Class ^^^-nZ 
 
 Book 7.'r'^ 
 
 Gcpight N"_ 
 
 ccEXRicur DEPOsm 
 
TWENTY- TWO ESSAYS 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 SELECTED AND EDITED BY 
 
 ARTHUR BEATTY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
\ 
 
 ^ 
 
 %<' 
 
 "-%K 
 
 Copyright, 19 i8, 
 
 By D. C. Heath & Co. 
 
 1l7 
 
 JAN 16 1918 
 
 ©CI.A492U02 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ^--^ These twenty-two essays are chosen with the main purpose 
 of illustrating the prose style of William Hazhtt and of furnish- 
 ing material for its fruitful study by those who are teach- 
 ing or learning the difficult art of using the English tongue 
 3 in written discourse. For this reason, certain of Hazlitt's 
 ■- important activities, such as criticism and lectures, are 
 ' imperfectly displayed, as they have httle direct appeal to the 
 average student; while other aspects of his mind, represented 
 by his autobiographical and reflective essays, are very fully 
 represented, because experience has shown that here he joins 
 hands familiarly with the veriest tyro in self-expression and 
 readily becomes a guide and an example. 
 
 Besides the autobiographical and the reflective essays, 
 there is a group in which the problems of style are dealt 
 with in Hazlitt's own trenchant way. A study of these 
 essays should go far towards showing the student that the 
 mystery of writing is one which has been deemed worthy of 
 study by one of the keenest and most flexible representa- 
 tives of Enghsh prose. 
 
 The volume is issued for the reason that no existing selec- 
 tion affords just the right sort of materials; and it is hoped 
 that the '' well-wishing" body of students of our English 
 tongue may welcome the present venture for bringing them 
 under the provocative enthusiasm of Hazlitt's subject-mat- 
 ter and the Hquid cadences of his style. The welcome should 
 be the warmer when the student finds that these essays are 
 not chosen from among the mediocre work of Hazlitt to fit 
 any supposed low level, but are the author's most excellent, 
 most famous, and most characteristic work. 
 
 The Introduction gives in brief form an analysis of the 
 personality of HazHtt, which may aid the student in ap- 
 preciating the spirit in which he worked, and the nature and 
 value of his theme. The second part presents in brief form 
 
IV PREFACE 
 
 what seem to be the leading characteristics of his style. The 
 Outline of his Life contains the main dates and publications 
 of his career. In the Notes, besides other matter, there will 
 be found the sources of most of the abundant references and 
 quotations. But only the minimum of information is given 
 in any case, and only those references are explained which 
 would otherwise leave the connection of thought obscure. 
 The piling up of curious information has been scrupulously 
 avoided. The text is printed, foot-notes, quotations, and 
 all, without alterations or simplifications, as it appears in 
 the splendid and indispensable edition of Waller and Glover. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction I. Personality and Theme vii 
 
 II. Style xi 
 
 Outline of Hazlitt's Life xv 
 
 Selected Bibliography xvii 
 
 Essays 1 
 
 /. Autobiography mid Reminiscence 
 
 My First Acquaintance with Poets 1 
 
 On Reading Old Books 22 
 
 Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers 35 
 
 A Farewell to Essay- Writing 48 
 
 //. Philosophy and Reflection 
 
 On Classical Education 57 
 
 On the Ignorance of the Learned 61 
 
 The Indian Jugglers 71 
 
 On Going a Journey 87 
 
 Why Distant Objects Please 98 
 
 On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority 109 
 
 On the Knowledge of Character 121 
 
 On the Fear of Death 139 
 
 On the Spirit of Obligations 150 
 
 On the FeeUng of Immortality in Youth 163 
 
 Merry England 176 
 
 On Disagreeable People 190 
 
 III. The Art of Prose 
 
 On Familiar Style 204 
 
 On the Prose-Style of Poets 212 
 
 IV. Criticism 
 
 On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin 228 
 
 Mr. Coleridge ^. . . 236 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth 248 
 
 Hamlet 260 
 
 Notes 267 
 
 V 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. Personality and Theme 
 
 It may be said that Hazlitt's peculiar bent in life can be 
 explained by the fact that he came of a stock of Dissenters. 
 Dissenters in England are mainly those who are opposed not 
 only to the tenets of the Church of England, but also to 
 the dominant policies of the ruling class, which the Church 
 so largely represents. Hence they are led to oppose the 
 existing order of things in religion, society, and thought, 
 and thus it is that dissenters have always been in the 
 vanguard of English development. . In Hazlitt's case, this 
 position as a dissenter caused him to take an attitude of 
 criticism toward Tory pohtics, Tory journalism, and Tory 
 literature, and, during the larger portion of his life, toward 
 most of his fellow-workers in literature. 
 
 Moreover, Hazhtt was a man of a bad temper and cantan- 
 kerous disposition. He quarrelled with both his wives, and 
 with almost all his friends. He seemed to lack a saving 
 realization of the necessity of certain social amenities which 
 forbid the too-explosive expression of our opinions about the 
 living; and as a result he had difficulties in getting on with 
 other people in the rough round of daily life. He was some- 
 what distrustful of others; and this characteristic, with his 
 retiring disposition, caused him to be regarded as a person 
 rather impossible either as a friend or as an acquaintance. 
 "Even in the common affairs of life, " he once wrote in a mood 
 not infrequently expressed in his essays, " in love, friendship 
 and marriage, how little security we have when we trust our 
 happiness into the hands of others! Most of the friends I 
 have seen have turned out to be bitterest enemies, or cold, 
 uncomfortable acquaintances. Old companions > are like 
 meats served up too often that lose their relish and their 
 wholesomeness. " ^ 
 
 1 On Living to One's-Self. 
 
 vii 
 
Vm HAZLITT 
 
 While this churlishness is an outstanding feature of Haz- 
 litt's temper, too much has been made of it, largely because 
 he has so freely confessed it; for after all it is on the surface, 
 and is likely to conceal from us the love for simple honesty 
 and downright truth which filled the central depths. Charles 
 Lamb, who knew him better than any other soul, testified 
 to Hazlitt in these noble terms, at a time when he could 
 receive neither glory nor honor thereby: 
 
 "I should belie my own conscience, if I said less than that I think 
 William Hazlitt to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the 
 wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed 
 of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was 
 able for so many years to have preserved it entire, and I think I 
 shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such an- 
 other companion." 
 
 This deep-seated, congenital attitude of protest was em- 
 phasized and ennobled by a further, and in this case an ex- 
 ternal, complication. When he and his generation were in 
 their formative years, the French Revolution burst upon an 
 astonished world with cyclonic power, and was hailed by the 
 youth of England as the dawn of a new day for the finest 
 hopes and desires of humanity. Youth dated its day of birth 
 from the Great Event, and all things were viewed only in 
 connection with it. Coleridge gave memorable expression 
 to the new hopes of the time in more than one poem, singing 
 his worship of "the Spirit of divinest Liberty"; and Words- 
 worth summed up once and for all the universal feeling of 
 the young: 
 
 "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 
 But to be young was very Heaven." 
 
 Hazlitt was as deeply committed to the Revolution as 
 any of his contemporaries and, unlike them, he remained 
 faithful to it to his last day of life. In the following mem- 
 orable passage he states what all Youth once believed, and 
 what he never abandoned : 
 
 " For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, and 
 that event had considerable influence on my early feelings, as on those 
 of others. Youth was then doubly such. It was the dawn of a new 
 
INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 era, a new impulse had been given to men's minds, and the sun of 
 Liberty rose upon the sun of Life in the same day, and both were 
 proud to run their race together. Little did I dream, while my 
 first hopes and wishes went hand in hand with those of the human 
 race, that long before my eyes should close, that dawn should be 
 overcast, and set once more in the night of despotism — ' total eclipse! ' 
 Happy that I did not. I felt for years, and during the best part of 
 my existence, heart-whole in that cause, and triumphed in the tri- 
 umphs over the enemies of man! At that time, while the fairest 
 aspirations of the human mind seemed about to be realized, ere the 
 image of man was defaced and his breast mangled in scorn, philosophy 
 took a higher, poetry could afford a deeper range." * 
 
 Holding this faith as he did, it seemed to HazHtt impossible 
 that anyone could have held it and become an apostate, 
 except from the basest motives. Hence his quarrel with 
 Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Burke, and almost all the 
 other representative men of his time. In a day when Na- 
 poleon was hated and feared, Hazlitt remained faithful in 
 his admiration, for he maintained that Napoleon, being 
 opposed to kings, stood for democracy, and that kings are 
 the enemies of men : 
 
 "I knew all along there was but one alternative — the cause of 
 kings or of mankind. This I foresaw, this I feared; the world would 
 see it now, when it is too late. . . . There is but one question in the 
 heart of monarchs — whether mankind are their property or not." 2 
 
 He passionately desired to make the world safe for 'democ- 
 racy, and he believed Napoleon to be a main agency in that 
 laudable work; but in this belief and in his sarcastic attacks 
 on kings he stood alone on the farther side of a great gulf 
 which divided him from those who might have been his 
 companions. 
 
 Notwithstanding his differences with the representative 
 men of his time, it remains superlatively true that Hazhtt 
 gives us as complete a representation of the hopes and ideas 
 which animated those who furthered or fought the cause of 
 the Revolution, as any other prose writer. One ^ might go 
 further and say that it is in his essays, rather than in the 
 prose of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and the rest of 
 
 1 The Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 
 
 2 Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers. 
 
X HAZLITT 
 
 the great poets, that we find the best commentary on the 
 intellectual and emotional upheaval of that momentous 
 period. My First Acquaintance with Poets is the most in- 
 timate view which we have into the psychology of Words- 
 worth and Coleridge in the very process of composing the 
 epoch-making Lyrical Ballads; and the essay on The Feeling 
 of Immortality in Youth and that on Mr. Wordsworth give "the 
 doctrine which underlies Wordsworth's poetry with a sim- 
 plicity and accuracy which can come only from the insight 
 of genius and the familiar knowledge of a friend. 
 
 But Hazlitt is no mere echo of any person or set of per- 
 sons, however representative. In the final analysis, he is 
 his own voice, speaking authentic words which reveal the 
 truths which he has discovered for himself and which he 
 expresses in his own individual manner. He was always free 
 to say that before he knew Burke he did not know the true 
 eloquence of a man pouring out his own mind on paper,i and 
 that before he knew Coleridge he was ''dumb, inarticulate, 
 helpless, like a worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, 
 lifeless, " and that the reason why his understanding did not 
 "remain dumb and brutish," or at length found a language to 
 express itself, "he owed to Coleridge, "^ who was the only 
 person from whom he ever learned anything.^ 
 
 But when his mind was awakened, it was to self-expression; 
 and in these essays we have the words of a resilient, original 
 mind which has been brought into fruitful contact with the 
 realities of life in many of its aspects : with death, disagreeable 
 people, the ignorance of the learned, the skill of jugglers 
 and athletes, or the joy of going a journey. 
 
 Adopting the reminiscent, retrospective, and autobio- 
 graphical method developed to its perfection by Wordsworth, 
 Hazhtt poured forth his thoughts on life; and, guided in his 
 structure by his emotional attitude, he moulded the loose 
 essay into a rounded form with established bounds. In this 
 new form which he developed he makes a distinct place for 
 
 * On Reading Old Books. 
 
 2 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 
 
 ^ Lectures on the English Poets, Last Lecture^ 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 himself as one of the greatest and most distinctive essayists 
 in the great hne of Temple, Selden, Steele, Addison, John- 
 son, and Goldsmith; and it might be said, without reflection 
 on anyone, that he has had no successor. 
 
 II. Style 
 
 The most marked feature of Hazlitt's style is the lack of 
 any eccentricity in his choice of words or in his sentence 
 structure, and its prevailing qualities of straightforward sim- 
 plicity and ever-present rhythm. In this respect Hazlitt's 
 style may be regarded as characteristically English style 
 of the more familiar and colloquial sort. This statement of 
 the matter does not imply that this is a mean, or despicable, 
 or easily-acquired style. Quite the opposite is meant, and 
 on this point we had best consult Hazlitt himself, who has 
 given a rather full exposition of his own ideals in English 
 prose, which he endeavored to realize in his own practice. 
 Speaking of the familiar style, he says : 
 
 "It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake 
 a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without af- 
 fectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing 
 that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, 
 than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all un- 
 meaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, 
 slip-shod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but 
 the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in 
 any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the 
 true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly 
 English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conver- 
 sation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who 
 could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all 
 pedantic and oratorical flourishes." ^ 
 
 With regard to vocabulary, he makes the following claim 
 for himself: 
 
 "I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being 
 common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them 
 circulation or value. I am fastidious in this respect, ancl would al- 
 most as soon coin the currency of the realm as counterfeit the King's 
 English. I never invented or gave a new and unauthorized meaning 
 to any word but a single one. "* 
 
 ^ On Familiar Style. 2 Qji Familiar Style. 
 
XU HAZLITT 
 
 Even a brief examination of Hazlitt's vocabulary will 
 bear out all these claims, and anyone who has even only a 
 moderate knowledge of English prose knows that few authors 
 show a finer choice of the fitting word on the colloquial level 
 of dignified everyday intercourse. 
 
 Hazlitt's sentences, as has been said, follow the genius of 
 the English idiom, that is, they are loose, not periodic or 
 suspended. They conform to the general scheme of (1) the 
 subject, (2) the verb, (3) the object, or complements; not 
 only in the simpler, briefer sentences, but in the longer, more 
 elaborated forms. 
 
 A few examples will suffice. First, the simple forms: 
 
 I can write fast enough now. 10, 29. 
 
 I remember but one other topic of discourse in this walk. H, 1-2. 
 
 I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. 87, 6. 
 
 To these simple forms as a basis Hazlitt frequently gives 
 a suspended or periodic effect by the very simple, colloquial 
 means of beginning the sentence with the representative 
 ''it," "there," or similar word. This method of sentence 
 structure combines colloquial familiarity with the dignity 
 of the periodic sentence. 
 
 Examples: 
 
 It was by this irresistible quality, and not by the force of his 
 genius, that he vanquished. 130, 8-9. 
 
 There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or 
 capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. 94, 8-9. 
 
 Compound forms of the loose structure are illustrated by 
 the following examples : 
 
 In the mean time I went to Llangollen Vale, by way of initiating 
 myself in the mysteries of natural scenery; and I must say I was 
 enchanted with it. 12, 10-12. 
 
 We can never be satisfied with gazing; and nature will still want 
 us to look and applaud. 166, 3-5. 
 
 He was the son of Neptune; and having lost an eye in some affray 
 between the gods and men, was told that if he would go to meet the 
 rising sun, he would recover his sight. 228, 3-5. 
 
 Elaborate examples of the multiplication of this simple 
 structure to produce a magnificent harmony are to be 
 
INTRODUCTION Xlll 
 
 found in the passage describing Coleridge's influence on him 
 (224, 28-225, 28), and in the passage quoted in the introductory- 
 note to the essay on Coleridge, which gives an account of 
 Coleridge's spiritual development. 
 
 Occasionally Hazlitt inverts the loose construction and 
 obtains a modified periodic effect, as in the great sentence 
 in The Feeling of Immortalitij in Youth (166, 17-169, 8), but 
 this construction is a departure from his usual practice and 
 is used only as an occasional grace. 
 
 These examples of the longer sentences illustrate very 
 clearly Hazlitt's love of balance and parallel construction; 
 but the shorter sentences also show that this is a constant 
 feature of his style. He has numerous sentences, short, 
 medium, and long, which are based on the parallel between 
 likenesses or contrasts. 
 
 Examples : 
 
 I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors nature is company 
 enough for me. 87, 2-3. 
 
 I am then never less alone than when alone. 87, 4. 
 
 Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf be- 
 neath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march 
 to dinner — and then to thinking! 87, 29-32. 
 
 I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. 88, 1. 
 
 Burke has enunciated a canon of style that the master 
 sentence of every paragraph should involve, firstly, a thought, 
 secondly, an image, and, thirdly, a sentiment. This may be 
 fully applied to most of HazHtt's sentences, for the thoughts 
 which he expounded are given flight and buoyancy by an 
 atmosphere of feeling, and continuity of progress by the 
 energy of images. This is the result of a full mind, which 
 brings to the subject a never-failing supply of supporting 
 images. Hazlitt's argument never becomes abstract, but 
 is always conducted in the concrete. Examples of this need 
 not be cited, for it would be impossible to open this volume 
 at any page which would not yield an abundance of instances 
 to establish this fact of his practice. It seemed to be an 
 impossibility with him to write in an empty manner; words, 
 illustrations, quotations, remembrances, images crowd in 
 upon him and vivify his pages. As Dryden says of Chaucer, 
 
XIV HAZLITT 
 
 here is God^s plenty, and the reader can glean in whichever 
 field he may desire, with the sober certainty of gathering a 
 generous sheaf. 
 
 To the fullness and riches of Hazlitt's mind we must add 
 the musical quality of his ear. Most of us write as deaf 
 men talk, — without life or rhythm. Hazlitt, on the con- 
 trary, writes a prose which seems to arise in speech; and he 
 seems to hear what he puts down on paper and to test it by 
 the standard of speech rhythm. It would be difficult indeed to 
 find in Hazlitt a sentence which is not instinct with the life 
 of the rhythm and cadence which is native to the English 
 tongue; and it is this constant quality which led Robert 
 Louis Stevenson to utter that famous ejaculation: "We are 
 mighty fine fellows, but we cannot write like William Hazlitt. " 
 
 No one knew the sources of his style better than Hazlitt 
 himself, and nowhere has he indicated them more definitely 
 than in a passage in his Letter to William Gifford, Esq. This 
 passage we shall allow to stand as the final statement con- 
 cerning HazUtt's prose style: 
 
 "As to my style, I thought little about it. I only used the word 
 which seemed to me to signify the idea I wanted to convey, and 
 I did not rest till I had got it. In seeking for truth I sometimes 
 found beauty." 
 
OUTLINE OF HAZLITT'S LIFE 
 
 1778. April 10. William Hazlitt was born at Maidstone, Kent. 
 His father, John Hazlitt, was from Shronell, County Antrim, 
 Ireland; his mother, Grace Loftus, was from Wisbeach, 
 Cambridgeshire. 
 
 1780-1783. The Hazlitts were at Bandon, in the County of Cork, 
 Ireland. 
 
 1783-1787. The Hazlitts were in America, residing in New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Boston. William Hazlitt always remem- 
 bered with pleasure some of his American experiences. 
 
 1787. The Hazlitts returned to England and took up their residence 
 at Wem, an obscure and solitary village in Shropshire. 
 
 1791. Wrote a letter to the Shrewsbury Chronicle in defence of 
 Dr. Priestley. 
 
 1793. Hazlitt entered the Unitarian College at Hackney, a borough 
 of London. 
 
 1796. liazhtt read Burke's "Letter to a Noble Lord," in the St. 
 James Chronicle. 
 
 1798. Hazlitt met Coleridge and Wordsworth. This was the great 
 event of Hazlitt' s literary and intellectual life. 
 
 1802. Hazlitt went to Paris to study art in the Louvre. 
 
 1803. Hazlitt began a career as a portrait-painter, 
 
 1805. Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Ar- 
 gument in favour of the National Disinterestedness of the 
 Human Mind. 
 
 1806. Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, or Advice to a Patriot. 
 
 1807. An Abridgement of the Light of Nature Pursued, by Abraham 
 Tucker. 
 
 Reply to the Essay on Population by Malthus. 
 
 1808. The Eloquence of the British Senate. 2 volumes. 
 
 Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart, May 1, and settled at 
 Winterslow, a village in Wiltshire. 
 
 1810. A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue. 
 
 1811. September 26. A son born, and christened William. This 
 son became his father's literary executor. 
 
 1812. Removed to London, and became Parliamentary reporter 
 for the Morning Chronicle. Lectured on "The 'Rise and 
 Progress of Modern Philosophy." 
 
 1814. Became dramatic critic for the Morning Chronicle. Con- 
 tributed to the Edinburgh Review and The Examiner. 
 1816. Memoirs of the Late Thomas Holcroft, Written by Himself. 
 
 XV 
 
XVI HAZLITT 
 
 1817. The Round Table: a Collection -of Essays on Literature, Men 
 and Manners. 2 volumes. 
 
 1818. Lectures on the English Poets. Delivered at the Surrey In- 
 stitution. A View of the English Stage, or A Series of Dramatic 
 Criticisms. 
 
 1819. Lectures on the English Comic Writers. Delivered at the 
 Surrey Institution. A Letter to William Gifford, Esq. Po- 
 litical Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters. 
 
 1820. Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. 
 Delivered at the Surrey Institution. 
 
 1821. Table-Talk, or Original Essays. Vol. I. 
 
 1822. Table-Talk, or Original Essays. Vol. II. 
 
 Hazlitt was divorced from his wife at Edinburgh, in accordance 
 with Scots law. 
 
 1823. Liber Amoris, or the New Pygmalion. This book is a record 
 of his infatuation with Miss Sarah Walker. 
 Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucaulf s Maxims. 
 
 1824. Sketches of the Principal Art Galleries in England. 
 Contributed article on Fine Arts to the Encyclopcedia Britan- 
 nica. 
 
 Married Mrs. Bridgwater. She separated from him the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 1825. The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits. 
 
 Select Poets of Great Britain, a revision of the Select British 
 Poets published and suppressed in 1824. 
 
 1826. The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things. 
 Notes of a Journey through France and Italy. 
 
 1826-1827. Boswell Redivivus, published in the New Monthly Maga- 
 zine. This is the first form of Conversations of James North- 
 cote, Esq., R. A. 
 
 1828. The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Vols. I and II. 
 
 1830. The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Vols. Ill and IV. 
 The Conversations of James Northcote, Esq. R. A. 
 
 1830. September 18. Hazlitt died in London, aged 52 years. 
 
 1836. Literary Remains of William Hazlitt; with a Notice of his 
 Life, by his son, and Thoughts on his Genius and Writings, 
 by E. L. Bulwer and Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. 2 volumes. 
 
 1839. Sketches and Essays, by William Hazlitt. Now first collected 
 by his son. 
 
 1850. Winterslow; Essays and Characters written there. By 
 William Hazlitt. Collected by hie son. 
 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 I. Editions and Selections 
 
 1. The Collected Works of William, Hazlitt, Edited by A. R. Waller 
 
 and Arnold Glover, London, 1902-1906. Twelve volumes, 
 with introductions, bibliographical descriptions, and notes. 
 The first volume contains an Introduction by William Ernest 
 Henley. A thirteenth volume contains a full index to the 
 Collected Works. 
 
 2. Essays of William Hazlitt, with Introduction by Frank Carr, 
 
 London, 1889. 
 
 3. Essays on Poetry, Edited with Introduction and Notes by D. 
 
 Nichol Smith, London, 1906. 
 
 4. Selections from William Hazlitt, Edited with Introduction and 
 
 Notes by Will David Howe, Boston, 1913. 
 
 II. Biography 
 
 1. Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt, with a Notice of his 
 
 Life by his Son, and Thoughts on his Genius and Writings by 
 E. L. Bulwer, Esq., M.P., and Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. 2 vols. 
 1836. 
 
 2. Memoirs of William Hazlitt. William Carew Hazlitt. 2 vols. 
 
 1867. 
 
 3. Four Generations of a Literary Family, the Hazlitts in England, 
 
 Ireland, and America, their Friends and their Fortunes. 1725- 
 1896. William Carew Hazlitt. 2 vols. 1897. 
 
 4. Lamb and Hazlitt, Letters and Records. William Carew Hazlitt. 
 
 1899. 
 
 5. William Hazlitt. Augustine Birrell, English Men of Letters 
 
 Series. 1902. 
 
 6. Vie de William Hazlitt, L'Essayiste. Jules Douady. Paris, 
 
 1907. 
 
 7. Liste chronologique des CEuvres de William Hazlitt. Jules Douady. 
 
 Paris, 1906. 
 
 III. Criticism 
 
 t 
 
 1. Do Quincey, Thomas. Works, V and VI (edited by Masson). 
 
 2. Elton, Oliver. A Survey of English Literature {1780-lSSO). 1912. 
 
 3. Encyclopcedia Britannica, Vol. XIII. 
 
 4. Herford, C. H. The Age of Wordsworth. 1899. 
 
XVIU SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 5. Hunt, Leigh. Autobiography. 3 vols. 1850. 
 
 6. Hunt, Leigh. Dramatic Essays (edited by Archer and Lowe). 
 
 7. Saintsbury, George E. Essays on English Literature (1780-1860). 
 
 1891. 
 
 8. Saintsbury, George E. History of Criticism. 3 vols. 1900- 
 
 1904. 
 
 9. Stephen, Leslie. Hours in a Library. Vol. II. 1874-1879. 
 
 10. Stephen, Leslie. William Hazlitt in Dictionary of National Biog- 
 
 raphy. 
 
 11. Winchester, C. T. A Group of English Essayists. New York, 
 
 1910. 
 
ESSAYS OF HAZLITT 
 
 MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 
 
 My father was a Dissenting Minister at W m in Shrop- 
 shire; and in the year 1798 (the figures that compose that 
 date are to me like the "dreaded name of Demogorgon") 
 Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Rowe in 
 the spiritual charge of a Unitarian congregation there. He 5 
 did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he 
 was to preach; and Mr. Rowe, who himself went down to 
 the coach in a state of anxiety and expectation, to look for the 
 arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering the 
 description but a round-faced man in a short black coat (like 10 
 a shooting-jacket) which hardly seemed to have been made 
 for him, but who seemed to be talking at a great rate to his 
 fellow-passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarce returned to give 
 an account of his disappointment, when the round-faced man 
 in black entered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject, 15 
 by beginning to talk. He did not cease while he staid; nor 
 has he since, that I know of. He held the good town of 
 Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he 
 remained there, "fluttering the proud Salopians like an eagle 
 in a dove-cote;" and the Welsh mountains that skirt the 20 
 horizon with their tempestuous confusion, agree to have 
 heard no such mystic sounds since the days of 
 
 "High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay!" 
 
 As we passed along between W m and Shrewsbury, and 
 
 I eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or 25 
 the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak-trees by the road- 
 side, a sound was in my ears as of a Siren's song; I was stunned, 
 startled with it, as from deep sleep; but I had no notion then 
 that I should ever be able to express my admiration to others 
 in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius 30 
 
 1 
 
Z AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles 
 of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, 
 like a worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, lifeless; but 
 now, bursting from the deadly bands that bound them, 
 
 5 "With Styx nine times round them," 
 
 my ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their 
 plumes, catch the golden light of other years. My soul has 
 indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with 
 longings infinite and unsatisfied; my heart, shut up in the 
 
 10 prison-house of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it 
 ever find, a heart to speak to; but that my understanding also 
 did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found a lan- 
 guage to express itself, I owe to Coleridge. But this is not 
 to my purpose. 
 
 15 My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, and was in the 
 habit of exchanging visits with Mr. Rowe, and with Mr. 
 Jenkins of Whitchurch (nine miles farther on) according to 
 the custom of Dissenting Ministers in each other's neighbour- 
 hood. A line of communication is thus established, by which 
 
 20 the flame of civil and religious liberty is kept alive, and 
 nourishes its smouldering fire unquenchable, like the fires 
 in the Agamemnon of ^schylus, placed at different stations, 
 that waited for ten long years to announce with their blazing 
 pyramids the destruction of Troy. Coleridge had agreed 
 
 25 to come over and see my father, according to the courtesy 
 of the country, as Mr. Rowe's probable successor; but in 
 the mean time I had gone to hear him preach the Sunday 
 after his arrival. A poet and a philosopher getting up into 
 a Unitarian pulpit to preach the Gospel, was a romance in 
 
 30 these degenerate days, a sort of revival of the primitive spirit 
 of Christianity, which was not to be resisted. 
 
 It was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning before 
 daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud, and went to hear this 
 celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to 
 
 35 live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfort- 
 less one, in the winter of the year 1798. II y a des impressions 
 que ni le tems ni les circonstances peuvent effacer. Dusse-je 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 6 
 
 vivre des siecles entiers, le doux terns de ma jeunesse ne pent 
 renaitre pour moi, ni s^effacer jamais dans ma memoire. When 
 I got there, the organ was playing the 100th psahn, and, 
 when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, 
 '^ And he went up into the mountain to pray, himself, alone." 5 
 As he gave out this text, his voice ''rose like a steam of rich 
 distilled perfumes, " and when he came to the two last words, 
 which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to 
 me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from 
 the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might 10 
 have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The 
 idea of St. John came into mind, ''of one crying in the wilder- 
 ness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was 
 locusts and wild honey." The preacher then launched into 
 his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The ser- 15 
 mon was upon peace and war; upon church and state — not 
 their alliance, but their separation — on the spirit of the 
 world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as 
 opposed to one another. He talked of those who had "in- 
 scribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human 20 
 gore." He made a poetical and pastoral excursion, — and 
 to shew the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast 
 between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, 
 or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, "as though 
 he should never be old," and the same poor country-lad, 25 
 crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an 
 alehouse, turned into a wretched drummerboy, with his hair 
 sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his 
 back; and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the profession 
 of blood. 30 
 
 "Such were the notes our once-lov'd poet sung." 
 
 And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had 
 heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had 
 met together, Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye 
 and with the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond my 35 
 hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was 
 still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by 
 
4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and the 
 cold dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard 
 of the thistle, had something genial and refreshing in them; 
 for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature, that 
 5 turned everything into good. The face of nature had not 
 then the brand of jus divinum on it : 
 
 "Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe." 
 
 On the Tuesday following, the half -inspired speaker came. 
 I was called down into the room where he was, and went haK- 
 
 10 hoping, half-afraid. He received me very graciously, and I 
 listened for a long time without uttering a word. I did not 
 suffer in his opinion by my silence. ''For those two hours, " 
 he afterwards was pleased to say, ''he was conversing with 
 W. H.'s forehead!" His appearance was different from what 
 
 15 1 had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, 
 and in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange 
 wildness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him 
 pitted with the small-pox. His complexion was at that 
 time clear, and even bright — 
 
 20 "As are the children of yon azure sheen." 
 
 His forehead was broad and high, light as if built of ivory, 
 with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath 
 them like a sea with darkened lustre. 'A certain tender 
 bloom his face o'erspread, " a purple tinge as we see it in the 
 
 25 pale thoughtful complexions of the Spanish portrait-painters, 
 Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was gross, voluptuous, 
 open, eloquent; his chin good-humoured and round; but his 
 nose, the rudder of the face, the index of the will, was small, 
 feeble, nothing — like what he has done. It might seem that 
 
 30 the genius of his face as from a height surveyed and pro- 
 jected him (with sufficient capacity and huge aspiration) into 
 the world unknown of thought and imagination, with nothing 
 to support or guide his veering purpose, as if Columbus had 
 launched his adventurous course for the New World in a 
 
 35 scallop, without oars or compass. So at least I comment on 
 it after the event. Coleridge in his person was rather above 
 the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like Lord 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 5 
 
 Hamlet, "somewhat fat and pursy." His hair (now, alas! 
 grey) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and fell in 
 smooth masses over his forehead. This long, pendulous hair 
 is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heaven- 
 ward; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a different 5 
 colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ought to belong, as 
 a character, to all who preach Christ crucified, and Coleridge 
 was at that time one of those! 
 
 It was curious to observe the contrast between him and my 
 father, who was a veteran in the cause, and then declining 10 
 into the vale of years. He had been a poor Irish lad, care- 
 fully brought up by his parents, and sent to the University 
 of Glasgow (where he studied under Adam Smith) to prepare 
 him for his future destination. It was his mother's proudest 
 wish to see her son a Dissenting Minister. So if we look back 15 
 to past generations (as far as eye can reach) we see the same 
 hopes, fears, wishes, followed by the same disappointments, 
 throbbing in the human heart; and so we may see them (if 
 we look forward) rising up for ever, and disappearing, like 
 vapourish bubbles, in the human breast! After being tossed 20 
 about from congregation to congregation in the heats of the 
 Unitarian controversy, and squabbles about the American 
 war, he had been relegated to an obscure village, where he 
 was to spend the last thirty years of his life, far from the only 
 converse that he loved, the talk about disputed texts of 25 
 Scripture and the cause of civil and rehgious hberty. Here 
 he passed his days, repining but resigned, in the study of 
 the Bible, and the perusal of the Commentators, — huge 
 folios, not easily got through, one of which would outlast a 
 winter! Why did he pore on these from morn to night (with 30 
 the exception of a walk in the fields or a turn in the garden to 
 gather broccoli-plants or kidney-beans of liis own rearing, with 
 no small degree of pride and pleasure)? Here were "no 
 figures nor no fantasies, " — neither poetry nor philosophy — 
 nothing to dazzle, nothing to excite modern curiosity; but 35 
 to his lack-lustre eyes there appeared, within the pages of 
 the ponderous, unwieldy, neglected tomes, the sacred name 
 of JEHOVAH in Hebrew Capitals: pressed down by the 
 
6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 weight of the style, worn to the last fading thinness of the 
 understanding, there were glimpses, glimmering notions of 
 the patriarchal wanderings, with palm-trees hovering in the 
 horizon, and processions of camels at the distance of three 
 5 thousand years; there was Moses with the Burning Bush, 
 the number of the Twelve Tribes, types, shadows, glosses 
 on the law and the prophets; there were discussions (dull 
 enough) on the age of Methuselah, a mighty speculation! 
 there were outlines, rude guesses at the shape of Noah's Ark 
 
 10 and of the riches of Solomon's Temple ; questions as to the 
 date of the creation, predictions of the end of all things; the 
 great lapses of time, the strange mutations of the globe were 
 unfolded with the voluminous leaf, as it turned over; and 
 though the soul might slumber with an hieroglyphic veil of 
 
 15 inscrutable mysteries drawn over it, yet it was in a slumber 
 ill-exchanged for all the sharpened realities of sense, wit, 
 fancy, or reason. My father's life was comparatively a 
 dream; but it was a dream of infinity and eternity, of death, 
 the resurrection, and a judgment to come! 
 
 20 No two individuals were ever more unlike than were the 
 host and his guest. A poet was to my father a sort of non- 
 descript: yet whatever added grace to the Unitarian cause 
 was to him welcome. He could hardly have been more sur- 
 prised or pleased, if our visitor had worn wings. Indeed, his 
 
 25 thoughts had wings; and as the silken sounds rustled round 
 our little wainscoted parlour, my father threw back his 
 spectacles over his forehead, his white hairs mixing with its 
 sanguine hue; and a smile of delight beamed across his rugged 
 cordial face, to think that Truth had found a new ally in 
 
 30 Fancy! 1 Besides, Coleridge seemed to take considerable 
 notice of me, and that of itself was enough. He talked very 
 famiUarly, but agreeably, and glanced over a variety of sub- 
 jects. At dinner-time he grew more animated, and dilated 
 
 1 My father was one of those who mistook his talent after all. He 
 
 35 used to be very much dissatisfied that I preferred his Letters to his 
 
 Sermons. The last were forced and dry; the first came naturally 
 
 from him. For ease, half-plays on words, and a supine, monkish, 
 
 indolent pleasantry, I have never seen them equalled. 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 7 
 
 in a very edifying manner on Mary Wolstonecraft and 
 Mackintosh. The last, he said, he considered (on my father's 
 speaking of his Vindicice Gallicce as a capital performance) 
 as a clever, scholastic man — a master of the topics, — or 
 as the ready warehouseman of letters, who knew exactly where 5 
 to lay his hand on what he wanted, though the goods were not 
 his own. He thought him no match for Burke, either in style 
 or matter. Burke was a metaphysician, Mackmtosh a mere 
 logician. Burke was an orator (almost a poet) who reasoned 
 in figures, because he had an eye for nature : Mackintosh, on 10 
 the other hand, was a rhetorician, who had only an eye to 
 commonplaces. On this I ventured to say that I had al- 
 ways entertained a great opinion of Burke, and that (as far 
 as I could find) the speaking of him with contempt might be 
 made the test of a vulgar, democratical mind. This was the 15 
 first observation I ever made to Coleridge, and he said it was 
 a very just and striking one. I remember the leg of Welsh 
 mutton and the turnips on the table that day had the finest 
 flavour imaginable. Coleridge added that Mackintosh and 
 Tom Wedgwood (of whom, however, he spoke highly) had 20 
 expressed a very indifferent opinion of his friend Mr. Words- 
 worth, on which he remarked to them — "He strides on so 
 far before you, that he dwindles in the distance!" Godwin 
 had once boasted to him of having carried on an argument 
 with Mackintosh for three hours with dubious success; 25 
 Coleridge told him — ''If there had been a man of genius in 
 the room, he would have settled the question in five minutes. " 
 He asked me if I had ever seen Mary Wolstonecraft, and I 
 said,- 1 had once for a few moments, and that she seemed to 
 me to turn off Godwin's objections to something she advanced 30 
 with quite a playful, easy air. He replied, that "this was only 
 one instance of the ascendancy which people of imagination 
 exercised over those of mere intellect." He did not rate 
 Godwin very high ^ (this was caprice or prejudice, real or 
 
 ^ He complained in particular of the presumption of his attempting 35 
 to establish the future immortality of man, "without" (as he said) 
 "knowing what Death was or what Life was" — and the tone in 
 which he pronounced these two words seemed to convey a complete 
 image of both. 
 
8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 affected) but he had a great idea of Mrs. Wolstonecraft's 
 powers of conversation, none at all of her talent for book- 
 making. We talked a little about Holcroft. He had been 
 asked if he was not much struck with him, and he said, he 
 
 5 thought himself in more danger of being struck hij him. I 
 complained that he would not let me get on at all, for he re- 
 quired a definition of every the commonest word, exclaiming, 
 "What do you mean by a sensation, Sir? What do you mean 
 by an ideaf'^ This, Coleridge said, was barricadoing the 
 
 10 road to truth: — it was setting up a turnpike-gate at every 
 step we took. I forget a great number of things, many more 
 than I remember; but the day passed off pleasantly, and the 
 next morning Mr. Coleridge was to return to Shrewsbury. 
 When I came down to breakfast, I found that he had just 
 
 15 received a letter from his friend, T. Wedgwood, making him 
 an offer of £150 a-year if he chose to wave his present pur- 
 suit, and devote himseff entirely to the study of poetry and 
 philosophy. Coleridge seemed to make up his mind to close 
 with this proposal in the act of tying on one of his shoes. 
 
 20 It threw an additional damp on his departure. It took the 
 wayward enthusiast quite from us to cast him into Deva's 
 winding vales, or by the shores of old romance. Instead of 
 living at ten miles distance, of being the pastor of a Dis- 
 senting congregation at Shrewsbury, he was henceforth to 
 
 25 inhabit the Hill of Parnassus, to be a Shepherd on the Delec- 
 table Mountains. Alas! I knew not the way thither, and 
 felt very little gratitude for Mr. Wedgwood's bounty. I was 
 pleasantly relieved from this dilemma; for Mr. Coleridge, 
 asking for a pen and ink, and going to a table to write some- 
 
 30 thing on a bit of card, advanced towards me with undulating 
 step, and giving me the precious document, said that that 
 was his address, Mr. Coleridge, Nether Stowey, Somersetshire; 
 and that he should be glad to see me there in a few weeks' 
 time, and, if I chose, would come half-way to meet me. I 
 
 35 was not less surprised than the shepherd-boy (this simile is 
 to be found in Cassandra) when he sees a thunder-bolt fall 
 close at his feet. I stammered out my acknowledgments and 
 acceptance of this offer (I thought Mr. Wedgwood's annuity 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 9 
 
 a trifle to it) as well as I could; and this mighty business being 
 settled, the poet-preacher took leave, and I accompanied him 
 six miles on the road. It was a fine morning in the middle 
 of winter, and he talked the whole way. The scholar in 
 Chaucer is described as going 5 
 
 "sounding on his way." 
 
 So Coleridge went on his. In digressing, in dilating, in pass- 
 ing from subject to subject, he appeared to me to float in air, 
 to slide on ice. He told me in confidence (going along) that he 
 should have preached two sermons before he accepted the 10 
 situation at Shrewsbury, one on Infant Baptism, the other on 
 the Lord's Supper, shewing that he could not administer 
 either, which would have effectually disqualified him for the 
 object in view. I observed that he continually crossed me on 
 the way by shifting from one side of the foot-path to the other. 15 
 This struck me as an odd movement; but I did not at that 
 time connect it with any instability of purpose or involuntary 
 change of principle, as I have done since. He seemed unable 
 to keep on in a straight line. He spoke slightingly of Hume 
 (whose Essays on Miracles he said was stolen from an objec-20 
 tion started in one of South's Sermons — Credat Judceus 
 Appella!) I was not very much pleased at this account of 
 Hume, for I had just been reading, with infinite relish, that 
 completest of all metaphysical choke-pears, his Treatise on 
 Human Nature, to which the Essays, in point of scholastic 25 
 subtlety and close reasoning, are mere elegant trifling, light 
 summer-reading. Coleridge even denied the excellence of 
 Hume's general style, which I think betrayed a want of taste 
 or candour. He however made me amends by the manner 
 in which he spoke of Berkeley. He dwelt particularly on his 30 
 Essay on Vision as a masterpiece of analytical reasoning. 
 So it undoubtedly is. He was exceedingly angry with Dr. 
 Johnson for striking the stone with his foot, in allusion to 
 this author's Theory of Matter and Spirit, and saying, "Thus 
 I confute him, Sir. " Coleridge drew a parallel (I don't know 35 
 how he brought about the connection) between Bishop 
 Berkeley and Tom Paine. He said the one was an instance 
 
10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 of a subtle, the other of an acute mind, than which no two 
 things could be more distinct. The one was a shop-boy's 
 quality, the other the characteristic of a philosopher. He 
 considered Bishop Butler as a true philosopher, a profound 
 5 and conscientious thinker, a genuine reader of nature and his 
 own mind. He did not speak of his Analogy, but of his 
 Sermons at the Rolls' Chapel, of which I had never heard. 
 Coleridge somehow always contrived to prefer the unknown 
 to the known. In this instance he was right. The Analogy 
 
 10 is a tissue of sophistry, of wire-drawn, theological special- 
 pleading; the Sermons (with the Preface to them) are in a 
 fine vein of deep, matured reflection, a candid appeal to our 
 observation of human nature, without pedantry and without 
 bias. I told Coleridge I had written a few remarks, and was 
 
 15 sometimes foolish enough to believe that I had made a dis- 
 covery on the same subject (the Natural Disinterestedness of 
 the Human Mind) — and I tried to explain my view of it to 
 Coleridge, who listened with great wiUingness, but I did not 
 succeed in making myself understood. I sat down to the 
 
 20 task shortly afterwards for the twentieth time, got new pens 
 and paper, determined to make clear work of it, wrote a few 
 meagre sentences in the skeleton-style of a mathematical 
 demonstration, stopped half way down the second page; 
 and, after trying in vain to pump up any words, images, no- 
 
 25tions, apprehensions, facts, or observations, from that gulf 
 of abstraction in which I had plunged myself for four or five 
 years preceding, gave up the attempt as labour in vain, and 
 shed tears of helpless despondency on the blank, unfinished 
 paper. I can write fast enough now. Am I better than I 
 
 30 was then? Oh, no! One truth discovered, one pang of regret 
 at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency 
 and flippancy in the world. Would that I could go back to 
 what I then was! Why can we not revive past times as we 
 can revisit old places? If I had the quaint Muse of Sir 
 
 35 Philip Sidney to assist me, I would write a Sonnet to the Road 
 
 between W m and Shrewsbury, and immortalise every step 
 
 of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I would swear that 
 the very milestones had ears, and that Harmer-hill stooped 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 11 
 
 with all its pines, to listen to a poet, as he passed ! I remember 
 but one other topic of discourse in this walk. He mentioned 
 Paley, praised the naturalness and clearness of his style, but 
 condemned his sentiments, thought him a mere time-serving 
 casuist, and said that 'Hhe fact of his work on Moral and Po- 5 
 litical Philosophy being made a text-book in our universities 
 was a disgrace to the national character. " We parted at the 
 six-mile stone; and I returned homeward, pensive but much 
 pleased. I had met with unexpected notice from a person 
 whom I believed to have been prejudiced against me. "Kind 10 
 and affable to me had been his condescension, and should be 
 honoured ever with suitable regard. " He was the first poet 
 I had known, and he certainly answered to that inspired 
 name. I had heard a great deal of his powers of conversation, 
 and was not disappointed. In fact, I never met with any- 15 
 thing at all like them, either before or since. I could easily 
 credit the accounts which were circulated of his holding forth 
 to a large party of ladies and gentlemen, an evening or two 
 before, on the Berkeleian Theory, when he made the whole 
 material universe look like a transparency of fine words; and 20 
 another story (which I believe he has somewhere told himself) 
 of his being asked to a party at Birmingham, of his smoking 
 tobacco and going to sleep after dinner on a sofa, where the 
 company found him to their no small surprise, which was in- 
 creased to wonder when he started up of a sudden, and rub- 25 
 bing his eyes, looked about him, and launched into a three- 
 hours' description of the third heaven, of which he had had a 
 dream, very different from Mr. Southey's Vision of Judgment, 
 and also from that other Vision of Judgment, which Mr. 
 Murray, the Secretary of the Bridge-street Junto, has taken 30 
 into his especial keeping! 
 
 On my way back, I had a sound in my ears, it was the voice 
 of Fancy: I had a light before me, it was the face of Poetry. 
 The one still fingers there, the other has not quitted my side! 
 Coleridge in truth met me half-way on the ground of philos- 35 
 ophy, or I should not have been won over to his imaginative 
 creed. I had an uneasy, pleasurable sensation all the time, 
 till I was to visit him. During those months the chill breath 
 
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 of winter gave me a welcoming; the vernal air was balm and 
 inspiration to me. The golden sunsets, the silver star of 
 evening, lighted me on my way to new hopes and prospects. 
 / was to visit Coleridge in the Spring. This circumstance was 
 
 5 never absent from my thoughts, and mingled with all my 
 feehngs. I wrote to him at the time proposed, and received 
 an answer postponing my intended visit for a week or two, 
 but very cordially urging me to complete my promise then. 
 This delay did not damp, but rather increased my ardour. 
 
 10 In the mean time I went to Llangollen Vale, by way of 
 initiating myself in the mysteries of natural scenery; and I 
 must say I was enchanted with it. I had been reading Cole- 
 ridge's description of England, in his fine Ode on the Departing 
 Year, and I apphed it, con amore, to the objects before me. 
 
 15 That valley was to me (in a manner) the cradle of a new 
 existence: in the river that winds through it, my spirit was 
 baptised in the waters of Helicon! 
 
 I returned home, and soon after set out on my journey with 
 unworn heart and untired feet. My way lay through Wor- 
 
 20cester and Gloucester, and by Upton, where I thought of 
 Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I remember 
 getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at an 
 inn (I think it was at Tewkesbury) where I sat up all night 
 to read Paul and Virginia. Sweet were the showers in early 
 
 25 youth that drenched my body, and sweet the drops of pity 
 that fell upon the books I read! I recollect a remark of 
 Coleridge's upon this very book, that nothing could shew 
 the gross indelicacy of French manners and the entire cor- 
 ruption of their imagination more strongly than the be- 
 
 30 haviour of the heroine in the last fatal scene, who turns away 
 from a person on board the sinking vessel, that offers to save 
 her life, because he has thrown off his clothes to assist him 
 in swimming. Was this a time to think of such a circum- 
 stance? I once hinted to Wordsworth, as we were sailing in 
 
 35 his boat on Grasmere Lake, that I thought he had borrowed 
 the idea of his Poems on the Naming of Places from the local 
 inscriptions of the same kind in Paul and Virginia. He did 
 not own the obligation, and stated some distinction without 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 13 
 
 a difference, in defense of his claim to originality. Any the 
 shghtest variation would be sufficient for this purpose in his 
 mind; for whatever he added or omitted would inevitably 
 be worth all that any one else had done, and contain the 
 marrow of the sentiment. It was still two days before the 5 
 time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to set out early 
 enough. I stopped these two days at Bridgewater, and when 
 I was tired of sauntering on the banks of its muddy river, 
 returned to the inn, and read Camilla. So have I loitered 
 my hfe away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to 10 
 plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. 
 I have wanted only one tiling to make me happy; but want- 
 ing that, have wanted everything! 
 
 I arrived, and was well received. The country about 
 Nether Stowey is beautiful, green and hilly, and near the sea- 15 
 shore. I saw it but the other day, after an interval of twenty 
 years, from a hill near Taunton. How was the map of my 
 life spread out before me, as the map of the country lay at 
 my feet! In the afternoon Coleridge took me over to AU- 
 Foxden, a romantic old family mansion of the St. Aubins, 20 
 where Wordsworth hved. It was then in the possession of 
 a friend of the poet's, who gave him the free use of it. Some- 
 how that period (the time just after the French Revolution) 
 was not a time when nothing was given for nothing. The 
 mind opened, and a softness might be perceived coming over 25 
 the heart of individuals, beneath 'Hhe scales that fence" our 
 self-interest. Wordsworth himself was from home, but his 
 sister kept house, and set before us a frugal repast; and we 
 had free access to her brother's poems, the Lyrical Ballads, 
 which were still in manuscript, or in the form of Sybilline^O 
 Leaves. I dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, 
 and with the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old 
 - room with blue hangings, and covered with the round-faced 
 family portraits of the age of George I and II and from the 
 wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked my 35 
 window, at the dawn of day, could 
 
 "hear the loud stag speak." 
 
14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 In the outset of life (and particularly at this time I felt it so) 
 our imagination has a body to it. We are in a state between 
 sleeping and waking, and have indistinct but glorious glimpses 
 of strange shapes, and there is always something to come 
 5 better than what we see. As in our dreams the fulness of the 
 blood gives warmth and reahty to the coinage of the brain, 
 so in youth our ideas are clothed, and fed, and pampered with 
 our good spirits; we breathe thick with thoughtless happiness, 
 the weight of future years presses on the strong pulses of the 
 
 10 heart, and we repose with undisturbed faith in truth and good. 
 As we advance, we exhaust our fund of enjoyment and of hope. 
 We are no longer wrapped in lamb's wool, lulled in Elysium. 
 As we taste the pleasures of life, their spirit evaporates, the 
 sense palls; and nothing is left but the phantoms, the lifeless 
 
 15 shadows of what has been! 
 
 That morning, as soon as breakfast was over, we strolled 
 out into the park, and seating ourselves on the trunk of an 
 old ash-tree that stretched along the ground, Coleridge read 
 aloud with a sonorous and musical voice the ballad of Betty 
 
 20 Foy. I was not critically or sceptically inclined. I saw 
 touches of truth and nature, and took the rest for granted. 
 But in the Thorn, the Mad Mother, and the Complaint of the 
 Poor Indian Woman, I felt that deeper power and pathos 
 which have been since acknowledged, 
 
 25 "In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite," 
 
 as the characteristics of this author; and the sense of a new 
 style and a new spirit in poetry came over me. It had to me 
 something of the effect that arises from the turning up of the 
 fresh soil, or of the first welcome breath of Spring: 
 30 "While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed." 
 
 Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that evening, 
 and his voice sounded high 
 
 "Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
 Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," 
 
 35 as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy stream or water- 
 fall, gleaming in the summer moonlight! He lamented that 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POET^ 15 
 
 Wordsworth was not prone enough to beheve in the traditional 
 superstitions of the place, and that there was a something 
 corporeal, a matter-of-fact-ness, a clinging to the palpable, or 
 often to the petty, in his poetry, in consequence. His genius 
 was not a spirit that descended to him through the air; it 5 
 sprung out of the ground like a flower, or unfolded itself from 
 a green spray, on which the gold-finch sang. He said, how- 
 ever (if I remember right) that this objection must be con- 
 fined to his descriptive pieces, that his philosophic poetry had 
 
 grand and comprehensive spirit in it, so that his soul seemed 10 
 to inhabit the universe like a palace, and to discover truth 
 by intuition, rather than by deduction. The next day 
 Wordsworth arrived from Bristol at Coleridge's cottage. I 
 think I see him now. He answered in some degree to his 
 friend's description of him, but was more gaunt and Don 15 
 Quixote-like. He was quaintly dressed (according to the 
 costume of that unconstrained period) in a brown fustian 
 jacket and striped pantaloons. There was something of a 
 roll, a lounge, in his gait, not unlike his own Peter Bell. There 
 was a severe, worn pressure of thought about his temples, a 20 
 fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects more than the 
 outward appearance), an intense, high, narrow forehead, a 
 Roman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong purpose and feeling, 
 and a convulsive inclination to laughter about the mouth, 
 a good deal at variance with the solemn, stately expression of 25 
 the rest of his face. Chantry's bust wants the marking traits, 
 but he was teazed into making it regular and heavy; Hay- 
 don's head of him, introduced into the Entrance of Christ into 
 Jerusalem, is the most like his drooping weight of thought and 
 expression. He sat down and talked very naturally and 30 
 freely, with a mixture of clear, gushing accents in his voice, 
 a deep guttural intonation, and a strong tincture of the north- 
 ern burr, like the crust on wine. He instantly began to make 
 havoc of the half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and sai 1 
 triumphantly that "his marriage with experience had not 35 
 been so productive as Mr. Southey's in teaching him a knowl- 
 edge of the good things of this life. " He had been to see the 
 Castle Spectre, by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, and described 
 
16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 it very well. He said '4t fitted the taste of the audience like a 
 glove. '' This ad captandum merit was however by no means 
 a recommendation of it, according to the severe principles of 
 the new school, which reject rather than court popular effect. 
 5 Wordsworth, looking out of the low, latticed window, said, 
 ''How beautifully the sun sets on that yellow bank!" I 
 thought within myself, "With what eyes these poets see 
 nature!" and ever after, when I saw the sunset stream upon 
 the objects facing it, conceived I had made a discovery, or 
 
 10 thanked Mr. Wordsworth for having made one for me! We 
 went over to AU-Foxden again the day following, and Words- 
 worth read us the story of Peter Bell in the open air; and the 
 comment made upon it by his face and voice was very differ- 
 ent from that of some later critics! Whatever might be 
 
 15 thought of the poem, ''his face was as a book where men 
 might read strange matters, " and he announced the fate of his 
 hero in prophetic tones. There is a cliaunt in the recitation 
 both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon 
 the hearer, and disarms the judgment. Perhaps they have 
 
 20 deceived themselves by making habitual use of this ambiguous 
 accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full, animated, 
 and varied; Wordsworth's more equable, sustained, and in- 
 ternal. The one might be termed more dramatic, the other 
 more lyrical. Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to 
 
 25 compose in walking over uneven ground, or breaking through 
 the straggling branches of a copsewood; whereas Wordsworth 
 always wrote (if he could) walking up and down a straight 
 gravel-walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his verse 
 met with no collateral interruption. Returning that same 
 
 30 evening, I got into a metaphysical argument with Words- 
 worth, while Coleridge was explaining the different notes of 
 the nightingale to his sister, in which we neither of us suc- 
 ceeded in making ourselves perfectly clear and intelligible. 
 Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey and in the 
 
 35 neighbourhood, generally devoting the afternoons to a de- 
 lightful chat in an arbour made of bark by the poet's friend 
 Tom Poole, sitting under two fine elm trees, and listening to 
 the bees humming round us, while we quaffed our flip. It was 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 17 
 
 agreed, among other things, that we should make a jaunt down 
 the Bristol-Channel, as far as Linton. We set off together 
 on foot, Coleridge, John Chester, and I. This Chester was a 
 native of Nether Stowey, one of those who were attracted to 
 Coleridge's discourse as flies are to honey, or bees in swarming- 5 
 time to the sound of a brass pan. He "followed in the chase 
 like a dog who hunts, not like one that made up the cry." 
 He had on a brown cloth coat, boots, and corduroy breeches, 
 was low in stature, bow-legged, had a drag in his walk like a 
 drover, which he assisted by a hazel switch, and kept on a sort 10 
 of trot by the side of Coleridge, like a running footman by 
 a state coach, that he might not lose a syllable or sound that 
 fell from Coleridge's lips. He told me his private opinion, 
 that Coleridge was a wonderful man. He scarcely opened his 
 lips, much less offered an opinion the whole way; yet of the 15 
 three, had I to choose during the journey, I would be John 
 Chester. He afterwards followed Coleridge into Germany, 
 where the Kantean philosophers were puzzled how to bring 
 him under any of their categories. When he sat down at table 
 with his idol, John's felicity was complete; Sir Walter Scott's 20 
 or Mr. Blackwood's, when they sat dowTi at the same table 
 with the King, was not more so. We passed Dunster on our 
 right, a small town between the brow of a hill and the sea. 
 I remember eyeing it wistfully as it lay below us; contrasted 
 with the woody scene around, it looked as clear, as pure, as 25 
 embrowned and ideal as any landscape I have seen since, of 
 Gasper Poussin's or Domenichino's. We had a long day's 
 march — (our feet kept time to the echoes of Coleridge's 
 tongue) — through Minehead and by the Blue Anchor, and 
 on to Linton, which we did not reach till near midnight, and 30 
 where we had some difficulty in making a lodgment. We 
 however knocked the people of the house up at last, and we 
 were repaid for our apprehensions and fatigue by some ex- 
 cellent rashers of fried bacon and eggs. The view in coming 
 along had been splendid. We walked for miles and miles on S5 
 dark brown heaths overlooking the channel, with the Welsh 
 hills beyond, and at times descended into little sheltered val- 
 leys close by the seaside, with a smuggler's face scowling by 
 
18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 US, and then had to ascend conical hills with a path winding up 
 through a coppice to a barren top, like a monk's shaven crown, 
 from one of which I pointed out to Coleridge's notice the bare 
 masts of a vessel on the very edge of the horizon and within 
 
 5 the red-orbed disk of the setting sun, like his own spectre-ship 
 in the A7icient Manner. At Linton the character of the sea- 
 coast becomes more marked and rugged. There is a place 
 called the Valleij of Rocks (I suspect this was only the poetical 
 name for it) bedded among precipices overhanging the sea, 
 
 10 with rocky caverns beneath, into which the waves dash, and 
 where the sea-gull forever wheels its screaming flight. On 
 the tops of these are huge stones thrown transverse, as if an 
 earthquake had tossed them there, and behind these is a fret- 
 work of perpendicular rocks, somiething like the Giant's 
 
 15 Causeway. A thunderstorm came on while we were at the 
 inn, and Coleridge was running out bareheaded to enjoy the 
 commotion of the elements in the Valley of the Rocks, but as if 
 in spite, the clouds only muttered a few angry sounds, and let 
 fall a few refreshing drops. Coleridge told me that he and 
 
 20 Wordsworth were to have made this place the scene of a 
 prose tale, which was to have been in the manner of, but far 
 superior to, the Death of Abel, but they had relinquished the 
 design. In the morning of the second day, we breakfasted 
 luxuriously in an old-fashioned parlour, on tea, toast, eggs, 
 
 25 and honey, in the very sight of the bee-hives from which it had 
 been taken, and a garden full of thyme and wild flowers that 
 had produced it. On this occasion Coleridge spoke of Virgil's 
 Georgics, but not well. I do not think he had much feeling 
 for the classical or elegant. It was in this room that we found 
 
 30 a little worn-out copy of the Seasons, lying in a window-seat, 
 on which Coleridge exclaimed, " That is true fame!" He said 
 Thomson was a great poet, rather than a good one; his style 
 was as meretricious as his thoughts were natural. He spoke 
 of Cowper as the best modern poet. He said the Lyrical 
 
 35 Ballads were an experiment about to be tried by him and 
 Wordsworth, to see how far the public taste would endure 
 poetry written in a more natural and simple style than had 
 hitherto been attempted; totally discarding the artifices of 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 19 
 
 poetical diction, and making use only of such words as had 
 probably been common in the most ordinary language since 
 the days of Henry II. Some comparison was introduced 
 between Shakespeare and Milton. He said "he hardly knew 
 which to prefer. Shakespeare appeared to him a mere strip- 5 
 ling in the art; he was as tall and as strong, with infinitely 
 more activity than Milton, but he never appeared to have 
 come to man's estate; or if he had, he would not have been 
 a man, but a monster." He spoke with contempt of Gray, 
 and with intolerance of Pope. He did not like the versi-lO 
 fication of the latter. He observed that " the ears of these 
 couplet-writers might be charged with having short memories 
 that could not retain the harmony of whole passages. " He 
 thought little of Junius as a writer; he had a dislike of Dr. 
 Johnson; and a much higher opinion of Burke as an orator 15 
 and politician, than of Fox or Pitt. He however thought him 
 very inferior in richness of style and imagery to some of our 
 elder prose writers, particularly Jeremy Tajdor. He liked 
 Richardson, but not Fielding; nor could I get him to enter into 
 the merits of Caleb Williams.^ In short, he was profound and 20 
 discriminating with respect to those authors whom he liked, 
 and where he gave his judgment fair play; capricious, per- 
 verse, and prejudiced in his antipathies and distastes. We 
 loitered on the "ribbed sea-sands," in such talk as this, a 
 whole morning, and I recollect met with a curious seaweed, 25 
 of which John Chester told us the country name. A fisher- 
 man gave Coleridge an account of a boy that had been 
 drowned the day before, and that they had tried to save him 
 at the risk of their own lives. He said "he did not know how 
 it was that they ventured, but, Sir, we have a nature towards 30 
 one another." This expression, Coleridge remarked to me, 
 
 1 He had no idea of pictures, of Claude or Raphael, and at this 
 time I had as little as he. He sometimes gives a striking account at 
 present of the cartoons at Pisa, by Buffamalco and others; of one 
 in particular where Death is seen in the air brandishing his scythe, 35 
 and the great and mighty of the earth shudder at his approach, 
 while the beggars and the wretched kneel to him as their deliverer. 
 He would of course understand so broad and fine a moral as this at 
 any time. 
 
20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 was a fine illustration of that theory of disinterestedness 
 which I (in common with Butler) had adopted. I broached 
 to him an argument of mine to prove that likeness was not 
 mere association of ideas. I said that the mark in the sand 
 
 5 put one in mind of a man's foot, not because it was part of 
 a former impression of a man's foot (for it was quite new) 
 but because it was like the shape of a man's foot. He as- 
 sented to the justness of this distinction (which I have ex- 
 plained at length elsewhere, for the benefit of the curious), 
 
 10 and John Chester listened; not from any interest in the sub- 
 ject, but because he was astonished that I should be able to 
 suggest anything to Coleridge that he did not already know. 
 We returned on the third morning, and Coleridge remarked 
 the silent cottage-smoke curling up the valleys where, a few 
 
 15 evenings before, we had seen the lights gleaming through the 
 dark. 
 
 In a day or two after we arrived at Stowey, we set out, I on 
 my return home, and he for Germany. It was a Sunday 
 morning, and he was to preach that day for Dr. Toulmin of 
 
 20 Taunton. I asked him if he had prepared anything for the 
 occasion? He said he had not even thought of the text, but 
 should as soon as we parted. I did not go to hear him, — this 
 was a fault, — but we met in the evening at Bridgewater. 
 The next day we had a long day's walk to Bristol, and sat 
 
 25 down, I recollect, by a well-side on the road, to cool ourselves 
 and satisfy our thirst, when Coleridge repeated to me some 
 descriptive Unes of his tragedy of Remorse, which I must say 
 became his mouth and that occasion better than they, some 
 years after, did Mr. Elliston's and the Drury-lane boards, — 
 
 30 "Oh! memory! shield me from the world's poor strife, 
 
 And give those scenes thine everlasting life! " 
 
 I saw no more of him for a year or two, during which period 
 he had been wandering in the Hartz Forest in Germany; and 
 his return was cometary, meteorous, unlike his setting out. 
 35 It was not till some time after that I knew his friends Lamb 
 and Southey. The last always appears to me (as I first saw 
 him) with a commonplace-book under his arm, and the first 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 21 
 
 with a bon-mot in his mouth. It was at Godwin's that I met 
 with Holcroft and Coleridge, where they were disputing 
 fiercely which was the best — Man as he was, or man as he is 
 to be. "Give me," says Lamb, "man as he is not to be." 
 This saying was the beginning of a friendship between us, 
 which I beheve still continues. — Enough of this for the 
 present. 
 
 "But there is matter for another rhyme, 
 And I to this may add a second tale." 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 
 
 I hate to read new books. There are twenty or thirty vol- 
 umes that I have read over and over again, and these are the 
 only ones that I have any desire ever to read at all. It was a 
 long time before I could bring myself to sit down to the Tales 
 
 5 of My Landlord, but now that author's works have made a 
 considerable addition to my scanty library. I am told that 
 some of Lady Morgan's are good, and have been recommended 
 to look into Anastasius; but I have not yet ventured upon 
 that task. A lady, the other day, could not refrain from ex- 
 
 10 pressing her surprise to a friend who said he had been reading 
 Delphine; — she asked, — If it had not been published some 
 time back? Women judge of books as they do of fashions or 
 complexions, which are admired only ''in their newest gloss." 
 That is not my way. I am not one of those who trouble the 
 
 15 circulating libraries much, or pester the booksellers for mail- 
 coach copies of standard periodical publications. I cannot 
 say that I am greatly addicted to black-letter, but I profess 
 myself well versed in the marble bindings of Andrew Millar, 
 in the middle of the last century; nor does my taste revolt 
 
 20 at Thurloe's State Papers, in Russia leather; or an ample 
 impression of Sir William Temple's Essays, with a portrait 
 after Sir Godfrey Kneller in front. I do not think alto- 
 gether the worse of a book for having survived the author a 
 generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than 
 
 25 the living. Contemporary writers may generally be divided 
 into two classes — one's friends or one's foes. Of the first 
 we are compelled to think too well, and of the last we are 
 disposed to think too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure 
 from the perusal, or to judge fairly of the merits of either. 
 
 30 One candidate for literary fame, who happens to be of our 
 acquaintance, writes finely, and like a man of genius; but 
 
 22 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 23 
 
 unfortunately has a foolish face, which spoils a delicate pass- 
 age; — another inspires us with the highest respect for his 
 personal talents and character, but does not quite come up to 
 our expectations in print. All these contradictions and petty 
 details interrupt the calm current of our reflections. If you 5 
 want to know what any of the authors were who lived before 
 our time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have 
 only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke and 
 noise of modern hterature have nothing in common with the 
 pure, silent air of immortality. 10 
 
 When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener 
 the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is 
 not lessened by being anticipated. When the entertain- 
 ment is altogether new, I sit down to it as I should to a strange 
 dish, — turn and pick out a bit here and there, and am in 15 
 doubt what to think of the composition. There is a want of 
 confidence and security to second appetite. New-fangled 
 books are also like made-dishes in this respect, that they are 
 generally little else than hashes and rifaccimentos of what has 
 been served up entire and in a more natural state at other 20 
 times. Besides, in thus turning to a well-knowai author, there 
 is not only an assurance that my time will not be thrown away, 
 or my palate nauseated with the most insipid or vilest trash, 
 — but I shake hands with, and look an old, tried, and valued 
 friend in the face, — compare notes, and chat the hours away. 25 
 It is true, we form dear friendships with such ideal guests — 
 dearer, alas! and more lasting, than those with our most in- 
 timate acquaintance. In reading a book wliich is an old 
 favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only 
 have the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of the 30 
 work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. It recalls the 
 same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, 
 and which I can never have again in any other way. Stand- 
 ard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our con- 
 scious being. They bind together the different scattered 35 
 divisions of our personal identity. They are landmarks and 
 guides in our journey through life. They are pegs and loops 
 on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at 
 
24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relics of 
 our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest 
 hours. They are "for thoughts and for remembrance." 
 They are like Fortunatus's wishing-cap — they give us the 
 5 best riches — .those of Fancy; and transport us, not over half 
 the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives, at a word's 
 notice. 
 
 My father Shandy solaced himself with Bruscamhille. 
 Give me for this purpose a volume of Peregrine Pickle or Tom 
 
 10 Jones. Open either of them anywhere — at the Memoirs of 
 Lady Vane, or the adventures at the masquerade with Lady 
 Bellaston, or the disputes between Thwackum and Square, or 
 the escape of Molly Seagrim, or the incident of Sophia and her 
 muff, or the edifying prolixity of her aunt's lecture — and 
 
 15 there I find the same delightful, busy, bustling scene as ever, 
 and feel myself the same as when I was first introduced into 
 the midst of it. Nay, sometimes the sight of an odd volume 
 of these good old Enghsh authors on a stall, or the name 
 lettered on the back among others on the shelves of a library, 
 
 20 answers the purpose, revives the whole train of ideas, and 
 sets "the puppets dallying." Twenty years are struck off 
 the list, and I am a child again. A sage philosopher, who was 
 not a very wise man, said that he should like very well to 
 be young again if he could take his experience along with 
 
 25 him. This ingenious person did not seem to be aware, by 
 the gravity of his remark, that the great advantage of being 
 young is to be without this weight of experience, which he 
 would fain place upon the shoulders of youth, and which never 
 comes too late with years. Oh! what a privilege to be able 
 
 30 to let this hump, like Christian's burthen, drop from off one's 
 back, and transport oneself, by the help of a httle musty 
 duodecimo, to the time when "ignorance was bliss," and 
 when we first got a peep at the raree-show of the world 
 through the glass of fiction — gazing at mankind, as we do at 
 
 35 wild beasts in a menagerie, through the bars of their cages, — 
 or at curiosities in a museum, that we must not touch! For 
 myself, not only are the old ideas of the contents of the work 
 brought back to my mind in all their vividness, but the old 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 25 
 
 associations of the faces and persons of those I then knew, as 
 they were in their hfetime — the place where I sat to read 
 the volume, the day when I got it, the feehng of the air, the 
 fields, the sky — return, and all my early impressions with 
 them. This is better to me — those places, those times, those 5 
 persons, and those feelings that come across me as I retrace 
 the story and devour the page, are to me better far than the 
 wet sheets of the last new novel from the Ballantyne press, 
 to say nothing of the Minerva press in Leadenhall-street. It 
 is like visiting the scenes of early youth. I think of the time 10 
 "when I was in my father's house, and my path ran down with 
 butter and honey," — when I was a httle, thoughtless child 
 and had no other wish or care but to con my daily task and 
 be happy! — Tom Jones, I remember, was the first work that 
 broke the spell. It came dowTi in numbers once a fortnight, 15 
 in Cooke's pocket edition, embellished with cuts. I had 
 hitherto read only in school-books, and a tiresome ecclesias- 
 tical history (with the exception of Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance 
 of the Forest) ; but tliis had a different relish with it, — 
 "sweet in the mouth," though not "bitter in the belly. "20 
 It smacKcd of the world I lived in and in which I was to live — 
 and showed me groups, "gay creatures" not "of the element," 
 but of the earth; "living in the clouds," but traveUing the 
 same road that I did; — some that have passed on before me, 
 and others that might soon overtake me. My heart had 25 
 palpitated at the thoughts of a boarding-school ball, or gala- 
 day at Midsunmier or Christmas; but the world I had found 
 out in Cooke's edition of the British Novelists was to me a 
 dance through life, a perpetual gala-day. The six-penny 
 numbers of this work regularly contrived to leave off just in 30 
 the middle of a sentence, and in the nick of a story, where 
 Tom Jones discovers Square behind the blanket; or where 
 Parson Adams, in the inextricable confusion of events, very 
 undesignedly gets to bed to Mrs. SUp-slop. Let me caution 
 the reader against this impression of Joseph Andrews; for 35 
 there is a picture of Fanny in it which he should not set his 
 heart on, lest he should never meet with anything like it; 
 or if he should, it would, perhaps, be better for him that he 
 
26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 had not. It was just like ! With what eagerness I 
 
 used to look forward to the next number, and open the prints! 
 Ah! never again shall I feel the enthusiastic delight with which 
 I gazed at the figures, and anticipated the story and adven- 
 5 tures of Major Bath and Commodore Trunnion, of Trim and 
 my Uncle Toby, of Don Quixote and Sancho and Dapple, of 
 Gil Bias and Dame Lorenza Sephora, of Laura and the fair 
 Lucretia, whose lips open and shut like buds of roses. To 
 what nameless ideas did they give rise, — with what airy 
 
 10 delights I filled up the outlines, as I hung in silence over the 
 page! — Let me still recall them, that they may breathe fresh 
 life into me, and that I may live that birthday of thought and 
 romantic pleasure over again! Talk of the ideal! This is the 
 only true ideal — the heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in the 
 
 15 bubbles that float upon the spring-tide of human life. 
 
 O Memory! shield me from the world's poor strife, 
 And give those scenes thine everlasting life! 
 
 The paradox with which I set out is, I hope, less startling 
 than it was; the reader will, by this time, have been let into 
 
 20 my secret. Much about the same time, or I believe rather 
 earlier, I took a particular satisfaction in reading Chubb's 
 Tracts, and I often think I will get them again to wade 
 through. There is a high gusto of polemical divinity in 
 them; and you fancy that you hear a club of shoemakers at 
 
 25 Salisbury, debating a disputable text from one of St. Paul's 
 Epistles in a workmanlike style, with equal shrewdness and 
 pertinacity. I cannot say much for my metaphysical studies, 
 into which I launched shortly after with great ardour, so as 
 to make a toil of a pleasure. I was presently entangled in 
 
 30 the briars and thorns of subtle distinctions, — of "fate, free- 
 will, foreknowledge absolute," though I cannot add that 
 ''in their wandering mazes I found no end;" for I did arrive 
 at some very satisfactory and potent conclusions; nor will I 
 go so far, however ungrateful the subject might seem, as to 
 
 35 exclaim with Marlowe's Faustus — "Would I had never seen 
 Wittenberg, never read book" —that is, never studied such 
 authors as Hartley, Hume, Berkeley, etc. Locke's Essay on 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 27 
 
 the Human Understanding is, however, a work from which I 
 never derived either pleasure or profit; and Hobbes, dry and 
 powerful as he is, I did not read till long afterwards. I read 
 a few poets, which did not much hit my taste, — for I would 
 have the reader understand, I am deficient in the faculty of 5 
 imagination; but I fell early upon French romances and 
 philosophy, and devoured them tooth-and-nail. Many a 
 dainty repast have I made of the New Eloise; — the descrip- 
 tion of the kiss; the excursion on the water; the letter of St. 
 Preux, recalling the tune of their first loves; and the account 10 
 of Julia's death; these I read over and over again with un- 
 speakable delight and wonder. Some years after, when I 
 met with this work again, I found I had lost nearly my whole 
 relish for it (except some few parts) and was, I remember, 
 very much mortified with the change in my taste, which 1 15 
 sought to attribute to the smallness and gilt edges of the 
 edition I had bought, and its being perfumed with rose-leaves. 
 Nothing could exceed the gravity, the solemnity with which 
 I carried home and read the Dedication to the Social Con- 
 tract, with some other pieces of the same author, which I had 20 
 picked up at a stall in a coarse leathern cover. Of the 
 Confessions I have spoken elsewhere, and may repeat what 
 I have said — "Sweet is the dew of their memory, and pleas- 
 ant the balm of their recollection! " Their beauties are not 
 ''scattered like stray gifts o'er the earth," but sown thick on 25 
 the page, rich and rare. I wish I had never read the Emilius 
 or read it with less implicit faith. I had no occasion to pam- 
 per my natural aversion to affectation or pretence, by ro- 
 mantic and artificial means. I had better have formed my- 
 self on the model of Sir Fopling Flutter. There is a class of 30 
 persons whose virtues and most shining qualities sink in, and 
 are concealed by, an absorbent ground of modesty and re- 
 serve; and such a one I do, without vanity, profess myself .^ 
 
 1 Nearly the same sentiment was wittily and happily expressed by 
 a friend, who had some lottery puffs, which he had been employed 35 
 to write, returned on his hands for their too great severity of thought 
 and classical terseness of style, and who observed on that occasion, 
 that "Modest merit never can succeed!" 
 
28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 Now these are the very persons who are likely to attach them- 
 selves to the character of Emilius, and of whom it is sure to 
 be the bane. This dull, phlegmatic, retiring humour is not 
 in a fair way to be corrected, but confirmed and rendered 
 
 5 desperate, by being in that work held up as an object of 
 imitation, as an example of simplicity and magnanimity — 
 by coming upon us with all the recommendations of novelty, 
 surprise, and superiority to the prejudices of the world — by 
 being stuck upon a pedestal, made amiable, dazzling, a leurre 
 
 i^de dupe! The reliance on solid worth which it inculcates, 
 the preference of sober truth to gaudy tinsel, hangs like a 
 millstone round the neck of the imagination — "a load to 
 sink a navy" — impedes our progress, and blocks up every 
 prospect in life. A man, to get on, to be successful, con- 
 
 15 spicuous, applauded, should not retire upon the centre of his 
 conscious resources, but be always at the circumference of 
 appearances. He must envelop himself in a halo of mystery 
 — he must ride in an equipage of opinion — he must walk 
 with a train of self-conceit following him — he must not strip 
 
 20 himself to a buff -jerkin, to the doublet and hose of his real 
 merits, but must surround himseK mth a cortege of preju- 
 dices, like the signs of the Zodiac — he must seem anything 
 but what he is, and then he may pass for anything he pleases. 
 The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be 
 
 25 deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hal- 
 lucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, down- 
 right, simple, honest truth — such as we see it chalked out in 
 the character of Emilius. — To return from this digression, 
 which is a little out of place here. 
 
 30 Books have in a great measure lost their power over me; 
 nor can I revive the same interest in them as formerly. I per- 
 ceive when a thing is good, rather than feel it. It is true, 
 
 Marcian Colonna is a dainty book; 
 
 and the reading of Mr. Keats's Eve of St. Agnes lately made 
 
 35 me regret that I was not young again. The beautiful and 
 
 tender images there conjured up, "come like shadows — so 
 
 depart." The ''tiger-moth's wings," which he has spread 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 29 
 
 over his rich poetic blazonry, just flit across my fancy; the 
 gorgeous twilight window which he has painted over again in 
 his verse, to me "blushes" almost in vam "with blood of 
 queens and kings." I know how I should have felt at one 
 time in reading such passages; and that is all. The sharp, 5 
 luscious flavour, the fine aroma, is fled, and nothing but the 
 stalk, the bran, the husk of literature is left. If any one were 
 to ask me what I read now, I might answer with my Lord 
 Hamlet in the play — "Words, words, words." — "What is 
 the matter?" — '^ Nothing! ^^ — They have scarce a meaning. 10 
 But it was not always so. There was a time when to my 
 thinking, every word was a flower or a pearl, like those which 
 dropped from the mouth of the little peasant-girl in the fairy 
 tale, or like those that fall from the great preacher in the 
 Caledonian Chapel! I drank of the stream of knowledge that 15 
 tempted, but did not mock my hps, as of the river of Hfe, 
 freely. How eagerly I slaked my thirst of German senti- 
 ment, "as the hart that panteth for the water-springs;" how 
 I bathed and revelled, and added my floods of tears to 
 Goethe's Sorrows of Werter, and to Schiller's Robbers — 20 
 
 Giving my stock of more to that which had too much! 
 
 I read, and assented with all my soul to Coleridge's fine 
 sonnet, beginning — 
 
 Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, 
 If through the shuddering midnight I had sent, 
 r : . From the dark dungeon of the tow'r time-rent, 
 
 That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry! 
 
 I believe I may date my insight into the mysteries of poetry 
 from the commencement of my acquaintance with the 
 authors of the Lyrical Ballads; at least, my discrimination 30 
 of the higher sorts — not my predilection for such writers 
 as Goldsmith or Pope: nor do I imagine they will say I got 
 my liking for the novelists, or the comic writers, — for the 
 characters of Valentine, Tattle, or Miss Prue, from them. If 
 so, I must have got from them what they never had them- 35 
 selves. In points where poetic diction and conception are 
 concerned, I may be at a loss, and liable to be imposed upon; 
 
30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 but in forming an estimate of passages relating to common 
 life and manners, I cannot think I am a plagiarist from any 
 man. I there " know my cue without a prompter. " I may 
 say of such studies — Intus et in cute. I am just able to 
 5 admire those literal touches of observation and description 
 wliich persons of loftier pretensions overlook and despise. 
 I think I comprehend something of the characteristic part of 
 Shakspeare; and in huTi indeed, all is characteristic, even 
 the nonsense and poetry. I believe it was the celebrated Sir 
 
 lOHumplirey Davy who used to say, that Shakspeare was 
 rather a metaphysician than a poet. At any rate, it was not 
 ill said. I wish that I had sooner known the dramatic writers 
 contemporary with Shakspeare; for in looking them over 
 about a year ago, I almost revived my old passion for reading, 
 
 15 and my old delight in books, though they were very nearly 
 new to me. The periodical essayists I read long ago. The 
 Spectator I liked extremely: but the Taller took my fancy 
 most. I read the others soon after, the Rambler, the Ad- 
 venturer, the World, the Connoisseur. I was not sorry to get 
 
 20 to the end of them, and have no desire to go regularly through 
 them again. I consider myself a thorough adept in Richard- 
 son. I like the longest of his novels best, and think no part 
 of them tedious; nor should I ask to have anything better 
 to do than to read them from beginning to end, to take them 
 
 25 up when I chose, and lay them down when I was tired, in 
 some old family mansion in the country, till every word and 
 syllable relating to the bright Clarissa, the divine Clementina, 
 the beautiful Pamela, "with every trick and line of their 
 sweet favour, " were once more '^ graven in my heart's table. " ^ 
 
 30 1 have a sneaking kindness for Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigne 
 
 ^ During the peace of Amiens, a young English officer, of the name 
 of Lovelace, was presented at Buonaparte's levee. Instead of the 
 usual question, "Where have you served, Sir?" the First Consul 
 immediately addressed him, "I perceive your name. Sir, is the same 
 35 as that of the hero of Richardson's Romance!" Here was a Consul. 
 The young man's uncle, who was called Lovelace, told me this anec- 
 dote while we were stopping together at Calais. I had also been 
 thinking that his was the same name as that of the hero of Richard- 
 son's Romance. This is one of my reasons for liking Buonaparte. 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 31 
 
 — for the deserted mansion, and straggling gilliflowers on 
 the mouldering garden wall; and still more for his Man of 
 Feeling; not that it is better, nor so good; but at the time I 
 read it, I sometmies thought of the heroine. Miss Walton, 
 
 and of Miss together, and 'Hhat ligament, fine as it was, 5 
 
 was never broken!" — One of the poets that I have always 
 read with most pleasure, and can wander about in forever 
 with a sort of voluptuous indolence, is Spenser; and I like 
 Chaucer even better. The only writer among the Italians 
 I can pretend to any knowledge of, is Boccaccio, and of him 10 
 I cannot express half my admiration. His story of the hawk 
 I could read and think of from day to day, just as I would 
 look at a picture of Titian's! 
 
 I remember, as long ago as the year 1798, going to a neigh- 
 bouring town (Shrewsbury, where Farquhar has laid the plot 15 
 of his Recruiting Office7') and bringing home with me, "at one 
 proud swoop," a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, and another 
 of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution — both which 
 I have still; and I still recollect, when I see the covers, the 
 pleasure with which I dipped into them as I returned with my 20 
 double prize. I was set up for one while. That time is past 
 "with all its giddy raptures;" but I am still anxious to pre- 
 serve its memory, "embalmed with odours." — With respect 
 to the first of these works, I would be permitted to remark 
 here in passing, that it is a sufficient answer to the German 25 
 criticism which has since been started against the character 
 of Satan {viz., that it is not one of disgusting deformity, or 
 pure, defecated malice) to say that Milton has there drawn, 
 not the abstract principle of evil, not a devil incarnate, but a 
 faUen angel. This is the scriptural account, and the poet has 30 
 followed it. We may safely retain such passages as that 
 well-known one — 
 
 " His form had not yet lost 
 
 All her original brightness; nor appear'd 
 
 Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess 35 
 
 Of glory obscur'd " — 
 
 for the theory, which is opposed to them, "falls flat upon the 
 grunsel edge, and shames its worshippers." Let us hear no 
 
32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 more then of this monkish cant and bigoted outcry for the 
 restoration of the horns and tail of the devil! — Again, as to 
 the other work, Burke's Reflections, I took a particular pride 
 and pleasure in it, and read it to myself and others for months 
 5 afterwards. I had reason for my prejudice in favour of this 
 author. To understand an adversary is some praise; to ad- 
 mire him is more. I thought I did both; I knew I did one. 
 From the first time I ever cast my eyes on anything of 
 Burke's (which was an extract from his Letter to a Noble 
 
 10 Lord in a three-times a week paper, The St. James's Chron- 
 icle, in 1796), I said to mj/'self, "This is true eloquence: 
 this is a man pouring out his mind on paper." All other 
 style seemed to me pedantic and impertinent. Dr. John- 
 son's was walking on stilts; and even Junius's (who was at 
 
 15 that time a favourite with me) with all his terseness, shrunk 
 up into little antithetic points and well-trimmed sentences. 
 But Burke's style was forked and playful as the lightning, 
 crested like the serpent. He delivered plain things on a 
 plain ground; but when he rose, there was no end of his 
 
 20 flights and circumgyrations — and in this very Letter, "he, 
 like an eagle in a dove-cot, fluttered his Volscians" (the Duke 
 of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale)^ "in Corioli." I 
 did not care for his doctrines, I was then, and am still, proof 
 against their contagion; but I admired the author, and was 
 
 25 considered as not a very staunch partisan of the opposite side, 
 though I thought myself that an abstract proposition was one 
 thing — a masterly transition, a brilliant metaphor, another. 
 I conceived too that he might be wrong in his main argument, 
 and yet deliver fifty truths in arriving at a false conclusion. I 
 
 30 remember Coleridge assuring me, as a poetical and political 
 set-off to my sceptical admiration, that Wordsworth had 
 written an Essay on Marriage, which, for manly thought and 
 nervous expression, he deemed incomparably superior. As I 
 had not, at that time, seen any specimens of Mr. Words- 
 
 35 worth's prose style; I could not express my doubts on the 
 subject. If there are greater prose-writers than Burke, they 
 
 1 He is there called ' ' Citizen Lauderdale. ' ' Is this the present Earl? 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 33 
 
 either lie out of my course of study, or are beyond my sphere 
 of comprehension. I am too old to be a convert to a new 
 mythology of genius. The niches are occupied, the tables are 
 full. If such is still my admiration of this man's misapplied 
 powers, what must it have been at a time when I myself was 5 
 in vain trying, year after year, to write a single essay, nay, 
 a single page or sentence; when I regarded the wonders of 
 his pen with the longing eyes of one who was dumb and a 
 changeling; and when, to be able to convey the slightest 
 conception of my meaning to others in words, was the height 10 
 of an almost hopeless ambition! But I never measured others' 
 excellences by my own defects; though a sense of my own , 
 incapacity, and of the steep, impassable ascent from me to 
 them, made me regard them with greater awe and fondness. 
 I have thus run through most of my early studies and favourite 15 
 authors, some of whom I have since criticised more at large. 
 Whether those observations will survive me, I neither know 
 nor do I much care; but to the works themselves, "worthy of 
 all acceptation," and to the feelings they have always excited 
 in me since I could distinguish a meaning in language, nothing 20 
 shall ever prevent me from looking back with gratitude and 
 triumph. To have lived in the cultivation of an intunacy 
 with such works, and to have famiharly relished such names, 
 is not to have lived quite in vain. 
 
 There are other authors whom I have never read, and yet 25 
 whom I have frequently had a great desire to read, from some 
 circumstance relating to them. Among these is Lord Claren- 
 don's History of the Grand Rebellion, after which I have a 
 hankering, from hearing it spoken of by good judges — from 
 my interest in the events, and knowledge of the characters 30 
 from other sources, and from having seen fine portraits of most 
 of them I like to read a well-penned character, and Claren- 
 don is said to have been a master in this way. I should like 
 to read Froissart's Chronicles, Holinshed and Stowe, and 
 Fuller's Worthies. I intend, whenever I can, to read Beau- 35 
 mont and Fletcher all through. There are fifty-two of their 
 plays, and I have only read a dozen or fourteen of them. A 
 Wife for a Month and Thierry and Theodoret are, I am told, 
 
34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 delicious, and I can believe it. I should like to read the 
 speeches in Thucydides, and Guicciardini's History of Florence, 
 and Don Quixote in the original. I have often thought of 
 reading the Loves of Persiles and Sigismunda, and the Galatea 
 5 of the same author. But I somehow reserve them like 
 "another Yarrow." I should also like to read the last new 
 novel (if I could be sure it was so) of the author of Waverley; — 
 no one would be more glad than I to find it the best! 
 
WHETHER GENIUS IS CONSCIOUS OF 
 ITS POWERS? 
 
 No really great man ever thought hunself so. The idea of 
 greatness in the mind answers but ill to our knowledge — or to 
 our ignorance of ourselves. What living prose- writer, for 
 instance, would think of comparing himself with Burke? Yet 
 would it not have been equal presumption or egotism in him 5 
 to fancy liimself equal to those who had gone before him ■ — 
 Bolingbroke or Johnson, or Sir William Temple? Because 
 his rank in letters is become a settled point with us, we con- 
 clude that it must have been quite as self-evident to him, and 
 that he must have been perfectly conscious of his vast superi- 10 
 ority to the rest of the world. Alas! not so. No man is truly 
 himself, but in the idea which others entertain of him. The 
 mind, as well as the eye, "sees not itself, but by reflection 
 from some other thing. " What parity can there be between 
 the effect of habitual composition on the mind of the individ- 15 
 ual, and the surprise occasioned by first reading a fine passage 
 in an admired author; between what Vvc do with ease, and 
 • what we thought it next to impossible ever to be done; be- 
 tween the reverential awe we have for years encouraged, 
 without seeing reason to alter it, for distinguished genius, 20 
 and the slow, reluctant, unwelcome conviction that after 
 infinite toil and repeated disappointments, and when it is too 
 late and to httle purpose, we have ourselves at length ac- 
 comphshed what we at first proposed; between the insignif- 
 icance of our petty, personal pretensions, and the vastness25 
 and splendour which the atmosphere of imagination lends to 
 an illustrious name? He who comes up to his own idea of 
 greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in 
 his mind. "What a pity," said some one, ^Hhat Milton had 
 not the pleasure of reading Paradise Lost!^' He could not 30 
 read it as we do, with the weight of impression that a hundred 
 years of admiration have added to it — "a phoenix gazed by 
 
 35 
 
36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 all" — with the sense of the number of editions it has passed 
 through with still increasing reputation, with the tone of 
 solidity, time-proof, which it has received from the breath of 
 cold, envious maligners, with the sound which the voice of 
 
 5 Fame has lent to every line of it! The writer of an ephemeral 
 production may be as much dazzled with it as the public: 
 it may sparkle in his own eyes for a moment, and be soon 
 forgotten by every one else. But no one can anticipate the 
 suffrages of posterity. Every man, in judging of himself, 
 
 10 is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, 
 but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of him- 
 self wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it 
 off and confirm it. He must be indifferent to his own merits 
 before he can feel a confidence in them. Besides, everyone 
 
 15 must be sensible of a thousand weaknesses and deficiencies in 
 himself; whereas Genius only leaves behind it the monuments 
 of its strength. A great name is an abstraction of some one 
 excellence; but whoever fancies himseff an abstraction of 
 excellence; so far from being great, may be sure that he is a 
 
 20 blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect, of himself 
 or others. Mr. Burke, besides being the author of the Re- 
 flections and the Letter to a Noble Lord, had a wife and son; 
 and had to think as much about them as we do about him. 
 The imagination gains nothing by the minute details of per- 
 
 25sonal knowledge. 
 
 On the other hand, it may be said that no man knows so 
 well as the author of any performance what it has cost him, 
 and the length of time and study devoted to it. This is one, 
 among other reasons, why no man can pronounce an opinion 
 
 30 upon himself. The happiness of the result bears no propor- 
 tion to the difficulties overcome or the pains taken. Ma- 
 teriam superabat opus (the workmanship surpasses the ma- 
 terials) is an old and fatal complaint. The definition of 
 genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have 
 
 35 produced immortal works have done so without knowing how 
 or why. The greatest power operates unseen, and executes 
 its appointed task with as httle ostentation as difficulty. 
 Whatever is done best is done from the natural bent and dis- 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 37 
 
 position of the mind. It is only where our incapacity begins 
 that we begin to feel the obstacles, and to set an undue value 
 on our triumph over them. Correggio, Michael Angelo, 
 Rembrandt, did what they did without premeditation or effort 
 — their works came from their minds as a natural birth — if 5 
 you had asked them why they adopted this or that style, they 
 would have answered, because theij could not help it, and be- 
 cause they knew of no other. So Shakespeare says : — 
 
 "Our poesy is as a gum which oozes 
 From whence 'tis nourished: the fire i' the flint 10 
 
 Shows not tni it be struck: our gentle flame 
 Provokes itself; and, like the current, flies 
 Each bound it chafes." 
 
 Shakespeare himself was an example of his own rule, and 
 appears to have owed almost everything to industry or design. 15 
 His poetry flashes from him like the lightning from the sum- 
 mer cloud, or the stroke from the sun-flower. When we look 
 at the admirable comic designs of Hogarth, they seem from 
 the unfinished state in which they are left, and from the 
 freedom of the pencilling, to have cost him little trouble; 20 
 whereas the Sigisrnunda is a very laboured and compara- 
 tively feeble performance, and he accordingly set great store 
 by it. He also thought highly of his portraits, and boasted 
 that "he could paint equal to Vandyke, give him his time, 
 and let him choose his subject." This was the very reason 25 
 why he could not. Vandyke's excellence consisted in this, 
 that he could paint a fine portrait of anyone at sight; let 
 him take ever so much pains or choose ever so bad a subject, 
 he could not help making something of it. His eye, his mind, 
 his hand was cast in the mould of grace and delicacy. Milton, 30 
 again, is imderstood to have preferred Paradise Regained to 
 his other works. This, if so, was either because he himself 
 was conscious of having failed in it, or because others thought 
 he had. We are willing to think well of that which we know 
 wants our favourable opinion, and to prop the rickety bant- 35 
 ling. Every step taken, invito, Minerva, costs us something, 
 and is set down to account ; whereas we are borne on the full 
 tide of genius and success into the very haven of our desires 
 
38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 almost imperceptibly. The strength of the impulse by which 
 we are carried along prevents the sense of difficulty or re- 
 sistance; the true inspiration of the Muse is soft and balmy 
 as the air we breathe; and indeed leaves us little to boast of, 
 5 for the effect hardly seems to be our own. 
 
 There are two persons. who always appear to me to have 
 worked under this involuntary, silent impulse more than any 
 others; I mean Rembrandt and Correggio. It is not known 
 that Correggio ever saw a picture of any great master. He 
 
 10 lived and died obscurely in an obscure village. We have few 
 of his works, but they are all perfect. What truth, what 
 grace, what angelic sweetness are there! Not one line or tone 
 that is not divinely soft or exquisitely fair; the painter's mind 
 rejecting, by a natural process, all that is discordant, coarse, 
 
 15 or unpleasing. The whole is an emanation of pure thought. 
 The work grew under his hand as if of itself, and came out 
 without a flaw, like the diamond from the rock. He knew 
 not what he did; and looked at each modest grace as it stole 
 from the canvas with anxious delight and wonder. Ah! 
 
 20 gracious God! not he alone; how many more in all time have 
 looked at their works with the same feelings, not knowing 
 but they too may have done something divine, immortal, and 
 finding in that sole doubt ample amends for pining solitude, 
 for want, neglect, and an untimely fate. Oh! for one hour 
 
 25 of that uneasy rapture, when the mind first thinks that it has 
 struck out something that may last for ever; when the germ 
 of excellence burst from nothing on the startled sight! Take, 
 take away the gaudy triumphs of the world, the long deathless 
 shout of fame, and give back that heartfelt sigh with which 
 
 30 the youthful enthusiast first weds immortality as his secret 
 bride! And thou too, Rembrandt! Thou wert a man of 
 genius if ever painter was a man of genius! — did this dream 
 hang over you as you painted that strange picture of Jacob's 
 Ladder? Did your eye strain over those gradual dusky 
 
 35 clouds into futurity, or did those white-vested, beaked figures 
 babble to you of fame as they approached? Did you know 
 what you were about, or did you not paint much as it hap- 
 pened? Oh! if you had thought once about yourself, or any- 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 39 
 
 thing but the subject, it would have been all over with "the 
 glory, the intuition, the amenity," the dream had fled, the 
 spell had been broken. The hills would not have looked like 
 those we see in sleep — that tatterdemalion figure of Jacob, 
 thrown on one side, would not have slept as if the breath was 5 
 fairly taken out of his body. So much do Rembrandt's pic- 
 tures savour of the soul and body of reality, that the thoughts 
 seem identical with the objects — if there had been the least 
 question what he should have done, or how he should do it, 
 or how far he had succeeded, it would have spoiled everything, lo 
 Lumps of light hung upon his pencil and fell upon his canvas 
 like dewdrops; the shadowj^ veil was drawn over his back- 
 grounds by the dull, obtuse finger of night, making darkness 
 visible by still greater darkness that could only be felt! 
 
 Cervantes is another instance of a man of genius, whose 15 
 work may be said to have sprung from his mind, like Minerva 
 from the head of Jupiter. Don Quixote and Sancho were a 
 kind of twins; and the jests of the latter, as he says, fell from 
 him like drops of rain when he least thought of it. Shake- 
 speare's creations were more multiform, but equally natural 20 
 and imstudied. Raphael and Milton seem partial exceptions 
 to this rule. Their productions were the composite order; 
 and those of the latter sometimes even amount to centos. 
 Accordingly, we find Milton quoted among those authors who 
 have left proofs of their entertaining a high opinion of them- 25 
 selves, and of cherishing a strong aspiration after fame. Some 
 of Shakespeare's sonnets have been also cited to the same 
 purpose; but they seem rather to convey w^ayward and dis- 
 satisfied complaints of his untoward fortune than anything 
 like a triumphant and confident reliance on his future renown. 30 
 He appears to have stood more alone and to have thought less 
 about himself than any living being. One reason for this 
 indifference may have been, that as a writer he was tolerably 
 successful in his lifetime, and no doubt produced his works 
 with very great facility. 35 
 
 I hardly know w^hether to class Claude Lorraine as among 
 those who succeeded most "through happiness or pains. " It 
 is certain that he imitated no one, and has had no successful 
 
40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 imitator. The perfection of his landscapes seems to have 
 been owing to an inherent quahty of harmony, to an exquisite 
 sense of dehcacy in his mind. His monotony has been com- 
 plained of, which is apparently produced from a preconceived 
 5 idea in his mind ; and not long ago I heard a person, not more 
 distinguished for the subtilty than the naivete of his sarcasms, 
 remark, "Oh! I never look at Claude: if one has seen one of 
 his pictures, one has seen them all; they are every one alil^e: 
 there is the same sky, the same climate, the same time of day, 
 
 10 the same tree, and that tree is like a cabbage. To be sure, 
 they say he did pretty well; but when a man is always doing 
 one thing, he ought to do it pretty well. " There is no occasion 
 to write the name under this criticism, and the best answer to 
 it is that it is true — his pictures always are the same, but we 
 
 15 never wish them to be otherwise. Perfection is one thing. 
 I confess I think that Claude knew this, and felt that his were 
 the finest landscapes in the world — that ever had been, or 
 would ever be. 
 
 I am not in the humour to pursue this argument any far- 
 
 20 ther at present, but to write a digression. If the reader is not 
 already apprised of it, he will please to take notice that I 
 write this at Winterslow. My style there is apt to be re- 
 dundant and excursive. At other times it may be cramped, 
 dry, abrupt; but here it flows like a river, and overspreads 
 
 25 its banks. I have not to seek for thoughts or hunt for images : 
 they come of themselves, I inhale them with the breeze, and 
 the silent groves are vocal with a thousand recollections — 
 
 "And visions, as poetic eyes avow, 
 Hang on each leaf, and cling to ev'ry bough." 
 
 30 Here I came fifteen years ago, a willing exile; and as I trod 
 the lengthened greensward by the low woodside, repeated the 
 old line, 
 
 "My mind to me a kingdom is!" 
 
 I found it so then, before, and since; and shall I faint, now 
 
 35 that I have poured out the spirit of that mind to the world, and 
 
 treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, and power, 
 
 because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 41 
 
 for not being a Government tool? Here I returned a few years 
 after to finish some works I had undertaken, doubtful of the 
 event, but determined to do my best; and wrote that charac- 
 ter of Millimant which was once transcribed by fingers fairer 
 than Aurora's, but no notice was taken of it, because I was not 5 
 a Government tool, and must be supposed devoid of taste 
 and elegance by all who aspired to these qualities in their own 
 persons. Here I sketched my account of that old honest 
 Signior Orlando Friscobaldo, which with its fine, racy, acrid 
 tone that old crab-apple, G . ff . . d, would have rehshed or lo 
 pretended to relish, had I been a Government tool! Here, too, 
 I have written T able-Talks without number, and as yet with- 
 out a falling-off, till now that they are nearly done, or I should 
 not make this boast. I could swear (were they not mine) the 
 thoughts in many of them are founded as the rock, free as air, 15 
 the tone like an Italian picture. What then? Had the style 
 been like polished steel, as firm and as bright, it would have 
 availed me notliing, for I am not a Goverimaent tool! I had 
 endeavoured to guide the taste of the English people to the 
 best old English writers; but I had said that English kings did 20 
 not reign by right divine, and that his present Majesty was 
 descended from an Elector of Hanover in a right line; and no 
 loyal subject would after this look into Webster or Dekker 
 because I had pointed them out. I had done something (more 
 than anyone except Schlegel) to vindicate the Characters of 2b 
 Shakespeare's Plays from the stigma of French criticism; but 
 our Anti-Jacobin and Anti-Gallican writers soon found out that 
 I had said and written that Frenchmen, Englishmen, men were 
 not slaves by birthright. This was enough to damn the work. 
 Such has been the head and front of my offending. While 30 
 my friend, Leigh Hunt, was writing the Descent of Liberty, 
 and strewing the march of the AUied Sovereigns with flowers, 
 I sat by the waters of Babylon and hung my harp upon the 
 willows. I knew all along there was but one alternative — the 
 cause of kings or of mankind. This I foresaw, this I feared; 35 
 the world would see it now, when it is too late. Therefore I 
 lamented, and would take no comfort when the Mighty fell, 
 because we, all men, fell with him, like lightning from heaven, 
 
42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 to grovel in the grave of Liberty, in the stye of Legitimacy! 
 There is but one question in the hearts of monarchs — whether 
 mankind are their property or not. There was but this one 
 question in mine. I had made an abstract, metaphysical 
 5 principle of this question. I was not the dupe of the voice of 
 the charmers. By my hatred of tyrants I knew what their 
 hatred of the freeborn spirit of man must be, of the semblance, 
 of the very name of Liberty and Humanity. And while others 
 bowed their heads to the image of the Beast, I spat upon it 
 
 10 and buffeted it, and made mouths at it, and pointed at it, and 
 drew aside the veil that then half concealed it but has been 
 since thrown off, and named it by its right name ; and it is not 
 to be supposed that my having penetrated their mystery 
 would go unrequited by those whose darling and whose de- 
 
 15 light the idol, half -brute, half -demon, was, and who were 
 ashamed to acknowledge the image and superscription as 
 their own! 
 
 Two half -friends of mine, who would not make a whole 
 one between them, agreed the other day that the indis- 
 
 20erimmate, incessant abuse of what I write was mere preju- 
 dice and party spirit, and that what I do in periodicals and 
 without a name does well, pays well, and is "cried out upon 
 in the top of the compass. " It is this indeed that has saved 
 my shallow skiff from quite foundering on Tory spite and 
 
 25 rancour; for when people have been reading and approving 
 an article in a miscellaneous journal, it does not do to say 
 when they discover the author afterwards (whatever might 
 have been the case before) it is written by a blockhead; and 
 even Mr. Jerdan recommends the volume of Characteristics as 
 
 30 an excellent little work, because it has no cabalistic name in 
 the title-page, and swears "there is a first-rate article of forty 
 pages in the last number of the Edinburgh from Jeffrey's own 
 hand, " though when he learns against his will that it is mine, 
 he devotes three successive numbers of the Literary Gazette to 
 
 35 abuse "that strange article in the last number of the Edin- 
 burgh Review.'^ Others who had not this advantage have 
 fallen a sacrifice to the obloquy attached to the suspicion of 
 doubting, or of being acquainted with anyone who is known 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 43 
 
 to doubt, the divinity of kings. Poor Keats paid the forfeit 
 of this leze majeste with liis health and life. What, though his 
 verses were like the breath of spring, and many of his thoughts 
 like flowers — would this, with the circle of critics that beset 
 a throne, lessen the crime of their having been praised in the 5 
 Examiner? The lively and most agreeable editor of that 
 paper has in like manner been driven from his country and liis 
 friends who delighted in him, for no other reason than having 
 written the Story of Rimini, and asserted ten years ago, ''that 
 the most accomplished prince in Europe was an Adonis of 10 
 fifty!" 
 
 "Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past 
 That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse!" 
 
 I look out of my window and see that a shower has just fallen: 
 the fields look green after it, and a rosy cloud hangs over the 15 
 brow of the hill; a lily expands its petals in the moisture, 
 dressed in its lovely green and white; a shepherd boy has just 
 brought some pieces of turf with daisies and grass for his young 
 mistress to make a bed for her skylark, not doomed to dip his 
 wings in the dappled dawn — my cloudy thoughts draw off, 20 
 the storm of angry politics has blown over — Mr. Blackwood, 
 I am yours — Mr. Croker, my service to you — Mr. T. Moore, 
 I am alive and well — really, it is wonderful how little the 
 worse I am for fifteen years' wear and tear, how I came upon 
 my legs again on the ground of truth and nature, and "look 25 
 abroad into universahty, " forgetting that there is any such 
 person as myself in the world! 
 
 I have let this passage stand (however critical) because it 
 may serve as a practical illustration to show what authors 
 really think of themselves when put upon the defensive — 30 
 (1 confess, the subject has nothing to do with the title at the 
 head 01 the Essay!) — and as a warning to those who may 
 reckon upon their fair portion of popularity, as the reward of 
 the exercise of an independent spirit and such talents as they 
 possess. It sometimes seems at first sight as if the low scur- 35 
 rihty and jargon of abuse by which it is attempted to overlay 
 all common sense and decency by the tissue of lies and nick- 
 names everlastingly repeated and applied indiscriminately 
 
44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 to all those who are not of the regular Government party, 
 was peculiar to the present time, and the anomalous growth 
 of modern criticism; but if we look back, we shall find the same 
 system acted upon as often as power, prejudice, dullness, and 
 5 spite found their account in playing the game into one an- 
 other's hands — in decrying popular efforts, and in giving 
 currency to every species of base metal that had their own 
 conventional stamp upon it. The names of Pope and Dry den 
 were assailed with daily and unsparing abuse; the epithet 
 
 10 A. P. E. was levelled at the sacred head of the former; and if 
 even men like these, having to deal with the consciousness of 
 their own infirmities and the insolence and spurns of wanton 
 enmity, must have found it hard to possess their souls in 
 patience, any living writer amidst such contradictory evidence 
 
 15 can scarcely expect to retain much calm, steady conviction 
 of his own merits, or build himself a secure reversion in im- 
 mortality. 
 
 However one may in a fit of spleen and impatience turn 
 round and assert' one's claims in the face of low-bred, hireling 
 
 20 malice, I will here repeat what I set out with saying, that there 
 never yet was a man of sense and proper spirit who would not 
 decline rather than court a comparison with any of those 
 names whose reputation he really emulates — who would not 
 be sorry to suppose that any of the great heirs of memory had 
 
 25 as many foibles as he knows himself to possess — and who 
 would not shrink from including himself or being included by 
 others in the same praise that was offered to long-established 
 and universally acknowledged merits, as a kind of profa- 
 nation. Those who are ready to fancy themselves Raphaels 
 
 30 and Homers are very inferior men indeed — they have not 
 even an idea of the mighty names that "they take in vain." 
 They are as deficient in pride as in modesty, and have not so 
 much as served an apprenticeship to a true and honourable 
 ambition. They mistake a momentary popularity for lasting 
 
 35 renown, and a sanguine temperament for the inspirations of 
 genius. The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling 
 in the mind to be "mixed up with realities — it is a solitary 
 abstraction, the secret sigh of the soul — 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 45 
 
 "It is all one as we should love 
 A bright particular star, and think to wed it. " 
 
 A name "fast-anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a 
 star twinkhng in the firmanent, cold, silent, distant, but 
 eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity 5 
 is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies. 
 If we are not contented with this feeling on the subject, we 
 shall never sit in Cassiopeia's chair, nor will our names, 
 studding Ariadne's crown or streaming with Berenice's locks, 
 ever make 10 
 
 "the face of heaven so bright, 
 That birds shall sing, and think it were not night." 
 
 Those who are in love only with noise and show, instead of 
 devoting themselves to a life of study, had better hire a booth 
 at Bartlemy Fair, or march at the head of a recruiting regi- 15 
 ment with drums beating and colours flying! 
 
 It has been urged that however little we may be disposed to 
 indulge the reflection at other times or out of mere seK-com- 
 placency, yet the mind cannot help being conscious of the 
 effort required for any great work while it is about it, of 20 
 
 "The high endeavour and the glad success." 
 
 I grant that there is a sense of power in such cases, with the 
 exception before stated; but then this very effort and state 
 of excitement engrosses the mind at the time, and leaves it 
 listless and exhausted afterwards. The energy we exert, or 25 
 the high state of enjoyment we feel, puts us out of conceit 
 with ourselves at other times; compared to what we are in 
 the act of composition, we seem dull, commonplace people, 
 generally speaking; and what we have been able to perform 
 is rather matter of wonder than of self -congratulation to us. 30 
 The stimulus of writing is like the stimulus of intoxication, 
 with which we can hardly sympathise in our sober moments, 
 when we are no longer under the inspiration of the demon, or 
 when the virtue is gone out of us. While we are engaged in 
 any work, we are thinking of the subject, and cannot stop to 35 
 admire ourselves; and when it is done, we look at it with 
 comparative indifference. I will venture to say that no one 
 
46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 but a pedant ever read his own works regularly through. 
 They are not his — they are become mere words, waste 
 paper, and have none of the glow, the creative enthusiasm, 
 the vehemence, and natural spirit with which he wrote them. 
 5 When we have once committed our thoughts to paper, written 
 them fairly out, and seen that they are right in the printing, if 
 we are in our right wits, we have done with them forever. I 
 sometimes try to read an article I have written in some 
 magazine or review — (for when they are bound up in a 
 
 10 volume, I dread the very sight of them) — but stop after a 
 sentence or two, and never recur to the task. I know pretty 
 well what I have to say on the subject, and do not want to 
 go to school to myself. It is the worst instance of the his 
 repetita crambe in the world. I do not think that even 
 
 15 painters have much dehght in looking at their works after they 
 are done. While they are in progress, there is a great degree 
 of satisfaction in considering what has been done, or what is 
 still to do — but this is hope, is reverie', and ceases with the 
 completion of our efforts. I should not imagine Raphael or 
 
 20 Correggio would have much pleasure in looking at their former 
 works, though they might recollect the pleasure they had had 
 in painting them; they might spy defects in them (for the 
 idea of unattainable perfection still keeps pace with our actual 
 approaches to it), and fancy that they were not worthy of 
 
 25 immortality. The greatest portrait painter the world ever 
 saw used to write under his pictures, "Titianus faciebat/' 
 signifying that they were imperfect; and in his letter to 
 Charles V accompanying one of his most admired works, he 
 only spoke of the time he had been about it. Annibal 
 
 30 Caracci boasted that he could do like Titian and Correggio, 
 and, like most boasters, was wrong. (See his spirited letter 
 to his cousin Ludovico, on seeing the pictures at Parma.) 
 
 The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading, while we are 
 young. I have had as much of tliis pleasure as perhaps 
 
 35 anyone. As I grow older, it fades; or else, the stronger 
 stimulus of writing takes off the edge of it. At present, I have 
 neither time nor inclination for it; yet I should like to devote a 
 year's entire leisure to a course of the English novelists; and 
 
IS GENIUS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 47 
 
 perhaps clap on that sly old knave, Sir Walter, to the end of 
 the Hst. It is astonishing how I used formerly to relish the 
 style of certain authors, at a time when I myself despaired of 
 ever writing a single line. Probably this was the reason. It is 
 not in mental as in natural ascent — intellectual objects seem 5 
 higher when we survey them from below, than when we look 
 down from any given elevation above the common level. My 
 three favourite writers about the time I speak of were Burke, 
 Junius, and Rousseau. I was never weary of admiring and 
 wondering at the felicities of the style, the turns of expression, lo 
 the refinements of thought and sentiment. I laid the book 
 down to find out the secret of so much strength and beauty, 
 and I took it up again in despair, to read on and admire. 
 So I passed whole days, months, and I may add, years; and 
 have only this to say now, that as my life began, so I could 15 
 wish that it may end. The last time I tasted this luxury in 
 its full perfection was one day after a sultry day's walk in 
 summer between Farnham and Alton. I was fairly tired 
 out; I walked into an inn-yard (I think at the latter place); 
 I was shown by the waiter to what looked at first like common 20 
 out-houses at the other end of it, but they turned out to be a 
 suite of rooms, probably a hundred years old — the one I 
 entered opened into an old-fashioned garden, embeUished 
 with beds of larkspur and a leaden Mercury; it was wain- 
 scotted, and there was a grave-looking, dark-coloured por-25 
 trait of Charles II hangmg over the tiled cliimney-piece. 
 I had Love for Love in my pocket, and began to read ; coffee 
 was brought in in a silver coffee-pot; the cream, the bread and 
 butter, everything was excellent, and the flavour of Con- 
 greve's style prevailed over all. I prolonged the entertain- 30 
 ment till a late hour, and rehshed this divine comedy better 
 even than when I used to see it played by Miss MeUon, as 
 Miss Lrue; Bob Palmer, as Tattle; and Bannister, as honest 
 Ben. This circumstance happened just five years ago, and it 
 seems like yesterday. If I count my fife so by lustres, it will 35 
 soon glide away; yet I shall not have to repine, if, while it 
 lasts, it is enriched with a few such recollections! 
 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 " This life is best, if quiet life is best." 
 
 Food, warmth, sleep, and a book; these are all I at present 
 ask — the ultima thule of my wandering desires. Do you 
 not then wish for 
 
 5 "A friend in your retreat, 
 
 Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet?" 
 
 Expected, well enough : — gone, still better. Such attractions 
 are strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress? "Beautiful 
 mask! I know thee!" When I can judge of the heart from 
 
 10 the face, of the thoughts from the lips, I may again trust 
 myseK. Instead of these, give me the robin red-breast, peck- 
 ing the crumbs at the door, or warbling on the leafless spray, 
 the same glancing form that has followed me wherever I have 
 been, and "done its spiriting gently;" or the rich notes of 
 
 15 the thrush that startle the ear of winter, and seem to have 
 drunk up the full draught of joy from the very sense of con- 
 trast. To these I adhere and am faithful, for they are true to 
 me; and, dear in themselves, are dearer for the sake of what 
 is departed, leading me back (by the hand) to that dreaming 
 
 20 world, in the innocence of which they sat and made sweet 
 music, waking the promise of future years, and answered by 
 the eager throbbings of my own breast. But now "the 
 credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er, " and I turn back from 
 the world that has deceived me, to nature that lent it a false 
 
 25 beauty and that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I 
 quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I love to watch the 
 clouds sailing from the west, and fancy that "the spring 
 comes slowly up this way." In this hope, while "fields are 
 dank and ways are mire," I follow the same direction to a 
 
 30 neighbouring wood, where, having gained the dry, level greens- 
 ward, I can see my way for a mile before me, closed in on 
 each side by copsewood, and ending in a point of light more or 
 
 48 
 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING 49 
 
 less brilliant, as the day is bright or cloudy. What a walk 
 is this to me! I have no need of book or companion — the 
 days, the hours, the thoughts of my youth are at my side 
 and blend with the air that fans my cheek. Here I can 
 saunter for hours, bending my eye forward, stopping and 5 
 turning to look back, thinking to strike off into some less 
 trodden path, yet hesitating to quit the one I am in, afraid to 
 snap the brittle threads of memory. I remark the shining 
 trunks and slender branches of the birch trees, waving in the 
 idle breeze; or a pheasant springs up on whirring wing; or 1 10 
 recall the spot where I once found a wood-pigeon at the foot of 
 a tree, weltering in its gore, and think how many seasons have 
 flo\vn since "it left its little life in air." Dates, names, faces 
 come back — to what purpose? Or why think of them now? 
 Or rather, why not think of them oftener? We walk through 15 
 life, as through a narrow path, with a thin curtain drawn 
 around it; behind are ranged rich portraits, airy harps are 
 strung — yet we will not stretch forth our hands and lift 
 aside the veil, to catch glimpses of the one, or sweep the 
 chords of the other. As in a theatre, when the old-fashioned 20 
 green curtain drew up, groups of figures, fantastic dresses, 
 laughing faces, rich banquets, stately columns, gleaming 
 vistas appeared beyond; so we have only at any time to 
 "peep through the blanket of the past/' to possess ourselves 
 at once of all that has regaled our senses, that is stored up in 25 
 our memory, that has struck our fancy, that has pierced our 
 hearts; — yet to all this we are indifferent, insensible, and 
 seem intent only on the present vexation, the future disap- 
 pointment. If there is a Titian hanging up in the room with 
 me, I scarcely regard it; how then should I be expected to 30 
 strain the mental eye so far, or to throw down, by the magic 
 spells of the will, the stone walls that enclose it in the Louvre? 
 There is one head there of which I have often thought, when 
 looking at it, that nothing should ever disturb me again, and 
 I would become the character it represents — such perfect 35 
 calmness and self-possession reigns in it! Why do I not hang 
 an image of this in some dusky comer of my brain and turn 
 an eye upon it ever and anon, as I have need of some such talis- 
 
50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 man to calm my troubled thoughts? The attempt is fruit- 
 less, if not natural; or, like that of the French, to hang gar- 
 lands on the grave, and to conjure back the dead by miniature 
 pictures of them while living! It is only some actual coin- 
 5 cidence or local association that tends, without violence, to 
 ''open all the cells where memory slept." I can easily, by 
 stooping over the long-sprent grass and clay-cold clod, recall 
 the tufts of primroses, or purple hyacinths, that formerly grew 
 on the same spot, and cover the bushes with leaves and sing- 
 le ing birds, as they were eighteen summers ago ; or prolonging 
 my walk and hearing the sighing gale rustle through a tall, 
 straight wood at the end of it, can fancy that I distinguish the 
 cry of hounds, and the fatal group issuing from it, as in the 
 tale of Theodore and Honoria. A moaning gust of wind aids 
 15 the behef ; I look once more to see whether the trees before me 
 answer to the idea of the horror-stricken grove, and an air- 
 built city towers over their grey tops. 
 
 "Of all the cities in Romanian lands, 
 The chief and most renown'd Ravenna stands." 
 
 20 1 return home resolved to read the entire poem through, and, 
 after dinner, drawing my chair to the fire, and holding a small 
 print close to my eyes, launch into the full tide of Dryden's 
 couplets (a stream of sound), comparing his didactic and de- 
 scriptive pomp with the simple pathos and picturesque truth 
 
 25 of Boccaccio's story, and tasting with a pleasure, which none 
 but an habitual reader can feel, some quaint examples of 
 pronunciation in this accomplished versifier. 
 
 "Which when Honoria view'd, 
 The fresh impulse her former fright renew'd." 
 30 Theodore and Honoria 
 
 "And made th' insult, which in his grief appears, 
 The means to mourn thee with my pious tears. " 
 
 Sigismonda and Guiscardo 
 
 These trifling instances of the wavering and unsettled state of 
 35 the language give double effect to the firm and stately march 
 of the verse, and make me dwell with a sort of tender interest 
 on the difliculties and doubts of an earlier period of literature. 
 They pronounced words then in a manner which we should 
 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY- WRITING 51 
 
 laugh at now; and they wrote verse in a manner which we can 
 do anything but laugh at. The pride of a new acquisition 
 seems to give fresh confidence to it ; to impel the rolling syl- 
 lables through the moulds provided for them, and to overflow 
 the envious bounds of rhjnne into time-honoured triplets. 5 
 I am much pleased with Leigh Hunt's mention of Moore's 
 involuntary admiration of Dryden's free, unshackled verse, 
 and of his repeating con amore, and with an Irish spirit and 
 accent, the fine lines — 
 
 "Let honour and preferment go for gold, 10 
 
 But glorious beauty isn't to be sold." 
 
 What sometimes surprises me in looking back to the past, is, 
 with the exception already stated, to find myself so little 
 changed in the time. The same images and trains of thought 
 stick by me; I have the same tastes, likings, sentiments, and 15 
 wishes that I had then. One great ground of confidence and 
 support has, indeed, been struck from under my feet; but I 
 have made it up to myself by proportionable pertinacity of 
 opinion. The success of the great cause, to which I had 
 vowed myself, was to me more than all the world; I had a 20 
 strength in its strength, a resource which I knew not of, till 
 it failed me for the second time. 
 
 "Fall'n was Glenartny's stately tree! 
 Oh! ne'er to see Lord Ronald more!" 
 
 It was not till I saw the axe laid to the root, that I found the 25 
 full extent of what I had to lose and suffer. But my convic- 
 tion of the right was only established by the triumph of the 
 wrong; and my earliest hopes will be my last regrets. One 
 source of this unbendingness (which some may call obstinacy), 
 is that, though living much alone, I have never worshipped 30 
 the echo. I see plainly enough that black is not white, that 
 the grass is green, that kings are not their subjects; and, in 
 such self-evident cases, do not think it necessary to collate 
 my opinions with the received prejudices. In subtler ques- 
 tions, and matters that admit of doubt, as I do not impose 35 
 my opinion on others without a reason, so I will not give up 
 mine to them without a better reason; and a person calling me 
 
52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 names, or giving himseK airs of authority, does not convince 
 me of his having taken more pains to find out the truth than 
 I have, but the contrary. Mr. Gifford once said, that "while 
 I was sitting over my gin and tobacco pipes, I fancied myself 
 5 a Leibnitz. " He did not so much as know that I had ever 
 read a metaphysical book: — was I therefore, out of com- 
 plaisance or deference to him, to forget whether I had or not? 
 I am rather disappointed, both on my own account and his, 
 that Mr. Hunt has missed the opportunity of explaining the 
 
 10 character of a friend as clearly as he might have done. He 
 is puzzled to reconcile the shyness of my pretensions with the 
 inveteracy and sturdiness of my principles. I should have 
 thought they were nearly the same thing. Both from dis- 
 position and habit, I can assume nothing in word, look, or 
 
 15 manner. I cannot steal a march upon public opinion in any 
 way. My standing upright, speaking loud, entering a room 
 gracefully, proves nothing; therefore I neglect these ordinary 
 means of recommending myself to the good graces and admira- 
 tion of strangers (and, as it appears, even of philosophers and 
 
 20 friends). Why? Because I have other resources, or, at least, 
 am absorbed in other studies and pursuits. Suppose this 
 absorption to be extreme, and even morbid — that I have 
 brooded over an idea till it has become a kind of substance in 
 my brain, that I have reasons for a thing which I have found 
 
 25 out with much labour and pains, and to which I can scarcely 
 do justice without the utmost violence of exertion (and that 
 only to a few persons) — is this a reason for my playing off 
 my out-of-the-way notions in all companies, wearing a prim 
 and self-complacent air, as if I were "the admired of all ob- 
 
 30 servers"? or is it not rather an argument (together with a 
 want of animal spirits), why I should retire into myself, and 
 perhaps acquire a nervous and uneasy look, from a conscious- 
 ness of the disproportion between the interest and conviction 
 I feel on certain subjects, and my ability to communicate what 
 
 35 weighs upon my own mind to others? If my ideas, which I 
 do not avouch, but suppose, lie below the surface, why am I 
 to be always attempting to dazzle superficial people with them, 
 or smiling, delighted, at my own want of success? 
 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING 53 
 
 What I have here stated is only the excess of the common 
 and well-known English and scholastic character. I am 
 neither a buffoon, a fop, nor a Frenchman, which Mr. Hmit 
 would have me to be. He finds it odd that I am a close 
 reasoner and a loose dresser. I have been (among other foUies) 5 
 a hard liver as well as a hard thinker; and the consequences 
 of that will not allow me to dress as I please. People in 
 real life are not lilvc players on a stage, who put on a certain 
 look or costume, merely for effect. I am aware, indeed, that 
 the gay and airy pen of the author does not seriously probe 10 
 the errors or misfortunes of his friends — he only glances at 
 their seeming peculiarities, so as to make them odd and 
 ridiculous; for which forbearance few of them will thank 
 him. Why does he assert that I was vain of my hair when it 
 was black, and am equally vain of it now it is grey, when this 15 
 is true in neither case? This transposition of motives makes 
 me almost doubt whether Lord Byron was thinking so much 
 of the rings on his fingers as his biographer was. These sort 
 of criticisms should be left to women. I am made to wear 
 a little hat, stuck on the top of my head the wrong way. Nay, 20 
 I commonly wear a large sloucliing hat over my eyebrows; 
 and if ever I had another, I must have twisted it about in any 
 shape to get rid of the annoyance. This probably tickled 
 Mr. Hunt's fancy and retains possession of it, to the exclusion 
 of the obvious truism that I naturally wear "a melancholy 25 
 hat." 
 
 I am charged with using strange gestures and contortions 
 of features in argument, in order to '4ook energetic." One 
 would rather suppose that the heat of the argument produced 
 the extravagance of the gestures, as I am said to be calm at 30 
 other times. It is like saying that a man in a passion clenches 
 his teeth, not because he is, but in order to seem, angry. Why 
 should everything be construed into air and affectation? 
 With Hamlet, I may say, '^I know not seems. ^^ 
 
 Again, my old friend and pleasant "Companion" remarks 35 
 it, as an anomaly in my character, that I crawl about the 
 fives-court like a cripple till I get the racket in my hand, 
 when I start up as if I was possessed with a devil. I have 
 
54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 then a motive for exertion; I lie by for difficulties and ex- 
 treme cases. Aut Coesar aut nullus. I have no notion of 
 doing nothing with an air of importance, nor should I ever 
 take a liking to the game of battledoor and shuttlecock. I 
 5 have only seen by accident a page of the unpublished manu- 
 script relating to the present subject, which I dare say is, on 
 the whole, friendly and just, and which has been suppressed 
 as being too favourable, considering certain prejudices against 
 me. 
 
 10 In matters of taste and feeling, one proof that my conclu- 
 sions have not been quite shallow or hasty, is the circum- 
 stance of their having been lasting. I have the same favour- 
 ite books, pictures, passages that I ever had; I may therefore 
 presume that they will last me my life — nay, I may indulge 
 
 15 a hope that my thoughts will survive me. This continuity 
 of impression is the only thing on which I pride myself. 
 
 Even L , whose relish on certain things is as keen and 
 
 earnest as possible, takes a surfeit of admiration, and I 
 should be afraid to ask about his select authors or particular 
 
 20 friends, after a lapse of ten years. As to myself, anyone 
 knows where to have me. What I have once made up my 
 mind to, I abide by to the end of the chapter. One cause of 
 my independence of opinion is, I believe, the liberty I give 
 to others, or the very diffidence and distrust of making con- 
 
 25 verts. I should be an excellent man on a jury: I might say 
 little, but should starve ''the other eleven obstinate fellows'^ 
 out. I remember Mr. Godwin writing to Mr. Wordsworth 
 that ''his tragedy of Antonio could not fail of success." It 
 was damned past all redemption. I said to Mr. Wordsworth 
 
 30 that I thought this a natural consequence > for how could any 
 one have a dramatic turn of mind who judged entirely of 
 others from himself? Mr. Godwin might be convinced of the 
 excellence of his work; but how could he know that others 
 would be convinced of it, unless by supposing that they were 
 
 35 as wise as himself, and as infallible critics of dramatic poetry 
 — so many Aristotles sitting in judgment on Euripides! 
 This shows why pride is connected with shyness and reserve; 
 for the really proud have not so high an opinion of the gener^ 
 
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING 55 
 
 ality as to suppose that they can understand them, or that 
 there is any common measure between them. So Dry den 
 exclaims of his opponents with* bitter disdain — 
 
 "Nor can I thiuk what thoughts they can conceive." 
 
 I have not sought to make partisans, still less did I dream of 5 
 making enemies; and have therefore kept my opinions my- 
 self, whether they were currently adopted or not. To get 
 others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to 
 theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead. At the 
 time I lived here formerly, I had no suspicion that I should 10 
 ever become a voluminous writer; yet I had just the same 
 confidence in my feelings before I had ventured to air them 
 in public as I have now. Neither the outcry for or against 
 moves me a jot; I do not say that the one is not more agree- 
 able than the other. 15 
 
 Not far from the spot where I write, I first read Chaucer's 
 Flower and Leaf, and was charmed with that young beauty, 
 shrouded in her bower, and listening with ever-fresh delight 
 to the repeated song of the nightingale close by her — the 
 impression of the scene, the vernal landscape, the cool of the 20 
 morning, the gushing notes of the songstress, 
 
 "And ayen, methought she sung close by mine ear," 
 
 is as vivid as if it had been of yesterday; and nothing can 
 persuade me that that is not a fine poem. I do not find this 
 impression conveyed in Dryden's version, and therefore noth- 25 
 ing can persuade me that that is as fine. I used to walk out 
 
 at this time with Mr. and Miss L of an evening to look 
 
 at the Claude Lorraine skies over our heads, melting from 
 azure into purple and gold, and to gather mushrooms, that 
 sprung up at our feet, to throw into our hashed mutton at 30 
 supper. I was at that time an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Claude, and could dwell forever on one or two of the finest 
 prints from him hung round my little room: the fleecy flocks, 
 the bending trees, the winding streams, the groves, the 
 nodding temples, the air-wove hills, and distant sunny vales; 35 
 and tried to translate them into their lovely living hues. 
 
56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCE 
 
 People then told me that Wilson was much superior to Claude. 
 I did not believe them. Their pictures have since been seen 
 together at the British Institution, and all the world have 
 come into my opinion. I have not, on that account, given 
 5 it up. I will not compare our hashed mutton with Ameha's; 
 but it put us in mind of it, and led to a discussion, sharply- 
 seasoned and well sustained, till midnight, the result of which 
 appeared some years after in the Edinburgh Review. Have I 
 a better opinion of those criticisms on that account, or should 
 
 10 1 therefore maintain them with greater vehemence and tena- 
 ciousness? Oh, no! Both rather with less, now that they 
 are before the public, and it is for them to make their election. 
 It is in looking back to such scenes that I draw my best con- 
 solation for the future. Later impressions come and go, and 
 
 15 serve to fill up the intervals; but these are my standing re- 
 source, my true classics. If I have had few real pleasures or 
 advantages, my ideas, from their sinewy texture, have been 
 to me in the nature of realities; and if I should not be able to 
 add to the stock, I can live by husbanding the interest. As 
 
 20 to my speculations, there is little to admire in them but my 
 admiration of others; and whether they have an echo in time 
 to come or not, I have learned to set a grateful value on the 
 past, and am content to wind up the account of what is per- 
 sonal only to myself and the immediate circle of objects in 
 
 25 which I have moved, with an act of easy oblivion, 
 
 "And curtain close such scene from every future view." 
 
ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 The study of the classics is less to be regarded as an exer- 
 cise of the intellect, than as a "discipline of humanity." 
 The peculiar advantage of this mode of education consists 
 not so much in strengthening the understanding, as in soften- 
 ing and refining the taste. It gives men liberal views; it 5 
 accustoms the mind to take an interest in things foreign to 
 itself; to love virtue for its own sake; to prefer fame to life, 
 glory to riches; and to fix our thoughts on the remote and 
 permanent, instead of narrow and fleeting objects. It teaches 
 us to believe that there is something really great and excellent 10 
 in the world, survivmg all the shocks of accident and fluc- 
 tuations of opinion,' and raises us above that low and servile 
 fear which bows only to present power and upstart authority. 
 Rome and Athens filled a place in the history of mankind, 
 which can never be occupied again. They were two cities 15 
 set on a hill, which could not be hid; aU eyes have seen them, 
 and their light shines like a mighty sea-mark into the abyss 
 of time. 
 
 "Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, 
 
 Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; 20 
 
 Secure from flames, from envy's fiercest rage, 
 
 Destructive war, and all-involving age. 
 
 Hail, bards triumphant, born in happier days, 
 
 Immortal heirs of universal praise! 
 
 Whose honours with increasing ages, grow, 25 
 
 As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow!" 
 
 It is this feeling, more than anything else, which produces 
 a marked difference between the study of the ancient and 
 modern languages, and which, from the weight and importance 
 of the consequences attached to the former, stamps every 30 
 word with a monumental firmness. By conversing with the 
 mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge; we become 
 strongly attached to those who can no longer hurt or serve 
 us, except through the influence which they exert over the 
 
 57 
 
58 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives im- 
 mortaUty to human thoughts and actions, and catch the 
 flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages. 
 
 It is hard to find in minds otherwise formed, either a real 
 
 5 love of excellence, or a behef that any excellence exists 
 superior to their own. Everything is brought down to the 
 vulgar level of their own ideas and pursuits. Persons with- 
 out education certainly do not want either acuteness or 
 strength of mind in what concerns themselves or in things 
 
 10 immediately within their observation; but they have no 
 power of abstraction, no general standard of taste or scale 
 of opinion. They see their objects always near, and never 
 in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been 
 remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men, and which 
 
 15 degenerates into obstinate prejudice or petulant fickleness of 
 opinion, according to the natural sluggishness or activity of 
 their minds. For they either become blindly bigoted to the 
 first opinions they have struck out for themselves, and in- 
 accessible to conviction ; or else (the dupes of their own van- 
 
 20 ity and shrewdness) are everlasting converts to every crude 
 suggestion that presents itself, and the last opinion is al- 
 ways the true one. Each successive discovery flashes upon 
 them with equal light and evidence, and every new fact 
 overturns their whole system. It is among this class of 
 
 25 persons, whose ideas never extend beyond the feeling of the 
 moment, that we find partisans, who are very honest men, 
 with a total want of principle, and who unite the most hard- 
 ened effrontery and intolerance of opinion, to endless in- 
 consistency and self-contradiction. 
 
 30 A celebrated political writer of the present day, who is a 
 great enemy to classical education, is a remarkable instance 
 both of what can and what cannot be done without it. 
 
 It has been attempted of late to set up a distinction between 
 the education of words, and the education of things, and to 
 
 35 give the preference in all cases to the latter. But, in the 
 first place, the knowledge of things, or of the realities of life, 
 is not easily to be taught except by things themselves, and, 
 even if it were, it is not so absolutely indispensable as it has 
 
ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION 59 
 
 been supposed. "The world is too much with us, early and 
 late"; and the fine dream of our youth is best prolonged 
 among the visionary objects of antiquity. We owe many 
 of our most amiable delusions, and some of our superiority, 
 to the grossness of mere physical existence, to the strength of 5 
 our associations with words. Language, if it throws a veil 
 over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like 
 that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects. There 
 can be no true elegance without taste in style. In the next 
 place, we mean absolutely to deny the application of the 10 
 principle of utility to the present question. By an obvious 
 transposition of ideas, some persons have confounded a 
 knowledge of useful things with useful knowledge. Knowl- 
 edge is only useful in itself as it exercises or gives pleasure 
 to the mind : the only knowledge that is of use in a practical 15 
 sense, is professional knowledge. But knowledge, considered 
 as a branch of general education, can be of use only to the 
 mind of the person acquiring it. If the knowledge of lan- 
 guage produces pedants, the other kind of knowledge (which 
 is supposed to be substituted for it) can only produce quacks. 20 
 There is no question but that the knowledge of astronomy, 
 of chemistry, and of agriculture, is highly useful to the world, 
 and absolutely necessary to be acquired by persons carrying 
 on certain professions; but the practical utiKty of a knowl- 
 edge of these subjects ends there. For example, it is of the 25 
 utmost importance to the navigator to know exactly in what 
 degree of longitude and latitude such a rock lies; but to us, 
 sitting here about our Round Table, it is not of the smallest 
 consequence whatever, whether the map-maker has placed it 
 an inch to the right or to the left; we are in no danger of run- 30 
 ning against it. So the art of making shoes is a highly useful 
 art, and very proper to be known and practised by somebody: 
 that is, by the shoemaker. But to pretend that everyone 
 else should be thoroughly acquainted with the whole process 
 of this ingenious handicraft, as one branch of useful knowl-35 
 edge, would be preposterous. It is sometimes asked, what is 
 the use of poetry, and we have heard the argument carried 
 on ahnost like a parody of Falstaff's reasoning about Honour. 
 
60 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 "Can it set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the 
 grief of a wound? No. Poetry hath no skill in surgery then? 
 No." It is likely that the most enthusiastic lover of poetry 
 would so far agree to the truth of this statement, that if he 
 5 had just broken a leg, he would send for a surgeon, instead 
 of a volume of poems from a library. But, "they that are 
 whole need not a physician. " The reasoning would be well 
 founded if we lived in a hospital and not in the world. 
 
ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED 
 
 "For the more languages a man can speak, 
 His talent has but sprung the greater leak; 
 And, for the industry he has spent upon 't, 
 Must full as much some other way discount. 
 The Hebrew, Chaldee, and the Syriac 5 
 
 Do, like their letters, set men's reason back. 
 And turn their wits that strive to understand it 
 (Like those that write the characters) left-handed. 
 Yet he that is but able to express 
 
 No sense at all in several languages, 10 
 
 Will pass for learneder than he that's known 
 To speak the strongest reason in his own." 
 
 The description of persons who have the fewest ideas of all 
 others are mere authors and readers. It is better to be able 
 neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else. 15 
 A lounger who is ordinarily seen with a book in his hand is 
 (we may be almost sure) equally without the power or in- 
 clination to attend either to what passes around him or in 
 his own mind. Such a one may be said to carry his under- 
 standing about with him in his pocket, or to leave it at home 20 
 on his Hbrary shelves. He is afraid of venturing on any train 
 of reasoning, or of striking out any observation that is not 
 mechanically suggested to him by passing his eyes over certain 
 legible characters ; shrinks from the fatigue of thought, which, 
 for want of practice, becomes insupportable to him; and sits 25 
 down contented with an endless wearisome succession of 
 words and half -formed images which fill the void of the mind 
 and continuaUy efface one another. Learning is, in too many 
 cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true 
 knowledge. Books are less often made use of as "spectacles " 30 
 to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong 
 light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dis- 
 positions. The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of 
 verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of 
 things reflected from the minds of others. Nature puts him 35 
 
 61 
 
62 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 out. The impressions of real objects, stripped of the dis- 
 guises of words and voluminous roundabout descriptions, are 
 blows that stagger him; their variety distracts, their rapidity 
 exhausts him; and he turns from the bustle, the noise, and 
 
 5 glare, and whirling motion of the world about him (which he 
 has not an eye to follow in its fantastic changes, nor an under- 
 standing to reduce to fixed principles), to the quiet monotony 
 of the dead languages, and the less startling and more in- 
 telUgible combinations of the letters of the alphabet. It is 
 
 10 well, it is perfectly well. "Leave me to my repose," is the 
 motto of the sleeping and the dead. You might as well ask 
 the paralytic to leap from his chair and throw away his 
 crutch, or, without a miracle, to "take up his bed and walk, " 
 as expect the learned reader to throw down his book and think 
 
 15 for himself. He chngs to it for his intellectual support; 
 and his dread of being left to himself is lil^e the horror of a 
 vacuum. He can only breathe a learned atmosphere, as 
 other men breathe common air. He is a borrower of sense. 
 He has no ideas of his own, and must live on those of other 
 
 20 people. The habit of supplying our ideas from foreign 
 sources "enfeebles all internal strength of thought," as a 
 course of dram-drinking destroys the tone of the stomach. 
 The faculties of the mind, when not exerted, or when cramped 
 by custom and authority, become listless, torpid, and unfit 
 
 25 for the purposes of thought or action. Can we wonder at 
 the languor and lassitude which is thus produced by a life of 
 learned sloth and ignorance; by poring over lines and syl- 
 lables that excite little more idea or interest than if they were 
 the characters of an unknown tongue, till the eye closes on 
 
 30 vacancy, and the book drops from the feeble hand! I would 
 rather be a wood-cutter, or the meanest hind, that all day 
 "sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and at night sleeps in Ely- 
 sium, " than wear out my life so, 'twixt dreaming and awake. 
 The learned author differs from the learned student in this, 
 
 35 that the one transcribes what the other reads. The learned 
 are mere literary drudges. If you set them upon original 
 composition, their heads turn; they don't know where they 
 are. The indefatigable readers of books are like the ever- 
 
''on the ignorance of the learned 63 
 
 lasting copiers of pictures, who, when they attempt to do 
 anything of their own, find they want an eye quick enough, 
 a hand steady enough, and colours bright enough, to trace the 
 living forms of nature. 
 
 Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a 5 
 classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider 
 himself as having had a very narrow escape. It is an old 
 remark, that boys who shine at school do not make the 
 greatest figure when they grow up and come out into the 
 world. The things, in fact, which a boy is set to learn at 10 
 school, and on wliich his success depends, are things which 
 do not require the exercise either of the highest or the most 
 useful faculties of the mind. Memory (and that of the lowest 
 kind) is the chief faculty called into play in conning over and 
 repeating lessons by rote in grammar, in languages, in geog- 15 
 raphy, arithmetic, etc., so that he who has the most of this 
 technical memory, with the least turn for other things which 
 have a stronger and more natural claim upon his childish 
 attention, will make the most forward school-boy. The 
 jargon containing the definitions of the parts of speech, the 20 
 rules for casting up an account, or the inflections of a Greek 
 verb can have no attraction to the tyro of ten years old, ex- 
 cept as they are imposed as a task upon him by others, or 
 from his feelmg the want of sufficient rehsh or amusement 
 in other things. A lad with a sickly constitution, and no 25 
 very active mind, who can just retain what is pointed out to 
 him, and has neither sagacity to distinguish nor spirit to en- 
 joy for himself, will generally be at the head of his form. An 
 idler at school, on the other hand, is one who has high health 
 and spirits, who has the free use of his limbs, with all his wits 30 
 about him, who feels the circulation of his blood and the 
 motion of his heart, who is ready to laugh and cry in a breath, 
 and who had rather chase a ball or a butterfly, feel the open 
 air in his face, look at the fields or the sky, follow a winding 
 path, or enter with eagerness into aU the little conflicts and 35 
 interests of his acquaintances and friends, than doze over a 
 musty spelling-book, repeat barbarous distichs after his mas- 
 ter, sit so many hours pinioned to a writing desk, and receive 
 
64 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 his reward for the loss of time and pleasure in paltry prize 
 medals at Christmas and Midsummer. There is indeed a 
 degree of stupidity which prevents children from learning the 
 usual lessons, or ever arriving at these puny academic honours. 
 5 But what passes for stupidity is much oftener a want of inter- 
 est, of a sufficient motive to fix the attention and force a 
 reluctant application to the dry and unmeaning pursuits of 
 school-learning. The best capacities are as much above this 
 drudgery, as the dullest are beneath it. Our men of the 
 10 greatest genius have not been most distinguished for their 
 acquirements at school or at the university. 
 
 "Th' enthusiast Fancy was a truant ever." 
 
 Gray and Collins were among the instances of this wayward 
 disposition. Such persons do not think so highly of the ad- 
 
 15 vantages, nor can they submit their imaginations so ser- 
 vilely to the trammels of strict scholastic discipline. There 
 is a certain kind and degree of intellect in which words take 
 root, but into which things have not power to penetrate. 
 A mediocrity of talent, with a certain slenderness of moral 
 
 20 constitution, is the soil that produces the most brilliant 
 specimens of successful prize-essayists and Greek epigram- 
 matists. It should not be forgotten, that the least respectable 
 character among modern politicians was the cleverest boy 
 at Eton. 
 
 25 Learning is the knowledge of that which is not generally 
 known to others, and which we can only derive at second-hand 
 from books or other artificial sources. The knowledge of 
 that which is before us, or about us, which appeals to our 
 experience, passions, and pursuits, to the bosoms and busi- 
 
 30 nesses of men, is not learning. Learning is the knowledge of 
 that which none but the learned know. He is the most 
 learned man who knows the most of what is farthest removed 
 from common life and actual observation, that is of the least 
 practical utility, and least liable to. be brought to the test of 
 
 35 experience, and thatj having been handed down through the 
 greatest number of intermediate stages, is the most full of 
 uncertainty, difficulties, and contradictions. It is seeing 
 
ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED 65 
 
 with the eyes of others, hearing with their ears, and pinning 
 our faith on their understandings. The learned man prides 
 himself in the knowledge of names, and dates, not of men or 
 things. He thinks and cares nothing about his next-door 
 neighbours, but he is deeply read in the tribes and casts of 5 
 the Hindoos and Cahnuc Tartars. He can hardly find liis 
 way into the next street, though he is acquainted with the 
 exact dimensions of Constantinople and Pekin. He does not 
 know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, 
 but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal 10 
 characters in history. He cannot tell whether an object is 
 black or white, round or square, and yet he is a professed 
 master of the laws of optics and the rules of perspective. He 
 knows as much of what he talks about as a blind man does of 
 colours. He cannot give a satisfactory answer to the plain- 15 
 est question, nor is he ever in the right in any one of his 
 opinions, upon any one matter of fact that really comes 
 before him, and yet he gives himself out for an infallible 
 judge on all those points of which it is impossible that he or 
 any other person living should know anything but by con- 20 
 jecture. He is expert in all the dead and in most of the hving 
 languages; but he can neither speak his own fluently, nor 
 write it correctly. A person of this class, the second Greek 
 scholar of his day, undertook to point out several solecisms 
 in Milton's Latin style; and in his own performance there is 25 
 
 hardly a sentence of common English. Such was Dr. . 
 
 Such is Dr. . Such was not Porson. He was an ex- 
 ception that confirmed the general rule — a man that, by 
 uniting talents and knowledge with learning, made the dis- 
 tinction between them more striking and palpable. 30 
 
 A mere scholar, who loiows nothing but books, must be 
 ignorant even of them. "Books do not teach the use of 
 books.'' How should he know anything of a work, who 
 knows nothing of the subject of it? The learned pedant is 
 conversant with books only as they are made of other books, 35 
 and those again of others, without end. He parrots those 
 who have parroted others. He can translate the same word 
 into ten different languages, but he knows nothing of the 
 
66 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 thing which it means in any one of them. He stuffs his head 
 with authorities built on authorities, with quotations quoted 
 from quotations, while he locks up his senses, his understand- 
 ing, and his heart. He is unacquainted with the maxims and 
 5 manners of the world; he is to seek in the characters of in- 
 dividuals. He sees no beauty in the face of nature or of art. 
 To him ''the mighty world of eye and ear" is hid; and 
 ''knowledge," except at one entrance, "quite shut out." 
 His pride takes part with his ignorance; and his self-impor- 
 
 10 tance rises with the number of things of which he does not 
 know the value, and which he therefore despises as unworthy 
 of his notice. He knows nothing of pictures ; — " of the colour- 
 ing of Titian, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, 
 the corregiescity of Corregio, the learning of Poussin, the airs 
 
 15 of Guido, the taste of the Caracci, or the grand contour of 
 Michael Angelo," — of all those glories of the Italian and 
 miracles of the Flemish school, which have filled the eyes of 
 mankind with delight, and to the study and imitation of 
 which thousands have in vain devoted their lives. These 
 
 20 are to him as if they had never been, a mere dead letter, 
 a byword; and no wonder: for he neither sees nor under- 
 stands their prototypes in nature. A print of Rubens's 
 Watering-place, or Claude's Enchanted Castle, may be hang- 
 ing on the walls of his room for months without his once per- 
 
 25 ceiving them; and if you point them out to him, he will turn 
 away from them. The language of nature, or of art (which is 
 another nature), is one that he does not understand. He 
 repeats indeed the names of Apelles and Phidias, because they 
 are to be found in classic authors, and boasts of their works 
 
 30 as prodigies, because they no longer exist; or, when he sees 
 the finest remains of Grecian art actually before him in 
 the Elgin marbles, takes no other interest in them than as- 
 they lead to a learned dispute, and (which is the same thing) 
 a quarrel about the meaning of a Greek particle. He is 
 
 35 equally ignorant of music; he "knows no touch of it," from 
 the strains of the all-accomplished Mozart to the shepherd's 
 pipe upon the mountain. His ears are nailed to his books; 
 and deadened with the sound of the Greek and Latin tongues, 
 
ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED 67 
 
 and the din and smitheiy of school-learning. Does he know 
 anything more of poetry? He knows the number of feet in a 
 verse, and of acts in a play; but of the soul or spirit he knows 
 nothmg. He can turn a Greek ode into English, or a Latin 
 epigram into Greek verse, but whether either is worth the 5 
 trouble, he leaves to the critics. Does he understand 'Hhe 
 act and practique part of life" better than ''the theorique?" 
 No. He knows no liberal or mechanic art; no trade or oc- 
 cupation; no game of skill or chance. Learning "has no 
 skill in surgery, " in agriculture, in building, in working in 10 
 wood or in iron; it caimot make any instrument of labour, 
 or use it when made ; it cannot handle the plough or the spade, 
 or the chisel or the hammer; it knows nothing of hunting or 
 hawking, fishing or shooting, of horses or dogs, of fencing or 
 dancing, or cudgel-playing, or bowls, or cards, or tennis, or 15 
 anything else. The learned professor of all arts and sciences 
 cannot reduce any one of them to practice, though he may 
 contribute an account of them to an Encyclopaedia. He has 
 not the use of his hands or of his feet; he can neither run, nor 
 walk, nor swim; and he considers all those who actually imder- 20 
 stand and can exercise any of these arts of body or mind, as 
 vulgar and mechanical men; — though to know almost any 
 one of them in perfection requires long time and practice, 
 with powers originally fitted, and a turn of mind particularly 
 devoted to them. It does not require more than this to 25 
 enable the learned candidate to arrive, by painful study, at a 
 doctor's degree and a fellowship, and to eat, drink, and sleep, 
 the rest of his life! 
 
 The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is con- 
 fined to a very small compass : to their daily affairs and ex- 30 
 perience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and 
 motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and 
 imposture. The common people have the use of their limbs; 
 for they live by their labour or skill. They understand their 
 own business and the characters of those they have to deal 35 
 with; for it is necessary that they should. They have elo- 
 quence to express their passions, and wit at will to express 
 their contempt and provoke laughter. Their natural use of 
 
68 PHILOSOPHY ANL REFLECTION 
 
 speech is not hung up in monumental mockery, in an obsolete 
 language; nor is their sense of what is ludicrous, or readiness 
 at finding out allusions to express it, buried in collections of 
 Anas. You will hear more good things on the outside of a 
 
 5 stagecoach from London to Oxford, than if you were to pass 
 a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of col- 
 leges, of that famous university; and more home truths are to 
 be learnt from listening to a noisy debate in an alehouse, 
 than from attending to a formal one in the House of Commons. 
 
 10 An elderly country gentlewoman will often know more of 
 character, and be able to illustrate it by more amusing anec- 
 dotes taken from the history of what has been said, done, and 
 gossiped in a country town for the last fifty years, than the 
 best blue-stocking of the age will be able to glean from that 
 
 15 sort of learning which consists in an acquaintance with all 
 the novels and satirical poems published in the same period. 
 People in towns, indeed, are woefully deficient in a knowledge 
 of character, which they see only in the bust, not as a whole- 
 length. People in the country not only know all that has 
 
 20 happened to a man, but trace his virtues or vices, as they do 
 his features, in their descent through several generations, and 
 solve some contradiction in his behaviour by a cross in the 
 breed, half a century ago. The learned know nothing of the 
 matter, either in town or country. Above all, the mass of 
 
 25 society have common sense, which the learned in all ages 
 want. The vulgar are in the right when they judge for them- 
 selves; they are wrong when they trust to their blind guides. 
 The celebrated nonconformist divine, Baxter, was almost 
 stoned to death by the good women of Kidderminster, for 
 
 30 asserting from the pulpit that ''hell was paved with infants' 
 skulls"; but, by the force of argument and of learned quo- 
 tations from the Fathers, the reverend preacher at length 
 prevailed over the scruples of his congregation, and over 
 reason and humanity. 
 
 35 Such is the use which has been made of human learning. 
 The labourers in this vineyard seem as if it was their object to 
 confound all common sense, and the distinctions of good and 
 evil, by means of traditional maxims and preconceived no- 
 
ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED 69 
 
 tions, taken upon trust, and increasing in absurdity witli 
 increase of age. They pile hypothesis on hypothesis, moun- 
 tain high, till it is impossible to come at the plain truth on 
 any question. They see things, not as they are, but as they 
 find them in books; and "wink and shut their apprehensions 5 
 up," in order that they may discover nothing to interfere 
 with their prejudices or convince them of their absurdity. 
 It might be supposed that the height of hmnan wisdom con- 
 sisted in maintaining contradictions and rendering nonsense 
 sacred. There is no dogma, however fierce or foolish, to 10 
 which these persons have not set their seals and tried to 
 impose on the understandings of their followers, as the will 
 of Heaven, clothed with all the terrors and sanctions of 
 religion. How httle has the human understanding been 
 directed to find out the true and useful! How much in- 15 
 genuity has been thrown away in the defense of creeds and 
 systems! How much time and talents have been wasted in 
 theological controversy, in law, in pohtics, in verbal criticism, 
 in judicial astrology, and in finding out the art of making 
 gold! What actual benefit do we reap from the writings of 20 
 a Laud or a Whitgift, or of Bishop Bull or Bishop Waterland, 
 or Prideaux' Connedmis, or Beausobre, or Calmet, or St. 
 Augustine, or Puffendorf, or Vattel, or from the more literal 
 but equally learned and unprofitable labours of Scaliger, 
 Cardan, and Scioppius? How many grains of sense are there 25 
 in their thousand foho or quarto volumes? What would the 
 world lose if they were committed to the flames to-morrow? 
 Or are they not already "gone to the vault of all the Capu- 
 lets?" Yet all these were oracles in their time, and would 
 have scoffed at you or me, at conmaon sense and human 30 
 nature, for differing with them. It is our turn to laugh now. 
 To conclude this subject. The most sensible people to be 
 met v/ith in society are men of business and of the world, 
 who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning 
 cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be. Women have 35 
 often more of what is called good sense than men. They have 
 fewer pretensions; are less implicated in theories; and judge 
 of objects more from their immediate and involuntary im- 
 
70 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 pression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally. 
 They cannot reason wrong; for they do not reason at all. 
 They do not think or speak by rule; and they have in general 
 more eloquence and wit, as well as sense, on that account. 
 5 By their wit, sense, and eloquence together, they generally 
 contrive to govern then- husbands. Their style, when they 
 write to their friends (not for the booksellers) is better than 
 that of most authors. — Uneducated people have most 
 exuberance of invention and the greatest freedom from prej- 
 
 lOudice. -Shakespeare's was evidently an uneducated mind, 
 both in the freshness of his imagination and in the variety 
 of his views; as Milton's was scholastic in the texture both 
 of his thoughts and feelings. Shakespeare had not been 
 accustomed to write themes at school in favour of virtue or 
 
 15 against vice. To this we owe the unaffected but healthy tone 
 of his dramatic morality. If we wish to know the force of 
 human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to 
 see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his 
 commentators. 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 
 
 Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his 
 white dress and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian 
 Jugglers begins with tossing up two brass balls, which is what 
 any of us could do, and concludes with keeping up four at 
 the same time, which is what none of us could do to save our 5 
 lives, nor if we were to take our whole lives to do it in. Is it 
 then a trifling power we see at work, or is it not something 
 next to miraculous? It is the utmost stretch of human in- 
 genuity, which nothing but the bending the faculties of body 
 and mind to it from the tenderest infancy with incessant, 10 
 ever-anxious application up to manhood, can accomplish or 
 make even a shght approach to. Man, thou art a wonderful 
 animal and thy ways past finding out ! Thou canst do strange 
 things, but thou turnest them to little account! — To con- 
 ceive of this effort of extraordinary dexterity distracts the 15 
 imagination and makes admiration breathless. Yet it costs 
 nothing to the performer, any more than if it were a mere 
 mechanical deception with which he had nothing to do but 
 to watch and laugh at the astonishment of the spectators. 
 A single error of a hair's-breadth, of the smallest conceivable 20 
 portion of time, would be fatal: the precision of the move- 
 ments must be like a mathematical truth, their rapidity is 
 like lightning. To catch four balls in succession in less than 
 a second of time, and deliver them back so as to return with 
 seeriiing consciousness to the hand again, to make them re- 25 
 volve round him at certain intervals, like the planets in their* 
 spheres, to make them chase one another like sparkles of fire, 
 or she at up like flowers or meteors, to throw them behind his 
 back and twine them round his neck like ribbons or like ser- 
 pents, to do what appears an impossibility, and to do it with 30 
 all the ease, the grace, the carelessness imaginable, to laugh 
 at, to play with the glittering mockeries, to follow them with 
 his eye as if he could fascinate them with its lambent fire, or 
 
 71 
 
72 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 as if he had only to see that they kept time with the music on 
 the stage — there is something in all this which he who does 
 not admire may be quite sure he never really admired any- 
 thing in the whole course of his life. It is skill surmounting 
 
 5 difficulty, and beauty triumphing over skiU. It seems as if the 
 difficulty once mastered naturally resolved itself into ease 
 and grace, and as if to be overcome at all, it must be over- 
 come without an effort. The smallest awkwardness or want 
 of pliancy or self-possession would stop the whole process. 
 
 10 It is the work of witchcraft, and yet sport for children. Some 
 of the other feats are quite as curious and wonderful, such as 
 the balancing the artificial tree and shooting a bird from each 
 branch through a quill; though none of them have the ele- 
 gance or facihty of the keeping up of the brass baUs. You 
 
 15 are in pain for the result, and glad when the experiment is 
 over; they are not accompanied with the same unmixed, 
 unchecked delight as the former; and I would not give much 
 to be merely astonished without being pleased at the same 
 time. As to the swallowing of the sword, the police ought to 
 
 20 interfere to prevent it. When I saw the Indian Juggler do 
 the same things before, his feet were bare, and he had large 
 rings on the toes, which kept turning round all the time of the 
 performance, as if they moved of themselves. — The hearing 
 a speech in Parliament, drawled or stammered out by the 
 
 25 Honourable Member or the Noble Lord, the ringing the 
 changes on their common-places, which anyone could repeat 
 after them as well as they, stirs me not a jot, shakes not my 
 good opinion of myseh: but the seeing the Indian Jugglers 
 does. It makes me ashamed of myself. I ask what there 
 
 30 is that I can do as well as this? Nothing. What have I 
 
 * been doing all my life? Have I been idle, or have I nothing 
 
 to shew for all my labour and pains? Or have I passed my 
 
 time in pouring words hke water into empty sieves, rolling a 
 
 stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an ar- 
 
 35 gument in the teeth of facts, and looking for" causes in the 
 dark, and not finding them? Is there no one thing in which 
 I can challenge competition, that I can bring as an instance 
 of exact perfection, in which others cannot find a flaw? The 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 73 
 
 utmost I can pretend to is to write a description of what this 
 fellow can do. I can write a book; so can many others who 
 have not even learned to spell. What abortions are these 
 Essays! What errors, what ill-pieced transitions, what 
 crooked reasons, what lame conclusions! How little is made 5 
 out, and that little how ill! Yet they are the best I can do. 
 I endeavom' to recollect all I have ever observed or thought 
 upon a subject, and to express it as nearly as I can. Instead 
 of writing on four subjects at a time, it is as much as I can 
 manage to keep the thread of one discourse clear and un- 10 
 entangled. I have also time on my hands to correct my 
 opinions, and polish my periods: but the one I cannot, and 
 the other I will not do. I am fond of arguing; yet with a 
 good deal of pains and practice it is often as much as I can do 
 to beat my man; though he may be a very indifferent hand. 15 
 A common fencer would disarm his adversary in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, unless he were a professor like himself. A 
 stroke of wit will sometimes produce this effect, but there 
 is no such power or superiority in sense or reasoning. There 
 is no complete mastery of execution to be shown there; and 20 
 you hardly know the professor from the impudent pretender 
 or the mere clown. ^ 
 
 I have always had this feeling of the inefficacy and slow 
 progress of intellectual compared to mechanical excellence, 
 and it has always made me somewhat dissatisfied. It is a 25 
 great many years since I saw Richer, the famous rope-dancer, 
 perform at Sadler's Wells. He was matchless in his art, and 
 
 1 The celebrated Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot) first discovered and 
 brought out the talents of the late Mr. Opie, the painter. He was a 
 poor Cornish boy, and was out at work in the fields, when the poet 30 
 went in search of him. "Well, my lad, can you go and bring me your 
 very best picture?" The other fiew like lightning, and soon came 
 back with what he considered as his masterpiece. The stranger 
 looked at it, and the young artist, after waiting for some time with- 
 out his giving any opinion, at length exclaimed eagerly, "Well, what 35 
 do you think of it?" "Think of it?" said Wolcot, "why, I think 
 you ought to be ashamed of it — that you who might do so well, do 
 no better!" The same answer would have applied to this artist's 
 latest performances, that had been suggested by one of his earliest 
 efforts. 
 
74 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 added to his extraordinary skill exquisite ease and unaffected 
 natural grace. I was at that time employed in copying a 
 half-length picture of Sir Joshua Reynolds's; and it put me 
 out of conceit with it. How ill this part was made out in the 
 
 5 drawing! How heavy, how slovenly this other was painted! 
 I could not help saying to myself, ''If the rope-dancer had 
 performed his task in this manner, leaving so many gaps and 
 botches in his work, he would have broke his neck long ago; 
 I should never have seen that vigorous elasticity of nerve and 
 
 10 precision of movement!" — Is it then so easy an undertaking 
 (comparatively) to dance on a tight-rope? Let anyone who 
 thinks so get up and try. There is the thing. It is that 
 which at first we cannot do at all, which in the end is done to 
 such perfection. To account for this in some degree, I might 
 
 15 observe that mechanical dexterity is confined to doing some 
 one particular thing, which you can repeat as often as you 
 please, in which you know whether you succeed or fail, and 
 where the point of perfection consists in succeeding in a given 
 undertaking. In mechanical efforts, you improve by per- 
 
 20petual practice, and you do so infallibly, because the object 
 to be attained is not a matter of taste or fancy or opinion, 
 but of actual experiment, in which you must either do the 
 thing or not do it. If a man is put to aim at a mark with a 
 bow and arrow, he must hit it or miss it, that's certain. He 
 
 25 cannot deceive himself, and go on shooting wide or falling 
 short, and still fancy that he is making progress. The dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong, between true and false, 
 is here palpable; and he must either correct his aim or per- 
 severe in his error with his eyes open, for which there is 
 
 30 neither excuse nor temptation. If a man is learning to dance 
 on a rope, if he does not mind what he is about, he will break 
 his neck. After that, it will be in vain for him to argue that 
 he did not make a false step. His situation is not like that 
 of Goldsmith's pedagogue. 
 
 35 "In argument they own'd his wondrous skill, 
 
 And e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still. " 
 
 Danger is a good teacher and makes apt scholars. So are 
 disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 75 
 
 There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no 
 idhng time away, no being off your guard (or you must take 
 the consequences) — neither is there any room for humour or 
 caprice or prejudice. If the Indian Juggler were to play 
 tricks in throwing up the three case-knives, which keep their 5 
 positions like the leaves of a crocus in the air, he would cut 
 his fingers, I can make a very bad antithesis without cutting 
 my fingers. The tact of style is more ambiguous than that 
 of double-edged instruments. If the Juggler were told that 
 by flinging himself under the wheels of the Jaggernaut, when lo 
 the idol issues forth on a gaudy day, he would immediately 
 be transported into Paradise, he might beheve it, and nobody 
 could disprove it. So the Brahmins may say what they please 
 on that subject, may build up dogmas and mysteries without 
 end, and not be detected; but their ingenious countryman 15 
 cannot persuade the frequenters of the Olympic Theatre that 
 he performs a number of astonishing feats without actually 
 giving proofs of what he says. — There is then in this sort 
 of manual dexterity, first a gradual aptitude acquired to a 
 given exertion of muscular power, from constant repetition, 20 
 and in the next place, an exact knowledge how much is still 
 wanting and necessary to be supplied. The obvious test is 
 to increase the effort or nicety of the operation, and still to 
 find it come true. The muscles ply instinctively to the dic- 
 tates of habit. Certain movements and impressions of the 25 
 hand and eye, having been repeated together an infinite num- 
 ber of times, are unconsciously but unavoidably cemented 
 into closer and closer union; the limbs require little more than 
 to be put in motion for them to follow a regular track with 
 ease and certainty; so that the mere intention of the will 30 
 acts mathematically, like touching the spring of a machine, 
 and you come with Locksley in Ivanhoe, in shooting at a 
 mark, 'Ho allow for the wind." 
 
 Farther, what is meant by perfection in mechanical exercise 
 is the performing certain feats to a uniform nicety, that is, in 35 
 fact, undertaking no more than you can perform. You task 
 yourself, the limit you fix is optional, and no more than human 
 industry and skill can attain to; but you have no abstract, 
 
76 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 independent standard of difficulty or excellence (other than 
 the extent of your own powers). Thus he who can keep up 
 four brass balls does this to perfection; but he cannot keep 
 up five at the same instant, and would fail every time he at- 
 5 tempted it. That is, the mechanical performer undertakes to 
 emulate himseK, not to equal another. ^ But the artist under- 
 takes to imitate another, or to do what nature has done, and 
 this it appears is more difficult, viz. to copy what she has set 
 before us in the face of nature or " human face divine," entire 
 
 10 and without a blemish, than to keep up four brass balls at 
 the same instant; for the one is done by the power of human 
 skill and industry, and the other never was nor will be. Upon 
 the whole, therefore, I have more respect for Reynolds, than 
 I have for Richer; for, happen how it will, there have been 
 
 15 more people in the world who could dance on a rope like the 
 one than who could paint like Sir Joshua. The latter was 
 but a bungler in his profession to the other, it is true; but 
 then he had a harder task-master to obey, whose will was 
 more wayward and obscure, and whose instructions it was 
 
 20 more difficult to practise. You can put a child apprentice 
 to a tumbler or rope-dancer with a comfortable prospect of 
 success, if they are but sound of wind and limb; but you can- 
 not do the same thing in painting. The odds are a million 
 to one. You may make indeed as many H s and H s 
 
 25 as you put into that sort of machine, but not one Reynolds 
 amongst them all, with his grace, his grandeur, his bland- 
 ness of gusto, "in tones and gestures hit," unless you could 
 make the man over again. To snatch this grace beyond the 
 reach of art is then the height of art — where fine art begins, 
 
 30 and where mechanical skill ends. The soft suffusion of 
 the soul, the speechless breathing eloquence, the looks "com- 
 mercing with the skies, " the ever-shifting forms of an eternal 
 principle, that which is seen but for a moment, but dwells 
 in the heart always, and is only seized as it passes by strong 
 
 35 and secret sympathy, must be taught by nature and genius, 
 not by rules or study. It is suggested by feeling, not by 
 
 1 If two persons play against each other at any game, one of them 
 necessarily fails. 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 77 
 
 laborious microscopic inspection; in seeking for it without, 
 we lose the harmonious clue to it within; and in aiming to 
 grasp the substance, we let the very spirit of art evaporate. 
 In a word, the objects of fine art are not the objects of sight 
 but as these last are the objects of taste and imagination, 5 
 that is, as they appeal to the sense of beauty, of pleasure, and 
 of power in the human breast, and are explained by that 
 finer sense and revealed in their inner structure to the eye in 
 return. Nature is also a language. Objects, like words, 
 have a meaning; and the true artist is the interpreter of this 10 
 language, which he can only do by knowing its application 
 to a thousand other objects in a thousand other situations. 
 Thus the eye is too blind a guide of itseK to distinguish be- 
 tween the warm or cold tone of a deep blue sky, but another 
 sense acts as a monitor to it and does not err. The colour of 15 
 the leaves in autumn would be nothing without the feeling 
 that accompanies it; but it is that feeling that stamps them 
 on the canvas, faded, seared, blighted, shrinking from the 
 winter's flaw, and makes the sight as true as touch — 
 
 "And visions, as poetic eyes avow, 20 
 
 Cling to each leaf and hang on every bough." 
 
 The more ethereal, evanescent, more refined and sublime 
 part of art is the seeing nature through the medium of senti- 
 ment and passion, as each object is a symbol of the affections 
 and a link in the chain of our endless being. But the unravel- 25 
 ling this mysterious web of thought and feeling is alone in 
 the Muse's gift, namely, in the power of that trembling sen- 
 sibility which is awake to every change and every modifi- 
 cation of its ever-varying impressions, that 
 
 "Thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line." 30 
 
 This power is indifferently called genius, imagination, 
 feeling, taste; but the manner in which it acts upon the mind 
 can neither be defined by abstract rules, as is the case in 
 science, nor verified by continual unvarying experiments, as 
 is the case in mechanical performances. The mechanical 35 
 excellence of the Dutch painters in colouring and handling 
 is that which comes the nearest in fine art to the perfection 
 
78 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 of certain manual exhibitions of skill. The truth of the effect 
 and the facility with which it is produced are equally admir- 
 able. Up to a certain point, everything is faultless. The 
 hand and eye have done their part. There is only a want of 
 
 5 taste and genius. It is after we enter upon that enchanted 
 ground that the human mind begins to droop and flag as in 
 a strange road, or in a thick mist, benighted and making httle 
 way with many attempts and many failures, and that the 
 best of us only escape with half a triumph. The undefined 
 
 10 and the imaginary are the regions that we must pass like 
 Satan, difficult and doubtful, "half flying, half on foot." 
 The object in sense is a positive thing, and execution comes 
 with practice. 
 
 Cleverness is a certain knack or aptitude at doing certain 
 
 15 things which depend more on a particular adroitness and off- 
 hand readiness than on force or perseverance, such as making 
 puns, making epigrams, making extempore verses, mimicking 
 the company, mimicking a style, etc. Cleverness is either 
 liveliness and smartness, or something answering to sleight 
 
 20 of hand, like letting a glass fall sideways off a table, or else 
 a trick, like knowing the secret spring of a watch. Ac- 
 complishments are certain external graces, which are to be 
 learnt from others and which are easily displayed to the 
 admiration of the beholder, viz. dancing, riding, fencing, music, 
 
 25 and so on. These ornamental acquirements are only proper 
 to those who are at ease in mind and fortune. I know an 
 individual who if he had been born to an estate of five thous- 
 and a year, would have been the most accomplished gentle- 
 man of the age. He would have been the delight and envy 
 
 30 of the circle in which he moved — would have graced by his 
 manners the liberality flowing from the openness of his heart, 
 would have laughed with the women, have argued with the 
 men, have said good things and written agreeable ones, have 
 taken a hand at piquet or the lead at the harpsichord, and 
 
 35 have set and sung his own verses — nugce canorce — with 
 tenderness and spirit; a Rochester without the vice, a modem 
 Surrey! As it is, all these capabilities of excellence stand in 
 his way. He is too versatile for a professional man, not dull 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 79 
 
 enough for a political drudge, too gay to be happy, too 
 thoughtless to be rich. He wants the enthusiasm of the poet, 
 the severity of the prose writer, and the application of the 
 man of business. — Talent is the capacity of doing anything 
 that depends on application and industry, such as writing a 5 
 criticism, making a speech, studying the law. Talent differs 
 from genius, as voluntary differs from involuntary power. 
 Ingenuity is genius in trifles, greatness is genius in undertak- 
 ings of much pith and moment. A clever or ingenious man 
 is one who can do anything well, whether it is worth doing or 10 
 not : a great man is one who can do that which when done is 
 of the highest importance. Themistocles said he could not 
 play on the flute, but that he could make of a small city a 
 great one. This gives one a pretty good idea of the distinc- 
 tion in question. 15 
 
 Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is 
 not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must 
 show it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gain- 
 said. He must fill up a certain idea in the public mind. I 
 have no other notion of greatness than this two-fold definition, 20 
 great results springing from great inherent energy. The great 
 in visible objects has relation to that which extends over 
 space: the great in mental ones has to do with space and time. 
 No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The 
 test of greatness is the page of history. Nothing can be said 25 
 to be great that has a distinct limit, or that borders on some- 
 thing evidently greater than itself. Besides, what is short- 
 lived and pampered into mere notoriety is of a gross and 
 vulgar quality in itself. A Lord Mayor is hardly a great man. 
 A city orator or patriot of the day only show, by reaching 30 
 the height of their wishes, the distance they are at from any 
 true ambition. Popularity is neither fame nor greatness. 
 A king (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but 
 it is not his own. He merely wields the lever of the state, 
 which a child, an idiot, or a madman can do. It is the office, 35 
 not the man, we gaze at. Anyone else in the same situation 
 would be just as much an object of abject curiosity. We 
 laugh at the country girl who having seen a king, expressed 
 
80 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 her disappointment by saying, "Why, he is only a man!" 
 Yet, knowing this, we run to see a king as if he was something 
 more than a man. — To display the greatest powers, unless 
 they are apphed to great purposes, makes nothing for the 
 
 5 character of greatness. To throw a barley-corn through the 
 eye of a needle, to multiply nine figures by nine in the memory, 
 argues infinite dexterity of body and capacity of mind, but 
 nothing comes of either. There is a surprising power at work, 
 but the effects are not proportionate, or such as take hold of 
 
 10 the imagination. To impress the idea of power on others, 
 they must be made in some way to feel it. It must be com- 
 municated to their understandings in the shape of an increase 
 of knowledge, or it must subdue and overawe them by sub- 
 jecting their wills. Admiration, to be solid and lasting, must 
 
 15 be founded on proofs from which we have no means of escap- 
 ing; it is neither a shght nor a voluntary gift. A mathe- 
 matician who solves a profound problem, a poet who creates 
 an image of beauty in the mind that was not there before, im- 
 parts knowledge and power to others, in which his greatness 
 
 20 and his fame consists and on which it reposes. Jedediah 
 Buxton will be forgotten; but Napier's bones will live. 
 Lawgivers, philosophers, founders of religion, conquerors and 
 heroes, inventors, and great geniuses in arts and sciences, are 
 great men; for they are great public benefactors, or formi- 
 
 25 dable scourges to manlcind. Among ourselves, Shakespeare, 
 Newton, Bacon, Milton, Cromwell, were great men; for 
 they showed great power by acts and thoughts which have 
 not yet been consigned to oblivion. They must needs be 
 men of lofty stature, whose shadows lengthen out to remote 
 
 30 posterity. A great farce-writer may be a great man; for 
 Moliere was but a great farce-writer. In my mind, the 
 author of Don Quixote was a great man. So have there been 
 many others. A great chess-player is not a great man, for he 
 leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself 
 
 35 constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of 
 power or trials of skill which are confined to the momentary, 
 individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy 
 of themselves without them. Is not an actor then a great 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 81 
 
 man, because "he dies and leaves the world no copy"? I 
 must make an exception for Mrs. Siddons, or else give up my 
 definition of greatness for her sake. A man at the top of 
 his profession is not therefore a great man. He is great in 
 his way, but that is all, unless he shews the marks of a great 5 
 moving intellect, so that we trace the master-mind, and can 
 sympathise with the springs that urge him on. The rest is 
 but a craft or mystery. John Hunter was a great man — 
 that anyone might see without the smallest skill in surgery. 
 His style and manner showed the man. He would set about 10 
 cutting up the carcass of a whale with the same greatness of 
 gusto that Michael Angelo would have hewn a block of marble. 
 Lord Nelson was a great naval commander; but for myself, 
 I have not much opinion of a sea-faring life. Sir Humphry 
 Davy is a great chemist, but I am not sure that he is a great 15 
 man. I am not a bit the wiser for any of his discoveries, nor 
 I never met with anyone that was. But it is in the nature 
 of greatness to propagate an idea of itself, as wave impels 
 wave, circle without circle. It is a contradiction in terms for 
 a coxcomb to be a great man. A really great man has al-20 
 ways an idea of something greater than himself. I have 
 observed that certain sectaries and polemical writers have no 
 higher compliments to pay their most shining lights than to 
 say that "Such a one was a considerable man in his day." 
 Some new elucidation of a text sets aside the authority of the 25 
 old interpretation, and a "great scholar's memory outlives 
 him half a century," at the utmost. A rich man is not a 
 great man, except to his dependants and his steward. A 
 lord is a great man in the idea we have of his ancestry, and 
 probably of himself, if we know nothing of him but his title. 30 
 I have heard a story of two bishops, one of whom said (speak- 
 ing of St. Peter's at Rome) that when he first entered it he 
 was rather awe-struck, but that as he walked up it, his mind 
 seemed to swell and dilate with it and at last to fill the whole 
 building — the other said that as he saw more of it, he ap- 35 
 peared to himself to grow less a,nd less every step he took, 
 and in the end to dwindle into nothing. This was in some 
 respects a striking picture of a great and httle mind — for 
 
82 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 greatness sympathises with greatness, and Uttleness shrinks 
 into itself . The one might have become a Wolsey ; the other 
 was only fit to become a Mendicant Friar — or there might 
 have been court-reasons for making him a bishop. The 
 
 5 French have to me a character of littleness in all about them; 
 but they have produced three great men that belong to every 
 country, Moliere, Rabelais, and Montaigne. 
 
 To return from this digression and conclude the Essay. 
 A singular instance of manual dexterity was shewn in the 
 
 10 person of the late John Cavanagh, whom I have several times 
 seen. His death was celebrated at the time in an article in 
 the Examiner newspaper (Feb. 7, 1819), written apparently 
 between jest and earnest; but as it is pat to our purpose, and 
 falls in with my own way of considering such subjects, I shall 
 
 15 here take leave to quote it. 
 
 "Died at his house in Burbage-street, St. Giles's, John 
 Cavanagh, the famous hand fives-player. When a person 
 dies, who does any one thing better than anyone else in the 
 world, which so many others are trying to do well, it leaves a 
 
 20 gap in society. It is not likely that anyone will now see the 
 game of fives played in its perfection for many years to come 
 — for Cavanagh is dead and has not left his peer behind him. 
 It may be said that there are things of more importance than 
 striking a ball against a wall — there are things indeed which 
 
 25 make more noise and do as little good, such as making war and 
 peace, making speeches and answering them, making verses 
 and blotting them; making money and throwing it away. 
 But the game of fives is what no one despises who has ever 
 played at it. It is the finest exercise for the body and the best 
 
 30 relaxation for the mind. The Roman poet said that 'Care 
 mounted behind the horseman and stuck to his skirts.' 
 But this remark would not have applied to the fives-player. 
 He who takes to playing at fives is twice young. He feels 
 neither the past nor future 'in the instant.' Debts, taxes, 
 
 35 ' domestic treason, foreign levy, nothing can touch him fur- 
 ther.' He has no other wish, no other thought, from the 
 moment the game begins, but that of striking the ball, of 
 placing it, of makiyig it! This Cavanagh was sure to do. 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 83 
 
 Whenever he touched the ball, there was an end of the chase. 
 His eye was certain, his hand fatal, his presence of mind com- 
 plete. He could do what he pleased, and he always knew 
 exactly what to do. He saw the whole game, and played 
 it; took instant advantage of his adversary's weakness, and 5 
 recovered balls, as if by a miracle and from sudden thought, 
 that everyone gave for lost. He had equal power and skill, 
 quickness, and judgment. He could either out-wit his an- 
 tagonist by finesse, or beat him by main strength. Some- 
 times, when he seemed preparing to send the ball with the 10 
 full swing of his arm, he would by a slight turn of his wrist 
 drop it withm an inch of the hne. In general, the ball came 
 from his hand, as if from a racket, in a straight horizontal 
 line; so that it was in vain to attempt to overtake or stop it. 
 As it was said of a great orator that he never was at a loss for 15 
 a word, and for the properest word, so Cavanagh always could 
 tell the degree of force necessary to be given to a ball, and the 
 precise direction in which it should be sent. He did his work 
 with the greatest ease; never took more pains than was 
 necessary; and while others were fagging themselves to 20 
 death, was as cool and collected as if he had just entered the 
 court. His style of play was as remarkable as his power of 
 execution. He had no affectation, no trifling. He did not 
 throw away the game to show off an attitude or trj^ an ex- 
 periment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, who did 25 
 what he could, but that was more than anyone else could 
 even affect to do. His blows were not undecided and in- 
 effectual — lumbering like Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, 
 nor wavering like Mr. Coleridge's lyric prose, nor short of the 
 mark like Mr. Brougham's speeches, nor wide of it like Mr. 30 
 Canning's wit, nor foul like the Quarterly, not let balls like 
 the Edinburgh Review. Cobbett and Junius together would 
 have made a Cavanagh. He was the best up-hill player in 
 the world; even when his adversary was fourteen, he would 
 play on the same or better, and as he never flung away the 35 
 game through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it up 
 through laziness or want of heart. The .only peculiarity of 
 his play was that he never volleyed, but let the balls hop; but 
 
84 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 if they rose an inch from the ground, he never missed having 
 them. There was not only nobody equal, but nobody second 
 to him. It is supposed that he could give any other player 
 half the game, or beat him with his left hand. His service 
 
 5 was tremendous. He once played Woodward and Meredith 
 together (two of the best players in England) in the Fives- 
 court, St. Martin's-street, and made seven and twenty aces 
 following by services alone — a thing unheard of. He an- 
 other time played Peru, who was considered a first-rate fives- 
 
 10 player, a match of the best out of five games, and in the three 
 first games, which of course decided the match, Peru got only 
 one ace. Cavanagh was an Irishman by birth and a house- 
 painter by profession. He had once laid aside his working- 
 dress and walked up, in his smartest clothes, to the Rosemary 
 
 15 Branch to have an afternoon's pleasure. A person accosted 
 him and asked him if he would have a game. So they agreed 
 to play for half-a-crown a game, and a bottle of cider. The 
 first game began — it was seven, eight, ten, thirteen, four- 
 teen, all. Cavanagh won it. The next was the same. 
 
 20 They played on, and each game was hardly contested. 
 'There,' said the unconscious fives-player, there was a 
 stroke that Cavanagh could not take; I never played better 
 in my life, and yet I can't win a game. I don't know how it 
 is.' However, they played on, Cavanagh winning every 
 
 25 game, and the by-standers drinking the cider and laughing 
 all the time. In the twelfth game, when Cavanagh was only 
 four, and the stranger thirteen, a person came in and said, 
 'What! are you here, Cavanagh?' The words were no 
 sooner pronounced than the astonished player let the ball drop 
 
 30 from his hand, and saying, 'What! have I been breaking my 
 heart all this tune to beat Cavanagh?' refused to make an- 
 other effort. 'And yet, I give you my word, ' said Cavanagh, 
 telling the story with some triumph, ' I played all the while 
 with my clenched fist. ' — He used frequently to play matches 
 
 35 at Copenhagen-house for wagers and dinners. The wall 
 against which they play is the same that supports the kitchen- 
 chinmey, and when the wall resounded louder than usual, 
 the cooks exclaimed, 'Those are the Irishman's balls/ and 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 85 
 
 the joints trembled on the spit! — Goldsmith consoled him- 
 self that there were places where he too was admired; and 
 Cavanagh was the admiration of all the fives-com-ts where he 
 ever played. Mr. Powell, when he played matches in the 
 Court in St. Martin's-street, used to fill his gallery at half a 5 
 crown a head with amateurs and admirers of talent in what- 
 ever department it is shown. He could not have shown him- 
 self in any ground in England but he would have been im- 
 mediately surrounded with inquisitive gazers, trying to find 
 out in what part of his frame his unrivalled skill lay, as 10 
 politicians wonder to see the balance of Europe suspended in 
 Lord Castlereagh's face, and admire the trophies of the 
 British Navy lurking under Mr. Croker's hanging brow. 
 Now Cavanagh was as good-looking a man as the Noble 
 Lord, and much better looking than the Right Hon. Secretary. 15 
 He had a clear, open countenance, and did not look sideways 
 or down, lilve Mr. Murray, the bookseller. He was a young 
 fellow of sense, humour, and courage. He once had a quarrel 
 with a waterman at Hungerford-stairs, and, they say, served 
 him out in great style. In a word, there are hundreds at this 20 
 day who caimot mention his name without admiration as the 
 best fives-player that perhaps ever lived (the greatest ex- 
 cellence of which they have any notion) — and the noisy 
 shout of the ring happily stood him in stead of the unheard 
 voice of posterity! — The only person who seems to have 25 
 excelled as much in another way as Cavanagh did in his, was 
 the late John Davies, the racket-player. It was remarked 
 of him that he did not seem to follow the ball, but the ball 
 seemed to follow him. Give him a foot of wall, and he was 
 sure -to make the ball. The four best racket-players of that 30 
 day were Jack Spines, Jem. Harding, Armitage, and Church. 
 Davies could give any one of these two hands a time, that is, 
 half the game, and each of these, at their best, could give the 
 best player now in London the same odds. Such are the 
 gradations in all exertions of human skill and art. He once 35 
 played four capital players together, and beat them. He was 
 also a first-rate tennis-player, and an excellent fives-player. 
 In the Fleet or King's Bench, he would have stood against 
 
86 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 Lowell, who was reckoned the best open-ground player of his 
 time. This last-mentioned player is at present the keeper of 
 the Fives-com-t, and we might recommend to him for a motto 
 over his door — 'Who enters here, forgets himself, his 
 
 5 country, and his friends. ' And the best of it is, that by the 
 calculation of the odds, none of the three are worth remem- 
 bering! — Cavanagh died from the bursting of a blood-vessel, 
 which prevented him from playing for the last two or three 
 years. This, he was often heard to say, he thought hard 
 
 10 upon hitn. He was fast recovering, however, when he was 
 suddenly carried off, to the regret of all who knew him. As 
 Mr. Peel made it a qualification of the present Speaker, Mr. 
 Manners Sutton, that he was an excellent moral character, 
 so Jack Cavanagh was a zealous Catholic, and could not be 
 
 15 persuaded to eat meat on a Friday, the day on which he died. 
 We have paid this willing tribute to his memory. 
 
 'Let no rude hand deface it, 
 And his forlorn ''Hie jacet."' " 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 
 
 One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a jour- 
 ney; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a 
 room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. 
 I am then never less alone than when alone. 
 
 "The fields his study, nature was his book." 5 
 
 I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. 
 When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country, 
 I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out 
 of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There 
 are those who for this purpose go to watering-places and 10 
 carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room and 
 fewer incumbrances. I like solitude, when I give myself up 
 to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for 
 
 " a friend in my retreat, 
 
 Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet." 15 
 
 The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, 
 do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free 
 of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave our- 
 selves behind, much more to get rid of others. It is because 
 I want a little breatliing-space to muse on indifferent matters, 20 
 where Contemplation 
 
 "May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, 
 That in the various bustle of resort 
 Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd, " 
 
 that I absent myself from the town for awhile, without feeling 25 
 at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend 
 in a pcst-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with 
 and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have 
 a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over 
 my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road 30 
 before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then to 
 thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these 
 
 87 
 
88 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the 
 point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being 
 and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong 
 into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then 
 5 long-forgotten things, like "sunken wrack and sumless 
 treasuries," burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, 
 think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, 
 broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is 
 that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect 
 
 10 eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, ar- 
 gument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes had 
 rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my re- 
 pose!" I have just now other business in hand, which would 
 seem idle to you, but is with me "very stuff of the conscience. " 
 
 15 Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not 
 this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet if 
 I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared 
 it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better then keep 
 it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to 
 
 20 yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far- 
 distant horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, 
 and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that 
 you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by 
 yourself and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a 
 
 25 breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are think- 
 ing all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out 
 upon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either 
 entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; 
 to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or soli- 
 
 30 tary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, 
 that "he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine 
 with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only 
 one thing at a time. " So I cannot talk and think, or indulge 
 in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits and 
 
 35 starts. " Let me have a companion of my way, " says Sterne, 
 "were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun 
 declines." It is beautifully said; but in my opinion, this 
 continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 89 
 
 impression of things upon the mind and hurts the senti- 
 ment. If you only hmt what you feel in a kind of dumb 
 show, it is insipid ; if you have to explain it, it is making a toil 
 of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without 
 being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the 5 
 benefit of others. I am for the synthetical method on a 
 journey, in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay 
 in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them 
 afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the 
 down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them 10 
 entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, 
 I like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless 
 you are alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have 
 no objection to argue a point with any one for twenty miles of 
 measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark the 15 
 scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your fellow- 
 traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object, 
 perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to 
 look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of 
 a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are 20 
 unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an 
 uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues 
 you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill humour. 
 Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own con- 
 clusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them 25 
 against objections. It is not merely that j^ou may not be of 
 accord on the objects and circumstances that present them- 
 selves before you — these may recall a number of objects and 
 lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly 
 conamunicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and 30 
 sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from 
 the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before 
 company, seems extravagance or affectation; and, on the 
 other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at 
 every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it 35 
 (otherwise the end is not answered) is a task to which few are 
 competent. We must ''give it an understanding, but no 
 tongue. " My old friend C — — , however, could do both. 
 
90 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 He could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over 
 hill and dale, a summer's day, and convert a landscape into a 
 didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far above sing- 
 ing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flow- 
 5 ing words, I might perhaps wish to have someone with me to 
 admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were 
 it possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of 
 All-Foxden. They had ''that fine madness in them which 
 our first poets had; " and if they could have been caught by 
 10 some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains as 
 the following. 
 
 " Here be woods as green 
 
 As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet 
 As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet 
 15 Face of the curled streams, with flow'rs as many 
 
 As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; 
 Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, 
 Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells; 
 Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing, 
 20 Or gather rushes, to make many a ring 
 
 For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love; 
 How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, 
 First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes 
 She took eternal fire that never dies; 
 25 How she convey'd him softly in a sleep, 
 
 His temples bound with poppy, to the steep 
 Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, 
 Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, 
 To kiss her sweetest." — Faithful Shepherdess. 
 
 30 Had I words and images at command like these, I would at- 
 tempt to wake the thoughts that lie slumbermg on golden 
 ridges in the evening clouds; but at the sight of nature my 
 fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up its leaves, like 
 flowers at sunset. I can make notliing out on the spot: — I 
 
 35 must have time to collect myself. 
 
 In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects; it 
 
 should be reserved for table-talk. L is for this reason, 
 
 I take it, the worst company in the world out of doors; be- 
 cause he is the best within. I grant, there is one subject on 
 
 40 which it is pleasant to talk on a journey; and that is, what 
 one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 91 
 
 The open air improves tliis sort of conversation or friendly 
 altercation by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile 
 of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at 
 the end of it. How fine is it to enter some old town, walled 
 and turreted, just at approach of night-fall, or to come to some 5 
 straggling village, with the hghts streaming through the 
 surrounding gloom; and then after inquiring for the best 
 entertainment that the place affords, to "take one's ease at 
 one's inn!" These eventful moments in our lives' liistory 
 are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt happiness to be 10 
 frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would 
 have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop; 
 they will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What 
 a delicate speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea, 
 
 "The cups that cheer, but not inebriate," 15 
 
 and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering 
 what we shall have for supJDer — eggs and a rasher, a rabbit 
 smothered in onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in 
 such a situation once fixed on cow-heel; and his choice, 
 though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged. Then, 20 
 in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean contem- 
 plation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen — 
 Procul, procul este profani! These hours are sacred to 
 silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and 
 to feed the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not 25 
 waste them m idle tallv; or if I must have the integrity of 
 fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger 
 than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from 
 the tune and place; he is a part of the furniture and costume 
 of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West Riding of 30 
 Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to sympa- 
 thise with him, and he breaks no squares. I associate nothing 
 with my travelling companion but present objects and passing 
 events. In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner 
 forget myself. But a friend reminds one of other things, 35 
 rips up old grievances, and destroys the abstraction of the 
 scene. He comes in imgraciously between us and our imagi- 
 
92 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 nary character. Something is dropped in the course of 
 conversation that gives a hint of your profession and pur- 
 suits; or from having someone with you that knows the less 
 sublime portions of your history, it seems that other people do. 
 5 You are no longer a citizen of the world: but your "unhoused 
 free condition is put into circumspection and confine." The 
 incognito of an inn is one of its striking privileges — "Lord 
 of one's self, uncumber'd with a name." Oh! it is great to 
 shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion — 
 
 10 to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal 
 identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature 
 of the moment, clear of all ties — to hold to the universe 
 only by a dish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the 
 score of the evening — and no longer seeking for applause and 
 
 15 meeting with contempt, to be known by no other title than 
 the Gentleman in the parlour! One may take one's choice of 
 all characters in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one's 
 real pretensions, and become indefinitely respectable and 
 negatively right- worshipful. We baffle prejudice and disap- 
 
 20 point conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be ob- 
 jects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no 
 more those hackneyed common-places that we appear in the 
 world; an inn restores us to the level of nature and quits 
 scores with society! I have certainly spent some enviable 
 
 25 hours at inns — sometimes when I have been left entirely to 
 myself and have tried to solve some nietaphysical problem, as 
 once at Witham-common, where I found out the proof that 
 likeness is not a case of the association of ideas — at other 
 times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. 
 
 SONeot's (I think it was), where I first met with Gribehn's 
 engravings of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, 
 and at a little inn on the borders of Wales, where there hap- 
 pened to be hanging some of Westall's drawings, which I 
 compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not for the 
 
 35 admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried me 
 over the Severn, standing up in a boat between me and the 
 twilight — at other times I might mention luxuriating in 
 books, with a peculiar interest in this way, as I remember 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 93 
 
 sitting up half the night to read Paul and Virginia, which I 
 picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being drenched in 
 the rain all day; and at the same place I got through two 
 volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the 
 10th of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New 5 
 Eloise, at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and 
 a cold chicken. The letter I chose was that in which St. 
 Preux describes his feelings as he first caught a glimpse from 
 the heights of the Jura of the Pays de Vaud, which I had 
 brought with me as a bo7i bouche to crown the evening with, lo 
 It was my birthday, and I had for the first time come from a 
 place in the neighborhood to visit this delightful spot. The 
 road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; 
 and on passing a certain point, you come all at once upon the 
 valley, which opens like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills 15 
 rising in majestic state on either side, with "green upland 
 swells that echo to the bleat of flocks" below, and the river 
 Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The 
 valley at this time ''glittered green with sunny showers," 
 and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the 20 
 chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along 
 the high road that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating 
 the lines which I have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's 
 poems! But besides the prospect which opened beneath my 
 feet, another also opened to my inward sight, a heavenly 25 
 vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope could 
 make them, these four words. Liberty, Genius, Love, 
 Virtue ; which have since faded into the light of common day, 
 or mock my idle gaze. 
 
 " The beautiful is vanished, and returns not." 30 
 
 Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; 
 but I would return to it alone. What other self could I find to 
 share that influx of thoughts, of regret and delight, the frag- 
 ments of which I could hardly conjure up to myself, so much 
 have they been broken and defaced! I could stand on some 35 
 tall rock and overlook the precipice of years that separates 
 me from what I then was. I was at that time going shortly 
 
94 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 to visit the poet whom I have above named. , Where is he 
 now? Not only I myself have changed; the world, which 
 was then new to me, has become old and incorrigible. Yet 
 will I turn to thee in thought, sylvan Dee, in joy, in youth 
 Sand gladness as thou then wert; and thou shalt always be to 
 me the river of Paradise, where I will drink of the waters of 
 life freely! 
 
 There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness 
 or capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. 
 
 10 With change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions 
 and feelings. We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves 
 to old and long-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the 
 mind revives again; but we forget those that we have just 
 left. It seems that we can think but of one place at a time. 
 
 15 The canvas of the fancy is but of a certain extent, and if we 
 paint one set of objects upon it, they immediately efface every 
 other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we only shift our 
 point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the enrap- 
 tured eye, we take our fill of it and seem as if we could form 
 
 20 no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on and 
 think no more of it ; the horizon that shuts it from our sight, 
 also blots it from our memory like a dream. In travelling 
 through a wild, barren country, I can form no idea of a woody 
 and cultivated one. It appears to me that all the world must 
 
 25 be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the 
 town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond Hyde 
 Park," says Sir Fopling Flutter, ''all is a desert." All that 
 part of the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The 
 world in our conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. 
 
 30 It is not one prospect expanded into another, county joined 
 to county, kingdom to kingdom, land to seas, making an 
 image voluminous and vast; — the mind can form no larger 
 idea of space than the eye can take in at a single glance. The 
 rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of arithmetic. 
 
 35 For instance, what is the true signification of that immense 
 mass of territory and population, known by the name of 
 China to us? An inch of pasteboard on a wooden globe, of 
 no more account than a China orange! Things near us are 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 95 
 
 seen of the size of life: things at a distance are diminished to 
 the size of the understanding. We measure the universe by 
 ourselves, and even comprehend the texture of our own 
 being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember 
 an infinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechani- 5 
 cal instrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must 
 play them in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at 
 the same time excludes all others. In trjdng to renew old 
 recollections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of 
 our existence; we must pick out the single threads. So in 10 
 coming to a place where we have formerly lived and with 
 which we have intimate associations, everyone must have 
 found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we ap- 
 proach the spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual im- 
 pression: we remember circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, 15 
 names that we had not thought of for years; but for the time 
 all the rest of the world is forgotten! — To return to the 
 question I have quitted above. 
 
 I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, 
 in company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, 20 
 for the former reason reversed. They are intelligible matters 
 and wdll bear talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, 
 but communicable and overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of 
 criticism, but Stonehenge will bear a discussion antiquarian, 
 picturesque, and philosophical. In setting out on a party of 25 
 pleasure, the first consideration always is where we shall go 
 to; in taking a solitary ramble, the question is what we shall 
 meet with by the way. "The mind is its own place;" nor 
 are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can 
 myself do the honours indifferently well to works of art and 30 
 curiosity. I once took a party to Oxford with no mean eclat 
 — showed them that seat of the Muses at a distance, 
 
 "The glistering spires and pinnacles adorn' d" — 
 
 descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy 
 quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges — was at 35 
 home in the Bodleian; and at Blenheim quite superseded the 
 powdered ciceroni that attended us, and that pointed in vain 
 
96 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 with his wand to common-place beauties in matchless pictures. 
 — As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not 
 feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country 
 without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear 
 5 the sound of my own language. There is an involuntary 
 antipathy in the mind of an Englishman to foreign manners 
 and notions that requires the assistance of social sjonpathy 
 to carry it off. As the distance from home increases, this 
 relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a passion and an 
 
 10 appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find himself 
 in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen; 
 there must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens 
 or old Rome that claims the utterance of speech; and I own 
 that the Pyramids are too mighty for any single contem- 
 
 15 plation. In such situations, so opposite to all one's ordinary 
 train of ideas, one seems a species by one's-self, a limb torn 
 off from society, unless one can meet with instant fellowship 
 and support. — Yet I did not feel this want or craving very 
 pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing shores 
 
 20 of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. 
 The confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine 
 poured into my ears; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was 
 sung from the top of an old crazy vessel in the harbour, as the 
 sun went down, send an alien sound into my soul. I only 
 
 25 breathed the air of general humanity. I walked over "the 
 vine-covered hills and gay regions of France," erect and 
 satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down and chained 
 to the foot of arbitrary thrones; I was at no loss for language, 
 for that of all the great schools of painting was open to me. 
 
 30 The whole is vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, 
 freedom, all are fied : nothing remains but the Bourbons and 
 the French people! — There is undoubtedly a sensation in 
 travelling into foreign parts that is to be had nowhere else; 
 but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It is too 
 
 35 remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic 
 of discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state of 
 existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an 
 animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 97 
 
 effort to exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to 
 feel the pulse of our old transports revive very keenly, we 
 must "jump" all our present comforts and connexions. Our 
 romantic and itinerant character is not to be domesticated. 
 Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign travel added to the 5 
 facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad. In 
 fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful and in 
 one sense instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our 
 substantial, downright existence, and never to join kindly on 
 to it. We are not the same, but another, and perhaps more 10 
 enviable individual, all the time we are out of our own country. 
 We are lost to ourselves, as well as our friends. So the poet 
 somewhat quaintly sings, 
 
 "Out of my country and myself I go." 
 
 Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent 15 
 themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall 
 them; but we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the 
 place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well 
 enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, 
 if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards 20 
 at home! 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 
 
 Distant objects please, because, in the first place, they 
 imply an idea of space and magnitude, and because, not being 
 obtruded too close upon the eye, we clothe them with the 
 indistinct and airy colours of fancy. In looking at the misty 
 5 mountain-tops that bound the horizon, the mind is as it were 
 conscious of all the conceivable objects and interests that lie 
 between; we imagine all sorts of adventures in the interim; 
 strain our hopes and wishes to reach the air-drawn circle, 
 or to ''descry new lands, rivers, and mountains," stretching 
 
 10 far beyond it, our feelings carried out of themselves lose their 
 grossness and their husk, are rarefied, expanded, melt into 
 softness and brighten into beauty, turning to ethereal mould, 
 sky-tinctured. We drink the air before us, and borrow a more 
 refined existence from objects that hover on the brink of 
 
 15 nothing. Where the landscape fades from the dull sight, 
 we fill the thin, viewless space with shapes of unknown good, 
 and tinge the hazy prospect with hopes and wishes and more 
 charming fears. 
 
 "But thou, oh Hope! with eyes so fair, 
 20 What was thy deHghted measure? 
 
 Still it whisper'd promised pleasure^ 
 
 And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!" 
 
 Whatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, 
 whatever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its 
 
 25 leisure; and all but the present moment, but the present spot, 
 passion claims for its own, and brooding over it with wings 
 outspread, stamps it with an image of itself. Passion is lord 
 of infinite space, and distant objects please because they 
 border on its confines, and are moulded by its touch. When 
 
 30 1 was a boy, I lived within sight of a range of lofty hills, whose 
 blue tops blending with the setting sun had often tempted 
 my longing eyes and wandering feet. At last I put my proj- 
 ect in execution, and on a nearer approach, instead of glimmer- 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 99 
 
 ing air woven into fantastic shapes, found them huge, lumpish 
 heaps of discoloured earth. I learnt from this (in part) to leave 
 "Yarrow unvisited, " and not idly to disturb a dream of good! 
 Distance of time has much the same effect as distance of 
 place. It is not surprising that fancy colours the prospect of 5 
 the future as it thinks good, when it even effaces the forms of 
 memory. Time takes out the sting of pain; our sorrows 
 after a certain period have been so often steeped in a medium 
 of thought and passion, that they "unmould their essence"; 
 and all that remains of our original impressions is what we 10 
 would wish them to have been. Not only the untried steep 
 ascent before us, but the rude, unsightly masses of our past 
 experience presently resume their power of deception over 
 the eye: the golden cloud soon rests upon their heads, and 
 the purple hght of fancy clothes their barren sides! Thus we 15 
 pass on, while both ends of our existence touch upon Heaven! 
 — There is (so to speak) "a mighty stream of tendency" to 
 good in the human mind, upon wMch all objects float and are 
 imperceptibly borne along; and though in the voyage of life 
 we meet with strong rebuffs, with rocks and quicksands, 20 
 yet there is "a tide in the affairs of men," a heaving and a 
 restless aspiration of the soul, by means of which, "with sails 
 and tackle torn," the wreck and scattered fragments of our 
 entire being drift into the port and haven of our desires! In 
 all that relates to the affections, we put the will for the deed; 25 
 so that the instant the pressure of unwelcome circumstances 
 is removed, the mind recoils from their hold, recovers its 
 elasticity, and re-unites itself to that image of good, which is 
 but a reflection and configuration of its own nature. Seen 
 in the distance, in the long perspective of wanhig j^ears, the 30 
 meanest incidents, enlarged and enriched by countless recol- 
 lections, become interesting; the most painful, broken and 
 softened by time, soothe. How any object that unexpect- 
 edly brings back to us old scenes and associations, startles 
 the mind! What a yearning it creates within us; what a 35 
 longing to leap the intermediate space! How fondly we cling 
 to, and try to revive the impression of all that we then were! 
 
 "Such tricks hath strong imagination!" 
 
100 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 In truth, we impose upon ourselves, and know not what we 
 wish. It is a cunning artifice, a quaint delusion, by which, in 
 pretending to be what we were at a particular moment of 
 time, we would fain be all that we have since been, and have 
 5 our lives to come over again. It is not the little, glimmering, 
 almost annihilated speck in the distance, that rivets our at- 
 tention and ''hangs upon the beatings of our hearts": it 
 is the interval that separates us from it, and of which it is the 
 trembling boundary, that excites all this coil and mighty pud- 
 
 loder in the breast. Into that great gap in our being ''come 
 thronging soft desires" and infinite regrets. It is the con- 
 trast, the change from what we then were, that arms the haK- 
 extinguished recollection with its giant-strength, and lifts 
 the fabric of the affections from its shadowy base. In con- 
 
 15templating its utmost verge, we overlook the map of our 
 existence, and re-tread, in apprehension, the journey of life. 
 So it is that in early youth we strain our eager sight after the 
 pursuits of manhood; and, as we are sliding off the stage, 
 strive to gather up the toys and flowers that pleased our 
 
 20 thoughtless childhood. 
 
 When I was quite a boy, my father used to take me to the 
 Montpelier Tea-gardens at Walworth. Do I go there now? 
 No; the place is deserted, and its borders and its beds o'er- 
 turned. Is there, then, nothing that can 
 
 25 "bring back the hour 
 
 Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?" 
 
 Oh! yes. I unlock the casket of memory, and draw back the 
 warders of the brain ; and there this scene of my infant wan- 
 derings still lives unfaded, or with fresher dyes. A new sense 
 
 30 comes upon me, as in a dream; a richer perfume, brighter 
 colours start out; my eyes dazzle; my heart heaves with its 
 new load of bliss, and I am a child again. My sensations are 
 all glossy, spruce, voluptuous, and fine: they wear a candied 
 coat, and are in holiday trim. I see the beds of larkspur with 
 
 35 purple eyes; tall holy-oaks, red and yellow; the broad sun- 
 flowers, caked in gold, with bees buzzing round them; wilder- 
 nesses of pinks, and hot-glowing peonies; poppies run to seed; 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 101 
 
 the sugared lily, and faint mignionette, all ranged in order, 
 and as thick as they can grow; the box-tree borders; the 
 gravel-walks, the painted alcove, the confectionary, the 
 clotted cream : — I think I see them now with sparkling 
 looks; or have they vanished while I have been writing this 5 
 description of them? No matter; they will return again when 
 I least think of them. All that I have observed since, of 
 flowers and plants, and grass-plots, and of suburb delights, 
 seems, to me, borrowed from ''that first garden of my inno- 
 cence" — to be slips and scions stolen from that bed of mem- 10 
 ory. In this manner the darlings of our childhood burnish 
 out in the eye of after-years, and derive their sweetest perfume 
 from the first heartfelt sigh of pleasure breathed upon them, 
 
 — — "like the sweet south, 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 15 
 
 Stealing and giving odour!" 
 
 If I have pleasure in a flower-garden, I have in a kitchen- 
 garden too, and for the same reason. If I see a row of cab- 
 bage plants or of peas or beans coming up, I immediately 
 think of those which I used so carefully to water of an even- 20 
 ing at W — m, when my day's tasks were done, and of the 
 pain with which I saw them droop and hang down their leaves 
 in the morning's sun. Again, I never see a child's kite in the 
 air, but it seems to pull at my heart. It is to me a ''thing of 
 life." I feel the twinge at my elbow, the flutter and palpi- 25 
 tation, with which I used to let go the string of my own, as 
 it rose in the air and towered among the clouds. My little 
 cargo of hopes and fears ascended with it; and as it made a 
 part of my own consciousness then, it does so still, and appears 
 "like some gay creature of the element," my playmate when 30 
 life was young, and twin-born with my earliest recollections. 
 I could enlarge on this subject of childish amusements, but 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt has treated it so well, in a paper in the 
 Indicator, on the productions of the toy-shops of the metropo- 
 lis, that if I were to insist more on it, I should only pass for 35 
 an imitator of that ingenious and agreeable writer, and for 
 an indifferent one into the bargain. 
 
102 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 Sounds, smells, and sometimes tastes, are remembered 
 longer than visible objects, and serve, perhaps, better for 
 links in the chain of association. The reason seems to be 
 this: they are in their nature intermittent and comparatively 
 5 rare; whereas objects of sight are always before us, and, by 
 their continuous succession, drive one another out. The 
 eye is always open; and between any given impression and its 
 recurrence a second time, fifty thousand other impressions 
 have, in all likelihood, been stamped upon the sense and on 
 
 10 the brain. The other senses are not so active or vigilant. 
 They are but seldom called into play. The ear, for example, 
 is oftener courted by silence than noise; and the sounds that 
 break that silence sink deeper and more durably into the 
 mind. I have a more present and lively recollection of certain 
 
 15 scents, tastes, and sounds, for this reason, than I have of mere 
 visible images, because they are more original, and less worn 
 by frequent repetition. Where there is nothing interposed 
 between any two impressions, whatever the distance of time 
 that parts them, they naturally seem to touch; and the re- 
 
 20 newed impression recalls the former one in full force, without 
 distraction or competitor. The taste of barberries which 
 have hung out in the snow during the severity of a North 
 American winter, I have in my mouth still, after an interval 
 of thirty years; for I have met with no other taste, in all that 
 
 25 time, at all like it. It remains by itself, almost like the im- 
 pression of a sixth sense. But the colour is mixed up indis- 
 criminately with the colours of many other berries, nor should 
 I be able to distinguish it among them. The smell of a brick- 
 kiln carries the evidence of its own identity with it; neither 
 
 30 is it to me (from peculiar associations) unpleasant. The 
 colour of brick-dust, on the contrary, is more common, and 
 easily confounded with other colours. Raphael did not keep 
 it quite distinct from his flesh colour. I will not say that we 
 have a more perfect recollection of the human voice than of 
 
 35 that complex picture the human face, but I think the sudden 
 hearing of a well-known voice has something in it more affect- 
 ing and striking than the sudden meeting with the face; 
 perhaps, indeed, this may be because we have a more familiar 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 103 
 
 remembrance of the one than the other, and the voice takes 
 us more by surprise on tiiat account. I am by no means 
 certain (generally speaking) that we have the ideas of the 
 other senses so accurate and well made out as those of visible 
 form: what I chiefly mean is, that the feelings belonging to 5 
 the sensations of our other organs, when accidentally re- 
 called, are kept more separate and pure. Musical sounds, 
 probably, owe a good deal of their interest and romantic 
 effect to the principle here spoken of. Were they constant, 
 they would become indifferent, as we may find with respect 10 
 to disagreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I 
 know ho situation more pitiable than that of a blind fiddler, 
 who has but one sense left (if we except the sense of snuff- 
 takingi) and who has that stunned or deafened by his own 
 villainous noises. Shakespeare says, 15 
 
 "How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!" 
 
 It has been observed, in explanation of this passage, that it is 
 because in the daytime lovers are occupied with one another's 
 faces, but that at night they can only distinguish the sound of 
 each other's voices. I know not how this may be: but 1 20 
 have, ere now, heard a voice break so upon the silence, 
 "To angels 'twas most like," 
 
 and charm the moonlight air with its balmy essence, that the 
 budding leaves trembled to its accents. Would I might have 
 heard it once more whisper peace and hope (as erst when it 25 
 was mingled with the breath of spring), and with its soft 
 pulsations lift winged fancy to heaven! But it has ceased, or 
 turned where I no more shall hear it! Hence, also, we see 
 what is the charm of the shepherd's pastoral reed; and why 
 we hear him, as it were, piping to his flock, even in a picture. 30 
 Our ears are fancy-stung! I remember once strolling along 
 the margin of a stream, skirted with willows and plashy sedges, 
 in one of those low, sheltered valleys on Salisbury Plain, where 
 the monks of former ages had planted chapels and built 
 hermits' cells. There was a little parish church near, but 35 
 
 1 See Wilkie's Blind Fiddler. 
 
104 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 tall elms and quivering alders hid it from my sight, when, all 
 of a sudden, I was startled by the sound of the full organ peal- 
 ing on the ear, accompanied by rustic voices and the willing 
 quire of village maids and children. It rose, indeed, "like 
 
 5 an exhalation of rich distilled perfumes." The dew from a 
 thousand pastures was gathered in its softness; the silence of 
 a thousand years spoke in it. It came upon the heart like 
 the calm beauty of death; fancy caught the sound, and faith 
 mounted on it to the skies. It filled the valley like a mist, 
 
 10 and stiU poured out its endless chant, and still it swells upon 
 the ear, and wraps me in a golden trance, drowning the noisy 
 tumult of the world! 
 
 There is a curious and interesting discussion, on the com- 
 parative distinctness of our visual and other external impres- 
 
 ISsions, in Mr. Fearn's Essay on Consciousness, with which I 
 shall try to descend from this rhapsody to the ground of 
 common sense and plain reasoning again. After observing, 
 a little before, that ''nothing is more untrue than that sen- 
 sations of vision do necessarily leave more vivid and durable 
 
 20 ideas than those of grosser senses, " he proceeds to give a num- 
 ber of ihustrations in support of this position. "Notwith- 
 standing," he says, "the advantages here enumerated in 
 favour of sight, I think there is no doubt that a man will 
 come to forget acquaintance, and many other visible objects 
 
 25 noticed in mature age, before he will in the least forget tastes 
 and smells of only moderate interest, encountered either in 
 his childhood or at any time since. 
 
 " In the course of voyaging to various distant regions, it has 
 several times happened that I have eaten once or twice of 
 
 30 different things that never came in my way before nor since. 
 Some of these have been pleasant, and some scarce better than 
 insipid; but I have no reason to think I have forgot or much 
 altered the ideas left by those single impulses of taste; though 
 here the memory of them certainly has not been preserved 
 
 35 by repetition. It is clear I must have seen as well as tasted 
 those things; and I am decided that I remember the tastes 
 with more precision than I do the visual sensations. 
 
 "I remember having once, and only once, eat kangaroo 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 105 
 
 in New Holland; and having once smelled a baker's shop, 
 having a peculiar odour, in the city of Bassorah. Now both 
 these gross ideas remain with me quite as vivid as any visual 
 ideas of those places; and this could not be from repetition, 
 but really from interest in the sensation. 5 
 
 '^Twenty-eight years ago, in the island of Jamaica, I par- 
 took (perhaps twice) of a certain fruit, of the taste of which 
 I have now a very fresh idea; and I could add other instances 
 of that period. 
 
 "I have had repeated proofs of having lost retention of 10 
 visual objects, at various distances of time, though thej^ had 
 once been familiar. I have riot, during thirty years, forgot 
 the delicate, and in itself most trifling sensation, that the palm 
 of my hand Used to convey, when I was a boy, trying the 
 different effects of what boys call light and hxavy tops; but 15 
 I cannot remember wdthin several shades of the brown coat 
 which I left off a week ago. If any man thinks he can do 
 better, let him take an ideal survey of his wardrobe, and then 
 actually refer to it for proof. 
 
 "After retention of such ideas, it certainly would be very 20 
 difficult to persuade me that feeling, taste, and smell can 
 scarce be said to leave ideas, unless indistinct and obscure 
 ones. . . . 
 
 "Shew a Londoner correct models of twenty London 
 churches, and, at the same time, a model of each, which 25 
 differs in several considerable features from the truth, and I 
 venture to say he shall not tell you, in any instance, which 
 is the correct one, except by mere chance. 
 
 "If he is an architect, he may be much more correct than 
 any ordinary person; and this obviously is, because he has 30 
 felt an interest in viewing these structures, which an ordi- 
 nary person does not feel; and here interest is the sole reason 
 of his remembering more correctly than his neighbour. 
 
 "I cnce heard a person quaintly ask another. How many 
 trees there are in St. Paul's churchyard? The question itself 35 
 indicates that many cannot answer it; and this is found to 
 be the case with those who have passed the church an hundred 
 times; whilst the cause is, that every individual in the busy 
 
106 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 stream which ghdes past St. Paul's is engrossed in various 
 other interests. 
 
 "How often does it happen that we enter a well-known 
 apartment, or meet a well-known friend, and receive some 
 5 vague idea of visible difference, but cannot possibly find out 
 what it is; until at length we come to perceive (or perhaps 
 must be told) that some ornament or furniture is removed, 
 altered, or added in the apartment; or that our friend has 
 cut his hair, taken a wig, or has made any of twenty consider- 
 
 10 able alterations in his appearance. At other times, we have 
 no perception of alteration whatever, though the like has taken 
 place. 
 
 "It is, however, certain, that sight, apposited with interest, 
 can retain tolerably exact copies of sensations, especially if 
 
 15 not too complex; such as of the human countenance and 
 figure. Yet the voice will convince us, when the counte- 
 nance will not; and he is reckoned an excellent painter, and no 
 ordinary genius, who can make a tolerable likeness from mem- 
 ory. Nay, more, it is a conspicuous proof of the inaccuracy 
 
 20 of visual ideas, that it is an effort to consummate art, attained 
 by many years' practice, to take a strict likeness of the human 
 countenance, even when the object is. present; and among 
 those cases where the wilful cheat of flattery has been avoided, 
 we still find in how very few instances the best painters pro- 
 
 25duce a likeness up to the life, though practice and interest 
 join in the attempt. 
 
 "I imagine an ordinary person would find it very difficult, 
 supposing he had some knowledge of drawing, to afford, from 
 memory, a tolerable sketch of such a familiar object as his 
 
 30 curtain, his carpet, or his dressing-gown, if the pattern of 
 either be at all various or irregular; yet he will instantly tell, 
 with precision, either if his snuff or his wine has not the 
 same character it had yesterday, though both these are 
 compounds. 
 
 35 "Beyond all this I may observe, that a draper, who is in 
 the daily habit of such comparisons, cannot carry in his mind 
 the particular shade of a colour during a second of time; 
 and has no certainty of tolerably matching two simple colours 
 
WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE 107 
 
 except by placing the patterns in contact." — Essay on 
 Consciousness, p. 303. 
 
 I will conclude the subject of this Essay with observing, 
 that (as it appears to me) a nearer and more familiar acquain- 
 tance with persons has a different and more favourable effect 5 
 than that with places or things. The latter improve (as an 
 almost universal rule) by being removed to a distance; the 
 former, generally at least, gain by being brought nearer and 
 more home to us. Report or imagination seldom raises any 
 individual so high in our estimation as to disappoint us greatly 10 
 when we are introduced to him; prejudice and malice con- 
 stantly exaggerate defects beyond the reality. Ignorance 
 alone makes monsters or bugbears; our actual acquaintances 
 are all very common-place people. The thing is, that as a 
 matter of hearsay or conjecture, we make abstractions of 15 
 particular vices, and irritate ourselves against some particular 
 quality or action of the person we dislike; — whereas, indi- 
 viduals are concrete existences, not arbitrary denominations 
 or nicknames; and have innumerable other qualities, good, 
 bad, and indifferent, besides the damning feature with which 20 
 we fill up the portrait or caricature, in our previous fancies. 
 We can scarcely hate anyone that we know. An acute 
 observer complained, that if there was anyone to whom he had 
 a particular spite and a wish to let him see it, the moment he 
 came to sit down with him his eimaity was disarmed by some 25 
 unforeseen circumstance. If it was a Quarterly Reviewer, he 
 was in other respects like any other man. Suppose, again, 
 your adversary turns out a very ugly man, or wants an eye, 
 you are balked in that way; — he is not what you expected, 
 the object of your abstract hatred and implacable disgust. 30 
 He may be a very disagreeable person, but he is no longer the 
 same. If you come into a room where a man is, you find, 
 in general, that he has a nose upon his face. "There's 
 sympathy!" This alone is a diversion to your imqualified 
 contempt. He is stupid and says nothing, but he seems to 35 
 have something in him when he laughs. You had conceived 
 of him as a rank Whig or Tory — yet he talks upon other 
 subjects. You knew that he was a virulent party-writer; 
 
108 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 but you find that the man himself is a tame sort of animal 
 enough. He does not bite. That's something. In short, 
 you can make nothing of it. Even opposite vices balance one 
 another. A man may be pert in company, but he is also dull; 
 5 so that you cannot, though you try, hate him cordially, merely 
 for the wish to be offensive. He is a knave. Granted. 
 You learn, on a nearer acquaintance, what you did not know 
 before — that he is a fool as well; so you forgive him. On 
 the other hand, he may be a profligate public character, and 
 
 10 may make no secret of it; but he gives you a hearty shake 
 by the hand, speaks kindly to servants, and supports an aged 
 father and mother. Politics apart, he is a very honest fellow. 
 You are told that a person has carbuncles on his face; but 
 you have ocular proofs that he is sallow, and pale as a 
 
 15 ghost. This does not much mend the matter; but it blunts 
 the edge of the ridicule, and turns your indignation against 
 
 the inventor of the lie; but he is -, the editor of a Scotch 
 
 magazine ; so you are just where you were. I am not very fond 
 of anonymous criticism; I want to know who the author can 
 
 20 be: but the moment I learn this, I am satisfied. Even 
 
 would do well to come out of his disguise. It is the mask 
 only that we dread and hate: the man may have something 
 human about him! The notions, in short, which we enter- 
 tain of people at a distance, or from partial representations, 
 
 25 or from guess-work, are simple, uncompounded ideas, which 
 answer to nothing in reality: those which we derive from 
 experiences are mixed modes, the only true, and, in general, 
 the most favourable ones. Instead of naked deformity, or 
 abstract perfection — 
 
 30 "Those faultless monsters which the world ne'er saw," — 
 
 ''the web of our lives is of a mingled yarn, good and ill to- 
 gether; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipt them 
 not; and our vices would despair, if they were not encouraged 
 by our virtues." This was truly and finely said long ago by 
 
 35 one who knew the strong and weak points of human nature; 
 but it is what sects, and parties, and those philosophers whose 
 pride and boast it is to classify by nicknames, have yet to 
 learn the meaning of! 
 
ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF INTEL- 
 LECTUAL SUPERIORITY 
 
 The chief disadvantage of knowing more and seeing farther 
 than others, is not to be generally understood. A man is, 
 in consequence of this, liable to start paradoxes, which im- 
 mediately transport him beyond the reach of the common- 
 place reader. A person speaking once in a slighting man- 5 
 ner of a very original-minded man, received for answer — 
 "He strides on so far before you, that he dwindles in the dis- 
 tance!" 
 
 Petrarch complains, that "Nature had made him different 
 from other people" — singular d'altra genii. The great hap- 10 
 piness of life is, to be neither better nor worse than the gen- 
 eral run of those you meet v/ith. If you are beneath them, 
 you are trampled upon; if you are above them, you soon find 
 a mortifying level in their indifference to what you particu- 
 larly pique yourself upon. What is the use of being moral in 15 
 a night-cellar, or wise in Bedlam? ''To be honest, as this 
 world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand." 
 So says Shakespear; and the commentators have not added 
 that, under these circumstances, a man is more likely to be- 
 come the butt of slander than the mark of admiration for 20 
 being so. ''How now, thou particular fellow ^ ?" is the com- 
 mon answer to all such out-of-the-way pretensions. By not 
 doing as those at Rome do, we cut ourselves off from good- 
 fellowship and society. We speak another language, have 
 notions of our own, and are treated as of a different species. 25 
 Nothing can be more awkward than to intrude with any 
 such far-fetched ideas among the common herd, who will be 
 sure to 
 
 ^ Jack Cade's salutation to one who tries to recommend himself 
 by saying he can write and read. — See Henry VI. Part Second. 
 
 109 
 
110 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 "Stand all astonied, like a sort of steers, 
 
 'Mongst whom some beast of strange and foreign race 
 
 Unwares is chanced, far straying from his peers: 
 
 So will their ghastly gaze betray their hidden fears." 
 
 5 Ignorance of another's meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, 
 and fear produces hatred: hence the suspicion and rancour 
 entertained against all those who set up for greater refinement 
 and wisdom than their neighbours. It is in vain to think of 
 softening down this spirit of hostility by simplicity of manners, 
 
 10 or by condescending to persons of low estate. The more you 
 condescend, the more they will presume upon it; they will 
 fear you less, but hate you more; and will be the more deter- 
 mined to take their revenge on you for a superiority as to 
 which they are entirely in the dark, and of which you your- 
 
 15 self seem to entertain considerable doubts. All the humility 
 in the world will only pass for weakness and folly. They 
 have no notion of such a thing. They always put their best 
 foot forward; and argue that you would do the same if you 
 had any such wonderful talents as people say. You had bet- 
 
 20 ter, therefore, play off the great man at once — hector, swag- 
 ger, talk big, and ride the high horse over them : you may by 
 this means extort outward respect or common civility; but 
 you will get nothing (with low people) by forbearance and 
 good-nature but open insult or silent contempt. C 
 
 25 always talks to people about what they don't understand: 
 I, for one, endeavour to talk to them about what they do 
 understand, and find I only get the more ill-will by it. They 
 conceive I do not think them capable of any thing better; 
 that I do not think it worth while, as the vulgar saying is, to 
 
 30 throw a word to a dog. I once complained of this to C , 
 
 thinking it hard I should be sent to Coventry for not making 
 a prodigious display. He said, "As you assume a certain 
 character, you ought to produce your credentials. It is a 
 tax upon people's goodnature to admit superiority of any 
 
 35 kind, even where there is the most evident proof of it : but 
 it is too hard a task for the imagination to admit it without 
 any apparent ground at all." 
 There is not a greater error than to suppose that you avoid 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 111 
 
 the envy, malice, and uncharitableness, so common in the 
 world, by going among people without pretensions. There 
 are no people who have no pretensions; or the fewer their 
 pretensions, the less they can afford to acknowledge yours 
 without some sort of value received. The more information 5 
 individuals possess, or the more they have refined upon any 
 subject, the more readily can they conceive and admit the 
 same kind of superiority to themselves that they feel over 
 others. But from the low, dull, level sink of ignorance and 
 vulgarity,, no idea or love of excellence can arise. You think 10 
 you are doing mighty well with them; that you are laying 
 aside the buckram of pedantry and pretence, and getting the 
 character of a plain, unassuming, good sort of fellow. It will 
 not do. All the while that you are making these familiar 
 advances, and wanting to be at your ease, they are trying to 15 
 recover the wind of you. You may forget that you are an 
 author, an artist, or what not — they do not forget that they 
 are nothing, nor bate one jot of their desire to prove you in 
 the same predicament. They take hold of some circumstance 
 in your dress; your manner of entering a room is different 20 
 from that of other people; you do not eat vegetables — that's 
 odd; you have a particular phrase, wliich they repeat, and 
 this becomes a sort of standing joke; you look grave, or ill; 
 you talk, or are more silent than usual; you are in or out of 
 pocket: all these petty, inconsiderable circumstances, in 25 
 which you resemble, or are unlike other people, form so many 
 counts in the indictment which is going on in their imagi- 
 nations against you, and are so many contradictions in your 
 character. In anyone else they would pass unnoticed, but in 
 a person of whom they had heard so much, they cannot make 30 
 them out at all. Meanwhile, those things in which you may 
 really excel, go for nothing, because they cannot judge of 
 them. They speak highly of some book which you do not 
 like, and therefore you make no answer. You recommend 
 them to go and see some picture, in which they do not find 35 
 much to admire. How are you to convince them that you 
 are right? Can you make them perceive that the fault is in 
 them, and not in the picture, unless you could give them your 
 
112 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 knowledge? They hardly distinguish the difference between 
 a Correggio and a common daub. Does this bring you any 
 nearer to an understanding? The more you know of the 
 difference, the more deeply you feel it, or the more earnestly 
 
 5 you wish to convey it, the farther do you find yourseK re- 
 moved to an immeasurable distance from the possibility of 
 making them enter into views and feelings of which they have 
 not even the first rudiments. You cannot make them see with 
 your eyes, and they must judge for themselves. 
 
 10 Intellectual is not like bodily strength. You have no hold 
 of the understanding of others but by their sympathy. Your 
 knowing, in fact, so much more about a subject does not give 
 you a superiority, that is, a power over them, but only renders 
 it the more impossible for you to make the least impression on 
 
 16 them. Is it then an advantage to you? It may be, as it 
 relates to your own private satisfaction, but it places a greater 
 gulf between you and society. It throws stumbling blocks 
 in your way at every turn. All that you take most pride and 
 pleasure in is lost upon the vulgar eye. What they are pleased 
 
 20 with is a matter of indifference or of distaste to you. In 
 seeing a number of persons turn over a portfolio of prints from 
 different masters, what a trial it is to the patience, how it 
 jars the nerves to hear them fall into raptures at some 
 connnonplace, flimsy thing, and pass over some divine ex- 
 
 25 pression of countenance without notice, or with a remark that 
 it is very singular-looking? How useless is it in such cases to 
 fret or argue, or remonstrate? Is it not quite as well to be 
 without all this hypercritical, fastidious knowledge, and to be 
 pleased or displeased as it happens, or struck with the first 
 
 30 fault or beauty that is pointed out by others? I would be 
 glad almost to change my acquaintance with pictures, with 
 books, and certainly, what I know of mankind, for anybody's 
 ignorance of them! 
 
 It is recorded in the life of some worthy (whose name I for- 
 
 35 get) that he was one of those "who loved hospitality and 
 respect;" and I profess to belong to the same classification of 
 mankind. Civility is with me a jewel. I like a little comfort- 
 able cheer, and careless, indolent chat. I hate to be always 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 113 
 
 wise, or aiming at wisdom. I have enough to do with 
 Uterary cabals, questions, critics, actors, essay writing, with- 
 out taking them out with me for recreation, and into all 
 companies. I wish at these times to pass for a good-humoured 
 fellow; and good will is all I ask in return to make good 5 
 company. I do not desire to be always posing myself or 
 others with the questions of fate, free-will, foreknowledge 
 absolute, etc. I must unbend sometimes. I must occasion- 
 ally lie fallow. The kind of conversation that I affect most 
 is what sort of a day it is, and whether it is likely to rain or 10 
 hold up fine for to-morrow. This I consider as enjoying the 
 otium cum dignitate, as the end and privilege of a life of study. 
 I would resign myself to this state of easy indifference, but 
 I find I cannot. I must maintain a certain pretension, which 
 is far enough from my wish. I must be put on my defense, 15 
 I must take up the gauntlet continually, or I find I lose 
 ground. "I am nothing, if not critical." While I am think- 
 ing what o'clock it is, or how I came to blunder in quoting a 
 well-known passage, as if I had done it on purpose, others are 
 thinking whether I am not really as dull a fellow as I am some- 20 
 times said to be. If a drizzling shov/er patters against the 
 windows, it puts me in mind of a mild spring rain from which 
 I retired twenty years ago into a little public house near 
 Wem in Shropshire, and while I saw the plants and shrubs 
 before the door imbibe the dewy moisture, quaffed a glass of 25 
 sparkling ale, and walked home in the dusk of evening, 
 brighter to me than noon-day suns at present are! Would 
 I indulge this feeling? In vain. They ask me what news 
 there is, and stare if I say I don't know. If a new actress has 
 come out, why must I have seen her? If a new novel has ap- 30 
 peared, why must I have read it? I, at one time, used to go 
 and take a hand at cribbage with a friend, and afterwards 
 discuss a cold sirloin of beef, and throw out a few lack-a-daisi- 
 cal remarks, in a way to please myself, but it would not do 
 long. I set up little pretension, and therefore the little that 35 
 I did set up was taken from me. As I said nothing on that 
 subject myself, it was continually thrown in my teeth that 
 I was an author. From having me at this disadvantage, my 
 
114 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 friend wanted to peg on a hole or two in the game, and was 
 displeased if I would not let him. If I won of him, it was hard 
 he should be beat by an author. If he won, it would be 
 strange if he did not understand the game better than I did. 
 5 If I mentioned my favourite game of rackets, there was a 
 general silence, as if this was my weak point. If I complained 
 of being ill, it was asked why I made myself so? If I said such 
 an actor had played a part well, the answer was, there was a 
 different account in one of the newspapers. If any allusion 
 
 10 was made to men of letters, there was a suppressed smile. 
 If I told a humorous story, it was difficult to say whether the 
 laugh was at me or at the narrative. The wife hated me 
 for my ugly face; the servants because I could not always get 
 them tickets for the play, and because they could not tell 
 
 15 exactly what an author meant. If a paragraph appeared 
 against anything I had written, I found it was ready there 
 before me, and I was to undergo a regular roasting. I sub- 
 mitted to all this till I was tired, and then I gave it up. 
 One of the miseries of intellectual pretensions is, that nine- 
 
 20 tenths of those you come in contact with do not know whether 
 you are an impostor or not. I dread that certain anonymous 
 criticisms should get into the hands of servants where I go, or 
 that my hatter or shoemaker should happen to read them, who 
 cannot possibly tell whether they are well or ill founded. 
 
 25 The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its 
 malice. There are people whose good opinion or good will 
 you want, setting aside all literary pretensions; and it is hard 
 to lose by an ill report (which you have no means of rectifying) 
 what you cannot gain by a good one. After a diatribe in the 
 
 30 , (which is taken in by a gentleman who occupies my old 
 
 , apartments on the first floor) my landlord brings me up his 
 bill (of some standing), and on my offering to give him so much 
 in money, and a note of hand for the rest, shakes his head, and 
 says, h • is afraid he could make no use of it. Soon after, 
 
 35 the daughter comes in, and on my mentioning the circum- 
 stance carelessly to her, replies gravely, ''that indeed her 
 father has been almost ruined by bills." This is the un- 
 kindest cut of all. It is vain for me to endeavour to explain 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 115 
 
 that the pubHcation in which I am abused is a mere govern- 
 ment engine — an organ of a poHtical faction. They know 
 nothing about that. They only know such and such im- 
 putations are thrown out; and the more I try to remove 
 them, the more they think there is some truth in them. Per- 5 
 haDS the people of the house are strong Tories — government 
 agents of some sort. Is it for me to enlighten their ignorance? 
 If I say, I once wrote a thing called Prince Maurice's Parrot, 
 and an Essay on the Regal Character, in the former of which 
 allusion is made to a noble marquis, and in the latter to a great 10 
 personage (so at least, I am told, it has been construed), and 
 that Mr. Croker has peremptory instructions to retaliate; 
 they cannot conceive what connection there can be between 
 me and such distinguished characters. I can get no farther. 
 Such is the misery of pretensions beyond your situation, and 15 
 which are not backed by any external symbols of wealth or 
 rank, intelligible to all mankind! 
 
 The impertinence of admiration is scarcely more tolerable 
 than the demonstrations of contempt. I have known a 
 person, whom I had never seen before, besiege me all dinner- 20 
 time with asking what articles I had written in the Edinburgh 
 Review? I was at last ashamed to answer to my splendid 
 sins in that way. Others will pick out something not yours, 
 and say, they are sure no one else could write it. By the 
 first sentence they can always tell your style. Now I hate 25 
 my style to be known; as I hate all idiosyncracy. These 
 obsequious flatterers could not pay me a worse compliment. 
 Then there are those who make a point of reading every- 
 thing you write (which is fulsome) ; while others, more pro- 
 voking, regularly lend your works to a friend as soon as they 30 
 receive them. They pretty well know your notions on the 
 different subjects, from having heard you talk about them. 
 Besides, they have a greater value for your personal character 
 than they have for your writings. You explain things better 
 in a common way, when you are not aiming at effect. Others 35 
 tell you of the faults they have heard found with your last 
 book, and that they defend your style in general from a 
 charge of obscurity. A friend once told me of a quarrel he 
 
116 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 had with a near relation, who denied that I knew how to 
 spell the commonest words. These are comfortable, con- 
 fidential communications, to which authors, who have their 
 friends and excusers, are subject. A gentleman told me that 
 5 a lady had objected to my use of the word learneder, as bad 
 grammar. He said that he thought it a pity that I did not 
 take more care, but that the lady was perhaps prejudiced, as 
 her husband held a government office. I looked for the word, 
 and found it in a motto from Butler. I was piqued, and de- 
 
 10 sired him to tell the fair critic that the fault was not in me, 
 but in one who had far more wit, more learning, and loyalty 
 than I could pretend to. Then, again, some will pick out 
 the flattest thing of yours they can find, to load it with pane- 
 gyrics; and others tell you (by the way of letting you see how 
 
 15 high they rank your capacity), that your best passages are 
 
 failures. L has a knack of tasting (or as he would say, 
 
 palating) the insipid; L. H. has a trick of turning away from 
 the relishing morsels you put on his plate. There is no getting 
 the start of some people. Do what you will, they can do it 
 
 20 better; meet with what success you may, their own good 
 opinion stands them in better stead, and runs before the 
 applause of the world. I once shewed a person of this over- 
 weening turn (with no small triumph, I confess) a letter of a 
 very flattering description I had received from the celebrated 
 
 25 Count Stendhal, dated Rome. He returned it with a smile 
 of indifference, and said he had had a letter from Rome 
 
 himseK the day before, from his friend S ! I did not 
 
 think this " germane to the matter." G — dw — n pretends 
 I never wrote anything worth a farthing but my answers to 
 
 30 Vetus, and that 1 fail altogether when I attempt to write an 
 essay, or anything in a short compass. 
 
 What can one do in such cases? Shall I confess a weak- 
 ness? The only set-off I know to these rebuffs and morti- 
 fications, is sometimes in an accidental notice or involuntary 
 
 35 mark of distinction from a stranger. I feel the force of Hor- 
 ace's digito monstrari — I like to be pointed out in the street, 
 or to hear people ask in Mr. Powell's court, which is Mr. H. — ? 
 This is to me a pleasing extension of one's personal identity. 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 117 
 
 Your name so repeated leaves an echo like music on the ear; 
 it stirs the blood like the sound of a trumpet. It shews that 
 other people are curious to see you; that they think of you, 
 and feel an interest in you without your knowing it. This 
 is a bolster to lean upon; a lining to yoiu" poor, shivering, 5 
 threadbare opinion of yourself. You want some such cordial 
 to exhausted spirits, and relief to the dreariness of abstract 
 speculation. You are something; and, from occupying a 
 place in the thoughts of others, think less contemptuously of 
 yourself. You are the better able to run the gauntlet of 10 
 prejudice and vulgar abuse. It is pleasant in this way to 
 have your opinion quoted against yourself, and your own 
 sayings repeated to you as good things. I was once talking 
 with an intelligent man in the pit, and criticising Mr. Knight's 
 performance of Filch. "Ah!" he said, "httle Simmons was 15 
 the fellow to play that character." He added, "There was 
 a most excellent remark made upon his acting it in the 
 Examiner (I think it was) — That he looked as if he had the 
 gallows in one eye and a pirity girl in the other." I said noth- 
 ing, but was in remarkably good humour the rest of the even- 20 
 ing- I have seldom been in a company where fives-playing 
 has been talked of, but some one has asked, in the course of 
 it, "Pray did anyone ever see an account of one Cavanagh, 
 that appeared some time back in most of the papers? Is it 
 known who wrote it?" These are trying moments. I had 25 
 a triumph over a person, whose name I will not mention, on 
 the following occasion. I happened to be saying something 
 about Burke, and was expressing my opinion of his talents 
 in no measured terms, when this gentleman interrupted me 
 by saying, he thought, for his part, that Burke had been 30 
 greatly over-rated, and then added, in a careless way, "Pray 
 did you read a character of him in the last number of the 
 
 ?" "I wrote it!" — I could not resist the antithesis, 
 
 but was afterwards ashamed of my momentary petulance. 
 Yet no one that I find ever spares me. 35 
 
 Some persons seek out and obtrude themselves on public 
 characters, in order, as it might seem, to pick out their fail- 
 ings, and afterwards betray them. Appearances are for it, 
 
118 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 but truth and a better knowledge of nature are against this 
 interpretation of the matter. Sycophants and flatterers are 
 undesignedly treacherous and fickle. They are prone to ad- 
 mire inordinately at first, and not finding a constant supply of 
 5 food for this kind of sickly appetite, take a distaste to the 
 object of their idolatry. To be even with themselves for 
 their credulity, they sharpen their wits to spy out faults, and 
 are dehghted to find that this answers better than their first 
 employment. It is a course of study, "lively, audible, and 
 
 10 full of vent. " They have the organ of wonder and the organ 
 of fear in a prominent degree. The first requires new objects 
 of admiration to satisfy its uneasy cravings; the second makes 
 them crouch to power wherever its shifting standard appears, 
 and willing to curry favour with all parties, and ready to 
 
 15 betray any out of sheer weakness and servility. I do not 
 think they mean any harm. At least, I can look at this obli- 
 quity with indifference in my own particular case. I have 
 been more disposed to resent it as I have seen it practised 
 upon others, where I have been better able to judge of the 
 
 20 extent of the mischief, and the heartlessness and idiot folly 
 it discovered. 
 
 I do not think great intellectual attainments are any recom- 
 mendation to the women. They puzzle them, and are a 
 diversion to the main question. If scholars talk to ladies of 
 
 25 what they understand, their hearers are none the wiser; if they 
 talk of other things, they only prove themselves fools. The 
 conversation between Angelica and Foresight, in Love for 
 Love, is a receipt in full for all such overstrained nonsense: 
 while he is wandering among the signs of the zodiac, she is 
 
 30 standing a tip-toe on the earth. It has been remarked that 
 poets do not choose mistresses very wasely. I believe it is 
 not choice, but necessity. If they could throw the hand- 
 kerchief like the Grand Turk, I imagine we should see scarce 
 mortals, but rather goddesses, surrounding their steps, and 
 
 35 each exclaiming, with Lord Byron's own Ionian maid — 
 
 "So shalt thou find me ever at thy side, 
 Here and hereafter, if the last may be!" 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 119 
 
 Ah! no, these are bespoke, carried off by men of mortal, not 
 ethereal mould, and thenceforth the poet, from whose mind 
 the ideas of love and beauty are inseparable as dreams from 
 sleep, goes on the forlorn hope of the passion, and dresses up 
 the first Dulcinea that will take compassion on him, in all the 5 
 colours of fancy. What boots it to complain if the delusion 
 lasts for life, and the rainbow still paints its form in the cloud? 
 
 There is one mistake I would wish, if possible, to correct. 
 Men of letters, artists, and others, not succeeding with women 
 in a certain rank of life, think the objection is to their want of 10 
 fortune, and that they shall stand a better chance by descend- 
 ing lower, where only their good qualities or talents will be 
 thought of. Oh! worse and worse. The objection is to 
 themselves, not to their fortune — to their abstraction, to 
 their absence of mind, to their unintelligible and romantic 15 
 notions. Women of education may have a glimpse of their 
 meaning, may get a clue to their character, but to all others 
 they are thick darkness. If the mistress smiles at their ideal 
 advances, the maid will laugh outright; she will throw water 
 over you, get her little sister to listen, send her sweetheart to 20 
 ask you what you mean, will set the village or the house 
 upon your back; it will be a farce, a comedy, a standing jest 
 for a year, and then the murder will out. Scholars should be 
 sworn at Highgate. They are no match for chamber maids, 
 or wenches at lodging-houses. They had better try their 25 
 hands on heiresses or ladies of quality. These last have 
 high notions of themselves that may fit some of your epithets! 
 They are above mortality, so are your thoughts! But with 
 low life, trick, ignorance, and cunning, you have nothing in 
 common. Whoever you are, that think you can make a 30 
 compromise or a conquest there by good nature, or good sense, 
 be warned by a friendly voice, and retreat in time from the 
 unequal contest. 
 
 If, as I have said above, scholars are no match for chamber- 
 maids, on the other hand, gentlemen are no match for black- 35 
 guards. The former are on their honour, act on the square; 
 the latter take all advantages, and have no idea of any other 
 principle. It is astonishing how soon a fellow without 
 
120 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 education will learn to cheat. He is impervious to any ray 
 of liberal knowledge; his understanding is 
 
 "Not pierceable by power of any star" — 
 
 but it is porous to all sorts of tricks, chicanery, stratagems, 
 5 and knavery, by which anything is to be got. Mrs. Peachum, 
 indeed, says, that ''to succeed at the gaming-table, the candi- 
 date should have the education of a nobleman." I do not 
 know how far this example contradicts my theory. I think 
 it is a rule that men in business should not be taught other 
 
 10 things. Anyone will be almost sure to make money who has 
 no other idea in his head. A college education, or intense 
 study of abstract truth, will not enable a man to drive a 
 bargain, to over-reach another, or even to guard himself from 
 being over-reached. As Shakespeare says, that "to have 
 
 15 a good face is the effect of study, but reading and writing 
 come by nature:" so it might be argued, that to be a knave 
 is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is 
 necessary to be a learned man. The best politicians are not 
 those who are deeply grounded in mathematical or in ethical 
 
 20 science. Rules stand in the way of expediency. Many a 
 man has been hindered from pushing his fortune in the world 
 by an early cultivation of his moral sense, and has repented 
 of it at leisure during the rest of his life. A shrewd man said 
 of my father, that he would not send a son of his to school to 
 
 25 him on any account, for that by teaching him to speak the 
 truth, he would disqualify him from getting his living in the 
 world! 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add any illustration to prove that 
 the most original and profound thinkers are not always the 
 
 30 most successful or popular writers. This is not merely a 
 temporary disadvantage; but many great philosophers have 
 not only been scouted while they were living, but forgotten 
 as soon as they were dead. The name of Hobbes is perhaps 
 sufficient to explain this assertion. But I do not wish to go 
 
 35 farther into this part of the subject, which is obvious in itself. 
 I have said, I believe, enough to take off the air of paradox 
 which hangs over the title of this Essay. 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 
 
 It is astonishing, with all our opportunities and practice, 
 how little we know of this subject. For myself, I feel that 
 the more I learn, the less I understand it. 
 
 I remember, several years ago, a conversation in the dili- 
 gence coming from Paris, in which, on its being mentioned 5 
 that a man had married his w^ife after thirteen years' court- 
 ship, a fellow-countryman of mine observed, that ''then, at 
 least, he would be acquainted with her character;" when a 
 
 Monsieur P , inventor and proprietor of the Invisible 
 
 Girl, made answer, "No, not at all; for that the very next 10 
 day she might turn out the very reverse of the character that 
 she had appeared in during all the preceding time. " ^ I 
 could not help admiring the superior sagacity of the French 
 juggler, and it struck me then that we could never be sure 
 when we had got at the bottom of this riddle. 15 
 
 There are various ways of getting at a knowledge of charac- 
 ter — by looks, words, actions. The first of these, v/hich 
 seems the most superficial, is perhaps the safest, and least 
 liable to deceive; nay, it is that which mankind, in spite of 
 their pretending to the contrary, most generally go by. 20 
 Professions pass for nothing, and actions may be counter- 
 feited; but a man cannot help his looks. "Speech," said 
 a celebrated wit, "was given to man to conceal his thoughts." 
 Yet I do not know that the greatest hypocrites are the least 
 silent. The mouth of Cromwell is pursed up in the portraits 25 
 of him, as if he was afraid to trust himself with words. Lord 
 Chesterfield advises us, if we wish to know the real sentiments 
 of the person we are conversing with, to look in his face, for 
 he can more easily command his words than his features. A 
 man's whole life may be a lie to himself and others; and yet 30 
 a picture painted of him by a great artist would probably 
 
 1 "It is not a year or two shows us a man." — ^Emilia, in Othello. 
 121 
 
122 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 stamp his true character on the canvas, and betray the secret 
 to posterity. Men's opinions were divided, in their life-times, 
 about such prominent personages as Charles V and Ignatius 
 Loyola, partly, no doubt, from passion and interest, but partly 
 5 from contradictory evidence in their ostensible conduct; 
 the spectator, who has ever seen their pictures by Titian, 
 judges of them at once, and truly. I had rather leave a good 
 portrait of myself behind me than have a fine epitaph. The 
 face, for the most part, tells what we have thought and felt 
 
 10 — the rest is nothing. I have a higher idea of Donne from a 
 rude, half-effaced outline of him prefixed to his poems than 
 from anything he ever wrote. Caesar's Commentaries would 
 not have redeemed him in my opinion, if the bust of him had 
 resembled the Duke of W . My old friend, Fawcett, used 
 
 15 to say, that if Sir Isaac Newton himself had lisped, he could 
 not have thought anything of him. So I cannot persuade 
 myself that anyone is a great man, who looks like a fool. 
 In this I may be wrong. 
 
 First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not un- 
 
 20 frequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of 
 them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is 
 the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the 
 events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and 
 it is not to be got rid of easily. There is, as it has been re- 
 
 25 marked repeatedly, something in a person's appearance at 
 first sight which we do not like, and that gives us an odd 
 twinge, but which is overlooked in a multiplicity of other 
 circumstances, till the mask is taken off, and we see this lurk- 
 ing character verified in the plainest manner in the sequel. 
 
 30 We are struck at first, and by chance, with what is peculiar and 
 characteristic; also with permanent traits and general effect; 
 this afterwards goes "off in a set of unmeaning, commonplace 
 details. This sort of prijna facie evidence then, shows what 
 a man is, better than what he says or does; for it shows us the 
 
 35 habit of his mind, which is the same under ah circumstances 
 and disguises. You will say, on the other hand, that there is 
 no judging by appearances, as a general rule. No one, for 
 instance, would take such a person for a very clever man, 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 123 
 
 without knowing who he was. Then, ten to one, he is not; 
 he may have got the reputation, but it is a mistake. You 
 
 say, there is Mr. , undoubtedly a person of great genius: 
 
 yet, except when excited by something extraordinary, he 
 seems half dead. He has wit at will, yet wants life and 5 
 spirit. He is capable of the most generous acts, yet meanness 
 seems to cling to every motion. He looks like a poor creature 
 — and in truth he is one! The first impression he gives you 
 of him answers nearly to the feeling he has of his personal 
 identity; and this image of himself, rising from his thoughts, 10 
 and shrouding his faculties, is that which sits with him in the 
 house, walks out mth him into the street, and haunts his 
 bedside. The best part of his existence is dull, cloudy, 
 leaden : the flashes of light that proceed from it, or streak it 
 here and there, may dazzle others, but do not deceive him- 15 
 self. Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real con- 
 fession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues 
 himself is justly undervalued by others. Whatever good 
 properties he may possess are, in fact, neutralised by a 
 "cold rheum" running through his veins, and taking away 20 
 the zest of his pretensions, the pith and marrow of his per- 
 formances. What is it to me that I can write these Table- 
 talks? It is true I can, by a reluctant effort, rake up a 
 parcel of half-forgotten observations, but they do not float 
 on the surface of my mind, nor stir it with any sense of pleas- 25 
 ure, nor even of pride. Others have more property in them 
 than I have: they may reap the benefit, / have only had the 
 pain. Otherwise, they are to me as if they had never existed; 
 nor should I know that I had ever thought at all, but that 
 I am reminded of it by the strangeness of my appearance, 30 
 
 and' my unfitness for everything else. Look in C 's face 
 
 while he is talking. His words are such as might ''create a 
 soul under the ribs of death." His face is a blank. Which 
 are we to consider as the true index of his mind? Pain, 
 languor, shadowy remembrances, are the uneasy inmates 35 
 there: his lips move mechanically! 
 
 There are people that we do not like, though we may have 
 known them long, and have no fault to find with them, 
 
124 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 ''their appearance, as we say, is so much against them." 
 That is not all, if we could find it out. There is, generally, 
 a reason for this prejudice; for nature is true to itself. They 
 may be very good sort of people, too, in their way, but still 
 6 something is the matter. There is a coldness, a selfishness, 
 a levity, an insincerity, which we cannot fix upon any par- 
 ticular phrase or action, but we see it in their whole persons 
 and deportment. One reason that we do not see it in any 
 other way may be, that they are all the time trying to conceal 
 
 10 this defect by every means in their power. There is, luckily, 
 a sort of second sight in morals: we discern the lurking indi- 
 cations of temper and habit a long while before their palpable 
 effects appear. I once used to meet with a person at an 
 ordinary, a very civil, good-looking man in other respects, 
 
 15 but with an odd look about his eyes, which I could not 
 explain, as if he saw you under their fringed lids, and you could 
 not see him again: this man was a common sharper. The 
 greatest hypocrite I ever knew was a little, demure, pretty, 
 modest-looking girl, with eyes timidly cast upon the ground, 
 
 20 and an air soft as enchantment; the only circumstance that 
 could lead to a suspicion of her true character was a cold, 
 sullen, watery, glazed look about the eyes, which she bent on 
 vacancy, as if determined to avoid all explanation with yours. 
 I might have spied in their glittering, motionless surface, the 
 
 25 rocks and quicksands that awaited me below! We do not feel 
 quite at ease in the company or friendship of those who have 
 any natural obliquity or imperfection of person. The reason 
 is, they are not on the best terms with themselves, and are 
 sometimes apt to play off on others the tricks that nature 
 
 30 has played them. This, however, is a remark that, perhaps, 
 ought not to have been made. I know a person to whom it 
 has been objected as a disqualification for friendship, that 
 he never shakes you cordially by the hand. I own this is a 
 damper to sanguine and florid temperaments, who abound 
 
 35 in these practical demonstrations and "compliments extern." 
 The same person, who testifies the least pleasure at meeting 
 you, is the last to quit his seat in your company, grapples with 
 a subject in conversation right earnestly, and is, I take it, 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 125 
 
 backward to give up a cause or a friend. Cold and distant 
 in appearance, he piques himself on being the king of good 
 haters, and a no less zealous partisan. The most phlegmatic 
 constitutions often contain the most inflammable spirits — 
 as fire is struck from the hardest flints. 5 
 
 And this is another reason that makes it difficult to judge 
 of character. Extremes meet; and qualities display them- 
 selves by the most contradictory appearances. Any inclina- 
 tion, in consequence of being generally suppressed, vents 
 itself the more violently when an opportunity presents itself; 10 
 the greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest 
 refinement, as a natural relief, one to the other; and we find 
 the most reserved and indifferent tempers at the beginning of 
 an entertainment, or an acquaintance, turn out the most 
 communicative and cordial at the end of it. Some spirits 15 
 exhaust themselves at first: others gain strength by pro- 
 gression. Some minds have a greater facility of throwing 
 off impressions, are, as it were, more transparent or porous 
 than others. Thus the French present a marked contrast 
 to the English in this respect. A Frenchman addresses you 20 
 at once with a sort of lively indifference: an Englishman is 
 more on his guard, feels his way, and is either exceedingly 
 reserved, or lets you into his whole confidence, which he 
 cannot so well impart to an entire stranger. Again, a French- 
 man is naturally humane: an Englishman is, I should say, 25 
 only friendly by habit. His virtues and his vices cost him 
 more than they do his more gay and volatile neighbours. 
 An Englishman is said to speak his mind more plainly than 
 others: — yes, if it will give you pain to hear it. He does not 
 care whom he offends by his discourse: a foreigner generally 30 
 strives to oblige in what he says. The French are accused of 
 promising more than they perform. That may be, and yet 
 they may perform as many good-natured acts as the English, 
 if the latter are as averse to perform as they are to promise. 
 Even the professions of the French may be sincere at the time, 35 
 or arise out of the impulse of the moment; though their 
 desire to serve you may be neither very violent nor very 
 lasting. I cannot think, notwithstanding, that the French 
 
126 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 are not a serious people; na}^ that they are not a more re- 
 flecting people than the common run of the English. Let 
 those who think them merely light and mercurial, explain that 
 enigma, their everlasting prosing tragedy. The English are 
 5 considered as comparatively a slow, plodding people. If the 
 French are quicker, they are also more plodding. See, for 
 example, how highly finished and elaborate their works of art 
 are! How systematic and correct they aim at being in all their 
 productions of a graver cast! "If the French have a fault," 
 
 10 as Yorick said, ''it is that they are too grave." With wit, 
 sense, cheerfulness, patience, good-nature and refinement of 
 manners, all they want is imagination and sturdiness of moral 
 principle! Such are some of the contradictions in the charac- 
 ter of the two nations, and so little does the character of 
 
 15 either appear to have been understood! Nothing can be 
 more ridiculous indeed than the way in which we exaggerate 
 each other's vices and extenuate our own. The whole is an 
 affair of prejudice on one side of the question, and of par- 
 tiality on the other. Travellers who set out to carry back a 
 
 20 true report of the case appear to lose not only the use of their 
 understandings, but of their senses, the instant they set 
 foot in a foreign land. The commonest facts and appearances 
 are distorted and discoloured. They go abroad with certain 
 preconceived notions on the subject, and they make every 
 
 25 thing answer, in reason's spite, to their favourite theory. 
 In addition to the difficulty of explaining customs and man- 
 ners foreign to our own, there are all the obstacles of wilful 
 prepossession thrown in the way. It is not, therefore, much 
 to be wondered at that nations have arrived at so little 
 
 30 knowledge of one another's characters; and that, where the 
 object has been to widen the breach between them, any slight 
 differences that occur are easily blown into a blaze of fury by 
 repeated misrepresentations, and all the exaggerations that 
 malice or folly can invent! 
 
 35 This ignorance of character is not confined to foreign 
 nations: we are ignorant of that of our own countrymen in a 
 class a little below or above ourselves. We shall hardly 
 pretend to pronounce magisterially on the good or bad quali- 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 127 
 
 ties of strangers; and, at the same time, we are ignorant of 
 those of our friends, of our kindred, and of our own. We 
 are in all these cases either too near or too far off the object to 
 judge of it properly. 
 
 Persons, for instance, in a higher or middle rank of life 5 
 know little or nothing of the characters of those below them, 
 as servants, country people, etc. I would lay it down in the 
 first place as a general rule on this subject, that all unedu- 
 cated people are hypocrites. Their sole business is to deceive. 
 They conceive themselves in a state of hostility with others, 10 
 and stratagems are fair in war. The inmates of the kitchen 
 and the parlour are always (as far as respects their feeling and 
 intentions towards each other) in Hobbes's ''state of nature." 
 Servants and others in that line of life have nothing to exer- 
 cise their spare talents for invention upon but those about 15 
 them. Their superfluous electrical particles of wit and fancy 
 are not carried off by those established and fashionable 
 conductors, novels and romances. Their faculties are not 
 buried in books, but all alive and stirring, erect and bristling 
 like a cat's back. Their coarse conversation sparkles with 20 
 "wild wit, invention ever new." Their betters try all they 
 can to set themselves up above them, and they try all they 
 can to pull them down to their own level. They do this by 
 getting up a httle comic interlude, a daily, domestic, homely 
 drama out of the odds and ends of the family failings, of 25 
 which there is in general a pretty plentiful supply, or make up 
 the deficiency of materials out of their own heads. They 
 turn the qualities of their masters and mistresses inside out, 
 and any real kindness or condescension only sets them the 
 more against you. They are not to be taken in that way — 30 
 they' will not be balked in the spite they have to you. They 
 only set to work with redoubled alacrity, to lessen the favour 
 or to blacken your character. They feel themselves like a 
 degraded caste, and cannot understand how the obligations 
 can be all on one side, and the advantages all on the other. 35 
 You cannot come to equal terms with them — they reject all 
 such overtures as insidious and hollow — nor can you ever 
 calculate upon their gratitude or good will, any more than if 
 
128 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 they were so many strolling Gipsies or wild Indians. They 
 have no fellow-feeling, they keep no faith with the more 
 privileged classes. They are in your power, and they en- 
 deavour to be even with you by trick and cunning, by lying 
 5 and chicanery. In this they have nothing to restrain them. 
 Their whole life is a succession of shifts, excuses, and expe- 
 dients. The love of truth is a principle with those only who 
 have made it their study, who have applied themselves to the 
 pursuit of some art or science where the intellect is severely 
 
 10 tasked, and learns by habit to take a pride in, and to set a 
 just value on, the correctness of its conclusions. To have a 
 disinterested regard to truth, the mind must have contem- 
 plated it in abstract and remote questions; whereas the ig- 
 norant and vulgar are only conversant with those things in 
 
 15 which their own interest is concerned. All their notions are 
 local, personal, and consequently gross and selfish. They say 
 whatever comes uppermost — turn whatever happens to 
 their own account — and invent any story, or give any an- 
 swer that suits their purposes. Instead of being bigoted to 
 
 20 general principles, they trump up any lie for the occasion, 
 and the more of a thumper it is, the better they like it; the 
 more unlooked-for it is, why, so much the more of a God-send! 
 They have no conscience about the matter; and if you find 
 them out in any of their manoeuvres, are not ashamed of 
 
 25 themselves, but angry with you. If you remonstrate with 
 them, they laugh in your face. The only hold you have of 
 them is their interest — you can but dismiss them from your 
 employment; and service is no inheritance. If they affect 
 anything like decent remorse, and hope you will pass it over, 
 
 30 all the while they are probably trying to recover the wind of 
 you. Persons of Hberal knowledge or sentiments have no 
 kind of chance in this sort of mixed intercourse with these 
 barbarians in civilised life. You cannot tell, by any signs or 
 principles, what is passing in their minds. There is no com- 
 
 35mon point of view between you. You have not the same 
 topics to refer to, the same language to express yourself. 
 Your interests, your feelings are quite distinct. You take 
 certain things for granted as rules of action : they take nothing 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 129 
 
 for granted but their own ends, pick up all their knowledge 
 out of their own occasions, are on the watch only for what 
 they can catch — are 
 
 "Subtle as the fox for prey: 
 Like warlike as the wolf, for what they eat. " 5 
 
 They have indeed a regard to then character, as this last may 
 affect their livelihood or advancement, none as it is connected 
 with a sense of propriety; and this sets their mother-wits and 
 native talents at work upon a double file of expedients, to 
 bilk their consciences and salve their reputation. In short, 10 
 you never know where to have them, any more than if they 
 were of a different species of animals; and in trusting to them, 
 you are sure to be betrayed and over-reached. You have 
 other things to mind, they are thinking only of you, and how 
 to turn you to advantage. Give and take is no maxim here. 15 
 You can build nothing on your own moderation or on their 
 false dehcacy. After a familiar conversation with a waiter 
 at a tavern, you over-hear him calling you by some pro- 
 voking nickname. If you make a present to the daughter of 
 the house where you lodge, the mother is sure to recollect 20 
 some addition to her bill. It is a running fight. In fact, 
 there is a principle in human nature not wiUingly to endure 
 the idea of a superior, a sour Jacobinical disposition to wipe 
 out the score of obligation, or efface the tinsel of external 
 advantages — and where others have the opportunity of 25 
 coming m contact with us, they generally find the means to 
 estabhsh a sufficiently marked degree of degrading equality. 
 No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, is an old maxim. 
 A new illustration of this principle occurred the other day. 
 While Mrs. Siddons was giving her readmgs of Shakespeare 30 
 to a brilliant and admiring drawing-room, one of the servants 
 in the hall below was saying, "What, I find the old lady is 
 making as much noise as ever! " So little is there in common 
 between the different classes of society, and so impossible is 
 it ever to unite the diversities of custom and knowledge which 35 
 separate them. 
 
 Women, according to Mrs. Peachum, are ''bitter bad 
 judges" of the characters of men; and the men are not much 
 
130 PHILOSOPHY AND KEFLECTION 
 
 better of theirs, if we can form any guess from their choice 
 in marriage. Love is proverbially blind. The whole is an 
 affair of whim and fancy. Certain it is, that the greatest 
 favourites with the other sex are not those who are most 
 
 5 liked or respected among their own. I never knew but one 
 clever man who was what is called a lady's man; and he (un- 
 fortunately for the argument) happened to be a considerable 
 coxcomb. It was by this irresistible quality, and not by the 
 force of his genius, that he vanquished. Women seem to 
 
 10 doubt their own judgments in love, and to take the opinion 
 which a man entertains of his own prowess and accomplish- 
 ments for granted. The wives of poets are (for the most 
 part) mere pieces of furniture in the room. If you speak to 
 them of their husbands' talents or reputation in the world, 
 
 15 it is as if you made mention of some office that they held. 
 It can hardly be otherwise, when the instant any subject is 
 started or conversation arises in which men are interested or 
 try one another's strength, the women leave the room, or 
 attend fo something else. The qualities then in which men 
 
 20 are ambitious to excel, and which ensure the applause of the 
 world, eloquence, genius, learning, integrity, are not those 
 which gain the favour of the fair. I must not deny, however, 
 that wit and courage have this effect. Neither is youth or 
 beauty the sole passport to their affections. 
 
 25 "The way of woman's will is hard to find, 
 
 Harder to hit." 
 
 Yet there is some clue to this mystery, some determining 
 cause; for we find that the same men are universal favourites 
 with women, as others are uniformly disliked by them. Is not 
 
 30 the load-stone that attracts so powerfully, and in all circum- 
 stances, a strong and undisguised bias towards them, a marked 
 attention, a conscious preference of them to every other pass- 
 ing object or topic? I am not sure, but I incline to think so. 
 The successful lover is the cavalier servente of all nations. 
 
 35 The man of gallantry behaves as if he had made an assigna- 
 tion with every woman he addresses. An argument immedi- 
 ately draws off my attention from the prettiest woman in the 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 131 
 
 room. I accordingly succeed better in argument — than in 
 love! — I do not think that what is called Love at first sight 
 is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. 
 We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of 
 person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; 5 
 with golden tresses or with raven locks; — and when we meet 
 with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bar- 
 gain is soon struck. We have never seen anything to come 
 up to our newly discovered goddess before, but she is what we 
 have been all our lives looking for. The idol we fall down and 10 
 worship is an image familiar to our minds. It has been pres- 
 ent to our waking thoughts, it has haunted us in our dreams, 
 like some fairy vision. Oh! thou, who, the first time I ever 
 beheld thee, didst draw my soul into the circle of thy heavenly 
 looks, and wave enchantment round me, do not think thy 15 
 conquest less complete because it was instantaneous; for 
 in that gentle form (as if another Imogen had entered) I saw 
 all that I had ever loved of female grace, modesty, and 
 svv^eetness! 
 
 I shall not say much of friendship as giving an insight into 20 
 character, because it is often founded on mutual infirmities 
 and prejudices. Friendships are frequently taken up on 
 some sudden sympathy, and we see only as much as we please 
 of one another's characters afterwards. Intimate friends are 
 not fair witnesses to character, any more than professed 25 
 enemies. They cool, indeed, in time, part, and retain only 
 a rankling grudge at past errors and oversights. Their testi- 
 mony in the latter case is not quite free from suspicion. 
 
 One would think that near relations, who live constantly 
 together, and always have done so, must be pretty well ac-30 
 quainted w^ith one another's characters. They are nearly in 
 the dark about it. Familiarity confounds all traits of dis- 
 tinction: interest and prejudice take away the power of 
 judging. We have no opinion on the subject, any more than 
 of one another's faces. The Penates, the household gods, 35 
 are veiled. We do not see the features of those we love, nor 
 do we clearly distinguish their virtues or their vices. We 
 take them as they are found in the lump: — by weight, and not 
 
132 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 by measure. We know all about the individuals, their senti- 
 ments, history, manners, words, actions, everything: but we 
 know all these too much as facts, as inveterate, habitual 
 impressions, as clothed with too many associations, as sanc- 
 5 tified with too many affections, as woven too much into the 
 web of our hearts, to be able to pick out the different threads, 
 to cast up the items of the debtor and creditor account, or 
 to refer them to any general standard of right and wrong. 
 Our impressions with respect to them are too strong, too real, 
 
 10 too much sui generis, to be capable of a comparison with any- 
 thing but themselves. We hardly inquire whether those for 
 whom we are thus interested, and to whom we are thus knit, 
 are better or worse than others — the question is a kind of 
 profanation — all we know is, they are more to us than any- 
 
 15 one else can be. Our sentiments of this kind are rooted and 
 grow in us, and we cannot eradicate them by voluntary means. 
 Besides, our judgments are bespoke, our interests take part 
 with our blood. If any doubt arises, if the veil of our impli- 
 cit confidence is drawn aside by any accident for a moment, 
 
 20 the shock is too great, like that of a dislocated limb, and we 
 recoil on our habitual impressions again. Let not that veil 
 ever be rent entirely asunder, so that those images may be left 
 bare of reverential awe, and lose their religion: for nothing 
 can ever support the desolation of the heart afterwards. 
 
 25 The greatest misfortune that can happen among relations 
 is a different way of bringing up, so as to set one another's 
 opinions and characters in an entirely new point of view. 
 This often lets in an unwelcome daylight on the subject, and 
 breeds schisms, coldness, and incurable heart-burnings in 
 
 30 families. I have sometimes thought whether the progress 
 of society and march of knowledge does not do more harm in 
 this respect, by loosening the ties of domestic attachment, 
 and preventing those who are most interested in, and anxious 
 to think well of one another, from feeling a cordial sympathy 
 
 35 and approbation of each other's sentiments, manners, views, 
 etc., than it does good by any real advantage to the com- 
 munity at large. The son, for instance, is brought up to the 
 church, and nothing can exceed the pride and pleasure the 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 133 
 
 father takes in him, while all goes on well in this favourite, 
 direction. His notions change, and he imbibes a taste for 
 the Fine Arts. From this moment there is an end of any- 
 thing like the same unreserved communication between them. 
 The young man may talk with enthusiasm of his "Rem- 5 
 brandts, Correggios, and stuff:" it is all Hebrew to the elder; 
 and whatever satisfaction he may feel in hearing of his son's 
 progress, or good wishes for his success, he is never reconciled 
 to the new pursuit, he still hankers after the first object that 
 he had set his mind upon. Again, the grandfather is a Cal- 10 
 vinist, who never gets the better of his disappointment at bis 
 son's going over to the Unitarian side of the question. The 
 matter rests here, till the grandson, some years after, in the 
 fashion of the day and ''infinite agitation of men's wit," 
 comes to doubt certain points in the creed in which he has 15 
 been brought up, and the affair is all abroad again. Here are 
 three generations made uncomfortable and in a manner set 
 at variance, by a veering point of theology, and the officious, 
 meddling, biblical critics! Nothing, on the other hand, can 
 be more wretched or common than that upstart pride and 20 
 insolent good fortune which is ashamed of its origin; nor are 
 there many things more awkward than the situation of rich 
 and poor relations. Happy, much happier, are those tribes 
 and people who are confined to the same caste and way of life 
 from sire to son, where prejudices are transmitted like in- 25 
 stincts, and where the same unvarying standard of opinion 
 and refinement blends countless generations in its impro- 
 gressive, everlasing mould! 
 
 Not only is there a wilful and habitual blindness in near 
 kindred to each other's defects, but an incapacity to judge 30 
 from the quantity of materials, from the contradictoriness of 
 the evidence. The chain of particulars is too long and massy 
 for us to lift it or put it into the most approved ethical scales. 
 The concrete result does not answer to any abstract theory, 
 to any logical definition. There is black, and white, and grey, 35 
 square and round — there are too many anomalies, too many 
 redeeming points, in poor human nature, such as it actually 
 is, for us to arrive at a smart, summary decision on it. We 
 
134 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 know too mucn to come to any hasty or partial conclusion. 
 We do not pronounce upon the present act, because a hundred 
 others rise up to contradict it. We suspend our judgments 
 altogether, because in effect one thing unconsciously balances 
 5 another; and perhaps this obstinate, pertinacious indecision 
 would be the truest philosophy in other cases, where we dis- 
 pose of the question of character easily, because we have 
 only the smallest part of the evidence to decide upon. Real 
 character is not one thing, but a thousand things; actual 
 
 10 qualities do not conform to any factitious standard in the 
 mind, but rest upon their own truth and nature. The dull 
 stupor under which we labour in respect of those whom we 
 have the greatest opportunities of inspecting nearly, we should 
 do well to imitate, before we give extreme and uncharitable 
 
 15 verdicts against those whom we only see in passing, or at a 
 distance. If we knew them better, we should be disposed to 
 say less about them. 
 
 In the truth of things, there are none utterly worthless, 
 none without some drawback on their pretensions, or some 
 
 20 alloy of imperfection. It has been observed that a familiarity 
 with the worst characters lessens our abhorrence of them; 
 and a wonder is often expressed that the greatest criminals 
 look like other men. The reason is that the^j are like other 
 men in many respects. If a particular individual was merely 
 
 25 the wretch we read of, or conceive in the abstract, that is, if 
 he was the mere personified idea of the criminal brought to 
 the bar, he would not disappoint the spectator, but would 
 look like what he would be — a monster! But he has other 
 qualities, ideas, feelings, nay, probably virtues, mixed up with 
 
 30 the most profligate habits or desperate acts. This need not 
 lessen our abhorrence of the crime, though it does of the 
 criminal; for it has the latter effect only by showing him to us 
 in different points of view, in which he appears a common 
 mortal, and not the caricature of vice we took him for, or 
 
 35 spotted all over with infamy. I do not at the same time 
 think this a lax or dangerous, though it is a charitable view of 
 the subject. In my opinion, no man ever answered in his 
 own mind (except in the agonies of conscience or of repentance, 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 135 
 
 in which latter case he throws the imputation from himself 
 in another way) to the abstract idea of a 7nurderer. He may 
 have killed a man in self-defence, or "in the trade of war," 
 or to save himself from starving, or in revenge for an injury, 
 but always "so as with a difference," or from mixed and 5 
 questionable motives. The individual, in reckoning with 
 himself, always takes into the account the consideration of 
 time, place, and circumstance, and never makes out a case 
 of unmitigated, unprovoked villany, of "pure defecated evil" 
 against himself . There are degrees in real crimes : we reason 10 
 and moralise only by names and in classes. I should be loth, 
 indeed, to" say, that "whatever is, is right:" but almost every 
 actual choice inclines to it, with some sort of imperfect, 
 unconscious bias. This is the reason, besides the ends of 
 secresy, of the invention of slang terms for different acts of 15 
 profligacy committed by thieves, pickpockets, etc. The 
 common names suggest associations of disgust in the minds of 
 others, which those who live by them do not willingly recog- 
 nise, and which they wish to sink in a technical phraseology. 
 So there is a story of a fellow who, as he was writing down his 20 
 confession of a murder, stopped to ask how the word murder 
 was spelt ; this, if true, was partly because his imagination was 
 staggered by the recollection of the thing, and partly because 
 he shrunk from the verbal admission of it. "Amen stuck in 
 his throat!" The defence made by Eugene Aram of himself 25 
 against a charge of murder, some years before, shows that he 
 in imagination completely flung from himself the nominal 
 crime imputed to him; he might indeed, have staggered an 
 old man, with a blow, and buried his body in a cave, and lived 
 ever since upon the money he found upon hun, but there 30 
 was' "no malice in the case, none at all," as Peachum says. 
 The very coolness, subtlety, and circumspection of his de- 
 fence (as masterly a legal document as there is upon record) 
 prove that he was guilty of the act, as much as they prove 
 that he was unconscious of the crime} In the same spirit, 35 
 
 ' The bones of the murdered man were dug up in an old hermi- 
 tage. On this, as one instance of the acuteness which he displayed 
 all through the occasion, Aram remarks, "Where would you expect 
 
136 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 and I conceive with great metaphysical truth, Mr. Coleridge, 
 in his tragedy of Remorse, makes Ordonio (his chief charac- 
 ter) wave the acknowledgment of his meditated guilt to his 
 own mind, by putting into his mouth that striking soliloquy: 
 
 5 "Say, I had lay'd a body in the sun! 
 
 Well! in a month there swarm forth from the corse 
 A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings 
 In place of that one man. Say I had kilVd him! 
 Yet who shall tell me, that each one and all 
 10 Of these ten thousand lives is not as happy 
 
 As that one life, which being push'd aside. 
 Made room for these unnumber'd. " — Act ii, sc. ii. 
 
 I am not sure, indeed, that I have not got this whole train 
 of speculation from him; but I should not think the worse of 
 
 15 it on that account. That gentleman, I recollect, once asked 
 me whether I thought that the different members of a family 
 really like one another so well, or had so much attachment as 
 was generally supposed; and I said that I conceived the regard 
 they had towards each other was expressed by the word 
 
 20 interest, rather than by any other; which he said was the true 
 answer. I do not know that I could mend it now. Natural 
 affection is not pleasure in one another's company, nor ad- 
 miration of one another's qualities; but it is an intimate and 
 deep knowledge of the things that affect those to whom we 
 
 25 are bound by the nearest ties, with pleasure or pain; it is an 
 anxious, uneasy, fellow-feeling with them, a jealous watchful- 
 ness over their good name, a tender and unconquerable 
 yearning for their good. The love, in short, we bear them, is 
 the nearest to that we bear ourselves. Home, according to 
 
 80 the old saying, is home, be it never so homely. We love our- 
 selves, not according to our deserts, but our cravings after 
 good: so we love our immediate relations in the next degree 
 (if not, even sometimes a higher one) because we know best 
 what they have suffered and what sits nearest to their hearts. 
 
 35 We are implicated, in fact, in their welfare, by habit and 
 sympathy, as we are in our own. 
 
 to find the bones of a man sooner than in a hermit's cell, except you 
 were to look for them in a cemetery?" See Newgate Calendar for 
 the year 1758 or 9. 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 137 
 
 If our devotion to our owii interests is much the same as to 
 theirs, we are ignorant of our own characters for the same 
 reason. We are parties too much concerned to return a fair 
 verdict, and are too much in the secret of our own motives or 
 situation not to be able to give a favourable turn to our 5 
 actions. We exercise a liberal criticism upon ourselves, and 
 put off the final decision to a late day. The field is large and 
 open. Hamlet exclaims, with a noble magnanimity, "I 
 count myself indifferent honest, and yet I accuse me of such 
 things!" If you could prove to a man that he is a knave, it 10 
 would not make much difference in his opinion, his self-love 
 is stronger than his love of virtue. Hypocrisy is generally 
 used as a mask to deceive the world, not to impose on our- 
 selves: for once detect the delinquent in his knavery, and 
 he laughs in your face or glories in his iniquity. This at least 15 
 happens except where there is a contradiction in the character 
 and our vices are involuntary, and at variance with our 
 convictions. One great difficulty is to distinguish ostensible 
 motives, or such as we acknowledge to ourselves, from tacit 
 or secret springs of action. A man changes his opinion 20 
 readily, he thinks it candour: it is levity of mind. For the 
 most part, we are stunned and stupid in judging of ourselves. 
 We are callous by custom to our defects or excellencies, un- 
 less where vanity steps in to exaggerate or extenuate them. 
 I cannot conceive how it is that people are in love with their 25 
 own persons, or astonished at their own performances, which 
 are but a nine days' wonder to every one else. In general it 
 may be laid down that we are liable to this twofold mistake 
 in judging of our own talents: we, in the first place, nurse 
 the rickety bantling, we think much of that which has cost 30 
 us much pains and labour, and comes against the grain; and 
 we also set Uttle store by what we do with most ease to our- 
 selves, and therefore best. The works of the greatest genius 
 are produced almost unconsciously, with an ignorance on the 
 part of the persons themselves that they have done anything 35 
 extraordinary. Nature has done it for them. How little 
 Shakespeare seems to have thought of himself or of his fame! 
 Yet, if 'Ho know another well, were to know one's self," he 
 
138 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 must have been acquainted with his own pretensions and 
 character, ''who knew all qualities with a learned spirit." 
 His eye seems never to have been bent upon himself, but 
 outwards upon nature. A man, who thinks highly of him- 
 6 seK, may almost set it down that it is without reason. Milton, 
 notwithstanding, appears to have had a high opinion of 
 himself, and to have made it good. He was conscious of his 
 powers, and great by design. Perhaps his tenaciousness, on 
 the score of his own merit, might arise from an early habit 
 
 10 of polemical writing, in which his pretensions were con- 
 tinually called to the bar of prejudice and party spirit, and 
 he had to plead not guilty to the indictment. Some men have 
 died unconscious of immortality, as others have almost ex- 
 hausted the sense of it in their life-times. Correggio might be 
 
 15 mentioned as an instance of the one, Voltaire of the other. 
 There is nothing that helps a man in his conduct through 
 life more than a knowledge of his own characteristic weak- 
 nesses (which, guarded against, become his strength), as 
 there is nothing that tends more to the success of a man's 
 
 20 talents than his knowing the limits of his faculties, which are 
 thus concentrated on some practicable object. One man can 
 do but one thing. Universal pretensions end in nothing. 
 Or, as Butler has it, too much wit requires 
 "As much again to govern it." 
 
 25 There are those who have gone, for want of this self-knowl- 
 edge, strangely out of their way, and others who have never 
 found it. We find many who succeed in certain departments, 
 and are yet melancholy and dissatisfied, because they failed 
 in the one to which they first devoted themselves, like dis- 
 
 30 carded lovers who pine after their scornful mistress. I will 
 conclude with observing that authors in general overrate the 
 extent and value of posthumous fame: for what (as it has 
 been asked) is the amount even of Shakespeare's fame? That 
 in that very country which boasts his genius and his birth, 
 
 %5 perhaps, scarce one person in ten has ever heard of his name, 
 or read a syllable of his writings! 
 
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH 
 
 "And our little life is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that 
 Hfe has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when 
 we were not : this gives us no concern — why then should it 
 trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? 5 
 I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in 
 the reign of Queen Anne: whj^ should I regret and lay it so 
 much to heart that I shall not be alive a hundred years hence, 
 in the reign of I cannot tell whom? 
 
 When Bickerstaff wrote his Essays, I knew nothing of the 10 
 subjects of them; nay, much later, and but the other day, 
 as it were, in the beginning of the reign of George III, when 
 Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, used to meet at the Globe, when 
 Garrick was in his glory, and Reynolds was over head and ears 
 with his portraits, and Sterne brought out the volumes of 15 
 Tristram Shandy year by year, it was without consulting me. 
 I had not the slightest intimation of what was going on : the 
 debates in the House of Commons on the American war, or 
 the firing at Bunker's Hill, disturbed not me: yet I thought 
 this no evil — I neither ate, drank, nor was merry, yet I did 20 
 not complain: I had not then looked out into this breathing 
 world, yet I was well; and the world did quite as well without 
 me as I did without it! Why then should I make all this out- 
 cry about parting with it, and being no worse off than I was 
 before? There is nothing in the recollection that at a certain 25 
 time we were not come into the world, that "the gorge rises 
 at" — why should we revolt at the idea that we must one day 
 go out of it? To die is only to be as we were before we were 
 born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, 
 in contemplating this last idea. It is rather a relief and dis- 30 
 burthening of the mind; it seems to have been holiday time 
 with us then; we were not called to appear upon the stage 
 
 139 
 
140 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 of life, to wear robes or tatters, to laugh or cry, be hooted 
 or applauded; we had lain perdus all this while, snug, out 
 of harm's way; and had slept out our thousands of centuries 
 without wanting to be waked up ; at peace and free from care, 
 
 6 in a long nonage, in a sleep deeper and calmer than that of 
 infancy, wrapped in the softest and finest dust. And the 
 worst that we dread is, after a short, fretful, feverish being, 
 after vain hopes, and idle fears, to sink to final repose again, 
 and forget the troubled dream of life! ... Ye armed men, 
 
 10 knights templars, that sleep in the stone aisles of that old 
 Temple church, where all is silent above, and where a deeper 
 silence reigns below (not broken by the pealing organ), are ye 
 not contented where ye lie? Or would you come out of your 
 long homes to go to the Holy War? Or do ye complain that 
 
 15 pain no longer visits you, that sickness has done its worst, 
 that you have paid the last debt to nature, that you hear no 
 more of the thickening phalanx of the foe, or your lady's 
 waning love ; and that while this ball of earth rolls its eternal 
 round, no sound shall ever pierce through to disturb your 
 
 20 lasting repose, fixed as the marble over your tombs, breath- 
 less as the grave that holds you! And thou, oh! thou, to whom 
 my heart turns, and will turn while it has feeling left, who 
 didst love in vain, and whose first was thy last sigh, wilt not 
 thou too rest in peace (or wilt thou cry to me complaining from 
 
 25 thy clay-cold bed) when that sad heart is no longer sad, and 
 that sorrow is dead which thou wert only called into the world 
 to feel! 
 
 It is certain that there is nothing in the idea of a pre-existent 
 state that excites our longing like the prospect of a posthu- 
 
 30 mous existence. We are satisfied to have begun life when we 
 did; we have no ambition to have set out on our journey 
 sooner; and feel that we have had quite enough to do to 
 battle our way through since. We cannot say, 
 
 "The wars we well remember of King Nine, 
 35 Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine." 
 
 Neither have we any wish : we are contented to read of them 
 in story, and to stand and gaze at the vast sea of time that 
 
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH 141 
 
 separates us from them. It was early days then: the world 
 was not well-aired enough for us; we have no inclination to 
 have been up and stirring. We do not consider the six thou- 
 sand years of the world before we were born as so much time 
 lost to us : we' are perfectly indifferent about the matter. We 5 
 do not grieve and lament that we did not happen to be in 
 time to see the grand mask and pageant of human life going 
 on in all that period ; though we are mortified at being obliged 
 to quit our stand before the rest of the procession passes. 
 
 It may be suggested in explanation of this difference, that 10 
 we know from various records and traditions what happened 
 in the time of Queen Anne, or even in the reigns of the 
 Assyrian monarchs; but that we have no means of ascertain- 
 ing what is to happen hereafter but by awaiting the event, and 
 that our eagerness and curiosity are sharpened in proportion 15 
 as we are in the dark about it. This is not at all the case; 
 for at that rate we should be constantly wishing to make a 
 voyage of discovery to Greenland or to the moon, neither of 
 which we have, in general, the least desire to do. Neither, 
 in truth, have we any particular solicitude to pry into the 20 
 secrets of futurity, but as a pretext for prolonging our own 
 existence. It is not so much that we care to be alive a hun- 
 dred or a thousand years hence, any more than to have been 
 alive a hundred or a thousand years ago; but the thing lies 
 here, that we would all of us wish the present moment to 25 
 last for ever. We would be as we are, and would have the 
 world remain just as it is, to please us. 
 
 "The present eye catches the present object" — 
 
 to have and to hold while it may; and abhors, on any terms, 
 to h'ave it torn from us, and nothing left in its room. It is 30 
 the pang of parting, the unloosing our grasp, the breaking 
 asunder some strong tie, the leaving some cherished purpose 
 unfulfilled, that creates the repugnance to go, and "makes 
 calamity of so long life," as it often is. 
 
 "Oh! thou strong heart! 35 
 
 There's such a covenant 'twixt the world and thee, 
 They're loth to break!" 
 
142 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 The love of life, then, is an habitual attachment, not an ab- 
 stract principle. Simply to be does not "content man's 
 natural desire;" we long to be in a certain tune, place, and 
 circumstance. We would much rather be now, "on this bank 
 6 and shoal of time, " than have our choice of any future period, 
 than take a slice of fifty or sixty years out of the Millennium, 
 for instance. This shows that our attachment is not confined 
 either to being or to well-being; but that we have an inveterate 
 prejudice in favour of our immediate existence, such as it is. 
 
 10 The mountaineer will not leave his rock, nor the savage his 
 
 hut; neither are we willing to give up our present mode of 
 
 life, with all its advantages and disadvantages, for any other 
 
 that could be substituted for it. No man would, I think, 
 
 ^ exchange his existence with any other man, however fortu- 
 
 15nate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves. There are 
 some persons of that reach of soul that they would like to 
 live two hundred and fifty years hence, to see what height of 
 empire America will have grown up in that period, or whether 
 the English constitution will last so long. These are points 
 
 20 beyond me. But I confess I should like to live to see the 
 downfall of the Bourbons. That is a vital question with me; 
 and I should like it the better, the sooner it happens! 
 
 No young man ever thinks he shall die. He may believe 
 that others will, or assent to the doctrine that "all men are 
 
 25 mortal" as an abstract proposition, but he is far enough from 
 bringing it home to himself individually. ^ Youth, buoyant 
 activity, and animal spirits hold absolute antipathy with old 
 age as well as with death; nor have we, in the hey-day of life, 
 any more than in the thoughtlessness of childhood, the re- 
 
 30 motest conception how 
 
 "This sensible warm motion can become 
 A kneaded clod" — 
 
 nor how sanguine, florid health and vigour shall "turn to 
 
 withered, weak, and grey. " Or, if in a moment of idle specu- 
 
 35 lation we indulge in this notion of the close of life as a theory,' 
 
 it is amazing at what a distance it seems; what a long, 
 
 ^ "All men think all men mortal but themselves." — Young. 
 
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH 143 
 
 leisurely interval there is between; what a contrast its slow 
 and solemn approach affords to our present gay dreams of 
 existence! We eye the farthest verge of the horizon, and 
 think what a way we shall have to look back upon ere we 
 arrive at our journey's end; and without our in the least sus- 5 
 pecting it, the mists are at our feet, and the shadows of age 
 encompass us. The two divisions of our lives have melted 
 into each other; the extreme points close and meet with none 
 of that romantic interval stretching out between them, that 
 we had reckoned upon; and for the rich, melancholy, solemn 10 
 hues of age, "the sear, the yellow leaf, " the deepening shadows 
 of an autumnal evening, we only feel a dank, cold mist, en- 
 circling all objects, after the spirit of youth is fled. There is 
 no inducement to look forward; and what is worse, little 
 interest in looking back to what has become so trite and 15 
 common. The pleasures of our existence have worn them- 
 selves out, are "gone into the wastes of time," or have turned 
 their indifferent side to us; the pains by their repeated blows 
 have worn us out, and have left us neither spirit nor inclina- 
 tion to encounter them again in retrospect. We do not 20 
 want to rip up old grievances, nor to renew our youth like 
 the phoenix, nor to Hve our lives twice over. Once is enough. 
 As the tree falls, so let it lie. Shut up the book and close the 
 account once for all! 
 
 It has been thought by some that life is like the exploring of 25 
 a passage that grows narrower and darker the farther we ad- 
 vance, without a possibility of ever turning back, and where 
 we are stifled for want of breath at last. For myself, I do not 
 complain of the greater thickness of the atmosphere as I ap- 
 proach the narrow house. I felt it more, formerly,^ when the 30 
 idea -alone seemed to suppress a thousand rising hopes and 
 weighed upon the pulses of the blood. At present I rather 
 feel a thinness and want of support, I stretch out my hand to 
 some object and find none, I am too much in a world of ab- 
 straction; the naked map of life is spread out before me, and 35 
 
 1 1 remember once, in particular, having this feeling in reading 
 Schiller's Don Carlos, where there is a description of death, in a de- 
 gree that almost stifled me. 
 
144 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION . 
 
 in the emptiness and desolation I see Death coming to meet 
 me. In my youth I could not behold him for the crowd of 
 objects and feelings, and Hope stood always between us, 
 saying, "Never mind that old fellow!" If I had lived in- 
 5 deed, I should not care to die. But I do not like a contract 
 of pleasure broken off unfulfilled, a marriage with joy un- 
 consummated, a promise of happiness rescinded. My public 
 and private hopes have been left a ruin, or remain only to 
 mock me. I would wish them to be re-edified. I should 
 
 10 like to see some prospect of good to manlcind, such as my 
 life began with. I should hke to leave some sterling work 
 behind me. I should like to have some friendly hand to 
 consign me to the grave. On these conditions I am ready, 
 if not willing, to depart. I shall then write on my tomb — 
 
 15 Grateful and Contented! But I have thought and suffered 
 too much to be willing to have thought and suffered in vain. 
 In looking back, it sometimes appears to me as if I had in a 
 manner slept out my life in a dream or shadow on the side of 
 the hill of knowledge, where I have fed on books, on thoughts, 
 
 20 on pictures, and only heard in half-murmurs the trampling 
 of busy feet, or the noises of the throng below. Waked out 
 of this dim, twilight existence, and startled with the passing 
 scene, I have felt a wish to descend to the world of reali- 
 ties, and join in the chase. But I fear too late, and that I 
 
 25 had better return to my bookish chimeras and indolence 
 once more! Zanetto, lascia le donne, et studia la matematica. 
 I will think of it. 
 
 It is not wonderful that the contemplation and fear of 
 death become more familiar to us as we approach nearer to 
 
 30 it; that life seems to ebb with the decay of blood and youthful 
 spirits; and that as we find everything about us subject to 
 chance and change, as our strength and beauty die, as our 
 hopes and passions, our friends and our affections leave us, 
 we begin by degrees to feel ourselves mortal! 
 
 35 I have never seen death but once, and that was in an infant. 
 It is years ago. The look was calm and placid, and the face 
 was fair and firm. It was as if a waxen image had been laid 
 out in the coffin, and strewed with innocent flowers. It was 
 
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH 145 
 
 not like death, but more like an image of life! No breath 
 moved the Ups, no pulse stirred, no sight Qr sound would enter 
 those eyes or ears more. While I looked at it, I saw no pain 
 was there; it seemed to smile at the short pang of life which 
 was over; but I could not bear the coffin-lid to be closed — ■ 5 
 it seemed to stifle me; and still as the nettles wave in a corner 
 of the churchyard over his little grave, the welcome breeze 
 helps to refresh me, and ease the tightness at my breast! 
 An ivory or marble image, like Chantry's monument of the 
 two children, is contemplated with pure dehght. Why do we 10 
 not grieve and fret that the marble is not ahve, or fancy that 
 it has a shortness of breath? It never was alive; and it is the 
 difficulty of making the transition from life to death, the 
 struggle between the two in our imagination, that confounds 
 their properties painfully together, and makes us conceive 15 
 that the infant that is but just dead, still wants to breathe, 
 to enjoy, and look about it, and is prevented by the icy hand 
 of death, locking up its faculties and benumbing its senses; 
 so that, if it could, it would complain of its own hard state. 
 Perhaps religious considerations reconcile the mind to this 20 
 change sooner than any others, by representing the spirit 
 as fled to another sphere, and leaving the body behind it. 
 So in reflecting on death generally, we mix up the idea of life 
 with it, and thus make it the ghastly monster it is. We 
 think how we should feel, not how the dead feel. 25 
 
 " Still from the tomb the voice of nature cries; 
 Even in our ashes live their wonted fires!" 
 
 There is an admirable passage on this subject in Tucker's 
 Light of Nature Pursued, which I shall transcribe, as by much 
 the best illustration I can offer of it. 30 
 
 "The melancholy appearance of a lifeless body, the man- 
 sion provided for it to inhabit, dark, cold, close, and solitary, 
 are shocking to the imagination; but it is to the imagination 
 only, not the understanding; for whoever consults this 
 faculty will see at first glance that there is nothing dismal in 35 
 all these circumstances; if the corpse were kept wrapped up 
 in a warm bed, with a roasting fire in the chamber, it would 
 
146 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 feel no comfortable warmth therefrom; were store of tapers 
 lighted up as soon as day shuts in, it would see no objects to 
 divert it; were it left at large it would have no liberty, nor if 
 surrounded with company would be cheered thereby; neither 
 5 are the distorted features expressions of pain, uneasiness, or 
 distress. This everyone knows, and will readily allow upon 
 being suggested, yet still cannot behold, nor even cast a 
 thought upon those objects without shuddering; for knowing 
 that a living person must suffer grievously under such ap- 
 
 lOpearances, they become habitually formidable to the mind, 
 and strike a mechanical horror, which is increased by the 
 customs of the world around us." 
 
 There is usually one pang added voluntarily and unneces- 
 sarily to the fear of death, by our affecting to compassionate 
 
 15 the loss which others will have in us. If that were all, we 
 might reasonably set our minds at rest. The pathetic exhorta- 
 tion on country tombstones, ''Grieve not for me, my wife and 
 children dear," etc., is for the most part speedily followed to 
 the letter. We do not leave so great a void in society as we 
 
 20 are inclined to imagine, partly to magnify our own importance, 
 and partly to console ourselves by sympathy. Even in the 
 same family the gap is not so great; the wound closes up 
 sooner than we should expect. Nay, our room is not in- 
 frequently thought better than our company. People walk 
 
 25 along the streets the day after our deaths just as they did 
 before, and the crowd is not diminished. While we were 
 living, the world seemed in a manner to exist only for us, 
 for our delight and amusement, because it contributed to 
 them. But our hearts cease to beat, and it goes on as usual, 
 
 30 and thinks no more about us than it did in our lifetime. The 
 million are devoid of sentiment, and care as little for you or me 
 as if we belonged to the moon. We live the week over in the 
 Sunday's paper, or are decently interred in some obituary at 
 the month's end! It is not surprising that we are forgotten so 
 
 35 soon after we quit this mortal stage : we are scarcely noticed, 
 while we are on it. It is not merely that our names are not 
 known in China — they have hardly been heard of in the 
 next street. We are hand and glove with the universe, and 
 
ON THE FEA.R OF DEJATH 147 
 
 think the obligation is mutual. This is an evident fallacy. 
 If this, however, does not trouble us now, it will not hereafter. 
 A handful of dust can have no quarrel to pick with its neigh- 
 hours, or complaint to make against Providence, and might 
 well exclaim, if it had but an understanding and a tongue, 5 
 "Go thy ways, old world, swing round in blue ether, voluble 
 to every age, you and 1 shall no more jostle!" 
 
 It is amazing how soon the rich and titled, and even some 
 of those who have wielded great political power, are forgotten. 
 
 "A little rule, a little sway. 10 
 
 Is all the great and mighty have 
 Betwixt the cradle and the grave" — 
 
 and, after its short date, they hardly leave a name behind 
 them. "A great man's memory may, at the common rate, 
 survive him half a year. " His heirs and successors take his 15 
 titles, his power, and his wealth —all that made him con- 
 siderable or courted by others; and he has left nothing else 
 behind him either to delight or benefit the world. Posterity 
 are not by any means so disinterested as they are supposed to 
 be. They give their gratitude and admiration only in return 20 
 for benefits conferred. They cherish the memory of those to 
 whom they are indebted for instruction and delight; and 
 they cherish it just in proportion to the instruction and 
 delight they are conscious they receive. The sentiment of 
 admiration springs immediately from this ground, and can- 25 
 not be otherwise than well founded.^ 
 
 The effeminate clinging to life as such, as a general or ab- 
 stract idea, is the effect of a highly civilised and artificial 
 state of society. Men formerly plunged into all the vicis- 
 
 1 It has been usual to raise a very unjust clamour against the enor- 30 
 mous salaries of public singers, actors, and so on. This matter seems 
 reducible to a moral equation. They are paid out ot money raised 
 by voluntary contributions in the strictest sense; and if they did 
 not bring certain sums into the treasury, the managers would not 
 engage them. These sums are exactly in proportion to the number 35 
 of individuals to whom their performance gives an extraordinary 
 degree of pleasure. The talents of a singer, actor, etc , are therefore 
 worth just as much as they will fetch. 
 
148 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 situdes and dangers of war, or staked their all upon a single 
 die, or some one passion, which if they could not have grati- 
 fied, life became a burthen to them — now our strongest pas- 
 sion is to think, our chief amusement is to read new plays, 
 
 5 new poems, new novels, and this we may do at our leisure, 
 in perfect security, ad infinitum. If we look into the old his- 
 tories and romances, before the helles lettres neutralised 
 human affairs and reduced passion to a state of mental 
 equivocation, we find the heroes and heroines not setting 
 
 10 their lives ''at a pin's fee," but rather courting opportunities 
 of throwing them away in very wantonness of spirit. They 
 raise their fondness for some favourite pursuit to its height, 
 to a pitch of madness, and think no price too dear to pay for 
 its full gratification. Everything else is dross. They go to 
 
 15 death as to a bridal bed, and sacrifice themselves or others 
 without remorse at the shrine of love, of honour, of religion, 
 or any other prevailmg feeling. Romeo runs his ''seasick, 
 weary bark" upon the rocks of death, the instant he finds him- 
 self deprived of his Juliet; and she clasps his neck in their last 
 
 20 agonies, and follows him to the same fatal shore. One strong 
 idea takes possession of the mind and overrules every other; 
 and even life itself, joyless without that, becomes an object 
 of indifference or loathing. There is at least more of imagi- 
 nation in such a state of things, more vigour of feeling and 
 
 25 promptitude to act than in our lingering, languid, protracted 
 attachment to life for its own poor sake. It is, perhaps, also 
 better, as well as more heroical, to strike at some daring 
 or darling object, and if we fail in that, to take the conse- 
 quences manfuUy, than to renew the lease of a tedious, 
 
 30 spiritless, charmless existence, merely (as Pierre says) "to 
 lose it afterwards in some vile brawl" for some worthless 
 object. Was there not a spirit of martyrdom as well as a 
 spice of the reckless energy of barbarism in this bold defiance 
 of death? Had not religion something to do with it; the 
 
 35 implicit belief in a future life, which rendered this of less 
 value, and embodied something beyond it to the imagination; 
 so that the rough soldier, the infatuated lover, the valorous 
 knight, etc., could afford to throw away the present venture, 
 
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH 149 
 
 and take a leap into the arms of futurity, which the modern 
 sceptic shrinks back from, with all his boasted reason and 
 vain philosophy, weaker than a woman! I cannot help 
 thinking so myself; but I have endeavoured to explain this 
 point before, and will not enlarge further on it here. 5 
 
 A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. 
 It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at 
 every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present 
 being. Sedentary and studious men are the most appre- 
 hensive on this score. Dr. Johnson was an instance in point. 10 
 A few years seemed to him soon over, compared with those 
 sweeping contemplations on time and infinity with which he 
 had been used to pose hhnself. In the still life of a man of 
 letters, there was no obvious reason for a change. He might 
 sit in an armchair and pour out cups of tea to all eternity. 15 
 Would it had been possible for him to do so! The most 
 rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to 
 set a just value on life. If we merely wish to continue on 
 the scene to indulge our headstrong humours and tormenting 
 passions, we had better begone at once; and if we only cherish 20 
 a fondness for existence according to the good we derive from 
 it, the pang we feel at parting with it wiU not be very severe! 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 
 
 The two rarest things to be met with are good sense and 
 good nature. For one man who judges right, there are twenty 
 who can say good things; as there are numbers who will 
 serve you or do friendly actions, for one who really wishes 
 
 5 you well. It has been said, and often repeated, that ''mere 
 good nature is a fool:" but I think that the dearth of sound 
 sense, for the most part, proceeds from the want of a real, 
 unaffected interest in things, except as they react upon our- 
 selves; or from a neglect of the maxim of that good old philan- 
 
 10 thropist, who said, "Nihil humani a me alienum puto. " The 
 narrowness of the heart warps the understanding, and makes 
 us weigh objects in the scale of our self-love, instead of those 
 of truth and justice. We consider not the merits of the case, 
 or what is due to others, but the manner in which our own 
 
 15 credit or consequence will be affected; and adapt our opinions 
 and conduct to the last of these rather than to the first. The 
 judgment is seldom wrong where the feelings are right; 
 and they generally are so, provided they are warm and sin- 
 cere. He who intends others well, is likely to advise them 
 
 20 for the best; he who has any cause at heart, seldom ruins 
 it by his unprudence. Those who play the public or their 
 friends slippery tricks, have in secret no objection to betray 
 them. 
 
 One finds out the folly and malice of mankind by the im- 
 
 25 pertinence of friends — by their professions of service and 
 tenders of advice — by their fears for your reputation and 
 anticipation of what the world may say of you; by which 
 means they suggest objections to your enemies, and at the 
 same time absolve themselves from the task of justifymg 
 
 30 your errors, by having warned you of the consequences — 
 by the care with which they tell ill news, and conceal from 
 you any flattering circumstance — by their dread of your 
 
 150 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 151 
 
 engaging in any creditable attempt, and mortification, if you 
 succeed — by the difficulties and hindrances they throw in 
 your way — by their satisfaction when you happen to make a 
 slip or get into a scrape, and their determination to tie your 
 hands behind you, lest you should get out of it — by their 5 
 panic-terrors at your entering into a vindication of yourself, 
 lest in the course of it you should call upon them for a certi- 
 ficate to your character — by their luke-warmness in defend- 
 ing, by their readiness in betraying you — by the high stand- 
 ard by which they try you, and to which you can hardly ever 10 
 come up — by their forwardness to partake your triumphs, 
 by their backwardness to share your disgrace — by their 
 acknowledgment of your errors out of candoiu", and suppres-. 
 sion of your good qualities out of envy — by their not contra- 
 dicting, or by their joining in the cry against you, lest they 15 
 too should become objects of the same abuse — by their 
 playing the game into your adversaries' hands, by always 
 letting their imaginations take part with their cowardice, 
 their vanity, and selfishness against you; and thus realising 
 or hastening all the iU consequences they affect to deplore, 20 
 by spreading that very spirit of distrust, obloquy, and hatred 
 which they predict will be excited against you! 
 
 In all these pretended demonstrations of an over-anxiety 
 for our welfare, we may detect a great deal of spite and ill- 
 nature lurking under the disguise of a friendly and officious 25 
 zeal. It is wonderful how much love of mischief and rank- 
 ling spleen lies at the bottom of the human heart, and how a 
 constant supply of gall seems as necessary to the health and 
 activity of the mind as of the body. Yet perhaps it ought 
 not to excite much surprise that this gnawing, morbid, 30 
 acrimonious temper should produce the effects it does, when, 
 if it does not vent itself on others, it preys upon its own com- 
 forts, and makes us see the worst side of everything, even 
 as it regards our own prospects and tranquillity. It is the 
 not being comfortable in ourselves, that makes us seek to 35 
 render other people uncomfortable. A person of this char- 
 acter will advise you against a prosecution for a libel, and 
 shake his head at your attempting to shield yourself from a 
 
152 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 shower of calumny — it is not that he is afraid you will be 
 nonsuited, but that you will gain a verdict! They caution 
 you against provoking hostility, in order that you may submit 
 to indignity. They say that "if you publish a certain work 
 Sit will be your ruin" — hoping that it will, and by their 
 tragical denunciations bringing about this very event as far 
 as it lies in their power, or at any rate, enjoying a premature 
 triumph over you in the meantime. What I would say to 
 any friend who may be disposed to foretell a general outcry 
 
 10 against any work of mine, would be to request him to judge 
 and speak of it for himself, as he tliinks it deserves — and not 
 by his overweening scruples and qualms of conscience on my 
 account, to afford those very persons whose hostility he dep- 
 recates the cue they are to give to party prejudice, and which 
 
 15 they may justify by his authority. 
 
 Suppose you are to give lectures at a public institution, 
 these friends and well-wishers hope ''you'll be turned out — 
 if you preserve your principles, they are sure you will." Is 
 it that your consistency gives them any concern? No, but 
 
 20 they are uneasy at your gaining a chance of a little popularity 
 — they do not like this new feather in your cap, they wish 
 to see it struck out, for the sake of your character — and when 
 this was once the case, it would be an additional relief to them 
 to see your character following the same road the next day. 
 
 25 The exercise of their bile seems to be the sole employment and 
 gratification of such people. They deal in the miseries of 
 human life. They are always either hearing or foreboding 
 some new grievance. They cannot contain their satisfaction, 
 if you tell them any mortification or cross-accident that has 
 
 30 happened to yourself; and if you complain of their want of 
 sympathy, they laugh in your face. This would be unac- 
 countable, but for the spirit of perversity and contradiction 
 implanted in human nature. If things go right, there is 
 nothing to be done — these active-minded persons grow 
 
 35 restless, dull, vapid, — life is a sleep, a sort of euthanasia — 
 let them go wrong, and all is well again; they are once more 
 on the alert, have something to pester themselves and other 
 people about; may wrangle on, and "make mouths at the 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 153 
 
 invisible event!" Luckily, there is no want of materials for 
 this disposition to work upon, there is plenty of grist for the 
 mill. If you fall in love, they tell you (by the way of conso- 
 lation) it is a pity that you did not fall downstairs and frac- 
 ture a limb — it would be a relief to your mind, and shew you 5 
 your folly. So they would reform the world. The class of 
 persons I speak of are almost uniform grumblers and croakers 
 against governments, and it must be confessed, governments 
 are of great service in fostering their humours. "Born 
 for their use, they live but to oblige them. " While kings are 10 
 left free to exercise their proper functions, and poet laureates 
 make out their Mittimus to Heaven without a warrant, they 
 will never stop the mouths of the censorious by changing 
 their dispositions; the juices of faction will ferment, and the 
 secretions of the state be duly performed! I do not mind 15 
 when a character of this sort meets a Minister of State like an 
 east wind round a corner, and gives him an ague fit; but 
 should he meddle with me? Why should he tell me I write 
 too much, and say that I should gain reputation if I could 
 contrive to starve for a twelvemonth? Or if I apply to him for 20 
 a loan of fifty pounds for present necessity, send me word 
 back that he has too much regard for me to comply with 
 my request? It is unhandsome irony. It is not friendly, 
 His not pardonable.! 
 
 I like real good nature and good will better than I do any 25 
 offers of patronage or plausible rules for my conduct in life. 
 I may suspect the soundness of the last, and I may not be 
 quite sure of the motives of the first. People complain of 
 ingratitude for benefits, and of the neglect of wholesome ad- 
 vice. In the first place, we pay little attention to advice, 30 
 because we are seldom thought of in it. The person who 
 gives it either contents himself to lay down {ex cathedrd) 
 certain vague, general maxims, and "wise saws," which we 
 knew before; or, instead of considering what we ought to do, 
 recommends what he himself would do. He merely substi-35 
 tutes his own will, caprice, and prejudices for ours, and ex- 
 pects us to be guided by them. Instead of changing places 
 
 1 This circumstance did not happen to me, but to aii acquaintance. 
 
154 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 with us (to see what is best to be done in the given circum- 
 stances), he insists on our looking at the question from his 
 point of view, and acting in such a manner as to please him. 
 This is not at all reasonable; for one man's meat, according 
 6 to the old adage, is another man's poison. And it is not 
 strange, that starting from such opposite premises, we should 
 seldom jump in a conclusion, and that the art of giving and 
 taking advice is little better than a game at cross-purposes. 
 I have observed that those who are the most inclined to 
 
 10 assist others are the least forward or peremptory with their 
 advice; for having our interest really at heart, they consider 
 what can, rather than what cannot be done, and aid our 
 views and endeavour to avert ill consequences by moderating 
 our impatience and allaying irritations, instead of thwarting 
 
 15 our main design, which only tends to make us more extrava- 
 gant and violent than ever. In the second place, benefits are 
 often conferred out of ostentation or pride, rather than from 
 true regard; and the person obliged is too apt to perceive this. 
 People who are fond of appearing in the light of patrons will 
 
 20 perhaps go through fire and water to serve you, who yet would 
 be sorry to find you no longer wanted their assistance, and 
 whose friendship cools and their good will slackens, as you are 
 relieved of their active zeal from the necessity of being further 
 beholden to it. Compassion and generosity are their favorite 
 
 25 virtues; and they countenance you, as you afford them op- 
 portunities for exercising them. The instant you can go alone, 
 you are discarded as unfit for their purpose. 
 
 This is something more than mere good nature or humanity. 
 A thoroughly good-natured man, a real friend, is one who is 
 
 30 pleased at our good fortune, as well as prompt to seize every 
 occasion of relieving our distress. We apportion our grati- 
 tude accordingly. We are thankful for good will rather 
 than for services, for the motive rather than for the quantum 
 of favour received — a kind word or look is never forgotten, 
 
 35 while we cancel prouder and weightier obligations; and those 
 who esteem us or evince a partiality to us are those whom we 
 still consider as our best friends. Nay, so strong is this 
 feeUng, that we extend it even to those counterfeits in friend- 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 155 
 
 ship, flatterers and sycophants. Our self-love, rather than 
 our self-interest, is the master key to our affections. 
 
 I am not convinced that those are always the best-natured 
 or the best-conditioned men, who busy themselves most with 
 the distresses of their fellow creatures. I do not know that 5 
 those whose names stand at the head of all subscriptions to 
 charitable institutions, and who are perpetual stewards of 
 dinners and meetings to encourage and promote the estab- 
 hshment of asylums for the relief of the blind, the halt, and 
 the orphan poor, are persons fitted with the best tempers or 10 
 the kindliest feelings. I do not dispute their virtue; I 
 doubt their sensibility. I am not here speaking of those who 
 make a trade of the profession of humanity, or set their names 
 down out of mere idle parade and vanity. I mean those who 
 really enter into the details and drudgery of this sort of serv- 15 
 ice con amove, and who delight in surveying and in diminish- 
 ing the amount of human misery. I conceive it possible 
 that a person who is going to pour oil and balm into the 
 wounds of afflicted humanity, at a meeting of the Western 
 Dispensary, by handsome speeches and by a handsome 20 
 donation (not grudgingly given) may be thrown into a fit of 
 rage that very morning, by having his toast too much but- 
 tered, may quarrel with the innocent prattle and amujements 
 of his children, cry "Pish!" at every observation his wife 
 utters, and scarcely feel a moment's comfort at any period 25 
 of his fife, except when he hears of some case of pressing 
 distress that calls for his immediate interference, and draws* 
 off his attention from his own situation and feelings by the 
 act of alleviating it. Those martyrs to the cause of humanity, 
 in short, who run the gauntlet of the whole catalogue of un-30 
 heard-of crimes and afflicting casualties, who ransack prisons, 
 and plunge into lazar-houses and slave-ships as their daily 
 amusement and highest luxury, must generally, I think, 
 (though not always), be prompted to the arduous task by 
 uneasy feelings of their own, and supported through it by 35 
 iron nerves. Their fortitude must be equal to their pity. 
 I do not think Mr. Wilberforce a case in point in this argu- 
 ment. He is evidently a dehcately framed, nervous, sensi- 
 
156 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 tive man. I should suppose him to be a kind and afifection- 
 ately disposed person in all the relations of life. His weakness 
 is too quick a sense of reputation, a desire to have the good 
 word of all men, a tendency to truckle to power and fawn on 
 6 opinion. But there are some of these philanthropists that a 
 physiognomist has hard work to believe in. They seem made 
 of pasteboard, they look like mere machines; their benevo- 
 lence may be said to go on rollers, and they are screwed to the 
 sticking-place by the wheels and pulleys of humanity. 
 
 10 " If to their share some splendid virtues fall, 
 
 Look in their face, and you forget them all." 
 
 They appear so much the creatures of the head and so little 
 of the heart, they are so cold, so lifeless, so mechanical, so 
 much governed by calculation, and so little by impulse, that 
 
 15 it seems the toss-up of a halfpenny, the mere turn of a feather, 
 whether such people should become a Granville Sharp, or a 
 Hubert in King John, a Howard, or a Sir Hudson Lowe! 
 
 "Charity covers a multitude of sins." Wherever it is, 
 there nothing can be wanting; wherever it is not, all else is 
 
 20 vain. "The meanest peasant on the bleakest mountain is 
 
 not without a portion of it (says Sterne), he finds the lacerated 
 
 lamb of another's flock," etc. (See the passage in the 
 
 Sentimental Journey.) I do not think education or circum- 
 
 . stances can ever entirely eradicate this principle. Some pro- 
 
 25fessions may be supposed to blunt it, but it is perhaps more 
 in appearance than in reality. Butchers are not allowed to 
 ■sit on a jury for life and death; but probably this is a preju- 
 dice; if they have the destructive organ in an unusual degree 
 of expansion, they vent their sanguinary inclinations on the 
 
 30 brute creation; and besides, they look too jolly, rosy, and in 
 good case (they and their wives), to harbour much cruelty in 
 their dispositions. Neither would I swear that a man was 
 humane, merely for abstaining from animal food. A tiger 
 would not be a lamb, though it fed on milk. Surgeons are in 
 
 35 general thought to be unfeeling, and steeled by custom to the 
 sufferings of humanity. They may be so, as far as relates 
 to broken bones and bruises, but not to other things. Nor 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 157 
 
 are they necessarily so in their profession; for we find dif- 
 ferent degrees of callous insensibiUty in different individuals. 
 Some practitioners have an evident dehght in alarming the 
 apprehensions and cutting off the limbs of their patients; 
 these would have been ill-natured men in any situation in 5 
 life, and merely make an excuse of then- profession to in- 
 dulge their natural ill-humour and brutality of temper. A 
 surgeon who is fond of giving pain to those who consult him 
 will not spare the feeUngs of his neighbours in other respects; 
 has a tendency to probe other wounds besides those of the 10 
 body; and is altogether a harsh and disagreeable character. 
 A Jack-Ketch may be known to tie the fatal noose with trem- 
 bling fingers; or a jailor may have a heart softer than the walls 
 of his prison. There have been instances of highwaymen who 
 were proverbially gentlemen. I have seen a Bow-street 15 
 officer 1 (not but that the transition is ungracious and unjust) 
 reading Racine, and following the recitation of Tahna at 
 the door of a room which he was sent to guard. Police- 
 magistrates, from the scenes they have to witness and the 
 characters they come ui contact with, may be supposed to lose 20 
 the fine edge of dehcacy and sensibiUty; yet they are not all 
 alike, but differ, as one star differs from another in magni- 
 tude. One is as remarkable for mildness and lenity, as an- 
 other is notorious for harshness and severity. The late Mr. 
 Justice Fielding was a member of this profession, which 25 
 (however little accordant with his own feehngs) he made 
 pleasant to those of others. He generally sent away the dis- 
 putants in that unruly region, where he presided, tolerably 
 satisfied. I have often seen him, escaped from the noisy, 
 repulsive scene, sunning hunself in the adjoining walks of 30 
 St. James's Park, and with mild aspect, and lofty but un- 
 wieldy mien, eyeing the verdant glades and lengthening 
 vistas where perhaps his childhood loitered. He had a 
 strong resemblance to his father, the immortal author of 
 Tom Jones. I never passed him that I did not take off my 35 
 hat to him in spirit. I could not help thinkmg of Parson 
 Adams, of Booth and Amelia. I seemed to belong, by intel- 
 ^ Lavender. 
 
158 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 lectual adoption, to the same family, and would willingly have 
 acknowledged my obligation to the father to the son. He had 
 something of the air of Colonel Bath. When young, he had 
 very excellent prospects in the law, but neglected a brief 
 5 sent him by the Attorney-General, in order to attend a glee- 
 club, for wliich he had engaged to furnish a rondeau. This 
 spoiled his fortune. A man whose object is to please himself, 
 or to keep his word to his friends, is the last man to thrive at 
 court. Yet he looked serene and smiling to his latest breath, 
 
 10 conscious of the goodness of his own heart, and of not having 
 sullied a name that had thrown a light upon humanity! 
 
 There are different modes of obligation, and different 
 avenues to our gratitude and favour. A man may lend his 
 countenance who will not part with his money, and open his 
 
 15 mind to us who will not draw out his purse. How many ways 
 are there, in which our peace may be assailed, besides actual 
 want! How many comforts do we stand in need of, besides 
 meat and drink and clothing! Is it nothing to "administer 
 to a mind diseased" — to heal a wounded spirit? After all 
 
 20 other difficulties are removed, we still want some one to bear 
 with our infirmities, to impart our confidence to, to encourage 
 us in our hobbies (nay, to get up and ride behind us) and to 
 like us with all our faults. True friendship is self-love at 
 second-hand; where, as in a flaming mirror, we may see our 
 
 25 errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of our- 
 selves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness. He 
 (of all the world) creeps the closest in our bosoms, into our 
 favour and esteem, who thinks of us most nearly as we do of 
 ourselves. Such a one is indeed the pattern of a friend, an- 
 
 30 other self — and our gratitude for the blessing is as sincere, 
 as it is hollow in most other cases! This is one reason why 
 entire friendship is scarcely to be found, except in love. 
 There is a hardness and a severity in our judgments of one 
 another; the spirit of competition also intervenes, unless 
 
 35 where there is too great an inequality of pretension or dif- 
 ference of taste to admit of mutual S3mipathy and respect; 
 but a woman's vanity is interested in making the object of 
 her choice the God of her idolatry; and in the intercourse 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 159 
 
 with the sex, there is tlie finest reflection of opposite and 
 answering excellences imaginable! It is in the highest spirit 
 of the rehgion of love in the female breast, that Lord Byron 
 has put that beautiful apostrophe into the mouth of Anah, 
 in speaking of her angel-lover (alas! are not the sons of men 5 
 too, when they are deified in the hearts of women, only "a 
 little lower than the angels?") 
 
 "And when I think that his immortal wings 
 Shall one day hover o'er the sepulchre 
 
 Of the poor child of clay, that so adored him, 10 
 
 As He adored the Highest, death becomes 
 Less terrible!" 
 
 This is a dangerous string, which I ought never to touch 
 upon; but the shattered chords vibrate of themselves! 
 
 The difference of age, of situation in life, and an absence of 15 
 all consideration of business have, I apprehend, something of 
 the same effect in producing a refined and abstracted friend- 
 ship. The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure 
 and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour. 
 I once did him an uncalled-for service, and we nearly quar-20 
 relied about it. If I were in the utmost distress, I should just 
 as soon think of asking his assistance as of stopping a person 
 on the highway. Practical benevolence is not his forte. He 
 leaves the profession of that to others. His habits, his theory 
 are against it as idle and vulgar. His hand is closed, but 25 
 what of that? His eye is ever open, and reflects the uni- 
 verse; his silver accents, beautiful, venerable as his silver 
 hairs, but not scanted, flow as a river. I never ate or drank 
 in his house; nor do I know or care how the flies or spiders 
 fare in it, or whether a mouse can get a living. But I know 30 
 that I can get there what I can get nowhere else — a welcome, 
 as if one was expected to drop in just at that moment, a total 
 absence of all respect of persons and of airs of self-consequence, 
 endless topics of discourse, refined thoughts, made more 
 striking by ease and simplicity of manner — the husk, the 35 
 shell of humanity is left at the door, and the spirit, mellowed 
 by time, resides within! All you have to do is to sit and 
 listen; and it is like hearing one of Titian's faces speak. To 
 
160 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 think of wordly matters is a profanation, like that of the 
 money-changers in the Temple; or it is to regard the bread 
 and wine of the Sacrament with carnal eyes. We enter the 
 enchanter's cell, and converse with the divine inhabitant. 
 5 To have this privilege always at hand, and to be circled by 
 that spell whenever we choose, with an "Enter Sessami/' is 
 better than sitting at the lower end of the tables of the great, 
 than eating awkwardly from gold plate, than drinking ful- 
 some toasts, or being thanldul for gross favours, and gross 
 
 10 insults! 
 
 Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of 
 punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach 
 of a promise to dine or sup break up more than one intimacy. 
 A disappointment of this kind rankles in the mind — it 
 
 15 cuts up our pleasures (those rare events in human life, which 
 ought not to be wantonly sported with!) — it not only de- 
 prives us of the expected gratification, but it renders us unfit 
 for, and out of humour with, every other; it makes us think 
 our society not worth having, which is not the way to make us 
 
 20 delighted with our own thoughts; it lessens our self-esteem, 
 and destroys our confidence in others; and having leisure on 
 our hands (by being thus left alone) and sufficient provocation 
 withal, we employ it in ripping up the faults of the acquain- 
 tance who has played us this slippery trick, and in forming 
 
 25 resolutions to pick a quarrel with him the very first op- 
 portunity we can find. I myself once declined an invitation 
 to meet Talma, who was an admirer of Shakespeare, and who 
 idoUsed Buonaparte, to keep an appointment with a person 
 who had forgot it! One great art of women, who pretend to 
 
 30 manage their husbands and keep them to themselves, is to 
 contrive some excuse for breaking engagements with friends 
 for whom they entertain any respect, or who are likely to 
 have any influence over them. 
 
 There is, however, a class of persons who have a particular 
 
 35 satisfaction in falsifying your expectations of pleasure in their 
 society, who make appointments for no other ostensible pur- 
 pose than not to keep them; who think their ill-behaviour gives 
 them an air of superiority over you, instead of placing them 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 161 
 
 at your mercy; and who, in fact, in all their overtures of 
 condescending kindness towards you, treat you exactly as if 
 there was no such person in the world. Friendship is with 
 them a mono-drama, in which they play the principal and sole 
 part. They must needs be very imposing or amusing charac- 5 
 ters to surround themselves with a circle of friends, who find 
 that they are to be mere cyphers. The egotism would in 
 such instances be offensive and intolerable, if its very excess 
 did not render it entertaining. Some individuals carry this 
 hard, unprincipled, reckless unconsciousness of everything but 10 
 themselves and their own purposes to such a pitch, that they 
 may be compared to automata, whom you never expect to 
 consult your feeUngs or alter their movements out of com- 
 plaisance to others. They are wound up to a certain point, ' 
 by an internal machinery which you do not very well com- 15 
 prehend; but if they perform their accustomed evolutions 
 so as to excite your wonder or laughter, it is all very well, 
 you do not quarrel with them, but look on at the pantomine 
 of friendship while it lasts or is agreeable. 
 
 There are (I may add here) a happy few, whose manner is 20 
 so engaging and dehghtful, that injure you how they will, 
 they cannot offend you. They rob, ruin, ridicule you, and 
 you cannot finl in your heart to say a word against them. 
 The late Mr. Sheridan was a man of this kind. He could 
 not make enemies. If anyone came to request the repay- 25 
 ment of a loan from him, he borrowed more. A cordial 
 shake of his hand was a receipt in full for all d mands. He 
 could "coin his smile for drachma ," cancelled bonds with 
 bon mots, and gave jokes in discharge of a bfll. A friend of his 
 said,. "If I pull off my hat to him in the street, it costs me 30 
 fifty pounds, and if he speaks to me, it's a hundred!" 
 
 Only one other reflection occurs to me on this subject. 
 I used to think better of the world than I do. I thought its 
 great fault, its original sin, was barbarous ignorance and 
 want, which would be cured by the diffusion of civilisation 35 
 and letters. But I find (or fancy I do) that as selfishness is 
 the vice of unlettered periods and nations, envy is the bane 
 of more refined and intellectual ones. Vanity springs out of 
 
162 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 the grave of- sordid self-interest. Men were formerly ready 
 to cut one another's throats about the gross means of sub- 
 sistence, and now they are ready to do it about reputation. 
 The worst is, you are no better off if you fail than if you 
 
 5 succeed. You are despised if you do not excel others, and 
 hated if you do. Abuse or praise equally weans your friends 
 from you. We cannot bear eminence in our own department 
 or pursuit, and think it an impertinence in any other. In- 
 stead of being delighted with the proofs of excellence and the 
 
 10 admiration paid to it, we are mortified with it, thrive only by 
 the defeat of others, and live on the carcass of mangled reputa- 
 tion. By being tried by an ideal standard of vanity and affect- 
 ation, real objects and common people become odious or 
 insipid. Instead of being raised, all is prostituted, degraded, 
 
 15 vile. Everything is reduced to this feverish, importunate, 
 harassing state. I'm heartily sick of it, and I'm sure I have 
 reason if anyone has. 
 
ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY 
 IN YOUTH 
 
 "Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us." 
 
 — Sir Thomas Browne. 
 
 No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a sa}^- 
 ing of my brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of 
 Eternity in youth, which makes us amends for everything. 
 To be young is to be as one of the Immortal Gods. One half 5 
 of time indeed is flown — the other half remains in store for 
 us with all its countless treasures; for there is no line drawn, 
 and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the 
 coming age our own. 
 
 "The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." 10 
 
 Death, old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by 
 us like the idle air which we regard not. Others may have 
 undergone, or may still be liable to them — we "bear a 
 charmed life," which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies. 
 As in setting out on a delightful journey, we strain our eager 15 
 gaze forward — 
 
 "Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail," 
 
 and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting them- 
 selves as we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set 
 no bounds to our inclinations, nor to the unrestricted oppor- 20 
 tunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no ob- 
 stacle, no disposition to flag; and it seems that we can go on 
 so forever. We look round in a new world, full of life, and 
 motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the 
 vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee 25 
 from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in 
 the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop 
 into the grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstracted- 
 \ 163 
 
164 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 ness of our feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us 
 with nature, and (our experience being shght and our passions 
 strong) deludes us into a belief of being immortal like it. 
 Our short-lived connection with existence, we fondly flatter 
 5 ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting union — a honey- 
 moon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As 
 infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our 
 wayward fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the 
 universe around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager haste 
 
 10 without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the 
 more — objects press around us, filling the mind with their 
 magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon 
 them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death. 
 From the plenitude of our being we cannot change all at once 
 
 15 to dust and ashes, we cannot imagine ''this sensible, warm 
 motion, to become a kneaded clod" — we are too much daz- 
 zled by the brightness of the waking dream around us to look 
 into the darkness of the tomb. We no more see our end than 
 our beginning : the one is lost in oblivion and vacancy, as the 
 
 20 other is hid from us by the crowd and hurry of approaching 
 events. Or the grim shadow is seen lingering in the horizon, 
 which we are doomed never to overtake, or whose last, faint, 
 glimmering outline touches upon Heaven and translates us to 
 the skies! Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit 
 
 25 us to detach our thoughts from the present objects and pur- 
 suits, even if we would. What is there more opposed to 
 health, than sickness; to strength and beauty, than decay and 
 dissolution; to the active search of knowledge, than mere 
 oblivion? Or is there none of the usual advantage to bar the 
 
 30 approach of Death, and mock his idle threats; Hope supplies 
 their place, and draws a veil over the abrupt termination of 
 all our cherished schemes. While the spirit of youth remains 
 unimpaired, ere the "wine of life is drank up," we are like 
 people intoxicated or in a fever, who are hurried away by the 
 
 35 violence of their own sensations; it is only as present objects 
 begin to pall upon the sense, as we have been disappointed in 
 our favourite pursuits, cut off from our closest ties, that 
 passion loosens its hold upon the breast, that we by degrees 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 165 
 
 become weaned from the world, and allow ourselves to con- 
 template, ''as in a glass, darkly," the possibility of parting 
 with it for good. The example of others, the voice of ex- 
 perience, has no effect upon us whatever. Casualties we must 
 avoid: the slow and deliberate advances of age we can play 5 
 at hide-and-seek with. We think ourselves too lusty and too 
 nimble for that blear-eyed decrepid old gentleman to catch us. 
 Like the foolish fat scullion, in Sterne, when she hears that 
 Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is, "So am not I!" 
 The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence, rather 10 
 seems to strengthen and enhance our possession and our en- 
 joyment of life. Others may fall around like leaves, or be 
 mowed down like flowers by the scythe of Time: these are 
 but tropes and figures to the unreflecting ears and overween- 
 ing presumption of youth. It is not tiU we see the flowers of 15 
 Love, Hope, and Joy, withering around us, and our own pleas- 
 ures cut up by the roots, that we bring the moral home to 
 ourselves, that we abate something of the wanton extrava- 
 gance of our pretensions, or that the emptiness and dreariness 
 of the prospect before us reconciles us to the stillness of the 20 
 grave! 
 
 "Life! thou strange thing, thou hast a power to feel 
 Thou art, and to perceive that others are. "^ 
 
 Well might the poet begin his indignant invective against 
 an art, whose professed object is its destruction, with this 25 
 animated apostrophe to life. Life is indeed a strange gift, 
 and its privileges are most miraculous. Nor is it singular 
 that when the splendid boon is first granted us, our gratitude, 
 our admiration, and our delight should prevent us from re- 
 flectijig on our own nothingness, or from thinking it will ever 30 
 be recalled. Our first and strongest impressions are taken 
 from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we very inno- 
 cently transfer its durability as well as magnificence to our- 
 selves. So newly found, we cannot make up our minds to 
 parting with it yet and at least put off that consideration to 35 
 an indefinite term. Like a clown at a fair, we are full of amaze- 
 
 ' Fawcett's Art of War, a poem, 1794. 
 
166 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 ment and rapture, and have no thoughts of going home, or 
 that it will soon be night. We know our existence only from 
 external objects, and we measure it by them. We can never 
 be satisfied with gazing; and nature will still want us to look 
 5 on and applaud. Otherwise, the sumptuous entertainment, 
 "the feast of reason and the flow of soul, " to which they were 
 invited, seems httle better than mockery and a cruel insult. 
 We do not go from a play till the scene is ended, and the 
 lights are ready to be extinguished. But the fair face of 
 
 10 things still shines on ; shall we be called away before the cur- 
 tain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of what is 
 going on? Like children, our step-mother Nature holds us 
 up to see the raree-show of the universe; and then, as if life 
 were a burthen to support, lets us instantly down again. Yet 
 
 15 in that short interval, what ''brave sublunary things" does 
 
 not the spectacle unfold; like a bubble, at one minute re- 
 
 ■^ fleeting the universe, and the next, shook to air! — To see 
 
 the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, to 
 
 walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand crea- 
 
 20 tures, to look down the giddy precipices or over the distant 
 flowery vales, to see the world spread out under one's finger 
 in a map, to bring the stars near, to view the smallest insects 
 in a microscope, to read history, and witness the revolutions 
 of empires and the succession of generations, to hear of the 
 
 25 glory of Sidon and Tyre, of Babylon and Susa, as of a faded 
 pageant, and to say all these were, and are now nothing, to 
 think that we exist in such a point of time, and in such a 
 corner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the 
 moving scene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring 
 
 30 and autumn, to hear 
 
 " The stockdove plain amid the forest deep, 
 That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale" — 
 
 to traverse desert wilderness, to listen to the midnight choir, 
 to visit lighted halls, or plunge into the dungeon's gloom, or 
 35 sit in crowded theatres and see life itself mocked, to feel heat 
 and cold, pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and false- 
 hood, to study the works of art and refine the sense of beauty 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 167 
 
 to agony, to worship fame and to dream of immortality, to 
 have read Shakspeare and belong to the same species as 
 Sir Isaac Newton ;i to be and to do all this, and then in a 
 
 1 Lady Wortley Montague says, in one of her letters, that "she 
 would much rather be a rich effendi, with all his ignorance, than Sir 5 
 Isaac Newton, with all his knowledge." This was not perhaps an 
 impolitic choice, as she had a better chance of becoming one than the 
 other, there being many rich effendis to one Sir Isaac Newton. 
 The wish was not a very intellectual one. The same petulance of 
 rank and sex breaks out everywhere in these Letters. She is con- 10 
 stantly reducing the poets or philosophers who have the misfortune 
 of her acquaintance, to the figure they might make at her lady- 
 ship's levee or toilette, not considering that the public mind does 
 not sympathise with this process of a fastidious imagination. In 
 the same spirit, she declares of Pope and Swift, that "had it not been 15 
 for the good-nature of mankind, these two superior beings were en- 
 titled, by their birth and hereditary fortune, to be only a couple of 
 link-boys." Gulliver's Travels, and the Rape of the Lock, go for 
 nothing in this critical estimate, and the world raised the authors 
 to the rank of superior beings, in spite of their disadvantages of birth 20 
 and fortune, out of pure good nature! So again, she says of Richard- 
 son, that he had never got beyond the servant's hall, and was utterly 
 unfit to describe the manners of people of quality; till in the capri- 
 cious workings of her vanity, she persuades herself that Clarissa is 
 very like what she was at her age, and that Sir Thomas and Lady 25 
 Grandison stroligly resembled what she had heard of her mother 
 and remembered of her father. It is one of the beauties and advan- 
 tages of literature, that it is the means of abstracting the mind from 
 the narrowness of local and personal prejudices, and of enabling us 
 to judge of truth and excellence by their inherent merits alone. Woe 30 
 be to the pen that would undo this fine illusion (the only reality), 
 and teach us to regulate our notions of genius and virtue by the cir- 
 cumstances in which they happen to be placed! You would not ex- 
 pect a person whom you saw in a servant's hall, or behind a counter, 
 to write Clarissa; but after he had written the work, to pre-judge it 35 
 from the situation of the writer, is an unpardonable piece of injustice 
 and folly. His merit could only be the greater from the contrast. 
 If literature is an elegant accomplishment, which none but persons 
 of birth and fashion should be allowed to excel in, or to exercise with 
 advantage to the public, let them by all means take upon them the 40 
 task of enlightening and refining mankind: if they decline this re- 
 sponsibility as too heavy for their shoulders, let those who do the 
 drudgery in their stead, however inadequately, for want of their 
 polite example, receive the meed that is their due, and not be treated 
 as low pretenders who have encroached upon the provinces of their 45 
 betters. Suppose Richardson to have been acquainted with the 
 
168 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one like 
 a juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria; there is something 
 
 great man's steward, or valet, instead of the great man himself, I 
 will venture to say that there was more difference between him who 
 5 lived in an ideal world, and had the genius and felicity to open that 
 world to others, and his friend the steward, than between the lacquey 
 and the mere lord, or between those who lived in different rooms of 
 the same house, who dined on the same luxuries at different tables, 
 who rode outside or inside of the same coach, and were proud of 
 
 10 wearing or of bestowing the same tawdry livery. If the lord is 
 distinguished from his valet by anything else, it is by education and 
 talent, which he has in common with the author. But if the latter 
 shows these in the highest degree, it is asked what are his pretensions ? 
 Not birth or fortune, for neither of these would enable him to write 
 
 15 Clarissa. One man is born with a title and estate, another with 
 genius. That is. sufficient; and we have no right to question the 
 genius for want of the gentility, unless the former ran in families, or 
 could be bequeathed with a fortune, which is not the case. Were it 
 so, the flowers of literature, like jewels and embroidery, would be 
 
 20 confined to the fashionable circles; and there would be no pretenders 
 to taste or elegance but those whose names were found in the court 
 list. No one objects to Claude's landscapes as the work of a pastry- 
 cook, or withholds from Raphael the epithet of divine, because his 
 parents were not rich. This impertinence is confined to men of 
 
 25 letters; the evidence of the senses baffles the envy and foppery of 
 mankind. No quarter ought to be given to this aristocratic tone of 
 criticism whenever it appears. People of quality aire not contented 
 with carrying all the external advantages for their own share, but 
 would persuade you that all the intellectual ones are packed up in 
 
 30 the same bundle. Lord Byron was a later instance of this double 
 and unwarrantable style of pretension — monstrum ingens, hiforme. 
 He could not endure a lord who was not a wit, nor a poet who was 
 not a lord. Nobody but himself answered to his own standard of 
 perfection. Mr. Moore carries a proxy in his pocket from some noble 
 
 35 persons to estimate literary merit by the same rule. Lady Mary 
 calls Fielding names, but she afterwards makes atonement by doing 
 justice to his frank, free, hearty nature, where he says "his spirits 
 gave him raptures with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was 
 starving in a garret, and his happy constitution made him forget 
 
 40 everything when he was placed before a venison-pasty or over a flask 
 of champagne." She does not want shrewdness and spirit when 
 her petulance and conceit do not get the better of her, and she has 
 done ample and merited execution on Lord Bolingbroke. She is, 
 however, very angry at the freedoms taken with the Great; smells 
 
 45 a rat in this indiscriminate scribbling, and the familiarity of writers 
 with the reading public; and inspired by her Turkish costume, fore- 
 tells a French and English revolution as the consequences of transfer- 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 169 
 
 revolting and incredible to sense in the transition, and no 
 wonder that, aided by youth and warm blood, and the flush 
 of enthusiasm, the mind contrives for a long time to reject it 
 with disdain and loathing as a monstrous and improbable 
 fiction, like a monkey on a house-top, that is loath, amidst its 5 
 fine discoveries and specious antics, to be tumbled headlong 
 into the street, and crushed to atoms, the sport and laughter 
 of the multitude! 
 
 The change, from the commencement to the close of life, 
 appears like a fable, after it had taken place; how should we 10 
 treat it otherwise than as a chimera before it has come to pass? 
 There are some things that happened so long ago, places or 
 persons we have formerly seen, of which such dim traces re- 
 main, we hardly know whether it was sleeping or waking they 
 occurred; they are like dreams within the dream of life, a mist, 15 
 a film before the eye of memory, which, as we try to recall 
 them more distinctly, elude our notice altogether. It is but 
 natural that the lone interval that we thus look back upon 
 should have appeared long and endless in prospect. There 
 are others so distinct and fresh, they seem but of yesterday 20 
 — their very vividness might be deemed a pledge of their 
 permanence. Then, however far back our impressions may go, 
 we find others still older (for our years are multiplied in youth) 
 descriptions of scenes that we had read, and people before 
 our time, Priam and the Trojan war; and even then, Nestor 25 
 was old and dwelt delighted on his youth, and spoke of the 
 race of heroes that were no more; — what wonder that, 
 seeing this long line of being pictured in our minds, and re- 
 viving as it were in us, we should give ourselves involuntary 
 credit for an indeterminate existence? In the cathedral at 30 
 Peterborough there is a monument to Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 at which I used to gaze when a boy, while the events of the 
 period, all that had happened since, passed in review before 
 me. If all this mass of feeling and imagination could be 
 crowded into a moment's compass, what might not the whole 35 
 
 ring the patronage of letters from the quality to the mob, and of 
 supposing that ordinary writers or readers can have any notions in 
 common with their superiors. 
 
170 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 of life be supposed to contain? We are heirs of the past, 
 we count on the future as our natural reversion. Besides, 
 there are some of our early impressions so exquisitely tem- 
 pered, it appears that they must always last — nothing can 
 5 add to or take away from their sweetness and purity — the 
 first breath of spring, the hyacinth dipped in the dew, the 
 mild lustre of the evening-star, the rainbow after a storm — 
 while we have the full enjoyment of these, we must be young; 
 and what can ever alter us in this respect? Truth, friend- 
 
 10 ship, love, books, are also proof against the canker of time; 
 and while we live but for them, we can never grow old. We 
 take out a new lease of existence from the objects on which 
 we set our affections, and become abstracted, impassive, im- 
 mortal in them. We cannot conceive how certain senti- 
 
 15ments should ever decay or grow cold in our breasts; and, 
 consequently to maintain them in their first youthful glow 
 and vigour, the flame of life must continue to burn as bright 
 as ever, or rather, they are the fuel that feed the sacred lamp, 
 that kindle "the purple light of love," and spread a golden 
 
 20 cloud around our heads! Again, we not only flourish and sur- 
 vive in our affections (in which we will not listen to the pos- 
 sibility of a change, any more than we foresee the wrinkles on 
 the brow of a mistress), but we have a further guarantee 
 against the thoughts of death in our favourite studies and 
 
 25 pursuits and in their continual advance. Art we know is 
 long; life, we feel, should be so too. We see no end of the 
 difficulties we have to encounter: perfection is slow of 
 attainment, and we must have time to accomplish it in. 
 Rubens complained that when he had just learned his art, 
 
 30 he was snatched away from it: we trust we shall be more 
 fortunate! A wrinkle in an old head takes whole days to finish 
 it properly: but to catch "the Raphael grace, the Guide air," 
 no limit should be put to our endeavours. What a prospect 
 for the future! What a task we have entered upon! and shaU 
 
 35 we be arrested in the middle of it? We do not reckon our time 
 thus employed lost, or our pains thrown away, or our progress 
 slow — we do not droop or grow tired, but "gain a new vigour 
 at our endless task;" — and shall Time grudge us the oppor- 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 171 
 
 tunity to finish what we have auspiciously begun, and have 
 formed a sort of compact with nature to achieve? The fame 
 of the great names we look up to is also imperishable; and 
 shall not we, who contemplate it with such intense yearnings, 
 imbibe a portion of ethereal fire, the divince particula auroe, 5 
 which nothing can extinguish? I remember to have looked 
 at a print of Rembrandt for hours together, without being 
 conscious of the flight of time, trying to resolve it into its 
 component parts, to connect its strong and sharp gradations, 
 to learn the secret of its reflected lights, and found neither 10 
 satiety nor pause in the prosecution of my studies. The print 
 over which I was poring would last long enough; why should 
 the idea in my mind, which was finer, more impalpable, 
 perish before it? At this, I redoubled the ardour of my 
 pursuit, and by the very subtlety and refinement of my 15 
 inquiries, seemed to bespeak for them an exemption from cor- 
 ruption and the rude grasp of Death. ^ 
 
 Objects, on our first acquaintance with them, have that 
 singleness and integrity of impression that it seems as if 
 nothing could destroy or obliterate them, so firmly are they 20 
 stamped and rivetted on the brain. We repose on them with 
 a sort of voluptuous indolence, in full faith and boundless 
 confidence. We are absorbed in the present moment, or 
 return to the same point — idling away a great deal of time 
 in youth, thinking we have enough to spare. There is often 25 
 a local feeling in the air, which is as fixed as if it were marble; 
 we loiter in dim cloisters, losing ourselves in thought and in 
 their glimmering arches; a winding road before us seems as 
 long as the journey of life, and as full of events. Time and 
 experience dissipate this illusion; and by reducing them to 30 
 detail, circumscribe the limits of our expectations. It is only 
 as the pageant of life passes by and the masques turn their 
 backs upon us, that we see through the deception, or beheve 
 that the train will have an end. In many cases, the slow 
 progress and monotonous texture of our lives, before we 35 
 
 ^ Is it not this that frequently keeps artists aUve so long, viz. the 
 constant occupation of their minds with vivid images, with little of 
 the wear and tear of the body? 
 
172 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 mingle with the world and are embroiled in its affairs, has 
 a tendency to aid the same feeling. We have a difficulty, 
 when left to ourselves, and without the resource of books or 
 some more Hvely pursuit, to ''beguile the slow and creeping 
 
 6 hours of time," and argue that if it moves on always at this 
 tedious snail's-pace, it can never come to an end. We are 
 willing to skip over certain portions of it that separate us 
 from favourite objects, that irritate ourselves at the unneces- 
 sary delay. The young are prodigal of life from a super- 
 
 10 abundance of it; the old are tenacious on the same score, 
 because they have little left, and cannot enjoy even what re- 
 mains of it. 
 
 For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, 
 and that event had considerable influence on my early feelings, 
 
 15 as on those of others. Youth was then doubly such. It was 
 the dawn of a new era, a new impulse had been given to men's 
 minds, and the sun of Liberty rose upon the sun of Life in the 
 same day, and both were proud to run their race together. 
 Little did I dream, while my first hopes and wishes went hand 
 
 20 in hand with those of the human race, that long before my 
 eyes should close, that dawn would be overcast, and set once 
 more in the night of despotism — ''total eclipse!" Happy 
 that I did not. I felt for years, and during the best part of 
 my existence, heart-whole in that cause, and triumphed in the 
 
 25 triumphs over the enemies of man! At that time, while the 
 fairest aspirations of the human mind seemed about to be 
 realised, ere the image of man was defaced and his breast 
 mangled in scorn, philosophy took a higher, poetry could 
 afford a deeper range. At that time, to read The Robbers was 
 
 30 indeed delicious, and to hear 
 
 "From the dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
 That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry," 
 
 could be borne only amidst the fulness of hope, the crash of 
 the fall of the strongholds of power, and the exulting sounds 
 35 of the march of human freedom. What feelings the death- 
 scene in Don Carlos sent into the soul! In that headlong 
 career of lofty enthusiasm, and the joyous opening of the 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 173 
 
 prospects of the world and our own, the thought of death 
 crossing it, smote doubly cold upon the mind; there was a 
 stifling sense of oppression and confinement, an impatience 
 of our present knowledge, a desire to grasp the whole of our 
 existence in one strong embrace, to sound the mystery of life 5 
 and death, and in order to put an end to the agony of doubt 
 and dread, to burst through our prison-house, and confront 
 the King of Terrors in liis grisly palace! . . . As I was writing 
 out this passage, my miniature-picture when a child lay on 
 the mantle-piece, and I took it out of the case to look at it. 10 
 I could perceive few traces of myself in it; but there was the 
 same placid brow, the dimpled mouth, the same timid, in- 
 quisitive glance as ever. But its careless smile did not seem 
 to reproach me with having become recreant to the senti- 
 ments that were then sown in my mind, or with having written 15 
 a sentence that could call up a blush in this image of ingenuous 
 youth! 
 
 "That time is past with all its giddy raptures." Since the 
 future was barred to my progress, I have turned for consola- 
 tion to the past, gathering up the fragments of my early recol- 20 
 lections, and putting them into form that might live. It is 
 thus, that when we find our personal and substantial identity 
 vanishing from us, we strive to gain a reflected and sustituted 
 one in our thoughts; we do not like to perish wholly, and wish 
 to bequeath our names at least to posterity. As long as we 25 
 can keep alive our cherished thoughts and nearest interests 
 in the minds of others, we do not appear to have retired al- 
 together from the stage, we still occupy a place in the estima- 
 tion of mankind, exercise a powerful influence over them, and 
 it is only our bodies that are trampled into dust or dispersed 30 
 to air. Our darling speculations still find favour and en- 
 couragement, and we make as good a figure in the eyes of 
 our descendants, nay, perhaps, a better than we did in our 
 life-time. This is one point gained; the demands of our 
 self-love are so far satisfied. Besides, if by the proofs of 35 
 intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this world, by 
 exemplary virtue or unblemished faith, we are taught to 
 ensure an interest in another and a higher state of being, and 
 
174 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 to anticipate at the same time the applauses of men and 
 angels. 
 
 "Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries; 
 Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." 
 
 5 As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value 
 of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; 
 and we become misers in this respect. We try to arrest its 
 few last tottering steps, and to make it linger on the brink 
 of the grave. We can never leave off wondering how that 
 
 10 which has ever been should cease to be, and would still live on, 
 that we may wonder at our own shadow, and when "all the 
 life of life is flown, " dwell on the retrospect of the past. This 
 is accompanied by a mechanical tenaciousness of whatever we 
 possess, by a distrust and a sense of fallacious hollowness in 
 
 15 all we see. Instead of the full, pulpy feeling of youth, every 
 thing is flat and insipid. The world is a painted witch, that 
 puts us off with false shews and tempting appearances. The 
 ease, the jocund gaiety, the unsuspecting security of youth are 
 fled: nor can we, without flying in the face of common sense, 
 
 20 "From the last dregs of life, hope to receive 
 
 What its first sprightly runnings could not give." 
 
 If we can shp out of the world without notice or mischance, 
 can tamper with bodily infirmity, and frame our minds to the 
 becoming composure of still-life, before we sink into total 
 
 25insensibihty, it is as much as we ought to expect. We do not 
 in the regular course of nature die all at once: we have 
 mouldered away gradually long before; faculty after faculty, 
 attachment after attachment, we are torn from ourselves 
 piece-meal while living; year after year takes something 
 
 30 from us; and death only consigns the last remnant of what 
 we were to the grave. The revulsion is not so great, and a 
 quiet euthanasia is a winding-up of the plot, that is not out 
 of reason or nature. 
 
 That we should thus in a manner outlive ourselves, and 
 
 35 dwindle imperceptibly into nothing, is not surprising, when 
 even in our prime the strongest impressions leave so little 
 traces of themselves behind, and the last object is driven out 
 
THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 175 
 
 by the succeeding one. How little effect is produced on us 
 at any time by the books we have read, the scenes we have 
 witnessed, the sufferings we have gone through! Think only 
 of the variety of feelings we experience in reading an interest- 
 ing romance, or being present at a fine play — what beauty, 6 
 what sublimity, what soothing, what heart-rending emotions! 
 You would suppose these would last for ever, or at least sub- 
 due the mind to a correspondent tone and harmony — while 
 we turn over the page, while the scene is passing before us, it 
 seems as if nothing could ever after shake our resolution, that 10 
 "treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing could touch us 
 farther!" The first splash of mud we get, on entering the 
 street, the first pettifogging shopkeeper that cheats us out of 
 two-pence, and the whole vanishes clean out of our remem- 
 brance, and we become the idle prey of the most petty and 15 
 annoying circumstances. The mind soars by an effort to 
 the grand and lofty, it is at home in the grovelling, the disa- 
 greeable, and the little. This happens in the height and 
 hey-day of our existence, when novelty gives a stronger im- 
 pulse to the blood and takes a faster hold of the brain (1 20 
 have known the impression on coming out of a gallery of 
 pictures then last half a day) — as we grow old, we become 
 more feeble and querulous, every object "reverbs its own 
 hoUowness, " and both worlds are not enough to satisfy the 
 peevish importunity and extravagant presumption of our 25 
 desires! There are a few superior, happy beings, who are 
 born with a temper exempt from every trifling annoyance. ^ 
 This spirit sits serene and smiling as in its native skies, and a 
 divine harmony (whether heard or not) plays around them. 
 This is to be at peace. Without this, it is in vain to fly into 30 
 deserts, or to build a hermitage on the top of rocks, if regret 
 and ill-humour follow us there; and with this, it is needless 
 to make the experiment. The only true retirement is that 
 of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the pas- 
 sions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they 35 
 are young or old ; and they die as they have lived, with grace- 
 ful resignation. 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 
 
 "St. George for Merry England !" 
 
 This old-fashioned epithet might be supposed to have been 
 bestowed ironically, or on the old principle — Ut lucus a non 
 lucendo. Yet there is something in the sound that hits the 
 
 5 fancy, and a sort of truth beyond appearances. To be sure, 
 it is from a dull, homely ground that the gleams of mirth and 
 jollity break out; but the streaks of light that tinge the 
 evening sky are not the less striking on that account. The 
 beams of the morning sun shining on the lonely glades, or 
 
 10 through the idle branches of the tangled forest, the leisure, 
 the freedom, "the pleasure of going and coming without 
 knowing where," the troops of wild deer, the sports of the 
 chase, and other rustic gambols were sufficient to justify 
 the well-known appellation of ''Merry Sherwood," and in 
 
 15 like manner we may apply the phrase to Merry England. 
 The smile is not the less sincere because it does not always 
 play upon the cheek; and the jest is not the less welcome, 
 nor the laugh less hearty, because they happen to be a relief 
 from care or leaden-eyed melancholy. The instances are the 
 
 20 more precious as they are rare; and we look forward to them 
 with the greater good will, or back upon them with the greater 
 gratitude, as we drain the last drop in the cup with particular 
 relish. If not always gay or in good spirits, we are glad when 
 any occasion draws us out of our natural gloom, and disposed 
 
 25 to make the most of it. We may say with Silence in the play, 
 "I have been merry ere now," — and this once was to serve 
 him all his life; for he was a person of wonderful silence and 
 gravity, though ''he chirped over his cups," and announced 
 with characteristic glee that "there were pippins and cheese to 
 
 30 come." Silence was in this sense a merry man, that is, he 
 would be merry if he could, and a very great economy of wit, 
 
 176 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 177 
 
 like a very slender fare, was a banquet to him, from the sim- 
 plicity of his taste and habits. "Continents," says Hobbes, 
 "have most of what they contain" — and in this view it 
 may be contended that the English are the merriest people 
 in the world, since they only show it on high-days and holi- 5 
 days. They are then like a school-boy let loose from school, 
 or like a dog that has slipped his collar. They are not gay 
 like the French, who are one eternal smile of self-complacency, 
 tortured into affectation, or spun out into languid indiffer- 
 ence, nor are they voluptuous and immersed in sensual in- 10 
 dolence, like the Italians; but they have that sort of inter- 
 mittent, fitful, irregular gaiety, which is neither worn out 
 by habit, nor deadened by passion, but is sought with avidity 
 as it takes the mind by surprise, is startled by a sense of od- 
 dity and incongruity, indulges its wayward humours or lively 15 
 impulses, with perfect freedom and lightness of heart, and 
 seizes occasion by the forelock, that it may return to serious 
 business with more cheerfulness, and have something to 
 beguile the hours of thought or sadness. I do not see how 
 there can be high spirits without low ones; and everything 20 
 has its price according to circumstances. Perhaps we have 
 to pay a heavier tax on pleasure, than some others: -what 
 skills it, so long as our good spirits and good hearts enable 
 us to bear it? 
 
 "They" (the English), saj^s Froissart, "amused themselves 25 
 sadly after the fashion of their country" — Us se rejouissoient 
 tristement selon la couiume de leur pays. They have indeed a 
 way of their own. Their mirth is a relaxation from gravity, 
 a challenge to dull care to be gone; and one is not always 
 clear at first, whether the appeal is successful. The cloud 30 
 may still hang on the brow; the ice may not thaw at once. 
 To help them out in their new character is an act of charity. 
 Anything short of hanging or drowning is something to 
 begin with. They do not enter into their amusements the 
 less doggedly because they may plague others. They like 35 
 a thing the better for hitting them a rap on the knuckles, 
 for making their blood tingle. They do not dance or sing, 
 but they make good cheer — "eat, drink, and are merry." 
 
178 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 No people are fonder of field-sports, Christmas gambols, 
 or practical jests. Blindman's buff, hunt-the-slipper, hot- 
 cockles, and snap-dragon are all approved English games, 
 full of laughable surprises and ''hairbreadth 'scapes," and 
 5 serve to amuse the winter fireside after the roast beef and 
 plum pudding, the spiced ale and roasted crab, thrown 
 (hissing-hot) into the foaming tankard. Punch (not the 
 liquor, but the puppet) is not, I fear, of English origin; but 
 there is no place, I take it, where he finds himself more at 
 
 10 home or meets a more joyous welcome, where he collects 
 greater crowds at the corners of streets, where he opens the 
 eyes or distends the cheeks wider, or where the bangs and 
 blows, the uncouth gestures, ridiculous anger and screaming 
 voice of the chief performer excite more boundless merriment 
 
 15 or louder bursts of laughter among all ranks and sorts of 
 people. An English theatre is the very throne of pantomime; 
 nor do I believe that the gallery and boxes of Drury-lane or 
 Covent-garden filled on the proper occasion with hoUday 
 folks (big or little) yield the palm for undisguised, tumul- 
 
 20tuous, inextinguishable laughter to any spot in Europe. I 
 do not speak of the refinement of the mirth (this is no fastid- 
 ious speculation) but of its cordiality, on the return of these 
 long looked-for and licensed periods; and I may add here, 
 by way of illustration, that the English common people are 
 
 25 a sort of grown children, spoiled and sulky perhaps, but full 
 of glee and merriment, when their attention is drawn off by 
 some sudden and striking object. The May-pole is almost 
 gone out of fashion among us: but May-day, besides its 
 flowering hawthorns and its pearly dews, has still its boasted 
 
 30 exhibition of painted chimney-sweepers and their Jack-o'- 
 the-Green, whose tawdry finery, bedizened faces, unwonted 
 gestures, and short-lived pleasures call forth good-humoured 
 smiles and looks of sympathy in the spectators. There is no 
 place where trap-ball, fives, prison-base, foot-ball, quoits, 
 
 35 bowls are better understood or more successfully practiced; 
 and the very names of a cricket bat and ball make English 
 fingers tingle. What happy days must "Long Robinson" 
 have passed in getting ready his wickets and mending his 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 179 
 
 bats, who when two of the fingers of his right hand were 
 struck off by the violence of a ball, had a screw fastened to it 
 to hold the bat, and with the other hand still sent the ball 
 thundering against the boards that bounded Old Lord's 
 cricket ground ! What delightful hours must have been his 5 
 in looking forw^ard to the matches that were to come, in re- 
 counting the feats he had performed in those that were past! 
 I have myself whiled away whole mornings in seeing him 
 strike the ball (like a countryman mowing with a scythe) 
 to the farthest extremity of the smooth, level, sun-burnt 10 
 ground, and with long, awkward strides count the notches 
 that made victory sure! Then again, cudgel-playing, quarter- 
 staff, bull and badger-baiting, cock-fighting are almost the 
 peculiar diversions of this island, and often objected to us 
 as barbarous and cruel; horse-racing is the delight and the 15 
 ruin of numbers; and the noble science of boxing is all our 
 own. Foreigners can scarcely understand how we can 
 squeeze pleasure out of this pastime; the luxury of hard 
 blows given or received; the joy of the ring; nor the perse- 
 verance of the combatants.^ The English also excel, or are 20 
 not excelled in wiring a hare, in stalking a deer, in shooting, 
 fishing, and hunting. England to this day boasts her Robin 
 Hood and his merry men, that stout archer and outlaw, and 
 patron saint of the sporting calendar. What a cheerful 
 
 1 "The gentle and free passage of arms at Ashby" was, we are told, 25 
 so called by the Chroniclers of the time, on account of the feats of 
 horsemanship and the quantity of knightly blood that was shed. 
 This last circumstance was perhaps necessary to qualify it with the 
 epithet of "gentle," in the opinion of some of these historians. I 
 think the reason why the English are the bravest nation on earth, is 30 
 that, the thought of blood or a delight in cruelty is not the chief 
 excitement with them. Where it is, there is necessarily a reaction; 
 for though it may add to our eagerness and savage ferocity in in- 
 fhcting wounds, it does not enable us to endure them with greater 
 patience. The English are led to the attack or sustain it equally well, 35 
 because they fight as they box, not out of malice, but to show pluck 
 and manhood. Fair play and old England forever! This is the only 
 bravery that will stand the test. There is the same determination 
 and spirit shown in resistance as in attack; but not the same pleasure 
 in getting a cut with a sabre as in giving one. There is, therefore, 40 
 always a certain degree of effeminacy mixed up with any approach 
 
180 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 sound is that of the hunters, issuing from the autumnal wood 
 and sweeping over hill and dale! 
 
 — "A cry more tuneable 
 Was never halloo'd to by hound or horn." 
 
 5 What sparkling richness in the scarlet coats of the riders, 
 what a glittering confusion in the pack, what spirit in the 
 horses, what eagerness in the followers on foot, as they dis- 
 perse over the plain, or force their way over hedge and ditch! 
 Surely, the coloured prints and pictures of these, hung up in 
 
 10 gentlemen's halls and village alehouses, however humble as 
 works of art, have more life and health and spirit in them, 
 and mark the pith and nerve of the national character more 
 creditably than the mawkish, sentimental, affected designs 
 of Theseus and Pirithous, and iEneas and Dido, pasted on 
 
 15 foreign salons a 7nanger, and the interior of country houses. 
 If our tastes are not epic, nor our pretensions lofty, they are 
 simple and our own; and we may possibly enjoy our native 
 rural sports, and the rude remembrances of them, with the 
 truer relish on this account, that they are suited to us and we 
 
 20 to them. The EngUsh nation, too, are naturally ''brothers 
 of the angle." This pursuit implies just that mixture of 
 patience and pastime, of vacancy and thoughtfulness, of 
 idleness and business, of pleasure and of pain, which is suited 
 to the genius of an Enghshman, and as I suspect, of no one 
 
 25 else in the same degree. He is eminently gifted to stand in 
 the situation assigned by Dr. Johnson to the angler, "at one 
 end of a rod with a worm at the other. " I should suppose no 
 
 to cruelty, since both have their source in the same principle, viz. an 
 over-valuing of pain (a). This was the reason the French (having 
 
 30 the best cause and the best general in the world) ran away at Water- 
 loo, because they were inflamed, furious, drunk with the blood of 
 their enemies, but when it came to their turn, wanting the same 
 stimulus, they were panic-struck, and their hearts and their senses 
 failed them all at once. 
 
 35 (a) Vanity is the same half-witted principle, compared with pride. 
 It leaves men in the lurch when it is most needed; is mortified at 
 being reduced to stand on the defensive, and relinquishes the field 
 to its more surly antagonist. 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 181 
 
 other language can show such a book as an often-mentioned 
 one, Walton's Complete Angler, — so full of naivete, of unaf- 
 fected sprightliness, of busy triflmg, of dainty songs, of 
 refreshing brooks, of shady arbours, of happy thoughts and 
 of the herb called Heart's Ease! Some persons can see neither 5 
 the wit nor wisdom of this genuine volume, as if a book as 
 well as a man might not have a personal character belonging 
 to it, amiable, venerable from the spiiit of joy and thorough 
 goodness it manifests, independently of acute remarks or 
 scientific discoveries; others object to the cruelty of Wal-lO 
 ton's theory and practice of trout-fisliing — for my part, I 
 should as soon charge an infant with cruelty for killing a fly, 
 and I feel the same sort of pleasure in reading his book as I 
 should have done in the company of this happy, childlike 
 old man, watching his ruddy cheek, his laughing eye, the 15 
 kindness of his heart, and the dexterity of his hand in seizing 
 his finny prey! It must be confessed, there is often an odd 
 sort of materiality in English sports and recreations. I have 
 known several persons whose existence consisted wholly in 
 manual exercises, and aU whose enjoyments lay at their finger- 20 
 ends. Their greatest happiness was in cutting a stick, in 
 mending a cabbage-net, in digging a hole in the ground, in 
 hitting a mark, turning a lathe, or in something else of the 
 same kind, at which they had a certain knack. Well is it 
 when we can amuse ourselves with such trifles and without 25 
 injury to others! This class of character, which the Spectator 
 has immortalised in the person of Will Wimble, is still com- 
 mon among younger brothers and retired gentlemen of small 
 incomes in town or country. The cockney character is of our 
 English growth, as this intimates a feverish, fidgety delight 30 
 in rural sights and sounds, and a longing wish, after the tur- 
 moil and confinement of a city-life, to transport one's-self 
 to the freedom and breathing sweetness of a country retreat. 
 London is half suburbs. The suburbs of Paris are a desert, 
 and you see nothing but crazy windmills, stone walls, and 35 
 a few straggling visitants in spots where in England you 
 would find a thousand villas, a thousand terraces crowned 
 with their own deUghts, or be stunned with the noise of 
 
182 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 bowling-greens and tea-gardens, or stifled with the fumes of 
 tobacco minghng with fragrant shrubs, or the clouds of dust 
 raised by half the population of the metropolis panting and 
 toiling in search of a mouthful of fresh air. The Parisian is, 
 
 5 perhaps, as well (or better) contented with himself wherever 
 he is, stewed in his shop or his garret ; the Londoner is miser- 
 able in these circumstances, and glad to escape from them.^ 
 Let no one object to the gloomy appearance of a London 
 Sunday, compared with a Parisian one. It is a part of our 
 
 10 politics and our religion; we would not have James the 
 First's Book of Sports thrust down our throats; and besides, 
 it is a part of our character to do one thing at a time, and not 
 to be dancing a jig and on our knees in the same breath. It 
 is true the Englishman spends his Sunday evening at the ale- 
 
 15 house — , 
 
 "And e'en on Sunday 
 Drank with Kirton Jean till Monday" — 
 
 but he only unbends and waxes mellow by degrees, and sits 
 soaking till he can neither sit, stand, nor go; it is his vice, and 
 
 20 a beastly one it is, but not a proof of any inherent distaste to 
 mirth or good-fellowship. Neither can foreigners throw the 
 carnival in our teeth with any effect: those who have seen 
 it (at Florence, for example) will say that it is duller than 
 anything in England. Our Bartholomew Fair is Queen Mab 
 
 25 herself to it! What can be duller than a parcel of masks 
 moving about the streets and looking as grave and monoto- 
 nous as possible from day to day, and with the same lifeless 
 formality in their limbs and gestures as in their features? 
 One might as well expect variety and spirit in a procession of 
 
 30 waxwork. We must be hard run indeed, when we have re- 
 course to a pasteboard proxy to set off our mirth; a mask may 
 be a very good cover for licentiousness (though of that I saw 
 no signs), but is a very bad exponent of wit and humour. I 
 should suppose there is more drollery and unction in the 
 
 35 ^ The English are fond of change of scene ; the French of change 
 of posture; the Italians like to sit still and do nothing. 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 183 
 
 caricatures in Gilraj^'s shop-window, than in all the masks 
 in Italy, without exception. ^ 
 
 The humour of English writing and description has often 
 been wondered at; and it flows from the same source as the 
 merry traits of our character. A degree of barbarism and 5 
 rusticity seems necessary to the perfection of humour. The 
 droll and laughable depend on peculiarity and incongruity 
 of character. But with the progress of refinement, the pe- 
 culiarities of individuals and of classes wear out or lose their 
 sharp, abrupt edges; nay, a certain slowness and dullness of 10 
 understanding is required to be struck with odd and unac- 
 countable appearances, for which a greater facility of appre- 
 hension can sooner assign an explanation that breaks the 
 force of the seeming absurdity, and to which a wider scope of 
 imagination is mor^ easily reconciled. Clowns and country 15 
 people are more amused, are more disposed to laugh and make 
 sport of the dress of strangers, because from their ignorance 
 the surprise is greater, and they cannot conceive anything to 
 be natural or proper to which they are unused. Without a 
 given portion of hardness and repulsiveness of feeling the 20 
 ludicrous cannot well exist. Wonder and curiosity, the 
 attributes of inexperience, enter greatly into its composition. 
 Now it appears to me that the EngHsh are (or were) just at 
 that mean point between intelligence and obtuseness, which 
 must produce the most abundant and happiest crop of 25 
 hmnour. Absurdity and singularity glide over the French 
 mind without jarring or jostling with it; or they evaporate 
 in levity; — with the Itahans they are lost in indolence or 
 pleasure. The ludicrous takes hold of the English imagi- 
 nation, and clings to it with all its ramifications. We 30 
 reseiit any difference or peculiarity of appearance at first, 
 and yet, having not much malice at our hearts, we are glad to 
 
 1 Beiis are peculiar to England. They jingle them in Italy during 
 the carnival as boys do with us at Shrovetide; but they have no no- 
 tion of ringing them. The sound of village bells never cheers you 35 
 in travelling, nor have you the lute or cittern in their stead. Yet 
 the expression of "Merry Bells" is a favourite, and not one of the 
 least appropriate in our language. 
 
184 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION" 
 
 turn it into a jest — we are liable to be offended, and as 
 willing to be pleased — struck with oddity from not knowing 
 what to make of it, we wonder and burst out a-laughing at 
 the eccentricity of others, while we follow our own bent from 
 SwiKulness or simplicity, and thus afford them, in our turn, 
 matter for the indulgence of the comic vein. It is possible 
 that a greater refinement of manners may give birth to finer 
 distinctions of satire and a nicer tact for the ridiculous; but 
 our insular situation and character are, I should say, most 
 
 10 likely to foster, as they have in fact fostered, the greatest 
 quantity of natural and striking humour, in spite of our 
 plodding tenaciousness, and want both of gaiety and quick- 
 ness of perception. A set of raw recruits with their awkward 
 movements and unbending joints are laughable enough: 
 
 15 but they cease to be so, when they have once been drilled into 
 discipline and uniformity. So it is with nations that lose 
 their angular points and grotesque qualities with education 
 and intercourse: but it is in a mixed state of manners that 
 comic humour chiefly flourishes, for, in order that the drol- 
 
 20 lery may not be lost, we must have spectators of the passing 
 scene who are able to appreciate and embody its most re- 
 markable features, — wits as /well as butts for ridicule. I 
 shall mention two names in this department which may 
 serve to redeem the national character from absolute dullness 
 
 25 and solemn pretence, — Fielding and Hogarth. These were 
 thorough specimens of true English humour; yet both were 
 grave men. In reality, too high a pitch of animal spirits 
 runs away with the imagination, instead of helping it to reach 
 the goal; is inclined to take the jest for granted when it 
 
 30 ought to work it out with patient and marked touches, and 
 it ends in vapid flippancy and impertinence. Among our 
 neighbours on the Continent, Moliere and Rabelais carried 
 the freedom of wit and humour to an almost incredible height; 
 but they rather belonged to the old French school, and even 
 
 35 approach and exceed the English license and extravagance of 
 conception. I do not consider Congreve's wit (though it 
 belongs to us) as coming under the article here spoken of; for 
 his genius is any thing but merry. Lord Byron was in the 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 185 
 
 habit of railing at the spirit of our good old comedy, and of 
 abusing Shakspeare's clowns and fools, which he said the 
 refinement of the French and Italian stage would not endure 
 and which only our grossness and puerile taste could tolerate. 
 In this I agree with him; and it is pat to my purpose. I 5 
 flatter myself that we are almost the only people who under- 
 stand and relish nonsense. We are not "merry and wise," 
 but indulge our mirth to excess and folly. When we trifle, 
 we trifle in good earnest ; and having once relaxed our hold of 
 the helm, drift idly down the stream, and dehghted with 10 
 the change, are tossed about "by every little breath" of 
 wliim or caprice, 
 
 "That under Heaven is blown." 
 
 All we then want is to proclaim a truce with reason, and to be 
 pleased with as little expense of thought or pretension to 15 
 wisdom as possible. This licensed fooling is carried to its 
 very utmost length in Shakespeare, and in some other of our 
 elder dramatists, without, perhaps, sufficient warrant or the 
 same excuse. Nothing can justify this extreme relaxation 
 but extreme tension. Shakspeare's trifling does indeed tread 20 
 upon the very borders of vacancy: his meaning often hangs 
 by the very slenderest threads. For this he might be blamed 
 if it did not take away our breath to follow his eagle flights, 
 or if he did not at other times make the cordage of our hearts 
 crack. After our heads ache with thinking, it is fair to play 25 
 the fool. The clowns were as proper an appendage to the 
 gravity of our antique literature, as fools and dwarfs were to 
 the stately dignity of courts and noble houses in former days. 
 Of all people, they have the best right to claim a total exemp- 
 tion from rules and rigid formality, who, when they have 30 
 anything of importance to do, set about it with the greatest 
 earnestness and perseverance, and are generally grave and 
 sober tu a proverb.^ Poor Swift, who wrote more idle or 
 nonsense verses than any man, was the severest of moralists; 
 and his feelings and observations morbidly acute. Did not 35 
 
 1 The strict formality of French serious writing is resorted to as a 
 fpil to the natural levity of their character. 
 
186 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 Lord Byron himself follow up his Childe Harold with his 
 Don Juan ? — not that I insist on what he did as any illustra- 
 tion of the English character. He was one of the English 
 Nobility, not one of the English People; and his occasional 
 5 ease and familiarity were in my mind equally constrained and 
 affected, whether in relation to the pretensions of his rank or 
 the efforts of his genius. 
 
 They ask you in France, how you pass your time in Eng- 
 land without amusements; and can with difficulty believe 
 
 10 that there are theatres in London, still less that they are larger 
 and handsomer than those in Paris. That we should have 
 comic actors, "they own, surprises them." They judge of 
 the English character in the lump as one great jolter-head, 
 containing all the stupidity of the country, as the large ball 
 
 15 at the top of the Dispensary in Warwick-lane, from its re- 
 semblance to a gilded pill, has been made to represent the 
 whole pharmacopoeia and professional quackery of the 
 kingdom. They have no more notion, for instance, how we 
 should have such an actor as Liston on our stage, than if we 
 
 20 were to tell them we have parts performed by a sea-otter; 
 nor if they were to see him, would they be much the wiser, or 
 know what to think of his unaccountable twitches of counte- 
 nance or nondescript gestures, of his teeth chattering in his 
 head, his eyes that seem dropping from their sockets, his nose 
 
 25 that is tickled by a jest as by a feather, and shining with self- 
 complacency as if oiled, his ignorant conceit, his gaping stupor, 
 his lumpish vivacity in Lubin Log or Tony Lumpkin; for as 
 our rivals do not wind up the machine to such a determined 
 intensity of purpose, neither have they any idea of its run- 
 
 30 ning down to such degrees of imbecility and folly, or coming 
 to an absolute standstill and lack of meaning, nor can they 
 enter into or be amused with the contrast. No people ever 
 laugh heartily who can give a reason for their doing so; and I 
 beUeve the English in general are not yet in this predicament. 
 
 35 They are not metaphysical, but very much in a state of nature; 
 and this is one main ground why I give them credit for being 
 merry, notwithstanding appearances. Their mirth is not the 
 mirth of vice or desperation, but of innocence and a native 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 187 
 
 wildness. They do not cavil or boggle at niceties, or merely 
 come to the edge of a joke, but break their necks over it with 
 a wanton "Here goes," where others make a pirouette and 
 stand upon decorum. The French cannot, however, be per- 
 suaded of the excellence of our comic stage, nor of the store 5 
 we set by it. When they ask what amusements we have, it is 
 plain they can never have heard of Mrs. Jordan, nor King, nor 
 Bannister, nor Suett, nor Munden, nor Lewis, nor little 
 Simmons, nor Dode, and Parsons, and Emery, and Miss 
 Pope, and Miss Farren, and all those who even in my time 10 
 have gladdened a nation and ''made life's business like a 
 summer's dream." Can I think of them, and of their names 
 that glittered in the playbills when I was young, exciting all 
 the flutter of hope and expectation of seeing them in their 
 favourite parts of Nell, or Little Pickle, or Touchstone, or 15 
 Sir Peter Teazle, or Lenitive in The Prize, or Lingo, or Crab- 
 tree, or Nipperkin, or old Dornton, or Ranger, or the Copper 
 Captain, or Lord Sands, or Filch, or Moses, or Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek, or Acres, or Elbow, or Hodge, or Flora, or the 
 Duenna, or Lady Teazle, or Lady Grace, or of the gaiety that 20 
 sparkled in all eyes, and the delight that overflowed all hearts, 
 as they glanced before us in these parts, 
 
 "Throwing a gaudy shadow upon life," — 
 
 and not feel my heart yearn within me, or couple the thoughts 
 of England and the spleen together? Our cloud has at least 25 
 its rainbow tints: ours is not one long polar night of cold and 
 dullness, but we have the gleaming lights of fancy to amuse us, 
 the household fires of truth and genius to warm us. We can 
 go to a play and see Liston; or stay at home and read Roder- 
 ick Random ; or have Hogarth's prints of Marriage a la Mode 30 
 hanging round our room. "Tut! there's livers even in Eng- 
 land," as well as "out of it." We are not quite i\iQ forlorn 
 hope of humanity, the last of nations. The French look at 
 us across the Channel, and seeing nothing but water and a 
 cloudy mist, think that this is England. ' 35' 
 
 "What's our Britain 
 
 In the world's volume? In a great pool a swan's nest." 
 
188 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 If they have any farther idea of us, it is of George III and our 
 Jack tars, the House of Lords and House of Commons, and 
 this is no great addition to us. To go beyond this, to talk of 
 arts and elegances as having taken up their abode here, or to 
 
 ^'Ssay that Mrs. Abington was equal to Mademoiselle Mars, 
 and that we at one time got up the School for Scandal, as they 
 do the Misanthrope, is to persuade them that Iceland is a 
 pleasant summer retreat, or to recommend the whale fishery 
 as a classical amusement. The French are the cockneys of 
 
 10 Europe, and have no idea how anyone can exist out of Paris, 
 or be aUve without incessant grimace and jabber. Yet what 
 imports it? What! though the joyous train I have just 
 enumerated were, perhaps, never heard of in the precincts of 
 the Palais-Royal, is it not enough that they gave pleasure 
 
 15 where they were, to those who saw and heard them? Must 
 our laugh, to be sincere, have its echo on the other side of the 
 water? Had not the French their favourites and their en- 
 joyments at the time, that we knew nothing of? Why then 
 should we not have ours (and boast of them too) without their 
 
 20 leave? A monopoly of self-conceit is not a monopoly of all 
 other advantages. The English, when they go abroad, do 
 not take away the prejudice against them by their looks. 
 We seem duller and sadder than we are. As I write this, I 
 am sitting in the open air in a beautiful valley near Vevey: 
 
 25 Clarens is on my left, the Dent de Jamant is behind me, the 
 rocks of Meillerie opposite: under my feet is a green bank, 
 enamelled with white and purple flowers, in which a dew- 
 drop here and there still glitters with pearly light — 
 
 "And gaudy butterflies flutter around." 
 
 30 Intent upon the scene and upon the thoughts that stir within 
 me, I conjure up the cheerful passages of my life, and a crowd 
 of happy images appear before me. No one would see it in 
 my looks — my eyes grow dull and fixed, and I seem rooted to 
 the spot, as all this phantasmagoria passes in review before 
 
 35 me, glancing a reflex lustre on the face of the world and 
 nature. But the traces of pleasure, in my case, sink into an 
 absorbent ground of thoughtful melancholy, and require to 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 189 
 
 be brought out by time and circumstances, or (as the critics 
 tell you) by the varnish of style! 
 
 The comfort, on which the English lay so much stress, is of 
 the same character, and arises from the same source as their 
 mirth. Both exist by contrast and a sort of contradiction. 5 
 The English are certainly the most uncomfortable of all people 
 in themselves, and therefore it is that they stand in need of 
 every kind of comfort and accommodation. The least thing 
 puts them out of their way, and therefore everything must 
 be in its place. They are mightily offended at disagreeable 10 
 tastes and smells, and therefore they exact the utmost neat- 
 ness and nicety. They are sensible of heat and cold, and 
 therefore they cannot exist, unless everything is snug and 
 warm, or else open and airy, where they are. They must 
 have "all appliances and means to boot." They are afraid 15 
 of interruption and intrusion, and therefore they shut them- 
 selves up in in-door enjoyments and by their own firesides. 
 It is not that they require luxuries (for that implies a high 
 degree of epicurean indulgence and gratification), but they 
 cannot do without their comforts; that is, whatever tends to 20 
 supply their physical wants, and ward off physical pain and 
 annoyance. As they have not a fund of animal spirits and 
 enjoyments in themselves, they cling to external objects for 
 support, and derive solid satisfaction from the ideas of order, 
 cleanliness, plenty, property, and domestic quiet, as they 25 
 seek for diversion from odd accidents and grotesque surprises, 
 and have the highest possible relish not of voluptuous soft- 
 ness, but of hard knocks and dry blows, as one means of 
 ascertaining their personal identity. 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 
 
 Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are dis- 
 agreeable to others. I do not here mean to speak of persons 
 who offend intentionally, or are obnoxious to dislike from some 
 palpable defect of mind or body, ugliness, pride, ill-humour, 
 5 etc., — but of those who are disagreeable in spite of them- 
 selves, and, as it might appear, with almost every quali- 
 fication to recommend them to others. This want of success 
 is owing chiefly to something in what is called their manner; 
 and this again has its foundation in a certain cross-grained and 
 
 10 unsociable state of feeling on their part, which influences us, 
 perhaps, without our distinctly adverting to it. The mind is 
 a finer instrument than we sometimes suppose it, and is not 
 only swayed by overt acts and tangible proofs, but has an 
 instinctive feeling of the air of truth. We find many indi- 
 
 l5viduals in whose company we pass our time, and have no 
 particular fault to find with their understandings or character, 
 and yet we are never thoroughly satisfied with them: the 
 reason will turn out to be, upon examination, that they aire 
 never thoroughly satisfied with themselves, but uneasy and 
 
 20 out of sorts all the time; and this makes us uneasy with them, 
 
 without our reflecting on, or being able to discover the cause. 
 
 Thus, for instance, we meet with persons who do us a 
 
 number of kindnesses, who show us every mark of respect and 
 
 good will, who are friendly and serviceable, — and yet we do 
 
 25 not feel grateful to them, after all. We reproach ourselves 
 with this as caprice or insensibility, and try to get the better of 
 it; but there is something in their way of doing things that 
 prevents us from feeling cordial or sincerely obliged to them. 
 We think them very worthy people, and would be glad of an 
 
 30 opportunity to do them a good turn if it were in our power; 
 but we cannot get beyond this; the utmost we can do is to 
 save appearances, and not come to an open rupture with 
 
 190 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 191 
 
 them. The truth is, in all such cases, we do not sympathise 
 (a we ought) with them, because they do not sympathise 
 (as they ought) with us. They have done what they did from 
 a sense of duty, in a cold, dry manner, or from a meddlesome 
 busybody humour; or to shew their superiority over us, or to 5 
 patronise our infirmity; or they have dropped some hint by 
 the way, or blundered upon some topic they should not, and 
 have shown, by one means or other, that they were occupied 
 with anything but the pleasure they were affording us, or a 
 delicate attention to our feelings. Such persons may be 10 
 styled friendly grievances. They are commonly people of 
 low spirits and disappointed views, who see the discouraging 
 side of human life, and, with the best intentions in the world, 
 contrive to make everything they have to do with uncom- 
 fortable. They are alive to your distress, and take pains to 15 
 remove it; but they have no satisfaction in the gaiety and 
 ease they have communicated, and are on the look-out for 
 some new occasion of signalising their zeal; nor are they back- 
 ward to insinuate that you will soon have need of their as- 
 sistance, to guard you against running into fresh difficulties, 20 
 or to extricate you from them. From large benevolence of 
 soul and "discourse of reason, looking before and after," 
 they are continually reminding you of something that has 
 gone wrong in time past, or that may do so in that which is 
 to come, and are surprised that their awkward hints, sly in- 25 
 nuendos, blunt questions, and solemn features do not excite 
 all the complacency and mutual good understanding in you 
 which it is intended that they should. When they make 
 themselves miserable on your account, it is hard that you will 
 not lend them your countenance and support. This de-30 
 plorable humour of theirs does not hit anyone else. They 
 are useful, but not agreeable people; they may assist you in 
 your affairs, but they depress and tyrannise over your feelings. 
 When they have made you happy, they will not let you be so 
 
 — have no enjoyment of the good they have done — will on 35 
 no account part with their melancholy and desponding tone 
 
 — and, by their mawkish insensibility and doleful grimaces, 
 throw a damp over the triumph they are called upon to 
 
192 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 celebrate. They would keep you in hot water, that they may 
 help you out of it. They will nurse you in a fit of sickness 
 (congenial sufferers!) — arbitrate a law-suit for you, and 
 embroil you deeper — procure you a loan of money; — but 
 5 all the while they are only delighted with rubbing the sore 
 place, and casting the colour of your mental or other disorders. 
 ''The whole need not a physician;" and, being once placed 
 at ease and comfort, they have no farther use for you as 
 subjects for their singular beneficence, and you are not sorry 
 
 10 to be quit of their tiresome interference. The old proverb, 
 A friend in need is a friend indeed, is not verified in them. 
 The class of persons here spoken of are the very reverse of 
 summer-friends, who court you in prosperity, flatter your 
 vanity, are the humble servants of your follies, never see or 
 
 15 allude to anything wrong, minister to your gaiety, smooth 
 over every difficulty, and, with the slightest approach of mis- 
 fortune or of anything unpleasant, take French leave: — 
 
 "As when, in prime of June, a burnished fly. 
 Sprung from the meads, o'er which he sweeps along, 
 
 20 Cheered by the breathing bloom and vital sky, 
 
 Tunes up amid these airy halls his song, 
 Soothing at first the gay reposing throng; 
 And oft he sips their bowl, or nearly drowned, 
 He thence recovering drives their beds among, 
 
 25 And scares their tender sleep with trump profound; 
 
 Then out again he flies to wing his mazy round." 
 
 Thomson's Castle of Indolence. 
 
 However we may despise such triflers, yet we regret them more 
 than those well-meaning friends on whom a dull melancholy 
 vapour hangs, that drags them and everyone about them to 
 
 30 the ground. 
 
 Again, there are those who might be very agreeable people, 
 if they had but spirit to be so ; but there is a narrow, unaspir- 
 ing, under-bred tone in all they say or do. They have great 
 sense and information — • abound in a knowledge of character 
 
 35 — have a fund of anecdote — are unexceptionable in man- 
 ners and appearance — and yet we cannot make up our minds 
 to like them: we are not glad to see them, nor sorry when they 
 go away. Our familiarity with them, however great, wants the 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 193 
 
 principle of cement, which is a certain appearance of frank 
 cordiahty and social enjoyment. They have no pleasure in 
 the subjects of their own thoughts, and therefore can com- 
 municate none to others. There is a dry, husky, grating 
 manner — a pettiness of detail — a tenaciousness of par- 5 
 ticulars, however trifling or unpleasant —a disposition to 
 cavil — an aversion to enlarged and liberal views of things — 
 in short, a hard, painful, unbending inatter-of-factness, from 
 which the spirit and effect are banished, and the letter only is 
 attended to, which makes it impossible to sympathise with 10 
 their discourse. To make conversation interesting or agree- 
 able, there is required either the habitual tone of good com- 
 pany, which gives a favourable colouring to every thing — • 
 or the warmth and enthusiasm of genius, which, though 
 it may occasionally offend or be thrown off its guard, makes 15 
 amends by its rapturous flights, and flings a glancing light 
 upon all things. The literal and dogged style of conversation 
 resembles that of a French picture, or its mechanical fidelity 
 is like evidence given in a court of justice, or a police report. 
 
 From the literal to the plain-spoken, the transition is easy. 20 
 The most efficient weapon of offense is truth. Those who 
 deal in dry and repulsive matters-of-fact, tire out their friends; 
 those who blurt out hard and home truths, make themselves 
 mortal enemies wherever they come. There are your blunt, 
 honest creatures, who omit no opportunity of letting you know 25 
 their minds, and are sure to tell you all the ill, and conceal all 
 the good they hear of you. They would not flatter you for 
 the world, and to caution you against the malice of others, 
 they think the province of a friend. This is not candour, but 
 impudence; and yet they think it odd you are not charmed 30 
 with their unreserved communicativeness of disposition. 
 Gossips and tale-bearers, on the contrary, who supply the 
 tittle-tattle of the neighborhood, flatter you to your face, and 
 laugh at you behind your back, are welcome and agreeable 
 guests in all companies. Though you know it will be your 35 
 turn next, yet for the sake of the immediate gratification, 
 you are contented to pay your share of the public tax upon 
 character, and are better pleased with the falsehoods that 
 
194 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 never reach your ears, than with the truths that others (less 
 complaisant and more sincere) utter to your face — so 
 short-sighted and willing to be imposed upon is our self-love! 
 There is a man who has the air of not being convinced with- 
 5 out an argument : you avoid him as if he were a lion in your 
 path. There is another, who asks you fifty questions as to 
 the commonest things you advance: you would sooner pardon 
 a fellow who held a pistol to your breast and demanded your 
 money. No one regards a turnpike-keeper, or a custom-house 
 
 10 officer, with a friendly eye : he who stops you in an excursion 
 of fancy, or ransacks the articles of your belief obstinately 
 and churlishly, to distinguish the spurious from the genuine, 
 is still more your foe. These inquisitors and cross-examiners 
 upon system make ten enemies for every controversy in 
 
 15 which they engage. The world dread nothing so much as 
 being convinced of their errors. In doing them this piece of 
 service, you make war equally on their prejudices, their in- 
 terests, their pride, and indolence. You not only set up for 
 a superiority of understanding over them, which they hate, 
 
 20 but you deprive them of their ordinary grounds of action, 
 their topics of discourse, of their confidence in themselves, 
 and those to whom they have been accustomed to look up for 
 instruction and advice. It is making children of them. 
 You unhinge all their established opinions and trains of 
 
 25 thought; and after leaving them in this listless, vacant, un- 
 settled state — dissatisfied with their own notions and shocked 
 at yours — you expect them to court and be delighted with 
 your company, because, forsooth, you have only expressed 
 your sincere and conscientious convictions. Mankind are 
 
 30 not deceived by professions, unless they choose. They think 
 that this pill of true doctrine, however it may be gilded over, 
 is full of gall and bitterness to them; and, again, it is a maxim 
 of which the vulgar are firmly persuaded, that plain-speaking 
 (as it is called) is, nine parts in ten, spleen and self-opinion; 
 
 35 and the other part, perhaps, honesty. Those who will not 
 abate an inch in argument, and are always seeking to recover 
 the wind of you, are, in the eye of the world, disagreeable, 
 unconscionable people, who ought to be sent to Coventry, or 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 195 
 
 left to wrangle by themselves. No persons, however, are 
 more averse to contradiction than these same dogmatists. 
 What shows our susceptibility on this point is, that there is 
 no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent. 
 An3^one, however mean his capacity or ill-qualified to judge, 5 
 who gives way to all our sentiments, and never seems to think 
 but as we do, is indeed an alter idem — another. self ; and we 
 admit him without scruple into our entire confidence, ''yea, 
 into our heart of hearts." 
 
 It is the same in books. Those which, under the disguise 10 
 of plain-speakmg, vent paradoxes, and set their faces against 
 the common sense of mankind, are neither "the volumes 
 
 "that enrich the shops, 
 
 That pass with approbation through the land;" 
 
 nor, I fear, can it be added — 15 
 
 "That bring their authors an immortal fame." 
 
 They excite a clamour and opposition at first, and are in 
 general soon consigned to oblivion. Even if the opinions are 
 in the end adopted, the authors gain little by it, and their 
 names remain in their original obloquy; for the public will 20 
 own no obligations to such ungracious benefactors. In like 
 manner, there are many books written in a very delightful 
 vein, though with little in them, and that are accordingly 
 popular. Their principle is to please, and not to offend; 
 and they succeed in both objects. We are contented with 25 
 the deference shown to our feelings for the time, and grant 
 a truce both to wit and wisdom. The ''courteous reader" 
 and the good-natured author are well matched in this in- 
 stance, and find their account in mutual tenderness and for- 
 bearance to each other's infirmities. I am not sure that 30 
 Walton's Angler is not a book of this last description — 
 
 "That dallies with the innocence of thought, 
 Like the old age." 
 
 Hobbes and Mandeville are in the opposite extreme, and have 
 met with a correspondent fate. The Taller and Spectator are 35 
 in the golden mean, carry instruction as far as it can go 
 
196 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 without shocking, and give the most exquisite pleasure with- 
 out one particle of pain. "Desire to please, and you loill in- 
 fallibly please," is a maxim equally applicable to the study or 
 the drawing-room. Thus also we see actors of very small 
 5 pretensions, and who have scarce any other merit than that 
 of being on good terms with themselves, and in high good 
 humour with their parts (though they hardly understand a 
 word of them), who are universal favourites with the audience. 
 Others, who are masters of their art, and in whom no slip or 
 
 10 flaw can be detected, you have no pleasure in seeing, from 
 something dry, repulsive, and unconciliating in their manner; 
 and you almost hate the very mention of their names, as an 
 unavailing appeal to your candid decision in their favour, and 
 as taxing you with injustice for refusing it. 
 
 15 We may observe persons who seem to take a peculiar delight 
 in the disagreeable. They catch all sorts of uncouth tones and 
 gestures, the manners and dialect of clowns and hoydens, and 
 aim at vulgarity as desperately as others ape gentihty. 
 [This is what is often understood by a love of low life.] They 
 
 20 say the most unwarrantable things, without meaning or 
 feeling what they say. What startles or shocks other people 
 is to them a sport — an amusing excitement — a fillip to their 
 constitutions; and from the bluntness of their perceptions, 
 and a certain wilfulness of spirit, not being able to enter into 
 
 25 the refined and agreeable, they make a merit of despising 
 everj^hing of the kind. Masculme women, for example, are 
 those who, not being distinguished by the charms and deli- 
 cacy of the sex, affect a superiority over it by throwing aside 
 all decorum. We also find another class, who continually 
 
 30 do and say what they ought not, and what they do not 
 intend, and who are governed almost entirely by an in- 
 stinct of absurdity. Owing to a perversity of imagination or 
 irritability of nerve, the idea that a thing is improper acts as 
 a provocation to it: the fear of committing a blunder is so 
 
 35 strong, that in their agitation they bolt out whatever is upper- 
 most in their minds, before they are aware of the conse- 
 quence. The dread of something wrong haunts and rivets 
 their attention to it; and an uneasy, morbid apprehensive- 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 197 
 
 iiess of temper takes away their self-possession, and hurries 
 them into tiie very mistakes they are most anxicns to avoid. 
 If we look about us, and ask who are the agreeable and 
 disagreeable people in the world, we shall see that it does not 
 depend on their virtues or vices — their understanding or stu- 5 
 pidity — but as much on the degree of pleasure or pain they 
 seem to feel in ordinary social intercourse. What signify all 
 the good qualities anyone possesses, if he is none the better 
 for them himself? If the cause is so delightful, the effect 
 ought to be so too. We enjoy a friend's society only in pro- 10 
 portion as he is satisfied with ours. Even wit, however it 
 may startle, is only agreeable as it is sheathed in good-hu- 
 mour. There are a kind of mtellectual stammerers, who are 
 deUvered of their good things with pain and effort; and con- 
 sequently what costs them such evident uneasiness does not 15 
 impart unmixed delight to the bystanders. There are those, 
 on the contrary, whose sallies cost them nothing — who 
 abound in a flow of pleasantry and good-humour; and who 
 float down the stream with them carelessly and triumphantly, 
 
 "Wit at the helm, and Pleasure at the prow." 20 
 
 Perhaps it may be said of English wit in general, that it too 
 much resembles pointed lead; after all, there is something 
 heavy and dull in it ! The race of small wits are not the least 
 agreeable people in the world. They have their little joke to 
 themselves, enjoy it, and do not set up any preposterous pre- 25 
 tensions to thwart the current of our self-love. Toad-eating 
 is accounted a thriving profession; and a butt, according to 
 the Spectator, is a highly useful member of society — as one 
 who takes whatever is said of him in good part, and as neces- 
 sary to conduct off the spleen and superfluous petulance of 30 
 the company. Opposed to these are the swaggering buUies 
 — the licensed wits — the free-thinkers — the loud talkers, 
 who, in the jockey phrase, have lost their mouths, and cannot 
 be reined in by any regard to decency or common sense. 
 The more obnoxious the subject, the more are they charmed 35 
 with it, converting their want of feeling into a proof of su- 
 periority to vulgar prejudice and squeamish affectation. 
 
198 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 But there is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of 
 the body. There are some objects that shock the sense, and 
 cannot with propriety be mentioned: there are naked truths 
 that offend the mind, and ought to be kept out of sight as 
 5 much as possible. For human nature cannot bear to be too 
 hardly pressed upon. One of these cynical truisms, when 
 brought forward to the world, may be forgiven as a slip of the 
 pen; a succession of them, denoting a deliberate purpose and 
 malice prepense, must ruin any writer. Lord Byron had got 
 
 10 into an irregular course of these a little before his death — 
 seemed desirous, in imitation of Mr. Shelley, to run the gaunt- 
 let of public obloquy — and, at the same time, wishing to 
 screen himself from the censure he defied, dedicated his Cain 
 to Sir Walter Scott — a pretty godfather to such a bantUng! 
 
 15 Some persons are of so teazing and fidgetty a turn of mind, 
 that they do not give you a moment's rest. Everything goes 
 wrong with them. They complain of a headache or the 
 weather. They take up a book, and lay it down again — 
 venture an opinion, and retract it before they have half done 
 
 20 — offer to serve you, and prevent someone else from doing it. 
 If you dine with them at a tavern, in order to be more at your 
 ease, the fish is too little done — the sauce is not the right one; 
 they ask for a sort of wine which they think is not to be had, 
 or if it is, after some trouble, procured, do not touch it; they 
 
 25 give the waiter fifty contradictory orders, and are restless and 
 sit on thorns the whole of dinner-time. All this is owing to a 
 want of robust health, and of a strong spirit of enjoyment; 
 it is a fastidious habit of mind, produced by a valetudinary 
 habit of body: they are out of ports with every thing, and of 
 
 30 course their ill-humour and captiousness communicates itself 
 to you, who are as little delighted with them as they are with 
 other things. Another sort of people, equally objectionable 
 with this helpless class, who are disconcerted by a shower of 
 ram or stopped by an insect's wing, are those who, in the 
 
 35 opposite spirit, will have everything their own way, and 
 carry all before them — who cannot brook the slightest 
 shadow of opposition — who are always in the heat of an 
 argument — who knit their brows and clench their teeth m 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 199 
 
 some speculative discussion, as if they were engaged in a 
 personal quarrel — and who, though successful over almost 
 every competitor, seem still to resent the very offer of resist- 
 ance to their supposed authority, and are as angry as if they 
 had sustained some premeditated mjury. There is an im- 5 
 patience of temper and an intolerance of opinion in this 
 that conciliates neither our affection nor esteem. To such 
 persons nothing appears of any moment but the indulgence 
 of a domineering intellectual superiority to the disregard 
 and discomfiture of their own and everybodj^ else's comfort. 10 
 Mounted on an abstract proposition, they trample on every 
 courtesy and decency of behaviour; and though, perhaps, they 
 do not intend the gross personalities they are guilty of, yet 
 they cannot be acquitted of a want of due consideration for 
 others, and of an intolerable egotism in the support of truth 15 
 and justice. You may hear one of these Quixotic declaimers 
 pleading the cause of humanity in a voice of thunder, or 
 expatiating on the beauty of a Guido with features distorted 
 with rage and scorn. This is not a very amiable or edifying 
 spectacle. 20 
 
 There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are 
 they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of 
 understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful 
 qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have 
 probably many points of attraction; but they have one that 25 
 neutralises all these — they care nothing about you, and are 
 neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. 
 They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave 
 them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well with- 
 out you. This is not suUenness, nor indifference, nor absence 30 
 of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and 
 you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. 
 They live in society as in a solitude; and, however their 
 brain works, their pulse beats neither faster nor slower for the 
 common accidents of life. There is, therefore, something cold 35 
 and repulsive in the air that is about them — like that of 
 marble. In a word, they are modern philosophers; and the 
 modem philosopher is what the pedant was of old — a being 
 
200 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 who lives in a world of his own, and has no correspondence 
 with this. It is not that such persons have not done you 
 services — you acknowledge it; it is not that they have said 
 severe things of you — you submit to it as a necessary evil; 
 Shut it is the cool manner in which the whole is done that 
 annoys you — the speculating upon you, as if you were 
 nobody — the regarding you, with a view to an experiment 
 in corpore vili — the principle of dissection — the determi- 
 nation to spare no blemishes — to cut you down to your real 
 
 10 standard; — in short, the utter absence of the partiahty of 
 friendship, the blind enthusiasm of affection, or the delicacy of 
 common decency, that whether they ''hew you as a carcass 
 fit for hounds, or carve you as a dish fit for the gods," the 
 operation on your feelings and your sense of obhgation is 
 
 15 just the same; and, whether they are demons or angels in 
 themselves, you wish them equally at the devil! 
 
 Other persons of worth and sense give way to mere violence 
 of temperament (with which the understanding has nothing to 
 do) — are burnt up with a perpetual fury — repel and throw 
 
 20 you to a distance by their restless, whirling motion — so that 
 you dare not go near them, or feel as uneasy in their company 
 as if you stood on the edge of a volcano. They have their 
 tempora molliafandi; but then what a stir may you not expect 
 the next moment ! Nothing is less inviting or less comfortable 
 
 25 than this state of uncertainty and apprehension. Then there 
 are those who never approach you without the most alarming 
 advice or information, telling you that you are in a dying 
 way, or that your affairs are on the point of ruin, by way of 
 disburthening their consciences; and others, who give you 
 
 30 to understand much the same thing as a good joke, out of 
 sheer impertinence, constitutional vivacity, and want of 
 something to say. All these, it must be confessed, are disa- 
 greeable people; and you repay their over-anxiety or total 
 forgetfulness of you, by a determination to cut them as 
 
 35 speedily as possible. We meet with instances of persons 
 who overpower you by a sort of boisterous mirth and rude 
 animal spirits, with whose ordinary state of excitement it is as 
 impossible to keep up as with that of anyone really intoxi- 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 201 
 
 cated; and with others who seem scarce aUve — who take 
 no pleasure or interest in anything — who are born to ex- 
 emplify the maxim, 
 
 "Not to admire is all the art I know 
 To make men happy, or to keep them so," — 5 
 
 and whose mawkish insensibility or sullen scorn are equally 
 annoying. In general, all people brought up in remote country 
 places, where life is crude and harsh — all sectaries — all par- 
 tisans of a losing cause, are discontented and disagreeable. 
 Commend me above all to the Westminster School of Reform, lo 
 whose blood runs as cold in their veins as the torpedo's, and 
 whose touch jars like it. Catholics are, upon the whole, 
 more amiable than Protestants — foreigners than English 
 people. Among ourselves, the Scotch, as a nation, are par- 
 ticularly disagreeable. They hate every appearance of com- 15 
 fort themselves, and refuse it to others. Their climate, 
 their religion, and their habits are equally averse to pleasure. 
 Their manners are either distinguished by a fawning sycoph- 
 ancy (to gain their o^vn ends, and conceal their natural defects) 
 that makes one sick; or by a morose, unbending callousness, 20 
 that makes one shudder. I had forgot to mention two other 
 descriptions of persons who fall under the scope of this essay : 
 — those who take up a subject and run on with it intermin- 
 ably, without knowing whether their hearers care one word 
 about it, or in the least minding what reception their oratory 25 
 meets with — these are pretty generally voted bores (mostly 
 German ones) ; — and others, who may be designated as 
 practical paradox-mongers — who discard the ''milk of human 
 kindness," and an attention to common observances, from all 
 their actions, as effeminate and puling — who wear a white hat 30 
 as a mark of superior understanding, and carry home a hand- 
 kerchief full of mushrooms in the top of it as an original dis- 
 covery — who give you crawfish for supper instead of lobsters; 
 seek their company in a garret, and over a gin-bottle, to 
 avoid the imputation of affecting genteel society; and discard 35 
 them after a term of years, and warn others against them, 
 as being honest fellows, which is thought a vulgar prejudice. 
 
202 PHILOSOPHY AND REFLECTION 
 
 This is carrying the harsh and repulsive even beyond the 
 disagreeable — to the hateful. Such persons are generally 
 people of commonplace understandings, obtuse feelings, and 
 inordinate vanity. They are formidable if they get you in 
 5 their power — otherwise, they are only to be laughed at. 
 There are a vast number who are disagreeable from mean- 
 ness of spirit, downright insolence, from slovenliness of dress 
 or disgusting tricks, from folly or ignorance: but these causes 
 are positive moral or physical defects, and I only meant to 
 
 10 speak of that repulsiveness of manners which arises from want 
 of tact and sympathy with others. So far of friendship; a 
 word, if I durst, of love. Gallantry to women (the sure road 
 to their favour) is nothing but the appearance of extreme 
 devotion to all their wants and wishes — a delight in their 
 
 15 satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself, as being able to 
 contribute towards it. The slightest indifference with regard 
 to them, or distrust of yourself, are equally fatal. The 
 amiable is the voluptuous in looks, manner, or words. No 
 face that exhibits this kind of expression — whether lively or 
 
 20 serious, obvious or suppressed, will be thought ugly — no 
 address, awkward — no lover who approaches every woman he 
 meets as his mistress, will be unsuccessful. Diffidence and 
 awkwardness are the two antidotes to love. 
 
 To please universally, we must be pleased with ourselves 
 
 25 and others. There should be a tinge of the coxcomb, an oil of 
 self-complacency, an anticipation of success — there should be 
 no gloom, no moroseness, no shyness — in short, there should 
 be very little of an Englishman, and a good deal of a French- 
 man. But though, I believe, this is the receipt, we are none 
 
 30 the nearer making use of it. It is impossible for those who 
 are naturally disagreeable ever to become otherwise. This 
 is some consolation, as it may save a world of useless pains 
 and anxiety. "Desire to please, and you will infallihly 
 please, ^^ is a true maxim; but it does not follow that it is in 
 
 35 the power of all to practice it. A vain man, who thinks he is 
 endeavouring to please, is only endeavouring to shine, and is 
 still farther from the mark. An irritable man, who puts a 
 check upon himself, only grows dull, and loses spirit to be 
 
ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE 203 
 
 anything. Good temper and a happy spirit (which are the 
 indispensable requisites) can no more be commanded jthan 
 good health or good looks; and though the plain and sickly 
 need not distort their features, and may abstain from excess, 
 this is all they can do. The utmost a disagreeable person can 5 
 do is to hope to be less disagreeable than with care and study 
 he might become, and to pass unnoticed in society. With 
 this negative character he should be contented, and may 
 build his fame and happiness on other things. 
 
 I will conclude with a character of men who neither please 10 
 nor aspire to please anybody, and who can come in nowhere so 
 properly as at the fag-end of an essay: — I mean that class of 
 discontented but amusing persons, who are infatuated with 
 their own ill success, and reduced to despair by a lucky turn 
 in their favour. While all goes well, they are like fish out of 15 
 water. They have no reliance on or sympathy with their 
 good fortune, and look upon it as a momentary delusion. Let 
 a doubt be thrown on the question, and they begin to be full 
 of lively apprehensions again; let all their hopes vanish, and 
 they feel themselves on firm ground once more. From want 20 
 of spirit or of habit, their imaginations cannot rise above the 
 low ground of humility — cannot reflect the gay, flaunting 
 tints of the fancy — flag and droop into despondency — and 
 can neither indulge the expectation, nor employ the means of 
 success. Even when it is within their reach, they dare not 25 
 lay hands upon it; and shrink from unlooked-for bursts of 
 prosperity, as something of which they are both ashamed and 
 unworthy. The class of croakers here spoken of are less de- 
 lighted at other people's misfortunes than their own. Their 
 neighbours may have some pretensions — they have none. 30 
 Querulous complaints and anticipations of pleasure are the 
 food on which they live; and they at last acquire a passion 
 for that which is the favourite theme of their thoughts, and 
 can no more do without it than without the pinch of snuff with 
 which they season their conversation, and enliven the pauses 35 
 of their daily prognostics. 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 
 
 It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mis- 
 take a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write 
 without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, 
 there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so 
 5 say, pmnty of expression, than the style I am speaking of. 
 It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, 
 cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It 
 is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in 
 common use; it is not to throw words together in any com- 
 
 10 binations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the 
 true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or 
 truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in 
 common conversation, who had a thorough conmiand and 
 choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and 
 
 15 perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. 
 Or to give another illustration, to write naturally is the same 
 thing in regard to common conversation, as to read naturally 
 is in regard to common speech. It does not follow that it is 
 an easy thing to give the true accent and inflection to the 
 
 20 words you utter, because you do not attempt to rise above 
 the level of ordinary life and colloquial speaking. You do 
 not assume indeed the solemnity of the pulpit, or the tone of 
 stage-declamation : neither are you at liberty to gabble on at 
 a venture, without emphasis or discretion, or to resort to 
 
 25 vulgar dialect or clownish pronunciation. You must steer 
 a middle course. You are tied down to a given and ap- 
 propriate articulation, which is determined by the habitual 
 associations between sense and sound, and which you can 
 only hit by entering into the author's meaning, as you must 
 
 30 find the proper words and style to express yourself by fixing 
 your thoughts on the subject you have to write about. Any- 
 
 204 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 205 
 
 one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or 
 get upon stilts to tell his thoughts: but to write or speak with 
 propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is 
 easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as 
 the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon 5 
 the very word that exactly fits it. Out of eight or ten words 
 equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pre- 
 tensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to 
 pick out the very one, the preferableness of which is scarcely 
 perceptible, but decisive. The reason why I object to Dr. 10 
 Johnson's style is, that there is no discrimination, no selec- 
 tion, no variety in it. He uses none but "tall, opaque words, " 
 taken from the "first row of the rubric:" — words with the 
 greatest number of syllables, or Latin phrases with merely 
 English terminations. If a fine style depended on this sort 15 
 of arbitrary pretension, it would be fair to judge of an author's 
 elegance by the measurement of his words, and the substitu- 
 tion of foreign circumlocutions (with no precise associations) 
 for the mother-tongue.^ How simple is it to be dignified 
 without ease, to be pompous without meaning! Surely, it is 20 
 but a mechanical rule for avoiding what is low to be always 
 pedantic and affected. It is clear you cannot use a vulgar 
 English word, if you never use a common English word at all. 
 A fine tact is shown in adhering to those which are perfectly 
 common, and yet never falling into any expressions which are 25 
 debased by disgusting circumstances, or which owe their sig- 
 nification and point to technical or professional allusions. A 
 truly natural or familiar style can never be quaint or vulgar, 
 for this reason, that it is of universal force and applicability, 
 and that quaintness and vulgarity arise out of the immediate 30 
 connection of cettain words with coarse and disagreeable, or 
 with confined ideas. The last form what we understand by 
 cant or slang phrases. To give an example of what is not 
 very clear in the general statement. I should say that the 
 
 ^ I have heard of such a thing as an author who makes it a rule 35 
 never to admit a monosyllable into his vapid verse. Yet the charm 
 and sweetness of Marlowe's lines depended often on their being made 
 up almost entirely of monosyllables. 
 
206 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 phrase To cut with a knife, or To cut a piece of wood, is per- 
 fectly free from vulgarity, because it is perfectly common; 
 but to cut an acquaintance is not quite unexceptionable, be- 
 cause it is not perfectly common or intelligible, and has 
 5 hardly yet escaped out of the limits of slang phraseology. 
 I should hardly therefore use the word in this sense without 
 putting it in italics as a license of expression, to be received 
 cum grano salis. All provincial or bye-phrases come under 
 the same mark of reprobation — all such as the writer trans- 
 
 lOfers to the page from his fireside or a particular coterie, or 
 that he invents for his own sole use and convenience. I con- 
 ceive that words are like money, not the worse for bemg com- 
 mon, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them 
 circulation or value. I am fastidious in this respect, and 
 
 15 would almost as soon coin the currency of the realm as 
 counterfeit the King's English. I never invented or gave a 
 new and unauthorised meaning to any word but one single 
 one (the term impersonal applied to feelings) and that was in 
 an abstruse metaphysical discussion to express a very difficult 
 
 20 distinction. I have been (I know) loudly accused of revel- 
 ling in vulgarisms and broken English. I cannot speak to 
 that point: but so far I plead guilty to the determined use of 
 acknowledged idioms and common elliptical expressions. I 
 am not sure that the critics in question know the one from the 
 
 25 other, that is, can distinguish any medium between formal 
 pedantry and the most barbarous solecism. As an author, I 
 endeavour to employ plain words and popular modes of con- 
 struction, as were I a chapman and dealer, I should com- 
 mon weights and measures. 
 
 30 The proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, 
 but in their application. A word may be a fine-sounding 
 word, of an unusual length, and very imposing from its learn- 
 ing and novelty, and yet in the connection in which it is in- 
 troduced, may be quite pointless and irrelevant. It is not 
 
 35 pomp or pretension, but the adaptation of the expression to 
 the idea that clenches a writer's meaning: — as it is not the 
 size or glossiness of the materials, but their being fitted each 
 to its place, that gives strength to the arch; or as the pegs and 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 207 
 
 nails are as necessary to the support of the building as the 
 larger timbers, and more so than the mere showy, unsubstan- 
 tial ornaments. I hate anything that occupies more space 
 than it is worth. I hate to see a load of band-boxes go along 
 the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without 5 
 anything in them. A person who does not deliberately dis- 
 pose of all his thoughts alike in cumbrous draperies and flimsy 
 disguises, may strike out twenty varieties of familiar every- 
 day language, each coming somewhat nearer to the feeling 
 he wants to convey, and at last not hit upon that particular 10 
 and only one, which may be said to be identical with the 
 exact impression in his mind. This would seem to show that 
 Mr. Cobbett is hardly right in saying that the first word that 
 occurs is always the best. It may be a very good one; and 
 yet a better may present itself on reflection or from time to 15 
 time. It should be suggested naturaUy, however, and spon- 
 taneously, from a fresh and lively conception of the subject. 
 We seldom succeed by trying at improvement, or by merely 
 substituting one word for another that we are not satis- 
 fied with, as we cannot recollect the name of a place or person 20 
 by merely plaguing ourselves about it. We wander farther 
 from the point by persisting in a wrong scent; but it starts 
 up accidentally in the memory when we least expected it, by 
 touching some link in the chain of previous association. 
 
 There are those who hoard up and make a cautious display 25 
 of nothing but rich and rare phraseology ; — ancient medals, 
 obscure coins, and Spanish pieces of eight. They are very 
 curious to inspect; but I myseK would neither offer nor take 
 them in the course of exchange. A sprinkling of archaisms is 
 not amiss; but a tissue of obsolete expressions is more fit /or 30 
 keep than wear. I do not say I would not use any phrase that 
 had been brought into fashion before the middle or the end 
 of the last century; but I should be shy of using any that had 
 not been employed by any approved author during the whole 
 of that time. Words, like clothes, get old-fashioned, or mean 35 
 and ridiculous, when they have been for some time laid aside. 
 Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read 
 with pleasure; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
 
208 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 of his authors, that the idea of imitation is almost done away. 
 There is an inward miction, a marrowy vein both in the 
 thought and feehng, an intuition, deep and hvely, of his sub- 
 ject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising 
 5 from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely 
 his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps his ideas 
 are altogether so marked and individual, as to require their 
 point and pungency to be neutralised by the affectation of a 
 singular but traditional form of conveyance. Tricked out 
 
 10 in the prevailing costume, they would probably seem more 
 startling and out of the way. The old English authors, 
 Burton, Fuller, Coryate, Sir Thomas Browne, are a kind of 
 mediators between us and the more eccentric and whimsical 
 modern, reconciling us to his peculiarities. I do not however 
 
 15 know how far this is the case or not, till he condescends to 
 write like one of us, I must confess that what I like best of 
 his papers under the signature of Elia (still I do not presume, 
 amidst such excellence, to decide what is most excellent) is the 
 account of Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist, which is also the 
 
 20 most free from obsolete allusions and turns of expression — 
 
 " A well of native English undefiled. " 
 
 To those acquainted with his admired prototypes, these 
 Essays of the ingenious and highly gifted author have the 
 same sort of charm and relish, that Erasmus's Colloquies or a 
 
 25 fine piece of modern Latin have to the classical scholar. 
 Certainly, I do not know any borrowed pencil that has more 
 power or felicity of execution than the one of which I have 
 here been speaking. 
 
 It is as easy to write a gaudy style without ideas, as it is to 
 
 30 spread a pallet of showy colours, or to smear in a flaunting 
 transparency. "What do you read?" — ''Words, words, 
 words." — "What is the matter?" — " Nothing/' it might 
 be answered. The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. 
 The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey 
 
 35 ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the 
 want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but 
 words, it costs little to have them fine. Look through the 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 209 
 
 dictionary, and cull out a florilegium, rival the tuHpomania. 
 Rouge high enough, and never mind the natural complexion. 
 The vulgar, who are not in the secret, will admire the look of 
 preternatural health and vigour; and the fashionable, who 
 regard only appearances, will be delighted with the imposition. 5 
 Keep to your somiding generalities, your tinkling phrases, and 
 all will be well. Swell out an unmeaning truism to a perfect 
 tympany of style. A thought, a distinction is the rock on 
 which all this brittle cargo of verbiage splits at once. Such 
 writers have merely verbal imaginations, that retain nothing lo 
 but words. Or their puny thoughts have dragon-wings, all 
 green and gold. They soar far above the vulgar failing of the 
 sermo humi obrepens — their most ordinary speech is never 
 short of an hyperbole, splendid, imposing, vague, incom- 
 prehensible, magniloquent, a cento of sounding common- 15 
 places. If some of us, whose "ambition is more lowly," 
 pry a httle too narrowly into nooks and corners to pick up a 
 number of "unconsidered trifles," they never once direct their 
 eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, 
 tarnished, threadbare patchwork set of phrases, the left-off 20 
 finery of poetic extravagance, transmitted down through suc- 
 cessive generations of barren pretenders. If they criticise 
 actors and actresses, a huddled phantasmagoria of feathers, 
 spangles, floods of light, and oceans of sound float before their 
 morbid sense, which they paint in the style of Ancient Pistol. 25 
 Not a glimpse can you get of the merits or defects of the per- 
 formers : they are hidden in a profusion of barbarous epithets 
 and wilful rhodomontade. Our hypercritics are not thinking 
 of these little fantoccini beings — 
 
 "That strut and fret their hour upon the stage" — 30 
 
 but of tall phantoms of words, abstractions, genera and species, 
 sweeping clauses, periods that unite the Poles, forced alliter- 
 ations, astounding antitheses — 
 
 "And on their pens Fustian sits plumed." 
 
 If they describe kings and queens, it is an Eastern pageant. 35 
 The Coronation at either House is nothing to it. We get at 
 
210 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 four repeated images — a curtain, a throne, a sceptre, and a 
 foot-stool. These are with them the wardrobe of a lofty- 
 imagination; and they turn their servile strains to servile 
 uses. Do we read a description of pictures? It is not a 
 
 5 reflection of tones and hues which ''nature's own sweet and 
 cunning hand laid on," but piles of precious stones, rubies, 
 pearls, emeralds, Golconda's mines, and all the blazonry of 
 art. Such persons are in fact besotted with words, and their 
 brains are turned with the glittering, but empty and sterile 
 
 10 phantoms of thmgs. Personifications, capital letters, seas 
 of sunbeams, visions of glory, shining inscriptions, the figures 
 of a transparency, Britannia with her shield, or Hope leaning 
 on an anchor, make up their stock in trade. They may be 
 considered as hieroglyphical writers. Images stand out in 
 
 15 their minds isolated and important merely in themselves, 
 without any ground-work of feeling — there is no context in 
 their imaginations. Words affect them in the same way, by 
 the mere sound, that is, by their possible, not by their actual 
 application to the subject in hand. They are fascinated by 
 
 20 first appearances, and have no sense of consequences. Noth- 
 ing more is meant by them than meets the ear: they under- 
 stand or feel nothing more than meets their eye. The web 
 and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a 
 mystery to them: they have no faculty that strikes a chord in 
 
 25 unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of 
 fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to 
 feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mock- 
 ery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. 
 The categories of such a mind are pride and ignorance — pride 
 
 30 in outside show, to which they sacrifice everything, and igno- 
 rance of the true worth and hidden structure both of words 
 and things. With a sovereign contempt for what is familiar 
 and natural, they are the slaves of vulgar affectation — of a 
 routine of high-flown phrases. Scorning to imitate realities, 
 
 35 they are unable to invent anything, to strike out one original 
 idea. They are not copyists of nature, it is true: but they 
 are the poorest of all plagiarists, the plagiarists of words. 
 All is far-fetched, dear-bought, artificial, oriental in subject 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 211 
 
 and allusion: all is mechanical, conventional, vapid, formal, 
 pedantic in style and execution. They startle and confound 
 the understanding of the reader, by the remoteness and ob- 
 scurity of their illustrations: they soothe the ear by the mo- 
 notony of the same everlasting round of circuitous metaphors. 5 
 They are the mock-school in poetry and prose. They flounder 
 about between fustian in expression, and bathos in sentiment. 
 They tantalise the fancy, but never reach the head nor touch 
 the heart. Their Temple of Fame is like a shadowy structure 
 raised by Dullness to Vanity, or like Cowper's description of 10 
 the Empress of Russia's palace of ice, as "worthless as in 
 show 'twas glittering" — 
 
 "It smiled, and it was cold!" 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 
 
 "Do you read or sing? If you sing, you sing very ill." 
 
 I HAVE but an indifferent opinion of the prose-style of 
 poets: not that it is not sometimes good, nay, excellent; but 
 it is never the better, and generally the worse, from the habit 
 
 5 of writing verse. Poets are winged animals, and can cleave 
 the air, like birds, with ease to themselves and delight to the 
 beholders; but hke those '' feathered, two-legged things," 
 when they light upon the ground of prose and matter-of-fact, 
 they seem not to have the same use of their feet. 
 
 10 What is a little extraordinary, there is a want of rhythmus 
 and cadence in what they write without the help of metri- 
 cal rules. Like persons who have been accustomed to sing to 
 music, they are at a loss in the absence of the habitual accom- 
 paniment and guide to their judgment. Their style halts, 
 
 15 totters, is loose, disjointed, and without expressive pauses or 
 rapid movements. The measured cadence and regular sing- 
 song of rhyme or blank verse have destroyed, as it were, their 
 natural ear for the mere characteristic harmony which ought 
 to subsist between the sound and the sense. I should almost 
 
 20 guess the Author of Waverley to be a writer of ambling verses 
 from the desultory vacillation and want of firmness in the 
 march of his style. There is neither inomentum nor elasticity 
 in it; I mean as to the score, or effect upon the ear. He has 
 improved since in his other works: to be sure, he has had 
 
 25 practice enough.^ Poets either get into this incoherent, 
 undermined, shuffling style, made up of ^'unpleasing flats and 
 sharps," of unaccountable starts and pauses, of doubtful 
 
 1 Is it not a collateral proof that Sir Walter Scott is the Author of 
 Waverley, that ever since these novels began to appear, his Muse has 
 been silent, till the publication of Halidon-Hill? 
 
 212 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 213 
 
 odds and ends, flirted about like straws in a ^ust of wind; 
 or, to avoid it and steady themselves, mount into a sustained 
 and measm'ed prose (like the translation of Ossian's Poems, 
 or some parts of Shaftesbury's Characteristics) which is more 
 odious still, and as bad as being at sea in a calm. Dr. John- 5 
 son's style (particularly in liis Rambler) is not free from the 
 last objection. There is a tune in it, a mechanical recur- 
 rence of the same rise and fall in the clauses of his sentences, 
 independent of any reference to the meaning of the text, or 
 progress or inflection of the sense. There is the alternate 10 
 roll of his cumbrous cargo of words; his periods complete 
 their revolutions at certain stated intervals, let the matter 
 be longer or shorter, rough or smooth, round or square, dif- 
 ferent or the same. This monotonous and balanced mode of 
 composition may be compared to that species of portrait- 15 
 painting which prevailed about a century ago, in which 
 each face was cast in a regular and preconceived mould. The 
 eyebrows were arched mathematically as if with a pair of 
 compasses, and the distances between the nose and mouth, 
 the forehead and chin, determined according to a ''foregone 20 
 conclusion," and the features of the identical individual were 
 afterwards accommodated to them, how they could I^ 
 
 Home Tooke used to maintain that no one could write a 
 good prose style who was not accustomed to express himself 
 viva voce, or to talk in company. He argued that this was the 25 
 fault of Addison's prose, and that its smooth, equable uni- 
 formity, and want of sharpness and spirit, arose from his not 
 having familiarised his ear to the sound of his own voice, or at 
 least only among liis friends and admirers, where there was 
 but little coUision, dramatic fluctuation, or sudden con- 30 
 trariety of opinion to provoke animated discussion, and give 
 birth to different intonations and lively transitions of speech. 
 His style (in this view of it) was not indented, nor did it 
 project from the surface. There was no stress laid on one 
 word more than another — it did not hurry on or stop short, 35 
 or sink or swell with the occasion: it was throughout equally 
 
 1 See the portraits of Kneller, Richardson, and others. 
 
214 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 insipid, flowing, and harmonious, and had the effect of a 
 studied recitation rather than of a natural discourse. This 
 would not have happened (so the Member for Old Sarum 
 contended) had Addison laid himself out to argue at his club, 
 5 or to speak in public; for then his ear would have caught the 
 necessary modulations of sound arising out of the feeling of 
 the moment, and he would have transferred them uncon- 
 sciously to paper. Much might be said on both sides of 
 this question : ^ but Mr. Tooke was himself an unintentional 
 10 confirmation of his own argument; for the tone of his written 
 compositions is as flat and un aised as his manner of speaking 
 was hard and dry. Of the poet it is said by some one, that 
 
 "He murmurs by the running brooks 
 A music sweeter than their own." 
 
 15 On the contrary, the celebrated person just alluded to might 
 be said to grind the sentences between his teeth which he after- 
 wards committed to paper, and threw out crusts to the critics, 
 bon-mots to the Electors of Westminster (as we throw bones 
 to the dogs) without altering a muscle, and without the small- 
 
 20 est tremulousness of voice or eye!^ I certainly so far agree 
 with the above theory as to conceive that no style is worth a 
 farthing that is not calculated to be read out, or that is not 
 allied to spirited conversation: but I at the same time think 
 the process of modulation and inflection may be quite as 
 
 25 complete, or more so, without the external enunciation; 
 and that an author had better try the effect of his sentences 
 on his stomach than on his ear. He may be deceived by the 
 last, not by the first. No person, I imagine, can dictate a 
 
 ^ Goldsmith was not a talker, though he blurted out his good 
 30 things now and then: yet his style is gay and voluble enough. Pope 
 was also a silent man; and his prose is timid and constrained, and his 
 verse inclining to the monotonous. 
 
 2 As a singular example of steadiness of nerves, Mr. Tooke on one 
 occasion had got upon the table at a public dinner to return thanks 
 35 for his health having been drunk. He held a bumper of wine in his 
 hand, but he was received with considerable opposition by one party, 
 and at the end of the disturbance, which lasted for a quarter of an 
 hour, he found the wine glass still full to the brim. 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 215 
 
 good style, or spout his own compositions with impunity. In 
 the former case, he will flounder on before the sense or words 
 are ready, sooner than suspend his voice in air; and in the 
 latter, he can supply what intonation he pleases, without 
 consulting his readers. Parliamentary speeches sometimes 5 
 read well aloud; but we do not find, when such persons sit 
 down to write, that the prose-style of public speakers and 
 great orators is the best, most natural, or varied of all others. 
 It has almost always either a professional twang, a mechanical 
 rounding off, or else is stunted and unequal. Charles Fox 10 
 was the most rapid and even hurried of speakers; but his 
 written style halts and creeps slowly along the ground.^ 
 A speaker is necessarily kept within bounds in expressing 
 certain thmgs, or in pronouncing a certain number of words, 
 by the limits of the breath or power of respiration: certain 15 
 sounds are observed to join in harmoniously or happily with 
 others: an emphatic phrase must not be placed where the 
 power of utterance is enfeebled or exhausted, etc. All this 
 must be attended to in wTiting (and will be so unconsciously 
 by a practised hand), or there will be hiatus in manuscriptis. 20 
 The words must be so arranged, in order to make an efficient 
 readable style, as "to come trippingly off the tongue." 
 Hence it seems that there is a natural measure of prose in 
 the feeling of the subject and the power of expression in the 
 voice, as there is an artificial one of verse in the number and 25 
 
 ^ I have been told, that when Sheridan was first introduced to Mr. 
 Fox, what cemented an immediate intimacy between them was the 
 following circumstance. Mr. Sheridan had been the night before to 
 the House of Commons; and being asked what his impression was, 
 said he had been principally struck with the difference of manner 30 
 between Mr. Fox and Lord Stormont. The latter began by declar- 
 ing in'a slow, solemn, drawling, nasal tone that "when he considered 
 the enormity and the unconstitutional tendency of the measures just 
 proposed, he was hurried away in a torrent of passion and a whirlwind 
 of impetuosity," pausing between every word and syllable; while the 35 
 first said (speaking with the rapidity of lightning, and with breath- 
 less anxiety and impatience), that "such was the magnitude, such 
 the importance, such the vital interest of this question, that he could 
 not help imploring, he could not help adjuring the House to come to 
 it with the utmost calmness, the utmost coolness, the utmost delibera- 40 
 tion." This trait of discrimination instantly won Mr, Fox's heart. 
 
216 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 co-ordination of the syllables; and I conceive that the tram- 
 mels of the last do not (where they have been long worn) 
 greatly assist the freedom or the exactness of the first. 
 Again, in poetry, from the restraints in many respects, a 
 
 5 greater number of inversions, or a latitude in the transposition 
 of words is allowed, which is not conformable to the strict laws 
 of prose. Consequently, a poet will be at a loss, and flounder 
 about for the common or (as we understand it) natural order 
 of words in prose-composition. Dr. Johnson endeavoured to 
 
 10 give an air of dignity and novelty to his diction by affecting 
 the order of words usual in poetry. Milton's prose has not 
 only this drawback, but it has also the disadvantage of being 
 formed on a classic model. It is like a fine translation from 
 the Latin; and indeed, he wrote originally in Latin. The 
 
 15 frequency of epithets and ornaments, too, is a resource for 
 which the poet finds it difficult to obtain an equivalent. A 
 direct, or simple prose-style seems to him bald and flat; 
 and instead of forcing an interest in the subject by severity of 
 description and reasoning, he is repelled from it altogether by 
 
 20 the absence of those obvious and meretricious allurements 
 by which his senses and his imagination have been hitherto 
 stimulated and dazzled. Thus there is often at the same time 
 a want of splendour and a want of energy in what he writes, 
 without the invocation of the Muse — invita Minervd. It 
 
 25 is like setting a rope-dancer to perform a tumbler's tricks — 
 the hardness of the ground jars his nerves; or it is the same 
 thing as a painter's attempting to carve a block of marble 
 for the first time — the coldness chills him, the colourless uni- 
 formity distracts him, the precision of form demanded dis- 
 
 30 heartens him. So in prose writing, the severity of composition 
 required damps the enthusiasm, and cuts off the resources of 
 the poet. He is looking for beauty when he should be seeking 
 for truth; and aims at pleasure, which he can only communi- 
 cate by increasing the sense of power in the reader. The poet 
 
 35 spreads the colours of fancy, the illusions of his own mind, 
 round every object, ad libitum; the prose-writer is compelled 
 to extract his materials patiently, and bit by bit, from his 
 subject. What he adds of ornament, what he borrows from 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 217 
 
 the pencil, must be sparing, and judiciously inserted. The 
 first pretends to nothing but the immediate indulgence of his 
 feelings: the last has a remote practical purpose. The one 
 strolls out into the adjoining fields or grooves to gather 
 flowers: the other has a journey to go, sometimes through 5 
 dirty roads, and at others through imtrodden and difficult 
 ways. It is this effeminacy, this immersion in sensual ideas, 
 or craving after continual excitement, that spoils the poet for 
 his prose-tasks. He cannot wait till the effect comes of itself, 
 or arises out of the occasion: he must force it upon all occa- 10 
 sions, or his spirit droops and flags under a supposed imputa- 
 tion of dullness. He can never drift with the current, but is 
 always hoisting sail, and has his streamers flying. He has got 
 a striking simile on hand; he lugs it in with the first opportu- 
 nity, and with little connexion, and so defeats his object. 15 
 He has a story to tell: he tells it in the first page, and where it 
 would come in well, has nothing to say; Uke Goldsmith, who 
 having to wait upon a Noble Lord, was so full of himself and 
 of the figure he should make, that he addressed a set speech, 
 which he had studied for the occasion, to his Lordship's 20 
 butler, and had just ended as the nobleman made his appear- 
 ance. The prose-ornaments of the poet are frequently beauti- 
 ful in themselves, but do not assist the subject. They are 
 pleasing excrescences — hindrances, not helps in an argument. 
 The reason is, his embellishments in his own walk grow out 25 
 of the subject by natural association; that is, beauty gives 
 birth to kindred beauty, grandeur leads the mind on to greater 
 grandeur. But in treating a common subject, the link is 
 truth, force of illustration, weight of argument, not a graceful 
 harmony in the immediate ideas; and hence the obvious and 30 
 habitual clue which before guided him is gone, and he hangs 
 on his patchwork, tinsel finery at random, in despair, without 
 propriety, and without effect. The poetical prose-writer 
 stops to describe an object, if he admires it, or thinks it wiU 
 bear to be dwelt on: the genuine prose-writer only alludes to 35 
 or characterises it in passing, and with reference to his sub- 
 ject. The prose- writer is master of his materials: the poet 
 is the slave of his style. Everything showy, everything ex- 
 
218 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 traneous tempts him, and he reposes idly on it: he is bent on 
 pleasure, not on business. He aims at effect, at captivating 
 the reader, and yet is contented with commonplace orna- 
 ments, rather than none. Indeed, this last result must 
 
 5 necessarily follow, where there is an ambition to shine, with- 
 out the effort to dig for jewels m the mine of truth. The 
 habits of a poet's mind are not those of industry or research: 
 his images come to him, he does not go to them; and in prose- 
 subjects, and dry matters-of-fact and close reasoning, the nat- 
 
 10 ural stimulus that at other times warms and rouses, deserts 
 him altogether. He sees no unhallowed visions, he is in- 
 spired by no day-dreams. All is tame, literal, and barren, 
 without the Nine. Nor does he collect his strength to strike 
 fire from the flint by the sharpness of collision, by the eager- 
 
 isness of his blows. He gathers roses, he steals colours from 
 the rainbow. He lives on nectar and ambrosia. He ''treads 
 the primrose path of dalliance," or ascends ''the highest 
 heaven of invention," or falls flat to the ground. He is 
 nothing, if not fanciful ! 
 
 20 I shall proceed to explain these remarks, as well as I can, 
 by a few instances in point. 
 
 It has always appeared to me that the most perfect prose- 
 style, the most powerful, the most dazzling, the most daring, 
 that which went the nearest to the verge of poetry, and yet 
 
 25 never fell over, was Burke's. It has the solidity and spark- 
 ling effect of the diamond : all other fine writing is like French 
 paste or Bristol-stones in the comparison. Burke's style is 
 airy, flighty, adventurous, but it never loses sight of the sub- 
 ject; nay, is always in contact with, and derives its increased 
 
 30 or varjdng impulse from it. It may be said to pass yawning 
 gulfs "on the unsteadfast footing of a spear;" still it has an 
 actual resting-place and tangible support under it — it is not 
 suspended on notfiing. It differs from poetry, as I conceive, 
 like the chamois from the eagle; it climbs to an almost equal 
 
 35 height, touches upon a cloud, overlooks a precipice, is pic- 
 turesque, sublime — but all the while, instead of soaring 
 through the air, it stands upon a rocky cliff, clambers up by 
 abrupt and intricate ways, and browses on the roughest bark, 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 219 
 
 or crops the tender flower. The principle which guides his 
 pen is truth, not beauty — not pleasure, but power. He has 
 no choice, no selection of subject to flatter the reader's idle 
 taste, or assist his own fancy: he must take what comes, and 
 make the most of it. He works the most striking effects out 5 
 of the most unpromising materials, by the mere activity of his 
 mind. He rises with the lofty, descends with the mean, 
 luxuriates in beauty, gloats over deformity. It is all the 
 same to him, so that he loses no particle of the exact, charac- 
 teristic, extreme impression of the thing he writes about and 10 
 that he communicates this to the reader, after exhausting 
 every possible mode of illustration, plain or abstracted, figura- 
 tive or literal. Whatever stamps the original image more 
 distinctly on the mind is welcome. The nature of his task 
 precludes continual beauty; but it does not preclude continual 15 
 ingenuity, force, originality. He had to treat of political 
 questions, mixed modes, abstract ideas, and his fancy (or 
 poetry, if you wiU) was ingrafted on these artificially, and as 
 it might sometimes be thought, violently, instead of growing 
 naturally out of them, as it would spring of its own accord 20 
 from individual objects and feelings. There is a resistance in 
 the matter to the illustration applied to it — the concrete and 
 abstract are hardly co-ordinate; and therefore it is that, when 
 the first difficulty is overcome, they must agree more closely 
 in the essential quahties, in order that the coincidence may 25 
 be complete. Otherwise, it is good for nothing; and you 
 justly charge the author's style with being loose, vague, flac- 
 cid, and imbecile. The poet has been said 
 
 "To make us heirs 
 Of truth and pure dehght in endless lays." 30 
 
 Not SO the prose-wTiter, who always mingles clay with his 
 gold, and often separates truth from mere pleasure. He can 
 only arrive at the last through the first. In poetry, one 
 pleasing or striking image obviously suggests another: the 
 increasing the sense of beauty or grandeur is the principle of 35 
 composition: in prose, the professed object is to impart con- 
 viction, and nothing can be admitted by way of ornament or 
 
220 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 relief that does not add new force or clearness to the original 
 conception. The two classes of ideas brought together by 
 the orator or impassioned prose-writer, to wit, the general 
 subject and the particular image, are so far incompatible, 
 Sand the identity must be more strict, more marked, more 
 determinate, to make them coalesce to any practical purpose. 
 Every word should be a blow: every thought should instantly 
 grapple with its fellow. There must be a weight, a precision, 
 a conformity from association in the tropes and figures of 
 10 animated prose to fit them to their place in the argument, and 
 make them tell, which may be dispensed with in poetry, where 
 there is something much more congenial between the sub- 
 ject-matter and the illustration — 
 
 "Like beauty making beautiful old rime!" 
 
 15 What can be more remote, for instance, and at the same time 
 more apposite, more the same, than the following comparison of 
 the English Constitution to ''the proud Keep of Windsor," 
 in the celebrated Letter to a Noble Lord? 
 
 "Such are their ideas; such their religion, and such their 
 
 20 law. But as to our country and our race, as long as the well- 
 compacted structure of our Church and State, the sanctuary, 
 the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, 
 defended by power — a fortress at once and a temple ^ — shall 
 stand inviolate on the brow of the British Zion; as long as the 
 
 25 British Monarchy — not more limited than fenced by the 
 orders of the State — shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, 
 rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double 
 belt of its kindred and coeval towers; as long as this awful 
 structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land, so long 
 
 30 the mounds and dykes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have 
 nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of 
 France. As long as our Sovereign Lord the King, and his 
 faithful subjects, the Lords and Commons of this realm — the 
 triple cord which no man can break; the solemn, sworn, con- 
 
 35 stitutional frank-pledge of this nation; the firm guarantees of 
 
 ^ "Templum in modum arcis. " 
 
 — Tacitus, Of the Temple of Jerusalem. 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 221 
 
 each other's being, and each other's rights; the joint and 
 several securities, each in its place and order, for every kind, 
 and every quality of property and of dignity — as long as 
 these endure, so long the Duke of Bedford is safe : and we are 
 all safe together — the high from the blights of en\y and the 5 
 spoliations of rapacity; the low from the iron hand of op- 
 pression and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen! and 
 so be it: and so it will be, 
 
 'Dum domus JEnesd Capitoli immobile saxum 
 
 Accolet; imperiumque pater Romanus habebit.'" 10 
 
 Nothing can well be more impracticable to a simile than the 
 vague and complicated idea which is here embodied in one; 
 yet how fuiely, how nobly it stands out, in natural grandeur, 
 in royal state, with double barriers round it to answer for its 
 identity, with "buttress, frieze, and coigne of 'vantage" for 15 
 the imagination to "make its pendant bed and procreant 
 cradle," till the idea is confounded with the object repre- 
 senting it — the wonder of a kingdom; and then how striking, 
 how determined the descent, "at one fell swoop," to the 
 "low, fat, Bedford level!" Poetry would have been bound 20 
 to maintain a certain decorum, a regular balance between 
 these two ideas; sterling prose throws aside all such idle 
 respect to appearances, and with its pen, like a sword, "sharp 
 and sweet," lays open the naked truth! The poet's Muse is 
 like a mistress, w^hom we keep only while she is young and 25 
 beautiful, durante bene placito; the Muse of prose is like a 
 wife, whom we take during life, for better for worse. Burke's 
 execution, like that of all good prose, savours of the texture 
 of what he describes, and his pen slides or drags over the 
 ground of his subject, like the painter's pencil. The most 30 
 rigid fidelity and the most fanciful extravagance meet, and 
 are reconciled in his pages. I never pass Windsor but I 
 think of this passage in Burke, and hardly know to which 
 I am indebted most for enriching my moral sense, that, or the 
 fine picturesque stanza in Gray, 35 
 
 "From Windsor's heights the expanse below 
 Of mead, of lawn, of wood survey," etc. 
 
222 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 I might mention that the so-much-admired description, 
 in one of the India speeches, of Hyder Ally's army (I think it 
 is) which "now hung like a cloud upon the mountain, and now 
 burst upon the plain like a thunderbolt,'' would do equally 
 5 well for poetry or prose. It is a bold and striking illustration 
 of a naturally impressive object. This is not the case with 
 the Abbe Sieyes's far-famed "pigeon-holes," nor with the 
 comparison of the Duke of Bedford to "the Leviathan, tumb- 
 ling about his unwieldy bulk in the ocean of royal bounty." 
 
 10 Nothing here saves the description but the force of the in- 
 vective; the startling truth, the vehemence, the remoteness, 
 the aptitude, the perfect peculiarity and coincidence of the 
 allusion. No writer would ever have thought of it but him- 
 self; no reader can ever forget it. What is there in common, 
 
 15 one might say, between a Peer of the Realm, and "that sea- 
 beast, " of those 
 
 "Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream?" 
 
 Yet Burke has knit the two ideas together, and no man can 
 put them asunder. No matter how slight and precarious the 
 
 20 connection, the length of line it is necessary for the fancy to 
 give out in keeping hold of the object on which it has fastened, 
 he seems to have "put his hook in the nostrils" of this enor- 
 mous creature of the crown, that empurples all its track 
 through the glittering expanse of a profound and restless 
 
 25 imagination! 
 
 In looking into the Iris of last week, I find the following 
 
 passages, in an article on the death of Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 "The splendour of Majesty leaving the British metropolis, 
 
 careering along the ocean, and landing in the capital of the 
 
 30 North, is distinguished only by glimpses through the dense 
 array of clouds in which Death hid himself, while he struck 
 down to the dust the stateliest courtier near the throne, and 
 the broken train of which pursues and crosses the Royal prog- 
 ress wherever its glories are presented to the eye of imagi- 
 
 35 nation. . . . 
 
 "The same indefatigable mind — a mind of all work — 
 which thus ruled the Continent with a rod of iron, the sword 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 223 
 
 — within the walls of the House of Commons ruled a more 
 distracted region with a more subtle and finely-tempered 
 weapon, the tongue; and truly, if this was the only weapon 
 his Lordship wielded there, where he had daily to encounter, 
 and frequently almost alone, enemies more formidable than 5 
 Buonaparte, it must be acknowledged that he achieved 
 greater victories than Demosthenes or Cicero ever gained in 
 far more easy fields of strife; nay, he wrought miracles of 
 speech, outvying those miracles of song, which Orpheus is 
 said to have performed, when not only men and brutes, but 10 
 rocks, woods, and mountains, followed the sound of his 
 voice and lyre. . . . 
 
 "But there was a worm at the root of the gourd that 
 flourished over his head in the brightest sunshine of a court; 
 both perished in a night, and in the morning, that which had 15 
 been his glory and his shadow, covered him like a shroud; 
 while the corpse, notwithstanding all his honours, and titles, 
 and offices, lay uncovered in the place where it fell, till a 
 judgment had been passed upon him — which the poorest 
 peasant escapes when he dies in the ordinary course of 20 
 nsiture.'' -- Sheffield Advertiser, Aug. 20, 1822. 
 
 This, it must be confessed, is very unlike Burke: yet Mr. 
 Montgomery is a very pleasing poet, and a strenuous poli- 
 tician. The whole is travelling out of the record, and to no 
 sort of purpose. The author is constantly getting away from 25 
 the impression of his subject, to envelop himself in a cloud of 
 images, which weaken and perplex, instead of adding force 
 and clearness to it. Provided he is figurative, he does not 
 care how commonplace or irrelevant the figures are, and 
 wanders on, delighted in a labyrinth of words, like a truant 30 
 schoolboy, who is only glad to escape from his task. He has 
 a very slight hold of his subject, and is tempted to let it go 
 for any fallacious ornament of style. How obscure and 
 circuitous is the allusion to "the clouds in which Death hid 
 himself, to strike down the stateliest courtier near the throne!" 35 
 How hackneyed is the reference to Demosthenes and Cicero, 
 and how utterly quaint and unmeaning is the ringing the 
 changes upon Orpheus and his train of men, beasts, woods, 
 
224 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 rocks, and mountains in connection with Lord Castlereagh! 
 But he is better pleased with his classical fable than with 
 the death of the Noble Peer, and delights to dwell upon it, to 
 however little use. So he is glad to take advantage of the 
 6 scriptural idea of a gourd; not to enforce, but as a relief to his 
 reflections; and points his conclusion with a puling sort 
 of commonplace, that a person who dies a natural death, has 
 no coroner's inquest to sit upon him. All these are the 
 faults of the ordinary poetical style. Poets think they are 
 
 10 bound, by the tenour of their indenture to the Muses, to 
 "elevate and surprise" in every line; and not having the 
 usual resources at hand in common or abstracted subjects, 
 aspire to the end without the means. They make, or pretend, 
 an extraordinary interest where there is none. They are 
 
 15 ambitious, vain, and indolent — more busy in preparing idle 
 ornaments which they take their chance of bringing in some- 
 how or other, than intent on eliciting truths by fair and honest 
 inquiry. It should seem as if they considered prose as a sort 
 of waiting-maid to poetry, that could only be expected to 
 
 20 wear her mistress's cast-off finery. Poets have been said to 
 succeed best in fiction; and the account here given may in 
 part explam the reason. That is to say, they must choose 
 their own subject, in such a manner as to afford them continual 
 opportunities of appealing to the senses and exciting the 
 
 25 fancy. Dry details, abstruse speculations, do not give scope 
 to vividness of description; and, as they cannot bear to be 
 considered dull, they become too often affected, extravagant, 
 and insipid. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Coleridge for the comparison of 
 
 30 poetic prose to the second-hand finery of a lady's maid (just 
 made use of). He himself is an instance of his own obser- 
 vation, and (what is even worse) of the opposite fault — an 
 affectation of quaintness and originality. With bits of 
 tarnished lace and worthless frippery, he assumes a sweeping 
 
 35 oriental costume, or borrows the stiff dresses of our ancestors, 
 or starts an eccentric fashion of his own. He is swelling 
 and turgid — everlastingly aiming to be greater than his sub- 
 ject; filhng his fancy with fumes and vapours in the pangs and 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 225 
 
 throes of miraculous parturition and bringing forth only 
 still births. He has an incessant craving, as it were, to exalt 
 every idea into a metaphor, to expand every sentiment into 
 a lengthened mystery, voluminous and vast, confused and 
 cloudy. His style is not succinct, but incumbered with a 5 
 train of words and images that have no practical, and only a 
 possible relation to one another — that add to its stateliness, 
 but impede its march. One of his sentences winds its "for- 
 lorn way obscure" over the page like a patriarchal procession 
 with camels laden, wreathed turbans, household wealth, the lO 
 whole riches of the author's mind poured out upon the barren 
 wastes of his subject. The palm-tree spreads its sterile 
 branches overhead, and the land of promise is seen in the 
 distance. All tliis is owing to his wishing to overdo every- 
 thing — to make something more out of everything than it is, 15 
 or than it is worth. The simple truth does not satisfy him — 
 no direct proposition fills up the moulds of his understanding. 
 All is foreign, far-fetched, irrelevant, laboured, and unpro- 
 ductive. To read one of his disquisitions is like hearing the 
 variation to a piece of music without the score. Or, to vary 20 
 the simile, he is not like a man going a journey by the stage- 
 coach along the high-road, but is always getting into a 
 balloon, and mounting into the air, above the plain of prose. 
 Whether he soars to the empyrean, or dives to the centre (as 
 he sometimes does), it is equally to get away from the question 25 
 before him, and to prove that he owes everything to his own 
 mind. His object is to invent; he scorns to imitate. The 
 business of prose is the contrary. But Mr. Coleridge is a 
 poet, and his thoughts are free. 
 
 I think the poet-laureate is a much better prose writer. 30 
 His' style has an antique quaintness, with a modern familiar- 
 ity. He has just a sufficient sprinkling of archaisms, of al- 
 lusions to old Fuller, and Burton, and Latimer, to set off or 
 qualify the smart flippant tone of his apologies , for existing 
 abuses, or the ready, galling virulence of his personal in- 35 
 vectives. Mr. Southey is a faithful historian, and no ineffi- 
 cient partisan. In the former character, his mind is tenacious 
 of facts; and in the latter, his spleen and jealousy prevent the 
 
226 THE ART OF PROSE 
 
 ''extravagant and erring spirit" of the poet from losing itself 
 in Fancy's endless maze. He "stoops to earth," at least, and 
 prostitutes his pen to some purpose (not at the same time 
 losing his own soul, and gaining nothing by it) — and he 
 5 vilifies Reform, and praises the reign of George III in good 
 set terms, in a straightforward, intelligible, practical, pointed 
 way. He is not buoyed up by conscious power out of the 
 reach of common apprehensions, but makes the most of the 
 obvious advantages he possesses. You may complain of a 
 
 10 pettiness and petulance of manner, but certainly there is no 
 want of spirit or facility of execution. He does not waste 
 powder and shoot in the air, but loads his piece, takes a level 
 aim, and hits his mark. One would say (though his Muse 
 is ambidexter) that he wrote prose with his right hand; 
 
 15 there is nothing awkward, circuitous, or feeble in it. "The 
 words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo:" but 
 this would not apply to him. His prose-lucubrations are 
 pleasanter reading than his poetry. Indeed, he is equally 
 practised and voluminous in both; and it is no improbable 
 
 20 conjecture, that Mr. Southey may have had some idea of 
 
 rivalling the reputation of Voltaire in the extent, the spirit, 
 
 and the versatihty of his productions in prose and verse, 
 
 except that he has written no tragedies but Wat Tyler! 
 
 To my taste, the Author of Rimini, and Editor of the 
 
 25 Examiner, is among the best and least corrupted of our 
 poetical prose-writers. In his light but well-supported col- 
 umns we find the raciness, the sharpness, and sparkling effect 
 of poetry, with little that is extravagant or far-fetched, and no 
 turgidity or pompous pretension. Perhaps there is too much 
 
 30 the appearance of relaxation and trifling (as if he had escaped 
 the shackles of rhyme), a caprice, a levity, and a disposition 
 to innovate in words and ideas. Still the genuine master- 
 spirit of the prose-writer is there; the tone of lively, sensible 
 conversation; and this may in part arise from the author's 
 
 35 being himself an animated talker. Mr. Hunt wants some- 
 thing of the heat and earnestness of the political partisan; 
 but his familiar and miscellaneous papers have all the ease, 
 grace, and point of the best style of essay-writing. Many 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 227 
 
 of his effusions in the Indicator show, that if he had devoted 
 himself exclusively to that mode of writing, he inherits more 
 of the spirit of Steele than any man since his time. 
 
 Lord Byron's prose is bad; that is to say, heavy, laboured, 
 and coarse: he tries to knock someone down with the butt- 5 
 end of every hne, which defeats his object — and the style of 
 the Author of Waverley (if he comes fairly into this discussion) 
 as mere style is villainous. It is pretty plain he is a poet; 
 for the sound of names runs mechanically in his ears, and he 
 rings the changes unconsciously on the same words in a 10 
 sentence, like the same rh3Tiies in a couplet. 
 
 Not to spin out this discussion too much, I would conclude 
 by observing, that some of the old English prose-writers (who 
 were not poets) are the best, and, at the same time, the most 
 poetical in the favourable sense. Among these we may 15 
 reckon some of the old divines, and 'Jeremy Taylor at the 
 head of them. There is a flush like the dawn over his writings; 
 the sweetness of the rose, the freshness of the morning dew. 
 There is a softness in his style, proceeding from the tender- 
 ness of his heart: but his head is firm, and his hand is free. 20 
 Ilis materials are as finely wrought up as they are original 
 and attractive in themselves. Milton's prose-style savours 
 too nmch of poetry, and, as I have already hinted, of an imi- 
 tation of the Latin. Dryden's is perfectly unexceptionable, 
 and a model, in simplicity, strength, and perspicuity, for the 25 
 subjects he treated of. 
 
ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 
 
 " And blind Orion hungry for the morn." 
 
 Orion, the subject of this landscape, was the classical Nim- 
 rod; and is called by Homer, "a hunter of shadows, himself 
 a shade." He was the son of Neptune; and having lost an 
 
 5 eye in some affray between the gods and men, was told that if 
 he would go to meet the rising sun, he would recover his sight. 
 He is represented setting out on his journey, with men on his 
 shoulders to guide him, a bow in his hand, and Diana in the 
 clouds greeting him. He stalks along, a giant upon earth, 
 
 10 and reels and falters' in his gait, as if just awaked out of sleep, 
 or uncertain of his way ; — you see his blindness, though his 
 back is turned. Mists rise around him, and veil the sides of 
 the green forests; earth is dank and fresh with dews, the ''grey 
 dawn and the Pleiades before him dance," and in the distance 
 
 15 are seen the blue hills and sullen ocean. Nothing was ever 
 more finely conceived or done. It breathes the spirit of the 
 morning; its moisture, its repose, its obscurity, waiting the 
 miracle of light to kindle it into smiles: the whole is, like the 
 principal figure in it, "a forerumier of the dawn." The 
 
 20 same atmosphere tinges and imbues every object, the same 
 dull light ''shadowy sets off" the face of nature: one feeling 
 of vastness, of strangeness, and of primeval forms pervades 
 the painter's canvas, and we are thrown back upon the first 
 integrity of things. This great and learned man might be 
 
 25 said to see nature through the glass of time: he alone has a 
 right to be considered as the painter of classical antiquity. 
 Sir Joshua has done him justice in this respect. He could 
 give to the scenery of his heroic fables that unimpaired look 
 of original nature, full, solid, large, luxuriant, teeming with 
 
 30Hfe and power; or deck it with all the pomp of art, with 
 temples and towers, and mythologic groves. His pictures 
 
 228 
 
ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 229 
 
 ''denote a foregone conclusion." He applies nature to his 
 purposes, works out her images according to the standard 
 of his thoughts, embodies high fictions; and the first concep- 
 tion being given, all the rest seems to grow out of, and be 
 assimilated to it, by the unfailing process of a studious imagi- 5 
 nation. Like his own Orion, he overlooks the surrounding 
 scene, appears to "take up the isles as a very little thing, and 
 to lay the earth in a balance." With a laborious and mighty 
 grasp, he put nature into the mould of the ideal and antique; 
 and was among painters (more than any one else) what Milton 10 
 was among poets. There is both something of the same 
 pedantry, the same stiffness, the same elevation, the same 
 grandeur, the same mixture of art and nature, the same 
 richness of borrowed materials, the same unity of character. 
 Neither the poet nor the painter lowered the subjects they 15 
 treated, but filled up the outline in the fancy, and added 
 strength and reality to it; and thus not only satisfied, but 
 surpassed the expectations of the spectator and the reader. 
 This is held for the triumph and the perfection of works of 
 art. To give us nature, such as we see it, is well and deserving 20 
 of praise; to give us nature, such as we have never seen, but 
 have often wished to see it, is better, and deserving of higher 
 praise. He who can show the world in its first naked glory, 
 with the hues of fancy spread over it, or in its high and palmy 
 state, with the gravity of history stamped on the proud monu- 25 
 ments of vanished empire, — who, by his "so potent art," 
 can recall time past, transport us to distant places, and join 
 the regions of imagination (a new conquest) to those of 
 reality, — who shows us not only what nature is, but what 
 she has been, and is capable of, — he who does this, and does 30 
 it with simpHcity, with truth, and grandeur, is lord of nature 
 and her powers; and his mind is universal, and his art the 
 master-art! 
 
 There is nothing in this "more than natural," if criticism 
 could be persuaded to think so. The historic painter does not 35 
 neglect or contravene nature, but follows her more closely 
 up into her fantastic heights, or hidden recesses. He demon- 
 strates what she would be in conceivable circumstances, and 
 
230 CRITICISM 
 
 under implied conditions. He "gives to airy nothing a local 
 habitation," not "a name." At his touch, words start up 
 into images, thoughts become things. He clothes a dream, a 
 phantom with form and colour and the wholesome attributes 
 5 of reality. His art is a second nature; not a different one. 
 There are those, indeed, who think that not to copy nature 
 is the rule for attaining perfection. Because they cannot 
 paint the objects which they have seen, they fancy themselves 
 qualified to paint the ideas which they have not seen. But 
 
 10 it is possible to fail in this latter and more difficult style of 
 imitation, as well as in the former humbler one. The de- 
 tection, it is true, is not so easy, because the objects are not 
 so nigh at hand to compare, and therefore there is more room 
 both for false pretension and for self-deceit. They take an 
 
 15 epic motto or subject, and conclude that the spirit is implied as 
 a thing of course. They paint inferior portraits, maudlin, 
 lifeless faces, without ordinary expression, or one look, feature, 
 or particle of nature in them, and think that this is to rise to 
 the truth of history. They vulgarise and degrade whatever 
 
 20 is interesting or sacred to the mind, and suppose that they 
 thus add to the dignity of their profession. They represent 
 a face that seems as if no thought or feeling of any kind had 
 ever passed through it, and would have you believe that this 
 is the very sublime of expression, such as it would appear in 
 
 25 heroes, or demi-gods of old, when rapture or agony was raised 
 to its height. They show you a landscape that looks as if the 
 sun never shone upon it, and tell you that it is not modern 
 — that so earth looked when Titan first kissed it with his 
 rays. This is not the true ideal. It is not to fill the moulds 
 
 30 of the imagination, but to deface and injure them: it is not 
 to come up to, but to fall short of the poorest conception in 
 the public mind. Such pictures should not be hung in the 
 same room with that of Orion.^ 
 
 1 Everything tends to show the manner in which a great artist ig 
 35 formed. If any person could claim an exemption from the careful 
 imitation of individual objects, it was Nicolas Poussin. He studied 
 the antique, but he also studied nature. "I have often admired," 
 says Vignuel de Marville, who knew him at a late period of his life, 
 "the love he had for his art. Old as he was, I frequently saw him 
 
OJNT A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 231 
 
 Poussin was, of all painters, the most poetical. He was the 
 painter of ideas. No one ever told a story half so well, nor so 
 well knew what was capable of being told by the pencil. He 
 seized on, and struck off with grace and precision, just that 
 point of view which would be likely to catch the reader's 5 
 fancy. There is a significance, a consciousness in whatever 
 he does (sometimes a vice, but oftener a virtue) beyond any 
 other painter. His Giants sitting on the tops of craggy 
 mountains, as huge themselves, and playing idly on their 
 Pan's-pipes, seem to have been seated there these three thou- 10 
 sand years, and to know the beguming and the end of their 
 own story. An infant Bacchus or Jupiter is big with his 
 future destiny. Even inanimate and dumb things speak a 
 language of their own. His snakes, the messengers of fate, 
 are inspired with human intellect. His trees grow and ex- 15 
 pand their leaves in the air, glad of the rain, proud of the sun, 
 awake to the winds of heaven. In his Plague of Athens, the 
 very buildings seem stiff with horror. His picture of the 
 Deluge is, perhaps, the finest historical landscape in the world. 
 You see a waste of waters, wide, interminable: the sun is 20 
 labouring, wan and weary, up the sky; the clouds, dull and 
 leaden, lie like a load upon the eye, and heaven and earth 
 
 among the ruins of ancient Rome, oilt in the Campagna, or along the 
 banks of the Tiber, sketching a scene that had pleased him; and I 
 often met him with his handkerchief full of stones, moss, or flowers, 25 
 which he carried home, that he might copy them exactly from nature. 
 One day I asked him how he had attained to such a degree of per- 
 fection, as to have gained so high a rank among the great painters of 
 Italy? He answered, I have neglected nothing." — See his Life lately 
 'published. It appears from this account that he had not fallen into 30 
 a recent error, that Nature puts the man of genius out. As a con- 
 trast to the foregoing description, I might mention, that I remember 
 an old gentleman once asking Mr. West in the British Gallery, if he 
 had ever been at Athens? To which the President made answer, No ; 
 nor did he feel any great desire to go; for that he thought he had as 35 
 good an idea of the place from the catalogue, as he could get by 
 living there for any number of years. What would he have said, if 
 any one had told him, he could get as good an idea of the subject of 
 one of his great works from reading the catalogue of it, as from seeing 
 the picture itself! Yet the answer was characteristic of the genius 40 
 of the painter. 
 
232 CRITICISM 
 
 seem commingling into one confused mass! His human figures 
 are sometimes "o'er-informed" with this kind of feeling. 
 Their actions have too much gesticulation, and the set ex- 
 pression of ihe features borders too much on the mechanical 
 5 and caricatured style. In this respect, they form a contrast 
 to Raphael's, whose figures never appear to be sitting for 
 their pictures, or to be conscious of a spectator, or to have 
 come from the painter's hand. In Nicolas Poussin, on the 
 contrary, everything seems to have a distinct understanding 
 
 10 with the artist; ''the very stones prate of their whereabout:" 
 each object has its part and place assigned, and is in a sort of 
 compact with the rest of the picture. It is this conscious 
 keeping, and, as it were, internal design, that gives their 
 peculiar character to the works of this artist. There was a 
 
 15 picture of Aurora in the British Gallery a year or two ago. It 
 was a suffusion of golden hght. The Goddess wore her saf- 
 fron-coloured robes, and appeared just risen from the gloomy 
 bed of old Tithonus. Her very steeds, milk-white, were 
 tinged with the yellow dawn. It was a personification of the 
 
 20 morning. — Poussin succeeded better in classic than in sacred 
 subjects. The latter are comparatively heavy, forced, full of 
 violent contrasts of colour, of red, blue, and black, and without 
 the true prophetic inspiration of the characters. But in his 
 Pagan allegories and fables he was quite at home. The 
 
 25 native gravity and native levity of the Frenchman were com- 
 bined with Italian scenery and an antique gusto, and gave 
 even to his colouring an air of learned indifference. He wants, 
 in one respect, grace, form, expression; but he has everywhere 
 sense and meaning, perfect costume and propriety. His 
 
 30 personages always belong to the class and time represented, 
 and are strictly versed in the business in hand. His grotesque 
 compositions in particular, his Nymphs and Fauns, are su- 
 perior (at least, as far as style is concerned) even to those of 
 Rubens. They are taken more immediately out of fabulous 
 
 35 history. Rubens's Satyrs and Bacchantes have a more 
 jovial and voluptuous aspect, are more drunk with pleasure, 
 more full of animal spirits and riotous impulses; they laugh 
 and bound along — 
 
ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 233 
 
 " Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant spring: " 
 
 but those of Poussin have more of the intellectual part of the 
 character, and seem vicious on reflection, and of set purpose. 
 Rubens's are noble specimens of a class; Poussin's are allegor- 
 ical abstractions of the same class, with bodies less pampered, 5 
 but with minds more secretly depraved. The Bacchanalian 
 groups of the Flemish painter were, however, his master- 
 pieces in . composition. Witness those prodigies of colour, 
 character, and expression at Blenheim. In the more chaste 
 and refined delineation of classic fable, Poussin was without a 10 
 rival. Rubens, who was a match for him in the wild and 
 picturesque, could not pretend to vie with the elegance and 
 purity of thought in his picture of Apollo giving a poet a cup 
 of water to drink, nor with the gracefulness of design in the 
 figure of a nymph squeezing the juice of a bunch of grapes 15 
 from her fingers (a rosy wine-press) which falls into the mouth 
 of a chubby infant below. But, above all, who shall celebrate, 
 in terms of fit praise, his picture of the shepherds in the Vale 
 of Tempe going out in a fine morning of the spring, and coming 
 to a tomb with this inscription: — Et ego in Arcadia vixi!20 
 The eager curiosity of some, the expression of others who start 
 back with fear and surprise, the clear breeze playing with 
 the branches of the shadowing trees, "the valleys low, where 
 the mild zephjrs use," the distant, uninterrupted, sunny 
 prospects speak (and forever will speak on) of ages past to 25 
 ages yet to come! ^ 
 
 Pictures are a set of chosen images, a stream of pleasant 
 thoughts passing through the mind. It is a luxury to have the 
 walls of our rooms hung round with them, and no less so to 
 have such a gallery in the mind, to con over the relics of an- 30 
 cient art bound up "within the book and volume of the brain, 
 unmixed (if it were possible) with baser matter!" A life 
 passed among pictures, in the study and the love of art, is a 
 
 ^ Poussin has repeated this subject more than once, and appears 
 to have revelled in its witcheries. I have before alluded to it, and may 35 
 again. It is hard that we should not be allowed to dwell as often as 
 we please on what delights us, when things that are disagreeable 
 recur so often against our will. 
 
234 CRITICISM 
 
 happy, noiseless dream: or rather, it is to dream and to be 
 awake at the same time; for it has all "the sober certainty of 
 waking bliss," with the romantic voluptuousness of a vision- 
 ary and abstracted being. They are the bright consummate 
 5 essences of things, and "he who knows of these delights to 
 taste and interpose them oft, is not unwise! " — The Orion, 
 which I have here taken occasion to descant upon, is one of a 
 collection of excellent pictures, as this collection is itself one 
 of a series from the old masters, which have for some years 
 
 10 back embrowned the walls of the British Gallery, and enriched 
 the public eye. What hues (those of nature mellowed by 
 time) breathe around, as we enter! What forms are there, 
 woven into the memory! What looks, which only the an- 
 swering looks of the spectator can express! What intel- 
 
 15 lectual stores have been yearly poured forth from the shrine 
 of ancient art! The works are various, but the names the 
 same — heaps of Rembrandts frowning from the darkened 
 walls, Rubens's glad, gorgeous groups, Titians more rich and 
 rare, Claudes always exquisite, sometimes beyond compare, 
 
 2oGuido's endless cloying sweetness, the learning of Poussin 
 and the Caracci, and Raphael's princely magnificence, 
 crowning all. We read certain letters and syllables in the 
 catalogue, and at the well-known magic sound, a miracle of 
 skill and beauty starts to view. One might think that one 
 
 25 year's prodigal display of such perfection would exhaust the 
 labours of one man's life; but the next year, and the next to 
 that, we find another harvest reaped and gathered in to the 
 great garner of art, by the same immortal hands — 
 
 " Old Genius the porter of them was; 
 30 He letteth in, he letteth out to wend." — 
 
 Their works seem endless as their reputation — to be many 
 as they are complete — to multiply with the desire of the 
 mind to see more and more of them; as if there were a living 
 power in the breath of Fame, and in the very names of the 
 35 great heirs of glory "there were propagation too!" It is 
 something to have a collection of this sort to count upon once 
 a year; to have one last, lingering look yet to come. Pic- 
 
ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 235 
 
 tures are scattered like stray gifts through the world; and 
 while they remain, earth has yet a little gilding left, not quite 
 rubbed off, dishonoured, and defaced. There are plenty of 
 standard works still to be found in this country, in the col- 
 lections at Blenheim, at Burleigh, and in those belonging to 5 
 Mr. Angerstein, Lord Grosvenor, the Marquis of Stafford, 
 and others, to keep up this treat to the lovers of art for many 
 years: and it is the more desirable to reserve a privileged 
 sanctuary of this sort, where the eye may dote, and the 
 heart take its fill of such pictures as Poussin's Orion, since the 10 
 Louvre is stripped of its triumphant spoils, and since he who 
 collected it, and wore it as a rich jewel in his Iron Crown, the 
 hunter of greatness and of glory, is himself a shade! 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 
 
 The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the 
 reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far ad- 
 vanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, 
 and doat on past achievements. The accumulation of 
 5 knowledge has been so great, that we are lost in wonder at the 
 height it has reached, instead of attempting to climb or add 
 to it; while the variety of objects distracts and dazzles the 
 looker-on. What niche remains unoccupied? What path un- 
 tried? What is the use of doing anything, unless we could do 
 
 10 better than all those who have gone before us? What hope 
 is. there of this? We are like those who have been to see some 
 noble monument of art, who are content to admire without 
 thinking of rivalling it; or like the guests after a feast, who 
 praise the hospitality of the donor ''and thank the bounteous 
 
 15 Pan" — perhaps carrying away some trifling fragments; or 
 like the spectators of a mighty battle, who still hear its sound 
 afar off, and the clashing of armour and the neighing of the 
 war-horse and the shout of victory is in their ears, like the 
 rushing of innumerable waters! 
 
 20 Mr. Coleridge has ''a mind reflecting ages past;" his 
 voice is like the echo of the congregated roar of the ''dark 
 rearward and abyss " of thought. He who has seen a moulder- 
 ing tower by the side of a crystal lake, hid by the mist, but 
 glittering in the wave below, may conceive the dim, gleaming, 
 
 25 uncertain intelligence of his eye; he who has marked the 
 evening clouds uprolled (a world of vapours) has seen the 
 picture of his mind, unearthly, unsubstantial, with gorgeous 
 tints and ever- varying forms — 
 
 "That which was now a horse, even with a thought 
 30 The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct 
 
 As water is in water " 
 236 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 237 
 
 Our author's mind is (as he himself might express it) 
 tangential. There is no subject on which he has not touched, 
 none on which he has rested. With an understanding fertile, 
 subtle, expansive, ''quick, forgetive, apprehensive," beyond 
 aO Uving precedent, few traces of it perhaps remain. He 5 
 lends himself to all impressions ahke; he gives up his mind 
 and liberty of thought to none. He is a general lover of art 
 and science, and wedded to no one in particular. He pursues 
 knowledge as a mistress, with outstretched hands and winged 
 speed; but as he is about to embrace her, his Daphne turns 10 
 — alas! not to a laurel! Hardly a speculation has been left 
 on record from the earliest time, but it is loosely folded up 
 in Mr. Coleridge's memory, like a rich, but somewhat tattered 
 piece of tapestry: we might add (with more seeming than 
 real extravagance) that scarce a thought can pass through the 15 
 mind of man, but its sound has at some time or other passed 
 over his head with rustling pinions. 
 
 On whatever question or author you speak, he is prepared 
 to take up the theme with advantage — from Peter Abelard 
 down to Thomas Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the 20 
 politics of the Courier. There is no man of genius in whose 
 praise he descants, but the critic seems to stand above the 
 author, and "what in him is weak, to strengthen, what is low, 
 to raise and support:" nor is there any work of genius that 
 does not come out of his hands like an illuminated Missal, 25 
 sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been 
 the most impressive talker of his age, he would probably have 
 been the finest writer; but he lays down his pen to make sure 
 of an auditor, and mortgages the admiration of posterity for 
 the stare of an idler. If he had not been a poet, he would 30 
 have been a powerful logician; if he had not dipped his wing 
 in the Unitarian controversy, he might have soared to the 
 very summit of fancy. But, in writing verse, he is trying to 
 subject the Muse to transcendental theories: in his abstract 
 reasoning, he misses his way by strewing it with flowers. 35 
 
 All that he has done of moment, he had done twenty years 
 ago: since then, he may be said to have lived on the sound of 
 his own voice. Mr. Coleridge is too rich in intellectual 
 
238 CRITICISM 
 
 wealth, to need to task himself to any drudgery: he has only 
 to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand sub- 
 jects expand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, 
 or losing themselves in endless obscurity — 
 
 5 "And by the force of blear illusion. 
 
 They draw him on to his confusion, " 
 
 What is the little he could add to the stock, compared with 
 the countless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop 
 to pick up a name, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks 
 
 10 abroad in the majesty of an universal understanding, eyeing 
 the "rich strond" or golden sky above him, and "goes sound- 
 ing on his way," in eloquent accents, uncompelled and free! 
 Persons of the greatest capacity are often those who for 
 this reason do the least; for surveying themselves from the 
 
 15 highest point of view, amidst the infinite variety of the uni- 
 verse, their own share in it seems trifling, and scarce worth a 
 thought; and they prefer the contemplation of all that is, or 
 has been, or can be, to the making a coil about doing what, 
 when done, is no better than vanity. It is hard to concen- 
 
 20 trate all our attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from 
 ignorance of others; and without this concentration of our 
 faculties no great progress can be made in any one thing. It 
 is not merely that the mind is not capable of the effort; it 
 does not think the effort worth making. Action is one; but 
 
 25 thought is manifold. He whose restless eye glances through 
 the wide compass of nature and art, will not consent to have 
 "his own nothings monstered," but he must do this before 
 he can give his whole soul to them. The mind, after "let- 
 ting contemplation have its fill," or 
 
 30 " Sailing with supreme dominion 
 
 Through the azure deep of air," 
 
 sinks down on the ground, breathless, exhausted, powerless, 
 inactive; or if it must have some vent to its feelings, seeks the 
 most easy and obvious ; is soothed by friendly flattery, lulled 
 35 by the murmur of immediate applause; thinks, as it were, 
 aloud, and babbles in its dreams! 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 239 
 
 A scholar (so to speak) is a more disinterested and ab- 
 stracted character than a mere author. The first looks at the 
 numberless volumes of a library, and says, "'All these are 
 mine:" the other points to a single volume (perhaps it may 
 be an immortal one) and says, "My name is written on the 5 
 back of it. " This is a puny and grovelling ambition, beneath 
 the lofty amplitude of Mr. Coleridge's mind. No, he re- 
 volves in his wayward soul, or utters to the passing wind, or 
 discourses to his own shadow, things mightier and more 
 various! — Let us draw the curtain, and unlock the shrine. 10 
 
 Learning rocked him in his cradle, and while yet a child, 
 
 "He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 
 
 At sixteen he wTote his Ode on Chatterton, and he still reverts 
 to that period with delight, not so much as it relates to him- 
 self (for that string of his own early promise of fame rather 15 
 jars than otherwise) but as exemplifying the youth of a poet. 
 Mr. Coleridge talks of himself without being an egotist; for 
 in him the individual is always merged in the abstract and 
 general. He distinguished himself at school and at the 
 University by his knowledge of the classics, and gained several 20 
 prizes for Greek epigrams. How many men are there (great 
 scholars, celebrated names in literature) who, having done the 
 same thing in their youth, have no other idea all the rest of 
 their Uves but of this achievement, of a fellowship and din- 
 ner, and who, instaUed in academic honours, would look 25 
 down on our author as a mere strolling bard! At Christ's 
 Hospital, where he was brought up, he was the idol of 
 those among his schoolfellows who mingled with their bookish 
 studies the music of thought and of humanity; and he was 
 usually attended round the cloisters by a group of these 30 
 (inspiring and inspired) whose hearts even then burnt within 
 them as he talked, and where, the sounds yet linger to mock 
 Elia on his way, still turning pensive to the past! 
 
 One of the finest and rarest parts of Mr. Coleridge's con- 
 versation is, when he expatiates on the Greek tragedians 35 
 (not that he is not well acquainted, when he pleases, with 
 the epic poets, or the philosophers, or orators, or historians 
 
240 CRITICISM 
 
 of antiquity) — on the subtle reasonings and melting pathos 
 of Euripides, on the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles, 
 tuning his love-laboured song, like sweetest warblings from a 
 sacred grove; on the high- wrought, trumpet-tongued elo- 
 Squence of iEschylus, whose Prometheus, above all, is lilve an 
 Ode to Fate and a pleading with Providence, his thoughts 
 being let loose as his body is chained on his solitary rock, and 
 his afflicted will (the emblem of mortality) 
 
 "Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." 
 
 10 As the impassioned critic speaks and rises in his theme, you 
 would think you heard the voice of the Man hated by the 
 Gods, contending with the wild winds as they roar; and his 
 eye glitters with the spirit of Antiquity! 
 
 Next, he was engaged with Hartley's tribes of mind, 
 
 15"etherial braid, thought-woven," — and he busied himself 
 for a year or two with vibrations and vibratiuncles, and the 
 great law of association that binds all things in its mystic 
 chain, and the doctrine of Necessity (the mild teacher of 
 Charity) and the Millennium, anticipative of a life to come; 
 
 20 and he plunged deep into the controversy on Matter and 
 Spirit, and, as an escape from Dr. Priestley's Materialism, 
 where he felt himself imprisoned by the logician's spell, like 
 Ariel in the cloven pine-tree, he became suddenly enamoured 
 of Bishop Berkeley's fairy-world,^ and used in all com- 
 
 25 panics to build the universe, like a brave poetical fiction, of 
 fine words. And he was deep-read in Malebranche, and in 
 Cudworth's Intellectual System (a huge pile of learning, un- 
 wieldy, enormous) and in Lord Brooke's hieroglyphic theories, 
 and in Bishop Butler's Sermons, and in the Duchess of 
 
 30 Newcastle's fantastic folios, and in Clarke and South, and 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge named his eldest son (the writer of some beautiful 
 sonnets) after Hartley, and the second after Berkeley. The third 
 was called Derwent, after the river of that name. Nothing can be 
 more characteristic of his mind than this circumstance. All his 
 35 ideas indeed are like a river, flowing on for ever, and still murmuring 
 as it flows, discharging its waters and still replenished — 
 " And so by many winding nooks it strays, 
 With willing sport to the wild ocean!" 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 241 
 
 Tillotson, and all the fine thinkers and masculine reasoners 
 of that age; and Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony reared 
 its arch above his head, like the rainbow in the cloud, cove- 
 nanting with the hopes of man. 
 
 And then he fell plump, ten thousand fathoms down (but 5 
 his wings saved him harmless) into the hortus siccus of Dissent, 
 where he pared religion down to the standard of reason, and 
 stripped faith of mystery, and preached Christ crucified and 
 the Unity of the Godhead, and so dwelt for a while in the 
 spirit with John Huss and Jerome of Prague and Socinus and 10 
 old John Zisca, and ran through Neal's History of the Puritans 
 and Calamy's Non-Conformists' Memorial, having like 
 thoughts and passions with them. But then Spinoza became 
 his God, and he took up the vast chain of being in his hand, 
 and the round world became the centre and the soul of all 15 
 things in some shadowy sense, forlorn of meaning, and around 
 him he beheld the living traces and the sky-pointing pro- 
 portions of the mighty Pan; but poetry redeemed him from 
 this spectral philosophy, and he bathed his heart in beauty, 
 and gazed at the golden light of heaven, and drank of the spirit 20 
 of the universe, and wandered at eve by fau-y-stream or 
 fountain, 
 
 " When he saw nought but beauty, 
 
 When he heard the voice of that Almighty One 
 
 In every breeze that blew, or wave that naurmured" — 25 
 
 and wedded with truth in Plato's shade, and in the writings 
 of Proclus and Plotinus saw the ideas of things in the eternal 
 mind, and unfolded all mysteries with the Schoolmen and 
 fathomed the depths of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, 
 and entered the third heaven with Jacob Behmen, and walked 30 
 hand in hand with Swedenborg through the pavilions of the 
 New Jerusalem, and sang his faith in the promise and in the 
 word in his Religious Musings — and lowering himself from 
 that dizzy height poised himself on Milton's wings, and spread 
 out his thoughts in charity with the glad prose of Jeremy 35 
 Taylor, and wept over Bowles's Sonnets, and studied Cowper's 
 blank verse, and betook himself to Thomson's Castle of Indo- 
 lence, and sported with the wits of Charles the Second's 
 
242 CRITICISM 
 
 days and of Queen Anne, and relished Swift's style and that 
 of the John Bull (Arbuthnot's we mean, not Mr. Croker's), 
 and dallied with the British Essayists and Novelists, and 
 knew all qualities of more modern writers with a learned spirit: 
 
 5 Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin, 
 and the Sorrows of Werter, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and 
 Voltaire, and Marivaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more 
 — now "laughed with Rabelais in his easy chair" or pointed 
 to Hogarth, or afterwards dwelt on Claude's classic scenes, or 
 
 10 spoke with rapture of Raphael, and compared the women at 
 Rome to figures that had walked out of his pictures, or visited 
 the Oratory of Pisa, and described the works of Giotto and 
 Ghirlandaio and Massaccio, and gave the moral of the pic- 
 ture of the Triumph of Death, where the beggars and the 
 
 15 wretched invoke his dreadful dart, but the rich and mighty of 
 the earth quail and shrink before it; and in that land of siren 
 sights and sounds, saw a dance of peasant girls, and was 
 charmed with lutes and gondolas, — or wandered into Ger- 
 many and lost himself in the labyrinths of the Hartz Forest 
 
 20 and of the Kantean philosophy, and amongst the cabalistic 
 names of Fichte and Schelling and Lessing, and God knows 
 who. This was long after; but all the former while he had 
 nerved his heart and filled his eyes with tears, as he hailed the 
 rising orb of liberty, since quenched in darkness and in blood, 
 
 25 and had kindled his affections at the blaze of the French Revo- 
 lution, and sang for joy, when the towers of the Bastille and 
 the proud places of the insolent and the oppressor fell, and 
 would have floated his bark, freighted with fondest fancies, 
 across the Atlantic wave with Southey and others to seek for 
 
 30 peace and freedom — 
 
 "In Philarmonia's undivided dale!" 
 
 Alas! "Frailty, thy name is Genius!'' — What is become of 
 
 all this mighty heap of hope, of thought, of learning and 
 
 humanity? It has ended in swallowing doses of oblivion and 
 
 35 in writing paragraphs in the Courier. — Such and so little is 
 
 the mind of man! 
 
 It was not to be supposed that Mr. Coleridge could keep 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 243 
 
 on at the rate he set off; he could not realize all he knew or 
 thought, and less could not fix his desultory ambition ; other 
 stimulants supplied the place, and kept up the intoxicating 
 dream, the fever and the madness of his early impressions. 
 Liberty (the philosopher's and the poet's bride) had fallen a 5 
 victim, meanwhile, to the murderous practices of the hag, 
 Legitimacy. Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for 
 the herd of vulgar politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, 
 and at last turned on che pivot of a subtle casuistry to the 
 unclean side: but his discursive reason would not let him 10 
 trammel himself into a poet-laureate or stamp-distributor; 
 and he stopped, ere he had quite passed that well-known 
 "bourne from whence no traveller returns" — and so has 
 sunk into torpid, uneasy repose, tantalized by useless re- 
 sources, haunted by vain imaginings, his lips idly moving, 15 
 but his heart forever still, or, as the shattered chords vibrate 
 of themselves, making melancholy music to the ear of mem- 
 ory! Such is the fate of genius in an age when, in the unequal 
 contest with sovereign wrong, every man is ground to powder 
 who is not either a born slave, or who does not willingly and 20 
 at once offer up the yearnings of humanity and the dic- 
 tates of reason as a welcome sacrifice to besotted prejudice 
 and loathsome power. 
 
 Of all Mr. Coleridge's productions, the Ancient Manner 
 is the only one that we could with confidence put into any 25 
 person's hands, on whom we wished to impress a favourable 
 idea of his extraordinary powers. Let whatever other ob- 
 jections be made to it, it is unquestionably a work of genius 
 — of wild, irregular, overwhelming imagination, and has that 
 rich, varied movement in the verse, which gives a distant 30 
 id6a of the lofty or changeful tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice. 
 In the Chnstabel, there is one splendid passage on divided 
 friendship. The Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein is also 
 a masterly production in its kind, faithful and spirited. 
 Among his smaller pieces there are occasional bursts of pathos 35 
 and fancy, equal to what we might expect from him; but 
 these form the exception, and not the rule. Such, for in- 
 stance, is his affecting Sonnet to the author of the Robbers. 
 
244 CRITICISM 
 
 "Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, 
 If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
 That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry — 
 5 That in no after-moment aught less vast 
 
 Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout 
 Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout 
 From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. 
 "Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! 
 10 > Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, 
 
 Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye. 
 
 Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! 
 Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, 
 Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy." 
 
 15 His Tragedy, entitled Remorse, is full of beautiful and 
 striking passages; but it does not place the author in the 
 first rank of dramatic writers. But if Mr. Coleridge's works 
 do not place him in that rank, they injure instead of conveying 
 a just idea of the man; for he himself is certainly in the first 
 
 20 class of general intellect. 
 
 If our author's poetry is inferior to his conversation, his 
 prose is utterly abortive. Hardly a gleam is to be found in 
 it of the brilliancy and richness of those stores of thought 
 and language that he pours out incessantly, when they are 
 
 25 lost like drops of water in the ground. The principal work, 
 in which he has attempted to embody his general views of 
 things, is the Friend, of which, though it contains some 
 noble passages and fine trains of thought, prolixity and ob- 
 scurity are the most frequent characteristics. 
 
 30 No two persons can be conceived more than opposite in 
 character or genius than the subject of the present and of 
 the preceding sketch. Mr. Godwin, with less natural ca- 
 pacity and with fewer acquired advantages, by concentrating 
 his mind on some given object, and doing what he had to do 
 
 35 with all his might, has accomplished much, and will leave more 
 than one monument of a powerful intellect behind him; Mr. 
 Coleridge, by dissipating his, and dallying with every subject 
 by turns, has done little or nothing to justify to the world or 
 to posterity the high opinion which all who have ever hear 
 
 40 him converse, or known him intimately, with one accord 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 245 
 
 entertain of him. Mr. Godwin's faculties have kept at home, 
 and plied their task in the workshop of the brain, diligently 
 and effectually: Mr. Coleridge's have gossiped away their 
 time, and gadded about from house to house, as if life's 
 business were to melt the hours in listless talk. Mr. Godwin 5 
 is intent on a subject, only as it concerns himself and his repu- 
 tation; he works it out as a matter of duty, and discards from 
 his mind whatever does not forward his main object as im- 
 pertinent and vain. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, delights in nothing but 10 
 episodes and digressions, neglects whatever he undertakes to 
 perform, and can act only on spontaneous impulses without 
 object or method. ''He cannot be constrained by mas- 
 tery." While he should be occupied with a g'ven pursuit, he 
 is thinking of a thousand other things: a thousand tastes, a 15 
 thousand objects tempt him, and distract his mind, which 
 keeps open house, and entertains all comers; and after being 
 fatigued and amused with morning calls from idle visitors, he 
 finds the day consumed and its business unconcluded. Mr. 
 Godwin, on the contrary, is somewhat exclusive and unsocial 20 
 in his habits of mind, entertains no company but what he 
 gives his whole time and attention to, and wisely writes over 
 the doors of his understanding, his fancy, and his senses — 
 ''No admittance except on business." He has none of that^ 
 fastidious refinement and false dehcacy which might lead him 25 
 to balance between the endless variety of modern attain- 
 ments. He does not throw away his life (nor a single half 
 hour of it) in adjusting the claims of different accomplish- 
 ments, and in choosing between them or making himself 
 master of them all. He sets about his task (whatever it may 30 
 be), and goes through it with spirit and fortitude. He has the 
 happiness to think an author the greatest character in the 
 world, and himself the greatest author in it. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, in wi-iting an harmonious stanza, would stop 
 to consider whether there was not more grace and beauty in 35 
 a Pas de trois, and would not proceed till he had resolved this 
 question by a chain of metaphysical reasoning without end. 
 Not so Mr. Godwin. That is .best to him, which he can do 
 
246 CRITICISM 
 
 best. He does not waste himself in vain aspirations and 
 effeminate sympathies. He is bhnd, deaf, insensible, to all 
 but the trump of Fame. Plays, operas, painting, music, ball- 
 rooms, wealth, fashion, titles, lords, ladies, touch him not. 
 
 5 A.11 these are no more to him than to the magician in his cell, 
 and he writes on to the end of the chapter through good report 
 and evil report. Pingo in eternitatem is his motto. He 
 neither envies nor admires what others are, but is contented 
 to be what he is, and strives to do the utmost he can. Mr. 
 
 10 Coleridge has flirted with the Muses as with a set of mistresses: 
 Mr. Godwin has been married twice, to Reason and to Fancy, 
 and has to boast no short-lived progeny by each. 
 
 So to speak, he has valves belonging to his mind, to regulate 
 the quantity of gas admitted into it, so that like the bare. 
 
 15 unsightly, but well-compacted steam- vessel, it cuts its liquid 
 way, and arrives at its promised end: while Mr. Coleridge's 
 bark, "taught with the little nautilus to sail," the sport of 
 every breath, dancing to every wave, 
 
 "Youth at its prow, and Pleasure at its helm," 
 
 20 flutters its gaudy pennons in the air, glitters in the sun, but 
 we wait in vain to hear of its arrival in the destined harbour. 
 Mr. Godwin, with less variety and vividness, with less subt- 
 lety and susceptibility both of thought and feeling, has had 
 firmer nerves, a more determined purpose, a more com- 
 
 25 prehensive grasp of his subject; and the results are as we find 
 them. Each has met with his reward: for justice has, after 
 all, been done to the pretensions of each ; and we must, in all 
 cases, use means to ends! 
 
 It was a misfortune to any man of talent to be born in the 
 
 30 latter end of the last century. Genius stopped the way of 
 Legitimacy, and therefore it was to be abated, crushed, or 
 set aside as a nuisance. The spirit of the monarchy was at 
 variance with the spirit of the age. The flame of liberty, the 
 light of intellect, was to be extinguished with the sword — or 
 
 35 with slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword. The war 
 between power and reason was carried on by the first of these 
 abroad, by the last at home. No quarter was given (then or 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 247 
 
 now) by the Government-critics, the authorized censors of the 
 press, to those who followed the dictates of independence, who 
 listened to the. voice of the tempter Fancy. Instead of gath- 
 ering fruits and flowers, immortal fruits and amaranthine 
 flowers, they soon found themselves beset not only by a host 5 
 of prejudices, but assailed with all the engines of power; 
 by nicknames, by lies, by all the arts of malice, interest and 
 hypocrisy, without the possibility of their defending them- 
 selves "from the pelting of the pitiless storm." that poured 
 down upon them from the strongholds of corruption and 10 
 authority. 
 
 The philosophers, the dry abstract reasoners, submitted 
 to this reverse pretty well, and armed themselves with 
 patience "as with triple steel," to bear discomfiture, perse- 
 cution, and disgrace. But the poets, the creatures of sym- 15 
 pathy, could not stand the frowns both of king and people. 
 They did not like to be shut out when places and pensions, 
 when the critic's praises, and the laurel wreath were about to 
 be distributed, They did not stomach being sent to Coventnj, 
 and Mr. Coleridge sounded a retreat for them by the help of 20 
 casuistry and a musical voice. — "His words were hollow, 
 but they pleased the ear" of his friends of the Lake School, 
 who turned back disgusted and panic-struck from the dry 
 desert of unpopularity, like Hassan the camel-driver, 
 
 "And curs'd the hour, and curs'd the luckless day, 25 
 
 When first from Shiraz' walls they bent their way." 
 
 They are safely inclosed there. But Mr. Coleridge did 
 not enter with them; pitching his tent upon the barren waste 
 without, and having no abiding place nor city of refuge! 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth's genius is a pure emanation of the 
 Spirit of the Age. Had he hved in any other period of the 
 world, he would never have been heard of. As it is, he has 
 some difficulty to contend with the hebetude of his intellect 
 5 and the meanness of his subject. With him "lowliness is 
 young ambition's ladder:" but he finds it a toil to climb in this 
 way the steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise 
 her wing from the ground, nor spread her hidden glories to 
 the sun. He has "no figures nor no fantasies which busy 
 
 10 passion draws in the brains of men:" neither the gorgeous 
 machinery of mythologic lore, nor the splendid colours of 
 poetic diction. His style is vernacular: he delivers household 
 truths. He sees nothing loftier than human hopes, nothing 
 deeper than the human heart. This he probes, this he 
 
 15 tampers with, this he poises, with all its incalculable weight 
 of thought and feeling, in his hands, and at the same time 
 calms the throbbing pulses of his own heart by keeping his 
 eye ever fixed on the face of nature. If he can make the life- 
 blood flow from the wounded breast, this is the hving colour- 
 
 20 ing with which he paints his verse: if he can assuage the pain 
 or close up the wound with the balm of solitary musing, or the 
 healing power of plants and herbs and "skyey influences," 
 this is the sole triumph of his art. He takes the simplest 
 elements of nature and of the human mind, the mere abstract 
 
 25 conditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound 
 a new system of poetry from them; and has perhaps succeeded 
 as weU as anyone could. "Nihil humani a me alienum puto^' 
 — is the motto of his works. He thinks nothing low or indiffer- 
 ent of which this can be affirmed: everything that professes 
 
 30 to be more than this, that is not an absolute essence of truth 
 and feeling, he holds to be vitiated, false, and spurious. In 
 
 24§ 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 249 
 
 a word, his poetry is founded on setting up an opposition 
 (and pushing it to the utmost length) between the natural 
 and the artificial, between the spirit of humanity and the 
 spirit of fashion and of the world. 
 
 It is one of the innovations of the time. It partakes of, 5 
 and is carried along with, the revolutionary movement of 
 our age: the political changes of the day were the model on 
 which he formed and conducted his poetical experiments. 
 His Muse (it cannot be denied, and without this we cannot 
 explain its character at all) is a levelling one. It proceeds on 10 
 a principle of equality, and strives to reduce all things to the 
 same standard. It is distinguished by a proud humility. It 
 relies upon its own resources, and disdains external show and 
 relief. It takes the commonest events and objects, as a test 
 to prove that nature is always interesting from its inherent 15 
 truth and beauty, without any of the ornaments of dress or 
 pomp of circumstances to set it off. Hence the unaccountable 
 mixture of seeming simplicity and real abstruseness in the 
 Lijrical Ballads. Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely 
 understand, them. He takes a subject or a story merely as 20 
 pegs or loops to hang thought and feehng on; the incidents 
 are trifling, in proportion to his contempt for imposing ap- 
 pearances; the reflections are profound, according to the 
 gravity and aspiring pretensions of his mind. 
 
 His popular, inartificial style gets rid (at a blow) of all the 25 
 trappings of verse, of all the high places of poetry: "the 
 cloud-capt towers, the solemn temples, the gorgeous palaces, " 
 are swept to the ground, and ''like the baseless fabric of a 
 vision, leave not a wreck behind." All the traditions of 
 learning, all the superstitions of age, are obliterated and 30 
 effaced. We begin de novo on a tabula rasa of poetry. The 
 purple pall, the nodding plume of tragedy are exploded as 
 mere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of 
 truth and nature. Kings, queens, priests, nobles, the altar 
 and the throne, the distinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power, 35 
 "the judge's robe, the marshal's truncheon, the ceremony that 
 to great ones 'longs," are not to be found here. The author 
 tramples on the pride of art with greater pride. The Ode and 
 
250 CRITICISM 
 
 Epode, the Strophe and the Antistrophe, he laughs to scorn. 
 The harp of Homer, the trump of Pindar and of Alcaeus, are 
 still. The decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity are 
 stripped off without mercy as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. 
 
 5 The jewels in the crisped hair, the diadem on the pohshed 
 brow, are thought meretricious, theatrical, vulgar; and 
 nothing contents his fastidious taste beyond a simple garland 
 of flowers. Neither does he avail himself of the advantages 
 which nature or accident holds out to him. He chooses to 
 
 10 have his subject a foil to his invention, to owe nothing but to 
 himself. 
 
 He gathers manna in the wilderness; he strikes the barren 
 rock for the gushing moisture. He elevates the mean by the 
 strength of his own aspirations; he clothes the naked with 
 
 15 beauty and grandeur from the stores of his own recollections. 
 No cypress grove loads his verse with funeral pomp : but his 
 imagination lends "a sense of joy 
 
 "To the bare trees and mountains bare, 
 And grass in the green field." 
 
 20 No storm, no shipwreck startles us by its horrors: but the 
 rainbow lifts its head in the cloud, and the breeze sighs through 
 the withered fern. No sad vicissitude of fate, no overwhelm- 
 ing catastrophe in nature deforms his page: but the dew-drop 
 glitters on the bending flower, the tear collects in the glisten- 
 
 25 ing eye. 
 
 "Beneath the hills, along the flowery vales, 
 The generations are prepared; the pangs, 
 The internal pangs are ready; the dread strife 
 Of poor humanity's afflicted will, 
 30 Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny. " 
 
 As the lark ascends from its low bed on fluttering wing, and 
 salutes the morning skies, so Mr. Wordsworth's unpretending 
 Muse in russet guise scales the summits of reflection, while it 
 makes the round earth its footstool and its home! 
 35 Possibly a good deal of this may be regarded as the effect 
 of disappointed views and an inverted ambition. Prevented 
 by native pride and indolence from climbing the ascent of 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 251 
 
 learning or greatness, taught by political opinions to say to 
 the vain pomp and glory of the world, ''I hate ye," seeing 
 the path of classical and artificial poetry blocked up by the 
 cumbrous ornaments of style and turgid commonplaces, so 
 that nothing more could be achieved in that direction but 5 
 by the most ridiculous bombast or the tamest servility, he has 
 turned back, partly from the bias of his mind, partly perhaps 
 from a judicious policy — has struck into the sequestered 
 vale of humble life, sought out the Muse among sheep-cotes, 
 and hamlets, and the peasant's mountain-haunts, has dis- 10 
 carded all the tinsel pageantry of verse, and endeavoured 
 (not in vain) to aggrandise the trivial, and add the charm of 
 novelty to the familiar. No one has shown the same imagi- 
 nation in raising trifles into importance: no one has displayed 
 the same pathos in treating of the simplest feeHngs of the 15 
 heart. Reserved, yet haughty, having no unruly or violent 
 passions (or those passions having been early suppressed), 
 Mr. Wordsworth has passed his life in solitary musing or in 
 daily converse with the face of nature. He exemplifies in an 
 eminent degree the power of association; for his poetry has 20 
 no other source or character. He has dwelt among pastoral 
 scenes, till each object has become connected with a thousand 
 feelings, a link in the chain of thought, a fibre of his own 
 heart. Everyone is by habit and familiarity strongly at- 
 tached to the place of his birth, or to objects that recall the 25 
 most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life. 
 
 But to the author of the Lyrical Ballads nature is a kind of 
 home; and he may be said to take a personal interest in the 
 universe. There is no image so insignificant that it has not in 
 some mood or other found the way into his heart : no sound 30 
 that. does not awaken the memory of other years. 
 
 "To him the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 The daisy looks up to him with sparkling eye as an old ac- 
 quaintance: the cuckoo haunts him with sounds of early youth 35 
 not to be expressed: a linnet's nest startles him with boyish 
 dehght: an old withered thorn is weighed down with a heap 
 
252 CRITICISM 
 
 of recollections: a grey cloak, seen on some wild moor, torn 
 by the wind or drenched in the rain, afterwards becomes an 
 object of imagination to him: even the lichens on the rock 
 have a life and being in his thoughts. He has described all 
 
 5 these objects in a way and with an intensity of feeling that no 
 one else had done before him, and has given a new view or as- 
 pect of nature. He is in this sense the most original poet now 
 living, and the one whose writings could the least be spared: 
 for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar do not 
 
 10 read them; the learned, who see all things through books, do 
 not understand them; the great despise. The fashionable 
 may ridicule them: but the author has created himself an 
 interest in the heart of the retired and lonely student of 
 nature, which can never die. 
 
 15 Persons of this class will still continue to feel what he has 
 felt: he has expressed what they might in vain wish to ex- 
 press, except with glistening eye and faltering tongue! There 
 is a lofty, philosophic tone, a thoughtful humanity, infused 
 into his pastoral vein. Remote from the passions and events 
 
 20 of the great world, he has communicated interest and dignity 
 to the primal movements of the heart of man, and ingrafted 
 his own conscious reflections on the casual thoughts of hinds 
 and shepherds. Nursed amidst the grandeur of mountain 
 scenery, he has stooped to have a nearer view of the daisy 
 
 25 under his feet, or plucked a branch of white-thorn from the 
 spray: but, in describing it, his mind seems imbued with the 
 majesty and solemnity of the objects around him. The tall 
 rock lifts its head in the erectness of his spirit; the cataract 
 roars in the sound of his verse; and in its dim and mysterious 
 
 30 meaning the mists seem to gather in the hollows of Helvellyn, 
 and the forked Skiddaw hovers in the distance. There is 
 little mention of mountainous scenery in Mr. Wordsworth's 
 poetry; but by internal evidence one might be almost sure 
 that it was written in a mountainous country, from its bare- 
 
 35ness, its simplicity, its loftiness, and its depth! 
 
 His later philosophic productions have a somewhat differ- 
 ent character. They are a departure from, a dereliction of, 
 his first principles. They are classical and courtly. They 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 253 
 
 are polished in style without being gaudy, dignified in subject 
 without affectation. They seem to have been composed not 
 in a cottage at Grasmere, but among the half-inspired groves 
 and stately recollections of Cole-Orton. We might allude 
 in particular, for examples of what we mean, to the lines on a 5 
 Picture by Claude Lorraine and to the exquisite poem, en- 
 titled Laodamia. The last of these breathes the pure spirit 
 of the finest fragments of antiquity — the sweetness, the 
 gravity, the strength, the beauty and the languor of death — 
 
 "Calm contemplation and majestic pains." 10 
 
 Its glossy brilliancy arises from the perfection of the finishing 
 like that of a careful sculpture, not from gaudy colouring. 
 The texture of the thoughts has the smoothness and solidity 
 of marble. It is a poem that might be read aloud in Elysium, 
 and the spirits of departed heroes and sages would gather 15 
 round to listen to it! 
 
 Mr., Wordsworth's philosophic poetry, with a less glowing 
 aspect and less tumult in the veins than Lord Byron's on 
 similar occasions, bends a calmer and keener eye on mor- 
 tality; the impression, if less vivid, is more pleasing and 20 
 permanent; and we confess it (perhaps it is a want of taste 
 and proper feeling) that there are lines and poems of our 
 author's, that we think of ten times for once that we recur to 
 any of Lord Byron's. Or if there are any of the latter's writ- 
 ings that we can dwell upon in the same way, that is, as 25 
 lasting and heart-felt sentiments, it is when laying aside his 
 usual pomp and pretension, he descends with Mr. Words- 
 worth to the common ground of a disinterested humanity. 
 It may be considered as characteristic of our poet's writings, 
 that they either make no impression on the mind at all, seem 30 
 mere nonsense-verses, or that they leave a mark behind them 
 that never wears out. They either 
 
 "Fall blunted from the indurated breast," 
 
 without any perceptible result, or they absorb it like a passion. 
 To one class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and 35 
 we fear the largest) ridiculous. He has probably realised 
 
254 CRITICISM 
 
 Milton's wish, — "and fit audience found, though few:" but 
 we suspect he is not reconciled to the alternative. 
 
 There are delightful passages in The Excursion, both of 
 natural description and of inspired reflection (passages of the 
 5 latter kind that in the sound of the thoughts and of the 
 swelling language resemble heavenly symphonies, mournful 
 requiems over the grave of human hopes); but we must add, 
 in justice and in sincerity, that we think it impossible that this 
 work should ever become popular, even in the same degree 
 
 10 as the Lyrical Ballads. It affects a system without having 
 any inteUigible clue to one, and, instead of unfolding a prin- 
 ciple in various and striking lights, repeats the same conclu- 
 sions till they become flat and insipid. Mr. Wordsworth's 
 mind is obtuse, except as it is the organ and the receptacle of 
 
 15 accumulated feelings; it is not analytic, but synthetic; it is 
 reflecting, rather than theoretical. The Excursion, we believe, 
 fell still-born from the press. There was something abortive, 
 and clumsy, and ill-judged in the attempt. It was long and 
 laboured. The personages, for the most part, were low, the 
 
 20 fare rustic; the plan raised expectations which were not ful- 
 filled, and the effect was like being ushered into a stately hall 
 and invited to sit down to a splendid banquet in the company 
 of clowns, and with nothing but successive courses of apple- 
 dumplings served up. It was not even toujours perdrix! 
 
 25 Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle size, 
 with marked features and an air somewhat stately and quix- 
 otic. He reminds one of some of Holbein's heads: grave, 
 saturnine, with a slight indication of sly humour, kept under 
 by the manners of the age or by the pretensions of the person. 
 
 30 He has a peculiar sweetness in his smile, and great depth and 
 manliness and a rugged harmony in the tones of his voice. 
 His manner of reading his own poetry is particularly imposing; 
 and in his favourite passages his eye beams with preternatural 
 lustre, and the meaning labours slowly up from his swelling 
 
 35 breast. No one who has seen him at these moments could go 
 away with an impression that he was a "man of no mark or 
 likelihood." Perhaps the comment of his face and voice is 
 necessary to convey a full idea of his poetry. His language 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 255 
 
 may not be intelligible; but his manner is not to be mistaken. 
 It is clear that he is either mad or inspired. In company, 
 even in a tete-d-lete, Mr. Wordsworth is often silent, indolent, 
 and reserved. If he is become verbose and oracular of late 
 years, he was not so in his better days. He threw out a bold 5 
 or an indifferent remark without either effort or pretension, 
 and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because he 
 seemed most roused and animated) in reciting his own poetry, 
 or in talking about it. He sometimes gave striking views of 
 his feelings and trains of association in composing certain 10 
 passages; or if one did not always understand his distinctions, 
 still there was no want of interest: there was a latent meaning 
 worth inquiring into, like a vein of ore that one cannot exactly 
 hit upon at the moment, but of which there are sure indi- 
 cations. His standard of poetry is high and severe, almost 15 
 to exclusiveness. He admits of nothing below, scarcely of 
 anything above, himself. It is fine to hear him talk of the 
 way in which certain subjects should have been treated by 
 eminent poets, according to his notions of the art. Thus he 
 finds fault with Dryden's description of Bacchus in the Alex-20 
 ander's Feast, as if he were a mere good-looking youth or 
 boon companion — 
 
 "Flushed with a purple grace, 
 He shows his honest face" — 
 
 instead of representing the god returning from the conquest 25 
 of India, crowned with vine-leaves and drawn by panthers, 
 and followed by troops of satyrs, of wild men and animals 
 that he had tamed. You would think, in hearing him speak 
 on this subject, that you saw Titian's picture of the meeting 
 of Bacchus and Ariadne — so classic were his conceptions, so 30 
 glowing his style. 
 
 Milton is his great idol, and he sometimes dares to compare 
 himself with him. His Sonnets, indeed, have something of 
 the same high-raised tone and prophetic spirit. Chaucer is 
 another prime favourite of his, and he has been at the pains to 35 
 modernize some of the Canterbury Tales. Those persons 
 who look upon Mr. Wordsworth as a merely puerile writer, 
 
256 CRITICISM 
 
 must be rather at a loss to account for his strong predilection 
 for such geniuses as Dante and Michael Angelo. We do not 
 think our author has any very cordial sympathy with Shake- 
 speare. How should he? Shakespeare was the least of an 
 
 6 egotist of anybody in the world. He does not much relish 
 the variety and scope of dramatic composition. '' He hates 
 those interlocutions between Lucius and Caius." Yet Mr. 
 Wordsworth himself wrote a tragedy when he was young; 
 and we have heard the following energetic lines quoted from 
 
 10 it, as put into the mouth of a person smit with remorse for 
 some rash crime: 
 
 " Action is momentary, 
 
 The motion of a muscle this way or that; 
 Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite!" 
 
 15 Perhaps for want of light and shade, and the unshacklfed 
 spirit of the drama, this performance was never brought 
 forward. Our critic has a great dislike to Gray, and a fond- 
 ness for Thomson and Collins. It is mortifying to hear him 
 speak of Pope and Dryden whom, because they have been 
 
 20 supposed to have all the possible excellences of poetry, he will 
 allow to have none. 
 
 Nothing, however, can be fairer, or more amusing than the 
 way in which he sometimes exposes the unmeaning verbiage of 
 modern poetry. Thus in the beginning of Dr. Johnson's 
 
 25 Vanity of Human Wishes — 
 
 "Let observation with extensive view 
 Survey mankind from China to Peru" — 
 
 he says there is a total want of imagination accompanying 
 the words; the same idea is repeated three times under the 
 30 disguise of a different phraseology. It comes to this: "let 
 observation with extensive observation observe mankind;" 
 or take away the first line, and the second, 
 
 "Survey mankind from China to Peru," 
 
 literally conveys the whole. Mr. Wordsworth is, we must 
 
 35 say, a perfect Drawcansir as to prose writers. He complains 
 
 of the dry reasoners and matter-of-fact people for their want 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 257 
 
 of passion; and he is jealous of the rhetorical declaimers and 
 rhapsodists as trenching on the province of poetry. He 
 condemns all French writers (as well of poetry as prose) in the 
 lump. His list in this way is indeed small. He approves of 
 Walton's Angler, Paley, and some other writers of an inoffen- 5 
 sive modesty of pretension. He also likes books of voyages 
 and travels, and Robinson Crusoe. In art, he greatly esteems 
 Bewick's woodcuts and Waterloo's sylvan etchings. But he 
 sometimes takes a higher tone, and gives his mind fair play. 
 We have known him enlarge with a noble intelligence and 10 
 enthusiasm on Nicolas Poussin's fine landscape compositions, 
 pointing out the unity of design that pervades them, the super- 
 mtending mind, the imaginative principle that brings all 
 to bear on the same end; and declaring he would not give a 
 rush for any landscape that did not express the time of day, 15 
 the climate, the period of the world it was meant to illustrate, 
 or had not this character of wholeness in it. 
 
 His eye also does justice to Rembrandt's fine and masterly 
 effects. In the way in which that artist works something out 
 of nothing, and transforms the stump of a tree, a common 20 
 figure, into an ideal object by the gorgeous light and shade 
 thrown upon it, he perceives an analogy to his own mode of 
 investing the minute details of nature with an atmosphere of 
 sentiment, and in pronouncing Rembrandt to be a man of 
 genius, feels that he strengthens his own claim to the title. 25 
 It has been said of Mr. Wordsworth, that ''he hates con- 
 chology, that he hates the Venus of Medici." But these, we 
 hope, are mere epigrams and jeux d'esprit, as far from truth 
 as they are free from malice: a sort of rurming satire or 
 critical clenches — 30 
 
 "Where one for sense and one for rhyme 
 Is quite sufficient at one time." 
 
 Ws think, however, that if Mr. Wordsworth had been a 
 more liberal and candid critic, he would have been a more 
 sterling writer. If a greater number of sources of pleasure had 35 
 been open to him, he would have communicated pleasure to 
 the world more frequently. Had he been less fastidious in 
 
258 CRITICISM 
 
 pronouncing sentence on the works of others, his own would 
 have been received more favourably, and treated more le- 
 niently. The current of liis feelings is deep, but narrow; the 
 range of his understanding is lofty and aspiring rather than 
 5 discursive. The force, the originality, the absolute truth 
 and identity, with which he feels some things, makes him in- 
 different to so many others. The simplicity and enthusiasm 
 of his feelings, with respect to nature, render him bigoted and 
 intolerant in his judgments of men and things. But it hap- 
 
 10 pens to him, as to others, that his strength lies in his weakness; 
 and perhaps we have no right to complain. We might get 
 rid of the cynic and the egotist, and find in his stead a com- 
 monplace man. We should "take the good the gods pro- 
 vide us:" a fine and original vein of poetry is not one of their 
 
 15 most contemptible gifts; and the rest is scarcely worth think- 
 ing of, except as it may be a mortification to those who expect 
 perfection from human nature, or who have been idb enough 
 at some period of their hves to deify men of genius as pos- 
 sessing claims above it. But this is a chord that jars, and 
 
 20 we shall not dwell upon it. 
 
 Lord Byron we have called, according to the old proverb, 
 *'the spoiled child of fortune:" Mr. Wordsworth might plead, 
 in mitigation of some peculiarities, that he is "the spoiled 
 child of disappointment." We are convinced, if he had been 
 
 25 early a popular poet, he would have borne his honours meekly, 
 and would have been a person of great bonhomie and frank- 
 ness of disposition. But the sense of injustice and of unde- 
 served ridicule sours the temper and narrows the views. 
 To have produced works of genius, and to find them neglected 
 
 30 or treated with scorn, is one of the heaviest trials of human 
 patience. We exaggerate our own merits when they are 
 denied by others, and are apt to grudge and cavil at every 
 particle of praise bestowed on those to whom we feel a conscious 
 superiority. In mere self-defense we turn against the world 
 
 35 when it turns against us, brood over the undeserved slights 
 we receive; and thus the genial current of the soul is stopped, 
 or vents itself in effusions of petulance and self-conceit. 
 Mr. Wordsworth has thought too much of contemporary 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 259 
 
 critics and criticism, and less than he ought of the award 
 of posterity and of the opinion, we do not say of private 
 friends, but of those who were made so by their admiration 
 of his genius. 
 
 He did not court popularity by a conformity to established 5 
 models, and he ought not to have been surprised that his 
 originahty was not understood as a matter of course. He has 
 gnawed too much on the bridle, and has often thrown out 
 crusts to the critics, in mere defiance or as a point of honour 
 when he was challenged, which otherwise his own good sense 10 
 would have withheld. We suspect that Mr. Wordsworth's 
 feelings are a Httle morbid in this respect, or that he resents 
 censure more than he is gratified by praise. Otherwise, the 
 tide has turned much in his favour of late years. He has a 
 large body of determined partisans, and is at present suffi- 15 
 ciently in request with the pubhc to save or reUeve him from 
 the last necessity to which a man of genius can be reduced — 
 that of becoming the God of his own idolatry! 
 
HAMLET 
 
 This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of in our 
 youth, and whom we may be said ahnost to remember in our 
 after years; he who made that famous sohloquy on life, who 
 gave the advice to the players, who thought "this goodly 
 5 frame, the earth, a steril promontory, and this brave o'er- 
 hanging firmanent, the an-, this majestical roof fretted with 
 golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours;" 
 whom "man delighted not, nor woman neither;" he who 
 talked with the grave-diggers, and moralised on Yorick's 
 
 10 skull; the school-fellow of Rosencrans and Guildenstern at 
 Wittenberg; the friend of Horatio; the lover of Ophelia; 
 he that was mad and sent to England; the slow avenger of 
 his father's death; who Hved at the court of Horwendillus 
 five hundred years before we were born, but all whose 
 
 15 thoughts we seem to know as well as we do our own, because 
 we have read them in Shakespeare. 
 
 Hamlet is a name; his speeches and saymgs but the idle 
 coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are they not real? 
 They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the 
 
 20 reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a 
 prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever 
 has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own 
 mishaps or those of others; whoever has borne about with 
 him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself 
 
 25 "too much i' th' sun;" whoever has seen the golden lamp of 
 day dunmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, and 
 could find in the world before him only a dull blank with 
 nothing left remarkable in it; whoever has known "the pangs 
 of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spiu-ns which 
 
 30 patient merit of the unworthy takes;" he who has felt his 
 mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a 
 malady, who has had his hopes blighted and his youth stag- 
 gered by the apparitions of strange things; who cannot be 
 
 260 
 
HAMLET 261 
 
 well at ease, while he sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; 
 whose powers of action have been eaten up by thought, he to 
 whom the universe seems infinite, and himself nothing; whose 
 bitterness of soul makes him careless of consequences, and 
 who goes to a play as his best resource to shove off, to a 5 
 second remove, the evils of life by a mock representation of 
 them — this is the true. Hamlet. 
 
 We have been so used to this tragedy that we hardly know 
 how to criticise it any more than we should know how to de- 
 scribe our own faces. But we must make such observations as 10 
 we can. It is one of Shakespeare's plays that we think of 
 the oftenest, because it abounds most in striking reflections on 
 human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are trans- 
 ferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of 
 humanity. Whatever happens to him we apply to ourselves, 15 
 because he applies it to himself as a means of general reason- 
 ing. He is a great moraliser; and what makes him worth 
 attending to is, that he moralises on his own feelings and 
 experience. He is not a commonplace pedant. If Lear 
 shews the greatest depth of passion, Hamlet is the most 20 
 remarkable for the ingenuity, originality, and unstudied 
 development of character. Shakespeare had more magna- 
 nimity than any other poet, and he has shown more of it in 
 this play than in any other. There is no attempt to force 
 an interest: everything is left for time and circumstances to 25 
 unfold. The attention is excited without effort, the incidents 
 succeed each other as matters of course, the characters think 
 and speak and act just as they might do, if left entirely to 
 themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point. 
 The observations are suggested by the passing scene — the 30 
 gusts of passion come and go hke sounds of music borne on 
 the wind. The whole play is an exact transcript of what 
 might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Den- 
 mark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before the mod- 
 ern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. It 35 
 would have been interesting enough to have been admitted 
 as a by-stander in such a scene, at such a time, to have heard 
 and seen something of what was going on. But here we are 
 
262 CRITICISM 
 
 more than spectators. We have not only "the outward 
 pageants and the signs of grief;" but "we have that within 
 which passes show." We read the thoughts of the heart, 
 we catch the passions Hving as they rise. Other dramatic 
 5 writers give us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature: 
 but Shakespeare, together with his own comments, gives us 
 the original text, that we may judge for ourselves. This is a 
 very great advantage. 
 
 The character of Hamlet stands quite by itself. It is 
 10 not a character marked by strength of will or even of 
 passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Ham- 
 let is as httle of the hero as a man can well be: but he is a 
 young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick 
 sensibility — the sport of circumstances, questioning with 
 15 fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from the 
 natural bias of his disposition by the strangeness of his 
 situation. He seems incapable of deliberate action, and is 
 only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, 
 when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills 
 20 Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters which Rosen- 
 crans and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, 
 purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound 
 to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, dallies 
 with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and always finds 
 25 some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness 
 again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he 
 is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in 
 truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, defers his 
 revenge to some more fatal opportunity, when he shall be 
 30 engaged in some act ''that has no relish of salvation in it." 
 '■ He kneels and prays, 
 And now I'll do 't, and so he goes to heaven, 
 And so am I reveng'd: that would he scanned. 
 He kill'd my father, and for that, 
 35 I, his sole son, send him to heaven. 
 
 Why this is reward, not revenge. 
 Up sword and know thou a more horrid time, 
 When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage." 
 
 He is the prince of philosophical speculators, and because he 
 
HAMLET 263 
 
 cannot have his revenge perfect, according to the most re- 
 fined idea his wish can form, he misses it altogether. So he 
 scruples to trust the suggestions of the Ghost, contrives the 
 scene of the play to have surer proof of his uncle's guilt, and 
 then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions, and 5 
 the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet 
 he is sensible of his owti weakness, taxes himself with it, and 
 tries to reason himself out of it. 
 
 ''How all occasions do inform against me. 
 And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, 10 
 
 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 15 
 
 To rust in us unus'd: now whether it be 
 Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
 Of thinking too precisely on th' event, — 
 A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, 
 And ever three parts coward; — I do not know 20 
 
 Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do; 
 Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means 
 To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me: 
 Witness this army of such mass and charge. 
 Led by a delicate and tender prince, 25 
 
 Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd, 
 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. 'Tis not to be great, 30 
 
 Never 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, 35 
 
 And let all sleep, while to my shame I see 
 The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
 That fantasy and trick of fame. 
 Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot 
 Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 40 
 
 Which is not tomb enough and continent 
 To hide the slain? — O. from this time forth, 
 My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth." 
 
 Still he does nothing; and this very speculation on his own in- 
 
264 CRITICISM 
 
 firmity only affords him another occasion for indulging it. It 
 is not for any want of attachnient to his father or abhorrence 
 of his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to 
 his taste to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the 
 5 enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, 
 than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion 
 is to think, not to act: and any vague pretence that flatters 
 this propensity instantly diverts him from his previous pur- 
 poses. 
 
 10 The moral perfection of this character has been called in 
 question, we think, by those who did not understand it. It 
 is more interesting than according to rules: amiable, though 
 not faultless. The ethical delineations of ''that noble and 
 liberal casuist" (as Shakespeare has been well called) do not 
 
 15 exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays 
 are not copied either from the Whole Duty of Man or from 
 The Academy of Compliments! We confess, we are a little 
 shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked 
 at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The want of punc- 
 
 20 tilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the 
 "license of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of 
 intellectual refinement in the character which makes the 
 common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose 
 upon him. He may be said to be amenable only to the 
 
 25 tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too much taken up with 
 the airy world of contemplation to lay as much stress as he 
 ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual 
 principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the 
 time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his cir- 
 
 30 cumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the 
 effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection 
 suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene 
 around him! Amidst the natural and preternatural horrors 
 of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy from carrying 
 
 35 on a regular courtship. When "his father's spirit was in 
 arms," it was not a time for the son to make love in. He 
 could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind by ex- 
 plaining the cause of his alienation, which he durst hardly 
 
HAMLET 265 
 
 trust himself to think of. It would have taken him years to 
 have come to a direct explanation on the point. In the 
 harassed state of his mind, he could not have done otherwise 
 than he did. His conduct does not contradict what he says 
 when he sees her funeral, 5 
 
 "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers 
 Could not with all their quantity of love 
 Make up my sum." 
 
 Nothing can be more affecting or beautiful than the Queen's 
 apostrophe to Ophelia on throwing the flowers into the grave. 10 
 
 "Sweets to the sweet, farewell. 
 I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife: 
 I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, 
 And not have strew'd thy grave." 
 
 Shakespeare was thoroughly a master of the mixed motives 15 
 of human character, and he here shews us the Queen, who was 
 so criminal in some respects, not without sensibility and 
 affection in other relations of life. — Ophelia is a character 
 almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon. rose 
 of May, flower too soon faded! Her love, her madness, her 20 
 death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and 
 pathos. It is a character which nobody but Shakespeare could 
 have drawn in the way that he has done, and to the concep- 
 tion of which there is not even the smallest approach, except 
 in some of the old romantic ballads.^ Her brother, Laertes, 25 
 is a character we do not like so well : he is too hot and choleric, 
 and somewhat rhodomontade. Polonius is a perfect charac- 
 ter in its kind; nor is there any foundation for the objections 
 which have been made to the consistency of this part. It is 
 said that he acts very foolishly and talks very sensibly. 30 
 There is no inconsistency in that. Again, that he talks wisely 
 at one time and foolishly at another; that his advice to Laertes 
 
 1 In the account of her death, a friend has pointed out an instance 
 of the poet's exact observation of nature: — 
 
 "There is a willow growing o'er a brook, 35 
 
 That shows its hoary leaves i' th' glassy stream." 
 The inside of the leaves of the willow, next the water, is of a whitish 
 colour, and the reflection would therefore be "hoary." 
 
266 CRITICISM 
 
 is very sensible, and his advice to the King and Queen on the 
 subject of Hamlet's madness very ridiculous. But he gives 
 the one as a father, and is sincere in it; he gives the other as a 
 mere courtier, a busy-body, and is accordingly officious, 
 5 garrulous, and impertinent. In short, Shakespeare has been 
 accused of inconsistency in this and other characters, only 
 because he has kept up the distinction which there is in 
 nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of 
 men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity 
 
 10 of their motives. Polonius is not a fool, but he makes him- 
 self so. His folly, whether in his actions or speeches, comes 
 under the head of impropriety of intention. 
 
 We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of 
 all, Hamlet. There is no play that suffers so much in being 
 
 15 transferred to the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly 
 capable of being acted. Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails in 
 this character from a want of ease and variety. The charac- 
 ter of Hamlet is made up of undulating lines; it has the yield- 
 ing flexibility of "a wave o' th' sea." Mr. Kemble plays it 
 
 20 like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy of pur- 
 pose, in one undeviating straight line, which is as remote 
 from the natural grace and refined susceptibility of the char- 
 acter, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts which Mr. Kean 
 introduces into the part. Mr. Kean's Hamlet is as much too 
 
 25 splenetic and rash as Mr. Kemble's is too deliberate and for- 
 mal. His manner is too strong and pointed. He throws a 
 severity, approaching to virulence, into the common obser- 
 vations and answers. There is nothing of this in Hamlet. 
 He is, as it were, wrapped up in his reflections, and only 
 
 SO thinks aloud. There should therefore be no attempt to 
 impress what he says upon others by a studied exaggeration 
 of emphasis or manner; no talking at his hearers. There 
 should be as much of the gentleman and scholar as possible 
 infused into the part, and as little of the actor. A pensive 
 
 35 air of sadness should sit reluctantly upon his brow, but no 
 appearance of fixed and sullen gloom. He is full of weakness 
 and melancholy, but there is no harshness in his nature. He 
 is the most amiable of misanthropes. 
 
NOTES 
 
 My First Acquaintance With Poets 
 
 The first essay in Winterslow, 1839. It appeared originally in The 
 Liberal in 1823, anjd was an expansion of a letter in The Examiner in 
 1817. 
 
 The essay is an account of his first awakening to poetry through 
 his acquaintance with Coleridge and Wordsworth. 
 
 1, 1. W — m. Wem, the "obscure village" mentioned later in 
 the essay. 
 
 1, 3. dreaded, name of Demogorgon. Paradise Lost, II, 964-965. 
 
 1, 19. proud Salopians. Compare Coriolanus, v, 6, 115-116. A 
 Salopian is an inhabitant of Salop, or Shropshire. 
 
 1, 23. Higli-born Hoel's harp. Gray, The Bard, 1, 28. 
 
 2, 5. With Styx. Pope, Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, 90-91. 
 
 2, 13. I owe to Coleridge. See O^i Reading Old Books, p. 29. 
 
 2, 17. Whitchurch. A town about nine miles north of Wem. 
 
 2, 21-24. like the fires in the Agamemnon of .ffilschylus. Lines 
 281-317 describe how the fire-beacons sent the news of Troy's fall 
 from Mount Ida to Argos. 
 
 2, 36. II ^ a des impressions. From Rousseau's Confessions. When 
 he read this book he was living "the happiest years of our life. . . . 
 There were indeed impressions which neither time nor circumstances 
 can efface." — On the Character of Rousseau, in The Round Table. 
 
 3, 4. his text. St. John, ^d, 15. 
 
 3, 6. rose like a steam. Comus, 556. 
 
 3, 12. One crying. ,S/. Matthew, iii, 3-4. 
 
 3, 24-25. as though he should never he old. Sidney, Arcadia, Bk. I. 
 
 3, 31. Such were the notes. Pope, Epistle to the Earl of Oxford, 1. 
 
 4, 6. Jus Divinum. Divine Law. 
 
 4, 7. Like to that sanguine flower. Lycidas, 106. 
 4, '20. As are the children. Thomson, Castle of Indolence, II, 
 xxiii, "Bright as the children of yon azure sheen." 
 4, 23-24. A certain tender bloom. Ibidem, I, vii. 
 
 4, 26. Murillo and Valesquez. Great Spanish painters, whose 
 dates are 1618-1682 and 1599-1660, respectively. 
 
 6, 1. somewhat fat and pursy. Hamlet, iii, 4, 153. 
 
 5, 13. Adam Smith. The celebrated author of The Wealth of 
 Nations, and founder of the science of political economy (1723-1790). 
 
 6, 19. judgment to come. Cf. Acts, xxiv, 25. 
 
 267 
 
268 NOTES 
 
 7, 1. Mary Wolstonecraft (1759-1797), the wife of William God- 
 win and the mother of Shelley's second wife. She is the author of a 
 pioneer work on woman's rights, Vindication of the Rights of Women, 
 1792. 
 
 7, 2. Mackintosh, Sir James (1765-1832), the author of one of the 
 many answers to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), 
 VindicioB Gallicce, 1791. 
 
 7, 20. Wedgwood (1771-1805), son of Josiah Wedgwood, the 
 famous potter. 
 
 7, 23. Godwin. William Godwin (1756-1836), the author of the 
 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1793. The contemporary im- 
 portance of the man and his books is presented by Hazlitt in The 
 Spirit of the Age. 
 
 8, 3. Holcroft. Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), an actor, drama- 
 tist, and novelist who enjoys a nebulous immortality in his play. The 
 Road to Ruin. Hazlitt edited his diaries, under the title The Memoirs 
 of Holcroft, 1816. 
 
 8, 21. Deva. The Latin form of Dee, the Welsh- river famed in 
 song. 
 
 8, 25. Hill of Parnassus. That is, he would be enabled to devote 
 himself to poetry. Parnassus was the Greek mount of poetry and 
 inspiration. 
 
 8, 25-26. Delectahle Mountains. In The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 9, 11. sounding. Hazlitt mistakes Chaucer here. The scholar is 
 represented not as "sounding on his way," but as "sowning in moral 
 vertu." "Sowning" means not "sounding in," but "tending to," or 
 "inclining toward." Perhaps Hazlitt has confused Chaucer and 
 Wordsworth, Excursion III, 71: "Went sounding on, a dim and 
 perilous way." 
 
 9, 23. Hume. David Hume (1711-1776), whose most famous 
 work is the Treatise on Human Nature, 1739-1740. 
 
 9, 21. South. Robert South (1634-1716), a celebrated English 
 divine, whose Sermons are a part of English prose. 
 
 9, 21-22. Credat Judaeus Apella. Horace, Satires, I, 5, 100, "Let 
 the Jew Apella believe it!" 
 
 9, 30. Berkeley. George Berkeley (1685-1753). His Essay on 
 Vision was published in 1709; the Theory of Matter and Spirit in 1733. 
 
 9, 34-35. " Thus I confute him." Boswell's Life of Johnson, under 
 the year 1763: "I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson 
 answered — striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone 
 till he rebounded from it — 'I refute it thus.'" 
 
 9,37. Tom Paine (1737-1809), author of The Rights of Man. 
 (1791-1792), one of the many replies to Burke's Reflections on the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 10, 4. Bishop Butler. Joseph Butler (1692-1752), an English 
 divine and philosopher, author of the celebrated Analogy of Religion^ 
 1736. The Sermons were published in 1726. 
 
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS 269 
 
 10, 16. Natural Disinterestedness. This treatise was Hazlitt's first 
 original publication, 1805, and developed the characteristic Revo- 
 lutionary thesis of the inherent excellence of the natural man. 
 
 11, 3. Paley. William Paley (1743-1805), a once popular phil- 
 osopher and theologian. The Moral and Political Philosophy was 
 published in 1785. 
 
 11,10-11. " Kind and affable." See Paradise Los^ VIII, 648-650. 
 
 11, 21. He lias somewhere told himself. In Biographia Literaria, 
 Chapter x. 
 
 11, 28. Vision of Judgment. The Vision of Judgment, by Southey, 
 a panegyric of George III, called forth the "other" Vision of Judg- 
 ment by Byron, which was published in Leigh Hunt's Liberal, 1822. 
 
 11, 30. Bridge-Street Junto. The Tory Quarterly Review was 
 published by Murray in Bridge Street, London. 
 
 12, 13-14. Ode on the Departing Year. Written in 1796. 
 
 12, 21. Tom Jones. Fielding's Toiu Jones, Book X, Chapter v. 
 
 12, 24. 'Paul and Virginia. By Bernardin de Sainte-Pierre, 1788. 
 
 13, 9. Camilla. By Fanny Burney, 1796. 
 
 13, 22. free use. A mistake. Wordsworth paid £23 a year for 
 the place. Mrs. Sandford, Tom Poole and his Friends, I, 225. 
 Hazlitt may have confused Alfoxden with Racedown, the previous 
 home of Wordsworth, which he had occupied rent-free. 
 
 13, 26. ''Scales that fence." The source of this quotation has 
 never been identified. 
 
 13, 29. Lyrical ^allads. Published in September, 1798, soon after 
 Hazlitt's visit. None of Wordsworth's poems existed in scattered 
 publications, i.e., in the form of Sybilline Leaves. Hazlitt here has 
 reference to Coleridge's use of the term to describe the widely scattered 
 nature of his publication of 1817 — the Syhilline Leaves. 
 
 13, 37. " hear the loud stag speak." The source of this quotation 
 has never been identified. 
 
 14, 19-23. Betty Fay, The Mad Mother, Complaint of a "Poor Indian 
 Woman. Poems by Wordsworth published in the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 14, 25. " In spite of pride." Pope, Essay on Man, I, 293. 
 14, 30. "While yet the trembling year." James Thomson, Spring, 
 18. 
 
 14, 34. Of Providence. Paradise Lost, ii, 559-560. 
 
 15, 19. Peter Bell. The hero of Wordsworth's poem by that name, 
 which was published in 1819. 
 
 16, 26. Chantry's bust. Sir Francis Chantry (1781-1842) exe- 
 cuted a bust of Wordsworth in 1821. 
 
 15, 27. Haydon. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) intro- 
 duced a portrait of Wordsworth into his painting of Christ's Entrance 
 into Jerusalem. 
 
 15, 38. Castle Spectre. Mathew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) was 
 called " Monk" because of his romance, The Monk, 1795. The Castle 
 Spectre, a dramatic romance, was produced in 1797. 
 
270 NOTES 
 
 16, 2. ad caplandum merit, the power of capturing public applause. 
 16, 15. " his face was as a book." Macbeth, i, 5, 63. 
 
 16, 37. Tom Poole (1765-1837). A good friend of Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, and other literary men. He was a wealthy tanner. 
 
 17, 6. •* followed in the chase." Othello, ii, 3, 369-370. 
 
 17, 20. Sir Walter Scott's. This fling at the Tory proclivities of 
 Scott may refer to a banquet given to George IV, by the Magistrates 
 of Edinburgh, August 24, 1822 (Waller and Glover). 
 
 17, 27. Poussin's or Domenichino's. Gaspar Poussin (1613-1675) 
 changed his name from Dughet to Poussin out of regard for his 
 brother-in-law, Nicolas Poussin. Domenico Zampieri (1581-1641) 
 was a painter of Bologna. 
 
 18, 21. prose tale. The Wanderings of Cain. 
 
 18, 22. Death of Jlbel. By the Swiss idyllic poet, Solomon Gessner 
 (1730-1788), published in 1758. 
 
 18, 29 ff. He said the Lyrical Ballads . . . Henry II. Hazlitt's 
 version of the aim of Wordsworth and Coleridge to adopt a diction 
 that would be the "neutral style," neither ancient nor modern, but 
 essential English. Hazlitt's own prose is deeply influenced by just 
 Buch an aim. 
 
 Coleridge's statement is found in his criticisms of Wordsworth, 
 especially in Chapters xviii-xx of the Biographia Literaria. 
 There is nothing in these chapters which carries the beginning of the 
 English "neutral style" beyond Chaucer. 
 
 19, 20. Caleb IVdliams. A famous novel by William Godwin, 
 published in 1794. 
 
 19, footnote. BufEamalco or Buffalmacco (1262-1351), a Floren- 
 tine painter. The jester in Boccaccio's Decameron. 
 
 19,24. "ribbed sea-sands." Ancient Mariner, 226-227. These 
 two lines are by Wordsworth. 
 
 19, 29 ff. This conversation, and others like it, doubtless gave 
 Wordsworth the impression that Hazlitt "was somewhat unreasonably 
 attached to modern books of moral philosophy," and led him to write 
 Expostulation and Reply and The Tables Turned, calling attention to 
 the importance of first-hand experiences. See Wordsworth's Ad- 
 vertisement to the Lyrical Ballads, 1798. 
 
 20, 27. Remorse. Produced at Drury Lane Theatre, January 23, 
 1813. It was a re-writing of Osorio, which was finished in 1797. 
 
 20, 29. Elliston. Robert WiUiam EUiston (1774-1831), an ad- 
 mired actor of the period. 
 
 21, 8-9. "But there is matter . . . tale." Wordsworth, Heart- 
 Leap Well, 95-96. 
 
 On Reading Old Books 
 
 Reprinted in Table Talk, 1821-1822, from The London Magazine, 
 February, 1821. 
 
 22, 4-5. Tales of My Landlord. A series of Scott's novels, in- 
 cluding Old Mortality, Rob Roy, and The Bride of Lammermoor. 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 271 
 
 22, 7. Lady Morgan (1783?-1859), a writer of Irish stories, the 
 best known of which is The Wild Irish Girl, 1806. 
 
 22, 8. Anastasius; or Memoirs of a Greek, written at the Close of 
 the Eighteenth Century, 1819, by Thomas Hope (17707-1831) . The 
 book enjoyed considerable popularity. 
 
 22, 11. Ddphine. A novel by Madame de Stael, 1802. 
 
 22, 13. "in their newest gloss." Macbeth, i, 7, 34. 
 
 22, 18. Andrew Millar (1707-1768), famous as the publisher of 
 Fielding, Thomson, and other well-known authors. 
 
 22, 20. Thurloe's State Papers. John Thurloe (1616-1668) pub- 
 lished a collection of the State Papers of the Protectorate, 7 vols, folio, 
 1742. 
 
 22, 21. Sir William Temple (1628-1699), author of Essays, pub- 
 lished in 1680 and 1692. Dr. Johnson says he was the first writer to 
 give cadence to English prose. 
 
 22, 22. Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), a famous portrait painter. 
 
 23, 19. rifaccimentos, recasts of old works. 
 
 24, 3. " for thoughts and for remembrance." Hamlet, iv, 5, 175- 
 177. 
 
 24, 4. Fortunatus's wishing-cap. Fortunatus is the hero of a 
 widely diffused popular tale. 
 
 24, 8. Bruscambille. See Sterne, Tristram Shandy, III, xxxv. 
 
 24, 9. Peregrine Pickle. A novel by Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), 
 published in 1751. 
 
 24, 10-11. Memoirs of Lady Vane, in Peregrine Pickle. 
 
 24, 11-14. masquerade, in Tom Jones, XIII, ^di; Thwackum and 
 Square, III, iii; Molly Seagrim, IV, viii; Sophia and her muff, 
 V, iv; her aunt's lecture, VII, iii. 
 
 24, 21. *' the puppets dallying." Hamlet, iii, 2, 257. 
 
 24, 30. Christian's burthen. In The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 24, 32. *' ignorance was bliss." Cf. Gray, Ode on a Distant Pros- 
 pect of Eton College. 
 
 25, 8. Ballantyne. James Ballantyne, a publisher who is famous 
 for his relations with Scott. 
 
 25, 9. Minerva press. A publishing house which issued highly- 
 colored tales. 
 
 25, 12. butter and honey. Cf. Isaiah, vii, 15. 
 
 25, 16. Cooke's pocket-edition. John Cooke (1731-1820) pub- 
 lished a Select Edition of British Novels, 1792, in weekly parts. 
 
 25, 18-19. Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest. Published in 
 1791. 
 
 25, 20. " sweet in the mouth." Revelation, x, 9. 
 
 25, 22. " gay creatures." Milton, Comus, 299-301. 
 
 25, 32. discovers Square. V, v. 
 
 25, 33-34. Parson Adams . . . Mrs. Slip-slop. IV, xiv. 
 
 25, 35. Joseph Andrews. Fielding's first novel, 1742. Fanny is 
 the heroine. 
 
272 NOTES 
 
 26,1. like . ProbaVjly Sarah Walker of the Li6er Amom. 
 
 26, 5. Major Bath. In Fielding's Joseph Andrews. Commodore 
 Trunnion. In Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. 
 
 26, 5-6. Trim and my Uncle Toby, in Sterne's Tristram Shandy. 
 
 26, 6. Don Quixote and Sancho and Dapple. Sancho and Dapple 
 are Don Quixote's squire and his steed in Don Quixote. 
 
 26, 7. Gil Bias and Dame Lorenza Sephora. Gil Bias is a satirical 
 novel (1715) by Le Sage. Gil Bias is the main character in the story 
 and Dame Lorenza is one of the principal female characters. 
 
 26, 7. Laura. An actress, mistress, and patroness of Gil Bias. 
 See Gil Bias, Book III, Chapters 5, 7, 10, 11, 12; Book IV, Chapter 
 1; Book VII, Chapters 6-11; and Book XII, Chapters 1-3. 
 
 26, 8. Lucretia. In Joseph Andrews. 
 
 26, 16. "0 Memory!" The source of this quotation has not 
 bGGIl trRCGcl. 
 
 26,21-22. ChviWs Tracts. By Thomas Chubb (1697-1747), a deist. 
 
 26, 30-31. "fate, free-will." Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 560. 
 
 26, 35-36. " Would I had never seen Wittenberg." Marlowe, Dr. 
 Faustus, Scene xiv. 
 
 26, 37. Hartley, Hume, Berkeley. David Hartley (1705-1757), 
 author of Observations on Man, 1749; David Hume (1711-1776); 
 George Berkeley (1685-1751). 
 
 Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, 1690. 
 
 27, 2. Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). His most famous 
 book is Leviathan, 1651. 
 
 27, 8. New Eloise. By Rousseau, published in 1761. 
 
 27, 9-10. St. Preux. New Eloise, Part VI, Letters IX-XI. 
 
 27, 19-20. Social Contract. Rousseau published this work in 1762, 
 and The Confessions in 1778. 
 
 27, 22. I have spoken elsewhere. In his essay on Rousseau in 
 The Round Table. 
 
 27, 25. "scattered like stray gifts." Wordsworth, Stray Pleas- 
 ures, 27-28. 
 
 27, 26. Emilius. By Rousseau, published in 1762. 
 
 27, 30. Sir Fopling Flutter. In Sir George Etherege's The Man 
 of Mode, 1676. 
 
 28, 9-10. leurre de dupe. A phrase from Rousseau's Confessions, 
 IV, meaning "a lure for a 'gull.'" 
 
 28, 12-13. •' a load to sink a navy." Henry VIII, iii, 2, 383. 
 28, 33. Marcian Colonna. Lamb, Sonnet to . . . Barry Cornwall. 
 28, 36. "Come like shadows." Macbeth, iv, 1, iii. 
 
 28, 37. " tiger-moth's wings." Keats, Eve of St. Agnes, 214. 
 
 29, 3-4. " blood of queens and kings." Ibidem, 217. 
 29, 9. "Words, words, words." Hamlet, ii, 2, 194-197. 
 29, 13-14. fairy tale. Perrault, The Fairies. 
 
 29, 14. great preacher. Edward Irving (1792-1834), a friend of 
 Thomas Carlyle and his wife. 
 
ON READING OLD BOOKS 273 
 
 29, 18. " as the hart that panteth." Cf. Psalm xlii, 1. 
 
 29, 20. Goethe's Sorrows of Werter . . . Schiller's Robbers. One 
 of many references to the great reputation of these examples of "Ger- 
 man sentiment." Werter was pubHshed in 1774, The Robbers in 1781. 
 
 29, 21. Giving my stock. Cf. As You Like It, ii, 1, 48-49. 
 
 29, 22-23. Coleridge's fine sonnet. Printed in 1796, and probably 
 written as early as 1794. 
 
 29, 28-30. I believe I may date, etc. Fully expressed in My First 
 Acquaintayice with Poets. 
 
 29, 34. Valentine, Tattle, Miss Prue. Characters in Congreve's 
 Love for Love, 1695. 
 
 30, 3. •' know my cue." Cf. Othello, I, ii, 84-85. 
 
 30, 4. Intus et in cute, i.e., "intimately and in the skin." Persius, 
 Satires, III, 30. 
 
 30, 9-10. Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829), a celebrated English 
 scientist, inventor of the safety lamp. 
 
 30, 27. the divine Clementina. In Richardson's Sir Charles 
 Grandison, 1753. 
 
 30, 28. "with every trick and line." AlVs Well that Ends Well, 
 i, 1, 106-107. 
 
 30, 30. Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigne. Henry Mackenzie (1745- 
 1831) published this story in 1777. The Man of Feeling was published 
 in 1771, and is noted for its sentimentality and profusion of tears. 
 
 30, 31. peace of Amiens. March, 1802. 
 
 30, 35. Richardson's Romance. Clarissa Harlowe. 
 
 31, 5. Miss . Probably Sarah Walker of the Liber Amoris. 
 
 31, 5-6. ** that ligament, fine as it was." Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 
 
 VI, X (The Story of Le Fever). 
 
 31, 11. story of the hawk. Commonly called "The Story of the 
 Falcon" (Deca?neron, Day V, Novel IX). This admired story is used 
 by Tennyson in his play. The Falcon. 
 
 31, 16. Recruiting Officer. This drama was written in 1706, 
 
 31, 16-17. " at one proud swoop." Cf. Macbeth, iv. 3, 219. 
 
 31,21-22. That time is past "with all its giddy raptures." 
 Wordsworth, Lines Comjjosed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, 84-86. 
 
 31, 23. " embalmed with odours." Paradise Lost, II, 843. 
 
 31, 33. "His form." Paradise Lost, I, 591. 
 
 31, 37-38. "falls flat upon the grunsel edge." Paradise Lost, I, 
 46a. 
 
 32, 2-12. Note this passage of noble praise. Hazlitt discrimi- 
 nates between Burke's style, which he admires, and his doctrines, 
 which he detests. 
 
 32, 14. Junius's. Sir Philip Francis, the author of Letters of 
 Junius. 
 
 32, 21. eagle in a dove-cot. Coriolanus, v, 6, 115. 
 
 32, 32. Essa^ on Marriage. No such essay by Wordsworth is 
 known. The conjecture of Waller and Glover (in which they are 
 
274 NOTES 
 
 followed by Howe) that Hazlitt may mean the Letter to the Bishop 
 of Llandoff, written in 1793, as it was "the only notable prose work 
 which Wordsworth had published " in 1798, is unfounded, as the 
 Letter was never published in Wordsworth's lifetime, and was known 
 to very few. 
 
 33, 5-11. Note this account by Hazlitt of his own early difficulties 
 in the art of writing. 
 
 33, 18-19. "worthy of all acceptation." I Timothy, i, 15. 
 
 33, 27-28. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. Pubhshed in 
 1704-1707. 
 
 33, 34-35. Froissart's Chronicles. Jean Froissart (1338-1410?), 
 Chronicles of France, England, Scotland, and Spain, 1367-1400. Ralph 
 Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1377. John 
 Stow (1525?-1605), English Chronicles, 1561. Thomas Fuller (1608- 
 1661), The History of the Worthies of England, 1662. 
 
 33, 37-38. A Wijte for a Month, 1623. 
 
 33, 38. Thierry and Theodoret, 1621. 
 
 34, 2. Thucydides. The great Greek historian (b.c. 471-401). 
 Guicciardini. Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), a well-known 
 
 Italian historian. 
 
 34, 3-4. Don Quixote, 1605, Loves of Persiles and Sigismunda, 1617, 
 and Galatea, 1583, are works by Cervantes, the great Spanish novelist. 
 
 34,6. " another Yarrow." Woidswonh, Yarrow Unvisited. 
 
 Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers 
 
 35, 7. Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1672- 
 1751), to whom Pope addressed his Essay on Man. 
 Sir William Temple. See note on 22, 21. 
 35, 13. " sees not itself." Cf. Julius Coesar, i, 2, 52-53. 
 
 35, 32. " a phoenix gazed by all." Paradise Lost, V, 272. 
 
 36, 32-33. Materiam superahat opus. Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 5, 
 "the workmanship was more beautiful than the material." 
 
 37, 3-4. Correggio (1494-1534), a famous painter of the Lombard 
 school; Michael Angelo (1475-1564), famous as sculptor, painter, and 
 poet; Rembrandt (1607-1669), the leading Dutch painter. 
 
 37, 9. " Our poesy is as a gum." Timon of Athens, i, 1, 21-25. 
 
 37, 18. Hogarth, William (1697-1764), a celebrated English painter 
 and engraver; known especially for his comic and satiric pictures. 
 
 37, 24. Vandyke (1590-1641), the great Flemish portrait painter. 
 
 37, 36. invita Minerva. Horace, De Arte Poetica, 385, "against the 
 bent of genius, or nature." 
 
 39, 1-2. " the glory, the intuition, the amenity." Charles Lamb, 
 Lines on "the Virgin of the Rocks.^' 
 
 39, 13-14. darkness visible. Paradise Lost, I, 62. darkness that 
 could only be felt. Exodus, x, 21. 
 
WHETHER GENIUS IS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS 275 
 
 39, 37. " through happiness or pains." Pope, Epistle to Mr. Jer- 
 vas, 68. 
 
 40, 28-29. "And visions . . . bough." This couplet, a favorite 
 quotation of Hazlitt's, occurs in a letter from Gray to Walpole. 
 (Gray's Letters, edited by Jovey, Volume I, 7-8.) The lines are 
 apparently a translation (by Gray) of Virgil, ^neid, VI, 282-284 
 (Waller and Glover). 
 
 40, 33. "My mind to me a kingdom is." Sir Edward Dyer, in 
 Byrd's Psalms and Sonnets, 1588. 
 
 41, 4. MiUimant. The leading woman character in Congreve'a 
 The Way of the World, 1700. Hazlitt refers to his Lectures on the 
 English Comic Writers, 1819. 
 
 41, 9. Friscobaldo. In Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore, 
 Part II. This description is to be found in Hazlitt's Lectures on the 
 Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 1820. 
 
 41, 10. G . fE . . d. Wmiam Gifford (1757-1826) is the subject of 
 a separate publication by Hazlitt, A Letter to William Gifford, Esq., 
 1819, in which he is very severely handled. 
 
 41, 23. Webster or Dekker. John Webster (1602-1624), Thomas 
 Dekker (1570?-1637?). These men are dealt with in Lectures on the 
 Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 1820. 
 
 41, 25-26. Characters of Shakespeare's 'Plax^s, 1817. 
 
 41, 27. Anti- Jacobin and Anti-Gallican writers. Those who were 
 opposed to the Revolutionary doctrines. 
 
 41, 31. 'Descent of Liberty. A masque by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), 
 published in 1815. 
 
 41, 33. sat by the waters of Babylon. Psalm cxxxvii, 1-2. 
 
 41, 35. the cause of kings or of mankind. This sentence is a terse 
 summary of Hazlitt's consistent belief. His admiration for Napoleon 
 was based on the belief that Napoleon was against the kings. 
 
 41, 37. the Mighty. Napoleon. 
 
 42, 9. Beast. Cf. Revelation, xiii, 4. 
 
 42, 16. image and superscription. Of. St. Matthew, xxii, 20; St. 
 Mark, xii, 16; St. Luke, xx, 24. 
 
 42,22-23. "Cried out upon in the top of the compass." Of. 
 Hamlet, iii, 2, 381-383, and ii, 2, 355. 
 
 42, 29. Characteristics. Mr. Jerdan reviewed Hazlitt's Character- 
 istics (published anonymously in 1823) very favorably in the 
 Literary Gazette for July 12, 1823. 
 
 43, 5-6. praised in the Examiner, i.e., in Leigh Hunt's publication. 
 43, 9. Story of Rimini. Published in 1816. 
 
 43. 10-11. •' an Adonis of fifty." Words applied by Leigh Hunt 
 to the Prince Regent, for which he and John Hunt were sent to prison. 
 
 43, 12-13. ''Return, Alphseus . . . Muse!" Milton, Lycidas, 
 132-133. 
 
 43,25-26. '«look abroad into universality." Bacon, Advance- 
 ment of Learning, Book I. 
 
276 NOTES 
 
 44, 10. A. P. E. Alexander Pope, Esquire. 
 
 44, 31. **They take in vain." Exodus, xx, 7. 
 
 45, 1. " It is all one as we should love." AlVs Well that Ends 
 Well, i, 1, 96-98. 
 
 45, 3. ** fast anchored." Cf. Cowper, Retirement, 84. 
 
 45, 11. '* the face of heaven so bright." Cf. Romeo and Juliet, ii, 
 2, 20-22. 
 
 45, 15. Bartlemy Fair. A famous fair held at West Smithfield, 
 London, 1133-1850, about St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24. 
 
 45, 21. "The high endeavour." Cf. Cowper, The Task, V, 903. 
 
 46, 13-14. his repetita crambe. Cf. Juvenal, Satires, vii, 154, 
 "twice chewed cabbage." 
 
 46, 26. " Titianus faciebat." That is, "Titian was engaged in 
 making [this picture]." 
 
 46, 29-30. Annibal Caracci. 1560-1609. 
 
 47, 27. Love for Love. A comedy by Congreve, 1695. 
 
 A Farewell to Essay- Writing 
 
 Written February 20, 1828, at Winterslow. Published in the 
 London Weekly Review for March 29, 1828. Printed in Winterslow 
 Essays, 1850. 
 
 48, 1. " This life is best." Cymheline, iii, 3, 29-30. 
 
 48, 3. ultima ihule, "farthest north, i.e., 'most remote' parts of the 
 world." 
 
 48, 5. " a friend in your retreat." Cowper, Retirement, 741-742. 
 
 48, 14. *' done its spiriting gently." The Tempest, i, 2, 299. 
 
 48, 15. startle the ear of winter. Cf. Milton, U Allegro, 42, "And 
 singing startle the dull Night." 
 
 48, 23. '* credulous hope." Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, II, 
 166, "credulous desire"; and Wordsworth, To the Clouds, 88-89, 
 "credulous desire nourish the hope." 
 
 48,27-28. " the spring conies slowly." Coleridge, C/iristo6eZ, 12. 
 
 48, 28-29. ** fields are dank and ways are mire." Milton, Sonnet, 
 "Laurence, of virtuous father virtuous son." 
 
 49, 13. " left its little life in air." Pope, Windsor Forest, 134. 
 49, 24. " peep through the blanket of the past." Macbeth, -i, 5, 51. 
 
 49, 32. Louvre. The great Paris gallery of painting and sculpture, 
 where Hazlitt studied painting. 
 
 50, 6. "open all the cells." Cowper, The Task, VI, 11-12. 
 
 50, 14. Theodore and Honoria. Dryden's retelling of a story from 
 Boccaccio. The scene referred to is in lines 102-124. 
 
 50,18-19. " Of all the cities . . . stands." Theodore and Honoria, 
 1-2. 
 
 50, 28-29, " Which when Honoria viewed . . . renew'd." Lines 
 342-343. 
 
ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION 277 
 
 50,31-32. "And made th' insult . . . tears." Dryden, Sigis- 
 monda and Guiscardo, 668-669. 
 
 61, 8. con amore. Italian, "with pleasure." 
 
 51, 10-11. ''Let honour and preferment . . . sold." Dryden, 
 Epilogue to Mithridates, King of Pontus, 16-17 (1678). 
 
 51,23-24. ** Fall' n was Glenartny's Stately tree . . , more." Sir 
 Walter Scott, Glenfinlas, final stanza. 
 
 52, 29-30. " admired of all observers." Cf. Hamlet, iii, 1, 162. 
 
 63, 34. "I know not seems." Hamlet, i, 2, 76. 
 63,35. "Companion." Leigh Hunt. 
 
 54, 2. Aut Caesar out nullus. "Either Csesar or no one." 
 
 64, 17. L . Charles Lamb. 
 
 54, 28. Antonio. The play was produced at Drury Lane Theatre, 
 December 13, 1800, and "faUed of success" most signally. 
 
 66, 4. " Nor can I think." Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, I, 
 315. 
 
 66, 16-17. Chaucer's Flower and Leaf. This poem is now known 
 not to be Chaucer's. The author is unknown. 
 
 66, 22. " And ayen . . . ear." Flower and Leaf, Stanza 15. 
 
 56, 27. Miss L — . Mary Lamb. 
 
 66, 28. Claude Lorraine (1600-1682). A celebrated French land- 
 scape painter, much admired by Hazlitt. 
 
 66, 1. Wilson. Richard Wilson (1714-1782), a noted English 
 landscape painter. 
 
 56, 5. hashed mutton. See Fielding, Amelia, Book X, Chapter v, 
 in which Amelia eats the hashed mutton which she had prepared for 
 her extravagant husband. 
 
 56,26. "And curtain close . . . view." Collins, Ode on the 
 Poetical Character, 76. 
 
 On Classical Education 
 
 This essay was first published in The Examiner for February 12, 
 1815, where it formed the greater part of No. 7 of the Round Table 
 series. The germ of the essay was published in The Morning Chronicle 
 for September 25, 1813, as a part of one of Hazlitt's Common Places, 
 and. consisted of the first three paragraphs. It was republished in 
 revised form in The Round Table, 1817. 
 
 57, 2. "a discipline of humanity." Sir Francis Bacon, Essays, 
 Of Marriage and Single Life. 
 
 57, 16. set on a hill. St. Matthew, v, 14. 
 
 67, 19-26. " Still green with hays . . , flow." Pope, Essay on 
 Criticism, 181-188. 
 
 57, 31-32. Conversing with the mighty dead. Cf. Thomson, 
 Winter, 431, "And hold high converse with the mighty dead." 
 
278 NOTES 
 
 68, 30. A celebrated political writer. No doubt "William Cobbett 
 (1762-1835). 
 
 69, 1. "The world is too much with us." Freely quoted from 
 Wordsworth's Sonnet. 
 
 69, 38. Falstaff's reasoning. 1 Henry /F, v, 1, 138-143. 
 60, 6. " They that are whole." St. Matthew, ix, 12. 
 
 On the Ignorance of the Learned 
 
 This essay was first published in the Scots' Magazine, July, 1818. 
 It was reprinted in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 61, 1-12. "For the more languages . . . own." Samuel Butler 
 (1612-1680), Satire iipon the Abuse of Human Learning, 57-68. 
 
 61,30. "spectacles." Speaking of Shakespeare, Dryden says, 
 "He needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature." Essay of 
 Dramatic Poesy. 
 
 62, 10. "Leave me to my repose." Gray, The Descent of Odin. 
 "Leave me, leave me to repose" is the refrain of the poem. It was 
 doubtless given currency by Burke, who quoted it in his Letter to a 
 Noble Lord, 1795. 
 
 62, 15. " take up his hed and walk." St. Matthew, ix, 6. 
 
 62, 21. " enfeebles all internal strength." Goldsmith, The Travel- 
 ler, 270. 
 
 62, 32. " sweats in the eye of Phoebus." Henry V, iv, 1, 290-291. 
 
 64, 12. "Th' enthusiast Fancy." Cf. Charles Lamb, Fancy Em- 
 ployed on Divine Subjects, 1-2: 
 
 "The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever, 
 A lone enthusiast maid." 
 
 64, 22-23. least respectable character. George Canning. 
 
 65, 23. A person of this class. Dr. Charles Burney (1757-1827), 
 author of Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton, 1790. 
 
 65, 26-27. Dr. . Dr. Burney and Dr. Samuel Parr. 
 
 66, 27. Person. Richard Porson (1759-1808), a famous Greek 
 scholar, professor at the University of Cambridge. 
 
 66, 7. "The mighty world of eye and ear," Wordsworth, Lines 
 Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, 105-106. 
 
 66, 8. "knowledge quite shut out." Paradise Lost, III, 50. 
 
 66,12-16. "Of the colouring of Titian." Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 
 III, 12. 
 
 66, 35. " knows no touch of it." Hamlet, iii, 2, 371. 
 
 67, 6-7. " the act and practique part of life." Henry F, i, 1, 51-52. 
 
 67, 9-11. "has no skill in surgery." l Henry IV, v, 1, 134. 
 
 68, 4. Anas. Miscellaneous collections of information about 
 persons or things. 
 
THE INDIAN JUGGLERS 279 
 
 68, 28. Baxter. Richard Baxter (1615-1691), author of The 
 Saints' Everlasting Rest, 1650. 
 
 69,5-6. "wink and shut their apprehensions up." Marston, 
 Antonio's Revenge, Prologue. 
 
 69, 21-25. Laud, William (1573-1645) ; Whitgift, John (1530?- 
 1604), both Archbishops of Canterbury; Bull, George (1634-1740) 
 Waterland, Daniel (1683-1740); Prideaux, Humphrey (1648-1724) 
 Beausobre, Isaac de (1659-1738); Cahnet, Augustine (1672-1757) 
 Puffendorf, Samuel, Baron von (1632-1694); Vattel, Emeri de 
 (1714-1767) ; ScaUger, Joseph J. (1540-1609) ; Cardan, Jerome (1503- 
 1576); Scioppius, or Schoppe, Kaspar (1576-1649). 
 
 69, 28-29. "gone to the vault of all the Capulets." Romeo and 
 Juliet, iv, 1, 111-112. 
 
 The Indian Jugglers 
 
 This essay first appeared in Table Talk, 1821-1822. The essay 
 is in praise of skill, bodily and mental. A good juggler is better than 
 a mediocre statesman. 
 
 74, 35. "In argument . . . still." Goldsmith, The Deserted Vil- 
 lage, 211-212. 
 
 75, 33. " to allow for the wind." Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter xiii. 
 
 76, 9. " human face divine." Paradise Lost, III, 44. 
 
 76, 26. H s and H s. W. C. Hazlitt in his edition of 
 
 Table Talk prints the first name as "Haydons." Is the second one 
 "Hazlitts"? 
 
 76, 27. "in tones and gestures hit." Cf. Paradise Regained, IV, 
 255. 
 
 76,31-32. " commercing with the sMes." Milton, II Penseroso, 39. 
 
 77, 20-21. "And visions as poetic . . . bough." See note on 40, 
 28-29. 
 
 77, 30. " Thrills in each nerve." Cf. Addison, Milton's Style Imi- 
 tated, 123-124. 
 
 78,11. "halfflying, half on foot." Cf. Paradise Los^ II, 941-942. 
 
 78, 26-27. I know an individual. Leigh Hunt. 
 
 78, 35. Nugae canorae. Horace, De Arte Poetica, 322, "nonsense 
 versified." 
 
 78, 36. Rochester, Earl of (1647-1680), a poet and courtier in the 
 reign of Charles II. 
 
 78, 37. Surrey, Earl of (1517-1547), who with Sir Thomas Wyatt 
 inaugurated the period of Elizabethan literature. 
 
 80, 20-21. Jedediah Buxton (1705-1772), a mathematical prodigy, 
 who was unable to obtain an education and so accomplished nothing 
 notable. Napier, John (1550-1617), who invented logarithms. 
 
 81, 8. John Hunter (1728-1793), a noted English surgeon, phy- 
 siologist, and anatomist. 
 
280 NOTES 
 
 81, 26-27. "great scholar's memory . , . century." Cf. Hamlet, 
 iii, 2, 139-140. 
 
 82, 2. Wolsey. Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530). 
 82, 3. Mendicant Friar. A begging friar. 
 
 82, 7. Moliere, the great French comic dramatist (1622-1673); 
 Babelais (1495-1553), o^nthov oi Pantagruel, 1553; Montaigne (1533- 
 1592), the great French essayist. 
 
 82, 30-31. " Care mounted behind the horseman." Horace, Odes, 
 III, i, 40. 
 
 82.34. "in the instant." Macbeth, \, b, b'd. 
 
 82.35. "domestic treason." Ci. Macbeth, \\\, 2, 25-2Q. 
 
 83, 32. Cobbett, William (1762-1835), a noted English radical 
 writer and politician. 
 
 84, 14-15. Rosemary Branch. A well-known tavern at Peckham. 
 
 84, 35. Copenhagen-house. A tavern in the north of London. 
 
 85, 38. The Fleet prison and the King's Bench prison had well- 
 known courts for the game of fives. 
 
 86, 4. " Who enters here." Cf. Pope, The Dunciad, IV, 518-519. 
 86, 12. the present Speaker. Mr. Charles Manners Sutton was 
 
 elected Speaker of the House on June 2, 1817. 
 
 86, 17-18. " Let no rude hand . . . jacet." Wordsworth, Ellen 
 Irwin, 55-56. 
 
 On Going a Journey 
 
 This incomparable essay in praise of walking was first published in 
 the New Monthly Magazine, 1822, Volume IV, p. 22. It was reprinted 
 in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 87, 5. " The fields his study . . . book." Robert Bloomfield 
 (1766-1823), The Farmer's Boy, Spring, 31. 
 
 87, 12-13. "a friend in my retreat . . . sweet." Cowper, Re- 
 tirement, 741-742. 
 
 Vt, 22-24:. "May plume her feathers . . . impair'd." Milton, 
 Comus, 378-381. 
 
 87, 27. Tilbury. A gig, or two-wheeled carriage, without a top or 
 cover. 
 
 88, 5. "sunken wrack." Henry V, i, 2, 165. 
 
 88, 12-13. "Leave, oh, leave me." Gray, The Descent of Odin, 
 refrain. See note on 62, 10. 
 
 88, 26-27. "Out upon such half-faced fellowship." I Henry IV, 
 I, iii,' 208. 
 
 89, 37. " give it an understanding." Hamlet, i, 2, 250. 
 89^ 38. C . Coleridge. 
 
 90, 3-4. " He talked far above singing." Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 Philaster, v, 5. 
 
 90, 4. so clothe. St. Matthew, vi, 30. 
 
 90, 6. swelling theme. Cf. Henry V, Prologue to Act i, sc. 4. 
 
ON GOING A JOURNEY 281 
 
 90, 8. "that fine madness." Thomas Drayton, Censure of Poets. 
 90, 12-29. "Here be woods . . . sweetest." John Fletcher, The 
 Faithful Shepherdess, I, iii, 27-43. 
 
 90, 37. L , Charles Lamb. 
 
 91, 8-9. take one's ease at one's inn," 1 Henry IV, iii, 3, 93. 
 
 91, 15. " the cups that cheer." Cf. Cowper, The Task, IV, 39-40. 
 
 91, 19. cow-heel. Don Quixote, II, xlix. 
 
 91, 21. Shandean. Like that shown in Tristram Shandy. 
 
 91, 23. PtocuL Virgil, ^neid, VI, 258, "Away, away, ye ini- 
 tiated!" 
 
 92, 5-6. "unhoused free condition." Othello, i, 2, 26. 
 
 92, 7-8. " Lord of one's self." Cf. John Dryden, To my 
 Honoured Kinsman, John Driden, 18. 
 
 92, 29-30. St. Neot's. A small town near Peterborough. About 
 1796 Hazlitt made a walking tour into the North, and may have seen 
 the engravings at that time. 
 
 92, 30-31. Gribelin's engravings of the Cartoons. Made in 1707. 
 
 92, 33. Westall, Richard (1765-1836), a prominent English his- 
 torical painter. 
 
 93, 1. Paul and Virginia. See note on 12, 24. 
 
 93, 2. at Bridgewater. When he visited Coleridge and Words- 
 worth in 1798. See My First Acquaintance with Poets. 
 
 93, 4. Camilla. Published in 1796. 
 
 93, 5-6. New Eloise . . . St. Preux. Rousseau, La Nouvelle 
 Heloise, Part IV, Letter xvii. 
 
 93, 10. ban houche. Properly, bonne bouche, a choice morsel to 
 top off with. 
 
 93,16-17. " green upland swells." Cf. Coleridge, Otie to «/ie De- 
 parting Year, 125—126. 
 
 93, 19. " glittered green." Ode to the Departing Year, 124. 
 
 93, 28. faded into the light of common day. Wordsworth, Ode 
 on the Intimations of Immortality, 76. Cf. also To a Highland Girl, 
 16-17. 
 
 93, 30. " The beautiful is vanished, and returns not." Coleridge, 
 The Death of Wallenstein, V, i, 68. 
 
 94, 3-7. Yet will I turn, etc. This sentence is an amalgam of 
 Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, 
 56-58, Revelation, xxi, 6, and xxii, 1-2. 
 
 94, 18. bares its bosom. Cf. Wordsworth, Sonnet, The world is 
 too much with us, 5. 
 
 94,26-27. "Beyond Hyde Park," . . . Fopling Flutter. Sir 
 George Etherege (1635?-1691), The Man of Mode, V, ii. In the 
 text Fopling is misprinted Topling. 
 
 95, 28. " The mind is its own place." Paradise Lost, I, 254. 
 95, 33. "With glistering spires." Paradise Lost, III, 550. 
 
 95, 36. Bodleian. The great Library at the University of Oxford. 
 Blenheim. The seat of the Duke of Marlborough, near Oxford. 
 95, 37. ciceroni, guides. 
 
282 NOTES 
 
 96, 19-20. When I first set my foot on the laughing shores of 
 France. This was in 1802, and so he writes at a distance of twenty 
 years. 
 
 96, 26. " vine-covered hills." From William Roscoe, Lines Written 
 in 1798. This poem is parodied in Canning and Frere's Anti- 
 Jacobin. 
 
 97,3. " jump," risk. Ci. Macbeth, i, 7, 7. 
 
 97, 5. Dr. Johnson. Boswell, Life of Johnson, III, 301 (Hill's ed.). 
 97, 14. " Out of my country and myself I go." The source of this 
 
 quotation has not been discovered. 
 
 Why Distant Objects Please 
 
 First published in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 98, 9. " descry new lands." Paradise Lost, I, 290-291. 
 
 98, 12-13. Ethereal mould, sky-tinctured. A good example of 
 Hazlitt's Miltonic echoes. Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 139, and V, 285. 
 
 98, 19-22. " But thou, oh Hope ! " William Collins, The Passions, 
 29-32. 
 
 98, 27-28. lord of infinite space. Cf. Hamlet, ii, 2, 261, "king 
 of infinite space." An example of Hazlitt's Shakespearean echoes. 
 
 98, 29-30. " When I was a boy." At Wem, in Shropshire, he lived 
 within sight of the Welsh hills. 
 
 99, 3. "Yarrow unvisited." A reference to Wordsworth, Yarrow 
 Unvisited, which maintains the thesis that it is best "not idly to dis- 
 turb a dream of good." 
 
 99, 9. " TJnmould their essence." Cf. "unmoulding reason's mint- 
 age" in Milton, Comus, 529. 
 
 99, 17. "a mighty stream of tendency," Wordsworth, The Ex- 
 cursion, IX, 87. 
 
 99, 21. " a tide in the affairs of men." Julius Ccesar, iv, 3, 218. 
 
 99, 22-23. "with sails and tackle torn." Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 
 1044, "though shrouds and tackle torn." 
 
 100, 2. " Such tricks hath strong imagination." A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, v, 1, 18. 
 
 100, 7. "hangs upon the heatings of our hearts." Cf. Words- 
 worth, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, 54. 
 
 100, 10-11. " come thronging soft desires." Cf. Much Ado About 
 Nothing, i, 1, 305. 
 
 100,25-26. "bring back the hour." Wordsworth, Ode on the 
 Intimations of Immortality, 190-191. 
 
 101,9-10. "that first garden of my innocence." Cf. Samuel 
 Daniel, Hymen's Triumph. 
 
 101,14-16. "Like the sweet south . . . odour." Cf. Twelfth 
 Night, i, 1, 5-8. 
 
 101, 21. W— -m. Wem, in Shropshire. 
 
DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 283 
 
 101, 24-25. " thing of Ufe." Byron, The Corsair, Canto I, iii. 
 
 101, 30. " Like some gay creature." Milton, Comus, 299. 
 
 101, 33. Leigh Hunt ... in a paper. In his essay, A Nearer 
 View of Some of the Shops. 
 
 103, 16. " How silver-sweet." Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2, 166. 
 
 103, 22. "To angels 'twas most like." Cf. The Flower and the 
 Leaf, a poem formerly attributed to Chaucer, Stanza 19. 
 
 103, footnote. WUMe' 8 Blind Fiddler. David WUkie (1775-1841), 
 a noted Scottish painter. The Blind Fiddler is now in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 104, 5-6. "like an exhalation." Cf. Comus, 556, "Rose like a 
 steam of rich distilled perfumes"; and Paradise Lost, I, 711, "Rose 
 like an exhalation." This is a good example of the way in which 
 Hazlitt blends quotations to his own taste so that they become part 
 and parcel of his own expression. 
 
 104, 15. Mr. Fearn's Essay. John Fearn, An Essay on Conscious- 
 ness, 2nd edition, 1812. 
 
 107, 33-34. " There's sympathy ! " The Merry Wives of Windsor, 
 ii, 1, 7. 
 
 108, 17-18. , the editor of a Scotch magazine. Hazlitt 
 
 refers to James Gibson Lockhart, who was suspected to be the Editor 
 of Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 108,30. "Those faultless monsters." John Sheffield, Duke of 
 Buckingham, Essay on Poetry. 
 
 108, 31. "The web of our lives," AWs Well that Ends Well, iv, 3, 
 84-87. 
 
 On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority 
 
 This essay was first published in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 109, 9. Petrarch. In Morte di Laura, Sonnet xxiv. 
 
 109, 16-17. "To be honest . . . thousand." i/amZe^ ii, 2, 177-179. 
 
 110, 1-4. " Stand all astonied . . . fears." Spenser, The Faerie 
 Queene, VII, vi, 28. 
 
 110, 24. C . Coleridge. 
 
 113, 7. fate, free-wiU. Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 559-560. 
 113, 12. oiium cum dignitale. Cicero, Pro Publio Sextio, xlv, 
 "ease with dignity." 
 
 113, 17. " I am nothing if not critical." Othello, ii, 1, 120. 
 
 114, 29-30. in the . Quarterly Review. 
 
 114, 37-38. This is the unkindest cut of all. Cf. Julius Ccesar, iii, 
 2, 187. 
 
 115, 8. Prince Maurice's Parrot and an Essay on the Regal Char- 
 acter. These papers were published by Hazlitt in The Examiner, 
 July 10, 1814, and in The Yellow Dwarf, May 16, 1818, respectively. 
 
284 NOTES 
 
 115, 10-11. a ^eat personage. Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 116, 16. L . Charles Lamb. 
 
 116, 17. L. H. Leigh Hunt. 
 
 116, 25. Count Stendhal. Marie-Henri Beyle, a celebrated French 
 writer (1783-1842). 
 
 116, 27. S . Probably Shelley. 
 
 116, 28. " germane to the matter." Haralet, v, 2, 165. 
 
 G — dw — n. William Godwin. 
 
 116, 30. Vetus. Contributed to the Morning Chronicle, 1813. 
 
 116, 36. digito monstrari. Cf. Horace, Odes, IV, iii, 22. 
 
 116, 37. Mr. Powell's Court. In St. Martin's Street, London. 
 
 117, 14-15. Mr. Knight's performance of Filch. Edward Knight 
 (1774-1826), an actor in the Drury Lane Company. Filch is in 
 John Gay's The Beggar^s Opera, 1728. 
 
 117, 15. little Simmons. Samuel Simmons (17777-1819), a mem- 
 ber of the Covent Garden Company. 
 
 117, 23. Cavanagh. The great fives player, celebrated in The 
 Indian Jugglers. 
 
 118,9-10. "lively, audible, and full of vent." Cf. Coriolanus, 
 iv, 5, 237-238. 
 
 118, 27-28. Angelica and Foresight, in Love for Love. By John 
 Dryden, II, iii. 
 
 118,36-37. "So shalt thou find me . . . be." Sardanapalus, 
 IV, i. 
 
 119, 24. sworn at Highgate. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, 
 II, 195. The oath in part is "never to kiss the maid when he could 
 kiss the mistress." 
 
 120, 3. "not pierceable by power of any star." Spenser, Faerie 
 Queene, I, i, 7. 
 
 120,6. "to succeed at the gaming-table." Cf. John Gay, The 
 Beggar's Opera, I, iv. The words are Mr. Peachum's. 
 
 120, 14-16. "to have a good face . . . nature." Cf. Much Ado 
 about Nothing, iii, 3, 14-16. 
 
 120, 33. Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679), the celebrated English phil- 
 osopher. His best known book is Leviathan, 1651. 
 
 On the Knowledge of Character 
 
 This essay was first published in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 121, 23. a celebrated wit. Either Voltaire or Talleyrand. The 
 idea has often been expressed. 
 
 121, 26-27. Lord Chesterfield. In Letters to his Son, exxx. 
 
 121, 32. "It is not a year or two shows us a man." Othello, 
 iii, 4, 103. 
 
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER 285 
 
 122, 3. Charles V (1500-1558), Emperor of the Holy Roman Em- 
 pire. 
 
 122, 3-4. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), founder of the Society of 
 
 122, 10. Donne, John (1573-1631), an English poet. The rude 
 half effaced outline is by W. Marshall, from a painting of Donne at 
 the age of 18. 
 
 122, 14. W . Wellington. 
 
 122,33. prima facie. At first view or appearance. 
 
 123, 3. Mr. . Hazlitt? 
 
 123, 31. C 'S. Coleridge's. 
 
 123, 32-33. " Create a soul." Milton, Comus, 562. 
 
 124, 17-18. " The greatest hypocrite." Sarah Walker, heroine 
 of Liber A7noris. 
 
 124, 31. I know a person. Hazlitt. 
 
 124, 35. " compliments extern." Othello, i, 1, 63. 
 
 126, 9-10. "If the French have a fault." Sterne, A Sentimental 
 Journey, Versailles. 
 
 127, 21. "wild wit." Gray, Ode on A Distant Prospect of Eton 
 College, 46. 
 
 128, 28. service is no inheritance. Cf. AlVs Well that Ends Well, i,. 
 3, 25-26, "Service is no heritage." 
 
 129, 4-5. "Subtle as the fox . . . eat." Cymheline, iii, 3, 40-41. 
 
 129, 37-38. "bitter bad judges." Gay, The Beggar's Opera, I, iv. 
 
 130, 5-6. I never knew but one clever man. Probably Leigh Hunt. 
 130, 25-26. "The way of woman's will . . . hit." Cf. Milton, 
 
 Samson Agonistes, 1011-1013. 
 
 130, 34. Cavalier servente. Literally, "cavalier lover," "handy 
 man." 
 
 131, 13. Oh! thou. Sarah Walker. 
 
 131, 17. Imogen. In Cymheline. 
 
 132, 10. sui generis, unique. 
 
 132, 37. " The son." Here Hazlitt is giving his personal experi- 
 ence. 
 
 133,5. " Eembrandts." Cf. Goldsmith, Retaliation, 145, "Ra- 
 phaels, Correggios, and stuff." 
 
 133, 14. "infinite agitation of men's wit." Bacon, Advancement 
 of Learning, I, iv, 5. 
 
 135, 3. " in the trade of war." Othello, i, 2, 1. 
 135, 5. " so as with a difference." Hamlet, iv, 5, 83, "You must 
 wear your rue with a difference." 
 
 135,9. "pure defecated evil." Burke, Letter to a Nohle Lord. 
 135, 12. "whatever is, is right." Pope, Essay on Man, I, 294. 
 135, 24-25. " Amen stuck in his throat." Cf. Macbeth, ii, 2, 32-33. 
 
 135, 31. "no malice in the case." Gay, The Beggar's Opera, I, x. 
 
 136, 5-12. Say, I had lay'd a body in the sun. In Osorio, the origi- 
 nal form of Remorse, III, 224-231. 
 
286 NOTES 
 
 137,8-9. "I count myself indifferent honest." Hamlet, iii, 1, 
 123-125. 
 
 138, 2. "who knew all qualities." Cf. Othello, iii, 3, 259. 
 
 138, 24. " as much again to govern it." Pope, Essay on Criti- 
 cism, 11. 80-81, a reading rejected in th-e quarto of 1743: 
 
 " There are whom Heav'n has blest with store of wit, 
 Yet want as much again to manage it." 
 
 On the Fear of Death 
 
 This essay originally appeared in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 139,1. " And our little life . . . sleep." The Tempest, \v,l,l5&. 
 
 139, 10. Bickerstaff. In The Tatler, 1709-11. The author is 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 139, 13. the Globe. A tavern in Fleet Street. 
 
 139, 16. Tristram Shandy. Volumes I and II in 1760; III and IV 
 in 1761; V and VI in 1762; VII and VIII in 1765; IX in 1767. 
 
 139, 26-27. " the gorge rises at." Hamlet, v, 1, 206. 
 
 140, 2. per Jus, lost. 
 
 140, 9-11. "Ye armed men . . . Temple church." The Temple 
 Church, London, contains tombs of the Knights Templars. 
 
 140,34-35. " The wars we well remember . . . divine." Spenser, 
 Faerie Queene, II, ix, 56. 
 
 141, 28. "The present eye." Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3, 180. 
 141, 33-34. " makes calamity of so long life." Hamlet, iii, 1, 69. 
 
 141, 35-37. "Oh! thou strong heart!" John Webster, The White 
 Devil, V, iii, 96. 
 
 142, 2-3. " Content man's natural desire." Pope, Essay on Man, 
 I, 109. 
 
 142, 4-5. "on this bank and shoal of time." Macbeth, i, 7, 6. 
 
 142, 23. No young man ever thinks he shall die. This is the open- 
 ing sentence of On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, and is there 
 attributed to Hazlitt's brother John. 
 
 142, 24-25. " all men are mortal." A reference to the stock ex- 
 ample of the logical syllogism: "All men are mortal; Socrates is a 
 man; therefore Socrates is mortal." 
 
 142, 31-32. " This sensible warm motion . . . clod," Measure 
 for Measure, iii, 1, 120. 
 
 142, 33-34. "turn to withered, weak, and grey." Paradise Lost, 
 XI, 540. 
 
 142, 37. All men . . . themselves. Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 
 I, 424. 
 
 143, 11. " the sear, the yellow leaf." Macbeth, v, 3, 23. 
 
 143*, 17. "gone into the wastes of time." Cf. Shakespeare, Son- 
 net xii, 10. 
 
ON THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS 287 
 
 143, 23. As the tree falls. Cf. Ecclesiastes, xi, 3, "In the^place 
 where the tree falleth, there it shall be." 
 
 143, 37. Don Carlos. Hazlitt refers to the death of the Marquis 
 in Act V. 
 
 144, 26. Zanetto . . . matematica. Rousseau, Confessions, Part 
 II, Book 7, "Zanetto, leave women and study mathematics." 
 
 144, 35. I have never seen death but once. He probably refers to 
 the death of his son WilUam at the age of less than six months. 
 
 145, 9. "like Chantrys monument." The famous "Sleeping 
 Children," in Lichfield Cathedral, by Francis Legatt Chantry (1781- 
 1842), a noted English sculptor. 
 
 145, 26-27. "Still from the tomb ... fires." Gray, Elegy in a 
 Country Churchyard, 91-92. 
 
 145, 28-29. Tucker's Light of Nature Pursued. By Abraham 
 Tucker (1705-1774). Hazlitt abridged the work in 1807. 
 
 147,10-12. "AUttlerule . . . grave." John Dyer (1700-1758), 
 Grongar Hill (1727). 
 
 147, 14-15. "A great man's memory . . . year." Hamlet, iii, 2, 
 139-140. 
 
 148, 6. ad infinitum. To infinity. 
 
 148,10. "at a pin's fee." Ct Handet, i, 4, Q5. 
 
 148, 17-18. "seasick, weary bark."- Romeo and Juliet, v, 3, 118. 
 
 148, 30-31. "to lose it afterwards . . . brawl." Cf. Thomas 
 Olway, Venice Preserved, IV, ii, "To lose it, it may be, at last in a lewd 
 quarrel.": \ .. 
 
 149, 10. Dr. Johnson. Johnson often expressed^ fear of death. 
 See Bosweil's Life of Johnson. 
 
 On the Spirit of Obligations t-^* 
 
 This essay was first published in the New -^Monthly Magazine, 
 Table Talk, xi. No. 37, Vol. X, 1824. It was republished in The 
 Plain Speaker, 2 vols., 1826. 
 
 Of this essay Robert Louis Stevenson says in his essay on Books 
 which have Influenced Me: "... Hazlitt, whose paper On the Spirit 
 of Obligations was a turning-point in my life." 
 
 150, 10. Nihil humani. Terence, Heauton-timoroumenos, I, i. 
 
 152, 38. "Make mouths at the invisible event." Hamlet, iv, 4, 50. 
 
 153, 9-10. Born for their use. Edward Young, The Revenge, V, ii. 
 153, 32. ex cathedra. With authority. 
 
 153, 33. "wise saws." As You Like It, ii, 7, 156. 
 
 154, 7. jump. Agree. 
 
 154, 33. quantum. Due amount. 
 
 155, 16. con amore. With pleasure. 
 
 155, 18. pour oil and balm. Cf. St. Luke, x, 34. 
 
288 NOTES 
 
 155, 37. Mr. Wilberforce. William Wilberforce (1759-1833), a 
 prominent anti-slavery leader. 
 
 156, 8-9. screwed to the sticking-place. Cf. Macbeth, i, 7, 60. 
 156, 10-11. "If to their share . . . all." Cf. Pope, The Rape of 
 
 the Lock, II, 17-18. 
 
 156, 16. Granville Sharp. An advocate of anti-slavery (1735- 
 1813). 
 
 156, 17. Huhert. A murderer in King John. 
 
 Howard, John (1726-1790), the great reformer of prisons. 
 . Sir Hudson Lowe (1769-1844), the overseer of Napoleon at St. 
 ■Helena, and maligned by all worshippers of Napoleon. 
 
 166, 18. "Charity covers a multitude of sins." l Peter, iv, 8. 
 
 156, 20-22. "The meanest peasant . . . flock." Sterne, A Sen- 
 timental J ourneij, The Bourbonnais. 
 
 167, 17. Talma, FranQois Joseph (1763-1826), a great French 
 tragic actor. 
 
 167, 22. As one star differs from another. Cf. 1 Corinthians, xv, 
 41. 
 
 157, 24-25. Mr. Justice Fielding. William, eldest son of Henry 
 Fielding, the novelist (1748-1820). 
 
 167, 37. Booth. In Amelia. 
 
 168, 3. Colonel Bath. In Amelia. 
 
 158, 18-19. "administer to a mind diseased." Cf. Macbeth, v, 3, 
 40. 
 
 159, 6-7. "a little lower than the angels." Psalms, viii, 5. 
 
 169, 8-12. "And when I think . . . terrible." Byron's Heaven 
 and Earth, Part I, scene i. 
 
 169, 18. The person, whose doors I enter with most pleasure. 
 James Northcote, the painter, whose Conversations he edited and pub- 
 lished in 1830. 
 
 160, 6. " Enter Sessami." Cf. "Open Sesame," the magic word 
 which opened the cave door in AH Baba and the Forty Thieves. 
 
 161, 24. The late Mr. Sheridan. Richard Brindsley Butler Sheri- 
 dan, the dramatist, who died in 1816. 
 
 161, 28. "Coin his smile for drachmas." Cf. Julius Ccesar, iv, 3, 
 72-73. 
 
 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth 
 
 This essay appeared first in the New Monthly Magazine, March, 
 1827. Republished in Literary Remains and Winterslow. 
 
 163, 1. " Life is a pure flame." Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), 
 Hydriotaphia: Urn Burial, Chapter V. 
 
 163, 3. my brother's. John Hazlitt (1767-1837), the painter of 
 miniatures. This saying is quoted in the essay On the Fear of Death, 
 142, 23. 
 
ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH 289 
 
 163, 10. The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." Cf. 
 Joseph Addison, Cato, V, i, 13, "The wide, unbounded prospect lies 
 before me." 
 
 163, 13-14. "bear a charmed life." Macbeth, v, 8, 12. 
 
 163, 17. "Bidding the lovely scenes . . . hail." Collins, The 
 Passions, 32. 
 
 164, 15-16. " this sensible, warm motion . , . clod." Measure for 
 Measure, iii, 1, 120. 
 
 164, 33. "wine of life." Macbeth, ii, 3, 100. 
 
 165, 2. "as in a glass, darkly." 1 Corinthians, xiii, 12. 
 
 165, 9. "So am not I!" Tristram Shandy, Book V, Chapter vii. 
 
 165, 22-23. "Life! thou strange thing . . . are." Joseph Faw- 
 cett, The Art of War, 1795, not 1794. An early and influential friend 
 of Hazlitt, as well as of Wordsworth. Hazlitt characterizes him with 
 deep appreciation in the essay On Criticism, in Table Talk. 
 
 166, 6. "the feast of reason. ' ' Pope, Imitations of Horace, Satire I, 
 128. 
 
 166, 15. "brave sublunary things." Cf. Michael Drayton, To 
 Henry Reynolds, "Those brave translunary things." 
 
 166, 31-32. "The stockdove plain . . . gale." James Thomson, 
 The Castle of Indolence, I, iv. 
 
 167, 4. Lady Wortley Montagu (1690-1762), famed for her letters. 
 She is usually called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, effendi, a Turkish 
 term of respect. This passage occurs in the Letter of May 17, 1717. 
 
 167, 15-18. " had it not been . . . link-boys." In TForA;s, II, 254. 
 167,21-22. She says of Kichardson. In TForfcs, II, 285 ff., and 222. 
 
 168, 31. monstmm ingens, biforme. Cf. Virgil, ^neid, III, 658. 
 Virgil reads informe, — a monster, shapeless, huge. 
 
 168, 34. Mr. Moore. Thomas Moore (1779-1852). 
 
 168,37. "his spirits." TForfcs, II, 283. 
 
 170, 19. "purple light of love." Gray, Progress of Poesy, 14. 
 
 170, 32. "the Raphael grace, the Guido air." Pope, Epistles, III, 
 36, "Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air." 
 
 170, 37. "gain a new vigour." William Cowper, Charity, 104. 
 
 172, 4-5. "beguile the slow and creeping hours." Cf. As You 
 Like It, ii, 7, 112, "Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time." 
 
 172, 13-173, 17. "For my part . . . youth." This is a notable 
 passage, for it expresses with noble eloquence the feelings of Hazlitt, 
 Coleridge, and Wordsworth regarding the French Revolution, while 
 youth was still upon them. Wordsworth exclaims in The Prelude, 
 XI, 108-109: 
 
 "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very Heaven." 
 
 In many passages Hazlitt states, with the absolute understand- 
 ing of a contemporary, the motives of the English revolutionary 
 poets. 
 
290 NOTES 
 
 172,30-31. " From the dungeon . , . cry." Coleridge, *Sonwe< to 
 Schiller. See note on On Reading Old Books, 29, 22-25. 
 
 172, 35. Don Carlos. See note on On the Fear of Death, 143, 37. 
 
 173, 16. "That time is past . . . raptures." Wordsworth, Lines 
 Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, 84-86. 
 
 174, 1-2. " Even from the tomh . . . fires." Gray, Elegy Written 
 in a Country Churchyard, 91-92. 
 
 174, 9-10. " All the life of life is flown." Cf. Robert Burns, 
 Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn, .stanza vi. 
 
 174, 18-19. "From the last dregs . . . give." John Dryden, 
 Aurengzebe, IV, i. 
 
 176, 9. "treason domestic." Cf. Macbeth, iii, 2, 24-26. 
 
 175, 21-22. " reverbs its own hollowness." King Lear, i, 1, 145. 
 
 Merry England 
 
 This essay was first published in the New Monthly Magazine 
 for December, 1822. It was republished in Sketches and Essays, 
 1839. 
 
 176, 1. "St. George for Merry England." St. George displaced 
 Saint Edward as patron saint of England in 1349. His name soon 
 became a rallying cry. The epithet "Merry" was early applied to 
 places and is a ballad commonplace, as "Merry Carlisle," "Merry 
 Lincoln," etc^ "Merry England" occurs in- the Cursor Mundi, c. 
 1310. 
 
 176, 3-4. ut lucus a non lucendo. The usual formris- lucus a non 
 lucendo, "light from its not shining," hence, " an absurdity." 
 
 176i 11. "-The pleasure of going and coming." The source of 
 this quotation ^as not been identified. 
 
 176, 26. " I have been merry." 2 Henry TV, v, 3, 42. 
 
 176, 28. " Chirped over his cups." The title of one of the chap- 
 ters in. Rcibelais. - 
 
 176^29-30. ." there were pippins and cheese to come." The-Merry 
 Wives of Windso-r, i, 2, 12. r . ♦ ^ . ^>-i 
 
 177,2-3. "Continent? , . .^ contain." Thomas Hobbes, j^wwan 
 Nature. 
 
 177,25-26. "amused themselves sadly." Waller and Glover 
 draw attention to the fact that this famous saying is wrongly at- 
 tributed to Froissart. The source of the idea is in dispute. See 
 Notes and Queries, 1863 IT. 
 
 177, 38. " eat, drink, and are merry." Cf. St. Luke, xii, 19. 
 
 178, 4. "hairbreadth -scapes." Othello, i, 3, 136. 
 
 178, 7. Punch. From ItaUan Punchinello, the popular puppet 
 in the puppet play. Punch and Judy. 
 
MERRY ENGLAND 291 
 
 178, 30-31. Jack-o'-the-Green. Strutt, in English Sports and Pas- 
 times: 
 
 "The Jack in the Green is a piece of pageantry consisting of a hol- 
 low frame of wood or wicker-work, made in the form of a sugar loaf, 
 but open at the bottom and sufficiently large and high to receive a 
 man. The frame is covered with green leaves and bunches of flowers 
 interwoven with each other, so that the man within may be com- 
 pletely concealed, who dances with his companions, and the populace 
 are mightily pleased with the oddity of the moving pyramid." 
 
 179, 4-5. Old Lord's. Lord's is still the famous cricket-ground of 
 London. 
 
 179, 25. " passage of arms at Ashby." Described by Sir Walter 
 Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter viii. 
 
 180,3-4. "A cry more tuneable ... horn." A Midsummer 
 Might's Dre%m, iv, 1, 121-122. 
 
 180, 20-21. " brothers of the angle. " Isaac Walton, The Compleat 
 Angler, Part I, Chapter i. The date of the first edition of this famous 
 book is 1653. 
 
 182, 11. Book of Sports. The King's Majesties Declaration to his 
 Subjects concerning lawfull Sports to be Used, by James I, 1618, re- 
 issued by Charles I, 1633. 
 
 182,16-17. " And e'en on Sunday . . . Monday." Robert Burns, 
 Tarn O'Shanter, 27-2S. 
 
 182, 24. Bartholomew Fair. A famous fair held at West Smith- 
 field, London, 1133-1850, about St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24.. 
 
 Queen Mab. The Fairy Queen of English folklore. 
 
 183, 1. Gilray. James Gilray (1757-1813), the well-known cari- 
 caturist, displayed his prints in the window of Miss Humphrey's shop, 
 29 St. James Strest. 
 
 184, 38. Lord Byron. Byron's Letters and Journals, V, 528, 533- 
 535, 539 S. (Prothero's edition.) 
 
 185, 7. "merry and wise." The English popular proverb, "'Tis 
 good to be merry and wise." 
 
 185, 13. " That under Heaven is blown." Spenser, Faerie Queene, 
 Book I, Canto vii, stanza 32. Cf. also, Marlowe, Tamburlaine, 
 Part II, Act iv, scene 3. 
 
 186, 27. Lubin Log. In James Kennedy (1780-1849), Love, Law 
 and Physic. 
 
 Tony Lumpkin. In Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. 
 
 187, 15-20. NeU in The Devil to Pay, by Coffey: Little Pickle in 
 The Spoil d Child,, a part created by Mrs. Jordan; Touchstone in As 
 You Like It; Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal, by Sheridan; 
 Lenitive in The Prize, bv Prince Hoare; Lingo in The Anreenble Sur- 
 prise, by O'Keefe; Crabtree in The School for Scandal: Nipperkin in 
 Sprigs of Laurel, a part created by Munden; old Dornton in The 
 Road to Ruin, by Thomas Holcroft; Banger in The Suspicious Hus- 
 bandf by Hoadly ; the Copper Captain in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, 
 
292 NOTES 
 
 by John Fletcher, one of Lewis's great parts; Lord Sands in Shake- 
 speare's King Henry VIII; Filch in Gay's The Beggar's Opera; Moses 
 in The School for Scandal; Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night; 
 Acres in Sheridan's The Rivals; Elbow m Measure for Measure; 
 Hodge in the comic opera Love in a Village, by Isaac Bickerstaff; 
 Flora in The Wonder, by Mrs. Centlivre; the Duenna in Sheridan's 
 Duenna; Lady Teazle in Sheridan's The School for Scandal; Lady Grace 
 in The Provoked Husband, by Vanbrugh and Gibber. 
 
 187, 23. " Throwing a gaudy shadow upon life." The source of 
 this quotation has not been discovered. 
 
 187, 29. Liston, John (1776?-1846), a comic actor. 
 
 187, 29-30. Roderick Random. A novel by Tobias Smollett, 
 1748. 
 
 187, 30. Hogarth, William (1697-1764). Marriage h la Mode, a 
 series of plates dealing with social satire, 1745. 
 
 187, 31. " Tut! theres livers." Gf. Cymheline, iii, 4, 143, "There's 
 livers out of Britain." 
 
 187, 36-37. "What's our Britain . . . nest." Gf. Cymheline, iii, 
 4, 140-142. 
 
 188, 5. Mrs. Abington, Frances (1737-1815), a famous actress. 
 Hazlitt wrote, in Lectures on the Comic Writers: "I would rather have 
 seen Mrs. Abington' s Millamant than any Rosalind that ever ap- 
 peared on the stage." 
 
 Mademoiselle Mars (1779-1847), a clever actress in the plays of 
 Moliere at the Theatre Frangais, Paris. 
 
 188, 7. Misanthrope. One of Moliere's greatest plays, 1666. 
 
 188, 23. As I write this. During the journey from August, 1824, 
 to October, 1825. 
 
 188, 29. "And gaudy butterflies." Gay, The Beggar's Opera, I 
 (Pollv's Song). 
 
 189, 15. "all appliances." 2 Henry IV, iii, 1, 29. 
 
 On Disagreeable People 
 
 First published in the New Monthly Magazine, August, 1827. Re- 
 published in Sketches and Essays, 1839. 
 
 191, 22. "discourse of reason." Gf. Hamlet, i, 2, 150, and iv, 4, 
 36-.37. 
 
 192, 7. " The whole need not a physician." St. Matthew, ix, 12. 
 192, 18-26. "As when . . . round." Thomson, Castle of Indo- 
 lence, I, Stanaa Ixiv. 
 
 194, 38. sent to Coventry. Ostracised, refused the privileges of 
 association. 
 
 195, 7. alter idem, another exactly similar. 
 
 195, 8-9. " yea, into our heart of hearts." Hamlet, iii, 2, 78. 
 
ON FAMILIAR STYLE 293 
 
 195, 12-13. "the volumes that enrich the shops." Earl of Ros- 
 common, Horace's Art of Poetry (1680). 
 
 195, 16. "That bring their authors." Cf. The Earl of Roscom- 
 mon, Horace's Art of Poetry, "That bring their authors to eternal 
 fame." 
 
 195, 31. Walton's Angler. The Compleat Angler, 1653. 
 
 195, 32-33. "That dallies ... old age." Twelfth Night, ii, 4, 
 48-49. 
 
 195, 34. Mandeville, Bernard (1670-1723), author of the famous 
 Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices Public Benefits, 1714. 
 
 197, 20. "Wit at the helm . . . prow. Cf. Gray, The Bard, 74. 
 "Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm." 
 
 197, 27-28. a butt, according to the Spectator. Spectator, No. 47. 
 
 198, 13. Cain; a Mystery, published in 1821. 
 200, 8. in corpore oili, "on a worthless body." 
 
 200, 12. "hew you . . . gods." Ci. Julius Ccesar, ii, 1, 173-174. 
 
 200, 23. tempera mollia fandi. Cf. Virgil, ^neid, IV, 293-294, 
 "the happiest moments for speech." 
 
 201,4-5. "Not to admire , . . them so." Pope, Imitations of 
 Horace, Book I, Epistle vi, 1-2. 
 
 201, 10. Westminster School of Reform. The group of reformers 
 around the Westminster Review, founded in 1823 by Jeremy Bentham. 
 James Mill and John Stuart Mill were also associated with the group. 
 
 201, 28-29. " the milk of human kindness." Macbeth, i, 5, 15. 
 
 On Familiar Style 
 
 This essay first appeared in Table Talk, 1821-1822. It should be 
 studied by anyone who wishes to appreciate what English style is, as 
 it is one of the wisest essays ever written on this important theme. 
 
 205,12. "tall, opaque words," Sierne, Tristram Shandy, 'BookUl, 
 Chapter xx (Author's Preface). 
 
 205, 13. " first row of the rubric." Cf. Hamlet, ii, 2, 437, "the first 
 row of the pious chanson." The rubrics are the headings or direc- 
 tions, so called because they were originally written in red. 
 
 205, 35-38. With true instinct for style in English, Hazlitt pitches 
 upon the verse of Marlowe. 
 
 206, 16-20. I never invented . . . distinction. The truth of these 
 words becomes more apparent and more remarkable as one studies the 
 various prose of Hazlitt. His diction is remarkably free from all the 
 faults that come from a striving after modernity or antiquity. 
 
 208, 12. Burton, Robert (1577-1640), the author of The Anatomy 
 of Melancholy: Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661), author of History of the 
 Worthies of England, 1662; Coryate, or Coryat, Thomas (1577-1617), 
 an English traveller, author of Coryat' s Crudities, 1611; Browne, or 
 
294 NOTES 
 
 Brown, Sir Thomas (1605-1682), author of Religio Medici, 1643, and 
 Hydriotaphia, 1658. These authors were influential in the formation 
 of Lamb's style. 
 
 208, 17. Elia. The name under which Lamb first contributed to 
 The London Magazine in 1820, and which he retained. 
 
 208, 19. Mrs. Battle's Opinions on IVhist. This famous essay first 
 appeared in The London Magazine, February, 1821. 
 
 208, 21. "A well of native English undefiled." Spenser, Faerie 
 Queene, IV, ii, 32: 
 
 "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled. 
 On Fame's eternall beadroU worthie to be fyled." 
 
 208, 24. Erasmus's Colloquies. Erasmus (1466-1536) wrote the 
 Colloquies in 1524. 
 
 208, 31. " What do you read? " Hamlet, ii, 2, 193-195. 
 
 209, 13. sermo humi obrepens. Cf. Horace, Epistles, II, i, 250-251, 
 "that crawls in prose along the ground." 
 
 209, 16. " ambition is more lowly." Cf. The Tempest, i, 2, 480- 
 481: 
 
 ' ' My affections 
 Are then most humble." 
 
 209, 18. "unconsidered trifles." The Winter's Tale, iv, 3, 25-26. 
 209, 25. Ancient Pistol. In Henry IV, Henry V, and The Merry 
 Wives of Wi7idsor. 
 
 209,30. "That strut . . . stage." Macbeth, v, 5, 25. 
 209, 34. "And on their pens . . . plumed." Cf. Paradise Lost, 
 IV, 988-989: 
 
 "And on his crest 
 Sat Horror plumed." 
 
 210,5-6. " Nature's own sweet . . . laid on." Twelfth Night, i, 5, 
 258. 
 
 211, 10. Cowper'S description. Cowper, The Task, 173-176. 
 
 On the Prose-Style of Poets 
 
 This essay appeared in The Plain Speaker; Opinions on Books, Men, 
 and Things, 1826. 
 
 212,1. " Do you read or sing ? " Hazlitt attributes this to Csesar, 
 who put this question to a certain speaker. 
 
 212, 7. " feathered, two-legged things." Cf. Dryden, Absalomand 
 Achitophel, i, 170. 
 
 212, 26-27. " unpleasing flats and sharps. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, 
 iii, 5, 28, "Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps." 
 
ON THE PROSE-STYLE OF POETS 295 
 
 213, 3. Ossian'S Poems. The so-called translations by James 
 Macpherson (1736-1796), published 1761-1763. 
 
 213,4. Shaftesbury's Characteristics.' Characteristics of Men, Man- 
 ners, Opinions, and Times, by Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of 
 Shaftesbury (1671-1713). The book was pubUshed in 1711, and was 
 one of the most influential philosophical works of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 213, 20-21. "foregone conclusion." Othello, iii, 3, 426. 
 
 213, 23. Home Tooke (1736-1S12), author of The Diversions of 
 Parley, and Member of Parliament for Old Sarum. 
 
 214, 3. Old Sarum. See previous note. He was defeated for 
 Westminster. 
 
 214, 13-14. "He murmurs . . . own." Wordsworth, A PoeVs 
 Epitiph, 39-40. 
 
 215, 22. " come trippingly off the tongue." Cf. Hamlet, iii, 2, 2. 
 
 216, 25. invita Minerva. Horace, De Arte Poctica, 385, "against 
 the bent of genius, or nature." 
 
 216, 37. ad libitum, at his pleasure. 
 
 218, 14. Nine. That is, the Nine Muses; poetry. 
 
 218, 18. " treads the primrose path of dalliance." Hamlet, i, 3, 50. 
 
 218, 18-19. "the highest heaven of invention." King Henry F, 
 Prologue, 2. 
 
 218, 19-20. He is nothing if not fanciful! Cf. Othello, ii, 1, 120. 
 
 218, 28. Bristol-stones. Colorless quartz crystals found near 
 Bristol. Thev are called Bristol diamonds. 
 
 218, 32. " On the unsteadfast footing." l Henry IV, i, 3, 193. 
 
 219,30-31. "To make us heirs . . . lays." Wordsworth, Per- 
 sonil Talk, 53-54. 
 
 220, 14. " Like beauty . . . rime." Shakespeare, Sonnet cvi. 
 230, 18. Letter to a Noble Lord. Burke published this famous 
 
 pamohlet in 1796. 
 
 221, 9-10. "Dumdomus . , . habebit." Virgil, ^ncitZ, ix, 448-449: 
 "So long as the house of .^neas dwells hard by the immoveable 
 rock of the Capitol, and the father of Rome holds his imperial 
 sway." 
 
 221,15. "buttress frieze . . . 'vantage." Cf. ilfac6e^/i, i, 6, 6-8. 
 
 221, 19. " at one fell swoop." Macbeth, iv, 3, 119. 
 
 221,20. "low, fat Bedford level." From the passage quoted 
 from Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord on page 220. The Duke of Bed- 
 ford was one of the persons attacked in the pamphlet. 
 
 221,23-24. "sharp and sweet." Cf. All's Well that Ends Well, 
 iv, 4. 33, "as sweet as sharp." 
 
 221, 26. durante bene placilo, "during his good pleasure." 
 
 221, 27. for better for worse. Words from the usual marriage cere- 
 mony. 
 
 221,36-37. "From Windsor's heights . . . survey." Cf. Gray, 
 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 6-7. 
 
296 NOTES 
 
 222, 1, the so-much-admired description. In the Speech on the 
 Revenues of the Carnatic, February 28, 1785. 
 
 222, 7. Abbe Sieyes's far-famed "pigeon-holes." In Burke's Let- 
 ter to a Noble Lord. 
 
 222, 8. " the Leviathan." In Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord. 
 
 222, n. " Created hugest . . .stream." Paradise Lost, I, 200-2Q2. 
 
 222, 22. " put his hook in the nostrils." Job, xli, 1-2. 
 
 222, 27. Lord Castlereagh. Viscount Castlereagh and Marquis 
 of Londonderry (1769-1822). He committed suicide; hence the 
 reference to the corpse "lying uncovered in the place where it fell " 
 (223. 18), and to the "coroner's inquest" (224, 8). 
 
 223, 22-23. Mr. Montgomery. James Montgomery (1771-1854), 
 editor of the Sheffield /ns, 1794-1825. 
 
 223, 24. travelling out of the record, wandering from the point at 
 issue. 
 
 224, 11. " elevate and surprise." Buckingham, The Rehearsal, I, 1. 
 
 224, 20-21. Poets have been said to succeed best in fiction. Ed- 
 mund Waller is said to have made this reply to Charles II when the 
 King complained of the poor qualities of the poet's verses on the Res- 
 toration as compared with his panegyric on Cromwell. 
 
 225, 8-9. " forlorn way obscure." Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 615. 
 225, 30. the poet laureate. Robert Southey. 
 
 225, 33. Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661), author of The Worthies of 
 England; Burton. Robert (1577-1640), author of The Anatomy of 
 Melancholy; Latimer, Hugh (1491-1555), author of Sermons. 
 
 226, 2. " stoops to earth." Cf. Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 341. 
 226, 15-16. "the words of Mercury." Love's Labour's Lost, v, 2, 
 
 939-940. 
 
 226, 23. Wat Tyler. Written in 1794, published in 1817. 
 
 226, 24. The author of Rimini. Leigh Hunt published Rimini in 
 1816. His Examiner began to appear January 3, 1808. 
 
 227, 1. his effusions in the Indicator. From October 13, 1819, to 
 March 21, 1821, and from March 28, 1821, to October 13, 1821. 
 
 On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin 
 
 This essay was first published in the London Magazine for August, 
 1821. It was republished in Table Talk, 1821-1822. 
 
 Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was a celebrated French painter. 
 
 228, 1. "And blind Orion . . . mom," Cf . John Keats, Endym- 
 ion, II, 198. 
 
 228. 3. " a hunter of shadows." Homer's Odyssey, XI, 572-575. 
 
 228, 4-5. having lost an eye. He offered violence to Merope, and 
 was blinded by her father CEnopion with the help of Dionysus. 
 
ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 297 
 
 228, 13-14. "grey dawn and the Pleiades." Paradise Lost, VII, 
 373-374. 
 
 228, 21. " shadowy sets o5." Paradise Lost, V, 43. 
 
 228, 27. Sir Joshua has done him justice in this respect. See Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, Dicour.-ies, V. 
 
 229, 1. " denote a foregone conclusion." Othello, iii, 3, 428. 
 229, 7. " take up the isles." Isaiah, xl, 15. 
 
 229, 26. " so potent art." The Tempest, v, 1, 50. 
 
 229, 34. " more than natural." Hamlet, ii, 2, 385. 
 
 230, 1. " gives to airy nothing." A Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 
 V, 1. 16-17. 
 
 232, 2. " o'er-informed." Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I, 158. 
 
 232, 10. "the very stones prate." Macbeth, ii, 1, 58. 
 
 233,1. "Leaping like . . . spring." Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 
 I, vi, 14. 
 
 233, 18. " his picture of the shepherds." A favorite with Hazlitt. 
 It is in the Louvre. 
 
 233, 20. " Et ego in Arcadia vixi." The source of this quotation 
 has never been definitely determined. See Notes and Queries, Series 
 
 VI, Volume VI, 396. 
 
 233, 23. " the valleys low." Cf. Lycidas, 136. 
 
 233,31-32. " within the book . . . matter." i/amZe^ i, 5, 103-104. 
 
 234, 2-3. "the sober certainty . . . bliss." Milton, Comus, 263. 
 234, 5. "he who knows of these delights." Milton, Sonnet to Mr. 
 
 Lawrence. 
 
 234, 21. the Caracci. The Caracci were three: Agostino (1558- 
 1602), his brother Annibale (1560-1609), and their cousin Lodovico 
 (1555-1619). They founded the Bolognese school of painting. 
 
 234,29-30. "Old Genius . . . wend." Spenser, Faerie Queene, 
 III, vi, 31-32. 
 
 234, 35. " there were propagation too ! • ' Cf . Measure for Measure, 
 i, 2, 154, " Only propagation of a dower." 
 
 235, 1. "scattered like stray gifts." Cf. Wordsworth, Stray 
 Pleasures, 27-28. 
 
 235, 5. Blenheim. The seat of the Duke of Marlborough, about 
 ten miles from Oxford. 
 
 Burleigh. Burleigh House, the seat of Lord Burleigh, near Stam- 
 ford in Lincolnshire. 
 
 235, 6. Mr. Angerstein. John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823), a 
 merchant and patron of the arts, whose collection forms the basis 
 of the present National Gallery. 
 
 935, 6. Lord Grosvenor. In Grosvenor House, London, founded 
 by Richard, first Earl of Grosvenor. 
 
 The Marquis of Stafford. In London. 
 
 235, 10-11. the Louvre is stripped. The paintings and other 
 treasures of Art which Napoleon had carried to the Louvre were re- 
 stored in 1815. 
 
298 NOTES 
 
 235, 12, Iron Crown. The Iron Crown of Charlemagne was 
 offered Napoleon when he was crowned in Paris, December 2, 1804. 
 
 235, 13. the hunter of greatness and glory. Napoleon died on 
 May 5, 1821, at St. Helena. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge 
 
 This essay was first published in The Spirit of the Age or Contem- 
 porary Portraits, 1825. This essay should be compared with My 
 First Acquaintance with Poets, as the expression of Hazlitt's disillusion- 
 ment. A good deal of the essay is based on conversations with 
 Coleridge, and a number of the references to Coleridge's activities can- 
 not be found in his published writings. 
 
 In the lecture on The Living Poets, in his Lectures on the English 
 Poets, delivered and published in 1818, Hazlitt paid the following 
 tribute to Coleridge, which should be compared with the present essay 
 and with My First Acquaintance with Poets. The passage is, more- 
 over, one of the great passages in English prose. 
 
 " But I may say of him here, that he is the only person I ever knew 
 who answered to the idea of a man of genius. He is the only person 
 from whom I ever learnt anything. There is only one thing he could 
 learn from me in return, but that he has not. He was the first poet I 
 ever knew. His genius at that time had angelic wings, and fed on 
 manna. He talked on forever; and you wished him to talk on for- 
 ever. His thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort; but 
 as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination 
 lifted him from off his feet. His voice rolled on the ear like the peal- 
 ing organ, and its sound alone was the music of thought. His mind 
 was clothed with wings; and raised on them, he lifted philosophy to 
 heaven. In his descriptions, you then saw the progress of human 
 happiness and liberty in bright and never-ending succession, like the 
 steps of Jacob's ladder, with airy shapes ascending and descending, 
 and with the voice of God at the top of the ladder. And shall I, who 
 heard him then, listen to him now? Not I! . . . That spell is broke; 
 that time is gone forever; that voice is heard no more; but still the 
 recollection comes rushing by with thoughts of long-past years, and 
 rings in my ears with never-dying sound." 
 
 236, 14-15. and thank the bounteous Pan. Cf. Milton, Comus, 
 176. 
 
 236, 20. "a mind reflecting ages past." In the first line of a com- 
 mendatory poem signed "J. M. S." in the Second Folio (1632). 
 Coleridge conjectured that J. M. S. indicated "John Milton, Student." 
 
 236, 21-22. "dark rearward and abyss." Cf. The Tempest, i, 2, 
 50, "In the dark backward and abysm of time." 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 299 
 
 236,29-31. "That which was . . . water." Antony and Cleo- 
 patra, iv, 14, 9-11. 
 
 237, 4. " quick, forgetive." Cf. 2 Henry IV, iv, 3, 106-107. 
 
 237, 19. Peter Abelard (1079-1142), the famous scholar and lover 
 of Eloisa. 
 
 237, 21. Courier. A newspaper to which Coleridge contributed at 
 various periods from before 1809 to the close of his active life. 
 
 237, 23. " what in him is weak." Cf. Paradise Lost, I, 22-23. 
 
 238, 5-6. "and by the force . . . confusion." Cf. Macbeth, iii, 5, 
 28-29. 
 
 238, 11. " rich strond." Spencer's Faerie Queene, III, iv, 18, 29, 34. 
 
 238, 11-12. " goes sounding on his way." See the note on 9, 6. 
 
 238, 27 "his own things monstered." Cf. Coriolanus, ii, 1, 81, 
 "To hear my nothings monster'd." 
 
 238, 28-29 letting contemplation have its fill. George Dyer, 
 Gronqar Hill, 26. 
 
 238, 30-31. "Sailing with supreme . . . air." Gray, The Prog- 
 ress of Poesy, 115-116. 
 
 239, 12. "He lisped in numbers . . . came." Pope, Prologue to 
 the Satires, 128. 
 
 239, 13. Ode on Chaiterton. Monody on the Death of Chatterton. 
 Composed in 1790, when Coleridge was only eighteen. 
 
 239, 20-21. gained several prizes. He won the Browne Gold 
 Medal for a Greek Ode in 1792. 
 
 239, 26-27. Christ's Hospital. A famous boys' school in London 
 which was attended by Coleridge and Lamb. Hazlitt here has refer- 
 ence to the famous passage on Coleridge in the well-known essay by 
 Lamb (Elia) on Christ's Hospital Five and Twenty Years Ago (1820): 
 
 "Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard! — 
 How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, 
 intranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion be- 
 tween the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee 
 unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jam- 
 blichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale 
 at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or 
 Pindar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the 
 accents of the inspired charity boy!" 
 
 240,9. "Struggling in vain . . . destiny." Wordsworth, The 
 Excursion, VI, 557. 
 
 240, 14. Hartley's tribes of mind. David Hartley (1705-1757), 
 author of Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expecta- 
 tions. 1749. "Tribes of the mind" is reminiscent of Coleridge's own 
 words describing Hartley's system. Religious Musings, 369, "he first 
 who marked the ideal tribes." Cf. Collins, Ode on the Poetical Char- 
 acter, 47, "All the shadowy tribes of mind." 
 
 240, 15. etherial braid, thought-woven. Cf. Collins, Ode to 
 Evening, 7, "With brede ethereal wove." 
 
300 NOTES 
 
 240, 16. vibratiuncles. Theoretical fine movements in the brain, 
 refinements of external and nervous vibrations, by which sensa- 
 tions were produced. This is an important aspect of Hartley's 
 system. 
 
 240, 16-17. the great law of association. In Hartley's system, 
 this law expressed the process by which sensation changed from sensa- 
 tion to ideas of sensation and hence to ideas of thought and the more 
 ideal forms of thought. 
 
 240, 21. Priestley's Materialism. Dr. Priestley identified matter 
 and spirit in his philosophy. 
 
 241, 22-23. like Ariel. The Tempest, I, ii. 
 
 240* 24. Bishop Berkeley's fairy-world. This refers to the ideal- 
 istic nature of Berkeley's philosophy, as contrasted with the material- 
 ism of Hartley's and Priestley's. 
 
 240, 26. Malebranche (1638-1715), a French metaphysician who 
 is best known in English criticism as the great enemy of Imagination 
 in his Recherche de la Verite, 1674. 
 
 240, 27. Cudworth's Intellectual System. Published in 1678, by 
 Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688). 
 
 240, 28. Lord Brooke. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628), 
 the friend and biographer of Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 240, 29. Bishop Butler. Joseph Butler (1692-1752), author of the 
 famous Analogy of Religion, 1736. 
 
 240, 29-30. the Duchess of Newcastle (1624-1674) published 
 poems, plays, and philosophical works, 1653-1668. 
 
 240, 30. Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729), a noted divine and meta- 
 physician. His most famous contribution to philosophic thought is 
 his argument for the existence of God. South, Robert (1633-1716), 
 a famous English divine. He began the notable controversy on the 
 Trinity, 1693. 
 
 241, 1. Tillotson, John (1630-1694), became Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury in 1691. 
 
 241,2. Leihiiitz^B Pre-established Harmony. Liebnitz (1646-1716) 
 was a celebrated German philosopher. His system was that of a pre- 
 established harmony between matter and spirit. 
 
 241, 6. hortus siccus, collection of dried botanical specimens. 
 
 Dissent. A dissenter is one who dissents from the doctrines of the 
 established Church. 
 
 241, 10. John Huss (1369-1415), the great Bohemian religious re- 
 former and martyr; Jerome of Prague (1365-1416), an associate and 
 follower of Huss; Socinus (1530-1604), an Italian Unitarian theo- 
 logian (1360-1424), a noted follower of Huss. 
 
 241, 11. Neal, Daniel (1648-1743), History of the Puritans, 1732- 
 1738. 
 
 241, 12. Calamy, Edmund (1671-1732), Account of the Ministers, 
 Lecturers, Masters, and Fellows of Colleges and Schoolmasters who were 
 Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration of 1660, 1702. 
 
MR. COLERIDGE 301 
 
 241, 12-13. like thoughts and passions. Cf. Acts, xiv, 15, "like 
 pa^si:)ns." 
 
 241, 13. Spinoza, Baruch de (1632-1677), the most eminent ex- 
 poundar of panth^ m. 
 
 241, 23-25. "When he saw nought hut heauty . . , murmured." 
 The source of this qaotation nas not been discovered. 
 
 241, 27. Proclus ^A.D. 412-485), the most famous of the Athenian 
 Neo-Platonists; Plotinus (A.D. 204-270), a Neo-Platonic philoso- 
 pher. 
 
 241, 29. Dans Scotus (12657-1308), one of the founders of scholas- 
 ticism; AqLainas. Thomas (1225 or 1227-1274), a celebrated theo- 
 logian and .s:;'iolastic philosopher. 
 
 241, 30. Jacob Behmen (1575-1624), a celebrated German mystic. 
 
 241, 31. Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772), a celebrated Swedish 
 theosophist, founder of the Swedenborgian church; author of Arcana 
 Coelestia, 1749-1753. 
 
 241, 33. Religious Musings. Written by Coleridge "on the Christ- 
 mas Eve of 17. )L" 
 
 241, 36. Bowles's Sonnets. Coleridge has left a notable account 
 of this in his Biographia Literaria, Chapter I. 
 
 242, 2. Arbuthnot, John (1667-1735). He pubhshed Life in a 
 Bottomless Pit; or History of John Bull, 1712. 
 
 242, 7. Marivaux, Pierre (1688-1763), a French dramatist and 
 novehst. Crebillon, Prosper de (1674-1762), a noted French tragic 
 poet. 
 
 242, 8. "laughed with Rabelais." Cf. Pope, The Dunciad, I, 22. 
 
 242, 9-18. Coleridge visited Rome in 1806. Some idea of what 
 his conversations were may be gathered from his Table Talk, issued 
 by H. N. Coleridge in 1835. 
 
 242, 14. Triumph of Death. A fresco in the Campo Santo, Pisa, 
 now ascribed to the Lorenzetti. 
 
 242, 20. Kantean philosophy. Coleridge gives an account of this 
 stage of his development m his Biographia Literaria, Chapter IX. 
 
 242, 26. sang for joy. In Destruction of the Bastille written" in 
 1789. 
 
 242,31. "In Philharmonia's undivided dale." Coleridge, Mon- 
 ody on the Death of Chatterfon, version of 1794, line 151, " Freedom's 
 undivided dale," and To Rev. W. J. Hort, 15, "In Freedom's undi- 
 vided dell." This refers to the scheme of Pantisocracy, a communal 
 settlement in America, planned by Coleridge, Southey, and others. 
 
 242, 32. " Frailty, thy name is Genius." Cf. Hamlet, i, 2, 146. 
 
 242, 35. Courier. See note on 237 21. 
 
 243, 11. Poet laureate or stamp-distributor. A palpable hit at 
 Southey and Wordsworth respectively. 
 
 243, 13. "bourne from whence no traveller returns." Hamlet, 
 iii, 1, 79-80. 
 
 343, 32. one splendid passage. Lines 408-426. 
 
302 NOTES 
 
 244, 27. Friend. Coleridge began The Friend as a weekly paper 
 which continued more or less irregularly from June 1, 1809, to March 
 15, 1810. It appeared in three volumes in 1818. 
 
 244, 32. Mr. Godwin. William Godwin, the author of Political 
 Justice, 1793. 
 
 245, 13. "He cannot be constrained by mastery." Cf. Words- 
 worth, The Excursion, VI, 163-164: 
 
 "That Love will not submit to be controlled 
 By mastery." 
 
 246, 7. Pingo in eternitatem, "1 paint for eternity." 
 
 246, 17. " taught with the little nautilus." Pope, Essay on Man, 
 III, 177. 
 
 246, 19. "Youth at its prow . . . helm." Cf. Gray, The Bard, 
 II, 2. 
 
 247, 9. "from the pelting . . . storm." King Lear, iii, 4, 29. 
 247, 14. " as with triple steel." Paradise Lost, II, 569. 
 
 247, 21. " His words were hollow." Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 112-17. 
 247, 25-26. "And curs'd the hour . . . way." Cf. William Col- 
 Uns, Oriental Eclogues, II, refrain. 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth 
 
 This essay first appeared in The Spirit of the Age; or Contemporary 
 Portraits, 1825. It should be compared with My First Acquaintance 
 with Poets. As in the case of the essay on Mr. Coleridge, a consider- 
 able number of the acts and opinions attributed to Wordsworth are 
 from conversations which Hazlitt had with the poet. The essay is 
 full of noble appreciation of Wordsworth, in spite of the acid of dis- 
 paragement. In many ways, resulting from unusual opportunities 
 and kindred aims, Hazlitt is one of the "best knowers" of Words- 
 worth, second only to Coleridge — par nobile fratrum. The follow- 
 ing passage from his lecture on The Living Poets, in Ms Lectures on the 
 English Poets, delivered and published in 1818, is at once an illus- 
 tration of this and a fine example of concentrated criticism. 
 
 "Mr. Wordsworth is the most original poet now living. He is the 
 reverse of Walter Scott in his defects and excellences. He has nearly 
 all that the other wants, and wants all that the other possesses. His 
 poetry is not external, but internal; it does not depend upon tradition 
 or story, or old song; he furnishes it from his own mind, and is his 
 own subject. He is the poet of mere sentiment. Of many of the 
 Lyrical Ballads it is not possible to speak in terms of too high praise, 
 such as Heart-leap Well, The Banks of the Wye, Poor Susan, parts of 
 The Leech-gatherer, the Lines to a Cuckoo, To a Daisy, The Complaint, 
 several of the Sonnets, and a hundred others of inconceivable beauty, 
 
MR. WORDSWORTH 303 
 
 of perfect originality and pathos. They open a finer and deeper vein 
 of thought and feeling than any poet in modern times has done, or 
 attempted." 
 
 248, 5-6. "lowliness is young ambitions ladder." Julius Ccesar, 
 ii, 1, 22. 
 
 248, 9. "no figures . . . men." Cf. Julius Ccesar, ii, 1, 231-232. 
 
 248, 22. " skyey influences." Measure for Measure, iii, 1, 9. 
 248,27. "Nihil humani . . . puto." Terence, Heauton-iimorou- 
 
 menos, I, i, 25. 
 
 249, 19. Lyrical Ballads. Published in 1798. 
 
 249,26-27. "the cloud-capt towers." Cf. The Tempest, iv, 1, 
 151-156. 
 
 249, 31. de novo, anew; tabula rasa, a white sheet. 
 
 249, 36. " the judge s robe." Cf. Measure for Measure, ii, 2, 59-61. 
 249,38-250, 1. The Ode and Epode . . . scorn. That is, he defied 
 
 the classic tradition in English literature, and wrote simply. 
 
 250, 3. decencies. Probably a reminiscence of that famous pas- 
 sage in Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, "All the decent 
 drapery of life is to be rudely torn off," etc. 
 
 250, 12. gathers manna. Numbers, xi, 7-8. 
 
 250, 12-13. strikes the barren rock. Numbers, xx, 11 ; Psalm Ixxviii, 
 20. The Biblical word is "smote." 
 
 250, 17-19. " a sense of joy . . . field." Wordsworth, Lines 
 Written at a Small Distance from my House, 6-8. 
 
 250, 26-30. " Beneath the hills . . . destiny. Cf. Wordsworth, 
 The Excursion, VI, 553-557. 
 
 251, 2. vain pomp and glory. Henry VIII, iii, 2, 365. 
 
 251, 20. association. Doubtless referring to Wordsworth's own 
 doctrine of poetry as expressed in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, 
 1800: 
 
 "The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these 
 poems was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing 
 in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our 
 nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate 
 ideas in a state of excitement." 
 
 251, 32-33. "To him the meanest flower . . . tears." Cf. Ode 
 
 on the Intimations of Immortality, 206-207. 
 
 253, 4. Cole-Orton. The residence of Sir George Beaumont, a 
 friend and admirer of Wordsworth. Wordsworth frequently expressed 
 his indebtedness to Sir George and Lady Beaumont. He dedicated 
 the 1815 edition of his poems to him. 
 
 253, 7. Laodamia. Published in 1815. 
 
 253, 10. " Calm contemplation . . . pains." Cf. Laodamia, 72. 
 
 263,33. "Pall blunted . . , breast." Cf. Goldsmith, The 
 Traveller, 232. 
 
304 NOTES 
 
 254, 1. " and fit audience found, though few." Cf. Paradise Lost, 
 VII, 31. Quoted by Wordsworth in Tke Home at Grasmere, The Re- 
 cluse, 776-778: 
 
 " 'Fit audience let me find though few,' 
 
 So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard — 
 In holiest mood." 
 
 254, 3. The Excursion. Published in 1814. 
 
 254, 24. toujours perdrix, i.e., "always partridges." An allusion to 
 a French king who illustrated the advantages of variety by serving 
 partridges day after day to his confessor, without any change of diet. 
 
 264, 36. " man of no mark or likelihood " Cf. 1 Henry IV, iii, 2, 45, 
 255,23-24. " Flushed with a purple grace . . . face." Dryden, 
 Alexayider's Feast, 51-52. 
 
 255, 29. Titian (1477-1576), a famous Venetian painter. 
 
 255, 30. Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the National Gallery, 
 London. 
 
 255 35-36. modernize some of the Canterbury Tales. The Prior- 
 ess' Tale, 1820: Troilus and Cressida, 1841. 
 
 256, 6-7. " He hates those interlocutions." Hazlitt says of Words- 
 worth in The English Poets, "He hates the dialogues in Shakespeare." 
 
 256, 12-14. " Action is momentary . . . infinite." Cf. Words- 
 worth', The Borderers (written 1795-6, published 1842), Hues 1539- 
 1544. In a note to The White Doe of Rylstone, published in 1815, he 
 says: "This and the five lines which follow were either read or recited 
 by me, more than thirty years ago, to the late Mr. Hazlitt, who 
 quoted some expressions in them (imperfectly remembered) in a work 
 of his published several years ago." 
 
 256, 17. has a great dislike to Gray. See the Preface to the Lyri- 
 cal Ballads, 1800. The basis of his dislike is Gray's "poetic diction" 
 and artificiality. 
 
 256,26-27. " Let ohservation . . . Peru." The Vanity of Human 
 Wishes, 1-2. 
 
 256, 35. Drawcansir. A character in the Duke of Buckingham's 
 The Rehearsal (1671); a boasting bully. 
 
 257, 8. Bewick, Thomas (1753-1828), a famous engfaver on wood; 
 Waterloo, Antoine (1609?-1676?), a French engraver and etcher. 
 
 257,26-27. "he hates conchology." Hazlitt said this, in his Lecfwre 
 on the Living Poets, in his Lectures on the English Poets. 
 
 257,31-32. "Where one for sense . . . time." Samuel Butler, 
 Hudibras, II, 29-30. 
 
 258, 13-14. "take the good . . . us " Plautus, Rudens, IV, vii. 
 258, 21. " Lord Byron we have called." In the chapter on Lord 
 
 Byron in The Spirit of the Age: "His lordship, as a poet, is a little 
 headstrong and self-willed, a spoiled child of nature and fortune." 
 
HAMLET 305 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 This essay in its first form appeared in the Morning Chronicle of 
 March 14, 1814, and was called forth by the presentation of Hamlet 
 by Edmund Kean. It was reprinted in Characters of Shakespeare's 
 Plays, 1817. 
 
 260, 3. that famous soliloquy. Hamlet, iii, 1, 56-88. 
 
 260. 4. gave the advice to the players, iii, 2, 1-50. 
 
 260, 4-5. this goodly frame, ii, 2, 304-323. 
 
 260, 9. grave-diggers, v, l, 1-240. 
 
 260, 12. he that was mad. v, i, 103-104. 
 
 260, 25. "too much i' th' sun." i, 2, 67. 
 
 260, 28-29. " the pangs of despised love." iii, 1, 72. 
 
 262, 1-2. "the outward pageants." Cf. i, 2, 86. 
 
 262, 2. "we have that within." i, 2, 85. 
 
 262, 19-20. where he kills Polonius. iii, 4. 
 
 262, 20. alters the letters, iv, 6; v, 2, 49-53. 
 
 262, 30. " that has no relish of salvation in it." iii, 3, 92. 
 
 263, 9-43. How all occasions . . . worth." iv, 4, 32-66. 
 
 264, 13-14. '■ that noble and liberal casuist." This appears to be 
 an imperfect recollection of Charles Lamb's reference to the old Eng- 
 lish dramatists as "those noble and liberal casuists," in Characters of 
 Dramatic Writers Contemporary with Shakespeare {Thomas Middleton 
 and William Rowley). 
 
 264, 16. Whole Duty of Man, 1659. An ethical treatise of un- 
 known authorship. It is among Lydia Languish's books in Sheri- 
 dan's The Rivals. 
 
 264, 17. The Academy of Compliments; or, the whole Art of Courtship, 
 being the rarest and most exact way of wooing a Maid or Widow, by the 
 way of Dialogue or complimental Expression. London, no date. Later 
 editions appeared in 1655 and 1669. 
 
 264, 21. " license of the time," Cf. Timon of Athens, v, 4, 4-5, 
 
 " You have gone and filled the time 
 With all licentious measures." 
 "his fathers spirit . . . arms." i, 2, 255. 
 I loved Ophelia." v, 1, 292-294. 
 "Sweets to the sweet . . . grave." v, 1, 266. 
 " rose of May." iv, 5, 157. 
 
 265, 32. his advice to Laertes, i, 3, 55-81. 
 
 265 35-36. "There is a willow . . . stream." iv, 7, 167. 
 
 266, 1. his advice to the King and Queen, ii, 2, 86-169. 
 
 263, 16. Mr. Kemble. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), a cele- 
 brated tragedian, popular as Hamlet, Brutus, and Coriolanus. 
 
 266, 19. "a wave o- th- sea." The Winter's Tale, iv, 4, 141. 
 
 266, 24. Kean, Edmund (1787-1833), a celebrated actor, noted 
 for his brilliant presentation of Shakespeare's characters. He was 
 deeply admired by Hazlitt. 
 
 264, 
 
 35-36. 
 
 265, 
 
 6-8. ' 
 
 265, 
 
 11-14. 
 
 265, 
 
 19-20. 
 
ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
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