
 if you can, the monstrous and insane preten- 
 sions involved in such a scheme. At starting 
 he had five languages to learn, besides the dia- 
 lects of his own ; not only so, but five Ian- 
 
76 SCHLEGEL. 
 
 guages, each through all its varieties for the 
 space of half a millennium : English, for in- 
 stance, not merely of this day — but the English 
 of Chaucer, of the Metrical Romances ; nay, 
 even of Robert of Gloucester, in 1280. Next, 
 the mere printed books (to say nothing of the 
 MSS.) in any one of these languages, to be 
 read and meditated, as they ought to be by an 
 historian of the literature, would have found 
 full employment for twelve able-bodied men 
 through an entire life. And after all, when the 
 materials were ready, the work of composition 
 would be still to begin. Such were Bouterwek's 
 pretensions : as to SchlegePs, who, without any 
 more genius or originality, has much more 
 talent ; his were still more extravagant, — and 
 were pushed to an extremity that must, I should 
 think, at times disquiet his admirers with a 
 feeling that all is not sound. For, though he 
 did not profess to go so much into detail as 
 Bouterwek, still his abstracts are represented 
 as built on as much reading, though not directly 
 quoted ; and to all that Bouterwek held forth in 
 his promises, Schlegel added, as a little bonus 
 to his subscribers, 1. Oriental literature; 2. 
 
LITERARY PRETENSION. 77 
 
 The Scandinavian literature ; 3. The Provencal 
 literature ; and, for aught I know, a billion of 
 things besides ; to say nothing of an active share 
 in the current literature, as Reviewer, Maga- 
 zinist, and author of all work. Now the very- 
 history of these pretensions exposes their hol- 
 lowness : to record them is to refute them. 
 Knowing, as we all know, how many years it 
 demands, and by what a leisurely and genial 
 communication with their works it is, that we 
 can gain any deep intimacy with even a few 
 great artists, such as Shakspeare, Milton, or 
 Euripides — how monstrous a fiction would that 
 man force on our credulity who tells us that 
 he has read and weighed in the balances the 
 total products of human intellect dispersed 
 through thirty languages for a period of three 
 thousands years ; and how gross a delusion 
 does he practise upon his own mind who can 
 persuade himself that it is reading to cram him- 
 self with words, the bare sense of which can 
 hardly have time to glance, like the lamps of a 
 mail coach, upon his hurried and bewildered 
 understanding. There is a picture at Oxford, 
 which I saw when a boy, of an old man with 
 7* 
 
78 LITERARY PRETENSION. 
 
 misery in his eye in the act of copying a book ; 
 and the story attached (I forget whether with 
 any historic foundation) is that he was under 
 a vow to copy out some great portion of the 
 Bible before he allowed himself (or was allowed) 
 to eat. I dare say you know the picture; and 
 perhaps I tell the story wrong. However, just 
 such a man, and just so wo-begone must this 
 man of words appear when he is alone in his 
 study; with a frozen heart and a famished 
 intellect; and every now and then, perhaps, 
 exclaiming with Alcibiades, "■ Oh ye Athenians ! 
 What a world of hardship I endure to obtain 
 your applause." So slightly is his knowledge 
 worked into the texture of his mind, that I am 
 persuaded a brain fever would sweep it all 
 away. With this sketch of Messrs. Bouterwek 
 and Schlegel, it is superfluous to add, that 
 their criticisms are utterly worthless — being all 
 words — words — words : however, with this dif- 
 ference, that Bouterwek's are simply =0, being 
 the mere rubbishy sweepings from the works 
 of literatuli long since defunct : but Schlegel's, 
 agreeably to his natural haughtiness and supe- 
 rior talents, are bad in a positive sense — being 
 
LITERARY DISPLAY. 79 
 
 filled with such conceits, fancies, and fictions, 
 as you would naturally expect from a clever 
 man talking about what he had never, in any 
 true sense of the word, read. (Note F.) Oh ! 
 genius of English good sense, keep any child 
 of mine from ever sacrificing his peace and 
 intellectual health, to such a life of showy 
 emptiness, of pretence, of noise, and of words : 
 and even with a view to the opinion of others, 
 if it were worth while sacrificing very much to 
 that, teach him how far more enviable is the 
 reputation of having produced even one work, 
 though but in a lower department of art, and 
 which has given pleasure to myriads — (such 
 suppose as " The Vicar of Wakefield") — than 
 to have lived in the wonderment of a gazing 
 crowd, like a rope dancer or a posture master, 
 with the fame of incredible attainments that 
 tend to no man's pleasure, and which perish to 
 the remembrance of all men as soon as their 
 possessor is in his grave. 
 
 Thus, at some risk of fatiguing you, I have 
 endeavoured to sharpen your attention to the 
 extreme danger which threatens a self-instructor 
 in the besetting temptations to an over cultiva- 
 
80 COUNSEL OF MATHIAS. 
 
 tion of languages ; temptations which, whether 
 appealing to his vanity and love of ostentation 
 — or to his craving for a multifarious mastery 
 over books, terminate in the same evil of sub- 
 stituting a barren study of words, which is, 
 besides, the most lingering of all studies, for 
 the healthy exercises of the intellect. All the 
 great European poets, orators, and wits, are 
 mentioned in a man's hearing so often, and so 
 much discussion is constantly going on about 
 their comparative merits, that a body of irritation 
 and curiosity collects about these names, and 
 unites with more legitimate feelings to persuade a 
 man that it is necessary he should read them all 
 — each in his own language. In a celebrated satire 
 ( The Pursuits of Literature) much read in my 
 youth, and which I myself read about twenty- 
 five years ago, I remember one counsel — there, 
 addressed to young men, but, in fact, of uni- 
 versal application. " I call upon them," said 
 the author, " to dare to be ignorant of many 
 things ;" a wise counsel, and justly expressed ; 
 for it requires much courage to forsake popular 
 paths of knowledge, merely upon a conviction 
 that they are not favourable to the ultimate 
 
TEST OF A GOOD SCHEME. 81 
 
 ends of knowledge. In you, however, that 
 sort of courage may be presumed ; but how 
 will you " dare to be ignorant" of many things 
 in opposition to the cravings of your own mind ? 
 Simply thus : destroy these false cravings by 
 introducing a healthier state of the organ. 
 A good scheme of study will soon show itself 
 to be such by this one test — that it will ex- 
 clude as powerfully as it will appropriate; 
 it will be a system of repulsion no less than 
 of attraction : once thoroughly possessed and 
 occupied by the deep and genial pleasures 
 of one truly intellectual pursuit, you will be 
 easy and indifferent to all others that had pre- 
 viously teased you with transient excitement : 
 just as you will sometimes see a man super- 
 ficially irritated as it were with wandering fits 
 of liking for three or four women at once, 
 which he is absurd enough to call " being in 
 love :" but once profoundly in love (supposing 
 him capable of being so) he never makes such 
 a mistake again, all his feelings after that being 
 absorbed into a sublime unity. Now, without 
 anticipating this scheme of study out of its 
 place, yet in general you know whether your 
 intentions lean most to science or to literature. 
 
82 LITERATURE. 
 
 For, upon this decision, revolve the whole mo- 
 tives which can determine your choice of lan- 
 guages : as, for instance, if you are in quest of 
 science or philosophy, no language in Europe 
 at this day (unless the Turkish) is so slenderly 
 furnished as the Spanish : on the other hand, 
 for literature, I am disposed to think that after 
 the English none is so wealthy (I mean in 
 quality, not in quantity). Here, however, to 
 prevent all mistakes, let me establish one 
 necessary distinction. The word literature is 
 a perpetual source of confusion, because it is 
 used in two senses, and those senses liable to 
 be confounded with each other. In a philoso- 
 phical use of the word, literature is the direct 
 and adequate antithesis of books of knowledge. 
 But in a popular use, it is a mere term of con- 
 venience for expressing inclusively the total 
 books in a language. In this latter sense, a 
 dictionary, a grammar, a spelling-book, an 
 almanack, a' pharmacopoeia, a parliamentary 
 report, a system of farriery, a treatise on bil- 
 liards, the court calendar, &c. belong to the 
 literature. But in the philosophical sense, not 
 only would it be ludicrous to reckon these as 
 
LITERATURE. 83 
 
 parts of the literature, but even books of much 
 higher pretensions must be excluded — as, for 
 instance, books of voyages and travels, and 
 generally all books in which the matter to be 
 communicated is paramount to the manner or 
 form of its communication (" ornari res ipsa 
 negat, contenta doceri.") It is difficult to con- 
 struct the idea of " literature" with severe 
 accuracy ; for it is a fine art — the supreme 
 fine art, and liable to the difficulties which 
 attend such a subtle notion : in fact, a severe 
 construction of the idea must be the result of 
 a philosophical investigation into this subject, 
 and cannot precede it. But for the sake of 
 obtaining some expession for literature that 
 may answer our present purpose, let us throw 
 the question into another form. I have said 
 that the antithesis of literature is books of 
 knowledge. Now, what is that antithesis to 
 knowledge, which is here implicitly latent in 
 the word literature ? The vulgar antithesis is 
 'pleasure : (" aut prodesse volunt, aut delec- 
 tare poetse.") Books, we are told, propose to 
 instruct or to amuse. Indeed ! However, not 
 to spend any words upon it, I suppose you will 
 
84 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 admit that this wretched antithesis will be of 
 no service to us. And, by the way, let me 
 remark to you, in this as in other cases, how 
 men by their own errors of understanding, by 
 feeble thinking, and inadequate distinctions, 
 forge chains of meanness and servility for 
 themselves. For this miserable alternative be- 
 ing once admitted, observe what follows. In 
 which class of books does the Paradise Lost 
 stand 1 Among those which instruct, or those 
 which amuse 1 Now, if a man answers, among 
 those which instruct, — he lies : for there is no 
 instruction in it, nor could be in any great 
 poem, according to the meaning which the 
 word must bear in this distinction, unless it is 
 meant that it should involve its own antithesis. 
 But if he says, " No — amongst those which 
 amuse," — then what a beast must he be to 
 degrade, and in this way, what has done the 
 most of any human work to raise and dignify 
 human nature. But the truth is, you see that 
 the idiot does not wish to degrade it ; on the 
 contrary, he would willingly tell a lie in its 
 favour, if that would be admitted ; but such is 
 the miserable state of slavery to which he has 
 
ANTITHESIS TO KNOWLEDGE. 85 
 
 reduced himself by his own puny distinction ; 
 for, as soon as he hops out of one of his little 
 cells, he is under a necessity of hopping into 
 the other. The true antithesis (Note F) to 
 knowledge in this case is not pleasure, but 
 power. All, that is literature, seeks to com- 
 municate power ; all, that is not literature, to 
 communicate knowledge. Now, if it be asked 
 what is meant by communicating power, I in 
 my turn would ask by what name a man 
 would designate the case in which I should be 
 made to feel vividly, and with a vital con- 
 sciousness, emotions which ordinary life rarely 
 or never supplies occasions for exciting, and 
 which had previously lain unawakened, and 
 hardly within the dawn of consciousness — as 
 myriads of modes of feeling are at this moment 
 in every human mind for want of a poet to 
 organize them ? — I say, when these inert and 
 sleeping forms are organized — when these pos- 
 sibilities are actualized, — is this conscious and 
 living possession of mine poicer, or what is it ? 
 When in King Lear, the height, and depth, 
 and breadth of human passion is revealed to 
 us — and for the purposes of a sublime anta- 
 8 
 
86 POWER AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 gonism is revealed in the weakness of an old 
 man's nature, and in one night two worlds of 
 storm are brought face to face — the human 
 world, and the world of physical nature — mir- 
 rors of each other, semichoral antiphonies, 
 strophe and antistrophe heaving with rival 
 convulsions, and with the double darkness of 
 night and madness, when I am thus suddenly 
 startled into a feeling of the infinity of the 
 world within me, is this power 1 or what may 
 I call it? Space, again — what is it in most 
 men's minds ? The lifeless form of the world 
 without us — a postulate of the geometrician, 
 with no more vitality or real existence to their 
 feelings, than the square root of two. But, if 
 Milton has been able to inform this empty 
 theatre, peopling it with Titanic shadows, 
 forms that sat at the eldest counsels of the 
 infant world, chaos and original night, — 
 
 Ghostly shapes, 
 
 To meet at noontide, Fear and trembling Hope, 
 
 Death the Skeleton, 
 
 And Time the Shadow 
 
 so that, from being a thing to inscribe with 
 diagrams, it has become under his hands a vital 
 
ANCIENT CLASSICS. 87 
 
 agent on the human mind ; I presume that I 
 may justly express the tendency of the Paradise 
 Lost, by saying that it communicates power ; a 
 pretension far above all communication of know- 
 ledge. Henceforth, therefore, I shall use the 
 antithesis power and knowledge as the most 
 philosophical expression for literature (i. e. 
 Literse Humaniores) and anti-literature (i. e. 
 Literce didacticce — TLoudsia). 
 
 Now then, prepared with this distinction, let 
 us inquire whether — weighing the difficulties 
 against the benefits — there is an overbalance 
 of motive for you with your purposes to study 
 what are inaccurately termed (Note G) the 
 " classical" languages. And, first, with re- 
 spect to Greek. We have often had the ques- 
 tion debated, and, in our own days, solemn 
 challenges thrown out and solemn adjudications 
 given on the question whether any benefit cor- 
 responding to the time and the labour can be 
 derived from the study of the ancient classics. 
 Hitherto, however, the question could not be 
 rightly shaped : for, as no man chose to plead 
 " amusement" as a sufficient motive for so 
 great an undertaking, it was always debated 
 
88 GREEK LANGUAGE. 
 
 with a single reference to the knowledge involved 
 in those literatures. But this is a ground wholly 
 untenable. For let the knowledge be what it 
 might, all knowledge is translatable ; and 
 translatable without one atom of loss. If this 
 were all, therefore, common sense would pre- 
 scribe that faithful translations should be exe- 
 cuted of all the classics, and all men in future 
 depend upon these vicarious labours. With 
 respect to the Greek, this would soon be ac- 
 complished : for what is the knowledge which 
 lurks in that language ? All knowledge may 
 be commodiously distributed into science and 
 erudition : of the latter, (antiquities, geogra- 
 phy, philology, theology, &c.) there is a very 
 considerable body; of the former, but little; 
 viz. the mathematical and musical works, — 
 and the medical works : what else ? Nothing 
 that can deserve the name of science, except 
 the single organon of Aristotle. With Greek 
 medicine, I suppose that you have no concern. 
 As to mathematics, a man must be an idiot if he 
 were to study Greek for the sake of Archimedes, 
 Apollonius, or Diophantus. In Latin or in 
 French, you may find them all regularly trans- 
 
GRECIAN LITERATURE. 89 
 
 lated : and parts of them embodied in the works 
 of English mathematicians. Besides, if it were 
 otherwise, where the notions and all the rela- 
 tions are so few — elementary and determinate, 
 and the vocabulary therefore so scanty as in 
 mathematics, it could not be necessary to learn 
 Greek even if you were disposed to read the ma- 
 thematicians in that language. I see no marvel 
 in Halley's having translated an Arabic manu- 
 script on mathematics, with no previous know- 
 ledge of Arabic : on the contrary, it is a case 
 (and not a very difficult case) of the art of 
 deciphering, so much practised by Wallis, and 
 other great mathematicians contemporary with 
 Halley. But all this is an idle disputation : for 
 the knowledge of whatsoever sort which lies in 
 Grecian mines, wretchedly as we are furnished 
 with vernacular translations, the Latin version 
 will always supply. This, therefore, is not 
 the ground to be taken by the advocate of 
 Greek letters. It is not for knowledge that 
 Greek is worth learning, but for power. Here 
 arises the question — of what value is this 
 power? i. e. how is the Grecian literature to 
 be rated in relation to other literatures ? Now 
 8* 
 
90 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE". 
 
 is it not only because " De Carthagine satius 
 est silerequam parcius dicere," but also because 
 in my judgment there is no more offensive 
 form of levity than the readiness to speak on 
 great problems, incidentally and occasionally, — 
 that I shall wholly decline this question. We 
 have hitherto seen no rational criticism on 
 Greek literature ; nor, indeed, to say the truth, 
 much criticism which teaches any thing, or 
 solves any thing, upon any literature. I shall 
 simply suggest one consideration to you. The 
 question is limited wholly, as you see, to the 
 value of the literature in the proper sense cf 
 that word. Now, it is my private theory, to 
 which you will allow what degree of weight 
 you please, that the Antique or pagan literature 
 is a polar antagonist to the modern or Christian 
 literature ; that each is an evolution from a dis- 
 tinct principle, having nothing in common but 
 what is necessarily common to all modes of 
 thought — viz. good sense and logic ; and that 
 they are to be criticised from different stations 
 and points of view. This same thought has 
 occurred to others ; but no great advance is 
 made simply by propounding the general thesis; 
 
LATIN LANGUAGE. 91 
 
 and as yet nobody has done more. (Note H.) 
 It is only by the developement of this thesis 
 that any real service can be performed. This 
 I have myself attempted, in a series of " reve- 
 ries" on that subject ; and, if you continue to 
 hesitate on the question of learning Greek now 
 that you know exactly how that question is 
 shaped, and to what it points, my manuscript 
 contains all the assistance that it is in my 
 power to offer you in such a dilemma. The 
 difference of the Antique from the Christian 
 Literature, you must bear in mind, is not like 
 that between English and Spanish literature — 
 species and species — but as between genus and 
 genus. The advantages therefore are — 1, the 
 power, which it offers generally as a literature ; 
 2, the new phasis under which it presents the 
 human mind ; the Antique being the other 
 hemisphere, as it were, which, with our own, 
 or Christian hemisphere, composes the entire 
 sphere of human intellectual energy. 
 
 So much for the Greek. Now as to the Latin, 
 the case is wholly reversed. Here the literature 
 is of far less value ; and, on the whole, with your 
 views, it might be doubted whether it would 
 
92 LATIN LANGUAGE. 
 
 recompense your pains. But the anti-literature 
 (as for want of a strict antithesis I must call it) 
 is inestimable ; Latin having been the universal 
 language of Christendom for so long a period. 
 The Latin works since the restoration of letters, 
 are alone of immense value for knowledge of 
 every kind ; much science, inexhaustible eru- 
 dition ; and to this day in Germany, and else- 
 where on the Continent, the best part of the 
 latter is communicated in Latin. Now, though 
 all knowledge is (which power is not) adequate- 
 ly communicable by translation, yet as there 
 is no hope that the immense bibliotheca of 
 Latin accumulated in the last three centuries 
 ever will be translated, you cannot possibly 
 dispense with this language ; and, that being 
 so, it is fortunate that you have already a 
 superficial acquaintance with it. The best 
 means of cultivating it further, and the grounds 
 of selection amongst the modem languages of 
 Christendom, I will discuss fully in my next 
 letter. 
 
 Yours, most truly, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 It is my misfortune to have been under the 
 necessity too often of writing rapidly and with- 
 out opportunities for after-revision. In cases 
 where much composition is (Note I) demanded, 
 this is a serious misfortune ; and sometimes 
 irreparable, except at the price of recasting 
 the whole work. But to a subject like the 
 present, little of what is properly called com- 
 position is applicable ; and somewhat the less 
 from the indeterminate form of letters into 
 which I have purposely thrown my communi- 
 cations. Errors in composition apart, there 
 can be no others of importance, except such 
 as relate to the matter : and those are not at 
 all the more incident to a man because he is 
 in a hurry. Not to be too much at leisure is 
 indeed often an advantage : on no occasion of 
 their lives do men generally speak better than 
 
94 HASTE. 
 
 on the scaffold and with the executioner at 
 their side : partly indeed, because they are 
 then most in earnest and unsolicitous about 
 effect ; but partly also, because the pressure of 
 the time sharpens and condenses the faculty 
 of abstracting the capital points at issue. On 
 this account, I do not plead haste as an abso- 
 lute and unmitigated disadvantage. Haste pal- 
 liates what haste occasions. Now there is no 
 haste which can occasion oversights, as to the 
 matter, to him who has meditated sufficiently 
 upon his subject : all that haste can do in such 
 a case, is to affect the language with respect to 
 accuracy and precision : and thus far I plead 
 it. I shall never plead it as shrinking from 
 the severest responsibility for the thoughts and 
 substance of any thing I say; but often in 
 palliation of expressions careless or ill-chosen. 
 And at no time can I stand more in need of 
 such indulgence than at present, when I write 
 both hastily and under circumstances of — but 
 no matter what ; believe in general that I write 
 under circumstances as unfavourable for care- 
 ful selection of words as can well be imagined. 
 In my last letter I declined to speak of the 
 
ROMAN LITERATURE. 95 
 
 antique literature, as a subject too unwieldy and 
 unmanageable for my limits. I now recur to 
 it for the sake of guarding and restraining that 
 particular sentence in which I have spoken of 
 the Roman literature as inferior to the Greek. 
 In common with all the world, I must of 
 necessity think it so in the drama, and gene- 
 rally in poetry xar' sfo^v. Indeed, for some 
 forms of poetry, even of the lower order, it 
 was the misfortune of the Roman literature 
 that they were not cultivated until the era of 
 fastidious taste, which in every nation takes 
 place at a certain stage of society. They were 
 harshly transplanted as exotics, and never 
 passed through the just degrees of a natural 
 growth on Roman soil. Notwithstanding this, 
 the most exquisite specimens of the lighter 
 lyric which the world has yet seen must be 
 sought for in Horace : and very few writers of 
 any country have approached to Virgil in the 
 art of composition, however low we may be 
 disposed at this day to rank him as a poet, 
 when tried in the unequal contest with the 
 sublimities of the Christian literature. The 
 truth is (and this is worth being attended to) 
 
96 ROMAN MIND. 
 
 that the peculiar sublimity of the Roman mind 
 does not express itself, nor is it at all to be 
 sought in their poetry. Poetry, according to the 
 Roman ideal of it, was not an adequate organ 
 for the grander movements of the national 
 mind. Roman sublimity must be looked for 
 in Roman acts, and in Roman sayings. 
 
 For the acts — see their history for a thousand 
 years ; the early and fabulous part not excepted, 
 which, for the very reason that it is (Note J) 
 fabulous, must be taken as so much the purer 
 product of the Roman mind. Even the infancy 
 of Rome was like the cradle of Hercules — 
 glorified by splendid marvels : — " Nee licuit 
 populis parvum te, Nile, videre." For their say- 
 ings — for their anecdotes — their serious bon 
 mots, there are none equal to the Roman in 
 grandeur. " Englishman !" said a Frenchman 
 once to me, " you that contest our claim to 
 the sublime, and contend that < la maniere 
 noble' of our artists wears a falsetto character, 
 what do you think of that saying of a king of 
 ours, That it became not the King of France 
 to avenge the injuries of the Duke of Orleans 
 (i. e. of himself under that title) ?" " Think !" 
 
IMPERIAL BON MOTS. 97 
 
 said I, " Why, I think it a magnificent and 
 regal speech. And such is my English ge- 
 nerosity, that I heartily wish the Emperor 
 Hadrian had not said the same thing fifteen 
 hundred years before. (Note K.) I would 
 willingly give five shillings myself to purchase 
 the copyright of the saying for the French 
 nation : for they want it ; and the Romans could 
 spare it. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt ! 
 Cursed be the name of Hadrian that stands be- 
 tween France and the sublimest of bon mots !" 
 Where, again, will you find a more adequate 
 expression of the Roman majesty, than in the 
 saying of Trajan — Imperatorem oportere stan- 
 tem mori — that Csesar ought to die standing ; 
 a speech of imperatorial grandeur ! Implying 
 that he, who was " the foremost man of all 
 this world," — and, in regard to all other nations, 
 the representative of his own, should express 
 its characteristic virtue in his farewell act — 
 should die in iwocinctu — and should meet the 
 last (Note L) enemy, as the first, with a 
 Roman countenance and in a soldier's atti- 
 tude. If this had an imperatorial — what fol- 
 lows had a consular majesty, and is almost 
 9 
 
98 MARIUS. 
 
 the grandest story upon record. Marius, the 
 man who rose a caligd to be seven times con- 
 sul, was in a dungeon : and a slave was sent 
 in with commission to put him to death. These 
 were the persons, — the two extremities of ex- 
 alted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and 
 its rearward man, a Roman consul and an 
 abject slave. But their natural relations to 
 each other were by the caprice of fortune mon- 
 strously inverted : the consul was in chains ; 
 the slave was for a moment the arbiter of his 
 fate. By what spells, what magic, did Marius 
 reinstate himself in his natural prerogatives ? 
 By what marvels drawn from heaven or from 
 earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, again 
 invest himself with the purple, and place be- 
 tween himself and his assassin a host of sha- 
 dowy lictors ? By the mere blank supremacy 
 of great minds over weak ones. He fascinated 
 the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Standing 
 " like Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and 
 said, " Tune, homo, audes occidere C. Marium 1" 
 Dost thou, fellow, presume to kill Caius Ma- 
 rius ? Whereat the reptile, quaking under the 
 voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, 
 
GRECIAN MODELS. 99 
 
 sank gently to the ground — turned round upon 
 his hands and feet — and, crawling out of the 
 prison like any other vermin, left Marius stand- 
 ing in solitude as steadfast and immoveable as 
 the capitol. 
 
 In such anecdotes as these it is, in the actions 
 of trying emergencies and their appropriate 
 circumstances, that I find the revelation of the 
 Roman mind under its highest aspect. The 
 Roman mind was great in the presence of 
 man, mean in the presence of nature : impotent 
 to comprehend or to delineate the internal strife 
 of passion (Note M), but powerful beyond any 
 other national mind to display the energy of 
 the icill victorious over all passion. Hence it 
 is that the true Roman sublime exists no where 
 in such purity as in those works which were 
 not composed with a reference to Grecian mo- 
 dels. On this account I wholly dissent from 
 the shallow classification which expresses the 
 relations of merit between the writers of the 
 Augustan period, and that which followed, 
 under the type of a golden and silver age. As 
 artists, and with reference to composition, no 
 doubt many of the writers of the latter age 
 
100 THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 
 
 were rightly so classed : but an inferiority 
 quoad hoc, argues no uniform and absolute 
 inferiority : and the fact is, that in weight and 
 grandeur of thought, the silver writers were 
 much superior to the golden. Indeed, this might 
 have been looked for on a priori grounds. For 
 the silver writers were more truly Roman wri- 
 ters from two causes : first because they trusted 
 more to their own native style of thinking ; 
 and looking less anxiously to Grecian arche- 
 types, they wrote more naturally, feelingly, 
 and originally : secondly, because the political 
 circumstances of their times were advanta- 
 geous, and liberated them from the suspicious 
 caution which cramped the natural movements 
 of a Roman mind on the first establishment of 
 the monarchy. Whatever outrages of despotism 
 occurred in the times of the silver writers, were 
 sudden, transient, capricious, and personal in 
 their origin and in their direction : but in the 
 Augustan age, it was not the temper of Augus- 
 tus personally, and certainly not the temper of 
 the writers leading them to any excesses of 
 licentious speculation, which created the dan- 
 ger of bold thinking ; the danger was in the 
 
THE SILVER AGE. 101 
 
 times, which were unquiet and revolutionary : 
 the struggle with the republican party was yet 
 too recent ; the wounds and cicatrices of the 
 state too green ; the existing order of things too 
 immature and critical : the triumphant party 
 still viewed as a party, and for that cause still 
 feeling itself a party militant. Augustus had 
 that chronic complaint of a " crick in the 
 neck," of which later princes are said to have 
 an acute attack every 30th of January. Hence 
 a servile and timid tone in the literature. The 
 fiercer republicans could not be safely men- 
 tioned : even Cicero it was not decorous to 
 praise ; and Virgil, as perhaps you know, has 
 by insinuation contrived to insult (Note N) his 
 memory in the ^Eneid. But, as the irresponsi- 
 ble power of the emperors grew better secured, 
 their jealousy of republican sentiment abated 
 much of its keenness. And, considering that 
 republican freedom of thought was the very 
 matrix of Roman sublimity, it ought not to 
 surprise us, that as fast as the national mind 
 was lightened from the pressure which weighed 
 
 upon the natural style of its sentiment — the 
 9 # 
 
102 THE SILVER WRITERS. 
 
 literature should recoil into a freer movement 
 with an elasticity proportioned to the intensity 
 and brevity of its depression. Accordingly, in 
 Seneca the philosopher, in Lucan, in Tacitus, 
 even in Pliny the younger, &c., but especially 
 in the two first, I affirm that there is a loftiness 
 of thought more eminently and characteris- 
 tically Roman than in any preceding writers : 
 and in that view to rank them as writers of 
 a silver age, is worthy only of those who are 
 servile to the common-places of unthinking 
 criticism. 
 
 The style of thought in the silver writers, 
 as a raw material, was generally more valua- 
 ble than that of their predecessors ; however 
 much they fell below them in the art of work- 
 ing up that material. And I shall add further 
 that, when I admit the vast defects of Lucan, 
 for instance, as an artist, I would not be un- 
 derstood as involving in that concession the 
 least toleration of the vulgar doctrine, that the 
 diction of the silver writers is in any respect 
 below the standard of pure latinity as existing 
 in the writers of the Ciceronian age. A better 
 structure of latinity, I will affirm boldly, does 
 
MODERN LANGUAGES. 103 
 
 not exist than that of Petronius Arbiter : and, 
 taken as a body, the writers of what is deno- 
 minated the silver age, are for diction no less 
 Roman, and for thought much more intensely- 
 Roman, than any other equal number of wri- 
 ters from the preceding ages ; and, with a 
 very few exceptions, are the best fitted to take 
 a permanent station in the regard of men at 
 your age or mine, when the meditative facul- 
 ties, if they exist at all, are apt to expand — 
 and to excite a craving for a greater weight of 
 thought than is usually to be met with in the 
 elder writers of the Roman literature. This ex- 
 planation made, and having made that " amende 
 honorable" to the Roman literature which my 
 own gratitude demanded, — I come to the re- 
 maining part of my business in this letter — 
 viz. the grounds of choice amongst the lan- 
 guages of modern Europe. Reserving to my 
 conclusion any thing I have to say upon these 
 languages ^ as depositories of literature pro- 
 perly so called, I shall first speak of them as 
 depositories of knoidedge. Among the four 
 great races of men in Europe, viz. 1. The 
 Celtic, occupying a few of the western extre- 
 
104 LATIN AND TEUTONIC FAMILIES. 
 
 mities (Note O) of Europe ; 2. The Teutonic, 
 occupying the northern and midland parts ; 
 3. The Latin (blended with Teutonic tribes), 
 occupying the south ; (Note P) and, 4. The 
 Sclavonic, occupying the east (Note Q), it is 
 evident that of the first and the last, it is unne- 
 cessary to say any thing in this place, because 
 their pretensions to literature do not extend to 
 our present sense of the word. No Celt even, 
 however extravagant, pretends to the posses- 
 sion of a body of Celtic philosophy, and Celtic 
 science of independent growth. The Celtic 
 and Sclavonic languages therefore dismissed, 
 our business at present is with those of the 
 Latin and the Teutonic families. Now three 
 of the Latin family, viz. the Italian, Spanish, 
 and Portuguese, are at once excluded for the 
 purpose before us : because it is notorious that, 
 from political and religious causes, these three 
 nations have but feebly participated in the 
 general scientific and philosophic labours of 
 the age. Italy, indeed, has cultivated natural 
 philosophy with an exclusive zeal ; a direction 
 probably impressed upon the national mind, 
 by patriotic reverence for her great names in 
 
DANISH LITERATURE. 105 
 
 that department. But merely for the sake of 
 such knowledge (supposing no other motive) 
 it would be idle to pay the price of learning 
 a language ; all the current contributions to 
 science being regularly gathered into the gene- 
 ral garner of Europe by the scientific journals 
 both at home and abroad. Of the Latin lan- 
 guages, therefore, which are wholly the lan- 
 guages of Catholic nations, but one — i. e. the 
 French — can present any sufficient attractions 
 to a student in search of general knowledge. 
 Of the Teutonic literatures, on the other hand, 
 which are the adequate representatives of the 
 Protestant intellectual interest in Europe (no 
 Catholic nations speaking a Teutonic language 
 except the southern states of Germany, and 
 part of the Netherlands), all give way at once 
 to the paramount pretensions of the English 
 and the German. I do not say this with the 
 levity of ignorance — as if presuming as a mat- 
 ter of course that in a small territory, such as 
 Denmark, e. g. the literature must, of neces- 
 sity, bear a value proportioned to its political 
 rank : on the contrary, I have some acquaint- 
 ance with the Danish (Note R) literature ; and 
 
106 SIMULTANEOUS EFFORTS. 
 
 though, in the proper sense of the word litera- 
 ture as a body of creative art, I cannot esteem 
 it highly, — yet as a depository of knowledge in 
 one particular direction — (viz. the direction of 
 historical and antiquarian research), it has, 
 undoubtedly, high claims upon the student's 
 attention. But this is a direction in which a 
 long- series of writers descending from a remote 
 antiquity is of more importance than a great 
 contemporary body : whereas, for the cultiva- 
 tion of knowledge in a more comprehensive 
 sense, and arrived at its present stage, large 
 simultaneous efforts are of more importance 
 than the longest successive efforts. Now, for 
 such a purpose, it is self-evident that the means 
 at the disposal of every state, must be in due 
 proportion to its statistical rank. For not only 
 must the scientific institutions, — the purchasers 
 of books, &c. keep pace with the general pro- 
 gress of the country ; but commerce alone, and 
 the arts of life, which are so much benefited by 
 science, naturally react upon science, in a de- 
 gree proportioned to the wealth of every state 
 in their demand for the aids of chemistry, 
 mechanics, engineering, &c. &c. : a fact, with 
 
FRENCH LITERATURE. 107 
 
 its inevitable results, to which I need scarcely 
 call your attention. Moreover, waiving all 
 mere presumptive arguments, the bare amount 
 of books annually published in the several 
 countries of Europe, puts the matter out of all 
 doubt that the great commerce of thought and 
 knowledge in the civilized world is at this day 
 conducted in three languages — the English, the 
 German, and the French. You therefore, 
 having the good fortune to be an Englishman, 
 are to make your choice between the two last : 
 and, this being so, I conceive that there is no 
 room for hesitation — the " detur pulchriori," 
 being in this case (that is, remember, with an 
 exclusive reference to knowledge) a direction 
 easily followed. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was accustomed to say of the 
 French literature, as the kindest thing he had 
 to say about it, that he valued it chiefly for this 
 reason — that it had a book upon every subject. 
 How far this might be a reasonable opinion 
 fifty years ago, and understood, as Dr. Johnson 
 must have meant it, of the French literature as 
 compared with the English of the same period, 
 I will not pretend to say. It has certainly 
 
108 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ceased to be true even under these restrictions ; 
 and is in flagrant opposition to the truth, if 
 extended to the French in its relation to the 
 German. Undoubtedly the French literature 
 holds out to the student some peculiar advan- 
 tages, as what literature does not? some even 
 which we should not have anticipated; for, 
 though we justly value ourselves as a nation 
 upon our classical education, yet no literature 
 is poorer than the English in the learning of 
 classical antiquities, our Bentleys even, and 
 our Porsons, having thrown all their learning 
 into the channel of philology; whilst a single 
 volume of the Memoirs of the French Academy 
 of Inscriptions contains more useful antiquarian 
 research than a whole English library. In 
 digests of history again, the French language 
 is richer than ours, and in their Dictionaries 
 of Miscellaneous knowledge {not in their En- 
 cyclopaedias). But all these are advantages 
 of the French only in relation to the Eng- 
 lish and not to the German literature, which, 
 for vast compass, variety, and extent, far 
 exceeds all others as a depository for the 
 current accumulations of knowledge. The 
 
STATE RIVALSHIP. 109 
 
 mere number of books published annually in 
 Germany, compared with the annual product 
 of France and England, is alone a satisfactory 
 evidence of this assertion. With relation to 
 France it is a second argument in its favour, 
 that the intellectual activity of Germany is not 
 intensely accumulated in one great capital as it 
 is in Paris ; but whilst it is here and there con- 
 verged intensely enough for all useful purposes 
 (as at Berlin, Konigsberg, Leipsic, Dresden, 
 Vienna, Munich, &c.) it is also healthily dif- 
 fused over the whole territory. There is not a 
 sixth-rate town in Protestant Germany which 
 does not annually contribute its quota of books : 
 intellectual culture has manured the whole soil: 
 not a district but it has penetrated — 
 
 Like Spring-, 
 
 Which leaves no corner of the land untouch'd. 
 
 A third advantage on the side of Germany 
 (an advantage for this purpose) is its division 
 into a great number of independent states : from 
 this circumstance, it derives the benefit of an 
 internal rivalship amongst its several members, 
 over and above that general external rivalship 
 10 
 
110 ADVANTAGE OF 
 
 which it maintains with other nations. An 
 advantage of the same kind we enjoy in Eng- 
 land. The British nation is fortunately split 
 into three great divisions ; and thus a national 
 feeling of emulation and contest is excited — 
 slight indeed, or none at all, on the part of the 
 English (not from any merit, but from mere 
 decay of patriotic feeling), stronger on the part 
 of the Irish, and sometimes illiberally and odi- 
 ously strong on the part of the Scotch (espe- 
 cially as you descend — below the rank of gen- 
 tlemen.) But, disgusting as it sometimes is in 
 its expression, this nationality is of great service 
 to our efforts in all directions : a triple power is 
 gained for internal excitement of the national en- 
 ergies ; whilst, in regard to any external enemy 
 or any external rival, the three nations act with 
 the unity of a single force. But the most con- 
 spicuous advantage of the German literature is 
 its great originality and boldness of speculation, 
 and the character of masculine austerity and 
 precision impressed upon their scientific la- 
 bours, by the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolf 
 heretofore, and by the severer philosophy of 
 modern days. Speaking of the German litera- 
 
GERMAN LITERATURE. Ill 
 
 ture at all, it would be mere affectation to say 
 nothing on a subject so far-famed and so much 
 misrepresented as this. Yet to summon myself 
 to an effort of this kind at a moment of weari- 
 ness and exhausted attention, would be the 
 certain means of inflicting great weariness upon 
 you. For the present, therefore, I take my 
 leave, and am most truly yours, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 In my last letter, having noticed the English, 
 the German, and the French, as the three 
 languages in which the great commerce of 
 thought and knowledge, in the civilized world, 
 is at this day conducted ; and having attributed 
 three very considerable advantages to the 
 German as compared with the French ; I 
 brought forward, in conclusion, as an advan- 
 tage more conspicuous even than any I had 
 before insisted on, the great originality and 
 boldness of speculation which have distin- 
 guished the philosophic researches of Germany 
 for the last 150 years (Note T). On this 
 point, as it stood opposed to some prejudices and 
 gross misstatements among ourselves, I natu- 
 rally declined to speak, at the close of a letter 
 which had, perhaps, already exhausted your 
 attention. But, as it would be mere affecta- 
 
THE KANTEAN PHILOSOPHY. 113 
 
 tion wholly to evade a question, about which 
 so much interest (Note U) has gathered, and 
 an interest which, from its objects and grounds, 
 must be so durable, I gave you reason to ex- 
 pect, that I would say a few words on that 
 which is at this time understood by the term 
 German Philosophy — i. e. the philosophy of 
 Kant. This I shall now do. But let me re- 
 mind you for what purpose ; that you may 
 not lay to my charge, as a fault, that limited 
 notice of my subject, which the nature and 
 proportions of my plan prescribe. In a short 
 letter it cannot be supposed possible, if it were 
 otherwise right on this occasion, that I should 
 undertake an analysis of a philosophy so com- 
 prehensive as to leave no track of legitimate 
 interests untouched, and so profound as to pre- 
 suppose many preparatory exercises of the 
 understanding. What the course of my subject 
 demands — is, that I should liberate the name 
 and reputation of the Kantean philosophy from 
 any delusion which may collect about its pur- 
 poses and pretensions, through the representa- 
 tions of those who have spoken of it amongst 
 ourselves. The case is this : I have advised 
 10* 
 
114 NITSCH AND WILLICH. 
 
 you to pay a special attention to the German 
 literature — as a literature of knowledge, not of 
 power: and amongst other reasons for this 
 advice I have alleged the high character and 
 pretensions of its philosophy : but these pre- 
 tensions have been met by attacks, or by 
 gross misrepresentations, from all writers 
 within my knowledge, who have at all noticed 
 the philosophy in this country. So far as 
 these have fallen in your way, they must 
 naturally have indisposed you to my advice ; 
 and it becomes, therefore, my business to 
 point out any facts which may tend to disarm 
 the authority of these writers, just so far as 
 to replace you in the situation of a neutral and 
 unprejudiced student. 
 
 The persons who originally introduced the 
 Kantean philosophy to the notice of the English 
 public, or rather attempted to do so, were two 
 Germans — Dr. Willich and (not long after) 
 Dr. Nitsch. Dr. Willich, I think, has been 
 gone to Hades for these last dozen years ; 
 certainly his works have : and Dr. Nitsch, 
 though not gone to Hades, is gone (I under- 
 stand) to Germany ; which answers my pur- 
 
COMMENTATORS UPON KANT. 115 
 
 pose as well ; for it is not likely that a few- 
 words uttered in London will contrive to find 
 out a man buried in the throng of thirty mil- 
 lion Germans. Quoad hoc, therefore, Dr. 
 Nitsch may be considered no less defunct than 
 Dr. Willich ; and I can run no risk of wound- 
 ing any body's feelings, if I should pronounce 
 both doctors very eminent blockheads. It is 
 difficult to say, which wrote the more absurd 
 book. Willich's is a mere piece of book- 
 making, and deserves no sort of attention. 
 But Nitsch, who seems to have been a pains- 
 taking man, has produced a work which is 
 thus far worthy of mention, that it reflects as 
 in a mirror one feature common to most of the 
 German commentaries upon Kant's works, 
 and which it is right to expose. With very 
 few exceptions, these works are constructed 
 upon one simple principle : finding it impossi- 
 ble to obtain any glimpse of Kant's meaning 
 or drift, the writers naturally asked themselves 
 what was to be done ? Because a man does 
 not understand one iota of his author, is he 
 therefore not to comment upon him ? That 
 were hard indeed ; and a sort of abstinence, 
 
116 HISTORIES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 which it is more easy to recommend than to 
 practise. Commentaries must be written ; and, 
 if not by those who understand the system 
 (which would be the best plan), then (which 
 is clearly the second best plan) by those who 
 do not understand it. Dr. Nitsch belonged to 
 this latter very respectable body, for whose 
 great numerical superiority to their rivals I can 
 take upon myself to vouch. Being of their 
 body, the worthy doctor adopted their expe- 
 dient — which is simply this : Never to deliver 
 any doctrine except in the master's words ; on 
 all occasions to parrot the ipsissima verba of 
 Kant; and not even to venture upon the experi- 
 ment of a new illustration drawn from their own 
 funds. Pretty nearly upon this principle was it 
 that the wretched Brucker and others have con- 
 structed large histories of philosophy : having 
 no comprehension of the inner meaning and 
 relations of any philosophic opinion, nor sus- 
 pecting to what it tended, or in what necessities 
 of the intellect it had arisen — how could the 
 man do more than superstitiously adhere to 
 that formula of words in which it had pleased 
 the philosopher to clothe it ? It was unreasona- 
 
NITSCH AND HIS BRETHREN. 117 
 
 ble to expect he should: to require -of him 
 that he should present it in any new aspect of 
 his own devising — would have been tempting 
 him into dangerous and perplexing situations : 
 it would have been, in fact, a downright ag- 
 gression upon his personal safety, and calling 
 upon him to become felo de se ; every turn of 
 a sentence might risk his breaking down : and 
 no man is bound to risk his neck — credit — or 
 understanding, for the benefit of another man's 
 neck — credit — or understanding. " It's all 
 very well," Dr. Nitsch and his brethren will 
 say ; " it's all very well for you, gentlemen, 
 that have no commenting to do — to understand 
 your author : but to expect us to understand 
 him also that have to write commentaries on 
 him, for two — four — and all the way up to 
 twelve volumes, 8vo. — just serves to show how 
 far the unreasonableness of human nature can 
 go." The doctor was determined on moral 
 principles to make no compromise with such 
 unreasonableness ; and, in common with all his 
 brethren, set his face against understanding 
 each and every chapter — paragraph — or sen- 
 tence of Kant, so long as they were expected 
 
118 ENGLISH NOTICES 
 
 to do duty as commentators. I treat the mat- 
 ter ludicrously : but in substance I assure you 
 that I do no wrong to the learned (Note V) 
 commentators : and under such auspices you 
 will not suppose that Kant came before the 
 English public with any advantage of patro- 
 nage. Between two such supporters as a 
 Nitsch on the right hand, and a Willich on 
 the left, I know not that philosopher that would 
 escape foundering. But, fortunately for Kant, 
 the supporters themselves foundered : and no 
 man, that ever I met with, had seen or heard 
 of their books — or seen any man that had 
 seen them. It did not appear that they were, 
 or logically speaking could be, forgotten : for 
 no man had ever remembered them. 
 
 The two doctors having thus broken clown 
 and set off severally to Hades and Germany, 
 I recollect no authors of respectability who 
 have since endeavoured to attract the attention 
 of the English public to the Kantean philo- 
 sophy, except 1. An anonymous writer in an 
 early number of the Edinburgh Review ; 2. 
 Mr. Coleridge ; 3. Mr. Dugald Stewart ; 4. 
 Madame de Stael, in a work published, I be- 
 
OF KANT. 119 
 
 lieve, originally in this country, and during 
 her residence amongst us. I do not add Sir 
 William Drummond to this list, because my 
 recollection of any thing he has written on the 
 subject of Kant (in his Academical Ques- 
 tions) is very imperfect ; nor Mr. W the 
 
 reputed author of an article on Kant (the most 
 elaborate, I am told, which at present exists in 
 the English language) in the Encyclopaedia 
 Londinensis ; for this essay, together with a 
 few other notices of Kant in other Encyclo- 
 paedias, or elsewhere, have not happened to 
 fall in my way. The four writers above- 
 mentioned were certainly the only ones on 
 this subject who commanded sufficient in- 
 fluence, either directly in their own persons — 
 or (as in the first case) vicariously in the 
 channel through which the author communi- 
 cated with the public, considerably to affect 
 the reputation of Kant in this country for 
 better or worse. None of the four, except 
 Mr. Coleridge, having — or professing to have 
 — any direct acquaintance with the original 
 works of Kant, but drawing their information 
 from imbecile French books, &c. — it would 
 
120 EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 not be treating the other three with any in- 
 justice to dismiss their opinions without notice : 
 for even upon any one philosophical question, 
 much more upon the fate of a great philoso- 
 phical system supposed to be sub judice, it is 
 as unworthy of a grave and thoughtful critic 
 to rely upon the second-hand report of a 
 flashy rhetorician — as it would be unbecoming 
 and extra-judicial in a solemn trial to occupy 
 the ear of the court with the gossip of a 
 country-town. However, to omit no point of 
 courtesy to any of these writers, I shall say a 
 word or two upon each of them separately. 
 The first and the third wrote in a spirit of 
 hostility to Kant, the second and fourth as 
 friends. In that order I shall take them. 
 The writer of the article in the Edinburgh 
 Review, I suppose upon the internal evidence 
 to have been the late Dr. Thomas Brown, a 
 pupil of Mr. Dugald Stewart's, and his suc- 
 cessor in the Moral Philosophy chair at 
 Edinburgh. This is a matter of no import- 
 ance in itself; nor am I in the habit of troubling 
 myself or others with literary gossip of that 
 sort : but J mention it as a conjecture of my 
 
COINCIDENCES. 121 
 
 own — because, if I happen to be right, it would 
 be a very singular fact, that the only two 
 writers within my knowledge who have so far 
 forgot the philosophic character as to attempt 
 an examination of a vast and elaborate system 
 of philosophy not in the original — not in any 
 authorized or accredited Latin version (of 
 which there were two even at that time) — not 
 in any version at all, but in the tawdry rhetoric 
 of a Parian philosqphie a la mode, a sort of 
 philosophie pour les demies, — that these two 
 writers, thus remarkably agreeing in their 
 readiness to forget the philosophic character, 
 should also happen to have stood nearly con- 
 nected in literary life. In such coincidences 
 we suspect something more than a blind acci- 
 dent : we suspect the natural tendency of their 
 philosophy, and believe ourselves furnished 
 with a measure of its power to liberate the 
 mind from rashness, from caprice, and injustice, 
 in such deliberate acts, which it either suggests 
 or tolerates. If their own philosophic curiosity 
 was satisfied with information so slender, — 
 mere justice required that they should not, on 
 so slight and suspicious a warrant, have 
 11 
 
122 VILLAKS— STEWART. 
 
 grounded any thing in disparagement of the 
 philosophy or its founder. The book reviewed 
 by the Edinburgh reviewer, and relied on for 
 his account, of the Kantean philosophy, is the 
 essay of Villars — a book so entirely childish 
 that perhaps no mortification more profound 
 could have fallen upon the reviewer than the 
 discovery of the extent to which he had been 
 duped by his author. Of this book no more 
 needs to be said, than that the very terms do 
 not occur in it which express the hinges of the 
 system, Mr. Stewart has confided chiefly in 
 Degerando — a much more sober-minded au- 
 thor, of more good sense, and a greater zeal 
 for truth, but, unfortunately, with no more 
 ability to penetrate below the surface of the 
 Kantean system. M. Degerando is represented 
 as an unexceptionable evidence by Mr. Stewart, 
 on the ground that he is admitted to be so by 
 Kant's " countrymen." The " countrymen" 
 of Kant, merely as (Note V) countrymen, can 
 have no more title to an opinion upon this point, 
 than a Grantham man could have a right to 
 dogmatize on Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy, 
 on the ground that he was a fellow-townsman 
 
DEGERANDO. 123 
 
 of Sir Isaac's. The air of Konigsberg makes 
 no man a philosopher, But if Mr. Stewart 
 means that the competency of M. Degerando 
 has been admitted by those countrymen of 
 Kant's whose educations have fitted them to 
 understand him, and whose writings make it 
 evident that they have understood him (such 
 for instance, as Reinhold, Schulze, Tieftrunk, 
 Beck, Fichte, and Schelling,) then he has been 
 misinformed. The mere existence of such 
 works as the Histoire Comparee of M. De- 
 gerando, which cannot be regarded in a higher 
 light than that of verbal indices to the corpus 
 philosophise, is probably unknown to them ; 
 certainly, no books of that popular class are 
 ever noticed by any of them, nor could rank 
 higher in their eyes than an elementary school 
 algebra in the eyes of a mathematician. If 
 any man acknowledges Degerando's attempt 
 at a popular abstract of Kant as a sound one, 
 ipso facto, he degrades himself from the right 
 to any opinion upon the matter. The ele- 
 mentary notions of Kant, even the main pro- 
 blem of his great work, are not once so much 
 as alluded to by Degerando. And by the way, 
 
124 TRANSCENDENTAL 
 
 if any man ever talks in your presence about 
 Kant — and you suspect that he is talking with- 
 out knowledge, and wish to put a stop to him, 
 — I will tell you how you shall effect that end. 
 Say to him as follows : — Sir, I am instructed 
 by my counsel, learned in this matter, that the 
 main problem of the philosophy you are talking 
 of — lies involved in the term transcendental, 
 and that it may be thus expressed — "An 
 detur aliquid transcendentale in mente hu- 
 mana :" " Is there in the human mind any 
 thing which realizes the notion of transcen- 
 dental (as that notion is regulated and used by 
 Kant ?") Now as this makes it necessary 
 above all things to master that notion in the 
 fullest sense, I will thank you to explain it to 
 me. And as I am further instructed that the 
 answer to this question is affirmative, and is 
 involved in the term synthetic unity — I will 
 trouble you to make it clear to me wherein the 
 difference lies between this and what is termed 
 analytic unity. Thus speaking, you will in 
 all probability gag him ; which is, at any rate, 
 one desirable thing gained when a man insists 
 on disturbing a company by disputing and 
 
STYLE. 125 
 
 talking philosophy. But to return, — as there 
 must always exist a strong presumption against 
 philosophy of Parisian manufacture (which is 
 in that department the Birmingham ware of 
 Europe) ; secondly, as M. Degerando had ex- 
 pressly admitted (in fact boasted) that he had 
 a little trimmed and embellished the Kantean 
 system, in order to fit it for the society of " les 
 gens comme il fant /" and finally, as there 
 were Latin versions, &c. of Kant, it must 
 reasonably occur to any reader to ask why 
 Mr. Stewart should not have consulted these 1 
 To this question Mr. Stewart answers — that 
 he could not tolerate their " barbarous" style 
 and nomenclature. I must confess that in 
 such an answer I see nothing worthy of a 
 philosopher ; and should rather have looked 
 for it from a literary petit-mattre, than from 
 an emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
 Will a philosopher decline a useful experiment 
 in physics, because it will soil his kid gloves ? 
 Who thinks or cares about style in such 
 studies, that is sincerely and anxiously in 
 quest of truth ? (Note W.) In fact, style, in 
 any proper sense, is no more a possible thing 
 11* 
 
126 KANTEAN TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 in such investigations as the understanding is 
 summoned to by Kant — than it is in Euclid's 
 Elements. As to the nomenclature again, 
 supposing that it had been barbarous, who 
 objects to the nomenclature of modern chemis- 
 try, which is, quoad materiam, not only a 
 barbarous, but a hybrid nomenclature? — 
 Wherever law and intellectual order prevail, 
 they debarbarize (if I may be allowed such a 
 coinage) what in its elements might be bar- 
 barous : the form ennobles the matter. But 
 how is the Kantean terminology barbarous, 
 which is chiefly composed of Grecian or Latin 
 terms 1 In constructing it, Kant proceeded in 
 this way : — where it was possible, he recalled 
 obsolete and forgotten terms from the Platonic 
 philosophy, and from the schoolmen ; or re- 
 stored words abused by popular use to their 
 original philosophic meaning. In other cases, 
 when there happen to exist double expres- 
 sions for the same notion, he called in and 
 reminted them, as it were. In doing this, he 
 was sometimes forestalled in part, and guided 
 by the tendency of language itself. All lan- 
 guages, as it has been remarked, tend to clear 
 
CLINAMEN. 127 
 
 themselves of synonymes — as intellectual cul- 
 ture advances ; the superfluous words being 
 taken up and appropriated by new shades and 
 combinations of thought evolved in the pro- 
 gress of society. And long before this appro- 
 priation is fixed and petrified, as it were, into 
 the acknowledged vocabulary of the language, 
 an insensible clinamen (to borrow a Lucretian 
 word) prepares the way for it. Thus, for in- 
 stance, long before Mr. Wordsworth had un- 
 veiled the great philosophic distinction between 
 the powers of fancy and imagination — the 
 two words had begun to diverge from each 
 other ; the first being used to express a faculty 
 somewhat capricious (Note X) and exempted 
 from law, the latter to express a faculty more 
 self-determined. When, therefore, it was at 
 length perceived, that under an apparent unity 
 of meaning there lurked a real dualism, and 
 for philosophic purposes it was necessary that 
 this distinction should have its appropriate ex- 
 pression, — this necessity was met half way 
 by the clinamen which had already affected 
 the popular usage of the words. So again, in 
 the words Deist and T heist ; naturally they 
 
128 KANTEAN TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 should express the same notion — the one to a 
 Latin, the other to a Grecian ear. But of 
 what use are such duplicates 1 It is well that 
 the necessities of the understanding gradually 
 reach all such cases by that insensible clina- 
 men which fits them for a better purpose, than 
 that of extending the mere waste fertility of 
 language, viz. by taking them up into the 
 service of thought. In this instance, Deist 
 was used pretty generally throughout Europe, 
 to express the case of him who admits a God, 
 but under the fewest predicates that will satisfy 
 the conditions of the understanding. A Tlieist, 
 on the other hand, even in popular use, denoted 
 him who admits a God with some further 
 (transcendental) predicates — as, for example, 
 under the relation of a moral governor to the 
 world. In such cases as this, therefore, where 
 Kant found himself already anticipated by the 
 progress of language, he did no more than 
 regulate and ordinate the evident nisus and 
 tendency of the popular usage into a severe 
 definition. Where, however, the notions were 
 of two subtle a nature to be laid hold of by the 
 popular understanding, and too little within 
 
TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 
 
 the daily use of life to be ever affected by the 
 ordinary causes which mould the course of a 
 language, there he commenced and finished 
 the process of separation himself. And what 
 were the uses of all this ? Why the uses 
 were these : first, in relation to the whole 
 system of the transcendental philosophy : the 
 new notions which were thus fixed and re- 
 corded, were necessary to the system : they 
 were useful in proportion as that was useful — 
 i. e. in proportion as it was true. Secondly, 
 they extended the domain of human thought, 
 apart from the system and independently of it. 
 A perpetual challenge or summons is held out 
 to the mind in the Kantean terminology to 
 clear up and regulate its own conceptions, 
 which, without discipline, are apt from their 
 own subtle affinities to blend and run into each 
 other. The new distinctions are so many 
 intellectual problems to be mastered. And, 
 even without any view to a formal study of the 
 transcendental philosophy, great enlargement 
 would be given to the understanding, by going 
 through (Note Y) a Kantean dictionary, well 
 explained, and well illustrated. This termi- 
 
130 rant's services. 
 
 nology therefore was useful, 1. As a means to 
 an end (being part of the system) ; 2. As an 
 end in itself. So much for the uses : as to 
 the power of mind put forth in constructing it 
 (between which and the uses lies the valuation 
 of Kant's service ; for, if no uses, then we do 
 not thank him for any difficulty he may have 
 overcome ; if no difficulty overcome, then we 
 do not ascribe as a merit to him any uses 
 which may flow from it) — as to the power of 
 mind put forth in constructing it, I do not 
 think it likely that you will make the same 
 mistake which I have heard from some unre- 
 flecting persons, and which in fact lurks at the 
 bottom of much that has been written against 
 Kant's obscurity, as though Kant had done no 
 more than impose new names. Certainly, if 
 that were all, the merit would not be very con- 
 spicuous. It could cost little effort of mind to 
 say — let this be A, and that be D : let this 
 notion be called transcendent, and that be 
 called transcendental. Such a statement, 
 however, supposes the ideas to be already 
 known, and familiar — and simply to want 
 names. In this lies the blunder. When Kant 
 
A COMMON ERROR. 131 
 
 assigned the names, he created the ideas ; i. e. 
 he drew them within the consciousness. In 
 assigning to the complex notion X the name 
 transcendental, Kant was not simply trans- 
 ferring a word which had previously been used 
 by the schoolmen to a more useful office ; he 
 was bringing into the service of the intellect a 
 new birth ; that is, drawing into a synthesis, 
 which had not existed before as a synthesis, 
 parts or elements which exist and come for- 
 ward hourly in every man's mind. I urge 
 this upon your attention, because you will 
 often hear such challenges thrown out as this 
 (or others involving the same error) — " Now, 
 if there be any sense in this Mr. Kant's 
 writings, let us have it in good old mother 
 English." That is, in other words, transfer into 
 the unscientific language of life, scientific no- 
 tions and relations which it is not fitted to ex- 
 press. The challenger proceeds upon the com- 
 mon error of supposing all ideas fully developed 
 to exist in esse in all understandings : ergo, in 
 his own : and all that are in his own he thinks 
 that we can express in English. Thus, the 
 challenger, on his notions, has you in a 
 
132 TERMINOLOGY OF KANT. 
 
 dilemma at any rate : for if you do not trans- 
 late it, then it confirms his belief that the 
 whole is jargon : if you do (as doubtless, with 
 the help of much periphrasis, you may trans- 
 late it into English, that will be intelligible to 
 a man who already understands the philo- 
 sophy), then where was the use of the new 
 terminology 1 But the way to deal with this 
 fellow is as follows : My good sir, I shall do 
 what you ask : but, before I do it, I beg that 
 you will oblige me by, 1. Translating this 
 mathematics into the language of chemistry : 
 2. By translating this chemistry into the lan- 
 guage of mathematics : 3. Both into the lan- 
 guage of cookery : and finally, solve me the 
 Cambridge problem — " Given the captain's 
 name, and the year of our Lord, to determine 
 the longitude of the ship." This is the way 
 to deal with such fellows. 
 
 The terminology of Kant then is not a re- 
 baptism of ideas already existing in the 
 universal consciousness : it is, in part, an en- 
 largement of the understanding by new terri- 
 tory (of which I have spoken) ; and, in part, 
 a better regulation of its old territory. This 
 
NOMENCLATURE. 133 
 
 regulation is either negative — and consists in 
 limiting more accurately the boundary line of 
 conceptions that had hitherto been imperfectly 
 defined ; or it is positive — and consists in the 
 substitution of names which express the rela- 
 tions and dependencies of the object (Note Z) 
 (termini organici) for the conventional names 
 which have arisen from accident, and do not 
 express those relations {termini bruti). It is 
 on this principle that the nomenclature of 
 chemistry is constructed : substances, that were 
 before known by arbitrary and non-significant 
 names, are now known by systematic names, 
 — i. e. such as express their relations to 
 other parts of the system. In this way a 
 terminology becomes in a manner organic ; 
 and being itself a product of an advanced 
 state of the science, is an important reagent 
 for facilitating further advances. 
 
 These are the benefits of a sound termi- 
 nology : to which let me add, that no improved 
 terminology can ever be invented, nay, hardly 
 any plausible one, which does not presuppose 
 an improved theory. Now surely benefits 
 such as these ought to outweigh any offence 
 12 
 
134 ARISTOTELIAN TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 to the ears or the taste, if there were any. 
 But the elegance of coherency is the sole 
 elegance which a terminology needs to possess, 
 or indeed can possess : the understanding is, 
 in this case, the arbiter ; and, where that ap- 
 proves, it must be a misplaced fastidiousness 
 of feeling which does not submit itself to the 
 presiding faculty. As an instance of a repul- 
 sive terminology, I would cite that of Aristotle, 
 which has something harsh and technical in it 
 that prevents it from ever blending with the 
 current of ordinary language ; even to this, 
 however, so far as it answers its purposes, the 
 mind soon learns to reconcile itself. But here, 
 as in other more important points, the termi- 
 nology of Kant is advantageously distinguished 
 from the Aristotelian, by adapting itself with 
 great ductility to any variety of structure and 
 arrangement, incident to a philosophic diction. 
 I have spoken so much at length on the 
 subject of Kant's terminology, because this is 
 likely to be the first stumbling-block to the 
 student of his philosophy ; — and because it 
 has been in fact the main subject of attack 
 amongst those who have noticed it in this 
 country ; if that can be called attack which 
 
DE STAEL — COLERIDGE. 135 
 
 proceeds in acknowledged ignorance of the 
 original works. 
 
 A much more serious attack upon Kant has 
 been the friendly notice of Madame de Stael. 
 The sources from which she drew her opinions 
 were understood to be the two Schlegels ; and, 
 probably, M. Degerando. Like some country- 
 men of Kant's, (e. g. Kiesewetter) she has 
 contrived to translate his philosophy into a 
 sense which leaves it tolerably easy to ap- 
 prehend — but unfortunately at the expense of 
 all definite purpose, applicability, or philo- 
 sophic meaning. On the other hand, Mr. 
 Coleridge, whose great philosophic powers and 
 undoubted acquaintance with the works of 
 Kant would have fitted him beyond any man 
 to have explained them to the English student, 
 has unfortunately too little talent for teaching 
 or communicating any sort of knowledge — 
 and apparently too little simplicity of mind, or 
 zealous desire to do so. Hence it has hap- 
 pened that so far from assisting Kant's pro- 
 gress in this country, Mr. Coleridge must have 
 retarded it by expounding the oracle in words 
 of more Delphic obscurity than the German 
 
136 KANT MISREPRESENTED. 
 
 original could have presented to the imma- 
 turest student. It is, moreover, characteristic 
 of Mr. Coleridge's mind that it never gives 
 back any thing as it receives it : all things are 
 modified and altered in passing through his 
 thoughts : and from this cause, I believe, com- 
 bined with his aversion to continuous labour, 
 arises his indisposition to mathematics ; for 
 that he must be content to take as he finds it. 
 Now this indocility of mind greatly unfits a 
 man to be the faithful expounder of a philoso- 
 phic system : and it has, in fact, led Mr. Cole- 
 ridge to make various misrepresentations of 
 Kant : one only, as it might indispose you to 
 pay any attention to Kant, I shall notice. In 
 one of his works he has ascribed to Kant 
 the foppery of an exoteric, and an esoteric 
 doctrine : and that upon grounds wholly un- 
 tenable. The direct and simple-minded Kant, 
 [ am persuaded, would have been more shocked 
 at this suspicion than any other with which he 
 could have been loaded. 
 
 I throw the following remarks together, as 
 tending to correct some of the deepest errors 
 with which men come to the examination of 
 
THE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 philosophic systems, whether as students or as 
 critics. 
 
 1. A good terminology will be one of the 
 first results from a good theory : and hence, 
 though a coherent terminology is not a suffi- 
 cient evidence in favour of a system, the ab- 
 sence of such a terminology is a sufficent evi- 
 dence against it. 
 
 2. It is asked which is the true philosophy ? 
 But this is not the just way of putting the 
 question : — the purpose of philosophy is not 
 so much to accumulate positive truths in the 
 first place — as to rectify the position of the 
 human mind, and to correct its mode of seeing. 
 The progress of the human species in this 
 path is not direct but oblique : one philosophy 
 does not differ from another solely by the 
 amount of truth and error which it brings for- 
 ward ; there is none, which has ever had much 
 interest for the human mind, but will be found 
 to contain some truth of importance, or some 
 approximation to it : one philosophy has dif- 
 fered from another rather by the station it has 
 taken, and the aspect under which it has con- 
 templated its object. 
 
 12* 
 
138 TEST OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 3. It has been objected to Kant by some 
 critics in this country, that his doctines are in 
 some instances reproductions only of doctrines 
 brought forward by other philosophers. The 
 instances alleged have been very unfortunate : 
 but doubtless whatsoever truth is contained 
 (according to the last remark) in the erroneous 
 systems, and sometimes in the very errors 
 themselves of the human mind, will be ga- 
 thered up in its progress by the true system. 
 Where the erroneous path has wandered in 
 all directions, has returned upon itself per- 
 petually, and crossed the field of inquiry with 
 its mazes in every direction, — doubtless the 
 path of truth will often intersect it — and per- 
 haps for a short distance coincide with it : but 
 that in this coincidence it receives no impulse 
 or determination from that with which it coin- 
 cides — will appear from the self-determining 
 force which will soon carry it out of the same 
 direction as inevitably as it entered it. 
 
 4. The test of a great philosophical system 
 is often falsely conceived : men fancy a cer- 
 tain number of great outstanding problems of 
 the highest interest to human nature, upon 
 
TRUE PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 which every system is required to try its 
 strength ; and that will be the true one, they 
 think, which solves them all; and that the 
 best approximation to the true one which 
 solves most. But this is a most erroneous 
 way of judging. True philosophy will often 
 have occasion to show that these supposed 
 problems are no problems at all, but mere 
 impositions of the mind upon itself, arising out 
 of its unrectified position — errors grounded 
 upon errors. A much better test of a sound 
 philosophy than the number of the pre-existing 
 problems which it solves will be the quality of 
 those which it proposes. By raising the sta- 
 tion of the spectator it will bring a region of 
 new inquiry within his view ; and the very 
 faculty of comprehending these questions will 
 often depend on the station from which they 
 are viewed. For, as the earlier and ruder 
 problems, that stimulate human curiosity, often 
 turn out baseless and unreal, so again the 
 higher order of problems will be incomprehen- 
 sible to the undisciplined understanding. This 
 is a fact which should never be lost sight of by 
 those who presume upon their natural and un- 
 
140 ERROR CORRECTED. 
 
 cultivated powers of mind to judge of Kant 
 — Plato — or any other great philosopher. 
 
 5. But the most general error which I have 
 ever met with as a ground for unreasonable 
 expectations in reference not to Kant only but 
 to all original philosophers — is the persuasion 
 which men have that their understandings 
 contain already in full developement all the 
 notions which any philosophy can demand ; 
 and this not from any vanity, but from pure 
 misconception. Hence they naturally think 
 that all which the philosopher has to do is to 
 point to the elements of the knowledge as they 
 exist ready prepared, and forthwith the total 
 knowledge of the one is transferred to any 
 other mind. Watch the efforts of any man to 
 master a new doctrine in philosophy, and you 
 will find that involuntarily he addresses him- 
 self to the mere dialectic labour of transposing, 
 dissolving, and recombining, the notions which 
 he already has. But it is not thus that any 
 very important truth can be developed in the 
 mind. New matter is wanted as well as new 
 form. And the most important remark which 
 T can suggest as a caution to those who ap- 
 
IMPORTANT REMARK. 141 
 
 proach a great system of philosophy as if it 
 were a series of riddles and their answers, is 
 this : — no complex or very important truth 
 was ever yet transferred in full developement 
 from one mind to another : truth of that cha- 
 racter is not a piece of furniture to be shifted ; 
 it is a seed which must be sown, and pass 
 through the several stages of growth. No 
 doctrine of importance can be transferred in a 
 matured shape into any man's understanding 
 from without : it must arise by an act of ge- 
 nesis within the understanding itself. 
 
 With this remark I conclude ; and am — 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 That this appears on the very face of his writings, 
 may be inferred from a German work, published about 
 two years ago, by a Hamburg barrister (I think) — 
 Mr. Jacobs. The subject of the book is — the Modern 
 Literature of England, with the lives, &.C., of the most 
 popular authors. It is made up in a great measure 
 from English literary journals ; but not always ; and 
 in the particular case of the author now alluded to, 
 Mr. Jacobs imputes to him not merely too lively a 
 sensitiveness to censure, but absolutely a "wasser- 
 scheue" (hydrophobia) with regard to reviewers and 
 critics. How Mr. Jacobs came to use so strong an 
 expression, or this particular expression, I cannot 
 guess ; unless it were that he had happened to see 
 (which however does not appear) in a work of this 
 eloquent Englishman, the following picturesque sen- 
 tence : — " By an unconscionable extension of the old 
 adage — Noscitur a socio, my friends are never under 
 the waterfall of criticism, but I must be wet through 
 
144 NOTES. 
 
 with the spray." — Spray, indeed ! I wish some of us 
 knew no more of these angry cataracts than their 
 spray. 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 Not for the sake of any exception in its favour from 
 the general censure here pronounced on this body of es- 
 says, but for its extraordinary tone of passion and frantic 
 energy, and at times of noble sentiment, eloquently 
 expressed, I must notice as by far the most memorable 
 of these essays of the 17th century — that of Joachim 
 Forz Ringelberg, On the Method of Study (De Ratione 
 Studii). It is one of those books which have been 
 written most evidently not merely by a madman (as 
 many thousands have) but by a madman under a high 
 paroxysm of his malady : and, omitting a few instances 
 of affectation and puerility, it is highly affecting. It 
 appears that the author, though not thirty years of age 
 at the date of his book, was afflicted with the gravel ; 
 according to his belief incurably ; and much of the 
 book was actually written in darkness (on waxen 
 tablets, or on wooden tablets, with a stylus formed of 
 charred bones) during the sleepless nights of pain con- 
 sequent upon his disease. "^Etas abiit," says he, 
 11 reditura nunquam — Ah ! nunquam reditura ! Tametsi 
 annum nunc solum trigesimum ago, spem tamen 
 
NOTES. 145 
 
 ademit calculi morbus." And again : " Sic interim 
 meditantem calculi premunt, ut gravi ipsa dolore 
 mcereat mens, et plerumque noctes abducat insomnes 
 angor." Towards the end it is that he states the re- 
 markable circumstances under which the book was 
 composed. "Bonam partem libri hujus in tenebris 
 scripsi, quando somnus me ob calculi dolorem reli- 
 querat ; idque quum sol adversa nobis figeret vestigia, 
 nocte vagante in medio coelo. Deerat lumen ; verum 
 tabulas habeo, quibus etiam in tenebris utor." It is 
 singular that so interesting a book should nowhere 
 have been noticed to my knowledge in English litera- 
 ture, except, indeed, in a slight and inaccurate way, 
 by Dr. Vicesimus Knox, in his Winter Evening Lucu- 
 brations. 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 Accordingly our fashionable moral practitioner for 
 this generation, Dr. Paley, who prescribes for the con- 
 sciences of both Universities, and indeed, of most re- 
 spectable householders, has introduced a good deal of 
 casuistry into his work, though not under that name. 
 In England, there is an aversion to the mere name, 
 founded partly on this, that casuistry has been most 
 cultivated by Roman Catholic divines, and too much 
 with a view to an indulgent and dispensing morality ; 
 13 
 
146 NOTES. 
 
 and partly on the excessive subdivision and hair-split- 
 ting of cases; which tends to the infinite injury of mo- 
 rals, by perplexing and tampering with the conscience, 
 and by presuming morality to be above the powers 
 of any but the subtlest minds. All this, however, is 
 but the abuse of casuistry ; and without casuistry of 
 some sort or other, no practical decision could be made 
 in the accidents of daily life. Of this, on a fitter occa- 
 sion, I could give a cumulative proof. Meantime, let it 
 suffice to observe that law, which is the most practical 
 of all things, is a perpetual casuistry ; in which an 
 immemorial usage, a former decision of the court, or 
 positive statute, furnishes the major proposition ; and 
 the judgment of the jury, enlightened by the knowledge 
 of the bench, furnishes the minor or casuistical propo- 
 sition. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 Especially one, whose title I forget, by Vater, the 
 editor and completer of the Mithridates, after Adelung's 
 death. By the way, for the sake of the merely English 
 reader, it may be well to mention that the Mithridates 
 is so called, with an allusion to the great king of that 
 name contemporary with Sylla, Lucullus, &c, of whom 
 the tradition was that, in an immense and polyglot 
 army, composed from a great variety of nations, he 
 could talk to every soldier in his own language. 
 
147 
 
 NOTE E. 
 
 Sec the advertisements of the humblest schools ; in 
 which, however low the price of tuition, &c, is fixed, 
 French never fails to enter as a principal branch of the 
 course of study. To which fact I may add, that even 
 twelve or fifteen years ago I have seen French circu- 
 lating libraries in London, chiefly supported by people 
 in a humble rank. 
 
 NOTE F. 
 
 The most disengenuous instances in Schlegel of 
 familiar acquaintance claimed with subjects of which 
 he is necessarily ignorant — are the numerous passages 
 in which he speaks of philosophers, especially of Spi- 
 noza, Leibnitz, and Kant. In such cases, his sentences 
 are always most artificially and jesuitically constructed, 
 to give him the air of being quite at his ease on the 
 one hand — and yet on the other to avoid committing 
 himself by too much descent into particulars. So 
 dangerous, however, is it for the ablest man to attempt 
 speaking of what he does not understand, — that, as a 
 sailor will detect a landsman, however expert in the 
 use of nautical diction, before he has uttered two sen- 
 tences, — so with all his art and finesse, and speaking 
 
148 NOTES. 
 
 besides to questions of his own choosing-, yet cannot 
 Schlegel escape detection in any one instance when he 
 has attempted to act the philosopher. Even where the 
 thing said is not otherwise objectionable, it generally 
 detects itself as the remark of a novice — by addressing 
 itself to something extra-essential in the philosophy, 
 and which a true judge would have passed over as 
 impertinent to the real business of the system. — Of 
 the ludicrous blunders which inevitably arise in both 
 Bouterwek and Schlegel, from hasty reading, or no 
 reading at all, I noted some curious instances in my 
 pocket-book ; but not having it with me, I shall men- 
 tion two from memory. Bouterwek and Schlegel 
 would both be highly offended, I suppose, if I were to 
 doubt whether they had ever read the Paradise Lost. 
 "Oh! calumny — vile calumny! We that have given 
 such fine criticisms upon it — not to have read it!" 
 Yes ; but there is such a case in rerum natura as that 
 of criticising a work which the critic had not even 
 seen. Now, that Bouterwek had not read the Paridise 
 Lost, I think probable from this : — Bodmer, during 
 part of the first half of the last century, as is known 
 to the students of German literature, was at the head 
 of a party who supported the English literature against 
 the French party of the old dolt Gottsched. From 
 some work of Bodmer's, Bouterwek quotes with praise 
 a passage which, from being in plain German prose, 
 he supposes to be Bodmer's — but which unfortunately 
 happens to be a passage in the Paradise Lost, and so 
 memorable a passage, that no one having once read 
 
NOTES. 149 
 
 it could have failed to recognise it. So much for Bou- 
 terwek : as to Schlegel, the presumption against him 
 rests upon this : he is lecturing Milton in a high pro- 
 fessor's style for his choice of a subject : Milton, says 
 he, did not consider that the Fall of Man was but an 
 inchoate action, but a part of a system, of which the 
 Restoration of Man is another and equally essential 
 part. The action of the Paradise Lost is, therefore, 
 essentially imperfect. (Quoting from memory, and 
 from a memory some years old, I do not pretend to 
 give the words — but this is the sense.) Now, pace 
 tanti viri, Milton did consider this ; and has provided 
 for it by a magnificent expedient which a man who 
 had read the Paradise Lost would have been likely to 
 remember — viz. by the Vision combined with the Nar- 
 rative of the Archangel, in which his final restoration 
 is made known to Adam ; without which, indeed, to 
 say nothing of Mr. Schlegel's objection, the poem could 
 not have closed with that repose necessary as the final 
 impression of any great work of art. 
 
 NOTE G. 
 
 For which distinction, as for most of the sound 
 
 criticism on poetry, or any subject connected with it 
 
 that I have ever met with, T must acknowledge my 
 
 obligations to many years' conversation with Mr. 
 
 13* 
 
150 NOTES. 
 
 Wordsworth. Upon this occasion it may be useful 
 to notice that there is a rhetorical use of the word 
 " power," very different from the analytic one here in- 
 troduced, which also is due originally to Mr. Words- 
 worth, and will be found in no book before 1798 ; this 
 is now become a regular slang term in London con- 
 versation. In reference to which, it is worth notice 
 that a critic, speaking of the late Mr. Shelley, a year 
 or two ago, in the most popular literary journal of the 
 day, said, " It is alleged that there is power in Mr. 
 Shelley's poetry ; now there can be no power shown in 
 poetry, except by writing good poems" (or words to 
 that effect). Waiving, however, the question of Mr. 
 Shelley's merits, so far is this remark from being true 
 — that the word was originally introduced expressly 
 to provide for the case where, though the poem was 
 not good from defect in the composition, or from other 
 causes, the stamina and materiel of good poetry, as 
 fine thinking and passionate conceptions, could not be 
 denied to exist. 
 
 NOTE H. 
 
 A late writer has announced it as a matter of dis- 
 covery, that the term " classics" is applicable also to 
 the modern languages. But surely this was never 
 doubted by any man who considered the meaning and 
 
NOTES. 151 
 
 origin of the term. It is drawn, as the reader must 
 be reminded, from the political economy of Rome. 
 Such a man was rated as to his income in the third 
 class, such another in the fourth, and soon; but he 
 who was in the highest was said emphatically to be of 
 the class, "classicus" — a class-man, without adding 
 the number, as in that case superfluous. Hence, by 
 an obvious analogy, the best authors were rated as 
 classici, or men of the highest class ; just as in English 
 we say — " men of rank" — absolutely for men who are 
 in the higest ranks of the state. The particular error, 
 by which this mere formal term of relation was mate- 
 riated (if I may so say) in one of its accidents (viz. 
 the application to Greek and Roman writers), is one of 
 the commonest and most natural. 
 
 ^NOTE I. 
 
 Nor do I much expect, will do more ; which opinion 
 1 build on the particular formula chosen for expressing 
 the opposition of the antique and the Christian literature 
 — viz. the classical and the romantic. This seeming to 
 me to imply a total misconception of the true principle 
 on which the distinction rests, I naturally look for no 
 further developements of the thesis from that quarter. 
 
152 
 
 NOTE J. 
 
 " Composition." This word I use in a sense, not 
 indeed peculiar to myself, but yet not very common — 
 nor any where, that I know of, sufficiently developed. 
 It is of the higest importance in criticism ; and there- 
 fore, I shall add a note upon the true construction of 
 the idea — either at the end of this letter or the next, 
 according- to the space left. 
 
 NOTE K. 
 
 In addition to the arguments lately urged in the 
 Quarterly Review, for bastardizing and degrading the 
 early history of Rome, I may here mention two others, 
 alleged many years ago in conversation by a friend of 
 mine. 1. The immoderate length of time assigned to 
 the reigns of the kings. For though it is possible that 
 one king's reign may cover two entire generations (as 
 that of George III.) or even two and a half (as that of 
 Louis XIV.), yet it is in the highest degree improbable, 
 that a series of seven kings immediately consecutive, 
 should average, in the most favourable cases, more than 
 24 years for each : for the proof of which, see the Col- 
 lective Chronology of Ancient and Modern Europe. 2. 
 The dramatic and artificial casting of the parts for 
 
NOTES. 153 
 
 these kings. Each steps forward as a scenical person 
 to play a distinct part or character. One makes Rome : 
 another makes laws ; another makes an army ; another 
 religious rites, &.c. And last of all comes a gentleman 
 who " enacts the brute part" of destroying in effect 
 what his predecessors had constructed ; and thus fur- 
 nishes a decorous catastrophe for the whole play, and 
 a magnificent birth for the republican form of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 NOTE L. 
 
 Submonente quodam at in pristinos inimicos ani- 
 madverteret, negavit se ita facturum ; adjccta civili 
 voce, — Minime licere Principi Romano, ut quts privatus 
 agitasset odia — ista Imperator exequi. Sparlian, in 
 Had. — Vid. Histor. August. 
 
 NOTE M. 
 
 Neither let it be objected that it is irrational to op- 
 pose what there is no chance of opposing with success- 
 When the Roman Senate kept their seats immovably 
 upon the entrance of the Gauls reeking from the storm 
 of Rome, they did it not as supposing that this spec- 
 
154 
 
 tacle of senatorial dignity could disarm the wrath of 
 their savage enemy ; if they had, their act would have 
 lost all its splendour. The language of their conduct 
 was this : so far as the grandeur of the will is con- 
 cerned, we have carried our resistance to the last ex- 
 tremity, and have expressed it in the way suitable to 
 our rank. For all beyond we are not answerable ; and, 
 having recorded our " protest" in such an emphatic lan- 
 guage, death beeomes no dishonour. The stantem mori 
 expresses the same principle ; but in a symbolic act. 
 
 NOTE N. 
 
 So palpable is this truth, that the most unreflecting 
 critics have hence been led to suspect the pretensions 
 of the Atys to a Roman origin. 
 
 NOTE O. 
 
 Orabunt alii causas melius. JEn. VI. — an opinion 
 upon the Grecian superiority in this point, which is so 
 doubtful even to us in our perfect impartiality at 
 this day — as a general opinion without discrimination 
 of persons, that we may be sure it could not sponta- 
 neously have occurred to a Roman in a burst of 
 patriotic feeling, and must have been deliberately 
 
NOTES. 155 
 
 manufactured to meet the malignant wishes of Augus- 
 tus. More especially because, in whatever relation of 
 opposition or of indifference to the principles of a 
 military government, to the Parcere subjectis et debel- 
 lare superbos, Virgil might view the Fine Arts of 
 painting, statuary, &c, he could not but have viewed 
 the Arts of forensic eloquence as standing in the 
 closest alliance with that principle. 
 
 NOTE P. 
 
 Viz. 1. in the Cornish, Welch, Manks, Highland 
 Scotch, and Irish provinces of the British empire (in 
 the first and last it is true that the barbarous Celtic 
 blood has been too much improved by Teutonic admix- 
 ture, to allow of our considering the existing races as 
 purely Celtic : this, however, does not affect the classi- 
 fication of their genuine literary relics) : 2, in Biscay : 
 and 3, in Basse Bretagne (Armorica) : to say nothing 
 of a Celtic district said to exist in the Alps, &c. 
 
 NOTE Q. 
 
 Viz. Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, 
 Netherlands, England, and Scotch Lowlands. 
 
156 
 
 NOTE R. 
 Viz. Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. 
 
 NOTE S. 
 
 Viz. in a zone belting' Europe from the Frozen Ocean 
 through the Russian empire (including Poland) to the 
 Illyrian provinces on the Adriatic. 
 
 NOTE T. 
 
 I take this opportunity of mentioning a curious fact 
 which I ascertained about twelve years ago when 
 studying the Danish. The English and Scotch phi- 
 lologists have generally asserted that the Danish inva- 
 sions in the ninth and tenth centuries, and their settle- 
 ments in various parts of the island (as Lincolnshire, 
 Cumberland, &c.) had left little or no traces of them- 
 selves in the language. This opinion has been lately 
 reasserted in Dr. Murray's work on the European 
 languages. It is, however, inaccurate. For the re- 
 markable dialect spoken amongst the lakes of Cum- 
 berland and Westmoreland, together with the names of 
 the mountains, tarns, &c. most of which resist all 
 
157 
 
 attempts to unlock their meaning from the Anglo- 
 Saxon, or any other form of the Teutonic, arc pure 
 Danish — generally intelligible from the modern Danish 
 of this day, but in all cases from the elder form of the 
 Danish. Whenever my Opera Omnia are collected, I 
 shall reprint a little memoir on this subject, which I 
 inserted about four years ago in a provincial news- 
 paper: or possibly before that event, for the amusement 
 of the lake-tourists, Mr. Wordsworth may do me the 
 favour to accept it as an appendix to his work on the 
 English Lakes. 
 
 NOTE U. 
 
 Dating from the earliest works of Liebnitz, rather 
 more. 
 
 NOTE V. 
 
 I have heard it alleged as a reason why no great in- 
 terest in the German philosophy can exist, or can be 
 created amongst the English — that there is no " de- 
 mand for books on that subject :" — in which remark 
 there is a singular confusion of thought. Was there 
 any " demand" for the Newtonian philosophy, until the 
 Newtonian philosophy appeared ? — How should there 
 14 
 
158 
 
 be any " demand," for books which do not exist ? But 
 considering the lofty pretensions of the Kantean philo- 
 sophy, it would argue a gross ignorance of human 
 nature to suppose, that no interest had already attended 
 the statement of these pretensions whenever they have 
 been made known: and, in fact, amongst thoughtful 
 and intellectual men a very deep interest has long ex- 
 isted on the subject, as my own experience has been 
 sufficient to convince me. Indeed what evidence could 
 be alleged more strong of apathy and decay in all in- 
 tellectual activity, and in all honourable direction of 
 intellectual interests, than the possibility that a sys- 
 tematic philosophy should arise in a great nation near 
 to our own, and should claim to have settled for ever 
 many of the weightiest questions, which concern the 
 dignity and future progress of the human species — and 
 should yet attract no attention or interest ? We may 
 be assured that no nation, not thoroughly emasculated 
 in power of mind — i. e. so long as any severe studies 
 survive amongst her, can ever be so far degraded. But 
 these judgments come of attending too much to the 
 movements of what is called " the literary world :" 
 literature very imperfectly represents the intellectual 
 interests of any people : and literary people are in a 
 large proportion as little intellectual people as any one 
 meets with. 
 
NOTES. 159 
 
 NOTE W. 
 
 Under this denomination I comprehend all the rabble 
 of abbreviators, abstractors, dictionary-makers, &c. &,c. 
 attached to the establishment of the Kantean philosophy. 
 One of the last, by the way, Schmidt, the author of a 
 Kantean dictionary, may be cited as the beau ideal of 
 Kantean commentators. He was altogether agreed 
 with Dr. Nitsch upon the duty of not understanding- 
 one's author ; and acted up to his principle through life 
 — being, in fact, what the Cambridge men call a Ber- 
 gen-op-zoo?n, i. e. one that sturdily defies his author — 
 stands a siege of twelve or twenty years upon his un- 
 derstanding — and holds out to the last impregnable to 
 all assaults of reason or argument, and the heaviest 
 batteries of common sense. 
 
 NOTE X. 
 
 The reader may suppose that this could not possibly 
 have been the meaning of Mr. Stewart. But a very 
 general mistake exists as to the terminology of Kant — 
 as though a foreigner must find some difficulties in It 
 which are removed to a native. "His own country- 
 men," says a respectable literary journal, when speak- 
 ing of Kant (Edinburgh Monthly Review for August, 
 1820, p. 168,) — u His own countrymen find it difficult 
 
160 NOTES. 
 
 to comprehend his meaning; and they dispute about* it 
 to this day." Why not? The terminology of Kant 
 is partly Grecian — partly scholastic ; and how should 
 either become intelligible to a German, qua German, 
 merely because they are fitted with German termina- 
 tions and inflexions ? 
 
 NOTE Y. 
 
 The diction of the particular book, which had been 
 recommended to Mr. Stewart's attention — viz. the 
 Expositio Systematica of Phiseldek, a Danish pro- 
 fessor, has all the merits which a philosophic diction 
 can have, being remarkably perspicuous, precise, sim- 
 ple, and unaffected. It is too much of a mere meta- 
 phrase of Kant, and has too little variety of illustration : 
 otherwise I do not know a better digest of the philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 NOTE Z. 
 
 Which distinction comes out still more strongly in 
 the secondary derivative fanciful, and the primary de- 
 rivative fantastic : I say primary derivative — in re- 
 ference to the history of the word; — 1, qnvrcto-ix, 
 
NOTES. 161 
 
 whence phantasy : — 2, for metrical purposes, phanfsy 
 (as it is usually spelt in Sylvester's Du Bartas, and other 
 scholarlike poems of that day :) — 3, by dropping the t 
 in pronunciation; phansy or fancy. Now from No. 1, 
 comes fantastic ; from No. 3, comes fanciful. 
 
 NOTE AA. 
 
 In some cases it is true that the construction of the 
 ideas is posterior to the system, and presupposes a 
 knowledge of it rather than precedes it ; but this is 
 not generally true. 
 
 NOTE BB. 
 
 In a conversation which I once had with the late 
 Bishop of LlandafF, on the subject of Kant, he ob- 
 jccted chiefly to the terminology, and assigned, as one 
 instance of what seemed to him needless innovations, 
 the word apperception. " If this word means self- 
 consciousness," said he, " I do not see why Mr. Kant 
 might not have contented himself with what contented 
 his father." But the truth is, that this word exactly 
 illustrates the explanation made above : it expresses one 
 fact in a system sub ratione, and with a retrospect to 
 
162 NOTES. 
 
 another. This would have been the apology for the 
 word : however, in this particular instance, I chose 
 rather to apologize for Kant, by alleging that Wolf 
 and Leibnitz had used the word ; so that it was an 
 established word before the birth of the transcendental 
 philosophy ; and it might therefore be doubted, whether 
 Mr. Kant, senior, had contented himself in this case 
 with less than Mr. Kant, j unior. 
 
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 Lond. 1828. 20 Dollars. 
 
 Dryden, (John) Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas, 2 
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 Wakefield, Gilbertus ; Silva Critica, 5 vols. 8vo. half 
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