Glass- 
 Book. 
 
 
 i_ 
 

 w % 
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER. 
 
 U 
 
 BY A GENTLExMAN 
 
 WHO HAS LEFT HIS LODGINGS, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CLAYTON & KINGSLAND, 
 AND C. S. VAN WINKLE, 
 
 1820. 
 

 
 C. 3. Van Winkle, Printer, 
 10 1 Greenwich street. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 About a year ago, a gentleman, without a 
 servant, took an apartment on the first floor 
 of my house. He was, apparently, a young 
 man ; but his look was not diffident and un- 
 practised like that of most young men, but 
 bold and decided, like the countenance of a 
 lieutenant of hussars, who has served a cam* 
 paign or two, and as piercing as that of an 
 Old Bailey lawyer. He wore long black 
 hair over his forehead, and used some words 
 In his language which I never saw anywhere 
 but in the Bible and Common Prayer, and 
 which, I suppose, are now out of use. He 
 took two servants, and began to frequent 
 the world. I observed he went to Almack's, 
 and the French play •, was admitted into the 
 
IV 
 
 Travellers' club, wore stays, and used much 
 starch in his neckcloth. Notwithstanding 
 this, his life was not so regular as that of 
 most young men of fashion. He did not al- 
 ways go out to dinner at a quarter before 
 eight, nor always come home at five in the 
 morning, nor always get up at half-past two 
 in the afternoon. I thought this extraor- 
 dinary, because I had observed,- that those 
 who pretend to any fashion, and claim merit 
 from their want of punctuality, are generally 
 the most exact people possible to be always 
 twenty minutes too late wherever they go. 
 My lodger, on the contrary, very often went 
 out riding upon his return from a ball, and 
 then came and dined by himself, or with my 
 family, at four or five o'clock : nor was he 
 of the usual placid, indifferent humour, that 
 men of the world generally are. Some- 
 times a darkness would come over his face, 
 and he would sit frowning at the chimney- 
 piece in his own room for a fortnight toge- 
 ther. Every now and then, too, he would 
 go away for a few days to Dublin or to Ed* 
 
inburgh, without any apparent reason. But, 
 on the 5th of February last, he set out from 
 my house, about twelve at night, saying, he 
 should return in a few days. Since that 
 time I have heard nothing of him ; and be- 
 ing in great want of money to pay my taxes, 
 I went to search, to see if there were any 
 thing I could sell for rent, of which I had 
 not received one farthing. I found a few 
 old clothes, a dozen pair of boots, and a 
 large number of manuscripts : these were 
 written in all kinds of languages, ancient and 
 modern, more than I had ever heard of: 
 some few were in English ; and one called, 
 " On the State of the Constitution," in a 
 totally different hand. I suspect it was 
 written by the gentleman, for there was only 
 one who used sometimes to pay my lodger 
 a visit. With these papers in my hand, I 
 went off directly to Mr. Longman : and he 
 has given me some hopes that I may re- 
 cover a part of my rent by their means. 
 Who the author may be, I do not pretend to 
 fay ; or whether the last paper relates at 
 1* 
 
VI 
 
 all to himself : I leave that to the courteous 
 reader ; and I beg him to recollect, that I 
 am not answerable for the opinions of a gen- 
 tleman who has left his lodgings. 
 
 JOSEPH SKILLETT. 
 
 Sackville Street, 
 May 24, 1820. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 English and French Pride and Vanity, 
 
 y 
 
 English and French Taste, . 
 
 13 
 
 Men of Letters, .... 
 
 16 
 
 Irresolution, ..... 
 
 21 
 
 Foreign Travel, , 
 
 27 
 
 Vanity and Love of Fame, 
 
 30 
 
 The World, 
 
 36 
 
 National Character, .... 
 
 48 
 
 Literary Taste, «... 
 
 63 
 
 On Field-sports, .... 
 
 66 
 
 An Agreeable Man. — Society in London, 
 
 69 
 
 On Plays, 
 
 80 
 
 Political Economy, . 
 
 110 
 
 State of the English Constitution, 
 
 121 
 
 Marriage, ....*. 
 
 159 
 
 Orders of Knighthood, • 
 
 168 
 
 The Wandering Jew, , 
 
 171 
 
ESSAYS, AND SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER. 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH PRIDE AND 
 VANITY. 
 
 We often hear of the pride of the English. It is 
 in fact the quality which distinguishes them from the 
 nations of the Continent, who are on their side re- 
 markable for vanity. These two passions are the 
 cause of most of the differences which are observed 
 by every passenger from B^ver to Calais, in govern- 
 ment, in towns, in society, dinners, and dress. Till 
 now, the object of the French people has always 
 been to make their power conspicuous to other na- 
 tions, even at the expeuse of liberty and happiness 
 at home. Such was the basis of their admiration for 
 Louis XIV. and Napoleon ; and as long as they 
 could show lace ruffles outside, they did not mind 
 
10 
 
 how dirty the shirt was beneath. Even now, their 
 zeal for a free constitution, if carefully sifted, will 
 be found to arise very much from the notion that a 
 limited monarchy is the fashion ; and they think it 
 would not become the Great Nation not to have as 
 good a Chamber of Deputies, and as much liberty of 
 the press, as their neighbours. The Englishman, on 
 the other hand, absolutely requires that the king 
 should govern according to law; he cannot bear 
 that any one should have a superiority over him, be- 
 yond what is clearly recognised by the constitution 
 as necessary ; his obedience is paid to the magistrate, 
 but his admiration is reserved for virtue and talent. 
 
 Look to their buildings. On the Continent you 
 see magnificent public works ; but then the money 
 of the state has been disposed of by the will of the 
 monarch, in order to gratify the vanity of his sub- 
 jects. In England, no expense of this kind is borne 
 cheerfully, which does not go to raise something in- 
 trinsically useful. The private palaces on the Con- 
 tinent are also much finer than those of England ; 
 but in order to show great apartments for receiving 
 company, the nobles submit to live in garrets and 
 ascend common stairs ; a lodger gives concerts in 
 the first floor, and an old woman fries pancakes in 
 the entrance. In England, a man of the smallest 
 fortune endeavours to have a house to himself, where 
 he occupies a few low, dark, dull rooms ; — l?ut he is 
 independent. 
 
11 
 
 Society on the Continent is one of the greatest 
 luxuries; it is, in fact, an interchange of polite 
 vanity, and as it is itself so great an enjoyment, it 
 constitutes a principal object. But the English, 
 who are proud and reserved, take no pleasure iu 
 society, and accordingly they only meet when one 
 of the number can gratify his pride and his hospitali- 
 ty by giving a dinner or a supper. Conversation is 
 then an involuntary obligation, and except over a 
 bottle of wine, which at once heightens the spirits 
 and opens the heart, is seldom enjoyed by the real 
 John Bull. It is in closing to his own fire-side, in 
 excluding all but his own family, in settling himself 
 in a large arm-chair, with the consciousness that he 
 is not obliged to entertain any body, that consists 
 the comfort, which is the boast of his language and 
 his life. Comfort generally means a great conside- 
 ration for self, and a total forgetfulness of other peo- 
 ple. It is the same attention to comfort, or the same 
 solitary pride, which prevents a restaurateur from 
 flourishing in London : a better dinner might then 
 be obtained for half the sum ; but Mr. Bull likes to 
 have a mutton-chop in his own parlour. For the 
 same reason, a town on the Continent is full of 
 reading-rooms, but an Englishman has his newspa- 
 per at home ; and whilst a fine day in France brings 
 every living soul out of doors, the haughty tailors 
 and punctilious green grocers of England spend the 
 evening in their close room of six feet square, almost 
 
12 
 
 poisoned by the smell of the cheese and apples in the 
 cupboard. If you look at the dress of the islanders 
 and the continentalists, the same difference prevails ; 
 the latter are very gaudy on occasions of display, 
 which they regulate with consummate knowledge 
 and taste ; but at other times they are slovenly, and 
 every one dresses according to his fancy ; — so that a 
 man who cannot afford finery is admitted into the 
 best society, almost in rags. In England, neither 
 men nor women wear rich clothes ; but the poorest 
 artist, or most wretched author, would be humiliated 
 in thought, if he could not appear at an assembly 
 dressed like a duke. Hence that intolerant unifor- 
 mity of costume, that severe and apparently childish 
 raillery of the least deviation from fashion, which is 
 so peculiar to Loudon. And here, by the way, let 
 me enter my protest against this daily and hourly 
 inquisition; not only are men of the world required 
 to conform to the general costume, but persons who 
 have no pretensions to dress are forced to drill by the 
 fashion of the day. Dandelo does little else in con- 
 versation but make sharp and ingenious remarks up- 
 on the length of one 'man's coat, and the colour of 
 another's waistcoat ; and endeavours to be entertain- 
 ing by noting the variations from the real standard 
 of taste. Of all men living, he has the least reason to 
 complain of the Fall, since the transgression of Adam 
 has given him a source of innocent occupation, and 
 the whole stock of his wit. 
 
13 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH TASTE. 
 
 I have often wondered at the great difference 
 which is observable in England and France in taste 
 for the beauties of nature. Whilst the English are 
 travelling hundreds of miles for a view of a Scotch 
 or a Swiss lake, and climbing Ben-Nevis or Mont- 
 Blanc, a Frenchman shrugs up his shoulders at the 
 horreur of such scenes, and is sufficiently pleased 
 with a parterre of roses, or a dipt lime-tree* At 
 first I attributed the insensibility of the latter to their 
 want of opportunity and town life ; but the fact is, 
 they live six months in the country in the finest sea- 
 son, (May to October,) whilst the English only see 
 their gardens as the flowers begin to fade. Then I 
 believed the French had not reached this important 
 step in the progress of civilization ; hut though this 
 may account for the want of taste in the mass, it will 
 not explain the apathy of the readers of Dante. Tas- 
 so, Racine, and Voltaire, to the beauties of n^ure. 
 The reaj reason I believe to be the want of depth of 
 
14 
 
 soul amongst these people. Taste may be divided 
 into three parts : — lsfc Natural taste, which is pleased 
 with bright colours anl soft sounds : this is the taste 
 of ihc sav.-gf and the child. 
 
 2dly. Thinking taste, or taste of the mind, which 
 i pleased with any effort of intellect, regular walks, 
 ard regular sounds : this is the taste of man in pro- 
 ge-s, of Le ISctre in landscape gardenings and 
 Giofto in pi-ming. These two species of taste are 
 common to both n.itions. 
 
 Sdly. Feeling f a^te, or taste of the heart, which 
 connects ever) thi'-g present with some emotion of 
 its owr. : this, again, ma- be subdivided in a thousand 
 ways, which are all comprehended by Mr. Price un- 
 £ tl Sublime, Beautiful, and Picturesque. 
 
 O these three the Frenchman has only an idea of the 
 se< und; that is to sa\, he admires scenes which ex- 
 press fertility, richness, order, convenience, splen- 
 dour gayety, or pleasure; but he cannot enjoy, or 
 rather shrinks from those which signify terror, pow- 
 er, majesty , infinity ; and he has not studied nature 
 sufficiently to pay homage to her creation, when they 
 do not. accord with convenience or utility. 
 
 The feelings of these people are much too light 
 and variable; the tone of their minds is much too 
 gay and too sociable to take pleasure in the grander 
 ( s of nature ; they do not love to er.ter into them- 
 selves, to dwell on a gloomy idea, or to conceive a. 
 
15 
 
 terrible event : they banish the spectacle of death 
 from their stage, and, I believe, would willing-lv ex- 
 clude the beetling- cliff and the stormy torrent from 
 nature. 
 
te 
 
 MEN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 It is said, that when one of Bonaparte's meanest 
 flatterers, and who is of course one of the meanest 
 flatterers of the present King-, was proposing a re- 
 modelling 1 of the Institute, the Emperor answered, 
 Non> laissons au moms la Republique de Lcltres. 
 
 This community, however, can hardly be said to 
 have the features of any government, and more 
 nearly approaches the fabled existence of society, 
 called by jurists "a state of nature." There is no 
 head or visible authority, either hereditary or elect- 
 ed; the governing principles are self-love, hatred, 
 and envy ; property, which here consists in reputa- 
 tion, is like all original properly, the produce of a 
 man's own labour, and is generally the object of 
 many treacherous stratagems, and cruel outrages, 
 on the part of the poorer members. 
 
 It is also ? remarkable coincidence, that the richer 
 a man becomes the more he is attacked, and the 
 
u 
 
 equality of rights consists in the impunity of wrongs. 
 I happened lately to meet with some of these sava- 
 ges. Lselius has a sort of patriarchal influence 
 amongst them, solely on account of his superior age 
 and correct memory ; he can awe his fellows by quo- 
 ting the decisions of their grandfathers, and amuse 
 them by playing a garrulous fountain of anecdote; 
 he is in what was called by Wilkes an anecdotage ; 
 is trifling in his conversation, and superficial in his 
 writings; but his works were published forty years 
 ago, and he avails himself of the notion, that the 
 booksellers and public of that day were far superior 
 to any tiling at present to be found on the Quai Vol- 
 taire, or the Palais Royal. He is withal extremely 
 neat in his language, and indulgent in his senti- 
 ments ; and is thereby enabled to conceal the vague- 
 ness of his ideas and the malice of his heart : both, 
 however, appear when he commits himself to print. 
 
 Junius is a man of an equal age, but who resigns 
 his claim to distinction on that ground, in order to 
 obtain the more difficult success achieved by youth- 
 ful enterprise; he is deeply learned, but Laving 
 reached eminence by his scholarship, he now wishes 
 to throw it off, as a postillion takes off his boots when 
 the stage is finished. I was surprised to find him al- 
 ways in the house of one of the most frivolous women 
 of the age, and often wondered how each could de- 
 rive pleasure from the intercourse of the other, til! 
 2* 
 
is 
 
 some one made the remark that a valuable com- 
 merce of vanity was carried on between them : she 
 furnished him with a reputation for gallantly, which 
 he wants, and he furnished her with a character for 
 wit, which she had no hope of obtaining- by any ex- 
 ertions of her own. The hours they pass together 
 must indeed be disagreeable to bolh, for he misun- 
 derstands scandal, and she misquotes history. I 
 found him the other day hinting to ]j$r his suspicions 
 of an intrigue which had been blown a twelvemonth 
 before, aud she soon afterwards asked him if it was 
 true that Catharine of Medicis had ordered the St. 
 Barthelemy at the instigation of Louvois. 
 
 There is no class of persons, it. may be observed, 
 whose failings are more open to remark, than men of 
 letters. In the first place, they are raised on an 
 eminence, where every thing they do is carefully ob- 
 served by those who have not been able to get so 
 high ; in the next place, their occupation, especially 
 if they are poets, being either the expression of su- 
 perabundant feeling, or the pursuit of praise, they 
 sire naturally more sensitive and quick in their emo- 
 tions than any other class of men ; hence a thousand 
 little quarrels, and passing irritabilities. In the next 
 place, they have the power of wouuding deeply those 
 of whom they are envious. A man who shoots en- 
 vies.another who shoots better; a shoemaker even 
 envies another who makes more popular shoes; but 
 
19 
 
 the sportsman and the shoemaker can only say they 
 do not like their rival : the author cuts his brother 
 author to the bone, with the sharp edge of an epi- 
 gram or bon mot. Again, it often happens, that a 
 man of letters is ignoraot of the world ; hence he 
 offends against a number of the laws of company, re- 
 veals a hundred little feelings which he ought to 
 conceal, and often shows the resentment of injured 
 pride, in return for what was meant as kindness. 
 
 The quality which is most offensive in poets, is 
 their very ready servility. It is not easy to read 
 with patience the verses which make Augustus a god, 
 and exalt Nero into a prodigy of virtue. 
 
 Too many of the worst men have got the tribute 
 of praise from the best poets ; Polycrates, Augustus, 
 Nero, Justinian, Louis XIV. Charles II., Bubb Dod- 
 dington, the Duke of Ferrara, have all had their 
 wreath of luxuriant laurel from the hands of poets : 
 how fortunate it would have been, had we been able 
 to say the reverse ; that bad princes had all been 
 blamed, and only good ones praised ! The praise of 
 poetry would then have been what it ought to be, an 
 object of difficult attainment, adding another to the 
 few worldly motives which kings have to be better 
 than their fellow men: verse would then, indeed, 
 have been sacred, and a few lines, expressing in no- 
 ble terms the great qualities which had been actually 
 possessed by the object of them, would have been 
 
20 
 
 remembered and quoted to the latest posterity, giv- 
 ing a dignity to poetry, an incentive to virtue, and a 
 spectacle fitted to unite the approbation with the 
 wonder of mankind. 
 
21 
 
 IRRESOLUTION. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Franchemont is the man of my acquaintance who 
 has the greatest quantity of English spirit, and French 
 esprit: his opinions are always liberal, his intentions 
 always upright, and his wishes always humane. As 
 he joins to the possession of these qualities, high rank 
 and an immense fortune, it is no wonder that he is 
 perpetually incited by his friends to enter into pub- 
 lic life, to serve his country in the field, or bis fellow 
 citizens iu the senate. His own ardour seconds their 
 advice ; but after ten j ears' deliberation he has not 
 yet determined whether he shall pursue the career 
 of arms, or whether he shall join himself to a party 
 of patriots, and make himself the. dread of an en- 
 croaching court; nor is he entirely divided between 
 these pursuits. I found him one day eagerly peru- 
 sing Euler; when he declared, with emphasis, that 
 * the abstract sciences were the occupation best adapt- 
 ed to make men happy, to engage his mind without 
 
22 
 
 irritation, to offer obstacles without any great dan- 
 ger of defeat, and to point out results which con- 
 tained no disappointment. On another occasion, he 
 was examining- Varro and Columella ; and when he 
 informed me that he had finally determined to aban- 
 don public life, and to make himself useful to mankind 
 by the improvement of agriculture, an occupation 
 which was of certain benefit to the public, and gave 
 a zest to domestic enioyment, I endeavoured, with 
 eagerness, to deter him from this resolution ; but the 
 more I argued, the more he persisted in exalting the 
 charms of retirement. Two hours afterwards, he 
 burst into my room, and informed me of the landing 
 of Bonaparte. After the first surprise, I asked him, 
 "What do you mean to do?'' — "Oh! as for that, 
 my resolution is taken : the success of Napoleon 
 would put an end to the peace of Europe, and the 
 liberty of France : whatever faults I find with the 
 present government may be repaired : it is my duty 
 as a citizen to arm. I shall offer to put myself at 
 the head of the National Guard of my province, in 
 which the enemy has landed, and if the King will 
 allow me to be independent of his Generals, we may 
 have a very speedy success ; — a prosperous event 
 will convince the court that the friends of liberty are 
 not the enemies of royalty." I approved warmly of 
 his intention, and advised him to go instantly to the 
 Tuiileries. But before doing so he thought proper 
 
23 
 
 to consult bis friends. The first be went to was a 
 virtuous, but somewhat fanatical Constitutionalist. 
 On hearing* his friend's intention, ^ What," said he, 
 " will you leave Paris till you have assured to your 
 country the observation of the charter ? The present 
 is a moment of alarm to the court, and they will 
 grant any thing*; but if this movement is repressed, 
 the cowl and the censorship will be more active than 
 ever. If you value France, go to the Chamber, and 
 ask for the appointment of a constitutional ministry." 
 Franchemont, somewhat shaken, went to his next 
 friend, who, being a Republican, said to him, " It is 
 all over with the Bourbons : the whole country will 
 be in favour of Napoleon ; and, besides, their bad 
 faith is too notorious to make any concession valua- 
 ble : wait in Paris, and we may bind down Napoleon 
 to a real charter." — <k Perhaps," said Franchemont, 
 ** the country, as you say, is ready to pronounce the 
 abdication of the Bourbons ; if so, I am quiet ; but 
 even then I never can favour the cause of Napoleon. 
 The assistance of a military chief has always brought 
 on the downfall of real patriots. Recollect the ex- 
 ample of Cicero; with what fatal imprudence he 
 lent himself to the policy of Pompey, and consented 
 to prolong the command of Caesar, till at length, 
 aware of his folly, he exclaimed to his friend, on en- 
 tering upon the civil war, Si victus eris, proscribare ; 
 si viceris, tamen servias ; so it will be with the adhe- 
 
24 
 
 rents of Napoleon. " Notwithstanding my friend's 
 speech, his ardour in the Bourbon cause was some- 
 what cooled by his friend's ridicule, and he endea- 
 voured to blow it again into a flame, by the help of a 
 royalist bellows. His loyal friend, however, who 
 was a staunch courtier, said, " Franchemont, your 
 spirit is excellent, but you must not anticipate the 
 King's counsels; it would be wrong to show any 
 jealousy of his orders at this time : — go to the foot 
 of the Throne, and declare yourself ready to serve 
 under any General his Majesty may appoint." 
 
 Distracted by such opposite counsel — unwilling to 
 turn his back on liberty — suspicious of the sovereign 
 he was about to serve -too proud to ask a favour 
 where he meant a service, Franchemont returned to 
 ask my opinion. M. de Lasnes, a man of great ex- 
 perience, who was with me, heard his doubts, and 
 addressed him in a decisive tone : — "Avoid the perils 
 of this crisis ; you will lose your own life, and plunge 
 your children into poverty and disgrace. Retire 
 with them and your wife to your country seat." 
 To my great astonishment, Franchemont seemed 
 pleased, and even grateful for this advice : he went 
 away to prepare his family for the journey. When 
 he was gone, I remonstrated with De Lasnes on the 
 mischief he had done, both to Franchemont and the 
 public. " You are mistaken," said he; " a man of 
 his undecided temper caunot be of real use to any 
 
25 
 
 cause ; before he has finally determined, the first 
 moment, which is always the most favourable, will 
 be lost ; when he has determined, he will immediate- 
 ly repent his choice, and contrast the difficulties he 
 encounters with a fanciful picture of the advantages 
 attending" an opposite conduct ; too keen of sight 
 not to perceive the absurdity of his adherents — too 
 impartial to subscribe entirely to any creed — too 
 anxious to be right, to bear the idea of being wrong, 
 and too ingenuous and too sensitive to be blind to his 
 own mistakes, he will often err, and always regret ; 
 his behaviour will be a tissue of rash action and 
 more fatal inactivity ; he will gradually lose his own 
 confidence, aud inspire the contempt of others. 
 When applied to conduct, the work of a too subtle 
 mind resembles the effects of a mean spirit, and the 
 world are better satisfied with a solution which fur- 
 nishes a gratification to malevolence, than one which 
 supposes a refinement of intellect. They conceive 
 themselves entitled to distrust him who does not seem 
 unsuspicious of himself, whilst they respect the un- 
 deviating line of strong stupidity, and suppose rea- 
 sons for a behaviour whidh proceeds from the want 
 of them. What, then, shall withstand the man, 
 who, to a tolerable understanding and a sagacious 
 perception, joins boldness of decision? He will re- 
 pair errors, whilst a man of nicer tact, but less firm- 
 mess, is content te avoid them ; and having once 
 3 
 
 • 
 
26 
 
 fixed his own plan, he will leave the rest to for- 
 tune — 
 
 Hac arte Pollux hac vagus Hercules 
 Innjsus arces attigit igneas. 
 
27 
 
 FOREIGN TRAVEL. 
 
 Paris, 1815. 
 
 The English and the French, after an absence of 
 twenty years, have again met in the common inter- 
 course of life, and are exchanging bows, ideas, and 
 sentiments. 
 
 I overheard, one day, a young Englishman enter- 
 taining a French lady with profligate principles, and 
 profane jests ; although she had often heard morality 
 and religion attacked before, she was so scandalized 
 by the coarseness of his conversation, that she at 
 last told him his language might suit the vicious 
 society of London, but was too wicked for Paris ; 
 his companion was, at the same time, telling an ob- 
 scene story to a young lady, who fell asleep in the 
 middle of it:— These young men are not improved by 
 travel. 
 
 An English married lady, whom I knew, was re- 
 markable for the plainness of her dress, the modesty 
 
2C 
 
 ttf her manners, and the piety of her conduct. She 
 went from Paris this year with her head made into a 
 stand for flowers, her ears never open but to flattery, 
 and her mouth full of the pretty phrases, " a little 
 flirtation," " innocent behaviour," u harmless dissi- 
 pation," " stupidity of married women in England," 
 " greater liberality in general society," &c. : — She is 
 not improved by travel. 
 
 I know a sensible English tradesman, who used 
 to shut a Frenchman out of doors ; and laughed at 
 every body who did not speak English correctly, and 
 even as vulgarly as himself; he was so pleased with 
 the kind reception he got in France, and the patient 
 attention with which all his blunders were listened 
 to, that he promises he will go and do likewise :— He 
 is improved by his travels. 
 
 A farmer of good sense, and good heart, travelled 
 through France soon after the peace ; he found that 
 the people were neither sulky in their manners, nor 
 full of hatred against the English, nor utterly aban~ 
 doned to vice and folly, as he had been told ; but, on 
 the contrary, civil, gay, and ingenuous; nay, he 
 found tolerable farmers, and honest fathers of fami- 
 lies ; fewer paupers than in England, and much good 
 effected by the Revolution ; he imputed the old 
 quarrels of his nation with theirs, to the Govern- 
 ment, and recommends to the people to give each 
 
29 
 
 other the right hand of friendship : — This man is im- 
 proved, and will improve others. 
 
 Travellers from the Continent seldom stay long 
 enough in England to understand the nature of her 
 institutions, and sound the deep seas of her prosper- 
 ity. The French think they have shown great dis- 
 cernment, as well as liberality, in establishing Trial 
 by Jury. They do not seem to perceive that the 
 goodness of the stuff depends on the material of 
 which it is made, and that a jury must not only con- 
 sist of twelve men, but of twelve honest men ; other- 
 wise it is only a shirt very well made with rotten 
 thread. As long as the members of juries in France 
 are liable to be gained, or awed by Government, the 
 institution is good for nothing, and indeed rather 
 pernicious. 
 
 The Spaniards, in the same humour, borrowed 
 from England the liberty of the press ; but they for- 
 got to provide for the liberty of the individual who 
 was to print ; and the consequence was, that any 
 author who published against the reigning authority, 
 was immediately seized and imprisoned. England, 
 like a work of genius, deserves and requires a slow 
 and frequent perusal to understand its beauties. 
 
 Many an anomalous custom contains an important 
 lesson, and many a paradoxical law is deduced from 
 a profound and salutary observation. 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 VANITY AND LOVE OF FAME. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Vanity is a passion which crosses its own pur- 
 poses, and begets contempt where it means to in- 
 spire admiration. It begins by trying to deceive 
 others, and always re-acts by deceiving and blinding 
 bim who practises it. The conscience is thus sooth- 
 ed into torpor, and nothing more is wanting to make 
 a man base to the lowest degree. Vanity and mean- 
 ness are constant companions ; for a man accustom- 
 ed to sacrifice truth and honesty, to obtain applause, 
 can more easily do it to gain the substantial goods of 
 life. This rule, however, has many exceptions: 
 Florus was a man who, as he himself acknowledged 
 at the end of his life, owed his ruin to the indulgence 
 of his vanity ; for a little applause he often sacrificed 
 great objects ; to obtain all kinds of fame he often 
 made himself completely ridiculous ; and to revenge 
 himself on those who eclipsed him in reputation, he 
 alienated one by one all his friends and supporters : 
 
31 
 
 yet, though a distressed and ambitious man, he never 
 bartered a single opinion, or suffered the smallest 
 stain upon his honour, for the sake of fortune or of 
 power. 
 
 Proteus did not take so many shapes to escape 
 questions as vanity does to provoke admiration. 
 Juntus is a very good man, of tolerable sense, but no 
 knowledge ; yet nothing will satisfy him but being 
 thought a great scholar. Lucius has spent three 
 parts of his life in reading, but he employs the re- 
 maining quarter in trying to per»uad< . world that 
 he is a very idle, dissoiute bellow, in order that they 
 may wonder where his knowledge comes from. 
 Needwell telib every one that he is descended from 
 Henry IV of France; whilst Pearson is equally 
 anxious to proclaim that he is the son of acobler, and 
 that all his riches ana consequence are of nis own 
 making. Vausien, who is a mere man of the world, 
 affects the greatest love of solitude ; but Tirlemout, 
 the author of a treatise on cubic equations, fatigues 
 every company he is with, to let them understand 
 that he is acquainted with all the scandal of the day. 
 I had got so far, when my friend Paradell came in, 
 and read my paper. He said, when he had finished, 
 ct The fault, as you yourself show, is not in being 
 vain, but in placing vanity in a wrong position. A 
 wise man, as a good author has observed, knows his 
 defects, and hides them ; a fool betrays his by at- 
 
tempting to cover them. This is the darn in the 
 stocking which is said to be the sign of premeditated 
 poverty. It is the same thing with good qualities. 
 A wise man is vain of his talents or knowledge ; but 
 he shows them in a modest way, that the world may 
 supply the praise due to them ; a fool adds the praise 
 himself, and the world, jealous of its authority, gives 
 none. Vanity, which every one blames, is the most 
 universal of all motives of action. Et qui de con- 
 temncnda gloria librum scripsit, nomenaffixit. There 
 are many characters so slightly built, as to be capa- 
 ble of no higher or more noble incitement. Were 
 they without vanity, they would be indolent in af- 
 fairs, uncivil and rude in society, selfish in their ac- 
 tions and behaviour. It is to a desire to conciliate 
 public opinion that we owe all the virtues of weak 
 characters : and even many great men have been 
 sustained in their career by the same useful passion. 
 What do you say to Cicero, to Sully, and a thousand 
 others, (not to mention our friend Eschines,) who 
 have derived their best support from the happy facul- 
 ty of being pleased with themselves f* 
 
 " It cannot be denied, that vanity furnishes to 
 many individuals their whole stock of happiness. 
 Sibillus is so fortunately constituted, that no ridicule, 
 no neglect, no series of bad success can wrest from 
 him the opinion that he is the first poet of the age. 
 In a garret in Gray's Inn Lane he enjo)s the ima 
 
33 
 
 ginary applause of a listening world, as much as 
 Petrarch could do when he was crowned in the Ca- 
 pitol. 
 
 " There is no motive which ends in self more noble 
 than the love of fame. This is one of the passions 
 which has, in an extraordinary degree, a good and a 
 bad side. There is nothing more silly and con- 
 temptible than the mere besoin defaire parler de soi, 
 which animates so large a proportion of the candi- 
 dates for fame. The wearing a particular dress, or 
 driving an uncommon carriage ; writing quarto books 
 about nothing, or making a speech to every mob that 
 can be collected, are generally proofs of a desire to 
 obtain distinction without the qualities which deserve 
 it. But there is a love of fame that is the most pow- 
 erful instrument of which Nature makes use to pro- 
 duce discovery in science, and eminence in arts. A 
 man of genius feels himself alternately impelled to 
 perform great actions, and deterred by the difficulty 
 and labour of the enterprise. In this struggle, the 
 desire of exertion would gradually become less vio- 
 lent, and would generally, in the end, be stifled by 
 pleasure and indolence, did not the love of fame fur- 
 nish an auxiliary incitement to action. Pushed on 
 by such an impulse, the man of genius overcomes 
 every obstacle ; he undervalues health, time, life it- 
 self, in comparison to the attainment of his object ; 
 he investigates, weighs, and provides against the 
 
34 
 
 most minute blot in his plans ; be passes the night 
 without repose, and the day without recreation ; he 
 forgets the wear of continual thought, the labour 
 which perfection requires, or the dangers which an 
 untried enterprise may offer : — till, at length, he 
 bursts forth in splendour, like the sun through a 
 mid-day fog, the poet, the philosopher, or the hero of 
 his age. But his glory is not yet complete. In cen- 
 turies still to come, his verse shall swell the bosom, 
 awake the tear ; his discovery shall exalt the mind 
 of the student, or guide the rudder of the navigator ; 
 his example shall animate the breast of patriots, and 
 keep alive the love of immortality. 
 
 *' Having mentioned this subject, I cannot but no- 
 tice the cold objections of some metaphysicians. It 
 has been argued, that posthumous fame is an unrea- 
 sonable object of desire, as no man can obtain it till 
 he is incapable of enjoying it. To this 1 shall an- 
 8we>, ihat he who has done actions to deserve it. has 
 already obtained it in imagination ; he feels himself 
 living in the future ; he foresees the homage that 
 will attend upon his name. It would be easy to 
 show, that almost every great poet and philosopher 
 has foreseen his own immortality. If it be objected, 
 that this foretaste of fame, being unaccompanied by 
 any homage, must be an airy and unsubstantial plea- 
 sure, I shall briefly reply, that it is of the same na- 
 ture with many others which have always been ap- 
 
predated. If it is a pleasure to contribute to the 
 happiness, though without hearing- the thanks of an 
 unknown beggar; if it is a pleasure to be read and 
 admired by distant nations, though they transmit no 
 testimony of their admiration ; if it is a pleasure to 
 be loved by persons in England, even when on a 
 voyage across the Atlantic; — it may also be a plea- 
 sure, and one of the highest degree, to be conscious 
 that we shall obtain the admiration, the blessing, and 
 th clove of future generations. 
 
 U ^he vanity of which the severe philosopher 
 speaks so rigorously, is the cordial which makes life 
 supportable to individuals, and the chain of roses of 
 mixed society. And when it rises to a love of fame, 
 and especially of immortal fame, it is the spring that 
 moves the greatest and most useful characters. 
 Mention to me the names of those who < sui me- \ 
 mores alios fectre merendoj without vanity or love 
 of fame !" 
 
 Seeing I did not answer, my friend snapt his fin- 
 gers in token of victory ; I laughed at his vanity.— 
 
3& 
 
 THE WORLD, 
 
 There is no idea more vague or more unfounded 
 than that which a young- persou attaches to the word 
 World, It is perpetually held out by moralists and 
 divines, that the world is a wilderness, where every 
 vice and every bad passion grows without restraint; 
 and those who have lived their whole lives in, and 
 have, in fact, formed a part of that very world of 
 which they complain, are continually venting* their 
 satire against its malice, its injustice, and its ingrati- 
 tude. How much, then, is a \oung man surprised, 
 when, upon entering" with more than due caution 
 upon a field where he expects to be beset by snares, 
 and assailed by calumny, he finds himself received 
 with easy and unaffected kindness, and frequently 
 obliged to the good nature of a < asual acquaintance. 
 He is unable to trace this phi Ian th ropy to its true 
 cause; he is not aware that, although each indivi- 
 dual may be engaged in the pursuit of his own inte- 
 rest or passion, the society bears no enmity to 
 
37 
 
 fey whom no one has yet been rivalled or thwarted. 
 There is a general and superficial love of our neigh- 
 bour in rnaukiud, which to him appears sincere and 
 genuine benevolence. He goes on, careless and 
 confident, till his progress awakens jealousy, and his 
 imprudence gives room for slander. His indignation 
 is roused ; he recollects the admonitions of his books, 
 and again begins to rail at the ambition, avarice, 
 malice, and vanity of man. His disappointment 
 breaks out into bitterness, and his mistake begets 
 suspicion, which become the elements of education 
 to a new generation. It may be worth while, then, 
 to consider the imputed faults of the world, each in 
 their turn, and to endeavour to inspire a just candour, 
 rather than a total abhorrence of it. 
 
 Ambition, instead of being always a bad passion, 
 is one which has led to many of the enterprises most 
 beneficial to mankind. A desire of distinction in- 
 spired a Sully and a Franklin, as well as a Richelieu 
 and an Alberoni. The difference is, that this passion 
 is subservient to the welfare of mankind in good and 
 well-regulated dispositions, whilst, in bad hesrts, it 
 tends only to the aggrandisement of the individual. 
 A man of pure ambition will always sacrifice his own 
 elevation to his principles, whilst he whose ambition 
 is impure will always sacrifice his principles to his 
 own elevation. The first always looks upon the 
 maintenance or furtherance of certain measures as 
 4 
 
the chief thing* to be desired, and upon himself as an 
 instrument for promoting 1 them : the second views 
 his own possession of power as the chief thing to be 
 desired, and the accomplishment of general objects 
 as a work that may be forwarded or postponed, ac- 
 cording to convenience. A man, rightly ambitious, 
 will rejoice even in the success of a rival, if it is like- 
 ly to advance the public welfare, whilst a badly am- 
 bitious man has the disposition, unjustly attributed 
 to the great Lord Chatham ■ 
 
 rt Would save his country if be could, 
 But d n it, if another should." 
 
 But this point, namely, the usefulness of ambition, ib ; 
 it should seem, sufficiently obvious ; therefore I shall 
 not insist upon it The next worldly passion of which 
 I shall speak, is the love of gain, to which I may join 
 the lave of pleasure. Divines are never weary of 
 holding up these two propensities as absolutely vi- 
 cious in themselves, and tending only to misery in 
 this world, and the next. I cannot agree in this re- 
 presentation ; it is agreeable to the benevolence of 
 the Deity to suppose that he showered down the 
 flowers and fruits of the earth, not to tantalise the 
 being whom he created, but for his comfort and en- 
 joyment* What, then, can be more natural and 
 right than that he should exert his physical and men- 
 
tal faculties in order to obtain them ? And the con- 
 sequences are such as might be expected from em- 
 ployments agreeable to the will of the Creator. The 
 individual finds his mind occupied and interested, his 
 health improved, and his prospects continually bright- 
 ening ; the community increases in wealth and 
 knowledge ; the arts which contribute to the enjoy- 
 ment, and instruction which tends to the improve- 
 ment, of man, advance with equal steps. Observe 
 the countries where the love of gain, and the spirit 
 of traffick have most prevailed — at Florence in the 
 fifteenth century, in Holland and in England — and 
 you will see that they are the same which have made 
 the greatest discoveries in science, and produced 
 many of the ornaments of modern literature; the 
 reason of which is clear ; for it is only when men, 
 by their industry and pursuit of wealth, have amass- 
 ed a sufficient stock lo lay out something on super- 
 fluities, that they can allow any thing for the support 
 of astronomy and poetry. 
 
 It has been often objected, that the progress of 
 wealth introduces dishonesty ; but this is a mistake 
 founded on superficial observation. The honesty of 
 a rude peasantry is the honesty of ignorance : it has 
 no more merit than the temperance of a man who, 
 never having seen grapes, should leave them hang- 
 ing on the bush. The first sight of money dissipates 
 ihk species of honesty. But when society has ad- 
 
 
40 
 
 vanced in civilization, there arises, instead of it, ?i 
 more enlightened integrity, which is founded on the 
 precepts of morality and the control of opinion. 
 
 Great merit is often placed in abstinence from 
 sensual enjoyments. There are, undoubtedly, ex- 
 amples of men who give so exclusive an attention to 
 the preparation of luxuries for their own personal 
 use, chat they can hardly afford time for the duties 
 which the} owe to their God and to their neighbour ; 
 but fur a person to say, that he must renounce the 
 indulgence ot the senses altogether, for fear of being 
 entirely absorbed b\ it, is to confess a degree of phy- 
 sical appetite and a want of moral taste, which does 
 but little honour to his temperance* Nor is there 
 any sense in supposing that we are intended to de- 
 rive all our pleasures from the mind. Our bodily 
 constitution is so joined to the mental, that our pains 
 are aiwavs communicated from the one to the other ; 
 and the Stoic himself could not be insensible to the 
 attack of a cholic, or the amputation of a leg. Why, 
 then, should we not take advantage of the dispensa- 
 tion of nature, which also gives a participation of 
 pleasures ? And ought we to lose any opportunity 
 of partaking in the bounty, and being grateful for 
 the providence of our Creator? The man who gives 
 a feast is offended if none come to partake of it : may 
 not the Supreme Being have somewhat of the same 
 feeling to those who reject his gifts ? But, say the 
 
41 
 
 well-meaning- persons who disdain and despise the 
 usual conduct of the world, is it not kicked to con- 
 sume in luxuries what might afford subsistence for 
 thousands of poor people ? This argument, which 
 might have had weight in times of ignorance, is in- 
 disputably disproved by the science of the present 
 day. It is now evidently demonstrated, that U e 
 money which is spent on manufactures of conveni- 
 ence and luxury supports the families of industrious 
 labourers, whilst that which is indiscriminately given 
 in charity, too often tends to the increase of an idle 
 and miserable population. 
 
 The result which I would enforce is, that we should 
 enjoy the conveniences of this life, without setting 
 too great a price on them. Our occupation should 
 always be to improve our own lives, aud add to the 
 happiness of our neighbours ; but a pleasure which 
 fairly offers itself, and which has no vice in it, shoald 
 not, because it is a pleasure, be avoided. 
 
 With regard to the malice of the world, it may be 
 remarked, that those who complain most of it are 
 often those who deservedly suffer by its judgment ; 
 nay, the malice of which they are victims is often 
 only a retribution for that with which they have 
 treated every individual who fell under their obser- 
 vation. Yet it must be allowed, that the opinion of 
 the world is often stained with precipitancy and in- 
 justice. The first rumour that is propagated produ-* 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 ces an immediate sentence, from which it is difficult 
 to obtain an appeal ; and very often the fullest justi- 
 fication is unable to allay the storm of prejudice by* 
 which an innocent character has been assailed. 
 Yet, even in these cases, it is generally to be ob- 
 served, that some imprudence has been committed, 
 which has open d the way to misconstruction. Per- 
 haps, upon the whole, the general effect of an active 
 and prying- police of tongues over conduct, is bene- 
 ficial. It teaches men to observe decorum, as well 
 as to consult feeling; it teaches them, or should 
 teach them, to act in secret under an additional con- 
 trol, which is often more pou erful than conscience ; 
 and when women see their slightest imprudencies 
 exaggerated into gross misbehaviour, it must teach 
 them to avoid temptation, which is the most certain 
 means of being free from evil. But when a person 
 has satisfied the reasonable demands of propriety, as 
 well as the just dues of conscience, it by no means 
 becomes him to be doubtful or timorous A bold 
 countenance, and a confident manner, impose on the 
 great as well as the little vulgar; and mercy, it must 
 he owned, is never shown to him who once confesses 
 himself in the wrong ; and this, perhaps, because it 
 is usually a proof of want of courage, the most un- 
 popular of all defects. 
 
 I shall be told, perhaps, of instances of excellent 
 men who have suiFered the martyrdom of opinion. 
 
43 
 
 Undoubtedly there are such ; but many who seem to 
 be condemned without cause have something" in their 
 characters that is mean or deceitful. Others have 
 neither of these defects, but an undisguised liberty 
 of speech, or an impatient quickness at taking" offence, 
 which makes them the natural enemies of their spe- 
 cies. At first none appear to be more unjustly per- 
 secuted than those who change their opinions, either 
 in politics or religion. Reason would teach us that 
 such a change was rather a favourable proof of can- 
 dour, but experience has shown that it is so gene- 
 rally the effect of a want of integrity and principle, 
 as to justify the saying of a lady of great talents, that 
 she never could help confounding a convert and a 
 convict. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that mankind take 
 too great a delight in speaking ill of their neigh- 
 hours. It is, indeed, quite surprising tc see persons, 
 generous and friendly in their nature, retail the most 
 scandalous reports concerning people whom they 
 would willingly assist with half their fortune. There 
 is often no greater contrast than between the inno- 
 cence of a man's life and the malice of his conversa- 
 tion ; and he who would spare neither his time nor 
 his fortune for a beggar and a stranger, often exhi- 
 bits a want of charity and humanity to a companion 
 and a friend. This is nowhere more remarkable 
 than amongst the French philosophers, as exhibited 
 
44 
 
 in their own writings, and in the correspondence of 
 Grimm. They are full of compassion for a poor fa- 
 mily at the other end of the kingdom, and at the same 
 time are pulling one another to pieces like wild 
 beasts. The cause, no doubt, is, that their envy and 
 malignity are only excited by those who are and may 
 be their rivals. And, in the present age, scandal, 
 detraction, and calumny, have taken the place of 
 open enmity and private war, just as forgery and 
 private stealing have become the substitutes of high- 
 way robbery and murder. On this subject I cannot 
 refrain from quoting the eloquent denunciation of 
 Jeremy Taylor :*— 
 
 "Every man hath in his own life sins enough, in 
 bis own mind trouble enough, in his own fortune 
 evils enough, and in performance of his offices fail- 
 ings more than enough to entertain his own inquiry; 
 so that curiosity after the affairs of others cannot be 
 without envy and an evil mind. What is it to me if 
 my neighbour's grandfather were a Syrian, or his 
 grandmother illegitimate, or that another is indebted 
 five thousand pounds, or whether his wife be expen- 
 sive? But commonly curious persons, or (as the 
 Apostle's phrase is) busy-bodies, are not solicitous or 
 inquisitive into the beauty and order of a well go- 
 
 * Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, 
 
45 
 
 verned family, or after the virtues of an excellent 
 person ; but if there be any thing- for which men 
 keep locks, and bars, and porters, things that blush 
 to see the light, and are either shameful in manners, 
 or private in nature, these things are their care and 
 their business. But if great things will satisfy our 
 inquiry, the courses of the sun ana moon, the spots in 
 their faces, the firmament of heaven and the sup- 
 posed orbs, the ebbing and flowing- of the sea, are 
 work enough for us : or, if this be not, let him tell 
 me whether the number of the stars be even or odd, 
 and when they began to be so ; since some ages have 
 discovered new stars, which the former knew not, 
 but might have seen if they had been where now they 
 are fixed. If these be too troublesome, search lower, 
 and tell me why this turf this year brings forth a daisy, 
 and the next year a plantane ; why the apple bears 
 its seed in his heart, and wheat bears it in his head ; 
 let him tell why a graft, taking nourishment from a 
 crab-stock, shall have a fruit more noble than its 
 nurse and parent; let him say why the best of oil is 
 at the top, the best of wine in the middle, and the best 
 of honey at the bottom, otherwise than it is in some 
 liquors that are thinner, and in some that are thicker. 
 But these things are not such as please busy-bodies; 
 they must feed upon tragedies, and stories of misfor- 
 tunes and crimes ; and yet, tell them ancient stories 
 of the ravishment of chaste maidens, or the debauch* 
 
46 
 
 orient of nations, or the extreme poverty of learned 
 persons, or the persecutions of the old saints, or the 
 changes of government, and the sad accidents hap- 
 pening in royal families among the Arsacidx, the 
 Cxsars, the Ptolemies, these were enough to scratch 
 the itch of knowing sad stories ; but unless you teli 
 them something sad and new, something that is done 
 within the bounds of their knowledge or relation, it 
 seems todious and unsatisfying; which shows plainly 
 it is an evil spirit : envy and idleness married toge- 
 ther and begot curiosity. Therefore Plutarch rarely 
 well compares curious and inquisitive ears to the ex- 
 ecrable gates of cities, out of which only malefactors 
 and hangmen, and tragedies pass — nothing is chaste 
 or holy. If a physician should go from house to house 
 unsent for, and inquire what woman hath a cancer 
 in her bowels, or what man a fistula in his colic-gut, 
 though he could pretend to cure it, he would be al- 
 most as unwelcome as the disease itself: and there- 
 fore it is inhumane to inquire after crimes and dis- 
 asters without pretence of amending them, but only 
 to discover them. We are not angry with search- 
 ers and publicans when they look only on public 
 merchandise, but when they break open trunks, 
 and pierce vessels, and unrip packs, and open sealed 
 letters. 
 
 " Curiosity is the direct incontinency of the spirit ; 
 and adultery itself, in its principle, is many times no- 
 
47 
 
 thing' but a curious inquisition after, and envying of 
 another man's inclosed pleasures: and there have 
 been many refused fairer objects, that they might 
 ravish an inclosed woman from her retirement and 
 single possessor. But these inquisitions are seldom 
 without danger — never without baseness ; they are 
 neither just, nor honest, nor delightful, and very of- 
 ten useless to the curious inquirer. For men stand 
 upon their guards against them, as they secure their 
 meat against harpies and cats, laying all their coun- 
 sels and secrets out of their way ; or as men clap 
 their garments close about them when the searching 
 and saucy winds would discover their nakedness : as 
 knowing that what men willingly hear, they do wil- 
 lingly speak of. Knock, therefore, at the door be- 
 fore you enter upon your neighbour's privacy ; and 
 remember that there is no difference between enter- 
 ing into his house, and looking into it." 
 
4S 
 
 NATIONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 Paris, 1815. 
 
 I was sitting one day in company with a French- 
 man, a Spaniard, an Italian, an Englishman, and a 
 German, when a conversation began upon the merits 
 of their respective nations. As I found the argu- 
 ment growing warm, especially on the part of the 
 Frenchman, who was pouring a shower of small talk 
 upon the Englishman, and of the Italian, who was 
 near touching the ceiling with his hands, in order to 
 invoke the vengeance of Heaven upon the German, 
 I bethought me of a method to temper the discussion ; 
 I proposed that each should set forth his reasons for 
 preferring his own nation in a continued speech, and 
 that I, as an impartial hearer, should be the judge 
 amongst them. My proposal was soon accepted ; 
 but harmony had like to have been again destroyed 
 by a dispute who was to begin. The Frenchman 
 talked loud, the German muttered, and the Italian 
 
49 
 
 spouted, Amidst the confusion of their voices, I 
 could now and then distinguish the words, comedie % 
 boulevards, esprit, empfmdungcn, genuss, bequem* 
 lichkeit) cantatrice, capo d' ) opera, cosa superba, &c. ; 
 only the Spaniard and the Englishman looked upon 
 the contest with seeming indifference and contempt ; 
 at last I succeeded in stopping them, and prevailed 
 on them to speak in the following order : 
 
 I addressed myself first to the Spaniard, who was 
 by no means a Liberal, and said, " Tell me why you 
 consider your own nation as the wisest, the happiest, 
 and the best ?•" — he answered, *' I consider the 
 two former epithets as entirely superfluous; for if 
 we are the best, we must be the happiest ; and if we 
 are the happiest and best, we must be the wisest. 
 
 "Now, I believe, there is no man who performs, 
 so well as the Spaniard, his duty to God, and to his 
 neighbour. He worships in the most exact, and 
 even the most splendid manner, the Divine Creator, 
 the Redeemer, the Holy Ghost, and the Blessed Vir- 
 gin, and he does not forget to pray for the interces- 
 sion of the least of the Saints whom the church has 
 admitted ; he is loyal to his king, to the utmost stretch 
 of Christian patience and submission ; he is kind and 
 charitable to his fellow creatures, helping the needy, 
 and feeding the hungry; he reaps the reward of his 
 good actions in a perpetual cheerfulness. Cheerful- 
 ness is the habit of the good ; gayety is but the delK 
 5 
 
50 
 
 riura of the wicked. Nor let it be supposed, as many 
 declamatory writers have asserted, that the Inquisi- 
 tion has diminished the happiness of Spain. It is 
 only through the acts of the Inquisition that the 
 Spanish people have been preserved in an unanimous 
 faith. Now, even granting", for argument's sake, 
 that other religions may be equally good for a future 
 life, there is nothing which tends so much to union 
 and harmony in the present, as worship at the same 
 altar, reliance upon the same means of salvation, ob- 
 ligation to the same duties, and hope of the same final 
 reward. Much has been said of the victims of the 
 Inquisition. The care which that holy tribunal em- 
 ployed not to hurt the reputation of families, by pub- 
 lishing their proceedings, has served to spread a cla- 
 mour against them ; for that which is secret, is al- 
 ways magnified by report. It is thus that fame re- 
 venges herself on those who wish to keep her out. 
 But, in reality, are the victims of the Inquisition to 
 be compared with those of the day of St. Barthele- 
 mi, and the revocation of the edict of Nantz ? Such 
 are the effects of admitting the infection, and then 
 endeavouring to stop it ; or are they to be compared 
 with the thousands who suffered in England under 
 Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth? Such 
 are the consequences of admitting, without control, 
 the preachers of heresy and schism. 
 
51 
 
 * 4 If we do not want the religious toleration of 
 England, still less do we stand in need of her politi- 
 cal liberty. The sun which favours our country with 
 its propitious influence, gives us enjoyment sufficient 
 without seeking to busy ourselves in the affairs of 
 government. Liberty is, in fact, a poor substitute 
 for a fine climate. The people of the South only re- 
 quire the presence of that power which raises the 
 corn — which ripens the grape, in order to be satisfied 
 with their position. To ask if they are happy, you 
 need only ask if they exist. But with the people of 
 the North it is necessary to dig mines, to hew down 
 forests, to build houses, to obtain, in a small space of 
 a few feet, that warm, comfortable sensation, which 
 a southern peasant feels in the large mansion of na- 
 ture ; he is obliged to look for some artificial source 
 of pleasure, to intoxicate himself with the poison of 
 distilled spirits, or the tumult of political contention. 
 We court no such advantages. To those who love 
 care we leave the trouble of governing; and we 
 should think it as absurd to insist upon electing de- 
 puties, and making laws, because we have the right 
 to do it, as to carry burdens because we have backs 
 capable of supporting them.* Having said what is 
 sufficient to convince all men of sense, I will not 
 
 * How much mortified this gentleman must be at the late 
 Revolution. — En. 
 
dilate upon the beauty of our country ; the majesty 
 of Grenada, the splendour of Seville, the fertility of 
 Valencia. You know our land, and can do justice to 
 it." Having- thus spoken, the Spaniard folded his 
 arms in his cloak, which he always wore, even in 
 France ; and I observed he never listened to a word 
 that was spoken afterwards. 
 
 Having put the same question to the Italian that I 
 had addressed to the Spaniard, he answered to the 
 following purport : — That what had been just said 
 concerning the pleasure derived from climate, ap- 
 plied with equal force to Italy, and set their two 
 countries above all the rest of Europe. " Indeed," 
 he said, •' the native of London, or Hamburgh, can- 
 not conceive, unless he travels to our land, the plea- 
 sure to be derived from the touch of a cisalpine at* 
 mosphere. Our nerves seem to swell and extend 
 themselves to receive the delightful sensation ; our 
 eyes dwell without fatigue or pain upon the beau- 
 ties of a rich and warm landscape ; even the voice 
 maintains its clearness only in the air which the sun 
 has blessed. But if we had merely this advantage, 
 we should rival, and not precede Spain in happiness. 
 It is to another circumstance that Italy owes her 
 glory, her occupation, her delight: — to taste. With 
 justice it has been said, that this is the only pursuit 
 of which the pleasures far out-balance the pains. A 
 man may meet with an unfaithful mistress, or be re- 
 
53 
 
 jected by an ungrateful sovereign, but nothing 
 obliges him to gaze at a bad picture, or dwell upon 
 a disproportioned building. A great work of art 
 may be said to be the most sucGessful result of hu- 
 man effort : a fine statue requires as much genius in 
 the conception as the most difficult problem of New- 
 ton ; it demands as much skill in the execution as 
 the formation of a time-piece; and when finished, it 
 attracts the admiration, and gratifies the senses of 
 thousands of spectators for thousands of years. It 
 is, I hope, needless for them to prove that Italy ex- 
 cels all other nations in this respect. The sublimity 
 of Michael Angelo, the grace and expression of Ra- 
 phael, in fine, the innumerable merits of our great 
 architects, sculptors, and painters, are not to be in- 
 sulted by a comparison with the smoky buildings of 
 London, the monuments in the Musee Francois, or 
 the lusty goddesses of the Belgian painters. Give 
 me the portico of the Pantheon, and the interior of 
 St. Peters, the Transfiguration, the Communion of 
 St. Jerome, the St. Michael, the St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, the St. Peter Martyr, the Moses of Michael 
 Angelo, the Venus and Apollo of the ancients ; give 
 me, above all, the music which our admirable Pae- 
 siello, Cimarosa, and Rossini have produced, and I 
 will not yield the palm of happiness to any part of 
 Europe. For the prize of wisdom, too, I think we 
 may lay a fair claim. The greatest natural philoso- 
 
54 
 
 pliers, the most skilful negotiators, the most gifted 
 poets, own Italy as their birth-place. The discove- 
 ry of the laws of motion, of the resistance of the air, 
 of the barometer, of the telescope, and lately of Gal- 
 va.iism ; the knowledge of a fourth quarter of the 
 globe ; the history of Italy, of Florence, of the Coun- 
 cil of Trent, and of the Civil Wars of France, the 
 Inferno the Goffredo, and the Orlando Furioso, form 
 a portion of the share which Italy has contributed to 
 the civilization of Europe. It is for you, Sir," he 
 concluded, turning to the German, " to prove that 
 the univ ersities of Heidelberg and Halle have done 
 more.'" 
 
 The German, though he seemed to be smoking his 
 pipe with great apathy, was not insensible to the re- 
 proach; and, like a skilful general, immediately 
 changed the field of action. "I can find but one 
 fault with your discourse, Signor," he replied ; " it 
 is, that you have entirely omitted to answer the prin- 
 cipal question, namely, why you consider your na- 
 tion as the best ? To this interrogatory, I can reply, 
 with a safe conscience, that the Germans are the 
 best people, because they do not assassinate secretly, 
 or murder openly ; because they are honest in their 
 dealings and pay their debts, whether to government 
 or i vividuals, with conscience-calming punctuality. 
 From Hamburgh to Clagenfurt, there is scarcely a 
 village which has not its schoolmaster, whilst the 
 
55 
 
 capital of a province is almost ignorant of the name 
 of executioner. Our fruit hangs on the trees by the 
 road-side without being touched by any one ; and 
 the streets of our largest towns become still as sleep 
 early in the night. Other nations, indeed, may boast 
 of great discoveries in science, and of a rapid pro- 
 gress in political philosophy ; but we furnished them 
 with the means. They have sown a great part and 
 reaped the whole; but we gave the field and invent- 
 ed the plough. It is to us that they are indebted for 
 the art of printing, without which, knowledge could 
 not have moved ; and for the Reformation, without 
 which it would have been arrested in its march. In 
 modern times, too, our literature has taken a far-ex- 
 tended springing leap, which leaving behind it the 
 long-past glories of Italy and France, place it by the 
 side of England in the race towards the spedtator- 
 girt, laurel-surrounded goal, which is always in the. 
 horizon of those bright geniuses, who have a heart- 
 convulsing desire of present immortality, and a thou- 
 sand-man power of intellectual sensation." 
 
 These last words caused a pause : even the French- 
 man took a pinch of snuff, and sneezed twice before 
 he would begin. At last he started with such volu- 
 bility in praise of France, and of Paris, that I am 
 quite incapable of representing his harangue. He 
 gave the first ten minutes to those who had spoken 
 before him, and tried to prove that France excelled 
 
56 
 
 them in the very particulars on which they had in- 
 sisted. He said there was no climate in Europe 
 equal to that of the south of France, and that even 
 at Paris the winter was over in February. As for 
 the fine arts, he quoted Lalande, who had spent se- 
 veral years in, and written several volumes upon 
 Italy, and who maintains there is nothing to be seen 
 there equal to what is to be found in France. In 
 modern times he thought it beyond a question, that 
 the French painters were the first in the world, 
 which, however, was not to be wondered at, as the 
 English had not at all turned their attention to the 
 fine arts. The works of David, he conceived, express 
 a sublimity to which Raphael, born in a barbarous 
 age, never could attain ; in music, the French now 
 far excelled the Italians. As for virtue, which his 
 German friend had introduced somewhat malapro- 
 pos into the discussion, he, like the Delphine of Ma- 
 dame de Stael, defined it to consist in a succession of 
 generous impulses. And these impulses acted no 
 where with such vigour, as in the country where an 
 officer sacrificed his life, in order to give the alarm 
 to his regiment, and a father went cheerfully to exe- 
 cution to save the life of his son. Having thrown out 
 these remarks with an air degage, he put on a more 
 Socratic look, as he addressed himself to the English- 
 man. " It is with your nation that ours is most fit to 
 be compared. In England, and in France, Us Iwnieres 
 
57 
 
 are generally spread like the rays of the sun ; in other, 
 countries they are scattered like flashes of lightning". 
 But it is more especially in French that elementary 
 books in every art and science are written ; it is in 
 French that the reading of the world, profound or 
 trivial, is carried on. If a mathematician wishes to 
 read the deepest book of science, he studies the 
 Mecanique Celeste; if a Russian nobleman desires 
 to learn what is meant by the words feeling or wit, 
 he takes hp the tragedies of Racine, or the tales of 
 Voltaire, and learns to smile and to cry like a civili- 
 zed being. Even the discoveries of your great New- 
 ton have been brought to perfection by D'Alembert, 
 and Laplace; and in pure mathematics you have 
 not for a long time produced an equal to Lagrange. 
 Impartial judges (bowing to me) will agree, that in 
 the most profound and abstrect of human sciences, 
 the people whom you treat as frivolous and superfi- 
 cial, have gone far beyond you. Your mathemati- 
 cians of Oxford and Cambridge, are not even ac- 
 quainted with that form of the calculus which we 
 use for our investigations. If we excel you in ab- 
 stract knowledge, there is still less doubt that we are 
 superior in practical happiness. For happiness con- 
 sists in nothing so much as in a temper of mind fitted 
 for pleasure, or, to use a chemical phrase, in having 
 a capacity for enjoyment. A man may satisfy him- 
 self of this, by travelling the same road when he is 
 
58 
 
 gay, and when he is gloomy. In the first case, the 
 country will appear to him smiling beautiful, or sub- 
 lime ; in the second, it will seem tame, dull, or sa- 
 vage. Now, the disposition of a Frenchman, is to 
 see every thing en beau. I remember being in a 
 wretched prison, guarded by Spaniards, who, any 
 day in the week, might have taken a fancy to cut 
 our throats ; yet we laughed all day, and acted plays 
 in the evening. Englishmen would have cut holes in 
 the wall, and have been shot in the attempt to es- 
 cape. If we know how to bear adversity, we also 
 know how to enjoy prosperity. What in the world 
 so good as the Restaurateurs and the Theatres of 
 Paris ? What country can compare with France 
 for wines, for dress, for dancing, and for plays ? 
 
 " You will affirm, that these sensual and market- 
 able enjoyments, destroy the taste for domestic hap- 
 piness ; but it is not so : no people are more attach- 
 ed than the French to their near relations ; and 
 England cannot easily produce a mother more at- 
 tached than Madame de Sevigne. It is the same 
 with all the domestic relations ; and it is sufficient to 
 go to the cimetiere of Pere la Chaise, to be convin- 
 ced how true the affection which the mothers, and 
 sons, and sisters, of France, have for each other. 
 How simple, and yet how tender the inscriptions 
 upon the tombs ! There the sister goes to renew 
 the tender recollection of her sister, and a son to 
 
place a garland over the grave of his mother. With 
 you, the dead are never mentioned, never visited, 
 and, I believe, seldom remembered. With the kind- 
 est feelings to the relations, the French, it is true, 
 do not think it inconsistent to mix the sociability of 
 a larger circle ; and they endeavour to be happy 
 through the short period of existence allotted them ; 
 whilst the English lose half their lives in becoming 
 acquainted with those who are jumbled into the 
 same half-century as themselves." 
 
 The Englishman began with the most diffident air, 
 by refusing any comparison with the Spaniards, the 
 Italians, or the Germans. The first, he said, had no 
 political liberty, the second had not even independ- 
 ence, and the Germans could scarcely be said to 
 possess a classical literature ; without every one of 
 these advantages no nation could claim the pre-emi- 
 nence. It was now his duty to show that the Eng- 
 lish nation was the wisest, the happiest, and the best. 
 The only mode of estimating the rank of England 
 in science and literature, was to enumerate the men 
 she had produced. Whatever claims the Parisians 
 (for Paris was France) might have to distinction in 
 the annals of modern science, they would not dispute 
 that Bacon was the first theoretical teacher, and 
 Newton the greatest practical discoverer of sound 
 philosophy. Nor could England be said to be infe- 
 rior to any in the science of the day ; namely, che- 
 
60 
 
 mistry ; when Priestley and Cavendish made discove- 
 ries contemporary with those of Lavoisier, and Davy 
 had pushed his researches to a distance which none 
 of his rivals or fellow-labourers had reached. 
 
 " If we turn from physical science, and look to 
 history, which joining the investigation of fact, with 
 the exercise of moral judgment, and the use Oi a 
 cultivated style, seems to form the link between the 
 exact sciences, and polite literature, we shall find 
 that Hume is the most profound, and Gibbon the 
 most learned of modern historians. I will not com- 
 pare them with De Thou or Bapin, D'Anquetil or 
 Lacretelle ; but I will assert, without hesitation, 
 that they have far surpassed Davila, Guicciardin, 
 Mariaua, and Schiller. 
 
 " In the region of poetry we fear no comparison 
 with France ; in fact, except the tragedies of Ra- 
 cine, two or three oi Voltaire, and some passages of 
 ComeiHe, France has no poetry of the higher class; 
 but even in those, have they any thing so sublime as 
 the conceptions of Milton ? Have they any charac- 
 ters so true, or an invention so various, as that of 
 Shakspeare ? 
 
 " If we look at the present state of literature, our 
 superiority is still more apparent ; the six poets of 
 our day have no parallels in France. 
 
 " I have now to speak of the happiness of Eng- 
 land. Good Heavens, what a fertile theme ' N© 
 
61 
 
 cold dissertation on the advantages of liberty, no 
 detailed statement of the blessings derived from in- 
 dustry, can give an inhabitant of tne Continent an 
 idea of the well beiog and prosperity of our island ; 
 every man can there think, and speak, and write as 
 he pleases ; no previous censorship of the press pre- 
 vents the general communication of facts and of 
 ideas ; truth is not squeezed under the hat of a car- 
 dinal, or screwed by the vice of an officer of police, 
 but carried into the broad day-light, and appreciated 
 by the general judgment of enlightened men. 
 
 " Nor have we stained the cause of liberty by in- 
 numerable murders and proscriptions ; our revolu- 
 tion was fruitful in great qualities and great virtues ; 
 it produced but few crimes. 
 
 " Perhaps of all the advantages our constitution 
 has procured to us, none is more considerable than 
 the freedom of industry. 
 
 " The consequence is, a perfection in the arts of 
 life, a solidity and completeness of happy comforts, 
 which one of your countrymen," said hefcto the 
 Frenchman, " called La poesie du bienttre. The 
 English shopkeeper has ten times the comfort of the 
 Spanish grandee, and is twenty times as independent 
 as the Roman cardinal. 
 
 " Nor have the English been less remarkrble in 
 foreign war ; during the late war they gained by sea 
 the battles of Camperdown, St. Vincent, Aboukir, 
 6 
 
62 
 
 Copenhagen, and Trafalgar." — " Oh, but then/* 
 said the Frenchman, " your nation are islanders, and 
 cannot cope with us on the land." — " Talavera, and 
 Barrosa, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, are the 
 answers to this objection." 
 
 When all the parties had been heard, I said, with 
 the gravest face, and the most solemn tone I could 
 put on, that I would read over my notes, and give 
 my judgment another day. I did not say, however, 
 that I would give the cause another hearing, as they 
 do in the English chancery court, although it might 
 have been done, in this case, without costing the 
 parties a hundred pounds a-piece. 
 
03 
 
 LITERARY TASTE. 
 
 Milan, 1818. 
 
 From the beginning of literary history, no dispute 
 seems to have been more eloquently maintained, or 
 more often renewed, than that between the admirers 
 of great but irregular genius, and the pupils of ex- 
 alted but chastened talent. Amongst ancient au- 
 thors, the contest has chiefly turned upon the merits 
 of Homer and Virgil, so that the partisans of the 
 two opinions may be styled, for the sake of distinc- 
 tion, Homerians and Virgilians. The former adore 
 that which is grand, original, and surprising ; the 
 latter delight in that which is beautiful, harmonious, 
 and correct. Amongst the moderns, the two parties 
 have 'found frequent occasions to display tljeir dif- 
 ferences. In Italy, they have compared Ariosto and 
 Tasso, and have lately renewed the contest in a dif- 
 ferent shape, under the titles of Classici and Roman* 
 tici; in England^ they have opened the lists for 
 Pryden and Pope ; and in Germany a great schism 
 
64 
 
 exists to this day between the followers of the Eng- 
 lish and the French school of tragedy. But however 
 acute the weapons, however sharp the rencoDtres in 
 this controversy may be, there is little chance that 
 victory will entirely declare for either of the com- 
 batants. There is a difference in the constitution 
 of mind of the respective parties. Those whose 
 feelings are bold, whose desire of novelty is insatia- 
 ble, whose adoration of genius is unbounded, will 
 always be Homerians ; whilst those in whom the 
 love of order is stronger than the conception of ex- 
 cellence, and delicacy of taste more prominent than 
 enthusiasm, will as certainly become Virgilians. 
 Hence, with some knowledge of the person, we might 
 easily predict what would be his opinions. Thu£, 
 Voltaire, whose opinions of taste were drawn from 
 the writers of the age of Louis XIV., gave the palm 
 to Virgil against Homer; whilst Mr. Fox, whose 
 vigorous mind delighted to wander through a maze 
 of invention, allotted a rank to the Greek poet far 
 higher than that which he gave to the Roman. Thus, 
 Galileo, being an inventor, whose thoughts require 
 variety and excitement in his reading consonant to 
 his own pursuits, naturally prefers Ariosto to Tasso ; 
 whilst Metastasio, whose works are the result of la- 
 bour and polish, declares his predilection in favour 
 of the author of the Jerusalem. Reversing the rule, 
 we may form some estimate of a person by his taste ; 
 
$ 
 
 and this rule will apply to the line arts as well as to 
 poetry ; for, except the servile herd who only imitate 
 admiration, every one looks at a work of art, not to 
 gain instruction, which is new, as in a work of sci- 
 ence, but to excite a feeling- he has previously enter- 
 tained. Thus, he who delights in the Aurora of 
 Guido, admires expression, dignity, and grace ; but 
 he who chooses Titian and Paul Veronese for his" 
 standard of perfection, is fond of rich colours and 
 varied groupes. Those who have a warm admiration 
 of the Greek temples will be, in all tilings, lovers of 
 simplicity ; and those who, in their hearts, prefer the 
 churches of Bernini, are clearly of the same class 
 with the boys who run after the Lord Mayor's coach. 
 The followers of Homer, Dante, Ariosto, and Shak« 
 speare, will be men of bold character, and a spring- 
 ing and soaring fancy ; whilst the partizans of Vir- 
 gil, Tasso, and Racine, will be persons of refined 
 discrimination, and little inventive genius. The 
 former are fit to take Troy, like the Achilles of Ho- 
 mer ; and the latter to escape from it with honour. 
 like the iEneas of Virgil. 
 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 ON FIELD-SPORTS. 
 
 rt Image of war without its guilt." 
 
 SOMERVILLE* 
 
 London, 1819. 
 
 It is mentioned somewhere, that Dr. Paley, who 
 was very fond of fishing, said, that if he was called 
 upon to state the cause of his pleasure in it, he would 
 be unable to do it. Yet it is not difficult to state the 
 elements which compose the pleasure of fishing — the 
 exercise of skill and power, and that degree of un- 
 certainty and expectation which creates an interest, 
 are all contained in fishing. 
 
 It would be more difficult to account entirely for 
 the pleasure of hunting. The skill is displayed by 
 the hounds, and the power by the horse ; the death of 
 the animal is no object, and the whole pleasure is in 
 the pursuit itself: and yet there is something in the 
 cry of hounds, the rapidity of motion, the excite- 
 
67 
 
 ment of air, and company, and emulation, which 
 raises the spirits to a degree that hardiy any thing 
 else can do. It would appear as if the chace were 
 natural to man. 
 
 There are many wise and excellent persons who 
 think it wanton cruelty to indulge in any field-sports. 
 If the conjecture hazarded above, that the pursuit of 
 wild animals is part of our nature, has any founda- 
 tion., nothing can be said against hunting by man in a 
 savage state : and I know not why that should not be 
 the case. A pike pursues a roach, and sometimes 
 bites off a part without killing it ; the stoat pursues 
 the rabbit for half a day in the most regular manner, 
 sure of sucking its blood at last : even the earth-worm 
 is a beast of pray. Why, then, should not man be 
 allowed by his Creator to pursue certain animals 
 which are his food ? But it is said, that, whatever 
 may have been the case formerly in a savage state, 
 field-sports are no longer pursued from hunger or 
 necessity, but for pleasure and diversion. Foxes, as 
 it is well known, are preserved only for the pleasure 
 of hunting them. This is very true; but does any 
 one think it would be any advantage to these ani- 
 mals that hunting should be abolished ?■ The imme- 
 diate consequence would be the destruction of all 
 the foxes as a noxious race Let us suppose a fox 
 endowed, as he often is in fable, with the faculty of 
 speech : he might then address Gray, or Cowper, or 
 
as 
 
 Gilbert Wakefield, in these terms : — " Formerly we 
 were allowed six months in the year to gain our live*- 
 lihood, and bring' up our families in quiet ; many of 
 us, it is true, were destroyed in the course of the 
 winter, but that was the fortune of war, and the 
 enemy did not beat up our quarters above half-a- 
 dozen timos in the whole year : upon the whole, we 
 lived a pleasant life ; short and disturbed, perhaps, 
 yet safe from trap or gun, and in the midst of plenty ; 
 but now that you have interfered, with your humani- 
 ty, there has come out a general order to shoot and 
 destroy us, wherever we may be found, till our whole 
 ancient family is exterminated ! And this is out of 
 yourspecial kindness !" 
 
 The same thing might be said of pheasants and 
 hares, which certainly would not be in such plenty, 
 were they not preserved for shooting. Whenever 
 I see a wood full of hares and pheasants in summer, 
 I rejoice that, for the sake of two days' carnage in 
 winter, men have consented to give life and enjoy- 
 ment to so many beautiful and peaceful animals. I 
 have said nothing here of the obvious topics of the 
 benefits of field-sports to the body and mind of man, 
 of the health and manliness they bestow, or the im» 
 mense advantages of the country life they produce. 
 I wished to show that, even as a benefit to the ani- 
 mals themselves, they ought to be encourage^ 
 
AN AGREEABLE MAN,— SOCIETY IN 
 LONDON. 
 
 London, 1819. 
 
 What is meant by an agreeable man ? 
 
 In Spain an agreeable man is he who is pos- 
 sessed of a good person, and an incessant flow of 
 talk. The science of conversation is there in its 
 infancy, and no distinction is made between him who 
 talks much and him who talks well. The leading 
 topic of bel esprit is women ; and the language itself 
 is so formed as to confine praise or blame entirely 
 to their bodily qualities. Es buena moza, literally 
 "she is a good girl," means she is a pretty girl. 
 Tiene merito, " she has merit," means she has some 
 good points in her face or figure. Beside being 
 able to decide the proper degree of merit which 
 every woman possesses, the Spanish agreeable man 
 is able to cover obscenity with the veil which is just 
 thick enough to make it admissible in good company. 
 
7© 
 
 though even that is sometimes thrown aside like 
 those which are worn on the Alameda. From this 
 source he derives the principal fund of his conversa- 
 tion, and makes amends for a total ignorance on eve*- 
 ry kind of literature and politics. But then, he also 
 knows the plays which are to be acted for the next 
 month, and can tell, to a tittle, if a single indecent 
 posture has been omitted in the fandango. 
 
 The agreeable man in Germany is quite a differ- 
 ent sort of person. He is a gentleman who endea- 
 vours to make wit and gallantry after the most ap- 
 proved models of the age of Louis XIV. But his 
 specific gravity being much greater than that of the 
 French nation, he is, in fact, as little like M. de 
 Coulanges or St. Evremont as can well be imagined. 
 His little anecdotes are drawn from the Roman his- 
 tory, or, at best, from the Seven Years' War ; his 
 remarks and observations are conscientiously sin- 
 cere, but insufferably dull ; and his wit always dis- 
 poses to melancholy. 
 
 In Italy an agreeable man is a much pleasanter 
 person ; his manners are particularly civil ; he often 
 has a good taste in the fine arts and in polite litera- 
 ture, and, perhaps, an agreeable talent for music ; 
 but there is a feebleness and effeminacy in his tone 
 of thinking, which finally wearies ; and his conver- 
 sation is the pace of a manege horse, trained till he 
 has lost all freedom tf action. 
 
71 
 
 Yet, it must be owned, that there are a great 
 many young men who are exceptions to this rule ; 
 it is easy to see, however, that they are exceptions. 
 Their long dishevelled hair, their wild rolling eyes, 
 their vehement action, their loud harangues in so- 
 ciety, their unusual language, and more unusual 
 opinions, show at once that they are not formed after 
 the general rule of national character. 
 
 If we go from Italy to England, we shall find that 
 the agreeable man gets more reputation, more eating, 
 and more drinking, in return for his talk, than any 
 where else. He is perpetually invited to dinner, 
 where from ten to five-and-twenty people are invited 
 expressly to meet him ; and, after all, it often hap- 
 pens that he is sullen or unwell, and will not speak 
 a word from the beginning of dinner till the end. 
 But if he should happen to be in spirits, he often 
 talks so loud, or so disputatiously, that you are 
 forced to bow to his opinions till after coffee. But 
 if a rival wit has been asked to meet him, there ge- 
 nerally arises a furious contest for superiority ; each 
 attacks his opponent with arguments too important 
 for the hour of digestion. 
 
 France, perhaps, affords the best models of an 
 agreeable man. In them we see the most refined 
 politeness towards others, mixed with a most perfect 
 confidence in themselves — a sprightliness which en- 
 livens all around, and produces as much light by re? 
 
72 
 
 flection as by radiation — a skill in placing every 
 topic in the situation which alone can make it amu- 
 sing in conversation — a grace in treating the most 
 frivolous matters, a lightness in touching the most 
 serious, and a quickness in passing from one, to the 
 other, which to all other Europeans must seem quite 
 unattainable. They console themselves by saying 
 the French are frivolous ; by which. they- mean that 
 they interest themselves in little frivolous concerns ; 
 but they forget to mention that they are the. same 
 people who marched into Lisbon and Moscow, and 
 perfected the discoveries of Newton. 
 
 Such are the prominent characters in the conver- 
 sation of their respective countries. But it may 
 happen, that, although individuals may exist in a 
 society, endowed with every power of entertaining 
 and enlightening, yet the forms of society may be 
 such that it is very difficult to obtain the full advan- 
 tage of their superior qualities. This difficulty as the 
 misfortune of London, where there are more men of 
 cultivated understanding, of refined wit, and literary 
 or political eminence, ttian in any metropolis of Eu- 
 rope. Yet h is so contrived, that there isfittle free- 
 dom, little intimacy, and little ease, in London so- 
 ciety. " To love some persons very much, and see 
 often those that I love," says the eld Duchess of 
 M?rl borough, u is the greatest happiness I can en~ 
 ^*/. ,? But in London it is equally difficult to get to 
 
73 
 
 love any body very much, or to see often those that 
 we have loved before. There are such numbers of 
 acquaintances, such a succession of engagements, 
 that the town resembles Vauxhall, where the dearest 
 friends may walk round and round all night without 
 ever meeting. If you see at dinner a person whose 
 manners and conversation please you, you may wish 
 in vain to become more intimate ; for the chance is, 
 that you will not meet so as to converse a second 
 time for three months, when the dice-box of society 
 may, perhaps, turn up again the same numbers. Not 
 that it is to be inferred that you may not barely see 
 the same features again ; it is possible that you may 
 catch a glimpse of them on the other side of St. 
 James's Street, or see them near to you at a crowded 
 rout, without a possibility of approaching. Hence it 
 is, that those who live in London are totally indiffe- 
 rent to one another ; the waves follow so quick that 
 any vacancy is immediately filled up, and the want 
 is not perceived. At the same* time, the well-bred 
 civility of modern times, and the example of some 
 " very popular people," have introduced a shaking of 
 hands, a pretended warmth, a sham cordiality, into 
 the manners of the cold and the warm alike — the 
 dear friend, and the acquaintance of yesterday. 
 Hence, we hear continually such conversations as 
 the following : — "Ah! how d'ye do? I'm delighted 
 to see you ! How is Mrs. M— — ■ ?"— " She is very 
 7 
 
74 
 
 well, thank you." — "Has she any more children?" 
 — " Any more ! I have only been married three 
 months, f see you are talking of my former wife — 
 she has been dead these three years." — Or " My 
 dear friend, how d'ye do, — you have been out of 
 town some time — where have you been — in Nor- 
 folk?" — "No, I have been two years in India." — 
 
 Thus, ignorant of one another's interest and occu- 
 pations, the friendships of London contain nothing" 
 more tender than a visiting-card. Nor is it much 
 better, — indeed it is much worse, — if you renounce 
 the world, and determine to live only with your re- 
 lations and. nearest connections : if you go to see 
 them at one o'clock they are not up ; at two the room 
 is full of indifferent acquaintance, who can talk over 
 the ball of the night before, and of course are sooner 
 listened to than yourself; at three they are gone 
 shopping ; at four they are in the Park ; at five and 
 at six they are dining with two dozen friends ; at 
 nine and ten the same ; at eleven they are dressing 
 for the ball ; and at twelve, when you are going to 
 bed, they are gone into society for the evening. 
 Thus you are left in solitude : you soon begin again 
 to try the ^orld ; — let us see what it produces. 
 
 The first inconvenience of a London life, is the 
 late hour of dinner. To pass the day impransus._ 
 and then to sit down to a great dinner at eight 
 o'clock, is entirely against the first dictates of com- 
 
7.5 
 
 snon sense, and common stomachs. Some learned 
 persons, indeed, endeavour to support this practice 
 by precedent, and quote the Roman supper; but 
 those suppers were at three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and ought to be a subject of contempt, instead of 
 imitation, in Grosvenor Square. Women, however* 
 are not so irrational as men, in London, and gene- 
 rally sit down to a substantial luncheon, at three or 
 four : if men would do the same, the meal at eight 
 might be lightened of many of its weighty dishes, 
 and conversation would be no loser ; for it is not to 
 be concealed, that conversation suffers great inter- 
 ruption from the manner in which English dinners 
 are managed : first the host and hostess (or her un- 
 fortunate co-adjutor) are employed during three 
 parts of dinner, in doing the work of the servants, 
 helping fish, or carving large pieces of venison to 
 twenty hungry souls, to the total loss of the host's 
 powers of amusement, and the entire disfigurement 
 of the fair hostess's face. Much time is also lost by 
 the attention every one is obliged to pay, in order to 
 find out (which he can never do if he is short-sighted) 
 what dishes are at the other end of the table ; and if 
 a guest wishes for a glass oi wine, he must peep 
 through the Apollos and Cupids of the plateau, in 
 order to find some one to drink with him ; otherwise 
 he must wait till some one asks him, which will pro- 
 bably happen in succession, so that after having had 
 
7& 
 
 no wine for half an hour, he will have to drink five 
 glasses in five minutes. Convenience teaches that 
 the best manner of enjoying society at dinner, is to 
 leave every thing to servants that servants can do ; 
 so that you may have no farther trouble than to ac- 
 cept of the dishes that are offered to you, and to drink 
 at your own time, of the wines which are handed 
 round. An English dinner, on the contrary, seems 
 to presume before-hand on the silence, dulness, and 
 stupidity of the guests, and to have provided little 
 interruptions, like the jerks which the chaplain gives 
 to the Archbishop, to prevent his going to sleep dur- 
 ing sermon. 
 
 Some time after dinner comes the time of going to 
 a ball, or a rout ; but this is sooner said than done ; 
 it often requires as much time to go from St James's 
 Square to Cleveland Row, as to go from London to 
 Hounslow. It would require volumes to describe 
 the disappointment which occurs on arriving in the 
 brilliant mob of a ball-room. Sometimes, as it has 
 been before said, a friend is seen squeezed like your- 
 self, at another end of the room, without a possibility 
 of your communicating except by signs ; and as the 
 whole arrangement of the society is regulated by 
 mechanical pressure, you may happen to be pushed 
 against those to whom you do not wish to speak, 
 whether bores, slight acquaintances, or determined 
 enemies. Confined by the crowd, and stifled by the 
 
77 
 
 heat, and dazzled by the light, all powers of intellect 
 are lost ; wit loses its point, and sagacity its obser- 
 vation ; indeed, the limbs are so crushed, and the 
 tongue so parched, that, except particularly well- 
 dressed ladies, all are in the case of the traveller, 
 Dr. Clarke, when he says, in the plains of Syria, 
 that some might blame him for not making moral re- 
 flections on the state of the country ; but that he 
 must own the heat quite deprived him of all power 
 of thought. 
 
 Hence it is, that the conversation you hear around 
 you, is generally nothing more than, u Have you 
 been here long ?" " Have you been at Mrs. Hot- 
 room's ?" *' Are you going to Lady Deathsqueeze's ?" 
 Hence, too, Madame de Stael said, very justly, to 
 an Englishman, " Dans vos routs le corps fait plus 
 de frais que l'esprit." But even if there are per- 
 sons of a constitution robust enough to talk, they 
 yet do not dare to do so, as twenty heads are forced 
 into the compass of one square foot ; and even when, 
 to your great delight, you see a person to whom you 
 have much to say, and, by fair means or foul, elbows 
 and toes, knees and shoulders, have got near them, 
 they often dismiss you with shaking you by the hand* 
 
 and saying, " My dear Mr. how do you do ?" 
 
 and then continue a conversation with a person 
 
 whose ear is three inches nearer. At one o'clock, 
 
 however, the crowd diminishes ; and if you are not 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 tired by the five or six hours of playing at compan} , 
 which you have already had, you may be very com- 
 fortable for the rest of the evening. 
 
 It has been said very justly of science, that the 
 profound discoveries of the greatest philosophers of 
 one age become the elements of knowledge to the 
 youth of the next. It is nearly the reverse in con- 
 versation. The anecdotes which form the buz of 
 card parties and dinner parties in one century, are 
 in the lapse of a hundred years, and sometimes less, 
 transplanted into quarto volumes, and go to increase 
 the stock of learning of the most grave and studious 
 persons in the nation ; a story repeated by the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth's waiting* woman to Lord 
 Bochester's valet, forms a subject of investigation 
 for* a philosophical historian ; and you may hear an 
 assembly of scholars and authors discussing the va- 
 lidity of a piece of scandal invented by a maid of 
 honour more than two centuries ago, and repeated 
 to an obscure writer by Queen Elizabeth's house- 
 keeper. 
 
 The appetite for remains of all kinds, has certain- 
 ly increased of late to a most surprising extent ; 
 every thing which belongs to a great man is eagerly 
 bunted out, and constantly published. If Madame 
 de Sevigne wrote some letters when she was half 
 asleep ; if Dr. Johnson took the pains of setting 
 4«wn what occurred to him before he was breeched, 
 
79 
 
 this age is sure to have the benefit of seeing" these 
 valuable works on hot- pressed paper ; all that good 
 writers threw by as imperfect, all that they wished 
 to be concealed from the world, is now edited in 
 volumes twice as magnificent as their chief works. 
 Still greater is the avidity for ana : it is a matter of 
 the greatest interest, to see the letters of every busy 
 trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men ? To 
 write to our relations and friends on events which 
 concern their interests and affections, is a worthy 
 employment for the heart and head of a civilized 
 man; but to engrave upon the tittle-tattle of the 
 day, with all the labour and polish which the richest 
 gem could deserve, is a contemptible abuse of the 
 pen, paper, and time, which is on our hands. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that knowledge of 
 this kind is very entertaining ; and here and there 
 amongst the rubbish, we find hints which may give 
 the philosopher a clue to important facts, and afford 
 to the moralist a better analysis of the human mind, 
 than a whole library of metaphysics. 
 
80 
 
 ON PLAYS. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 The dramatic art, when carried to perfection, may 
 be defined to be that of exhibiting human nature in 
 a point of view, either affecting or amusing. If we 
 adopt this definition, it will not appear wonderful 
 that the English should have succeeded best in tra- 
 gedy, and the French in comedy. The English, 
 fond of deep emotion, and reflecting long upon their 
 own sensations, have portrayed with a truth which 
 seemed scarcely attainable, the character and con- 
 duct of individuals whom fortune placed in the high- 
 est rank, and exposed to the most stormy trials. But 
 in proportion to their success in this branch of art, 
 has been their failure in the department of comedy. 
 As the}' are little accustomed to display their feelings 
 in society, authors have been obliged to supply, by 
 extravagant plots and eccentric characters, the want 
 of accurate portraits, and to borrow from fancy the 
 interest which observation could not afford. 
 
81 
 
 The French, on the other hand, who act as it were 
 from the passion of the moment, who brood over no 
 sorrow, and analyse no passion, gave to the work- 
 shop of the tragedian only the undivided mass of our 
 common affections. Corneille spoke only to our 
 pride and courage ; Racine borrowed from Greece 
 his fable and his sentiments ; Voltaire, endeavouring 
 to improve upon therr^ has been more rhetorical than 
 natural. But if genius and eloquence have not been 
 sufficient to furnish France with a perfect example 
 of tragedy, the easy tone of society, the grace and 
 wit of ordinary conversation, and even the egotism 
 of her people, have contributed to form the most per- 
 fect comedies the world ever saw. Moliere might 
 justly boast of having given to the moderns a claim 
 to perfection in a very difficult and delightful branch 
 of literature. But as I am conscious that both the 
 English and French nations claim pre-eminence in 
 both lines, I must illustrate my opinions more at 
 large. 
 
 It is quite superfluous to say any thing of the merit 
 of Shakspeare. Had it required any farther illus- 
 tration, the able comment of Schlegel would fully 
 serve to place it clearly before the eyes of the world. 
 His work would be still more valuable, did he not 
 adopt the prejudices of an Englishman, and defend 
 the faults as much as he praises the beauties of his 
 favourite author. No sophistry, however ingenious, 
 
82 
 
 will be sufficient to persuade an unprejudiced person, 
 thc.t the unities are of no use in assisting the illusion 
 of the theatre. It is idle to say that there is no illu- 
 sion, or that — " the truth is, the spectators are al- 
 ways in their senses, and know, from the first act to 
 the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the 
 players are only players. -They came to hear a cer- 
 tain number of lines recited with just gesture and 
 elegant modulation. The lines relate to some ac- 
 tion, and an action must be in some place ; but the 
 different actions that complete a story, may be in 
 places very remote from each other ; and where is 
 the absurdity of allowing that space to represent, first 
 Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to 
 Ibe neiiher Athens nor Sicily, but a modern thea- 
 tre ?"* 
 
 As well migbt it be said, that the ancient bag-wig 
 and sword were as suitable to the part of Cato, as 
 the Roman dress ; since every one knew he was an 
 Englishman, and not a Roman. Indeed, the argu- 
 ment extends to the abolition of all dramatic repre- 
 sentation ; for why should not a single person read 
 out a play as well as, or better, than a motley com- 
 pany ? But the fact is, a very lively image is pre- 
 sented to the senses, and the mind derives great 
 pleasure from pursuing the train of associations 
 
 • Johnson, Preface to Shakspeare# 
 
83 
 
 which are naturally excited by the events and pas- 
 sions represented. The knowledge that the scene is 
 not real, serves to prevent the distress from becom- 
 ing* too intense, and thus an opportunity is obtained 
 of indulging' the sensations of sympathy, pity, love of 
 virtue, and indignation against vice, which nature 
 has made so pleasiDg to us, without the pain that 
 usually accompanies them. But in this course of 
 emotion, it is a sad blow to the imagination to find 
 on a sudden that the hero has travelled from Peru to 
 Spain, or has grown twelve years older in the course 
 of a minute. 
 
 I will not here enter farther on the long-disputed 
 question of the unities, but will just venture to pro- 
 pose a compromise. 
 
 If, on the one hand, a disregard of all proximity of 
 time and place must weaken, if not break the thread 
 of imagination, on tire other, too strict an attention 
 to these objects either limits the author to a very 
 narrow field of subjects, or induces him to break 
 another great unity — the agreement of the person 
 and the action with the time and the scene. An 
 audience which is pleased with a hero, c - enfant au 
 premier acte, barbon au dernier" may be justly 
 called barbarous; but that which requires Mithri- 
 date and his sons to carry on all their schemes 
 against one another in the same place, must be 
 owned to be endowed with no very warm imagina- 
 
84 
 
 lion. Be this as it may, Shakspeare's fault in this 
 respect seems to be that of the age, and approaches 
 that of the early painters, who put David, offering 
 himself to fight; David, throwing the sling; and 
 David, cutting off the head of Goliah, in the same 
 picture. 
 
 The other fault which I mentioned, that of mixing 
 comedy and tragedy, has been often defended ; it 
 has, in fact, the merit of relieving the mind, op- 
 pressed by too long a succession of sad scenes, and 
 makes a tragedy palatable to ordinary minds. It is 
 like the gas in mineral waters, which makes steel 
 supportable to weak stomachs. But does it not also 
 interrupt the interest ? and does it not prevent the 
 existence of any strong emotion ? Shakspeare has 
 best answered these questions, by diminishing the 
 number of such scenes in Othello, Lear, and Mac- 
 beth. 
 
 The French tragedy may be fairly praised for 
 beautiful poetry, for high sentiments, and even for 
 grand situations. But it has one capital defect — it 
 is not true to nature. The French, as a German 
 writer truly observed, have painted passions and not 
 characters. We have love in one play, ambition in 
 another, but we have nowhere man. Shakspeare 
 has described us more truly ; yielding first to one 
 feeling and then to another, and giving way to the 
 master passion only, after a struggle which exhibits 
 
85 
 
 the inmost nerves of the human heart. The Mao 
 beth of Racine would have uttered magnificent ver- 
 ses and eloquent reasons, but he would not have 
 been the individual whom we are all intimately ac- 
 quainted with. In making these remarks, I would 
 not be thought to undervalue the real merits of the 
 French tragedies : on the contrary, I go to see them 
 repeatedly with great pleasure. To hear the noblest 
 sentiments of man embodied in the elevated, and yet 
 natural diction of Racine, and pronounced by Talma 
 or Mademoiselle Duchesnois, is to me a high gratifi- 
 cation. But I regret that somewhat of the likeness 
 to human action is lost by the over-attention which 
 has been paid to the regularity of the plot, the uni- 
 form succession of situation, and the copiousness, if 
 not prolixity, of the speeches. Berenice is an in- 
 stance of all these faults : there is but one incident, 
 and all the scenes are but different ways of viewing 
 the same object. It would be endless to enumerate 
 the faults into which the French authors have been 
 led by their mistaken view of tragedy. The best 
 way, perhaps, is to consider a tragedy of Voltaire 
 and one of Shakspeare. In doing this, I own that 
 some disadvantages must be incurred. The poet 
 who could please the enlightened audience of Paris, 
 after Corneille and Racine had been long undispu- 
 ted sovereigns of the stage, must excel in purity of 
 taste the author who wrote for a coarse apd uncrita- 
 
86 
 
 cal people, and who left his plays as rude as he first 
 Wrote them. But the question that should be consi- 
 dered is, which of the two was the clostst copier of 
 nature? not which was the nicest observer of art. 
 The two tragedies I shall take are by no means the 
 best of either author, but they both belong* to the first 
 rank, and are known all over Europe : Le Fana- 
 tisme, or Mahomet le Prophete ; and Hamlet, Prince 
 of Denmark 
 
 Now, to take Le Fanatisme first, it might be worth 
 while to consider whether it is a good mode to set 
 out with proclaiming- that a tragedy is to represent a 
 particular passion. But without spending any time 
 in discussing a question, amply discussed and justly 
 decided elsewhere,* I imagine we may safel} 7 say, 
 that to represent the chief of a religion, different 
 from our own, in the most odious colours ; to paint 
 him as committing a great crime, of which there is 
 no record ; to describe him, Contrary to the tenor of 
 history, as a monster of cold-blooded vice — this, we 
 may surely conclude, is not the best way to extin- 
 guish bigotry. But even if it were so, I doubt if so 
 pious- a purpose could justify a writer in teaching his 
 audience to detest a character who was not detesta- 
 ble. Mahomet seems to have been a man in whom 
 
 * See the reviews of Miss Baillie's Playg on the Passions, 
 jn the Edinburgh Keview. 
 
87 
 
 virtue and vice were mixed in the ordinary propor- 
 tions. He found his nation idolators ; the religion 
 of the Jews, and even that of the Christians, pervert- 
 ed and corrupted. He endeavoured, without de- 
 straying* their faith, to persuade them that the unity 
 of God was the vital principle of religion, and that 
 the particular articles of their creed were not neces^- 
 sary to obtain mercy at the judgment seat of Heaven. 
 But, having met with success, he became ambitious, 
 and declared that all who did not embrace his faith 
 should be obliged to do so by the sword. One of his 
 early commandments was to observe chastity ; but 
 his passions got the better of him, and not satisfied 
 with his own wives, he took possession of another 
 person's. But that he was a cool hypocrite, only in- 
 tent on empire and lust, is what history by no means 
 teaches us. And there is no example which poets 
 can give, so mischievous, as to distort the qualities of 
 a great man, and to make his name unjustly odious 
 to the world, for the sake of a paltry stage eifect.* 
 
 * " After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of Vo'taire 
 imagines and perpetrates the most horrid crimes. The poet 
 confesses that he is not supported by the truth of history, and 
 can only allege que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au 
 nom de Dieu est capable de tout. The maxim is neither cha- 
 ritable nor philosophic ; and some reverence s surely due to 
 the fame of heroes and the religion of nations.*' Gibbon, 
 vol. v. p. 239, note, 4to. 
 
88 
 
 But Voltaire having given the reins to his inven- 
 tion on this subject, we must suppose that his fiction 
 fs at least interesting- and engaging. Quite the con- 
 trary. The original story is told by Gibbon iu a few 
 Words, as follows : — " At the house of Zeid, his freed- 
 man and adopted son, he beheld, in a loosejundress, 
 the beauty of Zeineb, (Zeiu% wife,) and burst forth 
 into an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The 
 servile, or grateful freedman, understood the hint, 
 and yielded without hesitation to the love of his be- 
 nefactor. " Out of this story Voltaire weaves the 
 most horrible tale ; he makes Zeid the brother of 
 Zeineb, and the son of Zopire, whom Mahomet is 
 said to have persecuted, and he then makes Zeid, 
 ignorant of his birth, murder his father, in order to 
 become the husband of his sister ; whilst Mahomet, 
 who urges him on, intends to sacrifice him to his own 
 passion for Zeineb. A plot so horrible can create 
 nothing but disgust. Nor does it serve to exculpate 
 Voltaire, as he imagines, that Zeid is ignorant of the 
 crimes. he commits. The spectator's knowledge of 
 the real state of the case must prevent his feeling 
 any interest in the development of the plot. He 
 cannot sympathise with Zeid, for that were to wish 
 for incest to be committed. Mahomet can only ex- 
 cite horror. Zopire, indeed, awakens our pity ; but 
 the old idolator is an inferior character. Nor is it a 
 sufficient justification of the plot to say, that facts still 
 
89 
 
 more ftdjrrible are recorded by history, or that the 
 moral of the play is to prevent assassination commit- 
 ted from the impulse of fanaticism. There are many 
 facts in history unfit for the stage ; the sack of Jeru- 
 salem by the Crusaders, for instance which was a 
 direct consequence ok fanaticism. An event may 
 be too horrible to dejl^e lustre from the embellish- 
 ments of art and the ornaments of poetry. Nor does 
 an assassination prove any thing- per se against fana- 
 ticism. Brutus killed Caesar, who, perhaps, was his 
 father ; but that proves nothing against the love of 
 liberty. Assassination is a crime which proceeds 
 often from reason perverted, and from feelings too 
 warmly excited, either in a bad cause or a good one. 
 The crime should be met with punishment, and torn- 
 bated by reason ; but the motive ought not to be 
 held up indiscriminately to our abhorrence. 
 
 The want of sympathy in the fate of the chief ac- 
 tors in this play, is not compensated by the fidelity 
 of the characters to human nature. Of characters, 
 indeed, there is only one, viz. Mahomet himself. 
 Had Shakspeare undertaken to paint such a charac- 
 ter, he probably would have drawn him as others of 
 the same kind are known to have been, sometimes 
 enthusiast, and sometimes hypocrite ; speaking in 
 public the language of imposture, and even in his 
 most private moments excusing the indulgence of 
 his passions by some specious view of the glory of 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 cf God and the happiness of mankind. Above all, 
 he would have taken care to have made the ambition- 
 and the licentiousness of Mahomet appear in all his 
 actions, and be abjured in all his words. Now, the 
 method of Voltaire has been completely different : 
 not only does he avow his odious vices, but he calls 
 them by their names, and makes epigrams and an- 
 titheses upon them, as if he were the Pope or Dr. 
 Prideaux. He has not been on the scene five mi- 
 nutes, when he says to Omar, one of his companions, 
 
 u Je viens mettre a profit les erreurs de la terre." 
 
 And again — 
 
 il L'amour seul me console ; il est ma recompense, 
 L'objetde mes travaux, l'idole que j'encense, 
 Le Dieu de Mahomet ; et cette passion 
 Est egale anxfureurs de mon ambition " 
 
 Be it observed, that his real language was so very 
 different, that when he asked his kindred which of 
 them would be his lieutenant, he said, lt I know no 
 man in all Arabia, who can offer his kindred a more 
 excellent thing, than I now do you : I offer you hap- 
 piness both in this life, and that which is to come, 
 Ac.' 1 * 
 
 * Sale's Koran, Prel. Discourse, p. b7. 
 
91 
 
 But let us suppose, that this confidence is made 
 like Sir Walter Raleigh's to Sir Christopher Hatton, 
 in the Critick, for the sake of the audience. The 
 next personage who comes on, however, is Maho- 
 met's capital enemy. To him surely he will assume 
 the Prophet. But no ; to him he says — 
 
 " Vois quel est Mahomet ; nous sommes seuls, ecoute 
 Je suis ambitieux; tout homme Test sans doute ;" he. 
 " II faut un nouveau culte, et faut de nouveaux fers ', 
 11 faut un nouveau Dieu pour l'aveugle univers." 
 "je connais ton peuple, il a besoin d'erreur;" 
 — — <* il faut m'aider a tromper l'univers. " 
 
 Omar now returns, and Mahomet, after concerting 
 with him a parricide, exclaims — 
 
 " Allons, consultons bien mon interet, ma haine, 
 L'arnour, 1'indigne amour, qui malgre moi m'entraine, 
 Et la religion, a qui tout est sourais, 
 Et la necessite, par qui tout est permis." 
 
 I pass over other horrible and unnatural sentiments 
 of Mahomet, and the scene where a young girl, 
 otherwise interesting, consents that her lover, as the 
 price of her hand, should become an assassm, in or- 
 der to give the last words of Mahomet, pronounced be- 
 fore Omar and his suite ; that is to say, those whom 
 
92 
 it is his chief business to persuade of his divine mis- 
 
 " Dieu que j'ai fait servir au malheur des humains, 
 Adorable instrument de mes affreux desseins, 
 Toi que j'ai blaspheme, mais que je crains enjcore, 
 Je me sens condamne, quand l'universm'adore. 
 Je brave en vain les traits dont je me sens frapper, 
 
 J'ai trompe les mortels et je ne puis me tromper." 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Je dois regiren Dieu l'univers prevenu; 
 
 Mon empire est detruit si 1'homme est reconnu." 
 
 Such is the language of Mahomet ; and I appeal to 
 the lowest conjuror who preaches his art in the streets 
 of Naples, if he could hope to continue his trade, if he 
 did not put a thicker veil on his impostures. 
 
 I come now to the tragedy of Hamlet, which has 
 not pleased some of the best judges, even in our own 
 country : Sir Joshua Reynolds is reported to have 
 said, that he thought Shakspeare, having a great 
 many fine things in his common-place book, invented 
 the character of Hamlet, as a way of bringing them 
 all out. Dr. Johnson delivers his opinion of the con- 
 duct of this play, in the following words : " The con- 
 duct is, perhaps, not wholly secure against objec- 
 tions. The action is, indeed, for the most part, in 
 continual progression, but there are some scenes 
 which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned 
 
93 
 
 madness of Hamlet, there appears no adequate cause, 
 for he does nothing- which he might not have done 
 with the reputation of sanity. He plays the mad- 
 man most, when he treats Ophelia with so much 
 rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton 
 cruelty. 
 
 " Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an 
 instrument than an agent. After he has, by the 
 stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes 
 no attempt to punish him ; and his death is at last 
 effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in 
 producing. The catastrophe is not very happily 
 produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an ex- 
 pedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme 
 might easily have been formed to kill Hamlet with 
 the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. 
 
 " The poet is accused of having shown '^t le re- 
 gard to poetical justice, and may be charged with 
 equal neglect of poetical probability. The appari- 
 tion left the regions of the dead to little purpose; 
 the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but 
 by the death of him that was required to take it ; 
 and the gratification which would arise from the de- 
 struction of an usurper, and a murderer, is abated 
 by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the 
 beautiful, the harmless, and the pious." 
 
 Now, it appears to me, that Shakspeare proposed 
 as his subject the workings of a noble, but irresolute 
 
94 
 
 mind. For the purpose of his plan, lie places him 
 where he is called upon to perform an act of revenge 
 on his uncle, for the murder of his father, and inces- 
 tuous marriage of his mother. Let a man of feeling' 
 conceive such a situation, and then tell me if the fol- 
 lowing conduct is unnatural In order to perplex 
 his mind, the author makes the appearance of a ghost 
 the only evidence of his mother's guilt. Hamlet's 
 first purpose is instant revenge ; but the thoughts of 
 so bloody an action, on the faith of an apparition, 
 reduce him to an indecision which is the spring of 
 his misfortunes, and of all the subsequent events of 
 the play. The alternative, on the one hand, of mur- 
 dering his uncle without cause ; and, on the other, 
 of suffering the daily intercourse and existence of a 
 man who may be the poisoner of his father, and the 
 seducer of his mother, drives him into so black, so 
 melanchol} 7 , so thoughtful a humour, that he is glad 
 to escape observation and detection, by pretending 
 madness which is only half-feigned. In this state of 
 mind he sees the king at prayers ; the design of kill- 
 ing him occurs, but his doubts and troubles stay his 
 hand, and he contents himself with the illusion that 
 he only forbears, because assassination would then 
 be mercy. The play is an invention for discovering 
 whether his uncle be guilty, which, though it con- 
 vince him at the time, is far from determining him 
 to commit a deed so bloody. He pauses on self- 
 
95 
 
 destruction as the term of misery, and hence the 
 soliloquy, " To be, or not to be." One very fine 
 occasion for showing the irresolution of Hamlet, is 
 taken when the player bursts into tears on reciting 
 the story of Hecuba — 
 
 " O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I," kc. 
 
 Another still finer is in the fourth act, when Hamlet 
 sees Fortinbras pass by with an army to conquer " a 
 little patch of ground." The soliloquy he makes on 
 this occasion is so complete a view of his character, 
 that it is worth while to give it entire. 
 
 " How all occasions do inform against me, 
 And spur my dull revenge ! What is a man, 
 If his chief good, and market of his time, 
 Be but to sleep and feed ? a beast, no more. 
 Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
 Looking before, and after, gave us not 
 That capability and god-like reason 
 To rust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be 
 Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
 
 Of thinking too precisely on the event, 
 
 A thought, which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom* 
 And, ever, three parts coward — I do not know 
 Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do ; 
 Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means 
 To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me : 
 
 
96 
 
 Witness, this army, of such mass, and change, 
 Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
 Whose spirit, with divine ambition puft, 
 Makes mouths at the invisible event ; 
 Exposing what is mortal, and unsure, 
 To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare, 
 Even for an egg-shell Rightly, to be great 
 Is not to stir without great argument ; 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
 When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, 
 That have a father kill d, a mother stain'd, 
 Excitements of my reason, and my blood, 
 And let all sleep ? while, to my shame, I see 
 The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
 That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame, 
 Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot, 
 Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 
 Which is not tomb enough, and continent, 
 To hide the slain ? O, from this time forth, 
 My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!'* 
 
 It has been observed, very justly, that his beha- 
 viour to Ophelia, the most outrageous thing* in the 
 play, might arise from his being stung with the sus- 
 picion of her treachery to him ; his speech to hi* 
 mother is severe, but not unnatural ; in the middle 
 of it, a new suspicion of a traitor rouses his hasty 
 passion, and he pierces the arras ; he does not appear 
 to feel much for his crime—his mind was fixed upon 
 
97 
 
 a greater object, and Polonius had become hateful 
 to him by his time-servingness. Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern he suspects as being accessaries to a 
 plot for his murder, and therefore plots against their 
 lives in return. On coming back to Deumaik, pas- 
 sion again overpowers him at the speech of Laertes, 
 and the taunt thrown out against him, when he is 
 conscious of having loved Ophelia, and of being 
 afflicted at her death. The king conspires a second 
 time against the life of Laertes, and Hamlet is 
 wounded. Enraged at the apparent foul play, ha 
 rushes in, seizes his antagonist's foil, and wounds him 
 with it. Is this very improbable ? Informed of the 
 treachery, he instantly despatches the king, and thus 
 the play ends. Upon the whole, the chain of events 
 is well connected. Hamlet, weak, though hasty, 
 gives reason to suspect his intentions, but continual- 
 ly delays his execution. The king sees through his 
 madness, and endeavours to destroy his life. Hamlet 
 appears again, yet irresolute. The king plots again, 
 and with more success ; but Hamlet has life remain- 
 ing to revenge his own death, not his father's. The 
 catastrophe is a natural suite of the characters who 
 are represented. Those who wish to see the play 
 regularly conducted to an end by Hamlet, ask for 
 that which is contrary to the character to be repre- 
 sented. The very thing to be shown is, that Hamlet, 
 hy his irresolution, is " rather an instrument than an 
 9 
 
93 
 
 agent." Dr. Johnson might as well have asked that 
 Othello should be cured of his unreasonable jealousy. 
 But, then, it may be objected no interest can attach 
 to a play where the hero can never resolve to act. 
 To this I might answer in the words of an able 
 critic — " where the events described, or represented, 
 spring, in their natural order of succession, from one 
 source, the sentiments of sympathy which they ex- 
 cite, will all verge to one centre, and be connected 
 by one chain/' 
 
 , But a still better answer may be given by men- 
 tioning the fact, that Hamlet is acted as frequently, 
 if not more so, than any play on the English stage. 
 And thus Shakspeare has at the same time exhibited 
 one of the finest, but most difficult characters it is 
 possible to portray ; expressed the most philosophi- 
 cal sentiments in the language of poetry ; and ani- 
 mated the whole in a play, which the audience is 
 always glad to hear repeated/ 
 
 We come next to consider the comedies of the 
 two nations. It has been said that tragedy exalts 
 our nature, and that comedy lowers it. But this is 
 not true — I know not that the Wonder lowers human 
 nature more than Phedre — that we have a less idea of 
 the dignity of man from the character of diaries Sur- 
 
 * \fter I had written these remarks on Hamlet, I found 
 that many of them had been anticipated in Dr. Drake's abk 
 work on Shakspeare. 
 
m 
 
 face than from that of Iago Tragedy places odious 
 passions in the most odious light, and comedy throws 
 a strong* ridicule upon the foibles of our nature. 
 
 The comedies of Spain were the first in Europe 
 to emerge from the barbarity of the rude ages, but 
 they are far from exhibiting such a resemblance of 
 human nature as has since been introduced into the 
 drama by the English and French. The dramatis 
 personce commonly consist of a very few characters : 
 an old father, a daughter, a lover, and his servant, 
 who is the confidant of his master and the buffoon 
 of the play. The intrigue is generally produced by 
 making two or more mistresses, and two or more 
 lovers, mistake each other's persons and houses, and 
 fall into a series of mistakes which complicate their 
 affairs, and create an interest by the extreme inge- 
 nuity and perplexity of the plot. But in all these 
 comedies there is no variety ; but one view of human 
 life, and no display of character. A few comedies 
 of Calderon, Lopez de Vega, and Moreto, however, 
 such as lyo Cierto por lo Dudoso, Lo Moza del Can- 
 taro, El Desden por el Desden, and some others, 
 might be mentioned, which are not liable to this 
 censure. The English and the French comedies of 
 the time of Charles II. and Lewis XIV. are both 
 founded upon the Spanish basis ; but the French 
 have been more successful than the English authors. 
 Congreve, Wycherley, and Farquhar, adopted th@ 
 
 . or v/. 
 
100 
 
 -intriguing plot of the Spanish plays ; but, instead of 
 copying the formal and heroic gallantry of the Spa- 
 nish customs, they adapted their pieces to the licen- 
 tious manners of our own Court. Hence they have 
 lost much of their interest. Not all the wit of some 
 of the wittiest writers, scattered without stint upon 
 their dialogue, can make us feel an interest in ladies 
 of fashion, who come in disguise to the Park, to hold 
 conversations with young men of the town in lan- 
 guage too gross and indelicate to be now tolerated 
 in any society in the kingdom. We can feel neither 
 pleasure nor pain at the misfortune of husbands, who 
 seem to be quite as deserving of favour as the lovers ; 
 and a marriage in masks is too remote from present 
 manners, to give us any picture of real life. We 
 see too plainly, that the whole is an imitation of the 
 transient forms and manners of a court which is gone 
 by, and which, being founded on the most odious 
 selfishness, the most shameless want of principle, 
 and the total absence of every afFectiou of the heart, 
 has left nothing to cause it to be remembered. Mo- 
 liere, on the other hand, laid his foundations deep 
 upon human nature itself. His great comedies are 
 founded on the vices of avarice and hypocrisy, and 
 on the foibles of affectation of rank, affectation of 
 knowledge, affectation of sickness, which are always 
 to be found in society. His genius was of the high- 
 est order, capable of seizing every shade of charac- 
 
101 
 
 ter, and of placing it in the point of view in which it 
 was best calculated to excite ridicule. His best co- 
 medies are a complete history of the vices or foibles 
 they are intended to represent ; and his plots, in- 
 stead of being a mere tissue of fortuitous incidents, 
 are a well-conducted scheme of exhibiting, in all its 
 parts, that quality of human nature, which forms his 
 subject. He has done this sometimes with the dig- 
 nity of a satirist, and sometimes with the playfulness 
 and almost the buffoonery of a clown ; and hence he 
 has been reproached by some with being a didactic 
 poet, and by others with being a mere farce-writer. 
 The latter of these changes is not worth speaking of, 
 and the former might be dismissed with the reflec- 
 tion, that the " School for Scandal," which is, per- 
 haps, the best of our comedies, contains imitations 
 of no less than three of the comedies of Moliere. 
 The design and the character of Joseph Surface are 
 evidently taken from the Tartuffe, the scandal scene 
 from the Misantrope, and the broker scene from the 
 Avare. But it may be as well to say a few words on the 
 charge of dulness, which has been so boldly brought 
 forward against the Tartuffe and the Misantrope. 
 There is no greater advantage to the literature of 
 a nation than to have a species of amusement, which 
 is different from the common fare of other nations. 
 The comedies in verse of the French, may be es- 
 teemed to be of this sort ; they have a plot which is 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 capable of being" to the full as interesting as that of 
 any other comedy, and finally they are ihe most re- 
 fined of any dramatic spectacle. The only criticism 
 that can be made is, that for persons to speak verse 
 is out of nature ; but this is a quesiion which must 
 be decided by the nation before whom these come- 
 dies are represented ; for it is not, in fact, more out 
 of nature that verse should be spoken, than that so 
 much wit and so many incidents should occur in so 
 short a time : the whole, it must be recollected, is a 
 voluntary illusion. If, indeed, the sentiments spo- 
 ken were heroic or extravagant, the whole world 
 would be competent to object; but every one must 
 agree that they are not different from those which a 
 comic writer of England might put into prose. I 
 know not why the hig-her comedy may not as well be 
 put into rhyme as our trag'edy into blank verse. It 
 may be said that comedy is intended to represent 
 real life, which tragedy is not ; but, in fact, the 
 School for Scandal is no more like ordinary society, 
 than Hamlet is like the real life of kings and queens. 
 Jt being once allowed that rhyme may be introduced 
 in comedy, we gain the advantage of hearing" very 
 good poetry recited by good actors. What, for ex- 
 ample, can be more like g-ood familiar poetry, than 
 the following observations on dress ? 
 
103 
 
 Arislt. Toujours ail plus grand nombre on doit s ? ac- 
 commoder, 
 Et jamais il ne faut se faire regarder. 
 L'un et 1' autre exces choque, et tout homme bien sage 
 Doit faire des habits ainsi que de langage ; 
 Wy rien trop affecter, et, sans erapresseraent, 
 Suivre ce que l'usage y fait de changement. 
 Mon sentiment n'est pas qu'on prenne la methode 
 De ceux qu'on voit toujours rencherir sur la mode ; 
 Et qui, dans cet exces dont ils sont amoureux, 
 Seroient faches qu'un autre eut ete plus loin qu'eux; 
 Mais je tiens qu'il est mal, sur quoi que Ton se fonde, 
 De fuir obstinement ce que suit tout le monde, 
 Et qu'il vaut mieux souffrir d'etre au nombre des fous, 
 Que du sage parti se voir seulcontre tous. 
 
 Or, if we wished to read a satire upon evil-speaking 1 , 
 what could we ask better than the following 1 dia- 
 logues between Ariste and Valere, and Ariste and 
 Cleon, from the Mechant of Gresset ? 
 
 Ariste. Valere. 
 Valere. Lui refuseriez vous l'esprit? j'ai peine a le 
 
 croire — 
 Ariste. Mais k l'esprit mechant je ne vois point de 
 gloire. 
 Si vous saviez combien cet esprit est aise, 
 Combien il en faut pen, eomme il est meprise ! 
 Le plus stupide obtient la meme reussite. 
 Eh ! pourquoi tant de gens ont-ils ce plat merite ? 
 
104 
 
 Sterilit6 de Tame, el de ce naturel 
 Agreaole, amusant, sans bassesse et sans fiel. 
 On dit l'esprit commun : par son succes bizarre. 
 La mechancete prouve a quel point il est rare : 
 Ami du bien, de 1'ordre. et de l'humanile, 
 Le veritable esprit noarche avec la bonte. 
 Cleon n 'off re a nos yeux qu'une fausse lumiere. 
 La reputation des mceurs est la premiere ; 
 Sans elle, croyez-moi, tout succes est trompeur. 
 Mon estime toujours commence par le cceur. 
 Sans lui l'esprit n'est rien, et, malgre vos maximes. 
 II produit seulement des erreurs et des crimes — 
 Fait pour etre cheri. ne serez-vous cite 
 Que pour le complaisant d'un homme deteste. 
 
 V. Je vois tout le contraire ; on le recherche, on 
 l'aime : 
 Je voudrois que chacun me detestat de meme. 
 On se l'arrache, an moins, je Tai vu quelquefois 
 A des soupers divins retenu pour un mois : 
 Quand il est k Paris il ne peuty sum re. 
 Me direz-vous qu'on hait un homme qu'on desire ? 
 
 A. Que dans ses procedes rbomme est inconsequent! 
 On recherche un esprit dont on hait le talent \ 
 On applaudit aux traits du mechant qu'on abhorre ; 
 Et loin de le proscrire on l'encourage encore. 
 Mais convenez aussi qu'avec ce mauvais ton, 
 Tous ces gens dont il est I'oracle ou le bouffon, 
 Craignent pour eux le sort des absens qu'il leurlivre, 
 Et que tous avec lui seroient faches de vivre : 
 On le voit une fois, il peut etre applaudi ', 
 Mais quelqu'un voudroit-il en faire son ami P 
 
105 
 
 V. On le craint ; c'est beaucoup. 
 
 A. Merite pitoyable ; 
 Tour les esprits senses est-il done redoutable ? 
 C'est ordinairement a de foibles rivaux 
 Qu'il addresse les traits de ses mauvais propos. 
 Quel honneur trouvez-vous a poursuivre, a confondre, 
 A desoler quelqu'un qui ne peut vous repondre ? 
 Ce triomphe honteux de la mechancete 
 Reunit la bassesse et l'inhumanite. 
 Quand sur I'esprit d'un autre on a quelque avantage, 
 jN 'est-il pas plus flatteur d'en meriter rhommage, 
 De voiler, d'enhardir la foiblesse d'autrui, 
 Et d'en etre a la fois et Taraour et l'appui ? 
 
 V. Qu'elle soit un peu plus, un peu raoins vertueuse, 
 Vous m'avouerez du moins que sa vie est heureuse. 
 On epuise bient6t une societe \ 
 On sait tout votre esprit ; vous n'etes plus fete 
 Quand vous n'etes plus neuf ; il faut une autre scene 
 Et d'autres spectateurs : il passe, il se promene 
 Dans les cercles divers, sans gene, sans lien ; 
 II a la fleur de tout, n'est esclave de rien. 
 
 A. Vous le croyez heureux ? Quelle ame meprisable ? 
 Si c'est la son bonheur, c'est etre miserable, 
 Etranger au milieu de la societe, 
 Et partout fugitif, et partout rejete. 
 Vous connoitrez bient6t par votre experience 
 Que le bonheur du coeur est dans la confiance. 
 Un commerce de suite avec les memes gens ; 
 L'union des plaisirs, des gouts, des sentimens ; 
 Une societe peu nombreuse, et qui s'aime, 
 
106 
 
 Ou vous pensez tout haut, ou vous etes vous-m&ne, 
 Sans lendemain, sans crainte, et sans malignite, 
 Dans le sein de la paix et de la surete : 
 Voila le seul bonheur honorable et paisible 
 D'un esprit raisonnable, et d'un cceur ne sensible. 
 Sans amis, sans repos, suspect et dan^ereux, 
 L'homme frivole et vague est deja malheureux. 
 Mais jugez avec moi corabien Test davantage 
 Un mechaut affiche dont on craint le passage ; 
 Qui, trainant avec lui les rapports, les horreurs, 
 L'esprit de faussete, l'art affreux des noirceurs, 
 Abhorre, meprise, couvert d'ignominie, 
 Chez les honnetes gens demeure sans patrie : 
 Voila le vrai proscrit, et vous le connoissez. 
 
 V. Je ne le verrois plus si ce que vous pensez 
 Alloit m'etre prouve : mais on outre les choses ; 
 C'est donner a. des riens les plus horribles causes. 
 Quant a la probite nul ne peut 1'accuser : 
 Ce qu'il dit, ce qu'il fait n'est que pour s'amuser. 
 
 Ji. S'amuser, dites-vous ? Quelle erreur est la votre! 
 Quoi ! vendre tour-a-tour, immoler 1'une a l'autre 
 Chaque societe, diviser les esprits, 
 Aigrir des gens brouilles, ou brouiller des amis, 
 Calomnier, fietrir des femmes estimables, 
 Faire du mal d'autrui ses plaisirs detestables; 
 Ce perme d'infamie et de perversit6 
 Est-il dans la meme ame avec la probite ? 
 Et pai viji vos amis vous souft'rez qu'on le nomme ! 
 
 V. Je ne le connois plus s'il n'est point honnete homme 
 Mais il me reste un doute : avec trop de bonte 
 
123 
 
 liberty during* this reign, wc must take into account 
 its two wars, American and French, and the increase 
 of public debt and establishments. In estimating", 
 on the other hand, what new securities liberty has 
 gained, we must pn* into the balance Mr. Fox's law 
 of libel, the resolution against general warrants and 
 the vast increased weight of public opinion ; and this 
 again leads us to the alarms and restrictive mea- 
 sures. 
 
 Whatever may have been the reasons, good or 
 bad, which induced the government of this country 
 to undertake a war agamst the insurgent colonies of 
 America, and whatever may have been the policy, 
 or even the necessity of entering into a contest with 
 the French republic, it cannot be denied, that the 
 object of both these wars was to oppose popular re- 
 volution, and that their spirit was contrary to popu- 
 lar principles. It may be said, indeed, that both of 
 these wars were supported by the full concurrence 
 of the people of this country. But this objection 
 takes away nothing from the weight of the observa- 
 tion which I wish to make. It must be recollected, 
 that a high-spirited nation is easily incited to take 
 arms; and, whether they do so in a cause congenial 
 to freedom, depends entirely upon the occasion which 
 presents itself, and the use which is made of it by 
 those whose talents qualify them to direct public 
 opinion. Now, the occasions upon which both of the 
 wars before alluded to arose, were the resistance 
 
124 
 
 of a people to its government ; and the arguments 
 adopted to induce this country to declare war, were 
 chiefly an appeal to its insulted dignity, and to its 
 feelings of loyalty and piety. During- a long period 
 of this reign, comprising more than half of its ex- 
 tended duration, no attempts have been wanting to 
 inflame the public mind, daily and hourly, against the 
 rebellious subjects of our own king, and agaiost a 
 neighbouring nation, which deposed and executed its 
 sovereign. It is impossible but that these invectives 
 must have had their effect, and it can create surprise 
 in no one that a country so excited, so taught, and 
 so inflamed, and that too by one of the most eloquent 
 writers, and one of the most eloquent speakers whom 
 Eugland has produced, should become at last ex- 
 tremely clive to every supposed misdemeanor against 
 prerogative, and completely dull and insensible to 
 amy violation of constitutional rights. Nor will those 
 escape bJame in the page of history, if any such 
 there were, who led the people on by exaggerated 
 representations of facts ; who inflamed their imagi- 
 nation by highly-coloured pictures of carnage and of 
 murder, and endeavoured to put a stop to internal and 
 civil bloodshed in one nation, by extending slaughter 
 and desolation to every state in Europe, and every 
 region of the globe. The example of the French 
 Revolution, however, has had an influence still more 
 direct on the progress of our affairs ; the French 
 Revolution is ascribed to every thing, and eyery 
 
125 
 
 thing* is ascribed to the French Revolution. If a 
 book is written containing- new opinions on subjects 
 of philosophy and literature, we are told to avoid 
 them, for to Voltaire and to Rousseau is to be as- 
 cribed the French Revolution. If an ignorant cob- 
 bler harangues a ragged mob in Smithfield, we are 
 toH that the state is in dangler, for the fury of a mob 
 was the beginning" of the French Revolution. If 
 there is discontent in the manufacturing towns, we 
 are told that the discontent of the manufacturing' 
 towns in France was the great cause of the French 
 Revolution. Nay ; even if it is proposed to allow a 
 proprietor of land to shoot partridges and hares on 
 his own ground, we are told that this would be to 
 admit the doctrine of natural rights, the source of 
 all the evils of the French Revolution.* 
 
 It is in vain that these absurd clamours are repeat- 
 edly refuted; it is in vain that it is shown that the 
 French Revolution arose from one simple cause, the 
 discordance of a brave and enlightened people, with 
 a corrupt, bigoted, and despotic government ; it is in 
 vain that the atrocities of the revolution are shown 
 to have been owing partly to the cruel character of 
 the people, and partly to the alarm excited by foreign 
 interference. 
 
 It is to no purpose that it is observed, that no com* 
 parison can be drawn between a country which had 
 
 * See Parliamentary Debates, It? 19, 
 11* 
 
l<26 
 
 no constitution and no freedom ; and one which has 
 a constitution, and where the whole people are free. 
 
 The voice of reason is not listened to; the whole 
 precedent is taken in the gross as a receipt in full 
 for every baa law ; for every ancient abuse ; for 
 maintaining* error, and applauding incapacity. It is 
 as if a patient were worn out with bad fare, and ex- 
 hausted with debility, and a physician should admi- 
 nister copious bleedings, because his next-door 
 neighbour was dying of a pleurisy. 
 
 Whilst the power of the crown has been thus in- 
 creased by the doctrines, it has been no less aug- 
 mented b} the burdens of the war. After the peace 
 of 1763, the interest of the debt was about 4,600,000/.: 
 it is now 31,440,000/. exclusive of the sinking fund. 
 The whole sum raised by taxes and loans did not 
 then exceed 14,000,000/. : the whole sum now raised 
 yearly in taxes alone, is between 54 and 55,000,0OOZ 
 But this sum is great, not only in comparison of all 
 which has preceded, but also with reference to the 
 entire wealth of the country. The income-tax of 
 ten per cent, produced no more than 14,000,000/. 
 Now it is easy to conceive how great a weight 
 must be added to government by the immense 
 sum thus collected from the people. This great re- 
 venue is divided into three portions, each adding* in 
 its vocation to the influence of the crown. The 
 first is the debt ; the second, establishment; and the 
 third, office. With respect to the influence of the 
 debt, it is greater than could at nrst sight be sup- 
 
127 
 
 posed; a landholder is entitled to his dividend, it may 
 be said, and has no obligation to any one : but this 
 rule does not hold in practice. The large fundholder r 
 imagines, that it will be of advantage to him to be a 
 friend of government in any business that may take 
 place with respect to the financial measures of the 
 year, and even though the minister should discourage 
 such an expectation, it is impossible to avoid a cer- 
 tain degree of coquetry. Besides, is it not natural 
 that the fundholders should look on those as their 
 friends, who have been the causes of their prospe- 
 rity, and the immediate instruments of their wealth? 
 It was probably to make friends to the Hanover suc- 
 cession and to themselves, that the Whigs of 1695 
 promoted the funding system. 
 
 The Pitt system of government, therefore, which 
 created three times as much funded property as it 
 found, and enabled a banking corporation to issue 
 money of paper to any extent, must have made itself 
 friends in proportion. At the same time, I by no 
 means intend to deny that many stout friends of 
 freedom are to be found amongst those who have 
 acquired fortunes by the loans. But they are the 
 exception. 
 
 The feeling of attachment to the ministry is car- 
 ried still farther by the smaller fundholders ; num- 
 bers of them imagine that their property is contin- 
 gent upon the permanence of a first Lord of the 
 Treasury ; and they have no other notion of opposi- 
 tion than an attempt to make a national bankruptcy. 
 
128 
 
 This idea certainly prevails only among" the very ig- 
 norant, who are, however, a body of great weight 
 and number. 
 
 The second application of the taxes is to establish- 
 ment. An establishment which in 1790 cost four 
 millions and a half, now costs upwards of eighteen ; 
 our troops are augmented with the increase of our 
 colonies ; and our forts and governments are multi- 
 plied in every part of the globe. 
 
 The third direction of the public money is to main- 
 tain offices ; and allowing that many reductions have 
 been made, there still remains enough to create and 
 support an independent, unpopular, incapable admi- 
 nistration. It has been said, that the reduction of 
 establishment and offices diminishes the influence of 
 the crown Supposing that at the moment it does 
 30 ; yet an establishment- once reduced, is, on the 
 contrary, a source of increased influence ; for persons 
 who have served will be much more anxious to be 
 appointed to a vacancy, than those who have not 
 already devoted themselves to a profession. It is 
 wonderful to observe, too, with how much eager- 
 ness parents seek to employ their sons in a situation 
 of perpetual dependence; 10,000/. a year may be 
 made by physic ; 14,000/. a year by surgery ; 
 18,000/. a year by the property of a newspaper; 
 17.000/. a year by pulling out teeth ; but rather 
 than all these, a prudent, steady man, will make his 
 first-born a clerk in a government office, where, if 
 
129 
 
 he surpasses his fellows both in merit and favour, he 
 may, in time, receive 2,000/. a year at the will of a 
 minister. 
 
 A class of offices which is more important, per- 
 haps, than all the rest, is that of persons employed in 
 the collection of the revenue; upwards of four mil- 
 lions a year are spent in this necessary service. 
 Every year a large book is presented to the house of 
 Commons, containing an account of the augmenta- 
 tion of salaries and superannuations, chiefly in offices 
 of this description. These offices are thus disposed 
 of. The offices of the excise are generally given by 
 the commissioners of excise appointed by govern- 
 ment, a few being reserved for the patronage of the 
 Treasury ; i. e. in other words, for members of the 
 house of Commons. The offices of the customs are 
 entirely at the disposal of the Treasury ; the offices 
 of the stamp and post-offices are given by the Trea- 
 sury, at the recommendation of members of parlia- 
 ment, voting with government. The receivers -gene- 
 ral of the land-tax, whose poundage alone amounts to 
 about 78,000/, a year, and whose balances give as 
 much more, are appointed at the recommendation of 
 county members voting with government In the in- 
 stance of one county, this office was lately divided 
 into two, to increase the patronage. Where the 
 members for the county both vote with opposition, 
 the appointment is given to the person who the first 
 lord of the Treasury thinks ought to be member for 
 
130 
 
 the county. Thus it is, that the influence of the 
 crown has not only been augmented, but organized, 
 aud directed in a manner never before known. 
 
 Without entering" on the question of reform, I may 
 here observe, how much the disciplined corruption 
 of the Treasury increases ministerial influence in 
 parliament. The produce of the taxes descends in 
 fertilizing- showers upon the proprietors, the agents, 
 and the members of boroughs. For them there is a 
 state lottery which is all prizes ; the beautiful gra- 
 dation of ranks is observed there, in all its harmonious 
 p-oporlions. The elector of a borough, or a person 
 he recommends, obtains a situation in the customs ; 
 the attorney who acts for the borough, disposes of a 
 commission in the navy ; the member of parliament 
 obtains a place in the Mediterranean for a near rela- 
 tion ; the proprietor of two boroughs obtains a peer- 
 age in perspective ; and the larger proprietor, fol- 
 lowed by his attendant members, shines in the sum- 
 mer of royal favour, with a garter, a regiment, an 
 earldom, or a marquisate. 
 
 To all this we must add the old inevitable influence 
 of the crown, in (he professions of the church and 
 the law. How few men there are who can go 
 through life in utter contempt of the rewards, which 
 are the proper objects of their ambition ! How few 
 who, contenting themselves with deserving to be 
 Bishops and Chancellors, by their talents and indus- 
 
107 
 
 Je crains de me froquer de singularity. 
 Sans condamner l'avis de Cleon, ni le vutre, 
 J'ai l'esprit de mon siecle, etje suis comme un autre: 
 Tout le raonde est mechant ; etje serois partout 
 Ou dupe, ou ridicule, avec un autre gout 
 A. Tout le monde est mechant ? Oui, ces cceurs halfs- 
 sables, 
 Ce peuple d'hommes faux, de femmes, d'agreables, 
 Sans principes, sans mceurs, esprits bas et jaloux, 
 Qui se rendent justice en se meprisant tous. 
 En vain ce peuple affreux, sans frein et sans scrupule, 
 De la bonte du cceur veut faire un ridicule ; 
 Pour chasser ce nuage et voir avec clarte 
 Que l'homme n'est point fait pour la mechancete, 
 Consultez, ecoutez pour juges, pour oracles, 
 Les hommes rassembles ; voyez a nos spectacles, 
 Quand on peint quelque trait de candeur, de bonte, 
 Ou brille en tout son jour la tendre humanite, 
 Tous les cceurs sont remplis d'une volupte pure, 
 Et c'est la qu'on entend le cri de la nature. 
 
 Le Mtchant, Acte4. sc.4. 
 
 Ariste. Cleon. 
 
 A. Tout seroit explique si Ton cessoit de nuire, 
 Si la mechancete ne cherchoit a detruire. 
 
 C. Oh, bon ! quelle folie ! etes-vous de ces gens 
 Soupconneux, ombrageux ? croyez-vous aux mechans£ 
 Et realisez-vous cet etre imaginaire, 
 Ce petit prejuge, qui ne va qu'au vulgaire ? 
 Pour raoi, je n'y crois pas : soit dit sans interet, 
 
108 
 
 Tout le monde est mechant, et personne ne Test ; 
 
 On re^oit, et Ton rend ; on est a-peu-pres quitte. 
 
 Parlez-vous des propos ? comme il n'est ni merite, 
 
 IS'i gout, ni jugement qui ne soit contredit, 
 
 Que rien n'est vrai sur rien ; qu'importe ce qu'on dit ? 
 
 Tel sera mon heros, et tel sera le votre ; 
 
 L'aigle dune maison n'est qu'un sot dans une autre; 
 
 Je dis ici qu'Eraste est un mauvais plaisant : 
 
 Eh bien ! on dit ailleurs qu'Eraste est amusant. 
 
 Si vous parlez des faits et des tracasseries, 
 
 ."le n'y vois, dans le fonds, que des plaisanteries ; 
 
 Et si vous attachez du crime a tout cela, 
 
 Beaucoup dhonnetes gens sont de ces frippons-la. 
 
 L'agrement eouvre tout, il rend tout legitime. 
 
 Aujourd'hui dans le monde on ne connoit qu'un crime, 
 
 C'est l'ennui : pour le fair tous les moyens sont bons ; 
 
 II gagneroit bientot les meilleures maisons, 
 
 Si Ton s'aimoit si fort ; l'amusement circule 
 
 Par les preventions, les torts, le ridicule. 
 
 Au reste, chacun parle et fait comme il l'entend : 
 
 Tout est mal, tout est bien ; tout le monde est content. 
 
 A. On n'a rien a repondre a de telles maximes : 
 Tout est indifferent pour les ames sublimes. 
 Le plaisir, dites-vous, y gagne ; en verite, 
 Je n'ai vu que l'ennui cbez la mcchancete. 
 Ce jargon eternel de la froide ironie, 
 L'air de denigrement, l'aigreur, la jalousie, 
 Ce ton mysterieux, ces petits mots saps fin, 
 Toujours avec un air qui voudroit ctre tin ; 
 Ces indiscretions, ces rapports infidcU«, 
 
109 
 
 Ces basses faussetes, ces trahisons crueller ; 
 Tout cela n'est-il-pas, a le bien definir, 
 L'irnage de la haine, et la mort du plaisir ? 
 Aussi ne voit on plus ou sont ces caracteres, 
 L'aisance, la franchise, et les plaisirs sinceres. 
 On est en garde, on doute enfin si Ton rira. 
 L'esprit qu'on veut avoir gate celui qu'on a. 
 De la joie et du cceur on perd l'heureux langage^ 
 Pour l'absurde talent d'un triste persifflage. 
 
 Acte4. sc.7. 
 
 1Q 
 
no 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 London^ 1819. 
 
 Political Economy is an awful thing. It is ap- 
 palling 1 to think that the Legislature is often called 
 upon to decide questions which involve the immediate 
 happiness, perhaps the very existence, of millions of 
 the people, by the rules of a science which changes 
 from day to day. It is not a matter of very urgent 
 or pressing necessity to know, whether oxygen gets 
 the better of phlogiston, or chlorine is a better 
 founded name than oxy-muriatic acid. But it is of 
 another kind of importance, to know whether a silver 
 currency, of a certain standard, will prove a consi- 
 derable benefit or certain ruin ; whether an over- 
 flowing abundance of cheap foreign corn is a bless- 
 ing or a curse to the nation which imports it. Yet 
 these are questions to be decided by reference to the 
 authority of men, who, with all their talents, do not, 
 I must confess, inspire me with perfect confidence. 
 Id the first place, it is difficut to trust implicitly in 
 
Ill 
 
 men who allow themselves to contradict the most sa- 
 cred principles of their own laws. Adam Smith, for 
 instance, thinks it would be right that every gentle- 
 man should be forced, by taxation, to keep a certain 
 quantity of land in his own hands. M. Say, another 
 great authority in these matters, maintains, that it 
 would be right for a government to point out the 
 districts in which manufactures ought to be establish- 
 ed. If it is not easy to pay implicit deference to the 
 authority of great political economists, it is also dif- 
 ficult to obtain a precise idea of what is the object 
 or the subject of their science. M. Say, above 
 quoted, tells us, in the beginning of his book, that 
 political economy, which, according to him, ou^ht to 
 be called by some harder name, comprehends all 
 means of acquiring wealth, and that a stock of learn- 
 ing or professional knowledge is as much capital as 
 any other species of wealth. Yet, soon afterwards, 
 he falls into common language, and speaks of Bo- 
 logna as a place of great learning, but no wealth. 
 
 Next, there is nothing so various as the opinions of 
 political economists. Adam Smith says, that the 
 price of provisions regulates wages ; Lord Lauder- 
 dale maintains, and supports his opinions by wit- 
 nesses, that it has almost no influence upon wages. 
 Political economists, in general, think there cannot 
 be too much capital, or too great an increase of ma- 
 chinery. M. Sismocdi thinks capital may be too 
 
in 
 
 abundant, and that machinery may starve (he peo- 
 ple .* These opinions may be knowledge in the mak- 
 ing", as Bacon finely calls the opinions of enlightened 
 men, but, until it is made, one would hesitate to 
 stake the happiness of a nation upon them. A very 
 useless controversy was carried on for a long period 
 on the division of the population into productive and 
 unproductive labourers. It seems, at last, to be 
 agreed to drop the distinction altogether, although, 
 perhaps, it was good for arrangement. 
 
 Another distinction, almost as vain, has sprung up, 
 respecting the modes of spending wealth. The 
 money which is spent on improving land or building 
 eotton-mills, is supposed to be laid out productively ; 
 whilst that which is spent on consumable articles, 
 such as claret or silk, is supposed to be wasted. But 
 it is quite evident, that when men have attained a 
 eertain d e of wealth they will spend a great part 
 of it, at ast, ou objects of enjoyment. Wh ether 
 they w r il) benefit their country thereby, depends sole- 
 ly on the industry of the working part of the com- 
 munity- if they are indolent, and have no opportu- 
 nities for manufactures, as in Spain, the consump- 
 tion of English muslins by the grandees will only 
 cause the cultivation of a few more grapes and 
 olives. If, as in England, the people are industrious, 
 the consumption of silk and claret, raisins and bran- 
 dy, will cause a fresh impulse to be given to tho 
 
113 
 
 manufacturers of cotton, yarn, and muslin, cloth and 
 hardware, and to the commerce and trade of the 
 country. In fact, in an industrious country, nothing 
 better can be desired than a great taste for luxurious 
 enjoyments amongst the people ; but in a sluggish 
 country, on the other hand, the use of foreign luxu- 
 ries is only confined to a few, and probably displaces 
 some articles of domestic manufacture. And here I 
 have mentioned one of the great limits to the sci- 
 ence of political economy, which has been nearly 
 overlooked by its preachers — the customs, habits, 
 and manner of nations. In France, for instance, M„ 
 Say tells us, any tax on hats diminishes the consump- 
 tion of the article. His observation shows, that 
 France is not a country of great wealth ; but proves 
 nothing, as he intends it should, with respect to taxes. 
 An intelligent manufacturer, who travelled to as- 
 certain the state of manufactures in France, found 
 that the main difference between that country and 
 England was, that the English workmen worked 
 many more hours than the French. Valencia and 
 Catalonia, where the most absurd restrictions are 
 imposed on agriculture and trade, are the most 
 flourishing and most populous parts of Spain. Here 
 js a proof that habits of industry, and taste for enjoy- 
 ment, are of more importance than any laws of regu- 
 lation. 
 But the great limit to the science of political- 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 economy, is the difficulty of collecting' data suffi- 
 cient upon which to found any certain rules. If all 
 nations were at peace, if they had all the same cur- 
 rency and the same weights and measures, and if all 
 national prejudices were abolished, it would then be 
 easy to legislate according* to theoretical principles. 
 But the frequent occurrence of war, the complication 
 of political interests, the existence of ancient trea- 
 ties, and, above all, the establishments of capital and 
 of people. which have taken place, on the faith of the 
 continuance of old arrangements, often render a 
 question of political economy much more difficult to 
 solve than almost any problem in the range of ma- 
 thematics. For instance, it is very easy to say, that 
 the trade in corn ought to be free, like any other 
 trade, and that if your farmers cannot grow corn so 
 cheap as the foreign farmers, they ought to let it 
 alone. But when you are requested to consider 
 that every other trade is restricted by duties, amount- 
 ing in some cases to a prohibition ; when you are 
 told that many millions of capital have been laid cul, 
 and many hundred thousands of people bred up and 
 employed, on the presumption that the growth of 
 corn would continue to be protected by law ; when 
 it is stated to you that the taxes are so heavy in this 
 country and so light in other countries, that the effect 
 of a free importation of corn would be the ruin of all 
 the farmers, the conversion of the people entirely 
 
115 
 
 into manufacturers, and the consequent dependence 
 of the whole nation on the commercial laws, and even 
 the caprices of foreign nations, you must own you 
 hare a knotty question to decide; and, besides all 
 this, the question may be of such urgency, that I 
 have seen several thousands of farmers utterly ruin- 
 ed, the manufacturers suffering for want of the inter- 
 nal trade, two hundred banks broken, and money 
 change its value, solely because a year was given to 
 consider of the arguments of the political economists. 
 Again, with respect to paper-money. Nothing is 
 so easy as to understand and to retail the sound theo- 
 ry of a metallic and paper circulation ; nothing 
 more safe than to confute the narrow and absurd 
 maxims of the Bank Directors; and, you would sup- 
 pose, nothing more obvious than the wisdom of re- 
 storing a paper which has been depreciated, to its 
 just value* But when you reflect that this question 
 is intimately counected with another, namely, the 
 finances and the taxes of the country; when" you 
 consider that the restoration of the currency adds so 
 much percent, to the taxes, already difficult to pay, 
 and an equal per centage to the debt which almost 
 overwhelms the country even uow : when you re- 
 flect, besides, that the measure is not one of honesty, 
 because the alteration was made twenty years ago, 
 and debts both public and private have been con- 
 tracted in currency depreciated from five to thirty 
 
116 
 
 per cent. : it is then worth examining 1 , whether it 
 will not be better to make your paper payable in 
 gold at its present value. By adopting the more 
 theoretical measure, it is true you give a striking ex- 
 ample of your love of .principle, and of the danger of 
 ever leaving it, but at the same time you risk the 
 lives of a great portion of your people you cramp 
 trade, you arrest commerce, and place yourself in 
 new difficulties, when you ought to be making a 
 vigorous effort to cope at once with your own debt, 
 and the rival manufactures of other nations. In plain 
 terms, these questions involve matters of more im- 
 portance than those which merely regard the wealth 
 of nations ; I mean considerations* which affect their 
 morals and their lives. It is very true, that England 
 would sell more cotton, if her manufacturers got 
 cheap corn from Poland. But a statesman is bound 
 to think, whether it would be better to have a mil- 
 lion more people in the manufacturing towns, at the 
 certainty of losing half a million of farmers and la- 
 bourers : and he must place before his eyes the pic- 
 ture of that half million starved out of existence, 
 dragging along with them, for a time, the people 
 employed in every branch of industry which depends 
 upon their demand, clamorous for a pittance, which 
 the inflexible spirit of science denies, shaking, per- 
 haps, the pillars of the state, and menacing the whole 
 order of society, before they suffer themselves to be 
 
117 
 
 extirpated by famine. And here I may remark, that 
 there is no more lamentable consequence of the mis- 
 apprehension and misapplication of theories of politi- 
 cal economy, than the opinions which prevail con- 
 cerning- the relief of particular distress. It is true, 
 certainly, that keeping- a number of the people on 
 charity diminishes the funds of labour, and maintains 
 a population which the society cannot fairly support. 
 But this is no argument against relieving a portion 
 of the people who. owing- to some accidental circum- 
 stance, are thrown into misery. If you do not re^ 
 lieve them they must perish, and the population is 
 thus made adequate to the demand. This is the 
 mode of acting" recommended ; and I must say, it is 
 to the full as cruel as the most extensive plan of war 
 and conquest. But then, it is said, if you do relieve 
 them, you are diverting the funds of labour from the 
 useful productive class to another class who make 
 no return. But this is not at all necessary. Sup- 
 pose, for instance, a landholder lays down two of his 
 carriage horses, and gives the money to the poor, 
 who are at the moment distressed ; Le lessens the 
 consumption of oats, and increases that of wheat ; 
 nor is it just to say, that the price of wheat is thereby 
 increased to the active labourer. The persons re- 
 lieved are, by supposition, already existing, and have 
 been considered in the g-eneral production of corn 
 for the year ; and it would be a cruel method, in- 
 
118 
 
 deed, to allow them to starve, that corn might fall to 
 a lower price than usual. Again, a manufacturer or 
 merchant may lay out in some particular year of 
 great distress the surplus of his profits in charity ; if 
 thai surplus was to have been left to accumulate in 
 the funds, or employed in stock-jobbing speculations, 
 surely it may be diverted without much harm. But 
 to come to the most difficult case of all, let us sup- 
 pose his surplus profits were to be employed in fresh 
 enterprises of industry ; in cleansing land, in extend- 
 ing a manufactory, in building a ship ; even in this 
 case he may do no harm by supplying the starving 
 poor ; for, if they are allowed to perish, and the in- 
 dustry of the country increases, a new population 
 will be required, and, in the meantime, he will be 
 obliged to pay higher wages to those who are em- 
 ployed in his trade or manufacture. I have said, if 
 the industry of the country increases, for it must be 
 allowed that all these reasonings apply only to a 
 flourishing people. If the country is falling into de- 
 cay, no power on earth can maintain the population ; 
 the hand of charity will gradually close, and new ob- 
 jects will, at the same time, present themselves for 
 relief. But it is not the distress of one year, or a 
 stagnation, owing to some temporary cause, which 
 should induce us to allow a part of our people, and 
 that, perhaps, including some of our most industrious 
 
119 
 
 artizans to die before our eyes — it is not humane, it 
 is not wise. 
 
 Another error, besides those which relate to the ob- 
 jects and the certainty of this science, is the extreme 
 exaggeration of its importance when taken alone- It 
 has been asserted, that political economy affords rules 
 for making nations happy, without disturbing their 
 internal government, or awakening, like other poli- 
 tical disputes, the alarms of ministers and kings.* 
 But this notion tends only to produce delusion. The 
 very ignorance in which despotic kings and their 
 counsellors habitually live, prevents their attaining a 
 true knowledge of the points in dispute between M. 
 Say and M. Sismondi. It is only where there is a 
 free press and an open discussion, that any science 
 relating to government can attract attention and ac- 
 quire importance. True it is, certainly, that 
 Charles IV. of Spain established a Professorship of 
 Political Economy at Salamanca ; but he soon ren- 
 dered the appointment useless by placing the govern- 
 ment in the hands of the Prince of the Peace, who, 
 for a long time after he was First Minister, thought 
 Prussia and Russia were the same country. 
 
 But even if a Minister should arise in a despotic 
 country, disposed to carry into practice sound plans 
 of political economy, what obstacles would he not 
 
 * See Stewart's Life of Adam Smith, 
 
120 
 
 meet in the execution of his work ? How would he 
 deal with royal monopolies ? By what means could he 
 tax the nobility and clergy ? In what manner would 
 he relieve the people from corves and other forced 
 labour ? Manifestly and clearly only by making a 
 popular revolution. 
 
 Let us not then be deceived by specious proposals 
 for a benevolent despotism. Government will al- 
 ways be conducted for the benefit of those who go- 
 vern. If the few alone govern, the interests of the 
 few only will be provided for ; if the people them- 
 selves have a share in the government, the interests 
 af the many will be consulted. 
 
121 
 
 STATE OF THE ENGLISH CON- 
 STITUTION. 
 
 "*• To sustain^ to repair, to beautify this noble pile, is a charge 
 intrusted principally to the nobility, and such gentlemen ot 
 the kingdom, as are delegated by their country to parliament. 
 The protection of The Liberty of Britain is a duty which 
 "they owe to themselves who enjoy it ; to their ancestors who 
 transmitted it down ; and to their posterity, who will claim at 
 their hands this, the best birth-right, and noblest inheritance 
 of mankind.* Blackstone. 
 
 There is nothing in human councils, or human 
 institutions which stands still. The letter of law is 
 changed to suit the occasion of the day, and the 
 spirit of a government varies with the disposition of 
 the rulers who govern, and the state of the people 
 who are governed. It behooves us, then, as members 
 of a free community, priding ourselves upon our li- 
 berty, and enjoying (still enjoying) the benefits of a 
 more unrestrained, more immediate, and more gene--. 
 11 
 
ral discussion of all our interests, than an}* nation 
 ever before possessed, to examine from *ime to time 
 the condition of our state vessel, to overhaul her 
 rigging", and to see that she has not sprung- a-le'sk 
 upon the stormy voyages she has undergone. But if 
 any moment is more peculiarly tit tor such an in- 
 quiry, it is when a long- and eventful reign has come 
 to its melancholy termination ; and when a prince 
 ascends the throne, under the auspices of new laws, 
 which we are assured are better calculated to pro- 
 tect lecral and orderly freedom, than the old and 
 venerable barriers called Magna Charta, and the 
 Bill of Eights, which they are intended to modify 
 and supplant. Yet, let me even here protest against 
 being supposed to say, that those laws of themselves 
 form any effectual control upon our liberties : the 
 strength of Sampson is not to be subdued by seven 
 green withs ; the new bills are only to be considered 
 as steps in legislation, and as affording a measure of 
 the temper in which the government of this country 
 is in future to be conducted. The spirit which has 
 been manifested by the ministers and their supporters 
 in the session of November, 1819, forms one of the 
 most important data upon which we can found an 
 estimate of the vigour still remaining in the English 
 constitution, and must be allowed to have an impor- 
 tant place in a memorial of what is past, and a prog- 
 nostic of what is to come. 
 
 In reckoning up what the crown has gained upon 
 
131 
 
 try, do not also endeavour to become so by their 
 servility ! 
 
 Let us now examine the opposite scale. Some 
 improvements in constitutional law have been made 
 during the late reign. The chief of these is un- 
 doubtedly the libel law of Mr. Fox, to which the 
 whole security of the free press is owing-; another 
 is the declaration of the illegality of general war- 
 rants ; and a great step was made by placing the 
 civil list more entirely under the control of parlia- 
 ment, first at the beginning of the reign, and then 
 by Mr. Burke's bill. The act by which George III. 
 at his accession, restrained his successor from re- 
 moving the judges, is also a benefit; but so slight a 
 one as to be hardly worth mentioning. 
 
 The publication of the debates in parliament, and 
 the general diffusion of political knowledge, is, on 
 the other hand, a most important change. The cen- 
 sor of the Roman republic, however austere in the 
 exercise of his functions, could never equal in mi- 
 nuteness of inquiry, or severity of rebuke, the un- 
 seen and irresponsible public of the British Empire. 
 What statesman can hear with unshaken Serves, 
 that voice, which, beginning in the whispers of the 
 metropolis, rises into the loud tone of defiance, with- 
 in the walls of parliament, and is then prolonged by 
 means of the hundred mouths of the press, till its in- 
 numerable echoes rebound from the shores of Corn- 
 wall, and the mountains of Inverness ? What minis- 
 
133 
 
 ter, however profligate ia Lis notions, does not, in 
 his parliamentary language, endeavour, in some de- 
 gree, to conciliate the uncorrupted mind of the 
 multitude ? The effect of this power is, however, 
 very vaguely estimated, when it is said that public 
 opinion overbalances any advantage the crown may 
 derive from the increase of the standing army, or 
 the extension of its influence. In the first place, 
 this argument proves too much; for if public opinion 
 is a sufficient counterpoise to power, why should we 
 maintain the Habeas Corpus Act, or Magna Charta, 
 or coutinue the existence of Parliament itself? But 
 in the second place, in the very statement of their 
 argument, its propounders are guilty of a fallacy ; 
 they take for granted, that all the opinion which ha3 
 been admitted to a share of influence in the state, is 
 in a spirit of inquiry, and of control upon the govern- 
 ment ; but if we examine the matter ever so little, 
 we shall see that this is far from being the case. Let 
 us analyze this great compound called public opinion, 
 and endeavour to ascertain of what simple elements 
 it consists. 
 
 From the Revolution to the beginning of the pre- 
 sent reign, the government of this country, though 
 popular in all its laws, and most of its maxims, was 
 in its nature aristocratical. The people, in the en- 
 joyment of liberty, gave a large and generous con- 
 fidence to those who had toiled and suffered to ob- 
 tain it. But at the beginning of the present reign t 
 
i.-> -i 
 
 several new parties arose, of which it will be suffi- 
 cient to mark the outlines. 
 
 One of these parties consisted of a new body of 
 courtiers and sycophants, who called themselves the 
 king's friends ; this tribe, which has been powerfully 
 described by Mr. Burke, has been of late, somewhat 
 broken and dispersed ; yet in a division last year in 
 the House of Commons, it mustered above sixty. 
 These men are of the true eastern race, equally in- 
 dignant if a single equerry is taken away from the 
 household of a king* who never leaves his chamber, 
 or if a single concession is granted to a million of 
 people starving with hunger. 
 
 Another of these parties consisted of the old and 
 steady friends of Divine Right ; they found it was 
 no longer of any use to say, u that they were for 
 passive submission, and were determined to resist 
 the present dynasty." They found, like Cedric in a 
 late novel, that it was hopeless to contest the crown 
 with a government so firmly established ; but in 
 changing the objects of their attachment, they by 
 no means altered the nature or the spirit of it. 
 They knelt to their new deities with all the fervour 
 of the superstition which had bound them to their 
 former idols ; they were still always ready to forget 
 the interest of their country, to follow the advantage, 
 or the caprice of a single family ; and it appeared 
 by their conduct, that they had only abjured the 
 errors of the House of Stuart, to embrace those of 
 12 
 
134 
 
 the House of Brunswick. No wonder that their 
 allegiance was received with the most emphatic ex- 
 pressions of gratitude.* 
 
 The third party consists of that large number of 
 persoos newly admitted, by a little smattering of 
 newspaper reading, to a sight of the political drama, 
 who are carried away by the vulgar feelings of ad- 
 miration, for the trappings of royalty ; these persons 
 are properly to be reckoned amongst the mob.f 
 
 A fourth party, are those who are attached to the 
 laws, but are perpetual alarmists. They would use 
 the Constitution as some ladies do a new gown, 
 never put it on for fear it should rain. They are 
 continually reminding us of the necessity of burying 
 party animosities for the sake of the country ; by 
 which they mean, suspending the laws, to quiet their 
 own nerves. It is upon these persons, especially, 
 that the very name of French Revolution has the 
 greatest effect ; they shut their eyes to every thing 
 that is encouraging, in order to fix their gaze upon 
 the low trash by which a few miserable individuals 
 gain a precarious livelihood. It is upon these timid 
 creatures also that the government press has the 
 most pernicious effect ; nothing, it is well known, is 
 
 * See the preface to Hogg's Jacobite Songs, lately publish- 
 ed. 
 
 f u Whenever this word occurs in our writings, it intends 
 persons without virtue, or sense, in all stations ; and many of 
 the highest rank are often meant by it." Tom Jones. 
 
135 
 
 so likely to forward the sale of a newspaper, as au 
 account of any news that is by the newsmen called 
 " bloody ;" and now that the war is over, there is 
 no way of obtaining- such news, but by exaggerating 
 the numbers and the violence of public meetings. 
 This mauoeuvre was practised to such an extent last 
 year, that the whole nation took the alarm, and Eng- 
 lishmen were ready to cut each other's throats in 
 the surmise of a plot. Unhappily, in one instance., 
 they went farther, and blood was shed in civil com- 
 motion. May that day never be repeated ! 
 
 We come now to the party, whom, for want of any 
 other name, we may call the New Party. They re- 
 quire a little further examination than we have given 
 to the others. 
 
 When education and wealth, and the publication 
 of the debates, brought the politics of the day within 
 the sphere of a larger portion of the community than 
 had hitherto attended to them, it was not to be ex- 
 pected that the new observers should immediately 
 understand the movements of so complicated a ma- 
 chine as the English Constitution. Except from the 
 newspapers, their only knowledge of its principles 
 was from books. Hence, according to their several 
 dispositions, they took up with axioms wholly 
 foreign to the practice of the best times. The 
 abettors of the Tories, for instance, maintained, 
 that the prerogative entitled the king to name 
 his own ministers, and that whoever should in- 
 
136 
 
 terfere, either with advice or remonstrance on such 
 a subject, would be almost guilty of treason. The 
 new allies of the Whigs, on the other hand, thought 
 that they were. speaking in the true spirit of the Con- 
 stitution, when they said that the House of Commons 
 ought to be entirely independent both of the Crown 
 and the House of Peers. To the Tory party these 
 maxims of their friends could not fail to be agreea- 
 ble, as they were quite reconcilable to their con- 
 duct, and, indeed, were, in many instances, only a 
 revival of their old doctrines, which had been ex- 
 ploded by the Revolution of 1688. But some of the 
 opinions of the new popular party were by no means 
 so favourable to the Whigs : one or two instances of 
 this may be mentioned. The system of government, 
 before the accession of the present king, consisted 
 in uniting the most considerable interests of the coun- 
 try with the greatest attention to the liberties of the 
 people. If then, at any time, a popular leader rose 
 up, whose measures were sanctioned by public opi- 
 nion, the party in power showed themselves ready to 
 coalesce with him — a new vigour was infused into 
 the administration, and increased success crowned 
 their union. Thus, a coalition in 1746, produced 
 the naval triumphs of the following year ; a coali- 
 tion in 1766 led to the brilliant triumphs of the Seven 
 Years' War. But when, in 1783-4, Mr. Fox formed 
 a coalition to oppose the secret intrigues of the court, 
 a cry of *• shame !" resounded from one end «f the 
 
137 
 
 country to the other; and when, again, he united 
 himself to Lord Grenville, in order to obtain a broad 
 and liberal administration, numbers of his partizans 
 grew cool in his cause, and sooner or later abandon- 
 ed his party. The cause of this I conceive not to 
 consist entirely in the peculiar nature of those coali- 
 tions, (although, perhaps the former cannot be wholly 
 justified ;) but is also partly to be attributed to the 
 fact, that the popular part of the nation has grown 
 much more critical in its observation of public men. 
 A coalition is, in fact, nothing* more than an oblivion 
 of former differences, in order to give effect to pre- 
 sent agreement. With respect to the past, it is 
 surely laudable ; with respect to the future, it is 
 only an extension of the principle of party. But the 
 parties in the nation love to think that the statesmen 
 to whom they are opposed, are not only wrong in 
 conduct, but vicious in principle. A Foxite of 1797 
 looked upon Lord Grenville as a man endeavouring 
 to ruin his country, that he might not lose his place ; 
 a Pittite of that day looked upon Mr. Fox as risking 
 revolutionary anarchy, because he was excluded 
 from office. These are the exaggerations which 
 prevail among persons below the rank, or distant from 
 the place, in which the leaders of political warfare 
 are to be found. No wonder that such persons should 
 be averse to any thing like a compromise. It is as if 
 in the last scene of Richard Ilf., when the audience 
 eagerly expected Richard and Richmond to fight 
 12 
 
138 
 
 tlieir mortal combat, they were to step forward and 
 shake hands. 
 
 Let us now ask what is the consequence of this 
 general dislike of coalitions ? The first is, certainly, 
 that a political leader, conscious of true patriotism, 
 will be cautious how he provokes a clamour against 
 him, which may deprive him of the confidence of the 
 people ; for the reliance on its integrity is the only 
 strength of a party in opposition to the Court. The 
 ultimate consequence, therefore, is, that the Court 
 having to fight its adversaries single-handed, may, by 
 a small portion of that cunning which is so common 
 in palaces, defeat every popular party and every ne- 
 cessary measure, and place its own tools on the 
 ministerial bench. 
 
 Another demand of the popular part of the nation 
 is, that every political leader should, from the be- 
 ginning of his life to the end, preserve the most rigid 
 and undeviating consistency. Now, if this meant 
 only, that he should remain constant to the same 
 great principles — that having been an advocate for 
 the Catholic Emancipation, he should not turn 
 against it — that having been against the French 
 war, he should not of a sudden defend it — nothings in 
 my mind, could be more just than to require suchcon- 
 sistency. The opposite would show a want of honesty 
 or want of firmness ; either of which would make a 
 statesman unfit to be trusted. But the consistency 
 
139 
 
 required is of another and more difficult kind. What- 
 ever means a public man has recommended as fit to 
 be adopted in one state of the country, he is re~ 
 quired to promote at another and very different pe- 
 riod; whatever expressions he has let drop in the 
 heat of debate, imperfectly caught up by a reporter 
 in the gallery, he is required to accept and adhere to 
 as his creed : and if ever he should be in power, he 
 is to pay no attention to the commands of prudence ; 
 he is to give no time to smooth the obstacles which 
 his opponents in a long course of years have built 
 up ; but he is to rush headlong into a precipitate 
 course of action, under pain of being branded as an 
 apostate, and loaded with the reproach of corruption, 
 selfishness, and profligacy. It will be very easy to 
 give an instance of this from recent history. When 
 Mr. Fox came last into power, his mind was fixed 
 upon two things — the Abolition of the Slave Trade — 
 and Peace. In order to accomplish these first ends 
 of his ambition he endeavoured to form an adminis- 
 tration which the court might not be inclined, or 
 might not be able, immediately to overthrow. But 
 how ill were his great views seconded by those who 
 professed to have in view the same objects with him- 
 self! Every concession, however unimportant in 
 principle, which he made to his new colleagues, was 
 seized upon with avidity as a proof of degeneracy, 
 and quoted against a whole life of struggle. Nor did 
 his enemies confine themselves to truth. At the 
 
140 
 
 risk of being* thought factious, he opposed a monu- 
 ment to Mr. Pitt; and not long- after it was said that 
 he supported it. But the jjrvat clamour, as we may 
 all recollect, was on the subject of the income tax. 
 Jt was found necessary to rai e the income tax to 
 ten per cent. Mr. Fox declaring", that he thought it 
 a very bad tax, but that his predecessors had left him 
 no choice. Was this true or was it not? If it was 
 not, why has no one ever attempted to show what 
 other resources were left for the administration? If 
 it was true, why is Mr. Fox cruelly reviled for that 
 which was not his own doing ? If, indeed, he had 
 persisted in the war, without negociating for peace, 
 and had then proposed an income tax, he might have 
 been accused of inconsistency ; but if our financial 
 means had been overworked by the war of the year 
 before, there was then no alternative for Mr. Fox 
 but to impose taxes of which he disapproved; or to 
 say to the enemy, " Our resources are exhausted — 
 we surrender at discretion." Yet there is no re- 
 proach, no invective, which has not been directed 
 against Mr. Fox for his supposed inconsistency I 
 • His memory has been pursued with calumny so fre- 
 quent, that even the best minds have been tainted 
 with prejudice against him; and his name remains 
 as a beacon for all prudent men to avoid his gene- 
 rous devotion, and a monument of the ingratitude of 
 mankind to those who endeavour to spare their lives 
 or promote their welfare, Let him who aspires to 
 
141 
 
 the world's power and the world's favour, set fire to 
 the faggots of persecution, or give a loose to the am- 
 bition of conquest; let him tie down the human race 
 by superstition, or waste them by the sword ; but if 
 he wishes to be followed in his lifetime, and adored 
 after his death by the greater portion of his country 
 or of the globe, let him beware how he pleads the 
 cause of freedom, of toleration, of humanity, or of 
 peace ! 
 
 It must be owned, certainly, that the severity of 
 public criticism checks some of those unprincipled 
 bargains and sudden turns which used formerly to 
 prevail among political parties. Upon the whole, 
 however, the political review tends great ly to the 
 advantage of the court. Not only are its enemies 
 divided and dispirited by the shackles that are thrown 
 upon them, but ministers and courtiers are at the 
 same time mainly free from this restraint. Those 
 who coalesce with the men in power, those who are 
 converts to the treasury, find in the rewards of office 
 a solid compensation for any hooting they may un- 
 dergo. Whilst their adversaries are obliged to sus- 
 pend their attention to public affairs, in order to re- 
 concile some discrepancy which appears between 
 their opinions on reform, at an interval of twenty 
 years, they who limit their humble ambition to office, 
 change their whole dress, and appear with the great- 
 est self-applause in an entire new suit of principles, 
 opinions, sentiments, and votes. The criticism of 
 
142 
 
 the public, in the mean time, does not stop at indi- 
 viduals: party itself is the object of attack, and a 
 regular committee is formed in the capital, more 
 completely organized than any party ever was, for 
 the purpose of preaching- against political union. 
 Nothing, of course, can be more agreeable to the 
 court party, with whom, indeed, this language origi- 
 nated. If they could once divide their opponents, 
 and bring a third of them to oppose rashly and inop- 
 portunely, and another third to oppose weakly and 
 seldom, the court battle would be half gained. 
 The only solid hope of having any government car- 
 ried on would then rest on the ministry, and how- 
 ever ingenious the objections that might be made to 
 their measures, no man could safely say that he pre- 
 ferred the public views of opposition to those of the 
 ministry. The tools of administration are, there- 
 fore, most ready to join in decrying party. They 
 are still more pleased when the self-styled reformers 
 go a step further, and reprobate that very party 
 which is opposed to the Court "Down with the 
 whigs!" cries a trading politician at St. Stephen's; 
 " Down with the whigs !" echoes a political trades- 
 man from Charing Cross. Thus it is that the minis- 
 ters of the king, and the preceptors of the multitude, 
 unite in philippics against that party to which the 
 house of Brunswick owes its crown, and the people 
 its Bill of Bights. The rise of tliis new body in the 
 state, is, perhaps, the must fortunate thing for the 
 
143 
 
 progress of the crown which has occurred since the 
 Revolution. For whilst its members are active in 
 propagating all the old court echoes of the mischief 
 of party, the corruption of all public men, that whigs 
 are tones out of power, and tories whigs in poorer; 
 another ministry would act just like the present, 
 and a hundred more such doctrines, they contain 
 within themselves a principle of destruction, which 
 will prevent their ever becoming really formidable 
 to the government. The creed which inculcates a 
 distrust of all public men, applies as well to their 
 own leaders, as to those of other parties. The ex- 
 perience of the last few years has brought this to the 
 test. Fortune had favoured them, by giving them a 
 leader whose large possessions and gentlemanlike 
 manners, gave a dignity and importance to the part 
 which he took ; whilst his zealous hatred of injustice, 
 and sincere feeling for the people, atoned with many 
 friends of freedom for the eccentricities and contra- 
 dictions of his political opinions. Instead of the hol- 
 low patriotism of Wilkes, or the ingenious paradoxes 
 of Home Tooke, the new party could boast that their 
 leader possessed the zeal of real conviction, and the 
 eloquence of the heart. But although every pains 
 were taken to bind him whom they had brought into 
 their snares, yet some of the ablest of the party soon 
 discovered that their leader was as corrupt as the 
 reviled and persecuted whigs. And scarcely had 
 this fresh party been descried by our political 
 
144 
 
 astronomers, before a new body broke off from 
 it, and began to run its course in a still more 
 irregular and eccentric orbit. If the new party 
 complained of the want of public spirit among 
 the whigs, and if a newer pretended to expose the 
 mock patriotism of the first seceders, there still arose 
 fresh sectaries, who did not fail to declaim against 
 the overbearing and aristocratical insolence of the 
 calvinislic church. At the same time, these renown- 
 ed leaders, whilst they made themselves weaker and 
 weaker by division, displayed every thing which was 
 wanton and inflammatory in language, together with 
 all that was feeble and futile in conduct. Provoca- 
 tions to revolution were not insinuated at secret 
 clubs, and taught by degrees to desperate and mis- 
 guided followers, but openly proclaimed to mixed 
 crowds, composed of the idle and the curious, as 
 well as of the mischievous and the seditious. Like 
 other novelties, violence of language and avowals of 
 rebellion, had at first their attraction ; but the peo- 
 ple soon began to be tired of hearing the same 
 speeches on the same subjects, and with those who 
 could find work, two, or even one shillings' worth of 
 meat and clothes, were soon found to outweigh in 
 value the froth and frippery of a cobbling orator. 
 But the blow was struck : the speeches that had 
 been made, the resolutions that had been passed, and 
 the numbers that had been present at the scene, 
 formed intelligence sufficiently alarming to all who 
 
145 
 
 suffered themselves to he alarmed ; and although the 
 real actors were as nothing* when opposed to the 
 King-, the house of Lords, the house of Commons, 
 the Army, the Navy, the Clergy, the Bar, the Yeo- 
 manry, and the great hody of the commerce and 
 trade of the country ; yet they were fully sufficient 
 to excite a temporary panic, and to force the con- 
 currence of great majorities in parliament to mea- 
 sures totally opposite to the genius of the constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Thus, the house of Commons more than once has 
 met, perfectly disposed to hear its part in passing 
 any measures of severe coercion, which the ministers 
 of the day thought fit to propose. It was thus, that 
 in 1795 and in 179f), laws were passed to prohibit 
 public meetings without a sufficient authority, and to 
 prevent printing, unless under certain regulations. 
 In 18i7. these measures were renewed, and in 1819 
 their severity has been much increased. Public 
 meetings in the open air have been encumbered with 
 so many difficulties, and at the same time that they 
 are subjected to the restraints, have been declared 
 to be so totally without the protection of the law, 
 that no prudent man will for the future venture to a 
 meeting out of doors, unless he is assured that its 
 object is sanctioned by authority, and that its lan- 
 guage will be agreeable to magisterial ears. This 
 measure, as well as others, has been supported by 
 language as well calculated to support the authority 
 13 
 
146 
 
 of the Ottoman Porte, as that of the king of Great 
 Britain. Another law respecting the press has this 
 remarkable preamble : 
 
 " Whereas pamphlets and printed papers contain- 
 ing observations upon public events and occurrences, 
 tending to excite hatred and contempt of the govern* 
 ment and constitution of these realms as by law es- 
 tablished, and also vilifying our Holy Religion, have 
 lately been published, in great numbers, and at very 
 small prices : and it is expedient that the same 
 should be restrained .*" — 
 
 Now, what is the principle which constitutes the 
 chief distinction of a free government ? Is it that 
 justice is duly observed between man and man ? 
 No ; for under the despotic government of Napoleon, 
 justice, generally speaking, was duly administered. 
 Is it that there should exist a senate or other assem- 
 bly, formed for the purpose of controlling the mo- 
 narch ? No ; for under the same Napoleon we have 
 seen such assemblies become, as under the Emperors 
 of Rome, the mere tool of the sovereign. The ruling 
 principle of freedom is this, that no previous restraint 
 is laid upon the actions, speeches, or writings, of the 
 members of the state. The great argument of the 
 advocates of despotism is, that by strong previous 
 restraint, all the tumults and disorders which might 
 arise from the unlimited discussion of public events 
 are prevented, and at the same time, the necessity 
 of punishment is avoided. How completely this ar- 
 
147 
 
 gument fails in practice, is proved by the history of 
 the Turkish monarchy, and the late experience of 
 Spain since the return of Ferdinand. The argument 
 of the friends of liberty, on the other hand, is, that 
 no security for government can be so good as an 
 easy and ready vent for all the opinions, and all the 
 grievances of its subjects. By such means those 
 who are in authority may remove discontent before 
 it grows to disaiFection, and consider of a remedy 
 before a grievance has become incurable. They 
 acquire a knowledge of the designs and a measure 
 of the strength of every party in the state. No 
 secret plots disturb or arrest their career ; the winds 
 may blow, and the waves may rise, but no hidden 
 rocks, and no lee-shore, threaten the existence of the 
 navigator. But if this is an advantage for the go- 
 vernment, it is a much greater one for the people. 
 Every one who has a mind to think, and a heart to 
 feel, must have the desire of knowing the dangers, 
 and of expressing his opinions on the policy of his 
 country : it is the natural feeling of man who has 
 risen above the rudeness of barbarism, and has not 
 suffered the debasement of corruption. What is it 
 which throws open to the student all the works of 
 ancient and modern genius, and gives scope and 
 vigour to his thought ? Freedom of the Press. What 
 is it which ensures to the humble artizan a security 
 that the profits of his industry will be protected, and 
 that no rank or office is shut to his just ambition ? 
 
143 
 
 Personal Freedom. What is it that ofives the injur- 
 ed citizen a rig-tit to be heard by ins country, and 10 
 make his complaint ring in the ears of his oppressor? 
 Political Freedom. But it were endless to tell, 
 
 How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, 
 
 Kolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, 
 
 With mazy error under pendant shades 
 
 Run nectar, visiting each plant, and feed 
 
 Flow'rs worthy of Paradise ; which not nick art 
 
 In beds and curious knots, hut nature boon 
 
 Pours forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain. 
 
 By the laws that I have mentioned, however, and 
 particularly by the preamble which I have quoted, 
 the principle of freedom is subverted, and the ruling 
 maxim of despotism is admitted. 
 
 The enactments, however, are far milder than the 
 declarations of the law ; any meeting within doors 
 may be held without observing a single provision of 
 the new act, and a petition there agreed upon, may 
 be signed by any number of persons out of doors. 
 Printing and publishing are restrained most absurd- 
 ly, it is true, to persons of a certain property ; but 
 still it is not to be feared that any party, or any opi- 
 nion, will want its advocaie. This being the slate 
 of things, it may be said, what have we lo^t? Aye; 
 but what have our adversaries gained? Why this, 
 that upon any new occasion of disaster and distress, 
 the same violent language will be used on the pact 
 
149 
 
 of the disaffected, and the ministers, on proposing 
 new measures of coercion, will say of the bills of 
 1819, as one of them said the other day of the bills 
 of 1799 : " See ! the same principle has been alrea- 
 dy introduced ; the downfall of freedom was then 
 predicted as it is now, and yet liberty is still in full 
 vigour.'* This they may say, and they may repeat, 
 until at length they propose a veto on all public 
 meetings, and a censorship on the press. And the 
 same speeches which were made for the measures of 
 the late session, will serve equally well to prove the 
 danger of all petitioning, and the illegality of unli- 
 censed printing. 
 
 This result leads us to a consideration most unfa- 
 vourable to liberty. It has been observed, with 
 great truth, that the progress of the influence of the 
 crown, is by slow and gradual advances, and that the 
 resistance opposed by the people acts by sudden and 
 occasional efforts. Thus, we see, that after the 
 means of patronage have enabled the ministry to 
 trench one by one upon the best privileges of free- 
 dom, a moment of distress produces inquiry, and, by 
 an unexpected blow, the nation wins a triumph 
 which is equivalent to all that has been gained by 
 the Court. But this advantage is at present entirely 
 lost. Our inquiry on the influence of the Crown x 
 leads us to the conclusion, that it is increasing ra- 
 pidly and continually, and that the murmurs which it 
 excites from time to time, serve only to produce 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 new restrictions upon liberty. Nor, indeed, can we 
 ever expect that it will be otherwise. Whilst every 
 opinion may be professed, some will alwa}s be found 
 hostile to religion and to monarchy ; and, whenever 
 the country is visited with distress, those upon whom 
 misfortune falls, will for a time give a willing- ear to 
 any thing which professes to be a plan for their re- 
 lief. There are two or three questions more, which 
 I shall endeavour shortly to despatch. The first is, 
 what has hitherto been the influence of this progress 
 upon the administration ? the second, what is likely 
 to be the final fate of the constitution > and the third, 
 how this fate may best be retarded ? 
 
 With respect to the first question, we may observe, 
 that from the accession of the late king", the great 
 object of the Court has been to appoint its own mi- 
 nisters : but the very success this scheme met with, 
 has prevented that success from being complete. 
 
 The Court, which led the nation into the Ame- 
 rican war, and roused, unfortunately for itself, a 
 spirit of rancour against America, showed itself in- 
 capable of conducting affairs with any tolerable ma- 
 nagement. The people took the alarm, and resumed 
 the sovereignty ; but the Court, by cunning and de- 
 lay, resisted the blow. 
 
 Mr. Pitt was half the choice of the Court, half of 
 the people; he sacrificed alternately to his two 
 patrons, and for the sake of power, was willing to 
 yield to prejudice in the closet, and clamour in the 
 
151 
 
 country. He showed himself bold and resolute in- 
 deed, when both the Court and country were wilh 
 him, and he gained a victory over the house of Com- 
 mons of his day, which showed to the king* that a 
 minister need not always be made in Parliament. 
 Of his successors, the present ministers, it is difficult 
 at this moment to speak with justice; but without 
 any needless harshness, it may be observed, that 
 their pretensions to power are founded rather upon 
 a knowledge of business, and habits of office, than 
 upon any character for vigour and firmness as 
 statesmen. Upon the great questions which parlia- 
 ment is bound to consider, they take no manly or 
 decisive course. Since the election of the last par- 
 liament, they have agreed only upon two measures, 
 the propriety of imposing new burdens upon the 
 property, and the necessity of laying fresh restric- 
 tions upon the liberty of the subject. The keenest 
 of their opponents in vain tries to discover their line 
 of policy; the most obsequious of their followers is 
 astonished at the readiness with which they submit 
 to modify their measures. Hence they have much 
 diminished "the reverence for the king, that," ac- 
 cording to Lord Clarendon, " is the best support of 
 his royalty ;■" and hence, we may apply to them the 
 observation of Cardinal de Retz upon his opponent 
 Mazarin. "One of the greatest evils," he says, 
 11 which the administration of Cardinal Mazarin has 
 done to the monarchy, is the little attention he paid 
 
152 
 
 Ho keeping* up its dignity. The contempt in which 
 he held it succeeded, and this success is a still gTeater 
 misfortune than the former ; for it covers and pal- 
 liates the evils which will infallibly happen, sooner 
 or later, to the state, from the habit which has been 
 adopted.'' Such, in fact, is the government we have 
 got; a government, like a boy's hoop, drivee first 
 this way and then that, over the stones and through 
 the mire, and sure to tumble down the first moment 
 that it is not beaten along. Whenever such a mi- 
 nistry shall fall, it will be entombed, not with the 
 curses, but with the sneers of the country ; and at 
 its entrance to the infernal regions, it will meet with 
 the fate of Pier Soderini, a politician of its own 
 stamp. 
 
 La notte che mori Pier Soderini 
 L'alma n'ando' dell' inferno alia bocca : 
 E Pluto le grid6 : anima sciocca ! 
 Ch'inferno ? va nel limbo dei bambini.* 
 
 With respect to the fate of the constitution, it is 
 somewhat difficult to say what it will be. The pro- 
 
 * This is an epigram by Machiavel, of which the following 
 is a translation : 
 
 The night that Piero Soderini died, 
 His soul went posting to the mouth of hell : 
 "What? hell for you !" indignant Pluto cried; 
 41 Go— and with brainless babes in limbo dw*U "•" 
 
153 
 
 gress which we have described above, certainly 
 tends directly to the euthanasia of Mr. Hume; but 
 there are two circumstances of no slight magnitude, 
 which will obstruct the final dissolution of our liber- 
 ties. Both of these have been described as forward- 
 ing' the growth of arbitrary power ; but they will 
 both impede its complete triumph. 
 
 The first is the national debt. However well in- 
 clined the people may be to pay enormous sums in 
 taxes, for a government in which they take a share, 
 and to support wars of their own choice, they will 
 never submit to pay so immense a tribute for a debt 
 incurred by their ancestors, to a king who admits 
 them to no portion of his power. The only thing 
 which reconciles the people to the payment of sixty 
 millions a year, is, the public discussion of political 
 affairs in the House of Commons, and in the news- 
 papers. 
 
 The second circumstance which stands in the way 
 of arbitrary power, is this very liberty of discussion. 
 There certainly exists in this country, a very large 
 mass of enlightened men, who, without taking a de- 
 cided part in her political parties, entertain liberal 
 ideas, and are favourable to the progress of know- 
 ledge, and all the improvements of civilized life. It 
 is not easy to conceive a nation passing from so ge- 
 neral a diffusion of the light of knowledge, to the 
 utter darkness of a despotism ; and this circumstance 
 
154 
 
 formerly induced me to think the British Constitution 
 was imm >rtal. 
 
 Nor do I yet despair of seeing* the spirit of our 
 rights overcome the fears of cur alarmists. There 
 are numbers, certainly, who, satisfied with the quiet 
 possession of their property, and terrified with the 
 example of the French Revolution, are ready to 
 surrender the remainder of the Constitution — 
 
 For what more oft in nations grown corrupt, 
 And by their vices brought to servitude, 
 Than to love bondage more than liberty ; 
 Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty ? 
 
 The late elections, however, have shown that the 
 great body of the people are firmly attached to their 
 ancient laws. The next question is, huw the peo- 
 ple, having" that object in view, may best be served ? 
 Without presuming 1 to dictate on this subject, let us 
 turn to some words of Mr. Burke, written in the 
 year 1777, during the contest with America. The 
 time at which they appeared, is thus described by the 
 same author : — " Liberty is in danger of being made 
 unpopular to Englishmen. The faults which grow 
 out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more 
 shocking to us than the base vices which are gene- 
 rated from the rankness of servitude. Accordingly, 
 the least resistance to power appears more inexcu- 
 sable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of autho- 
 rity. All dread of a standing military force is look- 
 
155 
 
 ed upon as a superstitious panic. We are taught to 
 believe, that a desire of domineering over our 
 countrymen is love to our country ; that those who 
 hate civil war abet rebellion ; and that the amiable 
 and conciliator}' virtues of lenity, moderation, and 
 tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on 
 this kingdom, are a sort of treason to the State." 
 At this period, so momentous, and so like the present, 
 let us see what was the advice of Mr. Burke : — 
 
 " I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. 
 But I am sure, that the only means of checking its 
 precipitate degeneracy, is heartily to concur with 
 whatever is the best in our time ; and to hare some 
 more correct standard of judging what that best is, 
 than the transient and uncertain favour of a Court. 
 If once we are able to find, and can prevail on our- 
 selves to strenghten an union of such men, whatever 
 accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised 
 power, even by the ordinary operation of human 
 passions, must join with that society ; and cannot 
 long be joined without, in some degree, assimilating 
 to it. Virtue will catch, as well as vice, by contact,, 
 and the public stock of honest, manly principle, will 
 daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scru- 
 tinize motives, as long as action is irreproachable. 
 It is enough (and for a worthy man, perhaps, too 
 much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and 
 declared apostacy. 
 
 " This, gentlemen, has been, from the beginning, 
 
156 
 
 the rule of my conduct ; and T mean to continue it, 
 as long as such a body as I have described can by 
 any possibility, be kept tog-ether; for I should think 
 it the most dreadful of all offences, not only toward 
 the present generation, but to all the future, if i 
 were to do any thing- which could make the minutest 
 breach in this great conservatory of free principles. 
 Those who, perhaps, have the same intentions, but 
 are separated by some little political animosities, 
 will, I hope, discern at last how little conducive it 
 is, to any rational purpose, to lower its reputation. 
 For my part, gentlemen, from much experience, 
 from no little thinking, and from comparing a great 
 variety of things, I am thoroughly persuaded, that 
 the last hope of preserving the spirit of the English 
 Constitution, or of re-uniting the dissipated members 
 of the English race upon a common plan of tran- 
 quillity and liberty, does entirely depend on their 
 firm and lasting union ; and, above all, on their 
 keeping themselves from that despair, which is so 
 very apt to fall on those whom a violence of charac- 
 ter, and a mixture of ambitious views, do not sup- 
 port through a long, painful, and unsuccessful strug- 
 
 Of all questions which can occur, there are none 
 so interesting as those which concern the length and 
 constitution of Parliament. Every question which 
 relates to it, the duration of Parliament, non-resi- 
 dent freemen, diminishing expense, corrupt boroughs, 
 
157 
 
 &c. &c. ought to be brought into close and succes- 
 sive discussion. Many improvements might, no 
 doubt, be made, without the slightest danger. But, 
 in my humble opinion, it would not be a wise mea- 
 sure to divide the country into districts, each of 
 which is to return a member: such an alteration 
 would, in fact, be a complete change in the form of 
 government, and as such, it is the very catastrophe 
 which I am anxious to avoid. When we are obliged 
 to look out for a new Constitution, a more perfect 
 one may, perhaps, be devised. But, for one, I should 
 wish to avoid such a necessity, because, with all the 
 burthens of unnecessary wars, I still perceive more 
 freedom, in combination with justice and civilization, 
 in England, than I ever saw, heard, or read of, in 
 any other country. This is, in fact, the question to 
 be decided ; for those who are bent upon a Radical 
 Reform contend, and must contend, that we are 
 suffering evils so great, and so far beyond common 
 example, as fully to justify us in risking a change. 
 This is a question I shall not stop to argue now ; 
 and, indeed, it must be decided by the experience, 
 knowledge, and feeling, of each individual. 
 
 But I have another objection to dividing the 
 country into representing districts. In my opinion, 
 it is not wise to aim at perfection in political reforms. 
 Man was not made for it. But in representation^ 
 above all other political questions, perfection is im» 
 possible to reach* If, then, we could have a majo« 
 14 
 
158 
 
 rity of popular representatives in the House ot 
 Commons, ought we not to be satisfied ? Ought we 
 to chop oil Gatton, or Old Sarum, merely because 
 it is an imperfection, and destroys the symmetry of 
 ideal beauty ? If we could reduce the decayed bo- 
 roughs to form only a small portion of the House of 
 Commons, instead of being, as they now are, the 
 chief force of that assembly, should we not have 
 taken a sufficient security for good government ? 
 Ought no- something to be conceded for the sake of 
 peace, with that large body of men, who are ready 
 to fight to extremity against a theoretical plan of 
 Reform ? 
 
 On the other hand, those who are so violently 
 prejudiced against the very name of Reform, should 
 consider how many of the people are ready to serve 
 under that banner ; and they should beware how 
 thay increase those numbers, by protecting clear am! 
 convicted abuses— Omnia dat quijusta negat. 
 
159 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 In former times there was no subject upon which 
 parents exercised a more complete authority over 
 their children, than that of marriage. The sons and 
 daughters of a great family were affianced when 
 young, and a voluntary preference of their betrothed 
 was as much out of the question, in this case, as in 
 the choice of a dry nurse or a tutor. Such is still 
 the fashion in many parts of the continent of Eu- 
 rope ; and in some capitals, Florence especially, and 
 one or two more in Italy, young unmarried women 
 are never allowed to come into society, even for a 
 ball, which seems an amusement peculiarly adapted 
 to their age. But it is generally agreed by the en- 
 lightened, that the English method is the best, and 
 that the married persons who have had the opportu- 
 nity of seeing the world when single, and of making 
 their own choice, assisted only by the advice and the 
 discernment of their parents, are most likely to be 
 
160 
 
 happy. A farther view of the state of society in 
 England may tend to throw some doubts upon the 
 accuracy of this opinion. 
 
 When a young- man comes into the English world, 
 full of spirits, confidence, and latent love, the man- 
 ner in which he is received depends entirely upon 
 his future prospects. If he has no fortune, nor like- 
 ly to have any, he is scarcely permitted to be agree- 
 able in general conversation, and any merit he may 
 have, like good actions performed by heathens, tends 
 rather to bis detriment than otherwise. If, on the 
 contrary, he is likely to enjoy a title and a fortune, 
 his society is courted in exact proportion to h;s rank 
 in the peerage, and the amount of his rent-roll. If 
 he succeeds to these advantages by an unexpected 
 death, the eyes of every mother in the land take a 
 »ew view of him. He no sooner enters a ball-room, 
 than their attention is attracted toward him ; the 
 side glaoces, not of fair virgins, but of hoary ma- 
 trons, aro directed to him ; and he may plainly see 
 that he has the choice of the whole slave market. 
 The truly affectionate mother, especially, may be 
 seen making the most marked advances. She waits 
 with evident impatience for the approach of the fat 
 deer in the herd. Her manner to all others is short, 
 abrupt, and uneasy ; she thinks it enough to throw 
 out a flattering word or two to poor men of fashion. 
 Her whole soul is bent upon the riches and title of 
 Curtius ; and in order to obtain him, there is no in- 
 
161 
 
 solence, no meanness, no exertion, no fatigue, no 
 duplicity, no falsehood, which is not welcome and 
 familiar to her maternal soul. The rest of the world 
 stand in a ring*, whilst she is baiting her hook with 
 flattery, and throwing out a net of pressing invita- 
 tions. At last the poor young man, persuaded that 
 the daughter is in love with him, and that it would be 
 dishonourable in him to trifle with her affections, 
 throws his person and his fortune at her feet. The 
 one is accepted for the sake of the other, and a mar- 
 riage, without love, founded upon fraud and delusion, 
 is considered by the whole world as the happiest of 
 all possible events. Such is the difference between 
 the old and the new-fashioned way of making mar- 
 riages. The latter has substituted for authority and 
 duty a complete system of inveiglement, which be- 
 gins by making society a cattle fair, and produces in 
 the end deceit amongst girls, and suspicion in young 
 men. 
 
 The difference, in short, is nearly the same as that 
 which may be observed between England and 
 f ranee, in the method of recruiting the army. 
 Frauce obliges her subjects to serve the state, or 
 find a substitute. England, who abhors such cruelty, 
 permits her officers to entice men into drunkenness, 
 and persuade them to sell their lives in a moment of 
 intoxication. If we were to put this into an allegory 
 in the manner of the Spectator and Tatler, we might 
 say that Cupid, it appears, can very seldom be per- 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 suaded to accompany Hymen. The god of marriage, 
 then., for want of his companion, looks lo the society 
 of Plutus and Minerva. But of late the goddess of 
 wisdom has left him, and he has been seen in compa- 
 ny with the'god of Thieves, who has been ordered 
 by Jupiter to attend him. 
 
 It remains now to be considered whether the mar- 
 riages thus formed, are happier than those of our 
 ancestors. The Moravians, it is well known, are so 
 persuaded that choice is not the foundation on which 
 to build in marriage, that their marriages are all 
 made by lot; and their teachers affirm, that their 
 unions are as happy as any in the world. This, it 
 must be allowed, although it may suit the condition 
 of that simple and devout people, would not be a 
 good institution for any nation whose manners are so 
 corrupt and licentious as those of all the nations of 
 Europe now are. A man who is young and hand- 
 some would be much mortified if he were to draw a 
 vulgar ugly girl; and a celebrated beauty would enter 
 into the state of matrimony without any great reve- 
 rence for the seventh commandment, if she were to 
 draw lot thirty-four, which turned out to be a super- 
 annuated and ruined beau, instead of lot sixty, the 
 youth upon whom her heart was fixed. But, laying 
 aside all thoughts of following the example of the 
 Moravians, it may be questioned, whether the liberty 
 of choice produces as much happiness in marriage 
 as might be supposed. Persons of moderate fortune 
 
163 
 
 in the one sex, and moderate beauty in the oilier, 
 may, indeed, have time to study the characters of 
 those they would wish to marry. But it is not so 
 with a man or a woman who is supposed to be a prize 
 in this great lottery. Sporus, who is what is called 
 in the world a great fortune, no sooner beheld the 
 fair Lisetta, than he was struck by her beauty. Her 
 mother no sooner perceived that he was struck by 
 her beauty, than she put every art in practice to 
 catch him : he was scarcely acquainted, when he 
 found himself obliged to propose. After he was 
 married, upon getting" a little better acquainted with 
 his wife, he found that she had a temper much more 
 wearing than what is usually called bad ; a crying, 
 whining tone upon every thing- that happens ; a con- 
 tinual complaint, even of things done on purpose to 
 please her ; a perpetual narrative of grievances that 
 have happened, or grievances that are to happen. 
 In short, poor Sporus is so worn out with his wife, 
 that he does nothing* but repeat the observation of 
 the old Scotch lady, " that she wondered where the 
 ill wives came from, all the lassies are so good hu- 
 moured." 
 
 What are we to expect, it may be asked, from a 
 system which teaches girls in the bloom of their 
 simplicity, to disguise all their feelings ? to conceal 
 the preference they have, and pretend to that which 
 they have not ? What can be expected, but that 
 having practised deceit before marriage to procure 
 a husband, they should employ it afterwards to con- 
 
164 
 
 ceal a lover? No sooner is a young girl brought 
 into the world, than she is taught dissimulation, 
 avarice, ambition, and dishonest love : her passions 
 are all awakened, and it is no wonder if the husband 
 should become the sufferer. According to the old 
 fashion, a girl went from one duty to another, from 
 obedience in the house of her father, to obedience 
 in the house of her husband. As for love, quite as 
 much as is required for married people, naturally fol- 
 lows marriage ; as naturally as a vine grows on the 
 elm agairrst which it is planted, does a woman, who 
 is fresh and innocent, love the man to whose person 
 and fortunes she has been united. As for that vio- 
 lent, unjust, irritating, magnifying passion usually 
 caijed love, which is the foundation of many of our 
 present marriages, it cannot be said to be a good 
 basis for happiness. After a year or two of posses- 
 sion it is worn out, and then, when the husband 
 becomes indifferent to his wife, or, perhaps, disco- 
 vers in her a thousand faults, which his short-sighted 
 passion had taken for beauties ; the wife, on the 
 other hand, accustomed to tenderness, mortified at 
 the decay of her power, and in want of a strong at- 
 tachment, is open to the first assailant who offers the 
 adoration she has ceased to receive. 
 
 We loved and we loved, as well as we could, 
 Till the love was loved out of us both ; 
 When pleasure is fled, marriage is dead, 
 For pleasure first made it an oath. 
 
165 
 
 Such is the history of Henry and Julia. But 
 hitherto we have only spoken of love matches be- 
 tween persons of equal rank. Let us now consider 
 the case of a young- heir who falls in love with an 
 apothecary's daughter. It is very well to sa} r that 
 love levels all ranks. Rank has its revenge. These 
 marriages generally take one of two roads : either 
 the husband becomes the tyrant of his wife, and 
 makes amends for the honour he has renounced by 
 turning- a companion into a slave; or else the wife 
 detaches the husband from all his old connexions 
 and natural associates, to place him in the society 
 of her own relations and friends. And it is impossi- 
 ble it should be otherwise. Even love, strong as he 
 is, cannot long hold by the single anchor of beauty. 
 A thousand ties of similar friendships, of similar oc- 
 cupations, of similar habits, and even of similar 
 amusements, are necessary to connect the man and 
 woman who are chained to each other for life. 
 
 From all these considerations, we should be apt to 
 conclude that the parental authority, although abused 
 in former times, is still of great service in determin- 
 ing upon proper unions for young persons. Whilst 
 a lover is blind to all the faults of his mistress, and 
 converts her one merit of beauty into every other — 
 sense, wit, temper, reading, just as it suits him; 
 whilst he mistakes the readiness common to all wo- 
 men for an uncommon share of penetration, and con- 
 strues the gracious air with which his mistress hears 
 
166 
 
 him talk, into solidity of judgment and sweetness of 
 disposition ; a father or a mother can make use of 
 their reason, and perceive the want of sense or of 
 temper, which is totally invisible to an unexperien- 
 ced and partial observer. 
 
 However, it may be said, that after all, the fact 
 ought to be attended to more than any reasoning on 
 this subject, and that it is generally acknowledged, 
 that the marriages of the French and Italians are 
 less solemnly observed than those of the English, 
 The reply to this is, that the marriages on the Con- 
 tinent are not unhappy, because they are formed by 
 the parents, but for several other good reasons. The 
 chief reason is, that men marry in those countries 
 before they are disposed to settle, or, to use another 
 English phrase, " before they have sown their wild 
 oats." The consequence is, that about a year after 
 the marriage, the husband betakes himself to the 
 same company, and the same amusements or vices, 
 which an English gentleman follows before he leaves 
 school, and on his first entrance into the world. 
 The English gentleman having early satiated him- 
 self with the gross enjoyments of the senses, looks 
 out for a companion, and endeavours, with all his 
 power, to make his home comfortable. The foreign 
 husband, on the other hand, treating his wife with 
 neglect, or perhaps worse, indulges his volatile in- 
 clinations, and is quite satisfied with having had the 
 droit du signeur. A fresh lover is soon at hand, the 
 
167 
 
 wife looks around her, sees the fashion to be in fa- 
 vour of lovers, and is soon contented to follow the 
 crowd. It can scarcely be denied, that the virtue 
 of women depends upon the conduct of men. The 
 Hippia of Juvenal was the countrywoman of Lucre- 
 tia and Cornelia ; but in the mean time, the Romans 
 had conquered the world — % 
 
 Saevior armis 
 Luxuria incubuit, victttmque ulscisciturorbem. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, it is true, maintained, that as the 
 great mischief to be feared, is the confusion of pro- 
 geny, adultery is a much less crime in a man than in 
 a woman ; and that a woman would not be justified 
 who should leave her husband, because she had de- 
 tected him in an intrigue with her chambermaid. 
 But this is a coarse manner of judging : from the 
 moment a wife knows of her husband's intrigue, al! 
 the delicacy, all the sacredness of marriage is over. 
 Her fear of censure, or sense of religion, may pre- 
 vent transgression ; but her heart is gone away from 
 her oath for ever. 
 
168 
 
 ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 Brussels. 
 
 Going, yesterday, with Frimont into a coffee- 
 house in this city, he desired me to ohserve four men 
 who were sitting 1 at a table near us ; they were talk- 
 ing- very loud of the kings of Europe, and showed 
 very small respect for those wise sovereigns. Ac- 
 cording 1 to them, one was a tyrant, another a despot, 
 a third an ungrateful blockhead, and a fourth a swin- 
 dler. Astonished at such language, I asked an ex- 
 planation. " The first," says Frimont, " whose 
 eyes roll so wildly, and who is now spitting on the 
 floor, was one of the main promoters of the resist- 
 ance to Bonaparte at Madrid : he was wounded five 
 times in the cause of Ferdinand, and would now 
 have been in his prisons in chains had he not made 
 a timely escape ; his crime consisted in making a 
 speech against the Inquisition. The next is a 
 Frenchman who distinguished himself in overturn- 
 ing Bonaparte in 1815; he was rewarded and ca- 
 
169 
 
 ressed at first by the Bourbons, and remained quiet, 
 till he was banished by the amnesty law, for his be- 
 haviour in 179 2, The next wa< active in organizing 
 the societies in Prussia, which liberated the country, 
 and secured the throne to the present king-; but hav- 
 ing been an object of suspicion ever since, he is 
 come here to publish a work on the extinction of the 
 military spirit in Europe. The fourth is a hair- 
 dresser, who was a favourite of one of the deposed 
 Napoleon Queens." 
 
 " Well," said I , "it is then no wonder they do 
 not like their sovereigns ; but, see, there are a party 
 of gentlemen decorated with orders; amongst them, 
 as Christian knights, truth, constancy, valour, and 
 generosity may be expected to prevail. Let us 
 hear what they say." My friend smiled ; but, heed- 
 less of him, I joined the company, and heard the 
 most enthusiastic praises of all that every govern- 
 ment had done, was doing, or was going to do : they 
 did not even omit to speak of the Dey of Algiers 
 with the respect due to a crowned head ; and one of 
 them was very eloquent on the legitimate imperial 
 race of China. My friend hinted to me to ask their 
 names ; accordingly, I inquired of my neighbour the 
 name of the gentlemen sitting opposite, who, no 
 doubt, from his large star, must be a person of merit. 
 " You are right," said he, " in general, to suppose 
 an order is the reward of merit, as it is in my own 
 nase ; but that gentleman is a Genoese of great 
 15 
 
170 
 
 fortune, who having been a sad democrat, left his 
 party in order to obtain that star from the King of 
 Sardinia. " I soon left this side of the table, and 
 went over to the Genoese, to inquire concerning' 
 my former neighbour. " Indeed," said he, " he is a 
 wretched fellow : he was formerly a man of science 
 in France, and distinguished for that kind of thing; 
 but now he pretends to live with gens comme ilfaitt, 
 and in order to do it, got that decoration for abusing 
 Bonaparte, who was a favourer of science, and 
 praising the Bourbons, who discourage it : I won- 
 der they give their orders to any but men of rank 
 and fortune*" 
 
 The next name I inquired, T was told, •* The gen- 
 tleman is a member of the Belgian chamber of depu- 
 ties. He ran away at the battle of Waterloo ; but 
 obtained that cross for voting in favour of Holland, 
 against his native country.' 1 
 
 Tired of such characters, I took up my hat — 
 44 You now see," said my friend, as we were going 
 away, " that orders are not always the reward of 
 merit, and even are sometimes given to cover the 
 want of it. We are apt to despise the South-sea 
 islanders for exchanging their pigs and yams, for 
 beads and red cloth ; but you see that, for stars 
 and ribands, red, green, and bine, the Europeans 
 will truck their fortune, their character, and even 
 their liberty." 
 
171 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 I have now spent nearly eighteen hundred years 
 upon the earth. It is a scene of suffering", and I 
 have suffered — it is a scene of sin, and I have sinned 
 —but it is also the dwelling of many virtues, and I 
 have learnt to practise them. 
 
 My first steps, from the period which I dare not 
 do more than hint at, were toward Rome ; my first 
 wishes were to erase from my memory the words 
 which yet thrilled throughout my whole frame. For 
 this purpose, I wished to plunge into a life of plea- 
 sure ; and with health and pleasure I imagined that 
 which was meant as a curse might prove a blessing. 
 The words deceived. Often have I envied the 
 miserable invalid, occupied in keeping unbroken the 
 slender thread of existence, and finding, in the 
 means of preserving life, life itself. Often have I 
 longed to be in the place of the fasting hermit, vrho 
 
172 
 
 is consoled for all his privations by visions of immor- 
 tal bliss. 
 
 Yet, for some years, nay, for many years, in the 
 usual human sense of those words — (but I am not 
 human; even my vocabulary is separated from man- 
 kind; — for many years, then, I enjoyed the sensual 
 delights which women, and luxury, and good cheer 
 can give But there came a time when these en- 
 joyments faded to give joy. The object was the 
 same, the power the same, the indulgence the same ; 
 but the zest was gone — the sensation was blunted, and 
 felt no more. 1 became, as an English author has 
 described the Duke of Buckingham, as impatient of 
 pleasure as other men are of misfortune. I tried 
 every alley and corner of Armida's garden, but the 
 enchantment was fbd. For the truth is, that much 
 of the pleasure enjoyed by debauched men does not 
 arise from the mere gratification of the senses, but 
 from the excitement produced by novelty and by 
 strangeness. It is for this that we see men of plea- 
 sure fly perpetually from one woman to another ; it 
 is for this that they live by night and sleep by day. 
 A farce writer has hit their character very well, 
 when he makes a party of young men give a guinea 
 a-piece to the waiter, "just by way of surprising the 
 rascal!"' For the sake of this excitement, too, young 1 
 men of the town used formerly to attack the watch- 
 man and insult the police But in this, as in every 
 other respect, rakes of a lower order have a prodi- 
 
173 
 
 gious advantage. They issue from the gin-house to 
 rob every jeweller in the city, or to commit a theft 
 in the very presence of the officers of justice, or to 
 conduct a burglary of unexampled difficulty. If 
 success crowns their enterprise, they are at once en- 
 riched, applauded, and caressed; they celebrate 
 their triumph with their companions and their mis- 
 tresses. They play for glory, and life is their stake. 
 These reflections might have sufficed to disgust me 
 with pleasure. How could I feel a delight which 
 the lowest of caitiffs and of convicts taste in a much 
 higher degree ? And then, how could I hope to find 
 novelty and excitement for ever in the same pur- 
 suit? Perpetual agitation has as much monotony as 
 perpetual repose. And then, again, how bitterly 
 did I feel the difference of my lot from that of other 
 men! The most dissolute of mortals cannot exhaust 
 pleasure much faster than pleasure exhausts him. 
 If he do not fall a victim to his disorders, he changes 
 his pursuits. His tired body, neither fit for great 
 efforts, nor capable of strong excitement, leaves him 
 the tranquil sensuality of middle age, and sometimes 
 allows his mind to take the sovereignty and open to 
 him a new career, happier than the former. For 
 there is a happiness suited to each age, which the 
 wise man knows how to seize. He is neither angry, 
 that, at fort} 7 , he takes no pleasure in marbles ; nor 
 does he repine at seventy, that he can no longer 
 take the same violent exercise in fox-hunting. He 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 follows the series of nature, and as he becomes tired 
 of one pleasure, nature opens to him another. But 
 I — I was still young-, still vigorous, still ardent in all 
 my movements and desires; the want .still pained 
 "my breast," but became no " source of pleasure 
 when redressed." 1 was an outcast; the highest re- 
 finements were to me no luxury ; the gayest carou- 
 sals gave me no mirth ; those who had affected my 
 heart perished in the throng; but even before they 
 fell, I could not enjoy the solace of their society 
 when the first flotv of love was past. My strength 
 still prompted me to action, and action made me sick 
 of moving; I was restless, without being busy. 
 
 In this state I endeavoured to occupy myself with 
 books. I found great pleasure in my first reading 
 of the poets, and when I took up one of fame, whom 
 I had never read, I gazed upon it with a delight 
 which few other things (have given me, " Here/' 
 I said to myself, " is a coffer full of happy hours," 
 and my imagination exaggerated the beauties of 
 the work I was about to read, far beyond those of 
 all I had i;ead before. With the same pleasure, loo. 
 1 read Archimedes and Euclid, and the astronomers 
 of the court of the Ptolemies. But these occupied 
 only a small part of my prolonged life. When I had 
 done with them, I began upon philosophy, and could 
 1 have found au interest in the works which treat of 
 these subjects, I might long have been entertained 
 with the variety of arguments, and the different 
 
175 
 
 theories on the same question. But I was dis- 
 gusted with the perversity which would persist in 
 resting the laws of mind and morals upon partial and 
 exaggerated views. One philosopher maintains, that 
 we ought to throw off the fetters which, he says, are 
 imposed upon us by the wants of the body ; that we 
 ought to raise our minds to the contemplation of 
 truth and falsehood, good and evil, by making our- 
 selves totally independent of physical appetites. He 
 tells us, that wealth and grandeur, so far from being 
 objects of pursuit, are only sources of unhappiness, 
 ignorance, and vice. When we have listened awhile 
 to him, up starts another sage, also calling himself 
 philosopher, who says, that we were made for plea- 
 sure, and counts learning and virtue only as the 
 pleasures of a sensible and refined man. These two 
 opinions have divided the world : Socrates and Plato, 
 and the Christian Fathers, and the rigid divines, and 
 Taylor and Pascal, and the Hindoo Saints, have 
 adopted the one ; the followers of Epicurus, and 
 Montaigne, and Chesterfield, have maintained the 
 other. Now, what man of plain sense does not see 
 that the truth lies between these opinions r that we 
 may safely indulge in the pleasures that are given to 
 the indulgence of our appetites, provided we do it 
 so moderately as not to interfere with the perform- 
 ance of justice and benevolence, and the study of 
 truth ? and, on the other hand, that all considera- 
 tions of pleasure? or even of a generous impulse. 
 
176 
 
 must be thrown aside, when we are called to the dis- 
 charge of a moral duty ? 
 
 It is the same with nearly all the speculative opi- 
 nions upon which the world have remained long 
 divided. For instance, predestination aud free 
 will. If a man is predestined to be a villain, and to 
 suffer eternal torments for being so, the Deity can- 
 not be called, toward him at least, a benevolent 
 Being. If, on the other hand, man has entire (ree 
 will, that is to say, totally independent of motives 
 and circumstances, the Deity can have no pre- 
 science. The probability is, then, (and in these 
 things a probability is all we can hope for,) that man 
 is chiefly determined by certain circumstances of 
 birth, country, and education, which do not depend 
 on his own choice; but that there is no single case 
 in which the individual may not, by exerting the 
 powers of his own mind, defeat all those circumstan- 
 ces. The prescience of the Deitj' still remains ; but 
 is general, and not particular. We may suppose 
 God knowing what Alexander or Newton has done, 
 and what mankind will do.* I read at this time the 
 Phxdo of Plato ; but how inconclusive are the rea- 
 sonings! He wishes to prove the immortality of the 
 soul ; and the first of his two chief arguments is, that 
 as the soul is nobler than the body, and as the body 
 
 * " It is impossible but that offences must come, but wo to 
 him through whom thev come." 
 
177 
 
 lasts some time after death, the soul must last much 
 longer. But what has this to do with it? The body 
 lasts, not as body, for it has none of the functions of 
 a body, but as a part of inert, inanimate matter. 
 Would it not have been more rational to say, it was 
 probable that the body, which is of baser stuff, should 
 be converted into other substances ; aud that the 
 soul, which is totally unlike the body, should have a 
 destiny totally different ? Nor is the answer which 
 Socrates gives to his objector just : The objector 
 says, H The harmony of a lyre is much nobler than 
 the wood and string's; yet.it would not be just to 
 say, when the lyre is broken, that because the^wood 
 and strings remain, the harmony must live much 
 longer.' y Socrates answers this by a long* story of 
 the lyre producing discord, as well as harmony ; but 
 he only clenches the objection ; for the soul alsj 
 has its discord as well as its harmony. If Crites had 
 said the music of the lyre, instead of its harmony, 
 his objection would have been unanswered. The 
 true answer to his objection, however, is, that mu*ic 
 and harmony are merely sounds made by wood and 
 strings, when considered with respect to the lyre ; 
 and that their beauty and nobleness are derived en- 
 tirely from our minds. The second great argument 
 of Socrates is, that as the notion of equality must 
 always go along with the number two, so the notion 
 of life must always go along with the notion of the 
 soul. And that which has always lire is immortal. 
 
178 
 
 and what is immortal is indestructible. Now, it is 
 very true, that life and the soul are always seen to- 
 gether ; but so are life aud the beating of the pulse : 
 and it is one and the same thing, to say his pulse 
 beats, and be lives ; therefore, by this argument, the 
 beating of the pulse is immortal. 
 
 Yet I perceived in the words of Socrates, as re- 
 ported by Plato, many sublime truths ; and their be- 
 ing mixed with such erroneous reasoning, in the 
 wisest of Grecian sages, went far to convince me of 
 the necessity of Revelation. 
 
 I was now sick of my knowledge, or rather of my 
 own ignorance and that of all the world, when one 
 day my attention was called by a woman, still young, 
 but with premature age in her features, who stopped 
 me, to beg relief. I turned from her several times, 
 when at last she said bitterly, " Sir, you are the 
 cause." I looked at her, and stopt involuntarily ; 
 she begged my pardon with tears ; and when I told 
 her to proceed, she told a tale which drove a knife 
 into my heart. She had been a young and happy 
 wife, when a procuress had employed all her arts to 
 seduce her for my pleasures. She succeeded but too 
 well ; I paid the money, and thought no more of it ; 
 but she, first won by the demon of avarice, and then 
 given up to the demon of lust, went from fraility to 
 vice, till she had ruined herself and all her family. 
 Her husband was dead ; her children starving. I 
 relieved their necessities ; the poor woman again 
 
119 
 
 flourished, and lived to repair her faults. The atten- 
 tion which this incident roused, and the pleasure 
 which the result afforded, discovered to me a new 
 vein of pleasures, which 1 flattered myself were 
 purer, and less disturbed than any I had ever felt. 
 From this time I entered upon a fresh career ; I 
 opened the prison to the debtor; sent physicians and 
 medicines to the sick ; and gave food and money to 
 the indigent. This occupation for some time re- 
 lieved the tedium and irksomeness of my*" long* pil- 
 grimage. But my bounty, bestowed without discri- 
 mination, and guided only by feeling, was often bar- 
 ren of good, and sometimes not unproductive of 
 evil. My hand often yielded to importunity the re* 
 lief which should have been given to merit conceal- 
 ed from sight, and indigence blushing to be known. 
 My alms, directed by indolence, were often given to 
 idleness ; and rude profligacy obtained what was due 
 to industrious virtue The effects, instead of raising 
 and swelling my heart, as at first, were often painful 
 and embarrassing. One, whom I had relieved, as I 
 thought, from the depth of poverty, and who came 
 every day to utter his gratitude and receive fresh 
 benefits, turned out an impostor, and finished by 
 robbing my house. Some prisoners, to whom I had 
 given too large a sum of money, bought arms, with 
 which they murdered their keeper, and afterwards 
 set the whole town of Rome in alarm. Every day 
 revealed to me a thousand ungrateful returns, and 
 
180 
 
 misapplied benefits, bringing" me at tbe same time as 
 man}' cew applications. I grew weary of it. The 
 title of the Benevolent, given me by the people, 
 which had at first pleased and flattered me, grew 
 nauseous to my ear. I left the place, and went, or 
 rather flew, to -a country of barbarians. Tnere I 
 tossed and tormented myself, till better thoughts 
 came into my head. 1 perceived that feeling, with- 
 out judgment, is an unsafe guide. I passed a severe 
 censure on myself; I said, that to throw money to 
 the right and left, without inquiry, was the mere in- 
 dulgence of a selfish lust of praise. I held no hu- 
 manity real, which did not walk between discretion 
 and exertion. Benevolence, to be useful, should be 
 wise and pai»s-taking ; nor is it even then a virtue 
 which is all sufficient. A man may be charitable to 
 the poor, without repressing any of his passions, 
 without controlling any of his vices, and even with 
 a full indulgence of hatred to his rivals, and profli- 
 gacy in his own conduct. He alone who has com- 
 bated with bad dispositions, has the right to speak of 
 the triumph of virtue. — Enough of this; lam not 
 going to pronounce my own panegyric. The fol- 
 lowing extracts from my journal will tell my story 
 faithfully. 
 
 KOME. 
 
 How magnificent is the city of Rome. Its splen- 
 dor for a moment dazzled my senses, and benumbed 
 
181 
 
 my grief; but it has quickly returned with increased 
 pain. The thousands of human beings whom I see 
 every moment of the day, seem as strange to me as 
 the flies and the birds. I am not a passenger in the 
 same ship : I am worse than a stranger. I wish 
 them all struck with the same judgment as myself; 
 I wish the world a desert* every one of its cities a 
 Carthage, and every Roman citizen a Marius— yet 
 I bear the Romans no ill will ; they have conquered, 
 they have triumphed j they flourish, and enjoy. I 
 hate the triumphant and the prosperous— yet they 
 are vicious and corrupt: in that I rejoice; their 
 manners may afford me pleasure and satisfaction. 
 
 Kal. Jan. — I have found an infinite satisfaction 
 in observing the manners of the women* They are 
 not here, as in Athens, confined to a separate part 
 of the house, and suffered to see no men. They are 
 allowed a free commerce with their acquaintanc 
 and form a part of every polished society. T 
 much as this tended to improve and r r 
 minds, whilst the ancient simplicity re^ ^ so 
 
 much it has tended to degrade th^ ttia t the 
 
 whole people has degenerater 1 tfie women, 
 
 forming the light and del- jace f society* 
 
 are more easily infect^ ^ change in morals 
 
 and behaviour; *' akness affords no arms 
 
 against the inf- a of a v j c i ous fashion : and as 
 
 the corrupt ue best things is the worst of all, 
 
 so fern' est y an( j p ur ity, once undermined, 
 
 16 
 
182 
 
 there ensues the grossest abandonment of duty, and 
 the most open violation of decency. An instance 
 occurs just now to my mind: — Hippia, the wife of 
 Fabricius Vejento, a senator, forgetting all the 
 proprieties of her sex, in the lust of an ignoble at- 
 tachment, has gone to Africa in the train of a gladia- 
 tor. But I could mention a thousand such instan- 
 ces; even the commonest brothels are frequented 
 by women of the highest rank in Rome. The gay 
 lovers, or rather libertines of Rome, make no scru- 
 ple, during dinner, and in the presence of company, 
 of carrying on their intercourse with their mis- 
 tresses, in the most indecent manner. Yet it is 
 natural, and even pardonable, that women should in- 
 dulge a passion which seems to be so essential a part 
 of their existence, that if I were asked to define 
 a woman, I should say, it is a creature tiiat loves. 
 They have other vices that are more disgusting, and 
 which, therefore, I delight more in seeing them 
 w^actise. For example, there is not a noble wife 
 in RomtT *- Da * £ oes to dinner till she has taken her 
 wine emetic aad P re P are(1 herself an appetite by 
 means that woula / ake U awa ? from the dau S hter of 
 a ploughman. 
 
 I lately sa* an instance J* the manner ' that even 
 the youngest and most iimoc^ nt are P re P ared t0 
 bear (he sight, even of the greate. ?t Cr,mes - l WaS 
 present, by the favour of a freedm. ZB > at a feast of 
 Nero. Britaanicus, the son of Claudia. % * as Slttinff ' 
 
183 
 
 as is usual, at a smaller table opposite to the Em- 
 peror, An officer, appointed for the purpose, tasted 
 all his victuals : he called for drink — it was too hot ; 
 a slave poured in a cooler liquor; that liquor must 
 have contained poison, for he had scarcely put it to his 
 lips again, when he' fell back dead.* Those who 
 were sitting by got up in horror ; but Octavia, his 
 own sister, though yet young, was able to compose 
 her countenance ; and when Nero declared it wat 
 only a fit, the gayety of the feasfwas resumed. 
 
 It is a natural consequence of the total worthless- 
 ness of their women, that the poets who write love 
 verses should be much at a loss what to say. Pro- 
 pertius, though a very pretty writer, falls into great 
 inconsistencies in trying to paint the idol of his una* 
 gination with the features of his real mistress. In 
 one elegy he denies her permission to kiss even her 
 mother, that he may not be jealous ; whilst in others 
 he owns that she cannot be constant three days, and 
 that he has no sooner left Rome, than her bed is oc- 
 cupied by another. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I supped yesterday with Atticus. As he is an idle 
 aud luxurious man, he supped at an earlier hour 
 than other people. Every thing was in a magnifi- 
 cent stile. Having previously bathed and anointed, 
 we lay down about three o'clock on beds of tortoise 
 
 » Tac. Ann. lib. xiii. c. 16. 
 
184 
 
 shell, to a table of which the support was ivory. 
 Each guest was crowned with a garland of roses, 
 and the ceiling was so contrived as to open from 
 time to time, and let fall showers of perfume upon 
 the room. There was a great profusion of sow's 
 belly, and thrushes, and phaenicopterus, and many of 
 the dishes were deliciously prepared with honey. 
 The liver of a goose, however, dressed with mulsus, 
 milk, and fig, was the best dish I tasted. Yet it 
 moved even my pity, to see a poor friend of the 
 family to whom the good dishes were never offered : 
 he had not even the good bread which was put to 
 more favoured guests, and happening by chance to 
 taste his wine, I found it execrable. The best part 
 of his dinner consisted of a kind of bad crab. I won- 
 der what should induce him to come. The conver- 
 sation certainly could offer no inducement ; it was in 
 the usual stile of this great aristocracy, stately, cor- 
 rect, and dull. The dinner was as barren of ideas, 
 as it was copious in dishes. At long pauses, and in 
 short phrases, a few words were said upon these last ; 
 as, "This turbot is excellent." — "Very good in- 
 deed." " The wild venison is very well drest." — 
 " I think it is." — Sometimes, too, a conversation of 
 ten minutes took place upon jewels, which all the 
 company understood ; but the subjects which alone 
 seemed to excite any interest, were wrestling and 
 wine. I have acquired much information on these 
 two subjects, and an indigestion. 
 
185 
 
 I have been at another great dinner. There was 
 a Greek who talked much, and with great ingenuity. 
 I thought it very pleasant ; but after he was gone, 
 every one said that he was very vulgar and impu- 
 dent. It seems these Romans like nothing but 
 sound sense, and that only in the Forum or the 
 Senate. The hours of dinner they devote exclu- 
 sively to eating, and think their sense of tasting will 
 be less fine, if they employ their attention on wit 
 or anecdotes at the same time ; perhaps they are 
 
 right. 
 
 * # * * * • 
 
 I was present lately at an entertainment which 
 promised very different fare from that which I have 
 described above. It was a supper given by Lucan 
 to Quintilian, Statius, Juvenal, and other wits. 
 Lucan is very rich, and his supper was splendid ; 
 but for amusement it afforded little. Every one 
 seemed resolved not to speak unless he could 
 shine, and the conversation fell entirely into the 
 hands of Paullinus, who, being a great talker, did 
 nothing but entertain us with an account of his 
 journey to Baiae, and the effects of the hot bath upon 
 his own constitution. Telesinus, who sate next to 
 me, said, in a low voice, " If this man had travelled! 
 over Asia and Africa, and was now relating very 
 curious things which he had seen and heard, he 
 would excite the envy and hatred of the greater part 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 of the company; but as he is a silly fellow, and only 
 talks nonsense, no one disputes with him the place of 
 orator of the table." 
 
 Some one of the company was praising the method 
 of the rich men of Rome, of having a farm adjoining" 
 their villas ; on which a young man of the name of 
 Tacitus said, " Yes, it is an admirable custom ; it 
 puts one in mind, at the same time, of the virtues of 
 their ancestors and their own vices." 
 
 Upon the whole, the day passed disagreeably. 
 Quintilian was out of humour at being asked to 
 meet Juvenal, and Statins was evidently revolving 
 in his mind a comparison between the splendor of 
 Lucan's table, and the empty honour which his pub- 
 lic recitations of the Thebaid produce. I asked 
 each of the guests separately, his opinion of the 
 Pharsalia, which seems to me to contain more fine 
 • passages and energetic thoughts than any work of 
 the day : such as the comparison betwen Cxsar and 
 Pompey ; the passage of the soul of Pompey into 
 those of Brutus and Cato, &c. &c. 
 
 (Here follow more than a dozen quotations.) 
 No one, however, was of my opinion. One said 
 that Lucan was a very worthy man, but knew no- 
 thing of poetry ; another, that his taste was execra- 
 ble ; a third, that all that was gx>od in him was in 
 the first half of the first book ; and a fourth whisper- 
 ed in my ear, that the story had been much better 
 versified by a friend of his, whose poem had not 
 
187 
 
 been fairly read through by any of his readers* but 
 himself. 
 
 A FIRE. 
 
 Kal. Sextiles. — A fire has broken out which 
 threatens to destroy this immense town. I was pay- 
 ing- my respects to Flavius Sabinus, who was taking 
 his exercise in a carriage under a covered portico, 
 when an account was brought us of a violent fire 
 that was consuming some houses on the Cseiian hill. 
 He immediately threw himself from his carriage, 
 and we both ran to the spot ; for, as his house is at 
 the back of the Cselian, he reasonably feared that 
 it might be in danger. Upon arriving there, we 
 found that the fire had begun in the Circus, and, 
 catching some shops, had already been carried a 
 great way by the wind. The narrow streets, and 
 high houses, afford a great advantage to the flames. 
 It was curious to see the people who came out of 
 these filthy habitations ; many of them seemed not 
 to have seen the light of day for years ^ their clothes 
 grew as it were to their skin, and their limbs, unu- 
 sed to the weight of their bodies, scarcely supported 
 them ; they turned their hollow eyes on every side, 
 as if uncertain where they were, and what happened 
 to them : yet I observed that when they recovered 
 their senses, they were much more anxious about 
 their rotten moveables, than the senators for the 
 
133 
 
 safely of their tables of gold and silver. But the 
 very poor had a more pressing- care. Multitudes 
 were deprived on a sudden of their only means of 
 subsistence ; and some, despairing 1 of succour, threw 
 themselves again into the flames from which they 
 had been rescued, The streets were filled with 
 children crying for their parents, and old men blind 
 and helpless from age. Most of these, either mis- 
 taking the way by which they could escape, were 
 surrounded and devoured by the flames, or over- 
 thrown and trampled upon by a mob of ruffians, who 
 were searching for plunder. An old woman of some 
 fortune, was entirely deserted by her slaves in the 
 beginning of the tumult: she loaded herself with 
 gold, and had already passed the fire, when she was 
 knocked down by some of a gang of plunderers. [ 
 saw one of them, after she had been stripped, throw 
 her back into the flames. In another part, a slave 
 devoted his life to save the child of his master ; he 
 threw him into his mother's arms, and overcome with 
 the torture of his wounds, ran himself upon a sword. 
 ]No aid was brought to quench the flames. The 
 soldiers of the city guard ran about disguised with 
 the mob, and partook of the spoils. At intervals 
 these wretches gave a shout, as it were, of encour- 
 agement, which formed a contrast with the cries of 
 women and children. When the fire reached a 
 great palace, the clamour was redoubled, and some 
 of the most unpopular patricians, so far from getting 
 
189 
 
 aid against the fire, had the misery of seeing* lighted 
 torches thrown into their houses. They themselves 
 fled in different directions out of the town. Yet, in 
 the midst of all the clamour, as T was passing through 
 a quarter of the town remote from the fire, I saw 
 the people lying in the sun, and eating their fried 
 fish as if nothing had happened ; perhaps, to-morrow 
 the same calamity will reach their own dwellings. 
 
 Upon the whole, it was the most amusing day I 
 have passed in Rome. 
 
 15. Idus. Nero came in from Antium just as his 
 own palace was taking fire ; he has ordered his 
 gardens to be thrown open to the people, and tem- 
 porary buildings to be erected. He has even sent 
 for furniture from Ostia, and lowered the price of 
 bread to a mere trifle : yet an absurd rumour has 
 spread amongst the people, that he played the " Fire 
 of Troy," whilst his own town was meeting the 
 same fate. 
 
 23. It is now said that Nero set fire to the city 
 himself j he has taken a prompt and decisive resolu- 
 tion. " It is necessary," he said to his freedman, 
 " to dispel this rumour, and convince the people that 
 I am ready to punish. The idle opinion they have 
 taken up, must be refuted by a great and public 
 measure. Let the Christians be condemned and put 
 to death immediately." 
 
 24. The order of the Emperor has been fully exe- 
 cuted ; I went to-day to glad my eyes with the sight. 
 
190 
 
 It was diverting- to see some of the victims shut up 
 in the skins of wild beasts, pursued by dogs, and 
 torn to pieces ; others were crucified, and I lold 
 them, as they groaned with pain, that they ought to 
 be satisfied, since they were treated in the same 
 manner as their God. As the night approached, 
 fires were kindled, and a number of them thrown 
 into the flames. The people do not consider them 
 as guilty, and they are looked on with compassion ; 
 but as it was a dark night, and the fires were very 
 splendid, a great multitude attended the spectacle. 
 1 long beheld their sufferings with real delight. 
 I did not lose one of their cries, nor pass unobserved 
 one of their contortions ; and when their bones were 
 consumed, I scattered them in the air, that none 
 might preserve their remains. Nero was there, and 
 mixed in the crowd in the disguise of a coachman. 
 ****** 
 It is astonishing to see the rapid and magnificent 
 creation of the new city. Of the fourteen quarters 
 into which old Rome was divided, three were burnt 
 to the ground, and seven more reduced to ruins. 
 Nero has shown no small degree of judgment in his 
 directions for rebuilding the town. Each house is 
 separate and independent, forming what is called an 
 island. For every house built within a certain time, 
 of a kind of stone which is not affected by fire, like 
 the commou tufo, the Emperor grants a premium. 
 He also engages to build the porticoes in front of 
 every house, from his own funds : add to this, that 
 
191 
 
 the streets are broad, that each house has a yard 
 and that water is brought to fixed places for trie 
 convenience of extinguishing- fires. 
 
 So much for the public ; but Nero has not been 
 less careful for, or less generous to himself. He has 
 built an immense palace, which contains every luxu- 
 ry that a fertile imagination could suggest to a sen- 
 sual disposition. Gold, and silver, and ivory, are 
 the common materials of the furniture. The co- 
 lumns of marble from Alexandria, are, through a 
 wantonness of decoration, incrusted wi(h marble 
 from Numidia. The ceilings of the supper-rooms 
 change with every service — now exhibiting a face of 
 glass, and now of painting. But one is still more 
 surprised on going* into the garden. Three of the 
 seven hills of Rome are devoted to this purpose. 
 Here the trees are so planted as to form in a short 
 time aa impenetrable shade ; there the ground is 
 left open, and leaves a long prospect of lakes, mea- 
 dows, and temples. In some parts are confined the 
 beasts of the three quarters of the globe; in others 
 the various plumage of a thousand birds delight and 
 dazzle the eyes. The magnificence of the baths is 
 indescribable. Even those in the city, built for the 
 use of the people, are adorned with silver spouts, and 
 enjoy the convenience of a grove, and a circus. I 
 saw a common fellow, who had probably been ac- 
 tive in the fire, lounge out of the bath with this ex- 
 clamation : "Some praise Romulus^ for building the 
 
192 
 
 aty; and some praise Augustus for beautifying it; 
 but I say, Long" live Nero for burning it." 
 
 happiness. 
 
 As a spectator of life, I am often led to observe 
 what makes men happy, whilst they who are playing 
 ihe game, seem scarcely ever to reflect on the causes 
 of their pleasures and pains. 
 
 It appears to me, that if men were to consult ra- 
 tionally their own interests, their pursuits would al* 
 ways tend to something positive and fixed. For I 
 have observed, that those who follow diligently a 
 trade or a science, the results of which can be weigh- 
 ed and measured, are generally men of cheerful dis- 
 position and unreserved conversation; whilst those 
 whose hearts are fixed upon the esteem of society, 
 or public reputation, are, for the most part, infected 
 with gloom in their solitude, and jealousy in their 
 commerce with the world. An instance of this has 
 occurred in my own street : — Publius Virginius kept 
 one of the smallest wine-shops in Rome, and was 
 long in a state of great poverty : to make matters 
 worse, as his neighbours thought, he had married 
 early in life ; but this circumstance, though it nar- 
 rowed his means, quickened his industry. By great 
 care and frugality he accumulated a small sum of 
 money, with which he bought a larger shop, and laid 
 in a stock of better wine. His house acquired great 
 
193 
 
 custom, partly from the merit of the owner, but 
 more from the superior excellence of his commodity. 
 Step by step he bought a vineyard, a villa, and, 
 finally, a palace in Rome. This man was never seen 
 to be out of spirits : in the worst days of his poverty^ 
 he always said he knew what his best efforts could 
 do, and was willing- and able to do it ; nor did he 
 ever sink under the event of untoward fortune : he 
 reckoned, justly, perhaps, that prudence must in 
 time gain the victory over chance. 
 
 His son Quintus is a very different man. Inhe- 
 riting from his father a large property, he endea- 
 voured, as much as possible, to forget the obligation. 
 He would fain have had it believed, that the person 
 to whose skill and talents he was indebted for an in- 
 dependent fortune, was not the same Publius to 
 whom he owed his life and education, but some re- 
 mote ancestor, of whose history he knew nothing. 
 Not only did he show a want of gratitude and right 
 feeling by this behaviour, but exposed himself to 
 general ridicule: it is become a matter of diversion 
 for all the idle patricians, to remark the efforts he 
 makes to push himself into their society. In the 
 forum, he is always squeezing up to a judge, and 
 whispering in his ear some trifling piece of news. 
 He returns to his house with a greater number of 
 clients, and is more generous in the distribution of 
 the sportula, than any one. His suppers are the 
 most sumptuous in Rome, and are attendeed by per- 
 17 
 
194 
 
 sons of the greatest eminence, both for rank and 
 talent. Yet he is never satisfied with his situation. 
 If he can find nobody to play at the palla with him, 
 he thinks it is because he is the son of a victualler. 
 IfPetrouius Arbiter gives a supper to which he is 
 not invited, he thinks he is losing ground in the 
 world. IfGordianhas theatricals at his villa, and 
 he is not one of the company, he supposes that there 
 is an inner circle of patrician society, infinitely more 
 select, more refined, and more agreeable than that 
 in which he moves, from which he shall always be 
 excluded. Hence, his life is a series of little vexa- 
 tions, and useless miseries : his invention is always 
 on the rack to find a motive for discontent, and the 
 slightest word of raillery is sufficient to poison the 
 purest of his joys, and outweigh a solid year of osten- i 
 tatious parade. 
 
 I have made the same remark in contrasting those 
 who seek for fame as poets, and those who seek for 
 truth as men of science. The poet, prowling in 
 public libraries, and collecting the breath of every 
 blockhead who has a tongue, is mortified with the 
 slightest hint of censure, and trembles at the touch 
 of a critic's pen. His whole wealth is in praise, and 
 a single word, the jest of a dinner, or the nonsense 
 of an idle party, levels him at once from the high- 
 est prosperity to the utmost poverty. He is always 
 the — 
 
195 
 
 Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum 
 Mercator metuens. 
 
 But the mathematician, or astronomical observer, 
 has his object befoie him, and when he ascertain! 
 the truth, he finds a treasure of which the world can- 
 not rob him. He has all the eagerness of pursuit, all 
 the pleasure of discovery ; and he can enjoy, alone 
 and unseen, the solution of a problem, which nature 
 seemed to have reserved as a secret for her wisest 
 sons. Even in fame he has a security, whilst men 
 of letters have only a chance, of immortality. The 
 laurels of the poet whom the age celebrates, may 
 in another century fade and fall from his head; but 
 the labours of the man of science form part of a py- 
 ramid, connected below with the rudest discoveries 
 of shepherd nations, and supporting above the sublime 
 apex which the course of ages and the appearance 
 
 of a Newton, are necessary to complete. 
 
 ****** 
 
 A battle has just taken place under the walls, be- 
 tween the army of Viteilius, and that of Vespasian. 
 The people went out to see it as an amusing sight, 
 and applauded each party alternately as they pre- 
 vailed. The city was taken, but notwithstanding 
 the savage horrors of the scene, and the smoke which 
 yet rises from the ashes of the capital, the inhabi- 
 tants follow their occupations and even their amuse- 
 
196 
 
 merits as usual.* There has at no time existed 
 more licentiousness and debauchery. The baths, 
 and the theatres, are all open ; I never expected to 
 see man arrive to such a pitch of magnanimity. 
 This rabble practise the best parts of the Stoic and 
 Epicurean philosophy : they are Stoics in disregard- 
 ing" evil, and Epicureans in enjoying pleasure. 
 
 3r ?K n* H* t* *T* 
 
 t 
 
 Nonce Octo — I have been to pass a few days at 
 the Tuscan villa of Pliny the younger. It is in a 
 pretty situation, with a very fine view of the Apen- 
 nines. As I approached it, I thought the house 
 beautiful, as it is all covered with vines, which grow 
 entirely over the roof: add to this a very pretty 
 fountain playing in the court, and marble seats dis- 
 posed here and there as convenience requires it ; I 
 imagined I had at last escaped from the kingdom of 
 splendour, to that of taste. But on approaching the 
 house, I saw. to my sorrow, the box cut in the shapes 
 of beasts and birds, besides being occasionally carved 
 out into the letters of the owner's name. How- 
 ever, the general arrangement is both pretty and 
 convenient. 
 
 Pliny's way of life is singular, but not irrational. 
 In the morning he meditates in bed, and dictates to 
 a secretary. At this time, no doubt, the thoughts 
 are the clearest, though perhaps not always the most 
 
 *Tac. H. 1. 3.83. 
 
197 
 
 vigorous. It is when a man has been braced by air, 
 and refreshed by food, that his mind is most capable 
 of receiving and emitting" powerful ideas. But, to 
 continue — about ten o'clock we meet Piiny in trie 
 scystus or cryptoporticus ; he then gets into his car- 
 riage, and returns to take a short sleep ; after this, 
 he walks, and recites a Latin or Greek oration, for 
 the sake of digestion. Exercise and the bath fol- 
 low, and then to supper about four o'clock. During 
 supper a book is read, and afterwards a comoedus or 
 lyristes heard. We then walk again; and this is 
 the hour for learned or familiar discussion. It is a 
 proof of what I before remarked, that Pliny's con- 
 versation at this time is raised to a tone far above 
 that which he attains in the compositions at which 
 he labours in the morning. These are often puerile 
 and tiresome ; exquisite in siyle, but trite in matter. 
 For instance, there is nothing at which he labours 
 more than his familiar letters. The other day he 
 read us one in which he asked the advice of his 
 friend Fompeius Saturninus, about the publication 
 of an oration he had made when he gave his library 
 to his townsmen. He gives invincible reasons, in 
 my opinion, for not making public a loeg discourse 
 upon his own munificence, and tells his* friend how 
 much more the reward of virtue consists in con- 
 science, than in fame.* Yet he ends the whole 
 
 *Lib. I.e. 8. 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 with an implicit deference to his friend's judgment, 
 which can only imply, that he wants a sanction to 
 his vanity, which his own reason cannot afford him. 
 Indeed, he is a great coxcomb ; he never does a ge- 
 nerous thing, without turning a pretty phrase, and 
 all his words and actions seem to be prepared as 
 rough notes for a panegyric on himself. Yet he is, 
 after all, a worthy man, and I like him for this, that 
 he does not give his freedmen bad wine, as a great 
 man I mentioned before ; but the same that he drinks 
 himself. Besides, he never has his slaves bound, 
 and permits them to make wills in favour of any 
 they please in the house; saying, very truly, that 
 the house in which they serve, is their country and 
 commonwealth. 
 
 Upon returning to Rome, I found a book had ap- 
 peared, which has long been anxiously expected — a 
 history by Tacitus, beginning from the time of Galba. 
 Pliny told me, a long time ago, that Tacitus had 
 asked him to undertake this history, but that he had 
 requested, and at length prevailed upon Tacitus to 
 do it himself. The appearance of the work has 
 made a great sensation ; and every one seems to be 
 violent, either for or against Tacitus, except his 
 friends. They say that they are greatly disappoint- 
 ed; that his style falls off very much from that of the 
 Life of Agricola, and of his essay De Moribus Ger- 
 manorura ; that the form is neither that of a history, 
 nor a treatise ; that he has omitted what was most 
 
199 
 
 curious in the lives and manners of the emperors, 
 and made unintelligible that which he has told ; and 
 that it is clear, from the whole result, that he has 
 overrated his talents, in supposing he could write a 
 work which would go down to posterity. One of his 
 particular friends, who whispered this last remark 
 in my ear, added, " For my part, I am very sorry 
 for it ; I think Cornelius a man of very great ta- 
 lents for a short speech in the senate, or a sharp 
 saying on the forum, and if he would take my advice, 
 he would never take a pen in his hand." His ene- 
 mies, on the contrary, are all enraged at the success 
 of his book. His undisguised contempt for vice, 
 whether it shines in purple, or skulks in rags; his 
 impartial estimate of the talents and achievements 
 of the men who have made a figure on the theatre 
 of the world ; his powerful analysis of the moral 
 qualities of a selfish nobility, and a degraded people, 
 have excited in the breasts of many, an animosity 
 which is only more violent from not being entirely 
 avowed. Many had hoped that he would have aimed 
 all the arrows in his quiver, at the monsters who 
 have governed the empire : but they were not aware 
 that a genius so profound, must soon discover the 
 great political truth, that the vices of rulers are 
 but the counterpart of the vices of the people go- 
 verned. There must be cowardice and meanness in 
 a nation which long submits to the authority of cru- 
 elty and corruption. Thus we soon find Cornelius 
 
200 
 
 Tacitus, describing' his countrymen, as W Homines 
 qui nee totam servitutem y nee totam libertatem pati 
 possunt" And, presently, we have not only the peo- 
 ple, but many of the knights and senators condemned 
 by the following' sentence : * 4 Ignavissimus quisque. et 
 id res docuit in periculo non ausurus, nimii verbis, 
 lingua feroces ; nemo scire, et omnes adfirmare : donee 
 inopid veri et consensu errantium victus, sumpto tho- 
 race, Galba, 8fc, And a few hours afterwards, when 
 victory had declared for Otho, — " A Hum crederes 
 senatum, alium populum, ruere cuncti in castra, anteire 
 prozimos, certare cum prcecurrentibus, increpare 
 Galbam. t laudare militum judicium, ezosculari Olhonis 
 manum, quantoque magis falsa erant quo2 fiebant, 
 tanto plurafacere?' For my own part, I esteem the 
 history of Tacitus, as one of the greatest productions 
 of the human mind. Every event which he draws 
 rude from the pages of annalists and chroniclers, 
 becomes in his hands an instructive lecture on hu- 
 man character; and a thousand insignificant details 
 are refined into one short sentence, as much greater 
 in value as it is less in bulk than his original. Some, 
 nay many, faults are to be found. The historian is 
 too indignant with vice, to enter into details which 
 to future ages might be matter of useful speculation ; 
 and he works so much at a story as often to cut 
 away the whole narrative, and leave nothing but the 
 moral. But his great defect is his style. By dint 
 of studying the ancients, and abhorring the moderns. 
 
201 
 
 fie lias got an artificial and ambitious manner of 
 writing-. That energy which Brutus and Scipio dis- 
 played in action, he endeavours to throw into meta- 
 phors and antitheses ; and the puerile conceits of 
 Seneca, and the orators of the day, have been 
 changed by him into strong but fallacious epigrams. 
 This taste has led him at last to make an antithesis, 
 where nothing but a plain fact was required. What 
 can be more useless, and indeed more false, than the 
 following turn : " Serums Galba iterum, P. primus 
 consules inchoavire annum sibi ultimum, reipublicce 
 prope supremum." His brevity is also very often 
 affected : thus, having described the beginning of 
 an insurrection, and the sending of an army against 
 the insurgents, he drops the curtain with these 
 words : " Viso militquies." 
 
 They say he is writing another history, which is to 
 begin from the death of Augustus. 
 
 # * % # * # 
 
 I promised Pliny to make, one day, a journal of 
 all that 1 should do from the hour I rose, to that at 
 which I went to bed. Yesterday he required of me 
 to perform my promise ; and here it is :-— Six 
 o'clock :f Got up * * * * 
 
 Went to attend the levee of Virginius Rufus : a 
 great many people there ; he received us very po- 
 
 f These hours are modern, and not Roman. There have 
 evidently been erasures and corrections in the JV1SS. En. 
 
202 
 
 litely ; they say be will again be consul : Marcellus. 
 who always used to speak ill of him, has written a 
 panegyric upon him. 
 
 Eight : — Went to the forum bv the side of the 
 litter of Virginius ; heard an uninteresting cause ; 
 lounged about in the forum amongst the newsmon- 
 gers. A report that the equestrian order are to be 
 deprived of the government of Egypt ; certainly no 
 body of men forming the subjects of a sovereign, 
 were ever, before themselves, the sovereigns of a 
 great country ; besides, the knights being in fact 
 merchants, govern ignorantly and selfishly. Heard 
 a good story of Regulus : he went to attend Aurelia 
 upon the occasion of her signing her will : he found 
 her dressed in some very magnificent tunics ; they 
 pleased his fancy so much, that he insisted upon her 
 altering her will, to leave him these tunics as a le- 
 gacy. She complied, but was so ill-natured as to 
 get well. What she will think of his affection for 
 her person, when she reflects upon his conduct at 
 that critical time, is very doubtful. 
 
 Twelve o'clock : — Those about me ran away in 
 all directions, following some great man or other, in 
 order to get the sportula. I went home to dinner ; 
 tried to settle with my host an old account I have 
 with him ; but he declared, that at twelve the busi- 
 ness of the day was over. 
 
 One o'clock : — Walked under the covered portico 
 of Nerva; many senators there in litters, taking 
 
203 
 
 their sedentary exercise. Tired of this gouty com- 
 pany, went to the Campus Martius ; saw the young* 
 men shooting" with arrows, riding- and playing at 
 tennis ; — played for an hour. 
 
 Three o'clock : — Went to the bath ; heard a poet 
 declaiming : he made so much noise that Silius Ita- 
 licus said he had a mind to perform a miracle ; and 
 as Amphion had brought the stones together, this 
 poet was endeavouring to separate them ; in fact, he 
 made a bawling which seemed as if it would crack 
 the building. 
 
 Four o'clock : — Having put on my supper gar- 
 ment, went to sup with Apicius, who is worthy of his 
 two namesakes He had a red mullet of two pounds, 
 which cost 4200 sestertii, (525 francs,) and wine of 
 two or three hundred years old, which cost 76H ses- 
 tertii an ounce. 
 
 Amongst the guests was an ill-looking fellow from 
 Tibur. He took away the garment which Apicius 
 gave him ;* and not content with sending several 
 dishes away from table to his wife and children, 
 loaded himself with every thing that was served, 
 from the eggs to the apples. I believe, also, I owe 
 to him the loss of my napkin, which my slave could 
 no where find to take back 
 
 Between the courses, we played at dice, and set 
 to seriously as soon as supper was over. I like play 
 
 * Each guest was presented with a robe. 
 
204 
 
 better than music : the latter soothes the conscience 
 for a moment, but the sting soon returns; the 
 former drives it out, and fills its place with less rack- 
 ing emotion. Apicius sent us away with rich pre- 
 sents. 
 
 ****** 
 Nothing can be more absurd than the praises 
 which are lavished on the judgment of Virgil. The 
 critic, having praised the invention of Homer, wish- 
 ed to say something of Virgil by way of antithesis. 
 Had he said the execution of Virgil, the point would 
 have been as good and the sense much better. Some 
 critics, too, have found out that great art is shown 
 in calling iEneas Dux Trojanus,* when he goes into 
 the cave with Dido. But this is very weak, for it 
 would have been burlesque to say, <c the pious 
 iEaeas and Dido went into a cave together." And 
 with regard to propriety, what shall we say to 
 JEneas's character of himself? 
 
 " Sum pius JEneaS) raptos qui ex hoste Penates, 
 Classe veho mecumfamd super a-thera notus." 
 
 And now let me say a few words on the character 
 of iEneas, who is, in fact, the subject of the whole 
 work. He is the hero of the poem, and with his 
 Trojans, not one of whom, except himself, is the 
 
 * The remark, which is made by Sir R. Steele, in the Tat- 
 ter, seems to have been anticipated by some Roman critics. 
 
205 
 
 least remarkable, is the only point of connection be^ 
 tween the first and the second part of the story. 
 Yet, with this, he is not only not interesting, but ex- 
 cites positive disgust He arrives at Carthage, 
 where he is received with the most cordial hospitali- 
 ty by the queen ; he tells her a very long tale of the 
 destruction of Troy, in the course of which he very 
 much praises his own valour, and tells how he 
 brought away his father, and left his wife to the 
 flames. He then seduces poor Dido, and immediate- 
 ly abandons her : this is said to be ordained by the 
 gods ; which, however, is no excuse for Virgil, who 
 governs the gods as well as others But, allowing 
 the gods told him to repay the queen's hospitality, 
 by violating her person, and driving her to commit 
 suicide, they did not oblige him to enjoy a quiet 
 sleep on board a ship the very night on which he 
 left her. 
 
 iEneas celsa in puppi, jam certus eundi 
 Carpebat somnos, rebus jam rite paratis. 
 
 After some insignificant events, he arrives in 
 Italy, where he deprives Turnus, a native, of the 
 hand of Lavinia, and wa^es an unjust war, to esta- 
 blish himself in a country where he has no right to 
 set his foot. Then, as for the courage he shows in 
 the war, he fights on every occasion, except one, in 
 impenetrable armour. Had Horace, or any other 
 18 
 
206 
 
 notorious coward, possessed a shield which saved 
 his person from all danger, he certainly would not 
 have run away. The barbarity with which the hero 
 treats his enemies, although copied from Homer, is 
 very unsuitable to the pious JRneas, and the feelings 
 of the age of Augustus. What can we think of a 
 hero who offers up one enemy as a human sacrifice; 
 who taunts another in the most brutal way, whilst 
 he kills him ; and who refuses to spare another who 
 is a suppliant ? 
 
 The character of ^Eneas by no means compre^ 
 hends all the faults of judgment into which Virgil 
 has fallen. There never was a greater sinking, than 
 to carry us from the magnificent story of burning 
 Troy, and the unequalled description of the shades 
 below, to the insignificant intrigues and wars of 
 some petty chieftains in Italy. And by way of inci- 
 dents, whai can be more flat than Ascanius calliug' 
 his cake a table, and the ships being all turned into 
 nymphs ? 
 
 Virgil's similies are rather too much like one ano- 
 ther. In the ninth book, Evander is like a lion : 
 a little after Turnus is a lion; and in the tenth book 
 Turnus is a lion again. In the twelfth book he is a 
 bull. The images are also sometimes low : Turnus 
 is compared to a kettle boiling over; an! JEneas 
 netting fire to the capital of his enemy, is like a coun- 
 tryman fumigating a bee-hi^e. 
 
 If I were to analyze the story, many ©ore faiiits 
 
207 
 
 of judgment might be found ; but the diction and the 
 poetry are so perfect, that I have no inclination to 
 touch it farther. The foliage and the flowers so be- 
 wilder and delight my senses, that I do not dare to 
 prune the branches, which, in fact, injure the beauty 
 of the plant. 
 
 In looJlrog at the state of Rome, I find ample room 
 for the ^enjoyment of my favourite passion of con- 
 tempt. In fact, the Romans are nothing more than 
 barbarians who have taken a rich city, and are riot- 
 ing in the spoils. They are at once savage and ef- 
 feminate, and have lost* all the virtues of their old 
 condition, without acquiring much of the polish of 
 their new situation. Look at their coliseum and 
 their baths, their arches on the top of columns, and 
 their pilasters running up the sides of their arches ! 
 "What sculptors have they, who do not come from 
 Greece? What poetry and what eloquence have 
 they which is not copied from the Greeks? Where 
 are their mathematicians, their inventors, their phi- 
 losophers ? their Ku lid, their Archimedes, their 
 Aristotle, their Plato? Their luxury is savage and 
 insatiable gluttony ; their refinement odious and dis- 
 gusting vice. 
 
 What will become of them ? They still have the 
 advantage of discipline over the neighbours who sur- 
 round them. Perhaps tho<=e neighbours will, in time., 
 attain a certain degree of knowledge, without losing 
 
208 
 
 their old barbarous virtues, and then declare them- 
 selves independent : at all events, the civilization of I 
 the globe seems to be secured for ever. 
 
 (The Manuscript ends here.) 
 
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